by Maggie Pill
Pansy’s jaw set, but Iris said, “You found him, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Brill said. “His neck is broken.”
“We didn’t do it!” The words came from between Pansy’s teeth.
“Just tell us what happened,” Julie said softly. “You’re not in trouble as long as you tell the truth.”
Pansy started to say something, but Iris spoke first. “We need to tell, Pansy.” Shifting her slight shoulders, she began, “We already told you we came home from school and Momma was gone.”
“Mr. Yates lets us off on the road,” Pansy put in. “He doesn’t like turning around in our yard, and we don’t mind walking. We came up the drive, and there was Ben, pacing back and forth like a grumpy, ornery old bear.”
Once again Iris cut off Pansy’s negative description of McAdams, probably fearing we’d suspect she killed him. “When he saw us coming he shouted, ‘Your mother’s run off!’”
“We didn’t believe him at first,” Pansy said, “but he took us in the house and showed us. Her things were gone, her favorite necklace, her nightgown, and some of her clothes.”
“How did he explain her absence?”
“He said they had a fight. I knew Momma wasn’t happy by how quiet she was lately.” Iris heaved a sigh as if we’d gotten to the hard part. “Ben said we had to keep it a secret or we’d get split up.” Her eyes reddened, and Julie moved on.
“So you kept quiet.”
“We thought if we waited, she’d come back—”
“She didn’t just leave us!” Pansy insisted. “He made her do it!”
Something passed across Iris’ face, and I guessed she feared it was worse than that. My throat closed as I thought of the things she’d kept to herself for her sisters’ sakes.
“You didn’t know what to do,” Julie prompted.
“He said she might come back.” Iris brushed her hair away from her brow. “He said he’d take care of us, even though we aren’t his. We could stay on the farm.”
“And wait for your mother to come home,” Julie said, and Iris nodded. How she must have prayed that would happen!
Pansy spoke again. “Ben said we couldn’t go to school because they might figure things out from something we said. He said school’s a waste of time, especially for girls. Animals teach us everything we need to know to get along.”
Rory’s curiosity was piqued. “What did he mean by that?”
“Well, animals don’t have a government. They take care of things without committees or counselors or cops. They fight it out when they need to, and the strongest wins. And the males dominate, because that’s the way God made them.”
“I see,” Rory said. “Do you agree with all that?”
“Not me,” Pansy said. “Ben’s full of beans, and his friends too.”
Rory smiled at her blunt honesty, and Julie moved on with the interview. “So you stayed and helped out on the farm.”
“Yes.” Iris glanced at Pansy then back to the psychologist, and I saw in her eyes things she couldn’t admit. “We didn’t like it with Ben, but at least we were together.”
“I bet Mom wrote to us.” Pansy’s eyes were hard. “I bet he tore up the letters. That’s why he just had to get the mail himself.”
McAdams had isolated the girls. Somehow he’d accessed Rose’s finances so he could spend their money any way he pleased.
“Okay,” Julie said. “Let’s talk about what happened to Ben.” Both girls looked down at their hands. “You need to tell us.”
There was a long silence. Looking down at her hands, Pansy finally said in a small voice, “Ben died because I ran away.”
“Why, Pansy?”
She shrugged as a tear fell onto her lap. “Ben had some friends over to play cards. He sent us up to bed, but later I had to use the bathroom, so I came downstairs. I was going to just slip by, but Ben was talking about our mother. He said he hoped she never came back, because he was better off without her.”
Sensing there was more to be told, Julie simply waited. Iris looked as if she might say something but instead put a knuckle to her mouth and stared at the items on my desk.
Pansy’s voice went flat as she continued, “One of the men, Sharky, said to Ben, ‘You ever want to get rid of a girl, I’ll take the middle one. I could use some help around the place.’ His voice sounded funny, and it scared me real bad.”
We avoided each other’s eyes, shocked by the revelation.
