Rock Spider (A New Hampshire Mystery Book 2)

by Mira Gibson

  All of her memories of Doris revolved around this house and the family they’d become; just the two of them after Gertrude had helped get Doris out of their parents' house.

  Realizing this brought on an eerie surge, as she padded quickly across the deck then opened the front door, which she’d been forgetting to lock.

  The house was dim and she did nothing to change that as she made a beeline for her bedroom. As she spilled onto the bed, dark recollections entwining so tightly with nightmarish visions seeped into her mind, and she couldn’t separate fiction from fact before slipping into a fitful sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  The next day, Gertrude woke like a lark—bolting upright, reeling from tangled dreams, struggling to place where she was; her childhood bedroom? No. Brain injury rehab? No. Her cabin? Once she had a grip on it, she flung the covers off, darting for the shower.

  As the dawning sun bled across the tangerine sky, gradually turning it blue, she drove to the DCYF.

  When she reached her cubicle, after passing her coworkers’ sties, she popped the front of her blazer open single-handedly, unwilling to set down the morning paper.

  Though it wasn’t covered in ash, her desk reminded her of Pompeii and Herculaneum—perfectly preserved, life frozen after an unforeseeable act of God, items where they’d always been, yet untouched for far too long. The stacks of case files, reports, her notes written in sloppy cursive—some stained with coffee rings, others curling from humidity—would’ve been overwhelming had she not recognized each and every one of them.

  Her spotty memory was a constant source of intrigue and frustration, but at least in the office she didn’t feel lost.

  As she began organizing her workspace, returning files to stout cabinets that were tucked under her wrapping desk, she mentally reviewed her afternoon with Zhana King. During their hour together, Gertrude hadn’t jumbled her words. Her mind hadn’t gone whiteout blank. She’d held her own, covered more ground than she could’ve hoped, and gained a real foothold, accomplishing precisely what Harry had instructed.

  She should be feeling good, but instead an indistinct rawness had taken hold. Booting up her computer, she made an honest effort to pinpoint why that was. As the screen flickered to life, it occurred to her that because Roberta no longer had a sibling, because she was undeniably alone, because she didn’t have someone like Gertrude to turn to like Doris had, she might never feel saved or safe no matter where she was placed.

  Impacting her worry in this regard was an overpowering sense of guilt. She felt badly for Zhana. The guns, which Gertrude had seen no sign of when she’d walked through the living room, spent time at the dining table, and peered into the kitchen, weren’t Zhana’s, but her husband’s. Nevertheless, Zhana would be punished just as severely as Charlie, if either of them felt having their only living daughter taken away was a punishment.

  For one brief and flashing moment, Gertrude sensed an eerie potential. She’d lost Doris, Roberta was on the precipice of being displaced from her own family, but she pushed the kismet into the outer reaches of her thoughts. It would be, after all, wildly inappropriate even to consider.

  Instead she pulled up a 10-1C template on her computer and began reviewing it. Filling out an Application for Temporary Removal of Child would be the first step in placing Roberta in a temporary home.

  As she typed, the cubicles around her began filling, lights flickering on here and there, conversations and telephone calls billowing up louder and louder, and soon the office was buzzing in full swing of its morning rhythm.

  After completing the form and sending it to her printer—an old Dot Matrix that munched up the accordion of tractor-fed paper behind it and stuttered the application out onto the tray—she grabbed the morning paper, thinking she’d give it a read in the meantime.

  Gertrude nearly did a double take when she saw Zhana staring up at her from the front page. Alarmed, she scanned the article without really taking a word of it in, as though the fact of its existence was too much to process. She slowed. The headline read: Rift Emerges Among Gun Owners Over Safety of Our Children, and was juxtaposed with a decades-old magazine photo of Zhana King. It made for a disturbing message. And if that weren't offputting enough, she caught the name of the journalist—Jake Livingston.

  But Wendy surprised her, appearing at the edge of her cubicle and booming a loud Morning!

