I first met Peter Terry—the pasty-pale phantom with an ugly gash in his back, blade to blade—a couple of years ago. It was a hot August afternoon at a cold spring-fed pool in Austin. He walked right up and introduced himself to me in broad daylight, setting off a storm of gale-force chaos that ripped the roof off my life in no time flat, just like a Texas tornado in the summertime.
That day I’d received a groovy silver necklace, my mother’s wedding ring (which had been buried with her two years before), and a full-on blast of terror, uncertainty, and dread. In the ensuing months, I’d seen my career almost scrubbed off its foundations and my house infested with flies and various other vermin. I’d also managed to get myself dragged into the wakes of a couple of tragic, ambiguous suicides and the bloody murder of a young girl—a talented but lost college student—by a hapless loser in Wolverine work boots.
After all that, you’d think I’d be onto Peter Terry. And yet somehow I’d let myself be caught by surprise again—flatfooted and off my guard. As nasty as I knew him to be, I never expected him to start kidnapping kids. Much less a sweet, funny little boy with nothing to protect him but a few knock-kneed women, two rabbits, and a staple gun.
After a few hours of fitful sleep, we all got up the next morning unsure about how to proceed. How do you act when someone you love—a helpless little boy—is out there somewhere in the hands of a kidnapper?
Sitting still for any length of time was an impossibility, so we went over to Maria’s and did what anyone would do, I suppose. We paced. We worried. We cried. We speculated obsessively. We prayed.
Then we paced and worried and cried and speculated some more.
The speculating quickly became counterproductive, so we put a stop to that. The worrying we couldn’t do anything about. That would have been like holding back a freight train with a rubber band.
The praying we kept up. Maria was particularly good at it. She must have crossed herself a thousand times, eyes cast upward, murmuring in Spanish.
I always forget God is multilingual. Half the time, I forget He’s there at all. You’d think I’d learn, but spiritually, I have ADHD and am still in the third reading group.
He has to smack His ruler on my desk a lot to get my attention.
We spent the day calling around to let Maria’s relatives and friends know what was going on. We fielded phone calls. We answered her door for her and received casseroles and fended off nosy neighbors. We made flyers and stapled them to every telephone pole and bulletin board we could find. We got Maria pulled together enough to go on the Sunday night news shows to ask politely for her son back. That was a particularly galling activity.
The whole thing was surreal. We all floated through it like we were swimming through JELL-O. And after another sleepless night, we got up and did the whole thing again.
We could feel the futility every time we stapled another flyer to another telephone pole. What were the chances that someone would see it and think, Why, my goodness! That’s the little boy my uncle brought to the picnic last night, the one that was screaming and crying for his mother and had duct tape around his wrists? I mean, really. But we did it anyway. Because it was all we could think of to do.
I even called the milk-carton people. But those kids have been missing a while, it turns out. That’s the rule. So, of course, we didn’t want Nicholas ever to qualify for milk-carton space.
Christine was a champ. She stapled flyers with the rest of us. It was her idea to add the ribbons. She wanted purple, but when Liz explained that yellow is the color for wishing someone you love would come home, she agreed that yellow was the only choice. So I took her to the craft store, and we bought a couple of miles of yellow ribbon and started stapling bows with the flyers to the telephone poles.
A cop came by one time and told me it was against a Dallas city ordinance to display flyers on telephone poles. I shoved a flyer in his face and said, “You want to tell that to this kid’s mother? Give me your phone number, and I’ll have her give you a call.” He handed the flyer back to me and walked away without a word.
On rare occasions, my natural hostility can be an asset.
Monday evening found us all sitting on my front porch, sipping tepid lemonade and trying to fan away our exhaustion.
Maria looked at her watch. “That’s it. Forty-eight hours. If they don’t find him in the first forty-eight hours, the chances go down by half.”
“That’s got to be an estimate,” I said. “I mean, they have to have some time markers to evaluate things, right? But it can’t mean forty-eight hours exactly. It’s probably, like, in the first few days.”
