Darkling

by R. B. Chesterton

  “I know it sounds … crazy.” Her voice grew thick with emotion. “Before I came here to Coden, I …” she reached across and touched Mark’s arm. “I can’t remember, but Cora says something bad happened to me. She says that’s why I can’t remember.” Her hand lingered on him, and he looked down at it but didn’t remove it. “I feel safe when you’re here.”

  I couldn’t believe she was making a play for Mark. I stepped onto the porch. “Annie, is something wrong?”

  Mark looked up at me, frowned, then stood. “Annie was telling me something.” He was annoyed at my intrusion, but he covered it.

  “I’m sure it’s just my imagination. You know how it is at night, with the wind and the tide slushing up to the shore.” Annie stood. “I’ll get that coffee for you, Deputy. But Mimi did see someone in the yard last night, like I told you. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. You should ask her.”

  Mark’s eyebrows rose. “Mimi, I think we should talk.”

  I waited until Annie went in the house. Her behavior disturbed me. I couldn’t tell if she was truly going after Mark and trying to get me in trouble, but it had certainly looked that way. “I saw what looked like a girl with long dark hair.” I shuddered. “Donald saw her, too. But Bob checked and there was no sign of anyone in the yard. I figured it was Margo’s friend, someone who’d come to pick her up.”

  Mark cleared his throat. “I’ll take a look behind the house. With the wind blowing at night, it can get tricky. If someone was back there, I’ll find evidence.”

  His reassurances calmed me. “I’ll walk with you.” I glanced at the front door and saw that Annie had taken my place. She stood beside the sidelight and eavesdropped on me and Mark.

  “I’ll show you,” I said. Together we walked off toward the back yard. I led him to the place I’d seen the stranger. The house had been landscaped with azaleas and camellias, hardy evergreen plants with thick leaves that had endured storms, droughts, and scorching summers. They stood over twenty feet tall and surrounded the house, which had been built a good six feet off the ground. To my knowledge, the area had never flooded, but Henri and Sigourney Desmarais had taken no chances with the beautiful Victorian.

  In the back yard, the swing on long chains hung from a two-hundred-year-old live oak. I’d often watched Bob and Berta playing here. He would swing her and then steal kisses. If I ever married, I wanted what they had. At times they were more like young lovers than the parents of teenagers, eager for a touch or kiss or shared look.

  “You’re sure it was a girl you saw?” Mark asked.

  But now, I wasn’t. I remembered the animal at Cora’s. I’d thought for a moment it was a person. “I saw her hair.”

  “Could it have been someone in a windbreaker with a hood?”

  I hadn’t considered that possibility. “Maybe. Someone like Andrew Cargill?”

  “Margo probably left with someone. It’s a logical leap.” Mark left me beside a wisteria vine as he carefully searched the ground in the area I indicated. He worked slowly, methodically. He found several snapped twigs in the undergrowth, and at last he stopped and called me over. “Look at this.”

  The ground where he indicated was raked by claws. Something with powerful nails had dug up the ground. “What did that?” I asked.

  He knelt and studied the mark. “Dog, coyote, armadillo, gopher, turtle. Anything like that. But human, no.” He patted my shoulder. “It’s hard to see at night and you said you didn’t have a flashlight. You probably saw the bushes moving, that Spanish moss blowing, a dark shadow.”

  Maybe he was right. I nodded. “It could have been. Donald must have seen the same thing. But where is Margo?”

  “Most likely with Andrew. The two of them are in plenty of trouble.”

  I didn’t say anything as we walked back to the house. Berta watched us from the kitchen window, and from high above on the third floor, Annie watched us, too.

  Mark looked up to the window. “I’m going to check into Annie, too,” he said softly. “Someone is surely looking for her. She’s smart, educated, well-raised. If she has amnesia, like Cora says, there must be a reason behind it.” He lightened the heaviness of his words with a touch on my elbow. “We’ll find her. In the meantime, I’m glad to spend a little time with you.”

