by Lane Stone
I smelled Al’s cheap shit cologne in the room to our left and I turned in the opposite direction. “I’ll see if he’s in here.” I motioned to the right. I pivoted so Victoria and Tara could see my eyebrow lower just a smidge.
“No, you don’t.” It was my husband. You can say aw-w-w-w if you want because it was sweet. “I’ll check this out.”
Paul and Shorty puffed up and it was adorable. “Yeah, stay out here.”
Tara cooed, “Be careful!”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t wait for the police?” Vic was doing her part, but we needed to get crackin.’
Our he-men headed off to what looked like the den and we followed the cologne trail. I scanned the rooms. I swear the whole house was a man-cave. That’s just wrong. Bingo, we found him and not a moment too soon. Mr. Ford was headed out the kitchen door. I grabbed his shoulders and yanked him back to a kitchen table chair Vic had thoughtfully pulled out. I slung him into it and pinned him with my hands on his shoulders and my knee between his thighs up against his privates. “Where’s Beatrice?” That’s the oldest trick in the book. I didn’t ask if he’d kidnapped her.
“She’s not here!”
“Keep it down,” Tara warned him.
“Leigh?” It was my husband calling me from the living room.
“Shhh!” I put my hand over Al’s mouth. “Be right there.”
The look on his face told me he remembered what my husband looked like. We had come to an understanding. Things could get a whole lot worse than having my knee up against his junk.
Victoria leaned in about an inch from his face. “Tell us where Beatrice is or she,”––here she nodded to me and motioned with her thumb––“will rip you a new one.”
“A new what?” When he asked that it hit me what I wasn’t hearing. His speech had not so much as a trace of an accent. Neither Tara, Victoria nor myself have much of one, but this guy verbally was a blank.
“Really? You don’t know what that expression means?” Vic asked him.
“No.”
“Tell him.” I chuckled.
“I’d rather not.”
“A new asshole!” Tara hadn’t hesitated.
I heard my husband say, “She was last seen at what time?”
Paul answered, “A little before seven.”
“So two hours ago?” This was from my husband. “Frank, did you notice if there was anyone suspicious looking hanging around when you walked her out?”
“Maybe she’s home by now.” It sounded like Shorty, also known as Frank, just wanted to go home himself. He’s not real social, but in all fairness he’s in surgery three days a week at zero dark thirty. Next I heard a cell phone ring and Shorty used some fancy medical terms. Could have meant breathe through your nose, not your mouth or take an Alka-Seltzer, for all I knew.
I motioned for Vic to go out there and keep them occupied. She was on her way when Tara stopped her. I had heard it too. A muffled voice and the rustle of leaves coming from somewhere outside. “Where were you headed when we came in?” I whispered.
Al didn’t answer me. Victoria and Tara followed the sound. They were back in about two minutes. Victoria came in first. I expected to see Tara next, but it was Al’s wife, Paige, who came in, followed by Tara.
Paige Ford was tucking her cell phone in her waist band. She looked at us wide eyed. I figured if she had been standing out there very long in the dark, she would have been squinting in the brightness of the kitchen lighting. Right?
“What were you doing out there in the dark?” I asked, in what I thought was a sisterly tone.
“Just getting a breath of fresh air.”
“Uh-huh.”
We wanted to know what she’d been doing outside, but figured we wouldn’t find out if we asked in front of her husband. It was time to bring our A game.
I gave Tara and Victoria a quick glance. “Obviously you can’t help us find Beatrice, so we’ll be going now.”
“If you hear from her, or if you think of anything you’d like to add that you may have forgotten, please call Detective Kent at the Gwinnett Police satellite station at the Mall of Georgia.” This was from Tara and the second part sounded just like what Kent had said to us last year. Then she must have remembered who she was talking to because she broke it down for him. “Just call 9-1-1.”
