The Night My Sister Went Missing

by Carol Plum-Ucci

  At a serious time like this, Crazy Addy was as welcome as having a tooth drilled. After Eddie Van Doren's suicide four years ago, the fact that she had predicted it had permeated the island like the stink of clams. Crazy Addy felt her prediction about Eddie Van Doren's suicide should have given her word more respect with the police, though it got her nothing. The cops rarely if ever followed up on her "visions," though she came to them every couple months or so, predicting some crime. Drew's dad had a lot of fun names for her: Chinese Water Torture, Crazy Migraine, etc.

  Well, here she was, waving her arms.

  "Captain, I have foreseen a death. Early this morning, it will come to pass if you don't listen to me. I can feel this girl's anguish! I have seen her injuries. But the police are looking for her in the wrong place. She is not in the water!"

  "Adeleena, she fell in the water, so we're looking in the water. Of course, we're hoping she made it to land, that she's fine, and doesn't realize—"

  "She is not fine! And she is not in the water! There is no blood, but her injuries are intense."

  "Kurt, come away from there." Drew pulled at my arm.

  "I want to hear."

  "All right, Adeleena." Lutz rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. "If you know so much, where is she?"

  "She moves. From place to place."

  "From where to where? And why? If you ever want some credibility around here, give us something—sometime—that we can use!"

  "She is in anguish. She doesn't know what she's doing"

  "Where?" he asked again.

  "There was sand under her feet, but now there is none. I saw her feet in the crystals!"

  He threw his pen down in annoyance. "The island's a pretty big place. And last time you came in here, weren't you ranting that there would be a robbery if we didn't—"

  "I can't tell you why the robbers didn't rob! They changed their minds!"

  "For pete's sake." He scratched his forehead, and I felt sorry for him. "Look. I've got a dozen potential witnesses to—"

  "I am not leaving until you listen to me. You won't listen? A girl dies!"

  He stood up. "If I hear you tell one kid on this island that you know the Carmody girl is alive and suffering, I will have you locked up for ... disturbing the peace!"

  "I cannot help what I see," she said. Her face was stirred up in some kind of anguish I didn't want to understand because I was creeped out enough. She added, "I cannot help what I am. You can thank the good Lord you are you. You are safe."

  After the door slammed shut behind her, Drew muttered, "Safe from what?"

  The word safe echoed inside my head, maybe because I wrote a whole blog last week called "Unsafe." And I hadn't known what I had meant. I'd just kept writing. "... feels unsafe to walk around a corner on this island. I feel like something's going to jump out at me. I feel unsafe when I look somebody in the eye, like they're going to pass some wacky judgment. The water feels unsafe, like it's crawling with sharks, or the back bay is crawling with toads..." It was definitely a weird post, but I got some cool responses from people who felt irrationally unsafe near everything from ponds and bogs to the bathrooms in school.

  I decided to chase after her, but suddenly Drew was holding me instead of pushing me.

  "If she says Casey's alive, I want to find out more!"

  "You're asking for trouble." But he trotted along beside me back up the hallway and out the front door. I broke into a mad dash for the back of the building. I heard tires screech and saw the taillights as Crazy Addy's green van took off up the street.

  I cursed, gripping my head, looking for sense.

  "Let's just go back inside and wait for some news," Drew said. "You are not going down on that beach. And you are not going to chase after Crazy Addy."

  I looked over and saw the lights from the beach and figured from the size of the glow, they must have a dozen spots on the water. I could hear a chopper in the distance but couldn't see it. I wondered how the hell far out at sea they were searching. It didn't sound good..."What did she say? Something about the officers were looking in the wrong place?"

  Drew answered quietly, "Yes. And, um, nobody's dead yet, but that will change near morning. I don't suppose after you heard that much, you'll be satisfied until we go have a look in the back bay..."

  We started toward the yacht club, which is where almost everyone we knew docks their boats.

  5

  "Casey!" A lone guy's voice floated over the water as we came around the side of the yacht club main building.

