Never Come Back

by David Bell

  “I didn’t—”

  But I stopped myself. Who was I to say? I wasn’t speaking to my mother in the weeks before she died.

  “I’ve seen this happen to elderly friends of mine,” Paul said. “And their parents. They become susceptible to believing just about anything that they may intensely want to believe. That’s why con artists prey on the elderly. They can’t make the same judgments they once made. They can’t judge character as well.” He tapped his index finger against his temple. “I don’t know when this woman, this Elizabeth Yarbrough, showed up. I’m guessing it was close to a year ago. You know your mom. She wasn’t always eager to reveal anything to anyone until she had to.”

  “I know.”

  “It was just a few months ago she told me about it. She called me over and told me that she had been reunited with Beth. Her Beth. She was thrilled, of course. Overjoyed. She said they were getting to know each other, and that Beth had apologized for running away. Your mom seemed… happy about it. Relieved, almost. I guess she always thought she was going to die without ever seeing Beth again, without ever knowing what really happened to her.”

  “Is that when you saw Beth yourself?” I asked.

  Paul’s eyes widened. “I never saw her,” he said. “I’ve never laid eyes on this woman. That’s part of my concern. I started to feel that Leslie was hiding Beth from me. At first, it was under the guise of the two of them just needing to spend time together and get reacquainted. And I could understand that and give them their space. But I think Leslie started to see that I had doubts, and rather than introducing me to Beth and easing those doubts, she kept me away from her. I never met her. When your mom died, it was all a mystery to me.”

  “But don’t you think Mom would know her own daughter? Wouldn’t she recognize her?”

  “People see what they want to see,” Paul said. “And after thirty-seven years, who can say what anyone would look like? I look at old pictures of myself, and I think I’m seeing a stranger.”

  “But there must be some resemblance,” I said. “Something.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I never saw her. Not even a picture.”

  “And you think somehow this woman weaseled her way into Mom’s life and got into the will?” I asked. “How many people even knew Mom had a daughter who disappeared?”

  “Everybody who was alive in Haxton in 1975,” Paul said. “I kind of figured it was somebody’s kid or relative, someone who had heard of the case and saw an opening.”

  “Maybe it’s even someone who went to school with Beth and knew her,” I said.

  “Good point.”

  Other things started to click into place. It was true—Mom’s will seemed to have changed suddenly, out of the blue. And then there was the call from a woman to Mr. Allison’s office inquiring about the estate. Who would do that unless they knew they might be getting something—and didn’t want to wait very long to have it? And there was the mystery woman at the other hospital, the one who’d gone to Ronnie’s room to speak with him, leaving him in some kind of unexplained emotional turmoil.

  “And Mrs. Porter,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Porter. You know, Mom’s busybody friend from the library?”

  “I know her.”

  “She told me Mom came in looking for a book on… I can’t remember it exactly, but it was something about dealing with an adult child who has suffered trauma. Something like that. I had no idea why Mom would be looking for that, but it might make sense if this woman gave her a long sob story about what she’d been through. Right?”

  “That’s a sure sign,” Paul said. “Her answer for everything was to go read a book about it.”

  “Do the police know about this woman?” I asked.

  “I didn’t tell them.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t think… I don’t know who this woman is. I don’t even know if she’s real. It didn’t cross my mind.”

  “Jesus, Paul. Do you know what I’m thinking?”

  He didn’t say anything, but he nodded his head ever so slightly, as if the movement required a great deal of effort.

  “If this woman got into the will, and then Mom ends up dead, doesn’t this make her a suspect?”

  “But Ronnie?” Paul said. “What he told the police?”

  “You don’t believe that, do you?” I asked. “His confession? Do you really believe that bullshit?”

  “He tried to kill himself, Elizabeth. Why else are we here, in this place, except that he couldn’t live with himself for whatever he did?”

  I wanted Paul to take a firm stand—and for that firm stand to be on the side I wanted him to be on. But he refused to do so.

  It required an effort for me to let it go. I wasn’t going to fight with him again. I wasn’t going to turn against anyone who should be my ally. Instead, I shifted my attention to the tasks I saw ahead of me, the things I needed to take care of.

  I needed to contact the police and tell them about the will.

  And then I needed to find out all I could about Elizabeth Yarbrough.

  Chapter Forty

  In the ICU of St. Vincent’s, Paul and I were allowed to spend fifteen minutes with a still unconscious Ronnie. He looked like hell, make no mistake about it. An IV line dripped a clear liquid into his arm. His skin looked ashen, his cheeks sunken. If not for the steady beeping of the heart monitor and the slow rise and fall of his chest, I would have thought he was dead.

  I leaned in next to his bed. I gripped his hand in mine. His skin felt cool and clammy, giving me a chill of my own. I remembered touching my father’s hand as he lay in his casket. His skin felt rubbery and fake. So did Ronnie’s.

  But I didn’t let go.

  I grasped Ronnie’s hand and squeezed, exerting just a small amount of pressure. I didn’t want to hurt him or startle him. I had no idea what effect the contact might have on him. Nothing happened, so I squeezed again. This time he returned the gesture. I felt the slightest bit of pressure returned against my hand. He was there. Ronnie was still there.

