“That can’t be right,” Fran said.
“Third, Mr. Larsen, I know this is a difficult time, but I’m going to have to ask you to please refrain from contacting any further persons of interest.”
It didn’t have to be J.P. He’d talked to all of them. “I was just calling around to see if anyone knew anything.”
“I appreciate that, I’d just rather we didn’t muddy the waters.”
“Are you saying we can’t talk to her friends?” Fran asked.
“I’m not saying that. You can talk to her friends, you can talk to your neighbors all you like, but please let us talk to them first. It makes our job that much easier.”
“Got it,” Ed said.
The two uniforms were still going door-to-door, the detective said, but he was finished with his preliminary interviews. He’d talked with her coworkers, and by phone with Ed’s mother—a surprise that made Ed like the guy even less.
“Did you find out anything useful?” Fran asked.
“Everyone seems to like your daughter—”
“I think we told you that,” she said, and Ed patted her arm.
“No one believes she’d just run away.”
They nodded at each other in confirmation.
“At the same time, I’m finding some low-level involvement with drugs among her circle.”
It wasn’t entirely a shock, though Ed found himself grimacing. Was this good or bad for them? They had so little to negotiate with.
“At this point I can’t say much more. I’m applying for a warrant to get access to her bank account, hoping that might tell us something.”
“But so far,” Ed said, “you’re not finding any evidence that she planned on running away.”
“In most cases there wouldn’t be any. Whereas in a forcible abduction you generally have some sort of trail—if not witnesses then some kind of physical evidence: a car, a purse, signs of a struggle.”
“But not always,” Ed said.
“Not in all cases, but in a significant majority. The bottom line in either case is that we need to get word out and start looking for her as soon as possible. The deputy says you’ve put together a flyer.”
Fran pushed a copy across the table.
“Outstanding, except technically we still have to go with ‘missing’ at this point. I know it’s hard, but try to think of it as a good thing.”
Behind him the back door opened with a swish. The deputy took a step toward the back hall and met Connie, lugging a plastic bag from Staples, a ream of paper inside weighting it like a brick.
“Hey,” she said.
“I’m going to ask you to wait outside if that’s all right,” the detective said, and motioned for the deputy to accompany her.
“What I’m worried about,” Ed said reasonably, “is that we’re coming up on twenty-four hours, and no one’s really looking for her.”
“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but we’re looking for her as we speak. Right now we’ve got two units checking every inch of Route 7. Every patrol car in the county’s got her on their screens—Conneaut, Ashtabula, and the state police. We’re tied in with Erie, same for Cleveland and Akron. She’s out on the wire with the car. That’s national, plus she’s registered on every major website, including the FBI’s.”
“What about dogs?” he said.
“Dogs are great if you’ve got a clear idea of where you’re looking, but they’re not much help finding cars at long distances, and that’s what we’re looking at here, I’m afraid.”
“It wouldn’t help if we brought a team in,” Fran asked.
“Here in the house, you mean. They’d get her scent but I’m not sure what they’d do with it. There’s no sign that anything happened here, and even if it did, you’ve still got the car as a mode of transport.”
“They could search for her along 7,” Ed said, “or down by the river.”
“I know it sounds logical, but you’re talking a needle in a haystack. When we find the car, that’s when we want the dogs. What we need right now is leads, and the way to get leads is to get her face out there. That’s why the flyer’s so important.”
The technique was familiar to Ed—burying the client’s naive question beneath an avalanche of shoptalk. As in any business, flashing a little knowledge with nothing to back it up was a red flag to a professional. He had thought the guy was doddering and incompetent; now he realized how truly screwed they were. As the detective went on lecturing them, Ed remembered standing by the side of 90 with the girl’s abandoned Toyota, the sense of the road going on forever in both directions, impossible to follow, and beyond its narrow shoulders, the land and the rivers and the oceans, the whole world. A person could be anywhere.
