Utah: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 7)

by J. J. Henderson

  Five minutes later on the main drag of Bainbridge Island she parked in front of a bank, hoping to find a notary public who didn't read the papers.

  Ellen got up and wandered into the kitchen. She looked in the refrigerator, and then in the cabinet above it, and then in the cabinets over the counter. She wasn't looking for anything in particular, she was just looking. She grabbed a dog biscuit out of the box and went out on the porch. "Here, doggy," she said, holding it up, making Claud dance. He took it, gently as was his style, and ambled down the steps to eat on the small patch of grass growing out front. Ellen sat on the steps for a minute, enjoying the morning sunshine, not thinking about much at all. But she worried just the same. She always worried, and now wasn't any different. She leaned back and put both hands on her stomach. She thought about the baby and she thought about her fath...no, her adoptive father...and then pushed herself up to her feet and strolled towards the woods behind the cabin. A trail led that way, where the wind murmured through the trees, and the silver water whispered. "C'mon, pooch," she said. "Let's check it out." Claud jumped up and headed onto the trail, through the young blackberry bushes, all white flowers where the berries would come, dodging bull nettles, brushing between ferns under tall cedars.

  She found herself in shadowed silence, surrounded by forest, the sunlit cabin hidden behind her. She walked for a few minutes, Claud dashing ahead, coming back, then charging off again. She felt glad to have the dog with her. She could lose her own thoughts when she saw how happy he was.

  Then she came upon an odd sight: a small clearing, with an old car—a rusted, light blue '56 Chevy—parked in the middle. An overgrown dirt road led out of the other side of the clearing, but the car obviously had come down that road a long time ago, since it rested not on wheels or tires but on cinder blocks, and had no door on the passenger side.

  She suddenly noticed a man sitting in the driver's seat. She stopped fifty feet away, and stepped out of sight by a tree. To no avail. Claud ran up to the car and jumped in next to him. "Hey dog," Ellen heard the man say softly. "How are ya?" His voice sounded mellow enough. She walked into the clearing.

  "Hey," she said, approaching. "Sorry about the..."

  "That your dog?" the guy said, grinning. "What is he, some kind of..."

  "He's a poodle. Belongs to my friend," Ellen said. She approached the car. The man opened his door and got out. He was in his late 20s, she guessed, with long, stringy blond hair straggling out from under a wool cap perched atop his head. He wore a flannel shirt and a pair of jeans and no shoes. He had a straggly beard. He held a half-quart can of beer in one hand and a joint smoldering in the other. She smelled the dope. He grinned a gap-toothed grin.

  "Hi. My name's Marcus. Marcus Sampson. Wanna get high?" He offered her the joint. "S'good local sens..."

  "Um...No, I...Yeah, sure, why not?" Ellen said, and took the joint. "Nothin' better to do." She sucked in a hit.

  "Right on," said Marcus. "Hey, where'd you come from, anyways? Lady that lives in that cabin never comes up..."

  "Me and my friend are stayin' there for a while," Ellen said, and blew out a lungful of pot smoke. "It's nice in the woods here."

  "Yeah. My family's lived here almost a hunnerd years," he said. "Got a place up there." He nodded up the overgrown road. "I like to come down here sometimes to relax, smoke a little dope cause my daddy don't like me smokin' in the house." He took the joint back. "Hit a beer?" He held out the can.

  "Sure, why not?" Ellen said, and took it. She drank, and it washed nicely over her brain, smoothing things out. "This your car?" she asked, leaning on the front end.

  "Was," he said. "Then one night I was high and drove her in here, couldn't get her out." He grinned again. He was missing one of his front teeth. Blond hair grew out of his ears. "So now she's my dopemobile. Smoke a joint, drive 'er in my dreams, heh heh heh."

  "Far out," Ellen said. She went around and opened the door and climbed in the driver's seat, closed the door, held the wheel and shut her eyes tight. She made a soft humming engine noise, imagined herself driving down the road. Fast. Faster. Away from it all, away especially from here, from herself. She smelled the joint and opened her eyes. The grinning stringy-haired man now sat next to her. He offered her more beer. She took the can, had another gulp. The sun flashed off the sleek hood ornament, dazzling her eyes. She sensed him moving nearer. She opened the door and stepped out. The creek chattered softly. "Where's the water?" she asked.

