The Weight of Silence

by Heather Gudenkauf

  Carefully weighing my next words, I say, “Do you think that it’s a good idea to be a part of this kind of…kind of situation, so soon?”

  Mrs. McIntire swallows hard. “I think that this is just where I need to be right now. I know how they feel, the families. I know what they are going through.”

  “There is really no proof, you know, that Petra’s and Calli’s disappearance has anything to do with Jenna’s.”

  “I know that,” she says shortly. “I’m not here to ask about Jenna’s case. I could do that by phone, and do, and will keep on doing. I…I just keep thinking of those poor mothers, not knowing where their daughters are. It’s a horrible, horrible feeling.”

  “The girls could just be off playing,” I say, though I feel certain that is not true. “They could come strolling home at any moment. You know that, don’t you? We are still very much in the initial stages of this investigation.”

  “I know,” she says tiredly. “Please, please just tell them I’m available, if they would like me to sit with them, pass out fliers, call people. Anything. Please, will you tell them?”

  “I will,” I promise. “Can I get you something? Coffee?”

  She shakes her head no. “I have my cell phone. Do you still have my number?”

  “Yes, I’ll call you. Either way, Mrs. McIntire.”

  She stands and holds her hand out to me. This is her first offering to me since the whole bad business with Jenna. I take it and shake it, gratefully, and pray that these two cases are not related in any way.

  CALLI

  Calli pounded up the narrow, steep trail. The path was covered with jagged rocks, like makeshift stairs, her damaged feet numb with pain. She wanted to go off the trail, but forced herself not to. It would be too easy to get hopelessly lost if she were to veer away. What had caused her to retreat upward again? She wasn’t sure. She had been strolling, almost in a carefree manner, down the trail when she heard it. Just a rustle really, just a murmur of movement, but it caused her to pause. Below her, just off the path, she saw the silhouette, an indeterminate figure, too tall for an animal, maybe too tall for a human, or could it just be the lengthening of late-afternoon shadows? A spasm of fear thumped in her chest. She didn’t wait to find out, but tore back the way she had come. Up, up, but instead of taking the trail that meandered off to the right, she chose the left, a scrubby, overgrown path. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder, frightened of what she might see. She clambered upward, using her hands to pull her up the steep track, dirt and small bits of rock wedged under her ragged nails.

  She figured she was almost to the top of the bluff. She pushed away the low-hanging branches that whipped her face, leaving thin, raised welts. Dusk was nearing and the terror of being in the forest at night kept her moving; she could only hear the sound of her breathing, harsh and gasping, and she prayed that he could not hear her, as well. Her steps slowed as the trail leveled out and she doubled over, hands on her knees, trying to gulp in the cooled air, the heat of the day finally beginning to falter. Sweat dripped into her eyes and she pulled her snarled hair from her face. As her breath steadied, the early-evening sounds of the forest swirled about her head—the insects droning, birds calling to each other, the scampering and chock, chock of a chipmunk chattering.

  She stared in front of her and glimpsed a tiny glint of silver on the ground about ten feet away. Its shiny luster looked out of place here, too garish, just a wink among the mottled brown leaves. Still hunched over, Calli hobbled over to the spot where the shining item lay nestled and inspected it.With her pointing finger she poked at it, brushed aside the moldy-smelling leaves to reveal a delicate silver chain. She pinched the chain between two fingers and slowly began to lift it. When she had raised the length of the chain a small charm slithered off the end and landed noiselessly among the leaves. Calli dug into the pile, and retrieved the charm, a diminutive musical note; she blew away the speckles of dirt clinging to it and carefully threaded the charm back onto the broken chain.

  What she saw, what she heard, and what happened next caused Calli’s chest to seize in fright. She scuttled backward into the brush and hid. Petra, Petra, Petra. She silently moaned as she closed her eyes and covered her ears and rocked back and forth on her haunches. She pictured the deer she had encountered earlier that day, in what seemed ages ago. She focused on its bright eyes and velvety ears and rocked back and forth; she imagined their silent dance until once again she was back in her own quiet room, alone.

