Rocky Road (16 page)
“I don’t think he was a guest. The call was made around 9:30 in the morning and lasted several minutes. Maybe you saw him come in around that time and use the phone?”
“I didn’t see anyone use the phone,” Goth Girl said, shaking her head. “But you must be talking about Wednesday Man, right?”
2 1/4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups milk*
3/4 cup salad oil
Sift together dry ingredients. Combine remaining ingredients; mix well. Just before baking, add flour mixture, beating only till moistened. Batter will be thin. Cook in preheated, greased waffle iron until golden brown.
Makes 4 4-square waffles.
*Substitute up to 1/2 of the milk with buttermilk for a tangy buttermilk waffle.
Note: Our family’s favorite way to eat these: fried diced Spam, whipping cream, and syrup over the top. Yum.
“Wednesday Man?” Sadie and Caro said at the same time. Sadie wondered if the same rush of energy was coursing through Caro’s veins.
“Yeah,” Goth Girl said, swishing her black-dyed bangs to the side, even though they fell back into exactly the same position. “He comes in on Wednesdays to use the computer.”
Multiple Wednesdays? “Do you know his real name?” Sadie asked.
Goth Girl shook her head. “As far as I know he’s never talked with anyone, which is why we call him Wednesday Man.”
“What does he use the computer for?”
She shrugged. “I’m not looking over his shoulder or anything. Besides, I only see him if I’m cleaning the lobby and he’s here at the same time.”
“Did you see him here yesterday?” Sadie asked.
“I said hi to him when he came in like I always do—customer service, ya know. He just nods and stuff.”
“You don’t know if he used the front desk phone yesterday?” Sadie asked.
Caro pulled out her cell phone and started toggling for something.
Goth Girl shook her head. “I was almost done vacuuming the lobby when he came in, and then the people in room four checked out, so I got to work on their room. So do you know him or something?”
Sadie quickly made up a cover story. “We’re trying to determine if he’s a friend of ours.”
Goth Girl smiled somewhat conspiratorially and leaned closer to them. “I bet he has some tragically mysterious past, right? Like, the love of his life killed herself on their wedding day or he suffered a mental breakdown after his family burned to death in a fire.”
This girl was cute—lip ring notwithstanding—but a little creepy. Then again, she couldn’t be more than nineteen years old and had no idea how truly tragic both of those scenarios were in real life.
“We’re really not sure,” Sadie said. “Um, how long has he been coming in on Wednesdays?”
Goth Girl shrugged her skinny shoulders. “I only came home from school a month ago, and I know he was coming in before then, but I don’t know for how long. You should ask Candace at the front desk—she’s the one who kind of gave him the name Wednesday Man, and she’d know if he used the phone yesterday.”
Yeah, Candace was a problem.
“Did he look like this guy?” Caro said, turning both Sadie and Goth Girl’s attention to the phone she held up. The screen showed Dr. Hendricks’s picture, the same one that had been front and center at his memorial service yesterday.
“No,” the girl said, shaking her head. “Wednesday Man looks kinda homeless. Scraggy beard. Camo jacket and pants. Real skinny. Tragic-like, ya know?”
Dr. Hendricks losing weight and growing a beard in the course of the last two months wasn’t unlikely, and Sadie had to take a deep breath and consciously calm herself down. It was growing more and more possible that Wednesday Man was Dr. Hendricks. She forced herself to remain focused on this conversation. She could consider reacting emotionally to all of this when she’d gotten everything she could from this girl.
“He’s not a guest, then?” Sadie asked to make sure she was clear.
Goth Girl shook her head.
“Does he live around here?” Caro asked.
Goth Girl shrugged. “I guess, since he walks here every week, but he must not have internet wherever he’s staying, right?”
“And you don’t see him around town or anything?” Sadie asked. There was a good possibility that this was the only somewhat public computer in town. She really wished someone had looked over his shoulder a little more so they could know exactly what he’d been doing online.
Goth Girl shook her head again. “I’ve only ever seen him here on Wednesday mornings. I noticed he’s always showered and stuff. He’s not stinky or anything.”
“Have you ever seen him talk to anyone?”
Again the girl shook her head. “Candace has talked to him. See, the computer’s supposed to just be for guests, ya know. But he was so pathetic and sad and stuff that she told him it was okay as long as there weren’t any guests needing to use it. Oh, and I heard he does some cleanup work at the lodge, so maybe Robert knows him better.” She nodded toward the front of the motel, reminding Sadie of the business she’d seen across the street.
“Lodge? There are two motels here?” Caro asked.
