(2001) The Girls Are Missing

by Caroline Crane

  Mary Ellen stroked the baby’s arm. “He’s so precious. I can hardly believe he’s my brother.”

  “He doesn’t even look like you,” Olivia said. “You take after your mother.” She bounced him up and down and he spewed his lunch onto her shoulder.

  “What have you been feeding this child?” Hastily she handed him to Joyce and suffered Carl to clean off her dress.

  “Oh, what a shame,” said Joyce. “He did just have a full meal. I guess that sudden motion wasn’t good for him.”

  Carl escorted Olivia downstairs for a glass of sherry while Joyce returned the baby to his crib.

  When she went to join them, Carl had poured drinks for the two women and was in the kitchen mixing one for himself. She could hear him opening a tray of ice cubes, spilling them like rocks into the plastic bin in the freezing compartment. Olivia sat across from her, gazing at the mantelpiece.

  The silence was nerve-wracking. Casting about for something to say, Joyce surprised herself by asking, “Have you heard from Daniella recently?”

  Olivia, her attention jerked from the mantel, stared at her suspiciously. They had never discussed Daniella before. Or much of anything. They had never, Joyce realized, even been alone together before.

  “I frequently hear from Daniella,” Olivia replied. “Why?”

  “I just wondered. We got a card from her at Christmas, but I don’t think Carl sent her one. He hardly ever talks about her. Sometimes I forget he even has a sister.”

  “She’s out in Arizona. That’s a fairly good distance.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “How often do you talk about your sister? I suppose you have a sister or brother.”

  “Two sisters and two brothers,” said Joyce, expecting then to be asked about her family.

  But Olivia did not care about her family. She rested her sherry glass on the arm of her chair and again studied the mantel.

  “Carl and Daniella used to be very close, when they were growing up. But it’s hardly appropriate to stay that attached to one another, do you think?”

  “It depends,” Joyce said. “It’s a different kind of closeness. I feel, with my brother Pat—well, he’s a good friend.” She excused herself, called the girls to set the table, and went out to the kitchen, where Carl was measuring vermouth into his glass.

  “What on earth are you doing?” she asked.

  “Mixing a drink. What’s the matter, can’t you talk to her?”

  “It’s not easy.” She opened the refrigerator and took out a bowl of chicken that was marinating in lime juice. “Everything I say, she argues with. Everything she says, it sounds as if she’s trying to pick a fight with me. “

  “Aren’t you exaggerating a little?”

  She motioned him to keep his voice low, and began arranging the chicken on a broiling pan.

  “Well, that’s the way it seems. It just seems hostile, the way she talks to me.”

  He rattled his drink and tasted it. “I suppose it’s possible that you resent her, because she had me before you did.”

  “I certainly do not! After all, she’s your mother. I’m not in competition with her.”

  Or was she?

  Trying to ease over the argument, she said, “I don’t know, maybe I’m just moody. It must be the heat.”

  “It’s postpartum depression.”

  “Baloney. I don’t get that.”

  “Very experienced, aren’t you? Anyway, it’s more apt to happen with the second than the first, didn’t you know? Probably you miss something about your old life. That’s what it often is.”

  “I don’t miss anything.” She wondered if that was true.

  “You’re sure?”

  She remembered the summer mornings on the fringes of Greenwich Village, even in that cramped apartment … the lazy walks to buy a newspaper—yes, Larry had been around sometimes… the antique shops that were open on Sunday, where they could browse and dream … and sunning on the pier in the Hudson River. She tried to remember the soot, and the times Larry wasn’t there.

  “Of course not. I told you.”

  Gail drifted down the stairs, pale-faced and miserable. All through the meal she remained a silent tragic figure, so that this time it was fortunate that no one took the trouble to notice her.

  She was released after dinner when they moved into the sun porch with their coffee. Mary Ellen stayed with them, alternately listening to the grown-up talk and staring out of the window, her eyes glazed with boredom.

