Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

Ian pulls his Mustang to a stop on the side of the road. All he can think is that this might bring him one step closer to finding his daughter. He knows that girls’ bodies were found, two at least, and he knows that’s sad. But he doesn’t feel anything like sadness right now. He doesn’t even feel anything that might live on the same street as sadness. Each body was once someone’s daughter but none of them is his daughter. His daughter is alive while they are dead. His daughter is alive and he will find her and bring her home safe. If these bodies help to make that happen, then-well, he denies the fleeting thought that these deaths were then worth it. He tries to deny that thought. But even as he shoves it into the darkest corner of his mind, out of the light of conscious thought where he might be shamed by its ugliness, his heart believes it. Every beat speaks the truth of it.

A hundred bodies sacrificed would be worth it, a thousand, if in the end he got his daughter back.

As he and Chief Davis step from their vehicles Ian looks at the line of cars. There are two from the sheriff’s department here already. They’re parked behind Diego’s car, and behind them is Chief Davis’s car, behind which Ian’s car is parked. Deputy Kurt Oliver, who works out of the Bulls Mouth office, sits on the hood of one of the county vehicles. His eyes are closed and his head is tilted toward the afternoon sun.

Chief Davis says, ‘Detective already here?’

Oliver opens his eyes and turns to look at them lazily. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘John Nance, down from Mencken-and Bill Finch is here too.’

‘Anyone else?’

He shakes his head. ‘Sheriff’s on his way.’

‘Coroner?’

‘Not here yet.’

Chief Davis nods. ‘Where they all at?’

Oliver nods toward the line of trees. ‘Follow the trail of yellow tape. It’ll lead to the bodies.’

A dog barks from the back seat of Diego’s cruiser.

Chief Davis puts a hand on Ian’s shoulder. ‘Let’s see what we got,’ he says, guiding Ian toward the woods.

‘Hey, Oliver,’ Ian says, ‘why don’t you drive that dog up to Pastor Warden’s place before this heat kills it?’

‘What for?’

‘I just said, so this fucking heat don’t kill it.’

‘Why don’t you do it?’

‘Because I’m going to the crime scene. You’re sitting here useless. For fuck’s sake, Oliver, get your head out of your ass and drive the goddamn dog up-’

‘Pastor Warden’ll give you ten bucks if you take that dog to him.’

Deputy Oliver slides off the hood of his car. ‘No shit?’

Davis nods.

‘Well why the fuck didn’t you say so?’

A few minutes later Ian and Chief Davis arrive on the scene. One of the sheriff’s detectives, John Nance, has cleared out a large hole, or a few small ones, in which the bones from three bodies are piled. Three female bodies, if the rags hanging on them is any indication. And young. The one that still has hair, just a snatch of it hanging from the bone, has blond hair. They are all in decomposing dresses.

‘Not waiting for the coroner or forensics?’ Chief Davis says.

‘I’m not disturbing nothing. The insects took care of most of this a long time ago. Forensics guys can play with hair and teeth and bloodstains. . if they ain’t too badly degraded.’

‘Were they buried all at the same time?’ Ian says.

Nance looks over to him. ‘That’s outside my expertise, but I’d say no.’

Ian nods.

Nance is in his late forties or early fifties, with gray hair and a face like melted wax. When he’s standing he looks like pulled taffy sagging under its own weight, shoulders slumped, arms hanging down, cheeks droopy. But he is not standing. He’s sitting on his haunches over a row of skeletons and piles of seemingly random belongings: shoes, clothes, toys. The belongings were once in bags, but two of the bags have disintegrated, leaving behind unrecognizable fragments. Nance pulls a dirt-covered hair brush from a pile beside the oldest corpse and lays it down on a sheet of plastic he or Finch spread across the ground to his left. He sets it next to other items he’s already pulled from the earth: a bracelet, a pair of empty shoes, a bunch of small dresses, a one-eyed doll.

Bill Finch stands over Nance with a small mini-DV camera and records the process. ‘Want me to get some still pictures too?’

‘No need yet.’

‘Right.’

Diego, who’s been standing several feet away rolling a cigarette, tucks the cigarette behind his ear and walks over to Ian.

‘They’re all too young,’ Diego says.

Ian nods. ‘I know.’

‘But look at them. Maggie was only seven when-’

‘But they’re not her.’

‘No,’ Diego agrees. ‘They’re not. You should come look at the clothes. Some of the stuff that was buried looks the wrong size for any of these three. I think maybe the killer came back out here and buried some of her stuff.’

‘Yeah?’

Diego nods.

‘Why would he do that?’

‘I dunno. People do weird things.’

‘You think some of it might have been Maggie’s?’

‘Maybe.’

Ian walks around to where the plastic’s been laid out, to where various dirt-covered items lie, looking like the results of an archeological dig: this is what the late twentieth and early twenty-first century will look like to the aliens when they finally arrive and find human civilization beneath a pile of ash. Ian silently scans the items, looking from one to the next. A strange numbness at his core as if his middle had been hollowed out and replaced by stone.

‘That’s my daughter’s.’

He points to a pink nightgown folded into quarters and covered in dirt and leaves. There are a few drops of what looks like blood near the collar. She was hurt.

Nance looks up from the hole. ‘Your daughter’s?’

Bill Finch says, ‘That’s Ian Hunt.’

‘We met once a couple years ago,’ Ian says.

‘And that’s your daughter’s?’ Nance says, nodding at the nightgown.

‘It is.’

‘You sure?’

Just after dinner the night Maggie was kidnapped and Ian was sitting at the table going over their taxes. Debbie was in the back getting dressed and Maggie was in the bathroom. She called to him. He walked to the bathroom and pushed open the door and she was standing in the middle of the room, skinny little-girl body dripping water onto the tiles while behind her the bathtub drain made gurgling noises.

‘What?’

‘I forgot a towel.’

‘And?’

‘And can you get me one?’

‘Can I get you one what?’

‘A towel .’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Can you get me one, please ?’

‘Can I get you one what, please?’

‘ Dad .’

‘Okay.’

He walked to the linen closet and pulled out a towel for her. He tossed it to her.

‘And a nightgown.’

‘Did you forget to wash, too?’

‘ No . Well.’

‘Well?’

‘I didn’t wash behind one of my ears.’

‘Why?’

‘Experiment.’ She grinned a wide, gap-toothed grin.

‘What kind of experiment?’

‘Mom said if I didn’t wash behind my ears I’d grow broccoli there.’

‘She did?’

Maggie nodded.

‘But you didn’t believe her?’

‘I don’t know. It’s an experiment.’

‘But you washed everywhere else?’

‘Duh. I’m not gross.’

‘Okay. Let me get your nightgown.’

‘The pink one!’

Three drops of blood next to the collar like an ellipsis. Covered in dirt and dead leaves. Lying on a sheet of plastic beside things he’s never seen before. Things that belonged to other little girls, now dead.

‘Yeah,’ Ian says. ‘I’m sure it’s hers.’