The Creeping

“We don’t know anything for sure, but crimes of this nature are usually committed by men,” Shane says. “Predators victimizing both little girls and adults are rare. This is one reason we think it’s likely that the perp is linked to the Talcott family or the community at large. We’re operating under the assumption that Jeanie’s mother was collateral damage. Either she got too close to the identity of the person who took her daughter or the killer revealed himself in some way with Jane Doe. Mere hours after the little girl was found, Bev Talcott was killed. It’s safe to assume it was to keep her quiet.” All of this is what I’ve assumed, but there’s no satisfaction in hearing it.

I press my palm to my chest, my lungs constricting. “But Jane Doe wasn’t . . . I mean, no one abused her in a different way?” I blink hard against the black holes in my vision. Breathe.

“No, no signs of sexual abuse,” Shane assures me.

“Our expert was able to date the bone found with Jane Doe,” he adds after a long pause. His spine stiffens, and he laces his hands together, thumbs punctuating his words. “Understand it’s not the final word. We’re in the process of getting a second opinion. But it’s old, very old. And we’re considering it a coincidence that Jane Doe had it. Totally unrelated. Not every clue leads somewhere.” He sounds very far away as he continues, “Radiocarbon dating puts the bone at between a thousand and twelve hundred years old.” I don’t hear anything he says after that. The synapses in my brain fire slowly, as if they’re the cogs of a rusty steam engine or those cell phones as big as people’s heads in reruns from the nineties. A thousand years old.

“That’s freaking biblical times,” I cry, interrupting whatever Sam and Shane are saying minutes later.

Shane’s lips part, but Sam speaks first. “Actually, it was the peak of scientific discovery in both Chinese and Islamic civilizations.” His cheeks redden as he mumbles, “But I’m not certain what was happening in North America.”

Shane snorts. “As I said, we’re getting a second opinion. And don’t forget that these details haven’t been made public.” He points a stern finger from me to Sam. “There could be a real backlash from folks. Kent Talcott has been released. I put a protective detail on his house at night after someone launched a brick through his window, but we can’t spare the manpower during the day. He’s still a suspect.”

I shift my weight and try to smother the current of anger rising up through me. All this horror and Shane still thinks it could be Jeanie’s dad. “You think Jeanie’s dad took the scalp off a little girl and then kept a chunk? What’s the matter with you?” I blurt.

Sam makes a quiet noise of surprise. Shane leans forward, staring at me hard. “I understand the inclination to want to think the best of someone you’ve known for a long time.” His brows lift up, softening his face. “But you can be that wrong about people. You understand? You can’t see what’s really on the inside.”

I don’t say so, but I think Shane’s the one who’s wrong. Even if people try to hide who they are, I think there are always indications, clues, and it’s just a matter of recognizing them.

For the few remaining minutes Shane is here, my body is on the couch, but my mind is wholly somewhere else. It’s across town, in the basement of the morgue, in a cold metal drawer with the birdlike frame of a five-year-old girl who was found murdered, scalped, and clutching an ancient bone in her dead little fist.

I give my head a jerk. Shane is shaking Sam’s hand and trying to smile reassuringly at me, but it’s lopsided. As he leaves, he calls over his shoulder for me to put a sweatshirt on.

Sam locks the door behind him and walks heavily back to my side. “Why didn’t you tell him about the Balco kid? He could have helped us. It could have convinced him to stop looking at Mr. Talcott.”

I stand from the love seat, hands steadying myself on Sam’s arms. I’m suddenly so tired I have to focus to stand. “Shane’s looking in all the wrong places.” My voice is dead, drained. “You heard him; he won’t even believe how old that bone is, and he has an expert telling him. He’s going to think that the stress is getting to me if I start talking about missing kids from 1938 and monsters that take little redheaded girls.” After all, it’s what I would think.

“If he worries I can’t deal, he’ll tell Dad to send me to my mom’s.” I glare defiantly at my parents’ wedding photo that’s still on the mantel, daring Mom to argue, as if she’d actually waste her breath on me. I release Sam and force my spine straight. “I want to remember what happened to Jeanie. I can’t screw it up by being sent away. I owe her this.” I startle myself saying it, how it’s bubbling up as words before I think it, how much I feel it, and not just crushed by the burden of being judged as the one left behind once it’s said.