On a cold winter's night
THE STREETS IN THE DOWNTOWN HISTORIC district were dark as I drove past the fountain in the square. In Lickin Creek, even the fast-food restaurants closed early. As my truck rattled over the brick-paved streets, I mentally rehearsed some questions I could ask the Poffenbergers about their missing child. Questions that I hoped would satisfy readers of the Chronicle, but wouldn't add to the family's anguish.
I was near the Chronicle building, and a light shining from the front window caught my attention. The paper couldn't afford a large electric bill; I'd have to stop and “out the lights,” as a true Lickin Creek native would say. This wasn't a delaying tactic, I assured myself, but simply a necessary detour.
Somehow, I maneuvered the truck down the dark alley without adding any more scrapes to either the truck or the buildings on either side and pulled into the slot marked EDITOR. That was a new enough experience to still give me a thrill.
I paused for a second in the doorway of the narrow brick building to admire the shiny brass sign that said 1846. Polishing off a century of tarnish had been my first official duty as editor. As I reached for the door handle, I noticed something on the sill. Apparently, our janitorial service had forgotten a broom. I carried it inside.
Cassie Kriner, the paper's only other full-time employee, was at her desk, nearly hidden behind stacks of yellowed paper and piles of bound newspapers. She glanced up over the top of her half-moon reading glasses, noticed the broom, and said, “Coming in to redd up the place?”
“Found it on the stoop. Cleaning people must have dropped it.” I stood the broom in the corner.
Sinking into the red imitation-leather sofa with chrome arms, a relic from the thirties, I said, “I saw the light in the window and thought I'd forgotten to turn it off.”
“I came in as soon as I heard about the missing boy on my scanner,” Cassie said. She jumped to her feet and nearly stumbled over a large box on the floor next to her desk. “How about a cup of coffee?”
I nodded. “Thanks. What's in the box?”
Cassie's cheeks flushed, and it seemed to me she avoided my eyes as she filled two mugs from the freshly-made pot of coffee. “Something I ordered from the Home Shopping Network.” She fixed mine the way I like it-with a lot of artificial cream and sweetener-and brought it to me.
“Better move it out of the way,” I suggested as I accepted the steaming mug. “Last thing we need is someone tripping over it and suing us.”
“I will.” She changed the subject abruptly. “I've found some information about the Poffenbergers in our morgue. Thought you might need it for your article.”
Although she spoke calmly, I could tell by the way she'd dressed how upset she was. Instead of one of her usual elegant cashmere suits with matching shoes and handbag, Cassie had thrown on paint-splattered slacks and a Lickin Creek centennial sweatshirt, and her silver- gray hair was drawn into a ponytail rather than the usual Grace Kelly-like French twist. She wore no makeup-a sure sign of distress. Despite all this, Cassie still looked like a million bucks, which actually was a lot less than what her late husband had left her.
“Bless you. What've you got?”
“There's a lot of Iron Ore Road Poffenbergers on the police blotter. It's a large family-and apparently they're all related. Nothing unusual: in the past year a few were picked up for DWI, one for making terrorist threats at the Crossroads Tavern, two for issuing bad checks, and one for discharging firearms within borough limits… and-oh my!” She began to laugh. “Did I really say nothing unusual? Here's one who was charged with…” She blushed. “It had to do with a goose. Shall I go on?”
“I get the idea. Charming family.”
“Salt of the earth.”
“Thanks, Cassie. I don't know what I'd do without you.” I meant it, too. Once, when I'd goofed up the front page half an hour before it was due at the printers, I'd half-seriously threatened to throw myself off the Main Street Bridge. Cassie had made me laugh by reminding me that the creek under the bridge was only eighteen inches deep. Then, together, we'd repaired the damage.
