The Maddening Page 6

  As soon as he came to a stop, a small black dog scampered out from behind the right side of the house and began barking. It took a few brave steps forward and held its ground. The barking brought a tall, slim elderly man out of the house. He was dressed in a pair of jeans held up by dark blue suspenders over a dark blue flannel shirt. He didn’t come off the porch and he didn’t try to stop the dog from barking.

  David got out of the car. The dog growled threateningly, but didn’t come forward. Instead, it backed toward the house as David approached. The man looked as though he had gotten up from the dinner table. His mouth was still grinding away at something. David nodded and lifted his hand in greeting. The old man nodded but kept his hands in his pockets.

  “Hi there,” David said. “I was wondering if you might be able to help me.”

  “That depends. These days I have a hard enough time helping myself.”

  David had to laugh, but the old man didn’t look as though he had intended a joke. He remained grim.

  “I’ve got some family missing,” David said. “There’s a possibility they took this road.”

  “Don’t say?” The old man looked up and down the road as though just realizing it was there. The dog had stopped barking, but now growled in short, low bursts. “We don’t get much traffic either way. Suits me just fine.”

  “I bet. But being there isn’t much traffic, maybe you noticed a particular car. It was a blue Cutlass, an eighty-six, two-door. My wife and little daughter were in it.”

  “Oh? And they’re missin’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked pensive for a moment, a frown creasing his leathery forehead.

  “I’m getting pretty old,” he said. “Don’t know whether I’m dreamin’ up things or rememberin’ them anymore.” David smiled. “Hit ninety-one yesterday,” he revealed.

  “Really?” David said, momentarily struck by the man’s agility for his age. Never far from his mission, he returned to the business at hand, softening somewhat in acknowledgment of the other’s achievement. “But what do you mean when you say you’re not sure whether you’re dreaming or remembering?”

  “Seems like I heard this before,” the old man said. David stared at him a moment, an unspoken fear forming in his mind.

  “Oh, you mean a policeman came by here recently to ask you?” he said, brushing the uncomfortable feeling aside.

  “No, no one came by recently. It’s more like years.” He took his right hand out of his pocket and rubbed his chin. The sandpaper gray stubble ran up and down his thin face in patches. His jawbone was so emphatic it looked as though it might tear through his skin any moment.

  “Are you alone here?”

  “Yep. Been that way since seventy-four. That’s when my wife died. Both my sons are dead, too. All I got’s two grandsons.”

  David nodded. Feeling sorry for the old man, he saw his hopes diminish. He would pull little from the cobwebbed caverns of the old man’s mind. “You don’t recall seeing the car I described?”

  “Sorry. I do sit out on the porch quite a bit. Can’t say I seen it, though. You sure she took this road?”

  “Oh, no. I’m just looking. Somebody suggested it…Mr. Green, I believe…from the general store.”

  “Oh, him? Senile. I don’t think I ever go in there without havin’ an argument about what I bought and what I need.”

  David smiled.

  “Well, I guess I’ll go on through. Are there many other houses along the way?”

  “Only two on this side and one on the other. Ben Stratton is the next house on this side. After that comes the Echerts and after that you’ll find Gerald Thompson. At one time his family owned all these lands,” he said, waving at the countryside around them with knotted fingers. “But that’s goin’ back aways. Lucky he owns anything now…half-assed farmer. Touched in the head. But an innocent. Why, I remember when I could see clear over to the Echerts. All this was clear pastureland in those days. His father’s doing. An old taskmaster…” He shook his head.

  “I can imagine,” David said, impatience gnawing at him. “I thank you anyway,” he said, and started away.

  “Wife and daughter, you say?” the old man murmured almost under his breath.

  David stopped, planting his feet solidly. He peered intently at the old man, hoping he remembered something. “Yes, sir.”

  “Damn if I don’t remember that.” He shook his head. “Seems like yesterday.”

  “And…?” David prompted.

  The old man balled his fists, fighting to remember, then suddenly relaxed. “I just can’t picture when…”

  David smiled. “Thanks again,” he said, and went back to the car. As he pulled away, he looked up at the porch and saw the old man still standing there, scratching his chin and shaking his gray-haired head.

  David chalked up the old man’s half-memory of Stacey’s car to a visit made by the police the day before. It was encouraging that they had made a real effort to find Stacey and Tami, but it probably also meant that he was on a fruitless trail. It had already been covered.

  He slowed down when he came to the next house, but it was situated so far back from the road he didn’t see how anyone could have spotted a car go by. He drove on. He stopped at the house on the right and spoke with the couple who lived there, the Echerts. David thought it was odd that they said no policeman had stopped by to talk to them. It seemed inefficient to speak only with a ninety-year-old man. He would tell Chicky on their next phone call. His household search on back-country roads was not wasted, then.

  “Arthur Hubbard claimed there was a policeman at his house asking questions about your wife and child?” Mr. Echert asked. He was a man in his late fifties.

  “Well, not exactly. He recalled being asked about a missing woman and little girl, but…”

  “Oh, that was a few years ago, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Echert chimed in over his shoulder. Her husband nodded immediately.

