A Grave Search

by Wendy Roberts

  “Yeah, some saw him that way I guess. I never paid him any attention.”

  Those who weren’t bullied rarely even noticed it happening all around them.

  I picked up the bill and got to my feet. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  “Guess that was the least I could do,” he said.

  “Yeah, it was.” Which was a subtle reminder that he owed me so much more.

  I left him sitting there in the booth and tipped heavily when I got up to the counter to pay. Once I was back in my Jeep I realized I was fine after meeting with Denny. Even though he was connected to heart-wrenching chaos from another time, I was fine.

  Maybe I’m getting better, I thought, then I noticed my hands were shaking as I started up the car.

  With my eyes closed I drew in a deep calming breath.

  “I liked that boy well and good enough. Better than the FBI fellow. Denny knew his place.”

  “Shut up, Gramps!”

  I screamed so loud that a woman climbing out of her car parked next to mine gave me a fearful look.

  Chapter Eleven

  I drove home with my head in a fog that didn’t clear until I’d blown those old stomping grounds behind in my rearview mirror.

  When I saw the highway exit for the burger place where Katie worked, I decided to take it. She’d said she would send me those secret spots that Ron liked to visit but so far I hadn’t heard from her. One of the people working the counter told me that Katie didn’t have a shift today but I could find her working a clothing shop at the mall. I thanked the woman for her time and got back in my car. I had no desire to go by the shopping center.

  Back on the highway, I turned up the volume of my book hoping the advice for finding peace in trauma would somehow finally permeate my skull and stick. I was debating what my next step with the search for Ava would be when I saw Tracey Cook standing on the shoulder of the highway with her thumb out and her green hair blowing in the wind. I hit the brakes and angled onto the shoulder and she jogged up to meet me.

  She flung open the passenger door and climbed in. “What are the chances?” Her words came out happy and breathless.

  “Chances of you getting abducted by some serial killer and tossed in a ditch somewhere?” I said. “I’d say the chances are pretty damn good.”

  She found that impossibly funny, dropping her oversized purse on the ground and placing her hands on her knees as she giggled. “You are an old bitchy mama in a young girl’s body, yanno that?”

  “I am not!” I gave her my best pissed-off glare but she only smiled back in return. “It’s just not safe for you to be thumbing.”

  “Car is in the shop again,” she explained. “I’m wanting to surprise my boyfriend on our anniversary is all.”

  “You should’ve just asked him to come get you.”

  “Where’s the surprise in that?”

  She had a point.

  “Yeah but—”

  “I get it.” She reached over and patted my knee reassuringly. “The shit you see in your biz—well, you think everyone is either a murderer or setting themselves up for a killing.”

  “Occupational hazard,” I admitted with a sigh. “Where are you going?”

  “Marysville. You don’t have to take me all the way unless you’re heading in that direction.”

  I shoulder checked and then accelerated back onto the highway. “I’ll take you.”

  I couldn’t live with myself if I dropped her somewhere and she got picked up by some groper or murdered and tossed in a Dumpster.

  “Fine but this depressing shit needs to go off.”

  I wasn’t even aware that my book on grief was still playing over the speakers. I reddened slightly but she made no other remark about it, just punched the radio stations until she found one she liked.

  My peaceful although somewhat brooding drive now became a cacophony of loud music as Tracey searched for a station. At one point she found a pop artist we both liked and I even found myself singing along with her. My heart felt lighter. It was like the early days when Katie and I would drive around, windows down, bellowing along to a top hit while our hair blew in the wind.

  When the radio stations all seemed to be playing commercials, Tracey hit the off button. She gave me directions to where this boyfriend worked. The area was dangerously close to a house I’d visited another time.

  I finally stopped in front of a garage.

  “Thanks for the lift!” she said, flinging the door open and hopping out.

  “So is your guy going to give you a ride home, or what? You’re not going to be thumbing back?”

  “I’m sure he’ll give me a ride if he can,” she said, sounding less than confident as she leaned into the car to grab her purse.

  “How long have you two been together?” I asked.

  “It’s our two-month anniversary today,” she announced proudly. “There he is!”

  She waved over at a skinny dark-skinned guy in oil-stained coveralls. He looked over and half waved back, not looking nearly as excited to see Tracey as she was to see him. I had a bad feeling about the entire thing but it was none of my business.

  “I think that while I’m here I’m going to pop in and visit someone I know a few blocks away,” I said when she went to close the passenger door. “So if you want a ride back, I’ll be heading for home in an hour or so.”

  She nodded as if she half heard me, slammed the door shut and offered me a backward wave over her shoulder as she jogged over to her guy.

  “Stupid.”

  It was a comment directed both at Tracey and at myself because now I had to find something to do with myself for an hour just in case she needed a ride. Unfortunately, I knew what that something would be. I angled the Jeep toward Sixth Street and slowed down. I almost rolled right past the small bungalow because the faded green wood siding I remembered was now white with bright blue trim. I pulled to the curb in front of the house, rolled down the windows to allow a breeze and turned off the Jeep.

