Following Christopher Creed (16 page)

"I know your son's music well, but actually I'm writing a feature on Chris Creed's disappearance. It's you we'd really like to talk to."

She was an attorney. She could handle it, I wagered, motionless with my polite smile as she checked her watch. She didn't look thrilled.

"I only have a few minutes. I have to go to Philadelphia," she said.

Airport? Picking somebody up?
I let it go. "That's all we want for the time being."

She moved aside. "Come in. For a few minutes."

She sat at the edge of a couch in the living room. Very reserved, this woman, but there was a niceness about her voice. I could not read her energy to save me, except that it didn't want to be read. The inside of the house was stunning, a combination of expensive antiques and modern stuff. The most modern thing was a huge picture on the wall of Adams rifting out some run on a double-necked guitar at some huge concert. A spotlight covered him, but in the background were heads of thousands of people. From up close, I could see traces of a sizable balcony in the background lights. Must have been a good-size concert hall.

"He still has that ponytail," I couldn't help mentioning. It wasn't long and straggly. Adams had really straight, thick blond hair, and the ponytail was only about six inches long, but he'd had it since he left Steepleton.

"Yes," Mrs. Adams said with a tight smile. She already said she wouldn't talk about her son.

"You're an icon of Steepleton," I said, pulling out my recorder and finding a seat across from her. RayAnn sat beside me.

I heard a warm, appreciative chuckle. "I suppose that depends on whom you speak to. I don't have much involvement with the town. Don't have time."

I sensed it was a pat answer, one she'd designed for writers who came before me. This might not be easy.

"But you've lived here your whole life. You were here when Digger Hanes disappeared, your generation's Christopher Creed."

"Yes, I was." The silence was long, but I could sense that she wasn't looking to stonewall us. She wanted to help, if we could provide the right questions.

"Your son found the body of Digger's father, Bob Hanes," I started. "For a few weeks, Torey said on his website, he thought it was the body of Chris Creed."

"I don't know how long it was, but yes, he thought that."

"Did you ever think it was Chris's body?"

"No," she said. "The decomposition in that case raised a lot of questions, but I was pretty certain the corpse had been there quite some time. And there were other things."

"Such as?"

Her answer pleased me. "Well ... my intuition? I have to work with intuition a lot as a trial attorney, and as a defense attorney for juveniles. Kids and teenagers are not always articulate, so you have to watch faces, watch words, watch actions. I simply had never pegged Chris as the angry type, the violent type. He could get depressed, I'm sure, as he was picked on since I could remember. But it takes a certain degree of fear or violence—my humble opinion—to take a life, even one's own."

"Do you think Steepleton has changed since all of this came down?" I asked.

She studied her fingers laid on top of her knees, and finally laughed uneasily. "Well, we're hearing a lot more spooky stories about these woods. And finding another body obviously won't help that. I'm a little concerned for the kids, truthfully. Imagination is great. But if they fixate on all these dark tales, it can make them morbid. I think ... these 182 woods allow people to see what they
want
to see, what they
need
to see."

I smiled, thinking of my chance meeting last night with the ghost chaser et al. "Right now, some of them want to see a certain ghost."

"Yes, they do." She laughed, even mentioned Kobe Lydee by name, but with affection, not disdain. "If that poor boy doesn't see the ghost of Chris soon, he'll have to succumb like the rest of the student body and actually start studying, preparing for a career. That would be a good thing!"

The woman exuded peace—with herself, her neighbors, these woods.

"Do you think he's alive somewhere?"

"I do," she said, "which sounds pretty naive for an attorney. For this one, I've always relied on my son's intuition, his instincts. They're pretty good. I support him."

That was obvious. I was at a loss for words, jealous as I was for Torey Adams's good luck. I reminded myself quickly that we create our own luck, but any real questions were in the black hole. I settled on "Do you think Chris will ever show up here?"

It provided fodder for some great lines.

