Dead Floating Lovers (9 page)

I couldn’t tell if Harry was just talking or if he was warning me to stay away from old murders. I followed along behind him as we made our way home. We stopped and dug wild garlic, pungent, but not as pungent as it would get later in summer. We came on a patch of milkweed, young pods about an inch or so long.

“Wash ’em off,” Harry told me as he picked the pods. He hurriedly slipped small pods clumsily into the pocket of my jacket. I got the feeling he’d had enough of me for one day. Probably more talking than Harry did in a week. Body bent forward, he walked on ahead, stopping only to hold low-hanging branches so I didn’t get whacked.

“Boil ’em in three different waters,” he said over his shoulder. “Dry ’em. Cook ’em in butter. Best thing ever.”

When we went through an abandoned garden, behind a ruin of a house with only one wall left standing (and the ubiquitous lilac bush), he pointed at what he called purslane. Without stopping he gave me the same cooking direction, ending with “Fry ’em up with butter. Best thing you ever ate.”

When we got back to his little crooked house where the dogs went into paroxysms of joy at the sight of him, Harry said, “One day I’ll take you collecting cattail roots. Grind ’em and get the same as flour.”

After we divided our spoils, I took the long way home. The woods were bright with swaths of the three-leafed white trillium. Clusters of the snobby Jack-in-the-pulpit stood beside the barely discernible deer path I followed. Jack-in-the-pulpits reminded me of gossiping monks with their high cowls, faces turned to each other as they stood above every other flower.

I recognized tiny spring beauties at my feet. And even knew a May apple when I saw one. The bloated pink lady’s slipper grew in the woods just behind my studio, along with Dutchman’s breeches. There was wild bleeding heart, and squawroot, bunches of them growing near a dead oak. Yellow trout lilies lined the edge of the path. And then the flowers I didn’t know by name. I couldn’t tell a foamflower from a starflower. Nor an honesty from a pipsissewa. Harry knew them all. He had names for everything and talked about them as friends. The wildflowers weren’t weeds to him, nor anonymous plants. Everything had its rightful place in Harry’s world. I didn’t imagine I could live long enough to know all that Harry knew.

I felt safe in the woods, but was seriously bothered by the Indian who knew where I lived, who’d come to see me, and would probably be back. What would I tell him? How did I defend Dolly but get to the truth about those watery skeletons? I walked very slow, approaching my house, in its small valley, obliquely. I hoped to see him first—if he was there—and not be surprised.

I stepped carefully and quietly from the deep woods into my garden. No man. No car in the drive, but I still didn’t feel safe. My heart pounded. He could be anywhere. Maybe following me. Who did I think I was, trying to outsmart an Indian in the forest where his ancestors had lived and hunted for thousands of years?

The cedar cottage I loved didn’t look as sweetly benign today. I slipped between my flowering crabs and sprinted up garden paths to my house. I went from window to window, peeking in to see if anyone sat inside. Sorrow spotted me and went into a frenzy of greeting, leaping from room to room, barking his loud, complaining bark. He was mad that I’d gone off into the woods without him. This game of hide-and-seek drove him crazy.

I feared for my furniture as he leaped at first one window, then the next. Not a vase of violets would be left. Not a lamp. I ran around to the side door, praying no tall man with flowing black hair waited on my porch. Everything was empty: porch, garden, drive, but with a feeling of disturbed air, the feeling there had recently been a presence there. Imagination or not, I knew this was one man I couldn’t avoid.

“It’s Chet all right,” Dolly said without preamble. Her voice, over the library phone, unemotional and flat.

I thought I would be safe at the college library. There had been the hope that for a few hours I’d be left alone, unreachable, and I could search the back issues of the newspaper on microfilm the way I used to do research at the University of Michigan libraries, with no one watching me, everyone intent on their own thing. I had looked forward to this morning. Just me. Alone.

But I was wrong. As if I’d been fitted with a tracking device, she had found me where I’d told no one I was going. At least, no one I remembered telling. But maybe I had been seen in Traverse City, seen entering the library of the college campus on Front Street. Maybe some Leetsvillian had followed my yellow Jeep into town. Had I mentioned to Crazy Harry, as we’d planted pumpkin seeds in little hills that morning, that I was going to the college library to look up girls who had disappeared thirteen years ago?

“Brent found an old silver belt buckle, like clasped hands. Parts of a cowboy boot with a spur on it. Chet loved how he jingled everywhere he went, got looked at. His pride and joy—that belt buckle and those boots.”

“I’m so sorry …”

“Yeah. Well. What I expected.”

“Still …”

“I know. Can’t say it doesn’t hurt. Guess I was hoping somebody else ran off with that girl. Somebody who stole Chet’s dog tags.”

“I don’t suppose there’s still a …”

“Not with that buckle and those boots to top it off.”

