“Grandma says hornets will leave us well enough alone if we leave them well enough alone,” Izzy says.
“Not that kind of hornets, kiddo.”
“What is it, Bill?” Aunt Julia says.
“A lot of angry words being tossed around down at the Filmore. Best the girls stay close to home until Elizabeth is found.”
The Filmore Apartments are the reason Grandma almost didn’t let Izzy and Arie come to Aunt Julia’s this year. Coloreds live there, and Grandma said it’s only a matter of time now. If people are throwing around angry words, that must mean they think the coloreds have been stirring up trouble and maybe they stirred up trouble for Elizabeth. Maybe she didn’t wander off like Aunt Julia thinks she did.
“What about our cat?” Izzy says. The words pop out before she can stop them. It’s easier to think about a lost cat than a lost person. “If we can’t leave the house, we can’t very well find her. Isn’t that right? You’re saying we can’t look for Patches.”
“It’ll only be for a short time,” Uncle Bill says. “You can put out food on the back porch. Milk, maybe. Cats like milk. Try to tempt her home.”
Izzy stands and takes a few steps toward Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill. “Couple days won’t hurt, I guess,” she says, but before she can finish, Uncle Bill wraps one long arm around her waist and scoops her up too.
“But no leaving the house without Aunt Julia’s permission,” he says, rubbing his day-old beard against Izzy’s cheek like he did Arie’s. “Understood?”
Like Arie, Izzy tucks her chin and laughs.
Together, the twins say, “Understood.”
“So you’ll go back now?” Aunt Julia says. “You’ll go and help the others.” She stands again and smooths her skirt. Every part of Aunt Julia is plentiful and round. She is forever reattaching buttons and stitching up stressed seams. “You should get going. The girls and I will be fine.”
Uncle Bill squeezes the twins close and talks over Izzy’s head. “There’s one more thing, Julia. It’s the police. There’s a fellow outside, an officer. He’d like to talk to you.”
“To me?”
Uncle Bill nods. “I’ll come with you. You girls are fine here for a few minutes, aren’t you?”
“No,” Aunt Julia says. She waves a hand at the three of them and smiles but doesn’t show her teeth this time. “I’m happy to talk with him. You all stay put.”
The man standing on Julia’s front porch wears a blue hat, a dark shirt, and a tie. A police officer’s uniform. He removes his hat, squints into the overhead light. “Ma’am.”
“I have children in here,” Julia says, meaning she doesn’t want the girls to hear what this man might say.
The officer backs away, a signal for Julia to join him. Once they have moved off the porch, the officer’s eyes drop to Julia’s chest and loiter. She pulls closed the lightweight cardigan she slipped on at sunset, crosses her arms, and scratches at a small grease stain on her sleeve.
Outside the house, the shadows that had floated past the living-room windows have transformed into real people stooping to search under parked cars, wading through bushes that grow between houses, crawling under porches. A few flashlights settle on Julia before sweeping on past. The shouts have started up again and the air no longer smells of sweet sulfur. Everyone has put away the fireworks for the night.
“There’s news?” Julia asks, wrapping her arms more tightly around her waist.
The officer introduces himself. Officer Thompson. Julia wants to run a finger up his back like she does to the girls when they forget their manners and slouch. The officer has been at the Symanski house. He asks if Julia knows the Symanski girl and she says of course. They are waiting, she and the twins, for news Elizabeth is safe. The girls are too young to be out and are afraid to be left alone, so they are waiting at home, together.
“And you saw her today?” Officer Thompson asks. His light brown hair is matted to his forehead where his hat rested. “You saw…” He flips through a small pad of paper. “Elizabeth Symanski?”
“Earlier in the day,” Julia says. “Around lunchtime. Much before any of this.”
“And what can you tell me of that meeting?”
The officer stares down at his pad and only looks up when Julia is too long in answering. “You recall having seen her?”
“You make it sound so formal. I walked her home, is all. It was one thirty or so. Lunchtime at Grace Richardson’s house. Much before any of this.”
“You saw her to her door?”
Julia squints into a set of headlights rolling past. “I suppose I should say I watched her walk home.”
“You watched?” the officer asks. “And what is it you saw?”
“From the sidewalk, I watched her. She reached her gate, the iron gate outside her house. And then her door. I saw her make her way inside.”
The officer motions for Julia to follow him. She glances back at her house before joining the officer at the end of the driveway. Once there, he places both hands on Julia’s shoulders and turns her to face the west end of the street. Then he moves behind her, leans forward until his chest bumps against the back of her head, stretches out his right arm and points down Alder Avenue.
“Like this?” he asks. “From the end of a drive like this you watched Elizabeth make her way home?”
“Yes,” she says, inching away from the officer. “But I stood on Grace’s driveway. Much closer to the Symanskis’.”
“Eight houses,” Officer Thompson says. When Julia tries to twist away, he grips her by both shoulders again and forces her to continue to look toward the Symanskis’ house. “I counted eight houses between the Richardsons’ and the Symanskis’.”
With one extended finger, the officer counts out eight houses. His arm brushes against the side of Julia’s head. She takes one step away, but the officer draws her back with a hand to her shoulder. Again, he points.
“I wonder,” he says, “are you quite certain you saw her enter the house? From a distance such as this, even in good light? Is that possible, do you think?”
“The iron gate,” Julia says. “She ran her fingers along the iron gate. I saw that. She reached her gate.”
And now Julia knows. She was the last to see Elizabeth Symanski.
“Elizabeth’s been gone all day?” Julia says. “All this time? Has no one else seen her?”
“You’re quite sure she opened the gate?” the officer says, not answering Julia’s questions.
“It was a difficult day,” Julia says.
“She pushed it open?” the officer asks again, now standing at Julia’s side. “You’re quite certain? Walked through it and then up her sidewalk?”
“There was news,” Julia says, silently counting out eight houses. In the light of day, she’d have seen much better. “The ladies were all talking. And the twins. They’ve only recently arrived. I had much to think about. She’s done this before, you know. Elizabeth has strayed before. Surely someone else saw her after I did. One of the other ladies. One of the neighbors. She’s wandered off. That’s all.”
She can’t tell this man that instead of concerning herself with Elizabeth’s well-being, Julia had been worried about the dead woman on Willingham and the prostitutes who come to the factory over the lunch hour. She can’t tell him that Bill has been a good husband for the last two years and still she worries like all the ladies worry. She can’t explain to him how Betty Lawson’s baby cried and forced Julia from Grace’s house. How those cries made Julia ache and want to double over from the pain of it but instead she dipped a finger in the baked beans and called for more brown sugar. She can’t tell him that three years ago her own baby died and her husband won’t father another, that he won’t even touch her, not in that way. The officer wouldn’t understand that Julia had to leave Grace Richardson’s house before lunch was served because the fear of never having another baby had suffocated her and now she is so very sorry she didn’t watch Elizabeth closely enough. Avoiding the officer’s eyes, Julia says none of these things.