She stared at suitcases and a trunk in a corner and cleared her throat “She’s so organized. I suppose she gets this from me.”
Smiling nervously, she added, “If I am nothing else, I am organized.”
I remembered Deborah’s Jeep. It was immaculate inside and out, luggage and other belongings arranged with deliberation.
“She takes wonderful care of her belongings,” Mrs. Harvey went on, moving to the window “I often worried that we indulged her too much. Her clothes, her car, money. Bob and I have had many discussions on the subject. It’s difficult with my being in Washington. But when I was appointed last year, we decided, all of us did, that it was too much to uproot the family, and Bob’s business is here. Easier if I took the apartment, came home on weekends when I could. Waited to see what would happen with the next election.”
After a long pause, she went on. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I’ve never been very good at saying no to Debbie. It’s difficult to be sensible when you want the best for your children. Especially when you remember your desires when you were their age, your insecurities about the way you dressed, your physical appearance. When you knew your parents couldn’t afford a dermatologist, an orthodontist, a plastic surgeon. We have tried to exercise moderation.”
She crossed her arms at her waist “Sometimes I’m not so sure we made the right choices. Her Jeep, for example. I was opposed to her having a car, but I didn’t have the energy to argue.
Typically, she was practical, wanting something safe that would get her around in any kind of weather.”
Hesitantly, I inquired, “When you mention a plastic surgeon are you referring to something specific concerning your daughter?”
“Large breasts are incomparable with gymnastics, Dr. Scarpetta,” she said, not turning around. “By the time Debbie was sixteen she was over endowed. Not only was this rather embarrassing to her, but it interfered with her sport. The problem was taken care of last year.”
“Then this photograph is recent,” I said, for the Deborah I was looking at was an elegant sculpture of perfectly formed muscle, breasts and buttocks firm and small.
“It was taken last April in California.”
When a person is missing and possibly dead, it is not uncommon for people like me to be interested in anatomical detail – whether it be a hysterectomy, a root canal, or scars from plastic surgery – that might assist in the identification of the body. They were the descriptions I reviewed in NCIC missing person forms. They were the mundane and very human features that I depended on, because jewelry and other personal effects, I had learned over the years, can’t always be trusted.
“What I’ve just told you must never go outside this room,” Mrs. Harvey said. “Debbie is very private. My family is very private.”
“I understand.”
“Her relationship with Fred,” she continued. “It was private. Too private. As I’m sure you’ve noted, there are no photographs, no visible symbols of it. I have no doubt they have exchanged pictures, gifts, mementos. But she has always been secretive about them. Her birthday was last February-for example. I noticed shortly after that she was wearing a gold ring on the pinky of her right hand. A narrow band with a floral design. She never said a word, nor did I ask. But I’m sure it was from him.”
“Do you consider him a stable young man?”
Turning around, she faced me, eyes dark and distracted. “Fred is very intense, somewhat obsessive. But I can’t say that he’s unstable. I really can’t complain about him. I simply have worried that the relationship is too serious, too…”
She looked away, groping for the right word. “Addictive. That’s what comes to mind. It’s as if they are each other’s drug.”
Shutting her eyes, she turned away again and leaned her head against the window. “Oh, God. I wish we’d never bought her that goddam Jeep.”
I did not comment.
“Fred doesn’t have a car. She would have had no choice…”
Her voice trailed off.
“She would have had no choice,” I said, “but to drive with you to the beach.”