One More Day (9 page)

She lifted her head. “Thank you,” she whispered to the sky.

Jinx nudged her elbow when she glanced up, drawing her back, and she knew that signal.

“All right, all right,” she said, smiling, and cast around for a decent stick. Everything she saw was light, a frond or cattail. Finally, she found a short stick hiding in a low tangle of weeds, solid and hefty enough to throw, and she did, laughing. Watching him run after it, knowing he'd come back. There was no friend like a dog, she thought. Even a dead dog.

The stick landed off the path, near the water, and Jinx retrieved it but didn't come back. He stood with it in his mouth, looking out at the pond again.

“It's just a frog,” she cried out. “We can't play fetch with a frog, silly!”

But still, he didn't come back. She started toward him, and someone ran up from behind her.

“There you are!” a man's voice said, panting.

“What?” She turned, expecting to see Forrester or Nolan or even John, not a stranger.

“Here, Jack!” A young man, ignoring her, called to the dog, waggling an unbuckled collar at him. “Come here, you bad boy.”

The dog dropped the stick, as if in defiance, and ran toward the water.

“Jack!” He sighed. “Wiggled out of his electronic collar. Thank God I keep the tags on the other one.”

“I think you're mistaken,” she said.

“Mistaken?”

He was a few years older than her, dressed in plaid and corduroy, his feet testing the contours of his brown cotton TOMS shoes. Wayfarers perched on his head, as if he still held out hope the day could turn sunny. He smiled at her, bemused. “Mistaken how, exactly?”

“Well,” she began, her confidence only faltering slightly, “I think this dog is actually my—”

The dog ran toward them, stick gone, replaced by something stringy and wet hanging from his mouth.

“Jackie boy,” the man said as the dog came closer. “Now you're listening.” He wrapped the second collar around his neck and petted his head roughly, too roughly, Carrie thought. She'd never liked seeing men tossing children, wrestling with dogs. It made her nervous, nervous that they couldn't control their strength. But the dog half jumped on him with delight.

Carrie blinked. No, she'd been certain. His scar. His smell.

“What do you have there, huh? Can you drop it?”

“Tickle him under the chin,” Carrie said.

“Excuse me?”

“Tickle him under the chin and he'll drop it.”

“Hey, whoa,” he said suddenly, looking at her with his head cocked a little, like the dog. “Aren't you the lady who—”

He didn't finish his sentence. As he spoke, he tickled the dog's chin, and the animal released his sodden quarry, tumbling in what seemed slow motion, dripping, ruined.

Carrie fell to her knees, her face pale as paper.

A small sneaker that used to be blue.

A child who used to be here.

The shoes had been purchased at Target. Would they make something of that too, that her son's feet could be anyone's feet? Carrie had loved buying him clothes, dressing him in colors that suited him, like blue and green, yellow and pale orange. John never went with them; Ben sat in the cart while Carrie picked things out. She'd always bought him a small toy, something with moving parts, something he could bang or work with his thumbs, to hold at the register, a reward for being good. He never begged for anything, never whined. Always happy with what he had. Not like the rest of the family: not ambitious like John at work or Carrie's mother or even Carrie when she was young, always striving. It was as though Ben had been cast from something different.

She stared at the shoe on the ground, its color almost gray, the moldy green around the eyelets, the laces muddy and dark. She couldn't bear to touch it, and she was glad; that was, finally, the right instinct. This shoe wasn't Target's, wasn't hers, wasn't her son's. This shoe belonged to the police.

John, Nolan, Forrester, and the other technicians came in a group, racing down the path, Nolan well behind the others, panting. They'd heard the screams, the frantic barks. They hadn't seen Carrie rise from her crouch on the ground and run flat out into the water, shrieking her son's name over and over, splashing, kicking, until the man with the dog waded in next to her and persuaded her to come back out, to calm down, to pet the dog, that it was going to be okay.

