by Cameron Judd
Megan pouted. “I know what I saw, Melly. There was a man who looked like he was from Japan or one of those other countries like that, and there was another man with Rawls’s face.”
Melinda saw no point in talking further about it. Megan’s imagination had overtaken her, and now she was too proud to admit that what she’d seen really was unlikely to have been there. Because it made no sense.
Yet Melinda had to remember that many of the Parvin men had quite similar features. It wasn’t impossible that Megan could have seen someone who looked enough like Rawls that, in the brief moments of a lightning flare, he might appear to have “had Rawls’s face.”
But why would such a man, though, or any other, examine the Buckingham house in the middle of the night? And who was the Asian companion Megan claimed was at his side?
Childish imagination. It was the most sensible explanation.
“Did Eli fall into the toilet?” Megan asked, then giggled into her hand.
“He has been gone a good while, hasn’t he?” Melinda replied. “I hope he’s not sick or something.”
“Constipated, betcha,” Megan said, and giggled again.
“Don’t say that kind of thing so loud. I mean it. It’s embarrassing.”
“Sorry.”
IN REALITY, ELI WAS NOT stalled in any such undignified situation, but seated in the small office of the cafe’s manager, a young woman a few years older than he whose name and title he’d read on the office door while making his way to the restroom. After he’d finished his bathroom visit, he’d knocked on the door. The door opened and the woman inside looked out at him quizzically. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Uh … yes. Maybe. Pardon me for interrupting your day. I just noticed your name on the door and realized I’d heard of you.”
“I’m Sally Ogle, cafe manager,” she said, putting out her hand. “And you are … “
“Eli Scudder. Tylerville Clarion. A newspaper you have some history with, I think.”
“Oh my gosh! I sure do! It’s been a few years, but I served my sentence honorably. Or so I like to think.”
“Well, you impressed David, anyway. When I was interviewing for my job, he told me you were the biggest staff loss he’d experienced, and would have you back in an instant.”
“That prospect is shudder-worthy to me. To think of going back there … no. Won’t happen. Come in, won’t you? Have a seat. You can tell me what it is I can do to help you today.”
“I’m with my fiance and her little sister,” Eli said. “I left them up front at a table … probably I should go let them know what’s up.”
“Just what is up, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I’m following an impulse. When I recognized your name on the office door, I recognized your name from what David had said, and it came to me that you might have some information about an aspect of Kincheloe County history that seems to be an untouchable subject. I was hoping that in your reporting days you might have learned something about … “
“… About the Fraternal Order of Tennessee Harvestmen,” she finished for him.
Eli’s jaw dropped. “Yes. Exactly! How did you know?”
“I didn’t. I just took a guess. You and I, we need to talk,” she said. “If you want, you can bring your fiance and her sister back here with us. too. I’ve got a table in here where I can host and feed guests.”
“Thank you … but let me ask this much in advance: do you know the full story? And if you do – and if it’s what I suspect it is, is that something you could talk about in the presence of a twelve-year-old girl?”
“Your fiance’s sister?”
“Right.”
“It would be … clumsy. Too much so.”
“You’ve pretty much verified something for me in saying even that much,” Eli said. “I’ll just run up front and tell Melinda, my fiance, what’s holding me up back here.”
“I’ll wait inside my office.”
ELI SUMMONED MELINDA AWAY from the table and spoke to her in whispers so Megan could not hear. The little girl made no attempt to hide her annoyance at being so obviously shut out of whatever was going on. Eli couldn’t worry about it. He was on the brink of confirming his fundamental suspicion about what had been the great and secret sin of Harvestman Lodge. Like Sally Ogle, he couldn’t imagine talking freely about that subject with the big, innocent eyes of a twelve-year-old girl looking at him.
“I’ve got to be part of this, too, Eli,” Melinda said. “I’m going back there with you.”
“What about Megan?”
“She’s old enough and smart enough to sit by herself in a public place for a few minutes without dire results, I think.”
