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[continued from page 2]
* * * * *
Two policemen walk into a high school.
The first one says, "We'll need to have a look inside her locker."
And the second one says, "Yes, indeedy, we will."
Inside it: books, a dried flower, a mirror.
One officer gets it in his head to examine the flower, as if implicating it. It's a purple flower, its petals brittle. The officer inexact in placing the time of death.
And then, a breakthrough:
Tim!
"You know, she was having trouble with valence . . ."
They pull him from Spanish class.
"Heard you and the girl were study partners?"
"Yes," he tells them. "We were supposed to meet at the library, but we didn't."
No, he wouldn't consider them close friends.
No, he hardly knew her.
"Then why did she approach you?" they ask. "You of all people."
He says he doesn't know.
"She sure was a pretty girl, though huh, Timmy?"
* * * * *
They can't find a body. They refuse to call it murder.
Sometimes people just disappear.
“This sort of thing requires a great faith,” the police chief admits, “but it looks like you folks might just have it.”
Some nights Mary's mother imagines Mary living beneath an oak tree in some faraway woods. She imagines baskets overflowing with ripened blackberries and glass bottles of milk kept cool in the streams. It is not a leisurely life she imagines, but it is a good life, and in it, her daughter is always well-fed.
Mary's father's faith is different.
"It'll be easier the sooner we come to terms with it. If we can just try to bear the weight."
* * * * *
There’s a trial and witnesses.
Every last one of them touched her, Mary's father thinks, or at least they know who did.
The only one he doesn't blame is the boy from Mary's school. He can't remember all the names, but the shaky one, the chemistry kid. The boy is pale, his eyelids drooping, and Mary's father can't imagine him being capable of much, let alone making his daughter vanish.
"And the last time you saw her was beside your locker, is that correct?" a suited man asks.
"Yes, sir."
"And she didn't show up at the library as you'd planned?"
"No, sir," he agrees. “She did not.”
Tim is free to go.
“Sir,” Tim says, standing, and the suited man turns.
“I don’t know if it’s important or not, but . . . she needed help with the periodic table.”
“Is that right?"
Tim nods.
“Like I said, I don’t know if it’s important, but I wanted to tell you.”
The suited man thanks him and Mary's father watches as the pale boy mouths, “You’re welcome.”
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