by Laurel Dewey
“I don’t go to the gym and I don’t own a tube of gel,” Weyler stated dryly. “But I get your point.”
“And that dangling comment he made a couple times? Little shit? I don’t think he was talking about Jordan. I think he was talking about Jake.”
“Let’s not jump too fast here, Jane. There are a lot of random emotions going on right now. We can’t assume that every one of them creates another dot that we can connect.”
Like the fact that Bailey’s SUV had an odd, sweet and sour stench to it, Jane thought. Or that she was certain Bailey lied when he said he hadn’t been out of the house in six days and that the last time was to go to the gym. And that trip was during the day, according to his own words. Why then was his rearview mirror flipped for driving at night? And the coup de grâce? Bailey wasn’t headed to the gym an hour ago. Why lie? Was it that he needed to get away and clear his head? If that was so, why dress up for the occasion? But Jane declined to mention any of these dots to Weyler. Right now, he was right. It was all premature assumptions. But that didn’t mean Jane wasn’t going to hold them like a grudge in her back pocket and bring them out when the time was ripe.
It took Jane under two minutes to unpack. She removed the cigarette pack that held the single smoke and set it on the table against the wall so it could stand up and be seen from various angles in the room. Sure, it was unnecessary and masochistic, but when you look at life through tortured eyes, it makes sense to create a tapestry where suffering is sewn into the fabric. She changed her clothes, secured her Glock under her leather jacket, gobbled down her sandwich and then decided to attack the first clue sent to the Van Gordens—Thomas Wolfe’s, You Can’t Go Home Again. Jane wanted to take a closer look at the sympathy card and envelope that had accompanied the book. Pulling the card from protective plastic evidence bag, Jane noted the strange BAWY scribbled on the envelope in shaky writing. Jane’s first thought was that it looked like it was either a child’s unsteady hand or done to make it look like a child’s writing. She opened the saccharin-designed sympathy card and read the two short lines: So sorry for your loss. JACKson sends his regards. Jake went by his middle name so why was the kidnapper emphasizing the first four letters of his true first name? Could it be the kidnapper’s name? If so, why draw attention to it?
The card had been secured in the book on the dog-eared page of 243. Jane carried the book to the sunny window and scanned the page. The chapter was titled, “A Moment of Decision.” The narrative spoke about George Webber attending a social gathering and how uncomfortable it made him feel. Jane searched for anything on the page that could be construed as a clue. Obviously, the kidnapper dog-eared this page for a specific reason. But why? At the top of the page, the narrative read: He had used the phrases as symbols of something real, something important that he had felt instinctively but had never put into words. Certainly the bizarre clues were partly symbolic in nature. Jane read further in that paragraph: There was something else—something impersonal, something much bigger than himself, something that mattered greatly to him and would not be denied. The sentence seemed to ring loudly for Jane. Something that mattered greatly to him and would not be denied. As Jane continued reading, it seemed that every few lines she’d find something that might be important. But there were thirty-six lines of type on page 243. Which lines, if any, were noteworthy and could lead her to Jake Van Gorden?
There was an interesting line in the middle of the page that caught her eye. He watched their faces closely and tried to penetrate behind the social masks they wore, probing, boring, searching as for some clue that might lead him to an answer to his riddle. Jane set down the book. The term social masks reminded her of the disincarnated visage of Carol Van Gorden. What secrets hid so well behind Carol’s well-worn mask? And what lurked behind the jutting jaw and perfectly coiffed mien of her husband?
As Jane turned back to the stack of clues, she realized that she needed to create a system in which she could absorb all the material in one fluid motion. She glanced outside and spotted the clothesline across the backyard of the B&B. Yes, this would work. Sneaking downstairs, she quietly exited the house and crept around to the backyard. Checking around to make sure nobody could see her, she untied one end of the clothesline, grabbed a good handful of clothespins and stealthily returned upstairs to her room. Jane secured the line on a window hook and pulled it just in front of the bank of windows in an attempt to create a taut line at eye level. However, she was shy about four feet from where she wanted to hook the other end. Looking down into the backyard again, she factored that another leg of the clothesline would be necessary. She trotted downstairs again, dodging any potential contact with the Greens, and returned to steal the second length of clothesline.
