“Mrs. Cooper is ninety-seven years old,” the woman told her. “She chills easily.”
Hazel saw another room, the floor covered in white sheets and splashed with paint. Canvases, stacked several deep, lined the walls.
“Is she a painter?” Hazel asked.
The woman glanced back at her with a smile.
“No, I am the painter. I care for Mrs. Cooper, so she offered me a room to paint while I’m here.”
“You’re not her daughter, then? Or granddaughter?”
The woman shook her head, pushed open a swinging door into a brightly lit kitchen. This room differed from the rest of the house. Sun streaked through tall windows, revealing the tangled woods behind the house.
The kitchen counters were clean, the table empty except for a bowl of fruit.
“I know Miranda,” the woman said, gesturing toward a chair. “And I am Hattie.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. She didn’t say an age. I just assumed…”
The woman nodded.
“I rarely involve myself in such matters.”
“What matters?” Hazel asked.
Hattie let her delicate hands rest on the table. Hazel could see bits of paint in her cuticles.
“The dead. That’s why you’re here, I assume?”
Hazel blinked at her, unnerved by her directness.
“Yes, but…”
“Seeing the dead is a terrible burden. It nearly destroyed my life, and my mother’s as well. My mother vowed to never speak of her gift again. I have been foolish with my own. You see, when the dead appear, there is always a reason. They are persistent. If you allow them, they will consume your life. Their messages will never cease, their appearances never falter. To live a life free of their influence has to be a conscious choice again and again, until they fade.”
Hazel frowned.
“But you could do so much good. People are suffering, searching for their loved ones…”
Hattie smiled.
“And that is why I did not close the door in your face. But I am not as open as I once was. I may not be able to help you.”
Hazel studied the woman’s unlined face, her gentle eyes. If she had to describe her in a word, she’d say angelic.
“Thank you, Hattie.“ Hazel tried to think where to begin. “A woman disappeared in 1973. Her name was Susan, or is Susan, I guess. She is part of a series of women who have vanished. Do you read Up North News?”
Hattie shook her head.
“I don’t read the news, nor do I watch television, other than an occasional movie.”
“Okay, well, six women have disappeared in the last four years. I believe the ghost of one of them has appeared to me. I’ve seen her twice.”
Hattie nodded.
“Do you have something that belonged to her?”
“Yes.”
Hazel pulled out the fake pearl bracelet Liz had given her.
Hattie took the bracelet and held it in her hand. She closed her eyes, lashes fluttering.
“Hattie?” an old woman’s strained voice drifted in.
Hattie opened her eyes, slipped the bracelet over her wrist, and stood.
“I’ll be back soon,” she promised.
Hazel watched her go, her long blonde hair swishing along her narrow waist.
Minutes clicked by, and Hazel grew restless. She wandered from the kitchen, pausing at a closed door when she heard voices.
“There, there, Claudette. Lie back and rest. Oh look, Chester has come to join us. Can you feel him, Claudette? Chester is here with you.”
“Chester?” the old woman croaked. “Oh, my love, my heart. Hattie, ask him to tell you about our trip to Paris in 1921. We stayed at the Hotel d’Angleterre.”
Hattie laughed.
“Chester says you spilled your espresso in the lap of Ernest Hemingway and fell into the Seine.”
When the voices died in the room, Hazel returned to the kitchen. She paused at a window, gazing into the dense yard.
“I’m sorry,” Hattie spoke, startling her.
The woman, as quiet as a ghost, had drifted into the kitchen and stood just behind Hazel.
Hazel managed not to jump, but her heart hammered in her chest.
Hattie handed her the bracelet.
“Susan is filled with purpose,” Hattie said, brow furrowed. “I cannot understand her. I believe she seeks justice, but more so an end to the pain of those who mourn her.”
“She’s dead?”
Hattie nodded. “I’m sorry. A violent death, and there were others.”
Hazel swallowed and drew a scarf from her bag that belonged to Orla.
Hattie eyed the scarf for several seconds, and then took it. She took a big breath in and closed her eyes.
