Hiding Gladys (A Cleo Cooper Mystery)

by Mims, Lee

  Gladys sighed, then began weeping again. “Isn’t that always the way it goes? Here I am, planning the nicest and most comfortable retirement for Irene and me, and now she’s gone. I thought I’d always have her with me.”

  I couldn’t help it—tears welled in my eyes too. I blinked them away, rubbed her shoulder and suggested a bath or a nap, maybe. She opted for resting.

  Tulip, who had been watching, trotted down the hall behind her to the guestroom and stayed with her until she fell asleep.

  TWELVE

  Gladys kept busy for the rest of the weekend with numerous calls to Sister to discuss Irene’s funeral arrangements, and then making the funeral arrangements. She also insisted on helping with the daily cooking, which I agreed to only because it seemed to make her feel useful. It also gave me more time for paperwork.

  By late Sunday I’d caught up and was ready to head back to the test site Monday morning. But before leaving I needed to pick up a few necessities at the drugstore. On the way out I found Gladys on the couch with Tulip, watching Out of Africa on the Oxygen Channel.

  Shifting her attention from the movie, she said, “I got lucky.”

  “How’s that?” I said.

  “I figured the kids might be at the Sunday buffet at the Golden Corral today so I called home. Sure enough, no one answered and I was able to leave a message saying I was visiting a friend and would be home soon.”

  “Oh, good,” I said. “What about the sheriff?”

  “Got an appointment with him here tomorrow if that’s all right with you.”

  “Of course it is. I won’t be here, but you don’t need me, do you?”

  “No. I’ll be fine. I gave him your address and he said he has one of those navigators in his car so it wouldn’t be any trouble to find me. You just get back to the farm and finish our testing. That’s the most important thing right now.”

  “Sounds like we have all the bases covered, then,” I said and picked up my car keys.

  In the drugstore, as the cashier counted out my change, I thought I saw Bud at the other end of the aisle. What was he doing at this drug store? He always used the small, family-owned drug store in his neighborhood, Country Club Hills.

  More to the point, what was he doing in the condom section?

  I took my bag and ducked out before Bud could see me. Then I jogged a block up the street to the only parking spot I’d been able to find, hopped in the Jeep and looked around for Bud’s truck.

  No sign of it. Instead I spotted his cream-colored Porsche Carrera and a hot young babe in it.

  Bud pushed through the door of the drugstore, walked across the street and smiled—sheepishly, I thought—at the bimbo. They were laughing as the Porsche growled away from the curb, accelerated past me, and disappeared.

  My throat constricted with emotions I couldn’t identify. Jealousy? Possessiveness of my children’s father? Common sense told me Bud hadn’t been living these last five years as a monk, but this was my first time actually witnessing him moving on with his life. The intensity of my feelings surprised me. Indeed, considering I’d just crawled out of bed with another man, they were nonsensical. Still, I felt lousy, a little weird even. Then, being the practical person I am, I decided overanalyzing my emotions was a waste of time so I did what any level-headed, self-employed woman would do. I cranked up the tunes on the radio and headed back to the house to pack. Monday morning couldn’t come soon enough for me.

  I was back on the test site raring to go at seven o’ clock, the faithful Tulip back by my side—at least she was until she caught the scent of some hapless critter and dashed off into the woods to find it. By ten we had finished the last few holes in the initial testing of the east side of the creek.

  Mule and Stick were packing the last auger flights on the rig so we could move to the next one when Wink walked up and said, “Statewide just called. They’re having some problems at a soil compaction test site about two hundred miles to the north—”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, I’m the closest foreman in the area so I’ve been designated to take care of it.”

  “I see,” I said. This was a normal occurrence, exploration companies often ran simple jobs without a foreman, calling in one only if there was a problem.

