The sergeant laughed. ‘I’ll just bet it has. Now, what do you claim your name is?’
‘Ah, I’d rather not say,’ Dalton answered.
‘Excuse me?’ the sergeant asked, a sneer on his face.
Blushing, Dalton repeated, ‘I’d rather not say.’
‘And where do you say you live?’ the sergeant asked.
‘I’d rather not say.’
Looking at a uniformed officer walking by, the sergeant said, ‘Brooks, take this guy to lockup, will ya?’
Dalton began to panic. He’d never been to jail before and he didn’t want to start now. ‘Ah . . . I get a phone call, right?’ he asked. ‘One phone call?’
Looking at Officer Brooks, the sergeant nodded his head.
‘Come on,’ Brooks said, grabbing Dalton’s arm and pulling. ‘And make it quick, buddy. I don’t have all day.’
The only person Dalton could call was the one person in his life who never judged him, never told him what to do and always seemed to listen to him when he needed to talk – his sister, Mary Ellen. It was not common knowledge among the extended family that the antidepressants Mary Ellen had been taking for several years for her chronic clinical depression had numbed her to the point where not only did she not judge other people, she was rarely aware of their existence.
He called her cell phone and, thank the good Lord, she picked up. ‘Mary Ellen!’ he said. ‘I need help!’
‘Who is this?’ Mary Ellen asked.
‘It’s . . .’ He had started to say ‘Dalton’, but he saw Officer Brooks standing close enough to hear, so he just said, ‘It’s your brother.’
‘Dalton?’ she said.
‘Yes!’ he said, relieved that she guessed the right one.
‘What’s the matter?’ Mary Ellen asked.
‘I’m in jail,’ Dalton whispered. ‘I need you to come get me out.’
‘Let yourself out,’ Mary Ellen replied. ‘Why are you in your jail? Where are the keys?’
‘No!’ shouted Dalton in a muted whisper. ‘I’m in Tulsa! I’m in their jail!’
‘Oh,’ Mary Ellen said. ‘You want me to come get you?’ she asked.
‘Yes, right away! It’s an emergency! Please!’ Dalton begged.
‘Well, OK, I guess. I can leave in a couple of hours—’ she started.
‘No!’ Dalton interrupted, this time yelling in full voice. He looked around when he realized what he had done and saw everyone – cops and robbers alike – looking straight at him. ‘No,’ he whispered back to his sister. ‘Please, Mary Ellen. Pick me up right away! Leave right this minute!’
On her end of the line, although Dalton couldn’t see it, Mary Ellen shrugged. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave right now. What’s the address?’
MILT
Rodney Knight, Mary Ellen’s husband, showed up before any of the authorities, dragging with him his other two children, Rebecca, age eleven, and Rodney, Jr, age two. Mary Ellen had lucked out finding a man taller than her. Seems like a lot of real tall women end up with men shorter than them. Like, if you really measure us, I think I’m like a quarter of an inch shorter than Jean, but since she leans a little on her crutches, you hardly notice. Rodney Knight, though, was like six foot seven or eight, the kind of guy who ducked his head when entering a room. If he weighed 150 pounds, it was because he had on heavy shoes; he was that skinny. He had white-blond hair, the kind that gets a boy called ‘Cotton’ in my neck of the woods. Don’t know if he got called that or not when he was little. Rodney, Jr was a towheaded two-year-old. Cute as a button and full of mischief.
‘Is Eli really gone?’ Rebecca asked, snapping gum and staring up at me. Damned if she didn’t miss the Threepee gene and look like a double of her grandma Clovis! Scrawny for eleven, she had a hooked nose, wore glasses and was more assertive than Threepee and his three kids combined. Definitely Grandma Clovis’s clone.
Turning to her father, Rebecca said, ‘Daddy, can I have Eli’s room?’
Holding two-year-old Junior in his arms, Rodney closed his eyes, appeared to be counting, then said, ‘Becca, one more word and you’ll go sit in the car.’
‘But—’ Rebecca started.
‘One. More. Word.’ Her father said succinctly.
Rebecca mimicked locking her lips and throwing away the key, then leaned up against the wall of our entry hall and began counting the flowers in the wallpaper by poking them sharply with a fingernail.
