by Ann Mullen
“Where’s my Jeep?” I cried as we passed the Hudgins’ house. I kept remembering about my poor, beautiful car that I once loved so much. Now I didn’t know if I could ever get in it again.
“I called Daniel and he had somebody come out here and tow it away. He said between you and me, we were going to keep him in business forever. He just got your dad’s truck fixed when your car was hauled in. He said we were his best customers.”
“Billy, you and I both know we’re going to find the body of Helen Carrolton, don’t you? This is the first time I’ve ever come face-to-face with someone who has been murdered. I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never been involved like this. Even when that crazy woman killed her husband for cheating on her with another man, I wasn’t there. I wasn’t in the middle. I’m right in the middle of it now.”
“It’ll be okay. Trust me,” he said. “I’m sure you can handle it.”
Billy and I was now the lead car. By the time we reached the end of the road, Billy looked at me and said, “I guess this is the right place, huh?”
“You knew all along, didn’t you?”
“I was pretty sure,” he replied.
“Why didn’t you go ahead and tell the police of your suspicions?”
“What, and deprive you of your chance to see if your feelings had any merit? I couldn’t do that to you.”
Billy parked his truck and we got out, waiting for everybody else to do the same. Detective Hargrove and his men walked up to us, and once Mom, Jack and Dennis joined the group, the detective signaled for me to show them the way.
“The forensic team should be here any minute, and the medical examiner is waiting for our call,” Detective Hargrove stated. “The department should have some of our guys out here soon. I just got off the radio with my captain and he said to wait for him, they were on their way.” No sooner had he spoken, the road filled with cop cars and blaring sirens.
A tall, slender man with a head full of brown, curly hair and a scar across his right eye was introduced to us as Captain John Waverly of the Charlottesville Police Department. He appeared to be around forty or forty-five, and in good physical shape. Surprisingly, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offered us all one, and then lit up. Although he seemed pleasant, he was all business as he motioned for his men to follow him.
By the time I’d led them down the path Billy and I had traveled before, I noticed several more official looking men had joined the group, which now consisted of about twenty-five people. At least ten of the men were in uniform and some were taking notes, while others talked on walkie-talkies. Several of the officers carried shovels and duffel bags.
Once we reached the site, officers began putting up yellow crime scene tape, as several others dressed themselves in disposable jumpsuits and facial masks. They picked up their shovels, ready to start their task. We were asked to stay behind the yellow tape, so the men could do their job. I wanted to help, but Captain Waverly assured me his men could handle it.
“It might be best if you go back and wait by your cars,” he walked up to us and said. “If we find the body, I can send someone to inform you. This could be pretty ugly.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, digging in my heels. “I almost got killed over this girl. I think I’m entitled to be here.”
He glanced around at us and shook his head. “I could have my guys remove you from the scene.”
“You could,” I replied, but still stood my ground.
“I’ll let you stay for now,” he said. “If you get in my way, I’ll have you removed.”
We all moved back as if to let him know we’d stay out of his way, but we weren’t going to leave unless we were forced to. I was tired, my body ached, and I needed to sit down. I found a pile of rocks off to the side, walked over and sat down. Mom, Jack and Dennis followed while Billy and Cole had their heads together with the two detectives.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Mom leaned over to me and asked.
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” I answered. I looked past her to Jack and said, “I never did thank you for going to get Billy. If you guys hadn’t shown up, things might not have turned out the way they did.”
He glanced at me with a surprised look on his face. “Didn’t he tell you? We couldn’t find him.”
“How did you know where to come looking for me if you didn’t get up with him?”
“There’s a simple explanation,” Mom joined in. “When we got to Billy’s we couldn’t get him to come to the door. We rang the buzzer to the office and even walked to the side door and banged on it. We banged on the garage door. Finally, I used my keys and let us in through the front door. I had a heck of a time trying to remember the code to the alarm, because I was so frantic and thought for sure we were all going to get arrested. Fortunately, I finally remembered the code, punched in the numbers, and then we went about searching for him. We checked downstairs and then went up to his apartment, but he wasn’t there.”
“Athena was the one who led us into his office,” Jack added. “She jumped up and started knocking things off his desk and that’s when we found the file on Helen Carrolton. Mom said that was the case you were working on, so we looked through it and found the Hudgins’ address. It was the one name that Mom had remembered hearing you and Billy talk so much about. So we took a chance. We were almost to their road when we noticed Billy’s truck in front of us. Cole was with him. That’s when we knew we were on the right path so to speak.”
“Then what happened?”
“We followed them to the end of the road and got out,” Mom replied. “That’s when we heard the bulldozer.”
“Billy yelled for us to follow him and that’s what we did,” Dennis finally spoke.
“We turned around and headed back toward the highway. When we passed the house, Billy turned off onto a dirt road,” Mom explained. “We followed him for a good long way until we came to a stream.”
“You should’ve seen your mom handle that van of hers,” Dennis chuckled. “I was sure we’d never make it across that stream, but she was one determined lady.”
“My poor van will probably never be the same for it,” she sighed.
