The Missing Read online

  “Can I see your arm?” he asked.

  She clenched her hand into a fist and rolled down her sleeve so the wound was out of view.

  “I’m a doctor. If there’s anything to do, I can do it.” She didn’t move, and it occurred to him that she didn’t trust him nearly as much as he’d assumed. “Lila, be reasonable. It might be infected.”

  She shrugged and, after some time, handed him her arm. He lifted her sleeve while she turned her head, and it made him feel as if he was doing something shameful and too intimate.

  The corners of the wound were crusted with yellow pus, and probably full of bacteria. He found a scissors and cut away the loose edges. Then he dabbed it with the peroxide from the hospital stock first aid kit in his bottom desk drawer. Bit by bit he eased the cotton away from the clot. The wound reopened and started to ooze, but only superficially. The cut was a deep fissure, like a sideways mouth, and the skin surrounding it had not closed together. She’d sliced just right, splitting open about three inches of artery. If she’d fallen asleep in that tub, she would not have woken up.

  He rebandaged the wound with more gauze, then wrapped it in surgical tape. It would leave a long scar and should have been stitched together by a surgeon, but it was too late for that now. He handed her a tube of antibiotic ointment to take home. “You should have called me,” he said.

  She nodded. “I didn’t want to bother you. I know I talk too much.” There was a flicker of comprehension between them, and he understood that he represented her absent husband, father, brother, son. She was trying to punish them. She was trying to punish him, too.

  “Do you think you should stay at the hospital for a while?”

  She shook her head, “No. I won’t do it again.”

  “Lila, this is big,” he said. “I’m glad you told me, but I’m concerned for your safety, and the safety of your children.”

  She smiled broadly, and her flirtatious manner returned. The rapidity of the transition alarmed him. She cocked her head like a young girl at a debutante ball talking to the best marriage prospect in the room. “Oh, Dr. Wintrob. I promise, I’ll never do it again. Really. It was just the news. I won’t watch the news anymore.”

  Fenstad considered. He knew he should check her into the hospital for the night. But she didn’t have family or friends, so she’d have to call her ex-husband to take the children. Aran Senior was waiting for an excuse to sue for full custody. This would qualify. Lila would crumble under the pressure and cede the rights to her children. The downward spiral he was trying very hard to prevent would begin. He made his decision.

  “I want you to keep up your journal. Try to write down what you’re feeling when you find the urge to drink or hurt yourself. Would you do that? And bring it in to me next week?”

  She nodded.

  The hour had ended five minutes ago, so he opened his desk and wrote her a prescription for a week’s supply of the mood stabilizer Stelazine. “This should calm your nerves.”

  She folded the paper and discreetly slid it into her purse like it was his phone number. “I want you to call me if you feel anything like this coming on again,” he said.

  “Of course, Dr. Wintrob,” she said. Her grin was wide and vacant. She didn’t seem to notice that the ointment had made a wet spot on the sleeve of her white silk blouse. She was exposed, and she didn’t even know it. He was surprised and a little discomfited by the pity he felt for her. It made him rethink his decision: She needed to be hospitalized.

  He was about to tell her so when his secretary burst through the door and announced that his wife had been attacked.

  SIX

  The Melancholy Choir

  By seven o’clock that Tuesday in Corpus Christi, the day was coming to an end. The sun was sinking below the horizon, and street lamps cast a jaundiced glow. Shops lit up their “Open” signs, and people leaving day shifts at the hospital rolled down their windows on their way home to enjoy the temperate night. At the high school track, scrawny and muscle-bound adolescents ran laps. The days had gotten shorter since August. With early dark came a melancholy that made people regret the summer they were leaving behind, and the inevitable winter to come. It was a chill that ran along the backs of their necks; they traded pleasure for purpose. Backyard Stoli and tonics for work that had yet to be done.

  Lois Larkin was the exception. She wasn’t thinking about the lesson plans she needed to prepare, the graduate school applications that would soon be due, or how she’d intended to grovel at Ronnie’s door tonight and beg him to take her back. She was thinking about the little boy she’d lost. The boy without a coat or scarf, who was surely shivering by now. Worse things might be happening to James Walker than just a chill along the back of his neck.

