The Summer We Lost Alice (7 page)

The sheriff arrives. Looking through the screen door, I see his car pull up in front of the house. Then Catherine's boyfriend's car pulls up behind. I wonder if they've been arrested, but then I figure that they haven't or else they'd be riding in the sheriff's car. They all get out and head for the porch.

The woman whose house it is lets them all in. Flo rushes to the sheriff and practically climbs on top of him.

"Sam, thank God," she says.

Then she sees Catherine and Sammy and it's like she doesn't understand what she's seeing. It's like she's looking at a water buffalo standing on the porch.

"What—" she says.

"I ran into them on the way over," the sheriff says, "driving back from the lake."

Aunt Flo runs to Catherine. She takes hold of the front of Catherine's shirt, where it buttons
. She rubs it between her fingers while she pleads with her.

"Did you see her?" she says. "Do you know where Alice is?"

Catherine's eyes dart to mine.

"No," she says. "Why? What's the matter?"

"Alice is missing, Cat," Uncle Billy says. "She's lost in the woods."

"Doesn't
he
know where she is?" Catherine says, looking at me. "They probably sneaked out together." Catherine looks afraid, but it isn't Alice she's afraid for, it's herself. She's been caught sneaking out, but that sin has been overshadowed by Alice's disappearance. Alice's disappearance puts Catherine in even worse trouble, though, if Aunt Flo or Uncle Billy learn that she saw Alice and didn't make her come home. No wonder she keeps looking at me. She's wondering if I told, or if I'm about to.

"Ethan lost her somewhere outside the nursing home," Flo says.

Uncle Billy is talking to the sheriff, explaining as best he can what I've told him and Aunt Flo. He tells the sheriff, "We have to organize a search party."

The sheriff glances my way. He's sweating on his face and there are dark spots around his armpits. It looks like he's mad at me.

"I've woken up some deputies and they're making calls," the sheriff says. "The FBI boys are still down at the motel. I'll call Mrs. Nichols, see if we can set up a staging area outside the home." He turns to Aunt Flo. "We'll find her. Don't worry. She can't have gone far." He puts his hand on her shoulder and she doesn't pull away like she did with Uncle Billy. "We'll find her," he says again.

He turns to me. He bends down on one knee and looks me in the eye.

"Nathan, right?" he says gruffly.

"Ethan," I say.

"Ethan, right. Ethan, I need your help. I need you to show me where you saw Alice last. As close as you can, all right?"

I nod my head.

"Good."

He stands up and talks to Uncle Billy again.

"I want him to ride with me in the patrol car. I'd better let Ruth know we're coming."

I'd sooner step into the jaws of an alligator, but Uncle Billy says it's okay.

The sheriff turns to the woman whose house this is.

"Trudy," he says, "can I use your phone?"

"Surely," the woman says. "It's in the hallway."

The sheriff leaves the room and Uncle Billy looks at Catherine.

"Go home and get the flashlights," he tells her. "There's one in the kitchen and a big one in the garage. Check the batteries. There's more batteries in the junk drawer in the kitchen."

"I have a light in the garden shed," Aunt Flo says.

"Bring it. Bring them all to the nursing home. And make a Thermos of coffee."

Catherine says "Okay" and she and Sammy leave. Or escape, more like.

Aunt Flo touches Uncle Billy's back, lightly, as if he might bite.

"Bill," she says. "What I said earlier—"

He puts his arm around her shoulders and she leans into him.

"It's all right, Mama," he says. "We'll find her."

He's wrong. They won't.

* * *

The next morning, Boo comes back.

Dragging the leash, tongue lolling, he's the same goofy brute he's always been. He's the only one of us who isn't changed.

The men searched all night. Some women, too, and teenaged kids. More people from the FBI showed up this morning. Everybody's working in shifts now. "They'll find her, now that it's light," Uncle Billy says, "now that the FBI's on the job."

Aunt Flo has been wilting. That's the best way I can describe it. Like a flower that starts out fresh and standing up straight then starts to bend a little more every day, the petals curling up, falling off—that's what seems to be happening to Aunt Flo, only it's happening right in front of my eyes. I see the life draining out of her and something else taking its place, but I don't know what. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe nothing is taking its place.

Uncle Billy is quiet and for the first time I've known, he didn't read his morning newspaper. He sits in his chair, sleeping. He was up all night and it's caught up with him. He didn't mean to go to sleep. He came home to check on Aunt Flo and fill the Thermos and maybe have a piece of toast before going back out, but Aunt Flo fried bacon and scrambled eggs, telling him he had to keep his strength up, and we ate the silentest breakfast ever. Then Uncle Billy sat down in his recliner and rested his eyes, just for a minute, and now he's snoring. I ask Aunt Flo if I should wake him up. She says, "He needs his sleep."

She goes into the kitchen to do the dishes. I walk in a few minutes later and she's standing at the sink, her hands soaking in the water,
but she isn't washing anything. She's just standing there looking out the window at her garden. I look out the back door and see what she's seeing. Boo. He digs furiously in the garden. Flowers fly through the air in every direction. Aunt Flo doesn't care. She watches him and doesn't say a word, doesn't take her hands out of the dishwater. Pretty soon he plops himself down in the hole and sits there panting.

Catherine isn't speaking to me. She won't look at me, won't be in the same room with me. She lies on her bed and cries. Sammy came over but she told him to get lost.

I cry, sometimes. When I see the queen's diamond buttons lying on the bed, my throat tightens up and I feel the tears coming and I start bawling like a baby. I don't know if anybody can hear me, but if they do, they don't come in. Maybe they hate me for getting Alice lost.

