Missing Girls- In Truth Is Justice

by Larry Crane

  “So, the Mellon thing is a go?” she asked.

  “Well. I wouldn’t go that far. It went better than Copperthwaite, but Pittsburgh’s not Chicago, is it?”

  “See you in the morning. Flight 5467. Eleven a.m.?”

  “Righto,” Gavin said. God, that felt cold, he thought.

  He leaned back into the pillows, and savored the buzz from the Dewars. Even before Hannah went missing, Marcella lived mainly for the children. She did have her projects. They ate breakfast and dinner and slept together, but the essence of their lives, their interests, played out separately. From her standpoint, the more separate the better it seemed. Brett and Celia were out of the house most of the time. Hannah was the solder that kept the seams of the marriage from bursting.

  Then the disaster hit and that maternal instinct came out in spades. She was the one who was responsible for them after all—the mother—they came from her body—she’d suckled them and had been the one they came to first with every little hurt. It was inconceivable that she would move away from their home as long as there was any chance at all that Hannah would come back looking for them. She would rather die than move away. She couldn’t say it any clearer. So, when he went on and on with all the reasons why they should move, shoving it down her throat, she always turned away. That had to change.

  On the TV screen, the camera slowly zoomed from a panorama of the savanna to a close-up of the male lion on a knoll surveying his territory. He heard a far-off challenge and returned it full-out.

  Chapter 8

  The first Wednesday in January, Gavin took a day off, and they packed the car with clothes, books, lamps, and a typewriter, and drove Celia six hours to Carleton for the start of the winter term.

  At the beginning of February, Gavin flew to New York for a second interview with Citizens First Bank. After dropping him at O’Hare, Marcella didn’t go home. Instead, she drove straight through to Northfield with a stop for gas and a sandwich in Madison, Wisconsin. It was well after five in the afternoon when she got a room at Archer House and called Celia at her dorm. “Meet me at The Cave?” she asked.

  “The Cave’s too noisy, Mom,” Celia said. “How about The Rueb, instead”

  “Okay. What’s The Rueb?" Marcella asked. “Where is it?”

  “It’s just down the street from where you are. Ask around. The Rueb ‘N’ Stein. Go upstairs. I’ll see you there,” Celia said.

  It was a student hangout upstairs, a bar. The music was deafening even at this hour. Celia rushed up to her as she pushed in and looked around.

  “Christ. The Cave is too noisy?” Marcella said, laughing. That’s a funny face she’s making, she thought. What’s this? She’s never seen you laugh before?

  They hugged. Celia’s face was open and expressive, so different from the slightly terrified look on her face of a month ago when they’d left her to her Carleton dorm roommate and a swarm of future friends.

  “Ma, The Cave’s so yesterday,” Celia screamed above the music.

  “What does that mean? Never mind, I know. So, tell me how it’s going so far.”

  “I love it. I absolutely love it.”

  “Good,” Marcella said. “The classes are good?”

  “Everything’s good, Mom. What happened?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. Everything’s good.”

  “Oh, good. Listen to this. It’s so funny. I got my new lamp delivered by UPS and it had a ton of packing peanuts in it. I put the box into recycling, but then I walked into the common and found all the peanuts converted into sand for a fake beach. Towels were all over the floor for sunbathing and there was a volleyball net. The gang was wearing swimsuits. There was even an ocean we could dip our feet into, and cut out pictures of waves taped to the windows. A Minnesota winter is not going to stop us from having a beach party!”

  “Oh, that is funny. Wonderful. You’re having fun, then, Cel’?”

  “It couldn’t be better.”

  “I knew you would. I did. I’m so happy for you.”

  “What happened, Mom?”

  “Nothing. Tell me more.”

  “Well, I’m loving American Lit and hating Ed Psych.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s all about groups and stuff. You can pick out the leaders in a group just by doing a popularity contest,” Celia said. “You must be starving. Let’s ditch this joint and go downstairs.”

