When Minnie first heard the news she left the Oatmans in Charlotte, North Carolina, and flew to her daughter’s side. She was escorted through a herd of newsmen and when she got inside, a tearful Minnie rushed at Betty Raye, grabbed her, and said, “Oh, honey, it’s just like when Chester was stole all over again. Now somebody’s gone and snatched little Hamm away!”
Minnie immediately started to form prayer circles inside the mansion and out. The reporters, most of whom were from New York, suddenly found themselves kneeling on the lawn, holding hands with a fat woman, praying for Hamm’s return. The Missouri National Guard was called in for an all-out search of the woods where Hamm and his staff usually went hunting or even could have gone. Day after day, an upset and increasingly terrified Betty Raye waited for news of her husband. Dorothy called and asked Betty Raye if there was anything she could do but there was nothing that anyone could do except find her husband.
Everyone, including Betty Raye, was at a loss as to what to do. It seemed inconceivable that five grown men could just disappear into thin air without leaving a trace. Jake Spurling, the FBI’s number one missing-persons expert, was brought in from Washington and put on the case. All of Hamm’s known enemies, of which there were many, were immediately questioned but as of yet none could be connected to the disappearance. The government offered a $500,000 reward for any information. In the meantime hundreds of people called radio and television stations, claiming to have spotted a flying saucer the weekend of their disappearance. One woman in Holt’s Summit said she saw the men looking out the window of one as it took off from her cow pasture. Psychics from everywhere called in. One from London claimed that the men had stolen money and were now living in New Guinea with a Pygmy tribe. Another claimed they had been lost in the Bermuda Triangle. The entire country was in a state of pure shock, concerned and alarmed that a presidential candidate could just vanish from the face of the earth without leaving a trace or a clue.
Alberta Peets, who claimed to have premonitions, had gone home on a weekend furlough to see her mother the weekend the men disappeared and had told Betty Raye that Sunday night that she had had a cold chill to hit her. She said, “They need to look for them in Alaska.”
A few days after the headlines hit, an extremely nervous Mr. Anthony Leo made a call from a phone booth to his friend in New Orleans. The friend claimed not to know what had happened to the men after the meeting and in turn asked Mr. Leo if he knew anything. Mr. Leo said no. After they hung up they both wondered if the other one was lying but did not say so. In those circles it was best not to.
People in Missouri were at a particular loss as to what to do or how to behave in a case like this. There had never been a case like this. They had no idea if they should fly the flag at half-staff or just lower it a little, since nobody really knew if the men were dead or not. Cecil Figgs was the only one who would have known what to do, but he was missing as well.
The only two people who had not seemed totally surprised Hamm and the others were missing were Earl Finley and Jimmy Head. Minutes after Earl had made the obligatory phone call to Betty Raye on behalf of the Democratic Party of Missouri to say how sorry he was to hear about the bad news, he was locked in a back room of a cheap hotel with several friends, trying his best to keep from smiling as he plotted his next move. Jimmy Head had been in Kansas City for a friend’s funeral when the news hit but when he came back to Elmwood Springs all he said was, “I’m just surprised it didn’t happen sooner. I feel bad for Betty Raye but she’s a hell of a lot better off without him.”
In time, it became painfully clear that they were not coming back. Betty Raye thanked her mother for coming but told her that she was fine and Alberta would look after her and Minnie should go back on the road. She was not fine but when she was not with her boys she just wanted to be alone and think, to try to come to terms with what was happening. No one ever dreams that the last moment, that last glance of someone, might really be the last. She could not sleep, or eat. Not knowing if he was dead or alive was torture, but in addition to grieving for her husband she had two children and an entire state to worry about.
A month later, after attending a rather strange and ambiguous memorial service for Hamm and the four men, it hit her that most likely Hamm was not coming back. And she wanted to die. Had it not been for her two boys, she might have. Hamm Jr., who had adored his father, was taking his loss particularly hard and he needed her.
As the widow of such a powerful man, Betty Raye had at least received the nation’s sympathy and support but Vita Green had suffered through the entire thing alone and silent, waiting, like Betty Raye, for some word. But unlike Betty Raye, having a sense of how dangerous politics could be and how reckless Hamm had become, she had been halfway expecting something like this to happen. Expected or not, it was devastating for her.
Out of respect for his family, she did not attend the memorial service but stayed home and held her own very private wake. The people who knew about her relationship with Hamm tried to be helpful, but as Betty Raye had learned, nothing could help except, maybe, time.
Time and patience were two things that Jake Spurling had plenty of. An unattractive man with red pockmarked skin, Jake was as dedicated to solving missing-persons cases as most men were to their families.
Even though there had been a memorial service, none of the bodies had been found; as far as he was concerned, this case was far from over. Jake Spurling was one of the best criminal investigators in the country and he vowed he would never give up on the Hamm Sparks disappearance until he got to the bottom of it. And who had been behind it. Jake was known far and wide as a man who, once he had a case, was like a dog with a bone. He would root and dig for information no matter how long it took, or where he had to go to find it. To Jake this was the case of a lifetime.
Aunt Elner Goes Postal
LUTHER GRIGGS, the bully who used to beat up Bobby Smith, lived in a trailer park behind the post office and had a son as mean as his daddy had been at that age. Over the years Aunt Elner had had a series of orange cats that she always named Sonny. That morning Luther Griggs Jr. had thrown a rock at Aunt Elner’s present cat named Sonny and had hit him in the head.
At a quarter to twelve that night Aunt Elner called her niece with the news.
“Norma, I’ve killed the Griggs boy.”
“What?”
“I’ve killed the Griggs boy, murdered him in cold blood. I didn’t mean to but there you have it. Tell Macky to go on and call the police.”
“Aunt Elner, what are you talking about?”
“I’ve killed him, poisoned him, he’s probably lying over there dead and they’re gonna trace the fudge back to me sooner or later, so I might as well give up and get it over with. I’ve tried to live a good life all these years and here I’ve wound up a cold-blooded killer.”