Two Lost Boys

by L. F. Robertson

  She drank from a cup of coffee we’d bought on our way out of Sacramento, and went on talking, holding the styrofoam cup in both hands as if to warm them. “In high school, I got in with a bad bunch of kids. I was sneaking out of the house at night to go hang out with my friends and smoke weed. Dad and Charlene tried different things—grounding me, taking away privileges—but nothing worked. That’s when they decided to try sending me to Mama.

  “I told you about the rest—what happened there. When I went back home to my dad’s, I was completely freaked out, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, but I was afraid to talk to anyone. I used to dream about it and wake up with the shakes. I left high school, and I started using drugs big time. Then I ran away with this older guy, who got me into speed. I just more or less wasted my life—getting high, working to get money to get high some more. I tried to kick it a few times and stayed clean for a while, but I kept going back. I got pregnant with Austin and waited too long to get an abortion, so I ended up having the baby, and Dad and Charlene raised him. I guess you know how he turned out.

  “I lived in California, Oregon, Las Vegas, even Hawaii for a while; got married a couple of times. Bob Burrell, the last one, wasn’t a bad guy, but he was older than me, and he was a drinker. We split up, and he died of a heart attack a few years ago.

  “People around me got busted, went to prison, died in accidents, died of overdoses. I was blessed or something; I just seemed to sail past it all, until I got popped last year. Even then I was lucky; it was simple possession and I got drug court and probation and that halfway house. Probably saved my life, actually. I knew I had hep C, but I wasn’t sick and I didn’t have medical insurance, so I was just cruising along, not thinking about it. In denial, I guess.”

  I made some comment about how lucky breaks come in strange ways.

  “Yeah, maybe,” she said.

  I asked her what Evie was like when Carla was a child.

  “Like a little bird. Always busy, doing this little thing or that. Not a cuddly kind of mother—she’d give you a quick kiss at bedtime, but that was about it. But under that cuteness she was tough. Those boys were afraid of her. Emory might run wild away from home, but around her he always behaved himself.”

  “Did she ever tell you about herself?”

  “Not really. I knew she was from somewhere else and her mother and father—my grandparents, I guess—had died in some kind of accident when she was a kid, but that’s all.”

  I told her what we’d learned about the Bowdens and how they had died.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” she said quietly. “Poor Mama.”

  “I think that may be why she doesn’t want to have Andy examined by a psychologist. Some fear of bad blood, that sort of thing. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping, and that we can talk her out of it.”

  “I hope so,” Carla said. “But she never would hear anyone say there was anything wrong with Andy or Emory. And you know,” she continued, “she has never said a word about Austin. He’s her only grandson, and he lived with Dad and Charlene for years, but since we found out he was autistic she has never even asked about him. It’s as if in her mind he was never born.”

  I said I’d decided to call on Evie unannounced. “I don’t want to make it easy for her to say no,” I explained. If she wasn’t home, we might have to try more than once.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I don’t mind staying an extra day or two. I lived up in Tahoe for a few years. It’ll be kind of nice to see snow again.”

  Our conversation drifted on, into comments about the rain and the flooded ranch lands and rice fields we were passing, and then into near silence. Carla asked me if I’d mind if she turned on the radio, and she found a country-western station, which she listened to with occasional wry comments, until we lost the signal in the Sierra foothills near Shasta City.

  In Shasta City we picked up the rental car, a small SUV with snow tires, which we’d need for a trip into the mountains in winter.

  As we drove out of town, I asked Carla, over the grumble of the tires, “What were you thinking of saying to her?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Whatever it takes, I guess. What do you need her to do?”

  “Write to Andy. Tell him he needs to see Dr. Moss. Promise not to interfere any more in Andy’s defense.”

  “Okay.”

