“That’s good advice. In the meantime can I give you her tag number?” he said. This was the real reason he’d called Chuck. There was new license-plate-recognition software. Using security and CCTV cameras that were all over the place, cops could track plates now. It was something that was happening very quietly, under the radar of the media and civil-rights groups. As a civilian, Jones didn’t have access to that anymore, and the technology was so new that he didn’t have a private contact. “Maybe you’ll get a hit on her vehicle somewhere?”
Another pause. It was a favor he was asking Chuck, something not quite aboveboard. Jones waited.
“Yeah, sure,” Chuck said finally.
Jones had taken down the make, model, and plate number of Paula Carr’s SUV when he left her house the other day. Force of habit.
“Since I have you on the phone…” said Chuck.
“What’s up?”
“Want to take a ride up to the dig site? The Grove boys are giving my men a hard time. Things might go easier if you were there to mediate.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” said Jones.
Chuck gave a little laugh. “It’s nice to be working with you again, man,” he said.
chapter twenty-five
When Eloise glanced in the visor mirror to check her reflection, she saw Marla in the backseat.
“It has changed so much here,” Marla said. She sounded wistful and far away, a voice broadcasting from another time and place.
Eloise ignored her. This was new. She was still aware of herself, of Ray, the car interior. She felt the heat of Ray’s thigh pressed against hers. She could smell the stale cigar smoke that had made a home in the upholstery. The car was old; he could afford better. There was a crack in the beige dash, an ash burn on the seat. Outdated pictures of his kids were fastened with rubber bands to the driver’s-side visor. Drive it till it dies, that was Ray’s philosophy about cars-about cases, about relationships, about shoes, too, for that matter. The odometer on the old Caddy (bought used) read ten thousand miles, having turned over last year. She reached out a finger to touch the crack.
“What?” said Ray. “It’s a piece of shit. I know.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I’m old-school, El. I’m not buying into the mass-consumer bullshit. Everything doesn’t have to be newer, better, brighter, shinier. What about the good-enough stuff rotting away in landfills? I’m about using as little as possible.”
“Old-school is new-school,” Eloise said. She held back a smile. “You’re preaching to the choir.” Eloise looked in the mirror again, hoping Marla had gone. But no.
“Nobody ever loved me like Michael,” she said. “Not even Mack. Even as a baby, Michael never wanted anyone else. I thought he’d outgrow it, but he never did.”
Eloise remembered how Michael used to cry when his mother left, even when he knew she was just running out for groceries or going for a jog. It wasn’t normal. Little Cara was so easy. She might fuss for her mama, but eventually she settled in after a bit to color or have some animal crackers. Michael sulked, sitting by the window until Marla came home. He was eleven or twelve the last time Eloise had watched him, far too old for that kind of behavior.
“He was fourteen that night,” Marla said. “Too big, too tall for his age. Taller than Mack already by then. He never made friends easily. He was happy to stay home with me. And I was so lonely in my marriage to Mack that I was happy to have him. Is that wrong?”
Eloise saw the dark purple necklace of handprints on Marla’s throat then. She brought a hand to her own neck.
“What are you staring at?” asked Ray.
“Nothing,” said Eloise. She glanced down at her knees. Her legs looked like tree branches, thin and knobby, jutting out from her yellow slicker.
“He can’t let me go,” said Marla.
When had she started to let it waste her like this? Even her doctor wasn’t sure what was wrong with her. She took something for the pain and weakness in her joints. One doctor had posited that her visions were something like ministrokes or TIAs. So she took something to prevent those episodes-which clearly it didn’t. She wasn’t supposed to drive, and she did only when something was really important, like her visit to Jones Cooper the other day. There was something for her stomach pains, diagnosed as IBS. Then there was the pill to help her sleep through the night. Her cholesterol was through the roof, even though she hardly ate. They gave her more medication for that.
“Mom? Are you taking all these pills?” Amanda had asked last year. She’d come to visit Eloise-without the kids. Her obligatory visit, which was actually worse than if she didn’t visit at all. Eloise could hardly stand to see herself through Amanda’s eyes. But her daughter was so kind, so vigilant about gifts and cards and flowers on Mother’s Day. The children sent Eloise crayon drawings. And it was unspoken between them that Amanda endured her visits to Eloise the way she did her yearly trip to the dentist, something anticipated with distaste, obligatory, and mercifully brief.
But yes, she was taking all those pills on her little schedule or as needed. Lately she’d been wondering what would happen to her if she just stopped taking them. Maybe the legion of things wrong with her would march in and sweep her away.
She looked into the mirror and saw that Marla was gone. She was aware that they were on the access road into the Hollows Wood. It was narrow, barely a road at all, just a rut between trees. Ray brought the car to a stop.
The road ahead was wet, the dirt turning into thick, gooey mud. The rain was coming down, just a drizzle. But the sky was that kind of gray that looked as if it would never be any other color again.
“We have to go on foot the rest of the way,” said Ray. He regarded her with a worried squint. “Can you do it?”
She didn’t bother being indignant. “I think so.”
“It’s not far. But the old girl isn’t going to make it through that muck.” He patted the steering wheel. “Or if she does, she won’t make it out again.”
As soon as they exited the car, they heard voices. They followed, Eloise holding on to Ray’s arm over the wet and unstable ground. Her yellow rain boots were ugly against the brown, made a slurping noise in the mud. By the time they reached the clearing, they saw four men in uniform digging into the earth. A few other men in heavy black slickers stood around watching. With the dead trees and the rain, the scene was as grim as a funeral. Eloise shuddered.
“Cops,” said Ray. He said it like one might say “termites”-with surprise and dismay and a dread of things to come. One could forget that he’d been a cop himself. “What are they looking for?”
“I bet they’re looking for Marla.”
“No,” he said. “How would they know about the Chapel?”
There was a flash of something in the trees across the opening. And then she saw him-too big, too tall, as his mother had described him. Clad in black, his long, dark hair hanging wet and ropy, fists clenched at his sides, he looked ghoulish. When he’d first come to see her, he’d looked sweet and bookish. He’d had his long hair back in a ponytail, wore those cute wire-rimmed glasses, was dressed neatly in jeans and a blue T-shirt. He was much like she’d remembered him as a boy, quiet, soft-spoken. The man she saw through the trees made her heart thud with fear. Eloise was about to point him out to Ray. But she was interrupted.
“I got something.” The voice rang high-pitched with alarm. It disturbed the air. Some large-winged birds above them flapped away. Then Jones Cooper was coming up behind them, clearing his throat so, Eloise guessed, as to not take them by surprise. Ray turned around to look at the other man.
“All of a sudden, it’s Grand Central around here,” said Ray. He didn’t even bother to conceal his dislike, which
