The Last Kid Left

by Rosecrans Baldwin

We got an offer on the house.

  Significantly below asking price.

  We took it.

  At least it’s something.

  Please don’t be mad.

  We really don’t need that from you presently.

  Best not to call for a few days.

  XO Mom.

  Her heart thumps emptily in her chest.

  Suddenly, full of drive, she gets back in the car.

  But it’s just the knowledge—really only a clumsy conviction, half dumbass stupidity and half bullish confidence, that she knows how misery works, and that things can’t get worse, so why not—that propels her to back out of her parking space, pull out into the square and take Lincoln up to Foreside, Foreside to Thomas, Thomas to Old Farm Road—streets she remembers from childhood to streets she doesn’t know, directed by a robotic woman’s voice from her phone—before she parks outside an unfamiliar condo block, twenty minutes later.

  The address was in an old email, Leduc’s “Thousand Oaks Village.” Where her parents had been forced to move. What she finds is a seventies Ewok village in the woods, thirty or forty condos painted earth colors. Fir Landing. Pine Corner. Ash Creek. Each cul-de-sac is a suspended slab of a dozen units, edged with ivy, with bubble skylights on every roof turned black from decades of sap drippings.

  And her mother, her poor mother, with her bad knees and her arthritis, is hunched over in front of a small garden patch. Leela parks the car. The watering can catches her breath. It’s one she remembers from when she was little—dented, rusty, crimped inside the handle—when she helped her mom in the garden. Her mother the disciplinarian, the standard keeper, the cautiously affectionate. Her mother looks more stooped these days, less plump. Leela feels heat prick up and down her body.

  And she herself is fifteen again, she’s sixteen, she’s twenty-four and no wiser; eternally clumsy, eternally happy-go-unlucky, always and only Leela Mann from Claymore, New Hampshire.

  Then her father starts banging on a window. He looks straight at her, staring so intensely it’s like he’s about to have a fit.

  Her mother looks up from the garden, to see what the craziness is about, just as she gets out of the car.

  “Leela?”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I meant to call.”

  “Did you not get my text messages?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Obviously now is not a good time.”

  As if a five-hour drive had been accomplished in the last twenty minutes.

  “I understand,” she says, almost angrily.

  “Then what?”

  “I was in town, so I thought.”

  Her voice trails off. Her father disappears from the window. She closes the distance with her mother, she’s too tired and sick to do anything else.

  “But what are you doing here?” her mother snaps defensively. “Is something wrong with you?”

  How long has it been? A year? A year and a half?

  “I just thought I’d visit.”

  “You don’t look good, you know,” her mother says, involuntarily, and pulls off her gardening gloves. Leela wants to hug her, but the words make her hold back. Maybe she should just leave. Then her mother bundles forward in a rush and clasps her thin hands around her waist and throbs in her arms. “Have I missed you,” whispers her mother with an urgent plea, as if she’s not sure if it’s a statement or a question. Which provokes a reaction, Leela’s hangover melts, and she’s undone by the absurdity of the situation, and her mother cries, too, her mother who always sounds like a hiccupping dog when she cries.

  And while they’re standing there together, until both of them are chuckling, and they have to wipe the corners of their eyes, Leela sees her father appear in the front door, and she’s intensely ashamed that she’s surprised, like a disgraceful idiot, to see his face radiate with so much joy.

  * * *

  The writing’s on the wall, literally: the front windows of the New Balance shop in Claymore feature a word-balloon tornado of adrenalized hashtags, like #HUSTLER #BABY #GETSOME #GOTSOME #GOTQUICK? #FINDYOURQUICK #QUICKITANDHITIT #QUICKITORQUIT #YOUCANJUSTQUITCOMPLAINING.

  The New Balance store is her mother’s idea, her genius mother. The night before, they’d eaten dinner off their laps in the sitting room, like guests at a wake. The furniture of her childhood was crammed in awkwardly around them. Her father was frequently at a loss for words. Still bald, still bespectacled, but also thoroughly confounded, so pleased was he to have her in his house again. And Leela could not have been much more happily enveloped. She didn’t mention her credit card debt. They didn’t talk about the condo. No one mentioned her brother, Satnam, except to talk around him, to agree that medical marijuana seemed a joke, scientifically, if it was being sold in the form of candy bars.

  But she did confess that she’d been laid off. They switched right into parental mode—troubled, sympathetic, pragmatic, evidently grateful to resume their familiar roles. Did she need money? Did she want to move home? Her father even made a joke about how the two of them could pool resources, drive each other to job interviews.

  She told them about the possible opening at the Magazine, why she was in New Hampshire in the first place, to write a story about the Claymore Kids.

  “It’s a real tragedy,” her mother said. “I feel for this girl.”

  “I think it is a complete insult to my intelligence,” her father said, getting up. “People forget, we are at war still. In Afghanistan. In Syria. Instead I have to listen to nonsense about these children.”

  “Your daughter is attempting to add to that nonsense,” her mother said drily.

  “Well, not really,” Leela tried.

  “Of course not. Leela is different. She is a real journalist.”

