Storymania - Pretty Mary Ellen by Norman A Rubin

Pretty Mary Ellen
Norman A Rubin

Pretty Mary Ellen - Norman A. Rubin

Pretty Mary Ellen will never come home. Her childish body, clothed in a pretty red polka dot dress, floated face down in the ocean’s waters moving with the current down the sandy coast till it rested upon the distant mud flats. Her once blond well-brushed hair was askew and mixed with the ocean's debris. Mary Ellen's small hands floating above her bent thin arms were spread downward in suplication. The ocean tide was low and the water gently lapped about the still form causing it to sway to and fro in its wavelets. Mary Ellen will never come home as the little girl met with evil on her way to her lessons in school.
The corrupt body of the little girl was spread in the foulness of murderous death. Father Death entered the fair-sized town of honest fishermen bordering the Atlantic coast; the dark specter caused the reunion of Mary Ellen's body with the earth and her soul with the spirit.
On the past Monday morning Mary Ellen left her home with a skip and a jump on the pleasant thoughts of meeting her chums at the school before the sound of the bell. Pretty Mary Ellen, a chubby, pigtailed little girl of seven cherished her term at grade school as a joyful event and she looked foward in being there. After hugging her mother who in turn gave her a fondling kiss to her cheek, she took hold of her small book satchel and hurried along her way, turning once to give a wave with her hand. A girl friend called to her from a window at a neighboring house, "Mary Ellen, Mary Ellen, wait for me. I'll be right down!" But Mary Ellen shouted back as he hurried along, "Meet you at the school." That was the last time that the little girl was seen; she simply vanished.
Envisage mystery as a little girl on the way to her school leaves no trace of her presence. No clues were in evidence to her whereabouts, no clues to her vanishing. One moment at the early morn she was on the path to school; just an ordinary little girl seen amoung many hurrying to classes. The next moment she was not sighted. There were no witnesses to Mary Ellen's dissapearance only vague talk rumoured from tongues.
Late Monday afternon the concerned mother noticed Mary Elen’s tardiness, "Almost three o'clock.. Mary Ellen should be home by now from school!" The lateness of her daughter caused worry, if not a bit of panic. Immediately the good woman ran to the telephone and dialed the telephone number of the school but only received the gruff voice of the custodian. Two calls to Mary Ellen's friends brought a tone of shock, "Mary Ellen wasn't in school today!" and they inquired if she wasn't feeling well. The distraught mother's ruddy face turned pale in worry as repeated answers over the line yielded no answer to her daughter's whereabouts. Then with shaking hands she dialed once again and her husband was notified.
An official investigation was in progress to the fate of the Mary Ellen. Inquiries were neccessary to the direction of the police; the identity of the missing girl, the clothes she wore were the required facts needed before a search could commence. Then a radio call was flashed to all units on mobile patrol to be on the lookout for the missing child. But Mary Ellen, unknown to the officers of the law, will never come home again.
Mary Ellen's father, Thomas Payne by name, was at the side of his wife, Jane, as they listened to the inquiring tone of the police investigator. Tom, to his friends, tensed his brawny body as he repeatedly answered the queries by the officer. With one hand he swept through his thinning reddish hair and with anger etched on his rugged features, he called out, "Instead of asking all these questions, why aren't you searching for my little girl?" But the investigator put him at ease by stating that a search was in progress upon the notification of the missing child. And as an added balm to their fears they were told that the state police had been notified and they joined in the investigation.
Monday turned to Tuesday and then to Wednesday as the search or Mary Ellen continued. The haggard parents with worry creased on their features slept little in their fears over the fate of their little child. Still with the feverish hope of finding their Mary Ellen alive they discounted the terrible curse of a foul crime.
Neither official parties nor volunteers offered any reports of the sighting of Mary Ellen. They scouted all-day and even at nightfall through the town, the fishing piers along the shoreline, and the outlying areas for any signs; their haggard faces were grim at the end of the shift, which told of unsuccessful toil.
A large notice with Mary Ellen's photo with a description of the clothing worn on that day was posted in a local newspaper; posters promising a substantial reward to the inquiry of the girl's whereabouts were displayed in shops and on bulletin boards. Even the local dairy pictured Mary Ellen's photo on their milk cartons with words denoting her dissapearance. But all written notices met with a blank answer.
Wednesday turned to Thursday then to Friday as the law enforcement agencies checked all leads to the missing child even it seemed a hoax in nature. The police investigator’s attention was turned to a scruffy backward youth who claimed of seeing a little girl that fitted her description taking a the path through a wild tract of weeds and wood near the school. A thorough search yielded no clues.
Yet, a lead led to a scawny old busybody whose yackety-yak mouth blabbed in seeing a little girl enter a large automobile at the time and date of Mary Ellen's dissapearance. Nothing escaped her inquisitive nature as she told of the dark black body and an emblem on the vehicle’s wheels indicating a foreign make. Even the poor old dear's foggy brain shook its cobwebs and the first two numbers of the license plate were remembered.
Friday turned to Saturday and to the day of the Sabbath as the police enquiries turned their attention to a listing of the registration of vehicles. Even an official police report of known pedophiles was scanned meticulously; know sexual offenders both in the town and through the state were questioned.
The investigators traced an automobile that fitted the budybody's description, but the owner was a respectable physician who was busy in his duty at the local hospital. It seemed that the scrawny old woman had a grudge against the so-called wealthy ownership of a Mercedes by the doctor, thus the false evidence. Under sustained questioning by the police it was learned that the dearie did see Mary Ellen enter a black second hand but not of the doctor’s. If she weren’t so huffy she would have noticed the little girl was laughing when she entered the black Ford upon a joke from a familiar person.
But the police held onto one clue being a dark coloured vehicle and the first two plate numbers, being simliar to first one investigated. They surmised that Mary Ellen was well instructed in her behavior towards strangers. The officials noted the possibility that the little girl was given a lift to the school but she would only accept it from a known person. .
The investigators were holding the school custodian for questioning as their inquiries led to him. He was the owner of a black Ford, an older model, and the two numbers matched the first figures on his plates. Both the principal and teachers of the school were shocked at the news as their Jim was considered a mild mannered man; to their eyes he seemed friendly to the schoolchildren and he knew many by their first names. The custodian applied for the vacant post with the correct references, but nobody bothered to check them. He was employed at the school for the past few months being attentive to his duties, which pleased the staff.
During the investigation police files from municipalities where he had taking up residence listed complaints of his sexual offenses mainly to children. He had served time in a secure mental institution, but the good psychiatrists noticing his subdued behavior during treatment over the years rendered him cured of sexual misconduct. The correct pills were prescribed and the good doctors noted that if taken properly his sexual craving could be modified; but who noticed when the medicine was taken properly.
The gruff man's silence melted during the inquiry and his words stumbled into lies. His grey stubbled features wrinkled as he mumbled through thick lips the question fowarded to him. His veined hands twisted nervously in their tight grip when asked if he knew Mary Ellen, which he denied. His shaggy eyebrowed grey eyes widened in surpised when questioned on the ownership of a dark-coloured vehicle, which he admitted his possession. But the next question as to why he reported late to his job that fateful day trapped him in his lies.
The mystery then unfolded. The shoreline from the pier to the sands was combed by the police and volunteers for any sign of the remains of Mary Ellen; two bloodhounds with the scent bayed. But three youths on a clamming hunt through the mud flats noticed a red polka dot cloth amoung the weeds and flotsom along the shore.