"I would imagine so. Sylvia takes care of her father over in Conovertown. At some point, someone will need to take care of her, and I would imagine all three boys will kick in. I don't see Chris's disappearance as the scandal that other people see it as. I think of it as a reckoning—a healing—and I really think Sylvia will come to terms with it, though she's in a rough passage right now."

She didn't elaborate on that, and we didn't confirm what we'd just encountered. She simply went on, "I think, someday, we'll simply realize that she's been talking to him by phone, and if and when he shows up, it won't be with any big shebang. No parade. People will have forgotten; people won't recognize him..." She laughed. "He'll probably do like we all do—develop some wrinkles, put on a few pounds, lose some hair, gain some vocal cords. Torey used to have one adorable imitation of him, if it's okay to say this ... of when Chris was picked on and would start whining. His voice was just changing. He would go, 'I DID-n't DO anY-thing. It's no-O-t my fau-AU-lt.'"

I could use that quote. It was the human side of myth. She'd described your average kid, a late bloomer in ways, with the rickety, changing vocal cords.

"I'd like to think that someday Torey's dad and I will just be going about our business, hopefully before a need for canes and walkers, and someone will say, 'Boy, that Chris is such a great help to his silver-haired mother.' And that's how we'll know he's been back awhile."

She sure was levelheaded. I could see even more of how she'd have been such a stronghold to Torey in his childhood. Nothing could get too out of hand in a home like this.

"Was it hard to send your son away? I take it you wanted to protect Torey from some of the gossip flying around town..."

"...that he was involved in Chris's death." She nodded easily, as if she'd become used to saying it either to press or to close friends. "We didn't send Torey away to ... to avoid Steepleton, as much as to put him on the track he's on. He just needed more scenery, more variations of people, more input to fulfill his dreams. He had a horizon view of the world, as he puts it, and he needed a bird's-eye view. That's all."

She was a nice person, and given a couple hours, I could probably walk away with enough counter-fodder to write a
nice
book on Steepleton. She definitely hadn't fallen prey to bad frequency.

"All I can say about that is that Torey is not the type to find a dead body. He's ... all poet, all insight, all sensitivity. I didn't think he could heal around here, but more than the people, it's the woods." She jerked her head with a polite smile toward another room. When I found it, I could see a kitchen table, the place she probably told Torey and Ali about Digger Hanes disappearing and the possibility of Bob Hanes being dead out in the woods.

"The woods are dark out those windows at night," I guessed.

"Yes."

"And the Indian burial ground, where he found the body, is a stone's throw from back here."

"Yes."

"And ... he inherited from somebody feelings of being watched in the dark ... in the basement, but especially from out that window."

She laughed heartily. "I admit it. I do let my imagination get carried away when I'm alone in this house. Ms. Attorney, who visits jail and juvenile detention twice a week without a flinch. My imagination is nothing compared to my son's, but I was thinking I ought to pass him on to others for the time being, others who might not radiate those phobias."

"You're a little phobic of the woods," I clarified.

"A lot of people are." She nodded. "Though it's debatable whether there's anything out there except a lot of imagination run wild. Like I said, these woods allow people to see what they want to see."

I thought of Elaine and her band of acid droppers. Mrs. Adams looked at her watch and stood up. "I'm really sorry. I have to go now."

"You going to the airport?" I stood with RayAnn.

"Yes."

"Can we come back later?"

"I'm sorry," she said, politely stonewalling me. "My son doesn't do interviews, as I said. And of course, this is a sad occasion."

We hadn't talked about Darla Richardson, but she seemed to understand that I knew why Torey would come back here. "Are you involved as an attorney with this crime in some way?"

She walked us toward the door. "I got a call from Chief Rye last night, saying I might hear from the Burden family about representation for Danny. Then just before you came in ... I heard it wouldn't be necessary."

"Yeah, we just came from police headquarters," I said. "I know the scoop. Any insight into what's going on?"

"If you mean how does an alleged suicide get into a grave? Starting with the fact that I wouldn't commit to the Burden boy being a liar, I haven't any idea. That's police business. I'm sure they'll figure it out."

