Girls on Film Read online

  Donald Blume comes out. He’s older than she is, but he has a nice smile and I like him right away.

  “Doing a story about our little girl?” he says, sinking in to what I assume is “his” chair, a big old leather club chair.

  I nod, but answer in the negative. “Not really. I mean, about her, but about how her loss impacted, you know, on you and your family”

  “It’ll be a short story,” he says.

  Mrs. Blume disappears into the kitchen.

  “How is that?” I ask. For the first time I spot Shannon’s shrine. There are nearly a dozen pictures of a girl my age lining the mantle and a large silver urn, which I can only assume holds her remains. I don’t know why people keep ashes. I don’t get that at all. The person was not the residue of their burned up flesh and pulverized bones. The person was the spirit and that left when she was brutally killed.

  By my bio dad.

  “It ruined us. Plain and simple. I took to drinking. Debra took to antidepressants until she had to go to treatment”

  “I’m sorry”

  “Me too,” he says. “But . . . ” His words trail off and behind his glasses I see the sheen of tears. “But the short story is that it ruined our lives. She was everything”

  I nod and Mrs. Blume returns with a slice of pizza. I almost hurl. It’s chicken and pesto.

  “Looks wonderful,” I say, thinking of how I’m going to eat that slice. I thought of saying I was gluten-free, but I’m not. It always freaks me out when people announce that, like being gluten-free is a badge of honor. I need these people to like me. I need them to tell me what they know. I need to process all of it and somehow figure out where my mother is being held captive.

  As we eat, the Blumes start at the beginning. They talk, they cry, they tell me about the kind of hurt that comes when forced to identify their daughter on a gurney through the thick glass of a morgue’s viewing room. They tell me that they regret they didn’t tell her they loved her as much as they should have. I watch as Mrs. Blume puts a trembling hand on her husband’s. She’s the stronger of the two. She knows that whatever regrets she has are smaller than the burden he carries. He asks her to get him a drink.

  “And don’t be stingy on it, either,” he says.

  I mutter something about being sorry and it’s the first time I’m not really lying to them. I am sorry. I feel sick, and it isn’t the pesto chicken pizza either.

  “At least you got some justice,” I say. “At least the killer was caught and punished”

  She looks at me dead in the eyes. “That’s what they tell us,” she says.

  The remark is odd.

  She looks at her husband and he shrugs his shoulders as though it is all right for her to speak, though I doubt there was ever a time when he could stop her.

  “Honestly, Tracy,” she begins, “we never really felt comfortable with the prosecution of Steve Jones, that homeless man, for the murder of our daughter. Don’t get me wrong.” She stops and catches her husband’s gaze. “Don’t get us wrong. We don’t doubt the prosecution did the best they could but, well, we sort of believed Mr. Jones’s alibi”

  “You did?” I fumble for the words. “I don’t remember what it was?.

  “He said he’d been out drinking and had a blackout. A friend said he was picked up by the police. The next thing Jones knew was that he was in front of our dead daughter’s body. Sirens woke him up”

  “Who called it in?” I ask.

  Mr. Blume cuts in. “Anonymous did. Whoever that was. The police tape was lost before trial. They could talk about what the caller said, but they couldn’t provide any evidence that the tape really existed”

  “Are you saying you thought he might have been set up?” I ask.

  “That’s a stretch,” Mrs. Blume says as she clears the dishes. I look down and to my surprise, I’ve eaten the pizza. I’m going to pay for it later, I know. “We think someone tampered with the evidence. I don’t know why. Maybe to make sure they’d convict. I guess we should be happy about it—and at the time we were”

  “But not now?” I ask.

  Mr. Blume answers. “No. We just don’t believe they ever answered how she got that tattoo and where she was the week she was gone. They made it sound like she’d been held captive somewhere by Jones—apparently he’d been staying in the basement of a church”

  “I don’t know about the tattoo, but why don’t you think church basement?.

  “Because the walls were paper thin. Shannon sang in the school choir. She had a set of lungs on her. She would have made some noise. No one at the Marine Lookout Apartments heard a peep”

  “What about the tattoo?” I ask. “I don’t get that”

  I look down at my printouts, scanning for more details.

