Chapter 1

1973 - October

Constance Appleton grieved. Everyone who knew her wanted to help, but there are times when no one can. From her perspective, her world was over. Her life had been uninteresting as a teen, until Bobby Dalton had brought joy into her mother’s life and her own at the same time. Then she’d met Tim and fallen in love with him. Now he’d been taken away from her by a war, far, far away, and life was, again, uninteresting.

There was no shortage of women in Granger who had experienced the same loss - some of them under the same kind of circumstances - and all of them sat with her, waiting to talk her through it. None of them got the chance, though, because Constance wouldn’t talk. She just sat, her eyes staring straight ahead. Tim was gone, and almost all trace of him was gone too. There were some of his clothes at her house. The rest were still with his parents. She had nothing else. As hard as they had tried, in those two brief weeks he’d been home, she had not gotten pregnant.

There had been all kinds of official communications. The first had devastated her, with its notification that he had been killed in action. The following letters made it worse, because they represented the bureaucracy that had, to her mind, killed her husband, yet which rolled on without emotion, unkillable, as they notified her of survivor’s benefits, body shipment details, and a host of other things that she didn’t care about and didn’t want to know. They offered to “let” her make funeral arrangements, and in the next sentence said that they would bury him in a military cemetery, if she didn’t want to. The thought of seeing his coffin was unbearable. She knew she’d be sorry later, but she let the military take care of his burial. His parents begged her to go with them, but she declined.

Prudence collected all the letters he had written her daughter and stored them. They might be needed later.

Constance sat and stared, until her body finally collapsed from exhaustion, and people put her in bed.

She stayed there for almost a week. All she could think about was how unfair it was.

Life wasn’t fair for another woman in Granger, that fall.

Renee Harqart-Zimmerman was a very unhappy woman. She’d had everything she could hope for, but then something went terribly wrong. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, the only daughter of Howard and Wilamena Harqart, she had wealth lavished on her as a child. Her father was an investment banker, and a good one. Her mother was a socialite, who spent money freely on everything, including her only child. She’d been sent to the best schools, and had a degree in early childhood education, a new field that had only been in existence, formally, for a few years. She’d met a man in college ... a bright, handsome, wealthy man, who had convinced her that together they could lasso the world and have whatever they wanted. He had always had money too, and lavished it on her like her mother and father had all her life. He’d dressed well, had a beautiful, expensive Mercedes and perfect manners.

He’d been somewhat secretive about his parents. She’d never met them. He had convinced her to elope, something that had caused her mother endless anguish and grief. She had given in to his almost constant suggestions to sneak off and get married when their petting got to the point where she knew she was going to let him between her legs. They had left a graduation party to drive all night to get to Las Vegas. The next morning she had awakened, sore between the legs, with a new last name.

She’d been raised to be a strict Catholic. No birth control, no sex before marriage, and no divorce. Those were the rules and they were nonnegotiable. Even at twenty-one years of age, she bowed to her parents’ wishes in that and in many other things. The elopement had felt good, like she was finally able to thumb her nose at her parents. She had promised her mother there would be a big wedding later, but she was married now, and they were moving to central Kansas, so he could take advantage of that location for his business.

He hadn’t been clear as to just exactly what his business was. He said he was in the import export business ... was a broker for others, who paid him well to find the products they wanted. He’d already started it in college. It required trips, occasionally, and he was gone for days. He was always upbeat and happy when he returned, and talked of all the money he’d made.

She realized now that she had been an empty-headed idiot, taking everything he said at face value ... never asking probing questions. She was used to being around wealthy people, and he was wealthy. Wealthy people were always a little secretive about their business dealings. He had always been very popular too. Tons and tons of people stopped by for a five or ten minute chat. He had a collection of baseball memorabilia they all seemed to be interested in. Most of the people who stopped in to chat wanted to see it and he took them to his room.

