Little Girl Lost

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  The word has triggered something in her. She shakes her head rapidly and steps between Barnes and the boy, casting a nervous glance toward the street. “Not here.”

  “That’s all right, I just need . . .” He pauses, unnerved by the distress in her wide-set blue eyes. “Is everything all right, ma’am?”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Who sent me? No one sent me, I just . . .” He reaches into his pocket, wanting to reassure her, but succeeds only in terrifying her further.

  She cries out—then sees the badge in his hand.

  “I am sorry. I think you have gun, like before. Like . . . evil here—before. Today.”

  “I’m a police officer. Did someone rob you? Or try to hurt you?”

  “No, because I say . . .” Her voice becomes loud and sharp. “Get out! Go away! And then . . .” She points to the door and waggles two fingers to indicate the culprit running off down the street. “Goes away.”

  “Good for you.” Barnes nods at her and flashes a smile at the undaunted little boy. “Your mom is pretty fierce, too, buddy.”

  Back out on the street, Stef is looking impatient, and the young women have disappeared. Barnes hands him a small bag and a plastic bottle, both with foreign labels.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Cherry juice and fried bacon skins.”

  “Don’t they have any American food in there?”

  “American food, Ukrainian food . . . same difference.”

  “Wiseass. Let’s go.” Stef thrusts the snacks back at him.

  “What happened to your friend Paulina?”

  “It wasn’t her. Just some kid going door to door collecting for UNICEF.”

  “No way, really?”

  Barnes crunches his way through a bag of salty greasy goodness as they head down the street past a bakery, a pub, and a dry cleaner, all doing a brisk business as the day winds down.

  There it is—the house where the Myers family was massacred in 1968.

  They ascend the steps and Stef presses the bell.

  After a wait, he presses it again.

  It looks like Christina isn’t home.

  Stef knocks on the door, then leans into the glass pane, hands cupped above his eyebrows.

  “What the—” He jumps back and looks at Barnes, eyes wide. “Call for backup. We’re too damned late. He got her.”

  “This is crazy,” Amelia tells Jessie as they follow Brody up the steps to the admissions building. “Why are we doing this?”

  “Because you wanted to come here.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Then why did you apply?”

  “My high school music teacher told me I should.”

  Brody and the tour disappear into the admissions building. Amelia holds back, grabbing Jessie’s arm.

  “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “You can’t say that about something you’re already doing.” Jessie pushes open the door and holds it for her. “Come on, Mimi.”

  “Mimi?”

  “Doesn’t anyone call you that?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, I do.”

  They step over the threshold.

  Inside, they find several information tables staffed by students and faculty. Jessie propels her toward the nearest one.

  “This is crazy.”

  “I love doing crazy things, don’t you?”

  “No! I never do crazy things.”

  “So running away today wasn’t—”

  “I didn’t run away from anything.”

  “No?”

  “No. I . . . ran to something.”

  “Exactly. You ran here.”

  “To Silas Moss. Not—”

  “Hello, ladies. Can I help you?” asks the woman seated at the table.

  Amelia shakes her head, but Jessie says, “I’m looking for information about transferring here for the spring semester.”

  “Wonderful. Go right over there and speak to the man in the blue sweater vest.”

  Jessie thanks her and drags Amelia toward him.

  “Let’s get out of here! I don’t want to speak to anyone,” she hisses.

  “I know, that’s why I’m doing it for you. We’re a good team. I’ll talk, you listen.”

  That’s exactly what happens. The man tells Jessie that she doesn’t have to apply again to gain admission next semester. She just has to fill out paperwork to reactivate her status and send her transcripts. And she has to do it in the next few days if she wants to come here in January.

  “Don’t worry, I will,” Jessie says cheerfully.

  Ten minutes later, they’re back in the car with transfer student pamphlets, release forms, and a thick financial aid department packet.

  “See? You’re all set.”

  “For what?”