  “Shannon would never have gotten a tattoo,” Mr. Blume says. He gets up and shows me a picture of her, taken at a Highline High School performance of Les Miserables. “She played Cosette. She was beautiful and perfect”

  “Yes, she was,” I say.

  “She told me that tattoos degraded the human body. She said God had made everyone beautiful and perfect and that no one had a right to screw up what He had done”

  “I don’t like tattoos either,” I say, though I don’t really have an opinion on the subject. I can’t get one until I’m eighteen, anyway. And that isn’t for two or three years.

  Mrs. Blume picks up the family cat and it purrs immediately.

  “Gloria was Shannon’s cat. She’s eighteen”

  I’m not sure what to say. That it’s nice they still have her? That I bet the cat misses Shannon too? As the cat purrs I change the subject back to the tattoo.

  “What was the tattoo that she had? I don’t see a mention of its design in the papers”

  Mr. Blume clears his throat. “It was a heart with the numerals 16 in the middle of it”

  “Where was it on her body?.

  “Her right shoulder,” he answers, ice tinkling in the glass of soda from which he’s been drinking. At least I hope it’s soda. I hope both Shannon’s parents are on the mend. I don’t pray much anymore. I haven’t for a long time, but tonight I will for them.

  “Why wasn’t the tattoo’s design in the paper?” I ask.

  Mrs. Blume takes this one. “The detective wanted to leave it out. You know, in case it was done by our daughter’s killer”

  “Which it was,” Mr. Blume says, slurring his words a little. Okay, now I’m sure. When Mr. Blume asked his wife not to be stingy with the drink, it had nothing to do with the number of ice cubes she put in it. His head bobs slightly. He is getting drunk.

  “What was the detective’s name?” I ask.

  Mrs. Blume ponders it for a moment and I let her. No need to plant a seed when looking for the truth.

  She turns to her husband. “What was his name, Donald?.

  His lids are heavy and he looks at her. “Donald is my name,” he says.

  “Yes, honey,” she says, looking sadly at him then over at me with the look of a woman who’s been there before. Too many times. She’s embarrassed, but resigned to the situation. I feel sorry for her. I’m glad that she still has that bag-of-bones cat. Mrs. Blume looks to me.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not good with names. My husband is,” she says, “Or at least he used to be”

  “The name would really help my story,” I say, though inside I want to scream at her and tell her that my mom’s being held captive somewhere—if she’s alive—and I need to find out where. I need help. A lead. Even just a name would be something.

  I say none of that, of course, because my mind switches to a new thought, a memory is coming into focus. I’m remembering something else as I watch Shannon’s mother put a thin blue blanket over her now sleeping husband. With the reminiscence comes a jolt. It comes at me quick and I’m almost breathless.

  I WAS FOUR. MY MOTHER and I were out by the above-ground pool that the previous tenants of our rental house had left behind. I honestly can’t remember exact
ly where it was. There was a huge tree that hung over most of the backyard like a circus canopy. It was so hot that day that Mom actually got into the pool with me. I remember how she played “motorboat” and dragged me from one end of the pool to the other, laughing and making sure that when I laughed I didn’t drink in any water. When she grew tired of the game, I begged her to continue. That day, Mom never let me down. No matter what was on her mind, she was always present with me in the moment. When I became tired and hungry, she hoisted me to the edge of the pool and we ate cheese sandwiches and drank apple juice.

  I remember how I hugged her and for the very first time noticed the faded lines of a heart on her shoulder.

  I said something about it and she got up and carried me inside. It was like my words, my curiosity about that heart, had shut her down. Hurt her.

  The next day Mom took me to the emergency room. There was nothing wrong with me, but she’d injured her shoulder.

  I don’t remember how. Later, when I was older, I asked her about the big scar and she told me that she’d slipped on the shower floor and smashed the glass. When I asked her which house she told me Iowa. I looked at her. I knew when she was lying.

  The house in Iowa had a tub with a shower curtain. There had never been a glass shower door.

