Where I Lost Her (25 page)

A
brown pit bull, its shoulders hunched, teeth bared, stares at me with beady, hungry eyes.

And so I run to the porch to bang on the back door of this house, readying myself for the attack. Waiting for his teeth to sink into my bare calves, to tear apart my flesh while I pound at the door. I imagine the futile struggle, prepare myself for death by dog.

But miracle of miracles, the door is ajar. I push into the house and slam the door shut behind me. The dog is on the porch within seconds. I can hear its nails scraping against the wooden door, and I wonder if it is strong enough to get inside.

“Help!” I scream then, suddenly aware I have just entered someone's home. And I realize I might not be any safer in here.

Still, I lock the deadbolt, my hands trembling. My entire body convulsing with what could have happened outside. And what might happen next.

“Help!” I scream again, hoping for mercy.

But I am met with silence.

No one is home. I have come into the back of the house, a small, dark foyer. There is a doorway to my left, and in front of me is a kitchen. It is dark in here, dusty. Pink floral wallpaper curls like peeling sunburned skin from the walls.

It's then that my senses are able to refocus, and the smell hits me. It is something rotten. Meat, tinged with a sort of sickening sweetness. I feel my stomach roiling, and I turn to the door on my left and hope that it is a bathroom. I lift my T-shirt to cover my nose, but the stench is too potent. I push open the door to my left and see a toilet. Dirty, rust-ringed, but I am so grateful. I kneel onto the filthy linoleum and vomit.

My head is pounding now. The hangover winning.

I stand back up, flush the toilet, and peer into the cracked mirror over the sink. I turn on the rusty faucet, though it is missing its handle, and the water runs brown into the cracked porcelain sink.

I need to get the hell out of here, but I am trapped. I go back out into the hallway and peer out the window. The dog is poised on the porch, still barking and growling. I feel like I might be sick again.

I am afraid to find what is causing the smell. It is unlike anything I have ever smelled before. Like rancid meat. Like garbage left out in the sun.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

“Hello?” I cry out again as I make my way into the kitchen. Flies buzz over the sink, piled with dishes, and the trash can, which is overflowing. Maybe this is where the smell is coming from?

Every cupboard door is open, and there are open jars. A peanut butter jar scraped clean, an empty bag of sugar. Potato chip bags, the plastic innards of cereal boxes with only crumbs remaining. There is a can of something—soup?—with a knife sticking out of it, as though someone has stabbed it. Thick lines of ants crisscross the counter, swarm in shuddering huddles on the crumbs.

“Hello?” I try again, as if there's any chance that whoever lives here could somehow still be here, lurking in the shadows.

The kitchen opens up to a dining room, though there is no dining room table. The room is full of boxes and bins. Garbage bags filled with clothes, some opened, the sleeves of sweaters and shirts reaching out.

The next room in this long chain is what appears to be a bedroom. There are two mattresses on the floor. One wall is painted a sort of Pepto-Bismol pink, and there is a purple Disney princess sleeping bag on one mattress. No sheets, caseless pillows, their ticking stained with yellow circles. There is a plastic Barbie castle in one corner. A box of condoms scattered on the floor. I can barely breathe.

I shield my eyes from the bright sunlight that pours through the bare windows in the last room, the living room. I step carefully across the threshold and gasp.

 

The woman sits prone on the chintz couch. Head thrown back as if in laughter. As though whatever happened to her occurred mid-conversation.

As my eyes adjust to the bright light, I can see that her skin is blistered. Bloated. Around her arm is belt of urine-colored tubing. A needle stuck in her arm, poised like a dagger in this putrefying, petrified flesh.

I turn away, bile burning my throat, the stench burning my eyes. Weeping, I return to the bedroom. I want to throw open the windows, but the dog is circling outside. I sit down on the mattress, afraid I might pass out. I put my head between my knees and try to breathe deeply, but it feels like I am inhaling the gases, and I worry that the toxins will enter my lungs, permeate my bloodstream.

I look up again, see a dresser I hadn't noticed before. The drawers are pulled out, the contents erupting. On top of the dresser is a wooden box, a McDonald's bag, and a framed picture.

I stand up and reach for the picture, knowing before I even look what I will see.

A young woman, presumably the one in the other room, stands in front of this same red house. She has one hip jutted out, her face gaunt, defiant as though challenging whoever is taking the photo. She seems not to even notice the little girl perched on her hip. The child leans her head against the woman's chest, thumb stuck in her mouth. Her eyes are wide and her hair is curly. She's wearing a bright pink raincoat, the sky behind her ominous. And on her feet are a pair of ladybug rain boots.

