by Paisley Ray
Downstairs, I heard plates clatter in the sink.
Nash shouted up the stairs, “Raz, I’m taking off. Got some business to take care of on campus. I’ll be back in an hour. Have Katie Lee call me if she gets in before that.”
Scampering into the hallway, I trod down a few steps and sat. “Where should she call you?”
Reaching inside his pocket, he pulled out a small black box. “Check me out. I got a beeper. She knows the number and Sheila has it.”
“Beeper? I thought only doctors and emergency personnel carried those.”
He tossed the gadget in the air and caught it. “When she calls the number, I get a buzz.” Turning on his heel, he gave a backward wave and I watched his backside disappear out the front door.
Nosing around in my roommate’s bedroom was very inconsiderate of me, but I couldn’t help myself, things in the house felt out of control and I wanted them to return to quasi-normal, so I decided taking a peek in Katie Lee’s room couldn’t hurt. Maybe I’d find something that would give me a clue as to where she’d gone.
If I bunked with Jet or Katie Lee, I’d have gone insane. There was a difference between the two styles of disarray. Jet’s mess grew babies and like an infestation, spread across her carpeting. Katie Lee groomed closet clutter. Besides an unmade bed and cyclone on her desk, you could see the carpet. But if you opened her walk-in closet door, wowza. You were attacked by wayward hangers, piles of rumpled clothes, and an explosion of mismatched shoes. Katie Lee won the award for clothes-hog. Although I hadn’t seen Sheila’s closet, I didn’t think it could come close.
Katie Lee’s luggage rested on a top shelf, so if she’d gone anywhere, she’d packed light. There was an ironing board leaning against cardboard boxes. What did she iron? I tipped the board forward and peeked at the top of one of the open boxes. Funny, they looked like the packages that shredded my fingers every Friday at Schleck’s. My thumbs pressed against a wood frame. “Damn it, Nash!” I should’ve known. He’d swiped paintings and stored them here.
Stepping over piles of jeans, jackets, shoes, and shirts, I removed three boxes and laid them on Katie Lee’s bedroom floor. Small and narrow, I knew the contents before I took a look, and my blood boiled. These had been nipped from the professor’s stash. Probably the missing paintings from a month ago that the professor had gotten in a huff and chewed my ass out over. Was Nash trying to implicate me? Some sort of revenge from the past when I’d enlightened Katie Lee about his infidelity freshman year?
I could put them back and keep my mouth shut. If she asked, I’d act surprised.
I was so miffed that I rough-handled the removal of a painting and a big corner piece tore away from the chunky frame. Great, now the poster was damaged. Attempting to hold the rip in place to determine if tape or glue would work, I noticed oil paint beneath. Why did I feel loyalty to Nash? Actually, I didn’t. The only reason I tolerated him was because of my friendship with Katie Lee. He could fix his own life. Peeling back the poster, I stared at a Max Beckmann canvas. I’d never packed this. The brushstrokes made the medieval figures appeared contorted. The style of his work I’d read about. Dark, decadent glamour. The quality appeared genuine.
I tore the poster of an Andy Warhol off the second frame and discovered a Paul Klee beneath. A block mosaic. Unorganized background. It was a play on shapes with limited overlap in a mixed medium of watercolor and ink. He’d been a pioneer who experimented on color theory. I buzzed around Katie Lee’s room, turning every light on so I could clearly see the details. I slid the last painting out with baited breath. On top was a Patrick Nagel art deco poster of the Duran Duran Rio cover. As much as I liked Simon Le Bon, my insides pumped adrenaline and, unable to contain myself, I tore it from the frame. George Grosz. The man had a wicked sense of humor that he illustrated in caricature drawings. I stared at a penciled nude. I wasn’t familiar with the piece. Was it the real deal?
“What ya looking at?” Sheila asked.
I held up the Grosz. “We have a problem. Nash has screwed up, Schlecks a fool, and Katie Lee is somehow caught up in their mess.”
“What’d you mean, we? You and I don’t have anything to do with them.”