  “Shouldn’t take long to set whatever it is to right. Probably be back here by Wednesday night.” Wink rolled out his field map, indicating a section of our site with his finger, and added, “This is the area you said you wanted to drill next, so I gave the boys their marching orders. Of course, you can change them if you want, but when they finish, it’ll be time to move across the creek to test the west side of the property. This is the bridge we checked out, right here.” He pointed to where he had circled the bridge on his map with a pencil.

  “Sounds like a plan, don’t worry about us,” I reassured him. “We’ll see you when you get back.”

  “Remember, if you need me and you can’t reach me on the cell, it’s because I’m in one of the dead zones down here. Just wait a little and try again.”

  “Gotcha,” I said, absentmindedly, my thoughts skipping ahead to the moving drill rig.

  I ran to catch up with the crew as the rig slowly bumped along through the woods on the newly cleared path.

  By two o’ clock we’d finished all the initial testing I had planned for the east side of the property. Now Mule and Stick stood by the rig waiting for instructions. Tulip sat at my feet looking up at me, waiting too.

  “Let’s head on across the creek,” I said, reaching down to stroke one of her silky ears. She leaned into my knee and moaned happily. “We have plenty of daylight left to get set up on a core hole, maybe even pull one section before we knock off. I’ll walk ahead of you.”

  The rich smell of raw earth and tree sap combined to delight my senses. It was better than perfume. I came to where the trail Wink had cleared dead ended into an old logging road, turned left, and followed it to the creek. As I crossed the twenty-foot earthen bridge, I took in the soothing sound of gurgling water as it flowed through the concrete culverts. Upon reaching the far side, I turned to watch my guys as they pulled up to the creek.

  Both men got out to make a cursory check of the situation. Then Mule took the wheel as Stick, walking backwards and using hand signals, directed him forward until the front tires of the enormous rig were equally spaced on the edges of the narrow bridge. Now, with Stick still guiding him, Mule began to creep slowly across the creek.

  I continued on my way to the drill flag. The sound of a woodpecker’s hammer echoed again. Was it a red-bellied or a pileated … But then I heard a sickening crunch and panicked shouts from Stick.

  “Hold it! Hold it! Hold it!” he hollered.

  I turned and watched as the rig tilted dangerously to the left as that side of the bridge began to collapse under it in slow motion. “Noooo!” I screamed and ran back, my legs pumping like pistons.

  In the few seconds it took me to reach the edge of the creek, the rig had almost reached its tipping point of forty-five degrees. Momentarily stopped, it hung motionless over the creek.

  Mule sat behind the wheel like a crash dummy. The only thing moving was the water of the creek as it rushed around the rig’s tires. All it would take would be a slight shift of the auger flights and the whole shooting match—rig, auger flights, and Mule—would go in the creek.

  I watched the tires. The force of the water rushing around them was increasing in direct proportion to the volume now being trapped by the rig’s position over the culverts. Angry swirls and eddies roiled in the once docile creek, chewing large chunks away from the earthen bridge. I understood it wasn’t a question of if the rig would tip farther, but when.

  Stick seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion and we both started screaming at Mule, “Get out! Get out!”

  For a brief second he seemed glued to the wheel, but
then he quickly got the message. He tried to distribute his weight evenly as he reached for the door. Stick ran to the cab to try to help him out.

  With a clang, the auger flights shifted slightly and the rig sunk farther into the creek. The tilt was all that was needed to panic Mule into opening the driver’s door and leaping out into the creek. Instantly, his feet were sucked from underneath him.

  I caught a brief glimpse of his legs between the bottom of the door and the water before he disappeared with a gurgling yelp into the muddy cauldron.

  At that moment the rig tipped beyond the point of no return and slowly began to settle itself in the creek. About half the load of auger flights unloaded into the water with a clamorous ring, like a madman loose in a belfry tower with a sledgehammer. The open door was the only thing that saved the rig from completely rolling over on its side.

