FIVE: KATERI

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17

Kateri has to wait until the next day to see the girl. In the morning, she sends Hurt back into the woods with a search team that includes dogs, and Kateri sits by the girl’s bedside, her little body dwarfed in the big bed. In the dull blue hospital light, her hair appears like rusted metal.

Kateri picks up her chart. They have left her name as Jane Doe, date of birth unknown. Estimated age five years. Height 38 inches, weight 38 pounds. No known allergies. BP 90/60. Pulse 115.

Little rabbit, Kateri thinks.

She’s on a slow drip that Kateri assumes still contains a sedative. An orderly comes in at seven thirty, and Kateri drops the chart back on the foot of the bed. He has the little girl’s breakfast. He opens the curtains, turns on the overhead light, all of it, an assault of brightness and smell.

“Breakfast, sweet pea,” he says. He raises up the head of the bed. Her little shoulders swim in the pediatric gown she wears. Birdie’s eyes open and lock on Kateri.

“Who are you?” she asks, all at once alert.

“I’m Detective Fisher,” she says, “but you can call me Kateri if you like.”

Birdie looks at the tray in front of her. They have brought her dry toast and a juice box, a Styrofoam bowl with Cheerios and a carton of milk. She looks away, disinterested, and the orderly puts the straw in the juice box for her. She takes a very tentative sip.

“Good girl,” the orderly says, and looks to Kateri, who nods. There has been an officer outside her door all night.

“I was hoping we could talk,” Kateri says. “Yesterday, you told me your name is Birdie.”

She nods.

“Is that short for something?”

“You mean my real name?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Sparrow Annie,” she says.

“Sparrow Annie what?”

“Jenkins,” she answers. Then, “Do you know what your name means?”

“Kateri is a form of Katherine,” she says. “Which means pure.”

“Annie means grace,” the girl says. “And pearls are precious and sometimes people rip them out of the shells.” She takes a noisy draw on the juice box. “Shannon means river,” she says.

“How do you know all this?” Kateri asks.

“My mama teaches me,” she says.

“Is Pearl your mama?” Kateri asks.

She nods.

“Who lives at your house with you?” Kateri asks.

“My mom,” she says. “And Shannon.”

“Shannon is your brother?” she asks.

“Yeah, but he’s big, like Mom.”

“What do you remember about yesterday,” Kateri asks, “when I met you at your house?”

Birdie shakes her head.

“Anything?” Kateri prompts.

She just shakes again.

“When I met you,” Kateri says, “you were in the closet. Is that someplace you normally play?”

“No,” Birdie says, with a tinge of sassy disbelief. “Unless there’s a thunderstorm. Sometimes if there’s a thunderstorm, we go in there with a lantern and we wait.”

“You and your mom,” Kateri says.

“Yeah,” she says.