Rosalind

by Stephen Paden

  Chapter 37August, 1960

  August had not been kind to Rosalind. Thankfully, she was a tiny thing and the heat bounced off of her as well as it could, but she was a balloon in the middle and she would often have to take small breaks from even walking around the house. Susan sympathized with her as best she could, but mostly she looked at Rosalind's stomach like it had some golden treasure inside.

  After Rosalind started showing, John had started taking the truck out at night. Susan never asked him where he went and she was glad that he didn't drive the thing during the day.

  Susan had an appointment with John's lawyer, and was expecting him to come to the house at 10 A.M. The final papers in the adoption were ready to be signed. Rosalind, still weary of the whole thing, agreed to sign them but until she did, Susan walked on needles.

  Susan sat on the couch and rubbed Rosalind's belly. "Any minute now, by the looks of it," she said.

  "Will it hurt?" asked Rosalind.

  "Of course, silly," Susan said.

  Rosalind frowned.

  Just then, there was a knock on the door. Susan got up to answer it. A short, pudgy man stood in the doorway. He introduced himself as Arvin Sparks, Attorney-At-Law. She led him to the dining room table. Rosalind watched them from the couch as he pulled a slew of papers from his briefcase, shuffling them occasionally, and then placing one after the other in front of Susan; Susan signing each one with a ballpoint pen.

  "Just get John to sign these for me if you could," he said to Susan.

  "Of course," she replied.

  "Which leaves only one signature. I'm assuming this beautiful young woman on the couch is the mother?"

  Rosalind had met the man a few times, and it bothered her that he kept referring to her as beautiful and that he kept acting like they had never met. She figured that it was an act that he used to put his clients at ease, but she didn't find it all that comforting. He was downright creepy.

  Susan waved her over to the table. Rosalind pushed herself up from the couch and balanced between it and the coffee table. Once she was up and sure she wouldn't tip over, she walked to the dining room table and sat down.

  He handed her the pen and pointed to a blank line on the opposite of Susan's signature. "Just sign there with your best John Hancock."

  She looked at him confused.

  "Sign your name, Rosalind. That's what he meant," said Susan.

  Rosalind took a painstakingly long time to write her name, but when she was done, Arvin Sparks gave it a once over and smirked. "I need your last name, dear," he said.

  She looked at Susan for approval, and Susan nodded. "Just this one time, Rosalind. It's okay."

  Rosalind, unpracticed at signing her last name, had still learned to read and write over the summer, so while it took even longer to write than her first name had, she managed and pushed the paper over to the man sitting at the head of the table.

  "There we go," he said. "I'll leave these with you so John can sign them," he said.

  He closed his briefcase and left. Susan was glad. She didn't particularly dislike the man, but she didn't exactly care for lawyers and people with New York accents, either.

  Rosalind went upstairs to take a nap.

  Susan swore she heard John leave for work that morning, so she called him at his office, and when he told her that he took the truck to work, she was mortified.

  It needed a oil change, he had said.

  She sighed and then said goodbye. It could be worse, she thought, but she didn't know how.

  Chapter 38

  Sheriff Hanes walked by the coffee shop and looked in the window. He mistakenly saw Nancy behind the counter, but when the waitress stood up, her black hair brought him back to the reality that Nancy was dead. He sighed and then looked down the street. He looked across the street at Regional Tire and saw an old, beat-up truck sitting in front of it. He hadn't been to see Rosalind in a while, so he walked over and went inside. John was sitting at his desk, doing paperwork.

  "Morning, John," the sheriff said.

  "Sheriff. Pleasant surprise." he replied.

  "I haven't been by the house in a while, how's our girl doing?"

  "Fine, I guess. I'm outnumbered at home, so I keep to myself," John said, laughing.

  The sheriff nodded. "Are you and Susan still planning on adopting the kid?"

  "That is the plan, sheriff. It worked out really well, actually. We've been trying for two years now. No luck. This is damned near serendipitous." The sheriff continued to nod absently. John looked him over. "How's the case going?"

