“I remember you,” Grace says to the officer with the smooth face and dark curls. His hair is dented where he wore his hat. “Please have a seat. May I get you something to drink?”
“No, ma’am,” he says. “I’m Officer Warinski.” He nudges the gentleman standing at his side. “Officer Thompson.”
“Do you have word of Elizabeth?” Grace says.
“They wonder if something has happened here, Grace,” James says, gesturing for her to take a seat.
She sits on the edge of the skirted sofa, gathers her crochet work from the coffee table, and spreads it across her lap. The tweed sofa, even through the fabric of her cotton skirt, is rough against the backs of her legs.
“Wonder if what has happened?”
“We’ve questioned a man,” the taller officer says, “in connection with a crime in the area.”
Grace clears her throat, smiles for the two officers, and scoots back, settling into the cushions. When she started crocheting the baby’s blanket two months ago, she chose a bulky white yarn suitable for a boy or girl. Placing her fingers to the hook’s flat grip, she pokes the head through the bottom loop. As she begins her first stitch, James walks around the back of the sofa and rests his hands on her shoulders. She grabs his fingers and kisses the back of one wrist.
“Is it to do with Elizabeth?” she asks. Yarn over, draw through, yarn over, release.
“This man,” Officer Warinski says, ignoring Grace’s question, “has given us information about a crime at this location.”
The door is closed behind the two men and the breeze is gone. The house is dark because Grace never drew open the drapes. She begins another single crochet. That was her twelfth stitch. She must remember to count. So often she forgets and has to pull out her work and start again.
“A crime?” she says. The tightness begins in her stomach and rises into her throat. Again, “A crime?” She hears her own voice as if it’s someone else’s.
“I told them they were mistaken,” James says, kneading her shoulders with his fingers. “No mischief around here.”
“None,” Grace says, she thinks she says. She loses her stitch. “No mischief around here.”
Both officers stare at her, only at her.
“Could we speak in private, ma’am?” Officer Warinski says.
“Our supper is growing cold.” Grace’s neck is damp under James’s hands. “I haven’t anything to add.”
“Wrong house, I suppose,” James says, and pulls his hands from Grace’s shoulders. “Though I can’t say I’ve heard of any trouble for the neighbors, either.” He walks past the men and opens the door. “Other than the Symanskis.”
He doesn’t tell them about Orin Schofield firing his rifle or the fire in the garbage can or the broken windows more and more neighbors are waking up to. Protecting the street, Grace supposes. Like parents protect a child. Since Elizabeth disappeared, all the neighbors are beginning to do the same. No one wants to admit what is becoming, what has become, of Alder Avenue.
Officer Thompson steps outside. The officer with the curls, Officer Warinski, makes no move to leave and continues to study Grace. He is young, too young really.
“This man, he says a woman was hurt here,” the young officer says. “At this address. Quite badly, we believe.”
Grace lifts her chin. Her face must be red, but she could blame it on the heat. She touches her top lip with the end of her tongue. The sore spot has nearly healed over.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “If someone was hurt, I’m terribly sorry. Please tell her. If you find her. Tell her I’m so very sorry.”
Waiting for the second officer to leave, James holds open the door. Fresh air rushes through the house again, chilling the damp spots James left on Grace’s neck and shoulders.
“If you think of anything,” Officer Warinski says. Again, his eyes are only on Grace. “Any information would be helpful.” He dips his head, watches her. “It might be our only chance.”
“To find Elizabeth?” James says. “Is that what you mean? Did this man take her? Is that what happened?”
“I’m afraid we can’t discuss the particulars,” Officer Thompson says from the front porch.
“Can’t,” James says, “or won’t? This is our neighborhood. We’ve a right to know.”
Officer Thompson shakes his head but offers nothing more. The other officer continues to stare at Grace, waiting and watching for a clue that she has lied to them.
“Mind if we have a look out back?” the curly-haired Warinski says. “Give your garage a once-over.”
James leans against the doorjamb, crosses one foot over the other again. “Don’t see the need,” he says. “It’ll only get the neighbors to talking, and I don’t see the sense in that.”
“Ma’am,” Officer Warinski says. “Do you see the need?”
Grace shakes her head and runs her fingers across the many rows she has crocheted over the last few months. Mother says the stitches are too tight, too simple.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t,” she says. “It would be a waste of your valuable time.”
James dips his head as if he were wearing a hat. “Gentlemen,” he says, signaling the men should leave. “We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”
Officer Warinski crosses in front of James and follows the other officer outside.
“One moment,” Grace says from her seat on the sofa.
The men reappear in the doorway, remove their hats again.
“What is it you would have liked to hear me say?”
“Ma’am?”
“You’ve arrested a man?”
“He’s in our custody,” the taller officer says.
“What can I say to you, here and now, that will keep him from our streets? Tell me about this crime and I’ll say yes. I’ll say it happened. Even though it’ll be a lie, wouldn’t that help you?”
The officer with the dark curls and smooth skin steps forward. “Sir,” he says to James. “Will you leave us?”
“I damn sure will not,” James says, and drops down on one knee in front of Grace. “What are you talking about, Gracie? Did something happen?”
Grace stretches out one hand, touches James’s rough jaw. He only shaves every few days now. All of the men look the same-tired, drawn, their belts cinched a little tighter because even though the ladies feed them every day, they seem to have lost weight. Or maybe it’s the way they carry themselves, walking with short strides and hunched backs as if burdened by a heavy load, that makes them look like less than they were before Elizabeth disappeared.
“No, James. Nothing’s happened. But maybe I could say something that would help these men. Something that would help Elizabeth, help keep our streets safe.”
It’s too late to protect Elizabeth, but Grace can still save the twins or possibly another one of the ladies. She can get that man off of Alder Avenue before he tries again to set things right. If the one they’ve arrested knows what happened to Grace and that it happened here at this address, he must be one of the three. It’s probably the one who slipped out into the alley because he couldn’t bear the sight. He can give the police a name, direct them toward the man who did this terrible thing to her and to Elizabeth. But if there was no crime, the police will have no need of a name.
“Tell me,” Grace says. “I’ll say whatever I must to help Elizabeth.”
“Would you say a woman was attacked in your garage?” Again, it’s the officer with the dark curls. “Would you say three men threw her to the ground, that one of those men violated her while another held her down? Would you say those things?”
James pushes off the ground and lunges at the man. The second officer stops him with a stiff arm to his chest.
“Tell me, Mrs. Richardson,” the curly-haired officer says, ignoring James and keeping his eyes firmly on Grace. He drops his gaze to the small cut on her upper lip and lets his eyes roam over her face as if searching for more scratches and bruises. “Did these things happen? Did they happen to you?”