Authors: Frederick Ramsay
All things considered, Leota, thought, it could have been worse. She'd told the deputies what they wanted to hear and apologized to the sheriff for Flora not being more forthcoming. Had she known the circumstances surrounding the girl's disappearance, of course, she would have come right in, and so on. As much as they might have liked to, they had no real reason to hold her and she had been released. They also gave her strict orders to stick around town until further notice in case the girl contacted her. She said she would. Her plan, which had been forming in her head for a day, now included sticking around anyway. She intended to do so whether the sheriff's department wanted her to or not. She had some serious business to deal with before she'd head back to Virginia Beach. That is, if she ever did.
The cops were serious about finding the girl. “Serious as a heart attack,” one of them had said. The threat LeBrun posed seemed to have put the whole sheriff's department on edge, so much so she doubted they could act rationally if and when the girl, LeBrun, or both were to appear. She headed toward the highway to resume her surveillance at the Road House. She hoped her target hadn't stirred. If his car and/or the guy who'd been driving him were still in the area, she'd assume LeBrun remained in place and she'd take up her post again. First she would check out the barn where Darla had hidden her backpack. She might be holed up there. If not, it would draw her in eventually. That backpack contained everything the child valued and, more importantly, everything she needed to travel. Leota could not understand why Darla insisted on lugging those old clothes around. Her childhood, perhaps, the part she still clung to, the part that didn't give her nightmares. In any event, she wouldn't go without it and wouldn't do to have the bag and its contents found by the police if it still happened to be in the barn.
***
Being on the run was not a new experience for Darla. She'd done it before, several times, in fact. This time would be no different. She regretted leaving her godmother's house, but she'd heard that sheriff talking in the diner and the other guy who somebody said was FBI. Well, she'd had all the Picketsville Sheriff's Department she ever wanted already and wasn't about to hook up with it again. Not in this lifetime anyway. She'd slipped out of the house after Arlene left to go to the diner and Flora had settled in front of the TV to watch some dopey reality show. She'd wandered along Main Street until she was sure no one had followed her. Once certain she wasâfor all practical purposesâalone, Darla had moved into the service alley behind the street's storefronts. She'd spent the night curled up behind a dumpster near where she'd had her hair cut earlier in the week. The dumpster reeked of discarded salon trash, an aroma she thought a whole lot nicer than the stench of garbage in the dumpster behind the restaurant, which had been her first stop.
The sound of doors slamming and trash cans being emptied had woken her early and she'd scuttled away in the pre-dawn darkness. She intended to make her way to the highway, hitch a ride, or walk if necessary, to the nearest truck stop, tell her “sad story” a few times to some of the over-the-road jocks, and she'd be in a semi on her way west in no time. The routine had worked before. She was sure it would again. But first, she needed to retrieve her backpack with her getaway stuff from the barn where she'd convinced Leota she needed to drop it. It took her an hour to find the barn.
The ramshackle building still retained that old barn smell even though she guessed it had been, like, forever since there were any animals or farm stuff in it, except for, maybe, mice. Evidence of some resident rodents had to be brushed aside as she crawled back under the rafters to where she'd hidden her backpack.
Gone.
Someone had beat her to it? Leota? Probably not. She wouldn't have a reason to fetch it out unless she wanted her to stay put and thought the bag being missing would hold her in place. The old woman didn't know anything about being on the run. Anyway, her stuff was gone. She followed the drag marks where it had been pulled free and out onto the center of the barn floor. She eyed the place where the contents must have been dumped and picked through. So, definitely not Leota. She picked up a single earring the thief missed. She counted several sets of footprints and frowned. She needed to consider what to do next. The possibility of retrieving the bag now was zip, whether Leota or someone else had it. That fact meant she'd be traveling light. Whoever took the bag took her leather jacket, too. That meant she couldn't travel some places without freezing and all. She stamped her foot in frustration. The noise disturbed some of the barn's permanent residents. Darla wasn't afraid of much anymore. Being knocked around by pigs and perverts during your growing up years pretty much toughened you up for anything. Mice, on the other hand, did not work for her. She had a friend in juvie who was allowed to keep a pet mouse. Darla had dumped it out the window one night. She hated mice.
