“And what will you have me do, Anna?”
“If you could take the pages I just printed out and take a look at them, that would be a help.”
“What am I looking for?”
“I have no idea. Anything that sticks out. Anything that doesn’t fit in. That screams at you. Or whispers. If you find anything at all, just highlight it. I got two colors here, one for ‘look at it again’ and one for ‘this is something.’ How does that sound?”
“I’ll give it a go.”
They were still hard at work when Suzi called to say she was on her way over to pick up Carolyn.
Anna stood. “I think it would be best if we greet Suzi in the other room and perhaps close this door. I think she would be a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of the effort.”
“I agree. Thank you for your sensitivity. Suze is a lovely young woman, but when it comes to Barry, she has her blinders strapped on rather tight.”
Adeline reached out and gently touched Carolyn’s arm. “We were afraid you might not be aware of that.”
“I’m aware, I’m just not sure there is anything I can do to stop it.”
Adeline’s voice was gentle. “Time, Carolyn. She needs time.”
SIX
Suzi dropped Carolyn off early. She had a doctor appointment before work. Although Carolyn offered to accompany her granddaughter, Suzi preferred to be alone.
Carolyn was getting more and more worried. Suzi seemed to be slipping into a depression, just as Carolyn had done several times in her life. Knowing how hard it was to come out the other side whole and healthy, Carolyn was determined to keep a watchful eye and find a way to help Suzi through her trauma.
While Anna and Adeline scanned the World Wide Web for anything they could find about Barry, she would take a few minutes to do some research about depression and anything she could do at home and unofficially to help Suzi. She’d already offered to pay for counseling and to attend support groups, but Suzi would have no part of it.
Adeline opened the door with a huge smile on her face. She welcomed Carolyn as if she were in her own home, leading her back to the kitchen area where Anna was putting homemade cinnamon rolls in the oven.
“I helped. Anna is such a wonderful and patient teacher, there is a chance I could actually learn to make a meal before I die.”
Carolyn laughed. A serious improvement of her day.
“It smells heavenly. How did she do, Anna?”
“She has natural skills. I think maybe tonight we will tackle bread. She can take out some of her aggressions on the dough. How are things going for you and Suzi? Any news on Cara?”
“Cara is improving. Spending more time awake. Her entire family is coming and going from the hospital. A.J. and Teagan virtually never leave her side. Teagan especially is taking this very hard. Suzi says when she is in the hospital room she is calm and upbeat but when she is on the other side of the door, she is terrified and angry beyond words. Suzi said that she is certain that once Cara has gotten better and Teagan is able to really talk to her, Suzi will be persona non grata with their family.”
“That might be true. If that happens, we’ll deal with it when it comes.”
“Thanks. So, what are we doing today?”
“First we will have our tea and pastry. Then we will go in the den and see what the fairies have left us in the form of emails from Roland and company. Then I think we do more of what we did yesterday. What I’d like to do is create a timeline of Barry’s life. See if we can get it pretty detailed. Then when we think we know a little something, we can maybe get in contact with some of the people.”
“You know, Adeline, something you said to my Suzi really struck a chord with me. You were telling her what happened with your first husband. That he took you from all the people you knew.”
“That’s right. I know now that it is actually quite common for abusers to isolate the person they have chosen to focus on. I refuse to be called a victim.”
“I was thinking about that, and Barry did do that. Of course at the time I thought it was just that he had a wonderful job opportunity in another state and that Suzi followed him there, as her job was not important to her. Now it all looks a little more sinister. Including their wedding.”
“What does that mean?”
“At the wedding, which was actually a small affair, which at the time I assumed was Suzi’s choice but I now wonder, but anyway, at the wedding more than one person noted the difference in the two sides. Our side was mostly family sprinkled with a few friends. All of us have known each other for years and visited during the reception. His side almost seemed like the opposite. They were mostly business contacts, a few friends, and a light sprinkling of family. The family all kept to themselves. I think some even left early, which is strange for such a small gathering.”
“Not all families are close, Carolyn. Maybe he just has one of those families, but it is certainly something to think about.”
“I understand that, but looking back on it now, with a bit of knowledge, the thing that hit me last night was like a ton of bricks. I had this friend when I was working. A lovely woman. Intelligent. Outgoing. So good with the children. One day she came to work devastated. Her husband had slapped her the night before. It was a silly argument over a barbeque in the back yard. She said he’d never given her any indication that he would do such a thing. He hadn’t been drinking or anything. Anyway, fast-forward several months. By the end of the school year she was a very different woman. She was still lovely with the children but in the teacher’s lounge she stayed completely alone and most often just stared into space. Several of us tried our best to befriend her or to help her, but she just wouldn’t have any part of it.”
Anna shook her head. “That’s so sad.”
