The tenth circle, p.25
The Tenth Circle,
p.25
The last time I talked to Trixie was last night, Zephyr said, leaning across the glass counter of the toy store. I called her around ten oclock to talk about the funeral.
Did she tell you that she had somewhere to go after that?
Trixie isnt really into going out these days. As if her father didnt already know that.
Its really important, Zephyr, that you tell me the truth.
Mr. Stone, she said, why would I lie to you?
An unspoken answer hovered between them: because you have before. They were both thinking about what shed told the police after the night of the rape. They both knew that jealousy could rise like a tide, erasing events that had been scratched into the shore of your memory.
Mr. Stone took a deep breath. If she calls youwill you tell her Im trying to find herand that everythings going to be okay?
Is she in trouble? Zephyr asked, but by then Trixies father was already walking out of the toy store.
Zephyr watched him go. She didnt care that he thought she was a lousy friend. In fact, she was just the opposite. It was because shed already wronged Trixie once that shed done what she had.
Zephyr punched the key on the cash register that made the drawer open. Three hours had passed since shed stolen all the twenty-dollar bills and had given them to Trixie. Three hours, Zephyr thought, was a damn good head start.
HAVE GONE TO LOOK FOR TRIXIE, the note said. BRB.
Laura wandered up to Trixies room, as if this was bound to be a big mistake, as if she might open the door and find Trixie there, silently nodding to the beat of her iPod as she wrestled with an algebraic equation. But she wasnt there, of course, and the small space had been overturned. She wondered if that had been Trixie or the police.
Daniel had said on the phone that this was suddenly a homicide investigation. That Jasons death had not been accidental after all. And that Trixie had run away.
There was so much that had to be fixed that Laura didnt know where to start. Her hands shook as she sorted through the leftovers of her daughters life-an archaeologist, looking over the artifacts and trying to piece together an understanding of the young woman whod used them. The Koosh ball and the Lisa Frank pencil-these belonged to the Trixie she thought she had known. It was the other items that she couldnt make sense of: the CD with lyrics that made Lauras jaw drop, the sterling silver ring shaped like a skull, the condom hidden inside a makeup compact. Maybe she and Trixie still had a lot in common: Apparently, while Laura was turning into a woman she could barely recognize, her daughter had been, too.
She sat down on Trixies bed and lifted the receiver of the phone. How many times had Laura cut in on the line between her and Jason, telling her that she had to say good night and go to bed? Five more minutes, Trixie would beg.
If shed given Trixie those minutes, all those nights, would it have added up to another day for Jason? If she took five minutes now, could she right everything that had gone wrong?
It took Laura three tries to dial the number of the police station, and she was holding for Detective Bartholemew when Daniel stepped into the room. What are you doing?
Calling the police, she said.
He crossed in two strides and took the receiver from her hand, hung up the phone. Dont.
Daniel-
Laura, I know why she ran away. I was accused of murder when I was eighteen, and I took off, too.
At this confession, Laura completely lost her train of thought. How could you live with a man for fifteen years, feel him move inside you, have his child, and not know something as fundamental about him as this?
He sat down at Trixies desk. I was still living in Alaska. The victim was my best friend, Cane.
Did youdid you do it?
Daniel hesitated. Not the way they thought I did.
Laura stared at him. She thought of Trixie, God knows where right now, on the run for a crime she could not have committed. If you werent guiltythen why-
Because Cane was still dead.
In Daniels eyes, Laura could suddenly see the most surprising things: the blood of a thousand salmon slit throat to tail, the blue-veined crack of ice so thick it made the bottoms of your feet hurt, the profile of a raven sitting on a roof. In Daniels eyes she understood something she hadnt been willing to admit to herself before: In spite of everything, or maybe because of it, he understood their daughter better than she did.
He shifted, hitting the computer mouse with his elbow. The screen hummed to life, revealing several open windows: Google, iTunes, Sephora.com, and the heartbreaking rapesurvivor.com, full of poetry by girls like Trixie. But MapQuest? When Trixie wasnt even old enough to drive?
