by T. Greenwood
But when I pull into the grassy driveway, Effie’s car is gone. And I remember: strawberry picking. It’s already almost noon. I have been gone for hours.
I let myself into the camp, using the key she leaves behind the window’s wooden shutter, and it is quiet inside. Still.
Sunlight spills through the windows in the breakfast nook. The kitchen is bright and clean. I think of all of the conversations that have occurred in this room, all the lives that have been lived within these walls. Effie’s grandfather built the camp with his own father in the 1940s. It has been a haven for the people in her family for decades now. When we were kids, we’d pore through the albums that were filled with photos of all the people who have come here. It belongs to her now. And someday it will belong to Zu-Zu and Plum. Her grandmother came close to selling the camp only once, back when we were just out of college. Back when Effie came home when her ex-boyfriend, Max, died. That was the summer she met Devin. And just a year later, I met Jake.
When I think about the trajectories of our lives, I imagine an infinity symbol, endless, looping, converging and then separating again. In the years after college, we diverged. She stayed here with Devin, made a quiet, happy life, made a family. And far away, I built a career. Got married. Tried and failed to have children. Ached. Longed for what she had, though I never told her this. We lived at the edges of each other, though always knowing that we would be pulled toward one another again. When Max died, at each other’s respective weddings, at the birth of Effie’s girls, and after Guatemala. And now, here we are at that center place. That confluence, where our worlds merge. It has happened again and again in our more than forty years of friendship. There is comfort in this truth. I will always have her when I need her. I can’t say the same about anyone else in the entire world.
There will be a note. Because there is always a note. Scrawled in Effie’s terrible handwriting on a lovely homemade piece of paper, some pulpy thing she and Zu-Zu made last summer. I have gotten handwritten thank-you cards on this same thick confet-tied paper.
“Gone berry picking. Pie later! Also . . . found the name of that guy from the search.”
I pick up the paper, try to decipher what it says next. Her handwriting has always been atrocious. Small and tightly slanted.
Lincoln . . . then something with an S. It looks like S-h-a-m-q, but I know that can’t be right.
Sharp? Lincoln Sharp? I catch my breath. Sharp. That’s what the psychic had said. Jesus Christ.
Effie and Devin don’t have Wi-Fi at their house. No Internet access whatsoever. Not even dial-up. And no cell service. And so I drive down the road to Hudson’s, sit in my car in the parking lot, trying to search Google on my phone.
There are a few volunteers milling around in the parking lot: those who didn’t bail after the last press conference. Devin said there were a good number of people who would continue to search. Who thought the police were full of shit. I am grateful to them all, every last one of them, but I sink down into my seat. I’d rather not have a conversation with anyone at this point, not even those benevolent folks who don’t think I am insane.
Lincoln Sharp, I type.
The first thing that pops up is the Peter J. Sharp Theater at Lincoln Center, and I realize I forgot to put quotations around the name. When I click again I get a few hits, but none of them seem relevant. I scroll down, squinting at the small screen of my phone, but there’s nothing. Of course, there isn’t. He’s some hermit living in the woods. He doesn’t exist as far as Google is concerned.
I try the local paper’s Web site then, thinking maybe I can find something there. Again, nothing comes up. He has no Facebook profile. No Twitter feed, no LinkedIn account.
I am about to give up when I remember the site I’d checked religiously, daily, when we were going through the adoption process. Family Watchdog. The sex-offender site. It’s a long shot, I know. But better to ease my mind.
Back then I had plugged in the address of our brownstone every day, looking at the squares that pocked the map. Blue was for sexual battery, yellow for rape, and red for crimes against children. I clicked on each menacing red square, scrutinized each profile. I memorized the names of the offenders, printed the photos of their faces. I was both grateful for and terrified by this wealth of information about the perverts and criminals living among us. I didn’t tell Jake. There were so many things I couldn’t tell him then.
In Brooklyn, I had searched simply by address, our address, but now I actually have a name. Trembling, I click on the Search by Name tab and enter: Lincoln Sharp.
The signal here is weak, and the search stalls. I have to click out of the site and back in again. It takes forever to load, and I feel myself tensing with impatience. I re-enter his name. Figure it will not show up here either. Wonder even, if he, like the girl, is just some sort of ghost.
And then there it is.
LINCOLN MICHAEL SHARP.
I blink my eyes, look again to make sure I am not mistaken. Then I look up, out the window at a group of orange vests piling into a minivan. And shaking, I click on his name.
His face appears. Those wild eyes, the freckles. The thinning hair. The photo is pixelated, grainy. But it’s him.
“Jesus Christ,” I say out loud.
I click on the Map tab, and a map slowly loads. It reminds me of the map that Marcus had of the search area. And there is the terrifying red square. I click on it, and the address appears. 195 Lake Gormlaith Road.
My entire body shaking, I click on the Convictions tab.
LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH A CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS OF AGE.
Someone taps at my window. My whole body startles, like one of those dreams where the earth gives way beneath you and you wake with a start, grasping at air, trying to hold on.
It’s the psychic.
I turn the key enough to roll down the window.
“Hi there,” she says. She’s so short, she barely needs to bend over to see into the driver’s side.