Luckily, she'd managed to lift five twenties from the fancy sugar bowl Flora kept in her kitchen cupboard. Old people were funny. Like, who wouldn't know exactly where to look for a stash of cash in their houses? A hundred bucks wasn't much, but it was a start. A good coat would eat most of it if she went north, but it was summer here, so maybe that could wait. She stamped her foot again, turned and headed for the door. Sticking around this mouse motel wasn't such a good idea and she really needed to figure out what to do next.
She had just cleared the barn door when she heard what she was sure must be Leota's truck approaching. There was no mistaking that crappy-sounding motor. She ducked into the brush next to the barn, hunkered down, and waited. She had no intention of debating with her guardian about next things and all. Leota was a nice lady, but she didn't know shit about what you had to do to survive in the real world. Darla guessed that came from being a library lady. They lived out of books, not on the streets where things were, like, really different.
***
Leota stared into the vacant space where Darla had stowed her backpack and made the same discovery. Darla must have come, retrieved it, and skipped. God only knew where the girl thought she could go and not be found. Suddenly, and for the first time, the enormity of what Leota had set into motion in the days and weeks before hit her like an ice tsunami, like someone had just punched her in the stomach. She hadn't felt anything so disabling since Timmy O'Donnell had done just that to her in the third grade. She could scarcely catch her breath.
She couldn't pry her eyes from the empty space. A tear ran down one cheek. She had been so sure that she'd done the right thing about Darla and now, instead of making the girl's life safer, she'd made it a hundred times more dangerous. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to push aside the panic that had started to take over her thoughts. She could just hear what Flora would say when she found out.
“What were you thinking, Leota? Isn't this just like you? I guess they didn't teach you common sense in that fancy college you ran off to, did they? First it's that bum Mark Dellinger and now this.”
She heaved a guilty sigh and thought of the girl.
“I didn't think any of this would happen, I promise you, Darla, I thought with your mother out of the pictureâ¦How could I have known about George LeBrun? My God, Flora was right all along.”
A mouse in search of an exit from what had become an increasingly hostile environment, and emboldened by the preoccupation of the woman talking to herself, darted across the floor and disappeared through a knothole in the wall. Leota was drawn out of her trance an instant later by a shriek. Not a very loud shriek but still audible. She could have sworn someone outside had made the noise. She rushed to the door and searched the road both ways. Nothing. She must have been imagining things. The countryside is full of odd noises. Now what? The Road House of course. Anything else?
What had the deputies been talking about? If she remembered correctly, the sheriff's people had mentioned a BOLO. That meant they were notifying other law enforcement to be on the lookout for Darla, didn't it? They'd had one on her, too, and they'd found her. She had no idea what the acronym stood for but she knew its significance. Would someone find Darla in time? She rocked back on her heels and forced herself to concentrate.
Ike had his cell phone clamped to one ear and his land line to the other. Billy Sutherlin had his attention in the former. He waited for Flora to pick up on the latter.
“What's she doing, Billy?”
“She stopped at that hay barn on your dad's property. Went in and five minutes later came back out. Then she jumped in that old One-fifty of hers and took off.”
“What was she doing in the hay barn?”
“I got the impression she went in to get something. But she didn't have anything when she came out so, either she didn't find what she was looking for, or there's something else in there she was after.”
“She didn't find the pile of old clothes. There was a photograph in that pile. That's the one we ran through the software to identify the girl. So, that's who put the stuff in there. Stay with her, Billy, I want to know where she goes.”
“You do know she has a twelve-gauge shotgun in the bed of that truck?”
“Charley found it while you all were questioning her and took the shells out. Before she can do anything rash, she will have to reload. Charley didn't find any reloads in the truck and we searched her purse. I think she's neutralized. If she goes back to the Road House, we can assume she's stalking LeBrun. I don't wantâ¦Hold on a second, Flora, okay?â¦I don't want her messing with that man, especially with a firearm.”
“But you would like to know why she's doing it.”
“I think I already do, but yes, I'd like to be sure. Out.” Ike snapped his phone shut and shifted the land line to his other ear.
“Okay, Flora, we found your cousin, Leota? She had no idea that the girl had disappeared. Why didn't you tell me about her relationship with the girl's father?”
“I didn't?”
“You know you didn't. Listen, your cousin is in town, but you knew that.”
“I thought she went home, Ike. Okay, here's the thing, you wouldn't know this on account of it happened when you were off being an international snoop in them days, but Leota, she and Mark Dellinger were an item once, you could say.”