  “Arthur’s mixed up, I’m sure.”

  A chill rippled up David’s spine. “You mean something like this has happened before on this street?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say on this street. There was a situation like this…must’ve been a little over two years ago, right, Helen?”

  “About two years, yes.”

  “But nothing came of it here. For all we know, they found the woman and child elsewhere.”

  “I see.”

  “Don’t pay much attention to Arthur. You know how old he is?” Mrs. Echert said. She was light, airy, and cheery compared to her husband.

  “Yes, I do. Well, thanks anyway.”

  “Good luck. Wish we could help,” Mr. Echert said, and they all waved.

  Maybe you have, David thought as he returned to his car. He wasn’t one to believe in coincidences of fate, but he didn’t know how to express the feelings he was now having. Certainly, his hope was rebounding. He would tell Chicky Ross to check into the previous case of a missing woman and child in this vicinity, but unless there was some way to tie it in…

  He stopped at the Thompson farm and looked up at the house. It was the biggest of all he had seen so far, and he recalled what old man Hubbard had said about the Thompsons once owning all the land. It was Victorian, shingled, and sizable. But the farm looked run-down; some equipment obviously had gone to seed, left where the machines had malfunctioned. A spotty number of livestock roamed here and there, and all of the structures screamed for paint and some repair. In fact, a cloud of frailty and dreariness hung over this entire property. He imagined that if he went up to the door and knocked, a skeleton would appear.

  He started to turn into the driveway when a big man suddenly appeared out of nowhere. David hit the brakes, bringing the car to a screeching halt, and waited for the man to approach. He did, in a pair of coveralls and a t-shirt streaked by grease and dirt that also covered his arms. David thought he looked less like a farmer and more like a garage mechanic.

  The man’s forearms and shoulders were intimida
ting. He had a short, bull neck and easily stood six foot three or four. The features of his face—which could be called handsome—were cut deeply and sharply, but David was drawn immediately to the man’s eyes. There was a wild intensity in his gaze. He looked as though he were bearing down on prey. David had the feeling the man was going to take hold of the front of his car and upend the vehicle onto its roof.

  “Maybe you can help me,” David began through the lowered window. The man didn’t respond. He just stood there stern-faced, looking at him. “My wife might have gotten lost and taken this road. She was driving a blue Cutlass, an eighty-six, and my five-year-old daughter was with her.”

  “Don’t have much time to sit and watch the cars go by,” the man said, his voice gravelly and deep.

  “If she got lost on a road like this, she’d stop for help.” David looked past the man and focused on the house, but the man stepped closer and cut off his view.

  “No one’s stopped here,” he said.

  “Anyone else around who might have seen her go by?”

  “My wife don’t come out much. She ain’t well.”

  “Oh. No one else has come around asking, have they?”

  “Not lately.”

  Disappointment engulfed him. “Well…thanks anyway,” he said. He started to back out of the driveway. The man didn’t move; he stood there in a defiant stance watching until David drove away. The cold feeling he had gotten from that short conversation was enough to make him turn down the air conditioner. Stacey wouldn’t have spent much time talking to that guy, he thought and drove on.

  When he came to the end of Willow, he turned right and stopped at a gas station. He asked the attendant to fill the tank while he went to the pay phone, intending to call Chicky Ross, but he stopped at the cash register for gum instead. He really hadn’t been away long enough to merit pulling the detective away from his duties. It was probably better to wait a little longer. He didn’t want to be seen as a pain in the ass. He made a mental note to tell Ross about the story of a previously missing woman and child on this road.

  He went back to pay the attendant and ask him if he had seen Stacey and the blue Cutlass.

  “There was a little girl with her, five years old.”

  “You a cop?” the attendant asked.

  “No. It’s my wife and child who’s missing. I just couldn’t sit around waiting for answers from the police, so I’m exploring possibilities on my own.”

  “Reason I asked was the state police were by here asking about that. I wasn’t on around the time they thought she might be by. My brother was. I figured you were one of the cops coming back to talk with him.”

  “Is he here now?”

  “He’s inside doin’ a grease and oil job. The cop said someone was supposed to come back this morning to talk to him. He remembered something.”

  “Really? Mind if I talk to him?”

  “Hell no. Go on in while I do your car.”

  “Excuse me,” David said. A man not past his late twenties poked his head out from under the vehicle, jacked up several feet by the lift. “Your brother said it would be all right to talk to you.”

  His blond brows arched. “What’s up?”

  “I’m looking for my wife and daughter who never arrived when they should have.”

  “Really?” He stepped out, wiping his hands on a grease-streaked rag.

  “She was driving a blue Cutlass, eighty-six.”

  “Oh, that’s the car Vern was talking about. Said the state police were here last night.”

  “That’s right.”

  He shook his youthful head. “Yeah, I remember it. She let the radiator go dry. I filled it and checked out the engine.”

  “Where’d she go after that?”

  He thought for a moment. David could feel his heart beat so hard it took his breath away. He felt like pouncing on the man to shake the information out of him.

