“I was going to say, keep me posted, but I understand that is not going to happen. So I’ll say, we’ll be talking in the future.” He gave me a frosty smile.
“You can count on it.”
I watched him walk across the tarmac toward the helicopter that was partially blocked from view by the corner of the grooming room.
Now I would get the answer to a pressing question: Will Rand still attempt to speak to me? My pride had dictated that I would rebuff his first attempt, but I was rooting for him to try again. I stood a long thirty seconds before I ducked back inside my office. I didn’t want to be caught waiting for him on the porch.
“Damn!” I had no sooner sat down at my desk when I heard the whine of the helicopter’s rotor increasing, ’til it was shattering the peace and quiet over my head. He was leaving, the schmuck! I gnashed my teeth in anger and disappointment. His ego was obviously in direct proportion with mine, big. Very big, maybe even bigger. At this rate, I’d never get to see that quaint little restaurant and the St. John’s River in the moonlight. A person could starve to death waiting for another invitation. I could dry up and blow away while we played silly games.
“What did he say?” Jasmine was breathing hard. She must have trotted across from the grooming room. She eyed me expectantly as she advanced into the room.
“Not a dang syllable!” I muttered. “He leaned against the grooming room and waved at me while I hid behind the curtain. I had Donnie Ray stop him from entering before Jackson. Afterward, I expected him to try again, but he flew away obviously sulking.”
“That sure reminds me of someone. Who could that be?”
Her head was cocked to the side and her eyes were sparkling with good humor.
“Don’t nag me, I feel rotten.”
“I’ll change the subject. I retrieved the info from the master spy. It’s in the car. Donnie Ray wants to name the last female puppy Caboose. You said this was going to be Judy’s last litter.”
“Over my dead body. We can’t call her the runt, either, she weighs the most.”
“Let’s discuss naming her over lunch. Hungry?”
“Getting thwarted always makes me hungry,” I declared.
Just after three, the detective agency based in Washington, D.C., called. The male caller identified himself when he was assured he was talking to me.
“Ms. Sidden, I’m Chester Adams. I’ll be your personal representative here at the agency. I will be handling your inquiries and instructing the operatives who will be securing the answers to your questions. If you’ll tell me the names of the people you would like to have a dossier on, I’ll get started.”
“Certainly,” I replied. He held while I found my list. I read the names of Miz Cancannon’s five nieces, their four husbands, and Rand.
“I want this as detailed as possible, by next Friday morning. Call first and speak to me, then you can fax what you have on them. Never fax any information without checking first, so I will be the one receiving the information. Do not give out any information to anyone who calls for it if it isn’t me. The lawyer who is paying the freight is not privileged to receive any duplicates. Is this understood?”
“Absolutely. The best method is to use a code word, one of your choice, and it’s to be mentioned in your first sentence to me, or the call will be terminated.”
“Bobby Lee.”
“Very well. I would like to mention that six days is not enough time to completely cover every facet of their lives. An in-depth study will take longer.”
“How much longer?” I asked.
“It will depend on whether there are blanks in their histories, and if they lived or worked in Europe or Asia.”
“Fine. I’ll expect your call next Friday before ten A.M. If you don’t mind my asking, I seem to hear a Southern accent in your speech.”
“You do,” he answered. “I thought it had disappeared, but hearing your voice must have made me revert back to it. I spent half of my life right outside Atlanta, in a small town named Tucker. When I graduated from high school, I moved to D.C.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I replied.
“Oh yes, I go back to visit several times a year, Mom, and old high school buddies.”
“No old sweethearts?”
“They have all vanished by either moving away or into marriage and motherhood.”
“Time marches on,” I commented. “You’ll get back to me next Friday?”
“I’ll call you by ten. Nice doing business with you, Ms. Sidden.”
“Jo Beth.”
“My name is Chester, but everyone calls me Chet.”
“Good-bye, Chet.”
