She hadn’t told anyone she was going. It was all too weird. She expected throngs of people, chaos and confusion. It was depressing to think about how many people a year must just vanish—poof!—and no one looks for them, no search parties, no police reports. No loved ones ceaselessly pushing the media and police. No one hanging missing posters. It was jarring to realize how much of that work was done by a victim’s loved ones, that these things just didn’t magically happen, and when there was no one to do them, they simply did not get done.
Detective Harper and another plainclothes detective had set up a folding banquet table in the parking lot between Texaco and the police station, handing out grainy photos of Lucia to a growing group of women—all women, no men. An ambulance and a fire truck sat toward the back of the parking lot, a few EMTs and firefighters hanging on the sides of each one, laughing, throwing barbs at each other that Alecia couldn’t hear.
Alecia tucked a lock of hair back up into her baseball cap and surveyed the crowd. Familiar faces, but the names all escaped her. No one from Nate’s crowd; would they have dared? Did he even have a crowd anymore? The accusation and media seemed to scatter them all; even Tad had vanished.
Alecia had called the neighbor to baby-sit at 9 a.m., even deciding somewhat last minute to forgo Gabe’s swimming class and one ABA session that was scheduled for the afternoon. She hadn’t stopped to examine why she’d come, just that she felt compelled. She had been counting on the chaos of a crowd to shield her. She hovered near a red Pontiac, feeling exposed and naked in her sunglasses and hat.
“Ms. Winter, here to help?” Harper called to her, and she almost fled. Almost. But she felt trapped, a butterfly pinned to the wax, and it was likely that leaving would have only made her look worse. Alecia tucked the stupid sunglasses into her purse and approached the card table.
“Do you still need volunteers?” she said, her voice low. Harper and the second detective exchanged a glance.
“Sure,” Harper said, pushing a glossy photo across the table. Alecia looked away. He tapped his fingers against the plastic table in front of him, his tongue clicking in his mouth. “Seems an odd choice. For you, I mean.”
Alecia clutched the strap of her purse tighter and backed up. “I’ll just go. This was a mistake. I wanted to . . . help. I don’t know.”
“No, no. Stay. We have precious little in the way of resources. Hard to find a girl no one cares to find. We’re leaving at ten and we’re heading up to State Game Lands 214, where your husband claims he saw her run. At this point, we’re not sure there’s a crime, see? It’s easy for a person to get lost in these woods.” Harper chewed on a toothpick; Alecia could hear the crackle between his molars. She imagined them yellowed, cigarette-browned spit making the wood soggy.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Alecia repeated, maybe looking for someone to tell her it is okay, we’re glad you’re here, come have a snickerdoodle, but no one did. A group of ten women were gathered at the edge of the parking lot, a few inexplicably clutching Maglites, in various plain T-shirts and jean capris, sport socks and Nikes, hands smoothing their shirt fronts and looking around, shifting uncomfortably. A few whispered, someone giggled. They didn’t invite her over, just watched, one of them chewing, chewing, chewing slowly on a pretzel, like cud, the bag crinkling in her fist. Alecia hated them.
They were there because they were bored, these fiftyish empty nesters or moms of high schoolers who stopped talking to their parents, maybe moms of kids whom Nate had failed, unpopular themselves in high school, resentful of Nate’s charm, out to prove he’d done something to the poor girl.
The poor girl. People all over town were dividing into two camps: the poor girl vs. let’s not be too hasty, another phrase Alecia had heard in line at the checkout counter, a husband and wife arguing over which camp they were in. She had slunk behind the impulse-gum rack and waited them out.
But now there was nowhere to slink and she’d done a stupid thing of making herself visible, or as Vi would have said, a spectacle. This would surely be in the paper, and then what would people think? What would Nate think?
“Alecia?”
Bridget stood behind her, her head cocked to the side, waiting for an explanation without asking for one, and even though they hadn’t really talked, and the last few times Bridget had called Alecia had pressed decline, Alecia was still so relieved to see her. She held her arms out and Bridget hugged back, patting between her shoulder blades and whispering, “What the actual fuck are you doing here?” and Alecia laughed, a half hiccup really, into her hair.
“I have no idea. I thought it would be busier, that I could feel like I was doing something. I’ve been so fucking impotent in all of this, I can’t even tell you.” Bridget tried to pull away but Alecia held tight, just for a moment longer. She finally released her, stepping back, and found herself unable to meet Bridget’s eyes. “Don’t you have school?”
“In-service day. Kids are out, we’re supposed to be in. I played hooky.” Bridget shrugged. “This looks weird you know.” She motioned to Alecia and then spread her hand wide toward the Mom Squad, as though Alecia didn’t know.
“No shit. Should I leave? I should leave.”
“Maybe not?” Bridget raised her chin in the direction of the Texaco, where a white car had just parked, and who got out of the driver’s-side door but Rowena White, reporter extraordinaire. Her black hair gleamed in the sunlight, and she hung back writing in a notebook, snapping her own pictures with her cell phone, documenting this sad, pathetic excuse for a search party.
Under the hot May sun, Alecia’s arms popped with gooseflesh. Before she could decide to stay or go, Harper stood and flicked his toothpick into a metal trash can, seemingly placed next to the card table for this express purpose. He fished a fresh one out of his shirt pocket and approached the group of women, his hands on his hips.
“We’re going to meet a mile past the post office on Route Six, where Lucia Hamm was last seen running into the woods. We’re going to walk two miles in and two miles out, twenty feet apart. We are performing a search and rescue, but please keep your eyes open for anything along the way that will provide clues to Ms. Hamm’s whereabouts. Two miles in is approximately halfway into SGL 214. There are close to five thousand acres of dense woods and wetlands here. We’ll be covering the area by helicopter later this afternoon. We expect everyone to be back here before five o’clock and we’ll do an attendance check. Keep your neighbor in sight at all times. It’s very easy to get turned around in this forest.”
The Mom Squad nodded in unison and Bridget squeezed Alecia’s arm. “I think it’s good you came.”
For the first time, Alecia wondered where the students were. She’d think that at least one student would show up to look for their missing classmate, and it had to mean something that no one did. She turned to Bridget to ask her, but Bridget stared ahead, fixated on Harper. Instead, she leaned in and said, “Stay close to me, will you?”
How much pressure can you put on a friendship before it snaps like a stick under an eighty-dollar pair of Nikes?
“I’m close. I’ll stay close,” Bridget promised, and who knows, maybe she meant it.