Secrets In The Shadows

by T. L. Haddix

  Lauren frowned. “I thought their son, Jacob, was running the farm.”

  “He is. He’s the one who bought it at auction, and for a fraction of what was owed on it.”

  Ethan raised a brow. “I can’t imagine that went over too well when Mom and Dad finally got back in touch with everyone.”

  With a low whistle, Lauren agreed. “I’d say not. That farm had been in the family for a number of years, best I recall. So then what happens? I assume they did finally reappear?”

  “They did. About two, two and half years after they left, they registered the girls in public school in Rabun County, Georgia. Emmaline and Geneva were enrolled there until eight years ago, when they were abruptly withdrawn and placed in schools here in Indiana. Apparently, Jacob and his wife, Emily, sued for custody and won, and the girls have been with them ever since. Want to make two guesses why?”

  Dismayed, Lauren closed her eyes. “Oh, no. Carl?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. There were allegations of abuse, and someone called Jacob. He went down immediately and got them out of there.”

  “Why weren’t charges filed?” David asked.

  “I don’t think Carl ever got to the point of molesting the girls. From what little I was able to find out, and don’t ask me how or where I got this, someone close to the family knew a little about what had happened with Margie, and found out that the oldest daughter, Emmaline, had said something to one of her teachers about her father. The teacher knew this family friend, mentioned it to them, and the friend called Jacob, which led to him going to get the girls. He did file a report with the local police, but it didn’t go anywhere. It’s a small county, small budget for police work, and Carl just slipped through the cracks.”

  Ethan nodded with understanding. “Yeah, it does happen. Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow, but there are more ‘cracks’ in the system than we’d like. Legislators and budget planners just don’t seem to put crime fighting very high on their list of priorities.”

  “Amen to that.” Charlie continued. “After the girls were taken, Carl and Mary Margaret moved to Hart County, probably to escape the allegations. This is where things really went into a decline for them. He worked in a lumber mill for a few years before they lost the girls, and they were doing okay financially. They had gotten a couple of small credit cards, bought a car. They rented the house in Rabun. Probably knew they couldn’t get approved for a mortgage, and the old bank might come after them for the foreclosure balance on the farm.”

  “All that went away when they left Rabun County. He had a hard time finding another job that paid as well. It was almost a year and a half after they moved before he got a job where he got paid above the table. That was working on cars in a garage. Carl was there for almost two years when money started disappearing.”

  “So he was embezzling?” Lauren couldn’t hide her surprise.

  “Allegedly. At the very least, he was the prime suspect. According to my source, the owner told him he wouldn’t prosecute if Carl admitted what he’d done and returned the money. He confessed, told the guy he would get the money for him, asked for forty-eight hours to come up with it, and he and Mary Margaret disappeared. The owner filed charges with the police, and once again, they went underground.”

  She frowned. “Where was Troy during all this? I thought he went with them to Georgia.”

  “He did,” Charlie confirmed. “He was with them in Rabun County, which I believe is where they went when they left Indiana. When I did the background search on him, I discovered that someone using his name rented a house in Rabun County thirteen years ago. He was younger than Margie, so he would still have been a minor at the time. He couldn’t legally rent a house on his own.”

  “His parents.” David refilled his water glass. “That’s a trick we see folks using pretty often, using their children’s identities to register utilities, things like that.”

  “Yeah. And when the parents did reemerge in Rabun County? Guess what address they listed as their residence?”

  Lauren leaned forward, playing with her napkin. “Troy always was Mary Margaret’s favorite. It makes sense that they would use him. He’s the child least likely to turn against them. What else happened?”

  Charlie stretched his arms above his head, rotating his shoulders. “After his parents left Rabun, Troy stayed in the house for a while. It gets pretty interesting, what happened with him in the next few years, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

  “Four and a half years ago, when Carl was accused of stealing the money? That was the last time they disappeared. About two years ago, they pop back up again in Rabun County. There is absolutely no record of where they’d been in the interim, so it’s anyone’s guess. Mary Margaret has family in that neck of the woods, so I’d bet they stayed with or near them. If Carl hadn’t gotten sick, they might not have reemerged for years. He was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease, and they had to come forward to apply for disability.”

  “Wouldn’t they have arrested him then, on the theft charges?” Lauren looked at David.

  He shook his head. “It would have been up to the prosecutor and the guy he stole from to press the issue.”

  Charlie tapped the file. “That’s exactly what happened. When the owner saw how sick Carl was, he decided to not pursue charges. He figured Carl was already suffering enough, and he knew there was no way to get his money back now that the man was dying. He also felt sorry for Mary Margaret, so he dropped the charges.”

  There was a light tap on the door, and Rita peeked inside. “Do you all need anything?”

  Lauren stood, needing to visit the restroom. “Actually, I need to excuse myself for a couple minutes.”

  When she returned, Rita was still chatting with Charlie, virtually ignoring Ethan. Charlie was obviously flustered, his arms tightly crossed over his chest, one of his feet tapping impatiently. David had walked away from the table to make a phone call, and Ethan was just sitting back, watching Charlie squirm. Lauren saw the tiny grin on his face and had to struggle to hold back her own amusement.

