Dead of Autumn

by Sherry Knowlton

  “Have you met Eric Goldman yet, Alexa?”

  Still cautious, Alexa moved toward the man, who had extended his hand to her. Tanisha continued to say, “Eric and another young student at Dickinson are doing a study about societal attitudes toward family planning and abortion. Is that the best way to describe your project, Eric?”

  “Ms. Williams, I must apologize to you.” The young man’s words tumbled over each other. “Although entirely unintended, I believe that my friend, Tony Kennedy, and I scared you last week in the Garden Fresh parking lot. We’ve been trying to catch you, hoping we could arrange an interview as part of our project. I tried to talk to you a week or so ago when you were walking into the clinic. I couldn’t get your attention that day and didn’t want to leave my discussions with the Blood of the Lamb group. So, when Tony and I saw you at Garden Fresh, we just rushed up to you, not even thinking about how you might react to two men accosting you in a parking lot at night.

  “I’m sorry if we frightened you. But, we would really like to interview you for a volunteer’s perspective on family planning and abortion rights issues. Tanisha says that you’re a lawyer, which is really awesome. An interview with you would totally enhance our study.”

  By this time, the five women who were sitting in the waiting area were watching Alexa and this Eric Goldman like the latest episode of General Hospital. Alexa moved past them and behind the reception counter with Eric trailing behind.

  “Let’s sit back here and discuss this,” she said moving into the chart area in the far corner. “Mr. Goldman, you and your friend did frighten me. It is not a good idea for two strange men to approach a woman alone after dark unless they’re her friends. We’re programmed to go on high alert in a situation like that.

  “Also, you must be aware of what has been going on here at the clinic recently. Doctor Crowe’s shooting and the threats that we’ve been receiving were reported in the news. We’re all on edge. Put yourself in my shoes. I know you only as one of the people who stand across the street protesting the clinic’s work. I thought you and your friend wanted to threaten or harm me.”

  “We never thought. I’m such an idiot.” Goldman slapped his forehead in consternation and seemed very affected by her words. Obviously, none of this had occurred to him, although at least it had registered that Alexa was frightened at the Garden Fresh. “When you pushed the cart at us and jumped into the car, we knew we had scared you. But we didn’t think about all this stuff. That’s some heavy shit—I mean, heavy stuff.”

  Face to face, Alexa could see that Goldman was very young. He reacted to her words as if he had just received a lecture from the high school principal.

  “I understand if you don’t want us to interview you. We’ve spent a lot of time interviewing the protestors. We’ve spent some time with the doctors and the staff here, too. But, we’ve never been inside the clinic on one of your volunteer days. I’m sorry,” he said a final time and rose from his chair.

  “Wait. I didn’t say you couldn’t interview me. But we have a few more things to discuss. First of all, I need to tell you that I reported you to the police.”

  “Oh, man. If I’m arrested, my father will be so pissed. And, I’ll get thrown out of school. What a dumb ass I’ve been. Tony, too.”

  “Calm down. I would almost like to see you spend a night in jail, just to scare you as much as you guys scared me last week. But, that’s not going to happen. Now that I know what was really going on, I’ll call the police and explain. They won’t come after you.” Alexa thought it unlikely that Officer Starke had looked very hard for them anyway.

  She continued, “When is your project due?”

  With a look of abject relief, Goldman replied, “At the end of the semester, on December fifteenth. Thanksgiving break starts Friday, but we’ll be back at school on December first. Can we talk to you then?”

  “Yes. How about, this time, we schedule an appointment and you can come to my office for the interview?” Alexa fished one of her cards from her pocket. “Call my assistant, Melinda, at this number. I’ll tell her to find a time after you return to school, one that suits you and Tony. OK?”

  “Thank you. We’ll call her tomorrow. I appreciate this so much, especially since we were such jerks. Thank you, Ms. Williams.” Goldman backed away from Alexa, grabbed his coat, and nearly ran out the door.

