by AR Simmons
“Nobody downplayed nothing. It was big news, believe me. There just wasn’t anything new to report after the disappearance itself. You’ll find out the same thing I did. There just aren’t any leads.”
“Look, I’m not criticizing you,” began Richard.
“Not to me, you’re not,” said Adams, cutting him off irritably. “Before you go any further, there’s something you ought to know about your little friend. She was higher than a kite that night.”
“She told me she was drunk.”
“I didn’t say ‘drunk.’ I said high. We got Diazepam and alcohol from her blood.”
“Valium?”
“She could have taken the big sleep with that combination, especially in the concentrations we found.”
Adams watched Richard process the information.
“So she didn’t tell you,” he said condescendingly. “Dopers ain’t exactly the most forthcoming people in the world. Carter, I don’t know how she held it together long enough to pull it off, but my bet is she’s the one that did it.”
“You think Molly killed her own daughter, and then cooked up the abduction story?”
Adams shrugged. “She may have had help.”
“Who?”
“I’ve already told you enough. What I just told you is a little heads up, a little something you should consider. Remember, Carter: you find something, you bring it to me.”
They pulled to a stop in front of the house. Richard got out and retrieved his crutches from the rear seat. As he was about to go up the sidewalk, the passenger window slid down and Adams leaned forward to make eye contact.
“Hey, Carter. Something else for your information: Molly Randolph’s on meth.”
•••
As he was negotiating the porch steps, he noted with relief that Molly’s car was not in her driveway. He needed to think through the implications of what Adams had dropped on him. Had Molly killed her daughter in a fit of drug-enhanced rage? He didn’t think that was a likely result of a Valium-alcohol combination. Perhaps she did it by accident. He thought that more likely. A third possibility was that a boyfriend had killed Mancie, and Molly had covered for him. The problem with all that was that Molly was pressing to get the investigation going again.
He went into the kitchen to make coffee, wrestling with the possibility that she was in the throes of some sort of drug-induced schizophrenia. A knock at the back door startled him, and he looked up.
“It’s open,” he yelled. “Come in, Molly”
She stepped into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. “What did Adams want?” she asked.
“He wanted to talk to me about what I’ve been doing. Where’s your car?”
“Back down the street. I run out of gas. Did he threaten you?”
“No, Molly, he didn’t threaten me. But he told me something about that night that you hadn’t said anything about.”
“What?” asked Molly, seemingly mystified.
“That you were high.”
“I told you I was drunk.”
“But it wasn’t just alcohol, was it?”
Molly jerked her head back and looked puzzled. “He’s a damn liar,” she said. “I had too much to drink, but that was it. I didn’t take anything else.”
“You weren’t on a prescription drug, maybe a tranquilizer?”
“I wasn’t on it,” she said vehemently. I got a prescription for Valium right after Pat left, but I never even got it refilled. You can’t take that stuff before going to work. And you can’t take it with alcohol unless you want to kill yourself.”
“When you’re drunk, you don’t think well,” he said, watching her reactions intently. “Could you have taken it after you came home drunk?”
“I’d never get drunk enough to do that,” she said, clenching her jaw in anger. “That bastard Adams is saying that because he wants you to quit trying to help me. He’s afraid you’ll find out what happened when he couldn’t. He’s afraid people will find out how damned stupid he is!”
Richard didn’t think Adams had lied, but Molly’s reaction seemed genuine. The inescapable fact, however, was that they couldn’t both be telling the truth.
“He told me something else,” he said. “Something about drug use.”
Molly’s face turned white and she slumped back against the door. He waited for another explosion. “The meth,” she said dispiritedly. “Now you’re going to quit.”
“So it’s true?”
She pursed her lips and nodded mutely.
“There are programs,” he said. “You could go to detox and try to get yourself together. I’d still try to find out what happened to Mancie, Molly. But you can’t help me much as long as you’re on that stuff.”
“I’m not on it no more,” she said.
He didn’t believe her. “When did you quit?” he challenged.
“When you promised to help me get Mancie back.”
“Wait a minute. I never promised you that. I said I would try to help you find out what happened. That’s all.”
“You think she’s dead. She’s not! I’d know it if she was. Someone has her, and you’re gonna help me get her back. That’s why I quit.”
The unreasonableness of the responsibility she was trying to thrust on him irked, but was eclipsed by something even more troubling. He had no intention of getting entangled with a methhead. Yet, he found himself unable to simply wash his hands of her.
“Getting off meth isn’t that easy,” he said. “Tell me about quitting. Tell me exactly how you did that.”
“That night you took me back to my house I was running out, trying to make it last by cutting it down. I was trying to kill the want with gin and stuff, but … I think that I was caving then. I think I maybe was coming over here to get some more.”
“Where were you going?”
“Over here to see Jimmy and Ashley, but they wasn’t here no more. They lived here before you guys. It ain’t real clear. I was kind of out of it.”
