The Paper Detective

by E. Joan Sims

  “…the hell were you and Ben thinkin’ of goin’ down there in the dead of night and stirrin’ up trouble? You know the man wants up to keep a low profile until the shipment comes and goes.”

  “You ain’t my keeper, and neither is Mr. High and Mighty!” answered a surly and petulant voice. “I do as I please. Ain’t that what this whole thang is supposed to be about—bein’ free to do what you want?”

  “No! You idiot! Why can’t I get it through your stupid head. Money! That’s what we’re goin’ for here. Dinero, pure and simple.”

  “Well, not me! No sirree! I got me some principles,” protested the surly man.

  “But if you get a nice little piece of pocket change, it won’t hurt, right?”

  “Maybe, but another thang. I don’t take kindly to bein’ called stupid. You gotta take that…”

  The voices faded in the distance. I lay very still as my heart slowed its pace and my breathing returned to normal. After what seemed like an eternity I felt the terror ebb, leaving me weak and exhausted. My legs were stiff and cold, and my muscles protested as I tried to straighten them and sit up. I grabbed hold of the rough bark of the log and pulled myself with great difficulty to my knees. I was trying to stand up when I felt the cold steel of the rifle muzzle against the bare skin on the back of my neck.

  “Stay right there, you son of a bitch! I wanna see yore legs spread out behind you, and keep yore hands where I can see ’em.”

  These instructions were accompanied by a vicious kick from a heavy-booted foot. I screamed involuntarily. The tall, lean man with the rifle grabbed my shoulder and turned me around.

  “Damn! It’s a female! What the hell are you doin’ out here, girl?”

  Unable to answer because of the intense pain in my thigh, I groaned and fought back the quick tears that threatened to spill down my cheeks.

  “I betch’a she’s one of them reporters, Henry,” said his companion. He was shorter than Henry, and bearded, with a square body and a belly that spilled out over his belted jeans. Both men wore heavy flannel shirts and down vests. They had dark knit caps not unlike mine on their heads, and they wore heavy paratrooper boots laced midway up their calves.

  “For Christ’s sake, ya dummy! If she is a reporter, the last thing we wanna do is tell her our names!”

  Henry pulled my knit cap off and slapped my face hard. The tears I had been holding back burst forth like water over a broken dam. I cried like a baby.

  “Well, whatever she is, she ain’t much to worry about, that’s for sure,” spat Henry in disgust. “Woman! Stop yore caterwaulin’!”

  I sniffed loudly and wiped my runny nose on my scarf.

  “Oh, Jeez, Hen… I mean, don’t you have a handkerchief or somethin’? You really hurt the pore little thang. She’s kind’a cute with that red hair and all.”

  “The bitch ain’t supposed to be here, it’s that simple. She’s a spy or she wouldn’t be way out here. Whoever she is, she’s in for a real bad time when the captain finds out. And forget cute! You’re just horny. She ain’t that good lookin’.”

  That made me mad. I pulled off my gloves and wiped the ice cold tears off my face. I went to stick my hand in the pocket where my Kleenex was only to have my hand knocked painfully away by the barrel of Henry’s rifle.

  “Easy does it!” He ordered. “Check out her pockets, Dummy. And don’t forget that sissy bag around her waist.”

  “I betch’a she a reporter, Henry, eh… man. She’s got one of them little bitty recorders here and a notebook and pencil.”

  “Goddamn it, you stupid shithead! Now I’m gonna have to kill her just ’cause you keep tellin’ her my name!”

  He slapped the other man hard on the shoulder and punched him in the belly with a gloved fist.

  “And,” he spat, “I’m gonna have to kill you ’cause yore just too damn stupid to live!”

  Henry stood over the other man as he fell to his knees gasping and wheezing from the blow to his midsection. Clouds of white vapor puffed from his mouth as he coughed.

