Between Lost and Found

by Shelly Stratton

  “Suzie just happened to come back the next night and saw your cruiser there again.” Rita crossed her arms over her chest. “You had to know word would get around, Sam. No one can keep a secret in this damn town!”

  So now thanks to Suzie Lansing, half of Mammoth Falls could be gossiping about him and Janelle?

  “But I can’t believe you would do this . . . that you would mess up your goddamn life and reputation for some . . . some woman,” she said with apparent disgust, “that you barely know . . . who’s probably going to break your heart just like your wife did!”

  At the reference to Gabriela, he stiffened like he had been doused with a bucket of water. He remembered why he had been so angry at Hank, why he had wanted to lash out at someone, anyone. Feeling that anger had temporarily overwhelmed the desolation he felt inside. Now the desolation was back. A chill swept over him.

  “What if Hank does go to the union? Huh? And if they come to me and ask what happened, what should I say, Sam? What should I tell them?”

  “You do what you have to do, Rita,” he answered in a voice that was cold and bare. “Frankly, I don’t care.”

  And he didn’t. He had thrown away his life before on a whim. It had been almost a decade, but he could easily do it again. No more police chief. No more Mammoth Falls. If that was the twist that life was going to send him, so be it.

  Was that the feeling that Gabby had before she took her leap? Was she in a manic episode or a deep depression, or had she just stopped caring?

  “You don’t mean that.” Rita’s voice choked. Tears were in her green eyes. “The Sam I know wouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t . . . he wouldn’t do any of this.”

  The Sam she knew?

  And that’s when he realized it. She was in love with him. All this time she had been in love with him. This was yet another woman he would have to disappoint—like he had disappointed Gabby and like he would probably disappoint Janelle, too, in the long run.

  “Don’t hang your hat on me, Rita. I’m not the right man,” he said before turning around and walking down the sidewalk in the direction of the festival. He didn’t look back as his swift gait morphed into a run.

  CHAPTER 24

  It was hot on stage. Even though it was fifty-two degrees outside with a high of fifty-five expected, according to the forecast on television that morning, Connie may as well have been wearing a bikini and stretched out on a deck chair in a cabana for all the sweat that was pooling under her armpits and trickling down her back. She suspected it was because of the stage lights overhead, blaring down on her like the sun in a cloudless sky over the equator. Or maybe she could be working up a sweat because of all the tussling she was doing with Bernice over the microphone.

  The older woman had to be nearly twice her age and as willowy as a tree branch, but she had all the strength of a WWE wrestler.

  “Let go! I said let go!” Bernice yelled.

  Connie suddenly felt something hit her shoulder, then the back of her head, sending her dark hair tumbling into her face, momentarily blinding her.

  “Ouch!” she yelped over the sound of a clanging tambourine. She tried to shield her head as Mary Elizabeth struck her again.

  The throng gathered near the stage had increased from the twenty or so people who clapped their hands as Bernice sang hymns and Mary Elizabeth played acoustic guitar to almost a hundred or more. The crowd seemed to be multiplying by the second. They all stared at the brawling trio, slack-jawed. A few even rooted them on with shouts and fist pumps.

  “Look at that crazy Injun!” an old man with white hair and missing teeth yelped below.

  “Is this part of the show?” a bemused woman asked, letting a popcorn kernel fall from her mouth to the ground.

  “That old chick is wailing on her!” another shouted.

  “Go get ’em, Connie!” another yelled.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Connie could see Officer Mitch Engel talking into his radio and madly shoving at the people around him, trying to make his way through the festival crowd to the stage. He hopped up and down like a grasshopper on an open skillet. By the time Engel finally made it to the stage, Connie knew she would probably be arrested. But what did it matter?

  She had lost everything; she had nothing left to lose.

  “Connie!” Janelle yelled as she climbed the stage stairs and dashed toward them, raising the hem of her taffeta-and-crinoline dress as she ran. “Connie, what are you doing?”

  She stepped forward to separate the women, shoving her arms between them, but that also earned her a hit on the head with the tambourine. She jumped back, shielding herself.

