by K C Norrie
But they never found out. Jakery picked up a large rock and slammed it into the back of Celeste's head. He assured himself that she was dead and couldn't tell, before he dragged her deep into some brush where she would not be found. Then he went home.
Jakery was the preacher's son in Highview. He attended church with his family and helped teach the children at Sunday school. He had a girlfriend named Tamara that everyone expected him to marry. He probably would. Whenever there was a dance, he brought Tamara. He took her to the show over in Big City. He held her hand. He walked her home. He kissed her good night. He did all that was expected of him.
Jakery helped in that first search for Celeste. She wasn't officially missing for twenty-four hours. Not until the following morning, but by then, her family was more than upset.
Jakery took Tamara with him. He held her hand and helped her climb up into the mountain meadow. He watched the other searchers spread out and begin their own searches. He brazenly led Tamara to the special place, though he hadn't known it was special at that time. So, he had led her to the place.
At first, he thought he wanted to be the one to find the body. But as he approached, he felt this might cause suspicion. Someone might question how he knew where to look. They may not believe he found it randomly. Then he thought it better if Tamara found her. They would see him comforting Tamara, who would no doubt become upset.
Tamara would talk about finding Celeste's body for months to come. The thought exhilarated him. A secret kept between him and Celeste that Tamara did not know.
So, he nudged Tamara off in that direction and began his own search for her a little further off.
He poked here. He dug around a little over there, and all the while he watched Tamara out of the corner of his eye as she came closer and closer to where Celeste lay.
He anticipated the scream that would come. He would then rush over, put his arms around Tamara and lay his eyes once more on his Celeste. His Celeste. He wondered how she would look. When he left her, her eyes were open and blue. He wondered what they looked like now. It had been nearly 48 hours since he'd left her. They wasted too much time questioning people.
Tamara was right in front of where she lay and moving closer. She should be able to see Celeste by now. He watched and waited, but no scream came. Tamara gave no reaction.
"Is she blind?" he thought. He walked towards Tamara and Celeste casually. He looked around. No one was watching. When he got close enough, he glanced over to the spot where Celeste should have been. She wasn't there.
Where was she? For the first time fear surged through him. Was she alive after all? Was she somewhere telling someone what he had done? His heart pounded. Sweat formed on his brow.
Maybe an animal dragged Celeste away. Like a wolf. People sighted wolves up here from time to time. The thought calmed him a little. She wouldn't have been dragged too far would she? He searched with fervor.
"We should stop for lunch," Tamara said. "I'm hungry."
She said it right in front of another couple and they agreed readily. Jakery had no choice but to follow along even though he was anything but hungry. There were sandwiches and coffee for the searchers. Someone had laid blankets out on the soft meadow. As the four of them found a spot on a blanket, clouds built up and the air stirred. Before they finished up their food, drops began to fall.
They searched in the rain for two more hours. Jakery was angry. Where was Celeste! He didn't want someone else to find her. They would cover her up and he wouldn't be able to see. Was she still alive somewhere? Laughing at him?
They called the search off for the day.
Tamara was drenched; her hair limp, flat and unattractive. Celeste's hair would be the same; if she was out here.
As they left the mountain, Jakery felt for the necklace in his pocket. Celeste's necklace. The one he had given her.
They never found her. As each day passed, Jakery felt less and less certain that Celeste was still alive hiding somewhere. Where was she? He was angry with her. He should have been able to lay eyes on her one last time. "Closure," someone had called it. Closure for her family; but for him as well, right? It felt unfinished. It nagged him. He had to use his imagination to envision Celeste, and it wasn't enough. This was his accomplishment; he should have been able to see it. And Tamara should have seen too; she should have been the one to find her. It would have been sensual, like getting caught together. But a secret.
He tried to imagine Tamara wearing the necklace and couldn't. That's what made him eventually turn to Julia. She liked him. She always gave him her best smile when she picked up her little brother from Sunday school. He began to imagine Julia wearing the necklace.
