The Herd

by Andrea Bartz

The drum corps was marching in time to the music now, forming shapes visible only from above: a starburst, a cross, a triangle—no, a Christmas tree.

  “This is so cool. I’m gonna see if I can get it from the roof.” Hana turned toward the staircase, tucked back by the coatroom and fitness studio.

  Ten floors below, a percussionist whaling away on a triangle dropped the instrument, whipped off his hat, and launched into a confident back handspring. The crowd went wild, their screams and whoops reaching up through the glass. I leaned my head against the window, feeling its coldness on the space between my brows, on the third eye.

  “Are you okay?”

  I turned to Mikki and saw that she was looking behind her. At first she just sounded confused, but when she repeated herself, her voice tightened up into concern: “Hana, what’s wrong?”

  I spun around and saw Hana at the far end of the room. She’d dropped to her knees and her chest was heaving so hard, we could see it from here. Not just see it—hear it, a rasping hee-hah, hee-hah.

  “Hana?” I called, more quietly than I intended. Go to her, my brain shot out, but my feet were glued to the floor.

  “What’s going on?” Mikki took one small, scared step forward. “Are you okay?”

  Hana opened her mouth but what came out was a strangled mewl. She kept lifting her finger to the ceiling and gaping her mouth like a fish.

  The spell broke and I rushed to her, dropping onto my own knees and sliding the last couple feet between us. Outside the drum line did a frantic crescendo, echoing around the buildings, boomeranging booms. I grabbed her shoulders. “Hana, what is it?”

  She looked at me, her eyes widening.

  “Eleanor,” she said, her voice hysterical. “She’s on the roof.”

  PART III

  CHAPTER 13

  PLEASE STOP SAYING YOU SUFFER

  FROM IMPOSTOR SYNDROME

  By Hana Bradley Published to Gleam On April 10, 2019

  Hi, Gleam Team! Hana here—publicist for Gleam and the Herd. In PR, I’m lucky to work with ambitious, accomplished, hardworking people who inspire others…much like yourselves! And you’d probably be shocked to hear that many of the women I work with come to me with a confession. They lean in and say it softly, like they’re letting me in on an awful secret: I feel like a fraud. I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m not sure I deserve to be where I am. That’s right: These incredible, inspiring people are diagnosing themselves with Impostor Syndrome.

  It’s a term we hear a lot these days, and it seems to perfectly suit that secret, shameful feeling many of us experience. But it’s nothing new; Impostor Syndrome actually came from a scientific paper published by two female psychologists in 1978. They theorized, based on their own anecdotal research, that young women were vulnerable to “impostor phenomenon,” or feeling like an “intellectual phony.” The researchers observed that, despite “outstanding academic and professional accomplishments,” many women think they’re really not too bright and that they’ve fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.

  They published the study, and the news went…nowhere. That’s because follow-up studies couldn’t link impostor phenomenon with gender or, specifically, with high-achieving women. And in 1993, one of the original researchers retracted her theory, admitting that the “syndrome” they’d originally identified actually applied to—wait for it—80 percent of the population. Old, young, male, female, anything in-between—almost all of us have these feelings.

  And that should’ve been the end of it: Whoops, sorry, #notathing. But no. The term took on a life of its own—you’ve almost definitely heard a friend invoke it after nabbing a promotion, and maybe you’ve used it yourself. I have a huge problem with this debunked pop psychology term: It implies that occasionally doubting yourself is a pathology, when really, it’s just a part of the human experience. (Uh, maybe we should be worrying about the weirdos who don’t occasionally wonder if they’re as great as others seem to think they are?)

  Feeling like you don’t know what the F you’re doing shouldn’t trigger shame. It means you’re challenging yourself—stretching, learning, and growing. And that’s something to be proud of.

  This article was adapted from Bradley’s presentation at the Herd on April 9.

  CHAPTER 14

  Hana

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 9:08 P.M.

  I couldn’t stop shaking.