  “Don’t you hit her, you old bitch!” Connie barked.

  Mary Elizabeth glanced at her tambourine guiltily and lowered it to her side.

  “Connie, Mary Elizabeth, and Bernice, you all end this right now! And that’s an order!”

  The three women abruptly stilled in the wake of the booming male voice. Connie looked down and saw Sam standing at the foot of the stage behind a metal barrier between the stage foreground and the crowd.

  Where did he come from, and how had he beat Engel?

  “You stop it now . . . or I’m placing you all under arrest!” he shouted over the jeering of the crowd as he shoved the barrier aside. “You hear me?”

  Janelle walked toward the edge of the stage. “No, Sam, please don’t arrest her. It’s just . . . it’s just a b-big misunderstanding. She was—”

  “Stay out of this, Janelle!”

  Janelle flinched and took a step back, and Connie knew why. It wasn’t just because of the command Sam had made or his tone, but his face. His entire face was . . . off. He didn’t look human anymore. No emotion registered on any of his features.

  It was the same look that Connie had seen on his face only once, more than twenty years ago, when Sam had run track back in junior high. Connie had stood in the wooden stands, pregnant and about to burst, watching the track meet with most of the town. The Mammoth Falls track team had been set to win the finals, but Sam had missed the baton hand-off during the hundred-meter relay, costing the team its win and top ranking.

  Sam had lowered his head when he did it. He already seemed devastated knowing he had been the reason for the team’s loss. But as the crowd slowly cleared the stands and the teams walked off the field, Sam’s father had marched him right back down to the track and made him practice the hand-off over and over again, all the while barking at the boy like some rabid dog.

  Connie didn’t know why she had lingered behind to watch Sam as his skinny, tan arms and legs pumped like a racehorse and his maroon uniform was pasted to his body soaked with sweat—but she did. The whole time she had been thinking, Someone needs to stop this. Someone should say something, but no one said anything. The few remaining had sat in the stands watching the spectacle of Sam running a one-man race and his father shouting at him. Around and around Sam went, until he had finally collapsed to the track out of sheer exhaustion. Tommy had yelled at him to stand up. After some time, Sam had pushed himself to his knees and then to his elbows before finally standing upright, trembling all over. He had stared at his father, and she had thought he would be crying or angry after enduring something so cruel and humiliating. But there was nothing on Sam’s face as he listened to his father shout at him about not being fast enough, not having enough discipline. It was like Sam had been poured out. He was completely empty.

  And today, he looked empty all over again.

  I pitied you once, Connie thought, glaring at him. I felt sorry for you, but not anymore.

  Tommy Adler wasn’t the best man, but at least he had lived up to his responsibilities. He never would have let Tyler off the hook so easily. He wouldn’t have rested until he had found Bill and made sure whoever had harmed Bill paid the price for it.

  Your father would be rolling in his grave if he could see you right now, Sam.

  Defiantly, Connie gave one more yank to the microphone. Bernice was no longer paying atte
ntion, so it was easy to wrestle it out of her hands.

  “You’re really going to arrest me, Sam?” Connie barked into the mic. Her piercing voice echoed down Main Street. She didn’t remember her voice sounding so high-pitched and loud, but it seemed to catch everyone’s attention as far back as the festival gates.

  Several heads perked up, turning away from the wares on sale at the stands. She commanded their attention—from the rodeo clown who was making balloon animals to the four men in the six-shooter competition. They all turned around to look at the stage where Connie stood.

  “I’m the one you’re going to arrest?” she asked.

  Sam didn’t respond, but those dead eyes continued to stare at her.

  “Hey, everybody! You hear that?” She looked into the crowd and locked eyes with some of the faces that peered up at her. “Police Chief Sam Adler wants to arrest me because I wanted to get on stage and make a speech about my man, about Little Bill, who disappeared a week ago, but these . . . these sanctimonious, snooty little bitches wouldn’t let me! Is that what you really want to do, Sam?”

