Chapter 46
Not yet fully awake, Wade hunched over the kitchen sink and pushed back the lace curtains to look across the road. The sky was pink with dawn. Spring was late coming, but down by the river, the naked gray branches of the cottonwoods had grown a distinct haze of green, seemingly overnight.
May. More than a year since he’d found Starr’s lifeless body on the floor upstairs. So much had happened in those four brief seasons.
He took a can of Folgers from the cupboard, measured the dark grounds into the coffeemaker, and filled the reservoir with cold water. The machine started sputtering and hissing almost as soon as he pushed the button. He dropped two slices of wheat bread in the toaster and pushed the lever. Soon the kitchen filled with the mingled aromas.
He filled a large mug with coffee, buttered the toast, and took it to the table. As he’d done every morning since October, he began his morning by praying that God would keep the kids safe and help them forget all the trauma they’d endured over the past year. Wade prayed they wouldn’t forget him in the process. That they would always remember how much he loved them.
But today he felt an odd urgency as he prayed. Beau’s face came to his mind, as sharply as though the boy’s photograph were imprinted on his eyelids. He tried to move on and pray about other things, but Beau’s image kept pestering him. Father, be with Beau in a special way. I don’t know what’s going on with him today, Lord, but you do, and I trust you to take care of him. Please let him know how much you love him. Let him remember how much I love him. Give him strength to get through whatever he might face today…
His Bible lay there beneath last night’s Coyote Courier. He pushed aside the newspaper, opened to the Psalms, and began to read. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear. A little further down the page he read, Be still, and know that I am God.
He closed the worn leather cover, rinsed his dishes in the sink, and headed outside. But even as he went about his morning, feeding Shadow and working on the truck, the urgency to pray for Beau kept snaking its way back to the forefront of his mind.
Why was Beau so heavy on his heart this morning? If things had turned sour with Parnell, how would the boy ever learn to trust people? Wade thought of the long-ago promise he’d made the night Beau had tried to run away. Would Beau ever be able to trust a loving Father God, when two earthly fathers had let him down?
The thoughts troubled him as he went through his chores. He was repairing the light fixture in the entryway, when the jangling of the phone broke the silence. Letting out a growl of frustration, he climbed down from the stepladder and hurried to answer the phone.
The young voice quavered just above a whisper. “Wade?”
“Beau? Is that you?”
“Wade? You gotta help me. He’s hittin’ her again.”
Adrenaline flooded his veins. “Who’s he hitting, Beau?”
“Carma. He’s hittin’ her again.”
Wade exhaled his relief. For one horrifying second, he’d feared for Lacey and Dani.
“She’s cryin’ really hard this time––” Beau’s voice broke.
Wade didn’t like the sound of it. He had rarely seen Beau shed a tear. “Beau, where is Carma right now?”
“They’re in the kitchen. He…he knocked her down. She’s tryin’ to talk to him now. But he won’t say he’s sorry. He always tells her he’s sorry, and then it’s okay. He quits hitting. But it’s not working this time. He just keeps yelling and yelling.”
“Where are the girls, Beau?” Wade struggled to keep his own voice even.
“They’re in there with Carma. Lacey tried to help, and he told her she better shut up or he’s gonna hit her, too.”
The strength drained out of Wade, and he leaned against the wall for support. He held his breath, willed calmness into his voice. “Is Lacey okay? Did he hit Lacey, Beau?”
“No. Just Carma. But I’m scared, Wade. He’s never been this mean.”
“Where are you now, Beau?”
“I’m at his house.”
“Okay, but where? What room?”
“Oh. In their bedroom. I brought the phone in here. He’ll kill me if he finds out I called you.”
“It’s okay, Beau. You did the right thing. I’ll tell you what…” Wade’s mind raced. “I’m going to call the police. They’ll come and make sure––”
“No!” Beau’s voice squeaked up an octave. “Don’t call the police! He’ll be really mad. When Carma did that once and he said he was gonna kill her. You can’t call them. You can’t! You need to come, Wade. You’ve gotta come and help us!”