I looked at the clock. I had been up since midnight but wasn’t sleepy. If I took a nap, it would mess up a good night’s sleep later on. I decided to go help Jasmine and Donnie Ray prepare the feed for the evening kennel rounds.
Windell was working, but he would leave at five. My masterpiece litter was throwing all our schedules out the window, but they were worth their weight in gold. I giggled aloud. Maybe the day they were born, but not now. Puppies doubled their weight in the first week. These sweethearts were filling out very nicely.
The phone rang as I was crossing the back porch. I hurried back.
“Hello.”
“May I speak to Ms. Jo Beth Sidden?”
“I’m Jo Beth Sidden.”
“We met briefly Thursday mid-morning, Ms. Sidden. My name is Captain Evan Danglish, USAF. Please don’t hang up until I tell you, I’m the good guy. I was with Colonel Rupert Hayes, USAF. He was the bad guy.”
“I’m still listening, Captain. How’s the colonel doing?”
“He’s muttering and scowling, as usual. I wanted to apologize for his behavior. Almost all Air Force personnel here at Moody are professionals, but we have a couple of rotten apples in our barrel. The colonel is one of them.”
“I accept your apology on behalf of the Air Force, Captain. This call wasn’t necessary, but I appreciate the effort. I bump into species like the colonel on a weekly basis. All is forgiven.”
“Thanks for understanding. I know you’re very busy, but I wondered if you could spare me a few minutes. I was the pilot of the missing plane. If it’s not found, I figured out that it will take me around two hundred and thirty-two years to pay for it out of my salary.”
I laughed. “Surely you jest?”
“Yes, ma’am, but until that plane is found and they determine the reason for the crash, my future as a pilot in the Air Force is on hold.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Captain, but there is nothing I can do to help you. Without a pinpoint location within a few hundred yards’ diameter, my bloodhounds couldn’t find it. With you seeing the plane going straight in, it could be buried completely, maybe as much as twenty-five feet deep. That’s just an estimate, however. I don’t know how to figure the speed and the terrain it encountered.
“It could be underwater, or entangled with huge cypress trees several hundred years old, and below ground several feet. For every yard the search area is widened in a circle, you could begin to multiply the hours of search needed by one thousand.”
“I was about three hundred feet up and looking right at her when she went in. You could call it a bird’s-eye view. Maybe I could describe the area? It’s crystal clear in my head and printed indelibly in my mind.”
I sighed. People can’t grasp the enormity of the swamp. I’d humor him a little longer. His career was in jeopardy, and he was hurting.
“Let’s say you can describe it. I can too, and I didn’t see the plane go in. It had lots of tall cypress, some water in small sloughs, a stagnant skim on a fairly large pond, acres and acres of planted slash pine, and lots of vines concentrated here and there almost covered in yellow leaves. From the air, it seemed the patches of vines were large areas of bright yellow flowers. The cypress and old growth trees had long strands of Spanish moss, all hanging from the south side, and the same amount drooping from the old
growth section of long-leaf yellow pine. Sound familiar?”
“I couldn’t have described it better. It’s exactly what I saw. How did you know?”
“Because there are five hundred and fifty thousand square acres of the Okefenokee that look almost identical to the uninitiated and ones who are not flora experts. Does this put the impossible task more in perspective?”
“But … there was a tree I remember. I kept my eyes on it all the way down. I thought it could be used as a marker to find the spot. The plane crashed about thirty yards to the right of it.”
His voice quivered with desperation. He was now grasping at straws.
“And what was so special about this tree? Is it extra-tall? Full of limbs? It didn’t have any moss? Come on, Captain, you haven’t been listening.”
“I focused my eyes on it when I was following the plane’s straight-in approach. It … it was dead. Bone white, all the bark had fallen off. Tall, maybe forty feet.”
I blinked. There were hundreds of dead bone-white trees still standing as if they were sentinels, guarding flora and fauna from encroaching chemical plants and careless hunters who built fires on dead grass in small clearings. I knew of one special one that had helped me once.