  Olivia stirred sugar into her coffee. “I hear you got a

  Christmas card from Daniella and you didn’t send her one. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Just didn’t think of it,” Carl answered with a smile.

  Joyce said, “I would have sent her one, but I didn’t know her address.”

  “Is that why you don’t write?” Olivia asked. “You lost her address?”

  “I have it someplace,” he replied.

  “And you used to be so close.”

  Joyce said, “I think we ought to keep in touch. We might like to visit her sometime. I’ve never seen the Southwest.”

  Carl asked in astonishment, “What on earth do you want to visit Daniella for?”

  “They used to be so close,” Olivia repeated, “after their father and I were divorced. It’s a shame.”

  A reversal of her earlier thesis.

  “How old were they?” Joyce asked. She really knew very little about Carl’s early life.

  “Let’s see. Carl was four, I think, when we separated, and Daniella was nine. No, wait, it was later. I married again two years later, you know.”

  “I knew you’d married again.” Only because Olivia had a different last name. “But what do you mean ‘it was later’?”

  “The time I’m talking about. It was after I remarried. I was with Carl a lot in those two years in between—he was so little—then I married again. Daniella was eleven. She took over for me then. She was almost a mother to him. But I suppose he grew up after a while and didn’t need a mother.”

  Joyce glanced at Carl and found him watching Mary Ellen.

  His coffee cup began to rattle in its saucer and he set it down. “Haven’t you anything decent to wear?” he demanded of his daughter.

  Mary Ellen’s jaw dropped. “This is decent. What do you want me to do, wear a blanket? Honestly, Daddy.”

  “Carl, really, it is hot,” Joyce reminded him, and her words sounded familiar. They had been through all that the other day.

  Tight-lipped, he replied, “It’s the way she was bending over.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I don’t have a bra,” Mary Ellen sulked. “I’m sorry I can’t stay six years old forever.”

  Joyce reached out to pat her arm. “You don’t want to be six years old forever.” How fortunate that Mary Ellen accepted her own maturing process, even if her father did not.

  Furiously he hissed, “Joyce, mind your own business.”

  She was silent, chastened. This was between father and daughter—but so irrational. It would only hurt Mary Ellen, and Carl, too, in the long run.

  I’ll get her some bras, she decided. If Barbara can’t be bothered, I can.

  She thought again of the murder and how helpless it must make him feel with a growing daughter, a phenomenon men never seemed to understand or take for granted.

  Olivia watched them all with a forced little smile.

  11

  Mary Ellen was enchanted by her young brother, if not by anything else in the household. She leaned over the bathinette watching him kick, and held the spray hose while Joyce soaped his body.

  “He’s so tiny,” she exclaimed. “Was he even smaller when he was born?”

  “He was scrawnier,” said Joyce. “They usually are. But actually he was rather big for a newborn. Eight pounds, three ounces.” She lifted Adam from the bathinette and wrapped him in a towel. Downstairs, the telephone rang.

  “Can I hold him while you answer it?” Mary Ellen as
ked.

  Joyce picked up the phone in the bedroom. Immediately Barbara’s agitated voice sputtered over the wire.

  “Listen, I just heard on the radio they found a second body right where you are. A second body. I didn’t hear anything about a first one.”

  “Another? I didn’t—When was this?”

  “Yesterday. You mean you didn’t know?”

  “About the first one, yes. But not—Where was it? Did they say?”

  “Just ‘in the same area.’ Now, what first? Was it anywhere near you? Was it one of those missing girls?”

  “Yes, the older one. It was in the newspaper, Barbara.”

  “I was away for the weekend. Now tell me, how near you?”

  “Not right here. Maybe half a mile, I don’t know.” Joyce exaggerated the distance, for Barbara’s sake. Why hadn’t they told her about the second body? “They,” she supposed, being the police.

  “I know exactly how you feel,” she said. “I have a daughter, too, but believe me, these kids stay right around the house.”

  Mary Ellen, holding Adam bundled in her arms, sat watching from the rocking chair in a corner of the room. “Is that my mother?”

