“She was real rushed, you know. Said she was on her way to work.”
“At the Green Mill Inn . . . is that right?”
“Yessir.”
“And did she call you or did you hear anything from her since, from the Green Mill Inn?”
“No, sir.”
“Nothing?”
“No.”
Now she is putting her head down and her father is putting his hand on her shoulder. Oh, God, please don’t break down in front of me, Troy Boggs. You’re a grown man!
Shauna looks up from the bottom of the world.
“Mister. She was the sweetest girl I know. Just real kind. She didn’t deserve this.”
Detective Barnett knows his lines well.
“Miss Boggs, no one knows why or how any of this happened but you can rest assured of one thing. We’ll find who’s to blame.”
“That’s right, honey.” Troy Boggs holds his daughter square on the shoulders. Such a good man. Such a good father. What with his wife leaving him and all.
You could make a funeral here today. With the sky bright blue for miles, the rolling green lawn, on and on, never mind the tombstones. You couldn’t have picked a better day.
It’s a hole in the ground. Nine by four. Around it are the tops of people’s heads. Black hats. The chapel choir is there, too. At the service, back at St. John’s, they’d sung “Walk with Me Lord” and “Dona Nobis Pacem.” Now, here on the lawn, Beth Krause sang at her own funeral. The conductor from the chapel choir dutifully quietly, pressed PLAY on the tape recorder and there she was.
Even when she was alive, the timbre of that voice, the pale white-haired girl bellowing out the “Ave Maria” to such great heights, even then, it had been hard for the stoniest of hearts to “keep a grip,” to “maintain” as it were. Such a thrilling voice from such a shy, tepid girl. A girl in a baby blue sweater with, what was that? A bow? A butterfly? A tiny little piece, a minuscule piece, of vanity. Maybe it was a dragonfly. A cameo behind it.
But now, here, with the chapel choir standing to the side and the service over, with Lt. Colonel Charles Krause and his wife, Dotsy, the two of them standing there, stoic, the voice coming out of the tape recorder, Beth Krause singing at her own funeral, might as well have been made of tears. The girls, Shauna and her friends, were shaking uncontrollably, sobbing themselves into convulsions. Even Troy Boggs had to stand them straight. Please, girls, please. Oh Lord. Stand still.
The chapel choir, twenty-six of them, simply stood stooped in tears, a row of weeping willows, unabashed.
It was a wonder to think, looking on that little hill in Muskegon, Michigan, on that big blue day in mid-winter that the hill itself wouldn’t cleft itself somehow from the land around it and float downstream on a river of tears, down to the Ohio, and then the mighty Mississippi, down to the warmer climes where there is no snow to find a girl.
It was a wonder, too, to think as the “Ave Maria” split the sky in twain and the hearts and faces off the gathering of what must’ve been the entire town, that the only two faces laid blank, laid bare, were that of Lt. Colonel Charles Krause and his handsome wife, Dorothy.
What would it all mean, that Technicolor rush, that parade of technology, a mad dash into the future, ahead of what, exactly? What was being kicked into the past backward, impatient to drink, what future? And then, that sunny sunny morning, that dirty killing plane, that towering cloud of dust. Then the second, its mean little twin, flying willful, a fire wrath, a great gasping horror, an innocence felled. What would become of it? Who would succeed, who would collapse, and who would follow? What world would we have to save now? Two thousand three and the cards had been dealt but the hand had yet to be played.
And now, this new breed. Born after Star Wars. A litter of consumers, giddy-grasping.
But some of them were not so simple. Look at Katy She had joined Spring Youth in the summer of 2002, mostly for the skiing. There were two trips to Mammoth, Colorado. One in fall. One in spring. Never mind that it was a Christian group. That wasn’t the point. The point was that it was the only way to get to those powdery Colorado slopes from Muskegon, Michigan, twice a winter for next to nothing.
Yes, they sang Christian songs at the meetings. She actually liked that part. She especially liked “Southern Cross.”
“When you see the Southern Cross for the first time . . . ”
Those folksy lyrics, the guitar twang. It didn’t seem harmful, sinister, or any of the other things her sister rolled her eyes about. Who cares about God. Katy never thought about it. Although sometimes she wondered where He had been that crisp sunny morning in September, two years earlier. No one knew what to make of it. And, to be quite honest, she did think some of the lessons from the Bible-study book were good lessons. Love thy neighbor. Well, you couldn’t argue with that, now, could you?
So, when the head of the Spring Youth, Muskegon, chapter insisted she apply to Hope College on a Christian Youth scholarship, she didn’t blink. What was wrong with that? These were good people. A couple of them were a little scrambled, but for the most part, these were kind, modest people. People who baked banana bread.
When Katy won the scholarship to Hope College, mid-June, she was whirling with excitement, didn’t think twice about landing straight on the honors list and maybe more. That’s the way things happened for Katy. Quiet, pragmatic, redheaded Katy with wavy hair and green imploring eyes.
She didn’t notice, much, the attention in her Film & Television seminar from Brad or Lars or Danek. Even though it was obvious. Anyone could see it. You would have to be a complete imbecile not to see them all circled around, leaning in, facing her.
Film & Television 101 was not in the curriculum, by any means, but Katy had a yen to learn documentary filmmaking and travel the world to places with exotic names and somehow save everyone.
Brad, Lars, and Danek took the class because Katy did.
Brad, tall and spindly. Lars, short with sandy mop hair. Danek, dirt-haired, glasses, and smarter than Hope itself. It was clear Danek was destined for greatness, even with his funny little glasses, one day you would see him in The New York Times perhaps. An article maybe. But for now, the three freshmen, along with their beloved Katy, sat listening to Professor Wishik’s theory of film, which didn’t so much amount to a theory as a concoction of thoughts, thrown in a pot, boiled up and served as a stew. Oh, Professor Wishik. You really were behind the times.
This fluorescent room, these blue chairs with metal legs, these white beech laminate tables, everything plastic and pale, a gutless kind of learning place, dry as chalk.
Somehow through the draining drone of facts and names and titles came an assignment.
Find a subject. Make a documentary. Simple enough.
Now Katy leans in, as do Danek, Brad, and Lars, as the quest is taken up.
Danek says it, almost out of the blue. The others talking, distracted.
“That Krause case.”
A lean in, a pause.
“That Krause case. From the ’70s. That girl. You know, the one that went here.”
Brad and Lars stay silent, taking their cue from Katy. She will make the decision.
“The dead girl?” Katy doodling, somewhere else.