by Ann B. Ross
My hand was trembling, but I got the key inserted, then just as I turned the ignition, the whole world lit up with a blinding light. Beams from two large headlights, higher than normal, slashed through the rear window, hurting our eyes and putting us all on full display.
Covering her eyes, Lillian screamed and Lloyd said a bad word. Leigh flung herself to the floor.
“They seen us!” Lillian wailed.
“What is it?” Leigh moaned. “What is it?”
Lloyd, shielding his eyes, as he looked back at what was practically on top of us, said, “A pickup! A big one. Go, Miss Julia, go!”
I stomped on the gas pedal. The motor roared, working up to a high-pitched scream, but the car didn’t move. I couldn’t believe it.
“Put it in gear!” Lloyd yelled.
I did, and the car leaped like a jet taking off straight up. It was all I could do to tame the thing and aim for the lane. The chewed-up mud on the lane brought me back to earth, and I eased off the gas, but not before the heavy car slithered back and forth, slinging mud from both sides.
And still the bright beams of the pickup were right on top of us.
“Go slow, Miss Julia,” Lloyd murmured. “Go slow. Don’t want to end up in a ditch.”
“Right, okay,” I said, calmed by his easy tone. Concentrating on keeping the car on an even keel, I tried to ignore the blinding lights. It helped to twist the rearview mirror out of the glare.
“What’s he trying to do, Lloyd?” I asked, glancing at him. “Run us off or run us down?”
“No telling.” Lloyd’s hand was gripping the armrest so hard that I could see his white knuckles.
Just as we reached what I figured was the halfway point of the lane, our front wheels suddenly dipped into a crevice. Giving it a little more gas, I felt the car pull out, spattering mud as it did. Mentally thanking German engineers much too soon, I felt and heard the rear wheels sink into the same fault, and stay there. I pushed gently on the gas and leaned forward to urge the car to pull itself out. The wheels spun, slinging mud all over the place, but the car didn’t move.
“Oh, Lord!” Lillian cried. “We’re stuck!”
“It’s okay,” I said, trembling. “We’ll get out. Just give me a minute.”
The fact of the matter was that I didn’t know what to do but call a wrecker, and that was hardly feasible in the current circumstances. I tried rocking the car back and forth—from drive to reverse and back again—but all that did was dig us in deeper.
Then there was a jarring bump from behind, snapping our heads as the big truck made contact. Another bump and Leigh screamed, Lloyd turned to look back, and I just knew we were about to be crushed by the monster behind us.
I couldn’t sit still for that, so with a spurt of high dudgeon, I shoved the gearshift into Park, unbuckled my seat belt, threw open the door, swiveled my rubber boot-clad feet out onto the muddy road, stood up, and almost slid into the ditch. Hanging on to the door was the only thing that saved me from an inglorious exit on my backside. It didn’t matter. I’d had enough and intended to put a stop to such uncalled-for harassment.
“Get back in!” Lloyd yelled, trying to unbuckle himself. “What’re you doing?”
I barely heard him or Lillian, who was screaming as she tried to get out of the backseat. I pulled myself along by hanging on to the car, and then onto the hot hood of the truck. When I got to the driver’s side window, I reached up and gave it an authoritative rap.
“Open this thing!” I yelled.
The window slid down, and a thin face with huge teeth, surrounded by stringy hair and a wispy beard, peered down at me. I reached up and grabbed his sideview mirror to keep from sliding under the truck.
“Young man, what do you think you’re doing?” I yelled, having had as much as I could stand. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Huh?”
“Stop ramming my car! You’ll ruin it! And turn those lights down! You hear me? You’re about to blind us.”
“Uh, well, I ’uz jus’ tryin’ to he’p.” But he dimmed his lights.
“Well, you’re not helping, you’re not helping one bit. You’re a menace on the road, and I’ve had enough of it! Now get out of here and leave us alone!”
Having had my say, I turned to pull myself back to the car. He leaned out of the window and called, “Uh, ma’am, I got some burlap bags.”
And that’s how we got out of a hole in the road. Waymon placed the bags in front of the rear tires, I pressed the gas pedal, and the big car slid out as slick as you please. We learned that Waymon lived some way behind the cabin, and always checked it after a party for fear of fire.
“If them woods was to catch on far,” he told us, as I strained to understand him, “we’uns wouldn’t have a chance.”
“True,” I said, nodding soberly, but noting to myself that we’d had six straight days of heavy rain. But who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth?
Chapter 51
*
Lillian and I waited in the car while Lloyd walked Leigh to her front door. Every light in the house was on, and when we’d pulled to the curb, Leigh had moaned at the sight.
“They’re gonna kill me,” she said.
And well they should, I thought, for it was close to four o’clock, long past any reasonable homecoming for a teenager. Leigh’s parents met them at the door, so I expected Lloyd to hurry back to the car. He didn’t. The four of them stood in the doorway, talking and talking, along with a little arm waving, until finally the door closed and Lloyd trudged back to us.
“Now I know what it means,” he said, slumping into the front seat and closing the car door.
“What?”
“No good deed goes unpunished,” he said. “They thought I’d kept Leigh out this late.”
