“I have no clue.”
“Do you mean foul play of some kind?”
Patrick’s mouth shrank to a slit, and his shoulders bounced. “I don’t know of anyone who would want to hurt him. Maybe it was something random.”
Jack probed, trying to see if there was the slightest chance Patrick might think Satterfield or the disgruntled Hank Garbenger might have had something to do with Evan’s disappearance. But Patrick wasn’t tracking with him.
Only your mind could conjure up something so dramatic.
The two men finally stood and shook hands. When Jack mentioned he would be looking for receptionist Rhonda Lowe, Patrick offered to walk him to her area.
As they strolled along the wide, plush maroon-carpeted corridor, Jack wanted to check in with DeVry to see if Granger had been captured, but he didn’t want to be rude. Besides, DeVry would have let him know.
Jack checked his watch. Almost noon. He pictured Pam’s parents, especially her mom, doting over Rebecca and Faye, offering them anything they wanted for lunch, from chips and cheese balls to Ding Dongs.
Rhonda Lowe, it turned out, was one of three receptionists at the church. She was situated in a cramped cubicle plastered with family photos, baby pictures, and Bible verses. Wearing a silver headset and sipping constantly at an iced coffee in a huge Starbucks cup, Rhonda was bone thin with harshly cropped black hair. Her dark purple lipstick stained the top of her straw, and she pecked rapidly at the buttons on the massive phone in front of her while handling calls.
When Patrick apologetically interrupted her to introduce Jack and let her know what he wanted, Rhonda popped up, whipped off the headset, and grabbed her drink.
“I need to take five anyway.” She ducked around the corner and told Barbara Cooley she was going on break.
Barbara looked back. “Hey, Jack.” She stood, holding a bag of chips. “Do you have a second?”
“Sure,” Jack said. “Rhonda, can you give me a minute?”
Rhonda was a step ahead of him. “I’ll meet you in the conference room when you’re done, right over here.” She pointed to the room where Jack had interviewed Barbara.
“Let’s just go over here.” Barbara led him to a well-appointed waiting area with a glass coffee table, large plant, and several leather chairs. She remained standing and faced him, munching chips as she spoke.
“I’ve only got a minute,” she said, “but I just learned something that I thought you might want to know.”
“Okay.”
“It’s about Sherry,” she whispered. “She’s always been a big giver, you know, tithes and offerings. The months she counseled with Evan, it went way up.”
“Okay.” Jack nodded, but wasn’t going to tell her he knew that.
“Well.” Barbara looked around, then back at Jack. “About a month ago, her giving went way down and then just stopped. It’s the oddest thing. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Hmm.” Jack made a mental note of it. “That is interesting.”
“I knew you’d think so,” Barbara said.
“Thank you for telling me,” Jack said. “Anything like that is very helpful.”
“Sure thing.” Barbara turned to go. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Jack entered the conference room.
“I wanted to be a reporter,” Rhonda said, curling a leg beneath her in one of the large swivel chairs and spinning around. “I studied journalism for a while. Then I fell in love and got married. Never did finish college. Now we need the money; that’s why I’m working here.”
They made small talk for several minutes. Rhonda was married to a guy named Jesse, a bass player on Patrick’s worship team. They had two children under the age of three. The kids were in child care there at the church, provided for all employees who wanted it.
Rhonda did not know Evan extremely well, she said, but they were familiar with each other and their family situations, and she had crossed paths with him the morning he went missing.
“Hardly anyone was here yet,” Rhonda said. “I came in early to keystroke info from visitor comment cards; I was behind, as usual.” She sipped her drink and rocked in the chair. “Jesse was home with the kids. He had hurt his back the day before helping a buddy move. I told him no more heavy lifting; it happens every time. But he’s got to keep up that macho image, if you know what I mean.”
When she finally cut to the chase, Rhonda said she had met up with Evan in the hallway early that morning, near his office. She smiled, said hello, and slowed down, expecting him to do as he always did—inquire about her children, her work, Jesse’s music.
