Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

right.”
    “But?”
    “They’re not finished with this. With her. That’s why I need your help.”
    I nodded. I was sure he was right but I didn’t say so. Why tell him something he already knew, that the police probably knew he was lying and that there were other issues working against him, the question of a missing wife, a daughter’s rage.
    “Had Madison ever been violent?” I asked.
    Leon struggled with what to say, his brow furrowed, his eyes pinched. He licked his lips, too, letting me know his mouth was dry. There was water at the run for the dogs but none for the people. I waited. I had the feeling his face was telling me more than his words would.
    “She’s been destructive,” he finally said. “She’s been out of control on occasion.”
    “What do you mean by ‘out of control’?”
    “Breaking things.Ripping up mail. Kicking furniture. She scratched me a few times. Once she broke the dishes.“
    “All of them?”
    “It was cheap stuff. It didn’t matter.”
    “I see. Leon, is it unusual for Madison to go to the doctor herself, for you not to go with her?”
    “She . . .“ He stopped to think. He seemed to be a cautious man, always concerned he might be choosing a less than perfect word. “She’s very independent,” he said, nodding.
    “Independent?”
    “She likes to do things on her own. By herself. She doesn’t respond well to...“
    “Suggestions?”
    Leon smiled but his eyes stayed sad. “Yeah. You could say that.”
    “You’re saying she’s difficult?”
    “She’s had a difficult time.”
    “What about medication? Is she on anything, besides the Botox injections, any kind of tranquilizer or antianxiety medication?” Thinking just about everyone was on something nowadays, thinking that some medications had really serious side effects, some made patients psychotic, thinking if she did do it, maybe it wasn’t her fault. But how would we know what she did or didn’t do if she wasn’t talking?
    “She’s not on anything. There wasn’t anything that could help her, not without terrible side effects. That’s why the Botox seemed like the way to go. Dr. Bechman talked about it as if it would be a miracle, as if it would . . .“
    Okay, I thought, not medication. Maybe Leon was right. Maybe there was only one thing to do.
    “Got any pictures?” I asked.
    “Of Madison?”
    “No. Of Sally.”
    “Just the one.”
    “What one is that?” I asked.
    “The one Madison didn’t rip up after Sally disappeared.“
    “Why not that one?”
    “She didn’t know about it. It’s the one in her high school yearbook, those pictures they take of everyone in the graduating class.”
    My own looked more like a mug shot than the marking of
    a milestone and I doubted I still had it. Did the existence of her high school yearbook mean Sally was a saver? And if so, might there be other things she held on to that could help me find her? In which case I’d need a more recent picture because I wasn’t all that sure I’d be able to recognize a woman in her forties from a thumbnail shot of her at seventeen.
    “What about negatives?” I asked.
    Leon turned away. I let it go for the moment. Something about him made my heart grow heavy. It wasn’t only what he was saying, it was something about Leon himself.
    “I’d like to meet Madison, too. Would that be possible?”
    Leon didn’t answer me again. He got up and headed for the gate. When he got there, he motioned for me to come, a man of few words, a man of gestures and images. I held up one hand and went over to the hole Dashiell had made in the far comer of the run, shoving the dirt back in with the side of my shoe, then tamping it down. When I headed for the gate, a woman came in carrying two pugs, and the little girl who had been sitting on the bench diagonally across from where we were standing left. I could see what was in her purse now. There was a plastic palm tree, a leaf of lettuce and a live turtle.
    I caught up with Leon, and we headed toward the closest exit, Leon stopping once to take a picture of a drug deal in progress, the buyer and seller sitting on the wall behind the chess players.
    “Where are we going?” I said.
    “You’ll need that picture, won’t you?” He began to walk again, then remembered his manners and turned around. “Madison,” he said to the little girl with the purse who was walking in the dirt next to one side of the path, “this is Rachel. She’s going to help us try to find