  “Said she was going up to Fallsburg, so I told her to take Willow and she could cut into—”

  “She took Willow?” He was stunned.

  “Yeah. I saw her make the turn. The weather was looking pretty bleak.”

  David recalled it had stormed briefly yesterday. Had she been caught in it?

  “She couldn’t have gotten lost on that road,” he said, musing aloud.

  “Hardly,” the young man said with a violent shake of his head, his blond locks rippling across his forehead. “No place else to go. Except a cowpath here and there.”

  “No one saw her on that road.”

  The man shrugged. “Don’t surprise me none. All you got living up there are some old-timers and Gerald Thompson. He don’t see much or say much about anything.”

  “I know what you mean. I stopped to talk to him,” David said, remembering their confrontation. “You’re sure she took that road?”

  “Well, like I said, I saw her make the turn, but I guess she could’ve changed her mind and come back. I wasn’t out there all the time.”

  “Yeah.”

  The young man grimaced pensively, then looked back up. “She never arrived and she never called?”

  “No.”

  He shrugged again, looking contrite. “Well, that’s all I can tell you.”

  “Thanks.” David turned to go.

  “Maybe she turned around and went home. It looked like a bad downpour,” the mechanic offered as David started out. He stopped.

  “I’ve checked that,” he said. “Thanks, though.” But as he emerged into the sunlight, the thought struck him that he hadn’t called home since this morning. He went back to the pay phone and dialed the number branded in his brain. There was no answer. He decided to call Cynthia Grossman again. She picked up the receiver almost immediately after the first ring.

  “David, I’m going crazy here. What’s happening? Have you found them?”

  “No. I’m out looking, going back over the detours she might have taken. I was hoping that maybe somehow…”

  “A policeman called me…Detective Ross.”

  “What did he ask?”

  “He wanted to confirm what time I saw Stacey leave.”

  David felt the hesitation in her voice. “What else did he want, Cynthia? It’s all right. You can tell me.”

  “He asked if there was any trouble between you two. I told him he was crazy to ask.”

  David sighed. “Thanks, Cyn. I expected police skepticism. That’s one reason I’m out here.”

  She paused. “What could have happened?”

  David was unsurprised by the puzzled note in his own usually self-assured voice. “I don’t know. I’m just going to keep looking.”

  “Please, call me. Do you want me to come up to help?”

  David warmed. Women were helping him cultivate his soft side. “No. There’s no point. I don’t know what I’m doing myself. I’m just doing. But thanks for offering. I’ll call you.” He rehooked the phone.

  For a moment he just stood there. Ross was working on one of his theories all right. For the police the possibility that he might have inflicted harm on his own wife and child was as viable as any alternative. David knew that logically they had to investigate every possibility, but at this point logic was just too much for him to tolerate. They were wasting their energies and their time while Stacey and Tami might be entangled in some real trouble.

  Everybody thinks he’s a television detective, he thought cynically as he walked to his car. Okay. He’d have to follow leads himself. There was no time to spare. The police would stop to question the young mechanic anyway; they’d get the same information he’d gotten. For now, he needed to get back on Willow and scour every inch until he came up with something. Any clue that pointed the way to his wife and child. For now, it was all he had.

  4

  Gerald never thought about the woman’s man. It surprised him that he hadn’t considered the husband and father. After he watched him drive off, he thought about the first woman and child. That woman had been divorced. He had learned t
hat much about her before it was over.

  Of course, he had expected that someone would come looking for these two; he just didn’t foresee that it would be the actual husband and father. He was sorry now that their conversation had been so short and he had taken so little note of the man. He was curious about him in almost a scientific way, as though the man was of another species similar to himself, but still very different.

  After all, he came from the other world, the world in which families gathered happily around dinner tables or sat contentedly before television sets and shared the warm cocoon of each other’s company. They weren’t haunted by the kind of memories that tormented him. In their world a smile wasn’t as rare as an eagle.

  And what about the music of laughter? If the new girl wasn’t here, there wouldn’t be very much. No, he thought as he stood on his driveway and looked down Willow Road in the direction the man had taken, we are not the same. He couldn’t feel any compassion for the man or empathize with him. It was easy to forget the look in his eyes and the tone of desperation in his voice.

  Let him go back to that world where they marry and divorce and share children like easy currency, he thought. They find replacements; they always do. In the meantime…

  He looked back at the house. Irene had decided to punish the girl for not being obedient. She was locked in the Bad Box. Her crying had died down. He could hear her swallowing her sobs before he came outside. Soon she’d fall asleep, just the way Shirley always did.

  Shirley was already asking Irene to release the girl. Irene couldn’t keep her in there much longer anyway, he thought. He was sure she’d been there long enough to make her obedient. That’s all Irene had ever wanted. Obedience. Respect. Companions. She never intended to hurt. The woman was going to be a more serious problem. He didn’t think Irene would be satisfied with her. Her presence would come to no good. It was probably better for all if he ended it as soon as he could.

  He looked down the road again. Satisfied that there was no longer any danger to them, he returned to his chores. He had been up early and had removed a good part of the woman’s car’s body. Now he had to see to the water and feed for the chickens.