You Believers

by Jane Bradley

  He sighed. “Yeah, there was a journal. But it’s private, and you’ve got to give her that.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  He kept his eye on the rug. “It’s nothing you’d find helpful. Lots of doodles, and leaves, and hearts, and tears. And Frank. Lots of stuff about Frank. I know she wants me because I have a house and a job. And, well, she knows the way I feel. I’ll love her no matter what she does. Wish it didn’t work like that some times.” He shrugged and sat at the foot of the bed. “We all know she has a weakness for the bad boys.”

  Livy patted his arm, but he moved away. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Billy stared at the floor. “I’m not mentioned at all. Just Frank. A few things about Dan, that decorator she worked for. And Gator, this homeless guy she liked to take care of. Personal stuff.” He sighed. “There was a name I didn’t know. Randy. You know anything about Randy?”

  Livy could see him squeezing back tears. “No. But you know how she makes friends wherever he goes.”

  “She was sad a lot, Livy. Do people just write in journals when they’re feeling sad? Because there wasn’t a word about being happy. Just sad and hurt all the time. I thought I’d be the one to make her happy.” He glanced up. She saw the pain in his face, reached for his hand. He stood and went to the closet and stared at the clothes hanging there. He shook his head. “I couldn’t read all of it. It’s Katy’s thoughts, just her thoughts, you know. If people knew our private thoughts, we’d all be locked in the nuthouse or jail.”

  “She always had a problem with depression. I told her the best way out of depression was to do something for someone else. And their happiness, it rubs off.”

  He looked back at her, went toward the window, looked out. “She does help people. And that helps some.” Billy shook his head. “I can’t make her happy.”

  “No one can make anyone happy. I’ve tried.” Livy stepped past Billy and headed for the kitchen. “Happy? We have to do that on our own.”

  She felt Billy following her down the hall like a stray pup. “Katy was always thinking too much, and if you think too much, it’s hard to be happy. I told her that.” She turned to Billy. “Tell me about Dan?”

  Billy opened the back door, lit another cigarette. “Her boss. He likes her.”

  “Everyone likes Katy. I thought her boss’s name was Pete.”

  “That’s at the bar. Dan’s the decorator. Katy was working for him, painting, hanging wallpaper. You knew about that.”

  “What’s she say about him?”

  “Something about a door.” Billy nodded. “She was working at this house. Left with the back door open. Wide open. You know how Katy could be. Forgetful sometimes. Well, the lady who owned the house got real pissed, said she didn’t want Katy in the house again.” Billy stepped onto the back porch, blew smoke to the darkness. “So she messed up. Big deal.” Billy moved into the backyard, sat in a glider, rocked with his feet, and looked up through the trees. “Lately, I don’t know. She’s been distracted. Leaves the coffee pot on. Lets the truck run out of gas. Goes off to do something and comes back wondering what it was she was supposed to do.”

  Livy sat beside him. “Billy, maybe she ran out of gas. That gas gauge hasn’t worked for years. Did you report her truck missing?”

  “Of course I did. I talked to the cops.” He looked up into the night. “But there’s a lot of country out there. And you know how she likes to drive. She calls me when she runs out of gas.”

  “But she hasn’t called.” Livy’s voice rose to a childish whine.

  “That’s because she left her cell phone on the porch. I thought I told you that. I found it on that table where she keeps all those plants.” Billy squinted at the burning tip of his cigarette. “Come on, now, Livy. You’re thinking the worst possible thing. Gotta be positive.” He gave a hard laugh. “Like maybe she just ran off with some man. Not Frank, though. Maybe there was some new man. Randy.”

  “She’s going to marry you in a month,” Livy said. “Who’s Randy?”

  “Nobody.” Billy shrugged. “Girls do all kinds of things,” Billy said, standing. “I’m going inside for a beer. You want one?’

  “No,” Livy said, then, “Yes, a beer, Billy. I’ll have a beer.”

  He nodded, headed in the back door.