  "Up that way," he said. "Towards my house. C'mon," he added, jumping out. "I'll show ya." He came around the car. She felt the weird clarity of the pot, edge dulled in beer.

  "Sure," she said. "But what about the dog?"

  "He kin come too," Marcus said. "I gotta this bitch named Rebel, she'll like him." He smirked. "Part shepherd, part coyote. She's in heat. They'll probably want to party down, heh heh heh." Ellen followed him up the trail, dog dashing ahead, and she gave up her head to the light, green light dancing off the leaves, the sound of water singing in her ears.

  Lucy pedaled the moped into action and headed back to the cabin, business taken care of. The notary in the bank was too, too nice, and she hadn't had a clue as to Lucy's criminal status. She'd even offered to send the package out with the bank's own overnight shipment. For the moment at least the loft situation was under control. Let Derek duke it out with the landlords. She'd had enough.

  The sun shone from on high and the air had warmed as she tooled down the country road, admiring the dense pine trees, the blue flowers scattered along the roadside suggesting she might allow herself a moment of optimism. She and Ellen would find a lawyer, reach some resolution. Someone would take the load, or part of it, off her hands. She knew it would take time, but they were making progress. At least it felt that way. She waved at the old man with long silver hair and a prophet's beard—Moses in overalls—walking down the road with his three dogs as she passed on the moped, taking it slow over the dusty road.

  She rolled up to the cabin and parked, then went up the steps to find the front door open. "Ellen?" No answer. TV murmur. She looked around. No girl, no dog. They must have gone for a walk in the woods. Lucy went into Ellen's room, turned off the TV, and then saw Ellen's diary poking out from under the corner of the pillow.

  She went over and picked it up. It was unlocked. She opened to a random page, saw words scrawled in a round teenage hand, and closed it. Not her business.

  She scanned bookshelves, picked a mystery novel, and went out to the porch. She sat in a rocker and started the book, put it down and watched the woods. She heard a dog bark in the distance, then another that she recognized. Claud. She got up and ambled down the steps into the sun. What a lovely day to be in the forest. She headed up the trail.

  A couple of minutes into the woods she found the Chevy, and looked inside. An empty beer can, the smell of dope, and the smell of Ellen. She'd never registered Ellen's smell quite so sharply. Some slightly trashy perfume she wore. Lucy continued up the trail. The barking of dogs grew louder ahead. She brushed against a bull nettle, snapped an "Ow!" as the stinging kicked in, then fell silent as she found herself on a small embankment, thirty feet above a stream, in a grove of old growth cedar, cool, majestic and powerful. She was surrounded by huge ferns and the remnants of a fallen log bridge. This secret grove on another day might be a place of sanctuary, of serenity. Not today, for in the near distance dogs barked frantically, and crashing over the barking came the sound of heavy metal rock n' roll, the mutant roar of electric guitar power chords knifing through the trees. She followed a slanted trail down the hill, stepped on a board that led over water, and clambered across. Five minutes later the old road emerged from the trees, widening into a clearing.

  Lucy stopped at the edge to reconnoiter. She stood in a weedy, trash-strewn thirty foot space between the butt ends of a pair of doublewide trailers, the grand entrance to a serious stump ranch: three long, mobile homes—the two white ones that flanked her and a third, painted swimming pool
blue—formed a rough semi-circle. Assorted automobiles and trucks and tractors and other vehicles of an unidentifiable nature in varying stages of decomposition were strewn across the stump-decorated landscape in front of the mobile homes, with miscellaneous piles of rusted machinery, trash, sections of pipe, rolls of wire, bales of hay, broken bicycles, chain saws, and other metallic implements adding layers of detail to the scene. Several small children, scruffy-looking dogs, feral cats, and at least one goat cavorted about. Lucy took it all in. Fast food wrappers and beer cans spilled out of plastic bags piled by the stairs of the blue trailer. The barking began again in earnest up ahead, on the far side of the far trailer. The music, sheer torture-level rock n' roll, blared out from that way too. Several loud human voices mingled with the dogs and guitars, and it all added up to the sound of chaos, perfect accompaniment to the scene. She headed in that direction.

