(2001) The Girls Are Missing

by Caroline Crane

16

  They went swimming again the next Wednesday afternoon. When they came home, Mary Ellen took a shower to wash off the lake water. They could hear her singing to herself. Gail was playing on the floor of the master bedroom, near Adam’s crib, setting up a paper doll family. “Mommy, the telephone’s ringing.”

  Joyce had not heard it. She slid onto her bed to pick it up from the night table. “That you, Joyce?”

  It was what her mother always said. Joyce’s heart gave an anxious bump. “Mom! Where are you calling from?”

  “Home.” A long distance call in the middle of the day. “Honey, Dad’s gone to the hospital. It’s his kidneys again. He just collapsed this morning and they had to operate.” “Is it bad?”

  “Can’t tell yet. That’s why I’m calling. They had to do an emergency operation. … Hello?”

  Joyce was busy making plans. Could she take the children with her? Was Adam old enough to travel? And what would she do with Mary Ellen?

  “I’m coming,” she said. “I—guess I’ll fly.” It was expensive, but she could not see Adam on a train for all those hours. “Maybe tomorrow, if I can get reservations. Is that okay?”

  As far as her mother knew, it would be. Dad had at least pulled through the operation. Her brother Pat would meet her at the airport.

  She hung up the phone, feeling sad and empty. It wasn’t time yet for this kind of thing. Her parents, although she rarely saw them, were fixtures in her life. She expected them to live forever.

  She called the airline, sure that they would be unable to give her reservations, but it was the middle of the week and they had seats.

  At five-thirty she began calling Barbara. She knew Barbara worked in the office of a department store not far from her home. She was unclear whether department store offices kept office hours or department store hours. In any case, Barbara was not yet home.

  She tried again every fifteen minutes, and finally asked Mary Ellen when her mother usually got home from work.

  “About a quarter to six,” Mary Ellen answered dreamily, “but I don’t think she’s there right now.”

  “I know she’s not there. I—”

  “I mean I think she’s away on vacation. She was going away for a while.”

  “Alone? She’d take a vacation alone?” Meaning without Mary Ellen.

  “She’s not alone.”

  “Oh.”

  Mary Ellen did not know where she had gone. Nantucket, or Atlantic City. She did not even seem to know her mother’s tastes. Joyce asked, “Is there anybody near where you live—?”

  Mary Ellen shook her head. “Everybody’s away. All my friends.”

  “And you couldn’t stay here, you’d be alone all day.”

  A violent shake of the head. “I don’t want to stay with Daddy. Please, Joyce?”

  Joyce hadn’t time to think about it now, but the vehemence disturbed her. She suggested Olivia. Mary Ellen rejected that, too. “She’ll make me come back to Daddy. He’ll say he wants me, and she does everything he wants. Please, Joyce, couldn’t I go with you? I’ll help. I’ll take care of Adam for you.”

  Joyce was touched. The child sounded desperate. But, really, it was all they needed, in a house crowded with her brothers and sisters and their families, a house where death hovered. If Mary Ellen were really a part of her new family, it would have been different, but she was only a visitor who could not share their emotions about Dad.

  Still, what else? It was getting later by the minute. The plane would be filled, whatever they decided. Mary Ellen stood waiting, her face drawn and her fingers clenched. Joyce gave her a tired smile.

  “Okay, I just hope it won’t be too dreary for you. And maybe it would be a good idea after all to have you along to help with Adam. I’ll be spending a lot of time at the hospital.”

  To her surprise, Mary Ellen gave her arm a little squeeze before she scurried away. Perceptive child, she knew she was intruding. Probably, Joyce thought in a burst of generosity, she didn’t even want to, but what was the answer?

  She was able to get another seat on the plane, and it didn’t matter if they couldn’t all sit together. Then she called her mother to tell her what flight they would be on and to explain about Mary Ellen. Just as she was hanging up the phone, Carl came home.

  She watched his face slowly draw together while she told him of her plans. Had he expected to be consulted?

