What Remains of Her

by Eric Rickstad

  Rebecca and Sally had to be at one of Rebecca’s friends’ houses, and Rebecca had not called to let him know because . . .

  Because she was still bruised by last night?

  He tried to remember the specific words said the previous night but conjured nothing but distorted voices, like those of a lingering nightmare.

  He dialed Rebecca’s closest friend, twisting the long phone cord around his forearm as the phone on the other end rang.

  A woman, frazzled, answered: “Martins’ residence.”

  “Laura. It’s Jonah.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m looking for Rebecca.”

  Laura shouted: “Put that down!” Then, her voice tattered: “Sorry. She’s not here.”

  “Was she there earlier?” He twisted the phone cord more tightly around his forearm.

  “Haven’t seen her. Put that down. Jonah, really I—”

  He thanked her and hung up and dialed another friend. And another. And another.

  No one had seen Rebecca. Or Sally.

  Jonah’s head screamed from the wine coolers. He phoned the last and least of Rebecca’s friends.

  “You okay?” the woman said. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “I don’t know where they are,” Jonah whispered, though his voice seemed to detonate in the quiet kitchen.

  “They’ll turn up. Call Laura Martin. I’m sure—”

  “I called. I called them all. You’re the last.” He thought he heard her suck in air.

  “They should have been home”—he glanced at the owl clock; the only light now in the dark kitchen was the clock’s ominously glowing hands—“nearly three hours ago.”

  “Why are you just calling now?” the woman’s tone was laced with accusation.

  “I was working,” Jonah snapped. “I thought—” His arm felt deadened and engorged. He looked down at it. He’d wound the cord violently around his forearm and strangled the blood flow. His hand was a swollen, pulsing, sickly purple.

  “I need to go,” he said.

  The Cost of Fibbing

  Lucinda sat on the fireplace hearth, spellbound by the flames, her face all steamy and glowy from the crazy heat, eyelids drowsy as her daddy trucked into the living room donning his sheriff’s cap and pulling on his shiny black sheriff’s parka. “Lucy,” he said, “I need to go out.”

  Lucinda hated being called Lucy by anyone, except her dad. He said Lucy different than the other grown-ups who said it in a baby-talk way. Lucinda was not a baby, even if she was the youngest girl in first grade. When Dad called her Lucy it sounded like it should sound: a big girl’s name.

  Lucinda picked up a crayon on the hearth and shielded it with her body so her dad couldn’t see, sneaked it through the gap in the fire screen, and flipped it into the fire. The wrapper caught fire, the wax bubbled out in a thin blue stream that burst into tiny flames.

  “You’re not playing in the fire, I hope,” her dad said, yanking the zipper of his jacket up snug to his chin, shadowed with its evening whiskers. Lucinda liked his whiskers, how they tickled her cheek when he kissed her good night and good morning. It made her laugh. Her dad laughed a lot. But he wasn’t laughing now. He had a serious look, and his smile wasn’t his real smile. It was his fake smile he used when something was wrong but he tried to pretend it wasn’t. He was a rotten pretender.

  “I’m not playing in the fire,” Lucinda fibbed. She felt bad for fibbing, and scared. If her dad caught her in a fib, he would not let her sit by the fire anymore. Yet getting away with her fib made her bubble with excitement. Like she had a secret superpower.

  “You better not be lying,” her dad said.

  As sheriff, part of his job was to sniff out fibs. Lucinda’s mom rolled her eyes every time he said: Haul the lies out of the darkness and slay them with the light of the truth.

  Her dad’s face wasn’t just serious now; he looked—what? Upset? Mad? She gulped. It felt like food had gone down the wrong pipe. Maybe he knew she’d fibbed. If so, she had to admit it right now. It was better to fess up now than to get caught later.

  The fire crackled and a spark leaped through the screen out onto the back of Lucinda’s denim jumper, searing a hole in the fabric. “I—”

  “You need to come with me. Mom’s upstairs with a tummyache and I might be a while.”

  “Is someone in trouble?”

  He tugged his gloves onto his hands. “I hope not.”

  He walked toward the kitchen door and stood with his hand on the knob, waiting for Lucinda.

