Camden, Arkansas
– Saturday, March 2, 1957 – 10:00 p.m.
The cold winter
rain started out as sporadic drops when she left the inconspicuous home hiding
dark deeds behind its walls. When she stepped off the bus on the outskirts of
town (much to the dismay of the annoyed driver), the droplets morphed into a heavy
downpour, along with a thick blanket of fog.
Carolyn
sighed and continued trudging through the secondary streets skirting the edge
of town. The past thirty minutes were spent in a painful blur, each step slow
while fighting to overcome waves of dizziness and nausea. She had no choice but
to steer her sore body clear of the main thoroughfares of downtown Camden.
Though not many, there were a few streetlights dotting the walkways, and even
with the viscous fog coating the air, a moving body could still be spotted.
It was Saturday night, the air frigid and the
streets slick with water and a bit treacherous, yet some people would be out
and about. War and Peace was
headlining at the Malco Theater—a movie she had looked forward to seeing with
Jefferson—and though unsure what time it was, Carolyn guessed it was close to
10:30 p.m. Those who’d attended the 8:05 p.m. showing would soon swarm the
streets.
She
didn’t want to be spotted by anyone, preferring to keep the shameful action done
to her body earlier a closely-guarded secret. She’d paid almost fifty dollars—an
entire month’s pay—and would do whatever necessary to never let anyone else get
a whiff of the dirtiness permanently etched inside her soul.
Enough
already knew, and Carolyn feared she was tempting fate by sneaking back home,
but the pull, the overwhelming urge to be cocooned in familiarity, was too
strong to fight.
The
wretched nightmare of what she did would follow her to the grave. Carolyn wrestled
to tamp it down and tuck the memories away inside the deepest recesses of her
mind. Though she didn’t have much of one, what little reputation she had would
be ruined if ever discovered by some random townsfolk venturing out in the
frigid weather.
The
thought of Miss Maud or even her strange husband, Clyde, finding out what their
charge had done in the adjoining county made a shiver sprint up her back. And
that is exactly what would happen if Carolyn didn’t remain carefully hidden.
Camden was a small town full of grousing harpies with two-sided mouths—one for
spouting virtues, platitudes, and Bible verses and the other for spewing
vicious gossip about anyone and everyone. The venom-filled barbs didn’t care if
the subject was a close friend, family member, politician, or clergy.
Passing
by the ostentatious sign that read Camden
– Queen City of the South, Carolyn grimaced. There wasn’t anything stately
or royal about the small town perched on a bluff overlooking the Ouachita
River. The prosperity from the steamboat era had waned, giving way to the oil,
gas and timber industry. The stench of rotten eggs filled the summer air from
the paper mills at the edge of town. The only other businesses that flourished
in the once humming town were the Grapette plant and Camark Pottery.
“If only I’d been able to work
at those places instead of the silly grocery store! If I had, perhaps I
wouldn’t be in the situation I am now,” Carolyn muttered to herself.
As
she passed the old McCollum-Chidester House, made famous by being the
headquarters of the Union soldiers during the Civil War, Carolyn scowled at the
thought of damn Yankees stinking up the town.
Keeping
close to the shadows as she rounded the corner onto Greening Street, every inch
of her body screamed for her to stop moving. She pushed on instead of
succumbing to the temptation to rest. It was only a few more blocks to traipse
across until she reached Clifton Street and crept inside the stately colonial
she’d called home for several years. If she could make it around back without
being detected, she could simply climb the trellis to her room and sneak
inside. She’d seen Leah do it numerous times over the years, and it looked
easy. Of course, Leah’s journeys up and down the trellis had been performed
without a body wracked with pain.
“They
should have let me stay. I couldn’t help crying! Too much blood and pain!” Carolyn
whispered to herself, breath expelling from her lungs in plumes of steam.
The
intense cramping in her lower regions made her bite down with force to keep the
yelps of anguish inside. The near-frozen raindrops peppered her face like tiny
shards of glass, turning the warm tears leaking from her eyes into cold
dribbles.
She
should have been more prepared, asked Leah deeper, probing questions about the
before, during, and after sections of the procedures, yet she didn’t. Ashamed,
frightened, and overwrought with worry, Carolyn didn’t think about such trivial
things like packing extra sets of hosiery, warmer clothes, an old pair of shoes
to wear, or how she’d be in such agony hours after the abortion was completed.