  Joyce nodded, and looked out at the sunshine on the lawn, at the bright meadow with its daisies, and the apple tree. It couldn’t be happening. Not here.

  Maybe I should get a dog, she thought.

  Barbara said, “Anyway, that’s not the problem. Is my daughter there now?”

  “Yes, do you want to talk to her?”

  Not the problem? Joyce wondered as she finished dressing Adam. If that wasn’t the problem, what was?

  “No, I don’t want to,” Mary Ellen was saying into the phone. After a pause, during which snatches of Barbara’s voice crackled across the room, she explained, “There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to do here, either, but at least it’s a little more fun. I helped Joyce give the baby his bath.”

  Moments later she hung up, wrinkling her face in disgust. “I don’t know what’s the matter with that woman.”

  “You can’t really blame her,” Joyce said. “She’s concerned about you. She must miss you very much.”

  “That’ll be the day. She’s got something bothering her. It’s always something.”

  Mary Ellen remained transfixed while Adam was fed his mashed banana. He was propped in a reclining seat on the kitchen table, with Mary Ellen gazing in adoration at his messy face, when footsteps thumped lightly on the walk outside.

  Anita peered through the screen door. “Mrs. Gilwood, did you know they found Valerie Cruz and she’s dead, too? She was in my sister’s class.”

  “I heard,” said Joyce. “It’s horrible. And I’m amazed that your mother allows you to wander around alone, even on the road. Does she know you’re here?”

  “I guess so.” Anita let herself in. “Valerie was a friend of my sister’s, and when they found her, she was all cut up. They cut open her stomach and took out all her, you know, what’s inside. I bet that hurt.”

  “I bet she was already dead when they did it,” Joyce said. Gail, coming into the kitchen at the sound of Anita’s voice, turned ashen. Joyce added, “I’d rather we didn’t talk about those things.”

  “They killed her by choking her to death,” Anita went on. “Like this.” She reached for Gail’s throat. Gail slapped her away.

  Anita was taken aback by Gail’s hostile reaction, but soon recovered. She ran squealing up the stairs, with Gail after her, and brought down the dolls to play with on the lawn.

  By that time, some of the lawn was in shade. Joyce carried a lunch tray outside to a small wooden table under an oak tree. She found the two girls huddled by the zinnia bed. Anita’s voice drifted over to her. “… go back to that place.”

  “No,” said Gail.

  “But I have to get my peacock and my horse. I left them there, remember? And you were there, too, so it’s partly your fault, and you have to go with me.”

  Gail looked at her mother in mute appeal. To distract them from whatever Anita was trying to cook up, Joyce said, “After lunch, maybe we can go swimming. All of us.”

  Gail was delighted, almost to the point of forgetting about

  the murders. They packed away the dolls and ate their lunch, then set out in the car, with Adam’s travel bed in the back seat. Mary Ellen squeezed herself in beside it. Gail and Anita sat in front.

  They stopped at the Farands’ house so that Anita could change into her swimsuit. Sheila came out to the car and leaned on the window.

  “I suppose you heard the news?”

  “If you mean about the other girl, yes. I heard it this morning.”

  “I just can’t believe it. My daughter knew that kid. Joyce, what are we going to do?”

  “What can we do? Just watch out, I guess.”

  “Oh, you, you’re a city girl. You’re used to these things.”

  “I’m both. I grew up in the country, and believe it or not, I never felt any worse off in the city. We always had our door locked, and there were always people around. I felt—”

  Not safe, after Larry died. She had hated it then.

  Anita came out of the house wearing a pair of shorts over her suit, and got into the car. They drove through the edge of Cedarville, past a row of small stores and modest houses. After that, the street diminished to a narrow winding road that led out into the country. About a mile later, they came to an artificial pond with the pretentious name of Paradise Lake. The entrance fee was immodest, but it was the only place near Cedarville where they could swim. She settled herself with Adam in a grove of pine trees and watched the girls play in the water. Anita had latched onto Mary Ellen and was whispering to her and giggling, which left Gail by herself.