Fran looked at him, lips pinched, and shook her head. This guy wasn’t interested in helping them. He’d have to call Perry, but even that—his gut told him—wouldn’t work.
“All right,” Ed said, to stop him. “So what do we do now?”
Answers to Name
Everyone had secrets, that was life. Driving over with Hinch, Nina thought it wasn’t just her. They’d all lied to the detective. Kim would have too if it had been one of them. She’d always been better than Nina at keeping her secrets, ever since they were little. Kim would get a kick out of the irony: They really needed her now.
The secret they were protecting was nothing compared to Kim being missing, and separate from it, as far as Hinch and J.P. knew. They were guys, interested only in what affected them directly. Being Kim’s best friend, Nina had an endless stock of confidences to draw on, many of them connected, or at least overlapping at the edges. She’d never had a problem carrying them before—it was a privilege to be chosen over Elise, and Nina had reciprocated, holding back almost nothing (drunkenly kissing J.P. that one time in the bathroom was an exception, an honest slip she could barely admit to herself )—but now, faced with the question of what might have happened to Kim, Nina, more than anyone, had to decide what was important for the police to know and what wasn’t.
So far she hadn’t decided or divulged anything, stonewalled the guy, as if the code of silence was absolute. She could tell he didn’t believe her, asking if she’d take a lie detector test, then saying, “I might just take you up on that.” She almost wanted to. Having the truth forced out of you was somehow more honorable than squealing.
They had to pass the DQ on their way to Kim’s house. Normally as they cruised by, Hinch would click his heels together and give a rigid sieg heil, but like Nina he had his eyes on the side streets, as if the cops could have possibly overlooked Kim’s little car. They rode in silence, out of respect, and still Hinch bobbed his head to some inner jam band. Earlier he’d complained—to make a joke—that it was his day off, except Nina could see he’d shaved and was wearing hiking boots instead of his Tevas in case they needed to search the woods.
Kingsville was still and bright around them, black shadows under the heavy trees, flags hanging limp. As they jounced over the tracks by the box plant, looking both ways, the baked air shimmered like water in the distance, and Nina wondered if anyone had checked the right-of-way out of town. As girls they’d walked the ties for hours, the Three Amigos, imagining their dream lives in mythical cities like Rome and Paris, spying on line workers taking smoke breaks and mothers sunning in their backyards. They’d make peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches and fill a canteen with ice cubes and Kool-Aid and hike to the bridge over the river and dare one another to jump, until one day, the summer before eighth grade, Kim stood up from where they were sitting high above the sluggish current, smiled at them and stepped off. Nina didn’t even think. Still wearing her sneakers, she launched herself after her, hollering all the way down. “Don’t be a chicken, Elise!” They taunted, treading water, until, with a shriek they imitated for years, she leapt, arms flapping.
See, she thought, most of their secrets were happy like that.
“What?” Hinch asked, turning from his window.
“Wha
t?”
“You sighed.”
“Thinking too much.”
“You need to be more like me,” he said.
“Yeah—no thanks.”
She took the turn on to Lakewood like she had a million times before. Any normal day they’d be at the river, and she wished herself there, floating on the cold water with her eyes closed and the sun flooding her skin.
“Look at this shit,” Hinch said.
A block from Kim’s house, cars lined both sides of the road. Mr. Hedrick from next door was talking with a cop in the driveway, and there was a crowd on the porch. Nina overshot, grabbed the first spot she saw, nudging the curb, and they hustled back as if they were late.
At the bottom of the porch stairs, a woman she didn’t know gave them each a nametag. Mrs. Lavery who taught art was there, and Ashley Bisbee, and Jen Gaither’s mom, and Mr. Riggio who umpired their softball games. She didn’t recognize everyone; they were probably neighbors and people Kim’s mom and dad worked with. Kim’s mom sat at the far end of the porch behind a folding table, handing out posters and rolls of tape. Since the moment Nina had found out, she’d been irrationally afraid that Kim’s mom would blame her, but now Nina went directly to her, brushing past strangers, and Kim’s mom stood and took her in her arms.
