The Maypop Kidnapping

by C. M. Surrisi

  “Hello. You have reached the cell phone of Blythe Stillford. I’m not avail—”

  I bolt around the back corner of the house to the kitchen door. An eerie sound stops me cold. My brain and my ears argue over whether it was a human wail or the groan of old clapboard siding.

  “Ms. Stillford?” The blustery wind swallows up my call.

  As if the house has been waiting for me, the kitchen door swings open on its creaky hinges. Spiro digs his back claws into my hand as he leaps away and then dashes through the door into the kitchen. Ouch!

  The back door must not have been latched, because now it bangs with each gust of wind. Okay. This happens all the time at the shore. Still, I reach into my pocket for my beach rock that goes with me everywhere.

  Clutching my rock, I step into the dim early morning light of the kitchen.

  A paring knife and sliced apple form a still life on Ms. Stillford’s wooden cutting board. The cut sides of the apple halves are brown. A bit of dried apple skin withers on the knife blade. A poured cup of tea has evaporated just enough to leave a stain around the inside of the rim. The bread bin lid is rolled up like it’s been caught in a yawn, and a jar of peanut butter sits on the counter next to the sink—lid off. It’s Ms. Stillford’s favorite dinner. Dinner, not breakfast. Paused mid-making. This is so wrong.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Spiro disappearing into the hallway with his tail twitching. I follow him.

  My imagination explodes: brain hemorrhage, concussion, broken back, crumpled body, twisted limbs. The more I picture what I might find, the more my anxiety soars and the quicker I move. The living room—not there. Her office—not there. The front hallway—not there. The pantry—not there. I pause at the stairway and yell, “Ms. Stillford?”

  Nothing. I bound up the stairs.

  The hallway, the bathroom—not there. I get a lump in my throat. My wonderful Ms. Stillford, my friend Ms. Stillford—not there.

  I reach her bedroom door. It’s closed. I choke back a sob and throw it open. There’s a flutter in my chest like a hummingbird is trapped inside.

  My eyes dart around the room . . . nothing.

  Again. Slower. I relax my breathing and then scan, sort, identify, process.

  The bed linens are tucked and tight. Her hairbrush is bristles-up on the dresser with a few silvery blond strands looped through them. A diamond ring rests in a small crystal dish. Okay, this is a little creepy. I wonder if it’s the ring from her broken engagement to John Denby many years ago. Why would she keep it? The closet door is ajar and clothes rest neatly on hangers: the blue geometric print dress, the purple-and-rose silk blouse.

  It all looks pretty normal. What is going on?

  When I reach for my rock, I realize it’s still in my hand. My fingers are sticky with blood, and the scratches Spiro gave me are seeping. When I run to the kitchen for a paper towel, I catch that I managed to smudge red along the banister.

  I’m blotting my hand and planning to wipe the bannister when I look out the kitchen window and notice the garden shed. The garden shed! Maybe she’s been potting or clipping or mixing or whatever she does with those herbs of hers, and she’s had . . . a stroke?

  I race out of the kitchen and around the side of the house. Spiro is at the shed, rubbing up against the shed door and mewing. I feel weak in the knees, but I brace myself and jerk the door open.

  Nothing.

  Potted flats of herbs rest under warming lights. I press the soil with my fingertips. Moist. Botany books lay open next to beakers and pipettes. Three seed packets with a picture of a purple bloom are ripped open. The text above the picture reads: Passiflora incarnata. Common Name: Passionflower or Maypop. Nothing unusual about this. Ms. Stillford is constantly searching for natural cures for plantar warts and who-knows-what-other grown-up sicknesses.

  Maybe she blipped on school and went on errands. That’s crazy. She would never do that. But if she did, then her car would be gone, right?

  I peek in the old coach house Ms. Stillford uses as a garage and see it. Her car is parked in the nose-out, “ready to go” position.

  My scalp prickles. With the car still in the garage, I know in my bones that something bad has happened—something super bad.

  I have to find Ms. Stillford.