  Tanisha, who had overheard most of the conversation, offered her opinion. “You left that young man off awful easy. I didn’t know anything about him and that other kid, Tony, accosting you in the parking lot. You must have been petrified.”

  “Yeah, Doc had just been shot the night before then here were these two guys hurrying toward me in the parking lot. I just reacted. I pushed my shopping cart at them, jumped in the car, and sped away. I was scared to death. They probably thought they were dealing with a crazy woman.”

  “These young people just don’t have any sense these days. They should have just come here to the clinic if they wanted to talk to you.”

  Alexa gritted her teeth and dialed Officer Starke’s number. She was glad to get his voicemail, where she left a detailed message that the incident with the two young men had been a false alarm. As she clicked end on her cell phone, she imagined a visit the next day from Officer Starke, who certainly wouldn’t miss an opportunity to say, “Told you so,” in his condescending way.

  She then called Trooper Taylor to alert him that these two students would likely not be a lead in their search for Elizabeth Nelson’s killer. The policeman still asked for their names. He thought Eric and Tony might have seen something that could help in their investigation.

  As the afternoon wound down, Tanisha took a call from Dr. Crowe’s wife. She told Alexa, “Alice says Doc will move to the critical care unit tomorrow. So, that must mean he’s improving.”

  “Good news. Critical care isn’t limited to family members. I’ll try to drop by for a visit.”

  The security guard at a desk in the waiting room had been a constant reminder that the clinic still might not be safe. Alexa was skeptical about how much security this guy could actually provide. He was dressed for the role in a khaki uniform with a pistol in the holster on his hip. However, the guard looked to be well past sixty and had quite a paunch. With his dyed black hair, Alexa thought that this Ryan Murphy looked a lot like Wayne Newton in his Vegas years.

  The guard’s presence in the waiting room clearly bothered the women who had come for medical care. When Murphy left for his periodic patrols around the outside perimeter of the clinic, the patients whispered among themselves about the guard. Alexa could tell some of the women were anxious.

  And who wouldn’t be anxious? she thought. They know one of the doctors was shot, and then they come in here and see a security guard. That doesn’t do much to raise the comfort level, does it?

  Alexa asked Tanisha how she felt about the security situation.

  “It makes me feel safer. My husband has been really worried since Dr. Crowe got shot, so he’s happy that there’s a guard here. But the threat letters come almost every day. They look the same as the others with letters cut out of magazines. The police take every single one to analyze. But I don’t think they’re getting any closer to solving the case.”

  “I hope they are making some progress. Maybe we’ll be surprised and they’ll make an arrest.” Alexa tried to be more reassuring than she actually felt. This case didn’t seem any closer to being solved than Elizabeth Nelson’s murder.

  “Oh, I forgot. The messages have changed. Now they say ‘YOU WILL BE THE NEXT TO DIE.’”

  This change in the message disturbed Alexa. The fact that the notes were evolving was frightening. If Alexa understood the new message, the attack on Frank could just be the beginning.

  “We are all being extra careful,” Tanisha told Alexa. “And you should be, too. But, really, what can we do except keep coming to work every day and hope that the cops catch this nut? Whoever did this should be arrested for shooting Dr. C
rowe.”

  And stopped from doing any more harm, Alexa silently added.

  Chapter Twenty

  By the time Alexa pulled the Land Rover in front of her cabin, daylight had faded. Sunset arrived earlier every evening especially since the switch from Daylight Savings Time. She was surprised to see Reese’s SUV sitting in front of the house. He opened the door and stepped out.

  “Hi. What brings you here?” she asked.

  “I have a few things I wanted to talk to you about.” Reese helped her with the bags she pulled from the Land Rover.”

  “Sure. Come on in.” Alexa pushed away her instant of hesitation about inviting Reese in. She was certain that the things Haley had heard about Reese weren’t true. She believed this even though a quick Internet search the day after the conversation with her best friend confirmed that Reese had been accused of sexual assault. The news stories also said that the charges had been dropped. She wasn’t clear why she was so certain of Reese’s innocence, especially when she had been so wrong about Caleb. Perhaps she needed to believe that her judgment about men wasn’t totally screwed up.

