(2001) The Girls Are Missing

by Caroline Crane

Excitement rippled through her as they approached his house. She watched for his face to peer out of a window and suddenly become transformed with terror, but there was no face. Was he too drunk even to know? Damn him, he was going to know.

  Things still seemed to be happening in blank spells. Now she couldn’t remember any of the walk over. She saw Bruce march across the front porch and burst through the door. She ran to catch up.

  Bruce stood still. They were all still. The house seemed dead, hot and stuffy, and there was a smell.

  And then she saw him lying by the cold fireplace next to a wooden table that crawled with insects.

  Footsteps clunked over the porch and Herb came in. “What are you all doing here?”

  “Oh, Herb.” She sagged against his chest, a stupidly feminine gesture.

  Gently he stood her back on her feet. “Out,” he told them. “Out.”

  “But—” She couldn’t seem to understand what had happened.

  “Okay, you came to get him and he’s dead.” They obeyed like sheep as Herb ushered them back over the porch. “We already checked that. We sent for an ambulance.”

  “Who killed him?” she demanded.

  “Nobody. You can see, he fell and hit his head on the table. Been dead a couple of days.”

  “Are you sure?”

  They all looked at each other. Her eyes turned to Bruce. But he’d been in the city. What about the Massey boys?

  “Herb,” she said, “who called the police?”

  “About Anita? I don’t know. Some woman.”

  “A woman?”

  “Didn’t leave a name.”

  “What did she say?”

  The others gathered close. Herb tried to remember what the report had been. “She said it was near where we found the first body. The next hill, she said.”

  Sheila’s head began to spin. She wondered if she was going to faint. She had never fainted in her life.

  The next hill. Who knew exactly where they had found the first body? Who saw it?

  Who was the person—? Who—this afternoon—had been so nervous when she came in the car, looking for Anita? Who had tried to get her out of there fast, alone, instead of going with her to ask Gail where they had been playing? Instead of helping her, as any friend would, to find her child?

  “God damn,” she said slowly. It didn’t tell them anything, but it was all she could think of.

  “You know who that woman was? It was Joyce Gilwood.”

  “How do you know?” asked Herb.

  “Because I just God damn know”

  “We’ve been checking everybody around here. They’re not home. The house is locked.”

  “Of course they’re not home, you dumb cop.”

  She began to walk alone down the path beside the brook. Anita’s brook, where she used to play. At first she was not sure what was going to happen. Everything seemed to be just happening, without her doing anything or even deciding anything. She reached into the pocket of her denim skirt—Pamela had helped her put on a skirt because it seemed more dignified than shorts—and felt a matchbook there. She had known the matchbook was there but did not have any distinct recollection of putting it there, nor any conscious plan for it.

  All this time, she thought. All this time it wasn’t Lattimer at all.

  She looked back and realized that they were going with her. She had almost blanked out again, almost forgotten all about them.

  She clutched the matchbook tightly, as though squeezing the fingers of someone who would help her.

  Adam, Joyce cried to herself. Little Adam, alone. How could he do that to his child?

  They looped around Kennedy Airport. She waited for him to tell her which exit to take, which terminal, but he said nothing. There had been traffic jams on the Van Wyck Expressway. With the cars and trucks closing in she had waited for someone to notice the gun, but nothing happened.

  “Carl,” she said again, “which airline do you want?”

  Around once more. You had another chance if you missed your terminal.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he told her.

  Sometime they would run out of gas. She wanted it to happen right there, where he couldn’t do anything. She wanted him to get on a plane. Allegheny? Delta? Aero Mexico? She didn’t care.

  The sun was going down in a blaze of golden clouds. How could it be so late?

  Golden clouds and golden rays. She had always thought that was heaven up there. Anita was in heaven. And Gail. She could have gone to Pennsylvania. Gail could have been safe.

  “Forget it!” he barked, as though he had spoken before. Was she losing her mind?

