When Time Is a River

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  Sleep. Brandy was so tired she could barely stand. But her mind was obsessed by two repeating questions: Had she seen anyone in the park wearing a Pooh costume? Had her subconscious registered the yellow T-shirt like the one on the bear in the toyshop window?

  She paced the hallway for a few moments, wondering what to do next. Maybe the police had missed something in the park. Some clue connected to Emily that only Brandy would understand. Maybe retracing her steps would help her remember. She needed to go back, but her father would never allow it. She’d have to wait until he thought she was asleep.

  The door to Emily’s room stood ajar, and she pushed it open and turned on the light. Christine had spread a quilt over the comforter that covered the mattress. It was made from four appliquéd blocks that spelled out the word love. Small bears with butterflies on their noses wrapped themselves around each colorful letter. One of Christine’s college friends had made the blanket for Emily’s baby shower but, before today, Christine had thought it too beautiful to use. She’d packed it away in the top of Emily’s closet.

  Brandy turned toward the sound of Christine’s bedroom door opening. Her stepmother leaned against the doorframe, staring into space. When she broke her trance, she turned and made eye contact with Brandy for an instant that had the impact of cymbals crashing.

  “Where’s Dad?” Brandy asked.

  “He’s at the police station getting a lie detector test.”

  “Is it okay if I take a shower?” Brandy smelled the scent of her own sweat. “I feel so dirty.”

  “Since when do you need my permission?”

  “I didn’t want to disappear in case you need someone to answer the door or the phone.”

  Her stepmother’s eyes glazed over again. “Officer Corbin and I can handle the phone.”

  “I can shower later if that will make it easier.”

  Christine’s whole face darkened. “Easier?” She lurched forward, bumped into the wall, then headed to the kitchen. Had she been drinking? She smelled of cigarettes and Brandy was pretty sure Christine had started smoking again.

  Brandy locked herself in the bathroom. She closed her eyes. When the silence settled around her, she slumped on the closed toilet seat. She thought about Kent again, his claim that a big Pooh bear carried Emily. Maybe his mother was right. Maybe it was all a story Kent had made up. But that didn’t make sense. He had the box of animal crackers. That couldn’t be a coincidence. His story matched perfectly with what Mrs. Wyatt had said. Brandy needed to talk with Mrs. Wyatt again, see if she could learn anything more. Did the bear costume have a yellow shirt? Other than the big stuffed animal in the toy store window, Brandy had never seen a Pooh bear wearing a yellow shirt. The Disney version was red. And the traditional Pooh wore no shirt.

  Moving lights shone through the bathroom window, the headlights of a neighbor’s car. The room brightened, then slid back into darkness.

  She turned on the light. On the hook behind the door, Emily’s nightgown hung, soft and pink as cotton candy.

  Brandy hurried to the shower and pulled back the curtain to a tub piled with Emily’s boats and rubber ducks, the set of dolphins Brandy had given her for Christmas.

  She quickly picked them up and set them in the sink, then turned the shower to full blast. She stripped off her clothes and tossed them into the hamper. Adjusting the temperature so that it ran as hot as she could tolerate, she stepped into the tub, pulled the shower curtain closed, and stood under the steaming spray, hoping the needles of water would stab every cell of her body. She wanted them to work their way into her bones and keep her alert to search for Emily. She couldn’t give in to the sadness. She had to stay strong.

  When her legs began to shake, Brandy sat down in the bottom of the tub and let the water pound the top of her head. She was tempted to stay there, but knew she didn’t have time for self-pity. She’d made a mistake, and now she had to fix it.

  She stood, lathered her hair with Emily’s apple-scented baby shampoo for good luck, then rinsed. The water cascaded, warm and soapy, over her skin. She closed her eyes and held the smell of her little sister for as long as she could stand, then flipped off the shower. Please, God, let Emily be okay.

