Welcome the Little Children

by Lynda McDaniel

  Tater drove us to Boone in the bus (Duane couldn’t start ‘til the following week), and we got set up in plenty of time before eight o’clock when the dance got in full swing. The weather had turned especially hot and humid, so the doors were wide open, letting in the night air and, as the evening went on, light from the full moon, which added something electric. I couldn’t exactly hear the crickets and katydids sawing away out there, but as I stroked that bass, I felt we were all in harmony, inside and out.

  The deal was we’d play country dance music for a while, and when those mostly young folks needed a break from all that flirting and cavorting, we performed a few bluegrass numbers. That was when I planned to premier my song, at the beginning of that set. Then we’d close the evening with about six more dance numbers, ending with “Dargason,” an English folk tune so grand to dance to I even felt the urge to sashay a bit.

  I always got nervous performing other people’s work, but playing my own was somethin’ else altogether. When I started to introduce it, my voice croaked. I swallowed hard and carried on. “I wrote this song a few weeks ago when my life took a bad turn,” I said. “But these notes brought me some comfort, the way only music can. It’s called ‘My Thorny Irish Rose,’ and I hope you enjoy it.”

  You oncet were my rose

  As bright as the stars

  Then you left me with nothin’

  But a heart filled with scars

  Where oncet you did bloom

  Like light from above

  There’s nothin’ but thorns

  Where oncet there was love

  My thorny Irish rose

  How could we be foes?

  My thorny Irish rose

  Now I’ve nothin’ but woes

  When we started playing, even the dancers, who could be unruly, all hepped up with them hormones, stopped to listen to my melancholy tune. I liked the way it sounded and felt something close to happiness when Gina joined me with her mandolin as I played my bass, deep and mournful.

  Until.

  I looked up and saw Fiona swaying in the fourth row next to some handsome guy with his arm wrapped around her. When I missed a beat or two, Tater gave me a look, and I got back on track. I put my head down and played with all the heart I had left. When I looked up again, Fiona was gone.

  We went right into “Ashes of Love” and a couple more heartbreakers: “I Wonder Where You Are Tonight” and that favorite of mine “Little Cabin Home on the Hill.” I mean, what else could I have played? I nearly lost it during that last one, but I got through it. By the end of that set, I was beat. We took a break.

  Women came up to me, telling me how much they loved my song and my bass playing. But I’d never heard of anyone having a thing for the bass fiddle, except those of us who played it. I knew they were just putting me on.

  It felt like forever, but we finally finished our gig. When they passed the hat, our take was better than usual. I think they liked the new song and everyone’s playing.

  I didn’t say much on the trip home. The rest of the band were all whooping it up, happy about the take and the beer Ed bought before we headed home. I was driving, so I didn’t drink any. Besides, I didn’t feel like it. I preferred looking out at the kind of night the full moon created—strange looking critters and objects flitting past, outlined in silver. And I got a lift from driving the bus. It might have the Rollin’ Ramblers painted on its side now, but it would always be the Rollin’ Store to me, offering me a chance to get out of my life and do something good.

  18

  Della

  “I can’t go back.”

  We’d just finished a late breakfast, and I overheard Alex on the phone. After he’d filed his stories on the L.A. murders, he’d driven back down to Laurel Falls for a little R&R. When he hung up, he told me he’d just refused to go back to L.A. “That O.J. trial—and the busy lead up to it—would take over my life. I don’t want that to happen.”

  I was stunned. I’d never heard him say no to a big story. I recalled how when we were married, I’d begged him to turn down a story now and then so we could travel more or do something fun in D.C. But back then, he wanted stories to take over his life. They were his life.

  We both had the day off, so we puttered around the apartment all morning, doing our own things. Later, Alex pulled together a lunch of prosciutto, baguette, and green salad. We finished up with coffee and late-season strawberries. As we sat there enjoying the simplicity of the meal, Alex said, “You do know I love you, don’t you?”

