Letter to Belinda (52 page)

He started walking toward his house, past his grand-parents house. Their house was dark, and they were already asleep. Old folks went to roost with the birds.

Calvin wondered what he was going to tell his mom. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, was not going to play well. It was going to be hard to put a positive spin on the night’s events, no matter how he worded it. He reviewed the facts:

1)
Chris
is
missing,
and
possibly
dead.

2)
Joey
is
stumbling
down
the
river
bank
in
the
dark,
dodging
poisonous
snakes,
as
he
searches
the
river
for
Chris’
body.

3)
Cory
has
been
arrested,
and
is
on
the
way
to
jail.

4)
And
oh
yeah,
Dad’s
casket
is
destroyed!

No, he didn’t really want to go home right now, and have to tell his mom what had really happened, and on such short notice. He wasn’t real good at improvising plausible excuses on the spur-of-the-moment.

What he needed was a ride to at least go back and pick up Joey somewhere down river. But who could he get? His grand-dad might do it, but he was already asleep. He didn’t know any other friends that lived close by, and had a truck, and would be willing to get out and do such a thing. Most of the kids his age were down at the Presbyterian Retreat listening to ghost stories, . . . where they were
supposed
to be!

His dad’s truck was parked in the back yard, but who would drive it? Well he could drive it, because his dad had taught him, by letting him drive it down to the fields and back. But it was a whole different story, getting out on the highway. He had no license, no insurance, and after seeing what just happened to Cory, he was in no hurry to get on the road. But the fact was, the only option that met all his criteria, was for him to try to slip out of the yard with his dad’s truck, and go get his brothers. Yes, he knew the risks, but he was down to very few options. He wondered what his dad would do in a similar situation, and he came back with the answer.

The first problem was getting to the truck. Their black lab, Annie, was a good watch dog. When he neared the house, he knew that she was going to bark, and sound the alarm that someone was there. He had to slip up and let Annie know it was him, without her barking first. That was going to be the trick. He saw the porch light on at his house, and the living room light, and Rebecca’s light as well, so that told him where everyone was in the house. He had no idea where Annie was. She could be anywhere. Calvin walked on the grass beside the driveway, to avoid the crunch of the gravel. In the moonlight, so he could see around the yard very well. He was very close to the house when Annie suddenly bounded around the end of the house with a large bone in her mouth, but she stopped, no doubt because she smelled him.

“Here, Annie! Here, girl!” he said, as quietly as he could. Annie ‘ruffed’, but it was a muffled ruff, because her mouth was full. By the time she dropped the bone, Calvin had convinced her that it was really him, and she came foreword to lick him endlessly. Having successfully quieted their alert system, Calvin walked around back, to check out the truck, with Annie bounding at his heels. The truck was there, and the key was in it, as usual. The only problem was, his mom, or Rebecca hearing it start up. He had to get it away from the house before starting it. And that was possible, because it was basically level ground from where the truck sat, to where the driveway sloped toward the highway, a quarter mile away. If he could roll it 50 feet or so in silence, then he could jump in and coast down the driveway far enough that he could start the engine without being heard. He went to the barn and got a piece of 2x4 wood, long enough to wedge between the clutch peddle, and the seat, so that he could roll it. He got behind the truck, and struggled to get it moving, which was a feat for Calvin, the smallest of the Lee Clan. But once it got started moving, it rolled well, and began to pick up momentum, until it got to a point where he decided it would roll on its own. Then he ran around and jumped into the driver’s seat, and tried to steer the truck down the driveway, but the steering wheel was locked. He barely got the switch on, and the steering wheel unlocked in time to steer away from the ditch, and down the driveway he went, silently, and with no lights on. He let it roll until it stopped, but that was far enough away to start the engine. He left the lights off until he reached the highway, then let the clutch out, and lurched onto the highway, heading for the river.