“Well, it has camping cabins, but mostly it’s a store and a little café. Robert Moore owns it, and I heard he gave Wednesday Man some work in exchange for food and stuff.”
A door down the hall opened, and they all looked to see an older couple coming out of the room. He held a bag over each shoulder and dragged a wheeled suitcase, while she carried only her purse. Sadie could imagine that she had offered to carry some of the load, and he had insisted that he had it taken care of. They were cute in a different way from the newlywed couple.
Goth Girl moved her cart closer to the wall so the older couple could pass by. Caro and Sadie stepped to the side as well and nodded their farewells. “Step ahead of me, Mother,” the older man said. “I don’t want to slow you up.”
Adorable.
Sadie turned back to Goth Girl and asked a few more questions, trying to eke out any bit of information the girl might not realize she had. Finally Goth Girl lifted both shoulders and gave Sadie a sympathetic look. “I’ve got to get back to work,” she said. She was already moving toward the housekeeping cart.
“Thanks for your help,” Sadie said as the girl started gathering towels and washcloths and stacking them on the top of the cart.
“No problem.” The girl pulled shampoo and conditioner packets from the box on top of the cart. She turned toward the room and put her earphone back in.
Sadie and Caro looked at each other with giddy smiles. “The day is looking up,” Sadie said as they headed toward their room. She suddenly stopped and turned back toward the lobby, saying, “But I’m going to finish that waffle before we head to the store.”
As it turned out, there was no need to hurry. The store across the street didn’t open until ten-thirty, and it was barely nine o’clock. Sadie decided to update her notes while they waited. She was up to three pages of information when Officer Nielson finally called her. During the two rings she let pass before answering it, she considered how much she should tell him about this morning’s discoveries. Did he want possibilities and supposition or just solid leads?
She answered his call before she’d made a decision. “Good morning,” she said into the phone.
“Good morning,” he repeated. “I’ve just pulled up the Red Rock Cancer Foundation’s articles—tell me exactly what you found.”
They discussed the different entities, and he asked detailed questions that she answered as best she could. “That’s certainly something that requires more attention,” Officer Nielson said when they finished up. “I’m heading into the admin meeting regarding the reopening of Dr. Hendricks’s case and will include this information—I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes, but I’m guessing that by this afternoon we’ll have new detectives on this case.”
Sadie knew that, to him, that was good news. For her, it was a little more difficult to face. She wasn’t ready to let go of this case, and because of that, when he didn’t ask her if she’d discovered anything else since leaving the message last night, she didn’t volunteer it. “I’ll look forward to the update,” Sadie said.
“Until then,” he said before ending the call. Sadie appreciated that he wasn’t long-winded—it gave her less time to second-guess herself while he was still on the line.
“You didn’t tell him about Dr. H,” Caro pointed out when Sadie put her phone down.
“I’ll tell him when we know for sure.”
“How do you decide what to tell the police and what not to tell them?” Caro asked, sounding genuinely curious.
There was no good answer to that question. “Um, I’m not sure. It’s kind of a case-by-case thing.”
Sadie checked her e-mail, hoping for something from Pete, but she was disappointed. She could really use his guidance right now. Rather than dwelling on that, she turned her attention back to her notes.
It felt like hours until the time on her computer showed 10:20. She and Caro were waiting when a middle-aged man unlocked the front door from inside and welcomed them. On a grease board set just inside the small store was a Monday through Friday lunch special listed in fluorescent pink marker. Today was Fresh Mex Thursday, and the special was Barbacoa Pork Salad. Sounded delicious.
To the left of the shelves that were filled with one or two options for everything from canned soup to antifreeze was a small lunch counter with napkins, flatware, and a soda fountain. Sadie assumed that when it got closer to lunchtime, that’s where the “special” would be made available. She hoped they would still be in town for lunch. Little places like this intrigued her.
“Can I help you ladies find anything?” the man asked, reminding Sadie that he was still there.
She and Caro shared a look and then faced him. “Actually, yes,” Sadie said. She wished she had some of her business cards from when she had her investigation company. They would be the perfect offering for her to make right now. “My name’s Sadie, and this is my friend Caro. We’re trying to learn more about a gentleman known around town as Wednesday Man, and we were told that you might know more about him.”
She held her breath, anticipating the same hesitation she’d encountered with Candace. To her surprise, however, his expression remained open.
“You know him?” he asked, heading toward the counter at the back of the small store. They followed him.
“He might be a friend of ours,” Sadie said.