  Lucinda looked for Baby Beverly, the doll Lucinda took with her everywhere, and who got scared when left alone. Where was she? Lucinda started to peek under the couch for Beverly, but her dad smacked his hands together and said, “Let’s go.”

  Lucinda trudged to the door and put on her boots and jacket, fingers trembling so much with the giddiness of going on a real live police call that it took her three whole tries to tie her bootlaces right.

  “Where are we going?” she said.

  Her dad opened the door and cold air jumped on Lucinda, made her shiver. Her dad left the door open and was halfway out to his truck, moving fast, the way he did that time they were at the beach and the boy had started to drown.

  Lucinda hurried out and shut the door.

  At the truck, the driver’s door open, her dad stood looking at her.

  Lucinda’s excitement flew away like a bird, replaced by what she saw on her dad’s own face. What had been there all along that she’d tried to name, and he’d tried to pretend with a fake smile wasn’t there.

  Fear.

  Promise

  The truck joggled over the railroad tracks, making Lucinda’s stomach flop, then swung into a yard as familiar to Lucinda as her own yard. “Why are we here?” Lucinda said. This couldn’t be the place where someone might be in trouble.

  “Don’t say anything,” her dad said. “Sit on the couch and be a good girl, understand?”

  Lucinda nodded. Her stomach felt squashy, the way it did when her parents yelled or she got lost in a store and couldn’t find her mom. She should have been happy to be here, but she wasn’t. Her dad always went out when the ambulance was called, and she fretted Sally might be really sick.

  “Promise me,” her dad said, looking at her with a tight mouth.

  She promised.

  He messed up her hair with his bear-paw hand, but the look on his face wasn’t playful. It made her want to be home, by the fire. She was sorry she fibbed about the crayon and promised herself she’d never play with fire again, so she’d never have to fib about playing with it.

  “I was melting crayons in the fire,” she said and braced for her scolding. Her dad opened his truck door, not seeming to hear her.

  “I won’t do it again,” she said. “Ever.”

  The porch light was out, and Lucinda and her dad stood side by side on the porch in the darkness. Her dad tipped his sheriff’s hat back with his thumb and knocked on the door, once. Hard. He clasped his hands behind his back and cleared his throat.

  “You can just go in without knocking,” Lucinda said. “I always do. Mrs. B. says I’m family, and Sally never knocks when she comes—”

  “Don’t jibber jabber in there,” her dad said, lifting his chin to stare at the closed door, his spine stiff, his shoulders square. “Remember about the couch. Stay planted.”

  The porch light blinked on, and in an instant Lucinda was relieved and glad to be there. She’d been silly to think Sally might be so sick she’d need an ambulance. Dramatic about her squashy feeling. Her mom often said how dramatic Lucinda was. Called Lucinda a— Lucinda could never remember the word. An alarmist. Making mountains out of molehills, a phrase that tickled Lucinda though she didn’t really get it.

  Whatever was going on, Lucinda was happy she’d have Sally to sit with on the couch.

  Lucinda’s dad had warned her to stay on the couch, but he hadn’t said anything about not sitting with Sally. Maybe Lucinda and Sa
lly could watch TV with the sound off. Or maybe it would be okay if Lucinda played in Sally’s bedroom. The last time Lucinda had been in Sally’s bedroom Sally had shown her something scary. Not super scary, but scary enough that Lucinda had giggled to try to show that she wasn’t scared at all.

  The front door opened and light from inside washed away the rest of Lucinda’s silly fears that had started to sprout in her brain. Until she noticed Mr. B.’s face.

  He didn’t look like he’d seen a ghost: he looked like he was a ghost. Like he’d been dead for a jillion years.

  Lucinda pulled up close to her dad’s leg. Her dad gave her shoulder a squeeze and guided her into the house with his palm at her back.

  The Shadow of Beasts

  Inside, Lucinda’s dad removed his sheriff’s cap and snugged it under an arm, cupped the back of Lucinda’s head, and steered her toward the couch. “Remember: stay put.”

  “Where’s Sally?” Lucinda said. “Can’t we—”

  She stopped. Mr. B.’s face looked so weird, like it was melting from sadness.