  Celia pulled her through the crowded room. The din subsided as they descended to a small traditional restaurant setup. At a small table for two, Celia lit up a cigarette. She quickly ordered without looking at the menu: two Philly cheesesteak sandwiches with fried onions and mayo, a Mountain Dew for herself, and a fat mug of Guinness for Marcella.

  So. A mug of stout for your mother, and parting your hair down the middle now, Marcella thought. Straight down the sides of her face. Looks a little like David Cassidy. Well, it is unisex. She’s better looking than David Cassidy.

  Celia wore a peasant skirt and a long sleeved cardigan. She brought the cigarette to her lips, inhaled, and directed the smoke up and away, batting at lingering remnants of smoke to keep them from invading Marcella’s space.

  “Picked up a couple of habits, eh?” Marcella said.

  “You knew I would. You told me I would.”

  “I told you that so you wouldn’t,” she said.

  “Well, the strategy backfired.”

  “Are you drinking coffee now too?”

  “Of course,” Celia said. “Don’t ask me what else I’m doing.”

  “What else are you doing?” Marcella asked.

  Celia mashed her cigarette into the little glass ashtray, picked up her sandwich with both hands, took an enormous bite out of it, and smiled at Marcella. “I’m not telling,” she said. A trail of mayonnaise worked its way out of the corner of her mouth, and Celia put her tongue to it, but left a splotch. She snagged Marcella’s beer, looked around to see if anyone was looking, and took a taste, then another.

  Marcella let her sandwich lay untouched on the plate. She reached for Celia’s pack of Salems, shook one out, and lit it with Celia’s Zippo lighter. She didn’t inhale. It would only set her head spinning. She took in little sips of smoke and immediately pushed them back out again. Held up the cigarette inexpertly between her thumb and forefinger. It was something she used to do when she and Gavin sat together, and she was feeling strong and assertive. Celia and she sat opposite each other without talking, taking up their sandwich for a bite and setting it back onto the plate again, staring into each other’s eyes, and taking in sips of the Guinness. Marcella flicked at the spot on her own face where the splotch of mayo still clung to Celia’s.

  “Have you told anyone up here?”

  “No.”

  “I think that’s wise,” Marcella said. “It would change everything for you.”

  “It’s too heavy to lay on somebody who barely knows you,” Celia said.

  “Your dad wants to move.”

  “What? Move? Where?”

  “Somewhere other than where we are.”

  “Where?”

  “We don’t know where yet.”

  “We?” Celia asked.

  “I told him I wouldn’t go, but now I don’t know.”

  “Why does he want to move?” Celia asked, rubbing hard where the blotch of mayo used to be.

  “Because,” Marcella said.

  “Because what?”

  “Because we’re dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Dad’s word. It’s not your worry.”

  “Dead why?” Celia said.

  “Because people don’t know what to say to us. They don’t know what to say. And I don’t either.”

  “All right, that’s it. I’m coming back home. I left you. I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “No. You’re staying here. Your father’s right.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “It’s true. The troubles are too heavy and can ruin everything, so it’s best to keep them
inside. I can see that now.”

  “Why do I feel guilty?” Celia said.

  “I did that to you.”

  “No you didn’t,” Celia said. “It’s all me. I told myself and Hannah I’d never stop thinking of her. Then I did.”

  “Don’t torture yourself. Keep it inside as long as you can. Listen, I need to rest. Is breakfast tomorrow morning okay?”

  “Yes. Breakfast. At The Cave?” Celia asked.

  “It’s not too noisy?” Marcella said. “Okay, then. The Cave it is.”

  “Mom,” Celia said. “It’s not just an excuse, is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you and Dad okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “You sure? It’s been a tremendous strain. The two of you are strung out so tight. Is it just a way for Dad to get some distance?”

  “Do you know something I don’t? Why would he want distance?” Marcella asked, turning back to look straight into Celia’s eyes.

  “I’ve just been thinking, that’s all,” Celia said.

  “Now, you can’t just let that lay there like a trout. What have you been thinking?”

