Lonnie went back to typing a report, about what I couldn’t imagine. Rolling stops and DUI were the county’s usual crimes. No wonder his interest was piqued by this case.
“Hey, Horne, slow down. You missed the turn.”
“Yeah, but we’re making great time.” Big smile. Oh, great, I thought, another comedian like Shiloh. “Don’t worry. I know where I’m going. You might want to pay attention. It’s a shortcut worth remembering.”
That plus light traffic meant we made it to Charlotte in under two hours. Just as well. We didn’t have much to say to one another once we’d exhausted the “what ifs” surrounding the case. I was grateful for the quiet.
When we pulled into the Potash 3K Inc. parking lot, the Charlotte police were already there. Out of professional courtesy, Horne had called ahead to a buddy on the force he’d met when they were going through law-enforcement training.
The company owner, Bud Maguire, greeted Horne friendly enough. He was a typical looking guy in those parts: just shy of six feet tall, thinning hair, sizeable gut hanging over his belt. I tried not to think in stereotypes, but there was a reason something was stereotypical—it happened a lot. Horne introduced me, and Maguire looked at me as if to say, “What are you doing here?” but that happened a lot, too. I held his stare, and he finally looked away.
After Horne explained more about the situation, Maguire picked up the phone and mumbled into it. Soon there was a knock on the door.
“You wanted to see me, Mr. Maguire?” A tall, skinny kid who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old stuck his head in. He looked around the room and saw the sheriff standing near the door. The color drained from his face. “What’s this about?”
“I’m the one asking questions, son,” Horne said. After we all got seated and settled, Horne formally confirmed that he was talking with David Dibble, the truck driver. Then he bore down hard. Dibble twitched and squirmed, running his fingers through black hair too short to ruffle. At one point, I thought I saw tears well up in his eyes, and I couldn’t blame him. The interview wasn’t going well, and Horne’s voice in that small office was about to make me cry.
Maguire had already confirmed that Dibble had been in our area on the day Lilah left home, but Horne asked Dibble anyway.
“Yes sir, that’s my route.”
“Did you pick this woman up?” Horne held up the photo that had been printed in the Mountain Weekly, and likely other papers as well. I’d seen her only that one time in her bedroom window, but that image was burned into my brain. Lank blond hair surrounding a round face (like Astrid’s) with dead eyes.
“I was at the truck stop along 221, just getting ready to pull out when I saw the woman you’re asking about. She waved at me, like she was in trouble, and I rolled down my window a little. It was raining hard, and she asked me if I was going anywhere near Chester—she’d missed her bus and had an important doctor’s appointment downtown. I felt sorry for her, so I told her to hop in.”
“Where did you drop her in Chester?”
“Well, it’s kinda hard to describe.” He paused for a moment and seemed to struggle to find the right words. “We were on 221, and you know how the highway bypasses the town? She told me to pull over—she’d make her way from there. I was just as glad. Cities like that don’t want trucks barreling through town, so I did what she asked.”
“Can you narrow the place down for us? Where exactly did you stop to let her out?”
“I honestly don’t know. I was having to pay close attention to the road—it was still raining hard.” He paused again and closed his eyes; after a few moments, he added, “I recall pulling up at this place that had a shelter—I don’t know, maybe a city bus shelter or something like that. That’s where I let her out.”
“What time would this have been?” When the kid hesitated, Horne spat, “Approximately.”
“I guess it was around noon. I’d pulled over at the truck stop for coffee about ten o’clock, took a fifteen, twenty minute break, and was back on the road with her by half past ten.”
“Man, there are so many things wrong with that story,” Horne barked. “I used to live in Chester, and they don’t have city buses. You couldn’t have stopped at a bus shelter.”
“Hey, I didn’t say that was definite. Just something like that.” He paused, then nervously looked over at his boss. “Listen, Mr. Maguire. I’m sorry about breaking the company rules and all, but if you’d seen this woman, getting wet in the rain and begging for help …” Maguire waved him off. He had bigger worries.
