“What identification did she have?” Dorsey asked. Edith looked up at her curiously.

“Driver’s license, what?” Dorsey probed.

“She didn’t have a driver’s license.”

“What did she have that proved her name was Shannon Randall?”

Edith frowned. “What kinda stupid question is that? She said who she was. I never asked for an ID. She told me who she was and where she was from, and that’s what I told the cops.”

“Did Shannon keep a journal?” Dorsey changed the subject.

“A what?”

“A journal. Or a diary.”

The answer came just a beat too quickly.

“No.”

“Did she ever receive any letters while she was here?” Dorsey continued. “Or e-mail? Did she have a cell phone?”

“We don’t have a computer. And the only thing the mail guy brought us was the electric bill. Mostly she used pay phones. Once in a while she’d pick up one of those disposable phones.”

“Did Shannon ever talk about her past?”

“Not really. Like I said, she never seemed to want to talk about it, and I never pushed it.”

Dorsey looked at Andrew as if to ask, Did we miss anything?

“Edith, we really appreciate your time. I know this has been really hard for you.” Andrew stood, signaling the interview was over. He closed the notebook and tucked it under his arm.

Edith stared at the floor.

“What are you going to do now?” Dorsey asked as she, too, stood.

“Not sure.” Edith shrugged.

“This might be a good time for you to think about…” Dorsey searched for a way to put it that would not offend. “About maybe moving on with your life.”

Still staring at the floor, Edith nodded.

Dorsey opened her bag and took out a card.

“Look, if you remember anything you think might be important, or if you have any questions, you call me, okay?” Dorsey handed the woman the card.

Edith took it and folded it into the palm of her left hand.

They walked to the door and waited while Edith unlocked it and released the chain. Dorsey was into the hall when she remembered one thing she’d forgotten to ask.

“When did she start cutting herself?”

Edith looked out from behind the partially closed door, clearly surprised.

“We saw the marks on her arms and legs,” Dorsey said softly.

“Just a few months ago. I came home one morning and Shannon was in the bathroom, leaning over the sink, cutting herself.” Edith pointed to the upper part of her left arm. “I said, ‘Jesus, Shannon, stop! You’re going to hurt yourself.’”

Edith hugged herself, her arms over her chest, her face reflecting confusion.

“She say why she did it?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah, but it didn’t make any sense. She said it was the only way to make the pain go away.” Edith shook her head. “Crazy, huh? Like, what kind of person does that to themselves?”

“One more thing,” Andrew said. “You said sometimes she picked up a disposable phone.”

“Yeah. She used those prepaid things sometimes.”

“Who’d she call?”

Edith stared at him, then shook her head from side to side.

“She never said.”

7

“So what’s your take on Shannon?” Andrew asked after they’d returned to his car and headed toward the highway. “Why do you suppose she did it?”

“Why did she do what?”

“Cut herself.”

Dorsey shrugged. “Something in her life was hurting her. She cut herself, bled away the pain.”

He stopped at the red light at the corner. From the corner of his eye he was watching her face. There was a lot he wanted to know, but wasn’t sure how to ask. He figured he’d just toss it out there and see what he caught.

“You know, I’ve read about it, but I don’t understand. How does causing pain make pain go away? The cutting hurts more than whatever the other pain is?” he asked.

“It’s really not quite that simple.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“Girls who cut themselves-and it’s almost always adolescent girls, by the way-mostly they’re afraid. The fear is real, generally speaking, not imagined, and usually follows some type of trauma. Could be physical, could be emotional.” Her voice was oddly detached. Andrew tried to see her eyes, but she turned her face to the window. “Could be anything from abuse, incest, parental divorce or death, to fear of being inadequate, of being alone, of being a disappointment to her parents in some way.”

“Sounds like the same things you read about that cause eating disorders,” he noted.

“Many kids who cut are anorexic or bulimic. Not all, but some.”

“So how does one of those events-say, the girl’s parents announce they’re getting a divorce-lead to the kid picking up a razor blade and slashing her arms or legs?” The light turned green and he proceeded to make a left turn.

“It’s a means of seeking relief,” she said flatly. “It allows the cutter to control the pain.”

“Is it a prelude to committing suicide?”

“No, no. Cutting rarely leads to suicide. It’s a temporary solution to a traumatic situation. Suicide is permanent.”

“But isn’t it a cry for help, like an attempted suicide might be?”

“No. If you attempt suicide with the intention of failing, you’re hoping someone stops you so that you can get help. A lot of those kids-adults, too-know they need help but don’t know how to ask. Most cutters, on the other hand, go to great lengths to hide it, even from their friends. They hide the scars, they hide whatever implement they use. It isn’t always a razor blade, by the way, though that certainly is a popular choice. They don’t talk about it. Cutters don’t want to be caught. It’s a sort of self-medicating, if you could think of it in those terms.”

Andrew reflected on this as he drove. He’d already noted that Dorsey had been wearing shirts with sleeves that rolled to the elbow, or T-shirts with elbow-length sleeves, and thick silver bracelets each time he’d seen her. Was she hiding scars of her own?

The thought of Dorsey slicing into her flesh to relieve some greater pain unexpectedly made his heart hurt. He pushed it aside and turned his focus back where it belonged, on the case.

“So you think Shannon had some trauma as a child?”

“I’d bet on it.” Dorsey turned back to him; she, too, all business again. “Something happened to make her need to take control, so she did, years ago. Judging by the number of scars I saw on her arms and legs, I’d guess that she continued this behavior into her late teens, maybe her early twenties, before she was able to come to grips with whatever was behind it, and she was able to stop. Except for the fresh cuts, most of the scars appeared to be at least ten years old or better. Then recently, I suspect something happened that brought it all back, and once again, she coped by cutting.”

“You think whatever happened that caused her to start cutting in the first place, happened again lately?”

“I think that whatever had been hurting her as a child, was hurting her again-or threatening to hurt her again. Yes, I do.”

“Guess that’s a conversation to have with the family.”

“If they knew.”

“If your daughter was into self-mutilation, don’t you think you’d know?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’d know.” She nodded. “But sometimes the source of the pain is unaware of the means the child takes to alleviate it.”

“So in other words, the source of the pain could be something or someone in the family?”

“It almost always is,” she said simply. “There’s the sign for I-95. Take a right.”

He followed the signs and merged onto the interstate. They rode in silence for a while, then he asked, “So how do you think it’s going to go with the Randalls?”

“Probably not very well.” She closed her eyes and moved the seat to a slightly reclined position. “For one thing, we represent the same agency that concluded Shannon had been murdered twenty-four years ago. Christ, if any of them knew my father was the one who investigated this and was instrumental in charging Eric Beale, in concluding she’d been murdered…”