“By the beginning of the next school year, she was a changed woman. She was so thin. Almost brittle looking. Times were different back then. Several of the men from the school, the principal, vice principal all the way down to the janitor, went and paid her husband a visit. I’m not sure what happened, but a few weeks later she told us she was getting divorced, rather scandalous for our little enclave back then, but she seemed happier and by the end of that school year she was back to normal. It all happened so quickly back then, we were all busy with our classes and our lives, but it must have been a very difficult two years for her.”
Anna, her hand on her hip, said, “I can’t imagine, and I thank God for that.”
“Me too. It is a conversation with her all those years ago that hit me last night. One day, when things were much better, she and I were sitting in the school library, just the two of us. She was working on an audiovisual presentation and I was cutting out dozens of construction paper faces for what would now be called a diversity class. We started to chat. What came back to me last night was that she told me that the thing she should have paid attention to was that her husband had no past.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“She said that he simply didn’t have anyone that he was close to, that he had known for years and years. Someone that could trace his history. That he would move from one group of friends and family to another, but no one group knew his history. Had anyone known him well enough, they would have been able to put two and two together and they would have known what a threat he was. She said that once she stopped and took a look, she was able to see that he had a long history of abusing women, but that because he never allowed the people from his past to be aware of the people of his present — and God forbid, his future – they couldn’t compare notes.”
“That sounds about right.”
“So I talked to Suzi this morning. She isn’t really ready to talk about everything, and I worry about her baby so I don’t push too hard, but I asked her gentle questions about Barry’s past. Told her we needed to get some information down in case the police want it. Told her it would be easier for her if she explained it all to me, then I could make some kind of synopsis and have it availabl
e for the police. Not a great plan, but Suze isn’t capable of really cognitive thought right now, so it was enough.”
“That was a good idea.”
“She had nothing. Vague snippets of old girl friends. A first name here and there. A town that was close to a town that he once lived in.”
“That is a little suspicious. Especially since they were married and all. Not like she was his new girlfriend.”
Adeline’s eyes looked so sad. “I’m sure he is a manipulator. They have a gift for this type of thing. Abusers, I mean. You look back on your life and wonder how you could possibly be so dull, but at the time, he is able to redirect or explain away just about anything. At one point, a girlfriend of mine — a woman I was very close to and completely lost contact with during the worst of it – said she had tried desperately to get me to see what my husband was doing, and I would have no part of it. I would defend him and his behavior and saw her as the enemy. I’m not sure how they do it, but if they used those skills for other purposes they could rule the world.”
Anna checked the cinnamon rolls through the oven door, smiled when she saw that they were coming along nicely, and grabbed the confectioners’ sugar, the vanilla and a cube of butter.
Adeline watched carefully as Anna added the ingredients together without measuring anything or slowing down her part of the conversation. “So, this all makes sense, but how does it help us? What are we going to do with all this new information?”
Carolyn watched Anna add a couple of drops of milk to her icing mixture to thin it down just a tiny bit. “I think it really reinforces that we are going in the right direction. I think if we can make a timeline of his life, we can talk to the people and we can fill in the blanks. We can figure out why nobody knows anybody else and find out if he’s been beating the crap out of little girls since he was in knee breeches.”
The girls smiled.
To Carolyn’s surprise — although she tried hard not to let it show – she sat and watched as Adeline got up and went about setting the table, retrieving things from the fridge and making herself quite at home while being helpful. She seemed to have really settled since taking up residence in Anna’s home. Maybe settled wasn’t the right word. She seemed comfortable. At ease. Maybe the best word would be content.
The girls chatted about their plan until the buzzer sounded, and Anna got the rolls out of the oven and drizzled the icing over the top.
Adeline waved her hand in the direction of Anna’s work. “Don’t be chintzy with that icing. My God those smell good. Anna you are a woman of many talents.”
Anna pulled a face and said, “Oh, honey, you just have no idea.” And wiggled her hips.
The girls laughed, enjoyed their breakfast, and then set to get to the bottom of the Barry issue.
Somewhere around lunchtime, the girls decided they needed a more old fashioned and visual approach.
Anna’s suggestion for solving the problem was, as always, brilliant in its simplicity and effectiveness.
The den had once been a bedroom and the closet door was a set of sliding doors on tracks. Anna and the girls pulled down one of the doors, covered it with butcher paper so that nothing would get through and damage the door, then covered the butcher paper with brown paper Anna had shoved in the closet. She used it mostly for covering boxes she recycled when mailing off gifts to the family and didn’t want it announced to everyone that it was a toaster box.
They shoved a few pieces of furniture out of the way, leaned the newly repurposed door up against the wall, and Carolyn took her place in front of it sitting on the floor as if she were going to play jacks.
Carolyn finally felt as if she were contributing something – having been nudged into duty because of her experience writing on chalk boards earlier in life and her beautiful penmanship – she had a yardstick in hand and would be able to create a timeline of Barry’s life with the facts they had gathered thus far.
