She stared at his badge before reluctantly answering. “Yes, I'm Cynthia. Who's hurt? Why is this ambulance here and who are you? I've never seen you before.”
Her thoughts began to swirl as the man named Smith began to explain to her how he had come to be in charge of securing a crime scene out of his jurisdiction, that he and Sergeant Charlie McCord of the Sycamore Springs Police Department had entered the premises only after blood had been found on the doorknob of her place and the door handle of a vehicle that had since been driven off by an unknown person at a high rate of speed.
“So who is the ambulance for?” she insisted.
“Unfortunately, there is a deceased person in your residence, and we have reason to believe foul play was involved.”
“Deceased person?” Her voice rose in pitch. “Let me in.”
He held her as she tried to push past him. “I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't let you go in right now.”
“This is my place!” she screamed. “Let me in. Who's in there?”
“Ma'am, do you know anyone by the name of Benjamin Skinner?”
Cynthia jerked her head around the trailer looking for Benny's truck. “He called me this morning and said he was on his way home from the airport, the Walmart airport in Bentonville, Arkansas.”
He nodded.
“That's why I stopped at the store on my way home from work,” she continued, “so he'd have something to eat when he got here.” She looked back toward Creek Street. “I saw a truck a while ago being chased by police. At first, I thought it was Benny, but it couldn't have been. He hasn't had enough time to get here.”
“What time did he call?”
“I don't know. An hour ago, maybe longer.” Cynthia thought for a moment. “I work the night shift at the nursing home and usually get off at seven. But I had to work overtime this morning because one of the day-shift girls called in sick. I had to help with breakfast.” She rubbed her forehead with her forearm. “So, I'm not sure what time it was. It wasn't that long ago, though.”
“It would only take about an hour to get here from Bentonville. Are you sure he hadn't already left the airport? Maybe he'd planned to arrive early, you know, surprise you. Women like surprises, don't they?”
“Not necessarily,” she snapped. It occurred to her that she had no idea where Benny had been when he'd called. He'd lied to her before. Why would this time be any different?
“Why are you asking all these questions about Benny? His truck isn't here.” She swallowed hard and then realized what had happened. He'd been snooping on her. He'd seen her with someone else, waited for her to leave, and then probably beat her newfound friend to death. Now he was running from the cops. After a few seconds, she backed up and leaned against her car. “This cannot be happening to me,” she cried.
“Do you know anyone who would want to do harm to Benny?”
She watched the lawman's eyes travel to the red spatters on her white shoes and she panicked.
“Are you trying to tell me Benny is dead?” Fear turned to hysteria. “No, no, no! Don't tell me something happened to Benny. It can't be him. It can't be him!” She began to beat on the officer's chest and scream until he held her with his strong arms. Finally, she collapsed against him.
After she had calmed down, he repeated his question. “Do you know anyone who would want to hurt Benny?”
She moaned like a hurt animal and then stepped away. “I have a friend,” she said in a quiet voice, “that I've been seeing while Benny was gone.” She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “It wasn't anything serious. And I told him there were no strings and that when Benny came back, it would be over. Last night, he said he would fight for me to the death.” She looked up at him. “I swear, Officer Smith, I thought he was kidding.”
“What's his name? The man you've been seeing?”
“Tomas,” she said. “Tomas Hernandez.”
“Tomas doesn't happen to work at the chicken plant on the edge of town, does he?”
Cynthia nodded. “He works the early shift, has to be there before seven. Benny didn't even call me until after that.” She looked up and saw a police car turn into the trailer park and roll to a stop behind her car.
“Fight to the death?” he said. “Well, unfortunately, I think Benny might've beaten Tomas to the punch…or maybe I should say ‘to the gut.’”
