The More They Disappear (36 page)

Harlan should have told her to go on home but he didn't. He'd befriended the girl and he had to accept that for what it was. Maybe her apology was meaningless but he believed her. Or he believed in her. She reminded him of Angeline. It wasn't physical. Mattie was just a girl, a rail. Angeline had been a woman, generous and full. It was something in the way Mattie approached the world, the way she pivoted when things didn't go her way, the way she put Harlan at ease. There was something of Angeline in Mattie because she trusted Harlan and thought maybe he could help her through this hard life, and there was something in Harlan that thought that might be true and so he did as she asked and let the past go. “Where'd you get this mutt?” he said.

“I found him near the river looking half-starved and mangy as hell.”

“He's still that.”

Mattie ignored the insult and bent to scratch the dog. “Don't listen to him, Floyd.” The mutt rolled over and she rubbed his raggedy stomach.

“What kind is he?”

“What kind ain't he?”

“Why Floyd?”

“I don't know. When he looks at me, he kinda seems human and a little bit sad. Like a Floyd.”

Harlan unhitched the dog from the door and walked him around the yard. The mutt bounced ahead of him like some danged rabbit and stopped at every stray pile of leaves and patch of tall sedge to pee until long after he ran out of piss. Then he crapped in the grass. “Good boy,” Harlan said.

Back inside, he found Mattie cooking with his lone skillet. She flipped a pair of catfish filets and the raw sides touched down. “I'm guessing you don't cook much,” she said.

“Why's that?”

“There ain't nothing in your fridge.”

“I'm due for a trip to the store.”

He carried his beer to the porch, put a warped tape in the cassette player, and listened as the Boss's voice cried out into the night, yelling over and over:
Adam raised a Cain. Adam raised a Cain.
Inside, the filets sizzled and the pan spit oil. There was a haze around the moon—icy skies that promised storms come morning. Mattie came out after a couple minutes with two plates of blackened fish. Harlan wolfed down his plate and complimented the chef. Mattie gave more of her fish to the mutt than she put in her mouth, and when the dog came begging his scraps, Harlan held them in his fingers and let the beast lick them clean.

 

thirteen

The gray-haired woman who ran the sheriff's department came into Mark's cell with a bedroll and a blanket. Mark was curled on the ground, his arm pinned beneath his head to keep it from pressing against the concrete. He opened his eyes as she set the bedding down. This was his best chance to make a run for it. He could get past the woman. After that it was a short run down the hall and out the front door. It wasn't exactly Alcatraz, though Mark couldn't be certain there wasn't someone else in the office, and by the time he was done debating whether or not he could make it, the woman was crouched beside him and running her fingers through the hair above his temple. “Honey, you should sleep on this mattress,” she said. “It isn't much but it's better than the floor.” She had an airy touch that put Mark at ease and his dreams of escape vanished. He just wanted her to stay with him. “Come on,” she said. Mark sat up and scooted onto the bedroll. “Isn't that better?” He nodded. “Do you need anything else?” He shook his head. “Don't hesitate to ask. I'm just down that hall. You call out if you need anything.” Mark managed to say thank you softly. The woman frowned as if she were sad. “I can't turn off all the lights but I'll make it less bright in here.” She stepped out and locked the cell door again. A minute later every harsh fluorescent save one flickered and went dark. Mark closed his eyes.

He wished he could sleep but his mind raced with thoughts too frantic to capture. Every time he shifted, part of him came off the bedroll, and in the middle of the night just as he started to nod off, the female deputy came back full of energy, talking about how shocked Trip Gaines was when she arrested him and how he started demanding a phone call like it was a movie. Mark wondered if he should have asked for a phone call, too.

His entire life Mark had been a follower. He did what his father asked, believed his sister when she told him he was worthless, tried to make Mary Jane's pipe dreams reality. And all because he didn't have an opinion of his own. That need to please, more than anything, was why he found himself in a box that echoed when he rustled the blanket or coughed or started to cry. It wasn't dealing drugs that had doomed Mark; his lot was cast by the boy who too often said,
Hey, Dad, watch this.
Who pleaded,
Hey, Dad, look at me.
Who whispered,
Look …
If he could go back in time to change things, he would … but how far back would he need to go?

