Chapter XLVIII

Edie Brook was eight years old when she disappeared from the Maine Mall in South Portland. Her mother, Andie, was in the men's section at Macy's, picking up some jeans on special for her husband, who swore he still wore 34-34 Levi 501s, if only in his dreams. Yes, he could fit into them, but barely, and had to wear his shirts untucked to disguise the resulting muffin top. Meanwhile, to sit comfortably required him leaving open the top button for a time until the jeans bedded in, or risk taking someone's eye out when it popped. Men, Andie Brook reflected, were the vainest creatures on earth this side of a peacock. Her husband hated the mall, so she'd offered to buy the jeans for him, with the ulterior motive of picking up 36-34 501s and slipping them into his closet. He was unlikely to check the size, but on the off-chance that he did, she thought she might use a pin or a pen to deface it.

So these were her thoughts as she compared shades of blue in the artificial light of the store. She looked around and couldn't see her daughter. She didn't take fright, not immediately, because the store was a maze of racks, and Edie liked playing hide-and-seek among them, or pretending she was Dora the Explorer trying to stop Swiper from stealing stuff. Lord knows, the folks at Macy's might even have been willing to pay her by the hour, the amount of merchandise that must have been shoplifted every day.

Jeans in hand, Andie had begun hunting for her daughter, even as a nasty feeling slowly began to take hold. She had an ache in her stomach, like she really needed to get to a restroom, and her mouth tasted sour. She called Edie's name, louder and louder, until finally she was screaming it, which brought staff and security running. The store was searched, the effort rippling outward to take in the mall and its parking lot. The police arrived, followed by her husband. He'd left their two older boys with his mom, but by then Andie was only just managing to hold it together. The sight of him, and his solicitude toward her, caused her to break. She folded slowly to the floor, taking a display of Florsheim shoes with her, and wanted to die.

No trace of Edie Brook could be found. Security footage showed her by the exit in the men's section, leaning out of the open door. She appeared to be talking to someone outside, although there was no external store camera covering that particular angle, so whomever she was conversing with might deliberately have chosen the spot, like a hunter picking the best stand from which to target prey. Finally, after a few seconds of conversation, Edie could be seen departing the store, her arms extended as though to hug someone. That was the final sighting of her.

An AMBER Alert was issued. The main external cameras in the mall parking lot, which ordinarily would have given a view of the doors, had been obscured by an illegally parked truck at the time of Edie's disappearance, but three other vehicles, including a panel van, had stopped briefly during the window established for what was now being treated as an abduction. The drivers of the truck and the two cars were quickly traced, because all were still on mall property, but the van, a dark blue 1990 Ford Falcon XF, was not. The police started tracking it, using adjacent cameras to establish its exit route from the mall, and came up with a license number, but the plate and vehicle didn't match, because the plate should have been attached to a silver Town Country.

Twenty minutes later, a report was received of a vehicle on fire in a disused lot over in North Deering. The vehicle in question was a Ford panel van, its blue paint already almost completely scorched away by the heat of the flames. Hanging from a nearby tree was Edie Brook's yellow rain jacket.

After that, the trail went dead, despite repeated searches of the area, tearful appeals from Edie's parents, and a $75,000 reward from a local businessman for information leading to her safe return. The reward was as much a hindrance as a help, because the promise of easy money lured lowlifes and scoundrels, any number of psychics among them: some fake, others sincere, and all wrong.

One week after the vanishing of Edie Brook, Sabine Drew began hearing her voice. It came to her at the same time each day, just before 4 p.m., asking for a glass of grape juice and an Oreo. Sabine was still in mourning for her mother, who had passed away a few months earlier. The voice was, in its way, a welcome distraction from her grief. After three days of listening to it, and some tentative reaching out to the source, Sabine approached the South Portland PD, a force she had not previously assisted. Calls were made, one of them to Ronnie Pascal, and assurances received about Sabine's bona fides. She ended up sitting in another police interview room—different, but the same—and told them what she knew.

"I think Edie's alive," she said.

"How do you know?" asked the lead detective, a man named Wilbert Sullivan whose attitude Sabine didn't care for, not one bit. She could tell he didn't trust her and gave no credence to a word she had to say. Short of being marched into the interview room at gunpoint, he couldn't have looked unhappier at being there, but it wasn't as though he and his colleagues were doing so well without her help. Edie was still missing, and parents in the area were one scare away from cuffing their kids to their wrists. Sullivan's demeanor probably caused Sabine to present herself more forcefully than was her norm.

