Where They Found Her

by Kimberly McCreight

  Molly

  When I got to Winchester’s Pub, Justin was sitting in one of the worn wooden booths near the front, the ones with the initials of university students from decades long past carved into the now-polished surfaces. With his scruffy face and beat-up jeans, Justin could have passed for a good-looking graduate student, if there hadn’t been two actual students with him—a boy with bad acne and a huge Adam’s apple, and a girl with a pixie face and spiky black hair with green tips—both of whom looked about twelve by comparison.

  When I’d texted him, he’d said he was back from the conference, grabbing dinner with some advisees if I wanted to come by. And I did. I needed to see him. I’d felt shaken ever since I’d left Harold’s house with that bracelet in my pocket, turned over in exchange for an old box of CDs I happened to have in my trunk.

  Speaking to Steve afterward hadn’t helped, either. I called him as soon as I’d driven a safe distance from Harold’s and pulled into an empty driveway.

  “I think you should consider speaking again with the man who lives across the street from where you found the baby,” I’d said, trying not to sound pushy or judgmental. “I think he may have seen something the night the baby was left.”

  “Harold told you that, did he?” Steve had taken a loud breath. “Did he also tell you that he’s a convicted felon—aggravated assault—with a history of mental illness and a record of filing false reports?”

  “No,” I’d said, feeling reprimanded and embarrassed again. “He didn’t mention that.”

  “My personal advice is to steer clear of Harold,” Steve had said. “Nothing you’ll get from him could possibly be worth the risk of sticking around long enough to find it out.”

  Justin grinned and waved when he saw me. I was about to head over when my phone rang. I paused on the side of the bar: Richard Englander. I dropped my phone right back into my pocket and let the call go to voicemail again. I’d gotten several more texts from Erik, including one praising my essay about infanticide, but none had said a word about Richard. Erik was due back in a day or so, he’d said. If Richard had an issue with my being on the story, he’d have to take it up with Erik when he got back.

  “Guys, this is my wife, Molly,” Justin said when I’d made my way over to their table, which was covered with half-empty plates and glasses. They’d long since finished eating. “Tamara and Jeff are in my nineteenth-century fiction class. They were just telling me that the dean of students has shot down the Animal Rights Committee’s plan to lock themselves in cages in the middle of the quad to protest factory farming.”

  “Factory farming is totally disgusting,” the girl said, glaring at me as if I had a bunch of baby cows jammed in cages in my backyard.

  “Yes,” I said, because I was kind of scared to disagree. “Absolutely awful.”

  “I promise I will do what I can to help plead your case. But I’m afraid right now I’m on borrowed time with the wife,” Justin said, winking at me. “Can we pick this up later, guys?”

  “Yeah, sure,” the boy said, grabbing his stuff and digging in his pockets for cash.

  “No, no, Jeff,” Justin said. “It’s on me.”

  “Thanks, Professor Sanderson.” Jeff elbowed the girl. “Come on, Tam.”

  The girl was still squinting at me.

  “Tamara, we’ll work it out,” Justin said. “Don’t worry.”

  “Okay, Mr. Sanderson,” she said before pouting out the door.

  “Wow, she’s quite the ray of sunshine,” I muttered.

  “Hubris of youth.” Justin shrugged, watching them go. “Someone needs to keep on fighting the good fight now that we’re too old and decrepit to care about anything but getting a good night’s sleep.”

  “They’re, what, freshman? They look like babies.”

  “That’s because they are babies. They’re extension students from Ridgedale High School—juniors and seniors.” His brow wrinkled. “Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure they aren’t supposed to be joining the clubs, much less protesting anything on campus. But I may let Thomas Price handle that. He supervises the high school exchange program. Anyway, they’re good kids. The boy is really sharp, more insightful than a lot of the actual freshmen.”

  “And the girl?”

  “Hmm, not so much. Being angry may be taking up a lot of her mental energy,” Justin said, which made me laugh.

