by Doc Macomber
His final stop was down by the Pumpkin Patch. On a stretch of deserted road Colefield pressed the accelerator to the floor. The old truck was running the best it had in years thanks to Tom Farmer. He looked down at the speedometer as the needle climbed to the 80 mph mark before he lifted his foot off the accelerator and let the truck coast. Up ahead, about a quarter-mile, he slowed down to a crawl and turned into the dirt drive of his old homestead and parked. From the cab of his truck he had a view of the entire house.
The roof was in rough shape. A number of shingles had blown off recently and the paint had become so faded you could barely tell that at one time it had been blue – a color his mother always associated with her childhood memories of Cape Cod. Tall spindly grass snaked up through cracks in the rotting porch. On the side of the house that he could see, broken glass glinted on the ground, where someone had broken out a window. The weed choked yard that surrounded the property hadn’t been mowed in years. A real estate agent he dated for a short while before Jill had told him about a family and their plans to buy the place from a retired railroad worker. He’d lost his wife to cancer and moved in with his daughter in Scottsdale where he eventually died. He had left the house to his daughter who had no desire for fixing up the place and had no toleration for Oregon’s rain-soaked weather. Instead, she allowed the house to rot away which was just fine with Colefield. Let the past be the past, he liked to say. Yet he couldn’t free himself from stopping by the decaying property whenever he was in the area, and still reacting to events long gone from his life.
Chapter 27
Since his parents had migrated from the Midwest where the threat of tornadoes was a common fact of life, his father had insisted on building a storm shelter at the back of the property. Nothing more than an underground bunker with dirt walls reinforced with stout lumber. When the Cold War period entered history, his father had started to store food there and added a 500-gallon storage tank that could hold enough water for the family to survive for a month if all hell broke out between the US and Russia.
Yet, the only time they should have used it, they didn’t. When a severe windstorm hit the area on February 13th 1979, his entire bedroom wall had been torn off the house – a room that he shared with his younger brother, Kenny. Record winds had split a giant oak which came crashing down through the roof and onto their beds, narrowly missing him and crushing his brother’s arm.
Colefield walked to the back of the house and stared at the ragged patch on the roof, and then at the dead severed oak, still rattling menacingly against the winter sky. He eyeballed the bedroom through the broken window. Vagrants had obviously made themselves at home inside, though he couldn’t imagine most homeless folks bunking in 20 miles from any city services.
Unless they didn’t want to be found…
He wondered if this house had been part of the search. As he turned toward his truck, his eyes spotted the lipstick tube among the shards of glass at his feet. He stooped and retrieved it with his shirt sleeve and removed the cap – a violet tongue glistened. He remembered his mother’s lipstick taking on that shape after she swiped it back and forth on her closed lips day after day. But purple was not her color. So this is another place where Penny hid out. Maybe Jeb too. But where were they now?
He’d have to get a team out here to process this place for evidence and clues. He moved toward the storm shelter. It was locked, but someone had replaced the old rusted chain. It had been cut off and lay in a pile on the ground. A new heavier chain and modern lock had been attached in its place. A realtor had probably done it in case somebody wanted a look down below. Who knew where the original key was.
He approached the bunker and rattled the new chain. It was stout and secure. So was the door it safeguarded. His dad had spared no expense building the door to the bunker. Colefield figured old aged timber like this was probably worth some money in today’s market, where recycling wood was a growing trend in remodeling. He leaned forward to inspect the timber. Shit, somebody had carved it up. Kids! He had to admit he’d carved his name in more than few trees in his day. He brushed the surface free of dirt and debris, revealing a ragged “R”. His throat tightened. It was freshly carved. He kept rubbing the wood, but nothing else appeared. The final letter stared up at him. God, don’t let him be too late again. He pounded on the door.
It was faint at first but what sounded like a cry came from inside the bunker. A young girl’s voice, strained and very weak.
“Penny! It’s Deputy Colefield!”
A moan crescendoed through the door.
“I have some tools in my truck. I’ll be right back!”
Penny screamed an unearthly sound.
There was no time for tools. “Step back from the door. I’m going to shoot the lock off! You understand?”
He pulled out his Glock, pointed it at the padlock and pulled the trigger. His ears echoed and roared as the bullet broke the steel open like a cracked egg. Within seconds he had it pried off and the chain undone. He pulled back the heavy doors and a wave of decay rolled out into the light of day.
“Penny!”
He started down the stairs. With each step darkness grew like a wall around him. When he reached the bottom, he detected movement against the back wall. The darkness enveloped everything. He squatted down to allow more light to filter into the room. The floor undulated as squealing rats scattered and panicked.
“Penny?”
“Help me!” Penny’s plaintive voice was a whisper.
“Come toward me, toward the light.”
“I’m too weak. I won’t make it.”
“OK. Just stay where you are. I’ll get you.”
He tried to remember if there had been a lantern or candles in the bunker. But for the life of him, he couldn’t. This was the only time he regretted not taking up smoking. At least then he would have had a match or a lighter. A tactical flashlight was part of his River Patrol uniform. But it did him no good now since the flashlight was attached to his Kevlar vest back at the office.
