by Gian Sardar
Brittany’s already started back up the driveway, but now pauses at the side gate and picks something up. She heads back to the trash bin. “My sister’s smoking again. No money to pitch in, but apparently she can spend nine bucks on a pack of Reds. Wait till my mom hears that.” She pauses, taking them both in. “I’m back to Chicago today. So. You two have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” A wink at Abby.
“Wow,” Abby says as Brittany disappears, the gate bouncing on its hinges. “She’s truly delightful.”
But Aidan doesn’t move. Hand on the gearshift, he studies Abby’s house. There’s a space of skin on the back of his neck, a little smooth patch between his hair and his collar, and the swift impulse to run her tongue along it shames Abby to the point that she looks away. She’ll think of something else. Inside her purse she finds a free-floating stick of bubble gum, the wrapper thankfully intact. She starts chewing.
Now he turns and looks past her, back to Brittany’s side yard, where she’d found the cigarette butts.
“Aidan,” Abby says, “the park is that way.” She points straight ahead. Then turns around, looking behind them. “No, wait. It’s that way. Shit. I have no idea where it is, but it’s not here.” Settling back in her seat she blows a huge bubble, and then, from behind the bubble, glances at him.
“Did I tell you how pretty you look?” he asks.
Her heart flies. The bubble pops. “No. You didn’t.”
“Well, you look pretty.”
She doesn’t even try to hide her smile.
The article this morning unleashed a shitstorm, the street in front of the station clogged by news vans, the tip line blowing up. Everyone seemed to have someone they’d like thrown under the bus, and now leads splinter in all directions, fissures of mistrust. All Aidan planned to do was work, yet here he is.
Every once in a while he allows himself a detail, a component that forms her whole. When she turns her head he catches the freckles above her cheekbone. When he looks behind her, to the street, he sees her ears are double-pierced. She bites her lip when she’s studying something, and her right eyebrow has a slightly higher arch, as if her natural state is to question. One look, then another. Only once does he allow himself to see the edge of lace just below the neckline of her shirt. The exact shade of white, like a ship’s sail turned to the sun, warmed and breathing, stays in his mind. There’s no way to explain it, except it feels that someplace within him is already inhabited by her.
What he has to do is be good. In the past he’s crossed lines he shouldn’t with people whose lives he complicated or worse, all for an evening, a night, a week in Mexico. He knew it wasn’t right, and unfortunately that was what he’d liked about it. But he was young then. The guy women seemed to sense was the face to accompany the story they’d later tell, the one bachelorette parties immediately homed in on, minds of mischief. He didn’t care. And even when he grew up enough to make better choices, he was still filled with ambition, working in the Cities, not yet ready for the distraction of anything real. Too many times he’d seen it, friends of his in serious relationships suddenly happy about a desk job or a teaching opportunity, anything that kept them off the street. You love someone, he was told, you don’t want them to wonder every day if it’s your last. So intended or not, he found himself in relationships where love wasn’t a risk. Now he wonders if he’s actually past that. Somewhere out there is Ashley, completely available to him even after weeks of putting her off for the case, and yet he’d be fine never seeing her again. Meanwhile there’s a girl beside him he can’t stop thinking about, a girl who lives with her boyfriend in another state, and yet everything tells him this is where he should be.
The park, usually filled with young mothers and kids, is abandoned, and the playground merry-go-round is bent beneath their weight, Aidan on the edge, Abby cross-legged in the center, the pizza between them. New trees have just been planted and are surrounded by chicken wire to protect against deer, and a plastic reindeer has been stuck in the mesh of the one closest to him. At least someone in the town still has a sense of humor.
“How’s he getting in?” she asks.
“All different points of entry. Catered to the situation. Does his homework. By the way, Eleanor Hadley,” he says. “Records show she’s still up there, at Morrow Lake. I just had time for one call, though—no answer.”
“You really don’t have to do that. Today must’ve been insane.”
