In this cynical modern day and age, there was something almost subversive about Natalie’s desire to be good in a bad world, to hunt down the bad guys and expose their deeds to the light of day. To admire men like her dad and the gritty heroes of old TV westerns. The simplicity and moral certainty of it all, the lines drawn in the sand. White hats and black hats. Good was good, and bad was bad. It felt naïve to want to save the world. But with Daisy’s case, and now the Crow Killer, Natalie knew she had touched real evil. Evil felt like something slipping into you—as deceptive and sleek as a scalpel blade. Like a rustling sound deep in the woods, when everything else grew quiet and the wind stirred your hair with a ghostly hand.
She fought off these ropy, feverish thoughts. Bunny Jackson was missing. Natalie had to find her. She sped past the old brick warehouses with their busted-out windows and chained-shut doors. Road surface noises whistled through her wheel wells as she drove farther north beyond the posh, high-end estates and entered the vast tracks of farmland—meadows, orchards, nature preserves. Beyond the nature preserves were the retail outlets, which skirted the highway—Walmart, Rite Aid, Pep Boys, Kohl’s, Costco.
Natalie took the nearest exit off the highway and passed several big-box stores before she came to the A&P supermarket, one of Bunny’s favorite haunts. She pulled into the lot and drove around back, where the parking field was sprinkled with idling delivery trucks. She braked in front of a cement loading dock, spotted a homeless man digging around in a dumpster, and stepped out of her SUV. “Hello, Marvin,” she said, approaching the dumpster.
The homeless man squinted down at her. Marvin Brooner’s hair was shaggy, as if he’d cut it himself. He wore new-looking sweats from a clothing giveaway. “What’s up, Detective?” he said with a toothless grin.
“I’m looking for Bunny Jackson. Have you seen her?”
Marvin half climbed, half fell out of the dumpster.
“Careful. Watch your step.”
He righted himself. “Bunny? Not since last week. Why?”
“We found her army jacket behind the Hadleys’ barn, and I’m worried she may have gone missing. Any word on the street?”
He scratched his head. “Bunny never goes anywhere without that jacket.”
“I know,” she said apprehensively. “If you see her, would you tell her I’m looking for her? And please ask someone at the shelter to contact me. It’s very important.”
“Sure thing.”
“And get yourself a hot meal, Marvin,” she said, handing him some cash for his trouble.
He took it and said, “Bunny always shows up eventually, though, doesn’t she?”
“Let’s hope so. Take care of yourself.”
Natalie spent the next several hours searching for her friend. The Goodwill was closed. The Fitzgerald overpass was abandoned. Panhandlers in front of the Rockaway Café hadn’t seen Bunny lately. The dank alleyway behind the art house movie theater where The Last Picture Show was playing was vacant. She wasn’t in any of the local shelters, churches, or food banks. She wasn’t camped out on the village green or asleep in the courtyard behind the town library, where transients sometimes occupied the benches.
Natalie took comfort in the fact that everybody down at the BLPD was searching for the missing homeless woman tonight. A BOLO had gone out. Bunny was loved. People cared. Hopefully, one of the night-shift officers would find her and transport her to the women’s shelter. That was Natalie’s best hope.
Her palms grew sweaty on the wheel. Throughout the years, every once in a while, some ambitious rookie would pick up Bunny on charges of loitering or panhandling, and Luke would have to set them straight. Natalie had personally escorted her friend to homeless shelters dozens of times this past winter, in order to prevent her from freezing to death. Once in a while, Bunny went missing, but she always showed up a day or two later. It was a fine line between help and harassment.
This time was different.
This time was terrifying.
Blood on the jacket. Nine dead crows.
Natalie squeaked through a yellow light, then took the next exit, eased her foot off the gas, and came to a stop in the roadside weeds next to a stand of birch trees, their slim white trunks making a spooky contrast against the dark woods. A few yards away, a crumbling stone wall encircled a large meadow full of wildflowers, like a golden sheath of velvet in the moonlight.
Natalie’s flashlight created liquid shadows as she headed toward the centuries-old ruins of a colonial house covered in wild grapevines. She walked past the old stone foundation and came to a carved-stone sundial that’d fallen on its side. “Bunny?” she called out, parting the Queen Anne’s lace and sidestepping a broken terra-cotta pot. Sweet ferns and gentians grew on the bank of a small pond, bordered by skunk cabbage and pickerelweed. She found the cast-iron chair where Bunny sometimes sat in the sun, next to a fallen statue whose limestone face had been chipped off.
The air smelled marshy sweet. Natalie’s flashlight beam settled on a small swarm of insects, their elliptical dance mesmerizing. Flitting and darting in acrobatic loops. She watched their veined, gossamer wings reflecting iridescent spikes from her flashlight beam and imagined Bunny trying to catch one in her hands.
Her ringing phone startled her. She checked the caller ID.
“Luke? Anything so far?” she asked anxiously.
“Nothing. You?”
“Nothing to report, but I’m still looking. I’m not giving up.”
“She’s done this before,” Luke reassured her. “She always shows up eventually. At least it’s not the middle of March.”
“But she never goes anywhere without that jacket. I’m scared for her.”
“Me, too,” he admitted. “In the meantime, we found her abandoned shopping cart. I’m at the impound lot now, and there’s something you should see.”
“Be right there,” she said and hung up.