Miss Julia to the Rescue (39 page)

“It’s Mrs. Julia Springer Murdoch. There’s an emergency somewhere on your property and I need to get in to see about it.”

“Who?”

I repeated myself, ending with “Let me in this minute! Somebody may be dying while you’re trying to wake up.”

He mumbled something about waiting a minute, so I began walking back and forth between my car and the gate, getting more anxious by the minute. I’d left the car running and the door open, so I had plenty of light, but still the night seemed to close in on me. I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking something might spring out of the blackness. The rumble of thunder and flickering lightning weren’t helping my feelings, either.

With relief, I saw headlights coming down the drive toward me. An old, mud-spattered Jeep stopped on the other side of the gate, and a young man with mussed-up hair crawled out. As he approached the gate, I recognized him as the valet who’d parked my car at the garden party. But he didn’t have on his nice car-parking outfit. All he was wearing was a pair of drawstring pajama bottoms and a lot of ink on his chest, including a hollow-eyed death’s head. In the glare of the car lights, I caught a glimpse of metal here and there on his face.

That answered one question: no, he didn’t remove all his bolts, nails and screws when he went to bed.

He walked to the gate and clasped a bar with each hand. There was no welcoming smile this time. “What do you want?”

“I want Adam Waites. He called me from here, saying he needed help to get home. Where is he?”

“He left. Hours ago.”

“Well, could you just let me in to look around a little? He sounded ill or hurt. Dying, in fact. You may think he left, but he could be lying somewhere in desperate need of help.”

He studied me through the bars, and I thought for a minute that he wouldn’t answer. Then he said, “Mrs. Whitman’s orders say that once this gate is locked for the night, we’re not to open it—not for you, not for anybody.”

“Well, wake her up and get some new orders! Tell her Adam’s in trouble. I’m sure she’ll reconsider if she knows that.”

“He’s not here—how many times do I have to tell you?” And that rude and unfriendly man turned his back on me and headed for his Jeep.

“Young man, look here!” I scrounged around in my pocketbook and pulled out my cell phone. “In less than fifteen minutes, there’s going to be a swarm of deputies, a search-and-rescue squad, a K-9 team, an EMS vehicle and a firetruck sitting out here with red and blue lights waking up not only Mrs. Whitman but all her neighbors. Now you can either let me in or you’ll certainly be letting them in.”

He stopped, turned around and put his hands on his hips, glaring at me.

“Oh, quit posturing,” I said. “Those pajamas are about to fall down as it is. Now open this gate and get out of my way.”

And he did. He went to one of the pillars, opened a niche and, using a key, unlocked the gate. The two sides began to slide apart as he got in the Jeep, calling, “Follow me.”

As if,
I thought, but didn’t say, getting in my car and putting it in gear. He’d been giving me the runaround, so I was through being courteous. Besides, taking orders didn’t sit well with me.

As soon as the gates parted and while he was turning around, I drove on through, heading for the house.

I whirled the car around the courtyard, making a circle to look for Adam’s truck in the beam of the headlights. The courtyard was dark and empty, so I pulled to the side, got out and put on the raincoat and hat against the misting rain.

I looked around, seeing little but shadows thrown by the distant pole lights. The house loomed over me in the dark and so did the four-door garage—no lights were on inside or out. Where was everybody?

Two sets of headlights swept across the front of the garage, one after the other, as the gatekeeper sped into the courtyard with, I hoped, Sheriff Ardis McAfee right behind him in a seriously large pickup with a growling engine. The Jeep stopped with a squeal of brakes on the wet pavers, rain flickering in its headlights. The metal-pierced driver hopped out, hopping mad. “You were supposed to follow me.”

“I don’t have time to dillydally around, young man. What’s your name anyway?”

“Uh, Carl.”

“Well, Carl, I’d like you to meet Sheriff Ardis McAfee.” I flung out my arm toward Ardis as he descended from his truck, settled a hat on his head and ambled over to us, Etta Mae, holding a pocketbook over her hair, hurrying after him.

“Evenin’, folks, or maybe mornin’,” the sheriff said, the light rain beginning to speckle his hat. “What kinda problem we got here?”

Before I could get out a word, Carl said, “No problem. None at all. This woman insisted on coming on private property to search for somebody who’s long gone.”

“That’s not so!” I broke in. “Adam called from here, so he’s here somewhere. It’s a matter of finding him because he sounded desperate. And,” I went on, rounding on Carl, “you ought to be eager to help, in case he’s lying injured somewhere on this private property. Lawsuits abound, you know.

“And where is Agnes?” I demanded, having worked up a full head of steam. “Why isn’t she out here looking for him? She was the one who called him—nothing would do but he had to get out here to fix her generator, and I guess now that it’s fixed, she can just go to bed and forget about him.”

“Okay, okay,” Ardis said, patting the air, “let’s see where we are before we call in the lawyers. Now, young man, where is Ms. Whitman? If she’ll give her permission to do a little ground search, we can get on with it and leave the fussin’ for later.”

Carl glanced up at the dark house. “She doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

“Well, now that’s too bad,” Ardis said, “because I ’spect we’re gonna have to disturb her. Why don’t you go wake her up, tell her why we’re here, and ask her for permission to look over the grounds. Then she can go back to bed. Oh, and turn on all the outside lights while you’re at it.”

Carl stared at the sheriff for a second, then he nodded and walked off toward the house. Before he got fully into the shadows around the house, I saw him put a cell phone to his ear. She wasn’t asleep! He was reporting to her, while she stayed out of sight. Didn’t want to be disturbed, my foot!

