“Lizzie, wake up!”
Leo is towering over her. She puts a hand over her eyes to protect them from the light.
“Hello.” Her skin is sticky with sweat, and the sheets have left a pattern on her cheek.
“What are you doing? We need to go.”
“Shit. What time is it?”
“Quarter to eight.”
“Oh, shit.” She scrambles to her feet. “I’ll get ready right now.”
“I can’t be late to this. It would look really bad.”
I ask so little of you, he could say, but doesn’t.
“I know, I know. I wasn’t feeling well. I’m sorry.”
“What kind of not well?”
“Nauseated. Kind of dizzy. But I’m fine.”
“Did you take your meds today?”
“Yes.”
“OK. I’ll get you a glass of water. Get ready quickly, please. You can do your makeup in the car.”
The dress she has chosen for the evening is made of dark green silk. It hits her right above her knees and is a little too tight around her waist. Lizzie stands in front of the mirror, hands on her hips, deciding whether or not to wear stockings.
She looks down at her body. There’s nothing ugly or unusual about it—no scars or lumps or blemishes—but there is so much of it. Does she really need all this flesh, humming with blood?
Lizzie presses the palms of her hands against her thighs. She wants to jettison her extra flesh. Surely all women feel like this sometimes, whether or not their friends are dead.
“Lizzie? Sweetheart?” Leo knocks on the door and then opens it without waiting for her reply. “We need to go.”
“I’m ready. Give me just one minute.”
He hands her two aspirin and a glass of water, which she takes, dutifully.
“You look gorgeous,” he tells her.
“I got my hair done.”
“It looks great, Liz. We really need to go.”
“I’m just putting on my shoes.”
It is difficult for her to fasten the delicate straps around her ankles because her hands are shaking, but she manages. She’s going to have to bring her body to dinner and leave her brain behind.
In the cab, she paints her lips pink. Leo fiddles with his cuff links. The cab halts at a light, and she lurches forward, dropping the tube of lipstick.
“Shit.” She picks it up and inspects it for dirt. It’s fine.
Lizzie examines her cheeks in the rearview mirror.
“I didn’t bring any blush,” she tells Leo. “Can you slap my face for me, please?”
He laughs and holds her left hand in both of his. “Make me this late again and maybe I will.”
The cab moves to the side of the road to allow a stream of emergency vehicles to pass.
“Must be some kind of accident,” Leo says, leaning over to look.
“I’m going to go around, yeah?” says the cab driver.
“Yes, that’s fine,” Leo answers.
Lizzie leans into him, catlike. This is how he likes her: sweet, and warm, easy to be around.
“You know,” says Leo, staring out the window, “there are certain theoretical physicists who believe our universe is a hologram projected across a black hole.”
“Really?”
“Well, it’s not a widely held theory. But it would explain how gravity works.”
“Do you think that?”
“It’s not my field of expertise. I do think it’s an interesting idea. And an appealing one. It sort of takes the pressure off, don’t you think?”
“Yes, it does. I like that.” She runs a thumb against the soft fabric of his sleeve.
“This looks good on you. You look good.”
“Thanks, babe.”
He is so handsome, Lizzie thinks. But it’s more than that. He’s a grown-up. He will lead her by the hand into the real world.
One night, shortly after she and Sara moved into their house, Lizzie awoke to find Sara beside her in bed, curled up like a seashell, facing the wall.
“What’s going on? Are you OK?”
“Mhhm. Bad dream,” said Sara, turning around and pressing her forehead to Lizzie’s shoulder.
“What was it about?”
“I can’t remember.”
In the half-light, Sara’s eyelashes looked like spiders’ legs. She shifted, revealing white polka-dot underwear, frayed at the edges. There was a big bruise on her shin from dropping a box she was trying to carry upstairs.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” she said softly. “I just want to be not alone for like, an hour. And then I’ll be fine.”
“It’s all right,” said Lizzie. She was already drifting out of consciousness. She could feel Sara’s hair, like a soft animal, against her back. When she awoke again, it was morning, and she was alone.
Christabel
In his career as sheriff, Jonathan has dealt with all sorts of unpleasant people: petty criminals, meth addicts, plenty of drunk drivers, a woman who drowned her three-year-old in a bathtub. None of them ever unsettled him as thoroughly as Christabel Morgan, grief coming off her like a stench.
She is soft-spoken and courteous. She looks like any other small-town mom, just skinnier, and sadder. She is odd, but polite about her eccentricities, like refusing to drive at night, and washing her hands every hour. If she knows how nervous she makes people, it doesn’t seem to bother her. Christabel lives in her own world. This one has little to offer her.
Every time she enters the sheriff’s office—four times in the past six years—she looks around as if seeing it for the first time. Like the linoleum floors and corkboards covered in fliers are the streets of Paris, or the surface of the moon. You wouldn’t know from looking at her that Christabel grew up here. She graduated from high school two years before Jonathan started. Unlike him, she left for college—Smith, where she studied anthropology, according to the bio on her website.
As far as websites for psychics go, Christabel’s is relatively tasteful. It includes links to articles about cases she’s helped solve, a few glowing client testimonials, and an online shop where you can purchase “highly charged amethyst geodes” for upward of seventy-five dollars.