  I saw the blind slats in a small bedroom window part for someone to look out and, at the same time, the sheer curtains in the living room moved.

  “Now what?”

  Before long an answer came when a small middle-aged Asian woman in a tank top, cutoffs and bare feet walked out of the house and strolled purposefully toward me. I had a moment of panic when I realized she was the same woman who’d lived at the house when I visited before. It never occurred to me that my mom’s ex-boyfriend, Ted, might still live here with his girlfriend.

  “Enough of the watching us!” she yelled, waving her hands at me as she got closer to the curb. “Enough already! We told you everything we know!” She came right up to the passenger door shouting about a right to privacy.

  “Okay, I’m leaving,” I told her, nervously starting up the car.

  “Wait a second.” She put her hands on the window and leaned inside. I froze. “I recognize you. You’re not a cop or fed. You’re Molly’s girl, right? You came here last year looking for her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s different then. Fine. You can come in. Thought you were a cop. Or fed. Sick of those creepers hanging around here and sticking their noses where they don’t belong and going through our trash. Jesus!”

  She walked back up the sidewalk and looked over to give me a hurry-up wave. I didn’t want to go inside. Except I did. Desperately. So I rolled up my windows, locked up the Jeep and followed her.

  Last time I was in this house I’d been following a lead in Garrett’s files about the last known location of my mother, and it brought me here to this Marysville address. It was here that this woman had been shacking up with Ted. When I came here over a year ago, Ted told me my mom had gone out for smokes and beer and never come back. They’d discovered her car and it looked like Mom had just walked away or drowned in the nearb
y river.

  I stepped inside the house now and stopped short. Last year the house had been littered with beer bottles, debris and the aroma of overwhelming neglect. It was now pristine. Same old furniture and threadbare carpet but every area had been scrubbed within an inch of its life, and the reek of pine cleaner and furniture polish stung my eyes.

  “Ted doesn’t live here anymore,” she told me. “I kicked his sorry ass out a couple months ago when cops first started coming around. He kept spending the rent money on booze and drugs. I don’t need that kind of headache.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m sorry to bother you. I dropped a friend off a few blocks away and just thought I’d drive by here. I don’t know why. I’ll just go.” I turned to leave but she stopped me.

  “Don’t go. Come on inside. Sit down. Want some iced tea? I make it fresh myself.”

  I did still have an hour to kill. “Um. Sure. Thanks.”

  I kicked off my shoes and walked into the living room, taking a seat on the sofa probably in the exact same place I sat all those months ago except I didn’t have to look for a stain-free place to park my butt this time. There were a number of table fans but they only swirled the hot air around and did little to cool the small room. Suddenly, a plump white cat startled me when it jumped onto my lap and began to rub up against me. I stroked its back and was rewarded with loud purring.

  “Well, look at that,” the woman remarked when she returned with our drinks. “Fluffy likes you. She belongs to my friend, who’s visiting. Fluffy doesn’t like many people so this is a good sign. I never trust a person if animals don’t like them.”

  She put my glass down on top of a coaster on the coffee table in front of me and took a seat in a chair next to the sofa.

  “I feel the same way,” I told her honestly but didn’t tell her I was more of a dog person.

  Fluffy the cat jumped off my lap and went to the opposite corner of the sofa to perform an elaborate genital bathing ritual.

  “My friend got her at the shelter. Can you believe someone just threw her away because they didn’t want her anymore? Who does that kind of thing?”

  Well, my mother had done that to me.

  I picked up the glass of iced tea and took a sip. It was extremely sweet but I was thirsty and the cold felt good against my throat. When I put it back down on the table, I made certain to place it back on the coaster.

  “I’ll be back in a second.” She picked up the cat and went down the hall, where she quickly disappeared into a bedroom. I could hear the murmur of voices and then she returned to the living room and sat back down in the chair next to me. “You probably want more information on your mom. I wish I could tell you more about her but, well, not much else I can add to what you were told by Ted last time you came by here.”

  She fanned herself with a newspaper and took a long drink of her tea before putting the glass down.

  “You were saying that officers have been coming around the house recently?”

  “Yes, the police came by and the feds too. After they made that big drug bust a few months ago, I guess Ted’s name came up and your mom’s too, so everyone wanted to check if they were here. Nobody’s here. Obviously.” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “First time they showed up it was with a search warrant. They looked over the entire house and even brought in a couple of drug-sniffing dogs. Fluffy didn’t appreciate that much.” She chuckled. “I told them nobody here but me and I’d already kicked Ted out of here but they kept coming around. I didn’t mind at first because they’re just doing their job but I wish they’d believe me that Ted isn’t coming back.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder if one of the federal agents over here had been Garrett.

  “Now just because your mom’s name came up that doesn’t mean she’s alive or anything and, if she is, you may not want to find her anyway. I know Ted told you she walked outta here and never came back. Her car was found but no sign of her. She was in a bad way, you know. All that booze and drugs—well, I’m sure she’s the same now if she’s alive, and maybe it even caught up to her by now.”

