Out of Tune

by Norah McClintock

  A police officer with a megaphone stepped up onto an overturned milk crate. We were about to get under way.

  A weird ripple went through the crowd—a sort of collective intake of air combined with a wave of turned heads. And no wonder. A tall bearded man pushed through the volunteers, who gave way wordlessly when they saw what he was carrying—a hunting rifle.

  Uniformed cops swarmed the man, pinning his arms and relieving him of his weapon.

  “Hey!” the man shouted. “Hey, I just come like everyone else, to look for that girl.”

  “That’s fine, Rafe,” one of the officers said. “But you’re going to have to do it unarmed, like everyone else.”

  I turned to Ashleigh and Charlie. Ashleigh rolled her eyes. Charlie was the one who explained, “Town character.”

  “Town character?” Ashleigh said. “Town nutbar is more like it!”

  Rafe turned and glowered at Ashleigh, who cringed and stepped behind me.

  Finally, lined up the way we’d been instructed, we started the slow, painstaking search.

  Ashleigh walked the line to my immediate left. To my right, Charlie advanced with measured steps, his gaze unwavering from the rough, scrubby terrain, alert to any sign of Alicia or evidence of any human presence. If we spotted, say, a cigarette butt or discarded food wrapper or soda can or anything else, we were to stop and signal our quadrant leader. In our case, that was Detective Josh Martin, one of Aunt Ginny’s colleagues. He would make sure that whatever we found was photographed in place, collected and tagged.

  “At this point we have no reason to suspect foul play,” the police chief told us before we were divided into search teams. “But we won’t know anything for sure until we locate Alicia. In the meantime, we’re going to be trampling pretty much anything and everything out here, and there will be no going back to a pristine scene if we need to. So I want you to report everything you find, and I do mean everything, people. We don’t know at this point what, if anything, we may need or what may turn out to be useful. That means we’re going to err on the side of caution. Is everyone clear on that?”

  Judging by all the nods, everyone was.

  So far my team had turned up half a dozen cigarette butts, despite the recent lack of precipitation, the layer of dead leaves blanketing the ground and the conspicuous No Fires warnings clearly posted all over the area. We had also located two squashed beer cans, an empty cigarette package, a used-up matchbook, an earring (which caused a flurry of excitement until Alicia’s mother tearfully declared that it did not belong to Alicia) and a crumpled valentine to Bobby from Melissa, who, judging from her large, loopy, slightly off-balanced letters, couldn’t have been more than six years old. Each find brought Detective Martin and a uniformed officer who did the actual photographing, collecting and tagging after Detective Martin had inspected the item.

  We had mustered to search the woods because so far Alicia had failed to turn up in any of her usual places—the rehearsal room at school, her violin teacher’s house, any of her friends’ houses or anywhere else in town where she was known to spend time. Also, rumor had it that a man in a pickup truck had reported seeing someone who matched Alicia’s general description heading into the woods late Wednesday afternoon. He wasn’t prepared to swear it was Alicia, but the girl he’d seen had shoulder-length chestnut hair like Alicia’s, was wearing a dark jacket (Alicia’s was navy blue) and carried a reddish backpack (Alicia’s was burgundy), so it was definitely worth a thorough look.

  “What would she even be doing out here?” Ashleigh asked, glancing at me from my left. “Don’t tell me she’s a tree hugger or bird lover too.”

  “Keep your eyes on the ground in front of you,” Charlie scolded from my right. “You’re supposed to be looking for clues.”

  Ashleigh rolled her eyes. “I would hardly miss a body if I stumbled across one.” In what I can only describe as a cosmic slap of irony, Ashleigh let out a shriek, which caused our whole line to stop and stare. Ashleigh’s arms flew up in the air, and she crashed to the ground with another, slightly smaller scream. When I went to help her, I saw Detective Martin making his way toward us.

  “What is it?” His eyes were sharp on the ground, searching, as I hauled Ashleigh to her feet. “What did you find?”