  Someone had given me a blanket, and at first I thought vaguely that it must have been from the paramedics, the ones who magically produce them to wrap around shivering children during an action movie’s denouement. Then I realized: No paramedics had arrived, because Eleanor was clearly dead. Instead, medical examiners bustled by, different uniforms, same stern looks. And then I realized I was rubbing my fingers over the thick knit of this particular blanket, swipes of gray and black, and concluded that it was probably something someone had grabbed from Eleanor’s office in the ensuing pandemonium.

  Eleanor was dead.

  It kept grabbing at my chest, an echo of the pain, the way a burn on your skin stings over and over again. Last week, I would’ve given anything to have my answers, to just know. Now I wanted to climb back into that uncertainty, when Eleanor was maybe, possibly, probably still alive.

  It’d crossed my mind that she might be dead, of course. Killed in some tragic accident orchestrated by the Fates. Spinning their yarns, tying off Eleanor’s with a crisp knot like whomever knitted this blanket. That’d been one of my favorite classes in school, Psychological Theory of Folklore and Mythology. Early, elaborate attempts at understanding human behavior.

  But who could make sense of this? I pictured her coat, the crescent of blood black against the collar. And when I got closer, the jagged line against her white neck where a scarf should be.

  Katie slung her arm around me and briskly rubbed my back.

  “Is it cold?” I asked her. “They should shut the door to the stairwell.”

  “It’s not cold,” she said, leaning more of her body into me. “I think you’re in shock.”

  “I’m not in shock.” My teeth chattered. “I’m just cold.”

  A police officer approached. He was young, his face round and clean-shaven. My eyes floated to the gun on his hip. He kept addressing Mikki and Katie instead of me, and the two of them probably assumed it was because I was shaken and shaking, but I wasn’t so sure. They don’t know what it’s like to be the one cops eye suspiciously, their tone just one degree off.

  “When we’re done here, I’ll need all of you to come to the station to make a quick statement,” he said.

  “How much longer will it be?” Mikki called out. She was slumped on a blue sofa.

  “Maybe an hour?”

  Mikki’s lip popped into a pout. “Okay.”

  I felt Katie looking at me. She turned back to the officer. “I don’t think Hana should be forced to stay here,” she said. “There’s a deli right on the corner. Could we wait down there?”

  He hesitated, and she gestured toward me. “I’m worried about my sister. Sitting here isn’t helping. I mean, we’re obviously not a flight risk.”

  Not a flight risk. Unlike Eleanor, a week ago. Had she really intended to leave, or was that a weird cover-up orchestrated by her killer? Or had she been trying to escape because she knew she was in danger? Someone killed Eleanor—my jaw took off clacking again and I wrapped the throw tighter around my shoulders.

  “Let me check.” He clomped away, shoulders hunched, moving like an awkward teenage boy.

  A little sob escaped from Mikki. Sad, that’s how I was supposed to feel, right? Or maybe afraid, freaked out by the horror show directly above our heads. Instead I felt…numb, maybe. Removed. Up on the roof, I’d felt fear as I crept toward what I first mistook for a forgotten boot, and now I could recall the jagged panic that’d gripped me wh
en I spotted a second, but then my memory closed in around just one more sight—the stiff skin of a mannequin, a dark half-moon at the top of her coat, brownish in the roof’s sallow light. Next thing I knew, I was on my knees in the sunroom with Mikki and Katie staring at me. Like an audience, like theatergoers looking up at me onstage.

  “Sorry. They said we gotta keep you here.” The cop spoke as he was still scurrying back. Mikki whimpered. “Oh, and don’t—alert anyone. Or touch anything. Just stay here, okay?”

  For a while, we all stared into the distance. It was like I’d strapped on a heavy breastplate, making it difficult to breathe. I was the only one not crying, and this struck me as unfair: They hadn’t gone up on the roof. They hadn’t seen the gash in Eleanor’s neck. Instead they’d stayed warm here in the sunroom, staring at me.

