Fear at First Glance

by Dave Balcom

  “They must have watched me, too, ’cause one day one of them, ‘Mr. Ray,’ came over and started a conversation while I was eating my lunch. After that, he came around every time I fished there, and then he started offering me suggestions about how to cast better, how to read the water... he kind of mentored me.

  “By the time I was driving, I’d come up here from our cabin every trip, and it was like all three of the old buzzards had adopted me. I loved hearing their stories; getting their insights into the sport they all loved so much.

  “It wasn’t the best trout fishing they’d ever seen, but like they always said, “Haven’t had a bunch of drunk yahoos in float tubes and plastic boats drive me off a caddis hatch once in all the years...”

  We reloaded Judy, soaking wet from an impromptu swim, into her crate, and drove slowly past the old cottage, noting the For Sale sign that looked like it had been hanging a while next to the driveway.

  “If you ever hankered to come home to the Mitten, you could probably buy that place,” Jan said with a hint of tease in her voice.

  “No mountains? No thanks. But the memories are still ripe, I must admit.”

  We pulled in next to Tony’s car, and he came bouncing out of the house before we’d even gotten the doors open.

  “There’s been no news,” he said as he walked up to Jan’s door. “I’m so glad you guys could take the time, come on in. Mom’s waiting for you. Let your dog out, our nearest neighbor is a quarter mile in either direction, and none of them, as far as I know, owns a dog or a cat.”

  “She’ll be fine in there for the moment,” I said with a smile. “We took a break and she had a swim in Antrim Pond.”

  He looked at me with a question, “Where?”

  “Antrim Pond? It’s between Kalkaska and Rapid City...”

  “Oh, you mean Rugg Pond?”

  Then I remembered, that old lawyer’s name had been Ray Rugg and then I remembered that all of those old men had been cousins. “When did they change the name?”

  Tony shook his head. “It’s always been Rugg Pond to me.”

  Jan was headed for the door and spoke over her shoulder, “You have to remember, Jim, local history in this part of the world is divided into two eras: BDM and ADM – before the Detroit Migration and after.”

  Tony chuckled, “That’s truer than you might imagine. My folks were part of that emigration. Hell, when I first moved to Stoney, the kids at school and most of their parents acted like I should have a visa or passport just to visit, much less to move permanently.”

  I was struck by the thought and had stopped grabbing luggage and let my mind worry at it for a moment.

  “Jim?” Tony asked with concern in his voice.

  “What?”

  “You all right?”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s just...”

  I was interrupted by the sound of the house door closing. I looked up and saw Jan standing there with a wide grin on her face, “Jim! That’s it! That’s the link!”

  Tony was looking back and forth between us, but he didn’t understand. “What’s the...?”

  I was nodding at Jan, “I’ll bet you’re right.” I turned to Tony and smiled at his confusion, “Let’s go inside and say hi to your mom, and then I’ll want you to walk through some local history that Jan’s put together. You may well be able to fill in some gaps in our thinking.”

  CHAPTER 31

  I was shocked to see Mrs. Ralph when we found her in the kitchen with Maria after putting our luggage in the guest room assigned to us.

  She looked haggard and worn. I had never seen her when she wasn’t in full makeup and in hospitality mode. Now she was just Betty Ralph whose husband had gone missing less than 24 hours ago.

  “Jim, Jan; thank you for coming,” she smiled sweetly as she reached out for Jan’s hand.

  Jan kissed her cheek, and held on to her hand, “Thank you for inviting us to stay with you, Betty; we want to help in any way we can.”

  “You help by just being here, child.” Then she turned those dazzling blue eyes on me, “And I want you to know, Jim Stanton, that Paul would want you to help in any way you can. He has been up to his eyebrows researching your post-newspaper career... he has always been a devil of a researcher. He told me just last night, as we were getting ready for bed, that he thought you might be a better investigator than you are a writer, or even as you might have been as a journalist.”

  “He and I will have to discuss that fully when he gets back here,” I said with mock injury in my voice. “I’ll have you know that I am a much better investigator than I am a writer, but my first best calling was as a journalist.”

  She laughed a little, and then gave up Jan’s hand to give mine a brief squeeze. “Are you hungry? Maria has made a casserole with chicken in it; and she has a marvelous soup as well.”

  “Whatever Maria has will be perfect for us, and whenever you want to have dinner, you name it, I’ll be there,” I said with a chuckle.

  “Maria?” She asked.

  “I think there’s a comfortable time for a cocktail, Mrs. Ralph.”

  Betty made a face at her cook, “She’s not adjusted to you folks being more than company,” she said in way of explanation. “You’ll know you’ve been accepted as extended family when you hear her call me Betty. And you’ll have completely arrived when she calls you Jim and Jan.”

  I turned to her, “Call me anything you’d like, Maria, except late for a meal.”

  “Gracias, Señor Stanton,” she said as she let an impish smile flicker across her face. “Mucho gracias.”

  “Let’s find Tony and the bar,” Betty said.