  “Well, you’ve been pressing.”

  “You and your dad have been discussing me, and have decided that I’ve been pressing? Is that it?”

  “Sort of. All the stuff about getting out from under.”

  “Now you’ve got me. Getting out from under? What’s that? It sounds like Gavin.”

  “He wants to bail and you want to stay,” Celia said.

  “Wow. I wouldn’t think he’d put it that way—that he wants to bail. Does he really want to bail?”

  “Mom. He wants to face up. To go on. If Hannah’s gone from us, we have to go on somehow. At least, take step one.”

  “Why does he talk about these things to you and not me?

  “Because he can’t. You would accuse him.”

  “Accuse him? Of what?

  “Betrayal, Mom.”

  Marcella’s breath caught in her throat. “Oh! Okay. I see. Thank you. Thank you, honey. See you in the morning,” Marcella said.

  She worked her way through the tables leaving the tab for Celia to pay, her eyes full of tears. She stopped to look back at Celia. She was still sitting at the table on the other side of the room looking at her. Celia waved, and she waved back, and hurried outside.

  “Wait!” she heard behind her. Celia was breathless. “Mom, I don’t know what I was thinking. Forget The Cave. I’ll come over to Archer tomorrow morning for breakfast. Eight o’clock. My first class isn’t until 9:20.”

  “Okay. Got it,” she said.

  “Oh, and Mom, I got this in the mail,” Celia said.

  She dug in her purse and came up with a small envelope, the kind a person might get from someone thanking them for something in a sentence or two.

  “I don’t know what to make of it. It’s a mystery. Read it and tell me what you think.”

  “Who sent it? A boy? What does it say?”

  “Just read it,” Celia said, as she turned and folded into the crowd.

  The Cave was where she’d hung out back in the war years when she was going to Carleton. Gavin had left school to join the Army and was training or something in England and would go into France as a replacement in 1944. She’d faithfully sent off letters to him and scrutinized the papers for any news about the fighting, and packed up boxes of toothpaste and soap and Lucky Strikes and Baby Ruth candy bars for him. Now there was another war, another time altogether. Actually, she would have liked breakfast in The Cave, just for old time’s sake.

  It was a short walk along the river from The Rueb to Archer House. The Rueb didn’t exist when she was there. It was The Corner Tavern then, and she was too young to go in. Soon Archer loomed just down the block. It was where she had met up with her parents when they came up to take her home after her freshman year—a huge red brick three-story building a full block long, white veranda all across the front, from another era, but she never wanted it to go away.

  It was warm and safe inside. Marcella climbed the stairs to the second floor. She felt a little weak going up the stairs beside the stamped-tin ceiling and elaborate plaster corner molding of the lobby. She kicked off her shoes and sat on the queen-size bed and looked at herself in the mirror on the opposite wall.

  Oh shit, she thought. Should’ve done something with the stupid bangs effect. It’s the silly thing with the hair falling left to right on my forehead like that. Is it betrayal to look at myself in the mirror—to obsess over how I look? Is everything betrayal if it’s not yearning for word of Hannah? Questions. Questions. No answers.

  In bed at the Archer in Northfield, she saw the white disk on the ceiling again, and the pulsing amoeba-like speck. She saw a laughing Celia at a table across from her, wearing the new peasant dress, her hair parted down the middle. And then the laughing face across from her became Hannah’s solemn face.

  She awoke early in the morning, had a quick bite to eat and left Northfield. She left a note at the front desk:

  Celia,

  Sorry, honey. I had to leave town early. Need to pick up Dad at O’Hare at two. You look fabulous. You’re doing everything right. You’re the best daughter and best sister anyone ever had.

  Love, Mom

  Chapter 9

  At the beginning of March, they met with private investigator Rathskeller in his office to get a face-to-face update on his findings. Marcella picked Gavin up at the railroad station at the end of the day, and they drove to LaGrange. It was dark by the time they reached his office. They climbed the clanging metal stairs to the second floor. They took a seat facing the oval window at Rathskeller’s back.

