Invisible Boy

by Cornelia Read

  “ Crap,” I said as fat plops of salty wet started dropping straight down from my face to the stone floor.

  Now it was Cate’s turn to put her arm around me, which she did with great gentleness.

  “Yeah, right?” said Skwarecki. “Should’ve seen me when the grandmother said ALF was his favorite show. Then she brings out a photograph, him sitting on Santa’s lap last Christmas? I just about broke down and bawled right there in her living room.”

  “That is so sad,” I said, gulping as my nose filled and my throat started to ache. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Skwarecki. “And then she hands me this tin of cookies, a thank-you for the guys back at the One-Oh-Three.”

  “Skwarecki,” I said, “you’re killing me here.”

  I pulled my bandanna out of my pocket and blew my nose.

  “At the risk of starting Madeline up again,” said Cate, “may I ask if you can tell us the little boy’s name?”

  “Edward,” said Skwarecki, grave once more. “But they call him Teddy.”

  We led Skwarecki outside, and the three of us walked down the trail to see if the Quakers had found anything useful during the course of the afternoon. They started coming out of the bushes when they heard us, and Cate urged everyone to take a break.

  No one had found even a scrap of fabric so far—just little piles of garbage as useless as Cate’s and mine.

  “Detective?” A woman stepped forward from the group. Cate introduced her to Skwarecki as Mrs. Van Nostrand.

  “I found something that I didn’t want to risk picking up,” the woman continued, “without your having seen it first.”

  Skwarecki followed her into the bushes. They emerged moments later, looking grim. Skwarecki, now wearing latex gloves, tucked a large rolled-up plastic bag into her jacket pocket.

  She and Mrs. Van Nostrand spoke briefly before the woman made her way back to the chapel.

  “What is it?” asked Cate, when we were alone.

  “A vertebra,” said Skwarecki. “Small. Looks human.”

  Cate blanched.

  Skwarecki touched her arm. “I should run this down to the ME. You two sticking around?”

  “While it’s still light,” said Cate.

  “Maybe an hour, I’ll swing back,” said Skwarecki. She strode away toward her car, across the dead grass.

  Cate and I got in another hour of vine-hacking after that, filling a further half-dozen bags without finding anything of consequence.

  The Quakers called it a day around five, and we walked them to the front gate, thanking them for their hard work.

  There must have been four dozen bags of trimmings piled in a neat row along the sidewalk.

  We sat on the ground outside the chapel, leaning back against the sun-warmed stones of its exterior.

  “Let’s just wait here for Swarecki,” I said. “Take a load off.”

  “Twist my aching rubber back,” said Cate.

  Both of us were pretty drowsy, judging by the amount of yawning we did.

  “Do you think we’ll ever find out who this child really is?” she asked.

  “I hope so.”

  I shivered, wondering which would be worse: knowing your son was dead or having no idea where he was and whether or not he was in pain.

  “If it is Teddy,” said Cate, “do you think the grandmother knew he was being abused?”

  “She doesn’t sound like she would have stood for it from Skwarecki’s description,” I said.

  I watched the sun slip westward, edging down behind the vine-decked trees. Their branches stirred, dancing light across the grass.

  “I wonder where Teddy’s grandmother is, in all of this?” asked Cate.

  “How do you mean?”

  “The cookie lady’s his great-grandmother. We’re missing a generation.”

  I pondered that. “Good question.”

  “I’m so tired.”

  “I can’t imagine getting up to go bag the last of that garbage,” I said.

  “God,” replied Cate, “what a hideous prospect. I could sleep the whole night through right here.”

  “I’ll go do it in another minute,” I said. “We didn’t clear too much ground after the first pass.”

  I pressed back against the chapel’s warmth, relishing the loose tiredness in my shoulders.

  The wind came up again. I listened to it coursing through the trees, like a rush of creek water along polished stones.

  Then I thought I heard a woman’s voice.

