“Two more guys were in the house. Took them down in a second. Kicked down the door where some other girls were. I didn’t stop to see who made it out.”
Cash nodded. “I think we should keep driving until the stores start to open, then we can stop and get them some warmer clothes. I’ve got some cash in the car.”
“It’s at least another three, four hours to Fargo-Moorhead. Do you think any of them would want to ride with me? My car’s got a heater.”
Cash walked back and asked the girls. No. They all shook their heads furiously.
She shook her head no as she walked back to the Grand Am.
“Can’t blame ’em.” He turned around and used the car key to open his trunk. “Here, give them the sleeping bag. You got enough gas to keep driving?”
She did.
“Are we bringing them all to Fargo?”
“Yes… no, we’ll go to Wheaton’s first. In Ada. He’ll know what to do.”
“This is the most fun I’ve had in-country.” He swaggered back to the driver’s door. “Let’s rock and roll then, soldier.”
The Tweed girl leaned out of the truck bed. “Are you taking us home?”
Cash nodded yes, tossed the sleeping bag to them. “Here, this will help cut the wind chill a bit. We’re going to stop once the stores open, and my brother will go in and get you all some sweatpants, sweatshirts. A couple more blankets. Something to keep you warmer.”
Mo came walking back with a six-pack of Schlitz in his hands. He set it in the back of the truck and started back to his car. About five feet away, like an afterthought, he turned and tossed a church key to the girls. It clinked as it hit metal. He kept going to his car, got in, started the engine and headed back out to the black top, his tires kicking up field dust. Cash jumped in the truck and followed. In the rearview mirror she saw the girls, huddled against the back of the cab, the sleeping bag wrapped around them all, pop open a beer. One of the girls tapped on Carla’s window, then handed one up to her. Carla looked at Cash, asking with her eyes, Do you want one? Cash wanted to drink the whole six-pack but shook her head no.
The sun came up behind them as they caravanned west, the sky a burst of orange and red. They headed towards Ada, to Wheaton. Using the wad of cash from under the car seat, they stopped once to buy sweatshirts and sweatpants for the girls and to get hot coffee and homemade doughnuts. The girls pulled the sweatpants and sweatshirts over their skimpy clothes. Mo had even bought a bag of athletic socks. They looked like a worn out cheerleading squad.
The ride was a silent one, Carla deep in thought or sleeping, and the girls in back, after finishing the beer and coffee, huddled under the Army-green sleeping bag. They slept too.
When they reached the outskirts of Ada, Mo dropped back, signaling for Cash to take the lead to Wheaton’s house. As the Ranchero slowed through the town streets, the girls all shifted awake, fear once again in their eyes as they looked around the town. The Tweed girl, once she realized they were in Ada, pulled her blanket up around her face, presumably hiding, in case anyone recognized her, though no one was out in the residential area of the small county seat.
Cash pulled to the curb in front of Wheaton’s house. His car wasn’t there. She parked and walked up the sidewalk anyways. She tried the front door. It was open. She motioned for the girls to come in. Warily, they climbed out of the truck and followed her into Wheaton’s small, bare, tidy house. Cash directed them to the couch and easy chair in the living room, but instead they pulled out chairs around the kitchen table and sat down.
Cash stepped outside where Mo was waiting in the front yard, smoking a filterless cigarette, looking up at the few wisps of white clouds that floated across the blue sky. He lit one off the tip of his and handed it to Cash. She inhaled, then spit tobacco out off her tongue.
“Can you drive to the courthouse? Wheaton should be there. Tell him we need him over here?”
“Sure thing. Just point me in the right direction.”
Cash went back into the house. She dug around in Wheaton’s cupboards and found some Folgers and made a pot of coffee on the stove. She also found a couple cans of Campbell’s Chicken Soup and heated them up too. Another foray into the cupboards found enough bowls for the girls and some spoons. All mismatched.
The girls were just finishing their bowls of soup, Cash leaning against the kitchen counter, when Wheaton and Mo walked back in, Gunner on Wheaton’s heels. The dog, sensing the mood, went to each girl, nudging a leg, until petted. Then he went and lay down on a rug in front of Wheaton’s TV in the living room.
