Jeremy Sloan or his mother could, either. Disappearing with Grace turned out to be, at this moment, the smartest thing Cynthia could have done.
But I still needed to know where she was. That she was okay. That Grace was okay.
I thought about calling Rolly, but figured that if he knew anything, he would have called, and I didn’t want to use the phone any more than I had to. The battery didn’t run down that quickly with the phone on, but once you started talking on it, the power drained in a hurry.
I entered Detective Rona Wedmore’s cell phone number. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Wedmore,” she said. Trying very hard to sound awake and alert, although it came out more like “Wed. More.”
“It’s Terry Archer,” I said.
“Mr. Archer,” she said, already sounding more focused. “What is it?” “I’m going to tell you a few things very quickly. I’m on a dying cell. You need to be on the lookout for my wife. A man named Jeremy Sloan, and his mother, Enid Sloan, are heading to Connecticut, from the Buffalo area. I think they intend to find Cynthia and kill her. Cynthia’s father is alive. I’m bringing him back with me. If you find Cynthia and Grace, hold on to them, don’t let them out of your sight until I get back.”
I had expected a “What?” or, at the very least, “Huh?” But instead, I got, “Where are you?”
“Along the New York Thruway, coming back from Youngstown. You know Vince Fleming, right? You said you did.”
“Yes.”
“I left him in a house in Youngstown, north of Buffalo. He was trying to help me. He was shot by Enid Sloan.”
“This isn’t making any sense,” Wedmore said.
“No shit. Just look for her, okay?”
“What about this Jeremy Sloan, and his mother? What are they driving?”
“A brown…”
“Impala,” Clayton whispered. “Chevy Impala.”
“A brown Chevy Impala,” I said. To Clayton, I said, “Plate?” He shook his head. “I don’t have a plate number.”
“Are you coming back here?” Wedmore asked.
“Yes. In a few hours. Just look for her. I’ve already got my principal, Rolly Carruthers, looking for her, too.”
“Tell me what-”
“Gotta go,” I said, then folded the phone shut and slipped it into my jacket. I pulled the automatic transmission back to Drive and got back onto the thruway.
“So,” I said, taking us back to where Clayton had left off before we got off the highway. “Were there moments? When you were happy?”
Clayton takes himself back again.
If there are moments of happiness, they only ever happen when he is Clayton Bigge. He loves being a father to Todd and Cynthia. As best he can tell, they love him in return, maybe even look up to him. They seem to respect him. They aren’t being taught, each and every day, that he’s worthless. Doesn’t mean they always do as they’re told, but what kids do?
Sometimes, at night in bed, Patricia will say to him, “You seem someplace else. You get this look, like you’re not here. And you look sad.”
And he takes her in his arms and he says to her, “This is the only place I want to be.” It isn’t a lie. He’s never said anything more truthful. There were times when he wants to tell her, because he doesn’t want his life with her to be a lie. He doesn’t like having that other life.
Because that’s what life with Enid and Jeremy has become. That’s the
But in some strange way, he gets used to it. Used to the stories, used to the juggling, used to coming up with fanciful tales to explain why he has to be away on holidays. If he’s in Youngstown on December 25, he sneaks off to a pay phone, weighted down with change, so he can call Patricia and wish her and the kids a merry Christmas.
One time, in Youngstown, he found a private spot in the house, sat down, and let the tears come. Just a short cry, enough to ease the sadness, take the pressure off. But Enid heard him, slipped into the room, sat down next to him on the bed.
He wiped the tears from his cheeks, pulled himself together.
Enid rested a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be a baby,” she said.
Looking back, of course, life in Milford was not always idyllic. Todd came down with pneumonia when he was ten. Came through that okay. And Cynthia, once she was in her teens, she started to be a handful. Rebellious. Hanging out with the wrong crowd at times. Experimenting with things she was too young for, like booze and God knows what else.
It fell to him to be the disciplinarian. Patricia, she was always more patient, more understanding. “She’ll get through this,” she’d tell him. “She’s a good kid. We just have to be there for her.”
It was just that, when Clayton was in Milford, he wanted life to be perfect. Often it came close to being that way.
But then he would have to get back in the car, pretend to head off on business, and make the drive to Youngstown.
From the beginning, he wondered how long he could keep it up.
There were times when the bridge abutments looked like a solution again.
Sometimes he’d wake up in the morning and wonder where he was today. Who he was today.
He’d make mistakes.
Enid had written him out a grocery list once, he’d driven down to Lewiston to pick up a few things. A week later, Patricia was doing the laundry, comes into the kitchen with the list in her hand, says, “What’s this? I found it in your pants pocket. Not my handwriting.”
Enid’s shopping list.
Clayton’s heart was in his mouth. His mind raced. He said, “I found that in the cart the other day, must have been the last person’s list. I thought it was kind of funny, comparing what we get to what other people buy, so I saved it.”
Patricia glanced at the list. “Whoever they are, they like shredded wheat same as you.”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Well, I didn’t figure they were making all those millions of boxes of it just for me.”
There evidently was at least one time when he put a clipping from a Youngstown area newspaper, a picture of his son with the basketball team, into the wrong drawer. He clipped it because, no matter how hard Enid worked to turn Jeremy against him, he still loved the boy. He saw himself in Jeremy, just as he did in Todd. It was amazing how much Todd, as he grew up, looked like Jeremy at similar stages. To look at Jeremy and hate him was to hate Todd, and he couldn’t possibly do that.
So at the end of one very long day, after a very long drive, Clayton Bigge of Milford emptied his pockets and tossed a clipping of his Youngstown son’s basketball team into the drawer of his bedside table. He kept the clipping because he was proud of the boy, even though he’d been poisoned against him.
Never noticed it was the wrong drawer. In the wrong house, in the wrong town, in the wrong state.
He made a mistake like that in Youngstown. For the longest time, he didn’t even know what it was. Another clipping, maybe. A shopping list written out by Patricia.
Turned out to have been a phone bill for the address in Milford. In Patricia’s name.
It caught Enid’s attention.
It raised her suspicions.
But it wasn’t like Enid to come straight out and ask what it was about. Enid would conduct her own little investigation first. Watch for other signs. Start collecting evidence. Build a case.
