Utah: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 7)

by J. J. Henderson

  En route to the dining room she grabbed half a dozen postcards off the cash register counter, each featuring basic views of Johnny Griffin's with trucks in the foreground. For a moment there, with her dog gone in the Wyoming dust Lucy had felt more alone than ever in her life, and it had struck her that emotional dependency on a poodle had its drawbacks. She had decided to crawl back towards the world of human contact by writing a few postcards.

  She found a table, ordered a turkey club with French fries and a large coke, then fished out her pen and her address book, ready to wax poetical, haiku-like, describing her life on the great American highway.

  She pulled the top off her new gift pen and a little thing fell out. Some kind of package that had been stuffed into the space in the cap of the pen. A tightly folded bit of paper. She unfolded it, and found another little packet inside. Didn't need to open this one to know what it contained. Christ! She dropped it into her t-shirt pocket as the waitress arrived with her large coke, and read the little note written on the paper wrapper. "Luce: for the highway blues, some pharmaceutical frenzy from the good old days. Love JJ." Jake Jones. What was he, crazy? She hadn't done cocaine in about seven years, and the last ten times she'd done it, even way back then, it had been good for about five minutes of speedy pleasure followed by a tooth-grinding three hour nightmare.

  But then the devil got into her: all of a sudden she felt very tired, and thought, hey, this stuff will get me to Utah in fine style. Thought, what have I got to lose, nobody gives a damn what happens to me. Thought, how could I possibly get any more depressed than I am already? Thought, this shit is expensive, don't want to waste it. Thought about some really good sex she'd had on coke. Thought about seeing Interstate 80 through different eyes. Thought all the thoughts that justified doing what every cell in her body told her she should not do: put this stuff up her nose. She touched the little package in her pocket, and promised herself she'd eat a big lunch first, and then go to the bathroom and flush the nerve candy away.

  Instead she ate her lunch quickly, hardly tasting it, then rushed to the bathroom and locked herself in a stall. She broke open the package and with the sharpest blade on her Swiss Army knife divided the sparkling little powder pile up into half a dozen lines. Her hands shook, she knew it was wrong, she was almost forty years old, this was crazy kid stuff, but she did it anyway: rolled up a bill and hit the first line, end to end, up her nose. Then she wrapped each of the other five lines in a separate little square of paper, dropped them in her pocket, and strode out, cocaine clarity etching the scenery into her brain.

  Dry-mouthed, she refilled her soda, bought some buffalo jerky for the dog, threw the unwritten postcards into her bag, and left Johnny's behind. She lasted 45 minutes before snorting the next line. She finished the last of it around five o'clock as she approached the Utah state line. Her head hurt, she'd been grinding her teeth all afternoon, and aside from basic survival instinct, by the time she reached the border she didn't believe she had much cause to exist on earth, except for her dog and a fading dream of a place called Seattle, where she would live happily ever after.

  Only, happiness seemed inconceivable, given the situation of her life. A woman alone, not that far from forty, driving across the country in a rented truck. Everything she owned piled in the back. No one particularly interested in where she's come from or where she's going. Slim prospects ahead, the loft disaster behind, a dog for a husband, a scattering of sad, angry, aging friends holed up in their little lives all over the country, trying to figure out what happened. What got us here? Where are we? Painters gone drunk, writers gone bad, poets writing jingles and philosophers selling bonds. In the middle of it all Lucy, writer, incapable of signing her name to a postcard; Lucy, photographer, traveling across the country with her camera locked away, because she did not want to see what she was looking at: herself, a latter-day desperado, drifting like a ghost into the territories of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

  The land of Utah was ruggedly lovely as she left I-80 and headed north through Echo Canyon on I-84. She drove in and out of heavy rain, lightning and thunder and broken sunlight firing the red rock canyons with glorious color, apocalyptic weather reflecting the dope apocalypse wreaking havoc in her mind. But she kept pushing, because beneath it all she had the instincts of a survivor, and she knew this pain would fade away.