  Snow began falling gently in a darkening gray sky as we drove along the two-lane highway from Shasta City to Redbud. During the latter part of the drive we were climbing, and the landscape changed from snow-covered hills dotted with gray-black rock outcroppings and occasional ranch buildings to stands of evergreens half-dissolved into the whiteness of the snowfall. Then buildings began to appear by the roadside, the usual small businesses that line country highways—a small grocery store, an auto body shop, a couple of gas stations, a used car lot. There were churches: Jehovah’s Witness, Assembly of God, and a couple with evangelical-sounding names I’d never heard of. Eventually a sign reading welcome to redbud, with the usual list of fraternal organizations and churches in the town, marked a road that forked away from the highway. About a quarter-mile down it we reached the old downtown.

  It was prettier than I thought it would be. The little main street was lined with Victorian and Craftsman-era houses half hidden behind bare-branched cottonwoods and tall pine trees. The business district, a couple of blocks long, was almost all wood or brick storefronts from the 1920s or before. Multicolored Christmas lights still glittered festively on stores and houses. Side streets led off into the woods, and the houses on some of them looked a little like civilized log cabins. There were several signs for campgrounds and RV parks. Back in the days before air conditioning, Redbud had been a resort for families escaping the summer heat in the San Joaquin Valley. Now the visitors were campers, hunters and fishermen and some cross-country skiers, and the little downtown looked quiet, but not depressed. The street parking was about three-quarters full, and most of the storefronts looked occupied.

  Past a little shopping center with a small supermarket, I saw a motel with an AAA approval sign. It called itself the Mountain Home Lodge and carried on the mountain cabin theme with redwood siding and dark green shutters framing the windows of the rooms. “Does this look okay to you?” I asked Carla, and she nodded.

  I took two rooms for the night, drove around to them, and carted in our bags. Carla got out of the car and walked around, stiff-legged, for a minute before following me into the building.

  Standing in the doorway of her room, she looked inside for a long minute, leaning on the door jamb. “Jeez, I’m tired. That bed looks awfully nice.”

  I felt suddenly guilty; I’d forgotten how sick she was. “Do you want to lie down for an hour? We don’t need to go see her just yet.”

  She turned away from the room. “No, that’s okay. A cup of coffee would be good, though.”

  On the main street, we passed a couple of breakfast and lunch places that were closed for the day before finding one whose lights were still on. Signs in the window advertised daily dinner specials. Tonight’s was spaghetti and meatballs, and as we walked through the doors the warm air was heavy with the smell of meaty tomato sauce and garlic. It was a little early for dinner, and the only other customers were two elderly couples in the booths and an old man seated at the counter. A plump, fiftyish woman in a waitress’s uniform behind the counter looked up at us. “Just sit anywhere you like,” she said.

  We slid into one of the booths, sinking into dark-red padded plastic seats.

  “You should eat something,” I said to Carla. “Would you like some dinner now?”

  She was reading her menu, without much interest, and she shook her head. “I’m okay.”

  I ordered two coffees and a piece of apple pie and persuaded Carla to try some ice cream. She ate about half of it and pushed the bowl away. After her second cup of black coffee, she put the cup down decisively. “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  I followed the car
’s GPS to Evie’s address, a couple of blocks off the main street. The apartment complex where she lived was a barracks-like pair of tan-colored two-story buildings set in a wide, snow-covered lawn. A sign at the entrance of the private parking lot said pinecrest senior apartments.

  Evie’s apartment was on the first floor. Several pots of dead geraniums, their leaves brown and crumpled, lined the cement landing in front of her door, and a wreath of artificial Christmas greenery surrounded the peephole. I rang the bell, and Evie opened the door a few seconds later.

  She looked from me to Carla. I tried to keep my expression bland, but I felt she could tell from the fact that we had shown up without calling first that this was not going to be a visit she wanted to have.

  “Ms. Moodie—Carla. This is a surprise,” she said, and I felt that she was buying time while she tried to figure out what we had come for. After a second or two she continued. “Come in.”

  We stepped into the apartment, and she closed the door behind us. She glanced at me and then looked long into Carla’s face. “You don’t look well,” she said. She reached out a hand as if to touch her, then let it drop.