  Paul walked out of the room by my side, his arm around my shoulder. No matter what, I had the two of them. A long road stretched ahead, but at least the three of us were still there.

  • • •

  I asked Paul if he minded staying at St. Vincent’s for a while so that I could take care of some other things. He told me he didn’t mind at all.

  “What else is an old retired guy going to do on a Saturday?” he said.

  He was clearly just as relieved as I was that Ronnie was alive. Maybe more so.

  “You know, we need to remember…” He didn’t finish the thought, but I knew where he was going.

  “He’s not out of the woods yet,” I said. “I get it.”

  And we didn’t say what really hung between us about Ronnie: even if he got through this, he still faced the prospect of a murder charge.

  Some things were better left unsaid.

  • • •

  In the hospital parking lot, I pulled out my phone. I hadn’t had any luck searching for Elizabeth Yarbrough. But now I had a different name to try.

  I typed in a search for “Elizabeth Baxter” in Haxton, Ohio.

  Nothing came up.

  I tried again, adding the word “missing” to the search. Again nothing. I added “missing person” and then “disappear.” Still nothing.

  Was it possible for someone, a fifteen-year-old girl, to disappear and for there to be no trace or record of it in the world? Did people just forget?

  I sent a text to Neal Nelson. It took just seconds for him to call me. When I answered, he didn’t say hello or ask me how I was doing. He just jumped right in.

  “I knew you’d need me,” he said. “What can I do for you, Teach?”

  “I need you to find somebody,” I said. “And if you can, find out about somebody.”

  “Teach, I love a good caper,” he said. “I imagine this has to do with your mom.”
<
br />   “It does,” I said.

  “Glad I can help. Just give me the name and whatever you happen to know about this person.”

  “You know what?” I said. “Now that I think about it, I’m going to need you to look into two people for me.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  I remained in the car for a few minutes longer. The weather had been milder than everyone had expected, and people had emerged from their homes, blinking in the sunlight, deciding that they’d better hurry up and enjoy it because it might be the last day like that for a long, long time.

  I cracked the window, letting in a little air. I called Detective Richland. It was late on Saturday afternoon, and I had no idea whether the detective would still be on duty after the events of the morning. He didn’t answer his phone, so I left a message explaining that I had new information about my mother’s case and to please call. I called and left a message for Detective Post as well, under the assumption that she would be more likely to call me back than Richland.

  I started the car and headed for downtown.

  • • •

  If the Internet didn’t have the answers I wanted, I knew a place that might. The Dover Public Library sat two blocks off the courthouse square downtown. It was a boxy limestone building with small windows and heavy doors. It looked like a place constructed to withstand a siege.

  I mounted the front steps and went into the dark, silent space. I loved being inside the library. Mom and Dad had brought us there all the time when we were kids. I’d been to libraries in other towns, and I liked the Dover one best. I applied the same theory to libraries that I did to churches. I didn’t want them to look modern and bright and welcoming. I was more comfortable in them when they were heavy and foreboding.

  I hadn’t been to the periodicals room in years. I used to go there when I was a teenager and read music magazines, thinking to myself that I would run off someplace where all those cool bands hung out and played: Austin, London, Los Angeles. I hadn’t run off, of course, but I did associate the library with the freedom to dream.

  As the fates would have it, a friendly face waited for me in the periodicals room. Mrs. Porter stood behind the counter. She held a paperback novel in her right hand, her eyes glued to the pages. She didn’t see me right away. But as I approached the desk, she looked up and greeted me with a big smile. She marked her place with a piece of paper and put the book aside.

  “Well, well,” she said. “Elizabeth. To what do we owe this honor?”

  “I’m here to do research, I guess.”

  “Is this for school?” she asked. “You know, I don’t ordinarily staff the periodicals desk. The woman who normally works here, her daughter had a baby so she went to Cincinnati to help out. I’m just filling in.”

  “I’m looking for newspapers,” I said.

  “They’re all right there,” she said, pointing. “Local, state, and national. Although how anyone can read the New York Times I’ll never understand. Too liberal for my tastes.”

  “Do you carry the newspaper from Haxton?” I asked.

  Mrs. Porter scrunched up her face. “Oh, honey. The Haxton Herald-Leader ceased publication five years ago. Nothing ever happens in Haxton.”

  “I’m looking for old papers,” I said. “From, say, the seventies. Do you have those on microfilm?”

  “Oh, those. See those big things over there?” She pointed to a large filing cabinet with elongated drawers. “They’re all in there, chronological by date. See, I do know something.” She winked at me. “Say, didn’t your mother grow up in Haxton? I think she mentioned that once.”

  “She did,” I said.

  Mrs. Porter looked suspicious. “So this isn’t a school project, I gather?”

  I shook my head. “Actually, Mrs. Porter, I was wondering if I could ask you something about my mother. Something strange.”

  Mrs. Porter’s eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead when I said the word “strange.”

  “You can ask me anything,” she said, barely concealing her anticipation.