  Bypassing the outskirts of Salt Lake City, she saw an anti-choice billboard. In foreground, a crudely-painted image of an infant's face, blown up to enormous scale and possessed of the wise eyes of ET; in background, a painted sea of baby heads. Choose Life, it said. Coked up and crashing with the weight of her world pressing, she felt as if she had chosen death, and that it was a reasonable choice. She pulled into Tremonton, Utah, as night fell.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE MORMONS

  She needed food, a shower, and sleep. A valium if she had one, but she didn't, and so would suffer this crash with nothing to soften the landing. But it was self-inflicted, so why complain? This was the deal. Her life and what she made of it. She was wrecked but her dog needed a walk. Amidst the garish roadside clutter she spotted a Denny's, and next to it, the Tremonton Inn. The inn looked respectable, a two story u-shaped job with a pool in the middle. She pulled Big Yellow into a trucker's parking place and slipped around the truck with Claud, out of sight of reception. They patrolled the shrubbery at the edge of the parking lot until Claud did his business. Then she put him back in the truck, grabbed her overnight bag and her purse, and headed over to the hotel.

  The reception guy looked like the grim old farmer in Grant Wood's painting, American Gothic, only missing his pitchfork and daughter. A large NO PETS sign was pinned to a post at the side of the counter. Lucy paid thirty-five dollars in advance for the last available room on the ground floor, collected her key, then walked down the hall to the room. From reception the man had a clear view down the hall, and she could feel his cold little eyes on her butt, at once horny and disapproving. Lucy went in, threw down her bags, noted the usual charmless stuff—queen-sized bed, console with tv, chair, table, lamp, artwork—and then went to the window to have a look. It opened directly onto the parking lot, and the bottom sill was three feet above the ground. She lifted open the window, detached the screen, and pulled it into the room. Then she went back out, nodding a hello at the stone-faced clerk.

  She took Claud for another tour of the parking lot so he could pee a few more times, let the LDS dogs know he'd been around, then led him over to her room window. She lifted him high and heaved him into the room. He landed on his feet then turned to look at her expectantly. "Stay," she said. "And keep quiet." Then she went back in through the lobby. She spent ten minutes putting the room back together, doing her face and hair, and feeding the poodle. She changed her dirty black t-shirt for a clean red one and headed out again, this time bound for Denny's, looming like the Xanadu of roadside dining across a hundred yards of black pavement prosperously crowded with late model American cars.

  The restaurant was lit up and decorated all bright and shiny like a Denny's is supposed to be. She found an empty booth and plunked herself down on orange naugahyde for a look at the menu, which featured color photos of burgers, pancakes, and BLTs. The hot turkey sandwich photographed especially well, and she went for it. She looked up for a waitress; instead her eyes settled on a booth across the room. There sat Dad, Mom, and three kids, escapees from a Norman Rockwell painting, blissed-out Middle Americans, family solid as a rock in the sea of uncertainty through which Lucy paddled. The two blond boys, maybe nine and seven, had 1950s haircuts, freckled squarish faces, and cold blue eyes. They looked like miniaturized replicas of their square-jawed father, gravely contemplating the Denny's menu. Across from him sat Mom, a Mrs. Cleaver type, with a faded brown beauty parlor wave and a long-suffering look. The girl was the oldest kid. Maybe fifteen. Her blonde, shoulder length hair was dyed, for even from across the room Lucy could see dark roots. When the girl glanced up and surprised her wit
h a defiant stare, Lucy saw that she had dark, sorrowful eyes to match.

  The waitress showed, and Lucy ordered her sandwich, then got up to go to the head.

  She peed, then went over to the sink to wash her hands. She looked in the mirror. Aging miserable wretch. The bathroom door opened, and so it was in the mirror that she first saw the girl.

  The girl caught her reflected eye. Lucy nodded and turned to look at her directly. "Hi," Lucy said. "How ya doin'?" The girl was really pretty, but she looked sleepless, strung out, tormented. Lucy could relate, but this was just a kid.

  "You have to help me," she said urgently. "I saw you drive...saw your truck, and what you did with your dog. You're not from around here. You..."

  "Help you? What are you talking about?"

  "I can't stand it any longer." She talked fast, but lucidly. "They're...he's...I've got to get out of here, you don't understand, it's...it's...oh, shit," she hissed. Tears started in her eyes. She quickly wiped them. "It's my dad...that's him out there. He's been...you know...visiting me at night for...for years. I can't stand it any longer and I can't tell my mom and my dad's like...he's a big man here and..."

