by J. L. Salter
“Very funny.” Suddenly, Beth felt chilled. “How would I know? I mean, what if I dated some college kid that belonged to a big crime family?”
“It’s not like they’d put Mafia on his student I.D.”
Who would steal a woman’s diary from her college days? And why? Beth put back the trio of day planners. “This is nuts.”
“I heard of a creepy guy who’d steal women’s shoes from under the tables in a college library somewhere.”
“What on earth for?”
Connie chuckled. “You don’t want to know, but he had fifty-nine different left shoes when he was finally caught.”
“Eeewww!”
Chapter Nine
October 6 (Thursday, morning)
Helana Harte Ross stared at her home phone before replacing it gently in the cradle. “Another salesman. Wish they wouldn’t pester me. Charley, do you remember that strange call we got?” She checked her wall calendar. “Oh, about two weeks ago?” Helana, age seventy-nine and widowed, slowly returned to the kitchen to see if her tea had finished steeping. It had. “That was the oddest call. Remember?”
No reply, but the eighteen-year-old spayed feline waddled slowly into the kitchen and listened intently. There might be some excess cream at the end of this tea preparation.
“Some man wanted to know all about my grandmother. You never met Granny Harte did you, dear?”
Charley studied the small pitcher of cool cream.
“I never would’ve imagined what that man plans to do. A book about Granny Harte! After all these years.” Helana added a generous splash of cream to her tea and stirred it slowly. “And so many questions. Where had she lived? Who did she correspond with? What did she leave to me and Johnnie?” Helana poured a bit of cream into her spoon and stiffly leaned over to share it with Charley. “I wonder what kind of papers he thought Granny might’ve left.”
With minor difficulty Charley lapped the cream from the unsteady spoon.
“I don’t know how on earth he even found me here in Lynwood. He seemed pretty disappointed that most everything had been thrown away when I was out of state. And so long ago. Thrown in the dumpster of that little grocery store near Granny’s house, I do believe.” Helana shook her head slowly. “Wonder why he cared where it was dumped?”
Charley took a final sniff of the spoon and then shuffled back to the sofa where she knew her mistress would soon return.
“I do hope his book comes in the large print too.” Helana put her spoon in the sink and trudged precariously to the sofa with her cup and saucer. “I was close to forty when she died, but I’d never found the time to ask much of anything about Granny’s exciting life. That’s a shame. She and Granddad spent a year in Japan, you know. When Daddy was just a boy.”
The cat yawned wide and clacked her teeth loudly as she finished.
“I wish Johnnie was still with us. He’d be excited about this book.” Actually, her brother was still alive, though no longer with them. Johnnie was placed in a nursing home after a bad stroke, the onset of which caused him to fall from a twenty-four-foot ladder.
Helana looked intently at Charley and then chuckled. “Oh, no. Just now, that was a salesman. I was talking about the call two weeks ago.”
Charley seemed satisfied and put her head back down.
****
Thursday mid-day
Beth still felt as though Steve was eyeing her more than usual and finally decided to do something about it. She realized she couldn’t take down the office clock, but she did hide the riverboat painting in the narrow coat closet near the back door. Steve never said a word about it, but its absence did not lessen his frequent staring.
In terms of Beth’s composure and nerves, her work shift was slightly better than the day before. With her boss’s okay, she took her lunch period away from the worksite. Beth drove about half a mile up Highway 70 to the original city park. Shaped like a wedge of pie and fronted by woods, it bordered East Street and the railroad tracks. Beth needed to get out, away, and in the open—where nobody was looking at her or following her. The park was lovely at midday and the outdoors lifted her spirits considerably, despite the drab sandwich.
Steve was out of the office for a couple of hours in the afternoon, so the rest of the day sped by painlessly. Beth went home after work, carefully locked all her doors, and took a half-hour nap.
About six o’clock, Beth was up and moving around—though not truly awake—when her phone rang. Shane again.
“Hi, Shane. I kind of figured you’d call.” Actually, she was surprised he hadn’t phoned the previous night. “So what’s up in Long Beach?” She still didn’t completely understand the reason for this rash of contacts, but she’d decided to be more civil.
“Just wondered how you were. You know, those things going on. I worry, Bethany.”
“I’m better. Connie was over last night. It was nice having somebody locked in here with me.”
There was a long silence in California. “Anything from the police yet... about your break-in?”
“Those guys won’t do anything, Shane. That place is a stinking joke.”
“You sound real tense. Did something else happen?”
How could he know? Beth started to deny it, but her sobs told a different story.
Shane waited until she settled down. “What happened, Bethany?”
She explained about the man in the dark sedan at the mall.
“Did you get a look at his plates?”
“I was just trying to get away from him!”
“I know, I know. I just wondered if he was a local or not.”
Why wouldn’t he be local? “Well, he seems to know my name.”
“Any description?”
“Sun was in my eyes.”
“But no contact? He didn’t get close?”
“No.”
“Bethany, have you got a garage or anything?”
It was through the door at the rear corner of her cottage. “Yeah. One car. Detached from the house. Plus a little storage room out back.”
“You keep them both locked?”
