Too Close to Home (12 page)

Aunt Lucy cut me off.

“Gran and I both agree that Katie’s long past that. If you spent more time with her, you’d know that she’s a different person now. Stable. Responsible. Mature. She’s worked through
her
problems. Maybe it’s time you worked through yours. You can’t go on not trusting people, pushing away anyone who gets too close to you.”

After that, my own thoughts took up enough space that I
pretty much stopped listening to whatever else Aunt Lucy had to say. Certainly, I stopped speaking. Except to say
goodbye
and
see you tomorrow.

T
here’s nothing worse than a headachy, cranky cop.

That’s what I was the next morning, and I knew it. Anxious thoughts had chewed at the edges of my mind all night, triggering nightmares, disrupting sleep and offering little in the way of resolution.

I must have sounded as bad as I felt. At least to the practiced ear of someone who knew me well. When Chad called that morning, he immediately asked me what was wrong.

Reciting my list of woes wasn’t an option. Especially because desperately missing Chad’s comforting presence in bed when nightmares wrenched me awake would have topped the list.

The lie took only a moment.

“Nothing,” I said. “Except this heat’s beginning to get to me. Sure wish it’d rain.”

“You and most of Hardin County,” Chad said, laughing.
Then his tone turned serious. “Did you listen to this morning’s weather report?”

I said I hadn’t.

“Well, it looks like your wish just might come true. There’s a front moving in from the northwest. They’re predicting cooler air, possibly severe thunderstorms reaching our area within the next couple of days. Which is why I’m calling. I think we should search the ravine below the crime scene before the weather gets nasty.”

He paused as if he was waiting for me to object.

I merely pointed out the obvious.

“There’s been a lot of nasty weather around these parts over the last dozen years,” I said mildly. “What do think we’ll find down there after all this time?”

“Oh hell, Brooke,” he said, “I know this doesn’t make any sense. Crawling down into that ravine is probably pointless and definitely risky. In any other situation, I’d sit tight, wait for that damned official report, and then use it to narrow down our missing-persons lists. But I’ve got to do
something.
And I figure it can’t hurt to look. Maybe we’ll luck out. Stumble across my mother’s wedding ring. Or my father’s gun. Or just find some bit of evidence that points to someone else.”

Like an asthma inhaler that’s already been found, I thought. Of course, I didn’t say that out loud. But I couldn’t help thinking—hoping—that a search would produce evidence that proved the victim
was
Chad’s mother. For Chad’s sake. And because it would ease my worries about Katie’s past
and
her future.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “But not today, okay?”

Then I offered him a lie that was as close to the truth as I could make it. That strategy, I’d discovered, made my lies rest a lot easier on my conscience.

“Gran’s got a doctor’s appointment in Paducah—just a routine checkup—and I promised her and Aunt Lucy that I’d go along. I’m going off duty around noon. So can we do it tomorrow morning?”

“Sure,” Chad said.

We agreed to meet at Camp Cadiz.

Minutes later, I left the house, climbed into my SUV and drove to Statler’s. But not even strong coffee, a chocolate-iced cake doughnut and Ed’s Hawaiian shirt—this one printed with hula girls and palm trees—were enough to improve my mood or cure my headache. Mostly because they didn’t keep me from worrying about this afternoon’s extraction. Or anticipating that sooner or later an unsuspecting guest would antagonize my sister. Or wondering why someone would take the time to entomb their victim in the trunk of a tree when a perfectly good ravine was just a step away.

I needed to concentrate on doing my job, I told myself. Another speed trap might be just the thing. I was in the mood to give out tickets, to be the one in control. Just let someone argue with me or try to give me a hard time. I’d show them who called the shots in my town.

That thought, and the narrow-eyed surge of anger that accompanied it, convinced me that giving out tickets was the last thing I needed to be doing. I was paid to serve and protect the residents of Maryville. That didn’t include using my personal problems as an excuse to throw my weight around. Even if I did have a headache.

So I cruised along 146, staying within the posted speed limit, which was thirty-five in town. I drove that way past the ferry landing and past Maryville’s three major intersections—Dunn Street, Main Street and Hill Street. All around me,
drivers tapped their brakes as they glanced nervously at their speedometers, then carefully paced me.