Calvin couldn’t have exceeded the speed limit if he wanted to, because he was scared to death. He had never driven on the highway before, so he was leaving it in second gear, and taking his time. As he got more comfortable, he shifted to third gear, but didn’t get over 35. The first vehicle he passed, he was sure was going to be a police car, but it wasn’t. The passing car did blow its horn at him though, because he forgot to dim his headlights. By the time he got to Turkey Ridge, and came down the other side, he had passed a few more cars, and was feeling more confident. He was no Mario Andretti, but he was pleased that he was driving like a grown-up.

The first place he went on the river was the New Slab, because he reasoned that anything as big as a casket floating down the river had to get caught at the Slab. As he got within sight of the Slab, he was encouraged, because he saw lights on the structure. He parked the truck on the side of the road, and ran out on the Slab. There was a truck there, with its tailgate down. He didn’t recognize the two people fishing off the down-river side, but folks usually were reasonably hospitable on the river. He walked out to talk to them, carrying his dad’s flashlight with him. As he neared them his suspicions were confirmed. They were total strangers, but they looked un-menacing. It was a 50-something year old man, and a woman, most likely his wife, sitting in lawn chairs beside a cooler full of beer, as they watched over a half dozen fishing poles they had propped up and trolling in the water. A small campfire illuminated their faces, and the shiney beer cans as he approached.

“Catching anything?” he asked, as he walked up to them.

“Very little. Mostly just enjoying the river.”

“That’s good,” Calvin said, looking up the river, then down.

“I’d offer you a beer, but you look to be a mite young.”

“Thanks anyway.”

“You looking for something, son?”

“Well, yeah, I was supposed to pick up my brother here. He’s coming down the river.”

“In a boat?”

“Well, no. He’ll be walking the east bank. Hey, I see a light way up there. That might be him.”

“Oh. I thought he might have been in a boat.”

“No.”

“We did see somebody go through the pipes earlier. Thought that might have been him.”

“Somebody went through the pipes in a boat? And at night?”

“Yeah, I know it sounds crazy! I wouldn’t have tried a stunt like that in daylight!”

His wife added, “And it was a peculiar looking boat too! Probably home made!”

This news excited Calvin. “Could it have been a casket he was in?”

The two looked at one another and laughed. “Yeah, that was exactly what he was in! We both thought it looked like a casket, but you don’t go around telling people you saw a man going down the river in as casket, and that he ‘shot the pipes’ in it at night, or they’ll think you had a few beers too many!”

“I’m glad you brought that up, and not us!” the woman said. “And the fellow waved at us as he went on down the river!”

Calvin was excited to hear that Chris was alive and waving to people.

“Do you know that fellow?”

“Yeah, it is my other brother! He kind’a got away from us! So I need to go down river to catch up with him!”

“Better hurry! He was moving on!”

“I think that might be my other brother coming there. I need to wait on him.”

“Gonna’ be tough on him coming down that side of the river. Nothing but briars and vines on that side. He needs to leave the river and cut across to the road. That’ll save him a lot of time and trouble.”

“I’ll go try to meet him. Thanks a lot.”

Calvin ran down to the truck, and drove back up the road, to where he estimated that he’d seen the light, then parked again, and dashed into the woods with his flashlight. He went down to the steep bank, and yelled for Joey. On the third yell, he got a reply. He saw a flashlight beam directed at him, and he flashed his back at him. “Joey! Come to me! I found Chris!”

He heard a faint, “Okay, I’m coming!”

He breathed a ragged sigh of relief. At least he knew both his brothers were alive. At that moment, that was the main thing. He stood on top the embankment and beaconed Joey in, until he got to the bottom of the embankment. “Too steep!” Joey yelled. “I’ll have to go around. Did you say you found Chris?”

“Yes.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, but he’s still going down the river. We got to get down there ahead of him somewhere.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in a minute.”

When he finally found a way up the embankment he asked, “Is Cory in the truck?”

“No, Cory is gone to jail. I’ve got Dad’s truck, and you can drive!” Too tired to ask the obvious questions, Joey just followed him to the truck.

