THEO
SUZY WU’S BODY was cradled in sand, the tide ebbing it back and forth. Her body was bloated, her hair matted like black seaweed across her face. Ink-black eyes open, glossy, staring through strands of black, at nothing . . . or maybe something. Either way, staring. Her alabaster skin was bruised all over, and the smell of her rotting corpse was a thousand times worse than sour vomit. Seagulls picked and pawed. I waved them away, took off my jacket, covered her body, and ran my hand over her icy brow, closing her lusterless eyes. Oh, little girl.
A few weeks earlier in Sunday School she’d shared her drawing of Adam and Eve in the garden with her class, many of whom had done the same drawing but with stick figures and little to no color. Suzy’s was full of color: green, yellow, a big red apple, and an Adam and Eve with thick black hair, slanted eyes, and broad smiles.
I sank back to my knees, numb. The images I fought daily, nightly, to keep in the shadows surfaced like an ice pick to my brain: murdered children, my little orphans, their tiny bodies strewn about like garbage—the pungent smell of death everywhere. But I never had to go tell their parents the news. They had no parents. They had only me.
How would I tell Suzy’s family? What words would possibly matter?
While watching the road for Bud’s car I tried to say a prayer, but all I could come up with was why? why? why? Then I noticed her hands.
***
Bud’s patrol car lurched to a stop at the bluff. He was so tall that behind the bottle-green visor on the outside of the windshield all I could make out was his broad shoulders and the flicker of light off his badge; he looked headless. He was on his car radio.
The Packard rolled to a quiet stop behind him. He stepped out of the car, closed the door, and slapped his cowboy hat on his head. The Packard doors burst open. All the Church Ladies scurried out. Bud motioned for them to stay put, then headed down the path. They followed. He turned twice to tell them to stay put. Both times they waited a minute then rushed to follow.
Then Bud stopped cold. “Ladies!” he shouted without turning around. Brows creased, his eyes locked on me about twenty feet away. He removed his gun from its holster, held it high, and pulled the trigger. The ladies jumped and clung to one another. The shot reverberated through the air. They stayed put. He re-holstered his gun, marched over to me, and said, “Whada we have here?” Then his face dropped, he let out a deep sigh. “Shit.”
I pointed to the other side of the log and said, “Look at her hands.”