The Secrets on Chicory Lane Read online

  The papers featured a few articles about the investigation, but they left a lot of stuff out—things I learned much later. The most striking headline was published on July 9, when the chief of police announced that they had obtained a confession from Mr. Alpine. The mayor was quoted as being “disappointed and ashamed.”

  But Gordon Alpine never had a chance to tell his side of the story in a courtroom. Before dawn on July 10, before being moved to the county jail, the man hung himself in his cell. The police had not taken adequate precautions to prevent it. After all, those kinds of things never happened in Limite. How were they to know the guy was a suicide risk?

  His suicide pushed my mother over the edge. We would never know what happened to Michael’s little body. Mr. Alpine may have confessed to abducting and killing Michael, but he had been notoriously silent on where the body was hidden. His secrets died with him. The detectives promised they would keep searching, that they would never give up, and that they would eventually find my brother’s corpse.

  They never did.

  I didn’t see Eddie again for days. Word on the street from my friends was that the cops had given Eddie a fairly rough time. The police interviewed him that second time at the Newcott house, but apparently Eddie grew upset and became belligerent, so the cops took him to the station with his parents in tow. I heard that Eddie had cried and was defiant all day even as the cops put him through the wringer. It was so cruel—he was only eleven, for Christ’s sake. When Mr. Newcott’s lawyer finally showed up—at eight o’clock at night—the cops freed Eddie with no charges whatsoever. My father and I both felt it had been an unfair thing to do to my best friend. My mother never said anything about it.

  When I finally saw him in the park, days later when my mother released me from my forced seclusion at home, he glared at me and growled, “Your mother told the police I hurt your little brother.”

  “I’m sorry. I tried to tell them you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Why did she have to lie? Why? I loved you, Shelby!” Tears came to his eyes and he walked away. Looking back, I know that his words were those of an upset young boy who was infatuated with the girl across the street. He didn’t know what love was. Not yet, and neither did I. But at the time, what he said cut me to the core. I thought I loved him, too, in my own adolescent way. We were so young, I know, and it sounds silly now, but we both believed it then.

  The rest of the summer was truly the worst two months of my life. I was grieving not only for my baby brother but also for the loss of my closeness with Eddie. It was inevitable that I would still see him, simply because we lived across the street from each other. Every now and then in July I’d catch a glimpse of him outside his house. He’d look back at me and I’d gaze at him. Occasionally, we gave each other a little wave. Then he’d turn and go inside or hop on his bike and take off. I stopped seeing him at all toward the end of the month, and it wasn’t until school started in September that I found out he wasn’t living in the house anymore. He had gone to “live with other family members.” I never knew where.

  Eddie mysteriously vanished for an entire year.

  8

  Seventh grade totally sucked, of course. That was true of junior high in general. Something had died in my heart. The atmosphere in our home was subdued, to say the least. Mom didn’t like it when I watched television—the laugh tracks made her cringe—and she’d make me turn it off or turn the volume down so low I could barely hear it. She stayed in her bedroom a lot. I don’t know what she did while I was at school and Dad was at work. The alcohol and pills didn’t start until later, so I imagine she sat in front of the television and watched soap operas. She ceased doing any temp work. She built a wall around herself and stayed inside it for the rest of her short life. I knew that she was going through something terrible, that I was witnessing someone deal with grief. It was best to give her space. She became extremely withdrawn, preferring to be alone, and she would snap at us if we tried to get her to do something she didn’t want to. Dad continued to be his complacent, friendly self, but my mother’s dark mood affected him. They were a damaged couple, and at the time I was too young to contemplate what they were going through.

  We took it day by day. Although we went to church every Sunday, my own faith was shattered, for I couldn’t understand how God could let something like that happen to my brother. My mother and I had a terrible fight sometime during the fall of that year. The conversation had begun badly, with the two of us arguing about something—a typical teenage girl/mother drama, except that it was heightened by Mom’s condition. When she said something about Michael’s abduction being “God’s will,” it made me very angry. I challenged her, saying that I didn’t believe God would do things like that. The crime wasn’t part of a divine plan; it had just happened. Brave words for a twelve-year-old girl to say, and I almost can’t believe I had the strength to say them. She grew furious. Then I poured salt onto the wound by proclaiming, “It certainly wasn’t God who came calling at our house that night, it was Evil!” My mother slapped me. Yelling, she ordered me to my room. I was stunned, stinging from the slap. She shouted at me again, and that time I turned and ran from her. I’m afraid I don’t recall how things cooled down, but I know I was in my room for a long time. From then on, any mention of Michael was accomplished only by walking on eggshells.

  We got through the school year and the first anniversary of my brother’s abduction. That fourth of July was particularly difficult. Mom stayed in her bedroom, wore earplugs to block out the sound of fireworks, and covered her eyes with a face mask. She was quite medicated. Dad and I watched the spectacle from our backyard, as usual, in an almost meditative silence. I kept thinking that Michael would have wanted us to continue to enjoy the holiday. That sounds silly, since he was a two-month-old baby, but I liked to imagine he was growing up in Heaven, with a mind of his own.

