Pursuit (35 page)

Julie paced around the hospital reception room like a caged animal. She looked at Todd and mouthed the word “piss.”

Todd smiled. “He also said that if you had a strong feeling about this, to proceed on your own. But call for backup if anything proves out. End of message.”

Julie continued around the large room, trying to keep herself in law enforcement mode, and not doing a very good job of it.

“I drove your car back.” Todd threw her the keys. “Taylor's off duty, so he'll give me a lift back to the station.”

“Thanks, pal. Once again I don't know how to thank you.”

Julie walked her partner out front to his ride. Once settled, Todd rolled down the window. “Call, Sergeant.”

O
n the way
home from the hospital, Charles hired a migrant worker just outside Jefferson City. A line of Hispanic men in work clothes were milling about in front of a Home Depot parking lot. He spied one fellow standing by himself, not chatting or fraternizing. “I need a hard worker, amigo, how much?”

The man shrugged.

“How's about seven fifty an hour?” Charles asked.

The fellow nodded and got in the car.

“You speak English, friend?”

“
Poquito
.”

“What does that mean, a little? Some? What?”

The man turned in his seat back toward the other men at the gathering. “Yes, I speak. The
jefe
, head honcho there, wearing the hat, he thinks I'm loco in the head. Makes trouble for me, no English for him,
cabrón
.”

Charles didn't understand what his Mexican friend said. Maybe it didn't matter. More important was the fact that his new amigo seemed to be a loner. He drove for an hour, winding around and doubling back several times.
The guy would need to be a compass genius to figure out where he was. In the end, though, it probably wouldn't matter.

In the basement of Bait Shack, they got to work tearing down the stud-erected walls. Charles, working one-handed, wasn't much help, but he carried the long two-by-fours out back of the house, where he left them to be sawed later into chunks that could be burned. By the end of the day, the walls were down and the scraps of plasterboard stacked on the basement floor.

He fed his new friend canned sardines, scrambled eggs, and Cup Noodles. Then the two of them cleared an area for the cot. Charles explained to Rodrigo that he had at least one more full day of
más trabajo
for him. The fellow seemed to be all right with his overnight accommodation and his stand-alone toilet in the middle of the room.

The next day at a little after four, Rodrigo and Charles finished renovating the basement. The plasterboard, commode, and cot were loaded into the back of Charles's Nomad along with three heavy trash bags. Charles asked Rodrigo to help him unload as well.

Charles had paid the hospital in cash to sew up his arm, so he was short of dollars. “We'll go to ATM,
entiendes
?”

The man acknowledged by clicking his tongue twice. Charles once again drove a serpentine route even though it looked as though Rodrigo was asleep.

At the Jefferson City dump, Charles paid his five dollars, and the two of them drove to a spot where a bulldozer was parked, ready for the next day's movement of trash. Charles got into the back of the car while Rodrigo piled the trash bags in front of the dozer's shiny blade. When he returned to the tailgate, Charles, in the back pull-down-seat
area of the wagon, pointed toward the dozer. “Look at those pigeons, Rodrigo.
Más bueno, sί
?”

Rodrigo's view of the hundreds of birds faded from the pale blue sky, their flapping wings morphed into dark grey ringing noises, and then black nothingness.

C
heryl seemed better
—her color returned, the hot pack on her chest removed. Julie's request for a new doctor had been granted.

“Cheryl, how are you feeling?”

“Better, yes, much better. Doctor, when can I go home? Soon, I hope.”

“Perhaps that should be left up to your mother. You've had a trying experience, be patient. School, for instance, should take priority, but don't rush it. I understand last night you were having difficult dreams?”

“I don't recall; don't know any of that. Mom?”

Julie stood up from her chair and moved to Cheryl's bed rail. “You were calling out. Scoot, Aunt Billie. It's stuff we can go over later, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, Ma. Wow. If I try and use my mind too much, I get this drowsy, stupid feeling.” Cheryl plopped back down on her bed and turned toward the doctor.

“Is it all right if I nap now? I'm really . . .”

The doctor and Julie watched as Cheryl's breathing slowed, and she fell back to sleep.

“As far as being discharged, maybe tomorrow. Let's see how she is in the morning.”

Julie walked the doctor out into the hall.

“Don't push on going back to school, not now,” he advised. “You might want to consider that she see a psychiatrist. Perhaps help her to look more clearly into what happened. Anyway, nice meeting you, and I wish you the best.”

Julie liked the new doctor's suggestions and mind-set. He would do. She paced the hospital corridor and then called Todd. “Hey, what's going on?”

“Not much. How's Cher?”

“Fine, good. Asleep. Says she wants to go home, so we'll see. I just wanted you to know I might be back in town tomorrow. Would you tell Walker I'll probably hang out with her for a day or so? I'll call in and let everyone know what's going on. Any thoughts on our little exploration exercise?”