  “Just sit,” her dad said and flashed his fake smile. “Okay, sweetie? For Daddy? Mr. B. and I have important grown-up things to talk about and I need you to be a big girl. If you are, I will forget all about you lying about playing in the fire.”

  Lucinda’s face got wicked hot and she plopped down on the edge of the couch, gnawing a thumbnail as her dad and Mr. B. disappeared into the kitchen, their voices low and spooky.

  Why couldn’t she just go visit Sally in her room? Even if Sally was really sick, which maybe she was, Lucinda could at least talk to her, unless maybe Sally had something that was catching.

  Maybe Sally’s in trouble, Lucinda thought.

  Lucinda chewed her thumbnail, fidgeted at a very bad thought that rooted in her mind.

  Maybe Sally was mad at Lucinda for something and didn’t want to see her.

  Lucinda could think of nothing she’d done to ever make her friend that mad.

  Or maybe Sally had told her parents about the Big Secret in the woods and she’d gotten in trouble for—

  Mr. B. shouted in the kitchen, startling Lucinda.

  Lucinda peered toward the kitchen, but her dad and Mr. B. weren’t sitting at the empty table; all she could see was their shadows shifting on the wall, stretched out crazy, like the shadows of storybook beasts.

  No, Lucinda thought, Sally would never tell grown-ups the Big Secret. She’d never tell anyone any of their secrets, especially since Sally had sworn Lucinda to secrecy.

  Lucinda peeked down the hallway. Light bled from under Sally’s door. Maybe Sally was playing with her animals, or the piece of rock they’d found in the pit that Sally swore was an arrowhead, their first real artifact from a dig, even though Lucinda swore it was just a rock. In fact, Lucinda had called Sally stupid for thinking it was an arrowhead. Was that why Sally wasn’t coming out? Lucinda’s guilt sank in her belly, made her feel like she’d drunk a cup of cough syrup. Or maybe Sally wasn’t hiding or mad. Maybe she was reading. She was a super good reader, so much better than Lucinda, and when Sally got to reading, she vanished to her Faraway Place as if she were no longer here at all but in a different space and time.

  Lucinda picked at the tender flesh of her thumb cuticle. She wanted so badly to slip down the hall and visit Sally. Maybe she could tiptoe down the hall and knock on the door and at least let Sally know she was here, and Sally could join her on the couch.

  Lucinda glanced at the kitchen again.

  Distorted shadows crept on the kitchen wall.

  Slowly, Lucinda stood and tiptoed down the hall, holding her breath as she heard a noise, a tiny cry perhaps, just behind her best friend’s bedroom door.

  Shriek

  Jonah strode around the kitchen table. Disoriented. He needed to find his bearings. Rid his head of this lousy static. Time was greasy. It seemed he’d arrived home to an empty house years ago; yet it also felt as if the few hours had passed in a blink.

  He’d believed having Maurice come over would put him at ease, that Maurice would provide a reasonable explanation for Sally and Rebecca’s absence, console Jonah with his composure, make clear nothing was amiss. That’s what friends did. That’s what Maurice did. Had always done. Remained composed. Constant. Amid Jonah’s chaos.

  Except Maurice had questions instead of answers.

  “Can you tell me?” Maurice asked again. He stood at the window, trying—Jonah knew—to keep his face as blank as possible, something he’d done since they were boys. The steady, comported older brother Jonah never had, who’d rescued Jonah from his boyhood anger and from a tailspin into petty crime that might have led to much worse.

  Jonah shook his head to try to clear it. “What?” he whispered.

  “Have you been drinking?” Maurice said, his face pained to have to ask, more so for knowing the answer.

  “Maybe a cooler or two.” Perspiration moistened Jonah’s upper lip. His entire body itched. Felt hived. He wanted to rake his nails into his flesh to make the sensation abate, wanted to lick the sweat away; however, he did not want to call attention to his sweating and agitation. Yet why shouldn’t he be sweating? His wife and daughter were missing. His pulse rocketed and he felt dizzy and untethered.

  Maurice’s calm eyes remained fixed on Jonah’s eyes. They did not shift the slightest toward the empty wine cooler bottles on the table. They did not have to; they’d detected them first thing.

