Kyla called late Friday afternoon with another update. She had just gotten off the phone with Connor Ford and had plenty to share. Kyla didn’t know how he’d obtained his information, but assumed it was through his connections to Sheriff’s Detective Mark Hale and the DA’s Chief Investigator Avery Proctor.
Ray died at 10:08 this morning. Although UAB had operated three times to repair internal damages, it was sepsis that caused his death. What started Tuesday as a treatable and controllable staph infection had entered his bloodstream on Wednesday and rocketed into full-blown sepsis by midday yesterday. Ray lost the battle today, two hours before Jane was released from the hospital and three hours before she called DA Pam Garrison to request a meeting.
The news of Ray’s death was unwelcome. I wanted him alive but locked in an 8 x 8-foot jail cell for the next twenty or thirty years.
The better news Kyla shared was that Jane had made a confession. Of sorts. My immediate thought was that Jane’s willingness to talk was prompted by Ray’s death and her knowledge that he was no longer a threat to her survival.
Jane first confessed to helping Ray disable his ankle monitor but swore she did not know what he intended to do. However, what she had witnessed at the entrance to Dogwood Trail convinced her Ray had killed Billy and Buddy James.
Jane then admitted to tipping Ray off prior to the execution of the search warrant that found his safe completely empty.
Kyla’s words, “I almost forgot. Jane had one central excuse for all her actions, even those I’ll share in a minute, that go all the way back to high school.”
I interrupted sis and inserted what I knew would be Jane’s excuse. “She blamed it all on Ray. Probably said she was under his spell and didn’t act of her free will.”
“Yep,” was Kyla’s response.
I then kept my mouth shut and listened. Over the next several minutes, I learned Jane had denied any involvement in Lillian’s disappearance, arguing vehemently that neither she nor Ted had said anything like what I’d included in my written statement to Officer Wilson. I couldn’t help but think my darling Lillian might not be missing if I’d followed my intellect, which had told me Jane was untrustworthy. My entire being yelled that Jane was a mortal enemy. I was at fault for Lillian’s disappearance, like I was for Kyle’s half-a-century ago.
What Jane divulged about Sharon Teague caught me by surprise. So far, this was the strongest threat to Jane’s freedom. She admitted helping Ray and Rachel kidnap the Albertville High School cheerleader and hide her inside Ronald Archer’s barn off Dogwood Trail. Their intent was to scare the girl into keeping her mouth shut about her and Ray’s pregnancy. The threesome intended to release Sharon within a few days once she assured them of her commitment to stay silent.
Two days later, she was dead. Possibly from a heart attack. All three, Ray, Rachel, and Jane, disposed of her body on the back side of the same farm, thinking no one would ever find her. What they didn’t know at the time was Kyle Bennett had followed them to Ronald’s barn during their last trip. From afar, Kyle had watched the trio move and bury the cheerleader’s lifeless body.
This event naturally required Jane to address the disappearance and ultimate death of Kyle. She easily admitted her role, even including her play-acting at King Street, dressed in Kyle’s clothes. She was careful to limit her exposure to what followed by describing that when the three of them, Ray, Rachel, and herself returned to the shed behind the ice plant, Kyle had disappeared. Rachel’s shocking statement, “Daddy, what have you done?” was Jane’s only clue that Rob Kern was the reason Kyle was no longer stripped to his underwear and tied inside the place they’d left him less than an hour earlier.
The bottom-line concerning Kyle was that his death was still a mystery. At least to Jane. Kyla relayed Jane was clear with DA Garrison that she had a belief, but no actual proof. Jane believed it was Rachel’s father who had taken Kyle, killed him, and disposed of his body, but she didn’t know this for a fact. She quickly answered the DA’s question about conversations she later had with her best friend. Jane swore Rachel never breathed a word about that night, at least to her. She believed with all her heart that Rachel carried the truth to her grave.
At 10:00 PM Friday night, I returned to Starbucks to see if I could gain a better perspective from the one I’d pondered inside the four walls of my Day’s Inn room. By midnight, after three cups of strong coffee, my mind was still in turmoil, not even considering the fate of my beautiful Lillian.
