Watkins - 01 - Blood Country

by Mary Logue

An old photograph album was on the bottom shelf. Claire paged through it. The first few photos must have been from the late forties, after Landers got out of the service. He had a full head of dark hair and was a very handsome man. A wedding picture showed him in a nice suit and his wife in a dark fitted dress with a corsage pinned to her front. She wore a small velvet hat with a net that floated in front of her face, and had small heart-shaped lips. She was much smaller than Landers and looked frail beside his robustness.

  Then there were pictures of the department store he owned in Wabasha and pictures of the house she was sitting in, but the trees were smaller, and it was painted a different color; the porch hadn’t been added on yet.

  Then she came to pictures of Fred and Darla. The date was printed on the side of the picture—1955. Darla had a wonderful full figure, and her hair was done up in a French twist. She looked smashing. Fred looked happy and goofy as ever. And Landers’ wife was sitting on the edge of the picnic table with her hands folded and her hair in tight curls on her head. Right next to her sat a young boy with dark hair and glasses.

  The last picture in the album made Claire sad—it was of Landers and his wife, just before she died. Eva sat on the couch with her arms folded over her body about a yard away from Landers. He had his arm along the back of the couch and was leaning toward her, but she was staring right at the camera. Her hair had gone completely white, and her face was set hard against him.

  Claire went into the bedroom and decided it was time to toss it, so to speak. She lifted up the mattress and found an old comb. She went through the pockets of his suits in his closet and found money and gum, old Kleenex. Just what she might expect. She was running her hand under his underclothes in his dresser when she hit a piece of paper, tucked in a back corner. She pulled it out and found herself staring at the wide face of a handsome forty-year-old woman with light brown hair that she wore in waves around her face. She had quite a bit of makeup on, bright red lips. She reminded Claire of a movie star from the forties. But the photo didn’t look that old; it looked quite recent. The colors were bright, not faded at all. At the bottom the photograph was signed, “To Landers, with love.” No name.

  Maybe this woman was why Landers’ wife had hated him the last five years of his life. Maybe he had had an affair with this good-looking gal. Claire wondered if she could find out who the woman was. She didn’t want to go around shoving the picture under people’s noses. She certainly didn’t want to besmirch Landers’ name unnecessarily. This woman certainly had nothing to do with his death—or did she? Claire would be discreet.

  Almost done with her search, she looked through the drawers of his small desk, tucked into a corner. Checkbooks—she’d take them with her. Taxes—she’d glance through those too. You found out an awful lot about someone by reading their taxes.

  Then she saw a small wastebasket shoved way under the desk, a few crumpled papers in it. She sorted through them—old coupons from the newspaper, check stubs—then found a document that had been torn into small pieces. She gathered the pieces up and put them into an empty envelope she found in the drawer. One scrap of paper caught her attention, and she smoothed it out on top of the desk. The word quit was printed on it. Worth piecing this back together to see what it had been.

  She remembered a story a questioned-document examiner had told her about a woman found hanging from a tree out in the middle of a field. At first, they found nothing when examining the crime scene, but then someone noticed a small scrap of blue paper. Police gathered up all the torn pieces of blue paper, spread out over an acre of land. When the examiner pieced the letter back together, he found it was a Dear John letter. The woman’s old lover had killed her and then torn up the letter she had sent him, tossing it to the wind.

  Claire had ducked under the desk to see if she had gotten all the pieces when someone tapped at the front door. She jerked up, bumping her head on the underside of the desk. “Damnation,” she said under her breath. Backing out carefully, she stood up and went to the door.

  Ramah waited outside the door, her face sagging with worry.

  Claire pulled the door open and asked, “Where’s Meg?”

  Ramah took a step backward and almost fell off the top step. “Oh, dear. I was afraid that’s what you were going to say.”

  Claire grabbed the old woman by the arms. ‘What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t seen her.”

  Claire shook her. “You haven’t seen her. Why didn’t you call me?”

  Ramah’s eyes flew wide open, and she sputtered, “I did. You were gone. She didn’t come to my house after school.”

  “Was she on the school bus?”

  “I don’t know.” The old woman bent over, and now Claire found herself trying to hold her up as she began to cry. “I don’t know.”

  “Did you check my house?”

  “Yes, I walked over there, and there was no sign of her.”

  Claire couldn’t take the time to comfort Ramah. Her daughter was missing. That was the only thing that mattered. “Did you call anyone?”

  “Yes, I called Stuart. He said he’d go to the park.”

  “Yes, the park, maybe she went there to play.” Claire didn’t believe it for a moment, but she heard the words coming out of her mouth. “You go home and wait for her. Maybe she’ll show up there. I’ll run down to the park and see if Stuart’s found anything.”

  Claire didn’t wait to walk with Ramah but ran out of the yard and down the street Her heart beat a horrible thunder in her chest Not Meg, she prayed, not my baby.