“Honestly, it took two minutes. And I requested a copy of the report from when Claire went missing. That’ll come from Minneapolis, in storage somewhere, if it still exists.”
She eats a bit of mozzarella she’s scooped off with her fingers. “Do you ever feel sad you can’t live other lives?”
His mouth lifts in a smile and she continues.
“Like Connecticut, old houses, making applesauce. I will never have that. I can think about it, I can talk about moving, but I’m never gonna do it. Or the bayou. Little shacks and cattails and fireflies. Porches with rocking chairs and crickets. That will never be my life.”
“Might be a good thing. Those crickets are the size of cats.”
She leans back against a pole and straightens her legs toward him, bare foot an inch from his leg. The urge, the drive to touch her—even as an accident—gathers in his muscles, almost brutal, like the need to stretch while cramped in an airplane. Just slightly, he shifts in the other direction, away from her. He will be good.
“You know what it is?” she says. “Limitations. Every day I feel them, more and more. All the things I won’t do. Who I won’t be. I will never live in France, in a stone house. I will never be a big powerful CEO. Or a businesswoman who dresses in suits. Or a college professor in an East Coast town, with a Volvo—I would’ve liked that.”
“I will never be a fisherman in New England.”
She smiles. “You wanted that?”
“Not in a way I thought about, but I guess it’s always been there.”
“Old men with pipes and leathered faces?”
“Lobster traps and raincoats.” The sound of gulls, bell buoys. The sea air. “When I was a kid,” he says, “my parents said I’d look at people in magazines, just regular people across the world, and cry I’d never meet them.”
“You did?”
“I guess. I don’t remember. I was five. Apparently a very emotional five.” With one foot on the ground, he pushes just slightly and the merry-go-round inches forward.
“I get it,” she says. “I miss the things I know I’m never going to have.”
They stop moving. The leaves in the park hold a sheen of yellow from the sinking day, and she’s got her bare arms crossed, as if for warmth. “Are you cold?” he asks.
But before she can answer, his phone rings. The neighbor of Alan Breining.
“I couldn’t keep my mouth shut,” the guy says.
“About what?” Aidan asks.
“Surgeries. In his house.”
Aidan shuts the pizza box and motions to Abby to follow him to the car. “On people?”
“Animals, they say. But I’ve seen the cans, there’s blood in there. I don’t know if it’s animal blood. I saw the article this morning, I’m not taking chances.”
It takes seconds to get there, a crowd already in front, filling the driveway and sidewalk. Mostly neighbors, Aidan guesses, but a news van as well, a female reporter with shiny blond hair and a dark blue scarf, despite the warmth. One sign spikes out from the crowd: FOR THE EVIL MAN HAS NO FUTURE; THE LAMP OF THE WICKED WILL BE PUT OUT.—PROVERBS 24:20.
“Stay here,” he tells Abby.
Already she’s stepping out of the car.
“Okay then. Come with me.”
The one officer present is DeVinck—a man who owes him money from a poker night that didn’t go as planned, unprepared and overwhelmed. “I will pay,” DeVinck says to him. “I swear to God. Ju
st don’t leave me here.”
“He home?” Aidan asks.
“Not yet. The lady who lives in the gray house says he’s never home during happy hour.”
“Really? Okay.” He glances at his watch. “Gotta clear the driveway so Breining can pull in the garage. We can keep him out of this mess.”
It doesn’t take long for more officers to arrive, Harris as well, and the barricade to expand, the driveway now open. Aidan tries to keep an eye on Abby, who’s talking to some of the nicer neighbors, but with the arrival of more cops, the crowd seems to agitate, as if given permission to be angry. When he looks for her again, she’s at the edge of the group, keeping a safe distance, a bit pale. He should have taken her home before coming, but was hoping this would be nothing, was hoping for more time with her. A bad choice. His judgment, when it comes to her, is clouded.
“He’s gotta come in for questioning,” Harris says. “You know about this surgery thing?”
As Aidan explains, Harris looks through pictures in his phone. “Other pictures of the Marshall victims. Here.”
He holds the display and immediately Aidan sees that though the last two victims had straight hair, the first had coiling brown strands that hit her shoulder blades. He looks at his list of the victims, and adds a *C next to the ones who had curly hair.
MARSHALL VICTIMS
Jessica Hall. Rape. *C
Megan Mitchell. Ketamine. Lips. Rape. 6 weeks later.
Courtney Thatcher. Ketamine. Tongue. Lips. Rape. 3 weeks later. X
MAKADE VICTIMS
Lila McCale. Rape. *C
Sarah Breining. Ketamine. Lips. Rape. 2 weeks later. X
?
“Both sets, here and there, the first women had curly hair.”
Harris takes his phone, scrolling through the pictures. “So two out of five victims had curly hair. I’m not sure where you’re going with that.”
“What if it sets him off, reminds him of someone?”
“Honestly, the real anger came out with the others. If I had straight hair, I’d be more worried.” Then Harris motions to where Abby is, her back against an elm tree, watching the crowd. “You’ve looked at her eight times already. Carol told me about her.”
“It’s not getting in the—”
“I’m not saying that. Over two weeks we’ve been on this, you want to have a picnic in a bed of flowers I don’t care, we need breaks. I’m saying I can see why you’re worried about the curly hair thing. But to me it’s a nonfactor. Also, the oldest victim was twenty-four. Whatever you do, don’t tell her I said this, but she’s a little old.”
Aidan’s phone rings. One last glance toward Abby as he answers, then takes a few steps onto the lawn, toward the house and away from the crowd.
“He was in my apartment,” Rebecca Sullivan says.
“Come on. Call the station. If he’s breaking in, you call the station. I’m off this right now.”
“I called the station. They sent someone out, not even from Makade.”
“Neighboring support’s helping with lighter police work.”
“Lighter? He was in my place. He moved stuff around. Rearranged my things.”
“Like what?” One lower window of the house is shrouded with curtains that gape in the middle, the sharp point of a four-poster bed all that’s visible from where he stands. Aidan takes a few steps closer.
“My shit. Jewelry box. Stuff on my dresser.”
“So you put them back differently.” A crocheted blanket on the bed, pillows fluffed. The top of the dresser is bare, save for a porcelain tray.
“No. It was exactly how I had it, only it was reversed. Everything reversed.”
Aidan turns back, looking for Abby, who’s now leaning against his car, watching as a second and third news van pull up. A quick glance back at the house and he catches Harris’s eye. Harris looks to Abby and nods.
“I gotta call you back,” he tells Rebecca.
At last, a moment when he can take Abby home. The drive is quick. Porch lights turn on and kitchen windows brighten. The air lacks the sweet barbecue of summer and streets are empty of children, bikes tucked away. Forever, Aidan knows, kids will remember this as the summer they were kept inside, trees unclimbed, fishing poles dusty in garages.
Abby, beside him, watches the houses they pass, doors and windows closed. “They were so angry. They don’t even know if it was him.”
“People get scared, they get angry.”
“A woman I was talking to, she said Dr. Breining does surgeries on animals. For people who don’t have money. That’s why he does it at home.”
“We’ll look into it. Search his place, I’m betting there’s ketamine.”
“Which he’d use, on the animals.”
“That’s what he’ll say.”
“So you think it’s him?”
“You know what? I don’t. I saw the pictures,” he pauses, choosing his words, seeing the way the lips bulged, swelling between the twine. “I saw what was done and it was crude. A doctor’s got skills, even if in a hurry. But it’s one lead.”
“So you’re not stopping.”
“No. Far from stopping.”
She smiles. “Good.”
“Dinner tomorrow night?” No pretenses, no excuses, just the question. “I’m being given a shift off.”
The streetlights wash over her as she says yes.