  He burst out, “Why do you have to go? There’s nothing you can do for him.”

  She could scarcely believe it. “Carl, people just go when

  their parents are sick. He may even be dying. How could I not go? I love my father, understand?”

  “What about me?”

  “I—love you, too.”

  That, apparently, was not what he meant. “I need you here.”

  “Oh, come on, you managed by yourself for years. Don’t be a baby. I should think you’d be glad to get us all out and have some peace and quiet for a few days.”

  “All of you? Where’s Mary Ellen going?”

  She told him about Mary Ellen, with Barbara being on vacation.

  His face tightened again, but it looked different this time. Not angry. It was something else.

  “Why can’t you leave her here?” he asked almost eagerly. “She’ll be all right.”

  “How can I, with you away all day? Especially now, with the murders.”

  “There’s a weekend coming up, remember?”

  “What about after the weekend?”

  “How the hell long are you staying?”

  “A week, maybe. I don’t know. I just don’t know how things are with my father.”

  “Stay as long as you want,” he said, his voice now soft and reasonable, “and leave Mary Ellen here. She’ll be all right. Don’t forget, she’s my kid. I have something to say about it.”

  Cancel the reservation? No, she couldn’t. He had something to say, but he wasn’t thinking. All day tomorrow, and next week, too, at least some of it.

  And Mary Ellen had been so definite. Not about staying alone, but being with him.

  He did not seem aware that she had already made Mary Ellen’s reservation. During dinner he all but ignored Joyce,

  and talked to Mary Ellen about the weekend they would spend together. The child answered in monosyllables, scarcely daring to look at him.

  I’ve got to tell him, Joyce thought.

  But she was afraid to.

  Did he really think it was feasible for Mary Ellen to stay? Of course he wanted companionship. He had sounded so very eager to be alone with her. Barbara had never let her stay with him before he married Joyce. They were only allowed to visit with each other during the day.

  Crazy Barbara. Bitter. Spiteful.

  But Mary Ellen did not want to be alone with him, either.

  Could she ask Mary Ellen point-blank what the problem was? Why she didn’t want to stay?

  No, she couldn’t.

  And anyway, it was nothing. Only his strictness. All that nagging about clothes. Nag, nag, nag.

  Probably he thought he was being a parent. Felt awkward with her. A father and daughter, awkward with each other. She was growing up.

  Yes, growing up …

  Joyce stopped thinking about it then. She had reached a dead end, a sort of black curtain. Something she couldn’t see, but which barred her way.

  She spent the rest of the evening packing. It took a long time, with so many things to remember for the baby.

  Carl came upstairs as she was finishing. He leaned against the dresser, an after-dinner glass of whiskey in his hand, and watched her, saying nothing.

  Finally she broke the silence, with trivia, anything.

  “I wish I could leave you a full refrigerator. I just didn’t have a chance to shop after I heard. But you can pick up something on Saturday.”

  He did not reply. She wondered aloud about long-term parking at La Guardia Airport.

  “Long term?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Well,
you know, for a few days. Otherwise you’re paying by the hour, which is ridiculous. Or maybe I shouldn’t drive. The travel agency on Grand Street runs an airport taxi, but I don’t know if it stops at La Guardia.”

  She watched him take a long drink from his glass.

  “I wish we didn’t have to go,” she said. “Not like this. I wish it could be a fun trip, with you, too. But when Mom called me like that, she sounded as if he might be dying, or at least she wasn’t sure. I can’t not go.”

  He turned and, without a word, left the room. She hated for it to be like that, but felt almost relieved to see him go. After that he stayed downstairs, poring over the newspaper, watching the television news. He said no more about Mary Ellen.

  Bone-tired, she crawled into bed at last, and was not even aware when he got in beside her. And thirty miles away, as New York City turned off its lights and prepared to sleep, a man staggered into the headquarters of the Twentieth Precinct on West Eighty-second Street and announced that he was turning himself in.