  Carla looked down at her. “I’ve been sick, Mama. Hepatitis C.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Evie said. I was shocked by the matter-of-factness of her comment, but Carla took it without any reaction. Evie looked again at me. “What did you come here for?”

  “Andy,” Carla said, without waiting for me to speak.

  “What about Andy? Why are you interested in him?” Evie asked.

  “What difference does it make?” Carla shot back, and then stopped and sighed. “Oh, Christ, Mama, he’s my little brother. You know I always cared about him. Mama, can we sit down?”

  Evie seemed to remember that we were, after all, guests. “Okay,” she said, almost absently, and led us into the living room. The room was spotlessly clean and plain, even bland, with off-white walls and light beige wall-to-wall carpet. We walked past a small maple dining table, bare except for a coffee mug and a few papers that looked like mail. Beyond it a sofa, upholstered in a blue and white flower print, stood against the wall to our right, with a matching armchair at an angle to it and a glass-topped coffee table in front. On the table stood a small Christmas tree, with a few little glass ornaments and several more that I recognized as inmate craft projects—a small heart woven of shiny red paper, a beadwork wreath. A dozen or so holiday cards were arranged behind it. The apartment smelled faintly of furniture polish and toast.

  As we approached the sofa, my eye was drawn to a glass-fronted cabinet on the far wall. It was the kind with glass shelves and lights inside to highlight the objects displayed. The back of the cabinet was a mirror, and against it miniature glass animals, porcelain dancers, French baroque shepherdesses, and cut-crystal candy bowls, doubled by their reflections, threw beams of reflected silvery light like diamonds in a jewelry store display. Carla walked over to the cabinet and studied the glittering objects inside for a moment. She turned back to Evie as if she were about to say something, but stopped, looked away, and came back to where Evie and I were standing.

  Evie sat in the armchair, and Carla and I sat on the couch. Carla took the side closer to the chair, making herself, it seemed, a buffer of sorts between me and Evie.

  Evie sat upright, looking suspiciously from one of us to the other. “What did you come here for?” she asked again; this time the question was directed to both of us.

  “To talk to you about Andy’s refusal to see Dr. Moss,” I answered.

  “What about it? He made his decision.” Her face was set, pinched, closed.

  “Evie,” I said, “you know that wasn’t his decision. I talked to Andy a few weeks ago, and he was looking forward to seeing Dr. Moss. I don’t know what you told him, but I know you changed his mind. Why did you do that?”

  “It’s what he wants,” she said, as if that put an end to the discussion.

  “No,” I answered. “It’s what you want.”

  “I’ve already told you Andy doesn’t need a psychiatrist.”

  I felt an opening and took it. “Evie, we found out about your parents and sister and what happened to them. Are you afraid they’ll find that Andy’s like your brother? Or your father?”

  She stiffened and glanced at Carla, as if to see whether she knew what I was talking about, and then looked back at me, but said nothing.

  “Andy’s not psychotic,” I went on, “and he’s not feebleminded. What Andy is, is probably mildly mentally retarded, and if we can prove that it will save his life. Don’t you understand that?”

  She looked at me, her face expressionless, for a long moment, before answering. “I don’t want him talking to no psychiatrists. Mr. Dobson did that before his trial without my permission, and when I found out I told him off. There’s nothing they’re going to find out.”

  “Evie, it’s not like that. It’s IQ testing and testing for brain functioning.”

  That was the wrong thing to say. “There’s nothing wrong with his brain,” she snapped.

  Then Carla spoke. “Mama.”

  Evie turned to look at her, and I saw flash across her rigid face a look of questioning and, I thought, of apprehension.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Why are you here anyway?”

  Carla looked at her for a second or two and then took a deep breath, as though she had reached some certainty or resolve. “Ms. Moodie knows about Len. I told her.”

  Evie sat silent for a second, looking fixedly at Carla. When she spoke, her voice was flat and tense.

  “What about Len? There’s nothing to know about him.”

  Carla shook her head. “It’s too late for that, Mama. I told her the whole story. And I told Andy to tell her, too.”

