She's Not There (12 page)

Irwin rose. “Tough love, I admit, is dreadful. But it has proven effective for managing children out of control. A teenager out of control must be coerced—her will broken whether she likes it or not. At any rate, my understanding, officer, is that you
have
no power. And if you insist on using my first name, it isn't Jack. It's Blair.”

Fitzy said, “I know what it is. Blair is not a name.”

Blair left.

Fitzy said to us, “He's right. I
have
no power.” We watched the taxi drive off. “Camp van must have broken down. No surprise there.”

We went outside. We would walk to the restaurant. It was a beautiful night. The moon had just risen above the horizon, a waning moon at three-quarters. Joe had timed our vacation so it was full the night we arrived. At three-quarters, still spectacular. We decided that after we ate we'd go up to the camp and make sure the girl was back. “Maybe have another chat with her.”

We left the jeep in front of the station.

As we walked along, we found that the camp van had not broken down after all. It was hurtling along the road, bearing down on us. We leaped into the grass as it screeched to a stop. Christen and her friend Samantha clambered out and opened the back door for the girl we'd seen get off the ferry three days earlier—in the group with Rachel Shaw—the young girl with the Cabbage Patch Kid. A lifetime earlier, it surely seemed. The doll was wearing a different outfit, a Seattle Mariners uniform. His owner was not so much overweight as she was roly-poly. She was less than five feet tall. She needed adolescence, a growth spurt. She hung back behind the older campers.

Christen, out of breath, said, “We stole the van.”

I introduced her and Samantha to Fitzy. He said, “You want to come in and give me a stolen vehicle report?”

They weren't sure what to make of him. Samantha, in fact, had sunk back alongside her younger friend. I said, “He's joking. What's the matter?”

Christen grabbed the arm of the girl with the doll. “C'mon, Stupid, don't be shy. We already know these people. Tell this cop what you told us.” The girl's head was down and she clutched the doll for dear life. Christen said, “It's about Rachel Shaw. Stupid was spying on her this afternoon.”

Rachel Shaw. Yet again.

Stupid was not as retiring as she seemed. She lifted her head. High. She said, “I was
not
spying. I do not
spy
on people.”

I asked, “When was that? I mean, when—”

Christen said, “She was following her during our swim time. We were at the beach from two until five.”

The girl with the doll bristled some more. “I
said
I was not
spying
, and I was not
following
her either. Elijah Leonard just wanted to see where Rachel was going.” She looked down at the doll. “Right?” She nodded his head for him. Elijah Leonard confirmed.

Fitzy said, “How old are you, kiddo?”

“I'll be eleven day before school starts.”

He muttered something under his breath; then he said to Joe and me, “Camp's supposed to be limited to girls thirteen to eighteen. Maybe I got that crook after all.”

The girl and her doll took a step forward. “He made an exception for me. My mother begged him to.”

Joe said, “Christen, does your friend here have a name?”

“Yes. Stupid.”

Samantha explained. “That's her nickname because she doesn't know anything.” She looked at the girl. “You don't mind though, do you, Stupid?”

The girl shook her head.

“See, if she minded, we wouldn't call her that,” Christen said, “I have a younger brother. You should hear what I call
him
. We're used to names a lot worse than Stupid.”

And the girl with the doll said, “Yeah, like Meat. That's what they call me at school.” Then she said to Christen, “Is your little brother fat?”

“He's a damn toothpick.”

I said, “We'd like to know your real name, all the same.”

Christen shrugged. “I don't know her real name, do you, Sam?”

“Nope. What's your real name, Stupid?”

“Kate.”

I said, “Kate what?”

“Kate Bailey.”

“Kate, we're on our way to dinner with Officer Fitzgerald. Would you girls like to join us? That way we can all relax and Kate can tell us about Rachel.”

Kate's eyes slid from me to the other girls. Samantha said, “Say yes, Stupid.”

She said, “Yes.”

Fitzy draped his arms around Christen and Samantha's shoulders and pulled them in to him. “How about you kids first get the stolen vehicle out of the middle of the road.”

