My Soul to Keep

by Melanie Wells

  “Can you wake her up in an hour or so and get some food in her? I can hold the artist off for a little while.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Just do it,” he said. “I don’t want to put this off until tomorrow.”

  23

  WE SPENT THE NEXT hour listening to Christine breathe and looking through the pad of paper she’d been coloring on. Most of her drawings were unremarkable. Lots of flowers and stick-figure people. A kitty cat here and there. Lots of little purple bunnies.

  She’d drawn several snakes, but that could have been because she and I had talked about snakes while she was coloring and working on her s’s. She’d spelled snake over and over on the page she’d been working on that day.

  After that first, long, squiggly snake, she’d drawn the rest in two distinct configurations. The full-bodied ones were all in the same circular shape—similar to an “at” sign, with the head in the center of the coil. Each of these she drew in red. The other image was a face-only image of a diamond-shaped head, face forward, fangs bared, with a circle inside its open mouth. These images she’d done in greens and purples, leaving the circle white. The effect was highly stylized, almost primitive.

  “What’s the circle mean?” Maria asked.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “Nobody recognizes the image? It’s so deliberate.”

  “I don’t think she’s ever seen a snake before. Maybe at the zoo,” Liz said. “She’s never drawn anything like that. It’s creepy.”

  I picked up the book and stared at the image. “I was in the library today researching snakes as symbols in ancient religions.”

  “Sounds like loads of fun,” Maria said wryly.

  “I ran across probably a hundred images of snakes from different religions, different times in history. It reminds me of a few of those, but it’s not quite the same.”

  “Did any of the snakes have anything in their mouths?” Maria asked.

  “Not that I remember. It looks like a hieroglyph or something.”

  “Can you research it, Dylan?” Maria asked.

  “I’m happy to poke around. But there are zillions of ancient symbols floating around out there, so I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. There could be someone at the theology school who would know. I’ll ask around.” I folded the snake pages and tucked them into my bag.

  Maria checked her watch. “It’s a quarter of seven. Should we wake her up?”

  “Let’s get her another milk shake,” Liz said.

  “I’ll go,” said Maria. “I need to stretch my legs.”

  As she left the room, Liz stood and leaned over the bed and kissed Christine on the cheek.

  Christine woke slowly with a yawn, stretching her arms, her back arching. Her fever seemed to have broken. The sweat was gone from her forehead, and her cheeks looked plump and pink. She reached down and scratched her leg lazily.

  “Feeling better, Punkin?” I asked.

  She nodded and stuck her thumb in her mouth.

  “Ready for something to eat?” Liz asked. “How about a strawberry milk shake?”

  Christine nodded again.

  Maria returned with the milk shake, and Christine drank it eagerly, sucking hard on the straw and breathing through her nose, like a nursing baby. Liz’s color came back at the same rate the milk shake disappeared.

  Martinez showed up at seven thirty with a woman who looked like a truck-stop waitress—or maybe a professional ballroom dancer. Her hair was too black and too tall, her skin too pink with too much makeup, her lips painted an orangy red. Her black spandex outfit was stretched onto her busty form like a latex glove. Martinez nodded at us. “Everyone, this is Venice.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Venice?”

  She smacked her gum. “I’m Italian,” which she pronounced “eye-talian.”

  She shooed us out of her workspace and began a magical, whispered conversation with Christine, their heads almost touching as she asked one question after another, all the while moving her pencil across her sketch pad. She tsked occasionally, then switched pencils and continued drawing in quick strokes and long, fluid lines, flipping the page and starting in on a blank sheet almost without pause. Two hours later, Christine fell into an exhausted sleep, and we all crowded around the sketches.

  They were remarkable. Clear, precise. Elegant in form and utterly simple. Not one extra stroke clouded the essence of the images. Yet she’d captured Nicholas as though she’d photographed him. The sweet face, the huge eyes, his small, little-boy frame. And that wild, curly hair.

