The Girl In The Woods

by David Jack Bell

  * * *

  John Bolton lived on Ohio Avenue in what had once been one of New Cambridge's most prominent neighborhoods. Back in the days of the town's founding, Ohio Avenue housed New Cambridge's wealthiest citizens, the mayors and the town councilmen, the business owners and bankers, the educators who put their mark on generations of young people. Some of the houses there retained their grandeur, including the Boltons', and Diana felt out of place parking in front of the three-story Victorian in her dinged-up Honda. But many of the other houses had lost their luster. Most had been purchased by real estate developers who then subdivided the homes into multiple apartments for the Fields' student population to rent. The house next door to the Boltons', another Victorian that clearly had once matched its neighbor in terms of stature and elegance, now had a tattered couch on the porch and beer bottles strewn across the uncut lawn. Diana had to admit she wouldn't have felt at home there either.

  She climbed the steps to the front porch and rang the bell. She wasn't sure how this was going to go and wished she still had a police uniform to hide behind rather than the jeans and turtleneck she was wearing. She was trying to check her make-up in the door glass when it swung open, revealing a face not much younger than her own, the face of a female college student.

  "Yes?" the woman said.

  "I'm looking for Mr. John Bolton. Is he home?"

  The woman paused, glanced toward the back into the house, then turned to Diana. "Um...who's asking?"

  She had brown, shoulder-length hair, and while she waited for Diana to respond, she worked on a piece of gum that looked to be too big for her mouth. She wore sweat pants, a faded T-shirt and flip-flops, and since she was dwarfed by the impressive size of the house, Diana thought she looked even younger than she probably was.

  "Are you Mr. Bolton's daughter?" Diana said.

  "No, I work here." She popped the gum. "Who are you again?"

  "My name's Diana Greene. I work for...I used to work for the police department, and I wanted to talk to Mr. Bolton about something. Is he in?"

  The young woman again looked behind her before speaking to Diana. "He's in, but he's not doing well today."

  "Is he sick?"

  "No, he's upset. He gets this way sometimes. You should probably come back another day, when he's doing better."

  Diana was about to leave when she heard a voice coming from behind the woman, a male voice, but she couldn't make out what it was saying.

  "It's the police," the woman yelled back, and before Diana could correct her, she was stepping aside, swinging the door open for Diana and inviting her in. "Come on in," she said, shrugging. "He might be feeling a little better." Diana stepped into a high-ceilinged foyer and followed the woman down a long hallway toward the back of the house. "He's been listening to the news all morning," the woman said. "I think this kidnapping thing has him all freaked out."

  They stopped walking. Diana could see a large, sunlit kitchen at the end of the hall.

  "Why is he so bothered by it?"

  The woman shrugged. "He likes helping Fields' students. He gives them jobs and things."

  "Did he know the Foley girl?"

  "I don't think so," she said.

  "Do you know her?"

  "I know of her," she said. "She's a freshman. I'm a sophomore. We traveled in different circles, I guess." She shrugged again. "What year are you?"

  "Zero," Diana said.

  The young woman nodded. "Cool." She went ahead of Diana into the kitchen. "John? This is...I'm sorry, what's your name again?"

  "Diana Greene." She held out her hand and the man at the kitchen table lifted his hand with what appeared to be a great deal of effort. His grip was weak and brief, like sand dribbling through her fingers.

  "John Bolton," he said. "Jill...would you..."

  "Do you want something to eat or drink?" she said.

  The kitchen smelled of coffee and burnt toast, the radio on the table played. Diana shook her head.

  "I'm fine," she said. "Thanks."

  "You're from the police?" he said.

  "Not really," Diana said. "I used to work for the police. I'm here on a private matter now. About one of your former employees."

  Bolton nodded. He held out his hand toward an empty chair, inviting Diana to sit. She did but didn't speak. It took a moment for him to get the message, but then he looked up.

  "Jill?" he said. "You can...we'd like..."

  Jill rolled her eyes a little. "I have some homework to do."

  When she was gone, Diana said, "Anything new on the radio?"

  Even in the bright sunlight that poured through the windows of the kitchen, John Bolton looked tired and drawn. He had dark circles under his eyes, and the thinning wisps of his hair went in several different directions across the top of his bald head. His shoulders were slumped, the tie of his bathrobe loose, revealing a stained white T-shirt.

  "Nothing," he said.

  "Jill said you didn't know the Foley girl. Do you know her family?"

  He was slow to respond. "I care about Fields," he said. "I'm an alum, the fifth generation to go to school there. If something happens to someone there, it's like it happened to a member of my family."

  "So you must have been pretty devastated when Margaret Todd disappeared?" Diana said. "Not only did she go to Fields, but she worked for you."

  Bolton didn't respond. The weather report switched over to sports, and Diana wondered if it were possible that Bolton hadn't heard.

  "Mr. Bolton?"

  "So," he said finally. "It's beginning again."

  "What's beginning again?"

  "You're not from New Cambridge are you, Officer Greene?"

