You Were Here

by Gian Sardar

  Over. Lives back to normal, sleeping in his own bed, people not afraid to walk on the street or look for lost dogs. He turns to the lake. Abby.

  She’s standing in a small clearing, the lake behind her. “They got him,” he says as he approaches. “Not official, but it looks good. Abby, I think it’s over.”

  When she turns he sees she’s holding her arm, stunned.

  “What happened?”

  “A bee.” A pause. “Aidan.”

  He’s reaching for her wrist. Near her elbow is a red welt with a pinprick center. “You’re not allergic, right?”

  “Aidan,” she says again, and this time he hears it. The air is vibrating. He turns, and there, less than ten feet away, is a swarm of bees. Clinging to a branch. Beautiful, really, the way they blanket the spot in the tree, dripping to a point.

  He pulls her arm. “Come on.”

  She follows, reluctant to look away. The buzzing dims but can still be heard as they cross the street. From inside the Jeep he can see them, just visible if you know where to look.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  She nods, still looking in the direction of the swarm.

  “We caught him,” he says. “I have to go to work, so there goes our night, but life will change after this. For the better.”

  A deep, wavering breath, followed by a little smile. “I’ll send my mom to Tom’s tonight, he should be back. I need a break from her.” She looks back to the spot by the lake. “My dream.”

  “Try not to go there,” he says, though even he’s never seen a swarm like that in person.

  “It was like glass. Like being stabbed with a shard of glass.”

  “I know. But the worst is over. And we got him.”

  She turns to him, a small smile, but he sees in her eyes that she’s not convinced anything is over.

  42

  Then

  WILLIAM DOESN’T KNOW what to believe. His parents raised him Catholic, but when the choice was his, he stopped attending mass. Did he believe? Had he ever really, truly believed in the words he recited, the songs he sang? Religion was something he kept in his desk drawer, a forgotten note, found once or twice a year. It was only when his parents died that he’d really questioned and realized how little, if any of it, he believed. But his parents were good churchgoing people, and ultimately he’d decided that the strength of their faith would be their answer; they were in their heaven. Besides, what did the opinions of an unsure, privileged boy matter? What was the point of questioning? It was much better to decide they were where they thought they were, happiness and clouds and reward. But Eva. What does this mean for Eva, who was not religious, who had sinned? Yet another thing brought on by him.

  The one debate he does allow himself is will he see her again. That, and why. Why did any of this happen? The beginning, the middle, the end.

  Comprehension circles, twisting around him. Believing she’s dead, actually lifeless and cold, knowing that the face he’d looked into, the face he’d dreamed of, knowing that that person is buried below him, forever and ever dirtied with mounds of dirt and captured in darkness, it’s just not something he can understand. Though now and then it hits him with a running start, knocking away his breath. It’s tricky, this comprehension. He’s lost many people in his life; death is not new. But this is different. With her went his core, and the void left behind only gets bigger each day.

  More than anything, he wishes he believed in something. Even if he’s wrong, it wouldn’t matter. It’s the comfort of belief—stubborn, illogical belief—that he wants. The way a child believes he’s safe because a light is left on.

  After a week he makes it final. First he starts in the carriage house, continuing the cement over the space where once there was a trapdoor to the tunnel. And then in the basement, brick by brick a wall at the entrance grows higher—though in one spot, at the base, he sets the bricks back just an inch and covers the front with a thin layer of mortar. Their initials with a pencil. He places his hand below. No one will know, no one will see it as the futile reach of someone who came too late.

  The bouquet of irises he lays by the newly constructed wall doesn’t get touched, and soon the colors fade, the stems drying. Over and over he retraces his steps. Missing the message that she called, entering the diner at the same time as someone who’d known William and his real name, all the way back to stopping to help a beautiful girl who’d fallen on a sidewalk, and yet further, to the patch of ice that took his parents’ car, to his need to please them, to redeem himself, to marry, and further still to not joining in the war, to taking his first breath in a gilded house. He can look at each of those footprints, those seemingly arbitrary steps, influenced by whims, by weather, by a glint in a glass window display that drew his eyes to the girl who turned the corner as if being chased, he can reexamine all those tiny moments and feel the draft of the butterfly’s wings, and yet he cannot change a thing.

