by AR Simmons
As he descended, the road curved, causing him to lose sight of it. Coming to a break in the trees, he slowed uncertainly and then stopped. The road curved around the lake and ran past the isolated house. If he proceeded, he could be seen by whoever was inside. Rafferty obviously thought Lyla was there with McComb. She hadn’t played it strictly straight with him, but if she was staking out the place, he could easily blow it for her. It seemed ungentlemanly after her clumsy attempt to use of her femininity on him.
“Call it professional courtesy from one Jarhead to another,” he muttered.
The truth was that Rafferty intimidated him. He didn’t want to mess up in front of her again.
The house was isolated enough for a hideout, and if Lyla and Bobby were about to come into a sizeable fortune, they could certainly afford it. He could see nothing from where he was, so he eased forward, still undecided as to whether he should drive to the house or even just drive past it. He slowly rounded the curve and came upon Rafferty’s car parked off the road near a cedar glade, but didn’t see her. Embarrassed to have blundered into her for the second time in one day, he kept driving.
Figuring the road led to or past the cabin, he looked for a turnaround. Instead, the road turned left, crossed a hill, and came to a dead end at a barricade with a sign advising that the bridge ahead was out. He turned around and drove past Rafferty’s car, again without catching sight of her, and went back to the highway. Consulting the map, he could find no other road leading off toward the cabin, nor one coming in from the other side. A quarter of a mile down the highway, however, he came to a turnoff with new mounds of rocky spoil piled on either side. Two orange, black, and white signs stapled to railroad tie gate posts advised prospective visitors, “Private Property. Keep Out.”
Richard was in the process of turning around when he saw Rafferty driving toward him. He waited for her to pass, hoping she wouldn’t recognize his car. A foolish thought.
She stopped and slid down her window. “At least you’ve got enough sense not to just drive on up there I hope,” she said.
“McComb and Lyla are at that house across the lake, aren’t they?” he said.
She gave him another sour look. “You sure find out a lot for someone who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.”
“I didn’t mean to blunder in again.”
Rafferty closed the window and drove off, leaving him feeling like a child caught playing with his father’s tools. Her remark made him reluctant to go up to the house. It felt awkward anyway given his unofficial and unprofessional status. He needed to talk to McComb, but was reluctant to blow Rafferty’s surveillance. After all, Peele had been decent enough to have Adams clue him in about the divorce investigation.
He hesitated. Rafferty hadn’t actually confirmed that McComb was at the place on the lake. Today had been a microcosm of his effort so far. He had discovered something, but couldn’t fit it into any kind of a coherent picture. It might begin to make sense if he went up and talked to McComb, and then again, it might not. And McComb might not even be there. Whether he was or not, going to the cabin was sure to tip whoever was there that someone was watching.
“She’s right,” he muttered. “You don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”
•••
By the time he got back to Blue Creek, his failure to visit the cabin felt more like dereliction of duty than mere incompetence. Rafferty had manipulated him. As he turned past the courthouse, however, he thought of an unobtrusive way of discovering if McComb owned the cabin. He glanced at the dash and saw that it past time to pick up Jill.
At first, he thought she was upset with his tardiness, but then realized that she was preoccupied. He explained what he wanted to do at the courthouse. When she offered to help, he assumed it was to speed him up so that she could get back to James Mill. After all, she was neck deep in work trying to finish her degree and handle her grunt work as a graduate assistant.
The lobby was cold and mausoleum-like except for the mingled aroma of stale tobacco smoke and a weird disinfectant odor.
“Did you see this?” she asked, indicating a notice tacked up inside a glass-paneled bulletin board.
“Deputy applications,” he muttered. “Probably pays less than minimum wage. They’re not exactly awash in money from the look of this place.”
“There doesn’t seem to be much of an economic base,” she replied.
“If there ever was one,” he said distractedly as he studied the directory by the stairwell. “The Recorder’s Office is on the third floor.”
“Looking up the property records should be easy.”
“If they’ll let us,” he said as they started up the worn stone stairway.
“They are public records, Richard.”
A map on the wall of the Assessor’s office showed each parcel of property in the county. “More than half the county is national forest land,” she observed. “It’s part of Mark Twain like the land around James Mill.”
He located the road running past the lake with his finger. “Only the one house on the whole place,” he mumbled.
“Perhaps not,” said Jill.
She went to the counter to get the attention of the secretary. “Can you tell us how old this property map is?” she asked.
“That’s pretty current. I think it was drawn up about six months ago,” she said. “Are you looking for a particular parcel?”
“Yes,” said Richard. “The property records are on the third floor, right?”
“Right beside the Recorder’s office,” she said. “But you’d better hurry. Everything will close in about fifteen minutes.”
Richard could have found the information, but not with the facility that Jill did.
“Here it is,” said Jill. “The current owner is some sort of business, a ‘Charity Corporation.’”