  Eddie returned to the house across the street at the end of August 1967. Right before school started, I saw him outside the house with his father, walking from the car to their front door. He turned, and we locked eyes. He seemed thinner, but otherwise, from that distance, he looked basically the same. Taller, perhaps. Yes, definitely taller.

  I waved.

  He didn’t, but continued to stare at me until his father said something to him. Eddie then jerked his head away and went into the house. Despite the distance between our houses, I could usually intuit Eddie’s mood whenever I saw him across the road. This time, I was unable to read his gaze. A hateful one? An unhappy one? Was he glad to see me?

  And then nothing happened. I hardly saw him. He didn’t contact me. I didn’t dare call him. That was the extent of our communication for the next six years. I believe the correct term is that we “grew apart.” Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my mother hadn’t banned me from seeing him when she did. Would we have stayed close, even through the ordeal of the previous summer? I don’t know.

  I didn’t find out where he had been during the past year until much later. Eddie’s life had gone in a different direction from mine as we worked and played and studied our way through junior high and high school. He was truly existing in a very different universe from mine. Eddie was still one grade behind me; he must have kept up with his education wherever he had been when he was away. I’d see him in the school hallway and we’d maybe nod or say, “Hi,” but I don’t believe we ever stopped to talk to each other. It was a case of awkward avoidance but also of maintaining politeness.

  My junior high school experience was perhaps atypical from my peers in that everyone knew I had lost my brother. I had a mystique attached to me, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. It must have changed my personality, for I soon found myself with a completely new set of friends—kids I’d never associated with before, including new students from other elementary schools who funneled into my junior high. Not much else stands out in my filing cabinet of memories from that period. Junior high was something to get through. Oh, right, and I
had braces, too, which didn’t help my self-image as an oddball.

  At least by the time I reached high school, the events of 1966 seemed to be in the distant past. The braces were gone. I “blossomed,” as they say, and moved on by becoming involved in extracurricular activities. I took drama and acted in plays, read a lot, and for the very first time started writing short stories. Though my English teachers encouraged me, at the time my goal was to become an actress. I didn’t consider becoming an author until much later.

  The only things to do outside of school in Limite were attending the varsity football games, going to movies, maybe bowling or miniature golfing, or simply cruising the town. Most kids had their own cars. My dad bought me my first junker when I turned sixteen and had obtained a license. A popular place to hang out in those days was the Oil Derrick, a nightclub that was divided into two sections—an eighteen-and-over side and another half that accommodated younger teens. Since the drinking age then was eighteen, it was fairly easy to cross the boundary. With the cruising came the dating and the experimentation in the front or back seats of someone’s automobile. There was nothing else in town to distract us.

  I still frequented the public library, too. My interest in reading—even outside of school work, which few students attempted—never lessened. Whenever I went there, I always thought about Mr. Alpine. I’d look at the information desk where he used to work and ponder how great it was that a monster like that was no longer alive. A man who murdered one, probably two, innocent and defenseless infants. A man who had everyone fooled with his church work, his volunteer activities, and his I’m-good-with-kids act. Rot in hell, I’d think.

  There was a boyfriend named Andy for the latter half of my junior year and most of that summer. I suppose we were pretty serious for high school kids. We experimented with sex but didn’t go all the way; that just wasn’t done in 1970 or ’71, especially in our small town. I can’t remember why we broke up. We were both seniors and wanted to date other people, I guess.

  I didn’t smoke in high school; I’ve never smoked tobacco. I first tried marijuana when I was in eleventh grade, though. Everyone experimented with it at least once, I believe, at least the more adventurous kids did. I did it only a handful of times when I was out with fellow cast members from a production or at a party. I’m sure Eddie was into it, and maybe other drugs, too. Because of the more relaxed restrictions then, it was also much easier for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds to get alcohol. Sure, I had some wild nights, especially during my senior year. I wasn’t tied to a single boyfriend, and I had a crew of best friends—Marilyn and Janine. We called ourselves “The Unholy Three,” after an old movie starring Lon Chaney. It was on Strange Theater one Friday night when we were having a sleepover—that was Limite’s local TV station version of a weekly old horror film broadcast, complete with a newsman dressed up as Dracula and acting as a host.

  Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t a bad girl. I was actually a pretty good student; I received high grades and was in the Honor Society. Teachers liked me. Although I wasn’t one of the super-popular kids that got voted Most Beautiful or Wittiest or Most Patriotic, I did all right in high school. It was the best time I’d had in my life thus far, considering that the preceding years in junior high had been so awful.

