Up the Creek

by Alissa C. Grosso

  As she watched her estimated arrival time nearing, Caitlin began to get a prickly sense of déjà vu. Things looked vaguely familiar. She was pretty sure she had never been to Mudmound Township, but maybe on one of their road trips they had passed through this way.

  What surprised her was that things looked even more familiar once she took the exit off the highway. Why did that gas station look so familiar? What was it about that intersection that felt like something buried at the back of her head?

  Then she saw two words on one of those mileage signs that made her suddenly dizzy: Culver Creek. They were only two miles from that awful town, and from what she could tell, they were going to drive straight through the town she had planned on never setting foot in again. How was it possible that Mudmound Township was so close to Culver Creek, and how had she missed it?

  Time had not been kind to Culver Creek. It certainly looked more vacant and run down than Caitlin remembered, but it was also instantly recognizable. Her palms grew damp with sweat, and she gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

  “Mommy, can we have ice cream cones?” Adam asked from the backseat.

  She almost let out a yelp. Instead she said, “Later, honey. First Mommy has to run an errand.”

  She saw where he was looking—that ice cream parlor where her mother had first met Bill Brighton. Something unnerved her about it, and it wasn’t just the bad memories. The sign had pretty pastel lettering but no ice cream cone graphics. Adam had mastered writing out the four letters of his first name, but he hadn’t learned to read yet. So how did he know the little building was an ice cream parlor? Some sort of childhood intuition? Or were darker forces at play?

  She sped up despite the posted twenty-five miles per hour speed limit in town. More than ever she wanted to get out of this place.

  Mudmound Township was further than she realized, and it didn’t help that Caitlin had made more than one wrong turn along the way. By the time she pulled into the small parking lot in front of the closed-up shop, Adam had fallen asleep in his car seat. He looked so cozy and serene with his fleece blanket tucked around him. She hated the idea of waking him, and she hated herself for thinking that if she didn’t bring Adam in with her, he wouldn’t be able to rat her out to Lance, but her thoughts went there.

  The shop was tiny, and there was a big picture window in the front. Plus, there didn’t seem to be a soul around in this desolate town. She would just run inside quickly. She could keep watch on the car through the window. No, she couldn’t do that. She would wake him up. He would be tired and cranky. He would be hungry. It was way past lunchtime. She was hungry too.

  She would be inside the store for what? Two minutes? She had already arranged everything over the phone. Mrs. Wright said she had set the case aside for Caitlin, and Caitlin reached into her purse and slipped out the envelope filled with the agreed-upon cash amount. She would be in and out lickety-split, and she would watch the car the whole time.

  The front door of the pharmacy was locked. Well, of course it was. The place was closed for business. Caitlin knocked on it, while watching the car for signs of movement. Adam didn’t stir in the backseat. Maybe he would keep sleeping on the ride home. That would be good. It meant he wouldn’t wake up looking to eat lunch.

  Thanks to her wrong turns, they didn’t really have time to stop, plus she didn’t want to stop anywhere around here. The last restaurants she had seen were back in Culver Creek, and despite her ice cream promise, there was no way they were stopping to eat in that town. What she wanted was to get home. They could eat when they were safe and sound at home.

  A white-haired woman came to the door and smiled at Caitlin before fumbling with the door lock. It took her nearly a minute to figure the thing out.

  “You must be Katy,” the woman said.

  Caitlin considered correcting her but decided it didn’t matter. She followed the woman into the store, still keeping her eye on the car outside.

  “I put the box on the counter.” The woman led Caitlin over to the desk that held a covered-up cash register. Beside it was a cardboard box printed with the familiar Pacifcleon logo. Caitlin’s heart skipped a beat. Everything was going to be okay.

  Caitlin thrust the envelope at Mrs. Wright and grabbed the box, but of course the older woman wanted to count the money and make sure it was all there. She did her money counting with the same speed at which she had opened the door, lost track, and had to start over from scratch. Caitlin shifted her feet restlessly. She looked back at the car. The way the sun was reflecting off the windshield, she couldn’t really see into the backseat from here.

  Well, if Mrs. Wright was going to check the money, then Caitlin could at least check her goods, make sure she wasn’t getting short-changed. She set the box back down and lifted the flap on top. The box wasn’t sealed, so it was possible she wasn’t getting the promised full case.

  Something was wrong. Caitlin stared at the contents of the box. It was filled to the top, but the boxes were unrecognizable. It wasn’t Pacifcleon. It was some other sleep remedy. Maybe it was just the ones on top. Caitlin began to frantically dig through the box, but the whole thing was filled with boxes of the other stuff.

  “Well, looks like it’s all here,” Mrs. Wright said.

  “This isn’t the right stuff,” Caitlin said. “It’s not Pacifcleon.”

  Mrs. Wright pushed her glasses up her nose and squinted at the side of the box.

  “No, that’s what it says,” she said, pointing at the printing.

  “It’s different stuff inside.” Caitlin pulled out one of the boxes and waved it in the air.