  “Mule!” I screamed and jumped in the creek. Water chunky with dirt, sticks, roots, and other debris from the collapsed earthen bridge beat against my legs as I waded to the door of the cab. I knew perfectly well it was a dumb thing to do, to go under a 25,000-pound drill rig—but I had to get Mule.

  He was not going to drown on my watch. With the creek water swirling in a torrent around me, I pulled myself around the door, but then was sucked down and slammed into the undercarriage of the rig. When I came up, I found Mule. He’d been washed into the cab and was pinned flat against the passenger door by the force of the water.

  With one hand I held on to the arm of the side-view mirror, and reached for Mule with my other. No good. It was all I could do to keep from getting trapped in the cab too. I pulled back and braced against the door, which was sinking deeper and deeper into the sandy creek bottom. At any moment the door was bound to buckle and the rig would lay completely down with Mule in it.

  Stick now appeared, wading in from the back end of the truck. He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me back, yelling, “I’ll get him!”

  “No! Wait!” I yelled back with the sudden clarity often bestowed on the truly desperate. I looked into Mule’s wild eyes. “Let go!” I shouted and made a waving motion with my hand toward the window. “Just go through the window!”

  I saw realization dawn in his eyes, saw him take a deep breath and slip into the rushing torrent. I felt Stick push away from me. Then, for a second, the water level built up in the cab and the sucking pressure let up.

  By the time I made it to the other side of the rig, Stick was hauling Mule onto what was left of the bridge. I hauled my soggy butt out of the creek. Tulip barked and leaped up and down like a pronghorn antelope. I realized she had been barking the whole time I was in the water.

  “You okay?” I asked Mule.

  “I think so,” he said uncertainly. I didn’t blame him for not knowing.

  “Good. Get your ass on that dozer as fast as you can and push a channel through the bridge so the water won’t beat to pieces what’s left of it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, heading off with Stick to get the bulldozer.

  In less than ten minutes with the dozer they opened a channel and allowed the creek to settle back to being its lazy self. Only now, instead of bubbling over crayfish and flat rocks, it meandered through the rig—still propped on its door—and our scattered auger flights.

  I stood on the creek bank and gazed at the wreck that was the rig. All I could see were winged dollar bills flying up and away from the carcass. The dozer clattered to a stop behind me and Mule and Stick came to stand beside me and survey the damage.

  “Phew! That was a close one!” Stick exclaimed.

  “You can say that again,” Mule told him. “Good thing I’ve kept my girlish figure or I’d’ve never fit through that window.”

  “I can’t believe you even tried to get out the down side of the rig in the first place, you moron. It’s a damn miracle you weren’t squished,” Stick said.

  “Don’t be calling me a moron.”

  “And with the creek practically pushing you out the window, you still tried to come back out the driver’s door. Don’t you know the old saying, ‘Go with the flow’?”

  “Yeah. But haven’t you ever heard the one about, ‘Never leave through a different door than the one you came in’?”

  “Knock it off, you two,” I said. “Truth be told, the open door’s the only thing that’s keeping the rig from tipping over completely. Start stripping off the auger flights, casings, and anything else that isn’t attached to the rig.”

  “We got enough chains in Stick’s truck to reach from the dozer to the rig, but I don’t think we’ll have enough horsepower to pull it out,” Mule said.

  “You’re right,” I said, “we won’t. Besides, I’m afraid we’d break the rig in half, pulling from the bank. Angle’s too steep. We need an all-terrain wrecker, something with flotation tires so it can get down in the creek and work from a better angle. I think I know where to get one.”

  It took me several tries before I was able to reach Wink’s voicemail. I dreaded giving him the bad news that way, so just left a message to call me. With luck, I’d have the rig up and in a garage with repairs underway before he called me back.

  Make that lots and lots of luck.

