Sweet Baby

by Sharon Sala

  “What was it? What did we miss?”

  Brett inhaled slowly. “When you took her back to town, was she ever examined by a doctor?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Washburn said. “In fact, I took her to the hospital myself. Even had to help hold her down while the doctor looked her over.” When he realized how terrible that sounded, he looked apologetic. “You have to understand… she was hysterical. In fact, when I saw her that day, I wouldn’t have given a plug nickel that she’d ever be right again.” And then he shook his head and sighed. “Except for a couple of old scratches on her knee and the fact that she was partially dehydrated, she was physically okay. But it was a bad situation. I didn’t think we’d ever get her calm.”

  “And how did you?” Brett asked.

  “As I remember, it was a nurse who worked the miracle. Finally she told all of us men to get out, even the doctor. Then she took Tory into her arms and started to rock her. It didn’t stop her from crying, but it stopped the shrieks.” He shuddered. “Damn, but they were awful. She’d screamed until her little throat was all hoarse.”

  “So she stopped screaming when the men left, is that what you’re saying?”

  Washburn nodded. “Yep, that’s about the—” And then it hit him, right in the gut where he lived. Years ago he would have missed the clues, but he’d been to too many awareness seminars on child abuse not to get the connection. He paled as he took a step back.

  “Oh, shit.” He broke out in a sick sweat, imagining what that child must have endured. “What happened to her?”

  Brett sighed. This was all so complex. Would Washburn understand? But he wanted answers, and to get them, he had to trust someone.

  “You have to understand that, until recently, Tory hasn’t remembered anything of her childhood except being shunted from one foster home to another. A few weeks ago she started having nightmares, but when she would wake up, she never remembered what they were about.”

  Washburn nodded. “That makes sense. It’s a delayed reaction due to extreme trauma. Sort of like the post-traumatic stress disorder that vets suffer.” His voice began to shake, and he lowered it until it was barely above a whisper. “What happened to her, Hooker?”

  “Evidently Hale owed some man money. He came looking for Hale, and all he found was Tory hiding in a closet. He took what was owed him out on her.” And then Brett’s voice started shaking in anger, and he began to pace the floor. “What keeps going through my mind is how close she probably came to being murdered. If someone was sick enough to rape a child, it’s a miracle he didn’t kill her to keep her from telling.”

  Someone paused outside the doorway, glancing in at them, then moving on toward the dig. Washburn waited until the sound of footsteps had disappeared before he continued.

  “Considering her condition, he probably figured she wouldn’t be making any sense for the rest of her life, and whatever she’d known, she wouldn’t be capable of telling. In a way, he was right. Whoever he was, he’s damn sure long gone.”

  “That’s my guess, too,” Brett said.

  Washburn felt sick and, in a small way, responsible. But he’d been so green. At that point in his career, all he’d known how to do was take orders.

  “If there’s anything I can do to help, just ask,” he said.

  Brett shook his head. “With no more than what we have to go on, it’s impossible to guess who it could have been. The only people who might have known were Tory’s mother and Hale, and they’re both dead. Tory’s willing to let it go. I have no choice but to follow her lead. This one is her call all the way.”

  And as he was thinking of her, he heard her shouting his name.

  “Brett! Where are you?”

  He spun around. There was just enough panic in her voice to make him jump.

  “In here,” he yelled, and bolted.

  She met him in the doorway, apologizing before he could speak. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that when I didn’t see you, I—”

  He hugged her. “Hush, baby. You can yell your head off at me whenever you feel the need. So, what’s going on in there?”

  She saw Washburn look at her and then look away, and in that moment, she knew without asking what they’d been talking about. Oddly enough, she no longer cared.

  “They’ve run into a slight snag,” she said. “Except for a couple of boards at the threshold, the entire floor is now gone.”

  “And…?”

  The pupils in Tory’s eyes widened, as if she were suddenly staring into a black hole.