  3

  Sand and pebbles fly up into my left shoe as I race out of Ms. Stillford’s yard. I don’t stop. I speed down Mile Stretch Road, past Gusty’s. Through the window, I see Dad and Owen Loney at the counter, drinking coffee. With every step, I organize what I will tell Mom—how I will tell Mom—so she won’t think I’m overreacting. I take the steps two at a time and burst through the door to Mom’s home office.

  She’s sitting at her Maiden Rock Real Estate desk with her feet up.

  “. . . a lovely four bedroom right on the beach with a fireplace.” She’s deep in a conversation with a possible renter. “Of course, the economy being what it is, the weekly rentals are going up four percent next summer, five in the peak weeks.” She shoots me her quiet-down look.

  “Mom,” I whisper and try to catch my breath. “Please, this is im-por-tant.” I mouth it as clearly as I can.

  She swivels her chair and turns her back to me, a view of Maiden Rock’s main intersection in front of her.

  I pace around the room. There are two other desks in Mom’s office: the Maiden Rock mayor’s desk and the Maiden Rock sheriff’s desk. I sit in the sheriff’s chair and jiggle my feet. I know this will get her off the phone. Unofficial people have to sit in the one of the two guest chairs.

  “Thank you so much for your interest. I’ll shoot you an email with the contract attached. I look forward to your joining us next summer . . . yes . . . yes . . . bye now.” She spins around. “Quinnie, what’s so urgent? Get out of the sheriff’s chair.”

  I run over to her and grab her hands and say as calmly as I can, “Mom, something terrible has happened to Ms. Stillford.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up. “Goodness. What?”

  “She’s missing.”

  “What do you mean she’s missing?”

  “Missing. Gone. She didn’t show up for breakfast.”

  Mom’s shoulders relax. Not a good sign.

  All of a sudden, it sounds feeble even to me, but I lay out my evidence anyway. I know that sheriffs like evidence. “I went to her house. She isn’t there.” I search Mom’s face for an equal level of concern and don’t see it. “Her mail is still in the mailbox, the back door is wide open, and Spiro is wandering outside, but that’s not all. There’s food from making dinner yesterday on the counter in the kitchen . . . and her bed is made like maybe she didn’t sleep in it, and—this is the most important thing, listen to this—her car is in the garage.”

  I bite my lip and wait for the horror of it to sink in.

  Mom studies my face a second too long, and I know. She thinks I’m overreacting.

  “Quinnie. Calm down. Sit. Over here. In the guest chair.” She moves me by my shoulders. “Let’s go over this again.” She gives me her skeptical sheriff look. “Blythe no-showed to your breakfast with her?”

  I take a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “Did you call her?”

  “Oh my gosh, yes.” I kind of lose it again. “I forgot to tell you, her cell phone is on her dining room table.”

  “And you know this because you, what? You went in? You went inside her house without being invited?”

  “Mom, listen. She wasn’t there to invite me! I knocked, but she didn’t answer. I looked in the dining room window and saw the phone and then I went in the back door . . .” I pause for impact. “It was open. Like, open-open, not just unlocked. I’m telling you.”

  “Quinnie.” Her forehead wrinkles. “Tell me you don’t really believe that someone not answering their door is an invitation to go in their house.”

  “It was an emergency,” I argue.

  She gives me the one-eyebrow-arched look that tells me she’s trying to decide whether this is a crisis
or not. Then she lists the facts on her fingers. “You saw her cell phone on the table. You saw her bed was made. You saw some food left out on the kitchen counter. You saw her cat outside. You saw her car in the garage . . .” She raises her other hand like she’ll continue on it, then drops it instead. “Everything else looked normal. Right?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  Mom looks at her cell phone. “Let’s see. It’s now 8:12 a.m.”

  She gets up and puts her arm around my shoulders, and I lean away. “I don’t think we’re ready to file a missing persons report just yet, honey.”

  She pulls me close and gives me a quick hug, then slips back into her Maiden Rock Real Estate chair and shuffles papers. “We’ll leave it for a while before we get all worried over nothing, okay? Oh, and Quinnie, don’t forget. Mr. Philpotts and his daughter are moving into Zoe’s house on Monday, so I’d like you to put together a nice welcome basket. Maybe even a separate, special one for the daughter.”

