Long Bright River Read online

  Kacey, just ahead of me, was as usual surrounded by friends.

  When it was time to board, I followed my sister up the steps of the vehicle, and then followed her toward the back of the bus, and sat down one seat behind her. It was a choice meant to assure my peers of my independence and myself of Kacey’s proximity. Her presence in any situation, familial or educational, tended to reassure me.

  * * *

  —

  There was a bright and funny music teacher that year, Mr. Johns, who had orchestrated the whole thing. He was young—probably younger than I am today—and the next year he was snatched up by a better school in the suburbs. As the buses approached City Hall, he stood up at the front of ours and clapped his hands twice and then held his right hand up in the air, two fingers extended, the sign that was supposed to mean quiet. Everyone was then obliged to return the salute. As usual, I waited until someone else did it first, and then raised my hand into the air, relieved.

  —Listen up, said Mr. Johns. What are the rules we talked about in class?

  —Don’t talk! someone shouted.

  —One, said Mr. Johns, holding up a thumb.

  —Don’t kick the seat in front of you! said the same person.

  —Okay, said Mr. Johns. Not one of the ones we mentioned, but true.

  Tentatively, he held up a second finger.

  —Anyone else? he said.

  I knew an answer. It was Wait to clap until you hear others clapping. I didn’t say it.

  —Wait to clap until you hear others clapping, said Mr. Johns.

  —Number four, sit still, said Mr. Johns.

  —Number five, no whispering with your friends, said Mr. Johns. No giggling. No squirming around in your seat like a kindergartner.

  * * *

  —

  He had told us all the story of the ballet in music class the week before. In it, a little girl lives in a mansion, he said. This is in the olden days, he said, so everyone onstage will be wearing old-fashioned clothes.

  He paused to think.

  —Also, the men wear tights, he said, so get over it in advance. The little girl’s parents have a Christmas party and invite her spooky uncle, who’s actually a good guy, and he gives her a doll. It’s called a nutcracker, and you can go ahead and get over that too. That night she falls asleep and has a long dream and that’s the rest of the ballet, he said. The nutcracker doll comes to life and becomes a prince and he fights off giant mice, takes her to a land of snowflakes, and then takes her to a place I forget the name of. It’s like Candy Land. The little girl and the prince watch while a few different dances are performed. The end, said Mr. Johns.

  —Does she go back to real life after that? asked a boy in my class.

  —I forget, said Mr. Johns. I think so.

  * * *

  —

  We had grown up less than three miles from the center of Philadelphia, but we only went there once a year, on New Year’s Day, to watch a dozen of our cousins and uncles and uncles’ bosses and uncles’ friends march in the Mummers Parade. It is possible, therefore, that I had laid eyes on the Academy of Music before—it’s right on Broad Street, part of the parade route—but I had certainly never been inside it. It’s a pretty brick building with high, arched windows and old-fashioned lanterns that burn unflaggingly near its front doors.

  As we filed off the bus, our teachers lined up along the edge of the sidewalk, inserting themselves between the students and the traffic, ushering us with mittened or gloved hands into the lobby.

  Again, I trailed Kacey, who, I noticed, was scuffing her feet: I could hear it on the sidewalk. Gee would be mad at her later. Kacey was like this, always: doing what she shouldn’t do, demanding a rebuke, daring the adults in her life to come down harder and harder on her, testing the limits of their anger. Whenever I could, I tried to distract her from this pursuit, hating to watch the punishment she inevitably received.

  We entered the lobby and were stopped by the crowd. Today, what I remember most is the number of little girls who were there with their mothers, right in the middle of a school day. They were the same age as us, or a little younger. Every one of them was white. In comparison, our school group looked like the United Nations. They’d come in from the Main Line: I knew this even then. They were wearing beautiful knee-length coats in bright colors and, beneath them, dresses that looked like they were made for dolls: frilled, satin, silk, velvet, lace-trimmed and puff-sleeved. In them, they looked like jewels or flowers or stars. They wore white tights and black, polished, patent-leather Mary Janes, all of them, as if they were following some rule that only they knew about. Many of them had their hair pulled back tightly into buns, the kind I would later see the ballerinas wearing.

  There were sixty or eighty Hanover grade school students in the lobby. We were clogging it. We didn’t know where to go.

  —Go on ahead, said Mr. Johns, but he, too, looked uncertain. Finally an usher came over to him, smiling, and asked if he was from the Hanover grade school, and he looked relieved and said yes.

  —Right this way, said the usher.

  We filed by those girls and their mothers, who stared back at us, openmouthed, even the grown-ups. They stared at our puffy down jackets, our sneakers, our hair. It occurred to me that the mothers, too, must have taken the day off from their jobs. What did not cross my mind then was the possibility that they did not work at all. Every grown woman I knew had a job—or, more often, multiple jobs. About half of the men did.