  “I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the case as it stands at the moment,” he said, settling into his leather chair. “The tangible results are pretty slim and don’t reflect the shoe leather I’ve gone through. As usual in the investigations I get involved in, the police have pretty much covered the waterfront before I take step one.”

  “Chief Nickerson has kept us up-to-date with various leads they are tracking,” Gavin said.

  “Typically, leads keep trickling in as late as a year after a disappearance like Hannah’s. My focus is to try to work the minute details of the scene. At the time she went missing, the whole area was buzzing with activity, kids walking to school, men going to work, mothers driving their kids, shopkeepers opening up. Just lots and lots of activity and nobody is sitting around observing everything that’s happening.”

  “Except somebody bent on snatching our child off the street,” Marcella said. “It’s got to be very hard to sort it all out.”

  “It’s talking to a lot of people and listening carefully to what they’re saying. Sometimes the smallest detail is the key to figuring out what happened. You’re aware of the report of a white van parked in town. A window glass installer from Berwyn. That was the shopkeeper just throwing that out for whatever it was worth. He didn’t think it had any importance at all.”

  “Is it still alive?” Gavin asked.

  “No. The guy showed up finally to deliver the glass panel. The shopkeeper told him about the report he made, so he went over to the police station and told them the whole story, gave them his name and everything. It’s pretty much dead as a lead anymore. But it could have been big.”

  “That’s depressing,” Marcella said.

  “It is unless you look at it strategically. At this point, certain things have moved forward as real possibilities, and others have mostly disappeared. It’s pretty clear that Hannah did not run away or voluntarily go away with someone. I know you think she would have no reason to do that, but I have to say that parents are not always the most knowledgeable about their own children. You just don’t know. Even at her age. If she had gone off with someone she knows we would already have traced her to one of the relatives or a friend that you’ve identified for us. We’ve exhausted that list. I believe Hannah is being held by someone. She is not dead.
Sorry to be so blunt, but at this point, I think you appreciate bluntness. It may take a long time, but a break in the case is often just a lead away, just one.”

  “You know she’s alive? How?” Gavin asked.

  Rathskeller was not a bashful man. He thoroughly enjoyed his work. He especially liked talking about how he worked a case.

  “Of course, you know that murdered people are found all the time—by the side of roads and highways, under a pile of leaves deep in the woods, floating, in dumpsters… But, finding a body is a rarity in the extreme. I stick with the numbers. The bodies of missing children turn up within a couple of months in over 90 percent of cases. We are well beyond that time parameter. It’s because the person who grabs the child lives in the same general area. They intend to kill at the outset, and they need to dispose of the body quickly, and most of the time they do a poor job of concealment. Abducted children not killed immediately or held for ransom are valued by the person who took them. They want to hold on to them as if they are their own. They think the child will just get used to them—rarely the case. They often threaten to kill the parents or siblings of the child if they try to escape. The numbers don’t lie.

  “Have you gotten any leads you can tell us about?” Gavin asked.

  “They’re crazy sometimes. I develop leads by talking to people and leaving my card with them. They call sometimes when they think of something. They’re all well-meaning. I talked to all the custodians at the school, for instance. One of them, an older woman told me to take a close look at one of the ladies serving hot lunch. She’d been suspicious of her because she saw her giving extra dessert to one of the fourth grade girls. She was sure the girl was Hannah. See what I mean about crazy?”

  “Oh my god,” Marcella said.

  “A crossing guard is another one. This guy, a retiree making a few extra bucks as a guard, said he saw this guy running all over the neighborhood delivering new telephone books to all the houses. He would drive down a street and stop, grab a bunch of books and deliver one to each house, just drop it on the porch steps. The guard thought this delivery guy was too friendly to be true. Too happy. Too helpful. I caught up with the guy on the other side of town still delivering phone books. Gave him my card. He seemed normal enough to me, but I still ran a check on him.”