Jacob's Ladder

by Jackie Lynn

  “Yeah, I know this is it. I remember the parking lot,” she told them. Then she thought for a second.

  Rose was trying to imagine possible scenarios. “Maybe they just stopped here and had somebody pick them up.”

  One of the police officers from Henryetta twirled a toothpick in his mouth, sliding it from side to side. He was tall, skinny, and had acted perturbed the whole time they had been at the motel. He turned to Rose, raising an eyebrow. He folded his arms across his chest, relaxing his stance. “You sure you didn’t drive that camper to Henryetta yourself?” he asked, his voice smacking of contempt.

  Rose felt her face redden. Of course that’s what the two lawmen from Henryetta would think. The one who asked the question was grinning at her like he had caught her in a lie and the other one, appearing somewhat bored with the entire situation, had returned to his car.

  That’s what the patrolmen from Checotah must think, too, she realized as they walked away from the conversation, whispering to themselves. And when she turned to Sheriff Montgomery, his eyes quickly darted away from hers and his head jerked toward the interstate. She knew that he thought the same thing, too. His lack of support was devastating.

  A deputy from West Memphis was dispatched to pick up the rig from the Highway Patrol office in Oklahoma. They still needed it for the murder investigation. He was already on his way when Sheriff Montgomery and Rose left for home.

  Before they got ready to leave, she thought about the ladder, considered telling the sheriff or the Highway Patrol officers about it before they departed, about the impersonating officer who seemed to know of it. But she was so troubled about being disbelieved, so hurt by the way Sheriff Montgomery had turned away from her, she offered no further comments. She could not bring herself to introduce anything else to the group of men assigned to sort through her adventure.

  She sat in the passenger’s seat of the sheriff’s car and did not speak a word as they drove away. She stared out the window at the sights they sped past, counted the exits, and, only to herself, named the birds that rested on fence posts and darted across the golden fields beside the interstate. She rode along silently, not knowing anything to say.

  Finally, once they crossed into Arkansas, the sheriff made an attempt at conversation. “You get anything to eat today?” he asked.

  Rose was hungry, but she didn’t want to make the trip to West Memphis any longer than it had to be.

  “I had something this morning,” she told him, noticing the clock on the dashboard. It was after 3:00 P.M. Neither of them had eaten lunch.

  “There’s a place up the road in Russellville,” he replied. “Burgers mostly, but it’s not bad.”

  Rose made no response.

  They drove a few more miles. He turned off the exit and into the parking lot of a diner. It was empty except for only a couple of vehicles. Staff, Rose assumed. They got out of the car and went in.

  It wasn’t until they sat down in a booth, had given their orders, and were facing each other with uncomfortable looks that Rose took the bracelet cut of her pocket and placed it on the table between them.

  “That’s why I was at the camper,” she suddenly confessed, pushing the bracelet toward the sheriff. “I found it yesterday morning after I realized the man was dead. It was out in the grass, next to his truck.”

  The sheriff picked up the piece of jewelry and turned it over in his hands.

  The waitress arrived with their drinks and Rose waited until the woman had gone before continuing.

  “I don’t know why I kept it,” she said. “I just did. I took it to the library after I left your office, tried to figure out what the symbols are; then I was going to take it back and drop it off in the grass again, where I found it to begin with.”

  The sheriff had pulled his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and was studying it. He still did not respond.

  “I waited until late, about midnight, to return it. And that’s why I was there,” she said.

  Sheriff Montgomery looked up at Rose, peering at her over his glasses. There was a long pause.

  “I didn’t steal the camper and drive it to Oklahoma,” she said. She was weary of the silence. “It’s like I told you on the phone, I heard the men come up from the river and I hid inside. I had no idea what they were going to do. Then they pulled out.”

  She wiped her hands on the tops of her legs. “I hid in the storage compartment and then I fell asleep.”

  A couple of men walked into the diner and Rose glanced up before going on. They sat down at a booth on the other side of the room. She thought nothing of it.

  “When I woke up, we were no longer moving, and the men were gone. That’s when I found the extra keys and drove away.” She took a swallow of her drink.

  She waited for the sheriff to say something.

  “I didn’t make it up,” she said. “I didn’t steal the camper and drive to Oklahoma.”

  The waitress brought over their food. Sheriff Montgomery slid the bracelet off the table and held it in his lap. They both said that everything looked fine when they were asked about their orders, then waited until she left again.

  “Why didn’t you show me this before?” he finally asked, referring to the bracelet. He took off his glasses and stuck them in his pocket.

  Rose reached for the salt and added some to her french fries. She shrugged her shoulders like a teenager in trouble, then took a bite.

  “I don’t know,” she said truthfully, her mouth full of food.

  Sheriff Montgomery slipped the bracelet in with his glasses and began eating his lunch.

  Rose waited for him to ask another question, but he didn’t say anything else until he had finished eating his hamburger. Then he drank all of his soda and wiped his mouth.

  “I don’t think you stole the camper,” he finally said.

  Rose turned away. She was still eating her food. She noticed one of the two men in the booth sitting across from her peer in her direction. For a moment, she thought there was something familiar about him, but she quickly turned to face the sheriff.

  “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” he asked.

  “There was a secret area,” she said, sliding her plate away from her, having eaten all she wanted. “Someone modified the storage compartment under the bed, made a fake wall and a hidden area in the rear.”

  The sheriff was listening closely.

  “I fell through the fake wall,” she reported.

  The waitress returned to the table and cleared away the plates. Neither of them wanted dessert, so she left the bill with Sheriff Montgomery.

  “I didn’t think anything about it at first, but later, when the first officer who wasn’t really an officer—” She stopped abruptly, wondering if she needed to explain, but then realized by the nod of his head that the sheriff knew about the impersonator.

  “When he asked me if I had found anything odd inside the camper, I mentioned the ladder.” Rose took a drink of water. “Well, now I think that may be what the killers were after in the first place.”

  Sheriff Montgomery appeared puzzled. “A hidden compartment?” he asked, not sure of what she meant.

  “No, the ladder.” She waited. “That’s what was in the hidden compartment. I fell on it,” she added.

  “The man from New Mexico had made a special compartment, hidden under his bed, for a ladder?” he asked, considering this new information.

  Rose nodded and then shrugged her shoulders again. “I know, it seems weird to me, too. And I never really saw it. It was dark when I was on top of it, and when I went inside to get it for the officer who wasn’t really an officer, I still couldn’t see anything then, either.”

  Sheriff Montgomery seemed to be deliberating about what Rose was saying. He pulled out the bracelet and then put on his reading glasses, studying it again. He rolled it around in his hands and then he pointed to one of the signs. It was one that Rose hadn’t been able to identify, but as he turned and showed it to her, she r
ecognized what he had discovered. The symbol with the two parallel lines with small intersecting lines between them was a ladder. She was surprised she hadn’t realize this at first.

  “This one is a river.” He pointed out three wavy lines. “And this one is the sign for death.” Sheriff Montgomery showed Rose the one that was a darkened square.

  She nodded. She had found that one in the book at the library.

  “I think this one has to do with talking to spirits, and if I remember my petroglyphs,” he said, holding the jewelry very close to his eyes, “this one stands for evil.”

  Rose noticed the one he was referring to. It was a circle, half darkened, half decorated with small dots. She hadn’t known that one, either. She knew the symbol for the kiva and the one for the sun.

  Sheriff Montgomery was still studying the bracelet when the man from the other booth, the one who had been sitting on the side facing Rose, walked by them. He glimpsed down and Rose saw that he noticed the jewelry that the sheriff was handling.

  The man headed in the direction of the rest rooms. Rose felt a strange sensation when he passed her, as if she had seen him before. She suddenly became anxious.

  “Let’s go home,” she said to Sheriff Montgomery, getting up from her seat. Since she had already been wrong about so many things, she didn’t want to say anything about her suspicion of the man. She also, however, didn’t want to hang around.

  “Okay, but I need to use the facilities,” he replied, placing the bracelet back in his pocket.

  Rose sat down again, trying to tell herself that she was just being oversensitive. She watched as the sheriff went to the rest room, following the man who had just walked by.

  She waited a few minutes, growing more and more nervous, wondering what was happening in the men’s rest room. Finally, just before she was about to go and knock on the door where she knew they both were, the sheriff returned.

  “Okay, to West Memphis,” he said, patting himself on the belly and walking toward the register to pay the bill.

  Rose peered behind them in the direction from which the sheriff had come. There was no one following him, and when she turned back to the booth where the two men had been sitting, it was completely empty.

  After the sheriff paid the bill, she followed him out the door and got into the car.

  EIGHTEEN

  “I heard about your ex-husband,” Sheriff Montgomery said as they pulled out of the parking lot.

  Rose was searching all around, trying to find the two men who had come into the diner after they had. There was no sign of them anywhere. They weren’t in the parking lot or anywhere on the road. She knew she would recognize only the one who had walked past them, and even then, she wasn’t completely sure she’d gotten a good look at him.

  “How did you find out about that?” she asked, wondering how the story about her ex-husband’s visit had gotten around town so fast.

  “Mary,” he said.

  He made the turn down the ramp, heading east on the interstate. He merged into the right lane.

  “I called the campground office before I left this morning. I thought they might be worried about you when you didn’t show up for work.”

  Rose nodded. She was glad that he had thought of that. She knew that they would have been concerned when she didn’t appear at the office for her shift. They would have searched her camper, bothered all the guests about her whereabouts. She considered the sheriff’s action to be a very generous one.

  “She said that you were pretty upset about him coming to find you.” He turned to peer at Rose, as if he was searching for something.

  She didn’t really understand what he was getting at.

  “Yeah, well, it was a shock,” she replied, remembering how unsettled she had been only twenty-four hours earlier. She had forgotten all that had happened at Shady Grove once she had been hijacked to Oklahoma.

