Silent Protector

by Barbara Phinney

  Liz turned away. Ian had this under control. She’d tell him later that Leo was one of the men on the trail last night. But first, she needed to see Charlie.

  The clinic door was wide open, and inside Charlie sat on the exam table, the same one she’d rested on after her ordeal two days ago. Some bloodied gauzes lay on the tray set on a nearby table. The smell of antiseptic clung to the hot air. She felt her heart plummet, her stomach flip. She knew that scalp wounds bleed like crazy, but a child’s, one in her own care, changed the rules of emotion drastically.

  In front of Charlie stood Elsie, pressing a wet cloth to his forehead. “What happened?” Liz croaked out.

  Elsie calmly removed the cloth, revealing a nasty gouge at his hairline. Liz approached, feeling the dread increase. Blood had been wiped from Charlie’s face, but a few smears remained around the little boy’s pug nose.

  “Is he okay?”

  “It’s not so bad. We’ve just had a good scare. And we’ve already prayed about it.”

  “Thank you.” She peered at Charlie, then sat up on the table to wrap her arms around him. “Leo says you were in here, crying. Why were you in here?”

  Charlie looked down and shifted closer to Liz.

  “He hasn’t said a word.” Elsie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s my fault, Liz. We were making a snack when Charlie said he saw that crazy bird, Joseph, and wanted to throw it some more crumbs. I let him. I shouldn’t have, but the bird was sitting right on my deck again. He followed it here.” She paused, as if wanting to add something but wasn’t sure.

  “It’s all right, Elsie,” Liz told her, reaching out to the woman with her free arm. “Look at the floor. There are some bird droppings in here. I think Joseph roosted in here a while. And the only way that could have happened is if this place had been broken into before Charlie left the house.” She looked down at the boy clinging to her. “Is that what happened, sweetie? You can tell us.”

  Charlie, with eyes tightly shut, refused to answer.

  Back to square one, except worse, now, she thought. The boy wouldn’t even talk to her. Was this some kind of posttraumatic stress symptom? She took in the vandalized clinic. Besides the evidence that a large bird had roosted the night away in here, there were supplies scattered about.

  Elsie moved forward. “When I found Charlie here, Leo had just arrived.” She looked over her shoulder then back again. “Charlie must have cut himself on that cabinet door,” Elsie said, finishing up with the bandage. “It swings outward fairly easily, and its corner is sharp.” She sighed as she looked around at the mess. “It must have hit him when he was trying to catch Joseph.”

  “And then he cried for help,” Liz finished. “Is that what happened, Charlie? Is that when Leo heard you?”

  “Don’t ask him leading questions, Liz,” Ian said from the doorway. “Let him tell you first.”

  She scowled at Ian, but he carried on, “My office has been broken into, also. It doesn’t look like anything is missing. But I can’t say for sure until I do a thorough search.”

  “The clinic and the office,” Leo muttered as he appeared beside Ian. “Probably kids vandalizing more than anything else.”

  “Maybe,” Ian answered, looking over his shoulder. “But I can see the kitchen from here, and nothing is messed up there. The kitchen would have been a target for sure, if teens were involved. They know there’s food and cold drinks there. But look, it’s as neat as a pin.”

  “Not if they were in a hurry,” Leo countered. Liz watched him. His cuts were cleaned up, but she could see that his nails were dirty. He may have washed his hands when he’d administered self first aid, but he hadn’t cleaned under his fingernails. Even from this distance, she could see thick brown dirt under them.

  Pulling together her bravery, Liz asked, “Leo, you were on the trail last night. Did you see anyone or anything around this center?”

  Leo’s face scrunched into a dark frown. “No one.”

  After shooting Liz a sharp glance, Ian asked, “What were you doing on the trail?”

  “Coming home from work. Like I said, we’re trying to get things secure before the storm. And the shifts are split now because of the heat.”

  That made sense, Liz thought. Hot countries all over the world took a break in the middle of the day. It can’t be fun working in the early afternoon outside. Not in July, anyway.

