After Her by Joyce Maynard

of Karl Jr. I had figured out from evidence in the Pollack home—the fact that Karl Pollack no longer kept a stash of condoms in his bedside table the way I’d observed in the past, and a chart on the refrigerator listing her temperature every day for the last seven weeks, and an appointment reminder card on the counter for a medical office, with a picture of a smiling baby on it—that Jennifer Pollack must be trying to have another baby.
    I was fixing Karl Jr.’s lunch when the phone rang: it was Jennifer’s mother, calling to tell her daughter to turn on the television set. When I told her my name, she seemed to know who I was.
    â€œWhat do you know? Your father’s on TV right now, talking about the most recent murders. Two more girls dead, out on the trails, can you believe it?” she said. “I sure hope your dad’s got some good clues to catch this maniac before he strikes again.”
    T HE FIRST MURDER HAD BEEN terrible enough. But not surprisingly, the news of three more killings within the space of less than six weeks seemed to have left the entire population of the county in a state of panic. Mothers drove their children to the pool now (all mothers but ours) rather than letting them ride their bikes, and practically overnight the trails behind our house, where we used to see hikers setting out on weekends, were mostly empty.
    Back when the first murder took place, a person might have held out hope that the killing of Charlene Gray was some isolated event, but with the discovery of Vivian’s body, and Daniella’s and Sammi’s, it had become clear that we had a serial killer on the mountain (the mountain and the extensive trail system that wove beyond it, over a stretch of nearly fifty miles). If he had killed four young women, there was no reason to suppose he would not kill more.
    The media were all over the story, of course. One of the papers, demonstrating its penchant for alliteration, dubbed the killer “the Sunset Strangler,” referring to the general time of day the four bodies had been found. The girls might have been killed at any time during the day, but somehow the image of the sinking sun lent an extra note of poignancy to the growing scandal.
    I could see, from my father’s face at the press conference, and even more so from his voice, the pressure he was under now. There he was again, up on the screen—looking grave and purposeful, so handsome in his sport coat, with his sideburns and his jet-black hair, his big hands gripping the sides of the podium. I hated what was happening, but I loved being his daughter—and this would have been so even if it hadn’t resulted in my sudden and unexpected rise in social status with the likes of Alison Kerwin and her friends.
    In art class the year before, when we did ceramics, I had made a medallion with the words World’s Best Dad inscribed and a hole that I threaded with a silk cord and gave him for Father’s Day. Maybe, in certain ways, he wasn’t the world’s best dad, but he had promised he’d wear my gift every day. Watching my father now on the television screen, I thought I could detect the shadow of the medallion under his shirt. I liked thinking that every day, when he stood in front of the mirror getting ready for work, he fastened that cord around his neck.
    Hearing him as he made his statement to the press, I had no doubt that my father would find the killer very soon—my magic father, stronger than anyone else’s. Whenever I heard his voice, it seemed to carry the promise that everything would be okay.
    â€œI stand before the people of Marin County today,” he said, “to assure you that, along with every member of our dedicated force, I will not rest until the perpetrator is brought to justice. We will find him, and once we do, we’ll see to it they lock him up forever, so the women of this county and everyone who cares about