“Not much, but I looked at a large-scale map of the area we were in. The water we saw might have been a river, not a lake.”

“Yeah, I know. Where the cliffs were; that's the Missouri.”

“But we walked south of there three miles or so. That's the Osage, and southwest of there, another ten. Lake of the Ozarks is spread out with a ton of cabins and homes. So it isn't gonna be easy, Sarge.”

“She couldn't have walked that far, could she?”

“Beats me. What did the doctor say about questioning her?”

“Basically, take it easy, go slow.”

“Okay. Let me know what's going on. Maybe see you tomorrow. We'll talk.”

Julie would have to break the news to Cheryl about the death of Aunt Billie. Maybe the next day, on the way home. She did an inventory of her thoughts on the case—going slow didn't seem to be part of her list of goods. She determined that Cheryl's health would always come first. But somehow she would find Mr. X and serve him up a plateful of old-fashioned ass kicking.

Getting out of the hospital proved to be an ordeal, and the drive home was no easier. Cheryl pounded her hands on her thighs when her mother told her about Billie. “Was it my fault?” She watched the telephone poles whizz by. “What happened?”

“I didn't want you to find out from the news. Now that you're going home, people will talk, ask questions. How much do you remember about what went on that day?”

“You mean after he called?”

“Who called?”

“Ole Garlic Breath. I went to his house to get Scoot.”

“The place at the end of the block? At the cul-de-sac?”

“Yeah. I didn't know Scooter was missing. Or did I?” She buried her face in her hands, as if willing the events to pop out of her mouth. “The guy called and said he had Scoot, and for me—us—to come get him. Aunt Billie was in the bathroom. So I went. I don't know. I fell asleep and woke up wet and walking somewhere. Aunt Billie was crying. I was in the back of an SUV. Or maybe a wagon—a station wagon. Maybe Billie was there too, I don't know.”

L
isten to me,
Charles. This is where I want to be absolutely clear. Although tenured, you are not irreplaceable.”

Charles's first day back at work proved to be troubling. He watched as boss Wad fussed with his tie.

“I say this because there is a manner of the vagabond spirit in your attitude which can be attractive, but—and here we are again—there is a sense of the carefree about you. As if we are hostage to your every whim. It must stop.”

“Are you referring to my recent absence?” Charles exhaled carefully, not wanting, under the present circumstances, to explode.

Drew pressed his clenched fist against his desktop. “You know damn well what I'm referring to. Your cavalier attitude about this establishment, your repeated absences of late, and your lack of deference to your superiors. I want it stopped, mister.”

Charles got up from his chair and took off his suit coat, and then rolled up his left shirtsleeve. While doing so, he deliberately pushed on his recent wound, forcing it to open. He exposed the bandaged long, bloody trail from
elbow to wrist. “Does this look like deference to others? Does this appear as if I didn't yield to someone's opinion? I fell down my basement stairs.”

“You do not have to raise your voice to me.” Drew pronounced each syllable as if he were speaking to a four-year-old.

“I've been a loyal employee—”

“Yes, all the while being a brat like you were since the first day you came aboard. Take the next few days and examine your priorities, Mr. Clegg. Determine if you want to continue your relationship with Drew Box Factory. Do not come in to work, but sit in your comfortable lakefront cottage—provided, I might add, by the aforementioned box factory. Ask yourself if this company is where you want to spend the rest of your life. And if so, are you prepared to change your attitude?”

“I—”

“Come back a week from today. Ready to work with renewed character. Clear?”

Charles happily removed himself from the office. Conflicting thoughts of murder and forgiveness filled the drive back to Bait Shack. He had to change or at least put forth that appearance.

Pacing the weed-infested bank of his home, Charles looked out at the broad expanse of water. He thought of the girl. Her evil karma caused this, his wound, the attitude he had been forced to embrace. The demise of his guest quarters and the elimination of the day laborer was all on her.

Ruminating about his barrage of recent bad luck, Charles lit his outdoor incinerator, stoking it from time to time with two-by-four basement wall shards. The rug, mattress, towels, and tattered sheets had been set aside in hopes of a down-the-road revival, but they were now an
ashen heap. He wondered about the missing blanket; probably caught up in the run to the garbage dump. The fan and caged light, along with the exposed toilet bowl, all gone to the dump. He painted over the fresh nail holes where the studs had been pulled away from the interior basement walls. He brought a number of boxes and other junk down the rickety stairs to fill the space left by his honeymoon suite. The basement looked like any other cluttered storage catchall.

Later, while sitting on his front porch, he thought of the girl and what she might put together of her fortnight stay. He was certain that she'd never gotten a look at him.