Definitely Dead

The principal, Mrs. Garfield, had had a running battle with Miss Maddy for years about her habit, a battle that Miss Maddy had always won. She smoked outside, but she smoked. Today, Mrs. Garfield was completely indifferent to Miss Maddy’s bad habit. Mrs. Garfield, the wife of a Methodist-Episcopal minister, was dressed in a mustard-color business suit, plain hose, and black pumps. She was just as strained as Miss Maddy, and a lot less guarded about showing it.
    I worked my way through the front of the little crowd, not certain how to go about doing what I had to do.
    Andy saw me first, and touched Bud Dearborn on the shoulder. Bud had a cell phone to his ear. Bud turned to look at me. I nodded at them. Sheriff Dearborn was not my friend. He’d been a friend of my father’s, but he’d never had the time of day for me. To the sheriff, people fell into two categories: people who broke the law and could be arrested, and people who did not break the law and could not be. And most of those were people who just hadn’t been caught breaking the law yet; that was what Bud believed. I fell somewhere in between. He felt sure I was guilty of something, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
    Andy didn’t like me much, either, but he was a believer. He jerked his head to the left, almost imperceptibly. I couldn’t see Bud Dearborn’s face clearly, but his shoulders stiffened in anger, and he leaned forward a little, his whole body posture saying that he was furious with his detective.
    I worked my way out of the knot of anxious and curious citizens and slipped around the third-grade wing to the back of the school. The playground, about the size of half a football field, was fenced in, and the gate was ordinarily locked with a chain secured by a padlock. It had been opened, presumably for the convenience of the searchers. I saw Kevin Pryor, a thin young patrol officer who always won the 4K race at the Azalea Festival, bending over to peer into a culvert right across the street. The grass in the ditch was high, and his dark uniform pants were dusted with yellow. His partner, Kenya, who was as buxom as Kevin was thin, was across the street on the other side of the block, and I watched her head move from side to side as she scanned the surrounding yards.
    The school took up a whole block in the middle of a residential area. All the houses around were modest homes on modest lots, the kind of neighborhood where there were basketball goals and bicycles, barking dogs, and driveways brightened with sidewalk chalk.
    Today every surface was dusted in a light yellow powder; it was the very beginning of pollen time. If you rinsed off your car in town in your driveway, there would be a ring of yellow around the storm drain. Cats’ bellies were tinged yellow, and tall dogs had yellow paws. Every other person you talked to had red eyes and carried a cache of tissues.
    I noticed several thrown down around the playground. There were patches of new green grass and patches of hard-packed dirt, in areas where the children congregated the most. A big map of the United States had been painted on the concrete apron right outside the school doors. The name of each state was painted carefully and clearly. Louisiana was the only state colored bright red, and a pelican filled up its outline. The word Louisiana was too long to compete with the pelican, and it had been painted on the pavement right where the Gulf of Mexico would be.
    Andy emerged from the rear door, his face set and hard. He looked ten years older.
    “How’s Halleigh?” I asked.
    “She’s in the school crying her eyes out,” he said. “We have to find this boy.”
    “What did Bud say?” I asked. I stepped inside the gate.
    “Don’t ask,” he said. “If there’s anything you can do for us, we need all the help we can get.”
    “You’re going out on a limb.”
    “So are you.”
    “Where are the people that were in the school when he ran back in?”
    “They’re all in here, except for the principal and the custodian.”
    “I saw them outside.”
    “I’ll bring them in. All the teachers are in the cafeteria. It has that little stage at one end. Sit behind the curtain there. See if you can get anything.”
    “Okay.” I didn’t have a better idea.
    Andy set off for the front of the school to gather up the principal and the custodian.
    I stepped into the end of the third-grade corridor. There were bright pictures decorating the walls outside every classroom. I