by Jane Bradley
I looked down, searched the ground for a sign of something, but there was only dirt and tufts of grass and weeds. I looked around for a sign of the trash heap, but it wouldn’t be obvious. I knew it wouldn’t be far from the clearing. He couldn’t have dragged her very far if he was in a hurry to leave. Up to my left I saw a patch of undergrowth tucked between two locust trees. There, I thought, she’ll be there.
I moved forward, studying the ground with each step, saw only rocks, leaves, some scattered wildflowers, clumps of thistle growing tall. No doubt the jay was after the thistle seeds. Then I saw the rusted can, a blackened bottle, old jars, and rusted lids. It was an old fire pit. In the country people used to burn their trash. I crouched down, steadied myself with my stick. I pressed my lips tight, shut my eyes, not wanting to see what I’d come for. I breathed, knowing when I opened my eyes again I would have to focus, to scan the ground for what didn’t belong in an old farmer’s fire pit. I opened my eyes, and saw the mud-caked jeans as if someone had just placed them there while my eyes were closed. Just a couple of feet away, the mud-caked jeans mostly buried under fallen leaves.
I stood to move toward them, eyes tearing, the old sickness in my gut. And there at my foot, right there where I could have stepped, her jawbone, a row of browned teeth. I dropped to my knees, knelt in the dirt, all the ugliness swimming up in my head. I breathed, used my stick to gently stir at the leaves to expose the brow, the empty holes where the eyes would have been, a tuft of dark hair matted with leaves. I closed my eyes, praying no and knowing yes. Just inches from my knee was Katy Connor, what remained of the girl who’d smiled to someone’s camera, whose image at the moment was fluttering on a phone pole, faded on the bulletin boards of bars, libraries, and Laundromats. I studied the teeth, still perfect except for the browning from dirt and weather. She had had a movie-star smile and had come to this, browned, dirty teeth in the leaves. Nothing wanted the bones and teeth of a dead girl but me, her mother, anyone who loved her. And the courts would want the proof. And the TV. The television crews would be all over this. What a story this would make on the news.
I breathed in and out slowly, fought to keep the sickness down, thought of how one day long ago, two hunters had found Darly just like this—well, not just like this. I used my stick to push the leaves farther back from the bone, slipped some gloves on. The cops would complain, threaten me for tampering with a crime scene, but I’d leave them their scene. I just needed to push the leaves back to see what I knew I would see, a skull and perfect teeth, a tuft of hair, the rest taken by birds and worse. I looked up to the bare trees, a gray sky. I looked back to the ground. Her head was here. And there, just a few feet away, the jeans. I carefully took the two steps toward them. And her body was here. I used my stick to push the leaves back, saw the hip bones, spine, ribs, a red striped shirt. At least he hadn’t raped her. When they found Darly, they never found her clothes.
I knelt on the ground again and cried, not in the loud, sobbing way they so often show in movies—woman gone mad with grief, screaming to the sky, clawing the dirt. No, grief is a silent thing, a closing down, a dead-quiet implosion where the exterior only seems to hold steady while the inevitable collapse begins. I’ve seen remains before. Like Darly’s. They said the bones were clean when they found her. And I thought what a mercy it can be to find the bones clean. Bones cling to this world, have to be torn away, devoured by the bite, suck, and swallow of all things that need to feed. I stood and told myself it could have been worse. The jeans had just slipped loose, weren’t ripped and tossed to the undergrowth like I’ve seen. I studied the scene, wondered how I’d tell it.
I thought of calling Roy. Knew I should call the local sheriff at least. Knew I’d have to find the words to say to Livy. I backed away, trying to find the words, any words but her head was here, her body there, and I thought at least the clothes were intact. Not tortured, raped like the other girl. No, here he’d just snapped her neck. He’d laughed to his cellmate: “It went so fast I forgot to fuck her.” He liked to brag. Thank God for that. His cellmate hated the sound of a man bragging. So Jesse Hollowfield was dead, and Livy would never have to face a courtroom. And the girl from Land Fall would be spared facing Jesse Hollowfield at a trial. At least there are some mercies.
