by Lee Thompson
“Don’t push me,” Nina said.
Caitlin laughed. It reminded Nina of how Victor had laughed at her on the side street just a couple of hours ago when he told her that he knew Jacob but she didn’t. The two of them sat in the quiet for a moment. Nina tried to gather her thoughts, to continue her argument, but she knew that the woman was right, at least to a degree, she was defending a man she didn’t know at all. But she knew what she saw in his eyes, and it wasn’t manufactured.
And then she remembered what Officer Friendly had said about Jacob—he likes little girls—this coming before Robin Stark had been taken, and she swallowed hard, remembering it, and crossed her arms over chest, ignoring what she knew everyone else would count as evidence to Jacob’s guilt. And Nina looked at the times she had been wrong about people, and there were a few, in just a short span of years…
The kitchen smelled of her mother’s bad cooking: of burnt meatloaf, and blackened biscuits. Her stomach gurgled and she was hungry but refused to eat, choosing instead to think about how easy it was to grow fat and how easy it was for other people to take one look at you when you appeared a certain way and how they’d judge you in the space of a heartbeat.
She said, “Jacob didn’t take Robin Stark. I know he didn’t.”
Caitlin shrugged, “Maybe, maybe not. But he is involved here whether you want to accept it or not. It’s not just a coincidence.” She leaned forward and scribbled some notes. Nina tried to see what she was writing but couldn’t read sentences upside down as easily as she had the single column of girl’s names. The reporter looked up at her and smiled. She said, “You want to know something I haven’t shared with anybody else yet?”
“What’s it going to cost me?”
Caitlin laughed. “You are very quick for your age, I will give you that.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” the reporter said. “There have been little girls going missing for the last decade and it’s always this time of year. Nobody has ever made a big deal about it, do you know why?”
Nina thought about it for a moment but couldn’t latch on to any reason other than people didn’t want to admit that evil lived and breathed and prowled in their communities.
She shook her head and said, “No. Why haven’t they made a big deal about it?”
“Because,” the reporter said, “the girls that have been abducted every autumn are colored.”
Nina said, “What?”
“He’s taking colored girls every autumn, and he uses them, these little kids, and he leaves their bodies in the kudzu, or in a ditch, or in a park where drug deals go down and nobody ever looks anything square in the face because it doesn’t have anything to do with their own lives. He’s taken them year after year for the last ten years.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think?”
“Jacob?”
Caitlin smiled.
Nina said, “You have proof he’s been down here every autumn?”
She didn’t believe it, not for a second. Not the man she’d seen in the park. She couldn’t imagine someone extremely injured dishing out pain like that to a child and then discarding their body as if it was roadside trash.
Bile rose in her throat but she choked it down. Her voice was very small when she spoke. “You have to be wrong.”
“Am I?” Caitlin said. “If it’s not him, and it might not be him, I’ll give you that, somebody is doing it. Somebody has been doing it for a decade. And nobody has cared but the parents of those children, some of them at least.”
“And you’re going to use this to appeal to all the civil rights people,” Nina said, angry. “You’re going to exploit them, or whatever, the dead kids? You’re going to write a book about it, aren’t you? To make money off of their parents suffering and be on Oprah, crap like that…”
“I’m not exploiting anyone. I’m going to address something that anyone with a half a brain would have seen, and I think they have seen it, even the police, but they push it aside; what does some poor black kid have to do anything with their lives? Nothing. But it’s going to affect this community when I crack it wide open. We’re all so self-righteous here, look at all the churches, and Lee University, and the shiny veneer people tend like stage props.
“Beneath it all there are homeless people, children among them, too, and there is a bunch of rednecks and punks selling drugs, there are appearances to be kept, and I get it for the most part, even if it pisses me off. But everybody, and I do mean everybody, is ignoring the fact that these little black girls have been abducted, molested, murdered and thrown among the detritus, as if that was all they were, and all they can ever be now that they’ve been robbed. I’m not looking away from that. I won’t. I don’t care how many people, and you won’t be the only one, who believes I’m only interested in advancing my career. I’m thirty-two, and do you know what I’ve learned in all that time?”
“No,” Nina said. “What?”
“I’ve learned that people only care about one or two things in their lives. I mean really care about them. And they’ll do whatever it takes to get and protect those things no matter the costs to others.”
Nina nodded. “Okay,” unable to understand what she meant, but agreeing because she could clearly see that the woman was angry. And though she felt proud when she stood up for herself, or for someone who couldn’t stand up for themselves, she knew she had jumped to conclusions about the reporter’s motives for helping Robin and the lost girls even as she accused the woman of jumping to conclusions about Jacob.
She said, “I’m sorry for accusing you.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m a big girl and you don’t have to agree with me or believe me. Just know that I’m doing it regardless of what you or anyone else thinks. All right?” She waited for Nina to nod again. When she did, Caitlin said, “What about this other guy? The one who embarrassed the two police officers? He was here, right? Victor?”
“He was.”
“You’re visibly paling,” Caitlin said.