She put her head in her hands, then pushed back her thick dark hair and looked at me. “I feel like someone stuck my tongue in a light socket. Every nerve I have is just gone. Charred to a crisp.” She took a sip of her drink and leaned her head back in the rocking chair. “I can’t cry anymore. I don’t think I have a single tear left.” She closed her eyes and rocked slowly. The sun had gone behind the trees, and a breeze had come.
“He’s alive. Somewhere out there. I can feel it. I would know it if he …” Her voice trailed off. None of us could think about it, much less say it.
Christine was sitting cross-legged on the porch boards, cutting strips of yellow ribbon and tying them into lopsided bows. The warm air moved a strip of ribbon across the porch in a long curl.
“Does Nicholas like Kool-Aid?” she said without looking up.
“Yes, he does,” Maria said. “He loves Kool-Aid.”
“What color does he like?” Christine asked.
“Red,” Maria said. “He likes red.”
“He’s thirsty,” Christine said. “He wants red.”
Liz looked up. “Christine, that’s not—”
Maria sat up and looked at Christine. “What did you say?”
“He’s all thirsty and he wants some Kool-Aid. Can I have some too?”
“Sure, Punkin,” I said. “What kind? I’ve got red and purple.”
“Nicholas wants the red kind.”
Liz flashed her daughter a mother-of-three-in-the-grocery-store look. “Christine, you could not possibly know if Nicholas is thirsty. You’re upsetting Maria. Now tell her you’re sorry,” she said sternly. “And if you want the red kind, it’s ‘may I have the red kind, please?’ ”
Christine looked up at her mother and furrowed her brow. “But it’s real hot.”
“I know it’s hot. You can have all the Kool-Aid you want,” Liz said. “Just don’t—.”
“No … Nicholas. He’s real hot. He wants some Kool-Aid. The red kind.”
“We don’t know where Nicholas is, Christine,” I said. “We don’t know if it’s hot there or not.”
“It’s not nice to say something like that when Miss Maria is so worried,” Liz said. “Christine, say you’re sorry.”
“But—”
“Say you’re sorry,” Liz said.
Christine rubbed her eyes and dropped her head. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
I reached over and pulled her into my lap, leaning my head back on the porch column, my legs stretched out in front of me on the porch, ankles crossed. She put her head on my shoulder.
“Do you think it’s hot where Nicholas is?” I asked.
“Really super-duper hot,” Christine said.
“That’s pretty hot.” I pushed the hair out of her eyes, off her forehead, which was damp with sweat. “You think he’s okay?”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “I think he’s okay.”
Maria was sitting on the edge of her chair. “Christine, how do you know Nicholas is hot and thirsty?”
“Because he wants some Kool-Aid.”
I had a thought. “Punkin, did Earl tell you Nicholas is thirsty?”
Maria looked puzzled. “Who’s Earl?”
“Christine’s guardian angel,” I said. “She named him Earl, and she believes he talks to her sometimes.”
Christine began to cry. “He does talk to me!
I didn’t make him up. His name is Earl, and he’s real.”
“Oh, sweetie, I didn’t mean—”
“And Earl told you Nicholas is thirsty?” Maria said.
I winced at the hope in Maria’s eyes.
But Christine just shook her head petulantly. “Not Earl.”
“Christine,” Maria said again, “how do you know Nicholas is thirsty?”
“Because of the Kool-Aid,” Christine whined.
“Do you know who has him?” Maria asked.
“The man was real mean, and he had a snake on him,” Christine said.
Maria kept pressing. “You told us that already. Is there anything else? Do you know anything about where the mean man took him? Or why he might be thirsty? Did he say where he was taking him? Is that how you know he’s thirsty?”
Christine shook her head again.
