by Mary Cantell
Like a bad dream, the last seven hours were surreal. The separation from her only child numbed her senses and she hovered somewhere outside the moment. To accept the reality would be too much to bear. She knew God was guiding her, holding her heart. There was no way she would be able to handle this situation and still remain sane without the Lord’s presence with her. Although Brian held her in his arms, she sensed it was the Lord holding both of them.
“Were you able to get any sleep?” he asked, a sweet tenderness in his voice.
“Ask the bags under my eyes.” Strips of purple below her eyes told the story by way of the fluorescent-lit bathroom mirror. She caught a peek of her reflection sometime after three a.m. and gasped at the sight.
She pulled from his embrace. “These,” she said, picking up her tortoise-framed sunglasses from the table, “will cover a multitude of sins.”
A half-eaten piece of toast sat on the counter next to a half-filled glass of orange juice. Next to the plate lay the diary.
“I’m glad you at least had something to eat,” he said.
“I tried, but I have no appetite.”
“I stopped for coffee and a couple of cream cheese bagels. The bags are in the car if you want some for later.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“That was sweet of you, thanks.” Is the detective here?”
“It’s not quite seven, yet,” he said, glancing at his watch.
Lissa put on her jacket and went to the window. She lifted one of the slats in the dusty blinds and knew she needed to clean them. As much as she coveted cleanliness, right now, she couldn’t have cared less. “I hope he’s coming soon. I’ll walk to that stupid house if I have to.”
“Liss,” Brian consoled. “He said he’d be here. He wants to find Lacy just as much as you do.”
“Just as much? I don’t think so.” She picked up her cell phone and keys.
“That yours?” he asked, pointing to the diary the counter.
“No. Lacy’s. There’s something in there I want to show the detective.” She tucked it under her arm. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The sun struggled to break free from a scrim of opal-colored clouds the first morning of November. Cars drove up and down Bellevue Avenue the same as any ordinary day. People stood waiting for the bus or walked their pets—all content in their own little worlds; no one the wiser as to the upheaval in hers.
Lissa could barely contain the heady rush of emotions going on inside her body. The excitement, trepidation, and heartache together churned in a cauldron of anxiety. She looked at Brian, so grateful for his support; both yesterday evening and now today he’d taken the day off to assist in the search. His very presence, a gift. She understood the commitment of a spouse or fiancé in matters like this, but his loyalty went above and beyond anything she would have expected of him. Was it out of his feelings for her or merely the pressing call of duty, the possibility of becoming a hero? Did he have an allegiance to the cause, or was it something else?
Just then, Mrs. Houser’s son, Drew, came around the side of the house with little Toby in tow. Apparently, he had the job of taking Miss Rucker’s Shih Tzu out for a walk in the morning before school. It was Lacy’s responsibility in the afternoon. Did she even know about Lacy’s disappearance? With a headset on, the boy appeared oblivious to his surroundings. Lissa didn’t even bother to wave. She gave up attempting to be polite to anyone wearing a listening device after so many times of being snubbed with them not even aware of her presence.
Now, a block away, Lissa spotted the detective’s black SUV slowly making its way up the street. Like a hearse. The SUV pulled up and stopped.
“Morning,” the detective said, coming around to meet them at the curb.
“Any more leads come in, sir?” Brian inquired.
“I’ve got a bunch I’m still going through. Just spoke to my duty officer who’s keeping tabs on them. I’ll check in with him later after this.” He addressed Lissa. “Okay, what’s the game plan, Ms. Logan?” He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and a cloud of smoke filled the air around him. “You coming along?”
“I’ve been ready since yesterday,” she said, zipping up her jacket.
“This is a bit unorthodox for me. I usually work solo…but whatever.” He took another drag. “Okay, last night you mentioned a yellow car. So where do we find it? Got the address?”
“I’m not sure of the exact street number but I can tell you how to get there. It’s not far.”
He dropped the cigarette to the ground. “Good enough,” he said, mashing it with his shoe. “Hop in.”
