I knew you would’ve if you could. Finally Dad got tired and said, “Hell! You both are hopeless.”
Then he sat back down in his green chair and watched TV until Mom got home. I never did tell her what happened and I wore long sleeves for the next month. I figured Dad was only home for a few more days and then he was going back to the pipeline again. You ran upstairs to your room and wouldn’t even look at me for the next ten days. But I knew you were sorry. I kept finding Tootsie Rolls under my pillow every day for the next two weeks.
MARTIN
Fielda is hanging on, but just barely. She is pale, her voice is shaky and high. Her fingers keep plucking at the loose threads on the arm of the couch. She is trying so hard to concentrate on the words that Agent Fitzgerald, sitting with Deputy Sheriff Louis on the couch opposite us, is saying, but is struggling to focus.
“I’m sorry?” she says contritely.
“What time did you see Petra last?” he repeats.
Agent Fitzgerald is not what I expected. I thought he would be much older. Instead, he looks to be forty. He is very short in stature, with a bulldog chin and small feminine hands. His appearance does not fill me with confidence, and I am rather irritated with Deputy Sheriff Louis, as he had said this Agent Fitzgerald was well regarded in law enforcement and a force to be reckoned with.
“Last night,” Fielda responds. “Eight-thirty, I’d say. No, nine. It was nine because she came downstairs once to ask me what a word meant in her book that she was reading.”
“What word?” Fitzgerald asks kindly.
“What word? Umm, it was
I begin to shift uneasily next to her. “What does that have to do with Petra being gone? We have answered all these questions for Deputy Sheriff Louis. I do not understand why we need to answer them again. We should be out looking for the girls. Our time would be better spent,” I tell him politely but firmly.
“Mr. Gregory, I understand your concern,” Fitzgerald says. “It’s good for me to ask the questions also and hear your answers, too. You may think of something that you didn’t tell Deputy Sheriff Louis. Please be patient. We are all working very hard right now to find your daughter.”
“All I know right now is that my little girl is missing, as is her best friend. She is out there somewhere in her pajamas and all I am doing right now is sitting here!” My voice is getting dangerously loud. “Why aren’t we out there finding her?” Fielda grabs my arm and begins to cry, rocking back and forth.
“Shh, shh, Fielda,” I soothe her. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to her.
Fitzgerald leans forward. “If we focus on all the facts that we have, if we look at each little piece, no matter how inconsequential, then we are more likely to find out where Petra and Calli are. So I do understand how repetitive this is for you, but it is very important.”
I nod. “I apologize. Please continue.”
“Can you give me a list of people who have visited your home in the last month or so?” he asks.
Fielda sniffs and wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Calli, of course, was over. Calli’s brother, Ben, he delivers the paper. My friend Martha—”
“Last names also, please,” Fitzgerald instructs.
“Martha Franklin. The two men from the furniture store, Bandleworths. I don’t know their names, though. They delivered the bookshelf.”
“We had a dinner party about two weeks ago, with some of my colleagues from the college. Walt and Jeanne Powers and Mary and Sam Garfield,” I add.
“We often have students from the college come and do odd jobs for us,” Fielda says. Fitzgerald looks expectantly at her. “Mariah Burton babysat for us on a number of occasions the last two years, Chad Wagner has done some lawn work this summer—he’s in one of Martin’s economics classes—and Lucky Thompson. Lucky stops by once in a while. I can’t think of anyone else, can you, Martin?”
“We have several hikers wander down this way, since we are right next to the woods. Many people from town come out this way to walk the trails, usually on weekends. Just about everyone we know has come near here at one time or another,” I explain.
“When we leave, I’d like for you to make a list of everyone that has had contact with Petra, as far back as a year. Some names may be repeats that we’ve already spoken about. That’s fine. We’ll run all the names through our system and see if anything unusual comes up.
“Has anyone paid any extra attention to Petra while they were here? Talked to her or looked at her in a way that made you uncomfortable?” Fitzgerald asks, his blue eyes staring unnervingly at us.
“Everyone loves Petra,” Fielda answers. “She just lights up a room, she can talk to just about anybody about anything.”
“I look forward to meeting her, too.” Fitzgerald smiles. “But think back, did anyone you know maybe go out of their way to give her a hug or speak to her in a way that made you pause, even just for a second?”
Fielda blinks at him several times and I can actually hear the connections clicking together in her mind. But she remains silent.
“I know these are uncomfortable questions for you, Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, but the sooner we look at all the possible scenarios, the sooner we get the girls home. We’re sending officers door-to-door and checking on any known sex offenders in the area.”
“You don’t think Petra and Calli went off on their own, do you? You think someone took them.” Fielda looks desperately at Fitzgerald, and when he remains silent, she turns to Deputy Sheriff Louis.
“There are some slight similarities to the disappearances of Petra and Calli to the little McIntire girl,” Louis says. “Nothing concrete, but…but like Agent Fitzgerald says, we need to look at everything, no matter how hard.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God!” Fielda slowly slides off the slippery chintz sofa to her knees and then curls into a tight ball. “Oh my God!” she wails.
I drop to the floor next to her and glare at Louis and Fitzgerald. “Get out,” I say enraged, surprising even myself. Then more calmly add, “Please leave us for a moment, and then we will talk more. Please go.” I watch the two men as they stand and unhurriedly walk out the front door into the scorching heat. As the front screen closes and latches with a soft click, I lie down next to Fielda, molding myself to her, pressing my chest to her back, tucking my knees into the soft groove behind hers, sliding my arms around her middle and hiding my face in her hair. She smells sweetly of perfume and talcum powder, which to me will forever on be the odor of deep, deep grief. Her cries do not soften, but become more fraught and my own body rises and falls with each of her shudders.
DEPUTY SHERIFF LOUIS
Fitzgerald and I step out into the Gregorys’ front yard, the sun nearly directly above us, hidden slightly behind an enormous maple tree—a perfect climbing tree, Toni would say.
“Jesus,” Fitzgerald says in an exasperated voice, and I steel myself for criticism of the way I just handled the last three minutes in the Gregory home.
“How can you stand this sound?” Fitzgerald says disgustedly.
“What sound?”
“Those bugs. It sounds like millions of insects chewing on something. It makes my skin crawl.” Fitzgerald pulls out a pack of cigarettes and taps one out, holding it between his slender fingers.
“They’re cicadas,” I explain. “It’s vibrations. The noise they make. It’s their skin pulled tight over their bodies.”