  But Gail often played and swam alone. She paddled near the shore, humming softly, and found pebbles and flip tops to create another microcosm, as she had created the fairy house. Mary Ellen, who turned out to be a surprisingly good

  swimmer, abandoned Anita and double-overarmed to a large float near the center of the pond, occupied by a group of teenagers. Joyce watched in mild alarm as Mary Ellen quickly befriended a romantically dark youth with the body of a man. They swam around the raft, dove off it, raced, and splashed each other.

  Gail came out of the water and stood shivering by her mother.

  “You’re freezing.” Joyce handed her a towel.

  “Mommy, I don’t like it anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like the bottom of it. It’s all muddy, and there are sticks and things.”

  The bottom of it, which she could not see … She could only feel the mud and the sticks. Gail was cursed with too much imagination. Now even this was spoiled for her.

  Gail settled under the trees, wrapped in her towel. But Anita, who was incapable of playing alone, came to inveigle her back into the water.

  “I’ll race you,” she coaxed. Gail shook her head.

  “Well, I’m going in the water, and I’m going to have fun.” Anita rolled about, wiggled her toes, and performed enticing antics. She had chosen a shallow area where sand from the artificial beach could still be seen through two feet of water. It was clear of mud and sticks. Gail wandered down to the shore. Ignoring Anita, she stepped into the water until it covered her feet.

  Anita barrel-rolled on the sandy bottom. Gail waded into deeper water. Anita turned a somersault. Gail stared at the trees on the opposite shore.

  Suddenly Anita was on Gail’s back. They both tumbled into the water. Then only Anita emerged, riding on something and laughing wildly.

  Joyce kicked off her shoes and splashed into the lake. A young woman in a blue bikini ran with her, blowing a

  whistle. She pulled Gail from the water and led her toward the beach, where a crowd of children gathered to stare.

  Gail sputtered and choked. The woman patted her on the back until she seemed to be breathing evenly.

  The children drifted away, except for Anita, who stood gaping at
Gail. On catching Joyce’s eye, she giggled self-consciously.

  “That wasn’t funny,” Joyce said. “Why did you do it, Anita?”

  “Because she wouldn’t play with me.”

  Gail was still choking and trying to clear her throat. Anita watched her curiously.

  Joyce asked, “Do you think that’s the way to get someone to play with you?”

  Anita tilted her head and pulled on a strand of hair, trying coquetry where it had no chance of succeeding.

  “My father does that sometimes.”

  “He ducks you? Gail could have drowned!”

  She should have ignored the statement. Anita was a known liar, trying to justify herself.

  It wasn’t possible, not the mild-mannered Foster Farand, with his rimless glasses, his bald spot, and funny little smile.

  No, Anita herself was crazy and vicious. Or only childish and unthinking?

  On the other hand, could there be something wrong with Foster? Something she had never seen? But not even Foster—Not that.

  And yet, there had been two murders. Where there were murders, there was a killer.

  It had to be somebody.

  12

  Anita, sensing that she was out of favor, tried a different approach. She became sweetly contrite—and emptily so, it seemed to Joyce—stroking Gail’s arm and trying to jolly her out of her silence, but never quite apologizing.

  “You had the lifeguard come and save you,” she purred. “Were you scared in the water?”

  Gail regarded her stonily.

  “My father does that to me all the time,” Anita said. “You get used to it after a while.”

  Gail glanced at her mother. Joyce smiled and winked. The response was too frivolous. Gail turned away, feeling betrayed there, too.

  Joyce saw Mary Ellen swimming back from the float, and decided it would be a good time to leave.

  As they walked toward the parking lot, Anita announced to everyone’s distress, “I’m supposed to go home with you until my mother calls. She’s going out shopping, and she’s scared for me to be in the house when nobody’s there. I always used to stay home alone. I think she’s crazy. It’s because of those dead girls. It makes people crazy.” She giggled.