by Sylvia Nobel
Three days earlier, during our first lunch together, she’d shrieked with laughter when I recounted my story of meeting Bradley, whose close friends called him Tally, she informed me. I learned about her family, her life in Texas, and her heartfelt desire to settle down and have children.
“How old are you, sugar?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Well, y’all still have some time. I’m gonna be thirty-three next month, and eligible men in this town are scarcer than hen’s teeth.”
Mingled between anecdotes about the good citizens of Castle Valley, she skillfully extracted large chunks of my background.
“I got married right after college, but it barely lasted two years.”
“Oh, that’s a shame.” For a few seconds her expression was sympathetic, then it turned impish. “So, what happened? He beat ya? Chase other women? Was he gay?”
I laughed. “I think you’ve been watching too many talk shows. Sorry to disappoint you, but it was nothing so dramatic. I’d been working at my dad’s newspaper since I could read and could do every job there practically in my sleep.
“I was restless, ready to move on and my husband was studying to be a pharmacist. His plans included us staying in Spring Hill, complete with picket fence and a dozen kids. Mine didn’t. Neither of us could change, so we parted friends. He got the dog, and I took my maiden name back.”
Throughout the remainder of the meal, she’d pressed me for further details, and it was amusing to hear some of the things I’d told her, repeated by other staff members the following day. Some details were embellished almost beyond recognition.
With that in mind now, as we entered the restaurant and slid into the red vinyl booth, I vowed to talk less of myself and concentrate on extracting information from her.
“Oh, lookee here,” she cried, eyeing the menu with regret. “Chicken and dumplin’s. And me on a stupid diet again.”
“Go ahead and have it if you want it.”
She drew back in mock horror. “Easy for you to say, being skinny as a rail. Food don’t go to my stomach, darlin’. Everything goes right here,” she complained, patting her hips.
We were both giggling when a chestnut-haired woman interrupted, asking for our order. “Oh, Lucy,” Ginger gushed, a sly expression stealing over her features, “this here’s Kendall O’Dell. Kendall, this here’s Lucinda Johns. She and her Aunt Polly own this place.”
When I told her how much I’d enjoyed the previous lunch, she smiled and thanked me. As she took our orders, I couldn’t help but notice her enormous boobs. It made me feel positively flat.
“Kendall’s our new gal on the beat over yonder at the paper. Ain’t that nice?” The syrupy tone of Ginger’s voice surprised me.
Curious, I glanced at her, then back to Lucinda in time to see her smile shrink. “I see. Congratulations.” She cast a speculative glance at me before turning away.
A mischievous light gleamed in Ginger’s eyes. “Okay,” I demanded, “what was that little scene all about? You might as well have told her I have AIDS by the way she acted.”
“I just wanted to see if she’d act jealous.”
“Jealous of whom?”
She studied her fingertips. “You.”
“Me? Why?”
“‘Cause she’s had her eye on Tally since grade school. Her knowing y’all are there practically sitting in his lap all day’ll keep her on her toes.”
“I’m surprised at you. That was downright catty.”
“I can’t help myself.”
“Well, she needn’t worry. I’m totally burnt out on the male sex at this moment.”
She cocked her head in question, so I told her the barest details about my shattered romance with Grant Jamerson, glossing over most of the painful details. “It was for the best, however. He’d have made a lousy husband.”
As the noisy lunch crowd filled the room, I watched Lucinda and another waitress scurry from table to table. Five minutes later, she set the plates down in front of us without a word and managed the barest of smiles before rushing away.
I shook my head sadly. “Shame on you, Ginger. I’ve only been here nine days, and already I have a mortal enemy.”
“Oh, flapdoodle. She’d have found out about y’all eventually any hoot. She keeps pretty close tabs on him.”
I dug into my tuna salad. “So, they’re an item?”
“If Tally was willing, she’d drag him to the preacher tomorrow. He’s quite a catch y’know.”
Ignoring her implication, I buttered a roll and yawned my disinterest. “To each his own, I guess.”