  She was curled in a fetal position in the back of the chief of police’s blue Dodge. She wanted to close her eyes and make this go away. She wanted a miracle. She wanted, just a little bit, to die.

  When she got back to the school this afternoon, a quick head count gave her twenty-five instead of twenty-six. It took her a few seconds, she just couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been, didn’t want to believe it, but she counted again, and remembered the little pain in the butt who’d refused a partner, and before she even called his name and got no answer, she knew that James Walker was missing.

  She sent the kids back to class with Janice Fischer and told the bus driver to head to the Bedford woods. Her gut told her that James was playing a prank. She hadn’t been upset yet, just galled that he’d outsmarted her.

  Her next stop was the principal, Carl Fritz. Carl was forty, unmarried, and his socks always matched the brightly patterned dress shirts he ordered from Bluefly.com. She’d pegged him as gay until the day he told her that he didn’t think she knew her own worth. His eyes had lingered on her breasts, and she’d understood that his interest was not brotherly.

  When she told Carl what happened, he took a slow and dramatic face dive into his desk, where he moaned like a dying bullfrog. When he surfaced, he started rearranging the yellow, green, and orange Beanie Babies that lined the front of his desk. He’d never cut their tags because he was sure that one day he could sell them on eBay for a lot of money. “You lost him?” he repeated, like there was an off-chance Lois would say she’d misspoken, and really, she just wanted another week’s vacation.

  “Yeah, Carl,” she said, even though before this day she’d always called him Mr. Fritz, just to keep their relationship clear. “I did.” He didn’t look at her. He surveyed the annual debate team photos dating back to 1972, his vintage Singin’ in the Rain poster, and finally his shaking hands whose fingernails he got buffed weekly at Lee’s Salon.

  “I thent—sent—the bus driver back for him, but to cover our beth we should call the police and his family. He’th a clown, only in a mean way. He’ll hide until he’th ready to come out.”

  Carl didn’t make a move, and the seconds ticked away. She picked up the phone and hit button two on the speed dial, which he’d made a big deal about adding to his phone after Columbine. “You talk. They should hear it from you,” she said, then handed him the receiver. After a dramatic pause, he put it to his ear.

  That call was easy one. Once the Walker family name was mentioned, Carl was connected to Tim Carroll, the chief of police. Tim instructed them to meet him at the edge of the woods immediately. The next call was the tricky one. To his credit, Carl didn’t dicker around once he got Miller Walker on the line. Instead he blurted: “Your son wasn’t on the bus home from his field trip. We’re on our way back to Bedford to get him. I’m sure he’ll be fine—just wanted to let you know.”

  Walker’s reply, which Lois was close enough to hear, was without hesitation. “I want that teacher’s resignation by the end of the day,” he said. Probably he’d said that teacher because he didn’t know her name.

  “Of course,” Carl replied while simultaneously shrugging his shoulders at Lois as if to say: Sorry, sweetheart, but my neck’s on the line, too.
r />   They took Carl’s green Audi to the Bedford woods. When they got there James wasn’t waiting at the crumb-spotted picnic table, where the Granny Smith apple core she’d left behind was now brown. Her stomach sank, but she didn’t allow herself to worry: There was a boy to be found.

  All seven full-time members of the police department arrived soon after she and Carl. Together they searched the woods. She touched the fresh tracks the school bus had made, looking for clues. After about two hours, Miller Walker and his wife pulled up in a red diesel Mercedes. Felice stayed in the car while Miller took a moment to straighten his tie, sneer at Lois, and join the search.

  Even then, it hadn’t truly hit her. She’d been thinking about Ronnie, Noreen, and the engagement announcement in the morning paper. She’d been thinking about how she needed to get a pregnancy test from CVS on her way home. She’d been thinking about her mother, probably drunk by now, and how this thing with James was just more proof that the world was against her.

