Authors: Kevin O'Brien
“Oh, I guess it’s no problem,” Jessie said. “Jody just got home from school. I’m supposed to pick up Steffie from daycare at four anyway. We’ll just keep driving. The kids can meet Rufus. So what do you want me to do over there?”
“I need you to take a look at my appointment book on my desk, and find out if I had a session with Amelia on Monday afternoon, October fifteenth.”
“That’s all? I don’t get to snoop through anything else of yours?”
“Sorry. I just need to confirm that I saw Amelia on that particular day.”
“Monday, the fifteenth,” Jessie repeated. “I’ll check it out, and give you a ring on your cell in about a half hour.”
“Um, cell phones don’t work around here for some reason. I’m in a phone booth. I’ll call you back.”
“Try me at your place in about a half hour. We ought to be there by then.”
“Okay. Thanks, Jessie. You’re the best.”
Karen hung up the phone for only a moment before picking up the receiver again. She punched in her American Express account, and then George’s cell phone number.
She caught him waiting for Annabelle Schlessinger’s high school teacher, who was busy coaching the cheerleading squad. Her name was Caroline Cadwell, and apparently she’d known the Schlessingers better than anyone else in Salem. “I was going to call you after I talked with her,” George told Karen. “So, where are you?”
Through the phone booth’s glass wall, Karen glanced at some patrons leaving the diner. “Oh, I’m out and about, running some errands.”
“In Central Washington?” he asked pointedly. “Karen, the area code on my caller ID shows 509. Are you anywhere near Lake Wenatchee?”
“I’m in the phone booth at Danny’s Diner,” Karen admitted. “And before you start in, I’ve already been to the lake house. Helene Sumner spotted Amelia there this morning. But the place is empty now. The important thing is—”
“I can’t believe you went there when you knew I didn’t want you to,” he interrupted. “Damn it, Karen. You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“Well, I didn’t,” she murmured. The fact that he actually cared touched her. “Anyway, I’m sorry, George.”
“Did you even call the police, like we discussed?” he asked. “And please, don’t lie again, because I can check.”
“Yes, I spoke to them. They still want to talk with Amelia about Koehler’s disappearance. I avoided the subject, but told them about her taking my car and the money. I also gave them a description of the car, the plate number, the whole shebang. So, Amelia is officially a fugitive, which scares the hell out of me.” She sighed. “Then again, I’m not doing so hot either. That’s one more reason I decided to get the hell out of town and come here. The police want to talk to me and advised I have my lawyer present. Anyway, next time you see me, it may be through a Plexiglas window on visiting day.”
“I’m not going to let that happen,” George said soberly.
Karen let out a grateful little laugh. “You know something? I believe you. Thank you, George.” She glanced down at the mud on her shoes from climbing up and down the trail to the lake house. “So, have you found out anything more about Annabelle Schlessinger? How she died?”
“Funny you should ask,” George replied. He filled her in on what he’d learned from the newspaper account of the fire, and from Erin Gottlieb.
Karen listened intently. “So Annabelle supposedly died in a fire,” she said, almost to herself.
“What do you mean
supposedly
?” George asked.
“I’m just wondering. If Annabelle isn’t really dead, it would explain a lot.”
“I still don’t understand,” he said.
“George, do me a favor. Find out as much as you can from Annabelle’s teacher about this fire, and how they identified the bodies. Find out if there’s any chance Annabelle could still be alive.”
George figured he must have looked suspect, a 38-year-old man sitting all alone on the bleachers. His hands in the pockets of his sports jacket, he tried not to stare at the high school cheerleaders on the field. They worked on their routines while a boom box blasted music with an incessant drumbeat. George had noticed a few of the girls looking at him, whispering among themselves, and giggling. He’d also gotten a few strange glances from the guys on the football team as they’d hurtled past him, running their laps around the track.
He didn’t feel vindicated until Caroline Cadwell backed away from the cheerleading squad and sat beside him on the bleachers. “Who’s the hunk, Ms. C?” one of the girls called. “Your boyfriend?” Another cheerleader let out a wolf whistle.
“Okay, girls, you want to impress this guy?” she shot back. “Let’s see a routine in sync for a change! Rachel Porter, you can kick higher than that!”
