The Cradle Robber

by E. Joan Sims

  I looked around, dismayed at the sorry sight before me. Ruby Dawn’s friends had to be in dire straits. Propped up by concrete blocks under each corner, the dilapidated trailer leaned drunkenly to one side where the blocks were slightly askew. The windows were, without exception, cracked, and so dirty they were opaque. The whole scene filled me with a vague sense of deja vu. I pondered for a moment until I remember the trailer park on the bluff overlooking the lake. This trailer was bigger, but in the same miserable state as Rudolfo’s. I wondered if the resemblance ended on the outside.

  “Here we are, honey,” Ruby Dawn announced unnecessarily. “Hop out and help me with the groceries, will ya?”

  I opened the door and scrambled out on legs that were stiff and awkward from sitting too long. Ruby held the back doors of the van open while I reached inside and grabbed a large box full of bags of rice and pasta and cans of tomato sauce. I started to make a crack about Chef Boyardee, but Ruby Dawn impatiently motioned me aside and reached in the van for another load.

  My arms and back protested against the weight of my burden as I stumbled over the broken paving stones that led to the minuscule front porch. Ruby Dawn was right behind me. Sweat dripped from my scalp, and damp hair fell lankly across my face as I turned to speak to her. “Should I knock, or what?” I asked, blowing hair out of my mouth.

  “They aren’t at home,” she answered. “I have the key. Let me go ahead and open up.”

  “But, I thought…”

  “Just move aside, sweetie,” she said brusquely. “And quit thinking. It’ll give you a headache.”

  I moved away from the door and leaned against the side of the trailer to ease the strain of the weight I was carrying while I reassessed my opinion of my new best friend.

  I had just about arrived at the conclusion that her slight lapse of manners was due to the fact that she might be as tired and hot as I was, when she managed to unlock the door.

  “Okay, girlfriend,” she said, standing aside. “You go first.”

  I turned and peered inside, squinting my eyes against the late afternoon sun, trying to make out anything in the shadows of the dark interior.

  “I said, go ahead!” shouted Ruby Dawn as she shoved me viciously with a foot placed in the small of my back.

  I stumbled forward across the threshold in an awkward running gait until the weight of the groceries and my own momentum brought me smack up against a wall. The box of food came up painfully hard under my ribs, forcing the air from my lungs. I dropped everything and fell to my knees gasping for breath. Bags broke all around me — scattering rice and pasta in a loud clatter over the linoleum. I heard the crunch of Ruby Dawn’s sneakers on macaroni as she walked slowly towards me. I looked up, but all I could see was her skinny silhouette against the backdrop of the open door.

  “What the hell…?” I managed to gasp.

  “My, my! You did take a nasty fall, Miss Paisley Sterling DeLeon! I do believe I see blood on your face. I hope you didn’t break your pretty little aristocratic nose. Now, GET UP!”

  I wiped my upper lip. My hand had blood on it, but my nose didn’t hurt—it was numb. “What the hel…!”

  “You sure do have trouble expressing yourself, hun. That must be quite a handicap for a writer. I think I’ll do a much better job when I get around to it. Darn it! I just don’t seem to have the time. And you’re wasting it right now. GET UP!”

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve, thinking vaguely how Mother would object, and struggled to my knees. As I pushed myself up, my hand came down on a number two can of tomato sauce. Ruby Dawn was nothing more than a scrawny runt of a woman, I thought. An accurate throw to the old noggin should settle my predicament quite nicely. That was before I got a better look at her and the wicked looking hunting rifle she had aimed at my middle.

  “For Pete’s sake, Ruby Dawn, there’s no need…”

  “You have no idea what there’s a need for, Miss High and Mighty ‘my family’s had money for generations’! You and the rest of your fancy friends walk by people like me every day and don’t even give us a second look. We’re scum because we don’t have the right last name, or because we do our drinking at the road house out on route sixty-two instead of at the country club.”

  “Look, Ruby, I don’t even belong…”

  The cold metal of the rifle bore pushing against the soft hollow of my neck cut off the rest of my protest.