  “Aw, Henry, you know I didn’t mean…”

  The rifle bullet slammed into the man’s head, splattering blood and bits of bone on my face and chest. I looked in stunned horror at the bloody pink shreds of flesh on my hands and fell forward into the darkness and safety of not knowing.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A hard metal button pressed painfully into my cheek. I opened my eyes and saw nothing but the blue and white stripes of cheap mattress ticking. I was cold, and my leg throbbed with a deep and unrelenting pain. I decided being awake wasn’t so much fun, and closed my eyes again. I hoped to fall back down in a comforting cocoon of darkness, but nothing doing.

  I tried to move, and discovered that my hands were tied behind me. The button on the mattress scratched my face as I struggled to turn and look around at my surroundings. The iron cot I was lying on had metal springs, that much I could hear. The walls of the small room looked like waffled aluminum siding. And they were curved at the top. I was in a Quonset hut! The Girl Scouts in San Romero had been given one as a camp headquarters by the National Guard. I remembered that the roof leaked when it rained, and spiders found the baffling particularly appealing for laying huge egg sacs.

  I shuddered from the cold and the thought of eight-legged critters. The sooner I could get up and back on my feet, the better I would feel. The rope on my wrists was not tied very tightly. I twisted and squirmed as I struggled to get free. One final tug on my right arm released me and almost threw me off the cot. The springs protested loudly. I lay very still until they quit bouncing. I had no idea how closely I was being watched. Announcing that I was awake and untied probably wouldn’t be a very good thing.

  My shoulders ached from being in one position too long. I shrugged them up and down to ease the pain while I surveyed my prison. The cot, an aluminum folding chair, and a metal table were the only pieces of furniture in the little room. I didn’t count the small camp stove as furniture since it looked like it was attached to the wall. I looked around for some matches but didn’t see any. There was, however, a dark olive-green, woolen blanket folded at the bottom of the cot.

  When I got to my feet, my right leg almost gave away beneath me. The throbbing pain in my thigh increased with every step I took. I limped over to the wooden door and listened. I heard nothing on the other side, but I could feel cold air seeping through the cracks. It was an outside door. That meant this room was at the end of the larger structure. The wall behind me probably sealed off the larger portion of the building.

  The floor was concrete and stained in places with heavy machine oil like the surface of some garages. If it hadn’t been so cold, it probably would have smelled like the place I took Watson to have the oil changed.

  The Quonset hut in San Romero had fold-out windows all along the sides so you could see out, but still be protected from the rain. This building had no windows, at least not in my room. Even if I had any matches it probably would be a very bad idea to light the camp stove without ventilation. I wouldn’t want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

  That thought made me wonder if I was going to die of something else like Henry’s friend. My head started spinning again, and I sat down heavily on the cot. I tried not to remember the blood and gore splattering on my face. I wiped my cheek and looked at my hand. It was relatively clean. Either the blood on my face had dried, or someone had wiped it off. I couldn’t imagine that kind of thoughtfulness in a murderer so I decided I was still wearing bits and pieces of the man in the forest. The thought made me cry. I started out with small silent sniffles, but before long I was sobbing loudly.

  I had never seen a man killed before. Leonard wrote about violent death all the time. He described with infinite detail the jagged, broken edges of splintered bone and the red, glistening maw of bleeding muscle. He delighted in the sounds of his dying enemies—the groans and screams and escaping of gases as sphincters released. He was a whiz at bullet wounds and knife wound
s and never gagged or vomited at the sight of the exposed innards of his fellow human beings. But Leonard was an insensitive, unfeeling pig, not to mention the fact that he was only a figment of my imagination.

  The dead man lying on the forest floor whose bright red blood was the only touch of color in the dry and desolate landscape had breathed and loved and appreciated life. That life had been taken from him by a casual and impulsive pull on a trigger. I cried for him, and I cried for me.

  When I was exhausted, I pulled the blanket tightly around me and found escape from my fears in the sleep that had eluded me before.