  Ian nodded before resuming his questions. “Leo,” he began, “it’s not quite lunch yet, but you said you were coming home for lunch. Did you take the trail or the road?”

  Leo didn’t look up. “The trail. I always take the trail. It cuts off at least fifteen minutes. You know that.”

  “You don’t take your lunch with you?”

  Leo hesitated. “Um, not always.”

  “Who was on the trail with you last night?” Ian asked. “Liz said there was another man there.”

  Leo threw her a scrutinizing look. Liz tipped her head down on the pretense of comforting Charlie. “It was Mr. Vincenti,” the man answered.

  The man who was building the resort. The man who was financing “The Shepherd’s Smile.” In one sense, he was Ian’s boss, too. She glanced over at Ian to catch his reaction.

  There wasn’t any she could see. “Did he say why he was on the trail?” he asked.

  Liz peeked up at Leo’s expression. The man shrugged his shoulders. “He walked a bit with me when I was coming home. He didn’t say why he was there, and it ain’t my place to ask him.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “He talked about the village and the resort.” Leo’s mouth twisted, and Liz thought she saw his eyes roll slightly. “The guy wants as little impact on the environment as possible. He’s hired you, he says, to help this village.”

  With his derisive words, the man shifted his eyes away. Elsie had mentioned Leo after the fire, saying that he wasn’t a believer. Did Leo think that hiring Ian was a waste of money?

  The gestures and body language she’d witnessed last night didn’t quite mesh with Leo’s report. Unless he was blasted and cut down a notch by the boss for some reason.

  Behind the men, in the doorway, Leo’s wife appeared. “What’s wrong?” she asked no one in particular, taking in the whole scene with wide eyes.

  “Charlie just bumped himself, that’s all,” Liz said, meeting the woman’s shocked stare.

  “We’ve had a break-in sometime in the night,” Ian answered.

  The woman swallowed and threw a fast glance at her husband.

  “There, all done,” Elsie said, patting Charlie’s hand. “Does it hurt now?”

  Charlie snuggled closer to Liz, prompting her to ask him the question herself and worry about what they’d say to Monica later. “Does it hurt, Charlie? Does any other place on you hurt?”

  Tightening his lips, Charlie refused to answer. Liz bit her lip. This wasn’t good. She didn’t want to pressure Charlie into identifying who had killed his father, but she knew she’d have to pressure him to tell them where it might hurt.

  Another thought struck her. If and when he did give a statement, a good lawyer might get wind of this latest refusal to speak and use it against those trying to bring Jerry’s killer to justice.

  No, don’t leap ahead, she told herself. One step at a time.

  “Liz?”

  She looked up into Elsie’s eyes as the woman spoke. “I’ll take Charlie back home. And he won’t be allowed to go outside this time.” Elsie gave her a solemn shake of her head. “I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight. I’m so sorry.”

  “I followed Joseph,” Charlie’s tiny voice whispered. “He flew in here.”

  Liz set him to her right and peered hard at him. Charlie looked nervously around at the group. Liz glanced up at Ian, noting, she was sure, his look of relief that the boy was still willing to talk.

  “Joseph came in here, and I…hit my head on that door.” Charlie pointed to the cabinet door. “Mr. Callahan found me and scared me, that�
��s all.”

  “Why did he scare you?” Ian asked. “Was he in here, too?”

  “He came in and closed the door. But Elsie came and got me.” Charlie looked at Liz. “I shouldn’t have chased Joseph. I’m good at doin’ what I’m told, Auntie Liz. You’re not going to leave me alone cuz I took off, are you?”

  Liz looked over at Ian but found him swimming in her unshed tears. When she looked back at Charlie, she forced a smile onto her face. “I’m not going to leave you alone. But you misbehaved, and we’ll discuss the punishment later, okay? You shouldn’t go off without telling someone where you’re going.”

  Charlie nodded. “But I had to when Dad was sleeping. He said I was allowed to.”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “Really?”

