One officer stayed in the living room and wrote what she said on a pad while the other followed Wanda down the short hall to Destiny’s bedroom, then a loud shriek filled the trailer. The officer lowered his pad and ran down the hall. Patricia couldn’t squeeze past the officers so she stayed with Mrs. Greene until Wanda Taylor emerged from between them with Destiny in her arms.

The little girl looked sleepy and unconcerned about all the fuss. Wanda sat on the sofa, Destiny draped across her lap, limp body cradled in her mother’s arms. The officers didn’t say anything and their faces betrayed no expression.

“I saw him,” Patricia told them. “His name is James Harris, he lives on Middle Street, his van is a white van with tinted windows. Something’s wrong with his mouth, with his face.”

“This happens sometimes, ma’am,” one of the officers said. “A kid hides under the bed or sleeps in the closet and the parents call the police saying she’s been abducted. Gets everyone worked up.”

The enormity of what he was saying was too much. All Patricia could say was, “She doesn’t have a closet.”

Then she realized what she could do.

“Check her leg,” she said. “Beneath her panties on the inside part of her thigh, there should be a mark there, like a cut.”

Everyone looked at each other but no one moved.

“I’ll look,” Mrs. Greene said.

“No, ma’am,” the officer said. “If you want us to check the child we need to call the ambulance and take her to the hospital so someone qualified can do it. Otherwise we can’t use it as evidence.”

“Evidence?” Patricia asked.

“If you want to bring charges against this man, you have to do it the right way,” the officer said.

“If you’re alleging that you saw a man molesting this child, it is imperative that a trained medical professional examine her,” the other officer said.

“I’m a nurse,” Patricia told him.

“No one’s taking my little girl anywhere,” Wanda said, holding Destiny, her limp head flopping against her mother’s shoulder, eyes half closed, arms hanging down at her sides. “She’s staying with me. She’s not going out of my sight again.”

“It’s important,” Patricia said.

“She’s seeing the doctor in the morning,” Wanda Taylor said. “She’s not going anywhere until then.”

Pounding came from the front door and they looked at each other, frozen. The aluminum door rattled in its frame until Mrs. Greene pushed past everyone. She flung the door open. Carter stood on the porch.

“Jesus Christ, Patty,” he said. “What the hell is going on?”

* * *

—

“If my wife says she saw this man doing this, then that’s what happened,” Carter told the officers, standing in the middle of the trailer. He looked out of place to Patricia, and then she remembered he’d grown up poor, and if mobile homes had existed in 1948 he would almost certainly have been born in one.

“We searched everywhere she told us, sir,” the officer repeated with a heavy emphasis on the sir. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t believe her. If they find anything wrong with this little girl tomorrow we’ll have what your wife said tonight in the report.”

“I’m sleepy,” Destiny said, dreamy and soft, and Wanda began the process of getting everyone out of her home.

Outside, Carter made sure the two officers had his information, while Mrs. Greene walked over to Patricia.

“No point standing around outside when it’s this hot,” she said, and they started back to her house. Then she added, “They’re going to take that little girl away.”

“Not if there’s nothing wrong with her,” Patricia said.

“You saw how they looked at Wanda,” Mrs. Greene said. “You saw how they looked at her home. They think she’s trash, and she is, but not the kind of trash they think she is.”

“She needs to get to the doctor,” Patricia said. “No matter what.”

“What’d you really see that man doing to her?” Mrs. Greene asked.

They stepped over the low railing around Mt. Zion A.M.E. and got all the way to its steps before Patricia said anything.

“It wasn’t natural,” she said.

It took Patricia two steps to realize Mrs. Greene had stopped walking. She turned around. In the church’s porch light, Mrs. Greene looked very small.

“Everyone’s hungry for our children,” she said, and her voice cracked. “The whole world wants to gobble up colored children, and no matter how many it takes it just licks its lips and wants more. Help me, Mrs. Campbell. Help me keep that little girl with her mother. Help me stop that man.”

