“But the kids are different?”
Mia tilts a flattened hand back and forth to indicate ambivalence. “The girls, mostly. The guys are calling him a perv and talking all kinds of shit about what they ought to do to him. But the girls understand it.”
“Why?”
She smiles to herself. “I think a lot of them have fantasized about doing the same thing Kate did.”
“Are you serious?”
“Hell, yeah. Make out with a hot guy like Dr. Elliott?”
“But he’s twenty years older than they are!”
“So?” Mia looks genuinely puzzled.
“So…I don’t know.” Ellen Elliot’s words come back to me in a rush: These girls aren’t like the girls I went to school with…“You tell me.”
“I think you’d be surprised at what we talk about,” Mia says with a sly smile.
Water gurgles through the pipes in the wall. Annie has started her bath. “For instance?”
“Um…the hot dads list.”
“The what?”
“The hot dads list. That’s the fathers of kids at St. Stephen’s who still rank as hot.”
I shake my head in wonder. “Who keeps this list?”
“The senior girls, mostly. Some juniors. It’s not written down or anything. Just something we talk about. Dads we’d hook up with if we got the chance.”
“And Drew was on this list?”
“The very top.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. You’re on it, too.”
My face reddens.
“I’m not saying you’re on my list,” she says with an apologetic smile. “But I’ve heard a lot of girls name you.”
“And these girls think it was okay for Drew to be sleeping with Kate?”
“Pretty much. I mean, Kate wasn’t going to be with some high school boy, anyway. If Dr. Elliott was unhappy—and anybody who knows his wife knows he had to be—then what happens is what happens, you know? It’s natural.”
“Adultery is natural?”
Mia shrugs. “It is to these girls. Half of them come from broken homes. More than half, probably.”
God, what have we come to?
“And the guys are only acting so pissed because they’re scared,” Mia goes on. “They know they can’t possibly compete with a guy like Dr. Elliott, even on their own primitive level. I mean, look what he did to the jocks who tried to beat him up. So they say he’s pervy and all. But every one of those guys would do that or worse if they thought they could get away with it. So would the fathers who are trash-talking Dr. Elliott. Some of the most self-righteous of those guys give me looks that totally creep me out when I run by them in tight shorts. They practically drool on me.”
I’m not even sure I want to know more at this point. The girls defending Drew aren’t doing so on the basis of forgiving human frailty; they’re saying you can’t blame a guy for doing something most other men would do if given the same chance. Morality doesn’t even come into it. “What do you think about Kate and Drew?”
Mia bites her lip and takes some time to think. “It makes me sad for Timmy.”
“Do you know him?”
“Yeah. He’s a sweet kid, he really is. And his life is going to suck for a while.”
For some reason, my mind jumps off track to one of the phone calls I got this afternoon. “What do you know about Marko Bakic?”
Mia’s face closes almost instantly. “Why do you ask?”
“His name has come up in connection with some things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Drugs.”
She nods almost imperceptibly.
“Are you nodding because you know Marko’s involved in drugs?”
“Just keep talking. I’ll answer what I can.”
What the hell? “Do you know anything about a rave party out at Lake St. John last night?”
“Maybe.”
“Were you there?”
She looks at her fingernails. “Maybe.”
“Was there a lot of Ecstasy there?”
“There could have been.”
“What about LSD? See any of that?”
Mia draws her legs up beneath her and sits Indian-style on the ottoman. She’s wearing loose gym shorts over a skintight Nike running suit. With her careful expression, she looks like someone judging a gymnastics competition.
“In what capacity are you asking these questions?” she asks with a strange formality. “Is it just for your personal interest? Or are you asking as a member of the school board?”
I’m not sure myself. “A concerned parent, let’s say. I know something about X and LSD from my work in Houston. And I’m getting the feeling that I need to know more about Marko Bakic, if I want to protect the students at St. Stephen’s.”
Mia slowly shakes her head. “I can’t say much about that subject.”