  “Forget what?” Her nerves were shot. Mustn’t speak crossly and upset him.

  “Get out of here.”

  “Out of—the car?”

  He gestured furiously at a sign that pointed back to the Van Wyck Expressway.

  Out of the airport was all he meant.

  It wouldn’t work, he decided. There were too many complications in taking a plane. They’d wonder why he didn’t have luggage. And with her. She was wearing shorts. And barefooted. He should have made her dress better. There hadn’t been time.

  “You’ll take the Whitestone Bridge,” he said, “and the Hutchinson River Parkway.”

  That was a good idea, the Hutchinson. They wouldn’t expect him to be on it.

  He could be pretty sure there was something else they wouldn’t expect. They wouldn’t think he’d be going back toward Cedarville.

  The Gilwood house was locked up tight, just as Herb had said. Sheila chewed on her lip. It was maddening. They shouldn’t have gotten away.

  She was further maddened when they came around to the side of the house and saw two police cars in the parking area and Frank D’Amico standing in the open door of one. Those mirrored sunglasses hid his face even though the sun had just gone down.

  If he didn’t have a gun, she would have killed him. He should have done something.

  He raised his hands and waved to silence them, just the way he’d done at that meeting, with Joyce—her fingers tightened on the matchbook—with Joyce sitting right next to her.

  “Okay, people, let’s cool it.” The bastard, as though he was talking to a bunch of kids.

  The place was overrun with cops. She could kill every one with her bare hands, but the Gilwoods first.

  Bruce Cheskill yelled, “Where are they?” He thought they were hiding in the house. She knew they were gone. Joyce’s car was gone.

  “Nobody’s going in that house,” said D’Amico. “I’ll go in myself when I get a search warrant. But you won’t find them here.”

  Bruce turned to the neighbors. “How does he know?”

  “Her car’s gone,” said Sheila. Frank glanced at where the car was usually parked. He knew.

  She backed away from the others, wishing she hadn’t called attention to herself. They were impotent with all those cops there. They were defused, in spite of Bruce wanting to fire his rifle. They would be sent home, like kids, but she still had her matchbook, and no one was looking.

  She backed farther away, until she found a basement window that was open just a crack. Right below it were those two upholstered chairs Joyce had wanted to get rid of, and next to them, the woodpile. She remembered how, in early spring, Carl had gone out in the woods with Foster and they’d cut up some fallen trees.

  She lit a match and touched it to the other matches, and the whole book blazed up. She dropped it through the window.

  “That’s for Anita,” she told the house.

  Frank watched them start away. Jesus, a lynch mob, right here in Cedarville. Herb’s cousin, too, but Herb had told him how they marched on Lattimer and found him dead, and then were coming here. Somehow the Farand woman knew it was Joyce who called the police.

  He’d thought of that himself. He thought—too late. Everything was too late. He hadn’t realized the guy was home this week. Thought he was in the city, but now it all fell into place. Too late.

/>   She was gone. He didn’t know where the kids were. He remembered how she’d been that night at the pizza parlor. Full of questions and jumpy as a cat. Had she suspected even then? Why hadn’t she told him?

  He couldn’t blame her, really. You just don’t believe a thing like that.

  And now she was gone.

  He’d already asked for a search warrant. Now he radioed for the number of the car. He didn’t know whose name it was registered in, and gave both of them.

  He listened and, far off, thought he heard a sound, like music. He couldn’t be sure, there was too much noise, too many people around. Probably one of them carried a radio.

  He looked up at the windows. If he thought there was anybody there, he’d bust his way in, but it looked empty.

  He ordered the people away, back over the stone wall, the way they had come. Then he got in his car with Finneran and they drove back to headquarters to wait for the search warrant and, more importantly, the number of the car.

  Gail heard them leaving. Their voices and all that noise faded away. She heard everything so clearly, but she hadn’t been able to make them hear her.