Chapter 10
A day earlier, Sonny had watched his owner, Sadie, get into a car and disappear into the distance, leaving him alone at the farmhouse with only the horse for company. He walked over to the edge of the porch where she sometimes dropped extra food and found an extra-large hunk of half-frozen venison. Not knowing when she might return, he devoured the raw meat, and then slipped away to the top of a nearby ridge. He found a comfortable place under a shade tree where he could see anyone or anything approaching, and fell asleep.
When he awoke, he walked down the hill to a cold stream for a drink of water, and then trotted back to his perch and sat on his haunches. The valley below crawled with people, some on foot, some on horseback, and others in vehicles like the one his owner had gone away in. When he recognized one of the trucks, he stood and whined. Satisfied Sadie wasn't there, he lost interest and found a place under the low-hanging limbs of a cedar tree and lay back down.
When the heat of the day began to diminish, a field mouse caught his eye. He pounced on the rodent, played with it for a while without hurting it, and then let it go. Bored, he traveled down to the creek again for another long drink of water.
When darkness had overtaken the valley and the stars began to twinkle overhead, he decided to return to the house and look for his owner. He acknowledged the horse, and then moved silently past the barn and the gate. Standing in the shadows, he studied the dark farmhouse for several minutes before turning and disappearing into the night. He crossed the road and moved along a well-traveled path into the neighboring ranch to one of his favorite places. He curled up near the mouth of a cave and rested his muzzle on his paws.
In the early morning hours of dawn, a distant sound caught his attention. With heightened senses, ears at attention and nose twitching, he tested the night air. Then he tilted his head back and to one side, and began to softly howl. After a few moments, he rose and trotted toward the sound of human singing.
Buck woke to a clammy darkness with the smell of damp earth surrounding him. Above he could see a few stars hanging next to an almond-shaped moon.
Where was everyone? He felt around for his M1, the rifle that had never left his side since it had been issued to him in California. He couldn't put his hands on it. Where was his sidearm—the government-issued Colt .45 that was a gift from his buddy who'd lost the use of his right hand in the last firefight? Without a weapon he'd be dead as soon as the Japanese found his hiding place. His head ached. Where was his helmet? Adrenaline raced through his veins the same way it had a thousand times before.
He tried to stand to assess the situation and pain shot though his body, shattering his illusion of war and slamming him back into the present. Damn, he thought. The war had been over for more than a half century, but the memory felt like it had been only yesterday. He would give anything if he could kill the part of his brain that held those memories the same way he had killed the enemy—up close and personal.
He knew he was in a dangerous predicament. He just needed to rest for a while, collect his thoughts, and figure out what to do next.
He closed his eyes, and the image of a red pincushion came into his thoughts. He reached for it, stretching as far as he could, but before he could make contact, he lost his footing and fell.
His eyes flew open and he blinked several times, as if doing so would clear his thoughts. Focus, old man, he thought. Focus. Then he began to sing to calm his mind.
O ga je li ga
Ja gv wi yu hi
Ja je li ga hno
Ja gv wi yu hi.
O ga je li ga
Ja gv wi yu hi
Ja je li ga hno
&n
bsp; Ja gv wi yu hi.
Chapter 11
Sadie awoke to a loud rumble, a sound like a train barreling down its tracks. She could hear dishes rattling in the cabinet and objects falling, crashing onto the floor. The bed began to shake, and she gasped as an uncontrollable feeling of vulnerability washed over her. “No!” she yelled, as she jumped out of bed and pushed her hands against the wall for stability.
The shaking felt like it had gone on forever, but then she realized it had probably lasted about thirty seconds. She ran into the living room for her purse and cell phone. A bookshelf had tipped over, its contents strewn across the ceramic tile floor. Her phone rested under a pile of broken glass, cracked open like an egg.
“Damn! This can't be happening.” Her words had barely left her mouth when it all began again. She quickly moved away from the broken glass and to the bathroom door, hanging onto the jamb until the quaking of the aftershock stopped. The only thing she could remember about earthquakes was that standing in a doorway afforded extra protection. That sounded good in theory, she thought, but it offered little consolation to her at the moment. She looked at the concrete walls and wondered how long it would take for the entire building to crash down on top of her.
