The Next Time You See Me (37 page)

He shrugged.

“Juice? Some fruit?”

“That’s fine,” he muttered.

She went to the cafeteria, surprised at what a difference a day
made—that she would now trust Christopher alone in her classroom. The menu was boiled hot dogs and baked beans, and the smell was enough to turn a healthy stomach. She went through the line with a tray, taking just a paper container of fries for herself—she had planned to have her regular microwave lunch, but she didn’t want to take the time to pop by the teachers’ lounge. The only fresh fruit was a bowl of small, mushy-looking apples, so she grabbed one of those and also a container of fruit cocktail, the kind she hadn’t eaten in years, with little cubes of peach and pear and maraschino cherries. The orange juice came in a plastic cup with a foil seal, and she took one of those, too.

Christopher picked at the food. She had insisted that he join her in the empty classroom, thinking that at least the light and fresh air would do him some good, but it was awkward between them, always awkward to be a teacher and a student out of a familiar context, away from the rituals that defined who and how they were supposed to be to each other. Susanna finally pulled out the novel she’d been reading off and on for the last two weeks, spreading it open between the thumb and pinky of her left hand so that she could lift French fries to her mouth with the right. It was a John Grisham thriller, the kind of thing she should have been able to finish in a day or two, but focusing was hard lately; planning her lessons each day was challenge enough. Still, it gave her something to fix her eyes upon, even if she did have to reread the same sentence several times, and she had gotten through most of her meal this way, hardly registering the taste of the mushy, undersalted fries, when Christopher said in a choked voice, “Mrs. Mitchell, there’s something I think I need to tell you.”

She laid the book on the desktop. His eyes were very red, as if he had allergies, and his fingers were woven together and clenched tightly. “Yes?” she asked. “What is it?”

“I know something about Emily Houchens. About where she went after school yesterday.”

Susanna’s temples prickled. She felt a sudden, horrible certainty that Christopher had hurt Emily—that perhaps he, in concert with
some of the other punished students, had played another, more dangerous prank on her. “If you know something,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, “you better say so immediately.”

“Are you going to tell my mom?”

“I don’t know what you’re about to say, Christopher. There might be no way that I can’t tell her.”

She was shocked when tears started rolling down his face. “Emily gave me a note yesterday and told me to ride the bus with her after school. She said she had something to show me. She said it was about you.” His hands were tucked into the sleeves of the puffy jacket, and he wiped his eyes on the crook of his shoulder.

“Slow down,” Susanna said. “She told you to meet her? Not the other way around?”

“Yes,” he said emphatically. “I came back to the closet after lunch and the note was in one of my books.”

“And she said it was about me?”

“Yes,” he said again.

Her mouth tasted dry and starchy from the fries, and she swallowed hard. “Go on.”

“We rode Bus Five. We sat in separate seats. She told me to get off in front of the old hospital on Harper Hill, so that’s what I did. I guess it’s close to where she lives.”

Susanna had heard Emily lived in Pratt’s subdivision, near Susanna’s mother. She nodded.

“I went because—” He stopped and sniffed back phlegm, like a child would. “Because I felt bad about last week. You probably don’t think I do, but I did. It got out of control that day. So I thought if she wanted me to do this, I could do it, even if it meant I got in trouble with Mom for coming home late.”

“What did she want from you?” Susanna said. “What did I have to do with it?”

His voice was so low she almost couldn’t make it out. “She told me she found something. She wanted to show it to me.”

“What?”

“A body.” He was shaking all over now. “A dead body. She said it might be your sister’s.”

For a moment Susanna was in the shower again, the water running into her nose and mouth. She was drowning in this school desk. Her fingers scrabbled across the groove where a pencil was supposed to rest.

“She told me she would show it to me. She told me she couldn’t show her parents because they’d be mad at her. So I followed her into the woods at the top of the hill, and we went to the place where she said it was, but there wasn’t anything there. She lied about it.” He was rambling now, his words stumbling over one another. “I got mad and I told her to leave me alone, and I pushed her, but it wasn’t that hard. She wasn’t hurt or anything. Then I left her there and ran home. It was so weird. There’s something wrong with her. She just lied about it. There wasn’t a body.”

“You’re sure there wasn’t,” Susanna said. She had tears in her own eyes now, and she willed herself not to spill them. Not in front of Christopher. Not now.

