Barefoot in the Sand

by Holly Chamberlin

  Laura shook her head. “You talk about your parents with kindness, even fondness. After all they put you through.”

  “Do I speak with fondness?” Arden said after a moment. “That’s interesting. Maybe all—or a lot of—the anger I held toward them has lost its power over me. I don’t feel actively angry about what happened to me. Not now, anyway.”

  “But aren’t you still angry about what might have happened to my father?”

  “Yes. Angry and frustrated. I think I’d like to know the truth, no matter how unpleasant, but at the same time I’m not sure I do want to know. It would be devastating to learn that Rob ran off to escape his responsibilities as a father.”

  “He didn’t run off,” Laura said firmly. “Don’t ask me why or how I know that, but I know.”

  Arden smiled. “I know, too. But it would also be devastating to learn that he was hurt by someone who wanted him out of the way.”

  “And the only people who would have wanted him out of the way are your parents.”

  “We don’t know for sure that Rob didn’t have other enemies. Though I can’t bring myself to believe that he did.”

  “So, an accident was never officially ruled out. The case was closed due to lack of evidence. Anything and everything might have happened to Rob Smith, but nothing at all could be proved. Well, if I do find out that your father did have something to do with my father’s disappearance, I’ll—” Laura stopped talking, alarmed by the look of concern on her mother’s face.

  Arden reached for Laura’s hand. “I won’t allow you to ruin your life by doing anything stupid,” Arden said fiercely. “When I told you my suspicions about my father, I didn’t intend to create a vendetta.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything stupid. But justice needs to be done.”

  “What would justice look like now?” Arden let go of Laura’s hand.

  “It would look like the criminal going to jail,” Laura said promptly. “It would look like some sort of restitution for my father’s family, for me, too, and for you.”

  “Restitution. What would that mean at this late date?” Arden shook her head. “Money? No amount of money can bring Rob back to life. An apology? That would be good, assuming it was genuine, but maybe not enough.”

  Laura sighed. “I can’t imagine ever forgiving the person who hurt my father.”

  “We’re different people. I think you’re . . . I think I’m not as tough or as—”

  “As unforgiving as I am? You’re probably right. Frankly, I’ve had enough of forgiveness for a while. I’ve been hurt and I don’t much like it.”

  “You shouldn’t like being hurt, of course not. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to abandon the possibility of forgiveness.”

  Laura smiled. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. At this moment, we know nothing about what happened to my father other than the fact that no one in Port George has seen him since that Sunday afternoon in August 1984.” Laura rose from her chair and stretched her arms over her head. “On that note, I’m going to bed. Good night, Arden.”

  As Laura prepared for bed, she decided that she would tone down her talk of justice and retribution. Clearly, parts of their conversation that evening had upset her mother, and Arden Bell—along with Victoria Aldridge—had suffered enough distress in her life. There was no need for her own child to add to that distress.

  Chapter 49

  It was Arden’s afternoon off, and while what she really wanted to do was go to the beach and soak up some sun, the fridge and kitchen cupboards hadn’t been entirely cleaned out in almost two months. Two months was too long.

  “I have to admit I’ve never done such a thorough cleaning in my own kitchen,” Laura said, reaching into the cupboard over the oven. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t live in squalor! I’m just not as good a housekeeper as you are.”

  “I hope I didn’t pressure you into helping me.” Arden smiled. “But it does make the chore less time sucking.”

  “I volunteered, remember. Um, what do you want to do with this?” Laura held up a glass jar that contained something gray and lumpy. “I’m not sure what it is, exactly.”

  Arden grimaced. “Toss it!”

  After an hour, the chore was completed to Arden’s satisfaction, and the two women took tall glasses of iced tea into the living room for a well-deserved rest.

  “When you were pregnant with me,” Laura asked when they were settled, “did you know you were having a girl? I mean, you had the option to know, right?”

  “I did have the option, but I didn’t want to know. I wanted to be surprised. I know that sounds kind of crazy, especially since the baby was going to be taken from me right away. . . . I can’t really explain it. I’m sorry.”

  Laura nodded. “There’s no need to be sorry. Had you and my father chosen a name before—”

  “We had.” Arden smiled at the memory. “We had decided on Elizabeth if we had a girl. Rob liked the old-fashioned nickname Betty.”

  Laura smiled. “I can see myself as a Betty. And for a boy?”

  “Robert, of course. Rob’s father was a Robert, and his father before him. Neither of us wanted to break family tradition.”

  “Arden?” Laura paused a moment before going on. “How did you feel about the pregnancy once Rob went missing and your parents sent you away? Did you regret having met my father in the first place?”

  “No,” Arden said firmly. “I didn’t regret anything. But it was a very strange time for me. Rob and I had shared next to nothing of the pregnancy. That experience had been stolen from us. So, there I was, on my own with this huge, life-changing thing happening to me. I felt like a stranger to myself. Only a few months earlier I’d been planning to start college in the fall, unhappy about having to go to Blake as it was my parents’ choice, not mine, but looking forward to the academics, and to being away from home, and by the end of the summer everything had changed. I’d met Rob, fallen in love, and gotten pregnant. Now, Rob was gone and I was being sent off to have the baby in secret.” Arden shook her head. “It was all so disorienting.”