  Livy sat for a moment surrounded by the night, the wind in the trees, and the heaps of brick. Her eyes locked on the yellow light from a neighbor’s kitchen window. As she stared, it seemed to be receding, darkness seeping into the distance between her and the house, between her and Katy, between her and everything she knew. She jumped up and ran for the back door, wanting the light of the kitchen, wanting anything but to be left out there alone.

  Inside, she saw Billy leaning against the counter holding an empty picture frame.

  “Where the picture?” Livy said. Billy tossed the frame onto the counter, reached into the refrigerator, and grabbed two beers. “I gave it to the lady at REV.” He handed a beer to Livy, took the other, and stood by the window.

  “REV?” Livy said.

  “Rescue Effort Volunteers. They help people. When the cops were being dicks, I called REV.” Billy gazed out the window. “They do things cops don’t. Start work on the search while cops are still sitting back thinking about it, eating doughnuts and staring at computer screens.” Billy shrugged. “Shelby said somebody goes missing, you gotta get right to work on the search. Every minute, every hour counts.”

  “Stop,” Livy said. She didn’t want to think about minutes, hours, days, what might be happening to her girl. She grabbed the beer he set out for her. Blue Moon. Katy liked it with an orange slice. She took some hard swallows, wanted to chug the whole thing the way she’d seen boys do. “Who’s Shelby?”

  “This lady—she runs REV. Some kick-ass woman. I heard about her at the bar. Used to be a bartender out at Wrightsville Beach. She’s little but tough. Looks like some kind of biker chick. I wouldn’t mess with her.” Billy reached into his pocket, gave Livy the business card. She studied the words: Rescue Effort Volunteers and a cartoon kind of logo with a muscular arm flexed around a heart. Livy gave him back the card.

  Billy studied it as if it held an answer. “They take missing people seriously. This Shelby, she showed up the day I called. Walks right in, asks for pictures, any information I had.”

  “Did you give her the journal?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  She studied him for a lie, couldn’t be sure.

  “Shelby wanted a really good picture for the flyer. She wanted something that would make people really want to keep an eye out. She looked at about everything we have before she picked that one to make a flyer.” Billy pointed his beer bottle at the empty frame. “She said that was the best one.”

  Livy sipped her beer. “I don’t want to see Katy’s face on a missing-person sign.”

  “Me neither.” Billy finished his beer. “But you gotta do it. Shelby said no effort toward saving someone is wasted.” He shrugged and headed to the living room.

  “Please don’t do that, Billy.”

  “What?”

  “That.” Livy gave a quick raise and drop of her shoulders. “It’s so, so . . .” She couldn’t find the words. He turned for the living room, and she followed. He paced the room like a cat in a cage, and she, suddenly exhausted, dropped to the couch. There was the sound of a car door slamming shut outside.

  Billy pulled back the curtains of the window, looked out. “Cop,” he said.

  Livy put her beer on the floor and braced herself as Billy opened the door. “Have you found her?”

  A man in a sports jacket gave them a blank stare.

  “Have you found her?” Livy asked. She stood, went to him, could read nothing in his little gray eyes, but she did see the badge fixed on his belt. “If you have some kind of information, I’d like to know.” Livy hardened herself. She didn’t like this man. She stepped back. The words came weakly. “Come in.”

  He stepped inside, s
canned the room, eyes snagging on Billy, who sank onto a chair.

  “Billy Jenkins?”

  Billy nodded. “I made the report.”

  “I’m her mother,” Livy said “Have you found her?”

  Standing there in the large room, the man looked small under the high ceiling, a little boy–man dressed up, playing cop. He stood there holding a plastic shopping bag and a cheap portfolio. His shoes were scuffed and his face shiny.

  Livy saw his shoulder holster as he propped his hands on his hips, moved closer to Billy, who wouldn’t look up. Billy always looked guilty. She had never trusted Billy, pot-smoking, brick-laying Billy. He hardly talked unless you asked him a question. Katy had said he was just shy around strangers.

  Livy moved toward the cop. “You’re here about Katy. My daughter.” She sucked in a breath, straightened, crossed her arms over her chest, hands clenched tight to stop the shaking. “You can tell me,” she said.

