Page 19 of The Witch’s Orchard

FIFTEEN

T HERE ARE ABOUT TEN other cars when I pull into the lot of First Baptist again. I get out, go up the stairs and inside, and then follow the sound of shouting and the loud thwap of fists and shins against pads downstairs into the church basement.

The pamphlet had advertised Good Works Mission Karate, and there are maybe twenty kids here. They have a variety of belt colors and they’re all sweating with exertion, their hair plastered to their faces.

Over to the side stands a man exactly like Shiloh had described: Santa Claus in a glen plaid suit and loafers.

Only, this man doesn’t look at all as roly-poly as I’d pictured.

He’s easily a foot taller than I am, with meaty arms and a neck so thick the pale yellow oxford shirt barely contains it.

Up top, he’s got a horseshoe of snow white hair, and while his cheeks are slightly flushed, I wouldn’t call them rosy.

“Hello,” I say when I approach. I tell him who I am and he holds his hand out for a shake. His palm is smooth, strong, and warm.

“Nice to meet you,” Brother Bob says, extra friendly.

Something about the guy is familiar. Something deep down under all the outsized gregarious handshaking and smiling.

I almost get my finger on what I’m sensing when he directs me into a little alcove by an old water fountain and says, “I heard about what happened this morning. How is young Max holding up?”

“About as well as you could expect.”

He shakes his head, clasps his big paws behind his back.

Again, I’m struck by a strange sense of familiarity, and then he shifts his weight from foot to foot and the bee buzzing around in my brain finally stops and stings and I know what it is.

Military. The guy’s a vet. I don’t know how I know.

I just know. Like I know a Charger from a Shelby Cobra by the sound of the engine, I know this guy served.

“And you’re… still on the case?” Brother Bob asks.

“Yes,” I say.

He opens his mouth to say something, then stops and shuts it, sighs through his nose.

“I wanted to ask you about that time. I understand the Andrews family attended services here.”

“That’s right. Janice Andrews was raised in this church.”

“You knew her that long?”

“I came along in ’81. She was a child at the time. Her family were dedicated parishioners.”

“And her husband?”

He gives a noncommittal shrug and we both watch the proceedings in the basement for a minute. A gangly man with a big smile and a threadbare gi instructs the kids, showing them the movements for a new kata. The kids follow along, stepping when he steps and arranging their arms like his.

“Greg was a biology teacher,” Bob says, still watching the class.

“Does that preclude a person from spiritual belief?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “Not at all.”

And that’s the end of that.

We watch as the karate teacher swipes his hand and forearm through the air like a sword. The kids follow.

“How well do you know Mandy and Tommy Hoyle?”

“Not well at all. I’ve seen them around, that’s about it. I believe Mrs. Hoyle has used our food bank before, perhaps the Christmas present fund.”

“And Kathleen Jacobs and her husband, Olivia’s family?”

He sighs through his nose again. Longer this time. He’s still looking in the direction of the karate kids, but that’s not where his brain is. His eyes take on a defensive sadness.

“Yes,” he says. “Kathleen and Arnie both attended until a few years ago.”

There’s a long pause while he chews on the inside of his cheek. I wait it out.

Eventually he says, “Olivia’s uncle is the sheriff, you know.”

“I do.”

“We tried to help Olivia.”

“How so?”

“We laid on hands. The whole church, when she was little. Her parents brought her in and asked us to pray for her and so we did. We sent up our prayers to the Lord but…”

“No change,” I say.

He shakes his head.

“Were you expecting one?”

His eyes swivel down to me now, and they go narrow like he’s trying to read a map but the print’s too small. Eventually he gives up, looks away again. Doesn’t bother answering my question.

“Jessica Hoyle was taken from this church,” I say, hoping to catch him off guard.

“From the playground by the parking lot,” he corrects, without missing a beat. “She’s still in our prayers.”

“Do you recall who was here that day?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “It was a long time ago.”

“A decade,” I say. “She’s been gone ten years.”

We say nothing for a moment. The gangly guy tells the kids to pair up and assists them when necessary. I watch as a little girl and her big brother face off.

“You know,” Brother Bob says, almost absently.

Again, he’s looking toward the kids but not looking at them.

“After a while, I really hoped they would just find, I don’t know, something.