  She ran down the hill and saw a pile of books lying on the side of the road. She rushed over to them, and as she read the name, Meg, hand-printed in such perfect letters on the cover of the blue folder, she reached down and gathered them up.

  Claire stood in the middle of the road with her daughter’s schoolbooks in her arms, not knowing what to do. Then she knew—she would do everything possible to get her daughter back. She walked over to the side of the road and set the books down in the weeds, where they wouldn’t get run over. She and Meg could come and get them later, when all this was over.

  THE WIND CAME in off the lake, a brisk wind that whipped up the waves and blew the warmth from the air. Gulls were wheeling in the soft blue sky. Rich looked at the color and thought of how thin Wisconsin air was; not much of the golden color of the sun was held in the atmosphere. The sky was a true blue, the clouds were a solid white, and the gull he watched formed a slight apostrophe as it turned and plunged downward.

  Rich looked around and saw no little girl. He and Stuart had split up to cover the park, but they were the only ones walking along the beach, stepping over cast-up driftwood and old tires. Stuart had walked down to the other end of the point, then circled around back and joined Rich.

  “This was where I always ran away to. Did you know the steamboat used to land here? That was quite a scene,” Rich told Stuart as they stood along the shore of the lake. “Wonder what got into her, taking off. She doesn’t seem like that kind of kid. Did you run away when you were a kid?”

  “Yeah, a few times. Once I even made it to the airport by myself. I spent the afternoon watching planes take off and then called my mom with my last dime. Man, was she mad at me.”

  “God, Stuart, you don’t even run away like a normal kid. You actually went to the airport.”

  Stuart kicked a piece of driftwood. ‘Well, I wanted to go to France, didn’t I? What little fruitcake doesn’t want to go to France?”

  “I don’t think she’s down here. You can’t walk any farther along the beach.” They stood on the end of the sand beach. A gull screeched overhead.

  Stuart cupped his hands and yelled, “Meg!”

  Rich looked up the road toward town and saw Claire running toward them. He recognized her because she was still in uniform, and her hair was streaming behind her head like a black flag. She ran like someone was chasing her, but she was alone. When she stopped right in front of them, he could see her fac
e was white, as if all color had leached out of it.

  She gasped out, “Any sign of her?”

  The two men shook their heads.

  Claire took a deep breath and said, ‘We have to find her.”

  Stuart grabbed her and held her. “Claire, what’s going on here?”

  “See, this is bad,” she blurted out.

  “Meg’s going to be fine. She probably went for a walk,” Rich said to calm Claire down.

  “No,” Claire screamed. “She didn’t go for a walk. Meg doesn’t do that. She knows better.”

  Rich was stunned by the ferocity of her disclaimer.

  “Her books, I found her books lying alongside the road. I think somebody’s taken her.”

  “No, no one would do that.” Stuart tried to reassure her.

  At this, Claire forced herself to stand. “Oh, yes, they would.”

  “But why?”

  “To get at me, to hurt me. They’re killing my family.”

  BRUCE LISTENED TO Claire and almost didn’t trust his voice. She had finally called him and was asking for his help. They would be working together again. Her voice held the shrillness of fear. He needed to make sure she was not going to do anything rash. “Where are you right now?”

  “I’m in the Fort, that bar in town, using their phone. I can’t think. I don’t know what to do. I’ve called the sheriff. He’s dispatching some guys down here, but—” Her voice broke. “Bruce, could you come down? Please. Help us find Meg. No one gets how important this is. They don’t understand the danger Meg is in, but I know you do.”

  “I’m leaving right now. Stay in the vicinity. I’ll find you.” He thought for a second. “Have you talked to the bus driver yet?”

  “No, he’s still on his rounds. I’ve put a call through to his house. His wife said he’d call as soon as he got in.”

  Bruce knew Claire needed something to do, or she would lose it. Give her a task, he thought, any task that will keep her busy and make her feel like she is doing something to get Meg back. “That might be a place to start. See if you can locate him and ask him what he knows.”

  “Yes,” Claire said, “yes, the bus driver. That’s a good idea.”

  Bruce could hear she was panicking. She would be good for nothing if they lost her to that. He needed to snap her out of it. “Hey, anybody there with you?”

  “Yes, some of the guys from town have been looking for her,” Claire said faintly.

  “Put one on, would you?”

  A man’s voice came on the line. “Yeah?”

  “Who am I speaking with?”

  “Rich Haggard.”

  “Listen, Rich, this is Bruce Jacobs, detective from the Cities. Claire’s not in good shape right now.”

  “She’s real upset.”

  “What you’ve gotta do is put a jacket on her, get her to eat something, and pour a couple cups of coffee down her throat. She’s had a real shock to her system, and she needs some attention fast.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’ll be down as fast as I can come, and that’s pretty damn fast.”