  “Yes. I would take money and give it to friends of Dad’s, even late at night. I could even spend his money, Dad said. Just not the big bills he kept in the globe you bought me. Only the little ones and the change, so I could go to McDonald’s to eat. And Dad said I wasn’t allowed to talk to strangers, like you said, ’specially if they asked where I got the money.”

  Liz listened, dumbstruck. “Your father said that?”

  Charlie nodded. “And I wouldn’t talk to anyone ’cept the guy at the counter. He would give me extra ketchup that I could eat later. I wouldn’t talk, just like you always told me to. But I won’t run away again, Auntie Liz! It hurt this time.”

  It hurt her, too. She tightened her lips to stop a sob from slipping out. Her own words, the ones she’d hoped would protect Charlie, were used by Jerry to keep his illegal activities a secret.

  “Come on, Charlie,” Elsie said firmly, taking his hand and tugging him gently. He jumped to the floor. “We need to let these people deal with this mess.” With a promising nod to Liz, she took the boy out of the clinic.

  “Leo’s gone,” Ian commented. “So is Jen.”

  Liz peered out past the broken door. “Leo was lying about last night. I’m sure of it.”

  Ian stalked out of the clinic and began to study the door. His focus wasn’t there, she could tell. He probably had a million things going through his mind. He had a village to minister to, a program to get off the ground and a storm coming.

  “I heard Elsie say that she found Leo here with Charlie.”

  “So he may have broken in here?” She came up beside him. “We should call the police. As for Monica, we’ll find her again. We’ll talk to her about pushing me down and such. I don’t think she’s ready to take off.”

  Ian nodded absently. “I suppose so. I should call the resort. Part of the program that the Vincentis are offering includes emergency security.”

  She watched him work his jaw. “That isn’t comforting you, is it?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “With a storm coming, threatening damage to the resort, and this kind of expensive vandalism, they may rescind funding.”

  “Would they do that after hiring you and making so many promises?”

  “If the storm destroys too much, yes. If vandalism gets worse, they may, too. I know they’re faithful Christians, but there has to be a breaking point. I just hope that this isn’t it.” He straightened as if shaking off his thoughts. “There’s a list of the clinic’s supplies in that desk. Why don’t you start the inventory while I call the police and the resort? And when this is all over, we’ll go back and continue our search, okay? Unless you want to find Monica?”

  “No, we need to get the clinic in order. Monica isn’t going anywhere. We’ll find her later.” She found the list of supplies that the nurse kept on hand and compared it to what was scattered about. It appeared that there were a number of basic items missing. Gauze, bandages, antibiotics, painkillers, and some bottles of stuff she couldn’t pronounce.

  She could hear Ian talking on his phone out in the hall—first to the police, then the resort and finally an insurance company.

  They finished securing the rec center, just as the security guard arrived. The police were on their way from Northglade, but it would be a while. There was nothing they could do except wait—something Ian wasn’t that good at doing, she could see from his pacing.

  After a few minutes of briefing the security guard, he said to her, “We have time to follow that trail again. Feel up to it?”

  “Of course,” she answered, surveying the door. “I want answers, too.”

  “After what happened to you there, with Monica, it’s okay if you don’t want to go back. In fact, if you want to charge Monica—”

  “No. At least not yet. It was a scuffle, that’s all. We were both upset, and I’d rather focus on Charlie. I won’t fail him again. But we do need to talk to her. I want answers, and I think we’ll get them faster if we promise we won’t charge her.”

  “Charlie should be giving a statement, Liz. It’s more important now, and it won’t hurt him.” He watched her expression cloud, then added, “You realize that by not allowing Charlie to be questioned and by telling him he shouldn’t talk to strangers that you’ve done exactly what your brother-in-law wanted and what William Smith and the cartel would like.”

  She glared at him. “No, it’s not like that!”