  He had thrown her into that thing they said was a coal bin. She had always been afraid of it, a dark, black hole, probably full of spiders. Now she was in it. Every now and then she felt something crawl across her, and she screamed and shook herself, but she couldn’t scream loud with the gag in her mouth, and she could hardly move.

  Her hands were tied to her feet. The ropes cut into her and she was doubled up in a painful position, and had been for ages, but she couldn’t get free.

  At first she had thought her mother would come. For a long time she had been so sure. Now she wasn’t sure anymore. They had all gone away and left her. The house was quiet, except for a faraway sound like water going through the pipes, and Mary Ellen’s radio which she could hear sometimes, a note or two when it played loud. A couple of times she even thought she heard Adam crying, but now there was nothing, and it was probably her imagination. They wouldn’t go off and leave Adam.

  Only her.

  But then the people had come. She didn’t know why or who they were. She thought they might be looking for her, and made all the noise she could. She even heard a man say, “What’s that? Hear it?” and another replied, “I don’t hear anything.”

  And now there was starting to be a smell, like smoke. It was like when they had the fireplace in winter. They sat in front of it, she and her mother, and she could almost pretend Carl wasn’t there.

  Except this wasn’t winter. And the fireplace was upstairs, but she could smell the smoke down here.

  27

  They were back in the country now. Joyce was not sure where, in the dark. It was one of those winding roads between Cedarville and Croton. They didn’t even have names, as far as she could tell, although she supposed they must. Where did he think he was going?

  The gas tank read empty. She knew it would run for a while even after it reached the empty mark. And if they ran out in these backwoods, he would probably shoot her and start walking. She was so tired she might not even care.

  Except for Adam. And if Gail was still alive.

  “Pull over there,” he said.

  Pull over? She saw a clearing off the road, sort of a dirt ramp that led into the bushes.

  “Watch it,” he told her as she nosed down the ramp. The earth dropped off just beyond it.

  “Out.”

  He opened the door and made her slide over to his side. He would shoot her now. Her legs were stiff and they nearly buckled when she first stepped onto the ground.

  Then he made her get back in, turn off the headlights, remove the trunk key from the set in the ignition, and take a flashlight from the glove compartment. And then they went to the back of the car.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked.

  “Shut up.”

  He told her to stand where he could keep an eye on her. He held out his hand for the key, and unlocked the trunk.

  The lid flew up. There was a body inside. She screamed. The body moved and let out a moan.

  “My God, Mary Ellen, are you alive?”

  Carl took something out of the trunk and slammed the lid.

  Joyce grabbed for the lock. “Carl, she’ll die!”

  He stopped her with the gun muzzle in her belly. She couldn’t have opened it anyway, he had pocketed the key. He handed her a wrench and a large screwdriver and told her to remove the license plates.

  She knelt in the dirt and began to struggle with a corroded nut and bolt. Mary Ellen was here and Gail dead. A penance for her not being sure, not speaking. For Anita’s death. He had left her in the basement at home.

  Mary Ellen had been tied and gagged and in that trunk for a good three hours. How could she breathe?

  He kept the flashlight shielded, the gun against her neck, and told her to hurry. What if she couldn’t get it off? She knew now what he planned to do.

  “Carl, it’s almost out of gas.”

  He didn’t bother to answer. With the new plates, he would never be spotted. And Vermont plates at that. Where had he gotten them?

  She was ready to try anything. Leave the bolts loose and hope the plates would fall off, and someone would stop the car. He noticed what she was doing and made her tighten them.

  She stood up. The plate was secure.

  Got to get Mary Ellen out of there. Get the key somehow.

  “Carl, let her out. She’ll die in there.”

  Tantalizingly he tossed the key and caught it, dropped

  it back into his pocket. He motioned her to the front of the car.

  “The front plate,” he said. “And speed it up.”

  Through the trees she caught a glimmer of light. Could she run out onto the road?

