Sketchy (16 page)

“What’s not your business?”

“Willa is struggling, really struggling with, well, let’s say
stuff
.”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah, drugs and stuff.”

“Drugs? Willa involved with drugs?” he asks, confused. “That doesn’t make sense. She’s not that type.”

“Type? Ha!” I laugh. “You ought to come to a meeting with me sometime. There’s no type. It’s everybody, all types.”

“Okay, okay… again, how do you know this?”

“Because she told me everything! I already explained that to you. She was loaded that night, and he knew it. She had him buy her booze. She joined him in his car willingly. She thinks it was her fault. And she’s afraid. Afraid of disappointing her parents, her friends, the school. But her biggest fear? She’s afraid of giving up her best friend.”

“That being drugs?” he asks.

I nod. “I know. I’ve been there. It’s scary—it’s
still
scary.”

The sergeant strokes the blond stubble on his chin. “I don’t know. This doesn’t make sense.”

“What is it going to take for you to believe me?”

A faint knock on the door. The sergeant shouts, “Not yet, Cole… give us a minute.”

But it isn’t Detective Cole who enters. A brunette with a pug nose and pouty lips charges into the office carrying a Gucci tote bag. She drops it on his desk, straightens up some of his papers, and places her hands on her hips.

“Betsy.” Sergeant Daniels stands.

“Sorry to bother you, but I’m leaving for that conference tomorrow, and I have to go over Max’s schedule with you.” She looks at me. “This will only take a minute.”

She can’t be his wife—he doesn’t wear a wedding ring and neither does she, and they don’t look too happy to see each other. Must be Sergeant Daniels’s ex, I bet high school sweethearts, and Max is their son. Huh. He looks too young to have a kid. Must have been a teenage pregnancy, shotgun wedding, quickie divorce.

I pull out my sketchbook.

She reads from a list. “Okay, so Max has his checkup tomorrow morning. Don’t be late, or you’ll get bumped and you’ll be sitting in that office all morning. His piano lesson is after school, and if you have time, the barber is right across the street—it’d be great if he could trim Max’s hair. It’s looking pretty shaggy, and it’s hanging in his eyes. And please rub sunblock on him before baseball practice on Saturday. He’s getting self-conscious about his freckles—I guess a couple kids
teased him about them at practice, and you know he’s not hitting the ball off the tee and sure doesn’t need any more teasing. Oh, and
please
do not feed him junk all weekend. He’s looking a little pudgy to me. You got all that?”

Sergeant Daniels nods, looks like his tail is between his legs.

“Yes, Betsy. Everything will be fine. Don’t worry.”

“Sorry again,” Betsy says to me. “Cute purse. Bye.” She gives us a little wave and closes the door.

The sergeant walks back to me, red-faced. “Now where were we?”

“Here.” I rip a page out of my sketchbook. “Does this look like your son, Max?”

He stares at the sketch, then at me, rubs his eyes. “Wait a sec… how did you do this?”

He rushes to his desk and searches under papers, pulls out drawers, and holds up a five-by-seven school photograph of his son Max.

Holy crap. I have to admit, I nailed him.

“Did you see this? When you were sitting here, did you see this picture of him?”

“Right.” I nod. “While Detective Cole was standing over me, with his hand on his holster, I pilfered through your desk drawers. That makes a lot of sense.”

“Then how did you know? How did you know what he looked like?”

“I don’t know. Your wife—”

“My ex.”

“Your ex-wife described him, and I guess I’m a good listener.”

He starts pacing, holding the photo in one hand and my sketch in the other. “This is uncanny. She didn’t mention that he wore glasses. She didn’t mention anything about glasses, did she?”

“She didn’t? Well, she said he couldn’t see the ball on the tee, so I assumed he took them off for practice.”

“And his dimples… you gave him dimples.”

“Well, I figured since you have dimples, and your wife does, too.”

“Ex.”

“Right. Ex. Since she also has dimples…”

Sergeant Daniels stops pacing and stares at me,
through
me. And it’s not a good stare—it’s unnerving. “How did you do this?”

“I don’t know, Sergeant. I don’t. I’ve been trying to tell you that. It happens sometimes when I draw. And it’s not fun, believe me. I wish it would go away and never come back. Maybe I should stop drawing altogether, like my dad did and throw away the pens, my sketchbook.” I look at the wall clock. “Crap, I have to get to school, like five minutes ago. Are we done?”

