“I hadn’t even thought about what would happen to you with Bob in jail,” I said. Her tail whumped. “Sorry, girl. Hey? Do you want to be my guardian? Do you want to do that?”
Her tail beat a steady rhythmic ‘yes’.
At the front of the house I looked out towards East Jennings.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
Sheriff Younger had worked his magic. All the news vans had moved on. A deputy car drove slowly down Jennings, parallel to the house. Like a shark I thought. A shark patrolling waters freshly fled by fearful suckerfish.
Chapter 48
Sherman had texted me throughout the morning. All I’d sent back was enough of a digital murp to let him know I was awake and ok. I thought about calling Ruth, but I didn’t know what I’d say to her.
I wondered if Kitty and Geoff had sat together on the bus. No longer needing to worry about Nick’s derision. How Kitty wouldn’t be surprised to see a substitute bus driver. Now probably the regular bus driver.
Showering, I thought about Dad in jail. If they’d confiscated his phone. If it’d be the local cops or the FBI that would come across the picture of me, unconscious, naked. I tried to snap out of thinking only of myself, but it was difficult.
On my bedroom dresser I found the envelope Mr. Pederson had handed me on Friday. Set there as I’d started trying to decide on a dress for the premiere.
I was making room for Mojo. She could sleep on my bed anytime if she wanted. I tossed some socks on top the dresser and one landed on the envelope.
Bed cleaned off I patted and patted the foot of the bed. Mojo cocked her head and looked at me. Such a smart dog. Knew she wasn’t supposed to hop up, spread dirt and fur all over.
I picked the envelope up off the dresser, and started telling Mojo the normal rules no longer applied to us. My cell phone rang. A ‘323’ area code. California. I set the envelope on the nightstand and picked up the phone.
“Lucy? Jack.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Where are you guys? I woke up and…”
“Aster didn’t leave a note?”
“No.”
A long pause. Really long. I thought the signal had fallen off.
“Jack? You still there?”
“Sorry. She said she’d left a message. A note.”
“Maybe she did. I might’ve looked right at it and not seen it. I’m not all here right now, you know?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Are you still in town?”
“I’m at the police station. Sheriff’s office I guess I should say.”
“Right.”
“We needed a command center. We didn’t want to make it the house. At this point…We’re not on our own. We’re working hand in hand with the authorities so…We thought it best to keep you separate from that. To…to give you some space to catch your breath. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you when we made that decision.”
“That’s ok.”
I could hear him draw in a deep breath.
“Lucy,” he said, “I offered to bail out your dad and your uncle. They refused.”
I nodded. That sounded right. That sounded like Jack. That sounded like Senate and his older brother Bob. Dad knew he’d done wrong. A price had to be paid.
“I just thought you should know that.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I guess I should probably go and see him.”
Jack didn’t respond. I couldn’t imagine him wanting to talk more about my dad than necessary.
I asked, “Any word on Maddy?”
“No.”
“Shit.”
“Yes,” he said. “That. Definitely.”
I’d sat down on the bed. Mojo had come over and helped disperse my stress level, providing her ears for scratching.
“Do you need anything?” asked Jack.
“There’s a sheriff’s deputy cruising Jennings every couple minutes. The doors are locked. Mojo’s with me. I’m ok right now I guess.”
“I’ll bring you lunch.”
“Oh you don’t need to do that.”
“It’d be good for me. Contrary to popular opinion I think better on my own. It’ll give me an excuse to get out of here.”
“Ok.”
“Ok. I’ll call you in a couple hours.”
“Thanks.”
“You bet.”
Hanging up, I wondered if I shouldn’t tell Jack to contact Ruth. She was oodles insightful. She’d been right. The kidnapping had never been about the money. But that didn’t seem a likely team up. Dina and Jack might get along with Ruth, but bring Horace into the mix and Ruth would only see red.
No one had mentioned Horace Walton. I wondered where he was.
Maybe damage control back in California. Maybe negotiating with some secret international security force to storm all areas near Eaton in a full on attack to find Maddy. I wondered about the people, the ones Horace had hired, that were supposed to show up today – if they’d been officially mothballed now that everything in all its horribleness was public, the cops and the FBI involved.
I checked my laptop. Carla’s Facebook page displayed nothing. I wondered if she’d had Lloyd Passman listed as a ‘Friend’. If that had been deleted anytime recently.
People continued adding messages to my page. Well wishes. Crazy one-liners.
I couldn’t look at too much of it. I got up from the desk. Sitting on the bed I reached to the nightstand and grabbed the envelope from Mr. Pederson’s class to Maddy.
It wasn’t intended for my perusal, but I figured seeing a bunch of thanks and well wishes from the students would be nice. I could somehow channel the karma to the universe, to the people looking for Maddy, to Maddy.
Nosey. Maybe bored. Definitely tired. Not thinking too straight, in other words.
I opened the envelope.
Madeline,
Where might we meet before your departure?
There is too much to say and I cannot trust paper to adequately support all my heart holds.
