“I’ll let you know when it happens,” I reply.
* * *
* * *
WE’RE ON OUR third round when I show him the page from the case file Ava gave me. The one with the Wite-Out in place of the third hair found at the scene. His brow furrows as he examines it, an unguarded moment, and suddenly I can see the boy he once was, large eyed and inquisitive, the sort of boy who only grew angry when the world would not tolerate his earnestness.
“What is it?” he asks. “I can’t quite make it out.”
“It’s a third hair that they found at the scene. They took it off the evidence report so it wouldn’t be used at Colin’s trial.” I consider the harsh gravity of his expression. “You didn’t know.”
“I didn’t work the case,” he replies.
“But you’ve seen this sort of thing happen before, haven’t you? You’ve seen the CPD pit evidence, stop their investigation when they find a suspect they like.”
“I really can’t answer that,” he says. I’m the one to roll my eyes now, because I’m a little drunk. And this posture of professionalism—the military devotion to protocol—is feeling a bit tired. After all, this is Chicago. Nobody follows the rules here, especially not the police. And if Olsen were really as devoted to protocol as he pretends to be, he would never have bought me a drink in the first place.
“So look at the case now,” I say. “We know someone else was showering in her apartment, likely the same week she was murdered. If you were the detective on the case, wouldn’t you try to find who that was?”
“I would be curious who that person was,” he replies, speaking carefully, his mouth tight. “But like I said . . .”
“You weren’t the detective on the case,” I say, putting the page from the case file back in my bag. Because I know what my next move has to be. “So how do I get in contact with Detective Richards?”
“I might know some guys who still see him.”
I glance over at the table of remaining cops behind us. They seem to have lost interest in the TV now that the Cubs have finished losing and are instead taking turns at the dartboard. Occasionally stealing resentful glances in our direction. An entire table full of disapproving chaperones for our little date here at the bar. Perhaps it’s because I’m the enemy. Or perhaps because I’ve allowed Olsen to sit with me, to buy me drinks, after refusing to allow Jimmy to do the same.
It’s always mystifying, when guys are annoyed that a woman would prefer the company of another man. As if women must be impartial in their choices. We’re not allowed to simply follow our attractions, as men do. Our attentions are tokens to be earned through good works—chivalrous acts like opening car doors or not calling you a cunt even if they think you’re really acting like one. And each man is allowed his own righteous anger if we women are not impartial enough, do not justly reward his virtuousness. If we choose wrong, we are stupid, or shallow. Or sluts.
“It’s not those guys, is it?” I ask.
“Unfortunately.”
“Shit,” I reply. “You’re going to help me out here, right?”
“I don’t know,” Olsen replies, leaning in a bit, until I can smell his skin, the sharp sweetness of alcohol. “I get the feeling that helping you might not be in my best interest.”
Back in the day, at this point in the conversation I’d have been leading Olsen toward the bathroom by his belt. Because his friends are probably right, whatever they think of me, whatever name they’d call me. I have been all those things, and more recently than I’d care to remember.
But this is different, somehow. I’m different. So instead I lean in too, until I’m just about whispering in his ear.
“You can help make sure justice is served.”
“Sure,” he says, “but I do that every day.”
“How about I let you buy me dinner, then?”
Andrea would not be happy with me. I’m pretty sure this is very much against her journalistic ethics. But fuck it, I want to talk to Detective Richards. And I want to see Olsen again, in spite of myself. I may not be leading him to the bar’s bathroom tonight, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to have the opportunity again, sometime.
But before he can answer, my phone lights up. I try to ignore the little thrill I feel at the sight of Ava’s name on the screen.
“Sorry,” I say. “I need to take this.” I slip away from the bar, stepping out onto the street. It’s raining lightly, so I stand in the doorway, feeling my skin grow damp from the air alone.
“Ava?”
“Someone attacked Colin,” she says, her voice warping as she speaks, like the tightening of a guitar string. She’s trying to hold back tears. “He’s in the hospital infirmary.”
“Oh god,” I say, any residual lightness from my flirtation with Olsen washing right out of me. “How bad?”
“Bad,” she says. “Fractured ribs, probably the radius in his right arm, maybe his eye socket. And that’s just what the fucking warden would tell me. He wouldn’t let me talk to the doctor treating him.”
“Are you allowed to visit him?”
“Not while he’s in the infirmary,” she replies. “I don’t think they want me examining him. The standard of care in these places is basically one step above a fucking Walgreens clinic.”
“I’m so sorry, Ava,” I say, glancing back into the bar. Olsen is gone from where we were sitting. Fed up, perhaps, with our truncated flirtation.
“We have to get him out of there,” she says, and the same throb of emotion is back in her voice. “He can’t spend the rest of his life in prison with those animals. We have to get him out.”
“We will,” I say, with more conviction than I really feel. “Did they notify his attorney?”
“Yeah. We’re meeting tomorrow morning to see if we can file an emergency motion . . . I can’t remember what he said it was for.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Just call me after, all right? Let me know what he says.”
