The Well - Book One of the Arizona Thriller Trilogy

by Sharon Sterling

  She stopped the car on the road and climbed out. Turning to her right, she noticed a few lowering clouds begin to cast dark shadows over the ridge. If they descended much further, they would engulf and obscure it. Turning to look back the way she had come, she took in a spectacular view. From up here it was a panorama. She could see as far north as the red rocks of Sedona, the Secret Mountain Wilderness to the northeast, Arizona’s Black Hills to the southwest, and on and on into the west, where mesas, plateaus and mountains layered themselves into the sky to meet the clouds, softly billowing clouds in purest white to soft, dove gray. Like the view from an airplane or the middle of an ocean, it dwarfed human existence.

  At last satiated with the numinous beauty of the landscape, she turned around. With a jolt, she descended to the mortal and mundane. Atop a weathered wooden post, a small sign said 'Old Pioneer Cemetery'. Dozens of graves lay on the slope amid jumbled rock, scrub brush and cactus.

  The cemetery was set back only a few feet from the road. One thick strand of wire served as a fence. Most of the graves were small plots outlined by native rock and instead of headstones, they were topped with rudimentary crosses of wood or two inch metal pipe. Not a blade of grass or a single tree survived in this graveyard.

  Walking along the road, she saw one grave that had collapsed and was now a three foot deep hole that ended in what looked like a tunnel dug by some animal. Repelled, she averted her eyes and within a dozen more steps spotted a few engraved headstones and some less weather-beaten crosses that displayed Latino names and dates from the 1920's through 1944.

  Had any of these people, before they were interred in this desolate plot, stood admiring the view below?

  Now her mood matched the melancholy of the venue. Natives and Hispanics had a long history here. By rights, they owned the future of the place. She and her kind were relative newcomers. Maybe they deserved no future here. Maybe she had no future here. What was she doing here, in this place and in this profession, trying to help people when she couldn’t untangle her own problems?

  Then the story came back to her. Of her own volition, she had taken the first steps on this career path, but the story had propelled her onward. This was it:

  After a particularly violent storm at sea, a man walked along the beach in the morning to find hundreds of star fish washed up by the tide. They lay dying in the sun. He began to pick them up, one by one, and throw them into the water.

  Another man came along. Seeing what the first man was doing he said, “You’re wasting your time. You can’t save them all. What you’re doing doesn’t matter.”

  The first man silently picked up another starfish and tossed it to safety. “It matters to that one.”

  She loved that story, sometimes told it to clients. She continued walking.

  The wind sprang up, raising goose bumps on her arms and down her spine. Chilled, the name Ralph VanDeusen came from no where, pierced her like an icicle in the brain. She stopped short, sending pebbles rolling under her shoes, then doubled back and returned to the car.

  While she drove home, the clouds thickened, obscuring the last light of the setting sun, sending a cold rain sputtering from the steel gray sky.

  She pulled up at the mail boxes near her apartment, the windshield wipers on high. The pounding rain didn’t deter her from getting the mail. She thought, Don’t surprise me. I have enough on my mind already.

  There were two items in the box, a business size envelope from the National Health Service Corps and another letter from Paul. Through computer searches, she had discovered that the National Health Service Corps would wipe out her college debt in exchange for a two year commitment to work in an underserved community mental health center.

  That would mean she must relocate to a different, less populated rural area, or to an inner city location where other professionals were loath to work. An old TV show had popularized the concept with a setting in Alaska but she had found there were many qualifying locations in almost every state and every large city.

  Unable to wait until she got inside, she opened the business envelope with damp fingers while drops of water fell from her forehead onto the paper. The cover letter said her application had been accepted. Next spring, in four months, they wanted her to sign a two year contract and begin a new job in a new location. It was a two year commitment.

  In her apartment, she held the unopened letter from Paul, unsure why she hadn’t discarded it. It felt different. She shed her jacket, sat down on the sofa, and opened it.