‘Sheriff?’ Rodney Knight said, turning toward me.
I shook my head. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Knight. He was with me and Johnny Mac out in the garage, and he just ran out to the car to get his inhaler . . . I just don’t know what happened. But I’ve got the sheriff’s department personnel and the Longbranch police personnel on their way up here, and Charlie Smith, the police chief, is staying in town to organize a citizen search party.’
‘How long has he been missing?’ Eli’s father asked me, the baby in his arms squirming as his hold grew tighter. I could see the man trying to relax his grip, but it just wasn’t working.
‘Jean?’ I called to my wife, who was in the kitchen making coffee for the hordes that would soon be descending on us. ‘Can you come here a minute?’
When Jean came into the foyer, I smiled. ‘Can you take Miss Rebecca here and her little brother up to play with Johnny Mac in the playroom?’
Jean smiled tentatively at Rodney Knight and placed a hand on the arm holding his youngest. ‘I’m so sorry this happened, Mr Knight. Please, let me take the kids upstairs.’
He nodded his head and handed over his son.
We watched as the three headed up the stairs, Rebecca taking her baby brother’s arm, while my wife negotiated the stairs with one crutch and the stair rail. Rebecca was talking the entire way. ‘We can’t find Mommy either. I think she ran off with another man. I saw that on TV . . .’
I gestured toward the living room. ‘In here?’
He nodded and I followed him in.
‘Have you located Mary Ellen?’ I asked once we were both seated in the living room.
He shook his head. ‘Her cell phone goes directly to voicemail,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on . . .’
His voice drifted off, as did his gaze, which left me and stared off into space.
I touched his leg, trying to bring him back. ‘Is there anyone who would take Eli without permission? I mean, if someone saw him out there without supervision . . .’
Lord, was I feeling guilty about that, but something in the question made Rodney Knight look up. ‘Clovis!’ he said, standing up. ‘She’d do it in a New York minute!’
I stood up too. ‘Do you think she has him?’ I asked. ‘Because if she doesn’t, and we called her . . .’
Rodney sat down again. ‘I don’t even want to think about it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why she’d be up here, do you?’ he asked. ‘I mean she doesn’t know anyone up here on the mountain.’
‘I’ll have one of my deputies stop by. Have ’em say they’re looking for Dalton . . .’
‘Where’s Dalton?’ Rodney asked, his head jerking up. ‘Is he missing, too?’
I couldn’t help but think, yeah, actually, he is. Dalton’s missing. His nephew’s missing. His sister’s missing. What’s the connection?
‘He’s been missing since Thursday night,’ I told Rodney. ‘I doubt if one has anything to do with the other. I think he’s with a woman.’
A sad smiled curled Rodney’s lips. ‘’Bout damn time, huh?’
I laughed lightly. ‘Yeah, you got that right.’
‘But Mary Ellen’s missing, Dalton’s missing and my boy’s missing,’ Rodney said. ‘It has to be connected.’
I shrugged. Three people in one family gone missing in a matter of three days? Yeah, it was suspicious all right. ‘Maybe Dalton’s not with a woman.’
Rodney’s eyes got big. ‘Maybe he’s not,’ he said softly.
FIVE
MARY ELLEN
‘I’m here to
pick up my brother,’ Mary Ellen Pettigrew Knight told the man at the front desk.
‘Yeah? Who’s your brother?’ the man asked.
‘Dalton Pettigrew,’ she answered.
The man looked at a list in front of him and shook his head. ‘We don’t have anyone by that name here.’
Mary Ellen stared at the man for a moment, then walked back out the front door.
EMIL
Things aren’t going as planned, Emil thought. Who could plan for breaking equipment and a kid with asthma? Nothing he’d found on the Internet about Jean MacDonnell and her family indicated that her son had asthma. As for the broken equipment, he should have looked further than his first interview when he hired an assistant for this gig. Holly Humphries wasn’t exactly working out.
‘OK, now look into the camera,’ he told her. ‘Hold up today’s newspaper. Tell them how much the ransom is.’
‘Wouldn’t she cover her face?’ Holly asked. ‘I mean, she plans to get out of this, right? Why would she let anyone who watched this videotape know her identity?’