  MRS. BLUME AND I TALK some more. I wasn’t sure what I had hoped to find out, but I feel that I have learned something. When she asks me if she should call if she remembers anything else, I shake my head and make a face.

  “The number on the card is not going to be any good soon. We’re having a new phone system installed. Ugh. You know how all that phone stuff goes”

  “I guess so,” she says. “It took us forever to sort out our cable bill”

  I smile. “I’m staying at the Best Western in Kent tonight”

  She looks at me strangely. “You’re so close to home”

  I shrug a little, as though I’m annoyed. Not at her. But at the reason I now have to invent for why I am staying in a motel instead of driving twenty minutes back to North Bend. Stupid me.

  “My sister lives there and I promised her we’d have a girls’ night,” I say.

  “That’s nice,” she says. “Family’s important”

  I start for the door. I’m sick about lying to these nice people.

  Yet I know that these are small lies compared to the ones that have surrounded me all my life.

  “All right then,” I say. “Bye.” I look over at her husband, asleep in his chair. “Tell Mr. Blume goodbye. I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Blume”

  She lingers in the doorway as I get into my car.

  All I can think about is my mother and that tattoo on her shoulder and how she had probably cut it out with a knife. Shannon had one too. I wonder if they all had the same tattoo. As I pull away, I come up with a nickname for my piece-of-crap serial killer father.

  The Sweet Sixteen Killer.

  Creeps like him always get a stupid name.

  He doesn’t know it yet, of course, but he’ll only be known as the Sweet Sixteen Killer after I take him out. He’ll never get to enjoy his fame the way that I will revel in his death.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cash: $113.

  Food: One granola bar, one slice chicken& pesto pizza.

  Shelter: Best Western Motel, Kent, Washington.

  Weapons: Gun, scissors, ice pick.

  Plan: Find Mom. Take out the Sweet 16 killer.

  THE CLERK AT THE FRONT DESK doesn’t give me much trouble when she asks for a credit card and I tell her I don’t have one. With a pissed off look on my face, I say that I was a victim of identify theft and my credit cards are all messed up. I’m pretty convincing. She takes it in and says the same thing happened to her best friend. The billing policy, she says, is to have a credit card for incidentals, but the truth is that at the Best Western there aren’t any incidentals. I fork over $111 and some change for two nights’ stay, tell her I’m here for a couple of days to see my sister, Megan, and go to my room on the second floor. The room smells of disinfectant and bleach and I’m guessing that’s supposed to reinforce that it’s clean. I wonder what they were trying to disinfect that made it in need of so much cleanser.

  Since there are two beds, I use one to spread out all of my research materials. I don’t have as much as I think I do. The clippings from Mom’s safe deposit box, the printouts from the day’s stop at the library and a few notes that I made when talking to the Blumes. I scoped out this motel because I knew it was near Megan Moriarty’s parents’ house. It also faces the Kmart where she was last seen, and where her killer dumped her like she was nothing more than a bundle of expired submarine sandwiches from the discount store’s deli.

  The other reason I chose the motel—besides its location and the fact I knew it was cheap—was the fact they’d advertised having a business center with a computer work station for the “exclusive use of our guests”.

  I look at the “courtesy alarm clock” and it’s almost five.

  I see myself in the mirror and I am reminded again of my mother. I wonder where she is. If she’s alive. If he’s only holding her until he finds me, though I fully intend to find him first. Then I think of Hayden. He was so sleepy that I know he didn’t get the full import of what I was telling him early that morning. The day is more than half over. I want nothing more for him right now than to know that I can do this. I will kill that father freak. I will bring Mom home. We won’t have to run anymore. We can be a family.

  And then I remember to say that prayer. I haven’t prayed in the longest time, but I get on my knees. I promise God that I will do whatever he wants me to do. In exchange, I ask for peace for Shannon’s parents. I pray that Mr. Blume will stop drinking. I pray that Mrs. Blume will be able to grieve for her daughter without the complications of covering up for the man she so clearly loves. I pray for Hayden. I pray for my mother and then I head out the door.

