Sweet Baby

by Sharon Sala

  Thirteen

  They crossed the border into Arkansas before dark, parking for the night at an RV campground just across the state line. It was a new experience for Tory and a renewal of an old one for Brett. As he completed the hookups, he kept thinking of the wonderful memories he had of traveling like this. Of camping out with his parents in state parks and roasting wieners over an open fire. Of sharing a bed with Ryan and scaring Celia just enough to make her scream, but never enough to make her cry. Of waking up to the smell of fresh-perked coffee and frying bacon. Of hearing his father’s laughter and his mother’s soft giggles.

  While he might have good memories of traveling in an RV, this was Tory’s first trip, and when it was over, the memories she would take with her would not be good. He couldn’t control what might happen after they reached Calico Rock, but he could make the trip there as pleasant as possible. Although they’d packed plenty of food to cook, there was a restaurant just across the road. That would be good. The best thing he could do for her tonight was to keep her mind off where they were going tomorrow.

  He opened the door and poked his head inside. “Hey, sweetheart, I’m cooking tonight.”

  Tory emerged from the back of the bus with a smile on her face. “Great! What are we having?”

  He pointed to the café across the road. “I don’t know yet, but from what I can smell, it’s been barbecued.”

  She laughed and let him help her down the steps. “Did you pack any antacids?”

  “Very funny,” he said, and swatted her on the seat of the pants. “Just put a hustle in that pretty little butt of yours. I’m starving.”

  ***

  The highway beyond the RV park was all but silent. Now and then a car would pass by, but it would be gone long before the sound had time to wake Brett up. And while the quiet was peaceful, Tory was used to the sounds of the city. To her, the silence was deafening. It gave her too much time to think, and way too much time to remember.

  She tossed restlessly, trying to find a comfortable spot in the bed, but it was hopeless. Not even the proximity of Brett’s arms could calm her tonight.

  It was late September. But she remembered another September night many years ago, and the nights that followed before she was found. She shuddered and turned toward Brett, needing to see his face, to know that she was not alone.

  Outside, the night air was cool. Crickets moved through the grass, chirping their passing. Frogs croaked in the little pond below the hill where they were parked, and if she listened real close, she could hear a tree limb scratching against the roof.

  The wind must have come up.

  Weary beyond words, she closed her eyes, praying for sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come. She kept seeing herself hiding in that empty house and waiting for a mother who would never come back.

  Don’t think about it, Tory. It’s been over twenty-five years. She isn’t going anywhere.

  But the urgency to find her mother’s body and put it to rest was growing.

  I will find you, Mommy, and I will take care of you. Just like you took care of me.

  Outside, the wind began to blow in earnest, and she scooted beneath Brett’s outflung arm, drawing comfort from his presence. She couldn’t believe their misfortune. The inclement weather that Oklahoma had been suffering seemed to have followed them. Sure enough, a short while later, rain began to fall, pattering down upon the metal roof of the motor home and lulling Tory into a restless sleep.

  ***

  The woman knelt before the Christmas tree, then lifted a small red package from beneath the branches. Her eyes were filled with love as she turned to the child beside her, who was dancing with anticipation.

  “This is for you,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”

  The little girl took the package, tearing into it and tossing aside the small bow and the bright red paper with no thought of how carefully it had been wrapped. At the age of three, her priorities were firmly in place. But when she lifted the lid of the box, she stilled. Her eyes widened, and her tiny mouth formed a small O as she reached inside.

  “Look,” the woman said. “Your very own baby doll. And see… she has long blond hair and blue eyes, just like you.”

  The woman smiled at her daughter’s reaction, then took the doll out of the box and laid her in the little girl’s arms.

  “There you go. Now Mommy’s sweet baby has a baby all her own.”

  The little girl bent to the doll with all the inborn nature of a true nurturer, cuddling it close to her chest and rocking it back and forth in her arms.

  “Sweet Baby,” she crooned, immediately bonding with the big button eyes and the embroidered red lips frozen in a timeless smile.

  As the woman watched her baby daughter rocking the doll, her heart swelled with love. She thought of all the rest she’d sacrificed while sewing in secret after Tory had gone to bed, but now, seeing the joy on her face made it all worthwhile.

  “Well, Tory, what do you think about her?”

  The little girl’s expression was solemn as she gazed down at the doll in her arms.

  “I love her.”

  The woman smiled. “She’s going to need a name. What do you think we should call her?”

  The child’s answer came swiftly, as if she’d known it for years.

  “Sweet Baby. I gonna name her Sweet Baby.”

  The woman laughed and caught her child up in her arms, hugging her tightly against her breasts.

  “But you’re my sweet baby, remember? We can’t have two little girls with that name.”

  The little girl giggled, then pointed at herself. “I your sweet baby. This my sweet baby.”

  The woman laughed again. “Okay, okay. You win. Sweet Baby it is.”

  Tory woke up just as a gust of wind splattered rain against the window near her head. There was a sadness inside of her that she couldn’t shake. She knew that the dream she’d just had wasn’t a dream at all but an old memory that had decided to come home—just as she had. She glanced through the curtains. Although it was still dark and raining, she knew morning wasn’t far away.

