Welcome the Little Children
Page 5
“Maybe Holt found the new suitcase, and they fought,” Horne said. “He could’ve accidentally killed her, covering it all up by burying the body and suitcase. Maybe in the suitcase.”
“As I was trying to tell you,” Abit said, his voice sharp with irritation for being interrupted (or more like dismissed). “Astrid said the new suitcase was really small. She thought it was for her, maybe, or for her doll clothes.” I smiled thinking about that little bruiser playing with dolls, but hey, why not? “If it was that small,” he went on, “I can’t see her daddy stuffing a body in it.”
Abit shared the rest of his talk with Astrid. Again, Horne took the darkest view of everything. Like Tiptoe Days. That was something I was familiar with, and I knew they didn’t lead to murder. But when Abit mentioned that Lilah wielded a knife at Enoch on several occasions, Enoch had had a girlfriend, and Astrid’s parents argued violently the night Lilah went missing, I began to worry Horne might be right.
“We need to go back out there again,” Horne said. “No telling what took place that night—or might be going on right now.”
11
Abit
The next day, I saw Della go off with Airhorn, and for oncet I didn’t feel even a twinge of envy. I was too busy with my own troubles.
I was glad I’d been able to help out, talking with Astrid and all. And I’d been true to her words when I recounted our conversation. I did leave out the part about how she was ready to leave it all behind. That seemed too personal, of a moment. As I saw it, who wouldn’t want to leave after what she’d been living through? Besides, it didn’t have anything to do with her missing mama.
My troubles started when Fiona and I were on our way to a concert the night before. Our band was just the warmup act, but the main act, Josh Hill and the Highlanders, was one of the best bluegrass bands in the state. We were getting noticed.
I’d had to take out the backseat so I could fit Bessie in the Merc—the neck safely resting on the console between the two front seats. Then Millie hopped in and made a nest of the old blankets I’d put back there. So far so good. Then while I was driving, I told Fiona about Astrid and little Dee. “Oh, those poor wee‘uns,” she said, looking like something had happened to one of her own. I just nodded, not understanding where things would end up.
That evening, we sounded real good, and folks came up after and told me and Fiona that we played and sang like a perfect couple. We both smiled. I flashed on the good times we were enjoying together, and I reckoned Fiona was doing the same.
Later, I drove her back to the woodshop, where she’d left her car. As we rode along, I felt so happy, reliving our music and fun evening. When we pulled up, we sat in the Merc, under the security light shining over the family house and Della’s store; it felt like we were on a stage, everything bigger than life.
I wished we were going on to my cabin, but Fiona said she couldn’t. She had to be at work at six o’clock the next morning; she was assisting some doctor with a new procedure and wanted to be fresh. I could tell how excited she was to get to work with that doctor—her face kinda lit up—and I wanted to support her, so I didn’t do any of my usual begging and teasing about staying over.
We were both reluctant to call it an evening, so we just sat there, quiet-like, holding hands. After a while, Fiona asked, “When should we get married?”
“Cows ass?”
“Why are you saying ‘cows ass’?”
Well, so much for Shiloh’s joke. I kept talking, acting like I hadn’t just said something that stupid. “If it were up to me, we’d run off to Gatlinburg right now and say ‘I do.’” And I was only kinda kidding. I’d’ve given anything if I’d left it at that. But like a damn fool, I went on. “What’s your hurry?”
“Honestly? I can’t wait to have kids. Talking about those wee’uns, the ones who lost their mam, I want to bring up ours with all the love you and I wished we’d both had.”
A stabbing pain cut through my chest. I couldn’t speak.
“Rabbit? Say something.”
I still couldn’t say anything, even though I knew every second I didn’t answer was gonna hurt both of us. “We never talked about kids before,” was all I could muster.
“I guess we haven’t, but I assumed …”
“I don’t want any kids,” I blurted out, kinda loud. Fiona’s face went all white; she looked like I’d struck her. “I can’t bring someone into this world with my, my, uh, traits.” I was flashing on all the bullying and shaming and contempt I’d faced. You had to be a madman to want to inflict that on a little kid.
