Gone for Good

by David Bell

  She looked at me knowingly.

  ‘Do you think he wanted to kill you?’ I asked.

  ‘I bet he did. Looking back, I feel certain it crossed his mind. The only reason he didn’t do it was because of Mom. I think some part of him, some tiny, decent part of him, just couldn’t go all the way and kill his child. He couldn’t kill Mom’s child.’

  ‘So what did he do?’

  ‘He told me he was going to make me very happy.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me right away. He told me to get down on the floor of the backseat, to duck down and hide my head. He said he didn’t want anyone to see me in the car. This was 1975, and cars were big. There was plenty of room. He took off his sport coat and draped it over me. I guess he really wanted to make sure I was hidden.’

  ‘I would have been terrified,’ I said.

  ‘I was. My heart was pounding. I still thought I might die. It was dark, and I was shaking. I told myself he wasn’t going to hurt me, that he was my dad and he wouldn’t. But I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t fully trust him. Not really. Pretty soon, I heard someone else come walking up. I heard the footsteps on the driveway. Dad told the other person to drive. Then he got into the backseat with me. He put his hand on my head to keep it down and out of sight. I thought for a moment about trying to jump up and run. But then what would I do? He’d find me, right? I was his daughter. And then the car started and drove off. I couldn’t do anything then.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘We drove a long time. It felt to me like hours. Just hours. Dad didn’t say much. He gave the driver a few directions. “Turn here.” “Up here.” But otherwise nothing else was said. The driver must have turned on the radio. It was classical music, of all things. Dad never listened to that. I heard that and the beating of the windshield wipers. Back and forth, back and forth. Anyway, we just drove on and on. I felt a little carsick, riding like that. In the dark, not seeing anything outside the car. I wished I could have fallen asleep. We were going fast for most of the time, so I figured we were on the highway, but eventually the car slowed down. We made a few turns with Dad giving the directions again. Finally we stopped.’

  She shivered a little bit.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  Beth nodded. ‘Dad told the driver to get out of the car and wait. He told him – I assume it was a him – to go get a cup of coffee or something. Before the person left, Dad said, “Do you have it?” Something rustled around, something like paper, and then I guess the other guy was gone. It was just me and Dad. He leaned down close to me and asked me if I knew where we were. I said no. He told me we were in Columbus at the bus station.

  ‘He said, “I’m going to take this jacket off you, and you can sit up if you’d like. No one’s around right now. It’s the middle of the night.” I sat up. It was dark, and we were next to some run-down building. The streetlight glowed through the front windshield. I remember the big drops of rain beading on the glass. They looked like clear marbles. And I saw the bus station up the street. A few people stood around outside, smoking and talking. Otherwise, we were the only ones there. Dad held out his hand. He had money, a wad of bills. I couldn’t tell how much, but it was more than I had ever seen at one time.

  ‘ “This is five hundred bucks,” he said. “It’s yours. I want you to go into that bus station and buy yourself a ticket.” “Where?” I asked. “Far away,” he said. “It won’t cost that much. You’ll have enough left over when you get where you’re going to start up a new life. Isn’t that what you really want? To be away from here, from shitty, small-town Ohio?” ’

  Beth looked around the little room. She seemed to be taking stock of her surroundings in the dim light from the lamp behind her. I tried to see what she saw – a lower-middle-class home that had seen better days. An old TV, a worn carpet. Ugly curtains.

  ‘I wonder how many people can look at one night – one moment really – and clearly see their life pivot from one place to another. What if I hadn’t gone to that party? What if I hadn’t opened that garage door? What if I’d had the courage to say no to my dad and just run away? Where would I be?’

  ‘You were afraid, though,’ I said. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

  ‘That’s nice of you to say. But I can blame myself in a lot of ways. I was a snot of a kid.’

  ‘All kids are.’

  ‘But Dad was right,’ Beth said. ‘I did want to get away from little Haxton, Ohio. I’d been counting the days until my eighteenth birthday for a long time.’

