Morgan James - Promise McNeal 02 - Quiet Killing

by Morgan James

  Fog is sneaky. It not only distorts space, because you can see only what is immediately in front of your face, it also distorts time. With no reference point of where you started or how far you’ve come, time seems to bend, stretches out or tightens up, depending on visibility. That’s why I think I was surprised at how soon I stepped out of the pine thicket dividing my property from Fletcher’s and stepped into the cleared yard running beside his garage. To my right, Hubert was leaning over Fletcher’s pasture fence giving me the disgusted goat eye as he chewed his cud. Alfie trotted over to say hello; Hubert stomped the ground politely to return the greeting.

  When I looked left, a breeze was blowing the fog up and scattering it against the side of the house. Soon the fog would be only a memory as the wind carried it out of the valley. I hurried to the back of the garage and knelt down against the wood siding, out of sight of the house, only to find the prowler’s flashlight beam escaping from the garage window just above where I crouched. Since I was at convenient doggie level, Alfie came over and licked me in the face. Big help!

  From inside the garage, two voices drifted through the partially open window. One asked the other if he’s found anything. He replied, “Hell, no.” The first one answered that maybe it was all told or maybe he said sold. It was difficult to hear. While I was stoking up enough courage to stand up and peak through the window, I heard the garage door being lowered. They must have gone outside. I prayed they were headed back to the house, or to the driveway, and not to the rear of the garage.

  Alfie was quiet and seemed content with my squatting on the cold morning ground so he could give me slobbery kisses. He sat and waited for what other treats this new game would bring. I peaked around the corner of the garage a couple of times. The lights in the house were still on, but as curious as I was, I couldn’t see a way to cross the cleared distance between the garage and the house without the prowlers being able to see me. I decided to listen and wait.

  After what seemed like hours, a hand lightly grasped my shoulder from behind. I don’t know what sound I swallowed to keep from screaming, but trying not scream caused me to sit down hard on my butt and roll over on the ground. Daniel reached down and helped me stand up. “Promise. Why are you hiding behind Fletcher’s garage?”

  I swatted him on the arm and whispered, “Don’t scare me like that. Why do you think I’m over here? Didn’t you get my message?”

  His smirking smile was proof that he enjoyed finding me hiding like a mouse in a hole. He whispered back. “Yes, I got your message. Why are we whispering?”

  “We are whispering, you big fool, because there are two prowlers around somewhere, and we don’t want them to hear us. Hush. I hear a car.”

  “Hush, yourself. I’m not the one talking.”

  We peered around the corner of the garage. A vehicle had pulled into Fletcher’s driveway. By now, only errant strings of fog remained, making it easy to read the Perry County Sheriff’s logo on the side of the vehicle. Sheriff Mac was one of the two men who exited the Ford Bronco; the young deputy I’d seen at Fletcher’s accident was the other. Daniel and I stepped out into the open yard. Mac motioned for us to stay put. In two seconds the deputy was out of sight—maybe going to the front door?

  Mac walked toward us then turned to the rear of the house and approached the back door. With his revolver drawn, he opened the kitchen door and pushed it hard against the inside wall. The door made a thwack sound as it hit sheetrock, rebounded, and nearly shut itself. No sound followed. He called out, “Come on out. It’s the sheriff. We got both doors covered.” We waited. Still no sound. Mac eased the door open again and went inside. We waited some more.

  Finally, Mac came out of the house and walked over to us. “Nobody in the house,” he announced. “Tossed it up pretty bad, looks to me like they were hunting for something in particular, not just ransacking for anything to sell. No idea if anything was taken. Man-o-man, I sure hate to lay this on Fletcher, on top of the accident, and The Red Bird being just about a total loss.”

  Now that the Sheriff brought up the subject, my curiosity kicked in again. “Were you able to tell if someone deliberately caused the accident?”

  The young deputy joined us and Mac answered, “If you call somebody sawing the brake line about halfway through a cause, then I reckon I’d have to say, yeah, someone deliberately caused the accident.”

  “But Sheriff, how would that someone know that Fletcher was driving The Red Bird over to Waynesville?”

