'I quit.'
After dinner she bathed her son. She put short pajamas on him for the heat but he insisted on wearing his cowboy boots. He sat on her lap in the bedroom rocker while she read to him. The first three stories kept him intensely focused, but then his boot heels started sliding down her leg and his body grew heavier as he tired.
The last story was
Da Grouchy Moocher Boogie Man, which Merci found too dark and coincidental for her taste. But Tim liked it, studying the colorful illustrations as the old man dies and the young girl holds his craggy head.
Tim yawned and clumped across the floor to bed. Merci pulled off his boots and put them on the floor where he could see them. She pulled a sheet and one light blanket over him and turned off the light. She went back to the rocker then, for the last few words she'd have with Tim that day. This was a favorite time for her, talking to her son with the room darkened but the light from the hallway coming in. She wished it could last for hours.
'Grouchy Moocher Boogie Man is dead?'
'Yes, he dies in the story.'
'He is all gone?'
'All gone. But he's just a character in a story.'
'He is not real?'
'Exactly.'
'Daddy is all gone?'
Her heart sank again because she'd heard this line of questioning before. There seemed to be no satisfying it for Tim, and she had come to realize that this is how the dead remain active on Earth.
'Yes, Daddy is all gone.'
'Is dead also?'
'Yes.'
'Is not a character in a story?'
'Correct. He was real. Your daddy was real.'
'Name is Tim?'
Was Tim or is Tim? She sighed quietly and felt a warm wetness in her eyes.
'Yes. His name is Tim.'
'And he is all gone?'
'Yes.'
'Oh.'
A few minutes later she said good night, I love you, and pulled the sheet up to his neck. Tim was silent but not asleep.
A few minutes after nine the phone rang. It was Captain Greg Matson of Willits PD, returning her call.
'Awfully sorry it's so late,' he said. 'It took me a while to get the file, then we had a shooting in a bar downtown. We get a shooting about every other year, but today was the day.'
'Get the guy?'
'He was still in the bar when we got there. Jealous boyfriend. The woman's okay though, took a twenty-two slug through her arm.
'It had always puzzled Rayborn that jealous boyfriends often shot their women first and their rivals second, or not at all. 'Shooter had a record?'
'Couple of D and Ds. Decent guy, really. Wife died on Lake Mendocino a few years ago. Boating accident. He never got it together after that.'
'Those are tough.'
'Yeah, but Julia Santos was even tougher.'
'Tell me.'
Captain Matson said he'd been with the Willits PD Homicide Unit back then, which led him into missing persons when foul play was suspected. Foul play was definitely suspected in the disappearance of Julia Santos, age ten. She'd left for school one morning at seven-fifty and was never seen or heard from again. Neighbors had seen an unfamiliar pickup truck but nobody got plates or even agreed on make and model.
'The parents were clean,' said Matson. 'Single mom, Anna. Good lady. The father lived over in Fort Bragg but it wasn't him. He went to work that morning at seven-thirty, punched in, twenty people on the dock said he was there until ten o'clock, which was when I got there to question him.
'We interviewed every neighbor in Julia's apartment complex. We interviewed every property owner between that apartment and the school. We polygraphed a few. We got some bloodhounds out of San Rosa and they followed a scent trail from Julia's front door to a place on Highway 101, about where it goes over the river. I always figure he got her there on the bridge, where she had less room to run.'
Merci thought for a moment. 'What did you get with the polygraph? Anybody look good at all?'
'No. I figured him for an out-of-towner, probably took her far away. By the time two days went by and we didn't have a girl or body, I had this damned awful feeling we'd never close it.'
'What about Archie Wildcraft?'
'First of all, how is he?'
'Wounded in the head, presently missing, possibly suicidal.'
'We got that video of him up here on ABC.'
'Grim.'
'I guess… well, I guess you would have arrested him before then if you had the goods.'
Merci heard the kindly accusation, but she didn't let it rattle her. 'That's exactly right. I don't think he did it. But when his folks told me about Julia, it seemed worth asking you about him.'
Matson was quiet for a moment. Merci heard ice clinking in a glass. 'He was eleven at the time. Big strong kid, quite an athlete. You know, it's funny. If that crime happened today I'd look at the boy real hard. I'd bring a lot of pressure. But back then, well, it was only eighteen, twenty years ago, but it was a different world. I never seriously suspected him, to be honest. I interviewed him and he struck me as a young boy who had a big crush on a cute girl. He was stunned. He was very, very serious about her and about what happened. And he never gave up hope, either. I kept in touch with George and Natalie for a few months after that, they told me about him going to the library to read news about her. He wrote her letters for half a year or so after she disappeared. Anna Santos let me read some of them-just break your heart. Like Julia had gone away on purpose and the kid was trying to talk her into coming home. But you know, the letters stopped and Archie got older and history became history.'
'Did you ever tail him?'
Matson hesitated before he answered. 'Actually, I did. He liked to take a shortcut to school through the woods, and I did follow him a couple of times.'
'Was the shortcut before or after you get to the bridge on the highway?'
'Before.'
'And?'
'Just a kid walking through the woods. That's all I saw. You know something-I never put that in my reports because I was ashamed I did it. But I was desperate.'
'Like you said, though, Captain, it was a different world.'
'I like the old one.'
'Me too,' she said. She thought for a moment, now understanding that she was feeling like Matson had felt eighteen years ago-about the same man. 'What do I need to know about Wildcraft? Captain can you tell me anything at all?'
Matson was quiet again. More ice. 'I remember one thing very clearly about him. I'll never forget the look on his face after I'd finished talking to him the first time. He looked at me very calmly and told me if he couldn't be a professional baseball player when he grew up, he was going to be a detective. A missing-persons detective is how he put it. I believed him. That's how much conviction he had. My own son was thirteen at the time, and he didn't have that kind of conviction about anything. He still doesn't. I remember it was a little unsettling, the way that boy kept things inside. Meaning Archie. Very strong-willed boy. Intense. Sergeant, I'm sorry I can't help you more.'
'I'm glad you can't.'
'If Archie does something crazy like coming back here, I'll take good care of him and call you ASAP. Take care of George and Natalia They're good folks. Tell them I'm keeping an eye on the house. Every thing's fine. The dogs
