“You’re taking this better than I expected,” I said.
She shook her head. “I’m still not sure whether to believe you, but I’ll acknowledge something strange is going on. Whatever the case, if it’s connected to the missing kids, I have to work around it.”
She went upstairs to get her purse and left me standing openmouthed.
Honey Jorgens lived in an apartment in the new buildings on the other side of town. That little wisp of guilt curled in my stomach again as I knocked on the door. I’m sure I was the last person she wanted to see.
The door opened, and a woman who looked like a younger version of Louise peered at me from behind the chain.
“Who’re you?”
“I’m Joanie Fisher. My grandfather—” I choked on the words, the woman’s grief tugging my own out.
“You’re the old man’s granddaughter. He’d’ve come with condolences, too.” The door closed, and I heard the scrape of the chain as she unbolted it. “Please come in.”
She let me in to the apartment, which was furnished cheaply but neat. “I’m Honey. My boyfriend is at work today. He’s upset about my mama too, but the foreman won’t let him off ’til the funeral.”
“That’s not very understanding. Do you know when the funeral will be?”
“No, not yet. The sheriff says since she died under ‘suspicious circumstances’, it may be a while.”
“Are you here all by yourself?”
“Nope. My youngest…” She shook her head. “My daughter is asleep in the bedroom. She’s three.”
“You’ve been hit hard this year.”
She smeared a tear back up her cheek with the heel of her hand. “First Johnny and now Mama. I told Rich it was because he sold out and is helping to build the new houses, the ones on the land they kicked us off of. We were gonna use the money for Johnny’s and Julie’s college so they can get out of here. I just hope Julie’s smart enough to want to go to a good school.”
“I bet she is.”
The woman rewarded me with a small smile. “I’m surprised you came on your own.” She wiped her hands on her jeans and motioned for me to sit on the corduroy sofa. “I’d heard you brought a friend with you.”
“Lonna came up here with me to help me get settled and also because her friend Matt wanted her help investigating the children’s disappearances. She’s in town talking to him right now.”
“Matt’s a right good man. He’s done more for us than that sheriff has.”
“Oh, no. He came with the developers. He mighta grown up nearby, but he spent a lot of time in the city before coming back.”
“Which city?”
“Little Rock. He was a cop down there while it was bad.”
I had a hard time picturing Bud Knowles battling gangs in mall parking lots. Maybe he came up here like so many did for less money but more peace. Until now, of course.
“What has he told you about the kids?”
“That they’re running away, upset at their houses getting torn down, and they’re headin’ for the city or upstate toward Missouri to work in the tourist towns.” The frustration built in her voice like gathering thunderheads. “But they’re too young for that. And I know my son. He’s a good boy and wouldn’t run off. He wouldn’t’ve left his sister!”
I noted Honey’s use of the present tense. “Do you believe your son is still alive?”
She set her jaw. “A mother knows. All of us who’s lost kids in the past year, we know they’re still alive, it’s just gonna take the right person to find them.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“I think there’s an evil spirit out there. I’ve heard it screaming in the night. I think it’s taken them and hidden them. Men won’t be able to find them—it’s gonna take somethin’ more.”
“Like what?”
This time she met my eyes. “Someone with a connection to the land like your granddad had.”
My heart flip-flopped in my chest. Did she mean me? “And what about Lou—er, your mother? Can you tell us anything about her last day?”
Honey’s eyes welled with tears. “She left that morning to go to her job at the cafe. I didn’t know anything had happened ’til they called looking for her a couple hours later.”
“Did she say anything before she left? Was there anything different about her?”
“She was all excited because she was going to be seeing you, Doctor Fisher. She and your grandfather had become kind of close before he disappeared. She was awful upset when he went missing. She wanted to talk to you to see if you might know what happened to him. And she’d helped him redo the kitchen because he’d told her you might be visiting soon.”
Again, a hint he had known I would come. I hadn’t heard from him in years and certainly hadn’t been planning a visit. It seemed the more I learned about the eccentric old man, the more the mystery deepened.
“What did you mean about my grandfather having a connection to the land?”
“I know he didn’t grow up here—we all did—but he and that house, it’s like they just belonged here, like they grew there.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “There’s some who say he’s responsible for all that’s gone bad here, but I know better. Mama said he’d even offered some of his money to keep the developers out of the town, to give scholarships to kids, but Mayor Franz didn’t want to hear him. I think he wanted a big, shiny house of his own, and then that lawyer appeared.”
“Which lawyer?”
“Peter Bowman.” Her mouth twisted like the name itself tasted foul. “He came whispering in the mayor’s ear. There’s lots of places they coulda gone, but they came here.”
“Did you hear Peter’s son was kidnapped the night before last?”
Honey’s mouth opened in an oval. “That little blond boy? Don’t get me wrong, I got no use for the father, but the mother and son are precious. And his brother and cousin are right nice, too. You know they’re doctors?”
“Yep.”
She seemed to want to say something more but kept her mouth firmly closed. The phone rang. She got up and took it in the little galley kitchen.
As she talked, I looked around the apartment. Pictures of the whole family in cheap wooden frames lined the walls and crowded the coffee tables. I saw Johnny Jorgens in them—a smiling baby, then a happy young boy, then as a pre-adolescent, his smile a little cocky but also sad in the photo of him, his mother and Louise in front of a small, old wood-frame house. I searched his face. Nothing hinted that he would have run away. I wondered what had happened to his father.
“That one was taken right after we moved from our old place. We wanted a picture of it before it was torn down so the kids would always remember where they came from.”
“I see.”
She turned away and rubbed her palms on her jeans again.
“Are you okay?”
“That was Ricky down at the junkyard. He said the tow truck brought our car in, and it’s messed up real bad.” She wiped a tear with the heel of her hand. “He asked me what I wanted done with it. I told him to just keep it and sell it for parts if he wants. I don’t ever want to see it again.”
“Where did they find it?”
“On the road between town and your house.” She frowned. “Was she supposed to be seeing you that morning at your house?”
“We were going to meet at the diner.”
“That’s what she’d told me.”
An idea struck me. “Would you mind if I took a look at it?”
“If you think it will help…” My original feeling that she resented me and the part I played in her mother’s death reasserted itself. “Do whatever you want with it.”
