“There but for the grace of God,” Fran said, and immediately wanted to take it back.
“Exactly.”
It would have been better if Ed and Lindsay could have stood behind her, but they couldn’t wait. They were out along Route 7, sweeping the woods with three full busloads of volunteers. Father John was coming over to be by her side and to serve as a visual reminder that starting tomorrow the parish hall at Lakeview would serve as their command center. Connie had a placard with the address and a phone number for donations. Fran worried that all this information was too much at once.
“Break it down into your three points,” Jocelyn said. “This is Kim. This is her car. This is how you can help. That’s all you’re here to do. Anything they ask, you bring it back to those three. Say her name, say the name of the car, say the name of the church. It’s like advertising, you’re just looking for awareness.”
What were they going to ask?
“Easy stuff,” Jocelyn said, and ticked them off on her fingers. “What kind of progress are you making. How’s the family holding up. Do you have a message for Kim.”
“None, not well, and ‘Come home.’ ”
“Wrong. The support’s been incredible. The whole community’s turned out to help with the search and the police are busy tracking down leads.”
“They haven’t done jack-shit!” Fran said.
“Whoa, whoa.”
“They haven’t.”
“You can’t badmouth the cops on the air. You’ll come off as angry, and you don’t want that. Everyone’s been so helpful, the family’s really pulled together, and you want to tell Kim that you love her. That’s all you have to say.”
“How about if I don’t say anything about the police?”
“Don’t get hung up on this,” Jocelyn said, but as Connie and Father John and then the news van arrived, the idea of lying grew, pushing what she was supposed to be focusing on to the edges. She had to consciously list her three points, going over and over them, afraid she’d blank once she got on-camera. It couldn’t be more simple: Kim, the car, the church. The cops weren’t important.
The reporter was young and pretty but sickly thin in her red Channel 12 polo shirt, with sticks for arms and frightening cheekbones. Her head was too large for her body, like a marionette’s, and she was made up so her eyes and lips were huge. Her textbook posture was impressive at first and then, as she helped the cameraman unload his light stands, looked stiff and exaggerated. She shook Fran’s hand and said she was sorry with refreshing directness, not the halting helplessness Fran had become used to from their neighbors. She had to remember, this woman didn’t know Kim at all. To her she was just another assignment. Tomorrow she’d be covering a fishing tournament or demolition derby.
“I’m a little nervous,” Fran confessed.
“Don’t worry, Benny will make you look good.”
The cameraman, fussing with some cables in the grass, just smiled and cracked his gum.
They set up not in the driveway but on the front walk, with the reporter and Fran sitting on the porch stairs, one-on-one. There was nowhere to step back. They might take a shot of Fran with Kim’s picture at the end, but for now they just wanted her. They moved the whole sign-in table so it was in the background, with Father John and Connie pretending to register Jocelyn. A crowd of neighbors gathered on the sidewalk to watch. The cameraman waved for quiet.
This was for Kim. Someone somewhere might see it and provide the clue they needed. Fran held on to that thought.
“Speed,” he said, and the reporter drew herself upright and put on a concerned face before reciting her lead-in. Fran had thought she was silly, but under the lights she took on force, nailing her lines in character. Now she understood. It was an act, and the reporter was an actress. All Fran had to do was play herself.
The reporter turned to her and asked how the search was going.
Fran was supposed to look at her, not the camera, but was aware of it running, recording her every word and gesture. She nodded. “It’s going. Everyone’s been so supportive, all of Kim’s friends, and our neighbors, and the church. It’s really been heartwarming to know so many people care about Kim.”
She’d almost finished her last remark when, a few houses down, a lawnmower started up. The cameraman sent Jason Bonner to ask whoever it was to hold off.
On the second take she tried to remember what she’d said the first time and stumbled over her words.
“That’s okay,” the reporter said, “just let it come,” but now her answers felt canned and unnatural, like she was reading from a script—like the reporter sneaking a peek at her questions while Fran was talking. Heartwarming sounded corny. How were people at home going to believe it if she didn’t? As she grew more frustrated, she worried that she might seem angry, and overcompensated, nearly smiling.
The reporter asked her what kind of person Kim was, which was easy, and how the family was holding up. They talked about the time frame, and Kim’s job, the possibility of someone coming in off the interstate and taking her. Fran feared she was rambling and clipped off her answers, sticking to the facts. She didn’t want to speculate.
“The police are treating Kim’s disappearance as a missing persons case rather than a criminal investigation. How does the family feel about that?”
It wasn’t Fran’s fault. She’d plucked this nugget from the Star-Beacon article. “The police are following every lead they can. Right now the most important lead is her car. It was her grandmother’s and it’s very rare, so we’re hoping someone out there will see it and call in.”
“Has there been any input from the FBI yet, with Kingsville being so close to the state line?”
“Not yet, but I know the police are talking with Erie.”
“At this point, how involved are the police in the search for Kim?”
“They’re doing everything they can, legally.”
“But right now you’re relying almost solely on volunteers, is that right?”
“That’s right, and we’re hoping folks will come out and help us this weekend.” She gestured behind herself at the sign-in table and gave the information for the church, feeling like a huckster.
