by Vicki Lane
“I remember that phrase….” Elizabeth’s face screwed up in an effort of recall. “But there was never anything really conclusive to link them, was there?”
“No, and there’re runaway and missing children every night of the year, these days,” Phillip added. “But I got Hank to do a little more checking. I found out that the Mullins family moved here from Greeneville, South Carolina—”
“I could have told you that.”
“And…” He overrode her interjected comment. “…and there was a Halloween disappearance in Greeneville in 1983—while the Mullins were living there.”
“Phillip.” A sudden chill of apprehension touched her. “Are you saying that one of the Mullins family—”
“I’m not saying anything. Matter of fact, in the Greeneville case, a neighbor of the girl confessed in a suicide note. Said he’d put the body somewhere it would never be found.”
Phillip rubbed his chin again and seemed to be studying a nearby cow with rapt attention. He added, in a noncommittal tone, “There was still some doubt as to whether the neighbor was really guilty, or just deranged. And since Maythorn’s disappearance there’ve been several more, but like I said, runaway and missing children are all too common.”
“So what’s your point here?” Elizabeth reached for Phillip’s hand, which was once again starting its upward journey, captured it, and held it close to her heart.
“Hank gave me the number of a retired cop he knew, one who was in Greeneville back in ’83, then transferred to Asheville a few years later. Hank suggested that I call him.”
“And…?”
“This fellow, his name is Evans, must be lonely since he retired. He insisted that I come over to his house in Oakley. Said he’d buy me a beer and fill me in on what he knew about the Mullins.”
Evans had had plenty to say. According to him, the Mullins family had been well connected and well known in Greeneville. “Families like that, any bad publicity and they attract a lot of attention; could be that’s why they finally moved—make a new start maybe.”
When Jared’s name came up, Evans had let out a low whistle. “Now, there’s a turnaround for you. You know, I’ve kind of made a study of Jared Mullins. First knew about him when he was a juvenile in Greeneville. Boy was one nasty piece of work back then. His mother couldn’t control him and only the fact that his father’s family was so important kept him out of the detention center. There was an incident with a neighbor’s cat…he’d killed it with his hunting bow, then skinned it and disjointed it. He brought in the pieces and was starting to cook them, and his mother got suspicious.”
Evans popped open another beer and thrust it toward Phillip. “A few years later, I’m with the department in Asheville and I hear that name again in connection with a drug bust—Jared Mullins. Well, I find out it’s the same kid and I figure he’s probably gotten into some deep shit now. But turns out, once he moved in with his dad way out there in Marshall County, there was evidently quite a change. It was Jared who called the sheriff on a gang of marijuana growers near the Mullins place.”
Evans had laughed at the odd twist the one-time delinquent’s career had taken. “Hell, after that, young Jared started talking about going into law enforcement. He hung around the department and took a few criminal justice courses. He had a lot of friends in the department; still has, as a matter of fact. But in the end, he decided he wanted to be a lawyer instead.”
Evans studied his beer bottle. “I guess that puts him with the good guys.”
40.
FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT
Thursday, October 27
“I was hoping I’d catch you in your office. Can you spare me a few minutes, Rosemary? I just want to hear your voice again.”
Rosemary, receiver to her ear, glanced across her desk at the singularly unattractive young man whose self-righteous monologue had just been interrupted by the buzz of her telephone. Slouching low in his chair, he was surreptitiously picking at a blackhead on his unwashed neck, hand half hidden by a veil of lank dark hair.
She smiled, seeing in her mind’s eye the clean good looks, the silver-blond, short-cut hair, gray-blue eyes, and smooth tanned skin of her caller.
“Hold just a moment, will you, Jared?”
She laid the phone on her desk. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about your grade, Mr. Horton. You’ve cut class time and again; your work is shallow and uninformed; and the fact that you can’t be bothered to proofread is an insult. Creative genius, if that’s what you think you have, can’t overcome shoddy presentation. The grade stands.”
The young man struggled to his feet, shooting her a look of pure venom as he replaced the iPod in his ear.