  She read in disbelief that he had found someone new, a new love, and he would not be contacting her any more unless they needed to talk about their son. At last! The note remained between her fingers while she stared at nothing.

  I should be happier. I should be happy for him and for me. Yet this strange feeling, wasn’t this a feeling of rejection worming its way into her gut? How juvenile, how pathetic! I’m damning the poor man if he does and if he doesn’t.

  Impatient with herself, she discarded the letter and went to pull on fleece exercise clothes, a worn sweat suit and light jacket. Without care or thought, oblivious to the rain falling outside, she left for a walk. She often walked after dark, feeling perfectly safe in this little town trying to become a city.

  Outside, she turned down Sixth Street toward First, where the road ran straight and long. Usually she chose a maze like but familiar path through a residential neighborhood but tonight she was in no mood to pass by a hundred cozy homes filled with happy people while she walked.

  She quickened her pace from a brisk walk to a jog. It might help her stop trying to assimilate the latest news from both the Health Service Corps and her ex-husband. Instead, she mentally replayed the earlier encounter with Doctor V.

  A relationship that had been cordial, comfortable and professional was now changed forever. When, how, and why? She had never felt the least bit attracted to Ralph VanDeusen until the past month or so.

  Maybe it started when she came back from a therapists’ training. She and some of the other therapists, along with Doctor V, chatted over coffee while she told them about the training. The presenter was from England and had one of the more educated and easy-to-understand British accents. At the end of the training session, he told his audience, “I have a plane to catch now, so it’s goodbye, my dears.” The 'my dears' sounded so ridiculously inappropriate, sweet and romantic, it melted her heart. The next day Doctor V started addressing her as 'my dear', without regard to who else might be present or listening, including his wife.

  Allie stopped short in mid-step and almost stumbled, a mental connection sparking. Most of Doctor V’s seductive behaviors had happened in his wife’s presence. Sherry had actually initiated some of the incidents. Sherry was fully complicit in this game of seduction.

  The shock of realization brought with it the self-awareness of wet feet, wet shoulders, dripping hair and the stares of people passing by in their warm, dry cars. The feeling of revulsion in her gut competed with sensations of chill and physical discomfort.

  She turned and slogged home, shivering, and went straight into the bathroom for a hot shower. By the time she toweled off, she felt almost warm again. She put on a pair of worn flannel pajamas and lay down on the bed, idly playing with the oversized foot of her son’s stuffed rabbit. For some reason, questions about Doctor V overshadowed the issues of a possible commitment to a new job and a changed relationship with her ex-husband.

  As it frequently did when she struggled with a conundrum, the I Ching came to mind. It felt comforting to start the familiar ritual of gathering the materials. After much though, she formulated her question for the oracle, 'Help me understand what’s happening with

  R.V.'.

  The coin toss yielded six lines forming a single diagram, with no changing lines; thus it did not produce a second diagram. That signified a 'pat' answer about a static situation. The answer to this question was hexagram twenty-five, named 'Innocence'. The commentary and text were about innocence o
r lack of it, guile and ulterior motives. It ended with warnings about the unintentional or unexpected.

  She read it over and over again. Could she be the innocent person? On the other hand, did this hexagram refer to Ralph V as innocent? No, she didn’t believe that, not for a second. What were the unintentional or unintended aspects of the situation? She couldn’t fathom it. She was as mentally exhausted as she was physically bone tired.

  Fatigue breached her defenses. Her emotions surfaced on a stream of tears. She scrubbed her hands across her face, as if to rub out her frustration. Damn! Her fantasies about Doctor V weren’t even the product of genuine lust. If she had any ulterior design in this whole thing, as the I Ching might have suggested, it was to achieve intimacy with an intelligent, complex and even strange man, who just happened to be married. That was hardly ulterior.

  What if the ulterior design was his? If his motive wasn’t the obvious, to initiate a sexual relationship with her, what was it?