The terror in Beau’s voice made Wade’s blood run cold. “Beau, listen to me, buddy… Quiet down… Is there a neighbor you can call? Somebody who can come over right away?”
“I…we don’t know the neighbors. We’re not supposed to talk to them.”
“Okay…just hang on. Stay right there. We’ll think of something.” He grappled with what he should do, what he should tell Beau. Far in the background he heard a commotion––crying, and a man yelling. The voices got louder. “Beau? What’s going on?”
No answer.
“Beau?” His heart lurched and his breath came quicker.
Suddenly, a masculine voice was clear in Wade’s ear. A stream of curses came through the receiver. Curses aimed at a nine-year-old boy. Wade’s heart broke even as it pounded with anger and fear.
“What do you think you’re doing? How dare you snoop around in my room!” The line grew scratchy, the voices muffled.
At first Wade thought Parnell had discovered the telephone and covered the receiver, but Beau must have stuffed the phone under a pillow or something because the ranting continued. Muted now, but still clear enough he could understand every word.
“What are you doing in here?”
A woman’s pleading interrupted Parnell’s voice. Carma. “Darrin. Stop it. Leave him alone. Please… This doesn’t have anything to do with him.”
“Shut up!”
“Darrin, please…”
The sickening sound of flesh hitting flesh came through in spite of the fuzzy connection.
Beau’s high-pitched wail pierced the line, and Wade nearly doubled over, feeling the blow almost physically himself.
“Darrin! Stop it!” Carma sounded hysterical.
Panic jump-started Wade’s heart. He shouted into the phone. “Parnell!”
But the shrieking on the other end of the line continued.
“Parnell! Darrin! Listen to me!” He screamed Parnell’s name into the phone until he was hoarse.
Suddenly, he thought he heard the little girls’ cries added to the chaos. Feeling utterly helpless, he continued trying to distract Parnell across five hundred miles of telephone wire.
The words Darrin was bellowing now didn’t even make sense. It sounded like the man was completely out of control.
Wade glanced wildly around the room. He needed to call the police. Now. But if he hung up the phone, he might not be able to dial out, and he’d lose his one tenuous connection to Beau and the girls.
In a frenzy, he laid the handset down and ran to the kitchen where he’d left his cell phone charging on the countertop. He raced back to the desk phone with it, dialing 911 as he ran.
“Coyote County 911,” a woman’s calm, low voice answered. “What is your emergency?”
With one ear to the phone thinly tying him to Beau, Wade gave his name and address to the dispatcher and tried to describe what was happening. He was forced to put down the other phone while he dug frantically through the desk drawer, looking for Darrin Parnell’s address.
Finally, unearthing it from under a pile of bills, he read it off to the dispatcher, along with the phone number he had for Parnell.
“Okay, Mr. Sullivan,” the dispatcher said, her voice maddeningly calm. “I have the information. I’m contacting the Minneapolis police right now. They’ll send someone to check things out.”
> “Tell them to hurry. He’s hitting them! I can hear them right now!”
“I’ll request an ambulance,” the dispatcher said. “I want you to stay on the line and try to distract him, Mr. Sullivan? Can you do that?”
“Yes. Yes, okay.”
“I’m going to hang up now. We’ll get someone to the address in Minneapolis. Please stay by the phone in case we need to contact you again.”
“Yes. I’ll be here.” The noise on the other phone distracted him momentarily. “Will you call and let me know––”
But her line had already gone dead. Wade punched off the cell phone and turned his full attention to the other phone. Darrin was still ranting nonsensically. It sounded like he was drunk.
He pressed his ear harder to the receiver, straining to catch something that would assure him Beau and the girls were okay.
A sudden bark sliced through his eardrum. “What the––” Parnell. His voice no longer muffled.