He was beginning to hate this girl almost as much as he hated Jean MacDonnell. Glancing down at his feet, he saw the feed sack with the holes cut out for eyes that he had worn when taking the child. He kicked it toward Holly. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Use this.’
Holly slipped the bag over her head, then immediately tore it off. ‘Yuck!’ she said. ‘This thing stinks!’
No, Emil thought, maybe I hate her a little bit more than Jean MacDonnell! ‘Are you an actress or just a wuss?’ he demanded.
Holly Humphries stiffened. She was an actress. One hundred per cent actress. She reached down to where the feed sack had fallen, picked it up and placed it on her head. With as much dignity as was possible for a young woman wearing a feed sack on her head, Holly said, ‘I’m ready when you are, Mr Smith.’
DALTON
It seemed like he’d been in the jail for hours. When he asked Tiny, the oversized man in thong underwear and a wristwatch, what time it was, Dalton discovered he had been there for hours. Three, to be exact. So where was Mary Ellen? She should have been there two hours ago.
It took quite a while to get a guard’s attention, at least the way Dalton attempted to do it. Finally, Tiny took over, yelling, ‘Hey, asshole! Guy needs to talk at’ja!’ Which not only got the guard’s attention, but his wrath as well.
‘What do you want?’ the little man in the guard’s uniform said, looking up at Dalton. ‘Trouble? Is trouble what you want? ’Cause I got your trouble right here, pardner!’ he said, whacking his left palm with his right hand, which held a billy club.
‘No, Sir, not at all.’ Dalton attempted a smile. ‘I’m just trying to find out—’
‘What you smiling at, boy?’ the guard said, hitting the bar with the club. ‘You coming on to me? You think I’m one a you, asshole? Uh uh, boy. I’m no sissy-pants . . .’
‘Leon, what are you doing?’ said a tired voice as the head guard came over.
The smaller guard backed away as the older man took his place. The older man sighed. ‘You want something, Mr No-Name?’
‘I’ve been waiting for my sister to come get me,’ Dalton said. ‘Has she been here yet?’
The older guard just stared at him for a minute. Finally, he asked, ‘How is your sister going to find you? We don’t have a name for you, stupid.’
As comprehension spread through Dalton’s being, tears sprang to his eyes. The realization of exactly what creek he was up finally dawned on him.
SUNDAY
MARY ELLEN
It was the wee hours of the morning and Mary Ellen Pettigrew Knight sat in an all-night coffee shop eating her third piece of pie. This one was pecan. She’d had cherry, chess and now pecan. Mary Ellen Pettigrew Knight had a smile on her face, the first unforced one in three years. She was free – if only for a couple of hours – but she was free. No one knew where she was. No one could get her. No one could make her go home. No children, no husband, no mother.
She was free.
She finished the piece of pie and looked up at the waitress, ‘I’m thinking salty. How about some fries?’ She was smiling.
MILT
We’d been up all night, all us professionals. I’d finally talked Jean into going to bed around two a.m., but here it was six, and I was still up, searching the creek banks below the falls for the body of Eli Knight. It had been so long now that I knew we were probably looking for a body, not a little boy. Unless a ransom call came in – if the boy was lost, he was probably 100 per cent lost. As in dead.
My cell phone rang and I picked it up. ‘Kovak.’
‘. . . Jean . . .’ came the scratchy voice of my wife. Reception this deep in the woods was not great.
‘Hey, babe—’ I started but she was already talking.
‘. . . call . . . scary . . . ran . . . home . . .’
‘Huh?’ I said.
‘We got . . . man . . . som . . . get . . . now!’
‘Baby? We got a bad connection!’ I yelled. ‘Is it important?’
‘Yes!’ came back loud and clear. ‘. . . por . . . now! Ransom!’
The last word rang out like a shot. Ransom. Eli Knight might not be dead!
JEAN
Jean wished that she could pace. She envied people who could; it seemed to help with the tension. She sat in the most comfortable chair in the living room, her forearms resting on the arms of the chair, willing them to relax, willing her fists to unclench. Concentrating on the room – as it had been, as it was now. Bachelor digs: a sprung couch with frayed arms, a recliner older than dirt, the TV the dominant feature of the room. Now it was warm, inviting, with good furniture, plants, books, warm colors on the walls. It was their room now, hers and Milt’s and John’s.