  She put the book away, feeling as frustrated as ever. At times she thought the oracle invited her to project her own solution to supersede whatever meaning the text might have, that its ambiguity invited her to read into it whatever she wanted the facts to be.

  Then a conviction came with certainty. I Ching or no I Ching, the way to deal with this bizarre situation was simply not to indulge it. She had promised herself many times before and after the divorce that she would never have an affair with a married man. Nothing had changed. She told herself, If I can’t trust myself to keep my promises to myself, then who can trust me?

  ***

  The session was going well.

  “I think I want to talk about men today.”

  “This is your hour. We’ll talk about whatever you want to talk about. Is it one particular man or men in general?”

  “Understand one, understand them all, don’t you think?”

  “Not at all. They’re as individual as any human or any animal for that matter.”

  “I guess that's the problem. I’m trying to understand what makes one man so kind and supportive it takes you by surprise, while another is cold and uncaring”

  “Can’t you generalize to the human race, rather just the one gender? And I think you know the answer already.”

  “If you insist. It’s in their inborn characteristics, plus the way they’re raised, plus how they’ve interpreted their personal experiences. I guess we shouldn’t forget their intentions or purpose. You know, you’re not helping much with this.”

  “Ask a general question and you get a generic answer. Let’s talk about what’s bothering you.”

  “What’s bothering me is I don't understand why we’re attracted to some men who are creeps and not the least bit attracted to wonderful, sweet men, men who know how to nurture instead of dominate and control.”

  “Again I can only answer with abstractions but I do have a theory about that. Well, it’s not my theory but something I’ve heard or read. It has to do with the roles we learn. Male and female children learn to receive nurturing, but when gender differences are stereotyped, little girls know it will be their adult job to provide nurturing. They have all the dolls and all the cues from adults to help them learn how. They accept that role identity and if they also learn a little independence and competence, voila! A complete human being.

  “On the other hand, some men who are socialized with those rigid gender differences never learn or at least never perfect the nurturing role. So many are jealous of their own children because they are, in essence themselves, needy children.”

  Allie said, “I know the kind. Older, unattached men like that aren’t looking for a relationship between equals. They just want a nurse with a purse, as the saying goes.”

  The therapist laughed.

  Allie continued. “So what about what men are attracted to? The type of guy you just described wants a mommy. And while we’re at it, what type of creep wants a little kid for sex, and what type of man wants to seduce a woman just for the hell of it?”

  “So many questions. I’ll be happy to speculate, but first I want to remind you that I have a duty to report any actual or even suspected child sexual abuse if the victim or the perpetrator is known.”

  “Of course. I don’t have names of any victims or perpetrators for you.”

  “Okay then. One question at a time. It happens I have a theory about the issue of pedophilia. Let me see how to explain it...”. She paused. “You’ve heard about how newborn or newly hatched animals imprint on the first living creature they see? Well, maybe this isn’t a good analogy, but suppose a person has his or her first sexual awakening prematurely, when he’s a child himself, through sexual abuse or some other bizarre circumstance.

  “From then on he could be fixated on children of the age and gender he was at that time. Some bizarre fetishes are conceived that way, pardon the expression. It’s next to impossible to extinguish that kind of conditioning, even with intensive therapy. That’s why there are so many repeat sex offenders.”

  “Makes perfect sense. But what about the guy who isn’t fixated on, say, little blond girls between the ages of five and eight, but on any and all little kids?”

  “I would guess he may not have a fixation at all. His primary interest is the process of seducing, controlling, corrupting the innocent and vulnerable as much as satisfying his sexual urges. For perpetrators who feel inferior or inadequate in some way, power over others can be a real goal. The need to be in control is a very common human drive, but when it’s paired with lack of conscience and a hyperactive sex drive...”.