“Why not? Are you afraid?”
Another long pause. “It wouldn’t be cool. A lot of people could get in trouble.”
“What’s your personal opinion of Marko?”
Her jaw muscles work beneath her tanned cheeks. “He’s a psycho. I’m serious, Penn, he’s completely amoral. Right and wrong don’t register in his mind. But he covers it well. He’s smooth. A lot of people think he’s fun.”
“But not you?”
“I think he’s a self-absorbed prick. I used to think he was fun. He had me snowed like the rest. Not now, though. I saw through him.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Not really.”
“Okay.”
Mia gets to her feet and looks at me with her wide, dark eyes. “If you’re going after Marko, be careful.”
Her severe gaze unsettles me. “What do you know, Mia? It sounds like I need to hear it.”
“Marko’s not like the rest of us, okay? We’re soft. American. Marko grew up in a war zone. His root directory is fucked up. That’s all I know to say. And he hangs with some bad people. If you’re going to mess with him at all, you want somebody like Dr. Elliott around. Somebody who can get radical if things get out of hand.”
“Understood. Tell me, have you ever heard of Cyrus White?”
She mulls over the name. “No. Who is he?”
“A drug dealer. Don’t ask around about him. I’m serious, okay? He’s not a Nancy Drew project.”
Mia looks offended. “I know when to talk and when to shut up.”
“I’m sorry.”
She takes her CD out of the boom box and walks past me to the door.
“I haven’t paid you yet,” I remind her.
“You can catch up tomorrow.” She reaches for the doorknob, then looks back at me. “I heard Ellen Elliott freaked out. Is she really dumping her husband’s shit all over the lawn?”
I shrug noncommittally.
“I also heard you were over there.”
The cell phones of Mia and her friends are like native drums on a Pacific island. Every significant event is instantly known by the tribe.
“I guess Ellen thinks he did it, huh?” she asks.
“Did what?”
“Got Kate pregnant, for one thing.”
I close my eyes in dismay. If this is public knowledge already, Drew is so screwed, it’s beyond belief.
Mia says, “Do you think Ellen believes her husband killed Kate?”
“Of course not.”
“Some people are going to think that.”
“Probably so.”
“Except for the pathologist finding two guys’ stuff inside her, right? That makes it more complicated.”
“Jesus, Mia, is there anything you don’t know?”
“Not much.” She gives me a sad smile. “Sometimes I wish I knew a lot less than I do. I wonder what that would be like.”
“They say ignorance is bliss.”
“Not ignorance. Innocence. That’s what I was talking about. Innocence.”
Mia sighs, then passes through the door to the street.
Chapter
12
I’m standing outside my daughter’s bathroom door, feeling strangely adrift between two extremes. Splashing behind this door is Annie, at nine years old still truly innocent, while driving away from my house is Mia Burke, an eighteen-year-old who knows far more about the adult world than I would ever have guessed yesterday. How long will it be before that world begins chipping away at Annie’s innocence? And how will she react when it does? How will I react?
An image of Kate Townsend suddenly fills my mind. Mia said there was no way Kate was going to “be with” a boy her own age. Did Drew Elliott seduce and corrupt that girl? Or was it the other way around? No jury would ever see it that way, of course, but right now I’m only interested in the truth. And my best shot at discovering it may be opening the shoe box hidden atop the armoire in my guest room.
After walking softly down the hall, I climb onto a chair, pull down the shoe box, and carry it to the bed. The scent of perfume wafts upward when I pull off the lid, exposing a jumble of letters, cards, ticket stubs, USB flash drives, videotapes, and various other knickknacks. There’s cloth in the bottom, which turns out to be a pair of men’s bikini underwear.