“Shane, I don’t need coaching on how to run my own household.” In truth, Beth had never locked either structure... hadn’t ever needed to. Might start now, however. “I’ve done quite well for myself... by myself. I certainly don’t want long-distance interrogation about security.”
“Okay, already. Sorry. Not trying to upset you anymore...” That was somebody new. The old Shane would not have put up with Beth’s sharp tongue... and certainly would not have apologized.
“I am upset, Shane, but it’s not at you. It’s everything else. I’m sorry.”
“I’m just trying to think of things to do that might help.” Shane sounded like it was painful for him not being there to protect her. “I’m just worried. Break-in... stalker. Which is why I called. Anything else you can fill in about the robber? Was it anybody you, um, recognized?”
“Recognized?”
“I just want to know what kind of creep we’re dealing with, that’s all.” Shane hemmed and hawed a bit—not like him. “You know, there’s been so many problems...”
“Are we still talking about my Verdeville situation? Or is something else going on?”
No reply.
“When we talked before, you said you’d busted your head. What happened, Shane?”
Shane mumbled a bit. Then he started explaining something nutty about one of Beth’s porcelain birds being knocked out of a box.
That’s odd. “I didn’t realize I’d left one of my birds.”
“You didn’t. This one’s new.”
“New?” Beth stared at her phone.
“Well, actually I bought it right before you left and never got a chance to give it to you.” Shane groaned softly. “So, it’s been sitting on top of my TV in its glass box.”
She was moved that he’d bought her another figurine, but she wanted an answer to her question. “Okay, so how did this painted bird hurt your head?”
; A loud sigh. “Somebody broke in.”
“You too? When?”
“A week ago. Um, Wednesday.”
Beth looked toward the wall calendar. “September twenty-eighth. That’s three days before my break-in!”
“I know.” He paused. “That’s why I called you last weekend. I mean, I’ve wanted to call before but didn’t think you’d want me to. ‘Cause you never returned those first several calls. Anyway... after my place got ransacked, I figured I ought to check on you.”
“I don’t get the connection.”
“They didn’t just break that bird’s case, Bethany. They took a picture of you.”
“What picture? Why?”
“You sitting on my Harley outside the ZZ Top concert. Don’t know why.”
“Well, I’m floored that somebody steals a picture of me from your house and somebody else comes to my house to swipe my day planner. But I don’t see any connection.”
After a long silence, he said, “The back of that picture has your address.”
“My address here?”
“Yeah, ‘fraid so, Bethany. When I found out your new address, I wrote it down where I couldn’t lose it. Never figured on somebody stealing it.”
Beth couldn’t think of a proper response, so she shifted back to Shane’s burglary. “Well, are you okay?”
“Yeah, just knocked me out. Been there before...”
“Why’d you wait so long to tell me?”
“Didn’t want to worry you.” Shane probably realized that had already back-fired. “Somebody whacked me on the head and tore my place apart while I was unconscious. When I woke up, the police were there and asking me if anything was missing. I didn’t know if anything was gone. I was barely there myself.”
“Police? In your house?” That could be bad news.
“I don’t smoke dope anymore, Bethany. I stopped that right after you left. My place is clean now.”
Clean? “Shane, is this on the level?”
“Haven’t touched anything stupid for nearly three years.”
Beth was skeptical. Shane had never been hooked on weed, but he enjoyed a joint every now and then. Who was this new Shane, and what had happened to the old one?
“Anyway, the cops just shrugged it off. My neighborhood has a lot of break-ins. They’ll just file the report and forget about it.”
“But not you.”
“It’s personal. Somebody whacked me real good. I want to know why... and who. And I plan to whack him back.”
“You made any new enemies?”
“Nope, not as far as I know,” Shane replied. “But there’s enough old ones to keep me busy.”
“So what all did your California robber take?”
“A little cash... one of my best revolvers... some ammo. And that picture...”
“With my Verdeville address.” Beth strained to make sense of things. “I can understand cash and the gun stuff, but why would anybody take that photo?”
“No idea.”
“Any other damage?”
“Just like your robber, mine rifled through a bookcase and stumbled around. Which is probably how he broke the box with the bird.”
“They don’t need travel cases anyhow. You can just as easily bundle a porcelain bird with gym socks.” Beth contemplated silently. “Well, anyway, your guy apparently wanted books just like my robber. So, any ideas who ransacked your place?”
“Nothing solid to go on, but I have a gut feeling it’s one of those tweakers.”
“Those meth-stoked dumpster divers? Why would they be pestering you... now?” She paused. “I mean, if you’re clean these days.”
“Not sure. Maybe they got used to getting some easy weed for some of their dumpster junk.”
“Shane, you don’t think it was Mutt, do you?”
“Nah. Mutt wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. But his former partner might.”
“Ricks?”
“Ricks would do whatever he had to, to get drugs... or money for drugs.”
“Is he still alive?” Beth’s eyes closed momentarily. “I thought Ricks would’ve OD’d by now.”
“Oh, he’s alive all right, but I haven’t seen him around. Ricks steers clear of me, which is good for his health. But for nearly this whole past week, I’ve been asking people if they’d seen him.”