  “Well, if she’s pissed about factory farming, her head is going to burst when she hears about the police department’s DNA dragnet.”

  Steve had briefly mentioned the planned community-wide voluntary DNA testing when we spoke about Harold. He’d asked me to post an alert about the community meeting, where he would be making the official announcement.

  “‘Dragnet’? That sounds daunting,” Justin said as I sat across from him and started picking at his leftover french fries.

  “I think it might be,” I said. “Can you get Ella on your way home? She’s at Mia’s house, having dinner.”

  “Sure,” Justin said. “Everything okay?”

  “I just need to cover the community meeting so I can be there to record the town’s collective conniption when the police announce this thing.”

  “In their defense, it doesn’t sound very constitutional,” he said. “Oh, and by the way.” He pulled out his phone and showed me the text I had sent earlier. “What is this? It looks like an address.”

  He could tell it wasn’t innocuous. Wasn’t a mistake. And it didn’t seem wise to lie. If I wanted him to trust me, I needed to be trustworthy.

  “I had to do an interview.” I shrugged. “The guy made me nervous. It seemed best if someone knew where I was. Just in case.”

  “Just in case?” His eyes were wide.

  “Excess of caution. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Hmm.” He was trying not to argue. Neither one of us wanted to go back down the bumpy road we’d traveled the night before.

  I felt the slip of paper in my coat pocket then, the one I’d found there that morning. Though this one was hardly a slip. Nearly half a page, it was folded into a square. I pulled it out. “This is one of my favorites.”

  “I know,” Justin said. “I remember.”

  and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

  i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) E. E. Cummings

  The waitress came and handed Justin the check. He pulled out some cash and tucked it into the hard leather check holder.

  “Wait, you’re not going to help publicize their fascist dragnet, are you?” Justin said, looking suddenly aggravated, as though the thought had just occurred to him. “I can’t believe you’d be okay with something like that. It goes against everything you’ve always believed in.”

  Regardless of how old and decrepit he liked to proclaim himself, he could get pretty wound up about social justice.

  “I’m reporting on its existence, not endorsing it,” I said, feeling defensive. Justin was probably taking this as yet another sign of my fundamental instability. “Besides, I think they’re hoping that they won’t have to go through with it. That the threat will be enough to make someone come forward.”

  “And in the meantime, they want to use you as their propaganda machine?” Justin asked as if it were some kind of personal affront. “I’m not trying to be an asshole, Molly. And I heard you last night about needing to stay on this story. Loud and clear. I just don’t want to see you get used in the process. I hate to say it, but you might be a bit of an easy mark.”

  “Well, gee, thanks for that,” I said, but mildly. He was agreeing to drop his objections to my staying on the story. I had to be grateful for that and take the passive-aggressive swipe. “You’re all about the compliments these days.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. I tried not to notice how sad he seemed. “I just— I’m trying to look out for you, that’s all.”

  “I know.” I put a hand on his face. “Maybe look out for me a little less, okay?”

  “Are you sure
?” He smiled. He seemed melancholy still, but less so. “Because I’m so good at it.”

  “Yeah, except, lucky for us,” I smoothed my thumb over his cheek, “you’re good at lots of things.”

  Halfway to the Athletic Center, I realized I should have driven and parked in the gym’s easily accessible and brightly lit parking lot. I hadn’t really been thinking when I’d parted ways with Justin on the green. It was night, but unusually warm, and I’d figured the walk would do me good. So I’d left my car parked on Franklin Avenue and blithely strode headlong onto campus.

  It hadn’t occurred to me, though, how empty and how dark it would be. The dorms and student center were all in the opposite direction, and so, it seemed, were all the people. The language lab, the art studio, and the theater were bright, but a distance away, and the largest academic buildings—Rockland Hall, Barry Hall, and Sampson Hall—were all pitch-black at that hour. The deeper I went into the darkness, the more nervous I became, so that by the time I was halfway across campus, even the sound of my own heels on the path—loud and echoing—was making me jittery.