A wave of anger flourished inside her chest, yet not enough to warm her frozen
soul and limbs. Leah should have told her what to expect since she’d endured
the procedure twice.
Leah
gave off the air of a proper lady, playing the game in front of Mr. and Mrs.
Clyde Crawford and all their friends, yet Carolyn, Cindy, and Claire knew the real Leah—the girl who frequented the
dive bars the soldiers from Shumaker Naval Ammunition Base hung out at,
including The Pines and The
Rendezvous Club—was really a shady young woman with loose morals who made more
money in one night than Carolyn made in two months.
Leah
had promised her things would be okay, that she could stay overnight with the
“doctor” and his “wife” in case of complications, and the next day, she would
feel fine while riding the bus back from the fake “visit to El Dorado,” looking
for work and a place to live.
No
one would ever know about the pregnancy since Carolyn hadn’t started showing
yet. Leah assured Carolyn with a lopsided grin and warm hand gently patting Carolyn’s
knotted shoulder while lying through crooked, yellowed teeth stained from smoking
cigarettes.
She
rued those mistakes with each rain-soaked step. The warm stockings she’d worn
on her way to end the nightmare growing inside her belly were only trapping the
cold rain against her fragile skin. Rivulets of clear liquid ran down her face,
dripping off the tip of her nose, following a haphazard path down her torso and
ending in her soggy shoes.
An
umbrella would have been welcome, yet it was another item her frazzled mind
forgot to consider. The past two weeks were a blur of hysteria.
Like
a naïve fool, Carolyn assumed Jefferson would smile and offer a marriage
proposal at the news of his impending fatherhood. That was not even close to
what happened. Harsh reality balled up its fist and sucker-punched Carolyn
square in the face, knocking her off the ledge of fairy tale and fantasy.
Jefferson
Osborne, Carolyn’s one and only lover, the man who’d worked beside her for
months at the Piggly Wiggly after drifting into town with nothing but good
looks and a hot car, freaked. Jefferson, who’d whispered snippets of undying love
in the backseat of his souped-up coupe on New Year’s Eve, ran like a startled
chicken.
The
husky words he’d spoken that melted Carolyn’s shields and led to a night of
passion were gone, replaced by angry growls of Carolyn’s stupidity for getting
“knocked up” and how he wouldn’t raise an “ankle-biter with the likes of you!
You ain’t nothin’ but poor, white trash. Ain’t even got a family! No lineage,
no nothin’!”
Enraged
and heartbroken, Carolyn shot back that Jefferson told her he’d left Pine Bluff
and wound up in Camden to escape from the ties to his, as he put it, “worthless
family” and had no right to criticize.
Jefferson
responded by slapping her in the face, and the relationship was over before really
having a chance to grow. He fled town, and probably Arkansas, in the middle of
the night. When he didn’t show up for work, the managers and other employees of
the Piggly Wiggly offered consoling words like “Don’t worry, Carolyn, he’ll be
back” or “Boys—they’ve got to sow their oats before settlin’ down” or even the
occasional, “He was too shady, too wild. You’re better off with a solid,
homegrown boy.”
They
were right.
Carolyn
considered herself a good girl, unlike Leah and the others. She never went with
them to hang out with the rowdy soldiers—she’d developed a thick distaste for
the men when they came into the store to shop. Jefferson was another story. He
was good looking and somewhat rebellious—a small town’s James Dean. Every girl
in Camden wanted him and Carolyn felt a burst of pride when he’d picked her as his girlfriend.
Big
mistake.
What
was said behind her back, whispered in hushed tones to eager ears, eyes dancing
with delight while offering conjectured opinions about the demise of the
relationship, was a different story. Carolyn had the misfortune of overhearing
the stinging words one day as a group of employees gabbed in the stock room.
She’d
worked the rest of her shift in silence, refusing to add more tinder to the
stoked fires of Grade-A gossip. Instead of taking the bus home that night,
Carolyn had walked the entire way, letting the hot tears come hard and fast as
the cold night air dried them away. When she arrived home, no one questioned
the reasons behind her flushed, red face because everyone at the Crawford house
assumed it was from the frigid air.
They’d
been way off base, just as she’d been about the father of her child.