Almost daily, she single-handedly saved the Chronicle from disaster. P.J., the editor, once told me Cassie had come to work for the paper shortly after her husband had suffocated in a silo. I guess she wanted something worthwhile to do, since she surely didn't need the meager salary we paid her. With me at the editorial helm, her forty-hour work week had expanded to nearly eighty. She worked day and night without protest, except for one night a week, which was saved for her club meetings.
I gulped down the last of my coffee. “I'm off,” I announced. “God, I hope by the time I get out to the Pof-fenbergers’ house the little boy will have come home.”
“Better to hope the temperature doesn't drop.”
The borough of Lickin Creek sits in a basin, surrounded by mountains of the Appalachian chain. The surrounding dark, hulking hills have been silent witnesses to the valley's history: the bloody turf battles between the Delawares and Iroquois; the arrival of the early settlers, who carved their farms out of the wilderness; the tragic battles with the Indians; the French and Indian War; the Revolutionary War; and the event that seemed freshest in the minds of most residents-the Civil War.
In the daylight, covered with a soft lavender haze, the mountains were a landscape artist's dream. But at night, they looked menacing to me, especially when I had to drive into them. I could imagine how they might seem to five-year-old Kevin Poffenberger tonight.
Stinking Spring was high in the mountain range to the south of town. Garnet's truck seemed to grow wider by the minute as I slowly inched it up the very narrow mountain road, which had been wrenched from the dense forest. I drove slowly, not only because I was nervous about the icy road and the steep drop-off-which I was-but because I was part of a long procession of cars, sport-utility vehicles, fire engines, ambulances, and trucks winding its way toward the place where Kevin Poffenberger had last been seen. It seemed as if everyone in Lickin Creek was headed up the mountain tonight.
Despite the lack of a sign at the crossroads, I knew I was in the right place. Vehicles, more abandoned than parked, littered the fields on either side of the road. A sign over the weathered wooden building on the northeast corner announced that CORNY'S IS YOUR FRIENDLY FEED STORE. I was glad of that-who'd want to shop in an unfriendly feed store?
A traffic director, somewhere on the leeward side of eighty, wearing a fluorescent orange vest, directed me with his flashlight beam to a parking place. The trucks, mine included, made a circle around a field, and in the center, like besieged travelers of a wagon train, were the support units for the rescue teams.
In the light from a dozen campfires, volunteers were erecting tents where searchers could rest between shifts. Long tables bowed under the weight of the huge urns of coffee and trays of doughnuts, cookies, and sandwiches. Several steel watering troughs, with the name Corny's Feed Store on the sides, held ice and canned sodas.
Hundreds of people milled about, shouting orders, calling out names, asking for directions. They all were so bundled up in heavy clothing as to be unrecognizable. It warmed my heart to see the community's overwhelming response to an emergency.
I stopped a navy-blue parka and asked if it had seen Luscious. The silver-fox fur on the hood bounced vigorously as it nodded and pointed toward the largest of the tents on the edge of the encampment.
“Hey, Luscious,” I said as I lifted the canvas flap and peeked inside. “Any news?”
The acting police chief looked up from where he sat at a folding card table on which were three cellular phones, piles of yellow legal pads, a stack of topographical maps, and a flickering kerosene lamp. His pale face was drawn, his eyes red. “Hi, Tori. I'm glad you're here. Come in and sit down.”
I sat across from him on a metal chair, the coldness of which seeped through the double layers of my wool slacks and thermal underwear.
“I've tried to think of everything, but I'm scared to death I forgot something.” His usually bland face was creased with worry. “Look this over and tell me what you think.”
He handed me a yellow lined pad on which he had printed a checklist in childlike block letters. He gnawed on the eraser of his pencil while I read through it.
Garnet had not only been Luscious's boss, but also his father figure. The young policeman had depended on him for guidance, professionally and in his personal affairs. When Garnet had left Luscious in charge of the public safety of Lickin Creek, he'd shown, in my opinion, a surprisingly large amount of faith and an equal amount of poor judgment. Gradually, over the past month, Luscious had taken to dropping in at my office several times a day with questions on police procedure. It took me a little while before I realized Luscious had chosen me as his mentor by virtue of my relationship with Garnet.
