About That Night (7 page)

Maybe she falls asleep with this idea in her head. Maybe that's why she wakes up early, intent on going out and looking for Derek. Despite the forecast, it hasn't snowed, so Jordie dresses and heads out to take once again the path Derek most likely took when he went home that night. Assuming he went home.

» » »

She walks slowly this time. Her eyes scan both sides of the trail as well as the trail bed. An hour passes and she is only halfway to the hill that leads up to Derek's house. Her eyes start to water from the strain of scrutinizing so much bright white surface snow. She wants to rest them, but clouds are already gathering to the north. Before too long they will fill the sky, and it will start to snow. She moves forward, keeping her pace slow, forcing her eyes to make the same movements on each side of the trail—straight ahead into the distance as far as she can see in front of the trees, then among the trees, a little to the right, a little to the left, straight ahead again. She is halfway up the slope behind Derek's house and about to give up when she sees it. It's off in the distance, among the trees, and it's only because she's up this high that it catches her eye, there, in a little clearing just barely visible from where she is. It's orange—Derek's scarf. She's sure of it.

The next minute she's just as sure it can't be Derek's scarf. His parents have been out looking for him. Some of their friends have been out. The police have been out. They have all probably tramped the same path Jordie is tramping now. There's no way they haven't seen what she is looking at now—seen it and investigated it and dismissed it as nothing of relevance. She's kidding herself if she thinks she's going to be the one to find him—here, at least. He must be somewhere else—someplace where no one has looked yet.

She raises a hand to shield her eyes and takes another look. There is definitely something there. It's possible that a dog or some other animal—a fox or maybe a coyote—has found him or at least his scarf and tugged at it, and maybe that's why it's there now. Maybe it wasn't there yesterday or the day before. Or it's possible the wind has blown the snow cover off it. Sure, there are a couple of ways—plausible ways—to explain how she is seeing a scarf no one saw before. She starts back down the hill.

Once she is off the rail trail, her legs plunge deep into the snow. Soon she is wading knee-high in the stuff. It's hard going. Sweat soaks into her T-shirt and her sweater before she makes it to the tree line. She's lost sight of the clearing but is doing her best to keep on course to where she is pretty sure it is. Soon she is wheezing like a lifelong smoker. The clearing is nowhere in sight. She must have veered off course. To find it, she will have to go back to the rail trail, climb the hill again and search the trees. It's almost too exhausting to contemplate. Overhead, more clouds have rolled in, and the sky has turned from blue to gray. She has to move fast. If she doesn't, the snow will start falling and will obliterate any trace of the orange she is sure she saw.

She turns to head back. Wait—what's that? A patch of white with no trees in it. She pumps her legs and arms, trying to push the snow out of her way as she urges her body toward it. She is gasping for breath. Jesus, she had no idea she was so out of shape. But there it is, a flash of orange. It's a scarf. It's Derek's scarf—she's ready to swear to it. She grabs it and lifts it. It comes up easily out of the snow. It is Derek's scarf, the same scarf he always wore, the scarf he was wearing the whole time he was staying at her house, the scarf he must have worn when he left the house that night because it was nowhere to be found in the basement or in the closet or on the hooks by the side door. It is definitely his scarf. There's no doubt in her mind. She stands in the clearing beside it and calls his name.

He doesn't answer.

Of course he doesn't answer
.

She begins scooping the snow with her mittened hands, slowly at first, then frantically, as if she can still save him if he's down there. But Derek isn't there.

She calls Derek's name again, praying harder than she has prayed for almost anything that he will answer, that what everyone fears isn't true, that he is fine.

No one answers.

But he was here sometime in the past couple of days; that much is clear. He was here and somehow he lost his scarf. She drops it, pulls her phone out of her pocket, locates the phone number for the local police and calls them.

Ten

T
hree quarters of an hour later, Jordie stands shivering on the rail trail. After she made the call but before she retreated to the trail, she tromped a gigantic X in the snow where she found the scarf. The exertion made her sweat. The sweat has dried and chilled her throughout. But she stays where she is, waiting for the police.

