Dry Bones

by Carole Morden

  With that, she’d gone over to inspect Natalie Edwards’ brownies. I rolled my eyes and considered the source. Could I just say here that I am forty-eight years old? Not sixteen. Maybe in Abigail’s mind, I was “today’s youth,” but give me a break. If eye rolling had a sound, you would have just heard it.

  The evening sale netted the ladies group $1,678 and some odd change.

  After the fund-raiser, I dragged myself through the front door, pulled off my shoes, and threw my coat on the end of the couch, relieved the bake sale was over.

  Pulling a Dr Pepper out of the fridge and downing a big gulp, I sat down at the table and held the can to my forehead. An overwhelming sense of inadequacy swept over me. Not only about Tim, or about my life, but my role in life—the spouse of a pastor. It’s like I was supposed to be this person who is all loving, all understanding, never has a bad day, keeps an impeccable house, and quotes Scripture as a pastime. That was so not like me.

  What I really wanted to do with Abigail’s critical spirit was pitch it out the window—with her. Instead, I pretended her little jabs didn’t hurt, smiled indulgently at her helpful hints, and took pies to a church fund-raiser even though my life had shattered into a million pieces just three hours ago. God’s sense of humor, I suppose—having someone like me fall in love with a preacher. I didn’t know if the joke was on the congregation or me.

  Sighing, I emptied the contents of the manila envelope on the table. There were some handwritten notes, a newspaper clipping, and a file folder with the label Stewart, Dacia—05/25/85. Excitement surged through me. I recognized the name. Ms. Stewart had been a student teacher during my last semester of school. She had disappeared the final week before graduation, and the Cliffhangers met a couple of times trying to figure out what happened. We came up empty. Why did Tim have this file? I would save it to read on the long flight to Pennsylvania. I picked up the newspaper clipping from my hometown paper, the Herald-Bulletin. The article, a few scant paragraphs, was accompanied by a picture of Mounds Park.

  Anderson Police Chief Burke Thompson made the grim announcement today that the skeletal remains of a human body were found Tuesday afternoon in Mounds Park.

  Crime scene investigators have identified the bones as those of Dacia Stewart, a former student teacher, who was reported missing on May 25, 1985. Cause of death is not yet known, although preliminary reports indicate blunt force trauma to the head. The skull appears to have been crushed.

  Anderson police treated Stewart’s disappearance as a missing persons’ case at the time, but the case is now considered a homicide. The bones were discovered exactly thirty years to the day that Stewart went missing.

  The deceased’s parents, long-time Bloomington residents Chuck and Dottie Stewart, took the news stoically. Mr. Stewart said, “Now maybe the police will take us seriously. Our daughter was murdered, and we want some answers. Thirty years and we still love and miss her like it was yesterday.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Wednesday

  I stared out the window of the Boeing 747, barely seeing the Montana topography below. My thoughts centered on how to convince Rachel to come to Anderson. Her dependence on alcohol had intensified through the years, and I wasn’t sure where I stood with her. In high school she would have done anything for me or the other Cliffhangers. But this wasn’t high school.

  Rachel King was beautiful—at least back in the day. Long, natural blonde hair, generous mouth, ice-blue eyes, and Marilyn Monroe legs. Her complexion was pale, almost milky, and as clear as a newborn’s. In school she’d been the envy of every girl and the unobtainable prize for every boy. She didn’t use makeup, wore baggy out-of-style clothes, and still managed to look better than the rest of us. She was the smartest of the Cliff hangers and had an ingenious way of looking at things—sort of upside-down and inside-out. She rarely smiled, but when she did, it felt like a gift. And when she smiled, it was always about beating someone at Pac Man or any of the new computer games that were all the rage back in the day. Nothing else seemed to bring her much joy.

  When she graduated, her mother surprised her with an IBM personal computer, modem, and printer. It was the talk of the graduating class because her parents had no money. How they could afford the computer no one knew. Rachel was the happiest I had ever seen her when she packed her bags to fly to Philly to the Citrone Institute. The computer-training school had just opened its doors, and Rachel planned on a career with the then intimidating machines. Now everyone and their brother had one, even me, but she could make a computer sing.