  “Haven’t you got it, yet?” she asked in a soft voice, her words dripping with sarcasm. “I’m the queen bee now. This little ole gun gives me the power. I GOT THE POWER!” she shouted. “Just like that crazy old preacher down at Bethel Baptist says.” She laughed. “Now turn around and open that door behind you, and drop whatever that is you have in your hand. My daddy was a crack shot and I’m twice as good as him. I could blow your head to bloody smithereens before you even thought about throwing something at me.”

  I promptly obeyed and dropped my can of tomatoes. For now, I had better do exactly as Ruby Dawn said. I was still optimistic enough to think I would get another chance to defend myself. Groceries weren’t the only possible weapons at hand—I might even use the chip on her shoulder, if I could get close enough.

  The door Ruby Dawn told me to open led to a long, narrow hallway. I hesitated for a moment because it was dark and I could barely see where I was going. Another prod with the rifle made me less cautious and I propelled myself forward, stumbling occasionally on the joints where one length of flooring met another. The hall was like the mobile tunnels at airports that take you to your plane—a series of lengths of flooring bolted together, if somewhat unevenly.

  At the end of the hallway was another door. I didn’t need another prod from Ruby Dawn. I tried to open it, but it was locked. She motioned me into the corner and held me there with the rifle underneath my chin as she used the same key to unlock this door.

  “Open it,” she ordered. “And get inside.”

  I obeyed as quickly as I could. The room I entered was lit by a bare overhead bulb and smelled like a kennel. Ruby Dawn laughed as my hand went up to cover my nose. I had to force myself not to gag.

  “You’ll get used to it! If you live so long, that is,” she said with a nasty grin. “As a matter-of-fact, when you see where you’re going, you’ll beg to get back in here.”

  She gave me a nudge between the shoulder blades and directed me through another doorway into what was being used as a kitchen. A small, dark-skinned, young woman stood behind an old dry sink where she was washing dishes in a plastic bucket. She cried out in fright when she saw us and tried to hide by pressing her thin body into the corner.

  “Will you look at that!” snorted Ruby Dawn. “See! She knows not to mess with me. You’d better get the message, Miss Paisley Fancy Sterling. From now on, you don’t do squat unless I say so.”

  The kitchen opened out to a small, screened, porch. Bars had been added all around, making it look like a cage. It was hotter out here, but the fresh air was delicious after the stench inside.

  Ruby Dawn pushed me down into the corner of the porch and reached for a pair of handcuffs hanging on a nail by the door.

  “Here, put these on. And no funny business, either.”

  I crossed my legs and found the most comfortable position I could on the rough wooden floor before I snapped the cuffs on my wrists. Ruby Dawn leaned down and tested them.

  “Terrific! Nice and tight. Now I don’t have to punish you, but I will just the same—because I like it!”

  She smacked me as hard as she could with the flat side of the rifle butt. If she had been any stronger she might have knocked me unconscious. Instead, she sent me to a place somewhere between awake and sleeping—a place filled with pain and brightly colored shooting stars.

  I lay as still as I could for a very long time, willing the pain to fade, praying it away, until finally, blessedly, it eased enough for me to sit up. I swayed for a moment, waiting for the swell of renewed agony and nausea to go away, then leaned back in the
corner until I saw only one of everything.

  It was totally dark now, and I could hear the quiet sound of night birds in the trees. A soft sweet breeze lifted my hair and fanned my face. I had felt better, but I was going to live—and I was sure it could have been worse. Ruby Dawn, for some unknown reason, hated me and the horse I rode in on. She would be more than happy to see me dead. I wondered why she hadn’t gone through with it.

  I tested the handcuffs by pulling my hands apart as hard as I could. They were old and rusty, not fashioned out of steel like Andy Joiner’s, but they were strong enough to keep me from causing much trouble.

  I squirmed around on my bottom until I was facing outwards and pressed my forehead against the screen, wincing with pain as the tender spot on the side of my face protested.

