The Lost Choice (7 page)

“Mm-hmm. Mrs. Bonnie Mae Bounds of Fordyce, Arkansas. The cutline on the picture says she's 104.And she doesn't look a day over a hundred.”

“Funny. You want some coffee?”

“Sure.”

Dorry stood and stretched. Before pouring the coffee, she glanced at the picture of the old woman. There was no accompanying article. It was wire service filler, sent to newspapers as human interest, for use on slow news days. The photograph was large—almost one-eighth of a page. Bonnie Mae Bounds, an African-American woman with snow-white hair, was seated in a wooden, high-backed rocking chair with a shawl draped across her lap. The photo had been taken indoors, presumably in her home. There was, Dorry saw, a painting of a house on the wall over her right shoulder and a bookshelf directly behind her. Though the picture was in black and white, Dorry imagined that the long dress she wore was a dark green or blue.

“Gee. A hundred and four.” Dorry stepped over to the counter to get the coffeepot.

Mark turned the page. Then another couple of pages. “Swim lessons are opening for five-year-olds at the Y.We want to do that, don't we?” Mark looked up.“Dorry?”

Dorry was standing at the counter beside the refrigerator. She had her back to Mark, the coffeepot in her hand, and was not moving a muscle. When Mark said her name, she turned around with a quizzical expression on her face. “Turn back to that picture,” she said.

“What?”

Dorry turned again, placing the coffeepot in its holder. “The photo of the old lady, turn back to it.” She walked back to him.

“Why do you—,” he began as he reached to thumb through the paper.

“Mark!” she interrupted and made a “hurry up!” motion with her hand.

“Okay!” he replied. “Okay. Here.” He smoothed the newspaper and tilted it toward her.

Dorry got on her knees beside her husband and picked up the page in order to angle it into the light. Her eyebrows raised as her mouth dropped open.“Did you see this?” she asked simply and put the paper back on the table. She sat down on the floor and looked at Mark.“Did you?”

Totally confused by his wife's reaction, Mark frowned. “What? Did I see what?”

Dorry rose to her feet without a word. She moved the newspaper back to face Mark and placed her finger on the photo. Mark leaned over and followed the direction of Dorry's point. For a long moment, he stared. Then, he straightened and said,“You have got to be kidding.”

For several seconds they gaped at each other. Mark spoke first. “Let me see that again.” He grabbed the newspaper and, walking to the window, folded it thickly so that virtually the only thing showing was the photograph. He held it into the light. The bookshelf behind the old woman was filled with knickknacks and small framed photographs in addition to the books. But unmistakably, there on the shelf just beside Mrs. Bonnie Mae Bounds' left elbow was an object exactly like the one Michael had found several months earlier in their backyard.

Mark turned the photograph this way and that as if he might get a closer view as Dorry hurried to the living room and snatched
their
relic from the coffee table. Returning to the kitchen, she stood close to Mark and held the object up next to the picture.“What do you think?” she asked.

“Well”—Mark spoke cautiously—“it sure looks like the one we have. But Dylan did say that pieces like this were not uncommon.”

“Yeah, but this is identical,” Dorry argued. “Look—you can even see the writing.”

After a moment Mark said,“So, what do we do now? Do you want to find out about it?”

“Yes, I want to find out about it! Aren't
you
curious? I mean, why are there two of these things? And why does a 104-year-old woman have one? Let me see the pic again.” She reached for the paper.“I didn't notice . . . is it AP?” She looked. “It is AP. Okay, the
Post
will have a record of the date and time it came over the wire. I can track the photographer that way. Maybe we can get an address or phone number for her.”

“She won't be hard to find,” Mark said.“How many 104-year-old people could there be in Fordyce, Arkansas?”

ON THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY, FROM HER DESK IN the newsroom at the
Post
,Dorry talked by phone with Braxton Pringle, a young-sounding employee of the
Fordyce News-Advocate
. Braxton was the photographer/reporter responsible for the picture that Mark and Dorry had seen.

After discovering Dorry was a journalist, and with the
Denver Post
, Braxton enthusiastically gave Dorry the woman's address—1022 Jug Creek Road—and then proceeded to pepper her with questions about journalism. It was, he told her, his passion.

