They call it a ghost forest: thousands of white cedars protruding from the swamp, their bark the color of bloodless skin, their branches barren against the corpse-gray sky. It hasn’t always looked like this. When I was growing up, the woods here were verdant and full of life. The wetlands teemed with tadpoles and salamanders, plus the occasional snake whipping through the bright green, algae-topped water. But in the last decade or so, the rising tides caused by climate change have flooded the wetlands with brackish saltwater, poisoning the trees and decimating the wildlife. The land is sick, terminally ill, more dead than alive.
The police decided to search here based on an anonymous tip called in to the station from an unlisted number. The caller knew details about the missing girl—about the circumstances of her disappearance—that would have been impossible to know if he hadn’t been involved. He knew about the van. About the hammer. About the fingernail. Those were material facts from the investigation that hadn’t been released to the public. Either he had been responsible for the girl’s murder or he knew someone who was. Regardless, it gave police plenty of reason to believe that the tip was real.
Of course, the police weren’t the only ones who got a call that day. WPVI-TV news in Philadelphia received a call too. They weren’t given any information though, just a place to show up and a time to be there. The caller promised a surprise. A newsworthy surprise.
Gravel crunched under my tires as I pulled my Honda to a stop on the side of the road. There were already at least a dozen vehicles parked along the shoulder, with more filling the small dirt parking lot at the edge of the woods. It used to be a popular picnic spot before the forest had succumbed to the influx of salt water from the bay. A few picnic tables remained, their rotted boards and rusted skeletons a grim reminder of a happier era. A faded brown sign informed visitors that they were at the Cedar Creek Picnic Area. Another sign depicted a stick figure tossing a piece of litter into a trash can: Pitch in!
Most of the vehicles in the lot were police cars, along with an ambulance and a black van with CORONER stamped on the side in bold white letters. Clearly, the police were prepared for the worst. It was no surprise given the state of the crime scene they found. There had been so much blood—in the bedroom, in the living room, in the kitchen—it seemed unlikely that anyone could have survived. Still, the girl’s family held onto hope, staging press conferences, making statements on TV, pleading for her safe return. They must have known it was futile, but what else could they do? Until her body was found, they had to believe she was okay. That’s what they told themselves, anyway. I was under no such illusions. The girl was dead. I was sure of it.
The police had interviewed the girl’s family, her ex-boyfriend, her co-workers, her neighbors, even the barista at the local coffee shop that she frequented every morning, but to no avail. Nobody had seen her. Nobody knew where she might have gone. She had no enemies, no secrets, no reason to run away. Nothing to hide. No one to fear. Whatever had happened to her, people said, it must have been random. A drifter. A psychopath. A serial killer, even. The police doubted that was the case—most murders were committed by someone the victim knew—but they weren’t ruling anything out.
Since the girl disappeared, some of her friends had turned her regular table in the corner of the coffee shop into a makeshift shrine, with a large 8×10 photo, plus a few flowers, candles, and even a teddy bear. A hand-made sign reading “Have you seen me?” was affixed to the wall above the table.
Yes, I thought as I paid for my coffee this morning. Plenty of times.
I saw her in the coffee shop every morning, obliviously sipping her chai latte, never for a second suspecting that it might be her last day on Earth. I remember the turquoise-colored bandanna she tied over her mousy brown hair, the black and gray flannel jacket she draped across the back of the chair, the way her skinny jeans were tucked into her fur-lined brown boots. She had a friendly smile and kind eyes, with dimples poked into her round cheeks and a small lip ring in the corner of her mouth that she tongued absently as she scrolled on her phone.
I remember the last time I saw her in the shop, as clear as if it were yesterday. She glanced up at me while I was retrieving my double espresso order from the counter. I said “good morning,” but it didn’t seem like she heard me. She just looked down at her phone and kept scrolling, as if I didn’t exist. I dumped a couple packs of sugar into my coffee, then exited the shop and went to go sit in my van like I did every morning. A few minutes later, she climbed into the Subaru Outback parked in the spot next to mine. I smiled again, but she didn’t seem to notice. She started her car, backed out of her spot, and pulled out of the parking lot, headed for home.
And then, just like that, she was gone.
That evening, her face was on the six o’clock news, with MISSING GIRL emblazoned under her photo in a garish red font. The anchor explained that she hadn’t shown up for work that day, so one of her co-workers had stopped by her apartment to make sure she was okay. She wasn’t. Her apartment door was ajar. Blood was smeared on the wall and was pooled on the floor. That was all the co-worker needed to see—he retreated from the apartment, dialed 911, then vomited into a flowerpot on the patio. That was eight days ago. The police have been searching for her ever since.
Now, here I was on the side of the road, about to join a search party to help the police look for her. I drained the last of my double espresso, then climbed out of my van, slammed the door, and trudged along the side of the road toward the parking lot where the search party was assembling.
As I dropped my crumpled espresso cup into the trash can, I passed the WPVI-TV news crew taping a segment nearby. I recognized the reporter, a pretty Latina woman named Maria Espinoza. Her breath swirled in the chilly autumn air as she spoke to the camera, glancing occasionally at the iPhone in her hand to verify a detail of the case. I was enthralled—she was even more beautiful in person than on TV.