  16

  Night dropped over the house like a damp, heavy cloth. The normally starry sky was obscured by clouds, which suited the mood of the family. There had been no sign of Margo. None of her clothes were gone, but her purse was missing, the only indication that she’d left under her own power. Otherwise, it was as if someone had snatched her up—a goblin, perhaps.

  Berta had taken to her bedroom, so frantic with worry that she didn’t want to upset Erin and Donald. Annie and I prepared a simple meal of sandwiches and iced tea. We worked in silence. The children were safe in their rooms, and I took a tray of food to each, checking to be sure the windows were locked. Perhaps it was a foolish precaution, but the sense that something dangerous lurked outside had me unnerved.

  As I was about to leave her room, Erin caught my hand. “Do you think Margo is okay?”

  “I do. But she won’t be when Berta gets hold of her.” I had to keep it positive. Berta’s emotional reaction had terrified Donald and Erin. Bob had his hands full with his wife, and Erin and Donald had only me to comfort them.

  “What if something bad got her?”

  “What do you mean, something bad?”

  “Like in the poem. A goblin. Annie told us the rest of the poem. It was about a girl getting snatched up and taken.” She started to weep silently. “It’s almost like the poem told what would happen to Margo. Do you think something bad snatched her?

  Cora had often recited the poem to me, and I knew the verse Erin meant.

  “One time a little girl would always laugh and grin,

  and make fun of everyone, an’ all her blood-and-kin.

  And once when there was company and old folks wuz there,

  she mocked ’em and shocked ’em and said she didn’t care.

  And just as she kicked her heels and turned to run and hide,

  there wuz two great big Black Things a-standing by her side.

  And they snatched her through the ceiling ’fore she knowed

  what she’s about.

  And the goblins will get you if you don’t watch out.”

  “It’s a poem meant to scare children. It’s not real.” I sounded short of breath. Margo had disappeared just as if she’d been snatched away. Though I knew that wasn’t possible, I couldn’t bear the imagery the poem evoked. “Eat your sandwich. I’ll come back up later.” I had to get away, to find a quiet moment to compose myself.

  I returned to the empty kitchen and sank into a chair at the table. I focused on trying to take a deep breath. Annie had probably gone to her room, and I was glad to be alone. I had to conquer the fear that had taken me over. The clock tocked away in the hall. That was the only sound except for the creak of the house settling into night. I hoped for Bob’s footfall on the stairs, but no one else in the house stirred.

  “What do you think happened to Margo?” Annie asked.

  Her sudden appearance made me gasp. I hadn’t heard her footsteps. “You scared the shit out of me. Don’t do that!”

  She repeated her question as she walked to the kitchen sink and looked out over the dark yard.

  “I think she’s with Andrew.” I would not allow myself to think anything else.

  “Do you think she’ll ever come back?” Annie stared out the window.

  The question stunned me. “Of course. She may be angry with Berta, but she isn’t stupid. She has college ahead of her. She wants to be an architect like her father. Andrew is a passing fancy. Once she realizes he’s a dime a dozen and has no future, she’ll tuck tail and come home.”

  Annie dumped a bag of chips into a bowl and put it on the table. “I don’t think so. I think she’s gone for good.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say.
” I rounded on her.

  “I’m not saying that’s what I want to happen, but think about it. She must have had some money stashed away. Bob and Berta are generous, you know. Once she’s gone a few days, she’ll realize that if she comes home, Andrew will go to prison. Margo is prideful. She won’t back down.”

  Annie had observed plenty in the short time she was in the house. She’d pegged Margo’s selfishness. “Pride isn’t very filling. When she runs out of money, she’ll be home.” I spoke with far more assurance than I felt.

  The phone rang, startling me so that I jumped. Annie laughed as I hurried to the hall phone table. Mark was on the other end.

  “Just wanted to update you. We’ve got a report of a black Mustang with a couple of kids in it over near Slidell, Louisiana. The deputies there are checking it out. Maybe we’ll have her home before midnight.”

  The relief made my knees weak and I sank into a chair at the table. “Thank goodness.”

  “We should have the facts in half or hour or so. I’ll give a call back.”

