Read The Girl in the Woods Online
Authors: David Jack Bell
The Girl in the Woods (12 page)
It wasn't lost on Diana that she was driving through a scene right out of one of her visions. New Cambridge was one in a series of small, south-central Ohio towns that dotted the landscape, but in between the towns there was nothing but farmland and trees, occasional houses and forgotten country roads. As Diana drove through the dark overhanging canopy of those trees and tried to comprehend the limitless spaces that stretched out beyond them, the countless ditches and deadfalls, the heavy logs and accumulated leaves, it seemed hard to believe that there weren't hundreds of bodies scattered in there, a collection of lives snuffed out and hidden away, forgotten by all but those who cared the most. She could dedicate the rest of her life to searching for the spot that seemed to be beckoning her—the vision of the clearing in the woods—and never find it, never even come close.
Then why send the vision if it didn't want to be found?
It had begun to seem like a cruel joke, just like the one Kay Todd might be playing on her.
Then why go see her? Why keep looking?
"Because there's nothing else," Diana said, her voice filling the empty space of the car. "Nothing else."
Light rain began to spit against Diana's windshield. She put the wipers on intermittently as she drove through the heart of Grainger. A diner, a clothing store, a police station. One long blink, and you'd miss it. Diana went a mile past the town, then made a right onto Pike Road, a narrow two-lane that went out into the unincorporated land around Grainger and showed up on the map as Union Township. It was full dark by then, the headlights carving out a path in the night. The rain picked up, and Diana turned the wipers higher, their rhythmic beating the only sound in the car.
A few miles down the road, she saw the Pine Grove Trailer Park, a dingy looking complex surrounded by a barbed wire fence and a stand of puny trees. The road through Pine Grove was gravel, and the little stones popped and pinged against the underside of her Honda until she eased to a stop in front of number forty-four, a sagging singlewide resting on cinder blocks.
A lone bulb illuminated the porch, its jaundiced glow still attracting the last hearty gnats and moths of the summer. The steps to the front door had been painted white at one time, but as Diana climbed them, she saw that the wood was exposed and warped by rain and sun, the nails rusted and discolored. A battered screen door with a huge dent at its base allowed the sounds of a sitcom's canned laughter to blast out at her. There was no bell so Diana knocked. She couldn't imagine anyone hearing anything over the sound of that TV, so Diana used her best authoritarian police knock, then just called the woman's name.
"Mrs. Todd? Kay Todd?"
Diana waited a moment, her shoulders hunched against the falling rain. She raised her fist again, and the TV volume dropped. She heard a long, hacking cough, then a faint voice.
"Coming."
Diana waited. The closest trailer was lighted up. Diana heard a baby crying, then a harsh shushing from an adult voice. She turned and saw the faint outline of the old woman appearing behind the screen, her form backlit by the trailer's shabby lighting.
"Oh, hello," Kay said, her voice cautious. She looked to either side of Diana, as if she expected her to have brought reinforcements.
"Can I come in?"
Kay hesitated. She looked Diana up and down.
"It's raining, Kay. Come on."
"I didn't know it was raining..."
She undid the eyehook on the door and pushed it open, letting Diana step into a small entryway. The heavy odor of cigarettes hung in the trailer, and when they moved into the cluttered living room, Diana saw a hazy nimbus of smoke around the lamps on either side of the sagging couch.
"Would you like coffee or something?"
"Sure."
Kay didn't invite Diana to sit, so she remained standing.
"Oh, at least take your coat off," Kay said before leaving the room. "You're wet." She even helped Diana with one of the sleeves. It felt like a mother's gesture, and Diana found herself unexpectedly moved by it. "Go ahead and sit. I'll be right back."
Diana sat on the opposite end of the couch from the overflowing ashtray. A half-smoked butt still burned there, its smoke curling toward the ceiling. The TV was muted, and Diana watched a big-haired, blonde actress roll her eyes comically at someone off-screen, her gestures ridiculous and exaggerated. On the wall behind the TV was a framed picture of Jesus, his sacred heart exposed and both burning and pierced with thorns. She had just noticed the family pictures on a shelf across the room when Kay returned with two mugs of coffee in her hands.
"I remember you liked cream, so I added some," she said, setting them down on the coffee table. "Well, it's milk actually. But whole, not that skim stuff." Diana thanked her and took a sip. The trailer was warm, and Diana relaxed a little, though she remained perched on the edge of the couch. Kay took her seat and lit another cigarette, ignoring the coffee. "I know I should quit but..." She shrugged.
Too late now.
"I'm surprised to see you here," she said. "I thought you'd be done with me."
Too late now.
"I'm surprised to see you here," she said. "I thought you'd be done with me."
"I talked to the police today."
"Oh?" Her voice sounded forced, like someone pretending to be casual. "What did they say?"
"I need to ask you something, Kay."
"I figured you would."
"I need to know about Rachel. What do you have to tell me?"
Kay took a long drag on her cigarette and exhaled smoke through her nose.
"Kay?"
"If I told you what I know, then you wouldn't help me. It's called leverage. I didn't go to business school, but I do know that."
"Kay, we're talking about somebody's life here. My sister's life." Diana didn't like the tone she heard creeping into her voice. It had begun to sound pleading and needy, but she couldn't stop it. "Is she alive? Do you know that? Is Rachel alive?"
She turned and leveled her eyes at Diana. "There are people who know things, about your sister and my daughter. My daughter has been gone longer. Find her, and I'll tell you what you want to know."
