Page 6 of Fragments of the Past

Mr. Tatton suffered from congenital heart failure throughout most of Pearl’s late childhood. According to Mrs. Tatton’s statements, encouraged by his cardiologist’s, Mr. Tatton tried his hardest to be there for his child. He had even coached her softball team during the final season he was alive. The newer pictures of Pearl wearing eyeshadow and lip gloss were ones her best friend’s parents shared with the original investigators.

That isn’t to say Pearl was engaging in any activities that were unusual for a person of her age. My parents were blessed with Irish triplets. By the time I was Pearl’s age, my older and younger sisters had filled the bathroom with razors, fruit scented shampoos, and all sorts of lotions and potions that made the head of a prepubescent boy spin. What on earth did they need all that perfume shit for? And then there were the bras hanging from the rod every time I went to shower. So many freakin’ bras. Meanwhile, I swiped the soap over my nuts and hoped my mom didn’t realize I put back on the same pair of soiled underwear.

Twelve is different for boys. A report stating Pearl wasn’t concerned about her clothes and outward appearance, or that her friends thought she carried the scent of a dirty laundry basket, would send up red flags.

By all accounts, Pearl was polite and well-mannered. Her teachers described her as a joy to have in class. Inquisitive. Never late with her assignments. Always willing to go the extra mile to make an outcast feel included.

Having already lost her spouse, I wonder if Pearl’s mother simply wished to stop time and that’s why she hadn’t noticed the absence of a single school portrait. Her child had begun to bloom, transforming beyond the years spent as a family. The psychology of trauma is interesting. The way it manifests is often so inexplicably simplistic that it gets overlooked or, on the contrary, becomes the focal point of dead-end leads.

Mrs. Tatton was also preoccupied, having become responsible for her late-husband’s percentage of Tatton & Turner. On the night in question, she and Mr. Turner had been out for the evening—providing the now Mrs. Turner’s new husband a solid alibi. The case file includes the receipts for their dinner, as well as sworn affidavits from the waitstaff at the restaurant they’d eaten at. Mr. and Mrs. Turner married eight months after Pearl vanished.

There was no indication anyone broke into the home. Initial reports suggested Pearl ran away, though there was blood evidence collected from the hallway bathroom matching Pearl’s. Like the parents of most runaways, Mrs. Turner refused to leave the house her daughter grew up in on the off chance that Pearl ever came back.

Detectives questioned the employees at Tatton & Turner, their family, and friends. No one seemed to have a beef with the Turners. Everyone seemed to share Pearl’s mother’s devastation, having lost not only her husband, but her only child.

Six months later, an eighth-grader went missing in a nearby town. Then, after another two weeks, a sixth-grade girl in Raleigh. The other divisions in conjunction with Brighton P.D. were certain they had a serial killer on the loose. It was quiet for a year. Then came an additional preteen girl. All the patterns held similarities to Pearl’s case. All of those girls were found this spring. A construction crew unwittingly dug up the first body breaking ground for a new neighborhood that was once a thriving tobacco field. In the ensuing week, investigators identified the skeletal remains of the other two buried in the same field.

Loose ties to each case had always been apparent to the Pruitt family, who sold adjacent land to their farm to an out-of-state developer years beforehand. Going through what the farmer described as a financial crisis—the cost of growing tobacco had outpaced the demand from cigarette manufacturers, payments shrank, and flood damage from two concurrent hurricane seasons meant the other crops never made it to market—the Pruitts were too distracted to ponder on other’s troubles and chalked the entire situation up to coincidence.

When the Pruitts turned their son in, the patriarch described it as an eerie six degrees of separation. Though, if anything at all, it was more like two or three degrees if you included the suspect’s parents. Aware he was about to be arrested, Franklin Pruitt hung himself in his parents’ barn.

Mrs. Turner was the only parent of those four girls who never had her child’s remains returned. Since Pearl was the first of the girls to go missing, Mrs. Turner contacted me, adamant that Franklin Pruitt had a direct connection to Pearl’s case. She was resolute that the only people who knew the truth were deceased.