  “I honestly can’t imagine. Did you ever attempt to find me? I mean, once you were settled.”

  Arden smiled sadly. She hoped she could make her daughter understand. “No,” she said quietly. “At various times in my life I did think about hiring a lawyer to see if I had any grounds on which to sue my parents for having coerced me into giving up my child. I’d agreed to the adoption under mental and emotional duress, partly because I assumed the adoption was legal. But what if it wasn’t legal?”

  “Why didn’t you speak to a lawyer, then?”

  “I had no close friends from whom I could seek advice before taking such a big step,” Arden explained carefully. “And I was too frightened to act on my own. At one point I even worried that a lawyer might discover I had committed a crime in acquiescing to the adoption. I was always so afraid. And then I wondered what good going to court ten, fifteen years after the adoption would accomplish. Even if the adoption was found to have been illegal, the ruling wouldn’t change what my parents had done.” Arden paused and looked fondly at her child. “But there was a more important reason for my holding back. Concern for you. What if you had never been told you were adopted? How would you feel learning the truth as the result of an acrimonious court case? Even if you had known that you were adopted, to discover the adoption was illegal would cause all sorts of chaos, for you and for your parents. There were so many what-ifs, so many variables. In the end, it seemed to me that too many people could get hurt. So, I kept silent.”

  “I think your decision not to pursue the matter was very selfless,” Laura said robustly.

  Arden smiled ruefully. “I don’t know about selfless. Cowardly? Maybe.”

  A toot from a bicycle horn announced that the mail had arrived. “I’ll be right back,” Arden said, grateful for the interruption. Telling the truth was tiring.

  When she returned, a frown was on her face. “There’s
something here for you. It’s addressed by hand. Who knows you’re staying here, other than Ted?”

  “I don’t know. I certainly haven’t told anyone and I don’t think he would have, either. What’s the return address?”

  “There is none.”

  Arden handed the letter to Laura. She felt cold. She didn’t recognize the handwriting. It looked old-fashioned, something about the neat slant of the letters.

  “It’s postmarked yesterday. That was quick. A local sender?” Laura frowned and slit open the envelope. Inside there was one sheet of paper, unlined. The white of the paper was a bit yellowed around the edges.

  Arden watched as her daughter read the few lines. The handwriting, Arden could see, was the same as the writing on the envelope. “Well,” she said after a moment, “what does it say? Who is it from?”

  Laura looked up, her expression grim, and held out the piece of paper. “I think you’d better read it yourself.”

  With slightly trembling fingers, Arden took the letter. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop asking questions about the past. I mean it.

  For about half a second Arden wanted to laugh. If you know what’s good for you . . . It was straight out of an old black-and-white gangster film. But the letter, she felt sure, was no joke. She was frightened.

  “We’ve opened a Pandora’s box,” she said, giving the letter back to Laura. “Clearly, someone who was involved in whatever happened in 1984 doesn’t want the truth coming to light.”

  Laura was frowning at the letter. “Mmm. The last time I was in Port George I caught a glimpse of a woman following me. It wasn’t Florence Aldridge, of that I’m sure.”

  Arden felt the chill that had come over her harden to ice. “I think we should stop this search,” she said tightly. “I don’t think you should go back to Port George. It’s not safe.”

  Laura shook her head. “I’m not going to be intimidated. This note doesn’t threaten anything specific, certainly not death. It’s one big cliché. I don’t think the threat is real.”

  “I know my default is to keep my head down. After so many years of hiding in plain sight it’s all I really know how to do. But don’t you think we should go to the police with this?”

  “No,” Laura said decisively. “Whoever is the author of this note doesn’t scare me. He or she is a coward. I was married to a coward. I know how to handle them. But I will tell Ted. Frankly, I’d like his opinion.”

  “It’s just that . . .” Arden felt the words stick in her throat, but they had to be spoken. “What if the letter is from my father? He’s a lot of things, but not a coward, not the man I remember.”

  “Well, if the letter is from Herbert Aldridge, he’s finally met his match.” Laura looked down again at the piece of paper in her hand. “Black ink. That tells me nothing. I wish I knew something about handwriting analysis. I can’t even tell if this is from a man or a woman.”

  “It was written by an older person.”

  Laura studied the letter for a long moment. “I see what you mean. The hand is strong, it’s not that, but I’d bet whoever wrote this had penmanship lessons in school.” Laura folded the letter and stuck it back in its envelope. “I say we try to put this out of our minds for the moment and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Dinner outside this evening?”

  Arden nodded, but the last thing she was concerned about was dinner. She knew she would have no appetite, not with knowing for sure that someone wanted to silence her daughter. Why, oh, why, had they agreed to go down this road?

  Chapter 50

  Laura sat across from Ted in his office. She had told him about the letter and texted him a photo of both it and the envelope in which it had come. Ted was inclined to agree with Laura that the threat, being so vague, was not to be taken all that seriously.

