A Reckoning in the Back Country

by Terry Shames

  “Do you have any idea at all? Even if it seems far-fetched, you should tell me.”

  She shakes her head. “I thought maybe he had had an accident, but I called the hospitals in Bobtail and Bryan, and neither of them had him.”

  It’s possible he took a back route and went off the road and no one has discovered him. “What kind of car does he drive?”

  She tells me it’s an older-model white Chevy Suburban.

  I get up. “I’ll call it in to the highway patrol. You know, it’s likely he and his friends went fishing and maybe drank a little too much, and he’s sleeping it off.”

  “I suppose.” Her expression is skeptical.

  “I’ll stop by the marina and talk to Dooley. Maybe he has some ideas. Meanwhile, if you hear from your husband, let me know.” I give her my card with my cell number.

  CHAPTER 2

  I’m getting into my car when a large SUV swings into the driveway next door. I walk over and wait while a short woman with at least twenty years and thirty pounds on Margaret Wilkins climbs out of the vehicle as if she’s climbing off a ledge.

  She glances at the squad car and looks me up and down with frank interest. “You the police?”

  “Chief of police. Samuel Craddock.”

  She sticks out a tiny, but firm, hand. “I’m Gloria Hastings. Call me Glo. I’m glad to see a healthy man. You can help me carry these groceries in, if you don’t mind.”

  I tell her I’ll be glad to. Her house is the same size as the Wilkinses’, and like theirs the interior is furnished with mismatched discards, but there the similarity ends. The sofa and chairs are comfortable-looking, upholstered in cheerful colors and saggy in spots. Lived-in. There’s a piano up against one wall, with sheet music on the stand.

  She sees me eyeing the room. “I know, it’s not a palace, and Lord knows some of these cushions should be re-stuffed, but until my grandkids are out of the jumping-on-the-furniture stage, it’ll have to do.” That’s when I notice that kids’ paraphernalia is heaped in every corner and on bookshelves—games, balls and bats, books, gizmos that I suspect must be computer game–related, stuffed animals, and the like. Their artwork is plastered all over the walls.

  “How many grandkids you have?”

  Her brown eyes sparkle at the question. “Six. I have three kids and each of them has a pair of young ’uns.” She points to some photos on the piano. “Cutest little dickens you ever saw.” There are several pictures of her with the kids. The way they grin at her, you know she’s special to them. She turns her attention back to me, looking with shrewd appraisal. “Now what can I do for you? I can’t imagine that you stopped out here just to help me with my groceries.”

  “Do you know Margaret Wilkins next door?”

  She frowns and cocks her head. “I do and I don’t. I know her to speak to, but we’ve never been in one another’s homes.”

  “You know her husband?”

  She lifts an eyebrow. “Compared to him, she’s downright chatty. She’ll exchange the time of day with you, but . . .” She shakes her head.

  “You’ve never had any particular problem with them, though?”

  “Oh, goodness no. I don’t mean to imply that. I mean they aren’t involved with their neighbors. Some people are reserved like that. What’s all this about?”

  “Mrs. Wilkins is worried because her husband didn’t come home last night.”

  “Oh, my goodness.”

  “Do you remember the last time you saw him?”

  She looks at the ceiling, hands clasped in front of her. “I couldn’t tell you. My husband might remember.”

  “Is your husband around?”

  “Heck no. He leaves the house at the crack of dawn most days and fishes all day long. Thank goodness. At home he drives me crazy following me around.” She moves over to the kitchen and starts taking groceries out of the bags.

  “Does he have a boat?”

  “If you can call it that. More like a tin can. But he loves to go on the lake in it. He either goes by himself, or he and Arlen Moseley from a few houses down go out. When Arlen’s wife died last year, Frank felt sorry for him and asked him to go fishing. Now they go out all the time. I never saw such a pair.” She sets the empty sack on the floor and starts on the next one.

  “Dr. Wilkins told his wife he was going fishing yesterday afternoon, and he hasn’t come back.”

