Pursuit (29 page)

In the distance, an apologetic voice. She sat straight up.

“Cher, baby, let's make up and go home! I'll fix coffee, and we'll talk!”

She thought him an idiot. Yelling in the middle of the night like a whiney ex-boyfriend. The flashlight beam was directly across the river from her cave. She saw him panning the light over the yellowed buttress. Cheryl held her breath. She pulled the damp blanket away from the broken branches. The light settled onto her jeans, worrying its way in, trying to sort out the shape. The bright beam edged on. Cheryl dared not move her clothing. She made herself smaller, curling into herself.

The light was back, at a different angle.

“Hey, kiddo, I'm gonna come over there and get you!” He cursed and threw a rock. But his aim was too high, and it bounced down the side of the cliff. Another caught the edge of the cave. The beam scanned the entrance, searched inside, and then slipped away. His voice grew fainter.

She gazed over the entrance edge and caught the flashlight beam streaking across the river, a voice behind it pleading. He came back, shining his light into each dark cave-like area along the supporting cliffside columns. At each spot, he proclaimed his love and then maneuvered on. It would have been touching if it weren't so ridiculous. He once again snaked his way past her cavern, all the while peddling his litany of endearments. Finally, a car door slammed, followed by the screech of tires and a blaring car horn that pierced the night until the vehicle faded out of sight.

A noise like an outboard motor filled Cheryl's half dream. The interruption fought hard with her vision of a warm glow in her mom's fireplace, the crackling flames sounding like a boat on a countrified lake. She woke up to see a pair of dark eyes surrounded by her blue jeans staring
back at her. A squirrel paddled its front legs in her direction and then disappeared behind her dark blouse.

The high-pitched engine grew closer. Was he back? Cheryl reached past her jeans and lifted the edge of the blanket. In the dim morning light, she saw a girl on a motor scooter across the river, her hair flying behind her. The scooter disappeared behind a few trees and then reappeared. She looked to be going too fast to be in the woods. She must be on a road. Cheryl considered yelling at her, thought better of it, and rested her head back down on the bed of leaves. If King was anywhere in the vicinity, he would hear her. She rose up again and looked out; in the distance, she still heard the motor.

A road. Why hadn't she seen it the previous night? She then remembered crossing a stream, climbing a bank to a short stretch of flat ground, and then sliding down into a culvert on the other side, then the river.

She shut her eyes and curled into a ball. Her bed of leaves was now damp from her body. Cheryl reached out and felt her jeans, clammy and cold. Her sneakers, with their patented holes, were damp; socks and blouse, about the same. She didn't know if she had slept or not; she felt groggy, her eyes squinting to adjust to the pale light. The sun had not fully risen. She watched the road. After an hour, the sun began to beat down on the face of her cave. She waited.

A truck full of squawking chickens swept past, its radio blasting a rockabilly tune. Her recollection of the inlet below her was that the steep cliff face fell right down to the edge of the water. She would not be able to walk on her side of the river. After looking out of her cave both upriver and downriver, she knew that she would have to cross back over to the road.

Tugging on her jeans, Cheryl winced at a variety of aches. She realized that the plastic grocery bag from basement hell was still in the back pocket. She stuffed the denim trousers along with her blouse into the bag and tied a knot at the top of the indented plastic handles. She would leave the wet blanket for the next poor girl caught in this damp predicament. Cheryl looped her sneakers around her neck, securing them with her shoestrings. Listening for cars, trucks, or motor scooters, she pushed the branches away from her cave entrance and slid down to the single heavy branch on the stout tree and dropped back to the patch of sand. She was well hidden, and catching her breath, she looked down and saw shoe prints. It frightened her until she realized they were hers from the night before.

The water seemed even colder in the day than in the dark. Naked, Cheryl denied fear and waded in, holding the plastic bag above her head as she paddled with one hand. She lost yardage as the river took her downstream. A log grounded in a stretch of sand caught her in the side close to her hip, which was still sore from being stranded in the window. It hurt like hell. She rolled onto the rocky shore, got dressed, and put on her sneakers. Again, she started shivering. It surprised her that she was so thirsty, given how much water she'd swallowed. Her stomach felt knotted and empty. She ran her fingers through her hair, wanting to look presentable. Why that mattered now made her laugh.

At the road, she stomped her feet to squish away the river water. Looking both ways, she decided to go away from the sun, west, thinking that to be the way home. An engine came laboring up a rise behind her; a tree trunk the size of two armfuls around hid her until she was able to see
the driver. A bearded man with a deep frown. She stayed hidden. Over the next hour, two more vehicles passed, each with a male driver. She needed to find a hideout that had a little more sun. As she hurried toward a lone gnarled oak along the road, a horn from behind startled her.

An old woman in a battered truck pulled alongside. “Going my way, darlin'?” She grinned a toothless display as Cheryl piled into the front seat.

She wore bib overalls and a red flannel shirt. On her head a faded yellow Caterpillar tractor cap. “Whatcha doin' out here, deary?”

“Sorry, ma'am. Thanks for the ride. I'm sorry.”

“No need to be sorry, hon. You look cold. You're shivering! Lord, are you soaked?”

“I'm lost. I mean, I can't find my mom—” She struggled to pull things together.

“Were you in the river?”

