The Girls Are Missing (17 page)

She could not avoid the date. She knew it anyway, it was yesterday’s paper, so it could not have been last night, or even the night before, since this was a morning paper.

If Sunday, it would have been an aftermath, not splashed all over page one. Monday night, while she had been snug in her childhood home, and he, a lonely bachelor at the movies, with the telephone ringing and ringing in an empty house.

At the movies. He had laughed about it. Hadn’t been to the flicks in years. Kind of funny to walk into a theater. The five dollars wasn’t so funny, though. He had refrained from buying popcorn, but they still sold it, just like when he was a kid.

Ringing and ringing in an empty house, while he had gone to the movies. Alone. Why couldn’t he have come home and watched television? Was the house too quiet?

She let the paper fall into her lap. She couldn’t read any more. As she folded it, Mary Ellen came in from the garden with grass stains on her bare knees.

“Well, what’s been going on?” Mary Ellen asked, seeing the newspapers.

“Do you really want to know?” said Joyce.

“You mean there was another?”

“Not, thank God, in the woods, but that doesn’t make any difference. The poor girl. It doesn’t matter where she was found.”

“Where was she found?” Mary Ellen could take it.

“In some bushes along the road between here and Ossining. Thirteen years old.”

Mary Ellen whistled sympathetically. Joyce went on, “It says she was probably hitchhiking. I hope you know better than to hitchhike.”

Mary Ellen sat down on the sofa and picked up the paper Joyce had folded. She noticed her knees and tried to brush off the stain. “I’ve been weeding your flowers, Joyce. Hope you don’t mind.”

“I’m delighted.”

“It’s fun, having flowers. I wish we could have flowers. Maybe I’ll get some houseplants.” Mary Ellen buried herself in the newspaper.

Why hadn’t he told her?

He had let her come home thinking all was peaceful, and then made her find out like this. It was almost coy, the way he had directed her to that pile of papers.

Perhaps he hadn’t wanted her to worry. Perhaps it had slipped his mind.

It couldn’t have. He had saved all the papers. He must have been thinking of it always.

What if he had gone to the movies, not on Monday night as he said, but Friday or Saturday? He could still chuckle about the price and the popcorn, and she would never know.

She wandered outside and stood in the shade of an oak tree, staring at the flower border for a minute or two before she actually saw it. The flowers did look neater. Poor Mary Ellen, wanting a piece of earth she could call her own.

But perhaps Mary Ellen was actually safer in her city apartment. Joyce looked up at the tall oak tree, at the other trees, a gently rustling canopy over the soft lawn. It had seemed pure enchantment when they bought the house, clean and perfect for Gail and the children to come. Now it was secret, and too alone. Safety was that gritty sidewalk where everyone played together, and the building superintendents, forever tinkering with their cars, were always there, like guardians, alert for anything unusual. They knew everybody on the block.

But she loved it here. She loved the greenness and the waving canopy. And she loved—

She did not love Carl any longer. There was too much strangeness, too many doubts.

She remembered the night he had called her a whore. But he was speaking to someone else. Someone who, all unknowing, had hurt him once, and he—

No, she was being ridiculous. If Carl knew what she was thinking—No, no, no.

She returned to the house. Mary Ellen had gone upstairs. She rearranged the papers, not as neatly as Carl would have liked, and went into the kitchen. She had not given dinner a thought and nothing was thawed. At least he had bought enough eggs.

That proved he was all right. No man who thought to buy eggs for himself and his family, who mowed the lawn and put away all the dishes, would be capable of those terrible things. Why did she even think it?

She prepared a salad and a sauce for Spanish omelet. As soon as he came home, she would cook the eggs.

A light meal for a hot evening. But not enough for a big man. She set a pan of rice to boil.

A big man. Physically capable of—

But even a small man could overpower those girls. The oldest, Toni Lemich, had been petite, they said. And small men could be wiry. Foster Farand …

Her brain went round and round, so that she did not hear his car until he slammed the door. She jumped, dripping egg from the wire whisk onto the counter. He was coming toward the kitchen door, his jacket over his arm, top shirt button undone. His face was damp with sweat.

