by AR Simmons
“How about after work?”
“Suit yourself, but I ain’t hanging around forever.”
“What time do you get off?”
“Around five or six,” said Allsop disinterestedly as he started his machine.
Disgusted, Richard started back to his car. Paying little attention he wandered into the path of a dump truck and was almost run down. He stumbled out of its path, tweaking the ankle. The driver threw him a silly grin.
Now that his trip was prolonged for five or more hours, Richard decided to find a computer to send an e-mail home so that he and Jill wouldn’t have to play phone tag. The local library was his best bet. He drove into town, passing a string of motels, chain restaurants, and strip malls flanking the highway. Failing to notice a small sign near the football field, he continued until he reached a highway intersection and realized that he was leaving town on the south. Turning left, he crossed a viaduct bridging the switchyard and found himself literally on the wrong side of the tracks. After passing a mixture of squalid residences and down-at-the-heels businesses, he reached another intersection where a sign directed him toward the post office, which he assumed would be downtown where he expected to find the library.
The two-lane concrete street appeared to be an older version of the main highway west of town. After passing more old businesses sitting on graveled lots, he re-crossed the switchyard to a brick street running past the rotten roofed remains of a depot. Elaborate stairs led down to the derelict building. In a few blocks, he came to the courthouse sitting on its raised lot. Down the street, he saw a newly constructed “justice center,” the current euphemism for county jail. This was the old part of town, where the streets ran parallel and perpendicular to the river rather than being oriented to the cardinal points of the compass.
He took a left and drove past an old theatre where he turned right and then hard right again onto Main. He parked across from the public library. Using his crutches this time, he went up the wheelchair ramp and entered. The library, typically, was in the care of solicitous ladies falling just short of the description “little old.”They were soft spoken, helpful, and apologetic that he couldn’t check out materials. They assured him, however, that he was more than welcome to peruse any and all items in the stacks. They assumed that he had come to research genealogy, a phenomenon he had observed in previous visits to small-town libraries. When he asked if he could access a computer to send an e-mail, he was escorted to a bank of four PCs, all of which faced the circulation desk, in order, he presumed, to discourage accessing “unacceptable” sites.
He sent an e-mail to Jill, hoping to catch her in her professor’s office. Getting no immediate answer, he sent a longer explanation which he was sure she would get when she got home. Before he left home, he had told her that he might not be back in time to pick her up at the college. She told him she could arrange for a ride if he didn’t get back in time. While waiting for her reply, he visited online newspaper sites, accessing only the free morgues and the thumbnails of the subscription services. At each, he made queries using “Allsop,” “Randolph”, “abduction,” “disappearance,” and “kidnapping.”
He got more hits with the last three than he could sort out until he paired the names with each in turn. Eventually, he got three stories from Springfield area papers (all of which he had examined before) and two from the Kansas City Star, which turned out to be derivative summaries of the Springfield stories. He was about to search child abductions by date when Jill’s reply came, informing him that she had a ride home with a colleague and bidding him to get in touch if he had further information about his ETA. He answered immediately that he should be home sometime around ten or eleven. Then they exchanged short, quick messages.
“Porch light will be on. Hurry home. DO NOT SPEED.”
“Don’t shout, don’t worry, just keep supper and bed warm.”
“If cold, you have only self to blame. I repeat: Don’t speed, my love.”
“Not to worry. Got to go. Librarian twisting ear. Good bye, love.”
“Adieu.”
He spent the rest of the afternoon accessing heartrending news items about missing children, none close enough to James Mill to suggest relevance. He also found references to an Allsop in the Springfield papers, not Pat, but one “George Allsop” who was the topic of a series of legal and investment stories concerning development schemes gone bad, the most notable of which was one in the area of Lake Taneycomo. Numerous investors (not so well-heeled as before they got involved with said Allsop) were out for his blood. For a time, grand jury indictments seemed imminent. Then, over a year ago, the story dried up without coming to prosecutorial fruition.
Richard wondered if the Allsop involved was related to Pat Allsop. Then he came across an intriguing reference to one of George Allsop’s partners, Harold Dillard. If “Hal” was short for Harold, which it surely was, it suggested a possible, although improbable, motive for Dillard giving the story of Mancie’s disappearance the short shrift.
Maybe Dillard knew or suspected that Pat Allsop had pulled off a custody kidnapping. Then, being a friend of the Allsops, he played the story low-key, doing his best to consign the case to the realm of forgotten tragedy. Maybe Adams helped out by dragging his feet on the investigation.
The sticking point was Adams. Richard couldn’t fathom a reason for the detective to deliberately muff an investigation. He chided himself for running with his imagination.
Small-town conspiracy, Richard? Come on. These guys are probably not even my Allsop and Dillard
He glanced at the time and logged off.
•••
At four-thirty, he arrived at the construction site just in time to see Pat Allsop climb into a shiny, black, extended-cab pickup with dual wheels and enough chrome to be visible from orbit. Richard slowed, searching for an access to cross over, but before he could find one, Allsop pulled onto the southbound lanes and accelerated toward town. Chancing a ticket, Richard crossed the muddy median between construction barrels to pursue him. Despite kicking it up to seventy, (the maximum he thought he could get away with) he couldn’t regain sight of Allsop’s pricey toy until he approached rush traffic backed up at the first light on the north end of town.