After patiently answering questions for several minutes, Dorry guided the conversation back to Bonnie Mae Bounds. “I'm interested in something I saw in the picture you took, something on the bookshelf behind her,” she explained.

“I remember that bookshelf. Lotta junk there,” Braxton said.“Anyway, you know how to get in touch if you think of a way I can help. Keep our number, okay?”

“I will, Braxton. And you hang in there! You're going to make a great reporter.”

That evening at dinner Mark and Dorry could talk about nothing else but Bonnie Mae Bounds, the object on her bookshelf, and what it could possibly be—considering the fact that they had a duplicate in their living room. So it was a natural unfolding of events that occurred when Mark mentioned he had to fly to Memphis the following week. Four times in the last two months, he'd had to leave home in order to work with police departments in other cities regarding situations of mutual concern. Chicago, Salt Lake, Memphis, and Memphis again. Mark had developed a degree of specialization in cases involving missing persons and was often called for help of one kind or another, particularly those that involved kids. This was one of those cases—two children, a brother and sister from Denver's suburbs, who had been missing for months.

Within an hour of the realization that Mark was indeed headed yet again to Memphis, Dorry had checked on the Internet to find that Fordyce was less than a four-hour drive from there. With that information and a go-ahead from Mark, she reserved a rental car from Hertz, used Sky Miles to get a round-trip ticket on the same flight as her husband, and talked to her parents about keeping Michael. She could hardly wait. They were going to Arkansas.

FIVE

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE—OCTOBER

IT WAS A CLASSIC CASE OF “HURRY UP AND WAIT.” And waiting was not an easy thing for Dorry Chandler to do.

Eight days after her conversation with Braxton Pringle, their flight had taken off on time at 7:52 Wednesday morning, but that was two days ago. So here it was Friday and she was waiting again. Mark was using the rental car, so she was stuck by herself in a hotel on a service road of I-40 that was located next to . . . nothing.

They would drive on to Fordyce this afternoon and check into a hotel there. Tomorrow—Saturday—was all blocked out to spend whatever time they could with Mrs. Bounds.
Mark should be back anytime,
Dorry thought as she flopped onto the unmade bed and contemplated taking a shower. Instead, she got back up and poured the last of the coffee from the room's pot and started a new one brewing.

When Mark arrived, Dorry was showered, dressed, packed, and ready to roll. “Okay!” she said clapping her hands together and heading for the door. “Let's do it!”

“Hey,Dorry! Give me a second to take a breath! At least say ‘hello' or something!”

“You're right,” she said, walking over and giving him a hug.“I'm sorry—I've just been bored out of my mind!”

“I'm not sure the boredom caused that,” Mark pouted. “Give me just a minute and we'll get out of here. Have you eaten lunch?”

“No,” she replied. “I thought we'd grab something on the way. How did it go with your meetings?”

“It didn't,” Mark said from the bathroom. “This is my last trip to Memphis—for this case anyway. Trust me, those kids are not here. Not that I have any clue where to go next . . .” He cursed. It was one word, under his breath, but loud enough for Dorry to hear from where she was sitting on the bed.

She studied Mark as he emerged from the bathroom, toweling water from his face. She was well aware that he took every case personally. The ones that ended badly or continued past a certain point with little progress sometimes made him physically ill. Dorry worried about him, especially when he dealt with missing children.

But less than an hour later, Mark was back to his old self. Before the green Ford Taurus hit the on-ramp to the interstate, they had connected with Dorry's mother and Michael. The two had just come back from a movie, and Dorry silently said a “thank-you prayer” that they had been home when she called. Michael jabbered away, telling his dad all about the movie as Dorry watched Mark's anxiety melt away. By the time they hung up, Mark was beaming.

FORDYCE, ARKANSAS

“It's raining,”Mark said as he opened the hotel room curtains the next morning.“Do you want me to get my shower first?” Dorry did not move.“Dorry. Wake up. It's seven-thirty. Do you want me to go ahead and take my shower?”

Dorry never understood why Mark didn't just
take a shower!
Why was it, she wondered, that he felt the need to get her permission? Just take it! Do it! Be first, she wanted to scream!
Be my guest!