  By hour three, the temperature dropped below forty degrees. The worry in her stomach got bigger. It spread like an itch she couldn’t scratch. No little boy would hide for this long, not even a cretin like James. He had to be lost. But what if he wasn’t lost? What if a wild animal had attacked him, or some pedophile had locked him in the trunk of a car and was now speeding across the border to Canada?

  She’d lost a kid. On her watch, a kid might have been hurt or kidnapped or worse. By six that evening more than twenty searchers were combing the woods. Volunteer firemen, members of the PTA, and Miller Walker’s neighbors and friends trampled the grounds surrounding the woods, so that stray pine needles and strands of grass were impressed like fossils in hardened boot treads.

  As dusk fell, Tim organized a wider search. Like an elaborate game of Marco Polo with gaps no greater than ten feet apart, they formed a line and called to one another as they marched through the woods. The arcs of their flashlights shone against dead trees. Lois searched feverishly. The itch in her stomach spread into her chest and legs, and even her throat. The woods were trampled, the boy was missing: a mess, her mess. She had to find James Walker. She had to clean it up. But as darkness settled, and six inched its way to seven, there was no James to be found.

  She was tempted to get down on her hands and knees and pray, but she didn’t. If people hadn’t guessed how serious this was, seeing her prostrate in prayer would give them a pretty good hint. Who cared what the EPA said, these trees looked like empty corn husks. Nothing lived here anymore! No birds. No deer. Nothing. What if James got thirsty and drank the polluted river water, or ate the leaves full of God knew what? There were crazies in these woods. Genuine Bedford locals. The kind who let their cars turn to rust in their front yards and hung effigies of dead men on the sides of their RVs. The kind who stayed in toxic ghost towns, long after the sane had fled.

  She started to lose it. A mess. Her life was a mess. Being a loser was one thing, screwing up a kid’s life was a whole different story. James had been missing for six hours, and they’d found nothing. Not a piece of clothing. Not a lock of hair or even a juice box. Nothing.

  A tear rolled down the side of her face, but she didn’t wipe it away. She knew if she did, more would follow. She’d start bawling right in front of Miller Walker, Tim Carroll, Carl Fritz, and the whole dang PTA. So she asked Tim for the keys to his Dodge and curled up in a ball in his backseat.

  As soon as she got there, her mind started spinning. There was Ronnie, and her mom, and Noreen, and now James Walker, whom she’d never given a chance or gone out of her way to help with his long division. The kid might have turned out okay despite the boy he was now. He might have cured cancer or invented painless braces. Only now they might never find out.

  She was thinking about this, and the itch in her stomach kept growing until she could feel it in her heart and kidneys and bladder. An itching, like everything inside her was red and inflamed. And then, suddenly, a squawk burst out of her mouth. A braying explosion that sounded like crying without tears. Its vibrations rippled through her chest. It lasted about five seconds, and then stopped just as suddenly as it had started. She ran her hands along the tops of her breasts and pressed, as if searching for a hidden animal in there. It was unnerving that she’d been able to produce such a noise. Like something in her lungs had woken up, and decided to bark.

  Out the window, a haze settled over the woods. It looked like a dirty fog. She watched it drift down the hill and through the vents of the car. It stank like skunk. Particulate sulfur pollution and ash from the old mill. Another reason she should never have planned a class trip here. Right now every one of those searchers had to be thinking: That Lois Larkin, what an imbecile!

  Suddenly, from outside the car, she heard a child’s voice; high-pitched but not girlish. It was muffled, and she couldn’t tell what it said. James? she wondered. Was he out there? Had they found him?

  She got out of the car. The base of the woods was full of parked SUVs, Audis, Saabs, and Hondas. She could hear the searchers calling to one another, but it didn’t sound like they’d found him. The voice was coming from the woods, too. It was muffled, but it definitely belonged to a child. A boy. She sighed with relief. Thank God. Oh, thank the dear, sweet Lord.

  She jogged into the woods, and now she could hear what the boy said. “Lois,” he called. James, she thought with relief so sweet that her saliva could have been Necco wafers: Only a terror like James would use her first name.