Not once did the thought of drugs ever cross her mind while she was dating Daniel. It wasn’t that she was ignorant about drugs. Even exclusive schools had drugs in them. She was well aware of that. She knew about “Reefer” and “Ludes” and “Speed”, even though she had no interest in that kind of thing. She didn’t hang out with the kids who did. She’d known it was around in college too, but it didn’t have anything to do with her, so she ignored it.

Then, two months after her marriage, while Daniel was on one of his trips, he had called. He was in jail, and needed her to bring money to bail him out. He wouldn’t talk about why he was in jail. He just told her to bring fifty thousand dollars to someplace in New Mexico. Fifty thousand dollars! He asked for it like it was lying around somewhere in a shoe box. They had twelve thousand in their bank account. Renee was still receiving monthly checks from a trust fund set up by her grandfather. But they didn’t have fifty thousand!

“We don’t have that much!” she said.

“Get it from your parents,” he replied.

“I can’t just ask them for fifty thousand dollars and not tell them why!”

“I’m in real trouble here, Renee,” he said. “I only get this one call. I’m going to need a lawyer too. A good one.”

“What’s going on, Daniel?!” she yelled.

“Just bring the money,” he said.

He had hung up on her.

She didn’t know what to do. They had only lived here, in this surprisingly small town in the middle of nowhere, for two months. She barely knew anybody. They’d gotten a good deal on a nice house that was up for auction in an estate sale, but it was just outside of town, and the nearest neighbor was a mile away. She hadn’t met, and actually spoken to, more than five or ten people.

She wasn’t stupid. She got in the car and went to the police department in town.

“Can I help you?” asked a burly man in a blue uniform at the big open window just inside the front door of the station.

She told him her story.

“He wouldn’t tell me why he got arrested,” she said. “His bail is fifty thousand dollars. I need to get more information, and I thought you could help me.”

The man turned to a shelf of books, behind him, and pulled one down.

“What town?” he asked.

She told him and he flipped through the book. He picked up the phone and made a call. He gave them Daniel’s name. “I got a request for assistance here,” he said. “Mutual interest kind of thing. What do you have on this guy?” He listened, wrote something on a piece of paper and said “What kind of vehicle?” He wrote some more, said “Okay, thanks,” and hung up.

“He was caught transporting six hundred pounds of marijuana,” he said. “He also had other drugs in the car, but they aren’t sure yet what they all are.”

Renee’s jaw dropped.

“There must be some mistake,” she said. “He’s my husband! He’d never do anything like that! It must have been someone else’s car.”’

The man looked at the paper he’d made notes on. “1970 Mercedes Benz, blue, Vermont license 2LR334, registered to one Daniel K. Zimmerman?”

“That’s our car!” she cried. “But that can’t be. My husband is not a drug dealer!”

“Ma’am,” said the beefy man gently. “The car had secret compartments built into it. It’s been into Mexico, according to the Border Patrol, more than a dozen times since 1971.”

She had fled. Daniel was a drug dealer?

The drive home had been agonizing. Things she had ignored became clear to her now. All those visitors in college. They weren’t there to say “Hi” or look at his autographed baseballs. They were buying drugs! His trips ... his “import export business” ... it was all a front for being a fucking drug dealer!

She was furious. She was so furious that she not only didn’t get any of the money Daniel had ordered her to get, she also didn’t go see the bail bondsman that the man at the police department had said she could talk to about the bail. She felt betrayed. He got himself into this mess ... and her with it! Let him get himself out!

She couldn’t tell her parents. She’d never be able to show her face at home again. She stewed about it for three weeks, before she finally went to Eagle Bail Bonds and went inside.

A man named Johnny listened to her tale. He made phone calls too, several of them.

“I can’t help you,” he said. “He’s already been tried.”

“Where is he then?” she asked.

“He is currently incarcerated at the New Mexico State Penitentiary, in Santa Fe, for a term of twenty-five to fifty years,” said the man, as if he were telling her the price of lettuce. “Tough break,” he added.

She got a letter from him two days later. He was furious with her. He blamed his imprisonment on her, for not getting him out on bail, and for not getting him a decent lawyer. He’d had to use a public defender. The car had been seized and forfeited. He’d set a record for the biggest marijuana bust in New Mexico history, and the wheels of justice had moved quickly. There were federal charges pending against him.

