Lieutenant Myron shoves fingers through her uprooted hair. “If she was an illegal immigrant, or kidnapped, that makes our job nearly impossible. Her family wouldn’t want to reveal its illegal status and certainly wouldn’t stick their DNA in a database. If they thought a drug cartel grabbed their daughter, there’s even less of a chance-they wouldn’t want to piss them off. Those guys hang headless bodies from bridges. The family would need to protect their other daughters if they have them.”
Jo nods her head in agreement. “She’s right. I’ve worked on some of the bones of girls and women who have been murdered and buried in the desert near Juarez. Talked to the families. They’re scared shitless. There are hundreds of girls in that desert. More every year.”
“I can only share my science.” Igor shrugs. “And, frankly, I drummed up a lot more than is usual in cold cases like this. This is a fairly new strategy in forensic science. We are lucky these women lived in places where we have established soil databases. My dream is that we can map out a good portion of the geological world in the next decade, but it’s spotty as hell at the moment.”
Bill’s face is inscrutable, but I know what he’s thinking. It’s too late for this. Someday, science may give the Susans back their names, but not in time for Terrell.
It’s Lieutenant Myron who jumps up, newly animated. She walks over and gives Bill a playful punch in the shoulder. “Cheer up. You’re one of those Texans who believes in evolution, aren’t you?” She turns to the rest of us.
“We’ll get busy with missing person and newspaper databases,” she says. “In an hour, we’ll be looking for missing girls in their late teens or early twenties from Tennessee and Mexico that fit our time frames. I’m most hopeful on the Tennessee angle. Good job, Dr. Frankenstein. This is something real. Y’all think I don’t care? I care. I just like real.”
She wouldn’t want to be in my head. I’m wondering why none of the Susans speak to me in Spanish.
I enter the house quietly and see my Death Row clothes folded and stacked neatly in a kitchen chair. I wonder if Charlie or Lucas alienated them from the others; it’s a toss-up as to which one sees through me better.
Charlie’s volleyball clothes are piled on the coffee table. A vacuum cleaner has swallowed up the popcorn crumbs in front of the couch. Lucas has been taking care of the mundane, important details of my life while I’ve been trying to fathom how we are so deeply connected to the earth and wind that it is cooked into our bones.
I have no problem believing Dr. Igor. It wasn’t exactly science, but there was a period when I believed that if someone brushed my shoulder by accident or shook my hand that black-eyed Susan pollen would rub off like a sticky curse. People had thought I was obsessive-compulsive because I ignored outstretched hands. I was just protecting them.
I’m a big girl now. I offer strangers the firm grip of my grandfather and swallow my daughter in a hug twice a day and let friends take a sip from my Route 44 Sonic iced tea, all without breaking out in a sweat. That doesn’t mean Black-Eyed Susan isn’t still who I am. It’s a brand. Like schizophrenic. Fat. ADD.
Lucas rises briefly from the couch, then falls back down when he sees me. He’s already asleep again, a soldier grabbing zzz’s while he can, so I don’t call out for Charlie. She’s probably in her room doing her complicated dance. Jane Austen, calculus, Snapchat. Repeat.
It’s at moments like these that I find it hard to explain to myself and to Charlie why Lucas and I don’t work as a permanent team. How many lieutenant colonels would fold girls’ underwear? I smell potato soup gurgling in the Crockpot because that is about the sum total of Lucas’s dinner repertoire. Potatoes, onions, milk, salt, pepper, butter. Bacon bits, for Charlie. If pressed, he can also kick out a pretty mean bologna and mustard sandwich.
Normal always tries to cuddle up with me but I tend to push it away. My mother was making brownies one second and then she was dead on the kitchen floor. That is my baseline for normal. After that, it’s a very jagged graph.
I set my purse on the kitchen counter. Beautiful Ghost has been shoved off to the side with some unopened mail. I want to read it, and I can’t bear to touch it. It will hold answers about Lydia I can’t fathom knowing, or I’ll prick my finger on its paper and fall into a cursed sleep. My fingers absently examine the foil-wrapped brick on the counter, which wasn’t there this morning. The scrawl on the masking tape label declares it to be Effie’s Carob Fig Bread Surprise. Almost all of Effie’s recipes have the word Surprise tacked to the end, and if they don’t, they should.
I wonder if her daughter is next door right now trying to politely chew and swallow. As I pulled in the driveway, I noted the Ford Focus with New Jersey plates parked at Effie’s. She had told me last week in excited tones that her daughter was venturing down South for a visit. I discounted it, thinking she was confused with the time that Sue made that false promise a year ago, or even three years ago. I don’t know what her arrival means after years of staying away, but I hope it’s good for Effie. Maybe Sue got a peek of the digger snatcher who lives in Effie’s brain, too. He’s a first-class thief all right, just not the kind Effie thinks. The sight of all those diggers lined up in a row still sends a chill through me.
I toss an afghan over Lucas and decide to check on Charlie. Her bedroom door is shut tight. I knock. No response. I knock again a little harder before turning the knob. The white lights strung around the ceiling are twinkling, a sign she was planning to be camped out here for a while. But no Charlie.
A slight noise on the other side of the wall, in my room. A sniffle? Is she sick? Seeking comfort in my bed while I’m off on a field trip with the Susans? Guilt washes over me. Lucas should have called to let me know. Maybe the flu shot didn’t take, or her allergies are acting up, or Coach scratched her fragile teen-age heart with an offhand remark.
No. Not sick. Charlie’s cross-legged on my bed like Lydia used to be, her curls falling forward, intent on what she’s reading. There’s a frenzy of paper everywhere, littering the bed, the old antique rug on the floor. My backpack rests against the pillow behind her. It’s unzipped for the first time since I returned from Huntsville. I want to scream No, but it’s way too late.
Charlie’s cheeks are slick with tears. “I was looking for a highlighter.”
She holds up a piece of paper.
I know in that instant that our relationship will never be the same.
“Is this why you won’t eat Snickers bars?” she asks.
Before I can utter a word, Lucas is there. He’s holding out my phone, which I’d left on the kitchen counter with my purse.
“It’s Jo. She says that you have to come back to her office. Immediately.”
September 1995
MR. LINCOLN: Lydia… I can call you Lydia, right?
MS. BELL: Yes.
MR. LINCOLN: Exactly how long have you known Tessa Cartwright?
MS. BELL: Since second grade. Our desks were in alphabetical order. Tessie’s aunt used to say that God made out that seating chart.
MR. LINCOLN: And you’ve been best friends since? For ten years?
MS. BELL: Yes.
MR. LINCOLN: So when Tessie went missing you must have been terrified?
MS. BELL: I had a really bad feeling right away. We had like a secret way of letting each other know we were OK. We’d call the other one and let the phone ring twice. And then we’d wait five minutes and let the phone ring twice again. It was kind of a silly thing we did when we were little. But I stayed home and waited.
MR. LINCOLN: Tessie didn’t call? And you never left the house?
MS. BELL: No. Well, I left for about ten minutes to check her tree house.