  “She’s not there, Brett. They’ve taken the entire floor out, and she’s just not there.”

  His stomach knotted. Hell. Back to square one.

  “Well, sweetheart, it’s been twenty-five years. Surely they didn’t think a body would just be lying there. Between decomposition and animals, it would have been a miracle if…” He left the rest unspoken.

  She nodded. “That’s what they said. They plan to start digging after lunch. The forensic expert is setting up a place to screen all the earth they remove. He says if there are even bone fragments, he’ll find them.”

  “Then that’s that,” Brett said. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. We both need some fresh air and sunshine, okay?”

  Tory nodded, then looked at Chief Washburn. “If you’d like to come to the RV with us, you’d be welcome. We have plenty of food.”

  Washburn was pleased that she’d offered, but there was a knot in his throat that food wouldn’t pass. It was all he could do to look at her and not cry. After what he’d just learned, he might never be hungry again.

  “No, but thank you kindly. I better make a run back to town and check on things at the office. And if you decide to picnic outside your RV, I’d advise setting up on the far side. Those damn news crews are camped out on the road, hovering like hungry vultures. They just might have one of them long-distance lenses trained right on you.”

  “I’m not afraid of pictures,” Tory said. “But I don’t like having my space invaded.”

  “We’ll be careful,” Brett said. “And thanks for the warning, but I’m giving you a warning of my own. If they get in Tory’s face again, someone’s going home with a black eye, and it won’t be me.”

  Washburn grinned. “I’ll pass them the message as I go by.”

  ***

  Tory’s sandwich was all but untouched. She’d taken less than half a dozen bites before picking up her camera and wandering off toward the cows in the pasture behind the makeshift fence.

  Brett watched her take shot after shot, but when she crawled between the wires and started walking toward the herd, he decided to intervene. The last thing he needed was to have to rescue her from some pissed-off bull.

  “Tory! Wait!” He headed toward her at a lope.

  She paused and turned, waiting for him to catch up. And when he came to the fence, she grinned and lifted her camera, taking pointed aim at the way he came over the three-barbed wire fence. He was too old to crawl under and too long-legged to crawl in between. With mere inches to spare, he slung one leg over the top wire and then, ever so carefully, the other. And she got it all on film.

  Brett looked up just as she snapped a shot, and the grin on his face was worth another.

  “Am I going to regret this in the morning?” he asked.

  She grinned back. “Probably. But I promise I’ll still respect you.”

  Startled by her unexpected humor, he threw back his head and laughed. The sound spooked the cows. They threw up their tails and took off to the back of the pasture in a dead run.

  “Now look what you did,” Tory moaned.

  He pointed to the big Angus bull who was bringing up the rear of the herd. “Better that than having to put you up a tree ahead of that bull.”

  Tory looked startled. “I didn’t think.”

  Brett put his arm around her shoulder and turned her toward the house.

  “We’d better get back. They’re about ready to start digging.”

&nbs
p; Tory followed his lead, suddenly quiet after the moment of delight.

  The afternoon breeze was a terrible tease, like a back seat babe who never followed through on her promises. Sweat was running down Tory’s back as they reached the fence. Just as Brett started to crawl over, she grabbed his arm.

  “What if she’s not there?”

  He’d had the same worry himself. But hearing her voice his own doubts was worse, because he didn’t have an answer she would want to hear.

  “What if the doctor was right?” she continued. “What if Oliver Hale was just out of his head? What if my mother is still out there somewhere?”

  Brett cupped her cheeks with his hands, tilting her face until she was forced to meet his gaze.

  “Is that what you think? Is the mother you remember capable of walking out on you?”

  In that moment, the last of her uncertainty ended. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and fixed upon the man who’d anchored her world.

  “No. The mother I remember would have died before she would have given me away.”

  The old cliché came out of her mouth before she’d given thought to its meaning, but the moment she said it, she knew she’d answered her own question.

