She only sort of twitched her head.
“I mean, since Grandma left?” Never mind, I said, and left the paper on the counter and walked away from her. Birdie was singing in the living room, above her the giant screen of security cameras from outside: trees, the path to the parking lot, the side yard, and a hiker going by with a dog.
“Shan,” my mother called from the kitchen doorway. “We’ll figure it out.”
“No, we won’t,” I answered. “I might, but you won’t.” And I understood all at once what she meant by running, that she’d be gone, with her precious Bird, and I’d be left to figure all this shit out on my own, homeless if I couldn’t do it. I watched Birdie trip across the living room floor on her toes, the angel doll flying high and then swooping in to pick up one of the scattered girls and carry her off.
FIVE: KATERI
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17
Kateri has to wait until the next day to see the girl. In the morning, she sends Hurt back into the woods with a search team that includes dogs, and Kateri sits by the girl’s bedside, her little body dwarfed in the big bed. In the dull blue hospital light, her hair appears like rusted metal.
Kateri picks up her chart. They have left her name as Jane Doe, date of birth unknown. Estimated age five years. Height 38 inches, weight 38 pounds. No known allergies. BP 90/60. Pulse 115.
Little rabbit, Kateri thinks.
She’s on a slow drip that Kateri assumes still contains a sedative. An orderly comes in at seven thirty, and Kateri drops the chart back on the foot of the bed. He has the little girl’s breakfast. He opens the curtains, turns on the overhead light, all of it, an assault of brightness and smell.
“Breakfast, sweet pea,” he says. He raises up the head of the bed. Her little shoulders swim in the pediatric gown she wears. Birdie’s eyes open and lock on Kateri.
“Who are you?” she asks, all at once alert.
“I’m Detective Fisher,” she says, “but you can call me Kateri if you like.”
Birdie looks at the tray in front of her. They have brought her dry toast and a juice box, a Styrofoam bowl with Cheerios and a carton of milk. She looks away, disinterested, and the orderly puts the straw in the juice box for her. She takes a very tentative sip.
“Good girl,” the orderly says, and looks to Kateri, who nods. There has been an officer outside her door all night.
“I was hoping we could talk,” Kateri says. “Yesterday, you told me your name is Birdie.”
She nods.
“Is that short for something?”
“You mean my real name?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Sparrow Annie,” she says.
“Sparrow Annie what?”
“Jenkins,” she answers. Then, “Do you know what your name means?”
“Kateri is a form of Katherine,” she says. “Which means pure.”
“Annie means grace,” the girl says. “And pearls are precious and sometimes people rip them out of the shells.” She takes a noisy draw on the juice box. “Shannon means river,” she says.
“How do you know all this?” Kateri asks.
“My mama teaches me,” she says.
“Is Pearl your mama?” Kateri asks.
She nods.
“Who lives at your house with you?” Kateri asks.
“My mom,” she says. “And Shannon.”
“Shannon is your brother?” she asks.
“Yeah, but he’s big, like Mom.”
“What do you remember about yesterday,” Kateri asks, “when I met you at your house?”
Birdie shakes her head.
“Anything?” Kateri prompts.
She just shakes again.
“When I met you,” Kateri says, “you were in the closet. Is that someplace you normally play?”
“No,” Birdie says, with a tinge of sassy disbelief. “Unless there’s a thunderstorm. Sometimes if there’s a thunderstorm, we go in there with a lantern and we wait.”
“You and your mom,” Kateri says.
“Yeah,” she says.
“Why were you in there yesterday? Was there a storm?”
“No,” she says.
Birdie picks at the dry Cheerios one by one. Her eyes look far away.
“Who were you waiting for?”
Birdie startles; her head twitches almost unnoticeably.
“You said you were waiting for someone,” Kateri prompts her.
But Birdie answers with something else. “My mom cut her hair,” she says.
“Did she?” Kateri goes along with it, thinking that if nothing else, keeping her talking about anything, about normal everyday activities, will reveal something important.
“Yeah, she cut it all off.”
“Short?” Kateri asks.
“Bald,” Birdie says. “She was going to do mine, but I cried. And then I had to hide.”
“Why was she going to cut all your hair off, Birdie?” Kateri asks. Her arms break out in goose bumps.
“So they can’t find us,” she says.
“Who?”
“Anyone,” Birdie says.
“Who would be looking for you or your mama?”
“Anyone,” Birdie says again.
“Is there someone who was mad at your mom? Or maybe fighting with your mom?”
Birdie’s mouth makes a flat line.
Kateri switches gears. “Birdie, did you draw the picture inside the closet?”
“Yes,” she says. Her face colors with shame. She knows not to draw on the walls.
“Can you tell me who the picture is of? Is he someone you know? Or that your mom knows?”
Birdie shakes her head.
“No?” Kateri asks.
“No,” Birdie says.
“Who is he?”
“He’s the angel,” she says.
* * *
Hurt calls her as she’s walking to her car. The day is gray. It rained overnight, and the pavement shines with puddles.
“Any news?” she asks.
“Potential murder weapon,” Hurt says. “An ax.”
“Where?” she asks, and starts her car.
“A ways into the woods. It’s burned,” he says.
“Can you get anything off of it? Prints or blood?”
“The handle is almost completely charred, the ax-head itself covered in soot and dirt and some corrosion. But it’s suspicious enough,” Hurt says, “and it’s close enough. And could be what caused that much blood. There’s no indication in any of the spatter of gunshot residue. It looks like blunt force.”
Kateri nods but doesn’t answer.
“You there?” Hurt asks.
“Yeah.” She sits with her car running, warming, the lights off, the radio turned down.
“How’s the kid?”
She’s a little rag doll, Kateri thinks, and imagines picking her up, running her fingers through all that hair.
“She says Pearl Jenkins shaved her head before she had to hide in the closet.”
“Any idea why?” Hurt says.
“So people couldn’t find them. She planned to do the girl too.”
“Did she say who was looking for them?”