“A gal could do worse.”
I stopped eating. “Forget it, Ginger. I don’t mean to sound condescending, but I can do better than a hired ranch hand.”
She choked on her sandwich. “Ranch hand! Didn’t anybody tell you? He and his family own the Starfire. It’s one of the biggest dang cattle ranches in the state.”
I felt like my chin was going to hit the table. The sparkle in Ginger’s eyes reflected her enjoyment.
“Well, what’s he doing working at that two bit…I mean at the paper?”
“He ain’t been there but two years. He needed to git his mind off of what happened, I guess.” A dreamy look came over her face. “It musta pert near stopped his heart when he laid eyes on you the first time.”
“Why?”
“With all that flaming red hair? He’s gotta be thinking of his wife, Stephanie.”
I’m sure my face looked incredulous. “If he’s married, why should Lucinda be jealous of me?”
“He ain’t married no more. Stephanie’s dead as a doornail. Rode out one stormy night on one of them prize appaloosa horses of his and got throwed off. Died of a broken neck, she did.” It was obvious by the satisfied gleam in her eyes that she was relishing every word.
“No kidding?”
“Yep. But that ain’t the half of it.” She lowered her voice. “Now, I ain’t one for carryin’ tales, but some folks ’round here didn’t think it was no accident, including our very own John Dexter.”
“Really? And, what did he think?”
“That Tally killed her.”
4
Ginger’s remark blew me away. While the disclosure about Bradley was shocking, more intriguing yet was John Dexter’s connection.
“Okay, you’ve got my undivided attention. Why did he suspect Bradley had anything to do with her death?”
She opened her mouth to speak when a loud voice from across the room cut her off. I turned to see Lucinda blocking the exit of a rather disheveled looking teen-ager clad in ragged jeans and tank top.
“This ain’t a charity dining room. I’m sick to death of you free loaders jumping off the bus and coming in here to order up a meal you can’t pay for!” She hustled the girl out the door. “You want a free meal, get your butt to the shelter three blocks over.”
The teen cast a spiteful glance at Lucinda before slinking away, and I couldn’t help but think of the pathetic young girl I’d picked up last week.
For a few seconds, the room was bathed in silence, and then one grizzled customer drawled, “Aw, Lucy. Now what’d you go an’ do that for? She looked real pitiful, like a starved pup. You’re not gonna go broke sharin’ a sandwich with the kid.” That brought a hoot of laughter from the man’s companions.
Lucinda fixed him with a formidable glare. “You mind your own business, Elwood. I wouldn’t care if it was just once in a while, but this is getting real old. It seems like every ragamuffin runaway in the country makes a beeline for my place. I can’t afford to feed all of them. Let that Phillips woman do her job.” With that she dusted her hands together and marched behind the counter.
“Poor little things,” Ginger sighed, her expression troubled. “My sister Bonnie was showing me a magazine article just last week. They’re called throwaway kids.” Her voice got lower, more confidential. “As young as eleven or twelve they’re turning tricks for food and money. Ain’t that jest sha
meful?”
“Awful. What shelter is Lucinda talking about?”
In between bites of her sandwich, she told me about the Desert Harbor Shelter located in a “big ol’” house on Tumbleweed, and run by a woman named Claudia Phillips. “I heard tell the place operates on a shoestring. She can’t do a whole lot but give them kids some food and clothes and a place to stay a spell.” Then, with an ominous tone, she added, “Them are the lucky ones. Some of them little gals just plum vanish. Poof!”
“Vanish?”
“White slave traders.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was in all the papers. This gang was taking blue-eyed blonde gals and selling ’em to them people over yonder for their harems or some such thing.”
“Oh, Ginger, get real.”
“I swear on my mama’s Bible! And then there was that bunch in Mexico snatching ’em up for human sacrifices.”
Impatient to return to the previous subject, I steered the conversation back to John Dexter’s suspicions about Bradley.
“Oh, yeah. Well, as I was sayin’…” She glanced at her watch and wailed, “Good Lord, it’s almost one o’clock. Tugg’s gonna have my fanny in a crack if I’m late again! I gotta scoot.”