  Deciding to be just a little bit mean, she squeezed Charlie’s shoulder as she walked by, letting her fingers trail across his back and down his other arm as she sat. Rita, who had observed the move closely, became rigid. When Ethan started coughing and excused himself, the other woman sent him an affronted glare.

  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Lauren thought.

  “Rita, if you don’t mind, can you make sure we aren’t disturbed anymore? We’ve got a lot to talk about here.” Charlie’s tone was a little short, and Rita picked up on it.

  “Of course. Excuse me.” She stalked to the door and closed it none too gently.

  It opened again, and Ethan came back, his face flushed. When he closed the door behind him, he grinned widely. “What’d you say to her? She’s got steam coming out of her ears.”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” David said as he returned to his seat. “What was that all about? Josie said to tell you both hello, by the way.”

  Lauren shrugged. “Oh, Rita just got an unpleasant wake-up call, that’s all.”

  Charlie grinned. “Is that what you call it? I thought it was more like you staking your territory.”

  David coughed. “And I missed it. Damn.”

  Clearing her throat, Lauren tried to restart the conversation. “Shall we get back to the business at hand, gentlemen?”

  Shooting her a look that promised he wouldn’t forget what she’d done, Charlie continued, and the mood in the room sobered. “As I was saying, he had apparently been sick for a while, but didn’t know it. He collapsed one night and had to be taken to the ER. That’s when he was diagnosed with advanced kidney disease. Mary Margaret convinced him that they had to try to get disability because they wouldn’t have anything to live on otherwise, and that’s what they did. Since he was terminally ill, he got it pretty much as soon as he applied. They’ve been living out in the open ever since.”

  “So wh
y was he stealing the money? Was it to support Mary Margaret and Troy?” Lauren asked.

  “No. After Jacob came and got the girls, Carl didn’t have any more victims at home. He had to look elsewhere to feed his appetite.”

  Lauren’s stomach dropped. “Please don’t tell me he targeted someone else.” She dreaded the answer, and Charlie picked up on her distress. He reached a hand out and covered one of hers.

  “He didn’t, at least not the way you’re thinking. Thankfully, he didn’t go after any more teenagers. However, he did start drinking and going to topless bars, and it looks like he got into that lifestyle pretty deeply. He used their credit cards to run up some good-sized debt, and when those were maxed out, he started stealing from his boss. He paid off the credit cards with the money he stole, and used the rest for lap dances and prostitutes. No surprise, he seemed to prefer the ones who looked young.”

  She was amazed. “How did you find out about all this?”

  “I was wondering about that myself.” David held up a hand when Charlie quirked an eyebrow at him. “Not that I’m not grateful, but I’m just wondering how much of this I can take to my supervisor.”

  “Most of the information I’ve given you was obtained through legal channels—public records, newspapers, web sites. You’d be amazed how much you can find out about someone on websites devoted to genealogy, or through local forums and discussion boards. All that stuff is in the report I prepared for you.”

  “What you won’t find in the report is some of the details about the prostitutes, and some of the speculation about Troy. We also got very lucky—one of my contractors lives in northern Georgia, and he has a ton of connections, both law enforcement and folks on the other side of the law. He put out some feelers, and the news flooded in. Apparently, this family is not well-liked in that part of the state, but they are very well known among a certain culture.”

  “So the report—how far is that going to take me, investigation-wise? Were you able to find enough through legal channels to pursue an inquiry, if necessary?”

  Charlie hesitated. “The thing is, except for the two youngest daughters, Carl seems to have kept his nose clean. The prostitutes, the topless dancers? For the most part that’s just disgusting behavior that can’t be prosecuted. I wish there was something I could point to, but it looks like Carl’s in the clear.” He looked at Lauren. “I’m sorry there isn’t a smoking gun somewhere that you could use to get the guy, but try to look at it this way—at least he didn’t leave any more victims out there.”

  Lauren agreed, though she had to admit to herself that part of her had wanted to see the man hang. Sitting back, she crossed her arms. “I guess his illness is punishment enough, in a way. The rest is up to God. I just have to accept that.”

  After a minute, Ethan cleared his throat. “So what about Troy? You said he looked interesting. What’d you find out about him?”

  Charlie’s expression hardened. “Troy’s a different story. Looking at all the other Vernon kids, they seem stable, healthy—normal, for lack of a better word. None of them have criminal records. They keep their noses clean, their bills paid. You get the picture. Troy, however? He’s rotten to the core. After what I learned from his background search, I’m really liking him for the vandalism.” He picked up a second file, thumbing through it.

  “When they came out of hiding in Rabun the first time, Troy never went back to school. He dropped out of high school and ended up getting his GED in jail. He stayed in Rabun, in the aforementioned house, but about six months after his parents moved, he stopped paying rent. The guy who owned the house evicted him. Troy got even by burning down the rental house.” He paused for a minute for the impact of his words to take effect.