  She came around the side of the trailer to find several people standing in a semi-circle watching her dog trying to extricate himself from his butt-to-butt post-fornication position. Ears low, eyes worried, in obvious pain Claud—Claud who had been fixed long ago and wasn't supposed to be able to do this, for God's sake!—was genitally attached to this other little coyote-looking dog. The two dogs circled and tugged and yipped miserably. The music blasted from a radio. Ellen stood there laughing, holding a beer. Some braindead long-haired character in a black wool watch cap had his arm around her shoulders. He was laughing too. Three other dogs circled and barked eagerly, wanting in. The other people laughed as well: one fat girl in jeans with a baby in her arm and a tot clinging to her hand, three guys who looked just like brothers or cousins of Mr. Braindead, and two other guys. A cloud of reefer smoke drifted in the warm summer air. "Yo, excuse me," Lucy said loudly. They all looked at her, even the dogs paused in their idiot circling and stared up at her.

  "Hey, Lucy," Ellen said. "What's happening? This here's my friend..."

  "You got a bucket?" Lucy said at the guy by Ellen. "Some cold water?"

  "You want something to drink?" the guy said, and grinned. "How 'bout a beer?" He offered his.

  "You think these dogs like being stuck together?" Lucy said. "Look at them, you...Jesus, Ellen, what are you doing, anyway?"

  "Hey, looks to me like it's your dog doin the stickin', lady," the guy said. "So if you..."

  "If you'll get me a bucket of cold water I'll get them apart."

  "I got bored sittin' around the cabin, Lucy," said Ellen. "So I took a walk. Then I met Marcus in the woods, and he said he wanted to show me the creek. Claud followed me back here and then he got stuck." She giggled.

  "There's a hose right there, lady," said Marcus. He pointed at the blue trailer. Lucy went over and turned on the faucet and came back with the hose. The gang moved away from the dogs. Lucy grabbed Claud by the collar, then put a thumb over the hose nozzle and blasted his rear end with cold water. He tried to jerk away; in doing so, he popped loose of the other dog with a yelp. The bitch ran for the trees, three other dogs in hot pursuit. Claud looked lowdown at Lucy as she gripped him by the collar.

  "How the hell'd you do that, dog?" she said. "You haven't even got...Christ." She looked up. Half a dozen strangers stared at her. Among them Ellen Longford, who looked right at home. "Ellen, I'm going back to the cabin. You coming?"

  "Sure, Lucy."

  "Thanks for the use of your hose, Marcus," Lucy said as she went over and turned it off.

  "See you later, Marcus," Ellen said.

  "You bet, Ellen," he said, smirking. "Maybe I'll stop by tomorrow."

  "Far out," Ellen said.

  Lucy bit her tongue. They headed back down the road, traversed the creekbed, and soon passed the dead Chevy. She let Ellen catch up to her. "So, uh, what's the story, kid?" she said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean what's the big idea running off and getting loaded and not letting me know what you're doing and..."

  "Hey, I got bored and took a walk, Lucy. Big deal. I met the guy sitting in that dead car, and...I went back to check out his place is all. So I smoked a little dope. I suppose you never smoked dope, huh? I suppose you never did anything wrong, did you Lucy? I guess you're just perfect, aren't you? Well you know what? I'm not. So don't try to tell me what to..."

  "Whoa, whoa, Ellen. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, all right? But we've got the goddamn cops after us, remember? You're pregnant, remember? We've got some stuff to figure out, and there's no sense in complicating things by...ah, hell, never mind," Lucy said. "Do what you want, OK? I just don't give a shit." She walked faster. She hated talking this talk. She hated playing this part. She hated the whole situation!

  "You know, you talk this talk like it's OK for me to do what I want but I can tell you don't mean it." Lucy stopped, turned around. Ellen stood ten yards back on the trail. "You really think I'm screwing up and you know better. You're like...so goddamn superior, Lucy. You act like...like..."

  She knew it was true. "Like what?" she asked quietly

  "Like you wish you'd never...I'd never...you know...come with you!" She burst into tears.

  "Jesus, Ellen," Lucy said, going to her. "That's not...I...hey..." she backed off, grinned. "It's not like I invited you, girl," she said. "But believe me...I'm...I want you to...I want to help you. If I seem like...hey, listen, kid, I'm just as confused as you are. Case you didn't notice, it's not like I'm an expert mom or anything."