Christen had been the driver. Now she climbed back in, started the van, shifted into reverse, and stalled. She stalled two more times as she bumped and ground the van into a position half on the road and half on the sidewalk. Then she climbed out again. On the sidewalk she was sheepish. “I don't have my license yet. I haven't even finished drivers' ed.”

Fitzy said, “Consider taking the course over again, from the beginning.”

“They don't teach you shifting, you know.”

“Forget it. You did fine. So now Irwin's got three more missing girls. Plus a stolen van. Good. Let's go. I could eat a horse.”

Kate Bailey walked in step with him. She said, “Elijah Leonard could eat a moose!”

The woman at the inn put two tables together for us. Kate, eyes about as big as big gets, lashes so long they touched her cheeks when she blinked, asked if Elijah Leonard could have a chair too. The innkeeper looked around. I said, “I think she means her doll.”

The woman smiled. “Sure.”

Fitzy asked her, “You a Seattle fan?”

She gazed at him with those eyes. “How did you know?”

Samantha said, “We told you she was stupid.”

Fitzy poked a finger into the doll's chest. “Well, I guessed he was a ballplayer. Seattle. Him being in full uni and all.”

She looked down at the doll and giggled. “Oh.”

Christen said, “Stupid, try to get with the program. Sheesh.”

Kate giggled again. She didn't see the name they'd given her as insulting but rather a term of endearment, since the girls who used it had taken her under their wing. She said to Fitzy, “My grandpa gave him the uniform. He gave me a Seattle shirt, too. For me to wear to match with Elijah Leonard's uniform. Like, not the whole uniform, just the shirt. It's back at the camp. I don't wear it because I don't want to get it dirty. We have to wash our clothes in a
sink
.”

We were handed menus. The three girls opened them as though they were Christmas presents.

Joe said, “Whatever you like, kids.”

Kate turned the menu over, checking out the desserts. Her eyes sparkled. “Omigod. Elijah Leonard's favorite! Would it be all right if he has some rice pudding?”

Christen said, “For Christ's sake, Stupid, you are such a pain in the butt. Just order something and give him a bite from your plate.”

Fitzy said, “Watch the language, sister.”

“Sorry.”

The girls ordered drinks. Cokes. They sucked their glasses dry in one swoop. Joe waved to our waiter and pointed at the empty glasses. And to the bread basket, also emptied. The glasses and basket were refilled and we all ordered. Then, over dinner, Kate Bailey told us what she saw Rachel Shaw doing during their swim time.

“They make us hike this really steep trail down to the beach. It's the beach nearest to our camp. It's not a real beach. It's the pits. You can't actually swim because the water is about up to your ankles. Even at
high tide
.”

Samantha said, “It's some kind of mud flat.”

Kate continued, giving us a pout. “Christen and Sam didn't even go today. They hid out. And they didn't take me with them.”

Samantha said, “We would have, Stupid, but we get so sick of Elijah Leonard sometimes.”

Kate pouted harder. “He just wants to be our friend.”

“Then tell him to find some boys,” Christen said. “What is he, queer?”

Fitzy leveled his fork at her.

Kate Bailey said, “So do you want me to tell you what Rachel did or not?”

Fitzy aimed the fork at her. “Go.”

First she filled her baked potato with a large chunk of butter and a great spoonful of sour cream. Then she took a bite from Elijah Leonard's rice pudding. Then back to the baked potato, scooping it into her mouth while she told us her tale.

“That Rachel was really
really
hungry. I'm not too hungry usually. My grandpa put a lot of cookies in my suitcase. Like, bags of them.”

Christen said, “Pepperidge Farm.”

“Elijah Leonard says it's all right to share with Christen and Sam, right, Elijah Leonard?” She bobbled the doll's head again, up and down. “He's a good sharer too.” Another taste of rice pudding.

Samantha leaned over to Fitzy. “See what I'm talking about?” She twirled her finger next to her temple.

He sighed. “Go ahead, Kate.”