“Maria, I’m sorry.” Liz stood and began winding Christine’s ribbon onto its spool. “We should go. It’s been a long couple of days. I think we’ll stay at the hotel tonight and see if we can get a good night’s sleep. Dylan, do you mind keeping Eeyore for another night or two?”
I felt a stab of alarm. “You guys don’t want to stay with me?”
The thought of being alone with so much tragedy clogging the air in my house wasn’t the slightest bit appealing. I could feel a fetid cloud of depression sinking on me at the very thought.
“I think we’ll put on our bathing suits and go for a nice swim, and then we’ll see if we can order a pizza or maybe some crunchy carrots from room service,” Liz said. “Or we could stop at 7-Eleven on the way there and get you some Fritos and an orange Popsicle. Would you like that, Punkin?”
“I want to stay with Miss Dylan.”
“We can’t, honey. We need to go stay at the hotel tonight.”
Christine started to cry again and shoved her thumb in her mouth. I looked over her head at Liz. “Are you sure?” I mouthed silently.
She rolled her eyes.
“Please?” I mouthed.
She sighed. “Okay, Christine. One more night. But no more stories about Nicholas.”
“It’s not a story,” Christine mumbled. She climbed off my lap and went inside the house, letting the screen door slam behind her just as Martinez pulled up in front of my house.
He parked his squad car in the driveway and headed up to the porch. He had a slow, ambling sort of walk that made him look wise and pensive and worldly all at once. Maria got up to greet him and stepped into his arms. He held her for a long minute—long enough that Liz and I began to feel awkward and intrusive.
He wiped the tears from her face with his thumbs, said something to her in Spanish, and kissed her on the forehead. When he finally let go, Maria was crying again.
The look on his face offered little hope. “We took the van apart.”
“And?” I said.
“We found a couple of long, brown, curly hairs.”
Maria started to say something, but he held his hand up to stop her. “They’re not his. We’re trying to match the daughter’s hair.”
“Have they interviewed that family?” Liz asked. “The Dickersons?”
“Repeatedly.” He sat on the porch swing and pulled Maria over next to him. “They’ve been fully cooperative. No lawyers. No resistance. Nothing. They let us crawl over every inch of their cars. We’ve been through their entire house. They all gave hair samples. Everything. They’re clean.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m positive. I’ve watched every minute of the interviews. They’re not hiding anything.”
“Then how do you explain the van?” Maria’s eyes began to tear up again. You could just see the hope leaking out of her.
“Coincidence,” Martinez said. “They must have pulled away at about the same time Nicholas was abducted.” He hugged her. “Mija, Nicholas was never in that van.”
Maria drew away from him and crossed her arms. She walked to the other end of the porch, staring into the street.
“What now?” Liz asked.
“We start interviewing the witnesses again. See if anyone remembers anything.”
“Like what?” Maria said. “It happened so fast.”
“Like another car,” Martinez said. “He got away from that park somehow.”
“With a kicking, squirming kid who didn’t want to go with him.” I nodded in agreement. “He must have had a car. How else could he have—”
Maria whirled around. “Dylan, we saw another car.”
“What car? When?” I said.
“When we were in the street. A car honked at us.”
“All I saw was the van.”
She gestured at Martinez. “I can’t believe I forgot. It wasn’t a van. It was …” She paced around in a circle, then stopped and looked at me. “What was it, Dylan? What kind of car was it?”
I shook my head. “Maria, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t remember another car.”
“Yes, you do! It was after you caught up to me and I was losing it in the street. Remember—a car came up behind us and honked for us to get out of the way? What was it? Don’t you remember?”
I thought for a minute. “I really don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Are you sure you saw another car, Maria?” Martinez asked. “Sometimes people inject details in hindsight.”
I stood and headed inside for my bag and keys. “Let’s go over there. Right now. Maybe it’ll jog my memory.”
5
LIZ STAYED WITH CHRISTINE while the rest of us headed back to the park. We hadn’t been there since Nicholas disappeared. It had an eerie, abandoned feel to it. The swings were still. A deflated soccer ball sat beside a backstop. The fountain had been turned off. The pond emitted a putrid, brackish stench. Even the katydids were silent—strange for a summer evening.