“I will,” Ava says, and I think I can hear her sniffle a bit on the other end of the line, before it’s disconnected.
I feel a bit ill. As much as I’m not Colin McCarty’s biggest fan, the idea of his lying in a poorly funded prison infirmary with a variety of broken bones is enough to turn my stomach. I think about his splinted fingers during our visit, how he played them off like they were nothing. Now I wonder if they weren’t an earlier warning of whatever has happened to Colin now.
The air-conditioning in the bar feels excessive when I step back inside, the night’s dampness clinging to my skin. My jacket is still on the back of my seat, and I pull it on, trying to cultivate what little heat is left in my limbs. I’m suddenly excruciatingly tired. I toss a few bills on the bar and look around for Olsen.
I find him back at the other table, back with his buddies, already midconversation. And all the inside information in the world wouldn’t be enough to make me walk over there now, have to muster a defense against the antagonism of those men. So when he glances up, I motion to the door and then turn to go before I can see his reaction. Before he has the chance to try to convince me, again, to stay. I leave quickly, heading back out onto the street, walking a handful of blocks before I even think to call an Uber.
Ava’s desperation has unsettled me. In quiet moments, when I let myself think for long enough, I understand my aim has only ever been to find out what happened to Maggie. No part of me has ever really believed I could find her alive. So I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in Ava’s position, feel your sibling slipping away slowly, violently, and be the only person trying to save him. I must serve as a cautionary tale for her, the threat of what is in store for her perfect life, if she loses her fight for Colin. I am what it looks like when that battle is lost. I would be desperate too, if I were in her place.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Some nig
hts, my mother is there when I kill my sister. My grandmother, too, occasionally. They beg me to stop. They wail until their voices crack, but they do not touch me. They cannot, as I pick up the thing at my feet—a wrench, maybe. A razor blade. They cannot stop me from using it, her throat opening under the blade as easily as the skin of a tomato. They clutch each other and sob as her blood slicks my hands. The man watches too.
* * *
* * *
I WAKE IN the morning to a call from a number I don’t recognize. I answer it, in the haze of half sleep, expecting it to be Ava with more information about Colin’s condition in the prison infirmary. Instead, it’s the stilted sound of a man’s voice.
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Martha Reese?”
“Yes,” I say, feeling the word click against the dryness of my tongue. I can’t remember the last time I did not wake up cottonmouthed and hungover. I glance at my bedside clock, and it’s nearly one in the afternoon, much later than is acceptable to still be sleeping. I swallow and sit up, trying to sound as coherent as possible. “This is Martha.”
“My name is Greg Orloff, at Waller Goodman in Milwaukee. You reached out regarding Dylan Jacobs?”
“Yes,” I repeat, deciding that speaking as little as possible is the best tack to take here.
“I apologize,” he says. “But I couldn’t find your name in any of Dylan’s records, so I was wondering which case you were inquiring about.” He has the speed and cadence of a man who is trying to get through an unpleasant task while performing two or three other unpleasant tasks simultaneously. A bit frazzled, a bit distracted, a bit resigned.
“Oh, I’m just trying to get in contact with Dylan,” I reply.
“You said in your message that you were reaching out about an ongoing case,” Greg says.
“Right,” I say. “I am. About his college roommate, in Chicago. Sarah Ketchum?”
The name clearly doesn’t ring any bells for Greg, because he breezes right past it.
“My apologies, I didn’t realize you were reaching out regarding a personal legal matter. Unfortunately, Dylan isn’t currently employed by Waller Goodman, and we don’t have any record of his work regarding legal matters outside the firm.” This sounds like an answer he’s given more than once, by rote. But, at the very least, he seems more upbeat now that it’s clear the call will end quickly.
“I was just hoping you could put me in contact with him,” I reply. “Do you have an email address, or a phone number?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and then pauses for a long moment. I assume he’s going to tell me he can’t give out the personal information for a former employee, but he doesn’t. His voice is halting when it comes back over the line. “We don’t know where he is,” he says.
And just like that, I’m very much awake.
“What?”
“Dylan,” he says. “He’s been missing for the last two months. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”
“Missing?” I know I must sound a bit dim to Greg. But in actuality, my mind is running so quickly that it’s difficult to form coherent sentences. Dylan is missing. The person closest to Sarah Ketchum at the time of her death—besides Colin—has disappeared. The one person with insight into who might have left that hair in Sarah’s shower is gone. Nauseated excitement shudders through me, the feeling of a stranger’s hands in a hotel room, in a storeroom behind a bar. The part of me that revels in the terrible things. I know enough, by now, to be ashamed of it.
Milwaukee, I think. I’ve been tracking disappearances from Chicago for the past ten years but never paid much attention to the cases involving men. And I never expanded my search to the city just two hours’ drive north of here. The city where Sarah’s roommate moved after law school. The city from which he disappeared, only a few months after the release of a podcast that might be connected to his roommate’s murder.
