"What are you talking about?"
"I called several times, a month ago, but you were never in. I finally told Ethelind I wanted you to be one of my bridesmaids. She said she'd make sure you returned my call right away, but you never called to say yea or nay or even go to hell, not even after I called half a dozen more times. That's what I'm upset about."
I was stunned into silence for a moment. At last I said, "I never got any messages, Greta."
"Really?"
"Cross my heart."
"Why wouldn't she have given you the messages?"
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe she forgot. Who knows what else I've missed."
"Then I forgive you," Greta said. "And can you be a bridesmaid? Please say yes. It would mean so much to me to have you there."
Once, back in my college days, I'd been a bridesmaid. I still had nightmares about the way I'd looked waddling down the aisle in five yards of turquoise taffeta, of which at least two yards made up the puffed sleeves, while two and a half more yards billowed from my waist and made me look a mile wide through the hips.
Greta noticed my hesitation. "I'm not requiring my attendants to wear a matched set of bridesmaids' dresses. I've told everyone just to wear a black cocktail dress of their own choosing. Everybody has one. I know you do. I've seen you wear it several times."
"Of course I'll be a bridesmaid. Thanks for asking."
After hanging up, I tried to get started on the article I'd promised P.J. I'd write, but I could not concentrate. I kept wondering if Ethelind had intentionally kept Greta's wedding a secret from me, and if so...why?
The words about how I felt about my father's disappearance did not flow onto the paper, even though they were in my heart, and I finally decided to try again later.
So what should I do now? I wondered. I needed something to take my mind off my worries.
That's when I remembered the box of scrapbooks Alice-Ann had taken from the attic at Morgan Manor. I'd brought it home, ostensibly to use as I wrote the house description, but I'd had enough facts without resorting to it. I thought I'd go through it now, though, and if something new and interesting turned up I could phone the new information to the printer.
Up in my room, I emptied the contents of the box, five scrapbooks and a small blue diary, onto my bed. The cloud of musty dust that arose shocked both cats, who had been asleep on the bed and now looked down disapprovingly from the top of the dresser.
Sitting down, I opened the first of the five albums, which I assumed was the oldest because it had an ornate, hand-tooled leather cover. Photo after photo of black-and-white nameless faces smiled out at me. Men in baggy swim suits with white canvas belts flexed their muscles on beach blankets, while women in girlish pigtails and stiff white bathing suits looked on in admiration.
Children stood at attention in parks, on city streets, and in school playgrounds. Others had been photographed waving from tractor seats or while taking a break from tossing the hay, unwittingly posed as caricatures of Grant Wood's American Gothic, with pitchforks in hand.
"No names. You'd think someone would have thought to put names under the pictures." I sniffed. Noel sniffed sympathetically.
"All these people are probably dead by now, and there's no way of identifying any of them."
Noel lost interest in the conversation and had turned her attention to cleaning Fred's ears.
I put that scrapbook aside and picked up one that appeared to be newer. My guess was correct, because some of the photographs in the back were in color.
I guessed I was looking at pictures taken in the forties. Slowly, I began to recognize some of the same people. A man and a woman who changed very little, and a boy who changed a lot, growing taller on every page, until by the middle of the book he was taller than the man.
They were part of a large extended family, I assumed, for many of the pictures showed the boy admiring various birthday cakes or seated at a holiday table surrounded by many of the same faces.
The birthday cake with a big six on it must have marked an important milestone in the little boy's life, because he stood next to it gazing with rapture at the small violin he was holding. Gift wrappings lay strewn around his feet.
The happy family pictures continued through two more albums until the boy looked to be about twelve or thirteen, and his violins grew proportionately.
Then suddenly they stopped, and the last picture in the book was of a tombstone dated 1945, marking the burial place of Robert and Alameda Mellott.
That was when I realized the box of scrapbooks didn't belong to the Morgan family, but to the long-gone music teacher, Rodney Mellott.
