Rocky Road

by Josi S. Kilpack

  She answered his call before she’d made a decision. “Good morning,” she said into the phone.

  “Good morning,” he repeated. “I’ve just pulled up the Red Rock Cancer Foundation’s articles—tell me exactly what you found.”

  They discussed the different entities, and he asked detailed questions that she answered as best she could. “That’s certainly something that requires more attention,” Officer Nielson said when they finished up. “I’m heading into the admin meeting regarding the reopening of Dr. Hendricks’s case and will include this information—I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes, but I’m guessing that by this afternoon we’ll have new detectives on this case.”

  Sadie knew that, to him, that was good news. For her, it was a little more difficult to face. She wasn’t ready to let go of this case, and because of that, when he didn’t ask her if she’d discovered anything else since leaving the message last night, she didn’t volunteer it. “I’ll look forward to the update,” Sadie said.

  “Until then,” he said before ending the call. Sadie appreciated that he wasn’t long-winded—it gave her less time to second-guess herself while he was still on the line.

  “You didn’t tell him about Dr. H,” Caro pointed out when Sadie put her phone down.

  “I’ll tell him when we know for sure.”

  “How do you decide what to tell the police and what not to tell them?” Caro asked, sounding genuinely curious.

  There was no good answer to that question. “Um, I’m not sure. It’s kind of a case-by-case thing.”

  Sadie checked her e-mail, hoping for something from Pete, but she was disappointed. She could really use his guidance right now. Rather than dwelling on that, she turned her attention back to her notes.

  It felt like hours until the time on her computer showed 10:20. She and Caro were waiting when a middle-aged man unlocked the front door from inside and welcomed them. On a grease board set just inside the small store was a Monday through Friday lunch special listed in fluorescent pink marker. Today was Fresh Mex Thursday, and the special was Barbacoa Pork Salad. Sounded delicious.

  To the left of the shelves that were filled with one or two options for everything from canned soup to antifreeze was a small lunch counter with napkins, flatware, and a soda fountain. Sadie assumed that when it got closer to lunchtime, that’s where the “special” would be made available. She hoped they would still be in town for lunch. Little places like this intrigued her.

  “Can I help you ladies find anything?” the man asked, reminding Sadie that he was still there.

  She and Caro shared a look and then faced him. “Actually, yes,” Sadie said. She wished she had some of her business cards from when she had her investigation company. They would be the perfect offering for her to make right now. “My name’s Sadie, and this is my friend Caro. We’re trying to learn more about a gentleman known around town as Wednesday Man, and we were told that you might know more about him.”

  She held her breath, anticipating the same hesitation she’d encountered with Candace. To her surprise, however, his expression remained open.

  “You know him?” he asked, heading toward the counter at the back of the small store. They followed him.

  “He might be a friend of ours,” Sadie said.

  “Seems like a good enough guy. I let him do odd jobs in exchange for some food. I’m Robert, by the way.” He reached the counter and moved behind it before extending his hand and shaking theirs. “Can’t say I know more about him than anyone else in town does, though. He’s pretty tight-lipped.”

  “What kind of odd jobs does he do?” Caro asked.

  “Janitorial stuff,” the clerk said, looking back and forth at them as he sat on a stool next to the cash register with his arms crossed over his chest. “Seems pretty down on his luck.”

  “How long has he been working for you?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call it working for me,” Robert said with a smile. “But it’s been a couple of months.”

  “And you never see this man other than on Wednesdays?” Sadie asked.

  “Just at church a few times, but nothing consistent.”

  “He goes to your church?” Sadie asked, remembering what Tess had said about Dr. Hendricks’s having attended church before he disappeared. The look she shared with Caro confirmed that they were thinking the same thing. “Here in Pine Valley?”

  “Have you gals not taken a tour of the Pine Valley Chapel? It’s one of the main attractions in Pine Valley. The architect was a shipbuilder and basically built the church like an inverted boat. It’s more than a hundred fifty years old and still tight as a drum.”