Caroline Cadwell was a skinny, forty-something woman with short tawny hair and big hazel eyes. Though pretty, she also had a certain gangly quality that reminded George of an ostrich.
When he’d approached Caroline after her last class had let out at 3:00, George had explained he was a relative of Joy Savitt Schlessinger. He’d used the same family tree thesis cover story he’d given Erin Gottlieb’s mother. Caroline had seemed a bit dubious at first, but said she could talk with him later while she monitored cheerleading practice. After waiting on the bleachers for the last twenty minutes, George hoped this Schlessinger family friend would open up to him.
“So, George, you’re studying your genealogy,” Caroline said, smoothing back her hair from the wind. The pulsating music from the boom box droned on, and the girls went through their routine, but Caroline seemed oblivious to it all. “Tell me, how are you related to Joy? Are you a long-lost cousin, or what?”
The way she looked him in the eye and smiled, Caroline had the teacher stare down pat. Despite all his years in front of a class, George hadn’t quite perfected that Don’t-Give-Me-Any-Nonsense look.
“I’m not doing a thesis, Caroline,” he admitted.
She nodded. “Yeah, the more I thought about that, the more I wasn’t really buying it. What do you want, Mr. McMillan?”
“I’m trying to find out some information about my 19-year-old niece’s birth parents. She was adopted when she was four. Her name is Amelia Faraday, but I believe it was Schlessinger before that.”
Caroline’s eyes wrestled with his for a moment. Then she sighed, shifted around on the bleacher bench, and glanced toward the cheerleaders again. “What kind of information are you after?” she asked.
“Anything that might help,” George replied. “Amelia is a sweet, intelligent, pretty young woman. But she also has a lot of problems. She’s had problems ever since she was a child. I’m hoping you could help us understand why that is.”
“By
us,
do you mean Amelia’s parents and yourself? Why aren’t
they
here?”
“They were killed, along with my wife, a little over a week ago,” George explained. “My two children and I are Amelia’s only living relatives, at least, the only ones I’m aware of.”
“I—I’m sorry for your loss,” she murmured, visibly flustered. Then she covered her mouth and slowly shook her head. “My Lord, both families gone. It’s as if that poor girl were cursed.”
“I hear you were friends with Joy Schlessinger,” George said.
She sighed. “Well, I probably knew her better than anyone else around here. I met her and Lon when they first moved to Salem in 1993. I was part of the Salem Cares Committee, and one of our functions was to roll out the welcome wagon to new residents. Depending how sociable people were, we could be a blessing or a major pain in the ass. Anyway, the Schlessingers seemed to appreciate our efforts. They were from Moses Lake, Washington.”
“And that’s where the twins were born, in Moses Lake?” George asked.
Nodding, she scrutinized the cheerleading squad again as they took a break between routines. “Not bad, ladies!” she called. “Let’s see the next routine. Nancy Abbe, do me a favor and turn down the music a notch.”
She turned to George again. “Anyway, I felt sorry for Joy. The poor thing was in a new city, and didn’t know a soul. Plus she was stuck on this ranch on the outskirts of town. Lon was very, I don’t know, remote, always off hunting and fishing. I got the feeling in the course of a normal day at that ranch he probably said a total of eleven words to her. He and Joy’s brother, Duane, used to go camping and hunting together. Duane lived in Pasco. He’s the one who introduced Lon to Joy. I only met Duane once, which was quite enough for me, thank you very much.”
“You didn’t care for him?” George asked.
“No, sir,” she replied, frowning. “He was one of those short, wiry, overly macho types—very high strung, like a little pit bull.”
“Sounds as if you had him pegged pretty quickly, and early, considering what he went on to achieve.”
“Then you know about it,” she said, rubbing her arms. “Yes, he struck me as a time bomb ready to go off. He wasn’t very social. I don’t think anyone in Salem ever met him. He just showed up to go hunting with Lon—that’s it. No stops in town, no dinners out, nothing. The only reason I met him is because I used to drive out to the ranch to visit Joy, and he happened to be there that day. He and Joy were both odd ducks. She was a bit overzealous on the Bible thumping for me. I mean, I’m a Christian and very spiritual. It’s why I stayed friends with Joy, even though I never really felt close to her. Being a friend in need seemed the Christian thing to do, y’know? I think, deep down, she had a good soul. But Joy was one of those fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. She used religion the way some people use alcohol, as an escape from reality. I don’t think she had a handle on what was going on around her.” Caroline shrugged. “Then again, considering what life had to offer poor Joy, it’s no wonder she needed some escape.”