  The young deputy huffed up tall and grinned. Mac turned to him and said, “Go ahead, before you bust a gut, tell’em how you solved that mystery.”

  Without hesitation, the deputy told his story. “Yes ma’am. The sheriff was asking that same question. But you see, I read the Asheville paper every day. There was a piece a week or so ago on classic hot rods and how Fletcher and some other old guys were bringing their restored cars to Asheville the end of the month for a parade. Don’t remember the exact date, but anyhow, if a body read the paper, they’d know old Fletcher was going over Cowee Mountain pretty soon. Looks like whoever was wanting him over the side of the mountain got their wish early, with a little help from a saw edged knife.”

  Mac flicked his thumb toward the deputy. “You can tell he’s pretty proud about knowing that little piece of information. Being the big town newspaper reader that he is.”

  I resisted being a smartass and saying: wonderful, that certainly narrows the field of suspects. Now all we have to do is check out everyone who reads the Asheville paper. Who in the world would want to hurt Fletcher? And why? Did his mumbling about trespassers after the accident have something to do with the who part? Were the prowlers wielding flashlights in the early morning fog Fletcher’s trespassers?

  “All right, back to business,” Mac said, pointing at his deputy. “You, go on inside and see if you can lift some decent fingerprints. I’ll take Miz Promise’s statement.”

  After a yes sir, and a half salute, the deputy went back to the house, leaving Daniel and me alone with Sheriff Mac. I told him about lights going on, then off in Fletcher’s house, seeing a flashlight beam through the fog, and hearing two male voices talking in the garage. “You know, what I didn’t hear was a vehicle driving away. Did you hear anyone drive away, Daniel?”

  Daniel answered, “No. No vehicle. Not until Mac drove in. They were probably gone by the time I got here.”

  “Could have parked a ways down the road and walked in,” Mac said and reached for the two-way radio transmitter clipped to his shirt. It awakened with static like angry bees. “Pam, you there? I need units around Fells Creek to be on the lookout for two suspicious males in a vehicle.” Through the static, Pam replied with a remark I didn’t understand, but Mac obviously did. “Yeah, I know, half of Perry County. Very funny. No, don’t have a make on the vehicle. Just put out the request. We might get lucky. Thanks.”

  Almost immediately after Mac disconnected, his radio crackled alive again. He connected with, “Go ahead.” Over the bee buzz a voice said something about calling Mrs. Allen. An emergency. “Affirmative.” He signed off and complained, “I don’t know what’s going on. Pam says MaMa’s hysterical. I gotta call her from the cell phone. It’s in the Bronco.”

  We followed Mac to his car where he reached for the phone through the driver’s window and dialed Mrs. Allen. She did all the talking until he said, “I’m on my way,” and hung up. He tapped the silent phone several times against his chin and stared off into the distance, then shoved the phone into his jacket pocket and commanded with all the authority his office demanded, “Stay.” Daniel and I looked at each other and stayed. Alfie, who was already doing a brilliant job of staying by leaning against my right knee, continued to follow orders. We watched Mac sprint into Fletcher’s house calling out for his deputy.

  Daniel, knowing his cousin like a brother, reassured me there was a good reason why we were told to remain where we were. “Mac’s getting a plan together.”

  Before
I could ask: A plan for what? Mac emerged from the house. “Daniel, you ride with me. Promise, go home and call Susan. We need her. MaMa says a man and a woman came to the house and tried to take Missy, then hightailed it. I’ll put a BOLO out on them when I get more information, but right now we got a bigger problem. Missy ran off. MaMa’s searched everywhere close to the house. She’s afraid the child’s headed up on Fire. I don’t have enough deputies to comb the whole dang mountain. Especially today. That means we all hunt.”

  I was thinking Nan and Pokey Fantell were probably the would-be kidnappers and Missy was running from them, but we didn’t have time to chat and speculate. “Mac, Mrs. Allen says that child knows the woods better than any of us do. Why the panic? Is she hurt?”