“Hi,” I say.
“Sorry to startle you.”
“It’s okay,” I say, though my heart is still rattling around in my chest. “I was actually just thinking about you. About something you said the other day.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, about something sharp. Do you remember that?”
She nods. “Sure. I remember.”
“I think it’s someone’s name. Last name. One of the volunteers.”
She scowls.
“Is that possible? That you were thinking of someone’s name?”
“I suppose,” she says. “But it might just be a coincidence.”
I shake my head. “There’s somebody named Sharp who lives near where I found the little girl.” I look out the window, making sure that he’s not lurking out there somewhere. I haven’t seen him since we were in the woods.
“I got a bad feeling from him the other day. And I was just now looking him up,” I say, motioning to my phone. “He’s a registered sex offender.”
Her small eyes widen.
“Look,” I say, holding out my phone to her. She is wearing a pair of glasses on a beaded necklace. She puts them on and studies the screen.
“You told the cops?” she asks.
“Not yet,” I say.
“They’re sending me home, you know,” she says. “Now that they’ve called off the search.”
I nod. I actually expected she’d already be long gone.
She leans forward and whispers. “But I believe you,” she says. “I came over because I wanted to give you my business card.”
I take the card from her. It’s not what I would have expected: no glossy purple card stock with a constellation of stars, no loopy script. No clip art crystal ball. It is simple, cream-colored stock embossed with her name: Mary McCreary, Psychic Detective. And her phone number.
“Thank you,” I say.
“What are you going to do now?” she asks. “Are you going back to New York?”
I don
’t know what to do next. I could tell the police about Lincoln Sharp, though shouldn’t they know about him already? Wouldn’t this have been one of the first things they checked? I imagine I could let them know, but then I think about the look of disgust on Andrews’s face earlier. Think about the accusations that he is making against me. I imagine he’d dismiss this little tidbit the same way he dismissed me. He might even use it as further evidence that I’m just some wing nut. Especially if I mentioned the psychic.
“I guess I’ll just keep looking, with the other volunteers,” I say. And suddenly the three or four remaining orange vests seem to mock me.
“Well, let me know if you find anything. I can be back here in a couple of hours, if you need me,” she says. “I drive a Mustang.”
For some reason I think of those men on horseback who were at the site the other morning. I wonder where they have gone. All those people who came crawling out of the woodwork seemed to have crawled right back into it again.
“I don’t have any way to pay you,” I say, anticipating the hourly fee for a lawyer is going to eat up most of the money I have stashed away in my emergency account.
“There’s a little girl in those woods,” she says. “It would be criminal if I was able to help and didn’t. Sort of like the Hippocratic oath.”
With that, she walks over to a beaten-up cherry-red Mustang convertible that is missing all four of its hubcaps. And then she is peeling out of the parking lot, Foreigner’s “I’ve Been Waiting for a Girl Like You” blasting from her speakers.
I return to my phone, looking at Lincoln Michael Sharp’s pixelated photo and profile again. I start to Google his full name, thinking I might find a news article about an arrest, something, when Effie calls.
“Hey, we’re back. Making pie. Wanna help?”
“Go ahead and get started. I’ll be there in just a bit.”
I click my phone off and start the car. I back out of the driveway and wonder where Lincoln Sharp is now. I feel cold and hollow. I need to tell Effie there’s a registered sex offender living down the road from her. Here she has crafted this perfect life, this safe world for her girls. She’s been living this idyllic dream, cradled in nature. And meanwhile, Lincoln Michael Sharp is living, lurking, among them. A predator. My throat constricts. The girls.
I drive slowly along the road between Hudson’s and the camp. I peer at the address numbers affixed to a few of the camps along the way. They are in ascending order. 191, 193, the road curves. The yellow police tape flutters in the trees. A few volunteers sit at the edge of the road, nod and wave as I approach. Solemn.
I drive slowly, slowly down the road, the trees becoming thicker, blocking out the sunlight. And then I see the same house Effie and I passed yesterday. That shoe-box house set back from the road, the one with the collection of rusted-out trailers, the one with the yard choked in weeds. My throat feels thick.
There must be a half dozen trailers littering the front yard. Old appliances, a rusted-out patio swing with a tattered canopy and faded cushions. A BEWARE OF DOG sign hangs precariously from a tree that looks like it might topple over if a strong gust of wind came along.
I stop the car and idle. I squint, trying hard to see if the house number is affixed to the house, but it’s set back too far from the road. When I see the truck in the driveway, I start moving again. He’s home this time. And then just as I’m about to give up, I see the mailbox. Standing like a sentinel at the edge of the driveway. My heart thuds.
In metallic letters it says:
L. M. SHARP. 195 LAKE GORMLAITH RD.
My stomach roils, and I feel sick. I press my foot on the accelerator and my tires kick up dirt behind me as I race toward Effie’s camp. By the time I pull into the driveway, I realize I am going to be sick. I don’t want to scare Plum, so I quickly and quietly get out of the car and run down the path toward the guest cottage. I kneel down behind the building and vomit. I haven’t eaten anything since last night though, and so it’s just fizzy bile that splatters the leaves.