  I woke up feeling much better. My nap could have lasted fifteen minutes or fifteen hours. I would never know. My beloved and ancient Rolex as well as my wedding band and my diamond earrings were missing. I didn’t mind parting with the earrings. I had bought Mother and Cassie ones just like them with the proceeds of my first book. They could be replaced, but the Rolex was a first anniversary present from Rafe, and since we only shared a few, it was special to me. The wedding band I would have to get back, even if I begged for it on bended knee as my dying wish. It was a simple gold band, but Rafe had placed our initials inside with the date and the tiny letters, “te quiero mucho.” I would always know he loved me, but the ring had to be buried on my cold dead finger!

  I stretched experimentally and felt the pulling tenderness in my thigh, but the rest of my body was rested and more comfortable. My nose was no longer cold and my breath was not going out in little white puffs. It was almost warm in the little room. Someone had come in while I was asleep and turned on the camp stove.

  For a moment I held my breath in alarm. But when I sat up and inspected it more closely I saw the heater was vented through a hole in the wall. I also saw a tray of metal dishes on the table. Whoever was keeping me prisoner wanted me to be warm and well-fed. Sounded like the wicked witch in Hansel and Gretel to me. But I didn’t care. I was starving.

  I lifted off the aluminum covers and sniffed the heavenly aroma of a thick and hearty stew. Chunks of meat and vegetables swam in a golden sauce around an island hunk of coarse dark bread. I had never seen or tasted anything so heavenly. I ate every bite. Since no one was around to see me, I wiped the empty bowl with my finger and licked until there was nothing left.

  The tin cup of cold water was all I had to drink, but the stew was a bit salty so I downed it in three gulps, which was much too fast to taste the bitter residue of the drug before it was too late. Even on top of a full stomach, the chemical hit my blood stream almost immediately. I didn’t even have time to get fully alarmed before I passed out on the cot.

  Sometime during the night, a cup was pressed to my parched lips. I drank deeply. Soft words from a soothing voice comforted me back to sleep, and when I awoke the next time I felt refreshed and full of energy and determination. I was going to escape some time that day, although how I knew that I could only guess. It must have come to me in a dream.

  I waited impatiently throughout the morning for a repeat of last night’s meal. Just thinking about that dinner made me salivate. But the time passed without a glimpse of anyone through the little crack in the door.

  I had discovered the crack early in the morning when I awoke with a full bladder. The single naked bulb overhead was off for the first time since I arrived and I could see the grey light of the dawn through the narrow strip between door and jamb. The thoughtful stranger who had brought me a drink during the night had also left a large white ceramic potty. It was just like one my Grandmother Howard used to have. I recognized its purpose immediately and made hasty use of it.

  With enormous effort, I pulled and pushed and tugged the heavy metal bed across the room so I could sit on the edge while I peered outside through the tiny opening. After several hours, I noticed that down toward the bottom of the door the gap was wider and I could see more of the world on the other side. But more of nothing was just as boring, and after another couple of hours I was cross-eyed and disappointed. Where in the world, I wondered, did I ever get the idea someone was coming to help me escape?

  I pulled the iron cot back across the room, heedless of the screeching noise it made. The springs protested angrily as I plopped down in disgust. Since the heater had been turned on, the little room was warm enough even for me. I had taken off my anorak and heavy sweater earlier. Now I folded them up to use as a pillow. I lay back down and puzzled over my predicament.

  Someone had come in here last night to give me a drink of water and a wellspring of hope. I had no idea who my guardian angel was, or why I believed he would make good on his promise to set me free. But since the bad old days in San Romero, when Rafe had disappeared and I had no one to depend on to save me and Cassie but myself, I never put all my hopes in one basket. So now, just in case my angel had gotten his wings clipped, I’d better start trying to find a way out on my own.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  By my own reckoning and the angle of the sunlight as seen through the crack in the door, I guessed that it was late afternoon. The grumbles from my empty stomach agreed. I had gotten used to my mother’s kitchen since I came back to Meadowdale Farm. There, I never had to wonder what was for dinner. Something delicious was always on the stove or in the oven. I don’t think I had been this hungry since my last quarter in college when I spent all my food allowance on a new prom dress.

