The Girls Are Missing (18 page)

“We’re doing laundry,” said Joyce. “Won’t that be fun?”

“I want to go somewhere.”

“We’ve just been somewhere, honey. Now I have to catch up at home.”

She wondered if she called everyone “honey” because her mother did.

“Why do you always have to be working?” Gail asked.

“Because that’s life, and I’m glad you noticed I’m always working. Do you think I enjoy it? I’d give anything just to sit down and read a fun book.”

“If we stayed in the apartment, you wouldn’t have to do so much housework. It was smaller.”

“It was smaller, but dirtier, because of the soot and dust. And I had to take the laundry out to the corner. That was a pain. A lot of my work is Adam,” which Gail well knew, “but he’ll grow up someday. That’s just life,” she said again.

When the kitchen was cleared, the beds made, the living room dusted, and the bathroom finally vacated by Mary Ellen who sometimes spent hours making herself beautiful, she was able to sort all the laundry that had accumulated on their

trip and at home. While the first load washed, she had time to give Adam his bath, most of it, and leave him in Mary Ellen’s care before returning to the basement.

The washing machine was still spinning. It was nearly finished, and she waited, leaning her elbows on the dryer.

She found herself staring at the floor, and wondered how long she had been staring. Had Carl scrubbed it? Who had scrubbed it? She had meant to do it herself sometime. Never got to it. A woman’s work was never done.

Clean floor. Clean and shining laundry machines.

But clean only in this one place, over here by the laundry.

Who would have scrubbed this part of the floor, and why? Carl would have finished the whole job. He wouldn’t leave half a floor.

She needed to sit down. There was nothing to sit on except the stairs. She huddled on the third step, drawing her knees close to her body and resting her cheek on them.

Nothing wrong with a clean floor. But why didn’t he do all of it?

What’s the matter with me?

She kept trying to think of reasons. He had spilled something. Bleach, maybe, and that was why it looked brighter. But Carl would not be so careless. He’d have put the cap on tight.

Raising her head, she noticed that the pile of newspapers on his work table had grown higher, and suddenly she knew they were not for recycling.

It was a while before she could make herself get up and look at them. The washer stopped spinning and waited for her. She turned on a light, and stealthily, as though he might be watching, lifted the neatly aligned edges of the papers. It was hardly a surprise that the pile began with the ones he had brought from the village that Saturday nearly three weeks ago, after the first murder was discovered.

Why shouldn’t he collect a file of newspapers? He had followed the story since its beginning. It had happened right near his home, and his wife had been the one to report the first body. Why shouldn’t he spill bleach on the floor like anyone else?

Through the open door she could hear Adam’s voice, not crying yet, only fussing, but getting louder and more insistent. And Mary Ellen trying to soothe him.

The top newspaper in the pile. Frank D’Amico quoted as saying, “There’s a nut running loose out there. People are scared.”

And Mary Ellen at the top of the stairs with Adam in her arms. “He’s hungry. Do you want me to feed him his applesauce?”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Joyce reached up to switch off the light.

“What’s the matter?”

“Just a minute, I have to put in the next load.”

What am I going to do?
She took out the damp sheets and undershirts and stuffed them into the dryer. She set the washer for a cold rinse, all the clothes from their trip, and pressed in the dial.
What am I going to do?

Mary Ellen followed her around the kitchen as she plugged in the electric food-warming dish and opened a jar of applesauce. “Is something bothering you, Joyce?”

“Nothing. It’s just the heat. It makes me dizzy.”

Call Frank D’Amico? And tell him her husband collected newspapers and spilled bleach on the floor?

She wanted to talk to Frank. Hear his voice. She wouldn’t feel so alone.

Mechanically she spooned the applesauce into Adam’s waiting mouth. Of course there had only been that one night, when he said he had gone to the movies, and maybe he had.

No, there was the other time, when Toni Lemich—

She tried to think of a night when there had been a murder and he was safe at home.

The first one …

The newspaper said May 29. She was in the hospital then. She had just given birth to Adam, the night Joan Danner disappeared. He had been with her in the hospital, and left sometime in the evening, around eight, when visiting hours were over.