  At first, they’d been confused—they thought maybe Eleanor was alive up there. Once I’d set them straight, Katie had yelled out, No one goes up there—we’re calling 911. We’d huddled on the floor as the sirens grew louder; each new whoop had made her jump. The cops congratulated us on not messing with the crime scene. Which I liked. I like when authority figures say “good job.”

  A little shout and some shuffling, and two men rolled Eleanor out in a body bag spread across a gurney. Mikki stifled a wail. They huffed directions as they navigated the tight corners, and I stared at the black sack, something blazing in my belly like an ember. The score along Eleanor’s neck. The darkness leaking from it, soaking the top of her coat. Someone had taken her, someone who had no right.

  I thought of the Fates again, the three of them, sisters who carried torches, whips, and cups of venom to punish wrongdoers on Earth. Relentlessly pursuing murderers, torturing them until they were driven mad. Monstrous, smelly hags with snakes in their hair and bat wings on their backs.

  Wait, not Fates. Those were Furies.

  * * *

  —

  The interview room was nicer than I’d expected. Years of TV-watching had primed me for a blank, bare-bones box, a table between us with a ring meant for affixing handcuffs. But this pretty much looked like the meeting rooms I’d rented for sit-downs with my own PR clients. Cream walls, a decent-sized window, rolling chairs, that smooth, generic table.

  Still, my heart banged in my chest. Pounding like the big bass drum that’d jolted me up to the roof in the first place. Detective Ratliff appeared and shook my hand warmly.

  “Ms. Bradley, I’m so sorry for your loss.” She pulled out a seat across from mine. I was glad it was her. Detective Herrera, the little ham hock of a man who’d shown up at Eleanor’s the night she went missing, gave me bad vibes—something in the cock of his hip, the confident set of his shoulders. He reminded me of the Cambridge cop who’d wandered over when, senior year, a bouncer with white dreadlocks had refused to believe my driver’s license was real. Mikki and Eleanor had made a scene, jabbing their fingers in his face as tears coated my eyes, until the officer had intervened and snatched the ID from the bouncer’s hand. Mikki and Eleanor had been so relieved—finally, an authority figure to set things straight—and their faces crumpled as the cop snorted, This is obviously fake and folded my (state-issued) Michigan driver’s license in his fist.

  “We appreciate your giving a statement tonight,” Ratliff said. “I know this must be difficult for you.”

  “Well, anything to help you figure out who did this.” A little honk escaped my lips and I cleared my throat to cover it. “Has anyone contacted her parents?”

  “We left messages for them. We have someone driving up to their home now.”

  “Good. They’re going to be just…devastated.”

  She nodded, shot me a sympathetic look. “We’re doing everything we can. Now, can you walk me through what happened, starting with when you decided to go up to the roof?”

  I recounted it, careful to get the details right, to mention anything that might be useful, always eager to please. Back in the Herd’s sunroom: Katie and Mikki pressed against the glass, gazing at the street below as I beelined for the stairs.

  “I got to the roof and my first thought was how cold it was,” I continued. “I started making my way to the edge—it’s kind of a maze of different sections, which are, like, seating areas when it’s open in the summer. Now all the furniture is in piles.” I saw it again: chair- and cushion- and table-shaped lumps haphazardly stacked against little barricades. How I’d hustled by, the clamor of the drummers echoing off nearby buildings, when something made me stop and glance back.

  “I looked at one of the piles and at first, my thought was, ‘Why did someone leave a shoe up here?’ It was kinda sticking out, a boot. And then I realized there were two. So I got a little closer to try and look, and I saw—I realized—”

  Something in my throat squeezed and bobbed. I pushed out a deep breath. “I got closer and realized it was a body. For a second I was like, ‘Is a homeless person squatting on the roof?’ But it’s way too cold for that. So I took a few steps around the pile of lawn furniture, and she was there, in this little space between the pile and the partition. I already had my phone out so I turned on the light, and I could see—”

  “Where were you standing?”

