Lucinda got out of the Wrangler and stood in the dark cold night. She did not want to go inside to see Kirk. She did not want to feed his ego with the satisfaction that she sought his insights; whether he actually had any or not would be moot to him. But he was the sheriff, and she was stuck with him, for now.
With the drawings in hand, she walked up the snowed steps. She knocked on the rectory door as she opened it and let herself inside. Even with her coat on and coming from outside, Lucinda felt the chill of the place edge into her, making her shiver. She was surprised she could not see her breath. She wondered if the furnace was on the blink.
She passed two rooms, in which easels still stood, maps of the surrounding woods propped on them. No one was about. The search was over. Already. After just a couple days. It did not seem possible that the matter was now in the hands of the state police, and the town was settling back into its routine when the search for Sally, and the disruption of routine, the calamity of it all, had seemed to go on for weeks. Lucinda wondered if she was exaggerating the timeline in her memory or had exaggerated it then. Or if the search for Sally and her mother had actually gone on far longer because Sally and her mother were from a respectable family, and the sheriff had been their friend.
She found Kirk sunk low in his chair watching TV, beer propped on his lap.
“I have something you need to see,” she said.
“Ah. Finally.”
She brandished the drawings. “I need your input.”
He stood. “What happened to your face? You look like shit.”
“I fell on the sidewalk.”
“Liar.” He nailed it. He knew she was lying and said so, straight out. The others had probably known she was lying, too, but none called her out on it. No one told it like it was. Straight. He called her out, then dropped it. Didn’t prod or try to make her feel better because he knew he couldn’t, knew that her feeling better was up to her.
She sat at the table and spread the drawings out on it. “Look,” she said.
He stood behind her, his hands resting on the chair back.
“Crazy kid drawings,” he said.
“Drawn by Sally. Jonah’s daughter.”
“I thought this had to do with the missing girl.”
“Sally’s missing too,” Lucinda said.
“Sally isn’t missing. Sally’s dead.”
“Even if she’s dead, she’s still missing. She’s never been found.”
“Her drawings don’t have squat to do with our missing girl. I hope you don’t think buggy shit like that.”
“I don’t know.”
“Have a beer,” he said.
“Are you kidding, it’s freezing in here.”
He left the room and came back with two open beer bottles and handed one to her.
He quaffed half his beer at a go.
Lucinda didn’t touch her beer. She was exhausted, and her head bogged enough to add to her troubles. “These are ugly pictures,” she said. “The woman and girl. They’re being killed? Tortured? In the night. Sally drew these before she went missing. As if she knew something bad was about to happen.”
“Kids are fucked up. That’s why I’m never having any.” His voice was cold with certainty.
He demolished his beer and got another one, half of it gone by the time he returned with it.
“Drink your beer,” he said.
Lucinda studied the drawing. “This is of a mother and a girl.”
“Could be anyone. Any sex.”
“Sally and her mom vanished. And—” Lucinda nearly told him about the man in the woods, but refrained. She did not want to elicit more sarcasm. Yet she felt a need to share it with someone, to gain perspective. If the man in the woods had been responsible for her friend disappearing twenty-five years ago, and had never been caught, why couldn’t he be the one behind this girl too? Were the two men the same? Was the man in the woods Jonah?
“You’re talking bogeyman shit,” Kirk said. “Sally disappeared twenty-odd years ago.”
“Twenty-five. I need to see Jonah about it.”
“That old coot would just as soon shoot you as have you on his porch after you were such a bitch to him.”
Lucinda pushed the chair from the table and stood. “Jonah’s not shooting anybody,” she said, though she was no longer certain. “Not me, anyway.”
“Don’t bet on that.”
“I want to check on him, anyway.” She wondered again what Jonah had been doing at Ivers Grocery. And the amount of groceries he’d had in his bag. The kind of groceries. Sugared cereal. Pop-Tarts. The thoughts chilled her. She willed herself to keep them at bay, yet they persisted.
“You’re not his nurse or his mom,” Kirk said. “It’s none of your business.”
Maybe it is your business, a voice said. Police business.
“He’s all alone,” she said.
“He likes to be alone,” Kirk said.
“No one likes to be alone.”
“I do.”
“You’re not alone like he is. I think Jonah was in his house the other night. Someone saw a flashlight from outside. I’m sure it was him.” Except, she wasn’t sure at all. She just didn’t know who else it could be, which meant it could have been anybody. The adult’s tracks could have been a teenager’s. Maybe it was just two kids messing around, a teenage boy and his younger brother. Jonah hadn’t stepped foot in that house for two decades. Why would he bother now?
Because of the girl.
The boot print of the child.
“How do you know it was him?” Kirk said.
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“Stellar work, Detective. You want to go up to apologize to Jonah, is what it is. You’re a bleeding heart. Finish your beer.”
“I haven’t started it.”
“So start it.”
She made to leave.
He touched her wrist. The tendons of his own wrist taut, his fingers warm.
She took her hand away.
“Have a beer with me,” he said.
She picked up her beer and chugged it down, slammed the empty bottle on the table, and marched out of the room.
“Make sure you announce yourself to that old coot,” Kirk shouted, “and don’t get what’s left of what used to be a pretty face shot off when you pay him a visit.”