  He’d never said anything like that before, not even when we were married. I wondered what was going on with him. All the time I’d known him, he’d held everything inside, so I’d had to learn to read his actions. I must have missed some cues. When I faltered, not prepared with a ready answer, he looked stricken. “I do now,” I quickly answered.

  “Please don’t bring that up again,” he said, referring to his wayward years back in D.C. when his ego got the better of him.

  “I’m not, and actually, you brought it up. Obliquely. It’s just that I have a natural, understandable caution. That’s all.”

  “Do you love me?” he asked.

  “I’ve always loved you. Even when I hated you.” I started clearing the table, just to have something to do. And time to think. After a painful, prolonged silence, I suggested we go for a walk. “Seems like ages since we spent time outdoors.”

  As we hiked around and past the falls, nature did its soothing thing and eased our sorrows, at least the ones close to the surface. For two old reporters, it was hard not to talk about his latest story and the Holts’ troubles, but we managed to leave them behind. We listened to birdsong and stopped talking altogether when we chanced upon a small field—a sanctuary, really—filled with yellow lady’s slippers.

  Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder what was bearing down on Alex. His mood lifted some while we were walking, and I looked forward to a nice evening together. Then his work got in the way, after all. A different editor called with a new assignment—this time in D.C., so at least he could sleep at home. That home.

  I was feeling blue about his leaving unexpectedly when the phone rang. Horne asked me to join him the next day for another trip down the road to Chester. The thrill of that search was fading, but I said yes. It was better than the alternative.

  After Alex left the next morning, a sadness took hold like I hadn’t felt in years. Something wasn’t right. When I turned back toward the store, Mary Lou and Horne drove up at the same time, so I didn’t have time to explore what was bothering me.

  “You’re not going to believe it, but the leads keep coming in,” Horne said as we drove south. “Not only do we have the bus driver to interrogate, but some woman says she gave a lady hitchhiker a ride on Thursday—that first day, when Dibble was driving through. When I asked her what took her so long to contact us, she said she’d only just seen the newspaper story. She sounds older than my mother, so unless she’s the Ma Barker type, this could be a solid lead into what went on with Dibble.”

  We got behind every tractor-trailer on the way to Chester, and I asked Horne if he could pull out the bubble light and put it on top of his car. He wouldn’t. Just as well. We managed to arrive in plenty of time to talk with the bus driver who’d recognized Lilah’s picture.

  “You were going to Laurel Falls? You sure of that?” Horne barked at him. There was no need for his tone, but the driver—Wm. J. Fowzer was embroidered on his uniform—could hold his own. He’d likely earned his stripes dealing with rowdy passengers.

  “I believe I still have enough sense to know where I’m headed,” Fowzer said as he ran sausage-like fingers through snow white hair before replacing his driver’s cap. “I remember because she had one of them suitcases on wheels. Harder to squeeze them into the under-coach storage. The wheels get caught on everything.”

  Horne showed him his makeshift mug book, and once again, Lilah had a finger pressing on her face. “But she didn’t look that good, not wi
th all them scratches on her face.”

  “Did that make you question taking her on the bus?”

  “Sheriff, if we held a beauty contest before letting people on our buses, these coaches would be empty, and I’d be out of a job.”

  “So you were headed out to where? Raleigh? New York?” Horne asked.

  “No, that run was just to Roanoke. I remember letting her off in Laurel Falls because I had to tug at that suitcase to get the wheels out of the handle of another suitcase. Just one of those things that sticks in your mind.”

  “And you’re sure this was the Friday in question?”

  “Yes, I know I’m right about that because it was the day before a long weekend I had coming. In my business, you don’t forget breaks like that.”

  When we left the station, Horne surprised me by turning the car around and driving in the direction of the doctor’s office. “I have an idea I want to ask Ms. Lopez about,” he explained.