  * * *

  —

  I will never forget the moment the curtain rose. From the start, I was transfixed. There was snow—real snow, it seemed to me—falling onto the stage. Nothing could have prepared me for this. The exterior, and then the interior, of a large and beautiful house was shown, and inside that house were well-dressed children who were tended to by well-dressed adults. The children were given beautiful presents and then entertained by a series of life-sized doll-dancers. When the children fought, they were lovingly and carefully separated by parents more bemused than angry. There was a real orchestra playing in the pit. I felt in my own body the beautiful alien movements of the dancers on the stage, and in the music I heard strains of melody that revealed to me secrets I had never known about the world. I was, in fact, so moved that I began to cry: a fact I tried to keep hidden from the children around me. I let my tears fall silently down my face in the darkened theater. I tried not to sniff.

  Soon, though, it became difficult to concentrate, for in the rows full of Hanover students, a mutiny was beginning.

  To be fair, none of us had ever been taught to sit still for so long. Even at school there were breaks, many of them, from all this stillness. The other Hanover students knew they were supposed to be grateful, and they wanted to be good for Mr. Johns, but they didn’t know how to be. They fidgeted and whispered and broke every rule. Mr. Johns and the seven other teachers there leaned forward, often, to turn and glare. They pointed to their eyes and then at their students. I’m watching you. All of us had been taught many things in our lives: to do as we were told, to entertain ourselves, to shut up, to be absent. But never to sit in one place and watch something slow and abstract for three hours. It wasn’t a skill that most of us had.

  Kacey, next to me, was losing it. She was squirming. One moment she hugged her knees, and the next she dropped her legs down against the chair with a thump. She lolled her head from side to side. She poked my shoulder, idly, and I elbowed her. Ow, Kacey whispered. She yawned with vigor. She pretended to fall asleep and wake up several times in a row.

  There was a girl our age in front of Kacey, one of the ones we had seen in the lobby, her hair in a neat bun, her red dress coat folded tidily over the back of her seat. Her mother’s perfume had wafted back toward us when we first sat down. After a particularly violent motion from Kacey, the little girl glanced back at her, just once, and then
whipped her head toward the stage once more.

  Kacey leaned forward.

  —What are you looking at, she whispered, right into the girl’s ear. I froze, watching as the girl edged nervously toward her mother, pretending not to have heard; then watching as Kacey, behind her, formed a fist and raised it. And for a strange and perfect moment, I thought that she would strike: I could see it happening, my sister’s hand colliding with the tense muscles at the back of the girl’s neck. Quickly, I reached out my hand to stop her. But the girl’s mother turned around at that moment, and—upon seeing Kacey’s pose—her mouth opened into a horrified O; and then Kacey, ashamed, lowered her hand. Then she settled back into her seat, tired, helpless. Resigned to something that neither of us, before that day, had understood.

  * * *

  —

  Today, I’m not certain whether it was that girl’s mother who got us kicked out, or whether our teachers collectively decided to remove us. All I know is that, at intermission, we were herded back through a crowded lobby, back past those girls and their mothers, who were now waiting in long lines for sweets, back to our yellow buses, our furious teachers beckoning us along.

  I had been wearing my cousin Bobby’s jacket the whole time, but at the last minute I removed it. As an adult, I am able to understand that this didn’t make sense: we were exiting into the cold. But I think, as a child, I wanted to signal to the other balletgoers in the lobby that I understood, that I had dressed up for the occasion, that I belonged there. That I was one of them. I’ll be back, I was saying, with my too-small cotton dress. Someday I’ll be back.

  This small act of apology, however, failed to reach its targets, and instead was pounced upon by two Hanover fourth-graders, a boy and a girl, who burst into laughter.

  —Why is she wearing that ugly-ass dress, said the boy, very loudly, earning the cheap laughter of a few other students around us. And like clockwork, Kacey—slightly ahead of me—turned on him.

  She had been waiting for an excuse. She wore a painful smile on her face, in fact, almost as if she were relieved to have someplace obvious to land the punch that she swiftly and accurately launched in his direction. She’d been holding it in for so long. For most of her life, maybe.

  —Kacey, no, I said, but it was too late.

  NOW

  After what Lafferty says, These girls, I feel I have no other choice than to tell Sergeant Ahearn that I don’t wish to be partnered with Eddie Lafferty anymore. I am willing to explain myself; I have even prepared a speech about our differences in style that would leave us both looking all right, in the balance, but before I can continue, Ahearn exhales, lengthily.

  —Fine, Mickey, he says. He doesn’t even look up from his phone.

  * * *

  —

  For a week, I work solo. I’m relieved to be alone again. I’m relieved to be able to stop when and where I choose to, to select which calls I respond to. And I’m especially relieved, now, to be able to call Bethany, the babysitter, and ask to speak to Thomas. Over the course of each long call, I tell him stories, or narrate what I’m passing, or tell him about my plans for our future. And I tell myself that, while it may not be the same thing as my physical presence, at least I am able to provide him with some intellectual stimulation, in this way. Besides, he’s becoming a very good conversationalist. It almost reminds me of having Truman next to me in the car.