  She jogged through the search party’s net. Her brow was sweating, and she was beginning to pant. “That you, Miss Larkin?” a volunteer fireman asked. He shone a white sphere of light across her face. She shielded her eyes with her hands.

  “Yeah, ith me.”

  “Okay. Take it easy. We’ll find him.”

  “Sure.”

  Deeper in the woods, the voice called again: “Lois!” The sound reverberated through the air. An idea occurred to her, but she didn’t want to think about it. A part of the voice came from the woods, but if she was going to be honest, really honest, it came from a closer place, too. It was soft and barely discernible. A whisper. It came from inside her own head.

  Did she want to find this kid so badly she was inventing him? Probably. Still, he might be out there. He might be alive, and if she found him, she could fix this mess she’d made. She lifted her shirt and began to scratch her belly: The itch had spread from her organs all the way out to her skin.

  She reached the river where the searchers had turned around, and crossed it. Beyond the rocks was a clearing. The voice wasn’t calling her anymore, but she could feel it. She could feel it inside her. Was she going crazy? Maybe. It didn’t matter. One way or another, she was going to find James Walker.

  The haze and the river water reflected the moonlight so that the clearing was bright. The sulfur was strong here. The place stank so bad that her eyes teared. Ashes from the mill fire, probably. As she neared the clearing, she saw something red against the soot-blackened earth. A piece of clothing. She picked it up. The hood from a child’s sweatshirt. The tears were jagged and full of threads, as if pulled from a shirt with bare hands. Strong hands. Sweet relief turned bitter on her tongue.

  Then she saw the hole in the ground. About three feet deep. Had James dug it? Was James in it? She looked inside, but save for some rocks, the hole was empty.

  Lois, the voice said. It came from two places. It licked her ears and sated the itch like rain on a thirsty flower. A trick, she realized with a moan. The voice was a trick. James had gotten her good…But no boy knew how to play this kind of trick. Ronnie? Noreen? Were they doing this?

  The voice answered her, only now it didn’t sound like it belonged to a child. It was deep, and throaty. He’s down here with me, Lois.

  She uttered that sound again, that bark of pain too fresh to be accompanied by tears. She got dizzy and had to kneel on top of the rocks over the empty hole to keep from falling. Dead, she realized. The boy was dead.

  Somethi
ng moved inside her, and she jumped back and scrambled a few feet from the hole while sliding on her butt so that the legs of her trousers turned dark with soot. The thing peered out from her eyes. She could feel it. An enemy slithering between her ears. Lois, it whispered. Her heart pounded, and for a moment she was tempted to gouge her eyes in order to pull the thing out.

  And then, from down the hole, she heard a child’s voice. “Here Miss Lois!” it called, as if she was taking attendance. She bit her lip and wanted to cry, with hope or with dread, she did not know which. Was he alive? Was he somehow down that empty hole? Or was he…something else. She cupped her hands around her mouth to call for help, but the voice stopped her. If you tell I’ll kill him. They’ll blame you. Then where will you be? Watching Millionaire on TV?

  Lois clutched the frayed red hood in her hands and squeezed. “Please,” she begged. “Where is he?”

  It didn’t answer, and she began to hear the shouts of the searchers. She dropped the hood. Her instincts told her something, and she tried to listen to them. Something she should guess, if she thought hard enough. The voice was familiar. She knew this voice. But the air here was thick with sulfur, and it was making her dizzy.

  He’ll die without you, unless you clean up your mess, Lois. Clean it up good.

  Leave me alone, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. What if she yelled, and it hurt James to get even?

  Sweet Lois, the thing said. Stop hiding behind that broken smile. Clean up your mess.

  “Please, where is he?” she asked.

  In reply it slithered like ice between her ears. It soothed her itch. It touched her in places no one had touched her for a long time. It occurred to her that she’d never thought very highly of Ronnie, Noreen, or even her parents. They’d held her back. She hated them a little. She wanted them dead, just a little. They deserved it for what they’d done.

  What was she thinking?

  Clean up your mess, Lois, and I promise you’ll have everything you want, even James. Especially James.