Return to Crutcher Mountain (Cedar Hollow Series Book 2)

by Clayton, Melinda

  As I started down the trail, puffs of breath steaming in the cold morning air, I admitted to myself that I was somewhat put off by the Huffmans. I didn’t want to be, because they sounded like wonderful people, but I couldn’t seem to help it. According to Nora, the Huffmans came with glowing recommendations and years of experience, but something about them made me uneasy.

  It wasn’t simply that Mr. Huffman had been the one to discover the fire. There was also the fact that Mr. Huffman, as groundskeeper, was the one responsible for locking the storage shed and keeping the cleaning chemicals properly stored. I assumed fitting the pasture gate with a functional latch also fell under his job description. Lots of coincidences, enough to make me wonder. But even more than that, the memory of Mr. Huffman disappearing into his door just as I discovered that my own was open troubled me. And why had he been watching me?

  I’d speak to Nora more about it after my walk. I knew I was being overly suspicious, but given the childhood I’d had, I paid attention to my instincts. The Huffmans might not be responsible for the strange happenings at the Lodge, but something was off, of that I was sure.

  When I returned to the Lodge an hour later, sweaty and invigorated from my walk, the children were already up and dressed, participating in goal-setting group in the common area before being taken to breakfast. Several of them glanced my way and Robby offered me a shy smile. I waved at the group and returned the smile, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible as I turned down the hall towards my room. I was pleased to see that this time, my door remained shut.

  I showered quickly, dressing in jeans and a sweater, and caught my hair up in a ponytail before throwing on a lightweight plaid jacket and stepping back out into the morning. I made a quick detour through the cafeteria to pick up yogurt and coffee on my way to Nora’s office. Stepping across the little porch, I knocked once and poked my head in the door.

  Nora looked up from her desk and motioned me in, leaning back in her chair. “Just the person I wanted to see.” She removed her glasses and gestured towards the chair across from her. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Good, actually.” The office was warm, and I took off my jacket, draping it over the back of the chair before sitting. “All was quiet. I think you wore them out yesterday; I didn’t hear a peep.” I held up my yogurt cup. “Do you mind?”

  Nora smiled. “Of course not; help yourself. I’m glad you slept well. The nights up here can be somewhat unpredictable.” She picked up a stack of papers on her desk, dropped it back down, and blew out a frustrated breath. “I just got off the phone with Sheriff Moore. We seem to be at an impasse.”

  I paused, spoon halfway to my mouth. “An impasse? In what way?”

  Nora ran her hands impatiently through her hair before linking her fingers and resting her arms on the desk. She studied me for a moment before answering. “There’s no doubt the fire was set intentionally. The burn pattern makes that evident. The accelerant has even been identified.”

  I swallowed a mouthful of strawberry yogurt. “So how is that an impasse? It sounds pretty clear to me. Who did it?”

  “That’s where the impasse comes in. For one thing, there were no unaccounted for prints on the banister. Mine were on there, of course, as were the Huffmans’ and the rest of the staff. Many of the prints were child-sized. Short of printing all the children here, which we obviously don’t want to do, they’re left without viable prints.” She stood, clearly agitated, and began to pace around the little cabin, chewing thoughtfully on the earpiece of her glasses. I waited.

  Finally, she perched a hip on the corner of the desk in front of me and sighed. “In spite of all the progress that’s been made, so many people still have the wrong idea. Tell them you’re running a program for children with developmental disabilities and they immediately jump to certain conclusions.”

  I placed my spoon carefully into the yogurt container and set it on the arm of my chair. I had an idea where this was going, and I didn’t like it one bit. “Such as?”

  “Oh, you know.” She rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “They equate a mental disability with a propensity for violence. They’re afraid of differences; they don’t understand that different doesn’t mean bad. As you know, we had some resistance to the program in the beginning. ‘Not in my backyard’ and all that. I thought we’d gotten past it, though. Overall support has been phenomenal, but I suppose there will always be some who don’t understand.”