Neil McGibbon, he said his name was. Half soaked after going in after her, wringing out the tail of his shirt. He gave a statement, told them exactly what had happened, but he left out the parts that were dangling, the parts that made no sense: that Carrie thought the dog wasn't his, that she seemed to know the dog, to know what he liked. Those weren't things he could explain; they were things he felt. And how seldom did anyone in law enforcement ask you how you felt?
They wanted what you knew. What you saw. What you heard.
The dog was muddy. The dog loved the pond. The woman loved dogs. Neil McGibbon had stumbled upon something that had seemed simple, then turned into more.

Neil was ready to go, having done his civic duty, but the dog and Carrie seemed to have other plans. Carrie sat shivering in her soaking pants, clinging to the dog as Neil clipped on the leash, breathing her good-bye into his flank.

“You, uh, can come visit him any time,” he said gently. “I live right over there.” He pointed across the field to the back of a house that looked just like Carrie and John's, with pale yellow siding and green trim instead of red. “If you squint, you can probably see him watching out the window, his paws on the sliding glass door. Some days he scans the pond all afternoon, looking for birds.”

She shook her head, wiped her face. “No, I don't think that would be a good idea.”

“It would…help me, really. You could walk him; he needs that.”

She gave the dog one last squeeze and said she was sorry, but that would be too hard.

“She loves dogs,” John offered.

“Yeah, I get it. I really do.” Neil pulled gently on the leash. “Say good-bye, Jackie,” he said, and the dog barked, offered his paw.

The cops smiled—such a nice respite in the grinding routine of police work to deal with a dog, something alive that didn't talk back—but Carrie's mouth was pulled small, grim. She took the dog's paw and shook it, holding back more tears. She didn't dare say what she wanted to say. She turned away, couldn't bear to watch the dog's rolling gait as they walked off.

Carrie sat in the grass, folded her arms against her knees, and hung her head. The exhaustion of it all, the weight of these tilting, circling questions, the heavy, damp breath of these men around her, asking the same thing over and over. Combing through old places, looking for one new thing. Everything always coming back to her. Everything always her fault. Couldn't someone else find something important for a change? Why did every clue form a mantle over her head?

“What happens now?” John asked.

“Forensics on the shoe. Dredge the pond again tomorrow at first light.”

“What about the dog guy?”

“What about him?”

“You don't think he's a suspect?”

“Him? God no. Wrong place, wrong time.”

“But…he can see our house from his. And his dog—”

“Smelled something in a public place. He wasn't even here, according to your wife. It's not like we found the shoe at his house.”

“But what if it smelled of the guy? If that's why the dog went into the pond and fished it out in the first place? You're not going to go look at his car, at his—”

“John,” Nolan said with a sigh. “We looked at everybody's car in this complex already. Every. Single. Car. As well as hundreds of sedans around the Main Line that people thought might be the one.”

“So look again!”

“The guy drives a light green SUV. You can see it in his driveway from here.”

“He had messy hair though, like the guy at the Y, right? Tousled, didn't you think, honey?”

Carrie looked at her husband. “I…didn't notice.”

“You didn't?”

“John,” Nolan said, pulling him to the side, lowering his voice. “What we need to do is talk more with your wife. As soon as…well, as soon as possible. Soon as she's up to it.”

“What are you saying over there? Why are you whispering?”

“I guess she's up to it.” Nolan sighed. “We are saying, Mrs. Morgan, that we'd like you to come down to the station tonight to talk more. Since you were here first, before the shoe was found and all.”

“What are you suggesting?” she said, lifting up her head, suddenly alert.

“It's just procedure. Just following the book.”

“You think I planted that shoe? That I knew it was there?”

“Hang on, babe,” John said. “Nobody said anything remotely like that!”

“Well, of course they're not going to say it, John!”

John looked at Nolan, who gave a slight shrug. The five of them standing on one side of the path, her seated on the other.

