The 45th Parallel

by Lisa Girolami

  “Thanks for stopping. I guess I was hungry after all.”

  Cam cowered away from her. “I’m staying over here. The way that sandwich is getting gobbled down, I don’t want my limbs or digits anywhere near your mouth.”

  “Oh, but this is so good. I think all this will give me are zits, but I don’t care.”

  Cam laughed, slouching down in her seat. As she settled back to doodling, Val summarized what she knew.

  “Okay. I get into an accident. The girl that was there shows up when I get beaten up in my home, which I’d just returned to after getting gassed out when a valve somehow turned itself on. This is all, of course, after somebody snooped around my mom’s house and my motel room. Not to mention Donna, my old best friend, is sleeping with Mack. And we have a list of numbers.”

  She took a sip of her Coke. “How is this all tied together? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Start with a connection that does.”

  “Like…?”

  “Donna knows Mack.”

  “Donna knows you, too.”

  Cam stopped drawing and looked over at her. “She does.”

  She sipped more of her drink, waiting to see if Cam would elaborate. When she didn’t, Val wondered whether it was because she was involved somehow or if she might be upset that her comment had been a mild accusation.

  “Mack has my car,” Val finally said.

  Cam tapped the pen on the napkin. “Mack knows the girl.”

  “The girl was there when those guys were at the house looking for something.”

  “Nedra was at your house when you figured out someone was looking for something as well.”

  “And Donna took me to the motel where someone came to look for, I assume, that same damn something.” She looked at Cam. “It’s gotta be the key.”

  “To the box that had the real-estate listings.”

  “Or the box itself. Which, either way, leads back to Nedra.” She shook her head in confusion. It was a state that was becoming fairly common and getting very old. “It’s a big freaking circle.”

  “But don’t you think that if they were looking for the box, someone would have seen it at the play? Everyone eventually goes to the theater. Virtually the whole community supports it. That, and because the Bijou’s one movie a week is the only other entertainment in town.”

  “Maybe they didn’t know about the box. Maybe they didn’t know what they were looking for.”

  “That complicates things. I mean, it’s apparent they weren’t looking for money or valuables. So they had to have been looking for something else your mother had.”

  “And another thing,” Val said, “Mom was involved in that church for a long time, but she didn’t want anyone with me when I scattered her ashes. I’d think she’d want all of her church friends to be there. In the past ten years they had a closer relationship with her than I did.”

  Silence enveloped them, and the only sound was Val’s chewing and the scratch of Cam’s pen on the napkin.

  Val finished her french fries. “All because I hit a deer and my car ends up at Mack’s.” As she licked her fingers, she noticed that Cam had turned to watch her. She tried to read her expression. Was that concentrated scrutiny actually a sign of interest? Or was Cam trying to figure out just how much Val suspected?

  The carousel Val was spinning on changed with each revolution. The gold ring was shiny one minute, glowing with the rising attraction she felt for Cam, and then the next time she came around to it, the ring was sullied and warped and something she was leery of reaching out for.

  Could she trust Cam? She’d long ago lost the ability to easily believe in anyone. Her mom had known it, and her exes sure had. She so desperately wanted to find out what the hell was going on, especially if she could have faith in Cam, but she needed to be careful.

  “Maybe it’s a theft ring,” Cam said. “I mean, maybe Nedra’s giving Mack addresses so he can rob them. She’d list the times the people would be gone from their houses.”

  “And the church, too?”

  “Yeah.” Cam twirled the pen between her fingers. “That’s where that hypothesis crumbles.”

  “Maybe whatever this group is doing had something to do with my mom. But why did Nedra wait for the open house to search my mom’s place?” Val stashed the sandwich wrap and empty french-fry bag into the fast-food sack and turned in her seat to face Cam. “While I was arranging to fly out here after mom died, Nedra contacted me and told me they were good church friends and asked if she could do anything for me. I told her I needed to take care of the estate, and Nedra asked about the house. I told her I’d sell it, and she offered to handle it for me. I let her know where the spare set of keys was hidden, and she said she’d start the process right away.” Val paused for effect. “So, why did she wait for the open house? She could have searched the place any time before I even came to town.”

  “Maybe Nedra’s not involved. Whoever needed to get in waited until the open house. That would certainly be less obvious than breaking in.”

  “That makes sense, but I still can’t figure out what they were looking for. Maybe Mack found something while working on my mom’s car that gave him the idea to go through the house.”

  “Or maybe,” Cam said, “he already knew what he was looking for and needed to get access to her car.”

  “I guess that means the deer was in on it, too.” Val laughed at her own joke and slapped her knee to accentuate the guffaw, but she noticed Cam wasn’t laughing.

  “Maybe.”

  Val was still chuckling. “Maybe what?”

  “Maybe the deer was in on it.”

  “Last I checked, a criminal needs opposing thumbs to steal something.”

  “What if…” Cam’s eyes looked as if they’d just seen a tornado. “What if it was staged?”

  “You do know that sounds absurd, don’t you? How can you train a deer to jump out of the woods on cue?”