They don’t call Christabel unless the victim’s family specifically asks for her. The first time she helped them was when Jacqueline Linder went missing. Jacqueline was very old, and her daughter was a regular client of Christabel’s.
It was Christabel who told them where to find the body, in the middle of the woods behind Jacqueline’s house. She had wandered off and froze to death. There was no sign of foul play. They would have found the body eventually, once the snow melted, but Christabel helped them speed up the process. She told the family that Jacqueline had not suffered, and they seemed to believe her.
The case in question today is that of William Stoddard, age nine, disappeared from his home two weeks ago. There was no sign of forced entry. The air-conditioning was broken and the family was sleeping with the windows open. Statistically speaking, William is dead, and it’s just a question of how, and who is responsible.
The receptionist, Joyce, leads Christabel down the hall. Joyce is a real professional. She could be leading Christabel to her table at a fancy restaurant, or to her execution. Her face betrays nothing.
“Would either of you like some coffee?” she asks.
“Yes, please,” says Jonathan. Christabel shakes her head.
Christabel doesn’t look the way Jonathan originally pictured a professional medium. No silk scarves or dangling earrings. She dresses simply, black skirt and a white button-down top. She is very thin, her body pared down to almost nothing. All the bones in the back of her hand are visible.
Jonathan wonders how long it’s been since she’s had sex. She’s not unattractive, but he doesn’t even like shaking her hand.
Joyce comes in with the coffee and sets it on the table. Jonathan takes a deep breath, as if that might help steady his nerves.
“I assume you
already know a bit about William Stoddard,” he says.
“Yes. I’ve been reading about it. Those poor parents,” Christabel says, which is what everyone says, even though she probably knows—as Jonathan does—that Henry Stoddard, an optometrist, and Rosalee Stoddard, a yoga instructor, are the people most likely responsible for their son’s disappearance.
But maybe not.
“What do you know about the case?”
Christabel closes her eyes, like a child about to recite a poem. “That he’s little. Six, seven?” Is it painful for her to discuss this? Jonathan wonders.
“Nine, actually.”
“Oh. OK. I also know that he disappeared from his house, and that there are no suspects.”
“That’s it, pretty much.”
“No suspects at all?”
“Nope.” They questioned all the local creeps and sex offenders, but they all have alibis.
“Do you think he might have run away?”
“It’s not impossible, but even if he had, a nine-year-old from this town, he wouldn’t last that long. Either he would have chickened out and come back by now, or …” He allows himself to trail off.
Christabel shudders. “Poor kid. Poor family. I’m surprised it hasn’t been a bigger story, you know, in the news.”
“Well, a lot of parents, in these situations, they say yes to every interview, every TV show, just to get the word out. Sometimes it helps, sometimes not really. But the Stoddards are very private people. It’s not their style.”
“Do you find that suspicious?” she asks very lightly.
Jonathan shrugs. “Not necessarily. People behave all sorts of ways under stress, extreme stress. I try to just look at evidence. Analyzing behavior is someone else’s job.”
By “someone else” he means the state police, who have set up shop across the hall. He told them that Christabel was coming in today, and they showed little interest, probably dismissing her—who can blame them?—as small-town nonsense.
“I’ve never worked a missing child case before,” she says. She is picking at the edges of her fingernails, which are painted a tasteful seashell pink. There are no rings on her fingers, no bracelets around her wrists.
“That’s completely OK,” he answers, a little annoyed at having to soothe her. “Anything you can give us, anything at all, might help.” He’s trying to say, Just do your best, but it comes out more like, We are so desperate, we will take whatever you can offer.
She gathers up her bag. It’s a big leather satchel, like something a kid at a private school might be required to wear.
“Well, I’d like to go to William’s house.”
Six years ago, on a warm August night, a woman was attacked while jogging. A man hit her in the back of the head and dragged her into a wooded area, where he beat her, breaking one of her ribs. When she was found the next morning, neither her wallet nor her wedding ring had been taken, and she had not been raped. The man was never found, and a similar attack never recurred. Until now, Jonathan considered it his most disturbing case. Had the woman been robbed, or raped, or even killed, it would not have been so unsettling. Desire, no matter how perverse, was what made violence legible. Someone did this in order to get that. Without desire, without motive, the man might as well have been a ghost. No wonder they never found him.
It is the end of the summer. The lawn outside the Stoddard house is turning brown, and there are azaleas blooming all around, obscenely pink. Jonathan and Christabel arrive at eight, as the sky is just starting to get dark.
The Stoddards live in what used to be a farmhouse. It’s big for three people, which makes Jonathan think they wanted more children. They moved up here from New York before William was born, probably to escape the terrors and temptations of the city. Inside, it’s beautifully decorated, with thick, soft carpets and silver doorknobs. But it smells slightly off, like rotting fruit. On a table by the front door is a crystal vase full of nothing but dirty water.
Rosalee makes tea. It’s too hot to drink, but Jonathan knows she needs something to do. A little terrier patters after her, forlorn. Jonathan hopes someone is remembering to feed it.