  Brett sighed in his sleep and then rolled over, pulling her up against him, then kissing her ear before settling back into a soft, uneven snore.

  She closed her eyes, savoring the feeling of being safe and loved, and in that instant she remembered that she’d felt this way before—on a Christmas morning, many years ago, in her mother’s arms. A tear slid out of the corner of her eye as she scooted closer to Brett. The next few days weren’t going to be easy, but, as her mother’s daughter, it was the least she could do.

  ***

  When they drove into the outskirts of Calico Rock, it was just after 9:00 a.m. They’d driven in and out of showers until a short while ago, but from the looks of the sky, the possibility of another rain was likely.

  The prospect of getting out and stretching their legs was inviting. Yet when they pulled up to the local police department and parked, Tory suddenly panicked. This was such a final step, but it had to be taken. It was past time to finish something long left undone.

  Brett had been watching Tory’s reaction for miles. The closer they’d come to their destination, the more tense she’d become. Her hands were in fists, and her face was pale. There was a stiffness to her posture that wasn’t normal, and her breathing had become shallow. Sure signs of panic.

  She’d been through so damned much hell in her lifetime. He wanted it all to be over. He wanted to hear her laugh and see her smile and know that all was right with her world. But until they found her mother’s body, that wasn’t about to happen.

  “Well, sweetheart, I guess we’d better check in here before we go any farther. We need to make sure that all the proper authorities have been notified and see what they might have planned.”

  She nodded, then glanced out the window, tensing even more as she spied a white van parked across the street. The logo painted on the side was impossible to miss. KEIO, Channel 5. She turned. There was another van fa
rther down the street and parked just off an alley. KTIA, Channel 4, was here, too.

  “Brett, look,” she said, pointing to the vans.

  “I saw them,” he said. “Unfortunately, at the moment, you and your situation are news. It will pass.”

  She sighed. “I know. But this is so awful. People I don’t know are digging into things about my personal life that I’ve only just begun to remember myself. It’s like undressing in front of a room full of strangers. Whether you like it or not, everyone’s about to get an eyeful.”

  Brett leaned over and kissed her square on the mouth. “And what an eyeful it would be.”

  She grinned, which had been his objective.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  She reached for his hand. “Okay.”

  “Then let’s get this show on the road. The sooner we begin, the sooner it will all be over.”

  ***

  Denton Washburn, the police chief of Calico Rock, was up to his eyeballs in Feds. This morning, agents from the Arkansas State Bureau of Investigation had beaten him to the office. A half hour later, two FBI agents from national headquarters had arrived with their own agenda, all but confiscating his men and his desk. It was fortunate that he was a patient man. Yet when he heard a commotion outside his office and went to investigate, his patience came to a quick end.

  He recognized the two men blocking the doorway to the station. They were from a local television affiliate. And he was pretty sure that the woman in red with the microphone and the hat was part of the Oklahoma television crew who’d arrived last night. What he didn’t know, and at that point didn’t care, was what they were doing upsetting his department.

  “What the hell’s going on out here?” he shouted.

  The crowd parted, like the Red Sea at God’s command, and then he saw her, caught in the midst of the melee and trying to hide her face against the jacket of the biggest, most pissed-off man he’d seen in years. Denton understood the man’s anger. He’d been stifling some of his own ever since this mess started. But what aggravated him most was that the shit Victoria Lancaster was having to endure was happening in his office. His first instinct was to run off everyone within a forty-mile range, and his second was to find himself a stiff drink. He took a deep breath and did neither.

  Twenty-five years ago this month he’d been a rookie with the Calico Rock police force. There had been plenty of long days since when nothing much had happened, and enough days in between when he didn’t think life would ever calm down again. But every now and then, when he let himself think about it, he would remember going out to the old Lancaster place to pick up that kid. At the time, he’d been gung ho and so certain he could handle anything. And then he and the chief had driven up to the house. They’d heard her screaming before the car had stopped. The sound had stayed with him for days.

  Now and then, there were nights when the wind blew just so between the hills. And on those nights, the wild, restless shriek reminded him of her cry—high-pitched and keening, like a cornered and dying animal.

  In spite of his presence, the news crews continued to press toward the couple, shoving microphones in their faces and shouting questions above the noise to be heard. Denton shifted his gun belt, giving ease to the buckle that rode against his belly, and then put his hand on his gun. Enough was enough.

  “Hey!”

  His shout got results. Everyone hushed. “I’m giving the lot of you exactly three seconds to start toward that door, then I’m going to start hauling you in for disturbing the peace.”

  “But Chief, the public has a right to—”

  Denton reached for his handcuffs and started walking toward the newsman who’d chosen to argue.

  “Don’t tell me about the public,” he growled. “I work for the public. And right now you’re impeding the progress of an ongoing investigation.”

  Then he shoved a cameraman aside and stared straight into Brett Hooker’s face.

  “You with her?” he asked, pointing to Tory.

  Brett nodded.

  “Then step on back to my office,” he said. “I’ll be with you as soon as I get rid of these blowflies.”

