by Ronald Kelly
The upstairs corridor was dark with only a zigzag pattern of sunlight shining through the cracks of a single boarded window at the far end. Rooms lined the hallway, some open and some closed, and cobwebs dangled from the rafters above. The floorboards creaked beneath their feet. The wood squeaked and squealed as though it were a living thing being trod upon rather than planed and sanded lumber.
Halfway there, Dr. Polyak stopped in his tracks. His breath hitched in his chest and he leaned heavily against a wall to steady himself. “Ó Istenem!”
Cindy turned and looked at him. “So you feel it too?”
“The aura of death?” he answered. “Yes indeed. Not as strong as at Mauthausen… but it is here nonetheless.”
The sixteen-year-old nodded grimly and continued onward. There was a bedroom at the end of the hallway on the right-hand side. The door – peeling paint with a tarnished brass knob – was closed.
Cindy shuddered and took a step backward. “I… I can’t go in there.”
“Why not?” asked Sandra.
“That’s where it happened.”
“What happened?” Upchurch wanted to know.
“The rape and torture,” she said in scarcely a whisper.
“Could you give us specifics?” Agent Moore asked her callously.
Cindy turned and regarded him coldly. “Believe me… you’d rather not know.”
“She’s right,” the lanky FBI man said. “Our main objective right now is locating the bodies of the victims. We can dwell on the cause of their deaths later.”
A minute later, they were back outside in the blazing sunlight. “I’m ready to begin,” she told them.
Upchurch nodded solemnly. “Then let’s go to the field.”
The sun cast nine o’clock shadows from the back of the house as they stood between a tool shed and a rickety chicken coop. Cindy placed her mother’s straw hat upon her head and kicked off her shoes. She wiggled her toes, letting the powdery earth work between her toes.
“I know it is only morning, but the ground is already scorching hot,” protested Sandra. “It will burn her feet.” Despite her concern, she wrote steadily in a steno pad, recording the progression of that day’s events.
Clay Biggs displayed a lopsided grin. “Cindy Ann’s been going barefoot in the summertime since she was able to walk, ma’am,” he assured her. “I’d say the soles of her feet are about as tough as the bottoms of those high-heeled shoes of yours.”
They watched as she stepped out onto the uneven earth of Potter’s north forty. She took several steps, paused, and then walked a few more. That went on for nearly an hour and a half. Sometimes she would turn and walk to the far end of the property line, which was cordoned off by a low stone wall, and then, turning on her heels, stroll slowly to the opposite boundary. Her face was bland and expressionless, but her eyes burned in the shade of the floppy straw hat, as though staring across a great distance, attempting to see something upon an allusive horizon.
Finally, with only an eighth of the acreage covered, Cindy turned and shrugged her freckled shoulders. “I’m sorry… but nothing yet.” She stared across the sun-baked earth toward the tree line at the far reaches of the property. “I think he buried them away from the house… some distance away.”
“Well, it’s almost lunchtime,” Agent Upchurch said, consulting a pocket watch. “I suggest we retire to the shade of the front porch and have us a bite to eat before attempting it again.”
Everyone agreed, ready to be out of the relentless sun. Cindy stood there for a long moment, her eyes closed. Then with a sigh, she accompanied the others back to the old farmhouse.
They relaxed in the coolness of the shade and lunched on egg salad sandwiches and lukewarm Coca Colas.
The men congregated at the far end of the porch, while Cindy and Sandra sat with their backs to the wall at the opposite end. Upchurch, Moore, and Clay, as well as the workers, smoked and talked, discussing baseball, boxing, and the War overseas. Clayburn Biggs said very little. Cindy knew he was a bit uncomfortable – and untrusting – around city folk. Seeing Abraham Polyak sitting alone in the oval doorway of his Airstream, she knew that he felt the same way, especially concerning men who worked for the government.
Halfway through their meal, Sandra began to look pale and peaked. “Are you alright, Miss Sandra?” Cindy asked her.
