A PILE OF SIXTY MISSING CHILDREN REPORTS SAT ON THE WOBBLY DESK NEAR Brooks’s file cabinets located in the bowels of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office. At almost seven in the morning, I plopped into the raggedy chair and plucked a report from the pile.
Quida Chisholm, born February 7, 2003 … I, the mother, returned from work on March 16 to find Quida missing … eighth grade home school … Quida was the same race as my Jane Doe. Probably around the same age, too. But Quida was shorter, had darker hair, and was about fifteen pounds heavier.
Quida’s report went into the no pile.
The next five reports involved three boys and two Hispanic girls.
No, five times.
A yes pile did not exist yet, but there were six reports in maybe.
I stood from the workstation and stretched until every bone in my body clicked. The asteroid-colored rash on my chest still burned, but a soft LAPD T-shirt and hydrocortisone cream had contained the blaze. I grabbed the reports and lumbered down the hallway to the autopsy suites. Someone had microwaved oatmeal for breakfast—the scent of warm brown sugar wafted along the corridors, only to be lost in the clinical stink of formaldehyde and death. The blisters on my feet still made me wince, but the Nikes’ memory foam treated them better than yesterday’s fancy boots. Little acts of kindness.
I ducked into the dimly lit antechamber. On the other side of the double doors, Brooks was scrubbing his hands in the stainless steel sink. Two of the exam tables hosted bodies covered in white sheets, with one of those patients so obese that parts of it slopped off the table. Brooks’s assistant, Big Reuben, a giant in cornrows, was removing a soup ladle from one of the cabinet drawers. No rush. Just another day at LACCO.
This early in the morning, I thought that I would’ve been sleeping off too many glasses of red wine. Waking up next to Sam Seward in his bed. My hand drifting down his happy trail to claim his early-morning gift to me. Thought I’d be foggy-headed, deliciously sore, bursting with a story to tell Lena and Syeeda. Giggling, gasping, and shrieking. Being a Girl.
I was foggy-headed—no restful sleep.
And I was sore, though not deliciously, from tromping in mud, falling in mud, and bending over to examine mud.
I certainly had a story to tell—but not the one I wanted to share over Moscow mules and jalapeño poppers.
My cell phone vibrated in my bag.
A text from Sam.
Had a great time. Had hoped to still be talking about GOT. But death happens. What if we had dinner @ home tonight?
My fingers hovered over the phone’s keyboard as stainless steel appliances of death clinked around me and called me to work. I typed my response: I cram to understand you, Sam.
A few seconds passed before he texted back. What’s confusing?
You still hanging around.
I’m like a cat. Feed me once …
Shame on you, I typed.
Feed me twice …
Magic?
U not skeered, is you?
I chuckled. Hell yeah, I’m skeered.
A pause, then: Don’t be.
The saw’s high-pitched whir pulled me out of Sweet Valley High and back into the autopsy antechamber. Sober now, I tapped SETTINGS on my phone and assigned the “Star Wars Theme Music” ringtone to Sam’s number. Then, I saw that two voice-mail messages had been left as I’d arrived at the coroner’s office. The first message had been my ex, Greg. Something-something … condo selling … real estate … something.
I deleted the message, then listened to the message from my mother.
Georgia Starr’s voice, bourbon and pecans, drifted through the speaker. “You’re still avoiding him. And so he keeps calling me to make you talk to him. I remind him that although he left you when you were eight, you continued to grow, and today you are an adult.”
“What the hell, Mom?” I muttered.
Why hadn’t she blocked Victor Starr’s calls? Why did she keep talking to him? I’d told her a zillion times: you don’t have to pick up the phone.
“So I don’t know what to say,” she continued. “And honestly, I don’t even know why I’m calling you. Because I understand. This is your relationship, not mine. But whatever you do, do it. And soon. Please. I love you, okay? Call me later.”
Your relationship.
A “relationship” meant that the involvement was two-way, mutual, existing.
I had a relationship with Greg. Antagonistic. Nostalgic.
I had a relationship with Sam. Fledgling. Tentative. Exciting.
What I had with Victor Starr was neither tentative nor antagonistic. Since our so-called reunion in December, he kept trying to see me. I had not returned his phone calls. And when he returned to knock on the front door of the condo, I hadn’t answered. In the last twenty-four hours, he had invaded the station and Syeeda’s front porch.
All because he wanted to talk to me.
So? We all wanted something.
And he didn’t deserve to get what he wanted. At least not from me.
He had written me three letters and had mailed them to the station. Sorry … please … let me explain … I’m guessing here since I never opened those letters and chose instead to shove them into the mail room’s shred bin. No more stupid Jedi mind tricks with Victor Starr. I wanted no apology. I wanted no explanation. I wanted nothing from him—except to be left alone. And up until last December, he had been very good at doing that, leaving me alone.
A Jedi, he was.