Heart of a Runaway Girl

by Trevor Wiltzen

  Mabel clenched her jaw. While it wasn’t her place to get mixed in with the law, the boy needed protection, and Sheriff Dan would only uphold the law so far. His view on what was illegal mirrored the town’s, which turned a blind eye to so many things, including bruises on girlfriends and wives, who, in the rare instances they were asked, blamed themselves for getting injured in preposterous ways. While Mabel urged them to leave, time and again, things would settle down, and they’d go back home and not a few months later show up with bruises again. But it wasn’t just the violence, it was the emotional abuse, or the financial, or the keeping of the women away from kin and friends, that made Mabel mad. But a black man doing anything wrong in this town was an entirely different thing.

  Maybe Winston could have done it, she thought — a crime of passion, like they say in the thriller books — but something told her no, and she trusted her intuition.

  She took off her apron, closed up the till, and asked Kevin to lock the doors. Her boys, along with her niece, Kerry, were all hanging out at Consuela’s — Mabel’s friend in town. The Sheriff’s office wasn’t too far off. She could do a simple drive by to make sure Winston was safe, then pick up her kids.

  She preferred driving into town at night anyways. Night hid all the wild overgrown trees and parched brown lawns, ancient homes in disrepair, and front yards filled with abandoned toys, car parts, or broken furniture. During the day, one might hear the shouts of children playing and dogs barking playfully, but more often than not, these days it was an eerie silence. And that bothered her. Family homes should be loud and boisterous places. They shouldn’t be silent, as if all the children and animals had witnessed trauma and were too scared to make noise.

  Mabel took out a cigarette and let it hang between her lips, unlit. A reminder of her carefree days with Bill, cruising in his black Mustang after her high school classes, and smoking like rebels, or so it seemed back then, when they were still dating. Her with an older man like him. All before they had got married and Bill had that life-altering contract of the mine stolen from him — before it had broken him and turned him mean, before he’d gotten hard on the kids and she’d kicked him out.

  As she rounded the corner leading to the Sheriff’s storefront office, a mob of trucks was gathered outside. She swore softly — must be Larson and his gang already. She was right to have come.

  Five trucks in a semi-circle highlighted the storefront with their headlights aimed at the glass door. Ten to fifteen men surrounded Sheriff Dan, who had his hand shielding his eyes, blinded by the light. The few holding beers had shaved heads common to Larson’s men and were goading on the rest. All fun to them, she thought. Terrifying for Winston if locked inside.

  Mabel parked and got out and heard Dan shouting, frightening her. “Now, now, this is a state affair! I told ya, it’s not just up to me.”

  Mabel recognized Frank Hudgens, who shouted back, “Give us the boy, Dan. We can take care of this right now!”

  “I told ya. It ain’t a local matter no more. I got the State Police involved!”

  “Larson is going to get right pissed if you don’t let us in!”

  So, Larson isn’t here yet, Mabel thought. Thank God — maybe there’s something I can do. And without thinking of the risks, she barged right through the group of men to reach the Sheriff.

  “Mabel! You shouldn’t be here,” Dan said, looking shocked to see her in the scrum.

  Mabel leaned in close, getting jostled. “What do you need?”

  “Call the Staties.” He handed her a card. “This is dispatch’s number. Ask for Jesse—” Frank made for the door, and Dan shouted, “Hey! Get back!”

  Mabel fought her way out of the mess but got shoved roughly by the town’s gas station owner. “Hey, watch it Ken!” she shouted, but Ken, caught up by the frenzy, didn’t recognize her — and that scared her.

  “No one’s going inside!” Dan shouted. “I seen the girl, too, and I’m with you, boys. But not like this. I got our man, and justice is going to be done.”

  “Won’t be justice without a rope!”

  Mabel rounded the corner fast and fumbled a quarter into the payphone to call police dispatch. She had to plead with the lady dispatcher, who took her time transferring her to Jesse’s police radio frequency.