  "Ms. Greene. And no, I'm not."

  He nodded as though Diana had confirmed some important truth. "New Cambridge is a...unique community with a lengthy history. I guess you could say we have our own way of looking at the world here, our own sense of how things should be done. But that's changed over the years, I suppose. Time marches on, and the old ways change."

  "How did Margie Todd come to work for you?" Diana said.

  "Hm? Oh, that." He shook his head. "My wife went through an agency that employed girls from the college."

  "Does your wife remember her?"

  He smiled wanly. "My wife died ten years ago. Pulmonary embolism, right here on this kitchen floor. I found her in the afternoon. She was already cold."

  "I'm sorry."

  "All of my family is gone. My wife is dead. My children have moved away. I think of moving away, too, but there's something about New Cambridge that keeps me here. It makes sense to me somehow. I know my place here, and my family's place. I wouldn't have that somewhere else."

  "Did you notice any problems with Margie Todd? Anything she let on about her personal life?"

  The radio announcer paused. Bolton held up a finger, asking for silence until a commercial for a car dealership came on.

  "I wish they'd tell us something new." He turned the volume down a little. "Margie Todd's problem was that she couldn't dust the picture frames properly. That's why she was let go from this job."

  "So she wasn't working for you the day she disappeared?"

  "Yes and no. That was her last day. My wife fired her during the day, and that night she disappeared. I have an alibi."

  "I didn't ask you for one."

  "But I'm offering. My daughter, Clarissa, she must have been about four years old at the time. She fell down our basement stairs and cut her head. We spent most of the evening in the emergency room. I'm sure the hospital has—" He leaned forward quickly and reached for the radio dial. "Shhhhh."

  The news announcer came on and started summarizing the Foley disappearance. They both listened, their heads tilted toward the radio, but in the end, no new information was revealed. They both leaned back when the story ended.

  "Well," Bolton said. "Nothing."

  "You were telling me about your daughter cutting her head..."

  "Right. I'm sure the hosp
ital has records, even after this long."

  "I didn't come here to accuse you of anything," Diana said. "I just came to gather some information about Margie Todd."

  "Did you find it difficult to be a female police officer?" he said.

  "Sometimes."

  "I would think that a lot of people would be resistant to a female police officer. A lot of men, I guess I should say."

  "It comes with the territory," Diana said.

  Bolton turned his eyes away from Diana and out the window to the driveway where the front end of a white BMW peeked out of the garage. "There was a time when everyone knew their place with more certainty than they do now. Men ruled the roost, and there were no questions asked about it. That's the world my father and grandfather grew up in."

  "You sound nostalgic for those days."

  "Maybe." He kept his attention directed outside. "My wife and I had difficulty with those roles in our marriage. Who was going to be in charge of what? Who was going to be in charge of whom?" He turned his focus back to Diana. "My occasional...indiscretions only made matters worse."

  Diana straightened in her chair. "Was Margie Todd one of your indiscretions?"

  "All of that is so far in the past, Ms. Greene. Margie was a silly girl, naïve and inexperienced. She didn't understand anything about the world."

  "Her mother told me you offered to put up a reward when she disappeared, but you never wrote the check—"

  Bolton stiffened. "You've been talking to that woman," he said, his face flushing. "Let me tell you I most certainly did write that check. Five thousand dollars. I gave it directly to Mrs. Todd to establish that fund."

  "You didn't give it right to the bank?"

  "No. There was some urgency about getting the reward funded, so I gave it to her. She came here and picked it up. But was a reward ever established? No. I have no idea what she did with the money."

  "So, she's lying?"

  "She's lying. You may not understand this, but when people have a lot of money, they often find themselves being manipulated by others who want that money too." He stood up. "I don't want to take up more of your time."

  Diana stood up as well, knowing she was being dismissed. She followed Bolton to the front door and stepped back while he held it open for her.

  "There is just one more thing, Mr. Bolton."

  "Yes?"

  "When I first got here, you said something like, 'It's all beginning again.' What exactly did you mean by that?"

  A light breeze came through the open door, lifting the strands of hair on top of Bolton's head. He tried to smooth them down with his right hand.

  "These things," he said, "that should have been left in the past. "

  "Things like Margie Todd?"

  He shook his head, squinting against the day's bright sunlight. "I'm thinking of so many more things than that," he said. "So many things that you and even I will never really understand. Never."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Nate Ludwig faced his ten o'clock Introduction to Folklore class in the Woodard Lecture Hall and fixed the sleepy students with what he thought of as a stern glare. He cleared his throat and waited for the shuffling of notebooks and disconnecting of iPods to cease. Then he started.

  "I know you've been riveted to every word I've said up until this point." No laughs. Too early still. "And I know many of you are freshmen, and so you have spent the last few days getting to know Fields University and the town of New Cambridge. At this point, I'd like to do a little data collecting from all of you." Some uncomfortable looks. What is data collecting? Is this like a quiz? "Don't worry, I won't be grading you on this. There are too many of you and I'm far too old to bother trying to remember your names." Some laughs. They liked jokes at the professor's expense. Cheap, but it helps them wake up. "So, has anyone heard anything that they think of as folklore or legend in their brief time on the Fields' campus?"

