By Wednesday, Elsie was still getting nowhere in her online hunt for Marvel Modeling. She was determined to speak to Desiree Wickham’s mother, Kim. It would be nice if she could give Kim a ring on her cell phone; but Elsie didn’t have the contact information. Ordinarily, Elsie would have asked Ashlock to give her the phone number. But she hadn’t talked to him in nearly forty-eight hours, since they’d exchanged tense words at his house on Monday night.
So, after work on Wednesday, she pushed open the door of Tyler’s Family Market and walked inside the grocery store.
Though the market had three checkout lanes, only one of them was occupied. Tyler’s, a small family-owned store, had lost a lot of business when they built a Walmart Supercenter on the highway. Glancing around the deserted aisles, Elsie felt a twinge of guilt. As a Barton native, she should be supporting local business, shopping at Tyler’s. But she had been lured away by the low prices and the one-stop shopping convenience that Walmart provided.
A harried-looking man was checking groceries for a customer; and after ringing them up, he bagged them with angry thrusts, as if he hoped the canned goods would crush the egg carton and the bag of Doritos. Elsie stood to the side, waiting for the customer to push her cart away before she spoke.
“Hi there. I’m Elsie Arnold, with the county Prosecutor’s Office. I’m looking for Kim Wickham.”
A flash of irritation passed over his face. “Well, she’s not here.”
“Okay. When’s her next shift?”
He barked a humorless laugh. “We haven’t seen her nor heard of her since Monday.”
With a sympathetic face, Elsie nodded to show she understood.
He went on. “I totally get it; her daughter is missing. But she doesn’t call in or nothing. She’s a no-show. It’s making it tough on me.”
The nametag on his chest read Mike Jones, Manager.
Elsie clutched her car keys. “Thanks, Mike.”
“Checking groceries isn’t part of my job,” he said.
Mike had more to say on the subject, but Elsie didn’t stay around to hear it. She hurried to her car in the parking lot.
It was already growing dark. She flipped the headlights on as she drove away from the neighborhood grocery store and headed for the stretch of highway.
When she came to the four-way stoplight, she glanced over as a vehicle pulled up beside her: a shiny black GMC truck, with a luxury cab.
Elsie recognized the driver: it was Madeleine’s husband, Dennis Thompson, who occupied the left turn lane.
When his head angled her way, she smiled, lifting her hand in a friendly wave. He didn’t acknowledge it.
The snub irritated her. Who did he think he was? In a snit, she tapped her horn, waving again. Thompson turned his face away from her, angling his head in the opposite direction.
A flush crept up her neck. Fuming, she rolled down her window, determined to make him recognize her. “Hey! Mr. Thompson! It’s me, Elsie Arnold.”
The left turn arrow lit in the traffic light that hung overhead, and Dennis Thompson gunned his engine. Elsie’s eyes narrowed as his taillights disappeared down the highway, moving toward the outskirts of town.
“Snob,” she said, as she turned in the opposite direction, toward the old section of Barton.
When she arrived at the rock house on Cherry Street, there was no mistaking it. The windows of the house glowed in the November gloom. Every light in the house was on. A lit bulb even shone in the window of the attic.
When Elsie rapped on the front door, the hinges creaked and it inched open. She stared at the open doorway in surprise; and when no one answered her knock, she nudged it further ajar.
“Ms. Wickham? Kim? It’s Elsie Arnold.”
After a moment, a voice called out. “Come on in.”
Elsie walked inside, taking care to push the door securely shut behind her. She saw Kim Wickham lying on the couch in front of the TV, covered in an afghan crocheted in a faded rainbow of colors.
Kim was staring at the television screen. When the woman failed to glance in Elsie’s direction, Elsie ventured over to the couch and spoke softly.
“Kim? How are you?”
Turning her head from the TV, Kim blinked her bloodshot eyes and gave a blank stare. Elsie kicked herself for asking such an asinine question. Kim’s child was missing; how would anyone be getting along, under those circumstances?
A coffee table sat beside the sofa. A box of Franzia wine sat on the tabletop beside a jelly jar that served as a wineglass. Kim picked up the jar and took a swallow.
“You want some wine?”
Elsie regarded Kim with a worried look. “No, thanks. I wanted to check in with you. Make sure you’re okay.” She paused, then added, “I know you’re not okay. I just wanted to let you know I’ve been thinking about you. And Desiree.”