Once inside the warm interior, Lissa didn’t waste any time and quickly paged through Lacy’s diary. “The entry on October 13th,” she said, handing the diary to him. She pointed to the first line. “Does that bother you at all?”
Detective Hastings took the diary and squinted for a moment. “Okay, let’s see now…you mean the word trouble here?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “It sounds odd to me. First of all…that a girl would be in my daughter’s face for no apparent reason.”
“How do you know there wasn’t a reason?” the detective questioned. “There doesn’t always have to be a reason.”
“I know my daughter,” she said, raising her voice emphatically. “Besides, I asked her if she had any idea why the girl would have approached her like that and she had no clue whatsoever. Then I read this in her diary. The girl has some kind of vendetta or something, I don’t know.”
“Sounds like kids being kids to me. Takes all kinds, you know.” He looked at the diary and then back at her. “You never had a bully bother you?”
Her seventh grade homeroom classmate, Carmen Costillo, a girl with oily brown hair and shabby clothes who lived in the slums of Bryn Mawr, came close. She had the word nasty written all over her and was often seen hanging out in the girls’ bathroom between classes throughout junior high, always smelling of cigarette smoke. After school one day, she cornered Lissa outside. Frightened by the girl’s smirking attitude, she ran back inside straight into the arms of her homeroom teacher who went outside and told the girl to move along.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she replied.
“I’d like to keep this for evidence—just in case.” He held up the diary. “Okay with you?”
She nodded.
Detective Hastings disengaged the break and pulled into the street. Lissa directed him up Bellevue Avenue. The neighborhood’s grand Victorians stood proudly on their emerald parcels of lawn.
“I think we should make a right turn here,” she said. They drove for two more blocks and at the next corner, she pointed. “There it is,” she announced. “The one with the turret.”
The detective pulled up to the home and turned off the engine. The name on the dingy pewter mailbox read: Hellinger.
****
“Jay,” cried Jan Robson. “The little girl, Lacy Logan. The police are involved. They’re conducting a search.”
With razor in hand and half-shaven, Jay Robson rushed into the bedroom where his wife sat on the bed staring at the TV. “The newscast just now…they’re looking for her. I feel so awful about it, I want to die.” Her face folded. “It’s our fault, Jay. It’s entirely our fault.”
Jay stood silent for a moment, recalling when Lissa rushed out of the kitchen nearly twelve hours earlier. The frightened look on her face prompted him to conduct his own search in the immediate vicinity by going door-to-door to see if anyone had seen the child. He attempted to call Lissa later that evening. When he couldn’t reach her, he reported the incident to the police.
“We may have been responsible for her, Jan, but it wasn’t our fault.” He gently laid his hand on her shoulder. “We did what we could.”
Jay recalled how fervently he tried to call Lissa but couldn’t leave a message. Voicemail was full. And how do I tell her what Becca confessed? That’s a message no mother wants to hear.
****
> Hellinger? Lissa studied the name. A sinking feeling came over her. “Detective, do you know anything about the Hellingers? Their history?”
He looked at her askance and shook his head. “It’s not ringing a bell,” he said with a frown. “But—”
“I do. You see, my father was an attorney. We lived here in Pinewood when I was a kid. Just before my dad died—and the cause of his death was kind of sketchy, at best. My mother thought he was murdered—anyway, there was a guy named Joe Hellinger. He had some kind of drug cartel thing going on—”
“Yeah, I read about that,” Brian interrupted. “Something about a million-dollar heist, wasn’t it? Going on right under the cops’ noses. I think Jessup’s Diner was a front for it or something.”
“What year was this?” the detective asked.
“In the late 70s,” she said. “My dad put him away. Well, the judge did, but my dad was the leading attorney. My uncle told me about it. He had news clippings and everything.”
The detective drew silent. He pulled out his notebook and scribbled something down.
“I don’t know how—or if it’s related to your daughter being missing—but let’s go.”