  He would shoot her if she tried. But Frank had said—run.

  He was standing over her with the gun. She crouched and loosened the bolts that held the plate. The bushes concealed her, and the car ran past and was gone.

  Finally she was able to straighten up. Her knees barely held her. She slipped the tools into her pocket.

  “Go over there”—he pointed to where the earth dropped off beyond where they were parked—”and throw those plates over.”

  It was not as deep as she had thought. Down at the bottom she could see the glimmer of beer cans and paper, the outline of an old tire. She tossed the plates, heard them crash, and turned to go back.

  His arm was raised, pointing the gun at her head.

  She screamed.

  RUN, Frank had said. There was no place to run. Bushes everywhere. Only back up the slope.

  Her scream, her sudden dodge, caught him off guard. A shot exploded and missed. She veered, and suddenly—

  Into the car.

  Thank God he had left the ignition key. The wheels spun on loose gravel. He lunged at the door beside her. She snapped the lock.

  He raised the gun. The car lurched forward and a back window shattered.

  She caught the flash of his shirt and then his face before her. He was on the hood.

  She couldn’t see.

  He grinned at her. He lay sprawled across the hood, clutching a wiper and pointing the gun at her face. She couldn’t see the road.

  Lights. She turned on the lights. Now she could see a little.

  She couldn’t stop the car, couldn’t get out, not with him there. Get Mary Ellen out. Get him off.

  28

  “We got the license number, Frank.”

  “Get out an APB.”

  He didn’t have much hope. They’d have ditched the car by now. At least, if it were found, he could tell which direction they were going. Maybe.

  The car? He’d have ditched them all. The guy couldn’t travel with a wife and kids.

  He felt like a jerk, sitting around the station. Nothing he could do.

  “I’m going back up there.”

  He suddenly saw them all, maybe upstairs in a bedroom or down in the basement. He
saw her with blood in her hair, lying on the floor.

  He was in his car, at the wheel, not thinking. Finneran slid in on the other side. “Want me to drive?”

  Frank started the car. If she had blood in her hair, a few seconds wouldn’t make any difference, but he wanted to drive.

  “Watch for that number,” he said. Not that it would be anywhere around here.

  They were up the hill in maybe two minutes.

  “Jesus,” he yelped when he saw the house.

  Finneran grabbed the radio and called the fire department. It was a small, volunteer department. It’d take forever.

  How did this happen? If Gilwood had done it, it would have burned hours ago.

  Unless he came back.

  No time to force the doors. There was an open basement window, but that was where the fire was. Two chairs and a woodpile. Jesus. He reached in to close the window, hoping to cut off some air, and then he heard the screams.

  She was driving toward Cedarville. In town, they’d see him.

  She felt as if she was going about eighty miles an hour. Twice the car skidded onto the shoulder. Couldn’t see. If someone came—Please, someone.

  The road to Cedarville …

  He jerked his gun arm, pointing urgently. Another road. Not the one to Cedarville.

  She started to turn.

  He was going to kill her anyway. She spun the wheel back. The car swerved. He slipped, and grabbed tighter to the wiper.

  She lost all fear. She was cool, calm. He had slipped. He pointed the gun at her eyes.

  She swerved again. Zigzagged across the road. He clung to the wiper but couldn’t aim the gun.

  And then he vanished.

  She couldn’t believe it. A trick.

  The wiper was gone.

  She pressed the gas pedal. The road danced before her. Adam. And home. She would go home.

  Little Adam upstairs.

  Suddenly the steering wheel flew out of her hand. She saw trees ahead, and fought to control the car.

  She slammed the brake. It barely slowed. Dear God, power steering and power brakes and out of gas. She pumped the brake, held with all her strength to the wheel, but she hadn’t any strength. The trees hurtled toward her.

  She felt the crash and waited for worse. Nothing came. The car was off the road, the headlights smashed, but the underbrush had acted as a cushion.