Anna excused herself to rummage through the kitchen cupboards and find something for the girls to eat.
Adeline excused herself to make some phone calls.
Carolyn got to work.
When Adeline and Anna came back into the room with platters of sandwiches, chips and soda, Carolyn had moved the door so that it lay flat on the floor. She had created a detailed timeline with annotations in several different colors complete with a legend at the bottom for ease of use.
Anna and Adeline were impressed and said so.
Carolyn looked genuinely happy for the first time in days. “Doing bulletin boards all those years has finally paid off.”
The girls laughed
They sat back and ate while looking over the board. In only a few words, they all agreed they would take the time to absorb the information and form their own opinions and insights before they discussed it.
Anna made a couple of notes.
Carolyn got up and stretched. “I’m going to go walk around the block. I’ve been on that floor too long. Rigor mortis has set in.”
“Would you like company?”
“Actually, I think I’d like to be alone, if that’s alright. I had plenty of time to look at all that while I was writing it down. I think I’ll go for a walk and just let my brain calibrate it all.”
“Me too. I’m going out in the backyard and make sure the squirrels didn’t do anything stupid to my birdfeeders.”
“I’m going to take a few minutes and make some calls. When you come back in, Anna, I’d appreciate it if you could send a few emails for me. I’m pretty good sending things back and forth to Cara, but I want a more professional approach for what I have in mind and I could use some assistance.”
“I can do that. Meet you back here in five?”
“Perfect.”
Carolyn’s walk took longer than she had expected. Anna’s neighborhood was the old fashioned kind where everybody knew everybody and had a moment to chat or a friendly wave.
Carolyn found herself helping an elderly woman with unloading her trunk full of groceries, wondering what would have happened had she not walked by.
The woman smiled. “Oh, I know what you’re thinkin’. Just what I would have done had you not showed up? The good Lord provides. I’ve been doing this every week since my husband passed and my good for nothin’ son left me to fend for myself. He met some girl on the Internet and they ran off. The man is seventy-three years old. He has done lost his mind. Anyway, since the day my son left, every time I need help, there is someone like yourself able and willing to be of assistance.”
Carolyn smiled and enjoyed the banter with Anna’s neighbor, but in the back of her mind, all the information she’d been taking in over the last couple of days was percolating.
She’d said goodbye to the older woman and walked all the way up and around the corner, noticing the house with the red front door, when something that the older woman said set everything in motion.
The penny dropped. Wasn’t that what Cara always said?
She made it back to Anna’s house in record time and burst through the front door.
“He’s a monster. Barry is a monster.”
Adeline’s eyes were round with the start Carolyn had given her.
“Yes, he is.” Anna walked down the hallway from the den.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Carolyn reached out and touched Adeline’s arm. “Let me explain.”
“Let’s go sit. You want something to drink? No offense, Carolyn, but you look a little like a mad woman right now.”
Carolyn laughed. She felt better than she had since they’d gotten the phone call that caused them to drop everything and come home. She actually felt like she had something to contribute.
Carolyn took her place on the floor in front of the timeline.
Adeline and Anna each took an office chair and angled them so that they could see what Carolyn had written.
“I went for my walk and stopped just down the street to talk with an older woman unloading her trunk.”<
br />
Anna nodded her head. “Jolene. Since her son took off, someone always shows up just about the right minute to help her with things like that. We all keep an eye out.”
“Exactly. That’s what she said. Anyway, I was talking to her and she said her son met a woman on the Internet.”
“That would be Harold. He’s been gone a while. When he retired, he didn’t have a penny to his name. Moved back in with his momma. Just ridiculous. The woman is workin’ on being a hundred and her son is living off her checks.”
Carolyn was beginning to get frustrated with all the extraneous information, but then, wasn’t it just that kind of conversation that has started her thinking? She held her tongue. “That’s what she told me. But the thing that got my attention was that he had done this kind of thing before. I guess he met some woman at a gaming place. Met another woman at a street fair.”
“Yep. Each one was worse than the last. This last one he took off with, they got it in their minds that they were gonna go across the country and just drop in on her kids. I guess the kids have worked hard and have some money. They decided they’d just get a trailer and live on their driveway or some such nonsense.”
Adeline looked confused. “Do people actually do that?”
“Depends on the neighborhood. We had one guy, lives up around the corner, his mother and father-in-law sold everything when they retired. Bought a nice RV, real nice, most of a million dollars they spend on that thing, then they spent seven years driving around the country.”
Adeline tilted her head to the right. “I guess under the right circumstances that could work. I would gather that the vehicle was quite posh.”
“It was, but they got to the house up around the corner and that is where they stayed. For months. Turns out the father-in-law was having some health problems and the wife couldn’t drive the stupid thing. Every day they would plan on leaving the next day. Finally, the son got so tired of them living on his driveway he hired a driver to drive them back to where they came from.”
Hawaii Can Wait (The Girls Series) Page 9
