Down To The Needle

by Mary Deal

  Joe's voice sounded like he was nearly out of range. “Abi, something doesn't fit here.” Traffic noises nearly drowned out his voice.

  “What is it, Joe? Can you talk louder?”

  “I don't want to see you hurt anymore. Not by this, not by Margaret.” He didn't say anything for a few seconds. “You said three old ones. I'm sure I've seen at least a dozen of those. Wish I'd have looked through that portfolio with you there.”

  She gasped. “Where?”

  “I don't know. I distinctly remember seeing more.”

  “When?”

  “When Winn…uh, Megan…first came to my studio with her portfolio. It fell apart. Everything spilled out. There are other pieces.” His voice became faint and garbled.

  This was not the end. “Could they be in your studio?”

  “No, I brought all her stuff home and stored it in that folio in my garage. It's been standing between the same two file cabinets for—” The connection suddenly went dead.

  Events of Abi's life were again rising to a high point, like the strains of a new song, all of which she had not yet heard. She sensed it in the center of her being, like becoming enrapt in a melody and anticipating a crescendo, but this time the tune carried with it an eerie sense of foreboding.

  She had wanted to talk to Edith about the homeless woman Joe saw and mentioned it again, filling Edith in on the details. “Let's go to that place where he saw her.”

  Edith pulled back her chin in surprise and stepped away from the counter.“You want to venture into The Gulley? You, my pretty friend? It's awful scary down there.”

  “We can go in daylight, can't we.” If anyone hoped to influence any of the homeless, it would best be accomplished with Edith Armstrong beside them.

  In the stillness of the early morning with the shop not yet opened, she helped Edith load the boxes of clothing. Then alone, while again thumbing through the aging artwork and feeling edges of the pages crumble between her fingertips, intuition nudged. Not enough evidence existed for her to trudge through desperation again. Few similarities existed, perhaps, but only because of her desire to make them so. She would learn what she needed to know while keeping emotional distance. When she would confirm the inmate headed for lethal injection was not her daughter, she could welcome not having found Becky Ann this time. All she might be able to do would be to pray for Megan Winnaker. This investigation would be different than the days when she wholeheartedly threw herself into a case and created yet another disappointment for herself. Now she knew what she had to do and how far she would investigate. She needed to act quickly and get it over with.

  Tears spilled over as she gripped the edge of the counter for support. She tipped her face upwards and closed her eyes and pleaded. “Where are you, Becky Ann?”

  Chapter 7

  Edith drove her rickety service truck used when gathering and hauling food and produce to The Beacon. Everything squeaked and jiggled like it might fall apart at any moment.

  “No one will rip off this old piece of crap.” She was an amazing woman and would probably drive an eighteen-wheeler to haul larger amounts of donated food if she had one.

  “It's that bad down there?”

  Edith only glanced at her with a look of apprehension. “So you and Joe had a tiff over him keeping secrets about the inmate, huh?”

  “Not exactly a tiff. He only now told me she used to visit his studio, and that he photographed her for his exposé.”

  “That was before she got into trouble.”

  “The photo the police showed that Yates guy was the centerpiece of the entire exhibition.”

  Once Yates was conscious, the police got Joe out of bed in the still-dark hours of morning to go to his studio and sort through his photos. They found the picture of Megan Winnaker, a gloomy silhouetted shot from head to knee. Her hand was opened flat against her thigh and the Nazi SS ring was right there, the shank around the sides and underneath looking to have been wrapped with tape to make it fit her finger. The ring was the focal point emphasized out of the dimness of that photo. Though her face was shadowed and barely discernible, no doubt existed, the woman was Megan Winnaker seeming obstinate with eyes hiding heaps of disappointment.

  Edith flipped on the turn signal, glanced into the rear-view mirrors and then turned. “So Joe probably feels as responsible as the jury for sending her to prison.”

  Houses began to show deterioration the deeper they made their way through the run down northeast section of Seaport. Yards were unkempt. Trash lay in the streets, giving the area its own set of odors. Scraggly shrubs and trees hadn't been pruned in ages.

