It was crazy, really, that the first disappearance wasn't even investigated. But after all, it was "only" one of the Mulligan girls, and everyone knew there was always another Mulligan to take her place, being Catholic, as they were. Now, don't go getting all riled up at me, if you please! Leave the bristling to your hairbrush, and just sit still and listen.

Every couple of years, another of the Irish girls that had been working at Coopers' went missing. One year, there were two, and a Polish girl as well. That was the year that Tansey Riley's daddy finally went to work for his daddy, after his business in Pittsburgh went broke. Three girls gone missing, all in one year, and it wasn't until after the third one, that anyone held their courage higher than their cowardice, and went to the sheriff.

In a small town, it wasn't unheard of for young girls to disappear for a while. Usually they went off to "visit relatives", or went "up to the hot springs" to recover their health. Meant they were pregnant, of course, though nobody in those days would have said so out loud, unless they were trying to be spiteful, and cause a commotion for the family.

Even so, six girls gone missing in about 8 years, and folks will start to talk,  especially when  none of them ever came home. That's just what they did, too, folks started to talking, and the rumors and gossip flew. You can't imagine all the stories that were told! Everything from the "God's honest truth" that there were white-slavers up from the city, to there being witches in the woods sacrificing those "sinners", the Catholics, for their papist ways. Protestants can be a self-righteous group when you have a preacher like we had gettin' them all het up.

Old Mr. Cooper died about 10 years after the first disappearance. Things were quiet for about 18 months, then another girl went missing. This time, the sheriff got up to the factory in record time, and spent hours and hours poking around, and a-pestering everyone up there.  Nothing came of it, but it seemed to make folks feel better, that the law was on their side, that someone would eventually be caught. The sheriff never caught much of anybody but Harley, but that's another story all together.

Then two little boys disappeared. If you don't think that caused a ruckus! In those days, it was one thing when teenage girls disappeared, but quite another when the children were little boys. Sure, they could run off just like anyone else, but on top of the girls' disappearances, things were starting to look more and more sinister, if you know what I mean. I remember hearing Daddy talking late one night to Mama in the living room. I'd snuck downstairs to use the toilet. (We were supposed to go before we went to bed - mostly, I figure to keep from disturbing mama and daddy when they were "talking".)  Daddy wasn't even using the real words for things, he was kinda talking all around it, asking Mama what she'd heard from the ladies she knew. I think he was embarrassed, and had a hard time thinkin' that little boys were ever used for anything more than honest labor. I believe that thinking otherwise, scared him through to his soul. Hell, it scares me.

Tansey Cooper announced she was getting married a year to the day after her daddy, Warner Allen Cooper II died. I think she would have done it sooner, but the preacher refused at least once that I know of. Prejudices run high in small towns, like I told you in the beginning, and Tansey Cooper had the audacity to be marryin' a Catholic boy, Edmond Riley. Her mama refused to go to the wedding, even if Tansey was her only child, and the apple of her eye. I don't know what got into that woman, but I know that my mama said she ought to be slapped for being so pig-headed. I don't suppose that being ham-fisted would have cured pig-headedness, though. In the end, she was dragged to the wedding against her will, and sat there the whole time with her arms crossed in front of her, the sourest expression you can imagine twistin' her face to ugly.

Tansey Cooper became Tansey Riley, and Mama Cooper was sent to live with her sister. Probably as a part of the marriage settlement, if Edmond Riley was smart! Mr. & Mrs. Edmond Riley took over the house and the factory, and the shadow of missing children faded into the darkness of the past. Life went on, as they say, or it did for most.

Tansey Cooper Riley died an old woman, in the white wooden house where she'd been born, and where she'd spent her entire life. The factory closed down after her husband passed on - I guess she lost the desire to run the place, or the need to atone for the sins of her family. The whole time she and Edmond ran that place, it was a worker's haven. Fair wages, fair conditions, and most importantly, no more mysterious disappearances.

Before the mortician came to take her body away, the new sheriff sealed the old Cooper/Riley place up. Not that he had legal cause, far as I can tell, but because he felt the town owed posterity the truth, and he meant to find it.

It didn't take long. Out back of the house, down a path through a field of wild sunflowers, there were two small graves. Each one was marked with a proper stone marker, with a name, and two dates - birth and death. A small stone angel was carved into each one, just above the name. Below each name, were two words. "An Accident."

Tucked into the front of the family bible, which was perched on a carved wooden stand in the private family parlor, was a letter, written by Tansey Cooper Riley.

"My daddy was a drunk," it began, "as was his daddy before him. Each, had a taste for the ladies, and enough money to make them disappear and start a new life after he'd shamed, then tired of them, and their babes... Each child's name is duly recorded in this family bible, and he or she may claim one eighth of Warner Allen Cooper II's estate - should he or she come here looking for it."