Twisted Reason (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery)

by Fanning, Diane

  She pinched her arm to keep on track and memorize each movement, every action, everything. The van stopped at the gate. Derek got out of the cab. He walked over to a rock, lifted it and pulled out a key. He inserted it into the padlock, opened it and slid it out of one half of the hasp, leaving it hang from the other, the key still attached. He pushed open the gate and got back iinto the van.

  She was tempted to make a run for it then but she realized that Derek was certain to see any movement. Getting out unnoticed will be easier when he is on the other side. He pulled through the gate and stopped the van again. He pushed the gate shut. But she didn’t see him touch the padlock although his body was blocking the view. Did he take the key with him?

  She waited until he turned onto the road and drove out of sight,then she walked over to the gate. He had fastened the padlock again but he hadn’t taken the key – it still protruded from the end of the lock. Her heart raced. Her breath choked. She knew it was time to act but for a moment the shock of it all made her incapable of moving. Then, with shaky hands, she reached for the key.

  It took three tries for her to click it open. She slipped it out of the hasp and held it in her hand, eased open the gate and put the padlock back in place. Free. Free. What was that song about being free? The one they sang at marches? She heard it in her head but the words were muffled and indistinct.

  She’d been standing there less than a minute but she feared it was much longer. Panic rose, and with it, its surly companions, a swelling sense of doom and the relentless drumbeat of despair. Her heart pounded. Her lungs starved. She gulped down air, tried and failed to smooth out her breathing. I need to hide.

  She went up to the road and, turning to the right, walked as fast as she could. Her jagged breathing stole some of her energy with every step. She ducked behind a clump of wild shrubs. She needed to collect herself before she went any further. She sat down on a fallen tree trunk.

  Time passed, her sense of purpose faded but her heart and breathing rates calmed. Her head drooped as she drifted away from conscious awareness.

  The sound of her name brought her to full alert. “Sherry, Miss Sherry,” the voice called. She almost cried out, “I’m here – right here,” but slapped her hands over her mouth before the words escaped.

  “Miss Sherry, it’s your good friend Don. Miss Sherry, I’m worried about you. Come out, come out. Where are you hiding, Miss Sherry?”

  She listened quietly as the voice drew closer and closer. Then it moved away, further, further, the sound of it became a whisper. She pushed up on her feet. She broke from her cover with caution, peering around a tree and down at the gate – no one was there. But beside the gate was something she’d never noticed before – a metal pole, a tall, rusted pole.

  Her eyes travelled up the length of it. It formed an L and held a sign. It was faded and difficult to read. She couldn’t understand why she felt such a desperate need to decipher and remember what it said but she followed the instinct. After a few attempts, she succeeded, the top line read: Sleepy Hollow. In smaller print below that: Motel, Lodge, Camping.

  A smaller sign hung below that, one end attached to the bottom with a chain link, the other end swinging free. It read: No vacancy. Sherry began her mantra, “Sleepy Hollow. Motel, Lodge, Camping. No Vacancy. Sleepy Hollow. Motel, Lodge, Camping. No Vacancy.” She kept repeating those words as she trudged up the road. As she walked, though, she dropped pieces of her mantra without noticing. By the time she’d gone half a mile, her chant was reduced to two words: “Sleepy Hollow”.

  She looked back over her shoulder at the sound of every vehicle that approached her from behind. Nothing alarmed her until she passed the one-mile mark. Then she saw it. A white van. She ducked into the undergrowth and hid behind a tree. She stopped chanting and listened. It sounded as if the van slowed as it came near. She held her breath. If it stopped and someone got out and someone came to get her, she knew she couldn’t outrun any one of them – and if two of them came after her . . .? Tears slipped from her eyes as she prayed for deliverance.

  Then she realized she could hear nothing. Not the sound of the motor. Not the sound of footsteps. Did the van continue on down the road? Or was it waiting for her to come out of hiding? Or was Mr. Don nearby, creeping up on her without a sound?