  I texted Justin as I walked. Please tell me campus is safer than it feels. I held the phone in my hand, waiting for him to respond. But he was probably inside Mia’s house getting Ella, his phone left behind in the car’s cup holder.

  I walked faster, feeling even more vulnerable with the unanswered text in my hand. I checked over my shoulder to be sure that no one was following me. When that didn’t make me feel any better, I did it again and again. Until I was doing it every couple steps, feeling more wound up with each swivel of my head. There was no one behind me, at least no one I could see, and yet it felt like someone was there as I followed the path down the hill toward the Athletic Center and through a short tunnel of trees.

  I was relieved when the sidewalk rose on the other side, the Athletic Center in sight, lit up a welcoming gold. There was a small crowd clustered near the door. Probably not close enough to hear me if I called out, so I picked up the pace, my heels louder as I headed across the last stretch of concrete.

  I was about to step onto the tail end of the sidewalk hugging the circular drive when there was a noise to my left. Something in the darkness. The wind, hopefully. That was my best-case scenario. I was looking in the direction of the sound when I bumped right into something—someone. My phone slipped out of my hands and cracked to the ground.

  “Oops,” Deckler said, as though I were so silly for throwing my phone around. He bent to pick it up, inspecting it, then wiped the screen over his sleeve before handing it back to me. “Good as new.”

  He was out of his snug yellow-and-black Campus Safety bicycle uniform but was even less appealing in his sweatshirt and jeans. Why was he always everywhere, watching me?

  The files. A campus security officer would have had plenty of access to each and every one of those girls. And the power to bury their complaints. Not to mention Deckler’s menacing vibe and his apparent willingness to startle a woman walking alone in the dark. He didn’t maintain appropriate boundaries, at least not with women. He knew I had those files, and he wasn’t happy about it—I was convinced of it. He was hanging around waiting to see what I was going to do about them, and then, if necessary, he would pounce.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking my phone back. Had he somehow come from the left, where I’d heard that noise? “Are you here for the meeting?”

  “Nah,” he said with unsettling vagueness. “Just checking things out.”

  “Okay, well, great.” I smiled, no doubt unconvincingly. “I should probably get going. Someone’s saving a seat for me inside.”

  Deckler needed to know I was meeting someone, that I would be missed. Even if it wasn’t true. I expected to see Stella, but we’d made no plans to meet.

  “By the way, did you get what you needed on that student?” he asked, looking off into the distance like he was—you know—just curious. “Rose, was it?”

  Except I hadn’t told Deckler that.

  “Yes, I did.” I smiled, backing toward the building and out of Deckler’s reach. “I have all the information I need now.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.” His voice was flat and affectless. It made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

  “I will, definitely. Bye!”

  I spun on a heel and raced for the building without looking back, bracing myself for Deckler to grab me.

  When I dove inside unimpeded, my heart was drumming against my rib cage. Steve was at a podium in the center of the gym floor. Next to him were Ben LaForde and Thomas Price, who kept checking his big watch like he had someplace he would much rather be. Anywhere else, probably. It was hard to blame him. It had been savvy PR, though, for the university to host the community meeting—Thomas Price’s idea, I suspected. Instead of distancing itself from the baby’s death, the university was letting itself be drawn further into the fray. Only an institution convinced of its innocence would do such a thing. But after my run-in with Deckler, I thought that confidence seemed woefully misplaced.

  The meeting had gotten quite a turnout. People filled the bleachers on both sides. Folding chairs had been set up at each end. Many more were standing.

  “I’m Ridgedale Chief of Police Steve Carlson. Thank you all for coming.” It wasn’t until then that I noticed the flyers making their way noisily around the room. “The purpose of this meeting is to update you on the status of our investigation into the death of an approximately newborn female infant found Tuesday morning near the Essex Bridge. There will be an opportunity for questions after a brief announcement. The infant remains unidentified, and we are still awaiting an official cause of death from the medical examiner. We do not believe this death is related to any other death.” That was in response to my story about Simon Barton, but I stood by its newsworthiness—anything that serendipitous was worth investigating, even if all I had was hysterical Harold as proof. “We are proceeding with an innovative program of voluntary DNA testing that we hope will expedite the identification of the baby.”

