Maggie
Maggie had handled so much hair in her life—smooth, matted, tangled, snipped, discarded—that it settled into her, into all the open places. Ears, mouth. Sometimes, when she wore a low-cut shirt, she’d find a dusting of small blond clippings nestled in the bottom of her bra cups. It always snuck its way in. It was probably in her lungs, her kidneys, her stomach. It was part of the background of her life, like crumbs were for chefs. But that didn’t diminish the potential for hair to still hold power. It came from the top, after all, the head. Everyone always said it was “just hair”—diminished it, took its importance away just because it could regenerate, keep going. They weren’t looking at it the right way. A hairstyle could change everything. The way the light caught it, making it shine? That could blind you, change you. Still, she had to look at the flip side. That hair was changed and thrown away every day. That people blithely hacked off their own bangs, plucked the errant grays, twisted it into taut braids to get it out of their way. Hair was nothing and everything. It meant the world, or it was just a coincidence.
For that reason, it was easy to stay strong and focused and not to break down. It could mean nothing, right?
But when Sarah Franco ran up breathlessly, saying she’d talked to Chloe and finished the Facebook videos, Maggie was not prepared. She didn’t imagine she’d have two people next to her as witnesses, two people she hardly knew. But she was glad they were there. Glad because they grabbed her arms before her knees buckled.
“I did a couple of them,” Sarah said.
The video had white bars across it with words that matched the voice-over. She told them she’d done that intentionally, because so many people watch on mute. This way, she said, they won’t miss critical information.
Do you know Emma O’Farrell?
Could you be the key to finding her?
Emma is from Semper University, and formerly Lower Merion High School.
5 feet 4 inches, 110 pounds. Brown hair and green eyes.
Last seen on campus, leaving the library.
Wednesday, October 15.
If you have any information, please call Philadelphia Police.
But none of those things made Maggie feel faint. No. It was the video footage of Emma leaving the library. The footage that showed her alone, in the dark. The footage that showed her shoulders slumping under her backpack. The footage of her face in shadow, a hoodie pulled over her head, obscuring her hair, which may or may not have been there. Where was Emma’s hair?
Suddenly, her legs failed her. Crumpled like two badly designed buildings, and it was only Salt and Kaplan that kept her from hitting concrete, hard.
“Oh my God,” Sarah said. “I’m so sorry. I thought it was a good thing. I thought—”
“It is a good thing,” Salt said. “They’re very professionally done. I’m sure they’ll help. The photograph at the end is very clear.”
“Yes,” Maggie said softly. “Thank you, Sarah.”
“You know what?” Salt said. “You’ve had a helluva day. I live close by, near the Inquirer building. How about we go there and rest for a few hours?”
Maggie closed her eyes and nodded. It was finally catching up to her. They walked to Salt’s car, and she buckled Maggie in, like a child, and Maggie let her.
The apartment building was old and grand and enormous, with rococo trim, Philadelphia by way of Florida. Maggie remembered reading about the renovations and the amenities. She was surprised Salt could afford it, but when she saw how small it was, she decided it couldn’t be that much.
Very little furniture, all modern. No animals, no plants. Typical of a cop, nothing that needed tending. Salt told her to lie down on the couch and covered her feet with an afghan. Salt told her she’d set the alarm for an hour and a half, if that was okay? Did it seem like enough time? Maggie nodded. She fell into a dreamless sleep and didn’t think about all the time her husband might have spent in that apartment, whether he’d sat in the very same spot, drank from the glass, done God knows what. She didn’t think about those things because she was finally, at last, too damned tired to think. Her legs shook, as if they had to let it out, and that’s the last thing she remembered before she fell asleep, her legs shaking like they were rocking the rest of her body to sleep.
The chime of the alarm woke her before she knew it. She blinked her eyes open, turned it off, and took a sip of water from the glass she’d had earlier. Salt wasn’t in the room. Maggie didn’t hear her, so she stood, stretched, and took a few steps down the hallway to listen. Had Salt left? Was she alone? She assumed she was and started down the hallway toward the bathroom, passing two doors, one shut, one ajar.
She peered into the first one, open a few inches.
“Hello?” she called. No answer.
