by Willow Rose
Quite the burden for such young children.
43
May 2016
“When I found you, you were sitting down at the dock. There’s a tunnel there, did you come through that tunnel?”
Betsy Sue nodded.
“So that’s why you smelled the ocean from the house. But when I came to you, you had been out for quite some time and you wanted to go back, am I right?”
Betsy Sue nodded again. “But I couldn’t.”
“You say you couldn’t get back. Why? Did you try to go back through the tunnel?”
“It was blocked. Rocks blocked my way.”
“Did you see the body?” I asked. “‘Cause I was just in that tunnel earlier tonight and we found a dead body, maybe more than one. Did you see that?”
“Sure.”
I was amazed at her indifference to the brutal sight. “Did it scare you?”
“I knew they were down there,” she said. “That’s where they all go. Bibby Libby was the last one.”
So Bibby Libby was the body I found.
“So the tunnels are where the doctor puts the dead bodies when he kills them?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Just like they had been used back in the days to hide the many dead people when the yellow fever killed thousands in Savannah. They hid the bodies there to not create panic. Apparently, this doctor had found good use for them again.
“So, you couldn’t get back through the tunnel even though you tried, am I right?” I asked.
“That’s what I said. Are you going to play or not? Billy needs a card.”
“All right,” I said and gave Billy a card. He won again, naturally, and Betsy Sue started to yawn.
“I think maybe we should continue our game tomorrow,” I said, even though I desperately wanted to keep talking with her. I doubted we would be able to keep her with us, and feared they would come for her in the morning. I wondered if I should call Bellini and tell her we had the child, but then decided not to. It was wrong, but sometimes you do things because you have to, not because they’re right. And right now I believed that Betsy Sue was my ticket to finding Tyler and this was our only chance.
There was a sofa that could be folded out to a twin bed in the room that I helped her get into. I tucked her in under the blanket and gave her Tyler’s teddy bear to hug.
“Billy wants to know if he can play with us again tomorrow,” she said with her eyes half closed.
“Of course he can,” I said just before she dozed off. I snuck out and closed the door behind me. Shannon was waiting in the living room.
“So? What did she say?”
“She did escape through that tunnel, like I thought. The one down by the harbor where we found the bodies tonight. But she couldn’t get back through it again. Something must have happened,” I said.
I grabbed my laptop and started searching for maps of the tunnels of Savannah. Videos of people walking in some of the tunnels came up, so did a lot of webpages writing about it, but there were no maps. According to one webpage, the tunnels remained a mystery even to the residents.
During one of the outbreaks, over five thousand people died due to Yellow Fever. The doctors would take the bodies of people who died into the bottom room in the hospital, then smuggle the bodies into the tunnels late at night and take them to the ship, where they were dumped at sea.
I googled earthquake in Savannah, but found only old stories of earthquakes shaking the city a hundred and twenty-five years ago, and then another in the early nineteen-hundreds.
I scrolled further down, and then found something else. An article from the day before. It told the story of how the restoration of a building in downtown Savannah had led to its collapse on Saturday evening. Neighbors said it sounded and felt like an earthquake. Luckily, no one was in the building at the time, but the collapse had caused a break of the main waterline and flooded a few basements in the neighborhood.
I looked up at Shannon. “It collapsed. The tunnel collapsed,” I said. “That’s why she couldn’t get back.”
“What are you talking about?” Shannon asked.
“There was an accident. Saturday night. When the building collapsed, it must have blocked off the tunnel and the water washed out the body from its hiding place in the tunnels. That’s why there was water in the tunnel.”
“That could explain why she couldn’t get back, but how does that help us?” Shannon asked, looking tiredly at me.
“The house that collapsed must be close to the house we’re looking for,” I said. “It must be in the same neighborhood.”
44
December 1990
Later that evening, they all had dinner in the dining room. Kimberly served roasted duck with parsley potatoes. Joseph came in last. He had left his cigar in the basement, but still reeked of smoke.
“Why are we eating in here?” he asked and stopped at the end of the table. “Is that duck?”
“Sit down, dear,” Kimberly said.
“What’s going on here?” Joseph asked, puzzled. “You never make duck. We never eat in here.”
“Things change. People change,” she said. “Now, please, sit down and join your family for dinner.”
Joseph sat down. He took some potatoes and some gravy on his plate and Kimberly served him a piece of duck.
“This is really good, Mom,” Rosa said and ate from her duck thigh.
“Elbows off the table, dear,” Kimberly corrected her.
“What?” Rosa asked.
“Use your manners, dear. No elbows on the table. You know that.”
“You never told me that before.”
“Well, I am now.” Kimberly smiled and poked Rosa’s elbow off the table. “Now, guess where I went today?”
“You went to the store,” Rosa said. “Twice.”
“And I met that nice Mrs. Thomas on my way back the first time,” Kimberly said.
“She’s not nice,” Rosa said skeptically. “She’s creepy.”
