“Ursa . . . ,” Jo said.
Ursa pressed the kitten to her face with both hands and closed her eyes. “I’m going to call him Caesar,” she said. “I like the way he smells, like Tabby’s perfume.”
Jo gently took the toy off her face and laid it on the bedcovers. “Ursa, you can do this. Tell Gabe and me what happened that night.”
She kept staring at the kitten.
“How about you pretend you’re writing a play?” Gabe said.
Ursa looked up at him with bright eyes, apparently intrigued by his suggestion.
“What is the first thing that happens?” he asked.
“It’s at night and I come down from the stars,” she said. “I’m looking for a body to use.”
“Then what?” he asked.
“I see a little girl jump out of the window of a building.” She saw Jo’s shock. “It wasn’t that high,” she explained. She turned back to Gabe. “The girl falls in bushes. That’s how she gets some of the bruises. She’s scared because two men are chasing her. They come outside and choke her. I see them kill her.”
Looking at Jo, she abruptly switched from the play to reality—to the fantasy that had become her reality. “That was when I went in Ursa’s body, because I hated that she had to die. I wanted her body to be alive even if she wasn’t.”
“What happened after you went in her body?” Jo asked.
“First I had to make her breathe again—with my powers. I made her better and I got up. I knew the men would think I was Ursa, so I ran. I got ahead of them because they were kind of scared that Ursa was still alive. There was a gas station by Ursa’s house, and I ran there. I saw a truck—like the kind Gabe has but bigger—”
“An open-bed pickup truck?” Gabe said.
She nodded. “It was parked by the side of the store in the gas station, and I climbed into the back of it. There was stuff in there I could hide under. I was afraid to move, and all of a sudden the guy who owned the truck got in and started driving. I guess he went onto that road you take to Champaign-Urbana, the one called 57. I was really scared because the truck was going so fast, and I was in a new body and everything.”
Jo and Gabe looked at each other.
“That was how I found you,” Ursa said. “My quark things did it for sure. They make good things like that happen.”
“How, exactly, did you find me?” Jo asked.
“The truck drove for a really long time. Before it stopped, it went down a bumpy road. Later I found out that was Turkey Creek Road.”
“What color was the truck?” Gabe asked.
“It was red.”
“Was it beat up—kind of like my truck?”
She nodded.
“That’s probably Dave Hildebrandt’s truck. His property is across the road from mine.”
Detective Kellen had a notebook in his hand. “Dave Hildebrandt?” he said as he wrote.
“Yes,” Gabe said. “He travels around looking for auto parts. He rebuilds cars.”
“Did Dave see you?” Gabe asked Ursa.
She shook her head. “He scared me. When he got home, right away he started yelling at someone. They had a big fight.”
“That would be Theresa, his wife,” Gabe said.
Kellen scribbled in his notebook again.
“When did you get out of the truck?” Jo asked.
“I waited until he stopped yelling. But when I climbed out, a big dog was barking at me. I ran because I was afraid it would bite me. I kept falling down because it was dark and I was in a forest. I stopped when I came to water.”
“Turkey Creek?” Gabe asked.
“Yes, but I didn’t know its name yet. I followed it and came out at that place where the road ends at the hill—right next to Jo’s house . . . I mean Kinney’s. I was too afraid to go by the house, so I went in the shed. There was a bed in there—just the mattress part—and I laid down on it. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up for a long time. When I did, it was daytime and I saw a puppy—that was Little Bear.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He was my first friend. Little Bear was my first friend after I came down from the stars. And now he’s dead.”
35
Now they knew how Ursa had traveled from Effingham to Jo’s rental house. But there was still a big hole in her story—the worst part. Why had she jumped out the window of her apartment? Jo hated to put her through more, but the police would never leave her alone until they stamped CLOSED on the Portia Dupree murder case.
Gabe dabbed Ursa’s teary face with the edge of the bedsheet, and Jo held her hand. “Let’s get this over with. Tell Gabe and me why you had to jump out the window.”