  She stops and stares at me. She’s holding a jar of dill pickles, which she sets down gently and then leans against the counter. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t even know he fished. He doesn’t seem like the type. If he did, though, it’s possible Frank saw him out there . . . but it’s a big lake.”

  “Your husband never went fishing with him?”

  She snorts. “Doctor Wilkins? Not likely. He’s too important for the likes of my husband.”

  I give her my card and cell number and ask her to have her husband call when he gets in.

  “I’ll sure do it. You want to come out and have supper with us later?”

  I tell her I appreciate the offer, but that I can’t. “I’ll take a rain check,” I say.

  “You better come before my grandkids get here tomorrow, because you’re not going to want to be here when those little heathens are on the loose.” She laughs and I can’t help smiling.

  I head toward the other side of the lake, making the drive through Cotton Hill, back on the highway, and then off the frontage road that leads down to the park and the marinas.

  Dooley Phillips owns the biggest of the three marinas, which has a little café and grocery store on the premises. The bored-looking teenaged boy at the cash register says Dooley is helping some people get a boat engine repaired and he should be back before long. It’s past my lunchtime so I order a roast-beef sandwich with coleslaw. I’m finishing up the sandwich when Dooley clomps into the store, wiping his hands on a rag.

  I only know him to speak to, but I’ve seen him around for years. He’s a big fellow, well over six feet with a bristle of reddish-blond hair and a nut-brown face from being out in the sun all the time. His overalls are grease-stained from the engine work he’s been doing. I introduce myself.

  “Why sure, I know who you are,” he says. “I won’t shake hands, because mine are full of grease.” He excuses himself to go get cleaned up, and when he comes back he has on a clean shirt. He goes over to the refrigerator, hauls out a soft drink, and downs half of it in one swallow.

  “You probably don’t remember,” he says, “but we met at a barbecue benefit for the rodeo a few years ago.” He gets a concerned look I’m familiar with. “That’s when your wife was still alive. She was a lovely person. What has it been, a year now?”

  “Longer than that, but I appreciate you asking.”

  “What brings you over here? You going to buy a boat?”

  “Not me. I like the water to bathe in, not ride on top of. I wonder if I might ask you a couple of questions.”

  “Questions?” He frowns.

  “I understand you’re friends with Lewis Wilkins?”

  “I sure am. Is this about him going missing?”

  “It is. Margaret Wilkins said she called you and you didn’t know where he was, but I wanted to check.”

  Understanding dawns. “You mean in case I know something I didn’t want to tell Margaret?”

  “That, or if you’ve had any thoughts on it since she called you.”

  “No, on both counts. It doesn’t sound like Lewis to go off like that, but I don’t know where he could be. It’s troubling.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “Hold on. Before I start that story, I could use a beer. You want one?”

  “No, thank you. I’m on duty.”

  “Right.” He chuckles. “I didn’t think of that.”

  He pulls a longneck Lone Star out of the drinks case. “Let’s go sit outside. It’s a little chilly, but the sun has come out and we ought to be fine.”

  We sit at a picnic table. “You aske
d how I know Lewis. Me and him go way back. We met in college, at UT Tyler. Lewis was the smart one. He went to medical school. I got a degree in wine, women, and song.”

  “Did Lewis meet Margaret at UT Tyler?”

  If I hadn’t been watching, I would have missed the flinch at the mention of her name. “Naw, they were hometown sweethearts from Seguin.”

  “Do you know if Lewis has other friends in the area?”

  “We’ve played cards with a couple of fellows a time or two, but I wouldn’t call them ‘friends.’ He and Margaret don’t spend that much time here, so he hasn’t settled in.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “They got in town a few days ago, and me and him went out for barbecue Saturday.”

  “You know if he’s ever run around on his wife?”

  He throws back more of the beer and wipes his hand across his mouth. “If he has a woman on the side, he never told me.” He meets my eyes. “Tell you the truth, when Margaret called to say he was missing, I guess I didn’t take it seriously; but, now I think about it, I wonder where he is.”

