Read The Girl in the Woods Online
Authors: David Jack Bell
The Girl in the Woods (17 page)
She climbed the steps to the front porch and rang the bell. She wasn't sure how this was going to go and wished she still had a police uniform to hide behind rather than the jeans and turtleneck she was wearing. She was trying to check her make-up in the door glass when it swung open, revealing a face not much younger than her own, the face of a female college student.
"Yes?" the woman said.
"I'm looking for Mr. John Bolton. Is he home?"
The woman paused, glanced toward the back into the house, then turned to Diana. "Um...who's asking?"
She had brown, shoulder-length hair, and while she waited for Diana to respond, she worked on a piece of gum that looked to be too big for her mouth. She wore sweat pants, a faded T-shirt and flip-flops, and since she was dwarfed by the impressive size of the house, Diana thought she looked even younger than she probably was.
"Are you Mr. Bolton's daughter?" Diana said.
"No, I work here." She popped the gum. "Who are you again?"
"My name's Diana Greene. I work for...I used to work for the police department, and I wanted to talk to Mr. Bolton about something. Is he in?"
The young woman again looked behind her before speaking to Diana. "He's in, but he's not doing well today."
"Is he sick?"
"No, he's upset. He gets this way sometimes. You should probably come back another day, when he's doing better."
Diana was about to leave when she heard a voice coming from behind the woman, a male voice, but she couldn't make out what it was saying.
"It's the police," the woman yelled back, and before Diana could correct her, she was stepping aside, swinging the door open for Diana and inviting her in. "Come on in," she said, shrugging. "He might be feeling a little better." Diana stepped into a high-ceilinged foyer and followed the woman down a long hallway toward the back of the house. "He's been listening to the news all morning," the woman said. "I think this kidnapping thing has him all freaked out."
They stopped walking. Diana could see a large, sunlit kitchen at the end of the hall.
"Why is he so bothered by it?"
The woman shrugged. "He likes helping Fields' students. He gives them jobs and things."
"Did he know the Foley girl?"
"I don't think so," she said.
"Do you know her?"
"I know
of
her," she said. "She's a freshman. I'm a sophomore. We traveled in different circles, I guess." She shrugged again. "What year are you?"
of
her," she said. "She's a freshman. I'm a sophomore. We traveled in different circles, I guess." She shrugged again. "What year are you?"
"Zero," Diana said.
The young woman nodded. "Cool." She went ahead of Diana into the kitchen. "John? This is...I'm sorry, what's your name again?"
"Diana Greene." She held out her hand and the man at the kitchen table lifted his hand with what appeared to be a great deal of effort. His grip was weak and brief, like sand dribbling through her fingers.
"John Bolton," he said. "Jill...would you..."
"Do you want something to eat or drink?" she said.
The kitchen smelled of coffee and burnt toast, the radio on the table played. Diana shook her head.
"I'm fine," she said. "Thanks."
"You're from the police?" he said.
"Not really," Diana said. "I used to work for the police. I'm here on a private matter now. About one of your former employees."
Bolton nodded. He held out his hand toward an empty chair, inviting Diana to sit. She did but didn't speak. It took a moment for him to get the message, but then he looked up.
"Jill?" he said. "You can...we'd like..."
Jill rolled her eyes a little. "I have some homework to do."
When she was gone, Diana said, "Anything new on the radio?"
Even in the bright sunlight that poured through the windows of the kitchen, John Bolton looked tired and drawn. He had dark circles under his eyes, and the thinning wisps of his hair went in several different directions across the top of his bald head. His shoulders were slumped, the tie of his bathrobe loose, revealing a stained white T-shirt.
"Nothing," he said.
"Jill said you didn't know the Foley girl. Do you know her family?"
He was slow to respond. "I care about Fields," he said. "I'm an alum, the fifth generation to go to school there. If something happens to someone there, it's like it happened to a member of my family."
"So you must have been pretty devastated when Margaret Todd disappeared?" Diana said. "Not only did she go to Fields, but she worked for you."
Bolton didn't respond. The weather report switched over to sports, and Diana wondered if it were possible that Bolton hadn't heard.
"Mr. Bolton?"
"So," he said finally. "It's beginning again."
"What's beginning again?"
"You're not from New Cambridge are you, Officer Greene?"
"Ms. Greene. And no, I'm not."
He nodded as though Diana had confirmed some important truth. "New Cambridge is a...unique community with a lengthy history. I guess you could say we have our own way of looking at the world here, our own sense of how things should be done. But that's changed over the years, I suppose. Time marches on, and the old ways change."
"How did Margie Todd come to work for you?" Diana said.
"Hm? Oh, that." He shook his head. "My wife went through an agency that employed girls from the college."
"Does your wife remember her?"
He smiled wanly. "My wife died ten years ago. Pulmonary embolism, right here on this kitchen floor. I found her in the afternoon. She was already cold."
"I'm sorry."
"All of my family is gone. My wife is dead. My children have moved away. I think of moving away, too, but there's something about New Cambridge that keeps me here. It makes sense to me somehow. I know my place here, and my family's place. I wouldn't have that somewhere else."
"Did you notice any problems with Margie Todd? Anything she let on about her personal life?"
The radio announcer paused. Bolton held up a finger, asking for silence until a commercial for a car dealership came on.