I exited Starbucks and started my eight-minute walk back to the hotel. It was raining. It was cold. I figuratively shook my head sideways as my head got soaked. I realized my two-month trip to Alabama hadn’t been fruitful, but one thing I felt confident about was who had kidnapped and killed Kyle. The fact Jane’s confession loosely aligned with Rosa’s brought credibility to my half-century old question. When I turned right on M & O Street, I had a confession of my own. Until Rosa died, I had convinced myself that it was Ray Archer who had ended Kyle’s life. Now, it seemed obvious I had been wrong. It was Rachel and her father. No wonder the woman who had captured my heart that day in Mrs. Stamps English class had killed herself.
I arrived at my room, drenched, and freezing. After a warm shower, I went to bed dreaming of what life with Lillian would have been like if we hadn’t broken up during my freshman year of college.
***
I tossed and turned all night. It was like I was driving a mountainous road, sleepy but knowing that if I dozed for a second or two, I would careen down the rocky hillside into a life-ending abyss.
At 7:30 am while in the bathroom splashing cold water on my face, my cell started ringing. I walked to the nightstand beside the bed. It was Detective Gass. My mind forewarned me with an image of Rachel lying in her casket at McClam Funeral Home in New Haven. “Hello.”
“Lee, this is Detective Gass. You need to sit and brace yourself. I have some bad news.” It’s funny how the mind works, always filling in knowledge gaps, redrafting hopes, and dreams. The most important thing now wasn’t that I’d find Lillian alive, but that she hadn’t suffered.
The only noise I made was long, sorrowful, and like the one I’d made when I’d found Rachel hanging from the basement ceiling: “oh no, please no, God no.”
“I’m so sorry and I apologize for not being there right now.”
I sat on the bed and interrupted Gass. “I made you promise you’d call the moment you had news.” The next few moments were a nightmare. I could feel my body revolting; it wanted to strike out and hit the wall. Something fully prepared to rip Alex Mandy’s heart out with my bare hands. But my mind was waging a uniquely different battle, that of sleep. Somehow, it knew I needed to concentrate on the road ahead, or I would die. The difference now versus my earlier mountain drive was there was a third element. I did want to die, but my mind didn’t know it, or was in its own battle against itself.
“Do you want me to send an officer for you?” Detective Gass asked. I could hear voices in the background. I couldn’t understand a single word. But I could still understand what was going on from the beeping noise. That was an ambulance backing up. Towards Lillian’s body.
“No, just tell me where you are.” Before I finished my statement, I realized the detective hadn’t told me Lillian was dead. “How did she die?” Those were the most painful four words I’d ever said.
“We’re not sure. She may have drowned.”
“Drowned. Again, where are you?”
“Meigs Falls. It’s about half-an-hour from the Day’s Inn.”
Gass said something else, but I didn’t comprehend. I was too busy booting up my laptop. “How did you find her?”
“Two early morning hikers. They had walked from the Meigs Creek Trailhead to the Falls and spotted her body in the water.”
I finally found the location on Google Maps. I don’t know how, but I asked additional questions. Detective Gass was patient and probably would have talked for hours if that was what I needed. I learned a young couple who had illegally camped by the creek a few hundred feet downstream from the Falls had found Lillian’s body two hours earlier. They had gotten up before daylight to disband camp. Seeing a body wedged between two trees a few feet from their pup tent shocked them.
Gass relayed that crime scene investigators theorized that whoever kidnapped Lillian had brought her to this location and may have hidden her body in the cave-like corridor behind where the plunging water meets the creek below.
“Are you sure it’s her?” was the last question I asked, although I knew the answer. Previously, I had sent him several recent photos of Lillian. Two were closeups.
“I am. We are. The coroner is here and agrees, but we need you to provide the ultimate confirmation.”
Detective Gass asked if I wanted an officer to come and drive me to the medical examiner’s office. Again, I declined. He gave me the address and shared his sorrow over my loss.
Somehow, I gathered my things, checked out of the hotel, and made the forty-minute trip through Pigeon Forge and on to Sevierville without hurting or killing myself or anyone else.
It was after nine before the ambulance arrived from Meigs Creek Trailhead and almost 9:30 before the examiner’s staff had Lillian’s body ready for my viewing and identification.
The moment the coroner pulled back the sheet, I saw her angelic face. I lost it and fell headfirst into the abyss.
The Pencil-Driven Life 