“Nothing,” Hattie said, handing the scarf back.
“Does that mean she’s alive?” Hazel asked, hopeful.
Hattie shook her head.
“It means she’s not available to me. I don’t know if she’s alive.”
“Can you tell me anything, Hattie? Anything about who did this?”
Hattie shook her head.
“He was a stranger to the girl with the bracelet. But she keeps showing me a number: 3-1-1.”
* * *
Abe
Abe sat on a tree stump and stared across the street at the empty field where the boy had found the bike. Elder Park was unremarkable. An open space surrounded by trees, crisscrossed with trails that circled back to the entrance. He’d found a few discarded beer cans and the remnants of an old fire pit. The State of Michigan owned the land, and it was located on the complete opposite side of town from the park Hazel believed Orla had ridden to the day she disappeared.
Could Hazel have been wrong? Maybe Orla had ridden west instead of east. What if they’d been looking in the wrong place all along? But then, there’d been tips, multiple sightings of Orla that Sunday morning on Road 210, the road which led to Birch Park.
As Abe watched, a green pickup truck pulled into the grassy parking lot.
A young man stepped out. Dark hair to his chin concealed much of his face. He wore black pants and a black shirt. He drew a paper sack from the cab and walked to the rear of the truck, folding down the tailgate. He slid onto the back and took a sandwich from his bag. As he chewed, he gazed toward the trees.
Abe studied the man, likely in his mid-twenties with watchful eyes and hunched shoulders. He looked like a loner, the guy in high school who sat alone during lunch, reading a horror novel and avoiding eye contact.
Luke Dixon had described a pickup truck to Deputy Waller - a green pickup truck, with a rusted bumper. An identical truck to the one before him.
Abe waited until the man finished his lunch and climbed behind the wheel.
He squinted toward the back of the truck, writing the license plate number in his notebook. Abe waited several seconds after the truck pulled from the park, and then he followed him. The man turned onto Division and wound back around the bay, taking 131 south. Two turns later, Abe knew where the man was headed: the asylum.
The man parked in an employee parking lot and lumbered toward an entrance tucked into an alcove at the base of the enormous building.
31
Hazel
“Abe just wants a story,” Hazel exploded, after they’d hit another dead end. “Frankly, I’m sick of feeling guilty because he’s running around town like a lunatic. It’s his job, and he has unlimited time to devote to searching.”
Abe had received a tip from a woman convinced that Orla was being forced to work at a topless club in Cadillac. Liz had picked up Hazel, and they’d driven together to Cadillac spotting the woman as she walked in for her shift. She had long black hair, and the resemblance ended there. Her lined face was haggard; her eyes brown, not blue; and when she saw them staring, she flipped them her middle finger.
“Hazel,” Liz said quietly.
Hazel looked at Liz, her face warming as guilt rushed over her.
“I’m sorry,
Liz. I didn’t mean that. I-”
Liz interrupted her.
“Do you know why Abe became a reporter?”
Hazel propped her bag in her lap, digging for her sunglasses.
“No.”
Liz nodded, merging onto the highway.
“It’s not my story to tell, and I probably shouldn’t, but when Abe first started investigating Susan’s disappearance, I had a reaction similar to yours. The man was a journalist, he dredged up painful stories for a living, he exploited people’s suffering. It’s not true, though. Read any of his pieces. He’s a compassionate man, a man driven not by ambition, but justice.”
Hazel bit her lip, embarrassed at her outbursts.
“I think you should know why he does it,” Liz continued. “When Abe was eighteen, the summer after he graduated from high school, his girlfriend, Dawn, vanished.”
Hazel regarded Liz with surprise.
“Vanished?”
“Yes, but it’s more complicated than that. After work, she called him from a pay phone at a convenience store in town to see if he wanted snacks before she drove to his house. During their conversation, a man pulled up. She told Abe the guy gave her the creeps. A minute later, Abe heard her scream. He jumped in his car and raced to the parking lot of the store. The truck passed Abe, and he saw Dawn inside. Abe chased them. He followed the truck on back roads, and then he ran out of gas.”