I
cover my face and run to the kitchen, to the counter where I saw the soup can. I can see now there is blood on the blade; she must have been trying to open the can with a knife. This would be how she got the cut in her hand. She was just trying to eat.

I feel a sob rising in my throat, but then this tremendous sorrow turns to rage.

This goddamned woman, this
mother,
shot up in her living room, overdosed, leaving her four-year-old child to fend for herself. I study the signs on the kitchen counter: the empty bread bag, peanut butter jar, torn Jell-O packets. On the stovetop is a pot with dry macaroni noodles burned to the bottom. I open the refrigerator and find an empty twelve-pack of Miller High Life, a bottle of Sriracha, a half gallon of sour milk. In the freezer, which is a cavern of ice, I see a few loose Otter Pops and a freezer-burned pound of ground beef.

How long was she here alone with her mother's body?

I see this house, this rotten stinking house now as she must have. I wonder if she ate that whole bag of sugar. The floor is gritty with it.

I imagine her trying to wake her mama up.

And I think then of the dog. That goddamned dog that Lisa or Sharp or Alfieri seems to have set free to roam these woods. The guardians of whatever illicit activities are going on here. I try to piece together what happened. How she found her way from this house to me in the road, and why on earth she would have fled from me. I could have taken care of her.

And now, I am terrified it is too late.

I still don't know her name. And so as I frantically make my way back through the house, checking each small room for some signs of life, I have nothing to call out to her. Stupidly, ridiculously, I scream, “Hello? Hello?”

I check the closets. I check behind the furniture, inside all of the kitchen cupboards. I check the bathroom again, throwing back the mildewed shower curtain liner that hangs from rusty rings.

She's not here.

And so I go back into the living room, try to avoid looking at the woman's body as I make my way to the front door, in case the dog is still waiting for me in the backyard. I figure if I can just get down the driveway to whatever road it connects to then I can flag someone down. It is morning now, and I pray there will be someone out on the road. A bicyclist even, another runner.

I start to open the door, growing dizzy as I realize I have been holding my breath. I sway a little, press my palm against the wall to steady myself, and then grab the doorknob.

But then I hear the sound of tires on gravel, and when I look out the window, I can see the white truck pulling up the drive.

I
run to the back of the house, to the kitchen. I search the counter, and find a phone amid the clutter. I reach for the receiver, feel its cold heft in my hand. I press it against my ear and pray.

A dial tone. Oh my God. The phone
works
.

Fingers trembling, I dial 911 and when the operator comes on—“911, what's your emergency?”—I have no words for what has happened here. For what
might
happen here now.

I hear a truck door slam and then another, the heavy sound of two sets of boots as they climb the steps.

“
Hello?
911.”

“I found . . .” I start as one of them tries the doorknob.

“It's locked,” a man growls.

“No, it isn't.”

“Where the hell's the key?”

“It's just stuck. I didn't lock it behind me.”

“Excuse me, ma'am, you're going to need to speak up,” the dispatcher says sharply.

Bang, bang, bang.
Is he kicking the door?

I whisper into the phone as clearly as I can. “I found a dead body. It's been here a long time.”

“A body? Where are you now, ma'am?”

I see a piece of mail on the counter and grab it, and I sink down to the floor, trying to make myself small, press my back into the counter, and study the address on the envelope.
Karina Rogers
.

“505 Lost Pond Road,” I read. “It's a red house.”

“Okay, ma'am, we'll send someone right out.”

“Wait,” I say. “There's a man trying to break in.”

“There's a man trying to break into the house?”

“Yes,” I say. “Please, please send somebody quickly.” I think about how long it took Strickland to arrive the night I found the little girl. How long will it take before he finds me in here?

“Can you get out of the house?” the dispatcher asks. “Is there a way for you to exit?”

I am too afraid to look out the back window to see if the dog is still there, canine sentinel standing guard, though I think I can hear its wet breath still. The low, steady growl.

“
No,
” I say, and shake my head. “Please send someone quickly.”

The blows are harder, louder. I scurry on my butt backwards, hitting the handle of the fridge with my head. A sharp pain sears in my skull.

“Hello?” the woman's voice is tinny inside the receiver.