  The jeering crowd had fallen silent. Officer Engel finally reached the edge of the stage and lunged forward, but Sam reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and stopped him. The police officer stared at him, perplexed. Sam shook his head.

  “That’s all I wanted to do, to talk about Bill, to dedicate this . . . this fashion show to him because he, of all people, deserves it. I . . . I didn’t have any big dreams for myself until I met Bill,” she rambled. “He was the one who talked me into opening my shop. He was the one who told me I could get my life together. He was the one who made me believe I could do . . . do anything, and . . . and now he’s gone.”

  Her voice choked at the end. Her eyes began to water.

  “Bill deserved the best and I wish . . . I wish I had given it to him.”

  She wiped away a tear and let her gaze travel over the sea of faces below her. Some looked confused, but most looked solemn. They were with her. They understood. Finally, everyone in town understood what she was going through. She felt her burden lift a little until her eyes settled on one face in particular: Yvette.

  Connie stared in surprise. She hadn’t expected her daughter to be here, not at the fashion show. But the young woman stood maybe twenty feet away with her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. Someone in the crowd shifted, and Connie could see that Tyler was at Yvette’s side. He had his arm looped around her shoulder. A smile was on his lips. No, it was more like a smirk.

  She started trembling all over.

  “Yeah, Bill deserved a lot more than what he got,” she continued, scowling at her daughter and Tyler. “He led a good life and deserved a respectable end.”

  How dare Tyler Macy smirk at her? How dare he rub it into her face—here, of all places, and at this moment? And he was taunting her in plain sight of the cops—not that it mattered. Sam wasn’t going to do anything, nor was Mitch Engel. They seemed unaware that a murderer was in their midst.

  And what was worse than Tyler’s presence and the cops’ obliviousness was Yvette standing at Tyler’s side.

  A Brutus in leather, skin-tight pants.

  But Yvette had always done that, hadn’t she? She had always chosen others before her own mother, siding with Tyler, her friends, and her daddy. It hadn’t mattered the years of sacrifice Connie had endured, or how she had tried her best to do right by Yvette. It wasn’t enough. She never was enough.

  “He was a good man with a kind heart who understood loyalty. You hear me? Loyalty! Bill didn’t deserve to be . . . to be driven off the road, dragged out of his truck, and . . . and have the shit kicked out of him!”

  Her words increased in speed and vehemence. Janelle stared at her in disbelief.

  “He didn’t deserve that!” Connie screeched at Tyler, making several people jump in alarm. “And he certainly didn’t deserve to get taken out by some . . . some piece of shit ex-con who wasn’t worth dirt on Bill’s shoes! But there he is, the man who killed my Bill!”

  She jabbed her finger at Tyler, and several men around him took a step back, one holding up his hands and furiously shaking his head in denial.

  Tyler’s smirk disappeared. He dropped his hand from Yvette’s shoulder.

  “So is this what you call justice? Is this all Bill is going to get? Meanwhile, this son of a bitch gets to walk around doing whatever the hell he wants! Is that what we let happen in this town, Sam?” she cried hysterically. Her cheeks were wet. She realized hot tears of rage were streaming down her face, sliding down her neck, pooling near her collarbone. “Is no one going to do anything? Anything?”

  CHAPTER 25

  After Connie screamed her question, the entire festival—young and old, men, women, and children—seemed to fall into an uncomfortable stillness. Janelle could even hear the faint sound of a car engine in the distance.

  She was stunned. Even Sam was shaken out of whatever dark spell he had been under that made him look like some kind of cyborg. When Connie had bellowed his name, he had twitched like someone had zapped him with a buzzer. Those cerulean blue eyes were no longer vacant. They were tense and alert now.

  Meanwhile, Janelle remained bewildered by Connie’s allegations. How did she know Pops had been driven off the road, let alone had “the shit kicked out of him”? And how in the world did she know Tyler had done it? Where had she come up with this?

  Janelle stared at Connie, disturbed to see the woman’s soft features made blunt and gaunt by intense hatred and anger. But what was more disturbing was that several people in the crowd seemed to agree with Connie, from the looks of outrage on their faces and the growing whispers that sounded like a nest of buzzing bees.