“If you have the unfortunate chance of meeting him you’ll understand why, but I really hope you don’t have to. I don’t think he’ll be as nice to you as he has been to me. He’s not someone you can pry into unless you want him to explode in your face like he did Mr. Friendly’s. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I think it was his way of being nice and cutting them slack.”
Caitlin Reno seemed to pale as well. And Nina figured she had met sociopaths and psychopaths in her line of work, but the child also figured that most of them were probably scammers, not the real deal, but the moment Victor found out the reporter was asking questions about him, she’d see that he was a nightmare that clung to your subconscious even after his presence was far removed from your person.
She said, very quietly, “I wouldn’t be eager to talk to him if I were you.”
“I don’t care what position I get myself into,” Caitlin said, “as long as I get to the truth.”
“And you have a story to sell,” Nina said, smiling.
“You’re a smartass, anybody ever tell you that?”
“I can’t help it,” she said, grinning now. “I’m young.”
Caitlin cocked her head and her cheeks reddened as if she’d been smacked. She thanked Nina for her time and put the pen, paper and recorder back in her satchel. Nina showed her to the door. On the steps, the reporter turned back to her and said, “You shouldn’t protect animals, you know that, right?”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
And she meant it, and tried to express her concern for the woman as much as she didn’t like her, but she didn’t think the reporter picked up on it or cared. Caitlin just told her to look out for herself and walked out to the street where her SUV waited, baking in the early fall sunlight.
Back inside the house, Nina paced for a while and jumped every time she heard a car slow down as it passed the house. She couldn’t sit there and wait for Victor to swing by, or for Clint to come loo
king for her since she was still mad about seeing him flirting with two other girls in her class, and she didn’t have the energy to think about how he had put a young girl into his Camaro, so she went to the phone book and found Richard Stark’s address and phone number. She paced more, carrying the cordless, not sure what she’d say if she called them, and she knew she had to. What Ms. Reno had said bothered her: about the only way they’d find their daughter was in pieces. She couldn’t fathom what Robin’s parents were going through, how angry and helpless they must feel, and yet found herself trying to, even though it was extremely uncomfortable for her.
The only thing she’d ever lost was her real dad, and she didn’t lose him forever, he just left them because he wanted to be by himself for some reason. She tried not to think about that. But since it only happened four years ago it was still fresh in her mind, and she cringed with envy every time she saw some other girl’s father treating her with respect and being attentive. The morning he’d started packing his things to leave, he’d patted her on the top of her head, as if she were someone else’s child and not his daughter. And her mom had started to help him, in her way, by throwing anything of his that would break onto the driveway.
Thinking about her mother’s outburst made her smile a little, although at the time, as she watched her mother silently break as many things as she could, it had been confusing and had made Nina cry. It didn’t make her cry anymore, it just felt like some invisible creature with large sheers had cut a piece of her soul away and he’d carried it with him in the newer Corvette he’d just bought as he drove off.
She let it go the best she could. Her dad was her dad and nothing could help him. What burned her was that he still talked to Patricia sometimes, and she didn’t think it was right of him to do that, nor to put her older sister in such a precarious position and stress their nearly unreadable existences into further confusion.
Her mind turned back to her mother and to the Stark family. She tried to imagine how her mother would have felt if she was in Mr. and Mrs. Stark’s place and it had been Nina who had been kidnapped. It was exhausting to think like that, and fruitless, but she had a nearly tireless imagination. She knew her mom would stop working, she’d search every street, she’d go door to door asking people what they had seen even after the police had done it, and she’d gather a committee of parents to help her find her daughter.
She toyed with the phone more as she stepped over to the couch and sat heavily, sinking back into the cushions. She already had the Stark number memorized. It was easy since she only had to know the last four digits. She dialed before she lost her nerve.
A woman answered.
Nina said, “Is this Mrs. Stark?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“Nina Kunis, ma’am. My mom works with your husband?”
“Oh,” Mrs. Stark said. “Is everything okay?”
It sounded ludicrous to Nina, this broken mother asking her that instead of the other way around. She felt her eyes water and her voice was thick as she said, “Yes, thank you. I was just wondering if you needed help with anything? Or maybe I could bring you some food. We have frozen pizza?”
“I’m sorry. Pizza?”
“Yes,” she said. “I could bring it over and cook it for us. I could help you out around your house or something?”
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I should be, but I’m not.”
“You live by the park, don’t you? Kunis, you said?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Stark paused but Nina could hear her breathing heavily. “Richard is out and it’s just me, but if you want to swing by I wouldn’t mind the company to be honest.”
Nina smiled. “Okay. Do you want me to bring a pizza?”
“That’ll be fine. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes?”
“Okay. Thank you.” Mrs. Stark hung up. Nina placed the phone on the arm of the sofa and felt very tired suddenly. She knew it was a stupid idea to go out with Victor cruising the streets but she figured with any luck the police would pick him up quickly, possibly already had. She went into the kitchen and stole a frozen pizza from the freezer and placed it in a plastic bag, and then took one of her mother’s roses from the vase on mantel in the living room. She thought it might brighten Mrs. Stark’s day a little. God knew she needed it.
