Larkspur Cove

by Lisa Wingate

  “Are we close yet?” Behind me, Andrea had stalled out. Her pants were caught on a bramble, and she’d stopped to pull it off.

  “Could be another mile or two – just guessing.” I looked at the clearing ahead. Back when Len’s parents were alive, that’d probably been a farm field, but now it was overgrown with shoulder-high Johnson grass and scrappy cedars. Across the way, I could see what was left of an old slabwood fence and the carcasses of a couple junk cars. Len’s house was most likely behind the cedar hedge at the other end of the field.

  “Another mile or two?” Andrea repeated. I had to give her credit for determination. Even in dress shoes, she was keeping up pretty well. Hay’d started to lag behind after stopping to dump a rock out of his high-dollar rubber fishing treads. “You’ve got to be kid – ” Andrea’s heel hung on a root, and she stumbled, leaving the shoe behind. Her bare foot came down in the moss, mud, and nameless squishy stuff typical of a forest floor after a rain. Letting out something between a squeal and a growl, she hopped to the side of the trail and started wiping off her toes on a little fern plant.

  “Better look out for poison ivy,” I said, and she shot a sneer my way.

  “I know what poison ivy looks like.” Her hair had fallen out of the clip, so that it hung in long curls around her face. Her cheeks were red, and she had fire in her eyes. She looked good that way. Not so … stiff. “I’m not a complete idiot.”

  Slipping around behind her, I grabbed the shoe, then set it on the ground by her foot. “There you go, Cinderella.”

  She gave the shoe a shocked look, like she really couldn’t believe I’d bother. Guess I hadn’t made too good an impression so far. I wasn’t really trying to, but my mama did raise me to be a gentleman. I wouldn’t walk off and leave a lady stranded on one shoe. Not even this lady. I would’ve put that log down to help her off the boat, too, but she didn’t stay put when I told her to. The muddy shoes were her fault, mostly. Bet those were starting to chafe about now.

  Hay caught up, and he was so busy looking for birds with his fold-up binoculars, he almost ran Cinderella off the path and toppled her into the ooze.

  “Better put down those field glasses, Hay,” I said. “We’re here.” As usual, Hay was as out to lunch as anybody could be. Had his head in a sermon or in a book most of the time, and now he was an amateur bird watcher, too. One of these days, he was gonna step on a copperhead snake while he was busy watching clouds pass over.

  Last year’s dead leaves crunched and squished as Andrea hurried to catch up. “I thought you said it was another mile or two.”

  Pushing some brambles aside, I gave a shrug toward the clearing, where the logging-road-turned-ATV-trail wound its way through overgrowth toward the old fence. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear in the woods.”

  Andrea’s mouth dropped open, then snapped shut. “You’re … just …” She trailed off, seeming like she couldn’t find the word for it. It wasn’t the first time I’d had that effect on a woman. When you’re in the field all the time, you get in the habit of treating everybody the way you’d treat your work partner or law enforcement personnel in other departments. Guys joke around. It keeps you on your toes. And when you’re in the field, you need to be on your toes.

  It’s all fine, until you’re dealing with women and children. They don’t always see humor where you do. More than once, I’d ended up with my nephews or my sisters-in-law crying at the annual McClendon campout in Big Bend, and I didn’t have the first idea what I’d said or done to cause it. My mama’s opinion was that the game warden school needed to add sensitivity training.

  Andrea finally finished with, “… not … nice.” She turned up her nose and followed Hay through the opening.

  “I try.” I ducked down to slip through behind her. A branch sprung back and whacked me in the head so quick I didn’t have time to catch it. Lucky for me, it was pretty pliable, so it just ripped half my ear off, sent my hat flying like a Frisbee, and took out a chunk of hair. I said something I probably shouldn’t have. When I grabbed my hat and looked up, Andrea was watching me with her hand over her mouth, and I knew right away that branch hadn’t come my way by accident.

  “Oops,” she muttered and bit her lip, but she wasn’t very convincing. For one thing, she was kind of smiling when she said it.