  THIRTEEN

  I drove straight to a truck garage I’d seen at the edge of the small town of Stella off Highway 17. I’d noticed it because it seemed a large operation for such a small town and therefore I suspected it specialized in tractor repairs. Which meant they had wreckers big enough to haul tractors. I stepped from the Jeep, noticing that, for the second time in two weeks, my clothes had dried on my body due to a dunking on the job. I tried to brush away dried silt and bits of grass and roots as I made my way across a large concrete parking area and stepped into the cool shade of one of three large work bays.

  Several large tractors, looking like giant wounded crustaceans, were being attended to, hoods removed, mechanics on either side working intently. The place smelled of motor oil and sweat. Hydraulic wrenches whirled and bursts of compressed air hissed from hoses snaking in every direction. I threaded my way through these obstacles, headed for the office.

  A round-faced middle-aged woman with teased black hair glanced up from where she pounded away on an ancient adding machine. Even when she stopped punching numbers in, the machine clicked and whirred away as if it was totaling up the national debt.

  “What can I do for you, honey?” she asked. Instantly I felt a little better and explained my problem.

  “Lordy, honey. What you need is Sweet Thang.”

  “ ‘Sweet Thang’?” I repeated dubiously.

  She pointed to a photo on the wall of a very shiny electric blue wrecker with flotation tires, each of which would reach my shoulders. The photo appeared to have been taken at some type of tractor pull or truck rodeo. Sweet Thang was emblazoned across the side of the wrecker in bold yellow shadow script.

  “Wow!” was all I could think to say.

  “That’s my Jimmy’s pride and joy. Jimmy’s my husband. Let me call him for you, honey,” said Ms. Jimmy. Without leaving her rolling chair, she scooted to a door behind her gray steel desk, opened it and yelled, “Jimmy!” When he didn’t respond in the next nanosecond, she said, “Be right back,” and sprang up to find him.

  A few minutes later, I heard a clattering roar and Sweet Thang rumbled around the corner of the building looking just as it did in the photo.

  Jimmy pulled the wrecker up in front of where I stood—I was wrong, the tires actually reached to my chin—and climbed out. “Jimmy Purdue,” he said with an outstretched hand.

  “Cleo Cooper,” I said. “Glad to meet you.”

  His wife came out of the office door and stood beside me as he continued, “Melva tells me you’re in a fine mess and need some help right now.”

  “She told you right. Can you help me?”

  “Well.” He squinted up at the
sun. “It’s about four. We probably have enough light, but we need to get moving. We got bingo at church tonight. Starts at eight and I’m the caller.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Follow me.”

  I jumped back in the Jeep and drove to the site with Sweet Thang chained down to a rollback carrier plus an empty carrier right behind me. My luck got even better when Jimmy told me that the situation wasn’t as bad as it looked. Since the rig hadn’t completed a 90-degree flip, the oil didn’t run out of the engine block. According to Jimmy, that was a good thing. Apparently.

  I’m pretty good with large machines as far as how they do what I need on a worksite, but their mysterious inner workings will always remain, well, mysterious to me.

  In less than two hours, Jimmy and Sweet Thang had the rig pulled out of the creek and loaded on the carrier, and he was on his way back to town for bingo night. The crew, having no rig to drill with, headed for their motel.

  My cell clanged. Wink. Perfect timing.

  After I told him what had happened, we made plans to meet at Purdue’s Garage late the next afternoon, check on the repairs, and formulate a plan to get the testing back on track as fast as possible. When I suggested maybe even getting another rig to the site if Statewide had one available, Wink didn’t make noises as if that was a total impossibility. I was just starting to feel like my mojo was still working. Then my cell phone rang again. I checked the screen. Gladys.

  “Gladys, what’s up?” I said.

  “Cleo? Is that you?” Her voice trembled and she sounded dis-

  oriented.

  “You okay, Gladys?”

  “Well, I don’t know … ”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Well, I talked to that nice sheriff and right after he left, the children drove up. How did they know I was here?”

  My guess: they followed the sheriff. I closed my eyes and rubbed my now aching head. “I’m not sure,” I lied.