“He ran out of gas?” Hazel blurted. “Oh my God. And the guy got away?”
Liz nodded.
“They never found her. They released a sketch based on her description from Abe, and the image of the man’s truck, but… nothing. Abe searched for years. I’m sure he’s still searching.”
* * *
They met Abe at his apartment. Coffee mugs littered every surface, coffee mugs and notes, notes with coffee stains.
“I’m sensing a theme here,” Hazel murmured, gathering half-empty mugs and carrying them to the sink.
Liz seemed oblivious to the mess and joined Abe at a desk beneath a corkboard filled with pictures of the missing girls.
“The topless bar was a dead end,” Liz told him.
Abe pulled a Post-It note from the corkboard, crumpled it, and dropped it in the trash.
“I figured as much. I appreciate you both going to check it out.”
“Anything that gets us closer,” Liz said.
Hazel set about washing dishes, ashamed of her outburst in the car with Liz. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, imagining him on a dark street long ago, watching the taillights of a truck disappear.
“What’s this?” Liz asked.
Hazel set the dishes on a towel and moved back to the corkboard.
Liz pointed at a note that read ‘M-22 just past Sapphire Lane’ with several names listed beneath it.
Abe didn’t look at her, but he pulled the note down.
“A few sightings in that area. Lots of false sightings when the article first comes out, that kind of thing.”
Liz nodded and continued browsing his notes, but Hazel saw an expression of guilt cross Abe’s features.
“And this is where the boy found Orla’s bike?” Liz asked, pointing to a map of Birch Park.
“Yeah. I’ve driven out there once, but I’m going to stake it out over the next few days. Dixon saw a pickup truck there the day Orla’s bike showed up.”
“You think it’s connected?” Liz asked.
Hazel sighed and shifted her attention to Abe’s apartment. The space was small, sparsely furnished, and buried in an explosion of paper and books. He devoted one corner of his living room to the missing girls. Corkboards flooded with their images, stacks of flyers on his desk, newspaper clippings about each girl. A couch sat in the center of the room facing a small TV. Otherwise, there were few furnishings.
The scene made Hazel anxious. She wanted to scoop pages up and file them.
She walked to the window and pushed some books aside to sit on the little bay seat extended over the backyard. A flowering dogwood tree dropped a blanket of white petals on the grassy courtyard that edged the parking lot.
Hazel remembered the summer after she met Orla. They drove up Old Michigan Peninsula in the spring and ran through the blossoming cherry trees; lying beneath one and gazing at the opulence of pink petals. The memory caused an ache beneath Hazel’s ribs, and she pressed her head against the window, wondering if she would ever hear Orla’s laugh again.
Liz and Abe seemed right at home in the chaos.
“Have you found any connection between that Spencer guy and the girls? Any evidence that the girls ever met him, knew him somehow?” Liz asked.
“No,” Abe admitted. “But I’m not ready to dismiss him. And I got a tip yesterday morning. A woman vacationing here last summer saw a gold sports car near Platte River, the beach they suspected Rita went to the day she disappeared. Spencer Crow drives a gold Corvette. It’s a very nice car.”
“And a hard car to miss. Is it possible he’s abducting girls in a gold sports car, and no one notices?” Hazel asked.
“A lot of girls would get in a car like that,” Liz murmured, gazing toward the wall of pretty girls.
* * *
After Abe filled them in on a few more tips, Hazel took a walk outside. The apartment seemed to be closing in on her.
They joined her several minutes later.
“I’ve got to get home. I told Jerry I’d pick up Chinese takeout. Can I give you a ride?” she asked Hazel.
“I’ll take her,” Abe said.
Hazel hugged Liz goodbye, and Abe gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
They drove the first few minutes in silence.
When Abe finally spoke, his words surprised Hazel.
“Liz told you about Dawn,” Abe said.
Hazel nodded.
“She wasn’t trying to go behind your back. I got frustrated about the girl at the strip club and vented.”