“But he scooted right by,” Rhonda said. “He kind of nodded and gave a half smile but just kept going. It was totally out of sync with who he is. You have to understand Evan, he’s the friendliest person. Always has time for everyone. Never talks about himself; he’s always asking how you are.”
“Was that your only contact with him that morning?” Jack asked.
“Yeah,” Rhonda said. “I saw him again twice, but he didn’t see me. I mean, we didn’t talk or anything.”
“What was he doing the other two times?”
Rhonda sipped her drink, quickly wiping her chin where she dribbled some. “Once he was on the phone. He was sitting hunched over with his back to the door of his office. All very hush-hush.”
Jack made a note.
“It sounds like I’m an eavesdropper,” Rhonda said, “but the copy machine is down past his office, so I’m by there all the time.”
“What about the other time?”
“It was just a few minutes later,” she said. “He was kneeling over a bag. I saw a windbreaker, dark blue, and one of those miniature umbrellas. He was kind of organizing things in the bag.”
“What kind of bag?” Jack asked.
“Black. Looked nice, like leather. An overnight bag.”
“How big?”
Rhonda held up her hands two to three feet apart.
“Was that the last time you saw him?”
She nodded and sipped. “Yep.”
Jack’s phone rang, and he glanced at it. It was DeVry.
He apologized that he had to take the call and thanked Rhonda for her time. She smiled, waved, and bopped out of the conference room.
“This is Jack.” He walked toward the tinted floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the woods; same view as Satterfield’s office.
“Jack, Dennis DeVry. Wanted you to know we found Granger Meade’s car at a gas station in Trenton City.”
Jack’s wheels spun. “And?” Everything else evaporated from his mind. The full weight of his world leaned on the next words that would be spoken.
“He stole a car from an elderly man right there at the pumps,” DeVry said.
Jack’s head dropped, as did everything within him.
“We have a full description of the car, the plates. There’s an APB out. He won’t get far.”
The officer answered all Jack’s questions: it happened the night before; Granger was not armed; the elderly man was unharmed; the car was a 2000 medium blue Impala; it had not been spotted since.
All Jack’s attention swung like a wrecking ball to Pam and the girls.
Surely Granger was on the run, getting as far away from Trenton City as possible—but where?
He could be in Cleveland Heights right now!
Finding Pam’s number on his cell, he cursed himself for letting them go.
You should have made them stay.
Throwing pad and pen in his shoulder bag at the large conference room table, Jack listened as Pam’s phone rang three, four, five times—then went to voice mail.
23
As Pamela wandered the bright aisles of the Giant Eagle in Cleveland Heights, shopping for cereal, grapes, and a few other things for the girls, she looked around for Faye and Rebecca. Not seeing them, she spun frantically, on the verge of screaming their names—then deflating as she remembered they were at her parents’ house in the Heights.
Phew. The girls had become such a fixture at her side, it was just a habit to make sure they were there. But now Pamela was alone at the grocery. She told herself to enjoy the freedom of the moment and concentrated on making her neck and shoulders relax.
She admitted once again that she scared easily, a behavior she’d learned from her mother. And after all these years, she had some insight into why Margaret lived in such fear. Soon after their disastrous arrival, when her mom had thought someone was trying to break into the house, Pamela called her dad on his cell phone to get him to come home.
Looking older and grayer, he’d knelt down to give the girls big hugs then walked Mom to the back porch where he helped her prop her feet up beneath the breeze of the ceiling fans. He brought her a cup of chamomile tea, an English muffin, and two extra-strength pain relievers. Soon she was smiling with Faye and Rebecca on her lap, asking them all about their summer and swimming and life in Trenton City.
“Her blood sugar drops this time of day,” Dad had said to Pamela when they were alone in the kitchen. “She doesn’t eat anything.”