  Well, that was carefully worded—as though the baby would be identified by the DNA samples of good, innocent people. In reality, the only person whose test results would matter would be the guilty party.

  “As discussed in the flyers being distributed to you now, the test is painless and quick, takes less than five minutes. Nonmatching DNA samples will be discarded immediately and confidentially. To reiterate, they will not be kept in any kind of database. Details of where and when the DNA collections will take place are on the handout. We hope that you will all consider lending your help.”

  There was rustling as people took the sheets, then a long pause as they read, probably having a hard time—like I was—digesting it. Especially galling was the fact that high school and college students were clearly intended to be included in the sweep of all Ridgedale residents age twelve and over. An asterisk provided that minors would be tested only in the presence of and with consent from their parents or guardians. A moment later, a bunch of hands shot up, and so did the amount of noise. People’s faces had darkened, along with the mood.

  “You there,” Steve said, pointing at a squat man on the right side of the bleachers in an expensive-looking pumpkin-colored sweater. He was in his late forties, with thinning hair. By the time he stood, the sound had grown to a roar.

  “Excuse me! Please,” shouted Thomas Price, an unexpected savior, but probably the only possible one. “We’ll all have to be quiet if anyone is going to hear!” Watching Price, I could see why the university had appointed him its unofficial spokesman: calm, authoritative, appealing. As a bonus, they could always claim he wasn’t an official university spokesman if things went badly. The volume dutifully dropped. “Thank you, everyone. Now, go ahead with your question, sir.”

  “There are about a thousand ways a DNA sweep is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard.” The squat man looked wide-eyed around the crowd. “No one is going to consent, you know that, right?
At least they shouldn’t. Trust me, I’m a lawyer. Don’t do it. At least talk to your own lawyer first. You’d be forfeiting your constitutional rights. Just because they’re saying they won’t keep the samples, there’s nothing to stop them.” He nodded back at Steve. “No offense. I’m not saying you personally. I mean in general.”

  Steve glared at the man until he sat back down. Then he stayed quiet, eyes moving slowly over the crowd, letting the silence grow uncomfortable.

  “No offense taken,” Steve said finally, working his jaw to the side. “And to be clear, you are all absolutely free to consult your attorneys or your accountants or your spiritual advisers before deciding whether or not to help. You can look inside yourselves and decide that having a Q-tip wiped across the inside of your cheek or your kid’s cheek is wrong on principle. It’s a free country, and that’s the meaning of voluntary: You get to choose.” The crowd was utterly still now. “But I would say this: When we found the baby floating in a creek like a piece of trash, she was stuck there, her neck hung up on a stick. I pulled her out myself, weighed almost nothing.” He was quiet again, this time like he was trying to gather his composure. “Principles are a luxury that baby’s never going to have.”

  It was good theater. Impassioned, persuasive. And genuine. Steve obviously believed what he was saying. Of course, that didn’t make it true. The dragnet did sound unconstitutional, or at least potentially so.

  Nonetheless, Steve’s speech had—as intended—succeeded in silencing public opposition. For an hour and a half afterward, people steered clear of queries about the DNA sweep. Instead, someone wanted to know more about Simon Barton. As he had with me, Steve dismissed the connection out of hand. Others wanted to know about some men on the local sex offender registry. Someone else agitated for precautionary fingerprinting in the schools, and another for an investigative neighborhood watch, focusing—it seemed—largely on Ridgedale Commons, the apartment complex that was the town’s de facto low-income housing. Thankfully, several others dismissed that idea as appallingly discriminatory. Steve brought the hammer down on it anyway. Dangerous and irresponsible vigilantism, he called it. And not long after that, he called a stop to all of it.