  Christine had described her dreams to Venice. Nicholas curled into a tight ball inside a dark space sprinkled with sand, his Cowboys jersey ripped at the numbers, sand stuck to his bare legs. Nicholas crouching in a closet, small and alone among the shirt sleeves and cowboy boots, his arms clutched tightly around his legs, his forehead resting on his knees.

  The images shocked us all into numb acceptance of ugly reality. Maria couldn’t look at them. A quick glance only, and she turned and walked into the hall. We saw her pacing back and forth outside the door, arms crossed, head down, as we hunched over the sketch pad, firing questions at Venice.

  “Were these the only scenes she described?” Martinez asked. “Just these two?”

  “She mentioned a bed and a kitchen table, but she couldn’t describe either one. I couldn’t get enough detail out of her to be sure of the accuracy.”

  “But she did suggest he wasn’t spending all his time in a closet? Was there a bed in a larger room?” I asked.

  “She couldn’t say,” she said. “These were the two images she had real clear in her head, so these are the ones I did.”

  Martinez sat back in his chair. “Did she describe anything else? Temperature of the room? How long it took to get there? How much time he spent in the space with the sand in it?”

  “I do stills, Detective, not movies. Two dimensions only.”

  “What’s this?” Liz asked, pointing at the closet sketch.

  “She said he had a gun with him,” Venice said.

  “She said it was his gun?” Liz asked.

  “She was real clear it was his gun, not anybody else’s.”

  I felt my breath catch. He’d hung on to his gun.

  “Good for you, Nicholas,” I said under my breath.

  “Did she say what the sandy space was?” Liz asked. “Was it the trunk of a car?”

  “I got the feeling it might be.” She pointed at a detail on the edge of the drawing. “This sounded like it might be jumper cables. She said long, thick wire with pinchers on the ends.”

  I picked up the other sketch. “All the clothes in this closet are men’s clothes,” I said. “Was she specific about that, or were you just putting in filler?”

  “I don’t put in filler,” Venice said sharply. “She said shirts. I said shirts like your mommy wears or like your daddy wears? She said shirts like her daddy wears, but yuckier, with squares on them. And big tall boots like a cowboy wears. So I drew yucky men’s plaid shirts and tall cowboy boots. Just like she said. She was real clear about that.” She picked up the drawing. “See here? She said boots with two colors and one pair with metal tips. Real mean-looking, she said. So I drew mean-looking two-tone boots with metal tips.”

  “What about the rest of the stuff in the closet?” Martinez said. “What’s this jersey hanging here?”

  “She said a tank top with numbers on it. She saw a three, so I drew a three. And she said the letters SH, so that’s what I put there. See how it’s hanging between other shirts? You wouldn’t be able to see the whole thing.”

  “Team jersey?” I asked Martinez.

  “Gotta be. Looks like a basketball jersey.”

  “You can’t see the logo, though,” Liz said. “It could be from any team.”

  “Or just some team down at the Y. Maybe the guy plays basketball for fun,” Martinez said.

  “Anyone out snatching kids does not play team sports,” I said flatly.
<
br />   They all looked at me.

  “I’m not kidding. He might watch basketball on TV, but he does not play a team sport, I guarantee you. This guy is not a team player. He doesn’t have the social skills. He has no friends to speak of, no peers. He’s a loner.”

  “What are you, just profiling him? Out of general knowledge?” Martinez asked.

  “Sociopaths, especially ones who abuse children, do not have age-appropriate relationships,” I said.

  “What makes you think Nicholas is being abused?” Martinez said. “That’s an assumption.”

  “Kidnapping is an abuse of power. I don’t know if he’s sexually abusing him. I’m not saying that. I’m saying normal people with healthy relationships do not snatch kids from parks and keep them from their mothers.”

  “You’re right about that,” Martinez said.

  “Plus, if the guy has friends, why haven’t we heard from any of them? A guy’s on a basketball team, people are going to notice something’s weird with him. I don’t think he’d be able to snatch a kid and keep him hidden without it affecting his behavior in some obvious way.”