“Guess not.” I had run out of condolences. “If you need to talk or … anything …”

“Nope. Just need to find the son of a bitch who did this. Now it’s really personal. Even Detective Brent’s feeling bad. Said we should go on ahead, find any missing girls from that time; start following up; look for Chet’s friends. I got a dog bite I gotta get to right now. After that I’m going over to the wood products place where he worked. See if anybody remembers anything from back then. Maybe get some names. I don’t know. Whatever. How about EATS tonight? We’ll figure out what we got to do and divide up the work.”

“I have the old newspapers on microfilm now. Should have a list by then.”

“Me, too. Went through the records. Found only one possible. But he was a guy. Let’s take a look at what you got.”

I agreed we had a plan for later. “Hey, by the way, how did you find me here?” I asked.

“Eugenia told me.”

“I didn’t tell anyone but Bill, my editor at the paper.”

“You know how they are in Leetsville. I think Harry was in. Oh, and Eugenia said to tell you that Annie really needs to talk to you.”

“Forgot.”

“She’s got some big plan to make money for new library books. Guess she figures on you to help her out.”

“Oh.” I felt the lack of enthusiasm in my voice.

“Won’t kill you to do something for Leetsville once in …”

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You talk to Eugenia about Chet?”

“Yup. She’s going to ask around but she didn’t remember anything from back then. Not him and any certain woman.”

“OK. Brent wants us to go on looking into the murders? What happened to make him so nice all of a sudden? Is he going soft?”

“Nope. What I heard was there’s a big trial in Midland. A couple of his investigators had to go down to testify. Gonna take about a week. He’s shorthanded.” She hesitated a minute. “And I think he’s feeling sorry for me.”

“Good man,” I answered, oddly happy that somebody treated Dolly with respect.

“I just started here,” I said. “Shouldn’t be too long.” I smiled at the librarian who tapped her watch pointedly. “I’ve been to the magazines, drumming up work.
Northern Pines
assigned me a story on the bones, and one on Indian cemeteries. One of them, up near Alba, sounds interesting. Dark Forest Cemetery.”

“You talk to Bill about full time?”

“Not yet, but I’m going back there when I finish here. Might pick his brain—where else to look for missing girls.”

“Don’t forget to ask about that job.” She thought a minute. “You know, I’ve been thinking. There’s always Avon. You could sell door to door. Or maybe scrap booking—everybody’s into that now. Or, you know what? I hear there’s home parties where they sell sexy lingerie, things like chocolate underpants.”

“Hmm.” I pushed the phone tight against my ear so the librarian couldn’t make out what Dolly, in her strident voice, was saying. “You want to be my first customer?”

“Me? What the heck would I do with chocolate underpants? Sounds messy. I sweat too much.”

“I get the picture, Dolly. Think I’ll keep hunting for a writing job.”

“There’s real estate. You’re good with people.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “Oh, can I run Chet’s name in my next story? As one of the murder victims?”

There was a long pause. For a minute I thought she’d hung up on me. “Dolly?”

“Not yet, Emily. You never know. Brent wants to see if forensics can get DNA from bone marrow, or from his teeth.”

“They’ll need something of his …”

“Hairs. I kept those whiskers of his out of the sink. And I called his sister. She’s finding dental records. When they’re positive about a match … I’ll let you know.”

“OK. I’ll wait until then.”

“’Preciate it. See you about six?”

“Sure. And Dolly, I’m really very sorry that Chet ended … well … the way he did.”

“I know. Me, too.” No cool voice this time. Dolly choked.

___

Back at the microfilm machine, I found that back in 1994 and 1995 the newspaper ran a regular police blotter. Three counties reported. I went through issue after issue. A couple of men disappeared while out hunting. Another, a Matthew Conklin in Alba, had gone out for a quart of milk one evening and never returned to his wife and nine kids.

A Jarvis Wargin left work at Crispin Tool and Die, said to be off to a poker game, and was never seen again.

Another man. Nobody really knew his name but he’d just disappeared. He’d been staying with a Jonas family in Leetsville and then was gone. Report stated the social worker who reported him missing said he was a wanderer and probably just left for southern Michigan.

There were six women. Two were elderly. I skipped over them.

Four were young girls:

Lisa Valient, age sixteen, five foot two, blond—short hair, blue eyes. Last seen on Front Street in Traverse City talking to an unidentified male. The report came from her mother, Fern Valient, of Washington Street.

Tricia Robbins of Kalkaska. Eighteen. Five-seven. Brown hair and eyes. She went missing in April 1994. Her father said she’d run off before but never for this long.

Bambi Lincoln of Mancelona. Seventeen. Five-six. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Last seen on her way to school. Reported missing after a week by her sister, Tanya Lincoln, of Elk Rapids.