  He remembers that first day they’d met, how he’d reached for her when she’d fallen. Instinctive, even then, to try and catch her. Helpless to save her from the start. And not once, he realizes, did he tell her that he loved her.

  Everything led to this. All the little pieces. And it’s that, that feeling of intricate connection, of fate, that finally leads him to something to believe: It’s not over. It can’t be.

  43

  Now

  OVER. A possibility that’s yet to settle, an idea that seems unreal in the swarm of media rejuvenated and returned, the jumble of the crowd that’s gathered. Everything, to Aidan, seems as if it’s just beginning.

  At first he sees only a patch of Carl Sutton’s shirt in the interrogation room. But then Schultz moves to the side and Aidan sees the rest of him: River Man.

  Harris bangs out the door, beelining for the fridge.

  “That’s Carl Sutton?” Aidan asks. “I know him. From the river.”

  Harris’s eyes widen. “You’ve been to his house?”

  “No, I see him. On my runs, when I stop, he’s downriver, fishing.”

  As Harris grabs water bottles, Aidan remembers River Man with the fish. Bashing its head with his fist. There was something artistic about it, something that embraced the violence of the act.

  “We got a massive sweep going,” Harris says. “I think BCA’s sent half their agents. Already got control samples from his car and rugs to their lab in St. Paul, see if we can get matches. Got a rush on that. Somewhere in that forest is a goody bag with needles and ketamine and his prints. Man’s creepy. That’s what Lila McCale said, and she’s right.”

  Harris starts back to the hall, Aidan alongside him. That guy creeps me out. That’s what Abby had said when she caught River Man staring, when she’d shown Aidan her birthmark at the café. Then River Man stood under an awning in the rain, the ember of his cigarette burning through the gray evening. That was Sunday. The next morning Brittany found the cigarette butts, and later that night Abby’d heard the noise, the side gate unlatched. For the first time it hits Aidan: Abby really was being watched, targeted. A close call. He’d had no idea how close. Last night, the taillights he’d seen pull away from her house—he must’ve scared the guy off.

  “Harris, this is good. Find out where he was last night.”

  “I know that. He was at that bar on Toland, the one with the red walls. Met a date. I know because she was at his place today. A little worse for the wear, both of them were.”

  Aidan stops walking. “She was with him all night? Last night. He never left?”

  “We weren’t verifying last night, but I can check. Oh, and he smokes. Got Marlboro Lights in his pocket.”

  A deep breath. “Not Reds?”

  “I know. Reds were found near the McCale property, and across from Abby’s. But come on, you can smoke other stuff. Maybe the store ran out. Maybe he’s cutting back. Look, no one’s head’s in the sand here, we
keep going, explore other leads till everything’s nailed down. But we’re gonna get a confession out of him, I know it. And we’ll get matches to the fiber samples, pin him at the locations.” He puts his hand on the door, a big smile. “My wife’s gonna sleep tonight. Hell, I might even sleep tonight.”

  The door splays open as Harris goes in, long enough for Aidan to catch a glimpse of River Man staring at his handcuffed hands on the table. Again he remembers the man with the fish, bashing in its head, and for the first time he feels hope as he realizes this might be over.

  “Everything good?” Abby asks when he calls.

  “Chaos, but good chaos. You got the house to yourself tonight?”

  “No.” She laughs. “Tom picked tonight to get sick. My mom’s currently in the other room, downing Airborne and judging me from a distance.”

  “That’s good,” he says. “That you’re not alone.”

  “I wanted to be alone.”

  At the other end of the station he spots DeVinck. He tells Abby he has to go, says good night, and in seconds has caught the officer by the front door.

  “I know we’re even,” Aidan says. “But I need you at a house tonight.”