"I can tell the difference between the living and the dead," she snapped. "Can't you?"

"We've had some experience of it, yes," said the man seated next to Sullivan, another detective, this one named Cogan. He was less hostile than his partner, which wouldn't have been hard.

A woman, who had been standing in the shadows but not yet introduced, stepped forward.

"This is unfamiliar territory for us, Ms. Drew," she said. "We try to treat all offers of assistance with respect, but we've already wasted a lot of time on false leads, some of them from individuals claiming to have certain… gifts."

"You have the advantage of me," said Sabine. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."

"My name is Detective Sharon Macy. This investigation involves the efforts of multiple branches of law enforcement across the state and beyond its borders. I'm the acting liaison officer between the Portland and South Portland PDs, but I also have experience coordinating multiagency operations in the state. I try to smooth the way when I can."

Sullivan didn't look any happier at Macy's intervention. Sabine wondered if he didn't like women very much. He opened his mouth to regain control of proceedings, but Sabine continued to address herself to Macy, as much to annoy Sullivan as anything else.

"I try to smooth the way, too," said Sabine, "so we have that much in common. And I'm not interested in any reward money, if that's what you're worried about. I don't need seventy-five thousand dollars. I already have enough to get by."

"How do you earn a living," said Macy, "if you don't mind me asking?"

"I channel the numbers for the state lottery. I stick with Pick 3, though, so as not to draw attention. On straights and box three-ways, I can usually clear six hundred a week, give or take."

There was silence in the interview room. Sabine let it build, then said, "Actually, I work part-time at Muller's grocery store in Haynesville, which helps pay the bills, but my mom and dad left me with enough investment income to support a frugal lifestyle, and I don't have a mortgage. You guys. I swear, it's a wonder nobody has swindled your watches and wallets from you before now."

But rather than lighten the mood, this turned out to be the final straw for Detective Wilbert Sullivan.

"I don't have time for this," he said, and left the room. Cogan and Macy stayed, the latter taking Sullivan's chair.

"Detective Sullivan hasn't enjoyed a good night's sleep since this began," said Macy. "No one involved in the case has, so patience is at a premium."

"I think Edie Brook's parents give her grape juice and a cookie as a treat each afternoon, probably at around four o'clock," said Sabine. "She prefers Oreos. You might want to check that with them."

"How do you know this?" asked Cogan.

"Because that's what I hear her asking for."

Cogan looked at Macy.

"I'll do it," he said.

He went away. Macy didn't try making small talk, which Sabine appreciated. Cogan returned after about five minutes, nodding once at Macy.

"Is it a trick?" Macy asked Sabine.

"It's no trick."

Macy spun her cell phone on the table while she thought. She shared an unspoken exchange with Cogan, who shrugged.

"Okay," said Macy. "What else can you tell us about her?"

SABINE SPENT TWO DAYStrying to establish a proper line of communication with Edie Brook. It was difficult, more difficult than anything she'd attempted before. Edie was oddly resistant, and the channel between them remained open for only a few minutes each day. Finally, though, Sabine managed to convince her to describe her surroundings, and what she could smell and hear.

She was not blindfolded, Edie informed her, but the man who had taken her wore a wolf mask when he came to bring her meals, or to empty the bucket she used to go to the bathroom. She thought she was in a cellar or basement, with a single small window high up that she couldn't reach. She could hear vehicles passing, but not people. The man never spoke to her, but neither had he hurt her in any way. She had a TV to watch, and candy and water to consume from an old refrigerator. She heard the man go out once or twice every day, sometimes for long periods. His car made a racket as it drove away.

Cogan and Macy stayed in touch with Sabine throughout. Slowly, Edie Brook was opening up to Sabine, although she remained reluctant to engage for any length of time. Edie was, in most senses, a blank slate. Macy asked Sabine to find out from Edie what news channel she could see on the TV, and Edie told her it was WLBZ, which was the state's central and northern NBC affiliate. If Sabine really was in touch with Edie, she was being held somewhere in the top half of the state. It wasn't much to go on, but it was a start.

On the fourth day, Edie told Sabine that if she moved the refrigerator and climbed on top, she thought she might be able to see out the window. The refrigerator was heavy, she said, but if she put all her weight against one side, she could shift it a fraction. It was tough work, though, and any movement made a noise on the floor. Sabine advised her to wait until the man left before making a big effort.

