Beneath Devil's Bridge(18)

“Why, why?” laments Pratima. “Why my Leena . . . How could anyone do this . . .” She begins to rock back and forth. A moaning sound starts low in her throat. Animal. Raw. I feel a visceral response in my own body to her maternal reaction. I don’t know what I’d do if it had been my baby girl, my teen, my Maddy. I glance at the framed photos on the mantel. Family groupings. A cute picture of Leena’s six-year-old brother, Ganesh, in a canoe. One of Leena herself. Gazing at the camera with a belligerent expression. Her complexion is darker than her mother’s or father’s. Her black eyes are set close, on either side of a large nose that seems to dominate her face. A mole marks her chin.

Pratima’s gaze follows mine. Tears slide silently down her cheeks. And I feel her unspoken words.

We should have watched over her better, been more strict, more careful.

I also feel a wash of guilt at my relief that it’s not my child in that morgue. Because it could have happened to Maddy just as easily. Or to any of the girls in town.

I clear my throat.

“Would it be okay if we ask you some more questions? It will help with our investigation.”

“You will find who did this,” Jaswinder says. It’s not a question. I meet his fierce gaze.

“Yes. We will. I promise.”

Luke shifts in his chair, and I sense admonishment. He probably would not have made a promise he might not be able to deliver on. But what else can I tell these parents? “We’ll do everything in our power to get justice for Leena,” I say as I remove two photos from the folder on my lap. I set them on the coffee table and turn them to face the Rais.

They are glossy images of the silt-covered cargo pants and panties that the divers found near the body.

Leena’s mother makes a choking sound. She nods. “Yes, yes, those are Leena’s. The underwear . . . Fruit of the Loom. From Walmart. They . . . they come in a three-pack. I . . .” Her voice breaks on a sob.

“Yes,” says Jaswinder, taking over from his wife. “And those camouflage pants, Leena wore those nearly all the time. She liked the pockets on the sides.”

“Can you confirm which jacket Leena was wearing when you last saw your daughter?”

We have not yet located the jacket that everyone claims to have seen Leena wearing at the bonfire. The divers did not find it in the river, and the crime techs and search parties did not locate it along the banks of the Wuyakan.

“It was a big khaki-colored jacket,” says Jaswinder. “They call them military surplus jackets. Lots of zips and pockets, and some kind of numbering on the front pocket. It wasn’t Leena’s. When I asked her about it, she told us she’d borrowed it.”

“From who?” asks Luke.

“She just said a friend,” says Pratima, reaching for a tissue from the box on the table.

“A male’s jacket?” I ask.

“I would say it was definitely a guy’s jacket,” Pratima says. “It was too big for Leena, and she isn’t—wasn’t—a petite girl. She was always dieting, trying to be smaller. She . . . she’d lost some weight, and she was so proud . . .” Tears pour afresh down Pratima’s cheeks. She swipes at them with the tissue.

“Did Leena have a boyfriend?” I ask.

“No,” Jaswinder says immediately. Firmly.

My gaze ticks to his. “Any boys she was interested in, perhaps?”

“No.”

I nod. “We found some journal pages in the water near Leena, and a small address book that was inside the left thigh pocket of Leena’s cargo pants.” I place more photos on the table, showing the wet pages and the address book, both open and closed. The address book is slim, and it has a pale-blue plastic cover. “This book was wet, like the journal pages, but the lab is working on drying it all out so that we can preserve the contents and ink as much as possible.”

Her mother leans forward and picks up the photo of the wet journal pages. “That’s Leena’s writing. Yes.” She passes the image to her husband and reaches for the photo of the address book.

“This is not Leena’s. I’ve never seen this book.”

“Are you certain?” asks Luke.

She nods.

“Any idea who it might belong to, then?” I ask.

A strange look enters Pratima’s eyes. She hesitates, then shakes her head. “No.”

“It contains phone numbers of some of the kids in Leena’s grade,” I offer.

“It’s not hers.”

I regard Pratima for a moment. She’s holding something back. I glance at Jaswinder. His gaze is locked on me. Beneath their grief, I sense another kind of mounting tension. It prickles my curiosity.

I say, “You’ve already identified the key that was found in her backpack. Her wallet. And the Nike sneakers. Have you come up with any ideas who the book of poems could belong to, or what the initials A. C. might stand for?”

“No,” Jaswinder says. “But Leena borrowed books. She was doing a higher grade in English literary studies. She was seeing a tutor. He sometimes loaned her books. And so did some of the other teachers at school.”

“And her cousin, Darsh,” says Pratima. “He lends Leena books.”

“Not poetry books,” says Jaswinder. “Darsh doesn’t read poetry. He reads popular novels.”