“She may not have eaten anything,” Pamela said, “but she’s been drinking. I can smell it.”
Daddy basically ignored the comment.
“She’s drinking in the morning now?” Pamela persisted.
“Honey, I don’t know what to tell you,” Daddy said. “You know your mom. She has a hard time coping.”
“Coping?” Pamela said. “You’re both retired. You live in a beautiful home in a safe neighborhood. You have good neighbors and friends. I don’t understand what there is to ‘cope with’ that’s making her drink during the day.”
He had persuaded her to go to a local AA meeting one time, he acknowledged, but she never went back. To some extent, he seemed to blame himself for her discontentment.
“It’s not you, Dad,” Pamela said. “She needs God in her life.”
“We go to church every week. We never miss.”
“Dad, the act of going to church isn’t what I’m talking about. Does Mom ever read her Bible? Does she get alone with God? Pray about her issues? He can set her free of her fears.”
Dad’s silence reminded Pamela of her parents’ older, war-Depression-era generation. Many of their friends seemed to think all Americans were Christians and, beyond that, they didn’t want to talk about it. If anyone dared mention Jesus Christ or salvation or being born again—or, God forbid, hell—they thought you were a fruit loop who should be avoided at all costs.
“Pam.” Daddy broke the silence. “It’s time we had a talk.”
He sat Pam down very close to him at the kitchen table, looked her in the eyes, and began to speak very softly and concisely. “When your mom was in college, something happened to her.”
Pamela’s stomach flip-flopped, and heat consumed her face.
“A man broke into her dormitory room one weekend when her roommate was away. He kept her there all night—she couldn’t get away.”
Pamela’s heart was pounding. “Oh, Daddy … did he hurt her? … Rape her?”
“She’s never been able to talk about it,” he said. “He slipped out in the morning, and she never saw him again. But she never reported it or told anyone about it at all for years, until she finally broke down one night and told me that much.”
He shook his head slowly. “It changed her life, Pammy. We need to be patient with her.”
And now, as Pamela put a box of chewy granola bars in the cart along with the other items and headed for the checkout, she thought about her mother’s fearfulness.
You judged her—wrongly.
She would be more patient now, just as her father said. She would set her mind to loving her mom through her troubles.
Pamela had debated whether to even leave the girls with her folks that day, especially knowing Mom had been drinking. But Daddy was always extra attentive when Faye and Rebecca were in his care, so she had grabbed an apple to munch on the way and told them she’d return in a while.
Once outside the Giant Eagle, she walked the shopping cart to her car and let the July heat soak in and thaw the chill that lingered from the freezing store. She put the groceries in the trunk, wheeled the cart to the cart bin, and found herself scanning the parking lot for Granger’s brown car on her way back to the Accord.
Was she being paranoid, like Mom? Or would anyone be thinking the same thing after what Granger had put them through?
She wondered why she hadn’t heard from Jack with news about Granger’s arrest. It had been a whole day since he had shown up at their house. Certainly the police must have tracked him down by now.
She got in the car, shut the door, and dug in her purse for her cell phone, thinking she might have missed a call or text. Jack often asked her in jest why she even had a cell phone, because so many times she failed to answer it. But she couldn’t find her phone.
Uh oh.
She dumped the contents of the purse in the passenger seat.
Nope.
She must have left it somewhere in the house after calling her dad, probably in the kitchen.
Jack would be ticked if he knew she was bopping around town without her phone. What if he called her cell and Mom or Dad answered, or one of the girls?
He’s going to have to get over it. Besides, he knows we made it safely.
She started the car and put the windows down.
She’d been gone less than an hour.
Working her way out of the large parking lot, she wondered what people did before cell phones.
They had faith and a lot more time to themselves.
She sometimes wondered if the invention of cell phones and computers and iPods was some devious plot by Satan to busy people’s minds so there was no time or space or quiet left for hearing God’s voice. They made everyone so codependent.