“Where is she?” Kim’s mom asked, squeezing and rocking her side to side.
“I don’t know” was all Nina could say.
Kim’s mom let go of her to hold Hinch, then dabbed at her eyes and nose. Without makeup her face was gray, an age spot like a water stain on her cheek, and Nina wanted to tell her not to worry, everything would be all right, they’d find her.
“Kim’s dad’s out putting up flyers.” She motioned to a stack. They’d used the picture Kim hated, the one that made her face look fat, and another glam shot Nina had never seen. It seemed like bad luck just to look at it, and Nina’s eyes skipped off, trying to find a neutral spot to rest on. Taped to the table was a map of the county crosshatched with magic marker, a perfectly plotted grid that made her think of old war movies. “I guess I should sign you guys in. You both have your cellphones?”
J.P. had beaten them by nearly an hour. The sheet said he was assigned to section D-4, right downtown. Elise and her mom were up by him, covering Lake Road from the township park out past the golf course.
“I’m so glad you could make it,” Kim’s mom said, like they might not have. She waved to someone behind them, smiling like a hostess, making Hinch twist around, then excused herself, saying she’d see them later. “Frank,” she said, “I’m so glad you could make it.” Hinch popped his eyes like this was creepy, but Nina thought it was a skill, flying on autopilot. All morning, between calls, she’d felt herself drifting that way and had to snap awake. All she had to do was think of Kim walking up from the river with her, the two of them climbing single file up the path, the flaming sun on the small of Kim’s back peeking out of her cutoffs. What did she say to her—“See you there, Squinky Square.” It sounded like something from SpongeBob. That could not be the last thing they said to each other.
They joined a group from the Larsens’ church as a heavy woman named Connie with brightly dyed hair and a clipboard briefed them on the procedure. The idea was to saturate every square on the map, moving from the center of town outward. The Copycat had donated the flyers, so they shouldn’t be shy with them. The most effective approach was to ask people who worked at gas stations or fast food places to post them on their doors. Banks, grocery stores, laundromats, pharmacies, the post office—anywhere people gathered. After that, hit utility poles on corners where cars had to stop. And no trees—this was very important. The town could fine them for any flyers on trees.
“Questions?”
“What if we run out?” an older lady asked.
“We’ll give you enough so you won’t.”
Connie split them into teams of two, making Nina wonder who was with J.P. They drew F-5, the neighborhood off State behind the Railroad Museum. It was mostly ratty back streets sloping down to Conneaut Creek. Nina couldn’t think of anything there except the old firehouse and Monroe Park and was disappointed. They wouldn’t find anything there.
The church had provided a van, but the woman encouraged anyone with a car to drive and save those open seats for people who needed them. Heading over, Nina was just as glad; Hinch was more than enough company for her. He’d grabbed a free water and was reading the flyer out loud. He was surprised that Kim was five foot eight.
“She’s not,” Nina said. “She’s five seven.”
“Is this bracelet the one you gave her?”
“Yeah.” Nina had given it to her for her twelfth birthday, and Kim still wore it for luck.
“What would you call your complexion?” Hinch asked.
“Olive.”
“What about mine?”
“Annoying.”
There was no way around the Dairy Queen and the cemetery. They repeated like the background in a cheap cartoon. The sidewalks were empty, only the occasional car nosing in, windows closed against the heat. Even in the summer, Nina thought, this town was so dead. If Kim had run away (and she didn’t, she wouldn’t), the only thing Nina would blame her for was not taking her with her.
At the Railroad Museum they had their choice of parking spots. A yearly field trip when they were in grade school, it was closed and for sale. Inside the chained gate massive black locomotives and coal cars sat marooned in thigh-high weeds. She held a flyer at eye level between the barred ticket windows while Hinch taped the top and bottom. Immediately she wanted to rip it down, as if it weren’t true.