  Finally, a man answered like he was speaking into a handset attached to his police vest. “Go ahead.”

  Mabel had to shout over the awful din. “Oh, thank heavens. Is this Jesse?”

  “Hello, Dispatch? I can’t hear you.”

  She shouted louder. “Is this Jesse? From the State Police?”

  “Who is this?” The voice sounded annoyed.

  Wanting to be taken seriously, she fibbed. “I work for Sheriff Dan in Blue River. We got an incident going on at the local office.”

  The man sounded wearier now. “What incident? I’m busy with the crime scene.”

  Mabel tried to think of the right words to sound official. “We had apprehended the suspect Winston Washington, and he is at the Sheriff’s office now. But we got a—” She didn’t know what to call it. “A mob out here.”

  “Ah, crap,” he said, and then after a beat, spoke again. “I didn’t know Dan had a suspect already.”

  “He’s in custody now.”

  “Good news and bad news, I guess. Who did you say the suspect is?”

  “Winston Washington. But we’re wasting time. The guys have got Dan surrounded! I think they’re going to bust into the office and get the boy.” She glanced around the corner and could see the Sheriff had one hand pressed against the door, and the other white-knuckled around his holstered gun. She doubted he would unholster it — he never had done so on the job before, but it was getting serious if Dan thought he might.

  “Okay,” Jesse said. “I got another car here. Give me a second.”

  She could hear him speaking to someone else, and then he came back on the line. “I got Kenny coming right away. I’ll close up here. Be another five.”

  “Please hurry,” she said, hanging up.

  Mabel poked her head around the corner. The men were furious, and several had started to yank the resisting Sheriff from the door. Larson’s men were laughing in back. A few more had shown up but still no Larson. She had her chance: now or never.

  With hands shaking, she steeled herself before she stepped in front of the blazing headlights of a truck and screamed, “Police!” — meaning to shout that the police were coming, but fear cutting her words short.

  Only a few men turned.

  She screamed again, much louder this time, “Police! Break it up!”

  The guys in the back gave in, shoved the ones in front, and then turned to look at her as one. Mabel, backlit by the truck’s headlights, might only have been a dark form to these men, but she didn’t know that. Her knees shook. Sheriff Dan was on the mob’s far side, held back by several men, but no one was near her. She wanted to run, but she stood her ground and shouted. “Disperse now, or you’ll be arrested!”

  “W-h-ho are you?” Frank Hudgens called out, his voice cracking.

  “You should be ashamed of yourselves!” Mabel cried out. “Harassing the Sheriff and interfering with the law.”

  “Is that you, Mabel?” came an incredulous voice from the mob.

  “Yes, it’s me. I am on the right side of the law, and you ain’t! Move on now. You got no rights being here.”

  “Shee-it,” one of them said to Frank. “You done got scared by a girl.”

  A few of the boys laughed and the mob tension broke.

  Just in time, a siren wailed in the distance, and then a blue-and-white cruiser’s lights flashed around a bend. The cruiser siren blasted again, two short bursts of its horn as it pulled up, and a few men jumped. The starch seemed to be taken out of the lot, and Mabel suspected they were one man short of a brave bunch — just a few Larson thugs, drunk farmers, and townsfolk from Blue River again.

  Sheriff Dan finally got his voice back. “Come on, boys! Get
home now!”

  A few of the boys at the edge of the crowd broke up and moved to their cars. Mabel could hear Larson’s name in their whispered conversations. The police cruiser blasted its horn again, and then an officer’s voice came onto the loudspeaker, saying, “Go home. Disperse.” But the officer didn’t get out of his car.

  Mabel stood there, arms crossed tightly, as the men walked past, shooting dark looks at her. Frank Hudgens, the loudest of the lot, nudged her none too gently as he walked away and then growled back at the Sheriff. “Larson won’t like this. He’ll want to talk to you.”

  Sheriff Dan scowled back, but underneath, he looked scared too, maybe more so than Mabel — and that took her back some.