  “Harry wants to see you in the conference room.” Gertrude must have looked concerned, because Wendy quickly added, “For an update, don’t look so scared. I’m going to sit in with you.” Taking a beat and giving Gertrude the once over, she smirked. “You look sharp, Kid. That beret’s working out.”

  “Thanks.”

  She rolled over to her printer and tore the application along its perforated edge, as Wendy slurped coffee noisily from her mug that screamed—I survived another meeting that should’ve been an email—her teeth clinking against the rim all the while.

  “Got your notes?” she said when Gertrude joined her, a question Wendy would’ve never asked before the accident. “Crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s?”

  “Yeah, it’s right here,” she said, indicating her notepad.

  “Cup of Joe? Shouldn’t be a long one, but with Harry you never know.”

  “Ah, I’m fine,” she said, unsure but declining. She’d been perpetually jumpy ever since leaving Dr. Hagstaff’s care and the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program’s insulated environment. The last thing she needed was a caffeine induced heart arrhythmia.

  As she followed Wendy—lumbering footfall, bohemian skirt swaying, greeting each social worker she passed with an exuberant Hiya! or Get ‘em tiger! or sometimes Fresh coffee in the break room! overcompensating if there’d been friction with that individual in the past—Gertrude puzzled over the fact that the man who’d fixed her car was a journalist for the Laconia Daily Sun.

  In the conference room, Gertrude sat nervously and fell mute while Wendy chattered on about the finer details of her trivial hobbies like an estranged aunt desperate to connect with her child-niece who showed zero interest—I nearly super-glued my finger to a ceramic cat last night! (awkward laughter followed) Jimbo tinkers with that old motorcycle nonstop, but won’t let me help and I know a thing or two!

  Harry was the last to arrive and when he did, he wasted no time.

  “Where are we at with the Kings?” He eased into a chair at the head of the table.

  Fumbling through her notepad, she explained, “Roberta seems to be drinking freely under her mother’s supervision and Zhana admitted the guns were still in the house. Here,” she concluded, sliding the application towards him for review.

  Holding her breath while Harry skimmed the 10-1C checking she’d filled the fields out correctly, Gertrude wrestled down the impulse to confront him, but ultimately succumbed.

  “Sir, I learned that Roberta had been victimized by a number of men, who were eventually arrested for statutory rape.”

  Wendy looked grave and deferred to Harry to take this one. And Gertrude immediately felt as though she'd done something wrong. But his expression—pained yet firm as though he was willing to work with her—was uncharacteristically reassuring.

  When he didn't point out her oversight, she quickly apologized. "I must not have remembered the details after I read the file."

  “Gerty, look.” He choked out a heavy sigh, leaning forward.

  But before he could elaborate, Wendy interrupted. “She's getting into the swing of things. Don't blame her.”

  “I wasn’t going to. Gerty, you’re a strong investigator,” he began, but the compliment made her want to cringe. She had been good at her job, whether or not she’d retained the skill was up for debate. He glanced over the application. “This form looks good.”

  “I can look over your notes next time,” Wendy offered as a means to boost her confidence.

  “Don't placate her,” he barked, annoyed and defending Gertrude just as fiercely. “I have my suspicions about
the King’s. I don’t like that Charlie has the influence he does over his cop buddies and the velocity at which those men were arrested. I don’t believe there was sufficient time to collect evidence, and I also don’t believe the evidence documented wasn’t somehow...” He seemed to wince. “Altered and I know I shouldn’t say that. Gerty, I know you can go in with a fresh pair of eyes. Truth be told I don’t know what’s going on, but the police have been stalling and sometimes sabotaging this department. You're doing good work.”

  Gertrude was struggling with his use of double negatives.

  “The goal remains," he announced. "We’re going to keep taking steps to place Roberta in a safe home.” He rubbed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath, then glanced over the application. “This is sound. I’ll see if I can’t file it. In the meantime, before we get her out, I'm still making efforts to get the guns removed. I’ve pulled a few strings with the DA to put pressure on the police to actually go in and seize those weapons. As soon as I have word, Gerty, I’ll let you know. I’d like you to be there with Roberta, make sure Charlie doesn’t do something rash.”