  “That’s not justice!” someone shouted. Janelle couldn’t see his face, but it was a man’s voice, thick and husky. “Connie’s right! Tyler Macy should be arrested!”

  A few more murmurs erupted. Several people nodded in agreement.

  “You guys found Bill’s body and you haven’t done a thing, Sam!” a woman toward the front of the crowd shouted, shaking with rage. She clutched the hand of a preteen girl who wore a One Direction t-shirt, who looked horrified and embarrassed. “Not a damn thing!”

  “When’s Bill gonna get some justice?” someone else yelled.

  “He didn’t deserve to die in a ditch!”

  Sam held up his hands. “Look, folks!” he said, trying his best to be heard over the shouts from the throng beyond the metal barrier. Those shouts were slowly turning to a wave of rising, unintelligible sound. “We didn’t find Bill’s body! We found a body which we haven’t identified yet! There’s a big difference!”

  “Bullshit!” someone screamed. “You know it’s him! Stop pussyfooting around, Sam!”

  “No, we don’t!” Sam shouted back.

  Janelle watched his Adam’s apple bob above the collar of his uniform as he swallowed. She could see him fighting to keep his cool, fighting to keep his tone even. “Look, everybody, just . . . just let the medical examiner’s office do its job. Wait for the body to be identified. Everyone just calm down, all right?”

  “No, I’m not waiting anymore!” Connie screamed into the microphone. “I’m not waiting for the medical examiner or the cops! I’ve waited long enough!”

  “You know where Tyler is!” someone shouted. “He’s right here standing in front of you! We all know what he’s done . . . what he’s capable of!”

  “He’s no angel. That’s for sure,” an old man muttered. He stood toward the front of the crowd, leaning on a cane. “Stole a car last year, didn’t he?”

  “Everyone,” Sam said, trying again and sounding desperate, “please calm down. I . . . I know you’re all upset, but don’t do this! This is not who we are! We—”

  “We just want justice, Sam! We want justice for Bill!” a woman yelled.

  “Just lock him up! Throw him in jail and throw away the key!” someone else called out.

  “Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!”
several in the crowd began to chant. The chants became louder and louder. They seemed to take over the entire festival.

  What the hell is going on?

  Janelle looked around her, wide-eyed. Was this what a mob looked like?

  She glanced again at Sam, who was slowly shaking his head. His jaw tightened.

  “All right!” Sam shouted. He grabbed the side of the stage and hoisted himself up, not even bothering to take the stairs. He rose to his feet and made a slicing motion with his hand. Janelle could barely hear him now above the chanting. “This show is over. I’m shutting this thing down!”

  But the chanting continued. It became even louder.

  “Get off of me! Don’t you fuckin’ touch me!” a man shouted.

  “He didn’t do anything! Let him go! Get off of him, you son of a bitch!” Yvette screeched.

  That’s when things took a turn for the worse: the mood, the voices, and the people. Loki waved his magic wand and the five blocks of Main Street between Poplar Road and Abbey Lane in the scenic mountain town of Mammoth Falls descended into complete chaos.

  Everyone had been standing elbow to elbow only a few seconds earlier. Now they pushed and shoved at one another.

  Janelle took a step back as the crowd surged forward, causing the metal barrier to clatter to the ground. The security guards who had managed to make it to the stage perimeter were powerless against the human tide and, instead, were crushed against the stage themselves.

  The stage started to buckle in some spots. The metal ballasting system couldn’t withstand the collective weight of all the bodies pressing against it. Janelle felt like she was in the middle of an earthquake and the ground was bucking and dipping beneath her.

  Connie was knocked off of her feet. One of the other women—the taller half of the gospel duo—looked like she was in the middle of a rollicking heavy metal concert and had decided to stage-dive into the crowd. She landed on the writhing mob, her dress flying over her head, revealing her cotton panties beneath. Her cry of pain was smothered by the collective yells and shouts around her. Her friend started to wail like some horror movie scream queen.