“It was probably just a dog that looked like a coyote.”
“No, no. I’m telling you, it was a fucking coyote.”
“Well, maybe it was lost,” Crista said.
For the rest of the night Tom couldn’t shake what he’d seen in the parking lot. Maybe it was just a dog. Had to be. Coyotes don’t come this far into the city. Hell, it was probably some dog that someone brought in from the rez and it got loose. Yeah, that was it.
“Hey, you all right?” Crista asked. “You look like you could use another drink.” She ordered them a round.
Crista reminded Tom of his first wife, who knew what to do. In a time of crisis she was like Captain Kirk, putting out orders and securing the ship.
The fluorescent lights were coming on, signaling closing time. The lights cast a garish glow on the leftovers from the Friday-night crowd and a shadow on Tom’s alcohol-soaked brain.
“You look like you need a ride home. My truck’s outside, parked near the 99 Cent store. It’s a tan Chevy with a feather hanging from the rearview mirror. I’ll be out in a few minutes.” She handed Tom her keys and left him to fend for himself.
As Tom made his way around the parking lot he wondered where he’d end up with Crista. Probably some Motel 6 in Glendale near I-17, he thought. More like Motel 69, and he laughed at his own joke. Her truck was backed in. A click of the key fob and the door unlocked. The smell that greeted him was the same smell as Crista’s. Something odd, something dark. He couldn’t put a finger on it. Tom settled into the passenger seat and waited. His head was spinning now, so he rolled down the window. Couples poured into the parking lot and groped at each other; some stopped to make out next to their vehicles. Tom leaned into the soft seat, rested his head against the door, and waited for Crista.
When he came to, he was no longer in the front seat. He was in the backseat and he had the sensation that he was moving at high speed. He sat up and saw pine trees whizzing past him. He’d sobered up enough to know he was no longer in Crista’s car. The crew cut was driving.
“Hey! Where’s Crista? What’re you doing?”
“I had to get you outta there,” said the crew cut.
“Where’s that woman I was with?”
“I think she’s after us.”
“After us? Where’re you taking me? What’s going on here?”
“Hang on. You got your seat belt on? You’re gonna need it.”
Headlights pierced through the darkness behind them. Tom looked back to see the truck following them. It was gaining on them.
“That woman you were with practices sacrifice to get what she wants.” The crew cut pressed on the gas and made the curve past the scenic outlook above Sedona. Something moved outside the window. Whatever it was, it was keeping up with them. It leaped toward the window and Tom saw it. A beast covered with hair, covered with skins. He remembered the stories of the shape-shifters coming out at night to claim their victims. Whatever it was, it shook Tom to the bone, and his heart nearly stopped.
“Jeeezus! Did you see that?” he shouted to the crew cut.
“I know, I know. Bet you wish you hadn’t danced with her.”
“You mean …?” The pieces were beginning to fall into place. What he’d seen in the parking lot. The smell. Crista.
The tires screeched and he felt the car moving on two wheels before it turned on its side into the shoulder and rolled into the pine trees. The crash broke a trail of pine needles and dust, mixed with the metallic sound of glass and metal breaking.
When Tom opened his eyes he wished he knew a death song, something to make meaning of it all. He saw the tree tops swaying and detected the faint smell of pine. Then the dark shape of the face he’d seen earlier looking down at him.
A
s I turned into my apartment complex, sack of Chinese takeout from Hong Kong Garden in hand, Szechuan bean curd, Buddhist Delight, a man stood from where he’d been sitting on the low wall by the bank of flowers and ground out his cigarette underfoot. He wore a cheap navy-blue suit that nonetheless fit him perfectly, gray cotton shirt, maroon tie, oxblood loafers. He had the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Miss Rowan? Jack Collins, violent crimes.” With an easy, practiced motion he flipped open his wallet to display a badge. “You give me a minute of your time?”
“Why not. Come on up.”
Without asking, I spooned food out onto two plates and handed one to him. For a moment he looked surprised, but only for a moment, then tucked in.