Seeing you, touching you, smelling you, all was too much. All more than I could imagine.
You couldn’t communicate in front of others what our secret words have meant.
But I understood.
It was delicious, holding back, knowing how it would decimate their minds, to conceive of what we hold together.
The girl I knew.
Now the woman, the most desirable woman, I desire.
Soon, my love, we will be the lovers we long have wished to be.
As always, in anticipation…
H.P.
H.P.
Hubert Pederson.
Mr. Pederson.
Chapter 49
Tuesday Sherman was paged to the office. Per usual, several peers produced smartass comments as he rose from his desk and began the march of the potential doomed.
As the door to Chemistry closed behind him, a potential replacement for Nick Verney’s crown of King of the Quick Wits called out, “Now be careful and don’t get kidnapped, Shermie.”
Several people laughed, the teacher snapping at all involved before the door cut off the abrasive sounds.
The hallway was empty. Sherman counted himself lucky, not having to look at anyone or talk to anyone. He wasn’t in the mood. He was also feeling easily riled. Like just the right set of words or whispers and he was going to go for someone’s throat. He could guess who’d made that last little jibe just prior to the door closing. Sherman wouldn’t mind getting suspended giving a deserving shithead a bloody nose.
Sherman had told me he was one of those people that needed 8 hours of sleep. With everything going on since Friday, between Friday, Saturday and Sunday night he’d rolled up a total of 18 hours.
His mouth was dry. He was toe deep in a headache. By day’s end he sensed he’d be ankle deep.
In the office the only person he had to look at was Mrs. Collar. She was cool and efficient. She’d outlasted 12 principals and 5 superintendents. Many thought she actually ran the school. Maybe she did.
Once upon a time, before the explosion of social media, she was the ultimate controller of who talked and who didn’t talk to the high mucky mucks.
A chest level white counter wrapped around Mrs. Collar’s work station. She looked a little like a musician in a pit an orchestra would play from.
Sherman approached the counter. Mrs. Collar pointed at the phone on the counter, facing him. A single green light flashed.
“Mr. Blackwell.”
She seemed to take great pleasure in dispensing last names. Many teachers had trouble remembering first names. Mrs. Collar so on top of it, so in control she had the last names down ice cold, and even if she’d had to consult a database to remind herself of Sherman’s last name while he’d been walking to the office, she’d said the last name so offhand, so dismissively, it concealed any effort she’d put into the a potential ruse.
“You have a call. Your cousin Ruth. She says it’s urgent. I believe she’s on line 1.”
The look she gave him seemed to confirm what they both knew as fact. Sherman didn’t have a cousin Ruth.
Reaching for the phone he hoped she didn’t make too much of his bulging eyes or the blush he could totally feel climbing up the back of his neck, climbing his ears like mercury zooming up a thermometer in a cartoon.
“It’s me,” I said. “Cousin Ruth.”
“Uh huh.”
“Listen. This is important. It’s weird, I know it’s going to sound weird, but I want to know something.”
“Sure.”
“Is Mr. Pederson at school today?”
Silence.
“I think so.”
“That’s not. No. Do you know for a fact?”
He made the straining noise that came out when he closed his eyes, trying to remember some math or science homework problem. I called it his pooping face.
“Oh! Yeah. I did see him.”
“How did he seem?”
“I don’t know. Fine.”
“Ok.”
“Why?”
“I can’t…I don’t know. I think I know. But it’s too weird.”
“Huh.”
“I’ll tell you, but Sherman, don’t look at Mrs. Collar. Look somewhere else. Otherwise she’s going to know something is going on.”
He promised he would. Told me when he’d done it.
I told him about Mr. Pederson giving me the letter. What it was supposed to be. Who it was supposed to be from. I read it to him.
Then I read it to him again.
The bell rang for classes to end.
I asked, “Are you still there?”
“What does that all mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Wow. Wow. Maybe it’s a joke.”
“I don’t think so. I thought that, too, but…I mean why go to the trouble of telling me it’s from the class? If it’s a joke, he’d be all ‘give this to Maddy’. And that’s it. That’s all he’d say.”
We were both silent for a moment.
“Do you think,” I asked, “that he could kill people? Does he have a gun? Does he…”
“He used to bare knuckle box. He told us that one time in band practice.”
“Jesus, Sherman. Could you say that any louder?”
He whispered, “Sorry.”
After wiping away the mental image of Mrs. Collar giving him the death stare, another mental image rose.
The big bear sized Mr. Pederson and skinny scarecrow Nick Verney. Or the short kind of paunchy Lloyd Passman and Mr. Pederson.
No contest.
“If he took Maddy,” I said, “if he took her and then somehow…See, but that doesn’t. Where would he…His wife and son are…”
“His mom’s.”
“What about his mom’s?”
“Mr. Ped-” He caught himself, Mrs. Collar’s ears right there in proximity, and then he continued, whispering, “His mom had to be put in a home recently. Her, um, her house is, I mean I don’t think, I mean I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure it’s…Empty.”
Empty.
Moments passed.