But just as she untied the line and started to twist it into a manageable clump, she smelled a smoky aroma that originated from the stand of trees and bushes that separated the B&B from the next property. Moving guardedly toward the area, the strong smoky odor got stronger. The trail ended with the sullen face of Mollie Green seated against a tree, iPod earbuds in place, smoking a peculiar hand-rolled cigarette.
CHAPTER 10
Mollie’s probing dark eyes showed no sign of fear. In fact, the look was more of indignation as Jane approached her. She removed her earbuds. “So, you’re a ganef?” she stated in a haughty tone. “A thief!”
Jane looked down at the clothesline. “I’m using this in the line of duty,” she responded, stone-faced. “Like when a cop borrows a car to chase a criminal. Same thing.”
Mollie regarded Jane with a curl of her lip. “You’re a meshuggeneh.”
“I’m crazy?” Jane retorted, undaunted. “I’m not the one sitting in a clump of dirt, smoking fake weed and pretending to be a Jew.”
“How’d you know it was fake?” Mollie stood up.
“What? The Jew part or the doobie?”
Mollie immediately took umbrage. “The Jew part is not fake!”
Jane took the bogus blunt out of Mollie’s hand and sniffed it. “What is this?”
Mollie spied Jane’s Glock under her jacket. “Catnip. If you drink the tea it’s supposed to calm you down. Same thing with smoking it.”
“Your parents know you smoke catnip?”
“I don’t know,” Mollie said with a sarcastic flip. “Do your parents know you smoke cigarettes?”
“I quit smoking.”
“Really?” she retorted in a quick snap. “Your jacket reeks.”
“I quit yesterday.” It wasn’t normal for Jane to be so forthcoming, especially with a bratty, self-involved teenager. But it was her attempt at baiting Mollie—make the kid trust her and maybe she’d glean information.
“Yesterday? Oi! You’re gonna need something to calm your ass down. Here…” Mollie handed the withered-looking catnip joint to Jane.
For a split second, Jane actually entertained the idea. “No. I’ll probably get hooked. Then I’d have to join C.A.”
“Catnip Anonymous,” Mollie chimed, without missing a beat.
“You’ve got a quick mind.”
Mollie eyed Jane carefully, still not sure of her motives. “Jews have quick minds. That’s why we run the entertainment business.”
“Do you always hide your pain behind sarcasm?”
“Pain?” Mollie tried her best to remain stoic.
“Your black nail polish is half chewed off. You’re smoking catnip to calm down. And your breathing is real shallow. I’d say you’re freaking out about your boyfriend.”
“We broke up. He wasn’t my boyfriend when he disappeared.”
“Kind of hostile, Mollie.”
“Liora!”
“Mollie.” Jane wasn’t going to play her game. “You just turn your love off like that?”
“He tried to kill himself. I have good reason for being ferklempt ! Suicide is a serious sin.”
“According to what? Kabballah?”
“The Jewish Law is clear. Suicide is forbidden. Life is what’s import
ant. This life!”
“I got news for you, kid. You got a red string around your wrist. It doesn’t make you a Jew. Don’t act so fucking high and mighty and condemn others about suicide in the name of a religion you don’t even own.”
Mollie looked at Jane. “I hit a nerve with you. You know someone who committed suicide, don’t you?”
The kid crossed the line. Screw the bonding. Jane took her gloves off. “Yeah, paint your hair purple and call it a revolution. Why don’t you drop the wannabe rebel bullshit. You like to call yourself a Jew because you love to watch your preacher daddy cringe every time you toss out some Yiddish.”
“Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism. It’s a high order of thought and belief.”
“Is that what the website said where you bought the red string for fifteen bucks plus shipping?” Jane asked, pointing to Mollie’s bracelet.
“Kish mir en toches!” Mollie took a hard drag on her catnip joint.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Kiss my ass!”
“Wow, that’s a high-order attitude.”
