As he crossed Alma Street, Melissa finally picked up the phone.
“Baylor!” she said. “You scared Jeff. What’s wrong?”
“Are the kids with you? Everything okay?”
“Of course. Lee-Lee is singing into that toy microphone you gave her. She thinks she’s Mick Jagger.”
“Great. Just wanted to see what was going on. I’m on my way home right now. There’s, uh, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?” Melissa asked.
“It can wait till I get home.”
“Okay, fine. See you then.”
“Hey, are the doors and gate locked?”
“Baylor, what is going on?”
“Nothing. Just lock the doors, that’s all. Just a thought. It’s only common sense, okay?”
“We’re fine. Or we were fine. You’re the one who’s scaring everybody,” Melissa said. “What in the world is going on?”
“Tell you when I get there. See you in a few minutes. Love you.”
“You’ve got me nervous, Baylor. Stop acting weird.”
“Hey, you knew I was weird when you married me. Baylor the Weird. You used to think it was sexy.”
“I didn’t think it was sexy; I thought it was weird. You tell me what all this is about.”
Baylor slipped deeper into his lawyer’s voice, steady and strong.
“Sweetie, Rosalyn has disappeared.”
“Rosalyn? Disappeared? What do you mean?”
“We’ll talk when I get home. But don’t turn on the radio or TV where the kids can hear it, okay?”
Baylor could hear Melissa’s breathing change.
“Look, I’m passing Pizzo’s Market right now. I’ll be there in less than five minutes.”
“Don’t drive too fast. Drive carefully, okay? We’re all here.”
“I love you.”
“I love you. Even though you are a weirdo.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Baylor said.
Immediately after switching off the phone, Baylor turned on the local news station. Rosalyn Ogden Hammond, daughter of Joanie and Grove Hammond, had disappeared from a local video shop this afternoon, and law enforcement agents were organizing a search. Anyone with information should call police immediately. Baylor thought he would be sick.
When Baylor entered his home, it was silent. The kitchen was empty. The huge living room with the atrium looking out at the pool and live oaks showed no sign of life. Slowly he walked through the house, whistling. You could not totally lose it when you were whistling. At the master bedroom door, which was shut, he started whistling louder. The tune he whistled was written by one of Louisiana’s ex-governors, one Jimmie Davis, the classic, “You Are My Sunshine.” He tried the door handle. It was locked, so he knocked hard—Shave-and-a-haircut! Two bits! Melissa said, “Who is it?”
“Boo,” he answered.
“Who?” she said.
“Boo-hoo, you’re standing on my toe.”
She opened the door. Her face was drained of color. He saw his three children, all on their parents’ king-size master bed, surrounded by toys and watching a Shirley Temple video.
“Hey, kiddos,” he said, “what yall doing?”
He tried to hold himself back, but couldn’t. He took off his shoes, took a running jump, and landed in the bed in the midst of his three children. He began hugging all three of them, rubbing the tops of their heads, touching their cheeks, breathing in their scents. Screaming with laughter, the children hugged their father back, even though nine-year-old Caitlin echoed her mother and said, “Oh, Daddy, you are so weird.”
“And you,” he said, “fair Mary Caitlin, twin to Jeff, are Daughter of Weirdo!” He made one of his faces, and she started laughing.
Melissa climbed up on the bed with them and ran her hands through Baylor’s hair.
“Count those hairs,” he said, “they will soon be a vanishing breed.”
She smiled and shook her head.
“We’re watching Shirley Temple,” Jeff said, crossing his eyes in disgust. “It is too girly-girl for me, Daddy. The girls get to choose every time.”
Baylor ruffled Jeff ’s hair and pulled his son to him. “Ain’t that the truth?” he said.
His baby, Lee-Lee, crawled into his lap and said, “Want to see me dance like Shirley?”
He kissed her head and said, “Maybe in a little bit.”
Baylor leaned over and gave Caitlin a kiss on the cheek and pulled her toward him.