  The cop looked again toward Billy.

  Livy grabbed his arm. “What?”

  He took a seat, set the bag and the portfolio on the coffee table, reached into his pocket for a pad. “I’ve got good news,” he said.

  No, he didn’t. Livy stared at the man in the suit with the gray little eyes and the bloated face that looked like he drank too much. He flipped the notepad open, eyes on the pages as if he’d forgotten what he’d come to say.

  “We found your daughter’s truck.”

  She studied the bald spot on the top of his head. “And was Katy with it?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then you don’t have good news for me.”

  He glanced up at her and shrugged. Fury surged through her, and she clenched her fists, fingernails digging into her palms. She swallowed the words you bastard and said, “You won’t have good news for me until my daughter is home.”

  “I’m doing you a favor coming here like this. Doing more than my job.”

  “I suppose I should thank you.” Livy walked to the window, looked out at the dimly lit street, saw a neighbor setting garbage out. She glanced back.

  The detective set his notepad on the coffee table and watched Billy. “We’ll need you to come down to the station and answer some questions.”

  “Am I being arrested?” Billy patted the front of his shirt for his cigarettes.

  “No. Just come by tomorrow morning. You ever take a lie-detector test?”

  Billy paled. “No.”

  “You willing?”

  Billy sighed. “Yes, hell, yes. I’ll take the test.”

  Livy felt her head was expanding from pressure building inside. She looked at her hands, felt her face, everything was normal, feet on the floor, arms at her sides, ears trying to hear what this stranger was saying, but she couldn’t connect.

  “I’ve got an idea about your daughter.”

  “An idea?” Livy said. “Based on whatever you’ve got in that little notebook of yours?” Livy paced. “This is Katy’s house. She painted these walls, refinished those floors. See that coffee table? She found it by the side of the road; she stained and inlaid all those little pieces of wood. See those shelves? She built them. Katy could find any piece of junk by the side of the road and make it something good.”

  “I know you’re upset. But these things aren’t relevant to the case.”

  “‘Case’?” Her voice shrieked. “We are talking about my daughter.”

  The man held her in his gaze as if he were straining to be patient with a nut. “Ma’am, you are gonna have to calm down and listen to me.”

  She crossed the room, sat next to Billy. “Calm? You want me to be calm?”

  He nodded. “We called in dogs, searched the truck. There was no sign of foul play. Keys in the ignition, no sign of a struggle. We found this shopping bag.” He nudged it toward Billy. “When you reported her missing, you didn’t say anything about a shopping trip. You know anything about this?”

  Billy shook his head.

  Livy grabbed the bag, found the skirt, the top, the underwear, and the receipt. “It’s dated three days ago. The day she disappeared. 6:22 p.m.” Livy leaned toward the detective, clutched the receipt with both hands. “Dollar Daze. She bought these things the day she disappeared. Have you asked anyone at the store if they remember her?”

  The detective made a note in his pad. “We’ll check it out.”

  Livy threw the receipt at him. “You didn’t even bother looking at the receipt, did you?”

  He tucked the flimsy piece of paper into the portfolio. “I told you we’d check it out.”

  Billy reached for the matching underwear, beige with black lace. “She never buys stuff like this.”

  “Sure, she does,” Livy said, grabbing the underwear, shoving it into the bag.

  “Not for me,” Billy said. He sat, looked toward the door and shook his head. “Not for me,” he said again.

  The detective pointed his pen at Billy. “Any ideas who she bought that underwear for? You the jealous type?”

  “No.” Billy stood. “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “Not at the moment.” The detective shoved the clothes back into the plastic bag. “Evidence,” he said as he watched Billy leave the room.

  Livy grabbed the bag from his hands. “You could at least fold her clothes. My daughter bought these things. My daughter.” Livy sat and concentrated on getting the seams straight on the skirt, folding the top carefully so no crease would show in the front. She glanced at the detective. “Something awful has happened. She’s in some kind of trouble somewhere. She’s . . .” Livy stacked the clothes neatly on her lap, hid the underwear under the skirt, smoothed the fabric.