He doesn’t answer me, so I gather up my stuff and rush out of his office with him still staring, open-mouthed, fingering the sketch of his son.

M
aisy comes running up to me, her legs flying, barely touching the ground. “She’s back! Bea’s back!” She leaps into my arms.

“Hey, Maisy. How are you doing?” I kiss the top of her head.

Cameron and Amanda wave from the sandbox. “Are you going to draw something for us today?” Amanda asks.

“I sure hope it’s something pooping.” Cameron snorts.

“Hi, Bea!” Eve greets me, smiling. “I have some paperwork I have to do. Will you stay out here with the kids for a bit?”

“Sure. Who wants to swing?”

“I do!” they yell in unison, running downhill to the swing set.

I join them, skipping. “How am I going to push all three of you at once? I only have two hands.”

“Well, I know how to pump, so I don’t need pushing!” Cameron hops on the highest swing.

“So what, Cameron? I know how to whistle, and you don’t.” Amanda sticks out her tongue.

“I wish I could whistle.” Maisy struggles, climbing onto a swing.

“I can teach you, Maisy. Just like my dad taught me when I was about your age,” I say.

“You will? Can you?”

“Of course.” I bend down in front of the swing, eye level with Maisy. “Okay, put your lips together and pucker up, like you want a kiss.”

Maisy puckers—an exaggerated pucker.

“Okay, now blow!”

She blows through her lips, spit flies, her curls flop forward, and she almost falls off the swing.

“Whoops.” I catch her.

“Listen to me!” Amanda performs a perfect whistle.

“That’s beautiful, Amanda!”

“Yeah, well, look how high I got!” Cameron yells, flying on his swing.

Maisy pouts.

I give her a little push on the swing. “Don’t worry. You keep practicing, and one day you’ll be whistling and won’t even realize it.”

“You promise? Is that what happened to you?”

“Uh-huh. It did.”

“When? When did it happen?”

“I think I was about five.”

“How? How did you do it?”

“Well, I remember that I was with my dad, and he was drawing…”

… hunched at a table in our downtown Chicago loft, absorbed, sketching an abstract charcoal drawing and whistling.

Mom was painting on a canvas and started mimicking my dad’s whistles, answering him like a bird. They exchanged looks, smiled.

I sat on a futon across from them, my feet tucked under my body, with my own pad of paper on my lap, drawing a pretty picture of my mom with a purple crayon. I wanted to join them, whistling. I tried over and over, but only air came out.

I put my paper and crayon down and walked up to my dad. “Daddy? I keep practicing and practicing. But it’s not working.”

“What’s not working?”

“My whistle. I can’t do it like you and Mommy!”

Mom laughed. “Oh, baby, you will, you will.”

My dad wiped his hands on a rag and sat me on his lap. “Okay, try again. Put your lips together and pucker up like you want a kiss.”

I did, and he kissed me.

“That’s not what I want, Daddy!” I pulled back. “I want to whistle!”

“Okay, okay.” He smiled. “Now open your lips a little bit, put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, and blow.”

I blew as hard as I could. My tight braids swung in front of my face, and I got dizzy. No whistle.

I started to cry, so he scooped me up high in the air and put me on his shoulders. I held on tight to his nappy fro, and he ran all around the loft like an airplane in flight.

“Be careful, Richard.” My mom watched us, laughing.

I giggled. “It’s really high up here. I wish I were as tall as you.”

“You’re only five, Bea. Don’t worry, you’re going to get a lot taller.” He plopped me down on the futon. My mom joined us and tickled me.

“What’s that you’re drawing?” my dad asked, looking at the pad of paper.

“That’s Mommy.” I showed him. “But I didn’t do her face good. She’s prettier than this.”

“I think it’s beautiful, baby.” My mom kissed me on the top of the head. “Thank you.”

I handed the drawing to my dad. “Will you fix it? Her face, Dad?”

“But it’s perfect, Bea.”

“Please?”

“Okay, let me try.” He sat on the floor in front of my mom and me and held the pad of paper.

My mom made a funny face at him and then sat me on her lap. “You are my prettiest feature, Bea! Draw us, together, Richard.”

“Would love to.” He smiled and turned to a fresh page. He studied us as he drew, his large hands dwarfing the waxy crayon.

And then, suddenly, he stopped and looked away, out the large windows of the loft.

“Richard?”

“What’s wrong, Daddy? Why did you stop drawing?”

