A Dime a Dozen

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “Good.”

  “Adriana doesn’t know anything’s going on yet, and Natalie said she wouldn’t turn on the TV or the radio until she heard back from us. Oh, Callie, is it really him?”

  “The shirt Luisa described is certainly the shirt that’s on the body.”

  “Danny said the body was mummified,” she whispered.

  “Yeah. Looks like it spent the winter in an apple storage room.”

  She looked dizzy, and I grabbed her arm for support.

  “Do you know how those rooms work?” she cried. “They caulk and bolt the door and then they start sucking out the oxygen. What if he died like that, Callie? What if he died by having the oxygen sucked out of him?”

  Before I could reply, a big van with giant letters on the side came barreling into the parking lot. Every conceivable spot was already taken, so the vehicle simply pulled onto the grass and parked near a mound of dirt. Moments later, several of the orchard workers came running around the corner, headed by Pete. He was yelling at the van driver, and from what I could tell, the man had driven right over some important new apple seedlings.

  Karen and I watched the entire exchange, including the repositioning of the van. Then the reporters and the camera crew all got out of the vehicle and headed for the center of the action.

  “We should probably go over there too, for Luisa’s sake,” I said. Beside me, I could feel Karen stiffen.

  “No,” she said. “I can’t.”

  I understood, thinking she was talking about not wanting to see the body. But then as Pete walked past, he saw us there in the parking lot and froze. His eyes met Karen’s. She stared back at him intently.

  Finally, after maybe ten full seconds, he changed course and came walking toward us.

  “Karen,” he said, his voice sounding strained.

  “Pete.”

  Feeling very self-conscious, I wished for a moment that I could simply evaporate into thin air.

  “How is he?” Karen asked, surprising me. How is he? He’s a mummy is how he is!

  “Not good,” Pete replied. “Not good at all. And now this…”

  The three of us stood there awkwardly, and I began to wonder what I was missing. These two obviously had a history of some sort. For a brief moment, the air was so thick with tension that I wondered if perhaps Pete was Karen’s ex-husband.

  “I’ll go check on Luisa,” I said finally, just wanting to get away.

  “No,” Pete and Karen both said simultaneously.

  “She’s with the police right now,” Pete said, turning to leave. “But I’ll go look in on her just to make sure.”

  “Take care,” Karen said to Pete.

  He looked at her, started to speak, and then he simply closed his mouth, shook his head, and walked away.

  “How do you know Pete?” I asked once he was gone.

  She didn’t answer but simply pursed her lips and shook her head. I waited a beat and then I told her I needed to be on my way.

  “Okay. See you,” she said vaguely. Then she walked over to her car and sat on the hood, staring off into the distance, her posture that of someone who has settled in to wait.

  Walking to my car, I couldn’t help but feel miffed. Karen was a bit reserved, but I thought the least she could do was answer an honest question.

  As I drove away, my mind turned to the sight of what was probably Enrique Morales, four months dead and shriveled up inside a bin filled with apples. Many people had misjudged the situation, picturing him as a deadbeat dad on the run. In fact, the only place Enrique had run was straight into the arms of death. Once the mummy’s identity was confirmed as him, then one question remained.

  Was it an accident, or was it murder?

  Twenty-Two

  Poor Harriet. By the time I finally drove out of Tinsdale Orchards, it was nearly 8:30 p.m., and I had no idea where she was or what she was doing. My best guess was that she was either at the Webbers’ house or at a hotel or a restaurant in town. Unfortunately, Greenbriar didn’t have a line dancing club, or I’d know to look for her there.

  Using an earpiece and my phone’s vocal commands, I called around and finally found her at the Webbers’ house. Natalie had just invited her to unpack her car and stay the night.

  “I’m so sorry!” I said. “You can’t imagine what’s been going on.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We know what’s been going on,” Harriet said. “We’ve all just been waiting to hear from you.”

  I told her to leave her things in the car and I would come there to lead her up the mountain to the cabin.

  “Up the mountain?” Harriet asked a little nervously. “It’s not too high, is it?”

  “Just a steady incline,” I said, knowing that in the dark she wouldn’t realize exactly how high we were.

  My cell phone battery was running low, so we hung up and I drove the rest of the way in silence. Despite not having done anything athletic today, I felt as though I had run a marathon. Every muscle ached and every joint throbbed. More than anything, I just wanted to get back to the cabin, get into my nightgown, and curl up on the couch with the telephone. Tom didn’t have any idea of what had been going on here, I realized guiltily. I needed to go back to square one and fill him in.

  Of course, once I got to the Webbers’, I had to give them a play-by-play of the entire afternoon. Adriana was engrossed in a video in the back bedroom, so we were free to talk. I explained the sequence of events from my point of view, and when I was done I suggested that they plan on having Luisa and her children spend the night there, since I had a feeling they would be in no condition to be on their own.

  “What about Pepe?” I asked. “Where is he?”

  “Dean and Ken are out looking for him,” Natalie said. “They’ve checked all of his usual hangouts, but so far they’ve come up with nothing.”

  “That kid has too much freedom for a fifteen-year-old,” I said.

  “Luisa’s been on her own, Callie,” Natalie replied. “I’m sure she’s doing the best she can.”

  By the time we left, I really felt as though I had just enough energy to drive to the cabin and crawl into the house. It started to drizzle halfway up the mountain, and I glanced in my rearview mirror to see Harriet’s windshield wipers springing to life.

  I flipped the switch for my own wipers, but after about 30 seconds, smoke suddenly started pouring out from under the hood! Blinker on, I drove to the narrow shoulder and Harriet pulled in behind me.

  “Is your car on fire?” she cried as she ran up to me in the rain.

  “I don’t know!” I said, debating whether or not I should try and get the hood open. I had seen one too many movies of exploding cars to be comfortable doing that.

  Finally, steeling my nerve, I ran to the front, felt for the latch, and got the hood up. Billows of smoke came rolling out into the night, and Harriet and I held on to each other as we stood a few feet away, wondering what to do now.

  “You shoulda rented a Mustang, like me,” Harriet said through the rain. “You’re always cutting corners, trying to economize, and now look where it’s gotten you.”

  Harriet screamed and jumped back as I stepped forward, ready to defend us. A man was standing beside the car, wearing only the bottoms of a pair of pajamas.

  “That’s my house there,” he said, pointing across the street.

  We looked to see a woman in a babydoll nightgown standing in the doorway. She gave us a small wave and Harriet waved back.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” the man continued. “I jes’ came out here to see what smelled so bad. I thought maybe my house was on fire.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s my car.”

  Now that he mentioned, it did smell bad!

  “Want me to take a look?” he asked. The rain was coming down harder, and we were getting soaked.

  “Do you know anything about cars?” I asked.

  “A little,” he said. By now most of the smoke had dissipated, and he leaned
down to look but almost immediately stood back up straight. “Don’t need to know much to figure out the problem here, though.”

  I stepped forward to see what he was talking about, and what I saw sent a chill down my spine. There, wired to the wiper motor, was the charred remains of something that looked very familiar.

  “Somebody’s playing a trick on you,” he said. “Look here. They had your windshield wipers rigged to ignite this thing when you turned ’em on.”

  “Is it a stink bomb?” I asked, swallowing hard.

  “Yep, that’d be my guess.” He stood up straight and called to the woman. “Hey, honey, what’d we hear about stink bombs in the news?”

  “At the church concert,” the woman called back. “Where that guy was killed.”

  “Oh, yeah,” the man said, and he began to tell us the story as it had been reported in the news. When he was finished, Harriet’s eyes were wide, but I wasn’t even listening. My cell phone was dead, and I asked Harriet if I could borrow hers.

  “Who are you calling?” she asked as she handed it to me.

  “The police,” I said. “I’m calling the police.”

  Twenty-Three

  I was glad that, in the end, the police didn’t impound my rental car. Not that it would’ve mattered, really, but it would’ve been an inconvenience. Instead, they took a few photos and filled out a report, and then, just before they left, I was glad to see June Sweetwater pull to a stop and get out of her car to make sure the situation was being handled properly.

  “From what I understand,” she said to me from under an umbrella, “this stink bomb could’ve been placed there either at the orchard or at the Webbers’ house?”

  “Those were the times the car was unattended this evening. But the windshield wipers kicked it off, and it hasn’t rained all week. How do I know it wasn’t set up long before now?”

  She asked me to think if I had turned on my wipers at any point since the stink bomb incident Sunday night. I closed my eyes and thought hard and finally decided that I was fairly certain I had used them for at least a few swipes this morning, when the windshield fogged up just a bit as the car was first warming up.

  “All right, then,” June said, patting me on the shoulder. “You be careful. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but I think this was a message, loud and clear.”

  “Oh, I know it was,” I said, my chin set. “But guess what? They sent that message to the wrong person.”

  When I finally reached the cabin and pulled into the driveway, I thought I could very well put my head down on the steering wheel and go to sleep right there. As Harriet pulled in next to me, I decided she wasn’t looking much better, as her trademark pile of red curls was now sitting in a big damp wad on her head.

  As I climbed from the car, I thought that the very first thing on my agenda in the morning was going to be getting down to the lake and out in a canoe. I didn’t care how much work I needed to do or who or what was depending on me. If I didn’t hit some open water and paddle out some of this tension, I thought I might explode!

  Harriet said she needed a few minutes to pull her stuff together, so while she sorted through the luggage in her car, I climbed up the front steps in the dark, wishing I had thought to leave the porch light on. It wasn’t until I was flipping through my keychain looking for the door key that I realized someone was already on the porch.

  A sound, almost like a snort, came up from the other end. Bear! was my first thought, but then I realized it sounded more human than animal. Ears prickling, I could hear someone breathing, heavy and even.

  Instinctively, I stepped in the other direction, toward the mound of firewood stacked next to the front door. I looked out toward Harriet, but she was oblivious, still rooting through her things, bent over to work in the circle of light from her trunk.

  Silently, I slipped my keys in my pocket, grabbed a piece of firewood off the top of the pile, and held it in my hands like a baseball bat.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I decided that I could just make out the shape of a person at the far end of the porch.