  “Well, it must be in the back storeroom,” Mrs. Wright said. “There’s so much back there. Do you know what it looks like?”

  “The package is green, and . . .” Caitlin searched her brain for a description that would make it jump out at the old lady. Caitlin would have recognized it in a second, if it was even back there.

  “Perhaps you should come back and take a look,” Mrs. Wright suggested.

  Caitlin glanced back at the car. She would just be a moment. How big could the storeroom be in this little shop? If it was there, she would spot it right away.

  Caitlin hadn’t expected the disarray that greeted her when she stepped into the back storeroom. Stuff was piled up every which way, half-filled boxes scattered on the floor.

  “I keep meaning to get this all cleaned up,” Mrs. Wright said.

  Caitlin scanned the room quickly, but nothing caught her eye. That didn’t mean the Pacifcleon wasn’t here, though. It could be anywhere in this mess. She began digging through the boxes on one of the shelves, adding to the disarray in her desperation. Mrs. Wright made some murmurs of disapproval, but Caitlin was long past caring. She had driven all the way out here. She was going to find the pills she needed. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the boxes and shelves that crowded the little room. Caitlin moved quickly but left no area uncovered, and by the time she reached the farthest corner, the ugly truth began to sink in. There was no Pacifcleon here.

  Caitlin wanted to scream or cry in frustration. It wasn’t fair. She had taken her son out of school and driven all the way out here, and for what? Adam! She needed to get back to the car.

  “I have to go.” Caitlin blinked back tears as she made her way out of the storeroom and then back to the shop’s front door. Back outside, she could make out Adam’s form still perfectly safe in his car seat. She heard the shop door open behind her.

  Mrs. Wright came running out of the store, carrying Caitlin’s envelope of cash.

  “I have your number written down,” Mrs. Wright said. “My son’s supposed to come over this weekend and help me clean up the shop. I’ll call you if we find those pills.”

  But Caitlin had searched that little room, and she knew there was no Pacifcleon. She thanked Mrs. Wright and shoved the envelope into her jacket pocket.

  She was as quiet as she could be when she got in the car, even though she wanted to s
cream with rage. She fought the desire to speed out of the parking lot in the interest of not waking her napping son.

  The day after she and her mother had ice cream with Officer Brighton, Caitlin sat in a room at the police station. She was nervous. She wished she had never told her mother about her nightmare. All she wanted was to go home. In the hall outside she heard her mother giggling in a high-pitched voice at something Officer Brighton said. It was like her mother was going out of her way to be extra annoying.

  When Officer Brighton and her mother stepped into the room, there was a third person with them, a woman with a large drawing pad in her hand—the police sketch artist.

  “Caitlin, I want you to close your eyes and try to remember what the man you saw looked like,” Officer Brighton said. “Do your best to see every detail you can. Can you remember if he had any scars or distinctive marks? That will help us a lot.”

  The sketch artist set up her stuff on the table in the room, and Caitlin did as she was instructed. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before returning to her memory of that horrible dream. She didn’t want to go back there. She didn’t want to see what happened to the little girl in her dream. Most of all, she didn’t want to see the face of the man who had done it.

  She was silent, and when she opened her eyes, the three adults in the room were looking at her expectantly.

  Brighton squatted down on the floor in front of her so that he was looking at her at eye level.

  “Caitlin, can you please tell this lady what the man you saw looks like?”

  Caitlin didn’t say anything. Tears started to form at the corners of her eyes. Why had she ever told her mother about her bad dream?

  “Caitlin,” Luanne said, “remember, this is the only way they are going to find that bad man so that he can’t hurt anyone else. You don’t want him to hurt anyone else, do you?”

  Caitlin shook her head and wiped at her damp eyes with the back of her hand.

  She closed her eyes again, and this time she described the man she saw—the way he loomed over little Lily. She described his short, dark hair, his pale skin and his dark eyes. Brighton asked her if there were any scars or marks on his face, but she didn’t see any. She described the faint stubble on his face, how his hair was maybe a bit thinner on the top than on the sides. She answered the questions Brighton and the artist asked.

  The whole ordeal felt like it lasted forever. When she was finally done, she felt exhausted, like she was ready for bed, even though it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. Brighton held up the sketch so she could see it and confirm whether or not it looked like the man she had seen. She nodded. It was a face she never wanted to see again, and she vowed to do everything she could to erase it from her memory.

  “We can go home now, right?” Caitlin asked as she and Luanne left the police station. There were a few news crews outside the police station, and Caitlin saw her mother eyeing them with interest.

  “You did a very good job in there,” Luanne told her, which Caitlin noted was not an answer to her question.

  “Can we go home?” Caitlin repeated.

  “Well, first, how about we go get some lunch. Then after lunch, that nice Officer Brighton has some pictures he would like you to take a look at.”

  Her mother neglected to tell her that Officer Brighton would be joining them for lunch. Caitlin picked moodily at her sandwich, unable to avoid seeing the way her mother repeatedly patted and touched the police officer’s hand and arm. She was disgusted when she returned from using the bathroom to find the two of them blushing and her mother giggling like a little girl.

