Before She Disappeared(17)

I follow one of my printed-out maps to a local station, where I dutifully sit next to the tracks, watching garbage blow this way and that. I make out some graffiti farther down the way, not to mention random stickers adhered to benches and signs, now faded with age. A tattered poster is fastened near the T sign. MISSING, it reads in large print. Below, barely visible after eleven months of weather: Angelique’s official headshot. I feel a moment of fresh sadness. Not just because this girl is missing, but because from here on out, she will be defined by this one image. Was she happy the day this photo was snapped? Thinking about school, dreaming about boys, or plotting her next adventure with her friends?

Or, if her disappearance really was a planned event of her own making, was she already working at the details even as this photo was taken? Hoping no one would look too close? Fearing someone might notice?

I try to study the smudged photo for answers, but of course it offers none.

A rumble along the tracks, then my train arrives. Except it doesn’t look like a train to me. More like a vintage trolley. Orange, single car, cute. I’m supposed to take the trolley a couple of stops, then transfer to a bus. I once worked a case in a state park where the entire search area was accessible only via horseback; how hard could this be?

I screw up getting off at my first stop—ironically enough, because I’m studying the stupid map. I get off at the next and double back on foot, feeling frazzled and rushed as I don’t have much time if I want to catch Angelique’s school friends during their lunch break. My other option is to wait for them after school, but I have to be back at work then. I don’t think Stoney will tolerate an employee showing up late for her very first day, even if she did survive her feline roommate the night before.

I make my second attempt to locate the right bus, only to find myself now headed in the wrong direction. Third stop, when I’m definitely starting to freak out and trying hard not to show it, an older African American woman with carefully coiffed gray curls and perfect red lipstick reaches up from her seat and gently tugs at the hem of my jacket.

“Would you like some help, dear?”

“Yes, please!”

I plop down in the seat beside her, handing over my now wrinkled printout. She eyes it carefully, then hands it back.

“I’ve never been any good with maps.” She taps her temple with a manicured nail. “But I have it all right here. Tell me where you’re going, child, and I’ll get you there.”

Her name is Leena. She’s a retired receptionist, off to visit her sister for the day. She reminds me of a grande dame. Not just impeccably groomed, but with the kind of self-possession that comes from hard-fought battles and harder-won forgiveness. We speak for three minutes, long enough for me to decide I want to be her when I grow up.

Armed with her directions, I set off again. It takes me only a moment to realize Leena’s right. If I hold in my head where I want to go, my feet take me in the right direction. One glance at the map, however, and all bets are off. Maybe because the transit map bears no resemblance to surface streets. It offers an oversimplified series of blue, green, red, and yellow spines that are far too neat for the reality of an overgrown historic city bristling with random byways.

I still make two wrong turns, but at last I find myself standing in front of Boston Academy in South Dorchester. The school sits atop a grassy knoll, one of the few touches of green I can see. If Mattapan is densely populated, high on crime, and low on the socioeconomic totem pole, South Dorchester appears to be its kissing cousin.

The academy boasts an imposing three-story fa?ade with broad windows and huge glass doors that lead straight to twin metal detectors. Behind the carved granite entrance, the body of the building unfolds in a series of tall brick wings. Each exterior window is the same size, and they are equally spaced, row after row after row.

The grounds provide a perimeter of patchy green grass interspersed with clumps of woody shrubs. Some rhododendrons, hydrangea, and what looks to be forsythia. None of it is terribly well tended, but still a nice respite from brick and concrete. I hear a bell tone from deep inside the belly of the school, signaling something. Students don’t come pouring out, so I continue my inspection.

I’m curious about a number of things. First, it looked to me like Angelique’s daily school commute brought her within two blocks of the academy. From there, it’s a fairly straight walk from her bus stop to the institute’s front doors—which I’m certain, given the presence of the metal detectors, all students are required to use. One egress in and out. All schools, but particularly inner-city schools, are big on control.

I follow what I hope were her footsteps, passing a corner grocer, a liquor store, a nail salon, and a barbershop. I also note a sign for a chiropractor and a chain pharmacy at the opposite corner, doing bustling business.

Angelique had to cross the street to reach the front steps of her school. If she did that at the corner intersection, then her final stretch would be a hundred feet of grassy school grounds, tucked behind a low wrought-iron fence. Plenty of small bushes line the perimeter, but being right next to the street they are littered with disposable coffee cups, plastic water bottles, even nips of booze. I spot Fireball whiskey, three kinds of vodka, then Jim Beam, an oldie but a goodie. From the students or the neighbors? I’m not sure I want to know the answer to that.

Guerline had said Angelique’s backpack was recovered from underneath a bush near school grounds. Meaning, if I were a student and wanted to hide something . . .