  “What story?” Evie was bluffing, and the expression of rapid calculation on her face showed it. “There’s nothing to tell. Anything you’d say would be a lie.”

  “You know what story,” Carla said, levelly, “and you know it’s true. You want me to tell it here again?”

  Evie said nothing, but the sullen tension in her look at Carla made it clear that she was in check, at least for the moment.

  “Mama, it’s all out now. There’s nothing left to hide.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re lying. Len walked out, and you know it.”

  “Mama, I don’t want to go to the police, but I will if you don’t help save Andy.”

  “You can’t do anything. It’s just your word.”

  Something—anger, I suppose, at being lied to—made me decide to take a risk, to jump to a conclusion. “Evie,” I said, and she turned to me again. “Carla told me how Len was killed. Those girls that Emory and Andy kidnapped could have been killed the same way—given some kind of drug to knock them out and then suffocated.”

  I was guessing. The similarities between Carla’s account of Len’s death and the murders of the two girls didn’t amount to that much—just the lack of any signs of violence on their bodies. But Evie froze, and her expression told me I had hit home. I was almost as surprised as she was that I had guessed right.

  She began shaking her head. Outraged at what she was doing to Andy, I pressed our advantage. “There are still tissue samples from the victims,” I said. “They can be tested for drugs.” The movement of her head stopped, and she looked from me to Carla.

  Carla looked back at her, and when she spoke, her voice was low, almost thoughtful. “Jesus, Mama, you mean you knew? What happened? Did you kill those girls?”

  Evie’s eyes narrowed in anger. “What do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know, Mama,” Carla said. “I don’t know if it was you or Emory or the two of you. But I think you’re in some trouble here.”

  I didn’t necessarily agree, but I wasn’t about to correct her.

  “Are you going to try to turn me in?” she said sarcastically.

  “I might,” Carla said.

  “They wouldn’t believe you,” she
said, but there was less conviction in her voice.

  “You don’t know that,” Carla said.

  Evie stared at her for a moment, almost absently, as if denying her own thoughts, and then looked at me. The defiance drained from her face and her expression became calculating as she weighed her options. “What do you want?” she asked.

  I spoke up. “Tell Andy he needs to see his lawyers and Dr. Moss.”

  She thought for a few seconds, then nodded once. “Okay, if you say so.”

  “I need you to write to him, and tell him it’s okay for him to see us and get tested.”

  “Okay,” she said again.

  “I need you to write it now,” I said, “so I can see it.”

  Evie looked at me angrily, but said nothing. She pulled herself out of the armchair, walked out of the living room, and returned a minute later with a pen, some writing paper, and an envelope. She laid them on the dining table, sat in one of the wooden chairs, and picked up the pen.

  I dictated a letter, watching over her shoulder as she wrote, signed it, put it into an envelope, and addressed the envelope to Andy. She handed the envelope to me.

  “In case this doesn’t reach him before he calls next,” I said, “tell him what you said in this letter.”

  “Yes, yes,” Evie said, irritably.

  Carla spoke up. “Andy calls me, too, and I’ll ask him.” Evie looked up at her, and I thought for a moment she was going to call her a bad name, but she said nothing. No mother should look at her own child like that, I thought.

  Carla and I moved away from the table, and Evie stood up.

  “I guess that’s it,” Carla said, as much to me as to her. “We’ll be on our way.”

  The three of us walked together to the door, Carla zipping up her oversized ski jacket. Evie opened it for us and stood by it, stone-faced, as we walked past her into the cold night.

  I went out first, and as I waited on the step, Carla stopped and turned back to her mother. “Goodbye, Mama,” she said, reaching a hand out to touch Evie’s arm. Evie looked at her blankly, but did not move. “You did the right thing,” Carla said, her voice kind, but with an undertone that promised consequences if Evie changed her mind. She bent her head down toward her mother and added, more gently and a little regretfully, “Good night, Mama. Take care of yourself. And be good to Andy.”