  Lines of boats rested quietly dockside of four floating docks. The water was mirrorlike. The storm at sea had moved farther east, toward England, or broken up south of Greenland. The wind surely had died, which meant the ocean water was next—if it hadn't calmed already. The guy's voice was clear in the silence, and the boats were unmoving, save one thirty-footer at the end. Its mast was gently bobbing.

  Drew and I ran down there to find Todd Barnes getting off the Sterns' thirty-foot sailboat. He reached a hand out. Stern.

  "Just us," Todd said, gesturing with disappointment at the bow, implying Casey was not inside.

  "Guess we weren't the only ones with ideas to look back here." Drew shuddered. "You guys didn't get your idea to search back here from Crazy Addy, did you?"

  "Hell no." Stern turned his chin to the masts for the sign of another one moving. "What's that warthog up to now? Don't tell me she's got something to say about all this."

  I just screamed, "Casey!" up to the half moon. "You are so not funny!"

  The silence that followed made me drop my face as I fought off the sudden feeling of spiraling. Three sets of bare feet moved around in awkwardness. Stern called out next.

  After he got no response he said, "We came back here just a few minutes ago. Because of the sweatshirt."

  I'd been afraid I might punch him out if I so much as glanced, but I looked full at him. His eyes had some hopeful glow. "They found her sweatshirt in the water."

  I stepped closer. "My sweatshirt? White? Huge? Says Naval Academy on it?"

  "Yeah. It washed up."

  Before I could interpret that, Barnes took hold of my shoulder. "Yeah. And it was in one piece and guess what else? Just with their flashlights, the coast guard couldn't see any traces of blood on it."

  "Well ... someone said she got shot in the neck," I forced myself to admit.

  Todd shook his head like it didn't matter. "And the sweatshirt wasn't all twisted up, like she might have drowned trying to get out of it. It looked like she just ... slipped out of it. Hopefully."

  Drew read my mind. "So if she didn't get hit by a bullet, what made her fall into the water?"

  "Well, here's the confusing part," Barnes said. "There was this little hole. Right about here." He pointed at his left shoulder.

  I fought off panic by searching my head for what that could have meant. A hole but no blood. "Maybe it, like ... just grazed her—like, scared her," I said. "Maybe she stumbled backward and just ... lost her footing. She's been diving the tower at the pool since seventh grade. She's long been bragging about trying a dive off that pier, though I can't believe she'd do it ... especially when the water was so choppy and fierce. Still ... as long as she wasn't injured badly, I think she could have caught herself in time to cut the water, rather than slam it."

  The three of them nodded in agreement, and I hoped it wasn't just to be polite.

  "Maybe the hole is a barnacle bite." Drew shrugged. Barnacles are a type of shellfish, and their shells attach in multilayers to pilings. In places like the pier, which has been around for a couple generations, the razor-sharp barnacle shells are three layers deep. If Casey had been thrown against barnacles by the surf, there would have been blood on my sweatshirt.

  The silence that followed was cut by Stern. "So then ... where is she?"

  Barnes shook his head. "One theory on the beach was that a riptide sucked her out, and she was too tired to swim back very quickly. Coast guard was looking for the
down-sea, but it's hard to find in the dark"

  The down-sea is an area usually about a mile and a half out in the water, where the riptides from the piers and jetties finally calm. They shift with the weather and the water's mood. The only way to tell where the down-seas are is to look for the start of swells toward shore and strange debris you wouldn't expect to see a mile and a half out—a surfboard, a flip-flop, a kayak oar. Funny tales have been told of things found in the down-sea by boaters, especially if the riptides are bad—everything from beach umbrellas to dog dishes. You just can't imagine how some of this stuff could find its way to the water's edge to get sucked out there.

  "If there had been any blood on your sweatshirt, Kurt, it was so little that it washed clean off before the forty minutes it took to catch a wave and roll in to shore," Barnes said. "They found it under the pier, which probably implies that she got out of it pretty close to shore. There's a northern undertow tonight. If she got out of it at the end of the pier, it probably would have washed up a couple blocks north."