“Which way?” Hinch said, wearing the tape on his wrist like a bracelet.
They zigzagged down the street, hitting every telephone pole, then at the end cut left on Sandusky. The blocks back here were shady and quiet. The farther in they went, the smaller and shabbier the houses were, bungalows and saltboxes with short driveways and carports sheltering derelict cars. A felt banner announcing JESUS IS THE LIGHT hung from a porch covered in astroturf.
They’d just started on Rockledge when they came across a competing flyer. REWARD, it said, above a grainy black-and-white picture of what was supposed to be an orange cat. His name was Tuffy, and his family missed him very much. It didn’t say how long he’d been gone, but the paper was stained and wrinkled, and it hadn’t rained in at least a week. Down the block, his owners had stapled one to a tree; someone had torn it off, leaving the four corners. Another clung to the rounded top of a mailbox.
“That can’t be legal,” Hinch said.
Nina took a new flyer and fixed it next to the old one, and he didn’t argue with her.
They matched Tuffy all the way into the park, wrapping one around the pole of each basketball hoop, taping another to the side of the dry water fountain. Where she could, Nina put Kim above the cat, as if to reestablish the natural order, but as they passed from the glare into shadow again she noticed she was glancing down driveways and peering under cars, checking along hedges, ready to dial the number on the flyer. Sometimes her father left the back gate open and their dogs wandered out—dangerous, considering how fast their road was—but they weren’t adventurous. When Nina opened the front door they’d be waiting there. Cats were different, but still, especially now, she couldn’t help but sympathize. Her first reaction—that she would trade a million Tuffys to have Kim back—turned into a grudging acceptance that other people were hurting too, and then, out of desperation more than anything, bloomed into a childish equation: Maybe if she found Tuffy, someone would find Kim.
On Laurel a jungle of ivy had taken over one place, swamping tree trunks, a coachlight, the whole yard.
Hinch made kissing sounds. “Here, Tuffy. Here, kitty kitty kitty.”
She gave him a skeptical look.
“It says he knows his name.”
Spring Street, Willow, Townsend down at the bottom of the hill. Holding the flyer up again and again, she couldn’t avoid memori
zing it. IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS CASE, PLEASE CALL THE ASHTABULA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT.
The information she had might be useless, since it was at least three months old. She hoped so. Kim had said it was a one-time thing, and seemed more embarrassed than concerned, as if she was sorry she hadn’t thought of the consequences. Nina told her not to worry, and that was the last they spoke of it. If she’d continued to see him, Nina didn’t know. She and Nina had practically spent the last month together, and she didn’t think so.
J.P. didn’t know, she knew that much.
The problem was that everything was connected. One lie covered another, which covered a third, which rested against a fourth. It all went back to Kingsville being so goddamn small.
They’d reached the last street, half a block long. On the far side shotgun shacks with rusty mailboxes and gardens for front yards backed up to the creek. There were only two poles. Both had a Tuffy poster.
It was hot and the walk up the hill was long.
“How many we got left?” Hinch asked.
She showed him the inch-thick stack. On top, looking up at her, Kim’s face was a question. What had Kim said? “It was definitely a mistake.” That could have meant anything, or nothing. It wasn’t the first time she’d picked the wrong guy.
Nina could see herself calling from the pay phone at the edge of the lot of the Conoco, the way she’d seen hundreds of people do, leaning out of their cars to punch the buttons.
“How do you spell that?” the cop would say.
She wouldn’t even guess, because she’d be wrong. She had his address and his phone, but they could look that up. “Everyone just calls him Wooze.”
Or not, she thought. Just because it was true didn’t mean it was useful, and when it came to him Nina had her own secrets to keep. They all did. The detective would find out in time, she was as sure of that as Hinch was convinced he wouldn’t. Could telling him now help, or would it just fuck things up worse? As with any big decision, she needed to discuss it with Kim.
Songs for the Missing Page 6