  “Good trick,” I told her, pushing the dent out of my hat.

  “I try.” She tipped her chin up, then headed off across the field with Hay trailing along behind, looking for bluebirds.

  Halfway through the Johnson grass patch, we cleared the end of the cedars, and I saw Len’s estate ahead. It was pretty typical of the area – a patchwork barn, piles of junk here and there, a couple rusted-out tractors floating like flotsam in a sea of broomweed. Beside the house, a dilapidated school bus had been sitting in one place so long the wheels were buried up to the axles. No telling how they’d gotten that thing up here. The house itself was old, gaps in the siding covered with bits of secondhand lumber and scavenged road signs, the knobby cedar porch poles pushing outward like buckteeth. The whole place listed to one side, so that it seemed like it might just fold up if a good enough wind moved through.

  I stopped near the edge of the yard, if you could call it that, and hollered Len’s name, then identified myself and told him we wanted to talk to him. Near the barn, a mule brayed, a rangy old milk cow climbed to her feet, a pig squealed, and in a ragtag pen built from shipping pallets and hog wire, two grown dogs and a batch of pups went wild, barking. I hoped those dogs were locked up. They didn’t sound friendly. Andrea and Hay slipped around behind me, like they were thinking the same thing.

  I identified myself again and called out Len’s name over the barking. No answer. Hay tried raising Len, next. During his time in Moses Lake, he’d learned that, out in the hills, even a pastor ought to hail the house before walking up to it. “I don’t think anyone’s here,” he said finally.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Andrea agreed. Both of them turned toward me.

  “Won’t hurt to go on up and check,” I said. “Could be he’s out in the barn.” Occupied or not, I wanted to get a look at the place while I was there. Besides, if Len was hiding in the woods and saw us sniffing around his farmyard, he might flush out. “You two stay put a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  Andrea and Hay stood side by side, watching me head off to the house. When I rounded the cedar break and started across the yard, the dogs took a run at the rickety fence behind the house. In the dry-dirt corral next door, the mule ran around bucking and kicking. Even with the noise, the farm had an eerie feel to it, a little like a graveyard when you’re all alone, and you can feel the people there, even though they’re gone.

  The dogs ramped up the threat level when I stepped onto the porch and leaned close to the two wood-paned windows on either side of the weathered door. Between the layer of dirt on the glass and a set of dry-rotted curtains hanging inside, I couldn’t see anything.

  Leaving the porch, I walked across to look in the barn. Inside, the light was dim, the shadows of the hills and trees falling long now, but I could make out Len’s collection of live traps, deer feeders, and a harness for the mule.

  Along one wall, a stack of homemade cages of various sizes looked to be ready for use. They were empty at the moment, but I wondered what normally lived in them. There were bowls with mold-covered food, and bug-infested water dishes, and the whole place smelled like scat. Several cages had been recently emptied, the ground still wet from tipped-over water bowls. If nothing else, the cages were grounds for me to come back. Keeping wildlife without a permit – either for sale or for skins – was illegal.

  I wasn’t surprised to find the cages, considering Len’s history in terms of fish-and-game regulations. What I didn’t see here was any sign of a little girl… .

  “Did you find anything?” Hay’s voice made me jump and grab for my belt. I turned and had a Barney Fife moment, tripping over some boards hidden underneath the loose l
ayer of straw.

  “Dadgummit, Hay. You trying to give me a heart attack? Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  Andrea was standing beside him. She gave my hand on the gun a concerned look, like she was wondering if I could be trusted with the thing.

  Hay surveyed the inside of the barn, then wrinkled his long, narrow nose and sneezed. “What do you think he keeps in here?” He pointed at the cages, and beside him, Andrea’s brown eyes got wide. She looked like she was picturing something out of a horror movie. Shivering, she took a step backward, and headed out of the barn.

