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Show 131. XX LOCAL BOY STILL MISSING read a quarter-inch caption in the latest Red Butte Times dated June 6. "News five months old ain't news any more," Tom Crawford said to his wife as he left for the office that summer morning. If it hadn't been for John and Addie, and even their daughter, asking him to please run it again: "Once more," they'd say, as if the printed word kept their hopes alive from one week to the next . Tom turned the key in the lock of the Times office and wondered what had happened to JD Anderson. As editor of the town weekly, he knew he'd done his best. Besides the notices every issue since JD's disappearance, there had been the pictures and a long item when Garth Magleby brought the VW back from Skull Mountain. There had been a few surprises, too, like Mrs. Eagleton paying for space to try to locate the boy and, just last week, JD's name appearing on the roster of graduates, even though he wasn't there to take the diploma. Tom Crawford, same as other folks in Red Butte, kept in close touch with JD's family, calling often to see if they'd had so much as a word or a post card. One warm night in May, he'd walked over to the house, where Addie, her face drawn and worried, had kept his coffee cup filled until midnight. "It's been 114 days," she'd said. Old John himself, smoking now more than ever, coughing from one end of a conversation to the other, couldn't reconcile any of it. "I'm making the car payments," he'd confided. "He has to come back, Tom. I can't think he'll turn up dead somewhere. But I can't understand it. Why would he do this to us? Why would he run off and not let us-hear from him?" It was Stephanie, though, who seemed to think JD's disappearance had more to do with the UFO than anyone else was willing to suggest. "I know what drove him to it," she'd offered when she brought JD's senior picture in for the Times to use. "If only he'd waited another day when Chic started to see again . . . but even before that, it was the UFO. It was what happened to JD on Skull Mountain . . ." she'd hesitated, frowning, then looked down at the picture she held. "Here," she shoved it across the counter to him. "I've got to get to work." |
