But it’s the bare hands, one on each side of the huge head, that bring McGowan to think of her own hands, and what she holds, and why. She turns to make sure she is alone down here, aiming toward the four corners of the basement, looking for hidden doors in the woman’s hair, before she faces the mural again.

A single small chair faces Daphne. The kind of chair McGowan has seen in the Samhattan elementary school classrooms.

McGowan approaches, slowly, and sees Daphne’s hands are not empty.

At first, because of the chaos of everything surrounding this experience, McGowan mistakes the small, colorful pieces for drugs.

But they are candy.

She thinks of Pollen sitting in the booth at the Wild Stallion. The chief of police, defeated, it seems, decades ago, by this very case.

McGowan gets closer. But she feels it: the fear of proximity to this woman, myth or not. It’s nearly intoxicating, the blue face, the black hair, the denim collar just visible behind the huge, strong hands.

But it’s the signature at the mural’s bottom that scares McGowan most:

Brea Delany.

And she thinks of Pollen again. Recalls the name of the last little girl taken, the very girl on the video in McGowan’s police jacket pocket.

Brea Delany.

Did she paint this? Here? But Daphne didn’t live here. Did Brea…

McGowan reaches for the chair, to stabilize herself, to keep from falling. Instinctively, she won’t touch those bricks. That face.

“Jesus Christ,” McGowan says. Then she brings the CB to her lips and says: “Her name’s not Wanda Van Horn. Her name is Brea Delany. Are you getting this Pollen? Brea’s the coach of the girls’ team.”

There is no response, and McGowan doesn’t expect one.

McGowan stares into the blue face. Thinks of trauma. Of her own. Of Pollen’s. Of Samhattan’s. She thinks of a little girl stolen from a candy store and what being abducted by a woman who planned to eat you might do to your mind.

How else to deal with it than…to celebrate it? Because to admit what was happening, at any age, would be to admit something worse than any local myth could muster.

“…a girl from the team has entered Samhattan High School…”

It’s the CB. And it’s Pollen.

“Chief,” McGowan says. “Did you hear me? Wanda Van Horn is not—”

But the line is dead again.

McGowan looks into the large, dead eyes. She realizes the actual perspective of this mural. It’s from above Daphne’s face. Looking down upon her as she sits in the front seat of her muscle car. There’s a small dashboard and radio detailed in the deep background. And in those two hands, the delicious candy the artist is still, unfathomably, grateful for.

McGowan leaves the basement, slower than she’d like, backing up, unable to remove from her chest the horrible sadness of this story.

Daphne

McGowan almost falls back upon the stairs as she reaches them without turning to look.