Wade heard static through the line. Parnell had obviously discovered the phone. There was a split second of dead silence, and then Parnell roared. “Who were you talking to?”
Beau’s voice came through strong. “Nobody.”
“Liar! You tell me now! Who were you talking to?”
“Parnell?” Wade shouted into the receiver again. “Parnell? Listen to me…”
Again, his voice fell on deaf ears.
“How dare you deceive your dad, you worthless little––” Parnell sneered an epithet.
Wade heard a whimper. Then Beau’s voice, unwavering this time. “I’m not worthless… And you’re not my dad!”
Wade could almost picture him with his chest stuck out, skinny arms akimbo. He would have felt proud had he not been so terrified.
Another slap.
Beau’s howl of pain was cut off abruptly as the line went dead.
Wade stood in front of his desk, knees turned to jelly, hands trembling, while a dial tone buzzed in his ear.
He grabbed the paper with Parnell’s address and dialed the phone number written there. It rang half a dozen times before Parnell’s smooth, composed salesman’s voice came on the line. “This is the Parnell residence. We are unable to take your call at this time. At the sound of the tone, please leave your name and number, and we’ll return your call as soon as possible.”
Wade waited for the tone. “Parnell? Darrin? Please pick up the phone. Carma?” He waited, drumming a panicky rhythm on the desk with his knuckles.
Silence.
He quickly weighed his options. “Beau, if you can hear me, pick up the phone.” He felt on the verge of hysterics. “Beau? I’m sending help. Do you hear me? Beau? Take care of the girls. Help is on the way. I love you. Don’t ever forget that.”
He waited for an eternity, praying desperately that someone would pick up the phone. Finally, a shrill breep-breep-breep cut him off, and he was left with the drone of the dial tone.
Again, he punched in the number, and again, he got the answering machine. Not waiting for the message to finish playing, he slammed down the phone. Striding from the dining room through the length of the kitchen and back, he raked his fingers through his hair, trying desperately to think what he should do.
He went back to the desk and dialed Sophie. Maybe she would know someone to call in Minneapolis. The phone rang a dozen times. She apparently didn’t have her answering machine turned on.
He put down the handset and paced again. The clock ticked off the minutes. Fifteen of them. He tried Sophie again. Still no answer. Another ten minutes dragged by.
He picked up the phone and dialed 911 again. The dispatcher he’d talked to earlier answered. Wade asked if she’d heard anything from Minneapolis.
“No, Mr. Sullivan. We turned that call over to the police department there. You’ll need to contact them directly.”
“Do you have the number I should call?”
“One moment, please.” She came back on the line a minute later and read a number to him.
His hand was poised over the telephone when it started ringing. He grabbed the receiver and barked into it. “Hello?”
“Mr. Sullivan?”
“Yes?”
“This is Sergeant Brian McCullough from the Minneapolis Police Department. I understand you made a 911 call earlier this morning from Coyote County… Is that Kansas?”
“Yes… That’s right. Is everything okay? Are my kids all right?”
“You haven’t heard back from them?”
“No,” Wade said. A chill crawled up his back.
“Well, Mr. Sullivan, we confirmed the address you gave the dispatcher as the current address of Darrin Parnell. We dispatched an officer to that address, but there was no one at home.”
Dee was on her way out the door when the telephone rang. Blowing out a huff of frustration, she slid her purse off her shoulder, dumped the pile of clothes for the drycleaners on the counter, and grabbed the handset. “Hello?”
“Dee? It’s Wade Sullivan.”
“Wade.” She pulled out a chair and sank into it, her pulse fluttering erratically. “Hi…”
“I need your help, Dee. The kids are missing?”
She could hear the fear in his voice, and a spike of alarm went through her. “Missing? What do you mean?”
“Beau called me here about an hour ago, terrified because Parnell was beating Carma. While we were on the phone Parnell came in and started slapping Beau around––” Wade’s voice caught, and he finished with a tremor in his tone. “I could hear everything that was going on, but then Parnell apparently discovered the phone and cut us off.”
