Time and Trouble

by Gillian Roberts

  “You understand she is waiting right now. I tell her I would be—”

  “IVAN!” He putted to a stop. “I’m sorry—honestly, but something happened on the way home and would you please call the office, right now, this instant—no, call Emma’s cellular. This is an emergency—tell her to call my phone. Tell I didn’t use my beeper because I can’t remember my phone number, but she has it in the office. No—don’t tell her that—you have it, repeat it to her.” Why hadn’t she thought of him? Her mind was all flying trash. “Pray God she hasn’t left.”

  “I just talk to her. Something for you about Tuesday and a factory—”

  “Ivan—now! I’m in big trouble!” That would do it—an external threat trumped romance. “I’m in danger!”

  A lie was excusable. Telling him she was in a state of confusion, experiencing possibly baseless and definitely inexplicable anxiety wouldn’t activate his rescuer fantasies.

  “I come there,” he immediately said.

  “No! Call Emma—you watch Jesse, and I promise to be home as soon as I can. But I’m afraid—I’m afraid something awful is going to happen to two other children if you don’t make the call. Tell her that—tell her that Harley Marshall is driving the Redmonds’ car. You have that?”

  “Harley? Like big American bike?”

  “Never mind! Harley and the Redmond kids are missing. Now! Okay? You have her number—it’s on the refrigerator, see it? Okay? Call it. I have to concentrate on driving. Got it? Harley—Redmonds. I’m hanging up.”

  She drove on. What had prompted those words about the Redmond children? Had she even consciously thought that before she’d heard herself say it?

  But they were missing—she kept looking in vain for a head, an arm, any sign that they, too, were in the car, being chauffeured. Penny’s mop of red hair would surely show—unless she was tied up, or down, or stashed somewhere. All those scenarios were dreadful.

  If the kids were in the car now, where had they been when she was at their door and wandering around the grounds? And, why should Harley’s being with or near or somehow involved with those children feel ominous?

  Because he said he was going for a run before the sky fell.

  Maybe he simply had changed his mind.

  After all, the two families were close. Sunny had been the one who had the only real information about Stephen, who monitored Penny’s moods and new romance, who’d shown her how to use makeup and talked to her about love at first sight, who underplayed her privileged upbringing and standards by being kind about the inferior quality of Penny’s “lavaliere.”

  That same worthless trinket that Gary said Penny and Stephen had quarreled about. A love gift from Stephen, Sunny had thought, but Penny had found it in a field in West Marin during one of Stephen’s medieval outings. The field where the bodies were found. The quarrel with Stephen was about going to the police.

  And at Stinson—the phone call for Stephen. That message about Stephen. People shifted, relationships changed, and old meanings were blown up and around. The incomprehensible began to make sense, and if she’d thought confusion was bad, this—this almost-knowing, being this close to seeing what did make sense and why—was much worse.

  Her phone rang. “Emma?” she said. “Don’t holler at me—” Goddamnit, why say that? Why admit… “This could sound crazy, but I don’t know what I should do. I went to the Redmonds and they weren’t there, then I saw—”

  “Tell me where you are!” Emma snapped. “I’m on the way to my car now—keep talking. If we get cut off, I’ll call back.”

  Emma was on her way? This was almost as staggering as the speculations that had made her light-headed.

  “I called the police but we need some kind of location—where are you? Where is he?”

  “I’m afraid that maybe he already—that they aren’t—”

  “You talk too much. Where the hell are you?”

  She told her, heard silence in return and, with no other options, drove on. Even by the time she inched beyond the shopping center and the high school and traffic thinned continuously as commuters turned off San Pedro Road for the side streets that led home, there was still no sign of Emma’s blue-gray Toyota and her phone’s speaker was silent, except for occasional static.

  Billie had never felt more alone.

  The phone suddenly snapped out a question. “You still on San Pedro?”

  “Emma?”

  “Who the hell else would it be? You on San Pedro? About where?”

  “Just past the tennis club. It’s starting to rain. Where are you?”