“So she said. It gets worse. It looks like she's stalking George LeBrun and on top of that Mark Dellinger is dead, probably murdered. Does any of this mean anything to you, ring any bells?”
“I reckon that'd be good news and bad news.”
“There is no good news in this. Flora, what the hell is your cousin up to?”
“With Leota, you can never tell, she's one of them nervous women. Did you just say you thought she's stalking that LeBrun? That ain't like her. She's never showed any spunk in her entire blessed life and you think she's after that piece of trash?”
“I am not a mind reader and I never met the lady until an hour ago. How would I know what she's up to? You're the cousin. You tell me.”
“Like I said, she don't have the courage of a rabbit. I can't think, exceptâ¦that bum Dellinger is dead, maybe murdered?”
“Yes.”
“If she thinks LeBrun done him, she'll maybe be after him. I don't know what that flop ears would do if she catches him, though.”
“She had a twelve-gauge shotgun hidden in the bed of her truck. Does that suggest anything?”
“Lordy, Lordy. That old scatter gun was her daddy's. He killed hisself with it. You don't think she plans to shoot LeBrun or herself with it, do you?”
“Or both maybe. I don't know.”
“Well, I told you, she ain't the brave type. Ike, she's a librarian, for crying out loud. She more likely would throw a book at him.”
“I can't take the chance.”
“So what will you do?”
“We have her under surveillance. We can only wait and see.”
“Whyn't you pick her up and put her away for awhile?”
“And we could do that becauseâ¦?”
“Vagrancy?”
“She has a hotel room and she hasn't done anything illegal. Not like someone I could name.”
“Yeah, yeah. You'd have done the same if you was me.”
“Goodbye, Flora. If you hear anything, you let me know.”
Ike put both phones down and banged his fist on the desk so loudly Rita looked up from across the room.
“We have a girl on the loose who does not want to be found. We have dozens of people looking for her. Some of them do not wish her well, a half-dozen of them would throw a party if she turns up dead, and one or two would do the killing if they had the chance. On top of that, she is as afraid of the police as her potential killers, so the good guys can't get at her.”
Frank who had just walked in from the street, said, “That's the part I don't get.”
“Long story short, Frank. Some of her original abusers used to work out of this office.”
“What?”
“That's what we're hearing. It puts us in a hell of a bind. She won't come in willingly. If she did, she could have every one of the people who might be after her in, or back in jail in twenty minutes.”
“But⦔
“But will she risk it? Does she believe we will do that for her? She doesn't. Why should she? And so she's more likely to skip town than allow herself to be drawn back into the godawful life she's had so far.”
“What are you going to do, I mean beyond what we're already doing?”
“Hope and pray she stays safe until we can at least isolate her from the bad guys. The worst part of all this is, we still haven't a clue who killed her mother and as much as I dislike the idea, we have to assume she might be the one who did it. At least she has to be on the list of our suspects.”
“I think if I were that girl, I'd head west as fast and as soon as I possibly could. Sorry, Ike, but I don't see a good ending here.”
“No, neither do I.”
***
The girl in question might have felt her ears burning if she hadn't been so preoccupied with everything going on around her. First a mouse sailed out of a knothole in the wall next to her and ran between her legs. She couldn't help the “yike” that popped out of her mouth. She thought for sure Leota would have heard her and she'd be found out. Sure enough, a second or two later Leota popped out of the barn and looked around. Darla scrunched down as far as she could and made herself smaller. She held her breath. Leota stood there for a moment like she didn't know what to do next and then climbed into her ratty old truck and drove away. Darla rose slightly to watch the vehicle disappear and would have stepped out of the bushes except at that moment she heard another engine rev up. She froze and watched as a sheriff's cruiser sped past.
It must have been sitting down the road watching and waiting, she thought. Why were the cops following Leota? Probably looking for me. She waited a full minute and the black-and-white had cleared the curve down the road a quarter-mile or so before she eased out of the brush and stepped into the sunlight. Cops were looking for her. Leota was looking for her. Probably other people would be too. She daren't risk hitchhiking now or even staying on the road. She couldn't go back to Flora. She'd just call the cops and the nightmare would start all over again. She looked right and then left to get her bearings, then raced across the road and into the woods opposite. If she had it figured right, and if she could maintain a straight line of march, she would be on the north side of Picketsville in half an hour.