Kevin O'Brien - One Last Scream

“George, do me a favor. Find out as much as you can from Annabelle’s teacher about this fire, and how they identified the bodies. Find out if there’s any chance Annabelle could still be alive.”

George figured he must have looked suspect, a 38-year-old man sitting all alone on the bleachers. His hands in the pockets of his sports jacket, he tried not to stare at the high school cheerleaders on the field. They worked on their routines while a boom box blasted music with an incessant drumbeat. George had noticed a few of the girls looking at him, whispering among themselves, and giggling. He’d also gotten a few strange glances from the guys on the football team as they’d hurtled past him, running their laps around the track.

He didn’t feel vindicated until Caroline Cadwell backed away from the cheerleading squad and sat beside him on the bleachers. “Who’s the hunk, Ms. C?” one of the girls called. “Your boyfriend?” Another cheerleader let out a wolf whistle.

“Okay, girls, you want to impress this guy?” she shot back. “Let’s see a routine in sync for a change! Rachel Porter, you can kick higher than that!”

Caroline Cadwell was a skinny, forty-something woman with short tawny hair and big hazel eyes. Though pretty, she also had a certain gangly quality that reminded George of an ostrich.

When he’d approached Caroline after her last class had let out at 3:00, George had explained he was a relative of Joy Savitt Schlessinger. He’d used the same family tree thesis cover story he’d given Erin Gottlieb’s mother. Caroline had seemed a bit dubious at first, but said she could talk with him later while she monitored cheerleading practice. After waiting on the bleachers for the last twenty minutes, George hoped this Schlessinger family friend would open up to him.

“So, George, you’re studying your genealogy,” Caroline said, smoothing back her hair from the wind. The pulsating music from the boom box droned on, and the girls went through their routine, but Caroline seemed oblivious to it all. “Tell me, how are you related to Joy? Are you a long-lost cousin, or what?”

The way she looked him in the eye and smiled, Caroline had the teacher stare down pat. Despite all his years in front of a class, George hadn’t quite perfected that Don’t-Give-Me-Any-Nonsense look.

“I’m not doing a thesis, Caroline,” he admitted.

She nodded. “Yeah, the more I thought about that, the more I wasn’t really buying it. What do you want, Mr. McMillan?”

“I’m trying to find out some information about my 19-year-old niece’s birth parents. She was adopted when she was four. Her name is Amelia Faraday, but I believe it was Schlessinger before that.”

Caroline’s eyes wrestled with his for a moment. Then she sighed, shifted around on the bleacher bench, and glanced toward the cheerleaders again. “What kind of information are you after?” she asked.

“Anything that might help,” George replied. “Amelia is a sweet, intelligent, pretty young woman. But she also has a lot of problems. She’s had problems ever since she was a child. I’m hoping you could help us understand why that is.”

“By us, do you mean Amelia’s parents and yourself? Why aren’t they here?”

“They were killed, along with my wife, a little over a week ago,” George explained. “My two children and I are Amelia’s only living relatives, at least, the only ones I’m aware of.”

“I–I’m sorry for your loss,” she murmured, visibly flustered. Then she covered her mouth and slowly shook her head. “My Lord, both families gone. It’s as if that poor girl were cursed.”

“I hear you were friends with Joy Schlessinger,” George said.

She sighed. “Well, I probably knew her better than anyone else around here. I met her and Lon when they first moved to Salem in 1993. I was part of the Salem Cares Committee, and one of our functions was to roll out the welcome wagon to new residents. Depending how sociable people were, we could be a blessing or a major pain in the ass. Anyway, the Schlessingers seemed to appreciate our efforts. They were from Moses Lake, Washington.”

“And that’s where the twins were born, in Moses Lake?” George asked.

Nodding, she scrutinized the cheerleading squad again as they took a break between routines. “Not bad, ladies!” she called. “Let’s see the next routine. Nancy Abbe, do me a favor and turn down the music a notch.”

She turned to George again. “Anyway, I felt sorry for Joy. The poor thing was in a new city, and didn’t know a soul. Plus she was stuck on this ranch on the outskirts of town. Lon was very, I don’t know, remote, always off hunting and fishing. I got the feeling in the course of a normal day at that ranch he probably said a total of eleven words to her. He and Joy’s brother, Duane, used to go camping and hunting together. Duane lived in Pasco. He’s the one who introduced Lon to Joy. I only met Duane once, which was quite enough for me, thank you very much.”

“You didn’t care for him?” George asked.

“No, sir,” she replied, frowning. “He was one of those short, wiry, overly macho types-very high strung, like a little pit bull.”

“Sounds as if you had him pegged pretty quickly, and early, considering what he went on to achieve.”

“Then you know about it,” she said, rubbing her arms. “Yes, he struck me as a time bomb ready to go off. He wasn’t very social. I don’t think anyone in Salem ever met him. He just showed up to go hunting with Lon-that’s it. No stops in town, no dinners out, nothing. The only reason I met him is because I used to drive out to the ranch to visit Joy, and he happened to be there that day. He and Joy were both odd ducks. She was a bit overzealous on the Bible thumping for me. I mean, I’m a Christian and very spiritual. It’s why I stayed friends with Joy, even though I never really felt close to her. Being a friend in need seemed the Christian thing to do, y’know? I think, deep down, she had a good soul. But Joy was one of those fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. She used religion the way some people use alcohol, as an escape from reality. I don’t think she had a handle on what was going on around her.” Caroline shrugged. “Then again, considering what life had to offer poor Joy, it’s no wonder she needed some escape.”

“What about her daughters?” George asked. “How was she with them?”

“There was only Annabelle when they moved here from Moses Lake,” she explained.

George nodded. It made sense, because Amelia had been adopted through an agency in Spokane, Washington-about a ninety-minute drive from Moses Lake. Obviously, the Schlessingers had transplanted to Salem without her.

“Did Joy ever tell you what happened to Amelia?” he asked.

Caroline winced a bit, then sighed. “Amelia’s the main reason they moved away. When the girl was four years old, she was abducted and molested by a neighbor man. Later, they found out this same man had raped and murdered a young woman who worked in a restaurant in Moses Lake.”

George just stared at her. This was what Karen had been looking for, the incident in Amelia’s early childhood.

“Lon shot the man dead,” Caroline continued, “just as the police were closing in on him. They rescued Amelia, but the little girl wasn’t the same after that. Joy and Lon had the worst time with her. They took her to several doctors, but I guess she was beyond help. She kept trying to run away. She even tried to kill herself-a four-year-old, for God’s sake. Joy caught her with one of Lon’s guns. They finally had to put her into foster care. It just broke Joy’s heart, but they couldn’t handle her anymore. Apparently, Lon didn’t want to, but Joy totally relinquished custody. She had no idea where her child was. They told all their acquaintances in Moses Lake that Amelia had been sent to live with relatives up in Winnipeg.