Jackal, page 10
After I wake from my dream, I can’t go back to sleep. Up before dawn, I start getting ready. I need to head back to the train station to find Denise. Keeping an eye on my phone for an update, I head downtown with the rising sun.
Sitting outside the station, I don’t see a hint of Denise. Nothing in the parking lot. Nothing near the station itself. I check the time: 6:00 a.m. I need to get back to Mel at the site.
I text her. I’m on my way.
I start my mother’s car. Before I can pull away, my phone buzzes.
Trapped. Mel replies.
I fight the urge to call her back. She could be in a situation where a ringing phone could make it worse.
Where are you? I type with one hand and use the other to steer. The moment I send the message, I split my focus between the road and the screen, checking for Mel’s reply. I get to an intersection and pull over. With all the one-way streets, a turn in the wrong direction means I’ll have to go a long distance to get back on track.
My phone buzzes.
Home.
Mel’s curt reply makes my heart race. If she’s home, they must have found Caroline. If she’s okay, Mel’d tell me. If she’s not…I break the suburban speed limit driving to her house.
When I get there, I have to park all the way at the end of the street. Every bit of space is taken. I grab a spot and turn off the car. Before I get out, I glance around, trying to get a clue of what I’m walking into. If Caroline has been found, there’d be police to take her statement or an ambulance to make sure she’s okay—if she’s been found alive. I get out of the car and break into a jog. Moving past the cars clogging up the street, I see they all are congregated around Mel’s. I run.
A navy-blue car stops me.
It’s like the one I saw outside my mother’s. I check the license plate. No match. As I get closer to Mel’s I scan the plates of other cars. It was dark, so navy blue could have easily been black or even green. None of the plates are a match.
When I arrive in front of Mel’s house, I’m dizzy. I’m forced to stop and catch my breath, not out of exhaustion but anxiety.
Breathe.
I need help. I can’t be here for Mel and keep up with the investigation all on my own. I’m covered in panic sweat at 6:30 in the morning, hurriedly checking license plates while mentally preparing myself for the worst. Another breath. I can’t be a mess right now. I shove my hands into my back pockets, opening up my chest, forcing myself to take a deep breath. Something slides under my nail. More surprising than painful. I pull out my phone with a clawlike grip. There, still awkwardly sticking out of my case, is a business card. Sydney Oswald. I turn it over and on the back is Doug Nowak’s number. The assistant from the station. Judging by how Nick’s been at the site, the whole department is out there. This next day is significant. No one has time for my paranoia. If the car outside my house is nothing, I need to know. If it’s something, I can bring it to the police without losing time. Doug implied he wanted to stay on the edges of this case. Maybe running a partial plate is exactly the kind of thing he’s looking for? I text him.
It’s Liz. Can you run a partial plate for me? I send the letters and numbers.
Standing in front of Mel’s house, I note how different it is from the pictures she shared with me at closing. They’ve fixed the roof. Touched up the blue paint on the outside. They redid the walkway up to the front landing with field stones. I’ve never been here. We’ve shared tons of pictures and had hours of video calls. This shouldn’t be how I first see Mel’s place in person. My need to stay away from this town robbed me of a happier meeting.
I knock on the front door, and it cracks open. The house beyond feels full. I press my ear to the door, trying to discern who’s at Mel’s this early.
A voice behind me alerts me in the nick of time. “Excuse me!” A woman I’ve never seen before races past me cradling baskets of laundry. I push the door wide open for her and she hurries through it. I follow after her.
Melissa’s house is packed. People crowd the halls and pile in the kitchen. They are all here to support the family. Or to get the real story. No one’s crying. The air isn’t heavy with grief.
“Such a shame—” a woman whispers in earshot.
I turn to her. “They found Caroline?”
“No. No.” Flustered, she takes a step back, making me realize how close I am to her. “Still looking. Here.” She hands me a flyer. It’s of Caroline, a photo I recognize. From Christmas. It’s been cropped, but I can see some of the lights from the tree. She’s in a bright red sweater. Her hair is in two long plaits. There are impersonal stats across the bottom: her age, race, height, weight. I reach out for more and she hands me a stack. Denise, the woman at the station, has been handing out flyers like this for years. I wonder how long I’ll be handing them out for Caroline. I look for Mel.
When I reach the living room, I see Mrs. Parker. She is different from the way she was at the site. She’s still. Stoic. She sits on the couch while a neighbor talks her ear off. I get bits of their conversation; the woman is offering prayers and help cooking. I do my best to avoid eye contact and look for the kitchen. Before I can retreat to its warm comfort, I collide with a slight woman holding a very full Pyrex casserole dish with a pair of oven mitts. I’m quick to save the dish. Gripping it, my hands feel warm.
“Excuse me—” Before she can finish scolding me, my hands go from warm to burning. We both realize that I’ve grabbed the pan she was carrying with my bare hands. That pan has just come out of the oven. She takes it from me and deftly places it on the counter. We both look at my palms. They’re pink. The heat from the dish fades. Pain sets in. My palms tingle. I grit my teeth as the burn builds.