“Looks fine to me, Luscious,” I assured him. “Garnet couldn't have done better.” I wondered how much of the plan had been suggested by Marvin Bumbaugh, the council president, but that wasn't of any real importance. What was important was that the search had been well organized.
His sallow face reddened at my praise. “There's more than five hundred people out there hunting him right now. And more coming from Adams and Fulton counties.”
“You might want to lay off the brandy till he's found,” I suggested. The faint odor of alcohol told me that his facial redness wasn't entirely from embarrassment.
His color heightened.
“Perhaps I'm overly sensitive, Luscious, but I grew up with that smell. Are the boy's parents here? I need to interview them for the paper.”
“The mother wanted to help with the search, but I told her it's better she stay home, in case he comes back on his own. They're on up the mountain 'bout half a mile on the Iron Ore Road. Just past the junkyard. You can't miss it.”
I thanked him, then an idea suddenly came to me. “Have you questioned the cousins yet? The ones who were with the boy when he got lost?”
“ 'Course I did, Tori. See this map of the mountain? The X is where they seen him last. That's the center of our search-we'll spread out from there.”
Apparently, Luscious didn't really need my help, only my assurance, so I left him studying his maps. Outside the tent, I paused for a moment to get my bearings and take in the surreal scene before me. In the flickering light from the bonfires, the volunteers appeared almost inhuman-strange, unidentifiable creatures from another world.
Suddenly, Ginnie Welburn's familiar voice called my name. The outerspace creatures were, once again, ordinary people.
I walked to a table piled high with doughnuts, where she and Oretta Clopper stamped their feet and blew on their fingertips in a futile attempt to stay warm.
“I saw you coming out of Luscious's tent. Any word?” Ginnie asked hopefully.
“Not yet, but Luscious is doing a fine job.”
“I suppose there's a first time for everything,” Oretta sniffed.
“Give him a chance,” Ginnie said. “Doughnut?”
I absentmindedly accepted one.
“I guess we have to put up with him, now that Garnet's gone.” Oretta stared pointedly at me, as though it were my fault he'd left. Great! Now the town had something besides last summer's burning down of the historical society to blame on me. One would think accidents didn't happen to anyone but me. I took a bite of the doughnut and ended up with white splotches of powdered sugar all over the front of my jacket.
“We could use another pair of hands. Especially unfrozen ones,” Ginnie said with a smile.
“I'm sorry, but I have to talk to the boy's parents.”
“Better talk to his cousins, too,” Oretta said. “I'll bet they know more than they're saying.”
Exactly what I'd been thinking, but I wondered why she thought so. “Why do you say that?” I asked. I stuffed the rest of the doughnut into my mouth and ineffectually tried to brush the sugar off my bosom.
“I don't trust children. Mark my words, there's more to this than meets the eye.” Oretta's chins bounced with indignation.
“You seem to know a lot about children. How many do you have?” I asked.
“Matavious and I were not blessed with a family,” Oretta said. “But as a playwright, I am somewhat of an expert on human behavior.”
“You don't really believe that those kids would have deliberately hurt their cousin, do you?” Beside me, Gin-nie's usually cheerful face registered horror.
“Things like that have been known to happen,” Oretta said. “In fact, I recently finished a play on that theme-it's much better than The Bad Seed. Maybe you'uns would like to read it.”
“I would,” Ginnie said. “How about you, Tori?”
I'd heard a sample of Oretta's playwriting skills earlier that evening, so I fibbed, “Love to. Soon as I find the time.”
“I'll print out a copy and bring it by your house,” Oretta said to Ginnie.
The two women were talking as I left to continue my ride up the side of the mountain, only now I traveled alone on the narrow road. The moon in the cloudless sky was only a few days short of being full, and it brightly lit the twisted way before me.