  ‘All kids do that too. I did.’

  ‘He knew which button to push,’ Beth said. ‘He knew just what I wanted. I took that money and I walked into that bus station with only the clothes on my back. I bought a ticket to Houston, and I left. I thought I was off on some great adventure. I thought I was being a rebel, some kind of wild and crazy free spirit who managed to leave all the limits of my family and town behind. I didn’t even think about Mom and how it would affect her.’

  She leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. I couldn’t tell whether she was crying or not, but I did move forward on the couch and reach out to her. I placed my hand on her shoulder. My own grief over Mom’s death was too real for me not to share the experience with her in some way. The idea of leaving Mom – or Mom leaving us – and never seeing each other again was just too real. I held back against my own emotion for fear it would all pour out.

  ‘Thanks,’ Beth said, lifting her head again. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were full and on the brink of spilling over. ‘As you can guess, I’ve been reliving a lot of this over the last week or so.’

  ‘I get it,’ I said. ‘We can stop. We can talk about this another day.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. She rubbed at her eyes, then tried to force a smile. ‘I bet you’re thinking some things are better left unsaid, huh?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m really not. But your dad’s plan doesn’t sound like a foolproof one. How did he know you wouldn’t just leave the station without getting a ticket? And how did he know you wouldn’t just come back and tell what you knew?’

  Beth nodded. ‘He told me that he and his associate would be watching the station. He said I’d never seen his friend before, and that friend was inside the station watching me, so if I didn’t get on a bus and leave, they’d know. The rain was still falling, but not as hard. The street was wet, and I had to jump around the puddles. I went inside the bus station and looked around. I didn’t recognize anyone, but the station was full of skeevy-looking types. Have you ever been in a bus station?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then you know. As for the other thing … I think he was gambling. Like I said, he knew I wanted to leave town. He knew I was going at it with Mom every chance I got. I think he just hoped I’d stay away long enough for there to be no evidence of what he was mixed up in. If I came back and made some wild accusation, he’d just throw up his hands and say, “What evidence is there of this? The kid’s probably on drugs and telling wild stories.” ’

  ‘And that was it?’ I asked. ‘You never came back?’

  Beth shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t. I did a whole lot of things in a whole lot of places. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but it was mine. It was my life.’

  50

  My phone buzzed again. I looked down and saw Neal’s name on the display. I held up my hand.

  ‘I have to take this one too,’ I said to Beth. ‘This is my friend outside.’

  I answered the phone, but no one was there. It didn’t sound like a dropped call. It sounded like someone was on the other end of the line but wasn’t saying anything.

  ‘Neal?’ I said. ‘Neal?’

  The call cut out.

  I called right back, expecting Neal to answer. Knowing him, I figured he had grown antsy during the long period of time I’d been inside the house with Beth listening to her story. I should have checked in with him sooner to let him know what was going on
, but I’d been so involved with Beth’s story, I hadn’t thought of it.

  Neal was probably ready to go home. Or else he had something else to do.

  But when I called back, the phone went right to voice mail. Neal’s voice came on instructing any callers to leave their name and, as he put it, ‘the most pertinent information’ and he would call them back.

  I didn’t leave a message. Something was off. Why wasn’t Neal answering his phone?

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Beth asked. ‘Is it Ronnie?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s my friend outside. He’s supposed to be out there waiting for me. In fact, we didn’t know what would happen when I came in here, so I had his number ready to call in case … you know …’

  ‘In case I tried to murder you,’ Beth said.

  ‘Just being safe,’ I said. ‘But now he’s not answering.’

  ‘Maybe he got another call. Maybe he figured you were in here so long everything was okay.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’m just going to check, though.’ I stood up and dialled his number again as I walked to the front door. Again it went straight to voice mail. ‘I’m just going to go out and see.’

  ‘Do you think it’s safe?’ Beth said.

  ‘It should be fine,’ I said. ‘Neal knows how to take –’

  I had just placed my hand on the doorknob when a gunshot interrupted me.

