He turned, filled a tall, cloudy-looking glass and plunked it on the napkin. Beer foamed from the top and instantly soaked the tiny napkin beneath it.
"Have you lived here long?" she asked, pulling a ten-dollar bill from her wallet and setting it on the counter.
He didn't answer her, just lumbered to the register, popped it open and extracted eight dollars in change.
She considered asking again, but it had been hard enough the first time around. She sounded like she was trying to pick the guy up.
Lori took the cash, stuffed it back in her purse, and dragged her beer closer. The bartender had gone off down the bar where he was topping off shot glasses for two middle-aged men, both hunched over and talking with their heads close.
He returned a moment later, wiping the bar and plopping two more flimsy napkins beside Lori's beer. "Yeah," he told her. "Way too long."
Lori swallowed, almost not sure that he was talking to her. She steadied her hands on the cool glass of her drink, took a sip and tried not to grimace. Drinking beer always tasted like licking an aluminum can—not that she'd done it, but she imagined a similar metallic aftertaste.
"I wonder… did you ever hear about the disappearance of Summer Newton?" She hadn't intended to jump straight to that question, but she sensed this was not a man of many words. If she tried to engage him in small talk, she'd be there all day.
He paused mid-wipe and appraised her, eyes narrowing. "You a cop?"
"Ha." She laughed, and her face grew warm. "I'm flattered that you'd think so." His face darkened, and she backpedaled. "I mean, not that I'm impressed by cops. I just, well, I've always thought of myself as kind of a weak person. Not weak, but… not strong."
Shut up! the cool calm voice that wasn't a blithering idiot told her, but she carried on.
"What I mean is, cops always seem to have that… like, authority thing, not just because they carry a gun, which I don't, obviously."
"Why you askin’ then?" he asked gruffly, pinning her with his beady blue eyes.
She closed her mouth and formulated her next words carefully. "I knew her. I met her as a kid and someone recently told me she'd vanished when she was fourteen. It got under my skin, so I thought I'd see if anything ever came of it. I'm not a police officer though. I work in HR actually. That's human resources."
"I know what it is," he muttered. He stepped away, heading back down the bar where the two women sat.
"Give us another round, Blondie," one woman cackled leaning far over the bar as if attempting to swat the bartender on the backside.
He moved away from her, leaned into the drink well and pulled out two bottles of dark beer. He popped the tops and put the beers in front of the women.
Lori wondered about the nickname. Had the bartender once been blond? He was bald now, the kind of bald he wore proudly—freshly shaved and shined like the bumper on a new sports car.
He disappeared behind the bar for several minutes and when he returned he held a sheet of paper in his hand. He slid it in front of Lori.
It was a missing person's poster. An old one, from the looks of it, spattered with pin holes from where it had likely clung to a corkboard, and marred with more than few stains.
Summer Newton smiled out beneath the words ‘Have You Seen Me?’
"Had this hanging on the board since it happened. Ain't nothing come of it,” he said.
"Are there theories? Word around town, that kind of thing?"
He shrugged. "Sure, ain't there always? Stickiest one is the boyfriend did it. The brother of the girl she'd been with the night she went walkin’. Ben Shaw."
"Did you know him?"
"Nah. Saw him around town. His dad owned a hardware store. I heard a few people talkin’ here an’ there, said he was a punk, liked to start trouble."
"Have people speculated about why he'd hurt Summer?"
The bartender leaned closer. Lori could smell pickles on his breath, and liquor, whiskey maybe. She wondered if he slipped off to the backroom now and then for a shot.
"Some people said he wanted to lay her and she wouldn't put out." He leered at Lori, a sudden gleam in his eyes as if he delighted in telling her such a sickening secret.
Lori leaned so far back from him, she nearly tumbled off her barstool. His hands shot out and grabbed her by the forearms as she started to fall back. His grip was hard and sticky, much like the bar itself. Lori tried to hide the shudder that rippled through her at his touch. "Thanks, wow. Almost fell on my back."
He raised both eyebrows. "Best place for a woman to be."