  “For moving to Ithaca in January.”

  Jessie pulls back out onto the highway. Amelia flips through the pamphlet. She really could do this if she wanted to . . .

  Do I?

  “Amelia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s one last stop on my tour,” Jessie tells her. “Ready to see my suicide bridge?”

  Barnes stands back by the door as the forensics team photographs what remains of Christina Myers.

  Rigor mortis has yet to set in, indicating that she was murdered within the past few hours. Stef is out front with a couple of the homicide detectives, calling around to track down Bernadette DiMeo and Margaret Costello.

  Christina wasn’t just stabbed, but viciously mutilated, her face beyond recognition. Trying to envision Perry Wayland inflicting those brutal wounds in a knife-thrusting rage, Barnes flinches at the gore and turns away, bacon rinds and cherry juice churning in his gut.

  There was no indication of forced entry. The house has been ransacked, but it’s impossible to tell if anything is missing, and it doesn’t look like a break-in. The front door was unlocked, the key protruding from the interior dead bolt.

  Something catches his eye, sitting on a table just inside the door.

  Frowning, he leans over to examine the charity collection can. He’d noticed several similar ones on the counter in the Ukrainian grocery store. He thinks of the young clerk, rattled by an “evil” would-be robber who’d run off toward the Myers house this afternoon. Of the young girls down the block, collecting door-to-door for UNICEF.

  “Detective?” he calls to the lead investigator. “I think I know how the perp got in.”

  Five minutes later, he and Stef duck under the yellow crime scene tape surrounding the Myers home and stride down the street, past the lineup of vehicles with flashing lights and a throng of curious neighbors.

  “Bet Margaret Costello never thought getting hauled into jail would be the luckiest thing that ever happened to her,” Stef comments. “I just hope they get to Bernadette DiMeo in time.”

  She lives in Chelsea, and still isn’t answering her phone. A couple of officers are on their way to check on her.

  This time, the young blonde woman smiles when Barnes comes through the door of the Ukrainian market.

  “Hello! You are liking treats from my country? You want to buy more?”

  “They were great, thanks, but we’re here on an investigation.” He and Stef flash their badges and introduce themselves.

  The woman’s name is Anna Oliynyk. She and her son live above the store with her father, who owns it.

  “We need to ask you some questions about the attempted robbery, ma’am,” Stef says.

  “Not robbery.”

  She shoots a worried glance over her shoulder. Barnes spots the little boy curled up in a playpen, asleep, hugging his stuffed animal close to his chubby chin. Kids are really something. Pure and innocent in a world that’s anything but.

  “Tell us what happened, Anna,” he says. “About the evil man.”

  “No, not evil man.”

  Stef looks at Barnes. “What’s going on?”

  Like he knows.

 
; “Ms. Oliynyk, when I was in here before, you said that a bad man was here with a gun, and you had a feeling . . .” She’s still shaking her head. “So that didn’t happen? The evil—”

  “Yes, happened! I know evil. I get very bad feeling here.” She pats her head. “Crazy eyes. On drugs.”

  Stef shows her a missing persons flyer with the close-up of Perry Wayland.

  “Is this your crazy, evil man?”

  She barely glances at it. “Not mine! Not—”

  “Oh, for the love of . . .” Stef glares. “Fine. Not yours. Is this the crazy, evil man?”

  Anna glares back. “Not man. She was woman.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Is this your bridge?” Amelia asks Jessie as they get out of the car on Thurston Avenue, alongside a stone span. It stretches high above a deep, wooded gorge with a waterfall spilling over rocks far below.

  “No. Mine’s up there, in the woods.”

  Hands shoved in her jacket pockets, head down, she leads Amelia on a silent trek up a steep trail toward the span. The air is thick with damp must, alive with drifting leaves and rushing water. They pass a couple of hikers, and an older man with a big dog straining to get off his leash. The animal’s eager movements rain clumps of dirt and pebbly showers over the edge in a way that makes Amelia shudder.