  “A little bit of everything, it looks like,” I said, taking my flashlight and shining it into a dark corner, where more live traps and cages were stacked up. There was a long, gray feather in one of them – probably off a turkey or a hawk, but if that came off an eagle, Len could be in serious trouble. Eagles were federally protected. Stepping over to the cage, I pulled out my pocket camera and snapped a picture. Hay moved into the barn and looked over my shoulder.

  It crossed my mind that, if there was going to be an investigation later, I didn’t want Hay mucking up the evidence now. “Let’s go. There’s no one here.” By the house, the dogs were raising Cain again, and I had a feeling Andrea was over there sniffing around. I had to give her credit for guts, but if those dogs found a way through the fence, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  I walked out of the barn with Hay behind. Andrea was on the other side of the house with her nose poked into the old school bus and one foot on the step. Glancing back, she motioned us to her, then put her hand over her mouth and backed out of the bus. The horrified look on her face flashed a picture in my mind. Maybe old Len had tipped back one too many pints of sour mash, crawled in there, and expired in the heat … or something worse.

  Jogging around the front porch, I met Andrea at the bus. “It looks like someone’s been living in there,” she said, and I relaxed a little.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.” Up here, you were likely to find a dozen or more different family members and hangers-on, all squatting on one place, employing any sort of imaginable human habitation.

  That did bring up the question of what use Len would have for guest quarters, since everyone agreed he didn’t have any family and didn’t socialize. If he was living in the house, then who’d been staying out here, and where were they now?

  Taking a step into the bus, I identified myself and called out Len’s name. I didn’t expect anyone to answer, but procedure is procedure for a reason. You don’t follow the rules, you might muck up a case that needs to be turned over to state troopers, or the county sheriff, or the feds. “Anybody in here?”

  Climbing a couple more steps, I took a quick glance around the interior. The seats had been cleared out, and there was a mattress wedged against the back doors. A wood stove squatted near the front, and a lopsided plywood table lounged in the window light along one side. Two Styrofoam bowls and a set of china teacups sat on top of it. Leaning over the handrail, I looked inside the cups. Empty. They were just sitting there, like someone’d planned to sit down to dinner, then decided against it. I couldn’t blame them.You took your dinner in a spot like this, you were liable to end up with E. coli. The whole bus was strewn from one end to the other with towels, blankets, and clothes. It smelled of mold, and little piles of dried feces dotted contents here and there, as if coons had moved in, or someone had been keeping puppies in here, or both. A mud-covered set of women’s clothes lay piled near the door – jeans and a faded T-shirt. Modern-day stuff, not old enough to have belonged to Len’s mama, back when. Whose were those? Did Len have himself a woman no one knew about?

  The question turned over in my mind as I headed down the stairs. “Reverend Hay, you got any idea whether Len might have a girlfriend?”

  “A girlfriend?” Hay coughed. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Well, I don’t see any sign of a little girl, but there’s a mud-covered set of women’s clothing piled by the door in there. They look fairly recent. I’d say someone’s been here besides Len.” I stepped off the bus, and one of the dogs stood on its hind legs and tried to crawl over the shipping-pallet fence. Andrea backed away and retreated to the front porch.

  “We better let things alone here before that mutt decides to chew his way out,” I told Hay, and we followed Andrea’s lead back toward the porch. “You see anybody else with Len when you ran across him this afternoon?”

  Hay shook his head. “Not a soul. Just him and the little girl. Like I said, she was playing up in the cedar brush off the road a ways. I just happened to catch sight of her because she wandered out in the field for a minute. I asked Len who that was, and he said it was his daughter, or daughter-girl. Something like that. He was a little flustered, but you know that’s how Len is when he has to talk to somebody. I don’t imagine he could think on his feet quickly enough to lie, even if he wanted to. I’m still learning who’s related to whom around here, so I just figured he had family I didn’t know about.” Hay pulled off his fishing hat and scratched his head, concern sketching a wrinkle between his eyebrows. “None of this makes sense, Mart.”