  MARTIN

  Upon leaving Mrs. Norland’s home, Fielda and I stand outside our cars. I cannot believe the gall of Mrs. Clark, accusing me of harming our children when it is her husband who is the troubled one.

  Fielda complains bitterly to the deputy who has the unfortunate luck of walking us to our cars.

  “Why aren’t you looking into where Griff Clark is?” she asks the young officer, who must have been in his early twenties.

  “Ma’am, I know the department is looking into everyone involved in this case.”

  “Yes, yes,” she says impatiently. “But why haven’t you found Griff? How hard can it be to find him if he really is fishing with this Roger person?”

  “I really am not able to discuss any details with you, ma’am. I’m sorry,” he says uncomfortably.

  “You can’t discuss the details with me? I’m her mother, for God’s sake.” I rest my hand on Fielda’s shoulder. She brushes my hand away with irritation. “Where is Deputy Louis?” she asks. I wonder the same thing. “He, at least, has tried to keep us informed of what has been going on.”

  “I think he’s meeting with someone at this time.” The officer opens the car door for Fielda.

  Fielda turns to face me. “Who do you think Louis is meeting with? Do you think maybe they found Griff?”

  “I’m not sure,” I answer her.

  “Maybe he has a suspect. Maybe they’ve found the girls. Do you think they’ve found the girls?” Hope radiates on her face for a moment.

  “I think we would have heard the moment they found Petra and Calli. I think they would have called us.” We both climb into our cars and drive back to my mother-in-law’s house. She is standing on her front step and talking to a strange man.

  We park the cars and join Mrs. Mourning and the stranger.

  “I was so worried about you,” Mrs. Mourning scolds. “Fielda, you should have told me you were leaving. This is Mr. Ellerbach. He’s a reporter with Channel Twelve.”

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Gregory.” The man offers her his hand. “Would you have a few moments to visit with me?”

  I see Fielda hesitate and I step forward. “We’re really not quite prepared to visit with you at this time, but we’ll answer what we can.”

  “Thank you. Have the police found your daughter yet?”

  “No, they have not,” Fielda says. I am more than a little surprised at the forcefulness of her voice. She sounds strong, capable, determined.

  “Are there any more developments in the case? Are there any suspects that you are aware of?”

  “Nobody has spoken to us about suspects,” Fielda answers.

  “Have you or your husband been questioned in the disappearance?”

  “Of course we’ve been questioned. Petra’s our daughter.”

  “Please,” I say impatiently, “no more questions. We need to focus on finding our daughter. Please go.” The gray-haired reporter thanks us for our time and begins to leave.

  “Wait,” Fielda calls after. “Wait! Please keep putting her picture on the TV. Please keep talking about her. I’ll get more pictures for you,” she pleads and I see pity on the reporter’s face.

  Lawrence Ellerbach quickly steps back toward us and presses something into Fielda’s hand. “Please call us if you’d like to talk more. We’ll keep the girls’ pictures on the air.”

  “What did he give you?” I ask curiously after he has left.

  Fielda hands me the business card. Printed in simple script was the name Lawr
ence Ellerbach, followed by an e-mail address and telephone number. Centered at the bottom of the card was the Channel Twelve logo. I look at it for a long moment before meeting Fielda’s eyes.

  “What do you think?” she asks me, biting her lip.

  “Maybe we need to talk to Louis or Agent Fitzgerald before we agree to speak with Mr. Ellerbach,” I say.

  “Maybe,” she echoes me. “But maybe we should just do it. I mean, Agent Fitzgerald said to use the media. That they could be helpful. We could get Petra’s name out there.”

  “And Calli’s name, too,” I remind her.

  A shadow passes over Fielda’s face. “Of course Calli, too. I still think that Griff Clark has something to do with this. It’s just too convenient that he happens to be home from Alaska, and then goes on a fishing trip just when the two girls disappear. It doesn’t add up.”

  “I don’t think we should do anything that the police don’t approve of, Fielda. What if we go against their wishes and something bad happens because of it?” But I can see that her lips are set in a determined line. Her mind is made up.