Mollie moved closer to Jane. “And you’re being a nudje because I got a little too close to the truth with you about suicide. And you’re jonesin’ for a cigarette.”
Jane regarded the kid in a different light. “Truth, eh? You like to seek the truth?”
“You got it!”
“Did you buy Jake his Truth poster?”
Mollie pulled back. Jane could tell the kid was surprised that she’d been in Jake’s bedroom. “No,” she said softly. “That was all him.”
Jane was starting to see a puzzle piece fit into place. “Ah, Jake was the one who inspired you to seek out the truth.”
Mollie’s face turned sad. Her eyes drifted to the dirt. “Yes.”
Jane leaned down to be on eye level with her. “In a town where secrets rule?”
Mollie looked at Jane. “Yes.” There was a steady burn to the kid’s dark eyes.
“What’s your secret, Mollie?”
There was a tense moment between them. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
Jane peered closer at Mollie’s face. “Is it the eyebrow piercing you’re hiding?” Mollie drew her hand to her left eye, brushing her finger against her eyebrow. “That would piss off your good Christian parents, right? Did you just wear the hoop when you were with Jake and take it out before you got back home?” Mollie suddenly looked very meek. “You know, I can’t remember. Does the tattoo come before or after the eyebrow piercing?”
Mollie furrowed her brow. “What the fuck? How’d you…?”
“It’s called being predictable.”
The girl stood back. “It comes before the eyebrow piercing.”
Jane stood up. “A rose on your ass?”
“That’s where your predictable stops. No rose on my toches .” Mollie unzipped her jeans and revealed a half-inch blue dragonfly tattoo just below her belly button. “We got them done together. Jake’s got the same tat, but it’s bigger and it’s on his chest, right over his heart.”
Jane remembered the hand drawing of a dragonfly on the bridge. “Did you sketch that dragonfly image on the bridge?”
Her eyes saddened. “Yes.”
“Illusions die hard. That’s what you wrote underneath.” Jane realized the initials, L.G. stood for Liora Green. “What did you mean by that?”
“It was one of the last things Jake said to me before he left.”
“You said Jake has the same tattoo over his heart. Why over his heart?”
She zipped up her jeans. “That’s Jake.”
“That’s Jake?”
Mollie looked off to the side and let out a long breath of air. “It’s hard to explain. Over the last year and a half, something shifted inside him. He wasn’t satisfied to live on the surface. He wanted to dig deeper into his life. He wanted to seek the answers that would explain all the shit he was feeling inside but couldn’t communicate.” She looked at Jane. “That’s why he was my bubbee. He was real, you know? I wanted to be part of that because I have questions too. I have thoughts that come from deep inside my cells and I can’t explain any of them…”
“Like calling yourself Liora and the Jewish shtick?”
Mollie rolled her eyes. “It’s not shtick! I swear to Hashem, its not.” The kid almost sounded desperate. “Jake understood,” she said softly. “He just couldn’t…”
“Couldn’t what?”
“Couldn’t be there for me. He had too many tsuris. His head was trying to sort through too much chaos. He went through bouts of depression.”
“Is that why he liked to dress all in black?”
“Yeah. He said he was in mourning.”
“For who?”
“He didn’t know. He just knew he was in mourning.” Jane was perplexed by that statement but let it go. “He wanted answers. But the more he sought out the truth, the more the nightmares surrounded him.”
“What truth?”
“He tried to explain it to me, but he said I wouldn’t understand. He said it was complicated. I told him I was no shlub… that I could grasp a lot of concepts. But he wouldn’t bite.”
Jane’s head was spinning. A cigarette would have tasted damn good at this moment. It would slow down the whirring sound she kept hearing—the sound of too many ideas banging into each other. She grabbed the first one that flew to the surface. “The dragonfly tattoo? What does that signify?”
“The way Jake told me, dragonflies remind you that you can be the light in the darkness. But before you can do that, you have to bust through the illusions that surround you. Then, and only then, can you let your true light shine and know who you really are.”