“Katie Lee is our roommate.”
Sheila rolled her eyes. “Was.”
“You screwed up.”
“Hugh.”
“I have a bad feeling in the pit of my gut.”
“We’ve already been through the palaver. It was one-time, no big deal.”
“It was a huge deal. You ruined the trust between Katie Lee and Hugh, and to be honest, from all of us. This is original, museum-quality artwork in Katie Lee’s closet. It was hidden behind the posters I ship out of Schleck’s office. The connection between the professor and Katie Lee is Nash. If there is even an ounce of decency inside of you, you need to summon it to the surface and help me get to the bottom of this.”
NOTE TO SELF
Schleck’s hooked up with Jack Ray. Nash is acting all “I don’t know if that’s him.” Where is Katie Lee? She’d remember him from New Orleans.
Nash’s fingers are sticky. He’s done it again, and it happened under my eyes without me seeing.
It’s not like Schleck to blow off lectures. Maybe she’s hit midlife crisis mode?
CHAPTER 30
Running Toward Hell’s Half Acre
It wasn’t the type of rain that blew over. This one gained momentum and chased Sheila’s Fiero as she drove on the 95 South toward the South Carolina state line. Under the threatening night sky that rumbled and cracked bolts of lightning, we swerved around truck convoys crammed with full loads of logging timber. I had visions of the stripped tree trunks toppling onto her speeding red death trap. Besides a few wayward droplets, the black starless sky stayed behind us as we dashed through the night. We were fifty miles outside Savannah. I’d spent four and a half hours of togetherness in a tight space with a conquest-bragging, mouth of the south. In one long drive, I’d been subjected to a litany of something similar to nudie magazine readers’ confession letters from a very personal Sheila-perspective.
Two-thirty in the morning, and I was spreading a Thomas Guide on the table at the Yemassee Denny’s. The waitress offered menus, but we knew what we wanted.
“A cup of cocoa and a side of hash browns.”
“I’ll have the grand slam. Eggs poached, sausage, and biscuits.”
My nerves were edgy. How could she eat?
Beyond the glass window of the booth, sheets of sideways water pelted Sheila’s car. Besides the chef and the waitress, we were the only ones who braved the weather.
“How can you eat a full breakfast?”
“That drive worked up my appetite.”
Was it the drive or the sex-tale-monologue that hadn’t spared any detail, large, small?
“Do you know where we’re going?” Sheila asked.
I held my finger on the map. “It’s outside of the downtown area by the river.”
She sipped a coffee. “So what’s the plan?”
“I’m working on it.” I’d been so gung ho to get down here, that I hadn’t actually formulated a concrete step-by-step blueprint.
“This is a scouting excursion. Incognito, we pop by the office before anyone gets there. Take a look around, maybe snap some Polaroids. If we find anything out of the ordinary, we’ll report it to the authorities.”
“That’s what you came up with?”
“Basically.”
“What about shopping, fancy lunches, and hooking up?”
It had been a long day that spilled into the next.
“You lured me to drive you down here under false pretenses.”
“You came out of the goodness of your own free-wheelin’ heart. If Katie Lee is down here, your concern for her safety could help repair the relationship you shattered.”
“I don’t get what the big deal is. It was a mediocre four-minutes. So what.”
“You slept with your roommate’s boyfriend!”
“It was Hugh. He doesn’t count. Besides, he was my boyfriend first.”
“Sheila, we’ve gone over this. Enticing men out of committed relationships is not kosher.”
A waitress delivered a grand slam platter and my side of hash browns. After salting her eggs, she broke the yolks. “This trip is a dead end you know.”
Arguing with Sheila was not worth my breath. My roommates had a habit of sucking my energy. The paintings in Katie Lee’s closet and her disappearance consumed my right-brain and transmitted a bad feeling. I didn’t have anything solid, just a hunch. Maybe I should’ve stayed on campus.
“When’s the last time you spoke to Jet?”
“I said ‘hey’ when she popped in at the house.”
“A real conversation.”