  His analogy of the media that always swarmed around a story as flies on carrion was too pointed to miss. Brett moved Tory toward the back office. Grateful for the respite, they slipped inside and closed the door, leaving the chief to tend to his business his way.

  Brett grasped Tory by the shoulders. “Baby, are you all right?”

  She thrust a hand through her hair, combing the tangles away from her face, and then nodded.

  “Thanks to you and that bulldog of a policeman, I’m fine,” she said. And then she tried to smile around a shaky breath. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

  Just then Denton Washburn burst into his office as abruptly as he’d come out of it, slamming the door shut behind him. His face was flushed, his eyes sparkling with anger, but there was a calmness about him that made Brett think there was more to the man than just a badge and a gun.

  “Chief. I’m Brett Hooker, and this is—”

  Denton nodded. “We’ve met,” he said gruffly, meeting Tory’s startled gaze. “But I doubt she remembers me.” He extended his hand toward Tory. “I’m Denton Washburn, Police Chief of Calico Rock.”

  Tory blushed. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t remember you.”

  He nodded. “It’s been a while. About twenty-five years ago, I suppose. And I wasn’t chief then. I was only a rookie, and you were in pretty bad shape when we took you out of that house.”

  Startled, Tory’s eyes widened. Here was another man who’d been a part of the past she couldn’t remember.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t remember much of that time.”

  Denton glanced at Brett, then back at Tory. “Just how much of that day do you remember?”

  Tory didn’t give in to the frustration she was feeling. “Nothing.”

  Brett put his arm around her. “Up until a couple of days ago, the only thing she remembered about her childhood was being jerked from one foster home to another.”

  Washburn frowned. “That’s too bad. Your mother was a real nice woman. Everyone in town liked her and Danny. We were all real sad when he died.”

  Tory frowned. “Who’s Danny?”

  Denton’s eyebrows rose. “He was your daddy. I think you all better have a seat. Looks to me like we need to visit a spell before we get down to plans.”

  They’d just taken a seat when a knock sounded on the door, and then a man entered without waiting for permission. Washburn frowned at the interruption.

  “Miss Lancaster. Mr. Hooker. Meet federal agent Rickshaw.”

  Darrel Rentshaw didn’t break a smile as he corrected the chief’s mispronunciation.

  “It’s Rentshaw,” he said, offering his hand to both Brett and Tory.

  “Whatever,” Denton said. “Is there something else I can do for you?”

  No one missed the less than subtle emphasis Denton had put on the word else. Brett stifled a grin. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen local law enforcement tangling with state and federal authorities.

  Rentshaw ignored the chief’s thrust. “I thought it best we set things straight with Miss Lancaster as to what we expect of her.”

  This time, Brett was the one who got pissed. There was a smile on his face that never quite reached his eyes as he interrupted the conversation.

  “Look, Rentshaw. Sounds to me like the only straightening out needs to come from you. Miss Lancaster is here for a purpose. As distasteful as it may be, we all know what it is. She doesn’t care who’s in charge. She doesn’t give a flying you know what who steps on whose territorial toes. All she wants is to locate her mother’s body and give her a proper burial. She will be on-site until Ruth Lancaster’s body has been found, and she will make any and all decisions as to where it will be taken afterward.”

  Rentshaw did a mental reassessment of Hooker and made a bet with himself that the man was an ex-cop, and a
tough one at that. But he was getting tired of having to reassert the authority he’d already assumed.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Lancaster, but you have to understand our position. We aren’t certain that there is a body to be found. According to my information, the doctor who witnessed Oliver Hale’s confession isn’t totally convinced it was valid. He’s leaning toward the theory that the old man was just out of his head from the drugs he’d been given.”

  Denton Washburn drew himself up to his full height of five feet, eight inches tall. “Then what the hell…” he glanced at Tory “…pardon my French, ma’am…” he glared back at Rentshaw “…are you doing here messing with my town if you think it’s all a big hoax?”

  Rentshaw’s face was beginning to flush. “It’s not my place to sit in judgment. I’m here on orders. It remains to be seen whether there’s a body or not. If there is, the proper procedures will be followed, no matter how old the corpse. And the case will go through the system, just as any murder would.”

  Tory was tired and hungry, and she’d heard enough. She stood, pushing Brett to the side, to speak for herself.

  “Then you tell me something. Who are you going to prosecute when you find her? Oliver Hale’s confession eliminates the need for a trial. He’s dying, and he’s already in prison. Explain the sense of claiming a body when you have no one to prosecute.”

  Denton Washburn interrupted. “Actually, Miss Lancaster, Hale’s not in prison… at least, not anymore.”

  Tory turned to face the chief and knew what he was going to say before he finished. “He died, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he did. About six-thirty this morning.”

  Tory sighed. For Hale, justice had already been dealt. She turned back to Rentshaw.

  “Then you have no need to hold a body when you no longer have a killer, am I right?”

  Rentshaw’s shoulders slumped. Damn, but he hated not being in control.

  “Look, Miss Lancaster, if we find a body—and I say if then we’ll deal with what comes.”