  She should be happy. The man’s been caught, tickers with his information already streaming across newscasts, the word “alleged” tossed in as an afterthought. But the dreams. Being in that house, she felt something, like a scent that tugs on a memory not yet defined. A literal door opened, a step into her grandmother’s world, and certainly one into Claire’s; action after years of standing still.

  But then she’d crossed to the lake. Without warning the air became electric, the buzzing so intense she’d thought it in her mind, a warning she was about to faint. By the time she understood the source, she’d already been stung. Then she knew—the dreams were not over. Nothing was fixed.

  It’s late, the moon a crescent. Windows holding black. Fear grows wild within her mind. What will happen, she wonders, if tonight is her worst dream yet, if it’s been building? Would she silently stop breathing? Mouth open, arm off the bed. Fingers skimming the rug.

  She needs to relax, something to soothe her nerves. Her desk drawer is a tousled mess, pencils with no point, a remote control from a long-gone stereo, pads of paper, a vintage Bakelite bracelet. And the Walkman. She finds it, the tape of piano concertos her mother made still inside. Surprisingly, when she hits Play, the wheels turn—but only for a moment, a last gasp, and then nothing. She yanks the desk drawer open further, searching for batteries, and it’s then she sees the little leather pouch. Inside are the stones. Tourmaline, obsidian, jade, and pyrite. The long-ago gift from the boy she let like her, the ones she threw into the back of a drawer without a thought. The boy she ruined in the eyes of everyone.

  An apology. It might mean nothing to him, but she can find out where he lives, if he’s still in town, and pop it in the mail. She grabs a pad of paper and is turning to an empty page when she sees a paragraph written long ago. The dream: AIDAN. Beautiful old butter-yellow car, shadows of tree branches on the hood, a tree-lined street. A squirrel ran in front of him. He waved, he smiled, but he looked sad. Really sad. This, she knows, she’ll have to keep, and tears it off the pad, weighting it with one of the stones on the desk. Obsidian, a captivating black luster, said to be strongly protective.

  When she’s done writing out the apology she finds some batteries, hits Play, and is immediately sucked back through the years. No. She wants sleep. Not a musical conjuring of the past. Everything tells her she’s at the verge of another stage, some demarcation of selves. Too much has happened to be contained in who she’s been. Robert’s message from this morning: Call me when you’re ready. She’d been avoiding him. Tomorrow. A conversation, the truth. Or as much as can be said over the phone, but a promise for more when she returns. Yes, she’s certain, tomorrow she will not be who she is today. But here, in the night, unable to act, it’s as though she’s frozen in a runner’s crouch, just waiting for the blast of the gun. Any sound could set her off.

  But the only way to tomorrow is through the dark meadow.

  From the hall she hears her mother snoring. They’ve barely spoken, words netted out of some sense of civility, to not spend the last days of Abby’s visit fighting. So many conversations to be had, her mother the first installment. In her hand is a sleeping pill, which often makes the dreams worse. Already she’s silenced her phone and shut the curtains, and now this, a possibly hazardous zip line to the morning. She turns on the light in the kitchen and sets a glass in the sink beneath the faucet. There’s a feeling of inevitability—if she’s going to have the dream, so be it, let it happen right away. She’s angry at the dreams. It’s a dare almost. A medicinal taunt.

  The kitchen window is slick black, holding the room’s reflection like an ebony cameo. In it she sees the stove. The microwave on the counter. The Felix the Cat clock on the wall, manic eyes darting. And beyond is the reflection of the front door—glass, hardly a barrier. Anyone could see her, from almost any direction.

  Water overflows from her glass. She shuts off the tap and swallows down the pill. Again she looks to the yard. Her eyes try to refocus, to see past her world, but everything stops at the glass, at the frozen image of herself and the pounding of Felix’s eyes.

  In the sky hangs an earthshine moon, the dark side lit by the reflective blaze of the earth’s oceans, braced and held in the crook of its own crescent. The old moon in the new moon’s arms.