  “Around, okay? And I know it’s raining. Do your best. This is like two-car surveillance. I’m ahead of you. Took all the side streets I could. So you just had another lesson, all right? Listen, I’m hanging up to give the police our location. I think he’s headed to China Camp. Big, loose, empty park this time of night, this time of year. Cops’ll come around the back way, be there when he arrives.”

  “They believed you, then. I was afraid they’d think this was a ridiculous…” She let the question dribble off as she felt, then heard, Emma’s heavy silence. That Emma would not be believed was ridiculous.

  “He had a daughter,” Emma said. “Amelia. Born six years two months ago. Now hang up and keep him in sight. Be right back.”

  A baby girl. No-fuss divorce. He meets a beautiful rich girl on his interview and that’s that. Who’d ever know? The wife thinks she’s making a move. He pulls off the road in ranch country and boom—they no longer exist. He drives on and starts a new life. The Nevada people figure a divorce in California, and vice versa, and so it goes. Lost contact. Divorce is like that. See my new kids?

  Penny finds the heart. Tells Sunny, who maybe tells Harley about Penny’s romance, the heart. And Penny becomes a link to the past. But why Wesley? Simply by being tight with his own sister? By being the innocent bystander. Both kids were innocent bystanders.

  She pictured the police coming around the peninsula from its other side, arriving at China Camp before Harley, dousing their lights and waiting in the dark, and it calmed her. But all the same—why hadn’t Emma called back? How was she supposed to tell her what was going on?—how much harder it had become to distinguish the dark blue car from its fellow travelers as it melted into the wet night sky? A set of taillights seen between swipes of the window wipers was all. She had to get closer.

  Was Emma having trouble reaching the police? Had they not believed her?—had that all been bluster? Where was she, and—Jesus Christ! They weren’t even near China Camp—weren’t at the end of the road yet, weren’t around the turn and— Was that him? Were those his lights turning right?

  And Emma miles ahead, unaware nothing was approaching her anymore?

  Billie veered right as well, without knowing where she was headed—looked at the street sign and could not read it at this speed and without light, but dialed anyway.

  “Yeah?” Emma’s voice said. “Okay, you’re back. Good. What idiot cut us off? Now I’m—”

  Emma couldn’t be speaking to Billie. Her voice had no contempt, no anger at having its directions disobeyed, and the idiot mentioned was a third party, not her.

  “Emma, he—”

  “Billie? What are you—? I got cut off from the— How the hell can I get through to them if—”

  “He isn’t going to China Camp! He turned off already—to the right where the road splits. I’m behind him, but I swear to God I have no idea—”

  “The quarry,” Emma said. “Or McNear’s. Or the brickyard.”

  “‘Or’?” How far apart were they? How would the police pick one? How could anybody get anywhere in time, then?

  “I have to get that dispatcher. Just—keep him at bay. Delay. Protect yourself. I’ll be there. The cops’ll be there.”

  Where? Either-or? Fine. Right. Delay. Protect self. Save world. “How?” Billie wailed.

  “That’s my name,” Emma said, and hung up.

  Thirty-Four

&nbs
p; It became a blur of determination, of rain, of wind that made the landscape shiver. Of fear and dislocation, the terrible sense of being locked in a nightmare. Traffic thinned—she could make out his taillights, could follow more discreetly. But that in no way lessened her terror.

  Where were the police? She tried to tell herself that this was all going to turn out to be a case of error. Innocent mistake—hers. Harley Marshall would have good reason for driving the Redmonds’ car. She would apologize.

  Except here they were on a Friday evening on a deserted road in the dark, heading toward a brickyard or a quarry. How to write that off as innocent?

  And how had she become a part of this parade? The noise of the wind and rain made her yearn for home, her son, the place where she belonged. Instead, she was lost and sliding toward worse, and all she’d wanted was to understand—never, ever, to play superhero. She didn’t have what it took— would never have auditioned for the role.

  Jesse, Jesse, she repeated like a mantra. I’m so sorry.

