by Sylvia Nobel
“By doing what” he thundered, flailing his arms. “Skulking around in the dark dressed up in Halloween costumes and scaring the shit out of the jumpers when they cross the border”
I paused. “Well, unless you’re ready to accept the possibility that all of these people were snatched by extraterrestrials, then yes.”
“To what end”
“Maybe it goes beyond just scaring them.”
He cocked his head sideways. “Are you saying that you think they’re smuggling immigrants into the country, killing them, and then what Feeding their remains to the maaaad caretaker of Morita Give me a break!”
“Hmmmm! Now that’s a very interesting theory.”
Suddenly Russell Greene’s horrifying past pushed him to the top of the suspect list and his grave warning to stay away and never return took on a new and ghastly significance. If he’d not been wearing the burlap covering on his mangled face, was it possible that the first illegal and then Javier were actually describing him as the so-called bug-eyed creature But, hadn’t they both stated there had been more than one monster And what about the sharp claws Still…
He groaned and flung me a look of total frustration. “I was kidding! Jesus, Kendall, use your head. These White separatist groups and the ranchers want to keep these people out, not bring them in.”
“Maybe, but ask yourself this question. Why are all of these people having the same hallucination The fact is, Lupe’s relatives are gone and Javier’s mother is nowhere to be found. How do you explain that”
He held up a warning hand. “You know what This conversation is over. I think you’ve had a little too much of Lin Su’s herbal soup. We’ll talk later, when your head has cleared and you don’t sound quite so…delusional.”
“I am not delusional,” I snapped back, more hurt than angry. “There’s something very odd going on here. I don’t know what it is yet, but I feel it right here,” I added, poking my gut.
He rose and stomped towards the doorway. “It’s probably indigestion from the soup. I’ve got to go now and I don’t know what time I’ll be back.”
“I know this whole thing sounds crazy, but please…please don’t give up on me.”
He swung around, jamming on his hat. “You sure as hell don’t make it easy.”
I sighed. “I know. I feel terrible about the way this has all turned out. Please give me a chance to make it up to you.”
His unyielding expression sent my spirits plummeting. “Are we gonna be okay” He took a long time to answer and all at once, it seemed as if there was no oxygen in the room.
“I guess that depends on you.”
My heart stumbled over itself. “Meaning”
“That I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life being your afterthought.”
22
He may as well have slapped me. Tears stung my eyes as I listened to the harsh clatter of his boots fading down the staircase. “That’s right, just walk out as usual!” I called after him, well aware that he had the upper hand. What was I going to do Flounce out of the room and walk home If I could get my hands on the people who’d stolen my car for one second…. I pounded the pillow with my fists, not knowing which was worse, that my career was interfering with my love life or vice versa. Perhaps it was time for some serious self-analysis. Had I really given him the impression that I considered him nothing more than an afterthought Or was a certain blonde bombshell feeding this fallacy to gain advantage I didn’t even want to face the next thought, but it rammed its way into my consciousness. What exactly had just occurred Had we simply had another one of our fiery disagreements or had he just broken up with me
I reached for a tissue and was dabbing my cheeks as Lin Su breezed into the room and laid my freshly laundered clothes on the arm of the sofa. “You feel better today.” It was more a statement than a question.
“I guess,” I sniffled.
She frowned, shoving her wizened face close to mine, her deep-set eyes searching my face. She placed her hand under my armpit and then nodded with satisfaction. “Herbs chase away fever, salve brings voice back, but,” she said, eyeing me shrewdly, “body cannot heal if heart is unwell.”
Dang, the woman was intuitive. Or perhaps the simpler answer was that she’d noticed the angry thundercloud on Tally’s face when she’d passed him in the hall. Unwilling to discuss my personal life with her, I said, “I appreciate you taking such good care of me. But, what in the world was in that tea you brought me last night Physically, I feel a hundred percent better, but I still can’t seem to shake the fuzziness in my head.”
Her mouth pinched in surprise, she shook her head slowly. “Your mind should be clear, your body growing stronger.”
“If you say so, but I’ve never experienced dreams like that before and yet I sort of felt like I was still awake. It was weird.”
Wooden-faced, Lin Su snatched up the empty cup and sniffed it. Her shuttered expression hiked my uneasiness up another notch. “I wash your clothes,” she stated, pointing to my shirt and jeans.
“Thank you.”
She fluffed the pillows. “Bed rest one more day.”
As much as I appreciated her nursing skills, I had no desire to remain isolated in the stuffy little room for even one more minute. “No, I can’t. I need fresh air.” I threw back the covers.
The obstinate set of her jaw conveyed that she was unused to being challenged. “I prepare lounge in garden behind house. You rest there.”
“Really, I’m fine now.” When I stood up the wave of dizziness that washed over me was so strong I had to grab the arm of the sofa for support. I eased myself back into bed. “Guess maybe I’m not quite a hundred percent,” I confessed. “But, I have a lot of work to do. I need to call my office and…stuff.”