We shook hands, me trying to look grateful and not totally disappointed that she wouldn't let us back to talk to Torey. Well, she probably wouldn't keep him under lock and key. Maybe he'd go to the local tap for a beer or something with Bo. I'd work on getting to Torey after we went back to look for Justin one more time.

W
E STOPPED AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS
and I went in to find out if the confirmation of the body was complete yet and what the search of the shed had turned up. Officer Hughes was at his desk, eating a turkey sandwich, but Chief Rye was still out investigating, he told us.

"Are they calling it a suicide?" I asked.

"They're calling it
weird
right now," he said. "They don't
want
to call it a homicide."

That implied they'd have no choice if they couldn't figure out how the body got into the grave—the skull having two massive bullet holes in it. Calling it a homicide meant finding someone to prosecute. I hoped Mrs. Adams was right in all her optimism that they'd figure it out.

"You might want to know..." I said before clearing my throat. "Mrs. Creed was out at the Lightning Field today, acting strange and defiant."

"To you two?"

"Yes," I confirmed.

"I'm sorry."

We laughed uneasily. I knew better than to think that gave him grounds to take a run down there to clear her out. I don't know why exactly I wanted to share that, except my instincts told me to go there.

Officer Hughes laughed. "She's down there once a day, spying to see if someone will give away Justin's whereabouts. She usually only finds a few of the vo-tech kids. They only do school until twelve-thirty, then smoke cigarettes out there before going to jobs." His chuckles indicated the absurdity.

"My wife, Maggie, and I bought a house on her street two years ago." He held up a brown lunch bag, which dangled heavily, as if another sandwich was in it. "I've been brown bagging my lunch lately, because if Sylvia sees my squad car out front, she'll come over and tell me what all those kids said. I've told her five or six times now, 'Sylvia, I can't arrest them for discussing the sex lives of their class
mates or smoking cigarettes.' She's somehow convinced that if she keeps this up, she'll find Justin out there."

"She came pretty close today," I said with a shudder.

"Yeah? Is he back?" Hughes looked interested but not overly so. "Rye told us not to list him as a runaway, which means the guidance office at school knew where he was all along. You think
I've
got trouble. She's been visiting the guidance office every day, trying to get them to spill, which, technically, they don't have to do. A minor is allowed to get psychiatric care without parental permission. All they have to say is that they know where he is and they helped him get there. Why she checks the Lightning Field, I can't fathom, but her actions are regulated, like a drill sergeant's."

I could see clearly the scene from Adams's tale when they were watching her systematically taking apart her missing son's room looking for clues. She did a half hour every night, starting with one wall and proceeding around.

I wanted to head back to the Lightning Field but had misgivings. "So, um, what time does she usually leave?"

"As I'm also trying to steer clear of the woman, I don't know her every move. But..." He pulled out his cell and speed dialed, giving me a wink. "Maggie? Look out the window. See if Sylvia's car is in her garage."

He held the phone patiently for half a minute, then said, "Thanks," and hung up. "She's back home."

"And ... there's no chance she'll go back."

He watched me, chuckling at my concern and shaking his head. "One thing all the neighbors know: Sylvia does all her errands in the morning and early afternoon. She's in for the night by three o'clock. You won't see her—unless a body turns up or something highly unusual like that. Hopefully, we're done with bodies for another year or two."

He seemed so emphatic about the woman staying home that I believed him. I returned to RayAnn and Lanz, who were waiting in the car.

"She's home to stay is the good news," I told her. "Bad news is ... they may have to list Darla's death as a homicide."

RayAnn turned on the engine. "That's not bad news, because that's not part of your story."

"Right," I said. "I'm not emotionally involved. I'm not, I'm not."

Nonetheless, we hurried back to the Lighting Field. When we got there I left Lanz standing on the floor in the back, eating dog food out of his dish. No sense dragging him where he didn't want to be.

RayAnn spotted Justin on the other side of the rock formation where she had found his pills. A flat rock was backed by three higher rocks, and he was using the middle as a back rest. The whole thing, once I zeroed in on it, looked like a primeval lawn chair.