Jane was dumbfounded. Little Juice Box Jake sounded like an esoteric philosopher. But the kid must have busted through one illusion too many for him to end up on the bridge with a rope around his neck. Illusions die hard suddenly took on a whole new meaning. “Light in the darkness,” Jane said aloud. “Your mom told me Liora means my light and I see. Is that why you chose the name?”
“No. The name just came to me before I got the tat. I swear I didn’t know that’s what it meant.” Mollie thought for a second. “It’s creepy, huh?” She shook her head. “I never liked the name Mollie, but Liora…it felt right…like I was finally home.”
As if oddly on cue, Sara called out to the girl. “Liora!”
“I gotta go back inside,” Mollie muttered, extinguishing the catnip doobie in the dirt. “She’s had such shpilkes since Jake went missing.”
“Hey,” Jane lightly touched Mollie’s arm. “There was a retractable rope outside on Jake’s deck.”
“Yeah. So?”
“When he ditched his folks and went down the rope, was he coming to see you?”
“Maybe.” She started to move but Jane held her back.
“What does that mean?”
“Jake liked to wander around at night. Sometimes he’d sneak over here and sometimes he wouldn’t. He liked the nighttime because he said he could hear his thoughts better. That’s why he worked the late shift at The Rabbit Hole. It’s a sports bar down the street. You wanna learn more about Jake, go talk to his boss, Hank Ross.”
After securing the clothesline upstairs in her room, Jane grabbed her leather satchel, sans laptop, told Weyler she was going to check out the town and left the B&B. It was coming up on 3:30 pm when she rolled to a halt in front of The Rabbit Hole sports bar on Main Street. A large handwritten sign in the front window announced that the place would re-open at 5:00 pm. Jane contemplated returning to the B&B, but her anxious foot tapped the accelerator and continued down Main Street. She meandered up and down the side streets trying to soak in the heartbeat of Midas. But watching the people move about on the street was like observing a carefully choreographed ballet of faces that projected a vacant front that belied the stark reality of what was too dangerous to reveal. This town where secrets collided—where all things hidden came to be buried—was going to be a tough nut to c
rack. She could almost feel the ghosts roaming the streets, hoping to remain as obscured as the ones who had a pulse.
Jane dropped back down onto Main Street as the sky darkened, filtering the weak sunlight through a bank of black clouds. The weather shift made the shadows on the pavement even more ominous. Jane turned at the end of the main drag and headed toward the bridge. It was beginning to feel like a portentous location to her. Bo may have said that it was an old, unused bridge but Jane knew differently. She was almost certain that Jake spent a great deal of time there, perhaps making it his nighttime destination after he got off work. Maybe it took a certain amount of sensitivity, but it seemed patently obvious to Jane that that little slice of real estate held a wealth of emotions and possibly a lot of secrets.
Driving closer to the bridge, the smell of smoke seeped into the Mustang. Jane rolled down her window and sourced the aroma coming from outside. She passed the bridge and kept driving slowly, paralleling Jordan Copeland’s ten-acre expanse of property on the left that sat on the other side of the rushing river. Brackets of bushes and evergreens made it difficult to see the area clearly but after about three hundred feet, Jane could easily see a coal black cylinder of smoke lifting into the darkening sky. She turned the Mustang around and headed back to the bridge, parking her car in front of the rickety structure. Getting out of the car, she pulled her leather jacket tighter across her chest, steeling herself against the growing cold that swept around the bridge. On the other side of the bridge, Jane found a rough pathway in the shade, still covered with pads of snow. She followed the path down a gentle slope where a thicket of evergreens and leafless gambel oaks crowded around her. The smell of smoke grew as she moved closer to a barbed wire fence that laced around Jordan’s property. Above her, the clouds joined together, stealing the sun and leaving a swath of gray and ashen gloom across the ground. What in the hell was Jordan burning? The smell was acrid and sickly sweet, like when hair singes. The fact that Jane knew what a dead body smelled like when it burned only intensified her resolve into finding out what he was doing. Yes, this was not aboveboard or a by-the-book endeavor and she knew that if Weyler was with her, there’s no way he’d authorize it. But Jane reasoned that Weyler told her he brought her along because she “thought outside the box.” Her murky plan certainly fit that criterion.
