“How tragic.” But her voice is flat, and I’m not getting any sympathy vibes. It makes me angry, her assumption of self-pity that eclipses any one else’s pain.
I say roughly, “Yes. It is. And this is why I need to talk about Victoria, before anyone else is killed. Before it becomes a three-act tragedy.”
Maybe it’s the cultural reference, but she thaws a little. She says she’s told me everything, reiterates she doesn’t know anything about her daughter’s recent life.
“That’s okay. I actually want to talk about her childhood.”
“Oh?”
Is it my imagination, or is that syllable freighted with a lifetime’s worth of denial and regret? I say, “Tell me about your family and living situation when you lived here in Astoria.”
Ms. Harkness gives me a brief sketch, some of which I’ve heard before. Her husband was a city planner. The schools were of poor quality. The society lacked culture. Their neighbors were no doubt decent people, but working class. Her husband had an engineering degree but the rest of the family hadn’t done much to rise above their background. The Harknesses were a local family that lived outside of town, in the rural backwoods of Clatsop County. Her husband’s brother would often invite himself to stay with them for a day or two, sponging on their hospitality while doing errands or business in town.
Oh, my God. Somebody slap this woman.
I kind of agree with Zoe. But. The thing I want to talk about is difficult. There’s no gentle way to broach the topic of abuse, so I don’t even try. I tell her what I heard from Principal Collins, about Victoria’s change in behavior and the suggestion of trauma. Ask her mother if she can tell me what happened.
Her tone changes. There’s anger, the murderous kind. She says, “it was happening under my nose, and I didn’t realize. When I did, I was horrified. And so, so angry. I confronted my husband, told him he had to face up to his brother and make it stop. That we would prosecute. But that — that coward did nothing. He said his brother would never do anything like that. That I was imagining things. But I knew I wasn’t. Victoria went from being a lovely, angelic girl to almost catatonic overnight. She wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t leave the house. I knew something was wrong.”
“What did you do?”
“I took my daughter and I left. I went back to Portland where my people were. I did everything in my power to counteract the — the poison that evil man had inflicted on my daughter. I enrolled Victoria in a private Christian school where I knew she would be protected physically and morally.”
Sounds like she served her daughter right to the wolves. Why not just put an apple in her mouth?
Ms. Harkness pulls a handkerchief from her purse and presses it to her face. Then she fumbles for a compact and, looking in the tiny mirror, blots the smudged makeup. Repairing her image.
I try to pull the narrative together. One thing seems clear, but I have to confirm. “Ms. Harkness, I know this is painful, but I have to be sure. Are you saying that your brother-in-law abused your daughter?”
She nods without meeting my eyes, placing the compact down on the table.
Daniel Chandler said Victoria was looking for a way to process emotional trauma through art in order to help her congregants. It sounds as though she was also looking for a way to help herself.
“Where is your brother-in-law now?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I severed all ties with that family. I only kept my husband’s name for Victoria’s sake.”
“But he could still be here?”
She closes her eyes and nods. “That’s why I didn’t want her to come back. Why I don’t want to be here. It makes my skin crawl.” Her voice is brittle with anguish and outrage. “What if he tried to contact her again?”
What if? “Did you mention this to the police?”
She bites her lip. “No. It’s too disgusting. And long ago. What bearing could it have?”
I’m trying to get her to cooperate, so I refrain from giving her a lecture about withholding information. She doesn’t strike me as someone who shares herself lightly. I need to get everything I can in case she clams up later. So I ask if she’s heard anything more from the police.
She says they’ve told her there’s no phone activity beyond the Wednesday before last, no financial movement since the Saturday previous to that. Ms. Harkness gets up from the table and goes to a window. She yanks on the blind cords, pulling it up with a metallic rattle. Sunlight streams into the room, and I glimpse a snapshot of the river and industrial buildings.
“The police tell me my daughter’s death was a tragic accident.”
“Oh?” I’m surprised. “Are they dropping the investigation?”
“Yes. Apparently they found the fingerprints of a maintenance worker on her purse and wallet. He claimed he was only checking the apartment, that the door was unlocked, and he never saw Victoria. The police seem to believe him. But his kind always lie. The man should be sent back where he came from. The detectives here are incompetent.”
With an effort, I keep a cool countenance. “Did they have any other suspects?”
“They had one other ‘person of interest,’ as they called him. But they interviewed him and he had an alibi. They say there’s no indication of foul play. She drowned after falling into the river, and there’s an end to it.”
The desolation in her voice is achingly real. And I feel for her, I do. Despite my annoyance at her self-imposed bubble of social superiority. I guess nothing can shield us from love and the associated pain. It’s too bad I have to cause more of it, but in the end I get her to divulge the uncle’s name: Abe
