Four hours of threadbare sleep, like lying in a bathtub with your ears half submerged. Shooting up in bed every twenty minutes, my heart pounding so hard I wondered if it was the beating that woke me. I dreamt I was packing for a trip, then realized I’d laid out all the wrong clothes, sweaters for a summer vacation. I dreamt I’d filed the wrong story for Curry before I left: Instead of the item on miserable Tammy Davis and her four locked-up children, we’d run a puff piece about skin care.
I dreamt my mother was slicing an apple onto thick cuts of meat and feeding it to me, slowly and sweetly, because I was dying.
Just after 5 a.m. I finally threw off the covers. I washed Ann’s name off my arm, but somehow, between dressing, brushing my hair, and dabbing on some lipstick, I’d written Natalie Keene in its place. I decided to leave it for luck. Outside, the sun was just rising but my car handle was already hot. My face felt numb from lack of sleep and I stretched my eyes and mouth wide, like a B-movie scream queen. The search party was set to reconvene at 6 a.m. for continued work in the woods; I wanted to catch a quote from Vickery before the day began. Staking out the police station seemed a good bet.
Main Street looked vacant at first, but as I got out of my car I could see two people a few blocks down. It was a scene that made no sense. An older woman was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, legs splayed, staring at the side of a building, while a man was stooped over her. The woman was shaking her head manically, like a child refusing to feed. Her legs shot out at angles that had to hurt her. A bad fall? Heart attack, maybe. I walked briskly toward them and could hear their staccato murmuring.
The man, white hair and ruined face, looked up at me with milky eyes. “Get the police,” he said. His voice came out crumpled. “And call an ambulance.”
“What’s wrong?” I started, but then I saw it.
Wedged in the foot-wide space between the hardware store and the beauty parlor was a tiny body, aimed out at the sidewalk. As if she were just sitting and waiting for us, brown eyes wide open. I recognized the wild curls. But the grin was gone. Natalie Keene’s lips caved in around her gums in a small circle. She looked like a plastic baby doll, the kind with a built-in hole for bottle feedings. Natalie had no teeth now.
The blood hit my face fast, and a shimmer of sweat quickly covered my skin. My legs and arms went slack, and for a second I thought I might smack the ground right next to the woman, who was now quietly praying. I backed up, leaned against a parked car, and put my fingers to my neck, willing my thumping pulse to slow. My eyes picked up images in meaningless flashes: The grimy rubber tip of the old man’s cane. A pink mole on the back of the woman’s neck. The Band-Aid on Natalie Keene’s knee. I could feel her name glowing hotly under my shirtsleeve.
Then more voices, and Chief Vickery was running toward us with a man.
“Goddammit,” Vickery grunted when he saw her. “Goddammit. Jesus.” He put his face against the brick of the beauty parlor, and breathed hard. The second man, about my age, stooped next to Natalie. A loop of bruised purple circled her neck, and he pressed his fingers just above it to check for a pulse. A stalling tactic while he gathered his composure—the child was clearly dead. Big-shot detective from Kansas City, I guessed, the smug kid.
He was good, though, coaxing the woman out of her prayers and into a calm story of the discovery. The two were husband and wife, the owners of the diner whose name I couldn’t remember the day before. Broussard. They were on their way to open for breakfast when they found her. They’d been there maybe five minutes before I came along.
A uniformed officer arrived, pulled his hands over his face when he saw what he’d been called for.
“Folks, we’re going to need you to head to the station with the officer here so we can get some statements,” Kansas City said. “Bill.” His voice had a parental sternness to it. Vickery was kneeling by the body, motionless. His lips moved as if he might be praying, too. His name had to be repeated twice before he snapped back.
“I hear you, Richard. Be human for a second.” Bill Vickery put his arms around Mrs. Broussard and murmured to her until she patted his hand.
I sat in a room the color of egg yolk for two hours while the officer got my story down. The whole time I was thinking about Natalie going to autopsy, and how I would like to sneak in and put a fresh Band-Aid on her knee.