On the periphery of consciousness I could hear Sherman calling after me. Calling after ‘Ruth’. ‘Cousin Ruth’.
“Where is that?” I asked. “Where is that house?”
“Colorado and like 3rd. You can’t miss it. It has gnomes. Lots of gnomes. She likes gnomes I guess.”
“I gotta go,” I said.
“Ok.”
“Thanks.”
He got as far as “No pr-“ but I’d ended the call.
I dialed Jack.
He didn’t pick up.
I called Dina.
Dina didn’t pick up.
Slipping on my shoes, Mojo’s ears perked right up. She sensed I was about to leave the house. That could mean a walk. Walks were the best thing ever.
First I told her she had to stay.
Then I realized that I’d be better off with her. I told her never mind. She was coming with me. Her tail started to beat back and forth.
I ran out of the house, Mojo ahead of me, and the door slammed behind us.
I ran up the driveway to Jennings. The humidity was high. My clothes already trying to stick to me. The clouds thick enough in the sky rain seemed imminent.
I didn’t see the deputy’s unit. Probably on his way back towards the house or he’d just gone past and was turning around near the Ferguson’s, looping back.
I called 911.
I started walking towards town. Mojo ran down the road ahead of me.
“This is Lucy McCall,” I told the 911 operator. “Sheriff Younger said he’d have a deputy out at my place today. I’m on East Jennings. I’m headed towards town on foot. I’m wondering if the deputy could come get me. I need to do something in town.”
A slow thin breeze ruffled grass on Skinny Arbogast’s land. I wished Dina were here. Even Jamie Jane. She’d give me a lift to town, insisting her cameraman push the E! van to the limits, no questions asked.
I dialed Ruth.
She didn’t pick up either.
“Son of a bitch. No one wants to talk to me, Mojo.”
She brushed her head against my leg.
“You’re right. I know. You’d always pick up.”
She barked and shot out of ahead me, dog eyes picking up something of significant interest out there ahead of us.
Moments later a siren sounded from the west, back towards the Ferguson’s. The unit approached, roof lights rotating and a thick tail of dust erupting into the sky from the tires.
I called Mojo. She obediently came over.
Deputy Llewellyn killed the siren and had the passengers side window rolled down as he pulled up next to me.
“Hi,” I said.
He nodded. He looked younger than Rocco.
“I just need to get to town. Is that ok?”
“Sure.”
“Can we…Is there anyway we can take my dog. Sorry. Not my dog, but, I mean, my uncle’s dog. She freaks out a little on her own.”
He put the unit in park, got out and opened the backdoor for Mojo. She hopped in the backseat. He shut the door on her and I said, “I think she’ll like it more if I’m back there with her.”
“Oh. You bet.” He smiled, held the door for me.
After we were loaded in, the deputy got back behind the wheel. Put the unit in drive and we started towards town.
Looking in the rearview mirror he said, “Anywhere particular you want me to drop you off, Ms. McCall?”
I held his eyes.
“Colorado. Colorado and 3rd. And if we could get there fast, that’d be cool.”
> He didn’t have a problem with that. He said, “Yes, ma’am.”
The siren came right on back up, and as he pressed down on the accelerator, so too did the tail of dust.
Chapter 50
The brown house besotted by gnomes stood at the end of Colorado.
Perpendicular to Colorado, 3rd street stretched north and south, running pretty much to either extreme end of Eaton.
The few times any of Eaton’s native sons had thought drag racing was a good idea, they’d used 3rd as their race strip. So far, there’d been no fatalities as a result of the misguided endeavor. The body shops had seen some business in the aftermath of the would-be speedsters overestimation of their driving skill.
Entering town, Deputy Llewellyn swung south onto 3rd and soon turned right onto Colorado. I gaped, looking out the backseat window at Mrs. Pederson’s home, ceramic gnomes cavorting on the front doorstep, dark red pointy caps popping up here and there through the landscaping, clutched to the mailbox post, every face leering and malevolent.
It wasn’t until we were halfway down the block that my voice returned and I could call out and tell the deputy right here was perfect.
He slowed to a halt. I reached for a door handle that wasn’t there. For a moment I thought he’d suddenly accelerate, look back and ask me how dumb I thought law enforcement around these parts could be. I was slated for a sit down with the Sheriff and the FBI. My little dog, too.
“Hold on,” the deputy called, popping his door open. “I’ll get you there.”
Mojo hopped out. I followed. Deputy Llewellyn shut the door and then kind of stared at me.
“Thank you,” I said.
He stared at Mojo.
“You know, we got leash laws in town.”
“Oh. I didn’t…I didn’t even think about that.”
“Tell you what. I got a spare at my place. I’ll go fetch it, bring it back. You’re not going anywhere too far from here, are you?”
I shook my head.
“All right. It’s cool. I’m going to grab some food while I’m there. It’s a good excuse. Just don’t tell anyone.” He smiled and I smiled. Then he pointed a finger at Mojo.
“You be good.”
Pointed at me and with a wink said, “Keep her out of trouble.”