A Snowball's Chance
Marion Kirkwell watched from the window of her room as two men in bargain store suits emerged from the rather nondescript mid-size Ford and walked toward the entrance of the nursing home. As they approached the front door of the senior citizens home, she could overhear part of their conversation.
"This is a complete waste of time," the younger of the two men declared irritably.
"But we don't know that yet. Do we?" the older one countered.
"The woman is in her seventies, for Christ's sake! She probably has Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia."
Marion turned away from the window in disgust.
Why is it everyone thinks old people are all senile? she wondered. Personally, my memory is as good as it ever was—although, sometimes, I wish it weren't. There are some things I'd just as soon forget.
She picked up the book off her nightstand and began to read but was soon interrupted by a knock on her door.
"Yes?"
A pretty young nurse, new to the home, entered and announced, "There are two policemen here to see you, Miss Marion."
The old woman was too bewildered to answer.
Could it be possible? she wondered. After all this time?
"I've shown them into the solarium, but if you'd rather they visit you in your room ...."
"No. I'll go to them."
The nurse led her down the hall, supporting her by the arm. It was not necessary since Marion had no mobility issues, but she had grown used to the patronizing ways of the younger staff members. She took no offense in their actions since it was obvious they meant well.
"Mrs. Kirkwell," the older of the two visitors said, rising to his feet when she entered the solarium. "I'm Detective Ralph Hewer, and this is my partner, Sergeant Nash Emmerton."
"Have you found her?" Marion cried, not wanting to waste precious time with unnecessary pleasantries.
"No. We're part of a new cold case unit, and we've just been assigned to the investigation."
"If you can remember anything about the day your daughter went missing," the younger police officer began; he was the one who had believed the visit was a complete waste of time. "Anything at all."
"Do you have any children, Sergeant?"
"No, ma'am. I'm not married."
"If you did, you would surely know a mother is not likely to forget anything about the day her child went missing."
Ralph suppressed a smile. The old woman had pluck.
"I hate to ask you to relive it all again," he said, taking over the questioning.
"I've been reliving that day for forty-five years, Detective. What's one more time?"
"Rather than us plying you with questions, why don't you just tell us, in your own words, what happened and we'll listen?"
"Mind if I have a cup of tea first?"
"Not at all. Nash, go ask the nurse to bring Mrs. Kirkwell some tea."
When the young sergeant left the room, Marion turned to his partner and assured him, "I may be old, but there's nothing wrong with my memory."
"I'm glad to hear that. It might come in useful during the course of our investigation."
Sgt. Emmerton returned, soon followed by a nurse carrying a plastic tray from the cafeteria. After taking a drink of her tea, Marion began her uninterrupted narrative.
* * *
Easter was late that year: the twenty-first of April. Little Becky Kirkwell, who turned five in March and had yet to start kindergarten, still believed in the Easter Bunny. She was the first one up that morning, eager to see what was in the basket he had left for her. It was well before six when the little girl ran into her mother's bedroom to wake her.
"Mommy! Mommy!" she cried excitedly. "It's time to get up. The Easter Bunny was here."
"All right, sweetheart," her mother said, getting out of bed and putting on her bathrobe. "I'm up. Let's go downstairs and see what he brought you."
Marion, whose husband had been killed in Korea, doted on her only child; and since she was a woman of independent means, spoiled her whenever possible. Consequently, there was more than a simple wicker basket of candy waiting for the child. Her gifts included a large, furry stuffed rabbit, nearly as tall as Becky herself; a child's gardening kit; a new doll; and a book about Peter Cottontail. The basket itself was oversized and filled with artificial grass in a rainbow of pastel colors. Inside were marshmallow Peeps, jelly beans, candy eggs and chocolate rabbits in different sizes, all wrapped in colored foil.
Becky immediately reached into the basket for a white chocolate egg.
"Don't go filling up on candy now," her mother warned. "You don't want to spoil your appetite for breakfast."
Every year on Easter Sunday, the Kirkwells' church celebrated with an after-services holiday buffet and an egg hunt. This year, Marion was contributing her blueberry bread pudding and an egg and cheese casserole.
Becky obediently stopped after eating only one piece of chocolate.
"Where are all the eggs we colored last night?" she asked, noticing the empty bowls on the dining room table.