The master bedroom. Clothes hung on a mahogany valet by the bed. Jacket, shirt, empty holster. Like a man, she thought. Bed made, smooth and flat, a dark printed bedspread with no extraneous pillows, no extra comforter folded at the foot of the bed. Pale-blue walls, no shelves or artwork. Twin lamps mounted on either side of the bed. She blinked. Was that where they slept? Did Frank sleep on the right, nearest the door, like he did at home? Or did he flip it around, do the opposite? She walked over and sat on the right side of the bed. She didn’t feel him here; she’d been raised to believe in the afterlife and that the energy of a soul could remain. But she didn’t feel Frank here. Not his scent, of lime soap and astringent shaving cream. Not his energy, either, the way his certainty and strength changed the air, taking up more than his share of space. No, Frank was not lingering here.
Like the living room, there was nothing fancy or decorative; everything had a use. Neat. Militaristic. She had a feeling if she opened the closet, she’d find shoe trees, cedar panels. But no Frank. Because Salt didn’t need him, didn’t mourn him like Maggie did. She was pretty certain of that.
Back in the hallway, she thought she heard something outside in the corridor, perhaps in another apartment. She called out, “Gina?” No answer, no Salt. Had she gone out for a walk or errand?
She knocked lightly on the second door, listened for a response, got none. She pushed open the door, expecting to find clutter or closet, but inside saw neither. A second room, windowless, set up like a small office. Less streamlined, less tidy than the rest of the apartment, but not by much. A few papers scattered. A stack of books on the floor. Photographs by Ansel Adams. A biography of Margaret Thatcher. Mindy Kaling’s memoir. Field guide to butterflies. No fiction. That was extra, she supposed, not needed. She had a feeling Gina Colletti didn’t watch television either.
A shelf of diplomas, high school, community college, the police academy. And one faded photo, unframed, curling. Salt’s family? As she leaned over to pick it up, she was struck by two things. One, it was dusty and darker around the edges, like it used to be in a frame. And two, it wasn’t Gina’s family; it was Maggie’s. Frank and Emma, standing in front of a tree. Emma looked to be around nine or ten. There was more foliage in the background and a tall kiosk. A historical park? The Philadelphia Zoo? Maggie’s heart felt heavier in her chest. What this could mean. What this couldn’t possibly mean. A piece of evidence that could prove someone’s guilt of another crime, a worse one.
Salt’s footsteps in her own hallway weren’t particularly light, but Maggie heard them too late.
“Maggie, are you—”
“Am I what?” Maggie said, turning around. “Am I snooping?”
“No, that’s not—”
The room was too quiet now. There was nothing to hear, no ticking clock, no open window letting in the traffic on the street, no heater turning on and off. Just two women breathing hard, weighing the moment. Just eyes landing on the same photograph.
“You knew her,” Maggie said simply. “You knew Emma.”
“I was his partner. There were work picnics. There were—”
“You weren’t his partner then.”
“Frank and I…knew each other a long time, Maggie,” she said quietly.
“How long?”
“It wasn’t like that. We were friends in the beginning. We—”
“Friends? Take my daughter to the zoo kind of friends?”
“I liked the photo. It was from his desk. I took it when he died. I’m sorry—”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Okay, I knew her. Not like you know her, but—”
“Not like I know her?! Not like I know her? Of course you fucking don’t know her like I know her. I’m her mother! I gave birth to her, twenty-eight hours of torture, and I walked the floors with her when she had colic, and I worked two jobs to pay for her Catholic school, me. Not you. Me.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe,” she said, sniffing back tears, anger, snot, fury, “how stupid I am. How blind.”
“Maggie, you didn’t really think—”
“What? What didn’t I really think?”
“You didn’t really think I was doing all this for you?”
She said it gently, but it fell like a sucker punch. Maggie felt her bones breaking, blood moving, the way she looked and felt forever changed. Yes, she believed that when push came to shove, one woman would help another. One woman would rise above the crowd of men who didn’t get it and men who didn’t see and help another woman.
She believed it, stupidly, and she supposed Emma had, too. And that was where they’d both gone wrong.
“I have to go,” she said, and Salt didn’t argue. Maggie handed her the photo back. “You can have him,” she said simply. “You can keep him.”