Finally, here they come, two officers in winter hats and heavy coats and boots. They're coming down the hill near the Maughams' house. Jordie runs forward to meet them. She tells them about the scarf and explains that the last time she saw Derek, he had it with him. She tells them about him leaving her house that night and not coming back. Then she leads them back up the hill a little ways—“You can't see it unless you're at least halfway up”—and points to the flash of orange and the X. “That's his scarf. And that's where I found it. I didn't find him though.”

One of the cops goes back down to the bottom, jumps off the trail and starts wading toward the clearing. The other one takes Jordie's name and contact information. He sets out after his partner.

Jordie is trembling so violently that her teeth are chattering, but she stays where she is, waiting. She loses sight of the police. And of the time. It seems as if they are in that clearing forever.

“Jordie? Jordie, is that you?”

She turns and looks up the hill. It's Mr. Maugham. He is standing near the top, looking down at her.

“Is that the police down there?” he calls to her. “What are they doing?”

Jordie realizes he must be able to see them from where he is. She doesn't know what to say. Mr. Maugham starts down the hill toward her.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks. “Good Lord, you're shaking—” He breaks off when one of the police officers appears through the trees. He is talking on his phone as he trudges toward them. “What's that he's carrying?” he asks. He squints. “Is that—that looks like Derek's.” Jordie knows he means the scarf.

Mrs. Maugham comes scurrying down the path, her coat flying open behind her, and Jordie realizes she must have seen something from the house.

“What's going on?” Her breath accumulates in white puffs in front of her face. “What are they doing out there? Is it Derek?” All of this is directed at her husband.

“They have Derek's scarf,” Mr. Maugham says. He hasn't once taken his eyes off the police officer who is wading through the snow toward them.

Mrs. Maugham peers at the young man in the blue parka, his face earnest, who is now climbing up the slope to the rail trail. He has the scarf in one hand and a small plastic bag in the other. There's something in it. Something small and round.

“Do you recognize this?” The police officer holds up the scarf.

“It's Derek's.” Mrs. Maugham grabs for it, startling the officer and forcing him to whisk it back out of her reach.

“Please, ma'am,” he says. “It's evidence.” He holds out the plastic bag. “What about this?”

Mrs. Maugham thrusts her head forward to take a closer look. “Is that a button?”

“Yes, ma'am. Do you recognize it?”

Mrs. Maugham stares at it and shakes her head slowly. “Derek doesn't have anything with that kind of button on it. I'd know if he did.”

Jordie doesn't doubt this. Unlike herself, Derek isn't required to do any housework. Yard work, yes. Raking, shoveling, trundling out garbage and recycling containers—absolutely. Dishes, laundry, ironing, mending—uh-uh. Mrs. Maugham insists on doing all of that for her one and only child.

“What about you, miss?”

Jordie is staring so intently at the button that it takes her a few seconds to register that the police officer is speaking to her.

“Have you seen this button before?”

Jordie shakes her head. “No.”

“You said the scarf and the button are evidence,” Mr. Maugham says slowly.

Mrs. Maugham looks at him. Her face blanches. “Oh my god. Did you find Derek? Is my son out there?”

The officer turns to Mr. Maugham. “Sir, could I ask you to take your wife up to the house? Someone will be up to talk to you shortly. I need to speak with this young lady.” He nods at Jordie.

“Why?” Mrs. Maugham demands. “Why do you need to speak to
her
?”

“Please, ma'am. Sir?”

“I don't understand,” Mrs. Maugham says to Jordie. “Why do they need to speak to you? Do you know where Derek is?”

Mr. Maugham puts an arm around his wife's shoulder. “Come on, Marsha.” He starts to guide her away from Jordie and the officer, but she won't let herself be removed from the scene.

“What did you do to him?” Mrs. Maugham's eyes bore into Jordie. “What did you do to Derek?”

Jordie feels her cheeks turn hot in the frigid morning air. The police officer's eyes linger on her for longer than feels comfortable.

