NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE YOU

Prologue

A police officer comforts a woman on the shoulder of a rural highway. Behind them is a cornfield. The corn is shoulder high, not yet ready to be harvested. The officer has on a Green Bay Packers hat, and the woman is wearing a sweatshirt decorated in teddy bear appliqués. She is clutching a cell phone and crying hysterically. She and her husband own the cornfield. She’s just found something terrible in there.

“Deep breaths, don’tcha know,” the officer tells her. Trees line the opposite side of the road and starlings dive-bomb in hordes from one tree to another. The branches bend under the birds’ collective weight and fling orange leaves across the road with every ricochet.

“Now, Barbie Schultz, I sure know you’re upset,” he says. “You betcha—how many times do we have to deal with some hubbub in your cornfield? It’s disrespectful and deplorable, these delinquents and pranksters.” He raises his eyebrows. “But I can’t help you ‘til I understand what’s happened in specifics—no ma’am—so I need to comprehend what all you’re saying.” He takes a step toward her. The scattered foliage makes Velcro noises underneath his feet. “So, let’s try this one more time, okay?”

“In the middle,” she says, gasping.

“Well there we go, Barbie.” The cop nods encouragingly. “Okay.” He gestures for her to continue.

“There’s a tree in the middle,” she sputters. “See, Frank and me set up scarecrows around it.” She presses her fingers to her lips. The nails have been lacquered pink to match the teddy bears’ noses. “But whoever did this they…they did something to the scarecrows, and even worse to the—”

“Another vandalism, eh?” The officer brings out a small pad of paper and a pen. “The nerve of these kids.”

“No.” Barbie shakes her head. “Not this time—no, she’s hanging from that big tree like a Christmas ornament—blinking!”

“She who?” The officer clicks his pen. “Talk at me, Barb.”

Barb takes a deep breath. “Well she’s hanging by her neck but believe-you-me, it was not a suicide.” Her hands flutter at the field. “The poor thing’s mouth is sewn shut.”

The cop looks directly at her for the first time, blinking. He starts to tell her that she called in a disturbance, not a body, but she keeps on going.

“Fancy red thread all through her lips.” Her eyes are wide. “Straw coming out through some of the stitches. They tore apart our scarecrows and that’s what they did with the filling. From the looks of her cheeks, her whole mouth’s been stuffed full.”

The officer drops his pen.