I follow him as he clears the house: first the living room, sweeping into the kitchen, checking closets as we go, then down the carpeted hall. Our feet make little sound as we shuffle through the familiar dance, a dance we call sweep-and-clear. Jimmy shouts, “FBI. Show yourself,” or some rendition of the same, every ten or fifteen seconds, but no one does.
Ducking into the bathroom to check the shower, we continue on to the master bedroom on the right and find a brown and tan Coach purse spilled upon the pale carpet, its contents bleeding out in the form of keys, lipstick, a matching Coach wallet, and even a miniature flashlight. Three feet away from the purse rests a small unused can of pepper spray. She tried to fight, but he was too fast.
Sad Face’s shine is on the door handle into the room; it’s on the purse where he grabbed it; it’s on the carpet in the shape of a knee print next to where Susan fell.
Did he strike her?
Push her?
Did she stumble back and fall?
If there are clues here, a story to tell, the shine is not giving them up … though it does whisper an even uglier truth—one more surprise for us to unfold. My stomach tightens into a clenched fist as my eyes follow the shine from the room. He’s pulling her, dragging her, as she continues to struggle. I can see it in the placement of her feet, the drag marks, the sudden jerks forward as he wrenches her along.
And then the trail disappears under a closed door across the hall. The white six-panel door is like all the others in Susan Ault’s home, with one difference: This one is adorned with a pink teddy bear holding a little plaque of painted wood that reads SARAH.
As Jimmy moves to the door, I hold my breath.
The house is quiet but for the tiny squeal of the hinge as the door opens wide onto an orderly pink and white room with a large bin in the corner bursting with toys. The only thing out of place is a set of wooden alphabet blocks on the cream carpet; they’re shaped into a large circle with a single block for each eye, one for the nose, and five for the downturned mouth.
Sad Face.
Sarah is standing at the rail of her crib watching us, a small blanket clutched tight in her hands, a pacifier in her mouth, and the drying remnants of tears under each eye. She clutches me tightly when I lift her from the crib. My heart is breaking as she buries her face in my shoulder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
July 5, 12:15 P.M.
Jimmy is bent over in his chair when I enter the sheriff’s office conference room; his back is to me and his face is to the floor. Pressed to his right ear is his cell phone, while his left hand cradles his forehead. His shoulders are doing the rhythmic up-and-down bounce of someone in the middle of either a hard cry or a suppressed laugh, I can’t tell which.
Bad news. It’s what I fear; it’s what we both fear.
When he hears me behind him, Jimmy’s face turns up and I see his crooked smile. The muscles in my neck, my back, my gut instantly let go, and I relax. It’s good to see him smile. With the things we see and experience, like this morning’s unfortunate events, it’s often hard to laugh and smile. That’s probably why cop humor is frequently dark; it’s a way of taking the horrible, the unthinkable, and making light of it.
“Genna left me a message an hour ago. You gotta hear this,” Jimmy says, placing the cell phone faceup on the conference table.
Genna is Jimmy’s older sister in Houston. I’ve met her a few times, twice in Texas and three or four times on a cluster of trips she took to Bellingham over the last year. Divorced for five years, Genna wants to move closer to her brother so her son, Derek, will have a male role model. I was informed that the job of “role model” also applies to me, since Derek is somehow smitten by me and has set his mind on a career as an FBI tracker.
Smitten.
That’s the word Jimmy used, which was slightly confusing to me since I thought smitten is what happens to co-eds when they see the school quarterback, or what happens to young moviegoers when they see this year’s heartthrob on the big screen.
Smitten.
It’s one of those words that we all think we know until someone uses it in a way that doesn’t seem right. I looked it up, half expecting it to be some old Anglican abbreviation for “smacked with a kitten,” and found that Jimmy may have used it correctly after all.
Derek isn’t in love with me, nor have I struck him with my hand or a stick, nor have I afflicted him with some deadly disease … but I have affected him mentally, it would seem. So much so, according to Jimmy, that all he talks about is the FBI, man-tracking, and solving crimes. He’s also gotten very good at tracking down information on the Internet, all kinds, shapes, and flavors of information.
“Listen to this,” Jimmy says, jacking up the phone’s volume, hitting speakerphone, and then pushing the play button.
Genna’s voice is weary, slightly amused, matter-of-fact, and ho-hum all rolled into one. “Hey, Jimmy,” she begins dryly, “you need to have a chat with your nephew. He’s been self-diagnosing himself on the Internet again and thinks he has Exploding Head Syndrome.” Jimmy’s shoulders are doing the laughing dance again and I start chuckling, too, but more from Jimmy’s reaction than from the call.
“Apparently he heard a ringing in his ear earlier today and started looking online to see what could have caused it. I’ve never heard of Exploding Head Syndrome, but I looked it up and it’s real … not that your head actually explodes, it’s just loud bangs and noises that people hear inside their head.
“I’m not taking him to the doctor, either, so don’t even start. You convinced me to take him in on that other one and they ’bout laughed me out of the office, so you need to call him tonight and tell him it’s perfectly fine to hear a ringing in your ear every once in a while. Okay, gotta go, Mr. Exploding Head is coming downstairs.”
The phone clicks and Jimmy bursts into laughter.
“That kid is going to give her gray hair before she turns forty,” he says.
“Yeah, and you’re going to help him, right?”
Jimmy tries to look indignant. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”