  Brett’s smile was gentle, as was the kiss he placed on the side of her mouth.

  “There you have it,” he said softly.

  She sighed. “I will be so glad when this is over.”

  Brett hugged her, then lifted her up, setting her down on the other side of the fence and then climbing back the same way he’d come.

  ***

  No one was willing to look at Tory Lancaster and tell her what they’d been thinking for hours. By four o’clock, all they’d taken out from beneath that house was a mountain of dirt, an arrowhead, two pre-Civil War coins and an old Mason jar containing two rocks and a petrified lizard. There wasn’t a man among them who believed they would find even a remnant of Ruth Lancaster, let alone her body.

  Rentshaw was ready to pull up stakes, but his orders were specific. A man had confessed to a killing and then to hiding a body. It was his responsibility to see that the flooring was removed from every room in the house before he called it quits. He was a thorough man. Tomorrow they would finish the job. Then, and only then, would he dismantle the dig.

  Tory was morose to the point of withdrawal and had given up watching for miracles. She’d gone into the RV, closing the door and pulling the shades behind her.

  Brett was frustrated on two counts. He was still locked into the hell of knowing the woman he loved had been raped. Granted, it had happened twenty-five years ago, but for him, it had just happened today. Coupled with that was the fact that they were coming up empty with each shovel of dirt. He didn’t want to think it, but the possibility that Hale had been out of his mind, or just out-and-out lying, had crossed his mind. And then he would ask himself, why would a dying man lie? If Hale had believed in a greater power, then he would have had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

  No. Brett was convinced that Oliver Hale had not been lying, although the possibility that he’d been hallucinating was real. And if that was so, it had been fate at her most cruel, giving hope to one person and taking another into death on a dream.

  For now, all they could do was wait.

  ***

  “Now, sweetheart, bring Mommy the flowers.”

  The woman pointed to the flat full of seedlings she’d bought at the store, then smiled as she watched the concentration on her little girl’s face, juggling the doll under her arm against the small pots of flowers that she needed to carry.

  “Maybe if you put Sweet Baby down you could carry them better.”

  The little girl frowned. “Oh no, Mommy, no. Sweet Baby helpin’ me. We gonna plant ’em inna tub and watch ’em gwow.”

  The woman rescued the flat of seedlings just as they would have toppled to the ground. Then the little girl stood by as, one by one, the woman transferred the flowers into the old wooden half barrel, filling the space with yellow and orange blossoms on tender green stems.

  “Is we done?”

  The woman gave the soil around a small marigold a final pat and then rocked back on her heels, viewing her work with delight.

  “Yes, sweet baby, we’re done. What do you think?”

  The little girl shifted her dolly to her other arm and then frowned, as if giving the question much thought. A bee was already dipping into the nectar of a nearby bloom, and there was a butterfly hovering just above another. She pointed.

  “They likes it… and so does I.”

  “So do I,” her mother said, gently correcting the lingering remnants of her daughter’s baby talk. But the point was lost as the little girl looked up and smiled.

  “If we bofe likes it, then we’s done.”

  The woman’s face mirrored her surprise, then delight. She reached for her daughter and pulled her into her lap, hugging her close.

  “You’re the best little girl a mommy could ever want, did you know that, Tory Lee?”

  “Yes, I knows that,” the little girl said, and then giggled.

  The woman brushed a stray strand of hair from her little girl’s eyes, then kissed the sweat of her brow.

  “And who told you that you were my best little girl?” she asked.

  The child leaned over, whispering in her mother’s ear.

  “Sweet Baby telled me. Her knows ever’thing.”

  ***

  A cow lowed in the pasture behind the RV. A distance away, a calf answered with a plaintive bawl. A few minutes later, the pasture was silent as the old cow had relocated her calf.

  Brett rolled over in bed and then sat up, wondering what it was that he’d heard. Tory was asleep on her side near the wall, and from the looks of her, she hadn’t moved since he’d covered her up.