"The Easter Bunny took them," her mother answered. "He's going to hide them in the park behind the church, and it will be up to you and the other children to find them—just like you did last year and the year before that."
Marion made herself a cup of coffee and poured a glass of milk for her daughter. Then she sat on the rocking chair with Becky on her lap and read her the story of Peter Cottontail.
"Read it again," the child said when her mother reached the end of the book.
"You forgot to say please."
"Please read it again."
"Once more. Then we have to get ready for church."
Although Marion would never win any church attendance awards, she never missed services on Palm Sunday or Easter. They were the only two days of the year when the small New England house of worship was filled to capacity. Not even on Christmas was there such a turnout.
As was the custom in the Fifties, people in the congregation dressed up in their finest attire for Sunday services, and on Easter they outdid themselves. Women wore dresses, hats and white gloves and often had corsages of fresh flowers pinned to their coats. Marion wore a conservative pale blue suit befitting her status as a widow, but she took great pleasure in dressing her daughter up like a princess. Becky had on a white taffeta dress adorned with violets. Over that, she wore a lavender coat with matching hat. Completing her ensemble were white patent leather shoes, a miniature handbag, lavender anklet socks and a pair of white gloves.
When they arrived at the church, Becky went downstairs to the basement where Sunday school was held for children ages twelve and under. Her mother, meanwhile, joined the adults and teenagers upstairs, sitting in a pew next to Olive Cornwall, the minister's wife.
"It's a beautiful day out, isn't it?" the gray-haired matron asked.
"Yes, it is." Marion agreed. "Perfect weather for the egg hunt."
"And the buffet. In fact, it's so warm out, we're going to hold it outdoors this year."
Halfway through her husband's sermon, Olive went outside to oversee the volunteers who were setting up the tables and chairs on the church's rear lawn. After Reverend Cornwall's benediction, Marion went to her car, retrieved her casserole dishes and placed them on the buffet table. The single mother was helping the volunteers by bringing out the disposable plates, cups, forks and spoons, when Sunday school let out. The children ran to the back yard of the church, eager to begin the egg hunt. As always, seeing her daughter brought a smile to Marion's face.
"You must wait, children," the minister called when he saw three eager youngsters heading toward the sprawling parkland adjacent to the churchyard and its cemetery. "We'll start the hunt once everyone has had breakfast."
"But I'm not hungry," one little lad complained, clutching his empty Easter basket, keen on filling it with eggs.
"It doesn't matter. You go sit at the table with your parents and wait. Everyone will start searching at the same time."
Becky was seated beside her mother, picking at her food, when she saw the surprise guest emerge from the church.
"Look, Mommy!" she cried with excitement. "It's Peter Cottontail!"
"No, darling," her mother laughed. "That's the Easter Bunny."
When the costumed rabbit took his seat of honor, children lined up to meet him and have their photographs taken. While Becky was awaiting her turn, Marion went back to the buffet table to cut herself a slice of Easter bread: braided sweet dough baked around colored eggs. It was Olive's contribution to the buffet every year, and it was delicious. She returned to the table in time to see her daughter climb up onto the rabbit's lap and smile for the camera.
It seems like only yesterday she was sitting on Santa's lap, she thought. And here it is, Easter already. Time passes so quickly. Before you know it, September will be here, and I'll be sending her off to school.
It was a day she was not looking forward to, but one that was inevitable. Children have to grow up, after all—or so she thought.
At last the crowd of people around the buffet disappeared, and those at the smaller tables were finishing up their meals. Reverend Cornwall, after delivering a blessing, announced the start of the egg hunt.
"Whoa! Slow down," he cautioned as children raced each other to the park. "You don't want to slip on the grass and fall."
"Wouldn't it be wonderful to be a child again?" Olive asked nostalgically. "How I used to love egg hunts and trick-or-treating. Now we have to experience the fun vicariously through our children. Of course, my son is too old for such things, and my granddaughter is too small."
After enjoying one last slice of Easter bread, Marion helped the volunteers clean up the trash from the tables. They worked to the accompaniment of the children's squeals of delight. The cry of "Look! I found one!" was heard repeatedly from the park. Every so often, the widowed mother craned her neck to see her daughter stoop down and scoop up another egg.