****
Tamara and Jakery had just come from a dance. He kissed her at the door as he dropped her off.
"Would you like to come in?" Tamara asked him.
"I have church early," he answered. He gave her more of a peck than a real passionate kiss as he left her. He was saving his passion for later. For Sandra. She was meeting him on their special footpath up the mountain. He walked faster in anticipation. She'd been teasing him for weeks. They had met each other here and there, secretly stealing looks and kisses, building up desire.
There she was up ahead. He got that feeling again. She did that to him and she knew it. He held her close. He took her hand and led her up into the darkness where no one could see them or hear them. They went to the secret spot. His secret spot. Sandra never fought him that night. She allowed him all he wanted, and it was a letdown. That's why he began choking her. He liked that bit of a fight just before the end. She fought him for breath at the end; trying to hit him, kick him, anything just to get air. He felt her growing weaker. Struggling less. No longer moving. No longer alive. Afterward he carefully removed the locket from her neck. He had given it first to Celeste. Then he had taken it back. Then he had given it to Julia, Audrey, Hannah and Mary. They had all worn it on their special nights. He picked up Sandra and placed her in that special spot. He would check for her again in a few days during the search. Jakery wasn't sure what happened to the bodies from here, but not one of the girls had ever been found. He turned and walked back home, softly whistling a tune he remembered from the dance.
Settlers Way police department was notified of another disappearance. They knew the routine.
"Hell," thought Police Chief Merle Harding. "Every person in Settlers Way knew the routine."
They combed Remembrance Creek, and the entire wooded area between Middleton and Settlers Way.
They received a photograph of the missing girl. They took it door to door. No one recognized her, but they wouldn't if she was from Highview, or Newton, or any other town within a fifty-mile radius.
So far, no girl had gone missing from Settlers Way. What would happen if one did?
****
Jakery and Tamara married. They moved to busy San Francisco, but Jakery did not like big city living. He found a few girls there willing and eager to wear the necklace, but then he'd had to drive them a long way in the dark to get to the mountain meadow. The first girl Cynthia changed her mind about half the way there. He'd had to stop on the side of the road and talk softly to her until she calmed down. He'd promised her dinner in Middleton but knew better than to stop in case someone remembered them. They'd had to do it in the car and then he'd had to still drive to the footpath that led up to the special place and carry her up. He had a long drive back. The next day he had to have his car cleaned.
No one seemed to take much notice of Cynthia missing. There was only one decent sized newspaper article on the Tuesday after the weekend. Jakery was not involved in the search. How could he be? Two smaller articles appeared and then no more. The leads must have dried up. It was almost as if it never happened. It was cold and unsatisfactory. It made Jakery feel unimportant; small.
Tamara never noticed. He made it part of his married routine to be out very late one night a week. She never questioned him about it.
His next girl was M
iranda. There was a nightclub with dancing where they met weekly for three months during each of his late nights. He gave her the necklace just a few weeks ago beneath a full-mooned starry sky. The nightclub had an outdoor dance floor. That's where they were when he gave Miranda the necklace. He had wrapped it in a little box with white paper and a red velvet ribbon he had stolen from Tamara. He watched as she gently fingered the golden heart on the chain. She kissed him passionately to show her appreciation. Then he fastened it around her neck. Just like that, the deal was sealed. They danced a few more dances. It was different now; they shared something. They were connected.
Tonight, he told Miranda there was a place on a mountain meadow where he grew up in which there were these little white flowers that glowed in the dark. She was anxious to see them.
"You want to go tonight?"
Miranda smiled playfully.
"I would love to go tonight," she answered.
She was ready. They left the nightclub.
****
She had fooled him.
Miranda's picture appeared on the front page of the Sunday newspaper. According to the article, her disappearance was discovered when she did not come to work Friday morning. The official investigation began on Saturday twenty-four hours later, but Jakery bet it began much earlier considering where she worked. She was a telephone dispatcher for the San Francisco Police department. Her father was a captain.