“I… I believe I’m going to be sick,” the woman said, getting shakily to her feet. She stumbled a couple of feet, then stepped off the edge of the porch and ducked around the corner. Cindy heard the woman begin the retch violently, then throw up.
“What the hell’s the matter with her?” Moore asked, taking a long draw on his cigarette.
“I think the heat has been too much for her,” Cindy said. Then she left her seat against the front wall of the house and went to see about her.
She rounded the corner and found Sandra leaning against the wall, green around the gills, holding her stomach. The woman saw her standing there and smiled self-consciously. “I’m sorry. I guess I just…”
“How long have you been expecting?” Cindy asked her without hesitation.
Sandra looked startled. “What… what do you mean?”
The girl lowered her voice as she approached. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
The auburn-haired woman looked both elated and frightened at the same time. “Yes. I didn’t want to believe so… but I suppose you’re right.”
As Cindy took another step forward, something came back to her. She is in her mid-thirties, has a nervous habit of biting her fingernails, and has miscarried two times.
“You were the one who typed the reports about the missing girls,” she said.
“Yes, and the one on you, too,” Sandra admitted. “That’s why I was so glad to meet you. I feel like I know you, after all the research I’ve done on you and your family.”
The two stood in awkward silence for a long moment. Then Cindy walked over and reached for the woman’s right hand. “Do you mind?”
Sandra was hesitant. “I don’t know if you should.”
“Please,” the girl said gently. “It’ll be okay.”
Reluctantly, Sandra extended her short-nailed hand and Cindy took it.
A warm smile crossed the teenager’s face. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine this time.”
Sandra looked at her anxiously. “Do you mean…?”
“No miscarriages. The babies will be as healthy as spring colts.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Babies?”
“Yes.” Cindy squeezed her fingers. “Twins. A boy and a girl. Billy and Brenda. One full of mischief and the other sweet and shy.”
Gratitude gleamed in Sandra’s blue eyes. “Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
Cindy was about to let go of the woman’s hand, when she noticed a circular mark on the underside of her wrist. It was small and pink, about the size of a…
Again, thoughts from several days before came to mind. Do you really want me to tell everyone what I see inside you? Like, perhaps, how you like to burn your wife with cigarette butts?
This time it was Cindy Ann’s eyes that widened in surprise. “You’re married to Agent Moore?”
Sandra nodded silently. She glanced toward the corner of the house as though expecting the man to appear at any moment.
Cindy turned the woman’s hand until the ugly butt-shaped burn mark was revealed. “And he did this to you?”
Sandra jerked her hand away and pulled the cuff of her blouse down across her wrist until the scar was concealed. “He’s a good man,” she whispered. “He just has a temper sometimes.”
“Pardon me for saying so, Miss Sandra, but he strikes me as a man who would want his wife at home, washing clothes and sweeping floors… not working for the FBI.”
Sandra shrugged and attempted a smile. “He just likes for us to be together as much as possible, that’s all.”
Then, in Cindy’s mind, Sandra’s voice. H
e is a terribly jealous man.
Suddenly, something seemed to dawn in the woman’s eyes and she looked scared half to death. “Please, don’t tell him. You know, about the babies. Let me do that… when the time is right.”
“Sure,” Cindy assured her. Without thinking, she reached out and gave the woman a hug. “It’s a secret between the two of us.”
Sandra hugged back. Cindy felt her tremble slightly. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“I reckon we’d better get back… before he comes looking for you.”
The woman with the long auburn hair nodded. Together they returned to the porch and quietly finished the last of their lunch.
Around one o’clock, they were back at work again.
Polyak and Sandra Moore followed at a short distance, while Cindy roamed the massive field, heading in one direction and then another. The girl would pause for a long moment and then begin again, her bare feet padding upon the uneven earth of the Potter property.
Agents Upchurch and Moore, as well as Clay Biggs, stood beside the farmhouse’s screened-in back porch and watched.
“She seems to be picking up on something,” the lanky FBI man stated hopefully. “Her wandering seems to be less erratic… like it has a purpose now.”