Mark's stomach thundered and the stench inside him roiled as he clambered across the floor to sit on the aluminum toilet. He stifled his sobs with the blanket as his guts clenched and unclenched again and again. He heard the steps of the gray-haired woman come down the hall. She called out, “Are you okay?” And then, “Can I get you anything?”

Mark cried out, “Just leave me alone,” as the toilet filled with the muck inside him. And when he didn't hear her walk away, he yelled, “Leave me the fuck alone,” which did the trick. About ten minutes later, after he'd emptied his stomach and flushed, she returned without a word and slipped a plastic cup of ginger ale and another blanket into the cell. And even though Mark wanted to tell her he didn't need her pity, he was overcome by her kindness, and thankful that anyone might think he was still worth helping.

He sipped the soda and chewed on the ice, started to feel human again. He decided that when his father came marching in with bail money and a lawyer, he would turn them away. He had nothing to offer now but the truth. He was guilty. His father was guilty. The truth might not fix the situation but it was as close to redemption as he'd ever come.

*   *   *

Harlan wanted to check on Mark but Holly, who was on the phone, pointed him to his office instead. She cupped the mouthpiece and said, “It's Tom Gabel. He needs to talk with you.” Gabel was the two-term sheriff of Brown County across the river in Ohio. As she removed her hand, Holly said, “I know, Tom. Anything in the river is our responsibility. We've done this before. Harlan just walked in. You can talk him through it.” Holly shook her head. “Good luck,” she said.

As soon as Harlan picked up, Gabel said, “I think we have a body in the river.”

“Why do you think that?” Harlan asked.

Gabel launched into a story about a couple of teenage lovebirds who'd seen a person jump from the bridge the day before. Apparently, the kids hadn't planned on telling the authorities—because they were scared or they didn't want their parents to know they'd snuck out—but they told some friends and those friends told other friends and eventually a concerned parent caught wind and called him.

“So it's been what,” Harlan said, “twenty-four hours?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Have you talked with the witnesses?”

“They say the person was alone, couldn't tell male or female, and they didn't see the body surface.” Gabel explained that he didn't want to add to Harlan's troubles, but technically the river was Kentucky's jurisdiction as determined by the Supreme Court in 1793 and upheld in 1966—the gist being the body was Harlan's responsibility and not his.

Holly appeared in the doorway and said, “I've got the crime lab on line two.”

Harlan cut Gabel off. “I'm aware of the legal precedent, Tom. I'll get our Staties to search the riverbank. And I'll want to talk with the witnesses myself. I'm sorry to cut this short, but I've got to take another call. Let me know if you get a notion of who I might find in the river.”

Harlan switched lines to the crime lab and asked for news.

“Sheriff, you've got a match,” the tech said.

“You're sure?”

“Yep. We couldn't pull any prints but after a little TLC, we were able to fire the gun. We matched test bullets to the one you pulled. I'll be faxing the report over in a minute.”

Harlan thanked the woman and grabbed the keys to his cruiser. “We found the murder weapon,” he told Holly on his way out the door. “I'm heading to the Finleys. Get me a warrant as soon as the fax comes through. Oh, and a state police boat to search the river.”

“Are you bringing the girl back here?”

“Yeah. We can put her in the box. That'll let Mark get a good glimpse of her.”

Jackson Finley answered the door and asked Harlan what he wanted. There were deep bags under Jackson's eyes that matched his jowls.

“I'd like to talk with Mary Jane.”

“Wouldn't we all.”

“What's that mean?”

“She's gone. Again.”

“Where?”

“I don't know. Mary Jane likes to make us worry. It's her preferred form of rebellion. I'd wager she's out blowing off steam.”

“Last time she did that she ended up in a hospital.”

Jackson shrugged.

“I think we should talk,” Harlan said. “You, me, and Lyda. See if we can figure out where she might have gone.”