  "The case? Oh, the break-in? Dead end. A lousy cigarette butt, if it even was involved, is hardly enough to go on. All I know is that it wasn't Hank's, so someone probably tossed it out the window, which isn't that smart when you think about it."

  John had forgotten about the cigarette butt that Susan had told him about months ago. He tensed up, thinking this was yet another blunder on his part. He relaxed and asked, "Why's that?"

  "During a dry season, that kind of negligence could cost someone their crop. Or worse, their house. Luckily it was pretty wet when it happened."

  "Lucky thing," John said.

  "I need to get back to the office. Give Susan and Rosalind my best. Hope everything goes well with the—" he stopped and patted to his stomach. "Let me know if I can be any help. I could escort you all to the hospital when it happens."

  "That'd be fine. I'll tell the girls," John said and returned to his paperwork.

  The sheriff left the building and stood outside, looking at the truck. He approached it and drug his hand across the rusty frame. He was about to cross the street, when he looked in the window and saw something lying on the seat. He went around to the passenger's side window and looked in closely and saw a pack of Marlboro's sitting wedged between the upright and the base of the seat.

  I'm reaching, the thought.

  But who's truck was it? Marlboro was a popular brand. Just then, John exited the building and when he closed the door, the sheriff looked up, surprised.

  "Sheriff?" John asked.

  "Who's truck is this?" the sheriff asked.

  "Guilty. Susan would kill me if she knew I drove it to work. Appearances, you understand. I like it. It's simple. It's noisy and smells bad, but I like to take it out once in a while to keep it going."

  The sheriff looked inside again. The inside was in fairly good condition, but he was looking at the ashtray. There were no cigarette butts in it.

  "I didn't know you smoked," said the sheriff.

  John walked over to the driver's side window and looked in at the pack of cigarettes in the fold of the seat. He tensed up again, but maintained his cool. "Ah, I quit a while ago. Must be an old pack. Susan insisted. She likes the smell of pipe tobacco. Can't say as I blame her." The sheriff nodded and then looked away. "Anything I can help you with?"

  "No," said the sheriff. "Have a good one."

  John got in the truck, fired it up. It backfired once, startling the sheriff as he walked back across the street. He unlocked the door to the station and went inside, going to the window and peering through the drapes as he watched John drive away. The truck left a billow of smoke behind it as it disappeared down the street, turning a corner and heading toward the Byrd farm.

  It wasn't anything to go on. And John? A pillar of the community? He put the thought out of his mind and sat down at his desk. The folder which held the lone piece of evidence was sitting under the telephone. He picked up the phone, pulled the folder out, then tipped it over, spilling the butt onto his desk. It was dry now after so many months, but it was clearer than it had been that day and the rest of the letters between the M and the O were slightly more visible. It was definitely a Marlboro.

  He had been reluctant to admit defeat, but his senses told him to check it out once more. Now that it was summer, he thought that the scene might provide him with more information, so he drove back out to Hank's house.

  Hank's rig was gone. He parked the c
ruiser in the spot where he had found the first butt and got out. He looked around the road. He had last been out here when there was a healthy blanket of snow, so he counted himself lucky to find the cigarette he did, but if he could find more…

  He wasn’t sure what more would mean. It might rule out a random toss out the window of a car. It definitely would. It would mean that someone sat here and cased the house. He looked around the grass which had gotten taller over the summer and moved blades around with his foot. He was just about to leave, when something caught his eye. He leaned down and separated the blades and there it was: another cigarette butt. He searched through the grass and came up with seven more butts. That made nine; all of them indicating that they were in fact Marlboro.

  "Son of a bitch," he said to himself. He took the butts to his car and put them in the folder that contained the first one.

  He drove back to town and then put the folder on his desk. He had one lead, and he didn't like where it was going.

  Sheriff Hanes leaned back in his chair and locked his fingers behind his head. The phone rang. He answered it.

  "Joe? This is Peter Wilkes, up in Hampton?"

  "Pete, what can I do for you?"

