by Kit Frazier
I called Hollis’s office again and got the same response, which drew a more nasty response from me.
“Tanner,” I poked my head into the Cage. “Got a minute?”
Marlowe jumped up from his prone position, a guilty look on his white, fuzzy face. “Settle down, killer,” I told the dog. “I’m an equal opportunity owner.”
The dog turned a circle and settled back at Tanner’s feet, ever alert for a stray biscuit.
“I’m getting nowhere with Hollis. I’m trying to get in to see Josh Lambert, and the old biddy at the desk says Hollis is the only one who can give me access. He hasn’t been there in more than twenty-four hours.”
Sighing dramatically, Tanner pinched the bridge of his nose. “How often do you stay away from the office twenty-four hours?”
He had me there.
He scratched Marlowe beneath his chin. “Where are you on this?”
I told him where I’d been, who I’d questioned, and what they said. I told him about going to Tiffany’s place but left out the part about how we gained access and the illegal acquisition of her BlackBerry.
“Your FBI agent any closer to finding Obregon?” I shook my head.
Tanner sat, nodding, then leaned in for a licorice whip. “You don’t think this Josh Lambert character did it?”
“I think Hollis is hassling him and, in turn, hassling me.” Tanner nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I grinned all the way down to my toes.
Tanner leaned back in his chair, holding the licorice like a cigar. “What are you going to do?” he said.
“I want to talk to Josh and Hollis.” “And in the meantime?”
I smiled. “Keep poking.”
Tanner sighed. “It’s what you do best.”
Back at my desk, I stared at my email inbox. I had three new obituaries to write and nearly zero interest in writing them, which made me feel terrible. Everyone deserves a decent sendoff, and I didn’t know if I could do it.
Three people dead. Three obituaries to write. I thought about that. Three people dead on my to-do list and two who were still alive. Probably.
Faith and Tiffany.
Two young women who’d slipped through the wide gaps in the social net, left to drift in a dangerous sea on their own, some of the danger of their own making.
“Alive or dead,” I said, looking at my to-do list.
There were several things that bothered me, and they all seemed to coincide. Of course, there was the big stuff. Puck dead. Faith missing. Tiffany, who looks like Faith, burned nearly to death in a trailer that belonged to Faith.
It bothered me that Hollis was caught killing small animals when he was a kid. It bothered me how Tiffany and Faith’s homes were decorated so similarly.
It bothered me that Hollis wasn’t around to answer my phone calls. It bothered me that I was spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere.
It really bothered me that Logan was gone and I didn’t know where he was, or if he was in danger…I thought about Selena Obregon. She’s as old as my mother but she’s still a babe and a half. I thought about her getting her long nails into Logan, and a streak of jealousy ripped green up my spine.
At a loss, I called Dr. T.
“You find your girl?” Dr. T said.
“No, and they’ve called off the search. They’ve arrested her childhood sweetheart, and I’m trying to get an appointment to talk to him for a jailhouse interview.”
She was quiet. Not the kind of shrinky quiet that makes you squirm, but the kind of quiet that felt safe, like you could talk about anything.
“I went by Tiffany Parker’s apartment today,” I said, and Dr. T groaned.
“By yourself?”
“No, Mia and the dog came with me.”
She made a noise, signifying her disapproval, but I went on. “Something really bothered me there,” I said. “Both of the girls are dancers, they look alike, and their houses are decorated almost the same not the same stuff, but like a little girl would decorate.”
“An example?” she said.
“Just lots of pinks and toys.”
“I’ve not met either of these women, so this is based only on what you’ve told me and what I’ve read in the news. But the frou-frou girly stuff could be indicative of a number of things.”
I waited, pen poised over pad.
Dr. T went on. “Is there a history of sexual abuse?” she said. “Many times, a trauma can cause a child to sort of stop emotionally developing at the point the abuse started. Or perhaps the young women in question are trying to regain their childhood, trying to rewrite history. Or it could be that they simply have bad taste.
