“Nothing.”
“He said she was very angry that night,” Frank went on. “That was on the night of April first. Can you think of anything that might have made her angry?”
“No.”
“Some little argument. Anything.”
Karen began to pace slowly back and forth across the room. “No,” she said. “Nothing.”
“A bad grade,” Frank pressed her. “A disappointment of some kind.”
Karen whirled around. “Nothing, nothing, nothing,” she said loudly. “I didn’t know my sister! Can’t you understand that!”
Frank stood up. “Something was happening to her, Karen,” he said hotly. “Something very bad.”
She turned away from him and drew in a long, deep breath. “I know,” she said softly. “I could feel that something was going wrong. But I didn’t know what it was.” Her eyes closed slowly, as if searching for something inside herself. “I would have saved her if I could have.” She looked at Frank. “I knew that something needed to be done, but I didn’t know what it was. All I had was a feeling.”
Frank thought of Sarah, of all the little hints she’d given, a sudden break in the middle of a sentence, a little gasp of fear when there was nothing threatening around her.
“I always thought that something was waiting for Angelica,” Karen said. “It was as if some shadow was always gathered around her.” She glanced away for a moment, then her eyes returned to him, very firm and determined. “I want to see where you found her.”
“It’s a vacant lot,” Frank said. “Weedy. There’s an old car in it, rusting away.”
“I don’t care what it looks like,” Karen said.
“There’s nothing to see,” Frank said insistently. “We didn’t even find footprints. The ground was too hard from the drought. A little brush was broken, where he dragged her. That’s all.”
“I don’t care,” Karen said. “I want to go there.”
“All right.”
“When can you take me?”
“We could go now, if you like,” Frank told her.
Karen nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I think I would.”
During the long ride downtown, Karen sat silently beside him. Her face, as he glanced at it from time to time, appeared almost blue in the light, and just beneath it, he could see the same features, muted and less radiant, but clearly visible nonetheless, which others had seen, and probably adored, in her younger sister. And yet, to Frank, Karen’s beauty seemed deeper and more completed. There were faint creases about her eyes, and here and there in the deep black of her hair, he could see a strand or two of gray twining upward like a flower, which gave her a beauty that was beyond the scope of youth, larger, richer, more to be desired.
“I went out to the lot myself one night,” Frank said, as he turned the car onto Peachtree.
She looked at him. “Alone?”
“Yes.”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know. To take it in, I guess.”
“Take it in?”
“To see if I could feel something.”
She turned back toward the street, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. “But you seem so meticulous. That little notebook. You’re always writing in it.”
“Yes, I am.”
“So what did you expect to ‘feel’?” Karen asked.
“Her death. Maybe her life. Something.”
“And did you feel anything?”
“No.”
“Then I probably won’t feel anything either,” Karen told him.
“No, with you it may be different,” Frank said. “You were her sister. In one way or another, you’ve always been together. Something might be jarred loose. I’ve seen it happen. People suddenly remember some little fact or incident they hadn’t thought of before. It happens all the time.”
He turned off Peachtree and headed toward Glenwood. The glitter of the city fell behind them and the other world of squat brick buildings swept in around them like a wave.
“The day Angelica died,” Frank said after a moment, “did you notice any change in her?”
“No.”
“A sudden coldness or harshness, anything like that?”
“Nothing at all.”
Frank turned the car onto Glenwood and edged it over toward the vacant lot.
“There it is,” he said. He stopped the car at the edge of the field. The lot rested to the left, its shrubs and weeds utterly motionless in the summer air.
“Oh, God,” Karen whispered.
Frank pointed toward the middle of the field. “We found her over there. She was lying on her back.” He looked at Karen. “We have a witness who saw someone carry a large bundle to the same area. Right now, we think it was a carpet, and that Angelica’s body was rolled up in it.”
Karen bowed her head slightly. “It’s still so hard to believe.”
“Do you want to get out?”
“Yes.”
They got out of the car and walked to the edge of the field. The air was thick with the day’s lingering heat, and in the streetlight, Frank could see a thin line of perspiration as it beaded on Karen’s upper lip.
“Follow me,” he said. “I’ll show you exactly where I found her.”
Together they waded slowly out through the thick brush. The surrounding streets were quiet, except for Glenwood, where the night traffic continued in a steady stream.
Finally, they reached the place where Angelica’s body had been left.
“Here,” Frank said. “She was on her back. And her hair was spread out around her head. I believe her killer arranged it that way.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because if he’d just laid the body down, her hair would have been beneath her head,” Frank said. He stooped down to the ground and moved his hand in a circular motion. “Instead, it was all spread out around her.”
“What kind of night was it?” Karen asked.
“Like this one.”
“No wind?”
“No wind.”
“Then we can find out for sure.”
“How?”
“My hair is like Angelica’s,” Karen said, “so all you have to do is lay me down and see how my hair falls.”
Frank walked over and very slowly lifted her into his arms. Then he bent forward and lowered her softly onto the ground. Her hair fell beneath her head and gathered there like a pillow.
“Like you thought,” Karen said.
Frank nodded. “Yes.” He could still feel the weight of her body in his arms, and for an instant he thought it came from his desire, but then, suddenly, it faded, and he could feel the moment of Angelica’s death moving through him like a steady, electric charge. He stiffened.
“What’s wrong?” Karen asked as she got to her feet.
“Nothing,” Frank said, “nothing at all. Let’s go.”
18