Moore snorted, blowing cigarette smoke from his nostrils like soot from the stack of a train. “Frankly, I don’t think she has a clue. Look how she goes in one direction and then another. Those fellows that Pollock…”
“Polyak,” Upchurch corrected him.
“… yeah, Polyak… those fellows he hired, they won’t be turning earth with their spades any time today.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Clay told him. “Cindy can’t just turn it on and off like a water spigot. She just about has to be right on top of something before the feelings hit her. That’s a large piece of pastureland out yonder. She just hasn’t come across the right spot yet.”
Moore shook his head in disgust. “I was against this from the beginning. Bringing a kid in to do a man’s job! You Bible-thumpers might take stock in soothsayers and prophets, but I prefer scientific methods over such nonsense.”
“Oh, like taking a shovel and digging up every last inch of this forty acre spread, I suppose?” Clay asked him, irritated.
“Maybe, if need be. If you ask me, we’re wasting our precious time and J. Edgar wasted two round-trip train tickets from Hicksville.”
Clay was about to give the big government man a piece of his mind, when he looked off across the dusty expanse of field and noticed his daughter standing stone still at a particular spot a quarter of the way across the pasture. “Wait just a second,” he said. “Something’s happening.”
“Why the hell do you say that?” demanded Moore.
Clay was about to answer when Cindy Ann dropped to her knees in the dirt and began to scream.
The thin crescent of a moon hung in the dark autumn sky like a scrap of discarded toenail against black velvet. Earthward, crickets and toads sang an uneasy chorus, while a girl’s frightened weeping joined in.
“Oh…oh God! What’re you gonna do?” she sobbed, her voice garbled with emotion. She stared at a lopsided rectangle of open earth that lay before her. The coolness of the evening caressed her bare skin, raising gooseflesh and causing her to shudder uncontrollably.
“It’s a freaking grave,” came a gravelly voice behind her. “What the hell do you think I’m gonna do?”
He had done enough already; with his hands, his mouth, his manhood, and all manner of carpentry tools. She looked down at her left hand and cried even louder at the absence of three fingers there. The hacksaw hadn’t been the worse of it, though. “I… I want… my… mama!”
“Your mama would be ashamed to lay eyes upon you, whore. Naked and bleeding, missing part of what God gave you. Miserable little bitch!”
She was screaming hoarsely now. “Mama! I want my mama!”
“Enough of this shit!”
Then she felt her head yanked backward by the bloody strands of her hair and gasped as cold steel was laid across her throat…
Cindy sensed the ones around her closing in, intending to provide support and comfort. “Stay away from me!” she wailed, on her hands and knees in the dirt, her eyes screwed tightly shut.
“Cindy, honey…” her father said, but could say nothing else. He felt utterly helpless as his daughter’s lean body was wracked with violent sobs.
“Here!” she shrieked. The index finger of her right hand dug into the bare earth, splitting the nail in the process. “She’s here!”
“Who?” Sandra asked softly. She shifted her steno pad and brought the stack of manila folders from where they had laid underneath.
“Melissa,” Cindy muttered, her terror bleeding away until it finally subsided. “Curly brown hair, gray eyes, a scar on the tip of her chin where her brother accidently hit her with a garden hoe when she was eight.”
The woman found the correct file. “Melissa Jacobson from Galbreath, Ohio.” The photo clipped inside showed a fresh-faced girl with dark wavy hair and a tiny scar on her chin, just like Cindy had described.
Clay stepped in and gently helped his daughter to her feet. With tears in her eyes, she embraced him, burying her face in his shoulder. At the same instance, Dr. Polyak approached the spot and placed a red flag where the indention of Cindy’s fingertip marred the earth.
Robert Upchurch sighed, as though finally able to breathe again. “Well, that’s number one.”
Polyak nodded his balding head. “Yes… eleven to go.”
Cindy abruptly pulled away from her father and regarded them. “Eleven more? Oh no… there are more than that.” She stared at the vast expanse of dusty farmland, her eyes haunted. Then she locked eyes with the bearded Hungarian. “You’ll need to bring another wagonload of caskets, Doctor. Maybe more.”