Kim’s eyes wandered back to the television screen. She pointed at the TV set with the jar she held, half-full of pink liquid. “There she is. The time she won the Grand Supreme.”
Elsie studied the image. The volume on the set was muted; but a DVD had captured Desiree as a preschooler, strutting across the stage in a pink dress made of such shiny fabric it reflected the footlights.
“I made that dress,” Kim said, as if she’d read Elsie’s thoughts. “I sewed it on my mother’s old Singer. Stitched the lace petticoats by hand underneath the skirt.”
Elsie reached out and pressed the woman’s limp fingers where they rested on the top of the sofa. Her hand felt icy. “That’s incredible. I never learned how to sew.”
Kim’s eyes remained glued to the screen. “Desiree, she just had it. She had that stage presence. She was a winner.”
A chill ran down Elsie’s spine. Desiree’s own mother was speaking about her in the past tense. She gave Kim’s fingers a gentle squeeze, to get her attention.
“Did the FBI get in touch with you?”
Kim looked up with vacant eyes. “Somebody called yesterday. I was asleep.”
“Did you call back?”
“I tried to. I got that recording.” Her gaze drifted back to the TV screen again.
Elsie dropped Kim’s hand and looked around, trying to see a way to help Kim snap out of her inertia. “Kim, how about if I get you something to eat? I could make you a sandwich, or a soda pop. Or I can run and get you something. Anything you’d like.”
Kim shook her head. “I’m not hungry. People from work brought food yesterday.” She took another swig of wine. “You can have it, if you want.”
Desperate to pull Kim from her comatose state, Elsie dodged into the kitchen, hoping to locate a coffeepot. As Kim had indicated, there was plenty of food to be found. CorningWare, Pyrex, and foil casserole dishes covered the kitchen counter and the stovetop. Apparently, she had deserted them in a frozen state; and now moisture pooled around the containers.
She left the perspiring casseroles where they sat, though she could hear her mother’s disapproval in the back of her head. Beside the sink, she found the coffeepot; but the Maxwell House can was empty.
With a muttered curse, Elsie found another jelly jar in the cabinet, still bearing the remains of an orange marmalade label. She filled it partway with water and added a couple of ice cubes encrusted in the bottom of an ancient ice-maker.
“Here you go,” she said, as she returned to the sofa. Kim accepted the glass and took a swallow without looking at the contents. Elsie walked around the couch, knelt beside the coffee table, and spoke to Kim in an urgent voice.
“I have an idea. I think I should track down the modeling agency.”
Kim raised to a sitting position and pointed at the TV. Glancing over, Elsie saw that the screen was dark.
“You want to see another one? I’ve got the last pageant she ever was at. Where she won the talent competition for her Houdini Act.”
Kim reached for the nozzle of the wine box, but Elsie pushed it away. “Kim, I tried to find the agency online, but I didn’t have any luck. How did Desiree find them? Do you have that information? Or did they find her?”
Kim gave her head a sodden shake, as if she was attempting to get her brain to work.
“Des had found it. She followed modeling stuff from things she read on the internet.”
“But where on the internet?”
“Oh Lord. I’m trying to remember. Was it Backlist?”
Elsie pulled out her phone and typed in a note. “Backlist.”
“Yeah. Backlist.com. Or one of those type pages, anyway. They post a lot of ads for models. You don’t even need experience. She responded to one of them, and they got back with her. Said they were Marvel Modeling. They sent her an application, with information about the agency. It looked like this. She sent me a screenshot.” With a fumbling hand, Kim dug her cell phone out of the sofa cushions and checked her photos. Elsie held her breath, waiting.
Finally, Kim handed it over. “That’s it. Marvel Modeling.”
It was on that trashy Backlist, Elsie thought, as a flush of triumph washed over her in a wave. “I’m going to send this to myself. Okay?”
“Okay.” Kim’s voice was flat. She lay back down.
Elsie punched in the text and placed the phone onto the coffee table. “Does Ashlock have that, Kim? Did you show it to him?”
She shook her head, listless. “I was too upset. Wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll send it on to him,” Elsie said. She texted the image to Ashlock, without a comment. Rising, Elsie stared at the woman, trying to form words that would be a source of comfort.
“I’m going to try to find her, Kim. I’m going to do my best.”
The tears welled in Kim Wickham’s eyes. “I did my best. And look what happened.”