He tried everything he could think of to free his creative juices and get them flowing again. He began reading the works of the masters of the sonnet form, from Shakespeare to Theodore Sturgeon. He tried meditating, getting drunk he'd even smoked pot on the advice of one of his fellow teachers at the academy-but nothing worked. Lately he'd taken to going for long drives in the surrounding countryside, but he found himself looking for the sexy young woman of his desires instead of thinking about his poetry.
Diane hadn't been much help, either. Steve was certain that a great deal of his creative stagnation was due to the fact that he hadn't been laid since they'd moved to Northwood. That was over a month without real sex, the longest he'd ever gone. Not that he hadn't had any sexual release. He was plagued with sexual dreams about the young woman, some of which ended in nocturnal emissions.
Invariably, after those dreams, which ran the gamut of sexual experience from oral and anal sex to bondage and worse, he was left feeling guilty, embarrassed, and more creatively barren than he had felt before. Never in his life had he dreamed like that. And what was worse, the shame and embarrassment had begun to wear off and, like some sicko pervert, he had actually begun to look forward to dreaming.
Steve couldn't figure Diane out lately. Since they'd moved, she had changed, and not for the better. Where she had once been an easygoing, loving woman and caring mother, she had now become a moody, brooding bitch who wouldn't let him touch her and who was equally cold to her own children. Even the terrible news of the disappearance of the Eameses' daughter Margaret and four boys from just around the corner on Route 47 seemed to have had no effect on her.
Poor Judy Eames must be insane with worry and despair, but Diane hadn't once gone over to talk to her and console her. Steve had thought those two were going to become the best of friends after that first night when they met, but since then Diane had wanted nothing to do with Judy, anyone, or anything. Several times they had been invited out to dinner and drinks by Bill Gage, another teacher at the academy whom Steve had become friends with, and his wife, but every time Diane refused, using her pregnancy as an excuse, saying she was too tired or had morning sickness.
Her demeanor toward Jackie and Jennifer was no better. Steve had thought that when Margaret Eames and the other children disappeared so close by, Diane would once again become the caring, protective mother she had always been. He was wrong; nothing had changed. She didn't bother going to the bus stop to walk them home everyday and didn't care at all that Jennifer didn't even take the bus home anymore. Instead she walked home through the woods, sometimes spending hours out there alone doing God knows what and not arriving home until dark. Jackie, who was afraid for his sister, showing much more sense than his mother, had told him all about it. When Steve had brought it up with Diane, she had snapped at him, reminding him that they were her children and he should just butt out. When he tried to talk to Jennifer about it, she had acted just like her mother telling him to mind his own business. Angered and frustrated, he had.
He put the pencil down and stretched. From the bedroom across the hall, he could hear Diane whining in her sleep. It was a pitiful sound that she made often these days. Steve wondered what sort of terrible dreams she could be tortured by to make her cry out night after night. He pushed sympathy from his mind, telling himself that if she was going to play the part of an uncaring bitch, then he could be just as uncaring. Ignoring her whimpering, he got up and went into the bathroom to shower and get ready for work.
Roger Eames sat at the kitchen table in the gray light of dawn and smoked a cigarette. The ashtray on the table in front of him was overflowing with crushed butts. Unable to sleep, he'd been up since 2 A.M. chain-smoking in the dark, sometimes weeping softly. He'd quit smoking when Margaret was born but had started again since her disappearance. He lit a fresh cigarette off the previous butt and stuffed the latter into the full ashtray.
I didn't protect her.
The thought ran over and over in his mind like a broken record. He took his glasses off, placed them on the table, and put his hands to his eyes, massaging the bridge of his nose and squeezing back the tears.
The last week and a half had been pure hell. Looking back on it was like trying to remember a fever dream, a bout of delirium. From the moment the call had come into work for him from an hysterical Judy screaming that Margaret was missing, his world had fragmented and turned into a nightmare. Nine-thirty in the morning-that was the time he had received Judy's frantic call, that was the time his world had gone astray; that was the time he'd remember the rest of his life.
The light grew a little brighter in the kitchen as day crept across the fall sky, revealing the sink piled high with dirty dishes, spilling over onto the countertop. The floor was a mess, too, strewn with scraps of food left over from the few meager meals he and Judy had managed to eat since Margaret had disappeared. It was caked with dirty footprints from all the police, reporters, and search party volunteers who had tracked over it lately. The refrigerator and other kitchen appliances were similarly grimy, reflecting the general state of the rest of the house.
It was amazing to Roger, who was normally a fastidious man, how much dirt and dust could accumulate in just a couple weeks. He had made halfhearted attempts to pick up and clean but had given up. What was the use? It was hard to care about whether or not the house was clean when your world was falling apart.
Roger took another cigarette out, lit it as before with the stub of the one in his hand, and took a deep drag. He remembered reading somewhere, when he was trying to quit smoking, that smokers have a subconscious wish to commit suicide; they know the health hazards of smoking but continue to do so. With him, though, it was no longer a subconscious desire. With his little girl missing (he could not yet admit the possibility that she might be dead, even though, deep inside, he feared it was so and the knowledge was like a festering malignant tumor waiting to engulf him), he no longer cared about his health. If she was not found, then he no longer cared about his own life, either.
