by Jo Treggiari
She thought about her routine, the small world within Dempsey Hollow that she and Lynn inhabited. A roughly polygonal wedge bordered by school, their homes, the park and downtown. She bet she could make the trips between them blindfolded, it was all so fucking familiar.
Pre-set. Expected. Scheduled. Eight a.m., a straight trajectory down Fox to Laurel, across Main, and right on School Lane. Four p.m., the same route but reversed. A kiss and hug on the corner, home by 4:45 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, by 6:00 on Mondays and Wednesdays when Ari had more swim time and Lynn had Mathletes. Fridays they went to the ice cream parlor, the vintage clothing shop and the bookstore. Lynn hated being predictable in any way, but “What the fuck else is there to do in this town?” she’d gripe. Ari loved knowing how her week was going to play out. If they’d deviated from it at all, maybe they would have escaped notice. But no, you could set your clock by them, and someone had noticed. Someone had been watching and now he had acted. She thought about how often they ran into Jesse Caldwell and Jack Rourke when they were out and about and she clenched her jaw so hard it popped.
She thought about how relieved her parents were that she was going to school. They’d stayed close when the police had come to speak with her again, just before dinner. It was Officer Tremblay, and the questions had been about Lynn’s regular routine, her interests and activities. Talking about Lynn had kicked her adrenaline into high gear.
“Oh, Ari. It will be good for you to be with your classmates again. To get back to your regular day,” they’d said. And Ari had just nodded because at least she was doing something. Now though, she thought she might faint. He would be there too. She felt her chest constrict and her pulse quicken. She collapsed onto the carpet, coiled tight. All of a sudden she couldn’t breathe. The air seemed thick and the walls closed in around her. She put her hands down flat on the floor and lowered her head between her knees, forcing herself to take shallow inhalations. She muscled her brain into cooperating. See the blue there before you, Ari. Gentle ripples on the surface. How good it will feel against your skin when you dive, cutting through the water like a knife. Your body almost weightless, your breath coming slow and easy. She heard her coach’s voice: No one can catch you when you’re in the water and you’re not second-guessing yourself. You’re a shark, not a tadpole.
After ten minutes she was able to uncurl herself; after fifteen she was able to get to her feet and go to her desk. She googled the love quote he’d sent. Edgar Allen Poe. Her fingers tightened on the edge of the workstation. Poe’s poems and short stories were studied by all junior and senior English students at her school but she remembered the book sticking out of his pocket as he walked away from her in the grove. Jesse Caldwell. She was hot with anger.
“Everything okay, honey?” her mother asked, tapping on the bedroom door as Ari quickly closed the lid on her computer and swept the serial killer notes into a drawer.
Her mother came in with a folded pile of clean laundry, which she put on top of the stripped bed. “How are you feeling?” Her eyes searched Ari’s face. Ari shrugged and turned toward the heap of blankets on the floor, not wanting her mother to touch her. She felt as if the slightest caress would make her implode.
“You look a little flushed.”
Ari forced herself to answer, hoping her voice wouldn’t betray her racing thoughts.
“I’m still tired but I’m all right.”
“No headache?”
“No.” Although there was the threat of one. She wondered how her eyes would handle sunlight, and the flurorescents at school. Not to mention the attention she knew she would draw from every kid there. Could she just wear sunglasses? Diva, she heard Lynn mutter.
“Karen Lubnick said they’ve asked the county police for extra feet on the ground. They’ll find her, Ari.” Her mother said. She was wringing her hands together but her voice was adamant, as if she were willing Ari to believe it too.
Ari wished with all her heart that she could. That someone else could do it for her. Her blood boiled; her stomach had turned to stone. Until she found Lynn, she knew she’d feel as if her insides were slowly fossilizing. The hope was so slim, a thread, but she grabbed onto it as if it were a rope. A rope she envisioned tying around the killer’s neck until he begged for his life.
“Your father and I are meeting the rest of the volunteers at the café. Captain Rourke has officers at the school for the students’ safety.”