  “What if she's not guilty?”

  “You mean what if she's your daughter?”

  “Joe's adamant she's not, but suddenly clues tie this inmate's life to mine.”

  Of course, Joe didn't want any connection. He had helped her come full circle from the depths of despair. He was afraid she might easily slip back into hopelessness when she learned that Megan Winnaker was yet another stray. Surely, he must have recognized her return to strength. Abi was now more emotionally robust than she had been since the abduction occurred. In her present state, she could better handle bitter truths. Yet, when it came to the hard facts, it was not a matter of what mood she might be in, they would face any urgent issues in whatever state of mind they found themselves.

  The Supreme Court's review of the case would not be held at a standstill till they completed a personal investigation. Too, now Abi realized Joe harbored a lot of guilt about his part in the case. That, coupled with seeing the homeless woman, kept him in a less receptive frame of mind.

  “From what you say, the clues are vague.”

  “She's an artist, Edith. She's looking for family.” Her need to find her daughter was being prodded again and she could not simply turn away because the clues were uncertain.

  “Joe was trying to find her a place to live. He seemed the only one she trusted.”

  A lump came up in Abi's throat. “My Bippy could draw. As she got older, I had hoped she'd try to find me, but maybe she can't… from Death Row.”

  “What did you just call her?”

  Abi felt a little embarrassed but smiled sadly at the memory. “Bippy. That was her nickname. When she started to speak, she couldn't say Becky. It came out as Bippy, and it stuck.” Abi stared straight ahead. “It's a silly name, just something she and I shared.”

  “It's not silly.”

  “Preston hated it. He forbade me to call her that.” Abi remembered her frustration with her husband. “So it was our secret name, Becky's and mine.”

  They neared the end of a row of run-down houses. “Abi, just before her arrest, Joe was in the process of working up a showing for her. Megan Winnaker is a gifted artist.” She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Oh-oh! We're being followed.”

  “Wha-at?”

  “Leave this to me. Act natural. Keep talking.”

  Abi settled down but her senses remained on alert. “Why do you think Joe was attracted to her, or vice-versa?”

  “I think their friendship drew out the softer aspects of her personality. The leathers and shaved head, the ring, all that stuff was not the real Megan Winnaker. Underneath it all, a scared young girl worked a meager thread of sanity to hold her life together.”

  “I didn't know you knew her that well. Did you ask anything about her past?”

  “Knew her only at The Beacon. Her father died from a stroke, I learned that much.” She kept glancing into the rear-view mirror as nonchalantly as possible. “He was a skinhead. That's how she ended up with that cache of World War II memorabilia.”

  A large old sedan had tailed them. Just as they neared the end of the block, where the road dropped away from the subdivision and headed down the hill into The Gully, the sedan came along side. Two rough looking guys in the passenger side stared at them.

  Edith slowed and fumbled in one of the grocery bags on the seat and held up an apple. She gestured toward The Gully. T
he guy in the front passenger seat nodded and the sedan slowed and turned back.

  Edith's frustration came out on her breath. “Did you see what the guy in the back seat had on his lap?”

  “No, I didn't lean over that far.”

  “A revolver. Criminals. Probably patrolling their territory.”

  Abi held to the hand grip as Edith's old pickup jostled over bumps and rocks on the unpaved downgrade through scrub brush and small trees. Winter water run-off had eroded the road. “Why do they live down here?”

  “It's a sheltered area.” Edith motioned toward the low-sling cliffs. “Would be some valuable land on the cliffs overlooking this ravine if they could find a new location for the homeless.”

  “How? There are so many.”

  “It's similar to the hippies' migration to the Haight District in San Francisco in the 1960s. When a few get word of a place to live, they flock here from all over the country.” She pulled into a clearing when a couple of make-shift shacks and smoke appeared ahead. “We'll walk in from here.” She smiled like she knew exactly how to handle any situation. She was well-known not only among the homeless but among freeloaders who came for meals at The Beacon. “Keep your wits about you. This is not a nice place.”