  “His wife said he told her he was going fishing. You know where he fishes?”

  He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t recall him ever going fishing.” He trains his gaze a couple hundred feet away, where two small boats are tied up. A young guy has an engine taken apart out on the dock and seems to be hoping if he looks at it long enough it will fix itself.

  “So he doesn’t have a boat?”

  He looks startled. “What made you ask that?”

  I’m surprised at his response. “I wondered if maybe he went out in a boat and got stuck somewhere. Maybe had engine trouble.”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, he does have a boat,” he says. Interesting that his wife didn’t know.

  “Can I take a look at it?”

  “If he took it out, it won’t be there.”

  I stand up. “Let’s go find out.” I don’t know why he’s stalling. Or maybe he’s just lazy and not really taking his friend’s disappearance seriously.

  “Let me go look up the slip number.”

  The boathouse is nothing fancy—a roof on stilts designed to keep the sun and rain from battering down on boats and their contents. This time of year the sun is weaker so it’s cold in the shade under the roof. When we get to the slip, he points. “I guess he did take it out.”

  I stare at the place where apparently the boat is supposed to be. Something doesn’t look right, but I don’t know enough about boats to figure out what it is.

  “If Wilkins took the boat out and hasn’t come back, where would he likely be?”

  Dooley and I look out toward the lake. He sticks his hands into his back pockets. “It’s possible he decided to go up into one of the sloughs. Like you said, maybe he got stuck or had engine trouble.”

  “Wouldn’t he have his cell phone on him?”

  “Seems like he would,” he says. “But you know how it is. Coverage can be spotty.”

  “Or he might have gotten hurt and couldn’t get to his phone.”

  “I suppose.” He sighs and frowns out at the water. It looks cold and uninviting. “Tell you what. I’ll take my motorboat out and do a reconnaissance of the lake. Go up into some of the outlying channels and make sure he’s not in some kind of trouble. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.” He chuckles. “He’ll be put out with me if he sneaked away for some peace and quiet and I roust him out.”

  “I’d like to cover that base, though.”

  “That’s right. I’ll get on it.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Back at the station, there’s nothing going on, so I look up Lewis and Margaret Wilkins on the Internet. It turns out there is plenty of information about them online. Although Dooley said Wilkins didn’t have friends around here, it appears that he and his wife are in the social set in San Antonio. There are lots of photos of them at charity events and conferences. Newspaper articles tout Wilkins as a prominent orthopedic surgeon who is generous with donations.

  Margaret looks like she is in her element, vivacious, with sparkling eyes and a radiant smile. She wears her hair fluffed out in a style that suits her, and her clothes look expensive. Something has changed her to the downtrodden, anxious woman I saw today. Lewis looks less comfortable, or maybe aloof. There’s only one photo of him that looks as if he’s engaged with the people around him. In it, he has his arm around a woman who is not his wife, and is leering at her, but it’s a joke shot. If Lewis Wilkins is a ladies’ man, it isn’t apparent in these photos.

  As a physician, it’s always possible that Wilkins had to go home for an emergency call, although I don’t know why he wouldn’t tell his wife.

  I look up his physician ratings on Yelp, and the reports are mixed. Apparently he doesn’t have a very good bedside manner, but his patients think he is competent. Then I notice something odd. The Yelp reviews stopped over a year ago. That intrigues me, and I decide to probe a little further.

  His office phone rings several times and then goes to voicemail: “I’m sorry, Dr. Wilkins is out of the office this week. Do not leave a message. If you have an urgent question, please contact Dr. Stephen Elgin. . . .” I jot down the number and dial it.

  “Is Dr. Elgin in?”

  “What is this in regard to?” His receptionist sounds unsure of herself, suspicious even.

  “I’m looking for a doctor by the name of Lewis Wilkins. Dr. Elgin’s number was on his message machine to call in case I needed to reach him.”