The sheriff and Etta Mae drew close, as the sheriff’s sharp eyes peered at me from under his hat. “I’m a little ways off my stompin’ grounds here. How ’bout bringin’ me up to date.”

“Well, see,” I said, straining to make my case, “Adam called me a little while ago, and I didn’t know who it was at first, he sounded so distressed.” And I went on to recount the phone call, ending
with his last words. “He said he was at Agnes’s, which I assume meant at her house or on her grounds somewhere. Then the very last thing he said was a string of mumbles that ended with the word
dying
. Which scared me to death.”

Ardis responded with a low grunt, the meaning of which I couldn’t interpret. “And you think Nellie might know where he is?”

“It was all I could think of. I mean, coupled with the fact that he left with her to come here and that he told me this was where he was. So I thought of you, her being your niece and all. I didn’t want to come barging in here on my own.” Which, of course, was exactly what I’d done, but not without knowing that backup was on the way.

“Uh-huh,” the sheriff said.

Etta Mae leaned in, lowering her voice. “Looks like,” she said, “if he’s still here, they would’ve helped him if he’s sick or something. At least help him find his truck.”

“It’s all very strange,” I said. “And all I know for sure is that for the last week or so he was more and more reluctant to come out here and work for that woman. But she kept on and on at him, thinking up things for him to do.” I stopped and thought about that. “Of course, I tried to help by thinking up things for him to do at my house. You know, so he’d be too busy to leave.”

“Well,” the sheriff said, casting an eye around, “I see what you mean, but that boy ought to get some backbone and stand up for himself. But I give you this: the Whitman woman has a way about her. I met her when I came to see Nellie the other day, and I saw the way she rules the roost around here. Look what all she talked Nellie into. Her mama’s gonna bawl her eyes out when she sees her. If Nellie ever gets home. From what she says, they got some weird worship services goin’ on out here.”

I gave him a sideways look, thinking that it took one to know one. Of all the weird worship services I’d ever seen, it had been the snake-handling one he’d sent us to.

“That’s what I understand,” I agreed. “And I think they’re pressuring Adam to join in, but you know, Sheriff,” I went on, “there’re
all kinds of strange and unusual worship services going on if you just look around.”

Ardis let that little jab go right over his head and looked instead past my shoulder toward the house. “Wonder where that boy got to. He must be having trouble waking Miss Agnes up. I kinda get the feelin’ they don’t much like night visitors. Might have to do a little threatenin’.”

“With what?” Etta Mae asked, shivering a little. Etta Mae never liked confrontations on the edge of the law. “You don’t have any authority here, do you?”

“Nope, but I got professional courtesy,” the sheriff said with the assurance of a man with a badge. “I b’lieve I could get us some help if we need it. And if Carl don’t get movin’, I may have to call on it.”

Just then lights came on all around us—floodlights on the corners of the house, garden lights, lights over the garage doors, and lights along the drive. Water started spurting out of the fountain and all four garage doors went up.

“Look!” I said, pointing past Etta Mae’s head. “There’s Adam’s truck.” The truck with its camper shell sat lonely and abandoned in the last bay of the garage.

“You ladies stay here,” Ardis said as he went over to the pickup. Etta Mae and I followed, but not closely, and watched as he opened the cab door, looked around and shook his head. Then he walked to the back, opened the shell and searched the truck bed. “Not here,” he said, jumping down.

By that time Carl, having finished reporting in, walked over to us. “I told you,” he said, all in a huff. “Waites is not here. He left hours ago.”

“Not without his truck, he didn’t,” I said, stepping up in his face. “That truck holds everything he owns and he wouldn’t leave without it.”

“Well, I’m telling you he did,” the nail-studded man said right back at me. “It wouldn’t start, so he walked away. He left the windows down, so I rolled it into the garage when the rain started.”

“And you didn’t offer him a ride? What kind of people are you?”

“The kind,” a strident voice out of the dark said, “who don’t like strangers invading private property.”

We all turned to see Agnes Whitman, fast-walking and furious, appearing in a pool of light. She was wearing a long, filmy peignoir that revealed she was also wearing ink up one arm and down the other.

“Where’s Adam?” I demanded. “His truck’s here, so he must be, too. Where is he?”

Agnes propped her hands on her hips and said, “I don’t know and at this time of night I don’t care. You are on dangerous ground to come in here and start throwing accusations around.”

I opened my mouth, but Ardis put a hand on my shoulder. He had a smile on his face, but it wasn’t particularly pleasant. “We have reason to believe that Waites has been injured,” he said. “He made an emergency call asking for help, and said he was here, at your place. Now, we can handle it ourselves by looking for him or we can turn it over to the local sheriff, whichever way you want.”

Well, that was reasonable, I thought, and would probably be more effective than pulling the Tattooed Woman’s stringy hair out. So I subsided and let Ardis handle her.

“Go to it then,” she said, flinging out her arm. “Look for him all you want.” Then with a sly smile, she said, “To save you a little time, though, I’d suggest you look in Cheyenne’s bed first.”

Oh, Lord
, I thought,
the boy has been compromised.
But would he be dying, too? It didn’t make sense. I’d heard of old men kicking the bucket on their wedding nights, but Adam was awfully young to be having a heart attack, regardless of whose bed he was in.

“Good idea,” Ardis said, without turning a hair. “We figured to start with her anyway. Where is she?”