On the west edge of town, I did a U-turn in the parking lot of the Antique Attic. As usual, the lights were off inside the old building and Larry’s hand-lettered closed sign was leaning up against the interior plate-glass window. As a courtesy, the sign gave potential customers a phone number where the proprietor could be reached. But as I completed the turn, I wondered if even the promise of a sale would prompt Larry to risk missing the next battle in his ongoing war with his next-door neighbor, Marta Moye. At least they hadn’t called 911 this morning, I thought as I tucked my SUV between an old grain wagon that was more rotted than wooden and a stack of used tires—ten dollars, your choice. Their mileage, I supposed, qualified them as antiques, too.

Minutes later, a Chevy truck—a yellow four-by-four with six-inch lifts, oversize mud tires and KC HiLites—tore past me, going about eighty. The license plate was obscured by dirt, and green cornstalks stuck out from the undercarriage and grillwork.

In my book, that qualified as begging for a ticket.

I hit the siren as I pulled out and floored the accelerator, following but not chasing.

How foolish are you going to be? I wondered as they kept going, slowing but not stopping.

As tempting as forcing the issue might be, I couldn’t risk it. They might speed up again, might lose control of their truck. It would be better to let them think they’d gotten away.

I thumbed the switch to talk to county dispatch, to get some help. If I was lucky, Chad or another cop would be available to intercept them on the far side of town.

They pulled over before I made the call. And when I
walked over to the vehicle, I was treated to a truck full of shocked expressions on the faces of four teenagers.

Oh, yeah, I thought. Surprise, surprise. Those lights and sirens were for you. Don’t you ever look in your rearview mirror? Is your music cranked up so loud that you can’t hear sirens? Were you so busy talking that you missed seeing a police car with its lights flashing?

Minus the sarcastic edge, I asked the driver just that.

“Um, yes, ma’am,” he said as a bright red flush spread up his neck to his cheeks and ears, then tinted the scalp beneath his blond crew cut.

Obviously embarrassed. And probably not actively delinquent, just thoughtless and bored. Which described most of the teenagers and some of the adults in town.

I wrote him a ticket and took his driver’s license away.

All the while, his friends sat quietly. A few nervous giggles, male and female. But no snotty comments and no attempt to talk their way out of trouble. They were polite. Very polite.

Maybe they recognized cranky when they saw it.

I walked to the rear of the truck, pulled out a cornstalk that was trapped in the bumper, held it up as I asked whose field they’d torn up.

One of the girls volunteered the farmer’s name, which made things easier.

I left them sitting in their truck while I called dispatch, requested the farmer’s phone number, and then dialed it on the driver’s cell phone. After I explained why I was calling, we chatted for few minutes. Then with the line still open, I walked back to the truck and handed the phone back.

“Talk to him,” I said, using the stern, I’m-not-your-friend-or-your-social-worker scowl that I regularly practiced in front of the mirror. “Work out fair compensation for damages. Then
pay him. I promise you, the traffic court judge will ask you about it. So be sure you do the right thing.”

By midmorning, I’d had more than enough of traffic patrol. So I cruised into town on 146, swung left on Dunn Street and rounded a curve. Without warning, the road fell away from beneath the vehicle. Out past my white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, the only view was a wide expanse of river a deadly distance below.

Then, within an adrenaline-driven heartbeat or two, the familiar illusion was gone. I no longer fought my instinctive reaction to slam on the brakes. The earth, in the form of a steep gravel road, still crunched solidly under all four tires of the SUV and I could see that the road angled acutely downward, then abruptly curved to the right. Easy enough, now, to notice and heed the series of warning signs and the stretch of reflector-emblazoned guardrail that alerted drivers to the sharp turns that the road made on the way down to the riverbank.

Dunn Street was a dangerous road. If the town’s economy had been better, it would have been a closed road. But the town needed the tax revenues generated along the strip of riverfront where Dunn Street dead-ended and trouble began. Narrow, floating docks on the river and a weedy gravel lot at the base of the bluff provided ample customer parking for a maze of bars and restaurants built on permanently moored barges.

The local ministers held that Dunn Street was a road to damnation. From their pulpits, they condemned the street’s loose women, drugs and plentiful booze. Certainly, there was no doubt that if you were looking for a good time, the strip on Dunn was the place to be. Especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Thanks to Dunn Street, Maryville had a reputation as a party town and drew people from a hundred-mile radius.