  “You can’t. But I keep thinking, how come the girl’s car has no evidence of a deer hit, when yours is trashed?” Cam sat upright. “You said it came flying over her hood, remember?” She turned her napkin toward Val and showed her a drawing of the metal plate she’d taken from Mack’s garage. She used her pen to point. “Holes were drilled into the engine compartment of the girl’s Buick. This metal plate has the same hole placements as the ones on the Buick. I picked it up because it looked out of place in an auto garage. I couldn’t figure out why. Then I noticed that one side of the metal plate had a wear mark in it.”

  Cam drew something while Val leaned closer. “A circle, like this.”

  “What made the circle?”

  “I don’t know. But this piece was attached to the Buick, and it’s not a regular part of the car. It was jerry-rigged on and then taken off at some point.”

  “So you believe this plate had something to do with the deer accident.”

  “Yes. I haven’t figured it all out yet, but I’m going to.”

  A rush of apprehension raced up Val’s spine and grabbed her by the throat. When she spoke, her voice came out as a strained whisper. “We’re not going back there!”

  “We have to, Val. We’re this close to figuring it out, and I’d rather take this to the police with an answer than get picked up and grilled without knowing what the hell’s going on.” She checked her watch. “It’s eleven o’clock so no one should be there.”

  Val sighed and reached up to her forehead. Her hand found the bandaged wound where the men that had attacked her had hit her. She winced a little, but the pain reminded her that something really bad was going on in Hemlock.

  “Shit,” she said. In for a pound. “Let’s go.”

  *

  Cam and Val pulled up in Mr. Harlin’s car and slowed as they passed Mack’s garage. They parked on the side street in about the same place they had before. It was close enough to the garage but far enough away to avoid drawing any attention to them. They opened their car doors, and Cam reached up to turn the i
nterior light off.

  “Old habit from my ruffian days,” she said and shrugged.

  They reached the alley and Cam walked alongside Val, who was tamping down a sudden eruption of anxiety in her gut. Thankfully, another Vicodin was streaming around in her blood vessels, and though she still hurt all over, the pain hardly slowed her down. But she wished she had something stronger in her system, like a Valium, because she was as jumpy as a kid in a bounce house.

  At this time last week, when she was arranging the flight to Oregon, she would have ranked the probability that her life would be threatened at exactly zero percent. Now, she was planning to break into a business. For the second time. The almost painful pounding of her heart against her breastbone indicated that she was definitely not cut out for this type of excitement.

  She was about to raise the possibility that they forget all about this idea when Cam put her arm around her.

  “Are you okay?” Cam looked as anxious as she felt.

  “I was just wondering if I combed my hair today, in case I have to pose for my first mug shot.”

  Cam stopped her by the girl’s Buick. “We can leave now and forget about this.”

  “Could you really?”

  “My reputation’s already ruined, but you have a chance to stay out of trouble.”

  “I’m already in trouble. It found me, and I don’t think I can run away from it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Val wasn’t, at all, but she also couldn’t leave Hemlock with so many questions unanswered.

  Cam pulled up the Buick’s hood and inspected the holes on the underside again. She then looked closely at the car’s body, right by the hood latch. The light from her cell phone created a surreal bubble of unnatural light around Cam’s face. Val turned it around in her mind and imagined the light coming from a campfire in some romantic national forest while they made s’mores and watched the stars cross the nighttime sky.

  Just when Val pictured Cam about to lick melted marshmallow off her lips, Cam said, “See these tiny holes by the hood latch?”

  Val blinked into the harsh white light from the cell phone. “What?”

  “Here, right above those holes. See these holes on the top of the engine compartment?”

  Val leaned forward. “Yes.”

  “Something was bolted to the inside of the hood.”

  “That metal plate you found.”

  “Exactly. And it was done recently. You can see the fresh screw marks. The grime from the engine and road dirt hasn’t had a chance to gather.”

  “What was it used for?”

  Cam looked around her. “I’m not sure. There’s no engine part that would logically be connected here. It’s nowhere near the other engine components.”

  Cam stepped away and searched around the ground by the car.

  “What are you looking for?”

  Cam didn’t answer but continued looking. When she found nothing, she nodded toward the back door by the back shed. Val followed her. Cam pulled at the knob, but it didn’t move. “They’ve repaired this,” she said pulling again, “and it looks like they reinforced it, too. Shit.”

  “We need to get inside to find out what made those circular marks on that plate.” Val began to survey the rest of the building, walking toward the north end. “All I wanted to do was bury my mom and settle her estate. Now someone has tried to gas me to death and beat me up, and I don’t know why. But what really pisses me off is that I have absolutely no burglary skills to exploit tonight.”

  Cam laughed and caught up to her. “Seriously, would you rather go to the police?”

  “No! I need to get inside. I’m just scared as shit, that’s all.”

  Cam grabbed her in a bear hug. “So am I.”

  Val felt the closeness of Cam’s body and closed her eyes. She smelled the clean, almost fruity fragrance of her hair and inhaled deeply. The first twinges of desire shuddered in her stomach, demanding her attention. But an inkling of doubt floated around in her gut. Cam had been a little distant when they’d kissed, and Val didn’t know what the impetus was.