  It didn’t take long to see just how false Betty’s front had been as she tried to make us welcome. The empty chair at the other end of the dining room table held her stare often during supper, and it was painfully obvious that she couldn’t wait to clear her mind of that image.

  “You folks take your time,” she said as she rolled her wheelchair away from the table. “I’m going to my room for a bit; I expect to be back with you after a while.”

  We watched her exit the room, her head held high, and then we sat silently and waited for Tony to start the conversation.

  “That’s tough to watch,” he said, his eyes still on the doorway where his mother had disappeared.

  “Why don’t you go make sure she’s all right?” Jan asked in almost a whisper.

  “I’d love to, but that’d only make her come back to prove to you that she’s fine no matter how she really is. I’ll check on her after a while; she needs time.”

  “But not too much,” Jan said. “She’s no fool; and people her age are always aware that they could suddenly, and at any time, be alone in the world. Her fear is on a lot of levels that we’re probably not equipped to understand.”

  He nodded. “She can’t talk about it because it would be an admission that she’d given up hope...”

  We had nothing to say to that, and after a few minutes of silence, he pushed his chair away from the table. “Let’s go into the front room. There’s a fire in there, and we can watch the night sky move in over the lake.”

  We were just sitting down when the doorbell rang. “Excuse me,” Tony said, and left. We heard him call out that he’d answer the door.

  “This is incredibly difficult to sit through,” Jan said when he was gone.

  “It is,” I agreed.

  “What are you thinking?” She asked.

  “The worst.”

  She nodded just once, “Me too. I just can’t seem to drum up any hope...”

  “You think all this is related; don’t you?” I asked.

  “Related to the missing classmates? Oh, yes; and I even think it may be the cause in some way.”

  “And you think it has something to do with the emigration from Detroit?”

  “I believe that if there is a connection between the people who have gone missing over the years, it has to do with something that had nothing to do with events or life in S
toney.”

  “That’s carefully worded; you want to share your thinking along those lines?”

  “I’d love to, if I could. I don’t even have a working hypothesis at this point.”

  I sat gazing at this comfortable room, and realized it, just as Miles Lawton’s office, was a tableau depicting the real life of Paul and Betty Ralph.

  The bookshelves were filled with images and icons to their life. There were hundreds of black and white photos depicting events and accomplishments from the life they’d built in Stoney.

  There were formal portraits of them, Tony, Tony’s family and Mark Decker and his family. But the images of their life were all black and white, and displayed much as I would have laid them out in a photo story in the newspaper.

  Tony came into the room with Sheriff Bromwell, and made the introductions.

  “You folks have some research that Miles Lawton thinks could be important to this case. He said you have a copy for me?”

  Jan stood up. “One minute, Sheriff. It’s in my bag in our room.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  When she was gone, the sheriff sat down on a footstool and, holding his Stetson between his knees, he settled a gaze on me. “You know Miles Lawton has an outstanding reputation as an investigator?”

  “I’ve seen him in action, and it’s a reputation well-earned.”

  “He tells me the same thing about you. I’ve known Miles for going on 25 years. We’re about the same age, and we were in the academy together. He was the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

  He was slowly spinning his hat on his hand, but he never took his eyes off me, “He says you’re kind of an action-oriented fella; good hand to have around when trouble starts...”

  I started to speak, but something in his eyes made me stop. Jan walked into the room, gave the sheriff his copy of the notes, and sat back down beside me, “Did I interrupt something?”

  I squeezed her arm and said, “I’m not sure; I think so.”

  The sheriff had put his hat on the floor between his feet, and was turning the pages of the report, and as I spoke, he allowed a smile to make a wake across his lips.

  We sat silently as he scanned the notes, then he folded them once lengthwise and picked up his hat. “Thank you, ma’am. Now, as I was trying to say, I’ve heard about your adventure in Missouri earlier this year, and I also know that both of you are licensed to carry and conceal back in Oregon. Are either of you armed at this time?”

  “I have a shotgun in the Suburban outside; and a Taurus Tack Driver secured in the console.”

  Jan cleared her throat. “There’s a Colt Mustang XSP auto in my purse in the bedroom.”

  Tony’s eyes were lit up in humor.

  Bromwell made no visible reaction, he just said, “Miles said that would probably be the case. He said when he arrives tomorrow he’ll have waivers for those permits filled out and signed by his bosses, but I’ll have to look at them before I approve ’em; so, in short, let’s leave ’em here in the house if you go anywhere until you hear from me. Okay?”

  “Not a problem, Sheriff,” I said.

  “I’m more comfortable answering to ‘Rick’ among friends, Jim.” Then he turned to Tony, “I’ve never sat here this long without a touch of that bourbon your dad foists off on everybody smart enough to come callin’.”

  Tony bounced out of his chair and went to the side board for glasses, ice and bourbon. I listened as the two men discussed everything but the reason they were together. Their voices faded into a background drone as I let my eyes absorb the pictures of the Ralph family’s life.

