Run (10 page)

“What about Georgia
? Did they spend a lot of time together?”

“Georgia’s mother and I were good friend
s. We grew up together. When we had daughters the same age it seemed like they were meant to be friends. They played a lot together as children, but I don’t think they were ever as close as Jean and I wanted them to be. When we went on vacation, we did that a lot, they spent time together. They got along okay, but they didn’t have a lot in common.”

“Tell me about Georgia, what was she like?”

“Georgia was the opposite of Leslie. She was quiet, shy. Very sweet and smart, but she never did well in school. She was … internal. She seemed naive.”

“Who did she hang out with?”

“To be honest, I am not sure. She and Leslie didn’t really hang with the same crowd. I know her mother was worried because she never had anyone over. She was worried that she didn’t have friends.”

“Did Leslie have a boyfriend?”

“Josh West. Sweet boy. She met him at school. He was a year older than her. Leslie was already planning for prom the next year. She was foolish over him … like high school girls are, you know?”

“Yeah
, I remember.” We shared a smile over the foolishness of high school girls. “What about Georgia; did she have a boyfriend?”

“I don’t know.
Her mother didn’t know if she did. But … Leslie … she mentioned something to me that week, when we were on vacation. She made a comment about Georgia and boys.” I couldn’t help but feel a little excited. Finally we were getting somewhere.

“Do you remember what she said?”

“I had been teasing her about boys that week when we were on vacation. I told her with Georgia she might attract a different kind of guy. She was always getting calls from these boys at school or at the mall --boys who worried about football and movies more than academics … stupid, innocent, teenage boys. At the time, I thought with Georgia being so quiet and polite that she would be a good influence. Leslie made a face, she said something about the boys who spent time with Georgia not being what I would want. I got the impression that there was a boy … a boy who was with Georgia that Leslie was not entirely comfortable with. At the time I just shrugged it off. Now I wonder and I wish. Maybe things would have been different if I only … I don’t know. I never thought it could happen, not to us. Now I imagine the boogey man everywhere waiting to steal joy. Waiting to hurt little girls like Leslie and Georgia. Waiting …” The tears were running down her face in earnest now. I admit I didn’t know what to do.
It’s not your fault
seemed so trite and I didn’t think it was what she wanted to hear. In the end I just put my hand on her arm and said. “We’re going to get him. We are going to get this boogey man.”

After a pause of
a few minutes while Mrs. French pulled herself together, I started again. I had more questions to ask. I have to admit I felt a little awkward. I had information I needed to get but I felt bad asking her more questions. Finally I pushed on. The only way I had to help her was to find him.

“Did you ever see Georgia with anyone?”

“No. I think Leslie did, but I never saw any boys.”

“Did Leslie say anything about any
men that she saw?”

“No, but that night that I teased her it was because she and Georgia
had been on the boardwalk talking to boys. One of the girls they met on the boardwalk was teasing them about it.”

“Do you remember the names of the girls they met?”

“No, I don’t think so … I might have a picture though. Would you like me to check?”

“Please
, that would be great.”

Mrs.
French went to check on the picture. While she was gone I took a look at my notes and thought of the questions I had asked. I needed more information about Georgia. I would try to get more information from Mrs. French but I would likely need to talk to Georgia’s family. I wasn’t really sure how that would go, so I was a little leery.

I was cautiously optimistic about the picture. I didn’t know that I could find the girls Leslie and Georgia had befriended on the boardwalk, but if I could they might be able to tell me more about Georgia, mystery man, and the killer.

It was 1:00 before I left Mrs. French’s home. She had not been able to tell me anything else about Georgia. She did given me a picture though, a picture of four teenage girls on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. On the back of the picture, written in faded pen, were four names: Leslie, Georgia, Linda F., and Brenda.

______

Once I felt like I was a safe distance away, I started looking for a Wi-Fi connection. It wasn’t long before I found a spot. I wanted to see what I could find about the girls in the picture. I ate an apple and a granola bar while I searched. It was a lot easier than I had thought. Facebook and Twitter made a lot of private information public. Within an hour I had located the Facebook page of one Linda Frace James, graduated from Oakcrest High School in Egg Harbor in 1986, currently living in her home town of Egg Harbor. Looking at her photos posted online, I found a picture of a teenaged Linda Frace James. It was the same Linda F. who stood laughing in a group of teenagers in 1984.

It was 2:30.
I figured I was about two hours away from Egg Harbor. I could be at Linda’s house in two hours. 

_____

I drove fast. At 4:10 I parked my car outside of Linda’s Cape Cod. I wasn’t sure what I would say to Linda. The truth had seemed to be the right thing to say to Leslie’s mother, but I honestly wasn’t sure about what to say to Linda.

Just like with Mrs.
French, now that I was here I wasn’t quite sure what my next step would be. I didn’t feel the same kinship with this Linda as I had with Leslie’s mom. Despite this, I still felt that the best thing to do would be to tell the truth. Maybe if she knew why I was asking, why I was looking, it would help her remember what had happened or be more open to speaking with me.

_____

The woman who answered the door was in her early forties. She looked like a stereotypical housewife; jeans, T-shirt, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and grey eyes with the beginnings of laugh lines. She looked nice and smelled ever so faintly of lemon. This time I had my spiel down. After I introduced myself and gave the reason why I was there, there was a long silence.

“I guess you might as well come in.”

I didn’t feel very welcome. As we walked back toward what I assumed was the living room, Linda explained why.