  “Okay,” she said, though she hadn’t the foggiest idea how she might prevent the man from doing something rash especially since, in the context, she had to assume Harry meant violent. Recalling Zhana’s suspicion, she asked, “Do you think the statutory rape incidences are connected to Maude’s suicide?”

  Validating the question, Wendy trained her concern on Harry as well.

  “I don’t know what I think except that this is a royal mess and that damned article is only going to make things worse.”

  He was rubbing his eyes again.

  When her brow knit, Wendy quietly asked her, “Have you read it? The Livingston article?”

  “The headline looked promising,” said Harry, preparing to fill her in, “but the slant was that we fucked up.”

  Gaping, Gertrude asked, “It said we fucked up? Social services?”

  “No mention of Charlie other than his stellar reputation.”

  Irate, Wendy nodded, backing him up.

  “Livingston made Zhana King out to be some kind of oblivious clown,” he added, rising from the table, application in hand. “To be fair, he did make a few valid points about gun control, but it was soft, national statistics, nothing that directly blamed the laws around here.” When he reached the door and pulled it open, he turned, purposely making eye contact with Gertrude. “I should’ve reminded you about the statutory rape charges. We're glad to have you back. This is a family.” Once his apology landed, he concluded, “If we’re going to get Roberta out, our reports and applications have to be laser focused on the hazards in that house. We have to prove evidence of reckless endangerment.”

  “Right,” said Gertrude.

  Wendy didn’t let her leave when they were alone, placing her hand over Gertrude’s.

  “Be careful with those people.”

  “I will.”

  Wendy tapped her hand, giving her a smirk, and then hoisted herself up from the table.

  “Coming?”

  Rising from her chair and collecting her notepad to show that she was, Dr. Hagstaff crossed her mind. Maybe she could take an early lunch or make an excuse for ducking out now.

  When she reached her cubicle, she gave him a call, hunching secretively with her back to the room. With each ring, her anxiety elevated until she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears, and as soon as a female voice came through—his administrative assistant?—she interrupted with a sharp tone.

  “I need to see Dr. Hagstaff.”

  “May I ask-”

  “It’s Gertrude.” Confused silence on the other end had her blurting out, “Inman. Gertrude Inman.”

  Not that she was being met with resistance, his assistant Abby was kind and efficient and didn’t object to her heading over, though she put her on hold, but Gertrude feared her rising panic would culminate into a career-ending breakdown. She couldn’t get her speeding thoughts to slow down long enough to figure out why in the hell this was happening.

  Before Abby could return on the line, Gertrude grabbed her purse and laptop satchel and was darting through the office and out the door.

  She nearly broke the car door off its hinges, yanking it open, then collapsed behind the wheel—SMILE!

  She ripped the index card off and shredded it, her vision blurring and tone whimpering like a wounded animal, as the pendulum of her emotions swung up into full-blown, hyperventilating gasps.

  Focus on your breathing.

  But her breathing—convulsive hitches, desperate straining, a thread of oxygen flossing up and down her tightening throat yet never reaching her lungs—was all too apparent.

  She was sure she would pass out before she got a grip, but then as suddenly as the attack had seized her, it dissipated. Squeezing the steering wheel, she glanced around the parking lot and up the sidewalk, embarrassed she might have been seen, but there was no one around. She started the car, found reverse, and backed cautiously out of her parking spot.

  As Gertrude drove along Beacon Street West, passing brick buildings that never seemed inhabited and green-awning shops that looked just as sleepy, the rapture of adrenaline cooling in her veins gave her the mild shakes, but she stayed alert to the traffic around her vehicle, used her blinker at every turn, and was soon merging onto the Daniel Webster Highway, which would take her to the rehabilitation center.