  All Abi could think about was that she felt compelled to investigate the life of the woman in prison. Megan Winnaker certainly was not being sought as a missing person, as with previous cases in which Abi participated. With Megan it was the other way around. She was the one looking for missing family. Abi wanted to learn more. Unexpectedly, hers and Joe's lives needed some sorting out, but she could not simply turn her back on Joe's dilemma. He had always supported her in her times of need and now she needed to do all she could for him.

  Abi and Edith hobbled down a dirt road carrying a load of groceries and blankets. A steep ravine, sheltered from the wind by granite rocks and boulders and a few shade trees and bushes, announced the hellhole known as The Gully. Stench filled the air. Dirty people clothed in rags stared defiantly but soon stepped away. Some, wrapped in filthy tattered blankets, seemed in a perpetual state of shivering. Here and there, boards and blankets were strung against a rock wall for shelter, or strung between clumps of shrubbery to sleep under.

  “Edith, did you see those two guys we just passed?”

  “Yeah.” She whispered as she glanced over her shoulder. “Some people may use this place to elude the cops. Stay alert.”

  Fires burned in several rusted oil drums. A woman carrying a small boy continually rubbed the boy's bare feet and held them closer to the heat of the flame.

  The acrid odor of marijuana floated on the breeze and disguised other fetor. Filth lay everywhere, covered by cardboard boxes that possibly sheltered those near death. “This is definitely not a place you'd wanna' spend much time.” They kept walking, looking for the woman Joe had seen. They came to a place where a brown coat and a red scarf lay on a blanket in a grassy patch between some rocks.

  “Hey, what're you doing over there?” A gruff male voice sounded out of nowhere.

  Abi whirled around to see a surly disheveled hulk of a man who kept his distance while scrutinizing her and Edith. Greasy matted hair stuck to his forehead from under a tattered knit cap.

  “We wanted to speak with the woman who sleeps here.” Abi pointed toward the stained and threadbare blankets. “The lady with the brown coat and red scarf.”

  Edges of the man's clothing were frayed. The soles of his shoes were held in place with silver duct tape.

  “I saw her slip away when you walked up.” He edged nearer, bringing his own rank odor with him. He looked to have been on the street quite a while. Enlarged pores covered his cheeks; his skin had coarsened and creased, the way most people living in the elements aged. His eyes, though, seemed calm with resignation and sadness.

  “We're friends.” Abi wanted to offer her hand but Edith had earlier warned against doing so.

  “Well, most people ain't. They come out here to taunt or do worse.” He studied Edith, then her, and then his eyes lit up. “Hey, ain't you the women from The Beacon?”

  “That's right. This is Edith. I'm Abi. What's your name?”

  He lifted his shoulders a little higher, a little straighter. “DeWitt's my name.” His big cracked lips stretched into a wide smile as he looked at Edith. His eyes expressed warmth and appreciation to the woman whose meals sustained him.

  “DeWitt, we want to meet this woman.” Edith gestured to the blankets. “She left The Beacon abruptly when we tried to approach her, like she was scared.”

  He slapped his gloved hands together to keep them warm. “Whatcha' want with her?”

  “We brought some food, and these blankets.” Abi sat the heavy bag of food on the ground. A child ran past, forcibly grabbing an apple out of the grocery sack, and leaving Abi standing in shock. The boy disappeared. No one said anything.

  “Yeah.” DeWitt smiled wide again at Edith. “It's you who does the cookin' and runs the place.” Again, his big lips spread from ear to ear showing spaces where teeth used to be, and ugly discoloration of the rest. “I sure appreciate you, ma'am. We all do.”

  “Well, thank you.” Edith spoke quietly, smiled warmly and dropped her bag of groceries alongside Abi's now torn bag.

  Looking suspiciously at the full paper bags, DeWitt pointed to the ground. “You can leave those right there.”

  “But we want to make sure this particular woman gets these.”

