a strange man.
We park the cars and join Mrs. Mourning and the stranger.
“I was so worried about you,” Mrs. Mourning scolds. “Fielda, you should have told me you were leaving. This is Mr. Ellerbach. He’s a reporter with Channel Twelve.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Gregory.” The man offers her his hand. “Would you have a few moments to visit with me?”
I see Fielda hesitate and I step forward. “We’re really not quite prepared to visit with you at this time, but we’ll answer what we can.”
“Thank you. Have the police found your daughter yet?”
“No, they have not,” Fielda says. I am more than a little surprised at the forcefulness of her voice. She sounds strong, capable, determined.
“Are there any more developments in the case? Are there any suspects that you are aware of?”
“Nobody has spoken to us about suspects,” Fielda answers.
“Have you or your husband been questioned in the disappearance?”
“Of course we’ve been questioned. Petra’s our daughter.”
“Please,” I say impatiently, “no more questions. We need to focus on finding our daughter. Please go.” The gray-haired reporter thanks us for our time and begins to leave.
“Wait,” Fielda calls after. “Wait! Please keep putting her picture on the TV. Please keep talking about her. I’ll get more pictures for you,” she pleads and I see pity on the reporter’s face.
Lawrence Ellerbach quickly steps back toward us and presses something into Fielda’s hand. “Please call us if you’d like to talk more. We’ll keep the girls’ pictures on the air.”
“What did he give you?” I ask curiously after he has left.
Fielda hands me the business card. Printed in simple script was the name Lawrence Ellerbach, followed by an e-mail address and telephone number. Centered at the bottom of the card was the Channel Twelve logo. I look at it for a long moment before meeting Fielda’s eyes.
“What do you think?” she asks me, biting her lip.
“Maybe we need to talk to Louis or Agent Fitzgerald before we agree to speak with Mr. Ellerbach,” I say.
“Maybe,” she echoes me. “But maybe we should just do it. I mean, Agent Fitzgerald said to use the media. That they could be helpful. We could get Petra’s name out there.”
“And Calli’s name, too,” I remind her.
A shadow passes over Fielda’s face. “Of course Calli, too. I still think that Griff Clark has something to do with this. It’s just too convenient that he happens to be home from Alaska, and then goes on a fishing trip just when the two girls disappear. It doesn’t add up.”
“I don’t think we should do anything that the police don’t approve of, Fielda. What if we go against their wishes and something bad happens because of it?” But I can see that her lips are set in a determined line. Her mind is made up.
“Martin, what if we don’t give an interview and someone who knows something could have seen it and could have seen Petra’s picture? What if that person didn’t know to come forward? I really don’t care if it’s handy for the police to have us give an interview or not. They haven’t brought our daughter home, and this is one way that I can help.”
“If you feel so strongly, I think that you should give an interview,” I tell her as I drape my arm around her shoulder. My shirt is wet with sweat, but she does not step away. She comes closer to me and kisses my cheek.
“I do feel strongly about this, Martin.” She pauses before continuing. “You aren’t going to do the interview, are you?”
I shake my head. “I’m going to go look for Petra and Calli. This is taking too long. I’m going into the woods. I’ll call Deputy Louis and Antonia and invite them to search with me.”
I am not the most intuitive of men, as I have clearly shown through my many years on this planet. However, I do know numbers; I do know that the probability that someone known to us has abducted Petra and Calli is much higher than the possibility that a stranger has done this. I also know that Griff Clark can be a scary man. I have seen Mr. Clark many times in passing and he has always been pleasant and courteous. But I had a glimpse, albeit brief, of another side, a brilliantly poignant view of Mr. Clark one evening. It was parent-teacher conference night at the elementary school last March. The meetings were behind schedule, but I didn’t mind. It gave me the opportunity to walk around the halls of the school, to look at the children’s artwork taped to the walls, to view how other parents interacted with their children. It was a comforting scene to watch. I was not so unlike the other parents. Older, yes. I knew I looked more like Petra’s grandfather than her father, but I could see many kinds of families in those hallways. Single mothers holding their children’s hands as they received a grand tour around the building, and fathers being shepherded from classroom to classroom by beaming kindergarteners.
Petra was explaining to Fielda and me how their first-grade classroom conducted experiments on how far those little plastic sports cars, Hot Wheels, I think they are called, could travel, when we came across the Clark family huddled in a small, out-of-the-way corner of the school building. Griff Clark’s face was purple with rage as he berated Calli and Antonia.
“Do you know how goddamn embarrassing it is for me to come to these things and hear how Calli don’t talk yet?” he hissed. Calli had her head down, staring at her feet, while Antonia was trying, unsuccessfully, to hush Griff.
“Don’t shush me, Toni,” he growled, his voice not raised above a gruff whisper, but menacing still the same. He grabbed Calli under the armpit. “Look at me, Calli.” Calli looked at her father. “Are you retarded? You can talk, I know you can. You gotta stop this goddamn game and start talking.
“And you—” he turned on Antonia “—you let her get away with it. Pussyfooting around it. ‘Oh, we can’t push her, we can’t force her to talk,’” he said in a mock falsetto voice. “Bullshit!”
At that moment Calli’s eyes fell on Petra’s and I saw such a completely resigned, helpless look on Calli’s face. No embarrassment, no anger, nothing but pure acceptance. Petra gave Calli a meager, half-hearted smile and wiggled her fingers at her, then pulled me away from the sad scene.
Later, at the Mourning Glory, Lucky Thompson brought over sundaes piled high with toppings. He ruffled Petra’s hair and asked what we were celebrating.
“We are celebrating my genius daughter’s glowing conference,” I told him, and Petra blushed with pleasure.
“Why don’t you join us, Lucky?” Fielda invited.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lucky said, looking over his shoulder. “I’ve got a lot to do.”
“Please,” Petra begged. “I’ll share my sundae with you. You made it way too big!”
“Okay, then,” Lucky said, sliding into the booth next to Petra. “How can I resist that invitation?”
I asked Petra, “Do you think it is always like that for Calli?”
Petra knew exactly to what I was referring. “When her dad is there, I think so. When he’s gone, it’s okay. Her mom is real nice,” Petra said around a spoonful of turtle sundae.
“I do not want you going over to the Clark house when her father is there. Do you understand, Petra?” I said sternly.
She nodded her head. “I know. But sometimes I feel like Calli needs me even more when her dad is home, you know? It seems too bad that I have to stay away from her then. That’s when she’s the saddest, when he’s home.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Are you talking about Griff Clark?” Lucky asked.
Fielda nodded. “Do you know him?”
“No, not really. I’ve just seen him around, you know. When I’ve gone out with the guys. He’s a pretty rough character,” Lucky said.
“Do you think that her dad hurts her? You know, hits her when he gets mad?” Fielda asked with concern. I prayed that Petra would say no, that she did not think that Griff hit Calli and Ben or Antonia for that matter. I had visions of having to call the Department of Human Services and inform them of abuse, not an enviable position to be in.
She shrugged her shoulders again. “I don’t know. She doesn’t talk, you know. She just seems sadder when
