Murder In The Heartland. M. William Phelps
“I’ll talk to your mom soon about it. Okay?”
“Sure.”
The plan was for Kayla to spend part of the school year with Mary in Georgia. She and Mary had hit it off during the three weeks that summer. Mary noticed a drive in Kayla and a natural reserve around the dogs she believed could be beneficial to Kayla on the dog show circuit, if only she had someone to keep her focused on the dynamics of training, which her mother, Kayla said, wanted no part of.
Kayla and Mary missed each other. Their feelings went beyond a mutual interest in the dogs to include love, affection, friendship. Kayla and Mary had bonded. For Kayla, it was like starting over. Her life had been filled with turmoil for a long time, what with the problems between her mother and father and between her mother and stepfather. Living in the structure of a solid family would allow her some much-deserved space and tranquillity. She wouldn’t have to listen to her mother talk bad about her father. Or scream at her new husband when he failed to do what she wanted. Nor would she have to suffer when she felt torn between siblings siding with Mom or Dad. Not to mention Mom’s obsession lately with having another child.
“You’re going to miss Mom having her baby,” one of Kayla’s siblings said to her after hearing Kayla was leaving.
“I’ll be back for it,” promised Kayla.
Kayla was looking forward to the calming effect living with Mary would provide—something that had never existed in her short life.
At first, Kayla’s mother didn’t think it was a good idea for her to leave.
“Can I go, Mom?”
“I’ll think about it,” said her mother.
“When will you let me know?”
“You should probably forget it.”
“Come on, Mom. Please?”
“I’ll think about it, Kayla.”
Then Rebecca stepped in, and “after much persuasion by her,” recalled Kayla, “Mom finally agreed to it.”
So, based on Rebecca’s recommendation, shortly after the conversation, Kayla was sitting in her mom’s car on her way to Georgia. Staying for “part of the school year,” as Mary had suggested, turned into Kayla’s spending the entire first quarter. But it was okay with Kayla; she was at ease with her new life. She enjoyed not being around the dysfunction and disorder back home. She was, one could say, her own person.
As Rebecca stretched, trying to pay attention, her mother got up off the bed and walked toward the door. Before opening it, she turned. “I want to get Kayla something special this Christmas. She’s been gone so long. I miss her. Do you know what she wants?”
“No, not really, Mom,” answered Rebecca.
“Okay, then. You go back to sleep. I’ll call you later.”
She took one last look at Rebecca and closed the door.
3
Outside the window where the woman who called herself Darlene Fischer* lived, the temperature had dropped the previous night in Kansas. The prairie just beyond the driveway and the gray-shingled red-barn roof in the yard were dusted with frost; the windowpanes of the farmhouse down the road were fogged over; a rusted Ford pickup truck carcass sat on concrete blocks in the wheat field nearby and appeared as if someone had spray-painted the windshield white; and a shadow of smoke, rising from a woodstove chimney, coiled upward into a corkscrew, dancing in the sky.
Darlene had decided long ago, if this plan of hers was going to work, it would need to be set in motion today. Her husband had taken the following day, a Friday, off from work so he could go with her to her doctor’s office and find out what was going on with the baby. He, along with her children and several people in town, were expecting her to go into labor any moment. She had been talking about having another baby for years—all the while, she claimed, contending with four miscarriages.
Part of her plan meant driving into Lyndon, just outside the town where she lived, and first stopping at Casey’s General Store, where she worked part-time. It was her day off, but Nancy, a coworker, would be there.
She figured she’d walk in, tell Nancy what was happening, and word would soon spread throughout town she was in labor.
Before leaving the house, she took a paring knife from a kitchen drawer and put it in her pocket. She rarely carried a purse, or, for that matter, a knife. She needed rope, too. But she could purchase it later or pick up a bundle elsewhere. She had plenty of time.
At about 5:15 A.M., she pulled into Casey’s parking lot. From the look of things, it was just Nancy sitting there behind the counter. She was probably half asleep, filing her nails, drinking coffee, maybe reading the morning paper. Her boss, the store manager, was there as well, a friend said later; but she was likely in the back office doing paperwork, getting ready for the day.
Leaning on the counter, Darlene looked at Nancy, put her hands around the bottom of her belly, and lunged her stomach forward to make it appear larger.
“My water’s going to break today,” she told Nancy, speaking “really quiet and softly,” recalled a relative.
“I can feel it,” she continued, looking at Nancy. “I’m having labor pains.”
Nancy didn’t believe her. She was one of several people in town starting to question her pregnancies. At the same time, a majority of the people in her close circle—all four of her kids and her husband—believed it was for real: she was going to have a baby.
“Well,” she said to Nancy, “I’m going shopping in Topeka.”
Minutes later, she took off.
While driving, she phoned home. Rebecca, up and about now, getting ready for school, answered.
“I’m on my way into town to go shopping. Any idea yet what I might get Kayla?”
“No, Mom. Sorry.”
“Okay, we’ll talk later.”
“Right, Mom.”
“I’ll call you this afternoon.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. My water is going to break. I can feel it.”
4
Hours after Darlene Fischer left Casey’s General Store in Lyndon, a few people spotted her in a Maryville, Missouri, Wal-Mart, about fourteen miles east of Skidmore, almost two hundred miles north of her home in Kansas. Those hours between the time she left Casey’s and ended up in Maryville were unaccounted for. No one seemed to know what she did or where she went.
Back in Kansas, at home, she and her husband had turned a small upstairs room into a nursery for the approaching baby. The walls were painted a soft vanilla white; she pasted stickers from the Disney animated film The Lion King over the fresh paint: light purple elephants with yellow ears, yellow Simba lion cubs, green butterflies, green and purple dragonflies. It was cute. Comfortable. The perfect soft setting for a newborn. On one side of the room against the wall was an oak-railed crib with blankets and sheets matching the stickers. A nightlight sat on a table in the corner of the room next to a changing station packed with fresh T-shirts, blankets, sheets, and a brand-new bag of Pampers. A baby carrier was usually kept inside the crib, ready and waiting (in fact, she had it with her that afternoon in Maryville; it was sitting in the car beside her). Considering the neutral colors she chose, one might be inclined to think she didn’t know if a girl or boy was forthcoming. She wanted a girl. There was no doubt about it. Having a daughter had become another obsession of hers lately. The only hint the nursery provided that a girl was imminent was a Minnie Mouse diaper holder hanging off one corner of the changing station. Other than that, the colors she chose would work for a girl or a boy.
Still, she had been