The Last Place

She smiled at her own folly, then remembered these were real women, real victims, and regretted her black humor. A coping device, one used by reporters and cops alike. She often thought Jonathan would have a lot of fu

“Do you have any idea,” Dr. Armistead asked, “how much happens in your face in the span of a few seconds?”

“No.” She always imagined she had a poker face, but perhaps that was only when she was playing poker.

“If your feelings-sorry I keep returning to that topic, but it is what I do-if your feelings were any clearer, you’d be a danger to yourself.”

“I guess I’ll have to work on it.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.” He smiled, as if he had won a point, although Tess wasn’t sure of the game they were playing. Continual one-upmanship? “I’ll waive the fee for the missed appointment this one time, given that you rescheduled so promptly. But don’t let it happen again. If it’s a true emergency-and we’ll have to reach a mutual understanding about what constitutes an emergency-we’ll work it out.”

“What about the terms of my probation? Do I get reported to Judge Halsey if I miss a session?”

“Not this time. But if it were to become a pattern-” Dr. Armistead did not need to finish this congenial threat. He wrote the time and date of their next appointment on a small card and handed it to her. “I’ll also have my secretary leave a message on your voice mail the day before, just to nudge your memory.”

“Why not? The dentist does.”

“And, as I keep trying to convince you, I’m a doctor like any other.”

His voice was soft, persuasive. If she didn’t have to look at him, Tess thought, she might like him better. It was such a nice voice, deep and rumbly. A doctor like any other. Yeah, sure. Frankly, she’d rather have leeches applied to her body.

“Can you tell what I’m thinking?” she demanded of Carl, when she arrived at the state police barracks twenty minutes later.

The question seemed to make him irritable. “I barely know you. If I’m doing something that bugs you, just say it right out. I can’t stand the way women hint about stuff.”

“No, I mean in general. Does the expression on my face betray what’s going on in my head?”

“That’s a lot to put on any face. I’m not sure that a mouth and one set of eyes could convey everything that goes on in there.” He tapped his own ginger thatch of hair. “For example-I never saw that question coming, and I have no idea why you asked it.”

“Good. Now, what happened while I was gone? Any calls come in?”

“None that mattered.” Carl looked around, as if he expected someone was eavesdropping. “Close the door.”

The state police had given Tess and Carl a makeshift office in a corridor that was en route to, but rather distant from, where the real investigation was under way. Tess thought it might be a mark of respect. Carl was convinced it was a way of keeping tabs on them.

One theory, Tess decided, didn’t rule out the other. She glanced into the corridor and, seeing no one, shut the door.

“Officially,” Carl said, “I’ve been ma

“Why? Did you say what kind of doctor’s appointment?”

“You ashamed of being in anger management?” Carl looked genuinely curious.

“No, but-it’s private.”

“Well, I told him you were at the podiatrist. Sounds like psychiatrist, you know. Head doctor, foot doctor-how would a dumb country boy know the difference?”

Tess gave him a crooked grateful grin. “So did the tip line yield anything?”

“Mainly crackpots. But what do you expect when you put up fake MISSING PERSON signs in convenience stores?”

“You expect-hope, pray-that someone’s going to see Alan Palmer’s photo and say, ”Hey, I know that guy and he’s definitely not missing.“ ”

The state police had thought the plan through, in Tess’s opinion. Palmer’s family, which had been questioned at length about their son’s associates, had been told not to worry when the signs went up. The idea was to tease out a local woman who may have had a near-miss with the man. And if the man himself saw it? The poster was designed to appear as if it had been made and distributed by one of Lucy Fancher’s nonexistent relatives, for it intimated that they had information about her estate that would be relevant to Alan Palmer. The call even had a fake Cecil County prefix, which was set up to ring in this office.

“What about Becca Harrison?”

“I can’t find a trace of anyone with that name. But women get married, change their names. Women are hard to find.”

“And her father?”

“A Harold ”Harry‘ Harrison with an appropriate date of birth died thirteen years ago, according to the Social Security database. Last known address was upstate New York. If he ever did write a book, I can’t find it, not on Amazon.“

“My guess is that Harry Harrison’s work, assuming it ever existed, is long out of print.”

“What about the high school yearbook? Did that yield anything?”

They looked at the copy of the Crisfield Courier, the usual slender volume, bound in green, a gold seal stamped on its front. They had found it in the Crisfield library. It was a noncirculating reference book, but it had been easy enough to pilfer it. Tess pla

“It’s too easy for people to disappear these days,” Tess said. “We think we have all these tools, but if you really want to vanish it can be done.”

“Well, Becca did it in the good old days. Turns out Harry Harrison did file a missing persons report with Talbot County, which patrols Notting Island.”

“You tease! Where’d you get that?”

Carl patted the side of the old IBM clone they had been given. “There’s more software on here than you know. You just have to know how to use it. And I do. It was April, around fifteen years ago.”

“A few months after Eric Shivers died.”

“Yep. Her father told police he thought she might have gone swimming.”

“Swimming in April?”

Carl nodded. “I know. Pretty cold in the bay that time of year. Besides, it’s hard for the bay not to let go of a body. Eventually.”

“So, Becca disappears two months shy of her high school graduation-and, coincidentally, a few months after Eric Shivers dies. Her father files a missing persons report, but people on Notting Island think she’s gone off to become a singer or an actress. Her dad moves away not long after. Is he heartbroken or covering up? Does he think his daughter drowned or ran away? We can’t ask him, and we already tried to ask everyone we could find on Notting Island.”

Tess sometimes liked to sit very still when thinking. Carl, on the other hand, rocked in his chair, teetering wildly until she was tempted to kick the legs out from under him. Maybe she did have a problem with impulse control. Instead, she got up and opened the door. Closed doors invited suspicion.

“You think they got anything new, after talking to the Guntses and the Palmers?” Carl jerked his chin toward the open door, indicating the world of official police just beyond their threshold.

“Possibly.”

“You think they’ll tell us when they do?”

“Probably not.” Tess gri

As if to prove her point, Sergeant Craig rushed by, eyes averted, as if he was worried they would try to engage him.

Carl rubbed his knee. “Weather’s going to change.”

“You feel the weather changing in your bum knee?”

He shrugged, as if it baffled him too.

“Look, I’m hungry. Want to blow this pop stand and get some lunch?”

“You know I only eat at the end of the day.”