"Becky seems to be doing quite well in the hunt. I don't know what we're going to do with all those hardboiled eggs, though," she said.
"In the words of Dale Carnegie," the minister's wife joked, "when life gives you Easter eggs, you make egg salad."
Once the trash was disposed of, the volunteers began folding up the chairs and tables and returning them to the storage room in the church basement. After her fifth such trip, Marion looked toward the park to check on her daughter's progress. Her eyes scanned the scurrying children, but there was no sign of Becky's lavender coat and hat among them.
I hope she didn't go into the woods. I told her not to.
The egg hunt was beginning to wind down. It was Easter Sunday, and people had places to go and families to visit. They began collecting their children, saying their goodbyes and driving off in their cars. Marion, unable find her daughter in the park, began searching the woods.
"Becky!" she called.
There was no answer, and she called again, and again. Each time her voice grew louder and her appeals more urgent.
"Can't you find her?" Reverend Cornwall asked, coming to the distressed mother's assistance.
"No. I told her not to go into the woods, but ...."
"Don't get upset. We'll find her."
The minister quickly formed a search party out of the members of his congregation who were still at the church. More than two dozen men and women scoured the park and woods hunting not for Easter eggs but for the missing child. All they were able to find was Becky's lavender hat.
* * *
"I never saw my daughter again," Marion Kirkwell said, concluding her story.
With great difficulty, she had remained dry-eyed throughout her narrative. Now that it was over, however, the tears fell. Ralph handed her a Kleenex tissue from a nearby box.
"Do you remember anything odd happening that day? Anyone acting peculiar?" he inquired.
"Save your questions, Detective Hewer. I know who took my daughter."
"Who?"
"The Easter Bunny."
Nash Emmerton rolled his eyes, and gave his partner an I-told-you-so look. The senior detective, however, was not too quick to dismiss the mother's statement.
"What makes you think that? Did you see the Easter Bunny hop off into the woods after your daughter?" Nash asked in a condescending tone that clearly indicated he thought the woman was one Easter egg short of a dozen.
"I'm not some senile old fool," Marion said defensively. "I assume whoever took Becky was not a child. The man in the rabbit costume was the only adult who went anywhere near those woods. All the others were either sitting down eating or gathered around the buffet table."
It was Ralph who pointed out the obvious flaw in her theory.
"You told us you and the other volunteers were going into and out of the church, storing the tables and chairs. It's possible someone could have entered the woods without your seeing them."
"The storage room was right inside the door of the church. It took me only a few moments each time to hand over the chairs to Huey Weddell, who was stacking them up as they came in. Anyone walking off to the woods would have had to cross the open grass of the park first and would be visible for several minutes."
"Did you mention your suspicions to the police at that time?"
"Yes, but they didn't take me seriously. Can you blame them? A hysterical mother claiming the Easter Bunny ran off with her child!"
After thanking Marion for her time and promising to keep her posted on any developments in the case, the two detectives left the nursing home.
"What next?" Nash joked as they drove off in their unmarked, police issue Ford. "Do we go get the Easter Bunny's pawprints and a sample of his DNA?"
"Excuse me for not laughing, but I don't find anything remotely amusing about the disappearance of a five-year-old child."
"Sorry. No more distasteful jokes."
"Okay. Let's assume Mrs. Kirkwell is right and none of the other adults went into the woods. What do we know about the person in the rabbit suit?"
As his partner waited at the red traffic signal, gazing out the window at a billboard urging voters to cast their ballots for John Kerry and John Edwards in the upcoming presidential election, Nash opened the file that contained the case notes from the original investigation. After skimming through several pages, he found the information he was looking for.
"Here it is. Amos Hill. Forty-two-year-old white male. Married. One son, age nine. Hill worked as an accountant, in business for himself. Coached his son's Little League team and was the scoutmaster of his Cub Scout troop. Did volunteer work at the hospital and taught Sunday school at the church. In short, he was a well-respected man in town."
"'Cause he's oh, so good; and he's oh, so fine; and he's oh, so healthy in his body and his mind."
"Come again?" Nash asked, confused at his partner's response.
"Those are lyrics from an old song by the Kinks called 'A Well-Respected Man.' It's way before your time."