  She trembled, squeezed her eyes shut and tried to make herself small.

  Thirty-Six

  Don inhaled through his nostrils until his lungs could hold no more and then he blew the air out of his mouth in a sharp, short gust. Wrapping his hand around the door knob, he opened the door to his father’s office, stepping inside, his heart thudding with trepidation.

  As usual, his father was huddled over his computer, pounding on the keys. Mounds of papers and opened books covered his desk. He mumbled while in the throes of composition. Don never could understand him when he was writing. He often wondered if he was saying the words as he typed or if he was cursing his tormentors as he tapped away.

  His father wrote letters all the time to government officials, bureaucrats, newspapers. He thought they were all idiots but he wrote to them anyway – demanding letters that usually went unanswered. When his father did get a response back, it was typically a form letter, firing his father’s anger even more.

  Gary also authored lengthy rants that he read aloud to Don, Derek and Donna, usually late at night and into the wee hours of the morning. They had to stand at attention while he read – – just as Don did now. Shoulders back, gut in, head steady. He didn’t dare speak until his father acknowledged his presence.

  Gary raised his head and cast fevered eyes in his oldest son’s direction. “What now, boy?”

  Don grimaced. He hated that his father still called him “boy”. He was thirty years old and his father still treated him like a child. He swallowed hard and said, “Dad, I can’t find Sherry Gibeck.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t find her?”

  “She didn’t show up for breakfast. Donna went down to her bungalow to fetch her but her door was unlocked—Donna said she’s sure she locked it last night but some of the locks just aren’t holding any more and need to be replaced. Anyway, Sherry wasn’t inside so I went out looking for her by the gate where I found her the other day but she wasn’t there either.”

  “She was out by the gate the other day?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you didn’t see fit to tell me about that?”

  “It didn’t seem like a big deal, Dad. She came right back with me. She hasn’t been acting any squirrelier than usual. I didn’t think much of it.”

  “You got shit for brains, boy. You’re stupider than your mother.”

  Don wanted to speak up in his mother’s defense but he choked down the words. He’d learned the hard way that it didn’t sit well with his father if he said anything nice about her. Gary yelled, hit him and came up with ever more derogatory phrases to describe her: whore of Babylon being his current favorite. As he stood in front of the desk, feeling small and insignificant in his father’s presence, Don couldn’t blame his mother for leaving that bastard but he sure wished she’d taken him with her when she left. I can’t forgive her for that.

  “Have you checked the pond?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You sure she hasn’t fallen in?”

  “I didn’t see any signs of it.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t see any the last time either, did you? Go get your brother and sister. We have work to do.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Lucinda paced in the tiny space of her office cubicle and then reached for the phone. She called the morgue, hoping for answers. She smiled when Dr. Sam answered the call. “Are you ever planning to retire, Doc Sam?”

  “They won’t let me go. Nobody else will put up with you,” he growled back at her.

  She laughed. “I was calling to see if you had any information on Edgar Humphries’ toxicology results.”

  “Patience is not a virtue you even try to cultivat
e, is it? I don’t have the full report yet but I did get a call. There is no evidence of any of his prescription medications in his body.”

  “Do you think that factored in his death?”

  “No, Pierce. I know it did. The man needed those drugs. Not having them caused his death. I guess, in a way, that makes it a natural death. But if someone kidnapped him and kept him from the medical care he needed, I’d call that homicide. Not sure how it will read in my final report. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

  Lucinda disconnected the call and punched in the numbers for the morgue in Norfolk. She sat on hold, waiting for nearly five minutes.

  “Make it quick. I’ve got a backlog of bodies this morning,” the forensic pathologist said.

  “I was calling to see if you had any results on the water analysis or toxicology.”

  “That woman did not drown in the pond where they found her. She did not die in a bathtub or swimming pool – I’d lean toward calling homicide if she did. But the water in her lungs was from a naturally existing source – just not the one where her body was found. But there were no signs of struggle on her body anywhere, leaving me pretty flummoxed. Definitely not ready to file a final report.”