“Move!” She clears the way for me to the sink. Grabbing my arms, she thrusts my hands under the tap. The pain swells the moment cool water hits my skin. I panic.
“Does it hurt?” Her calm voice invites me to feel the same.
“I don’t know.” We both watch the water running over my hands. A few people in the kitchen peer over at the two of us. No one races to action. It seems all of them are used to a quick kitchen burn. I never cook.
“How you feeling now?” I’m close enough to her to notice the barrette in her thin blond hair. Baby pink and girly. Not girly as in feminine, but girly as in youthful. The barrette pins her bangs back.
“I’m…” My hands feel cold, numb almost. No more pain. “Fine. Thank you.”
She lets me go and I realize she has been gripping my wrist right along my scar. It aches from her fingers. I grab some paper towels and dry my hands. When I look up to thank her or to apologize, she’s nowhere to be found. The casserole remains. It smells incredible.
Mel and Garrett’s home is decorated with carefully crafted decor. The functional hanging rack of pans in the kitchen is nice. Artwork flutters on the door of their fridge. Every piece is lovingly clipped and displayed against the metal. The ubiquitous primary color magnet-letters spell “Baloney” and “Cat,” and a precariously placed “F” sits in front of the word “Art.” This home is missing its child.
More neighbors mill around in the pantry, putting away food and cleaning. Something like this wouldn’t happen in the city. Maybe one or two people, not the entire neighborhood. Neighbors here know one another. They keep up with one another’s lives. They care. While they might not be able to join the search, they can make sure Mel’s home is ready when Caroline returns. I think back to Mel’s text. This must be maddening for her. No one wants her to be alone right now, even if it means suffocating her.
I slide around strangers to find Garrett. He’s stationed near the back of the house as the sole end of a strange receiving line. He plasters a painful smile on his face as he gives out shallow hugs and strained greetings. From his stiff movements, I can tell he wants people out of his house and to get back to the site. I notice that Mr. Parker and Nick aren’t here. They must be out there already.
When Garrett sees me, he breaks out of the pattern. “Liz!” With his shout, the sea of people parts. He gives me a full hug. “Mel hid in the office.” He indicates a far door. “Wait.” He points to the flyers in my hands. “She doesn’t want to see those. Find me after you talk to her.” I give him the flyers.
Careful not to be followed, I make my way to the office. I pause outside the door. The knob feels heavy in my hand. It’s like the door doesn’t want to open. Still, I pull it and unseal what’s inside.
The office is quiet. I can hear the air conditioning hum and there’s a clock somewhere, ticking away. Melissa sits in the center of the carpeted floor. She looks like her mother. Motionless. Her stillness is alarming because of its precision. It belies her intent. She’s containing herself; she’s sitting very still because if she doesn’t, she’ll explode (or implode) and take everything in arm’s reach with her.
Before I enter the room, I announce myself. “Hey.”
Mel doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even move.
People are gathering outside the door. Before anyone can ask me what I’m doing, I slip into the room. As I enter, I pull the door shut behind me. Even the door is reluctant to slide into place. I have to yank it. There. Like that, I’m in Melissa’s bubble.
The sound of the door latch clicking jars her a bit. She turns her head toward me. I sit cross-legged on the floor next to her. She kneels in front of a box and holds a stack of multicolored papers in her hands. She handles the papers like they are thin wafers. I’m convinced the slightest movement will disintegrate them, but I know that’s not the case. The thing I must be careful not to disturb is Mel. When she doesn’t budge, I reach for one of the papers. She shifts away from my touch. In a moment of incredible selfishness, I think this is it. She’s going to blame me for losing Caroline. I was supposed to be watching her daughter and now she’s gone. Tempted to ask Mel, I stop myself. She hasn’t said anything of the sort. I’m doing everything I can to fix this. I shove my worries down, knowing it’s my anxiety messing with me.
Mel’s phone is a constant beacon of flashes, notifications, and calls. She watches me as each new pulse pulls my focus. She turns her phone over.
Melissa puts the papers in her hands down in a stack on the floor. She grabs another stack from the box in front of her. She looks through each paper and I see what they are. Drawings. Assignments. Art projects. All Caroline’s. My heart drops. I watch as she sorts them, making her way to the bottom of the box.
“Can I…help?” I ask.
Melissa hesitates. No one has offered to help her. A small part of her opens herself up to the opportunity.
“Yes, but only the piles I tell you, okay?” One by one, we sort through the drawings and assignments. Caroline loved pink.
No. Caroline loves pink.
The image I have of Caroline is fading in my head. I think that’s why Mel’s here. There are pictures and videos, but these are her daughter’s creations. They are little pieces of her. Melissa sorts the stacks by year or theme. I can’t tell if she is looking for something in the box or if she just wants to touch the work. I sit with her and sort. When the box is empty, Melissa leans forward and runs her fingers along the bottom, feeling her way around the corners. Something builds behind her eyes.
“Her crayons aren’t here.”
“She had them at the wedding.”
“No, the oily ones you got her. They stained her hands. I wouldn’t let her use them in her dress. I put them in here.”
“Do you want me to look in the living room?”
