by Jane Elzey
Ben laughed it off without answering. He was leaning against his fellow officer’s squad car in the Hot Springs precinct parking lot. He was still in plain clothes and on his own time, and he didn’t need any interference.
He had given the information about John Jacob Crawley to the precinct captain, making it clear that he had gathered it unofficially, but it was a reliable lead in the Zack Carlisle investigation all the same. He knew they would take it from there. The case was far from closed, and he’d never see any glory for it, but he was confident he had shifted the investigation away from Rian and her friends. That was all he could ask for.
He had taken time for a bite to eat, and then he planned to go back to the hospital and talk with Amy and Rian about what he had found.
He heard the familiar static of the police radio in the background, the chatter always in one ear. The bulletin caught his attention: Reckless driver off CR 214. Reported by a passing motorist. White male on a tractor. John Deere. In pursuit of four mature females on foot.
Ben heard amusement in the dispatcher’s voice.
He would have found it amusing, too, if he didn’t know better.
As he listened to the field report their positions, the dispatcher working through their locations, he had no doubt in his mind that the four mature females were named Rian, Amy, Genna, and Zelda. There was no doubt they had sprung Amy from the hospital and went looking for trouble. Again.
Crawley was driving the tractor in pursuit, and he did not doubt that, either. Crawley had gone over the edge, and he felt he had something to do with that. He had seen the madness in the man’s eyes when he mentioned Zack Carlisle. There was a fine line between reality and insanity, and he had witnessed that line snap in two. Whatever disturbing rage had caused him to run over Zack Carlisle, that same rage was chasing four women with the same murderous intent.
Amy must have come to the same conclusion and led her friends right to his doorstep. Hadn’t he led her to the discovery by showing her the photos? There wasn’t anything more he needed to hear from the radio.
Wheeling his car out of the parking lot, his tires squealed against the pavement.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Amy twisted around in the back seat so she could look out the rear window.
When Crawley reached the highway, he drove the tractor right up onto the highway lane. Now he was driving as any traveler might, only at caterpillar speed. The tractor was several hundred yards behind them. Stacking up behind the bright green tractor, a line of cars was stymied by the no-passing, double yellow line down the middle, with no room to pass even if they dared.
Crawley’s back was straight as a board, his hands tight on the wheel, dark eyes focused on the road ahead. To the other cars, he would appear to be a farmer headed to the field on his tractor, nothing more than an annoying inconvenience taking up space. She knew better. She doubted he even saw the road ahead of him. He probably didn’t even hear the cars honking behind him. She couldn’t imagine that he heard anything but the thoughts in his head.
Their car sped on and the tractor fell farther in their past.
“You won’t believe what happened to us,” Rian said to Ben on the phone. “We’ll be at Cooley’s Bar when you get around to us. We’re leaving the bar tab for you.”
The five of them were sitting at a table near the bar, cold beers in front of them. The courageous woman who picked them up was rapt as she listened to their story. The conversation bounced from one to the other while they scrambled to share their part in the mystery, punctuating their stories with laughter, squeals, and giggles as they eagerly told their tale. It felt like familiar times around the domino table on Genna’s back deck, only they were many miles away from home.
Excited to be part of such drama, the woman was as engaged as if she were watching her favorite soap opera live on stage. Her name was Candy, and not coincidently, she owned a fudge shop with her mother, who made the “best chocolate and praline fudge this side of Georgia, USA.” These were the only facts she managed to get in edgewise. By the time they drank a pitcher of beer, they had shared all the details of the last few weeks, minus Rian’s private matters, all the way up until Candy rolled down her window, rescuing four women standing in the road.
There was finally a brief lull as they sipped their beers and, eyeing Amy’s clothes, Candy said, “So that’s why you’re dressed that way?”
Amy beamed at her. Their heroine! And they were her heroines, too. They would be the topic of her story to tell for quite some time to come, all the way down to the bunny slippers with its flopping ears and the cardigan and shell with a rabbit’s paw in a permanent high-five. Women rescuing women was irresistible news for the gossip mill, and no one had a story dressed like this.
“Do you think I should hold a grudge?” Amy asked.
Candy smiled and shook her head. “I’ve seen much worse at Walmart. Besides, you gals are rock-solid.”
Rock-solid. She liked the way that sounded. Friends that were so loyal they would go to the ends of the earth for each other. Friends who were willing to chase down killers, chase down facts and fibbery, chase down anything that needed chasing down in the dusty backwoods of Arkansas. Despite the rigors of what they had just endured and the bruises that were starting to pop up, she felt safe inside the bar. Even if Crawley could make it that far on his tractor, he would be no match for this crowd. Unless he came in shooting.
Would he barge into the bar shooting?
No reason to go there. The four of them might be strangers to this part of Arkansas, but they were the topic du jour in the bar, and there was no way Crawley could enter without resistance, shotgun or not.