"Anyway," Nash said, hoping to avoid a stroll down a musical memory lane with his partner, "our Easter Bunny doesn't seem like the type of man to abduct a five-year-old kid."
"Don't be so sure," Ralph advised. "Appearances are often deceiving. Getting back to the Kinks' song, the well-respected man 'adores the girl next door' and 'he's dying to get at her.' Amos Hill must have seen Becky Kirkwell at Sunday school that day. Who knows what might have been on his mind?"
The rumbling in his stomach caused Nash to look at his watch. It was half past twelve.
"What I'm dying to get at," he said, "is a nice juicy burger."
"Sounds good. How about we stop for lunch and then head back to the station and try to come up with a list of the children who participated in that egg hunt?"
After more than four hours of looking through church records and witness statements, the two detectives compiled a list of forty-two names.
"This might not be all of them, but it's a start," Ralph announced. "Now we have to determine where they currently live and then go talk to them."
Ralph made a copy of the list and handed it to his partner.
"I'll start at the top, you start from the bottom, and hopefully we'll meet in the middle."
The two detectives ran each name through a police database, noting on their list the person's last known address.
"We can scratch this one off," Nash said, picking up his pen and drawing a line through one of the names. "He never made it back from Vietnam."
The deceased soldier's was not the only name to be deleted. One of the potential witnesses was killed in a car crash, one overdosed and seven others died of natural causes. Of the remaining thirty-three names, twelve of them had moved out of state.
"We can contact those people by phone," Ralph declared, highlighting the names with a yellow marker. "That still leaves twenty-one people to visit in person."
The detective glanced at the clock and noticed it was already past six. No doubt his wife would be keeping dinner warm. Still, he did not want to make her wait too long.
"Let's call it a night," he suggested.
Nash readily agreed. The case was forty-five years old. One more day would not make much of a difference.
* * *
Both the long-distance telephone calls and in-person interviews were fairly short and yielded no useful information. Nearly all of the people questioned claimed to have little or no recollection of the events of that long-ago Easter Sunday.
"I wasn't even there that day," one man told them. "I was sick, so I stayed home with my mother while my father took my sister to the egg hunt."
Three of the people they questioned had been under the age of five and recalled nothing at all about that day.
"Hell, Detective! I vaguely remember the Kennedy assassination," the Kirkwells' former next-door neighbor admitted. "And that was four years later."
By midday, the two law enforcement officers found themselves sitting at a picnic bench beside a roadside hot dog stand. Nash was squeezing mustard out of a foil packet onto his chili dog and complaining about their lack of progress.
"If the people of this state only knew how their tax dollars were being wasted on a cold case unit," he grumbled.
"People like Marion Kirkwell, you mean?" his partner asked sarcastically. "I'm sure she wouldn't object."
"But we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of solving this case. The only person who has a clear memory of the day is the mother, and she insists the Easter Bunny took her daughter."
"Well, if it makes you and the voters any happier, we'll question the last names on our list and then move on to a different case, one a little more current."
"Do you mean that?" the young sergeant asked with surprise.
Ralph Hewer was usually like a dog with a bone, reluctant to let anything go. His willingness to move on so quickly was uncharacteristic of him.
"I hate to say it," he confessed, "but in this instance, I agree with you. We've got a snowball's chance in hell of finding out what became of Becky Kirkwell. And even if we did, the culprit is probably dead and buried by now. We might as well be trying to solve the case of the missing princes in the Tower."
"The what?"
"Forget it. It's ancient history—literally!"
After enjoying their hot dogs and fries, the two detectives tossed their trash in the can and got into their Ford.
"What's the next name on the list?" Ralph asked, as he pulled back onto the road.
"Let's see ... Eugene Hill."
"Hill? Any relation to Amos?"
"I don't know. He might be, but Hill is a fairly common name in this area."
"What's the address?"
Nash referred to his list.
"Oh, shit!" the sergeant exclaimed.
"What is it?" Ralph asked.
"He lives at 27 Shamrock Way."
The address was one the older detective had recently seen in the file. It belonged to Amos Hill.
"It's the Easter Bunny's kid. I don't know about you," the older detective said with a smile, "but I'm feeling a bit chilly, kind of like a snowball that's about to step into hell."