“Well, they’re strippers,” I said, “but I’m trying to keep an open mind.”
“You’d be surprised how many dancers suffered from some kind of childhood abuse. Physical, emotional, or sexual, often by someone in the family or a close friend of the family.”
“You mean like the boyfriend?”
“I’m not saying that’s what’s going on here, but it’s a good place to look,” she said. “Most crimes against women are committed by an acquaintance, a friend, or a family member.”
I sat, thinking about that.
In my silence, Dr. T said, “You sound like you don’t think the boyfriend had anything to do with the disappearance or the fire.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t.”
She was quiet for a moment and then said, “Be careful, Cauley. Family secrets have a way of rattling out of the closet. You open that door, there’s going to be someone who wants it closed.”
“Or someones,” I said, and sighed.
“You hear any more from your stalker from El Patron?” she said. “There’s something that doesn’t make sense about all that. If it really was about me testifying in court, why haven’t they gone after anybody but me?”
“What about the dead guy?”
“Well, him too,” I said. “But there are a string of people lined up to testify, including Mia. None of them have been threatened.”
“Maybe it’s not about the trial,” she said reasonably. “Have you pissed anyone off lately?”
“Not today, but it’s still early.”
She chuckled at that. “Other than the trial, what do you and the Puckett guy have in common?”
I thought about Puck and his tattoos, his beer-drinking, and his redneck ways, and said, “Nothing. I don’t think we have anything in common.”
She was quiet, and then it hit me.
“Faith,” I said. We were both looking out for Faith.
Chapter Thirty
I settled in and wrote the obituaries, waiting to be struck with a stroke of genius. I waited a long time.
Marlowe was in the Cage with Tanner, who seemed considerably perkier in the company of the dog, even though it appeared the dog’s main job was to lie on his back, feet sticking up, tongue lolling out.
I’d called Hollis and huge surprise he wasn’t available.
Leaning back in my chair, I had spread out the contents of my files, tapping my pen to my lips, when my gaze fell on the small paper program from Puck’s funeral.
It was an expensive program, on good stationery and embossed with New Hope Church inscribed over an angel collapsed on a gravestone, her hand thrown over her head in grief. I thought about that preacher and his words of discomfort. Not for the first time, I wondered why Kimmie Ray sent Faith away to school and gave her son the boot not six months before Old Man Ainsworth died. I thought about the timeline.
Faith was thirteen when she left. It was about the time that Puck began his “internship” with El Patron. He would have been seventeen or eighteen.
I placed the photos I’d gathered into a timeline. Lined up in order, they showed a slow progression from a beautiful young woman into something meant to frighten and repel.
I wondered if that single act of sending Faith to the school had set off this chain of events caused Puck to turn to El Patron for money and
freedom, caused Faith to begin mutilating herself. I wondered if old man Ainsworth had anything to do with it.
I did a search on Cullen Ainsworth II and found what Pilar had already told me: that he was a bazillionaire land baron who made the bulk of his fortune from coal and oil. I also found that the first Mrs. Cullen Ainsworth II died seven years ago, and that Kimmie Ray became the second Mrs. Cullen Ainsworth six years ago. Faith was sent away the following year.
Now Puck was dead and Faith was missing. And the trouble seemed to start around the time Faith turned thirteen and was sent away to school.
A lot seemed to hinge on that period of time.
“I’ll be back,” I called to Tanner as I folded the program and stuffed it into my purse. I summoned Marlowe out from under Tanner’s feet. The dog got up, checked the floor for stray treats, then trotted out, happy to see the leash.
“Well,” I told Marlowe. “We haven’t found Faith. Want to see if we can scare up some hope?”
I’d Googled New Hope Girls’ Ranch and found that it was between Bates and Sugar Creek on a deserted stretch of County Road 963 that was literally in the middle of nowhere. Rocky limestone cliffs morphed into rocky marble and granite cliffs, and the altitude made my ears pop.