The day was picture-perfect. Blue and clear. Sunny. So good to be back in her hometown. She still called it that, even though their lives were in Trenton City now. But everything was familiar—the streets, the businesses, the memories of youth—and she loved that. She sometimes wished Jack would apply for a job at the Cleveland Plain Dealer or Akron Beacon Journal. They could find an affordable place in any number of towns near the city—Euclid, Eastlake, Maple Heights.
Still debating what to do next, she headed in the direction of the house but also toward the lake and several shopping options.
Relax.
The girls were fine.
But Mom and Dad don’t know about Granger.
He could sweep in there and snatch one of the girls before the folks knew what hit them.
But it wasn’t the girls he was after, it was her.
You are so paranoid.
Even if Granger was in the area, he didn’t know Pamela and the girls were.
Quit this!
She made a quick left on Neff Road and swung up toward the lake, singing aloud. “Give to the wind, your fear. God hears your sighs and counts your tears … God will lift up your head.”
Approaching Lake Erie, Pamela felt like a kid pulling up to an amusement park as she wheeled into the gravel lot leading to a small green area where she and her parents used to picnic. She pulled right up to a rope, beyond which were some steps leading down to the grassy area, picnic tables, and farther out a concrete pier.
It was beautiful. Dark and cold and vast, yet shimmering as far and wide as she could see. God’s utter power and majesty were spilled out there before her. It looked more like an ocean than a lake. Several boats dotted the endless horizon. A few cars were parked nearby, no one in them.
She got out to gaze at the water and feel the breeze whip her hair. Yes, waves and clouds and storms would roll in, but God would be the lifter of her head.
Everything. Everything. Everything must be thrust onto him.
That’s what he wants.
In weakness he makes you strong.
Nothing can separate you from his love.
Nothing.
; Not Granger Meade.
Not anything.
Back at his desk in the newsroom—now bustling with reporters, photographers, and editors—Jack was slightly miffed, his head beginning to buzz with anxiety. It had been more than an hour since he’d left Pam a voice mail telling the latest about Granger, and she still hadn’t called back. “He could be anywhere,” Jack had warned. “Call me as soon as you get this.”
He knew Faye and Rebecca were safe, because he’d phoned Pam’s parents’ house immediately after failing to reach her. Pam’s mother had laughed and said they had heard Pam’s cell phone ringing somewhere in the house but didn’t answer because, (a) they didn’t think they should, and (b) they “didn’t know the first thing about operating that contraption.” He wondered if, (c) Margaret might have been nipping at the peppermint schnapps.
Pam had told her folks she would be gone awhile, grocery shopping and driving around the old town; she’d obviously forgotten her phone, which frustrated him and left him tight as a drum.
She’s fine.
Jack was 98 percent sure of that. It was the 2 percent uncertainty that nagged him.
He sifted through the notes on his desk and glanced at his computer screen. He’d pounded out almost all of a new story on Evan’s disappearance, mainly just to stay busy. But it still had holes, and he was a bit hesitant because it didn’t deliver a lot of new information.
Pam didn’t know Granger had stolen a car and was still on the loose. Even though she had forgotten her phone, she probably figured it didn’t matter, since she had called Jack to let him know she and the girls had made it to Cleveland Heights. He envisioned her driving around town, happy as a lark, probably hitting the Goodwill to see if there were any treasures for the girls. Lord, please … let her be fine. Let them find Granger. Bring this thing to an end.
His computer dinged, then his desk phone rang.
The email was from Wendy McDaniel. He ignored it for the moment to answer the phone.
“Jack Crittendon.”
“Jack, it’s Wendy McDaniel. I just sent you an email.” The tone of her voice was hurried and high-strung.
“It just popped up,” Jack said.
“Don’t read it yet,” she said. “Please. It’s a letter from Sherry Pendergrass. The police found it on Evan’s computer.”
Fear Has a Name: A Novel (The Crittendon Files) Page 16