Was that a spark of sympathy behind her eyes “A woman named Ginger calls many times asking for you.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to me. I had a hard time reading the slanted scrawl, but was finally able to decipher that Ginger had called and cancelled all my credit cards. Thank goodness I’d left my password on the list of numbers or it wouldn’t have been possible. There was also an addendum to call her right away.
I looked up. “Is there a phone I can use”
“In hallway, but first breakfast and then hot bath.” With that she marched to the doorway, carrying the empty cup in her hands.
“Yes, ma’am,” I murmured, saluting her retreating figure. She was the most unbending person I’d ever met, but I was grateful for her steadfast devotion to my welfare.
I laid my head back against the pillow, still mentally flogging myself about Tally. Had I cooked my goose for good this time Never in my life had I felt so isolated, so powerless, so foolish. Lin Su was right about my being heartsick. That area of my chest felt raw, like it had been buffed with a sheet of coarse sandpaper. Did the Chinese have herbs to cure a broken heart
Good to her word, she returned with a light breakfast of oatmeal and fruit. Once I’d finished, she ran a steaming tub and I immersed myself in her special herbal bath powders that smelled of peppermint and cloves. My skin was pink and water logged, but I felt much improved after soaking for almost half an hour in extremely hot water. Lin Su earned a spot in my heart when I realized after I’d dried off that, not only had she washed and ironed my clothes, she’d carefully mended the rip in the thigh of my jeans. I used a few toiletries from the medicine cabinet, including perfume, and wished to heavens I had my makeup case so I could apply a little blush to my pale cheeks. I couldn’t seem to stop obsessing about the differences between me and the Golden Goddess of the Sundog Ranch.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough makeup on the planet to raise me to Bethany’s level. I stuck my tongue out at my reflection in the mirror and stepped into the hallway. As if on cue, Lin Su materialized in the doorway of Bethany’s room wearing a puzzled frown. When she saw me, she quickly slipped whatever she was
carrying into the pocket of her trousers and picked up a cup and saucer from a small table beneath an oval mirror. Having no desire to repeat last night’s psychedelic dream, followed by the foggy-brained aftereffects, I hesitated as she pressed it into my hands. “I really don’t care for any more tea right now.”
“Drink,” she stated with simple forthrightness.
Positive that the mulish gleam in her black eyes matched mine, I sensed that she had no intention of backing down although the midnight remembrance that she might have spiked the tea with something other than healing herbs flashed through my mind. But, in truth, I felt no more of a threat from her than I had from the notorious man-eater of Morita, Russell Greene. I accepted the tea with a gracious smile and took a sip.
The house seemed extra quiet as she seated me at the little phone table in an alcove near Jason’s room. Before silently descending the stairs, she volunteered that Twyla had driven to Tucson and that Tally and Bethany were busy with the guests. Good. Maybe this time I could conduct my calls in privacy.
First on the list was Dean Pierce. I wanted to let him know I was still here and hadn’t forgotten about Marmalade. Inez answered, told me he’d accompanied Twyla to Tucson and said she’d give him the message. With my phone card also a casualty of the car thieves, I had to place a collect call to the office. I braced for the barrage of questions I knew awaited me the moment Ginger answered the phone. It rang four or five times and a zing of surprise shot through me when I heard Walter Zipp’s hearty voice answer instead of hers. “What Kendall O’Dell Sure, we’ll accept.”
“Hey, Walter, how are you”
“Well, good golly Miss Molly, what the hell’s going on I’ve been trying to reach you on your cell phone since Monday afternoon.”
“It’s out of order.”
“No shit. From what Ginger’s been saying this morning, it sounds like you’re out of order too.”
That was an interesting way to put it. “Yeah, let’s just say I’ve had better days. Is Lupe back to work”
“Yeah, she’s here, but completely bummed out. She thinks it’s her fault that you got sick.”
Actually it was. “I’ll talk to her after we finish and I need to speak to Ginger too.”
A pause. “Guess she’s in the can…no wait, I think Tugg sent her out on an errand. She oughta be back soon. Hey, you want to know what I found out about the Hoggwhistle woman”
“I sure do.”
“Hang on a second.” I listened to papers rustling in the background and finished half of the spicy-tasting tea by the time he came back on the line. “You made my job pretty easy because there sure as hell weren’t any other inmates named Hoggwhistle.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Your gal served three years in Tennessee for check cashing fraud and got released about eighteen months ago.”
“Hmmm. That doesn’t sound like a crime worthy of blackmail.”
“Hang on, there’s more.”
My pulse rate gathered speed.
“You ever hear of a bad-assed dude by the name of Johnny Ray Barker”
I searched my memory bank and came up empty. “No.”
“Got a record as long as both our left legs. He’s still cooling his heels behind bars. Seems that he and Ms. Hoggwhistle made quite a killing, so to speak, running a nursing home in some little out of the way burg and hurrying along the demise of some of their ailing patients.”
“Whoa.”
“Oh, yeah. She claimed the whole thing was his idea and that it started rather innocently. When the oldsters with no close relatives died, they simply neglected to say anything to anybody and continued collecting their pension and Social Security checks. But then Johnny got greedy. At the time of their arrest, the Hoggwhistle woman admitted her part in the check cashing scheme, but swore she had nothing to do with the twenty-eight bodies they found buried under the old house.”
