FLIPKA

Chapter FIve

In the evening I was summoned to the superintendent’s office like a wayward girl in trouble with the principal.

“How did my session with the girls go?” I replied to her question of the same content. “Pretty darned good. In fact I managed to get all the little darlings to clam up tighter than Fort Knox. Now they won’t even look at me.”

It was not the response that Winnie Peterson expected. The sun was setting on my first day and I had not produced the requested miracle. 

“And you think it’s a good thing that they’re not talking to you? I thought the point of therapy was to get a person to open up, not clam up.” 

I fingered an extra pack of Rolos stashed in my coat pocket, thinking how good one would taste, especially as the hard wooden chair in her office offered scant comfort. Milk chocolate and caramel, now slightly melted by my warm anxious fingers. Yum. 

“I do think the session went extremely well,” I replied. 

“I don’t understand.”

“Means I’ve stumbled onto at least one of their little secrets, maybe two. No, that’s not a maybe but a positively. Positively two. Do you play poker, Miss Peterson?” 

She looked perplexed. I decided I didn’t care if I was being rude. I ripped into the Rolos and thrust one of those little darlings into my mouth as she watched. The warm chocolate coated my fingertips, but not for long. “Look at it this way,” I continued, licking my fingers. “They’ve closed ranks because they think I know more than I do and if they clam up, I won’t find out the rest. Ha! That’s the mind of the teenage girl for you.”

Winnie Peterson wanted a cigarette badly. It was rude and nasty and childish of me to indulge in my weakness and watch her suffer. 

“Care for a Rolo?” I asked. “Slightly better for you than a cigarette.”

“No.”

“They’re not all melted. I think I can find . . .”

“No, thank you.” 

We sat in the quiet for a few minutes. Outside the wind was picking up, the first storm of the season trucking rapidly off the salt flat, blowing sand and tumbleweeds across the parking lot. The staff counselors had all departed for the weekend, leaving only a skeleton crew to tackle the dreary weekend. Two movies were planned: one on Saturday and the other on Sunday. Both PG.

“Where are you from, Winnie?” I asked, “I have a bet going with myself that you’re a transplant to these parts.”

“I’m waiting for you to tell me what their secret is, Dr. Butters. I’ve got a facility to shut down as you know and five new girls to check on.”

“Are you going to get a chance to drive home and see the family this weekend?” I asked, noting the photograph of Winnie standing over a man in a wheelchair that sat behind her on a credenza.

“Please Dr. Butters. Their secret.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, “that’s a shame. Well, maybe next weekend, hey? All work and no play, you know.”

“Dr. Butters!”

“Well, it was a guess really, which they confirmed with adamant denial and later complete silence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did the police find any empty brandy bottles when they searched the missing counselor’s room or her car?”

“Are you suggesting she had a drinking problem, because I’ll have to stop you right there; she was a good Mormon.”

“What else can you tell me about her?”

“Not much. She’d only been with us a couple of years—in February she would have qualified for her sabbatical, so it just doesn’t make much sense that she’d disappear.” Winnie looked at me for some explanation, but I just shrugged. People disappear all the time from lives others envy. 

She continued. “Well, let’s see. What else do I know about her? She’s thirty-five. Never married. Like many of our resident counselors, she’d wanted to be in law enforcement but didn’t quite make the mark for some reason or other. It’s not easy recruiting counselors for Enev. They generally hang around until their first sabbatical, and then they’re gone.”

Aha, I thought, alcohol had found a happy breeding ground in the garden of the defeated, those self-sentenced to three years of teenage contemptuousness for their failures. She must have known her secret would soon be out. But how? The lovelies would have never threatened her. They had a good thing going. 

“If you think about it,” I continued, “that’s the only thing that makes sense. The mother hen got wasted and the chicks flew the coop. Did the police search her car? I’ll bet they found a pile of empties hidden in her trunk.”

Winnie Peterson was speechless. I decided to backtrack a little.

“You know I’m only just guessing about the counselor. But since I’ve shut up a group of teenage girls who know everything, I think I came close to hitting the nail on the hammer—or hitting the nail with the hammer—however, the damned phrase goes.”

“What do I say to Mr. Hyman if he calls?” 

“He’s not going to call on a Friday night. But if he does, tell him it is my professional opinion that his daughter is not possessed, and I’ll be home tomorrow if he wants to drag me up to his office/bedroom and throw me to the lions. You don’t need to tell him about the brandy or any of my other half-cocked theories about the missing counselor. That’ll just be between the two of us.”