Eli felt a reflexive resistance. “Are you sure you’d want to do that? If something happened … ”
“Nothing’s going to happen, Eli. You know that.”
“Okay. Yeah. Tell her, then, then come on back and join us. The office is on the left, across the hall from the restroom doors.”
Melinda went to deliver the news to Megan, who was not glad to hear it, while Eli went on back to the manager’s office. Melinda soon followed, Megan glaring after her.
“I’M JUST CURIOUS, ELI,” SAID Sally Ogle. They were seated at her office table, eating sandwiches and beginning to talk. “What did Davy Carl say about me in your interview?”
“Well, he said you were his best reporter, but that you got lured away from the newspaper by an offer from a local shopper publication that ended up going south. He implied you might have been in a relationship with the man who … but I’ll not go there. That’s not relevant.”
“Thank you. Because you’re right: it isn’t relevant. Mostly because it didn’t happen. My leaving the Clarion had a lot more to do with Davy Carl than with anybody outside the paper.”
“Uh … you mean you and David were … ”
“Eli!” Melinda interrupted, sensing where he was going. “You can’t ask that!”
Eli knew Melinda was right. Then he noticed Sally was laughing.
“If you were about to say that Davy Carl and I were in some kind of personal relationship, you couldn’t be further from the truth. The only relationship I had with him was eternal contentiousness. Some of it was my fault, I can now admit. I was young, immature, a little petty sometimes. The main problem, though, was that at time I believed in this particular, peculiar heresy: Newspapers should publish the news, not hide it. I still believe it.”
“Are we talking Harvestman Lodge here?”
“We are. It would have been the best story ever to be published in the Clarion, but pressure from certain sources kept it from ever seeing the light of day.”
“What sources?”
“One was the sheriff at the time. But there was one other pressure source besides Sheriff Hawes.”
“Was he named Sadler?”
“The name’s right, or was at one time, but not the gender. She was a Sadler before she married. Now she’s a Brecht.”
“Oh my gosh,” Eli said. “You don’t mean it!”
“I do. And it’s why I left,” Sally Ogle said. “I’d worked hard, gathering facts for a story that needed to be told, and then it was killed before I could connect the last dots and get the full picture. I couldn’t handle that. I left. And don’t believe Davy Carl when he says he’d take me back. If I set foot in that office, he’d have the law drag me out.”
“You don’t really believe that!”
“With all my heart I believe it.”
“What would cause both Sheriff Hawes – whom I have met and who seems to be a very moral-minded, honorable man – and Miz Deb … what would cause both of them to want to see such crimes as apparently went on at Harvestman Lodge covered up? Who, or what, were they trying to protect?”
“That’s the real question,” said Sally Ogle. “The one I never allowed to pursue to the end.”
“Tell me one thing,” Eli said. “Does Davy Carl know what was done at Harvestman Lodge? Does Mr. Ca
rl?”
“I’m not sure. Davy Carl, I don’t think so. Mr. Carl … it depends on what Rudy Hawes told him.”
Eli found it depressing to think that either Carl Brecht, his own employer and supposedly a dedicated newspaperman, or Rudy Hawes, a former man of the law and now a devout man of faith, would knowingly participate in hiding such evils. And he certainly hoped that David, his boss and the very man who hired him, would not hold such a secret.
“I have a request,” said Melinda.
“What is it?” Sally replied.
“Can we quit talking around the edges of the subject? That’s all anybody’s done when it comes to the Harvestmen. Can you just say, straight out in plain English, what the sin of Harvestman Lodge was? I think I know, but I don’t feel certain.”
Sally Ogle shrugged. “We’re alone here, so why not?”
“No reason I can see,” Eli said. “Go ahead.”
She did.
Chapter Forty-Four
HER SKIN CRAWLING FROM THINGS she’d just heard, Melinda said, “I’m going out and check on Megan,” and rose. Eli nodded.
He and Sally had not even the chance to resume the conversation before the office door burst open again and a pallid Melinda rushed in. “She’s gone, Eli. She’s gone!”
