by Chris Fabry
10
When Sheriff Hadley Preston wasn’t herding the media cats, he was actually doing his job. Mae and Leason Edwards were all the help they could be in locating their daughter, but there are some things a parent can’t do, and one of them is be responsible for their children’s choices. Preston knew all about that.
His own daughter had run away at fifteen with a boy she thought was her life’s love. Preston had spent three days tracking them down and, through a tip from one of the boy’s friends, found them at a motel in Myrtle Beach. He and the family had called that their beach getaway, but after that, they rarely even spoke of the place. She became pregnant, and after a lot of tears and struggle, she decided to place the baby for adoption.
She settled down, finished school, then went off to WVU and landed a job with some PR outfit in Charleston. It paid well and she seemed to have some friends who cared about her.
So as Preston searched for the woman who had thrown their small slice of the world into a media circus seven years earlier and was now doing it again, the first thing he thought of was his own daughter and what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten her life together. He and his wife had gone through it during her teenage years, and it hadn’t helped that he was supposed to be an upstanding citizen and leader. Sneaking out late at night. Running with a bad crowd. He held his breath each time the phone rang, worried that she might have been arrested or found in some ravine in a mangled car. It was a constant fear until she graduated, and then his fears intensified as they dropped her off at college.
But something had happened there. She’d found friends who invited her to a Christian group. He still kept the letter she wrote him in the top drawer of his nightstand. The one that said she was grateful that he loved her unconditionally and how thankful she was to have her parents. She had found a good man and married and had given them two grandchildren. Just shows you have to play for the final quarter of the game and not halftime.
Though Mae was no help in locating her, Preston found Dana Edwards living with her current boyfriend in a two-bedroom house in Winfield, close to the interstate and within a crab-apple’s throw of a fairly large liquor store. He was trying to get to her before the media.
Paint chips fluttered to the ground when he knocked on the door. He heard movement inside, a chair scraping across linoleum, and then cursing. A haggard face looked out the window, then let the shade fall. She was struggling to stay on her feet as she opened the door and had to lean against the jamb. Behind her was a kitchen table strewn with a couple of pizza boxes and empty bottles. The air in the house smelled of mildew, and her breath made him turn his head.
She was wearing a loose T-shirt and terry cloth shorts, but Preston could tell from her arms and legs that she was painfully thin. Her matted red hair stuck up in the back, but the general state of dishevelment did not seem to concern her. The face was unmistakable. She had Mae’s droll mouth and eyes. A spitting image, as they say.
“Dana. It’s been a long time.”
She yawned and looked at his badge, then at his face. “What’s this about?”
“I need you to come with me. It’s your daughter.”
She squinted, as if she hadn’t heard correctly, or as if she couldn’t remember even having a daughter. “Natalie? Did you find her?”
“I just need you to come with me. Get your clothes together. I’ll wait in the car.”
Dana disappeared into the darkness and reappeared a few minutes later wearing sandals that had been worn down to the thickness of cardboard. She put a long-sleeved sweater over the T-shirt and had run a brush through her hair a couple of times, but that only made matters worse. She crossed her arms in front of her and thanked him when he held the car door for her.
They set off on the winding two-lane road, passing a park and a lake and green hills that exploded with color. The sun was hot in the sky now, and he turned on the air conditioner.
“Tell me if you get too cold back there,” he said.
“How’d you find me?”
Preston glanced in the rearview. “That’s why they pay me so well. I’m part bloodhound, you know.”
Dana looked out the window without smiling, wringing her hands like an old woman who’d lost her favorite cat. “I seen the news. All those reporters and cameras. How’d you find the car?”
“Scuba divers. Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’ it? West Virginia scuba divers.”
She was turning something in her mind, and he let her do it as the squawk of the radio filled the blank spaces.
“You didn’t find her in the car?”
“No, the car seat was back there, but there wasn’t a body.”
“After this long, couldn’t it have just . . . dissolved? Or something could have eaten it?”
Preston took a moment at that one, contemplating her use of it rather than she or her. “Could have. But I think we’d have found bits of clothes or bones. The car was clean. We did find a blanket and a stuffed animal.”
Dana grimaced and put the heels of her hands to her eyes, like she was trying to stop a migraine. Or maybe some memory that kept coming back. There had been a modest insurance policy that she collected after a couple years, but Preston assumed that had gone quickly. She wiped at her eyes and stared out the passenger window. “That guy must have taken her with him. The guy who stole the car. Pervert. Who would do something like that to a little kid?”
He looked in the rearview again. Her face was taut and gaunt. Hollow eyes. Sunken cheeks so that her bones stuck out. Sallow skin in the sunlight. Painfully thin. “Your mother’s always thought your daughter was still alive.”
“My mother,” Dana scoffed. “She kept Natalie’s name on the prayer chain at her church for four years before they made her take it off. They said it upset people. I’ll bet I’m still on there.”
“Wouldn’t disagree with that.”