  He didn’t exactly barge into the office, but he sure looked official. “Why didn’t you tell us Lilah Holt came back for an appointment on Friday?”

  “You didn’t ask,” Ms. Lopez snapped back at him, “and besides …”

  “Patient privacy,” Horne interrupted, removing his hat and wiping sweat from his forehead. “Yeah, I know. Patient privacy.”

  He stormed out, but I could tell he felt good that his hunch had proved right. For some reason, though, when we got back in the car, he didn’t want to talk. “Just read the directions to Flora Pearce’s place,” was all he said. A man on a mission.

  When Ms. Pearce opened the door to her trailer, I agreed with Horne. No way she’d harmed Lilah. She and Aunt Bee could have been sisters.

  “Yes, that’s the woman I took to her doctor’s office,” she said, pointing at the photograph. “But she had scratches on her face. I was so worried about her safety.”

  “Now tell us, did you pick her up on Thursday out near Highway 221?” Horne asked.

  “Yes to Thursday, but no to Highway 221. It was along county road—a shortcut I like to take. Say, you haven’t told me. How is she?”

  “We don’t know. She’s missing.”

  “Goddammit. That poor woman.” Flora stopped to let out a sizeable belch, patted her stomach, and carried on. “She seemed troubled, not just from the bastard truck driver who scared the hell out of her, but from what she told me, that sumbitch husband of hers, too.”

  Well, so much for stereotypes. Horne and I shot looks at each other, and he wrapped up the interview. In spite of her surprising demeanor, Pearce seemed like a reliable witness. Lilah had been scratched up and Dibble didn’t let her out where he’d said. And according to Fowzer, she’d been heading home on the bus on Friday—not Thursday—confirming Ralphine’s statement.

  As we drove back, Horne was swearing as bad as old lady Pearce. I’d barely heard him say as much as damn before, but the case was getting to him. “Goddammit, that just burns my biscuit. I hate it when these idiots don’t tell the truth and waste my time and my gasoline—all of which is really the people’s. They pay the taxes outta their hard-earned money so these bastards can fuck around with me.”

  I let him vent. He deserved it. When we got to his office, he ran inside to call Potash 3K. Bud Maguire told him Dibble was on the road but promised to have Dibble call him back, probably in about an hour.

  It was only two o’clock, so I agreed to wait. We sat around for a while, awkwardly trying to chitchat the way friends do. (We were both working at our new arrangement.) Horne made a fresh pot of coffee, and bad as it was, I gratefully accepted a cup to have something to fiddle with. Finally, the phone rang.

  Horne put it on speaker so I could listen. After he revealed what Fowzer and Pearce had told him, Dibble confessed. “Okay, okay, I didn’t tell you about all that. I knew it wouldn’t sound right.” He paused, getting ready for what he was about to say. “I was running late, and I took a shortcut. When I turned onto a county road, she just freaked out. Screamed at me that I wasn’t going to get a chance to rape her. No siree. That’s how she musta gotten them scratches, because she was never hurt while she was in my truck.” I could almost see Dibble’s Adam’s apple bob as he took a big gulp.

  After few moments passed, Horne had to ask, “Okay, what happened next?”

  “She jumped out while I was driving slow. I called out to her, but she ran in the opposite direction, and I didn’t have anywheres to turn that big truck around.”

  That was pretty much it for the interview. After that, every question Horne threw at him got a simple no sir answer. Horne told Dibble not to leave the state and slammed the phone back in its cradle.

  Horne had to take me back to Laurel Falls, and on the way, I felt so sleepy, I asked him to pull over at the next café; I needed coffee.

  “Didn’t like mine, eh?” he said, but he was smiling. No response necessary. “You know,” he went on, turning the car around, “I think we’re close to this place I overhead some guys talking about. A little espresso bar out in the woods.”