  I looked around the room and took mental stock of the articles I had at my disposal. My anorak and sweater would provide whatever warmth I needed once I escaped. They would also protect my hands if I had to climb over barbed wire. I knew that much from the movies. My fanny pack, with all the goodies Horatio had packed for me, was gone. I was sorry about that, especially since I no longer had my little compass. Unlike my daughter, who knew every constellation in the western hemisphere, I was ignorant of the night sky. I would have to wait until daylight to travel, but once the sun came up in the east I’d be home free.

  In novels, prisoners usually dismantled iron cots like the one I was sleeping on, but I would be hopeless at that sort of thing. I immediately gave up the fine idea of using one of the legs as a weapon. The ceramic slop jar, on the other hand, would be a handy dandy tool for knocking out anyone who came through the door, if I heard him coming first, that is.

  The aluminum chair could be used to whack an unwanted visitor as well. I got up right away, folded up the chair, and put it by the side of the cot in readiness. The potty was something else. Its contents were already giving the air in my quarters a pungent odor. I didn’t want it any closer to my bed than it already was.

  The only thing left was the camp stove, but I was as ignorant about that as I was about the crab nebulae. It did, however, have something that interested me: another view to the outside world. If I didn’t mind doing without heat for the rest of my stay in this delightful place, I could turn it off and disengage the vent. The hole in the wall was no larger than a dinner plate, but what I could see on the other side might give me some more clues about where I was being held. It was a toss up between comfort and knowledge. Of course, I had to recognize that comfort was relative. Being dead was not my idea of comfortable. I voted for knowledge.

  I got down on my hands and knees to inspect the stove more closely. I don’t know why I hadn’t realized it before, but the stove ran on kerosene. By the hollow sound it made as I tapped on the reservoir, I could tell it was nearly empty. I turned the only knob I could see and watched the flames flicker and die. The heater was off, but it was still hot to the touch. So was the vent. I would have to wait for it to cool down before I removed it.

  Now I was impatient and wished I had made my decision earlier. The afternoon that had seemed endless was passing rapidly. I was afraid the sun would set and leave me with nothing to see but the darkness of what promised to be a very cold night.

  I played several mental games of solitaire and cheated madly. Twice I burned my hand as I impatiently tested the hot metal of the vent pipe. I lay back on the cot and sucked my hurt finger
s like a sulky little child.

  The overhead bulb had been off all day, and the only light in the room was that which filtered in through cracks in the eaves and around the door facing. It was gloomy in my little cell. It finally struck me that I had been forgotten. No light, no meals, no water, and now I was looking forward to no heat. But unless someone had come to refill the dwindling level of fuel in the reservoir, that would have been gone soon anyway.

  I wondered what was going on. Had my captors really forgotten my existence? Had something happened to Henry? Maybe he dumped me here and went back to bury the other man’s body. Maybe someone else got mad at Henry for killing what’s-his-name and executed him. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I tried to force all these questions out of my mind. I knew I would go nuts if I didn’t stop mulling over the infinite possibilities. My only recourse was to take each step at a time and then improvise as fast as I could.

  I knelt back down on the floor and licked my fingers to touch the stove. It was still hot but not uncomfortably so. The air coming through the vent from the outside had helped cool it down. I tugged at the base of the stove and saw the vent pull out a little way from the wall. I pulled harder and the vent pipe came loose and fell with a loud clanking sound to the floor. I ignored the noise and impatiently shoved the rest of the stove to one side.

  The vent had been held in place by a metal plate. It was attached to the wall by four screws, one in each corner. I dug down in my pocket and came up with a dime that had been missed when I was searched. After a few frustrating minutes I undid all four screws and set aside the cover plate. The hole was about ten inches in diameter. I was thrilled!

  I plopped down on my stomach and stuck my face up against the wall to peer outside. The sun was just about to pass behind the tree line. The day outside had not been the gloomy one I had taken it for in here. The sky above the trees was clear and still—a lovely shade of blue. Directly in front of me was a parade ground of sorts, or perhaps just a large, bare central meeting place surrounded by five other Quonset huts.