Beneath Devil's Bridge(31)

I hang up my jacket. There are dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. I see only one plate, one set of utensils.

“What did you guys have for dinner?”

He glances over his shoulder. From the flush on his face it’s obvious he’s had a few. “Leftovers, like you suggested when you called.”

“Just you?”

“Mads called to say she was going to be late.”

“Where is she?”

“Beth’s—she said something about working on a project.” He turns back to the game as one of the teams scores. He whoops, pumps his fist in the air, then takes another swig from his bottle.

A bolt of irritation slides through me.

Thanks, honey, yes, my day was rough. Thank you for asking about the autopsy. You knew how anxious I was about attending the postmortem of a girl the same age as our daughter. Her classmate. Talking to her parents. The investigation into a local child’s sexual assault and her beating and drowning is heavy going, thank you. You know how hard I’m working to prove I can fill my dad’s shoes down the road, how he told me before he died that it was his fervent wish for me to become chief.

But I’m partly to blame for Jake’s indifference. I’ve helped cultivate this distance between Jake and myself because I often work cases that I can’t really talk about. Especially in a small town like this. Sometimes, after a rough day, I also just want to sit and have a drink, and be silent, and process. Or watch some mind-numbing show while my body and brain take a breather. Sometimes—especially when I’m tired—the weight of my father’s ambition for me feels too onerous, as though he’s set the bar too high, and I struggle with what I perceive as resentment among some at the PD.

I open the fridge, grab a bottle of white wine. I pour a glass, take a deep sip, then another. The warmth through my chest is a relief. I top up my drink, put the bottle back into the fridge, and make for the stairs.

“I’m going to run a bath,” I call to Jake.

“Yeah.” Another score. Another whoop. I’m not sure which is better. His ignoring me or the affair he had a few months back. My husband says he has stopped seeing the other woman, but it seems he’s replaced his vice with beer and TV, and it feels like he’s punishing me for having called him out for sleeping with someone else.

Upstairs, I use the phone in the bedroom to call Eileen Galloway. Beth’s mother is a purchasing manager for the Twin Falls hospital. We’re also mountain-biking buddies. I take another sip of wine as Eileen picks up.

“Eileen, hi, it’s Rachel. Is Maddy at your place?”

“No. Beth is alone, upstairs studying.”

I hesitate. But then I think of Sarah Chan’s parting jab.

What about your daughter, Rachel? Did she come home that night? . . . Or did she lie to you, too?

“Listen, did Maddy sleep over at your place on the Friday night of the Ullr bonfire?”

“I . . . Beth told me she slept at your house.”

“Okay. I . . . Thanks. I was just wondering.”

“Rache, is . . . is this about . . . the Leena thing? Is everything okay? I’m so worried. Is it . . . Was she murdered? Or did she fall in drunk or something?”

I close my eyes, see the body floating. Velvet hair. An Ophelia in the black water. Leena being rolled over. The gut punch at seeing her bludgeoned face. I hear the wishful thinking in Eileen’s question. No one wants to think there is a killer in our town. I reach for my drink, take another deep slug, and say, “It’s a suspicious death, yes. We’ve brought in a guy with experience in homicide. We’re working on finding who did this. And . . . I’m guessing at this point no kid went home from the bonfire. It seems from the debris left behind that some of them might have camped out there overnight, and no one’s telling the truth about where they were.”

“So it’s definite that she was murdered?”

“It’s an active homicide investigation. And . . . I really can’t talk more about the case.”

A beat of silence.

“Are you . . . Do you need me to help you find Maddy?” Eileen asks.

“She’s probably at the library or something. I’ll give her another hour.” But we both know the library is closed at this time.

I hang up. Disquiet threads through me. Rain ticks and splats against the window. It sounds as though it’s turning to sleet. I swallow the rest of my drink, set the glass down, and make for Maddy’s room.

I hesitate at the closed door, my hand on the doorknob. The noise from the hockey game downstairs is loud. I hear no movement on the stairs. I inhale, open the door, click on the light, and enter my daughter’s bedroom. I shut the door quietly behind me. I pause, absorbing the little-girl things Maddy still has in her possession. The teddy bear on her bed. The large, frilly pillow she got one Christmas years ago. A soft yellow blanket she can’t part with. My heart squeezes. No matter how much we pretend otherwise—mothers, daughters, grandmothers—there is always a part of us deep down inside that remains the little girl we once were. Whether we are fifteen or forty or eighty, that little person still lurks beneath everything we do, or think, or try to become, or fight against. She’s always there. My pain for Pratima Rai is suddenly acute. It steals my breath. My eyes prick with emotion. I know that emotion is partly generated by fatigue, and the wine. But God, what I’d do if that body had been Maddy’s . . .