“A lot of good those people’s prayers are going to do. Thinking God is going to cure their liver or shrink their hemorrhoids. I swear, those people would lay hands on just about anything.”
Preston stifled a smile and watched a kid riding a bike without a helmet. He wanted to stop and chew the kid out, tell him he was going to wind up in a graveyard, but he wanted to get Dana to the station right now. He spotted the TV trucks before he even rounded the corner and told Dana to lie down in the backseat.
“What for?”
“Unless you want every reporter this side of the Mississippi chasing you down in those flip-flops, you’d better lie down.”
She did and as they passed the trucks, Preston saw the camera guys standing together drinking their iced coffee or latte whatevers. He waved a big “howdy do” like you’re supposed to when you’re from some backwoods place and flashed his biggest aw-shucks smile and parked near the back door.
He herded Dana inside to the interrogation room, which doubled as their lunchroom. His deputy, Mike, was eating a sandwich and talking on his cell phone, his feet propped up on the table. When he saw Dana and Preston, he nearly fell over backward, quickly exiting the room.
Preston grabbed a cup of coffee for Dana and sat across from her as she sipped at the black water.
“So why couldn’t you talk to me at the house?” she said. “Why’d I have to come down here?”
“I’m trying to piece a few things together. I thought you could help.”
“I done told the police everything I know. About a million times.”
Preston nodded. “Let’s just go through it. Did Natalie know she was going for a drive that night?”
Dana lowered her eyes and cocked her head. “I couldn’t get a babysitter. I went to a bar. I had a few drinks. She went to sleep in her car seat on the way over, and I checked on her every few minutes. And—”
“Who were you there to meet?”
“You know all of this. There was nobody in particular. I was thirsty. I needed to get out. It’s not a crime to have a few drinks. Aren’t you going to read me my rights
or something?”
“I’m not trying to catch you, Dana. I’m looking for answers.”
She cradled the Styrofoam cup in both hands and crossed her legs. A few stray hairs fell across her face and covered one eye. “I’ve been in the dark about it for seven years, Sheriff. I don’t see what I could possibly tell you now that would help.”
Preston leaned forward, his leather holster creaking. “I got a call yesterday about some old boy who used to live around here. They said he was at the bar that night. Said some things that led them to believe he might have known more than what he let on seven years ago.”
Dana sat up. “Who?”
Preston took a mug shot from his chest pocket and held it up. The guy’s face was almost as sunken and washed out as hers. “Remember him?”
She squinted. There wasn’t a hint of recognition. She blew air out her lips and shook her head. “I like to think I never forget a face, but I’d say that’s one worth forgetting. Who is the creep?”
“Graham Walker. They call him Gray.”
“I can see why. He any relation to the Walkers over in Sissonville?”
Preston shrugged. “I couldn’t say. He went to school around here. Got in some trouble and moved to Ohio for a while and now he’s back.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Preston stared at Dana. “I didn’t bring you here to question me.”
“Maybe if you tell me something, it will jog my memory.”
“We’re getting a warrant, and then we’re going over there to pick him up.”
“Did you find something in the car that was his? DNA or something?”
“I can’t comment on that.” Preston leaned forward, and the table moved when he put his full weight on it. “But if you can think of anything that might help in our questioning, we’d appreciate it.”
Dana picked up the picture and studied it. With her other hand she scratched at the back of her head; then she sniffed at her fingernails. Preston couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Maybe I remember him. Off in the corner somewhere. I don’t know. I didn’t talk with him or anything. I guess it could have been him. How tall is he?”
“Listed at five nine, 165 pounds.”
“Not much to him,” she said, turning the photo over and sliding it across the table. “I can’t think of anything that would help. I’d tell you if I remembered.”
He nodded and stuffed the picture back in his pocket. “Something else is bothering me. It’s about when you say the guy jumped you.”
“He did. That’s no lie.”
Preston continued without the judging tone. “You said you had your keys out and he came up from behind.”
“That’s right.”
“It was a pretty hot stretch that year. The records show it was in the eighties that night.”
“Another reason I was thirsty. Back at the house it was like an oven, and the only room with an air conditioner was Mom’s. They had that big window fan that made as much noise as a backhoe. Couldn’t get any sleep with that thing.”
“And you said he had on a leather jacket. Pretty hot for a jacket, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t ask him about his wardrobe, Sheriff.”
“Surely you didn’t leave your daughter in a car with the windows rolled up.”
“Of course not. I was parked under this persimmon tree, and there was a good breeze. I remember that. I had all four windows down so she could get the air she needed.”
Preston pictured the baby, her hair matted with sweat. Flies from the trash bin buzzing around the car. Dirt in the folds of her skin at her elbows and on her neck.
“That man assaulted me at the car. I tried to scream for help, but he clamped his hand over my face and there was nothing I could do.”
Preston held up a hand. “You don’t have to go through it again.”