We were headed out, but not before Vic got in her bit of politeness. “Don’t get up.” Like he had made any move at all. The way his eyes darted to the living room where Jack was, told me Al was perfectly happy to stay in the kitchen. “We’ll let ourselves out. Good to see you again.” By that last one, I was pulling her out of the room.
We walked through the living room and motioned for the rest of our party to follow us out the front door. Shorty was hanging up his cell phone as he walked. “I need to get to the hospital. Can someone give Victoria a ride home?” Now, she was standing right there. I remembered why I didn’t really care for him, though I would never want Vic to suspect that for a minute.
“We’ll be happy to.” Tara moved closer to her.
“Let me be sure I have house keys with me.” As Victoria said this she moved to a coach light, which was in serious need of a paint job, and Tara and I knew to follow her. Tiara Investigations was going into conference mode. “I think Al Ford knows where Bea is,” she said.
“In case you didn’t notice, that’s not exactly a brain trust in there. He’s not smart enough to kidnap anybody!” I whispered. “We need to know who’s helping him and the only way we’re going to find out is to follow him.”
“Our speci-a-l-t-y!” Tara gave a nervous, forced grin. The clock was ticking and we were all three anxious for Beatrice’s safety.
“I have an idea.” I turned to face the guys. “We should be with Kelly. She’s by herself with her newborn. Paul, can we take your car? Jack can drive you home. That way, Tara, Victoria and I can go stay with her.” My husband gave me a hurt look and I remembered he was going back to Afghanistan in the morning. I closed my eyes and mouthed, I’m sorry. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
Paul looked a little discombobulated, but when Tara held out her hand for his car keys with that little head tilt she does, he took the path of least resistance.
My husband walked past me to the car and got in. Paul followed him, and Tara went to kiss him goodnight. Jack had started the engine, but until the two lovebirds finished carrying on, he couldn’t pull out. I tapped on the window. Before I could say a word he started, “Let me get this straight. You met this woman a few hours ago and you’re this concerned about her.”
I stared at him, pulled between love and a lie. “Yes, I am concerned about her. Maybe Victoria and Tara and I can help find her. At this point the police aren’t going to do squat.” I looked in his face for any sign of disbelief or a dismissive attitude, but all that was there was a question.
Tara came to my rescue and answered him. “She was Paul’s stepfather’s fiancée.”
“My stepfather, who you had never met,” Paul added.
He had us there.
“Practically family,” I said. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.” I stepped away from the car, figuring the sooner Jack and Paul left, the sooner we could follow Al.
“I’m leaving in the morning, you know.” He put the car in reverse.
“You mean you’re leaving again in the morning.” I walked away, and my husband backed the car down the driveway. I doubt he even looked back.
I dote on my husband and he dotes on me, but it was time for him to put on his big boy pants and deal with it. I was doing the right thing looking for Bea, rather than going home and leaving it to Tara and Victoria, who were walking by my side.
“Are you okay with this?” Victoria glanced at Jack driving away.
“Al isn’t going anywhere until we’re gone, or he thinks we are,” I whispered.
Tara took my hand in both hers and pressed the car keys into my palm. “I’m glad you’re going with us. Will you drive? I
don’t trust myself.”
Paul’s very big Mercedes was parked on the street. He’s not too much taller than me so I didn’t bother changing the seat position. “Do they give these out when you graduate from medical school? Most doctors seem to drive Mercedes.”
“Shorty’s never driven anything but a Mercedes either, and always S Class. I thought it was just him being predictable,” Victoria said.
I drove to the nearest intersection, turned left, and stopped. Then I got out my opera glasses. “I’d love to know what Paige was doing behind her house. Can either of you see their backyard?”
“I think we’re too far away.” Victoria’s voice was hesitant.
Tara hadn’t answered.
I looked at Victoria and saw she was looking through opera glasses. “You put opera glasses in your handbags, too?” I asked.
“Force of habit,” she said.
“I see a small shed,” Tara said. “It looks just big enough for a riding lawn mower, though.”