He allowed his eyes to adjust briefly and then moved forward until he sensed he was within arm’s reach. And then she screamed again as she sacrificed another morsel of flesh to the scurrying vermin.
Colefield kicked wildly with his feet, then lunged forward and scooped her up into his arms.
He couldn’t risk putting her down. She felt like spaghetti. Muscling up the flight of stairs toward daylight, the rats following them like some twisted Pied Piper scene.
He carried her to the bed of his truck and gently placed her on her side.
Her clothing was torn and dirty. Her lips cracked and split. The piercing was gone, replaced with a boil-like sore. She wore no shoes and her arms and legs bled from open wounds. Her feet were black with crusted blood. Rat bites, probably. Her nails were torn and the tips of her fingers raw as if she had been trying to dig herself to freedom. Her face nearly black with soot was unrecognizable as the youthful girl he had met a week ago. He desired to clean and bandage her, but was acutely aware that her entire person was a crime scene and needed to be properly processed.
The bright light overpowered her enlarged pupils. “I can’t see...”
“Hold on!” Colefield blocked the sun with his arm.
It took her a moment to adjust from the darkness before she could fully focus. When she did, she still had a mole-like squint.
“It’s darker in the cab.”
He scooped her up again and after he placed her inside the cab on the bench seat, he stayed close by propping her up. She had a far-away expression, rolling her head from side to side, mumbling incoherently as he poured water over her cracked lips and down her throat.
He laid her head back and told her to close her eyes. Then he quietly closed the door, hurried to the driver’s side climbed in behind the wheel and sped toward the Scarbough estate.
Chapter 28
Finding the missing girl alive was the lead story on the 5 o’clock news, coupled with the picture taken
earlier of Jeb and Colefield after the river rescue. But by the following morning, bloggers and conspiracy nuts had begun their own “investigations”.
“There’s No Place Like Home” was the headline on the front page of The Oregonian, the following morning, which highlighted the fact that Colefield was on administrative leave at the time of the rescue, and that the missing girl was found on property once owned by his family. The Columbian ran with the original river rescue story, which included an interview with the Sea Scout Master in which he detailed that his ship was commandeered by Colefield and that his stalking of the Scarbough boy had set up the entire near drowning event. The Sellwood Bee said that Colefield was in the wind and missing from his moorage. The Northwest Examiner wanted to run an article because for all practical purposes he currently resided in the Pearl, however brief his stay on the 9th floor might turn out to be. Everyone wanted a piece of him – opinion was evenly divided. Colefield was either a reluctant hero or a cunning out of control cop.
The FBI put up a steel wall and refused to discuss the case. The Mayor was apoplectic when his name was mentioned in some stories that he had pushed the officer to the breaking point in order to have good PR for his upcoming primary.
Colefield bunkered down in the Pearl, with the blessed Sally Ashley supplying food and succor. Jack the cat was the benefactor of $5 a can “Rad Cat” cat food, which Sally fed her own felines. Word was that Penny was conscious and improving daily, and that she had been debriefed on the matter and was cooperating fully with the authorities. This of course only put more gasoline on the fire for the press, who were only too eager to follow any thread no matter how tiny. The headline “No Shelter From The Storm” detailed how the police were pressuring the still traumatized and vulnerable girl to bend the story their way.
While Portland burned through the juicy details, Colefield himself tried to make sense of it all. To lock her up on his old homestead – the very last place he would think to look had been brilliantly diabolical, Colefield thought. And if he hadn’t gotten Tom Farmer’s call to pick up his truck, she wouldn’t have been found alive, and could have turned into dust before anyone opened the shelter door. If anyone ever did.
Jeb had been there with his grandfather when he recognized Colefield. It wasn’t a big leap to figure out how the idea hatched. The matter of purchasing a new lock and chain had probably been the final piece of the puzzle. He’d called Harvey with that detail. If Jeb bought the lock, it was tangible evidence that he was directly implicated in the abduction and attempted murder of his sister.
The hunt was still on for Jeb Scarbough. He’d been missing in action ever since his father’s escape and his mother’s overdose. The press and public have short attention spans. After a week of ever decreasing headlines, and no new information, the tale finally ran out of rope.
The following Monday, Colefield was called back to work. The consequences of his actions while placed on administrative leave were still up in the air.
“Welcome back.” The Lieutenant shook Colefield’s hand. “If I had any brains at all, I’d be suspending you for disobeying my direct order to stay out of the case.”
“Yes sir,” Colefield replied.
“Now get out of my office and get back to work before I change my mind.”
Colefield sat at his desk at the Columbia River Marine Patrol office, littered with stained phone messages and empty coffee cups, having become a de facto dumping ground in his absence. Bart and Weaver were out on a distress call when he arrived. A boater had gone aground near the eastern tip of Tomahawk Island. Not that unusual of a mishap given the shallow sand bar in that area. What made it pressing was that the boater had left his heart medication back at the marina and he was having chest pains. He needed his nitroglycerin pills and this required a tad more urgency.