  “Drugs in her body?”

  “Nothing that was prescribed – not even in trace amounts. Nothing suspicious either. Same for the old guy. But I still think his was an accidental death. You’re going to have to figure out how the both of them ended up out there in that pond. Gotta run.”

  Jumbo sat down in the chair beside Lucinda’s desk while she talked. When she hung up, he said, “Didn’t sound like good news.”

  “No, it wasn’t. But I wouldn’t call it bad news, either. It’s just baffling. Three deaths with no signs of homicide other than where the bodies were found. That in and of itself sounds like foul play to me. But how can I prove it? And if they were killed, why were they killed?”

  “Maybe they were a bit more trouble than the abductors counted on?”

  “Reasonable. But why were they abducted in the first place? No ransom demands. No claims of responsibility to deliver a message. Why?”

  “The Blankenships seeking revenge on River’s Edge?” Jumbo offered.

  “It makes sense up to a point, but some things don’t fit. For starters, the place has a long waiting list, knocking a few people off of that is not going to hurt them financially, so how do they get any satisfaction. And, if revenge were the motive, you’d think they’d kill the victims right away; but they kept them for months.

  “The other thing that perplexes me,” Lucinda added after a pause, “are the contradictions. Edgar Humphries appears to have died simply because he didn’t take his pills and his body was left where it was sure to be found. On the other hand, Francis DeLong and Adele Kendlesohn were dumped where they might have never been found. He died of non-suicidal self-inflicted injury and she drowned, but we don’t know where.

  “It’s making my head ache. There’s something odd going on here that is beyond the stretch of my imagination. Some twisted reason that probably won’t make sense even when we know what it is. And how does the disappearance of Gary Blankenship’s wife and stepfather figure in to all of this?”

  Jumbo shrugged and shook his head as the phone on Lucinda’s desk intruded on their conversation. “Pierce,” Lucinda said as she picked up the receiver.

  “Lieutenant, a patrol officer spotted the white van you’re looking for.”

  “Where?”

  “In the Colonial Heights subdivision on Independence Way.”

  “Abandoned?” Lucinda asked.

  “No. There’s a man sitting in the driver’s seat.”

  “Did patrol approach him?”

  “No, they pulled around the corner out of sight and called it in.”

  “Good. Send out enough patrol vehicles to block every road out of the neighborhood. I’m on my way.”

  In the car, with Jumbo sitting beside her, Lucinda flipped on her flashing lights and tore across town. Her passenger paled at the speed of her driving and the abruptness of her turns. He braced himself against the dashboard, his fingertips turning white.

  Before pulling through the brick pillars on either side of the main entrance to the community, Lucinda flipped off her lights and slowed down to a normal driving speed. She approached Independence Way, turned onto the street and drove past the van, pulling into a driveway two houses away.

  She stepped out of the car, closed the door and walked at a casual pace toward the back of the house. Then she raced over to the next house, through two backyards and stopped behind the house directly in front of the van. She spoke into her radio. “I’m about to approach the van. Stay on high alert. Be prepared to move in on this location at my command, but also be ready to move out and block him if he runs. And have stop sticks ready to deploy if he gets really reckless.”

  Lucinda calmed her breath, peeked around the corner and walked slowly beside the house attempting to appear as if she had just come out the back door and was strolling toward the sidewalk on her way up the street to visit a neighbor. Although she kept the van in view, she took care not to look directly at the driver’s face. She was halfway to the street when the engine cranked.

  She shouted, “He’s running,” into the radio and pulled out her gun as she raced toward the vehicle. “Police, Mr. Blankenship! Mr. Blankenship, turn off the engine!”

  The van pulled away from the curb and took off at a high rate of speed. Lucinda ran back to her car, leaped inside and backed up while still pulling the door shut. She spun around and headed after the van. Up ahead, she saw him turn left. “He just turned up Paul Revere. Somebody put out a stop stick.”