  She decided that she’d turn back as soon as she knew precisely where Marshall was headed. She’d call the information in to Emma and let the officials take over, and with that decision, she felt enormous relief. She’d be safe. Jesse would be safe. She’d get her bearings back. Now, although she could place herself as approaching the tip of San Rafael and the Bay, she had the sense of being nowhere, off the map.

  The growing noise and press of the wind against the sides of the car, the tilts and slides of the green landscape, the rain that clouded the windshield dislocated her further. She stayed as far back as she could, let the occasional other car pass her, and tried to look as if she were not following him.

  They passed the entry to a business. Brickyard, she saw. One option down. She felt an irrational surge of hope. If he wasn’t going to the brickyard, maybe he wasn’t going anywhere frightening. Wasn’t doing anything less than honorable, the idiot voice inside her piped again. This was all a mistake, a misunderstanding.

  And then JUS KIDN swerved to the right and accelerated. She couldn’t make out a sign, if there was one, and cautiously followed up a wide drive. The blue car skidded to a halt and careened in a violent U-turn, heading directly toward and then past her. Now she could see dimly, black on black, the silhouettes of enormous machines against the sky. She was outside the quarry. He’d tried to head into the quarry. She could see the heavy chain-link fencing that had caused his U-turn change of heart. There was no good reason for him to have tried to go there at this hour, to have expected the doors to be open, allowing…what?

  By the time she was back on the road, there was only the twink, then disappearance, of a solo set of taillights.

  I will turn back as soon as I know, she reassured herself again. I will do what’s right, tell Emma, then leave.

  She followed the lights. McNear’s it was, unless he surprised them again. She’d been there with Jesse last summer. Sunlight flooded each remembered image, made them painfully beautiful and jeopardized. The pretty beach on Rafael Bay. The fishing pier lined with seagulls watching the waters. Volleyball courts, picnic tables. A large swimming pool. A sense of being on a pinprick of land in a world of water.

  She looked behind her before turning in—no lights, no sirens, no Emma, no anyone. They were on another road, would have to backtrack to get around the expanse of China Camp’s trails. Marin needed more asphalt, direct lines instead of all these protected open spaces. But there must be a fire trail, some secret back passage for the law to take. For times like this.

  The dark around her thickened. And then, again remembering that summer day with Jesse, she felt a surge of excitement. This was a park with a gatehouse, an entry fee-—a ranger. He’d call for help. He’d be help.

  Except he wasn’t there. The little house stood empty and a sign nearby suggested an honor system of payment until the park closed at seven P.M. Maybe then somebody would return to check on things, although tonight, maybe not. Not even desperate teens were willing to be blown around and doused for the sake of illegally drinking a beer.

  What was he doing in there? Where were the children?

  Images of two new graves on the shallow strip of beach flashed across the dark windshield. Stephen Tassio’s face, that she’d never seen alive and animated. She’d been too late for him. Trailing too slowly.

  Harley must have killed Stephen. Harley was a killer. The phone call—the man about the jewelry. He’d known that Stephen was involved. Penny had told her about the visits, the battle about the pendant.

  Poor, poor Stephen. If that was what happened, then poor Stephen. The innocent middleman. Trapped by the fluke of finding a glittery piece of costume jewelry somebody else thought endangered him. Or of befriending a troubled girl.

  Poor, dead Stephen.

  There couldn’t be any more murders to protect earlier murders. Not on her watch.

  She dialed Emma. “The mobile number you are calling—”

  Don’t panic. Don’t despair. Had to mean that Emma was around the corner, that the quarry blocked the signal. Didn’t mean anything—the troops were approaching.

  While down on the beach…

  Move faster. No more lost children. No more small skeletons. No more Stephen Tassios. She put the car in gear and drove forward, only her parking lights on. She could run him over, use the car as her weapon. Or not—she’d simply see what was happening—be able to tell the police when they arrived, speed things up and avoid confusion. The thing was to go forward.

  Her pulse beat hard in her throat and ears—she could hear it, as if she’d just run miles.

  And then it was smothered under a hard, shattering explosion. Glass. In the woods. Under her tire. Beer bottle. Soda bottle. Some bottle. She felt the tire sag, the car tilt and drag lumpily.

