Isabella Moon (18 page)

When word got out, television stations as far away as Louisville and Knoxville had taken a brief, intense interest. Disappearances of children were not so rare, but he figured it was probably because she was such an unusual-looking child, pretty in her own way, with long, black hair and wide eyes that held a look of calm trust in every one of the pictures her mother and school came up with. If she’d been two hundred pounds and nearsighted, he imagined that the newspeople wouldn’t have thought twice about coming all the way to Carystown to try to find out what had happened to her. But after a while they’d gone away. The child had become just another one of the hundreds who disappeared without a trace every year.

The crew at the barbershop had ruined his appetite. He should have known better than to go in there with not one, but two suspicious death cases so fresh on the town’s mind. The crowd at the Carousel would be even more curious. So when he came to Craddock’s, the town’s coffeehouse, he went inside. The crowd was younger here, not liable to speak to him. Most of them were paranoid that he was out prowling for the dime bags of pot stashed in their expensive backpacks.

As the nose-and eyebrow-ring–bedecked young woman behind the counter packed up his coffee and one of the crisp, butter-laden spanakopitas from the case, another person came into the shop, causing the handful of pot metal bells on the door to jangle brightly. When Bill saw who had entered, he knew it was something more than annoyance with the barbershop crowd that had brought him here.

Deep worry lines creased Hanna Moon’s sun-worn face, as though she were concentrating hard on some distant sound or an idea she couldn’t quite grasp. Although Bill believed her to be only in her mid-thirties, her hair was streaked with fine strands of gray. Her body beneath her linen dress was what he would call fully fleshed, but even so, the skin at her neck was loose and wrinkled. She’d aged ten years since he had spoken with her at any length.

He quickly paid for his food, trying to keep an eye on where Hanna Moon was going. She’d taken a seat at one of the tall tables in the window, letting her feet swing free from the stool. Bill walked in her direction, ready to make eye contact with her to get her attention. But when he looked directly at her, her eyes widened in recognition.

“Sheriff,” she said excitedly, “I’ve been looking for you!”

“Is that a fact?” Bill said. “We’d like to have news for you Ms. Moon. I’m sure Mitch has told you we’re still exploring everything that comes in.”

But Hanna Moon wasn’t listening to him. She tilted her head like a curious child and waited politely until he was finished.

“She told me to look out for you,” she said. “Not you, really, but more for your wife. What’s her name?” Hanna Moon glanced at the floor, then looked up at the ceiling as though for an answer written on the ceiling tiles. “Marjory? Mamie?”

“Margaret,” Bill said.

“That’s it,” she said, and gave him an expansive smile full of yellowing teeth. “She said you’ll need her help. You need to listen to your wife.”

“I don’t understand,” Bill said, not liking this conversation. He’d wanted to ask her about the Russell woman, to find out if she’d been followed or harassed by her. He also wanted to know if they’d met before Isabella disappeared. But her words began to sink in and he felt the dull ache of worry in the back of his mind.

“Why, your wife. Margaret,” she said. Then she spoke to someone else over Bill’s shoulder. “I found the sheriff, and I didn’t even have to go looking at his office.”

“That so?”

Bill turned to see Charlie Matter standing as close as a shadow behind him.

“Sheriff,” Charlie said, nodding. He wore a scuffed canvas outback hat that had seen better days. The hand in which he held his cup of coffee had a thick gauze bandage on its back. Even though it was only late March, he, like Hanna, was ruddy from the sun.

“Mr. Matter,” Bill said.

“Time to go, Hanna,” Charlie said.

Hannah responded to his authoritative voice with a pout. “But I haven’t had my coffee yet,” she said.

“Go on and get it to go,” Charlie said. “Quit bothering the sheriff.”

Still in a sulk, Hanna slid from the stool. Bill felt her fingers light on his arm as she passed by. “Wait for me,” she whispered.

“How’s the police business, Sheriff?” Charlie said. “You catching the bad guys?”

Small talk with the locals was a big part of his job, but he found some citizens harder to stomach than others. Charlie Matter had shown up at Chalybeate Springs about five years before to take the place in hand. He had no priors that Bill could find. He supposed it was probably, technically, against some civil rights lawyer’s opinion to investigate someone’s background just because he rubbed a man the wrong way, but Bill didn’t personally see anything wrong with it. And Charlie Matter had been investigated more thoroughly after Isabella’s disappearance, only to come up clean. His alibi for the window of time in which she’d disappeared was tight. But the man was often just a little too eager to please for Bill’s taste. He kept himself on the radar mostly, even showed up at the occasional Rotary meeting wearing a collared shirt with his blue jeans. Bill knew that’s the way he would do it if he had anything to hide. Plain sight was always best.

“I’ve been wondering that nobody out your way has been in the office looking for updates on the child,” Bill said. “I want to assure you that the case is still open, if anyone’s interested.”

Charlie bristled visibly, but he managed to sound civil. “We’re a law and order bunch, Sheriff,” he said. “We know that if there’s any information, you’d let us know. Then again, Hanna’s convinced Issy’s dead and comes to visit her every now and again. She’s got her back in that way, and I think that’s all she wants.”

They both watched as Hanna chatted to the girl behind the counter.

“You ever think about treatment for her?”

“Treatment, hell,” Charlie said. “She’s happy. And she’s not exactly a danger to anyone.”

“Maybe herself,” Bill said. “You might want to think about that. If the child does turn up someday, a mother who’s deep in mental illness isn’t going to do her much good.”

Charlie laughed, drawing the attention of people at nearby tables. “Don’t shit a shitter, Sheriff,” he said. “Hey, Hanna. Let’s go.”