Laura leaned over Daniels shoulder to grasp the mouse. FIND IT! the site promised. There were empty boxes to fill in: address, city, state, zip code. And at the bottom, in bright blue: We are having trouble finding a route for your location.
Oh, Christ, Daniel said. I know where she is.
Trixies father used to take her out into the woods and teach her how to read the world so that shed always know where she was going. Hed quiz her on the identification of trees: the fairy-tale spray of needles on a hemlock, the narrow grooves of an ash, the paper-wrapped birch, the gnarled arms of a sugar maple. One day, when they were examining a tree with barbed wire running through the middle of its trunk-how long do you think that took?-Trixies eye had been caught by something in the forest: sun glinting off metal.
The abandoned car sat behind an oak tree that had been split by lightning. Two of the windows had been broken; some animal had made its home in the tufted stuffing of the backseat. A vine had grown from the bottom of the forest floor through the window, wrapping around the steering wheel.
Where do you think the driver is? Trixie had asked.
I dont know, her father replied. But hes been gone for a long time.
He said that the person whod left the car behind most likely didnt want to bother with having it towed away. But that didnt keep Trixie from making up more extravagant explanations: The man had suffered a head wound and started walking, only to wander up a mountain and die of exposure, and even now the bones were bleaching south of her backyard. The man was on the run from the Mob and had eluded hit men in a car chase. The man had wandered into town with amnesia and spent the next ten years completely unaware of who he used to be.
Trixie was dreaming of the abandoned car when someone slammed the door of the bathroom stall beside her. She woke up with a start and glanced down at her watch-surely if you left this stuff in your hair too long it would fall out by the roots or turn purple or something. She heard the flush of the toilet, running water, and then the busy slice of life as the door opened. When it fell quiet again, she crept out of the stall and rinsed her hair in the sink.
There were streaks on her forehead and her neck, but her hair-her red hair, the hair that had inspired her father to call her his chili pepper when she was only a baby-was now the color of a thickets thorns, of a rosebush past recovery.
As she stuffed the ruined sweatshirt into the bottom of the trash can, a mother came in with two little boys. Trixie held her breath, but the woman didnt look twice at her. Maybe it was really that easy. She walked out of the bathroom, past a new Santa whod come on duty, toward the parking lot. She thought of the man whod left his car in the woods: Maybe he had staged his own death. Maybe hed done it for the sole purpose of starting over.
If a teenager wants to disappear, chances are he or she will succeed. It was why runaways were so difficult to track-until they were rounded up in a drug or prostitution ring. Most teens who vanished did so for independence, or to get away from abuse. Unlike an adult, however, who could be traced by a paper trail of ATM withdrawals and rental car agreements and airline passenger lists, a kid was more likely to pay in cash, to hitchhike, to go unnoticed by bystanders.
For the second time in an hour, Bartholemew pulled into the neighborhood where the Stones lived. Trixie Stone was officially registered now as a missing person, not a fugitive from justice. That couldnt happen, not even if all signs pointed to the fact that the reason shed left was because she knew she was about to be charged with murder.
In the American legal system, you could not use a suspects disappearance as probable cause. Later on, during a trial, a prosecutor might hold up Trixies flight as proof of guilt, but there was never going to be a trial if Bartholemew couldnt convince a judge to swear out a warrant for Trixie Stones arrest-so that at the moment she was located, she could be taken into custody.
The problem was, had Trixie not fled, he wouldnt be arresting her yet. Christ, just two days ago, Bartholemew had been convinced that Daniel Stone was the perpuntil the physical evidence started to prove otherwise. Prove, though, was a dubious term. He had a boot print that matched Trixies footwear-and that of thousands of other town residents. He had blood on the victim that belonged to a female, which ruled out only half the population. He had a hair the same general color as Trixies-a hair with a root on it full of uncontaminated DNA, but no known sample of Trixies to compare it to and no imminent means of getting one.
Any defense attorney would be able to drive a Hummer through the holes in that investigation. Bartholemew needed to physically find Trixie Stone, so that he could specifically link her to Jason Underhills murder.