Wheaton took off his hat, shock and disbelief on his face. He looked at Cash. Worry filled his eyes. “Well, I’ll be damned. You okay?” he asked. Cash sensed a whole lot of different meanings behind that ask, but she nodded yes and waved her hand at the girls sitting around the table.
Mo excused himself for a cigarette outside. Cash wanted to follow him. Instead, she introduced Wheaton to the girls as her friend, even though he stood before them in his sheriff’s uniform.
The only question he asked was, “Can I get your names and parents’ phone numbers?” He opened a drawer and pulled out a small spiral notebook and pencil. “If you can write it down here, I’ll call your folks.”
They passed the notebook around the table and then back to Wheaton. He moved into his living room and sat in the easy chair. The girls in the kitchen could hear the click-click whirr of the telephone as he dialed their numbers.
One by one, he called them in by their first names, the Tweed girl first. Wheaton stood up and let them sit in his easy chair to use the phone. Each girl sobbed her way through the first contact with her mom and dad. Wheaton wrote down his address for the girls to give to their parents so they could come get them. All of the girls were from Minnesota, except one girl from Rugby, North Dakota, way up on the Canadian border. Cash hadn’t questioned the girls so she knew nothing of how each had ended up in the Cities except for the Tweed girl and the one from Milan.
Cash took a cup of coffee out to Mo and stood in the yard with him, smoking. Neither said a word. Cash went back inside. The girls were all in the living room, some still crying, others talking softly to each other, drinking more coffee. Wheaton was standing in the kitchen.
He spoke softly. “I’m going to have to call the feds about the girl from Rugby. Taking someone across state lines is federal. It will take her folks the longest to get here. The rest are all on their way. I’m going to interview them here. Get the key details. I’ve called my secretary to come over from the jail and type up our notes as we talk. She’s pretty fast, I think she can get it all. I don’t want to keep them here any longer than we have to. I already called the sheriff in Moorhead too. He’s going over now to pick up that professor. He seems to be the one who was orchestrating this. I need more help than just me. This crosses state lines, counties, cities.”
He swiped his hand through his crew cut.
“How did he manage to get all these girls?” Cash asked.
“He’s from New York. Seems that’s where he started getting young girls into prostitution. He works as a teacher so folks trust him. Once he moved here, he just kept doing it, found a market for girls in the Cities. He spent a lot of time in the Cities. No one questioned his frequent trips for conferences and state award ceremonies. He drugged the Tweed girl at the football game. She was going to go with some girlfriends to the Cities, but he separated her from the group with some story and drugged her. The Milan girl—he caught her in the hallway at the Curtis Hotel where her school was staying. The kids were being kids, playing hide-and-seek in the hotel, and he convinced her it was safe to hide in his room. And the girls have been from all over the state so no one’s had a reason to focus their attention on him. Some of the girls will probably never be found.”
That worried look came back in his eyes. “What the hell, Cash. You alright?”
“Yeah.” Cash grabbed her cigarettes off the counter and walked back outside.
Wheaton’s secretary showed up and the clack of typewriter keys followed by the swish of the carriage was heard throughout the rest of the day. The Tweed girl’s parents were the first to arrive. There was a lot of crying all day by everyone except Cash, Mo and Wheaton.
Other county sheriffs arrived to take statements from the girls and their families. Other parents arrived, most with siblings in tow. Judging from the parents and the girls’ statements, all of them were achievers, if not over-achievers. They had been open and friendly before this. They were the cheerleaders and homecoming attendants, secure that they were the elite of their small town. Nothing had prepared them for their unfortunate trip to the Cities. It was beyond their knowledge, beyond their comprehension that such a sordid world existed or that they would be thrown and trapped in it. Favored in family and in school, nothing had prepared them to be hurt by men who had no regard for their innocence. Preyed on that innocence, in fact.
