Free The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll Page B

Nothing specifically happened, but I knew exactly what was going on.
    Life left her and then she _was _gone.

    Still on one knee I stared, willing her back, willing her to come back and help me understand.

    "Frannie?" Bill stood in the doorway, holding it open with an arm.
    "The ambulance is here and I've called the girl's mother. I'm going over there now. Is that okay?"

    "Yeah."

    "Fran, you okay?"

    "Yeah. Listen, tell Redmond I want to look in her locker. And if she had a gym locker, in there too."

    I waited there while they got the body ready to move. They took their time. I was making notes when one of the ambulance guys said, "Whoa!
    Check this out!"

    Looking up, I saw him holding a feather--_the _feather I had already seen too many times. I took it out of his hand and had a closer look to make sure.
    "Where'd this come from?"

    He gave a dirty chuckle and raised his eyebrows. "Fell out from under her skirt! Do you believe that? What's she doing with a feather up her dress?" he leered.

    "I'll keep this." I put the feather between the pages of my notebook and closed it.

    From the expression on his face the guy thought I was joking. He whined, "Aw come on, Chief, I Page 45

    want it."

    "Finish up and stop _fuckin' around!"_

    Smiles fell off their faces and they were done in five minutes.

    I followed the gurney as they rolled it down the hall. Classes were still in session, so luckily we didn't have to go by a slew of gawking kids.

    Passing the principal's office, I stopped and went in. His secretary immediately handed me a slip of paper with Antonya's locker number and combination written on it. The woman said none of the kids were given permanent gym lockers anymore because the school was too overcrowded now and there weren't enough to go around.

    At the top of the paper, a bright pink Post-it note, was written number 622.
    An instant later it hit me like a stubbed toe: the same locker number.I'd had as a senior at Crane's View High School. The number below it, the lock combination, was also the same as thirty years ago.

    "This is right? This is correct?" My voice bounced all over the place.

    Puzzled, she nodded. "Yes. I just copied it out of her file ten minutes ago."

    "Son of a bitch!" I'd planned to ask Redmond more questions but not anymore.
    I had to look inside that locker _now. _I was no longer confused, no longer at a loss. My wife says watch out for Frannie when he knows who the enemy is.
    Antonya said she was murdered. Rushing out of the office, the horrible thought struck me that she might have been killed for no other reason than she had the same school locker as I once did. Old Vertue, teenage me, the Schiavo house, Antonya. Who was doing all this and what did they want from me?

    A bell rang to mark the end of class. The big Bap! Bam! Bap! of doors flung open and hitting walls rang out everywhere. Kids flooded into the halls with the manic, jailbreak energy that comes from being held prisoner in algebra class for forty-five minutes. Cliques gathered like metal filings pulled by a magnet, bodies bumped or crashed into each other on their way to anywhere.
    Shouts and whistles, crazy laughter came from all over. Three minutes of freedom. Lovers met for intense head-to-heads before the next class, like an undertow, pulled them apart and shoved them back into Yawnsville for another forty-five.
    I remembered all of it. How could you ever forget being sixteen and full of equal measures of hope and shit?

    "Hey, Chief."

    "Hey, Mr. McCabe!"

    I recognized a few of the students. Some bad boys looked away as soon as we made eye contact.
    I gave a wink and two small "hi there" waves to other kids--nothing else. Those who greeted me didn't want more. I knew how this worked: proper high school etiquette. No matter how well we Page 46

    knew each other outside the building, this was their turf and their rules. I was an adult _and _a cop. Read "outsider."

    I slowed a little on realizing I was doing one of