There were some missing years, for the final scrapbook seemed to pick up on Rodney when he was in his late teens or early twenties. Where had he gone after his parents' deaths? To some relative, I imagined, who didn't care enough about him to chronicle any more birthdays.
Yellowed programs from various high school and college concerts took up most of the pages of that last book. The only pictures seemed to be Rodney, much older but recognizable as the child in the earlier albums, posing in front of automobiles. I looked closely at the buildings in the background of these pictures but none looked familiar, so I guessed these were Rodney Mellott's pre- Lickin Creek years.
I tossed the scrapbook to one side, nearly knocking Fred from the bed. "I'm sorry, sweetie," I said, stroking his soft white tummy. "Forgive me?"
He gazed up at me with round golden eyes, assuring me I had his unconditional love. For some reason, this made me burst into tears for the first time since Friday night, and after sobbing for half an hour or so, I drifted into a dreamless sleep.
When I awoke, a glance at the clock told me it was nearly five. I must have slept for three or four hours, and I felt much better.
The house was still. Ethelind must not have come home yet, or I'd surely hear the sound of the TV. There was no point in going downstairs, so I picked up the one thing I hadn't yet looked at-the small blue diary. It reminded me of one I'd been given for my twelfth birthday by my mother. "Don't ever be afraid to write your deepest thoughts in here, Tori," she'd said. "It will always be your private place, and nobody can read it because it has a lock and key." The little brass lock, I found out after I lost the key, could be opened with a bobby pin, and since my deepest, most innermost secrets all seemed to deal with what I'd had for dinner most nights, I'd soon given up writing in it.
But this was different, for the handwriting was that of a mature adult, and not a twelve-year-old.
The first entry was dated September, 1964 and chronicled in great detail Rodney Mellott's first day of teaching at the Lickin Creek High School. He had taken an immediate dislike to the principal, who had given him a windowless office, and he was dismayed to learn he would have to lead the marching band as well as teach instrumental music.
I read through the travails of Rodney's first few weeks at the high school, and wondered with him why he had left his position in Pittsburgh. He seemed even less fond of his landlady than he was of his principal, describing her as a "harridan," and a "sex-crazed old woman" who was hot for his body. Recalling the portrait I'd seen of the pudgy young man in his tuxedo I decided his portrayal of Maribell Morgan's lust for him was more wishful thinking than truth.
Boring, I thought, thumbing through to November. By Thanksgiving, Rodney was tutoring music students privately, using Maribell's springhouse as a studio. Even more boring.
I was about to abandon the diary as a waste of time, when I noticed a strange notation at the bottom of one page. "11." Some sort of code Rodney had used, I supposed. I turned a few pages, and found a similar note: "12'/2." And on the next page, "13-the best yet." A code? Yes, but what did it mean? Maybe the numbers were his students' ages. But, what had he meant by the best yet? Was he describing his students' musical abilities?
I read on a few pages more, and realized with disgust that what Rodney was talking about was not his students' ages but their shoe sizes. It
was pretty obvious that he had a shoe fetish of serious proportions. Before the Christmas holidays he was cleaning sneakers for various boys and in his own words, "making love to them" before returning the shoes to their owners. After a few weeks, the diary made it obvious that he had progressed to sexually abusing his students.
"Eeeew," I squealed, dropping the diary, and wiping my fingers on the quilt, "this is the most disgusting thing I've ever read."
"What's disgusting?"
"Oh my God!" I clutched at my pounding heart, as I glared at the figure in the doorway. "Alice-Ann, you scared me half to death. I didn't hear you come in."
"I knocked, but there was no answer, so I just came in. Are you all right? You look kind of flushed."
She adeptly caught the diary I tossed to her. "Why aren't you at work?" I asked. "Isn't the children's room open on Monday nights?"
"It's Memorial Day, and I'm off. What's this?" she asked, looking down at the blue book in her hand.
"Take a look at it, starting somewhere in the middle of November."