“Anyway, Rachel starts walking away from us toward the point at the end of the beach. I asked her where she was going and she said to me, ‘I'm going to the point, idiot.' So I asked her if me and Elijah Leonard could come too but she said—” Kate slapped another dollop of sour cream into her potato—“she said no.” Kate picked up the doll and looked into his big blank eyes. “But you wanted to follow her, didn't you?” She gave him a good bounce. His head went up and down vigorously.

Fitzy said to Samantha, “Maybe I do see what you mean.”

All three girls looked at each other and laughed.

I said, “Fitzy, you have children, don't you?”

He said, “My wife has them.” Then, “Okay, Kate, you followed her. What next?”

“
Elijah Leonard
followed her. So I had to go too.”

“Fine.”

Christen asked her, “Are you in middle school, Stupid?”

“We have K through eight at my school.”

“Well, that's a damn good thing, let me tell you. You'd be laughed out of middle school.”

Fitzy tried to pick up the story, “Okay, Elijah, let's hear it.”

“Elijah
Leonard
. We stayed way back but we could see what Rachel was doing. She really was going out to the point. See, there are a billion mussels at the point. Big ones. But it's real rocky over there, hard to walk. Rachel didn't care. She was going to, like,
eat
the mussels. Some of the kids do. Yucko.”

My fork was poised over the bouillabaisse in front of me. It was, like, littered with mussels. Christen noticed too. She said to Kate, “Mussels are very good, Stupid.”

“Yeah, if you
cook
them. Christen, may I taste your pasta?”

Christen lifted her plate and scraped a pile of penne next to Kate's steak. Kate shoved a forkful of them into her mouth. “Mmm. Yummo.”

Fitzy told her to keep talking.

She chewed, she swallowed, and then she had another forkful, talking the whole time. “Rachel starts pulling mussels off the rocks, and she lines them up, and then she picks up one of those round rocks, a big one, and she smashes all the mussels. Smash, smash, smash, smash-o. Then she, like, eats them. Then she keeps walking, picking mussels and picking more mussels, smashing mussels, smashing mussels. A billion of them. She keeps eating them, too. Gross.”

Samantha said to her, “They wouldn't be so gross if you were starving, Stupid.” To us: “Stupid's grandfather shipped her a crate of Drake's Cakes. That's besides the suitcase he filled with Pepperidge Farm.”

Kate said, “My grandpa told me Drake's Cakes don't add weight because there's no chocolate in them, so I should eat however many I want.”

Christen said, “Your grandpa is a moron, Stupid.”

“No, he's
not
.”

Samantha tried to soften the criticism. “He's an enabler.”

“He's a grandpa,” Fitzy said. “That's what they do. But let's forget the Drake's Cakes. And forget the mussels too.”

Christen sighed. “Yeah, we've got that part down.”

I reached over and patted Kate's hand. “Honey, just tell us what else you saw.”

She carried on, carving away at her steak. “Rachel goes around the point,
past
the point. That's when Elijah Leonard wanted to stop following her because he didn't want to walk
that
far. So we stopped at the end of the point where he could still see her without having to, like, keep walking. Elijah Leonard gets tired real easy.” The doll slumped for effect. “So I'm standing on the point and I could see her on the next beach. Christen, how come they don't take us to
that
beach instead of ours? It's got
sand
on it.”

“I wouldn't know.”

Fitzy said to Christen, “Is this going anywhere?”

“Yes.”

“Rachel, then. Go.”

Kate mopped up the tomato sauce from Christen's penne with her bread and began eating that. “There was this man there—over on the nice beach—and he had a blanket spread out on the sand. He was having a picnic. He had a ton of food. He had fried chicken.”

“You saw fried chicken?”

“No. I already said he was far away. But I could
smell
fried chicken. So then Rachel sits down with him and starts eating all his stuff. He didn't eat anything, I don't think. He just, like, watched Rachel. Then Rachel lay down on the blanket.”

Kate stopped. Her eyes went down. She'd been diverted. Her eyes had shifted to my plate and she pointed at a large scallop. “What's that?”

Christen said, “It's a scallop, Stupid. And it's
cooked
.”

Kate's eyes traveled from the scallop to my eyes.