didn’t hear him coming. Gooding called to her as he neared. She straightened up and turned to him, an expectant smile on her face. Gooding stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment, he just stared. His back was to the Quonset hut and neither Cork nor Jenny could see his face, but it must have been something awful because Annie’s response was a look of horror. Gooding finally spoke, and Annie took off, running in the direction of Aurora and home.
Cork rushed from Sam’s Place and hurried to the dock. “What happened?”
Gooding stared fiercely in the direction Annie had fled. “My God, Cork, didn’t you see her?”
“Yeah, I saw her.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s just asking for trouble.”
Cork knew a lot of men thought that way, a lot of cops, but it surprised him coming from Gooding. And because it was Annie, it pissed him off, too.
“It’s a look, Randy. Christ, just a look. She’s not asking for anything.”
“Maybe not, but that kind of look can get a girl hurt, even a good kid like Annie.”
“Did you tell her?”
“You bet I did.”
“What the hell were you thinking?” Cork stepped back and let the boil of his own blood cool. “This doesn’t sound like you, Randy. That was Annie you sent off in tears. She thinks the world of you.”
Gooding watched Cork’s daughter as she grew smaller with every stride that carried her away, and slowly his face changed.
“What’s going on, Randy?”
Gooding kept his eyes on Annie until she merged with all that was indistinct in the distance.
“Randy?”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have spoken to her that way. It’s just
…”
“Just what?”
“Look, it wasn’t Annie I was seeing. It was Nina.” He rubbed his temple with his fingertips and seemed genuinely pained. “You got a minute?”
“I’ve got all the time it takes for a good explanation.”
It was dusk and everything was bathed in hues of faded blue. Gooding shifted his feet, and the old boards of the dock squeaked under his weight. He pulled on the short red hairs of his beard and stared east where the evening star was already visible.
“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I grew up in a children’s home,” he said. “Most of us there were orphans.”
“I didn’t know.” Cork’s anger softened and he said, “Must’ve been tough.”
“It was okay, really. We felt like family, a lot of us. There was one girl in particular who was the nearest thing to a sister I ever had. Nina. Nina van Zoot. From Holland, Michigan. After we left, Nina and I kept in touch. She went to Chicago. I went briefly into the seminary, then finished school in Ann Arbor and decided to join the Bureau. I requested assignment to the field office in Chicago, mostly because Nina was there. They didn’t have an opening, so I ended up at the Milwaukee field office. That was fine. Couple of hours from Nina, I figured.
“In her letters, she’d told me she was working for the church, but when I visited her, I found out that was a lie. She’d been telling me what I wanted to hear. The truth was that she was in the life. A prostitute. Broke my heart, Cork. I tried to help. Nina’s smart. She could have done anything she set her mind to. But she wanted none of it. Had herself a world-class pimp. Guy who told her she was gold, and she fell for it. My god, what a fall.”
He paused a moment, looked down at the dock, shook his head.
“When I saw Annie, all made up like that, for a moment all I saw was Nina.”
“I guess I can understand.”
Gooding’s face was soft blue, troubled in the evening light. “I left the seminary, stopped preparing for the priesthood because I didn’t have it in me to forgive. I still haven’t forgiven Nina. And that pimp of hers, I hope he rots in hell.”
Cork waited a moment, then said, “I think you’re right. You probably would have made a terrible priest. But you’re a pretty good cop.”
Gooding opened his hands. “What do I say to Annie now?”
“Why don’t you let us do a little damage control first?”
Gooding nodded, still looking bereaved. “God, I feel horrible.”
“She’s young. She’ll recover.”
Gooding took a step as if to walk away, but paused and, his voiced weighted heavily, said, “I wasn’t completely off base, Cork. You know it as well as I do. Even a good kid like Annie, looking like that, she’ll give men the wrong idea.”
“We’ll talk to her, Randy.”
“All right.” He walked slowly back to his Tracker.
Cork closed down Sam’s Place immediately, and he and Jenny headed home. Jo met them at the door.
“Annie here?” Cork asked.
“She came in a few minutes ago, crying, ran upstairs. She’s locked herself in her bedroom. What happened?”
“Randy Gooding said something.”
“Randy? What could he possibly have said?”
“She got her ears pierced today.”
“I knew she was planning on it.”
Jenny said, “Did you get a good look at her face, Mom?”
“No. Why?”
“She tried makeup. She looks like an extra from Night of the Living Dead. And she was dressed straight out of Slutsville.”
“Randy took it on himself to tell her she was asking for trouble,” Cork said. “He wasn’t very diplomatic about it. Did you try to talk to her?”
“I knocked. She told me to go away.”
“What if I tried?” Cork said.
“Give her a little time to herself.”
There was a knock. Cork turned, saw Gooding on the front porch beyond the screen door, and he stepped outside. Randy stood there looking like a big, awkward kid.
“Cork, I was wondering if you’d give something to Annie for me.”
Randy handed him a large sheet torn from a sketch pad. In addition to the standard training offered all recruits, the FBI had tapped a special talent in Gooding and trained him as a sketch artist. These days he drew for his own pleasure. Although he called himself a hack, he was quite good and was sometimes convinced to give his drawings as gifts. What he handed Cork was a lovely charcoal sketch of Annie, sans makeup and earrings.
“It’s a kind of apology,” he explained.
“Is this recent?”
“A while ago. I’ve done sketches of most of the kids in the youth group, just for my own enjoyment, but I’ve never given any of them away. I screwed up big time, and I wanted to do something special for Annie.”
“I’ll see that she gets it.”
“How’s she doing?”
“I’m guessing her mascara’s run all the way down to her chin.”
“Man, I’m so sorry. But look, there’s something that might help cheer her up. I have it on good authority that Damon Fielding has been trying to work up the nerve to ask her out.”
“Damon Fielding?”
“Brad and Cindy Fielding’s son.”
“I know who he is. Set a conference record for stolen bases last year. Fast kid. How do you know he’s interested in Annie?”
“He’s treasurer of the youth group, and he’s horrible at keeping secrets.”