  “That’s it,” Jessie says, pointing at a narrow, rickety-looking pedestrian span up ahead.

  “It’s beautiful. We’re not going across it, are we?”

  “What’s wrong? You can’t be afraid of heights. You live in New York City, with, like, the Empire State Building and everything.”

  “It’s not like I’ve ever been up there.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Tourists do that.”

  “So you’ve never been in a skyscraper?”

  “Yes, but . . .” She stares at the bridge. “That isn’t a skyscraper. It’s wide open. And if you fell, you’d die.”

  “No kidding. That’s why it’s the Suicide Bridge.”

  “That’s the name of it?”

  “It’s what I call it, because people—students, mostly—have been killing themselves here for over a century. It’s kind of our thing here in Ithaca.”

  “It happens in New York, too. People jump from bridges. And buildings. In front of the subway, too,” she adds, remembering how she had to walk all the way home from school—wow. Was that really only yesterday?

  “That’s disgusting and gory. I would never jump in front of a train. Not even back when I wanted to kill myself,” Jessie says matter-of-factly.

  “You wanted to kill yourself?”

  She gives a vigorous nod. “No one knows about it but Si, and now you. He says I didn’t really want to die. He thinks I was just angry and upset. But how would he know? He’s not that kind of doctor. He’s a scientist, not a shrink. Did you ever think about killing yourself?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, sometimes, when you’re really miserable, you just want the pain to end.”

  After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Amelia asks her why she was so miserable, pretty sure she can guess.

  The answer surprises her. “My boyfriend broke up with me. Out of nowhere. After three months of going out. He, like, called me up one night and said he didn’t want to go out with me anymore.”

  “So you were . . . ?”

  “Suicidal. Yeah.”

  “And it didn’t have anything to do with being . . . you know . . . a foundling?”

  Jessie’s laugh is bitterly cavalier. “Not everything does, you know. Not for me, anyway.”

  Amelia isn’t entirely sure she believes that.

  “Anyway, after Ryan dumped me, I’d come out here and think about throwing myself over the edge. I would have done it right over there.” She points to the middle of the bridge. “The exact spot where I was abandoned.”

  And that has nothing to do with being a foundling, huh?

  “If you stare down at the waterfall long enough, you feel like you just want to be a part of it. So powerful, you know? Just rushing away . . .”

  Jessie falls silent for a long moment. Then she grabs Amelia’s hand and tugs her toward the bridge. “Come on, Mimi. You made it this far. I have to show you the spot.”

  “Is this the woman who was here?” Barnes asks, showing Anna Oliynyk the photo of Gypsy Colt.

  She dismisses it as quickly as she did Perry Wayland. “No.”

  “Not so fast!” Stef’s voice, loud and gruff, triggers a rustling in the playpen.

  The little boy sits up, rubbing his eyes and emitting a wail. His mother promptly reaches for him.

  “Ms. Oliynyk! We need you to take a closer look at the picture.”

  “Stef, will you let her pick up the baby?”

  “You need to tell her that this isn’t a current picture. She’s not going to look the same.”

  “Anna?”

  She turns back to them, the little boy resting his head against her shoulder, sucking his thumb.

  “Can you please take a closer look? This woman would be older now. In her thirties.”

  She obliges and shakes her head. “Not her.”

  “You’re sure?” Stef asks.

  “Yes!”

  So much for Barnes’s theory that Gypsy Colt and Miss White are the same person—if it was, indeed, Miss White who came in here earlier. There’s a chance that the incident wasn’t connected with Christina’s murder, but Anna’s description makes him think otherwise. The carnage down the block is nothing if not evil.

  “Can you please describe the woman?” he asks, pen poised on his notepad. “How old was she?”

  “Like me.”

  “Your age. Twenty-two? Are you sure? Not older?”

  “Maybe twenty-three, twenty-four . . .”