When
it dawned on her Jefferson wasn’t coming back, Carolyn’s mind went into panic
mode. Breaking down one night, she’d told her roommate, Leah, the awful news.
Between sobbing and pacing around the small area they shared and called home,
Leah offered a way out. Carolyn latched on to the lifeline as though she truly
were drowning in the Ouachita River.
She’d
promised herself she wouldn’t cry, but no matter how hard she tried to keep
them in, the tears continued to stream down her face. She wondered why God
hated her so much. Miss Maud said the Lord loves everyone, but Carolyn had
serious doubts. If some being truly existed in the stars above, why did he
decide Carolyn deserved a life full of pain and misery? Hadn’t she already
endured enough?
More
than anything, Carolyn yearned to curl up in a ball under a warm blanket and
disappear inside dreams of her youth, yet she concentrated on putting one foot
in front of the other. She’d disciplined herself not to reminisce on the happy
memories of childhood while awake. They were too heart-wrenching for the
conscious realm.
Unfortunately,
the emotional impact of what she’d done overrode the mental shields she’d
erected.
Legally
an adult for less than a month, it didn’t matter. Carolyn Singleton craved her
mother’s calming presence—her warm spirit and loving, non-judgmental eyes. The
urge to rest her weary head on the soft lap of the woman who’d given birth to
her, raised her alone and gently
murmured each night that “everything will be all right, my angel,” made a lump
of salty tears press against her parched throat.
Thirteen
years hadn’t been enough time. Charlene Robinson Singleton, wife of Corporal
Reggie Singleton, killed in combat in 1952 in Korea, tried her best to raise
their only child alone. Three months later, body worn out from working two
jobs, mind still processing the loss of her mate, and soul unhealed from the
loss, Charlene’s heart took its last beat, leaving Carolyn Renee Singleton a
ward of the state. She’d been a frightened wisp of a child surrounded by
callous adults shuffling her around like an annoying toy until Maud Crawford
appeared in the judge’s office, her stern face and tight red curls interspersed
with flecks of gray, intervened, and offered “the poor child” a place to live
and thrive.
Ever
since that day so many years ago, Carolyn Singleton grew up in a household
reared by an elderly couple who were kind and gentle at times yet also strict. Chores
were many and arduous, grades were expected to be high, and once graduation
happened, a job secured and rent paid each week. Maud and Clyde told them the rules
would shape and mold the wayward girls into proper wives later in life. They
were “building the groundwork by removing the rough edges of their unpolished
previous upbringings.”
An
ugly sneer pulled Carolyn’s lips upward. If the uptight Crawfords knew what
their charges were really doing under the cover of darkness, they’d keel over
from shock.
Carolyn
kept quiet and did as she was told, never once complaining. To keep from going
insane, she counted the days until her eighteenth birthday, knowing she would
be granted her freedom to leave.
She’d
planned on departing with Jefferson and starting a new life in a town full of
less secrets and more anonymity.
The
steady thrum of pelting rain and the squish-squash,
squish-squash of her footfalls were the only sounds reaching her ears. She
hated almost every aspect of living in such a small town, yet tonight, as she
wound her way through the tangle of streets, she was grateful for the minimal
population. She hadn’t seen one automobile in over ten minutes, which was a
relief. Though chilled to the bone as the rain seeped through the threadbare
clothes she wore, the rain seemed to have kept a major portion of the residents
of Camden, which hovered near the fifteen-thousand mark, inside their warm
homes.
Tonight, the number had decreased by one.
Carolyn shuddered at the memory of lying on the
linen-covered table, probably once a place used to dine on traditional southern
delicacies, letting a stranger probe and touch her in places only one other had
before, causing immeasurable pain rather than pleasure.
She shouldn’t have gone alone. Leah should have come along…offered
her support. She’d considered telling Miss Maud initially yet decided she
couldn’t stand another lecture about being a proper southern lady, one who
holds her virginity up as a trophy to dangle at potential suitors. The elderly
woman would always say, “A proper lady waits to offer the gift of her purity to
a man worthy enough to value it.”
Maud had been right all along. About everything. Carolyn
felt a twinge of guilt for the bad thoughts about the woman earlier. Though
stoic and tough, Maud Crawford was a good woman with a heart for the
unfortunate.
