Invisible Boy (11 page)

“Williams’s version is they were sitting on a bed watching TV together and he fell asleep. When he woke up, the door was open
and the boy was gone.”

I shook my head, breathing out through my nose.

“The
front
door?” asked Cate.

“Motel-room door,” said Skwarecki. “A place the county’s using for temp housing, out by LaGuardia. The mother’d been there
maybe a month.”

“That’s where you spoke with her today?” asked Cate.

“No,” said Skwarecki. “She gave her grandmother’s address and phone number on the report. I met her there.”

“And where does the grandmother live?” I asked.

“Maybe ten blocks from here,” said Skwarecki. “Two-family house—the grandmother owns half.”

She smiled a little, for the first time that day. “That is one
very
tough little old lady, let me tell you. She’s kicking some major butt on the little boy’s behalf.”

“More than his mother?” asked Cate.

“His mother… well…” Skwarecki looked up at the ceiling. “Let’s just say she’s not gonna get hired by IBM anytime soon. Or
Seven-Eleven.”

“How do you mean?” asked Cate.

Skwarecki shrugged. “Work homicide? You know from crackhounds.”

“This just breaks my
heart
,” said Cate.

I put my arm around her shoulders and turned to Skwarecki. “Do you think we found her little boy?”

“How she looked this morning? You gotta wonder how she even knew he was gone.”

“But the woman filed a missing-person’s report, didn’t she?” asked Cate. “For all we know, she turned to drugs out of grief—
after
she lost her son.”

“Sure,” said Skwarecki, humoring Cate. “But it was the grandmother made sure that got filed. Dollars to doughnuts.”

“She came down to the station, the grandmother?” I asked.

“With his mother, the first time,” said Skwarecki. “She’s been back a lot since, solo. That’s how I got the report so fast.
Desk sergeant says everyone knows her downstairs. She brings cookies.”

“And was there anything in the report that could help us identify the little boy?” I asked.

“What he was last seen wearing,” said Skwarecki.

Cate looked up. “Given your description of his mother, do you trust her account of what he had on?”

“The grandmother confirmed it,” Skwarecki said. “She’d just bought him new clothes, and checked to see what was missing: little
red overalls, blue-and-white striped T-shirt, white socks, and a pair of sneakers with ALF on them.”

“That puppet on TV?” asked Cate.

Skwarecki nodded.

The sneakers got to me. I looked down and started blinking really fast, but I could still feel tears welling up in the corners
of my eyes.

“
Crap,
” I said as fat plops of salty wet started dropping straight down from my face to the stone floor.

Now it was Cate’s turn to put her arm around me, which she did with great gentleness.

“Yeah, right?” said Skwarecki. “Should’ve seen me when the grandmother said
ALF
was his favorite show. Then she brings out a photograph, him sitting on Santa’s lap last Christmas? I just about broke down
and bawled right there in her living room.”

“That is so sad,” I said, gulping as my nose filled and my throat started to ache. “Jesus Christ.”

“Tell me about it,” said Skwarecki. “And then she hands me this tin of cookies, a thank-you for the guys back at the One-Oh-Three.”

“Skwarecki,” I said, “you’re
killing
me here.”

I pulled my bandanna out of my pocket and blew my nose.

“At the risk of starting Madeline up again,” said Cate, “may I ask if you can tell us the little boy’s name?”

“Edward,” said Skwarecki, grave once more. “But they call him Teddy.”

We led Skwarecki outside, and the three of us walked down the trail to see if the Quakers had found anything useful during
the course of the afternoon. They started coming out of the bushes when they heard us, and Cate urged everyone to take a break.

No one had found even a scrap of fabric so far—just little piles of garbage as useless as Cate’s and mine.

“Detective?” A woman stepped forward from the group. Cate introduced her to Skwarecki as Mrs. Van Nostrand.

“I found something that I didn’t want to risk picking up,” the woman continued, “without your having seen it first.”

Skwarecki followed her into the bushes. They emerged moments later, looking grim. Skwarecki, now wearing latex gloves, tucked
a large rolled-up plastic bag into her jacket pocket.

She and Mrs. Van Nostrand spoke briefly before the woman made her way back to the chapel.

“What is it?” asked Cate, when we were alone.

“A vertebra,” said Skwarecki. “Small. Looks human.”

Cate blanched.

Skwarecki touched her arm. “I should run this down to the ME. You two sticking around?”

“While it’s still light,” said Cate.

“Maybe an hour, I’ll swing back,” said Skwarecki. She strode away toward her car, across the dead grass.

Cate and I got in another hour of vine-hacking after that, filling a further half-dozen bags without finding anything of consequence.

The Quakers called it a day around five, and we walked them to the front gate, thanking them for their hard work.

There must have been four dozen bags of trimmings piled in a neat row along the sidewalk.

We sat on the ground outside the chapel, leaning back against the sun-warmed stones of its exterior.

“Let’s just wait here for Swarecki,” I said. “Take a load off.”

“Twist my aching rubber back,” said Cate.

Both of us were pretty drowsy, judging by the amount of yawning we did.

“Do you think we’ll ever find out who this child really is?” she asked.

“I hope so.”

I shivered, wondering which would be worse: knowing your son was dead or having no idea where he was and whether or not he
was in pain.

“If it
is
Teddy,” said Cate, “do you think the grandmother knew he was being abused?”

“She doesn’t sound like she would have stood for it from Skwarecki’s description,” I said.

I watched the sun slip westward, edging down behind the vine-decked trees. Their branches stirred, dancing light across the
grass.

“I wonder where Teddy’s grandmother is, in all of this?” asked Cate.

“How do you mean?”

“The cookie lady’s his great-grandmother. We’re missing a generation.”

I pondered that. “Good question.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I can’t imagine getting up to go bag the last of that garbage,” I said.