June 1994: Mary Naquma. Nineteen. Five foot two. Long, dark hair. Dark eyes. Reported missing by a friend: Lena Smith, of Peshawbestown. Last seen at the Tracy Beauty School in Traverse City where both girls were enrolled. Mary never came back to school. Never called anybody. Her friend said it was not like her. All Lena Smith knew about Mary was that she’d once said she lived out on a lake beyond Leetsville.

I went back to the general news for April, May, June, July, and August. There were no stories about any of the missing people. No follow-ups. No bodies found. As if they’d simply fallen in some huge cosmic crack, they were all gone.

It gave me the shivers. Like most disappearances, they had to be somewhere. And it wasn’t a distant planet. I once did a story on early disappearances in the Ann Arbor area—back when Michigan was founded. Eighteen hundreds. Kids disappeared. Indians were blamed, but knowing what we know now, there had to be perverts around even back then, or really sick parents.

Today girls got abducted. They ran away. They went to live with another parent. And men still ran from responsibilities. The old “out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back” still held. People left their lives for all sorts of reasons. What Dolly and I would have to find out was what happened to this group of young women. My money was on Mary Naquma, but I’d been a reporter long enough to know that what looked like a sure thing rarely was.

The librarian pointed to a shelf of phone books when I asked. I wanted not only Traverse City Area but Kalkaska, Leetsville, and Mancelona. One girl was a Lisa Valient. Her mother was Fern Valient of Washington Street, right there in Traverse City.

I found Fern Valient, still on Washington Street, and wrote down the address and phone number. It seemed a good thing to simply call her. But this matter felt too delicate. I didn’t have the right, or the necessary power, to go snooping back into the woman’s life. I’d need Dolly with me. Her little gold badge could open doors. A reporter was different from a cop. The cop could scare the heck out of people. A reporter only irritated. But then, I told myself, this might make a good story: girls missing all these years. What happened to them? Where were the investigations? I’d have to call Bill first and make sure he wanted the story. I didn’t want to misrepresent myself, or the paper. It didn’t do to get a reputation for sneakiness up here where stories spread like wildfire and reputations got ruined by stupidity.

I found two Robbins in Kalkaska. I wrote down both addresses and numbers and wondered how we could go about finding the right Robbins; the family that belonged to Tricia.

There was no Lincoln in Mancelona. I looked up Bambi’s sister, Tanya Lincoln of Elk Rapids, and made note of the address and phone number

There were no Naqumas in Leetsville. None in Mancelona. None in Kalkaska. None in Traverse City. There was no Lena Smith in Peshawbestown. I left the library, got my Jeep out of the college parking lot, and drove back to Front Street, passing knots of students enjoying the spring day playing wild games of Frisbee or leaning on trees and dreamily watching the bright sky. A few were obviously involved in that old spring game of hooking up, young girls and guys leaning into each other, laughing at something only they understood. As I drove off campus and over to Garfield, where I made a left turn, I took note of who passed me and who looked my way. Leetsvillians, with their uncanny power to know things they shouldn’t know, were spooking me. Then I had that mysterious Indian man looking for me. It felt like the beginnings of paranoia, I scoffed at myself. Still, I couldn’t shake the deep-down uneasiness triggering fear.

Everything looked normal around me. The white-haired guy in the Mercedes at the light didn’t turn my way. The lady with two kids strapped into their seats in back of the SUV talked busily over her shoulder. Teenage girls out hoping to be seen in Daddy’s Ford—they certainly ignored me. Traverse City was gearing up for summer. More traffic, more people on the streets. Even in the little park near Garfield, where I’d turned to go to the newspaper office, people flew kites and chased each other like the swooping robins coming at my car back on Willow Lake Road. Summer, in this northern town, took on a thick overlay of crowds coming up to escape the heat and the congestion of the big city. People came for the lake that would soon be littered with white triangles of sails. Little by little, the town shook off the sleepiness of winter and became a “fun” town. The locals might grit their teeth and pray for rain as the Cherry Festival came and went, and as the intellectual crowd showed up for Michael Moore’s film festival, but they loved it all.

I had called Bill and told him I was coming. At the newspaper, in its ivy-covered red brick building, the cheerful woman behind the desk called him to say I was there. I waited, reading that day’s newspaper, until he walked up the hall, put his hands out to take mine, then put an arm around my back.

“Glad to see you, Emily.” He bowed his large, mop-haired head close and grinned as he guided me through the maze of offices and desks to his, at the back of the building. “Good stuff you’re getting on those murders.”

“Yes, it is going well …”

“Detective Brent sent over two photos. Both skeletons. Got anything more on ’em yet?”

I was surprised Brent had been such a help. For a moment I wondered what it would cost me—his cooperation—then told myself I’d been cynical enough for one day. Accept help where help was offered and let it go at that.

“That second one is probably Deputy Dolly Wakowski’s husband,” I said. “He’s been gone for thirteen years. She thought he ran off with another woman.”