Someone said, “Yes.” Maybe it came from her.

“Someone you ditching? A boyfriend?”

Cheryl caught her breath and gently shook her head up and down. She shivered once again, and an avalanche of tears started.

The old lady patted her on the knee. “Why on earth was you in the river, baby?”

She knew, but the words would not come. She felt dizzy and laid her head against the tattered upholstery next to the door. “I was looking to find the dog. Then I crawled out of the basement.”
I'll just shut my eyes for a moment.

“Good Lord A'mighty. Dear, are you hurt? You feel poorly, do you?”

Cheryl didn't respond. Her arms squeezed each other. The old lady said something, but Cheryl didn't understand any of it. She felt the car stop, a door open. The
sudden warmth of the truck's interior shocked her, and she didn't know if she was hot or cold. Cheryl heard the woman speaking to someone.

“She's in a bad way, Horace. I better drive her on up to Jefferson City; it's about the closest hospital.” She paused. “Okay. I'll meet up with you just outside Meta, State Road B on the way to Saint Thomas. See you in a few minutes.”

The driver-side door shut again. The old truck's starter ground away as the woman patted her on the leg again.

“We got a police escort into the hospital at Jefferson City, hon. How you holdin'?”

Cheryl tried to catch her breath. Her teeth chattered. The road in front of her made wiggly curves. “A sardine can in my hair, it made him mad. Would you call my mom?”

“What's the number, hon?”

Cheryl knew the number, but it wouldn't come out.

“What's your name?”

“Sc- Sc- Scoot—is he okay? Mom's gonna be angry.”

“Your name, sugar, what is it?”

Cheryl slumped down in the seat. The words to a song keeping time with the truck tires drummed in her ear. “Tutti frutti! Oh, Rudy! Tutti frutti!”

T
he logical part
of Julie's mind would not allow the instinctive Julie to take over. The thought to pursue anything as simple as just a last name on a whim would be crazy. She struggled to recall what Venus Riley had said about Bink Caldwell. “A midget looking for a circus.” Did she also say “a loser”? “Orphan”? Had she actually said “orphan”?

Her cramped work space at home held four shelves of books that would be described as research oriented, but she ignored them and looked in her local suburban phone directory for “Caldwell,” discovering it to be somewhat common. The only other directory she had was for the Saint Louis metropolitan area, which contained several hundred Caldwells. She then Googled “Bink Caldwell,” with no success.

The house felt empty. So much of Cheryl dominated the bungalow, such as her trophies for volleyball and girls' track. A gilded frame displayed the mayor's commendation for her work on a charity that she and several other girls started. It made Julie proud that Cheryl, at fifteen,
helped pull together an organization in Saint Louis that raised nearly $2,000 for Special Olympics Missouri during the school year.

She rested her hands on the heavy wood mantel over the fireplace, running her fingers over a trophy inscribed with Cheryl's name for having won the girls' 400 at a dual meet with Jefferson City. She glanced at the clock—close to six in the morning. Another two hours before it would be reasonable to make her calls. The rain continued, a brisk wind ruffled the tree limbs, driving sheets of water against the wood pane windows. Julie shivered, not knowing why. She thought of Cheryl. Her police life consisted of, for the most part, black-and-white situations handled with a modicum of emotional decision. Unlike her present dilemma.

She lay on her leather couch, the old, cracked, slippery hide sinking down and wrapping itself around her. She reached up on the back of the sofa and pulled the wool blanket over her. The covering fell to her sides and feet and warmed her. She stayed that way for several minutes, but, feeling guilty, kicked off the blanket and moved to a straight-back kitchen chair, sitting in a rigid upright position. She looked into the cold fireplace, willing it to supply answers. She overrode her rigid mind-set and gave herself up to her hunch.

She called Gina Morada at home. “Sorry to call this early, Gina. It's Julie Worth, how are you?”

“I'm fine, no problem. I was up making a pot of joe. Any news about Cheryl?”

“No, nothing.” Whenever someone mentioned her daughter's name, her heart did a little hiccup. “Reason I'm calling is, I've got to run out to see a woman who might know something about a suspect we're looking into. I
wondered if you could look up some info on this fellow as well? Not much I can tell you other than a name, though. What do you say?”

Gina spent most of her time as headquarters dispatcher. Officers often recruited her to research information. “Sure, what do you have?”

“Name's Bink Caldwell. Bink is probably a nickname, but it's all we have right now. Can you look into your database? You know I'm e-literate when it comes to computers. Say, white male about five eight, thirty-five to forty years old.”

“Any DOB, tats, birthmarks, arrest records?”

“Nope. Just Caldwell and that weird first name.”

“Will you be in cell range?”

“Yeah, hope so. If not, I'll get you on a landline. Want me to get the okay from Captain Walker?”

“No worries. I got you covered.”

“Thanks. I owe you.”

The department had issued Julie another Charger. She went to the station and then headed out with Todd for a surprise visit to their heavenly bodied Venus. Their route took Todd past Westside Mall. Julie realized she was not far from the lot where she'd parked on the day of the shooting. She dismissed that event as being straightforward. There had been a well-defined bad guy who'd pushed too far, and he received his justice the same way he'd dished it out—unlike her present situation, which was far more complex and without a known villain.