  Ashleigh’s cheeks reddened. “I tripped.” She was standing on one foot, clinging to me for support, and now gingerly lowered her other foot to the ground to test it with her weight. “The ground is uneven around here.”

  “If you keep your eyes on the ground, you should be able to avoid tripping or stumbling,” Detective Martin said.

  “It was an accident,” Ashleigh muttered in my ear. She continued to hang on to me as she limped, somewhat dramatically, if you ask me, the few steps back into line. Detective Martin watched her with unforgiving eyes.

  Before he left, he cautioned the rest of our team to watch out for dips and gullies in the land that could cause a person to lose his or her footing. He stared pointedly at Ashleigh.

  “If you ask me, searching the woods is a waste of time,” Ashleigh muttered once we were moving again.

  “She was last seen around here,” I reminded her.

  “If I was going to take off, it wouldn’t be to anywhere around here, that’s for sure,” Ashleigh said. She had grown up in town, and she often told me she’d had enough of the place to last a lifetime. When Ashleigh dreamed about life after Moorebridge, she thought about places like New York City—urban jungles filled with shopping possibilities. She was planning to move as far away as she could to go to university, and she swore that she was never, ever going to move back. Her parents could count on seeing her at Christmas, but besides that, she said, nothing could ever induce her to spend one moment longer than necessary staring at the same boring faces she’d been looking at since she was born. Nevertheless, she turned her eyes back to the ground and settled into the task at hand. The same couldn’t be said for everyone.

  Next to Charlie, from closest to farthest, were Carrie Denison, Tina Bell and Desiree Desjardins, a tight trio of seventeen-year-olds. I knew them by sight. I had also gleaned a few clues to their character from the more-or-less constant chatter that Tina was keeping up about the clothes and accessories featured in the latest issue of InStyle magazine. Carrie responded, although, if you asked me, her comments lacked enthusiasm or real interest. Her mind was clearly elsewhere, but it wasn’t on the search for Alicia, judging by the many, many times she looked up and down and all around—in short, anywhere but directly on the ground in front of her. Desiree spoke the least and only when a question was specifically directed at her, and then always in a hushed tone, as if she was embarrassed by her friends.

  Tina’s mindless prattle was annoying. Its triviality under the circumstances infuriated me. Surprisingly, it seemed to rankle Ashleigh even more.

  “Hey,” she called over me to Tina. “If you don’t want to search properly, then you shouldn’t be here.”

  Tina shot her a withering look.

  Carrie jumped in to defend her friend. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  “At least I’m here because I care,” Ashleigh said. “I’m not a hypocrite like you. You don’t even like Alicia.”

  Carrie’s face turned red. Tina took up the sword for her.

  “You didn’t even know Alicia,” she snarled at Ashleigh. She glanced at me. “Same goes for you. So what are you doing here?” I couldn’t help noticing her use of the past tense, as if she was assuming the worst.

  Ashleigh glowered at me as if it were all my fault for dragging her here, which I didn’t do.

  Every now and then someone signaled a halt and called for Detective Martin, but that happened less often the deeper we went into the woods.

  Eventually Tina let out a dramatic sigh and said, “Please tell me it’s almost time for a break.”

  “I wish,” Carrie said. “I feel like we’ve been out here all day, and it’s only nine thirty.”

  “No it’s no
t. It’s nearly eleven,” Tina said.

  “My watch says nine thirty.”

  “Who even uses a watch anymore?” Tina’s tone was dismissive.

  “It was a gift from my grandma.”

  “Exactly. It’s yesterday’s technology. The battery probably wore out or something.”

  “I must have made a mistake when I was trying to set the date,” Carrie said. “The instructions don’t make any sense. I try to do what they say, and I always end up pressing the wrong buttons in the wrong order, and the next thing I know, I’ve changed the time instead of the year and date.”

  “You sound like my mother,” Tina said. “Every time there’s a power outage, I have to reset the clocks on the stove and the microwave.”

