by Robin Lamont
“You texted him?” asked Lucas.
Jude grunted a vague, semi-affirmation and said, “I gotta go. I have to pack and get Finn over to Madelyn’s.”
“I’d take him for you, but ….”
“I understand.”
Lucas had looked after Finn a couple of times when she had to go out of town, but he had his own companion animal, a rat named Habib, who wouldn’t emerge from his nest of shavings when the big dog was around.
“Just one more thing,” volunteered Lucas as they reached the fire door. “Tim quitting and not telling you is a way better scenario than if his cover got blown.”
“Don’t try to make me feel better,” said Jude.
“God forbid.”
Jude clattered down the industrial staircase as much to escape from Lucas as to prepare for her trip. She felt guilty for lying to him yet again about the text. But as bad as things were, Tim might still be working to document violations that the government wouldn’t be able to ignore. They had to salvage something from this. She pushed off the deadline once again, hoping to buy a little more time.
CHAPTER 4
John Harbolt wasn’t easily shaken. With over forty years of medicine under his belt, there was hardly an injury, disease, or fatality he hadn’t seen, and he’d treated just about everyone in the small town of Half Moon at some time or other. But on that late summer day, young Tori Lacey showed him something that baffled him. Her symptoms were inexplicable and downright scary.
She was his first patient of the day, a young woman who had battled her weight for years. In between the earaches and the sore throats, Harbolt had gently counseled her about diet and exercise. He hoped she wasn’t here to ask him about diet pills again, because as far as he was concerned, they were off the table.
After removing her file from the plastic holder bolted to the outside of the examination room, he adjusted his wire rim glasses and straightened his lab coat. The younger doctors often wore khakis and a short-sleeved shirt at work, and maybe it put the kids more at ease. But Dr. Harbolt stuck with a freshly starched white coat, believing that it made his patients feel more confident in his abilities. And confidence in one’s doctor was important to the healing process.
“Tori Ann Lacey,” he announced jovially as he shambled into the room.
“Hi, Dr. Harbolt.” The morose girl before him sat on the table. She had taken off her running shoes but left her sweatshirt and shorts on.
“I haven’t seen you for a while,” he said, noting with some surprise that she had slimmed considerably, her round face now leaner and more mature. “How is college life treating you?”
“Ok, I guess.” Her voice and posture belied this.
“What brings you here today, my dear.”
“I don’t really know. But we thought you should look at these.” She pushed back the sleeve of her sweatshirt and held out her arm for inspection.
There were several bruises that vandalized the translucent skin of her inner arm. Dr. Harbolt held her wrist and peering over his glasses, looked closely at the red and purple marks.
He pressed lightly on one of them. “Does that hurt?”
She shook her head no.
“What happened?”
“That’s the thing. Nothing happened. They just appeared.” She showed him another set of bruises on her other arm.
“Did you fall?”
“No.”
“Knocked into something?”
“No,” she exclaimed, as though he didn’t believe her. “My mom thinks it’s my diet. That I should be eating meat.”
“And you’re not?”
“No. I needed to lose five more pounds for the track team, which I was having a hard time doing, so I switched over to a raw food diet. And it really helped because I made my goal.”
“And you were selected for the team?”
She nodded, anxiously chewing on a nail.
“Congratulations. You getting enough protein?” he asked, studying the bruising and letting her answer drift past him. This wasn’t because of her diet.
She rambled for a moment about nuts and spinach, then peeled off her socks and lifted her bare feet to the end of the examination table. “And then yesterday after a run, I found this,” she said. “I didn’t even show my mom ’cause she’d freak out.”
Dr. Harbolt caught his breath. It looked as though someone had taken a baseball bat to the soles of the girl’s feet. Fiery maroon blotches screamed out some kind of violence. Three of her toes had turned a dark purple.
“Good Lord!” he blurted out. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing! I’m telling you nothing happened,” wailed Tori. “They just … showed up.”
* * *
“Are you related to him?” asked the acne-scarred teen behind the reception desk.
Jude eyed the crooked badge on the boy’s shirt pocket that identified him as Steve, Assistant Manager of the Riverside Motel. “Not exactly,” she replied evasively.
“Because we have a strict policy that we don’t give out keys except to the occupant.” He tucked a piece of floppy bangs behind his ear and tried to sound official, but the word occupant came out as if he wasn’t quite sure what it meant.
“I can understand that,” said Jude. “But I’m worried about him, and he’s not answering the door.”
“Probably not in then, is he?”
Jude had driven eight hours straight and was in no mood for games. The smell of fried onions and ketchup lingered in the cubbyhole that served as the motel’s reception, and Jude spotted the remnants of Steve’s dinner in a McDonald’s takeaway container. It made her a little queasy. She took another moment to size him up: late teens, wearing a white button-down shirt with short sleeves and slacks easily ten years out of date. Probably the motel manager insisted on the uniform but at the same time hadn’t been able to get the kid to cut his hair. Ergo, the manager was either Mom or Dad.
“Maybe the manager can help me, Steve,” she said.