  “Why her, if you don't know her name?” He kept eying the bags of food like he would also like a fresh apple but didn't reach for one.

  Abi no longer felt afraid of DeWitt. “That's what we're trying to learn. We want to help.”

  “That looks like enough help for a day or two.” He studied the bags and pointing to the ground again. “Just leave 'em sit right there.”

  “You can have some of the food, if you'll promise she gets the rest.”

  “Don't worry, lady. I ain't hungry right now. I been to the kitchen this morning. Besides, ain't nobody bothering June anymore, not while I'm around.”

  “Her name is June?”

  “June, cause June's when she come to this camp.”

  “June what?”

  “Just June. Out here, that's all anybody needs to know.” He pointed to the bags again. “I'll see no one lifts it.”

  Abi felt a ripple of fear. “What did you mean 'nobody bothering June anymore'?”

  DeWitt sighed heavily and shook his head. “You people. You gotta live out here to understand.”

  “We're trying.” Abi tried to sound sincere, but it seemed information was always held away, or she was simply impatience.

  “June's a woman. That can be against ya' in these places.”

  “You talking about abuse?” Edith's voice carried a tone of anger.

  “Does it matter? You coming out here with your bags of groceries and your blankets ain't gonna' change things.”

  Edith seemed offended. “Maybe, just maybe, we can change some things, even if we help only one person. Now what's happened to her?”

  A crowd had gathered but kept a distance. Not one of them seemed able to smile.

  “Well, she's a single lady out here. These women get beaten, raped.”

  Abi cringed. “I'm so sorry!”

  “June's okay, now that I took her under my wing, so to speak.”

  “Under your wing?” Abi feared the worst. Did DeWitt stake claim to her like she was some sort of property? “So now she has to submit to only one man to stay alive?”

  DeWitt stood straighter. “Oh, no, lady. You got me all wrong. Ain't all of us bad folks.” He spoke softly. “This June, she's worth lookin' out for. Got some kinda' class. Dunno where she comes from, but she sure don't belong on the street.” He sucked hard through his teeth and jerked his head. “Don't none of us belong out here.”

  Abi and Edith exchanged quick glances. They had to talk with the woman, see her up close. “Would you tell her we're friends and ask her
to come see us at The Beacon?”

  “Well, I'll tell her.”

  Abi looked around hopefully. “I wish we could have spoken.”

  “She'll be along, soon as you leave. I taught her how to protect herself real good.”

  “Okay, you take care of her then.” Edith handed him the blankets. “Get her to come see us on a Friday. Could you do that?”

  Two nights later, Edith called Abi out of the dining room to say they had a visitor at the rear door.

  Chapter 8

  A frail middle-aged woman stood huddled inside a shabby limp coat. The strong wind blew her off stance. She braced her hands on the doorjamb to steady herself.

  Edith held the door to keep it from slamming on the woman's fingers. “June? It's June, isn't it?”

  A faded red scarf was tied around her head and knotted at the throat, but stray strands of limp mousy brown hair trailed in the wind. The woman nodded and pulled the coat up closer to her face. “My friend DeWitt said I should see you.”

  The woman had dark sickly-looking reddish-brown circles around sunken, glassy eyes. If she had not been standing on her own two legs, Abi would have thought her dying.

  “Yes, June, Abi and me. You know Abi, one of the servers?” Edith moved her head sideways so June could better see inside.

  Abi peered over Edith's shoulder. “Thank you for coming, June.” She felt pangs of emotion at the etchings of hardship that showed on June's face.

  June edged closer into the stream of warm moist heat escaping through the opened doorway and tried to enter. Edith drew the door closer. “I can't let you in this way, June, you know, health department rules and all. Can you go around to the front?”

  In the dining room, the three women sat at the farthest end of a long table in the corner. The evening crowd had thinned.

  Abi needed to approach this timid soul gently but also felt a dire need for knowledge, to at least know if this woman could be Margaret. Joe's problem might be more easily solved than hers. She took a sip of coffee then spoke softly. “June, where are you from?”