turned away quickly and closed my eyes but the sight of the body, missing its hands and feet, remained imprinted on the insides of my eyelids.
I backed away from the grave, dragging the kid along with me. Trixie started walking in circles, issuing a low, sad moan. I turned and put my hands on the kid’s shoulders.
“What’s your name?” I asked. I figured now was as good a time as any for introductions.
“Br…Br…”
“Brian?”
He shook his head, unable to form a complete word or thought.
“Bruce?”
He shook his head again.
“Brady?”
“Br…Br…Brendan,” he finally managed to get out.
I put my face close to his, steadying both of us with the pressure I put on his shoulders. “Brendan, do you want to go call 911 or stay here with the body?”
He pointed at my house.
“Good. Go over to my house and call 911. I’ll stay here.”
He started to walk away but when he reached the hedgerow, he turned back. “What should I tell them?”
Poor kid. “Tell them that you found a dead body. They’ll know what to do,” I said. “Then call your mom and tell her to come over here. You should stay with me because the police are going to want to question you.”
The look on his face almost broke my heart; it was a mixture of sadness, shock, and terror. In this one instance, his world had changed forever. I watched his shoulders sag as he walked toward my house.
I sat on the grass, a dozen feet or so from the grave, and waited for the chaos to begin.
Before Crawford left work, he spoke to the desk sergeant and told him to alert all sector cars to Alex’s disappearance. Most of the cops in the precinct knew Alex, and those who didn’t got a copy of a photograph that Crawford kept in his desk. “Put the word out, Sarge. Anybody who sees him should call me on my cell.”
He left work tired and dejected. He got in his car and headed toward Connecticut to pick up his daughters.
The slapping of the wipers on the windshield lulled him into an almost hypnotic state and he drove as if on autopilot, letting instinct and memory steer him in the right direction. He hadn’t talked to Alison since earlier that day, when he had been knee-deep in Maloney’s garbage in a Dumpster behind the bar. He and Carmen had found Alex’s stash—a blanket, a stack of books, and an empty bottle of Wild Turkey—right by the Dumpster and stayed around the area, looking for anything that would give them an idea of where he might be or might have gone. Crawford spied a bloody shirt hanging out of the Dumpster, but Tommy Maloney confirmed that a fight the night before in the bar had produced the rent and soiled garment. A call to the desk sergeant confirmed that there had been a fight the night before and a sector car had responded. He bagged the shirt anyway and asked the sergeant to hold the paperwork on the fight so that he could see it on Monday; he’d want to question everybody involved to see if they had seen Alex.
He arrived on Donald Street about forty minutes after he had left the precinct. He walked up the curving front walk of Christine’s small Tudor and rang the doorbell. She answered the door, looking beautiful in a black dress and the pearls he had given her for their first anniversary.
“You look nice,” he said, making her blush. She opened the door wide and let him in.
“Girls!” she called from the bottom of the stair.
Meaghan bounded down the stairs with her knapsack and ever-present iPod attached to her jeans. Erin followed close behind, in pajama pants and a tank top. Crawford raised an eyebrow. “Are you sick?”
Erin threw him a snotty look. “No.”
“Then why are you in your pajamas? I’m taking you to dinner.”
Meaghan laughed. “We always dress like that. Everyone does.”
Crawford pointed up the stairs. “Put on some clothes,” he said. “Please.” She stomped up the stairs, muttering at the injustice of it all. He looked at Meaghan. “You always dress like that? When? Where?”
“When we go to school. Or out.”
He shook his head. He didn’t have the energy to argue with them about something as trivial as wearing pajamas in public, and fortunately, Meaghan let it go. Erin came down the stairs a few minutes later in baggy jeans with a hole in one knee. He gave her another disapproving look; they weren’t a vast improvement