Ink and Bone(32)

“How did you know I was going somewhere?” Jones asked.

“You’re wearing your jacket,” she said. “I can hear your keys in your pocket. You’re holding your hat.”

Jones Cooper smiled, a rare thing. “I like observant better than psychic.”

“Maybe I’m both.” She knew it sounded like the statement of confidence. But really she just wasn’t sure.

He stood. “Don’t you have class?”

“I missed it already,” she said, rising as well. “Take me with you.”

She could feel reluctance in his silence.

“You’re heading somewhere relating to the case, right?”

He looked longingly at the door, obviously preferring to go alone. Why he agreed to take her along, she wasn’t sure. But he gave her a nod and held the door for her. She followed him down the path and climbed into the passenger seat of his maroon SUV without another word between them.


*

“About a year ago, the family rented this cabin,” said Jones. They had been driving for a while down a long rural road, studded with mailboxes but no homes visible from the street.

“Destination is in point five miles on your right,” said the navigation computer.

He turned off the road and they drove another few minutes up a dark, rocky drive before they reached the clearing, a pretty log cabin coming into view.

“This is a rental property,” said Jones. “But since the Gleason girl went missing, the owner hasn’t had many takers. It was a crime scene for a while, after which there was a bit of stigma attached to the place. Then the season ended.”

He brought the vehicle to a stop, and they climbed out. Was there a new chill in the air, a sudden drop in temperature? Finley zipped up her leather jacket, digging her hands deep into her pockets. She hated the cold and was already grieving warm air and long days and the sound of crickets.

“I read the police report,” Jones went on. “I still have connections at The Hollows PD. No physical evidence was recovered here.”

She looked at the swing hanging from the tree; it swayed listlessly in the breeze. A short red plank attached to a blue-and-white rope.

What do you think? Did Daddy do good? She heard and she didn’t hear it. It was a whisper in the leaves, an echo.

“What are we looking for?” asked Finley.

“We’ll know it if we see it.”

They broke apart, Jones to the left, Finley to the right. She walked around the narrow side yard and into the back, where a sturdy wooden playhouse dwelled in the shade of trees. Adjacent was a slide, and a ladder leading up to a roofed surface. It reminded her that she and Alfie had always wanted a tree house. Their dad always promised to build one, but he never did.

On a wide deck there was a picnic table, frayed lounge chairs, a covered barbeque. A path led down to the lake that glittered gold and copper in the afternoon sun. She walked toward the water, then out to the edge of the dock. All around, as far as she could see were trees and mountains off in the distance. These lake properties backed up against The Hollows Wood, a state park that sat on over a thousand acres.

Then she heard something, faint and sweet.

At first she thought it was the squeak-clink but quickly realized that it was the call of a bird. Lilting, twisting notes lifting joyfully into the air. She remembered the birdsong she’d heard online just the night before and looked around for it, the little fluff of white, black, and red, the rose-breasted grosbeak. But she didn’t see anything. It was too late in the season, wasn’t it?

Finley moved in the direction of the sound, away from the house, along the perimeter of the lake until she came to a trailhead. Wildflowers were still blooming around the wooden post that marked the opening with a sign that included a map. The trail, about two miles long, looped back to the entrance, an easy hike. There was a list of birds and plants one might see, a warning to bring water and a cell phone.

There he was, perched on top of the sign, a little black, red, and white ball of bird, puffed up proudly, with an ash-colored beak. As Finley approached, he flew off with an alarmed squeak, alighting in a branch above her. He looked down accusingly. Don’t go far, Little Bird. Stay where Daddy can see you. It was an echo on the air, something uttered long ago.

Finley stared at the bird, wondering. If she’d come here yesterday, before hearing the squeak-clink, which caused her to research the sound and finally discover the call of this bird, would his song have caught her attention? She asked herself her favorite question: What would Carl Jung say? He’d say that when there was a series of acausal events—the squeak-clink, the appearance now of the bird she’d read about online—that there must be a cause, even if that cause wasn’t explainable by science. Jung never discounted the rarity, the anomalous occurrence; he embraced it, explored it. He knew that science didn’t have all the answers to the true nature of the universe.

“They took this trail,” said Jones coming up behind her. She didn’t startle; she’d heard him approach.

She was still waiting to feel something, to have some kind of experience. But there was nothing, just the slightest buzz of unease, a tickle really at the back of her consciousness. This wasn’t going to work; she should have known. Nothing ever worked the way it was supposed to; she was going to let everyone down, just like she always did.

“Merri Gleason watched them walk off together,” he said. He turned and pointed back at the bay window that had taken on the gold of the sun.