Chapter 6
The clap of thunder caused Cyndi to jerk forward and set straight up on the couch. As she walked to the kitchen, she yelled, “Miss Lizzie, are you OK?” Lizzie was nowhere to be seen. She frantically searched the entire house without finding Lizzie. Then she panicked and ran out the door as the rain came down relentlessly and the thunder continued to roll, and lightning strikes popped as one hit a nearby tree. Unconcerned about her safety, Cyndi ran throughout the open space around the house calling Lizzie’s name. After about thirty minutes of searching, she remembered Jeff’s last words,”Get in touch with Shorty if you need anything.”
Stumbling across Shorty’s front porch, she repeatedly knocked on the door until he opened it and pulled her inside. “Are you OK?”
“Miss Lizzie is missing. I fell asleep, and when I woke up she was gone.”
“Did you search the house?”
“Yes, I searched the house and outside, but couldn’t find any trace of her. She must have wandered off into the swamp or down the road.”
Shorty didn’t hesitate. He rushed out into the heavy rain without a hat or coat, pulling Cyndi behind him by one arm. “I’ll search the swamp behind the house. You go down the road toward the highway in case she went that way. When you reach the ‘Quik Stop’ if you haven’t found her, call the sheriff’s office and see if they can send someone to help us.”
Shorty ran along the winding path into the woods yelling Lizzie’s name over and over. Stopping occasionally at each small side path to wipe the blinding rain from his eyes, he ran down it for a short distance yelling Lizzie’s name. When he came to the fallen tree across the main path that Lizzie had encountered, he went around it and continued walking, instead of going off toward the thicket as she had done earlier. He knew that the rain would have obliterated any sign of footprints, but continued to look for some evidence on the ground no matter how small. Shorty tried to apply every tracking trick he had ever learned as a hunter. He desperately scrutinized the trail for a broken twig, a piece of clothing, a hair on a bush, a track still visible on the trail. Nothing!
Back on the highway, Jeff was on his way home in the torrential rain. Slowly driving along he leaned forward squinting his eyes through the cracked windshield with its wipers working back and forth furiously. He turned left onto the glistening wet dirt road. Rain pellets splashed down forming thousands of little darts when they hit the surface. In the distance, he could barely make out the figure of a person running in his direction. As he got closer, he realized it was Cyndi. Immediately his heart began beating rapidly. His first thought was that it couldn’t be her as she was with Lizzie, but when he got adjacent to the running person, he realized indeed it was Cyndi. Rolling down the driver’s side window, he yelled, “Get in here, where in the hell you going?”
As she stepped up and entered the truck, it was obvious, even with the rain welting on her face she was crying as she screamed, “Miss Lizzie’s gone, and we can’t find her.”
“What do you mean, she’s gone?”
It was excruciatingly painful to admit to Jeff that she had gone to sleep letting Lizzie escape, but the words came out of her mouth without thinking, “Oh Mr. Jeff, I dozed off for just a minute and when I woke up, Miss Lizzie was nowhere to be found.”
“Did you search the house thoroughly?”
“Yes, yes I did. Then I looked outside and then I got Mr. Shorty. He is looking in the woods by the swamp now for her. He told me to come up here to the Quik Stop and call the sheriff. “
Jeff whipped the old green pickup around, spinning mud and water behind the wheels. As the engine accelerated, the back wheels left a zigzag pattern in the soft wet dirt. The convenience store was only a quarter of a mile away. He screeched to a stop between the gas pump and front door and said to Cyndi, “Get in there and call the sheriff. Tell him what happened and get him out here to help. I’m going back to help Shorty search the swamp behind the house.”
Arriving back at the house Jeff slid to a stop and jumped out of the truck. The rain was still pouring down by the buckets full. He ran to the rear of the house and started walking rapidly along the path into the swamp. Yelling her name over and over, he came to the fallen tree as Shorty and Lizzy had earlier. Like Shorty, he went around it and within a short distance heard him yelling Lizzie’s name.
The two men met on the path, Jeff speaking first, “Have you found her?” The answer was obvious as she was no place to be seen.
“No. I went all the way to the river and off every small connecting path on the left and right. Let’s spread out and keep searching. We’ll meet back here in about hour,” said Shorty.
“OK, we don’t have much daylight left but let’s do what we can.”
Both men went deeper into the thickets on both sides of the main path searching and calling Lizzie’s name. The heavy rain was still coming down through the trees, and the disappearing daylight cast an eerie supernatural overcast throughout the landscape. Neither man could see more than 50 feet into the heavy rain. The approaching night made the search more difficult. Having left without thinking or planning neither had brought a flashlight.