Lori blinked at him, words failing her. "Well, okay,” she managed. “Thanks for all your help."
She hopped off the barstool and bolted for the door. When Lori burst back onto the sidewalk and the world outside of Moriarty's, she felt like Persephone stepping from the underworld back into a field of flowers and fruiting trees. She staggered a few feet, caught her breath and pressed a palm against the brick wall beside her.
31
Ben woke thinking of Hector Dunn. He skipped his usual routine of coffee and breakfast and breezed out the door. On the drive, he pulled into a donut shop and bought a to-go coffee and an egg sandwich.
He reached Dunn's road just after nine a.m. and drove by Hector’s house, not slowing, but looking for a suitable pull-off space where the man wouldn't notice Ben’s car. He found it a few hundred yards past Dunn's house. A seasonal road branched off to the right. Ben followed it, his car bumping over the uneven ground, high grass scraping the exterior.
He parked and climbed out, stayed in the woods as he backtracked toward Dunn's house. He walked until he could see the house. The paint on the single-story ranch peeled in curls. The windows were dark, covered by curtains. A back porch hung lopsided from the back of the house, the rail mostly broken away. In addition to a two-car garage connected to the house, a barn, also in disrepair, stood further back on the lot.
Ben stared at the back of the barn and wondered what lay inside. He moved closer, scanning for anything that might prove his suspicions about Dunn, but he knew he'd see nothing. The man might be deranged, but he sure as hell wasn't stupid. If he had abducted and murdered the girls, he'd hidden them well.
The back door swung out and Dunn stepped onto the back porch wearing only a pair of yellowed boxer shirts that sagged low, revealing his hairy belly. Dunn lit a cigarette and slumped into a rusted metal chair. He sat and smoked and stared at the trees that ran behind the house. As his eyes roved across the back of the property, he paused. Ben froze, unsure if Dunn had locked eyes on him.
The man stood and lumbered back into his house, emerged moments later with a rifle.
"Oh, shit," Ben whispered, ducking low and hurrying back through the trees.
Behind him the sound of the gunshot exploded the quiet morning. Around him birds squawked and took flight.
Something crashed through the forest. Ben spun around to catch the backside of a deer fleeing deeper into the forest.
"A deer," he murmured, bracing a hand on a tree to catch his breath.
He peered back toward the house. Dunn had leaned the gun against his house and resumed his cigarette.
Ben didn't bother watching further. He rushed back to his car and climbed behind the wheel.
Lori glanced back at the door to Moriarty’s Pub, half-expecting Blondie or whatever the hell his name was to follow her out. He didn't, and after she made it back to the main street in downtown Manistee, still bustling with people, the hammering in her chest subsided.
She walked through town, some of her resolve giving way. Somewhere in the distance a bell tower began to count the hours. It was noon.
Ahead of her, a woman stood on a ladder on the sidewalk, arranging letters on a movie theatre marquee board. Lori read, ‘Welcome Manistee High School Class of 1993.’ The woman started down, bending to pick-up a purple leather bag.
"Excuse me," Lori said, pausing in front of her. "Were you part of class 1993?"
T
he woman, dressed in white capri pants dotted in tiny red cherries, grinned and curtsied. Her golden-blonde hair had the sun-kissed, wind-blown look of a day on the lake. She was beautiful, and Lori felt instantly plain standing beside her.
"I surely was. And the Michigan Apple Queen to boot. Magnolia Fairchild at your service. Tell me you were not in the class of 1993? I never forget a face and you look far too young to have been one of my classmates."
"No, I graduated from high school in Clare, but I'm in town looking into something that happened in 1993, a disappearance."
Magnolia's guileless blue eyes went wide. "Summer Newton. Is that who you're referring to?" She touched her forehead with the back of her hand as if she were a damsel from a country-western film who might faint at any moment.
"Yes. Summer. Did you know her?"
"Oh, goodness me," Magnolia said, taking Lori by the hand and pulling her toward the theatre doors. "Let's get out of this blazing sun. I'm a summer girl from my crown to my toes, but this humidity has got my blouse as slick a second skin. Ugh. I'm hoping it eases back before the party, but Michigan, being the volatile gal that she is, probably won't let up until we've all melted like the Wicked Witch of the West."