Jakery hadn't known.
On Monday morning a follow-up article indicated that several people remembered seeing her at the nightclub Thursday night in the company of a man. A vague description of the man was given. Jakery worried it may not have been vague enough. He called his work citing illness. He washed his car and used the newspaper to start the fire to burn his trash. He didn't want Tamara to see the article. She had already commented that girls seemed to disappear in San Francisco, the same as they did in Highview.
He burned the clothes he'd worn that day right along with the rest of the trash having already placed them in the bin late that Thursday night while Tamara slept.
He stayed in the house all day, not daring to show his face.
When Tamara came home from her typing job, he asked if she would like to go home to visit her parents for a few days, as they had recently found out she was pregnant. She jumped at the chance.
After making arrangements with both their employers, they arrived into Highview the next afternoon. While Tamara visited with her mother, Jakery went to the church to see his father who was still the preacher and told him he was thinking of moving back into the area. "Now that we are going to be parents, Tamara would like to live nearer to her mother," he said.
"Well, you can't stay with us," his father stated immediately. "We don't have the room. Especially with a baby on the way."
Jakery visited his mother at the house. He had a cup of coffee with her and then visited his bedroom. He was shocked when he opened the door. It appeared his room was being used for extra storage space, like an attic. There were some marked boxes sitting on his bed, and more stacked in his closet.
He smoldered with rage. He always imagined his room kept exactly as he'd left it. These were his things. He kept his anger in check for now. He opened a tin box he kept at the back of a drawer of miscellaneous items. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the heart necklace. He carefully placed it into the tin box and quietly shut both items back into the drawer. If things worked out the way he wanted them, it would only have to remain there a short time. He didn't tell his mother he was planning to move back just yet. She would leak the news to Tamara even if he asked her not to; and Tamara didn't know they were moving back into the area yet. It was to be a surprise.
But they would be moving back as soon as he could arrange it. He casually told his mother he would be back to move his things out of his old bedroom in the next few weeks.
"You need none of this stuff Jakery. Why don't you let me give it to someone who could use it?" his mother pleaded.
"Mother, please!" He caught himself. Took a breath. "I would like to sort through everything first. There are some keepsakes from childhood I'd like to pass on to my own children someday. Memories. I need time to sort through what I wish to keep and what you can donate to charity. I need a few more weeks."
He strained to keeping the anger from his voice, but it was difficult as he imagined her touching his things.
****
His mother agreed to give him the time and invited him and Tamara to dinner the following night. Tonight, was reserved for an uncomfortable dinner with her parents. Jakery imagined a lot of yes sirs and no sirs and sitting up straight.
After leaving his mother, Jakery checked the address he'd circled on a newspaper he picked up earlier and started out towards Settlers Way, but first he drove himself to the mountain path and climbed up to the meadow to check the special spot in which he had left Miranda.
Miranda was gone.
Jakery drove to Settlers Way. It was not a quick drive. While it was only about five or ten miles away as the crow flies; driving there was a different story. He had to drive around a mountain. It took long enough just to get to Newton. From there, he had to go through Middleton before finally arriving in Settlers Way.
It was a pretty town. Tamara would probably love it. He stopped to get directions and found the cabin sitting just up a little way from the foot of the mountain. There was a key under the mat and Jakery let himself in. There was one-bedroom downstairs and two up. Whoever had built the house had also cleared a switchback path that led up onto a small flat area with a beautiful lookout view of Settlers Way. From there it was still a half hour's climb to a bigger meadow where another path would eventually lead to Jakery's special place in Fielder's Meadow.
Jakery was pleased. He could walk there in secret if he wanted.
It didn't take much convincing for Tamara to move to the cabin though she let him know she would have preferred Highview. The commute to his job would be about two hours each way, but he told Tamara he wouldn't mind.