“Of course,” Patricia said. “I’ll—”

“I don’t want to hear of course,” Mrs. Greene said. “When I tell someone what’s happening out here they see an old woman living in the country who’s never been to school. When you tell them, they see a doctor’s wife from the Old Village and they pay attention. I don’t like to ask for favors but I need you to make them pay attention to this. You know I did everything I could to save Miss Mary. I gave my blood for her. When you called me on the telephone tonight you said we’re all mothers. Yes, ma’am, we are. Give me your blood. Help me.”

Reflexively, Patricia almost said of course again, then wiped it from her mind. She didn’t say a thing. She stood across from Mrs. Greene and spoke, soft and firm.

“We’ll save them,” she said. “We won’t let them take Destiny, and we won’t let that man take any more children. I will do everything in my power to stop him. I promise you.”

Mrs. Greene didn’t reply, and the two of them stood like that for a moment.

“Well, that’s that,” Carter said, coming up behind her. “They’ll have her to the doctor tomorrow and if anything’s wrong they have my information in the report.”

The mood broke and the three of them walked toward Mrs. Greene’s house.

“Carter,” Patricia said. “You don’t think DSS will do anything to that little girl, do you?”

“What?” he asked. “Like, take her?”

“Yes,” Patricia said.

“No,” he said. “The doctor who sees her is mandated to report signs of abuse, but we don’t just snatch wailing babies out of their mothers’ arms. There’s a whole process. If you’re worried, I’ll ask around and see what kind of doc this guy is tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Patricia said. “I’m just feeling nervous.”

“Don’t worry,” Carter said. “I’ll make sure.”

Mrs. Greene went into her house and Patricia heard her lock the door. Carter opened Patricia’s car door for her. She clicked in her seat belt and rolled down the window.

“Thank you for coming,” she said.

“I got your note,” he said. “Too many things have happened for you to be riding around all alone out here in the middle of the night. Why don’t you follow me home and we’ll get some rest and talk in the morning?”

She nodded, grateful that he wasn’t trying to make her feel like a fool, and then she followed his red taillights all the way out of Six Mile, down Rifle Range Road, and back to the Old Village. When they passed James Harris’s house she saw Carter’s brake lights flare briefly, probably because he also noticed James’s Chevy Corsica parked in front of his house.

That night, for the first time in months, Carter held Patricia while she slept. She knew because she kept waking up from nightmares about a bloody red mouth chasing her through the woods and each time she felt his arms around her, and went back to sleep, reassured.

CHAPTER 18

Patricia woke up feeling like she’d fallen down the stairs. Her joints popped when she got out of bed, and her shoulders groaned like they were stuffed with broken glass when she reached for the coffee filters. When she undressed for her shower she noticed bruises on both hips from sliding back and forth across the back seat of the police car.

Carter had to go in to the hospital even though it was Saturday, and Patricia let Blue do whatever he wanted because it was light out.

“But be back before it starts to get dark,” she said. “We’re having early supper.”

It wasn’t safe to have Blue out of her sight after dark. She didn’t know what James Harris was, she didn’t care, she couldn’t think straight, but she knew he wouldn’t go out in the sun. She wanted to call Grace, to tell her what she’d seen, but when Grace didn’t understand something she refused to believe it existed. She forced herself to calm down.

She couldn’t bring herself to vacuum her curtains, so she did laundry. She ironed shirts and slacks. She ironed socks. She kept seeing James Harris with that thing on his face, his beard of blood, that little girl on the floor of his van, kept trying to figure out how to explain this to someone. She cleaned the bathrooms. She watched the sun slide across the sky. She felt grateful that Korey was still away at soccer camp.

The phone rang while she was throwing out expired condiments.

“Campbell residence,” Patricia said.

“They took her daughter,” Mrs. Greene told her.

“What? Who did?” Patricia asked, trying to catch up.

“This morning when Wanda Taylor took her to the doctor,” Mrs. Greene said, “he found a mark on her leg, like you said, and he made Wanda wait outside while he talked to Destiny.”