  Ashleigh turned her evil eye on them. She was obviously itching to say something, but she held her tongue. Maybe she didn’t want to take Tina on again. I didn’t blame her. Tina struck me as bossy, arrogant and, well, kind of bitchy.

  “Give me your watch,” Tina said to Carrie.

  They both came to a halt, and Carrie handed over her watch. Tina fiddled with it for a few seconds before handing it back with a triumphant “All set.” Carrie slipped the watch back onto her wrist.

  By this time the line had advanced nearly thirty feet, and they ran to catch up without so much as a glance at the ground. Who knows what they might have missed.

  Pretty soon my stomach started to grumble. I checked the time. Eleven thirty. We’d gathered at the muster site at seven. I wondered how much territory our quadrant held and how long it would take to finish searching it. Would we be allowed to stop for lunch? Would lunch be provided? Maybe the Sip ’n’ Bite was bringing sandwiches for the volunteers. I loved their egg-salad sandwiches the best. Or maybe they’d ordered pizza.

  I don’t know what made me glance over at Charlie just then, but when I did, he wasn’t there. I stopped and turned around to look for him. I spotted him a good thirty feet behind the rest of the line. He was standing perfectly still, head bowed. His hands hung limply at his sides, and he seemed to be staring at the ground in front of him.

  While the rest of my line advanced, I walked back to see what was wrong with Charlie. I was careful to retrace my steps so as not to disturb anything else. I scanned the ground as I walked, looking for whatever had caught his attention, but I didn’t see anything.

  “You okay, Charlie?” I asked.

  He swallowed hard without looking up. Then abruptly he spun around, ran back several paces and threw up. I picked my way to where he had been standing.

  When I got a little closer, I saw a big dip in the terrain. A step or two closer still, and I saw a flash of color. Navy blue. Another step. The navy blue turned out to be a jacket. A glint of silver on one exposed wrist—a watch with a face so shattered I couldn’t read the time. I saw jeans. Then boots. She lay faceup on the ground. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t ever going to move again.

  I took a deep breath before I allowed my eyes to travel up the body to the head. Right away I knew why Charlie had been sick. Shoulder-length chestnut hair matted with something dark and crusted covered most of her face, leaving only her chin and her neck visible, both impossibly white. That was probably a blessing, given the insects crawling in the blood.

  I don’t know how long I stood there staring at her. Probably not long. Probably not more than a few seconds. But it was long enough to burn the image of her into my brain and start me trembling all over. I felt my breakfast rise in my throat, but I fought it back down. I turned my back on her, breathed in and out deeply a couple of times to steady myself and called for a halt in a voice that I hoped conveyed nothing more than another cigarette butt or foil gum wrapper.

  The line stopped.

  The first time someone had spotted something—the glint of a pop can, as it turned out—everyone in the line had buzzed with excitement. But that was a long time and too many finds ago. This time no one buzzed. Everyone just stood silently in line and waited for the next useless piece of trash to be collected. They didn’t even bother to watch what was going on while word filtered to the officer in charge of our quadrant.

  Except for Carrie.

  Her two friends were using the stop to carry on a conversation, Tina with her hands on her hips, her whole posture giving off an air of impatience, and Desiree leaning in to listen, her shoulders rounded, her pose submissive. Carrie slowly made her way back to where I was. She showed the good sense to retrace her own steps for most of the way, and she was frowning. I especially remember that.

  She looked at me as she came to a stop, and then she slowly lowered her head to see what had stopped Charlie and me. All the color left her face, and one hand flew up to her mouth. She swallowed hard, fighting the urge to vomit, but she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off what she was looking at. I had to take her by the elbow to stop her from getting too close.

  Ashleigh was the next to break the line, much to the disapproval of a couple of women beside her who reminded her of what we had been told—whenever the line stops, stay put.