  I looked at him like he was crazy; in these parts, that sounded more like a wild dream that reality. But sure enough, when he turned down a narrow dirt road, a small shack sported a sign for Bottoms Up Coffee. He pulled next to the window to order, and a young woman, who couldn’t have been more than nineteen, kind of blanched when she saw his uniform and cruiser. She quickly recovered and leaned out the little window, flashing a smile and more décolletage than her black bikini top was designed to handle. After she took our order, she asked if we wanted anything extra, and I looked around for a menu of some kind. We’d skipped lunch, and I was starving. I couldn’t find one and said no thanks. When she turned to make our coffees, I noticed her red bikini pants (revealing more flesh than I cared to see) matched the “bottoms up” logo on the side of the building.

  As she made the espressos, I could see Horne taking in the surroundings—small trailers circling the shack, men hanging around, out in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what extras she was selling. “Well, shit. Some other goddam thing I’ll need to investigate,” he hissed.

  When she brought our coffees and leaned out the window again, Horne couldn’t pay fast enough. He was about to pull away when I asked him to stop. The woman’s eyes got big as I held out a twenty dollar bill. “Here’s something extra for you,” I said. When she grabbed the bill, I added, “Maybe you could put it toward some clothes.”

  We rode along silently for several miles after that, just sipping our coffee (which was remarkably good for backwoods espresso). Finally I said, “I guess Ma Barker picked her up after she’d ‘escaped.’” I used air quotes because Horne wasn’t good at picking up on sarcasm.

  “Yeah, seems that way. By the time they got to town, I guess she’d missed her doctor’s appointment and scheduled one for the next day. But where in the hell did she spend the night?”

  I thought about that for a few moments. “Does it matter? I mean we know she was safe the next day when she went to her doctor and rode the bus home. What matters is she came back to Laurel Falls on Friday. Thanks to that much-discussed suitcase and its wheels, I suppose she walked home from our bus stop.”

  “Maybe that Dibble guy’s shortcut scared her enough to return home—if she wasn’t planning to anyway. But she didn’t take any clothes and …” He scratched his head as his words trailed off. His theory wasn’t making much sense.

  “Hard to say what someone that unstable was thinking.”

  Horne nodded. “I knew that husband was hiding something. I’m telling you, husbands lie and cheat better than some hardened criminals I’ve met.”

  I knew that firsthand, but I didn’t want to comment. That had been in my past, right?

  19

  Della

  Horne planned to go straight to the Holts’, but I told him I wanted to stop by home first. I needed to let Jake out and get my own vehicle. Enough togetherness for one day. He agreed, but made me promise I�
�d head out to the cabin; he was worried I’d skip out on him. I had thought about it—but I knew he wanted me along because of the kids. You know, a woman’s touch. He dropped me off at the store and sped toward Hanging Dog.

  Mary Lou joined me while I watched Jake trot around the meadow behind the store. “I had two women asking for mu tea and one who wanted quinoa,” she said, pronouncing it qwin-oo-ah, but then who wouldn’t? “Oh, and something called adzuki beans.”

  “Just ignore them.” I knew that was Shiloh’s doing—the new orders he’d teased me about. “If anyone asks again, tell them we can’t get them. Blame it on the distributors who aren’t willing to deliver this far out.” Mary Lou smiled, looking relieved.

  Jake and I piled into the Jeep and headed back to Hanging Dog. When we parked at the cabin, I had no trouble finding the sheriff; I could hear him arguing with Enoch on the back deck. I looked for the kids, but they were nowhere around, likely stuck in their rooms again.

  “We know she came back home before she disappeared,” Horne shouted. “The poor woman went through hell and high water to get to a doctor’s appointment, trying to get well for you and the kids.” He looked at Enoch with disgust. “Or at least the kids.”

  Enoch’s face contorted as he struggled to find the right words. “Okay,” he finally said, “she did come back. When she got to the house and saw Maddie was here, she got furious. She ranted on and on about that and said she was leaving us. That’s the God’s honest truth. She was shouting so loud, I was afraid the kids would hear her.”