The telephone rings and Aunt Flo answers. It's my mother in Wichita. She wants to know if they've found Alice yet. Aunt Flo says, "No, not yet. They're hopeful, though, now the sun's up. The sheriff's helping the FBI with the search. He isn't the brightest bulb but he knows every inch of this county."

My mother wants to know if she should come pick me up. I think that Aunt Flo will say, "Yes, please. Please come get this rotten kid out of my house before I kill him." But she says, "Not just yet. The sheriff thinks he may remember something that will help. There are some questions."

I don't need to remember anything more. They only have to believe what I've told them already. I told them to search the nursing home, but they won't do it.

"The FBI wants to talk with him," Aunt Flo says, "not that he's in any trouble. Just in case this has something to do with the other missing children. (...) No, no, I don't think so. You can't help but imagine the worst, but ... no, I don't think so. They'll find her, with so many people looking. Now that it's light."

I go outside and sit down in front of Boo. I rub his head and scratch him behind the ears.

"If you were a bloodhound," I say, "you could track her down. You could take the FBI right to her."

I think it's a good thing the FBI is coming to talk to me. Maybe they'll listen and believe me when I say that Mrs. Nichols is a witch. They'll search the nursing home and find Alice and the other missing kids.

Then they'll shoot Mrs. Nichols in her black, witch's heart.

* * *

They didn't find Alice today.

I'm lying in bed in the dark. Boo lies here with me. Alice's bed is empty, and so is my chest. I think if a butterfly lands on my chest
it'll cave in and I'll die. My throat hurts. I've been crying a lot today. I'll be okay for a while and then I'll start crying again. Sometimes I get so angry I want to smash things or kick Boo in the ribs or do something awful, like blowing up the house with Aunt Flo and Uncle Billy and Catherine and Boo and me all inside. I want it to rain, a big storm with thunder that knocks you off your feet, and I want to stand outside in it and let the wind tear at my clothes and let the rain pound my face and let the thunder knock me back in time, back to yesterday before the Queen of Bohemia and I set out on our stupid quest.

But it doesn't rain, even though it threatens to, and I don't do anything horrible
. As hard as I try, I can't make myself go back in time to change things. It doesn't seem fair that I can't do that. It's something God should let you do, even if you only get to do it once in your whole lifetime.

Boo rolls over, wanting me to scratch his belly. It doesn't seem to bother him that Alice is gone. Maybe he hasn't figured it out yet. He doesn't know that she's gone and she's never coming back. I wonder how long it'll take for that idea to sink in, if it can get through that thick skull of his.

Losing Alice hurts so much, I think it might be better to be like Boo or like the missing boy, Martin Dale, who was slow in the head. Right now I'd like to be so stupid that I don't know anything at all.

* * *

People have started coming to the house.

Most of them bring food, which is good because Aunt Flo has stopped cooking. Uncle Billy accepts the casserole dish or cold cuts or the cake or pie, and Aunt Flo doesn't come to the door. She stays in the bedroom. I guess Catherine got over being mad at Sammy because she's spending all her time with him. I find out that he's the sheriff's son.

"Dad's takin' it hard," he says, "real hard. He's been sheriff forever. Nothin' like this ever happened before. It's like he's let everybody down. The whole town."

Sammy knows all about the search and how they're not finding anything, not a single clue as to where Alice might be. They keep going over the same old ground. They're calling it off. Volunteers have
dwindled and the search was about to fizzle out on its own if the FBI hadn't called it to a halt.

The FBI men come to talk to me. One of them is named Pete. He seems annoyed all the time, like he'd rather be anywhere but
Meddersville. He's short and dark-haired and he's always picking things off his suit coat, things I can't even see, things I'm not even sure are there.

The other agent's name is Wallace. He's the one who questions me. I sit in a chair and Wallace sits across from me
. He tries to pretend that we're having a normal conversation, as if kids and grownups ever sat like this and talked about anything important. Pete paces back and forth and keeps raising his eyes to the ceiling whenever I mention Mrs. Nichols. Pete's getting on Wallace's nerves. Finally Wallace tells him to go outside and have a smoke, and he does.

Wallace doesn't believe anything I said about Mrs. Nichols being a witch, but he agrees to go take a look if I'll go with him. The sheriff objects.

"Ruth's put up with enough from us," the sheriff says. "She's had your people and cops from three counties in and out of her place for the past four days."

"Won't hurt to take another look, with the boy," Wallace says. "Just for the report, to show we've touched all the bases."

The sheriff doesn't like it but he relents. He says he'll take us there. He wants me to ride with him. I shoot a look at Wallace and he says maybe it would be better if I rode with him and Pete in the FBI car. The sheriff isn't happy. I'm starting to think he's never happy.

So I get in the FBI car and we drive out to the nursing home, following the sheriff.

Pete makes comments, like how a dog could take a nap in the middle of Main Street on a Saturday afternoon, or how he'd kill for a real cup of coffee and not the watered-down stuff they drink out here. Wallace steers with one hand on the wheel. His left elbow sticks out the open window, he rests his arm on the door like Uncle Billy does. Pete asks him why he doesn't roll up the window and turn on the air conditioner. Wallace says, "Smell the air, Pete. That's the real thing, not the smoggy crud they serve up in the city." Pete says he doesn't trust any air he can't chew.

"You see those hills on the way in?" Wallace asks.

"You mean those bumps on the ground?"

"With a little investment, a man could make a decent nine-
holer out of 'em."

"I thought they just threw cow chips out here," Pete says.

"Golf is universal. They even played it on the moon."

"Your tax dollars at work."

We pull up in front of the nursing home. The sheriff knocks on the door. Mrs. Nichols opens it. The sheriff apologizes for bothering her.

"The boys, here,
were wanting another look around."

"Whatever for?"

"Just a matter of routine," he says. He swivels his eyes in my direction.

Mrs. Nichols glances at me. She nods.