  Mac was getting into the Bronco as he answered. “Not yet. MaMa says she’s wearing her pink teddy-bear pajamas and yellow rain boots. No jacket. Maybe you didn’t hear the weather this morning. Temperature’s going to drop like a rock during the day. We’re in for six, maybe eight, inches of snow by dark. Wait at the house for me to call. We’ll divide the mountain into sections. No use in all of us covering the same piece of ground. Let’s go cousin.”

  Daniel gave my hand a quick squeeze and got into the passenger side, just as Mac backed up to turn around. He waved as they spun gravel in Fletcher’s driveway. Six, maybe eight, inches of snow in the last week of March? Welcome to the Western North Carolina Mountains.

  25

  There is helplessness in waiting. Adrenaline pumping. Ready to fight. Hands tied until a clock you have no control over chimes the hour. Susan was dressed for the cold in a down parker, sensible boots, and Tashi Sherpa hat, complete with earflaps and multi-colored tassels. My outer gear wasn’t quite as stylish, but we were both ready for Mac’s prediction of snow. She paced the same route on my kitchen floor that her dad had covered a couple of nights before when she decided to play detective over in Hiawassee. I picked up the phone about forty times to make sure it was working. Still no call from Mac.

  “We should go on and head up the mountain,” she said.

  “Let’s wait a little longer. Mac is right. It makes no sense for all of us to cover the same ground.”

  She took her coat and hat off and tossed them across a chair at the kitchen table. “If you were her, which way would you go? Where would you hide?”

  I’d been chasing the same questions around and around in my head. Fire was a small mountain by comparison to Standing or Wayah, but there was still enough forest and brush to swallow a little girl forever. From my effort to climb the upper ridge through tangles of laurel, I’d learned my side of the mountain wasn’t the easiest climb. I wasn’t sure how heavy the growth was on Mrs. Allen’s side, but we knew Missy and Mrs. Allen had climbed to the plateau where January’s cabin stood. I’d seen them on the terrible day when the Georgia convict attacked me. Was that day really less than two weeks ago? How could that be? So much had happened since then….the phone finally rang.

  Susan answered. “Yes. We’re ready. I’ll take my cell phone. Hang on.” She held the phone out to me and put it on speaker. “It’s Daddy. They’re fanning out from MaMa’s side. He says for us to take the path from Fletcher’s side and then crisscross until we get to the top. Where should we meet?”

  I spoke into the phone, sure now of the answer. “Meet us at January’s cabin. Mac can give you directions. Missy knows that area. I believe she’s found the cave. Remember the cave? The one the lady at the library said she and her brother found. It’s near a small waterfall. Missy will hide there.”

  “Umm.” Daniel sounded skeptical. “Didn’t Fletcher tell you he’d not found a cave? The man’s owned the property for sixty years; he’d know if a cave was up there.”

  I found myself shaking my head at the phone. “Fletcher’s lying. I don’t know why he would lie, but I know he is. There is a cave. Trust me. Just meet us at the cabin, and we’ll search for the waterfall. It somehow marks the cave.”

  “All right. I guess this is another one of those intuition things—like us chasing a thief in the dark down in Atlanta—where you tell me the rest of the story later, much later?”

  “Just do it, okay?”

  “No need to bark at me, Babe. I said all right. You two be careful and check in every fifteen minutes. Just hope our phones have service up there.”

  Susan went out to her Jeep and came back with a black backpack, or, I guess more properly, a book bag. The Addams Family smiled at me as I stowed a thermos of hot chocolate, two bottled waters, and a handful of granola bars inside. “Better than a Bi-Lo plastic bag, I guess. Have you had this cute thing since you were a kid?”

  Susan cackled. “Lord no, I found it last month at the flea market. Cool, huh? I love it. Funny show. Remember the episode when a neighbor kid tried to sell the Addams children Girl Scout cookies, and Wednesday Addams asked if they were made with real girl scouts?”

  Believe it, or not, I did remember that show. “Why do I think you aspire to be Morticia? Hang on a second, I just thought of something else.” I ran to the bedroom closet and came back with an Irish wool sweater I’d tossed in with the regular laundry by mistake. What was once a roomy size large was now a tight size tiny— perfect fit for Missy when we found her. Then I added a handful of paper napkins, just in case anyone needed toilet paper, and explained to Alfie that he was to stay behind and guard the house. From his napping rug, he raised his head just enough to let me know he’d heard me and then closed his eyes again. Susan strapped Morticia, Gomez, Pugsley and Wednesday Addams over her shoulder, and I checked my coat pocket to make sure I had my warm gloves. “Okay, let’s go.”

