Family Issue

by Nat Burns

  “It will,” I hastened to reassure her.

  “I hope so. Listen, I’ll leave you to your PI stuff. We’ll be over at Eastquarter if you need me.”

  “Eastquarter?”

  Patty grinned, no doubt remembering how I never could grasp all the pet names the Prices had assigned to various segments of farmland. “Just follow the Sabine south and you’ll find us.”

  I looked west to where the wide Sabine River traveled the edge of Price land and on toward the lake and then the mighty Gulf of Mexico.

  “Ruddy Bayou—where’s that?” I asked.

  “South of here, where the Sabine meets the lake. Before the beaches. You want me to take you over now?”

  “I thought Sabine Lake was all industrial now.”

  Patty nodded, but she was clearly anxious to get to work. “Most of it is. It was still pretty when I was real little. You remember they had some parks and beaches? Well, it’s different now. There’s several plans underway, though, to reclaim some parks, and there’s still some pretty areas. Ruddy was originally too rocky and grown up for the boats to come in, but that squall we had a couple years ago cleaned out a lot of the crap. I’m sure someone will come in and develop it once John Clyde and I pass on.”

  “What about Kissy? She’ll get the farm unless John Clyde decides to have some kids.”

  “Yeah, but will I care then? Hell, she’s already a lot more progressive than any of us. She’d probably sell out and move to a condo in California.”

  I laughed, agreeing with her. “I believe you’re right about that.”

  Patty turned suddenly and looked to her left. I heard it then too. It was Human barking with a sharp staccato sound. Then Kissy’s voice reached us. She was screaming for help.

  Chapter Eight

  By the time we reached Kissy, she had quieted—as if accepting her fate. She was chin deep in a sinkhole of water and dark, sandy sludge. Ribbons of murky, viscous mud framed her round, oddly calm eyes. Human raced back and forth along the edge of the sinkhole, clearly frustrated at being unable to rescue her. His whines of fear raised gooseflesh on my arms.

  “Kissy! Oh baby, what happened?” Patty said as she lay on her stomach and tried to reach Kissy. Her hands fell a foot or so short.

  “I dunno, MomPat. We were running and…” She lifted one hand to reach toward her mother and abruptly sank two inches.

  “Damn. It’s quicksand,” Patty muttered.

  “You’re not serious,” I said. I could only stare in horror as the child struggled to keep her mouth above the slimy, sandy mud. Then I started looking around for something, anything, to throw in and use to pull the girl out.

  “Be still, baby,” Patty called to Kissy. “Denni, hold on to my legs. I’m gonna grab her.”

  I threw myself on the ground and tightened my arms around both of Patty’s denim-clad calves. She had on work boots, and I was grateful for that as it made a better handle against my shoulders. We inched forward, more of Patty’s upper body gradually advancing above the lower level of the muck in the sinkhole.

  “Whoa! Wait…” She gasped as an elbow was sucked down into the mud. She turned her body, easing the arm loose as her other arm reached toward Kissy. The child’s mouth was in mud now and I could see only her panicked eyes and sand-covered nose as she struggled for air. I inched Patty forward with new urgency.

  “Get her, Patty. We don’t have much time,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “I’m trying, damnit,” Patty growled. She began to sob, in frustration, I’m sure, but she never paused as she stretched herself as far over the trench as possible, looping one arm about Kissy’s head, plunging her other hand under the quicksand in search of Kissy’s armpit. She needed a way to lever the child out because the heavy, saturated mud was pulling against her.

  “Pull me, Denni, pull hard. This won’t be easy,” she gasped.

  I looked up one more time and saw her trying to blow wet sand from Kissy’s nostrils as she lifted her slightly.

  I dug in the toes of my sneakers and, using my hips and elbows, edged away from the muddy sinkhole. I wrapped my arms more tightly around Patty’s legs and pulled as hard as I could. It seemed as though hours passed, but I was eventually able to roll myself into a sitting position and pull both of them to safety, digging in my heels and using my full body weight and my arm strength. We rolled apart, and I fell back, my arms quivering from the exertion.