“About me?”
“You seemed like the easiest target.”
“I get it,” he admitted. “I know that anger. I remember it well.”
“Can you talk about her? Dawn?”
Hazel watched him consider her question.
“I couldn’t for a long time. It’s easier now, in a way. The rawness of it is gone, but I’m not sure you ever move on. Especially when you don’t know, when their fate is a mystery. I met Dawn my sophomore year at Juniper High in Spokane. I was a new kid, still reeling from my parents’ divorce. New city, new house, a new life. I struggled for the first few months, and then I met Dawn.”
“What was she like?”
“Like her name, as corny as that sounds. Light and fresh and always smiling. She played tennis, and ran track, and dreamed of owning a farm and having seven kids.”
“Seven?”
He laughed.
“Yeah. I told her I’d commit to three, and we could reevaluate.”
“You guys were serious, then? A farm and seven kids didn’t scare you off?”
“I’d never given a lot of thought to my future. Once my parents’ marriage fell apart, I lost interest in the future. I worked on the school newspaper. I’d always been into that. She said I would be a novelist. I’d be like Thoreau writing about borrowing an ax from my neighbor so I could chop a tree for firewood. I could pen long, boring novels about tending the pastures and people would love them because it would remind them of simpler days. There was something romantic in her future for us. I fell in love with her dream. I joined the 4-H club and learned about farm animals.” He laughed, as if still astounded by the choices of his younger self.
“It was a lovely dream.”
“Yeah. I saved money to buy a ring. I planned to ask her at Christmas the following winter. We both attended the community college. Her parents owned a big farm, and they’d help us get a piece of land to build a house.”
He stared in puzzlement through the windshield.
“On Saturday, June 11th, 1966, Dawn finished work at Pa
tty’s Ice Cream Shop at nine p.m. She’d planned to come over and watch a movie, but stopped at a pay phone near Daryl’s Convenience Store to ask if she should bring snacks.”
Abe parked on the street in front of Hazel’s house, but neither of them got out.
“A man pulled into the parking lot next to her car. He had a beard and dark glasses on. He spooked her. I told her to ask him if he needed the phone. She asked him. He didn’t respond, but shook his head no, which was weird. He’d parked his truck between the phone booth and her car. She wanted to run to her car, but she felt foolish and also scared. I stood in my kitchen, my mom watching ABC Scope in the other room, and I didn’t realize the magnitude of that moment. I would regret it, sitting there, talking. I could have been to that store in the length of time we talked on the phone.”
Hazel wanted to say something to erase the tormented look on his face.
“Dawn whispered, ‘He’s getting out of the truck,’ and then she screamed and dropped the phone. I yelled her name and bolted. Ran to my car, jumped in, drove like a madman to get to the store, and as I got there, the truck passed me. I saw her inside screaming and fighting with the guy. I whipped my car around and chased them. He drove fast, and I kept trying to pull up beside him, force him off the road, but his truck was faster. I drove an old station wagon. I chased him for miles on back country roads. And then…”
He stopped, his face bone-white at the memory.
“I ran out of gas.” He looked up and stared at Hazel with such confusion. “Remember when I asked you if you believe in fate? I think that was the moment for me, the instant that question became like a looming force in my life. I ran out of gas, and I watched that truck disappear into the night. The headlights smaller and smaller. I had gotten out and started running down the road, panting, screaming. Eventually, I stopped. I had to stop. They were gone, long gone.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the seat, but continued talking.
“I started to walk back to town and, a half-hour later, someone drove by. I flagged them down. They weren’t going to stop. I threw myself in front of their car. Luckily, there was a man and a woman inside. If it had been a single woman, she probably would have sped off scared. They picked me up, and I screamed we had to get to the police. I must have told them the story, though I don’t remember it now. That night, everything that happened after that guy’s taillights vanishing is like a murky nightmare with bits of faces and words all jumbled together. The cops were suspicious. It took hours before they sent someone to look for that truck. They never found it, and they never found Dawn.”
Ashes Beneath Her: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel Page 15