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I can check on it for you. How you doin’ overall? Is your rooftop door still locked?”
Over the doorway to the stairs up to our rooftop, the landlords tacked a sheet with a peace sign emblem. Back in the day, they had promised us a rooftop garden. But none of us tenants climbed up there more than a few times. And, never at night. That door was always just a possible intruder entrance or exit. I had requested the landlords seal it off. The gaudy sheet covered a thick slat to the outside door, adjacent to my apartment door and up a few steps. A padlock looped between chain links through the deadbolt. Hooks attached to keep robbers out.
“I’m not worried about anybody coming in there now,” I told Detective Montgomery. “The landlords have us locked up now like we’re on Devil’s Island. I’m more worried about who came through before.”
“I see,” Detective Montgomery said. “There’s never been break-ins at the brownstone. The precinct confirmed no criminal reports for that address. Not even noise complaints. So anybody who gets to your roof either lives there or let someone in to do so.”
“I wonder if Summer’s pegged low priority, and not a real missing person, because she’s Black,” I told the detective, a still and poised man with glasses.
“That has nothing to do with it, Miss Spencer,” he answered. “Trust me. I’m Black. I get what you’re saying. That’s why I’m here doing this. But if she just ran off and—”
“Summer always had an aloof side,” I interrupted. “Well, I told you that. She was moody. I don’t think she was the best judge of people always. But that girl is strong. When our mother died, Summer held up well. She broke at the very end, like that did something to her, snapped her out of her mind. But we both picked up our load and carried on.”
“I agree it sounds atypical for someone like her to up and run away,” he said. “And I have the same concerns you do about foul play. I don’t think investigators took time to interview as many people as they could have. Yes, deprioritizing most Black people’s cases is a fault of the system. Did you bring any mail that could help us?”
“Her mail stopped.” I thought. “None since the New Year now. Christmas greetings from a few distant relatives, but that’s always addressed to both of us. If she was abducted, or worse, wouldn’t the perpetrator see her name on IDs, stop mail on purpose?”
“Hmmm,” he sighed, “there’d have to be motive to be that elaborate and thorough. Which brings us back to who lives there or who she knows, someone who would plan, not a random incident. I’ll push a police check on formal mail stops and a forwarding address.”
Of course. A forwarding address. She could be out there somewhere, with a new address I didn’t know, maybe under a new name, for reasons she would apologize for.
“Look,” Montgomery said, “you say you two hid nothing from each other. Look through her things again. Maybe you were still in shock at the time, so you could have missed something. This might be a woman who is upset or mad about something, and ran.”
He was used to people’s theories of mourning: intended to rewind time back to whatever could have been prevented if only one had known, or to exact revenge if it was to be had . . . Someone has to know the truth. What about this guy or that one? Can you take another look? Are you sure this was really the case? But, I just talked to him or her. They were fine. You missed that bitch. Can you question her again? Gimme the file. I said gimme the file. Son of a bitch motherfucker . . .
Detective Montgomery took a sip from his plastic Popeye’s large drink. I was robbing him of a peaceful two-piece spicy lunch.
“The cell number you gave is disconnected,” he continued. “No recent text messages or calls. And, according to you, she was anti–social media and whatever. So, her online footprint is scant and no help. Did she meet a man?”
“I would’ve known. Did you call every single number in the phone?” I demanded. “I did. But I’m no authority. People don’t have to answer me.”
“Even you said you recognized the names of all the contacts, so there are no strangers in your lives. Responding officers processed your roof. No signs of struggle, Autumn. No blood. A clean path to the edge. Just one set of footprints in the snow . . .”
It snowed that night. By the time cops took their time to respond, other footprints could have filled in. I paced around, calling for her. I could have shuffled snow atop them.
“Autumn, Autumn?” I heard. “You got any friends?”
“Any what?”
“Friends,” he repeated. “You know, people to go out with, talk to sometimes?”
A detective, of all people, shouldn’t expect a woman with a close missing relative to be the world’s greatest conversationalist. My tunnel vision was explicable and excusable. It was even above average. I could be tearing files off his desk with my bared teeth, or thrown from the lobby amid a piercing tirade on discrimination.
“I’m quite fine, Mr. Montgomery,” I replied. “And I have many friends, thank you very much. But partying is not my biggest concern right now.”
“You ain’t gotta party,” he said. “But just go out a little bit. Have some fun. Take your mind off Summer for a while.”
“What makes you think I don’t?”
“Miss Spencer—”
“Autumn is fine.”
“Autumn, I’m not trying to get in your business. But, I go through this kind of stuff with people. You’re hurt. You’re shocked. You feel helpless. The only way to feel better at a time like this is to try to keep living life. You have a bright future.”
“So I’m unreasonable just because I want to know where my closest living relative is? Now, not later? Because I expect some answers and accountability for how a healthy young woman can just up and disappear?”
“No. It means I’ve done all I can do until new leads and information turn up. It doesn’t mean I don’t care. It just means I’m telling you that.”
“I’m her sister. Twin, born with her. I can’t go on. Part of me is missing, too. My head is split on her all the time. My heart is broken in half. What about that?”
He pointed his hands together on his chin. He walked to a low file cabinet to jam his hands between what I imagined was too much work. He handed me a bright, shiny brochure.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“This is a group for people getting over lost loved ones and other catastrophic events. They have firsthand experience with what we normally just read about in the news or see in movies. Loved ones murdered, suicides. Losses no one prepares for. Kind of like if a sibling just up and disappeared, with no answers for it yet. Thankfully, only a small group would know what that really feels like.”
The brochure, to “We Go On” or something like that, was his parting gift/final say/hint. So I could leave. So he could return to other human beings—dead and alive.
So he can brush us off, I heard her say.
It was Summer’s voice, clear as a wrong note in a well-known song. I didn’t actually hear a voice. I wasn’t a nutcase, after all. She was just my inner wisdom. A megaphone for my own thoughts perhaps, but continuous in message: Don’t let them shut you up. Not now, not ever, not just about me. Forever, and for everything.
I knew my time was up. I would roar back in next week, more brazen and energetic than ever. Montgomery at least checked on what I suggested he should and shared his own ideas. He pushed it further than I could go banging on doors, hanging up flyers, and seeking out information all by myself. I had to keep him around for all he was worth.
“I want to be your hero here,” he said. “I really do.”
“Well, no matter where she is now and when she’s