Detective Hastings led the way up to the house. The uneven walkway, having seen better days, appeared cracked in several spots, and the lawn was weedy and overgrown. The house itself in need of attention, too. The stone foundation was crumbling, and some of the shingles hung askew like skin attempting to shed itself. Lissa clutched Brian’s arm for support as her own limbs were no stronger than rubber.
The detective glanced at his watch. “It’s almost seven-thirty, still a bit early to be knocking but—”
A gruff voice called from across the yard. “Help ya?” An older man in work clothes stood holding a broom, his belly as big as a kettle.
“Yes, sir. I’m Detective Sergeant Hastings, Elmdale borough.” The detective pulled out his ID and stepped toward him. “Just wanted a word with someone about the disappearance of Lacy Logan.” He turned toward Lissa. “This is her mother.”
Lissa stared at the man wondering if she knew him or was it just a sense of déjà vu? His dark hair hid most of his countenance, but something around the eyes reminded her of someone. She wanted to comb down the mangy beard he wore or—better still—take a pair of scissors to it.
“I, uh, don’t know anything about it, sir.”
“Are you the man of the house?” the detective asked, pulling out his notebook.
“Yes, yes, sir. I’m in charge, I guess. Since my daddy went away, anyways.”
“Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Guessin’ I do, sure.”
“Your name?”
“Hellinger. Rob Hellinger.”
“Mr. Hellinger, I’d like to ask you some questions inside if that’s all right with you?”
Lissa froze. Rob Hellinger? The paper boy?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Yes?”
“Lissa? It’s Aunt Celia. We heard about Lacy. Have they found her yet?”
The sound of her aunt’s anxious voice sent Lissa’s own emotions swaying. Now, she was sorry to have taken the call. Celia had already left a message the night before. She would have eventually returned the call, but she wanted to tell them in her own time, not now while she stood in the Hellinger’s house.
“No, Aunt Celia. Not yet.” Her voice just over a whisper.
“Oh, Lissa, how awful.”
“Listen, I can’t talk right now. I’ll call you back when—”
“Lissa,” she interrupted. “Your uncle wants to come out there—to help. It was my idea that we both come out but he wants to do it alone. You know your uncle…when he gets a notion about something, he’s—”
“But I’m not home right now, Aunt Celia. I’ll call you after I’m—”
“Are you all right, dear? Is anyone with you?”
“I’m with Brian, and a detective from the police department. We’re on a lead right now. We’re at the Hellingers’.”
“The Hellingers? You mean The Hellingers?”
Once Lissa opened her mouth, she realized she’d said too much. Her lack of sleep and intense anxiety left little in the way of discretion. With the cotton in her head, her decision-making skills at this point floundered.
“I—I guess so.” She glanced around the entryway where she took the call, keeping an eye on Brian and the detective in the living room.
“Where are they? What’s the address?”
“It’s in my neighborhood. Veronica Street. I have to go now. I’ll call you back soon, okay?” She heard a click. “Aunt Celia?” She hung up the phone wondering if the call disconnected, or if Aunt Celia abruptly hung up and rushed to tell Uncle Charlie. Please God, don’t let him get involved.
Was she really standing in the home of Rob Hellinger, the same person she knew from the neighborhood when he was the newspaper boy? The neighborhood bully? Wouldn’t it be just the kind of thing for his kin to be involved in something like the disappearance of a little girl? Now it all made sense.
He’d been rough, even for a little boy. She remembered the time when he bullied little Donny. When the poor kid became visibly upset, Lissa helplessly stood watching. It broke her heart. Calling out one of the Hellingers might have gotten him even more riled. The whole community—at least those she knew—seemed wary of the Hellingers as though they were a contagion, of sorts; the details, though, had never been explained fully to her. Apparently, the Hellingers were not ones to contend with. She could barely hold herself together with all the impulses racing through her head.
