With the foul weather and traffic, it took the police almost an hour to arrive at the Hill. The first unit—Patrolmen Eddie “Slow Ed” Zukowski and another guy Mike knew, Charlie Ripken—were relieved to see that Mike had the smarts to block off the Hill. The second unit that answered had blocked off the lower parking lot, the one where Mike was parked.
Slow Ed brought Mike next door to the Tick-Tack-Toe liquor store. Mike stood underneath a ceiling vent blasting hot air, melting snow dripping off his jeans and coat, forming a puddle around his soaked boots. He dried off his face and head with a towel the liquor store owner had given him.
“About what Sarah was wearing,” Patrolman Eddie Zukowski said, and flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. Slow Ed’s pie-shaped face was bloated, shaped by too many late nights and too much fast food, but his tall frame was in good shape, still as thick as a telephone pole and no doubt packing the same explosive power that had made him a football star at Boston College.
Mike said, “It hasn’t changed since I told the dispatcher.”
“We’ve got three kids next door wearing a pink snowsuit—one of who’s a boy, go figure. What I need from you, Sully, are the details. The snowsuit, the hat and gloves—that stuff.”
What Mike heard in Slow Ed’s voice was the same listless quality of the two patrolmen who came around asking Lou questions about the whereabouts of his wife. What Mike also heard were the traces of dumbness that had defined Slow Ed’s father’s life, Big Ed Zukowski, a man who wanted to take his wife on a two week cruise to Aruba for their ten year anniversary and came up with the bright idea of robbing the bank across the street from the car repair shop where he had worked as a mechanic since high school.
The wind howled, rattling the storefront glass and door. Sarah was out there in this mess. She had wandered away from the sled, had, he was sure, slipped down the embankment and was now wandering somewhere around the woods that stretched all the way back to Mike’s house, to Salmon Brook Pond and Route 4, Sarah lost in the blinding snow and calling out for him, her voice lost in that wind, Sarah blind and terrified without her glasses.
“I already went over all this with the dispatcher,” Mike said. “You want the info, get it from him.” He tossed the towel on top of a stacked column of Bud bottles, got maybe two steps before Slow Ed grabbed his arm.
“Sully, you’re soaked to the bone.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s why your lips are purple and your teeth are chattering. Don’t bullshit me, Sully. I’ve known you too long.”
“I’ve got to get back out there. She’s wandering around the woods without her glasses—”
“What glasses?”
Mike removed the glasses from his jacket pocket and slapped them down on top of the towel. “Sarah’s terrified when she doesn’t have them on,” he said. “I’ve got to get out there before she stumbles off one of those trails and steps onto Route Four.”
“Volunteers are already out there. Now tell me where you found those glasses.”
“Hold up.” Slow Ed tightened his grip, moved his big round face closer. “We’re going to cover every inch of this place, but with the visibility for shit, you can see why I need as much information as possible.”
“I already did.”
“You didn’t tell the dispatcher about the glasses.”
“So now you know.”
“Where’d you find the glasses?”
“Next to the sled.” Again Mike tried to step away but Slow Ed wouldn’t let go, Slow Ed digging his fingers in just hard enough to remind Mike who was in charge.
Mike wanted to scream. He wanted to scream out that sick feeling coiling its way through his gut, wanted to knock Slow Ed down with the strength of it. Ed, you stupid shit, you’re talking too slow and you’re wasting time.
“Sarah’s six years old and is wearing a pink snowsuit,” Mike said. “Pink snowsuit with blue mittens—they’ve got reindeer printed on them. Pink Barbie snow boots. What else you want to know?”
Slow Ed released his grip but blocked the path to the door. Mike ran down the list: Sarah’s height,weight, eye and hair color, the Cindy Crawford beauty mark above her lip, her two bottom missing teeth and the slightly crooked uppers—he even mentioned the bruise on Sarah’s rib. He had discovered it last night when he gave Sarah a bath.
“How’d she get this bruise?” Slow Ed asked.
“Ran into the coffee table. Least that’s what Jess told me.”
Slow Ed stopped writing, looked up. “You don’t believe her?”
“I’m saying I was at work.” Mike removed his pack of cigarettes, saw that it was soaked.