  For the second time that morning I crossed the pine grove separating my property from Fletcher Enloe’s. Susan went ahead, circling the back of the barn, just as I had done earlier; except this time we walked out in the open, not concerned about prowlers, and waved to the single deputy still stationed on the property. We passed the house and quickly covered the distance to the end of Fletcher’s pasture line. Then we were on the narrow logging path, disappearing into mixed hardwoods and pines, climbing up Fire Mountain.

  As soon as Fletcher’s house and barn were out of sight, my heart began to flutter. My breath caught in the back of my throat like a bellows choking for air. I told myself we were walking too fast, that I was out of shape. But I knew I was having an anxiety attack. The fear I’d felt when the Georgia convict attacked me, and tied my hands and feet, was back. Fear crested up, washed over me, and sucked the energy from my legs. I willed myself to keep moving. Scary memories, I told myself. Only a feeling—not a real threat. Breathe deeply. Think of now, not then. So much has happened since the attack, you haven’t had time to process it. The feeling will pass. The key here is that you lived through the fear when it happened; you can walk through it now.

  We walked on. I counted my steps and visualized the blood flowing strong in my legs. Soon I was focusing on the worn down, narrow ruts in the road, as I followed behind Susan. This way up the mountain was much easier than the abandoned logging road snaking up the ridge from my side, and certainly better than climbing through dense laurels to reach the cabin. No big rocks in the pathway, no small trees volunteering out of nowhere.

  “Susan,” I said, my voice spooking a pileated woodpecker into flight and a frenzy of eek-eek-eek-eek cries. “Does it strike you as odd that this old road is in such good shape? I mean, Fletcher says it hasn’t been used for years.”

  She continued trudging uphill. “Deer probably keep it cleared down. Or, more likely, Fletcher told you that to keep you from using it to snoop around up on Fire. I guess you’ve noticed the old man just has to be in control.”

  I agreed with her. My good neighbor certainly needed to make the rules, and he did seem overly invested in keeping me off Fire Mountain. Though to his credit, when we last spoke, he offered to take me back up to the cabin site and share what he knows. It was hard to stay angry with a man who had saved my life. If he hadn’t come along w
hen he did…there was that panicky fear again. I began counting my steps again. Concentrating on anything other than the memory of being tied up. Seventeen, eighteen. Poor Fletcher— nineteen— lying in a hospital bed, injured—the Red Bird probably damaged beyond repair. Twenty—and two men pilfering through his house looking for…looking for what?

  We climbed slowly for perhaps another thirty minutes, the wind cold and the late morning sky bellied with snow clouds. Susan stopped beside a cairn-like pile of gray and ochre rocks stacked just off the narrow roadway. “Let’s rest for a second. I want to check something.”

  I sat on one of the lower rocks. She perched on another to my left and dug a compass out of the backpack, carefully checking our direction. “We’re still headed northwest. That’s good.”

  “Did you say, still? When did you check our direction the first time?”

  “Back at your house, when I got the backpack from the Jeep. Daddy said to try and crisscross our search. Changing our directions every so often will help. Though actually, we don’t know exactly which direction the cabin lies from Fletcher’s house, so I’m still just guessing.”

  “I think we are okay. This is the road the deputy brought me down after Fletcher had to…umm…well you know, shoot that guy. As I remember, it picks up a short distance below the cabin. I’m impressed you brought a compass. You have anything else interesting amongst the Addams family?”

  “Actually, I do,” Susan replied and brought out two straightened coat hanger wires, each bent about a fourth of the way down the shaft to form a handle.

  “And those are?”

  “Dowsing rods. MaMa Allen made them for me years ago. They work pretty good. I’ll show you. But first, let’s go over what you know about the cave. I heard you tell Daddy the lady at the library said she and her brother found the cave near a waterfall?”