  Then once she answered with those words, she recognized the sheriff’s line of questioning. “So, you think that’s it?” she asked, surprised and angry that he had made such assumptions about her, especially after the confession she had given at the diner. “You think I was upset because Rip showed up? You think I was somehow distraught in such a way that I waited until midnight and then stole a dead man’s camper?”

  The sheriff drove along carefully in the traffic. He started to excuse his behavior and then admitted she was right.

  “Yes, once we left Henryetta, at first,” he replied. “When there was no evidence of anybody at the motel, yes, that’s what I thought.”

  Rose turned away. She suddenly regretted having given him the bracelet.

  “But I don’t think that now,” he said, trying to soothe things between them. “I think you’re telling the truth,” he added, his voice somewhat apologetic.

  Rose hesitated before speaking. She realized he was trying to make amends. And yet, n spite of his intentions, she wasn’t quite ready to forgive him.

  The interstate was getting more crowded with cars. It was growing late, and as they got closer to the state capital, it was obvious that lots of people were going home from work. She watched the cars pass, thinking about where they would be returning. She wondered how many of them were happy to be going home and how many of them were dissatisfied with their lives.

  “What did he want?” the sheriff asked. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking,” he added.

  Rose remembered the conversation with Rip. She didn’t really have any reason not to tell anybody, although she realized she hadn’t mentioned their conversation to Mary or Ms. Lou Ellen after he left. Once she thought about it, she figured the lawman would find out anyway. “He came to tell me my father is dying and that I should go home to see him.”

  The sheriff didn’t respond. It was clearly a more intimate subject than he’d expected. He suddenly seemed uncomfortable.

  “You have any children?” she asked. Now that she had been pressured to share all of her secrets with the sheriff, she felt like talking, and since he was asking personal questions, she thought she was entitled, as well. She was, after all, curious about the sheriff from West Memphis, Arkansas.

  He shook his head and turned to look out his window.

  “I was married once,” he said.

  “Yeah? She get tired of your line of work and leave you for a banker?” She meant it to be funny.

  “No. Actually, he was a traveling salesman,” the sheriff responded, leaving Rose feeling slightly embarrassed. “I guess she liked what he was selling,” he added, not appearing angry about her implication.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said. “I didn’t know,” she added, trying to make up for her insensitive remark.

  “It’s okay,” he replied. “It was a long time ago.” He turned to Rose, who was facing him. “I wasn’t a great husband,” he confessed. “I had it coming.”

  Rose didn’t know what else to say. Now she was the one who was suddenly uncomfortable with her questions and his answers.

  “So, you got divorced?” he asked.

  Rose nodded. “Yep, he wasn’t such a great husband, either,” she noted. “And I didn’t leave for a traveling salesman; he left me.”

  They drove along in traffic.

  “But it’s for the best,” she continued. “The truth is, we weren’t really a good match.” She thought about what she was saying. “It’s funny what you think will make you happy when you’re young, what you think you’ve got to have.”

  The sheriff appeared to consider what Rose was saying. He smiled and nodded.

  “I married Rip to get away from my father,” Rose explained. “That and the fact that I thought nobody else would ever ask me.”

  “I guess most people get married for a few wrong reasons,” he said as he wove in and out of the cars around them. “Fear, selfishness, boredom. But in the end, you just hope the right reason will win out.”

  Rose thought about this, remembering how she had felt when she got married, how glad she was to be on her own, sta
rting her own family, disconnecting herself from the one she had been raised in. She thought about Rip, how good-looking he was, how fortunate she’d felt at the time that he had picked her. She knew she had married him for some desperate reasons, but she also knew that she loved him. Even though she hadn’t really known what it meant at the time, she understood, years later, that in the only way she knew how, she loved him.

  “You never married again?” she asked, feeling a bit relieved of the anger and disappointment she had felt earlier in the drive.

  The sheriff shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I’m way too ornery now. Too much negotiating in a marriage. I’m afraid I lost those skills when I picked this line of duty.”

  Rose laughed.

  “You, on the other hand, seemed to have recovered,” he observed. “What’s the status with you and Mr. Sawyer these days?”

  “You’re a little more than nosy, don’t you think?” she said, only teasing. “It’s uncomplicated. And for now, that’s more than enough.”

  The sheriff nodded as if he understood.

  They drove a bit farther without conversation, both of them glad for what had emerged between them. Rose realized that she hadn’t been completely fair with him, that once given the opportunity, the sheriff of West Memphis was actually a decent guy.

  They headed out of Little Rock and the evening commute and drove eastward into Prairie County. The sun was low in the sky and the sheriff reached up and turned up the heat.

  “Did you get in trouble with the FBI?” Rose asked, grateful for the warmth. She remembered the phone call Mary had received. She also remembered that the agent was supposed to have come by the campground earlier that day.

  “Why would I be in trouble with the FBI?” he asked.

  “The guy who called said he was going to inspect the camper this morning. He called Shady Grove to tell Mary.”

  “I don’t know anything about the Bureau being involved in this,” he said.

  Rose noticed that Sheriff Montgomery kept watching out his rearview mirror. She turned around in her seat to see behind the car.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, not noticing anything peculiar. There were a few cars traveling behind them.