  My anger flares. “I know that, Mom. You’re just trying to change the subject. You don’t believe me.”

  “I believe you. I just don’t think there’s an emergency quite yet. So don’t take that tone with me, please.”

  “I hate the famous Mr. Philpotts and his New York daughter!” I feel the heat rise in my cheeks.

  “The Buttermans were lucky to get a tenant for the entire winter,” Mom says. “And you’re lucky they have a daughter your age to replace Zoe.”

  “No one can replace Zoe!”

  I stomp to the office doorway and spin around. “I demand to speak to the sheriff! I want to file a missing persons report.”

  “Enough, Quinn.” Mom lifts her feet back up on the desk. She’s already red-penciling a real estate ad when she adds, “Maybe some of those Japanese gel pens for the daughter.”

  I storm upstairs. Slam the door. Throw myself on the bed and pout. I know I’m not overreacting. Something is wrong, and I have to figure out what it is. Why the heck didn’t I leave Ms. Stillford a message? I pull out my phone. I know it will ring on her dining room table, but I do it anyway.

  This time I wait for the beep.

  “Ms. Stillford? This is Quinnie. I . . . waited for you at Gusty’s this morning, and then I went to your house and saw a bunch of things that made me wonder if you are okay. So, if you are okay, can you please call me as soon as you get this message? I told my mom that you maybe are having a problem, but she says it’s too early to be concerned, but I just wanted you to—” Beep.

  “If you are done with your message, please hang up. If you would like to listen to your message, press three. If you would like to rerecord your—”

  I hang up and toss the phone across the bed. I wonder if the Ouija board on my phone case knows where she is. Probably not; even though Ms. Stillford has a Ouija board herself, she says they are just for laughs.

  I hear the ocean crash and the gulls squawk, and I remember my laptop and schoolbooks are still at Gusty’s.

  I miss Zoe. Where are the Hebrides islands anyway? And what kind of place doesn’t have Internet or cell phone service? Even if it’s a 400-year-old sheep farm? And why does her dad have to study sheep parasites? She better write me a snail mail.

  I want to talk to Ben, Zoe’s cousin and my only other friend in Maiden Rock, but he won’t get back from school in Rook River until five because of cross-country practice.

  I wonder what will happen with school if something happens to Ms. Stillford . . . I stop myself thinking about that and jump up and smear some first aid cream and a bandage on my stinging palm.

  I decide to go to the café and write a formal missing persons report. Mom the Sheriff can’t ignore that.

  I head downstairs. No sooner do I open the front door than Mom calls out, “Quinnie?”

  “What?” My hand is poised on the doorknob.

  “Where are you going?” The suspicious sheriff voice comes out.

  “To Gusty’s, to eat and get my stuff.” I keep my tone level.

  “Quinnie?”

  “What?”

  “Do not go near Blythe Stillford’s house.”

  I don’t say anything because it wasn’t a question.

  “Quinn?”

  “What?”

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you.”

  I have to be extra careful not to slam the door.

  4

  “Hey, honey. Didn’t find Blythe yet?” Dad slides four blueberry pies into the pastry case.

  “No. And I told Mom, but Mom says she’s not missing.”

  I slip onto a stool and slouch on the counter.

  “Hungry?” Dad asks.

  “I guess.”

  “I’ll pour you a pancake.”

  I hear the whisk in the batter, and my stomach grumbles.

  Four minutes later, Dad sets the plate in front of me and leans on his elbows like what I am about to say is the most interesting thing he has ever heard. “Okay, tell me everything.”

  My dad is a way better listener than my mom, so I start at the beginning part, where I walked to the corner. But every time a car goes by the café, I stop and we both look out the window.

  “Maybe it’s a full moon,” Dad says.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Weird things happen during a full moon. Like this morning. Owen Loney’s boat engine seized up, and he couldn’t run his trap lines. Never happened before—ever. See, there he goes—into Rook River, to order some odd little engine part for the Blythe Spirit.”

  We look out the window to see Owen Loney in his pickup truck, headed out of town.