It was a fanciful thought, but I had felt safer sitting as close to it as I could—leaning against its dead trunk last October—when I was mantrailing Silvers, who had flipped out, shooting his mother and his first cousin and seriously wounding one of Hank’s deputies—but it couldn’t be my tree.
My tree had listed about five degrees, like it could give up the ghost any second and come slowly downward. A fallen guardian, the sound muffled by thick trees and a foot of humus. It had protected me from prowling scavengers, and at early dawn, the eager bow-hunters who crept in and sat in a tree stand and fired at any movement.
In the early predawn, I had patted its massive trunk and found Silvers less than two hours later sound asleep. It was an uneventful capture. My tree had a V in the top that looked like a two-pointed crown for the dead giant. It was possible it was still standing. Some stayed upright against all laws of gravity for several years.
“Ms. Sidden?” The captain was wondering if we had been disconnected.
“Sorry,” I replied, “I was daydreaming. Did your large dead tree have anything more unusual, maybe a few small white limbs near the top?”
“Yeah. No dead limbs, but the top had broken off in a distinctive V pattern, just like someone had carved a notch in it. I saw it from the east. Facing it, the whole tree leaned to the left a bit. Not much, but it was noticeable.”
“Are you Irish by any chance, Captain?”
“No ma’am. I was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee.”
“Well, you certainly have the luck of the Irish. I know exactly where the tree stands that you described. In fact, I spent a miserable wet night at its base one night almost exactly one year ago.”
“Does that mean you can find the plane?” His voice was hoarse with excitement. “You think we have a chance?”
“If your extraordinary luck holds, it’s almost a dead cert. What are you doing next Tuesday morning? Care to come with me? We’ll go find that Viper of yours.”
“What should I tell the colonel?”
“Not a whisper to the colonel! In case you were giddy and got your coordinates wrong and got turned around, or the distance is greater from the tree to the plane than you estimated, it could take us a month of searching. I don’t enjoy looking the fool. We’ll have the exact location and a trail blazed to the nearest road before we tell the colonel anything.”
I explained to him how to dress, and how to handle the scent article. I told him to arrive at dawn, and to come alone. He promised he’d be here if he had to be AWOL. I didn’t doubt him. In fact, I pitied anyone who tried to stop him.
17
“Two County Sheriffs”
October 9, Monday, 8:00 A.M.
I had relieved Wayne at ten the previous night and he in turn woke up at five, and ran me out of the birthing room at six. I had a long soak in the tub and then cooked myself a huge breakfast of canned hot biscuits, scrambled eggs, and bacon. I was feeling almost human. I yawned and fought the urge to crawl into bed and take a short nap.
I settled in my desk chair and got comfortable. The coming conversation with Hank would take a while. It seemed lately that I had to constantly soothe Hank’s ruffled feathers. He took offense more easily and took longer to forgive me. Hank wanted a wife and a family, preferably two sons and a daughter, and I was the one he wanted to marry.
We had a rocky affair, riddled with fights and accusations, for a brief period of six weeks over a year ago. Our friendship had suffered. He wanted to resume the affair and tie the knot. I had pointed out our rocky romantic interlude and rejoiced that we hadn’t inflicted fatal damage on one another. He closed his eyes to our vocal mauling and disparaging remarks that could have sunk us forever, and pooh-poohed the idea that we couldn’t live in peace and harmony.
Hank and I were too much alike to join in matrimony. We were fiercely competitive, had sharp tongues, and used them often. I admitted only to myself that I sometimes longed for him. His shy grin and dark piercing eyes could squeeze my heart, and other times I could cheerfully provide him a slow and lingering death. I shook my head in sadness. Desire was not enough. Did I truly love him? I didn’t have a clue. Sometimes I thought I did, but that wasn’t enough either.
