by Tonya Kappes
He gave a slight wave to let me know he’d seen me and I waved back. Luke believed in the old way of things and coming out to pump the gas himself.
When I saw him coming out the door, I pulled down my visor and took out the gas card that belonged to the sheriff’s department.
“Mornin’, Sheriff.” Luke wiped his hands down the blue cover-alls he was wearing, which didn’t make any sense because it appeared they were just as dirty as his hands. “You fillin’ up to get the Jeep ready for the storm of the century?” he asked as we both saw his breath.
“Storm of the century?” I asked and pushed Duke away from my lap. He couldn’t contain himself to his side of the front seat when my window was rolled down. “Just a little dusting.”
Luke’s arm plunged inside of the window as he reached across me to pat Duke. A stream of bitter air came with it.
“That’s what all them meteorologist are calling it. Saying it’s just like the blizzard of 1977.” His chin lifted up and then down. “The way I figure it, I’m gonna be busy. People gonna come in here today to get gas for all their cars and generators.” He pointed over to the side of his garage. “I’ve got plenty of gas cans on hand to sell. You need one?”
“Mark my word,” I smiled and shook my head, “There’s not going to be a storm of the century. Maybe a few flakes here and there, but they’re always wrong.”
“The Farmer’s Almanac said so too.” Luke’s brows furrowed. He put his hands together and blew in them before he briskly rubbed them together. “Don’t you got one?”
“Of course, I do.” I took in a deep breath. “Doesn’t everyone in Cottonwood?” I questioned under my breath.
Everyone in my small Southern town lived and died by the Farmer’s Almanac. If you didn’t get your seeds or crops planted by the time the black ink on the pages said, your crops weren’t going to grow. But who was I to question it? I wasn’t a farmer. Just a girl in love that wasn’t going to let a few snowflakes keep her from meeting who could potentially be her future in-laws.
Just the thought of it made my stomach flip-flop and heart flutter.
“Filler’ up?” He asked.
“Please,” I said and rubbed my hands together. “And not because of the storm. I just need gas.”
There was no denying that the temps were prime for a blizzard, but the sun was out and there was no way Poppa was going to let this happen. I looked up to the sky and said a little pray in my head.
“You’re all set.” He tapped the window sill. “What night are you and the gals coming by for White Christmas this week?”
Luke Jones and his wife, Vita, also owned the only community movie theater in Cottonwood. It was run in the basement of their house. They had popcorn, sweet treats, and drinks to purchase. He had a big pull-down screen that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. On the days that it didn’t want to pull down, he used a sheet screen that was actually three king sheets that Vita sewed together. Every year he ran the old movie, White Christmas, for three or four nights during the Christmas season. My best friends, Jolee Fischer and Tibbie Bell, and I had a yearly habit of making a girls’ night out during Christmas that included our annual viewing of White Christmas at Luke’s.
“Actually, I won’t be coming. Finn invited me to Chicago to meet his family during the days you’re showing the movie.” The smile on my face got so big, I blushed. “We are going up a few days before Christmas so I’m going to miss all the fun festivities at the fairgrounds and everything.” I planted a frown on my face for effect.
“Kenni,” Luke gasped, his eyes grew big. “I knew you were going out of town, but this’ll be the first time that I can remember where you weren’t in front row with a big popcorn sprinkled with chocolate and big coke.”
“I know.” I shrugged. “I’ll have to start a new tradition with a New Year’s movie.”
“Who’s going to run our town?” The line between his brows deepened.
“The state reserve is sending someone to run the joint. I don’t anticipate anything going wrong,” I said. “He’ll be in the office today. So be nice if you see a stranger meandering around our parts.”
It wasn’t unusual for the town folk to give the riot act to any stranger in town that appeared to be gawking or a little too nosy. Gossip spread around our small town like wild fire and if I could make the temporary deputy comfortable before he got here, I was going to try. The last thing I needed when I was in Chicago was to get a call from Betty saying the people ran him out of town.
“What about the big blizzard? What if someone is trapped? Needs rescuing?” He asked.
It took everything in my power not to roll my eyes.
“Luke, mark my words, there’s not going to be a big blizzard. They haven’t gotten the weather right in years. Everything is going to be fine. I promise,” I assured him, then crossed my heart and jerked the gear shift into drive. “Duke and I are off to do the rounds.”
“Tell everyone you know to grab some milk, just in case. I’ve stocked up if Dixon’s is out.” He tapped the side of my Jeep before I took off.
There was no denying that it was going to be strange not being in Cottonwood during Christmas. I’d never not been here during Christmas. Even when I went off the college and joined the police academy, I came home every year. Change was good. At least that’s what I was telling myself.
“Kenni, Kenni.” Betty Murphy’s voice came across the walkie-talkie loud and clear.
While I held on the steering wheel with one hand, I used the other to turn down the volume on the walkie-talkie strapped to my shoulder. It was the old way of communication, which Finn had tried desperately to get us to change, but it worked.
Like my Poppa always said, why try to fix something that’s not broken?
“Go ahead,” I said after I clicked the button on the side and crossed over York Street.
