by David Bell
‘I’m guessing the murder part was worse,’ I said.
He studied me from across the table, his eyes growing flat and glassy. I imagined having him for a father was a laugh riot. I suspected that if he could get away with it he probably would have slapped me right there in McDonald’s.
‘Children shouldn’t talk to adults like that either,’ he said, his eyes still flat. ‘It shouldn’t matter whether the adult is your parent or not.’
‘I suspect you and I have some philosophical differences that we really can’t solve here. Do you want to tell me the rest of your story?’
‘Aren’t you going to remind me of my time limit again?’ he asked.
I looked at my watch. ‘You have twenty-five minutes left.’
Gordon sipped his coffee and didn’t say anything for a long moment. I started to wonder whether he was going to go on with his story at all, or whether he’d decided he’d had enough of me. Then he cleared his throat.
‘She disappeared one night,’ he said. ‘She went out with friends. We let her go out that night. Your mom did anyway. Leslie thought like you, I suppose. She thought if you loosened the reins a little bit things might get better. So Beth went out one night with her friends and she never came back. At first, we thought she had just run away again. If someone does something like that once, then it’s certainly likely they would do it again. But after a few days when she didn’t return, we started to think something really had gone wrong. Maybe she had overdosed. Maybe she’d been taken against her will. So we finally called the police.’
‘After a few days?’
‘It’s easy to judge, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Especially with the hindsight of – what, thirty-seven years?’ He let that sink in for a moment. Then he said, ‘The police investigated the disappearance. They talked to her friends and all of that. People at school. They didn’t find anything, nothing that would tell them what happened to her. Pretty quickly, they seemed to turn their attention to other things.’
‘But a fifteen-year-old girl?’ I said. ‘How could they just let her go so easily?’
‘Like I said, it was a different time. People didn’t get all weepy over missing kids the way they do now. Kids weren’t the centre of the world.’
‘She could have been in danger,’ I said. ‘She was in danger.’ I found myself getting worked up over what seemed to me an injustice. This was my sister, my family. It must have ripped my mother’s heart out. How could anyone let such a thing happen? So casually? ‘You said she was murdered. Did they at least convict the guy responsible?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘No?’
‘They didn’t convict anybody,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘They never even found her body.’
‘Then how – ?’
‘The police decided she had run away again,’ Gordon said. ‘We told them about the drugs, about the wild crowd. Kids from the town and the college ran off from time to time. They’d come back, but their parents would be worried sick. But it happened. This was before the internet, remember. Before CNN. Before all those crime shows on cable TV. Kids ran away, and the police let them go.’
‘But you say she was murdered.’
‘A police officer gave me his theory once,’ he said. ‘It was off the record, of course. Just something he’d concluded on his own. Are you familiar with the name Rodney Ray Brown?’
I shook my head.
‘He’s a serial killer. Was a serial killer. They executed him in 1984 in Ohio. Apparently, Brown was in Haxton around the time Beth disappeared. He ran with some girl whose grandmother lived there. There’s no proof he committed the crime, and the police aren’t even sure he was here the day Beth disappeared. But Brown liked certain kinds of girls. He liked them young – high-school age – and he liked them with long dark hair. That’s Beth.’ He paused. ‘I think he got her.’
‘But he wasn’t charged in her death?’ I asked.
‘Never. They convicted him of killing six other girls. There are other murders and disappearances they suspect him of, but we’ll never know for sure. He took those secrets with him.’
I sat back in my chair. The couple with the baby had gone, and a group of teenagers, probably the same age as my dead half sister, took their place. They all held phones and talked and texted while they ate. I felt overloaded by the things Gordon told me, as if a great gust of wind had come at me suddenly, knocking me onto my butt.
I had questions. Lots of questions.
But one rose to the top of my mind.
‘Why exactly are you telling me all of this?’ I asked.
He worked his tongue around in his mouth. I saw it bulging against his cheek. Then he said, ‘I thought you’d want to understand what happened to your half sister, especially since I know your mother hadn’t told you about it. I also wanted to make sure you understood some things about my relationship with your mother. I wanted you to know that even though we weren’t together and hadn’t been for quite a number of years, we still shared something.’
‘The memory of your daughter,’ I said.
‘The memory. The pain. The bond that created.’
‘But if you were so important to her, why didn’t she ever tell me about you? You said you were in touch with her right up until she died. How do I know that’s true? Or are you just going to tell me to ask Paul?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not that. Your mother had been … helping me recently. From time to time over the past year or so.’
‘Helping with what?’
‘My life hasn’t been the same since Beth died. I never really had my feet on the ground again. Losing a child, it’s … it’s just something I never could have imagined. Things never went right after that.’ He looked me right in the eye. ‘I was glad your mom found someone else and had more kids. It was tough seeing her that way, but I knew she’d moved on. Maybe that’s why she didn’t tell you about it.’
I thought of my mother – her no-nonsense approach to living, the way things were cut and dried for her. She didn’t waste time looking backward. But this man – my mom’s ex-husband – wanted me to believe that my mother, my very loving mother, could just move on from the loss of a child as easily as someone could move on from the loss of a piece of jewellery or a car.