Despite forewarning Susan Turner about getting hustled by a clairvoyant, and the legalities of the “proof” they uncover, she’d poured her remaining hope into psychic intuition.

But wasting department resources, and allowing a woman like Rae Lee to disrupt the Turners’ lives for nothing, is a mistake I’ll pay for. So I hope to hell it never slips that I was stupid enough to have let my defenses down and fucked her. My credibility is screwed if it slips that, after the amazing way she deep-throated me, I was the sucker who used my cock to make sure the experience was reciprocal.

I’m a cop. I should know better than to fall for a pretty face.

“Was someone with Pearl?” Mrs. Turner grabs Rae Lee’s hand, pleading for more information.

Wrapped up in her own emotions, Mrs. Turner doesn’t observe Rae Lee wobbling or the paleness of the medium’s cheeks. Not even the strobe lights from the stage washed Rae Lee out as much.

Great. I’ve endured my coworker’s non-stop ribbing. Agreeing to this silly request has made me a laughingstock at the station. All I need when I write up my report is for the psychic to have passed the fuck out.

It’s easier to lie to myself that the only benefit to me caring if this woman feels well is because of the monkey wrench it’ll throw in the investigation. It eases the heat scorching my collar—a blaze that erupted when her delicate foot emerged from that Uber. The foot that’s connected to the supple calve I stroked last night, committing it to memory to use the next time I was alone.

I know Rae Lee heard Mrs. Turner’s straightforward question, but her expression is puzzling. Her left eye opens and shuts as if she has something in it. It’s weird how she concentrates on Pearl’s mother’s side, trying to regain her composure. Rae Lee waits to speak until Mrs. Turner drops her hand.

“I don’t know who she was with. It was a dare. That’s all Pearl keeps saying. Emphatically. And she’s showing me water. Like a fountain. There are pennies at the bottom…” Rae Lee’s fingertips flutter around me in a circle. “There’s cement and walkways that come out. Like this and this.” Her hands swish, crossing to her front, back, and sides. “And then there’s grass and some trees in the distance, but not far, far away. Lots of kids go there. Families. Pearl plays with the kids sometimes. And then after dark she goes back under the ground.” Rae Lee points downward. “Maybe under the fountain? I feel…” The psycho—sorry, psychic—rubs her fingertips together. “Dirt. Crumbly dirt. Like sand?” She brushes her skirt. “It’s dirty, and it’s on my clothes and in my hair. On my face.” Rae Lee wipes it away, even though there’s nothing there.

“What happened between Pearl leaving and the water?” I watch steam billow from her ears.

“I can’t see it. She won’t show me. It’s like she was upset, but the fear didn’t happen until… It was too late? And maybe…” Rae Lee scratches her head, moving a lock of blonde hair that keeps falling out of place. My fingers itch to smooth it down and tuck it behind her ear to match how she wears it with the tips curling upwards at her shoulders.

“Maybe?” Mrs. Turner prompts.

“She doesn’t want you to know her final moments. She says it was painful for you when her dad died… It’s almost like keeping it from you is a layer of protection?”

I refrain from coughing in my hand and uttering a gravelly “bullshit”.

A dead girl protecting her mother from knowing who her murderer was is as preposterous as anything else that Rae Lee has said to me in the past eighteen hours. Because of her stupid dirt pantomime, it feels like Rae Lee hasn’t given us anything solid to go on.

I decide to wrap it up. Mrs. Turner’s anguish is palpable. Mr. Turner’s restless shadow keeps popping into view as he skulks in another room, waiting for permission to rejoin us. And above all else, sacrificing a good night’s sleep for a regrettable fuck has shortened my fuse.

Before Rae Lee leaves, Mrs. Turner profusely thanks her for coming. I take another few minutes to comfort Mrs. Turner. Concern for his wife apparent, Mr. Turner holds her close and asks me if the medium gave me anything to go on.

“Not a lot,” I admit. “But you never know what clues can reopen a case.” I placate the couple. “If anything changes, I’ll be in touch.”

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