“God,” replied Cate, “what a hideous prospect. I could sleep the whole night through right here.”

“I’ll go do it in another minute,” I said. “We didn’t clear too much ground after the first pass.”

I pressed back against the chapel’s warmth, relishing the loose tiredness in my shoulders.

The wind came up again. I listened to it coursing through the trees, like a rush of creek water along polished stones.

Then I thought I heard a woman’s voice.

“What was that?” I asked Cate.

“What?”

“It sounded like ‘Hello,’” I said. “Maybe someone at the gate?”

I stood up to walk around the chapel’s south end.

A tiny, white-haired African American lady peered in through the fence, her prim gray suit’s skirt-hem revealing calves thin
and straight as wood split narrow for kindling.

I moved toward her across the grass, charmed by the sparrow of hat she’d pinned atop her regiment of beauty-parlor curls.

“Good afternoon, young lady,” she said.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. May I help you with something?”

“The letters on this sign are so small, dear, and I don’t see as well as I used to,” she said. “Can you tell me whether this
is Prospect

Cemetery?”

“Yes it is, ma’am,” said Cate, stepping up beside me. “What can we do for you?”

“I’m Mrs. Elsie Underhill,” the woman said, “and I understand that someone here may have found my Teddy.”

I didn’t say anything. Cate cleared her throat.

“Are you police officers?” asked Mrs. Underhill.

“No, ma’am,” said Cate. “I’m in charge of coordinating the volunteers here.”

Mrs. Underhill shifted her purse to shake our hands after we introduced ourselves, then asked, “Were either of you here when
the child was found?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “We both were.”

“We’re expecting Detective Skwarecki back shortly,” said Cate.

“Oh, I don’t want to interfere. I just wanted to see the place Teddy might have been laid to rest.”

“The detective told us about your loss this afternoon, Mrs. Underhill,” I said. “We’re both so very sorry.”

“Thank you, dear,” she said. “Thank you kindly.”

She opened her purse and pulled out a sheet of notepaper. “I’ve written my number down, just here. Could you make sure the
detective receives it? And I hope, if you find anything else, it might be possible for you to let me know directly?”

“Of course we will,” said Cate, taking the note. “This must be such a difficult time for you and your family. My heart goes
out to you.”

“If the child you found
is
Teddy,” said Mrs. Underhill, “I’d very much like to speak with the person who discovered him. Might there be any way to arrange
that?”

“It was I, Mrs. Underhill,” I said. “I’d be happy to tell you anything I can.”

“I’d appreciate that so much, but I don’t want to trouble you now. Just please, keep us in your prayers.”

“Of course,” I said. “Of course we will.”

“Please let us know if there’s anything we can do for you, Mrs. Underhill,” said Cate. “Do you have a pen? I’d like you to
have my number, as well.”

When Cate finished writing, I added my name and numbers, home and work, then tore the sheet of paper in half.

Mrs. Underhill took the pen and paper back from me and put them in her purse, then touched my arm. “I don’t live far away.
Maybe you could come by sometime, for a cup of tea? It would be such a comfort to me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Whenever you’d like.”

“May we give you a lift home?” asked Cate.

“No thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Underhill. “The walk will do me good.”

We all shook hands again.

Cate and I stood quiet, watching that gentle woman move away down the sidewalk. Head high, back straight, Mrs. Underhill shouldered
the yoke of grief with tacit dignity.

When she’d disappeared around the corner, my cousin turned to look at me.

“
Underhill
…” Cate’s voice trailed off.

We both knew there were headstones bearing that name among the graves behind us, and what it meant.

“Yeah,” I said, “Teddy is family.”

Cate and I returned to our seats on the ground, leaning back against the chapel wall. The sun had inched down a little lower,
its angle backlighting the tree trunks and everything in front of them.

I saw something I hadn’t noticed before, beside the main path. A tiny object, balanced atop the squat granite obelisk marking
one corner of a family plot.

“Cate?” I said, sitting up straighter.

“What?”

“I think somebody found a shoe.”

C
ate and I leaped up and bolted across the dry grass.

I’d been right: the backlit object was a tiny white sneaker, but neither of us wanted to touch it before Skwarecki’s return.

Cate stepped slowly around the granite post on which the shoe had been placed.

“It’s got writing on it, down this side,” she said, pointing.

I edged around the post in the other direction to stand beside her, but half the shoe’s swirly lettering was obscured by the
shadows of some caked-on mud.

I squatted down and grabbed a twig off the ground, using it to poke the sneaker’s little snub toe gently toward the western
light.

I read the words aloud, “Club Melmac.”

“What’s that, some kind of brand name?”

“No.” I dropped my twig and stood up. “Skwarecki should be back by now, shouldn’t she?”

“Madeline, please tell me what Melmac means.”

I kept staring at the gate, not wanting to blink. “It’s the name of ALF’s home planet.”

Cate inhaled sharply, and then, for what seemed like ages, I didn’t hear the sound of her breath again.

Finally, she exhaled with a raggedy moan, like she’d been punched.

“Oh, Maddie, that poor woman. This is just so damn
awful
.”

“I know,” I said. “It sucks.”

I’d gone cold again, despite the sun’s continued warmth on my back. I wrapped my arms tight around my rib cage but couldn’t
seem to stop shivering.

We’d been staring across the grass before Mrs. Underhill showed up and hadn’t seen the shoe. Could she have put it there?

No, that was ridiculous. It was just the different angle of the sunlight.

And Mrs. Underhill hadn’t come inside, past the gate. Had anyone come up behind us while we were talking to her to deposit
the shoe, we’d have heard them crunching through the dry weeds.

Besides which, what good would it possibly do this woman to falsify a connection between her missing great-grandson and the
child we’d found?