The River Waits for Murder

by C. Ruth Daly

  “Oh Lord,” Glynda muttered, and turned the radio down. She opened the door and the man stepped back.

  “Hey, Glynda. I couldn’t find you.”

  “Well, Ernie, you did find me. You were lookin’ right in the window. What do you need?”

  “Nothin’. I’m here to wash my clothes and you wasn’t out here.” He turned and began loading a machine, content with the fact Glynda was visible in the area for a stranger—Dan Green was nearby.

  Green saw the opportunity and quickly moved to the spot where Glynda was checking the detergent dispenser.

  “Hello, Glynda,” he began, “Hey, how’s it going?”

  She turned around and with dread in her face, “It’s good. And you?” Then back to stocking the detergent.

  “Hey, so…I read about you and that Donna McNally in some archived newspapers—guess you’re county history around here, huh?”

  No response and just the scraping of detergent boxes in the vending machine.

  “So, hey—can you tell me about that night? Did I tell you I was a freelance writer and I’m writing a story about this? He cringed. Once again he was losing track of his lies.

  In her exasperation, Glynda turned and stared at Dan, shook her head, then turned back around and continued stocking. “If ya need change, detergent; you’re havin’ a problem with a machine, then I can talk to ya. I’ve had a long day already and I don’t have to tell you about my life. It’s my life and it’s my story—and I’m keeping it to myself.”

  The man stood behind Glynda, arms crossed and feet set firmly on the floor. “No. No. No. It’s my life that I need to save, lady. Look. Cut out the bullshit and tell me what I need to know then I will get the hell out of this place—this laundry mat, this shithole of a town, and that crappy-ass apartment I’m calling home!”

  Glynda jerked around to face the reddening man behind her. Ernie was not far from them and he kept a scared but cautious eye on the stranger yelling at his friend.

  “I’m not moving unless you tell me what’s along that river! This is my family’s right, lady, and I’m not leaving this shithole of a burg until you tell me.” He crossed his arms and stared. Glynda tried to move to the right to go around him, but Dan followed her every move—left, right, not allowing her to move beyond him.

  “Oh shit,” Glynda’s day had caught up with her and she let Dan Green have it. “Well, hell. Sit your ass down, Mr. Green. Are you going to move so I can come and sit by you and we can act like civil humans, huh? You think you’re the only one who can yell and be all bad, well shit. Do you know the life I led? Huh? I’ll tell you some stories if you want to know about my life! I ain’t just tellin’ you about a Halloween night. If you’re a writer, you want to know about me. Or what else are you? Let’s see…a lawyer—or wan’na be lawyer—or you’re workin’ in the English department at a university in Arizona? Or all you all of those, huh? Get out of my way, Mister, you are going to hear some stories so sit down!”

  Ernie stood, limply holding a towel he was folding and dumbly watched the scene, mouth open and eyes full of surprise. He followed the pair as Dad Green moved and made an opening for Glynda to move toward the green, plastic chairs lining the window. She plopped down against the curved back and crossed her arms. “Sit, Dan, and let’s get started. Then after I tell you my life story. Get the hell out of my life and come to the laundry mat when it’s not my shift!”

  His anger subsided, and Green slid onto a seat one away from the angry laundry lady.

  Then she began a tirade of unfortunate encounters with men including her slovenly brothers for whom she said she cared while growing up, and her father, who was always too busy for his children and then that husband who knocked her up twice—then he was gone and her life? He wanted to know about her life? Yes, she had a run-in in the woods on a Halloween night. Yes, that was her fame—at least local stardom and no, no she did not know of any treasure. “You better stop listening to those teenagers and their stories, Mister. What have you been doing, hanging out at the high school? You think if I had come across some sort of treasure I’d be working in this shithole? No—I have two kids to feed and a brother to watch. What treasure? Those are just stories—stories. So leave me out of it, are you happy now, Dan Green?”

  He stood up and without saying a word, stepped softly toward his dryer and unloaded the clothes into the two paper bags—without folding them, and with his back to Glynda, walked out of the Laundromat and headed toward his apartment. While Mr. Green deliberated his next strategy, Glynda Myer returned to her booth and country western music while a befuddled Ernie frantically loaded his clothes onto a table, afraid of who or what had come over his friend, Glynda.

  Up the steps toward his small apartment, Dan turned the corner to see Rhonda Davis leaning by the door, back flat against the wall, arms crossed and foot impatiently tapping. His heart skipped a few beats. He knew she meant business.

  “Where’ve you been?” she demanded as he fumbled with his keys and dropped them. Rhonda quickly leaned over and grabbed them before Dan could snatch them up. She opened his door and went in before him. With the bags in both arms, he struggled to close the door—partially because of the awkward position or just sheer nervousness, he struggled to do it and dropped a bag to the floor, catching it with his foot. Rhonda sighed and darted to his aid, slamming the door and ordering Dan to sit down. He lumbered to the bed where he plopped down while the diminutive woman towered over him. “What’s going on here?” She glanced around the efficiency and then turned to Dan, “What have you accomplished? Nothing. Nothing at all. If you don’t produce something in five days, Dan Stanley, you are gone—and the money I’ve given you for this last month? You owe it to me. I paid you to find a map; makes friends with Donna McNally and find out where this gold could be hidden. You haven’t done shit!” Rhonda was fuming as she flung her blazer on the bed. Dan sat and stared at the woman in her slim, heeled slip-ons and shapely skirt and wondered, as she unbuttoned the sleeves of her blouse and rolled them up, if she was going to punch him.

  With arms raised across his face, he shielded himself from her. “Just a coward, Stanley. That’s all you are!”

  A knock came from the front door and Rhonda looked down on Dan, “Better get up and answer it,” she fumed, as she reached down to grab her blazer.

  Dan opened the door to find his landlady standing there with her portable phone in hand, “I’m about to call the cops! What’s all this ruckus in here?” She demanded. For her seventy-something age and scrawny figure, the woman was a match for Rhonda Davis. “Who’s this?” the landlady snorted. “She ain’t livin’ here, is she?”

  “No, Ma’am,” Rhonda answered as she brushed past the woman, “I’m not. And I am on my way out.” She strutted down the hall to the staircase and left the landlady and Dan on the threshold to his room.

  “Well, we ain’t goin’ to have more noise like that yellin’, now are we?” The landlady pointed a finger at Dan.

  “No, no. I—I don’t think we will.”

  He turned to the window to see Rhonda headed toward a nice white car parked on the street across the highway. While Rhonda slipped behind the wheel, a short, thick man on a motorcycle turned the corner and as Rhonda pulled onto the street and headed down the highway to the river, the cyclist followed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rhonda didn’t bother to look in the rearview mirror as she headed out of Burgenton. She was too busy fuming about the inept Dan Stanley, “God! What an incompetent idiot,” she muttered under her breath and reached for the radio dial, turning the knob until she found some semblance of a tune to ease her anger. In frustration, she turned it off, “Only thing is static!” she complained as she crossed the bridge toward the river, and as she slowed to turn up the hill toward the resorts, she noticed the motorcyclist on her tail. Funny, I didn’t see him before, she thought as the car wound up the road toward the resorts. Concern came over her as the cyclist nudged closer to her car, his flat fa
ce with recessed eyes squinted at her as she turned right while he jutted past her toward a dirt road that ran along the river. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the wrought iron gates a few yards in front of her and wondered why she felt anxious about the cyclist, then shrugged it off when she pulled into the parking lot and headed to the cabin. Rhonda expected to find Steven hunched over papers and waiting for her, but when she opened the door, he was nowhere to be found. “Damn it. He’s never here when I need him,” she muttered to herself as she plopped onto the sofa and kicked off her heeled slip-ons. “I wonder where he’s at. He better not be with that McNally.” She continued to grumble as she headed to the ice bucket, snagged a couple of melting hunks, plopped them into a glass and leisurely poured the Scotch over it, then returned to the sofa. With her feet on the coffee table, Rhonda leaned back and sipped her drink, eyes closed and head nestled against the softness of the sofa, she finally relaxed. “Who cares if he’s not here? He’s probably finding out more than that Dan Stanley.” With eyes closed, her thoughts moved to a woman she once knew. A story she had been told and Rhonda’s day melted into the back of the sofa while the glass slipped gently from her hand.

  In the resort restaurant, Donna had just handed the server a few bills while Steven Lucero continued to ramble about his relationship with Rhonda and how he was more than ready to return to Arizona and take a break from the woman of his dreams. “I can’t…I can’t stand her obsession with this crazy, childlike dream,” he shook his head and sighed, “I guess…I should be returning to my quarters—and Rhonda. She most likely has returned and I doubt if that Dan has come up with anything.” He stood up, pushed his chair in and motioned for Donna to go first. The two left the comfort of the air conditioning and opened the doors where a wall of humidity hit them in the face. “Gees,” the professor moaned. I can’t wait until we leave. Good bye, Donna.” With hands in pockets and eyes on the path before him, Steven sauntered back to his cabin while Donna returned to the offices to find Trevor and Evan listening to the noon news on the portable radio.

  The two stared at Donna as she walked through the door. “What’s wrong? You act like someone died?” Her mouth dropped when the words fell from her mouth because she knew that what she said may just be true. “What’s going on, guys? Huh?” Her voice full of worry as Trevor reached over and turned up the volume. Donna slunk to the arm of the couch and quietly listened as she learned that Thelma Carson’s home had been broken into and the woman had disappeared. The three of them exchanged glances before Donna asked, “Trevor—Glynda— I have to use your phone. She was going out to see Thelma. I need to see if she’s okay.”

  Trevor handed the phone to Donna and she quickly dialed the Laundromat’s number. It rang seven times before Glynda picked up, “Hello, Burgenton Laundry.”

  Donna, reassured by the sound of her friend’s voice, was quick to ask, “Glynda, did you hear about Thelma?”

  “Yea, I have. I was the one to report it, Donna. I’m scared. The whole place was creepy. And Cucumber is dead, Donna. Someone—or something killed him.

  “What—what do you think happened?”

  “Dunno. I got out of there quick and called the sheriffs and then as far as I know they got out there and well…I just came to work. I locked myself in the booth and thought I’d have some peace and quiet but shit—that Dan guy came in and was act’in all bad. I sat down with him and told him if he wanted to hear my life story, I’d tell ‘im. So I did. He finally left and I was just done with him. He—he really wanted to know about the gold in the woods but I told him they was just stories—high school kids talk that stuff.” Glynda let loose a long sigh, “I’m tired, Donna, and I just started workin’. Do you think you can stop by here on your way back to your Mom’s?

  Donna nodded at the receiver and then caught herself, “Sure. Glynda. Evan and I will come by. Would you feel better if we go there sooner than later? We can stay through your whole shift, Glynda, if that would make you feel better.” Donna glanced at Evan who was giving her a nod of approval. “Yeah, for sure we will be there—and soon. See ya, Glynda.” And she hung up the phone.

  The three of them sat in silence for a moment, but it was interrupted by the office door opening and Trevor swiftly moved from behind his desk to the front foyer. “Hi, can I help you?” he asked as he went through the open doorway. Donna could not see who was on the other side of the wall and she quickly moved to a position where she could catch a view, but neither Trevor nor the people were visible. She could hear men’s voices mumbling and became curious, so she stepped into the doorway to see what was going on. Two county sheriffs were conversing with Trevor; his back was to her and she could see the officers’ faces full of seriousness and Trevor with hands extended from his body in a series of emotional gestures. Donna wondered what was going on and the sheriffs didn’t see her, so she turned to grab some papers from the table near the doorway and entered the area as if she did not know anyone but Trevor was in the front office. “Hey, Trevor,” she spoke causally as if she were meant to be there, “Here’s the papers you asked for.”