“Whatever. But she told me we had a room upstairs that I had no knowledge of. You know that door that has been locked since we moved in, that we believed was a cabinet? Well, as it turns out, there is a room behind it. Mrs. Thomas told me not to open it, but I did, and I found the cutest little room. I was thinking we could make it my sewing room.”
“You opened the door?” Rosa asked, as her jaw dropped.
“Yes, dear. There was nothing but a chair in there.”
Rosa dropped her fork. It made a loud noise as it hit the plate. “You do know what that chair was used for, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t. I don’t think I care either.”
“I would like to hear it,” Joseph said with a grin. He drank from his bourbon that he had brought with him from the basement. His hair was slicked back using gel. It made him look very different.
“All right,” Rosa said, while her mother rolled her eyes. “The story goes that this house was built for a general in eighteen sixty-five. Across the street from here, on the other side of the square, lived a young boy that the general’s daughter loved to play with. Her father disapproved of their friendship, but the girl kept running across the street to be with him. Legend says that General Milton punished his daughter by putting her in a chair in the room upstairs, placing the chair by the window, and tying her to the chair. She could see her best friend playing outside and she could do nothing but sit and watch.
After days of sitting in such a humiliating position, the little girl died of heat stroke and dehydration. They had no air conditioning back then and the house could get stiflingly hot. It is said that you can still catch a glimpse of the girl up there from time to time, especially at night, where she sits looking out the window.”
Kimberly stared at her daughter. Joseph had stopped chewing and was looking at her with his eyes and mouth wide open.
Kimberly was the first to burst into laughter. Joseph soon followed along.
“Where do you hear these stories?” she
said, once the laughter had subsided and she had wiped away her tears.
“This one I read in the book I found in the attic,” she said, grabbed her plate, and got up from her chair. “May I be excused?”
45
May 2016
“The girl has been identified.”
Detective Bellini called me the next morning while I was in the middle of breakfast with my family and Betsy Sue. The past many hours had passed in a haze of frustration for Shannon and I. The kids were excited to see Betsy Sue again and they were teaching her how to play Minecraft on the iPad. Betsy Sue, who said she had never seen an iPad before, took a quick liking to it, and was soon as involved in the game as the rest of them.
“So, who is she?” I asked and walked out of the kitchen. “Her name is Luanne Johnson. We had her in the database, DNA and everything. She disappeared twelve years ago. She was taken from a house downtown where she was sleeping by an open window. Police believed a homeless mentally ill person had taken her. Someone said they saw a person in a long torn coat and beanie by the window on the day the kid was taken.”
“So, she was just an infant?”
“Three months old.”
Just like Tyler.
“Case was never solved,” Bellini continued. “We have notified the parents. The problem is, where the heck has she been for twelve years?”
“With the doctor,” I mumbled, thinking a pattern was beginning to take shape, and it didn’t involve any kids being stolen when they were five years old.
“I’m beginning to think your little theory is holding water,” Bellini said.
“I think you might want to look into who else has gone missing as infants from Savannah. That might help you with the identification of the other remains we found,” I said.
Bellini sighed deeply. “This is getting messier and messier every day. And, get this. Hawthorne called us this morning. Betsy Sue is missing again.”
“Really?” I said, wondering if she would fall for my little act. I had never been good at lying.
“I’m guessing she’s not at your house,” she continued. “Hawthorne suggested she was, but I assured him you would have called me and that she wouldn’t be able to get past all the reporters at your door without being seen.”
I laughed. It wasn’t funny, but I needed to ease up my own tension. I was getting in way too deep here. But I wasn’t ready to hand over the girl yet. I had a feeling she could help me today. I had to at least try. For Tyler’s sake. “No, that wouldn’t be possible.”
“All right. I guess I’ll be looking for her today. The Hawthornes are pissed. If you ask me, it looked mostly like the girl ran off. There were no signs of intrusion anywhere when I checked the house. They told me Shannon was there last night?”
“She wanted to talk to Betsy Sue. Mr. Hawthorne told her she couldn’t. She went home after that,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie.
“That’s what I figured. He’s certain you had something to do with her disappearance, but I think I managed to get him to calm down. I mean, we have to remember, you’re the one who brought her back in the first place, right?” she said, chuckling.
It didn’t sound like she was amused either. I could tell she wasn’t completely convinced I had nothing to do with it. She wanted to believe it. All I needed was for her to give me a little time. Just a little more time. They would get the girl back as soon as I was done.
“All righty, then. Let me know if you hear anything,” she said. “We still have the entire force looking for your son as well. We’re following a lead from someone who said they believed to have seen a figure run from the parking lot about the time that your son disappeared. I have a good feeling about this one.”
“That’s great, Detective. You go get my son back.”
“I will, Jack. Don’t worry. As I said, I have a good feeling about this lead.”
I hung up and went back to the kitchen. Shannon looked at me, worry deep set in her eyes. “Who was that?”