Some little old bones? Give the families and this whole town some place to lay their grief, something to bury, something to pray over and send to heaven. ”

His jaw trembles a little and he shuts his mouth. I look away and watch as the big brother jabs and the little girl dips, plants her front foot, and whips a kick up to the brother’s side. He laughs and so does she.

Brother Bob continues, “But… finding Molly like this.”

“She was alive,” I say. “All this time.”

He nods his head, curt and quick. His eyes are watery, but I can’t tell if it’s emotion or just high blood pressure.

“Do you remember anything about that summer?” I ask. “Anything stand out to you at all?”

“It was a hot summer,” he says. “Hotter than usual, I recall. We had a lot of our usual activities outside because we didn’t have air-conditioning yet and it was just too hot indoors. And… that’s the year the plant closed, wasn’t it?”

He’s not really asking me. He’s talking to himself and he answers himself, “Yes. Because that’s the year Harvey Drake died.”

“Did you know Mister Drake well?”

“He was a Gideon. He came to the group meetings. He sang in the choir. He took me down to Junaluska a few times for golf.”

“How did he die?” I ask, thinking of that beautiful house and the small, southern, stylish woman who still inhabits it.

“Massive stroke,” Brother Bob says. “It was awful. He lingered for days.”

“Must’ve been tough for Mrs. Drake.”

“Rebecca’d know more than I would,” he says, pointing to his slender wife across the basement. She’s wearing yet another hand-tailored skirt suit and her white hair looks—curl for curl—exactly as it did the day before. She’s talking to one of the parents, both casually watching the kids.

“I counseled him,” he says. “In his final days and hours. He struggled. He was not ready to meet his Lord and Savior.”

“Are any of us?” I ask.

He shrugs. At the front of the room, the gangly man claps his hands twice and the children form themselves into two lines before him.

He bows to them. They bow more deeply back.

Then the class breaks up and the kids start scurrying around the room like beetles.

One of the parents begins making his way toward us, and I dig a card out of my bag and put it into Brother Bob’s hand.

“If you think of anything,” I say. “Anything at all. Call me.”

He smiles benevolently at me and slips the card into an interior pocket before moving away to shake hands with one of his flock.

I make my way around the edge of the basement and walk up the stairs, where I find Rebecca Ziegler again. She’s opening the heavy front doors, pulling down the stopper with the toe of a tan pump.

“Did you happen to get that list for me?” I ask.

Her mouth purses a little to the side as if what she’d like to do is tell me it’s none of my business, but instead she nods her head and says, “Yes. Right this way.”

I follow her into a small office with an outdated computer and neat stacks of paper in labeled drawers. Several different Bibles line the shelves. They all look basically the same to me, somber and thick. But I suspect Rebecca could tell me the subtle differences.

She opens a drawer and plucks out a sheet full of names.

“Again,” she says. “I’m really not sure about most of those. Several women here that day were on that committee going back ten or twenty years, but we no longer have the meeting minutes.”

“Shame,” I say.

“Indeed. We simply don’t have the space.”

She passes the paper to me.

“Thank you,” I say, and fold the paper in half, slip it into my bag. “I appreciate it. Can you tell me what you remember about the day Jessica was taken?”

After a short hesitation she says, “It’s not much.

It seemed like a regular day. It’s not until so much later that you realize…

any small thing could’ve been something.

I know I unlocked the church that morning.

Elva Stringer came right after me. I remember because she offered to make coffee for the meeting.

Others were coming in and talking and we were all setting up for the meeting and then Mandy Hoyle burst in, screaming, saying that her little girl was gone. ”

“What happened next?”

“Well, someone offered to call the sheriff’s office. I don’t remember who. And one of the other ladies volunteered to help her look. Soon, we were all searching. When the sheriff came, we looked through all the cars. We all thought she’d just wandered off.”

“Even with the doll?”

She shakes her head.

“The doll wasn’t found until later,” she says. “Sitting at the bottom of the slide. No one thought much of it. We’d all seen applehead dolls before. We figured another child held left it behind the day before. It wasn’t until Olivia Jacobs that…”

She looks down at the desk for a moment and then says, “I hope that you find her. The Hoyle girl. It breaks my heart what happened to Molly. The whole family… It breaks my heart. Bob and I have prayed for them ever since.”

It’s a small statement. But a big one for her. Where her husband is seemingly affable and open, Rebecca is tightly wound, drawn, inward-looking. And yet there is something, if not honest, then at least earnest about this small, clear-eyed woman.