  The patrol car that originally spotted the van had joined the chase, pulling in behind the van and ahead of Lucinda. She hollered again, “Where’s the stop stick?”

  “It’s on Paul Revere just before the intersection with Constitution. He’s approaching. He’s half a block away. He . . . shit, he spotted it.”

  Lucinda pulled into the middle of the street to see around the patrol car ahead of her. The van swerved up over a curb, across the grass, bisected the driveway, clipped the rear end of a Mini, spinning it at an angle, and then spit dirt as it tore through a flower bed and swerved onto Constitution Avenue.

  “Pick up the stick! Pick up the stick!” Lucinda screeched into the radio. The officers moved into action immediately but too late for the patrol car ahead of Lucinda. He went flying over the stick, puncturing his tires, leaving bits of rubber in the road. Lucinda was ready to swerve into a front yard to avoid the obstacle but was spared that adventure by the quick response of the patrolmen. They cleared enough of the roadway to allow her to squeeze past into the intersection. She flew by, an officer’s astonished face just inches away.

  She turned the corner and saw an arcing trail of decapitated daffodils and mud tracks on the pavement. She pressed down the accelerator to lessen the distance between her car and her target.

  The van jerked off of Constitution and up onto a ramp, rocking a little to one side with the abruptness of the motion. He merged on the highway with Lucinda close to his tail. For miles ahead, patrol cars from the police, the sheriff’s department and the state troopers converged on the highway blocking on ramps and trying to get traffic to the side of the road, out of harm’s way.

  The van rocketed through the remaining traffic, using a zigzag pattern that made it impossible for Lucinda to pull up beside him. Behind her, a pack of patrol cars, sirens wailing, grew in number with each passing signpost.

  The driver was now in the far left lane. Lucinda pulled into the lane to his right and tried to close the gap. Suddenly, the van jerked across Lucinda’s path, crossed the remaining two lanes of traffic and entered the off ramp.

  Lucinda braked and turned right. Her car shuddered, nearly stalled and then surged forward, off the highway heading into downtown. At the bottom of the ramp, the van kept going against the light, horns blared, brakes shri
eked, metal grinded against metal. The driver’s side of the van scraped the rear end of a truck, forcing the fleeing vehicle up on its right wheels. It continued forward at an angle; Lucinda didn’t think it could maintain the position for long without flopping on its side.

  Just as it started to go over, the passenger side scraped against the concrete abutment running along the up ramp to the highway. The van bounced down on four wheels and plowed forward into the grassy hill beside the underpass. Lucinda slammed on her brakes, sending her rear end into the beginning of a spin. The car jerked to a stop, throwing Jumbo forward, his head just inches from collision with the dashboard.

  “Holy shit!” he swore.

  “Call for an ambulance!” she shouted as she jumped out of her car and ran to the van. She inhaled the stench of exhaust fumes, burnt rubber and fresh-churned earth. She heard the sirens approaching, impatient horns blaring, the slapping of her feet on the asphalt.

  Reaching the van, she jerked open the driver’s door with one hand while she pulled her gun with the other. The driver didn’t move. She stepped up on the side board, reached for his neck. She found a pulse. She put her fingers in front of his mouth and felt his breath. Thank God. Still he just hung limp, his seat belt all that kept him from collapsing on his side.

  Gently, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Blankenship,” she said. “Are you Mr. Blankenship?” She got no response. “Don? Don Blankenship? Are you Don Blankenship? Derek?” she said and saw a flutter in his eyelashes. The younger son. “Hang in there, Derek. Help is on the way.” And don’t die. Whatever you do don’t die.

  She stepped down and looked through the maze of spinning lights, hoping to see an ambulance peel out of the pack. She shouted into the radio, “Where the hell is the ambulance?”

  “Less than a mile away, Lieutenant. Are you okay?”