“No. She freaked out and said somebody moved it.”

Susanna pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. Her head was pounding.

“I think there’s something wrong with her. I think her parents must beat her or something. She doesn’t act right.”

“And you didn’t do anything to her . . . You and your friends? Play some kind of joke on her? If you did, you can tell me. We just want to find her.”

“No!” He practically yelled it.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. I believe you, Chris. I believe you.” She shifted out of the desk and stood. “I’m going to have to call a person at the police department about this. Can you show him how to get to where Emily took you?”

Christopher nodded.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

1.

The boy sat beside him on the ride to Harper Hill, staring out the window and twisting his fingers in his lap. He wasn’t a boy, really—Tony remembered too well the kinds of thoughts that had been on his own mind at thirteen, and they weren’t innocent—but the situation had stripped Christopher of the teenager’s bravado. His eyes were wide and round, the set of his mouth slack. At the middle school’s principal’s office he had answered Tony’s questions in a rushed whisper, eyes darting to his mother’s to check for anger, and the mother—Tony had to give her credit—had sat to the side quietly and calmly, not once interrupting. It would have been a mistake to pull Christopher from school without calling her, but Tony had been hesitant nonetheless. “She’s very protective and entitled,” Susanna had warned him in a stolen moment. “And Christopher’s playing boyfriend to Johnny Burke’s daughter, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she tries to bring Burke into things.”

“He may end up needing a lawyer,” Tony said. “Depending on what we find. Something about this story doesn’t add up.”

“Tell me about it,” Susanna had muttered.

But they were being cooperative, mother and son, and Mrs. Shelton didn’t call Johnny Burke or her husband. “My husband would
complicate this,” she’d told Tony, tucking a lock of blond hair behind her ear decisively. “He’d mean well, but he’d complicate it. I’m sure that time is of the essence.”

“It is,” Tony said.

“Let’s go, then,” she told him.

Pendleton met them on Hill Street with Sharon and the dog. Tony made hasty introductions, and Sharon shook hands with Christopher’s mother.

“Sharon,” Tony said, “this is Christopher. He’s going to show us where he last saw Emily.”

Sharon hunched down a bit, smiling warmly, and offered him her hand. He grasped it hesitantly. “Hi, Christopher,” she said.

“Hey,” he replied hoarsely.

“This is Maggie. Do you like dogs?”

He nodded.

“You can pet her,” Sharon said.

He stroked the dog’s glossy head, and a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.

Sharon swapped the dog’s leash for the long lead she’d used the previous night—or this morning, Tony thought, correcting himself. She looked nearly as tired as he felt, but at least she’d gotten a few hours’ sleep and a decent breakfast. Tony had been up for almost thirty hours, and the only thing he’d put on his stomach since yesterday’s lunch was a honey bun from the vending machine in the police station and lots and lots of coffee. He had not lain down, had barely sat—he worried that if he relaxed for even a few moments he’d lose whatever momentum was propelling him on and just fall over on the spot. Until Susanna’s call forty-five minutes ago, he had been on the brink of despair. The overnight search parties had turned up nothing, and the bigger group that gathered at sunrise wasn’t having better luck. With every passing moment it was less and less likely that they’d find the girl alive, and the weather last night had them all nervous. Though the bit of snow that fell was
already melted from everything but the deepest recesses of shadow, a bone-chilling damp lingered.

“It’s best if we keep the group small to keep Maggie focused,” Sharon said. “Mom, you’ll want to stay up here with one of the officers. Gentlemen”—she looked from Tony to Pendleton—“who wants to join me?”

Tony crooked an eyebrow at Pendleton. “You said you wanted to see Maggie do her thing.”

He shook his head. “This is your lead, Tony. You better see it through.”

There wasn’t time for him to argue. “All right,” he said. He had to admit to himself he was glad. He didn’t think there was a connection between Emily’s disappearance and Ronnie Eastman’s, despite the fact that Emily lived in the same subdivision as Wyatt, but Christopher’s story was enough to ignite his curiosity on that front. And Pendleton was right: he had to see it through.

He suddenly remembered something Pendleton had told him last night:
She’d been walking a dog for a neighbor, some guy who’d been sick.

Was that guy Wyatt? What on earth did it mean if it was?

Tony turned to Sharon. “Let’s go. Christopher, you lead the way.”