  “Not in her thirties, or older?”

  “Not older.”

  As decisive about this as about the rest, she’d be a perfect witness if not for the language barrier. When he asks for a physical description, it comes gradually, with fumbling and gestures, but it’s concise. She tells him the woman was white, about five-four, had a stocky build, short dark hair, and gray eyes. With more effort, Anna relates that the suspect had a bandage on her thumb, and wore jeans, a jean jacket, and white sneakers. But she’s still trying to convey something else, something important.

  “She have . . . How you say?” Anna points to her face. “Red.”

  “Makeup? Blush?” Barnes suggests.

  “No, no, not . . .” She frowns, still pointing. “Red!”

  “Pimples? Acne? A rash?”

  “No!”

  “What the hell is she trying to say, Barnes?”

  “I don’t know. Just let her talk!”

  “She’s not saying anything!”

  Equally frustrated, Anna is searching for the right word. “Red. Big hurt. Old hurt.”

  “Old hurt . . .” Barnes turns to Stef. “Show her your gut!”

  “What?”

  “Where you were knifed! Show her!”

  The light dawns. Stef opens his jacket and pulls up his shirt.

  “Like that, Anna?” Barnes points at the gash in the roll of fatty gut.

  “Yes! Yes, like that! But right here!” She touches her face with her thumb and forefinger to indicate the size and location of the large red scar on the suspect’s right cheek.

  Turning onto West Twenty-Ninth Street, Bernadette thinks of how good it would feel to change into sweatpants and curl up with her supper, her cat, and whatever’s on TV. Instead, she’ll take a break, and then head back out to church. She’s been thinking about that job at Macy’s, wondering if it might be time to ease up on her weekend mass schedule. She’d still go, of course—as often as possible. But if she doesn’t find a part-time job, she’s going to wind up homeless.

  Unless she pays a finder’s fee, she’ll never find monthly rent cheaper than what she pays for her small top-floor apartment in this six-story redbrick apartment bui
lding.

  “Ma’am, are you Bernadette DiMeo?” A pair of uniformed police officers step from the shadows beneath the fire escape. Both are young, one an attractive Hispanic woman, the other a rugged-jawed guy with a sandy crew cut.

  “DiMeo-Anderson. Yes. Did something happen?”

  “We’re making sure you’re all right, ma’am. There have been a couple of incidents . . .” The male looks to the female officer.

  “What kind of incidents? Was there a break-in in the building?”

  “No, not in the building. But violent crimes have been committed against three women you have ties to.”

  “What? Who?” She thinks of Sally, and her colleagues at the lab.

  “Christina Myers, Tara Sheeran, and her daughter, Emily.”

  Bernadette reaches out to clasp the cold metal railing with her shaking hand. “What . . . what happened to them?”

  “They are deceased, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

  “Deceased? You mean . . . murdered?”

  Both officers nod.

  “What about Margaret Costello?” Bernadette hadn’t really known the others, but Margaret . . .

  “She’s unharmed and in custody.”

  “Are you taking me into protective custody, too?”

  They look at each other and shake their heads.

  “She isn’t in protective custody,” the female officer explains. “She just happened to be picked up last night in a raid.”

  Probably not for the first time, Bernadette guesses.

  “Who killed the others?”

  “The suspect is still at large, but we do have a description.” They ask her about a stocky brunette who has a red scar on her right cheek.

  “I’ve never seen her, no. I have no idea who that is.”

  “We’re keeping an eye out for her.”

  “That’s why you’re here? You think she’s coming?” Wide-eyed, she looks from one to the other.

  “If she does, we’ll be here. One of us will keep the building’s exterior under surveillance, and the other will be posted right outside your door.”

  “What about . . . am I allowed to leave?”

  “We wouldn’t advise it. Why? Do you have someplace to go?”

  She thinks of mass. Just this once, she has good reason to skip it.

  “No,” she tells them. “I’ll stay home.”