“Wait—you mean this was a meth lab?”
She shrugged. “They’re all over the place, but Ashley is the only one I ever got it from. When they moved, I was too scared to try to find me another source. Alcohol don’t work too good.”
She looked up at him and sniffed. “I never took it before Mancie was gone. That stuff will kill you, but I just didn’t care anymore. Now I got a chance to get her back, and I ain’t gonna let it kill me because she’s going to need me.”
Richard heard the front door open.
“Richard?” called out Jill.
“In here,” he responded. “Molly and I are in the kitchen.”
“Hello, Molly,” said Jill, noticing the woman’s tears. “Is something wrong?”
“No, ma’am. I was just …” she stood up abruptly. “I was just going. I’ve got to … to do something.”
Jill stared after her until the door closed. “What’s going on, Richard?”
“Apparently this place was a meth lab. Molly used to buy drugs here.”
“Wonderful. Where does she buy them now?”
“She says she doesn’t.”
“Right!” said Jill in disgust.
She went to the back door and locked it. “Don’t you think it’s time to tell her to go away and leave you alone?”
“I can’t, Jill. Not now.”
“I see,” she said in annoyance.
“No you don’t. Sit down, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, opening her purse and taking out her keys again.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the college,” she said, turning to leave. “I have some work to do.”
“Wait a minute. When will you be back?”
“I’m not sure,” he heard her say from the living room.
He stood in the center of the kitchen listening as the door closed and the house became quiet. A few moments later he heard the car start. Then everything was quiet. He
was alone.
•••
September 10
A nearly sleepless night passed with replays and imaginings interspersed with anticipation of everything turning bad. He must have fallen asleep for a time between two and four because there was a gap in his memories of reading the glowing clock face. His body complained that he hadn’t slept at all. His gritty eyes, achy muscles, and sore throat suggested an incipient cold. To top it off, his ankle throbbed as he dressed, signaling a high-pain day. Nevertheless, he decided to ditch the crutches for the day.
Jill grimaced when he hobbled into the kitchen, but didn’t say anything. She was in her aggrieved, long-suffering mode.
“How do you want your eggs?” she asked.
“Cooked,” he replied.
Jill was in no mood for his attempted levity.
“Come on, Jill. I’ve been up most of the night worrying about this. I don’t want you mad at me.”
“I’m not angry with you,” she said, her back still to him as she tended the eggs. “I’m exasperated. You need to get away from that woman, and you need to forget about all this awfulness.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s not your job, Richard. Let the police handle it.”
“They aren’t even trying to find Mancie anymore. Adams thinks Molly herself might have done something to her.”
Jill turned around abruptly.
“Of course he does,” she said, raising her voice. “She’s a drug addict. Do you have any idea how disorganizing methamphetamine is to thought processes? There’s no telling what she might have done in a fit of rage.”
“She wasn’t on meth when Mancie disappeared.”
“How do you know that?” she asked angrily. “Because she told you? My God, Richard! You know you can’t believe anything that a drug addict tells you. You’re just getting yourself—haven’t you had enough tragedy in your own life? Haven’t we had enough?”
“I’m not getting that involved with her. I’m just trying to find out what happened to a little girl.”
“She comes over every day, Richard. If you were a policeman—which you are not, you wouldn’t allow that kind of behavior. You would have some objectivity. You would keep your distance. The job would be intellectual, not personal.”
“I’m not emotionally involved,” he objected.
“Of course you are,” she sighed. “How could you not be?”
It was too much for her.
“This is all going to end badly,” she said, angrily pushing the frying pan to the back of the stove. “And there’s not a damned thing I can do to make you stop.”
In the silence that followed, the sounds of traffic going by on the street could be heard.
“I would think that being a woman, you would understand how she must feel.”
“I do not. I know how a responsible woman would feel, but I do not know how a drug addict feels.”
“Neither do I, but I think I know a little of what she feels,” he said softly. “You’ve gone through a lot, Jill, but you’ve never had to face the guilt she has. Molly blames herself. She turned to meth because it gave her something to fill up the blackness for a while. She knew what she was doing at the time, and knew what it would do to her, but she just didn’t care anymore because, as far as she was concerned, her life was over.”
“Why must you insist on bringing that into our life?”
“Because she thinks Mancie is still alive, and she believes that I will get her back. However misplaced that is, I just don’t have it in me to tell her she’s wrong. I can’t take that hope away from her, no matter how small the chances are. I’ve got to try.”
“Because she’ll go back to drugs if you don’t?”
“Maybe.”
“She’s blackmailing you, Richard. This is typical passive-aggressive manipulation.”
“Molly’s doesn’t think like that,” he objected.
“No. It’s instinctive.”
“Well, whatever it is, I can’t quit yet. I’ve got to try.”
“I know,” she said as she divided the now overcooked eggs.
