After the first few miles we come to a walking trail. From the heavy exhales and cheers around me I understand this to be the ‘easy’ part of the run. It certainly is scenic. A flattened dirt walking path wrapping around an expansive wooded area to my right and overlooks a deep crevice to my left. Locals call this crevice the canyon, but it is too small to qualify for such a distinction. Nevertheless, a wooden fence of sorts runs along its length to ward off the overly curious, as a fall over the side would prove injurious and possibly fatal.
I stick to the right side of the trail and enjoy my view into the shaded woods. With the sun beating down overhead I could use the shade, but this is my chance to make up the time I lost pulling myself up hill. Because I am at an elevation, my trek to the finish line will include a lot of downhill running and to that I very much look forward.
Along the way I see aid stations for the first time in my brief running career. For your normal street run you’ll pass a number of water stops, where you’ll find volunteers (wonderful people, all of them) pouring and handing out water. Nature runs, fraught with dangers not inherent on flat concrete, require extra precautions. These come in the form of aid stations replete with tents for shade as well as chairs and first aid for anyone who might overexert or otherwise injure herself. Although impressed with the level of thought and detail Marti put into them, I am delighted to see the tents I passed thus far are void of runners in need.
The remainder of the trail is uneventful, though beautiful and aromatic. Stax long ago pulled ahead of me so I am running this part alone. Around mile nine I make the personal decision to start spending more time in nature. But next time I’ll come alone and take it slow. Running along the winding trail, with its many twists and turns, makes me a bit dizzy at points. I know that might also be the first pangs of dehydration and I kick myself for not taking more water breaks along the way. I foolishly thought I might be able to PR. But nobody gets a personal record on a trail run, unless they’re comparing it to the times of previous runs on the same trail.
In spite of my foolish bravado I complete the run intact, albeit sweat-soaked and starving.
I find Stax sprawled in the grass, panting like a dog and pouring a bottle of water over her face. Rarely at a loss for words, Stax, in her present condition, is able to say only one word, which she repeats over and over between huffs and grunts—Pancakes.
Mmmm, pancakes. I won’t argue. I used to wonder why so many of the girls would gather for pancakes after a tough run, but now I think I get it.
As I sit in the grass recuperating with two water bottles I notice Carly and Gretchen milling about, looking like lost children in search of a parent. Carly breaks away and runs towards the parking lot where a news crew is packing up. I guess they got whatever footage they needed before I finished. Oh well, my fifteen minutes of fame will have to wait.
Gretchen runs to Marti who is talking with the finish line photographer. Whatever Gretchen tells Marti causes her face to turn from surprise to concern, and she begins making phone calls.
“Something’s wrong,” I say.
Stax’s frantic panting softens to a lewd heavy breathing. “Yeah, there’s not a fat, syrupy pancake hanging out of my face.”
“No, with Marti. Gretchen and Carly are acting all worried and now so is she.”
“What, did they misplace their Queen Bee? Maybe she decided to go solo. Let’s hope she takes her new show on the road. Far, far away from us.”
Stax can joke but I don’t find it so funny. She doesn’t know that whoever is messing with Marlene now might be a murderer from eighteen years ago. But I know. And I have to do something.
I stand from the grass and start to make my way over to Marti as Carly returns from the parking lot. I hold back as I watch Carly say something to Marti and Gretchen. Gretchen becomes excited and from my distance some yards away it appears that Marti is attempting to calm her down. She steps forward and raises her arms.
“Excuse me, everyone,” Marti says in her loudest voice this side of a scream. “I’m going to need everybody’s attention. If anybody has a few minutes to spare, we’d appreciate your help in locating someone who was running today. Her name is Marlene Petrick. Her bib number is 538 and she’s 5’9”, with long, blonde hair in a bun. She’s wearing a pink Run For It shirt and green shorts. I already called all the aid stations and they’ve not seen her. If you should locate her, please make sure I’m notified as soon as possible. Carly is calling the police now in case…something happened. Thank you, everyone.”