She was surprised when the reporter lowered the mic and asked if there was anything she’d like to add. Was that it? It seemed too fast. She hadn’t asked if she had a message for Kim, and while it seemed obvious, Fran took this chance to tell the audience that she loved and missed her daughter very much and wanted to thank all of the volunteers.
They waited a few seconds in silence.
“And we’re clear,” the cameraman said.
“You did great,” the reporter said, patting her knee.
“Yeah, you sounded really good,” Connie said, setting up the poster so they could shoot it.
“I don’t know why you wanted me to do it,” Jocelyn said. “That was perfect.”
Fran accepted their praise for what it was. She’d felt tight the entire time, her face a rigid mask, and was sure that would come across on TV. They hadn’t used the little picture, and as they packed up she took it inside and set it by the stereo with the others. She should have been relieved that the filming was done, but instead she felt a sense of letdown, of an opportunity squandered, and wanted to apologize to Kim. She thought it was absurd that she should cry now. “Stupid,” she said. On the porch they were moving the sign-in table back, and she gathered herself and went out to help.
The reporter said the segment would air at six and then again at eleven, and that they’d love to come back and talk to her as the story developed. Jocelyn made sure to get one of her cards.
When they were gone Fran went upstairs and washed the makeup off her face. In the mirror the lines around her mouth were pronounced. She looked tired, even though it was only ten thirty. That would come through too, she thought.
In the afternoon she did two newspaper interviews, and one by phone for the radio. After each she felt the same useless emptiness, an
d had to remind herself that they could only do good. The hotline had been busier since the Star-Beacon article; the website was getting more hits. This was progress.
By six only one busload had returned. Ed wanted to use every second of daylight, and she couldn’t blame him. The searchers sat in groups on the porch steps and on the lawn, drinking bottled water and eating donated Kentucky Fried Chicken. Connie called them into the living room to watch the news.
Fran didn’t want to see herself on TV. She even hated the cameras inside the door at Wal-Mart that showed her walking in. As their spokesperson, she had no choice. They were the second story, right behind a private plane crashing out by the raceway. She sat on the couch and endured their cheers when she appeared.
Whether it was the makeup, the lighting, some magical lens of Benny’s, or the combination of all three, her skin seemed rosy, and the blouse they’d chosen worked perfectly. The crowd went quiet to hear her words, then murmured approvingly. What she said actually made sense, and while she hadn’t been aware of it while the camera was rolling, the reporter nodded along in sympathy. She was composed, mostly, though during the long question about someone possibly coming in off the interstate, Fran caught herself gnawing her lower lip.
“Jesus,” someone behind her said, “why would she ask that?”
The editor had done a good job of fitting it together. Connie’s graphics popped up in just the right places—Kim, the Chevette, the church. At the end they clapped. They were rooting for her, and at once she was grateful and hopeful and proud. She thought Ed would want to see it, but by eleven, with the house emptied out and the curtains drawn against the darkness, there was no reason to celebrate. They’d searched all day and found nothing, and Ed had turned his ankle. Perry hadn’t bothered to call. As the detective said when he checked in, nothing had significantly changed. They were on their own, Kim was still missing and another day was gone.
Crime Stoppers
The night she disappeared she was seen arguing with a dark-haired man in a red pickup in the lot of Lake Shore Park. The next day she was spotted wandering along the commercial strip in Ashtabula, not far from the on-ramp of Route 11. Friday evening she materialized in Fair-port Harbor, buying a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store. Her face was swollen and she seemed dazed.
A cult had taken her to use as a human sacrifice.
The crew of an ore boat had kidnapped her to service them.
A ring of Asian slave traders based in Toledo had auctioned her off to the highest bidder.
“I ate her liver with fava beans and a nice chianti,” a teenaged boy said, and slurped, making his friends in the background crack up.
Look for a trucker who drove for J. B. Hunt and called himself the General.
In town there was a man named Green who’d done time for statutory rape.
The boyfriend did it.
The father did it.
A friend of a friend was wasted the other night and bragging about how he killed this girl. He figured the guy was lying, but thought he should call anyway.
She’d probably met someone on the internet, all they had to do was check her computer.
She was pregnant and had gone to Cleveland for an abortion that went wrong.
She was being held underground against her will. The caller could see a white house, near running water. The name of the road started with the letter M, or N.
“Help . . . me,” another teenager croaked.
Then there were the hang-ups, dozens of them, some in the middle of the night. They leaned close to the machine, listening through the layer of tape hiss for any hint that it might be Kim.
Competing with the tipline were the rumors volunteers felt obligated to share, as if to protect them from the latest gossip by keeping them up to date. Saturday there’d been whispers of a cloth doll stuffed with hair hung from a tree. Sunday’s favorite was a bloody sneaker, supposedly recovered in a search of the neighborhood. In later variations the shoe was a man’s, found stuck in the mud of a creekbed deep in the woods. Out of a sense of completeness more than anything, they kept a log of these.