  “Thank you, Mark. Thank you!” I gripped the phone so hard my fingers ached. I hung up and faced Annie.

  “Good news?” Annie asked. There was something in her tone that made me wonder what she really knew about Margo’s vanishing act.

  “I think so, but I’m not going to tell Bob and Berta until it’s certain.” False hope was the worst of all. “Mark said he’d call back in a little while.”

  “Looks like we’ll be keeping a vigil.” She brought an open bottle of wine from the refrigerator. “Want a glass?”

  “You’re too young to drink.”

  “So was Margo, but she did.” Annie got a wine glass from the shelf.

  “You’d better not.” I had no real authority over Annie, but I was also the tutor, the person supposed to watch over the children and set a good example. Technically Annie wasn’t one of my charges, but I felt responsible.

  She poured the glass of Chardonnay. Lifting it to her lips, she smiled. Instead of drinking it, she put it on the table. “For you, silly. I’m too young to drink.”

  “And I don’t care for wine.” I pushed the glass away just as the phone rang again. There were extensions in the kitchen, Bob and Berta’s bedroom, Margo’s room, and the hall. I picked it up.

  “Mimi, it’s Mark.”

  In the ten minutes between calls, his tone had changed completely. “What’s wrong?”

  “Let me speak to Mr. Henderson.”

  “What is it?” I wanted to drop the phone and run, but I couldn’t.

  “I’m on my way out there.”

  “Have you found her?” I couldn’t stand it.

  “I really have to speak to Margo’s parents. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Mark, what did you find? Don’t do this to me!”

  “Jesus, Mimi.” He sounded in pain. “The car in Slidell belonged to a young married couple. It wasn’t Andrew and Margo.”

  Something else hung between us. “What? Tell me.”

  “A fisherman brought up a human hand in his shrimp net. He just got back to the dock and called it in. It’s male. We think it might be Cargill’s, but we can’t prove it.”

  “Where’s the rest of him?” It was a stupid question.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. There’s a ring on the hand. We’re hoping someone can identify it.”

  17

  The grandfather clock in the hallway, an heirloom of Berta’s family, chimed midnight. Mark and I sat on the front porch. Dr. Albert Adams was still with Berta. He’d given her a sedative. Bob was with the children upstairs, trying to console and calm them. Annie had gone to her room.

  “How does a sixteen-year-old girl vanish? There’s not a trace of where she went.” Margo was now officially gone more than twenty-four hours. What had seemed like an act of teenage rebellion had taken on a darker coloring.

  At the sheriff’s order, Mark had brought the pinky ring the coroner had taken from the severed hand to see if Bob or Berta recognized it. It was a ring made from a silver spoon handle, a popular type of jewelry with teenagers, with the initial M engraved. Though none of us had ever seen the ring, the initial was enough to send Berta into a panic.

  “There’s no proof anything bad has happened,” Mark said, but his voice lacked confidence.

  “How was the hand found?”

  “Robert Dray caught it in his shrimp nets. He wasn’t far off the shore, near the old hotel.” Mark’s wrists rested on his knees. He looked tired and worried. “The sheriff is bringing in the Alabama Bureau of Investigation,” he said. “Maybe the FBI. We’ve got a body part and nothing to go on. Maybe it isn’t related to Margo, but we’re concerned about those Korean followers of that Moon fellow in Bayou La Batre.”

  “They’re weird, but they aren’t killers. Besides, Margo’s not with the Moonies. Not in your wildest dreams. Margo’s a princess.”

  Mark nodded as if he agreed. “The other possibility is a kidnapping. Folks here see the Hendersons as wealthy. Someone might have taken her for money.”

  “And chopped off Andrew’s hand? Why?”

  “We don’t know it’s Cargill’s hand.”

  “If it was a kidnapping, wouldn’t they have called for ransom?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He let it drop.

  “Do you think the hand belongs to Andrew?” I simply couldn’t understand why someone would sever a limb.

  “I don’t think talking about this is a good idea. It’s only upsetting you more.”

  I shifted to confront him. “How? Not knowing is even worse, and someone has to ask these questions.”