Amy looked up when she heard the sirens. Jumping up from the table, she limped outside, her legs stiff. The others followed. Zelda, Candy, and Rian were side by side. Genna had lost one of her Dior mules in the poison ivy and had its mate stuffed in the top of her bag. Now bringing up the rear, limping over and scowling at the sharp rocks under her tender bare feet, she joined them just as two patrol cars blasted past them on the highway. Not far down the road, the sirens stopped with a final whimpering whoop, like a bagpipe giving up its last bit of air.
“He got pretty far on that Deere,” Rian said.
“Too far,” Zelda said.
“What happens now?” Amy asked.
“Crazy sucker’s going straight to jail.”
“Genna, it’s a tractor, not an 18-wheeler,” Rian said.
“What?”
“You said, ‘crazy trucker’s going straight to hell.’”
“Rian, you need a hearing aid.”
“You need to stop mumbling.”
“I need another beer,” Zelda said. “Y’all make so much noise, I can’t think.”
“Nach a Mool!” Amy pulled Zelda close. “I sure have missed you, my friend.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Watching as he was walked to the squad car with his hands cuffed behind him, Amy realized that the angry scowl was gone. Now his body sagged with misery and resignation, head hanging forward from his shoulders, heavy jowls slack.
Even though he had been the reason she crashed the Hummer, broke her wrist, and suffered the stink in the woods, she felt sorry for Crawley. She felt sorry for the way his life had turned out. Everyone had obstacles to face, with some bigger than others. Some were full of sorrow. Crawley’s had been a lot of both. It was written in the lines of his face.
Forgiveness? Sure, she could forgive him all that. The Hummer was insured, her body would heal, and the stink was a fading memory.
But she couldn’t forgive him for killing Zack. Whether it had been premeditated rage or an accident with a tragic twist, they might never know. She wasn’t sure it mattered.
Zack was gone.
She glanced at Zelda out of the corner of her eye. How did Zelda feel about Zack’s death?
She didn’t know, and she wasn’t ready to ask. On the outside, Zelda appeared so composed it was unnerving. Appearances weren’t everything, or maybe they were everything. Maybe putting on a calm front was the only way Zelda could face the past. Maybe it was the only way she could face her future. Under the calm, coiffed façade that Zelda showed to the world, there might be a fiery fissure channeling all those emotions buried under the surface.
Like the lava flows under the Hawaiian sea, with its molten magma hidden from view. Except for a plume of smoke escaping now and again, you would never know the lava was there. Maybe Zelda didn’t know what was under the surface, either—wouldn’t know until it erupted.
She vowed to be there for Zelda when that happened. If it happened. She vowed to be a death-do-us-part kind of friend.
Zack’s death seemed so long ago now. Only a few weeks had passed, and yet the memory of the man was already fading.
Even so, Zelda had loved him, once.
Had he loved her? Or had he used her? They would never know that, either.
Glancing around the table at Genna and Rian, she vowed to be a loyal friend to them in the same way. Their friendship had been stretched to its boundaries, but instead of ruining their closeness, they had strengthened their bonds. Even though each of them had suspected the other in being part of a horrible crime, they had stayed true to those bonds. By trying to cover up whatever they thought they had to, they had put their safety on the line.
Loyal. Courageous. Sweet. Stupid. Stupid, but sweet. They had experienced all of that, and their friendship had endured, persisted, and prevailed. Now the tough part was over, and the best was yet to come. She hoped that was true.
The ride to Hot Springs was a quiet one. No one seemed eager to replace the silence, even Ben. As Rian shared the details with him of their encounter with Crawley, she realized they were all tired of telling the story, as if the wind in the sails had sagged, a lot like Crawley’s care-worn face.
The four of them had refused medical care after the Mercedes collision, and Ben had dropped them off at a coffee shop across from the Hot Springs police station, which was where they were waiting now. The café’s large window front looked out onto the bustling downtown street.
Absently, Amy listened as Genna grumbled about the absence of a Bloody Mary on the menu. The barista was losing her perky demeanor until Rian pulled a flask from her backpack and covertly poured a thimble of bourbon into each of their coffees.
“Shut up and drink,” she demanded, and they consented while the barista pretended not to notice.
They waited and they watched. They waited. And they watched.
Admittedly, she didn’t know what they were waiting for, except they were out of cars to take them home. The Hummer was a torched-out shell in the police compound, and Genna’s Mercedes was getting towed to a body shop in town. They needed Ben’s help to get home.
She needed Ben’s help to set her mind at ease. What had happened in the parking garage at the Bennfield Hotel? Why had John Jacob Crawley run Zack down?
She had come so far to uncover the truth, and hadn’t she succeeded? Hadn’t she done everything she set out to do when she took off in the Hummer and drove south?
It wasn’t enough.
Why niggled her, nudged her imagination, nagged at her curiosity. She had to know.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Cats have nine lives.
They waited and drank their coffee.
She looked up when Ben appeared in the window across the street, exiting the police station and skirting the traffic before crossing the street to the café.
Joining them at the table, he said, “What a sad story.” He nodded as Rian handed him her cup of coffee, then smiled at the fumes. “There are no rules you women won’t break, are there?”
“Tell us what we don’t know,” Genna urged. “We don’t make the rules. We just break them.”
“So I’ve come to know,” he said with a smile.