“Looks as if that could be the case,” he said dryly, guiding me gently into his small, littered office and pointing to a low chair in front of his desk.

I took a stack of newspapers off the chair and set them on the floor.

“Do a story on them both. I’d say go talk to the Indians, but they’re going to be after those bones. You bring something for me today?”

“The deputy asked me to wait for a positive ID before I got it in the paper that this second skeleton is Dolly’s husband.”

Bill nodded and began to push papers around on his desk, moving a pile from one side to the other, then back again in a futile attempt to make room to write notes.

The dark oak desk, which looked like something scrounged from a back alley, was overrun with paper and books and buried things peeking out beneath the piles. Stacks of books and newspapers stood close to the walls.

“How long you think it’ll take? The Detroit papers are already sniffing around. I’d like to get there first.”

“Depends on forensics. Bone marrow. Hair. Dental records. But Dolly’s got reason to be pretty sure that’s who these latest bones belong to.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Tough for your friend.” He nodded that head of shaggy brown hair. It fell over his eyes as he appeared to drop into deep, serious thought. “Well, get me something by tomorrow early. And some other photos, Emily. I’d like to run photos of the lake, if nothing else. You and Dolly looking into any of this yourselves?”

I wasn’t sure I should admit to our plans or not. But this was Bill. Big, charming, warm Bill.

“I’m researching lost girls from about that long ago.”

He raised his eyebrows, then stuck his middle finger up, and pushed at the heavy glasses sliding down his nose. I knew better than to take it personally. I guessed that was the only finger he had free sometimes. Maybe due to having ink on his hands from all those newspapers he read; or mayo from the sandwiches he ate at his desk. He reminded me of that guy from Lake Woebegon, a little better looking, but just as hapless.

“I’ll run anything you find. It’s just that … well … we don’t want to go hurting families whose girls never came back … ”

“I’ll be circumspect,” I promised. “Still, it’s a good story. Thirteen-year follow-up. Did they come back? Where’d they go? What’s happened since? And if they never returned and were never heard from, where is the investigation today? But listen, if I don’t need the story I’ll drop it.” I took a deep breath. “And Dolly will let me know when I can give you her husband’s name.”

He frowned and looked more like “Lake Woebegon” than ever.

“The more I think about it, let’s wait on those disappearance stories. And don’t forget you’re working for us on this. I mean, if you learn something you think needs to come out and Dolly says ‘no,’ well, you have an obligation …”

I assured him I knew where my allegiance lay. “And I have an obligation not to lose my source over there. Dolly’s really good about keeping me informed.”

He sniffed, took a swipe at his nose, and fixed his glasses while he was in the area.

“Just remember, the cops’ll always sit on things until they need our help. Then we’re OK again.”

Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. I’d get what I could for him, but I knew I’d never betray Dolly. Especially not this time, when things were falling so close to where she lived, and had loved.

“Speaking of being loyal to the paper,” I began, smiling widely, “I could really use more work. If something opens up here full-time, well, would you keep me in mind?”

His heavy brows came together, almost hiding his deep-set brown eyes. He steepled his wide hands at his chest and bit at his bottom lip.

“Nothing right now. Paper’s cutting back. You know what’s happening to newspapers across the country. Internet’s stealing ads. But I can promise to give you as much as I can.”

I sighed and smiled as wide as I could get my lips to go, which wasn’t far since my whole face felt tight. “Thanks,” I said.

He sat up straight, the first step to rising from his chair and ushering me out of there.

“Hey, I’m coming to that dinner your ex is giving. You?”

I frowned. “What dinner?”

“Thursday night. He said you’d be there, too. Told me to bring a date.” He gave me an odd look.

“Guess I forgot,” I lied.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Bill said, planting his large hands on the desk and standing, giving the eternal signal that our meeting was finished. “He’s an interesting guy, your ex.”

I forced a wide smile, and said, between clenched teeth, “Yes, isn’t he.”

“Been a lot of places. Bright guy.”

“Yes, isn’t he,” I said again, feeling my cheeks begin to ache.

“So,” Bill walked around his desk. “I’ll bring a bottle of wine and, I guess, we’ll see you out there.”

That “we’ll” bothered me. It was enough that Jackson co-opted one of my friends; one of my professional connections. Now I had to think of Bill as linked to someone, a woman. A date. I had no romantic ideas about him. It was more that I needed him to stand alone, to be at the other end of a phone line when I needed him. There had to be someone I could count on not to be too busy, not to be out on dates, not to be neglecting his work … but to be focused on me when I needed him. It was tough, learning that Bill wasn’t going to be that man.

___

“Damn,” I said as I drove back toward Leetsville with my information on missing girls, my disappointment at not getting the job at the paper, and my depression over losing a guy I never had to some faceless female Jackson had forced out of the woodwork.