  “What was that?” I asked Cate.

  “What?”

  “It sounded like ‘Hello,’” I said. “Maybe someone at the gate?”

  I stood up to walk around the chapel’s south end.

  A tiny, white-haired African American lady peered in through the fence, her prim gray suit’s skirt-hem revealing calves thin and straight as wood split narrow for kindling.

  I moved toward her across the grass, charmed by the sparrow of hat she’d pinned atop her regiment of beauty-parlor curls.

  “Good afternoon, young lady,” she said.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am. May I help you with something?”

  “The letters on this sign are so small, dear, and I don’t see as well as I used to,” she said. “Can you tell me whether this is Prospect

  Cemetery?”

  “Yes it is, ma’am,” said Cate, stepping up beside me. “What can we do for you?”

  “I’m Mrs. Elsie Underhill,” the woman said, “and I understand that someone here may have found my Teddy.”

  I didn’t say anything. Cate cleared her throat.

  “Are you police officers?” asked Mrs. Underhill.

  “No, ma’am,” said Cate. “I’m in charge of coordinating the volunteers here.”

  Mrs. Underhill shifted her purse to shake our hands after we introduced ourselves, then asked, “Were either of you here when the child was found?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “We both were.”

  “We’re expecting Detective Skwarecki back shortly,” said Cate.

  “Oh, I don’t want to interfere. I just wanted to see the place Teddy might have been laid to rest.”

  “The detective told us about your loss this afternoon, Mrs. Underhill,” I said. “We’re both so very sorry.”

  “Thank you, dear,” she said. “Thank you kindly.”

  She opened her purse and pulled out a sheet of notepaper. “I’ve written my number down, just here. Could you make sure the detective receives it? And I hope, if you find anything else, it might be possible for you to let me know directly?”

  “Of course we will,” said Cate, taking the note. “This must be such a difficult time for you and your family. My heart goes out to you.”

  “If the child you found is Teddy,” said Mrs. Underhill, “I’d very much like to speak with the person who discovered him. Might there be any way to arrange that?”

  “It was I, Mrs. Underhill,” I said. “I’d be happy to tell you anything I can.”

  “I’d appreciate that so much, but I don’t want to trouble you now. Just please, keep us in your prayers.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Of course we will.”

  “Please let us know if there’s anything we can do for you, Mrs. Underhill,” said Cate. “Do you have a pen? I’d like you to have my number, as well.”

  When Cate finished writing, I added my name and numbers, home and work, then tore the sheet of paper in half.

  Mrs. Underhill took the pen and paper back from me and put them in her purse, then touched my arm. “I don’t live far away. Maybe you could come by sometime, for a cup of tea? It would be such a comfort to me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Whenever you’d like.”

  “May we give you a lift home?” asked Cate.

  “No thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Underhill. “The walk will do me good.”

  We all shook hands again.

  Cate and I stood quiet, watching that gentle woman
move away down the sidewalk. Head high, back straight, Mrs. Underhill shouldered the yoke of grief with tacit dignity.

  When she’d disappeared around the corner, my cousin turned to look at me.

  “ Underhill…” Cate’s voice trailed off.

  We both knew there were headstones bearing that name among the graves behind us, and what it meant.

  “Yeah,” I said, “Teddy is family.”

  Cate and I returned to our seats on the ground, leaning back against the chapel wall. The sun had inched down a little lower, its angle backlighting the tree trunks and everything in front of them.

  I saw something I hadn’t noticed before, beside the main path. A tiny object, balanced atop the squat granite obelisk marking one corner of a family plot.

  “Cate?” I said, sitting up straighter.

  “What?”

  “I think somebody found a shoe.”

  16

  Cate and I leaped up and bolted across the dry grass.

  I’d been right: the backlit object was a tiny white sneaker, but neither of us wanted to touch it before Skwarecki’s return.

  Cate stepped slowly around the granite post on which the shoe had been placed.

