The Feathered Bone

by Julie Cantrell

  “What if she walked up to see the river? What if she fell in?”

  “I thought of that.” Silence. Then Carl asks, “Are they searching the water?”

  “Not yet. I’m sure they’ll call in a dive team at some point.” The very idea makes me ill.

  “I hate to say it, but that does make more sense.” He softens, and my body reacts with a slower pulse, calmer breaths.

  “I just keep hoping she’ll come strolling in, wondering what all the fuss is about.”

  “How long has it been, Amanda? Since you saw her?”

  I fumble with my watch, an inexpensive Timex Carl gave me when I turned thirty-five last year. He laughed when I unwrapped it, saying, “Maybe now you’ll be on time.”

  But with Sarah missing, time has shifted into a strange sort of fluidity. “Almost three hours,” I tell him. How is that possible? “Beth and Preacher should be here soon.”

  “Amanda?” Carl’s voice takes a serious drop in pitch. “Don’t take your eyes off Ellie.”

  Within an hour Jay arrives with Beth and Preacher. I rush to meet them, but NOPD officers step in between. Mere feet away, a few journalists have joined the scene. They shout questions as photographers squeeze in to capture a mother’s worst nightmare. The lens acts as a tool to numb their sensibilities.

  “Amanda?” Beth’s voice is hoarse. “What is happening? Where’s Sarah?” She clings to Preacher, who seems to be holding her together. Her hair is a mess, and mascara traces the tears beneath her reddened eyes. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Beth express such raw emotion, and the impact hits me full force. I promised to keep her daughter safe. I was trusted to bring Sarah home.

  The police officer eases back, allowing me to reach my friend. I wrap Beth in a hug and release a sorrowful string of apologies.

  Jay gives me a tender look of sympathy. It is all I can do to stay strong.

  “Show us,” Preacher says to me. “Tell us everything that happened. Where’d you last see her?”

  With officers on either side of us, I lead them through every detail of the day. Starting with the moment Beth left our group at Mardi Gras World, they track my story onto the ferry, crossing to Algiers, and then back toward the Central Business District. Then on to the French Quarter, where Sarah was given the feather from the fortune-teller before coming here, to Café du Monde, where I left her in line at the restroom playing rock-scissors-paper with Ellie.

  Beth and Preacher do their best to absorb the facts. Facts that make no sense at all. “I shouldn’t have left her,” Beth says, too numb again to cry. “I should have been here with my child. On her field trip. What was I doing at the church? Why’d I leave her?” Then she shifts, and anger seeps through. “Why did you leave her, Amanda? In New Orleans? What were you thinking? This isn’t like you.”

  “I’m sorry, Beth. It’s my fault, I know. I can’t understand what could have happened. I’m so sorry.”

  Beth turns to one of the officers. “The palm reader! Did you find her?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ve questioned her. She’ll be listed as a person of interest.”

  “Does she have Sarah? Does she know who does?” Beth shouts out questions, talking her way through her own thoughts. “She’s supposed to tell the future, right? Get her to tell us where Sarah is!”

  “Anyone else on that list? Any suspects?” Jay asks this one, stepping up as sheriff more than friend, even though we’re not in his parish right now.

  “We’re talking to a lot of folks,” the officer says. “We just have to find the right person.”

  I lean closer to Beth. “She probably got turned around in the crowd. Just went the wrong direction. We’ll find her.” Maybe if I say this enough, it will come true.

  “What can we do?” Somehow Preacher remains rational. But his dark eyes dart in all directions, and he pulses his fingers as if playing an instrument. He’s a small-built man with a gentle heart, but I get the sense he could blow at any moment.

  “Are you calling in more help? State police? FBI? What’s the plan?” Jay again.

  As the officer explains the procedure, I step toward Ellie, who has just been released from yet another interrogation. She rushes back to me and accepts my hug. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find her.” I guide her back to our friends and pull out a chair for her. I do the same for Beth, but she can’t sit down. Finally finished with her second interview, Raelynn also joins us at the table, explaining that she’ll send Nate back home on the bus with the other kids. They have all been waiting patiently for their driver to carry them back home. “They asked me a lot of questions about Gator,” Raelynn tells Jay.

