“I know. I found out through some of our other contacts that Gloria caved to the ACLU. But she shouldn’t have. She has a legal complaint against that school, Rachel. Abigail was legally registered at another school and Pinto Springs has no business fighting her mother over the registration issue.”
The toy tussle continued in the background. And I was getting her message. She had contacts. She had opinions.
And I have a contrarian mind, so at that moment I found myself mostly musing on the rights dof kids to have a say in their own childhoods. Furthermore, this was an interesting side trip I had no time for now.
“Let me check with Matt on this, Gerry. But that is not to say I won’t share with you to the degree of letting you know it’s time to get involved with Hannah and Ruth’s situation. Right now I think we have a handle on Abigail’s problems.”
Those were words I would eat and they would almost poison me.
“Okay.” She wasn’t happy. This was a sister who wasn’t used to being told to wait. She continued.
“I also heard from Martha that Eddie Stowall has gotten himself into a pickle back east. Have you heard he’s in New York State?”
“Hannah told me he was staying somewhere near Fort Alden. Why, what’s happened?”
I turned to stare at the darkened television screen and spotted Wisdom out on the deck, looking toward his wilder cousins again.
“It’s all over the news. It sounds like some local union is up in arms over plans to build an Indian casino just a few miles away in a small community called Cherry Valley. They want to call it the Cherry Valley Casino.”
I mumbled a response. Wisdom was standing strangely—head way down.
Gerry said, “Eddie’s right in the middle of this issue. Apparently a Stowall cousin he’s staying with out there on the east coast is heavily into local politics. The union supported the cousin for a councilman’s seat in the last election. He didn’t win. But now some union thug, a Walter somebody, or somebody Walter, has brought in some bikers to discourage the Indians. At least I think that’s what’s happening. It’s a big mess. Martha is very worried about Eddie. And now it’s on the national news.”
I tried to remember what Hannah had told me. It didn’t sound like it was the same story I’d gotten from her. Then I briefly wondered if Gerry and her billionaire husband were in some way involved in Eddie’s business, too.
Whatever the story was, unions, politicians, bikers, investor groups, gangs, maybe they were all the same thing in the end. And I was thinking Eddie could probably take care of himself. Might teach the bikers a few tricks when it came right down to it. I really didn’t have warm feelings toward that strange man.
And I was looking at Wisdom with his snout screwed up tight. He was pawing at his nose. He was going to sneeze.
“Listen Gerry, I’ve got to go. It was good to hear from you.”
“What? Oh sure. Can’t wait to see you soon. And let me know if Matt needs Tom’s.…”
But I’d placed the phone down and didn’t hear the rest of what she said, as I dashed to wrap my great beast of a dog in my arms and rub his nose gently with the salve the vet had given us. The smell of it reminded me of old fashioned camphor but it took Wisdom’s attention away from the pain in his nose. At least for now.
Chapter 36
Tuesday, October 28, Evening
Matt dropped me off at the Pinto Springs Lutheran Church of Promise for the memorial service for accident victim Jimmy and his distraught girlfriend Judi.
I was surprised at the size of the church, and then equally surprised to find the building jammed with hundreds of folks. I began searching the crowds near the entrance where Gloria and Abigail had said they’d meet me. I was eager to confirm that all had gone well her fifth day at high school.
Finally I made out a familiar face. Uh-oh. It was the Alphabet Bomber herself, Andrea Kelly, she of the tri-colored red hair and raised body art. Andrea is one of the Secret Quilters members.
In her early twenties, she is the second youngest in our group of eight quilters, so naturally Andrea and Abigail are friends.
The last time I’d spoken with Andrea she dropped every epitaph I knew because she wasn’t pleased with my (unpaid) work on Ada’s investigation. At the time, Andrea was defending Eddie to me. In her mind I was attacking him.
There was no way then that I could reason with her that an exploration of Ada’s life must necessarily include her family members—and Eddie was Ada’s son.
At any rate, I wasn’t sure where I stood with her now, and two large death moths did a loop de loop in my stomach.
It was a memorial service after all.
And then I remembered a second reason why Andrea would be here. She wasn’t just Abigail’s friend; she was a graduate of Pinto Springs high school.
Andrea had been taken in by Victoria in her early teens when her parents rejected her for her sexual orientation. No wonder Andrea has such anger.
Still, this elfish twenty-something had a hard edge.
But my trepidation was unnecessary. When our eyes met she smiled broadly--as if nothing untoward had gone down between us. Ah youth, brief knowledge and briefer memories.
I smiled back and we moved through the noisy crowd toward each other. We attempted to make small talk, until I realized the noise level in the church vestibule was way too high.
Why was I expecting this event to be somber? These folks--I grant you some of them teens--were yukking it up, acting like they were about to see a rock band.
Abigail and Gloria emerged from the crowd a few seconds later. After another brief attempt to communicate, we left the raucous vestibule. Inside the church proper we found room on the same pew. I sat on the outside, next to Gloria.
The tone was more appropriate for the occasion in here, definitely less jovial. Photographs and flowers on the low altar were a reminder of our purpose. And behind them were two closed caskets in dark wood.