“Jilly Graves needs you to come to their house right away. Leighann didn’t come home last night and it’s not like her to do that.” Betty Murphy was my dispatch operator at the department.
“Not like her to do that,” I said sarcastically and looked over at Duke. “It was totally like her to not come home.”
I reached up and clicked the button on the walkie-talkie.
“How long has Leighann been gone?” I asked, doing my civic duty.
“Since she left the Hunt Club dance last night.” Betty clicked off.
“It’s not even been twelve hours,” I said to Duke. Leighann Graves had been giving her family fits for years by sneaking out. “She’s probably at Manuel’s after they made up from last night.” I remembered how they’d gotten into that little tiff.
Duke’s big brown eyes looked at me. His tongue was sticking out with a drip of slobber while he panted.
“Are you at the department?” I asked Betty when I noticed the hands of the manual old-time clock on the dash said it was still thirty minutes until she was due to the office to start her job as dispatcher.
“Well, Jilly knew I wasn’t in the office yet and so she called me at home. I rushed right on in here so I could get ahold of you.” Betty was talking so fast, she was out of breath. “I knew you were probably off doing your rounds, and I would’ve called Finn, but he started his shift down at the Dixon’s Foodtown ringing the bell for the kettle foundation this morning. You know, the thing you volunteered him for.”
This was the time of year that I knew if the department didn’t volunteer for anything, it’d come back and bite me in the you-know-what when it was election time. Sheriff was an elected position and it was hell enough trying to get the residents to vote in a female, hard enough now that I was here and under a microscope. Luckily, we’d just gotten through an election and I was safe for another four years.
“Alrighty. I’ll run on over to the Graves’s house, though I don’t classify Leighann as missing and you know t
hat until she’s missing for a couple of days, we don’t usually take report. She’s an adult too.” I figured it was another one of Sean Graves’s ways of trying to keep control of his daughter.
Graves Towing and the Graves’s house was on the north side of town past Lulu’s Boutique. It wasn’t like it took me long to get from the south edge of town to the north edge. Driving under a few stop lights and I had made it. Since I was already heading north on Main Street, it’d be quick.
Sean Graves was a third-generation family business owner and had kept up the company. The white clapboard farmhouse on the family farm was surrounded by black Kentucky post fencing. He took pride on how nice and neat he kept the property, as he should be. It was a beautiful farm.
The tow lot was full of cars that he’d repossessed or even took in as a junk, even sold some of the parts to customers. Behind a chain-link fence was the ever-mounting pile of a junk yard.
I drove up the driveway and around the back of the big farmhouse where the entrance was to their home. Their business was located behind the house and that’s where you could see the generations of the Graves’s hard work.
Sean and Jilly had lived off the property in a small home in town while Leighann was in school, but over the past few months, they’d moved back to the farm and focused more on the business. Especially since Leighann had decided not to go to college and to continue to work with the family business instead. At least that’s what the word around town was. By that, I mean gossip.
The Sheriff’s department used Graves’s Towing a lot. We had no other choice. I didn’t mind going out there to ease their minds. After all, they’d hung signs on their fence and voted for me in both elections.
Colored Christmas lights were strung across the gutters of their house. The few bushes on each side of the front door had those nets that were made out of white Christmas lights. They had a blow-up famous cartoon character in their front yard with a beer in his hand and a Santa hat on his head. That didn’t shock me. It was a pretty typical characterization of Sean Graves. One of the good ole boys in Cottonwood.
I just shook my head and put the Jeep in park.
“Come on,” I said to Duke and patted my leg. It wasn’t unusual for him to be with me. My deputy and protector. He’d even received a medal for saving my life once and taking a bullet for me.
Duke jumped out my side and ran up to the bushes, leaving his mark on each one. I grabbed my police bag and shut the door. My bag was everything I needed when I went on a call or an investigation. No matter what type of call it was. It was easier to grab the whole thing than to get the notebook and pencil out.
“I’m guessing by the lack of the sheriff’s light, my Leighann’s disappearance isn’t that important.” Sean Graves stood at the door with bags under his eyes. He must’ve been watching for me.
“If there was someone out on the roads this early, I’d’ve used it, but I was lucky enough the roads were clear.” I wasn’t going to use the siren. I was positive that Leighann had just pulled one of her tricks again. “Which got me here quicker.”
“Get on in here.” He opened the door wide. When I took a step in, I could see Jilly sitting on the couch next to the stocked-up fire in the wood burning stove. There was a kettle on top with steam rolling out from the spout.
“Sheriff, would you like a cup of coffee?” She asked. There was a bit of fear in her that I’d not seen before when Leighann would disappear.
“That’d be great.” I pointed to the chair. “May I?”
“Of course. Sean, go get Kenni a mug out of the cupboard. Can I get something for Duke?” She asked.
“No. He’s fine.” I pointed to the ground for Duke to take his command.
“Go on, Sean.” Jilly shooed him to get me that coffee.
When I sat down, Duke laid down next to my feet. On the opposite side, I sat my bag down and unzipped it, taking out the notepad and paper.