  We direct our gaze toward the bus driver, who is being questioned by three officers.

  “I’d better get over there.” Jay heads Gator’s direction as Miss Henderson moves toward us, apologizing every step of the way. She rushes into Beth’s arms as much to receive comfort as to give it. The two stand together, sobbing, while the rest of us look away.

  “I should have known better than to come to New Orleans.” While the teacher weeps, the female investigator offers coffee to Preacher and Beth. They decline, each now taking a seat.

  “Why won’t they let us leave?” Preacher asks, drumming his palm against the table in nervous pulses. “We need to be out there looking.”

  Jay finally returns to our group and takes the lead. “All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to work with the NOPD. Anything they need. If they want to question us again, we let them. If they tell us to sit, we sit. If they tell us to wait, we wait. And when they tell us we can hit the streets, we hit the streets and join the search. Right now they are in charge. They know their city. We have to trust they’ll do a good job. And I believe they will.”

  Accepting his support, the investigator smiles.

  We sit in silence, staring anywhere but at one another. And we wait. Chaos takes shape around us. A million moving parts, all trying to achieve the same goal: find Sarah.

  “Can’t you make them go away?” Beth stares at the journalists with a spiteful eye. A familiar Baton Rouge reporter by the name of Frank Doucet jams his microphone toward us. “Mrs. Broussard, how did you feel when you were told your daughter had been lost on a school field trip?”

  Beth ignores him, so he shouts more questions, hoping one will hook. “Is there any reason to think your daughter simply ran away? Do you know of anyone who might be involved if this is an actual kidnapping? Anyone who might have a grudge against your family? Any enemies?”

  “Be glad they’re here,” Jay says, centered as always. “The coverage will only help.”

  Placing her hand over her husband’s to still him, Beth lowers her head in silent prayer. By contrast, I want to shake my hands at the heavens. How dare you?

  I run scenes through my mind like the series of images we viewed earlier today on the oversized screen in the Mardi Gras film room. Only there is no well-rehearsed narrator making sense of this sequence. I focus, trying to find clues we’re overlooking. Who was here? Why didn’t Sarah come back from that restroom? Why did she leave the backpack? Where in the world can she be?

  Beside me, Ellie twists her hair into knots. “Sarah wouldn’t let anybody take her.”

  “You’re right, honey. She wouldn’t.” I pull Ellie’s hand into mine, feeling both gratitude to have my child with me and guilt that Beth’s hand cannot reach Sarah’s.

  Beth lifts her head. “Ellie, you know her better than anyone. Where do you think she is?”

  My daughter glances out to Decatur, then over to the broad-limbed oak where the jazz band no longer plays, then back toward the colorful alley. She turns toward the now-vacant takeout window, then toward the rear of the café where she last saw Sarah standing in line for the restroom. The rest of us follow Ellie’s stares and try to reason along with her.

  “Honestly, Mrs. Beth,” Ellie whispers, “I have no idea.”

  Chapter 6

  Sunday, October 31,
2004

  Halloween

  OUR BATON ROUGE NEWS REPORTER, FRANK DOUCET, IS UPDATING us from the television screen. A New Orleans station shares his footage here in the hotel lobby. “Sarah Broussard was last seen day before yesterday, when her sixth-grade class took a field trip to New Orleans. Friday at approximately 1:30 p.m., she waited in line for the restroom at Café du Monde. That was the last time Sarah’s classmates saw their friend. Today the Livingston Parish School Board, ignoring the advice of legal counsel, has sent their entire fleet of buses to New Orleans, carrying full loads of LP volunteers who are determined to find Sarah. The school district’s superintendent is with us now. Sir, what’s the latest on the search?”

  The superintendent is a family friend, a lifelong member of our church, and a well-respected leader with the parish Rotary. “We’re doing all we can to find Sarah,” he says. “We’ve filled every seat on every bus today. And we’ll do it again next weekend. And the next. For as long as it takes until we bring our student home.”