  “Martin, what if we don’t give an interview and someone who knows something could have seen it and could have seen Petra’s picture? What if that person didn’t know to come forward? I really don’t care if it’s handy for the police to have us give an interview or not. They haven’t brought our daughter home, and this is one way that I can help.”

  “If you feel so strongly, I think that you should give an interview,” I tell her as I drape my arm around her shoulder. My shirt is wet with sweat, but she does not step away. She comes closer to me and kisses my cheek.

  “I do feel strongly about this, Martin.” She pauses before continuing. “You aren’t going to do the interview, are you?”

  I shake my head. “I’m going to go look for Petra and Calli. This is taking too long. I’m going into the woods. I’ll call Deputy Louis and Antonia and invite them to search with me.”

  I am not the most intuitive of men, as I have clearly shown through my many years on this planet. However, I do know numbers; I do know that the probability that someone known to us has abducted Petra and Calli is much higher than the possibility that a stranger has done this. I also know that Griff Clark can be a scary man. I have seen Mr. Clark many times in passing and he has always been pleasant and courteous. But I had a glimpse, albeit brief, of another side, a brilliantly poignant view of Mr. Clark one evening. It was parent-teacher conference night at the elementary school last March. The meetings were behind schedule, but I didn’t mind. It gave me the opportunity to walk around the halls of the school, to look at the children’s artwork taped to the walls, to view how other parents interacted with their children. It was a comforting scene to watch. I was not so unlike the other parents. Older, yes. I knew I looked more like Petra’s grandfather than her father, but I could see many kinds of families in those hallways. Single mothers holding their children’s hands as they received a grand tour around the building, and fathers being shepherded from classroom to classroom by beaming kindergarteners.

  Petra was explaining to Fielda and me how their first-grade classroom conducted experiments on how far those little plastic sports cars, Hot Wheels, I think they are called, could travel, when we came across the Clark family huddled in a small, out-of-the-way corner of the school building. Griff Clark’s face was purple with rage as he berated Calli and Antonia.

  “Do you know how goddamn embarrassing it is for me to come to these things and hear how Calli don’t talk yet?” he hissed. Calli had her head down, staring at her feet, while Antonia was trying, unsuccessfully, to hush Griff.

  “Don’t shush me, Toni,” he growled, his voice not raised above a gruff whisper, but menacing still the same. He grabbed Calli under the armpit. “Look at me, Calli.” Calli looked at her father. “Are you retarded? You can talk, I know you can. You gotta stop this goddamn game and start talking.

  “And you—” he turned on Antonia “—you let her get away with it. Pussyfooting around it. ‘Oh, we can’t push her, we can’t force her to talk,’” he said in a mock falsetto voice. “Bullshit!”

  At that moment Calli’s eyes fell on Petra’s and I saw such a completely resigned, helpless look on Calli’s face. No embarrassment, no anger, nothing but pure acceptance. Petra gave Calli a meager, half-hearted smile and wiggled her fingers at her, then pulled me away from the sad scene.

  Later, at the Mourning Glory, Lucky Thompson brought over sundaes piled high with toppings. He ruffled Petra’s hair and asked what we were celebrating.

  “We are celebrating my genius daughter’s glowing conference,” I told him, and Petra blushed with pleasure.

  “Why don’t you join us, Lucky?” Fielda invited.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Lucky said, looking over his shoulder. “I’ve got a lot to do.”

  “Please,” Petra begged. “I’ll share my sundae with you. You made it way too big!”

  “Okay, then,” Lucky said, sliding into the booth next to Petra. “How can I resist that invitation?”

  I asked Petra, “Do you think it is always like that for Calli?”

  Petra knew exactly to what I was referring. “When her dad is there, I think so. When he’s gone, it’s okay. Her mom is real nice,” Petra said around a spoonful of turtle sundae.

  “I do not want you going over to the Clark house when her father is there. Do you understand, Petra?” I said sternly.