He blinked a few times. As young as he was, after seeing the variety of folks who came through, he could read people, too. But he wasn’t certain about her. She was too pale for one thing, a city girl who didn’t dress like one – not in those loosely-fitted jeans and a black t-shirt. Plus, her direct gaze was unsettling and not like the girls he was used to hanging with, their eyes always glancing around for something or somebody better within shooting distance.
“He’s been with us for a few weeks,” he noted, stalling.
“Uh-hunh. He’s working nearby.”
“Where?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“Seems like a nice guy,” Steve added, believing the humorless woman in front of him was an angry ex-girlfriend and he had an obligation to stand up for men in general, and for Tyler in particular, because he was a nice guy.
“Whaddya say?” pressed Jude. She stared him down.
Steve rolled his shoulders uncomfortably and replied, “Okay. I shouldn’t do this, but I’ll let you in for a quick look is all. I have to stand outside, though. Policy, you understand.”
“Sure.” He retrieved a key from a cabinet and led the way.
As far as Jude could tell, the Riverside Motel wasn’t anywhere near a river, but it was convenient, right off the main road not far from the center of Half Moon. Situated on the upper curve of a hill, it overlooked several miles of farmland with the dark outline of mountains in the distance. A couple of wrought iron benches served as viewing spots near a gravel walk that ran from the parking lot to the motel office. The rooms themselves were in a long two-story building covered in cedar shingles. The white woodwork had been recently painted and strategically-placed barrels of colorful geraniums gave the place a homey, country feel.
Steve mounted the outdoor staircase to the second floor. At the third door,
he knocked, mumbling, “Jeffries sometimes goes out at night.” Nonetheless, he knocked again and waited an appropriate amount of time. Moths flickered around the low-wattage lamps mounted outside each door. Finally, he slid the key into the lock, opened the door, and flipped on the overhead light.
Jude stepped in. The room, carpeted in a resigned shade of green, lacked the charm of the motel’s exterior. It was sparsely furnished with two single beds, a desk, a dresser, and one rocking chair with a sad gingham cushion.
Right away, she began a visual inventory. The bedspread was thrown haphazardly over one of the twin beds, the other hadn’t been slept in. There was nothing on the chipped particle board desk except a television and its accompanying remote. No bags, no clothing strewn around. The closet door had been left wide open, revealing just a few wire hangers. She walked over to one of the wall sockets where a portable charger still dangled. With even a fleeting look, Tim would have seen it. Same with the single white sock that hadn’t been able to crawl all the way under the bed.
He’d left in a hurry.
“When was the last time you saw Tyler?” Jude asked Steve.
“I guess it would have been a couple of days ago.”
“Can you recall exactly?”
“Uh, yeah. It was Tuesday night, around eight, eight-thirty. I saw him going up to his room.”
“You didn’t see him after that?”
“No. I was behind the desk.”
Jude needed to search more thoroughly. “Okay, thanks. I’ve got it from here.” The look on the boy’s face let her know that she’d been too short with him. “Hey, Steve, I really appreciate your help,” she added.
“He didn’t pay the bill this week,” he complained.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
And thinking that Tyler Jeffries wasn’t such a nice guy after all, Steve left.
Jude was thinking along the same lines. Stinging irritation welled up as she pulled open dresser drawers and got down on her hands and knees to check under the bed, looking for something, anything, that could explain why he’d taken off so quickly.
Where the hell was he? It was the height of irresponsibility not to tell her what was going on – even if he had decided to quit. All he’d have to say was, I can’t do this anymore. She would’ve helped with an exit strategy. They’d talked about that possibility. It occurred to her that all of this was just a way to get her attention. And of course, it had.
She moved on to the bathroom that had the plasticky smell of a new shower curtain. It, too, had been cleaned out. But for a small spider that had set up residence in the mirrored cabinet over the sink, she might have missed the blood. Needing something to help gently capture the spider and transport it outside, Jude went for a few sheets of toilet paper. It was then she saw a pile of tissues thrown carelessly on the floor near a wastebasket. They were wadded and stiff with dried blood.
Using the tips of her fingers, she lifted one of the clumps to inspect it. Seemed like a lot of blood – way more than if he had nicked himself shaving. She left the tissues where they were for the moment and went back into the room which suddenly and eerily felt as though no one had been there for years. Her frustration with Tim was replaced by a growing sense of unease.
After a moment, she pulled up his number and texted, Dad’s back in the hospital. Need you home. Emily. This time she sent it.
CHAPTER 5
Morning mist hovered over Kurt Buck’s farm like a ghostly blanket. It was cool now, but the Half Moon weather was supposed to hit the high eighties by mid-afternoon. The elephant-eared cabbage leaves and bush beans dripped pearls of condensation into the thirsty soil.
Inside the Buck farmhouse, the routine proceeded like any other early September day. Kurt left his muddy boots outside and padded across the kitchen floor in his socks to pour himself a second cup of coffee. On the way, he deposited on the counter a half dozen ears of corn that he had just picked. Their dogs Rosie and Chipper trooped in after him and slurped noisily from their water bowl before settling under the kitchen table, which was where Kurt’s wife Katherine sat, surrounded by a stack of invoices and the checkbook.