“So what can I do for you, Jack Collins?” I asked between bites. We stood around the kitchen island. Tiles chipped at the edge, grout stained by untold years of spills and seasoned by time to a light brown. The kitchen radio, as always, was on. After 6:00 the station switches from classical to jazz. Lots of tenor sax. California bebop beating its breast.
“Well, first, I guess, you could tell me why you handed me this plate.”
“You’re not wearing a wedding ring. Your shirt needs press-ing, and even with that suit and tie, you have on white socks. A wife or girlfriend would have called you on that. So I figure you live alone. People who live alone are usually up for a meal. Especially at 6:30 in the evening.”
“And here I thought
I
was the detective.” He forked in the last few mouthfuls of food. “Vegetarian?”
I admitted to it as he went to the sink, rinsed off utensils and plate, and set them in the rack.
“I know what happened to you,” he said.
“You mean how I spent my early years.”
“Danny and all the rest, yes.”
“Those records were sealed by the court.”
“Yeah, well …”
He came back to collect my dishes and utensils, took them to the sink and rinsed them, added them to the rack. Stood there looking out the window above the sink. Another tell that he’s a bachelor, used to living alone. Maybe just a little compulsive.
“Look, I’m just gonna say this. I spent the last few hours up at the county hospital, Maricopa. Young woman by the name of Cheryl got brought in there last night. Twenty years old going on twelve. Way it came about was, the neighbors got a new dog that wouldn’t stop barking. They didn’t have a clue, tried everything. Then, first chance the dog had, it shot out the door, parked itself outside the adjoining apartment, and wouldn’t be drawn away. Finally they called 911. Couple of officers responded, got no answer at the door, had the super key them in. Found Cheryl in a closet, bound and gagged, clothespins on her nipples, handmade dildos taped in place in her vagina and rectum. Guy was a woodworker, apparently—one of the responding officers is a hobbyist himself, says this mook used only the best quality wood, tooled it down to a high shine. Cheryl didn’t talk much to begin with. Then about 5 this morning she stopped talking at all. Just started staring at us. Like she was behind thick glass looking out.”
“Yeah, that’s what happens. You get tired of all the questions, you know they’re never going to understand.”
“Mook got home from work not long after the officers arrived on the scene. Had some sort of club there by the door, apparently, and came at them with it. Junior officer shot him dead, a single shot to the head. Training officer, twenty-plus years on the job, he’d never once drawn his piece.”
Collins opened the refrigerator door and rummaged about, extracting a half-liter bottle of sparkling water. Mostly flat when he shook it, but hey. He poured glasses for both of us and threw in sliced limes from the produce drawer.
“Look, you don’t want to go back into all that, I’ll understand. But we’ve got nothing except blind alleys north, south, east, and west. No idea who this girl—this woman—is. Where she’s from, how long she’s been there.”
“Twenty going on twelve, you said.”
He shrugged. “Could just be shock. One of the doctors mentioned sensory deprivation, talked about developmental lag. A nurse thought she might be retarded. At any rate …” He put a business card on the island between us. “They’re keeping her at the hospital overnight, for observation. You see your way clear to visiting her, talking with her, I’d appreciate it.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Fair enough.”
“Anyone ever tell you you have beautiful eyes, Officer Collins?”
“My mother used to say that. Funny. I’d forgotten …” He smiled. “Thanks for the meal, Ms. Rowan—and for your time. If by some chance you should happen to change your mind, give me a call, I’ll drive.”
I saw him to the door, tried to listen to music, picked up a Joseph Torra novel and put it back down after reading the same paragraph half a dozen times, found myself in a bath at 2 a.m. wide awake and thinking of things best left behind. Not long after 6, I was on the phone.
“Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No problem. Alarm’ll be going off soon anyway.”
“Your offer still open?”
Nowadays, whenever anyone asks me where I’m from, I tell them Westwood Mall. I love seeing the puzzled look on their faces. Then they laugh.
Everyone here’s from somewhere else, so it’s doubly a joke.
But I really am from Westwood Mall. That’s where I grew up.
I was eight years old when I was taken. I’d had my birthday party the week before, and was wearing the blue sweater my parents gave me, that and the pink jeans I loved, and my first pair of earrings.