‘If what you’re telling me is true,’ I said, ‘I doubt it. How could she just move on?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s not for me to speculate.’
His passive-aggressive tone made me uneasy. He was trying to say something about Mom, to plant some seed of doubt within me, as though I hadn’t had twenty-six years of my life with the woman. I knew her strengths. I knew her weaknesses. A man I talked to for less than an hour wasn’t going to change that. There were things I didn’t know about her, but I did know her. I reminded myself of that – I knew her.
I pointed to my watch again. ‘What is it you wanted?’
He smiled. ‘Again, so much like her. So eager to cut to the heart of the matter.’
‘I learned from the best,’ I said.
‘Beth was like that too,’ he said, his smile turning wan. ‘Anyway, your mom was helping me out from time to time with a little money. Like I said, I haven’t had the best of luck, and my health has also had some ups and downs.’
‘You want money?’ I asked. ‘I don’t have any money. I’m a graduate student.’
‘But your mom has some money,’ he said. ‘I think it’s from the insurance policy when your father died.’
‘But her will is set –’
I stopped. If my brain were run on wires and plugs, that moment would have been when it felt like someone had flipped a switch, sending a burst of light to the right part of my head. I hadn’t thought it before, but once I did, it made perfect sense to me.
‘Elizabeth Yarbrough,’ I said. ‘The woman named in my mother’s will. Everything my mother owned is to be divided three ways between me, my brother, and this woman named Elizabeth Yarbrough. I don’t know her, and neither doe
s the lawyer. But you’re telling me my mother had another daughter named Elizabeth, right? And there’s a woman in the will named Elizabeth. Is that her?’
Gordon was already shaking his head. ‘Didn’t you hear the story I just told you?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t you listen to any of that? Beth is dead. Our Beth is gone.’
‘But there was no body. No conviction. How do you know?’
‘I’d know my own daughter, wouldn’t I?’
‘You’ve met her? You’ve met Elizabeth Yarbrough?’
‘We’re getting off track here,’ he said.
‘So you have met her?’ I asked. ‘Is she your daughter?’
‘No,’ Gordon said. ‘She’s not. Absolutely not.’
‘So why did Mom leave a third of her estate to her?’ I asked.
‘Your mother fell prey to a … a con artist. Yes, that’s the only term that applies. A con artist. That woman, that Elizabeth Yarbrough, has taken advantage of your mother. She preyed on her and convinced her that she is really our Beth. I had no idea about the will,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t surprise me in the least. Elizabeth Yarbrough is fleecing your family.’
36
Just then my phone rang. I knew who it would be. I checked my watch. Still ten minutes to go until the deadline I’d given Dan, but I knew he wouldn’t wait the entire time. He’d grow impatient and nervous, and then he’d call.
I wanted to continue the conversation with Gordon Baxter. I wanted to hear what he had to say about Elizabeth Yarbrough. But I knew if I didn’t answer the phone, Dan would think the worst. The Dover police would be at the door of the McDonald’s almost as fast as he would be.
‘Are you going to take that?’ Gordon asked.
‘I have to,’ I said.
I lifted the phone and saw it wasn’t Dan on the other end of the line.
It was Paul.
I had a lot to say to him. A lot. But not at that moment. I answered, though, intending to make sure I could see him sooner rather than later.
‘Are you at home?’ Paul asked right away.
Something sounded off in his voice. There was an urgency in it, an edge that made it seem on the brink of breaking.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Paul?’
‘It’s Ronnie.’
‘What happened?’
What else could happen? I wanted to say. What else could possibly happen?
‘He got a hold of some pills in the hospital,’ Paul said. ‘Elizabeth, he tried to kill himself. I think you better get over here. I’m in the emergency room of St Vincent’s. That’s where they brought him.’
I was standing before I could say another thing. And I didn’t say anything else – nothing that I could remember anyway. And I don’t remember what Gordon Baxter said to me before I left either. I rushed to the car in a daze.
I cried on the way to St Vincent’s Hospital. Not sobbing or hysterics, just quiet tears. They ran from my eyes as I drove, and I spent most of my time wiping them away. As I pulled into the parking lot, the phone rang. I parked the car before I answered. I considered not answering and just running inside, but I thought it might be Paul again.
But it was Dan, checking in.
In the mad rush to get to St Vincent’s – the other hospital in Dover, the one for physically sick people – I had forgotten all about him. I gathered myself and tried to sound collected and calm when I answered. I didn’t want to have Dan worrying about me any more than he already was.
‘Hello?’
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
Had he heard something in my voice? Or was he really just making sure I was okay?
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I’m not with that person any more.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m at the hospital,’ I said. ‘I have to see Ronnie.’
‘Is something the matter?’
I must not have been able to hide my feelings as well as I thought I could. Or I just didn’t care any more. How much good had it done my mother and me to hide everything from each other? How many messes could have been avoided if we’d just talked to each other?
