Notes on an Execution(37)

She took the creaky steps one by one. She cleared her throat. Rapped on the door.

It opened to a middle-aged man. He wore a pair of ripped boxer shorts and the scabbed face of an addict. She could see a television in the background, playing static noise, a table covered in old beer bottles, a cat that looked like it hadn’t been fed in weeks.

“Yeah?”

For an excruciating instant, Saffy inhaled stale smoke, sour breath. She did not know what she thought she’d find. Evidence of Ansel’s life, maybe. Something, anything. Her own cluelessness now felt distinctly dangerous.

“Hey,” the man called to Saffy’s back as she turned away. “What do you want?”

She ran.

When Saffy cracked the Hunter case, the captain had been thrilled. You’ve got something special here, he’d said to Moretti, congratulating. But Saffy had not felt special. She’d wanted to ask Moretti if every case would feel like this: the dizzying rush of surety, followed by a gnawing, feral fear. A fear that felt oddly addictive. There was something alive in Saffy’s cells, feeding hungry on such doubt—it was sick, tainted, and it had grown like a tree, curious as it twisted upward. It had driven her to the edge of ruin, all those years ago. It had driven her to police work; it had driven her right to this trailer park.

By the time she reached the highway, Saffy’s headache had turned splitting. She stepped on the gas, her hair falling in her face as the engine revved faster, until she had reached a hundred miles an hour and she was certain she had nothing left inside, until she opened her mouth to the blank highway and let out the deepest darkest blackest scream.

*

In the days that followed, Saffy lost control of her desk. The case swallowed her up, sucked her into its undertow. It had been a week since they’d found the bodies, and Saffy could not remember the last real meal she’d eaten. Drive-through fast food, days ago—she’d been subsisting otherwise on coffee and granola bars, her stomach growling at her desk late into the night. She’d returned to her apartment only twice, to shower and pack a duffel bag of clothes.

The captain was pushing his favorite suspect: a homeless man named Nicholas Richards, who had evaded multiple drug charges. A personal vendetta, maybe, but they’d all been ordered to prioritize the lead. The surface of Saffy’s desk was a mess of phone logs and witness transcripts—beneath it all, her suspicion pulsed, impossible to ignore.

Ansel Packer’s transcript showed he’d gone to Northern Vermont University, where he dropped out right before getting his diploma. He’d applied for a philosophy fellowship his last semester. The records contained a mixed recommendation from a Professor May Brown. Saffy had left four messages on the professor’s machine. She had no idea where Ansel was now. He paid taxes from an address that no longer existed, an apartment building near the university, demolished years ago. Ansel had no police record. Not even a speeding ticket.

When Moretti walked by, Saffy hid her work beneath a nondescript file box. Drop everything else, Singh, Moretti had warned, firm. We need more on the captain’s suspect. That’s an order. They were closing in on arrest—Nicholas Richards had camped illegally near the burial site. If the ranger could place him on all three dates, they would move in. Moretti had relayed this information with a smug surety that made Saffy’s pulse jump with exhausted frustration.

So when her phone rang, minutes before Moretti packed up for the night, Saffy answered with premature disappointment.

“Saffron Singh.”

“Hello? This is Professor Brown, returning your call.”

Saffy pressed the receiver close, trying to muffle the hoot of the troopers. On the other side of the backroom window, they had inexplicably filled a condom with shaving cream and were whacking one another with it, waiting for it to pop. A few feet away, Moretti was bent over a stack of phone logs, tapping a highlighter against the bow of her lips in concentration. Saffy spoke low into the receiver.

“You recommended a student named Ansel Packer for a philosophy fellowship,” Saffy said.

“Ah, yes. He didn’t get the fellowship in the end. From what I remember, he was—how do I put this? An average student who believed he deserved more. One of his female classmates got the award instead, and I don’t think he took it well. He dropped out shortly after.”

“Anything else you can tell me about him?” Saffy asked. “Do you know where he is now?”

“I have no idea.” Professor Brown paused. “Have you already spoken with the girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?”

“The one he had in college. They were quite serious at the time, if I remember correctly. She was always waiting outside his classes. I had her for Intro to Physics, I think. Jenny. Jenny Fisk. She was in the nursing program. Or maybe psychology? Sweet girl. You could try her.”

Saffy hung up the phone, adrenaline zapping her gloriously awake. Moretti stood, dug out her car keys, slipped on her sleek, designer parka.

“You look like you found something,” Moretti said, stifling a yawn.

Saffy shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

She waited until Moretti’s taillights had disappeared from the parking lot. There were four Jenny Fisks in the old dial-up system, and three Jennifers—half were too old, one was deceased, and one was in prison for drug charges. But there was a Jenny Fisk living in a small town in Vermont, just a few miles from the university Ansel Packer had attended.