Before She Was Found. Heather Gudenkauf

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СКАЧАТЬ the back of an envelope. Violet, went looking for Max. Lock the door behind you if you get home before we do. Mom.

      Outside I find Sam sitting in his car, the engine idling. My car—not the one that we arrived with in Pitch, but one with fewer miles and fewer dents—is parked in the driveway just in front of Sam’s SUV. The night air is chilly and I wish I would have thought to grab a sweatshirt. I climb in next to Sam, who, seeing me shiver, cranks the heater to the highest setting.

      “Where to?” he asks. Though I’m grateful for the ride, for his willingness to come along with me on this trek, a persistent voice in my head is telling me to get out of his car and into my own.

      “Let’s check his friend Clint’s house first,” I say. “He lives out on Highway 162 about four miles.” Sam backs out of the gravel driveway before stopping in the middle of the street.

      “Or,” Sam says, sliding his eyes toward me, “we can follow the sirens. Might put your mind at ease.”

      His suggestion makes sense. We can drive all around the county and not come across Max, but if we go toward where we think the emergency vehicles went, then I’d know for sure that Max is safe. Or not.

      “West, I think,” I say and Sam throws the car into gear and tears off toward the railroad tracks that split Pitch in half. No one can say that one side of Pitch is any better than the other. The north side has the Lutheran church, the library and the Fuel and Feed while the south side has the Catholic church, the middle school and the old opera house. Both ends of town have their share of foreclosed homes.

      Sam turns onto Main Street and I tap my foot nervously as we pass the hardware store and an antique shop with a vintage soda machine sitting out front. He reaches for my hand and I pull it away to cover up a fake cough.

      I should never have invited him over. Though tonight was our first official date, Sam and I have spent time together. He comes into the Fuel and Feed twice a week—the first on his way to see his parents and the second on his way back home. He buys a cup of coffee or a pack of sunflower seeds and we talk.

      He learned that after coming to town, instead of fixing my car and heading on to Green Bay, I got a job at the convenience store, rented a two-bedroom house with peeling paint, no air-conditioning and a temperamental furnace and enrolled my kids in school. I learned that he grew up in Pitch, now lives forty miles away in North Liberty and works as a researcher in the College of Dentistry at the University of Grayling.

      Tonight, with Max out with friends and Violet spending the night at Cora’s, Sam and I drove to Washington to eat at an Italian place he knew about, and after one too many glasses of wine, we ended up in bed together. Big mistake. But big fun.

      We glide pass the post office and two empty storefronts with soaped-out windows and past Petit’s Bar and Grill. The closer we get to the railroad tracks, the faster my foot taps against the rubber floor mat. I want to tell Sam to turn around, to go back to the house. Max has been out all night before, shown up in the wee hours, bleary-eyed and rumpled and probably hungover, but he always comes home.

      I’m afraid of what I might find once we reach the police cars or ambulances. I strain to see if I can hear the sirens, even roll down the window, but all I can hear is the rumble of the car’s engine and the creak of branches rubbing against each other as we drive down Main.

      Sam slows to a crawl as he crosses the railroad tracks but still the car bounces and pitches as it rolls over the uneven iron rails. I expect Sam to make a left on Depot, a street that runs parallel to the tracks, but he keeps going. Once over the tracks we pass the bank and the tiny grocery store, and then three blocks filled with single-family homes.

      I glance down Juneberry, the street where Violet is spending the night at her best friend’s house. Cora Landry invited Violet over so they could spend their free day off school together tomorrow. I breathe a sigh of relief. No ambulances down that way.

      Pitch ends suddenly as if the town’s forefathers somehow knew that it would never really grow into the buzzing railroad town originally planned. Main Street turns into a country highway, treeless and lined with deep ditches and acres of farmland now hidden by the black night. The road dips and winds and gradually rises and I turn in my seat to look out the rear window. From here I can see Pitch below us.

      “There,” I say, grabbing at Sam’s arm. On the western edge of Pitch right along the railroad tracks and the old millwork district I see the rhythmic swirling of red lights. Sam knew exactly what he was doing coming up here.

      Without slowing down, he makes a U-turn and I clutch at the dash to keep myself from sliding across the seat. There is no train in sight. Surely if there was an accident with one of the freight trains that runs through Pitch four times a day, it would have stopped. Unless, of course, the engineer didn’t know that he hit someone. Sam pulls off to the side of the road and punches the hazards with one finger.

      “Try and call Max again,” he says and I lift the phone to my ear and this time it goes right to voice mail. “Do you want to go down there?” he asks.

      Apprehension, thick as mud, fills my chest. I’ve always known I would never have much money, never have a big house to live in, never have some great job, probably never get married again. And because I’ve expected so little I don’t think I’m asking too much that my kids stay safe. God and I have always had a complicated relationship, but I never held anything against Him. But if something bad happened to Max or Violet all bets are off. I don’t want to find out what’s going on down there. I will my phone to vibrate, but it stays still.

      “Go,” I finally say. I’m guessing that we won’t get very close to the scene, anyway, but I have to do whatever I can to find out what’s going on. Sam pulls back onto the highway and he speeds toward the train yard. He doesn’t have to worry about getting pulled over. It looks like every police officer and sheriff’s deputy in Johnson County is parked down there.

      In less than three minutes Sam manages to park just a block away from where all the emergency vehicles have converged. Two sheriff’s cars and the police chief’s SUV barricade the only entrance into the train yard where the depot is boarded up and empty boxcars, abandoned years ago, sit. An ambulance is parked a bit off to the side facing the road ready to leave in a hurry. A deputy strides toward us as we approach. He’s young. Tall and broad across the shoulders. His eyes dart left and right as if on the lookout for something or someone. He looks scared. Ill.

      “You can’t be here, folks,” he says, trying to usher us back toward the car.

      “We heard the sirens, saw the lights,” Sam explains. “What happened? Is everyone okay?”

      “Sorry, you can’t be here,” the officer says again. Behind him someone turns on their headlights and the darkened train yard suddenly comes into view to reveal a flurry of activity. A woman wearing running tights and tennis shoes is talking to another officer. With hands tucked inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt she gestures toward the tracks and then rubs at her eyes, leaving behind a streak of red across her face.

      “Is that blood?” I ask louder than I intend. Hearing me, the woman looks down at her hands and cries out.

      “Ma’am,” the young officer says more sternly, “you need to leave this area.” This is when I see the EMTs come toward us carrying a stretcher to the ambulance. A small body is strapped securely to the stretcher. My breath lodges in my throat. She is shaped like my Violet. Thin with long dark hair that could belong to Violet, too, but the child’s face is nearly unrecognizable. Bloody, swollen, grotesque.

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