Ari’s belly spasmed. She had her sheets knotted in her hands. As soon as she noticed, she let them fall.
“Everyone is on high alert. School is the safest place for you right now.”
I will kill her. Ari was pretty sure he was going to kill her as well but she had to try. She turned her face away, confident that her mother would be able to see the terror visible in every line.
“The community is really pulling together. We’re doing door-to-door today.”
Ari forced something approximating a smile. There were posters of Lynn everywhere. The photo they’d used was from her last birthday. Ari had been right beside her but they’d cut her out of the picture. She flashed on a nature program she’d watched. The wolf separating the prey from the herd. She closed her fingers around her bracelet. Was Lynn still wearing hers? Did it give her any kind of comfort or had she given up?
“Are you ready to go?” her mother asked.
No! “I guess,” Ari said, zipping up her sweatshirt.
Her mother followed her downstairs, picking up her backpack for her and holding it out. Ari slipped it over her shoulders. It felt like years since she’d attended class. Why had it ever been important to her? There was no future. Everything came down to right now and how she chose to act.
Her father was waiting in the hallway by the front door. Ari evaded his hug by fumbling with her sweatshirt hood, which had caught under the backpack strap.
“Ari,” he said. His tone alerted her and she turned to look at him. He searched out her eyes, glancing quickly at her mother. Then he dropped his hand onto Ari’s shoulder. It felt like a warm brick but she let it lie there, rooting her to the ground. “I just heard. They’ve put out an alert for Stroud Bellows,” he said.
“They didn’t find him at the lake?” her mother asked, sagging against the banister.
“No. No sign of him. Not even his car.”
They both turned to look at her and spoke at the same time. “Ari, we’re so sorry.”
She brushed aside their apology. “Do they think it’s the same person who has Lynn?” A wave of coldness fell over her. A thought began to gnaw at her. Where was Stroud? Was she the last person who had seen him? His cheek had been cool but not cold. She hadn’t felt a breath when she leaned over him, but she’d been so hyped up fighting the flee instinct with everything she had. Was he alive? Why hadn’t he come home?
“They think a predator is operating in the county.”
Predator. Yes, that was the word for the killer. Someone wily, patient, a hunter who stalked his victims, unseen until the kill. If not for her father’s supporting hand, Ari thought she might crumple and fall. What if Stroud was the predator, not the prey? Now that he was missing too, there was clear evidence of wrongdoing, and the police might actually listen to her, but—breathe a word and I will kill her. She felt hysteria start to build and forced her attention outwards.
Dad was mouthing words at her. With an effort she focused on what he was saying.
“You take my car,” he said. “Just drop us off at the coffee shop.”
It was unspoken that they knew she’d feel safer driving than walking. It was unspoken that they thought of her as some damaged, fragile thing. She hoped they were wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
It pains me to leave Lynn. She’s urinated in the box and I am annoyed. But then I realize she is scared and can’t help herself. It doesn’t matter how often I try to calm her, how much I tell her I love her. As soon as she hears my voice now, she starts to scream.
Ma Cosloy beat
me for soiling my sheets. When I was old enough I had to launder them each morning before the school bus came. I remember the weight of the wet cloth, the struggle to pin it to the line and the bite of the vinegar on my chapped hands.
I will wash her body in the cold water of the stream and all the impurities will be swept away.
I wonder, though. It shows a weakness that I didn’t think she possessed. What if her heart gives out before I am ready for her? I can’t afford to take that chance.
If she dies too soon, it will ruin everything.
I pull out my sketchbook, look at my recent drawings. The background is rendered in simple lines, the details yet to be added. The girls will be the centerpiece. They will tell the story. I portray them curled up together as if in sleep, hands clasped, hair mingled, dead roses strewn around them, and their hearts, like beautiful offerings.
