(2001) The Girls Are Missing

by Caroline Crane

  She prepared a salad and a sauce for Spanish omelet. As soon as he came home, she would cook the eggs.

  A light meal for a hot evening. But not enough for a big man. She set a pan of rice to boil.

  A big man. Physically capable of—

  But even a small man could overpower those girls. The oldest, Toni Lemich, had been petite, they said. And small men could be wiry. Foster Farand …

  Her brain went round and round, so that she did not hear his car until he slammed the door. She jumped, dripping egg from the wire whisk onto the counter. He was coming toward the kitchen door, his jacket over his arm, top shirt button undone. His face was damp with sweat.

  “Hi,” she said inadequately, and did not attempt to kiss him.

  “Have a good trip?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t exactly a pleasure trip, but it was good to see the family again. I really should keep in touch more.”

  He glanced at the eggs, and she apologized. “We got home too late to shop, and I forgot to thaw anything.”

  “That’s okay.” At least he was in a fairly good mood.

  “Carl—why didn’t you tell me?”

  He stopped on his way into the living room. “Tell you what?” “About the murder. Why didn’t you tell me? On Monday night.”

  “Oh … I don’t know. It was way over on the other side of town.”

  “But Cedarville isn’t a big town. It’s still the same thing. You said nothing happened.”

  “I said that? I don’t know. Guess I wasn’t thinking.”

  “You must have known. It was in Tuesday’s Post, and I talked to you Tuesday night. You told me to look at the newspapers.”

  “That was another conversation, as I recall. What am I being grilled for, anyway?”

  She had begun with a dry mouth, afraid to talk of it, but she was no longer afraid. Only confused. He, always so fascinated by the murders, suddenly sounded as if he had forgotten.

  Was it real? Or an act?

  “May I be excused to go and change now?” he asked.

  “Of course. I didn’t mean to keep you. I—just wondered.”

  During dinner, Mary Ellen chattered about their trip. Most of the talk seemed to be meant for her father. Hurtfully. She bubbled about Pennsylvania, making it clear that she had had a wonderful time and had been most reluctant to leave.

  “I really don’t see,” said Joyce, “that Cork is any better than Cedarville as a place to live and have fun.”

  “It’s much better,” Mary Ellen insisted. “It’s more countryish when you get out in the country. It’s not so slick as here, and the village is nice and small-townish, with the pizza place and that store where you used to buy cosmetics.” She leaned forward, resting her folded arms on the table. “And there aren’t any murders.”

  Joyce flinched, and dared not look at Carl.

  “We have pizza parlors here, too,” she said lamely, “and a variety store.”

  “It’s not the same. Cedarville’s like I said, it’s too slick.”

  “I think I see what you mean. The people in Cork have less money, it’s more rundown.”

  “I like it that way. It’s homey. It’s real.”

  So that, thought Joyce as she sopped up the last of her omelet, was what really appealed to Mary Ellen. It was not the down-at-the-heels atmosphere of Cork, it was the hominess. The solidity. And it was not a physical solidity that Mary Ellen missed, in the form of a single, steady home, it was something less tangible.

  Later in the evening her curiosity overcame her and she went back to the newspapers for a more thorough look at the story.

  Leslie Moore, the paper said, had been visiting a friend, and had evidently tried to thumb her way home. No one saw the car that picked her up. No one saw her again until early Tuesday morning, when a truck driver spotted her body in a patch of weeds and bushes near the road.

  Also on Tuesday morning, a letter arrived by mail at the offices of the New York Post

  They thought they had me. I’ll give them something

  to think about. Not that I care one f___about

  clearing the wrong man, I only feel you ought to know the real slasher is not so stupid as to get caught. Certainly not so stupid as to confess. I’m pulling off another one soon, right under the snouts of the p-i-g-s, so watch for me.

  Leslie Moore, smiling up from a family snapshot.

  Chief of Police Francis D’Amico, asked to comment on the letter, said of course it was written by the killer. It’d have to have been mailed before the thing happened.

  And how had the killer gotten away with it?

  Nobody knew. The village and state police had been watching everywhere they could, and so had the half-formed civilian patrol groups. It was a hell of a thing.

  She could imagine what Frank must be thinking about girls who hitchhiked. Of course he couldn’t say it. Not about the dead. And now he would be blamed, despite his many warnings.

  With a warm smile, Carl sat down on the arm of the sofa and looked at the paper over her shoulder. He nodded toward the picture of the girl, whose blond hair kept its sheen even on newsprint, and whose wide-set eyes looked up from under her lashes.

  “Quite a little cockteaser, isn’t she?”

  For a moment the words did not register. Then they exploded in her ear.

  The room shimmered with a kind of blackness that seemed to last for hours. When it cleared, her hand, holding the paper, had not moved, and Carl still stared bemusedly at the picture.

  She closed the paper and threw it onto the table. She felt him look at her, but she could not face him.

  Never, never again.

  She got up from the sofa.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “It’s been a long day.” She went upstairs, wishing she did not have to sleep in that bed.