She dumped them into separate plates with crisply fried but cold bacon and brought them to the table. Richard put bread in the toaster. He poured Jill some coffee, and refilled his own cup. He set them on the table and went back to get the toast.
“How would you like to see a music show the day after tomorrow?” he asked as he sat.
“Music show?”
“Yeah. I want to go down to Eureka Springs to talk with Katie’s sister and her husband. They’re performers down there.”
Jill thought about the rent that was due in two weeks. “We can’t afford to go to a music show. You know that.”
“Come with me anyway. I’ve heard it’s an interesting little town. We’ll just sightsee. We don’t have to spend any money.”
She relented, not because they could afford the expense, but because she much preferred having Richard engaged in something positive than sunk into the sickening despondency she had found him in when she came back from burying her aunt.
Oh Richard, she thought. At best, you will confirm that poor woman’s worst fears. At worst, you’ll find out that she killed her own baby. What will that do to you?
•••
September 11
No direct route led from Springfield to Eureka Springs; it was a case of, as they like to in the hills, “You cain’t get there from here.”The best highway went through Branson (always congested), and on to Cassville before turning south. Cassville had been Mic Boyd’s hometown, and the scene of his first murder.
When they came to a café he recognized, he slowed and put on the blinker.
“Why are we stopping here?” Jill asked uneasily.
“Food’s reasonable and the service is good,” he replied.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. I never thought we’d be back here again.”
“Why are we?”
He shrugged. “Maybe because I need to face things. It’s only a place, Jill. It’s not him.”
There may or may not have been another way for it all to have ended. Such things change one’s world.
“What do you know about Eureka Springs?” she asked before they had settled at a booth, transparently eager to divert him.
“It’s got a music show,” he said, stating the only thing he knew.
“I looked it up on the net. It’s got quite a history,” she said.
He recognized her tone as what he called her “teacher’s enthusiasm.”
“It was a … I guess you would call it a ‘spa.’ They built a railroad from Kansas City to bring people to the healing waters. The old hotel where the rich and famous once stayed while taking the cure is still there.”
“People used to believe in all sorts of nonsense,” he said.
“Back when doctors and their medicines were as likely to kill as one’s disease, maybe soaking in warm springs and drinking mineral water wasn’t such an unhealthy alternative.”
“Holistic nonsense.”
“Once, holistic medicine was state of the art. The legendary Greek doctor, Asclepius prescribed fresh air, clean water, rest, and a balanced diet among peaceful surroundings.”
“Who? I thought Hippocrates was the guy who invented doctoring.”
“Asclepius lived long before Hippocrates, so long in fact that his name was used for the god of medicine. Hippocrates’ ideas come in part from him. In any case, you shouldn’t judge people from the past in light of what we know today.”
“So Eureka Springs was a kind of hillbilly Lourdes?”
She laughed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing,” she said. “No. You’re right. Lourdes is known for its healing waters, but the power of the waters is associated with Bernadette’s vision of the Virgin. Pilgrims have gone there ever since.”
“Same thing then, minus the religious stuff.”
“People have always seen curative powers in odd-tasting springs. The native Americans put great stock in ‘medicine waters.’”
“Yeah. I can see that. The more disgusting something smells and tastes the more likely that it’s good for you—my grandmother’s creed. I remember cod-liver oil, castor oil, mineral oil, and this creosote-like cough medicine that burned out your guts and took your breath away,” said Richard as their order arrived. “Wonder what the locals have been doing for a living since the bottom fell out of the healing waters market?”
“They cater to tourists.”
“Recycling the glory days, huh?”
“History is important, Richard. It’s good for people to know about the past. Too few do.”
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it?”
“If we don’t remember where we came from, then we do not know where we are.”
“Yeah. You know my favorite thing about history?”
She shook her head.
“It’s this history teacher I know. Man, I tell you, she’s some real eye candy.”
She gave him the look she always did when he pulled off one of his lowbrow bushwhackings. “You are a Neanderthal,” she said in mock irritation. “But I’m fond of you, so I may keep you around.”
“So the reason you married me is because you’re a closet anthropologist.”
“A closet paleohistorian actually.”
It was silliness and small talk, and almost the way they used to be. Jill remembered the way it was, and realized that she and Richard had never been carefree. From the start, things had loomed. There was no other way to put it. Richard had always seemed about to break, but he had persistence. A phrase from Henley’s “Invictus” came to mind: “bloodied but unbowed.”
He noticed her expression. “What are you thinking about?”
“You. Us.”
“Good stuff?”
“Always,” she said.
•••
The Arkansas highway wound across the Oachita Mountains, part of the Ozark Plateau’s eroded highlands. Real estate agents emphasized the value of hunting acreage and the abundance of landscaping sandstone to be had for the picking up. They were trying, with apparent success, to convince would-be buyers that a liability (thin rocky soil) was an asset.