  “It’s got writing on it, down this side,” she said, pointing.

  I edged around the post in the other direction to stand beside her, but half the shoe’s swirly lettering was obscured by the shadows of some caked-on mud.

  I squatted down and grabbed a twig off the ground, using it to poke the sneaker’s little snub toe gently toward the western light.

  I read the words aloud, “Club Melmac.”

  “What’s that, some kind of brand name?”

  “No.” I dropped my twig and stood up. “Skwarecki should be back by now, shouldn’t she?”

  “Madeline, please tell me what Melmac means.”

  I kept staring at the gate, not wanting to blink. “It’s the name of ALF’s home planet.”

  Cate inhaled sharply, and then, for what seemed like ages, I didn’t hear the sound of her breath again.

  Finally, she exhaled with a raggedy moan, like she’d been punched.

  “Oh, Maddie, that poor woman. This is just so damn awful.”

  “I know,” I said. “It sucks.”

  I’d gone cold again, despite the sun’s continued warmth on my back. I wrapped my arms tight around my rib cage but couldn’t seem to stop shivering.

  We’d been staring across the grass before Mrs. Underhill showed up and hadn’t seen the shoe. Could she have put it there?

  No, that was ridiculous. It was just the different angle of the sunlight.

  And Mrs. Underhill hadn’t come inside, past the gate. Had anyone come up behind us while we were talking to her to deposit the shoe, we’d have heard them crunching through the dry weeds.

  Besides which, what good would it possibly do this woman to falsify a connection between her missing great-grandson and the child we’d found?

  Paranoia. Get over yourself before you start babbling about Zapruder footage and the grassy knoll.

  “Are you all right?” Cate touched my shoulder, gently. “You’re

  shaking.”

  “I’m just cold,” I said.

  “I’ll get my jacket out of the car.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I’ll get my jacket,” she said again.

  She crossed my field of vision, taking a dozen long strides to reach her car.

  “Okay,” I said, though she was out of earshot.

  Skwarecki’s dark sedan coasted to a halt just shy of the gate.

  Skwarecki crouched down beside the tiny shoe. “You guys did good today.”

  Latex gloves back on, she used my same twig to lift the sneaker by its still-tied laces, lowering it gently into the brown paper bag she’d taken out of her trunk.

  “It doesn’t feel good,” said Cate. “Just awful and sad.”

  Skwarecki closed the top of the bag. “You’ve gotta concentrate on the positive. This little boy can be laid to rest now. His family can have some peace.”

  “I’m trying,” said Cate.

  She wandered a little distance away, kicking at stray gravel with the toe of her shoe.

  “You think they all deserve that?” I asked Skwarecki. “It’s hard to believe Mrs. Underhill had anything to do with this—from how she acted today, and the way you described her—but, you know, his mother? You think us identifying her son is going to bring her any peace?”

  She glanced up at me, lips pursed, then tilted her head an inch to the side with an upward twitch of her corresponding shoulder.

  No, she didn’t think so. Not for a second.

  I nodded and Skwarecki dropped her eyes, extracting a pen from her jacket pocket to jot words and numbers into underscored blank fields on a tag already stapled to the bag’s brown paper.

  “How come you’re not using a ziplock this time?” I asked, remembering the plastic bag into which she’d placed the vertebra.

  “Certain kinds of trace evidence, you need paper.”

  I glanced toward Cate, making sure she was out of earshot.

  “Blood,” I said.

  Skwarecki nodded. “Any dried fluids.”

  Urine. Semen.

  “Seal something like that in plastic, you get humidity,” she said. “Contaminates everything.”

  “That makes sense.”

  Skwarecki stood up. “You got cops in your family or something, Madeline?”

  “Or something,” I said.

  She cracked a little smile. “It just seems like you know the drill.”

  I twitched my shoulders.

  “And you’re wishing you didn’t know,” she said.

  “Damn straight.”