  She could barely contain her annoyance as she spent the afternoon paging through what seemed to be hundreds of photos to determine if any of the unhappy-looking men in them could have been the man she had seen in her dream. After a while their features seemed blur together, but none of them jumped out at her as looking familiar. The afternoon spent looking at photos did have one small upside. By the time she left the police station late in the afternoon with an aching head, she found that she no longer saw the face she had spent the morning trying to recall. She supposed if she tried hard enough she could conjure it back up from the depths of her memory, but she had no desire to do that.

  Caitlin spent the drive back stressing. What was she going to do? She was officially out of Pacifcleon. She could try sleeping without it, but maybe her body was so dependent on the stuff that she wouldn’t even be able to. Well, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing—staying awake. Maybe that was the solution.

  She was a few miles from the house when she decided to make an emergency stop at a convenience store. Energy drinks were the answer. Caitlin made a beeline for the refrigerated case at the back of the store and grabbed an assortment of energy drinks. As she juggled the five cans in her arms, her stomach growled. She had forgotten all about eating lunch, and that was when she remembered Adam.

  He had been so silent sleeping in the backseat, she had forgotten all about him. She dropped the armful of energy drinks on the ground and sprinted toward the door. One of the cans must have punctured when it fell because she heard a spraying sound behind her, and the clerk shouted at her, “Ma’am, you have to pay for that. Ma’am?”

  Caitlin ran out to the parking lot and yanked open the back door. She pulled off the fleece blanket and went to scoop Adam up, but she got only a handful of stuffed kangaroo. She shoved the toy away, as if Adam could somehow be hiding beneath it, but his car seat was empty. She let out a strangled cry and spun around.

  She scanned the small parking lot. She squatted down to peer under the parked vehicles, but Adam wasn’t there.

  “Did you lose something?” a man coming out of the store asked.

  “My son!” Caitlin said.

  “Did he run off?” the man asked.

  “My son!” Caitlin repeated as she looked uselessly around the parking lot. “Adam!”

  19

  Sage sat at his desk flipping through the pages of the Lily Esposito file. The car Raquel Walker described hadn’t belonged to Bud Ivan, but could it have belonged to Lily’s murderer? Culver Creek was a small town, and the neighborhood down near the creek was even smaller; a strange car would have been noticed, and likely by more than one resident. Yet as he flipped through the pages of the report, there didn’t seem to be any follow-up investigation on the car. It was yet another example of the shoddy work that had been done on the case.

  Sage went back and reread the statement from Raquel Walker, and that was when he noticed something he had missed before. There had been two officers there when she made her statement, and one of them was Steve Arlo.

  Sage jumped up from his desk and went over to where Rod was regaling a couple of junior officers with some tale of heroic derring-do.

  “You know where Steve is?” Sage asked.

  Rod looked pissed that Sage had interrupted his story, but Rod had a gift for gab. Once he got going on one of his stories, he might end up talking for a quarter of an hour or more.

  “Why?” Rod asked. “You going to arrest his son again?”

  This earned him a laugh from the two other officers. Sage kept his expression impassive. He wasn’t going to take the bait. Kevin Arlo was never formally charged, but that decision had not been Sage’s. Nor had it been Steve’s. He wisely kept himself out of the whole affair. It was Rayanne who made the final decision. Sage hadn’t agreed with her. Kevin needed a wakeup call. Sage hadn’t shared this opinion with Steve or any of the other officers, but maybe Kevin had shot his mouth off, or maybe Rod was just trying to get him riled up.

  “I need to ask him a question about the Lily Esposito case.” Sage started to return to his desk, but Rod wasn’t done with him.

  “Here’s what I don’t get, why in the hell are they paying you all that money to stick your nose into some dusty old files and chase after some murderer who’s long gone?”

  “Because maybe he’s not long gone,” Sage said. “And either way, that little girl deserve
s justice.”

  At this Rod rolled his eyes, and the two junior officers laughed like he was a comedian. Sage might have delivered a longer explanation about closure for Lily’s relatives and the importance of a fresh perspective and the benefits of modern technology, but Steve walked in the door and Sage decided he had wasted enough time talking to Rod and his cronies.

  Steve didn’t remember the car.

  “We talked to a lot of people that day,” Steve said. “We canvassed the whole neighborhood. It was a hot summer day, up in the nineties I think.”

  They stood at the far corner of the squad room.

  “This was at the Walker house,” Sage said, and he thought he saw a flash of recognition. Sage double-checked the notes. “It was a single mom and her son, a few years older than Lily.”

  “A widow,” Steve said.

  “What?”

  “She was a widow,” Steve said. “I was there the night her husband died.”

  Sage’s cop instincts tingled.

  “Natural causes?” Sage asked.

  “A bad fall down the stairs,” Steve said. “Fell at an awkward angle and broke his neck. It was an awful thing.”