  It was dark—really dark. The windows at the back of the kitchen were blacked out, and the moon wasn’t up yet. All I could make out were a few tall blotches that could be trees, and a shorter, thicker blotch that might be an outbuilding. I squinted until my eyes hurt, then gave up with a sigh. I would find out more when morning came.

  My tummy growled, reminding me that I had not eaten since early that morning. I worked up as much spit in my dry mouth as I could and was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn’t taste like blood. I could go another day without food, but I had been thirsty for what seemed like an eternity. That thirst made me brave.

  I had no idea how much time had passed since Ruby Dawn had chucked me out on the porch and whacked me with the rifle butt, but some instinct told me she had been gone for a while. I called out.

  “Hey! Hey you in there—in the kitchen! Hey! I need a drink of water, please.”

  There was no answer. I scooted across the rough wooden planks on my butt, tearing the fabric of my jeans on a nail head, and getting a splinter in my thigh for my efforts, but I got close enough to the door to kick it with my foot.

  Bang! Bang! “Hey, you in there! Water! I need water! Please!”

  The door opened a crack and I could see a dark brown eye peering fearfully out.

  “Señora,” said the girl in a small frightened voice, “silencio, por favor! El Jefe viene esta noche. Por favor, no hagas un escandelo.” The door closed once again.

  “No!” I cried. “Please! Agua! Necesito agua, por favor!”

  The door stayed shut and I realized that the girl—she could have been no older than sixteen or seventeen—was too terrified to help me. Whoever “El Jefe” was, he had certainly made an impression. And he was coming tonight! That must have been the reason Ruby Dawn had left me alive and well and shackled.

  I sat back in the corner, my thirst forgotten as I tried to put a lid on the fear that slithered up my spine like a cold serpent, making it difficult to think. “Leonard,” I whispered. “What would Leonard do?”

  That was easy. Leonard would have a gun hidden in his ankle holster. Leonard would have taken out Ruby Dawn with a well-placed karate chop. Leonard would never have come out here on a wild goose chase in the first place.

  What was I thinking of? Some little adventure this turned out to be. By now, Mother and Cassie would be worried sick about me. And nobody would have a clue as to where to start looking.

  “Unless,” I whispered to no one in particular. “Unless, Horatio remembers Effie Diaz.” If he recalled our discussion about the map coordinate he would guess where I had gone. He knew me well enough to know I might sneak off by myself to snoop around. And he would be more circumspect than Mother. She might just go to Judge Hershey and ask him if he had seen me, but Horatio…

  “Judge Hershey!” This time I didn’t bother to whisper. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Judge Hershey and El Jefe—the boss—must be one and the same. There was nothing on the map to indicate that anyone lived way out here, but this house trailer was on Judge Hershey’s land, of that I was certain. What was he doing with a beat up old trailer, an imprisoned Mexican girl, and a partner like Ruby Dawn Coleman?

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I finally gave up trying to find a comfortable position on the rough, uneven floor of the porch and fell into an exhausted sleep—for all of about twenty minutes. I woke up when a rabbit screamed somewhere in the woods behind me. The sound was unmistakable if you had ever heard it before.

  When I was eleven or so, and in the excited throes of my first experience with the Girl Scouts, I camped out in the back yard every night in a tent made of two quilts and a tarpaulin. A horrifying shriek from the woods had sent me running into the house in the wee hours of the morning. Dad was lying awake in the big bed next to my mother who was snoring quietly.

  “We must never tell her she snores,” he laughed softly. “She would be so embarrassed. Not ladylike, you know.”

  The sound from the woods had also awakened Dad. Owls hunt at night, he explained, and baby rabbits—their favorite entree—always screamed as they were dying. Even as young as I was, I had known that scream haunted him, just as it haunted me now.

  I was cold, but the handcuffs kept me from hugging my arms. I pulled up my legs to my chest and rested my chin on my knees. I visualized wearing my new red hooded sweatshirt, the one Mother attempted to dissuade me from buying because she thought it was tacky. For a moment, I could almost feel the warm fleecy newness of the inside—the kitten softness that would disappear after a washing or two.