  Scout was ecstatic to have both Alexa and Reese open the door. He smiled and wagged his entire body before he dashed outside.

  “You’re in luck. These bags contain way too much Chinese food for one person to eat. I hope you like emperor’s chicken and spring rolls.”

  “I didn’t mean to invite myself to dinner,” Reese demurred. “Mainly, I wanted to check on you. You didn’t sound yourself on Sunday.” As Alexa took several large cartons out of paper bags, he said, “But I do love Chinese food, and it looks like you’ve got enough here for four people.”

  “I couldn’t make up my mind, so I bought all three of my favorites. If you hadn’t shown up, I would be eating Chinese food for the rest of the week. Do you want something to drink?”

  Alexa brought Reese a beer and kicked off her shoes. She picked up the heels and said, “I need to change out of these work clothes. Can you let Scout into the house when he comes back?”

  Reese sat at the kitchen counter and began leafing through a Sierra Club magazine. When Alexa walked through the living room toward the stairs, she noticed the light blinking on the answering machine. Turning the volume to low, she pressed play. The first message came from a friend in New York City, asking Alexa to call so they could touch base. The second was the one she dreaded—another apology message from Caleb, asking her to give him a chance to explain. She erased Caleb’s message when it finished and walked upstairs to change into jeans, trying to shake off the negative energy that Caleb’s voice had unleashed in the house.

  By the time she came back downstairs, Alexa had shrugged off the message from Caleb. Her mood lightened even further when she saw Reese sitting in her kitchen. The tall ranger was engaged in a serious discussion with Scout that entailed major ear rubs. Together, she and Reese microwaved plates of food and brought them to the table. Between bites of spring rolls, spare ribs, chow mein, and emperor’s chicken, they tried to carry on a conversation.

  Reese had heard from the state police about the two guys approaching Alexa at the Garden Fresh. Somehow, in telling Reese about today’s news that her would-be attackers were actually Dickinson students working on a project, Alexa’s original terror in the parking lot morphed into a funny story. They were both cracking up by the time Alexa described the way she had launched the shopping cart toward the two guys and peeled rubber in the Land Rover.

  “I can see it in the morning paper now.” Reese drew his hand across an imaginary headline. “Local lawyer discovers new use for shopping carts. Pentagon investigates possible application as new weaponry system.”

  Alexa laughed. “How were the snow geese? I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you, but I felt lousy.” She self-consciously tugged at her right sweater sleeve to hide the bruise on her wrist.

  “The geese were beautiful. The lake looked like it was covered in snow. I understand that it’s fairly rare to see an entire flock touch down in this area. But that’s only partly why I’m here tonight. You said you were sick on Sunday, but I thought there was something else in your voice when I called. Then, I started thinking that I haven’t seen you for more than a week, not since we went to Florentine’s that night.” Reese’s clear blue eyes clouded with concern. In an unconscious gesture, he ran a hand through his thick brown hair. “It seemed like we were becoming good friends and I wanted to make sure that nothing was wrong. That I haven’t done something to upset you …”

  “Reese, you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just that my life has been really crazy. I’ve had a lot of things to deal with. Finding Elizabeth dead in the woods, threats at the clinic, Doc being shot, my pseudo assault in the parking lot. Plus, my workload in the office has been pretty full.” Alexa stopped short. One of the lessons learned from the Caleb mess was not to avoid the truth.

  “But … I’m not being completely honest,” she admitted. “I do have some questions for you. I heard that you are here in Michaux because you were transferred. That you were involved in a scandal out in the western part of the state … something involving sexual assault.”

  Reese hung his head. “I’m never going to get away from that. I should have told you instead of letting you find out from someone else. But, I liked you the minute I met you, and I was afraid that this albatross from my past would scare you off.”