He called her “a stupid cunt” in his letter.

She hadn’t written back. She hadn’t gone to visit him. She knew she never would. In the two months since then, she had lied to her parents, saying Daniel was overseas, expanding his business. She had plenty of money. She had a place to live. But she was living a lie. Her mother kept insisting that the formal wedding needed to be done quickly ... that too much time had already elapsed.

She couldn’t divorce him. That would get her thrown out of her family. And the Church. She couldn’t tell them about him. She’d never live it down, and they’d never speak to her again. She wanted to run away. But from what ... and to where? She was already in the middle of nowhere, in Granger, Kansas. She couldn’t abandon the house. This place ... this little hiding place, was all she had.

She even thought about suicide ... just ending it all and stopping the pain. She was a good Catholic, though, and the thought of eternal damnation was even worse. She envisioned Hell as where she was right now, with her life like it was right now. She got drunk and had a nightmare vision of waking up from dying ... right where she was, knowing that she would be here forever, throughout eternity.

She hid from the world for as long as she could, but there came a time when hunger drove her to leave, and head for the grocery store.

She was a mess. She hadn’t showered for days ... hadn’t slept much, and when she did sleep it was in her clothes. She hadn’t eaten, because there was no food. For two days she’d eaten condiments from the refrigerator ... ketchup ... hamburger relish ... she’d even tried eating the mustard, but had thrown up. The meat in the meat drawer smelled foul. The frozen food was gone. A single can of beets was in the pantry.

The jolt of the collision pushed her forward and her forehead bounced off of the steering wheel. She flopped back against the head rest and stared, dazed, at the car in front of her. She’d run into somebody.

A man got out, and stopped at his rear bumper, staring. She looked around. They were at a stop light. She’d obviously seen him, but hadn’t stopped quickly enough. She put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas. There was a wrenching, tearing metallic sound and the car lurched suddenly backwards. In a panic she stomped on the brake and the tires screeched. Something silver was lying in the road, between her car, and his.

Then everything faded.

She woke up in the hospital. Almost as soon as she sat up, a nurse was there, making her lie down again. A doctor came, and told her she’d been in an accident, which hadn’t hurt her, but that she had collapsed from malnourishment. She’d been asleep for twelve hours, under sedation, while they pumped liquid food into her veins.

They knew who she was. The police had found her purse, and her driver’s license. She hadn’t gotten a new driver’s license yet, and her maiden name was on the old one. The car was also registered in her name. They hadn’t had time to do all the changes that a marriage brings about in officialdom. They wanted to know who to call ... was she married? She lied. She told them there was nobody to call, that she’d pay the bill herself.

They were skeptical. Women who had the money to pay hospital bills didn’t starve themselves to death. Someone had taken her wedding rings off while she was unconscious and produced them. The suggestion was clear that they thought she was lying to them.

“My husband is out of the country,” she said. “He won’t be back for a long time. I’ll pay the bill!”

They told her she had to stay there, at least several days. They said the police wanted to talk to her.

A man came to see her. He was the man she remembered getting out of the car she’d hit ... the man who had been staring at the bumper in the road between their cars. It was the last thing she remembered, before waking up in the hospital.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“No,” she said dully. She hadn’t meant to say that.

“They said you can go home in a couple of days,” he said.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” she said.

“I know.”

She looked at him ... really looked at him, for the first time. He looked like he was a little older than her. He had black hair, with a loose forelock that fell onto his forehead, and very blue eyes.

“I didn’t think you hit me on purpose,” he added.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say.

“I’m Bobby,” he said.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

This, at least, was something she could concnetrate on that wasn’t part of Hell. Her psyche jumped at it.

“I hit you,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I saw you weren’t going to be able to stop in time, and tried to get out of your way. It could have been much worse, but I was moving when you hit me.”

“Oh,” she said, and lapsed back into silence.

“I guess I’ll let you get some rest,” he said, moving to the door.

“Okay,” she said, listlessly.