  “His mother couldn’t identify the hand. Fingerprints are worthless, because Andrew doesn’t have any on record. There was grease that would be normal for a car mechanic beneath the fingernails. The thing is, the hand was sliced off clean. Took someone with great strength to do that.”

  My stomach surged, but since I’d eaten nothing, I only gagged.

  Mark put his arm around me and I turned into his chest. He smelled like starch and sweat and the lingering odor of aftershave. He seemed a cocoon of safety. “I’m sorry, Mimi.” His hand stroked my hair, and I felt a longing so intense it was almost irresistible. Turning my face up to him, I invited a kiss.

  “Hold on there.” He stood up. “I want to go out with you, Mimi. But I’m on duty, and you’re really upset. That would be taking advantage.”

  Shame washed over me. Margo was missing and I was trying to seduce the man who should be out looking for her. I wasn’t the kind of girl who threw herself at a man. I couldn’t explain what had come over me. “Sorry.”

  “Hey, don’t be sorry. You’re upset. You’re looking for comfort. It’s a natural thing.” He sat back down. “I’d really like to get to know you, Mimi. Even back in high school I thought you were beautiful. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “I know. This isn’t the time.” The comfort of his thigh against mine was solid, real. In a world gone haywire, he made sense. He was right, though. Rushing wasn’t smart. His attention needed to be on finding Margo. “Tell me everything you can about the search.”

  “We’ve got a couple of leads on Andrew’s car. Tomorrow we’ll explore a tip about Dawson Slough. Some kids looking for mudbugs say they saw a car matching the description of Andrew’s.”

  “That’s near the old hotel. It’s on the Henderson property.” I glanced toward the east. The night was cloudy and there was no moonlight. Even in the bright sun, the hotel was too far away to be seen. “Could Margo be that close?”

  “We’re starting grid searches tomorrow. We’ll have volunteers going through all the marshes and we’re putting up fliers around Mobile. The TV stations are going to carry the story of their disappearance with photos, and Bob is offering a reward. A big one. Even the Moonies would turn her in for it.”

  He was trying to make me feel better but it wasn’t working. “If someone kidnapped her for money, they would have called by now.�
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  “If a ransom call comes in, the FBI will take over.” He rose smoothly to his feet, lifting me with him. “I have to get busy.” He handed me the empty tea glass.

  “Want a sandwich?” I didn’t want Mark to leave.

  He put his hat on. “Thanks anyway.” He hesitated. “I’m glad we’re getting to know each other, Mimi. I kept up with you through Cora. She’s really proud of you.”

  “I know, but thanks for telling me.”

  He tipped his hat and walked across the beautiful lawn to his patrol car parked beneath an old oak.

  I stood, preparing to go inside. My hand was on the door when I heard a giggle. It was soft, sweet, and childish. Donald was too old for that type of merriment. I slowly turned around and faced the water. There was no moon or stars, and the water was a lighter shade of black that extended to meet the sky. There were boats on the water, but I couldn’t see any of them. I could hear the water, though, a susurration almost like a living, breathing thing.

  The giggle came again.

  “Who’s there?” I called into the night, my fear overcoming my desire not to bother Bob and Berta.

  The only answer was another giggle.

  There was someone out there, someone watching the house. Was it possible it was Margo and that she was having a fine laugh at how upset we all were by her disappearance?

  “Margo!” I was ready to kill her. “Margo!” I screamed her name.

  Above me a window slammed shut with great force. Footsteps shook the porch floor as someone heavy pounded toward me. The front door flew open and Bob raced to grasp my shoulder.

  “Is Margo out here? Is she okay?”

  My vocal cords seemed frozen. The depth of Bob’s despair and worry paralyzed me. “I heard something.”

  He released me and stepped in front, shielding me. “What did you hear?”

  “I thought it was someone … calling out.” I couldn’t say giggling. I couldn’t. He would think me mad.

  “I’ll get a flashlight.”

  Before I could stop him, he went inside and returned with a high-beam light. Side by side we walked toward the water. I took his hand for courage, and he held mine tightly.