  There was a pause, and then Rich said, “I don’t doubt that,” and hung up.

  BRIDGET DROVE SLOWER than usual. She would be driving along and then look down at her speedometer and notice she was puttering along at forty-five miles an hour. How unlike herself she was these days. She usually pushed the edge of the speed limit into the low sixties.

  After getting sick at the garage, she had gone home and taken a nap. When she woke up, she wasn’t nauseous anymore, but she still didn’t feel up to riding. After walking down to the paddock and feeding Jester an apple, she decided to hop in the car and go talk to Claire.

  An eagle soared overhead. She slowed down and drove right underneath it. There was no one else on the road, so it didn’t matter how slow she was driving. She leaned over the steering wheel and kept her eye on the bird. Going the same speed, she felt like she was drifting through the same air currents that were holding the bird aloft. That’s how life could be sometimes, she decided. Don’t fight, just glide in the air that comes your way. Finally the eagle tipped upward and headed up the bluff.

  She pushed her right foot into the gas pedal and stared at the tops of the trees that grew along the slough in the delta of the Chippewa. She didn’t know what kind of trees they were—after all, she was a pharmacist, not a botanist—but they were budding out red, and it was such a pretty sight. A haze of pink-red floated in the tops of the trees. She couldn’t see it directly in any one bud, but taken together they were definitely red. Spring was coming, and she herself was blooming. At the moment, she liked that idea. But sometimes when she stared directly at it—at the fact that she was carrying a living fetus inside her—she felt as if she were looking into the Grand Canyon, and if she didn’t watch it, that maw would swallow her alive.

  Claire would know what she should do, although she wouldn’t tell her what to do. She would just ask the right probing questions until Bridget saw clearly for herself the way her path lay. Claire was a good big sister. They had fought as children, and Claire had taken advantage of her, ignored her, and generally lorded over her, but once they had left the house, they had become best of friends.

  Bridget drove into the small town of Fort St. Antoine and felt the rush of pleasure she always did that her sister was safely living there. She had been so glad when Claire had left the police force in Minneapolis and moved away from that big city. As she had told Claire, “Life just doesn’t need to be that hard.”

  Bridget loved the old houses and the quaint storefronts. The town had managed to avoid the horrible disaster that occurred to many small towns—old buildings torn down to make room for new buildings—because the town went from being a prosperous town to nearly dying for about twenty years, until the artists and hippies had come into the town in the early eighties and restored the buildings without ruining them.

  For a moment, Bridget was tempted to stop at the bakery for a doughnut and then slip into the bookstore, but she kept driving up the hill to Claire’s house. Claire’s car was in the driveway, so Bridget pulled in behind it. She stepped out of her car and gave a holler, but no one answered. She walked to the door and knocked. Nothing. She opened the door and stuck her head in and called out, “Anybody home?” No response. Maybe Claire had gone to get Meg or was running an errand. She couldn’t be far, with the car right there.

  Bridget decided to sit on the front step in the spring sun and get some more freckles on her face. She patted herself on the belly. A little vitamin D from the sun to help her baby grow. Maybe she could get used to this idea that something was living inside of her. The sun felt as if it were patting her all over her body in warm, gentle strokes.

  As she was sunning herself, a pickup truck pulled up, and a guy yelled over to her, “Hey.”

  She waved and hollered “hey” back and then walked over to see what he wanted.

  “You waiting for Claire?” the red-haired man asked.

  “Yeah, you know where she is?”

  “Yeah, she went down to the park. You want a lift down there?” he asked.

  This was exactly what Bridget liked about a small town. Everybody knew everybody and everybody’s business. Nosy as all getout, but she enjoyed it. “Sure, that’d be great.”

  Bridget opened the passenger-side door and swung herself up into the cab of the truck. “You live around here?” she asked.

  “Ya, sure do,” he said and pulled out onto the road.

  “I’m Claire’s sister,” Bridget told him.

  “I wondered. You don’t look that much alike.” He headed the car down the hill.

  “Around the eyes we do.” Bridget looked over at the man. “Your hair’s even redder than mine. Mine’s more blond. I suppose everyone calls you Red.”

  “That’s right.” He gave a little laugh. “You can call me Red if you like.”

  “Okay, Red, what’s going on here?”

  He looked at her sideways.”
What do you mean?”

  “Nothing, just what’s Claire doing down in the park?”

  “I’m not really sure. Something about looking for a kid.”

  “Oh, she’s probably still working.”

  Red pulled up to the intersection of 35 and turned onto the main road. Bridget thought he was making a mistake; the town park was straight ahead. “Hey, the park is right down there.” She pointed.

  “Oh, she’s not at that park.”

  “Is she at the pullover for the Fort?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Red stepped on the gas, and Bridget sank back into the seat. She liked going fast, she just didn’t seem to be able to do it anymore.

  “Was there an accident?”