“I try not to think about that summer, about those girls. I don’t really know what I can tell you, but I will try.”

“When did you meet Leslie and Georgia?”

“I was on the boardwalk one night with Brenda. She and I were best friends. We were doing what teenage girls do
… laughing and flirting. Watching the boys. We were eating pizza when Leslie and Georgia sat down at a table near us. I don’t know which of us reached out first, but by the end of the night we all pushed tables together and we were all in a group. We spent every night that week together. We would meet up during the day on the beach. Separate for a little while to get dinner with our families, and then meet back up at night.”

“Can you tell me anything about Leslie and
Georgia?”

“Leslie was funny and talkative. She was bright and friendly. Georgia was sweet, but quiet
, you know. We would all be sitting there talking and she just kind of took it all in. She was one of those girls that wasn’t in the limelight, but seemed okay with the world as it was. If that makes sense.”

“Is there any place in particular that you guys would meet or that Leslie and Georgia liked to hang
out?”

“
We’d meet a lot of different places. We met a couple of times at the arcade, and we met at the soft serve place.”

“Ok
ay, once you guys had met up, was there any place Leslie or Georgia wanted to go?”

Linda shrugged
. “I don’t … wait … Georgia had this thing about the ocean at night. We would be in a store or something and if we were near the pier that’s where Georgia was … she would head there while we shopped.”

“Any pier in particular?”

“It didn’t matter, any pier”She paused. “I think I remember her saying Steel Pier was her favorite, but I might be wrong about that.”

“Okay, what about boys
? Do you remember anything about any boys either girl talked to?”

Linda laughed.

“We talked to so many boys that week. You know high school girls. We flirted with every boy we saw.”

“Did any of those boys stand out?”

“All of these years later … no, I don’t remember anything in particular. Well wait” Another pause. “There was this one night. We came out of a store and Georgia was talking to this boy. He was good looking, older. I was so jealous. By the time we got to Georgia at the end of the pier, he was walking away. We all asked who he was; Georgia said he was no one, that he was just asking her where the pizza parlor was … I always thought maybe there was something else going on.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?”

“Not really … he was handsome … taller than Georgia … dark hair, I think.”  Just like a million other men.

“Do you remember if Leslie said anything about that boy?”

Linda didn’t say anything. She sat across from me. After what seemed like a long silence …

“You know what
… it is funny, but I don’t remember Leslie saying anything. She must have … she always had an opinion.”

Interesting
… I was starting to think that Leslie knew something about this guy Georgia was meeting. A guy I had a feeling could be my killer.

“When did you last see Leslie and Georgia?”

“We were on the beach together that day.” She paused to sip the glass of water at her elbow. “We had plans to meet on the pier that evening. Brenda and I got to the pier at 7. That’s when we planned to meet.  We stayed there for a while. Leslie and Georgia never showed. Finally at about 7:30 or so we got annoyed. We figured that they met boys or went into a store or something. We just walked away from that pier. Sometimes I wonder if we had just gone straight to their parents or the police … you know …  what would have happened? Maybe that would have helped them … I don’t know. Anyway, we didn’t see them at all that night … we looked but they weren’t on the boardwalk. The next day I heard they were missing. We were on the beach when Leslie’s mom came up to us.”

She took another drink and stared down into the glass.

“She was frantic. Now, as a mother, I can understand. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through that. I don’t want to imagine it … at the time I didn’t understand why she was so upset. Nothing could happen to us. Young and immortal right? By that afternoon though, by that afternoon I was scared. Somehow I just knew that something bad had happened. I just knew it.”

Part of me felt like I should say something. Like I should tell her things were ok
ay, but when she looked up at me, when our eyes locked, I saw she already knew. She knew it wasn’t her fault. She knew that it was his fault not hers, but like those girls were mine, they were hers too. She had been their friend. She knew them in a way I never would. We were the same though, she and I, we were connected by these girls and his violence. Because they were hers too, I decided to trust. To trust her instincts and what she saw.

“Did you see anything
else? Is there anything about that time that jumped out at you?”

Linda paused. Looking of
f into the distance at something only she could see.

“Well
, that month between when they went missing and when they were found, everyone was jumpy … seeing bad guys everywhere you know.”

“You saw something.” It was a sta
tement not a question. I knew she had seen something. Something that was potentially important.

“I don’t know. That month I would walk the boardwalk where we walked together. Sometimes just me, sometimes Brenda and I. This one day we were walking by the pier. I saw this guy standing there at the end of the pier. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like
… I thought it was the guy I had seen with Georgia. I found a bench. Pretended I was reading. I watched him.”

When she looked up at me her eyes were as serious as I had seen them the whole conversation.

“He stood at the end of the pier for 10 or 15 minutes. Then he walked away. He didn’t talk to anybody or do anything. He just stood at the end of the pier and then walked away.” She paused, and looked down. “I followed him, probably stupid, but I was curious. He walked away from the boardwalk and through the city. He walked to a not very good area. The kind of area where people don’t pay attention to others or to what others are doing. He went to a warehouse. One that was marked private property. He used a key to go in and he didn’t come back out again.”

“Did you ever say anything to the police?”

“I did, but they didn’t think anything about it. If they ever did anything with the information I didn’t know about it.”

I asked a few more questions but Linda didn’t have anything else that
seemed important. She was able to give me an idea of where she had walked although she didn’t know the street names. I thanked her for her time. I gave her my secret phone number, and asked her to call me if she thought of anything else.