  "If you got a minute, I have a missing persons up here. Got a pen handy?"

  Hampton sat on the boundary of Lincoln and Vigo county, and it was on the Vigo side that Peter Wilkes was sheriff. They had come to an understanding years ago that, while Joe Hanes had jurisdiction over a small part of Hampton, Peter Wilkes would handle the majority of it, leaving Joe Hanes to worry about Whispering Pines and the surrounding towns. It was an amiable agreement.

  "Sure." He grabbed and pen and a piece of paper from his notebook. "Go ahead."

  "Name is Jessica Peterson…answers to Jessie. Blond hair, approximately 5'3", blues eyes. Uh, good student…no priors…well-liked…good relationship with parents. Last seen wearing a dark blue skirt and a white blouse. I saw a picture of her; she's a bit busty for her age if you get my meaning."

  "How old is she?" Hanes asked.

  "Thirteen," Wilkes replied.

  "Christ," Hanes said.

  "You ain't kiddin'."

  "Runaway?" Hanes asked.

  "My gut says no. Like I said, good relationship with the parents."

  "I see," Hanes said. He looked at the butts on his desk. "Any idea where she disappeared?"

  "Well, her parents said she was walking home from a friend's house, but she never made it. You got something?"

  "This may be nothing. It's not a similar case at all, but have you looked around the scene at all? Found anything out of the ordinary?"

  "What are you getting at, Joe?"

  He didn't want to go into details about Rosalind's incident, so he tried to be as vague as he could. "We had a break-in some months ago. No physical evidence except for a pile of cigarette butts about a hundred yards from the house."

  "Casing the place? I'll be honest, I didn't think about that. But we can give it another look," Wilkes said.

  "Thanks, get back to me on that if you could. If so it sounds like you and I will be having a chat."

  "If you can help in any way, I'll buy the coffee," Wilkes said. They hung up and the sheriff looked again at the butts.

  He sighed and put his hands behind his head. He had only one lead, and now he really didn't like where it was leading. But, being the thorough man that he was, he had to check it out. But it was a delicate matter. A thirteen-year-old girl was probably dead, and another one was about to give birth. There was a connection, but the sheriff didn't like it and would never believe it until he checked out one last thing. He needed to know if there were butts similar to the ones he found near Nancy's house. He decided to wait until Wilkes called him back.

  Chapter 39

  Rosalind woke up, glad that she was no longer puking every morning. She felt heavy and had trouble breathing. Susan had told her that when she was ready to deliver, the baby would drop. It was crowding her lungs right now, so she figured she still had some time until that happened, even though the last visit to Dr. McClelland revealed to her that "Any day now!" was the prognosis.

  She opened the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out the page with the woman in the yellow dress. She unfolded it and smiled, looking at her name and how badly scrawled it was. Her handwriting had improved over the summer, and she hardly believed that this was her first attempt. She thought about Nancy. Nancy would never get to see her Maggie. And Rosalind would never again get to see Nancy. It was horrible to think about. She pushed the memory away and got dressed.

  Downstairs, Susan was making breakfast. John had already left for work.

  There was a knock on the door, so Rosalind got up and answered it. It was Arvin Sparks.

  "Lady of the house around?" he asked Rosalind.

  "Come in," she replied. Rosalind disappeared into the kitchen.

  Susan came out of the kitchen and said, "Oh!" He was here for the paperwork that John had finally signed, so Susan dried her hands on a towel and went into John's den to fetch them from his desk. They were signed and neatly stacked, so she took them to Arvin, who stood near the door.

  "Here they are," she said, handing him the papers.

  He looked them over, one by one, and then put them into his briefcase. "That'll do," he said. He looked at Rosalind. "You've made a wise decision, young lady. The Byrd's will be fine parents."

  "But, Susan said I will still be her mommy," said Rosalind. Susan's cringed.

  "How old are you, dear?"

  "Thirteen," she said.

  "Excuse me?"

  Susan raced out of the den. "Rosalind, no honey we talked about this." Rosalind hung her head.