Alice-Ann sat down next to me on the edge of the bed and began to read.
"Yuk," she said after a few minutes. "Whose diary is this, anyway?"
"It belongs to the town's favorite missing bridegroom," I said.
Her mouth dropped open. "You mean Rodney Mellott... the... you know...?"
I nodded. "That's right. Just think of him as the dead pervert in the tuxedo."
"What do you think of this?" Alice-Ann asked, reading out loud, "B. brought broken bike by today. Fixed it. Cleaned his size 12s. Showed him how much I love him.' Tori, this is horrible stuff. Those were youngsters. What are we going to do about it?"
"Maybe we should concentrate on finding his body first, then worry about what to do."
She collapsed backward onto the bed and threw one arm over her eyes. "Can you bring me a damp washrag, please. I think I've got a migraine."
Twelve
A gentle breeze swayed the high grass and rustled the needles of the tall pine trees that bordered the area known as The Flats. Reputed to be a teen hangout at night, up here in the daylight the air in the state forest was clear and cool, and the quiet was unbelievable compared to the traffic noise on the highway on the way up.
I had left the truck next to a log rail that delineated the official parking lot for that part of the Appalachian Trail, and now I stood before a wooden sign, painted brown, which pointed the way north to Maine and south to Georgia. No other vehicles were within sight, although I thought I heard one nearby just as I pulled off the road. I was alone to enjoy the serenity and solitude of the wilderness.
The trail, as far as I could see before it disappeared into the trees, was perfectly flat and didn't look as if it would make for difficult walking. But before I stepped foot on the famed Appalachian Trail, I dutifully read the notices on the bulletin board: Leave no trace. No motorized vehicles. No mountain bicycles. Respect the privacy of property owners along the trail. Don't set the woods on fire. You are here (this last accompanied by a little X on a topographical map).
I chose to go north for a good reason. Jenny Varner had told me where her husband's cabin was: "Hike north on the trail for about a mile and a half, and it'll be the only cabin you see. On private land to the east of the trail. Unless it's raining, you oughta be able to see it easy from the trail. But you have to be watching close 'cause it's dark and blends right into the trees." I thought as long as I was in the area, I might as well take a look at it.
Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if I found the escaped convict hiding there?
"Sure it would," said the chairwoman of the Committee of Good Sense who lurked in the depths of my mind. She didn't often surface, but when she did I usually listened to her. "And just what do you think you would do if you found him there?"
This was not one of the times I chose to listen. "Valde-ree, valde- rah, my knapsack on my back... " I sang, trying to drown her out as I trotted down the trail.
Almost immediately, I was overtaken by a young woman bearing a heavy pack on her shoulders and wearing very short khaki shorts and heavy hiking boots.
"Good morning," I said cheerfully. "Where are you from?"
Perhaps she really did answer with more than a grunt, but that was all I heard as I watched her blond ponytail bounce out of sight around the next bend in the trail.
Why was I hiking the Appalachian Trail early on the Tuesday morning after Memorial Day? It had all come about because I had grown frustrated with no news about my father. Even my calls to the Department of State brought only a cryptic, "We'll be in touch with you as soon as we hear anything." I decided going to work was the only thing that would keep my mind occupied during these uncertain times, so I'd headed into the Chronicle office early this morning.
Cassie jumped up from her desk, hugged me, and led me to the red plastic sofa as if I were an invalid. "I'm so sorry ...if there's anything I can do..." All words I'd heard at least a hundred times in the past four days, but they still brought tears to my eyes.
P.J. came out of her office to greet me, something she hadn't done since the day I first met her. "Are you getting along all right? Is there anything I can do? Have you heard anything?"
I wondered if her questions were from real concern or a need to fill Saturday's front page with Lickin Creek's own connection to an international crisis. Then I was ashamed of myself for being so cynical when she looked so sincere.
