The Exene Chronicles

Chapter 4

“Let’s go back for a moment to this Neil. You say he lives in Imperial Beach?” Lia had not imagined that the police made house calls. She’d envisioned a more chilling scene. She imagined being escorted into a sparse chamber with a metal table and chairs to be questioned for hours under a harsh light.

Propped between her parents on the sofa, she felt like a child. The officer’s skin was an odd combination of beige and orange tones from excessive parlor tanning. In his early forties, his flesh spread generously over his massive frame. All the while, as he sat on the sofa opposite the Payne family, Lia’s eyes kept drifting to his lavishly dense fingers. It seemed to her that they were fingers suffering from misuse. Hands not meant for pulling pistol triggers or handcuffing illegal aliens, but thick, soft tools better suited to more tactile pursuits, like kneading dough or chiseling the alphabet onto baby’s blocks.

For Lia, nothing the police officer said could redeem the situation from its patent absurdity. A meeting taken at the police station would have made the dilemma seem more real. As it was, Lia could only fume quietly, furious with Ryan for leaving her holding the bag, for getting her into trouble while she suddenly slipped behind a curtain of mystery. Perhaps it was normal for a girl, not yet fifteen, to approach the situation with a certain stubborn obtuseness, for in the sage retrospect of a few hours, Lia had come to realize the grim fears she’d felt after initially being told about Ryan were nothing but hyperbole, paranoia.

Hadn’t there been a kidnapping? A small child spirited away just the previous summer from the park just blocks away? No. Lia shook the thought from her head. It was totally different with little kids. Who would try and make off with Ryan? Ryan, who was mistaken in restaurants and shopping malls for a grown woman (department store clerks often asked if she wanted to establish a line of credit).

Lia also hadn’t thought that police officers, like secretaries, scribbled notes onto little blocks of paper. He looked absurd, perched on the edge of the sofa, his thighs nearly bursting like the Incredible Hulk’s through the close weft of his beige trousers.

“So, this Neil, you ever been over to his place with Ryan?”

“No.” Lia shook her head resolutely. The penetration of her parents’ eyes, both sets upon her, was both subtle and intense, so that their collective, boring gaze swelled to a thin murmur. Their unrelenting stares actually made a sound, like the low, throaty growl of some forest-dwelling rodent.

“You sure now?” The police officer gently nudged her toward a confession. Lacking even the slightest measure of Ryan’s defiance, Lia easily capitulated.

“Well, now that I think of it, I might have been there for a little while, but only one time for sure.”

Lia’s mother gasped and looked sharply at the officer. “You mean this man had these girls over to his house? Good lord. Officer, how old did you say he was?”

Lia wished she could stuff a wad of paper towels inside her mother’s throat. The officer had already said Neil was twenty-one. Yet turning to face Lia’s father, Greg, Dorothea Payne was still incredulous. “I can’t believe anyone so bold. A grown man keeping company with girls just out of middle school!”

Lia writhed in her spot, her mother’s words like knives, stabbing her repeatedly. By attacking Neil, her mother indirectly made her feel filthy. They’d only watched Starsky and Hutch and a rerun of Dallas and eaten tacos. That was all. Besides, he was Ryan’s boyfriend, not hers.

“Umm.” The police officer paused to mull over this fact. “Where did you, or Ryan, say you met this fellow, Neil?”

“I didn’t meet him anywhere. Ryan did!” Lia blurted her words at the officer angrily. She could feel the penetration of her mother’s eyes, glaring with the suggestion that Lia change her tone. She couldn’t win. Her mother suspected the worst, and yet Lia had to speak respectfully as the officer insinuated things with his probing questions.

“Okay, Lia, you’re doing great. I’ve just got one more question. This may be a little uncomfortable for you, but it’s important.”

Here, the officer paused to moisten his lips with a rapid flick of his tongue. Lia couldn’t be certain of what the officer would ask next, but she had an idea and thus could feel herself cringing as he began to speak.

“Did Neil ever touch you, or speak to you in a s****l way? Did he ever try to coax you into any sort of s****l act, either he or any of his friends?”

This time, it may have been Lia who gasped audibly, or at least she thought she had. Never had she been so humiliated. Her parents at either side stared silently, impatiently awaiting her answer.

“No! Never!” This time, she felt her impertinent tone completely justified and didn’t care whether her mother liked it or not. Lia refused to lift her gaze to entertain her mother’s possible glare, or worse yet, an irritating look of relief spread across her face.

“You sure now? There’s nothing to be embarrassed about if he tried anything. It wouldn’t be your fault…” With the officer adding to her humiliation with every syllable he uttered, Lia spoke no words and only responded with a firm look that said she had nothing more to offer on the subject.

“All righty.” The officer stood in a surprisingly agile motion. “With these types of situations, the first week or so is crucial. I hate to be the one to sound grim, but beyond that, it might be weeks or months before we ever figure out what’s happened. Anyway, here’s my card.” The officer bent to look Lia in the eye and offer her a plastic smile. “Please give me a call if you think of any new information that might help us locate your friend, okay?”

Lia—perched on the sofa tearing tissue in her hands, still shaken by the officer’s questions and angry that Ryan had abandoned her—felt winded, as though someone had taken a fist to her stomach. She watched, though, as her father thanked the officer for his time and extended his large brown hand for a handshake. It seemed the officer, who had been quite patient and friendly in questioning her, grasped her father’s hand with reluctance.

At the open front door, the officer halted, and as he turned toward Greg Payne, Lia thought sure that his once open and friendly face had become clouded with an intense look, of fear or malevolence perhaps, and she couldn’t be certain if he was just shielding his eyes from a stream of sunlight angling through the door or what, because for some reason his expression had changed, his eyes narrowed down to thin slots where one might fit a coin.

“So, you folks own or rent?” The officer blocked the doorway, unwilling to move until his question was answered.

“Beg pardon?” Lia could see her father’s jaw harden, taking on the telltale clench that suggested his irritation.

“Just curious how long you folks have been here.”

“About two years now.” Lia noted that her father strained to keep his upbeat tone.

“Two years, eh? How long do you plan to stay?”

Lia couldn’t understand what was happening. The faint shifts in the atmosphere of the Payne living room were real, yet surreal at the same time. She was surprised that the same officer now sounded rude, like one of those surfers who came to class stoned without as much as a notebook and was quick to smart off to the teacher.

“Well, I don’t know. I’d say we’re pretty happy, pretty well settled right now.” Lia noticed that her father spoke loudly, in a formal tone. It was the voice he reserved for important telephone calls and tactful quarrels with restaurant managers when there was some discrepancy with the bill.

To Greg Payne’s reply, the officer only snorted with open incredulity as he carried his hulking frame down the porch steps.

Lia worried about the possibility of further proceedings, if in time she’d be asked to testify under oath or take a lie detector test. She felt burdened by the woe of unspoken truths, for when asked about Neil’s friends, she’d purposefully neglected to mention the sailor Keith, a man (Had he been twenty-one or twenty-two? She couldn’t remember.) whom she’d kissed, and who she wished was available to spirit her away just as Neil had taken off in his Camaro with Ryan on so many balmy summer nights.

It seemed to Lia that if they’d only stop wasting time with questioning and talk, they’d find Ryan watching television at the condo at The Cays with Neil or sprawled out beside him on those white patio chairs next to the pool, lulled to sleep by the heat of the afternoon sun.