“Bellini. We need to hurry.”
46
May 2016
Savannah wasn’t exactly showing its most beautiful side. Yesterday’s sunshine had disappeared, and now it was raining from a heavy gray sky. I knew there was low pressure in the Atlantic, giving great waves to Cocoa Beach but bad weather up here. I had seen all the pictures on Facebook of my friends enjoying the great swell and started to curse the fact that we’d decided to come all the way up here for the wedding. None of this would have happened had we only stayed home.
Shannon sat next to me, hands in her lap, looking at her fingers, turning her rings like she always did when she was nervous. Betsy Sue was in the back seat being eerily quiet. I wasn’t used to children her age being so silent. Mine would have at least asked for a snack by now or told me they were thirsty. Betsy Sue didn’t say anything unless we asked her.
“So, do you recognize anything?” I asked, trying to get her to talk. We were driving around the neighborhood that surrounded the house that had collapsed on Saturday. The house itself was blocked off and we started out there, then drove down the street.
The old houses lay like pearls on a string. One more gorgeous and pompous than the next. Many lovely gardens, big trees with lots and lots of Spanish moss. They all looked the same after a little while. Tall, multi-paned windows with dark green shutters, wrought-iron balconies, and broad concrete staircases leading to their entrances. Many had big pots of flowers outside. It was all very pretty, and had the circumstances been different, I’m sure I would have enjoyed it.
But I didn’t. I still felt sick to my stomach, missing Tyler so badly, worrying about him and whether he was all right. Was he being fed properly? Up until now, Shannon had breastfed; how was this doctor-person feeding him, if he was at all? It made me so furious to think about.
Betsy Sue didn’t answer. She looked out the window at the houses passing by, while I drove slowly down the street, but she didn’t seem to recognize anything at all. At least, not yet.
“Maybe she doesn’t know what the house looks like from the outside,” Shannon said, her voice trembling slightly. “I mean, if she has never been outside. She escaped through a tunnel in the house, so she didn’t even see it then.”
She had a point. But there had to be something she knew from growing up. She must have looked out the windows, right?
“She’ll recognize something,” I said. “She has to. Look out now, Betsy Sue. Here are some small shops. Do you know any of them?”
Betsy Sue leaned to the window and looked outside. I slowed down even more and the car behind us started to honk, annoyed, before it finally passed us, the driver telling me I am number one with his finger out the window.
The small shops turned out to be an old-fashioned bookstore, a doll store that sold antique dolls, a small café with a sign telling us they were selling shrimp and grits, and a thrift shop. I looked at Betsy Sue in the rearview mirror to see if she reacted to any of it, and thought I saw her twitch, but I wasn’t sure.
“Any of it seem familiar?” I asked again.
The girl shook her head and leaned back down.
“It’s okay. It’ll come,” I said and drove on. The houses got bigger and harder to see from the road, since the big trees out front were covering them up. I slowed down again as we reached more residential areas.
“Anything, Betsy Sue?” I asked again.
Still nothing but a shake of the head. But then something happened.
“Stop,” Betsy Sue said.
I hit the brakes and brought the car to an immediate stop. “What is it? Did you see the house?”
The girl pointed.
“I don’t understand. Is this the house?” I asked. I looked at the odd one-story house on the lot next to us. It didn’t seem big enough to house thirteen girls.
“The birds,” Shannon said. “She’s pointing at the ravens.”
47
May 2016
The trees in front of the house were
packed with ravens. Black noisy creatures. Shannon hated birds and really didn’t want to have to get out of the car, but for the sake of her son, she did.
The ravens surrounded Betsy Sue as soon as she got out. They were sitting everywhere on her…in her hair, on her shoulders. She laughed and petted them like she knew them.
Shannon shivered and tried to stay her distance from the girl so none of the birds would get in her hair. That had always been her biggest fear…that they would get tangled up in her hair like that time when she was a kid. The thought made her shiver again.
“You think this is the place?” she asked and approached Jack.
He shrugged. “The girl asked us to stop here, so we might as well check it out. Come, Betsy Sue.”
Jack grabbed the iron railing and signaled the girl to walk with him up the stairs to the house. Betsy Sue followed him to the front door, two birds sitting on each of her shoulders and one on top of her head. Shannon stayed a few steps behind.
“Hello?” Jack yelled, while knocking on the front door.
The front porch had big flowerpots that had recently been watered, and everything was very neat and well maintained.
It took a few seconds before the door opened slightly, and a man appeared in the crack.
“What do you want?”
Jack held up a picture of Tyler so the man could see it. “We’re looking for this child.”
The eyes in the door crack looked at the picture, then spotted Betsy Sue behind Jack, who was still infatuated with the birds. His eyes blinked a few times, then the door opened completely. He was as immaculately dressed as his house looked, his blue T-shirt tucked into his pants.
The man looked at Betsy Sue. “The girl. The ravens like her.”