  “I’ll need those,” he said as he took the clothes from her, placed them in the bag. “Ma’am, we’ve profiled her.”

  “What?” She’d heard the words but couldn’t take her attention away from Katy’s things disappearing into the plastic bag.

  “Profile. We gather facts, habits, age, race, income, where she liked to go.” He paused. “What she liked to drink.”

  “I know what a profile is.”

  He went back to flipping through his pad. “There were beer cans, lots of beer cans under the seats of her truck. Did your daughter have a drinking problem? Was it her habit to drink and drive?”

  Livy stood and faced him. “My daughter is not the criminal here.”

  “Ma’am, we dusted the truck for prints—but now I have to tell you, the truck, it was filthy. Full of trash and dirt and leaves.”

  “She liked to collect plants from the woods,” Billy said. He stood in the doorway now. “She liked to collect leaves and rocks and sticks and things. Is that a crime? She worked two jobs, was always running somewhere. So sometimes things slipped her mind. She was not a drunk.” Billy crossed the room, mashed his cigarette out in an ashtray on the table. “You profiled her? Your profile say she keeps a perfect house? It say anything about that garden in the backyard? Does it say Katy is the kind of woman would give her last dollar to a stranger if he had the need?”

  The detective cleared his throat. “We found evidence of marijuana.”

  Billy laughed. “‘Evidence of marijuana.’ Want to tell me just what that means?”

  “We found marijuana.”

  Livy yelled, “My daughter is not a drug addict!”

  “How much marijuana?” Billy said.

  The detective looked to his notes. “On the seats, in the glove box, not a lot, but enough to know she smoked dope.”

  Billy turned away. “So you found some pot. Did you find enough pot to make a bust? You got that there in your notes?”

  The detective snapped the notebook closed and stood. “She had pot in her possession. So maybe she was partying when she, ah, disappeared.”

  Livy sank back into the chair. Grace and dignity. She’d taught Katy that. No matter how bad things are, if you get through each day with grace and dignity, you’re doing all right. She gripped the arms of her chair. “Her truck,” she said. “Where d
id you find her truck?”

  “Lake Waccamaw.” He looked at Billy. “You gave us that clue.”

  “She liked to drive there,” Livy said. “We all knew that. She liked to drive out there because she liked nature. She liked to sit out there and write.”

  “And drink, most likely,” the cop said.

  “Would you please quit slandering my daughter?”

  The cop shrugged and looked at his notes.

  She turned to Billy. “Maybe she went for a hike out there, wandered off out there. Maybe she just got lost.” She turned back to the cop.

  The detective softened then. “Our dogs got no scent of her.”

  Livy stood. “Your dogs. How would they know what she smells like?”

  Billy leaned forward. “I gave them a shirt. The one she sleeps in. I gave them something in case they needed to track her.”

  “Track her?”

  “Shelby said it could be useful.” Billy stood and went back into the kitchen.

  Livy turned to the detective. “Mr. . . .” She paused. “I don’t even know your name, and you talk about tracking my daughter with dogs.”

  “Block. Detective Block,” he said. “And this would all go easier if you wouldn’t resist.”

  “Resist?” She turned back to the bookshelf, read the titles: Walden, The Road Less Traveled, The Wizard of Oz. She could still feel him there behind her. “Would you please leave?”

  “I’m sorry. No parent wants to hear these things.”

  She faced him. “What things?”

  He opened a larger notebook now. Livy caught a glimpse of a computer printout. “The profile. Mr. Jenkins gave us some information, and some we gathered ourselves. Facts, random facts, we put them together, draw conclusions. Most times we’re right, Mrs. Connor.”

  “My name is Mrs. Baines. Connor was her daddy’s name. I remarried. Add that to your list of facts. Married twice, and yes, I like a cold beer now and then. We were just having one. What do you conclude from that, Mr. Block?”

  He sat. “You really should listen to this. We’re almost always right.”