14
Then
THE NEXT MORNING, finality pervades the house. The pillow across from her is empty and even the light in the room is softer, as if already the world is cast in a haze of memory. Eva sees her train case on the floor below the window, still packed, and realizes there will be no new notes.
It’s real. William has not come.
Claire, she decides, must have slid the pieces together, seen the picture, the truth of his betrayal, and convinced him to save their marriage. His clothing could be sent for, his meetings postponed, all else abandoned. Eva can’t allow herself to feel—not fully, not yet. She must make it back to Luven, claim Iris didn’t need her, and only then will she allow what’s happened to sink in. Though there is one thing, one task she forces herself to do: a stop at his office. She’ll leave him a message, a folded-up note with only three words. I love you. She’s never said it before. Neither one has, obeying an unspoken rule, a silent recognition that these words would only make things that much harder. But now there’s nothing to protect. Her heart is already shattered.
The building is three stories and brick, next to the park. Only once has she been here, with William, on a Friday night when he’d forgotten to sign checks that were needed on Monday. Standing in the hall, she’d caught a glimpse into the office as the door closed behind him, and even in that quickly diminishing slice of space she’d noticed the secretary watching her, as if having detected an intruder’s scent in the air.
Now she stands before her, a little woman with dark hair and small dark eyes. Inexplicably, she wears a brooch on each shoulder. Eva tries to look into his office, but the door is mostly closed.
“He’s sick,” the secretary says.
The relief Eva feels is so sudden and overwhelming that she can’t hold back her smile. The secretary looks confused and slightly angry.
“Did you hear me? I said he’s sick. Can’t even talk on the phone. I’m not sure he’ll be here at all this week.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry,” Eva says. “My mind was elsewhere.”
The secretary straightens some folders on her desk, then reaches into her purse for a stick of gum. Her eyes are steady on Eva as she folds the piece into her mouth.
“Thank you,” Eva finally says. “I’ll check back next week.”
As she leaves the office, she tucks the note back into her dress pocket.
—
The bus is hot, and ev
en the passing scenery appears scorched, water in a pond pale and caught in a lifeless noon sun. He’s sick. He can’t talk. Unless that’s just what he’s told his secretary, so as not to air his marital problems? Eva doesn’t want to think that, but suddenly it’s what makes sense. The truth would never be passed along, it being far too private.
The relief she’d felt is gone, and again she remembers the silence of the house, the softness of the light. Was that the last time she’ll be there? What if she never hears from him again? Why would any of this have happened? So she falls in love, finds someone who accepts every inch of her mind and body and past and future only to say good-bye?
As fields give way to rows of corn, she thinks of their first meeting, back to her inexplicable interest in Michael Knutson, and his surprising announcement to his family that he wanted to be a firefighter and planned to interview in Rochester. She had decided to show up. I love it here, she’d say, and just like that, there’d be a connection between her and the city, a bit more enticement, another reason for him to leave Luven and venture off sideways. Over the years she’d learned that people need a lot of reason to leave, the strings that bind them to family farms so strong that any movement often snaps them back to fields where they remain until their knees give out and their shoulders permanently hunch. But if Michael was to see her in Rochester? If he knew she’d be interested in living there, well, that could be the release he needed, the scissors to the strings. And if he left Luven, if he fought fires, hell, if he did anything, she could learn to love him. He really wasn’t all that bad, just a bit dull, a bit bland, like a healthy meal.
So she’d been in Rochester with plans to fix Michael in her head. A haircut. New shirts. ChapStick. But on her way to the Fourth Central Fire Station—where she knew he’d be spending the day—she spotted him on a far street corner, his shirt untucked as he stood on one leg, trying to scrape something off his shoe, and in a beat she understood that new shirts would never make a difference and that learning to love someone wasn’t actually a plan but a surrender. And so she turned, quickly rounding the corner before he could see her, and in the swirl of her decision she tripped hard when her heel caught a groove in the sidewalk.