  * * *

  —

  One morning, at the start of an A-shift, I walk into the common area where roll call is conducted and notice a stranger in the room. He is young, sharply dressed in a gray suit. Serious-looking. Right away, I like him. He has one arm crossed around his insubstantial waist. In the other hand he holds a manila folder. A detective, I think. He says nothing to anyone. He is waiting for a sergeant.

  When Ahearn arrives, he asks for everyone’s attention, and the young man introduces himself. He is Davis Nguyen, he says, from the East Detectives. He has some news.

  —Overnight, says Nguyen, we had two homicides in the district.

  I am relieved to hear that they have already been identified. One is Katie Conway, a Delco girl, seventeen years old, white, reported missing one week prior. The other is Anabel Castillo, an eighteen-year-old home health aide, Latina.

  Both, says Nguyen, were found in similar locations and were similarly arrayed: Conway was found in an empty lot off Tioga, uncovered and visible from the street; Castillo was found in an empty lot off Hart Lane, her legs obscured beneath a burned-out car, her head and shoulders exposed and in plain sight of passersby.

  Both, he says, were most likely engaged in sex work. Both, he says, were most likely strangled. And both bodies had gone unreported for hours. (The unconscious, in Kensington, are such a common sight that they often don’t receive a second glance.)

  Nguyen puts pictures of Katie and Anabel up on the computer display on the wall. For a few long seconds, everyone in the room stands still, looking at the victims as they smile back on us from happier times. There is young Katie, at a party, her sixteenth birthday party, maybe, standing by a pool. Anabel is hugging a child I hope is not her son.

  —All of this information, says Nguyen, is confidential. We haven’t released the names or descriptions to the media, though the families have been notified.

  After a moment, he continues. Additionally, he says, we’ve reopened the case of a young woman found on the Gurney Street tracks in October, though initially her autopsy was inconclusive.

  I glance at Ahearn. He won’t meet my eye.

  Nguyen continues.

  —She’s still unidentified. But given the events of last night, we have reason to reconsider that assessment.

  Ahearn isn’t looking up. He’s still on his phone.

  —What this means, says Nguyen, is that there may be a single perpetrator of multiple homicides at large in your district.

  No one speaks.

  —Anything you hear, says Nguyen, take a report or send them directly to us. We’ve got a couple of leads but nothing credible. We’re asking for your help.

  For a while after roll call, I sit alone in my vehicle and contemplate my cell phone. The oaks that overhang the asphalt parking lot are moving wildly in a sudden strong wind. Thomas’s favorite tree.

  A slow, uneasy feeling has been building inside of me ever since we found the woman on the Tracks. The fact is that I haven’t seen Kacey anyplace in the neighborhood since then. And I suppose, if I’m being honest, that I have been casually looking. It’s not uncommon for a month to go by without a sighting of my sister—sometimes, in fact, this means she is actively trying to get into recovery—but the timing of her absence from the Avenue gives me a certain amount of pause, and causes within me the same low hum of anxiety that I had as a very young child when our mother was gone from the house too long.

  * * *

  —

  Officially, Kacey and I no longer speak to one another. We haven’t for five years. There have been rare occasions since then—three, to be precise—when I have been required to interact with her at work, in my capacity as an officer and in her capacity as a suspect—and during each of those times I have conducted myself with dignity, as any professional would, either processing her or releasing her, as I would do for any offender. To her credit, she, too, has conducted herself respectfully. When it is necessary to do so, I gently place handcuffs on the wrists of my sister, and I tell her the particular offense for which she is being arrested (usually, solicitation and possession of narcotics, one time with intent to sell), and then I narrate her rights to her, then I place a gentle hand on the crown of her head to ensure that she doesn’t obtain an injury as she enters the backseat of our vehicle, and then I quietly close the door, and then I drive her to the station, and then I book her, and then the two of us sit silently across from one another in the holding cell, not speaking, not even looking at each other.

&n
bsp; Truman was with me each time, and each time he, too, remained silent, watching the two of us guardedly, his eyes darting back and forth from me to Kacey to me again, waiting to see what would happen.

  —That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, he said, as we were driving away after the first of these episodes. I shrugged, and didn’t reply. I suppose it would look ‘weird’ to someone who doesn’t understand the particulars of our history and the tacit agreement we’ve come to in recent years. I’ve never tried to explain it to Truman or anyone else.

  —You look out for her, he said another time.

  When I demurred, he continued:

  —You would have been done with patrol years ago if you weren’t out here keeping an eye on your sister. You would have taken the detective exam.

  I told him that this was not, in fact, true: it’s just that I’ve grown fond of the neighborhood, and have grown to care a great deal about its well-being, and also I find the history of the neighborhood interesting, and I like to watch it as it grows and changes. And, lastly, it’s never boring. On the contrary: it’s exciting. Some people do have trouble with Kensington, but to me the neighborhood itself has become like a relative, slightly problematic but dear in the old-fashioned way that that word is sometimes used, treasured, valuable to me. I am invested in it, in other words.

  —Why haven’t you taken the exam? I said to Truman, at the time. Truman is one of the smartest people I know. He could easily have been promoted, and could easily have transferred elsewhere if he wanted to. When I said this, he laughed.