They kept her there for three days. The police brought her purse to the hospital, but didn’t talk to her. She was unaware that the officer she’d talked to about New Mexico remembered her and already knew something about her. The nurse brought the purse in. She would be forever convinced that the only reason they let her go that day was because her check book was in her purse, and she was able to write them a check to pay the hospital bill.

They had kept her clothes, but, of course, hadn’t washed them. They had washed her, while she was asleep. She did feel a lot better, now that she was eating again, but she dreaded putting on the smelly, stiff clothing she’d been wearing when the ambulance took her away. She was disgusted with herself for letting herself sink as low as she had.

The next hurdle, once she was dressed, was getting home. No one knew where her car was. There was no taxi service in the small town. Standing at the front entrance of the hospital, she didn’t know exactly how far it was to walk, but she knew it was at least five or six miles. For the first time in her life she thought about hitchhiking.

She was, therefore, astonished when the man she’d hit ... what was his name? ... walked toward her from the parking lot.

“Need a ride?” he asked.

“Yes!” she said, staring at him. “But you’re the last person on earth I thought would offer me one.”

He shrugged. “You need a lift. I have one. It’s the holiday season and it’s the neighborly thing to do.”

“But I wrecked your car!” she yipped.

“Wasn’t that bad,” he said. “There was some rust underneath, and the bolts pulled through. It’s already fixed.”

“I’ll pay for the repairs,” she said.

“Okay,” he said amiably. “It took me two hours. You owe me twelve-fifty.”

She blinked. “You fixed it yourself?”

“That’s what I do,” he said. “I fix things. I had to raise my rates, or it only would have cost you ten dollars.”

“I don’t believe this,” she sighed.

“Somebody out there is worried about you,” he said. “You’ve been missing for four days. Why don’t we get you home, so they’ll stop worrying.”

“Why do you think anybody is worrying about me?” she asked.

“Well, nobody came to see you,” he shoved a thumb over his shoulder at the hospital, “except me. Ergo, they didn’t know where you were. And that means they missed you.”

“No,” she said, feeling the depression coming back. “There’s nobody to miss me.”

“Oh,” he said. He looked pointedly at her left hand, where her wedding and engagement rings were once again in place. She hadn’t been able to make herself leave them off, even though she didn’t feel married any longer. “Well, at least let me take you home.”

“All right,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Here,” he said. “You didn’t have a coat when they took you out of the car.” He draped his jacket around her shoulders in the cold November wind. She realized how chilled she was only after the warmth in his jacket hit her.

He had been telling the truth. She saw the car, and the bumper was back on it. He opened the door for her, and then got in himself.

She gave him directions, telling to head out of town on Monroe, which turned into Highway 52. Riding with him, she suddenly realized she was with a strange man, about whom she knew nothing! She felt a stab of fear.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked, staring straight forward.

“About what?” she asked.

“About why you’re married, but nobody missed you?”

“Not really,” she said.

“That’s okay,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? What about tomorrow?” she asked, the fear pulsing in her veins.

“Well, the police impounded your car, and you obviously live outside of town. I’ll come pick you up and we’ll go get your car back. It wasn’t damaged much either. The bumpers just got hooked together. I think it will run okay.”

The thought that both Daniel’s and her cars had been impounded by different law enforcement agencies, in different states, seemed suddenly hilarious to Renee, and she started to chuckle. All the stress bubbled up, past the barriers she had erected to clamp it inside of her, and she started laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. That soon turned to sobs, though, as she felt completely stupid for laughing at something that wasn’t, in the slightest way, funny. He opened the center console, and pulled out a handful of napkins, offering them to her. She took them and pressed them to her face, crying real tears of grief, mostly for herself, but still true grief that her life had gone so terribly wrong.

He pulled over to the shoulder and just sat. She looked at him, embarrassed that she’d made such a scene.

“I didn’t want to go too far and pass the turnoff,” he said softly. “Which way?”

She pointed straight, and then, just past the city limits, to the left. Two houses and a mile and a half later she pointed at her house.