“Whatever,” he mumbled, shambling toward the door.
As the door slammed, a little harder than necessary, Rosemary picked up the phone again. “Sorry about the wait, Jared. I was hoping you might call. Are we still on for tomorrow?”
There was a chuckle at the other end. “You were pretty rough on poor Mr. Horton, don’t you think? Good thing I like dominating women.”
Rosemary winced. “Jared, if you knew what I’ve put up with from that…that …lout. He fancies himself the next great misunderstood voice of his generation, but in truth, he’s just a lazy little plagiarist with a big library of rap music. I sat through a ten-minute rant before your call gave me an excuse to shut him up.”
She glanced at her watch and her voice softened. “Just eight more hours and I’ll be back in Marshall County…and tomorrow we’ll be together….”
“Phillip! You know, that’s more than a little unsettling for a mother to hear. Rosemary’s been spending a lot of time with Jared—I’d say she’s pretty well smitten with him. But this…what you’ve just told me about him—that’s a little scary.”
“I thought you knew he was a lawyer—ouch! Sorry, couldn’t resist—”
Phillip broke off, laughing as Elizabeth pinched his arm viciously.
“This is bloody serious, Phillip. It’s my daughter we’re talking about.”
“Elizabeth, according to this guy Evans, Jared has been straight-arrow Dudley Do-Right ever since he was responsible for the breakup of that ring of dope growers. And, by the way, our Bib Maitland was part of that gang back then. Anyway, it was Evans’s theory that Jared realized it could be pretty exciting to be one of the good guys.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Well, why did you tell me that awful story about the cat? I’ve read that children who torture animals are far more likely to grow up psychotic or criminal or something like that.”
“I’m sorry; I should have kept quiet about that. I guess the point I was trying to make was how much he’s changed. Besides, Jared was pretty young to be a serial killer, wasn’t he?”
Elizabeth leaned into his warm bulk. “I’d think so. Though god knows, from the things you read, nothing’s impossible. But when the Mullinses moved out here, they had Mike with them and Jared was almost always under Mike’s eye.”
See, you can say his name without it meaning anything. “Mike once said that, at first, being Jared’s quote ‘mentor’ was a bit like having a rattlesnake strapped to his leg. But as time went on, he and Jared developed a real friendship—and Jared stopped being a problem.”
“That fits in with Evans’s story.” Phillip stood and put out a hand. “Come on; let’s walk some more.”
As they continued along the path into the woods, they went over the list of potential suspects. “What about Moon? Was he ever suspected? He’s another turnaround—from a drunk to a saint.”
Phillip nodded. “I asked about that, but aside from the usual questioning, there was never any real suspicion attached to Moon. They investigated the whole family—father, mother, uncle, stepbrother: the whole shooting match.”
“As far as I ever knew, Moon was never what they call a mean drunk. But, for the sake of argument, say he maybe hit Maythorn when he’d been drinking. She could be a little unsettling at times, with her creep
ing around and her spying. Say he hit her harder than he meant to and killed her. So he hid the body somewhere. But then guilt overwhelmed him, and his giving up all his money and running a homeless shelter is a kind of…atonement.”
“Or a way of getting easy access to the most helpless children of all?” Phillip added. “Just for the sake of argument.”
They walked on in silence, but for the dry rustle of the leaves underfoot. In the distance Elizabeth’s rooster crowed and a hen announced, with a frenzied cackle, the arrival of an egg, a miraculous egg!
“Phillip, what about Bib? He resented the Mullinses, and if Jared called the cops on him about the marijuana, he’d have even more reason to hate them. And, according to Rosie, Maythorn was all over the place with her spy games; what if she was the one who told Jared about the marijuana. Maybe—”
“Remember, Bib was the main suspect at the time. They investigated him up and down but never could pin anything on him—he did his time for almost killing a trooper who tried to arrest him for DUI. The story was that Bib’s wife ran off and took their little girl with her. Bib was pretty well liquored up and going to look for them when he was stopped. He was just wanted for questioning, but then it was obvious he was drunk. He was arrested just shortly after the Mullins child was last seen. They did their best to make a case against him for kidnapping Maythorn, but there wasn’t any hard evidence.”