  I start telling Dad about how Spiro scared the heck out of me at the front door. Then Mom drives by in her sheriff’s cruiser, going the other way, from our house toward the point. My hopes soar—maybe she’s going to Ms. Stillford’s. Dad sees me sit up.

  “Don’t get excited. She’s just going to the post office,” he says. “She called before you got here.”

  Mom talks to Dad ten times a day. They talk about everything: what’s going on in Maiden Rock, what I’m doing, strange boats that come into the Pool, strange cars in town, summer people problems, rental house issues, late trash pickup, you name it. They talk.

  Then I tell him how Spiro smelled like tuna fish, and I get all the way to the part of my story where Ms. Stillford’s car is in the garage when Sister Rosie and Sister Ethel whiz by in their white convent van.

  “Where are they going?” I ask Dad. He seems to know where everyone is headed.

  “Only God knows that, Quinnie. Those two don’t keep me updated on their comings and goings.” He laughs. “But they sure get around. Maybe they’re going to church in Rook River.”

  When I was born, twenty-five nuns lived at Our Lady of the Tides. One after the other, they got old and died. There’s a row of little white crosses at the cemetery in Rook River that say OLT and the date. No names. I think that’s wrong. Even if you marry Jesus and all, you should have your real name on your grave. Sister Rosie and Sister Ethel are the only two left.

  “It’s lucky for the sisters that Mom is at the post office,” I say.

  “Yep.” He picks a piece of pancake off my plate with his fingers and pops it in his mouth.

  He smiles and pours himself a cup of coffee and sits down on the stool next to me. We both know that speeding in Maiden Rock makes Mom cranky. Speeding, not recycling, and beer on the beach are the top three infractions that will get you on Sheriff Boyd’s most-wanted list.

  “I agree that this thing with Blythe is strange, Quinnie. It doesn’t make sense that she’d not show up for breakfast with you and her car’d be in her garage like that.”

  “I know!” Finally. Someone else sees the problem.

  “Maybe she walked the other way and slipped and fell,” he offers. “But your mother just drove that way, so if Blythe took a spill on the road, she’d see her for sure and she’d already be driving back here with her flashers on.”

  “But wh
at about the apple, Dad? The brown apple?”

  He gives it further consideration, then looks me in the eye and says, “It’s just an apple, honey. I’ve been known to leave a bread bag open overnight.”

  Since Dad’s willing to listen to everything I have to say, I go through it all again while he cleans up the dishes, makes the chowder, and picks the lobster meat out of its shells. But I can tell he isn’t worried.

  A black Escalade turns into the parking lot and angles in too close to the front door. Dad squints to check it out. Four grungy characters get out of the car and crowd through the door. Dad says “full moon” under his breath. He wipes the already-clean counter over and over and watches them.

  There are two guys and two girls. At first I can’t stop looking at the girl with the pink hair. The swoop of it rivals a Smurf’s head. Then my eyes shift to the other girl. Mom always says don’t stare, but the other girl, the one with the blue and purple hair, is completely stare-worthy. All I can think is, maybe one of them is Lady Gaga. I know that is probably not possible, since Lady Gaga would not be with either of these two guys or here in Maiden Rock.

  The big guy has a ponytail, tattoos, and a fringed leather jacket. The small guy has almost no hair and a mustache. He has plenty of tattoos, too, and a chunky chain with a big cross around his neck.

  Dad bumps my arm, and I realized my mouth is open. I snap it shut.

  I am getting ready to be nervous about them and I can tell Dad is too, when they start talking and laughing.

  “This place looks awesome, Trinka,” the blue-haired girl says.

  “Totally authentic, Bin,” says the pink-haired girl.

  “I bet we can score some serious chowder,” says the big guy. He looks around, then nods at Dad.

  “Any table,” Dad says but points to the one he can watch from the kitchen.

  They scrape back the chairs and make a big deal about who’s going to sit where. The big guy picks his chair first. Then the rest of them settle down like a flock of gulls.

  Dad walks over with four glasses of water and menus.

  I see Mom’s cruiser come down Mile Stretch Road at a normal speed, then slow down and crawl by the café. She stops but doesn’t pull in the parking lot. The next thing I hear is Dad’s cell phone going off.