The website had its own guestbook in which visitors left messages. A few well-wishers they knew, but a surprising number were from out-of-state or even overseas. There was serious interest in Finland and India. Most of the entries were outpourings of support, welcome prayers and inspirational homilies. With God’s help, miracles can happen. More upsetting were posts that began In 1987 I lost my son in a hunting accident or My two golden retrievers were missing for three days a few years ago or I’ve never met Kim, but after reading your site I feel like I know her. Predictably, their appeal for help had drawn a large audience of armchair detectives, playing at solving the case as if it were a game. One lengthy string debated the problems with Kim driving her car off a bridge. Another connected her to three other disappearances near I-90 over the last decade, all involving young women with dark hair.
They kept as much of this speculation from Lindsay as they could, knowing what their own imaginations had done with it. Ever since Fran had appeared on TV the sheer volume was confusing.
Not all the tips were anonymous or far-fetched. A Geneva woman named Anna Fyfield thought she’d seen Kim’s car ahead of her at a Wendy’s drive-thru late Wednesday night. It fit the timeline. The detective said they were following up on it, but like so many of his promises, it was impossible to verify.
A doctor from down the county treated a man who claimed his dog had nipped him, though the bite marks on his wrist were clearly human.
A man driving north on Route 7 Wednesday afternoon saw a blue car traveling southbound pick up a hitchhiker carrying an army-style duffel bag.
It was hard not to attach some hope to these scraps, especially after the weekend’s searches turned up nothing. Even tougher to gauge were the detective’s assurances that the police were pursuing several persons of interest he couldn’t discuss. They didn’t have enough faith in him to buy this outright, yet they desperately wanted to, and hedged and second-guessed themselves until they didn’t know what to believe.
Hello, My Name Is
His cell went off in the dark—Brass monkey, that funky monkey—hauling J.P. up from sleep, making him slap at his nightstand.
She’d never returned his last call. Now every time his phone rang he thought it was her, so that he was continually disappointed. He’d come to hate his ringtone, but was too superstitious to change it, as if he’d be deleting her.
He flipped the cover open and for a second the blue light blinded him. It was Nina. What time was it?
“One thirty,” she said.
“I just got to sleep.”
“Sorry. Listen, I need to ask you something.”
“What?” He was tired of this shit. He knew what she was doing, and while he agreed that it was too late to say anything, it still bothered him. He wanted her to stop. He wanted to tell her to worry about herself.
“I’m serious,” she said. “I need to know if you’re ready in case what I think is going to happen happens.”
“What’s up?”
“The cops just talked to Kevin and Doug-o. They were asking about Wooze.”
“Fuck.”
“I figured I’d better tell you.”
“Thanks.” A part of him should have been relieved, but his mind was following the logical branches.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and left him holding the phone.
He was tempted to speed-dial Kim, as he had every night since she’d disappeared, just to hear her outgoing message, but closed the cover and lay back, wide awake. He didn’t blame Nina. He’d known from the beginning what the right decision was, and out of fear or selfishness he hadn’t been able to make it. Now he was done. He’d tell them the truth and take his punishment.
The problem with this solution was that it only worked when he was alone in the dark. Eating
breakfast with his mother or helping Kim’s dad stack flats of bottled water, he understood why he lied. Even now he hoped his mistakes would go away and not harm them. He could bear his own self-loathing. To confess would be to lose everything.
He’d gotten time off so he could devote himself to the search. He and Kim’s dad and Lindsay were the first ones at the church besides Father John, their cars parked side-by-side on the newly lined tarmac. The stone facade with its square belltower and lancet windows had recently been sandblasted; without its weeping coat of soot it looked less intimidating. Landscapers had shaved the hedges by the front entrance into smooth lobes. The doors were so heavy he had to help Lindsay open one. Inside, the stairs were marble, the banisters polished brass. The air smelled of candles and old books and dust. His mother wasn’t religious but had friends who went to Lakeview. “Respectable folk,” she joked. The few times he’d been inside as a child were for carnivals and pancake suppers in the same high-windowed parish hall they were using as a command center. When Kim’s dad left them to go downstairs and get the weather, he felt like an intruder.
The first thing they had to do was fill a cooler for each team with bottled water and ice. Like everything else, the coolers were donated, identical except the numbers magic-markered on the lids.
“How many do we need?” Lindsay asked.
Saturday they’d had over two hundred volunteers and ran out of water. Sunday they had a hundred and fifty. Each team was made up of ten volunteers plus a leader, usually one of Kim’s dad’s fellow coaches or Kim’s old teachers. It was Monday and a lot of people would probably go back to work.
“I don’t know,” he said, “ten?”
It was his call—she refused to make decisions. She skidded a cooler over to the flats while he lifted a fifty-pound bag of ice out of the freezer and dropped it on the floor—once, twice—then tore it open and poured the jagged chunks over the bottles. By the time he lugged the cooler around the counter to Team One’s table, she had another ready.
Though there was an old boom box on the shelf above the deep double sink, they worked in silence. “Shit,” Lindsay said when a water got away from her. “Come on,” he said when a bag was being stubborn. Short of conversation, these stray words were a way of acknowledging each other, offering the possibility that they might talk.
Songs for the Missing Page 9