  Cam whispered in her ear, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  Pulling away, Val smiled, but the conflict about Cam’s true intentions teeter-tottered inside her. If Cam weren’t sincere in helping her, the truth would be coming out soon. She just didn’t know when and in what form. Her stomach tensed up as if she were anticipating a punch. She turned toward the back door but Cam pulled at her sleeve.

  “Aren’t you supposed to say something now?”

  “Ahhh. Thank you?”

  “No.” Cam almost laughed. “You’re supposed to tell me that you’re not going to let anything happen to me, either.”

  The muscles in her stomach relaxed a little. “I’ve got your back,” she said. Unless you betray me, she added silently.

  “Here,” Cam said. “This window. That’s how we’re going to get in.”

  It was low enough that they could climb in without jumping. Cam found an old pipe and, as Val turned away, she hit the glass. The sound wasn’t like the loud crash Val had heard on TV or the movies. It was more like a dull whop and then a crack as a spiderweb of fractures shot out in all directions. Cam tapped the window and a number of shards gave way, falling inside the shop and onto the ground by their feet.

  Cam wiped the pipe with her shirt and dropped it. Right before she crawled through the window, she said, “Don’t touch anything and leave a print.”

  Oh fuck, Val thought as a bullet of dread shot though her. Was Cam practiced at breaking and entering?

  Chapter Thirteen

  They stood in silence, and Val strained to hear any noises that might indicate they weren’t alone. Just like the last time, the garage was silent; though that night, Val thought it felt spookier.

  Cam made a circle by curling her finger and thumb. She was reminding Val about the size of the circle made in the metal plate. Val nodded and they separated to search.

  She scanned everything she saw as quickly as she could. She didn’t want to stay in the garage a second longer than she had to.

  When headlights flashed through the front windows and across the back wall, they froze and waited to make sure the vehicles passed by outside. Each time they resumed their hunt, Val’s anxiety rose a little more. With every car or truck, her pulse shot higher, as if a large mallet was smacking the lead puck on a carnival strength-tester. Her nerves were rising higher and higher, getting way too close to the bell at the top. She imagined that if she heard that loud ding, a cardiac arrest was next.

  Cam was examining the tool crib, and Val walked over to the back wall of the garage to pick through a pile of parts that sat in a milk crate. All at once she stopped and reached in.

  She turned to Cam. “Pssst.”

  She came over and Val handed her a large spring. It was new and had broken weld marks at each end.

  Cam seemed to be as cautious as she was, whispering, “Two and a half inches in diameter. This could be it.”

  Val opened her palm and Cam handed it back to her. She held it horizontally to push the two ends together, like an accordion. But when she tried, it barely budged. It was so strong she could only compress the spring about a half an inch. She squatted down and stood the spring upright on the concrete floor. Using her full weight, she pushed the spring down, wincing a bit as her ribs protested, and had much better luck. She let go and the force of its expansion made it jump into the air. Val fell backward, landing on her butt, as it dropped back down and clanged onto the floor.

  “Shit!” Cam yelped before grabbing the spring.

  They both froze in panic again.

  Val waited for the bell to ding and the heart attack to begin. When she didn’t keel over, she looked at Cam. “That’s what the girl’s hood did.”

  “What?”

  “When the deer hit it, it sprung open, like this.” She pivoted her arm 45 degrees to demonstrate.

  “Well, fuck a duck. That’s
it.”

  “That girl didn’t hit the deer.” She took the spring from her. “This was rigged to the metal plate we found. The metal plate was attached to the girl’s car, as evident from the new screw holes we saw. Her hood latch is broken, but I could tell it wasn’t damaged in the accident because there weren’t any other marks around that part of the car.”

  “Which means,” Val said, in perfect synch with Cam’s thoughts, “the car’s hood was rigged to spring open.”

  “Yes.”

  Val closed her eyes, recalling the moment of the crash.

  The Buick ahead of her swerved and she saw the brake lights through the rain. She grabbed the steering wheel tighter, not knowing what was going on, and the next thing she saw was something flying over the top of the car.

  She hit the brakes and skidded on the wet pavement, and then the deer suddenly came into focus, flying through the air, and smashed into her mom’s front grill, onto her hood, and into the windshield.

  At once, Val opened her eyes, staring at a grease stain on the wall as the vision remained in front of her eyes. “Oh, my God. That girl swerved, making me think she was trying to avoid the deer and attempting to get my attention. She must have released the spring somehow, which made the hood fly open and catapulted the deer over her car.”

  “Shit.” Cam was no longer whispering. “The deer was already on that girl’s hood.”

  Val blinked away the memory and focused on Cam’s face. “Is this too crazy? Are we trying too hard to make something fit?”

  Cam was shaking her head. “No. It makes sense. That’s why her car doesn’t look like a deer hit it.”

  “So she was trying to get me to stop.”

  “And to get your car in here to search it.”

  She instinctively reached for her front pants pocket to make sure the key was still there. “That means this was planned. And it means they knew I was coming into town that night. And only one person had that knowledge.”

  “Nedra.”

  “Whether they knew what it was or not, the list is what they were looking for. But why did they want it so badly?”