He grew furious at me during our last conversation. He hadn’t called me in several days. Was I trying to hang onto him by constantly reconciling our differences? You bet. I didn’t want to lose him. I could feel him slipping away more each day now. He wasn’t going to wait forever and I couldn’t make up my mind.
I rubbed my temples and frowned at the phone. I decided I would take a dose of the fizzy stuff before I attempted to call him. I had foolishly eaten four strips of bacon and four of the small biscuits, loaded with whipped butter. My stomach was now warning me that it was a major mistake.
Jasmine knocked and entered. She sniffed the air as she approached.
“Bacon? You ate bacon? How many strips?”
“You can’t possibly smell bacon in the air,” I stated, feeling smug. “I aired out the kitchen ten minutes with the exhaust fan over the stove and the overhead paddle fan, and opened both windows!”
She squealed with delight. “I was only guessing, but you’ve just admitted it. Your conscience should be hurting!”
“I’m hurting,” I said, bending a little in the middle and rubbing my stomach as I headed for the kitchen, “but it’s my gut. I have no conscience when it comes to food.”
“Have you called Hank this morning?”
“I haven’t got that far. I’ve only been thinking about calling him.” I eased down in a kitchen chair.
Jasmine fetched a glass of water and added two Alka-Seltzers and handed me the glass.
“This has ceased being funny,” she said, softening her voice. “You should go lie down.”
“I’ll be fine, if the fizz does its job. Let’s move to the office. I have to call Hank. What are your plans this morning?”
I managed to walk straight and didn’t clutch my stomach. Mind over matter, I cautioned my gut sternly. Behave yourself.
“I skipped two routine searches last week. Wayne says with Donnie Ray, Windell, and Harvey helping out when he doesn’t have a patient, they can hold down the fort, so I’m going to try to catch junior high, Phillips Industries, and the sewing plant.”
“Why don’t you leave the sewing plant until this afternoon? Are they still running three shifts?”
“Yes, but I did the swing shift last week. The morning shift hasn’t been searched in almost three weeks, they should be first.”
“Yeah, but your right arm is going to be several inches longer than your left when you finish that agenda. Ulysses really drags you around at a breakneck speed.”
“I thought I would take Violet this morning. She hasn�
�t had an outing in a month and she’s twenty pounds lighter.”
“Smart. You’re always one step ahead of me when you plan your day. How would I ever do without you?”
“I don’t plan to give you a chance to find out. I’ll be back around two. Take care of the tummy.”
“It’s been told to behave,” I said to her retreating back.
I dialed Hank’s number.
“Cribbs.”
“Hi, it’s me. How you doing?”
“Peachy.”
“Still mad at me?”
“Yep.”
“Come on, Hank. You know I say things sometimes without thinking. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sorry. Does that help?”
“Not much.”
“Have you heard from your buddy, Sheriff Beaman?”
“He called about thirty minutes ago. Says he wants me with him when he comes to call on you, and that he’d be here to pick me up in time to get there by eleven. He also told me you have been hired by the estate to investigate the shooting, and was told to cooperate and not get in your way.”
“How is he taking it?”
“Well …” Hank drawled, sounding amused, “he had to spit first before he could finish telling me, so I don’t think he’s taking the news too kindly.”
“Does he dip snuff?”
“He spit to show disgust, Jo Beth,” he explained.
“I knew that, I just wondered if I was gonna have to lug around a spittoon so he wouldn’t kill the grass.”
Hank snorted. “I forgot. You know everything, don’t you?”
“Not hardly,” I said, trying to pacify him.
“I bet you don’t even know that I had a date with that little blond that works at Pete’s Deli. We did the town last night.”
“The one with foot-long eyelashes, a ten-inch waist, and a forty-four-double-D cup? Billie? You went out with Billie Jean Crews?”
I knew my voice had risen with equal parts of disbelief and annoyance. I decided I’d better tone it down. The things I have to do to keep this teetering relationship functioning sometimes appall me.
Ten Little Bloodhounds Page 12
