Girls Like Us(26)

“Ah, jeez. I’m sorry. You want me to handle it?”

“Nah, I got it.” I look away, aware that I’m not telling him everything.

Lee stuffs a quarter of the donut in his mouth and returns the rest to the bag. He puts the car in reverse and pulls out onto Main Street. The radio springs to life. The static crackle, the staccato code that the dispatcher used to direct traffic, washes over me in a tidal wave of nostalgia. It’s like an old language I once spoke fluently and haven’t heard in years. I press my forehead against the glass, watching the Main Street storefronts rush by. When I was a kid, my father would let me ride in the front seat of his cruiser. He’d turn on the radio and tell me what all the codes meant: 10-16 was domestic trouble; 10-33 was emergency; 10-79 was notify the coroner. He’d quiz me later. I never forgot.

Elena Marques lives on a dead-end street bordering the Riverhead Cemetery. I stare out the window as the headstones roll past. It isn’t a particularly pretty final resting place. There is a chicken-wire fence surrounding the cemetery, and the lawn is brown in some places, as if the sprinklers are spread just a little bit too far apart.

I’ve been here before. A field trip in junior high school. We were each given butcher paper and charcoal. Our history teacher, Mr. McManus, told us to do a rubbing of the most interesting tombstone we could find. I picked one from 1862. An eighteen-year-old named John Downs who had died in battle at Gloverston, Virginia. A member of Company D, 12th Regiment. I brought it home and showed my father. He ripped it in half and told me it was disrespectful to do that to someone’s grave, especially someone who’d served our country. He’d been drinking; I could smell the whisky on his breath. His eyes got dark when he drank, and his voice went cold. I hadn’t yet learned to avoid him when he got like that. He gripped my arm so hard that a bruise swelled. First purple, then a sickly green. I was too embarrassed to explain to Mr. McManus what happened to my rubbing, so I bought butcher paper and charcoal with some money I’d saved up and I skipped gym class and biked to the nearest cemetery to make a new one. I started wearing long sleeves after that. I kept wearing them for months, even after the bruise had faded.

A sign at the entrance reads “Riverhead Cemetery, Founded in 1859.” Below that, a smaller sign announces: “Internment Plots Available.” I wonder if this is where they’ll bury Adriana. I think about my mother’s ashes, stashed in an urn in my father’s closet. He never could part with it. With her. We had a haphazard memorial service at St. Agnes nearly two months after her death, arranged mostly by her friends. I was too young at the time to know this was strange or that my fascination with old cemeteries wasn’t normal. On Long Island, they’re mostly quiet, beautiful places. Some of them date back to the 1600s. Sometimes I’d bike over to the one in town after school. A lot of the stones were old and worn, and in the spring, cherry blossoms coated the grass in pink. I’d sit on a bench and read until sunset. It never occurred to me that having somewhere to go to mourn my mother might have been helpful, or that keeping her ashes in our house didn’t allow my father and me much closure. It strikes me now, for the first time since I returned to Suffolk County, that I probably should do something with my mother’s remains, too.

Lee pulls up in front of a small, dun-colored house across the street from the cemetery. The lawn, such as it is, slopes downward to the street, as though the land itself is frowning. A child squats in the driveway. She wears a purple T-shirt, clear jelly sandals, and pants with Elmo on the knees. Her hair is wild and curly, bound up in two uneven pigtails that stick out in opposing directions. She stares intently at the ground, picking up stones one by one and dropping them into a red plastic cup, the kind kids drink out of at high school parties. She freezes when she hears us step out of the car, staring up at us as though we’ve caught her shoplifting. I smile and give her a little wave. She doesn’t respond. A glob of drool pools on her lip. She watches us pass with big, blinking eyes.

Before we ring the bell, a woman opens the door. She wears a long skirt and a white tank top that shows off her olive skin. Her hair is pulled back in a knot at the nape of her neck. Though her face is beautiful, there is a heaviness to it. Half-moons swell beneath her eyes. She stares at us wearily.

“Excuse me,” she says, and steps around Lee. “Isabel! Ven aquí por favor.”

The small child looks up from the gravel. Reluctantly, she drops a final rock into her cup and comes running. The woman crouches down, scoops her up. She wipes the girl’s mouth with the edge of her thumb. In the house, a television is blaring. The frenetic, electric sounds of cartoons compete with news streaming in from a radio that sits perched on a windowsill. She sets the girl down and pats her on the bum. “Go with Diego, please.”

The girl toddles out of sight. The woman turns back to us, her expression grim. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Elena Marques?”

“Yeah. What’s this about?”

“I’m Detective Davis with the Suffolk County Police Department. This is Agent Flynn with the FBI. May we come in?”

Elena hesitates. She knows why we’ve come. For a moment, I think she might turn us away. But then she pushes the door open and motions for us to enter.

“Are you with missing persons?” she asks.

“Not exactly,” Lee replies.

The living room is small and messy. Dented screens cover the windows, allowing in little light. A dining room table is still covered in breakfast detritus: cereal bowls with spoons in them, half-full glasses of orange juice, a plate with the ends of buttered toast. I count four bowls. I wonder who else lives here and how old they are. I wonder if they’ve heard about the body in Shinnecock County Park. Elena moves a basket of laundry from the sofa and gestures for us to sit. She perches on an armchair across from us.