Beneath the briefs lies a photograph printed on computer paper. It shows Drew and Kate standing in front of a mirror—a hotel bathroom mirror is my guess. They’re naked and laughing, and Drew has his right arm around Kate’s waist. Kate is holding her right arm high in the air, and in the upper corner of the mirror I can just see the blue star of the flash from the camera she’s holding. Drew’s stomach muscles stand out in rigid relief, and Kate’s breasts are firm and erect. Her torso is marked with small red ovals, probably caused by the recent pressure of Drew’s fingers. It’s disquieting to see Kate this way after seeing her mostly from a distance: on the tennis court in conservative whites or wearing a cheerleader uniform on the gym floor.
“Daddy?” calls Annie. “Are you up here?”
“Yes!” I call toward the hall. “Are you ready to get out?”
“Almost!”
“Just call me when you’re ready!”
As I stare at Kate’s body, something else catches my eye. At the bottom of her shoe box lies a multicolored schematic of the London Underground. Picking it up, I realize that the map is actually the jacket of a thin hardcover book. A journal. And written on the first page in a flowing female hand are two paragraphs:
This is the journal of Katharine Mays Townsend. My father gave me this book of blank pages when he left for England this time—for my seventeenth birthday. He told me that this time of my life is precious, that I will never be so filled with possibility, and that I should record everything I think and do. Right now I’m more of a mind to record everything HE does and, more importantly, does NOT do, so that he might finally recognize himself for what he is and is not. But I doubt even that would do it. Denial is a powerful thing.
I’ve always been told that I’m a special girl, though not by the person I most needed to hear it from. But I do believe I’m unlike most of the peers I know at this point in my life. For that reason I shall record my thoughts and deeds, and if someone digs up this book a thousand years from now, they will find an accurate record of what was in the head of a materially spoiled but emotionally starved American girl of the 21st century.
Hello, whoever you are!
I flip quickly through the pages, conscious that Annie could walk in at any moment. Some are covered with tight blocks of script, others with hastily scrawled paragraphs. Doodles and caricatures adorn many pages, illuminating the journal as the work of a talented artist. I can hardly suppress my excitement. The last year of Kate Townsend’s life is right here, page after page of it, and I’d like nothing more than to read the journal from cover to cover right now. But that will have to wait until Annie is in bed.
Still, I can’t resist a quick look.
Suspending the diary by its front cover, I let it fall open to its natural breaking point. It opens to a two-page spread lined with four columns. The columns on the left-hand page are headed “Hook-ups” and “Real Hook-ups.” The columns on the right-hand page are headed “Rejected” and “Rejected by.” These two pages, I realize, are where Kate Townsend believed she saw herself most clearly, not through the lens of the effusive praise she must have heard every day, but measured by her physical acceptance or rejection by the people around her. Like most of us, sadly, this beautiful and brilliant girl defined herself more by who desired her rather than by any internal sense of self. But that weakness may be Drew’s good fortune. I eagerly scan the columns, searching for information that might somehow help to free him.
HOOK-UPS
David Adams, K
Peter Smith, K (Emerald Mound)
Johnny Wingate, K
Jack B., K
Henry F., K (St. James Park)
Jed Andersen, K, B
Patrick Schaefer, K, B, F
Chris Vogel, K, B, F
Geoffrey, K
David Quinn, K, B
Chris Anthony, K, B, F, O (the Pavilion)
Carson, K, B, O
Win Langston (the sand bar), F
Jody (first bj)
Michael (went down on me)
Gavin Green (Junior trip)
Walter Wenders (69) (I actually came)
Spencer D.
Turner (Queen’s Ball )
Andy Winograd
Steve
Kane J.
REAL HOOK-UPS
Andy, V
Steve, V, 69, O/A
Sarah Evans, OV, V/V (weird)
Drew (EVERYTHING)
Shit, shit, shit, shit!
REJECTED
Timmy Livingston
Walter Taunton
Billy
Neil (hot, but too young)
Jack D.
Ricky
Dr. Davenport (yuck)
Chris Farrell
Cyrus (shit, close one!)
Tyler Bradley
Mr. Dawson, PERV!
Mark Wilson (gross)
Bass Player, Blue Steel (2 Goth!)