  Drenched and shuddering, she wrapped a towel around herself, another around her hair, then slipped quietly back into Emily’s room. Brandy picked up Pooh bear from the line of stuffed animals Christine had arranged on Emily’s dresser. Once inside her own bedroom, Brandy crammed the stuffed animal into her backpack. One thing was certain, whenever they found Emily, her little sister would want to see her friend.

  Brandy pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt. She ran a brush through her hair and then crept down the hallway and stood outside the door of her parents’ bedroom, hoping to hear her father’s voice. Once he’d returned, she could say goodnight and then execute her plan. She heard nothing except the television. “The Ashland Police Department is asking for your help in the kidnapping case of two-and-a-half-year-old Emily Michaelson. Emily disappeared from the restroom near the playground at Lithia…”

  Brandy stepped into the room.

  Christine sat on the foot of the bed, her face in her hands, rocking back and forth.

  A blow up of Emily’s picture, the one her dad had given the police, filled the entire television screen.

  Brandy stepped closer, reached out and touched Christine’s shoulder. She gave a start, as if she’d been burned, and Brandy quickly withdrew her hand.

  Minutes passed. The news went on to another story—an update on the living victims of the Columbine shootings.

  “I feel so numb and dizzy.” Christine’s voice was uneven, a breakable thing. “Like I’m not inside myself anymore. Drunk or something.” She talked as if she were thinking out loud. “When I first found out I was pregnant with Emily, I considered an abortion. I wasn’t blind to the fact your dad wanted to marry Kathleen.”

  Brandy knew Christine regretted her earlier accusations. “It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters except finding Emily.”

  Almost as if she hadn’t heard Brandy, her stepmother began again. “I wanted to finish college. Glen and I wanted to join the Peace Corps. I wanted to be a teacher.” Christine kept twisting her hands as if trying to warm them. “So many things I wanted for my life.” With a look of horror on her face, she turned to Brandy. “I was so selfish I couldn’t see beyond myself. God wouldn’t punish me now, would He? He wouldn’t let an innocent child…”

  Brandy sat down beside her stepmother and reached out to comfort her. This time Christine folded into Brandy’s embrace. “Can I get you something?” Brandy asked. “A soda or a glass of water?”

  Christine drew back, then sniffed the air. “You used Emily’s shampoo.” She had circles under her eyes and dark lines of mascara on her face.

  Brandy didn’t know how to explain, to tell her stepmother that she wanted nothing more than to stay inside Emily’s room, pressed into the lingering scents of her baby powder and shampoo. But Brandy wouldn’t allow herself that luxury. She had to keep searching. She had to find her little sister.

  Brandy stood and stepped away from the bed.

  Her dad walked in with an Ashland map in his hand. He stared at them. “What’s going on here?”

  “Your daughter is trying to explain why she used Emily’s shampoo.”

  Brandy’s face got hot. She glanced up at her dad, trying to come up with some defense.

  “Think about it, Christine,” he said. “This is hurting her every bit as much as it is you and me. In case you haven’t noticed, Emily prefers Brandy to either of us.” His eyes were deep and dark-rimmed, wounded as if saying this actually hurt him. “Maybe she’s trying to feel close to her sister.” He sighed. “Search and Rescue has stopped for the night. They’ll start again at sunrise. Have there been any developments here?”

  Brandy told him how she found the necklace and had given it to the police. That Detective Radhauser claimed Emily’s insistence that her big friend
loved her might be a good sign. And about what Kent had said about the big Pooh bear he’d seen carrying Emily. Knowing her dad would be upset with her for banging on doors alone, she left out the part about Mrs. Wyatt.

  “Does Radhauser believe the boy’s story?”

  “I don’t know,” Brandy said, then told him what Kent’s mother had said about him believing his stuffed animals were real. “But Detective Radhauser checks out everything.” She slipped the map from her father’s hand. “I’ll scan this and make some copies for the volunteer teams.”

  She was headed for her bedroom when the phone rang. Brandy froze in the doorway.

  Her dad ran past her into the kitchen.

  Brandy and Christine followed.