  Doucet takes the microphone again, summarizing the efforts of law enforcement and showing photos of Beth, Preacher, Ellie, and me on the screen. He explains our connection to Sarah.

  “He showed Ellie?” Raelynn fumes, expressing what I’m thinking. His footage violates our private struggle. Posting Sarah’s photo on air is helpful, but broadcasting my daughter’s tearful face is another thing entirely. Especially when he tells the world that Ellie was her designated buddy of the day.

  “The churches are sending vans too,” Preacher says, focusing on the good. “They’re leaving straight after today’s service.”

  “I can’t believe how many people are helping,” Beth whispers. Exhaustion is about to conquer her. “You haven’t slept at all, have you?” She clutches my shoulder, as if it’s me she’s worried about. We’ve been searching nonstop, both Friday and Saturday nights. Now we’re trying to refuel with the strongest coffee we can find.

  “I saw Vivienne,” Beth adds. Viv is my friend, a fellow clinical social worker who shares a therapy practice with me. “She drove down by herself, to offer support.”

  “Yeah. She’s canceled my clients. Said to take as much time as we need.”

  “Ma’am?” The lead investigator with the Louisiana State Police has arrived. He greets Beth first, then shakes hands with Preacher and Jay. He’s ready to give us the update we’ve been waiting for. Law enforcement organizers have charted a grid and given us precise instructions on how to spread out. He reviews our timeline. “We’ve got dive teams on the river now. Another team searching the canals.”

  Beth stares at the agent, her eyes swollen and red. It’s common knowledge that divers usually come for recovery, not rescue.

  “We’ll find her,” I say.

  Raelynn, too, does her best to revive hope. “Today. I can feel it.” Despite her knee pain, she’s walked every step of this search with us, never complaining.

  Jay reminds us that sheriff’s deputies from three parishes are helping, and the police have placed checkpoints on all the roads running in and out of New Orleans. “We’re watching the bus stations. The docks. Amtrak too.”

  The state trooper adds his support. “We’ve got every arm on this case, Mrs. Broussard. Our guys, the sheriffs, NOPD. If need be, we’ll bring in the Feds too. We want to assure you, we’re doing everything we can to find your daughter. Because of his ties to your family, and because the case involves the Livingston Parish School District, Sheriff Ardoin will be our coordinator. He’s your go-to guy for anything you need. Anything at all.”

  Louisiana’s unique Napoleonic Code gives him a lot of authoritative power, so putting Jay in charge makes perfect sense.

  As the state investigator provides precise instructions for Jay, they turn to exclude the rest of us from the conversation. Beside us, the large television continues to show intermittent coverage of the search.

  “It sounds as if no one has found a single clue,” the CNN journalist says on TV. With her brash style, she’s known for stirring up trouble and making a story bigger than it should be. In this situation, we’re grateful for the international coverage. “No green field trip T-shirt, no green hair bow,” she continues. “No witnesses. No signs of the angelic Sarah Broussard. This sweet, innocent preacher’s daughter simply vanished with the fog. One minute she was in a popular café, laughing and playing rock-scissors-paper with her best friend. The next she was gone. The only clue we have is the black backpack she left behind in the restroom. That tells us that something happened. She didn’t just get lost.”

  The reporter cuts to a tourist who is visiting the States for holiday. “You say you have a piece of information that could help solve the case?”

  This gets our attention. Preacher taps Jay’s back. We all watch the screen.

  “Yes.” The woman speaks with a heavy accent. “I have try to call police but they do not take me for serious. Maybe we try this.”

  “We’re all committed to finding Sarah Broussard. Anything we can do,” the reporter says. “What information do you have?”

  “Well, I look through my photograph from café, and I find one. Time-stamped 1:47. It show a woman leave café with another person who you see in costume. What if Sarah Broussard in that costume?”