From upstairs he heard the soft creaking of the bed as Judy tossed and turned in fitful sleep. When it had become obvious that Margaret had disappeared and the police had to be called in, Judy had accelerated past hysterical, going completely to pieces. Their family doctor had prescribed Valium to keep her calm during the day and Seconal to help her sleep at night. Roger made sure she took them regularly, even if it meant she would develop a dependency, which seemed to be happening. In the past few days, Judy had started taking the drugs more often, sometimes mixing the Valium and Seconals. Roger looked the other way, telling himself that, if Margaret returned safe, Judy would kick the drugs out of pure joy. If Margaret didn't return, it wouldn't matter.
Roger stretched to relieve the pressure on his back from sitting too long and looked at the phone. He thought of calling the sheriff's office again. He'd taken to calling them every morning and several times during the day every day, especially since they'd called off the search parties. Roger had a feeling they were giving up on the investigation and he wasn't about to let that happen. He wasn't going to become one of those parents of missing children, existing like some kind of zombie in a living death, paying to have Margaret's picture put on milk cartons and hoping against hope that someone somewhere would come forth with information that would lead to her recovery. He would badger the police, hire private detectives (which he had already done), and do everything he could to find Margaret.
What else could he do? he wondered. He didn't know but there had to be something, some piece of information that the police and private detectives had missed; some memory that was eluding Roger and, if remembered, would lead to Margaret's discovery.
He got up from the table and took a pencil and piece of paper from a drawer under the phone. For the hundredth time at least, he began to make a list of the facts concerning his daughter's disappearance.
Steve's first-period class was off the wall. Normally, they reserved such disruptive behavior for Friday
s; Wednesday was a little early in the week for them to be so wild. Steve let them know it in no uncertain terms, coming down hard on them, giving several detentions and doubling the usual homework load. They were reading, A Midsummer Night's Dream'; he assigned the last two acts plus ten discussion questions to do overnight, and they could expect to be quizzed on it tomorrow.
The class, eleventh graders, moaned and groaned less than usual and still took awhile to quiet down. Strangely, Steve noticed that very few of them wrote the assignment down in their notebooks, a practice he required of them. He was about to instruct them all to do it, but then thought better of it. If they didn't do the assignment, he'd really nail them with the quiz tomorrow.
It was during second period, which was his free period, that he overheard something that would shed some light on his students' behavior. He was at his desk in the coaches' locker room in the gym, diagramming some new plays for the football team. Joe Conally, the athletic director, came in but didn't see Steve and went into his office, leaving the door open.
Steve and Conally had barely remained on speaking terms since Conally had laid his cards on the table and let Steve know that he was unwanted. Steve had made a point of stay ing out of his way and doing his job well, both as a health instructor and as coach. The varsity football team was five and one, with six games left to play against smaller schools that they should beat easily, which would get them a state superbowl bid. Steve handed in his lesson plans for the health class on time and always made sure they were detailed with clear objectives and methods. He wasn't going to give Joe Conally any fodder for a campaign to get rid of him.
He'd thought things were going well, had even persuaded himself that Conally was begrudgingly aware of how good a teacher and coach he really was and had relaxed his drive to replace him. What he overheard next was to prove him utterly wrong.
"Mr. Turner?" Conally was on the phone and had left his door open. Steve could hear him clearly and his ears perked up at the mention of Mr. Turner, who was the chairman of the academy's board of regents. Steve was aware that Turner had been quite ill for a while, which was one reason Conally's attempts for a hearing on Steve's hiring had been thwarted.
"I'm calling about my request for a hearing on the Nailer matter," Conally said. Steve tensed. "That's great, Mr. Turner, I'm sure that I can prove to you and the board this was an improper hiring that did not follow union contract procedures. Yes, sir. I'll be there at eight sharp next Tuesday night. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Conally hung up the phone and left his office.
Now Steve knew why his students first period had acted so. Conally's son, Joe Jr., went to the school and was almost as bigmouthed and obnoxious as his father. Conally was not the type to keep anything confidential and must have gloated about Steve's impending dismissal at home. His son must have overheard and spread the information around the student population.
The rest of the day only confirmed Steve's suspicions. The students talked and fooled around, and no amount of threatening them with detentions or extra homework could quiet them for long. And from the way the other teachers looked at him and seemed to avoid him, Steve became convinced the entire school knew he was not long for the job. By the end of the day, he was hoarse from yelling, and very depressed. He cancelled all the detentions he'd given and called off football practice. When the final bell rang, he didn't even stay around for the forty-five minutes that teachers were contractually required to remain in the building. He got in his car and drove quickly away, as if by doing so he could escape his problems.
Roger Eames worked on his fact list all morning. By noon he had written down everything he thought was relevant to the day Margaret had disappeared. He was going over the list when Judy wandered downstairs, hair disheveled, dark circles under her eyes looking even darker because of her pasty complexion, and asked him if he had called the police yet. He lied to her, saying they had nothing to report. She stared dully at him, then took another Seconal and two Valium with a glass of orange juice and stumbled back to bed.