“Some sort of business all right. That’s Lyla Peele. Her current stage name, if she ever gets on stage, is ‘Charity.’ How in the world did she get the money to buy that much land?”
“Credit is all about ability to pay, Richard. Didn’t you say she’s supposed to be getting a large divorce settlement soon?”
“Not as much as she’d like, if Peele can help it,” he said. “This is why Rafferty is here. If McComb is holed up out there, then there probably is something pretty heavy going on between the two of them.”
“And that means what as far as you’re concerned?”
“Nothing. I don’t care about that crap one way or the other. I just need to talk to him. You’ve got to get back though, don’t you?”
He hoped that she would take the hint and say she didn’t.
“I have an early class, and there’s always work to do.”
“Let’s go then,” he said, trying to hide his irritation. “I need to call Rafferty and get her to confirm that he’s out there before I go barging in anyway.”
“She gave you her number?”
“No. But I know how I can get her.”
•••
They sat at a booth in the McDonald’s at Mountain View where they had stopped to let the sun set so that they could avoid driving into the blinding glare.
“What did you think of Blue Creek?” asked Jill.
He shrugged. “One dying town in the middle of nowhere is about like another.”
“The college didn’t give the appearance of a ‘dying town,’ as you put it.”
He snorted dismissively. “‘College’ is a bit grandiose, don’t you think? JUCO is like … what? Remedial college, right?”
“It’s still a place of learning,” she said seriously.
“Yeah, ‘Harvard of the Ozarks.’ I’ll bet the local kids don’t even go there if they have decent ACT scores.”
“What was your score?” she asked.
“I didn’t take the ACT or the SAT,” he said. “I went into the Marines, remember?”
“But surely you had scholarships when you graduated from high school?”
“My aca
demic record wasn’t all that great.”
“So if you didn’t choose to go into the armed services, where would you have been able to go to college?”
“My folks were poor working class, and I kind of fell off the academic boat after dad died. So I would probably have had to choose a community college. What’s your point?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“You never did like snobs,” he said with a grin. “Heaven knows I don’t have anything to be snobbish about.”
“That is the very definition of a snob, dear.” she covered his hand with hers. “Only pretenders have to— What is the term they use? Put on airs? Let’s not do that. You attended Pere Marquette, and I obtained my degree there. It is hardly a world-renowned university, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Nevertheless, it offers an excellent education. The same can occur in a community college. The students certainly deserve no less.”
He laughed. “Try giving them an excellent education and see how much appreciation you get. A lot of kids go to JUCO because they can’t cut it in good schools.”
“And many go because they are financially distressed like you were.”
“Speaking of which, if I don’t get my business going, and keep at it this time, we’ll stay financially distressed.”
Jill’s wan smile plunged him into instant gloom. Everything he was doing seemed not only futile, but irresponsible.
It must have shown on his face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Me,” he said. “You don’t need this.”
“I need you,” she said earnestly. “You are having a difficult time. How could you not? But it will be okay. You and I … We can do this as long as we don’t lose faith in each other.”
“Me lose faith in you? Never.”
“Yes. And I believe in you. You must believe that I will be here for you. I will be, because I must have you here for me. We are one, Richard. Remember?”
“Wedding vows?”
“The commitment came long before that. I’m holding you to that promise. Hold me to mine.”
“Hold you to your promise? How can I do that, Jill? I mean how can I really do that?”
“You can do it in your mind and in your heart. We owe each other because we are one. These are not just words.”
•••
Dusk had come. They went to the truck and headed back.
Jill’s attempt to reassure him had only fed his guilt. People who loved each other shouldn’t be where he and Jill were now, and the blame was all his. Jill was the steady one, the working one, the understanding one. He couldn’t keep a job or even let her do hers without dragging her away on quixotic quests. Yet, there was Molly, pleading and armed with the certainty that he—Richard Carter, of all people—was her daughter’s savior.
I can’t even save myself, Molly.
Jill put her hand on his thigh again. “It will be all right, Richard. We will be all right.”
He nodded.
But how much more can you take? he wondered. How long until you see how much better off you would be without me?
The thought left a dead spot in his chest. She would be better off without him, but without her there would be no point for him to try and go on.
So what are you doing? he asked himself.
It occurred to him that perhaps he was trying to justify his further existence. After all, twice now he should have been killed, first in Somalia, and the second time in Cartier. Maybe that was it. Maybe he owed God, or the cosmos, or humanity something in return for the mercy, or luck, or whatever. It didn’t feel that way though. All he knew was that Molly had turned to him in her misery, and her need had captured him. He was as inextricably joined to Molly as he was to Jill.
“I can’t walk away from this,” he said softly. “I know I should, but I can’t.”
“I know that, Richard.”
She looked steadfastly through the windshield. “I wish none of this had happened. I wish you—no, I wish we were free of it. But that is useless. You do what you have to, and don’t worry about me. We have each other, and we will be okay.”