  Kissy, clearly frightened by the experience, cuddled into Patty’s lap and popped one dirty, sand-caked thumb into her mouth. She stared at me with wide, blank eyes. Patty had her own eyes closed and was holding her daughter tightly, rocking to and fro and uttering soothing sounds. I watched them, my heart slowly returning to a normal rhythm.

  Studying the sinkhole, I was perplexed. I didn’t remember anything like this from years ago when Patty and I had stolen kisses while walking the grounds of Fortune. The hole was huge, about eight feet in diameter. The rippled sand and wet black dirt center was about eighteen inches lower than the surrounding, firmer soil. “What is this thing, Patty?” I gasped, taking deep breaths to calm myself. “Have you always had drop-offs like this?”

  “No.” She stopped rocking, but her hands still worked to clean and calm the eerily silent child in her lap. “It’s normal this close to sea level, though. I think it was that storm we had. It cleared out a lot of protective stuff that kept the land solid. I bet the water’s been seeping in since and undermining the land.”

  “Does John Clyde know about this?”

  She shook her head, anger replacing the paralyzing fear she’d probably felt before. “No, how could he? I told you this has never happened before.”

  “You need to do a sound survey. This is dangerous as hell.”

  Patty ignored my pedantic rambling and started rocking again.

  I stood. “Let’s get y’all home.”

  Patty sighed and tried to rise. Kissy cried out and clung to Patty, momentarily knocking her off balance. I reached to steady them and held them both close for a good long time.

  Chapter Nine

  Back at the house Landa and Ammie shrieked with horror when they saw our muddy, sandy burden. Kissy went to Landa as if numb, her now clean thumb irresistibly finding her mouth again. She hadn’t spoken during the entire walk home, even when Patty and I had taken turns carrying her, and this worried me. I felt helpless, though, unable to do anything but stand by like a cement post as the other women rushed her upstairs and into a warm bath. I followed meekly, and when everything seemed under control, I left the busy women and made my way outside again.

  The Louisiana afternoon had strolled in with an easy swagger, and I took a deep breath of the humid air. The cloying scent of warm, wet grass was a familiar, long-lost friend. Trying to be useful and determined to continue searching for clues, I went toward the goat pen. Two of the baby goats had survived and they watched my approach with cautious eyes. After mulling over whether to trust this stranger, they came to me after I’d stood by the fence quietly for a few minutes. Their little brown noses were soft with new fur, and I found comfort in their begging stance and their curious licks of my fingers.

  “I wish you could talk,” I told them with a sigh.

  Leaving the goats, I moved away along the road that led south to the Sabine River. It was a good fifteen-minute walk and I churned it, walking now more for exercise and for stress relief after the morning’s excitement. Fortune Farm was actually a small farm, only about two hundred acres. Most was cultivated hay or cane land, but this land to the south was swampy and its blackish soil was heavy with shale. I had forgotten about the brutality of the Louisiana slanting sun and humidity and was glad I had chosen shorts and good walking shoes to wear that morning. My only regret was that I didn’t have a hat and sunglasses. The dirt and gravel road seemed to stretch on forever.

  Movement farther along, by the side of the road, caught my attention. I spied the farmhand, Alejandro, standing beside one of the yellow, insec
tile farm tractors. He was acting oddly, looking over his shoulder toward the Price home as if afraid of being seen. This piqued my interest, of course, so I moved slowly left until I was shielded by a small grove of roadside underbrush. It took several minutes to understand what he was doing, but I finally realized he was wrapping some type of oblong, thick object in burlap. He was using baling twine from a large spindle on the back of the tractor and twisting it securely around the wrapped bundle. Every now and then he would look toward the big white farmhouse then busily resume his task. He didn’t see me watching.

  When he was almost finished, I stirred and made my way over toward him. He heard my approach and resembled a deer caught in car headlights.

  “Your name is Alexander, right?”