Marlowe sat in the passenger seat, the tip of his tongue sticking out, eyes dead ahead on the road.
The girls’ ranch itself was a tidy, well-kept spread of land contained by an expensive, ten-foot-tall deer fence. Two rough granite pillars flanked the long asphalt drive, with an arching sign connecting them that announced, “Entering New Hope: All are welcome.”
I looked over at Marlowe as we came to a stop. “I guess we’re about to see if all really are welcome.”
As we motored down the smooth, paved road, I wondered what I would say to the preacher. I could lie and say I had a little sister in need of some spiritual guidance and hope God didn’t strike me dead for lying. Or I could tell the truth and hope New Hope wasn’t code for “shoot on sight.”
I looked up at the forbidding fence and thought of some of the wack-job zealots whose motto was “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” Probably I’d rather lie to the preacher and leave my fate to the Almighty than risk it with Brother Bob.
The buildings were laid out the same way that some of the church camps I’d spent summers in were limestone and cedar, with a main lodge for meetings and dining, cabins for dorms, an outdoor tabernacle made of a cement slab, four metal pillars, and a metal roof, along with eight outbuildings for classes and dorms. To the left of the lodge, a half dozen girls dressed in jeans and denim shirts were on hands and knees weeding a kitchen garden. To the right, about twenty girls dressed the same way were stacking bricks and logs, probably for another building.
I sat in the Jeep outside the main lodge for a moment, conjuring the scents of campfires and s’mores and bubblegum and the sweet smell of the lake.
There were no sweet smells here. New Hope smelled like hot asphalt, old hymnals, and hard work.
I climbed out of the Jeep and knocked on rough-hewn double doors.
The hinges creaked, and a tall, strong-looking woman in her late thirties, with a long ponytail of hair the color of good cinnamon, appeared on the other side of the door. She looked at me expectantly.
“My name is Cauley MacKinnon. I’d like some information on the school,” I said, smiling my innocent smile. Trustworthy. Dependable. Lying through my teeth. “My mother and father passed away recently, and my little sister is…in need of a more structured life.”
The woman considered me for a moment. She wore blue jeans and a denim shirt similar to the ones the girls outside wore. Her fingers were long and callused, and in her hands was a pair of knitting needles and a shapeless, pink something or other she’d been working on.
She didn’t say anything.
Instead, she reached for Marlowe, palm down. Marlowe sniffed it and gave her a lap. Sighing, she opened the enormous door and ushered me in.
The lodge was cavernous, the floor stained concrete, with a cafeteria-style kitchen on one end, an elevated stage with a piano and podium and doors that led to offices at the other. Straight across, a large marble and granite fireplace loomed in the cedar.
The woman padded across the concrete, and Marlowe and I followed her, the scents of recently devoured hotdogs and grape Kool-Aid drifting in the strange silence.
The office was small but cozy, with a plump mauve sofa, soft ivory throw rugs, and a small cherry desk. A pink plastic plaque read Charlotte Fisher, Ph.D. in front of a hulking, whirring Jurassic computer. Melting ice floated in a Dixie cup of grape Kool-Aid near the telephone. A window overlooking the garden and a large, pink lace embroidered cross presided over the room
She sat behind her desk and went back to her knitting. I chose the overstuffed brocade Queen Anne in front of the desk. She reached into a jar atop a file cabinet and gave Marlowe a peanut butter cookie.
She didn’t offer me a cookie.
I cleared my throat. “As I was saying…I’ve heard such wonderful things about this school and have a few questions before I pursue it for my sister.”
Without looking up from her knitting, she said, “Ms. MacKinnon, what are you doing here?”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
She put her knitting aside and stared at me. Then she pulled out the top drawer in her desk and produced one of the “missing” flyers Mia and Ethan had put together.
From her flyer, Faith’s face stared back at me. “I saw you make the announcement on the news. We’ve been rotating teams of girls and staff members to volunteer for the search. We baked cookies, made casseroles, and bussed teams out to the search site until they called it off.”