  The air was still, the night muggy, and he thought about closing the windows and turning the air conditioner on. But that would likely wake her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. She was restless and distraught enough without losing sleep, too.

  He slipped out of bed, making his way through the dark to the refrigerator. Maybe something cold to drink would cool him off, and then he could relax enough to get back to sleep. He opened the door, took out a can of pop and then put it back, settling for some orange juice, instead. The last thing he needed was caffeine.

  After draining the carton, he tossed the empty in the trash and then opened the door to look out. Dew on the grass gleamed bright in the moonlight, like white diamonds on velvet. He leaned outside, pausing on the step and inhaling deeply. Peace came in that moment, easing the tension with which he’d awakened and giving him ease to appreciate where they were. And then, like a whisper on the wind, the scent of newly turned earth drifted to him, reminding him of where it had been and why it had been disturbed.

  He looked toward the old house, and not for the first time considered the wisdom of just throwing a match to it, effecting a cleansing in a way she could not. He couldn’t help her get rid of her demons, but he could demolish the reminders. And then sanity returned before the thought became deed. He turned his back on the past and stepped inside, locking the door behind him.

  A bedspring squeaked as he moved through the RV and he hurried, suddenly afraid that Tory would wake and find herself alone. He paused in the doorway, listening. Her breathing was even. Good. She was still asleep.

  As he moved toward the bed, Tory rolled onto her back, one arm outflung, the other tucked beneath her breasts. He stood at the foot of the bed, watching her sleep, and wondered how one person could so drastically change another one’s life. He couldn’t imagine his world without her.

  Anxious now to touch her, he crawled back into bed, easing down beside her and then slipping his arm beneath her neck. As he did, she rolled again until his chest became her pillow. Brett smiled to himself, looking down and gazing at her in the moonlit darkness. Then his smile froze and faded, his heart jerking painfully as he reached for her cheek, tracing w
ith a fingertip, the quiet path of her tears.

  Jesus.

  It was a prayer, rather than a curse. Brett pulled her to him, wanting to take away her pain, yet knowing all he could do was be there if she called.

  ***

  Rentshaw looked as nervous as he felt. They had one room to go, and then it would all be over. If Ruth Lancaster’s bones weren’t shining when they pulled up that floor, he was calling a halt to the whole procedure.

  Art Beckham wasn’t too happy with what they’d done to the floor of his barn and had already garnered an agreement with Rentshaw’s superior that a new one would be in place before the end of the week.

  Calico Rock’s police chief had made himself scarce, leaving Rentshaw to play boss man as well as handle public relations. The media was pressing for answers he didn’t have to give, and Tory Lancaster was staring at him with those big, haunted eyes. At that moment, he wished to hell he’d gone into the appliance business with his father-in-law. Right now, selling dishwashers seemed a lot more appealing than the place he was at.

  Tory had taken to her camera, regressing to old behaviors by looking at the world through a third and impartial eye. She wouldn’t let herself believe that they had failed. She couldn’t deal with the truth, because the truth put her back where she’d started.

  A butcher-bird lit on the barbed-wire fence, a red worm dangling from its beak. She lifted her camera, focusing on the bird and clicking the shutter just as it impaled the worm on the barb.

  That’s a sure sale, she thought, and forwarded the film for the next shot.

  Something rustled in the grass to her left, and she spun, looking through the camera’s eye as a small brown rabbit leaped out of sight.

  “Too fast for me,” she muttered, and then swiped at a bead of sweat as she moved toward the shade.

  The grass was cooler there, and she kicked off her shoes, feeling the blades slipping between her toes and tickling at the arches of her feet. She slipped the camera from around her neck and leaned against the tree, squinting her eyes against the glare of the sun. It was like looking at the world through a crack in the blinds, focusing on a thin slice of life and seeing all that was before her, but nothing else.