Effie and Plum are in the kitchen slicing strawberries. Effie is showing Plum how to hold the paring knife, and Plum concentrates as she slices the berries into pale slivers.
I force a smile as I come into the kitchen, but I can tell Effie knows something is wrong.
“Plum, honey,” she says, wiping her stained hands on a dishtowel. “Can you go out to the laundry room and look for Mommy’s apron? I’m getting strawberry juice all over my skirt.”
“Okay,” Plum says, setting down the knife.
As soon as she skips away, Effie reaches for my hand.
“What did the police say?”
God, the police; that was so long ago.
“Did they find her yet?” she asks. Her hand is small in mine, I can feel the architecture of her bones.
I shake my head.
“Then what’s going on?”
I listen to make sure Plum isn’t coming back. “Andrews is threatening to press charges against me for making a false report.”
“What?” she says. Too loudly. “That’s insane. Are you kidding?”
I shake my head. Feel tears come to my eyes.
“It’s fine. I just need to get a lawyer to help me deal with this,” I say.
“Mama, where is it?” Plum says from the other room.
“Not sure, honey. Look in the dryer. If it’s not there, check the hamper?” Effie turns back to me. “I can find someone. We’ll go into town first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll see if Devin knows anybody.”
I shake my head. “There’s more,” I say.
“What?”
“That guy, the one I told you about? The one in the woods who told me that fucked-up thing about the dragonflies?”
“Yeah?” she says.
“Mama, it’s not here,” Plum says, and I can hear her feet padding around the laundry room.
I lower my voice and continue, “He lives in that messed-up house with all the trailers. That one we drove past?”
Her eyebrows rise up; her eyes widen.
“And he’s a registered sex offender,” I whisper. “Lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under fourteen.”
Effie’s hand flies to her mouth. “What?”
Plum stands in the doorway holding out an apron. “This one okay?” she asks.
And for just a moment we both turn to Plum, look at her bare feet, her skinny legs. At the drips of strawberry juice that run down her arms. I feel swollen, helpless.
“What’s the matter?” Plum asks.
Effie motions for her to come and pulls her in close. “Nothing, baby. It’s perfect, thank you.”
As the pie bakes, Plum disappears upstairs to play with her dolls. Now that Zu-Zu is gone, she has reverted back to being a ten-year-old again. No pressure to impress her older sister, to keep up.
Effie and I grab a bottle of wine and go outside and sit in the Adirondack chairs facing the water. It is early evening, but the sun is still bright. I realize that today is the solstice, the longest day of the year. It certainly feels like it.
I pick at the peeling purple paint on the arm of the chair. The violet scales drift onto the grass like petals.
“Did you hear from Devin yet?” I ask. Jake hasn’t called, and even though I wouldn’t know what to say to him, this stings.
“Oh, yeah. He called when you were still in town. They got to Brooklyn around lunchtime. Devin will take Zu-Zu into the city tomorrow to get her set up at the dorms. He said he’ll be back here Wednesday or Thursday, depending on when he can get a meeting in at Gagosian.”
I study the dizzying pattern of daisies on Effie’s skirt. At the few drips of strawberry juice that mar the pristine white cotton. I imagine her later, dabbing at the spots with a Q-tip and bleach.
“What are we going to do?” she says. “You need to tell the police about this. Doesn’t it seem like this is something they should be looking into?”
“I can’t go to the police,” I say. “They’re s
eriously pissed at me. They’re convinced I’m some sort of psychopath who made up this whole story for attention.”
“Is that what he said to you?”
“In so many words,” I say. “I think they saw the video.”
Effie sighs. “Shit.”
I shake my head, rub my temples.
“Wait, is that guy, Sharp, is he even allowed to live there?” she asks. “I mean, there have got to be kids living around there. Isn’t there some sort of law about that?”
“I think it’s just schools and day cares,” I say. I don’t know the rules here in Vermont. In New York they can’t live within one thousand feet of a school or day care center. I was so grateful that our brownstone was two doors down from a preschool.
“Wait,” I say. “There is a day care center. That place where you deliver the books.”
That home day care couldn’t have been even a quarter mile from his house.
“Oh shit,” Effie says. “I bet Lisa has no idea.”
“I’ll call Andrews tomorrow,” I say. I take a long, slow swallow of the wine, feel it warm my chest. “They may not believe me about the girl, but they can’t ignore somebody who’s breaking the law. And if they pay him a visit, then maybe they’ll find something.”
“You mean find . . . her?” she asks.
I shake my head. “God, I hope not.”
I had promised to make mac ’n’ cheese for supper, but when the pie comes out of the oven, we are tipsy on wine and don’t want to bother going through the motions in order to eat dessert. And so we eat pie for dinner. With everyone gone, it feels like the rules have gone out the window. Effie lets Plum load up her steaming piece with vanilla ice cream. And I eat two pieces myself while we watch the DVD of Zu-Zu’s performance as Swanhilda in Coppélia.
It is only nine o’clock when I make my way to the guest cottage; I am full and sleepy with wine and exhaustion. The sun has just now finally gone down, the last faint glow of this day, the longest day, has finally slipped away, and I too slip away.