A sputter of fresh tears erupted from Carolyn’s eyes at the
memory as she turned onto Clifton Street, eyeing the sprawling Crawford home
shrouded in soupy mist. The memory of the first day she arrived and how
overwhelmed and excited she’d been to call the beautiful place home made her
chest ache.
“Stop it. It’s over
and time to move on. Get inside and warm up, rest, and then tomorrow, pack up
and truly go to El Dorado. Leave this horrid town and never look back. No more
chores. No more Clyde skulking around the corners, watching all us girls with
his dark, unreadable eyes. No more standing on my feet for hours at the Piggly
Wiggly. No more lectures from Miss Maud about purity and virtues.”
The quiet murmurings of mental assurances abruptly halted as
a set of headlights pierced through the thick veil of fog. The sight was followed
by the sound of an engine greeting Carolyn’s ears. On instinct, fearing it was
Clyde returning home from the movie, she darted behind the closest magnolia
tree at the edge of Mrs. Berg’s property and crouched down. No, it couldn’t be
Clyde. He always went to the bar after a movie. Maybe it was later than she
thought?
The thundering of her heart nearly drowned out Tab Hunter’s “Young
Love” blaring from the radio as the
dark sedan passed by. Another round of silent tears appeared as Tab’s smooth
voice sang about true love, first love, and undying devotion. The song made her
think of Jefferson’s betrayal. Carolyn clamped her hand over her mouth to keep
the sobs inside her throat.
Holding still until she couldn’t hear anything but the rain
once more, Carolyn stood, gaze sweeping the left and right sides of the street
for any more vehicles or random residents on their porches. Seeing no one, she
darted across the street. She still hurt, yet the close call of being
discovered set her nerves singing, allowing her to ignore the soreness.
Latching on to the trellis, Carolyn prayed for strength to
climb and not lose her grip on the slick wood. If she fell, she’d break her
neck. Another was said that Miss Maud’s scary dog, Dal, wouldn’t hear her over
the pelting rain. Desperate to override the fear making her hands shake, she
pictured herself as her favorite heroine—Nancy Drew—on a mission to rescue or
save some hapless soul from certain death. Taking a deep breath, she clawed her
up to the window, pushed up the sash, and was halfway inside when the porch
light in the back flicked on at the same time the low rumble of a vehicle sounded
in the driveway.
Clyde
must be home! Oh no!
Dal barked once from downstairs.
The faint, familiar lilt of Miss Maud’s voice drifted up the
stairs as she shushed him.
Carolyn froze.
The sound of footsteps crossing the hardwood floors made her
stomach shudder.
With but a split second to decide whether to continue
forward into the room or slip back outside and risk being seen by Clyde, Carolyn
opted for the first choice as a plausible lie about her predicament formed
easily inside her mind.
I’ll
just tell her Jefferson and I had a big fight after he pressured me to do
things an unmarried woman doesn’t do! That I thought we were eloping but
Jefferson’s plan was to lure me out alone and have his way with me. I’ll
apologize for lying about El Dorado when I was really out with Jefferson, but
that I came home the second I understood what Jefferson had really wanted.
The concocted excuse waned as Carolyn’s hands touched the
cool hardwood. Just as the first leg made it through the windowsill, she
realized the footsteps stopped.
Dal growled low and throaty as the sound of heavy footsteps echoed
from the kitchen.
The soaked hair on Carolyn’s skin stood erect. Unexplainable
tension—no, foreboding—settled over her mind.
“What are you doin’ here?”
The question, a mixture of irritation and fear, was never
finished. Another ominous grumble from the dog’s muzzle ceased in mid-growl,
just like his mistress’s question.
“Leave him alone!” Maud yelled.
The plea was followed by two distinct thumps. A weird human grunt came next and then…dead silence.
Carolyn’s senses buzzed with fear as strange sounds floated
up the stairwell—footsteps and more thumps and the faint chatter of some show
on the television downstairs. The familiar, grating squeak of the kitchen
screen door was next. Contorting her neck at an unnatural angle, she stared out
the window.
Faint wisps gray fog swirled away from the intrusion of the
porch light. Expecting to see Clyde’s vehicle in the rear parking area, Carolyn
saw an image that would change the course of her life.
Forever.
