The Girl from the Well

“Officers from two counties are continuing the search for eleven-year-old Madeleine Lindgren, who disappeared in May. Police have set up an AMBER Alert for the missing girl, and so far, thousands of tips have come through the hotline…”

“The police say they are going through every piece of information that passes through the channels but admit that, with the number of tips coming in everyday, filtering through the information will take time. More than a hundred officers and volunteers have joined in the search for little Madeleine…”

“If you have any information related to this case, please call the following numbers: 242-45…”

Strings of a story move through states and cities, leaving parts of the story at every stop. People find themselves at the beginning of a tale without an end, or in a middle that neither starts nor finishes, or at a conclusion that knows no beginning. Only two have read this story in its entirety, can quote it from cover to cover, and had been there from introduction to curtain fall.

One is the Stained Shirt Man that people are now calling Blake Mosses.

I am the other.

And when the news provides no other answers, gossip takes center stage.

For the neighbors at Holly Oaks apartments, it is their moment to shine. “Always knew he was a bad seed,” says Greta Grunberg from 6D, who said no such thing to anyone until after the fact. “Skulking up and down the stairs, never leaving the room for days. He was going to come to a bad end, I always thought.”

Annabelle Mirellin from 5C believes that Mosses was attacked by a wild animal and wonders if this could be possible grounds for suing Holly Oaks for mismanagement. She is not swayed from this belief by the fact that the door was locked from the inside and no trace of a wild animal was found inside the room.

The police, more sensible creatures than the neighbors, are baffled. But it will be days before they discover the small strand of hair hidden underneath the dislodged carpet, and it will be months before they fully understand its importance.

? ? ?

The Smiling Man is unconcerned about this most recent development. The town of Applegate is already proving to be a distraction, and he is busy planning, plotting his next move.

He parks his white car at one corner of the street and strolls toward where the crowd of people (fifty-seven) have gathered, watching in fascination as medical personnel (four) wheel out a large gurney that carries something (one) large and bulky, hidden from view by a large, black blanket. Many have never seen this manner of death up close, one that does not point the blame at old age or sickness.

This provides ghoulish enjoyment, for the town is too large to know of the little perversions that move in villages, yet too small for its residents’ spirits to have been toughened by the crimes of cities. There is a thrill in relishing the suffering of strangers, and they hide their interest with worried faces. The dead man, Blake Mosses, had not been One of Them, and they can afford to treat him as a source of unfortunate entertainment rather than one of genuine bereavement.

The Smiling Man wanders in and out of the crowd, the dead children forced to keep up with every step. He does not bother to look at the man’s corpse, for he does not specialize in this kind of death. His eyes are trained on a young girl who has wandered some distance away from the group. She sits on a small park bench opposite the apartment block, engrossed in her music.

The Smiling Man sets up shop at the other end of the bench, ostensibly to watch the drama unfolding on the other side of the street. He observes her when she is not looking.