Hunting Annabelle, page 14
As I enter the main office, I remember my private prep school in San Francisco. Where my school’s buildings were historic gray brick and its front entrance opened into the heart of a courtyard that towered above a steep hill in Pacific Heights, this one feels short and low in every way, even inside. Are all ceilings this low? I can’t remember now. It seems like they aren’t.
The middle-aged office lady looks at me like I am Alice Cooper. She has her hair teased into a beehive style I haven’t seen since I was a kid. “Is Ms. Burns available?” I ask.
“The teacher?” She has the drawl, too. It must be a thing here. I wonder why Annabelle doesn’t have it.
“Yes, ma’am, the teacher,” I answer. “I was hoping to speak with her really briefly. Of course, I don’t want to interrupt her when she’s teaching.”
“She’s...um...” She tears her gaze away from me and shuffles some papers around. She finds one with a handwritten schedule on it and puts reading glasses on the tip of her nose to examine it. She consults a wall clock and says, “It’s seventh period. She’s got sophomores.”
“What time does school let out?”
“Two forty-five.”
“That’s half an hour. Do you mind if I wait here?” I indicate the line of chairs near the wall.
“That’s—that’s fine.” Her eyes are devouring me with curiosity.
“Thank you, ma’am.” I sit straight up in one of the chairs with my backpack on the floor between my feet. I keep my hands folded in my lap, willing myself to look like a model citizen. A radio behind the counter plays “Now and Forever” through a cover of static. Students come and go, greeting the office staff with polite ma’ams. They peer at me, their faces young to my eyes. The fascination goes both ways. What is it like to grow up in such a small town, and how did Annabelle fit in here? Had her beauty been enough to gain the acceptance of her peers, or had it had the opposite effect? I see no place here for Annabelle’s brand of clear-faced flawlessness. Even the pretty girls look sort of coarse. For a few minutes, I sit tight-lipped as the office lady has an intense conversation with a teacher about the recent instatement of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and how they don’t believe people should be forced to celebrate it. Sometimes I miss California so much it hurts.
After a while, the bell rings. The office lady picks up a phone on her desk and makes a call. Moments later, she hangs up and beckons to me. “Miss Burns is in room 12. She coaches girls’ track and is supposed to be on the field in twenty minutes, but she says she’ll meet you in her room if you can make it quick. I’ll show you where it is.”
She gets up and makes her way around the counter, widens her eyes as she gets a better look at my jelly bracelets and Magic-Markered hand, and leads me through the office into a linoleum hallway that is like a miniature version of all the public schools I’ve seen in movies. My own private school was much more pretentious. Everything was antique, even the wooden floors and restored plaster walls.
She stops in front of a peach door with a little window in it. I realize she’s waiting for me to open it for her and I do; she leads me into a classroom with linoleum floors and a few small windows against the far wall. Again I’m struck by the lowness of the ceilings. The room is nicely kept with posters of Shakespearean plays lining one wall and prints of Renaissance paintings lining another. Miss Burns is grading essays and looks up as we enter. She is a pleasant-looking woman in her late twenties or early thirties with dust-colored hair and pale skin dotted with freckles.
“This is the young man who asked to speak with you,” says the office lady.
I approach the desk and Miss Burns gestures to a chair next to it, which is clearly meant for students. “You’re not one of my former students, are you?” she asks.
“No, ma’am.”
“Have a seat. And thank you,” she calls to the office lady, who is already hurrying out of the room and closing the door behind her. To me she says, “I didn’t think so. I’d remember you.”
“Yeah, I expect you would. I’m Sean.”
“Miss Burns.” We shake hands. Her faint turquoise aura is a springy, happy color. She makes nice eye contact with me. I understand why her students like her. She doesn’t make me feel small or insignificant. “So, how can I help you?” she asks.
“Well, I’m friends with one of your former students. Annabelle Callaghan?”
“Oh sure, Annabelle.” She smiles. “How’s she doing?”
I find myself almost duplicating her accent as I answer. It’s the kind of thing that seems contagious. “Well, that’s the thing. She told everyone she was coming home to visit family and she never showed up. Her mom had no idea she was coming and I guess she hasn’t been home in years. So I’m trying to figure out if there might be any old friends she’d be visiting in town, and maybe it was just a misunderstanding.”
She frowns. “Are you telling me she’s missing?”
“The police aren’t worried. But her friends don’t have any idea where she might be. I offered to take the bus here and just ask around.”
“Did you check with her mother?”
“I just came from there. She recommended I ask you, said you might remember the names of some of her high school friends. She didn’t remember anyone herself.”
“Friends... Gosh, I don’t know. How long has it been since she was my student? She’d be, what...finishing college by now, wouldn’t she?”
“She’s in medical school. Studying psychiatry.”
“Psychiatry?” Her eyebrows hop up and she laughs. “Wow. Well, med school sounds about right, although I remember her being more of a chemistry nut.” She steeples her fingers and frowns. “Let’s see. I had her during junior year. I teach all tenth and eleventh graders and sometimes fill in a period with home ec.” She laughs. “It’s a small town.”