  “Jerry told Charlie not to talk to strangers, too, and you reinforced that. We know his reasons were criminal, but Charlie doesn’t know that. By reinforcing what Jerry said, you’re making it progressively harder for Charlie to talk. And it will be easier for the defense to successfully throw out his testimony.”

  He was right. And worse, by preventing Charlie from talking, he could easily never tell what happened, stating that it was too traumatic. If Smith was allowed to go free, many people could be hurt with the drugs he continued to sell.

  But Smith would never allow Charlie to live, Ian had said. Was it too late?

  Dejected and worried, Liz followed Ian to the back door. They left the guard promising to call them as soon as the police arrived, and Ian then detoured through the kitchen, grabbing a couple of juice boxes and granola bars for them.

  As they ate them, they trekked back to where they were when Elsie called. There, Ian spotted the large mass he’d seen through his night vision goggles. “Look.”

  It was a car. Liz felt her heart leap into her throat. She pulled in a sharp breath as she grabbed Ian. “That’s it! That’s the car that ran me off the road.”

  FOURTEEN

  Liz felt her mouth go suddenly dry. When they were back at the center, she’d taken the time to have a tall drink of water, but now, it felt as though she hadn’t drank a drop of it.

  Gingerly, she took a step closer, still clinging to Ian. She reached out her free hand and whispered, “I’m sure this is the car that ran me off the road.”

  As her hand closed in on the hood of the small SUV, Ian stretched out his to pull it back. “Let’s not leave any fingerprints, okay?”

  She drew back, nodding. Then, with Ian beside her, she walked slowly around it. Someone had rammed it nose first into the heavy brush. She could see the tracks it had made. The road, the one from the causeway to the village, could be seen ahead between the trees. Crushed ferns and other plants showed the tracks.

  They stopped at the passenger door. “Wow, this was it, all right,” Ian murmured.

  Liz nodded. The whole side was scraped and dented. The passenger mirror dangled crookedly, with a spiderweb of cracks in its reflective surface. The blue paint of the vehicle had been scraped down to the shiny bare metal, and in spots, Liz could easily see the remnants of her rental’s paint. Red scratches and flecks stained both mirror casing and side door.

  Slowly, Ian walked around the whole vehicle, stopping at the driver’s side door. He took out his phone and dialed. Thirty seconds later, he was reeling off the vehicle identification number, followed by the license plate number.

  Liz tried to peer inside, but the windows were dark. Getting as close as she dared without touching it, she could finally see through the tinted windows. The interior resembled the car she’d driven into the water.
Clean, impersonal, nothing out of the ordinary. “I bet this thing is a rental, too.”

  After covering his hand with his shirt, Ian tried the driver’s door, but it was locked. He walked, trying the other doors, but they, too, were secure.

  “So, whoever drove this vehicle in here may still be around.” Liz stated the obvious. “We have four crimes, Ian. Running me off the road, setting fire to the Callahan house, breaking into the clinic, and me being attacked.”

  “Five, if you include the poisonous snake dumped into your bag.”

  “Other than the attacks on me, they all seem so random, so totally separate. But let’s face it. They have to be related.”

  “It would seem like a pretty big coincidence if they weren’t,” he answered.

  “Well, the guy who drove this isn’t here. Let’s see if we can’t find out where he went.”

  Ian looked up at her. “More skills from your wildlife refuge?”

  “We don’t usually chase injured animals in the woods because we often allow nature to take its course. But occasionally we are told about injured, endangered animals that need to be found and cared for. A few years back, we were looking for an injured lynx. We found the animal, but it was hard to track him. I became really good at looking for tracks. And respecting injured predators.”

  With that, she began to search the ground. She pointed to one spot. “See, this is where several people stood, besides us, that is. You can see two different sized prints in the crushed ferns. Both hard boots, I’d say. It’s funny that closer to the rec center there is more sand.”

  “The village has been around for decades. George says his father helped build the original houses here. They were all fishermen back then. It was their wives who grew vegetables and fruit and who cut down the trees around the village for firewood. So it’s been cleaned out and built up over the years.”