I paused for a moment to watch her deliver her report. Maria was my favorite TV news reporter. Most people spent their time watching the big news channels—CNN, Fox, MSNBC—but not me. I preferred the local news. It was more personal, more accessible. I liked that I might recognize the places where they were reporting, like when they found a bunch of tires slashed at the office complex near my house, or when a suspected arson destroyed the apartment building where my ex-girlfriend used to live. I’d recognize a street sign here, a building facade there, always with Maria in the foreground reporting on the latest crime that had rocked the area. She used phrases like “crime wave” and “escalating violence,” always spoken with just the slightest hint of a Hispanic accent that I found completely endearing. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a bit of a crush on her. It was hard not to. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.
I got to see her in person once before, at the scene of a fiery car wreck where a family of four had been run off the road in a suspected road rage incident. I was actually on camera that time—well, my van was, but I was driving it—rolling slowly past the scene of the accident, watching the rescue squad cut the driver from the wreckage with the jaws of life.
After escaping from the traffic caused by the crash, I raced home and turned on the TV just in time to see Maria’s report being rebroadcast at the top of the hour. I knew it was silly, but I felt a little famous being on TV like that, even if it was just a few seconds of my nondescript Honda Odyssey creeping by in the background. I wondered what it would be like to be really famous, like Maria. How it would feel to be recognized. To be seen. I thought about people coming up to me on the street, tentative but knowing, asking, “Hey, aren’t you that guy who …?”
I’d laugh and nod. “Yep, that’s me.” I’d offer to take a selfie with them, if they wanted. Why not? I’m just a regular guy. I wouldn’t let fame go to my head like some people did. I’d be like Maria. Recognizable, but approachable.
Of course, I had never actually approached Maria—How could I? Where would I start? What would I say?—but I assumed that, if I did, she would be as friendly and welcoming as she seemed on TV. Heck, maybe she’d even recognize me from somewhere. I could hardly imagine it: Maria Espinoza knowing who I was? How amazing would that be? I don’t even know if I could handle it. I might just melt into a puddle right there on the spot.
With my pulse racing at the thought of meeting Maria, I continued past the WPVI-TV news truck and joined a group of twenty or so locals who had gathered to search for the missing girl. A tired-looking police captain was speaking to the crowd.
“All right, folks. We’re gonna spread out and head in that direction.” He pointed into the sparse forest. “We’re looking for anything the seems out of the ordinary. A purse, a shoe, a—”
“A body?” I interjected. I glanced at Maria to see if she had noticed me asking the question. It didn’t seem like she had. She was too far away to have heard what I said.
The cop frowned. “A body,” he acknowledged. “Any other questions?”
A young man in a Philadelphia Eagles jacket spoke up. “What do we do if we find something?”
“Most importantly, don’t touch it. Just raise your hand and shout ‘Here!’ Let us handle the rest.”
With that, the search party fanned out and made their way into the woods. A thin veil of fog rose from the marshlands, diffusing the morning light and filling the air with an eerie spectral glow. Pallid tree trunks emerged from the haze like phantoms, skeletal and wan. The search was quiet, almost mournful. There was no talking, no conversation. Occasional shouts of “Kristie!” punctuated the silence as searchers called the missing girl’s name. Police cadaver dogs splashed through the muddy groundwater, sniffing the air intently, trying to catch the girl’s scent.
Orienting myself relative to the Cedar Creek Picnic Area sign, I headed in a rough northeasterly direction, counting my paces as I walked. I didn’t bother calling out the girl’s name. What was the point? She wasn’t going to answer.
As I neared fifty paces, I looked back at the WPVI-TV news crew. Maria was chatting idly with the cameraman as he captured B-roll footage of the search. Her producer sat in the van’s passenger seat, tapping away on his cell phone with his thumbs. He glanced up at Maria and said something to her that I couldn’t hear. She nodded and lifted a finger, indicating “one more minute.”
They were wrapping up their coverage. I had to hurry.
I scanned the forest, looking for the landmark I had memorized: a fallen tree beside a black pool of liquid mud. Finally, I spotted it. As I approached, I saw the turquoise-colored bandanna I had stuffed into a knothole in the trunk. I picked up a gnarled branch, then plunged it deep into the muck until I felt it catch on something soft. A ghostly form began rising from the depths. Long brown hair fanned out across the murky water. A black and gray flannel jacket bloomed on the surface.
I turned to look at Maria. As if sensing my gaze, her eyes flitted in my direction. She smiled. I felt a surge of joy. She had noticed me. I had been seen.
I imagined again what it would be like to be on TV, to be known for something, to be a somebody instead of a nobody. I imagined being close to Maria, feeling her hand on my arm as she interviewed me about how I had found the girl, about how it felt to be a hero.
Me, on TV.
Me, with Maria Espinoza.
Me, a hero.
I took one last look at the girl’s bloated corpse floating face-down in the water, then lifted my hand and shouted, “Here!”
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Warren Benedetto 