At first, Maria couldn’t get out of the car. We backed away and let her take her time. She eventually took a few breaths and stepped out like she was stepping off a boat into a deep body of water. She walked slowly, her arms crossed tightly, one hand at her mouth, biting her thumbnail, the other twirling the St. Christopher medal she wore around her neck.
We started at the park bench. The special-needs donkey was still stapled to the tree, looking more forlorn than ever. I pulled it down and followed Martinez to the trash bin. The trash had been confiscated by the DPD two days before. A piece of yellow crime-scene tape formed a cross over the bin opening. Martinez broke it, and I shoved the donkey inside.
We retraced our steps, walking past the benches, the swings, the water fountains, the tramped-down grass where the petting zoo had been. We circled the tennis courts and stopped. Beside the tennis courts, a bronze statue of children playing had been made into a shrine of sorts. Flowers and notes and teddy bears were piled up at the children’s feet, looking almost like an impediment to their gleeful play. Maria reached down and picked up a few of the notes. She read them silently, then tucked one into her pocket and crossed herself.
As she stood there, a couple pushing a stroller walked up the street behind us. Their big yellow dog tugged at its leash, pulling them all forward. They put their heads down, graciously declining to stare. Maria waited until they had passed and began to cry. She crossed herself again, kissed her St. Christopher, and turned to walk into the street. We followed her around the block to the center of the street, one block over. Maria and I stopped there and looked around.
“Let’s try something,” I said. “Maria, kneel down like you were the other day.”
She knelt and looked up at me.
I nodded. “Okay now, Maria, look the other way, in the direction the van was moving.” I knelt down beside her and held her shoulders like I had before. I stared into the distance, summoning my memory, picking through the fog for the visual. In my mind I could hear the honk, but I couldn’t see the car.
“The horn was a medium horn,” I said finally. “Not a little beepy one. Not a loud foghorn one. Just medium.” I l
ooked up at Martinez. “Could have been a sedan.”
Martinez was watching me intently. “Okay, that’s good. Anything else? Can you see the hood? Is there an emblem or anything?”
I let go of Maria and walked around, looking up and down at the cars parked in front of houses. The streets in this part of Highland Park are narrow. When two cars are parked on opposite sides of the street, there’s room for only one car in the middle. I walked over and stood between two cars, closed my eyes, and then turned my head over my shoulder, putting myself in the exact position I’d been in the moment I’d seen the car.
“White,” I said. “I think it was white.”
“Are you sure?” Martinez asked.
“Nope. But it’s the best I can do.”
“I think that’s right,” Maria said. “I think it was white. I remember now.”
Martinez looked at her without saying anything. Maria wanted to believe it so badly.
“It seems like the hood had some gray patches,” I said.
Martinez pulled a notebook from his back pocket and began scribbling. “Sanded down, maybe? Like someone was repairing the finish?”
I nodded. “Could be. That’s what I’m seeing in my mind. A ratty sedan with white, patchy paint.”
“Driver?” Martinez asked.
“White guy.”
“Age?”
“Maybe forties? Not old. And definitely not a kid.”
“Anyone else in the car with him?” Martinez looked up from his writing.
“Nope.”
“Headrests?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Good question. That would narrow the model year down a bit, wouldn’t it? I don’t think there were any headrests. Could have been a bench seat.”
“An old car, then,” Martinez said. “Engine noise?”
“I heard it come up behind us, so it must have been a little loud. Not a nice, new, whirry sound. Old and clunky is closer, I think. Kind of like my truck, come to think of it.”
“But a car, not a truck,” Maria said. “It was definitely a car.”
“Don’t you think someone would have noticed a car like that in this neighborhood?” I asked. “Especially on a Saturday when none of the work crews are around.”
My Soul to Keep Page 4
