The Creeping

I ignore his questions. “Why isn’t Detective Rhino Berry here?” I’ve called Detective Frank Berry “Rhino” since I was seven. I was going through a major Serengeti phase when they came to question me that September. All I wanted to talk about were safari animals. Berry told me to call him Rhino from then on. Shane drops his gaze to his boots, cemetery mud still caked on their soles. “Where is Frank?” I repeat, stiffening on the couch.

“Ugh.” He rakes his hands through his thinning hair. “He had a heart attack two months ago. Then another three weeks back.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It finished him off, kid.” My stomach plummets again, but I know I won’t vomit. Nothing’s left in there.

“But he was only fiftysomething,” I whisper. “Not much older than my dad.”

Shane heaves a sigh and pats his shirt pocket absentmindedly. I can make out the shape of a pack of cigarettes. “This job . . .” He trails off.

“Unsolved cases,” I supply. I’ve grown up watching the strain of a cold case on these two men, seen the years round their shoulders forward, the stress coat their hair in white like a fine dusting of snow.

“But enough of that and back to business.” Shane straightens up, puffs his chest out. “I’m lead detective on the Jane Doe case for obvious reasons, so let’s get down to brass tacks.” Shane speaks with a drawl that elongates his vowels and makes waste of consonants. He got the accent growing up in a big city in the south. I told him once that he’s crazy to live in Savage over a place with sun year round. He didn’t deny it. He just said that moving to be a cop in Savage, where his dad’s side lived for four generations, seemed like an adventure at the time. I don’t like to think about why Shane stays. I don’t want to think that it’s unfinished business like Jeanie’s unsolved case that he can’t walk away from.

He draws a notepad from his coat pocket, and I tell him everything. Well, my version of everything. I leave out Daniel, because if Shane doesn’t know he’s in town yet, it’s not for me to stir up more trouble for Jeanie’s brother. Yes, I realize I need to watch my back. Live like a paranoid schizo until he leaves town again. That I can handle. I also leave out the memory of Jeanie. Everything else, cross my heart, I am honest about.

“The little girl looks like Jeanie,” I say once he’s stowed his tablet. “I saw her picture on the news.” He caps his pen like it requires a lot of concentration, but I know he’s stalling for time. “Does this have something to do with her? I thought you said whoever took her didn’t live here.” My voice trembles. So much for staying calm. “Shane,” I plead. “I’m really frightened. Say something. Have I been walking around smiling at the guy who took Jeanie?”

I try to blink the tears away, but a few escape. I didn’t even realize how scared I was. It could be anyone. Forever ago the police ruled out local suspects, but what the hell do they know? It could be red-faced Mr. Robins working in the office of Wildwood Elementary; or leering Jeremy Rangle filling up your gas tank at the Chevron station; or the silver-haired mailman who waves at every single kid he passes. The only way I ever felt safe in Savage was that I believed that the man who took Jeanie was gone.

Shane leans his head back against the recliner and rubs his temples. He blinks up at the light fixture on the ceiling. “I don’t know for sure, but we may be close to making a connection with Jeanie. The little girl, she had something tucked in her fist.” I picture a scrap of fabric torn from her attacker’s clothing, the mildewy arm of a teddy bear, a fistful of smashed ladybugs that were dancing on her palm the moment she was attacked. “It’s a finger bone.”

The words meld in my head. I stare at the seat cushion next to me. A ripple runs through the birds. It crimps their spines, twists their necks until they’re deformed, broken, dead. My breath is uneven, unpredictable. “Whose?” I wheeze. But why do I even ask? I know who it must belong to.

“We’re working to identify it. But unless their DNA is in the system, we won’t be able to find a match.” If I thought he looked ancient before, he looks like he’s aged about a hundred years in my living room.

My brain works slow and clunky. “Do you have Jeanie’s DNA?”

He averts his eyes. “Yes, we saved a hair sample when she disappeared. If it’s hers, we’ll know.”

I gather up a throw pillow and hug it to my chest. It occurs to me that I can’t decide which would be worse: the finger being Jeanie’s or a stranger’s. “Could it belong to whoever took Jane Doe?” I have the fleeting sense that my own appendages could be stolen away, and I make fists to keep them safe.