  She nodded her head. “I know. But sometimes I feel like Calli needs me even more when her dad is home, you know? It seems too bad that I have to stay away from her then. That’s when she’s the saddest, when he’s home.” She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Are you talking about Griff Clark?” Lucky asked.

  Fielda nodded. “Do you know him?”

  “No, not really. I’ve just seen him around, you know. When I’ve gone out with the guys. He’s a pretty rough character,” Lucky said.

  “Do you think that her dad hurts her? You know, hits her when he gets mad?” Fielda asked with concern. I prayed that Petra would say no, that she did not think that Griff hit Calli and Ben or Antonia for that matter. I had visions of having to call the Department of Human Services and inform them of abuse, not an enviable position to be in.

  She shrugged her shoulders again. “I don’t know. She doesn’t talk, you know. She just seems sadder when he’s home.”

  “Do you feel the same way about me?” I asked Petra. “Do you feel sad when I’m around?” I made a pouting face at Petra.

  “No, silly,” she responded, shaking her head and grinning. “I’m happy when you’re around.”

  Lucky was looking wistfully at the three of us. I knew he hadn’t had an easy life. He always sidestepped questions about his family. He had told me a number of times how much he would one day love to have a family like mine. I told him I almost never had it myself. That if Fielda hadn’t thrown that muffin at me, I would most likely be a lonely old man. He laughed at that, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Can I have that?” Petra indicated the maraschino cherry that Lucky had pushed to the side of the sundae.

  “Of course,” he answered and he scraped it up with his spoon and popped it into her open mouth. “Yeah,” Lucky said, shaking his head as if remembering something, “I wouldn’t let Petra anywhere near Griff Clark.”

  I readily agreed. In that brief moment in the school corridor between Griff Clark and his family, I saw that one percent of meanness that people like him accidentally show to the world at large. It frightens me, what he could be capable of, what he may have done to my daughter. I shiver, something I think is impossible in ninety-degree weather. But then, of course, anything is possible now.

  I make my way back to Mrs. Norland’s home, trying to compose the words I will need to say to Antonia and to Deputy Louis in order to convince them to accompany me into the woods.

  CALLI

  “Calli.” She heard the voice, calm, almost loving, but the
same fear that pressed against her throat moments before returned. Griff was standing over her, gray-faced and ill-looking.

  “Calli, let’s stop this nonsense. Come on over here. Let’s go home. Don’t you wanna see…” His voice trailed off as he stepped closer to Calli and he ingested the scene in front of him. First Petra’s battered head, discolored face and neck. He looked again to Calli.

  “Jesus, what happened? Jesus, Calli, what happened to her?”

  Calli stood silently, weighing her options. Which way to go? The deep ravine behind her, Griff in front of her, barring her passageway.

  “Calli,” he barked sharply. “What happened here? Tell me!” He roughly grabbed her shoulder, but let go when he noticed something among the thistles. He bent down to retrieve it, held it in his fingers, a dirtied ripped rag, white with dainty yellow flowers.

  “Jesus,” he said, looking to Petra again. His eyes traveled down her motionless form, the dirty blue pajama top, her naked bruised legs, speckled with blood.

  “Jesus,” he repeated. Griff turned swiftly and retched, bitter, yellow bile spewed from his throat. He breathed in deeply, but gagged again, loud, croaking, dry heaves followed, but nothing more came forth.

  Calli took this opportunity, with Griff hunched over clutching at his cramping stomach, to slide down the bluff and steal past him, but not retreating into the forest.

  “Calli,” wheezed Griff. “Calli, who did this? Do you know who did this?” He absently wiped his hands with the sullied yellow-flowered rag. Realizing what he was holding, he flicked it to the ground as if it seared his hand. He stumbled over to Petra and placed a trembling hand at her wrist and then at her throat, pressing, feeling for her pulse. He shook his head.

  “I can’t tell.” He fell to his knees, laid his ear to her chest, and then lightly held his finger under her nose, searching for a warm current of breath.

  “Calli.” He looked toward her. “Who did this to her?”