  She noticed Allie put her elbow on the chair and prop the side of her face on her hand. Allie finally said, “All that is very speculative. We could go on and on about the existence of evil, about sadism, about mental illness in general. Any or all of those things could play a part.” She sighed, then straightened her head and shook it, as if in disgust. “Yeah, I think some men, some women even, are omni-sexual, poly-sexual, herbi-sexual for that matter. They’d screw anything from a pet poodle to a potted plant.”

  Chapter 7

  Allie couldn’t sleep. She got out of bed and opened the window half way, letting in a gush of cold air then got back in bed and pulled another blanket over her, expecting the warm cocoon of bed clothes in a cooler room to lull her into sleep. It didn’t. Her mind swirled with thoughts of Paul, Doctor V, the Verde Valley, her clients, the National Health Service, memories of Long Island, and on and on. She got up and went to the kitchen to make a cup of chamomile tea.

  She returned to drink it sitting up in bed. With her lower body under the covers, sipping her tea, suddenly she was six years old again, home from school with a cold, tucked into bed with a picture book and a cup of hot chocolate. She was tempted to succumb to that kind of elementary self soothing.

  No. She put her cup down on the night table, refusing to surrender to comfort. What was wrong tonight? She sometimes had trouble sleeping on nights with a full moon, but tonight the moon was a faded, translucent crescent in a black sky. Maybe it wasn’t as much that she couldn’t sleep, as she felt she shouldn’t sleep. Why?

  Then the tornado of swirling thoughts touched down. Kim and Crystal, Kim and Crystal. Why can’t I leave them at work where they belong?

  Questioning herself didn’t calm the turmoil. Yes, Kim and Crystal. This psychological storm had their names written on it. Something was up. Something was going on with them right now, something dangerous or harmful. She got out of bed and began to pace the floor. What can I do? Call them in the middle of the night and ask what they’re up to? Call the police and say I suspect some kind of foul play, some where, involving two people I can’t name and can’t even admit are my clients? I could wait until morning and consult with a priest, a minister, another therapist. Hell, maybe a psychic?

  She quit pacing and without conscious intent reached for the I Ching. She opened it at random, something she had never done before. Hexagram forty-eight, 'A Well'. She had received this hexagr
am many times and knew what it said. 'A city may be moved, but not a well...a positive misfortune'.

  She threw the heavy book to the floor. It landed with a thud and a rustle of opened pages. A 'positive misfortune!' Crap! Another conundrum, an oxymoron, a dialectic, a bit of ancient oracle mumbo jumbo!

  When memories rose like lava, a volcano of thought, her pacing ceased. It’s January; there's a new moon in January, the anniversary Kim celebrates! The dream about a man in a well...'a city can be moved, but not a well.' It was a description of Montezuma Well! Kim and the Well!

  ***

  Kim clenched her jaw at the jolting ride on only three tires. She turned the car toward the access road and saw the gate barring it. She hesitated for a split second then accelerated into it. Two hinged metal pipes fastened with chain and padlock were no match for the Z. The gate swung open. The heavy chain lashed back, struck the top of the car’s windshield, made a starburst crack the size of a baseball then slithered and clanked across the roof and down the rear bumper. They were in!

  ***

  Allie didn’t bother with underwear. She all but ripped off her pajamas, pulled on a sweat suit, jacket and short leather boots. Out of habit, she grabbed her purse on the way out the door. The hard soles of her boots echoed in the silence of the parking lot as she made her way to her car.

  Careful not to peel out, she backed out of the parking spot and drove with both urgency and skill, turning onto Highway 89A, then the long, straight shot down 260 to I-10, where she let her foot settle onto the accelerator with a delight in speed totally unlike her.

  She took the exit at Maguireville a little too fast, the tires squealing in protest. Safely onto Beaver Creek Road, she entered the sleeping town. She slowed to a crawl down the main street, its scruffy auto repair shops and fire station deserted but brightly lit.

  Only then, making her way down the eerily silent street, did she have time to question herself. It’s one thirty a.m., for pity's sake. What am I doing in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere?