“What would I tell them?”
He was thoughful. “I guess you’re right.”
I climbed down from the cab. “Thanks,” I said.
With a nod, he drove off.
When I walked into the lobby, I had a visitor: Juri.
“Hi,” I greeted him cheerfully.
He came up and got right to the point. “Do you have Becca’s sketchbook?”
Taken aback, I stammered, “Uh … yes,” and lied, “She lent it to me.”
“I’d like it. Please.”
The “please” was definitely an afterthought.
“Sure. I’ll get it right away.” Actually, it was in my backpack, but I thought I’d better go through the charade of getting it from my room, or he might wonder why the hell I was carrying it around with me.
While I waited in my room for the allotted time it takes to remove a sketchbook from a drawer, I wondered why Juri wanted it so badly. But more important, how did he know where to find it?
As I handed it to him, I asked, “Have you heard when Becca’s coming home?”
“No.” Flat and uncompromising.
“Could you give me her Florida phone number?”
He frowned. “They’re moving from place to place.”
“Well, the next time you talk to them, would you ask Becca to call me?’
He nodded curtly and strode out.
The rest of the day was uneventful. I went to bed early, still exhausted from the previous day’s adventures.
When the telephone woke me, the clock beside my bed read 2:15. I groped for the receiver. “Yes?”
“Jo?” It was the barest whisper.
“Who is this?”
A little louder. “Becca.”
“Becca? I can hardly hear you. Where are you calling from? Florida?”
“No, I’m …”
A strong male voice with a foreign accent spoke sharply in the background.
“Becca?”
We were disconnected.
I punched the operator button.
“Hang up please and dial again,” the robot woman’s voice chirped.
Trace a call. How do you trace a call? My sleepy brain refused to function. Information? Maybe they’d know. I dialed it.
“Information. How may I help you?”
“I want to trace a call,” I said.
“Where are you calling from?” The woman’s voice was annoyingly calm.
“Bayfield, New Jersey. The Oakview Motor Lodge. I just received the call a minute ago.” I gave her my number. “It’s urgent.”
“Just a minute, please.” Conferring in the background.
Hurry up, for God’s sake.
“Was that a local call?”
“No, I don’t think so. Florida? I don’t know …”
“Just a minute, please.”
Oh, hell. The whole world could blow up and you’d still be saying, “Just a minute, please.”
“I’m sorry, I’m afraid we have no record of your call.”
“Shit. Thanks a lot.” I hung up. It was only then that I remembered the magic number for tracing calls—*69. But now it was too late. Some detective I was. Now all I could do was pray Becca would call back. But who cut her off?
CHAPTER 32
After Becca’s call, I couldn’t get back to sleep. What the hell was going on? Where was she? Why did Juri want that sketchbook so badly? I’d been all through it. There was nothing in it but drawings of broken-down barns and old houses. Who attacked me? And why me? Did I know something that I didn’t know I knew? Did someone want me out of the way and he was using scare tactics? I went over all the men I’d met at Bayfield. Juri, Mike, Paul, Milac, Jack-the-night-clerk … Tom. Then there were my patients. Even more absurd. Of course, it had been a perfect stranger. My attacker was your plain, ordinary, garden-variety rapist. Then why was Becca calling me? Had Juri actually relayed my message that fast? I was under the distinct impression he wasn’t going to relay it at all. And why were we cut off? Or were the two things unrelated? That night I discovered the true meaning of the phrase “tossed and turned.”
I must have dozed off in the early morning hours, but when I awoke I felt as if I hadn’t slept at all. I dragged myself out of bed and took a cold shower. It didn’t help. The best cure, I decided, was a quick ride on my bike. Maybe I could find that diner—the Blue Arrow—and have a decent breakfast for a change.
It was a perfect winter day. The grayness was gone. The sky was a cloudless blue and the fields, by some miracle, had been colorized a pale gold. I set off in what I thought was the direction of the diner. Someday, maybe I would learn to pay attention when someone else was driving, and memorize the route for future expeditions.
It was warmer than yesterday. I left my jacket unbuttoned and stuffed my scarf in my pocket. “La dee da dee da. Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh, what a beautiful day …” I felt better. The sparkling sign of the Blue Arrow just ahead made me feel better still. I pulled in and parked. My boots rang out cheerfully on the metal steps.
The coffee smelled as good as yesterday. There were empty booths and plenty of vacant seats at the counter. Then I remembered—it was Sunday. Everybody in Bayfield was at church. Sally was there, looking at loose ends with no customers. Tom was nowhere in sight. I took a stool at the counter and ordered eggs, sausage, hash browns, toast, orange juice, and coffee. The mirror across the counter revealed a bleary-eyed woman in need of a good night’s sleep. I concentrated on more appetizing attractions: an assortment of scrumptious-looking cakes and pies under a plastic lid; a variety of Danishes; Multicolored toy boxes of cereal nestled in a basket. The enormous, elaborate coffeepot, polished within an inch of its life. And the short-order cook, shoving my hash browns around on the grill while entertaining a regular customer with a description of her high jinks at a party the night before.
Suddenly I was drowned in a wave of homesickness. It was the smell of the hash browns that did it. How many hash browns had my father and I shared? Hundreds? Thousands? My appetite vanished. I got up and started toward the pay phone in the rear.
“Hey, your breakfast’s ready,” the short-order cook yelled after me.
“Hold it,” I said, “I’ll be right back.”
I went to make my call.
He was thrilled to hear from me. Why hadn’t I called before? How was the practice going? When was I coming home? When could he come visit? In my weakened condition, I agreed to let him come for Christmas.
“I’ve found the greatest diner, Dad. I’m calling from there now. I’m sure they serve a fabulous Christmas dinner.”
By the time I hung up, my appetite was back in full force.
As I gobbled breakfast, I pondered all that had happened to me in the past few months. A true New Yorker, I felt more private in a public place than when I was alone. I was able to concentrate better surrounded by noise as long as it had nothing to do with me, such as the cheerful chitchat between the short-order cook and her atheist customer. (He had to be an atheist, or he’d be in church.)
It had begun that first night, when I arrived in Bayfield. Mrs. Milac woke me with her scream of pain. Then she and her husband had skipped without paying me or their motel bill. That afternoon, I’d picked up a waif by the side of the road, put her back, and reported her to the state police. That night I’d had a flat, got lost—for the first time—and paid a visit to Becca’s house (before I knew it was Becca’s house). As I was receiving directions from the farmer (later known as Juri), a harsh, sexless voice sprang out of the darkness, urging him to send me on my way. The next day, I spotted the Milacs at Mike’s garage and gave chase—to no avail. Soon after that, I discovered Becca at the motel, interrupted her adventure with that boy-child, paid my second visit to her home, and was irritated by Juri’s persistent questioning of my future plans. Dinner was strained. The next morning Mike informed me that my flat had been caused by a bullet, and unceremoniously presented me with same.
“More coffee?�
��
“Thanks.” I took a long pull of the steaming liquid and went back to my mental journal.
The next few weeks I was totally preoccupied with my decision to move to Bayfield. I spent a week in New York arranging things, and the next few weeks here—putting my room in order and preparing my new office. Then work had begun in earnest. I was busy either seeing motel patients or worrying why I didn’t have more private patients. Sometime in the middle of all this my nightmares about the nuclear power plant began. To assuage my fears, I took a tour of the plant and ran into Milac again. I returned the next day to find that once more he had skipped—this time taking his personnel file with him.
“Would you like anything else?”
“No thanks.”
She scribbled the check.
This was followed by The Prune Epiphany The Milacs and the refugee couple at Becca’s house were one and the same. Becca’s visit to my office to tell me about Milac’s rough stuff; Becca’s abrupt disappearance and aborted phone call; and finally, Juri. His rudeness and sudden interest in Becca’s sketchbook.
I left some change on the counter and headed for the cash register.
It wasn’t until I was back on my bike that I forced myself to think about my attacker. (I had a strong tendency not to think about him, I noticed.)
No one could have known I would be coming that way at that particular time. He couldn’t possibly have been lying in wait for me personally. The guy was just some horny bastard who had seen an opportunity to lay a lone female in the dark. Or was he? Had someone been hanging around the motel when Paul gave me that message, overheard my destination, and guessed what route I would take back from Delaware? There was really only one. And those detour signs—had they been arranged deliberately to misdirect me past the Wistar house? Or was my attacker merely protecting the property? Those two goons we met yesterday had said the place wasn’t occupied. Then why the smoke? Was that beautiful old house being used for something illicit—or illegal? Like making drugs? Or hiding Becca? And her aunt? Had they kidnapped her, too? Should I investigate? Keep it under surveillance? But how? Not from the road. Too obvious. What about the river? No one would notice a small boat in the dark. The trees would screen it from the house. I don’t know the river, or how to go about getting a boat. But I could find out … .
As I pulled into the motel parking lot, I felt better. I knew I was about to take action.
Paul told me where I could rent a motorboat. But he also warned me that it was dangerous this time of year. Storms came up unexpectedly. And sometimes there were chunks of ice in the river. He recommended that I wait until spring to explore the Cohansey, when the weather was milder. I nodded noncommittally and went to my room to study my county map—and the river.
I had paid very little attention to the Cohansey River—a name given it by the earliest settlers, Native Americans known as the Lenni Lenapes. Until now, my whole interest had been concentrated on the bay. But now I studied the river with interest. Extremely convoluted, it wound its way through the marshlands like a piece of spaghetti with St. Vitus’ dance. At one time Bayfield had been a thriving port. During Thanksgiving dinner, Tom had mentioned that it had been used for smuggling before and during the Revolution. There had been some talk about pirates and buried treasure—Captain Kidd and Blackbeard—which I’d taken with a great big grain of salt. But there was no doubt this river was the perfect way to transport illicit goods, whether tea, flour, Spanish coins—or cocaine and heroin. As I refolded the map, there was a knock at my door.
I opened to Maria.
“No more splinters, I hope.”
“Oh, no.” She giggled and held up her finger for my inspection. Then she became serious. “It’s my mother.”
“Is she ill?”
“I don’t know. But she isn’t herself. She is tired all the time.”
“You live with her?”
A look of horror crossed her face. “Oh, no. No one lives with my mother.”
“Your father?”
She grinned. “He was the first to go. He left when I was three years old. Then each one of us left as soon as we were old enough.”
“I see.” I smiled. “Your mother is not easy to live with.” Being deprived of my own mother since I was four, I assumed that everybody else’s mother was perfect.
Maria raised her eyes to the ceiling. But then her grave look returned. “Still, she is my mother and I must take care of her.”
“Come in.” I waved her to a chair.
“I can’t. I’m working. I just wanted to ask …”
“Of course I’ll see your mother. When do you get off from work?”
“Three o’clock.”
“How about if I meet you at her house at three-thirty? Where does she live?”
“She lives in a trailer outside Bridgeton. But I don’t have a car.”
“How do you get to work?”
“My husband drops me off on his way to the plant and picks me up on his way home. He has the seven-to-three shift.”
The only plant in that neighborhood was the nuclear power plant. “Meet me in the lobby as soon as you’re done. We’ll go together. You can ride on the back of my bike.”
Her grave expression was replaced with delight. “I’ll call my husband and tell him not to come.”
“See you at three.” I closed the door. It was a relief to have the prospect of some work to do. And in the meantime, I could look into arrangements for that boat. I wondered if the rental place was open on Sunday. Paul had given me the number of the Lobster Trap. I dug it out and called.
“Sure. We have plenty of boats. Not much call for them this time of year. What time did you want it?”
I considered. It grew dark about six. “How about six?”
“Sorry. We close at five.”