Jeanne Hulbert! (2 butch)
Andy
Coach Anders! (I think)
Martin
Sarah Evans (stalker!)
Gavin
REJECTED BY
Point guard, Jackson Academy
Jay Gresham
Mr. Marbury
Laurel Goodrich
Dr. Lewis
Morgan Davis (25)
Lead singer, Wings of Desire
Several names jump out at me as I scan the list, most of them high school boys who attend St. Stephen’s. With some entries I recognize surnames only; they probably belong to boys from the other local high schools. But some of the names truly shock me, as they seem to belong to adults. Under the “Rejected” column is Coach Anders, the athletic director of St. Stephen’s. Wade Anders is thirty years old and divorced, with two kids of his own at St. Stephen’s. Kate’s parenthetical notation seems to indicate some uncertainty about whether Anders made a pass at her or not, and I can only hope it was her imagination. Mr. Dawson—the “perv”—is also a teacher at St. Stephen’s. He’s taught religion for one year, and now it’s likely to be his last. I have no idea who “Dr. Davenport” is. Ditto for “Mr. Marbury.” But they apparently had close contact with Kate, perhaps during her time in England. And Sarah Evans, a recent graduate of St. Stephen’s, is listed under both the “Real Hook-ups” and “Rejected” columns. There’s also a female listed under the “Rejected by” heading. Apparently Kate liked to experiment.
But the entry that stops my breath is under the “Rejected” column: Cyrus.
There’s no surname listed, but the parenthetical, “Shit, close one!” seems to indicate some anxiety on Kate’s part that set this encounter apart from the others. She clearly felt less in control with “Cyrus” than with the other males she rejected. I can’t be sure that this Cyrus is Cyrus White, the drug dealer Sonny Cross warned me ab
out, but I know of no Cyrus who attends St. Stephen’s or any other local school. At least Cyrus isn’t listed on the “Hook-ups” page, which tends to discredit Sonny’s theory that there was an ongoing sexual relationship between Kate and the drug dealer.
Studying the list in more detail, I can only hope that it’s comprehensive. The letters following the names seem to be a simple code signifying a graduated scale of sexual activity. I saw many similar codes during my time as a prosecutor in Houston, usually in the private documents or computer records of men. “K” probably stands for Kissed. “B”…Breasts? “F” probably stands for “fingers” or some variant thereof. The “69” and “bj” are self-explanatory. The letters following the entries under the “Real Hook-ups” heading are a bit surprising in their explicitness, but Mia did tell me that Kate was highly sexual. My guess is that “V” stands for vaginal intercourse. O/A must signify oral/anal contact. And the “EVERYTHING” following Drew’s name I can only guess at.
More than anything, I wish Kate had dated these entries. I’m sure Mia could give me at least a vague time frame, but I can’t afford to show her this journal—not yet, anyway. I need to read it from cover to cover, then load the computer disks and peruse everything on them. I hope Kate didn’t password-protect them, but I suspect she did. Even standing naked before a bathroom mirror, she radiates the self-possession of someone well practiced at protecting herself.
Staring at the photo in a kind of trance, I experience a rush of intuitive knowledge so powerful that, while I realize that facts could prove me wrong, I feel viscerally sure they will not. I race downstairs to my study, Annie’s voice pursuing me down the stairs. I call out reassurance, but I keep running.
In the study, I go to my bookshelves and pull out a folding map of Natchez. It’s a simple thing, a free handout produced for tourists by the Chamber of Commerce, but it’s proved invaluable to me during the writing of my last two novels. Spreading it open on my desk, I orient myself to Highway 61, then search for the Brightside Manor Apartments, the reputed lair of Cyrus White. I find them in short order, on the north side of town, near where the old black high school used to be. To the west of the apartments lies Lynda Lee Mead Drive, a street named for a Natchez-born Miss Mississippi who became Miss America. But to the east of them—my heart thumps against my sternum—to the east lies open land transected by a curving blue line.