“Marsha, please.” Mr. Maugham presses his lips to his wife's ears and whispers something. Only then does she allow him to walk her up the hill to the house.

The police officer waits until they are out of earshot before pulling out his memo book and a pen.

“Now then,” he says, “tell me again how you happened to find this scarf.”

» » »

Jordie's feet are blocks of ice. Her face is so stiff from the cold that she can barely form words. But she stands where she is, on the path, and watches as more police officers show up, and then a dog, and they all wade into the deep snow and disappear from sight. She knows that if she were to look up the hill and could see the Maughams' kitchen window, she would see their two faces at it. Mr. and Mrs. Maugham are doing the same thing Jordie is—they are watching and waiting, unable to stop themselves. Perhaps, like Jordie, they are praying. Perhaps they are praying that Derek will be found. Or, in the case of Mrs. Maugham, perhaps praying that he will not be found, at least not in the way that she dreads he will be.

The air grows colder. A few snowflakes drift down from the heavens. Then more. Pretty soon the air is thick with large, fluffy flakes, the kind you can catch on your mitten, the kind you can look at and see for yourself that no two are alike. The police must be cursing. Every flake, every flurry, covers some minute spot out there and potentially obliterates some tiny piece of the puzzle they need to fit together to get to the answer of what happened to Derek. The flakes of snow become a veneer. The veneer becomes a layer one millimeter thick. The millimeter becomes a centimeter. The air is thick with snow, so thick that Jordie isn't sure at first that she is seeing what she thinks she is seeing—figures, white figures, coming out of the trees and making their way slowly toward the rail trail. There are two of them. One of them raises a hand. At first Jordie thinks he is waving at her, which makes no sense—why would he? Then she sees someone else coming down the trail—a man in a long coat. He heads into the deep snow and meets one of the snow-covered figures. They turn and go back the way he came. The second figure, a police officer, climbs to the trail and heads up the hill. On his way, he meets two more people. They are carrying a stretcher.

Jordie continues to wait.

She waits until the two men with the stretcher disappear behind the dense curtain of falling snow. She waits until they reappear thirty or more minutes later, walking more slowly now, carrying the stretcher between them, one in front, the other behind, and something lumpish on the stretcher between them. Jordie holds her breath as they stumble up the slope onto the trail and then carry their burden up the path. More police officers appear out of the snow. So does the man with the long coat. They all go up the hill, leaving Jordie in the silence of the falling snow. She waits until everyone vanishes and then she heads in the opposite direction, away from the Maughams' house, back down the path the way she came, barely feeling her feet the whole way, until she is home.

Eleven

A
t six o'clock that night, just as Mrs. Cross is about to put a chicken pot pie and green salad on the table and pull some biscuits from the oven, someone rings the doorbell. Mr. Cross, seated in the living room and therefore closest to the door, heaves himself to his feet and goes to answer. Deep, masculine voices can be heard. Mr. Cross calls his elder daughter to the door. Mrs. Cross, curious, follows her. Carly hovers in the doorway between the kitchen and the front hall.

“Jordie, you remember Sergeant Tritt,” Mr. Cross says.

Behind Jordie, Mrs. Cross says, “Hello, Neil. What brings you here on a night like this?”

Art Cross and Neil Tritt are both members of the local curling club. They play against each other regularly and are so evenly matched that it's anyone's guess who will come out on top on any given night.

“He wants to talk to Jordie about Derek,” Mr. Cross says.

“I'd like you to come down to the police station, Jordie,” Tritt explains. “You can bring your dad with you if you'd like.”

“Why?” Mrs. Cross demands. Normally, she is quiet and deferential with authority figures. But when her daughters are involved, her lamblike nature vanishes and she takes on the ferocity of a mama lion. “What's going on, Neil? What has she done?”

“We just need to ask her a few questions, Celia,” Tritt says.

Jordie reaches for her coat on the hook by the door.

“Jordie, what's this all about?” her mother asks.