“What did you tell me you need for the spreader?” she asked Kurt.
“A hitch kit,” he replied, looking to see how much was left in the pot. “You want more coffee?”
“You finish it. How much are they?”
“Probably get a new one for about three hundred.”
“Want me to order one for you?” asked Katherine as she lifted sections of paperwork looking for the catalogue she’d stashed somewhere. When he didn’t answer, she looked up to see him staring out the window deep in thought. “Hello?” she prompted.
“What? I’m sorry.”
“Do you want me to order a hitch kit for you?” she repeated.
“I found two more crows this morning,” said her husband. “Behind the barn, just lying there like … like they’d been shot out of the sky. But not a mark on them.”
“Any sign of disease?”
He chewed on his bottom lip and replied, “I don’t see anything, but it makes me worry about that West Nile outbreak a few years ago. Crows are particularly susceptible. If you see one, don’t pick it up without gloves. Christ, that’s all we need. What were you asking? Oh yeah, no, don’t order anything yet. I’m going over to Willet’s and I’ll see if they have somethin’ used in decent shape.”
He washed his hands in the sink and dried them with paper towel; too many times he’d left swaths of dirt on Katherine’s just-cleaned kitchen towels. Beyond the driveway and the faded, unused swing set, he surveyed the late summer harvest through the haze. The acres of evenly plowed rows gave him a sense of contentment, the knowledge that he was providing sustenance without ruining the land, without becoming a vassal to one of the giant agrochemical companies like Monsanto. Farming was hard, and organic farming harder still. But Kurt Buck accepted the challenge.
“Where’s Heather?” he asked Katherine. “The bus will be coming any minute.”
“She’s getting ready. I told her she could drive.” His wife didn’t need to see the slight stiffening of his neck to know what he was thinking. “It’s fine. All of her friends drive to school.”
“What’s wrong with the bus?”
“She’s a junior, hon. The bus is for losers,” Katherine replied, imitating her daughter’s sentiments.
Kurt sighed the sigh of a man who knew he was outmatched. And his daughter’s timing couldn’t have been better. She bounced into the kitchen, her long blond hair freshly washed and painstakingly blown-dry to swing loose and silky. She wore just enough make-up to compete with the other girls at school, most of whom ardently believed there were valuable things to be learned from celebrity magazines.
“Morning, Daddy,” she chirped.
“Mornin’ sunshine girl.” Despite his endearment, she caught his reserved tone and went over to disarm him with a hug. When she wrapped her thin arms around him, he looked down at her softly freckled face and was rendered helpless. This girl was the beating heart of their lives.
Heather absently picked up one of the corn ears, pulled back some of the husk, and began to nibble on the tender white kernels.
“You want something other than uncooked corn this morning?” her mother asked.
Heather grinned. “It’s the breakfast of champions.”
“Well, how about lunch? Let me make you a sandwich.”
“No, thanks. I’ll get something at school.” She dropped the corn back onto the counter and slung her backpack over her shoulder, careful to flip her hair aside so it wouldn’t get caught under the strap.
Kurt wasn’t ready to let her go. “You have good teachers this year?”
“Not bad,” she replied. “I have Mr. Bronstein again for AP history, so I’m happy about that. The others I’m not sure
yet, but I hear pretty good things.” She shifted her feet, anxious to be on her way.
“Go,” urged Katherine. “Or you’ll be late. I don’t want you rushing.”
“Yes,” echoed her husband. “Drive carefully.”
“I will, Daddy.” She offered him a sweet sideways glance. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
“Do you need gas money?” he asked.
“Nope. All set.” Heather headed toward the front door, then stopped, remembering something. “Oh, is it okay if I go to the movies tonight? There’s a new X-Men we want to see at the Cineplex.”
Kurt cleared his throat. “Who are you going with?”
“Friends.”
“Like who?” he wanted to know.
“I don’t know. Rachel and a few others.”
“I want to know who.”
Katherine broke in, “Oh, Kurt.” But she seemed unable to explain further why she was taking Heather’s side.
He knew, though. “You can understand why I’m asking, right?”
“Of course, Dad,” agreed Heather. “I’m fine, really. Please don’t worry about me.”
Kurt looked like a non-swimmer about to jump off the high dive. “Okay. Text me or your mother later and let us know your plans.”
“Of course. Um … I could actually use some money ’cause maybe we’ll get something to eat afterwards.” When Katherine relieved the cash jar in the kitchen cupboard of a twenty-dollar bill, Heather took it gratefully. “Thanks. I’ll pay you back.” And with a, “Love you, guys,” she was gone.
Heather headed to the car, the youthful buoyancy she’d put on to match her parents’ perception of her gone from her step. She threw her backpack into the car, settled into the driver’s seat, and pulled out her phone. Scrolling down the list of friends, she selected the entry marked by a single letter B. Her text to him was short and succinct – Be there at 4. I got cash.
When she heard the friendly whoop sound on her phone that indicated the message was successfully sent, she glanced back at the farmhouse and saw her father watching from the kitchen. She gave him a feeble wave.