  As Officer Corbin had instructed, her dad waited for the third ring, held the receiver against his ear, said “hello” and “yes” twice, then handed the phone to Christine. “It’s your mother. She saw it on the news.”

  Christine took the phone, closed her eyes and listened before she spoke. “Emily wasn’t in the restroom by herself, Mother.” Her voice was taut, vibrating like a wire about to snap.

  Brandy pleated the bottom of her T-shirt with her thumb and forefinger. Whatever thin cord Christine had wrapped around her restraint broke. “I know…I know, Mother…I should have…” Christine held the receiver as if it were a lifeline and gulped in air. “I should have called you. I should have told you what happened so you didn’t have to hear it on the news. I should…I should…I should…” She screamed the phrase over and over. “I should have been a better mother.”

  Her dad rushed toward Christine, wrapped his arm around her shoulder to steady her, and took the phone. “I know you’re upset, Mrs. McCabe. We all are. But we need to keep the phone lines open. We’ll call you as soon as we know anything,” he said, then hung up.

  Christine cocked her head, as if realizing something for the first time. “I should have never given my mother so much power over me,” she whispered. “I should have brought Emily with me. So what, if she fussed or spilled her milk. So what, if my mother’s friends thought she should be completely toilet trained by now. They all would have lived through it.”

  Her dad led Christine through the kitchen. Halfway across the room, she stopped and abruptly twisted around, as if someone were following her. “They’ll come here first if they find something, right?”

  “In a flash,” Officer Corbin said. “Don’t worry.”

  In the silence that followed, the grandfather clock in the entry ticked, its pendulum swinging back and forth. A steady flow of time. Each tick seemed to take them further away from Emily.

  Christine opened the cabinet, grabbed the brass pendulum and stopped the clock. It was 9:45p.m. “I can’t stand it,” she said in a quiet and hoarse voice. “All that God-awful noise.” She frowned and rubbed her hands down the sides of her jeans as if trying to clean them.

  * * *

  Radhauser pounded on Mrs. Wyatt’s door. “It’s Detective Radhauser. I need to talk with you.” The light seeping between the cracks in the front draperies darkened.

  She was inside. As far as he knew, she never left her house.

  He tried again. “I know you’re in there and it’s important that I talk to you.” Silence. He walked around the outside of the house, looking for evidence of life, but found only darkness and more silence.

  Returning to the front door, he knocked again. “One way or the other, I’m going to talk with you. Don’t make me get a search warrant. It will waste valuable time.” He waited a moment. Again, there was only silence.

  He’d give it one more try. “Mrs. Wyatt. I know how you hate to go anywhere, but I will bring you down to the police station for questioning, if you don’t open this door. Now.”

  The door opened.

  He stepped inside. “I understand you saw someone in a bear costume loading a little girl into a car seat.”

  “I saw nothing,” she said, wrapping her fat hands around her bare shoulders. She wore a yellow flowered nightgown, big enough to tent a Boy Scout troop.

  He kept his gaze on her eyes. “That’s not what you told Brandy Michaelson.”

  She backed up a step. “The girl was upset. I just wanted to help. To make her feel better.”

  “Are you saying you lied to her?”

  “I could tell she blamed herself. She’s a nice girl and she has those scars on her face. I’m sure people stare and talk behind her back. I…I just wanted to help.”

  “Lying in a kidnapping investigation doesn’t help anyone,” he said with a patience he didn’t feel.

  “Why should I talk to you? You never believe anything I say.”

  “Wasting my time could cost that toddler her life.”

  “Then get out there and look for her. She’s not here with me.”

  “Look, I know we’ve had our misunderstandings,” he said, trying to keep himself from shaking her hard. “But if you know something, I need to hear it. Now.”

  “What’s the point? You’re just like everyone else. You ridicule me. Think I’m a fat, stupid, and lonely woman.”

  Radhauser was taken aback by this truth. “I’m sorry. I hope you’ll give me another chance.”