  Stranded in the rainy woods with a killer.

  And they were still there, on the beach, with time against them no matter her problems. She had her feet, her wits. If she stayed paralyzed in her car, which was her impulse, she was a sitting target. His last victim had been in a car. She refused to be the next.

  Use the brain, it’s all you have.

  She left her car, clutching her raincoat tight. It wasn’t sufficiently warm or waterproof and the wind entered between each thread. She trotted down the path toward the parking lot, slowly, trying not to slide on wet leaves, mentally mapping the landscape ahead, based on the one Sunday she’d visited with Jesse. She had forgotten how long and winding the road into the park was—doubly so on foot. How many eucalyptus trees lined it, creaking and moaning in the storm.

  They broke in high winds, she knew. Too brittle. Burned, too. Too oily. They seemed out of a horror film, echoing the protest she felt, threatening to crack as she ran and slipped between them on the endless path, as they reached for her, blowing and contorting into nightmare shapes.

  Finally she rounded a curve and was on the parking lot that faced the open Bay. Far off, the San Rafael–Richmond Bridge, the East Bay refineries.

  But here, no sign of life. No adult, no children—no car on the parking lot. As if they’d blown into nothingness. Lifted off and taken out to sea. Or never existed in the first place.

  She ran to the left toward the beach, her breath a harsh sob, her wet hair stuck to her face.

  No one. She went closer to be certain—the dark wet made vision nearly impossible. They weren’t there. They weren’t anywhere.

  She ran up the small rise to the swimming pool, afraid she’d see the children facedown in it. And he’d be gone—out a secret exit he knew. Out for a run all the way home. “Got caught in the storm,” he’d say.

  Of course, people would say the Redmond kids had broken in for an illegal swim. Too bad about those kids.

  But the pool, inside its high, locked fence, was deserted.

  No one was on the long fishing pier. Not even the seagulls.

  She walked back to the parking lot and stood sniffling, stymied until she realized she was ignoring the other si
de of the lot. Beyond the volleyball court, beyond the picnic tables, beyond the portable toilets. She and Jesse had never gone in that direction and, in fact, few did. It wasn’t scenic or inviting. She wasn’t even sure it was officially part of the park, because the place dwindled from manicured hillocks and walkways into unsculptured nature and then, the look of a small dump, where rocks, cement and old boards were tossed haphazardly. No beach, just a stony, difficult edge to the land. This side bordered the quarry which lay behind the low, littered rise. She could make out the tops of the towering machinery from this side, too, and a fence on the little hill, with KEEP OUT signs.

  As her eyes scanned the dark corner, she saw a still-darker bulk against the rise. She reflexively ran toward it. Had he left the car, left them dead inside? Wet as it was, the hair on the back of her neck rose.

  No one was in it, at least in the seats, and the trunk was open. She stared at that. Spacious enough to hold somebody. Definitely Wesley. And if Penny were in the backseat…

  No one was in it now. She listened, but heard nothing except the endless rustle of the buffeted leaves, the moan of the wind, the smack of rain. Nothing. And there was nothing else and nowhere else to look. She stood defeated.

  Then realized there was a somewhere else. So obvious that she’d missed it. The enormous expanse of water bordering this tip of land. She looked again at the quarry fencing, wondered that he’d parked so close to it, and trailed it over the crest of the small hill down toward the water, where it extended as a barrier about twenty feet out. Not far enough, she thought. Tempting for kids who could too easily take the dare to get around it.

  And now she saw them, and his plan. They were all no more than shadows. She moved closer as silently as possible. This was probably a substitute plan for when the quarry had proven impregnable. Anything to play to the idea that the Redmond kids had gotten themselves into fatal trouble. People would tsk over it, shake heads in sorrow—that Penny Redmond was certainly a bad influence, encouraging her little brother to go into the water on a night like that. She had seemed so responsible when she baby-sat, but something must have snapped. Ran away, then this. Maybe because of the stepfather. Just thank God she stayed sane while she was with my kids!