“Are you mad, Rabbit? You’re wonderful. There’s nothing wrong with you. I’d bring one hundred children like you into the world.”
That image was so sad, I started talking faster, as if my words could outrun my sorrows. “I love you for saying that, Fiona, but you don’t know what it’s been like.”
“We could help our kids, and if they turned out half as good as you, I’d be happy.”
I figured that was a good note to quit on. I kissed her goodnight and hugged her a little harder than usual.
12
Abit
Damnedest thing. Otis Cale, who didn’t live that far from the Holt’s as the crow flies, called the sheriff to say his dog came home dragging a woman’s sweater and took it to his bed. Otis didn’t think much of it till later that day when the dog came home with a brassiere in his mouth.
Airhorn put out a call to law enforcement within a circle round Laurel Falls, and his deputy organized a sweep for Tuesday, using the extra cops and volunteers. All the whitewater and rock-climbing rescue groups showed up, too, along with the curious and the kind.
They formed five groups, with each taking one of the four directions out from Otis’s house and the othern round Enoch’s house. Even Shiloh joined us. The only thing his group found was stuff like soda cans and the usual garbage. They did bring back a wallet, but it looked like it’d been out there a long time; an old receipt in it from 1969 bore that out. That was long before Astrid’s parents even lived there.
One of the groups found some rusted barrel hoops, broken bottles, and a moonshine still. It was melting into the ground after so many years, but they said you could still see where the revenuers took an ax to it. And Jonny Porter stepped in a hornets’ nest in the ground; he was saved from a world of hurt by his baggy overalls.
Ida Carithers nearly tripped over a purse. Everyone got real excited when they discovered Lilah Holt’s old library card inside, along with a hanky and red lipstick. Come to find out, that place was an old hiding spot of Astrid’s. Just a bunch of whatnot her mama had given her to play with. Later, Astrid told us she’d forgotten all about it since that was back when she was a “child.”
The group heading north from Otis Cale’s had the roughest time. They faced a steep cliff overlooking a good-sized creek (especially after our rainy spring) that nobody much wanted to deal with. It needed someone really fit, and Bill Davis, Billie Davis’s husband, volunteered. He managed to scale down to where he found an old suitcase (the same one Otis’s dog had discovered) in a tangled, forgotten spot, like someone stuck it there to hide it. Up on top of the cliff, just off to the left, the rest of his group found a place where some tree branches were broke and the ground looked scraped, all the way down to the water’s edge. Since the rains had eased and we hadn’t had any in more than a week, the damage still looked fresh, something that could have happened the night Mrs. Holt was out all alone.
Stories went wild, especially after Horne confirmed the suitcase had belonged to Astrid’s mama. People round here had imaginations darker than Hollywood, and oncet you got them all together, they cooked up some downright scary notions: She was killed and pushed down the cliff, then floated away… She was running scared and slipped and hit her head as she fell… Some pervert killed and buried her.
But no one really knew.
And, of course, people were calling Sheriff Horne, sure they’d spotted her. But Della s
aid Airhorn was familiar with the power of suggestion—or the itch to be in the news—and discounted most of them. He told Della he was beginning to believe Astrid’s mama had been hurt by someone who likely pushed her down into the creek. He talked on about it having a good current, and how her body could have washed up anywhere as the creek made its way to the river, then on to the ocean. The misery of all that gave me the shivers.
I could see from my woodshop that the store got real busy over the next week, like the summer of ’85. Lots of people showed up, mostly to congregate and swap stories about what was going on. Better than dwelling on their own lives.
13
Della
“Horne’s still calling Enoch a person of interest, but I think he’s just stumped.”
I was filling in Cleva and Alex on the news from the past week. Alex had flown into Asheville from L.A., picked up his car at the airport, and driven to Laurel Falls. Together we made chicken korma with a vegetable biryani for the three of us. He brought Kingfisher beer from Asheville, and I contributed mango sorbet from the freezer at the store.