The possibilities turn kaleidoscope-fast through my mind, each one blooming with new color as it takes shape. The starkest, of course, is a single question: Did we do this? Did Andrea and I set off a chain reaction—by recording and releasing Jane Doe, by essentially reopening Maggie’s case on our own—that moved, tidal and fast, from Maggie to Sarah to Dylan?
“My apologies,” Greg says. He seems to be a man who spends most of his time apologizing for things. “All I know is that he didn’t show up to a deposition one day, and when we couldn’t reach him, we contacted the police. No one here has heard from him since.”
“When was this?”
“I think the deposition was on May second,” he replies.
“Are they treating it as a criminal case?” I ask, though I already suspect Greg won’t be much help. He sounds like the unlucky guy charged with taking on Dylan’s work in his absence, not exactly a close friend of his.
“I’m not sure,” Greg replies. “The police questioned everyone around the office. But . . .” He trails off for a moment. “Look, I heard from a friend of mine that they found drugs in his apartment. Oxy, fentanyl, a few other opioids. I think the police are treating it like he might have gotten mixed up in something dangerous.”
“Is there anyone I can contact who might have more details?” I ask. “Does he have family in the area?”
“Look, we weren’t exactly close,” Greg replies. “I know he took off a week last winter to move his great-aunt into assisted living, but that’s the only time I heard him mention family.”
I’m already googling, even as Greg speaks. Buried beneath Dylan’s social media accounts and a few Waller Goodman puff pieces—buried to the point where I missed them during my first bout of research—there are three newspaper reports about Dylan’s disappearance. Only three. All local Milwaukee outlets.
It’s not such a surprise. The disappearance of a young man doesn’t have the same dark poetry of a missing girl, none of the romance the media always finds in the idea of women being taken or running off. Those stupid women. Those bad girls. Flocks of them. Like birds. Scattering, with no warning at all.
But it’s also clear that Dylan can’t have much family, if his disappearance warranted only three mentions in the local press. That’s what happens when nobody is out there rattling the cages for you, trying to make sure you’re found. You get even more lost.
“Okay, well, I appreciate you calling to let me know,” I reply, because I’m already considering my next move. Reaching out to the Milwaukee police for information, certainly. Or perhaps the request would go over better coming from a cop. I think of my conversation with Olsen last night and wonder if my sudden departure from the bar has ruined any chance of his helping me.
Then there’s Ava to contend with, who is already distraught over Colin’s attack. I wonder if news of another disappearance would go a long way to reassuring her that we’re making progress in Colin’s case. Or perhaps it would be doubly painful for her, if Dylan’s disappearance turns out to be nothing. I know the kind of damage false hope can do. The promise of that Jane Doe in the morgue last year. Maggie, down to the lizard tattoo on her thigh. Everything fit. Everything. And it still wasn’t her.
I worry how Ava will react to the same kind of disappointment. She, after all, has much more to lose.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” Greg is saying.
“Thanks,” I reply, trying to get off the phone as quickly as possible, knowing who my next call will be. “Have a good— I mean, I hope everything goes okay.” It’s a pathetic effort at civility, but I’m operating at reduced mental capacity as it is, and it’s really the best that I can do under the circumstances.
Greg is just saying, “You too,” when I hang up and select the first and only contact on my phone’s “Favorites” list. Andrea picks up on the third ring.
“You know,” she says, without even saying hello, “I’m already looking forward to the days when I can just give her an iPad or sit her down in fro
nt of the TV and stare out the window for ten uninterrupted minutes. I’m fully prepared to leverage her mental development and her attention span for it. Whatever, she can tell it to a therapist one day.”
“Sarah Ketchum’s roommate disappeared two months ago,” I reply, and hold my breath—literally, hold my breath—listening for Andrea’s reaction. There’s a long pause.
“Are you serious?”
“I just got off the phone with a guy he worked with. He dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Okay,” Andrea replies, “I’ll be there in twenty.”
Her tone reminds me that we’re a bad match in some ways. Because I hear the poorly controlled excitement in her voice, how it mirrors my own. Sometimes I wonder if a better partner would be dispassionate and cautious, slower to process and deliberate in action. Instead, Andrea is more than willing to dive in with me, right into the deep end. Excited because something lurid has happened, because our answers can only come at this cost. Diving with me, right to the bottom, maybe.
* * *
* * *
“SO LET’S GET this straight,” Andrea says as we sit on my living room floor with the pages from the case files strewn around us. Sarah’s and Maggie’s. Distinguishable based on the typeface—portions of Maggie’s in blocky typewriter font, most of it written by hand, while Sarah’s is all clearly computerized. Andrea has bags under her eyes and her hair is a mess, a tangle of curls barely held at bay by a cloth headband, but her face is alight with a mania that I recognize. I myself have been compulsively cleaning my apartment since Greg called, my hangover receding the more I go over and over the possibilities of all this. As grisly as they may be, new crimes bring with them new information. New connections. They are useful. The police told us that a hundred times, in that first decade Maggie was gone. To keep our fingers crossed, that a new case would reveal the truth.
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