He knocked on the Stones front door. Again, no one answered, but this time, when Bartholemew tried the knob, it was locked. He cupped his hands around the glass window and peered into the mudroom.
Daniel Stones coat and boots were gone.
He walked halfway around the attached garage to a tiny window and peered inside. Laura Stones Honda, which hadnt been here two hours ago, was parked in one bay. Daniel Stones pickup was gone.
Bartholemew smacked his hand against the exterior wall of the house and swore. He couldnt prove that Daniel and Laura Stone had gone off to find Trixie before the cops did, but he would have bet money on it. When your child is missing, you dont go grocery shopping. You sit tight and wait for the word that shes being brought safely home.
Bartholemew pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to think. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. After all, the Stones had a better chance of finding Trixie than he did. And it would be far easier for Bartholemew to track two adults than their fourteen-year-old daughter.
And in the meantime? Well, he could get a warrant to search the house, but it wouldnt do him any good. No lab worth its salt would accept a toothbrush from Trixies bathroom as a viable known sample of DNA. What he needed was the girl herself and a lab-sanctioned sample of her blood.
Which, in that instant, Bartholemew realized he already had-sitting in a sealed rape kit, evidence for a trial that wasnt going to happen.
In eighth grade, as part of health class, Trixie had had to take care of an egg. Each student was given one, with the understanding that it had to remain intact for a week, could not ever be left alone, and had to be fed every three hours. This was supposed to be some big contraceptive deterrent: a way for kids to realize how having a baby was way harder than it looked.
Trixie took the assignment seriously. She named her egg Benedict and fashioned a little carrier for it that she wore around her neck. She paid her English teacher fifty cents to babysit the egg while she was in gym class; she took it to the movies with Zephyr. She held it in the palm of her hand during classes and got used to the feel of it, the shape, the weight.
Even now, she couldnt tell you how the egg had gotten that hairline fracture. Trixie first noticed it on the way to school one morning. Her father had shrugged off the F she received-he said it was a stupid assignment, that a kid was nothing like an egg. Yet Trixie had wondered if his benevolence had something to do with the fact that in real life, he would have failed too: how else to explain the difference between what he thought Trixie was up to and what she actually was doing?
Now, she inched up the wrist of her coat and looked at the loose net of scars. It was her hairline crack, she supposed, and it was only a matter of time before she completely went to pieces.
Humpty freaking Dumpty, she said out loud.
A toddler bouncing on his mothers lap next to Trixie clapped his hands. Dumpty! he yelled. Fall! He lurched himself backward so fast that Trixie was sure that hed smash his head on the floor of the bus station.
His mother grabbed him before that happened. Trevor. Cut it out, will you? Then she turned to Trixie. Hes a big fan of the Egg Man.
The woman was really just a girl. Maybe she was a few years older than Trixie, but not by much. She wore a ratty blue scarf wrapped around her neck and an army surplus coat. From the number of bags around them, it looked like they were making a permanent move-but then again, for all Trixie knew, this was how people with kids had to travel. I dont get nursery rhymes, the girl said. I mean, why would all the kings horses and all the kings men try to put an egg back together anyway?
Whats the egg doing on the wall in the first place? Trixie said.
Exactly. I think Mother Goose was on crack. She smiled at Trixie. Where are you headed?
Canada.
Were going to Boston. She let the boy wriggle off her lap.
Trixie wanted to ask the girl if the baby was hers. If shed had him by accident. If, even after you make what everyone considers to be the biggest mistake of your life, you stop thinking its a mistake and maybe see it as the best thing that ever could have happened.
Ew, Trev, is that you? The girl grabbed the baby around the waist and hauled him toward her face, rump first. She grimaced at the collection of duffels littering their feet. Would you mind watching my stuff while I do a toxic waste removal?
As she stood up, she banged the diaper bag against her open backpack, spilling its contents all over the floor. Oh, shit
Ill get it, Trixie said as the girl headed for the restroom with Trevor. She started jamming items back into the diaper bag: plastic keys that played a Disney song, an orange, a four-pack of crayons. A tampon with the wrapper half off, a hair scrunchie. Something that might, at one time, have been a cookie. A wallet.