  The television screen fills with an image. In it, a young woman is shown to be walking through the restaurant. Maybe in her early twenties, at most. There is nothing eye-catching about her. She has plain brown shoulder-length hair, not too dark, not too light. She’s about five foot five, and she’s neither too thin nor obese. I’d guess a size eight, maybe a ten. She doesn’t look stressed or anxious. In fact, her expression reveals no emotion at all. Everything about her is ordinary. The only odd thing about her is that she is holding the hand of a shorter person who wears a mask, the rubbery kind that completely covers the hair and face. This tops a long black robe of sorts, one that easily could have been pulled over Sarah’s clothes to disguise her completely. As the reporter continues, we tune in to every word.

  Jay makes a phone call directly to CNN. “I want to speak to your guest,” he says. “Have her call my cell phone. And can you please put me on the air?” Within seconds, he has stepped outside to find a CNN correspondent who immediately puts him through with a live feed. From the lobby, we watch Jay on TV.

  “I encourage anyone who was in this area Friday, October 29, to contact the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Department,” he says. “If anyone has photographs or video, we want to see them. Tips? We want to hear them. If anyone knows the woman in the photograph you just aired, we want to speak to them.” The screen divides to post a toll-free number.

  As Jay continues to answer questions, the trooper pulls Beth and Preacher to the side for a private conversation. Raelynn and I collapse into two leather chairs perched near the sofa where Ellie is sound asleep. I stare at the photo on-screen.

  “Why would Sarah put on a costume and leave with some stranger? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Raelynn shakes her head with equal confusion. “You really think that’s her? I can’t imagine Sarah doing that. Ellie, maybe. She’s the follower.” She looks down at my daughter, who dreams deeply on the lobby sofa.

  “Ellie would never even talk to a stranger, much less go off with one,” I explain. “Sarah’s always been much more outgoing. She’s grown up behind the pulpit, eager to reach out to everyone. No fear of people.”

  Raelynn nods. “You should have sent Ellie home with Nate. Heard from Carl yet?”

  “Finally found a charger.” I hold up my phone. “He got a chopper out, but he needed to go home first, get a few things. He was on the causeway when I called him. Should be here any minute. How’s your knee?”

  “Been better.” She slides back against the club chair, as if she may join Ellie and take a little nap right here. Around us, media and tourists crowd the breakfast bar while desk clerks manage the morning checkouts.

  “I still can’t seem to accept this. I’ve talked my cli
ents through trauma so many times. But now that I’m the one facing the crisis, I understand. It’s weird what the brain will do.”

  Before I can get too deep in thought, Jay returns. He looks at Ellie, sound asleep. “Y’all should go up to your room. Get some rest.”

  “This could be the lead we’ve been waiting for.” My words slur from fatigue. “Any information come in? About that woman in the photo?”

  “Nothing yet, but we’re on it. Listen, Amanda, you’re so tired at this point that Sarah could walk right past you and you’d never see her. You all need a break. It’s been a long few days.”

  “Carl’s almost here. We’ll take shifts with Ellie.”

  “He’d better let you have first nap,” Raelynn pipes.

  Jay reaches for my empty cup. “More coffee?” He takes Raelynn’s too. “We’ll head back out in twenty minutes.” Just as he turns for the coffee station, Carl enters the lobby, suitcase in hand.

  I rush to the door, greeting my husband with a tight hug. He pulls away before I am ready. “Where’s Ellie?”

  “She’s crashed,” I say, leading him back to the sofa where Raelynn stands guard.

  “Reporters everywhere,” he complains. “I barely made it inside.”

  Jay returns, handing off coffee before shaking Carl’s hand. “We’re about to head out. You coming?”

  “Nah, I’m beat, man. I’ll probably head on up with Ellie. Sleep it off.”

  Raelynn rolls her eyes.

  I offer a tired smile. “I’m just glad you’re here.” I give him a kiss, but he shifts away and it lands on his cheek. “I’ll help you get Ellie up to the room.”

  “It’s all right,” he says. “Y’all go on. I’ll call you when we wake up.”

  “Stay right with her, okay?” My exhaustion puts an edge to my tone that I don’t intend.

  His voice rises in volume, defensive. He must assume I’m doubting his ability to be a father, telling him what to do. “Of course I’m going to stay right with her, Amanda.”

  What I hear is I’m not the one who lost a kid.