  “People might notice something weird without putting it together with a kidnapping,” Liz said.

  “I think Dylan’s got a point,” Martinez said. “Local kidnapping with a well-publicized description of the car. Guy starts acting squirrelly, he fits the description. Someone would have called.”

  “And look what’s in his closet,” I said. “See any tennis shoes? Any sports equipment? I see ratty collared shirts and cowboy boots.”

  “Did you get a sketch of the suspect?” Martinez asked.

  She flipped to a new page. “Might want to call the mom back in. She’ll want to get a good look at him. They always do.”

  Martinez found Maria, who had pulled herself together once again. Her expression was steely as Venice sorted through several sketches of Nicholas’s captor.

  “She wasn’t as sure about him. I did a few different versions.” Venice found the one she wanted. “She picked this one.”

  You could feel our collective loathing, our rage, billow and fill the room as we all studied the drawing. The man’s face was thin and sallow, with a scrubby shadow of a beard, thin lips, and small, hollow eyes. He could have been thirty or sixty. His features were weathered, worn by time, hardship, or both. His hair was thin and short, shaved close to his head.

  “Did she say anything about a snake?” I asked.

  “She said he had a snake on his head,” Venice said. “I couldn’t get nothing else out of her about that. I drew him with long hair, bald with a snake tattoo, a hat, dreads, everything I could come up with. I finally gave up and just eighty-sixed the hair. I can’t account for that feature, that snake thing. I got no idea what she saw.”

  “So the hair?” Martinez asked.

  Venice shook her head. “I can’t say what kind of hair he has. I don’t think it was an obvious feature, or she’d have said it. She’s a pretty observant kid. I think this is a decent guess.”

  “This guy looks white,” Martinez said. “She didn’t tell you he was black?”

  “She did say at first he was black, but then it came out that she meant black like mean and evil, not like black skin. Thin lips, light eyes? I think the man’s got to be white. Most likely, anyway. Could be Latino.”

  “He looks like a druggie to me,” I said. “This is not someone who eats organic and drinks bottled water.”

  “Dude’s a smoker,” Martinez said. “And a junkie.”

  Liz peered at the drawing. “How do you know?”

  I pointed. “Look how thin his face is, how hollow his eyes are. That’s heroin.”

  “Could be meth,” Martinez said.

  I gestured toward his cheeks. “And he’s undernourished. Junkies don’t eat.”

  “Look at the lines around his mouth,” Martinez said. “That’s the smoking, Liz. Probably since he was a kid.”

  “I can’t believe you guys can get all that from a drawing,” Liz said.

  “If we had his prints, I could tell you whether it was heroin or meth,” Martinez said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Meth users have burn scars on their fingertips. Shows up in their prints.”

  I looked at Maria. She was pale, her face still, her eyes fixed on the image.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Collared shirt,” Venice was saying. “No T-shirt underneath. Skinny neck, like you see here. Sort of sinewy. I got the impression he was average height. Hard to tell with a child witness. Everyone looks tall to them.” She erased a small stray mark. “But skinny. She said his jeans were dirty and baggy. I just did the face. Nothing about the clothes was distinctive. Plus, it’s been so long since she saw him.”

  “Shoes?” Martinez asked.

  “Cowboy boots.”

  “Who would wear cowboy boots to abduct a child?” I said.

  “What would you wear?” Liz asked. “I can’t imagine fashion would be much of a decision when you got up that morning.”

  “He’d need to run,” Martinez said. “You wouldn’t wear boots if you were going to have to run.”

  “You’d wear sneakers or something,” I said. “Something you could move in.”

  “She was sure about the boots?” Martinez asked Venice.

  “Yep.”

  Martinez and I looked at each other.

  “Amateur, maybe,” I said.

  Martinez nodded. “Could be his first time. Maybe he didn’t think it through.”

  “Maybe it was impulsive,” Maria said. “Maybe he didn’t plan to do it.”