“What do you think, big girl?”
Caitlin gave him a big hug. He hugged her back. All of his children were deeply affectionate. From the moment each child was born, he had made sure to shower them with as much love as was humanly possible.
“Daddy, why are you home so early?” Caitlin asked. He usually worked at the law office until late, and went in on Saturdays as well.
“I just couldn’t wait a minute longer to lay eyes on yall. I threw down the law books and thought: I need to lay up in the bed and watch Shirley Temple with my three kiddos and their beautiful mother.”
He kissed each of them again. Then, faking a ridiculous limp and whistling the theme song from The Simpsons, he turned and left the bedroom. But not before casually strolling to the French doors that opened on the pool area, pretending to look out, and making sure the door was secure.
Baylor and Melissa sat at the long antique cypress table in the big kitchen. He repeated what little he knew about Rosalyn, and said he was going to make some calls.
Melissa kept nodding her head. A tear rolled down her cheek. Baylor gently wiped it off with his finger. “Hey, Hey, We’re the Walkers!” he sang, to the tune of “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees!” “Nothing can happen to us. Only kryptonite can harm Big Daddy Baylor. Remember that.”
Melissa attempted a small smile. “Try to find out as much as you can.”
“Let’s act normal around the kids, okay?” he said gently.
“Us?” Melissa said, turning to open the refrigerator. “Act normal? No problem. Especially with Big Daddy Wacko to lead the way.”
Before Baylor left the kitchen, he turned to Melissa at the same time she turned to him, and they didn’t need to speak. He stepped toward her and pulled her into his arms. He did not need to tell her what he was thinking: Do not leave the kids unwatched.
In his study, with the door locked, Baylor called Cliff McDaniel, a detective in the Thornton Police Force, who was an old buddy. Cliff gave him the rundown, and assured him that all the stops were being pulled out. He asked Cliff to keep him posted. Then Baylor sat in his study and wondered whether it was too early to call Joanie and her husband, Grove Hammond. He’d known Joanie since he was born. She’d been closer to Sidda while they were growing up, but Baylor and Joanie had become close because Lee-Lee and Rosalyn were born two weeks apart, and the two girls were inseparable. The two couples had dinner together every month or so, and Melissa and Joanie played tennis together. Of course, they all met at Ya-Ya gatherings, which continued as the Petites Ya-Yas had their children, the Très Petites. Grove and he had been in law school together, and Baylor saw him almost daily at the courthouse. While they were not best friends, they were close, and they trusted each other.
Teensy answered the phone at the Hammond house.
“Aunt Teensy,” he said. “It’s Baylor. How’s Joanie?”
“Cher, the doctor gave her a sedative and she’s napping. Your Mama, Caro, and I are heading over to Necie’s as soon as Chick picks us up. George and Necie are going to stay here with Grove for a few hours longer in case Joanie wakes up. Can you imagine? Chick doesn’t want us driving ourselves tonight. Like someone is going to abduct the three of us.”
“There’s no one brave enough to tango with the Ya-Yas,” Baylor said.
Teensy was only able to give him a small, tired laugh.
“How about Grove? He around?”
“He is. Hold on. I’ll get him.”
Grove Hammond took the call stan
ding in his kitchen, his head aching, stomach churning. His voice was rough as he took the phone.
“Hammond?” Baylor said. “Hey, it’s Walker. You okay?”
“It’s hell, man.”
Baylor leaned back in his leather office chair in his perfectly appointed study and closed his eyes. He straightened the legal tablet on the desk in front of him. He stared at the antique globe whose muted colors gave his study an appearance of Old World calm. There but for the grace of God go I.
“Tell me what’s on your docket, and I’m your man,” Baylor said. “My office is your office. I can work out whatever you need. Just say the word.”
They discussed Grove’s obligations briefly. Baylor took notes on a legal pad, sharpening his pencil in the electric pencil sharpener at least six times during the conversation.