“What? Who?”
“Megan! She’s gone, Eli. There’s nobody out in the dining area at all. And there’s blood on the table where Megan was sitting. Dear God, Eli! What’s happened to my little sister? Why did I leave her out there?”
“Did you check the restroom?”
“Of course! She’s not there.”
Sally and Eli bounded to their feet in tandem and almost knocked Melinda over rushing out and up to the dining area. There they found the remnants of Megan’s meal on the table, oddly scattered, and on the edge of the table, a small amount of blood. There were drips of blood trailing away from the table and circling around to the cafe door.
Eli found himself breathless and virtually frozen. “We’ve got to find her,” Melinda said.
She yanked Eli out the door, breaking him out of his paralysis. Sally, meanwhile, explored the cafe in a rush, interrogating her employees, looking for anyone who might have seen what happened to the little girl eating alone at her table. All claimed ignorance.
Outside, Eli and Melinda broadened the search in a panic, quizzing strangers, looking for blood drops on the ground, and at last spotting a security guard: a pimple-faced young man who would have fit in well in a crowded high school hallway between bells. Melinda ran to him, Eli close behind.
“Yeah, I saw her. Pretty little gal, dark hair, curly … I don’t remember how she was dressed – jeans or shorts, most likely, but I didn’t notice. She’d had a nosebleed, though. I could tell that because there was still some rusty crust under her nose.”
A nosebleed. Megan was prone to those. Melinda relief in finding an likely and mundane explanation for the blood at the table.
“Who was she with?”
“By herself.”
“Was there a family near? An Asian man with a wife and children?”
“Not with the little girl, no. But I seen that family, too. They’re over at the General Store right now.”
ELI WAS GLAD HE’D WORN a University of Tennessee Volunteers tee-shirt today, because the family of Dr. N.J. Pang were similarly attired. It provided a point of connection Eli could use as he walked up to the cheerful-looking man and his wife as they stood examining a shelf laden with shot glasses bearing the images of cartoon hillbillies.
“Fellow Vols, I see!” Eli said, approaching the man, who seemed for a moment startled, then increased the intensity of what seemed an ever-present smile. “I’m one myself. Eli Scudder, proud graduate of UT.”
“Go Big Orange! Hurrah for Coach Johnny!” said Pang in a heavily accented voice. He introduced himself and his wife as Dr. Nelson and Lois Pang. “I am a full professor at UT,” he said. “Chemistry.”
Eli had encountered the name during his student days, and said so. “I wasn’t much involved in chemistry myself, in my area of study,” he said. “But I knew some chemistry majors, and I hear you aren’t a pushover professor.”
Pang laughed heartily, apparently finding the “pushover professor” term authentically funny. Lois laughed as well, and said, “No. He quite tough. Students sometimes complain of the tough of Pang.” Eli had to smile at the “tough of Pang” phrase, but Lois seemingly took it as him sharing her own laughter.
Dr. Pang’s English was significantly better than his wife’s, but both were warm and friendly personalities who seemed happy Eli had approached them. When Melinda wandered up and was introduced, she was given as equally hearty a greeting.
“I need to ask you something,” Melinda said. “My little sister, twelve years old, was with us in the restaurant where your family was, as well. Now she’s vanished. Did you see her?”
Lois nodded. “Little girl with black hair and bleed-nose,” she said.
“Yes … we found some blood drippings where she’d been seated. I thought she might have had one of her nose bleeds. She’s always been prone to them.”
“Did you see where she went?” Eli asked.
“I’m here,” said a voice from behind Melinda. Melinda wheeled and looked down into her little sister’s face. Megan had come, apparently, out of the restroom nearby, where she had washed away most of the blood that had crusted on and above her upper lip.
“Megan!” Melinda bent and hugged Megan close, crushing the very breath out of her. “Oh sweety! I was so afraid something had happened to you!”
“I just had a nose bleed, that’s all. It made me embarrassed, so I ran out. And I was mad at you.”
“Mad?”