  He put down his fork and sighed before continuing. “This is the straight story. When I was at Roaring Falls State Park, part of my job was to patrol the campgrounds. Every once in a while we would get a bunch of kids partying and bothering the other campers. Even though alcohol is not allowed in the campgrounds, we pretty much turn a blind eye if people are discreet. But when we get a crowd of teenagers or college kids who are openly drinking and creating a ruckus, we have to shut them down.

  “One night, I was on a routine patrol of the campgrounds. Several adults flagged me down about a group of high school kids camped at the end of the cul-de-sac. The adults complained that these kids were drunk and shouting obscenities. Of course, I had to deal with it. When I got to the teens’ campsite, ten kids sat around the campfire in front of three tents. They were singing loudly, clearly drunk. A few of them were dancing. When I pulled up, they didn’t seem to notice the car. I walked over to the campfire and identified myself in a loud voice. I actually had to shout before I finally got their attention.

  “Then, all hell broke loose. One of the guys yelled at the others to run, and they scattered into the woods. It was one of those incredibly stupid things people do when they’re drunk or high. They left their cars and their tents. They had no way out of the park, yet they all went charging into the dark woods.

  “I radioed for backup. What should have been a simple warning to these kids had turned into a major clusterfuck. Now we were going to have to track them down, charge them with disturbing the peace and underage drinking, and call their parents. We might even have to bring in the state police because of the drinking and drugs. Believe me; I was not happy about this.

  “While I was waiting for the other rangers to show, I surveyed the campsite. When I looked into the tents, there was a young girl lying in the third one. The screen door was partially unzipped, and when I shined my light through the opening, I could see that she was breathing. At first I thought she was sleeping, but then I realized that she was either faking it or under the influence. I spoke through the screen, ‘Miss. I’m Ranger Michaels with the park service. I need you to get up and come out. I’m going to back away and give you a chance to exit the tent.’ She was on top of one of the sleeping bags, fully dressed. I could tell she had heard me, even though she still pretended to sleep. I said, ‘I’ll give you one minute.’ I backed away and went on the check the last tent.

  “Maybe two or three minutes passed. I heard some shuffling in the tent but she still didn’t come out. I could hear some of the other park SUVs crossing the bridge at the entrance of the campground.

&nbs
p; “All of a sudden, the girl bursts out of the tent, screaming at the top of her lungs. She starts shouting, ‘Help. Don’t touch me. Help.’ Her clothes were a mess. Her blouse was ripped down the front, and she didn’t have any jeans on. People from the other campsites rushed in our direction when they heard her screaming. Just then, two of the other ranger vehicles pulled up.

  “When the other two rangers joined me, this girl started sobbing and pointed at me, ‘That man. He raped me.’

  “That was the beginning of a nightmare that lasted several months. The park service had to take the girl’s accusation seriously. They called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. They took me back to headquarters and called the state police. It took them most of the night to track down the rest of the kids from the campsite. Then, the police had to interview me, the first two rangers on the scene, and all of the campers nearby.

  “I kept telling them I was innocent. Truthfully, I think that everyone in the park service and even the state police believed me from the very start. I called in my position when I arrived at the campsite before I exited of the car. I called for help about five minutes later when the kids scattered. How plausible was it that I would come across this young girl and rape her in the short time it took the other rangers to reach the site—especially when I knew they were on the way?

  “But, she stuck by her story and the hospital rape exam showed that she had sexual intercourse and some vaginal bruising. They also found both alcohol and ecstasy in her system. This girl was the daughter of a big shot in Pittsburgh politics. So, the police were under a lot of pressure.

  “Finally, the DNA testing came back and confirmed that, while the girl might have had sex that night, it wasn’t with me. When they confronted her with the evidence, she finally broke down and admitted that she lied. She didn’t want her parents to know that she had been drinking, doing drugs, and having sex. She came up with the rape story on the spur of the moment. I guess she thought Mom and Dad would focus on the rape and ignore the fact that she had been at a wild camping party. It almost worked.