“Can I keep it overnight?”
“Uh … that’s a little irregular. You’re not taking it out at night, are you?”
“Oh, no,” I said quickly, “but I want to get an early start in the morning.”
“Okay. I’ll just charge you for the one day—Monday. That’ll be twenty-five dollars.”
“I’ll be right over.”
Except for the greeting of a stray dog, our arrival at the Lenape Trailer Park went unnoticed. Motorcycles were a common sight in these circles. Several trailers had a bike parked in front of them. Maria led the way up the steps to her mother’s trailer. It was painted a bright turquoise and had white lace curtains at the windows. From the roof rose a monstrous TV aerial.
A gaunt, elderly woman opened the door, dressed all in black. “Maria?” She seemed more surprised than happy to see her daughter.
Maria spoke to her mother in Spanish. I gathered she was introducing me and explaining the reason for our visit.
“No!” her mother tried to shut the door. But Maria, undoubtedly used to her mother’s behavior, had placed her strong, young back against the door. It refused to budge.
In a dramatic gesture, her mother threw up her hands and disappeared inside the trailer.
Not an auspicious beginning. Maria and I quickly followed her in.
The interior was clean and tidy. At one end was a sofa bed and a rocking chair. A small table was attached to the wall that could be raised and lowered when needed. A tiny kitchen, complete with a miniature sink, refrigerator, and stove, occupied the other end of the trailer. Next to the stove was a door leading to another compartment that I guessed was the bathroom. Hand-crocheted doilies decorated all the furniture. On top of the television set, which dominated the entire space, sat an arrangement of plastic daisies. Playing on the screen was a scene from a soap opera in Spanish. (Since it was Sunday, it must have been taped.) It looked like the hero and heroine were about to hop into bed. Maria snapped it off and addressed her mother in more rapid Spanish. When she finished, the older woman waved me into the rocking chair and gave Maria a terse order. The girl went to the sink and began to fill a kettle with water.
F
eeling awkward without Maria, I smiled inanely. The woman didn’t smile back. She occupied herself with brushing some imaginary lint off her skirt and adjusting her belt until Maria rejoined us.
“Would you tell your mother I’d like to examine her?”
“I already did,” Maria said.
I took my stethoscope from my bag and Maria started to unbutton the front of her mother’s dress. The woman pulled away from her daughter and proceeded to finish the unbuttoning herself. I decided in this case it would be best to warm the stethoscope. I took it to the stove and held it for a few seconds over the jet of steam emerging from the kettle. I wiped it dry with a tea towel and approached the woman. Although she didn’t draw back, she remained stoically immobile while I listened to her heart. It sounded normal. I took her blood pressure. That, too, was within the normal range. I told Maria that I would like to ask her mother a few questions. Taking a history through an interpreter is not ideal; you always missed certain telling innuendoes. I kept my questions to a minimum, sticking to the woman’s present condition. Maria could fill me in on her mother’s past history later.
The gist of the interview was that the woman had been feeling tired for a number of weeks. She had no energy and no appetite. Such vague symptoms could signify a serious illness or merely indicate overwork or mild depression. In order to make a diagnosis, I would need tests. A chest X ray, a blood count, and an SMA. For these, she would have to go to the hospital. I told Maria this. Maria told her mother.
The woman shook her head vigorously and began to rebutton her dress.
Maria told me, “You make the appointment. My brothers and sisters and I will see that she gets there.”
I nodded and packed up my things.
The shriek of the teakettle filled the small space. Maria jumped up to remove it from the burner. It was essential that we have a cup of tea and cookies before we left, Maria said, or her mother would be insulted and they would have an even harder time getting her to the hospital.
I acquiesced. The tea was very good. And the cookies were delicious. Not store-bought but a lacey, home-baked concoction that melted in my mouth. I smiled at the woman, raised my half-eaten cookie, and smiled again. She understood. When I reached for a second one, she gave me the shadow of a smile.
Scarecrow Page 13