“She didn’t explain?” I asked, driving away.
He shook his head. “She just cried. But telling what really happened would’ve made it worse.”
“They’ll find out sooner or later,” I said, reaching over to pat his knee. “You did a really good deed tonight, honey, and Leigh knows it.”
“I guess,” he said, as if resigned to the inevitable. “Lot of good it’ll do, though, ’cause she’s grounded till graduation. And,” he went on, “she’s a sophomore.”
I couldn’t help it—I started laughing and couldn’t stop. Lillian joined in, and finally so did Lloyd. I was so giddy with fatigue and anxiety that it was all I could do to keep the car steady on a straight, paved, empty, and unmuddied street.
* * *
—
Even Lillian slept late that morning and so, I thought, had Lloyd. He’d spent what was left of the night with us, for fear of waking his mother if he’d gone home. But now, down the stairs he came just as I was pouring the first cup of coffee.
He stopped short when he saw me. “I didn’t think you’d be up,” he said.
“You, either. You want some toast? I’m letting Lillian sleep, so you’ll have to have a make-do breakfast.”
“No’m, I better get home. My note to Mama just said I was spending the night with you, but she’ll be worried. What do you think I ought to I tell her?”
“Everything,” I said. “Tell her everything—where and why we were tooling all over Abbot County in the wee hours of the night. She should know what a good friend you are. Besides,” I went on, “pretty soon everybody’s going to know what went on last night. Now,” I went on, pushing my phone in front of him, “show me how to access all those pictures we took.”
“What’re you going to do?” He picked up the phone, punched a few buttons, then handed it to me. “Like this,” he said. “You want the pictures on mine? We took a lot in the other rooms.”
“Yes, I want them all, and what I’m going to do is take them to the sheriff this morning. I want something done about that place. And if t
he sheriff won’t do it, I’ll take them to the Abbotsville Times.” Then, noting the concerned look on his face, I added, “So I want you to look through them and be sure there’re no pictures of any of us. Or of anybody. And that reminds me—see if you can find out if Stacy got home all right.”
He nodded. “Okay, I can do that.”
“And,” I went on, pointing to the phones, “see if you can isolate just the pictures of the evidence left behind—the bottles, the cans, and most of all, the prescription vials. There were too many of those little bottles to have come from home medicine cabinets. Somebody, Lloyd, somebody in this town with access to a lot of drugs is supplying them to your friends. I want to find out who that somebody is.”
“Could be dangerous, Miss Julia.” But he kept fiddling with both phones, lining up a series of undeniable proofs of wrongdoing.
“No more than it already is. Think of your friends being mixed up with whoever’s doing it—if that’s not dangerous, I don’t know what is. I see it as my civic duty to put a stop to it. But I don’t want you involved—not even a whisper that you know anything about it. So after you talk to your mother, go on about your business today—and by the way, what are you doing today?”
“Helping J.D. at the Rosewood house. No telling when he’ll be back, though.”
“About noon,” I said. “Sam’s already called and they were just leaving Charlotte. He said they have a full truck to unload when they get here, so run on home, talk to your mother, and try to get a nap.”
“Yes’m, okay, and thanks, Miss Julia. Thanks a lot for last night.”
“Anytime, sugar,” I said. Then with a wry smile, added, “Though not anytime soon, I hope. Take a look at my poor car before you go.”
* * *
—
Thirty minutes later, I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of cold coffee beside me. I had carefully studied the pictures that Lloyd had lined up on both phones, magnifying some of them to confirm what I was seeing.
I had gone back and forth about Dr. Don Crawford, swinging from admiration to distrust and back again ever since he’d been in town. I hadn’t known what to make of him, but now I did.
One picture on my phone—I think Lillian had taken it—of an amber vial lying on a floor with several others told the tale. It was turned so that only half the label was visible, but that was enough to recognize it as the one that had held fifty-nine overprescribed oxycodone tablets when I’d dropped it in Dr. Crawford’s basket for foreign missions.
Now, with Lloyd gone and Lillian still sleeping, the house had settled into a Saturday-morning silence, and I continued to sit alone, pondering, wondering, trying to decide the best way to proceed.
My first impulse was to dump both phones on the sheriff and demand action, then to come home and call everyone I knew to warn them. But the thought of Bob Hargrove, who’d devoted his life to the care of his patients, returning to a ruined reputation and a practice scattered to the winds stopped me.
As I imagined the resulting fallout from publicizing what I knew, a few other possibilities occurred to me. What, I kept asking myself, would cause the least damage to the innocent, yet still nab the guilty? And how could I be sure that I’d correctly identified the guilty from the innocent?
Hesitantly, though reasonably sure that I had, I went to the telephone, looked up a number, and punched it in. While waiting an inordinate length of time for an answer, Lillian pushed through the swinging door.
“Who you callin’ this early?” she asked on her way to the coffee pot.
“Mrs. Crawford,” I said. “Mrs. Dr. Crawford.”
* * *
—
After a brief, unsatisfactory exchange on the phone, I clicked off, stood thinking for a second or two, then turned to Lillian.
“She didn’t sound so good,” I said, “and now I’m worried about those children.”
