by my words. I don’t think that I’d raised my voice to her in all the time since Susan had left. I’d never wanted her to think that I’d leave too. Now I had to wonder, given that both siblings had left the state and moved thousands of miles away.
“I’m telling you to drop it, Griff. As your mother, I’m demanding that you drop it.” Her gaze didn’t flinch or shift away as she spoke to me.
“I will – provided you tell me the entire truth. Everything that happened. No lies and no half-truths. Then I’ll let it go.”
“No,” was her simple response. No explanation, no words to make me understand why she’d done this.
“That’s my answer, too,” I replied. “I think you’d better go now. I don’t have anything else to say to you.”
She marched to the door. She turned as she opened the knob. “You need to back off. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”
I felt my heart beat in my chest and my face flush. “No sorrier than I am now,” I said as I closed the door after her.
I locked the door and slumped down against the jamb. I wasn’t used to this kind of emotion. All of our emotions in our family had been bottled up after Susan’s disappearance. We walked around on eggshells with each other, afraid to address the issues that faced the family. I think that’s one reason why we all made our own uneasy peace with the disappearance. We all went our own ways in coping with it.
I needed something to occupy my mind. Sheila had said something about crimes that had happened around the time of Susan’s disappearance. I went to the computer and logged on to the Toledo Blades website. They had a fairly extensive archives section to the site, and I began to work backwards through the news stories. I started with the day of the disappearance, even though I knew that the date was too late for Susan’s plans.
It still startled me to see our family’s photo on the front page. I looked at the faces and read the article, noticing that they managed to mess up two facts about the disappearance by the third paragraph. I wasn’t impressed.
I worked my way back through the days, noticing what was playing at the movies, what was going on with the Mud Hens and other local events. I’d gone back nearly two weeks – to about the time of the first phone calls to the bus station when something caught my eye. There was a mention of the Frias murder case.
I’d nearly forgotten about that case, and I certainly had not placed it at the same time as Susan’s disappearance. It had captured Toledo’s imagination for a while. Belinda Frias was a local housekeeper who had been killed while cleaning the home of a local couple. Her blood had been used to write obscenities across the walls and floor. Their home was only a few miles from our house. Had this been the case that had caused Susan to run, assuming that Sheila was correct?
I wondered. It fit the timeframe and it was certainly spectacular enough, but I couldn’t see how Susan could have been at the house or near the house at the time of the killing. We didn’t have any transportation except for our parents, which would have meant that they had witnessed the crime as well. They certainly wouldn’t have kept this a secret for years. I couldn’t imagine my father not reporting a crime. He’d always believed in the power of the law. Unlike my mother, he would have been happy to see me date a police officer.
I printed off a couple of articles on the case and then started looking for updates on the case. I couldn’t remember there being any resolution to the matter, but of course, in a few weeks, I would be dealing with the matter of my sister and my mind would not be on current events.
From what I could tell, the case was never closed. No suspects were identified and no arrests were made. I’d have to ask Sheila about the case, but I knew I needed to wait until this mess with the Port Clinton K9 unit was cleared up.
It was nearly midnight when I got a
“I’m telling you to drop it, Griff. As your mother, I’m demanding that you drop it.” Her gaze didn’t flinch or shift away as she spoke to me.
“I will – provided you tell me the entire truth. Everything that happened. No lies and no half-truths. Then I’ll let it go.”
“No,” was her simple response. No explanation, no words to make me understand why she’d done this.
“That’s my answer, too,” I replied. “I think you’d better go now. I don’t have anything else to say to you.”
She marched to the door. She turned as she opened the knob. “You need to back off. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”
I felt my heart beat in my chest and my face flush. “No sorrier than I am now,” I said as I closed the door after her.
I locked the door and slumped down against the jamb. I wasn’t used to this kind of emotion. All of our emotions in our family had been bottled up after Susan’s disappearance. We walked around on eggshells with each other, afraid to address the issues that faced the family. I think that’s one reason why we all made our own uneasy peace with the disappearance. We all went our own ways in coping with it.
I needed something to occupy my mind. Sheila had said something about crimes that had happened around the time of Susan’s disappearance. I went to the computer and logged on to the Toledo Blades website. They had a fairly extensive archives section to the site, and I began to work backwards through the news stories. I started with the day of the disappearance, even though I knew that the date was too late for Susan’s plans.
It still startled me to see our family’s photo on the front page. I looked at the faces and read the article, noticing that they managed to mess up two facts about the disappearance by the third paragraph. I wasn’t impressed.
I worked my way back through the days, noticing what was playing at the movies, what was going on with the Mud Hens and other local events. I’d gone back nearly two weeks – to about the time of the first phone calls to the bus station when something caught my eye. There was a mention of the Frias murder case.
I’d nearly forgotten about that case, and I certainly had not placed it at the same time as Susan’s disappearance. It had captured Toledo’s imagination for a while. Belinda Frias was a local housekeeper who had been killed while cleaning the home of a local couple. Her blood had been used to write obscenities across the walls and floor. Their home was only a few miles from our house. Had this been the case that had caused Susan to run, assuming that Sheila was correct?
I wondered. It fit the timeframe and it was certainly spectacular enough, but I couldn’t see how Susan could have been at the house or near the house at the time of the killing. We didn’t have any transportation except for our parents, which would have meant that they had witnessed the crime as well. They certainly wouldn’t have kept this a secret for years. I couldn’t imagine my father not reporting a crime. He’d always believed in the power of the law. Unlike my mother, he would have been happy to see me date a police officer.
I printed off a couple of articles on the case and then started looking for updates on the case. I couldn’t remember there being any resolution to the matter, but of course, in a few weeks, I would be dealing with the matter of my sister and my mind would not be on current events.
From what I could tell, the case was never closed. No suspects were identified and no arrests were made. I’d have to ask Sheila about the case, but I knew I needed to wait until this mess with the Port Clinton K9 unit was cleared up.
It was nearly midnight when I got a
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