Richard Stark’s home was southeast of Lee University. It took Nina ten minutes to walk there, the sound of every approaching automobile caused her skin to crawl as if it wished to part with her bones and disguise itself among the well-trimmed hedges of the older, more stately homes surrounding the university. But she didn’t see any sign of either Jacob or the man hunting him. The sunlight felt especially warm against her face. The large, beautiful homes gave way to smaller houses. It was still a good neighborhood, very much like Nina’s own, but more predominated by middle class black families. At the southeastern tip it met the railroad tracks and the welfare crowd who Nina sometimes felt sorry for and sometimes felt dirtied by their presence as if they were a big part of the world’s problems. She knew that she shouldn’t judge the disadvantaged, but she believed they had a choice about how they conducted themselves and they had a choice about smoking crack, or selling their flesh, or breaking into homes where everyday people worked hard to attain a small vial of pride that would serve as a balm when they needed it, when their lives felt empty, or they merely needed something to point at to prove to others that they exist.
The Starks’ home was a small cape cod with latticework around the foundation. A wide porch reminded Nina of a man kneeling to pray; its sagging roof resembled a pouting lip; the windows draped as if the place were sleeping, or only closing its eyes for a moment of respite.
The Stark family kept the yard clear of debris and they had planted bright flowers in boxes, each a foot high, near the front corners of the porch, but the flowers were slightly wilted now. The front door was open but the screen door was shut to keep out bugs. The muscles in Nina’s arms burned. She hadn’t realized how tightly wound she’d been during the walk over and did her best to take a few deep breaths, forcing herself to relax, before knocking on the screen door, the aged and worn wood where Mr. and Mrs. Stark and their daughter had grabbed the frame instead of the handle, unforgiving against her knuckles.
Inside the house she could hear an old song, some type of jazz, playing softly, every few measures punctuated by a blaring run from a trumpet.
She knocked louder after a minute passed and no one answered.
She had second thoughts about what she was doing there. She couldn’t really help them deal with their grief. What had she been thinking, imposing herself on a distraught mother’s privacy and time? She was on the edge of turning away and walking home when she saw a large, heavy-breasted woman in a flower print dress that clung to her slack belly and dark thighs move toward her down the hall. Her face wore a light sheen of sweat. She said, “Lady Kunis?”
“I’m sorry?” Nina said, smiling, thinking it funny that the woman had called her lady.
“You’re the Kunis girl?” Her eyes were as bright as her face. Her skin was very dark, and her hands were very still as she pushed the screen door open. For some reason she had imagined that the woman would be absolutely and irrevocably shattered, in desperate need of someone to lean upon, but if that were the case she hid it exceptionally well.
Nina held the pizza out in her left hand and then lifted the rose in her right.
Mrs. Stark smiled, tears in her eyes suddenly as she blinked, and said, “Thank you. Come in out of the sun.”
The interior was musty and hot. Hundreds of books that looked centuries old lined one entire wall of the living room. The furniture was a decade old but well taken care of and there were dozens of photographs of the Stark family in the room as if they knew one day their daughter would be stolen away and they ha
d created an altar to her memory in advance.
Thinking so made Nina shudder, but she hid it well, the older black woman’s back to her as they moved toward the kitchen in the back of the house.
Nina let her gaze fall back on the wall of books as they passed the doorway to the living room, and said, “You guys like to read?”
“Sure,” Mrs. Stark said, carrying the pizza and the rose into the kitchen. Nina followed her and asked what she could do. The woman pointed at a chair pushed tightly against the table, which had wear spots as bad as the frame of the screen door had. Nina thought it was strange that something so simple could mark someone’s passage, but in a way, she thought it was kind of beautiful.
“Have a seat. I’ll handle everything.”
Nina figured that she told people that a lot. She reminded Nina of her mother in a way, very take charge, not wanting anyone’s pity, as determined to manage the little things in her life as she was the mountainous.
“It’s real nice of you to come over. Do you know my daughter?” She glanced over her shoulder as she took a slim and empty vase from a cupboard and held it beneath the tap, half filling it with water. She placed the rose in it and set it in the center of the table.
“It looks lovely,” Nina said, avoiding her question.
Mrs. Stark preheated the oven and set the frozen pizza on a pie tin and left it on the counter. When she finished, she sat down and said, “I’m confused, to be honest, about why you’re here exactly.”
Nina shrugged. “I just wanted to make sure you guys are okay.”
“Okay?” Mrs. Stark said. She sat straighter in her chair as if the word were an insult. “I think it’d be obvious, even to a young lady like yourself, that things are far from okay.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Have the police told you anything?”
“Like what?”
“Like they have a suspect?”
Mrs. Stark shook her head. She looked as if she might cry, but didn’t. Instead color rose beneath her ebony skin and she cleared her throat repeatedly for a minute as if the words she was planning to say were barbed and she was working at freeing them without too much damage to herself.