Diana stood up. "You're bullshitting me. And I'm not going to get taken for a ride. Thanks for the coffee."
"Your sister liked that song 'Rhinestone Cowboy,' didn't she?"
Diana stopped moving toward the door. "What did you say?"
"'Rhinestone Cowboy.' By Glen Campbell. She liked it. Am I right?"
Diana cocked her head to the side as though she weren't hearing correctly. "Did you know her?"
"Are you saying I'm right?" Kay said.
Diana and Rachel didn't have much in their childhoods. No fancy TVs, no computers or DVD players, just an old turntable and a collection of vinyl records their dad had left behind. Rachel played them over and over again, and fixated on that Glen Campbell song, the plea of a poor man who dreams of making it big someday. Diana couldn't hear the song without thinking of Rachel. On the rare occasions it came on the radio, Diana switched stations.
"Where is she? What do you know?"
Kay shook her head. "It's not going to work that way," she said. "You need to help me, then I'll help you."
Diana stood rooted in place. She wanted to storm out, turn her back on the whole affair, but she knew she would never do it. She couldn't, and that's what bothered her. For now, Kay Todd was calling the shots.
"Honey, why don't you sit down and tell me what the police said?"
Diana didn't have any choice. She took her seat on the couch again.
"Not much. I spoke to Dan Berding. He's a captain now, but back then he was one of the first officers on the scene. Do you remember him?"
She sniffed. "They're all the same."
"Since there's no evidence of a crime, he's assuming Margie ran away."
"I've heard that before. Did you ask him why she left her wallet and identification in the room?"
"I didn't get into it. Did Margie have a boyfriend at the time she disappeared?"
Kay had a long ash dangling from the end of her cigarette. She left it there and cut her eyes at Diana. "Does this mean you're going to find her?"
"I'm going to gather information for you. I can't make any promises."
Kay leaned forward and flicked the ash into the tray. She took a long drag and held the smoke in a beat longer before sending it out in a long plume. She looked thoughtful. "Okay. That works."
"Did she have a boyfriend or not?"
"I don't know. Like I said, we weren't on good terms...at the end there."
The TV had switched to a different sitcom.
"So," Diana said. "No boyfriends that you knew of."
Kay nodded. "Margie wasn't really the dating kind, if you know what I mean. She was a plain girl. Very plain. A little mousy, really."
"Is that a picture of her over there?"
"Yes." Kay started to push herself off the couch.
"I'll get it," Diana said. She went to the corner shelf and picked up the portrait. "This is Margie?"
"High school graduation. Yes. See what I mean about her being a plain Jane?" Kay said from the couch.
Diana ignored her, but had to admit, to herself, that nothing stood out about Margie Todd's portrait except her quintessential averageness. She wore her shoulder-length brown hair parted in the middle and a turtleneck sweater that nearly covered her chin. Her teeth were slightly crooked, and her eyes, which were close set, appeared to be squinting ever so slightly, as though she were uncertain if she belonged in front of the camera or not.
"She's pretty," Diana said.
"They got their looks from me, and none of us were beauty queens."
Diana picked up another picture. This one showed two children—undoubtedly Margie and her younger sister—playing in a pile of leaves. They looked to be about eight and ten years old respectively.
"That was a happy time," Kay said. "That's about two years before their father died. He took the picture."
"Did you know her friends?"
"I didn't know the girls from college. She rented that room on Poplar Street. She shared a bathroom and a kitchen with some other students." She appeared to be thinking of something. "Hold on a minute."
With some effort, she pushed herself off the couch and went down another hallway where Diana assumed the bedroom was located. Kay's coffee table was covered with celebrity gossip magazines, crossword puzzle books and a copy of the
New Cambridge Herald
. The baby cried again next door, and this time a dog joined its chorus with a series of quick, sharp barks. Diana looked at the picture of the two Todd children a little longer, and a sweetly painful wave of nostalgia passed through her chest. She didn't even have that much to remember Rachel by. Their childhood didn't have many such memories and not many photographs. As her mother's memory evaporated, there seemed to be less and less evidence that she had had a childhood at all.
New Cambridge Herald
. The baby cried again next door, and this time a dog joined its chorus with a series of quick, sharp barks. Diana looked at the picture of the two Todd children a little longer, and a sweetly painful wave of nostalgia passed through her chest. She didn't even have that much to remember Rachel by. Their childhood didn't have many such memories and not many photographs. As her mother's memory evaporated, there seemed to be less and less evidence that she had had a childhood at all.
"I collected all the articles that were in the paper about Margie's disappearance." Kay reappeared with a thick accordion file in her hand. She held it out to Diana. "They have names of her friends who were interviewed and the names of the people she worked for. I only wish there was more."
"You said she cleaned houses," Diana said.
"Yes. She was working for a family called the Boltons." She still held her cigarette, but before she could take another drag, a wracking coughing fit passed through her body. She hacked and wheezed for several minutes, and Diana wouldn't have been surprised to see her lungs shoot out of her mouth. Diana wondered if she should pound her on the back or fetch a glass of water, but the coughing soon settled down, and Kay acted as though nothing were wrong. "She worked there the day she disappeared."
"Did you know these people?" Diana said.
"Heavens, no." Kay sounded particularly emphatic, as though she wanted Diana to understand this point above all others. "Margie kept her school life separate from her home life. I didn't know her friends or anything about her life at Fields. I think she felt a little ashamed of where she came from. I used to tell her there was nothing wrong with living in a trailer, that what mattered was where you ended up. I don't know if I ever got through to her."
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