Jakery shaved his head to change his appearance stating his hair was going prematurely gray. "I'd rather be bald than gray," he told Tamara.
He told his manager that his wife had insisted on moving closer to her mother.
"We are going to be parents. Tamara will need her help."
His manager understood. Soon, Jakery was transferred from the San Francisco office to the much closer Sacramento office.
He watched the paper for news of Miranda, but the leads must have gone cold. He had told her his name was "Zeke." The paper never mentioned the name. They were searching for someone with an average build and brown hair; someone who no longer existed.
Despite all the changes, despite the scare, and despite that he was soon to become a father, Jakery still held on to his Thursdays—his "boys' night out." This time he called himself Tony.
Chapter 34
Mr. and Mrs. Harrison already had four children when Anna was born. She was a difficult birth. At first, she refused to come out into the world. Once born, she let everyone know how unhappy she was to be there, crying louder than any of her siblings had. While she smiled at six weeks, like any other baby, the weeks before were spent with wails of rebellion. She didn’t seem to like her crib. She was colicky. She slept, but the slightest noise woke her. It all mattered little to the Harrison's. Anna's youngest sister was already nine years old, and every family member pitched in to walk the floor, or rock or feed the baby, while life went on through all of Anna's fusses.
She loved animals, being the leader, and winning. Her life's mission was to have her own way.
She thrived and made lots of friends.
When she got older, she rejected Settlers Way, announcing that as soon as she was old enough, she was leaving town and heading for Hollywood.
No one argued. It wasn't worth arguing with Anna when she had her mind set. It was also not worth setting rules for Anna—she broke them all. The only way to get Anna to
do anything was to tell her not to do it, but her parents never learned that lesson.
When they told a fifteen-year-old Anna she was not old enough to date boys, she sneaked out of the house to meet a boy.
At sixteen she was told that any boy who asked for a date must come to the door to meet them first. She continued sneaking out of the house to avoid any boy meeting her family.
By seventeen she was dating an older man named Tony. They met once a week in a secret place. She was meeting him tonight. Her parents knew nothing about him. She carefully put the gold chain with the gold heart around her neck. A gift from Tony. She checked her hair in the mirror and then sneaked out through her bedroom window.
****
Jakery arrived home very late. Tamara was asleep. She didn't like being woken up by him when he came home from one of his late nights. He took a shower and tried to sleep on the couch. He wondered what would happen. Would they ask for volunteers to search for Anna as they had in Highview? He expected that they would. He would readily volunteer and looked forward to it. He kept thinking of her. She had been so angry. Such a fighter. In fact, she'd nearly gotten away. She had ripped the necklace off her neck breaking the chain and threw it as she screamed at him. He had panicked, starting to run after the necklace leaving Anna to run in the other direction. She would have gotten away if she hadn't tripped and fell. By then he was angry. He lost control; he was ashamed to say.
He got up from the couch and went to the kitchen where his jacket hung on the back of the kitchen chair. Tamara always got irritated when he left his jacket hanging on the chair's back instead of the coat closet. That's why he liked to leave it there when he came home late on Thursday nights. She wouldn't see it. She couldn't get mad if she didn't know. He would have it back on and be on his way to work before she even woke up today. Another secret.
He reached into the jacket's pocket and pulled out the necklace. It had taken him hours to find it in the dark. He examined it closely under the fluorescent kitchen light. The chain was ruined. He wondered if a jeweler could repair it. He'd have to look for some place in Sacramento. If they couldn't repair the chain, he'd have to buy a new one. The thought made him angry all over again. It would not be the same. He liked to picture all the other girls wearing the necklace at the same time his newest girl wore it. The newest girl never knew the necklace she wore had touched the soft necks of the other girls. It was an intimate secret he shared with them. All the other girls. He could feel them laugh at him while he tried to pretend it was still the same chain. It wouldn't work. He'd have to start all over again.