She did not know whether he had gone straight home.

And Valerie Cruz. That, too, had happened before they knew there had been any murders. She remembered reading about the girl’s disappearance in the village weekly.

Last Monday night, it had said. She could almost see the print, although at the time it had not meant anything to her, except that it made her think of Gail, and she could feel the other mother’s anguish. The girl had gone out on an errand. She lived in the village and the store was only a block away.

And Carl—he went out to buy ice that night, because it was hot and he wanted something cold after dinner, which meant a drink, and they had run out of ice, and the old refrigerator that came with the house took almost twenty-four hours to freeze a tray of ice cubes.

And he hadn’t been able to find any, he said, it was all gone from the stores, which was why he took so long, and he was sweating.

And then Toni Lemich. He had worked late. He said he saw her get off the train, and he offered her a ride. He
said
she refused.

That was the night Mary Ellen was out, and she was terrified for Mary Ellen, but more because of what Carl would say, than that anything would really happen to Mary Ellen, because she could not believe those things were really happening right here in Cedarville.

But Mary Ellen would have been safe.

No, no, it wasn’t true. Mary Ellen—no.

She wiped the excess applesauce from Adam’s face. He had eaten well, been very patient with her. Carl’s child.

Poor little baby. He hadn’t done anything except get born, and—

No, it wasn’t true. He
had
worked late,
had
wanted ice.

But why had Toni Lemich gotten off the same train?

She carried Adam upstairs to nurse him. To that bed where she slept beside her husband.

She sat down and unbuttoned her blouse. It was always a comfortable time, just the two of them, Adam and herself. She could read, or drowse. She tried to relax.

Turning her head, she could see the meadow with its bright daisies, and those purple things on stalks. The apple tree that had so enchanted Gail when it bloomed. She had wanted all this for her children.

And she would have it. She would make it all right again.
Stop thinking. It isn’t true.

21

It’s not true. Not true.

It had been a crazy idea, and she was long since over it by the time Carl came home in the evening to start his vacation.

And yet, it had to be somebody. She wondered again what it would be like for the family of that person. When would they start suspecting? How would they know?

On Saturday he was up as usual to drive into the village. When he came back, he brought the papers into the kitchen and looked through them quickly.

“Nothing in there.” He dropped them onto a chair and dug into the egg she set before him.

After breakfast he went out to mow the lawn. It was the same as always. She supposed he had mowed the lawn last Saturday, too, when she was in Pennsylvania. Of course it was the same as always. He wouldn’t bother with it if—

Functioning on two levels.

When he finished and came in to take his shower, Mary Ellen was seated at the table wearing a Japanese kimono, her dark hair tousled and streaming about her face.

“Honestly, Daddy, do you have to make all that noise? A person can’t even sleep around here.”

His eyes raked over her, betraying him, and seeing nothing damning. The kimono covered her well.

“It seems to me you’ve slept enough,” he said coldly, and went on upstairs.

Like any other father and daughter, Joyce thought as she emptied out the coffee grounds.

But she had seen the look in his eyes. He had stripped Mary Ellen naked.

“Is he going to be around all the time from now on?” Mary Ellen asked gloomily.

“For three weeks,” said Joyce. “It would be nice if we could go somewhere, but we haven’t the money, and you know how awkward it is, traveling with a baby.”

“It wasn’t so bad going to Pennsylvania. I could take care of Adam. You can pretend I’m the nursemaid. Let’s all go to Florida. Cape Cod? Well, let’s do something. If I were older,” she continued, at Joyce’s bleak response, “you could leave us all here with me in charge, and you and Daddy could go off somewhere. Wouldn’t that be fun? Would you ever do that?”

“Not with a murderer running around loose,” Joyce replied. She hadn’t thought of saying that, but it comforted her. It put the murderer outside.

Where, of course, he was. There could be no doubt about that.

During the night she lay awake, dreading that Carl might approach her again. It had been so brutal the other time.

He didn’t, but by morning, she was exhausted, and was not sure what had really kept her from sleeping. She dozed after feeding Adam, and when she went downstairs, Carl was on the sofa, engrossed in the newspapers. He told her they had recapped the story because it was Sunday, although there was nothing new to report.