  Carl Sutton’s family is in the waiting room, and each time Aidan passes through he tries to avoid their eyes. They look normal, they look kind. They don’t look like they would belong to a man who’d done this. Ridiculous, he knows, but the thought is there every time he sees the mother, a blue-beaded necklace that matches her sweater, her lipstick on but slightly uneven, as if she’d known it only proper to dress up, but the shake in her hand had been too great.

  The night has been flying. Aidan steps out of the interrogation viewing room and takes a moment to breathe, standing by a far window. His workspace is a mess, he can’t even be near it, overflowing with office supplies and folders as Hardt—wanting to be in the thick of things once an arrest was made—decided to set up shop in the station and jammed a table up against Aidan’s desk. Now, in the reflection of the window, Aidan watches Schultz approach.

  “Well, this isn’t great,” Schultz says. “Negative on the match to the upholstery fibers found at the scenes.”

  Aidan turns. “What? That’s big.”

  “I know,” Schultz says. “But maybe he uses a car that’s not registered to him. Still got lots of other tests. BCA’s crime lab is churning them out as fast as they can.”

  “Sorry,” a young officer says. “Mackenzie, burger’s on your desk. You guys hear about the kids at the Whiskey Barrel? Smashed some dude over the head with a pitcher when he heard it was last call. One even ran, too, DeVinck had to chase him three blocks.”

  “DeVinck?”

  “Hey.” The officer suddenly crosses the room as he shouts at a woman. “You gotta wait outside. I told you. We’ve been through this.”

  DeVinck. Not watching Abby’s house. For how long? He looks to the interrogation room, the doors closed. Everything is fine. He’ll grab his food, get another officer out there, and camp out back in the viewing room.

  Grease stains on the food bag, now smeared on his desk. Reaching for Kleenex he sees it—a half-buried file with the name Becky Cox. He grabs it. The young woman who’d been raped in Marshall two years before the first serial rape. A note from Haakstad: Might not need this anymore, and it was ruled unrelated to our set, but have at it. Aidan scans the report. Becky Cox, nineteen, studying to be an architect, lived with her mother in a house a block from the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. The guy wore a mask. DNA from hair was found, but no matches. Aidan sees more photos of her—curly hair just like Abby’s. He looks at her stats; even h
er build is about the same.

  And then there are the reports of harassment. All taken from Susan Cox, Becky’s mother, four months prior to her daughter’s rape. The note from Haakstad: They lived together. Who was the target?

  They lived together. Another mother who’d been home. How many is that? In his mind flash reports, testimonies: I was asleep, I had no idea, I couldn’t stop it. Tonight, he realizes, Abby’s mom will be home. A feeling, immovable, he can’t get around it. Something’s not right.

  And here they are, the whole station distracted, lulled.

  He grabs the nearest officer. “Get Harris or Schultz. Hardt, I don’t care.”

  He keeps reading the harassment report, faster, adrenaline picking up. Something’s here, he feels it. Late-night hang-ups. Cat strangled, left on their porch. Victim returning home to find furniture rearranged, exactly as it was, but reversed. Multiple flat tires. No known enemies—though a customer, a regular, asked Becky out and got shot down. Her boyfriend in the next booth. You? You think she’d go out with you? No idea the guy’s name, she never bothered to ask. And he never came back. Included in the report is a copy of the restaurant’s check. A burger, fries, two sodas, and instead of leaving a tip, he wrote the words No tip for a bitch. Payment in cash, to the penny.

  Harris stands in front of him. “What’s up?”

  “How many had moms home? All of them?”

  “Off the top of my head, two cases had both parents home, the other three were single moms. Why?”

  Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. The pillow. “Haakstad said one of the moms thought he watched her as she slept. Harris, every time a mother was home. These are girls in their twenties, too. That’s odd. That’s a thing. We thought the commonality was they were students, couldn’t afford their own place, but what if that wasn’t it? Here,” he says, holding up the reports, “this woman, too, in Marshall, raped at home, mom down the hall.”