The sedan wasn’t Clyde’s, and someone dressed in all black—a
man she assumed, based on the build—carried Miss Maud’s unmoving body like he
was hauling a sack of grain wearing a floral print dress over his broad
shoulders. The woman’s head lolled around, bouncing off the intruder’s back
with each step. In a flash, the trunk was opened and her limp body tossed
inside without care. The dark figure stopped and looked around once after
closing the trunk, searching, Carolyn assumed, to ensure he was alone.
The waves of light caught his face for a brief second—long enough
for the breath to leave her lungs in a giant whoosh.
She recognized him.
Oh,
God. Please don’t let him see me. Does he know I’m here? Is he coming back to
get me too? What in the world has he done? Why?
With a few quick steps, he slipped into the driver’s side
and the engine purred to life. Without turning on the headlights, the car shot
forward and disappeared into the haze of fog and rain.
Unsure what just happened or what to do, her mind gridlocked.
After what seemed like five minutes, her arms began to quake from holding the
same position. Fearing they would give out and she would tumble onto the floor,
she finished climbing inside.
The shakes from fear and cold made her teeth chatter. Dazed,
sore, and so terrified she couldn’t even gasp, her mind wouldn’t engage. For
another several minutes, Carolyn tried to process what she’d witnessed yet came
up blank. Why? What in the world could a boring, sixty-plus-year-old woman have
done to deserve to be snatched up and—dear God, kidnapped?—in the middle of the
night by him?
Carolyn Singleton’s mind suddenly went from neutral to high
gear. She didn’t waste any more time trying to figure out why. She may be poor,
white trash like Jefferson said, but she wasn’t stupid.
Something sinister, something really, really ugly and
disturbing just happened.
She wanted no part of it.
At all.
For a split second, she contemplated calling the police. How
in the world would she explain her appearance? Where she’d been? Why she was
all wet and why she’d climbed up the trellis rather than going through the
front door? With a quick jerk of her head, she shook the idea from her mind. It
was too risky.
The only thoughts controlling her now were simple—change
clothes, pack all she owned, clean up the traces of the water from her soaked
clothes pooled on the floor, and get the hell out of Camden,
Arkansas—forever—before she was the next victim.
Stripping off her clothes, Carolyn crept over to the chifferobe
she shared with Leah. In the dark, she yanked out what she hoped were her
clothes, tossing them onto the bed. In less than a minute, she was dressed in a
warm, dry set. Then she dropped to her knees and felt under the bed. The old
suitcase, left there by a previous boarder who died the year prior, slid out
without a sound. After wrapping her wet clothes in an extra pillow case, she
stuffed them alongside the dry ones. Snatching a fluffy towel from the dresser,
she wiped up all the water and then deposited it, too, into the overstuffed
suitcase.
Once finished, she didn’t even think about the ramifications
of rifling through Leah’s private drawers. She knew Leah kept a wad of cash
hidden in the back corner in an old brassiere and had no doubts that if the
situation were reversed, Leah wouldn’t hesitate stealing from her for one
second.
Feeling around, she found the bra and was surprised it
contained a large bulge. Nestled next to the other undergarments was a small
clutch. She decided to take it as well, hoping more cash was squirreled away
inside. Without counting the amount, Carolyn’s last item was a rain slicker.
Once dressed with suitcase in hand, she stared out the window, terrified of
climbing back down.
She had little choice. The thought of going downstairs made
her shudder. She didn’t stop to think about what others would think about her fleeing
into the night, perhaps blaming the disappearance of her guardian on Carolyn.
There wasn’t enough time to consider all options or think rationally.
Carolyn’s thoughts were all about survival.
Tossing the suitcase out the window, thrilled the rain had
let up, Carolyn heard it land with a soft thump
on the soaked ground. While shimmying down the trellis, she prayed the
latch remained closed rather than busting open and spilling the contents all
over the backyard.
It held, and it was the first thing to go right for her in
over three months.
Carolyn fled as though the devil was right behind her, the
pain in her body nothing more than a distant memory. She didn’t look back,
didn’t stop, until she was on the other side of town at the bus depot. The
initial idea to escape to El Dorado passed when she noticed there was one bus
headed to New Orleans. On a whim, she purchased a one-way ticket to the Big
Easy.