  She did not know when he came up after her. She was awake, but did not look at the clock. It seemed as though she had been lying there for years.

  He puttered in the dark, taking his pajamas from a hook on the closet door. Then he left the room, and after a while she could hear the shower running.

  He had already taken a shower when he came home. Shower after shower. He did perspire a lot.

  She was still awake when he came later and got into bed beside her. With a conscious effort, she made her muscles

  relax. She could feel him watching her. He was lying on his side so that he faced her, and he watched. She remained motionless and tried to breathe evenly, but he knew she was not asleep.

  The bed heaved as he stirred. He was up on his elbow now, bending over her. She shrank from his hands. This she had wanted for so many months, but now she shrank from it.

  His fingers dug into her soft waist. He pulled her over onto her back. Then his hand was on her breast, under her nightgown. She squeezed her eyes closed, but knew she must respond. If not, he might be angered. She loosened her arm to reach up to him, but then he was on top of her and she could not move.

  20

  Friday was another steamy morning. She had never known a hot spell to go on so long, not with this kind of heat and humidity.

  Again Adam fussed and fretted. She put him back in his crib after the early morning feeding. “I have no time for you now, Adam. I have to fix Daddy’s breakfast.”

  Carl was in the bathroom, shaving. This early rising had become a routine even before Adam’s birth. It was all a part of living in the country.

  Later they sat at the breakfast table, she in her seersucker housecoat, he dressed, except for his suit jacket, which he would not wear until he boarded the air-conditioned train.

  She watched him stir his coffee, and remembered Frank D’Amico stirring coffee. She must close her mind to Frank D’Amico.

  Did she really know this man? Even sitting at the breakfast table, she felt oddly alone.

  “Do you know what you did last night?” she asked.

  “What did I do?”

  “You raped me.”


  For a moment the look in his blue eyes frightened her. Then she realized that it was only alarm at her words, and not anger.

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “Well, yes. It was kind of savage.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  Was he sorry? “Yes, you did.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” His hand brushed hers. “It’s been such a long time. It just came over me. Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “I know, honey. It’s been an awfully long time, but—”

  “You call everybody ‘honey,’ don’t you?”

  She took her hands from the table and clasped them on her lap. “I’m sorry I’m so trite. I just can’t call people ‘darling,’ it doesn’t come naturally.”

  “Nothing to get excited about,” he said mildly. She had not thought she was excited. “Darling” reminded her of Larry and his show business friends.

  “Carl, what did you mean last night—what you said about that girl?”

  He set down his coffee cup and looked at her, puzzled. “What girl?”

  “In the newspaper. The girl who was killed. You said—”

  He shrugged, and resumed eating. “I don’t know what I said. Why? Never heard of the girl. Why would I say anything?”

  Why would he? But he had.

  Did he really not remember? Had he meant anything by it? Perhaps she was making a big thing over nothing. She felt some of the tightness slip from her heart.

  It was nothing. Maybe he didn’t even know she was the murdered girl

  “Your vacation starts Monday, right?” she asked, to make conversation. To get back to normal.

  He nodded, intent upon buttering a piece of toast. She

  watched him, and wished that she could love him. She wished nothing had ever changed, that they could be where they had started.

  He finished the toast and pushed back his chair. “Got to get cracking. I’ll miss my train.”

  She had cleared the table by the time he came downstairs with his briefcase.

  “About last night. I’m sorry if I hurt you.” He gave her a quick kiss and walked briskly out to his car. She closed the garage door after him and waved as he drove off. His own hand flashed briefly in the car window.

  She went back to the kitchen and found Gail sitting at the table. As usual, Gail had waited until he was gone.

  “Mommy, what are we doing today?”

  “We’re doing laundry,” said Joyce. “Won’t that be fun?”

  “I want to go somewhere.”

  “We’ve just been somewhere, honey. Now I have to catch up at home.”

  She wondered if she called everyone “honey” because her mother did.

  “Why do you always have to be working?” Gail asked.

  “Because that’s life, and I’m glad you noticed I’m always working. Do you think I enjoy it? I’d give anything just to sit down and read a fun book.”

  “If we stayed in the apartment, you wouldn’t have to do so much housework. It was smaller.”

  “It was smaller, but dirtier, because of the soot and dust. And I had to take the laundry out to the corner. That was a pain. A lot of my work is Adam,” which Gail well knew, “but he’ll grow up someday. That’s just life,” she said again.

  When the kitchen was cleared, the beds made, the living room dusted, and the bathroom finally vacated by Mary Ellen who sometimes spent hours making herself beautiful, she was able to sort all the laundry that had accumulated on their

  trip and at home. While the first load washed, she had time to give Adam his bath, most of it, and leave him in Mary Ellen’s care before returning to the basement.

  The washing machine was still spinning. It was nearly finished, and she waited, leaning her elbows on the dryer.

  She found herself staring at the floor, and wondered how long she had been staring. Had Carl scrubbed it? Who had scrubbed it? She had meant to do it herself sometime. Never got to it. A woman’s work was never done.

  Clean floor. Clean and shining laundry machines.