I try to think about where I can hide. The bathroom maybe. I crawl on my hands and knees as quietly as I can to get to the small back hallway. I think of the knife on the counter and wonder if I should go back and grab it.

And then the front door gives.

I hear them stumble into the living room, listen as Sharp reels.

“Holy
shit,
” he says. “What the fuck, Vince?”

I hear him staggering around the living room, imagine him yanking up his shirt to cover his mouth. The smell is so strong, but it is no longer making my eyes burn.

“I told you,” Alfieri says.

“Motherfucker.”

“Delivered to her just over a week ago. Looks like she shot the whole fucking motherlode herself. Kid musta been on her own for a couple days before I found her.”

Kid?
My ears prick up, tears sting my eyes.

“Fuckin' brought her home that night and found this shit.”

Alfieri
found her?

I struggle to make sense of what they're saying.

So that night the little girl must have left this house, wandered down through the woods into the road where I found her. Then she got scared and ran back through woods to Sharp's property. Alfieri would have been pulling into Sharp's just after he blew past me on the road. He must have found her, recognized her, and decided to take her back home, here, to her junkie mom. I picture the barrette slipping from her tangled curl as he scooped her up. She would have seen his dog in the truck then, and it would have growled at her. Bared its teeth at her. Scared her.
Sharp
. I have to stifle a sob.

I hear them coming toward the kitchen.

I manage to get to the bathroom, and I crawl across the filthy floor on my hands and knees. My wounded hand throbs, and the gauze bandage is stained again. I try not to think about what sort of diseases I might pick up here. About all the terrible things that have happened in this house.

I push the door closed gently with my foot, and I startle when it latches shut. I pray they didn't hear the sound. Pray that it was imperceptible against all the noise they're making as they tear the house apart.

“Fucking junkies,” Sharp says, slamming open cupboard doors.

“It's not here. I already looked,” Alfieri says. “I told you. She blew it all herself.”

“You think Lisa's gonna come back for the kid?” Sharp asks.

“Highly doubtful,” Alfieri says. “She's bailed.”

“What are we gonna do with her then? Can't keep her down there forever.”

Oh my God, oh my God. They have her.
My heart is pounding in my ears. I feel like I might pass out.

“Who fuckin' knows? Place has been crawling with cops; that's why I haven't come back here to deal with this. But it's just a matter of time before somebody comes up here and finds this shit, figures out it's her kid. That's all it'll take before they start searching again. And
that
is a shit storm I'd like to avoid.”

My mind is reeling.

So after he found her, Alfieri decided to bring the little girl here, back home to her mother, but found her overdosed. By the time he got back to Sharp's, there were cops everywhere searching for her. Dogs. Helicopters. And because they're drug dealers, they couldn't just go to the cops with her. So what
did
they do with her? Where are they keeping her? And what will they do with her now?

“Somebody finds the kid, dude, I'm going back to Norfolk,” Sharp says. “We're gonna need to get rid of her.”

Alfieri coughs and starts to gag. “Goddamn. This reeks. Let's just deal with one fucking disaster at a time.”

And then there is an eerie quiet.

I think of the 911 dispatcher, wonder if she's still listening. Worry that she will say something, that he will hear her voice on the phone. Hope to God this is recording. That she's heard every word they've said.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I try not to breathe. Not to make a single sound. I try to make myself invisible. And I wait.

Then, I hear their footsteps receding. Back through the house: stomping across the kitchen linoleum, then on the wood floors of the bedroom, and finally back into the living room. They're in there for a long time. I press my hand against my chest, trying to keep my heart from leaping out of it.

What are they doing?

I hear the front door slam shut, let out a cry. It escapes from my lips, a sort of keening. When I try to stand, my legs are too weak. Trembling, as though the bones have turned to ash.

I can hear the truck as it backs out of the driveway, and I wonder where the hell the cops are. Jesus Christ, how long has it been?

I don't leave the bathroom until I am sure they're gone. Only then do I dare pull the door open and go back out into that house. I look around at the wreckage. It was already a disaster, but now it's completely trashed. Nothing has been left untouched. It is a miracle that he didn't find me.

I make my way through the bedroom. I stop and grab the photo on the dresser, peer at her face, those big eyes. I pull the back off the frame and slip the photo out from behind the glass. What have they done with her?

I need to be here when the cops arrive. To show them the picture. My God. I can do this, I think. Just make one foot step in front of the other.

But as I walk into the living room, I peer into the bright light at the stained chintz couch and see.

She's gone.