“Oh, Wade. How awful!”
“I called 911, and they sent the Minneapolis police to the house, but they just called and said when the police got there, there was no one home.”
“But…where would they have gone?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they found out Beau was talking to me. I…I left a message on the answering machine telling Beau I was calling the police. Maybe they just ran.”
“Are the police looking for them? What can I do?”
“That’s why I called, Dee. Would there be any information in St. Joseph’s records or the SRS files that would tell us where they might be headed? Parnell’s work address, or where Carma used to live, maybe? I…I’m at a loss to know what to do next, and the police don’t really have anything to go on.”
“I don’t know what we might have, Wade, but I’ll find out. I…I probably can’t give the information directly to you, but there’s a network I can go through with social services…maybe there’s someone in Minneapolis who can help.”
His sigh of relief was audible. “Thank you, Dee. Will you keep me posted?”
She didn’t like the sound of this new development one bit. Just last week in Topeka, a man had shot his wife and daughter over a custody ruling. She shuddered, the images from the newspapers too fresh in her mind. “I’ll do whatever I can, Wade. I promise.” She disconnected and immediately dialed Betty Graffe at home.
A lump swelled in her throat. Wade had suffered so much already. And those precious kids. Please, God. Please. Don’t let this end in tragedy.
Chapter 47
Wade had spent almost forty-eight hours with a telephone glued to his ear. Now Monday morning was dawning and still no word from Minneapolis. Dee had called late last night to say that social services seemed to be hitting dead ends, as well.
Where could Parnell have taken the kids? He threw up his thousandth prayer for their safety and picked up the phone to call Sophie again.
He’d finally gotten hold of her at the café last night. As soon as Wade had told her what had happened, Sophie had started to cry. “Oh, Wade, you’ve got to find them. You’ve got to. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Something in her voice had clamped his heart like a vise. “What do you mean, Sophie?”
“He beat me, too, Wade. It…it was him…that night in the parking lot. Darrin did that to me. I should have
said something, but I… Well, he had his reasons with me. But what if he does that to Beau? I’ll never forgive myself.”
Just thinking about her revelation brought Wade to the edge of hysteria. Her answering machine picked up now, and he left a brief message.
He hung up and slumped over the desk, clutching the top for support. “Please, God,” he whispered. “Wherever they are, be with the kids. Protect them, Father. Put your angels around them. Please.”
His heart felt like a lead weight in his chest as he plodded to the kitchen. Like an automaton, he measured dark grinds into the basket of the coffeemaker.
It was all he could do not to hop in the pickup and head north. But besides the fact that it would take him nine hours to get there, it was foolish to think he could do anything the police weren’t already doing.
While he waited for the coffee to brew, he went to the laundry room and threw in a load of work clothes. He turned the dial, and the washing machine sprang to life.
The clothes in the dryer were wrinkled beyond hope, so he started the dryer again––a guilty shortcut to ironing he’d learned from Starr. He felt helpless and foolish doing laundry while his children were missing. But he would go stark-raving mad if he didn’t do something.
Over the swishing of the washer’s agitator, Shadow’s sharp yelp pierced the air outside. It sounded like she was headed down to the river. She barked again, the deep, happy yap that usually signaled she was on the trail of a squirrel or a raccoon.
The woof-woof-woof grew louder. Wade turned off the washing machine and cocked his head, listening. There was a slightly different timbre to the dog’s bark this morning. And something else. A high-pitched squeal. There it was again. Somebody must have dumped a litter of pups or a batch of kittens in his yard. It happened from time to time––one of the dubious rewards of living in the country. But usually people waited for the cover of darkness to make the drop.
Wade started, hearing footsteps on the front porch. He hadn’t heard anyone drive in. But then the washer and dryer had been running. Shadow’s yipping grew more insistent.
A Nest of Sparrows Page 33