  “Is it a Mormon church, then?” Sadie asked, feeling bad for sticking to the main topic but needing to make sure she had a clear understanding.

  “Oh, yeah, the Mormon church.” Robert seemed a little embarrassed to have automatically assumed they knew that. “I’m in the bishopric—that’s the clergy—so I sit at the front of the chapel. I’ve seen him slip in a few times, always after the meeting started. He sits on the very back row, if there’s room, or stands against the wall. Then leaves during the closing song. I tried to catch him once, but I think it scared him off. When he showed up to work the next week I told him I wouldn’t do that again but I hoped he’d come back. He did, which I was glad to see.”

  Sadie made eye contact with Caro and knew she was thinking the same thing Sadie was: Wednesday Man had to be Dr. Hendricks. He was here, hiding out, living this odd life as a transient of some kind. Why? What had motivated him to create this elaborate hoax?

  “He didn’t come in yesterday, though,” Robert said, causing both Caro and Sadie to look back at him.

  “He didn’t?” Caro repeated.

  Robert shook his head. “First time in two months that he wasn’t waiting for me when I opened.”

  Caro’s phone rang. “Sorry,” she said as she hurried to send the call to voice mail.

  “We’d really like to talk to him—do you know where he’s staying?”

  “I think he’s camping up Lloyd Canyon.”

  “Camping?” Sadie repeated. “The housekeeper at the motel thought he might be staying somewhere with a shower. Said he was always clean.”

  “He could be staying in one of the cabins, but you’d think someone who could afford a cabin could afford food.” Robert paused and made a face. “I hope he isn’t squatting up there. I’d hate to see him in trouble with the law, but that’s something I couldn’t keep to myself.”

  Sadie appreciated the warning not to tell this man something he would feel morally bound to report. Could Dr. Hendricks have somehow rented a cabin without the police tracking the payment? Maybe he’d disguised the payment as something else in his financial records. But if he’d planned all of this well enough to have hidden the plans, why hadn’t he accounted for the fact that he would need food? Frustration over the growing number of questions began creeping in until Sadie remembered that this could be Dr. Hendricks! She and Caro may very well have found him. The rising questions were insignificant compared to the impact of what they had pieced together this morning.

  “Showered or not, he struck me as someone camping out. He always has the same clothes on.”

  Goth Girl had said that, too.

  “Why do you think he’s camping in—what did you call it?—Lloyd Canyon?”

  “We talked about him in a church meeting once, people trying to figure out who he was and if he needed any help. A man at church who lives on Lloyd Canyon Road said he’d seen him around—just walking, not causing any trouble—so I figured he must be staying up there.”

  Caro’s phone rang a second time, and she quickly declined the call and apologized again. “I’ll turn it off, sorry.”

  “He didn’t tell you his name?” Sadie asked. “Didn’t make small talk or indicate why he was here?”

  Robert shook his head. “I tried once or twice to talk to him, but he wasn’t open to it, and I worried about scaring hi
m off, so I didn’t push. You said he might be a friend of yours?” His curiosity was setting in. Unfortunately, Sadie didn’t feel ready to give him too much information.

  Robert seemed to sense her hesitation, and he smiled good-naturedly. “I’m not trying to be pushy. I just hope he’s okay. I worried when he didn’t come in yesterday.”

  “Can you direct us toward Lloyd Canyon?”

  “Sure,” Robert said, pointing over his shoulder. “Opposite end of town, past the church. You really should stop in for a tour when you have a few minutes. Fascinating history, that church.”

  Chapter 22

  They took Caro’s car to Lloyd Canyon, expecting a mountain road with cabins hidden in the trees. What they found instead was more like a neighborhood, though most of the houses were cabin designs. The lots weren’t large, and some of them had fenced yards. Numerous roads led off of Lloyd Canyon Road, but they didn’t go very far from town and looped back to the main street every time.