Cindy located the remains of three that afternoon. One was Melissa Jacobson and another was a fifteen-year-old girl with long blond hair named Susan Winters. One of the bodies Cindy found wasn’t one of the twelve the FBI was searching for; a young Negro woman named Nettie Brown. Cindy’s heart had ached for an hour after that discovery. Bully Hanson had been particularly sadistic prior to her death.
Dusk fell as the workers dug the remains from the spots where the tiny red flags had been placed and gently deposited them into three of the narrow pine boxes. Then Agent Upchurch decided that it was time to call it a day.
The FBI men offered to put Cindy and her father up at a local road court for the night, but Cindy preferred to stay and sleep on the screened-in porch. She claimed that she wanted to be there, in case something important came to her. Dr. Polyak offered them the comfort of his trailer, but Clay told him that country folks were accustomed to roughing it. Cindy’s daddy wasn’t too proud to accept a few pillows and blankets that the Hungarian doctor had on hand, however.
Cindy slept uneasily that night. Her slumber was invaded by horrifying scenes of what the three girls had endured at the hands of Bully Hanson. Finally, she got up at the crack of dawn. As the starry summer sky paled into grayness, she left her father asleep on the porch and quietly walked across the field.
In the gloom, she would stop every now and then, close her eyes, and listen to the sound of a distant freight train or the cooing of a dove in the bordering underbrush. It felt good to be alone for a change. Yesterday had been difficult; she hadn’t enjoyed being observed every moment. It seemed like the day’s success was solely on her shoulders, which, truthfully, it was. But even though she was the one who had found the bodies of the three missing girls, Cindy still couldn’t help but feel like a performing animal, like the unicycle-riding monkey at the county fair.
It wasn’t long before the sun began to cast an orange glow across the sky. Cindy was walking along the eastern border of the Potter property, staring at the ground at her feet, when a voice startled her.
“Howdy!”
She glanced up to find a boy sitting on the stone wall th
at ran along the field line. He was around the same age as her, maybe a little older. He was tall and lanky with dark brown hair and a wry smile on his face which reminded her of her late brother, Johnny. He wore a white t-shirt and jeans held up with suspenders.
“Howdy,” she said back. “Where did you come from?”
The boy shrugged. “Here, there, and everywhere. What’s your name?”
“Cindy.” She had almost said Cindy Ann, but she was afraid adding her middle name would sound childish to him. “What’s yours?”
“Tommy,” he told her, flashing a smile that made her heart quicken. “Tommy Lang.”
She nodded and lowered her eyes a bit, then started walking again.
“What are you up to? I’d say you were divining for water, but you ain’t toting a forked stick.”
A trace of a smile crossed Cindy’s lips. “I am divining, in a way. Did you know that some innocent girls were killed and buried on this here property?”
The boy’s jaw nearly dropped to his collarbone. “You don’t say!”
“That’s what I’m helping with. Trying to find them all.”
“But how can you do that?” he asked, puzzled.
“It’s hard to explain,” she replied with a frown. “Some folks can walk the land and find well water. I can find dead folks.”
“That sounds downright creepy. In fact, it sort of gives me the Heebie-Jeebies.” He grinned and gave her a wink. “I still think you’re kind of pretty, though.”
The red-haired girl blushed, but returned his smile. “Kind of?”
“Well, heck, you are pretty. In fact, I wouldn’t mind hopping down off this wall and giving you a kiss. If you’d let me, that is.”
Cindy’s cheeks blushed even brighter. Her heart hammered in her narrow chest. She had never kissed a boy before. Part of her was scared to death, while the other half sort of hoped that he would find the courage to take the chance.
“Cindy!” her father’s voice called from the direction of the house.
Annoyed, she turned to see Clay standing beside a campfire next to the silver Airstream trailer. Abe Polyak was there, too, brewing a fresh pot of coffee. She waved at her pappy, then turned back to the stone wall.