  “Yeah,” she said, shaking her head. “Kind of shit like this-here?”

  “Fucked up.”

  “Tell me about it. Fucking assholes.”

  “No shit.”

  “I mean, a little kid?”

  “ His little shoe?” I pointed at the paper bag.

  “What the fuck, am I right?”

  “Shitheads.”

  “Yo,” said Skwarecki, “fucking exactly.”

  And then we shoulder-bumped each other.

  I felt much better.

  Having bonded, the two of us rested our hands on our hips, standing side by side and looking over toward Cate.

  “Skwarecki?” I asked.

  “Yo.”

  “What’re the chances of actually nailing someone for this?”

  “Like I told you before, close to bubkes.”

  “Promise me you’ll go for it anyway.”

  “That’s what we do.”

  “Cool.”

  “Fuckin’ ay,” said Skwarecki.

  Cate turned around, looking calmer, and started walking back over to us.

  “What happens next?” I asked Skwarecki.

  “Paperwork. See if little Teddy was in the system.”

  “Which system?” asked Cate.

  “He was a battered child,” said Skwarecki. “We need to know if anyone reported the abuse.”

  “How can we help?” asked Cate.

  Skwarecki tucked the evidence bag under her arm. “If we build any kind of a case, Bost’ll need you and Madeline to testify.”

  “Detective,” said Cate, “we have to get the fucker who did this.”

  “Amen,” said Skwarecki.

  17

  I don’t see how I’m going to stop thinking about all this, after today,” said Cate.

  She was driving me back to Jamaica Station, the light already fading around us: early dusk, that thin blade-edge of winter.

  “Don’t you wish you could do something about it, right now?” she continued.

  “Of course,” I said, “because I have absolutely no patience.”

  “And that poor Mrs. Underhill. Do you think she knew?”

  “That Teddy was being abused? She had to.”

  “But Madeline, she obviously cared
a great deal about him. I can’t believe she would have stood by if she knew he was being hurt.”

  “How do you ignore broken bones?” I asked. “We’re not talking bruises here.”

  “Why would she bring cookies to the cop station all the time if she knew—without ever bringing up the abuse?”

  “Could she miss spotting multiple fractures in a three-year-old? I can’t even imagine how his mother tried to explain them away. I mean, what—she just kept saying, ‘Teddy jumped off the roof again, guess he didn’t learn his lesson the first three or four times,’ and Mrs. Underhill went, ‘That’s nice, dear, maybe you should buy him a crash helmet’? I don’t buy it. That lady is not stupid.”

  “It’s not about stupidity,” said Cate. “Sometimes people can’t allow themselves to know. They’re overwhelmed by everything else at stake.”

  “I don’t buy that, either.”

  “Maybe she didn’t see him often enough to realize he was being beaten. Or she didn’t want to risk losing any contact at all with him.”

  “Then she’s a coward.”

  “That’s harsh,” said Cate.

  “Harsher than how Teddy died?”

  “No, of course not, but we still can’t know who killed him. Maybe his mother’s boyfriend was telling the truth.”

  “Someone beat Teddy so hard they broke his bones—on at least one occasion before his death, because the fractures had time to heal—but a stranger killed him?”

  She was quiet, digesting that.

  “Cate, how far is it to LaGuardia from here?”

  “Nine miles, give or take.”

  “So they’re living in a welfare hotel that far away, but we found Teddy’s body ten blocks from his great-grandmother’s apartment?”

  “Now you think she did it?”

  “No,” I said. “But you’d have to be pretty damn local to know Prospect even existed. The sign is tiny—Mrs. Underhill wasn’t sure she’d found it today, even when she was standing right at the gate.”

  Or so she said.

  Cate sighed. “Good point.”

  “I hate this,” I said. “All of it.”

  “But we’re both coming back tomorrow, aren’t we?”

  “Of course.”

  She pulled up to the curb to let me out. “Call me from work. I’ll pick you up at the station.”