“And lots of people suspected Cletus,” Elizabeth said slowly. “Rosie did for a long time. Here again, I suppose it’s possible—but he definitely couldn’t have been responsible for any of the other ones—the Vanishings. Cletus couldn’t drive.”
Deeper and deeper into the little woods. The path curved around a small, still pool at the base of a huge beech tree and emerged at the top of a cleared hogback ridge. The last of the several benches—“Stations of the Walk” Sam had dubbed them—was here, and once again they sat, enjoying the sun’s warmth after the cool shade of the woods.
As Elizabeth looked out across the fields and down to the valley below where the Ridley Branch road wound its way from the bridge across the French Broad to the foot of the road to Mullmore, another idea presented itself.
“Phillip, Miss Birdie told me she saw Driver Blackfox’s car on the day Maythorn disappeared. What about him? Was he questioned?”
“Her real father’s brother? Oh, yeah. But he swore that he’d had a call from Maythorn to come get her. He said that he waited at the foot of the road for almost an hour—and when she didn’t show, he left. Said he figured her mother had changed her mind about letting Maythorn go to the res for the weekend. He was questioned, all right—I think they even searched his truck and his house, but it didn’t come to anything. He’d been the subject of another investigation a few years before—when he shot his brother in a hunting accident.”
“Was it really an accident?”
“There seems to have been no doubt that it was.”
Elizabeth was silent, remembering the stone wall of silence she and Rosemary had encountered on their first trip to Cherokee. If someone there wanted to keep a secret, she thought, it wouldn’t be hard.
41.
A FEATHER ON THE WINDS OF TIME
Thursday, October 27
The steady hum of traffic on the highway was so familiar now, after her weekly trips home, that Rosemary could allow her mind to wander. Scenes of times long past sprang unbidden—clear and complete—into her memory. She made no effort to direct her thoughts, far less to analyze the memories that drifted into her consciousness like feathers caught in a fickle air. But she listened to their whispered tales…and remembered.
A potluck party, the standard weekend gathering for the young, recent arrivals to the community, one of the few the Mullins family had attended. A big bonfire…people sitting around it in little clusters. Mum holding the sleeping Laurie in her lap. Herself—eight? nine?—leaning against her father and sleepily rubbing her face on his shirt. And Mrs. Barbie, who pointed and said to Mum in a harsh voice, They can be such little sluts with men—especially their daddies, can’t they?
Greensboro, and though the traffic slowed, there was not the usual congestion that brought all lanes to a nerve-testing crawl. Her thoughts floated effortlessly through layers of time.
Maythorn and the booger mask she’s making from one of Mum’s big gourds. When it’s finished, she says, I’ll do the Booger Dance like Granny Thorn showed me. Then I won’t have to be afraid of boogers anymore. But you have to promise never ever to tell. Blood promise of a blood sister.
Strip malls and outlet stores, used-car lots and fast-food restaurants: the unlovely legacy of an automobile-based society spooled by in an unseen blur. Rosemary rubbed her little finger against the rough fabric of the car seat. The finger—the one we cut so I could be Maythorn’s blood sister—was tingling. Never tell, no matter what.
At last the first mountains appeared and Rosemary’s foot bore down on the accelerator. Jared was waiting.
Rosie in the pool house, waiting for Maythorn. Just out of sight she could hear the angry voice of Mrs. Barbie: He’s your daddy and you can give him a little sugar if that’s what he wants.
And Maythorn’s reply: He’s not my daddy! My daddy is dead. The angry crack of an open hand on soft flesh.
Her own hasty retreat for home and her shocked report to her mother: Mum, I don’t think Maythorn’s mother loves her!
And the offhand answer: Of course she does; mothers always love their children.
Past Asheville now, its lights already twinkling in the twilight, and on to the final stretch of interstate.