“Hi,” she said inadequately, and did not attempt to kiss him.

“Have a good trip?” he asked.

“It wasn’t exactly a pleasure trip, but it was good to see the family again. I really should keep in touch more.”

He glanced at the eggs, and she apologized. “We got home too late to shop, and I forgot to thaw anything.”

“That’s okay.” At least he was in a fairly good mood.

“Carl—why didn’t you tell me?”

He stopped on his way into the living room. “Tell you what?” “About the murder. Why didn’t you tell me? On Monday night.”

“Oh … I don’t know. It was way over on the other side of town.”

“But Cedarville isn’t a big town. It’s still the same thing. You said nothing happened.”

“I said that? I don’t know. Guess I wasn’t thinking.”

“You must have known. It was in Tuesday’s
Post
, and I talked to you Tuesday night. You told me to look at the newspapers.”

“That was another conversation, as I recall. What am I being grilled for, anyway?”

She had begun with a dry mouth, afraid to talk of it, but she was no longer afraid. Only confused. He, always so fascinated by the murders, suddenly sounded as if he had forgotten.

Was it real? Or an act?

“May I be excused to go and change now?” he asked.

“Of course. I didn’t mean to keep you. I—just wondered.”

During dinner, Mary Ellen chattered about their trip. Most of the talk seemed to be meant for her father. Hurtfully. She bubbled about Pennsylvania, making it clear that she had had a wonderful time and had been most reluctant to leave.

“I really don’t see,” said Joyce, “that Cork is any better than Cedarville as a place to live and have fun.”

“It’s much better,” Mary Ellen insisted. “It’s more countryish when you get out in the country. It’s not so slick as here, and the village is nice and small-townish, with the pizza place and that store where you used to buy cosmetics.” She leaned forward, resting her folded arms on the table. “And there aren’t any
murders.”

Joyce flinched, and dared not look at Carl.

“We have pizza parlors here, too,” she said lamely, “and a variety store.”

“It’s not the same. Cedarville’s like I said, it’s too slick.”

“I think I see what you mean. The people in Cork have less money, it’s more rundown.”

“I like it that way. It’s homey. It’s real.”

So that, thought Joyce as she sopped up the last of her omelet, was what really appealed to Mary Ellen. It was not the down-at-the-heels atmosphere of Cork, it was the hominess. The solidity. And it was not a physical solidity that Mary Ellen missed, in the form of a single, steady home, it was something less tangible.

Later in the evening her curiosity overcame her and she went back to the newspapers for a more thorough look at the story.

Leslie Moore, the paper said, had been visiting a friend, and had evidently tried to thumb her way home. No one saw the car that picked her up. No one saw her again until early Tuesday morning, when a truck driver spotted her body in a patch of weeds and bushes near the road.

Also on Tuesday morning, a letter arrived by mail at the offices of the New York
Post

They thought they had me. I’ll give them something

to think about. Not that I care one f___about

clearing the wrong man, I only feel you ought to know the real slasher is not so stupid as to get caught. Certainly not so stupid as to confess. I’m pulling off another one soon, right under the snouts of the p-i-g-s, so watch for me.

Leslie Moore, smiling up from a family snapshot.

Chief of Police Francis D’Amico, asked to comment on the letter, said of course it was written by the killer. It’d have to have been mailed before the thing happened.

And how had the killer gotten away with it?

Nobody knew. The village and state police had been watching everywhere they could, and so had the half-formed civilian patrol groups. It was a hell of a thing.

She could imagine what Frank must be thinking about girls who hitchhiked. Of course he couldn’t say it. Not about the dead. And now he would be blamed, despite his many warnings.

With a warm smile, Carl sat down on the arm of the sofa and looked at the paper over her shoulder. He nodded toward the picture of the girl, whose blond hair kept its sheen even on newsprint, and whose wide-set eyes looked up from under her lashes.

“Quite a little cockteaser, isn’t she?”

For a moment the words did not register. Then they exploded in her ear.