“I struggled with him, my little girl laying asleep right there. Then he knocked me down and threw me in the car and drove farther out the hollow.” The more she talked, the more animated she got.
Preston tried to calm her again. “I’m not asking you to relive that part of the story—”
She thrust a hand at her temple and pulled back the hair. “See this scar? I still got that from that night. And I still got the memory of seeing my scared little girl in that car seat behind me, crying and not knowing what was going on. And then never seeing her again.”
“Dana—”
“I still got the knowledge that if I hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time, my little baby would be walking to the elementary school with her lunch box, having a birthday party, and playing in a tree house or something. Me going to talk with her teachers about what a smart girl I have. Me watching her sing down at the church.”
Dana was tearing up now and Preston had to look at his boots. He couldn’t imagine this woman at a PTA meeting, but who was to say her life wouldn’t be different? Losing the child wasn’t the reason for her downward spiral. From everything Preston could tell, Dana Edwards was not an upstanding citizen before that night, and she certainly hadn’t done much to enhance the résumé after it. But that didn’t make her a criminal.
“Every night I lay awake and wonder what happened,” she continued, digging her finger into the table. “Every night I go to sleep and wake up with the thought that I could have done more or done something different. But I didn’t. And I have to live with it. But if you can catch the pervert who took her and get him to tell us what he did with her, you do that, Sheriff. And I want to be here the minute you bring him in.”
Someone knocked on the door and he waved them in. It was his secretary, Mindy. “That warrant’s ready, Sheriff. Good to go.”
“Could you ask Mike to come back here? I want him to give Dana a ride home.”
The two stared at each other, Dana gritting her teeth. Preston finally picked at his ear, something he did when he was nervous or wasn’t sure what else to do. Fiddling with some new hair growing like a weed.
“We’re going to find her,” he said. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know what condition she’ll be in, but if it’s the last thing I do, we’re going to find her.”
11
Johnson rolled into Bentonville, Arkansas, in the afternoon and ordered the biggest platter of fish and shrimp he could at Long John Silver’s. His back was so stiff he couldn’t think about sitting down to eat, so he pulled into a regional park and walked through it, thinking of June Bug and Sheila as he crunched the clam strips and fried cod. At some restaurants it didn’t make sense that they put all those napkins in the sack, but this was so greasy he used one for every piece of fish.
At the top of a knoll was a pair of tennis courts, and he leaned against a flagpole near a veterans’ memorial and watched a teenage boy trying to teach a teenage girl how to play. The girl wore a cheerleader’s dress and shoes that made white marks on the court. It was clear why the boy was teaching her, though probably not to the girl. He’d hit to her backhand repeatedly and she’d swing and miss, and then the boy would watch her walk to the fence, staring as she bent over to retrieve the ball.
Over the hill was a Little League field and two teams were at it, though from the sounds of the parents yelling and clapping this was more like the seventh game of the World Series. He dumped the box of spent tartar and cocktail sauce holders as wasps swarmed over the empty cans of Coke and Sprite piled high.
He stretched out on the side of a hill by an oak tree that looked like it had been there since before the Civil War and watched the game. The right fielder for the home team seemed more interested in the dandelions. The kid at bat, #14, swung at three consecutive pitches, not even coming close, and Johnson’s childhood fears flooded back. Playground picks and squabbles over captains and who would pitch. He’d never played organized ball until his uncle signed him up for a team when he was ten. He wore his uniform to school the day after he received it and the other kids laughed.
“I think it’s a wond
erful uniform,” his teacher said, taking him aside after class had begun. Miss Bailey spoke softly, and he could smell the sweet mints she kept in her desk’s top drawer. Seeing her red lipstick so close nearly took his breath away.
The truth was, he had worn the uniform to impress her. She was soft and sweet and curvy like the women on TV shows, and she smelled like a bouquet of flowers. But the draw was her eyes and that smile, and he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have a mother like her. Someone to read him a story at night and tuck him in bed and sing—her voice was like an angel’s—and she could play the piano and knew more about math and science and writing and social studies than all his other teachers combined.
“I’ll bet you’re going to be a big leaguer someday,” she said softly in his ear, and a tingle spread through his body.
Those words had made the mocking bearable, and that day he decided he would become a teacher. If a sentence or two from Miss Bailey could do this to his heart, he was in. He walked home proudly, shunning the bus and the teasing of the high schoolers that was sure to come. That was a good memory from his elementary school years.
However, Miss Bailey’s comment about his baseball career had not been prophetic. During his first game, he stepped to the plate against a mean kid from the next town who recognized him and called his catcher out for a meeting. They spoke quietly through gloves held to their faces. A round canister showed clearly through the seat of the pitcher’s back pocket, and there was a bump on the kid’s lower lip. The laws of children and nature sometimes take a backseat in the West Virginia hills.
The umpire scraped some dirt off home plate as the catcher returned. The kid held his mask at his side and got close enough for John to hear. “Tom says your mama’s a whore lady. He says she works out at the truck stop.”