“I wish I could just quit,” he repeated.
“You made a commitment, Richard. It may not have been a wise one, and Molly may not have had the right to ask it of you, but you have to honor it. It would cost too much to do otherwise.”
“You want me to continue?”
She shrugged. “You have no choice. We both know that.”
That should have settled it, but within minutes, he began wondering what her remarks really meant.
Is she really okay with it, or is she just resigned to living with it? She probably thinks that telling me exactly how she feels would push me over the edge or something.
He tried to go with the surface appearance and assume that everything was all right, or at least almost all right. Then, as if Molly had tugged the reins to correct his path, he thought of the missing child. Heaving an audible sigh, he closed his eyes momentarily.
“Are you okay?” Jill asked in concern.
“Oh … I’m … fine. Just thinking.”
“About the baby?”
“Yeah. Know what a backlash is?”
“Yes. It is a violent counter-reaction when a person or group thinks something has gone too far. I think it must mean to strike back at.”
He laughed. “An academic answer.”
“I was being pedantic. Sorry.”
“Not at all. Your fascination with words makes what you say interesting. You’ll be a great professor.”
She gave him a dubious look.
“I was referring to a different kind of backlash,” he said. “I went fishing a lot as a kid. I had this old bait-casting reel that would get hopelessly snarled if you didn’t cast it right. It could take all day to untangle the mess.”
“Like the Gordian knot?”
“Exactly. It was like a complicated knot with all these loose loops. One was the key to unsnarling the mess, but there were a bunch of them, and if you pulled too hard on a wrong one, then you just tightened the snarl.”
“This is an analogy of your investigation.”
“It’s what it has become. I’ve got all these loose ends, but I can’t see that any of them leads anywhere or is connected to any of the others. I’ve got Mancie’s disappearance to work on, and now this high-dollar divorce thing is going on. Bobby McComb may be involved in both of them, one of them, or neither.”
“We should have taken the time for you to go and talk to him.”
“Well, I don’t know for sure that he’s at the cabin. I could have gone up there to find out, but I didn’t want to mess up Rafferty’s work. So I dragged you over here for nothing, I guess.”
“The trip wasn’t entirely wasted,” she said.
“How do you know that?”
She almost told him what she had done, but lost her nerve. She rationalized the omission by telling herself that nothing might come of the applications.
“We got to spend some time with each other, didn’t we,” she said instead.
“I haven’t been much company,” he replied, patting her hand. “I’ll try to do better on the way home, dear.”
Of course, you weren’t supposed to have to try. They used to not try, and they always had things to say. She remembered the way he used to look at her and the way he always found excuses to touch her.
Could it really be over so quickly?
•••
They heard the house phone ringing while still on the porch. Jill hurried in and took it.
“Some people are so difficult to find,” said a heavily accented feminine voice.
“Marta! I have wanted to call you since we moved here. That is a poor excuse, isn’t it?”
“¿Cómo están los maridos viejos?”
“The ‘old married couple’ are just fine. How are you and Alberto? By the way, Richard mentioned just last night something tha
t Alberto once told him about the importance of family. So, is your family getting larger any time soon?”
“That is why you think I call? No, but one hopes. And you and Richard?”
“We may postpone having a family until we are more established.”It was better than telling the truth.
“For what would you become more established than for a family?” chided Marta. “To wait is to temp God. He only gives a woman so many years for children. You know this.”
Richard came inside with a questioning look.
“It’s Marta,” said Jill.
“Tell her ‘hello’ for me. And send my regards to Alberto. I’ve got to run to town for a second.”
Jill nodded, dividing her attention between him and the mile-a-minute update Marta was giving on her family in Merida. She heard the front door close, and wondered absently what he needed in town. She hoped whatever it was wouldn’t cost too much. Marta had a large family, and although Jill had met and come to know many of them, she had to remind Jill occasionally who this cousin or that niece was.
Jill and Marta had become close in college before Richard came into her life. Marta’s Hispanic heritage and extended family contrasted starkly with Jill’s tiny family and Gallic-American upbringing, but they shared unfashionably old fashioned views of family, morality, and personal ethics. Marta had also shared the nightmare of Mic Boyd. He had used her in a feint to draw Richard away before attacking Jill. Neither of them referred to that now, however, both wishing for it to recede into a forgotten past—something that would never happen.
“We may be moving again, Marta,” said Jill when she got a chance to speak again. “I have applied for a teaching position.”
“So soon? I thought it takes longer for an advanced degree.”
“I have a master’s,” said Jill. “That’s all I need for this job. I may forgo the doctorate.”
“Why?”
Good question. The answer involved Richard’s well-being, but she didn’t want to tell her friend that. So she gave Marta the one answer she knew would be acceptable.
“The sooner we settle down, the sooner we can have children.”
“Maybe this is not such a bad idea,” said Marta with a laugh. “You are already with child?”