Near the solstice, at this latitude and longitude, it was light enough to try to see sky-blue shorts and white limbs until after 10:00. There’d been no time to mount a true search before dark, though flashlights glittered on the riverbank all night. When Ned came home at 11:00, Polly heard the rattle of ice, the creak of the pantry door opened for the bourbon bottle. He came up and washed his face as she watched him, telling her about how little you could see in that water and along the green willow and red dogwood shore in that light, at that speed, the boat hurtling along. They’d done two five-mile stretches downstream from the bend where Ariel disappeared, shoulders popping at the oars to slow the boat down, and at the landing Ariel’s parents had been waiting in vain.

Ned rubbed his eyes, finished his drink, and vomited in the toilet.

2. Sunday, June 30, 2002

2

Sunday, June 30, 2002

Police cars and boat trailers had begun passing the Berrigans’ small house, just two blocks from the river, before the next morning. The helicopter started at 7:00, and a dozen boats were on the river by 8:00. At noon, volunteer Gallatin County deputies found the kayak pushed against a weir two miles from where Ariel had gone in. If she was dead—and she was almost certainly dead—her body might still be close to that point, pinned down in a pool, or it could be shooting toward the Missouri. The current was still too high and strong for divers, and grappling poles could wrench a man out of a boat. All the searchers could do was try to reach every channel, scan every bank as they hurtled past the fishing accesses: Pine Creek, Carter’s Bridge, Mayor’s Landing, the Highway 89 Bridge, and eventually farther afield—Pig Farm, Springdale, Gray Bear, Otter Creek, Pelican. Harry said most drowning victims were found before Springdale, just twenty miles east of town. He promised that they’d find Ariel, though he complained to Ned about the other searchers and about methods.