But just thinking John’s name brought it all to the forefront. Over and over in her head, she couldn’t help replaying the telephone call she’d received only moments before.
That gravelly, mechanical voice. Those words beyond scary: ‘I’ve got your son!’ he’d said.
Jean had thrown down the phone and hobbled up the stairs as fast as she could to John’s playroom. He was still there, with Dalton’s eleven-year-old niece and two-year-old nephew.
She’d gone back downstairs, wondering what the call had been about. Someone saying they had John? But John was upstairs. Eli was missing, not John. Then she had to wonder. Did someone snatch the wrong child? Had someone been after John?
The phone rang again. Jean just stared at it. Finally, she picked it up, ‘Hello?’
‘Don’t hang up on me again!’ said the mechanical voice. ‘Or your son will pay for it!’
‘What do you want?’ Jean asked, knowing in her heart that the best thing for Eli Knight right now was for this mechanical-voiced man to continue to think the child he was holding was John Kovak.
‘You,’ the voice said. ‘I want you, Jean.’
MILT
‘What does that mean?’ I demanded of my wife. ‘He wants you?’
Jean shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, and it was obvious she was trying to hold on to her emotions.
I decided maybe I needed to step up. Maybe I needed to be the calm one here. After all, I was the professional. Just because this seemed to involve my wife and son didn’t mean I could act in an unprofessional manner. The hell it didn’t. I wanted to scream like a little girl and then strangle the nearest asshole. At this point, any asshole would do.
‘He thinks he has your son?’ Rodney asked.
Jean nodded and sank down into a chair. ‘Yes.’ She looked up at Eli’s father. ‘I’m so sorry, Rodney. I’m so sorry your son got caught up in whatever this is.’
Rodney whirled on me. ‘Who’s after you now, Sheriff?’ he said, his voice sounding somewhat mean.
I sank down on the couch. ‘I don’t know,’ I was slightly in shock. ‘Can’t think who I’ve pissed off lately.’
‘Milt,’ my wife said softly. I turned to her.
‘Yeah, honey?’ I asked, reaching for her hand.
Grabbing mine, she squeezed. ‘He didn’t ask for you. He knew my name. He was talking directly to me!’
DALTON
Dalton knew the time was over for keeping this horrible weekend a secret. If he was ever to get out of this place and get home, he had to confess his name.
‘Dalton,’ he said. ‘Dalton Pettigrew.’
‘OK, I’ll see if anybody’s here asking for you.’ The older man turned and walked out of the wing that housed the male prisoners.
The smaller, younger guard waited until the older one left before creeping back to Dalton’s cell. ‘Nobody coming for you, No-Name,’ he said, chuckling. ‘You’re gonna stay in here until they take you to the funny farm. That’s where they take people who don’t remember their names. And they lock ’em up and they never let ’em out!’
Dalton straightened up to his full height of six foot, five inches. ‘You’re a lying sack of shit,’ he said to the little man. ‘The law clearly states that a person cannot be committed to a mental institution for any more than ninety days unless convicted or sentenced by a judge for a felony offense.’
The little guard stared hard at Dalton, then he broke eye contact and walked away. Tiny slapped Dalton on the back, almost knocking him against the bars. ‘Cool!’ he said, laughing. ‘You got that prick to shut up! First time I ever seen that!’
‘Thanks!’ Dalton said, beaming at Tiny. For some reason, he felt his luck was turning.
MARY ELLEN
Mary Ellen sat in the coffee shop booth, her head resting against the tile wall, sound asleep.
The waitress gently shook her. ‘Honey? Honey, you wanna wake up? It’s almost six. I don’t know what you gotta do today, but I’m thinking you need to wake up.’
Mary Ellen opened one eye. ‘I’m sleeping,’ she said.
The waitress chuckled. ‘Well, I can see that, honey. But you need to get up. Harry – he’s the manager –’ she said, pointing to the man at the grill, ‘he won’t let nobody sleep in here. He says it’s a hard and fast rule, whatever the hell that means.’
Mary Ellen stretched and looked out the window. Seeing daylight brought her up short. ‘Oh, gosh. What time is it?’ she asked.
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