“Billy and Cole pulled right up to the bulldozer, jumped out and ran up to Larry Hudgins as he was climbing down. Hudgins took off running and Cole tackled him to the ground. Next thing we knew, Billy was up on the bulldozer, while Cole handcuffed the man to the truck door and took off after the kid. By the time Cole got the kid cuffed, Mom had already called the police.”
“That’s right, I forgot to tell you. Billy bought me a cell phone,” she giggled. “I’m sure glad he did. It really came in handy.”
“Where was Rita Hudgins?” I asked.
“They found her sitting by a tree, babbling to herself,” Dennis said. “That woman’s crazy.”
“By the time Billy got the bulldozer started and began moving the dirt, the police arrived. I wet my pants when I saw that red Jeep of yours come flying up out of the ground,” Mom said.
“She sure did.”
Before Jack could finish what he was saying, everybody around us started yelling and running toward the men who had been digging. Instantly, Mom and the rest of us jumped up and ran over to the yellow tape, getting as close as we could. Billy came up to me and put his arms around my neck as the red roof became visible.
One of the men in the hole yelled, “We got a body in here—or what’s left of one.”
I sank to the ground on my knees and cried. Billy had his arms wrapped around me as I rocked back and forth, my body racked with uncontrollable sobs. I leaned over and puked up the contents of my stomach. My insides were shaking as I gladly took the handkerchief Billy had fished out of his pocket.
I looked up at him, my breath smelling awful and said, “What would I do without you?”
“Not to worry,” he said as he planted a kiss on my cheek. “I’m not going anywhere. Besides, you’d never make it without me to keep you stra
ight.” Just about the time Billy kissed me on the cheek, Cole walked over, bent down and mumbled something in his ear. Billy told me he’d be right back. He got Mom to come sit with me.
“I’m still trying to figure out which one of them loves you the most,” she whispered.
“Don’t be silly,” I objected.
“I think it’s great,” she went on. “First, you can’t get a decent man and now you have two of them fighting over you. I just knew one day you’d have someone, but I never thought you’d have two.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” I said.
If I live to be a hundred, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain how I felt when I finally stood up and looked down into that hole and saw the little red car. I should’ve been glad I was right all along, but the overwhelming feeling of sadness took that away from me. I felt like a little piece of me had died with Helen Carrolton, and I knew I’d never be the same. I had a knot in my stomach as a cold dread swept over me. Who would tell her parents?
With tears in my eyes, I walked over to Billy and collapsed in his arms. “It’s Helen, isn’t it?” I already knew the answer.
“Yes, it is,” he whispered, sadly.
When they used the winch on the back of Billy’s truck to pull her car out of the ground, I had to walk away. It was so sad I couldn’t stand to watch any longer. I knew what it was like to lose a loved one.
As I was growing up, my contact with death was very limited. However, as I got older I’d experienced it first hand. A close girlfriend of mine died at the age of thirty from breast cancer, and one of the guys I worked with at a department store, committed suicide. The death of my grandparents was another sad memory. Those were hard, but they didn’t compare to the two recent deaths that would squeeze the life out of my heart every day. I mourned for my father, and ten months before Dad died, my cousin Danielle was killed in a car accident. She was only eighteen years old. I still cry sometimes when I think about her and had sad it was that her life had been cut short.
Danielle was the youngest of Uncle Bill and Aunt Edie’s three girls. She always seemed to manage to keep them on their toes with her wild, teenage shenanigans, while Anita—the middle daughter—dealt with her own demons, eventually recovering and making a life for herself. The oldest, Belinda was married to a wonderful guy named Will, and along with their two kids in tow, traveled all over the United States as professional storytellers. They seemed to be the all-American family... until Danielle died. Nothing was ever the same after that. Now this brought it all back. All the hurt and pain flooded my soul.
“Billy,” I barely got out. “Please take me home.”
He ran his hand across my face and whispered, “Come on, baby girl. Let’s go home. You don’t need to be here. You need to be at home with your family beside you.”
Much of what happened next was a blur. All I remembered was the ride back to Stanardsville in Billy’s truck. The whole way home he tried to get me to talk. He said he was worried about me because I didn’t look so good.
I hissed at him. “How do you expect me to look? I’ve been through the mill. I almost died. A poor young girl has lost her life to a bunch of loony tunes, not to mention the fact that her parents will probably never get over it, and you’re worried about how I look.”
“I’m just saying I think this has been a little too much for you. You haven’t been exposed to the underworld of death and destruction like I have. It’s hard to get used to it.”
“I know the pain of death. This is just a different form of it,” I moaned. “Who tells the parents? Can you imagine what they’re going to go through?” I started to cry again. “I remember when my cousin, Danielle died. She was so young.”
“I’m taking you home,” he replied as he rubbed my arm and drove his truck through the green traffic light in Ruckersville. “Captain Waverly agreed with me that it’d be better if someone went in person to tell the Carroltons about their daughter’s death. I convinced him to let me.”
“I’m going with you,” I declared.
