Melissa Foster - Chasing Amanda

As her body began to wind down, she curled against Cole once again, causing him to stir. “I love you,” she whispered, as she often did when she was scared. He turned to hold her, as he often did when he knew she just needed to be held. Molly lay safe and warm, unable to sleep, and unable to swallow without tasting the sweet flavor of apple candy.

The sun began to rise just as Pastor Lett finished boarding the last window on the Perkinson House. This should keep the kid inside , Pastor Lett thought. Her arms ached from hammering during the cover of the cold night. Balancing herself on the ladder had become trickier as the morning had approached and the roof had become slick with dew. She maneuvered down the ladder, her mind drifting back to the previous evening. She had approached the cellar in the same careful manner, and she’d thought for sure that there had been another incident—her warnings perhaps were not sharp enough. Inside, she had found the kid curled up on the mattress, fast asleep. The kid must have been exhausted from all of the fighting the evening before. Pastor Lett had noticed the bruises on both wrists and arms, and her heart wrenched. She had explained the importance of heeding her warnings and avoiding danger. “They wouldn’t understand my need to take care of you, to protect you,” she had said. She had reached her hand out, but the kid hadn’t budged. The kid had just looked at her, unsure, scared. Pastor Lett had seen that look before, and she didn’t let it sway her duty then, any more than she did now. She had turned away and left the dark room, locked up, and had gone to work on the long, tedious job of sealing up the windows and adding locks to the outside of the doors.

With her tools neatly organized, she made her way, exhausted, down the overgrown knoll toward her car, thankful that she had decided to park at the enclave just before the bridge, where fishermen and families parked near the edge of the lake. She threw her sweater over her shoulder, her turtleneck just warm enough for the chilly morning air, and retrieved a handful of sunflower seeds, gnawing them into tiny bits. The last ten feet to her car seemed like a mile, the import of what she’d done weighed heavily on her heart. Exhausted, she leaned against the car and looked back toward the Perkinson House—no telltale chimney showed above the trees, no worn pathway snaked its way up the knoll from the lake. It was as if it didn’t exist, though she was thankful it did. She whispered, “God, forgive me for what I’ve done,” and headed home to escape the nightmare that had become her life.

A quick visit to the police station revealed that they had no suspects in Tracey’s disappearance. Even worse, they appeared to have no real clues, either. Though the officer at the desk gave Molly the usual line of not being able to give out pertinent details, as it might hinder the case, it was clear to her that the search was at a standstill.

Molly had also inquired about the previous disappearance of Kate Plummer, which she knew was pushing her luck, but that didn’t stop her. Most of the local law enforcement officials had not been around long enough to know about the Kate Plummer case; however, there was one detective who remembered the case and was willing to speak to Molly.

A short, plump man ambled toward Molly, his hand outstretched, “Officer Brown,” he said, as if he were bored.

Molly couldn’t help but see a resemblance between Officer Brown and the Pillsbury doughboy, minus the cheery attitude. She swallowed her chuckle and said, professionally, “Molly Tanner, President of the Boyds Civic Association. There’s been talk around the community? Residents are trying to draw correlations between Tracey Porter’s disappearance and the disappearance of Kate Plummer. I was hoping you could shed some light for me, help me calm their fears.”

Officer Brown rolled his eyes and motioned for Molly to follow him. He led her down a stale gray and pale green corridor, turning back to look at Molly every few steps. They entered a small room with a square metal table, no bigger than a desk one might find in a cubicle, and two metal chairs. Molly was mildly surprised to see what she was sure was a stereotypical two-way mirror in the center of the far wall. Officer Brown motioned for Molly to sit down. He must have read Molly’s mind, because at that moment he said, “This is our interrogation room.” He motioned with his chubby hands around the small enclosure. “It all happens here: confessions, lies, manipulations.” His round face was a strange mix of excitement and weariness. His pink cheeks overlapped the sides of his mouth, and he breathed hard from the long walk down the corridor. His brown hair was matted on the top of his head, like a schoolboy with a bad case of hat head. His arms rested on his protruding belly, and he acted as if he thought he should be abrupt but couldn’t quite pull it off.

“Thank you for taking the time to speak with me,” Molly rested her arms on the table and smiled. “I’m sure there’s probably no link here, but I’ve only just learned about Kate…and Rodney Lett, and, well, the cases seem similar. You can see why the residents are talking. I was hoping you could fill me in so I can waylay their fears.”

Molly expected him to give her the song and dance of not being able to reveal details of the case, but he surprised her, “Well, let’s see.” He looked at the ceiling, thinking. “That was about twenty years ago, if I remember correctly.” He pursed his lips, as if he were trying to figure out the details in his mind. “Odd boy, he was. A man, really, but with a boy’s mind.”

“That’s what I’ve heard, sort of,” she offered.

“He wasn’t retarded, not that we could tell anyway. It seemed he was just slow. He would talk slow, move slow, he even thought slow, taking sometimes ten minutes before he would answer questions, but when he answered, he was, or he seemed, one hundred percent certain of his answers.”

“Did anyone in the community have trouble with him before Kate Plummer went missing?” Molly asked.

“No, no, not really.” As he shook his head, his chin jiggled. “Never heard much about the boy.” Detective Brown looked thoughtful. “It wasn’t till the Plummer case that we had any trouble with him.” He looked away, then back at Molly, “But then again, they never do appear dangerous, now, do they?” Molly shrugged noncommittally. Officer Brown continued, “But he knew the details about little Kate Plummer, that’s for sure.” “Do you think he heard someone else talking about it, or that there could have been some other explanation?” she asked.

He gave her a stunned look. “He did it. He took that little girl and killed her.” He stared at Molly until she became uncomfortable and looked down.

Molly bristled at the coldness of his words, and began to feel sick to her stomach. The body of six-year-old Amanda—

“Pastor Lett,” he let out a little laugh, “she was really something. She kept insisting that Rodney had some sort of sixth sense.”

The hair on the back of Molly’s neck stood on end. She gathered her courage and reminded herself that Amanda was not Tracey. “Sixth sense?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It sounded like a load of horse manure to me. You know, the older sister trying to save the younger brother type of thing.” He looked around the room, fidgeted as if he were getting tired of the conversation. He leaned back in his chair, which Molly was sure would send him flying backwards, but it didn’t, and said, “The guy didn’t really have an alibi, either, if I remember correctly. I think he said he was at home when Kate was taken. I don’t remember anyone being able to corroborate that story for him.” He sighed heavily, “People came to fear him very quickly.”