Missing Pieces (44 page)

“Mom, are you all right?”

Wide eyes stared at the screen. She gave no reply.

“She’s fine,” I assured those around us.

She screamed again about ten minutes into the feature presentation, once again scaring those people in our immediate vicinity half out of their wits, and causing a general outbreak of nervous giggles in the surrounding rows, not to mention a pronounced smattering of “sshh’s.” Two people at the end of our row got up and moved.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the general darkness. “I’m very sorry. Mom, what’s the matter? Does something hurt you? Do you want to leave?”

“Sshh!” someone hissed loudly.

My mother said nothing, settled back in her seat, her demeanor outwardly calm, her demons seemingly exorcised. I tried to relax, to pay attention to what was happening on the screen, but it was a bit like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I sat stiffly, my body on full alert, poised to whisk my mother out of the theater at the next outburst. It never came. Instead, she drifted off to sleep, awoke as the final credits were rolling.

“How are you?” I asked her as the lights went up.

“Magnificent,” she said.

At least she’d kept my mind off Robert, I realized, as we walked up the aisle. I wondered how long he’d stayed at the hotel, and whether he’d tried calling my house to see if I was there, if everything was all right. Had he checked the hospitals, called the police, contacted station WKEY for the latest in accident reports?

As soon as we reached the pay phone in the lobby, I checked my answering machine for messages. There weren’t any.

We went to a tiny Italian eatery in the same plaza as the movie theater. The restaurant was brightly lit and decorated in the colors of the Italian flag—red, white, and green. We ordered a large pizza with everything on it, and
a Gorgonzola salad to share. “So, did you find a place for Grandma?” Sara asked as we waited for our food to arrive.

“What?” I was staring out the front window into the parking lot, wondering where Robert was now, and what he was doing. I wasn’t really surprised he hadn’t called. Nor, I realized with no small measure of relief, was I especially disappointed.

“I asked if you found a place for Grandma to live.”

“No,” I said, staring across the table at the stranger who used to be my mother. The harsh light in the small room accentuated the blankness in her eyes, and gave the rest of her features an eerie glow. She looked almost otherworldly, an alien creature dropped into our midst. I recalled the promo line from an old horror movie:
First they come for your body, then they come back for your mind.
Except that, in this case anyway, reality seemed to work in reverse. It was my mother’s mind that had been taken, while her body remained reasonably intact. No, I thought, staring at the woman who’d given me life almost a half century ago, staring
through
her, this woman was not my mother. The porcelain-skinned creature with the empty, cavernous eyes bore no relation to my mother at all.

We ate in silence, listening to a man at the next table loudly critique the movie we’d just seen. An interesting concept but a mediocre script, he pronounced, probably the result of too many writers and too much studio meddling. The actors were adequate, but no more; the direction lacked focus. There were too many weird camera angles, no real vision. Decidedly, a minor effort. Rating: C+.

Sara made a face, took another bite of her pizza, dripped tomato sauce and cheese down her chin. “What did you think of the movie, Grandma?” she asked.

“I didn’t know,” my mother replied, eyes growing fear-fill.

“You don’t know if you liked the movie?”

“I didn’t know,” my mother repeated, her hands leaving her pizza to scratch at the air.

I reached across the table, clasped my mother’s hands in mine, brought them back down. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay now.”

“What’s happening?” Sara asked.

“I tried to protect you,” my mother said. “I always tried to protect you.” She rose halfway out of her seat.

“I know that, Mom.”

“It’s a mother’s job to protect her child.”

“It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay.”

“I would never let anyone hurt my babies.”

“I know that, Mom. Sit down. Please, sit down.” My hands guided her back into her chair.

“I had to have a cesarean section, you know,” she said. “I had an allergic reaction to the surgical tape. My skin is very sensitive.”

“I know.”

Her hands began frantically pawing at her stomach. “I’m horribly itchy. I’m not supposed to scratch.”

“I’m scared,” Sara said.

“It’s all right, honey. Grandma’s just a little confused.”