“That's it,” she said, standing up. She brushed the front of her yoga pants. Wet and full of dog hair. She worked a tuft of hair downward, curled it into a tiny pile, then slipped it into the pocket of her jacket. “I'm not saying anything more to you without a lawyer.”

“Carrie.” John said it like a warning, like she was being ridiculous, even though he'd been thinking the same thing, ever since Ben had come back. The gloves in the glove compartment, the milk, the box of diapers. How long did it take to find a quarter? Who was so ditzy they could miss a child being taken from their own backseat? And his own parents, who'd been doubting ever since he'd told them he was getting engaged to the girl from State:
Who is she? Her mother lives where? How well do you really know her?

“You heard me,” Carrie said.

The girl who loved to talk in the car and when they were tucked in at night and about to fall asleep was done talking. Just like the day when Maya Mercer had come to interview her—the camera crews, the producers, all of them hanging on her every word.

And no one believing a single syllable she said.

The day of the television interview, the day that was supposed to break the case wide open, John and Carrie had stood in her small, well-organized, walk-in closet, discussing her clothes in a way they never had throughout their marriage. It was shortly after the one-year anniversary of Ben's disappearance, and John and his parents had convinced her that publicity might help the case. Publicity might bring Ben back.

Carrie didn't know what to wear; she only knew what not to wear. She didn't own anything wildly inappropriate, nothing tight or low-cut, which had always been a relief to John. But knowing she was about to go on camera, she found herself rethinking everything.

She had on a gray sweater dress that was almost black, and John thought she should wear something brighter, more hopeful. He'd always liked her in blue and green and coral.

“The producer said no small patterns. Anything else is fine,” Carrie said.

“What about this?” John pulled a coral tunic, edged in white, off the bottom rung.

“That's a swimsuit cover-up.”

“Oh,” he said. “Would anyone know that?”

“Just every woman in America.”

“What about the green shirt?”

“It's just as dark as what I have on.”

“No, it's…prettier.”

“Is it?”

“It makes your eyes look green. The gray makes them look gray.”

She changed into the green blouse, added a necklace, put on a pair of black pants and boots.

She applied her own makeup in the bathroom while the camera crew set up in the living room. John watched them from the landing, occasionally coming back and filling her in on something innocuous, like how many people were there, how half of them were doing absolutely nothing, and that Maya was still in her trailer, parked on the street along with the lighting truck.

“I still can't believe they don't want to talk to us together,” Carrie said.

“The producer said that you make a better story angle.”

“Angle,” Carrie repeated, and John nodded at her in the mirror. “That's an awful word.”

“It is kind of pointy.”

“And aimed. It has trajectory.”

John swallowed hard at the sound of
trajectory
, which made him think of bullets. If Maya Mercer questioned them both at that very minute, they would confess they were on edge. The same edge.

They went downstairs together and stood awkwardly in their own living room, trying not to get in the way of all the people moving a cord here, a light there, a sandbag over there. Two young men, casually dressed, sat on the sofa, turned slightly toward each other.

The female producer gestured for Carrie to come closer. “He's just standing in for lighting. Just go ahead and—”

“But he's sitting,” Carrie said.

“And now he's standing because you're here. So just sit like he was, please.”

She sat down. A young makeup artist wearing absolutely no makeup came over and dabbed a little powder on her nose. “You look fab,” she said. “Seriously. And the earrings will read just enough.”

Carrie instinctively touched the small turquoise drops in her ears. “I'm not sure what that means, but thank you.”

“They'll read just enough
as earrings
.”

“Oh.” She nodded. As opposed to…spears? Play-Doh caught in her hair?

John walked around so he could be in Carrie's eyeline and gave her a thumbs-up. A female technician gave her a microphone to thread up the back of her shirt and clip on her collar. Then she moved her arms around a bit, drying the dampness that was starting to creep in.

The man next to her on the sofa smiled, and she smiled back.

“If she takes any longer in her trailer, I guess you'll have to interview me.”

“Oh, it takes forever to light Maya, because, you know.”