  But clean only in this one place, over here by the laundry.

  Who would have scrubbed this part of the floor, and why? Carl would have finished the whole job. He wouldn’t leave half a floor.

  She needed to sit down. There was nothing to sit on except the stairs. She huddled on the third step, drawing her knees close to her body and resting her cheek on them.

  Nothing wrong with a clean floor. But why didn’t he do all of it?

  What’s the matter with me?

  She kept trying to think of reasons. He had spilled something. Bleach, maybe, and that was why it looked brighter. But Carl would not be so careless. He’d have put the cap on tight.

  Raising her head, she noticed that the pile of newspapers on his work table had grown higher, and suddenly she knew they were not for recycling.

  It was a while before she could make herself get up and look at them. The washer stopped spinning and waited for her. She turned on a light, and stealthily, as though he might be watching, lifted the neatly aligned edges of the papers. It was hardly a surprise that the pile began with the ones he had brought from the village that Saturday nearly three weeks ago, after the first murder was discovered.

  Why shouldn’t he collect a file of newspapers? He had followed the story since its beginning. It had happened right near his home, and his wife had been the one to report the first body. Why shouldn’t he spill bleach on the floor like anyone else?

  Through the open door she could hear Adam’s voice, not crying yet, only fussing, but getting louder and more insistent. And Mary Ellen trying to soothe him.

  The top newspaper in the pile. Frank D’Amico quoted as saying, “There’s a nut running loose out there. People are scared.”

  And Mary Ellen at the top of the stairs with Adam in her arms. “He’s hungry. Do you want me to feed him his applesauce?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” Joyce reached up to switch off the light.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Just a minute, I have to put in the next load.”

  What am I going to do? She took out the damp sheets and undershirts and stuffed them into the dryer. She set the washer for a cold rinse, all the clothes from their trip, and pressed in the dial. What am I going to do?

  Mary Ellen followed her around the kitchen as she plugged in the electric food-warming dish and opened a jar of applesauce. “Is something bothering you, Joyce?”

  “Nothing. It’s just the heat. It makes me dizzy.”

  Call Frank D’Amico? And tell him her husband collected newspapers and spilled bleach on the floor?

  She wanted to talk to Frank. Hear his voice. She wouldn’t feel so alone.

  Mechanically she spooned the applesauce into Adam’s waiting mouth. Of course there had only been that one night, when he said he had gone to the movies, and maybe he had.

  No, there was the other time, when Toni Lemich—

  She tried to think of a night when there had been a murder and he was safe at home.

  The first one …

  The newspaper said May 29. She was in the hospital then. She had just given birth to Adam, the night Joan Danner disappeared. He had been with her in the hospital, and left sometime in the evening, around eight, when visiting hours were over.

  She did not know whether he had gone straight home.

  And Valerie Cruz. That, too, had happened before they knew there had been any murders. She remembered reading about the girl’s disappearance in the village weekly.

  Last Monday night, it had said. She could almost see the print, although at the time it had not meant anything to her, except that it made her think of Gail, and she could feel the other mother’s anguish. The girl had gone out on an errand. She lived in the village and the store was only a block away.

  And Carl—he went out to buy ice that night, because it was hot and he wanted something cold after dinner, which meant a drink, and they had run out of ice, and the old refrigerator
that came with the house took almost twenty-four hours to freeze a tray of ice cubes.

  And he hadn’t been able to find any, he said, it was all gone from the stores, which was why he took so long, and he was sweating.

  And then Toni Lemich. He had worked late. He said he saw her get off the train, and he offered her a ride. He said she refused.

  That was the night Mary Ellen was out, and she was terrified for Mary Ellen, but more because of what Carl would say, than that anything would really happen to Mary Ellen, because she could not believe those things were really happening right here in Cedarville.

  But Mary Ellen would have been safe.

  No, no, it wasn’t true. Mary Ellen—no.

  She wiped the excess applesauce from Adam’s face. He had eaten well, been very patient with her. Carl’s child.

  Poor little baby. He hadn’t done anything except get born, and—

  No, it wasn’t true. He had worked late, had wanted ice.

  But why had Toni Lemich gotten off the same train?

  She carried Adam upstairs to nurse him. To that bed where she slept beside her husband.

  She sat down and unbuttoned her blouse. It was always a comfortable time, just the two of them, Adam and herself. She could read, or drowse. She tried to relax.

  Turning her head, she could see the meadow with its bright daisies, and those purple things on stalks. The apple tree that had so enchanted Gail when it bloomed. She had wanted all this for her children.

  And she would have it. She would make it all right again. Stop thinking. It isn’t true.

  21

  It’s not true. Not true.

  It had been a crazy idea, and she was long since over it by the time Carl came home in the evening to start his vacation.

  And yet, it had to be somebody. She wondered again what it would be like for the family of that person. When would they start suspecting? How would they know?

  On Saturday he was up as usual to drive into the village. When he came back, he brought the papers into the kitchen and looked through them quickly.

  “Nothing in there.” He dropped them onto a chair and dug into the egg she set before him.