  I didn’t tell her about Molly’s name coming up at a drug house and that Garrett had shown me a recent picture of her. I got the impression this woman wanted to protect me.

  “It’s not like Ted was any kind of a ringleader, you understand. He wasn’t that smart but I’m sure he had his grimy fingers involved in that shakedown somehow. Probably just buying dope there and maybe selling a time or two, which is why I told him to hit the curb. I guess the officers are looking for anyone with connections to that big drug bust and they won’t rest until they tie it up in a neat bow.” She pulled a tissue from the front pocket of her shorts and dabbed at the sweat on her forehead. “Gawd, it’s hot these days.”

  “Super hot,” I agreed. An oscillating fan turned and teased me with a short burst of air and then turned away. “So you heard my mom’s name come up when the officers were coming around?” I probed.

  “Yeah. Sure.” She picked up her glass and drank a little more. “Guess they arrested a lot of those people and now they’re looking for others, and your mom’s name was part of the group they’re looking for. That shocked the hell out of me and I told them she was either dead or near dead and they were wasting their time looking for her. One of the cops said maybe she was alive and she only left him because he was an asshole.” She laughed quite loudly at the idea. “Ted was definitely an asshole at times.”

  “When the officers and agents came by, did they say anything else about Molly?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Her name was on a list of a few people they missed when they did that big takedown of a lot of drug houses. It’s not like they’re searching high and low for her or Ted. It was just their names because maybe someone at one of those houses ratted them out or something. Maybe the officers figured if they found them they could get information on more drug houses.” She fanned herself more with the newspaper, lifting her hair and trying to move the air around her damp neck. “Sorry I don’t have any more information for you.”

  “That’s okay. I really didn’t expect you would.”

  “It would be best to forget all about your mother. And Ted.” She leaned toward me. “You can help people and you can point them in the right direction but you can’t make them better. Addiction is a horrible thing.”

  “Yeah, it really is.”

  My phone chirped and I pulled it out of my purse. It was a text from Tracey asking if I could come back and get her. That was fast. I replied that I’d be there in a few minutes.

  “Thanks so much for the tea and for taking the time to talk to me.” I realized that I never even asked her name but didn’t see a reason to ask for it now. I wouldn’t be back. Still, I dug a business card out of my purse and handed it to her. “I know it’s a long shot, but if my mom ever does come around, maybe you could tell her I’m looking for her.”

  “Of course. Don’t expect that’ll happen. But sure.” She tossed the card to the table dismissively. I was already at the door slipping my feet into my sneakers when she said, “Just a sec.” She disappeared down the hall and returned a minute later. “I have something for you.”

  She walked over to a potted plant in the corner, lifted up the pot and picked up a small bag from underneath. She brought it over, opened it up and pulled out a long chain with a gold band strung on it like a pendant.

  “I found this hidden there under my fern when I first moved in here with Ted. I just left it there in case your momma ever came back for it.” She took the pendant and held it out to me. “I never mentioned it to Ted in case he decided to pawn the thing, which is probably why your mom woulda hid it there in the first place.”

  My fingers shook a little as I took the necklace from her. “How do you know it belonged to my mom?”

  “Looks like it was your dad’s.” Then, ever so coolly, as if this wasn’t a life-defining momen
t, she picked the simple gold band from the palm of my hand and held it between her fingers, tilting it so I could see there was engraving inside.

  I plucked the band from her hand and held it closer so I could read the inscription.

  U + me 4ever xo Molly

  “Thank you.” The words came out a hoarse whisper as tears burned my eyes.

  “Glad you like it. I don’t have no use for it, of course.”

  I slipped the necklace over my head and gave her a quick hug. She smiled, obviously proud of the emotion it brought on.

  “If your mom ever comes around you can be sure I’ll pass along your business card.”

  “Thank you,” I repeated and headed out the door.

  I walked back to my Jeep with one hand still clutching the ring around my neck. Once inside the car, I started it up and rolled down the windows all the while gripping the ring in a tight fist. It was the first time I’d ever had proof that my father existed beyond my being the result of his sperm donation. I sat in the car a while, my head and chest filled with emotion.

  “Let’s talk about your dad,” Dr. Chen suggested.

  “No.”

  “It might help you to grieve.”

  “No need to grieve someone I never even met.”

  Holding evidence of my father’s existence in the world seemed to shift everything in my head. He’d lived, loved my mother, and died a soldier after I was born. Maybe he’d even held me in his arms and loved me too.

  I let the tears flow down my face, surprised by their intensity. The scorching yearning for a drink to bury all that emotion was incredibly intense. I considered calling Dr. Chen or Garrett but then my phone chirped a message from Tracey. She was sitting at a bus stop a block down from the garage and would wait for me there. I carefully tucked the pendant inside my T-shirt. I’d gripped it so long and so hard that the gold was warm and comforting against my chest as I steered away from the curb.