  “Alejandro, miss,” he replied in heavily accented English. “Alejandro Cezanne.”

  “I’m sorry. Alejandro. My name is Denni Hope. I’m an investigator, a friend of Patty’s, and I’m looking into the events that have been happening here at the Prices’s place. Have you seen anything suspicious? Strange people, things in odd places? Anything like that?”

  I watched his face closely, looking for one of the myriad ways an astute person can tell that another is lying. He was a handsome man, with short, dark hair that swept back from his deeply tanned forehead. His face was lean, with cheeks high and aquiline. In stature, he was about my height, five foot seven, but more muscular. He rippled with lean muscle under his close fitting T-shirt and jeans.

  He shook his head in the negative, mouth in a grim line and eyes unreadable. “No, nothing like this. I work spreading the fertilizer, the water. I’m in the fields.”

  I eyed the bundle he held casually in one hand. “You’re not in the fields today.”

  His eyes rolled once, nervously. Aha, gotcha, I thought to myself.

  “No, I came to get the tractor to haul some fill bags back to the shed for Carlos. He sent me here.”

  “But you’re not up in the tractor.” I allowed my eyes to linger on the bundle. “And what’s this you have here?”

  He didn’t look at the bundle. Instead his eyes sought mine. “I don’ want no trouble, miss. Please, I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Now, Alejandro.” I kept my voice very calm while my body fell into fight-or-flight mode. If this was the man responsible for the mayhem and he felt cornered…well, anything could happen. “What do you mean? I haven’t said you’ve done anything wrong.”

  He hesitantly extended the bundle. “It was on the road here. In the weeds. I found it there.”

  “What is it?” I took it from him gingerly. Was this something related to my investigation?

  He shrugged. “I didn’t want the misses to be upset seeing it. I was gonna hide it away. In one of the barns.”

  I untwisted the twine and peeled back the burlap. Resting in my hands was a two-by-two board about two feet long. It had some age on it and one end was jagged, with a partially sawn edge, as if someone had tried to saw through it with a power tool and the board had broken prematurely. The other end was mill-sawn, stained green, and had the faded words Intercoastal Woodworks branded into it. Several strands of long, dark hair and a dark substance like clotted blood was entwined in the shredded end.

  I studied Alejandro. “You found this? Where exactly? Can you show me?”

  He looked surprised. “Yes, of course. I think it was what hurt the little miss. I was afraid…” He shrugged again.

  I wasn’t exactly buying his Mr. Innocent routine, but a man is innocent until proven guilty. I’d give him the benefit of doubt. He led me just off the road and pointed to where he’d found the board. Up high on the tractor seat, he had spied the blondness of the board amongst the pale greenery alongside the road.

  “Alejandro, can you take me to where Kissy was hit? Is it far?”

  “Not very, but we should go down on the tractor. The walk is long, and it might grow dark before you come back.”

  I held on to the burlap-wrapped board and followed him to the tractor, where he checked the straps on a low trailer behind it that was piled high with bags of fertilizer. Obviously, Alejandro had been returning these unused ones to the storage shed so they wouldn’t be out in the damp all night. I had been at the farm long enough to know that the bags would be used to fill a small spreader that was used in the lesser fields closest to the river. The larger tractors in the bigger fields would attach to huge vats of commercial fertilizer.

  I perched behind Alejandro on the running board and we lurched into motion. I had the good sense to berate myself mentally for venturing into the bayou with a man I barely knew, one who could be responsible for hurting Patty’s family and business. I tried to think positive thoughts as we moved farther from the big white farmhouse and safety. I was somewhat comforted by the small but heavy pistol strapped into the underarm holster beneath my over shirt but was relieved, nevertheless, when Alejandro paused the tractor on a grassy bank below a field full of busy laborers. He switched off the engine and pointed toward the river. “Go right and go fifty yards until the river changes. I found more boards there when I was washing seeds off my shirt.”

  “And that’s Ruddy Bayou?”