Jackson pointed him up the stairs. “My wife's asleep in Mary Jane's room. I think she stayed up all night worrying.”

Harlan took the stairs in pairs as Jackson trundled up behind him. Lyda was curled on top of her daughter's bed, clutching a pillow. Harlan waited for Jackson to wake her, which he did by rubbing her arm softly. She muttered nonsense and Jackson took a moment to explain the sheriff was looking for Mary Jane. Lyda sat up and yawned. “Wait, what? Did you call him?”

“No. He just showed up.”

Lyda turned to Harlan, rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “How did you know she was missing?”

“I didn't. I just found out.” Harlan wondered how much of the truth he should tell. He didn't want Jackson or Lyda getting defensive. He thought about Mark curled up in the drunk tank and said, “Mary Jane is friends with someone who's in trouble. I came to see if she could help me help them.”

“Do you think this friend has something to do with why she ran off?”

“Could be.”

“Who is it?”

“That I can't tell you, Mrs. Finley.” He hadn't consciously reverted back to using her formal name, but he was aware of the change in his behavior. Call it professional distance. “We all have the same goal,” he said. “And that's to find Mary Jane.”

Lyda nodded and Jackson did the same.

“So how long has she been gone?”

“Since yesterday morning.”

“It's like I told you,” Jackson said. “Mary Jane taking off isn't a surprise.”

“Did you look for her?”

“I called everyone I could think of. I even drove to Lexington to see if I could find her car.”

“And no luck?”

She shook her head.

“Can you get me the information on the car? Make, model, plates? VIN if you have it?”

“Sure,” Jackson said. “I have the title in my office. But honestly, Sheriff, I think we're overreacting.”

“Better safe than sorry, right?”

“She didn't leave a note,” Lyda mumbled.

“What's that, Mrs. Finley?”

“A note. Mary Jane usually leaves a note on the kitchen table. This time there wasn't a note.”

“That doesn't mean anything,” Jackson said. “It's not like she's otherwise dependable.”

“I know my daughter,” Lyda said. “Something's wrong.”

“We'll need you to get us in contact with friends and acquaintances, give us as much information as possible.” He scanned the bedroom. “And I'd like to examine Mary Jane's room, see if I can find anything to help us track her down. Is that okay?”

“Whatever you need,” Lyda said.

Jackson shrugged. “Sure.” He stood up from the bed, anxious to leave. Harlan shook his hand, went to do the same with Lyda, but as she stood, she fell forward and started to cry into his chest. Harlan draped an arm around her and they stayed that way until Jackson took her by the shoulders. “It's your fault,” she said as Jackson led her away.

As he searched the room, Harlan tried to divorce himself from the proceedings, tried to pretend this was just a missing persons, tried to forget that he'd been here days before, tried to forget about the body in the river and whether it might be Mary Jane. For now the two were separate. There was a girl, wanted by the law, on the run. There was a body in the river.

The room's décor was a contradictory mix of girlish sentiment and punk rock, the Disney of yesteryear giving way to the grunge girl of today, though neither dominated the other. It was as if Mary Jane was caught between two versions of herself—the dutiful daughter and the rebellious woman. Along the doorframe of her closet there were hash marks to track how tall she'd grown and when. Harlan followed her rise from toddler to adult, from just over three feet to her full five seven. Then he examined the picture frames atop the desk. Every single photo was from when Mary Jane was a child, smiling wide despite a slight gap in her front teeth.

On top of her nightstand, Harlan found his card in the exact spot he'd left it. Mary Jane hadn't even picked it up out of curiosity. In the drawer of the nightstand he found a road atlas of the fifty states and opened it to Kentucky. A blunt pencil had traced a line over the bridge into Ohio, so he flipped to Ohio and found the path again, followed it north into Pennsylvania, New York, and finally Ontario, which he found in an addendum. As he flipped to Ontario, an unsealed envelope with the words
to whom it may concern
fell to the ground.

Harlan pulled the paper from the envelope, a piece of pink-bordered stationery of the sort used to write thank-yous. There were only five words, a single line written just above the center of the stationery. “Never lived up to potential.”