“What she say?”
“Not much of anything, to be honest. Just some hemming and hawing, and no clear answers at all. Actually, she sounded half asleep.” I frowned, replaying Lauren’s responses in my mind. “Maybe I woke her up. It’s still early.”
“Not that early,” Lillian said, “’specially with two little chil’ren in the house. I say we go over there an’ see, Miss Julia. Maybe she take a sleepin’ pill last night an’ can’t shake it off this mornin’.”
O, Lord, a sleeping pill? And I had a slew of pictures of empty sleeping pill bottles.
“Get your pocketbook, Lillian,” I said, “and let’s go.”
* * *
—
My car looked as if it’d been in a road race on a cross-country track and sounded like it, too. As we drove to the Hargrove house, dried clumps of mud loosened from the tire treads clunked against the undercarriage, then spattered along the street. We were a moving spectacle, but my usual reserve was no longer operating. I didn’t care.
I turned onto the curved drive that led to the front of the meticulously kept Hargrove house, thinking again of how lovely it was, and I don’t even like ranch-style homes. Painted white with Charleston green shutters, adorned with gas-lighted lanterns by the door, boxwoods lining the foundation, and a magnificent magnolia in the yard, it was easily one of the town’s showplaces.
But what it looked like no longer mattered, either. All I was concerned with was what we would find inside. And it took us long enough to get inside—no one answered the doorbell, although Lillian rang it over and over.
“I think I’m worried now,” Lillian said. “You jus’ talked to her, so she oughtta be here.”
“Stay here in case she answers,” I said, turning to leave. “I’ll try the back.”
Little Olivia opened the back door when I rapped on it. She and her brother, Jason, were playing on the kitchen floor among empty cereal bowls, spilled milk, and several wet stuffed animals. Both children were still in their nightclothes.
“Where’s your mother, sweetheart?” I asked, stepping inside.
Olivia looked toward the front of the house as if she might see her mother through the walls. “On the sofa,” she said.
“Come take my hand, then, and let’s go find her. You, too, Jason. Let’s go find your mama.” Sidestepping the toys, shoes, and Cheerios on the floor, I let the children walk me through the house, stopping at the front door to let Lillian in.
“Oh, you sweet little things,” she said, immediately taken with the children. “Le’s us go get some dry clothes on. I b’lieve somebody spilt something.”
“Jason did,” Olivia said. “He spilled his milk.”
I nodded to Lillian, then turned to enter Sue Hargrove’s spacious and lovely living room, where I’d spent many a pleasant hour sipping tea and eating finger sandwiches.
Lauren Crawford, still in a nightgown, sat on the sofa with a blanket wrapped around her. There was a dazed look on her face, and it took a few seconds for her head to turn in my direction.
“Lauren,” I said, drawing a chair close, “what can I do to help?”
She just shook her head, but her eyes filled, then lowered as she seemed to sink into herself.
“Have you taken anything?” I asked, reaching for her hand. “Some pills? Medicine of any kind?”
She shook her head again, then whispered, “I don’t know what to do. I didn’t know . . . all of it.”
“Where is he now?”
Her eyes closed and a look so bereft crossed her face that my heart went out to her. Until, with a sudden recall of the past night, I decided that I’d had enough of sympathetic pampering. “Where is he?” I demanded.
“Gone,” she whispered. “He’s gone.”
Chapter 52
*
And good riddance, I thought, then thought better of it. No way should he be free to prey on the children of other towns. An all-points bulletin would bring him back forthwith—no
t only to face the music, but also to face a town of irate citizens of which I was currently the most enraged.
Assured by now that Lauren was not under the influence—I’d checked the pupils of her eyes—and in no immediate danger, I took matters in hand.
“Get up and get dressed, Lauren,” I said, standing over her.
“I don’t . . .”
“What you do or don’t doesn’t matter. What does matter are your children, Sue’s house that’s in a mess, and the whereabouts of your husband. You can sit here all day grieving over something you should’ve done something about long ago, but it’s going to get done now. Get dressed, then come to the kitchen. I’ll have coffee made, and you’re going to tell me everything.”
* * *
—
Trained, it seemed, to obedience, Lauren sat at the kitchen table, fully dressed in another shapeless outfit, her hair pulled tight in a ponytail, and her face bare of any enhancement whatsoever.
Leaning my arms on the small table, I stared at her, then demanded, “Who’s he selling to?”
“I don’t think—”
“Yes, he is. Or somebody in the office is, but they’ve all worked for Bob Hargrove for years and the only one left is your husband. He’s the one who was collecting drugs for the mission field—drugs he’d overprescribed to patients whose names are still on the labels. And those very drugs showed up at a party for teenagers. Teenagers, Lauren. Children of people I know.” I had to stop and take a deep breath to tamp down the rage that swept over me.
“Now,” I went on when I recovered, “Don Crawford may not’ve sold them directly, but he supplied them to somebody who did. And I want to know who that somebody is.”
She bowed her head, then said, “I really don’t . . .” Then after a glance at my face, she said, “He keeps a little book with phone numbers. Not in his phone—he doesn’t trust it.”
“How long has he been selling drugs?”