I handed P.J. the pages I'd worked on almost all night. "Here's what I wrote about my father, how he was a career foreign service officer who worked his way up to being an ambassador, and what it was like for me growing up in that kind of environment, and how I'm sure he's all right because he's a resourceful man who has been in danger before."
Cassie clucked her tongue against her teeth. Obviously she thought I was delusional.
"It's true," I said. "We were once under siege in an embassy for three days, and all we lost were our household goods. And another time we had a cook who went crazy with jealousy and tried to kill his wife with a machete, and my father overpowered him.
"And when we lived on Okinawa, he went out in a fishing boat, alone, and was lost in the East China Sea for nearly a week. My mother was half-crazy with worry, and then he simply walked in as if nothing had happened. And..." I began to cry. "You can see he's very clever. And careful. He won't let anything happen to the baby," I sobbed. "I can't bear to lose my baby brother. I haven't even seen him yet. Not another brother..."
Cassie stroked my back, while water gurgled in the cooler.
"Drink up," P.J. ordered gruffly, placing a soggy paper cup in my hand. After I'd regained my composure, I told P.J. I wanted to get back to work.
Cassie nodded sympathetically. "Keeping your mind occupied would be the best thing for you. And Tori, I'm sure your family is going to be just fine."
Since Cassie was the head priestess of her Wiccan coven, I had confidence in her ability to know such things. I smiled and thanked her for her reassurances.
In the meantime, P.J. had gone into her office and returned carrying a map. "If you really want something to do, why not get to work on that article about the anthills?"
"I'd forgotten all about them. Where are they located?"
"Somewhere near the Appalachian Trail, Tori. I told you that before."
"Those are rather vague directions, seeing as how the trail is over two thousand miles long."
P.J.'s face reddened as she huffed, and I knew my grace period was up. "There's only one place in this county with an entrance to the trail. Start there. Up in the mountains in the state forest. It crosses the highway up there, and the anthills are supposed to be within walking distance of the road."
"North or south?" I regretted asking before the words were out of my mouth.
"I really have no idea. Just go up there and ask whomever you see hiking the trail."
"One more question... How will I recognize them?"
P.J. gave me that smile s
he reserved for idiots and me. "You look for mounds of dirt about two or three feet high. And if they have ants crawling in and out of them, I think you'll be pretty safe in assuming that they are anthills."
Now, on the trail, the sun was beating down upon me without mercy. That gentle breeze had stopped a while ago. My sneakers threatened blisters on both my heels. The camera hanging from my neck was gaining weight at about a pound a minute. What's the fun in this? I asked myself. Why do people do this to themselves? I was no longer singing. I needed to reserve all my strength for breathing as I trudged down the dusty path.
I kept looking off to my right, searching for the Varner cabin. Good grief, I'd certainly covered five or ten miles, hadn't I? Had I overlooked the place?
I looked at my Timex and found that only fifteen minutes had passed since I first set foot on the trail. "Well," I said to the laughing committee in my head. "Time is relative. And if you go by how miserable I am, then hours have passed, not minutes."
I'd brought no water with me. Perhaps I'd thought the trail would be more like a public park with drinking fountains strategically placed along it. That had been my first mistake. My second was wearing sneakers instead of hiking boots, as if I had any, and my third mistake was starting out on this expedition in the first place.
Then I saw the cabin, nestled in a small clearing in the woods, set far back from the trail. Somehow I'd expected it to be one of those modem cabins I'd seen advertised in decorating magazines, built from cedar logs all turned to the same dimension, with lots of big triangular windows to take in the sweeping view.
Instead, this was the type of log cabin Abe Lincoln would have found homey. Logs of all diameters were held together by great expanses of white plaster. The windows were covered with louvered shutters, but even if the shutters were opened, the windows were too small to permit a view of anything. This cabin had been built by someone who thought of windows as a source of light and ventilation only.
I left the trail and walked toward the cabin, keeping close to the trees, trying to make myself invisible to anyone who might be inside.
5 Death, Bones, and Stately Homes Page 11