Sheila stacked her breakfast on her fork like a shish-kabob: sausage, hash browns, eggs. “I thought we were on a scavenger hunt for Katie Lee. Why are you so interested in Jet?”
“When I saw her yesterday, she didn’t look so good.”
Sheila tore apart her biscuit. “Jet likes greasy nut-and-bolt types. She’s saving up to start her own place.”
“What do you mean her own place?”
“Her own fix-em shop.”
“How can she have a car shop and go to school?”
“Didn’t you know? Clay told me she dropped out months ago.”
I hated when she rendered me speechless.
WE DROVE ACROSS THE 404 on the Talmadge Cantilever Bridge between Hutchinson Island and Savannah. Below us, the river churned and above, the eye of the rainstorm caught us. Sheila pulled her foot off the gas pedal and the car crawled along what I assumed to be a lane. My window fogged and a hazy image of metal triangular trusses that suspended us one hundred feet above the swift current, flitted in and out of view. Sheila kept yawning and I worried that the predawn breakfast of champions she’d consumed lulled her senses. Taking a plunge into the Savannah River wasn’t on my to-do. The Thomas Guide lay open in my lap and I turned the air-conditioning knob to the right, blasting cool air to keep us both awake and to defog the windshield.
“We’re five minutes away. Can you manage?”
“I’m beat, Rach. Let’s find a hotel. We can be spies in the morning.”
We’d come this far.
“I want a peek when no one’s around. You can stay in the car. I’ll be quick.”
The rain and strong winds made visibility near zero. It was impossible to see the divided lanes and I worried that we’d smack into an oncoming car or truck, but hours before the sun rose, there wasn’t any traffic. Exiting the 25, we turned down Warner, a one-way street, and passed what looked like a shipping-container storage lot. The only light came from the blurry yellow glow of a few streetlamps.
“I hope this isn’t a hurricane coming in,” Sheila said.
“It’s too early.”
At the end of the road, I pointed straight ahead and we drove into a derelict warehouse district of long gray metal buildings with tin roofs. The corrugated metal siding that had been subjected to the elements hung in disrepair. A rusty sheet that flapped in the wind made a snapping sound as it flexed.
The Fiero chugged through water run-off that whooshed in the street gutters. I held my finger firm on the map while trying to spot an address somewhere on a building. “This may be a bogus address on the invoice.” I thought out loud.
“Why would Schleck have invoices with a nonexistent address?”
“Could be some kind of ghost business.”
“What?”
“I think she’s in some easy money scheme with the Baron.”
“Like one of those pyramid things. Has she recruited you to sell cleaning products?”
“I don’t think it’s a people-recruiting kind of thing.”
“And how does Katie Lee fit into all this?”
“Not sure.”
“And Nash?”
“He’s a spider, tangled in this mess. He’s the only one who could be behind those paintings in Katie Lee’s closet. What I haven’t figured out is if he’s a partner or a scavenger.”
Sheila stopped the car next to a side entrance. I leaned in toward her and rubbed a hand on her misty window. An oversized metal sliding door that blended in with building was padlocked. After settling back in my seat, I noticed her mouth hung open and her eyes were closed.
I checked the Thomas Guide and looked for landmarks. Besides a few scattered trailers around the perimeter, the building was located in a deserted lot. Twenty feet away, a rocky shore pitched into the choppy Savannah River.
Sheila’s head bobbed.
A few relic barges and a dingy tugboat were moored to a dock held up by slanted piling. Besides a phone booth that was missing its folding door and a crane with its arm swinging in the stormy wind, there was nothing remarkable about the shoreline. Reaching to the backseat, I grabbed a flashlight, my spray mace on a keychain, and Francine’s Polaroid camera that I had borrowed from her desk drawer. I’d return it before she came back from spring break. I shone the flashlight on my compass bracelet, a Christmas gift from Agent Cauldwell. The arrow teetered north. An interesting gift, but it wasn’t going to help me now.
