This “source,” though—was this Sherry, unnamed, giving away secrets or was it the sheriff, giving the reporter what she’d demanded, anything he could offer, in lieu of the kid’s whereabouts and a suspect in handcuffs? In any case, it was a big fat guess, since I hadn’t given any information in time to be featured in this issue.
I looked up, watching a few cars passing by the courthouse. Across the square, that pixie-faced deputy from the security line was leading Bo Ransey out of the courthouse doors by the elbow. I raised the paper higher and watched over the top of it as Bo ducked out from under the girl officer’s hold and stormed off. What did you have to do to get escorted off county property during the investigation of your missing kid? Deputy Lombardi waited, her hands on her hips, until the guy had cleared the grounds. She was turning to go inside when Bo pulled out of his parking space, squealing the tires.
I put the paper down. I couldn’t wait to turn in that report and be done with these people.
A woman carrying a small child in her arms pushed an empty stroller past me.
And then I knew what was bothering me about the photos in the newspaper. The babysitter had been given the golden opportunity, in death, to cradle the missing boy, but his mother was treated as a suspect in a lineup. There would be no baby in her arms, not in the newspaper or, one might assume the editor had decided, ever again.
It was practically decided here on the front page of the Spectator. The sitter: beautiful, loving, and good. The mother: a villain. There were no pictures of Bo, no mention of details about the family, other than an address. No hints of any discord or bad checks, of offenses past or present.
“Hey there,” a woman’s voice said.
I startled back to attention. The two Booster Club moms from the night Aidan disappeared stood in front of me. Only this time, the bored one who couldn’t be bothered with me was leaning in with a grin on her face. The other one held back. “Hi,” I said. “Stephanie and—”
Stephanie’s head snapped in my direction.
“Grace,” the other one said, smiling. I thought she was more pleased that I’d remembered Stephanie’s name, that I might have studied what Stephanie had written on the flyer for me, than she was thrilled to see me again. “We thought we saw you out at the school yesterday.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, some paperwork we missed. In the transfer.”
“There was some trouble out there yesterday,” she said. “Thought maybe yours was in on it. Mine definitely was. Any trouble there is, he’s in the thick of it.” She seemed almost proud of it, the trouble her kid could cause. Then she looked at me more closely. “What transfer?”
“From his last school,” I said.
“I can’t believe anyone would choose this place over anywhere else. Especially Chicago.”
Grapevine indeed. Everything Grace said was a leading question without the indignity of having to ask.
“It’s so unsafe there,” I said finally. “You’ve heard the stories.”
“And then to land here in the middle of all this,” Grace said, poking at the paper in my hands. I closed it and folded it under my arm.
“Well, the joke’s on me, I guess.”
“Are you the source?” Stephanie spoke up. She was watching me warily. “In the paper? The one who said it was the mother’s handwriting.”
“No,” I said.
“But you’re the one they’ve called in, aren’t you? That’s what you do, isn’t it?” Grace asked.
“It’s not all I do,” I said. I couldn’t see a way out of this conversation, and then suddenly, I could. “You seem interested. Did you want me to look at your handwriting?”
“No,” Stephanie barked.
“Bet your ass,” Grace hissed, grabbing for a pen from her purse. Through a few negotiations, it transpired that the only paper available was the one tucked under my arm. I handed it over, and she wrote a few words down. “And then my signature? Do I sign it?”
“Whatever you want,” I said. I’d thought they both would have raced away in horror, but that just goes to show how little I knew about people, off the page. Now, even though I’d promised the school counselor I didn’t do parlor tricks, I’d tricked myself into doing them.
Grace handed back the paper. “Do your worst,” she said.
She’d written You are so full of shit. Love, Grace Mullen.
“You have . . . a healthy skepticism,” I said.
“Oh, my God,” Grace said. “Steph, it’s like going to the creepy fortune-teller at the county fair. You have to do it, too.”
My eyes were drawn to the bowls of the rounded letterforms, her o’s, e’s, c’s. They should have been cupped and open but were actually quite narrow and stingy. Maybe not quite healthy, really, all this lack of generosity. I’d seen the same tendencies in incarcerated women, in men trapped in jobs they felt they had to keep. In my mother’s handwriting, in fact. A trapped woman who had never wanted anyone else to make it out alive. I wondered what the county fair fortune-teller might tell Grace, and what might be left out. There may have been a lot left out already, a great deal withheld. I looked up into Grace’s greedy eyes. Nothing to be gained by telling the whole truth and, anyway, this wasn’t a job.
“You have a natural openheartedness,” I said, studying the letters for other lies I could tell. “You only wish you could do more. And, oh, that’s interesting—”
“What?” Grace leaned in.
“Well, I see some markers that lead me to believe that you might be”—for the first time her expression edged into apprehension—“really fun to work with at the Boosters concession stand,” I said.
Her face registered a twinge of confusion, then relief. “I am. You might not be so bad yourself.”
Steph shot me a curious look. It was just like going to the county fair. I was the midway barker offering to guess weights, and I’d undercut by a good fifty pounds so that everyone could keep having a good time.
“Joshua lost the team schedule already,” I said, using the tone I knew they’d expect. Boys will be boys. “How can I get a copy? And I guess I should sign up for some shifts?”
Stephanie handed me a card this time, preprinted and not likely to give anything else away. I took it, noting the twee little house design on it. Sommer House, it said under her name, though it didn’t say where the house was located. I took the card, smiled, sent them off with pleasantries. It pained me. The entire episode was pantomime—and yet. At the end of all things, there was my kid. What was a little dignity thrown in, after everything else I’d lost?