When the men returned to the office, Colefield was still sitting at his desk making little piles of various notes and messages. He had not moved a finger to throw out the refuse.
Bart took off his jacket and slung it over the back of his chair while Weaver went into the shop to talk to the mechanic about a run-ability issue with the boat. A transmission cable, they thought, had gone out of adjustment making it difficult to shift into gear.
“Welcome back Red.” Bart slapped Colefield on the back as he walked over to mess with the marine radio.
“You OK?” Bart asked.
“What?” Colefield stared at a note in his hand.
“I said, are you OK?”
“I’m just looking over my phone messages.” He pointed to three piles stacked in front of him. “This large pile is people that want me finished, figuratively, literally or both.”
Colefield shifted to the middle pile. “Now these folks are folks that want to help me.”
“That’s good right?” Bart enthused.
“Not really. These are the lawyers and other bottom feeders that always wash up to pick over a carcass.”
Colefield held up two pieces of paper in the scant third pile. “This one is from my mom and dad telling me they love me and this one is from my crotchety landlord, telling me to ‘shoot all the bastards’.”
Colefield shook his head slowly. “When I look at this, it makes me realize that real friends are few and far between.”
“We weren’t allowed to contact you.” Bart’s face flushed.
“Officially,” Colefield said.
“You’re right. I should have called you but I didn’t know what to say. We weren’t allowed to discuss the case, and that was all anybody was talking about.”
“It’s OK, Bart. You know how lame I am? I was looking for a note from Jill or Tam.”
Bart looked surprised. “Jill told me you blew her off.”
“And Agent Costa was a married woman here on official business.” Colefield felt like a complete schmuck. Shaking it off, he stood up and put his jacket on.
“Where are you going?” Bart asked.
“I need some fresh air. I’m going to fix the gutter. I’m tired of listening to it rattle.” Colefield hit the door.
The wind had kicked up and the gutter was banging on the siding chipping the paint. It irked Colefield that none of the other deputies had made the repair while he was off duty.
The extension ladder was in its usual place leaning against the backside of the building under weeds. He pulled it out, carried it around to the front of the building, and stood it upright.
After retrieving a few tools and a pair of binoculars from the garage, he climbed up onto the roof. The shingles had slimy green gobs of mold sprouting up everywhere. It was a little tricky going but he managed to climb to the crest and take in the expansive view.
From this height he could see for miles. Looking through the binoculars he scanned the highway, the open field across the street, and then the parking lot of the Sextant Bar. He tried not to think about Jill but she was on his mind, what could he say?
About then a silver Mercedes pulled into the empty overflow parking lot of the Sextant and parked. There were two passengers inside. The driver was a handsome enough guy, with gold rimmed glasses and a smart polo shirt. The passenger, a slender blonde, was busy reaching behind the seat searching for her purse, Colefield presumed. When she was finished and turned back around, he dialed in the focus. His heart skipped a beat. It was Jill. A twinge of jealousy spanked him as his former date leaned across the seat and planted a kiss on the driver’s lips. She smiled at him and then jumped out of the car, looking as happy as he’d ever seen her, prancing away like a filly.
He continued to spy through the binoculars. At the door to the tavern she stopped, glanced back toward the luxurious automobile and waved one last time. Then, as if she sensed she was being watched, she turned and looked directly up at him. Feeling busted and foolish, he waved at her. She ignored the gesture, turned and marched inside the back door of the restaurant.
His timing couldn’t have been worse. Bad enough the press had called him a stalker, now Jill pro
bably thought the same thing.
Colefield sat down and stared at the river as the Lieutenant’s sedan pulled into the parking lot. The lieutenant got out from behind the wheel and stood looking up at Colefield.
“If you’re a jumper the roof’s too low.”
“Funny.”
“Am I going to need to call a shrink?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Since you’re up there, why don’t you make yourself useful and fix the gutter.”
“That’s a good idea,” Colefield nodded in agreement.
The Lieutenant frowned. “If you fall off of there make sure you land on your head.”
* * *
Around quitting time, Weaver came up to Colefield, carrying his jacket.
“Hey, Red? Want to go get a beer down the street?”
Colefield who had been staring at a blank computer screen for the last twenty minutes, turned around. “The Sextant?”
“You got some other place in mind?”
“There’s always Salty’s.”
“Are we dressed for that?”
“Change.”
“Right,” Weaver smirked. “You lost it?”
“Maybe...”
“C’mon! Man up and go get this thing with Jill over with.”
“You guys don’t know the half of it.”
Bart came out of the Lieutenant’s office sighing. “We have a Red Cross training exercise at 8am. The Lieutenant wanted me to remind you guys. And don’t be late.”
“Great,” Weaver said. “You coming, Colefield?”
“I’m gonna take a pass.”
“How ‘bout you, Bart? Up for a few brewskies?”
“Sure.”