Cash had experienced firsthand people who had no regard for anyone else, people who wanted to destroy, out of some perverse sense, the light that shone in others. She smoked cigarette after cigarette, drank coffee after coffee to still the rage she felt building in her belly and chest throughout the day as she witnessed parents arriving to comfort, love and bring their stolen daughters home. Home—where they would be nurtured and loved back to wholeness as best they could.
At some point in the late afternoon, Wheaton asked Mo to run downtown and rent two hotel rooms. Two families had arrived after dusk and their daughters still needed to be interviewed.
When Wheaton’s house was empty, Cash and Mo drove back to Fargo in separate cars. Without consulting each other, they both drove directly to the Casbah. Cash lifted two fingers at Shorty behind the bar as she entered. He put two Buds on the counter, opened them. Mo asked for two Schlitzes. As always, there was a game happening at the pool table already. Both Mo and Cash put up quarters. They slid into an open booth and drank their beers in silence. They drank, getting quieter and quieter as the night wore on, playing partners against whoever put quarters up.
Near closing time, some farm kid, drunk on his own beer and “white is right” attitude, called Mo “chief” one too many times. Mo punched him square in the jaw and knocked him flat out. He fell with a thud on the hardwood floor, chalk dust puffing up around him as he landed, no words exchanged at all. Cash grabbed her house cue by the narrow end, ready to use the handle as a club. By the time she had moved around the table to Mo’s side, Shorty was also there, white bar rag in his hand. He looked Cash in the eye and said, “Take it outside, Cash. Take it outside. Now.”
Though their cars were parked out front, Cash chose to exit by the back door. She went by Ol’ Man Willie who was passed out in his home booth. Cash picked up his half-empty beer glass and dumped it on his head, then threw it against the wooden wall in the booth, shattering glass all over him.
Outside she gulped air. Mo slapped her back. “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”
He took off running down the back alley, tipping over garbage cans as he went. Cash followed, pushing her pace to keep up. They ran until Mo stopped, bent over, gasping for breath. Cash doubled over too, sucking in air, holding her sides.
Mo grabbed some beer bottles that had fallen out of the last tipped-over trashcan. He flung the bottle with all his might at the second-story window of whatever business they were behind. He missed. Cash grabbed one and threw it with all her might. Closer. They continued throwing whatever hard objects they could find until Mo lucked out and shattered the glass above them. They ran to get away from the falling shards, slowing to a walking pace as they exited the alleyway. They turned down the sidewalk back toward the Casbah.
“I’m gonna go drive around,” Mo said. “Catch you later.”
Cash went back to her apartment and drank all the beer in the fridge, chain smoking. At some point, she passed out, fully dressed on her bed.
She awoke the next morning to a disheveled Mo, cooking eggs and bacon, a hot cup of coffee ready for her. She went to the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet and popped two aspirin. Ate her breakfast. Went back into the bathroom and took a quick bath to wash the drunk off. Clean, with hair brushed into one long braid and even her teeth brushed, she pulled on her zip-up sweatshirt, then her jean jacket.
“School?”
“Nah, Ada.”
“Later, gator.”
“How did you find us?” she asked, hand on the doorknob.
“You left me some notes on your dresser.” He grinned, pointed at his temple. “My excellent powers of deduction and unparalleled tracking skills.”
Cash pulled the door shut.
She was a couple of steps down when Mo popped his head out, the grin still on his face.
“What’d I tell you? White slavery.”
Cash filled up the Ranchero at the Standard Station on the edge of Moorhead and then drove to Ada. She went by Wheaton’s house, but no one was there, so she went to the jail.
His secretary was back at her usual seat, clacking away on notes. Wheaton was sitting with the Rugby family, the young girl tightly sandwiched between them. A couple of other men in black business suits were in the room also. Feds.
Cash got a cup of coffee and sat on her wooden bench in the reception area. It was “her” bench because it was where Wheaton had let her sleep the first night they met. Her mother had ended up in this jail after rolling her car in a ditch with her three kids in it. After that, her mother disappeared. And so did Mo. And her sister Chi-chi.
But now Mo was back. Her sister wasn’t and neither was her mom. But the bench was hers. And familiar.