  I froze. Had it really been a gunshot?

  Beth was right behind me. ‘Get away from the door.’

  Her words jolted me into action. I pulled the door open and stepped out onto the porch. I sensed Beth behind me. She came up and placed her hand on my right arm.

  ‘Come inside,’ she said.

  ‘Go call 911.’

  ‘I will,’ she said. ‘But you come in.’

  ‘You call,’ I said. ‘I have to check on my friend.’

  I pulled away from her and started down the porch steps. In the wake of the gunshot, the night was quiet. Very quiet. I expected to hear commotion, to see people running outside to give help. But it must not have been that kind of neighbourhood. Most of the blinds and doors remained shut tight. Across the street I saw one set of curtains move, but the figure behind the glass disappeared before I could get any kind of look at them.

  I turned in the direction of Neal’s SUV. The streetlights had just come on, but their glow didn’t cover every inch of the street. Some areas remained in darkness and shadow. I saw the figure lying in the street next to Neal’s car. I ran forward so fast, I didn’t process who it was. But as I came closer, I saw. It was Neal. I recognized the grimy army coat, his tall frame with the long legs splayed.

  I saw the blood dripping from his side, staining the pavement.

  ‘Neal!’

  When I reached him, he could barely lift his head. But he managed to smile at me, one corner of his mouth lifting. His skin was pale, almost translucent in the half-light. His eyes looked a little glassy. And scared. Even Neal could look scared.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘The police are coming.’

  ‘Some guy …’

  ‘Who? What guy?’

  He started coughing.

  ‘Just lay here,’ I said. ‘Lay back.’

  I eased Neal’s head down against the pavement. He was sweating. I didn’t have anything to cushion his head, so I left my hand under there, hoping it brought some comfort.

  ‘A guy,’ he said. ‘I saw him … He was scoping out the house …’

  ‘He shot you?’

  ‘Stabbed me. Fucking stabbed me. Can you believe that?’

  ‘I’m sorry. This is all my fault.’

  He started shaking his head. ‘No. Not that.’ He coughed again. ‘This guy. He was going for the house. So I got out.’ He closed his eyes, wincing. ‘He came over here and we got into it. He just stabbed me. I can’t believe he got the drop on me.’

  I heard them in the distance. Sirens. ‘Do you hear that, Neal? The police are coming. Just relax.’

  ‘He was an old guy,’ he said. ‘That’s the shittiest thing. Some old fat guy …’

  ‘Who fired the gun?’ I asked.

  ‘Me.’ He rolled onto his side a little, and I saw the gun beneath his body. There was blood smeared on the grip. ‘I think I missed. But it’s okay.’ He winced again. ‘I have a permit.’

  I heard footsteps in the street behind me. It was Beth. She had a blanket and she spread it over Neal’s body.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said just before his eyes closed.

  ‘An old fat guy?’ I said.

  ‘Old,’ Neal said. ‘Fat. He was going to the house where you were … He looked like trouble … a real asshole …’

  His voice trailed off. I saw the flashing lights of the police cars as they turned onto the street. I reached out for Neal and held his hand.

  It felt even colder than the night air.

  51

  When the paramedics arrived on Beth’s street, they went right to work on Neal. I didn’t watch closely, but I saw them slide an IV into his arm and pump a clear liquid into his body. They checked his vital signs and lifted him onto a stretcher and into the ambulance.

  The police took over from there. They inundated Beth and me with questions about the stabbing. Who was Neal? What brought all this on? What was my relationship to the victim?

  I told them everything I knew, which wasn’t very much. But I made sure they understood one thing.

  ‘The man who did this,’ I said. ‘His name is Gordon Baxter.’

  I waited in another hospital, this one in Reston Point. I didn’t even know its name. Beth sat beside me. We had no idea what was going on with Neal. They had rushed him into surgery before we arrived in the emergency room waiting area, and since we weren’t immediate family members, no one would tell us anything. We made our way to the surgery floor, where the waiting room looked more comfortable. There was coffee brewed and a plate of crumbling pastries and cookies. Maybe I was feeling paranoid or maybe the recent events in my life had diminished my capacity for hope, but I started to think the nurses who hustled through the hallways and the elderly volunteer at the desk were looking at Beth and me with barely disguised pity. I prepared myself for the worst.