"I wish they'd tell us something new." He turned the volume down a little. "Margie Todd's problem was that she couldn't dust the picture frames properly. That's why she was let go from this job."
"So she wasn't working for you the day she disappeared?"
"Yes and no. That was her last day. My wife fired her during the day, and that night she disappeared. I have an alibi."
"I didn't ask you for one."
"But I'm offering. My daughter, Clarissa, she must have been about four years old at the time. She fell down our basement stairs and cut her head. We spent most of the evening in the emergency room. I'm sure the hospital has—" He leaned forward quickly and reached for the radio dial. "Shhhhh."
The news announcer came on and started summarizing the Foley disappearance. They both listened, their heads tilted toward the radio, but in the end, no new information was revealed. They both leaned back when the story ended.
"Well," Bolton said. "Nothing."
"You were telling me about your daughter cutting her head..."
"Right. I'm sure the hospital has records, even after this long."
"I didn't come here to accuse you of anything," Diana said. "I just came to gather some information about Margie Todd."
"Did you find it difficult to be a female police officer?" he said.
"Sometimes."
"I would think that a lot of people would be resistant to a female police officer. A lot of men, I guess I should say."
"It comes with the territory," Diana said.
Bolton turned his eyes away from Diana and out the window to the driveway where the front end of a white BMW peeked out of the garage. "There was a time when everyone knew their place with more certainty than they do now. Men ruled the roost, and there were no questions asked about it. That's the world my father and grandfather grew up in."
"You sound nostalgic for those days."
"Maybe." He kept his attention directed outside. "My wife and I had difficulty with those roles in our marriage. Who was going to be in charge of what? Who was going to be in charge of whom?" He turned his focus back to Diana. "My occasional...indiscretions only made matters worse."
Diana straightened in her chair. "Was Margie Todd one of your indiscretions?"
"All of that is so far in the past, Ms. Greene. Margie was a silly girl, naïve and inexperienced. She didn't understand anything about the world."
"Her mother told me you offered to put up a reward when she disappeared, but you never wrote the check—"
Bolton stiffened. "You've been talking to that woman," he said, his face flushing. "Let me tell you I most certainly did write that check. Five thousand dollars. I gave it directly to Mrs. Todd to establish that fund."
"You didn't give it right to the bank?"
"No. There was some urgency about getting the reward funded, so I gave it to her. She came here and picked it up. But was a reward ever established? No. I have no idea what she did with the money."
"So, she's lying?"
"She's lying. You may not understand this, but when people have a lot of money, they often find themselves being manipulated by others who want that money too." He stood up. "I don't want to take up more of your time."
Diana stood up as well, knowing she was being dismissed. She followed Bolton to the front door and stepped back while he held it open for her.
"There is just one more thing, Mr. Bolton."
"Yes?"
"When I first got here, you said something like, 'It's all beginning again.' What exactly did you mean by that?"
A light breeze came through the open door, lifting the strands of hair on top of Bolton's head. He tried to smooth them down with his right hand.
"These things," he said, "that should have been left in the past. "
"Things like Margie Todd?"
He shook his head, squinting against the day's bright sunlight. "I'm thinking of so many more things than that," he said. "So many things that you and even I will never really understand. Never."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nate Ludwig faced his ten o'clock Introduction to Folklore class in the Woodard Lecture Hall and fixed the sleepy students with what he thought of as a stern glare. He cleared his throat and waited for the shuffling of notebooks and disconnecting of iPods to cease. Then he started.
"I know you've been riveted to every word I've said up until this point." No laughs. Too early still. "And I know many of you are freshmen, and so you have spent the last few days getting to know Fields University and the town of New Cambridge. At this point, I'd like to do a little data collecting from all of you." Some uncomfortable looks.
What is data collecting?
Is this like a quiz?
"Don't worry, I won't be grading you on this. There are too many of you and I'm far too old to bother trying to remember your names." Some laughs. They liked jokes at the professor's expense. Cheap, but it helps them wake up. "So, has anyone heard anything that they think of as folklore or legend in their brief time on the Fields' campus?"
What is data collecting?
Is this like a quiz?
"Don't worry, I won't be grading you on this. There are too many of you and I'm far too old to bother trying to remember your names." Some laughs. They liked jokes at the professor's expense. Cheap, but it helps them wake up. "So, has anyone heard anything that they think of as folklore or legend in their brief time on the Fields' campus?"
The phenomenon never ceased to amaze Ludwig. All he had to do was ask a question and one hundred heads suddenly decided to look down at their desktops. They avoided eye contact with him at moments like these as though he were a rabid dog or an angry bear.
"Come on," he said. "This is your chance to talk rather than listening to me drone on and on." A few more laughs. But he knew they actually preferred listening to his droning. It required less of them. "I can stand here all day," Ludwig said. "I had a Geritol this morning."
Other books
Stripped by Abby Niles
Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt
Duffle Bag Bitches by Howard, Alicia
Erebus by Kern, Ralph
Learning to Live (The Infinite Love Series Book 1) by Adams, Kira
Carinian's Seeker by T J Michaels
Brawler by Tracey Ward
The Cat Next Door by Marian Babson
Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell
His Magick Touch by Gentry, Samantha