  “Are you saying that the Sheriff thinks one of the children set the fire?” It was my turn to stand and pace.

  Nora nodded, replacing her glasses. “That seems to be the thinking.”

  I felt a wave of anger. “Did you explain to him that the children weren’t even near the Lodge when the fire broke out?” My tone was harsher than I meant for it to be, but I was incredulous at the Sheriff’s stance on the matter.

  “Of course, but his mind is made up. There’s little I can do at this point. His exact words were—and I quote—‘There’s no evidence of any outsider coming in and starting trouble. You got kids already up there that have a history of stuff like this.’ Apparently he did some investigating into our current group of kids and found Anthony’s old records.”

  “What records?” I sat back down.

  “Anthony has had some violent behaviors in the past. He doesn’t like to be touched, especially not by strangers. That’s not uncommon for children on the Autism Spectrum. Anyway, a couple of years ago some poorly trained staff tried to physically maneuver him onto the school bus and he struck out at them. One of them ended up in the emergency room with a broken nose. As a result, Anthony spent a little bit of time in a residential facility before being discharged back into the care of his mother.”

  “That’s hardly an indication that he’s responsible for setting a fire two years later,” I said. “I’d say it’s more an indication that staff needs to undergo proper training before working with children who have special needs.”

  “I agree, but the Sheriff doesn’t.”

  “How does he explain the letter?” I myself had trouble explaining the letter. I was curious as to how the Sheriff would do it.

  “He hasn’t, yet. It’s still being tested for prints, but he didn’t seem overly concerned about it. As he pointed out, there were no specific threats made, meaning that even if they find out who wrote it, if they can’t prove that that person also started the fire, there isn’t anything to charge them with.”

  Nora returned to her seat behind the desk.

  “Now what?” I asked, unwilling to accept the Sheriff’s explanation. “What about the van driver, the one you let go? What was his name? Virgil?”

  “Virgil Young, yes. That seems to be another area of contention.”

  “I can hardly wait.” I sipped at my coffee, motioning for Nora to continue.

  “It seems Virgil does have a history with you. Unfortunately, he also has an ironclad alibi.”

  I nearly choked on the now cold coffee. “What are you talking about? I have no idea who Virgil Young is. I’ve never met the man in my life.” I set the cup back down.

  Nora looked down at the desk, fidgeting with her pen. “You probably wouldn’t remember this,” she said slowly, “but he claims he knew your stepfather, Roy Campbell.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. Nora didn’t know all of my history, but she knew enough. I sat speechless.

  “Take a deep breath, Jessie,” instructed Nora. “Breathe in through your nose to a count of eight, and release through your mouth.

  I waved away her instructions. “I’m fine.” I wasn’t, obviously, but I didn’t feel like listening to psychobabble at that moment. “I think you’d better tell me what you know.”

  Nora cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, “Sheriff Moore tracked Virgil down yesterday at Peggy’s Diner down in the town. According to the Sheriff, Virgil had quite a lot to say, and a great deal of it wasn’t very nice.”

  “If he was a friend of Roy’s
, I’m sure it wasn’t,” I interrupted. “Roy didn’t tend to hang out with nice people.”

  She ignored my interruption. “Virgil was at Peggy’s Diner when the office was trashed. Apparently he’s a regular there at that time of day. You know Kay?”

  I did. Kay was Peggy’s daughter. She had taken over the diner when Peggy died years before. Kay’s son owned the diner now, but Kay remained active in the running of the place.

  “Kay vouched for him,” Nora said. “She remembered clearly that he’d been there that day because he’d been cursing both of us, me for firing him and you for opening this place to start with. Several other regulars backed up the story. If he was as obnoxious as it sounds, I suppose he was hard to miss.”

  “Okay,” I conceded, “maybe he didn’t trash the office himself, but I don’t think his alibi absolves him completely. He could have had someone else do it. With the amount of anger he apparently has towards both of us, isn’t it possible he got someone else to trash the office and set the fire? And what about the day the horses got out? Or when the chemicals were spilled? I can’t believe the Sheriff would let it go so easily.”