Twice now in two hours I’d let myself get sidetracked. “Wait a minute! You can’t just drop a bombshell like that and then leave me hanging.”
“Sorry, sugar. Lookee here. Why don’t y’all come on over to supper tomorrow night? I’ll rustle up a pot of my famous Texas chili, some homemade cornbread, and fill in the rest.”
“Okay.”
She scribbled her address on a napkin and bolted out the door.
Aware that I had twenty minutes to kill before covering another terminally boring meeting at City Hall, I stepped outside, squinting into the glaring sunlight. I’d walked only a few feet from the door when one of Ginger’s remarks struck me. Had I been so busy concentrating on what John Dexter had to do with Bradley’s wife that I’d missed something important? Plopping down on the nearby shaded bus bench I pulled out the note Tugg had given me and read it again, zeroing in on the phrase, “dead teens.”
I flipped open my notepad. In the center of the page, I drew a circle, wrote John Dexter’s name in the middle, and then extended lines outward like bicycle spokes. On each line I placed one of the statements in the note, then leaned back against the hard wooden backrest to study it, only vaguely aware of people and traffic.
Was I way off base or could there be some connection between the dead teens and the runaways Ginger spoke of? Dexter had referred to something odd in some files at the sheriff’s office. Were they the same ones he’d mentioned in the note?
I blew out a long breath. Obviously, I had my work cut out for me. On a new page, I made a note to go through past issues of the Sun and study the stories Dexter had written on the two cases. Step two would be the doozy; tactfully asking to see the files without agitating Roy Hollingsworth whom I’d finally met for the first time the previous Friday. Tugg had assigned me to cover the police blotter, or log as they called it. That would put me in the sheriff’s office at least once a week.
I’d been surprised when I met Roy. From Tugg’s description, I had expected to encounter a thoroughly uncooperative, disagreeable, perhaps even dangerous man. He appeared to be none of those, greeting me with a wide smile and a neighborly handshake. Standing well over six feet tall, his substantial stomach protruding over a gigantic turquoise belt buckle, he looked less like an adversary than he did a big, friendly bear. In uniform.
As we chatted, I couldn’t help but stare at his curious eyebrows. They were light blonde, very fuzzy, and perched over his silver blue eyes like two giant caterpillars. I hid my surprise when he brought up the subject of John Dexter.
“Morty’s been real unhappy with me over our manhunt for John Dexter, but as I tried to tell him, we can’t produce the man out of thin air. Me and Deputy Potts, along with members of the sheriff’s posse and other law enforcement agencies, combed this area for weeks and couldn’t find a trace of him.” Shrugging his aggravation, he added, “It’s been real frustrating for me, too.”
He was very convincing. I began to wonder if Tugg was on the wrong track. “I’m sure we’ll hear from him sooner or later. When did you last see him?”
“Julie,” he shouted. “Pull the file on John Dexter for me.” Moments later, a slender, dark-haired girl appeared from another room and handed him a folder. The sheriff rifled through it as Julie and I exchanged introductions.
“He disappeared on March 29th, and I may have been the last person in town to see him. The reason I know that is because I wrote him a speeding ticket that day.”
Tugg hadn’t told me that. “Where did you ticket him?”
“Heading south on 89 toward Phoenix. He seemed real nervous when I stopped him. Agitated. He was…well, let’s say, verbally abusive, but for John that wasn’t out of character.” He smiled wryly. “So you see, I don’t think anything unusual happened to John. I think he had something else going. Why he didn’t give Morty notice, I don’t know.” When he frowned, the two blond caterpillars fused together into one.
While he shuffled papers into the file, I decided either he was being quite up front with me or he was a remarkably good actor. He’d ushered me to the door, inviting me to come anytime or call him if I had any questions. Because he’d been so damned likable, it would make my job all the harder.