The story spilled out then, as if Pansy could no longer stop it. “I waited for Ben to say I had to stay with my sisters, but he didn’t. Instead he laughed and said, ‘Yeah, Pansy’s a good little worker.’” She looked up at us, her eyes bright with tears. “I thought, What if Ben lets him take me? What if that man comes upstairs tonight and makes me go home with him?”
Julie swallowed once before asking, “What did you do, Pansy?”
She’d recovered a little, and she clenched her fists. “I went out the back door. It was cold and I was barefoot, but I didn’t care. I was going to go to the cabin and wait until Sharky left, but then I thought, if I wasn’t there when he went to get me, would he take Iris or Daisy instead?” A flash of anger lit her eyes. “I should have gone back to bed, and then if he came up there, I’d have kicked him where it hurts and told him to do his own dumb chores!”
Julie’s gaze remained steady. “Where did you go?”
Her lip quivered. “I climbed up the silo.” Faye gasped, since poisonous fumes can build up in a silo, but Pansy reassured her. “If it’s empty, you won’t die. I climb up there sometimes when Ben’s in town so I can look at things. It’s like being a bird.” She scrubbed one hand across her eyes, wiping away tears she refused to acknowledge. “I thought I’d watch until they left and when Ben fell asleep, I’d get Iris and Daisy and we’d run away.”
I pictured Pansy, cold and scared, perched precariously thirty feet in the air, fearful her sister would take her place as that awful man’s “girl.” If Ben McAdams hadn’t already been dead, I might have had a go at him myself.
“It took a long time, but they finally left. They were pretty drunk. One of them said something about Ben learning to drive a boat. We don’t have a boat, but like I said, they were drunk.”
I wanted to ask if she could be more specific, but I didn’t want to distract her.
“I thought Ben would go to bed,” Pansy went on, “but for some reason he looked in our rooms and saw I wasn’t there.”
“He woke me up,” Iris said. “He asked where Pansy was, and I said I didn’t know. He told me to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t.”
Pansy took up the story again. “Ben came outside and started hollering, ‘Pansy! Pansy, where’d you go?’” There was an air of dread in the room as we all realized what was coming. Pansy’s voice cut in and out, but she kept on. “He had this big old light, and he started shining it everywhere. I stayed real still, but my nightgown is white, and he looked up and saw me sitting there.”
“He told you to come down.”
She nodded. “At first he just said I should. Then he ordered me to get my—to get down. He was so mad I got even more scared. I just kept shaking my head.”
“So he started up after you.”
“I heard Ben shouting and came downstairs,” Iris said. “When I went out on the porch, he was climbing the silo. He had the light in one hand, and he was shouting at Pansy, saying what he was going to do when he caught her. I screamed, ‘Leave her alone!’” She was crying, but she got it out. “His foot slipped, and he—”
“He fell,” Pansy finished. “He hung on for a while, but then he—”
We all imagined the horrifying sight of watching Ben lose his grip and drop to the ground. “It was my fault,” Pansy finished. “If I hadn’t gone up there, he’d be okay.”
“No, it’s my fault,” Iris insisted. “I scared him. That made him fall.”
Rory cleared his throat, and I sensed he wanted to assure the girls neither of them was at
fault and everything was going to be fine. There was, however, the question of why they hadn’t called for help. “When you got to Ben, he was dead.”
“Yes.” Iris’s voice was a whisper, but she recovered somewhat and finished the telling. “We’d started digging a bed for rhubarb at the front of the house, so we dug it down some more and put him in there. We put some of his things in there too, so if anyone came looking for him it would seem like he packed up and left.”
“Does Daisy know?” I asked.
“We told her about it when we got to the cabin. We had to, because she was scared he’d be mad and come after us.”
“What made you go out there?” Rory asked.
“I wanted to keep running the farm,” Pansy said. “If we could do it without Mom, I said we could do without Ben, too. But Iris thought people would figure out we were on our own.”
Iris’ hands fluttered, unconsciously recalling their indecision. “We talked about it all night. Then Pansy thought of the cabin, and I typed a letter to Mrs. Stilson, saying we’d all moved away.”
