Magic hour: a novel (29 page)

Julia stepped out from behind the podium and moved toward him. “You have no evidence to support that. It’s just as likely that she was kidnapped so long ago that her family has given up on her. Stopped looking.”

His gaze was steady. “Stopped looking? For their daughter?”

“If—”

“I wish you luck, I really do, but KIRO is pulling out. The rumblings at Mount St. Helens are front and center now.” He reached into his rumpled white shirt pocket and withdrew a card. “My wife’s a therapist. I’ll be fair to you. Call me if you find out something substantive.”

She looked down at his card.
JOHN SMITH, TV NEWS.
KIRO, she knew, had a top-notch research staff and access to people and places she couldn’t begin to reach. “How hard did you guys try to find out who she is?”

“Four researchers worked on it full-time for the first two weeks.”

Julia nodded. She’d been afraid of that.

“Good luck.”

She watched him leave, thinking,
And there goes the last of the good ones.
Next Wednesday she’d be giving her update to representatives of local newspapers, with smaller circulations than most high schools, and—if she was lucky—some low-rent stringer for the tabloids.

Peanut crossed the room, weaving through the row of metal folding chairs, picking up the discarded news releases they’d handed out. Her black rubber clogs made a thumping sound on the floor. Cal went along behind her, grabbing the chairs, clanging them shut.

Within moments the podium was the only remaining evidence of today’s press conference. Soon there would be no audience for any of this. The pressure of that knowledge had been building in Julia, filling her lungs like a slow-growing case of pneumonia.

The milestones she’d reported to the media today were important. In ordinary therapy, the amount of progress Alice had made in three weeks would be considered successful. Now the child could eat with utensils and use the toilet. She’d even come so far as to show sympathy for someone else, but none of it answered the central question of identity. None of it would get Alice back to her family and her real life. None of it would guarantee that Julia could keep working with her. In fact, with every day that passed in the child’s silence, Julia felt her grasp on her confidence loosen. At night, as she lay in her bed, listening to Alice’s quiet nightmares and violent moments, Julia thought:
Am I good enough?

Or worse:
What am I missing this time?

“You did a great job today,” Peanut said, trying to force a smile. It was the same thing she’d said after each press conference.

“Thanks,” was Julia’s standard answer. “I better get back,” she said, bending down for her briefcase.

Peanut nodded, then yelled to Cal, “I’m takin’ her home.”

Julia followed Peanut out of the station and into the gunmetal gray light of sundown. In the car, they both stared straight ahead. Garth Brooks’s voice floated through the speakers, complaining about friends in low places.

“So . . . I guess it isn’t going so well, huh?” Peanut said, strumming her black-and-white checkerboard fingernails on the steering wheel at the four-way stop.

“She’s made huge progress, but . . .”

“She still isn’t talking. Are you sure she can?”

The same series of questions ran like an endless monologue through Julia’s thoughts. Day and night, she thought:
Can she? Will she? When?
“I believe it with my whole heart,” Julia said slowly. Then she smiled ruefully. “My head is beginning to wonder, however.”

“When I was a young mother, the thing I hated most was changin’ diapers. So the day my Tara turned two, I set about teachin’ her to use the toilet. I followed all the how-to books down to the letter. And you know what happened? My Tara stopped pooping. Just stopped. After about five days, I took her to Doc Fischer. I was worried sick. He examined my baby girl, then looked at me over his glasses. He said, ‘Penelope Nutter, this girl is trying to tell you something. She doesn’t want to be potty trained.’” Peanut laughed, then hit the turn signal and veered onto the old highway. “There’s no metal on earth stronger than a child’s will. I guess your Alice will talk when she’s ready.” Peanut turned down their driveway and pulled up in front of the house, honking twice.

Ellie came out of the house almost immediately; so quickly, in fact, that Julia suspected she’d been at the door, waiting.

“Thanks for the ride, Peanut.”

“See you Wednesday.”

Julia got out of the car and slammed the door shut. She met Ellie halfway across the yard.

“She’s howling again,” Ellie said miserably.

“When did she wake up?”

“Five minutes ago. She’s early. How’d it go?”

“Bad,” she said, trying to sound strong and failing.

“The DNA results will be back soon. Maybe they will give us an answer. If she’s a kidnap victim, there will be crime scene evidence to compare to.”

They’d tossed this idea back and forth like a life ring in the last few days, though it had lost its buoyancy. “I know. Hopefully she’s in the system.” It was what Julia always said.

“Hopefully.”

They looked at each other. The word was starting to sound frayed.

Julia went into the house and up the stairs. With each step, the howling grew in volume. She knew what she’d find when she entered her room. Alice would be kneeling behind her plants, head down, face in her hands, rocking and howling. It was her only means of expressing sadness or fear. She was afraid now because she’d wakened alone. To an ordinary child, this might be frustrating. To Alice, it was terrifying.

Julia was already talking when she opened the door. “Now, what’s all this racket about, Alice? Everything is fine. You’re just scared. That’s natural.”

Alice streaked across the room in a blur of black hair, yellow dress, and spindly arms and legs. She pressed herself against Julia so closely that there was contact from waist to calf.

Alice put her hand in Julia’s pocket.

This was how it was lately. Alice needed to be next to Julia always, connected.

She was sucking her thumb and looking up at Julia with a vulnerability that was both heartbreaking and terrifying.

“Come on, Alice,” Julia said, pretending it was perfectly natural to have a young human barnacle attached to her hip. She got out her Denver Kit, a collection of toys that were helpful in gauging a child’s development.

At the table, she set out the bell, the block, and the doll. “Sit down, Alice,” she said, knowing Alice would sit down when she did. The chairs were close enough that they could still be together.