  “I’m not saying you shouldn’t proceed with caution.” Ted smiled. “If you get a call from a blocked number asking you to meet ‘a friend’ in an abandoned parking lot at three a.m., don’t go.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve watched a few detective dramas. I know to avoid empty houses and dark alleys. So, why did you ask me to come by?”

  Ted cleared his throat. “Because of an old friend. Let me explain. James Barber and I went to kindergarten and grammar school together. He and his family lived around the corner from us. As we got older, we’d just climb the fence that separated our yards when we wanted to hang out. Our parents weren’t close, they moved in slightly different social circles, but everyone got along. Anyway, James and I remained friends over the years. We were at each other’s weddings. We have dinner several times a year. That sort of thing. Yesterday morning James paid me a visit at home. He told me he’d heard about the woman researching a podcast and that it had gotten him thinking. And remembering.”

  Laura felt the proverbial butterflies of excitement take flight in her stomach. “Remembering what?”

  “Remembering his brother. James and his older brother, Jake, were the complete opposites right from the start. James was a by-the-rule kind of guy, and Jake broke every rule he could just for the hell of it. James did well in school; Jake was suspended more times than I can count. Mr. Barber, the boys’ father, came down extra-hard on his firstborn, wayward son, while Mrs. Barber lavished Jake with affection. Neither parent did Jake any real service. There was no consistency in the home, and a heck of a lot of fighting. James sort of sailed through it all without visible scars, whereas poor Jake wasn’t so lucky. He got into drugs and alcohol before he was in high school and never looked back.”

  Ted paused to take a drink of water. Laura, though itching to know where this background story was leading, waited patiently for him to resume.

  “I suspect James still harbors a sense of guilt concerning Jake, a sense that he should have been of more help to him than he was. Frankly, I don’t know what else James could have done for his brother. He tried to get him into rehab more than once and bailed him out of endless scrapes. But nothing worked. Jake was one of those people who seem bent on self-destruction, whether they want to be that person or not.”

  “I’m not sure I see how this has anything to do with my father’s disappearance.”

  Ted smiled ruefully. “It might have absolutely nothing to do with it, or it might have a great deal. I don’t know, yet. James told me what I’d guessed years ago, that Jake was not above earning a dollar through illegal means. Sadly, he became one of those types a powerful, ruthless man might use to do his dirty work, then get rid of if he caused trouble.”

  Laura sat up straighter in her seat. Now, she thought, they were getting somewhere. “And your friend James thinks that his brother might have worked for Herbert Aldridge.”

  Ted nodded. “While he has no concrete evidence, offhand remarks his brother made through the years led James to believe that Jake knew Herbert better than he should have done. Why would a powerful investment banker like Herbert Aldridge want anything to do with a dubious character like Jake Barber unless it was for using him to take care of—of unpleasant messes.”

  “Where is Jake now?”

  “Dead,” Ted said simply. “He died of an overdose in late 1985. The police never learned from what source Jake had acquired the drugs. It was a sorry end to a sorry life.”

  Laura frowned. “This is still all very conjectural. I don’t see how a fictional podcast about the ramifications of a missing person on his community is connected to Jake. . . .” Laura halted. The connection, however tenuous, was beginning to come clearer.

  “James believes that his brother was hired by Aldridge to do several bits of dirty work over the years,” Ted went on. “Now he wonders if Jake could have been involved in something underhanded involving Rob Smith. He remembers as well as I do how the police investigation into Rob’s disappearance was squashed, and he also remembers the rampant cronyism that went on in Port George back in the seventies and eighties. Aldridge was a key figure in the power circle that included the mayor, the chief of police, and a retired lawmak
er in the state government. And he had lots of connections in Augusta, the state capital. James thinks that if he could somehow help to bring Herbert Aldridge to justice for a crime, any crime, he will have gotten justice for his brother in some small way.”

  “I see. But why not take his concerns to the police? Why bring them to you? Unless the police today are as corrupt as they were back then.”

  Ted cleared his throat. “No, today’s force is clean, but James came to me for two reasons. First, he has no real evidence of any kind to offer the police. You can’t ask for an official investigation based on the hints of a man long dead.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Secondly, James knew you and I had met a few times. He thought that my having a connection to a member of the investigative podcast crew . . .” Ted sighed. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe—James has no idea you’re Rob’s daughter. Anyway, before he left he gave me this old videotape from his brother’s effects. As you’ll see in a minute, it shows Herbert Aldridge rubbing elbows with the rest of the Port George power elite at a party at the country club in the spring of 1984.”

  Laura felt a rush of emotion she couldn’t quite identify. She would now see for the first time her maternal grandfather. A man she was loathe to claim as kin.

  Ted got up and inserted the videocassette into an archaic video player Laura hadn’t noticed until then. “Luckily, James had this old machine at home, otherwise I’m not sure how we’d have been able to watch.”

  As the four-minute video played out, Ted identified the partygoers. The chief of police. The mayor. An alderman, whatever that was. The owner of the biggest car dealership north of Portland. The retired state lawmaker. A state representative, in Port George who knew why. One by one the men acknowledged whoever it was recording the moment, some with brief nods, another with a thumbs-up, yet another with a rude gesture.