“I was just wondering.” I paused, uncertain. Probably it was wrong to prey on what I could tell from the big open bowls of Sherry’s a’s and o’s. “Just wondering who had her so scared.”
Sherry’s mouth dropped open. She pulled a sample closer to her with a manicured finger. “You can tell that from just—from just a grocery list?”
“You can tell a lot from a grocery list,” I said, enjoying the demonstration a little, despite myself. “She was young. She was poor. She loved her son. She had a cat.”
“You can tell she had a cat—”
I pulled the list back toward me. “I’m not a psychic. Cat food’s on the list.”
“Oh,” Sherry said with a shaky laugh. “Just like you can tell she likes peanut butter.”
“Or Aidan does.”
“I bet he does,” Sherry agreed, her voice gone soft.
I had a vision of Joshua, age three or so, crying from being left at the bad day care while I worked a double shift. My little boy had loved peanut butter. He used to love everything, including me. I missed that age, his sturdy little legs figuring out the world, but always running back to throw himself at me. I hadn’t wanted to leave him at day care, then or ever. In the time I was gone, I could imagine a hundred ways for him to be taken from me. A hundred impossible ways to lose him.
This was all wrong. I should be telling CEOs which executives not to hire, or mining the halting love letters my lonelyhearts sent me. I should be turning Sherry’s attention back to the question she hadn’t answered, about Aidan’s dad. But it was surprisingly pleasant to be talking this way to another woman, another mother. I hesitated, thinking of the women at my door from the Boosters, and then said, “For about two years, mine wouldn’t eat anything but creamy peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Morning, noon, and night.”
Sherry looked behind her, found an extra chair, and pulled it up next to me. Her bright ponytail swung over her shoulder. “Mine’s five,” she said. “I can’t talk about him enough. How old is yours?”
My head felt a little light. “He’s a teenager. I wish he were still five.”
“Yeah, because at five you can still put them in your pocket, you know? Or at least pick them up and carry them out to the car if they’re being jerks. In some ways I can’t wait for Jamey to grow up and turn into what he’ll be,” she said. “But in other ways, I want time to stop. I want him to stay perfect, just the way he is.”
Perfect ears, perfect hands. I was often startled by Joshua’s beauty. How had something so perfect come from such a mess? “Except—” I stopped. Was my life so empty that I was turning into a person who confided in strangers? Sherry had her fist hooked at her chin, waiting. “Except that he was perfect before, and he’s perfect now, and he’ll be perfect tomorrow,” I said. “Suddenly he’s a different boy than the one you knew, but still—perfect.”
“That’s it,” Sherry said, triumphantly. “That’s exactly—”
Across the room, the door swung open, banging against the wall. Sherry jumped to her feet. I expected the sheriff or another officer but instead a tall, thick man in a grease-smeared zip-up jacket stood in the doorway.
This was Aidan’s father. I knew it from the shifty look Sherry gave me as she returned to her desk. I slid the handwriting samples out of sight.
“He’s not in at the moment, Bo,” Sherry said.
“Is he on vacation? I need to know what’s going on.” The man’s voice violated the silent room.
“He would call you if there was anything at all,” Sherry said. “I can have him check in when he gets back.”
Bo ran his meaty fingers through his hair, then jammed his fists into his jacket pockets. “I mean it, Sherry, I need to be kept up to speed here. Are they even trying to find my kid?” His eyes swept the room and located me. He froze. “You got some help in to find him or something? Those detectives—”
“She’s just doing a favor for the sheriff,” Sherry said. “Now, why don’t you give us your number again and I’ll let him know you were here.” She scooted a notepad across the counter to him and held out a pen. He grabbed it and scratched at the paper while Sherry watched. “Put your name down, too,” she murmured.
“Shit, Sherry, you don’t think he knows my number by now?” But he didn’t look up. His hand dragged across the notepad and thumped the pen down. “The second he gets in, all right? I want answers.” He wrenched the door open, paused, gave me another look, and was gone.
We listened to his fading footsteps down the stairs. It felt as though he’d taken half the oxygen in the room with him.
With a flourish, Sherry ripped the message from Bo off the notepad and marched it back to me, held high over her head, a flag. “Looky what I got,” she sang. “Would I not make the best detective? Sheriff won’t let me do anything but take calls and stuff, but I say I’ve got what it takes.” She slid the paper in front of me.
“I don’t even need to see it,” I said.
“I know,” Sherry said, shrugging. “He’s wearing it like an aftershave, isn’t he? He didn’t used to be so—well, maybe he always was. We all went to high school together, me and Bo and—but so what? What do you see?”
For a moment, I didn’t answer or look at Bo’s message. This wasn’t what Sheriff Keller had asked me to do. He wouldn’t like it, and I didn’t, either. This sample would taint the process—though of course encountering Aidan’s dad in person had probably already done that. I thought about the pressed block letters of Aidan’s mom’s grocery list, about the fear etched into such a perfect word as bananas.
I picked up the message. White paper, blue ink. It had come from a memo pad with designated blanks for the time and date and the caller’s name and number. Bo had scribbled on the diagonal across the entire sheet. The numbers were uneven, his signature sloppy. He had what my training had taught me to call resentment lines, vertical strokes in letters that clawed across the page like shovels digging a grave. Hidden in each millimeter of ink—Bo Ransey—was insult sustained, offense calculated. Not to mention the coiled twirls in his B and R, lying in wait like snakes.
I looked up.
Sherry put her palms on the desk and sighed. “I know,” she said. “I hope she gets away, too.”
Chapter Four
After a long shared silence, Sherry went back to her desk. I laid the samples side by side and studied them again.
The plastic sleeve turned out to be the most interesting and confusing of the pieces provided. Inside was an original sample, several two-inch or smaller shreds of blue stationery ripped and charred. Only a few inches of writing was visible between them. I tried to puzzle the pieces together without taking them out of the sleeve—they would disintegrate if I tried. All I could do was study the few discernible words visible:
to, and, never your, need to, her, love