“Probably fell into a dumpster and got hauled out to the landfill.”
Shane’s voice sounded old and weary. “You remember Sallie—used to hang out with both Ricks and Mutt. Years ago.”
“Yeah, the terrible trio of trash.”
“Well, when Mutt and Ricks had that big falling-out, Sallie went with Mutt, of course.”
“He’d be my choice too, if I wanted to consort with either of those two meth-heads.” Actually, Mutt was a reasonably nice guy on the rare occasions when he was neither ripped nor crashed. “So what about Sallie?”
“She said she ran into Ricks about a week ago. Last Wednesday, in fact.”
“Same day of your break-in...”
“Yeah, and he scared her pretty bad. Sallie said Ricks was even crazier than regular—wild talk about having a job. Ranting about leaving town the next day.”
“Who in their right mind would hire Ricks? And for what?” Her question was left hanging. “Did he actually leave?”
“Yep, supposedly the next day.”
“Any idea where he went?”
“Sallie said Ricks mentioned something about Nashville.”
“Nashville? That’s twenty-five miles from me!”
“I know. That’s why I’m coming.”
So that was Shane’s excuse to ride east. Beth gulped. “You don’t actually think he’d travel all the way to Tennessee, do you?”
“If Sallie’s info is right, Ricks left here the day after my robbery. I think Ricks is coming to you.” Shane’s throat sounded painfully dry.
“How close to Verdeville could a drugged-out dumpster diver straggle? And why would he bother?”
“Not sure why. But it’s connected to something.”
Beth’s stared at her phone through teary eyes. “Shane, you don’t need to come.” But I wish I was in your arms right now.
Silence from California. He’d probably already made up his mind.
Beth wanted someone to speak, but she didn’t have any words.
Finally, Shane broke the tension. “Bethany, did you get a close enough look at your robber to be absolutely positive it wasn’t Ricks?”
“I’m positive. Not even counting the limp. This guy had a different face, different build, shorter than Ricks. Different person altogether.” She closed her eyes to concentrate. “Besides, my robbery was Saturday, three nights after yours. That’s not enough time to get here from Long Beach unless he flew, and that meth-head couldn’t go anywhere near an airport security line.”
“You’re probably right. But Ricks would’ve had time to get there for one of those two stalker episodes.”
“I guess.” Beth shuddered.
“You said you heard his voice the second time. Right?” Shane tried to clear his throat. “What did he say?”
“I couldn’t hear too well. He just called out my name. Scared me to death... for a stranger in a car to follow me and know my name.”
“Did he sound like Ricks?”
“You may not believe this, Shane, but I hardly ever heard Ricks talk. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Don’t remember his voice.” Another shiver. “But this stalker... the voice had a vague familiarity. I still can’t place it, though.”
“Listen to me, Bethany. In case it is Ricks following you... watch yourself. Something’s different and I think he’s even more dangerous than before.” Shane seemed like he had more to say. “I’m coming to Verde-town and I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
Can you fly?
Chapter Ten
October 7 (Friday evening)
As Beth had promised, she picked-up Connie for the self defense class at the old National Gua
rd Armory, now a county community center, east on Highway 70.
Connie’s manicured fingertips lightly traced the dashboard. “You need to give this thing up, sweetie. I could get you a good trade toward a new Dodge.” She had never approved of Beth’s vehicle.
“It’s vintage, in great condition, and it’s paid for.”
Connie dropped it.
On the short drive, Beth updated her friend on the call from Shane and his probable arrival in a few days.
“I’ve been wanting to meet your biker.”
“Keep your distance.” Beth smiled, but it had teeth behind it.
Within a few moments, they reached the Armory complex. Beth flipped on her turn signal and pulled into the parking lot.
When National Guard troops still occupied the compound, it was kept up nicely. But in recent years, weeds had grown up through parking lot’s cracks and seams, the south side’s hedges had become a jungle, and the grounds were only bush-hogged monthly during the hot season.
Several of the tall pole lights had shattered lamps, though bulbs were evident near the rear entrance and atop the four posts along the front.
They’d been instructed to convene at the rear of the complex, near the former motor pool area. There was a slight chill in the air, typical of early October. It would be cold by Halloween. At a few minutes before six it was not yet dark, but it would be pitch black by the time they got out.
Five other women stood outside the back door and some hugged their own torsos. Was that due to temperature or apprehension? Beth and Connie brought the total to seven students, but no instructor was in sight. Several individuals watched expectantly toward the parking lot.
At the stroke of six o’clock, a bank of fluorescent ceiling lights flickered on inside the armory’s main hall and a dead-bolt clacked open loudly.
“Come on in, Ladies. You ready to rock-n-roll?” He was almost too handsome to believe. “I’m your instructor tonight.”
Big smile... nice teeth.
He led them a short way down the hall and opened a door into the huge bay which formerly housed nine two-and-a-half-ton army trucks. He flipped some half dozen switches and flooded the expanse with light. Several thick exercise mats were arrayed to cover an area about thirty-by-thirty feet. Four more students had appeared and followed, bringing the total class to eleven.