Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

age.”
    “Do the kids still see each other?”
    “Not anymore. Not since the accident.”
    “What accident?”
    “It was a couple of years ago. Madison accidentally pushed Alicia when they were on the stairs.”
    “And?”
    “Alicia broke her arm. They haven’t played since then.“
    “Was anyone with them? Were you there, or one of Alicia’s parents?”
    “Yeah, Nancy, the mother, she was there. She said it wasn’t an accident. She might not even want to talk to you.“
    “I see. What did she say happened?”
    “That Madison shoved Alicia down the stairs.”
    “I mean before that. What was the reason for her anger?“
    “Whatever the reason, there’s no excuse for that kind of behavior.”
    “Agreed. I’m just trying to understand. The kid, Alicia, did she make some comment about the tics? Is that what happened?”
    “That’s my guess.”
    “You mean Nancy wouldn’t say?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Leon, has Madison had any therapy to help her deal with her disorder?”
    “Yeah, she went to two different shrinks. Neither one of them worked out.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Because she just sat there. She wouldn’t speak.”
    “I thought they do play therapy with kids. Or art therapy. I would think they’d have some way to work with her, even without spoken language.”
    “Me, too. That’s what I thought, but it didn’t work out that way.”
    “Okay, and the last name, Ted? He’s your downstairs neighbor? Sally and he were friends?”
    There was no answer. Perhaps Leon was nodding again. “What about school? Were there students Sally mentioned, anyone in the same class with her that I might be able to find? Anyone she’d have coffee with after class?” I asked, but I had the feeling that if there was anyone Sally spent time with, someone she could talk to, she wouldn’t have told Leon.
    “No, she usually came home right after class unless she had to go to the library.”
    Right, I thought. “Leon, were you happy?” I asked him. But Leon didn’t answer me. That’s not a question, I learned a long time ago, that everyone can answer. “Was Sally happy, do you think?”
    “She was going to school,” he said. “That’s what she wanted to do.” There was silence on the line. “At least that’s what she said she wanted to do. I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know if she was happy. I don’t know if I was happy. I never thought about it.”
    “The night she left?”
    “A Saturday.”
    “What time?”
    “Nine. Nine-ten, actually. I looked at my watch because I thought it was too early for Roy’s last walk. I figured I’d just walk him again, after the eleven o’clock news, the way I always did.”
    “What was she wearing?”
    “Sally?”
    “Yeah. Do you recall?”
    “A white T-shirt, not one of those oversize ones, one that fit her, faded blue jeans, work boots. A light jacket, white, with a hood but she had the hood down. It was warm out. Summer. She had her hair pulled back and stuck up at the back of her head in a big barrette, but it didn’t catch all the hair. There were these wisps that always slipped out and hung down around her face.” Leon stopped, perhaps to take a sip of water, or wipe his eyes. “She never wore any makeup,” he said, his voice cracking. “She didn’t need to.“
    “She was that pretty?”
    Again, a silence. “I found her watch,” he said after a moment. “It was in the bathroom, on the side of the sink. She’d gone out without it.”
    “Did she usually wear it?”
    “Always,” he said. “She always wore it.”
    Maybe Leon hadn’t been so hot at giving information because I’d been asking the wrong questions. Ask him something that required visual memory and Leon was all there. Or was that only so when it pertained to Sally?
    “Thanks, Leon,” I said. “Just one more question for now. Did either you or Sally have any kind of tic disorder when you were younger, or anyone in either family?”
    “No,” he said. “No one I know of.”
    Leon had put me in a visual mode, too. I was thinking in pictures, seeing a watch on the side of the sink in Leon’s bathroom. Now why would Sally have taken off her watch if she’d been going out to meet someone?
    “Leon,” I said, “was there, by any chance, a phone call shortly before Sally took Roy out for a walk?”
    “No, no phone call.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yes.”
    “She didn’t make one either?”
    “No. I would have heard.”
    “Leon, the night that Sally