by Paula McLain
It’s not a crime to go missing, but there does seem to be a telling void here, a familiar dark shimmer that makes me wonder. She may have been coerced into leaving, or even complicit in whatever harm has befallen her. There’s an old ghost story about that, I remember, how the devil steals souls by asking for them openly. He isn’t a thief, but a master manipulator. The real danger, or so the story goes, isn’t in the devil himself, but in not knowing you have a choice to turn him away.
That’s the saddest piece as I see it, and have over and over. How some victims don’t have even a whisper of no inside them. Because they don’t believe the life they have is theirs to save.
(seven)
All the way to the village, I feel like a shaken-up snow globe, sharp flecks of memory colliding head on. Will is still here. He’s become the town sheriff, just like his father, and now what? How can I answer any of the questions he’s likely to throw at me about my life and why I’ve come home? How can I avoid hearing anything more about his case, which is already pressing on me? And how will we avoid talking about the past? We aren’t just two old friends with no baggage, after all.
All those years, from the time I was ten and Will was fourteen, we were part of each other’s story. His father, Ellis Flood, was Hap’s closest friend, and so we were often thrown together. But even if that hadn’t been the case, in a small town like Mendocino, the kids ran in packs, building driftwood forts on Portuguese Beach, wandering through the woods behind Jackson Street, or playing flashlight tag out on the bluffs on moonless nights. Two more in our gang were Caleb and Jenny Ford, twins who had been living alone with their dad since their mother ran off years before for a man, wanting a life that had nothing to do with them.
I always felt drawn to kids with a story similar to mine, as if we were a kind of club, with an unspoken password. They were two years older than me, a gap that seemed wider with Jenny than with Caleb for some reason. He was smart in a way that was interesting to me, his head full of odd facts and stories about the town, which made him a natural fit as a friend. I’d always liked to know things too, not just history, but anything that was going on. Details about people and places, old stories and new mysteries, and secrets of every variety.
Caleb also happened to have the best hiding places for tag. One night I followed him when Jenny started counting and everyone scattered. A lot of the kids were lone-wolf types in tag, but Caleb didn’t mind me coming along. I trailed him all the way out to the edge of the bluff, where he seemed to drop through an invisible door. When I followed him, I saw he’d found a small, perfect crow’s-nest perch in a cypress tree. The forked branches held his weight, the whole tree embedded like a magician’s trick into the side of the cliff. It was a genius spot, and also forbidden feeling. Technically we were out over the edge, but protected too—sort of. The limbs beneath us were just the right shape and size for two scrawny kids. The branches just bushy enough to conceal us—a cloaking device so effective that when Jenny ran up and looked right at the tree, her face spotlit and lemon yellow in the cone of her small flashlight, she moved on and kept searching.
All of this was still new and foreign to me, the night games and laughing bands of neighborhood friends: childhood. Caleb and I grinned at each other, self-satisfied, because we’d already won the game. Every game we might ever play. The night seemed to stretch out in every direction, made for kids like us, invincible—immortal—while far out on the bluff, Jenny shouted names, hoping to send someone running. We watched her for a long time, her torch bobbing and dipping through the black bunchgrasses, until finally the light she made was smaller than a pinpoint.
* * *
—
Back then, Will had a crush on Jenny, but everyone did. There wasn’t a prettier or nicer girl in town. She had straight white teeth, like a breath-mint commercial, coppery freckles over the bridge of her nose, and long, brown hair that swung side to side when she walked. She had a beautiful singing voice too, high and haunting, like Joni Mitchell’s. She’d play her guitar on bonfire nights, feet buried in wet sand, while other kids passed stolen beer around, only half listening. But I couldn’t look away.
One night she sang a tune she’d written called “Goodnight, California,” about a girl who feels so empty and lost she walks out into the sea and never returns. Don’t look for me, I’m no one, the lyrics went.