  “I killed some girls out in the country there.” He jerked his thumb toward the east, which was Long Island. “I killed ‘em. I cut ‘em up and took off their clothes. They’re looking for me there.”

  “Where was this at?” the sergeant at the desk inquired. The man smelled. He smelled of phoniness, sweat, and booze. He wore a white tee shirt and stained gray pants, and a stubble hid his receding chin.

  “Out there in Westchester,” the man explained. “In Cedarville.”

  At least he had the right community. “Do you live in Cedarville?”

  “No, but I go out there. I got friends there.”

  Further investigation produced the fact that the man had

  once lived in the vicinity of Cedarville, and his old mother had recently died in a nursing home there. Enough to unhinge the mind of a loony, perhaps, but despite the probable falseness of his confession, arrangements were made for him to be transported to Cedarville for questioning.

  The ever-hungry media pounced on the story, although no information was officially released. By three o’clock, news of the man’s surrender flashed over the air waves and was picked up by a small portable radio resting on a bed in Cedarville.

  Joyce sat up, her earplug falling to the pillow. Quickly she retrieved it and poked it back into her ear.

  “Carl! Carl, it’s over! A man gave himself up!”

  The massive shoulder lowered to the bed. He lay on his back, his eyes half open, little slits in the dim gray light.

  “Huh?” he grunted.

  “The murderer just gave himself up! We’re free!”

  “How the hell do you know?” His voice sounded slurred, as though he had been drinking, but it was only sleep.

  “The radio. I just heard it on the radio.”

  “What the hell … radio…” He turned his head and looked at the glowing face of the clock radio.

  “Your little portable. I was trying to get a weather report for tomorrow, and I used an earplug so it wouldn’t bother you. Don’t you understand? It’s over now! The man gave himself up.”

  “Aw, just some fag.” He settled down as before, on his side.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just some jerk. Wants attention.”

  He was wrong. It wouldn’t have gotten as far as the radio if it were only some jerk wanting attention.

  She listened a while longer, but there was no more news about the man on Eighty-second Street.

  Then she lay and stared at the ceiling through darkness that looked like black fuzz, and thought about the man. She rejected something deep inside that told her Carl was probably right.

  It had to be that man.

  17

  She felt relieved that Carl had no intention of driving them to the airport and seeing them off. It would have been sticky about Mary Ellen, although he had not mentioned Mary Ellen since dinnertime. She did not know whether he finally realized she was going and was resigned to it, or whether he still expected to find her in the house when he came home from work that night.

  Rather than cope with public transportation, she had decided to take her own car to the airport. There was a rush of last-minute packing, and the clearing up of breakfast, and they were off.

  “You understand, Mary Ellen,” she told the girl as they drove, “this is not exactly a pleasure trip. You and Gail will have fun, but the rest of us are going to be a little sad, and we’ll have a lot to do.”

  “I know,” Mary Ellen replied. “I told you, I’m going to take care of Adam.”

  She understood. But did Gail? Gail had seen so much death already in her nine years.

  Joyce had intended to call Carl from the airport, but the plane was already boarding when they checked in. Perhaps it was just as well. He might have found out about Mary Ellen. She did not know why that bothered her so much,

  or why she couldn’t have reasoned with him.

  Once they boarded the plane, she felt safe. He couldn’t get her now. She wondered why she was thinking that way.

  It was because she was afraid of his anger. Nothing more. She had listened to the radio again that morning. The man was being taken to Cedarville for questioning. By the time she came back, everything would be under control. Gail could play outside again and Mary Ellen could ride on David’s motorcycle.

  And Carl might have forgiven her for taking away his daughter.

  The plane began to move, taxiing toward the runway. She stared out at the speeding earth and wished she had gone to visit her family more often. All her childhood seemed suddenly clearer, and she mourned the things that were past. They were more precious than she had realized eleven years ago when she could hardly wait to get away and see the world.