Trixie hesitated. She told herself she was only going to peek at the girls name, because she didnt want to ask and run the risk of striking up a conversation.
A Vermont drivers license looked nothing like one from Maine. In the first place, there wasnt a photograph. The one time Zephyr had convinced Trixie to go to a bar, shed used a Vermont license as fake ID. Five foot six is close enough, Zephyr said, although Trixie was four inches shorter. Brown eyes, it read, when she had blue.
Fawn Abernathy lived at 34 First Street in Shelburne, Vermont. She was nineteen years old. She was the same exact height as Trixie, and Trixie took that as an omen.
She left Fawn her ATM card and half of the cash. But she slipped the American Express card and the license into her pocket. Then Trixie hurried out of the Vermont Transit Bus terminal and threw herself into the first cab at the side of the curb. Where to? the driver asked.
Trixie looked out the window. The airport, she said.
I wouldnt be asking if it wasnt an emergency, Bartholemew begged. He glanced around Venice Prudhommes office, piled high with files and computer printouts and transcripts from court testimony.
She sighed, not bothering to look up from her microscope. Mike, for you, its always an emergency.
Please. Ive got a hair with a root on it that was found on the dead kids body, and I have Trixies blood preserved all nice and neat in her rape kit. If the DNA matches, thats all I need to get a warrant for her arrest.
No, Venice said.
I know youve got a backlog and-
Thats not why, she interrupted, glancing at Bartholemew. Theres no way Im opening up a sealed rape kit.
Why? Trixie Stone consented to having her blood drawn for it already.
As a victim, Venice pointed out. Not to prove she committed a crime.
Youve got to stop watching Law and Order.
Maybe you ought to start.
Bartholemew scowled. I cant believe youre doing this.
Im not doing anything, Venice said, bending over her scope again. At least not until a judge says so.
Summer on the tundra was dreamlike. Since the sun stayed out until two A.M., people didnt sleep much in Akiak. Kids would cluster around bootleg booze and weed if they could get it, or leave behind the skins of their candy bars and spilled cans of pop if they couldnt. Younger children splashed in the foggy green water of the Kuskokwim, even though by August they would still lose feeling in their ankles after only a few moments of submersion. Every year, in one of the Yupik villages, someone would drown; it was too cold for anyone to stay in the water long enough to learn how to swim.
The year Daniel was eight, he spent July walking barefoot along the banks of the Kuskokwim. A wall of alders and willows lined one side of the river, on the other, sod sloughed into the water from a ten-foot-high embankment. Mosquitoes beaded on the planes of his face every time he stopped moving; sometimes theyd fly into his ears, loud as a bush plane. Daniel would watch the fat backs of king salmon rise like miniature sharks in the center of the river. The men in the village were off in their aluminum fishing boats, the ones that had been sleeping on the shore like beached whales all winter. Yupik fish camps dotted the bank: single-celled cities made of whitewalled tents, or knobby poles nailed together and covered with blue tarps that flapped like the aprons of flustered old women. On plywood tables, the women cut kings and reds into strips, then hung them on the racks to dry as they called out to their children: Kaigtuten-qaa? Are you hungry? Qinucetaanrilgu kinguqliin! Dont try to provoke your little brother!
He picked up a crusted twig, a fan belt, and a binder clip before he saw it-a pitted peak jutting out of the silt. It couldnt becould it? It took a trained eye to look past the soaked driftwood to pick out an ivory tusk or a fossilized bone, but it had happened, Daniel knew. Other kids in school-the ones who teased him because he was kassaq, who laughed when he didnt know how to shoot a ptarmigan or couldnt find his way back from the bush on a snow-go-had found mastodon teeth along the banks of the river.
Crouching, Daniel dug around the base, even as the river rushed into the hole and buried his progress. It was an honest-to-God tusk, right here, under his hands. He imagined it reaching past the water table, bigger even than the one on display in Bethel.