Cranking her window down a quarter of an inch, Sheila flinched when rain dripped on the inside down her vinyl door upholstery. Quickly closing it, she reclined her seat and put her head back. “How long is this going to take?”
“Don’t fall asleep. Keep an eye out. If anyone comes around, distract them.”
“This place is deserted and besides, who’d show up in this weather?”
NOTE TO SELF
Worried that all the togetherness with Sheila will infect my immune system and disband my internal filter. Not sure there is a cure for sharing personal details with anyone who will listen.
CHAPTER 31
His Heart’s a Thumpin Gizzard
There was no porch cover, just me and the rain standing in front of a locked industrial door that had rusted at the base. From inside the front pocket of my sweatshirt I removed an oversized paperclip I’d shaped into an L. It didn’t seem like a useful item, but after watching Jet, I’d become a believer. It took practice and I’d tested the homemade gadget on our door, Stone’s campus apartment, and even the farmhouse back in Canton. Having honed my lock-picking skills, I hoped they were good enough to get past a corrosion-caked vintage Schlage. It did.
Inside the building, the air tasted like a septic potion of rotting wood and river brine. The corridor that the door opened into was windowless and at the end of the narrow blackened hallway laid double swinging doors. My flashlight swiped up and down the neglect that covered them in grime. As I moved forward, the boards beneath my feet groaned. I must have the wrong address. This place wasn’t suitable for any type of business, let alone a receiving warehouse for art. Doubting my gut feeling about this place, my chest constricted. I gave the heavy left side door a small push, but the crud-encrusted hinges resisted and I had to lean my hip and shoulder into it before I could skirt past.
My eyes were adjusting to the dark. Above me, the roof had half a dozen sections cut out and fitted with frosted plastic cutouts. In the dead of night, they didn’t help me much. Below my feet, a film stuck to my soles. In the shadows, I could make out a long piece of equipment with a rubber conveyer-belt. My thumb stroked a bolted-on metal plate engraving that read Union Page and Paper Company. Mom’s warning wasn’t lost on me. It had to be an obscure coincidence.
I walked halfway into the room when thunder from outside boomed, reverberating the warehouse walls. The jolt gave me a shudder and I dropped my flashlight. Squatting down to pick it up, the beam reflected footprints and messy scuffs that streaked the floor. Sweeping the white light, it illuminated the direction of the imprints and I followed them toward a far corner where they stopped.
If there were no locks, this place would be a refuge for homeless. The bleakness, stale air, and the derelict paper mill equipment made me jumpy. As the storm outside gat
hered momentum, the rain that fell on the metal building made a constant drumming and pinging. Detecting another distant sound intermixed, I wondered if my ears were playing tricks on me. The glow from the raised flashlight was dwarfed in the space that I estimated to be bigger than the college gym. Holding still, I pressed the light lens to my stomach and listened in the dark. I followed a murmur to a ramshackle office. Holding my mace trigger in my right hand and the flashlight in my left, I expected a squatter or an oversized rodent. Using my foot, I nudged the door open and shown the light on a sobbing body, whose wrists and feet were duct taped to a folding chair.
“Katie Lee?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, and when I pulled out the dried-saliva encrusted gag from her mouth she spoke in a raspy voice. “I never thought I’d see anyone ever again.” She closed her eyes. “Thank the Lord. How did you find me?”
Dropping to my knees, I asked, “Who did this?” and picked at the tape that secured her wrists.
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“Rachael, get me out of here.”
“I will. Keep your voice down.”
“I was outside the house one minute. From behind, someone stuffed something in my face. When I awoke, my head was pounding. I was here. Where are we?”
“In Savannah.”
“I don’t know anyone in Georgia.”
I found that hard to believe.
“How long have I been here?”
“Not sure. A day, maybe a bit longer.”
“My arms and legs are numb. Get this tape off me. I’m scared so bad I’m shaking.”
Duct tape was easier to put on than to remove and I struggled to find an end.
Why hadn’t I brought the knife Nash gifted to me?
Frustrated, I tore at it with little success, and then I remembered the paperclip.