  “I asked the Sheriff those same questions,” Nora replied. “He said they’ll check into it and they’ll let me know if he has alibis for those times and if his prints turn up on the letter. Until we hear back, all we can do is wait. But Jessie....”

  I raised my eyebrows. “What?”

  “There’s more.”

  “Then by all means, let’s hear it.” I somehow knew that what was coming wouldn’t be good, would, in fact, be quite bad.

  She took a deep breath and released it. “Virgil told Sheriff Moore that as long as they were in the mood to investigate, they should investigate you. He implied that you’d been involved in a murder.”

  Chapter 12

  I hadn’t thought about that night in years, but upon hearing Nora’s words I was immediately transported back to a time I’d hoped never to revisit. How to describe it? It overwhelmed all of my senses.

  I could feel the cold against my skin, brutal cold, blowing through the door in spite of the quilts under which I huddled. I was leaning against Mrs. Johnson—Corinne—and I could feel her heart beating against my cheek, her arm tight around my shoulders. The bed was soft, I remember that, feather soft, but still I felt pain, horrible pain that threatened to swallow me whole.

  I smelled the soft smell of Corinne, something fruity and warm, and then her fragrance was overtaken by the smell of gunpowder, and then corn whiskey and sweat. And blood. I smelled blood, too. Whose? Mine? Or someone else’s? I didn’t know. My stomach lurched with the odors.

  I heard cursing, awful cursing, damning us all to hell and back, calling us filthy names, vile and disgusting words. I heard gunfire and I pressed myself further into Corrine, covering my ears, and then I heard myself. I was crying. In my heart I was crying for my mother, but even then I knew it was a hopeless cry.

  I tasted my tears, mixed with the bile in my throat. Most of all, I tasted fear, sour and coppery against my tongue.

  And I saw...what did I see? Nothing. Only Billy May’s face, pale and drawn, her dark eyes glittering, looking at me with a promise. I believed that promise more than I’d ever believed anything in my young life. I saw nothing else. I did not.

  Chapter 13

  “Jessie.” Billy May? No. No, it was Nora’s voice. “Jessie, breathe with me.” But I didn’t want to; I was so tired. There’s a tired that happens when you’ve had a hard week, a tired that results from too little sleep, too many hours awake, too much stress at work.

  And then there’s the tired that I felt in that moment. It’s a completely different tired, one that encompasses not just the body—and you must understand that I hate this expression—but the soul. Soul weary. It’s a terrible cliché, one I caution against in every movie I’ve ever produced, but for those of us who have experienced it, we know it’s true.

  Being soul weary is close to being dead, in a spiritual sense, anyway. Once you’ve passed through sadness and worn out anger, given up on hope and embraced apathy, you’ve arrived at soul weary. One step in the grave, as Billy May would have said. Maybe even a good step, I sometimes believed, although I knew Billy May would have chastised me for that thought. Hush that talk, little girl. You just hush that talk right now.

  Once, when I was about sixteen years old, I’d made a similar statement. I knew by that time that I couldn’t have children. I also knew I was damaged goods, no matter how hard Billy May worked to make me believe otherwise.

  I don’t remember exactly what it was that brought on my bout of self-pity that particular day. A spat with a friend, maybe, or a rejection by some long forgotten boy. Whatever the reason, I didn’t, at that time, have the life experience to realize that those things were just a part of life. In my mind, everything was tied to what had happened to me. I was tainted, soiled, and other people knew it; I felt like Hester Prynne must have felt, except that my scarlet letter was invisible. I couldn’t imagine ever having a normal life, and I said as much to Billy May.

  “Maybe you should have just left me there.”