“Holy crap.” My stomach locked up tight. “Was she charged as an accessory”
“Yep, but it didn’t stick. When she testified against this Barker fellow, she said he threatened to kill her if she talked, and beat the tar out of her a few times to make his point. And this guy was no dummy. Like a lot of career criminals these days, he’d kept up on forensic advances and cleverly doused the bodies with lye. The level of decomposition made it hard for the DA to build a strong case. The medical examiner’s report was able to reconstruct enough to be pretty sure ten of the old folks probably died of natural causes. The rest were most likely murdered. But, they couldn’t put together enough hard evidence for the jury to convict him of killing all of them. They were, however, able to get him on one count of murder with the last old guy he’d smothered just a few days earlier since he hadn’t had time to get rid of the body. But, here’s the kicker. The authorities calculated that thousands of dollars worth of checks were cashed, but they’ve never accounted for all the money.”
“Did they pinpoint an approximate amount”
“The estimate is a couple of hundred thousand.”
A feathery tingle caressed the nape of my neck. The notion that Sister Goldenrod may have been involved in some petty crime was bad enough, but murder No wonder she feared Froggy. My mind raced back to the incident I’d witnessed last Saturday night and a horrible thought surfaced. Was it possible that under the guise of aiding the illegal immigrants she was actually the person responsible for their disappearances Was she the mastermind behind the smuggling ring, extracting large payments from the immigrants and, in lieu of providing transport, then simply disposing of them and pocketing the money Was there enough money involved to take such a huge risk “What about Froggy McQueen Anything on him”
“Haven’t had time to research him yet, but I’ll give you the web addresses and you can probably look him up yourself.”
“They wouldn’t do me much good at the moment.” He whistled with amazement when I filled him in on why my laptop was missing and why I’d had to call collect. “Man, have you ever had a run of bad luck.”
“Tell me about it.” He promised he’d get on it right away and then wished me and Tally well before transferring me to Lupe, who spent a full two minutes apologizing. “Enough!” I protested. “It’s okay. I’ll survive. How are you feeling”
“Not the best, but better.”
“You’re a sport to come into work anyway and Tugg and I both appreciate it.” When I filled her in on what Walter told me she was silent so long I thought we’d been disconnected. “Lupe What do you think”
“To think she might be the one all along makes me lose all hope. This is very terrible.”
“Yeah, but it would sure explain why she was so frosted when you brought me into the picture. Remember, even though the jury didn’t convict her of being an accessory to murder, we really don’t know to what extent she was involved.”
She paused again before adding in a quivery voice, “If she is so evil, why would she call to tell me about Javier Why would she take a chance that I might find out that she is to blame for Gilberto and my uncle to be missing And look at the way she cares so well for all the other people who come to her for help. It makes no sense.”
She made a good point. Even though I knew it would discourage her, I felt obliged to fill her in on everything else I’d found out and promised to keep her posted if I discovered anything at all that would shed light on the mystery of her missing relatives. “You may want to check in with Sister Goldenrod to find out if you can get any more information from her. You never know. She might slip and say something that would help break this case. And feel free to tell her that I’m still here at the Sundog even though I doubt she’ll be interested in talking with me again.”
“Okay,” came her gloomy response.
“Lupe, don’t give up hope yet.”
“I’m trying not to.” She thanked me again for going out on a limb, but her pessimism matched mine. I was on hold for a full minute b
efore Ginger came on the line squawking like a frightened hen. “Good gravy, girl, I been in a tizzy and a half over you! Why didn’t you call me”
“I’m sorry. My cell phone is broken and I couldn’t talk for two days.”
“Your voice sounds like a croaky old toad. What happened What kind of mess have you gone and got yourself into this time”
“It’s too long to go into now but….”
“But nothin’! You scared the ever-loving pee out of me when you didn’t show up Monday night. Round about ten o’clock I called Tally and he didn’t know anything. The next thing I know he’s calling me from some ranch down yonder telling me you’re lost. Then, he phones back yesterday and says you’re not and later, he calls and tells me your car got stolen with all your stuff, and that you’re sick as an ol’ hound dog. Y’all are supposed to be over there cuddling on the beach….”
I cut in, “Breathe, Ginger, breathe. Simmer down and I’ll explain, okay” She stayed quiet while I gave her a brief overview of what I’d been through, and then she screeched, “Me oh my oh Moses! You could have got yourself killed. Girl, can’t you stay out of trouble for two minutes”
“Apparently not.”
“So, am I understanding this right Are you saying that because y’all had another one of your tiffs, you ain’t going to California at all” Was I imagining the tinge of panic in her tone
“It was more than a tiff, Ginger. He’s really ticked off this time. I’m sure if he’d had his truck with him in my room this morning he’d have jumped into it as usual and driven it right down the stairs.”
She was uncommonly quiet for several seconds. “If I was you, I wouldn’t worry my little head none,” she sang in my ear. “When he gets over this…well, all I can say is a little bird told me that things are going to turn out just hunky-dory.”