  When the rest of the trucks had pulled away, the State Police officer emerged from his cruiser and joined them. Mabel could see why he had held back, a scrawny-looking young man, not much older than a high school graduate, wearing an oversized police outfit.

  Kenny’s voice trembled as he asked, “What went on here?”

  “Trouble,” the Sheriff said, gruffly. “A whole world of trouble.”

  “Gosh. You stopped that whole group on your own?”

  Dan tipped his hat. “I put the fear of God in ’em I did.”

  “And you got a suspect in custody already?”

  Dan stepped past Mabel to poke the boy’s chest. “Boy, sure did. This is Blue River. My town.

  Mabel stood there, already forgotten, as Dan gave the young State Trooper orders. And with the second patrol car arriving, Mabel suspected there were enough officers now to hold off Larson if he ever came around. She headed off to pick up her kids, not too bothered that Dan hadn’t acknowledged what she had done; women just weren’t thanked for doing what was considered man’s work in Blue River. But she knew if Larson had been here, the night would have turned out different. The law didn’t rule this town. It was Larson.

  By the time she parked under the warm lights of Consuela’s porch, her rising pride had replaced her fear. Who knew she could turn back a mob? Not much more than a pack of schoolboys fighting, she thought, with a tension-releasing giggle. She wanted to tell her kids right away, but after Kerry stormed past and wouldn’t talk to her for some reason and the boys started to fight, she focused on getting them home. Her night then became the usual exhausting routine of wrangling children who didn’t want to sleep. She got Hector settled, and Kerry sorted, then she lay down beside Fred. But Fred woke up shortly afterward, screaming about monsters in a dream, and she had to stroke his back to soothe him again, and all his talk of monsters brought back thoughts about the motives of the men tonight and then about the dead girl and Winston. While caressing Fred’s soft, fine hair, she stared wide-eyed into darkness, thinking about murder.

  CHAPTER 4

  Friday, September 5

  Outside the kitchen window, the early morning sky was awash with pinks and blues and tinting the dark forest hues of greens and browns. Mabel had only had about five hours of sleep before getting the kids ready for the first day of the new school year. She plated bacon and eggs, placed them in front of her kids at the table, and rested her hands upon Hector’s shoulders like a general watching her troops.

  Hector wriggled out of her grasp, morose and angry, and kept his eyes on his food. Like his younger brother, he was a sensitive boy; yet unlike him, he buried his emotions deep inside until he acted them out. Though he had brightened up some after she kicked Bill out, it pained her that Bill was not here, especially now, with Hector hanging out more with those older Hudgens boys. She didn’t know what they were getting up to, and Hector wasn’t telling, and that worried her.

  Kerry had just finished her eggs, so Mabel edged over and scooped more on her plate, which Kerry shoveled in like a tomboy. The poor thing, forced to be here for her final year of high school after her parents tragically passed, hated everything about Blue River. And when she wasn’t sad, she yelled, with little in-between. Such a challenge.

  Then, there was her sweet, little Fred, who, like a bird, pecked at his bacon and eggs, existing more on dew than on real food. A people-pleaser, he knew she wanted him to eat, so he did. While the other two kids were wearing street clothes, he was still wearing his Star Wars pajamas.

  Fred caught her staring and returned a big smile.

  “Hey, Freddie, guess what?”

  “What, ma?”

  “Momma saved the Sheriff last night,” she said, catching everyone’s attention.

  “Wow! You did?”

  “Yep. I did. A whole gang was outside the county office before I picked you up from Consuela’s. Fifteen men, all surrounding Sheriff Dan, and he was standing up to them alone — until I arrived — cause they wanted to punish a poor boy that was in jail.”

  “What did he do?”

  “The boy?” Mabel asked rhetorically, stalling to hide the real reason. “He uh… they think he did something bad, but I don’t think so.”

  Hector and Kerry joined in. “Did he steal something? Or was it drugs? Did he sell drugs?”

