ponytail and secured with a black velvet band. She wears a tight pink T-shirt and beige hip-hugger jeans. She is sitting with her back to me and I can see that her jeans are cut low and, in the posture she is in-leaning forward to make a point to her two friends-reveal an area of downy white skin beneath the top of her black leather belt and the bottom of her shirt. She is so close to me-inches away, really-that I can see the small dimples of goosflesh caused by the draft of the air-conditioning, the ridges of the base of her spine.
Close enough, in fact, for me to touch.
She prattles on about something to do with her job, about someone named Corinne always being late and leaving the cleaning up to her, about how the boss is such a jerk and has really bad breath and, like, thinks he's really hot but in reality looks like that fat guy on The Sopranos who takes care of Tony's uncle, or father, or whoever he is.
I do so love this age. No detail is so small or insignificant that it will escape their scrutiny. They know enough to use their sexuality to get what they want, but have no idea that what they wield is so powerful, so devastatingly halting to the male psyche that, if they only knew what to ask for, it would be theirs on a platter. The irony is that, for most of them, when that understanding dawns, they will no longer possess the looks to achieve their goals.
As if scripted, they all manage to look at their watches at the same time. They gather their trash and make their way to the door.
I will not follow.
Not these girls. Not today.
Today belongs to Bethany.
The crown sits in the bag at my feet, and although I am not a fan of irony-irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves, according to Karl Kraus-it is no small mockery that the bag is from Bailey Banks amp; Biddle.
Cassiodorus believed the crown of thorns was placed upon Jesus's head in order that all the thorns of the world might be gathered together and broken, but I don't believe that to be true. The crown for Bethany is anything but broken.
Bethany Price gets out of school at two twenty. Some days she stops at a Dunkin'Donutsfor a hot chocolate and a cruller, sitting in a booth, reading a book by Pat Ballard or Lynne Murray, novelists who specialize in romances featuring larger women.
Bethany is heavier than the other girls, you see, and terribly self-conscious about it. She buys her Zftique andJunonia brand items on the Internet, still uncomfortable shopping in the plus-size departments at Macy's and Nordstrom, lest she be seen by her classmates. Unlike some of her thinner friends, she does not try to shorten the hem of her school uniform skirt.
It has been said that vanity blossoms but bears no fruit. Perhaps, but my girls sit at the school of Mary and therefore, despite their sins, will receive abundant grace.
Bethany does not know it, but she is perfect just the way she is.
Perfect.
Except for one thing.
And I will correct that.
11
MONDAY, 3:00 PM
They spent the afternoon recanvassing the route that Tessa Wells had walked to get to her bus stop in the morning. While a few of the houses yielded no response to their knocks, they spoke to a dozen people who were familiar with the Catholic schoolgirls who caught the bus on the corner. None recalled anything out of the ordinary on Friday, or any other day for that matter.
Then they caught a small break. As it often does, it came at the last stop. This time, at a ramshackle row house with olive-green awnings and a grimy brass door knocker in the shape of a moose head. The house was less than half a block from where Tessa Wells caught her school bus.
Byrne approached the door. Jessica hung back. After half a dozen knocks, they were about to move on when the door cracked an inch.
'Ain't buying nothin',' a man's thin voice offered.
'Ain't selling.' Byrne showed the man his badge.
'Whatcha want?'
'For starters, I want you to open the door more than an inch,' Byrne replied, as diplomatically as possible when one is on one's fiftieth interview of the day.
The man closed the door, unhooked the chain, then opened it wide. He was in his seventies, dressed in plaid pajama bottoms and a garish mauve smoking jacket that may have been fashionable sometime during the Eisenhower administration. He wore unlaced broughams on his feet, no socks. His name was Charles Noone.
'We're talking to everyone in the neighborhood, sir. Did you happen to see this girl on Friday?'
Byrne proffered a photograph of Tessa Wells, a copy of her high school portrait. The man fished a pair of off- the-rack bifocals out of his jacket pocket, then studied the photo for a few moments, adjusting his glasses up and down, back and forth. Jessica could see the price sticker still on the lower part of the right lens.
'Yeah. I seen her,' Noone said.
'Where?'
'She walked to the corner like every other day.'
'Where did you see her?'
The man pointed to the sidewalk, then swept a bony forefinger left to right. 'She come up the street like always. I remember her because she always looks like she's off somewheres.' 'Off?'
'Yeah. You know. Like off somewheres on her own planet. Eyes down, thinkin' about stuff.'
'What else do you remember?' Byrne asked.
'Well, she stopped for a little while right in front of the window. Right about where that young lady is standing.'
Noone pointed to where Jessica stood.
'How long was she there?'
'Didn't time her.'
Byrne took a deep breath, exhaled, his patience walking a tightrope, no net. 'Approximately.'
'Dunno,' Noone said. He looked at the ceiling, eyes closed. Jessica noted that his fingers twitched. It appeared that Charles Noone was counting. If the number was more than ten, she wondered if he would be taking off his shoes. He looked back at Byrne. 'Twenty seconds, maybe.'
'What did she do?'
'Do?'
'While she was in front of your house. What did she do?'
'She didn't do nothin'.'
'She just stood there?'
'Well, she was lookin' up the street at something. No, not exactly up the street. More like at the driveway next to the house.' Charles Noone pointed to his right, at the driveway that separated his house from the tavern on the corner.
'Just looking?'
'Yeah. Like she seen something interesting. Like she seen somebody she knows. She blushed, like.You know how young girls are.'
'Not really,' Byrne said. 'Why don't you tell me?'
At this, all body language changed, affected those little shifts that tell the parties involved they have entered a new phase of the conversation. Noone stepped back half an inch and tied the sash on his smoking jacket a little tighter, his shoulders stiffening slightly. Byrne shifted his weight onto his right foot, peered past the man into the
