The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [157]
It had been that kind of day. Now it would be that kind of night.
Catherine Rose Gagnon didn’t like November much either, though for her, the real problem had started in October. October 22, 1980, to be exact. The air had been warm, the sun a hot kiss on her face as she walked home from elementary school. She’d been carrying her books in her arm and wearing her favorite back-to-school outfit: knee-high brown socks, a dark brown corduroy skirt, and a long-sleeved gold top.
A car came up behind her. At first she didn’t notice; but dimly she became aware of the blue Chevy slowing to a crawl beside her. A man’s voice. “Hey, honey. Can you help me for a second? I’m looking for a lost dog.”
Later there was pain and blood and muffled cries of protest. Her tears streaking down her cheeks. Her teeth biting her lower lip.
Then there was darkness and her tiny, hollow cry: “Is anyone out there?”
And then, for the longest time, there was nothing.
They told her it lasted twenty-eight days. She’d had no way of knowing. There was no time in the dark, just a loneliness that went on without end. There was cold and there was silence, and there were the times when he returned. But at least that was something. It was the sheer nothingness, endless streams of nothingness, that could drive a person insane.
Hunters found her. November 18. They noticed the fresh dirt, poked around with their rifles, and were startled to hear her faint voice. They dug her up triumphantly, unearthing her four-by-six earthen prison and releasing her into the crisp fall air. Later she saw newspaper photos. Her dark eyes oversized, her head thin and bony, her body curled up on itself, like a small brown bat that had been yanked harshly into the light.
The papers dubbed her the Thanksgiving Miracle. Her parents took her home. Neighbors and family paraded through the front door with exclamations of “Oh, thank goodness!” and “Just in time for the holidays,” and “Oh, can you really believe . . . ?”
She sat and let people talk around her. She slipped food from the overflowing trays and stored it in her pockets. Her head was down, her shoulders hunched around her ears. She was still the little bat and for reasons she couldn’t explain, she was terrified of the light.
More police came. She told them of the man, of the car. They showed her pictures. She pointed at one. Later, days, weeks—did it really matter?—she came to the police station, stared at a lineup, and solemnly pointed her finger.
Richard Umbrio went on trial six months later. And three months into that, she took the stand in her plain blue dress, polished Mary Janes, and pointed her finger once again. Richard Umbrio went away for life.
And Catherine returned home with her family.
She didn’t eat much. She liked to take the food and put it in her pocket, or simply hold it in the palm of her hand. She didn’t sleep much. She lay in the dark, blind bat eyes seeking something she couldn’t name. Often, she held very still and saw if she could breathe without making a sound.
Sometimes her mother stood in the doorway, her pale white hands fluttering anxiously at her collarbone. Eventually, Catherine would hear her father down the hall. “Come to bed, Louise. She’ll call if she needs you.”
But Catherine never called.
Years passed. Catherine grew up, straightening her shoulders, growing out her hair, and discovering that she possessed the kind of strange, potent beauty that stopped men in their tracks. She was all pale white skin, straight black hair, and oversized navy eyes. Men wanted her desperately. So she used them indiscriminately. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t their fault. She simply never felt a thing.
Her mother died. 1994. Cancer. Catherine stood at the funeral and tried to cry. Her body had no moisture and her sobs sounded papery and insincere.
She went home to her