“What did you two talk about?”
“I just told you she was the quiet type. She did say it felt good to be out of that ‘godforsaken holler.’ And I’m beginning to see why.”
“Just leave out the editorializing. Not doing you a lick of good,” Horne said. “Why didn’t you come forward? You could have saved us valuable time. If someone hadn’t reported your vehicle and company name, we’d never have known.”
“I didn’t know anything had happened to her. I live down here, and I haven’t got the time to read newspapers or watch TV, if the story even made it on our news.”
“We need to search his truck,” Horne said to the owner. Maguire and the kid exchanged glances. “I can get a warrant, but that will take time,” Horne went on. “Time you don’t want to lose, either.” Maguire nodded.
Horne must have arranged for his buddy to guard the truck, because the same Charlotte police officer was standing next to a Potash 3K truck in an area where several others were parked.
They both gloved up and went over the truck. I watched them work, and after a while, Horne stuck his head out and held up a striped scarf before putting it in an evidence bag. He later told me it was wedged between the passenger seat and the door. Even from a distance I could see a brownish red stain smeared across it. He bagged it and kept looking. Later, his sidekick found a button—one of those barrel-shaped buttons popular on barn coats.
When we got back to Maguire’s office, I swear that kid had sweated off a pound or two. Horne held up the bag with the bloody scarf in it. “Son, can you explain this?”
Maguire answered for him. “That scarf don’t mean shit. It looks like more rust than blood. If what you told me stands, that woman was running away, likely through a bunch of fields. She’d probably cut herself on barbed wire and staunched the flow with the only thing she had handy.”
“We could sit here and make up what-ifs till the sun goes down, but your driver here is the last one to see her alive. And now this,” he said, holding up the scarf bag again. “I don’t have any choice but to hold you in our county jail.” He cleared his throat and gave the Miranda Warning.
“Are you arresting me?” Dibble asked, his voice cracking.
“No, son, just holding you as a suspect. I’ve got 72 hours before I either press charges or let you go. In the meantime, I plan to get at the truth.”
I wasn’t sure where that “son” business started, but Horne was piling it on. It reminded me of a mean old father, before belting his kid, saying, “Now, son, this is going to hurt me more than you.” Yeah, right.
As we left, Dibble’s hands cuffed behind his back, Maguire assured him he’d get the company attorney on this and explain to his mother that he was just giving evidence. “We’ll see you back here in no time.”
That depended on how you defined “no time.”
Horne spent close to an hour in Charlotte traffic trying to find the crime lab. En route, I got a good look at the barrel-shaped button through the evidence bag. I’d had a similar coat when I was a kid, and it brought back memories of how some creepy man tried to get me in his car, telling me he wanted to take a closer look at those “pretty buttons.” I ran home, but images of those buttons stuck in my mind—and I’d never bought anything sporting them.
When Horne finally found the lab, he parked and ran in, leaving me in charge of Dibble in the backseat behind the metal grid. Horne didn’t think the kid was dangerous, and I
knew he wasn’t. The only thing he was guilty of was being kind enough to offer a ride to someone in need. Neither one of us said a word while we waited.
On our way home, we got bogged down in heavy rush hour traffic, reminding me how glad I was I rarely had to deal with that anymore. Dibble kept making nervous little mewlings and mumblings. It was a long ride back.
Once we pulled into the sheriff’s parking area, I rushed to my car and drove home in record time. I couldn’t recall when I’d been so glad to see my little apartment above the store. I let Jake out for a run, picked at a few leftovers, and crashed.
The next morning, Horne called to let me know Dibble was still locked up—as though that made the world a safer place. I could tell by the way he talked that even he knew he hadn’t found a vicious killer. But there was no one else to blame, and he wanted to show some fast results. Trouble was, that scrawny kid and the whole scene just didn’t add up to homicide—yet, anyway.