  She hadn’t seen the world exactly, but had had her fill of instability in those years with Larry and the struggling theater crowd. A lot of it had been fun, but afterward she was ready to settle down.

  And she had, with a good man. Frank D’Amico had called him that, but Frank didn’t know everything. He didn’t know, for instance, about the blowups with Mary Ellen, and the moodiness, and that night when he had cursed her in bed, but not her, it was someone else. She had thought she knew Carl. Now it was as though a wall shut him away from her. He was different, changed. She did not know him at all. She was not even sure she wanted to go back to him.

  But that was over now. The man had confessed. Maybe it would be like before.

  Perhaps it was her own terrors that made him seem different.

  The flight was short, and the Pittsburgh terminal unfamiliar. She had never flown here before, but always come by train because it was cheaper. And she hadn’t even done that very often.

  She stood surrounded by their luggage, holding Adam in a shoulder sling, and waiting to be found.

  Gail hopped like a pogo stick. “There’s Uncle Pat.” She had recognized him before Joyce did. He had cut his hair and grown a mustache.

  His eyes widened when he saw that Joyce’s party included Mary Ellen. Mom must have forgotten to tell him. He had brought his own family to the airport, his wife Meredith, three-year-old John, and the new baby that was born a month before Adam. Probably he wondered how they would all fit into his car. Joyce hurried to introduce Mary Ellen and explain why she was there.

  Mary Ellen bit her lip. “I guess I’m going to be in the way, aren’t I?”

  “Not at all,” said Meredith. “It’s a big house, with loads of room inside and out.”

  Mary Ellen smiled thinly. She had not been talking about space. Probably, until she met these people, Joyce’s family had been vague and unreal to her.

  As it turned out, space was no problem in the car, either, for Pat had a van. It was a forty-mile drive to Cork. Joyce sat in the front beside Pat and was brought up to date on family affairs, including their father’s health.

  “They don’t know how it’s going to turn out,” Pat said. “He got through the operation okay, but you can’t tell. How’s Carl?”

&
nbsp; He had never met Carl. None of the family had. Joyce had not been back to Cork since the summer Larry died, when she and Gail tried to console themselves with a two-week visit.

  “Oh, he’s all right. He’ll be taking his vacation week after next.” As though to apologize for Carl’s not being with her.

  “When are you going to bring him down here?”

  “Well, actually…” How to explain about Carl? He was not the least bit interested in meeting her family. “Why don’t you come and visit us sometime?”

  “Maybe, when the kids are older. I hear you’ve been having a wild summer up in Cedarville.”

  “How did you hear that?” She had not written to them about the murders.

  “Newspaper,” he said.

  “It’s been in the papers here?”

  “It’s news, isn’t it?”

  She supposed it was. Three brutal sex murders in one small community. A community that thought it was safe.

  “It’s over now,” she was glad to tell him. “A man confessed.”

  “Yeah? When?”

  “Last night. A man in New York City. Imagine.”

  “That’s a big relief,” said Pat.

  “It sure is.”

  She watched out of the window as the territory grew more familiar, changing from Pittsburgh to its suburbs, and then to the country. Finally they were in the outskirts of Cork, if it could be called an outskirt when Cork itself was so small.

  Mary Ellen crept up behind her to look over her shoulder. “I never was in Pennsylvania before.”

  Pat asked, “Did you expect it to be a different color, like on the map?”

  They passed the new shopping center and then entered Main Street, where the older stores were, the stores Joyce remembered from her childhood. She pointed out the highlights to Gail and Mary Ellen. Up that street was the high school, you couldn’t see it from here. And there was the Tower of Pizza, always mobbed with kids who scorned the school cafeteria and brown bag lunches.

  It made her think of that supper with Frank D’Amico, and the feel of his hand on hers.

  And there, she told Mary Ellen, was the five-and-ten-cent store where she used to browse endlessly through the cosmetics, thinking that, if only she could find the right eyeshadow, glamour and a thrilling life were just around the corner.