I look toward the forest, beyond the trail, past the trees, and imagine I see someone. Not Marlene, but a distorted figure, without a face. It holds a long pair of scissors.
And it stares back.
SEVEN
I tear my eyes away from the tree line and shake the daydream out of my head. There’s a sinking sensation in my gut I haven’t felt since Curtis told me he wanted a divorce. That might seem odd since I don’t like Marlene, but frankly speaking, I didn’t care a whole lot for Curtis by the time our marriage ended. When something bad happens to someone you know, it doesn’t matter if you like them or not, you still feel it.
Stax is up from the grass now and we both run over to where Marti is standing. A gaggle of runners collects around her and, speaking all at once, say they saw Marlene running on the track earlier but lost sight of her, or they came in from the back and are sure they would have noticed someone in distress. In short, nobody can explain her disappearance.
I overhear Carly speaking on the phone to the police. The officer asks if Marlene might have finished the run and left without being noticed. Carly observes that Marlene’s car is still in the parking lot with her purse visible inside.
If Marlene slipped and sprained an ankle she could still make her way to an aid station or at least ask a passing runner for help. If she fell and hit her head on the path she’d have been discovered and an alarm raised. Something is terribly wrong.
A small group of runners splits up to search the trail, with some entering from the finish line and others from the start line, the plan being to meet in the middle and hopefully discover Marlene along the way. Gretchen heads one group and Carly another. These runners are all much faster than myself so I stay behind. Besides, when the police officer comes I think I should be there to tell him what Gretchen shared with me in the event she is not willing to speak up.
Stax thinks it is all a bunch of drama by and for a drama queen and while I hold hope she might be right, I’m not willing to bank on it. It doesn’t take long for a police cruiser to arrive. It carries only one officer.
The badge on the outside of the blue shirt reads Diebold and the chest on the inside of the shirt says VIP gym membership. When Officer Diebold—first name Trent, I came to learn—notices the majority of the people present are women, his big chest gets a little bigger and his back a little straighter.
His actual opening line: “I understand you’ve got a little problem, ladies.”
Marti, technically the person in charge, did the talking. Chase came along but was not yet up to speed. She explains a runner—who witnesses will swear was on the trail with them—did not arrive at the other end; her car is still in the parking lot, and it is unlikely she could fall down or pass out and not be seen by passing runners.
Officer Diebold is not impressed and makes no attempt to disguise his irritation when he learns we dispatched hunting parties and didn’t bother to wait until they returned to call the police. That a crime may have been committed is beyond his comprehension. To be fair, it is beyond the comprehension of most present. But not Gretchen. Carly is cool as a cucumber, sipping her water and fiddling with her hair, but Gretchen’s eyes are like saucers flying over cheeks as red as her own hair.
“Officer Diebold,” I say, stepping forward. If Gretchen won’t speak up, then, by goodness, I will. “There’s reason to believe Marlene Petrick is in danger.”
Diebold turns his big meaty crew cut in my direction. �
��You mean besides the fact you can’t find her?”
I don’t appreciate the condescension, but I am prepared to ignore it if it means there is a chance we can bring Marlene to safety. “Yes,” I say more assertively than intended. “I believe someone is after her because—”
“Officer, you’ll have to excuse us,” interrupted a woman behind me. “We’ve all just completed a grueling run and I suppose we’ve got too much blood in our heads at the moment.”
I turn to tell this woman how the cow ate the cabbage and see it is Ruby. As a walker, she’s one of the last off the trail and has no doubt been brought up to speed about Marlene by the search parties.
Ruby is smiling grandmotherly at the officer, but for a moment she moves her eyes to meet mine. The skin around her eyes flexes and undulates. I’m not fluent in eyeball Morse code and I doubt such a thing exists, but there was a message in her look and I received it loud and clear—Shut Up.