“Because she's more important than I am?”

“No, she's not as pretty as you are. Good thing I'm not miked, huh?”

Just then Maya came in, trailed by another makeup artist and a man holding a comb and a canister of hair spray.

Maya waited for her stand-in to leave without saying hello or acknowledging his existence, then sat down next to Carrie and asked her if she was ready. Carrie nodded.

“I'll do the intros and cutaways separately. We're just doing the interview today, maybe get some wild sound afterward, understand?”

Carrie nodded, although she didn't fully understand the terminology.

Maya gave a nod to her producer, and someone clapped a slate in front of them, started to count down, then said, “Action.” When the camera turned toward her, Maya leaned in and cocked her head. Her eyes squinted ever so slightly, like she was focused only on Carrie and struggling to understand her, to know her, before any words were even exchanged. That softness in her eyes reminded her briefly of Dr. Kenney.

“You grew up in the same place you raised your son.”

“Yes. Just a few towns away.”

“What kind of place do you think this is, here in the heart of Pennsylvania?”

“Safe. Quiet. Good schools.”

“You thought you were safe here. You and your husband and son.”

“Yes.”

“You had no reason to think otherwise?”

“No.”

“When you were a young girl, you spent a lot of time home alone here, isn't that right, Carrie?”

“Yes.”

“Your father was gone, and your mother worked a lot of nights.”

Carrie shifted in her seat, swallowed. “Yes.”

“You grew up alone. Is that why you felt it was somehow okay to leave your son alone?”

Carrie glanced over at John, who shook his head.

“I…did not leave my son alone.”

“I mean in the car? That day, outside Starbucks?”

Sweat beaded on Carrie's upper lip.

“I was putting money in the meter. Obeying the law.”

Maya nodded, as if agreeing with her. “So you say,” she said softly.

“Yes,” Carrie said, glancing at John again, who was nodding. “Because it's true. I say it because it's…true.”

“Isn't it also true that, when you were a child, your father was treated for psychosis at the VA hospital?”

Carrie's mouth hung open in surprise. “I have no memory of that. My mother never—”

“My producer has his records, if you'd like to see them. I know it must be a shock—I can see it in your eyes—but it's true.”

The heat of the lights bore into Carrie. She felt a droplet of sweat beading up on her nose.

“My father was in the war, so he—”

“Yes. And we thank him for his service. But I have to ask—is there any other history of mental illness in your family, Carrie?”

“No, no, there isn't, and my father was—he was fine, just unhappy.”

“‘Unhappy' can be another word for ‘depressed,' can't it?”

Carrie blinked. John licked his lips, looked around for the producer. Where was she?

“Were you depressed too, Carrie, back in high school?”

“No.”

“Really? Because a friend of your high school boyfriend led us to believe—”

“A friend of Ethan's?”

“Yes, one of his friends had quite a bit to say—”

“I don't even know his friends—”

“Well, they made some troubling statements about your senior year of high school.”

“Turn off the camera,” Carrie said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Turn it off!” she said, gritting her teeth.

Carrie pulled the microphone off, nearly ripping her blouse, and threw it on the floor. She stood up, surveying the obstacle course to every path of escape. This was her house, and she was trapped. Then John was at her elbow.

“I can't breathe,” she whispered. “I can't breathe with all these people here.”

Maya stood up and took Carrie's hand. Her eyes again, soft like the doctor's, as if they were friends. “What's wrong, Carrie?” she whispered. “If you won't tell me on camera, tell me now, for background.”

“Nothing's wrong,” John said. “You don't need to attack her like that!”

“I wasn't attacking, John. I was asking simple questions. If she's not hiding anything, she can answer. If she's innocent, there's no reason—”

John said, “She's just…private. About her family. Aren't you, babe?”

Maya winced at the word
babe
. But Carrie nodded her head so vigorously as John led her away that the droplets of sweat clinging to her lip and hairline flew off her.