  “It’s possible,” Martinez said. “If that’s the case, he’s going to make a mistake sooner or later. Guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s inexperienced. Hiding a kid is no simple matter.”

  “Do you think Nicholas is still alive?” Maria asked suddenly.

  “I do,” I said. “Christine would know if he’d been hurt. I’m positive. She’s having these dreams because he’s out there somewhere.”

  Martinez gestured toward the sketch. “Is this the man you saw on the soccer field?” he asked me.

  “I don’t think so. That guy blended in with the soccer crowd. I doubt this guy could have pulled that off. Besides, the clothes are wrong. The guy on the field was wearing shorts and a white knit shirt.”

  “How about the age? Younger? Older?”

  I picked up the sketch and examined it. “I can’t tell how old this guy is. The man I saw was stronger looking. And sort of ageless. Not particularly healthy, come to think of it. Pale. But not like this. He didn’t look nearly so … damaged.”

  “Do you think Christine’s description was accurate?” Martinez asked Venice. “I mean of the guy. The face.”

  “I’d say it’s pretty close,” Venice said. “Seventy, eighty percent, maybe.”

  “So we’re good to put this out there?” Martinez asked Venice.

  “That’s your job, Detective.” She tore out the pages and handed them to him. “I’ve done mine.”

  24

  I SAT IN MY truck in the Children’s Medical Center parking lot for a good, long while that night, just staring out my windshield at the pigeon guano that was splattered all over my hood—a scatological Jackson Pollock painting. My hands were numb as I gripped the steering wheel, my mind fixed on the image of the man who had taken Nicholas. His face was everywhere I looked, the way a flashbulb leaves behind a blue silhouette when you close your eyes.

  I don’t know why I was surprised by the hatred I felt toward him. I think I’d expected it to feel more clinical than personal. I thought I’d see the picture and file it into the evidence folder and then get out there and start looking for him. Instead, I felt a wave of rage that confused and distracted me. I wanted to see that man suffer. I wanted to be there, personally, when something terrible happened to him. I wanted to hear his screams and watch him feel pain, and I wanted it to last a long, long time.
>
  It scared me how much I hated him. I didn’t want to think about what that might say about me.

  I started my truck, the familiar rumble nagging me to schedule that tune-up. I reached for the radio and turned the knob, then remembered about the antenna. My hand fell to my lap as the cab of the truck filled with the sound of static. For some reason, I started to cry.

  The parking lot was almost empty. It was late—almost eleven by now. I had plenty of privacy to sit there and blubber like a child in my ’72 Ford pickup, doors locked, windows open. As though it made any sense at all to sit in this part of town with the windows open at night. As though the locks would help if the windows were down. But the warm night air was a comfort after another day of unrelenting tension and excessive air conditioning.

  I dug in my bag for a Kleenex and blew my nose. The truck lurched as I released the brake, pressed my foot down on the clutch, and threw the transmission into reverse. I turned to look behind me, then felt a chill crawl up the back of my neck.

  I cocked my head, listening, hoping I was wrong. But there it was. The buzz. The snake was here. Somewhere in the truck. With me.

  I threw my shoulder against the door and jumped out of the truck, forgetting momentarily that I’d already put the transmission in gear. The engine belched with a jerk and rumbled to an abrupt stop. Then the truck began to roll slowly backward out of the parking space. I hopped into the cab and set the emergency brake, then jumped back out without shutting the door and stared at the truck, my chest heaving, sucking in deep breaths of hot, sulfury night air.

  I was at a complete loss. What do you do when there’s a snake somewhere in your pickup truck? Do you call animal control? The police? Is there someone who will come and just shoot the beast? Do we have people who do that? I looked around frantically and spotted a man in a uniform standing near the lot’s exit gate, about thirty yards away.

  “Excuse me!” I shouted. I began running toward him. “Can you help me? Please help me!”

  He turned and bolted in my direction, moving with the agility of a running back, and met up with me under a bright fluorescent light. I checked the embroidery on his blue uniform. His name was Jeffrey, and he was a Parkland security guard.