“How are you holding up?” Jonathan asks the Stoddards.
“Well, you know,” Henry says. A stupid answer to a stupid question.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Christabel says, sticking out her hand. Henry shakes it easily, as if they were strangers meeting at a cocktail party. But Rosalee clasps on to her.
“I’m so glad you’re here. I did a lot of research, and everyone says you’re the best.”
Jonathan suspects this isn’t exactly true. Most likely, it’s that no one has called Christabel a charlatan, at least not online. He finds it interesting that there is no assumption of good faith among professional psychics. They’re always accusing each other of being frauds.
“Thank you,” says Christabel. She is not quite meeting Rosalee’s stare. “I don’t want to make any promises. But I will do whatever I can to help.”
“I know. I know you will.” Rosalee’s voice is breathless. Jonathan is struck by how much she resembles a little girl, with her thin arms and her big watery eyes. “I know what happened to your poor daughter, and I know that you understand what we’re going through. No one else does, but you do.”
It’s the first time Jonathan has ever heard someone mention Sara Morgan’s murder to Christabel’s face. Christabel doesn’t react, she just continues to stare a few inches north of Rosalee’s head. It’s creepy.
“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to look around the house. Just to get, you know, a sense.”
Rosalee nods.
“I can show you around,” Henry offers. “Give you the grand tour.”
Like he’s a fucking real estate agent. Some people are no good under stress, Jonathan knows. Some people collapse entirely. Some people just behave like their normal, gregarious selves, which is much weirder to watch.
Is it suspicious? It’s no longer his job to wonder this, thank God, but if it was: Yes, it’s a little suspicious.
“Thank you,” answers Christabel. “But I’d rather do it myself. See where my instinct takes me.”
“Sure,” says Henry. “Whatever you want.”
Police already combed the Stoddards’ house, and their backyard, and the backyards of their neighbors, and the woods that lie just beyond the town. Nothing. The nearest body of water is a lake too big to drag properly, though they tried that, too.
Christabel disappears up a staircase. She walks very slowly, with a dancer’s posture. They all watch her.
Jonathan wishes that he smoked, wishes that it were still socially acceptable, so that he could go outside instead of remaining in the Stoddard living room, which is starting to feel a bit like being buried alive. He checks his phone. There’s a text from his pharmacy, reminding him to refill a prescription, and one from his wife, asking if he’s OK with pot roast for dinner.
Jonathan’s wife, Susanna, respects his work but would rather not know too much about it. He thinks that this suits him, too. She is a very sweet woman, a little more religious than he is, fond of dogs and swimming laps, which she does three times a week, her long light hair trapped in a cap that makes her look like an alien. They have raised two daughters to adulthood without incident, at least as far as he knows. Jonathan suspects this is the secret to being in law enforcement without losing your mind—decide which mysteries you should solve, and which ones you shouldn’t.
When Jonathan was a child, his idol was his uncle Gary, a police officer. Gary was married to Jonathan’s mother’s sister, Helena. He was a big man, six foot five, passably handsome with a beard that mostly covered his acne scars. It wasn’t that Jonathan lacked a father figure. His actual dad was a kind, moderately successful real estate agent whom he always considered a basically decent man. But it was Gary whom Jonathan worshipped. Gary himself coalesced with every cop Jonathan saw on television to create a living god, one who mostly ignored him but
occasionally gave decent Christmas gifts.
After Jonathan entered the police academy, he and Gary started spending more time together, going out for beers, watching football. By that point Gary was the sheriff of his own small town, which was half an hour away from where Jonathan lived. It was incredible to be actual, grown-up friends with the man he had idolized as a child. He kept expecting the thrill to wear off, but it didn’t. Every time their families gathered for a barbecue, it was like going to the Olympics.
In 2012 Gary and Helena got divorced. A couple of weeks later, Jonathan’s mother called him in the middle of the night on the verge of tears. Helena was in her living room, half-hysterical, saying that Gary had held a gun to her head. Jonathan and Susanna drove over immediately. While Susanna tried to calm Helena, Jonathan discussed the situation with his mother.
“Do you think she’s telling the truth?”
“Fucking Christ!” He had never heard his mother swear, and it made him nervous. “Do you think she would lie about something like this?”
“Not lie, no. But exaggerate? Maybe?”
“Exaggerate? Like, he only pointed the gun in her general direction?”
“Divorces can be messy,” he said, helplessly.
To appease his mother, he stayed there that night. He slept on the couch, his father slept in the guest room, and Helena and his mother shared a bed. Susanna went home to be with their daughters and drove back in the morning to discuss what they should do next.
They sat around the kitchen table. Jonathan’s father made eggs and sausages, though no one took more than a few bites.
“I can’t get a restraining order,” Helena said. “Those take forever.”
“Maybe if you get a lawyer to help you?” suggested Jonathan’s mother.
Helena shook her head. “Who will enforce it? All the guys in his department adore him. They’d do anything for him.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Jonathan suggested that Helena go to Minnesota and stay with her parents.
“How are they going to protect her? They’re in their eighties,” his mother snapped.
“He knows their address,” Helena added. “We went there for Thanksgiving, twice.”
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