  "Whoa, whoa, hon," Lucy said. "Wait a minute." The girl stared at her. "What's your name?"

  "Ellen," she said. "Ellen Longford. I..."

  "That's your family out there?"

  "Yeah. My dad's...he's the...Oh, God, don't you understand? He fucks me. He comes into my room at night and makes me have sex with him, and...and I just want to die! I don't know what to do, I'm..."

  "But I'm just...passing through. I don't see...I can't do anyth..."

  "Yes you can. You can take me with you. I don't care where, I just have to..."

  "I can't do that, Ellen. You're under age. I'm moving. I don't know where I'm going to be living. You don't even know me! Isn't there a...like a counselor at your school who can..."

  "They don't want to know. They don't want to hear about it. The counselor knows my Dad. I tried to tell him once, but...he told me I was making it up. I can't tell him. I don't know what to do. Please, can't you..."

  "Honey, I wish I could but there's nothing I can..."

  The door opened. The mother. "Ellen," she said. "It's time to go." She looked at Ellen, and then at Lucy. In that instant Lucy knew that Ellen had told her the truth—and that the mother knew. And knew also that her daughter had just told Lucy. "We don't want to keep your father waiting." Ellen caught Lucy's eye in the mirror a last time, then left.

  "Jesus Christ," Lucy whispered, staring at herself. "How did that happen?" She splashed water on her face. That poor girl. Lucy felt tears start in her eyes. She splashed more water on her face. She took her time, hoping the family would be gone when she left the bathroom. They were.

  As soon as she sat down her food landed before her. She started into it, and immediately stopped. The waitress came over and asked what was the problem, she said nothing, that is, everything, I can't eat this. The waitress took it back and didn't charge her. Lucy ordered a piece of apple pie a la mode, and ate that instead. She drank a cup of decaf, paid up, then went back across the black pavement to her room. She went to bed, dog at her side, but couldn't sleep for hours as she thought of Ellen Longford, desperate enough to approach a total stranger in a Denny's bathroom to plead for a ride out of town.

  Lucy woke lost, then remembered as she turned on the light and grabbed her watch. Five thirty a.m. in Tremonton, Utah. She had a cocaine hangover but it felt better than the cocaine comedown that preceded it. She promised herself she would never do it again. The worst was over. For her, for now. Not for that girl in Denny's. She got up, showered, dressed, packed, and opened the door. Claud sprang into the corridor and charged towards the reception counter, where American Gothic had been replaced by American Bloat. A large man with thin hair atop a thick face, in a white shirt and a wide red tie, sat behind the counter reading a newspaper under a fluorescent bulb. Lucy assumed all men in Utah were Mormons and for that reason didn't trust them. They believed in polygamy! There sat this mountainous Mormon, dead ahead, enough Latter Day Saint to fill a small meeting hall. By the time she reached the end of the corridor Claud danced at the glass front doors and the man had heaved himself to his feet, the very picture of bureaucratic outrage. "Good morning," Lucy said, and tossed the key on the counter. "I'm checking out of room 17. I paid last night. Thanks."

  "There's no dogs allowed. Can't you read, lady?" He pointed. "Didn't you see the sign?"

  "It's simply shocking, what twenty bucks'll do to the morals of an underpaid night clerk," she said, and waltzed out the door into the back end of night: empty streets, orange glare of parking lot lights, neon sizzling softly. "Yo dog," she said, mildly pleased with herself. "This way, pup." She headed towards the shrubbery that bordered the parking lot, and walked the line until Claud did his business. Then she put him and her bag in the truck and went back to Denny's.

  She ordered eggs and wheat toast. She drank three cups of coffee and ate every bite, toast smeared with butter and purple jelly from little plastic packs. She couldn't help but think about that girl. What was her name? Ellen. Ellen Longford. She paid up and went out. Pale light streaked the sky, dawn breaking. She'd be on the west coast by nightfall unless the road betrayed her.