“So what can you tell us?” Rian asked, taking her cup from his outstretched hands.
“I can tell you that Crawley lost his wife to cancer, and a few months later, he lost his dog.”
“I knew that!” Amy exclaimed.
Ben held up his hand for silence. He slipped a tape recorder out of his pocket and grinned.
“Is that what I think it is?” Rian asked.
“And you’re harassing us about rules?” Genna added.
Ben glanced at Zelda, his face full of compassion. “Are you sure you want to hear this? It’s pretty raw.”
She nodded, and Amy grabbed Zelda’s hand as Ben pushed play.
A thin, weak voice came across the recorder then, sounding as if it were the last lonely sound left in the world. She felt Zelda shiver.
“It was that cell tower that killed her,” the voice intoned. “All those invisible rays shooting cancer at her every day. Like a beacon of death, ’cept I didn’t know all that at first. Saw a flyer at the bar on the corkboard. It was all about those death ray beams.
“It was my fault. I’m the one who got greedy. I wanted more money than I could make in an honest day of work. I wanted to buy my Penny a new washing machine and maybe something pretty for her to wear to church. She was so beautiful, my Penny. The most beautiful girl I ever saw.
“My greed. And then that devil came with his flashy smile and fancy car and cash in his pocket. The devil knows what you want. The devil knows what you’re willing to give to get it. I took his money. I cashed his check every month. I did, and I watched my Penny get sick. The doctors said it was brain cancer. They said there was nothing that could be done but make her comfortable until the end. They didn’t see the end. They didn’t understand what happened to my Penny.
“Rascal died three months after Penny left this world. He was the best dog a man could ever have. Doc said he had cancer, too. I think he died of a broken heart. Guess it don’t matter. I buried him under the tree Penny’s daddy planted the day she was born. He gave us that land when we married.”
There was a long silence on the tape, then, as if he had gotten lost in his tale, or lost in the past. Nothing but white noise rolled through the recorder. Amy shuddered, her hand still in Zelda’s. The white noise was like a cold fog that seeped in under the door and into her bones. The same cold fog and feeling she had after a dream woke her from a sound sleep. One of those dreams. The kind that left her aching for more insight than they gave. The kind of dreams that ran through her mind like a clip from a movie snipped from the reel. Jagged pieces of imagery, like grainy movies from childhood, flashing past without rhyme or reason. Without a reason for what she was supposed to do once she saw them.
She wasn’t clairvoyant. Not psychic. She didn’t channel wisdom or speak to spirits. She didn’t find things that were lost, nor could she move anything without touching it. She didn’t stop bad things from happening to people she loved.
Telepathetic.
Hadn’t she learned from her mistakes?
Like when she joined Dial-A-Psychic on a dare from Genna. She had helped a caller find a lottery ticket that had won a little money. It was in the pocket of his jeans. But that had been a lucky guess, right? Not lucky enough. The Dial-A-Psychic company turned out to be phone-in fraud that shut down overnight, still owing her money.
Pathetic. Telepathetic. She hadn’t seen that coming.
But then . . .
But then the county had been looking for a lost child in the middle of an ice storm. The jagged dream that woke her then was of a dog barking and bell clock chiming three. Goosebumps had risen on her arms at the stroke of every hour, the same cold fog in her bones as she felt now.
Police had found the little boy curled up and sleeping with a stray dog at the base of the old church tower. She wasn’t responsible for how they found him because she had told no one. And yet, how co
uld she explain what she dreamed?
She couldn’t.
She couldn’t explain the pale image of Zack Carlisle and the screaming sirens.
And yet, that had come true, too.
She slipped her hand from Zelda’s and touched the burn scar on her forehead.
Sparkplug was what the school bullies called her because her hair was frizzy. Making fun of the new girl in town. Making fun of her name. Zzzt, zzzt. Fingers forked into an imaginary electric socket.
She had hated them for that. Hated how it made her feel—like an outsider, not one of the cool kids, or the rich kids, or the pretty girls with straight blonde hair.
The accident happened on the Fourth of July. They were dancing around the campfire at summer camp, sparklers swinging in the warm night air. Girls were flirting with the boys and their summer camp appeal, the thought of kissing behind the boathouse making them silly with desire.
A stray spark landed in her hair, and in seconds her hair lit up like a halo, and she was spinning and screaming until a counselor tackled her to the ground. She could still taste the grit in her mouth. She could almost smell the stench of burnt hair and skin. She could hear the screams that were her own.
Sparkplug had new meaning.
Hadn’t she dreamed that?
She touched the peridot necklace at her throat.
Everyone had obstacles in their life. No one escaped that. Some hurdles were higher than others, some deeper and more sorrowful, and some that could not be explained away. Luck, superstition, dreams, and wishes that seemed to come true—they all had their place in the unexplained. Those chapters in everyone’s lives compelled belief in the unseen, the unknowable, the divine. Like the love of family and friends. Like faith in a higher power. Like the courage that comes when you need it most.
She had done her best. She had made a difference. She had found the missing piece to the puzzle and couldn’t ask more of herself than that. Not today.