I recalled Retta mentioning Ben’s crude writing skills. Now that I thought about what she’d read to me, the wording sounded like the work of children. Thank you for being a nice landlady.
“You thought it would keep people from looking for you.”
“We were just going to stay until Mom’s June check came in.”
“When we figured out a way to get the money out of the bank, we were going to take a bus somewhere,” Iris added.
“Florida,” Pansy said decisively. “It’s warm down there all the time, so you don’t have heating bills.”
“But you couldn’t leave the animals on their own,” I said.
“No,” Pansy seemed irritated with herself. “Iris didn’t want me to, but I sneaked back and fed them. Daisy wanted to come the last time, and that’s how you saw us. She isn’t as fast as me.”
I gave Barb a sharp glance in case she intended to correct the poor kid’s grammar at this tragic point in time. She was silent.
Iris turned to Sheriff Brill. “What’s going to happen to us now?”
“You’re too young to live on your own,” Julie said gently.
The sisters looked at each other. “If we can stay, I know we can keep the farm going.” Pansy turned to Retta. “We’ll pay the rent every month, honest!”
“It’s not a question of the money, Pansy. You need someone to care for you.”
“We don’t need anybody!” Her voice rose, and Iris put a hand on her arm again. “Well, we don’t!” Her tough persona failed, and she dissolved into tears.
Brill nodded at Julie, and she rose from her chair. “Let’s go to the kitchen and see if Mrs. Burner has any sodas.”
When they were gone, Retta said, “Sheriff, you can’t be considering charges.”
Brill pulled at his earlobe, signaling an attempt to make a decision. “Well, they failed to report a death, but they are just children.”
“Children who’ve suffered mental abuse at the very least,” Barb said. “They shouldn’t be forced to endure separation as well.”
Retta seemed pleased that she and Barb were on the same side for once. “Why don’t I take the girls home with me? It will take a few days to sort this out. Barbara and Faye can look for Rose, and I’ll see if the girls know something that will help us locate her.”
“Or her body.” Barb spoke the words I’d been thinking. “My guess is McAdams killed her, possibly by accident.”
No one disagreed. Brill said, “I’ll get some search dogs out there first thing tomorrow.”
“Poor Rose!” Retta was the only one in the room who’d known the living, breathing Rose Isley.
Brill licked his lips. “I think the judge will be inclined to accept your proposal, Mrs. Stilson. Custody will be temporary, of course, but I agree it’s best for the girls right now to stay together, preferably with someone they know and trust.”
“Someone at their church might take them in,” Barb said. Retta shot her a look, but Barb felt we might give the girls false expectations if we kept them with us. She’s said before that investigators can’t go around offering shelter to victims, no matter how much they’d like to. It isn’t professional.
“What if that pervert Sharky is a member of the congregation?”
That ended the argument. The last thing we wanted was for the girls to be handed over to some weirdo who believed females were put on earth only to serve men.
“I’ll make some calls,” Brill said, “for now they can stay with you.”
Retta had them ready to go in no time. Daisy was sad to leave Buddy but happy to go with Styx. I just hoped the big dog didn’t squash Daisy in his eagerness to welcome her to his home.
Iris made a polite speech of thanks to Barb, Dale, and me. She looked pale, as if the stress of the past few weeks was taking a toll on her. Pansy seemed determined to avoid emotion, but I hugged her anyway. After a few seconds she returned the embrace, clasping my waist tightly.
Barb told Pansy, “You girls did nothing wrong. The law and anyone with a jot of common sense knows that accidents happen.”
Barb can use words like jot and get away with it.
Pansy didn’t reply. Between my hug and Barb’s assurances, I hoped we’d eased the child’s mind.