  She stepped back and allowed him to move farther into the room. “I saw what I saw. But it was the Children’s Health Fair. There were bears everywhere.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was 10p.m. when Radhauser showed the doorman his badge, then took the elevator to the fifth floor. He rang the bell at Irene McCabe’s condominium in the rolling foothills above Ashland.

  “It’s too late for visitors,” a female voice said. “Check back with me tomorrow.”

  “It’s Detective Radhauser,” he said, holding his badge up to the peephole. “I’m here to talk with you about your granddaughter’s disappearance.”

  A deadbolt turned. She opened the door wearing a long velvet robe, the color of Merlot wine. “Have you found her?”

  Radhauser took off his Stetson and stepped inside. “I’m afraid not.”

  She let out a long sigh. Irene was tall, like her daughter, and had the same auburn hair. She led him across an entryway tiled with white marble to the living room. Her feet were bare and her toenails polished in the same wine color.

  His cowboy boots sunk into the plush carpet. The whole place was spotless, and except for a few shocking splashes of bright red and black, it was decorated in all white. A white couch, white carpets, white appliances, tile and cabinets in the kitchen. Not the kind of place where a grandmother decorated cookies with her granddaughter.

  Mrs. McCabe nodded toward the sofa.

  Radhauser sat. He set his hat on the glass-topped coffee table with its shining chrome legs. A CD of classical music, one of Mozart’s violin concertos, played softly in the background. “Mrs. McCabe. I’m sorry to—”

  “I divorced that cheating Irish asshole and his name years ago. Please, call me Irene. Or just plain Rene,” she said, putting her emphasis on the last syllable. “All my friends do.” A smile broke across her face. She poured herself a glass of red wine from the open bottle on the coffee table.

  He declined her offer to join her.

  Lights from nearby Ashland sparkled through the plate glass wall of windows. On either side of the fireplace, white bookshelves rose to the ceiling. Even from the sofa, Radhauser saw the hardcovers were alphabetized by their authors’ last names. “You have a beautiful place here,” he said, noticing there were no photos of Christine or Emily.

  “I’m sure you’re not here for the home tour. What can I do for you?”

  He pulled his notebook from his jacket pocket, jotted down the date and time and that he was interviewing Irene McCabe, the victim’s grandmother. “I understand that Christine was at your birthday luncheon earlier today.”

  “That’s right.” She lifted her wine glass. “Happy birthday to me.”

  “Was there some reason you didn’t want Emily there?”

  “If I’d
wanted children around, I would have celebrated with Happy Meals beneath the golden arches.”

  Radhauser said nothing.

  She cleared her throat, dropped her gaze to the floor, then shook her head. “Look, I love my granddaughter, but I’d prefer she not attend my functions until she learns how to behave.”

  Everything was wrong with the picture she drew for him. Most grandmothers would have been pacing in front of the windows, shoulders hunched—a sick and terrified look on their faces. Irene should have had the television on a local station, the radio onto another. She should be eager for news about her granddaughter—unless she already knew Emily’s whereabouts. He asked the question he asked everyone. “What do you think happened to Emily?”

  She stared at him without blinking. “I can only hope some patient person found her wandering around and is fixing her a healthy meal, while trying to find out her name and where she lives.”

  Not likely, Radhauser thought, given how much news coverage her disappearance had already generated. “Has your granddaughter wandered off before?”

  “I assure you I’m the last person my daughter would tell if something like that happened. Maybe Emily ran away in search of some boundary-setting parents. From what I’ve read, kids want them.”

  “Where was the birthday luncheon held?”

  “At the Mark Anthony on Main.”

  She confirmed what he already knew from Christine. That historic hotel was only a couple blocks from the park.

  “Did Christine stay for the entire party?”

  She cocked her head slightly, and gave him a long, appraising look. “Why is that important? You can’t think she had anything to do with Emily’s disappearance.”

  “Just answer the question, please, ma’am.”

  “You watch too much television,” she said.