  It was funny, I thought, the way Mother and I were so different. I wondered, and not for the first time, if I had spent my life working it out that way. I loved my new red sweatshirt; I wished fervently that I really were wearing it right now.

  My tired mind wandered over the past—skipping and hopping over memories of happy birthdays and childhood friends until I began to focus on more recent events. I remembered the night Cassie and I climbed the cliffs and broke into Rudolfo’s trailer. How surprised we had been to find his stash in the bathroom. I laughed quietly when I recalled the sight of her finger stuck in the towel rack. There was something else about that towel rack that tickled my memory, but I couldn’t think what. The next day Cassie had disappeared and everything else had taken a backseat to my worry about her, except my anger with Winston Wallace and his wandering stethoscope.

  That towel rack…there was something inside besides money…that was the reason Cassie got her finger stuck in the first place. Where was the towel rack now, I wondered?

  The tiny sliver of a new moon peeked up over the treetops, painting a narrow path of light across the porch—winking on a shiny object in front of the kitchen door. Boredom and curiosity impelled me across the floor once again. “Damn, damn, and drat,” I swore, as I felt the pinch of yet another splinter. It was a weak oath, without much passion behind it. I was tired, hungry, and way beyond thirsty. Ennui had replaced fear, and I was even getting accustomed to the physical discomfort. “Maybe this is why hostages give up so easily,” I whispered to no one in particular. Then my fingers closed over the stout metal hairpin and hope surged in my heart with a powerful beat, chasing away the cobwebs of fatigue and filling me with strength.

  I had no idea how to start, but Leonard used hairpins and paper clips all the time to unlock doors and padlocks—surely I could open the puny hasp of these dime store handcuffs. I scooted around again so I could take full advantage of the meager moonlight, and set about poking and prying at the tiny keyhole. Thirty minutes later, all I had to show for my efforts was a bruised thumb and two deep scratches on my left wrist.

  “Well, you know what, Paisley, baby?” I told myself. “You’ve got all night, so settle down and take it easy. Sooner or later you’ll figure this bloody thing out.” And that said, the cuff on my left wrist suddenly popped open with a rusty little squeak.

  I stared at it for a moment, and began to giggle. The slightly demented sound frightened me. I took a deep calming breath and went about the painful business of standing up on my stiff cramped legs.

  I reached for the knob of the door, then stopped myself. I had no idea what I might find on the other
side. It was quiet—there was no sound coming from the kitchen, but there never had been. For all I knew, El Jefe could be waiting in the next room, machete in hand, to whack my head off.

  There was no other way out. The screen on the porch was old and friable, but the bars were strong and placed too close together to permit escape. The door to the kitchen was my only option.

  I turned the knob slowly, listening intently as I did so. A radio was playing softly in the background, but that was all I could hear. I stepped inside. The only thing that greeted me was the strong odor of a kitchen with no ventilation—olive oil, garlic, and the stench of the overflowing garbage can fought for my olfactory attention.

  I tiptoed around the corner into the main room. The light bulb overhead had been turned off, but a light coming from down the hall allowed me to see a filthy, sagging sofa resting against one wall and a small card table with four folding chairs against the other. The table was bare except for a beer can holding a single wilted wild flower.

  I tried to figure out what seemed so odd about the place, and then it came to me. This was a trailer with the insides gutted. It was as cozy as the raw interior of an eighteen wheeler. It made Rudolfo’s place look like the Ritz—and the smell! As I edged closer down the hall towards the light, the odor grew stronger. It was the stench of unwashed bodies, dirty bedding, and bad plumbing—poverty and hopelessness.

  A stained sheet hung across the end of the hall blocking my view. Light danced and flickered around the edges and across the bottom. I had to guess it came from an open flame. I peered through the narrow space between cloth and wall and saw four young women huddled on a bare mattress. Three were sleeping, cradled by each other with the innocent abandonment of children. The fourth girl dozed precariously close to the edge. The flickering light of a candle highlighted her naked breast where a tiny infant lay nursing.