Maude took a moment to gaze off into the tall brown grass that grew along the roadway and into the fields, delaying the memory that finally took her. The dive was deep, into a place she had been avoiding, the hurt still there.
She had found out about her pregnancy three months into her marriage to Paul, and even though the news was overwhelming, she was happy. When Paul died she held onto her sanity by thinking about the baby, planning how she would tell him about his soldier father. A few weeks later, he too was gone. The doctors couldn’t explain why the fetus stopped growing within her womb. They expressed sadness and went about their business. She carried the baby for a week without a fetal heartbeat before they took him from her, leaving her empty, with another hole in her heart.
School was all she had left, and in the middle of her junior year, Maude changed her major from business to criminal justice. Why it took so long for her to realize what she needed to do was a mystery. Because her old man had abused her for years and got away with it until she stood up to him, Maude knew that she wanted to help other people who were unable to help themselves. If that meant chasing killers to give a family closure and get justice for the dead, then so be it.
She became a little tougher with each of her life’s tragedies, and grew more resilient to the pain of loss, but sometimes her mind played tricks, and made her believe she would wake one morning and find it all had been put back right; her husband and their child would be there.
After graduation, Maude went to work for a small town police department in Oklahoma and tried to forget her problems, sometimes managing to lose them in the sins of the world. The town was a particularly fight-prone place, recently turning from dry to wet after the city elections. Disturbances broke out all over town as liquor was legally available to anyone over twenty-one. The boys at the Cop Shop told the rookie that the town would settle down after people got their exuberance under control and figured out that money spent on court costs and fines could buy a lot more legal beer.
Five years later Maude took a break from law enforcement, returned to Madison and invested her savings in the house for sale down the hill from her family home. Her mother collected the rent from the tenant who continued living in the house and forwarded a check to Maude each month.
Still a young woman in her twenties, Maude decided to go to the west coast for a while. Free love was the rage in California, and the beach fronts led to cold, clear saltwater. Working for a while picking fruit, trying to clear her mind of the sad stories from the street and her own sad tale, Maude harvested grapes, and then worked in a coffee house serving hot and cold liquids to heavy-eyed poets in love with their own slick rhymes of war and death. She slung hash in a seaside diner, and learned to pick a guitar by practicing between the breakfast and lunch run. She drank cheap gin, and smoked unfiltered cigarettes and marijuana, but avoided psychedelic drugs. She was afraid of their long aftertaste. She practiced free-love as the hippies taught, marched in protests and sit-ins, sang patriotic songs for the men who had lost their lives in battle, and finally decided that it wasn’t working.
One morning Maude woke up hung over in a small room in San Francisco, looked out the window at the sun rising with its pink and orange beauty against the blue California sky, and asked herself (and anyone else that was listening), “What am I doing here?”
That was her last day on the West Coast. She was thirty-three years old and she knew that her last few years had been lost in a smoke-filled fog. Hopping a bus to Texas with her one bag of dirty clothes in tow, a tougher Maude Rogers realized that she wasn’t hurting anymore.
No one would hire her for police work because of the hiatus in her work record, and the fact that she had spent six years on the West Coast working at menial jobs. Madison had a mayor at the time who had attended the University of Oklahoma with Maude, a friend and confidante and a sincerely interested person who had tried back then to help her fellow student sort out the enormous grief of losing husband and child. When the Mayor found out that Maude was looking for work in Madison, she hired her as an assistant, a kind of catch-all position that proved to be lifesaving for the Mayor and cathartic for Maude.
After two years of non-eventful work assisting the mayor, Maude became interested in getting back into law enforcement. She began practicing the skills she set aside many years before. At first she couldn’t fire her weapon and hit a target at all, but she gradually got it back, relearning how to pepper the center ring with each pull of the trigger. The gym offered a place to vent her hostilities and frustration, working muscles that had become soft with so much time away.
One Thursday morning, during the new mayoral campaign, Maude was assigned to arrange safe transportation for the entire city council to meet at the end of Bright Street, a low-rent section of the city. Bright Street was in the works for gentrification, making the old look new without destroying the culture of the area. The concept was still new in that part of Texas, although some citizens had already remodeled one rundown area of town and reaped large financial rewards soon afterward.
Mayor Denise Royal was a forward thinker, able to see the big picture when improvements were suggested for the city. She often stirred conflicting emotions within the population. The citizenry of Madison considered the cost of improvements for Bright Street, and some rejected the project altogether. There was one man in particular who didn’t want to see change in his neighborhood. His name was Sam Williams, a fifty-something white male with a balding pate and slightly bucked teeth.
Sam heard the Mayor was on her way to his neighborhood and thought he would greet her with his idea of gentrification-an old gun freshly oiled with new ammo. The rifle was a Remington M700, bolt-action, with a telescopic sight, designed to be accurate for civilian or military use. Sam believed it was his right to own guns and even fire them on occasion if the cause was just. He hated that prissy little woman mayor who was trying to raise his taxes, and make it impossible to continue living in his own neighborhood, although his intention that day was to try and scare her away from Bright Street. That was the story he told to police after his arrest.