  “If he’s hiding in a cabin, it would be one of those,” Sadie said as they passed a private driveway with a “No trespassing” sign and a winding driveway that disappeared into the trees before revealing the cabin it led to. “These other cabins are too close together for him to effectively hide—people would know right where he was.”

  Caro agreed and then slowed down as they reached the top of Lloyd Canyon Road where a chain-link gate barred the road. A large and impossible to ignore “Private Property” sign was front and center on the gate. They both looked at it for a few seconds before Sadie suggested they drive through all the other streets and make note of the other private driveways. She pulled a notebook and pen from her purse so she could draw a rough map and indicate the roads that led to cabins that were not so easily seen from the roads.

  They made a second pass of Lloyd Canyon Road and all the streets that looped off of it, noting the private drives and getting a feel for the differences between the cabins. Some of them had carefully tended flower gardens, cars parked in the driveways, and other details that seemed to say that the owners lived there at least in the summertime, or maybe all year-round. Others had limited landscaping, empty carports, and an overall vacant feel about them that communicated only occasional use.

  “Maybe he is camping out,” Caro suggested after they discussed how impossible it would be for him to stay in one of these empty cabins without the neighbors noticing him. In a town like this, it seemed likely that if one person knew where this mystery man lived, the entire town would know by sundown. And yet, neither Robert nor Goth Girl knew where he was staying. Though they were both aware of him and interested in why he might be here, they hadn’t launched any kind of campaign to find out. Maybe people camped out in the mountains on a regular basis. Maybe this town was better than most about keeping out of people’s business.

  “How would he be showered every time Goth Girl saw him if he were just camping out?” Caro asked. “Maybe Candace lets him shower at the motel. Maybe she’s sweet on him, and that’s why she wouldn’t tell us anything.”

  “Maybe,” Sadie said, but that seemed unlikely. Why wouldn’t Goth Girl know if he were showering at the motel she cleaned every day?

  They’d reached the top of Lloyd Canyon Road again and the gate that barred them from the road that continued on the other side.

  “The forbidden is always more interesting,” Caro said, looking at the gate, then pointing. “It’s not locked.”

  Sadie looked more closely and saw what Caro saw. Rather than a lock keeping the gate closed, there was only a chain wrapped around the gate and the fence on the other side of it. How forbidden could it be if there were no reason to bother with a lock?

  They both got out of the car to inspect the chain and then looked through the gate to the road that extended beyond it. The road turned to dirt on the other side of the gate but they could see where it branched off in a few different directions.

  “There must be cabins not used as full-time residences, don’t you think?” Sadie asked.

  Caro nodded. “It would be a pain to undo the chain every time you came and went if you were here every day. We should check it out.”

  “But of course,” Sadie said, with a smile at her friend, who smiled back.

  Caro moved her car to the side so it wouldn’t be in the way of the road. Sadie glanced around, worried that a neighbor was going to come out and tell them to skedaddle, but no one did before Caro rejoined her. Sadie unwrapped the chain and swung the gate open just enough for them to step around it, then she rewrapped the chain and hoped they wouldn’t need a quick getaway.

  The first road was on the left. They followed it a hundred feet or so before the trees cleared to show a huge log cabin with a green metal roof. Caro whistled under her breath. “How would it be to have this as your second home?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Sadie said, though she’d always thought the idea of a second home sounded like a lot of work. People she knew who owned cabins spent most of their visits doing maintenance. Her friend Janet’s cabin had flooded once—they didn’t know until they visited months later and ended up having to gut the entire building due to mold. It had never smelled right after that.

  They walked around the impressive building and peeked in the windows. From one of the windows on the main level they could see the blinking red light of an alarm system. It didn’t seem likely that he’d be staying in a cabin where the owners cared enough to have an alarm system to keep people out. Back on the road, they were heading toward the next private driveway when something farther ahead caught Sadie’s eye. “See that oil drum,” she said, pointing it out to Caro and squinting to try to read what was written on it. She could swear the word started with an E, and the idea made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. “Can you read it?” she asked even as she hurried toward it.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Caro said a few moments later, and then she broke into a run. Sadie jogged behind her, but Caro had come to a stop and turned to face her before she’d caught up. “It says Edger.”