On the beach, in red-gold firelight, she called up a feeling of such intimacy, as if I was actually watching her alone in her room, her body rounded over her guitar, all of her words about loneliness. In real life, Jenny never came across that way, but I knew that didn’t mean anything. Any surface could hide sadness just beneath.
Because Jenny was two years older and hadn’t invited me closer, I didn’t know much about what her home life was like. But even if we’d been best friends, she might not have told me. There were a thousand different ways to be silent, I knew. The song spoke, at least to me, raising goose bumps along my arms and neck, landing dead center. Goodnight, California. Goodnight, blue. The waves can tell my story now. All the words are for you.
* * *
—
I was fifteen when Jenny Ford disappeared, in August of 1973. She was almost eighteen and had just graduated from Mendocino High. In the fall, she was supposed to go to UC Santa Barbara, to study nursing. In the meantime she was working forty-five minutes inland from the village, at Husch Vineyards in Boonville, saving for a car and bumming rides home from anyone going her way. One night, she left work in the usual way but never made it home. For days, the whole town panicked, particularly Caleb. It was devastating to watch. There were whispers that she might have run away. Teenagers did that all the time, for all sorts of reasons. But Caleb insisted she wouldn’t have—not without letting him know, or taking him with her.
As we waited to hear news, I felt an old, dormant fear come awake in my body. Those years in Mendocino with Hap and Eden had added up inside me, making me feel safe—saved. But now I knew for sure that what had happened to Jenny could just as easily have happened to me. Deep down, we weren’t that different.
(eight)
Will is sitting at the far end of the bar when I finally come through the door of Patterson’s a little after eight-thirty, a nearly empty cup of coffee in front of him.
“I was starting to feel stood up,” he says, hugging me with warm pressure.
I squeeze back, noticing that he’s showered and changed into a fresh uniform. His hair is damp, combed flat, but I know where all of his cowlicks are, how wild it will look as soon as it dries. Except for the usual ravages of time, Will is eerily unchanged—same strong jaw and long eyelashes. Same energetic grace in his body, as if he’s half man, half golden retriever.
“You surprised the hell out of me today,” I say.
“Me too.” He laughs a little and signals the barmaid over, a middle-aged blond woman with a soft jawline and heavily lined eyes.
I order a Guinness with a shot of Jameson, and then turn to Will. “Aren’t you joining me?”
“Not on the job. I won’t really be off the clock until I find this girl.”
“Oh, of course. I don’t know what I was thinking.” The barmaid comes back with my order and I lift my beer glass to Will in a small mock toast. “I can’t believe you’re still here. You had so many big ideas.”
“Did I?” He makes a face. “Where was I supposed to go?”
“A thousand places. Anywhere.”
“Out of the old man’s shadow, you mean?”
“Maybe. I think about him sometimes. Those impressions he did. Bugs Bunny.”
“Yeah. He worked hard on that stuff. He’d practice for hours. He can be a son of a bitch in other ways, but he’s funny.”
“He’s still around, then?”
“In a nursing home up in Fort Bragg.” Will tents his fingers over his coffee cup, fidgeting through obvious discomfort. “
Not quite all there, as they say.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He lifts his shoulders toward his ears and then drops them, trying to release something. “He can still make my kids laugh.”
“Kids? That’s great. I’ll bet you’re a good dad.”
“I try.”
“Boy? Girl?”
“One of each, ten and twelve. Both of them too smart for their own good.”
“And your wife, what does she do?”
“Beth. She teaches at the Montessori school up the road. She’s been there a long time. She’s wonderful with those kids.”
“That’s a nice picture.” On instinct, I glance at his left hand. There’s no ring, no indentation where a ring has been, and no tan line, either. Maybe he doesn’t wear one, or maybe there’s another story he’s not telling me.
“What about you?” he goes on. “How long are you staying?”
“Not sure.” I glance away. “Just taking things day by day.”
“Married?”
“I married my work.” It’s a lie with oceans of truth in it.
“I’ve followed your career a bit. Project Lighthouse. You’ve done so well for yourself.”