“Sarah’s snowsuit have any unusual markings on it?”
“Like what?”
“Decals, prints. Along those lines.”
Mike rubbed his forehead, then closed his eyes
(Daddy, where are you?)
(Jess’s voice: Get out there and search for your daughter,NOW)
and tried to picture details, these stupid, meaningless details—what mattered now was getting back outside to find Sarah. But how was he going to get around Slow Ed?
“Her name’s written on the inside tag in black marker,” Mike said. “Jacket’s got a small tear in the front pocket. Right front—no, it was the left. Yeah, the left. Fang did that.”
“Fang?”
“Our dog,” Mike said, opening his eyes. “That’s all I got.”
Slow Ed stopped writing. He fished out a plastic baggie from his pocket and with a flick of the wrist he snapped it open. “When’s the last time you saw your old man?”
“Years ago. Why?”
“How much time we talking about?”
“I don’t know. Three, four years. Last I heard, he was living somewhere in Florida.”
“But he kept his house, right?”
“Ed, no offense, but what’s this got to do with finding my daughter?”
“Lou’s been spotted around town.”
Then Mike understood.
“Sarah’s never met him,” Mike said, watching as Slow Ed used his pen to push the glasses into the bag. “He wouldn’t come near her, and even if he did—he wouldn’t, but if he did, Sarah wouldn’t believe him because I told her that her grandfather died before she was born. Sarah wouldn’t leave with him or anyone else. Sarah knows about stranger danger. She wouldn’t leave with anyone but me or Bill.”
“Kids do funny things when they’re scared, Sully. Way the snow’s whipping around out there, everyone’s dressed different, got their faces covered up, you don’t know who’s who. Sarah probably latched onto the first person she recognized.”
That sick, sharp-edged worry he had been carrying for Sarah formed a wiry, heated energy that made his skin tingle. Mike judged the space between him and Ed, thinking of a way to get around him when Ed’s cell phone rang.
“You call home and check your messages?” Ed asked as he unclipped the phone from his belt.
“Did that right after I called nine-one-one.”
“That was a good forty minutes ago. Call and check again.” Ed brought the phone up to his ear as he walked away and stood in front of the door, blocking it.
Mike took out his cell phone and saw that the battery had crapped out, this being the time of day when he normally recharged it. He walked past Slow Ed and moved up to the counter where a big, round bald guy was pretending to read a Herald.
“Use your phone, Frank?”
Frank Coccoluto handed him the cordless.
After having two answering machines break in the past year, Mike had opted for the phone company’s voice-mail service. He dialed the number for his voice mailbox and entered in the code, his hopes rising and then crashing when the prerecorded operator said, “No new messages.”
The wind rattled the glass again and Mike pictured Sarah up alone on top of the hill, Sarah trying to find her glasses in the blowing snow, everything a blur. Okay, Sarah was upset but she was also smart. Sarah knew all about monsters disguised as kind and smiling people who offered candy and told kids they had lost their puppies or kittens and needed help looking for them, so if someone came by and offered his daughter help, Mike knew that Sarah, even at her most hysterical, would be smart enough to go only with a voice she recognized, a friend or parent she knew from school, someone from the neighborhood, maybe.
“Ed’s right about kids doing funny things when they’re scared,” Frank said. “Few years back, I’m in Disney World with my daughter and my eight-year-old granddaughter? We turn our heads for, I don’t know, maybe three seconds and when we looked back, Ash is gone. Swallowed into the crowd, poof, just like that.” Frank snapped his fingers. “The Disney people, they ripped up the park, I swear to God I thought I was going to have a stroke I was worried so much. Guess where we ended up finding her? Back in the hotel, in my bed, sleeping like an angel. Park security guy found her. Ash was so hysterical about being lost, all she could do was say the hotel we were staying in, room number three-twenty-one, so that’s where they brought her.”
Mike glanced at his watch. Almost ninety minutes had passed since he had found the sled.
Slow Ed snapped his phone shut and Mike felt his hope rise again.
“Goddamn lousy weathermen dropped the ball again,” Ed said. “The blizzard scheduled for yesterday’s about to head straight up our ass. Let’s go, Sully. We’ve got to get a move on to your house. State’s on their way with the search dogs. I’ll explain along the way.”