‘Ronnie …’ I couldn’t say it. Just as I couldn’t call my mother a murder victim, it was difficult to choke out these words about Ronnie. I took a deep breath and then said it as clearly as I could. ‘It looks like Ronnie tried to kill himself.’
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Do you need anything?’
And then, as hard as it was to admit I needed help yet again, I said yes.
‘What can I do?’
‘Can you just come to St Vincent’s and sit with me? I’d like to have you here.’
‘I’m on my way.’
I found Paul in the waiting room of St Vincent’s. He was sitting in a plastic chair among the other families and victims of random Saturday afternoon mayhem and maladies. He didn’t notice me until I came within earshot of him and called out his name.
He jerked his head up, his face startled. Then his features relaxed a little and he said, ‘Elizabeth, it’s you.’
He stood up, but didn’t offer me a hug. He seemed particularly distracted.
‘What the hell happened?’ I asked.
As I said it – and I’m sure I wasn’t the first person to say that in the emergency room that day – several heads turned in our direction. A middle-aged guy two seats down from Paul held a bloody cloth to a cut on his knee. And a kid in the row behind him hacked with a cough that would give a coal miner a run for the money. They all watched, not even hiding their curiosity.
Paul placed his hand on my right arm and guided me to the other side of the room, where no one was sitting.
‘Wait,’ I said as we moved. ‘Is he okay? Is he even – ?’
‘He’s alive,’ Paul said. ‘They’re treating him right now.’
‘Have you seen him?’
‘Not yet. But the nurse came out and updated me. She said he’s unconscious but stable. That was all she said.’
‘What happened? What did he do?’
‘It’s not entirely clear,’ Paul said. ‘What I know is that a nurse went into Ronnie’s room late this morning, after you left Dover Community, and found him unresponsive. Frank Allison had arrived at the hospital, I guess, and started talking to one of the detectives. They went off somewhere, and they were gone for forty minutes or so. No one was allowed in Ronnie’s room. When the nurse went in, his breathing was shallow. He showed all the signs of having suffered an overdose. They think it’s possible he’s been hiding his pills for the last few days, maybe longer. Not swallowing them when the nurse brings the medication around.’
‘Don’t they check that?’ I asked.
‘I’m sure they try,’ Paul said. ‘But the place is understaffed. Every nurse and every aide looks dead on their feet. Ronnie’s smart enough to sneak something past them.’
‘And he just confessed,’ I said. ‘Do you think it’s because he feels guilty? Hell, it makes him look guilty. Doesn’t it?’
Paul simply reached out to me, his hand shaking, and took my hand in his. He didn’t say anything else. We sat like that for a while. My tears had stopped, at least for the moment. Paul squeezed my hand. His skin felt cold, clammy.
‘I should have seen this coming,’ he said. ‘I should have known.’
‘We both should have, I guess.’
‘No, no,’ he said. He squeezed my hand a little tighter. ‘Earlier this morning, at the hospital, I wanted to talk to the police. Remember?’
‘Did you want to warn them about this?’ I asked. ‘Ronnie’s never done or talked about anything like this. Has he?’
‘No, of course not.’
He didn’t say anything else. He stared straight ahead, my hand still in his. A nurse came out carrying a clipboard, and my expectations rose. But she summoned another patient, the guy with the gash on his knee. I watched him limp behind the nurse.
Maybe the distraction of other people’s problems brought my mind back into focus. ‘Paul?’ I said.<
br />
‘Hmm?’
‘I met someone today. A man named Gordon Baxter.’
Paul continued to stare straight ahead, but I saw him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as though he were passing a peach pit through his throat.
‘Do you know him?’ I asked.
Paul nodded.
‘He was at the cemetery, right?’ I asked. ‘At Mom’s funeral?’
‘Yes, he was. But he wasn’t supposed to be.’
‘So it’s all true, then? Mom was married to him? And they had a daughter?’
Paul still didn’t look at me, but he said, ‘There’s so much more to the story than anything that man could tell you.’
Before I could ask for more of an explanation, Dan came through the doors of the emergency room and headed over to us.
37
I stood up as he approached, and he folded me in his arms. He held me for a long time. When he let go, he looked at Paul, and I remembered that the two of them had never met. I introduced them, calling Dan my friend from school. They shook hands, formal and a little stiff, and then we all sat down again.
I could tell Dan wanted to ask a bunch of questions, but he didn’t. He sat next to me, and the three of us were in an awkward little row, nobody knowing what to say or do.
I knew what I wanted to talk about, though. I wanted to ask Paul all about Gordon Baxter and the story he’d told me. Paul had said there was more to the story. I wanted to hear it all.
But I didn’t want to get into it with Dan there. And I was glad he was there. I leaned in close to him in our uncomfortable waiting room seats. He took my hand.
‘Do you want anything?’ he asked. ‘Something to eat or drink?’
‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘If you need help covering your classes next week or anything, I can do it.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
‘I’m glad you called,’ he said. ‘I mean, I wish you didn’t need to, but I’m glad you did.’