  THE CAR IS ON “E” and I pull alongside the gas pump only to find out that the gas tank is on the other side. I try to maneuver the car around to the other side without looking like an idiot. The gas station attendant gives me a weird expression, so I’m pretty sure that I do look stupid right then. After filling up, which cuts my cash reserves by another $40, I drive slowly past the Kmart to the Moriartys’ house on James Street. Kent feels a lot like Port Orchard. Bigger, to be sure. But just a little sad. I watch a young couple push a stroller with twins. The stroller is a wobbly secondhand one. Mom would say that family wasn’t wealthy, but they were rich in other ways. When I park in front of the Moriartys’ house another car pulls up at the same time. Mr. Moriarty, I think.

  I hurry over and introduce myself and hand him another one of the business cards that I poached from the little cardholder on the edge of Tracy Lee’s desk.

  The man gets out of his car and looks me up and down. “You work for a newspaper?” he says.

  “Yes, the North Bend Courier,” I say.

  His gray eyes glide over me like a doctor’s stethoscope. “You’re pretty enough to be on TV. Forget that print crap. Print media’s dying anyway. Yeah, TV would love you”

  My skin crawls a little, but I give him my spiel about the grief article and he invites me inside.

  Dan Moriarty is in his fifties, with the build and styling of a man much younger. He isn’t wearing a hoodie or anything, but the sweatshirt that he’s pulled over his taut muscular frame touts a skateboard brand—the same one that Caleb told me was the best on the planet. No, the best in the universe. Dan Moriarty’s hair is black. A little too black, I think. I wonder if it is the same shade that I dunked my brother’s hair into on the ferry. I break a slight smile when I remember the color’s name.

  Dark and Dangerous.

  The interior of the house is at odds with Mr. Moriarty’s impeccable appearance. Clutter. Dust. A trail of cast-off clothing, mostly gym attire, lines the hallway. I get it. As I suspected from my internet search at the library, there is no Mrs. Moriarty. Mr. Moria
rty is at the tail end of his last gasp to get another woman. I know his type. I’ve seen those guys huffing and puffing at the gym or lurking in the wrong section in the mall. Getting their mojo back. Trying to score again. Whatever. When his eyes linger over my breasts—which really aren’t much to linger over—my Creeper Meter goes to the top of the scale. My CM is seldom wrong. With this new haircut and anything other than jeans and a T-shirt attire that I’m wearing, I know that I do look, let’s say, more available. Young. But definitely available. I’ll go with it if I have to.

  “Is Mrs. Moriarty home?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

  He peels off the sweater, letting his abs show. I want to hurl like Marilee again, but I don’t. I know he did that intentionally, like it was going to be some big turn-on. Accidental turn-on.

  “She ran off. After Megan vanished. Complained that I wasn’t ‘emotionally’ there for her. Whatever the hell that means”

  I ignore the superior tone and the bitterness that he spits out with each word.

  “That fits within the article I’m writing,” I say. “The impact on people after such a tragedy is nearly insurmountable for some families, such as yours”

  Oh my God. I just sounded like I was a pageant girl giving an airheaded speech. I’m hoping he’s too self-absorbed to notice.

  He is.

  “You want a beer or something?.

  I so don’t.

  “Love one,” I say. “But only one. This story is very important to me, and to other families in your situation”

  Why am I acting this way? Is it because this lecherous man keeps darting his snake tongue out at me.

  Mr. Moriarty invites me to sit on the sofa while he goes in the kitchen to get the beer. I feel better now that he’s gone. Like the Blumes, there is a shrine of sorts to Megan. Her pom-poms are draped over the mantle next to a large framed photograph in her full cheer regalia. She’s on the top of the pyramid. Of course. I look at her with a mixture of sadness, a little envy, and curiosity. Cheerleaders are like a foreign species to me. I’ve never even talked to one. It’s true that I’ve had a wall around me for as long as I can remember, a force field that’s impenetrable by necessity. But in a way those girls do too. Their utter perfection, their veneer of narcissism is their barrier. Next to the photograph is a triptych—a word that I learned in Art class—showing the three phases of Megan’s life. A baby swaddled in pink. A little girl swinging from the monkey bars at school. A cheerleader.