I remember the first time I saw a diorama. I was living on the streets in Albany. I’d just made twenty dollars from one of my regulars. A man who liked me to kneel in front of him and when he was close to finishing, he’d push my head down into the dirt and put his foot on the back of my neck. He was quick at least and in a hurry to get back to his wife.
It was damp and bitterly cold and my bones hurt.
I’d passed the art gallery often but I’d never gone in, figuring that I’d stick out around all those adults, in my scruffy clothes with my wild hair. But I was huddled across the street in a doorway that smelled of spilled booze and urine, and the window was brightly lit, the artwork displayed. I’d never seen anything like it. It drew me like a moth. I hurried across the street, dodging traffic, and pressed my face against the glass.
The canvases were huge, at least ten feet tall and thickly painted. I couldn’t distinguish any color—the reds had abandoned me by then—but the way the paint was applied gave me hints. One canvas was a maelstrom of swoops and swirls, an immeasurable force building under the surface, like a wave on a stormy ocean. One was shiny, slick as patent leather, a mirrored surface that distorted my face. A third reminded me of a thick slab of bloody meat. My fingers itched to touch them.
It was a girl at the counter. The gallery apparently empty except for her. She was young, close to my age, and as I hovered by the window, she looked up and frowned and then gave me a tentative smile. I took it as an invitation.
Her smile slipped a little when I came in. I guess she could smell me. It was almost impossible to stay clean on the street, but I could tell that she was too embarrassed to throw me out.
I found the scent of the gallery to be almost as intoxicating as the butcher shop. Paint, wood and mineral spirits, some kind of lemon cleaner.
More of the large canvases hung on the walls but now my attention was taken by something else. It was a tableau. Life-sized. Partially walled, like an open box. A family sitting at a table, plates and glasses in front of them. Mother, father, two children. A festive celebration, but rather than a turkey, the middle of the table was occupied by a tiny, curled-up infant. All the figures were fashioned out of plaster of Paris. Stark white. Like the negative of a photograph. It felt chalky when I touched it, ignoring a warning gasp from the girl at the desk. The realism was startling. It was almost as if there were bodies of people under the plaster, bones and flesh giving their shapes structure. As if they had been entombed. Diorama said the card on the wall. Dieorama, I repeated in my head.
Great art doesn’t last; I know this. Nothing beautiful does. But in a way it is the impermanence of it that makes it special.
I am ready. It’s time to collect Ari.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The student lot was almost empty when Ari arrived shortly after 8:00 a.m., and still she parked at the far end away from the few cars that were already there, just in case someone was hiding, waiting to leap out at her. She knew about girls being abducted as they unlocked their doors, stuffed into trunks and driven away to be tortured, raped and killed. Bundy had faked injury in order to get the co-eds into his vehicle. She’d always wondered how they could be so unaware. So dumb. But she’d been safe in her ignorance too. Now she locked the car with shaking hands, and made sure to check out her surroundings.
The sky felt very big over her head as she hurried toward the school. A few hundred steps later she was stationed on the corner across the street, watching the kids start to arrive, fruitlessly praying for a glimpse of Lynn, and feeling completely cut off from everyone, as if the road were some impenetrable barrier. It was hard not to feel as if she was completely isolated, but harder still to sit down or hang out on the steps near so many people. Plus she spotted two cops standing guard. She couldn’t risk being seen by the killer near them. Breathe a word and I’ll kill her.
Her money was on Jesse Caldwell but she had to be smart and consider all possibilities. She tried to imagine each of her suspects speaking those words. Jesse, Jack, McNamara, Stroud, their faces blurring into the shadow figure she remembered, hands swathed in black. It was like dress-up dolls. She could make each of them fit.
There was a side entrance to the school as well, though most kids found the main entrance more social, gathering there in groups before and after school. Jesse was one of those who preferred the other way in, but from where she stood, she could still see that door. His shit-brown piece-of-shit car wasn’t in the lot either. Where was he?