“Don’t be scared, Jo Lynn,” my mother whispered, her hand leaving her stomach to caress Sara’s cheek. “Mommy’s here. I’ll protect you.”

After dinner, we guided my mother back to the car and strapped her into the rear seat. As soon as I started the engine, the radio came on, the sound of country music immediately filling the air. “How can you listen to this garbage?” Sara said, flipping through the various channels, eliciting a beat here, a chord there, each gone before
anything had a chance to register on my brain. What difference did it make? I thought, catching a stray fragment of spoken word.

He apparently escaped
…

Sara punched in another channel. The sound of heavy metal assaulted my ears. She quickly switched to another station.
You can take my heart, my achy breaky heart
…

She switched again.

“Wait a minute, what was that?”

“Mom, please don’t make me listen to Billy Ray Cyrus.”

“Not that. Before. The news.”

“I don’t want to listen to the news.”

“Sara …”

“Okay, okay.”

It took several seconds before we relocated the news, and by that time, the announcer had moved on to the weather.
Another beautiful sunny day for South Florida.
“Find another channel.”

“What are you looking for?” Sara asked.

“I thought I heard something.”

“What?”

“Just find the news.”

We found it, then listened in stunned silence as the story unfolded.
A dramatic escape took place earlier today at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. Colin Friendly, the convicted killer of thirteen women and the suspected killer of many more, escaped while being transferred to the neighboring Union Correctional Institution.

“Oh God.”

Officials are remaining tight-lipped about what exactly happened, but it appears that the notorious death row inmate was aided in his daring daytime escape by his wife, the former Jo Lynn Baker of Palm Beach.

“Oh God, no. Please, no.”

“Jo Lynn helped him escape?” Sara asked incredulously.

Apparently, Colin Friendly was able to overpower one of his guards with a knife that had been smuggled into the prison. Police have issued an all-points bulletin for the getaway car, a 1987 red Toyota, license plate number YZT642, that belongs to the killer’s wife. If anyone sees this vehicle, you are urged to call the police immediately. Under no circumstances should you approach the vehicle directly. Colin Friendly is armed and considered extremely dangerous.

“I don’t understand,” Sara said. “Why would Jo Lynn do such a thing?”

“Because she’s a moron,” I shouted, slamming the steering wheel with my fists, accidentally connecting with the horn, feeling its sharp blast like a stab to my heart.

Once again: Colin Friendly has escaped from the Florida State Prison and is believed to be in the company of his wife, the former Jo Lynn Baker, who married Friendly in a recent jail house ceremony. They fled in the bride’s 1987 red Toyota, license plate YZT642, and were last seen heading northwest. Police have set up roadblocks throughout the state, and are advising that should you see the couple, you call them immediately. They are considered armed and very dangerous. Under no circumstances approach them directly. And now, in other news …

“What’s going to happen now?” Sara asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think that’s why she wanted the money so badly, so that she could help him escape?”

“It looks that way.”

“Where do you think they’re going?”

“I don’t know. Northwest, the announcer said. Alabama, maybe. Georgia. I don’t know.”

“Do you think she’ll try to get in touch with us?”

“I don’t know.” God, I was getting sick of saying that.

“You don’t think there’s any chance they’ll come back here, do you?” Sara asked.

“No,” I said, because I knew that’s what she wanted to hear.

From the back seat, my mother started screaming.

As soon as we walked in the front door, I called Brooke’s house and asked to speak to Michelle. I was going to tell her to take a cab home, or better yet, to spend the night with Brooke.

“She’s not here,” Brooke’s brother told me, his voice nasal and bored, barely audible above the television blaring in the background.

“What do you mean, she’s not there?”

“They went out a while ago.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“I heard them say something about a party.”

“Whose party? Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can I speak to your mother?” It was more demand than question. Stay calm, I tried to tell myself. There was nothing to worry about. Colin Friendly was headed northwest, not southeast. He wasn’t crazy enough to come back to Palm Beach. There was nothing for me to worry about.