*     *     *

Miranda crept down the side of the highway, occasionally ducking into the woods, to avoid being seen when a vehicle passed. One of those vehicles was an ambulance going to pick up Lennie’s body. By the time she reached his house, the ambulance went back by, carrying Lennie to the funeral home. She was about to come out of the woods, when a car approached, slowed, and turned in at Lennie’s house. They stopped and checked the name and address on the mail box, then pulled up to the carport. An officer got out and knocked on the door. He got no answer, so he opened the door, and went in for a few seconds. Just long enough to determine that there was no one home. He came out and began rolling off a long piece of yellow police tape, and tied it across the front porch, all the way across to cover the carport too. This was to warn anyone not to enter the house, before they had time to investigate. And tonight there was apparently no rush to investigate. They would probably send out a couple of investigators tomorrow, but for tonight, the tape would keep anyone out. Or so they thought.

As soon as the police car left, Miranda crept across the highway to the house, ducking under the yellow ‘DO NOT CROSS’ police line. Yes, she knew it was illegal to go past that line, but so was cutting up and hiding a Federal Judge. She just hoped that this would be the last time she had to cross that line. She slipped on her latex gloves and entered the house through the carport door.

What she saw appalled her. The house was a total disaster. Clutter and junk was everywhere. Even with the limited light from her small flashlight, she could tell this was going to be a difficult search. What she needed to do was find those areas that Lennie frequented the most. That would be where she would find his diary, if one existed. It was easy to tell the places he frequented, because those were the places connected by the narrow ‘pig trails’ in the junk. There were areas of this house that Lennie had not been into in years, which was made obvious by the degree of clutter.

In the kitchen, his range of movement was from the sink, to the refrigerator, to the microwave, and the corner of the table, where he ate. Every other conceivable space was filled by junk. This was a house where nothing was ever disposed of in a proper manner. It was allowed to accumulate, pile up, and spill over, then pile up again.

She followed a trail to the living room, where she saw Lennie’s tripod mounted binoculars, aimed out the large plate glass window. This was where he spied on everyone who drove down Kellerman Road. She saw a notebook beside the tripod, where he wrote down the tag numbers of vehicles that passed. She couldn’t imagine the loneliness that must have pervaded his life, for this to be his favorite pastime.

She moved to the bedroom, and saw the soiled bed he slept in. He had not changed the bed linens in years, if ever. A cluttered computer sat beside the bed, but it had obviously not been used in years. Magazines and newspapers were piled up in tall pillars, and each was a potential avalanche, if not carefully negotiated around. She saw nothing that resembled a diary, or a daily record of his pitiful life. She felt more sorry for him than ever, to see the way he lived in his own home. He was like a hermit, living a painful existence, inside a brick home that was nice looking on the outside, but inwardly, was more like the abode of a pack rat. There appeared to be nothing here to incriminate her.

She was making her way out of the maze of clutter when she saw a cheap digital camera on the floor. She picked it up, expecting to see that the batteries were dead, but to her surprise, she saw it come on. Lennie had taken pictures of flowers and spiders, and zoomed in on birds, but there were also pictures of people. They were photos obviously taken without the knowledge of the subjects. There was a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Rosewood, as they were leaving their home. Lennie had to have been hiding in the woods to get such a shot. There were photos of people she didn’t know, but were apparently people who lived along Kellerman Road. But then there were photos that were more disturbing. Photos of
her
leaving her home, and one of she and the judge getting into a his car together, and even she and Travis standing beside her house talking. It had to have been that day he was advising her to build the pool. The pictures were not obscene, or incriminating by themselves, but in light of the fact that the judge might very soon come up missing, these seemingly innocent photos could be very telling. They could throw the investigators toward herself and Travis. She didn’t even take the time to view all the photos on the card. She just stuck the camera in her pocket, and looked around for more camera cards. In a desk drawer, she found two more, and shoved them in her pocket. She found nothing else incriminating, so she exited the house, crossed the highway, and melted back into the woods, headed for home.