I don’t understand why Ruby doesn’t want me to talk to the police, but for some strange reason I trust this woman I barely know. It’s not because she turned out to be an author I admire. Stephen King could walk out of the woods and tell me to stifle it and I would tell him to go play in the street. It is something more personal with Ruby. I trust her. And she apparently trusts me enough to expect me to trust her. This encouraging thought would occur to me only later.
“Is that right, ma’am?” says Officer Diebold. Since he is a young man of maybe twenty-five I forgive the ‘ma’am’. “Or do you really have something to tell me?”
I already had my response. “No, she’s right. I think I just need some water and an air conditioner.”
Lying to the police was not an item on my bucket list, but I suppose I should pencil it in so I can strike it off.
Marti’s phone rings. It is someone from one of the search parties stating the two groups met and neither were successful in finding a trace of Marlene. Marti relays this information to Officer Diebold along with the chilling observation that the fence separating the trail from the drop off into the canyon is still intact, which means it wasn’t broken through by someone tripping and falling into it. Nevertheless, Marlene could just as easily have fallen over it.
The canyon!
I can’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me. The wooden fence is only three or four feet high and serves better as a warning than as actual protection. Marlene could have fallen over the side on a tight turn and hit her head. It’s difficult to imagine an experienced runner doing such a thing, but it’s still possible. She might be lying at the bottom unconscious but otherwise all right.
I see concern cross Officer Diebold’s stiff brow for the first time. Knowing a woman may be injured is something he must take seriously. And this he does. He asks a few of the runners familiar with the off-trail walking of Chicken Hill to show him how he can get down to the bottom of the canyon. I hear a male runner mention it will take only ten minutes or so to walk to the bottom and if Marlene is there they won’t be able to miss her. Diebold calls for an ambulance as a precaution and heads off.
I allow my hopes to rise as I watch the deputy head off down the trail. Stax still can’t believe all this fuss is over Marlene and suggests we should be looking for her under a steaming pile of flapjacks. Ruby, on the other hand, shares neither my naïve optimism nor Stax’s blissful ignorance. To her, waiting for Diebold’s return is a mere formality. She knew they wouldn’t find Marlene at the bottom of the ‘canyon’.
Officer Diebold returns and releases the awaiting EMTs. He tells us he found no evidence of an injured runner or anything to suggest a crime had taken place. He did notice the large patch of wilderness dead center of the circling trail and said he thinks a search is in order. He felt it should take no more than twenty minutes to find Marlene if she is in there. But he didn’t want anyone outside of police personnel stepping foot in the woods until he ‘released the scene’.
Diebold stands at the edge of the parking lot, staring down the car entrance as though through sheer force of will he can summon of his comrades. When they show up we watch in rapt attention as the three men separate and search the woods on foot, in quadrants.
It’s only a matter of time now, I think. I might have said it out loud, as anxious as I am. If I did, Stax and Ruby chose not to comment. Stax is beginning to comprehend the gravity of the situation. Marlene must be somewhere and the only place left is a place she wouldn’t be if everything were okay. I fear any minute now the ambulance will return and a somber Officer Diebold will begin to clear the scene and take statements.
It takes a full half hour before the three officers find their way out of the dense foliage and back to the green. The news they failed to find Marlene is met with surprise and disbelief. The news they found no sign of foul play at all is met with indignation.
“Officer Diebold, you need to get back in there,” Marti says with more force than I imagined her capable of. “Get more men out here or something. A woman can’t just disappear into thin air. She’s got to be in there somewhere.”
Diebold makes the ‘settle down’ gesture with his hands and steps forward like a jungle lion anxious to exert his authority.
“All right, listen everybody. You reported a woman missing, so I came out here. You thought she might be in that ditch you call a canyon, so I looked. Wasn’t there. You said the only place left she could be is in the woods. I call my buddies in, we look. Not there. There’s no torn clothes, none of you heard a scream, nobody saw a struggle, there’s no blood … I’m sorry, but I think I’ve spent my morning investigating a crime that never happened.”