  He jerked around and the sheriffs peered over Trevor’s shoulder. The look in Trevor’s eyes told Donna that whatever the conversation was, she was not to be a part of it and it was serious. His eyes spoke with a darkness and deepness that Donna had rarely seen, she thought—or maybe never saw from this man who was once her childhood nemesis and now her friend—maybe a better friend than his increasingly distant fiancée. Taking his hint, she added, “Oh—hey—I’ll get these to you later.”

  Quickly returning to Evan’s side, she whispered, “Shit. Something is going on with Trevor. The sheriffs are out there and he didn’t want me anywhere near them.” Donna’s voiced strained as she leaned toward her friend’s ear, “There’s more trouble, Evan. What do you think’s going on?”

  He squinted his eyes at her and then put his finger to his lips, “Shh. Come over here for a sec.” He motioned toward the corner farthest from the door.

  They crept across the room where Evan disclosed information Trevor had given him not long before Donna arrived. “Donna, Trevor’s afraid he’s in big trouble. That fella from Chicago—the one they thought killed Bob, was a bigtime investor and then them other two—you know—the man with his prissy wife at the party? He’s bad blood, Donna. Them guys are just cheats—wheeling and dealing money and they’re some of the big investors in this resort. Trevor didn’t have enough money to get all this together.” He lowered his whisper even more, “That gold sure didn’t go as far as he thought. That’s all, Donna.”

  “Oh.” It was all she could come up with as she gently placed her hand on his shoulder and motioned for quiet. Across the room and along the wall she crept toward the door to catch whatever she could of the conversation in the other room, but when she got there, it had ended and she heard the screen door shut and a huge sigh from Trevor.

  Donna jumped back from the entrance as Trevor came through the doorway, hands in pockets and head down. “Damn, guys?” he said now glancing around for the pair. Donna was closest and reached out to put her arm around his shoulder.

  “What’s going on, Trevor? Is everything okay?” She looked over at Evan who gave her a nod to keep prodding, “What did the sheriffs want?”

  His eyes, dark and deep in his creased face stared into Donna’s, “They want me to stay around and not leave the area—I told them it’s opening and I’m not going anywhere—then they asked about my investors—who they are—where they’re from—when and what was I last doing with Bob—stuff like that. I—I better call Lori Bell. Maybe it’d be better to go home and talk to her,” his hands now on his hips and face staring at the floor, saliva dribbled from the corners of his mouth, “Shit, shit, shit. I am fucked—we’re fucked. We could lose everything—and, I might go to jail. His faced creased into a series of brow frowns and Trevor’s eyes now darker as his skin paled against the brownness of his fear. “Shit!” He jerked around and headed back out the
door. The screen slammed once again and the silence of the moment was left with Donna and Evan.

  “It don’t ever end, does it, Donna? We’d best be gettin’ over to Glynda,” Evan spoke with unflappable candor. He shuffled past Donna and went out the door, “Comin’ Donna?”

  Awakening from her stupor, she quietly followed, “Yeah, I’m coming, Evan. We need to get over to Glynda’s.”

  Chapter Twenty

  With each determined step, Professor Lucero marched back to his cabin, armed with a ubiquitous reason for an early morning departure. He briskly opened the door prepared to hear complaints and angry whines from Rhonda but there were none. The petite woman was curled up on the sofa, soft lips gently parted as her head rested on the back; the drink had slipped from her hand and the amber liquid gently lapped at the glass’s rim. His anger arrested, the man surrendered to the image of this perfect creature who had claimed him for her own, and silently crept into the bedroom where he unbuttoned his sweat-drenched shirt and carefully placed it in the laundry bag. Enjoying the freedom from the heat and humidity he retreated to the cozy chair by the window.

  Beneath the pale blue eyelids of the sofa goddess, a dream came flurrying through the tormented soul of Rhonda’s memories. She stirred quietly and her mouth formed unspoken words as she recalled a time long ago. A memory that now had transformed into a subconscious dream, visiting her night after night and occupying moments of stolen midday sleep.

  “What is it Rita, a young girl sat on the misty bed with a soft yellow cover. Tell me the story again, please?