Dunn Street’s best customers tended to be the jail’s best customers, too. Court costs and fines added revenue to the town’s coffers and helped pay my salary. The bars were open six days a week, from 4:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m., though Friday and Saturday were the big nights for cash receipts, drunken brawls and city revenue. On Sundays, thanks mostly to pressure from Maryville’s religious leaders, all the businesses on Dunn Street were closed.

At a spot where road, river and the base of the bluff intersected, Dunn Street ended at a pile of fallen rock, illegally dumped trash, discarded needles and rotting river debris. I made a U-turn, cruised back along the river, then took the steep bluff road back to 146. Along the way, I examined the guardrails and their footings for damage or vandalism. At the sharpest curve, near the top of the road, I left my engine running as I got out of the SUV to peer downward at the narrow ribbon of rocky shore and the rushing water below. I saw no twisted metal, no broken bodies, no evidence of a drunken or depressed driver crashing through the railing and plunging headlong into eternity.

After that, I detoured briefly to make a lazy loop through the two-block business district on Market Street, then back to 146. Near the west edge of town, a four-way stop marked the place where Hill Street crossed the highway. I turned right, and headed uphill—up Hill—past a block of modest brick houses. Chad’s foster parents still lived in one of them.

As I called county dispatch to report that I was officially off duty until tomorrow morning, I rolled slowly past Maryville’s grandest structure. A three-foot-tall wrought-iron fence separated it from a brick-paved sidewalk laid out in a herringbone pattern. At the midpoint of the property, an iron gate opened into a tall rose arbor, thickly overgrown with the
hotel’s namesake flower. A long flagstone walkway lead through the arbor and up to the Cherokee Rose’s white-pillared front porch.

The massive redbrick structure had been built at the highest point along the ragged river bluffs and was visible for miles up and down the river. Early in its history, the Tyler family had welcomed the wealthy and famous to their hotel, offering river travelers an elegant place to stop and rest. Later, while their men were off doing battle with the Confederacy, Tyler women had invited in other, more desperate travelers to partake of the hotel’s hospitality. They’d hung a patchwork quilt—now proudly displayed in the hotel’s lobby—from one of the second-floor balconies. The carefully sewn pattern signaled weary runaways that the Cherokee Rose was a place of safety along their dangerous northward journey. Then, generations later, Gran began offering the hotel’s hospitality—and our family’s protection—to another kind of desperate traveler.

It was a good legacy, I reminded myself. A legacy worth protecting.

A quick look at the cars parked beside the kitchen door told me that all of my family members were at home. There was Gran’s vintage brown Subaru, an economical little car whose backseat was always littered with birding books, binoculars and an assortment of boots and jackets. Next to it was Aunt Lucy’s shiny gray Suburban, often used to transport visitors to and from the Cherokee Rose. Parked behind that was my sister’s red Jeep.

I glanced at my watch, discovered I had a little more time before lunch, and didn’t pull up to the front of the house.

Just past the Cherokee Rose, Hill Street angled suddenly downhill for a dozen yards and dead-ended at a barricade that kept cars from parking too near the ragged edge of the bluff.
Beyond the barricade, pale birch trees and a scattering of picnic benches invited visitors to linger for a moment and appreciate Maryville’s most breathtaking view of the river.

That’s exactly what I did.

But first, while I was still inside the SUV, I locked my service pistol in the glove compartment. Then I unbuttoned my shirt and stripped off layers until a sweaty white T-shirt and lacy white bra were the only clothes I wore above my tan uniform slacks. Once inside the Cherokee Rose, I planned to shower and change into the civvies I’d brought along with me. But in the meantime, I’d savor the simple pleasure of escaping the confinement of my bulletproof vest.

Despite the beauty of the little park, it had few visitors. Maybe because most tourists didn’t know it was there and most of Maryville took the view of the river from the bluffs for granted. Something I never did.

I sat down in my usual spot on the grass near the edge and leaned back against the white paper-thin bark of one of the trees. As my eyes moved upriver and down, watching the barges and pleasure craft that dotted the water as far as I could see, I made an effort to relax and think of nothing in particular. I tipped my head back and closed my eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine that broke through the branches above me and danced across my eyelids. The roaring engine of a barge filled the air, drowning out the sounds around me, making it easy for my mind to drift….