His list was useless. Roger stared at it until 2 P.M., tracing over what he'd written, underlining it, putting checks next to each item, but unable to see anything that might provide a clue as to what had happened to Margaret that morning. Frustrated, he crumpled the paper up and threw it in the direction of the wastepaper basket. It missed and landed against the cat's litter box, which had been pushed nearly all the way under the stove and out of sight.
Something clicked in Roger's mind.
Where is the cat?
A cold tingle ran down his back as he realized that he hadn't seen the cat since Margaret had disappeared.
No! It was before Margaret had disappeared. When?
He tried to remember. In all the confusion and emotion neither he nor Judy had thought once about the cat. Now he racked his brain trying to remember the last time he'd seen it. It had been at dinner the night before Margaret's disappearance, wasn't it? No, but they had talked about the cat then. He remembered he had mentioned to Margaret that he hadn't seen Puffin in a while. What had she said? Shed look for her later. Had she? Where?
The sheriff's department had decided, after searching the woods for several miles around Dorsey Lane and Route 47, and after dragging the river with no results, that Margaret had more than likely been picked up by someone at the bus stop before any of the other kids got there. But what if she had gone into the woods in search of her cat instead? If so, why hadn't the search parties turned up any trace of her?
What's in those woods? Roger wondered. He had never been out there. Except for the old couple, the retired undertaker and his sister, the Grimms, whom the police had told him about, Roger didn't know what else might be in the woods. Vagrants might have a shelter out there, or a gang of punk teenagers. No, he told himself. The police and volunteers in the search party would have found something like that.
What about the Grimms?
Roger vaguely remembered a deputy sheriff saying he had spoken to the sister and she had seen no sign of Margaret. Was that it? Yes, as far as he could remember. He had been so distraught by it all and distracted by Judy's hysteria that his memories were like trying to look at a photograph someone's holding by the side of the road as you drive by at fifty miles per hour.
What if the sister is lying?
The cold tingle ran down his neck again. Maybe I should check out the old couple myself, he thought. He knew it was a long shot, no matter how many tingly feelings he got that he was on to something, but at least it was something; it beat sitting around doing nothing. He got up from the table and started for the door, had a second thought, and went back to the table. On the pad of paper he left Judy a note:
Judy, have gone to Grimm Memorials.
Rog
As Roger closed the back door, it created just enough of a draft to blow the paper off the table. It floated, then dipped and sailed backward under the kitchen table.
CHAPTER 22
Little girl, little girl, where have you been?
Diane was taking a hot bath when Steve got home. He let himself into the steamy bathroom and sat on the john. Diane was languishing, eyes closed, up to her neck in soapy water. Her swollen breasts and tummy floated just above the surface like newly formed volcanic islands.
"Diane," Steve started and stopped. He sighed. How was he going to tell her he was losing his job? "Babe, I .... he tried again to no avail.
Diane opened her eyes and glared at him for a moment. "Steve," she said frostily. "Can we continue this after I get out of the tub?" She smiled politely, but her eyes were sullen.
Steve could feel the hostility in her gaze. "Right! I should have known better than to come to you," he said between clenched teeth. He got up and stalked out of the bathroom and out of the house. Leaving rubber, he roared out of the driveway in the Saab and drove down Dorsey Lane.
On Route 116, going north toward Amherst, Steve drove faster, punching the pedal to the floor until the car accelerated to the same level as
his anger. But the faster he went, the more the anger wilted, became frustration, desperation and depression. His problems with Diane were just another example of how badly he had screwed up his life. His writing was going sour-good-bye, college job; his job at the academy was going sour-good-bye, house, car; his marriage was going sour-good-bye to the only person who had ever truly loved him. What else could go wrong?"
Never take on more responsibility than you can handle, he could hear his father's voice. Wasn't that what he always said? And wasn't it Steve's failure to adhere to that rule that had gotten him into all this trouble in the first place? He never should have married Diane, that was the problem. He wouldn't have had to take the crummy academy job if he hadn't married her and inherited an instant family. He wouldn't have the debts hanging over his head that loomed there now, waiting for the slightest tremor to make them fall.
He sighed. I fucked it up, he thought. I had it made, living alone, going to school. I blew it. I shit the bed. Now he had to figure out what to do about it. Without realizing it, he took the Route 9 exit to Main Street, Amherst. He began running through his options, which were few, and increasingly nonexistent.
Dr. Plent, the headmaster of Northwood and the man who had interviewed and hired Steve, had stalled Conally until now, but he was in Baltimore for a week attending a convention. He wouldn't be back to the school until the day after the hearing, which seemed awfully convenient. It looked to Steve as though Dr. Plent had decided to go to this convention because he knew a confrontation was coming and he would lose it. Plent struck Steve as the type who would try to avoid being present at his losses. Plent was a power game player if he was anything. Steve knew the type; they were everywhere in education.
Steve would have to face the board of regents alone. He wondered if he should hire an attorney to accompany him, then decided it would be a waste of money. If it came down to violating union hiring standards it wouldn't matter how good a teacher he was. Conally would win and Steve would lose-everything!
Grimm Memorials Page 18