While Jilly made sure I was comfortable, and Sean got my coffee, I wrote down the date, time and purpose of the visit so I could transfer my notes into the computer when I got back into the office.
“I got a call from Betty saying that Leighann is missing.” I took the cup and nodded a thank you. “Why do you think this is different than any other time?” I asked.
“This.” Jilly held up a cell phone. “This is Leighann’s. You and I both know that these kids today don’t put their phones down. Especially her. She’s on this thing twenty-four seven.”
“I was beginning to think it’d attached to her skin she never puts it down.” Sean offered me creamer and I held my hand up declining.
I sat the coffee on the small table next to me and took a vested interest because they did have a point, though I wasn’t thoroughly convinced Leighann was actually missing.
“We all know that the past is a proven history that Leighann has left here before.” I reminded them of all the calls before Leighann was of legal age.
“Yes. But like I said, this is her phone and she never left without it in the past.” Jilly eased herself to sit on the edge of the couch. Her hands clasped and tucked in between her knees.
“Is the phone still in your name? Do you pay the bill?” I asked and both of them nodded.
“Is it possible that she and Manuel got a phone in her name?” I asked again. “Maybe cutting some ties with you guys now that she’s legally able to leave?”
“No. Both of their phones are owned by the company. We’ve accepted that she’s out of high school and an adult. She’s going to keep dating that boy no matter what we say.” Sean seethed. Apparently, no matter what he told me, he’d not accepted their relationship and maybe not at any age.
Jilly leaned over and touched him to calm him down.
“We are open to the fact that she loves him, and we will train him and her to take over our business when we retire,” Jilly said. “Just like your parents did for us.”
“I want better for her.” Sean jerked away from Jilly and stood up. He ran his hand through his hair and paced back and forth. “You and I have a hard enough time making ends meet. What’s going to happen when we retire? They aren’t as hardworking as us.”
“This is the problem.” Jilly’s voice rose and octave. “You don’t give them a chance to even try to grow up.”
“Back to the cell phone.” I had to reel them in. “Have you talked to Manuel this morning? Is she with him?”
“No. I mean yes.” He waved his hand in the air. “She’s not with him. And yes, we’ve talked to him. That’s what worries me.” Jilly said, “Sean and I left the dance last night before they did.”
That I remembered.
“Manuel said there was some sort of argument. She and Manuel were leaving. She’d met him at the dance because he was on a call for us to pull in a repo. When they were leaving the dance, she threw the phone at him as she yelled that she didn’t want him to call her and jumped in her car. She took off. He said he drove off after her, but she was going so fast that he couldn’t keep up with her.” A look of worry set deep in Jilly’s eyes.
“He hasn’t seen her since?” I asked.
“No. And that’s not like her. You know just as much as we do the trouble we’ve had keeping her away from him even when they did fight. And they’ve had some doozies.” Jilly looked at Sean. “That’s why we tried to discourage them from dating. They have these big, blow up fights that are bad now. I can only imagine what would happen if they got married.”
“Has Manuel ever hit Leighann?” I asked only because I wanted to get a complete picture of the type of relationship they’d had.
“We don’t know. Leighann would never confess to anything. She says that they love each other so much that they fight.” She scoffed, “Who ever heard alike?”
“Do you believe him when he says he’s not seen her?” I questioned, keeping in mind that their opinion of him wa
s a bit skewed.
“We don’t know what to believe. After she graduated, we sat down with her and told her that we approved of her relationship. She didn’t have to go to college and she could learn the business. She was pleased with that. When she and Manuel started working together every day, side by side, we noticed she’d gotten a little more distanced from him. Last year, she’d jump in the cab of the tow truck and go all day long when she was off a day from school. Now we have to beg her to go help him.” Sean’s lips pulled in and snugged up against his teeth. “I feel like something is wrong. I don’t know if he had anything to do with it, but I can’t find her. After he showed up here with this phone and said she never came to his house, he got worried and came here to see if she’d come home.”
“We checked her phone. There’s no unusual activity or calls and even her text messages are fine.” Jilly sucked in a deep breath.
“Can I take her phone with me?” I asked. They readily handed it over to me. “If we can’t find Leighann, which I’m sure we will, I can subpoena the records of the phone. Last ping. Those types of things. Is there any particular place she goes when she’s upset or angry that you might know about?”
“She and Manuel liked to go down to the river over at Chimney Rock, but I drove over there this morning after Manuel had come by. Granted, it was dark out, but I didn’t see her car.” Sean frowned. “I asked Manuel about Chimney Rock and he said that he didn’t have plans to go there with her either.”
“I’ll go speak to Manuel. I also witnessed that argument last night. I even talked to them. There were a few other kids standing around. I’ll go see the other kids involved. In the meantime,” I put my note pad and Leighann’s phone back in my bag. I pushed myself up to stand. Duke jumped up and trotted over to their door. “If you do hear from her, please call my cell immediately.”
I took a business card with my cell phone printed on it and handed it to Sean.
“Thank you, Kenni.” Sean walked me to the door. “If anyone can talk to Manuel and figure out what he might be hiding, it’s you.”