As I completed a corkscrew turn, I nearly drove into an acre of heaped bedsprings, old recliners, and cracked toilet bowls… the junkyard Luscious had mentioned. A little past this charming landmark stood a crooked sign, punctured with bullet holes, telling me the unpaved, deeply-rutted drive to my left was the entrance to the Iron Ore Mansions Trailer Park.
Inside were rows of trailers, with only inches of space between them. Many of them looked as if they had been salvaged from the neighboring junk heap. Light streamed from every window, and although I saw no one, I heard children's voices.
As I turned in, the undercarriage of Garnet's truck scraped on something, and the screech made my teeth tingle. Almost at once, the door of the nearest trailer flew open. The man who stepped out onto the porch wore only jeans-no shirt or shoes-and his shotgun was pointed right at me. I mouthed the prayer I'd often said as a child, “Dear God, if you get me out of this mess, I'll be a good girl… and I mean it this time… a really good girl.”
First, I glanced at the lock buttons on the door to make sure they were all depressed, then I rolled the window down about an inch. “I'm a reporter from the Chronicle,” I yelled, “looking for the Poffenbergers.”
He lowered the gun. Thanks for listening, God. “The ones what got a lost kid? Fifth house on the right. Can't miss it-it's the one with the tires.”
I didn't have long to wonder what he meant about the tires. They were stacked, six high, all around the trailer, making an odd-looking but effective fence. In the small yard there was a lone tree with a truck-tire swing dangling on a rope from a bare branch. Car tires, standing upright, bordered both sides of a cement walk. Others, lying on the brown grass, were filled with dirt and held withered plants.
Reluctantly, I left the safety of my truck and entered the yard. The stench of rubber turned my stomach, and I wondered how anybody could live with it. For that matter, how could anybody live in a place as depressing as the inappropriately-named Iron Ore Mansions? Next to this place, my apartment building in Hell's Kitchen looked like Club Med.
The woman who opened the door in response to my knock was small and shriveled, with a swollen red nose and bloodshot eyes. I explained I was a reporter and needed to ask a few questions about Kevin.
“Come in,” she said, and I saw she was missing several teeth. She clutched at the front of her overly large gray-green sweater with one hand and held a wad of pink Kleenex in the other.
“Karl,” she called over her shoulder. “It's a reporter. You want a beer?”
It took me a second to realize she was offering a drink to me and not her husband. “No, thanks. I won't take much of your time. I know how upset you must be.” I sat on the orange-and-brown plaid sofa, which smelled almost as bad as the front yard but in a different way, and groped in my bag for my notebook.
A man who I assumed was Karl swaggered into the living room carrying an odoriferous infant wrapped in a spotted yellow blanket. “Kara's dirty,” he said, handing the child to her mother.
“Sorry. Be right back.” She scuttled sideways out of the room.
“Beer?” He picked up a bottle from the coffee table, drained it, and carried the empty bottle into the kitchen area. He brought back two and put one in front of me. His fingernails couldn't have gotten that black in one lifetime… no way would I touch that beer.
The front door burst open, and the room was suddenly full of children, some barely toddling, all with silvery-blond hair. “My kids: Kirsten, Kathy, Ken, Kim, Karol, Klark, Klaire. All with a K-makes 'em easy to remember. Them other two is my brother's brats. You'uns sit down and shut up,” he shouted-at them, not me. “This cute little gal's from the TV, and she's gonna put us on the news.”
I stopped writing down the names of all the little Pof-fenbergers “with a K” and explained to them I had nothing to do with TV. Their small round faces showed obvious disappointment. There would be no TV stars discovered in the Poffenberger mansion tonight.
After Mrs. Poffenberger came back without the baby, I asked my questions-beginning with the usual human-interest ones about the boy: age? did he go to kindergarten? what games did he like to play? As I wrote down the answers given to me by the child's mother, I realized how little the average child of five has to show for his years on earth; it is the loss of everything that is still to come that makes the death of a child so tragic.