Lori followed her through glass double doors into the cool, dim interior of the theatre lobby. It was quiet. Heavy maroon curtains shielded the larger theatre from view. No lights shone behind the snack counter, no ticket sellers or ushers occupied the space.
At the edge of the lobby sat a red sectional with a movie poster beside it advertising a new Tom Cruise action movie.
"We can sit here. My brother manages the theatre and they agreed to let us do a slideshow and cocktail party here before the reunion. I was tickled pink. So many fond memories of this theatre. It's a shame how many of the small-town marquees have closed right down. Just boarded-up buildings now,” Magnolia lamented.
"There used to be a drive-in theatre in my old home town,” Lori said, “but it closed before I was born. My mother used to tell me about packing into a car with a group of friends and watching the double feature.”
"Drive-ins are so magical," Magnolia said dreamily. "I've been to the Cherry Bowl Drive-In up by Benzie County a time or two. I always fall asleep before the second movie, but it's a hoot anyway, sittin’ in your car, eating a hot dog and watching the show."
"I'll have to try it out one of these days." Lori reached into her bag and pulled out an article she'd printed about Summer. According to the caption beneath the picture, the photo had been taken on her last day of school. She stood at the end of her driveway waiting for the school bus wearing olive green shorts and a white v-neck t-shirt.
Magnolia crossed her legs and leaned toward the article, rotating a gold bracelet on her right wrist as she scanned the headline. "I still remember that summer so vividly," she started. "I'd graduated, which already made it a memorable time, but when Summer Newton disappeared, the whole town just went topsy-turvy. Her family was known around town—her uncle especially, but also her cousin Jimmy. Within twenty-four hours, we were all out looking, searching the woods, the quarries, the beach, the lakeshore. We were all thinking about that show Twin Peaks that had been so popular a couple years before. Did you ever see that? The one with the prom queen found dead on the beach."
"I did see it," Lori said, remembering watching the show with Bev. They’d been riveted waiting to find out what happened.
"Instead of playing volleyball, we were walking the beach looking for her body wrapped in plastic or some horrible thing. I get the chills thinking about it." Magnolia held out her arm as proof. "We never found her though. Thank God. I know that’s a terrible thing to say, but I just don’t know how people recover from things like that. Finding one of their own…” Magnolia fiddled with the zipper on her leather bag, gazing at Summer’s photo. “May I ask what has you looking into Summer’s disappearance now? I mean it’s twenty years. I just can't believe it's been that long."
“I heard about Summer on a camping trip recently. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I figured I'd look into it. I was trying to see if I could get a sense of what might have happened, spur some interest in the case again. I wonder if you ever heard rumors, anything like that?"
Magnolia looked thoughtful. "The boyfriend, Benjamin Shaw. That's what everybody said. Maybe something happened between them in the woods. Maybe she broke things off and he murdered her in a rage, then forced his little sister to make up the story and help him conceal her body."
Lori frowned. "And people believed that?"
"Some people did."
"Kids at school?"
"Yeah. Some did and then others, people who knew Ben, said he'd never have done anything like that. I didn't know him well, he was two years behind me, a sophomore when I graduated, but… I thought there might be something to the rumors."
"Why is that?"
"I saw them arguing once. Ben and Summer. It was after school had let out. They'd kind of kept things a secret, you know? That they were going out, but then word got around like it does. Anyway, I was jogging one afternoon and saw them parked at this lovers' lane spot. It was the middle of the day, so no one else was there, but I could hear him yelling in the car. I sort of slowed down, not eavesdropping, but, you know, I was curious. She jumped out and ran into the woods crying."
"Do you have any idea what they were arguing about?"
Magnolia shook her head, pink lips pursed together. "No, but I told the police about it after she went missing, and I wasn't the only one. A girl who was friends with Summer claimed she saw Ben shove her once."
"Other people in town also thought Ben was involved?"