“You left me all alone. I felt nervous sitting there all by myself.”
“Oh, Meggy, I’m sorry!” Another hug, this one not so bone-crushing. “I shouldn’t have left you. Even so, you shouldn’t have run out like that.”
“I was bleeding and didn’t know what to do.”
“Of course you knew. You should have tilted your head back and pressed a napkin up against your nose and held it there until the bleeding stopped. And you could have come to the restroom area in the restaurant where we were … we were nearby there and would have seen you, probably.”
“I’m sorry, Melly. I was just embarrassed, and kind of scared because of that … ” Just then she saw Dr. Pang and family, all gazing at her. “ … of that blood coming out.” Melinda could tell Megan had changed what she would have said. She hadn’t been afraid of her own blood. She had been afraid of Dr. Pang. Megan drew near to Melinda, seeking protection as she glanced repeatedly at the man, then as quickly averted her eyes.
“Megan, let me introduce you to someone,” Eli said. “This gentleman is Dr. Pang, and this is his wife, Lois. And these are his children … am I right about that, Dr. Pang? I just assumed they are your kids.”
“They are,” Pang said. Then to Megan: “I am pleased to meet you, young lady. I’m sorry you have had a bad moment today.”
“You very pretty child,” said Lois.
Megan wouldn’t look directly at them, embarrassing Melinda by that seeming rudeness. “I’m sorry,” she said to Pang and his wife. “She had a fright recently when she thought she saw someone who looked much like you in a setting that disturbed her. I’m afraid it left her a little nervous.”
Eli gave Melinda an inquiring look. Who would Megan have seen who would look to her like Dr. Pang? His mind flashed back to the Asian man he’d seen in a car, with the Parvin-looking man, outside Tylerville’s Arcade building.
Had Megan maybe seen the same man?
Dr. Pang smiled a smile so calming that Melinda felt her sister’s grasp on her loosen a little, and Megan now looked directly at Pang rather than acting afraid to do so.
“She’s a freakin’ freak,” one of the Pang children a little younger than Megan said, whispering to an older sibling, but not quite softly enough.
/> “Shut up, dummy!” barked the sibling.
“Children, quiet!” Dr. Pang commanded in a voice loud enough to startle everyone in the shop.
“It was a pleasure to meet all of you,” Eli said to the Pangs. “Sorry about the, uh, oddity of the situation.”
“It scares all when child run away,” said Lois. “Not odd.”
“THAT WASN’T THE MAN I SAW,” Megan said after they had left the Pang family behind in the shop and headed out to find the Flooded Mine ride, one of the park’s key attractions that left its riders soaked. “I thought it was, but it wasn’t.”
“Who did you see?” Eli asked.
Megan opened her mouth to answer Eli, but Melinda cut her off. “Meggy had a dream that there were a couple of men watching our house across the backyard. One of them was an Asian, and when she saw Dr. Pang in the cafe, it brought the dream to mind and creeped her out. Right, Meggy?”
“Yeah … except it wasn’t a dream.”
Melinda had wearied of the entire matter. “Meggy, there are no Asian men in our county. So yes, if you saw one in our yard in the middle of the night, it was a dream.” She looked to Eli for backup. “Right, Eli?”
“Well, actually … we’ll talk about it later.” He lowered his voice and spoke the next words to Melinda in a way to keep Megan from hearing them. “In private.”
Melinda frowned at him, bewildered and somewhat unsettled. Did Eli know something she didn’t?
They pressed on, going through the Flooded Mine three times and finding a sunny place to dry off afterward. A troupe of clog dancers came by, heavy taps clattering in rhythm on the cobblestones. Megan was delighted, but slightly judgmental.
“My dance team is as good as that,” she said. “We might even be better.”
“Well, you’ll get your chance to put your money where your mouth is come Thursday,” said Melinda. “You’re dancing in the July 4 parade, right?”
“Yeah. We’re doing our ‘Bicentennial Preview Dance’ on the back of a big wagon with Buster and Custer.”