  On the contrary, Eddie became an outcast. He was one of the stoner kids who grew his hair long when the dress code rules were finally eased in ’71. He could often be seen hanging out with the guys most people deemed losers, occupying the smoking area behind the school. At that time, the students who smoked were not ostracized like they would be today—they were just relegated to a designated spot, which ultimately became littered with nasty cigarette butts. It was a janitor’s duty to clean it up every week. At any rate, Eddie did everything he could to project a bad boy persona. He even rode a motorcycle and wore a black leather jacket. Then, when he turned sixteen in 1971 and was about to enter eleventh grade, Eddie abruptly dropped out of high school and joined the army. Word on the street was that he faked his birth year since he looked older than he really was. He volunteered to go to Vietnam and was in a ground combat unit; I’m pretty sure most of the fighting units were brought home in ’72. The war was declared over for the US in 1973. That’s when Eddie must have returned to Limite. I’ll never understand why he joined the army. Probably to get away from his father. But I know for a fact that the experience pushed him further into darkness, and he came home a changed young man.

  I graduated from high school in 1972 and, that summer, moved to Austin for college. I was eighteen. Finally, I was away from Limite and no longer had to live in the oppressive atmosphere that still informed my home. Eddie was far from my thoughts by then; he was still overseas. I completely missed his homecoming.

  Austin between 1972 and 1976, my undergraduate years, was a fabulous place to be. The stimuli on campus were powerful and life-changing, and I truly found myself, just as most young people do when they go to college. New friends—longer lasting ones—and new lovers. One serious boyfriend my sophomore and junior years—and a bad breakup. More awareness of social issues and the youth counterculture. I got heavily into rock music and movies. Theater was my passion, and I majored in acting—although I was writing fiction more often in my spare time. I’d written a first novel by the time I was twenty. It was terrible, and I’m not sure I still own a copy. Back then everything was written on typewriters.

  College was a time for more experimentation. I tried different recreational drugs, drank more alcohol, and had casual sex with boys. Signs of the times. Everything was about Peace and Love. The Vietnam War was a major concern on campus. It wasn’t really over until ’75. Then suddenly it was my senior year.

  May of 1976—I turned twenty-two and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. I decided to attend graduate school and was accepted at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. So I picked up and moved cross-country once again and found myself battling the Chicago winters for the first time. It was quite a contrast to Texas, but something about the city and people stuck with me, got under my skin. I fell in love with it. As it turned out, I never left.

  The plane I am on begins to make its descent into the Houston area. Short flight, only a couple of hours. The time passed quickly, as I’d been lost in my thoughts. As we land, my mind focuses on the next major interlude in which my life intersected with Eddie’s. Who would have thought that during the Christmas break of 1976, when I was home visiting my parents, I would randomly bump into him and begin a torrid, passionate love affair?

  9

  Navigating Houston International Airport is easy, although it’s a big place. I catch the sight and smell of a favorite Mexican chain restaurant in the food court, and for a moment I’m tempted to stop and have a meal. But there’s no time, and it’s too early for dinner. I’d previously decided to rent a car to drive up to Livingston and stay in a hotel in town. It’s roughly an hour-and-a-half drive—not bad. Eddie’s lawyer recommended a couple of popular places to stay. I had Billy make my reservation at the newer Best Western. No doubt the Livingston and Huntsville hotel business accommodates a good deal of prison visitor traffic.

  Hertz fulfills my needs—I go with a cute yellow four-door Ford Focus. A GPS is invaluable, of course, so that’s a little extra cost. I could use my cell phone, but I want to save the charge.

  As I pull out of the car rental lot, my stomach gets the quivers again. I’m driving to a death row prison facility. That is a first for me, to be sure.

  Being early summer, the weather is beautiful and hot. To Houstonians, it is probably mild. For me, from Chicago, it’s pretty toasty. I’ve been to Houston in the summer, and it can be dreadful, much worse than Austin or Limite ever were due to its proximity to the Gulf. The route is more or less a straight shot up Interstate 69, so the trip allows me to ponder the next chapter of the story of Shelby and Eddie. I’m beginning to wonder if a novel “inspired by” these events might be worth pursuing once it’s all over and
Eddie is gone. I’d have to change the names and fictionalize it. That type of book isn’t in my comfort zone, I’m afraid. I assembly-line produce romance adventures, and they usually provide a good-time fantasy for my readers, who are mostly female. They prefer happy endings.

  More than five years had passed since I’d last seen Eddie. I was twenty-two and had just finished my first semester of graduate school at Northwestern. After a couple of years’ absence, I returned to the house on Chicory Lane for Christmas. My mother wasn’t doing well. She had a “nervous condition,” and in 1976 no one really knew what that meant or how to treat it. My dad, a trooper, did his best to take care of her, but she was not the woman she used to be. Since the summer of ’66, Mom couldn’t escape a dark and descending spiral. She had started taking tranquilizers when I was in high school and had become addicted. It grew worse when I went away. The truth is, she went a little mad. It broke my heart to see her that way, which may have been a reason why I didn’t visit home as often as I could have during my college years. I’m afraid my mother and I were at loggerheads, and it was never pleasant to be around her. I usually preferred to remain in Austin during the summers, going back to Limite only for Christmas. There were a couple of years I didn’t go home at all. My poor father, who was just as wounded as she was, had to put up with a lot. Yet he had managed to move on, as I had. He and I would never forget, but we wouldn’t let what had happened ruin our lives. Unfortunately, it had destroyed my mother’s.