Murder on the Road Less Traveled. Robert W. Gregg
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know the Eakins well enough to make that more than a guess. You aren’t really looking for his body, are you?”
“Yes and no. But between us, and please don’t discuss this with anyone else, Ernie’s wife is inclined to dismiss every ordinary explanation for his failure to make it home. Which has her worried that he’s dead. I hope to disabuse her of that view, which is why we’ve been doing what we’re doing today. So far I’ve seen nothing that gives me a clue that he’s either alive or dead, but I didn’t expect to. So back to my question about you seeing anything unusual. Forget about how things look - I’m sure they look like they do day in and day out. But what about side roads, roads that weren’t on the map the cyclists were following. You said that it was easy to get lost, make a wrong turn. Have we passed any side road that Ernie could have taken by mistake? I’m not suggesting anything, just trying to consider every possibility.”
“Oh, lord, that’s a tough one. We’ve probably passed three dozen or more dirt driveways to old trailers or barely habitable shacks. I can’t imagine why Ernie or anyone else would take one of those God forsaken roads. It’s pretty obvious that they aren’t a way to any place except somebody’s ramshackle home. Or an abandoned house that never got torn down. There are a lot of them around here, but you know that as well as I do.”
“I’m afraid so,” Carol said. Like Joe, she couldn’t imagine why Ernie would have taken any of these side roads to nowhere.
It had been a long and tiring morning when they got back to Southport. Carol knew nothing about Ernie Eakins that she hadn’t known before the drive. She knew a great deal more about what a Gravel Grinder was, including the fact that she was happy that she got her exercise in other less exhausting ways.
CHAPTER 6
The next morning Carol was engaged in uncharacteristic procrastination, doing whatever she could to avoid the call she had to make to Connie Eakins. She had promised herself that she would do it at ten o’clock; but it was already 10:25, and she was stalling by handling some correspondence which was conspicuously non-urgent.
JoAnne interrupted this piece of routine business to report that a couple of people named Kennedy were sitting in the outer office and that they hoped to see her ‘if it wasn’t too much trouble.’
“They’re very concerned that they may be bothering you, and would be glad to come back at another time. I said I’d see.”
“They say what’s on their mind?”
“Only that it concerns their son.”
“Why don’t you give me five more minutes and then bring them in. Kennedy, you say.”
“Right. Ruth and Henry Kennedy. They’re African-American.”
Carol urged them to have the two seats across from her and offered them coffee, which they politely accepted - ‘cream and sugar, please.’
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said. It was apparent that they were ill at ease, and she tried to encourage them to relax. “I’m Carol Kelleher, and I’m the sheriff of Cumberland County, as you must know. It’s Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, according to my assistant. What brings you here today?”
“It’s a complicated story,” Mr. Kennedy said. “We shouldn’t be taking much of your time, but -”
“Let me tell her, Henry.” Mrs. Kennedy spoke up. “He’s right, it is complicated. But the real problem is quite simple. Our son is missing. The man he’s working for called us yesterday and told us he’d disappeared. We’re new here and we don’t know many people. That includes Adolph Slocomb. He’s the man Martin is helping.”
“It probably wasn’t a very good idea to agree to let him work out there,” Mr. Kennedy interrupted. “We’d didn’t really know Mr. Slocomb. But he needed help and we were anxious to find a place where Martin could get away from the house and get some fresh air. Anyway, now he’s run away. At least Mr. Slocomb doesn’t know where he is.”
A second man gone missing in only two days. And the Kennedys were obviously not sure how to go about the task of telling their story. They seemed to be right, Carol thought. It is going to be complicated.
“Excuse me,” Carol said. “Let’s go back to the beginning. Your son is missing and he has been working for a Mr. Slocomb. Why don’t you tell me something about your son and about Mr. Slocomb.”
The Kennedys looked at each other, as if trying to decide who should answer the sheriff. As she had expected, Mrs. Kennedy finally decided that it was her responsibility.
“Our son is Martin Luther Kennedy. He’s only fourteen years old, and he needs help. That’s why we moved to Southport. But that’s another story. Anyway, we advertised in the local paper to see if someone needed handyman kind of help this summer. There weren’t many responses. Most people wanted someone older, more experienced. But Mr. Slocomb was interested. He came to our house and talked to us. And to Martin. As it turned out, he agreed to take our son on, even was willing to pick him up in the morning and bring him back in the evening. The pay wasn’t very good, but after all Martin had no experience. So we agreed, and we thought everything was going well until yesterday when Slocomb called to tell us that Martin had disappeared. I called this morning, and Slocomb said he never came back or left a note explaining what he was doing. Of course he couldn’t have written a note. Now he’s gone, heaven knows where, and he won’t be able to find his way home.”
Mrs. Kennedy’s report had said little about the son’s disappearance, but it had said a great deal about the son.
For one thing, the boy is not only young. He needs help. What does that mean? That he’s sick? But it sounded worse than that. No note to Mr. Slocomb because he couldn’t have written one? For a fleeting moment Carol imagined that the boy had injured his hands, or had had a serious accident and lost their use. But no, a handicap like that would make him an impossible choice as Slocomb’s handyman. Perhaps he’s mentally retarded? And the business about being unable to find his way home. Certainly a fourteen year old would have no difficulty doing that, not in an area where Crooked Lake offered so many benchmarks.
“Forgive me, but I’m confused,” Carol said. “You say that Martin needs help. I don’t wish to pry, but if I’m going to help you find your son I suspect I’m going to have to know more about him and why he needs help.”
Mrs. Kennedy looked down at her lap and Carol had the distinct impression that she was holding back tears.
“Martin is not what you’d call normal,” she said. It was now clear that she was crying.
“Take your time, Mrs. Kennedy. This is obviously a difficult subject, hard to talk about. I have lots of time.”
“Thank you. Martin has never been a typical kid, not since I brought him home from the hospital. But Henry and I didn’t begin to know how difficult it would be to raise him. His situation became progressively worse. The doctors - there were lots of them - tried to help, and in a way they did, I suppose. At least they diagnosed his problem, although neither Henry nor I really understand all of it. It’s a genetic problem, which means, I’m afraid, that he could have inherited it from us. Martin had down’s syndrome at birth. I’m sure you know what that’s like. Kids look different. You know they will never be able to function quite like other kids. But Martin also turned out to have something the doctors called ASD. Correct me if I’m wrong, Henry, but I think that stands for autism spectrum disorder. The two problems together can be severe and, unfortunately, Martin is a serious case. The truth is that we really haven’t known how to raise him, but he’s our boy and God in his wisdom has made him our responsibility.”
Henry Kennedy, still dry eyed, took over the conversation.
“There’s nothing you can do about Martin’s mental or physical condition, sheriff, but maybe you can help us find him. You probably think it’s