We talked about how, after the first flurry of the investigation, things had come to a standstill. Horne wanted to pin it on Enoch, but the facts didn’t line up. “Horne keeps saying that Astrid’s mother was depressed, and Enoch snapped,” I said. “But that doesn’t cut it for me. If being depressed leads to getting murdered, I’d be six feet under now. I don’t need to tell either of you that I’d had some trouble getting oriented to this place.”
“Honey, just because you’re born here don’t mean it comes easy,” Cleva said. “Sometimes I get the blues, too. Or I get so mad, I just want to pinch someone’s head off. I reckon it’s like that the world over. Get two people in a room, anywhere, and the likelihood of a head-pinching doubles.”
After dinner, Alex poured three glasses of iced coffee he’d brewed earlier and added his two cents. “That sheriff needs to cut the father some slack. Enoch sounds as though he’s better with the kids than that mother ever was, not exactly a hothead ready to snap. He’s the one who tried to find work and serve as both parents to his kids.” Alex’s voice grew louder as he stuck up for not just Enoch, but every man who worked at being kind to his family. He was a convert to that group, and as the saying goes, there’s nothing like a convert’s zeal. He sipped his coffee before going on. “Over the years, I’ve known lots of people like them—idealistic, aka stupid transplants from big cities. They quickly found it’s not easy living here, though Della has managed rather nicely.” He clinked my glass and then looked at Cleva. “Not that I don’t enjoy your homeland, Cleva. It’s wonderful to come for a visit.” They clinked glasses.
“And why is Horne horning in on your time, Della?” Alex added, trying to make it sound like a casual quip, but I knew him too well. “You’re not law enforcement or even a reporter anymore. I think he’s got his eye on you.”
I waved off his comment. “Oh, he just needs some help, and he is a galoot—not too smooth with kids or women. I suppose I help that way.” My turn to sip coffee and pull my thoughts together. “I’ve spent a good amount of time with that family, and I can’t shake the feeling they aren’t particularly upset Lilah’s gone. Their lives are chaotic because of everything going on, but there doesn’t seem to be much sadness beyond that. Kids are wired to love or at least count on their parents—their survival rests on that. We’ve all heard disturbing studies about abused kids going back to hug their oppressors. But the last time I saw the three of them, they seemed more like a family without Lilah. Oh, and that reminds me. Horne drove out to question Maddie Kramer, the woman Enoch was seeing on the side. She told him they only got together occasionally and had broken it off recently. He said she seemed credible.”
I’d spent time over the past week reading Lilah’s diary, and Horne’s description—bizarro—was spot on. I shared with Alex and Cleva how she seemed to write whatever came to mind, things that sounded more like Stephen King than a troubled mother. Watching critters come up the bathroom drains. Imagining she was stabbing everyone she knew. Chattering over and over about the stupidest things.
Meanwhile, Horne had also discovered a few things from public records. They’d paid cash for the land and the cabin kit from Rocky Top Cabins, something that supported the assumption that one of them had money.
“Whoo!” Cleva interrupted. “Land prices sure have skyrocketed. It’s to the point now where families are building small villages on the farms their great-grandparents carved out of the wilderness. Grown children are just flat out unable to afford land of their own these days.”
I knew that was true for Abit. I was glad he’d moved away from his folks and found that rental cabin on the lake, but if he ever wanted to own his own place, I didn’t know what he’d do. I did know he’d never live on his parents’ land. The woodshop was one thing. Living there? No way.
“When Horne tried to trace deeper into their story, he hit a dead end,” I went on. “Their Social Security records didn’t go back that far, just twenty years or so. Of course, not everyone gets a Social Security number at a young age. Again, that speaks of money—no jobs after school or during the summers. Enoch told Horne he hadn’t gone to college and claimed he couldn’t remember his high school. Given his age, I bet he went through an extended doper phase. Same with Lilah. Horne reluctantly admitted he didn’t have anything to charge Enoch with except some marijuana they found during the search. I couldn’t believe it when he said he wouldn’t bother—Enoch and the kids had enough to worry about without that. Brower would have threatened the electric chair.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Cleva said, polishing off her mango sorbet. I’d noticed Cleva’s speech returning to her roots more since she’d retired from the school system.