  "Can I see those papers please, Mrs. Byrd? Susan sighed and handed him the papers. He flipped through the pages until he came to Rosalind's signature. He muttered a few mhm's and a uh-huh's and then looked at Susan. "Easily fixable, although I wish you would have told me the truth in the beginning."

  "I'm sorry. Her age and her…situation…have been kind of a running secret. On the orders of the sheriff," she added.

  "I understand," Arvin said. "All we need is a parental signature and this goes away."

  "What? No. I mean—" She pulled Arvin Sparks closer to the door and away from Rosalind. "Her parents are dead."

  "Mrs. Byrd, I can't in good faith put my name on something I know is illegal. However, if we forget the paperwork and, I dunno, you happen to give birth unexpectedly, it would be the easiest way around the situation."

  "What do you mean?" Susan said.

  "It happens all the time. Women give birth when they never knew they were pregnant to begin with. You know what the funny thing about it is?"

  "What?"

  "The stupid women," Arvin began, "just thought they were fat. It's quite funny when you think about it. And the husbands? At first most of them cry infidelity from the shock of it all. I've seen a few cases like that back in New York."

  "I didn't know a woman could carry to term and not know about it."

  "Most can't, but back to Rosalind."

  Susan looked at Rosalind when he said her name and she was gone. She looked back at the lawyer. "So you expect me to say that I was pregnant all this time and I didn't know about it?"

  "I don't expect you to say anything. I've said what I needed to protect myself."

  "I can't anyway. She's seen doctor's. And I have a history of infertility."

  He shrugged. "Not sure what to tell you. You look like a resourceful woman. I'm sure you'll figure something out. But in the meantime, I'm destroying these papers. And Mrs. Byrd?"

  "Yes?"

  "Don't lie to your lawyer. That's our job." He grinned and it revealed a silver capped incisor on the right side of his mouth.

  Arvin Sparks put his hat on and left.

  Idiot, Susan thought. But it didn't matter. She went back to the kitchen and let Rosalind sulk in her room.

  Chapter 40

  Sheriff Hanes sat at his d
esk, looking out the window at the Regional Tire building. John had driven the car to work today.

  Smart move, he thought. But he still needed to look at the pack of cigarettes, or more importantly, count the ones remaining.

  The phone rang and he answered it.

  "Joe? Pete here," the caller said.

  "Pete, how goes it? Anything new?"

  "That's why I'm calling. We combed the area outside the house Jessica Peterson was last seen. It was the darkest area on the route back to her house, so we figured that is most likely the place she was abducted. We did find some cigarette butts and some tire tracks, but there weren't no identifying tread marks."

  "How is that possible?" Hanes asked.

  "Bald tires, maybe? So, how's about that chat?"

  "Yeah, sure. But I need to check something out here first. How does tomorrow around noon sound?"

  "That sounds fine, Joe. I'll be in the area so I'll stop by. If you need any help with this, it sounds like we might have the same guy and I would be more than happy to assist."

  "We'll talk about it tomorrow. I almost forgot, how many butts did you find?"

  "Five," replied Wilkes.

  "That's fourteen total," said Hanes.

  "So what're you thinking? Put out an APB on a pack with only six sticks in it?" Wilkes laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. Sheriff Hanes got the humor and returned a weak chuckle. "I'll see you tomorrow," said Wilkes.

  Sheriff Hanes looked out the window. It was almost 5 P.M. and John would be going home soon. He still hated to think that this was his only lead, but he had to follow it. He waited until John closed Regional Tire and drove home. He needed a search warrant, so he started filling out paperwork. When he got to the pursuant, he hesitated and then inked John Byrd's name in the box.

  A shiver grabbed him.

  He was really doing this.

  But first (and it wasn't proper procedure) he would take a trip out to the Byrd farm that night. He would look for himself and do his best to rule the man out. It was hard enough working from circumstantial evidence, but even harder if that evidence was attached to someone as prominent in the community as John Byrd. He needed to be careful, but the way he saw it, there were two things he was looking for: six cigarettes and bald tires.