I looked at the dirt where she’d died. I used my stick to push back more leaves to see the remains of both arms, legs, feet. Her sandals would be somewhere close.
Then I remembered Mike saying Jesse was pissed because he’d forgotten to rape her and forgotten to take her piece-of-shit engagement ring. He could have sold that. I pulled on my gloves and crouched to the hand, long finger bones almost relaxed-looking against the dirt. I used my fingers to push the leaves and dirt back, let the tears run down my face, drop to the ground. They never found Darly’s rings. I dug at the dirt and saw the dull gold. I picked the ring from the dirt, squeezed it in my palm. I wouldn’t leave this to the crime scene. Too much can disappear. I’d take the ring, clean it, put it safely back into Billy’s hands so he could hold it, keep it until he found another girl. He would find another girl. He would fall in love again, and he would tell himself, This is the one; this is the one I was waiting for; this is the one I truly love. And he would marry, have babies, and the story of Katy Connor would be a sad story from the past. He’d make a new life while Katy fell away to be a sad story he’d never want to talk about. Just another sad story. That’s how it always goes.
I stood and tucked the ring into my pocket, looked around the scene, so many rusted cans and so much broken glass. I stepped back to go to the clearing where he’d snapped her neck. I looked around on the ground, knew there would be a screwdriver somewhere. And those batting gloves. And I was glad we had no need for the screwdriver or batting gloves because Mike Carter had confessed for a reduced sentence and Jesse Hollowfield was dead. Mike had told it all, hoping he’d be relieved somehow from the feeling of the dead woman’s hand on his arm. He remembered her name, and now he was doing everything he could to make her name go away. But memories don’t disappear the way a body can go. They’ll move like living things behind your eyes until they decide to let you go.
I looked up at the trees, saw a pair of cardinals calling back and forth the way they do, like old married couples who say the same thing again and again, taking comfort more than meaning from the sound. Then I realized there were lots of birds around, twittering, singing. I hadn’t heard the world waking up for all the noise in my head. The day was passing by. I reached for my phone, then dropped to the ground at the sound of a gunshot. It wasn’t hunting season. Then again, back in farm country there are always restless boys with their daddies’ guns out to shoot squirrels, birds, anything that would be a target no one would miss. I called out, “Hello. I’m here,” just to let whoever it was know I was a person, not a deer, not a wild pig. “Don’t shoot.”
I heard a voice call, a woman’s voice, “You. You there. What you doing on my land?” I stood, went through a line of trees, saw the little brick house and a little old black woman there on the back porch, a shotgun at her side, but ready, like she knew how to use it. She leaned, squinted as if that gave her a better look. “You hunting back in there?”
“No, ma’am,” I said, walking toward her.
She lifted the gun, just to be ready. “You by yourself?”
“Yes, ma’am. My name is Shelby Waters.”
She lowered the gun, waved her arm. “Didn’t you see that ‘No Trespassing’ sign?” Then she watched me coming closer, as if I were the bill collector coming to knock on her door.
“There’s a woman,” I said. Then I stopped, not knowing just how to say the rest. It wasn’t the kind of thing to yell across an old woman’s backyard.
She started to raise the gun again. “What’s that you’ve got in your hand?”
“A stick,” I said. “A walking stick. I use it to push the brush back. Wouldn’t want to step on a snake or a trap.”
“You got no business back in t
here.” She stood straighter, a little more relaxed as she looked me over, just a little woman with a stick in her backyard. “What you doing back in there behind those trees? That’s still my property. I know you don’t work for the county. They wear uniforms. You don’t look like nothing but somebody with no right being on my land. I’m tired of those hunters. Kids up to no good. One year there was somebody tried to grow that marijuana back in there.”
I was just a little ways from her porch. She could still shoot me and get off for just thinking I was a danger. “I work with the sheriff,” I said. “My name is Shelby Waters. You might have seen me on TV. I’m with REV.”
She tightened her lips, shook her head.