  "So she is alive," Drew said under his breath, and nudged me. "Down-seas, my ass. We're gonna string her up by her toes when we catch her."

  I heaved a sigh, though not enough made sense yet. It looked like Casey was alive. But she was still missing, and someone had fired a gun at her, and I was tired of having no answers.

  "You should have heard, um, people ... swearing up and down that blood ran through her fingers and out her neck," I said, trying to ignore Drew knocking me in the ankle. He was probably nervous his dad could get in some trouble if word got out that we had been listening outside the questioning room. "Can seawater wash blood out of a sweatshirt?"

  "Dunno," Todd said.

  "Definitely not," Stern said. "It would definitely have been a little bit pink. I think..."

  Drew shook his head in disgust. "Jeezus, we're all lifeguards. You would think at least one of us would know if salt water could wash blood out of a sweatshirt. They'll analyze it if she doesn't show up soon."

  "For now all I can tell you is that the only blotches on it were seaweed. It had picked up some chunks under the pier. Your Naval Academy lettering looked pretty damn scary, like haunted-house lettering. But it was not bloody, dude."

  I thought of how appropriate that was, considering my sudden qualms about the place. The thought dissolved quickly as I watched the still masts of the fifty or more sailboats docked at the club. Not a single one moved. I couldn't decide whether to ask questions or leave things be. God knows I didn't need to end up in a shoving match with Stern. He ended the silence.

  "Stacy's nuts, man, buying a gun."

  So much for my self-control. "So what were you doing passing it around, numb nuts!"

  He stepped back as I stepped up to him. "Easy, Kurt. I did not accidentally pull the trigger, if you've got that idea in your head."

  "So who did?" I exploded again.

  Drew gripped my arm, blathering that she obviously wasn't at the club and we ought to leave. I'm sure he sensed what could come down, though I shook him off.

  "Who brought the damn thing to the pier?" I asked.

  "I did!" Stern blasted, but then lowered both his voice and his head. "But that doesn't mean I wanted to see it go off! I was over at Stacy's house earlier tonight, making small talk with the grandparents. Stacy's so rude to them these days, it's messed up. If I didn't stick my head in the door and sweet-talk them sometimes, I think they'd die of verbal abuse. It just ... happened. We were fooling around with it ... you know how these things are! She shouldn't have bought it in the first place."

  His explanations irritated the hell out of me. He lived about six doors down from the DeWinters, but somehow I didn't quite picture him as having the best interests of old people in his heart. I just glared.

  "I wasn't looking when it went off, man!" He held his arms out. "I had just walked away from Alisa after Stacy left us. I was gonna leave, being that I can only take so many hours of her right now. I was taking a leak in the ticket booth first and just wasn't looking."

  Barnes shook his head. "I didn't see it either, Kurt. Sorry."

  I just looked back at Stern. The skin on his face was jumping all over the place.

  "You look guilty," I muttered.

  "I ... feel guilty!" Mark stammered. "Casey was ... my girlfriend!"

  "What do you mean was?"

  I shoved him hard, and suddenly Todd and Drew were in between us, in the echoes of "Take it easy..." and "Not the time or place, man..." It was just the type of slip of the tongue you'd see cops jump on during episodes of CSI. If somebody describes a missing girlfriend in the past tense—he tried to kill her.

  Stern mewled, "I didn't mean it like that! I mean, she'll probably not want to go out with me anymore after I was passing that gun around and she took a hit! That's all!"

  I watched him squirm until I couldn't stand it. "We just found out that Stacy's pregnant."

  He nodded hard, like this was something he knew, though the words didn't follow quickly. "Right! So ... why would I shoot Casey? How does A relate to B?"

  I couldn't quite answer that, but I wasn't ready to leave it alone, either. "Stacy was in the ticket booth with you and ... put you up to it..."I stammered one thought.