“No!” Her misplaced frustration stings. “This is where they live and they’re gone.” I can see the story Melissa is weaving in her head. In her mind, somehow, Caroline came home for her art supplies and then went back out into the trees, like a mischievous child. Like me, she’s been searching for the missing thing. The piece that would make everything make sense. I’m looking at license plates, tracking down flyers and a missing girl from high school. Mel is searching through her daughter’s art. If she can’t find Caroline in the trees, she’ll find her here. “They’re her favorites. I can’t lose them.” Mel starts her search again.
I stop her. “I’ll find them.”
I help her put the artwork back. If Mel needs to imagine that Caroline is with misplaced crayons, then she is. I don’t have the heart to pick her vision apart.
THREE
“We aren’t supposed to have people in the house—one of the first things they say—but Mel refuses to kick anyone out,” Garrett says between puffs on his cigarette. “We only came back to make the flyers. I was up all night finding the right pictures, printing—the minute the neighbors saw our car in the driveway, they flooded in.”
“At six o’clock in the morning?”
“Earlier.”
Garrett and I stand alongside the house. Judging by the number of cigarette butts, this is his secret spot. It reminds me that smoking is another secret I didn’t know about Mel and Garrett.
“Mel doesn’t want to think about tomorrow.” He cites Nick’s grim mile marker. Forty-eight hours. “She wants all this to be nothing, a misunderstanding—I do too. But if it’s not…tomorrow is all I can think about. I’m getting the media. I’m getting more help. We need to get as many eyes looking for Caroline as possible.”
He’s right. I spent my morning following up on a flyer from fifteen years ago, when there was one printed today waiting for me. I look at my feet, unsure of what to say. There is more than one kind of cigarette butt on the ground. I know Mel doesn’t smoke, but Nick and Mr. Parker do. I guess Garrett has, temporarily, let me into his boys’ club.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Don’t know if I’ll be able to answer but”—he shrugs—“sure.”
“Did Mel’s dad take you hunting before he would meet Caroline?”
Garrett freezes. Whatever niceties I’ve earned are about to be rescinded.
From behind a tight jaw, he asks, “Did Mel tell you about that, or did Jacob?”
“Mel did.”
“Of course she did.” Garrett arranges his thoughts. “Yeah. That happened.”
“What did you two do?”
Garrett looks at me. “Jacob took me out into the woods.” His gaze shifts past me. It seems like he’s watching his memory and deciding how to parse it out to me. “Way out. I was sweating the entire time. And it was early fall, so after a few minutes of that, I was just wet, and freezing.” Garrett crosses his arms over his chest, protecting his heart. “He had a gun. A rifle. It was a nice one—one of those guns that can hit a squirrel from a thousand yards away, if you know what you’re doing. I had a gun too, but nothing like that. It was some plastic shit from Walmart. The kind you buy for a twelve-year-old on their first hunt. I’m not a hunter. Never have been, never will be. I don’t want to give anyone more cause to shoot me, you know?” We share a sad smile. “Out there, we were two armed men, shooting some deer. And that’s what we did.”
“That all?”
Garrett’s jaw clenches and unclenches. I wonder if he has dreams about his teeth falling out. I wonder if they are as vivid as mine.
“He asked me if I’d ever been on a hunt. I told him, ‘No, sir’—added the ‘sir’ for extra protection. He said any man with his baby girl needed to know how to hunt. He needed to know how to provide. And he needed to know how to kill if need be.”
Something in the back of my brain records. I can tell every word that comes next is precious.
“Then he helped me shoot my first deer. I hated it. Didn’t help that the thing was huge. We had to field dress it.” Garrett shivers. “This dude cuts into it like it’s nothing. He broke this thing down in minutes. Cut right up the center. Took everything out. Cleaned it. And the entire time he’s telling me to watch, to note what he was doing.” Garrett has to gather himself for this next bit. “But it didn’t feel like he was teaching me. It felt like he was showing off. Like, ‘Watch me cut this huge animal down to size.’ ” For a moment neither of us moves.
Garrett speaks first. “He ever like that with you?”
“Hell no,” I whisper.
“Thank God,” he exhales.
I don’t. I can’t. My mind is already starting to churn.
“In high school, did you ever hear about Keisha Woodson?”
“The girl that went missing from that party in the woods?” Garrett’s face falls. “Yeah, I heard she got hurt trying to run away with some older guy, something like that?” Garrett shivers. “My mom used to visit her mother, Denise, a lot. Made sure she was staying up on her bills, going to work, all that. We’d bring her food, but she wouldn’t take it. Left it to rot outside. She lost her job. Then her house. Refused anyone’s help. She stopped talking to her own family. She fell apart.”
“Do you know where I could find her?”
“The train station or this bar—Louise’s,” Garrett says.
“Why the station?”
“Visitors are more likely to take pity on her. She spends every penny on psychics, crappy PIs, and whiskey.”
Something he said keeps bothering me. “When Mr. Parker cut the deer, did he…um…” I have trouble with the image. I show Garrett on my body. “Did he cut up, like, through the sternum to the chin?”
“Yeah. Hacked away at that thing like he hated it.” He finishes his cigarette. “He said it made it easier to get to the heart.”
FOUR