“It’s a volunteer organization. We search for the missing.”
“Oh, Lordy,” she said, sinking to a chair. “The missing. Like people? Missing people?”
I nodded.
She looked down, then back at me. “You think one of them missing people might be back in there on my land.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but there’s a woman back in there.”
“A woman,” she said. She looked hard at me. “You mean a dead woman?”
I nodded.
“Oh, Lord, help me, Jesus,” she said, shaking her head. “A dead woman on my land.”
“It’s been a few months now. She was murdered back in there. Left there on that trash heap.”
She stood but couldn’t seem to move. “I got to call somebody.” She sat and leaned back in her chair and looked out toward the trees. “I smelled it. Thought it was some wild pig badly shot and left to rot. It happened once before. My husband, he got some kerosene and burned it. He said if I ever smelled something like that again to just leave it, said I wouldn’t want to see a thing like that. Told me just to tie a handkerchief around my nose and let it go. He said the animals would take care of it, said there was no need for me to see a thing like that.” She went quiet. I saw the tears going down her face. She looked up at me. “A woman?”
I nodded.
She looked back at the trees. “And I never even heard so much as a scream.” She sat there for the longest time. And I let her. She looked at the trees. “I suppose it’s time to call somebody if you ain’t done it yet.”
I took out my phone and said, “There’s going to be a lot of noise.”
She stood then, opened the back door. “You call the law,” she said. “I’m calling my daughter. It’s time my daughter got down here and helped. She’s all I got left in this world.” I nodded, watched her disappear into the darkness of the house. I opened my phone, had to think of what to do. But I couldn’t think of proper protocol. There’s always protocol, but I couldn’t think of anything but Roy.
Where to Go from Here
Livy lay on the floor, feeling the soft carpet against her arms, wishing she could sink into it, disappear. The white ceiling held steady above her, the beige walls, and to her right above the couch the sailboat painting hung static and bright, eternally promising that those white sails would race to some wonderful wild and peaceful place beyond the horizon, but the boats just hung there as always. Nothing in that painted little world would ever change. She lay there thinking, What now? Katy is gone, her bones found, her killer dead. It should be an ending, she thought, but there’s never an ending. Something always follows. She looked straight up at the ceiling, asked, “Where to go from here?” She lay there, told her mind to go blank, open, ready for an answer to come rising up from within. When in doubt, weren’t you always supposed to look within? All she could feel was her heart beating slowly, tired, the emptiness in her belly, and a slight ache in her back.
She jumped when the refrigerator motor kicked on, revving up to cool what was inside. What? she thought. What’s in my refrigerator? That was something to think about. Some eggs, some skim milk, raspberry jam. Lawrence was coming, and he would want something more in the refrigerator. She looked at the clock that said it was half past five. He had said he’d be there by dinnertime. He was coming to take her home. That was what would happen next. “There’s nothing left for you to do, Livy,” he had said. “Nothing left for you to do but bring your Katy home.” He’d grown softer, sweeter, since they’d found Katy, had become the kinder, more thoughtful man she had married. He spoke to her more like a child coming out of a long and dangerous fever than the wife who’d defied him with her plan of what to do with her days, weeks, months that didn’t revolve around him.
She stood and went to the sliding glass door and looked out to the balcony. She’d left her coffee cup out there, and a plate. The gulls had taken the half-eaten piece of toast. And there were her sandals left under the chair. A People magazine was withering under the water glass she’d set on top of it to keep the wind from whipping it away. How many days had it been there? One, or two, or three? She studied the scene that looked like someone didn’t care. That’s me, she thought. Back home, in her life before Katy had disappeared, everything had always been exactly where it needed to be. But now she’d become one of those people who didn’t care about dirty dishes, shoes, socks tossed anywhere. She didn’t see now why it mattered whether she was messy or clean because it all disappeared in the end.
