far wall. No books to speak of. A desk in the corner stacked with bills and other papers. I noticed some burn marks on the plaid couch, and there was a pile of newspapers and a dirty ashtray on top a frail-looking coffee table. The dog lay curled up on a gray comforter like it was just another piece of furniture, watching me out of the corner of its eye.
“Just you and me today,” I said to it.
The dog sort of sniffed and looked away.
“Come on,” I said, “don’t be that way.”
I went over to pet it, but as I drew closer, its ears flattened, its eyes flicked up toward me, and the lowest murmur rumbled in its throat. Not quite a growl, but I decided not to take any chances.
“Another time then,” I said, backing away.
I found out later that the dog’s name was Poppy. Old Poppy never did warm up to me. Maybe he knew what I’d done.
I turned to the desk and looked through some of the papers, mostly money stuff—bills, a few paycheck stubs, things like that. I learned that Chris’s father’s name was Barry and that he worked at a plumbing supply store. The mother’s name was Sheila. She worked at Wal-Mart.
The only part of the house I hadn’t explored yet was the basement. I found the door to it in the kitchen and headed down the wobbly steps. The heavy odor of concrete filled the space, and the two naked bulbs at either end cast a feeble light. The air seemed thick. There was the furnace and water heater in one corner. A freezer chest, washing machine, and dryer in the other. The third corner was full of messily stacked boxes and bins. I didn’t feel like going through them. Later, I thought.
The fourth corner was blocked off by a pair of sheets hanging from a clothesline nailed to the joists. I poked my head in and saw a tiny table with chairs around it. Some of the chairs had stuffed rabbits and bears in them, a few were empty. There was a little lamp in the corner next to a toy carriage and beside the carriage was a box full of toy tractors, dump trucks, bulldozers, and cars. I turned on the lamp and looked through the box. The toys inside were all pretty beat up, but neatly arranged. In fact, the whole corner was tidy, with everything, even the chairs, symmetrically ordered. There were some pictures on the wall that I guessed Echo had drawn. They were cute—pictures of her stuffed bears and her frog, all playing in a field with the sun shining down, a big yellow circle spiked with orange. Other scenes were at night, with the bears dancing beneath the moon. The whole thing was kind of weird, but so far it was my favorite place in the entire house.
I turned the lamp off and headed upstairs. All in all, I wasn’t sure what to make of the Parkers’ house. I’d seen plenty of family homes on TV, especially in the sitcoms, but this was different. It wasn’t so much the clutter, or even the smells all stirring together. There was a dingy feeling about the place, as if a layer of some kind of poisonous dust had fallen over everything in the house: invisible, but palpable. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but somehow the whole place seemed less real than the homes I’d gotten to know on all my favorite shows.
I went back to Chris’s room for some daytime TV. Gilligan’s Island was on (of course), but I didn’t watch it. There was a football game on one of the sports channels, so I watched that instead. I decided I should bone up. Who knew what position Chris might play? It felt good to study the game, to take note of what all the players were doing. I was getting a grip, taking control. I could do this.
At halftime I flicked to a local channel in time to catch the news flash. The caption in big letters along the top—“Body Found”—made my heart start to pound. The anchor was talking, and beneath the caption was a box showing footage of police carrying a blanketed stretcher. I turned up the volume and listened.
“…today recovered the remains of twenty-six-year-old Jill Vitelli, last seen on Friday. Her body was discovered this morning outside of Springfield by a fisherman along the banks of the Killmartin River. There is no word