“I don’t believe the way Californians dress for church,” Gloria groused.
I had to agree. Few people wore black, but that change had occurred years ago. Even fewer dressed up for the event. Parents and kids alike looked more like they were attending a school basketball game.
“It’s a good thing we came inside. The place is really jammed.” Me.
“I hate sitting down front.” Gloria.
I looked at her questioningly then followed her pointing finger. We’d landed ourselves just two rows back from one of the grieving families.
Grief was contagious, at least to me, and I was glad I’d thought to carry tissues.
A heavy set boy turned to look back at Abigail with red rimmed eyes. Come to think of it, I’d seen him in the corridor of the hospital Sunday, just before Jimmy died. At the time, I’d thought he was a relative of Jimmy’s since he was with Jimmy’s parents.
Then I remembered, I’d thought Judi was their daughter and she turned out to have been Jimmy’s girlfriend.
So who was this boy waving to Abigail?
Across the aisle, Jimmy’s parents sat disconsolate—with pictures of Jimmy directly in front of them on the altar and his casket behind them. On our side of the aisle, were Judi’s parents, photos of Judi and her casket. And this boy was with them.
So was he Judi’s brother?
I couldn’t see Abigail’s response to his tearful wave. Across the whole setting on the altar was a huge sign, “Jimmy and Judi Together in Heaven.”
There was no opportunity for talk during the hour long service of course, unless it was to say kind words about Judi or Jimmy, but afterwards we stood around in the vestibule again, sipping a sweet punch and munching tasteless cookies. It was then I found out how threatened Abigail felt.
“I don’t know how to calm them down.” Abigail was whispering to Andrea as I returned from the ladies.
“Just keep your mouth shut!” Andrea whispered back fiercely. “I just hope it’s not too late.”
Abigail looked like a frig
htened deer, her eyes reflecting her fear.
Andrea’s eyes had turned to slits as she scanned around them. Stealthy. Suspicious.
So Abigail was still having problems at school.
Gloria returned from somewhere to reclaim her daughter and escort her from the church, taking her by the elbow with a firm hand.
“I’m not ready to leave!”
“I have to get to work, Abigail. We’re leaving now.”
Gloria’s hard stare at Andrea was a clear warning not to interfere by offering to drive Abigail home.
“I have to get back to Victoria,” Andrea said quickly.
Was she staying with Victoria Stowall? At the first bee I’d learned she lived in San Diego, in the Hillcrest area.
“Mom! We can’t go outside yet.”
I looked out the huge glass windows toward the sweeping front lawn where additional groups of people were lingering. Three gang members of Hispanic descent were brazenly glaring back in at us—not twenty feet from the windows. My heart sped up a beat.
“Actually now is the best time for us to leave, Abigail,” I said. While there were lots of people still milling around.
Then I spotted our saviors.
Right behind the three Pintos, Matt and Wild Willie Townsend approached like two knuckle-walking silverbacks emerging from a dark forest.
Will was one imposing dude, all two-hundred and fifty pounds of him, with dark looks in more ways than one that went darker when he was angry.
Matt, with his six-foot-two muscular frame and years of practicing intimidation as only a Marine can do, was shoulder to shoulder with the big black man.
The three Hispanic boys must have followed my gaze and they turned to see what I was seeing.
The silverbacks took their menace up six notches toward peril.
Timing is everything. Gloria, Abigail, Andrea and I marched shoulder-to-shoulder out the front of the church. I was hoping the boys were getting an important message.
In retrospect, I was badly underestimating both the reach of these gang members and the level of violence in their world.
Chapter 37
Wednesday, October 29, 8:12 am
I have to admit I’m worried by these new fangled communications tools, so seemingly intimate yet so blatantly public. They were foreign and comfortable all at once. Social networking meant putting your every casual thought out for the world to see--as if there were no such thing as danger. No such thing as perversion. No such thing as lurking evil.
Having instantaneous ubiquitous communications with the electronic world you would normally reserve for people you know well--an unrestricted chronicling of your daily habits shared universally--was a little like traipsing down Dante’s rings, chatting it up with the tortured souls of the underworld. How do you know one of the condemned and trapped might not get loose from their hell-bound state to reach out a claw?
Youngsters don’t know this, may never know this fully, but the world turned sharply in the nineteen-nineties. Now we can deceive each other, in terms of presenting false personas of ourselves, with such clever aplomb that it’s almost painless. Except for the occasional teen suicide—sometimes caused by online bullying, and sometimes caused by adults posing as teens.
Still we persist in regurgitating the sludge inside our darkest fears and flaunting our most base desires, as if an anodyne to our psychic pains. There are some truly sick people out there in the electronic never-never-land.
Whatever, our first message of the day from aka Louie-Louiee (our second apprentice PI) appeared on my computer screen in the form of an email explaining how to follow him on twitter.com.
Matt watched over my shoulder as we stumbled through the instructions and bumped into subject matter formerly reserved for bedrooms, bathrooms and after hour bars.
By the time we found our way to his page, he’d written several lines.
The “sub” was of course, Abigail. And Luis used a partially abbreviated language reminiscent of some Eastern European country that needs an airlift of vowels for their language. Maybe Bosnia.