Side by side, with Alice’s tiny hand still tucked in Julia’s pocket, they sat down. With the Denver Kit spread out in front of them, Julia waited for Alice to make a move.

“Come on,” Julia said. I need you to talk, little one. I know you can do it.”

Nothing. Just the gentle in and out of the girl’s breathing.

Desperation plucked at Julia’s confidence, broke a tender strand of it.

“Please.” Her voice was a whisper now, not her therapist-voice at all. She thought about the passing of time and the dwindling media interest and the increasingly quiet phone lines in the police station. “Please. Come on . . .”

W
HEN
E
LLIE AND
P
EANUT ARRIVED AT THE POLICE STATION, THE BUILDING
was quiet. Cal was at his desk, headphones on his head, drawing a picture of some winged creature. At their entrance, he turned the paper facedown.

As if Ellie cared to see his bizarre sketches. He’d been doing them since sixth grade. The only difference between him and every other guy she’d ever known was that Cal had never outgrown it. There were always doodles on her pink While You Were Out messages.

“Earl signed out,” Cal said, pushing a lock of hair out of his eyes. “Mel is going to make one more pass out toward the lake to check on the teens, and then he’s off, too.”

In other words, life in Rain Valley was back to normal. The phones weren’t ringing and her two patrol officers were off unless someone called in.

“And the DNA results are back. I put them on your desk.”

Ellie stopped. They all looked at one another. After a long moment she went to her desk and sat down. The chair squeaked in protest.

She picked up the official-looking envelope and opened it. The pages inside had a lot of mumbo-jumbo/scientist speak, but none of it mattered. At the midsection was the sentence:
No match found.

The second page was a lab report on the dress fibers. As expected, it revealed only that the dress was made of inexpensive white cotton that could have come from any of a dozen textile mills. There were no blood or semen traces in the fabric, no DNA present.

The final paragraph of the report outlined the procedure to be followed in the event that the DNA collected from Alice was to be tested against a found sample.

Ellie felt a wave of defeat. What now? She’d done everything she knew; hell, she’d thrown her sister to the wolves, and for what? They were no closer to an ID now than they’d been three weeks ago, and the people at DSHS were breathing down her neck.

Cal and Peanut pulled chairs across the room and sat in front of the desk.

“No ID?” Peanut asked.

Ellie shook her head, unable to say it out loud.

“You did the best you could,” Cal said gently.

“No one coulda done any better,” Peanut agreed.

After that, no one spoke. A real rarity here.

Finally, Ellie pushed the papers across her desk. “Send these results out to the people who are waiting. How many requests have we gotten?”

“Thirty-three. Maybe one of them is the match,” Peanut said hopefully.

Ellie opened her desk drawer and pulled out the stack of papers she’d gotten from the National Center for Missing Children. She’d read it at least one hundred times, using it as the only guidance she could find. The final paragraph had been burned into her brain. She didn’t need to read it again to know what it said.
If none of this produces a positive identification of the child, then social services should be called in. The child will most likely be placed in a permanent foster home or a residential treatment facility, or adopted out.

“What do we do next?” Peanut asked.

Ellie sighed. “We pray this DNA produces a match.”

They all knew how unlikely that was. None of the thirty-three requests had seemed particularly promising. Most of them had been made by people—parents and lawyers and cops from other jurisdictions—who believed the child being sought was dead. None of them had described Alice’s birthmark.

Ellie rubbed her eyes. “Let’s pack it in for the night. You can send out the DNA reports tomorrow, Pea. I have another phone conference with the lady from DSHS. That should be fun.”

Peanut stood up. “I’m meeting Benji at the Big Bowl. Anyone want to join me?”

“There’s nothing I like better than hanging around with fat men in matching polyester shirts,” said Cal. “I’m in.”

Peanut glared at him. “You want me to tell Benji you called him fat?”

Cal laughed. “It’ll come as no surprise to him, Pea.”

“Don’t get started, you two,” Ellie said tiredly. The last thing she wanted to listen to was a he said/she said fight over nothing. “I’m going home. You should, too, Cal. It’s Friday night. The girls will miss you.”

“The girls and Lisa went to Aberdeen to see her folks. I’m a bachelor this weekend. So, it’s the Big Bowl for me.” He looked at her. “You used to love bowling.”

Ellie found herself remembering the summer she and Cal had worked at the Big Bowl’s lunch counter. It had been that last magical year of childhood, before all the sharp edges of adolescence poked through. They’d been outcasts together that summer, best friends in the way that only two social rejects can be. The next summer she’d been too cool for the Big Bowl.

“That was a long time ago, Cal. I can’t believe you remember it.”

“I remember.” There was an edge to his voice that was odd. He walked over to the hooks by the door and grabbed his coat.

“It’s karaoke night,” Peanut said, smiling.

Ellie was lost and Peanut damn well knew it. “I guess a margarita couldn’t hurt.” It was better than going home. The thought of telling Julia about the DNA was more than she could bear.

O
N EITHER SIDE OF
R
IVER
R
OAD, GIANT
D
OUGLAS FIR TREES WERE AN
endless black saw blade of sharp tips and serrated edges. Overhead, the sky was cut into bite-sized pieces by treetops and mountain peaks. There were stars everywhere, some bright and so close you felt certain their light would reach down to the soggy earth, but when Ellie looked at her feet, there was only dark gravel beneath her.

She giggled. For a second she’d almost expected to look down and see a black mist there.

“Slow down,” Cal said, coming around the car. He took hold of Ellie’s arm, steadying her.

She couldn’t seem to stop looking at the sky. Her head felt heavy; so, too, her eyelids. “You see the Big Dipper?” It was directly to the left and above her house. “My dad used to say that God used it to pour magic down our chimney.” Her voice cracked on that. The memory surprised her. She hadn’t had time to raise her shield. “This is why I don’t drink.”