He ran the yellow to keep the glossy pickup in sight. They passed the Wal-Mart, the Ryans, and the Home Depot. Allsop finally stopped at an old block building with a pig-shaped sign overhanging it and proclaiming “Lonnie’s Bar-B-Q” in large cursive letters. Richard pulled into the half-paved lot beside Allsop’s behemoth and limped inside, again foregoing the crutches.
Lonnie’s ambiance was working class, replete with a pool table that badly needed refelting, and the requisite neon signs. A small cluster of tables served as the dining area, and the aroma of barbecued pork suffused the interior. Behind the Spartan bar stood a giant clad in a Sturgis Rally T-shirt that once had fit him. He inclined his head when Richard made eye contact.
“What’ll it be?” he asked.
“How about a Coors?” asked Richard, his voice causing Allsop to look up from the table where he sat with his own brew.
With bottle in hand (no stein was offered), Richard went across. “Guess I missed you when you got off work,” he said. “Mind if I sit?”
“I’m expecting someone,” said Allsop.
He apparently saw no need to explain why he had left work before the “five or six” that he had misled Richard into thinking was quitting time.
“I don’t mean to be a bother,” said Richard, sitting uninvited. “But I came a long way to talk with you.”
The door opened, and Allsop looked over Richard’s head toward it.
A girl who might have still been in high school came over and leaned her hip into Allsop’s shoulder. She had shoulder-length red hair like Jill’s only a deeper auburn, the kind he always thought of as “Irish red.” A filmy blouse accented her lush figure and tight jeans accented her teenage waist.
“Who’s your friend?” she aske
d, eyeing Richard speculatively.
“Just a guy,” said Allsop as he slid a possessive arm around her and squeezed her thigh.
“Go sit at the bar until I get through talking to him.”
It wasn’t a question, and she understood that. When she had moved out of earshot, Allsop said, “I don’t have to talk to you, you know.”
“Well, I appreciate you doing it.”
“What the hell you want from me?” asked Allsop sullenly. “I done told the police that I don’t know nothing about what happened to the kid. I ain’t seen it or Molly since I moved out.”
In a nutshell, that was all Richard came away with.
•••
11:30 PM
“The bottom line is he couldn’t care less,” Richard said as he got into bed. “Pat Allsop is a self-centered narcissist.”
“I think that’s redundant,” said Jill, yawning as she turned to him. “Sorry.”
“He’s a jerk,” he continued. “He didn’t want a child or a wife, and he’s glad to be rid of both so that he can chalk up more conquests. You should see this little girl he’s running with—probably no more than nineteen.”
“That was my age when you started talking to me at college,” she said, snuggling into him.
“That was different,” he said, squeezing her to him. “My intentions were honorable.”
“He lied to me about the time he got off work,” he grumbled. “And I almost missed him. I thought maybe it was because he was trying to hide something, but he was just trying to avoid the inconvenience I put him through—you know, answering all those boring questions about something so inconsequential as his child disappearing.”
“You are exaggerating because you do not like him.”
“No I’m not. He actually referred to Mancie as ‘it’—not ‘my baby’ or ‘my little girl’, but ‘it!’ Can you believe that?”
“Maybe he’s smarter than you think,” she suggested. “Maybe he took the child and wants you to think he wouldn’t do it because he never wanted anything to do with her.”
“No chance. The only thing this means to that jackass is that he doesn’t have to pay child support now.”
“Pure selfishness, then. He sounds like a real loser.”
“No. Golden Boy is a winner. The losers are the women who fall for that beautiful face.”
“Beautiful face? What an odd way to speak of a man. But I suppose there’s something to that. The mirror is a convincing liar. It makes us believe that we are what we appear to be instead of what we do. Perhaps we would be better off if we didn’t know what we looked like.”
“You’re waxing philosophical,” he said as he pulled her close. “Let me assure you, lady: your mirror doesn’t lie. You do as beautifully as you appear.”
“The only mirror I care about is the one in your eyes, Richard.”
A dozen things came to his mind, none adequate, so in answer he held her tighter, remembering something he heard once.
“An embrace is denial of the fact that parting is inevitable.”
•••
September 9
“You want me to do what?” Richard had asked.
“Go with me,” Molly had replied. “I could point out the people that knew her, maybe introduce you to them, tell them you’re a friend of mine.”
So here he was, doing something he intensely disliked, attending a funeral, or rather the visitation, that strange custom of meeting people associated in various degrees to the deceased—a sort of wake without benefit of the booze.
Doris Chandler smiled politely when Molly introduced him. Katie’s sister was an elf of a woman with black, professionally coiffured hair and tastefully somber attire befitting the occasion. She thanked him for coming, and quickly turned her attention to the man in line behind him. He dutifully followed Molly past the casket, glancing only briefly at the corpse before hastening through the door into the lobby of the funeral home. The ordeal was over before it had fairly started, which was fine with him.
“There’s Jerry,” said Molly. “Let me introduce you.”