Edie moved the refrigerator. Using the interior shelves, she managed to climb up and peer out the window. She could see a sign, she said, black on white, just above some trees. The sign read PATTEN. Patten was a small town in Penobscot County, at the intersections of Route 11 and State Route 159, which fit with the TV receiving WLBZ. By this time Cogan and Macy—Macy in particular—had invested a lot of faith in Sabine. They wanted to believe her.

The focus of the investigation shifted to Patten, although the source of the information—the noted medium Sabine Drew—was not revealed. Law enforcement personnel descended on the town, quickly followed by a media pack. Houses and properties were searched both inside and beyond the town line. Cogan and Macy encouraged Sabine to reach out again to Edie and ask her if there was anything else, anything at all, she had seen that might help to narrow the search. But Edie Brook had gone silent.

"Is she dead?" asked Macy.

"I don't know," said Sabine. "I can't find her. It's almost as though—"

She stopped. She didn't want to say it.

"What?" said Macy.

But Sabine could not be dishonest with her.

"It's almost as though she was never there."

THE SEARCH OF PATTENand the surrounding area continued: one day, two, three. Word leaked that the decision to devote so much manpower to Patten was the result of a tip-off, although police still declined to reveal the source. Sabine persisted in her efforts to restore contact with Edie, but it was only at night that she now heard her, and even then she could not be entirely sure she was not dreaming. In the dark, between sleeping and waking, Edie told her that the man holding her captive had become anxious. She thought she'd heard sirens in the distance, as well as the shouts of men and the howling of dogs.

Then daylight would come, causing Edie to fall quiet again.

ON THE FINAL DAYof the Patten search, and two hundred miles to the southeast, a woman named Myrna Liddie was rowing in Scarborough Marsh with her granddaughter Erika, Myrna's American water spaniel Chloe seated between them in the canoe. As they rounded a bend in the channel, Chloe, as was her wont, dove into the water and swam toward a clump of reeds. Myrna expected to see a duck ascend, quacking in panic, but no bird flew, and Chloe was content to circle the same spot. Unusually for her, she did not return when called, but instead began barking at her mistress. Myrna instructed her granddaughter to help steer the canoe toward the dog.

The clump of reeds lay close to the margin between high and low marsh. The areas of high marsh had been growing fewer and fewer each year due to rising sea levels. Soon, it was suggested, half the ecosystem would be underwater.

"Ugh!" said her granddaughter. The reeds were alive with European green crabs.

Myrna could see that Chloe had been drawn by what looked like the top of an old sack that had broken the surface of the water. It was crawling with crabs. Gingerly, Myrna touched it with the tip of her oar. It felt solid, and was shaped like a ball. Using the oar, she traced the lineaments of the form below the water until she could reach no farther.

"What is it, Grandma?" asked her granddaughter, but Myrna was already dialing 911.

"Get Chloe back in the canoe," she said, as her emergency call was answered. "My name is Myrna Liddie," she told the dispatcher. "I think I may have found a body in Scarborough Marsh."

EDIE brOOK HAD BEENin the water for a couple of days, but dead for more than a week. She had been placed in a sack bound with a length of chain. The chain was padlocked to a concrete block before the whole was dumped. Had her killer taken the time to pierce the corpse, preventing the accumulation of gas, she might not have been found, or not so soon, but detectives speculated that whoever put her in the water had wanted her to be discovered: there were better places to hide the body of a young girl than a tidal marsh.

As soon as the remains were identified, questions were asked about the lead that had brought the police not to Scarborough, but to Patten. Sabine's involvement was made public, although by whom was never established. The denunciations came thick and fast. She was a fraud, an attention-seeker, an exploiter of the sorrow of others. Perhaps, some whispered, she might even have killed Edie Brook herself and used Patten as a diversion. Nobody involved in the case really believed this, but they didn't have to: Sabine's reputation and character lay in tatters within twenty-four hours of her being named in media reports. She was spat on in the street and her car was set alight. Her mailbox was filled with abusive letters and boxes of dog excrement. Someone sent her a .30-06 Springfield bullet on which her initials had been written in Wite-Out.

She stopped leaving the house. Her groceries arrived by special delivery. Neighbors grew reluctant to interact with her, and a handful would never speak to her again. Police no longer sought her help with investigations, though she continued to receive missives from those looking for the lost, but only the most despairing. She ignored them all, until, at last, they slowed to a trickle before drying up entirely.

She still saw the dead, though.

And sometimes, the dead saw her.