“Dorry . . . are you awake?” Mark shook her lightly.“I'll go ahead and take my shower, okay?”

Dorry clenched her teeth and mumbled,“Great.”

“What did you say?”

Dorry almost levitated off the bed into Mark's face. “I said ‘take a shower.'Take it!” she said and fell back, flinging the covers over her head in one swift move.

“Gee!” Mark said as he hurried away. “What's wrong with you?”

Fifteen minutes later, Mark emerged carefully from the bathroom. He slowly eased his head around the corner to see his wife sitting in the lounge chair beside the bed. She had a cup of coffee in her hand and a smile on her face. “Good morning, dear,” she said sweetly.

Mark made a show of glancing around the room. “Is it you?” he asked.“I want to make sure, you know, because a few minutes ago there was a psychopath in the bed.”

“That wasn't me, dear,” Dorry said.“That was Doraine. See?” She held her cup toward Mark. “It's me, Dorry. You know that mean old Doraine doesn't drink coffee.”

This was one of Mark and Dorry's games of apology. No need to hash things out in a long, drawn-out examination of who said what, who said it first, or why. Harsh words? Blame it on Doraine—Dorry's evil twin. It was simple, it was quick, and it worked.

After coffee and muffins in the hotel lobby, they ran through the parking lot to the Taurus. The temperature was in the midforties, which added to the miserable conditions as they scrambled across the uneven asphalt, avoiding huge puddles of water. Mark clutched a piece of paper in his fist—directions to Mrs. Bounds' house, given to them over the phone by Braxton, the boy who worked at the local newspaper.

Soon Mark and Dorry had the Taurus nosing along Jug Creek Road.“Didn't Braxton say she lived across from the church?” Mark asked.“Well, there it is.”

He parked the car next to the curb across the street from the Mount Zion Baptist Church in front of a small, freshly painted house with dark green shutters that matched the porch.The numbers above the door, 1022, confirmed the location. Dorry took a deep breath.

Mark laughed.“Are you nervous?”

“I am!” she replied. “I have interviewed the governor and wasn't nervous, so I'm not sure why I feel this way now. But it seems important somehow. Let's go,” she said and got out of the car.

As they walked up the neat brick walkway to the house, Mark pointed out the fall garden that grew in the side yard. Despite the cool weather, it was lush with turnips, cauliflower, beets, carrots, huge collards—even tomatoes still hung from their vines. And not a weed to be seen. Climbing the steps to the porch, they noticed that the flower beds on either side of the steps were planted in vegetables as well.

“The whole neighborhood must eat from this garden,” Dorry whispered. Mark nodded in agreement. They stood facing a front door festooned with an autumnal wreath. Bright-yellow ornamental gourds intertwined with red and black Indian corn hung on the clean, white wood surface. There was no doorbell, so Dorry knocked.

Almost immediately, the door slowly swung open to reveal a tiny, old woman with hair like ivory. Her black eyes danced against the contrast of her skin, which was a shade of dark caramel. Dorry was about to introduce herself when the old lady broke into a grin and said, “Oh, girl! I can tell we gon' be friends. You da same size as me!”

Dorry's eyes widened, Mark tried to suppress a sudden snicker, then they all burst into laughter. The woman opened the door wide and said,“Come on in now. We let-tin' my heat out.”

As they entered, Dorry said, “Mrs. Bounds, I'm Dorry Chan—”

“Hold on, baby,” interrupted the old woman. “Firs' of all, I'm Mae Mae.Mrs. Bounds is my mama and she been dead for eighty-seven years. So you and the police call me Mae Mae.”

Dorry's eyes were wide again. She stole a look at Mark who appeared on the verge of laughter again after the “police” remark. Mae Mae had pronounced the word “PO-leese.”

“Second thing is,” she continued, “I already know who you are. You are Dorry, and you”—she smiled at Mark— “you the police! But I'm gon' call you Mark. Now get on in here.” And with that, she turned and shuffled into her small living room.

“Sit down right there, baby.” Mae Mae directed Dorry to a couch.“Mark,you go in the kitchen—right through that door—and get this little girl whatever she wants to drink. Get me a cup of coffee. I like it black. Pot's on the stove.”