Bronze sculptures of indeterminate form covered the mantel. A reindeer skin lay in front of the hearth.
The end and coffee tables were made of glass and antique brass. A sole photo sat on one. Its frame was mother-of-pearl edged with silver, the quality much higher than that of the image it housed. The picture was grainy, maybe taken with a cellphone or inexpensive camera, then blown up beyond what the pixels could handle.
The subject was a tall young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty, on a boat with a harbor or bay behind her. She was wearing a turtleneck and jacket, a bead necklace with some sort of pendant. The wind was lifting the jacket’s collar and blowing her long dark hair across her face. She didn’t look happy. She didn’t look sad. She was pretty in a disturbingly detached sort of way.
Her face was more fleshy, her breasts fuller, than when I’d last seen her. But I knew I was looking at Tawny McGee.
Ryan and I did our usual and sat on opposite ends of the couch. Bernadette took an armchair, fingers clasped like red-tipped claws in her lap. Jake remained standing, arms folded across his chest.
“May I get you something? Coffee? Tea?” Bernadette’s offer sounded rote, insincere.
“No, thank you,” Ryan and I answered in unison.
A cat appeared in the doorway, gray with black stripes and yellow-green eyes. A notch in one ear. A scar on one shoulder. A scrapper.
Bernadette noticed. “Oh, no, no, Murray. Shoo.”
The cat held.
Bernadette started to push to her feet.
“Please let him stay,” I said.
“Get him out of here,” Jake said.
“I own a cat.” I smiled. “His name is Birdie.”
Bernadette looked at Jake. He shrugged but said nothing.
Murray regarded us a moment, then sat, shot a leg, and began cleaning his toes. Something was off with his upper left canine. I liked this cat.
Bernadette settled back, spine stiff, neck muscles standing out sinewy-hard. She glanced from Ryan to me, back to Ryan. Hopeful we had news. Frightened we had news.
I understood that yesterday’s call was undoubtedly a shock after so many years. But the woman’s anxiety seemed out of proportion. The shaking hands. The terrified eyes. I didn’t like what I was sensing.
“Your home is beautiful,” I said, wanting to reassure.
“Tawny likes things bright.”
“Is this Tawny?” Gesturing at the woman framed in mother-of-pearl.
The parakeet eyes looked at me oddly. Then, “Yes.”
“She’s grown into a beautiful young woman.”
“You’re sure about the cat?”
“I’m sure. Do you have other pictures?”
“Tawny hated being photographed.”
As with the Violettes, Ryan allowed silence, hoping one or the other Kezerian might feel compelled to fill it. Neither did.
Murray switched legs. Behind him, through a matching archway across the hall, I noted a dining room of identical footage with an identical bay window. The table was glass. The chairs were molded white acrylic and made me think of the Jetsons.
When Bernadette spoke, her words were not what I expected. So far, nothing was. “Is she dead?”
“We have no reason to think that.” Ryan indicated no surprise at the question.
Bernadette’s shoulders rounded slightly as her expression melted. Into what? Relief? Disappointment? I really couldn’t read her.
Jake spread his feet. Frowned his frown.
“But we have new information,” Ryan said.
“You’ve found her?”
“We haven’t determined her exact location. Yet.”
Bernadette’s knuckles blanched as her fingers tightened again.
Ryan leaned toward her. “I promise you, Mrs. Kezerian. We are closing in.”
“Closing in?” Jake snorted. “You make it sound like the play-offs.”
“I apologize for my poor choice of words.”
It struck me. Unlike the Violettes, the Kezerians were asking no questions about the nature of the “new information.” Or about Pomerleau’s movements over the last decade.
Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. Again crossed his arms. “If you have nothing to tell us, why are you here?”
“We were hoping Tawny might agree to an interview.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath. Looked at Bernadette. Her face had gone as white as the walls around us.
In my peripheral vision, Jake’s arms dropped to his sides. I ignored him and focused on his wife. Bernadette was trying to speak but managing only to swallow and clear her throat.
I reached out and took her hands in mine. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I thought you’d come to tell me you’d located Tawny.” More swallowing. “One way or the other.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” I didn’t.
“Who we talking about here?” Jake demanded. “Who is it you’re tracking?”
“Anique Pomerleau,” Ryan said.
“Sonofabitch.”
“Tawny’s not here with you?” I asked Bernadette.
“I haven’t seen my daughter in almost eight years.”
CHAPTER 19
“OH, GOD.” A tiny sob bubbled from Bernadette’s throat.
“I am so sorry,” I said. “Obviously, Detective Ryan and I were unclear.”
“You’re here about the woman who kidnapped my child?”
“Yes,” I said. “Anique Pomerleau.”
Bernadette slipped her hands free of mine and extended one back toward Jake. He made no move to take it. “You came to question Tawny?” she asked.
“To talk to her.”
Bernadette brought the unclaimed hand forward onto the armrest. It trembled.
“We were hoping—” I began.
“She’s not here.” Bernadette’s voice was flat, as though a door had slammed shut somewhere inside her. She began picking at a thread poking from the piping.
“Where is she?”
“Tawny left home in 2006.”
“Do you know where she’s living?”
“No.”
I glanced at Ryan. Tight nod that I should continue.
“You haven’t heard from your daughter in all that time?”
“She called once. Several months after she moved out. To say she was well.”
“She didn’t tell you where she was?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
Bernadette kept working the errant strand. Which had doubled in length.
“Did you file a missing persons report?”
“Tawny was almost twenty. The police said she was an adult. Free to do what she wanted.”
Thus nothing in the file. I waited for Bernadette to continue.
“It’s crazy, I know. But I figured that was the reason you’d come. To tell me you’d found her.”
“Why did she leave?”
“Because she’s nuts.”
Ryan and I looked past Bernadette toward her husband. He opened his mouth to continue, but something on our faces made him shut it again.
Bernadette spoke without taking her eyes from the thread she was twisting and retwisting around one finger. “Tawny endured a five-year nightmare. Anyone would have issues.”
My gaze slid to Ryan. He did a subtle “Take it away” lift of one palm.
“Can you talk about that?” I urged gently.
“About what?”
“Tawny’s issues.”
Bernadette hesitated, either reluctant to share or unsure how to put it. “She came back to me changed.”
Sweet Jesus! Of course she did. The child was raped and tortured her entire adolescence.
“Changed how?”
“She was overly fearful.”
“Of?”
“Life.”
“For Christ’s sake, Bee.” Jake threw up his hands.
Bernadette rounded on her husband. “Well, aren’t you Mr. Compassionate.” Then to me, “Tawny had what they called body-image issues.”
“What do you mean?”
“My baby lived in conditions you wouldn’t wish on a dog. No sunlight. No decent food. It all took a toll.”
I pictured Tawny in my office, overwhelmed by a trench coat cinched at the waist.