Hanna brought her coffee over to them. “I’ve told her to tell you herself, Sheriff,” she said, shaking her head. “But you know how kids are, especially at that age.” She looked puzzled for a moment, as though remembering something. “Of course she’s older now. Almost eleven. She should be over that kind of fooling around.”

Charlie put his hand on Hanna’s shoulder to guide her to the door. “Let’s let the sheriff get to his lunch,” he said.

Hanna resisted, shrugging him off. She reached up and touched Bill’s face, holding her cool fingers against his jaw. Looking into his eyes, she said, “You take care, you hear?”

Then they were gone out the door in another jingling of bells, Charlie Matter guiding her gently and with more kindness than Bill would have imagined him capable of. As they passed out of view of the coffeehouse’s large front window, Bill felt an intense sadness come over him, coupled with a desperate need to feel Margaret in his arms.

17

The afternoon Miles asked her to sleep with one of his investors, Mary-Katie thought he was joking. They’d just come in from playing tennis, and her white polo shirt was soaked and the hair around her face was stringy with sweat. She stood by the refrigerator, her back to him as she filled a glass full of cold, filtered water.

“He’s really impressed with you, baby,” he said. “He says you’re smart, funny, beautiful—everything I already know you are.”

She was all too familiar with Miles’s often appalling sense of humor: The last Fourth of July party they’d had, he employed a pair of little people and had them costumed only in red, white, and blue top hats and tiny swim briefs convincingly stuffed so the men looked like they were hung like horses (Miles’s guests—his clients and their dates—thought them riotous). But however varied his tastes were in the bedroom, they had yet to include other people.

“I don’t quite get it, honey,” she said, not wanting to believe what she’d just heard. But a part of her knew he wasn’t joking. She didn’t want to turn around to look at him. What kind of man loans out his wife? What kind of wife lets him?

Miles came to put his arms around her waist. Although he wasn’t much taller than she, he was still as muscular—maybe even more so—as the day she’d met him. Almost fifteen years older than she, he still beat her at tennis every time they played. But his chest felt cool and dry against her back.

“One night or afternoon, here, or anyplace you want.” His voice was a whisper, as though he were telling her something sweet and confidential. “You’re in control. Nothing happens that you don’t want to happen. I promise.”

She pulled away from him and swung around to fling the remainder of the glass of water in his face.

Miles reached over to the counter and tore off a handful of paper towels from the roll. As he patted his face dry, he looked solemn, but not angry.

“I suppose I deserved that,” he said. “I knew it was a long shot.”

Mary-Katie was shaking, inside and out. She’d never attacked Miles, or anyone else for that matter. She had been gently raised, as her grandmother used to say. Her way was almost always to back down in an argument. Arguing seemed a waste of time to her, particularly with Miles. So many times she had just gone ahead and lied for him or signed whatever papers he asked her to. He didn’t respond well to probing questions or challenges.

“I don’t suppose it would make any difference to you that it means the difference between—”

“Don’t even say life and death, Miles, because I know you better than that,” she said.

“Don’t be naive, Mary-Katie,” he said. “This is the life we’re set to lose.” He swept out his arm to take in their granite and marble kitchen, with its commercial-grade appliances and hand-planed cherry cabinets. She had fallen in love with the house the minute Miles had brought her through the door. She’d never imagined that she might live in such a place. But Miles had told her she could have any house she wanted if it was under three-quarters of a million dollars, and this was the one she had chosen. It wasn’t on the beach, but she could sit on the deck with her coffee and listen to the ocean’s distant roar and the shorebirds rejoicing in their breakfasts of a morning.

“Everything’s on the line,” he said. His shoulders dropped and he suddenly looked older to her, defeated somehow. “It’s my fault. I wanted to give you everything, but I got in over my head, and this guy, this Richardson guy, he just stepped in and he’s got the cash.”

She stood silently as he went on to explain about an office park way up in Charlotte and several other deals that hadn’t gone quite the way he’d expected them to. There were other men involved besides this Richardson character—men, Miles hinted, who were looking for money instead of offering it, and wouldn’t be so creative in their manner of getting it out of him.

She watched him carefully, looking for any clue that he was playing some kind of game with her. Living with Miles was like living on the edge of a canyon: the view was always spectacular, but one never knew when there was going to be a landslide. He’d hurt her often enough, turning on her unexpectedly and denigrating her intelligence, mocking her compassion. But in the end he seemed to treasure her above all other things. When he took on a new project, he would ask for a kiss for luck. It was all for her, he said. It had become her habit to believe him.

As he spoke, the shadow of responsibility for their situation crept over her. He had never, ever talked to her about finance problems. It was just something that he handled. Even those periods when the credit cards became a problem were brief. Painful, but brief. Money was just something that was almost always there with Miles, like the series of BMWs, the extensive wine cellar, and the discreet diamond pinky ring he wore on his right hand. When they were first married, he had told her that she would never need to think about money as long as they were together. That had been the first lie, she guessed. And the easiest to swallow. This story she swallowed, too, eventually, not seeing it for a lie until it was way too late.

“This can’t be the only answer, Miles,” she said.

“I wish it wasn’t, baby,” he said. “I’ve done everything I know how to do. I feel like an idiot getting so far out on this limb. It was mistake after mistake.”

Were those tears in his eyes?

“We could sell the house,” she said. “I don’t need a house like this. We have the house in Beaufort. We could live there.”

He shook his head. “This house with the Beaufort house wouldn’t come close to covering it. And we’ve got squat for equity.”

Mary-Katie had never pretended to understand the deals that Miles was involved in. It wasn’t a question of not being able to, but not wanting to know. There was always a tainted air about them. His partners were never quite believable as legitimate businessmen.

She tried one last time. “There are banks, Miles. There are police, the FBI, people who deal with criminals.”

“You think I won’t go down with them?” Miles’s voice was almost a whisper.