She watched the underclassmen arrive first, most of them dropped off by their anxious parents. They were so small, burdened by their huge backpacks and in danger of toppling over. A squad of football players showed up, traveling in a huddle, and then a mass of students who must have synchronized their schedules and possibly their outfits. Her heart sped up as she picked out a few red water polo jackets. She scanned the cluster for Stroud’s profile, his chlorine-bleached head. Her gaze caught Miranda Taylor’s. She stood in the middle of the throng, presumably doing the same thing Ari was, looking for Stroud among the various groups of people assembling and intermingling on the front steps. Even at this distance, Ari could see her frown. Turning, the girl searched the parking lot, no doubt looking for Stroud’s blue Audi. Ari had already checked; it wasn’t there.
The first bell clanged, the noise making Ari’s pulse pound. She’d seen none of her four suspects. She paced, stalling for as long as she could, although she could see that the cops were looking her way.
The trickles of students flowed into a few main tributaries heading to the main entrance, and gradually the area in front of the school emptied out. Second bell rang and some late-comers arrived, clutching gaping messenger bags and unfastened backpacks, or strolling nonchalantly because they were upholding a reputation. She heard mutterings as they passed her, caught a few sidelong looks and some pointing fingers. It was obvious that everyone knew she was Lynn’s friend. Slowly, those kids disappeared inside as well. Fuck. She was vibrating with adrenaline. Unable to stop walking back and forth. One of the cops glanced at her curiously again and said something to his partner. And then, finally, Jesse Caldwell appeared, sneaking around to the side door. She started toward him but he was too far away. He ducked into the crowd and was gone.
She shifted from foot to foot, unsure of whether to chase after him. It felt a little too much like sticking her head into the wolf’s mouth. And he’d said “wait for me” in the text. Where should she wait?
“Ari Sullivan, come on, we’re both late,” a sharp voice said behind her. “And for my class, I believe.” She turned to see Dr. McNamara and took a cautious step backward. Suspect #3. Jesse was definitely the front-runner, but it would be stupid to let her guard down now. And Stroud? Jack Rourke? She mustn’t discount them either.
“Lots of work to do today,” the teacher said tensely.
Oh God, she’d forgotten about the cats.
“Are you back to full strength?” Dr. McNamara asked. “Your parents called the office and let them know that you’ve had a hard time. Seems a little foolhardy to be out and about.”
“I’m fine,” Ari said, her
voice catching in her throat. Were these thinly veiled warnings? All part of the mind game? She felt very much like a mouse and struggled to find her courage.
“You don’t seem fine. You don’t seem fine at all.”
She searched the teacher’s face. Had she always looked so harsh? Ari couldn’t tell. She clasped her backpack in front of her chest as if it could protect her.
“We’ll go in together,” the teacher said, giving her a little shove on the shoulder. “And that way you can avoid getting in trouble.”
Ari shot a glance at the cops, and then back at the teacher. She kept some distance between them but she followed her toward the main entrance. Dr. McNamara was humming tunelessly under her breath.
She swallowed, her mouth desperately dry. Sweat trickled down her back. Her fingers fumbled at her bracelet.
Ari thought about dodging into the nearby bathroom to splash cold water on her face and get her breathing under control, but she was half-scared the teacher would follow her in.
On the way down the hall, she darted her head around, so focused on locating Jesse that she almost fell over a library cart pushed against the wall. Special book orders brought over from the central branch.
“Easy there, watch your step,” Dr. McNamara said, steadying Ari with a hand to her elbow. Her fingers were cold and Ari jerked loose, muttering some response as she continued to search the crowd.
Safety in numbers, she reminded herself. Miranda Taylor was sticking a folded note through the slats into Stroud’s locker. She saw various kids from her classes. More pointing in her direction, more whispering. She hung her head. And then she spotted Jesse Caldwell brooding by the water fountain. He caught her gaze and straightened up. Was it him? She hurried toward him, aware of his eyes on her every step of the way. His lips curled into a smirk. “Sullivan.”
“I’m ready. I’m here.” Her voice throbbed with emotion.