  “Who’s there?” I demanded loudly, taking one step forward. There was a rustle of noise from that end, then silence.

  “What’d you say?” Harriet called.

  My heart pounding, I didn’t answer her, and again I thought of a bear. I knew I could take on a person, but a wild animal? No way! If that were the case, then my only hope was to either get into the house or down the front steps and back inside my car. More importantly, somehow I had to warn Harriet.

  “Did you say something to me?” she asked again, clattering up the walk with a suitcase in each hand.

  Suddenly, the figure on the porch sprung to life. With a great snort, it jumped up and knocked a rocking chair toward me.

  “Run, Harriet!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Call nine one one!”

  “Aaargh!” Harriet screamed, dropping her bags and running to her car.

  “What is it? What is it?” a voice cried. “Who is that?”

  The figure froze, and I strengthened my grip on the wood.

  “What do you want?” I demanded.

  “Mrs. Webber?” a boy’s voice echoed across the black porch.

  “Who is it?” I demanded.

  “Pepe Morales. It’s me, Pepe.”

  Heart pounding so loudly I was sure he could hear it, I lowered the wood as I realized the figure on my porch wasn’t a bear after all.

  It was, in fact, my new young friend, Pepe.

  “What are you doing here?” I said weakly.

  “I…I needed to talk to someone,” he said. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “Why did you scare me like that?”

  “You scared me. I must’ve fallen asleep waiting for you.”

  He stepped closer, and I could see that it was, indeed, him. I blew out the breath I had been holding.

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  “I heard what was going on, so I caught a ride with someone to the orchard,” he said. “But then when I saw…when I saw all the cops and people and everything, I freaked.”

  “Oh, Pepe.”

  “I remembered where you said you were staying and all, so I walked here.”

  I shook my head, trying to picture this boy running uphill, away from the confusion of the orchard. No wonder he had fallen asleep—he must be exhausted!

  “Excuse me one minute,” I said, setting down the wood and then rushing down the steps to Harriet’s car. She was sitting inside, locked up tight, the phone to her ear. I convinced her to roll down the window, which she did just a crack.

  “False alarm,” I said. “It’s a friend of mine. Tell the police we’re okay after all.”

  She shut the window, spoke a bit longer into the phone, and then hung up.

  “I don’t know why,” she said, getting out of the car, “I ever let you talk me into doing anything. I like my life calm. I like my life simple. But it seems like every single time—”

  I cut her off by placing my hand on her forearm.

  “It’s Pepe Morales,” I said softly. “Luisa’s son.”

  While Harriet shut up and hung back, I went up the steps to find the boy and gave him a hug. I was afraid he might resist, but instead he gripped me tightly, and I was surprised to find that his body was shivering.

  “Let’s get you inside,” I said. “Then you can tell me what’s going on.”

  In the house, under the light, I got a better look at Pepe. His black hair was a tangled mess, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  Before we even spoke, I brought him a blanket and wrapped it around him and sat him on the couch. Harriet asked if he was hungry and he nodded, so she set about making some chicken noodle soup and hot tea as she familiarized herself with my kitchen. I told Pepe I needed to change into dry clothes but I would be right back. Once I was in the bedroom with the door closed, I called Natalie and told her he was here, but n
ot to come for him yet.

  “Oh, thank you for calling, Callie,” she said. “I was really starting to worry.”

  “I’ll call back when he’s ready to go home,” I said.

  After hanging up, I changed into sweatpants, sweatshirt, and some very warm socks. When I came back out, I told Harriet she should do the same.

  “Your room is at the top of the stairs,” I said. “Please, just make yourself at home.”

  “Soon as I get the boy something warm to eat,” she said, and suddenly I felt a surge of relief and happiness that she was here with me. Sometimes I got so tired of being alone, of handling crises all by myself!

  I found Pepe where I had left him, curled in blankets on the couch, only now I saw that he had fallen asleep again. Lying like that, his head tilted down on the arm rest, he looked so young, so innocent. I closed my eyes and prayed that God would fill me with the wisdom and good counsel that the boy would need.

  To that end, I retrieved my Bible and began looking for verses about death and eternal life—not that I planned to preach at him, but I thought I might find a verse or two that could give him some hope and comfort now that he knew his father was dead. Harriet put a bowl of soup and a cup of tea on the table, adding some crackers on a side plate. Then she picked up her bags from near the door and carried them up the stairs.

  “Swanky,” she whispered to me from the top of the stairs.

  “Thanks,” I whispered back.

  I could hear her moving around, probably unpacking her bags and changing into dry clothes. She and I still hadn’t had a chance to talk, so I was glad when she finally came back down the stairs, dressed in a nightgown, housecoat, and a pair of purple fuzzy slippers.

  “What a cute place this is, Callie,” Harriet whispered, smiling. “You kept calling it your little cabin, but it’s really spacious and quite comfortable.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is he still asleep?” she whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Poor kid. I used to fall asleep when I was upset too. My mother thought it was the strangest thing. I got lost once in a department store, and I finally went to sleep under a clothing rack. That’s where they finally found me, hours later!”