  She kept the speedometer hovering around forty miles per hour and didn’t glance at the cars whipping around her in the left lane, but when she looked in her rearview mirror and noticed a truck was coasting just shy of her bumper even though there had been plenty of opportunities for it to pass, her hibernating panic began roiling all over again.

  “Go around me,” she said, waving her hand, not that the driver could see.

  She jerked her Audi back into its lane when she realized she had drifted, holding her eyes on the mirror too long.

  The truck lurched at her bumper, sending a fresh jolt of adrenaline searing through her veins. What were they doing? She tried not to glance at the mirror again, but a hot flash of sweat broke out across her skin at the thought of not looking.

  Flipping her right blinker on to indicate she’d veer onto the shoulder if not exit the first chance she got and checking the rearview, she saw the truck buck forward.

  It hit her.

  The impact was stark and her head snapped back against the hard curve of her seat. At first she assumed another vehicle had rear-ended the truck and it was about to be a pileup, but glancing back for a split second, her instincts told her that wasn’t the case. She slammed her foot to the gas, gunning it, eyes locking on the empty road ahead.

  The needle on the speedometer angled around, passing fifty then sixty then seventy then eighty miles per hour, and it wasn’t until she came upon a sixteen wheeler that she eased her foot off the gas, stealing a peak at the rearview mirror where the truck was nowhere to be seen.

  No sooner than she returned her eyes to the road and sighed out a shuddering breath of relief, she heard sirens wailing behind her.

  Looking in the rearview again, a state cruiser was gaining on her.

  “Please don’t be for me,” she groaned.

  But it was flashing its headlights at her and she knew if she didn’t pull over, the power speaker would come on next.

  Squeezing the brake and easing onto the shoulder, Gertrude wracked her brain for where the vehicle registration might be. As soon as she came to a stop, she hunted through the inner door pockets, then the stow-away compartment between the driver’s and passenger’s seats, and finally the glove box. Luckily, she found it sprouting out of the Audi manual.

  After placing it and her license in her lap and cranking her window down, she watched the patrolman, a state trouper in a forest-green button down with a golden crest on the sleeve, tan tie and slacks matching his Mountie hat, approach her vehicle. He rested his hand on his glistening gun where it hung on his hip, as he neared he
r window, boots crunching glass and gravel.

  His posture was erect—rigid gait and boxed shoulders—like a drill sergeant just itching for confrontation. But when he stared down at her through the open window, the texture of his skin—deeply creased around the eyes, ruddy cheeks, taut jowls along his jaw—didn’t match up to the fight and fire in his coal-black eyes.

  He didn’t ask for her license and registration, but angled in on her, snorting as though the sight of her hadn’t lived up to his expectation.

  “There was a truck.” Her voice cracked so she cleared it, tried to speak up over the wail of cars whipping by. “A truck rear-ended me from behind. I was trying to get away from it. I wouldn’t speed otherwise.” She felt scattered, searching her memory for the truck’s make and model, but even the color eluded her. “I’m sure there’s damage if you check.”

  His tone was like feedback through an amplifier, horrid and sustained, its voltage razzing her. “Every inch of this thing is damaged. No smoking gun, Sweetheart, no cigar.”

  She resigned herself to the ticket she had coming and slumped back in her seat.

  Removing his hat and leaning his forearm along the sill, he scowled, his steely eyes boring through her as if she both amused and sickened him. She shrunk deeper into her seat, recoiling in response.

  “You know everyone thought so highly of you, fighting your way up from the bottom of Winnipesaukee like that.” He sucked his teeth for a beat, glancing out at the highway, then steadied his gaze on her. “Losing a sister like you did, well, I would've thought you’d be understanding.”

  In danger of trembling, she broke eye contact, lowering her gaze, which happened to settle on his badge—a golden eagle soaring over a ship and a branch of laurels underneath. Then she caught his surname clipped beneath the badge: King.

  She hoped her tone would come out even and not stuttering, as she asserted, “I’d like to file a police report against the truck that rear-ended me, Officer, please.”