Mom, Jack, and Dennis were in Mom’s van behind us, with Cole fast on their rear end. I looked into Billy’s rearview mirror and saw his green Jeep. I caught Billy looking at me.
“What do you think?” he interrogated me. “What’s it going to be?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea what you mean.”
“You know what I’m talking about,” he shouted. “What’s the deal? You gave this man the boot like you were throwing out yesterday’s trash.”
“He betrayed me.”
“Get over it,” Billy demanded. “You have no idea what this man has been through for you.”
“Why don’t you tell me?” I said with a strange feeling that I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. “Since when did you become his best friend, again? I thought you two had become mortal enemies.” I dug at him. “You said he only cared about himself, and no matter what, in the end he’d do what he had to do. I see that now. He turned us in. It was from his report that they learned about the purse and our involvement. I can’t trust him anymore.”
“There’re things you don’t know about,” Billy came back.
“Yeah, like what?”
“Like... he’s the one who called me yesterday after you left. Those pain pills I took were making me groggy. I was just getting ready to crawl into bed and go to sleep when the phone rang. It was Cole and he was acting crazy. He was nuts. He kept going off about a file he’d just gotten. He said Larry Hudgins was a sex pervert. His wife had lesbian tendencies and the teenage son was an extremely troubled youth, and then proceeded to go down the list of the boy’s priors. And he said the Charleston Police Department suspected the mama was involved in the death of her brother-in-law and his wife, but never could get anything on her.”
“Are we going someplace with this story?” I sneered. “Are you going to string me along until I choke on my own rope? Get to the point!” I was getting tired of listening to him go on with what was obviously to be the last minute heroics of the boyfriend who had betrayed me. I guess I’m just not a forgiving person, but to me, when someone betrays you, it’s over. Cole could’ve been the one, but he betrayed me. That’s something I just couldn’t tolerate.
“I’m trying to make a point.” Billy looked at me with his eyebrows curled in, like he does when he’s trying to be serious. “He said he called you when he found all this out and your Mom told him you hadn’t come back from taking me home. He hurried over to my house and hustled me out of bed. I knew you were up to something when he told me you weren’t home. We put two and two together and came looking for you.”
“Are you telling me that if Cole hadn’t come to your house, I might still be buried in the ground?”
He looked at me skeptically. “That’s a strong possibility.”
“You think I should give him another chance?”
“I think you should do what your heart tells you.”
This gave me something to think about. If Billy was eager for me to forgive Cole then maybe I should listen to him, and try to put Cole’s past betrayal behind us. Everybody’s entitled to one mistake, right? Unfortunately, I’m just not as forgiving as Billy.
“Like I said, I’ll give it some thought.”
We pulled into the driveway and by the time we got out of the truck, Claire came rushing out of the house.
“Thank God, you’re all right,” she screamed as she ran up to me and gave me a hug. “I was worried to death about you! Don’t you ever pull a stunt like this again. Do you hear me?”
I mumbled a couple of responses, agreeing with everything she said, while we walked up to the porch. There was no arguing with her when she got like this. She’d go into one of her lectures and never let up. I didn’t need that now. I had other things on my mind.
Billy and Cole were standing by the truck having a deep conversation, while Mom and my other rescuers went inside. I wanted to know what they were talking about, so I convinced Claire
I was fine and got her to go in the house with the promise that I’d be right in. I swallowed the lump in my throat and walked up to them. Their conversation stopped immediately.
“Ah, you must have been talking about me,” I joked.
Cole looked at me and said, “We were just discussing what our next move was going to be.”
“Yes,” Billy added, looking at his watch. “We have until the six o’clock news broadcast to get to the Carrolton’s or they’re going to find out about Helen on the television. Captain Waverly said he couldn’t keep a lid on it past then. We’ve decided that Cole and I would be the ones to do it. You’re staying home.”
“I most certainly am not! I’m going with you.”
Billy and Cole exchanged glances.
“We already discussed it once and decided I was going, and I am going,” I said, determined to get my way. “Nobody is going to stop me from seeing this to the end.”
“I told you she’d say that,” Billy grunted. “Let’s go to work.”
Twenty minutes later, after Mom had fed us and given us one of her long-winded lectures, the three of us got into Billy’s truck and headed for Poquoson. It was a good feeling to be alive, even though we had a nasty job ahead of us. I dreaded having to tell the Carroltons their daughter was dead, but I also knew it had to be done. I hoped that someday, down the road, they might recover and go on with the rest of their lives. That’s what you have to do, isn’t it?
Epilogue
The 4th of July weekend turned out to be beautiful. The weatherman had forecast thunderstorms for both days and as usual he was only partially right. Each day was sunny and nice all day long with a light rain both nights. We had long since passed the glory of witnessing the blooming of the Dogwood and the Redbud trees, but were now enjoying the full bloom of summer. Flowers of different varieties and blooming bushes lined just about every house and filled their flowerbeds. When I first moved to the mountains, the woods and the greenery were just starting to come to life, but now the trees were full of leaves and the vegetation was at full throttle. There wasn’t a bare spot between the trees anywhere.