In the middle of describing a particular insurance negotiation, Grove’s voice broke. He began to sob.
“Hey, enough of this,” Baylor said. “I’m sorry if I jumped the gun by talking business. Carlene will call your office in the morning. Got you taken care of. Just call if you think of anything else. Hell, call me day or night. You or Joanie. Melissa and I are with yall, buddy, you hear?”
“Thank you,” Grove said, his voice still shaky. “Hey, your big sister called Joanie just before the doctor gave her the sleeping pill. They must have talked for half an hour. They have their own language.”
“The Ya-Ya hotline is like quicksilver. Makes us men seem like chimps,” Baylor said. “Try to get some sleep. Everything is going to be all right. I promise you. You hear me? I promise you.”
After dinner, the kids put on their jammies, and then Baylor announced: “Okay, troops! This is an Official Pre-Thanksgiving at home campout! We all sleep in the big bed together. Except you, Jeff, ’cause you’re too much of a man. You bring your sleeping bag in, and—”
“I’ve got it ready,” Melissa said, standing in the doorway, having fluffed Jeff ’s flannel sleeping bag with the flying ducks on it. Paw-Paw Shep had given it to Jeff for going to the duck camp, which Baylor had yet to let him do.
She handed it to Jeff.
“Mmm, it’s all warm. Thanks, Mom.”
Jeff positioned it against the wall next to the antique armoire that held the bedroom television. Melissa knelt down and handed him his pillow and tucked him in.
“You want Henry Clay with you?” she asked him, referring to a ragged stuffed dog he’d had since childhood.
“No ma’am. That’s for babies.”
Baylor walked out of the bathroom and spoke while brushing his teeth.
“Henry Clay Dog is most definitely not for babies. He’s a hunting dog. He protects people. Go get him. We need the whole family here at this campout.”
Jeff could not hide his relief as he ran to his room, returning with a stuffed animal that had been loved hard.
Soon Baylor and Melissa were in bed, their two girls between them. They were not a family who normally prayed together. But tonight, Baylor said, “Queen of my heart, would you lead us in a little good-night prayer?”
Melissa looked at him like he was crazy.
“Let’s turn off the lights first,” she said. Baylor flicked off the light quickly before his children could see that he was about to cry—no, to “tear up,” as his father called it.
“Dear God,” Melissa said, “thank you for this day. Thank you for our family and our friends. Thank you for—” Then she could not continue. Baylor knew what she was picturing. He picked up the prayer where Melissa left off.
“And thank you for our safe sleep here at our campout. We know you will be looking out for all the other campers all over town. Amen.”
“Amen,” the children echoed.
Baylor lay still, then reached his hand out for Melissa, trying not to disturb the girls. Their fingers touched. This is my family, without whom I could not bear to live, he thought. In his mind he saw Rosalyn’s little face and pictured putting his hands around her chubby cheeks. He thought of the way Lee-Lee and Rosalyn performed “This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Let It Shine,” which the Ya-Yas had taught them, and how wild the two little girls were and how much they loved each other. Sometimes they just hugged each other out of the blue, and they held hands when they walked. Baylor did not even try to sleep. He just lay there, listening to the breathing of each child until he could tell they had dropped off into sleep. Until he felt Melissa’s hand fall away, until her breathing told him she had fallen back into the arms of sleep. He thought of Sidda, of how she once told him that when she got most panicked, she would picture falling back into a great big pair of loving arms that held her. “You lean back into these loving arms and they hold you up and nothing bad can happen. It works, Baylor. Try it.” He hated her psychological talk, but this he remembered. And finally, in the middle of the night, when he thought he would go crazy from frustration at not being able to walk out into the night and find Rosalyn Ogden Hammond, he let himself fall back, if guardedly, into that big pair of arms.