I did a mental head slap. The white bus of church kids at the search site.
I didn’t know what to say. I’d just lied to her and dissed her by not recognizing her and her “girls” from the search site what could I say?
“I keep track of my girls, Ms. MacKinnon. I’ve been worried about Faith since she got here.”
“But,” I said, “I…at her brother’s funeral…the minister didn’t mention anything about Faith or searching for her…”
“Ah,” she tutted. “You met Brother Bob. Brother Bob is what we refer to in psychiatric circles as an ass.”
Guilt nipped at me with sharp little teeth. “Ms. Fisher, I’m sorry, I…”
She leaned across her desk and offered her hand. “The girls here call me Llina.”
I raised my brows.
“Short for Gallina,” she said.
I smiled at that. “They call you the Hen?” I said, rising to shake her hand.
She chuckled. “I suppose I am a bit of a hen.”
She reached into the file cabinet beside her and came out with a Dixie cup. She poured me some Kool-Aid. Marlowe finished his cookie and trotted over to the desk and laid his head in Llina’s lap.
“I saw that the sheriff ‘s department made an arrest. Are you any closer to finding her?’
I sighed. “I don’t know. I figure if I keep pulling at threads, something’s bound to unravel.”
“And I was the next thread on your list?”
“Well, Brother Bob was, but I like you better.”
She smiled. It was a nice smile, an earnest smile, with straight, white teeth and crinkles around her eyes. “We’re a tough school and we expect a lot of our girls. We usually get what we expect.”
I accepted the Kool-Aid and took a drink. It was sweet and cold and felt like a million summer days. She offered Marlowe another cookie, which he happily took to the sofa. Marlowe would sell my soul for peanut butter.
“Our girls are required to apply for college or technical school by their junior year. Faith refused. Said she’d never make it that far. I thought it was because she was going to pursue her music.”
I nodded, listening to the pain-filled undercurrent in her voice.
“For the past six years, we’ve been losing one or two girls, but
the majority of our girls stay in touch and go on to live good, solid lives. We’re like a family they never had.”
“And Faith?”
“I tried to steer her toward colleges with strong music programs, but it was like she couldn’t see past the ranch here at New Hope.”
I sipped some Kool-Aid. “You think she was suicidal?”
Llina shook her head. “I don’t know. The hair pulling and piercings started about a year and a half ago. I believe it’s a form of cutting.”
I nodded. “I’m familiar with the syndrome. Did something happen? Any kind of trauma that might trigger the behavior?”
“Not that I know of. She never mingled with the other girls. Considered herself other than. Like she didn’t belong.”
I nodded. While I had lots of friends in school, I always felt other than.
“Did she have any friends? Did anybody ever come visit?”
“Her brother came once a week. Her stepbrother came about once a month to check on the endowment.”
Something inside me went very still. “Tres? Tres Ainsworth came to visit?”
“The Ainsworths began endowing the school with a sizable donation about ten years ago,” she said. “I supposed he was checking on his family’s investment.”
“Do you know when he came up with the idea to produce a CD for her?”
“On her seventeenth birthday. The studio was a surprise birthday present. The staff was thrilled for her, but that’s when she started the hair pulling.”
“A recording studio for her birthday?” I said. “That’s a pretty big present.”
Llina set her Kool-Aid down, and her face tightened around her cheekbones.
“Six months ago, Wylie bought her a little used trailer house at the edge of the Puckett family farm.” She shook her head. “I had misgivings. A seventeen-year-old girl is ill-equipped to deal with this world on her own. But she said she was ready to start her music career.”
She sat back in her chair and looked out a window, where the group of girls were still tending the garden. “You know, that brother of hers was all she had.”
“And her mother?”
She made a derisive noise. “Her mother is ill-equipped to handle the world too. I think that woman had ideas how her life was going to be when she married Cullen Ainsworth. She spent her entire life thinking if she just had enough money, if she just had a nice house in a good neighborhood, her life would be perfect.”