“That’s what Annabelle said.”
“You’re from Austin?”
“San Francisco. Been in Austin a few years.”
“Wow. Well, then this really seems like a hick town to you.”
I don’t know what to say. “It seems very nice,” I finally manage.
Her eyes twinkle. “Sure.”
I meet the eyes and risk a small smile. “I do feel a little out of place.”
She cracks up. “Well, I can’t blame you! God, Annabelle. I haven’t thought about her in so long. That was a hard year, though, not one I can forget. One of my hardest and I’d only been teaching for a few years at that point. Her best friend was this girl named Stacey Hetzel. She’s still in town. The two of them were really close. Other than that, I can’t remember Annabelle being particularly close with any one girl. She was a little, you know, underdeveloped. She always seemed young for her age. She wrote like a thirty-year-old, though. Brilliant work. I loved her pieces on figurative language. I still use some of her essays to teach the SAT prep class.”
“Stacey Hetzel?” I get my sketchbook out and scribble the name on a blank page. “Do you know where she lives? Maybe I could stop by.”
“I don’t think she’ll mind. I don’t know where she lives, though. She’s in the book, I’m sure. I haven’t heard from her in years, but I’ve seen her around town here and there.” She rummages around in a drawer and pulls out a purse. “Is there anything else? I’m sure she’ll turn up. Annabelle isn’t the type of person to get involved in anything she shouldn’t. Her roommate likely misunderstood, or she changed her plans. Or at least, I hope so. I hope to God nothing’s really wrong.”
On impulse, I ask, “What was hard about that year? You said it was one of your hardest.”
“Oh.” Surprised, she sits back down with the purse in her lap. “Well, that was the year Preston died.”
“Preston?”
“You wouldn’t know. I’m sorry. I’m so used to everybody knowing everybody. He was on the football team. Senior year. Drove his car into a wall. Died in the crash.”
“Into a wall?”
“The other kids were devastated. In a school this small, only a few hundred kids, they’ve been together their whole lives.”
“How do you even drive into a wall?”
“Alcohol. Drugs. We’re a small community but we’re near enough to Dallas that our students have access to all the same drugs they do down there. And kids get bored. You know how it goes.” Her eyes are far away. “Annabelle had a harder time than most, what with her family and all. She handled it well but it was tough on her. I didn’t blame her for leaving Lone Herman. The boy who died in the crash was dating her best friend, Stacey, like I said, and it was hardest on them, I think. Of course, no, it was hardest on the boy’s family. I just meant that the girls took it very hard. I’m not sure Stacey ever recovered, but I shouldn’t say that. What do I know?”
She makes her way around her desk, purse in hand. “I’ll worry until I hear she’s all right. Please, have her contact me when she turns up. I’d love to hear from her.” We’re halfway to the door when it opens in front of us and the office lady steps through, followed by a police officer in his fifties. He’s completely monochromatic: brown hair, tan skin, his crisp uniform in shades of dark and light brown stretched tight across a muscular frame, his brown hair crowned with a worn-looking chocolate-brown felt sheriff’s style hat. A dark red aura rolls off of him in a thick fog. For a moment, I want to laugh. What is up with these Tom Selleck mustaches? It’s like all the Texas cops watched one too many episodes of Magnum, P.I.
Miss Burns smiles. “Hi, Officer MacFarlane. What brings you here today?”
“Hello.” He nods politely in her direction and touches the brim of his hat like a cowboy. His drawl is as thick as Annabelle’s mother’s. “You having any trouble here?”
“Trouble?” she echoes.
He looks at me pointedly. We’re stuck near the doorway in an awkward cluster. The office lady seems to be holding her breath and hoping I don’t notice she’s the one who called the cops. I wonder if there is a police code for this. I picture a dispatcher yelling into a walkie-talkie, “We’ve got a seven-twelve in progress! Unidentified goth kid in small town Texas! All units please respond!”
Miss Burns is reassuring the cop. “Everything’s fine. This is Sean, he’s from Austin, he’s friends with Annabelle Callaghan.”
“Annabelle Callaghan?” His brown, suspicious stare turns on me in triple force.
“Yes, sir,” I say, since I’m obviously supposed to say something.
“Why d’you need to speak with Miss Burns here?” He puts a hand on the holster of his gun belt. He also carries a night stick.
“I was just hoping she could help me with something,” I tell the cop in my nicest, friendliest voice.
“What kind of something?”
I glance at Miss Burns, nervous about telling him the truth, not sure what else to tell him.
She senses my nervousness and speaks for me. “Annabelle told her friends she was coming home this week. Sean’s just trying to figure out where she could be. She’s not with Barb so they’re worried.”
He squints down at me. “Annabelle doesn’t come home anymore. Who says she’s here?”
“She told her roommate. I thought she might be staying with friends here in town.”
“She has no friends here,” he says with finality. “And if she’s not at Barbara’s house, that’s the end of it.”
“Okay.”
“You drove into town?”
“No, sir. I took the bus.”