“There’s nobody home but me,” the boy said. I pictured him sprawled out lazily on the family-room sofa, a bowl of potato chips at his side.

I hung up the phone, not sure what to do next.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Sara said. “You know Michelle. She’ll be home by curfew.”

I checked my watch. It was barely eight o’clock. Michelle’s curfew was almost four hours away. Could I last that long? I checked my answering machine for messages. No one had called.

“What are you so worried about?” Sara asked, eyes growing fearful.

“I’d just feel better if I knew where she was.”

My mother began crying, swaying unsteadily from side to side. “I think I’d like to go home now,” she said.

“It’s okay, Mom. Everything’s okay.”

I asked Sara to get my mother ready for bed, and stay with her until she fell asleep. Then I marched into the family room and quietly placed a call to the police.

“My name is Kate Sinclair,” I began, my voice a whisper so as not to alarm my older daughter.

“I’m sorry,” said the officer who answered the phone. “You’ll have to speak up.”

I repeated my name, more loudly this time, then spelled it. “My sister is Jo Lynn Baker,” I told him. “Jo Lynn
Friendly,”
I immediately corrected, picturing the officer snap to attention on the other end of the line.

“Your sister is Jo Lynn Friendly?” There was a slight chuckle in his voice that told me he didn’t quite believe me.

“Yes, and I’m concerned that Colin Friendly might be headed this way.”

“And which way is that?” Again, the annoying chuckle wrapped around each word.

I gave him my address. “I’m not making this up,” I told him.

“What makes you think Colin Friendly might be heading back to Palm Beach?”

I told them about Colin’s phone call, his letter.

“Did you report these things to the police?” he asked.

“No. I guess I should have.”

“You have the letter?”

“I tore it up,” I said sheepishly.

“Can you hold on a minute?” He put me on hold before I could object.

I grabbed the remote-control unit, flipped on the TV. Immediately, Colin Friendly’s murderous face filled the screen, alternating with video footage of my sister at the courthouse. “Where are you?” I hissed at the screen. “Where the hell are you?”

The officer came back on the line. “We’re sending someone over to talk to you,” he said.

At 1
A.M.,
I was still sitting in front of the television, listening to tales of Colin’s horrible exploits and staring at his killer smile. The police had come and gone. And Michelle still wasn’t home.

By one-thirty, I was pacing the floor of the living room, and debating whether or not to call Larry in South Carolina. By two o’clock I was in tears, and wondering whether to check back with the police. They’d promised to patrol the neighborhood, despite the fact they were convinced Colin Friendly was heading in the opposite direction. So far, I hadn’t seen one police car drive by.

By two-thirty, when I finally heard Michelle’s key twisting in the front lock, I was such a mess that I didn’t know whether to hug her or yell at her. So I did both.

I ran toward her, arms extended, tears streaming the length of my face. “Where the hell have you been?” I was hugging her so tightly she couldn’t answer. “Do you know how late you are?”

Immediately, she began to whimper. “I’m sorry, Mom. We were at a party, and I had to wait until someone could give me a lift home.”

“You could have taken a taxi. Or called me. I would have picked you up.”

“It was so late. I thought you’d be asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Do you have any idea how frantic I’ve been?”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s two-thirty in the morning.”

“It’ll never happen again.”

“You’re damn right it’ll never happen again.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” A familiar whiff reached my nostrils. “Have you been smoking?”

“No,” she said immediately, backing out of my reach.

“You reek of cigarettes.”

“Lots of kids at the party were smoking.”

“But not you.”

“Not me. Honestly.”

I closed my eyes, rubbed my forehead. Was I crazy? Only minutes ago I’d been frantic that something might have happened to her; now I was upset that she might have been smoking. I was too old for this, I thought, double-locking the front door. Menopause and teenage girls—they definitely didn’t mix. “Go to bed,” I said. “We’ll deal with this in the morning.”

“I’m really sorry, Mom.”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. More than anything in the world.” Once again, I hugged her tightly against my breast. “Now get some sleep.”