The Fall of Never(26)

Kelly shrugged. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me. She’s a little girl.”

“Most young girls keep journals,” Raintree agreed. “Nothing unusual about that.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “You kept one? As a little girl?”

“I might have. I don’t remember.”

“My daughter keeps one,” Sturgess added from nowhere.

“When was the last time you spoke with your sister, Miss Kellow?”

“It’s Rich,” she said and saw her mother glance at her, perplexed.

“Beg pardon?” Raintree too looked a bit confused.

“Kelly Rich. I was married.”

“Oh,” Raintree said, eyebrows arching.

Her mother’s features, on the other hand, did not change at all—she merely continued to stare at her daughter, almost to the point where Kelly was certain her eyeballs were going to roll right out of their sockets. “Married,” she said with cold absence. “Well, now…”

“Mrs. Rich,” Raintree continued. “Can you recall the last time you spoke with Becky?”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What makes you think I spoke with Becky?” She coughed up a dry laugh. “I regret it—really, I do—but I haven’t spoken with my sister since I moved away from home. Years ago. And she was really just a baby.”

The two detectives exchanged a look. Her mother was still looking at her; Kelly could see her stare from the corner of her eye, hard and pressing. It wasn’t a particularly angry stare, she noted; rather, it was the sort of look a circus clown might elicit from a small, mentally underdeveloped child: quizzical uncertainty. Almost a dumb look, a stupid look, a look that showed not even a single trace of comprehension.

“Years ago?” Raintree said.

“That’s correct.”

“We were under the impression…” Sturgess began.

“Yes,” Raintree interjected, “the impression…”

“Don’t lie to these men, Kelly,” her mother snapped. “Mrs. Rich.”

“Why would I lie?” Then to Raintree: “I’m a bit confused here…”

Raintree chuckled nervously, like someone under intense interrogation. “Well, now, I guess we’re all a bit confused at this point. Understand that we’re in no way insinuating that you had anything to do with what happened to your sister, so there is really no need to hide any information—”

“Hide information?” She stood up. “Why would I hide anything? And why would I assume you’re here to interrogate me, anyway?”

“It’s not that,” Sturgess said. He put a hand out to Kelly, touched her right wrist, beckoning her to sit back down.

“Cooperate, Kelly,” her mother said.

“Kelly,” continued Raintree, “your sister mentions speaking with you on practically a regular basis in her diary. For the past several months, really. Now, according to Mr. Kildare, Becky never made any phone calls from the house to your apartment. The phone records would show if she had, and they don’t. So she’d either been receiving calls from you to her direct phone line or, perhaps, through the mail. Through letters?”

“Are you serious? Her diary says this?”

Raintree shook his head. It was a perfunctory gesture, executed without thinking: a turn to the left, a turn to the right, return to center. “Not really, no.”

“She doesn’t come right out and say who called whom,” Sturgess clarified. He had folded his small hands in his lap, pressed against his large gut.

“But she makes mention of you several times. Mentions speaking with you, mentions discussing things with you.”

“It’s just my name? Couldn’t it be someone else named Kelly?”

“Stop it,” her mother nearly scolded. “You’re ashamed of this place, of your father and I, but don’t you start lying to the detriment of your sister.”

She shot her mother a poison stare. “You’ve got some nerve.”

“You know it’s true. And don’t think I don’t see it. You have your hang-ups, I don’t care. But don’t think for one second that I will allow your lies in—”

“I’m not lying,” she insisted. “Why the hell would I lie about that? If I’d been talking with Becky—and I wish I had kept in touch—then I’d say so. There’s nothing for me to lie about. That’s ridiculous.”

“There are several passages where your sister has not just mentioned your name, Kelly,” said Raintree, “but where she has mentioned you as her sister, too.”

Quietly, almost to herself, Marlene muttered, “Becky has no friends. Not here, not at school.”

“That can’t be. I haven’t spoken to her since I left Spires. She was just a little kid.”

“So you have no knowledge of any boys she might have been interested in?” Sturgess said. “You wouldn’t know if, say, she had a crush on some young fellow from town?”

“There are no young fellows from town,” Marlene said. “This was some stranger.”

“No,” Kelly said.

“Or no boy that might have had some interest in her?” Raintree added.