“From Austin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re taking the bus back then? Catching the 8:15 at the Chevron?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll give you a ride over there. You can wait for the bus at the Chevron. C’mon.” He beckons with a meaty hand and exchanges a glance with Miss Burns. “Sorry for troubling you, ma’am.” To the office lady, he says, “Don’t let anyone through next time without checking in with me.” She nods, her face red.
He leads me through the hallways, through the office to the parking lot. I lag behind, feeling suffocated by his wine-colored aura and the aroma of Old Spice deodorant that pours off him. He must be a former football player, I decide, remembering the way the office lady had flushed and looked sideways at his muscular forearms.
The last time I was in the back of a police car, I was sixteen years old. The day I was arrested, I had drawn little lips all over my left hand so they covered it like a glove. I remember staring down at the lips-covered fingers and suddenly thinking the lips were insects, panicking because I wanted them off my hand, screaming and filled with primal terror.
“This kid is batshit crazy,” said the officer in the passenger seat.
“Batshit,” agreed the driver. They had loud voices. They said these words jokingly but did not laugh. Their faces were blank with horror from what they had seen, from what I had done.
This time, the drive happens in silence. After a few minutes of listening to Officer MacFarlane’s breathing, I say through the screened partition, “I’m sorry to cause any trouble, sir. I certainly didn’t mean to.”
He grunts and casts a glance at me in the rearview mirror. “Don’t know what kind of shit Annabelle is into now judging by the sight of you, but I’d recommend you keep as far away from her as you can. She’s had enough trouble in her life.”
“You must mean her father. I was sorry to hear he had committed suicide. That must be hard on a young girl.”
He makes a right onto the two-lane freeway. “What’s your name?”
“Sean Suh, sir.” It sounds weird, like I’m saying the same word twice, wrong both times.
He pulls into the Chevron and puts the cruiser in Park. I only now notice that his radio is on; Dolly Parton wails in wavering tones through the aging speakers. Not showing any signs of letting me out, he pulls a notepad out of a front pocket and scribbles on it. “You got your ID with you?”
I hesitate, then decide I’m not in much of a position to argue. I pull my wallet out of my back pocket and hand over my Texas ID card.
“No driver’s license?” he asks.
“No sir. I’m from San Francisco. Not used to needing a car.”
He raises his eyes to me. “San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
“How long you been in Texas?”
“Three years.”
He snorts a half laugh and hands me my ID back. I can all but hear the derogatory jokes exploding in his head. He gets out and opens the back door. I hurry out gratefully, pulling my backpack with me.
He says, “Wait right here for the bus. Don’t go bothering us anymore. Annabelle’s not here. I’d have heard about it if she was.”
“Yes, sir.” I sling my backpack on and watch him get back in the car. He casts me one last glance and bumps out of the asphalt driveway. I’m left in the dusty parking lot, frustrated and hungry. What a dick, I think, and head for the gas station to get something to eat.
It hits me: the photos and pills from Spike. They’re in my backpack. They’ve been in there this entire time. This is the second time I’ve gotten lucky. Something tells me there won’t be a third.
What am I going to do with them? I need to get rid of them as soon as possible.
As I’m squatting on the curb near the air and water machines, trying and failing to eat a bag of Cheetos, I think about Stacey Hetzel. Cop or no cop, photos or no photos, I decide I won’t be so easily discouraged. I can’t. I’ve come this far. I have to keep going.
Chapter Fourteen
I study the well-worn envelope on which the gas station attendant drew me a map based on the address I’d gotten from Information. I know I haven’t taken any wrong turns.
This can’t be right. Can this be it?
I’m standing in front of a—house? compound?—on the outskirts of town, about four miles from the gas station. The sun is beginning to set over the limitless acres of golden-brown, knee-high grass alive with the skreaking of grasshoppers. Rusty chain-link fencing half hangs off the posts bordering the yard of the structure, which is surrounded by cars in varying states of decay. The actual house is guarded by sentry piles of plywood and discarded sheets of faded wooden fencing.
In front of the fence and a few feet to my right, two mailboxes lean on each other as though for support. I step forward to examine them. One of them has a handwritten name tag, bleached from the sun and rain, that reads Austin Jackson. The other’s name tag is on the opposite side where I almost can’t see it. It reads, Back House, Stacey Hetzel.
Back house? I don’t see a back house.
There’s no way I’m going onto this property without being invited. This is Texas. They could shoot me for putting a toe in their yard and never see the inside of a jail cell. I mutter obscenities under my breath and walk along the property line until I pass the piles of rubbish and cars. Sure enough, behind them lies what looks like a trailer. Its small, curtained windows are lit. Someone’s home.
Well, shit.
I remember the photos. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me in there, but I’m sure as hell not going to be caught with this backpack full of rape pictures. I duck aside, find a patch of tall bushes along the fence and drop my backpack into it. I pat my pockets, checking. Wallet, keys. Fine.
Annabelle, this is how much I love you. The thought fills me with pain and rage, and I take a deep breath to calm my pounding heart. I return to the front gate and push it open. It creaks loudly.