Everything—the lights, the ceiling fans, the clock radio—all came slowly to a halt. She swallowed hard, pushing down the queasiness in her stomach.
She pulled on a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, took her room key, and ran out the door, letting it slam behind her. She stopped at the top of the stairwell and peered down, half expecting the stairs to be covered with debris. They were clear except for a young couple who had just passed her doorway on their way down. Quickly, she followed.
At the bottom level, she stepped out into the morning sunshine. A group of people stood about ten feet from the building, coffee cups in hand, engaged in casual conversation. Sadie realized her knees were shaking and steadied herself against a nearby parked car. She looked around expecting to see huge gaping cracks in the parking lot. Surprisingly, everything looked the same as it had before. No cracks in the sidewalk, no downed trees, no chunks of concrete falling from the building. Nothing.
The friendly woman who had welcomed her two days before came out of the lobby, barefoot, with a flowered towel piled on her head and another wrapped around her body. She smiled at Sadie and the others.
“Everyone okay?” she giggled. “The manager is checking the outside of the building for cracks right now, but everything appears to be fine. You can go back in when you are ready.” She smiled again. “It may take a little while for the electricity to come back on, so be patient. We'll be on Hawaiian time for a little while.” With that announcement, the woman and her flowered towels returned to the lobby, acting as if this happened on a regular basis.
The others, who were standing nearby, meandered back toward the building. Sadie's knees felt like Jell-O when she tried to walk, so she moved to a nearby bench and sat. A young boy in the crowd of bystanders stopped and looked at her. He appeared to be about ten or twelve years old, slender and well tanned, with thick, unruly brown hair that fell across the top of his eyebrows.
“You okay?” he asked.
Sadie nodded. “I'll be fine.”
“Your first quake?”
“That apparent, huh?”
He laughed. “Yeah, you look a little scared. We live in California, so this is no big deal to us.”
“Well, California, go ahead and try to convince me this is no big deal.”
“My name is Bobby.” He sounded offended.
Sadie smiled. “Have a seat, Bobby. My name is Sadie.”
The boy sat on the far end of the bench. “Where are you from?” he said.
“Oklahoma.”
“Oh, tornado alley.” He scrunched his nose. “That's worse.”
Sadie shook her head. “I'll take a tornado any day over this,” she said. “At least you know when a tornado is coming and you can take shelter. Not always, but normally,” she added as a disclaimer.
“How do you know when a tornado is coming?” The boy seemed genuinely interested.
“Well, first of all, the weather people in Oklahoma live for tornado season. They break in every five minutes on television and tell you exactly where the rotations are and which way the storm cells are headed. They project the time and direction and tell people to take cover when it gets close. Then, if you live near a town or a community that's in the path of the tornado, the sirens wail.”
Sadie stopped for a moment and thought about her grandmother. “But before weather forecasters came along, the old people taught us how to distinguish the odor of ozone in the air before and after the rain falls, how to read the sky when it turns a greenish black, what a wall cloud looks like, and to take cover when your surroundings go deadly quiet. No wind, no birds chirping, no dogs barking. Nothing. Dead still. That means a tornado is very close.”
The young boy's eyes widened. “And you think that's better than a little shake, rattle, and roll?”
Sadie laughed and began to relax. “Yes, yes, I do.”
A woman called to the boy from the second-floor walkway.
“I have to go.” He quickly jumped up and disappeared into the building.
Grateful for the young boy whose conversation had helped calm her nerves, she returned to her condo and surveyed the damage. It wasn't nearly as bad as it had first appeared. She pushed the bookshelf back up and against the wall, and returned the books and other items to its shelves. Inside a closet, she found a broom and dustpan and swept up the broken glass. Then she fished parts of her phone out of the sharp slivers.