  CHAPTER 32

  There was no word about Paul Ralph during the night, and daylight found Judy and I on the beach in front of the Ralph “cottage.” I was stretching in preparation for a “walk.” The sun was coloring the eastern sky across the lake in anticipation of another spectacular autumn day.

  I heard the cottage door close from behind me, and heard a light footstep on the stairs coming down to the shore.

  “Mornin’, Jim,” I heard Tony’s voice. “Mind some company this morning?”

  “I don’t mind the company, but I don’t do a lot of talking when I’m doing this sort of thing; it takes all of my focus.”

  “What does?”

  “Tai chi.” I looked at him to see if I was going to see that familiar question building on his face, but I only found him doing his own stretching.

  “I’ve heard of it, of course, like a formal routine, almost like dancing in place?” He said this softly as he stretched, his voice coming out a raspy whisper. “You been doing it long?”

  “Most of my adult life.”

  “Do you any good?”

  “It has.”

  “You ready?” He was standing and looked athletic and the picture of health.

  “I am, but I don’t run any more; just walk.”

  “That’s fine with me,” he said as he turned toward the south. “We can walk the beach all the way to the marina, about a mile or so, then we can catch a trail that works its way back up in the woods and reconnects with the beach about a mile north of here. It’s a nice walk.”

  I stepped out in my 14-minute-mile pace, and he fell into step with me without hesitation or any visible exertion. “You work out much?” I asked.

  “Every day. Every other day I jog or swim alternating with weights and calisthenics. I heard an oncologist at the Mayo Clinic speak on overcoming stress at a Bar Association Convention in Minneapolis once, and I made a vow to be as physically fit and strong as I could for the rest of my life.”

  I absorbed that for about a half of a mile, and then gave him a sidelong glance, “I would imagine a cancer doc would know as much about dealing with stress as anyone.”

  “Can you imagine telling somebody they or their loved one has arrived at stage four?”

  “Nope, I can’t.”

  “He made it very clear that physically fit was the number one way to keep stress at bay.”

  “Nice slogan in there somewhere.”

  We were walking at about the 12-minute mile pace and when we came to a nice spot on the shoreline, I told him I was about to stop and stretch. He gave me a look, and I could see him reconsidering his decision to walk with me. “You go on ahead if you don’t want to stop here,” I said with a smile.

  “You stop and stretch every...?”

  “Fifteen minutes or so... it’s to practice my forms, you know, the dancing?”

  “How long?”

  “Fifteen minutes or so.”

  “I’ll stretch and watch,” he said as I put myself into the initial position of tai chi, facing the east with the sun just starting to peek over the horizon, and listened to my heart beat, felt my pulse go slower and focused my mind on the careful execution of the transition into one of my favorite forms for responding to an attack. He remained silent as I moved through a very basic routine of fundamental maneuvers – each transition taking as much as two to three minutes as I focused on each muscle that had to respond in turn making sure each maneuver was perfectly executed.

  When I finished, I smiled at him, “Let’s go?”

  We picked up the pace again, and walked silently for twenty minutes. We had passed the marina, crossed the road and started a long, uphill climb when we came to clearing in the woods. The clearing was adjacent to another park, with tables and benches. The view of the lake from here was spectacular.

  “This will do,” I muttered and again went into my tai chi forms, working my way ever more patiently through another variation of the positions I’d come to know as “preparation for life.”

  Up here in the woods, the terrain was no longer flat, but the trail was wide enough to accommodate us side by side. “This is quite a workout,” Tony muttered. “I don’t think I’ve stretched in the middle of a run or walk before.”

  After another 15 minutes of walking, at a wide spot in the trail, where another path intersected, I resumed my forms, and Tony, knowing the drill by now,
just watched from a position of stretch that I knew was great for the hams and the butt.

  We were in sight of the Ralph cottage when I slowed my pace to a stroll. We were both sweating in the morning chill.

  “This is better than what I do on my walking days. I’ve always just built base for endurance and cardiac health. I never thought of combining the stretch with the movement.”

  “I want the cardiac benefits, but as I grew older I realized that my work with tai chi forms was keeping me flexible and strong. I realized in my fifties that I was much more flexible than my friends and colleagues who only stretched before and after their run or workout.”

  “Is tai chi a real martial art?”

  “In the hands of an expert, it is; but it’s more like judo than karate; more about defense than offense or even counter offense.”

  “But there’s no quickness?”

  “It’s always been there when I needed it.”

  “You really concentrate, that’s for sure.”

  “You have to really concentrate if you’re going to control your breathing and pulse,” I said casually.

  “You can really do...” I saw him realize at that moment, “You never ran out of breath and even though you’re as sweaty as I am, I noticed you never took your pulse.”

  “I was constantly taking my pulse, that’s why I can’t talk much while I’m walking or working forms; it takes total concentration.”

  “Ever use tai chi in a fight?”

  “I try to never fight, but when I’ve needed it, tai chi has been there, like an instinct almost.”

  We were standing in front of the house, and he was nodding and considering. “Can you start me on tai chi?”

  “I’m sure you can find an instructor in Grand Rapids. I’m really not qualified to teach it.”