The oak seat was worn smooth from the countless number of folks who had sat right where she was sitting. The countless number of folks who had told their stories to the secretary, with her graying hair and tight-bodiced, homemade, below-the-knee dresses. The countless folks waiting, freed from jail on bond or having served their time, waiting for their ride home. The wood warmed quickly to whatever body was occupying it.
Cash leaned forward, elbows on her knees, sipping her coffee, lulled by the men’s voices in the other room, the occasional sentence from the daughter or mother, but mostly the men asking questions, receiving a soft answer from the girl, then the men repeating the answer out loud to each other, as if confirming the details. The clack of the typewriter kept time with it all.
Cash lost track of time. Occasionally, she would lean back and smoke a cigarette, dropping the ashes in the tall tin ashtray at the end of the bench. She was leaning forward, elbows again on knees, when she saw the shiny polished black shoes of the feds walk by, then the work boots of the dad from Rugby followed by his daughter still in the athletic socks Mo had given the girls. The stout dress heels worn by her mother came last. Cash didn’t look up until she recognized Wheaton’s worn steel-toed boots standing in front of her with Gunner’s furry feet next to his.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go for a drive.” They drove west, toward the small town of Halstad on the banks of the Red River.
He stopped at Arnie’s bar in Halstad and left Cash and Gunner waiting in the cruiser with the engine running. Gunner looked at Cash sitting there in the front seat like he was saying, “What are you doing in my spot?”
Cash rubbed his ears. “I was here first,” she said, not meeting his eyes but looking out the passenger window.
Wheaton came out of the bar with two open Coca Cola bottles and a pack of Marlboros he tossed in Cash’s lap. He handed Cash one of the bottles of Coke and headed west, out of town toward the Red River. Once he got close to the river, he left the paved road and drove north on farm roads, a trail of dust kicked up behind them, following them.
After a while, Wheaton said, “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
So Cash told him about the missing girls, the award—which was real, she really had won an award, she assured him—getting drugged by LeRoy and finding herself in the house with the other girls. She left out th
e part of the guy and the bed and shrunken dick. She told him about the girl getting branded. She told him about the rope made out of sheets and all of them climbing down the wall. About Mo showing up. “And then we all drove back home,” she ended.
He drove in silence for another five miles, his hands clenched, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Did anyone touch you? Are you okay?”
Cash turned her face to the car window, plowed fields moving slowly by, tears welled in her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said. “I got us out before anything could happen to me. I’m fine. Really.”
She willed the feelings out of her body and eyes. She turned, looked directly at Wheaton, a sheepish grin on her face, “I scraped my knee on the bricks going down the side of the house, and I think I have a smidge of rope burn from sliding down instead of going down hand over hand. That’s it.”
Wheaton harrumphed, pulled into a field and turned the car around, heading back the way they had come. He rubbed his hand over his crew cut. Rubbed his face, forehead down to his chin and stretched the skin. He looked her over, as if assessing any damage. “Okay,” he finally said. “I told the feds I would interview you and write up a report. This is the interview. One question they have is why didn’t you go to the cops down in the Cities?”
“Those guys had guns. All we thought about was getting the hell out of there. Going to the cops never even entered my mind. The girls just wanted to get home. I didn’t think about cops until I thought maybe we should talk to you.”
“Hmm. Might have to ask you a few more questions later on. Dot the i’s and cross the t’s. The feds and I will do the best we can to keep you and Mo’s names out of this. No need to complicate things, okay?” He kept to the gravel roads even as they drove south along the river.
“And Mo? What about Mo?”
So Cash told him about Mo showing up at her door. About how his adoptive family had kicked him out and given the farm to their “real” son. How he had a gray Grand Am. She told him about the night of the punji stick flashback. And how the punji stick had saved them from the guys coming out of the house down in the Cities. How he was a better pool shooter than she was, which, yes, was hard to admit. And, yes, school was going fine as far as she knew. Her grades were good. Once they were back to her Ranchero she would give him her award to keep, if he wanted it?
Girl Gone Missing Page 17