A car backfire jolted me back to the present. I closed the notebook and rose stiffly from the bus bench. The meeting ran for over two hours, and it was late afternoon when I returned to the newspaper office. Ginger greeted me with a smile reminding me again of dinner the following evening. I hauled out three boxes of back issues of the paper to take home with me.
The wind was blowing across the desert floor, whipping up funnels of yellow dust when I reached the house. Before going inside, I paused as I always did to admire the spectacle of Castle Rock. Ever changeable, depending on the angle of the sun, it glowed in shades of peach and burnished copper.
After an early dinner, I phoned my parents. They seemed pleased I was settling in. Dad asked about my job, Morton Tuggs, and my asthma. With forced enthusiasm, I told them about my new life and promised to call them again soon. As I hung up the phone, a sharp pang of homesickness enveloped me. To ward off the blues, I turned up the television and cleaned the kitchen.
Still filled with restless energy, I went outside to sweep the walkway and water the small front garden filled with a bright orange sea of desert poppies. The sound of a vehicle made me look up. The black Mercedes I’d seen the first day purred down Lost Canyon Road followed by a white van. Was that perhaps my nearest neighbor, Dr. Price? I’d been meaning to check out Serenity House for days now, but hadn’t had the time. I decided a nice long walk would do me good. Mary Tuggs had said it was about two miles away, so I should be back before dark.
It was so quiet I could hear my tennis shoes crunching on the rocky road. Except for the birds and an occasional gust of wind, nothing disturbed the silence.
When I reached a fork in the road, I chose the left which looked well traveled. The right fork, overgrown with tall grass and tumbleweeds, snaked off into the desert. I slowed my footsteps as I approached a large sign with bold red letters announcing: DANGER! NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT.
The high fence topped with jagged coils of razor wire looked ominous, but in a way it made me feel secure to know it was there. For a fleeting second, visions of violent ax-wielding mental patients flashed through my mind like scenes from a cheap horror movie. “Don’t be stupid,” I muttered under my breath. I’d read that many of the new drugs did an excellent job of subduing patients.
I peered through the chain-link fence. Enclosed inside a second fence I spotted the top of an ancient bell tower. Patches of red tile roofs and white stucco buildings were visible among the groves of palms and cottonwood trees. It looked quite peaceful and not at all thr
eatening.
Then, seemingly from out of nowhere, two enormous Dobermans rushed to the fence, eyes gleaming, teeth snapping, their throaty barks echoing through the stillness. My heart pounded as I jumped back. Without hesitation, I retreated. All during the walk home, the memory of the dogs’ snarling faces kept me in a state of watchful anxiety.
Sometime during the night, the wind kicked up again. It whistled around under the eaves and rattled the windows. For hours, I thrashed about restlessly. When I finally did fall into a deep sleep I kept having the same annoying dream over and over. A voice kept calling for me to get out. “Get out. Get out.”
The persistent phrase was so irritating, I finally opened my eyes. Then I heard it again. Was I awake or still dreaming?
“Get out!” The voice was quite distinct that time. This was no dream! Pulse racing, I sat bolt upright in bed and stared at the partially open arcadia door. “Who’s out there?”
Besides the murmur of the wind rustling through the trees, I thought I heard footsteps disappearing into the distance.
5
Moonlight, bright and harsh, lit the patio area and the vast desert landscape beyond, in cold blue tones. Wind-tossed cottonwoods joined waving fan palms to send lacy shadows dancing across the table and scattered lawn chairs. My heart hammered in my ears as I stood in the doorway searching for the reason I was now awake. I snapped on the back patio light and called out again, “Okay, who’s out here?”
Not really expecting an answer, I listened intently, hearing only the branches of the paloverde tree scratching against the side of the house. The effect was definitely eerie, and I was more aware than ever of my total isolation.
After I’d closed and locked the door, I reached for my inhaler. Several deep breaths of the medication loosened the tightness in my chest, bringing a semblance of calm. Perhaps the former tenants believed in ghosts, but I didn’t. The first thing that came to mind was perhaps there had been another escape from Serenity House. That thought was definitely unsettling.