  I caught myself smiling, thinking back to how surprised everyone was when Time magazine picked “The Computer” as the Person of the Year for 1982. As a sophomore in high school, it didn’t mean much to me, but it was all Rachel talked about.

  The short layover in Salt Lake City allowed enough time to dash into a restroom before boarding the next flight. The lighting above the mirror emphasized why cosmetic companies were in business. Too lazy to apply makeup at five-thirty this morning, I had to take advantage of the stop. I gave my shoulder-length hair a few quick brushstrokes before pulling it back into a ponytail. Strands of gray mingled with the chestnut brown, giving me a dappled appearance. Good in horses, not so good in humans. I leaned in closer to look at the crow’s feet around my eyes. Aging—what a wonderful invention. I shrugged off the thought and applied some olive shadow to my eyelids. It brought out the green highlights in my hazel eyes and made me feel younger.

  Chasing fifty, I was starting to look like my mother—short and slightly overweight. I say slightly because it sounds good, but my driver’s license recorded my heft as thirty pounds north of my bridal weight. But after all, I reasoned, I had birthed four children. People couldn’t expect me to stay slender forever, except maybe Sister Thornbush.

  Once she said to me, “You know, dearie, I think it would be wise to quit eating so much. You’re starting to look like those women who sit around eating bonbons all day. You don’t want the congregation to think you’re lazy, do you? I remember one pastor’s wife. Oh my goodness, she was large. Large, I tell you. I don’t really know why we kept them on. Sloth is a sin, and the Good Book makes no bones about it. A person doesn’t gain weight bustling about doing the Lord’s work. No siree. No time to fill the ol’ spare tire when you’re doing God’s business.”

  I bought a Dr Pepper, stashed it in my purse, and headed down concourse B to gate 33. Although much larger than Great Falls International, the Salt Lake City airport was easy to navigate, and I had no trouble catching my next plane. I was anxious to check out the police file that Tim had been working on.

  After reaching cruising altitude, the seat-belt sign blinked off, the flight attendant brought me a cup of ice for my Dr Pepper, and I opened the file. Although I’d never read a police report before, this one seemed to be devoid of any hard facts.

  The police had questioned the entire faculty at Highland High School and many students. The only real facts listed were what the Cliffhangers had already known at the time.

  On the day Dacia Stewart failed to show up for school, someone purporting to be her brother called in, said she was sick with the flu, and didn’t know when she would be back. When the police spoke with her family, they discovered she didn’t have a brother. Her locked car was found later in the parking lot at Mounds Park. It was towed to the police impound and dusted for prints, but only Dacia Stewart’s prints were found.

  The media reported the police had set up a hotline for anyone who had been at the park on May 25 to call police headquarters. More than fifteen people responded and were interviewed, but no one had seen anyone fitting Dacia’s description.

  Tim had highlighted four names of people the police had questioned more than once. Evidently, he was planning on talking to them. I wrote their names in my journal.

  The police report concluded that lack of evidence suggested she’d left town of her own free will. Plenty of people just checked out on their lives, and the APD presumed Da
cia Stewart ran away with the guy who pretended to be her brother. Although the elder Stewarts from Bloomington strongly disagreed, the case was closed. And now reopened.

  I glanced at my watch before pulling my overnight case out of the bin above my head. It was 4:42 p.m. The flight was eight minutes late, but that was not much of a problem since I hadn’t asked Rachel to meet me.

  I disembarked from Delta flight 1930 at the Philadelphia International Airport and followed the arrows to baggage claim to retrieve the rest of my luggage. Luckily, several cabs were parked at curbside. My inability to read a map, complemented by absolutely no sense of direction, excluded me from renting a car in cities I was unfamiliar with. Philadelphia fit that bill. The cabbie tossed my luggage in the trunk, and I gave him Rachel’s address and settled back for the ride.

