Cemetery Girl

We were quiet then. I sat on the edge of the bed, letting my body weight sink into the mattress. Abby came over and bent down. She planted a kiss on the top of my head. I reached up and took her hand. We clasped tightly for a moment; then she slipped loose.

“I know you think this is my fault,” I said.

“It’s no one’s fault. Not really.”

“I don’t mean us,” I said. “I mean Caitlin. I know you think I let her get away with too much, that she shouldn’t have been allowed to walk the dog in the park alone. She was too young, and Frosty. . Frosty was too big. .”

“That’s all over, Tom.”

“I just wanted her to run toward life and not be afraid of it. You know, my family, growing up-it was awful, so smothering. It was like living without oxygen.”

“I know, Tom.”

But I wasn’t sure she did. Abby’s parents were frighteningly normal: upper middle class and traditional. A little repressed, a little concerned with appearances, but next to my family they looked like royalty. I don’t know if Abby ever really understood what it was like to come from a family like mine, even though she often said she did.

“I didn’t want her to be tied to us,” I said. “Like we held her back.”

“It’s late, Tom. .”

“Do you remember what it was like when Caitlin was little?” I asked. “Just the three of us in the house together. Watching TV or playing games. Hell, it didn’t matter what we were doing.”

“It was good, Tom,” she said. “Back then, it was good.”

“Back then,” I said, repeating her words, letting them hang in the air between us. “I tried to get Frosty back today. I went to the shelter and asked about him, but he was already gone.”

Abby raised her hand to her mouth. “Oh,” she said. “It happened that fast.”

I shook my head. “Not that. Somebody adopted him. Some family, I guess. They wouldn’t give me the name, even though I said I wanted to get him back.”

“He’s probably okay then. Somebody wanted him.”

“He and I could have lived here together. He was good company.”

“It’s going to take me a little while to get all my stuff out. There isn’t much room over there at the church. It’s like a dorm, I guess.”

“Hell, maybe I’ll just go get another dog.”

Abby made a noise deep in her throat. No one else would have recognized it, but I knew. She started to cry. Her tears always began that way, and then she quickly began taking deep, sobbing breaths, so it sounded like she couldn’t get enough air. Then I started crying, too, the tears stinging my cheeks and falling into my lap. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, first one side, then the other. “One dog’s pretty much the same as any other, right?”

Chapter Ten

Ryan showed up with a sketch the following week. Abby was slowly moving her things out of the house, one box at a time, so there was some disarray, which caused Ryan to raise an eyebrow. But he stepped around the mess without saying anything or making a comment. It was one of the few times he didn’t wear a tie. He wore the collar of his white shirt open, revealing a strip of T-shirt and some straggly black chest hairs.

“You’ve got it?” I asked before he took a seat.

He nodded and lowered his body into the big chair in our living room.

I couldn’t bring myself to sit. While Ryan sat calmly, patiently, almost Buddha-like in the chair, I paced back and forth among the boxes. It had taken him three days just to arrange a meeting with Tracy. First her phone was disconnected; then someone at her apartment told Ryan she was out of town. I called Liann and asked her-told her-she needed to find this girl and apply some pressure.

“We need her,” I’d said.

And that only earned me an extended lecture from Liann, one in which she explained to me how delicate it was to deal with women like Tracy, women who were living victimized lives. I wanted to be sympathetic, I did. But I wanted the goddamned sketch more. I didn’t have anything else to think about. Finally, Liann met Tracy at the Fantasy Club and brought her to the police station.

And so Ryan sat in front of me, holding the Rosetta stone.

“Can I see it?Please?”

“Abby isn’t home,” he said, more of a statement than a question.

“She’s. .” I pointed at the boxes. “This has been. .”

He nodded. He’d probably seen it a million times.

“Do you want me to call her?” I asked. “Get her over here? I really don’t want to wait. I want to see the sketch.”

“Tom, let’s talk first.”

“Jesus,” I said. “I don’t need another lecture.”

“I don’t lecture you.”

“Liann set me straight about this. Now you.”

Ryan raised a finger. “Liann doesn’t work for the police. She doesn’t speak for me. I appreciate what she did, getting this girl to meet with the artist, but she doesn’t speak for me. If I have something to say, it comes from me.”

Finally, I sat, hoping to speed things along.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Tell me.”