Stephen Dixon - Frog

Runs to the path to the car. Maybe Olivia was in the woods, lost, and found a path and it led to the car and she’s now in it. Gets to it. Everything’s the same. Car’s pulling in. All just in swimsuits, man with his shirt off, woman, two kids. Says to the woman as she parks the car “You see a girl around four, about this height,” holding out his hand, “long blonde hair in a ponytail, very pretty, walking down that way to the main road or on the road?” She’s shaking no. “In a bathing suit. Yellow. Red it was. Red-striped, one piece.” “No, I’m sorry.” Man beside her says “What is it, she lost?” “Lost. Or something. Too strange. I went for a swim.” “You should never leave a child like that alone on a beach,” the woman says. Kids have let themselves out of the car, father saying “You wait there by the door till we’re finished with this man.” “I didn’t,” Howard says. “I left her with a woman on the beach. She’s still there, the woman. I almost killed her just now. She said she didn’t know anything about it. It’s ridiculous — she’s lying — I left my daughter in her charge while I swam. I’m obviously going insane over it. With worry. Listen, I don’t trust that woman. She’s probably gone some other way out of the beach by now, though I’m sure that’s her car. But if she’s there, please, I told her to wait for my daughter. Olivia. Olivia Tetch. I’m Howard, at 7 Bear Road, for the summer. Remember that if you see the girl. Or if the woman tells you where my daughter is or what happened to her, which she wouldn’t to me. We’ve a listed phone. T-e-t-c-h. Because I need someone to stay here in case Olivia comes out of the woods — got lost, or had been hiding — though why this woman would lie I don’t know. Maybe Olivia ran away from her, but something has to be wrong. But please stay there till I come back or my wife or the police. Stay with Olivia or bring her to our cottage on Bear Road. You know where that is? Very near here.” Man says no. “We know Bear Road,” the woman says. “Second one off 176 after the war monument.” “Sure, that’s right, now I see it,” the man says. “Our mailbox is right across from our driveway with a big I on it in electrical tape. The Brook Isle post office knows us. I’m going for the police now to get some searchers in case she’s still in the woods. But you, every now and then, even if the woman’s down there, yell out her name. Olivia. Yell it out loud and for her to come to your voice — that her father told you to yell for her — or for her to shout and you’ll come to hers. Please, I know I’m ruining everything for you today, but this is too important, so you’ll do it?” and the woman looks at the man and he thinks it over quickly and says “Sure” and Howard runs to his car.

Drives to the cottage. Denise is feeding the baby. She looks up with a smile when he comes in, face drops when she sees his, and he says “It’s very bad, couldn’t be worse. Olivia’s disappeared,” and breaks down and she takes the baby off her breast and says “Tell me,” and he quickly tells her. Phones the county police. Man there says they’ll get right on it: searching party for the woods, boats to drag the lake, notify all the hospitals and trooper and police stations, someone to speak to the woman and if she’s not at the lake, to find her. Lita what? He doesn’t know, but her last name will come to him, he says. “One of you stay home so we can always reach you.” “My wife will. I’ll go back to the lake but first I’ll drive around the area looking for her, in addition to your troopers and the fire department people looking. I could recognize her from a distance and, up closer, immediately. She might be in someone’s car. She might be with someone who’s giving her an ice cream treat at Lu-Ann’s Drive-in or some such place. She might be wandering along the road looking for home or a way back to the lake and nobody’s stopped her yet because they think she’s a local, no sneakers or sandals and in only a swimsuit and all.” “Probably little chance of that, it sounds like, but go ahead. The trooper who goes to your house will get photos of her for us to copy and pass around. You have them?” “Plenty.” “Do you have that Lita’s last name yet?” “No. Lita something. If I keep saying her name it could come to me, but that’ll just be wasting time. Patchok comes to mind, but that’s not it. Don’t even know why I thought of it. If the Opel’s hers, you’ll be able to trace her through it, won’t you?” “That or we’ll try to locate her by her first name. It’s unusual enough, even for around here, if she gave you the right one, that is, and if she still isn’t at the lake. Nothing we can do but try.”

Howard makes calls to everyone he knows in the area whose number he remembers. Help look for Olivia. Go to the lake. Search with the troopers and firemen in the woods. Tell as many people as you can to help. Don’t give up till it’s declared hopeless. Tells Denise to look up the numbers of other people they know in the area and say the same things. “Also ask if they know a Lita. I forgot about that. And call the police every so often just to make sure they haven’t been trying to get through to us and to keep after them. But make all your calls quick so the lines aren’t tied up. Of course, you know that,” and runs out of the house, drives around the area, asks everyone he speaks to at the various drive-ins and shops, after he’s told them about Olivia and given her description, if they know or ever heard of a young woman named Lita. Nobody has. Goes to the post office, tells his story to the postmistress and asks if she knows of a woman named Lita. She doesn’t but she calls several post offices in surrounding towns and none of the other postmasters have received mail for her. “Maybe that’s her nickname,” she says.

Goes to the lake. Lots of cars and people, couple of fire trucks. He speaks to the police chief he spoke to on the phone. “No trace of her so far. We ordered some hounds and a helicopter in. When it gets dark we’ll try best as we can with searchlights and bullhorns, but I think by nine or ten we’ll have covered every foot of these woods. That woman Lita was still here. She’s in her car. It’s not the Opel. Hers was parked along the main road and she said she walked in, so we let her go out and bring it to the lot. Your Opel wasn’t here when we got here, so it could have been anyone’s — another visitor, but in his own private spot — and not seeing any commotion yet, just drove away. We put a call out on it with the plate number you gave. That Miss Reinekin—” “That’s it, that’s the name.” “Well, she said you attacked her real bad, and showed the bruises to prove it, and that she had nothing to do either with the girl or provoking you to threatening her life. That it’s all in your head, she said, which is why she stayed — to tell us. Or that you did something previously to the girl and are trying to put the blame on her. Because you came to the lake alone, swam alone and when you came out of the water you went straight up to her and asked where’s your daughter. She’s from near Hartford, only here for a long weekend. Friends she’s staying with are with her now. They’re very respectable summer people, been coming up for years and before then the parents and grandparents of the man, and they say the woman’s as truthful and right-minded as anyone they know. That she comes from a good family, well brought up and educated, never hurt anyone, and is a teacher engaged to a governor’s assistant; the woman friend’s known her since childhood. Just hearing all this and talking to Miss Reinekin, she doesn’t seem like a child molester or kidnapper, but that’s not for me to judge.” “Let me speak to her.” “If you don’t mind someone taking down what you two say; and also no rough stuff from you, words or force.” “Take down anything, and don’t worry.”