  “As in Kyle Edger?” Sadie asked as she finally got close enough to clearly see the name welded into the oil drum. The hair on the back of her neck stood up straight now. The attorney Lori had called yesterday just happened to have a cabin in Pine Valley?

  “Either this cabin belongs to Kyle Edger,” Caro said, putting her hands on her hips, “or this is the most ridiculous coincidence ever.”

  Sadie had stopped believing in coincidences a long time ago. Even with that thought, however, a shiver washed through her as she remembered Officer Nielson’s words about his belief that she was supposed to be a part of this case. And Caro had pointed out Sadie’s gifts. They all seemed to be indicating the same thing: Sadie being involved in this case wasn’t a coincidence, either.

  Chapter 23

  Sadie looked down the private dirt road flanked by cedars and ponderosa pines and tried to absorb the implications of this discovery. She wished she’d taken the time to learn more about the attorney Lori Hendricks had contacted after receiving that phone call from the Pine Valley Motel.

  “He must have let Dr. H stay here, right?” Caro suggested.

  “Why would he do that?” Sadie said. “It’s got to be some kind of violation of his oaths or something.” She considered it further. “And why would he agree to let Dr. Hendricks stay here but not take into account the fact that he’d need food?”

  “Excellent point.” Caro started moving down the road. Sadie hurried a few steps and caught her arm.

  “Wait,” she said, thinking fast. “We can’t just walk in on him.”

  “Why not?” Caro said with a questioning look. “We certainly can’t put this off—what if he finds out we’re asking about him? He used the motel’s phone and didn’t go to the store, which means he’s broken his routine. Who knows what he’s planning to do now? We can’t put it off.”

  She was right, but to go in without a plan was impetuous. “We need to know what our goals are before we rush i
n.”

  “To see if he’s there,” Caro said, sounding annoyed with Sadie’s delays. “Or verify that he has been—he might have already taken off.”

  “Maybe we should call Officer Nielson first.”

  Caro’s eyebrows went up in surprise, but she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t expected Sadie to say such a thing. It wasn’t like Sadie to miss an opportunity, but she knew Pete wouldn’t go barreling in like this. But would he give Dr. Hendricks a chance to get away?

  Sadie pulled her phone out of her pocket, convinced that calling Officer Nielson was the right choice and that she’d better do it now before she talked herself out it. But there was no service. She held her phone up and turned in a circle, but couldn’t get even one bar to show up.

  “Look,” Caro said as she took a few steps closer to Sadie. “If you’re nervous about us going up there on our own, you don’t need to be.” She patted her purse.

  Sadie looked at the purse and then into Caro’s knowing smile. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I have a paranoid husband who never lets me go on long road trips without having some protection.”

  Sadie blinked and looked at Caro’s purse again. “A gun?”

  “And a Taser.”

  “A gun and a Taser?” Sadie repeated too loudly.

  Caro shushed her, and Sadie nodded her understanding and lowered her voice. “Where did he think you were going?”

  “He’s a safety guy,” Caro said with a slight shrug. “I think it’s kind of cute that he worries about me.”

  “And sends you with a gun? He must not know how many people have their own guns turned on them?”

  Caro gave Sadie an exasperated look. “I have a concealed carry, so I’d better stick with the gun. Why don’t you take the Taser?”

  “As though I know how to use a Taser,” Sadie said. “Why am I just now learning that you’re a walking ballistics team?”

  “Seriously, you need to calm down.” Caro reached into her purse and removed what looked like a small electric razor. “Here’s the ‘on’ button. You switch it to ‘on’ and then, to activate it, you just press this end against whoever you need to disable. It’s not hard.”