  “Your father, in his holy wisdom,” her mother said, “decided to submit an application for a position at MSNBC.”

  “Do not even start with that.”

  “Where one applies, so I’m told, by writing unsolicited letters full of nonsense.”

  “Leela, I had a letter published in the newspaper last week.”

  “Please. He did not.”

  “Yes I did.”

  “The co-op newsletter doesn’t count.”

  “Of course it does. She’s always trying to drag me down!”

  “You’d have your daughter working in Guantánamo if it were up to you.”

  “If it would mean getting that place shut down, then yes!”

  Her bed was an inflatable mattress in a back room. An hour after dinner, Leela had said good night, prepared herself a cup of tea, and listened to her parents squabble happily over the dishes. Being around them gave her a renewed sense of confidence. In her room, she got out her laptop, sat against the wall, resumed her latest project: trying to track down the Ashburns’ daughter, Moira.

  The day before, she’d found an address in an old White Pages. It was for a condo in Leduc. She’d knocked on the door: no response. And there’d been no answer to three calls she’d made to a mobile number she found online in a profile; no reaction to a note she’d left at a veterinary clinic where Moira Ashburn was listed among the staff on the clinic’s website; no reply to a note she’d slipped under the Leduc condo’s door.

  But then, from the sagging air-bed, within twenty minutes she turned up gold: a months-old photo album with public visibility. In which the Ashburns’ daughter appeared to have a girlfriend. According to the photos, they went hiking a lot, and tended to kiss on mountain summits.

  Something was remarkable about that, but she couldn’t pin down what. She made a note to herself to review the photos again in the morning.

  At breakfast, her mother mentioned that she needed to go buy new sneakers, she planned to drive over to the New Balance outlet if Leela wanted to come along—which made Leela smack down her oatmeal spoon, run and grab her computer.

  The girlfriend, in all the pictures, in a variety of Day-Glo outfits,
always wore head-to-toe New Balance gear, all of it brand-spanking-new.

  So, a New Balance employee. It’s a start. Even if the company employed over a hundred people in Claymore, it was worth a shot to join her mother to the outlet. Nothing. So she dropped her mom at home, went alone to the retail store afterward. She figures she’ll try the factory next, see if she can sneak past reception. But then, through the store’s display there she is, #baby, to all appearances #hustling: Moira Ashburn’s girlfriend through the window, the one from the photos.

  Deep breath and Leela’s out the door.

  “Hi, excuse me?”

  “Can I help you?”

  She grabs a sneaker at random. “Do you have this in a seven?”

  “We should,” the woman says. “Do you want me to grab anything else?”

  “No, that’s it.”

  It’s definitely the same woman as in the pictures, but even tinier, more muscular.

  She returns two minutes later, with two boxes.

  “We have the seven, but I thought we might try a half-size up, just in case. This model tends to fit a little small.”

  Leela removes her Converse, thrusts in her feet.

  The woman instructs her to jog down a track in a hallway.

  “How do they feel?”

  “They feel great.”

  It’s true. And if only she had $120 to spend on new sneakers.

  “Awesome.” The woman smiles brightly when she returns. “They look really good on you. That’s not the main thing, but it’s a plus.”

  “Can I ask you a question? It’s Jennifer, right?”

  It says so on her name tag. Honestly, what right does she have to invade this woman’s life?

  “Do we know each other?”

  “I’m Leela.”

  “Hi, Leela,” she says guardedly.

  “I should have said before, I’m a journalist. I’m up here doing a story about the Ashburn case.”

  The woman looks around, as if for someone else.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m actually from Claymore, originally. My parents live down the street. Do you think I could take you out for coffee sometime? I just want to ask you a couple questions.”

  The woman stares at her, not listening to a single word. She says accusingly, “Are you with Martin?”

  “Who’s Martin?”

  “Martin Krug. This is such bullshit.”

  “I honestly don’t know who that is.”

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here—”

  “Wait, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I found a picture of you and the Ashburns’ daughter online, you were hiking together. I just want to ask you a couple questions.”

  The woman stares hard. Leela can’t help but look away. After a couple more seconds, it’s clear to both of them who’s won.

  The woman says quietly, “I don’t give a shit what you want.” She picks up the shoes and adds, “I’ll just take these to the counter.”

  “Sure,” Leela says reluctantly. “Thank you.”

  Five minutes later, she has new shoes on her credit card.

  * * *

  I dont know who you are but pparently you kno w me or my son because somehow your comments appear in my “newsfeed”. So I guess that means you can say whatever you want. You don’t know the HALF of it. We have rights. We are not your sidesohw. Why not all of you, or maybe the only one to think that you try, there is a real person out there that reads this. This is supposed to be a community well imagine this was a child of yours. Two people were killed. Lives arebeing RUINED. You think you’re my neighbors?? And that’s how talk to each other neighbors noawadays????

  * * *

  The Sheriff’s Department doesn’t have any Martin Krugs, the receptionist says, but she suggests that Leela try the Public Defender’s Office, where a touchy young man says that, yes, they’ve had a Martin Krug consulting recently, from New Jersey.

  Which enables some simple math on her part.