He massaged the back of his neck. “Nothing, honey. I just feel a little headache coming on.”

He crumbled the drawing. “I kind of messed it up. I’m sorry. We’ll do a better one later on.”

“You okay?” Mom asked.

Dad jumped up. “Hey, how about we take a break, maybe get some ice cream?”

“Yeah! Ice cream!” I ran to the door.

I remember walking with them hand in hand, down the streets of Chicago to the ice-cream parlor. I kept practicing my whistle, puckering and blowing the whole way, and finally, a tiny, teeny whistle came out of my mouth. I was so excited and celebrated with candy cane ice cream in a waffle cone.

And I don’t remember my dad ever drawing after that.

“Bea, you want to come in and set up your easel?” Eve calls out.

“Sure.”

“Kids, why don’t you play in the sandbox? We’ll call you in a minute for art.”

“Yay! Art!” Maisy exclaims.

They tumble off the swings and run to the sandbox as I join Eve in the classroom.

“I thought maybe you could work on their ABCs—you know, draw a picture for each letter in the alphabet?”

“Okay. I think I can handle that.”

“The easel is over there in the corner, and the paper is in that closet. I’ll get the paint. We’ll use primary colors today.”

I pull out a pad of paper from the closet. A car door suddenly slams outside the school and then the car drives off—fast.

Eve looks at me. “What was that?” She runs outside and down the stairs. I follow. She looks around. “Wait. Where’s Maisy? Who was that? What happened?”

Cameron fills a dump truck with sand. “Somebody took Maisy.”

Eve rushes over to Cameron and Amanda in the sandbox and bends down to their level. “What? What are you talking about? Was it her mom?”

Cameron shakes his head. “Nope. It was somebody I never saw before. A car—a blue car—it took her away.”

Eve looks at me, panic in her eyes. “Oh my god,” she says under her breath and turns back to Cameron. “Are you sure, Cameron? You sure it wasn’t her mom or dad?”

“It was a stranger,” Amanda says, playing with a rubber animal.

“Bea”—Eve forces a smile—“why don’t you come over here with the kids for a little while? I think I’m going to give Maisy’s mom a call.” She hurries into the school.

I take the pad of paper and rush over to the sandbox.

Think, Bea. Think fast.

I pull a pen from my hair. “Hey, kids, you think you can tell me more? More about the person who took Maisy?”

“I don’t know. It happened, like, superfast,” Cameron says.

I take a deep breath. “Okay. Um, how about we play a game? Have you ever heard of I Spy?”

“We have a book like that in the reading corner,” Cameron complains. “We don’t need to play that.”

“Well, let’s make our own book, okay? I’ll start first. I spy”—I look around—“sneakers.” I point to Cameron’s shoes and draw a sneaker on the pad of paper.

“I spy
your
shoes,” Amanda says.

I draw them. “What do Maisy’s shoes look like?”

“She has sparkly ones, like your sweater.” Amanda touches a bead on my sweater.

I draw. “Do they look like this?”

“Sorta.” Cameron snorts. “But the sneaker picture was better.”

“So, what did his shoes look like? Did you notice?”

“Who?” Cameron asks.

“The man who took Maisy.”

“It was a woman,” Amanda corrects me.

“Oh. Okay.
She
. What did her shoes look like? Did you see them?”

“She had on sneakers, like me. Cuz she was in a hurry. She was like”—he grabs an animal—“a cheetah!” He makes it run in the sand.

Amanda unburies a giraffe. “No, Cameron, you’re wrong. She was more like a giraffe. She had a long neck.”

“So you saw her face?” I ask, waiting for something to pop up in my head.

“Just a little bit,” Amanda says. “And her hair was short, like a boy’s, like Cameron’s.”

“Was not,” Cameron objects. “It wasn’t like mine!”

“Was, too,” Amanda says. “And it was silver.”

Looking straight into Amanda’s doe-eyed face, specks of color flood my mind—a mosaic, fragments piecing together. I draw short, gray hair, a long neck, and dark, serious eyes.

Amanda turns her head sideways, examines the drawing. “That looks like her. Cameron, doesn’t that look like the stranger who took Maisy?”

Cameron walks behind me. “Yeah, it kinda looks like her, a lot. And see?” He points at the sketch. “She doesn’t have hair like me!”

A van swerves into the parking lot, and a panicked woman leaps out. “Where’s my baby? Who took my baby?”