  "Yeah, well, the last thing I want right now is another mother, Lucy," Ellen said, her composure returning. They went on.

  "Right." Lucy threw her arm over Ellen's shoulders. "Well, I know you're gonna do what you gotta do...but if you're gonna hang with me there have to be some rules, and one of them, at least until you figure out what you want to do about the...pregnancy, is to not get high. Can you handle that?"

  "Yeah, sure, Lucy, whatever you say," Ellen said.

  Lucy made linguine with red sauce and served it with green salad and whole grain bread. Coming down off weed, Ellen ate like a horse. Lucy was winning at Jeopardy when the phone rang. Lucy let the machine answer.

  “Hey Lucy, you there? It’s Robin.”

  Lucy picked up the phone. “Hey Rob, what’s up?”

  “I thought you might want to know your sister was here today. She’s...she obviously wants to help.”

  “Yeah right. Help us right into the hands of a bunch of anti-choice psychos.”

  “Actually, I got the impression she was...she wouldn’t do that. I don’t know...but you oughta call her. She’s at the Alexis downtown, kind of waiting to hear from you. Just let her know you’re OK. You don't have to tell her where you are if you're worried about it. Hey, everything all right out there?"

  "Yeah. We met some of the neighbors back in the woods today."

  "Really? They nice?"

  "Like the Beans of Egypt, Maine were nice."

  "Hm. I see."

  "We stood around watching dogs fuck."

  "That must have been enlightening."

  "Extremely. Hey, listen, you're right. I guess I should call Loretta before it gets too late. She might have to go to a prayer meeting or something...Anti-choice vigil maybe. I'll call you a.m., OK?"

  "Yeah, sure, Lucy. Take it easy, huh? And good luck with—everything."

  "Thanks a ton, Rob. I don't know what I would have done without you."

  "Was nothing. Mañana, senorita."

  After a distracted dinner at the Painted Table Loretta went back to her room. No messages. She thought of calling Jeff, and decided against it. She could do nothing but wait. She'd seen the FBI guys two or three times, lurking around. They knew her whereabouts, but so what? If they knew where Lucy and Ellen were they wouldn't be here watching her. She took off her sensible shoes and her modest dress and laid down on the bed. She turned on the TV and then wondered how it felt to be Lucy, adrift without a husband or children.

  Ten minutes after she won at Jeopardy the phone rang.

  "Hi, it's me. Lucy. I heard you fo
llowed me up here."

  "Thank you for calling, Lucy," Loretta said. "Before you say anything else I should tell you there are probably other people listening in, if you understand my meaning."

  "Um, right. Other people." Lucy paused. Cops? Anti-abortion crackpots? Hotel operators? "So. What can I..."

  "Listen, Lucy. I'm sorry about what happened in Portland. I didn't mean to...It's just that...I've been working for years to stop the murder, and..."

  "Whoa, whoa...hold on here...you can't use words like that with me, Loretta. Those kinds of words are part of...are what this...disagreement is about."

  "I'm sorry, Lucy. I guess I've just never...really even considered that another point of view might have even the faintest hint of truth to it. But since I met you...and your friend...I find I'm...well, not changing the way I feel, but...at least re-thinking the absolute nature of my position."

  "Well, that's a step in the right direction."

  "A step towards you is what I hope it represents," said Loretta. "That's what this is about for me...Lucy, we're blood. You're my sister. My only sibling. We only just found each other. We can't just turn our backs on each other over this...we can't..."

  "I hear you, Loretta. But I'm not about to hand this girl over to you...or your...what shall I call them...allies? I look at those people with their hideous posters and their cruel attacks on innocent people, shooting doctors, all this violence, and I see a lot of angry men trying to tell me how to run my life. I saw you there, Loretta. Those people were screaming at me, and they didn't have a clue as to what we were doing there. What a bunch of hypocrites, all righteously looking out for the quote unquote unborn then dumping the born into lives of misery and abuse. What bullshit! I'm sorry, but..."

  "I can see you feel strongly about it, Lucy. Well, so do I. But I...only found out about what...you didn't tell me about...what happened in Utah."