“How can you say that?” replies Marti. “You couldn’t have searched that forest too closely in the time you were in there. You can’t say there’s not a crime scene, can you?”
“Did we pick up every leaf and look up every tree? No. But the woods aren’t so thick we couldn’t see a woman in there, whether standing up or … lying down. Nothing but greens and browns in there, folks. You know, in my line of work, not finding a body is good news. I’m starting to wonder if some of you don’t want this woman to be dead.”
He said it half-jokingly, but he still said it. Dead. And the suggestion was there, however facetious, that one of us might be the culprit.
“Okay, I confess,” Stax says. “I wanted Marlene dead. But that was yesterday. Today, I just want some frickin’ pancakes.”
I thought I might have a heart attack. You never say ‘I confess’ to a cop. But Diebold’s pursed paper-thin lips begin to stretch into a smile. Stax’s ability to defuse the friction in any situation borders on the magical. Provided, that is, she isn’t the cause of the friction.
“All right, ladies,” Diebold says, backing away. “I’m out of here.”
“What do you suggest we do now?’ asks Marti.
“I suggest you take the advice of this little lady here and go get some grub. If your friend is still missing come this time tomorrow, file a missing person’s report. Until then, I suggest you not step another foot in there (points in general direction of the trails) if you don’t want to leave something behind we might end up finding.”
And with a stern look and a fast swivel, Officer Diebold is gone.
The little group surrounding us breaks up into smaller groups of two or three and moves toward their cars, their gossiping murmurs fading with their feet.
I remain behind with Stax and Ruby. My stomach pleads for food and my brain aches for answers.
“So, what now?” asks Stax.
The noonday sun beat the cool from the air and my exposed shoulders begin to sting. Poor Ruby, whose age can only be guessed at but who is far older than myself, reaches into her ancient fanny pack and withdraws a handkerchief with which she gently swabs the beads of sweat from her forehead. I notice the handkerchief is monogrammed ‘E.M.’ for Edwyn Maplethorpe.
“We need to get out of the sun,” I say. “Ruby here hasn’t even had a chance to sit down since the run.”
“There is much to discuss,” is all Ruby says.
“You two can talk your heads off, if you like, so long as it’s at the Pancake House,” offers Stax. I know that look. She is minutes away from eating her own shirt.
“I don’t think Pancake House is very private,” I say. “How about we go home, take a shower, and rendezvous later.”
“That’ll work. Larry’s closing up the bookstore at noon, so let’s say we hook up there in an hour? Or ‘rendezvous’, if you’re little Miss Fancy Pants over here. I’ll fix us something in the café. Does that work for you, Ruby?”
Stax’s light chastising of me and my sigh in response pleases Ruby. “Sounds splendid. I tend to think better after a good bath, and you know how fond I am of your store, Miss Best. It reminds me of the quaint old bookstores of my youth.”
“That’s because it is one of the quaint old bookstores of your youth, Ruby. I’m too cheap to update. And please, don’t call me Miss Best. It makes me sound like a female version of Mr. Right.”
“Oh? You prefer Juanita?”
“Not exactly. Call me Stax.”
“Why ever should I call you that?”
“It’s sort of what I go by.”
“Oh, I see. Must be a defense mechanism of sorts. Makes you feel taller, does it? Tougher perhaps? Hmmm. Very well. Stax it is, then. I’ll see you ladies at two!”
Ruby probably had no idea she just gob smacked Stax, nor would she be capable of appreciating how difficult that is to pull off. I needed the laugh, but a thought occurs to me that pushes away any humor. I have a question to ask Ruby and it can’t wait until this afternoon.
“Ruby,” I call out. Her tired legs haven’t carried her too far away.
I look around to confirm there is no one else in earshot. “Why did you stop me from telling the officer about Marlene’s scissor stalker?”
“He’ll be hearing about that soon enough. He doesn’t need to hear it from you.”
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