  Mabel frowned. Frank Hudgens had been supplying Winston with marijuana, and she often wondered how much her son knew about it.

  “It doesn’t matter what they think he did, and besides, I think he’s innocent. But those men wanted to drag that boy out of the county office and do who knows what, with only Sheriff Dan and me to stop them. A tight spot, I can tell you. And they were sure mad at Dan, all yelling and cussing at him, and my knees were knocking, I can tell you that. But I stood up for Dan and yelled at ’em like I would to you naughty boys. I told them to straighten up and get back home! And they did.”

  “Go, Mom!” Fred shouted. “You kicked their butts.”

  Her boys sparkled with pride, and Kerry did too, and Mabel soaked it all in.

  “Well,” she added. “I won’t lie that I weren’t also scared, but I done it. I just stood up to them, and that was enough.” Her face fell as she saw the time. “Oh, dear. Okay, kids, chop, chop. We gotta go.”

  “Ugh, school,” Hector said and then lumbered off to get his book bag until Fred raced past him, and Hector took it on as a race, and they ran up the stairs screaming, while Kerry just quietly went on her way.

  Mabel slipped sandwiches into their bags as the bus pulled up. “Boys! Kerry! The bus is here!” she called up, and just as quickly, the kids raced down and then past her out the door.

  She shouted, “Be careful! I love you!”

  Fred turned back and yelled, “Love ya!” and blew her a kiss while Kerry ignored her, as did Hector getting into the bus. There were only about thirty kids in the whole school, and the pickings for friends were slim. Hector usually sat in the back with the older Hudgens boys while Fred stayed in the middle with Bertie Peterson’s younger six-year-old twins. Kerry, alone in front, just stared out the window as the old, rusted-out bus made its way back onto the highway.

  Mabel wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders and watched the bus round the corner. Then she walked back towards the house, seeing those shingles looking all ratty in this morning light. Going to need replacing in the next year or two, she thought, a big cost she could ill-afford. While she sure wasn’t going to be rich anytime soon, at least the money she made from the motel and diner met her basic needs, especially now with the new mine opening up. It had brought in lots of construction workers, and the motel was full — new for her — as the construction company had booked her place on contract for months. Most of the workers treated her motel like a home, which was fine with her — long as they didn’t make things too dirty. She liked a clean place, and she wasn’t shy about kicking anyone out who didn’t respect her rules, and they seemed to appreciate her more for it.

  But all this thinking about business made her reconsider her checklist for the day. With the cleaner sick, she’d work a morning shift at the diner until Sally showed up at two pm, after which she’d spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning motel rooms. Once the kids got home, she’d be back in the kitchen. After din
ner, she’d make the boys do their homework and get ’em straight to bed by nine pm. Likely sleep with Fred, the poor dear afraid of the dark, and then wake up at four-thirty am and do it over again.

  Mabel blew the hair out of her eyes — that sounded like a lot, even to her. But with the soothing scent of pines from the forest behind lifting her mood and the morning sunshine blossoming around her, she reconsidered. If she were candid with herself, she actually loved living in the country and wouldn’t change many things.

  “Well, Mabel,” she said out loud. “The diner won’t open without you.”

  CHAPTER 5

  At the two pm shift change, Mabel cashed out the till as Sally Prescott was putting on her apron. Sally leaned over the counter and whispered like a conspirator: “I heard about last night.”

  Mabel started, not expecting word to have got out. “Yes, I had to help Sheriff Dan last night. There was trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Sally quickly lowered her voice again. “I heard there was a murder.”

  A pang of guilt caused Mabel to glance over at the booth where the young girl had been two days back. Sally went on. “Some stray from out of town I hear killed dead by that Winston boy, no less.”

  “Now, we don’t know it was him,” Mabel admonished. “Innocent till proven guilty, right?”

  “Not in this town.”

  Mabel deflated. “That’s why I went to the county office.”

  “With all those angry men there? Weren’t you scared?”