"Yes, on account of his temper. He'd also gotten in fights at school. He punched Jimmy Newton in the face one time. That was Summer's cousin. I can't say Jimmy didn't deserve it—he was always stirring up trouble—but who walks up and punches someone in the face? That's a man with impulse control if you ask me."
"Were there ever any other rumors?"
Magnolia took to circling her bracelet again. "My dad thought Summer's disappearance was related to the disappearance of that girl down in Free Soil who'd gone missing some years before. I was only a wee thing then and don't remember much about it. My dad had grown up in Free Soil before he opened a car dealership in Manistee. His brother still lived in Free Soil and mentioned years before that a girl disappeared over that way."
"What was her name?"
"You're testing my memory today." She steepled her fingers at her lips. "Her name started with an M. Miranda or... Meredith. That was it, Meredith Abram. I think she was around Summer's age, maybe a little younger, twelve or thirteen. Went off walking in the woods and never came home."
"Was she by herself?"
"Nope. Had a little friend with her. The friend came back, but Meredith never did."
As Lori drove home, she thought of Magnolia's words. The town really had blamed Ben, their suspicions bolstered by more than one possibly violent interaction between the sixteen-year-old Ben and the fourteen-year-old Summer. It bothered Lori. It bothered her that her own suspicions had been raised by the woman's admission.
32
At home, Ben retreated to his garage and spent the early afternoon doing bike maintenance. He fixed two bikes that co-workers had dropped off. One needed new tires and another a new chain. Then he tuned up his own bike, cleaning the chain and adjusting his brakes. His hands moved mechanically, but his brain chewed on Hector Dunn and the bits and pieces that connected him to the missing girls. Nothing substantial had appeared, no smoking gun, per se, but plenty of connections. Enough of those connections and he might be able to get a detective interested in digging deeper.
As he worked a text came in from Ryan Kimner, a fellow nurse.
Ryan: Karaoke tonight. Be there or be square.
Ben: It's on like Donkey Kong.
He finished his maintenance and then rolled the bike out of the garage. He thought of Lori and fished his phone from the pocket of
his jersey and texted her.
Ben: Interested in joining me for karaoke tonight? Give Sherlock and Dr. Watson a break.
Her reply was immediate.
Lori: That depends. Am I Sherlock or Watson?
He grinned, straddling his bike before texting Lori back.
Ben: Obviously, having a medical degree, I'm Watson and your love of cigars destines you to be Holmes.
Lori: I don't love cigars. They smell like manure.
Ben: Then perhaps I'm Agent Scully and you're Agent Mulder.
Lori: ??? Shouldn't I be Scully, seeing how she's a woman?
Ben: Oh, no. That's just biology. We're talking real traits here. Scully is the skeptic (and the doc)—Mulder is the believer in all things weird and wonky.
Lori: So I'm the nutcase?
Ben: I like to think of you as the crunchy peanut butter to my smooth grape jelly.
Lori: Crunchy peanut butter—i.e. nutcase.
Ben laughed out loud.
Ben: You coming tonight?
Lori: Sure. What time?
Ben: Seven.
Ben rode the Pere Marquette Trail, opting to go west rather than east in the direction of the Manistee Forest. He rode for two hours, the thrum of his tires on the pavement lulling him into a meditative state. He didn’t think about Hector or Summer or things that lurked in the forest.
He returned home, showered and changed into loose-fitting khaki pants and a dark t-shirt. He searched the drawers in his bathroom and spritzed cologne on his neck. Ben couldn't remember the last time he'd worn it and wrinkled his nose after he sprayed it. Taylor had picked out the scent and it smelled overpowering. He wet a washcloth and scrubbed at his neck.
He checked on Leia and tidied up his living room, throwing laundry in the bathroom hamper and loading coffee mugs he'd left on the coffee table. As the minutes clicked closer to seven, he felt his nerves amp up.
When Lori arrived, he watched her through the front window. She wore a light summer dress, white with gray flowers. It was the first time he'd seen her in a dress. Her long brown hair was pulled over one shoulder and she brushed at her stomach self-consciously as she hurried up to his door.
Darkness Stirring: A Troubled Spirits Novel Page 21