I looked at her in the rear view mirror and she was also gazing at the Fords’ backyard with the aid of opera glasses.
“It’s the third house down and there aren’t any fences between them. I think I’ll go have a look in that shed.” I jumped out of the car before they could argue. “Victoria, drive back to their street. I’ll meet you there.”
Tara reached for my opera glasses. “Leave those with us. If you get caught wearing them, you’ll look deranged.”
I got out of the car and shook my hands, then my feet to warm up. “Stealth is my middle name.”
Victoria and Tara stage whispered, “Stealth is your middle name!”
“I do not have to go to the bathroom as bad as I think I do!” I tossed my opera glasses back in the car, looked both ways and crossed the street. I crept slowly into the first backyard, then a motion detector turned on a light and I picked up my pace and jogged through. As soon as I put one foot into the second yard, a tiny, yapping dog came after me. I charged off like it was last call. He about caught me when I made it to the Ford’s yard. The mangy creature froze. There had to be an invisible fence. He was feeling pretty high and mighty because the intruder he was chasing was actually running away, and I doubt he’d have stopped for anything less. I was so grateful I swore right then and there that I would change my will to stipulate that if I ever got a pacemaker and an invisible fence killed me, my heirs were not to sue. Or was that microwaves in convenience stores that kill people with pacemakers? Couldn’t think about that then because we’d left the Fords in their kitchen which was in the back of their house. I hunched over and ran the rest of the way to the little prefab shed. I went to the far side and looked in the miniature window.
I sprinted through their side yard and up the street to my partners, and jumped in. “No Beatrice Englund, just John Deere. That was so exhilarating it feels like this seat is vibrating.”
“Tara?” Vic called out. “That’s your foot, isn’t it?”
“Hell, yeah. If whoever murdered Pop Tart kidnapped Bea, she could be dead. Has Kelly called the police?”
Vic locked the car doors. “They would say it’s too early to know for sure she’s been kidnapped.”
My heart rate was returning to normal. “Let’s sit here for another few minutes and see if they leave. Vic, how did Bea seem when you walked her to her car?”
“A little embarrassed about fainting, but other than that she seemed fine. She called Kelly to see if she needed her to pick up diapers on the way home, and she told her about running into us. We talked for a minute about my grandbabies.”
“How are John and Laurie?” Tara asked.
“A lot of work for their parents. I’d love to see them more but I don’t think Aidan will ever move away from Chicago. We video chat a few times a week.”
“I wish we could video chat our testimony for the Bennett case,” I said.
They both m-m’d in agreement, and we went back to watching the house. From our vantage point, there was no change in which lights were on and which were off.
I surveyed the house with my opera glasses, side to side, and top to bottom. “Let’s talk about something else. How was the movie you two saw with Julio? What’s he like when he’s not working?”
Victoria moaned and ran a hand through her hair. “It was all going fine until Tara made one of her philosophical remarks.”
“What’d she say?”
“Just that anyone who has to stop walking to sneeze is old enough to get a senior discount. That’s all. Poor Julio.”
“But you can’t argue with my logic, can you?” Tara explained.
I scanned the front of the house, the side yards and the garage. “Let’s talk about Mr. Bennett. He’s playing hardball with the divorce settlement. The court date is this Wednesday and the case will go before a jury.”
“Is he still denying he was fooling around?” Tara wrapped her sweater coat tighter.
“Hell, yeah.” I moaned because I didn’t believe him and because of how I felt physically. “Can I move my seat back a little, Tara? I ate so much tonight I scared myself.”
Tara grunted in agreement. “Sure. I’m stuffed, too. Investigating on a full stomach is a bitch.”
“We go out on stake-outs after eating at Cracker Barrel,” Victoria reminded us.
I shifted in my seat, still trying to get comfortable. “Remember the good old days when we could see afternoon movies and eat popcorn until our jeans were so tight they straightened out like planks. We’d be practically lying in our seats. Eating is the only thing I can think of that you can forget you’re doing while you are doing it. We know better now. Those old days weren’t so good.”
