Make the skinny rectangles parallel to the beach, floating willy-nilly but more or less beached by the ebb and flow of the tide . . . make them the ones dead in the water. Private First Class Dwyer, who had been vomiting in the metal cork. Private First Class Solano, who had whispered to himself a prayer. Did he whisper it there in the water, too, did he whisper it to the sand and the blood in the tentacle pattern ebbing to and fro, to and fro?
And perpendicular? Make those rectangles injured and hidden up against the dunes. Make those the ones that got grabbed and dragged and hauled and left. Make them live. Most of them.
Make one of them a man named Charles Krause. A man who, seeing his feet below him and the skinny rectangles floating in the water ten yards down, would think now, would always think, he was not a man for getting injured. He was not a man to be torn to pieces by bullets, but the bullets begged to differ, bleeding him out into the brine. Leveled. He should’ve been up there fighting. He should’ve made it up the sand. It was a guilt he carried with him from that day to the next day to the next year and to the rest of his days, back in Michigan, Muskegon, Michigan—where he would never tell a soul. No one. Not even his wife.
The snow plower would never be upset with his wife for her dumb stupid doll collection again. In fact, the first thing he would do after that day, that long day of questions and more questions . . . looking at that body, waiting for hours, those grueling sessions recounting over and over his every step, movement, thought. The watch on his wrist. The hat in his hand. Everything he had on from that day, he would put in a plastic bag and bury deep dark deep in the back of his closet.
The first thing he would do upon seeing his wife, his sweet, ashy, thankless wife. He would walk up to her, slowly, and crash her up against the wall. He would put his mouth on her shoulder. Flowers on her apron. He would stand her up against the wall and whisper to her deep, “I am stupid. I am a stupid man. Don’t ever leave me. I will buy you a doll every day for the rest of your life and build a new room for all the dolls in the world. Stay with me. Just. Stay with me.”
At night, his eyes in the ceiling, he would stare back at those ice doll eyes, that porcelain face, and, underneath them, a blue-and-white locket, a cameo. Wedgwood.
Shauna Boggs was daddy’s little girl. Even though he called her plumpish and sometimes ignored her altogether, she was still his one and only. She knew.
She knew it just like she knew, the day her mom took off, that she was now the lady of the house. It was up to her. She would do the cooking and she would do the cleaning and she would press his shirts and make his Maker’s Mark just how he liked it, not too much ice, but not too little either.
She held her position with honor and grace from seven to ten to twelve to fourteen. She held her position as the lady of the house with the seriousness of a librarian.
And when Mr. Boggs came home one night, too late from the Jewel Box, and swooped her up from her bed and carried her into his bed and treated her like the lady of the house . . . she held that position too.
A police description can look like this: “Body was found at approximately 7:15 AM on March 13, 1978, off Route 31, two miles south of the corner of Pioneers and the Route 31 interchange. There were numerous lacerations to the neck, shoulders, face. Heavy bruising around the wrists and ankles. Blunt force trauma to the skull. Possible death: strangulation.”
A police description cannot look like this: “I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it. How young! How desecrated! How beaten! And then tossed by the side of the road. Discarded trash. A disposable bag. This could’ve been my daughter, my wife, my niece. Who are they? I will find them. I will find them and I will kill them.”
It could say: “Lacerations around the hands and shoulders, defensive wounds, red marks around the wrists and neck, blunt force trauma, possible strangulation.”
It could not say: “I have seen that throat in chapel choir, those vocal chords, now silenced, singing in a soprano voice, a voice, quite literally, just like the cliché, like an angel. But how can you not think it? A voice, yes, like an angel, in the chapel choir. There, on the altar, singing ‘Ave Maria.’ A soprano voice, a stunning voice, singing ‘Look Homeward Angel,’ singing ‘Dona Nobis Pacem,’ singing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ and even, on a lighter day, ‘Southern Cross.’ ‘This Little Light of Mine.’ A child’s voice. A child’s face. A doll face.”
It could say: “Body, half-clothed, facing ground. Dress, torn. Remnants of a sweater. Necklace. A Wedgwood cameo.”
It could not say: “I have seen her in that sweater on the way to school, on the way to St. John’s, in the line at the Farmer Jack, in the line at the Community Shores. I have seen that sweet thinning baby blue sweater with the butterfly, or was it a flower, on the collar. I have seen that robin’s egg sweater as Beth Krause walked with her father, Lt. Colonel Charles Krause, a war hero, by the shore of the lake. I have seen her clutch that Wedgwood locket, a self-conscious shrug, at school, at choir, at Hope.”
It was these thoughts, all of these thoughts, that tumbled, rattling through the head like pickaxes, of Samuel Christopher Barnett, Detective Barnett, not yet five years on the force. A decent man. A kind man. Tried to be kind anyway.
Oh, believe me, there were a million other things his pulse was urging him to do other than write down little words in little boxes, checks and more checks, here and there, on forms and more forms. A traffic ticket for a corpse.
There were a million terrorizing, shocking, blindsiding impulses but no . . . there he was, pen in paper, Detective Samuel Barnett. Brown mouse hair. Skinny no matter what. Old-timey Keystone Cop face. No one looked like that anymore. And he would’ve done them, every million of them, had he not had to, what is it, “keep a brave face,” “stand tall,” for the cameras.
And there were cameras. You betcha. For a band the length of a football stadium, up and down the sliver of that Michigan lakeshore stretch, there were little white boxes with tires on them, barely visible in the snow. Camouflaged. And out of each of these boxes came one, usually a lady, in a smart, snappy getup, with a black penis stick in her hand you were supposed to talk into. A microphone. Careful what you say. Easy now.
That little stick and those batting eyes can get a lot out of you but you better be careful. Brace yourself as the first one comes barreling forward, and then another and another. An army of smart-dressed swine.
Brace yourself. Easy there, Sammy.
“Detective, is the victim a local? Is the victim female or male? What age? Do you consider foul play? Is there a suspect? Do you have a motive? Is the—”
An army of swine. A murder of crows.
Peck peck peck.
What did they want from him? Hadn’t they had enough? They had a blood-red slab of girl-meat in the snow. Wasn’t that enough? Brisk. Brisk. Be brisk. Don’t let them know.
“The body is yet to be identified. No further questions.”
But then, in the back, a yelp. “Here’s the snow plower! Here’s the guy who found her! I got him! I got him!”
And then, the parade goes thataway and Detective Barnett stands still in the snow, abandoned. Put your feet in the snow, look up to the sky. Ask the trees to wonder why.
Shauna Boggs played a game on Beth Krause once that wasn’t a game at all. Shauna knew the game, though, she’d learned it well. She’d had it played on her.
It was