  Looking at me in the rearview mirror, the cabbie asked, “You sure? That’s a rough neighborhood.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “That ain’t no part of town for a single woman to be in,” he insisted. I didn’t recognize his accent, but it was understandable enough.

  “Just take me there.”

  The driver shrugged his shoulders in a don’t-come-crying-to-me-when-you-get-mugged attitude, then shoved the gearshift into drive and pulled into traffic.

  I sure wished I’d brought my Taser. The stun gun was a gag gift from David on my birthday. The card had read, “To be used on any and all board members, at anytime, anywhere but especially during annual business meetings.”

  I’d laughed until my sides ached when I pulled it out of the package. Mandatory attendance at annual church business meetings was another part of the pastor’s wife’s job I hated. I seldom—if ever—came home without a headache. Not only did mean-spirited arguments take place with normally rational human beings, but I had to keep my mouth shut too. That was the tough part.

  For instance, I remember Brother Eddy’s long-winded diatribe about hymns versus choruses:

  “Our young people are losing all doctrinal teaching with these new-fangled choruses. And no, I am not going to call them praise songs. That’s just trying to dress up an ugly duckling with swan feathers, and by George, someone has to stand up for the truth. They are choruses, plain and simple—repetitive and boring. With a hymn you get four verses with different words in every verse. The verses tell a story you can sink your teeth into. Not these choruses. You just sing the same words over and over again to a tune that doesn’t even flow. And there aren’t any notes either. How are you supposed to learn a song without notes? That’s what I want to know. I can tell you God is not pleased. He is not pleased at all with this new-fangled music. I will tell you this, there won’t be choruses in heaven, I am sure of that.”

  ZZZAP. I grinned, remembering the amount of mental zapping I did at the annual meeting just two weeks ago. But I went home without a headache and a more cheerful outlook on the whole proceeding. I looked forward to telling David who got zapped with my imaginary Taser and why.

  From then on, it had been a private joke between David and me. Now I wished I’d packed the real thing in my checked baggage. I had been to Rachel’s apartment once before when David had attended an evangelistic conference in Philly. The driver didn’t need to tell me what kind of neighborhood it was in. I knew only too well.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  August 27, 1964

  The smell of hot-buttered popcorn permeated the air. Kids were scattered around tables doing homework or eating snacks. Supervisors bent over them to help with math, English, and science. Now was the perfect time. The adults would never notice the five-minute absence of a little kid. Especially a kid that never caused trouble.

  It was the bird’s fault. If he hadn’t opened his stupid mouth this wouldn’t have to happen. Why did birds talk anyway? Stupid bird . . . he brought this on himself.

  The rooms in the big, rambling house were built in dormitory style with sparse furnishings. Each room held two bunk beds, one desk, and one overhead light with a bare bulb. A long string attached to the light fixture that even the youngest could reach dangled down in the middle of the room, which was good.

  A quick glance both ways revealed the coast was clear. It would be a cinch to get in and out of the room without being spotted. The room itself was like every other room—small. This one didn’t have a window, although some did. The walls didn’t look like home. They were plain and bare. A cramped walkway littered with dirty socks, underwear, and shirts was centered between the bunk beds. What a pigsty. The bunks were pushed flush against the east and west walls, each equipped with a pillow, a sheet, and a quilt. Nothing matched the mustard-yellow walls.

  Anger built up like a tornado forming in a black sky. A vicious kick hurled dirty clothes out of the way. This wasn’t home. It would never be home. Everything had happened too fast. Life wasn’t fair! It took major control to resist the urge to slam a fist through the wall. Why did Mama and Daddy have to die? They didn’t have any right to just leave without saying good-bye.

  Another stupid thing—books. Stupid happy-ever-after endings. Endings weren’t like that at all. The Velveteen Rabbit was a stupid book. Who did it belong to anyway? And if they liked it so much how come they left it lying around? It felt good to rip it apart. First one page and then another and another, until all the pages lay torn and scattered on the disheveled floor in the midst of the dirty clothes. There. Much better. The anger wasn’t as strong anymore, but it was still hard to think. It was hard to know what to do, but Petey had to be taken care of. There wasn’t much time left.