  “My friend just barfed back there,” Ashleigh said. She didn’t seem the slightest bit intimidated. “Someone has to help him.” At least she took a circuitous route to Charlie, then put an arm around him, looked at the ground where he had been sick, said, “Eeew!” and turned away immediately. It took her another minute or two before she got her gag reflex under control and was able to comfort Charlie, who looked as if he had been dipped in bleach.

  Detective Martin finally broke through the stopped search line.

  “What have we got this time?” It may have been my imagination, but he sounded less than enthusiastic about the prospects.

  Carrie opened her mouth to answer.

  “Don’t,” I hissed at her. “We don’t want everyone stampeding over here to take a look. Let him handle it.”

  She closed her mouth again and kept it shut.

  Detective Martin’s face became pinched with annoyance when neither of us answered him. He fixed his gaze on me. “Riley?”

  I shook my head.

  He swore softly under his breath. I wasn’t his favorite person at the best of times, and this was serious business. He stopped beside Carrie and me and looked down at the ground. His face froze into the mask I knew all too well, a cop at work. He took out his cell phone and spoke quietly into it, keeping his tone flat, never once mentioning Alicia or a body.

  Aunt Ginny showed up a few minutes later, and she and Detective Martin squatted next to the body. Aunt Ginny made a second phone call. Uniformed officers were deployed to shepherd the volunteers out of the woods, and another cop—a forensics officer—began to secure the scene so that he could take photographs and collect evidence.

  Everyone was buzzing again as we made our way back to search headquarters. I walked arm in arm with Charlie, who was shakier and even paler after being sick than he had been before. He also smelled of vomit. Ashleigh, on the other side of me to avoid Charlie’s odor, demanded to know what was going on. I whispered into her ear and warned her not to say a word. For once she managed to keep a piece of hot news to herself.

  Carrie was in front of us, flanked by Tina and Desiree. Each was holding one of her elbows, and I could see that they were bearing some of her weight. Ashleigh shook her head in disgust.

  “What a drama queen,” she muttered. “It’s just like her to try to suck up all the attention. Trust me, if she’d been the one to find Alicia instead of Charlie, she’d have made a scene you’d never forget. I bet she’d even end up on the news. Maybe she still will.” Her venom surprised me.

  As we emerged from the woods, I searched out the police van. A couple of cops were standing beside it, cups of coffee in their hands. An older man, a civilian I assumed was Mr. Allen, was sitting in the van with the door open, a can of soda propped up against the seat. He was turned sideways in the passenger seat so that he had a good view of the woods. When he saw us all marching toward him, he grabbed his cane and maneuvered hims
elf onto the ground. I watched him hobble over to the two cops, both of whom were at full alert now, watching us approach like a wave. One of them was on his phone, presumably being told what we had just discovered. Mr. Allen went straight to that cop and said something, but as far as I could tell, the cop didn’t answer. It was probably against protocol to say anything until a positive identification had been made. Not, in my opinion, that one was needed. The body out there had to be Alicia. Except for the backpack, which I hadn’t seen, it matched her description.

  It wasn’t long before the other search parties trickled back to HQ, Mrs. Allen among them. She scanned the crowd for her husband and hurried to him. I heard her say, “What happened? Did they find something?” All her husband could do was shake his head. So far no one had told him anything.

  Aunt Ginny and the police chief were grim-faced when they appeared. They walked directly to Mr. and Mrs. Allen and led them far from the crowd. I can’t say for sure, but I bet that everyone out there turned to look, trying to read faces and gestures to find out what had happened. Not that you needed to be an expert in interpreting body language to figure it out. Only a moment later, Mrs. Allen said, “No, no, no!” in an anguished voice. Mr. Allen, leaning heavily on his cane, put his free arm around her. His head was bowed. That’s when everyone knew that Alicia had been found but that she hadn’t been found alive.

  THREE

  Everyone was shocked by the way things had turned out. Even though Alicia had been missing for three days, I think most people had believed that even if she was hurt, she would be alive, and that whatever had happened to her, she would be all right. The terrible news rippled through the crowd, and everyone continued to watch the Allens, clinging to each other as they listened to the chief.