The Creeping

Shane looks at me sideways and then back at the road as we soar through a yellow stoplight. “It’d be healthier if you stopped thinking about this stuff, but yes. You came up with a hell of a theory as to why Daniel killed Jane Doe and removed her scalp. The missing piece was there in a backpack that was covered in Daniel’s fingerprints. He must have worried we’d find it at the Talcotts’ current residence.”


It occurred to me the first morning I woke in the hospital. The night before, I’d told Sam that Daniel was gloating over Jane Doe, smug over the handiwork no one suspected him of. Then all night I dreamed of Daniel hissing that Jeanie was everywhere. She was a mistake he couldn’t outrun or outlive. I saw Daniel so clearly that morning: driving toward Savage, having already decided to come home, tired to the bone from waiting for me to remember and certain that it was only a matter of time that I did and implicated him. Maybe he cut by a park or school yard? And there she was: a familiar stranger. He thought fate was dangling a Jeanie-size solution in front of him; there was no better way to reopen the case and pin it on someone else than for a little Jeanie double to show up dead. Maybe he thought the search for Jeanie’s body would be renewed and that the police would find her remains at Griever’s? Griever would be blamed for both deaths. Who knows, maybe at the time he really thought Jane Doe was Jeanie? I imagined Daniel hovering above her, scrubbing his palms over his eyes, waiting for the resemblance to Jeanie to fade with her life. It didn’t. So he took her hair. Without her red hair, she wouldn’t resemble his sister as much.

Shane’s eyebrows draw together, and he says softly, “But why keep a portion of her scalp? And why bother returning the rest to her head when he dumped the body?” I called Shane that first day in the hospital to tell him where I thought he’d find the missing piece.

I’m aware that my heels are tapping in place, and my organs feel like they’re pinballing inside me. “He left the hair on Jane Doe’s head like it never happened. Maybe he felt bad when he realized she wasn’t his sister? But he took the piece—it was the proof he never had of Jeanie being dead. He needed proof or else he’d see her everywhere too. She’d haunt him as he thought Jeanie was haunting him.”

We accelerate on to the highway. In three exits we’ll be in Savage. Bristly pines line the road, and I avert my eyes. I don’t want to stare into them. “We’ve identified the little girl,” Shane says.

“How?” I turn to face him.

“The evidence told the story.” He frowns at the horizon. I don’t think he’s shaven since Jane Doe was found, and there’s a fine dusting of white in his beard. “Daniel’s backpack contained a couple of crumpled receipts. They’re from cities between here and Portland, Maine, where he was staying with his aunt. Using them, we charted the route he took to Savage and contacted local authorities. Her name was Becca.” He allows an intentional moment of silence. “He snatched her the evening before the bonfire, only hours before he arrived in Savage. She was a foster kid. The group home didn’t even realize she was missing for several days.”

Daniel chose his victim perfectly. We’ll never know if he realized he could use Becca’s body to frame someone for Jeanie’s disappearance before or after he killed her. Was the murder calculated, a means to an end? Daniel was full of hate for Jeanie, his little sister who he tried to teach. Perhaps killing her once hadn’t been enough? Mrs. Talcott’s death wasn’t as ambiguous. Daniel’s mom saw through him; he hadn’t planned on killing her. But it was an opportunity that he didn’t waste; it made Mr. Talcott a likelier suspect.

I catch the tail end of a very paternal-sounding pep talk from Shane. “Savage will heal. This isn’t like when Jeanie was taken. We know who to hold responsible. We don’t need to be afraid. The newspapers will get tired of writing about Daniel now that he’s dead. Caleb will get the help he needs.”

We’ve exited the highway and turn right on Main Street, and I see how close his words are to being realized. Storefronts have thrown open their shutters; kids swing and whoop on the monkey bars at the jungle gym across from city hall; the bible-thumping picketers waving their rapture slogans have vanished. There’s even a line of kids streaming from Powel’s Candy Shop.

I touch my fingers to the window as we drive past; where three of my nails should be, there are patchy violet scabs. For me it’s too soon to heal. It’s too soon to forgive myself for what I couldn’t remember, what I could have prevented if I only had. It won’t happen again. I’m working out all the details; the devil won’t be able to hide in them. “Daniel’s motivation for everything was Jeanie,” I say.