Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [43]
“We’re going down to the river … because we have something to do there. Mommy has been bad—very, very bad, and you remember I told you what happens to bad women? Do you? Well, that’s right—that’s why we have to take her to the river.”
She must have done something so awful to make Daddy so angry. I wonder what it was. Maybe she tried to cut off his pecker and make him like a girl, so he had to stop her. I would have to stop someone if they tried to do that to me. I
would have to, because I’m just like Daddy. That’s what he always tells me: you’re my little man, just like me.
He bent down to pick up the heavy object, a dead weight inside the black plastic tarp. He remembered worrying that if they left the tarp down at the river, they would have to find something else to cover the tractor so it didn’t get wet in the rain.
That night, lying in bed, he heard a freight train passing in the night. Its horn blared a harsh chord, mournful and plaintive and lonely. The whistle rose in pitch as it approached, then descended as the train sped by, the Doppler shift creating a feeling of mystery and loss. The wheels clanked and screeched sharply; he could picture the sparks flying as the train rounded the bend, metal grinding on metal. He imagined the engineer at his post, peering into the blackness as the mechanical beast churned through the night, spewing smoke and ash as it clattered through towns and fields and woods. He wished more than anything to be on that train, hurtling blindly into the night, alone with his thoughts, his future unfolding before him as smoothly and inevitably as railroad tracks.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“No, I will not calm down until you explain to me what is going on!”
Elena Krieger was angry, and when she was angry, the world knew about it. By the time Lee and Butts showed up at Chuck’s office, she had worked herself into a state and wasn’t going to work herself out of it until everyone around her had a piece of her mind. Judging by the string of expletives she let loose, there were plenty of pieces to go around.
“Nothing’s going on,” Chuck explained patiently. “We tried to get hold of you yesterday, but we couldn’t, so we met anyway.”
Krieger threw her arms in the air and paced the small office. The men kept well out of her way—Lee and Butts hugging the wall on either side of the door, Chuck behind his desk. She was wearing a tight-fitting gray suit with a military cut, and as she harangued them, her long arms sliced the air like swords.
“You just happened to have a meeting when I was having my peer-review board, so that’s what you are claiming?”
“We didn’t know about your peer review,” Chuck said. “How could we? You didn’t say anything about it.”
“It was easy enough to find out,” she said, apparently determined to wring every last bit of drama out of this. “Is it because I’m a woman?” she demanded, looking at each of them in turn, as if daring them to answer yes.
Not so much, Lee wanted to say. Krieger was exuding more testosterone than the three of them put together.
“You know,” she said, “I didn’t ask to be on this investigation, but now that I am, you had better make me part of this team or there will be hell to pay, I can assure you!”
Chuck looked like he’d had about enough of this. His face was already the shade of overcooked salmon, and his hands were clenched in fists at his side. Lee decided it was his turn to take some of the heat.
“Look,” he said, “it was an honest mistake, but I think we can avoid this happening again if we just touch base by phone or e-mail with each other every morning, and maybe again in the early afternoon. That way, if there are any more last-minute meetings, at least we’ll have a system in place.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but the reasonableness of his suggestion and his soothing tone of voice took the wind out of her sails. All she could do was make some sputtering sounds before collapsing into