The Mayor’s entourage had just extricated themselves from the police vans that Maude had set up for their travel. Stretching muscles that had begun cramping from the ride across town and shielding their eyes blinded by the late July sun, the various council members were wishing they were back in the air-conditioned offices of the town’s city hall. The feisty mayor, however, was enthralled by her chance to do a good thing for the neighborhood of Bright Street, to help the poor by providing improved city services and better roads. The only way it could be done was by encouraging entrepreneurs to purchase available real estate on Bright Street, and rehab it for sale to upwardly mobile men and women of Madison.
Maude took her job as the mayor’s assistant very seriously, and she was always watchful for any kind of disturbance on the streets. Prepared to use her sidearm for the Mayor’s protection that July day, Maude was alerted to a man on the street, hiding behind a trash receptacle. Disgruntled Sam peeked over its rim like a jack-in-the-box, with the barrel of a rifle balanced precariously on the lid of the container. Using her long legs to gather some speed, Maude detached herself from the group and circled around the side street. She stealthily approached the would-be assassin from behind, and placed the barrel of her own gun against his right ear.
“I wouldn’t move, if I were you,” Maude said slowly, not raising her voice. “Have you ever seen what a bullet from a gun this size does to the human brain at this close range? Nasty mess.”
The gun-wielding terrorist froze in his tracks, and the unmistakable odor of human feces drifted back to Maude.
“Did you just mess yourself?” She asked, clucking her tongue. “I’m glad I don’t have to take you in. Bet you’re going to make the folks at booking real happy.”
The incident was resolved quickly, with police officers arresting Sam Williams, and Maude being applauded by the mayor for saving her life. After that,
her job as the mayor’s assistant seemed more and more meaningless.
Maude’s heart was still in law enforcement, especially the murder business, and nothing else seemed that interesting to her. That one time on the street, when the idiot was going to shoot Mayor Royale and Maude foiled his plans was the only time in years that she really felt she was doing her job.
On a crisp fall day, about three months later she left work and returned home to find her mother waiting in the porch swing, holding an official looking letter.
“This came for you, my dear girl. Did you apply with Chicago Police Department when no one was looking?” Her mother asked.
“No, I didn’t apply; didn’t know they were looking,” Maude answered, curious about the letter. She sat down with her mother, gave her a brief hug and opened the letter. “Well I am more than surprised,” She said in a moment.
“Maude, what do they want?”
“Mayor Royale applied for me; she gave me a recommendation. Seems she knows someone there with influence. Mom, listen to what she wrote, “Dear Captain Anderson, I would like for you to consider hiring my assistant Maude Rogers for your agency. She is the finest person I have ever had work for me and she saved my life recently. I believe she would serve very well as an addition to your staff. Contact her at the address I have included. PS. I would appreciate the favor, John,
Sincerely, Denise Royale, Mayor, City of Madison, Texas”.
“Well, Mom, I guess this means I might be moving again.”
Inside the envelope was a three-page application form which Maude completed and returned to Chicago PD. Within two months she said goodbye to her mother, and moved her few possessions to an apartment near Lake Michigan. Grace took care of renting the house for Maude and once again began sending the rent money by mail each month.
That was twenty-three years ago, Maude recollected. Since then, her mother had died, and Maude inherited her grandmother’s house and moved into it, settling down at last, alone with the ghosts of her family.
Cushing was a small town in Oklahoma a short distance from Stillwater and the University, and Inman wasn’t but a few miles away from Cushing. Back when Maude had commuted to the university, many of her fellow students lived in apartments or in houses big enough for two or three students. She had been fortunate the first two years to live in Cushing with her Aunt Margaret. After her aunt died, Maude moved to a cheap apartment in Inman, not far from Stillwater. That apartment had been hers and Paul’s home for the short time that they were married. She still had sweet memories that were made in that little apartment. She wondered if the building was still standing.
Bringing her thoughts back to the reason she was in Oklahoma, Maude picked up the map and noticed the small town of Mehan was near all the places she had lived or worked during her years in the state. A dull throb was beginning across her forehead, a portent of things to come. A dreadful thought had begun to take root, the seed having been planted by the trip through the nostalgia of her youth.
Bobby. Little Bobby. He would be almost forty-two years old today if he survived his parent’s abusive treatment. Bobby, who had loved her fiercely. Could he have fixated on her after the short time she spent as his nanny? How would he remember her, care about her? Or could he be driven by hatred because she left him in the foul mess of his family?
The park was small, just a few trees and a concrete table with two rectangular benches, a water fountain and trash receptacle nearby. Maude parked the rental car under the sign that told her the park was supported by the city of Mehan, Oklahoma, and to keep it clean. Shaded by the big live oak tree, she sat down at the table and lit up an unfiltered with her butane lighter.