  The phenomenon never ceased to amaze Ludwig. All he had to do was ask a question and one hundred heads suddenly decided to look down at their desktops. They avoided eye contact with him at moments like these as though he were a rabid dog or an angry bear.

  "Come on," he said. "This is your chance to talk rather than listening to me drone on and on." A few more laughs. But he knew they actually preferred listening to his droning. It required less of them. "I can stand here all day," Ludwig said. "I had a Geritol this morning."

  No laughs. They didn't know what Geritol was.

  But it didn't matter. He spotted a tentative hand in the third row, a young man with a baseball hat obscuring his eyes.

  "Yes, sir?" Ludwig said, pointing at the kid.

  "I heard that if your roommate dies or commits suicide, you get a 4.0 for the semester. Is that true?"

  "You must not like your roommate very much," Ludwig said, earning his biggest laugh of the day. "Or else you doubt your ability to get a 4.0." Even more laughter. They were warming up. "I hate to disappoint all of you who have been plotting to kill your roommates, but no, you don't get a 4.0 if your roommate dies during the school year. On the bright side, they will let you re-take your classes without penalty, so if you find yourself struggling and thinking of withdrawing..." They all laughed again. "But you're correct. That's an excellent example of campus folklore, and it isn't just found at Fields. Almost every college or university in America has some variation on that story. Are there others you can think of?"

  A young woman in the middle of the hall raised her hand, and Ludwig pointed at her. "Yes, ma'am?" The woman had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and appeared to be blushing.

  "I heard that if you kiss someone in the Holtman Gazebo at midnight while the bells in the clock tower chime, you'll be with that person forever."

  The women in the room cooed, while the men laughed, which caused many of them to receive playful punches in the arm from nearby female students. Ludwig nodded.

  "Another excellent example," he said. "And also a good example of a piece of folklore that has stood the test of time here at Fields. You may not know this about me, but I attended Fields as an undergraduate many years ago, back during the Civil War." Some laughs, but Ludwig also knew that some of them were racking their brains, trying to remember if it were possible for him to have been alive during the Civil War. "My college sweetheart and I tried that out. We kissed in the Holtman Gazebo on the night of our six month anniversary."

  "Awwww," the women said.

  "And it worked, we were married shortly after graduation."

  "Awwww." Even louder.

  "Of course, we divorced seven years after that. So when I started dating again, I brought my next lover back here to Fields for a visit, and we too kissed in the gazebo. And we married soon after. And divorced soon after that." They were all staring at him now, not knowing how to take his tale of woe. He didn't know whether it was a tragedy or a comedy either, so he shrugged. "That's why I gave up on marriage and came to teach at Fields instead. Now I'm married to my work. And we've never kissed in the gazebo."

  They laughed, a little nervous, a little relieved. For a second, they thought they were going to witness some sort of meltdown by one of their professors, the kind of thing they could talk about for weeks at the cafeteria table or the frat house or in the bars.

  "Any other examples come to mind? Anything?"

  A long pause. Ludwig thought that perhaps the discussion had run its course, that he was going to have to return to lecturing. But just as he was about to turn his eyes back to his notes, a hand went up near the back.

  "Yes?" Ludwig said, nodding.

  It was a female student wearing glasses and looking too shy to speak. She cleared her throat several times before speaking.

  "I live in Maxwell Hall," she said. "And they've been telling us there's a ghost there."

  Ludwig smiled. "Ah, I'm so glad you brought that one up. The Maxwell Hall Ghost. What have you heard about it?"

  The girl looked around nervously. "Just that there's a ghost, and she lives on
the top floor."

  More hands went up. Ludwig pointed to another woman.

  "I live in Maxwell, too," she said. "And I heard the same thing. They said she was a music student who hung herself in a closet, and at night you can hear a piano playing. And there's no piano in the building."

  "I heard you can see her in the courtyard when the moon is full," someone said.

  "I heard she's crying for her boyfriend who died in the war."

  "This is all bullshit," a guy in the front row said.

  "Okay, okay," Ludwig said, signaling for quiet. "For weeks you guys don't talk, and now you explode." He waited until they settled down. "It's true, there is campus folklore that says the ghost of a young woman haunts Maxwell Hall. And that story has also been around since I went to school here as an undergraduate. But none of the details you gave me are the real story behind the woman whose ghost supposedly walks through Maxwell at night. Do you want me to tell you the real story?"

  "Yes," they answered in unison.

  "Very good. The woman who supposedly haunts Maxwell Hall is named Faith Brenner. She went to school here in the 1830s, when Maxwell Hall was not part of Fields, but rather a dormitory for the Holly Ridge College for Women, which merged with Fields at the turn of the twentieth century. Back then, you understand, there were different expectations for women. They couldn't go on a date unsupervised. To hold hands with or, God forbid, kiss a boy, would have been scandalous."