  “It was his first offense, and the judge felt sorry for him. The prosecutor wanted a longer sentence, based on the violence of the crime, but the judge wouldn’t have it. He sent Troy to a minimum security prison with the smallest sentence he could hand down. Troy was out in two years for good behavior.”

  “Where were his parents when he went to prison?” Ethan asked.

  “They were in Hart County. They’d been there about a year when he was arrested, and he got out just before they disappeared the last time.”

  Lauren angled her head to the side. “Did he go back to live with them, then? I can’t imagine his mother letting him back in her house after he’d been in prison.”

  “Oh, but you’re forgetting. Troy’s a mama’s boy. He convinced her that he had been framed. He told her the guy who owned the house burned it down for the insurance money.”

  “And she believed him?” Lauren snorted. “I don’t know why that surprises me, but it does. She won’t believe her husband is raping her daughter, and she won’t believe her son is an arsonist. What an absolute…” She stopped and drew in a deep, calming breath. “I don’t even know what to say. Good God.”

  Charlie’s face was grim. “It gets better. He moved back in with them for about six months, until they went into hiding again. Troy didn’t want to violate his parole by leaving the area and have to go back to jail, so he called a prison buddy of his, and moved up to Union County. He worked odd jobs up there for a while, and lived with several women. While he was in Union County, there was a string of robberies in the area. There were also a couple assaults, and the local cops suspected his involvement, but they were never able to prove anything.”

  Sitting back in his chair, he pinched the bridge of his nose as though he were getting a headache. “His probation was up a couple of years after he moved into Union County, and he managed, somehow, to keep his nose clean, probably by not getting caught. About eighteen months ago, he left Union County and showed up at his parents’ house. He brought his wife along with him. Her name is Iris, and she was only fifteen when he married her. Her parents had to sign for it, as the legal age of consent in Georgia is sixteen. She was also about five or six months pregnant when they got married. That means that she was a hell of a lot closer to fourteen than she was to sixteen when he got her pregnant. He was twenty-six at the time.”

  “I didn’t think she looked that old the other day in the shop,” Lauren said, quietly devastated. “She’s pregnant again, looks to be about four or five months along, and she was flat scared to death when Mary Margaret went crazy. He married a child. Is there anything that can be done about it?” She looked from Ethan to David. They both shook their heads.

  David answered. “I don’t think so. If her parents signed for them to marry, the law’s hands are tied. It sounds like he has a taste for young girls, though. Probably something worth keeping an eye on We might be able to catch him with his pants down sometime in the future. Has anything happened since they’ve been back? Any red flags?”

  “Not really,” Charlie answered. “However, they do have Internet where they’re living now, and it would be possible to put a ‘tap’ on that IP connection to see what they’re up to. It wouldn’t exactly be legal, but it could be done.”

  “Let’s hold off on that for now,” David told him. “I can’t knowingly tell you to do something illegal, but if we ever need a backdoor, it’s something to keep in mind.”

  Ethan spoke up. “I’m supposed to go to Jefferson County tomorrow afternoon and interview Troy. I would have gone sooner, but their sheriff wanted me to wait until one of their detectives could go with me.”

  David whistled. “Jurisdictional pissing contest?”

  “Something like that. Our sheriff is Republican, theirs is a Democrat.”

  Lauren was getting restless. It had been a long day, and all the talk about the Vernons was making her skin crawl. She turned to Charlie. “What else did you find out? Although I don’t know if I can handle anything more right now.”

  “We can take a break if you need to,” he told her.

  “Are we almost finished?”

  “Almost.”

  She nodded. “Then let’s get this over with.”

  His mouth tightened, but he continued. �
��Okay. This all brings us to Margie. I tried to find her and was able to track her as far as Florida. That was right after she left here, and she’s active for about six months after that. Then she disappears.”

  David sat back, his face blank. “Completely disappears?”

  “She never applied for a credit card, driver’s license, or marriage license. She hasn’t ever been listed on anyone’s birth certificate, and she wasn’t listed in the Social Security Death Index, either,” he said. “It doesn’t look good. I’m sorry. I’ve got a team running searches on missing persons, unidentified, and that sort of thing, but it will take a little while to get the results back.”

  They all seemed to realize that as young as Margie had been when she disappeared, and as troubled, it would have been all too easy for her to have been abducted and killed. No one would ever know about it unless her body was found and identified.

  “When the attack occurred, I really blamed Margie for the part she’d played in it, but looking back now, as an adult, I’m able to see that she did what she had to do in order to survive. She was a victim, maybe even more than I was. The people who were supposed to keep her safest betrayed her the most. I feel like I owe it to her to try to find out what happened to her.”

  Ethan stood. “Well, as much as I hate to, I need to run. Any chance you can get me a copy of that report?” he asked Charlie and shook his hand.

  “Of course. I brought an extra.” He pulled the file out of his briefcase and handed it to Ethan.

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know what I find. I’ll stop on my way out and pay my tab.”

  After he left, they wrapped up. Charlie handed the other copy of the file to David. “I’ll make you a copy if you want,” he told Lauren.

  “No. I’m fine.”