Tara yawned. “The pageant days were good. Leigh, I know you didn’t enjoy all that, but I loved every minute. Remember when the first handheld hair dryers came out?”
“I remember when the first thousand-watt dryers came out. I was drunk on power,” I said.
“Remember when the 1250-watt dryers came out? We didn’t know if they were for drying hair or taking hostages.” Victoria was laughing at her own joke as she said this. “Leigh, what do you think about Paige saying her father was concerned about drinking water safety at Lake Lanier?”
“At first I thought it was the piece of the puzzle that fit with what was written on that napkin, but Buford Dam isn’t a water purification facility. Hey, you’re our cyber expert, what do you think about his fears?”
Vic did a couple of shoulder rolls to relieve the tension accumulated there. “Several independent studies have concluded a cyber attack is over-hyped and unlikely. We have so much experience fixing day-to-day problems on any system you can think of, that the engineers who maintain them could quickly undo damage caused by even the most complex cyber attack.”
Tara’s phone was singing, what passes for ringing these days. Do any phones really ring these days? ‘Hey, good lookin…’ She screamed and threw it in the air. It hit the dashboard and bounced back on us in the front seat.
Victoria subdued the instrument and pinned it down. “It’s alive!” Then she returned it to Tara. “It’s Kelly.” She had seen the screen.
Tara’s hands were shaking against her cheek, so she used the speaker phone. “Hello?”
“Mom called!”
“Thank the Lord!” Tara yelled.
I motioned for Victoria to keep her eye on the Ford’s house. “Is she on her way home?”
“She doesn’t know where she is. I’ve never heard her so disoriented.” Kelly sobbed and we gave her a moment to catch her breath.
“Did you hear any background noise?” I asked.
“I heard a whirring and I think I heard water.”
Vic leaned over closer to the phone. “What exactly did she say?”
“She kept saying, ‘Kelly, I thought you would be here.’ It was scary hearing Mom talk out of her head like that.”
I started the car. “Kelly, I have an idea about where she might be. We’ll call you back when we get th
ere. Call her back and keep her talking.”
“I tried but the call won’t go through. I’ll keep trying. I’ll leave the home phone line open for you.”
I put the car in drive. “She’s at Buford Dam.”
“That’s great. We know where to find her.” Tara gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“No, it’s not. That whirring Kelly heard means water is about to be released.” I turned the radio on to Channel 1610 AM. The recorded message was still spooling, giving the four hour window of time for the release and warning of the treacherous conditions. “They release different amounts of water every day, depending on the power production needs and flood control.”
“Who can we call to tell them to stop the release?” Victoria had her smart phone out ready to look for a number on the internet.
“Try the Army Corp of Engineers.” I racked my brain to think of anyone else who could help. And, of course, I was driving like a bat out of hell. “Tara, why don’t you call Detective Kent?”
Victoria was trying one unattended telephone number after another. Tara reached Kent. “What’s the matter with you?” Then to us, “He’s sick in bed.”
“Get out of bed, you sorry piece of sh….” I yelled.
“Leigh!”
“Leigh!”
“Leigh, I’ll call a buddy on the Forsyth County force.” Kent’s voice was weak. Maybe I’d been a little harsh. “And I’ll send Asher over there.”
“Feel better,” Tara said.
Victoria motioned for her to hang up the phone.
“Bye-bye.”
I passed the entrance to our newest schools, White Oak Elementary and Lanier Middle School, which sit side by side, then turned left onto Buford Dam Road. We were getting closer to where the road goes over the dam. The front side of the dam and Lake Lanier were on our right, down a rocky embankment. The back side of the dam and the Chattahoochee River were on our left, at the bottom of a grassy slope. “Try Bea’s cell phone now,” I said to anybody listening. The release side was to our left, and that’s where we had to go. During a water release, flooding wouldn’t occur, but if she was thrown into the water or fell, she could drown, or be swept away.