  "Stacy drives a brand-new Audi, lives in a big-ass house with its own pool and tennis court! She would not be caught dead in our smelly ol' ticket booth," he said. "She'd explode first"

  "You were the last known person to have the gun," I argued.

  "I was not! One of Casey's friends had it, and the last I saw of it, the thing was being passed down the line. The moon went under when I had to take a leak. I have no idea where it is!"

  I kept watching him as he went on adamantly, "Besides. I might feel sorry for the old people she lives with, but I don't feel sorry for Stacy. Her mood swings could draw in the tide. Breaking up with her was the best thing I've ever done! If you think Stacy had it in for your sister, why throw me into the equation? Why don't you find Stacy and see if she pulled the trigger?"

  I didn't feel like looking for Stacy as well as my sister. I didn't feel like asking him what he was doing at Stacy's if he was going out with my sister. I was sure I'd get a runaround answer, so there was no point. "You don't sound very upset about being a father," I pointed out.

  Even in light of the dull moon, I could not miss the rise in his eyebrows. "Uh ... the kid is not mine"

  Typical.

  "Don't laugh, man! I'm telling you the truth!" He inched closer to me. "There is no way that kid could be mine!"

  I felt Drew watching him beside me, felt Drew almost smiling, same as I almost smiled. There's some sense of weird power in getting a polecat like Stern to say in front of three guys that he hadn't worked any magic on a girl. I didn't know if I believed him—I just wanted to watch him squirm.

  "So how do you know it's not yours?"

  "Look. We all know how her mother is. Stacy's been taking lessons, obviously."

  "So Stacy cheated on you," I singsonged. "With who?"

  "Hey, the boyfriend is always the last to know! But if I had ever done it with her, I would surely know that, wouldn't I?"

  Ahhh, gratification. A snort slid out of Drew's nostrils. But Stern's injured prowess must have been slightly less important than saving his neck, because he went on.

  "And no, we didn't 'almost' do it. Stacy always told me she was terrified of a pregnancy, good Catholic that she claimed to be. If she's so devout, couldn't the church clean up her wicked mouth? She's just afraid of being known as a side dish like her old lady, that's what. If she's really knocked up, it's somebody else's. Believe me," he stammered, "I tried. I wanted to. She kept saying no."

  I wondered why I hadn't put my foot down with Casey and said, "Anybody but him, you moron." Even if Stern didn't pull the trigger, he had been trying this mutt routine on my little sister and had been a big part of the gun flying around. If it wasn't for him, probably none of this would have happened.

  "So
... she was saying no to you, but yes to somebody else." I just couldn't help grinding him down to size.

  He just kept shaking his head and wouldn't look at me. "It's probably some guy from another island. She's probably hot to trot just like her mom. She's probably got some Joe down in Ship Bottom or Sea Isle. Maybe a bunch of Joes. She's seventeen-going-on-twenty-five, with a new Audi and a fake ID that looks so pristine, she could get into any fancy club she wanted to. And you know, for about the last month that we went out, I didn't know where she was half the nights."

  The comment was interesting enough that I wanted to hear what he meant.

  "I used to call her on her cell phone. She would tell me she was in the supermarket getting stuff for her mom, but I could hear all these voices in the background, and music, like a party. Guys' voices and stuff."

  Drew and I said nothing. Stern continued, "And one time she told me she was at home, and clearly, I could hear her brothers yelling at each other in the background. They don't even speak to Stacy's mom or her grandparents anymore, let alone go in that house. I knew she was lying to me, so I made up some excuse, said, 'I'll call you right back on the house phone.' She was like, 'No! Don't call on the house phone!' She knew she wasn't at her mom's. So I don't know why she's such a big liar, but she is. There you have it."

  I didn't know what we had. Being that Stacy's father was staying at the Ocean View—and being that her fa ther was a general embarrassment to her mom's family—maybe she was embarrassed to say that she got a twitch one night to go see her father and brothers. It made sense in a way.