Maythorn at the scuttle hole, a bright red hat pulled down to hide her hair. She looks like she’s been crying, but Indians never cry. When she talks Rosemary sees that Maythorn has lost one of her upper teeth, the pointy one that had been threatening to fall out for a week or more. Maythorn moves through the scuttle hole to hand over the bundle she’s carrying, but the red hat snags on a low-hanging branch. The hat pulls off, revealing Maythorn’s hair: the shining, silky mass of dark hair has been cut and bleached to golden blond, tortured into a semblance of Krystalle’s fluffy curls. With a growl of despair, Maythorn retrieves her hat, tugging it over her ears. She runs back down the path to Mullmore. It is the last time Rosie will ever see her.
Marshall County. In the distance, lights were blinking on in the houses on the hills. The lights danced and blurred through the tears in Rosemary’s eyes.
42.
DREAM QUEST
Friday, October 28
“She’s determined to go over there this afternoon with Jared and his father.” Elizabeth’s near-whisper was charged with urgency. “She says she wants to look for Maythorn’s spy notebooks. I’m really worried, Phillip. She’s acting so weird, almost like she’s in a trance. I can’t let her go off like that with Moon and Jared, not when there’s a possibility…Please, we have to go too. Can you be back by one-thirty?”
“No problem; I’m almost done here. Is Rosemary still at the house?” Phillip shifted the cell phone to his other ear and glanced at Mackenzie Blaine, who was ostentatiously absorbed in a lengthy printout. On the desk in front of Blaine was a small digital tape recorder.
“Yes, she is—which is why I’m whispering. She wanted to go in and have lunch with Jared, but I convinced her to invite him out here. Phillip, after what you told me…the thing about the cat and then about the missing girl in Greeneville…Maybe I’m overreacting, but I know I don’t want Rosemary to be alone with Jared till we’re sure—”
“Have you told her what I told you?”
“Kind of…some of it. I started to issue a sort of disclaimer and a motherly warning—she just looked at me with those big soft eyes and said that Jared had told her about his wicked ways as a teenager and that I should know that everyone makes a mistake now and then. That people can change.”
Phillip frowned. Elizabeth sounded near tears—a rare thing. “Listen, sweetheart, I’ll be there at one-thirty. Bla
ine and I are just wrapping up a few details. There’s a U.S. marshal on his way to take Gabby off the county’s hands. Don’t worry, you and I’ll tag along on this trip to Mullmore.”
The call ended, Phillip shot a look at Blaine. Aware that Phillip’s eyes were on him, he looked up from the printout with an innocent smile. “Sweetheart in trouble again, Hawk?”
Sighing heavily, Phillip spread his hands wide. “What can I tell you, Mac? The lady and I are…involved.”
“I’d say you are.” The innocent smile blossomed into a knowledgeable grin and Mackenzie Blaine nudged the digital recorder in front of him. “This was on Gabby when I did the pat-down. Evidently he had bugs in her house and in your cell phone so he could keep track of your progress looking for that deposition.” Blaine assumed an unnaturally somber expression. “There was some…extraneous material on the recording—nothing relevant to the case; I’ve erased it, out of respect for the lady.” The grin returned. “You dawg, you!”
Just as he had promised, Phillip was back before lunch was over. Declining anything to eat—“Took the sheriff to lunch. I owed him a favor.”—he poured himself a cup of coffee and settled at the table with the others.
There was an odd tension at work between these three—Elizabeth, Rosemary, and Jared. Elizabeth, though trying hard to act normally, seemed nervous and talked more than was usual for her. Rosemary was very quiet, lost in her own thoughts. And Jared…
It was difficult to imagine this charming, soft-spoken man as the juvenile terror the old cop had described. He’d jumped to his feet when Phillip entered and was introduced, and although he’d bowed to Phillip’s request not to be addressed as “Mr. Hawkins,” every “Phillip” was followed by a deferential “sir.”
“My father and Uncle Mike are going to meet us at the gate at two,” Jared was saying. “That should give Rosemary plenty of time to look for Maythorn’s notebooks before it gets dark. Of course, the power’s been off at the house for years.”