Tall and lean, Jerry Chandler seemed to have been turned out by the same hairdresser and clothier as his wife. He appeared ready to burst into song, televangelistic sermon, or used car sales pitch.
“Hi, Molly,” he said in a well-modulated voice with just a touch of down home accent. “It’s nice of you to come. Doris and I appreciate it.”
He sounded sincere in an honest, folksy way reminiscent of certain bygone character actors. A young Ronald Reagan came to mind.
“Who’s your friend,” he asked extending a hand in Richard’s direction.
“This is Mr. Carter,” said Molly. “He’s helping me find out what happened to Mancie.”
Chandler cocked his head questioningly as Richard grasped his hand.
“As you can see by the crutches, I’m temporarily out of circulation as far as work is concerned,” Richard felt compelled to explain. “I’ve had a little training in criminology, and I live next door to her, so we’re kind of retracing the steps of the police investigation to see if we can find out anything they may have missed.”
“I see,” said Chandler, his voice betraying veiled skepticism. “I hope you … succeed—find her, I mean.”
“Mr. Carter thinks it would be a good idea to talk to everyone who knows Mancie and me,” said Molly. “Do you think you and Doris would have time to talk to him?”
“I really don’t think this is the place for that.”
Chandler’s objection was understated, but well taken.
“Of course not,” Richard hurried to answer apologetically. “We mean later. Perhaps in a few days.”
Chandler tried to beg off. “I don’t think we know anything that would help. We only know Molly through Katie.”
“I wouldn’t take up much of your time,” Richard assured him. “Any investigation just … Well, it has to be pretty exhaustive. You have to talk to everyone remotely connected to … the victim.”
He noticed Molly wince at the term.
“You’ll have to come to Eureka Springs then. We have a show every night but Monday. Mr. Peele even expects us there tonight. We’ll come back for the funeral tomorrow, and then we have to get back for the show tomorrow night.”
“How about say the day after tomorrow then?”
“If you want to make the trip, but I don’t think we can tell you anything worth the bother.”
Richard apologized again for the inopportune timing of the request. Chandler waved it off and gave him directions to Peele’s Old-Time Ozark Opry. They set a time of two-thirty for the interview.
Adams was leaning on Molly’s car and squinting at them in the bright sunlight when they went out.
“What’s going on?” asked Richard apprehensively.
“We need to talk,” said Adams tersely.
“Okay. Can you give me a ride home then? Or are we going down to the station?”
“I’ll run you home,” said Adams, without acknowledging Molly’s presence. “My car’s right over there.”
“I’ll see you later, Molly,” he said gently. “Okay?”
“Okay, Mr. Carter.”
Richard stowed his crutches in the back seat of Adams’s car. As he got in, soda cans crunched beneath his feet.
“What were you doing at the visitation?” he asked, as Adams pulled onto the street.
The flabby skin below Adams’s chin trembled in what Richard assumed was irritation.
“Seeing who showed up—not that it’s any of your business. What were you doing there?”
“Molly asked me to go.”
“Hell of place for a date. Besides, I thought you were married.”
“Molly wanted me to meet Katie Nash’s sister and brother-in-law.”
Richard expected a snide remark about amateur investigators, but didn’t get one.
“Good luck,” said Adams. “By the way, if you find something, you gotta tell me. Withholding evidence is a
crime.”
It was, but it was also next to impossible to prosecute unless someone deliberately concealed the facts.
“Why would I conceal anything from you? I presume we both would like to know what happened to Mancie.”
“I’m more interested in what happened to Catherine Nash right now,” said Adams. “Any ideas?”
He sounded exhausted. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead and cheeks, but his face looked blanched rather than red.
“I don’t even know how she was killed,” Richard pointed out. “The paper said she was bludgeoned?”
Adams chewed his lip. His hand quivered slightly as he gripped the wheel tightly.
“Say, are you all right?” asked Richard.
“Sugar,” said Adams. “I’ll be okay in a minute.”
“You’re diabetic.”
“Chalk one up for the junior G-man,” said the detective, failing to load the remark with the amount of sarcasm he intended.
“Then why are you still drinking regular sodas?”
“Can’t stand the taste of that diet crap,” Adams said irritably. “What have you found out so far?”
“Nothing much. I went over to Poplar Bluff yesterday and talked to Mancie’s father. What do you know about him?”
“What did he tell you?” asked Adams, showing no intention of answering Richard’s question.
Richard was tempted to match Adams’s reticence, but couldn’t see how antagonizing him would help.
“He seems unconcerned, maybe even a little relieved that he doesn’t have to pay child support anymore.”
Adams didn’t respond.
“Is there a connection between the Allsop’s and Mr. Dillard down at the paper?” Richard asked.
Adams smiled wryly. “How did you find out about that?”
“I read some old news stories. I was looking for something on Pat Allsop when I noticed Dillard’s name. What’s the story?”
“George Allsop and Hal Dillard lost a ton of money together. George is Pat’s dad, by the way.”
“I see,” said Richard.
“You see what?”
“Did Dillard downplay the story of the abduction because of his involvement with the Allsop’s? I would have expected it to be big news in a town this size.”
