Every Secret Thing

“Yeah, for that you gotta go to Ethan Allen, maybe Crate & Barrel.”

Infante laughed. “You’re such a secret smart-ass. If Lenhardt knew half the shit you said-”

“Did you check for sex perverts in that part of the county? Could be a Peeping Tom or a groper who’s worked his way up to the next level.”

“No one jumped out of the computer. The most likely ones are locked up.”

“Biological father?”

“He’s also locked up, in Worcester, Massachusetts.”

Nancy picked up the photo of the girl off Infante’s desk. Such beautiful, beautiful hair, thick and shiny even under the cheap studio lights. It had been slicked back for the photo, but those baby ears could barely hold that cascading mane. Her ears were pierced, Nancy noticed, which she thought barbaric on children. “What about the scissors?”

“What do you mean?”

“You saw the hair. It was shorn, not hacked off with a pen knife. Do you carry scissors on you? Real scissors, not Swiss Army knife ones? Because that’s what it’s going to take to go through a hank of hair like that.”

“So either the guy is walking around with a pair of scissors-”

“Or bought a pair after identifying his target. We should check the CVS, Jo-A

Infante wagged an approving finger. “I like you, Porter.”

“That can be our secret.”

Infante opened a crisscross directory and began compiling a list of stores in Westview Mall. He didn’t have to tell Nancy that they would visit the stores in person. They did their job face-to-face, showing badge and ID. No one worth talking to ever volunteered anything over the telephone.

Nancy kept staring at the photo, the original they had used to make the dupes for the television stations and the newspaper. It was a Kmart special, or one of those mall photo studios, the girl backed by a field of fake flowers. Nancy should stick it in an envelope now, make sure it got back to the mother as soon as possible. How horrible it would be if the photo arrived after the fact-assuming the fact turned out to be the worst possible fact of all. That was the assumption, despite the hair and the discarded clothes. There was no getting past the blood on the T-shirt, even if it wasn’t the girl’s. Something had happened in that rest room.

It was fu

Plus, television kept the missing girl in play all day long, while the newspaper was a one-shot deal at best. Every local station had shown the photo on the ten and eleven o’clock newscasts and were now using it on their Saturday morning news shows every half hour. Nancy could tell how often the morning television shows were cycling by the pattern of the phone calls. The girl’s picture would pop up on Cha

The phone rang just then, almost as if Nancy had willed it.

“Nancy Porter?”

“Yes?” This was odd. Her name wasn’t out there in co

The woman on the line quickly answered the unspoken question. “I just spoke to your sergeant and he said I should speak to you. I have…information.”

Nancy sat at her desk, working her notepad from her purse, digging out a pen. “Can I ask your name?”

The caller ignored that question, racing ahead, eager to say her piece. “There is something I think you should know about the missing girl, Detective Porter. Something you would not be expected to know, but something I ca

Jesus, Nancy thought, has this tight-ass woman ever heard of contractions?

“This is information that might not be meaningful to you, but it is meaningful to me, and it should be meaningful to you. It will be meaningful to you if you pay careful attention-”

Holy Christ. How had this one gotten past Lenhardt? She was clearly a well-intentioned wacko, some shut-in who yearned to find her place in the world by pretending to knowledge she didn’t have. Was Lenhardt playing a joke on Nancy or testing her?

“If you could get to the point, ma’am,” Nancy said as gently as possible.

“This is the way I get to the point,” the caller snapped. “My name is Cynthia Poole Barnes. And you will listen to me. You will absolutely listen to me, and everything I have to say.”

17.

Cynthia had awakened that morning to the sound of a familiar song, one she heard almost every day now, at least twice a day. “I know you…” Rosalind was watching Sleeping Beauty again. She had watched it every day this summer until Cynthia had been forced to put her on a schedule-once in the morning, once in the afternoon, with no other television at all. She had thought that once Rosalind understood it was a choice between Sleeping Beauty and the rest of the television-video universe, she would choose to watch other things. But Rosalind was a monotheist straight from the womb. She wanted one toy, a stuffed bear, and one book, Grimm’s Fairy Tales. She also needed only one parent, but given that it was Mommy, Cynthia didn’t mind that so much.

And now Rosalind wanted this white-blond princess waltzing in the forest over and over again. The end of the film, which scared Cynthia to this day, did not intimidate Rosalind at all. The thorns grew over the castle, the dragon’s shadow filled the screen, yet Rosalind’s gaze remained locked on the set, unflinching and unwavering. She could watch without fear because she knew how it ended. She was equally blasé about the terrors in Grimm, whether it was Cinderella’s stepsisters mutilating their feet, or Rumpelstiltskin tearing himself in half from fury when the Queen guessed his name.

Cynthia looked at the clock-it was seven-thirty. Warren would be up and dressed, anxious to go to his golf game, but determined not to disturb Cynthia while she slept. She slipped on her robe and went downstairs, giving him permission to escape into the summer morning. There was something about her husband in golf clothes that made her want to cry, a combination of pride and irrelevance she could never explain. It had mattered so much, once upon a time, to get into Caves Valley. Then it mattered not at all.