“What about her daughters?” George asked. “How was she with them?”
“There was only Annabelle when they moved here from Moses Lake,” she explained.
George nodded. It made sense, because Amelia had been adopted through an agency in Spokane, Washington—about a ninety-minute drive from Moses Lake. Obviously, the Schlessingers had transplanted to Salem without her.
“Did Joy ever tell you what happened to Amelia?” he asked.
Caroline winced a bit, then sighed. “Amelia’s the main reason they moved away. When the girl was four years old, she was abducted and molested by a neighbor man. Later, they found out this same man had raped and murdered a young woman who worked in a restaurant in Moses Lake.”
George just stared at her. This was what Karen had been looking for, the
incident
in Amelia’s early childhood.
“Lon shot the man dead,” Caroline continued, “just as the police were closing in on him. They rescued Amelia, but the little girl wasn’t the same after that. Joy and Lon had the worst time with her. They took her to several doctors, but I guess she was beyond help. She kept trying to run away. She even tried to kill herself—a four-year-old, for God’s sake. Joy caught her with one of Lon’s guns. They finally had to put her into foster care. It just broke Joy’s heart, but they couldn’t handle her anymore. Apparently, Lon didn’t want to, but Joy totally relinquished custody. She had no idea where her child was. They told all their acquaintances in Moses Lake that Amelia had been sent to live with relatives up in Winnipeg.
“Anyway, not long after they moved here, Joy’s mental health started to deteriorate. I don’t think she ever recovered from what happened to Annabelle’s twin. They weren’t here very long, just a few months when, one day, little Annabelle discovered her mother dead in the basement. She’d hanged herself. She left a note, apologizing to God and her family, and asking
me
to look after Annabelle.”
“And a few weeks later,” George interjected. “Duane Savitt went on a killing rampage at the adoption agency in Spokane. Do you know why? Do you have any idea what that was about?”
A pained look passed over Caroline’s face for a moment. She turned to glance at the cheerleaders, and then stood up. “Okay, ladies! That looked great. You can wrap it up a little early today. Nancy, can you drop off the boom box in my office? Thanks!”
Hands in the pockets of her sweater, she stood on the bleachers and watched the cheerleaders disperse. She waited until the last girl left the field, and then she glanced down at George. “No one else in town knew about Amelia,” she said quietly. “Joy had asked me to keep it a secret. I believe Annabelle got similar instructions. Growing up, she didn’t talk about her twin—not until high school. Then I hear she told a few friends different stories about a twin who had died. But I believe Annabelle, her father, and I were the only ones who knew the truth.”
She sat down beside George again. “When I read about Duane Savitt shooting those people and setting that adoption agency on fire, I knew what it was about, at least, remotely.”
“But you didn’t go to the police,” George said.
Caroline sighed and shook her head. She stared out at the empty spot on the field, where the cheerleading squad had been practicing minutes before. “No. I heard they spoke to Lon. The story he gave them was that his brother-in-law had been estranged from the family for years. I was the only one in town who knew differently. I suppose Duane was as elusive with the good people of Moses Lake as he was with Salem folk. Because no one from Moses Lake stepped forward, claiming to know Duane. I know, because I read a lot of articles about that Spokane massacre.”
“I read them too,” George said. “You, um, you could have given the police some idea as to Duane’s motive. They never did come up with one.”
She nodded. “I know. But Lon asked me not to say anything—for Annabelle’s sake. She’d been through a lot, and was still trying to get over her mother’s suicide. This awful news about her Uncle Duane was devastating.” Caroline slowly shook her head. “I felt a certain responsibility to Annabelle. After all, Joy had asked me to look after her. So, I didn’t say anything. The police never approached me about it. I was never forced to lie, thank God. I just didn’t say anything to anybody.” She turned and gave George a sad smile. “You’re the first one I’ve told.”