Chapter 19
Peter stepped past Ellie and into the ransacked office. She was pointing to a cassette-tape case on the floor by the wall. Peter knelt and took a closer look. The clear plastic case was empty. It was also cracked. Above it, at shoulder height, was a small triangular divot in the plaster.
Peter licked his fingertip and pressed it to the divot.
When he pulled it away, loose grains of plaster were stuck to his skin.
He put his nose to the wall and sniffed.
Renovating houses, Peter had torn out a great deal of old plaster.
It had a distinctive smell when you first broke it open, like wet concrete and dust bunnies.
The smell didn’t last long. He was pretty sure the divot was fresh.
The person he’d chased had been wearing gloves, so Peter didn’t think he’d left any prints, but he took a tissue from the box, then carefully picked up the case, checking the corners.
A little paint still clung to one. It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened.
Someone had thrown the case against the wall, cracking it.
Ellie stepped closer and peered at it. “What is that thing?”
If the searcher had found what he was looking for, would he have thrown the case against the wall? Peter didn’t think so. He’d have kept the tape in the case and taken it with him. Which meant the case had been empty already. Which meant the tape might be somewhere in the house.
“You haven’t seen this before?”
“Never,” she said. “I don’t even know what it is.”
“It was designed to hold a cassette tape. An antique form of media storage. It made music truly portable for the first time. You could make copies of albums you liked, even make mixtapes for your friends.”
As a teenager, Peter had run a lot of miles on the gravel roads outside of Bayfield, listening to Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson on his dad’s ancient Walkman. That was almost twenty-five years ago, and it was old technology even then.
“Like an iPod, but, like, primitive?”
“Exactly. Except the tape needed a player, something you’d put the cassette in.
It might be big, it might be almost as small as the tape itself.
” He glanced around the office, checked drawers and shelves, finding nothing.
He turned to Ellie. “Can you think of anything in the house that might be able to play this thing?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “Why would she even have something like this?”
“Good question.” He thought a moment. “Does your mom have a box of old electronics somewhere?”
She blinked. “In the basement? The graveyard of technology. That’s what my mom calls it.”
He noticed she was still referring to her mother in the present tense, as if she were still alive. Which made him realize he was doing the same thing.
He tucked the plastic case in his jacket pocket and resettled the revolver in his waistband. “Lead the way, kiddo.”
—
The basement stairs were steep enough that Peter had to duck to make it down without banging his head.
When Ellie flipped on the lights at the bottom, he saw a cramped space with a cracked concrete floor and exposed floor joists above.
An oversized dehumidifier hummed softly in the center, keeping the space dry.
The walls were lined with mismatched metal shelving units.
The shelves were full. Everything appeared to be neatly organized.
Two entire shelf units held cardboard boxes filled with reporter’s notebooks, labeled by the dates covered.
They went back thirty years. Two longer units had rows of ancient desktop towers and round old monitors.
Then clunky laptops not much smaller than a portable typewriter.
The laptops got progressively newer and smaller until the last few looked like something you’d buy today.
Everything was clean and free of dust. Not a technology graveyard, Peter thought. More like a museum.
“I don’t see any music players,” he said.
“Over here.” Ellie yanked a pull-chain, lighting a bare bulb in an old porcelain fixture, then led him past the furnace and water heater toward the front of the house.
On the far side, under the living room, was a worn-out throw rug, a tattered wingback chair under a tarnished reading lamp, and set of makeshift shelves made from planks and cinder blocks.
Like a dorm room, Peter thought. Maybe a reminder of KT’s younger days.
On the top shelf was a stereo receiver, turntable, and speakers.
Each component was probably older than Peter, but he knew Harman Kardon was high-end stuff.
A row of vintage vinyl filled the shelf below, except for one section that held a cassette player Peter recognized from his dad’s old setup.
Expensive modern headphones were plugged into the jack.
“Sometimes she comes down here to listen to her records,” Ellie said. “She says there isn’t really room for all this stuff upstairs. But I think she just likes to be down here by herself every once in a while.”
Peter crouched by the cassette player and peered through the little window.
There was a tape inside. He hit the eject button and gingerly pulled it out.
KT had either rewound it, or she hadn’t listened to it yet.
On one side, there was a small label. In the precise numerals of an engineer, someone had written a date. Two months before.
KT had gotten the threat letter yesterday. June said KT had gotten hate mail before. If that’s what this recording was, Ellie didn’t need to hear it.
He dropped the tape back into the player, then picked up the headphones. “I’ll listen to it first,” he said. “In case it’s something ugly.”
She put her fists on her hips. “You think I can’t handle it?”
He kept his voice calm and gentle. “I think you’re handling a lot already, kiddo.”
“My mom’s fucking dead, meatball.” Her face was turning red again. “How much worse can it be?”
He was having trouble with the speed of her emotional pivots. Earlier that day, she’d been scared to be alone. Now she wanted to run the show. “Ellie, please. I’m trying to protect you.”
“Really? Like you protected my mom yesterday?” Her eyes were bright and welling with tears. “Fuck that. It’s my life. I get to decide.”
He had no idea how to respond to that. Clearly Carlotta was right, he was not equipped to deal with a thirteen-year-old girl in crisis. Before he could come up with anything, she reached past him and hit the play button, then yanked the headphone plug from the socket.
The first sound was the hiss of the tape. It was strange and sibilant and very different from the digital deadness of modern media. It sounded old. Or maybe it was a recording of a recording.
Then came a voice.