Once on the bus with only a smattering of passengers—ones
she didn’t recognize thank Heavens—Carolyn took a deep breath as they rumbled
down Highway 7. With tired eyes, she watched the city she’d grown to hate and
now feared fade into the distance. Good riddance to royal rubbish! The Queen City was slowly dying anyway as poverty crept in from the shadows like ghoulish
monsters, gobbling up unsuspecting victims.
The rain had stopped, yet the fog clung tight to the
evening. Once the final puff of rolling steam from the last manufacturing plant
disappeared, she let out a long sigh. The lull of the engine and the
surrounding darkness tried to lure her mind into sleep, but Carolyn fought to
remain awake, fearful he might be
around any corner, any crevice, waiting to pounce like a pole cat, just as he’d
done to Miss Maud.
Fidgeting in the seat, Carolyn grimaced. She needed
something to do, to concentrate on, rather than worry about what was behind the
nightmare on Clifton Street. Unlatching the suitcase, she extracted the cash
from the bra and counted. She nearly squealed with delight—almost
fifteen-hundred dollars! After cramming the wad inside her wallet, she decided
to see what was inside the small clutch, hoping additional cash was hidden
inside or maybe some lipstick or powder. She pilfered around yet discovered nothing
to make her look more presentable tucked away inside.
However, what she did find made the wheels of her tired,
stressed-out mind spin even faster.
She gaped with wild-eyed awe at the social security card and
Arkansas driver’s license, both in the name of the “wayward” girl living in the
Crawford home until she died in a car accident after a night out drinking and
carousing at The Pines with several
rowdy soldiers.
They were the same age, born only two months apart.
For the first time in weeks, Carolyn let a small smile
appear. She could use the documents to create a new identity and there was enough
cash to disappear and start over, never returning to the wretched town and all
the nasty secrets it held. Maybe the entity Miss Maud believed in finally took
pity her because it seemed a miracle just happened: she’d just been granted a
chance at a new life. Two pieces of flimsy paper offered her a way to escape
and stay alive in case he knew she’d
been upstairs and witnessed his despicable deed.
Closing the purse, she said a silent prayer that God would intervene
and do the same for Miss Maud.
The oily rumble inside her stomach told her it was too late
for the feisty old woman to be saved by anyone, heavenly being or not.
***
Blood Loss is slated for release on September 4, 2017 in ebook, print and audio. I'm thrilled to announce Rebecca Roberts will once again provide the narration just as she did for Blood Ties, the first book in the series.
The disappearance of Maud Crawford, at the time this book was
published, remains unsolved and still stands as one of the most baffling
mysteries in Arkansas. To learn more about what a fascinating woman Maud
Robinson Crawford was, please visit the following websites:
I regret that up until approached by a former resident of
Camden, Arkansas, about this eerie case, I had never heard of Maud Crawford or
the controversy surrounding her disappearance the evening of March 2, 1957.
After several long conversations with this man and his perceptions on the
mystery, I was hooked. I called my mother and told her our original concept for
Blood Loss needed to be put on the
backburner. We talked for over an hour, each of us drawn to the events in Southern
Arkansas sixty years prior.
The finger of blame has been pointed at several people,
yet the truth is, no one truly knows what happened that fateful evening. This
fictional tale, based on true events, started out with the words “What if?” What if all the speculation and
suspicion about the suspects was way off base? What if someone did witness what happened that night yet
fled from fear they might be the next victim? What if the person, or persons,
responsible for Maud Crawford’s disappearance stemmed from a direction no one
ever looked? What if it wasn’t just a small town cover up?
Since the two main characters—retired Detective LiAnn
Tuck and former private investigator and LiAnn’s daughter, Karina Summers—moved
to Arkansas and took over running an independent living facility housing seniors
who were alive in 1957, what better segue into exploring this real mystery?
The fictional conclusions of the final resting place of
Maud Crawford are just that—fictional. In no way are they to be considered
anything other than a product of our imaginations. My heart aches for the
family members of all those involved and the incredible pain at never having
the opportunity to experience some sort of closure on what really happened on
the night of March 2, 1957. Maud Crawford was an amazing woman and her legacy
lives on through all the organizations she helped create in Arkansas, and we
both pray the truth will surface one day and justice will be meted out to the
person or persons responsible for extinguishing a bright light in a dark world
way before her time on this earth was over.
Preorder your copy here:
B&N: - coming soon
No comments:
Post a Comment