Three
patrol cars and three groups of volunteers proceed through backyards and front
yards, eastward along parallel streets of Navajo, Seminole, and Cherokee to
their junction at Creek Lane
jutting down toward the park.
(In the vacant lot
between 4120 and 4124 Seminole a volunteer hears a plaintive mew over his left
shoulder. Investigating, he finds Sarah,
a black-and-white Persian, pretty as a calendar cat, and nearly as smart, stuck
in a tree. Color printed signs with
Sarah’s face, Have You Seen Our Kitty, and a phone number have hung on
telephone poles all week. Not the object
of this search, but a compensating discovery nonetheless, and – the volunteer
believes – a hopeful sign.)
Amy Dukes’ house, 2120
Cherokee receives particular attention: a two-story ranch and a daylight
basement. A generous half-acre fenced-in
lot, with pine trees in back where English Ivy conceals a treacherous jumble of
fallen branches, rotted stumps, and gopher holes, a likely setting for any
number of mishaps from snake bite to broken bones.
(An overenthusiastic
volunteer who’s read too many Readers Digest “Everyday Heroes” articles,
secretly dreaming such a glamorous opportunity would enter his own life, shouts
to be on the lookout for signs of coyotes, which have been recently sighted in
the area. Other volunteers glare him
down by way of shushing him. The heavily
sedated Mrs. Dukes is asleep – or at least lying down – in the curtained
bedroom just above the hill rise.)
Being the shortest of
the streets, Navajo reaches Creek Lane
first, followed by Seminole and Cherokee.
(In the Navajo search
party, volunteers hear Seminole calling Amy’s name, as if at this point they
are speaking to each other. Each
two-note “Ay-mee, Ay-mee,” means “We’re still looking,” and the answering,
“Ay-mee, Ay-mee,” means, “We’re looking, too.
We’re looking, too.”
The wires overhead
converge with the volunteers and follow silently overhead. A full-color poster asks Have You Seen Our
Kitty for a cat already rescued.
(No muttered promises
of Amy’s safe return in exchange for, say, all the money in the Dukes’ bank
account, spoken through a handkerchief to disguise the voice or even Amy
herself, repeating what the kidnappers tell her, travels through the
wires. No high-tech police encryption
signals race upstream tracking those bastards or bastard to wherever he or they’re
keeping her, even if they’re calling from a stolen cell phone somewhere that
they’ll throw in the back of a moving truck from an overpass, it’s amazing what
they can do with GPS these days, and those satellites keep track of you every
living second, which makes you nervous, still, it’s something you’re grateful
for at a time like this. To repeat, no
such signals zip humming through the phone lines, but you may believe they do,
if you wish.)
A three-mile trail
circles the park, but the volunteers disregard it, fanning out and going
straight through the brush – the county does a good job maintaining this:
pine-straw covered hills with nothing worse than poison ivy and a few wasp
nests.
(A volunteer, recently
humbled for too loudly mentioning coyotes, will secretly prize the poison-ivy
rash earned this solemn day, praying God it will be he who finds her. For the moment, she lies on her tummy beneath
a privet bush on the lower trail, damp hair spread like spilled yellow, one arm
folded behind her naked back, bare legs crossed at the ankles, staring into the
darkness of moist dirt and rollie-pollies, expressionless, as if trying to
master the strange lessons she learned her last day.)