She reminisced for a moment about the time Paul had given her the lighter. He had it engraved with her name and his in a corny heart with an arrow through it. They had been married for two weeks, an anniversary that didn’t slip by her man. God I miss him, even after all the years that have passed since his death. The lighter is like me, she thought, each year more faded with use, but still with enough fire to get the job done.
Paul had known about her past, about her father who abused her, and he tried to make up for it in small ways. The cigarette lighter was just one of the many surprises he brought home for her. Her young husband found great satisfaction in delighting his new bride. She always said that if she found another man who made her feel like Paul Rogers had, she would consider loving him. So far, she was still waiting.
Time spent with Bill Page kept coming back in her memory, leaving a smile behind, but he was still new to her. She had really felt alive in his presence, something no other man had done in such a long time. Maybe there was something more than a chance meeting for them.
The years she spent on the California coast had been mean years, times she would like to forget. She went through men quickly, one after the other, searching for Paul. Since that time most people thought she hated men, but that was far from the truth. The real reason she had stayed single was that she wanted the fireworks again.
The tug was too strong to ignore. The memory before Paul, the child that was Bobby, kept coming back with more and more urgency. She remembered the evening when she arrived at the mansion and found the little boy in his bed, crying and holding his stomach. He had blood on his gums, probably from a fall to his face was her first thought. His mother, Isabella, shamed the little boy for his tears, all the while pacing the floor, staring out his bedroom window toward the driveway below.
“This boy is so careless,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “I think he looks for ways to hurt himself. Please Miss, take him outside and stop his crying.”
Maude had been convinced, or had she? The child surely had severe emotional problems. The mother had tried to make it appear that all was under the boy’s control, from his so-called carelessness, to his tears.
Bobby had brightened when Maude told him they were going to see the water in the creek. Certainly a child who was truly hurt couldn’t turn off the pain so easily. Maude had waited till the mother left and then hugged him and told him it would be fine after a little while. That was the day before she left the position as his nanny.
Now in retrospect the picture was so clear. Years of police work, of seeing the violence in families where the strong lay hands upon the weak had taught her to see the signs of abuse. Bobby had all the signs, and Maude wondered if he was now living life the way he had been taught.
Leaving the park, she turned left, and began to drive, remembering the road to the mansion and the long corridor lined with oak trees leading to the sumptuous estate driveway. Just for the heck of it, she followed the memory, travelling down the once familiar road.
The gate code, though surely it had been changed after so many years, had been a simple one; Feldspar, the name given to the big house. Maude had wondered back then if Bobby’s father had studied geology, and thus gave the home its moniker. She punched in the code, expecting nothing; surprised when the massive gate began to open.
“Well look at that, I guess some things don’t change,” she said aloud.
The circular drive was empty, no waiting or parked cars within the three lanes, but Maude wasn’t surprised. The garage at the back of the mansion was built to hold a fleet of vehicles
She parked the rental car close to the mansion and stared at the house, seeing it through experienced eyes, remembering the awe she felt the first time the big double-doors opened, allowing her to enter. How deceptive were the trappings of wealth. Evil can live anywhere, she thought, subsisting in beautiful surroundings or in squalor.
Maude now believed that one of Bobby’s wealthy parents might have been the catalyst that created a monster within him. If she was right in her assumptions, the horror in the little boy’s life sent him over the edge.
She tapped three times on the brass door knocker and then waited for a short time until the knock was answered by a skimpily clad, overweight housemaid. Maude showed the woman her detective’s shield and ask
ed to speak to the owner of the house.
The maid grimaced and lowered her head, “That would be me,” she said. “I am Jean Vandiver, and I own this house. I… was expecting someone else.”
“I can see I might have surprised you,” Maude said with a slight grin. “Sorry to disappoint you. I didn’t know the Dawsons had moved out.”
“Oh, he sold this house, years ago, after the owners were killed. You probably heard about it. They died in the Rocky Mountains; went over a cliff.”
The bell rang in Maude’s head, the glimmer of a memory she had tried to recall in Philadelphia, the couple who died in the mountain accident had made national news.
Jean Vandiver appeared to know some of the history of the house and its previous owners.
“So who sold the house, some of the family?”
“There was no family involved. It was an attorney who worked for a group in Stillwater. The house had been on the market for three months when I saw it. After a few more months we reached an agreement, and I bought it,” the woman told Maude.
“No family? What about their son?”
“He was somewhere else, and I never met him. But I have the card from the attorney who dealt with the property sale,” Vandiver said, adjusting the flimsy, see-through suit that barely covered her.
“Have you seen the couple’s son since then?” Maude questioned.
“No, the last I knew he was living out of state somewhere, I think in Arizona. You can probably find out from the attorney. Now if there is nothing else, do you think you could show yourself out while I go and adjust my thong?”
The Maude Rogers Murder Collection Page 19