His name was Danny. I thought he was old, of course, everybody over four feet tall looked old to me, but he was probably only in his twenties or thirties. He liked Heath bars and his breath often smelled of them. He wasn’t much for brushing teeth or bathing. His underarms smelled musty and animal-like, his privates had an acid smell to them, like metal in your mouth. Some days I can still taste that.
I really don’t remember much about the first year. Danny kept me in a box under his bed. He’d built it himself. I loved the smell of the fresh pine. He took the jeans and sweater but let me keep my earrings. He’d come home and slide me out, pop the top—two heavy hasps, I remember, two huge padlocks like in photos of Houdini—his own personal sardine. He’d bring me butter pecan sundaes that were always half-melted by the time he got home. I felt safe there in the box, sometimes imagined myself as a kind of genie, summoned into the world to grant my summoner’s wishes, to perform magic.
I’m not sure I was much more than a doll for him. Something he took out to play with. But he’d be so eager when he came home, so I don’t know. His penis would harden the moment I touched it. Sometimes he’d come then, and afterwards we’d just lie together on his bed. Other times he’d put things up me, cucumbers, shot glasses, bottles, either up my behind or what he called my cooze. He’d always pet my hair and moan quietly to me when he did that.
He worked as a nurse’s aide at Good Samaritan and as a corrections officer at the prison out in Florence, pool and swing shifts at both, irregular hours, so I never had much idea what time of day it was when I felt my box being pulled out. Sometimes, from inside, I’d smell the heavy sweetness of the sundae. I was always excited.
Two years after I was taken, we went to Westwood Mall, the first outing we’d ever had. It was our second anniversary, Danny explained, and he wanted to do something special to celebrate. He gave me a pearl necklace, real pearls, he said, and I promised to behave. He’d even bought a pretty blue dress and shoes for me. At Acropolis Greek I stabbed his hand with a plastic knife, kicked off the shoes, and fled. I was surprised at how easily the knife went in, at the way it broke off when I twisted. Flesh should not be that vulnerable, that penetrable.
After that, I lived in the mall. Found safe places to hide from security guards, came out at night or during the rush hours to dine off an abundance of leftover fast food, had my pick of T-shirts, jackets, and all manner of clothing left behind, read abandoned books and newspapers. I had turned from genie to Ms. Tarzan. Periodically I’d watch from various vantage points as Danny prowled the mall hoping to find me. You may remember apocryphal tales of Mall Girl, sightings of which were first reported at Westwood then quickly spread throughout the city’s other malls. Eventually everyone came to believe the whole thing was ex nihilo, spun from vapor to whole cloth, no more than a self-serving stunt. The journalist who first reported these tales and devoted weeks of her column to following up on them, Sherry Bayles, was summarily fired. Lack of journalistic integrity, the paper cited. Later, when she was working as a substitute teacher, more or less by simple chance we became friends. She’s the only one I ever told about my days in the mall. Endearingly, she did no more than smile and nod.
My Edenic time at Westwood ended after eighteen months. A newly hired security guard gave credence to the stories and lay in wait for me long after his shift was done. I was biting into half a leftover hamburger I’d fished out of one of the trash containers when he came up behind me and said, “I’d be happy to buy you a whole one.” His name was Kevin, a really nice man. He bought me that hamburger, complete with fries and shake, on the way to the police station. There, a Mrs. Cabot from Family Services picked me up.
So the second—third? fourth?—act of my life began.
Next morning I woke up in what they call a holding facility. Whatever they called it, it was an animal pen, thirty or forty kids all stuffed in there. One of them came snuffling around my bed like a pig after truffles around 3 a.m. and left with a bloody nose, down one tooth. At 8:00 they gave me a breakfast of underdone, runny eggs with greasy bacon mixed in and carted me off to see a social worker.
She said her name was Miss Taylor. “The report states that you’ve been living on your own in the mall. Is that right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you’re eleven?”
“Almost twelve.”
“You told the admitting nurse that before this, you spent two years in a box under someone’s bed.”
Miss Taylor was sitting behind a desk in an office chair. She rocked back and forth, staring at me. When she rocked back, she went out of sight. There she was. Gone. There she was again.