“Seems like a good enough guy. I let him do odd jobs in exchange for some food. I’m Robert, by the way.” He reached the counter and moved behind it before extending his hand and shaking theirs. “Can’t say I know more about him than anyone else in town does, though. He’s pretty tight-lipped.”
“What kind of odd jobs does he do?” Caro asked.
“Janitorial stuff,” the clerk said, looking back and forth at them as he sat on a stool next to the cash register with his arms crossed over his chest. “Seems pretty down on his luck.”
“How long has he been working for you?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it working for me,” Robert said with a smile. “But it’s been a couple of months.”
“And you never see this man other than on Wednesdays?” Sadie asked.
“Just at church a few times, but nothing consistent.”
“He goes to your church?” Sadie asked, remembering what Tess had said about Dr. Hendricks’s having attended church before he disappeared. The look she shared with Caro confirmed that they were thinking the same thing. “Here in Pine Valley?”
“Have you gals not taken a tour of the Pine Valley Chapel? It’s one of the main attractions in Pine Valley. The architect was a shipbuilder and basically built the church like an inverted boat. It’s more than a hundred fifty years old and still tight as a drum.”
“Is it a Mormon church, then?” Sadie asked, feeling bad for sticking to the main topic but needing to make sure she had a clear understanding.
“Oh, yeah, the Mormon church.” Robert seemed a little embarrassed to have automatically assumed they knew that. “I’m in the bishopric—that’s the clergy—so I sit at the front of the chapel. I’ve seen him slip in a few times, always after the meeting started. He sits on the very back row, if there’s room, or stands against the wall. Then leaves during the closing song. I tried to catch him once, but I think it scared him off. When he showed up to work the next week I told him I wouldn’t do that again but I hoped he’d come back. He did, which I was glad to see.”
Sadie made eye contact with Caro and knew she was thinking the same thing Sadie was: Wednesday Man had to be Dr. Hendricks. He was here, hiding out, living this odd life as a transient of some kind. Why? What had motivated him to create this elaborate hoax?
“He didn’t come in yesterday, though,” Robert said, causing both Caro and Sadie to look back at him.
“He didn’t?” Caro repeated.
Robert shook his head. “First time in two months that he wasn’t waiting for me when I opened.”
Caro’s phone rang. “Sorry,” she said as she hurried to send the call to voice mail.
“We’d really like to talk to him—do you know where he’s staying?”
“I think he’s camping up Lloyd Canyon.”
“Camping?” Sadie repeated. “The housekeeper at the motel thought he might be staying somewhere with a shower. Said he was always clean.”
“He could be staying in one of the cabins, but you’d think someone who could afford a cabin could afford food.” Robert paused and made a face. “I hope he isn’t squatting up there. I’d hate to see him in trouble with the law, but that’s something I couldn’t keep to myself.”
Sadie appreciated the warning not to tell this man something he would feel morally bound to report. Could Dr. Hendricks have somehow rented a cabin without the police tracking the payment? Maybe he’d disguised the payment as something else in his financial records. But if he’d planned all of this well enough to have hidden the plans, why hadn’t he accounted for the fact that he would need food? Frustration over the growing number of questions began creeping in until Sadie remembered that this could be Dr. Hendricks! She and Caro may very well have found him. The rising questions were insignificant compared to the impact of what they had pieced together this morning.
“Showered or not, he struck me as someone camping out. He always has the same clothes on.”
Goth Girl had said that, too.
“Why do you think he’s camping in—what did you call it?—Lloyd Canyon?”
“We talked about him in a church meeting once, people trying to figure out who he was and if he needed any help. A man at church who lives on Lloyd Canyon Road said he’d seen him around—just walking, not causing any trouble—so I figured he must be staying up there.”
Caro’s phone rang a second time, and she quickly declined the call and apologized again. “I’ll turn it off, sorry.”
“He didn’t tell you his name?” Sadie asked. “Didn’t make small talk or indicate why he was here?”
Robert shook his head. “I tried once or twice to talk to him, but he wasn’t open to it, and I worried about scaring him off, so I didn’t push. You said he might be a friend of yours?” His curiosity was setting in. Unfortunately, Sadie didn’t feel ready to give him too much information.
Robert seemed to sense her hesitation, and he smiled good-naturedly. “I’m not trying to be pushy. I just hope he’s okay. I worried when he didn’t come in yesterday.”
“Can you direct us toward Lloyd Canyon?”
“Sure,” Robert said, pointing over his shoulder. “Opposite end of town, past the church. You really should stop in for a tour when you have a few minutes. Fascinating history, that church.”