  “Isn’t he the one who found the kid in the first place?”

  “You must watch the news,” the guy says sarcastically.

  “What’s the best way I can reach him?”

  “I can’t give out that type of information.”

  Ten minutes later, she’s called six motels: no luck. She tries the first listing under Claymore’s bed-and-breakfasts.

  “He’s not in at the moment,” a man says after the second ring. “May I take a message?”

  “Do you know when to expect him back?”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  Half an hour later, Leela parks in front of the hotel, down near the beach. In her lifetime she’s probably driven by it a dozen times, but never really noticed the sign, the iron water pump, the American flag with only a dozen-plus stars.

  A teenager sweeps the walk, in a T-shirt and shorts, shower sandals with black socks, plugged into his smartphone.

  “Excuse me.”

  The kid looks up. Doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m looking for Martin Krug.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I like your nose ring.”

  “Do I look like I work here?”

  “You have a broom.”

  “This is my house,” he says loudly.

  “Well, the sign says it’s a hotel.”

  The boy pulls out his earbuds.

  “What do you want him for?”

  Before she can answer the kid drops the broom, slumps down on the porch swing, starts to watch something on his phone.

  “I’m Leela,” she says. “I’m a journalist.”

  “Cool.”

  “Can I sit with you?”

  The boy doesn’t say no.

  She remembers how mostly horrible life is prior to nineteen.

  “It must be interesting,” she says, sitting down. “Living in a hotel.”

  “You’re in town about the murders.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s fucked-up. Like truly.”

  “Totally.”

  “You realize those photos are bullshit, right?”

  “You know about the photos?”

  The boy gives her a nutty look.

  “Emily and I used to run track. What people are saying about her is disgusting.”

  “I actually went to CHS.”

  “No shit?”

  “Six years ago. What’s your name?”

  “Demeke.”

  “I’m Leela. So why exactly,” she says, “are the pictures bullshit?”

  He doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Trust me, if you knew her, you’d know that girl would never put stuff like that online.”

  “That’s a good point.”

  “She’s a total weirdo, don’t get me wrong. I mean, she’s nice, she’s just not that type of person.”

  “Can you tell me more?”

  * * *

  So Leela Mann packs up all her crap, again, sweeps out Sandra’s family’s little house, and moves her stuff to Leduc, one of a billion kids moving back in with their parents. And during the drive, she tells herself that it’s only temporary, until the story’s done. Plus her parents want her there, she loves her mom’s cooking. And now she’s building what starts to feel, knock on wood, like a solid lead.

  With the bed-and-breakfast kid’s guidance, she’s able to track down the boy interviewed in Justin’s story, the hockey player, a kid named Michael. The one who accused Emily Portis of posting her own photographs on the web. The same young man who Emily says stole her pictures in the first place.

  He works at an ice cream shop on the strip. The shop windows are full of chocolate, candy in plastic cages. The window frames are trimmed with roses and jasmine. The door jingles when Leela walks in. A boy behind the counter chats up two girls. He’s got one of those sweep hairdos, like a college quarterback, and exudes fatigue and overconfidence, as if he’s too important in the world to be awake.

  The girls are lanky and ba
refoot, in tank tops and cutoffs. They hover around the register like sand midges.

  Within a minute, the boy denies that he has anything to do with the photographs, and this is before she’s even asked him a single question, only announced her occupation. He also denies he’s even seen them, he wouldn’t need to, he’s not that type of guy.

  “Besides, why would I?”

  “Would you what?” asks Leela.

  “Put them up on Snapchat or whatever.”

  “Who said anything about Snapchat?”

  “Nice try,” says one of the girls. “Everyone knows it was.”

  Leela ignores her.

  “Maybe you thought it would be funny. Maybe one of your buddies on the hockey team told you to pass it around.”

  “Even if he did?” says the other girl. “It’s not like he’s the one who took the photographs. That’s who you should be looking for. That’s pornography.”

  “It’s sick,” says the first.

  “So you’ve seen the photos. What did you think?” she says, turning on the girls.

  They don’t say anything.

  “You’re right: it is pornography. Did you know that sending pornography like that to somebody else, over the internet, is a federal crime?”

  “Yeah, we know that.”

  “In this case it’s referred to as sexual exploitation of a minor,” she says, while she looks at the boy. “People go to prison for this kind of thing. You’re a sex offender. You’re on a public registry for life.”

  The previous evening, on a hunch, she’d emailed Matteo, her ex-boyfriend from college. He’d since gone through law school, he was a clerk in Delaware. He said that although distribution of child porn was a federal crime, there were so many cases, so few case workers, prosecutors didn’t automatically go full tilt unless a certain threshold of images was met. Especially in the case of sexts or what seemed like sexts. It was the realpolitik of child porn today—but she didn’t need to share all of that just yet.

  “It’s still a total slut thing to do,” says the first girl.

  “Exactly,” says the second. “It’s so desperate.”

  The boy laughs. The girls giggle.

  “So are you guys friends with this girl?” Leela asks.

  “No way.”

  “She’s the kind of person who thinks she’s better than everybody else.”