“Ursa did that. She was still in her body when that happened.”
“Okay, tell me why Ursa had to do something so dangerous.”
“I told you. Those two men were going to kill her.”
“Which two?”
“The ones Gabe killed.”
“Tell me their names.”
Ursa turned to Kellen, aware that the names mostly mattered to him. “The kind of little one was Jimmie Acer—people called him Ace. The more strong one was called Cory. Ursa didn’t know his last name because she never saw him before.”
“She never saw him before that night?” Jo said.
“No.”
“Why were Jimmie Acer and Cory at Ursa’s apartment?”
“Because . . .” She looked away from Jo, her fingers twisting the corner of the sheet.
“Were they doing things Ursa’s mother told her not to talk about?”
Ursa nodded, her head down.
“You’re not Ursa, so you can tell us.”
She looked up. “I guess you’re right.”
“What was going on with Ace and Cory?”
“Ace was there because he was always there. And he . . . you know . . .”
“What?”
“He went in Ursa’s mother’s room with her. Her mother said they were partying when they did that.” The glint of shame in her eyes revealed that she knew very well what they were doing in the bedroom.
“Why was Cory there?”
Ursa looked down again. “He came with Ace. To party.”
“Was he using drugs?”
“He acted like that, and he was drinking beer. He was waiting . . .” She leaned over and again picked up the stuffed tabby kitten to give her fingers something to fiddle with.
“Was Cory waiting to go in the bedroom with Ursa’s mother?”
“Yes,” Ursa said.
“What was Ursa doing?”
“She was watching TV in the living room. There was a movie on—that one where the twins meet at camp.”
“Parent Trap.”
“Ursa liked that movie.”
“Was Cory in the same room with Ursa?”
“Yes,” Ursa said, looking down at the tabby kitten.
“Tell me what Cory was doing,” Jo said.
“He kept laughing at the movie and saying how stupid it was. It made Ursa mad.”
“Then what?”
Ursa finally looked at Jo, begging with her eyes not to say more.
“Please tell me. It will be okay.”
Tears dripped from her eyes. “He put his hand on Ursa where he wasn’t supposed to. She told him to stop it and pushed him away. He said he would give her five dollars if she let him do it. He said she was going to be like her mother anyway, and if she was going to be a whore, she should start when she was little . . . because girls were prettier when they were little . . .”
Gabe pressed his hand to his mouth.
“What did Ursa do?” Jo said.
“She said her mother wasn’t a whore. But Cory laughed. Ursa got mad and turned off the TV. She tried to go in her room, but Cory grabbed her arm. He pushed her onto the couch and he—” Her tears became sobs. “He tried to take off her pajamas. She was screaming and hitting him . . .”
Jo was too choked up to ask, but Kellen did. “What happened? Tell us.”
“Ursa’s mother ran out of the bedroom,” she cried. “She screamed for him to get off Ursa, and she picked up a chair and hit Cory on the back with it. Ace grabbed the chair away from her, but Cory took it from him. He smashed it on the side of Ursa’s mother’s head.” Ursa covered her face. “He hit her really hard! She fell on the floor, and something was coming out of her head. It was her brains, I think . . . they were coming out . . .”
Jo pulled Ursa against her chest and held her.
That wasn’t enough for Kellen. “Why did you run?” he asked. “Did they threaten you?”
“It wasn’t me!” Ursa screamed.
“Why did Ursa run?”
“Ace was cussing at Cory and saying Ursa saw and she would tell the police. Cory said she wouldn’t tell, and he grabbed Ursa. He put his hand on her neck and pressed hard. Ursa knew he was going to kill her. She kicked him and bit him and got away. She ran in her room and jumped out the open window.”
“Wasn’t there a screen?” Kellen said.
Ursa shook her head, wiping her palms down her cheeks. “The landlord wouldn’t put screens in even though Ursa’s mother wanted them. They used to get in fights about it.”
“What was the name of the man in the restaurant?” Kellen asked. “You said he was Ace and Cory’s friend.”