“I can’t understand why you’re so fascinated by that,” she ventured. “It has nothing to do with you.”

He scoffed, “That’s ridiculous. If people confined their interest to things that only had to do with themselves, there’d be nothing in the world. No arts, no science. We’d all be cavemen.”

“Then where does this fit in?” she asked. “It’s not art or science, it’s just morbid. Why don’t you want to read about the Middle East, or China?”

“I do. I read everything. And I notice you’ve been avoiding the papers. I can’t help thinking there must be something wrong, if you have to make such a point of turning your back on this thing.”

“There is something wrong.” She stared down at her fingernails and waited for him to ask her what she meant, but all she heard was the crackle of paper as he turned a page.

Adam’s schedule unbalanced everyone else’s, causing dinner to be late that night. It was eight-thirty by the time they sat down at the table. They had scarcely begun to eat when the telephone rang.

Mary Ellen went to answer it. She remained in the darkened kitchen, and Joyce could hear occasional low tones and now and then a laugh.

Carl looked up from his dinner. “What’s that girl doing?”

“Talking on the phone, I imagine,” Joyce replied. “Maybe it’s Barbara. She’s been away, you know.”

He hadn’t known and he didn’t care. He listened for a moment, frowning, and then called, “Mary Ellen!”

She appeared in the kitchen doorway, still holding the phone, and motioned that she would be there momentarily.

He called her again, louder. She put her hand over the receiver and squeaked “Okay! Okay!” A hurried good-bye into the telephone and then she came back to the table, gleaming.

“Who the hell was that?” Carl demanded.

The gleam vanished. “Somebody.”

“I asked who it was.”

“What difference does it make?”

“It makes a big difference,” he explained without much patience. “You walk away in the middle of dinner, which is exceedingly rude, and you—”

“Can I help it if somebody calls in the middle of dinner?”

Joyce said gently, “You could always tell them you’ll call back. I’m awfully sorry dinner’s so late tonight.”

“I want to know who it was,” Carl repeated.

“A friend of mine, okay?” More than annoyance crept into Mary Ellen’s voice. She was growing desperate.

He reached out and seized her wrist. “
I
asked you who it was.”

“Daddy!” She tried to pull away, but was no match for his large hands. He tightened his grip.

“Daddy, you’re hurting me!” Tears came into her eyes. Gail turned away, sickened by the scene.

Rattling the slender arm, he shouted, “It was a boy, wasn’t it?”

“How—how do you know?”

He rose to his feet and towered over her. His huge paw swung back and then smashed into her face.

Gail was the one who shrieked, fled upstairs and slammed her bedroom door. Mary Ellen sat crumpled in her chair.

Was she dead? Her neck snapped? Joyce reached out to touch her face. Slowly Carl sat down, apparently purged of whatever the phone call had done to him.

Mary Ellen was not dead. Joyce half lifted her from the chair and led her toward the stairs. Over her shoulder she said to Carl, “Thank you for ruining dinner.”

She sat in the darkness on the rocking chair in their bedroom, after Mary Ellen had gone to sleep. It was the only

thing the girl had felt like doing. Perhaps it was a retreat. Or she had been injured. Joyce had wanted to take her to a doctor, not only for Mary Ellen’s sake, but to bring the problem with Carl to a head. Mary Ellen had refused.

“I’m okay,” she had said, “but
he’s
not. My mother always thought there was something wrong with him. She was afraid to let me come here, but then he said he’d get a lawyer because it’s in the settlement.”

If Barbara had known, she ought to have done something. Even if it meant hassling with the law, perhaps she could have proved that he was unfit. They might even have been able to make him get help.

Not that it would have done any good. He’d have talked his way out of it.

Perhaps Mary Ellen was a little young for romance, but to half kill her? It had been David, she confided later to Joyce, the boy who took her riding on his motorcycle. He had been away on a trip with his family and had come back only that evening. A perfectly innocent boy, even if Mary Ellen was a bit young. Perhaps only the adult mind would turn it into a romance.