Everyone Here Is Lying(6)
Hollis says gently, “How does she get? What’s Avery like?”
Erin sighs heavily and says, “She’s complicated. She’s a lovely nine-year-old girl. Very bright—gifted, actually. But she’s challenging. She has a learning disability and ADHD. She also has behavioral problems.”
Hollis looks at the two of them. “What do you mean, exactly?”
William lets his wife speak for them.
“She’s smart but she struggles in school. She’s easily frustrated. She’s impulsive. She often acts without thinking. She’s willful, defiant of authority. She does what she wants, basically. We’re doing our best.”
Erin doesn’t seem to mind telling them this, but William knows that when a child goes missing, the parents are regarded with suspicion. Now they will think they’ve done something to her. He wishes she hadn’t told them.
But Hollis just nods. “Okay. Has she ever run away before?” She looks at him now.
William can feel himself coloring slightly and says, “No.”
Hollis studies him more closely and asks, “Everything all right at home? Any problems we should know about?”
William meets her eyes and says, “Of course not. Everything’s fine.” Erin says nothing. Michael is staring down at his lap.
“All right.” She turns to Erin. “Thank you for the photos.” She stands up and says, “If you don’t mind, we’d like to look around the house. Could be she’s hiding somewhere. You’d be surprised how often that happens; they hide and then fall asleep.”
“We’ve already looked everywhere,” Erin says impatiently.
But William knows what they’re thinking. They’re suspects, of course they are. Maybe there’s something to find in the house. “Sure, go ahead,” William says. “But please hurry,” he urges, his voice breaking. “You have to find her.”
* * *
? ? ?
Erin frets while a search gets underway for Avery. Her photo and a description of her and what she is wearing are being circulated to all police and media. Patrol cars are looking for her, police officers are already knocking on doors, talking to people who live between Ellesmere Elementary School and the Wooler residence, and going up and down Connaught Street, where they live. Maybe someone has seen her. Erin knows something is terribly wrong—Avery would have come home in time for supper if she was able.
It has just made the local evening news at seven o’clock. Breaking News . . . A nine-year-old girl has gone missing while walking home alone after school in the town of Stanhope, New York . . . Her photograph appeared on the screen. It’s all unbelievable. Erin feels as if she’s living inside a ghastly dream, the kind brought on by a fever.
A local ground search is being hastily organized, led by police officers and using volunteers, despite the increasingly heavy rain. It’s October, it will soon be dark, and it’s getting cold; time is of the essence. But Erin is trapped in the house, like a fly in amber, unable to go anywhere, unable to look for her daughter. She must stay inside and speak to the detectives, answer their questions. William is here, too, sitting by her side on the living-room couch, sometimes getting up restlessly and looking out the large picture window as if he might see Avery coming up the driveway, as if she had somehow avoided all those out there looking for her and made it home, oblivious. They haven’t let Michael join the search either. They are keeping him in the kitchen, with a female officer, so they can speak to the parents alone.
The two detectives arrived just as the first police officers, having found nothing in their search of the house, were on their way to track down the music teacher. Detective Bledsoe is Caucasian, in his midforties, an average-looking man wearing a serviceable gray suit. You wouldn’t notice him in a crowd. Erin hopes he’s sharper than he looks. Stanhope is a fairly small town, and how much experience can they have had with this kind of thing? She can’t remember a child ever going missing here. Bledsoe’s partner, Detective Gully, a Black woman maybe ten years younger than Bledsoe, with close-cropped hair and a smart trouser suit, is the one that Erin connects with. Perhaps because she is a woman. Perhaps because her eyes are more lively and her expression more sympathetic than her partner’s.
Bledsoe’s cell vibrates against the coffee table, making Erin jump. Her heart freezes, terrified of bad news. He has a short conversation and disconnects. He puts his cell back down on the table between them and leans forward in the armchair that he has pulled closer to the coffee table. “That was Hollis,” he says. “They spoke to Ms. Burke. She says that Avery began acting up as soon as choir began. She reprimanded her, but she says she had to dismiss her at about three forty-five.”
“Is she allowed to do that?” Erin asks, her voice shrill. “Can a teacher send a child in third grade home by herself like that?” For the first time it occurs to her that someone is to blame.
“Let’s not focus on that right now,” Bledsoe says. “But we now know that she left the school at approximately three forty-five.”
“Unless she didn’t,” Gully says.
Erin turns to Gully. She’s stated what should have been perfectly obvious. Bledsoe had assumed that something happened to Avery on the way home from school. They had all assumed.
Bledsoe bites his lip, looks at Gully almost as if he’s annoyed at her for speaking out, but maybe he’s annoyed at himself. He takes a deep breath, pushes it out. Then he nods. “We have to search the school,” he acknowledges. He picks his cell up off the coffee table and walks to the dining room, where he can have a bit of privacy, but they can all hear him giving instructions for the school to be searched from top to bottom.