"Don't get your hopes up," his partner cautioned. "He probably doesn't remember anything either."
Although the fifty-four-year-old was probably at work, Ralph drove to his house anyway. When he pulled up in front of the large Victorian and saw a car in the driveway, he hoped for the best.
"I'm looking for a Mr. Eugene Hill," the detective told the man who answered the door.
"That's me."
After introducing himself and his partner, Ralph Hewer explained the reason for their visit.
"May we come in?"
"Yes, but I don't see how I can help you. I don't remember much about that day."
Walking into the Hill living room was like entering the Museum of Natural History. Stuffed animals—real ones, not toys—were everywhere: on shelves, tables and even hanging on the walls.
"You have quite a collection here," Ralph noted.
"Many of them were my pets. That cat over there belonged to my mother. It lived to be nineteen years old."
"Have you always had an interest in taxidermy?"
"Yes. I picked it up from my father. He ...."
Suddenly remembering he was talking to the police, Eugene quickly dropped the subject.
"What is it you wanted to ask me, Detective?"
"Your father played the Easter Bunny that day, didn't he?"
"He did, but I didn't know it at the time. I was more interested in finding eggs than in learning who was wearing the rabbit costume."
"What else do you remember about that day?" Nash inquired.
"Not a hell of a lot," Eugene admitted. "I recall that Reverend Cornwall wouldn't let us start the egg hunt right away. We had to sit through breakfast first. I wasn't happy about that. Then he made us line up to sit on the Easter Bunny's lap."
"Your father's lap?" Ralph asked, sending a silent signal to his partner that we would ask the questions.
"Yeah, but as I already told you, I didn't know it was my father."
"Didn't you recognize his voice?"
"He didn't speak. It wasn't like sitting on Santa's lap and having him ask what you wanted for Christmas. You just sat on the rabbit's lap and had your picture taken. Then he handed you a decorated Easter egg, and off you went. That was it."
"You were—what?—nine at the time? Wasn't that a little old to believe in the Easter Bunny?"
"Who said I believed in him? I was there because they were giving out prizes to the kids who found the most Easter eggs. First prize was a new transistor radio."
"But you sat on his lap."
"I didn't have any choice. Those were the rules: no picture on the lap, no egg hunt."
"I don't suppose you noticed Becky Kirkwell on your father's lap?"
"How could I help but notice? She was standing in front of me on line."
"Was there anything different about the way he treated her?"
"Are you suggesting my father groped that little girl right there in front of all those church-goers?"
"I'm not suggesting anything. I'm merely asking questions."
"Well, the answer is no. My father was no pervert. Even if he did give her a golden Easter egg, so what?"
"What's this about a golden Easter egg?"
"A number of the eggs were dyed gold. They were like instant winners in a lottery. If a child got a gold eye, they immediately won a prize."
"How was it that your father gave one to Becky Kirkwell?"
"It was purely by chance. He didn't single her out, if that's what you mean."
"I'm making no assumptions here. Like I said, I'm just asking questions. Now, you're waiting on line to sit on the Easter Bunny's lap. Then what?"
"I already told you! I don't remember much about that day," Eugene insisted in a voice that was almost a whine.
"I think you're underestimating yourself," the detective said. "After all, it's been forty-five years, and yet you remember who was standing in front of you on the line and who got a gold egg."
"That's because of who she was," Hill explained.
"A five-year-old girl who went missing?"
"No. The daughter of the richest woman in town, a mother who gave her anything she ever wanted. It didn't seem fair to me that she won a prize."
It was evident to the two detectives that even after all the time that had passed Eugene Hill still harbored resentment toward the little girl.
* * *
Having concluded their interview with Amos Hill's son, Ralph and Nash visited the last names on their list.
"We got nothing," the sergeant complained. "No evidence, no witnesses. We don't even have a body. I'm willing to bet she was abducted by someone driving past the woods."
"A stranger who sees a pretty little girl and on impulse pulls her into his car?"
"Maybe he coaxed her into the vehicle by offering her candy."
"When she had an entire basket full at home?"
"It's the best I could come up with," Nash said, shrugging his shoulders.
"I suppose it's as good a theory as saying the Easter Bunny did it. Either way, we've done all we can."