  Silence greets me. “Uh, I don’t know exactly what to tell you. This is an answering service.”

  “Can I leave a message?”

  “It’s, um . . . Dr. Elgin died over a year ago. His partners only keep this number active in case one of his old patients calls.”

  She gives me the number of the office where Dr. Elgin’s former partners practice, Drs. Evelyn Todd and Pradesh Singh.

  I hang up and sit back. That’s an interesting development. Why would Wilkins have the number on his answering machine directing patients to a physician who died a year ago? Is this simply an error, and out of carelessness the message wasn’t updated? The Yelp reviews for Lewis Wilkins stopped over a year ago. So what happened in the last year? Has Lewis Wilkins not been in his office in all that time?

  I dial the number for Drs. Todd and Singh. The office is closed until 2 p.m. I don’t leave a message.

  Suddenly I realize something that I should have thought of before. If Wilkins took his boat out, where is his car? Did he park it at the marina? I consider calling Dooley Phillips but decide to run out there myself and look around.

  Before I can get out the door, I get a call from Lois Jenkins telling me that her father has wandered away again and she needs someone to go find him. Lois is in a wheelchair but still manages to care for her father, who has dementia. She has neighbors who look out for the two of them, but he’s an adept escape artist.

  I could call Bill Odum to handle it, but he has been working a lot of extra hours and I’d like to avoid disturbing him on his day off.

  Jenks Jenkins is usually not that hard to find. It takes me only twenty minutes, but it makes me nervous when I find him walking on the dam road along the east side of the lake. I can imagine him thinking it might be a good idea to go for a swim, and that would be the end of him in this weather.

  “I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” he says, when I tell him he needs to come with me. He’s shrunk in the last several months. He used to be a towering man, well over six feet tall and hefty, but as his mind has slipped, his body seems to have hunkered down into itself. At least he’s clean and his clothes are cared for. Lois manages to have someone come in every morning to get his day going. But he’s only wearing shorts.

  “No, you’re not doing anything wrong. I thought you might be tired and want a ride home,” I say. “It’s chilly out here.”

  He tilts his head back and looks at the sky as if something might be written there
that would answer a question for him. “I believe you’re right. It is chilly.” He climbs into the car.

  When I deliver him home, Lois is effusive with her gratitude. She has battled MS for a number of years, and last year she had to give in to the wheelchair. The only time it seems to bother her is when her daddy goes off. She looks like she could cry. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I usually manage to keep an eye on him. I hate to think of putting him on a leash like a dog, but sometimes I think it might be the only solution.”

  I don’t know what to tell her. She has no money to put him in a facility. The two of them live on Social Security, and that goes only so far. “Lois, don’t ever hesitate to call on us down at the station,” I say. “Somebody will always help you. It’s no bother at all.”

  I drive over to the marina and cruise the parking lots that border the lake, but I don’t see Lewis Wilkins’s Suburban.

  It’s after two o’clock when I get back to the office, so I put in another call to Dr. Elgin’s former partners. The receptionist tells me that they are busy with patients, but that one of them will get back to me soon. It’s only ten minutes before Dr. Evelyn Todd calls. She has a brisk, bossy voice, but when I tell her what I want, she softens.

  “Yes, Dr. Elgin was the nicest man. We miss him. He used to cover for Lewis Wilkins.”

  “Do you and your partner continue to cover for Dr. Wilkins?”

  “Well, no,” she replies stiffly.

  “Do you know who does?”

  “I don’t think he needs coverage anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  She hesitates. “After the lawsuit, his patient load fell off, and the last I heard he was going to close his practice.”

  “Lawsuit? What lawsuit?”

  Her silence lasts a beat too long, “I guess I spoke out of turn.”

  “What kind of lawsuit was it?”

  “I don’t know much. But Dr. Elgin stood by Dr. Wilkins because he thought the verdict was too harsh.”

  “Dr. Todd, I’m asking these questions because of a police matter. Anything you can tell me would be helpful.”