I had to keep raising my voice because the little Ks and their cousins were arguing over a TV show. Karl Poffenberger, nearly prone in a blue velour recliner, had downed his beer, my beer, and another fetched by his wife, and was taking offense to just about everything she said to me.
“Has he wandered off like this before?” I asked the mother, thinking it was time to be on my way.
“Never,” began Mrs. Poffenberger.
Mr. Poffenberger belched softly. “That's enough yak-king, woman,” he said to his wife. “You ain't yet said what you're paying.” This was directed to me.
“Mr. Poffenberger, newspaper reporters don't pay for interviews.”
“Then get the hell outta here. You'uns got some nerve barging in when we'uns is all upset about Ken's being lost.” His eyes drooped shut, and a soft snore erupted from his nose.
“Sorry,” Mrs. Poffenberger whispered to me at the door. “He's real upset.”
“I can tell. So upset, he forgot his son's name is Kevin.”
“He's waiting for someone to call back 'bout a made-for-TV movie. You know, like the one they did about that little girl in Texas what fell in the well. We sure could use the money.”
“I understand.”
“I can't watch the little ones all the time, not with nine of 'em underfoot, you know.”
I nodded. I felt real pity for the woman. Neither she nor those nine kids had much of a life, nor much chance of it getting any better.
“It's time to get to bed,” she said to the waist-high towheads crowded around us. “Pearl and Peter, you'uns go home now. Good night, miss.” She closed the door, leaving me on the stoop with the two children, who followed me to my car.
“Were you guys with Kevin when he got lost?” I asked them.
They shuffled their feet in the dirt, shared sideways glances, and poked each other with their shabby elbows.
“Can't either of you speak?”
The girl stepped forward. From her height, I assumed she was the oldest. “I guess so,” she said.
“You guess? Don't you know? What's your name? How old are you?”
“Pearl Poffenberger.” Her green eyes glinted with something I hadn't seen much of at the Poffenberger home this evening-a hint of intelligence. “I'm near twelve.”
“I know you weren't alone. Who else was with you?”
Reluctantly, it seemed, she said, “My brother, Peter.”
The other child stepped forward. “I'm eleven,” he said.
“Anybody else with you?”
The shiny heads shook their denial.
“Aren't you two a little old to be playing with a five-year-old?”
“He always tags along,” Peter said.
“What happened up there?”
Pearl, who seemed to be the leader, answered. “Kevin got tired of playing. Said he wanted to go home.”
“We wasn't ready,” Peter said. “He was blubbering, so we told him to go home by hisself.”
“We didn't know he was lost till we got home 'bout an hour later,” Pearl put in.
I had to express my incredulity. “You mean, you just let a five-year-old boy go off by himself in the woods?”
“Sure, why not? He done it all the time. Didn't he, Pearl?”
She nodded vigorously. “All the time.”
“If you guys think of anything you haven't told the police, call me at the paper. You won't get into any trouble.” I handed Pearl a Chronicle business card with my name handwritten on the back. Peter extended his hand, and I gave him one, too.
I decided to get creative. “There's a reward,” I told them. Maybe that'd get one of them talking.
For a brief moment, it seemed that Peter wanted to tell me something. But then he turned to Pearl, and his eyes seemed to search her face. She placed her hand on his upper arm and squeezed until he grimaced. Whatever he'd been about to say, he thought better of it.
“Okay,” Pearl said. “But I can tell you right now, there ain't nothing we didn't already tell the cops.”
They were keeping something back, I was sure of it. I've interviewed enough people in my life to know when someone is lying or telling a half-truth.
“Kevin's lost out there,” I said. “He's very small, and he's cold and frightened. Do me a favor. When you get into your warm beds tonight, think about that.”
Their sullen faces showed no emotion. I left them and drove back to Lickin Creek as rapidly as the slippery road allowed. All I wanted to do was get into a hot shower and steam away my distasteful encounter with the Poffenbergers.