On his drive home, Ralph replayed the Eugene Hill interview in his mind. Something bothered him about it, not so much the words the man said but the way he acted. He was not a believer in hunches, but he often had suspicions; and he had one now. He turned his car around and headed back to the police station. When he failed to find the information he sought in the file, he drove to the nursing home and asked to speak to Marion Kirkwell.
"Have you found out anything?" the mother asked, her face radiating with hope.
"No, I want to ask you a few more questions, if I may. The answers might not be important, but ...."
"What do you want to know?"
"What became of your daughter's Easter basket? What I mean is, was it ever found?"
"Yes. It was lying on the ground, in the woods, not far from her hat."
"Do you remember if there were any eggs in it when it was found?"
"No. It was empty, which—come to think of it—it shouldn't have been. Several times I saw her scoop an egg up and put it inside."
"One more question," Ralph said. "Do you know who won the transistor radio that was given away that day."
Marion's eyebrows knotted in concentration.
"I believe it was Amos Hill's boy. Yes. It was. Not only did he win the radio, but he also got a small prize for having one of the gold eggs."
* * *
"What's this?" Nash asked when he saw the Becky Kirkwell file on his partner's desk the following morning. "I thought we put this down in the basement."
"I got it out again." his partner replied. "There were a few questions I thought of on my way home last night."
"Don't tell me we're going to continue to pursue this ...."
"No. You start reading through the Van Vorst file, while I tie up a few loose ends."
As Nash reviewed the autopsy report and witness statements concerning the Van Vorst homicide, jotting down notes on a yellow legal pad as he did, his partner was taking a closer look at both Amos Hill and his son.
"Mrs. Kirkwell was wrong," he mumbled to himself.
"What's that about Mrs. Kirkwell?" the sergeant asked.
"Nothing. I'm just talking to myself."
An hour later, Ralph got up from his desk and grabbed his jacket.
"Where are you going?" Nash asked.
"To see the judge about getting a search warrant."
"For what?"
"Eugene Hill's house."
"What could he possibly have—wait! I get it. That was his father's house before he inherited it. But do you think there's any evidence still lying around after forty-five years?"
"Probably not, but it's worth a look."
* * *
Detective Hewer arrived at 27 Shamrock Way with two uniformed policemen just as Eugene Hill was leaving his house.
"You again? Have you come back to ask me more questions about my father?" he asked, annoyed by the unexpected visit.
"No," Ralph replied. "I've come to search your house."
The homeowner's face turned ashen.
"And before you ask, yes, I have a warrant."
"What do you hope to find?" Eugene inquired as the two uniformed policemen began looking through his rooms, opening his closets and drawers. "Do you think my father buried that little girl's body in the cellar?"
"I don't know. Did he?"
"I tell you you're barking up the wrong tree, Hewer! My father didn't kill that girl."
"I never said he did."
"Why are you harassing me then?"
"Tell me," the detective said, looking the other man directly in the eye. "Why does an unmarried man with no children, nieces or nephews have a charge account with a toy store?"
Eugene's already pale face lost what little color it had.
"I ... uh ... I ... I buy things for myself."
"What kind of things do you buy at a toy store?"
"Uh ... dolls," he answered, finally arriving at what he hoped was a believable explanation. "I use the eyes in them for my taxidermy."
Ralph had second thoughts. Was his suspicion wrong? Was Nash right in assuming Becky Kirkwell had been abducted by a passing stranger? But if so, why was Eugene Hill so upset at having his house searched? What was he afraid they would find?
For several hours, the three law enforcement officers went over just about every inch of the old Victorian house. They found nothing. After they finished looking through the cardboard boxes in the attic and finding only old clothes and family heirlooms, Ralph decided it was time to end the search.
There were two duties the detective hated to do in the course of his job: one was to tell family members that their loved ones were dead, and the other was to admit to suspects that he was wrong. It was always a humbling experience to apologize to people who gloated at him with an I-told-you-so look on their faces. As he walked down the steep attic stairs, he mentally prepared himself for such an ordeal.
"I'll be glad to get out of here," he heard one uniformed policeman tell the other. "This place gives me the creeps. All these dead animals around here with their glass eyes staring at me. They remind me of the porcelain dolls my great-grandmother used to have. They creeped me out, too."