  He nodded and drew a bandana from his back pocket to swipe across the back of his neck. “They say the little miss was found walking here, with blood on her face.” He squinted at me. “I’m telling you, miss. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that. I just work in the fields.”

  “Thanks, Alejandro. I appreciate your help. This is evidence, though, and if you find anything else, you have to bring it to me immediately, okay?”

  I took the board with me, not wanting it to disappear suddenly. I think I was also hoping possibly to match it to something there at the site.

  Alejandro nodded. “I will unload the trailer and come back for you.”

  I waved to show I heard. The stirred-up mosquitoes were loving me as I trudged through high grass. I knew I’d be seeking out more of Ammie’s healing balm when I returned to the farmhouse.

  I reached the edge of the Sabine River after walking about ten feet. The water, sluggish and muddy, rolled by slowly as it made its way to the lake. Bald cyprus islands prevented me from seeing the other side here, and the water looked dark and mysterious. I had a sudden insight into how scary it must have been for Kissy fighting her way back to its surface. The thought of this angered me, and I began to search the area with keen intensity.

  Methodically, I mentally divided a twenty-foot area of riverbank into foot-sized grids. I walked slowly through each one, my eyes examining every blade of grass. At one point, where the bank sloped down from the road, I discovered large patches where the grass had been plowed under the mud by what appeared to be wide truck tires. I knelt and examined them more closely. A few small board sections, similar to the one I held in my hand, were scattered about the bank. Some floated in the shallow, marshy water.

  Standing back, I studied the scene a few minutes and surmised that the truck had been escaping up the bank toward the road with, no doubt, an open truck bed, and the pieces of wood had fallen out. I thought about who might be foolish enough to drive a truck along the bayou, a risky business because the land was not secure in the least and a heavy vehicle could disappear in a heartbeat. The weight of a large truck like that was usually kept a good twenty yards from the water and certainly not on a sloping, slippery bank.

  I walked on, along the gentle slant of the bayou, pausing when I found a tousled pile of milkweed pods. I touched them sadly. Studying the immediate surroundings, I could see how it might have happened. He had waited there, behind a small grove of cyprus, his truck parked perilously low to hide it from the road. Maybe he’d been watching the family’s routines for some time, hoping to find Kissy alone. Had he followed her from the house, predicting her path? Did he mean to kill her? Or just terrify the family? Had Kissy surprised him somehow? She hadn’t said anything to that effect, only that she had been hit from behind. What kind of cruel monster would wha
le on a small child with a board?

  Unable to find definitive answers no matter how tightly I scrunched my brow, I finally gave up and oriented myself for the walk back to the road to wait for Alejandro. I pulled the burlap more snugly around the board I carried, knowing I would have to give it to the police chief in Brethren. I would also tell him about the boards that had spilled from the truck. If they could be matched to this one, then later to some in the perpetrator’s vehicle, this nightmare would be over.

  Chapter Ten

  They were sprawled on the bed in Kissy’s cozy little bedroom, the two of them, their dark heads bent together over a book with large, colorful photographs. I moved closer and realized it was an encyclopedia. Patty pointed to a small reptile and Kissy grunted.

  “Fire-bellied newt, MomPat. You thought I forgot it, didn’t you?”

  Patty smiled at her daughter, but her face twisted with concern when she caught sight of me. She stood.

  “Hey there, how are you? Ammie said you were walking the land.”

  “Looking for clues, anything,” I said as I dropped into one of the chairs at Kissy’s little decorated table. I lifted a Barbie doll and started dressing it with some of the doll clothing that was scattered about.

  “Any luck?”

  “This is a fire-bellied newt, Denni. Wanna see?” Kissy turned the book so the black and red newt was visible. I stood and walked over so I could see it. It really was beautiful.

  “That’s so cool,” I said, studying the photograph. I turned and studied Kissy.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  Kissy didn’t answer, and I could tell that the close call of the morning was something she just plain did not want to talk about. Instead her interest in the book grew even more keen as she disregarded my question.