The room shimmered with a kind of blackness that seemed to last for hours. When it cleared, her hand, holding the paper, had not moved, and Carl still stared bemusedly at the picture.

She closed the paper and threw it onto the table. She felt him look at her, but she could not face him.

Never, never again.

She got up from the sofa.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“It’s been a long day.” She went upstairs, wishing she did not have to sleep in that bed.

She did not know when he came up after her. She was awake, but did not look at the clock. It seemed as though she had been lying there for years.

He puttered in the dark, taking his pajamas from a hook on the closet door. Then he left the room, and after a while she could hear the shower running.

He had already taken a shower when he came home. Shower after shower. He did perspire a lot.

She was still awake when he came later and got into bed beside her. With a conscious effort, she made her muscles

relax. She could feel him watching her. He was lying on his side so that he faced her, and he watched. She remained motionless and tried to breathe evenly, but he knew she was not asleep.

The bed heaved as he stirred. He was up on his elbow now, bending over her. She shrank from his hands. This she had wanted for so many months, but now she shrank from it.

His fingers dug into her soft waist. He pulled her over onto her back. Then his hand was on her breast, under her nightgown. She squeezed her eyes closed, but knew she must respond. If not, he might be angered. She loosened her arm to reach up to him, but then he was on top of her and she could not move.

20
 

Friday was another steamy morning. She had never known a hot spell to go on so long, not with this kind of heat and humidity.

Again Adam fussed and fretted. She put him back in his crib after the early morning feeding. “I have no time for you now, Adam. I have to fix Daddy’s breakfast.”

Carl was in the bathroom, shaving. This early rising had become a routine even before Adam’s birth. It was all a part of living in the country.

Later they sat at the breakfast table, she in her seersucker housecoat, he dressed, except for his suit jacket, which he would not wear until he boarded the air-conditioned train.

She watched him stir his coffee, and remembered Frank D’Amico stirring coffee. She must close her mind to Frank D’Amico.

Did she really know this man? Even sitting at the breakfast table, she felt oddly alone.

“Do you know what you did last night?” she asked.

“What did I do?”

“You raped me.”

For a moment the look in his blue eyes frightened her. Then she realized that it was only alarm at her words, and not anger.

“Is that what you call it?”

“Well, yes. It was kind of savage.”

“Did I hurt you?”

Was he sorry? “Yes, you did.”

“I didn’t mean to.” His hand brushed hers. “It’s been such a long time. It just came over me. Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know, honey. It’s been an awfully long time, but—”

“You call everybody ‘honey,’ don’t you?”

She took her hands from the table and clasped them on her lap. “I’m sorry I’m so trite. I just can’t call people ‘darling,’ it doesn’t come naturally.”

“Nothing to get excited about,” he said mildly. She had not thought she was excited. “Darling” reminded her of Larry and his show business friends.

“Carl, what did you mean last night—what you said about that girl?”

He set down his coffee cup and looked at her, puzzled. “What girl?”

“In the newspaper. The girl who was killed. You said—”

He shrugged, and resumed eating. “I don’t know what I said. Why? Never heard of the girl. Why would I say anything?”

Why would he? But he had.

Did he really not remember? Had he meant anything by it? Perhaps she was making a big thing over nothing. She felt some of the tightness slip from her heart.

It was nothing. Maybe he didn’t even know she was the murdered girl

“Your vacation starts Monday, right?” she asked, to make conversation. To get back to normal.

He nodded, intent upon buttering a piece of toast. She

watched him, and wished that she could love him. She wished nothing had ever changed, that they could be where they had started.

He finished the toast and pushed back his chair. “Got to get cracking. I’ll miss my train.”

She had cleared the table by the time he came downstairs with his briefcase.

“About last night. I’m sorry if I hurt you.” He gave her a quick kiss and walked briskly out to his car. She closed the garage door after him and waved as he drove off. His own hand flashed briefly in the car window.

She went back to the kitchen and found Gail sitting at the table. As usual, Gail had waited until he was gone.

“Mommy, what are we doing today?”