“Searchlight,” I correct him. “But yeah.”
“All those missing kids, it must be hard. I couldn’t do it.”
You are doing it, I want to say, but that wouldn’t be fair. “How are you holding up?” I ask instead.
He shakes his head, looking weary. “I haven’t slept since I got the call. The family wants answers, but I don’t have any.”
“Has the FBI stepped in?”
“I need evidence of kidnapping for federal attention, and I haven’t got it. No evidence of any kind, actually, and no motive. No witnesses and no crime scene.”
“But you think someone took her.”
“It’s just a feeling, but yeah. I do. There was that girl down near Richmond a few years back. Disappeared from her own front yard.”
“Amber Swartz-Garcia.”
“Similar age, right?”
“She was seven. There’s a world of difference between seven and fifteen. Anyway, that was five years ago.”
“Oh, right.” He sighs. “Sorry. I’m forgetting you’re on vacation.”
“It’s okay. My cop brain never really takes a vacation. Any reason to suspect the family?”
“Not off the bat. We’re still conducting interviews.”
“I’m assuming you’re following up on registered sex offenders in the area? Checking in on probation and parole? Anyone who might have an affinity for this aged girl, this type of an offense?”
He gives me a funny look. “You really want to talk about this?”
“It’s my only hobby.” I shrug and take a pull from my beer. “Maybe she’s being manipulated, somehow. Or gotten drawn into something dark without knowing it.”
“Like drugs, you mean? She seems clean as a whistle.”
“Could be sex. Someone might be controlling her.”
“The mom’s brother had rape charges thrown at him in college, but that was thirty years ago. Maybe it’s Cameron’s dad?”
“It happens.” As I lean forward, I can’t help but notice the strain around Will’s eyes. He’s desperate for a break, and I feel for him. I know exactly what he’s carrying right now. How heavy it all can be.
“She’s adopted. Maybe that means something?”
He’s thrown out the detail as if it’s just one more thing to consider, but it hits a little too close to home for me. Cameron could be struggling with classic adoption issues, testing her parents’ love by acting out. Or she could have layers of emotional scar tissue, identity or attachment difficulties, boundary issues, or self-destructive tendencies. “Maybe,” I say, working to keep my tone even, “if she’s struggling. But you just said she’s clean as a whistle.”
“I know. Fuck.” He exhales long and loud, then signals the barmaid to bring the check.
“I hope you get a lead soon,” I say.
“Me too.” He doesn’t sound convinced. “I’ll tell you something. I have new appreciation for my dad. The pressure he must have felt back then, when he couldn’t make things right. And the sense of failure.” His sigh carries generations inside of it, the way every shell holds the whole Pacific. “Everyone was waiting for him to make them feel safe again. But he never could.”
He’s talking about Jenny Ford. We’ve both been talking about her without mentioning her name.
“Have you seen Caleb yet?” Will asks suddenly.
“What? Caleb’s here?”
“He came back almost a year ago, after his dad passed on. A stroke. Caleb inherited everything, sold all the paintings, too. That old bastard had millions.”
“He did?” I conjure up Jack Ford, the eccentric hermitlike man I knew, always in the same paint-splotched jeans and flannel shirt, his hair ragged, as if he cut it himself with a kitchen knife. A millionaire? “I never liked him.”
“Me neither. There was something off about that guy. He never remarried, you know.”
“I’m not surprised. I don’t think he had much use for people. How’s Caleb now?”
“He’s okay, I think, considering. I don’t see him often.”
“I would have thought he’d stay away forever. This town holds such pain for him.”
“Us, too, I guess,” he says simply. “But here we are.”
* * *
—
After we settle up, I follow Will out of the bar and onto the quiet street, where the streetlamps seem to cast a supernatural glow over Time and the Maiden, as baffling and mesmerizing to me as ever.
Will stops in the middle of the sidewalk, blinking. “It’s good seeing you again, Anna. This hasn’t been the best year. I’m not gonna lie.”