  The small birdcage sat on the cheap desk with the parakeet happily perched by his birdseed. He was pretty. Not boring brown like some birds. Petey had a sky-blue body with a yellow head streaked with black. He looked at the torn book and squawked. He hopped around in the cage like he was mad about something. What right did he have to be mad? He chirped loudly and it was harder to think. His squawks got faster and louder and his wings fluttered with excitement. He needed out of the cage.

  “Hey, Petey. Want out of your cage?”

  No answer . . . just more screeching.

  “You have to promise to sit on my hand. You can’t fly away. Okay?”

  Petey didn’t squawk this time, only looked around with interest.

  “Good boy.”

  It wasn’t hard to get the metal double doors to swing open or to turn Mr. Pointer finger into a perch. “Good Petey.”

  Petey chirped loudly.

  “Shhh. They might hear you. We can’t have that. You already talk too much.”

  Louder chirping.

  “Stop it, stop it, stop it! Why can’t you just be quiet?” The bird had to be silenced. Besides, no one else had a bird in their room. It wasn’t fair.

  The feathers around Petey’s neck were soft to touch. It felt good to squeeze them. His little beak opened in panic, but no sound came out. His vocal chords must have quit working. He really squirmed and fought. He tried to flap his wings, too, but wings are no match against people hands. Especially strong hands, even though the teacher always said how small they were. Teachers always said stupid stuff.

  Petey’s tiny, black eyes bulged out of their sockets. Still the crushing, pinching, wringing had to continue until the bird didn’t move. What a good feeling when Petey finally stopped squirming. The teacher called those feelings warm fuzzies. One last hard squish. A long, blue tail feather drifted gently to the floor, resting on a crumpled torn picture of the Skin Horse. Wonder what the teacher would say now?

  Placing the bird back in the cage so he looked like he was snoozing took too much time. It was better to just throw him in. The sooner he was found the better, and maybe—just maybe—a lesson would be learned.

  Hopefully, there was some popcorn left.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Handing the driver an extra twenty, I hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Can you give me ten minutes?”

  He shrugged indifferently, took the money, and put it in his shirt pocket. “Sure.”<
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  With a prayer on my lips and luggage in hand, I walked toward the rundown apartment complex. Groups of tattooed, body-pierced, chains-dangling-from-belt-loops teens clustered on cracked sidewalks. Dusty weeds reached for the sun through crumbled cement steps. Graffiti marked the walls with both artistic and angry strokes. Cigarette smoke permeated the air, and various music boxes warred with each other for airspace.

  A lone rapper yo-ed and ohh-like-dat-ed to the beat of a drum I failed to see. His cap lay upside down at his feet, catching any tips coming his way, as he continued to chant his own mix of coded jargon. His jeans rode low on his skinny, little frame. In point of fact, they would hang loose on a sumo wrestler. His boxer shorts displayed tiny little red and pink hearts on a white background. Something about him brought out the mother in me, and I dropped a five in the Sixers’ hat.

  It was hot. Ninety-one degrees according to the Delta pilot who cheerfully shared the information from the comfort of his air-conditioned cockpit before his passengers departed.

  I hurried up the steps and into the building.

  The poorly lit hallway in the Fairfield Apartment Complex smelled musty with just a hint of urine. Muffled laughter emanated from the door on my left. I carefully stepped over a fly-covered piece of pizza. It had long since passed its prime. No trouble losing weight here. Just step out your door and take a whiff.

  A black spider scuttled across the floor angry at the invasion of his personal smorgasbord. Chills ricocheted up and down my spine. Spiders creep me out. Fear factor-wise, they are far worse than snakes. Throw me in a den of rattlesnakes, and I could fight my way out, but put me in a room with one spider and the terror would paralyze me. Killing them is futile. They simply come back to life and burrow into your brain. It’s what spiders do.