Unable to make any further progress they arrived back at the place where they agreed to meet. Holding onto Shorty’s shoulder, the exhausted Jeff said, “Oh my God Shorty, what will we do?”
Shorty replied, “Well it’s useless to run around out here without a light. Not only are we unable to see any sign of Lizzie, but if we keep on searching we will hurt ourselves, and that won’t help nobody. Let’s go back to the house and make up a search plan. Maybe Cyndi was able to get hold of the sheriff.”
Back at Jeff’s house, the men dried off, and Jeff put on clean clothes. Cyndi had returned already and was wearing a dry dress belonging to Miss Lizzie.
She said, “The sheriff should be here soon. I talked with the person that answered the phone, and they said they would be out here as quickly as possible. That was at least an hour ago.”
No sooner than she had finished speaking than a loud knock was heard at the door. Jeff went to the door and let in Deputy Sheriff McLardy. The deputy questioned Cyndi about what had happened. She did her best to explain the events of the afternoon, but because of her uncontrollable crying, nothing of value was learned. It didn’t help that Jeff kept yelling at her about how she should have been doing a better job of watching Miss Lizzie.
Finally, the deputy said, “There’s no need to continue the search until morning. The weather is just too bad to be effective. In the meantime, I will get as many people as possible together and get them out here so we can begin a coordinated search at first daylight. I will also see if I can get the State Police to help us with a helicopter.”
Jeff was not about to wait until morning to continue the search and didn’t need anyone else’s suggestions. He was “hell bent” on finding his Lizzie. His hysterical reply to the deputy’s comment was, “Do what you have to do, but I will be out there looking for her tonight.”
Sheriff McLardy tried to tell Jeff that it would be useless and that a much better plan would be to wait. However, Jeff wanted no part of it. He put on his full-length Walmart rain parka, grabbed his black three-cell Maglite flashlight and walked toward the door.
The deputy was interrupted in mid-sentence by the door slamming shut after Jeff’s exit as he said, “Don’t do it, Jeff, you will make things worse, and then we will wind up looking for you.”
About the time, he entered the woods the rain seemed to be letting up a little. Following the strong beam of the flashlight, he randomly walked off the beaten trail calling Lizzie’s name every few seconds. From a distance, his light flashing back and forth provided a ghostly portrait of the otherwise rain-soaked swamp.
Jeff sloshed around in the mud and undergrowth for several hours without any sign of Lizzie. He could barely move his wet body forward. Then he saw a small piece of
cloth hanging on a thorny blackberry bush. As he examined it he recognized it as a piece of Lizzie’s dress that had been torn off as she struggled through the swamp. After another 100 feet or so, he saw Lizzie sitting between two large cypress roots with her back to the trunk of the tree. She was slumped over with her head atop her arms resting on her knees. Jeff rushed to her side, removed his raincoat and threw it over Lizzie to protect her from the rain and cold. As he did, even in his confused state of mind the horrible reality hit him. He got down on his knees and hugged her tight as he could, but the stiff lifeless body did not respond.
“Oh my dear Lizzie, why did you do this? Why? Why? Please answer me.”
Jeff continued talking to Lizzie, but she did not respond. Mentally unaware of the blowing wind and rain, his knees now buried in the mud, he simply hugged her body as close as he could. Finally, it hit him. She was not responding nor would she. Ever again! He stood and lifted his wife into his arms, her head and legs dangling uncontrollably as he staggered back to the main trail.
The next few days turned out to be what Shorty called, “a series of cluster fucks.” The sheriff and State Police arrived by daylight to learn that Lizzie had been found. Shorty and Cyndi had stretched Lizzie’s body out on the kitchen table and covered it up with a sheet. Initially, Jeff refused to leave her side. Finally, he sat down in the living room overstuff chair and just looked into space. He had slipped into a catatonic state. The sheriff repeatedly questioned Cyndi and Shorty about what had happened. The State police then did the same thing all over again. They tried to get a statement from Jeff, but he was in a total state of shock and was unable to verbalize anything. The coroner finally arrived and after examining Lizzie’s body removed it to the county laboratory and eventually performed an autopsy. By noon, there were at least ten people and an equal number of official vehicles randomly parked in front of the house.
Eventually, Lizzie was buried in the Hudson Cemetery among the kindred line of Irelands. A gravesite was selected with a vacant place next to it for Jeff when he passed away. Shorty moved Jeff into his home up the road and took care of him for several months after the death of Lizzie. After six months, Jeff’s catatonic condition seemed to be improving. Initially, Jeff kept asking, “Where is Lizzie?” Shorty was able to communicate with him and eventually make him understand what had happened. Finally, Jeff seemed to grasp reality and was able to take care of himself well enough to move back into his own house.