Inside the next room, Brian stood next to the detective in the living room. A dingy green paisley print sofa, two matching Queen Anne chairs, and a couple of pine end tables were arranged on the worn hardwood floor. The walls, painted a yellowy eggshell, bore water stains on the ceiling. In the corner, an old Baldwin piano. A musty smell of old firewood and dampness hung in the air. As if the room weren’t creepy enough, Lissa spotted a centipede on the wall that totally grossed her out.
“So who owns the yellow car?” Detective Hastings asked, turning a page in his notebook.
“It’s Kyle’s,” he replied as though it was common knowledge. “My nephew.”
“Is he around? I’d like to talk with him.”
“What’s he done?” the man demanded.
“That’s what I’d like to talk to him about.”
Rob Hellinger clenched and unclenched his fists. “He do something?”
“Didn’t say he did.” The detective’s tone remained calm and measured. “Mr. Hellinger, no one is casting any aspersions here. We just need to speak with him.”
The man turned and took a step back. “Sis,” the man called into the next room. His voice gurgled with phlegm. “Connie, where’s Kyle?”
A woman in a pink quilted robe pattered into the room, her straw-toned hair wrapped up under a black headband. “I thought I heard voices,” she said, startled at the sight of them. “Oh, dear.” Her eyes darted back and forth while she pulled the robe’s lapels in tighter across her chest. “What’s happened?”
“This here’s Detective, uh Detective—”
“Hastings,” the detective interjected, flashing his credentials.
“They wanna talk to Kyle. He up yet or did he leave for school?”
“He’s…” Her eyes glanced up toward the ceiling. “…upstairs.”
“We’re here to investigate the disappearance of a little girl named Lacy Logan,” the detective said.
“Oh, dear.”
“And what is your relation to Kyle?”
“Kyle?” Her eyes enlarged. “I’m his mother.”
“We just want to speak to him briefly, ma’am. If you could—”
“He took my daughter!” Lissa broke out in a half-scream and lunged toward her. “That’s what he’s done.” Brian pulled her back by the arm. “He picked her up last night—Halloween night—in his car,” she yelled. The adrenaline coursing
through her veins gave her a boldness she didn’t know she possessed.
The woman slowly shook her head as Lissa barked, “There’s a witness who saw the whole thing. I’ve spoken to her. Now where is he?”
The woman clutched her neck. “Oh, no, dear, you must be mistaken.”
A rush of heat, like fire, rose up inside Lissa. “A lady said she saw my daughter get into a yellow car.” She extended her arm toward the direction of the driveway. “Just like the one parked outside. Are you telling me that there’s more than one mustard yellow car in this county?” Spit flew out of her mouth.
A young man appeared from around the corner dressed in jeans and an untucked flannel shirt. The woman turned to him and reached out to grasp his arm. “Kyle, these people are…this woman, well, she thinks you—”
“Kidnapped.” Lissa broke in to finish the woman’s sentence. “Where’s my daughter? What have you done with Lacy?”
The teen looked aghast. “Your daughter? I didn’t kidnap nobody.”
“My daughter is missing since last night—twelve hours ago.” She tapped her wrist indicating the time although she didn’t wear a watch.
Detective Hastings pulled back his shoulders and faced the teen. “Son, we have reason to believe Ms. Logan’s daughter may have gotten into a yellow car sometime Halloween night. That’s when she was last seen by anyone. Are you saying you don’t know anything about it?”
The teen crossed his arms across his chest. “No, sir, I don’t,” he said boldly.
“Then where were you last night between five and eight o’clock?” Lissa demanded.
“He was right here,” Connie retorted with an exaggerated nod and pointed to the floor. “Right here at home.”
“Can you vouch for that Mr. Hellinger?” the detective asked.
“Most certainly can.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure as shootin’, I am.”
“Mr. Detective sir,” Connie began. “My son was not out last night. He stopped trick-or-treating years ago, and there would be no reason he would be out.”
“I’m not implying he was trick-or-treating, ma’am, I’m inquiring whether he was out in his car.” The detective nodded toward the window. “That your car—the yellow one outside?”