Alex got up and started to clear the table. The kitchen and living room were one big room, up above the store and overlooking the mountains, where streaks of pink and gold danced behind their majestic peaks, closing out the longest day of the year. “Della told me they ran you off, Cleva, while you were giving away extra food from the Rolling Store,” Alex said. “So much for gratitude.”
“It was that wife, the mother of them two kids,” Cleva said, using her spoon for emphasis. “She came running out one day with a big wooden spoon in her hand, held up high above her head. ‘You get off our land and quit pumping these kids for information about us.’ I didn’t know what to make of that. I’d only said howdy to that little girl; I handed her a can of beans and hightailed it back to the bus. That woman scared the shit outta me, even if it was just a wooden spoon.”
The phone rang. Everything was close in the small apartment, and I caught it on the third ring. When I hung up, I told them, “The sheriff has a new lead. He wants to run it by me tomorrow afternoon.”
Alex smirked, but I just laughed at him.
14
Della
Alex left the next morning, heading home to finish his pretrial stories on the Simpson/Goldman murders. After Mary Lou showed up, I drove to the sheriff’s office, where Horne filled me in on the latest developments while he packed a briefcase.
“When I picked up the phone, a woman blurted out, ‘I saw someone who might be your gal.’ The caller, who wouldn’t give her name, went on to say she saw ‘the gal’ climb into a Potash 3K truck out at the big truck stop on Highway 221. She said she didn’t know what the hell potash was, so it’d caught her eye. Doesn’t sound all that reliable to me, but I need to check it out.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know what potash is either,” I confessed.
“Well, er, I’ve heard of it. It’s …”
“Fertilize.” That was Lonnie Parker. He’d been deputy ever since I’d moved to Laurel Falls—and for years before that. When Sheriff Cunningham had a heart attack in 1984, Lonnie expected to be promoted, since candidates for sheriff didn’t have to run for office when a vacancy opened due to illness or death. He thought he’d slip right into the sheriff
position after serving as deputy for so long. But the powers that be chose Brower, whose father wielded considerable influence in the county. Brower served almost a decade before getting voted out in favor of Horne. “Or technically, nutrient forms of the element potassium—K, hence the initial in the company name,” Lonnie added.
Horne scowled. “Oh yeah, it’s the stuff that makes up fertilizer.”
“There’s an echo in here.”
That was likely the boldest thing I’d ever heard Lonnie say. I worried the chip on his shoulder was getting so big it was about to fall off and explode. If he kept it up, he wasn’t long for that job, with dim prospects for what else he could do in the county.
“Okay, but what does the 3 have to do with it?” I asked. “Some kind of chemical significance?”
“I doubt it ma’am. Work it out for yourself,” Lonnie said.
It took me a minute. “Oh, come on. KKK? In 1994? Surely not.”
Lonnie and Horne looked at me as though I’d just fallen off a potash truck. Horne went on. “I called the company—it’s based in Charlotte—so I need to run down there and talk with the owner. He said he’d make sure the driver—David Dibble—would be around. He also promised to keep quiet about this until we had a chance to get there.”
“We?” Lonnie asked.
“Yeah, I was hoping Ms. Kincaid would come along, this being a woman’s issue and all.”
Horne’s explanation was so flimsy, I had to work at not laughing. I felt bad for Lonnie and made an apologetic face at him. He’d helped me out on several occasions, and I wanted to stay friends. Not to mention his mother was the best baker in the county. Lonnie liberally shared her goods—with people he liked (which meant Horne would never get to sample the pillowy texture and silky icing of her legendary cinnamon rolls.)