  It was the only time I ever saw Billy May angry with me. She stopped in the middle of taking inventory, counting eight penny nails, if I remember right. She set down her tablet and walked over to the register, where I’d been sorting money, to peer into my face, her black eyes boring into mine. I was taller than her by that time, by at least three inches, five in the clogs I was so fond of wearing back then, but that didn’t faze her. She reached up and took my chin in her calloused fingers, forcing me to look at her.

  Don’t you ever let me hear you say such a thing, she’d said. You are a beautiful girl, a smart girl, and you got all kinds of things you can give to this world. Little girl, it ain’t about what has happened to you; it’s about what can happen to you if you’ll let it. I am livin’ proof of that. Ain’t nobody got the power to destroy you but you. Don’t you never forget that.

  “Breathe, Jessie,” Nora was saying, and my body betrayed me and I did. I felt her cool hands rubbing mine. I was afraid when I opened my eyes I’d see not the cozy office Nora had created, but Billy May’s cabin from that long ago night. That was not something I wanted to see. I kept my eyes closed and concentrated on breathing.

  I sensed Nora moving away before she placed a cup of water into my hand. “Drink,” she ordered. “And when you’re ready, we’ll talk.”

  I drank, and the world slowly came back to me. I heard the chattering of squirrels in the clean morning air outside, and under that the voices of the children readying for a walk in the woods. I felt the sun reaching my shoulders through the small window by the door, and I was grateful for the warmth. The taste of strawberries and cold coffee was still on my tongue. No gunfire, no bitter cold, no taste of fear. I drank again before opening my eyes to Nora.

  She was crouched by my side, her eyes penetrating, much too close for my comfort. Instinctively, I leaned away from her. Sensing my discomfort she quickly stood and moved to the chair behind her desk, where she continued her appraisal of me. “Better now?”

  I sat up, straightening my sweater and adjusting my jeans, embarrassed. “I’m fine.” I was also angry, I was surprised to discover. So much for apathy. My hands shook as I set the cup of water down, and I worked hard to control my voice.

  “You tell Sheriff Moore to investigate anything he’d like. I was barely thirteen years old when Roy disappeared and I thanked God that he did. That man tortured me, raped me on a daily basis. Quite frankly, I don’t care what happened to him; I only hope whatever it was, it hurt like hell. Given Sheriff Moore’s apparent lack of investigative skills, I don’t think I’d have much to worry about even if I had killed the son of a bitch.”

  I was surprised to see Nora smile. “Anger is good,” she said, and she looked very much like a proud parent looks when a baby sits up for the first time. “It’s a very healthy reaction. I’m glad you’re feeling it.” I rolled my ey
es, and she laughed aloud, breaking the tension in the room.

  “If you’re done psychoanalyzing me for the moment, I’d really like to join the kids on their walk.”

  “By all means,” she waved towards the door, still smiling. “Oh, I almost forgot. Jessie,” she stopped suddenly, the smile gone, “I’m really sorry, but when Sheriff Moore learned that you were here he asked me to see if you’ll stick around for a few more days. I doubt very much it has anything to do with whatever garbage Virgil is spouting off. I think it’s more so that he has access to you if he has any questions about the Lodge. Will you be able to stay?”

  My heart rate jumped for a second before I got it back under control. “I had actually planned on trying to fly out in the morning,” I said. “When do the children leave?”

  “Friday around noon. We’ll have a light breakfast at seven and wrap up with a closure group from eight until nine. Parents and caseworkers are invited to come and tour the program from nine until ten. After that, we’ll provide a nice brunch, and everyone should be packed up and gone by eleven-thirty or so.”

  “I’ll arrange to fly out Friday afternoon.” I stood and shrugged into my jacket before remembering the reason I’d stopped by in the first place.

  “Oh, before I go, I actually came in to ask you about the Huffmans.”

  “What about them?”

  I sat back down. I had wanted to press her on their histories, but after the intensity of the morning I no longer had the desire. Instead, I mentioned finding my door open the night before. “Would you mind letting them know I’ll ask if I need anything? I’m just not comfortable with people in my room.”