She wanted to call Lance and tell him what had happened, but that would have to wait. She glanced at her destroyed phone and then read the note posted above the telephone in the living room: No long distance service provided. She picked up the handset and listened anyway. No dial tone.
She put the phone down, walked out onto the patio, and stared at the lush pink-and-orange flowering shrubbery that bordered the landscaped lawn between the building and the ocean. Two children splashed water at each other in the pool while their mother kept watch from a nearby lounge chair. The ocean continued to roll, waves slapping at the rocks and sand. The perfectly blue sky provided a clear backdrop to the island in the distance with the name she still couldn't pronounce. Thoughts of the earthquake returned to her and a chill ran down her spine. The power of the earth, and everything in it, overwhelmed her. She wanted to go home.
She threw her purse over her shoulder and descended the stairs once again to the lobby, where the flowered towels had been replaced with a flowered strapless dress and flip-flops. A battery-powered radio sat on the counter buzzing with white noise.
“Is everything okay?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Sadie laughed. “Except that my cell phone is a victim of the earthquake. Do you have a phone I could use?”
“Aw, I wish I did. But there's no phone service anywhere on the island right now. Don't worry. It'll be back up soon.” The woman's smile seemed to make everything okay. “See?” she said, nodding toward the radio. “The radio station is not even broadcasting yet. But they will.” The woman walked out from behind the counter and pointed toward the ocean through the open doorway. “I've been watching the ocean. It's been over thirty minutes, so I'm pretty sure we're out of danger. If the water recedes, it means a tsunami is coming.”
Sadie's heart jumped into her throat. “Oh, my gosh. What do we do?”
“Oh, don't worry.” The woman's smile had returned. “I didn't mean to scare you. The emergency people will blow the sirens before that happens. We'll have plenty of time to evacuate. The information is in the front pages of the phone book in your room.”
“Do you have any idea when we will have power again?”
Suddenly, the tinny speakers of the battery-operated radio came to life. A woman's voice, full of confidence and authority spoke.
“Aloha, everyone. Nice little alarm clock wake ’em
up, yeah? No worries. You can relax. We got all the info. There is no tsunami warning at this time. Repeat. No tsunami warning. However, the Maui Police Department is asking everyone to please stay where you are until they can move one big boulder from a rockslide on the Honoapiilani Highway near Ukumehame Beach. The folks are out there checking all the roads, but if you get on the highways, you'll just get in the way. The airport is closed until they can get some backup power going out there, so if you've got a flight going out, well, it ain't going out. There will be a few more planes landing, so if you need to pick up someone at the airport, just chill out. They'll still be there when you get there. Keep it tuned here, and we will keep you updated.” Hawaiian music immediately took over the airwaves.
Sadie sucked in a gust of air when she realized she had been holding her breath. “Oh.” The realization had just struck home. She was stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, three thousand miles from her home, her dog, her horse, and her family, with no means to let them know she was okay. But most of all, she was light-years away from the man who held the keys to her heart, Lance Smith.
“Do you need a book to read until we get some power for TV?” asked the woman in the flowered dress. “There's a whole cabinet full behind you,” she said, pointing with her finger.
“I need to go home,” she blurted. “I've got to see if I can change my ticket.”
“I think you'll have to wait until the airport reopens for that, probably tonight or tomorrow. Is something wrong? Can I help?”
“No, I guess you're right.” Sadie turned and almost ran headlong into Bobby.
The young boy bounced away from her and pulled an earphone from his right ear.
“Sorry,” he said, and then continued across the lobby, through the open doors, and down the steps onto the front lawn. He found an empty table and plopped his backpack in the center. In a few short seconds, he had pulled out a laptop, turned it on, and begun to type.
“Thanks for your help.” Sadie waved to the flowered dress and hurried after the young boy. She pulled out a chair and sat across the table from him. “Say, is your computer working?” she asked.
Sinking Suspicions Page 7