“The real reason I’m calling,” Horne went on, “is I drove over to the Holt’s and sat on the porch while Mr. Milquetoast (his nickname for Enoch—just because he didn’t swagger and act tough) searched the house for his wife’s medical records. He found some information stashed in a file in her bedside table, tucked under a bunch of things no one would look under—nail clippers, nail file, book marks, stuff like that.”
Horne said Enoch seemed surprised by all the brochures and articles Lilah had collected about bipolar disorder. She’d also made a list of the best medications and circled a couple in red. Enoch recalled a spell when she’d acted more like her old self, but that disappeared about three months ago. He also found a small personal calendar with the doctor’s appointment scheduled for the day she went missing (still no doctor’s name). I thought it was odd that calendar didn’t include the July doctor’s appointments like the one she kept in the kitchen.
“Maybe she stopped taking her pills,” I told Horne. I mentioned that I’d had a friend in D.C. who was bipolar. He was one of the most charming, entertaining guys I knew. Until he’d stopped taking his medicine. One day I was driving up Connecticut Avenue, and I saw him ambling up the middle of the road, disheveled and lost in a dirty trench coat. I gave him a ride home, but I don’t believe he ever realized who I was. It took him months to get back to the person I knew—and that I knew he wanted to be. I hoped Lilah, if she were still alive, had a good supply of her meds with her.
15
Abit
We played a gig Friday night in Burnsville, and Fiona sang so sweet, I figured she had to be okay with what we’d talked about a few nights ago. (I hadn’t seen her since then. She’d been busy at work—at least that’s what she said.) Her fan club was growing, her singing and fiddling warming people’s hearts. Not to mention how pretty she was, her red hair pulled back with combs and a red checkered shirt I hadn’t seen before. I was so busy admiring her I almost missed my cue when we were playing “Are You Missing Me.”
I joined her on vocals and kept up my part on the bass. Truth be known, I had a bit of a fan club myself. And Millie had turned into a regular mascot for the band. Everyone loved that dog; she was real quiet and never howled or messed around while we played.
We finished up the program with “Little Cabin Home on the Hill,” and the crowd let us know they’d enjoyed the evening by clapping and demanding an encore. “Midnight Flyer” was always good for that. Months later, I pondered our music choices that night. I couldn’t help but wonder if them songs had been a sign.
We packed up, and the rest of the band rode home with Ed Neblett, our guitar player, while I gave Fiona a ride to her car parked at my woodshop. As we headed back, I tried chatting about the gig, but Fiona wasn’t having it. We rode in silence long enough to make me squirm. Finally, she said, “Rabbit, not having kids would be like cutting off a limb. A part of me would be missing.”
I let that sit out there a while, trying to think of the right way to shape my answer. A few minutes later, I said, “I just can’t do it, Fiona. I don’t want any kid to go through what I’ve been through. Not a chance.”
“But you’ve shown them. You’re handsome and smart and good at what you do. And you wouldn’t have gone to the Hicks. Or met me.”
I pulled the car into a wide spot next to the road; I didn’t want to be driving and discussing my future at the same time. I could tell she’d been working on this problem, and she was right—my life was in a good place, especially with Fiona in it. But I wouldn’t—couldn’t—budge on the kid thing. “That’s like saying someone couldn’t be in the Special Olympics if he hadn’t gone to the Gulf War and had his leg blown off.”
Something changed real bad inside the Merc, and I knew I’d gone too far. “Okay, wait. I know that was a lousy comparison,” I said, pleading-like. “I wouldn’t take anything for meeting you—but I’d like to think we’d’ve met anyway. Somehow. Not because I’d been tormented and shamed for most of my life and screwed by a bunch of con artists.”
“I thought you said you were over all that shite,” she said.
“I am. The same way you’re over your mother’s death. It no longer ruins every day, but it’s still with me.”
“You could be part of our wee‘uns’ lives. You’re working for yourself, so you could be there as they grow up. Shape their lives. And maybe your parents could help out, from time to time.”
“NO!” I shouted, scaring both Millie and Fiona. “I’m not having them involved in any child rearing, even if I did ever plan to have any. Not that I do.”