  “Doesn’t seem to,” I agreed. “But right now, it’s pretty clear he’s either not here, or not coming out.” The best thing to do when you knew something was wrong but couldn’t find the evidence you needed was to get out quietly, then show up unannounced another time or two – see if you couldn’t catch your culprits in the act. I wasn’t sure what I was trying to catch Len at. In my career, I’d assisted in a few kidnapping cases – adults, mostly – and worked with FBI and state troopers in hunts for missing kids, but my mind really didn’t want to go there. After the past few years, I wasn’t ready for any more tragedy. Hopefully, Hay was right about Len, but one thing was for sure: Len knew these woods better than I did. If he got worried and decided to go underground for a while, he could do it.

  Hay nodded.“Well, it could be I misunderstood him. Len’s done some work for me down at the church a time or two, weeding and cleaning the flower beds. He gets his words fouled up. Could be he meant to say she was a neighbor girl, or something. There are people up here who would drop their kids off with almost anybody, just to get them off their hands for a little while.”

  “True enough.” Hay was right. Chinquapin Peaks was like a trip to a whole other world. On the south side of the lake, kids had all the finest things money could buy. On this side, there was no telling. “I’ll pay another visit up here tomorrow and see if I can catch up with Len. If he’s got something going with a neighbor, or has a girlfriend with a kid, maybe I can pass the information along – get someone to come by and do a welfare check. Anyone who’d be using Len as a babysitter probably needs a little monitoring.”

  Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, Andrea stepped off the corner of the porch into the scrappy grass below. “There has been a child here.” She pointed to the ground, and we crossed the porch to see. Not far from her feet, a patch of bare earth by the downspout was decorated with measuring cups, a broken plate, a few odd pieces of silverware, a margarine tub, and a rust-covered coffee can. The margarine tub had been used to produce a mud cake, complete with dry leaves and pebbles for frosting, and feathery shoots of field grass for candles. No chance Len had made that.

  “Adults don’t play in the dirt,” Andrea observed.

  I took a look around the woods, wondering if Len had been watching us this whole time.The more we snooped, the less likely he’d be to follow his normal routines tomorrow. “Let’s go for now.”

  “We’re just leaving?” Andrea’s eyes flashed wide, her lips hanging open a bit.

  I nodded and started walking.

  She trotted to catch up with me while Hay lagged behind, listening to an owl hoot in a dead live oak. “We can’t just leave. We should wait.” Even as she said it, she glanced at the sun, hovering low over the hills.

  “There’s no evidence a crime has been committed here,” I pointed out. Other than the jug lines and possibly the feather in
the barn, I didn’t even have a legal reason to come back.

  Andrea looked over her shoulder, her lip curling a bit. “But this place …” Her eyes, full of worry, begged me to do something – solve the mystery, fix the problem, be a hero. I wanted to tell her she was looking at the wrong guy. I wasn’t anybody’s hero. I didn’t deserve to be.

  “You keep working on this side of the lake, you’ll see a lot of places like this,” I said, and she stiffened like I’d insulted her. “The rules are different in Chinquapin Peaks.”

  I firmly believe that nature brings solace

  in all troubles.

  – Anne Frank

  (Left by a visiting philosophy student

  who read the whole wall)

  Chapter 11

  Andrea Henderson

  As we crossed the lake, my stomach was churning, but not because of motion sickness this time. I couldn’t stop picturing the little girl in the pickup truck, and trying to decide what emotions I’d seen on her face.

  Closing my eyes as the boat cut cleanly through the swells, I imagined the scene again. In my mind, her expression was one of fear and need. But was I only imagining what I thought should be there – what a trip through Len Barnes’s camp made me expect to see? The place was like something out of a mission video from the Third World – unfit, unclean, filled with cages and traps, animal skins hanging everywhere, catfish heads strung up to rot in a tree, snarling dogs breeding indiscriminately in a yard filled with junk. Mart hadn’t even given those things a second look, but when I’d noticed the toys in the dirt next to the porch, my emotions had skidded into a tailspin. No child should have to play there. I wanted to find the little girl right then, to confront whoever was responsible for her, to remove her from the environment immediately.