  “I had a few,” Jonah said. “Nothing we don’t all do together regularly. Not coolers for us men.” He tried to force a laugh. “But beer. We—”

  “I’m not judging you,” Maurice said. “I’d be the last to do that.” He attempted laughter, but it sounded as forced as Jonah’s attempt. “You need to know, as a friend, I am here in a law enforcement capacity first. For now. I’m obligated. It’s important I point that out. It’s critical I get the specifics. I need to know what you know.”

  “What I know? About what?”

  “Your state of mind for one.”

  “State of mind? Why don’t you put out a bulletin to look for Sally and Rebecca instead of—”

  “Done. As soon as I hung up with you. Contacted my two deputies. This is a weird one. Professionally speaking. For a missing persons situation. Missing adults, the waiting period is seventy-two hours unless there is a clear sign of criminality. Missing kids, there’s no wait. We have both, if they’re missing at all, and not just off somewhere. Which likely they are. But if not, we don’t know if they went missing together or if Sally didn’t come in from playing or something and Rebecca went out looking for her and—”

  “Missing persons?”

  “That’s why you called. Rebecca and Sally are missing.”

  “No. Yes. I mean. They’re not here, but—”

  “Do you know where they are?” Maurice’s professional air left Jonah cold.

  “No.”

  “Then they’re missing. Did you check with friends?”

  “I called all around.”

  “Who?”

  “Everyone she knows.”

  “Is there a chance that there might be . . . a friend that Rebecca has that you don’t know about?”

  “What— No.”

  “Of course not. Sorry.”

  Jonah could not help but wonder if Maurice sensed Jonah’s own misgivings. Maurice and his wife had dropped in unexpectedly one recent evening to catch Jonah and Rebecca in a humiliating and intense personal exchange. He wondered what impression that had left.

  “Where do you think they might be?” Maurice said.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I called. I need to know. I was hoping you’d come talk sense into me, calm me, tell me I was crazy.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  The two men grunted approximations of laughter, their normal banter quashed. The eyes of the owl clock shifted, side to side, as if following the volley of Jonah and Maurice’s conversation.

  “I’d be crazy about their abs
ence too,” Maurice said. “I am. I just can’t let it get the best of me. I need to maintain my bearings. We both need to. Is it possible they’re just in town, running errands, grabbing a bite?”

  It was possible. More possible than other scenarios Jonah refused to entertain. But. “I called the stores I could think of. No one saw her. Them. This doesn’t make sense.” Jonah paced, unable to focus. “What do we do?”

  “We’re doing it.”

  “Asking me how many wine coolers I drank?”

  “Let’s sit and go over this. My two men, their sole priority is to look for Sally and Rebecca. They’ll find them. Rebecca probably took Sally somewhere for a treat and lost track of time. They’re probably eating pie at the Bee Hive.”

  “Sally doesn’t like sweets. She never did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She wouldn’t be eating pie.”

  “You said ‘never did.’”

  “Has. Never has.”

  Jonah swallowed hard to keep down the vomit he felt surge in his throat, his face damp, doughy.

  “Sit,” Maurice said.

  Jonah sat and exhaled a long breath that failed to expel his dread.

  Maurice picked up the chair Jonah had knocked over earlier and sat in it across from Jonah, sliding a stack of Jonah’s corrected papers out of the way as he eyed the flowers in the wine bottle. He placed a notepad on the table.

  “I should be out there, looking,” Jonah said. His desire to look for his wife and daughter was a deep magnetic current. He willed himself to remain seated and answer questions that made him feel ineffectual and had nothing to do with where his wife and daughter were or how to find them.

  Maurice’s eyes flickered at a disruption only he seemed to sense. A vein ticked at the side of his neck. “How many? Wine coolers.”

  “Four. That has nothing to do with it—”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Maybe?”

  “We’ll find them before you and I are done here. Then we’ll all have a beer, or wine cooler, and celebrate our idiotic overreaction over a wife who forgot to call because she and her daughter got caught up in shopping.” He straightened, jammed a thumb in the waist of his trousers and ran it around the inside of the band. “But if we don’t find them right away.”