She turned, looked back toward the kitchen, where the refrigerator’s motor still whirred. She had planned to make Lawrence dinner. He’d be grateful for a home-cooked meal after so much time on his own. She scooted down to sit on the floor, her back against the glass door. She wanted to get up, go to the store. She wanted to buy some nice tilapia, and pecans for the crust. Lawrence loved her pecancrusted tilapia. She knew he’d appreciate a dinner of fish, a salad, and that lemon-garlic couscous she made with toasted pine nuts and diced red peppers. It all made a pretty meal. They could sit on the balcony, look out at the ocean going dark, maybe see the moon rise while they ate and sipped a nice chardonnay. Maybe for a few seconds, minutes maybe, they could pretend they were on vacation, a second honeymoon, try to pretend their reunion was anything but what it was, meeting to make arrangements to get Katy’s ashes, take her home to bury her ashes in a plot beside her dad. Livy shook her head. Katy wouldn’t want that. Livy didn’t know what she would do with Katy’s ashes.
She went to the refrigerator, opened it to see just what was there before she sat to make her grocery list. It was pretty much what she expected, along with a jar of mayonnaise, some butter and a shriveled lemon. She sighed, closed the door, and went to the table. She looked at her hands. At least she was clean. She’d showered, done her hair, polished her nails. Even her toenails were glossy. She had on pressed jeans and a blue blouse and had even put on her pearls. Her pearls somehow always cheered her. Then she thought of the people she would see at the grocery, people who knew her, strangers who knew her sorrows. When she thought about having to hear one more I’m sorry about your daughter, she sat on the floor, then lay down to stare up at the ceiling. She thought of staying there, just lying there until Lawrence came, but that would only disappoint him. No, she thought, he’s seen enough weakness. I’ve seen enough weakness. It’s time to be strong. All she needed was her sandals.
She thought of calling him to say she’d gone out to the store to buy groceries for dinner and she’d leave the key under the mat in case he came before she returned. But he would argue, say she ought to know better than to leave a key under a mat. And as for dinner, he’d say, “Don’t bother cooking; I’ll take you out to eat.” But the don’t bother would be a dismissive thing, not really a comfort to tell her not to go to the effort of dinner; no, the don’t bother would be more like a reprimand that said, Why didn’t you bother to make us dinner? You’ve failed my expectations again.
She sat up, shook her head, thought, no, it was Joe who had talked like that. But then there were times it was Lawrence too. She wondered why she had married another man who was always disappointed with what she did. I’ll make his damned dinner, she thought. She went out onto the balcony for her sandals, had to stop, b
reathe the soft sea air. She had thought it would be hot, but it was mild, the air lifting her for a moment. She’d been locked inside most of the day, breathing the conditioned air, thinking the outside air would oppress her like everything else, and here it was, lovely. She sat and slipped on her sandals. She wouldn’t bother calling Lawrence. She went back inside, grabbed her purse, slipped the door key off the ring. She didn’t bother to make a list. She’d just go through the aisles of the store and pick up whatever called to her, the things needed for dinner and anything else she might want.
She went out, locked the door, and slipped the key under the mat, thinking of what she might buy for herself, not Lawrence but herself, things she had loved to indulge in like chocolate ice cream with almonds. Salty peanuts, chips and onion dip, those foods she’d loved as a girl and had to give up with age. She had learned to be careful about the right amount of protein, fiber, had learned to be careful with her carbs and sweets, not only for herself but to keep her husbands from pointing out that left to her own devices, she’d eat like a teenager. “You’re not a teenager,” they both had said, as if happy to tell her the news. She had acquiesced for her husbands, who seemed to think the right diet could bring immortality. But nothing did. Get what you want while you can, she thought as she hurried down the steps. Then she smelled his cologne—Lawrence. She looked down, saw his graying hair, the little bald patch on the top of his head. He looked up. She hadn’t expected to see the sadness on his face. Tears stung her eyes, and she sighed, “Lawrence. You’re here.”
He stood there, adjusted the grocery bags against his chest. He moved toward her, a worried look on his face, nothing like the judgmental face she had conjured in her mind when she thought of him coming through the door. “Livy,” he said, “where are you going?”