  She climbed aboard, started the engine, rolled both windows down, turned on the radio and surfed until she found some loud rock n' roll, then put it in gear and headed northwest, in the general direction of southwest Idaho. About ten minutes out of Tremonton, feeling herself pulling free, free of the gravity of her situation, free of the past at last, sensing the saltsweet breath of the Pacific getting closer, she looked at Claud and sang, "Ba-aby, it's you." Then she heard a grunt, and the pile of stuff in the space behind the seats shifted. The head of a blond teenager emerged. Ellen Longford. "What the hell!" Lucy squawked. "What are you doing in here?!" She dodged across a lane of traffic and pulled up on the shoulder.

  "Hi, Lucy Ripken," she said. Her face was a mess, her hair knotted and tangled. "I'm Ellen. Remember? From last..."

  "Of course I remember. From Denny's. From the...but what are you...what...how did you get into my truck? What are you doing in my truck?" Lucy realized she was shouting. She turned down the radio.

  "Breaking into a truck is easy," Ellen said. "I learned how from a guy I saw do it on tv. Just work a coathanger over the window and down, and then pop up the lock." She climbed into the seat next to Lucy, leaving room for Claud. "I like your dog," she said, and scratched his head. "So where we goin'?" She spoke like it was a done deal. She seemed more settled than she had last night. Maybe she was stoned. A truck blasted past, rattling the cab.

  "We aren't going anywhere, honey," Lucy said. "I can't take you with me. What are you, fifteen? Sixteen maybe? What am I supposed to..."

  "I'll get out, I promise. Just get me outta here," she said. "I have some friends in...in Seattle," she added, as if she'd just thought of it. But she hadn't. She'd read the truck rental contract in the glove compartment. That's the only way she could have gotten Lucy's name. So she lied. What if she'd lied last night? "I...what I told you last night is...was true," she said, reading Lucy's mind. "About my Dad. He's...he was after me all the time. Can't you help me, Lucy? You've got to help me get away from..."

  "Jesus," Lucy said, wheeling the truck back onto the road. Problem was, she believed the girl. "Jesus fucking Christ!" She floored it momentarily, got the truck moving faster. "What did you...how'd you get to my truck? Where do you live? What if your parents..." Remembering the scene in the bathroom, Lucy wondered what had registered with the mom.

  "Don't worry about them. She...they won't know anything till later. She'll just think I went to school."

  "At 6:30 in the morning?"

  "I had detention. Starts at 7."

  "Why am I not surprised to hear that?" Lucy managed a slight grin. "But what are you going to do in Seattle? You need a plan. Does your friend live with her parents? Is she...can you stay with..."


  "I don't know, Lucy. I mean, yeah sure, she's...look, the state line's not far. Once I get out of Utah you can drop me off and..."

  "I can't do that, Ellen. Can't you see that? What am I going to do, dump you at the side of the road? You're just a kid, honey." Ellen didn't respond. Absently rubbing Claud's head, she looked straight ahead. Lucy glanced at her. She was just a kid beneath the bad make-up.

  Lucy turned the radio back on, and let Ellen find a station. She picked the hardest rock she could find, and turned it up. Lucy turned it down. "How old are you, Ellen?" she asked.

  "I'll be sixteen on June 19th," she said. "I was gonna finish tenth grade in two weeks. But..." she shrugged...”Hey, can we stop at that gas station up there. I gotta, you know..."

  "Pee?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Sure. But make it fast, eh? If you want a ride out of town we gotta be quick, know what I mean?"

  "OK."

  They pulled into the gas station. Lucy parked by the pumps and Ellen jumped out. Lucy ordered a tank of gas, then grabbed Ellen's green back pack from behind the seat, feeling slightly guilty but determined to find out what she could.

  She unzipped it and had a look. A bunch of clothes crammed haphazardly. She dug through, came on a book shape, pulled it out. A diary, it looked like. Locked. She set it aside, reached in again, dug towards the bottom, feeling her way through assorted objects. Came on a plastic bag, got hold and pulled it out. A large zip-lock type bag. Inside, something long and skinny wrapped in a white towel, and an unlabeled DVD in a hard plastic case. She unwrapped the towel, and found a hunting knife with a horn handle and a six inch blade. Here came Ellen, back from the bathroom. Lucy quickly re-wrapped the knife, shoved everything back in the pack and threw it behind the seat. "Hey," Lucy said when Ellen got in. "That better?"