Watching them pile into the SUV, I decided a trip to Retta’s might be exactly what the girls needed. I doubted the Isleys knew what it was to be girly, but they were about to find out. The next time we saw them, I fully expected bright fingernails, complicated hairdos, and clothing not previously worn by someone else. The Isley girls were about to learn the art of conspicuous consumption.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Retta
We spent a quiet afternoon at my house, getting used to each other. The girls were shy at first, but Styx was a big help. Daisy laughed out loud every time he did his paws-on-shoulders routine, despite the fact she generally stumbled backward under his weight until she bumped into a wall. Pansy and Iris loved Styx too, so he was in his glory with lots of pats and pets.
The girls could have had their own bedrooms, but they chose to sleep in the king-sized bed in the lavender one. Once we’d set their bags in there, I took them to the den and left them alone for a while, figuring they needed some down time. Pansy turned on the TV—something I’d never seen in their house on the farm—and they settled in on the couch.
While they unwound, I went outside to do some chores. I’d bought sets for my flower boxes a few days earlier, and I thought it was safe to plant some of the pinks along the south-facing wall.
I’d been at work for perhaps twenty minutes when Iris came outside. “Want some help?”
I almost said, “Go enjoy being a kid,” but I guessed she needed something to do. So far in her short life, Iris had been expected to stay busy. Now she probably felt at loose ends.
“Great,” I said. “There’s another trowel beside the garage door.”
We worked together for a while in companionable silence. The sun was warm on our backs, and the dirt yielded easily to the tools. I had already set the plants in place for the arrangement I wanted, so it was simply a matter of digging a hole, adding a little fertilizer, setting them in, and firming the soil around them.
When we finished Iris said, “I’ll get water if you have a bucket.”
“We’ll use the hose,” I replied, guessing she was used to lugging buckets of water. “There’s a spigot around the corner.”
I hauled the hose out of storage and hooked it up. Iris uncoiled it then watered the plant plugs so they’d settle into their new home without harmful air pockets around their roots. We stood back to admire our work, and Iris reached down and gently brushed some mud from a tiny leaf. “You like growing things,” I said.
She nodded. “You put a seed or a plant in the ground. It makes itself at home and gives you something back: food, ground cover, or flowers.” She rubbed her dirty fingers on the back of her skirt. “I’d ra
ther work in the garden than talk on the phone.” After a pause she added, “Or do math.”
Though I agreed, it’s a bad idea to tell kids it’s okay to hate math. “Which classes do you like?”
“English,” she replied immediately. “I love stories about monsters—Dracula, Frankenstein, Pogrebins.”
I didn’t get the last one, and I guessed Ben McAdams wouldn’t have approved of her reading choices. Taking up a rake I’d set out earlier I said, “The other beds haven’t warmed up enough for planting yet, but I’m going to get them ready.”
“I’ll help.” She took a second leaf rake from its place on the garage wall, and we headed to the back of the house. As we worked I asked, “What was Ben like?”
She shrugged. “He was okay, I guess. Not like a dad, though.”
“You remember your own dad?”
She bit her lip. “Pretty well. Pansy kind of does, but she says it’s just little bits. Daisy was a baby when he died, so she doesn’t remember him at all.”
“He was killed in a car accident?”
“Yeah. We were on our own for a while, and money was really tight. Mom met Ben at church, and he seemed real nice. He’d buy us dinner after service—just McDonalds, but still. After a couple of months, he took us all out to the farm.” Her gaze drifted as she remembered. “It was June, and it was so pretty out there, you know? The trees and all the flowers.”
Our mother prided herself on her flowerbeds, and I recalled the profusion of blooms she left behind: peonies and daffodils, tulips and hyacinth, snowballs and lilacs. I could almost smell them myself, and I had a moment of nostalgia for the place. Maybe I wasn’t the same girl who’d hated living on the farm. Maybe my own flower beds were proof it had influenced me.
“Pansy went crazy for the animals,” Iris was saying. “Back then Ben just had chickens and cows, but she was out there getting to know them ten seconds after we arrived.”
“Ben asked you all to move out there with him.”
“He said what a great family we made, and how we could live the way the Lord intended, growing food and taking care of the land.”
“She agreed to live with him but refused to marry him?”