  I almost didn’t say it. I knew how rumors and stories could spread in a town like Dover, and Mrs. Porter had to be at the white-hot center of the gossip wildfire. But I needed to find out whether she knew anything.

  “Did my mom ever mention anything to you about being married before she was married to my dad?” I asked.

  If you looked up the definition of “taken aback” in the dictionary, you would probably find the look Mrs. Porter showed on her face. The corners of her mouth turned down in an exaggerated frown. She appeared almost offended.

  “I never heard any such thing,” she said.

  I worried that I had crossed a line, that Mrs. Porter would see my question as unseemly and somehow besmirching the memory of someone recently deceased. I couldn’t necessarily blame her.

  But then she leaned forward, placing both her elbows on the counter. She brought her face close to mine and spoke in a low voice. “Is that true?” she asked.

  I kept my voice low as well, entering into the conspiracy with her. “I think it is.”

  “Are you researching marriage records?” Mrs. Porter asked.

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, the single word an expression of surprise and also some kind of judgment. “People do surprise you.”

  “Indeed they do.”

  “But Leslie Hampton? I guess she’s the last person I would expect to surprise me. That woman was as steady as a rock.”

  “I agree. Well, I’m going to get to work over here.”

  “Elizabeth? Did you ever figure out why your mother wanted that book she was in here looking for?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m still figuring that one out.”

  Mrs. Porter looked at me suspiciously.

  “Heck,” I said, “maybe after all those years of reading about Ronnie, she decided she really needed a book to figure me out.”

  Mrs. Porter didn’t laugh. “Your mother was very proud of you,” she said. “She talked about it all the time.”

  I hadn’t expected those words, nor did I expect my response. I felt tears welling in my eyes. I don’t know whether Mrs. Porter noticed or not, but I turned away as fast as I could and headed for the microfilm drawers.

  • • •

  The task of making sense of the microfilm filing system gave me time to collect myself again. I blinked the tears away as I went through the drawers that held the Haxton Herald-Leader. It took a few minutes to work my way down the length of the filing cabinet. Then I had to run through the dates until I came across the right time frame. I found 1975, but that didn’t narrow things down much. A daily newspaper left me 365 days to choose from.

  Then I remembered what Gordon Baxter had said about Beth. She had just started her sophomore year of high school. So I decided to begin with the microfilm for the month of September.

  I threaded the strip through the machine, turned the viewing light on, and began. I immediately felt overwhelmed by the impossibility of the task. I wasn’t even sure what I hoped to find.

  The front pages of the daily editions of the Haxton Herald-Leader scrolled by, making me dizzy. I worried important information would fly by without my noticing. In the first few minutes, only key words jumped out. “School tax levy” went by a lot. “President Ford” passed a few times. The high school football team, the Haxton Raiders, was apparently off to a good start. I stopped on a few photos, all in black and white. The men wore checked sport coats and wide ties. Most of the women had long straight hair, usually parted in the middle. It didn’t look like just another time; it looked like another planet. Did I really have a sibling who grew up in that world?

  I approached the end of the month. Twenty-third, twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth. Maybe I missed it. Or maybe I just needed to keep looking further through the year.

  Had anything happened the way people had been telling me?

  Both Paul and Gordon Baxter had told me—emphatically—that
this Elizabeth Yarbrough woman was a con artist. But was Gordon Baxter one as well? Paul called Gordon a criminal and said he’d been in jail. Were Gordon and Elizabeth working together? The large withdrawals from Mom’s bank account, the appearance of Elizabeth in the will… Was Paul right? Had Mom lost her sharpness and been taken advantage of? Had they played on her intense desire to see her daughter again?

  Then something caught my eye. I scrolled past it accidentally since my hand seemed to be moving faster than my brain. I rewound until I saw the page I wanted again.

  There it was. A headline read, “Local Teen Missing for Three Days.”

  Three days? Did it really take three days for something like this to become a news story?

  There were no pictures, just a story I skimmed through. It repeated the same fundamental details Gordon Baxter had told me in McDonald’s. “Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Baxter went missing from her home… a sophomore at Haxton Senior High… no information about her whereabouts… police aren’t sure whether to call her absence a crime yet.”

  What had the police known that they weren’t saying? At that point they would have already talked to Mom and Gordon Baxter. The police would have known about the troubles they were having with Elizabeth. Gordon specifically said they’d mentioned the drugs to the police. How hard were they really looking for her?

  I skipped ahead to the next day. No story. And the same for the two days after that. September was over at that point. I reached down and brought out the roll of film for October, switched the reels, and started looking again. On October 1 a longer story ran—and for the first time, I saw a picture of my half sister, Elizabeth.

  She looked just like my mother. If I hadn’t known my sister existed, I would have thought it was a portrait of my mother taken when she was a teenager. They shared the same eye and nose shape, the same high forehead. I didn’t know—or care—what Gordon Baxter contributed to the young woman. I saw only my mother. And, yes, even pieces of me. I lifted my hand and brought it to the screen. I touched the image gently, as though I expected some emanation to come through, some information that would explain everything that was going on. But of course it didn’t.