  I blinked. “Right at her feet. I basically shined the flashlight up along her body.” I indicated a sweep over my own torso.

  “And you didn’t touch her.”

  “I didn’t touch anything. As soon as I got to her coat I think I knew, although I hadn’t consciously processed it yet. And then I got to her face and it was—there was no mistaking it.” My voice wobbled but I breathed again, controlled it. “Her eyes were closed and her skin was so white—it looked like, I don’t know, a dummy that was designed to look like her, or a wax figure or something. And then I realized there was sort of a gash across part of her neck.” I waved my nails alongside my throat. “At first I thought it was a choker? And then I spotted this big stain along the top of her collar. Right underneath it. In the darkness it just looked black, but that’s when I ran back downstairs.” I could still feel the fumbling panic, my feet skittering backward over the wooden slats as my lizard brain hit the air horn: Get away, get away, get away.

  Ratliff nodded. “Did you notice anything else unusual up there?”

  “I’m not up there much in the winter. No one is. There’s a sign saying the door is alarmed, but we discovered early on that nothing happens if you push it. But this is the first time I’ve been up there since maybe October.” My thoughts were popping out of me in the wrong order, swirling nonsensically.

  “So…you’re saying you wouldn’t have noticed if anything else was disturbed.”

  “Right. But I didn’t touch anything. You guys saw the exact same roof I did.”

  “Okay. The crime scene investigators are doing a thorough job.”

  I frowned. “Will they be looking through the entire coworking space?” When we’d left, the Herd was still crawling with forensic experts measuring and swabbing and photographing.

  She raised an eyebrow. “I imagine so. It’s unlikely the body was dropped there from somewhere else.” My eyes widened and she shook her head. “Sorry—that was callous.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m just realizing we’ll have to close the space tomorrow.” Another thought unfurled: I was still the Herd’s publicist. Would I be tasked with breaking this news? “Will you guys be making an announcement? Holding a press conference?” It was like all my knowledge of public relations had leaked out with my snot and tears: How did police briefings come to be?

  “Our media relations department will handle that,” she replied. “In conjunction with the family. You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Ratliff didn’t say anything else, so I went on: “It’ll be big news, right? Because she’s a public figure?”

  She hesitated. “It’s likely we’ll have to keep the local m
edia apprised of the investigation, yeah. But we’ll wait until the timing’s right.”

  I stared at the scratched tabletop, then looked up at her. “What are you going to do? To catch this person?”

  “Detective Herrera and I will be following up on all leads. We take every homicide investigation seriously.”

  “Just like you take every missing-persons case seriously.” I raised my eyebrows.

  “We’ll be taking into account everything we learned about Ms. Walsh over the last week. The stolen phone, the defacement, the planned escape to Mexico—we’ll be poring over everything for leads.”

  The email…from Mexico. “You must be able to track down whoever sent that email yesterday. That had to be her killer, right? She must have been long dead by then.”

  She folded her hands on the table. “We’ll wait for an autopsy before we try to place the time of death. But at first glance, my medical examiner—” She hesitated. “They aren’t sure if they’ll be able to pinpoint it. Because of the weather. It’s like a deep freeze.”

  Like a chest freezer. I thought of the hulking one in our basement in Kalamazoo, how Katie and I would run down there, feet pattering, to choose a flavor of pizza or ice cream. Eleanor, frozen in time like a gallon of rocky road.

  Something clunked in my brain. “But we can look at what she was wearing, right? See if it’s what she wore to the Herd that Monday?” The thought chugged along. I was so tired. “Daniel was pretty sure she didn’t come home that night. Which would mean someone else faked those emails and texts from her the next day. You guys should look into that.”

  “We’ll be exploring all leads,” she said again. She jumped and then glanced down at her phone. “Unless there’s anything else you need to tell me, we’re gonna let you get home and get some sleep.” She paused and I fought to keep my expression neutral. There was one other thing, a massive one, but I’d already confirmed this wasn’t about that.