When Ralph came to a sudden stop, the young police officer nearly ran into him on the staircase.
"Are you all right, sir?"
"Yes. I was just wondering ...."
As the father of two boys, he never purchased a doll, but he was not completely ignorant of the modern toy market. He had seen enough ads at Christmas time to know that today's dolls were made of child-safe materials. What parent nowadays would give their little girl a doll with glass eyes?
He lied to me, the detective concluded as he strode down the hall and into the kitchen. Surely, a store like Toys R Us does not sell antique porcelain dolls.
"We found nothing in your basement or your attic," he announced to the homeowner, who was sitting at the kitchen table.
Moments after the I-told-you-so smirk appeared on Eugene's face, the detective's words wiped it off.
"I didn't notice any workbenches or materials in the house. Where is it you do your taxidermy work, Mr. Hill?"
"I haven't done any for quite a while."
This time the detective did not fall for any of the man's lies. There was no need to. When Ralph asked his last question, Eugene's eyes momentarily darted to the two-car detached garage at the back of the house.
"Come with me," he told the two uniformed policemen.
What was inside the garage creeped out the young officer more than any of his great-grandmother's porcelain dolls or the preserved remains of Eugene's former pets had.
"Oh, Christ!" he exclaimed when one of the locked garage doors was forced open.
Inside, in addition to the workbench and various taxidermy supplies, was the mummified body of five-year-old Becky Kirkwell, staring at the three policemen through the glass eyes she received from Amos Hill. Surrounded by toys Eugene purchased for her with his Toys R Us charge account, she was still wearing the white taffeta dress adorned with violets, lavender coat, white patent leather shoes and lavender anklet socks that Marion bought for her daughter to wear the Easter she went missing.
"Should I call forensics?" the second uniformed policeman asked (the first was vomiting in the shrubs at that moment).
"Let's cuff Mr. Hill and put him in the squad car first," Ralph replied. "I'll come along with you and read him his rights."
* * *
Detective Hewer held Marion Kirkwell's arm to steady her as he leaned forward and placed a bouquet of flowers on her daughter's grave. The cemetery adjacent to the church had grown quite a bit larger in the past forty-five years, taking up most of what had once been the rear lawn.
"This was right about where the breakfast buffet was set up," she recalled, wiping the tears from her eyes with a crumpled Kleenex. "And over there was where they held the egg hunt."
Her tears came faster, too fast to be contained by a single tissue.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. "It's just that ... Oh, God! To be killed over something as stupid as a transistor radio!"
Ralph offered what comfort he could, but there was little that could ease the old woman's sorrow.
"Did he ...? Did he tell you how he ...?"
Marion wanted to know the details of the crime, yet at the same time, dreaded hearing them.
"He said he hit her over the head with a rock. He swears he didn't mean to kill her, that he only wanted to knock her out and take her eggs, but whether that's true or not, only Eugene knows for sure."
"And his father ...?"
"He helped get rid of the body so that his son wouldn't go to jail."
"How on earth did Amos get her out of the woods and past everyone at the breakfast tables?"
"He was wearing a rabbit suit at the time. It was a big furry costume with a huge head. When no one was looking, he took the costume off and wrapped it around your daughter's body. Apparently, no one took notice of him walking back to his car with the costume because at the time no one was aware that your daughter was missing."
"But why not bury her? Why preserve her like some dead animal?"
"Who knows? Maybe he thought there was no safer place to hide a body than in his own garage. Or maybe it was meant as a lesson for his son not to lose his temper again. I gave up trying to figure people out a lot time ago."
Still clutching her damp tissue, Marion blew a kiss toward her daughter's grave, turned and walked back to Detective Hewer's car.
"I can't thank you enough for bringing my little girl back to me."
"No need to thank me. I was glad to do it."
"May I be frank?"
"Certainly."
"When you and your young partner first came to the nursing home to tell me you were going to investigate the case, I didn't think you had a snowball's chance in hell of finding her."
"Well, Mrs. Kirkwell," Ralph chuckled as he opened the passenger door for the old woman, "I suppose snowballs are more durable than we think they are."
"A Well Respected Man" written by Ray Davies © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Salem loves Easter eggs, especially when they're made of chocolate.