For the next two days, Baylor worked double time. He rescheduled his own court dates to cover for Grove. He boned up on Grove’s cases first thing, then started taking his status conferences, depositions, routine matters—hearings, motions, and rules. In the few free minutes he had, he called Sidda to touch base.
“Bay,” she said, “I’m lighting candles. I’ve got Joanie’s picture propped up on my ad hoc altar. It kills me that I cannot drop what I am doing and fly home and be by Joanie’s side.”
“Hey,” Baylor replied, “your phone calls to Joanie might be even better. She gets to talk without having to try and ‘hold up.’ She gets to close her eyes and listen, and to feel you listening.”
“You doing okay?” Sidda asked.
“I’m doing my job.”
“I asked if you were doing okay, not if you were doing your job.”
“I don’t know if I’m ‘doing okay’ or not, all right? When I’m doing my job, it takes my mind off the worst. I’ll tell you this, I’ll never look at the side of a milk carton the same way again.”
“You sleeping?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. You and Connor okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, but Baylor thought his big sister’s voice sounded strained. Well, whose voice wasn’t strained these days?
For the next two nights, Baylor came home from work as early as he could, although never as early as he wished. Baylor, Melissa, and the kids watched old movies. Old comforting movies where children were safe, where people could count on what would happen in their world. They watched nothing made after 1944, sticking to the old classics like National Velvet or episodes of The Little Rascals.
Although they both wanted to keep the twins home from school, they didn’t. They tried to keep things as normal as possible. Sister Brenda Vanderhoven, the principal of Divine Compassion, returned Baylor’s call, and agreed to the police patrol. He’d owe Detective McDaniel for this favor of assigning a cop to go by the school several times a day.
They decided to keep Lee-Lee at home, at least for the first day, in case anything was said at preschool. She kicked and screamed. The worst was when she started complaining because “Me and Ra’lyn are working on a ‘prokect.’”
Baylor went to visit Joanie and Grove, bringing food and feeling like a fool because their kitchen was overflowing with casseroles. A tragedy in a town like Thornton always compelled every female parishioner of Divine Compassion to cook up everything from gumbo to tuna noodle casseroles.
Joanie sat rigid with the portable phone in her hand. Her eyes were red and glazed.
“Hey, Joanie,” Baylor said, sitting next to her on the sofa. Gently he put his hand over hers and said, “You got the Ya-Ya Prayer Hotline open. Operators are standing by. It’s going to be fine.”
He knew better than to utter Rosalyn’s name. He knew it would pierce her heart.
Baylor heard the news of Rosalyn’s rescue on the police band radio. He’d been driving to the cour
thouse to take care of some of Grove’s business. A blessed relief flooded his body. Baylor rushed through his business in the courthouse on the waves of euphoria, smiling at everybody, stopping to talk with friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike. He had to share his joy.
He called Melissa from the old pay phone in the lobby.
“Sweetie, it’s over. They found her. Unharmed. Everything is fine.”
“Thank God,” Melissa said. “Thank God.”
But as he left the courthouse, the wall came crashing down. The wall of keeping it together, the wall of being responsible, the wall of being strong. All rational thought left him for a moment, and then it all became clear: he needed a gun. Now that Rosalyn had been rescued, a primal masculine drive to protect his family overtook his body and mind. I will buy a gun, and if anybody touches one hair on my children’s heads, I will shoot the bastard once in the head and again in his heart. I will even the playing field. I will buy whatever I need to keep my family safe.
He drove slowly, all the way to Security Sporting Goods. “Sporting goods” in Louisiana does not mean jogging shoes. Sport means hunting. Sport means shooting guns, rifles, firearms.
Once in the parking lot of the sporting goods store, he fully intended to bound out of the car and walk in, greet his old buddy Chuck Couvillion, who had inherited the store from his father, and simply tell him he needed a decent revolver. Not anything fancy, nothing semiautomatic. Just a revolver. Nothing with too long a barrel. Nothing as long as the barrel on his toy Buckaroo revolver.