Louie_Louiee kds half dressd, waitng outsd in cld
7:38 am Oct 29
Louie_Louiee sub wlking 2 hmroom. hals jammd.
7:40 am Oct 29
Louie_Louiee am stll wtching.
7:41 am Oct 29
Louie_Louiee sub wlkng 2 sci, hals jammd again, sme jostlng, no gngs.
7:50 am Oct 29
Matt and I locked eyes.
“Okay, what’d he say?” Matt.
Right. I translated for him.
“Kids half dressed, waiting outside in cold.
“Subject walking to homeroom. Halls jammed.
“I am still watching.
“Subject walking to science, halls jammed again. Some jostling…”
“Okay, okay. I get it. But should we be doing this on a public web page?” Matt.
I shrugged. “That jostling could be those girls who are harassing her.”
Luis continued.
Louie_Louiee wlkng 2 lib, hals mstly mt. no eyes.
7:53 am Oct 29
“What’s he mean ‘no eyes’?” Me.
“No one has spotted him. But he should move while the halls are full.” Matt.
This time Marine talk. I was getting dizzy.
“Let’s see if we can tweet him back.”
We looked for a place to write on his page. There wasn’t any.
“Is this just a one way conversation?” Matt.
This was definitely not going to work. What if other students stumble upon his page, even if it’s new? But then a question came to me.
“How did he get on campus?”
Matt explained that Will had made friends with the school janitor-guards and grounds keepers. Especially a pair named Dell Harper and Evita Wilson.
Another message appeared.
“I think you’re right Matt. We should have him text us.”
The phone rang and I snatched it up expecting it to be Luis. It was Sandra, his significant. I could feel the young hormones through the phone.
“He dressed like a geek. Even wore a weird vest and pens in his breast pocket. I thought he was supposed to pass as a volunteer?”
“How old did he look?”
“Scary. Like a fifteen year old. Changed his hair, shaved real clean, made me horny as hell. He almost missed the school bus.”
I grinned. I loved this girl. I glanced at Matt and his eyebrows danced on his forehead. Kind of like Wisdom’s brows when I say “bone?”
Then I wondered how Luis got on the bus. Maybe the bus driver was female.
Chapter 38
Another tweet arrived.
Louie_Louiee im shlvng. bleck!
8:38 am Oct 29
Louie_Louiee ok, clss of half dressd kids arriving 4 lib-ed. cud be dicey.
8:40 am Oct 29
Louie_Louiee im gud, 1 calld me dweek, pushd me over as i squattd. still shlvng. need nee pads. need iPod.
8:49 am Oct 29
Louie_Louiee bll ring. odd times. find-follow, ff
9:31 am Oct 29
“Bleck?” Matt.
“Super Mario.” He needed to spend more time with his grandchildren. “I don’t know how we’re going to translate this into our log.”
“Exactly as it’s written,” he said. “It’s in code. That could come in handy somewhere down the road. Great denial defense.”
I stared at him. “We’re going to be sued?”
He shrugged. “Could happen.”
I didn’t want to think about it.
Again the bell tolled, It was Matt’s cell phone buried somewhere else in the house. He went searching. I listened from a distance to his half of the conversation. It was another lawyer looking for divorce spies.
I continued to acquaint myself with Twitter-dom. There were some incredible looking (gay?) men posing in provocative poses as the backgrounds of their pages. At least, I assumed the photos were the actual people who were tweetin
g. Anyway, I was fascinated. It’s a girl thing.
I returned to Luis’ page.
Louie_Louiee hals hectic, evn explosive. wy wrse than 10 yrs ago.
9:32 am Oct 29
Louie_Louiee weird: 3 pintos hssl am. ind. while othr kids wlk away. teachrs ddab.
9:33 am Oct 29
“What’s that mean?” Matt was leaning over my shoulder again.
I interpreted. “Halls hectic, even explosive, way worse than 10 years ago. Weird: 3 Pintos hassle American Indian while other kids walk away. Teachers ddab…I’m not sure what ddab means.”
Matt put his pondering face on. “Ddab. Deaf…deaf, dumb and blind?”
“That fits.”
“What are Pintos?” Matt asked.
“The high school Chicano gang. They’re everywhere. But where’s Abigail in all this?”
Luis answered our question.
Louie_Louiee ok, sub is lokng. shodn’t lok.
9:34 am Oct 29
Louie_Louiee sub def. not gud. own worst enemy?
9:35 am Oct 29
Matt began typing on his cell phone. This was a painful thing to watch. He’s literally all thumbs. Ten of them.
I stood and looked at his email message to Luis.
“Intercept her.”
“How do you know he’ll get this? He’s on Twitter, not reading his mail. And what about his cover?”
The whole internet realm was making me crazy. Who could keep up with it?
“But it’s on his phone…. Okay, maybe you’re right. I’ll call, to be sure”
But another tweet arrived. And we both knew we couldn’t call him.
Louie_Louiee phew. bll rng as I severd her i contst. Bck to lib and bleck.
9:36 am Oct 29
Ripping Abigail, a Quilted Mystery novel Page 14