  A detective from Reston Point took our initial statements and told us to expect a call in the future. I gave him the names of Richland and Post, and he wrote those down with the enthusiasm of someone composing a grocery list.

  ‘Did someone call his family?’ I asked.

  ‘We made the notification,’ the detective said, and then left.

  A TV played with the sound down, some news show in which two heads argued back and forth. In the harsh hospital light, I saw Beth’s face more clearly. I saw the deep lines and the wear. Her eyes lacked any real spark of life. They looked tired instead. But despite all that, I saw the resemblance to Mom. And to me. Beneath the layer of frazzled and harried fear, I saw my mother’s steel. This woman – my sister – looked like a survivor, someone who had the scars from battle, but was ready to go another few rounds. No problem.

  My phone vibrated in my hand. It was a text from Janie Rader. She and some of her girlfriends were going out for Saturday night drinks – did I want to come? Oh, Janie, I thought. How I wish I could just go out for drinks with the girls. How I wish …

  ‘I guess you still have a lot of questions,’ Beth said.

  I put the phone away. ‘A few more.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ she said. ‘Is he your –?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Neal is one of my students. He helped me find you. My mind was just muddled with all of this stuff, and I thought the police would take too long. I asked him, and he found you for me.’

  Beth shook her head. Her shoulders drooped. ‘I get the feeling this is all my fault. None of this would have ever happened if you weren’t looking for me.’

  ‘I think it goes back a lot further than me trying to find you,’ I said.

  Something beeped above us, and a voice o
ver the loudspeaker summoned a technician to the paediatric wing.

  Beth said, ‘I think it all goes back to my father. He clearly wasn’t the man Mom thought she was marrying. He certainly wasn’t the man I thought he was when I was growing up. He sent me away. He did those awful things. He tried to kill your friend. And now … I can’t help thinking about Mom.’

  ‘You think he’s the one who killed Mom?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can allow my mind to go there,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s just too much to take in all at once.’

  I understood what she was saying, but I hadn’t had any trouble going where she didn’t want to. And I hoped the police saw it the same way once they found out. I looked forward to updating Richland and Post with this piece of the puzzle. They wouldn’t be able to conclude anything else – Gordon Baxter killed Mom, just as he tried to kill Neal.

  ‘Can you tell me something else?’ I asked. ‘Can you tell me how you got back in touch with Mom? Did you not see her for a long time? How many years was it before you saw her again?’

  ‘I just saw her again about six months ago,’ Beth said. ‘After all those years, we finally reconnected.’

  ‘How many years was that?’ I asked.

  ‘Thirty-seven,’ she said.

  ‘Jesus,’ I said. I couldn’t help myself. ‘Thirty-seven years. Jesus. How did that happen?’

  ‘I want to be clear – it might have been thirty-seven years before I saw her again. But I thought about her all the time over those years. Every day, in fact. At first, I stayed away because … I’m ashamed to admit it, but Gordon was right. I wanted to get out of Ohio. I thought Haxton was too small for me. I was starting some kind of great adventure, I thought. I went away. I found work. I met people, and I partied it up. I picked up the phone more than once, meaning to call Mom. I bought postcards and even started to write them. But I never followed through.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I didn’t want to go home. And I thought if I started talking to Mom she’d beg me to come back. And then there was Gordon. He made it sound like Mom would be in danger if I made contact with her. I didn’t really believe his story that Mom was involved with the movies and whatever else he was doing, but I knew she was there, with Gordon. I didn’t know if she knew and turned a blind eye, or if she might really get hurt. I didn’t want to risk it. And the more time passed, the easier it was to not make contact. Or I guess I should say, the harder it would have been to make contact. You know what I mean?’