“For me either.” I hug him quickly, surprised by the lump in my throat.
“Drive safe, will you?”
“You can’t get drunk on beer,” I say.
“Oh yeah? Tell yourself that all the way home.”
His car is parked just down from mine. I know he still has work to do, but I feel him lingering anyway. Maybe it’s just the anxiety of his case I feel radiating from him, or maybe it’s pure loneliness. Those details about his perfect family might have been a lie. Or his marriage might have been completely fine, but he’s gotten off track some other way. How quickly your own life can turn on you—that’s something I know.
Unlocking my door, I settle behind the wheel of my Bronco just as Will steps closer, looking sad and unguarded. For a long moment, he holds my eyes, setting off a low buzz of apprehension. Is he going to try to kiss me?
But I’ve read him wrong. “I’m glad you’re back,” he says, “even if it’s just for a while. In times like this, when the world feels so crazy, it’s good to have friends around.”
He’s right, of course. I didn’t come home for this, but he’s absolutely right.
(nine)
Five days after Jenny went missing, two fly fishermen found her body in the Navarro River, so waterlogged and disfigured, the coroner’s office had to confirm her identity through dental records.
Hap took me into the woods to tell me. I’d never seen him lose his composure, but he was obviously struggling as he reached for my hands. “I’m always straight with you, aren’t I, Anna?” he asked with a shaking voice.
My mouth went dry. The ground beneath my sneakers seemed to roll, but Hap kept talking, explaining how the fishermen had stumbled onto Jenny’s remains on a little-used stretch of the river. How she might never have been found otherwise. She hadn’t drowned, either. She’d been strangled.
The story was so sickening I wanted Hap to stop. But I knew he wasn’t going to. If he was really going to protect me, he couldn’t hold anything ba
ck. “Who did it?” My own voice seemed to bounce off the trees and into my lap like a stone, a small hard piece of the world.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Will Sheriff Flood catch him?”
“I believe he will.”
“How could anyone do a thing like that?” I asked him, though I already knew the answer. I’d seen all kinds of people twisted by pain and circumstance. People who’d been hurt so bad and so deep they couldn’t help but do the same to someone else. “Jenny was so young,” I cried, hot tears running into my mouth. “She didn’t even get to have a chance.”
“There’s death in life, Anna, things too impossible to bear. So many things, and yet we bear them.”
I knew he was right, but I would have given anything to hear something else. If only Hap could promise me that it would never happen again, that I would never die, and that he and Eden wouldn’t, either. That we would stay safe from harm together though the world was full of the most terrible things and people. People twisted up enough on the inside to murder a seventeen-year-old girl and leave her like trash in the river.
“How do we bear them?” I finally asked. “Those impossible things.”
His hand was still and warm on mine, warm and steady and alive. He hadn’t moved an inch from my side. “Like this, sweetheart.”
* * *
—
In the coming days, I take to launching out from my cabin with a backpack and no real destination except to be in the woods. Long ago, Hap taught me how to read and follow a trail, even a little-used one, and also how to travel without one. There’s nothing like it to quiet the mind. The beauty of the living world, damp ferns curled along the valley floor, lacy with moisture. Mustard-colored lichen and bearded moss splashed like paint against dark rocks and tree trunks. The canopy above like a map traced onto the sky.
One afternoon, four or five miles into a hike through Jackson State Forest, I cross an isolated county road and then come to Big River, which threads all through this part of the northern coastal range before spilling to the estuary at Big River Beach, just south of the village. The streambed is narrow and shallow, lined with mossy stones. I have a spool of lightweight line and a few fly hooks with me, and try catching one of the pale trout flicking in and out of the shadows. But they’re too cautious, and soon I’m too hot. I give up, strip to my underwear, and wade into the pool. Above, through canted light, molecules of pine dust swirl like gold mist. The water plays over my skin like cool silk ribbons. I feel my heartbeat slow. This. This is what Hap meant by medicine.