They proceeded downhill, Christopher up front, Sharon and Maggie behind him, Tony taking up the rear. The ground was sodden with a layer of wet leaves, and Tony hoped that Sharon was right when she said “wetter is better”—they were going to be slogging through plenty of it.

Christopher halted and looked around. “There’s the dump. We went around it and over the hill.”

“We’re right behind you,” Sharon said encouragingly.

When they topped the rise, Christopher pointed. His breathing was rapid and shallow, and he reached up to open the collar of his coat as if he were hot. “There. Under that dead tree. That’s where I pushed her down.”

Tony put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I want you to stop here, Christopher. If Maggie picks up the scent and we take off, go on back to the road and wait with your mother. Will you do that?”

Christopher nodded, and Tony thought the boy looked relieved.

Tony and Sharon made their approach. “Watch your step,” she said. “If Maggie catches this, she’s not going to waste any time, and it’s easy to lose your footing. You much of a runner?”

“Used to be,” Tony said.

“Get ready.” She shrugged out of her backpack and unzipped it, removing the plastic bag with Emily’s T-shirt in it. “I have a feeling about this one. Sometimes I think I’ve trained my own sniffer.” She pulled a piece of gauze from the bag and held it under Maggie’s nose. Maggie, already quivering with excitement, lifted her head and bayed, a sound that sent a shiver down Tony’s spine. Maybe he was just suggestible, but this time felt different to him, too. It was like all of those moments at bat, when he had known before the pitcher even wound up what the throw would be and the kind of contact he’d make with the ball. He had learned then, and somehow forgotten in the intervening years, that there were times when skill turned into something else. Instinct. Precognition. It was as close as he’d ever gotten in his life to a spiritual experience.

Sharon unwound the lead from her arm and dropped the slack. “Maggie,” she said. The dog was tense, fairly pulsing with energy and desire. “Ready. Find.”

The dog put her nose to the ground. She circled, head bobbing, backtracked, circled some more, jowls and ears swinging. Her long tail arced above her hide like a question mark, and her heavy paws fell. There was a noble rhythm to her gait, and when she lifted her head and bayed again Tony felt himself nodding, as if he were agreeing or encouraging her. The ground where she was sniffing was visibly disturbed, the surface of the earth turned instead of worn flat. Tony had had just enough time to notice this when Maggie shot forward and raced deeper into the woods.

“Go on back, Christopher!” Tony called without turning around.
He had barely started after Sharon when his toe snagged a root and he stumbled, nearly falling. His face and shins popped with heat as he caught himself, and then he was on the move again, darting his eyes between the way ahead and the ground below. He ducked under a branch and caught up to Sharon, who was groaning with frustration; Maggie had somehow wound her lead around a small trash tree, and she was trying as rapidly as she could to pull it free.

“Can you let her off leash?” Tony said breathlessly.

“I don’t trust that I could keep up with her,” Sharon said.

Tony lost any sense of time. His weariness from before was gone, and the muscles in his legs felt warm and easy; he ran like he hadn’t run in years, springing over fallen logs and a tiny stream, breath coursing in and out steadily, though there had been days lately when he wheezed going into a second flight of steps. The three of them were a locomotive of rapid breath and purpose, moving deeper and deeper into the woods, so that Tony began to wonder if Emily hadn’t perhaps cut through and emerged over at Grant Road, where all of those skeletons of houses stood half-erected, or even to the bypass to hitchhike. For a dark second he imagined reaching another road, another dead end to the scent trail, and he shook the thought away.

Then the dog was baying again and prancing in place, and Sharon was pulling her back, saying “Good girl” over and over, and Tony looked down and saw, with equal parts joy and terror, the comma-shaped figure of a person. “Good girl” Sharon was saying, digging around in her bag for treats, and Tony dropped to his knees and put his ear to the girl’s lips. He couldn’t hear anything over the dog’s triumphant wail and Sharon’s cheerful reassurances, and so he plugged a finger into his left ear and also grabbed the girl’s wrist with his free hand, pressing his fingers so hard between the tendons that she would bruise there, if she lived. There may have been breath—he was panting too hard to say. But beneath the pads of his middle and ring fingers he felt a surge; and then, long enough apart that he registered waiting for it, another. “She’s alive,” Tony said, and Sharon, hugging Maggie around the neck, started to cry.