I pulled back on the road, and I thought we’d never get back to the shop. The silence hung so heavy I had trouble breathing; I pushed down harder on the accelerator. After what felt like a thousand mile, I said, “We could adopt.”
“Not part of my plan, V.J.,” was all she said. I pressed her on it, but she didn’t say another word. When we pulled up at her car outside the woodshop, she jumped out, leaned back in to say she’d think about it, then slammed the Merc’s door. Hard.
I decided to sleep on the cot in my woodshop with Millie in her bed by my side. I didn’t trust myself to drive home to the cabin. It felt like every bone in my body was broke. And while I was lying there, unable to sleep, I realized she hadn’t called me Rabbit.
A few nights later, I started awake and threw the covers off. I’d been dreaming about being buried alive. I felt better after some deep breaths of fresh air, realizing it was just a bad dream—until real life came to mind. Fiona. Gone. No wonder I dreamed that, because that was how my life felt. Covered in shit.
We’d had a date Saturday evening, but she’d stood me up. Years ago, Fiona’d told me I’d knocked the talk out of her, but I guessed she’d found her voice again. She didn’t show at our last gig, either. I could tell the fans missed her—and not just her voice and fiddle playing. Like me, they missed her.
I lay there forever, trying to get back to sleep. Finally I gave up. The sun hadn’t even come up yet, but I got dressed and gave Millie a walk round the lake. Then we drove to the shop, but I couldn’t face another hoosier or sideboard or table. I sat in the Merc ‘til I saw Della’s light go on in the store; I knew she was brewing some good coffee. It was well before opening time, so I had to knock on the front door. She came out from the back, scowling at whatever fool was trying to get in early. When she saw it was me, she smiled real big, which boosted my spirits. A little.
“Howdy, Mister. What brings you out so early? Need to get out an order?”
“Yes and no. I do have orders to get out, but mostly I couldn’t sleep. Fiona’s gone.”
“Oh, where’d she go? To Galax to see her aunt?”
“No, gone. As in left me.” I hadn’t been able to talk to even Della about it.
Della looked so sad my heart ached all the more. She poured us both some coffee, and I started to explain about the kids. “I could love it, especially the parts that reminded me of Fiona. But not Daddy. What if that young’un looked like him and made me think of him every d
ay? And what if our kid took after me? All them hateful things at school—the taunts and teases piling up ‘til they squash the hope right out of you.”
“I didn’t know you’d ever lost hope, Abit.”
“I had ‘til you moved here.”
“Oh, I see.”
“You sound like Mama.”
“She taught me.”
“Oh, I see.” I said, smiling a little for the first time in days.
We got down to some serious talk for a while, and like always, I felt better afterwards. At least enough to go to work. But I sulked through most of the day until even Shiloh got annoyed. I told him the news, and he said he was sorry. Then he tried to cheer me up with one of his stupid jokes.
“What’s the difference between a porcupine and a Porsche?” he asked. I shrugged. “The porcupine has the pricks on the outside.”
I just turned the sander up a notch. (I’d later come to see that so-called joke as another weird coincidence.)
“Okay, be that way,” he shouted over the noise. “You know, you’re not doing either of us a favor moping about.” He went on for a while and gave up. Like I’d already done.
16
Della
Monday morning, Horne called early to let me know the crime lab results. The reddish streaks on the scarf were rust mixed with Lilah’s blood type (O negative, something he’d learned from the files Enoch found). Bud Maguire’s idea that she’d cut her hand on a barbed wire fence while traipsing across fields became the most likely scenario. There was more of that wicked stuff stretched across the county than at Sing Sing and San Quentin combined. That plus a lack of motive, and Horne surely knew he needed to let that poor mope out of jail.
Instead, he worked overtime to turn common sense into a conspiracy theory. The attorney for the potash company called later on Monday, complaining in rather unlawyerly language that Horne had “piss poor” evidence. But Horne still clung to the fact that Dibble was the last person to see her alive.
Welcome the Little Children Page 6
