Butcher

43

Bayou City

She woke up running from someone and successfully getting away and was almost free of her pursuer when the jarring, jangling telephone caused her to sit bolt upright, caught in a tangle of covers, completely disoriented and befogged, lurching around to find the unfamiliar instrument and snatching out at it as she tried to unfog her sleep-drugged mind.

“'lo."

“Mizz Kamen?” A voice she didn't recognize.

“This is she speaking,” she tried to say through a mouth like cotton.

“Did I disturb you, ma'am?"

“No. No. Not at all."

“Good. I wanted to see if by any chance you'd heard anything about your father's whereabouts since you were in Chief Randall's office?” The voice sounded distant and hollow.

“No. I haven't heard anything. Who did you say this was?” She was still groggy, she noticed, as her fingers fumbled instinctively to remove an earring she wasn't wearing as she tried to press the phone closer.

“This is Sheriff Pritchett, Mizz Kamen, I'm...” Whatever the man said next was lost in an electro-spasm of crackling static.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” she asked.

“I think the line's about to go, ma'am. Can you hear me okay?"

“Fine. Did you hear anything about Da—my father?"

“Surely haven't. We're intensifying our search. I take it you haven't heard anything more?” he asked her for the second time, a hard cop edge to his tone.

“No. I'd certainly call the authorities if I learned anything—"

“We've placed him in New Madrid,” the sheriff continued smoothly, his voice growing fainter as he spoke, “but after that we've been—” crackle “—cover where he went next. We'll find him. Listen, uh, what exactly did Mr. Kamen say to you the last time you had contact, as far as any plans he had, or what other cities he might be traveling to?"

“Well, let's see. He said he was going to head back Monday at the latest. He was going back to St. Louis first and he said he had some business there, and then he was coming home."

“Where was he going in St. Louis?"

“He didn't tell me,” Sharon said.

“Was that usual for your father? Didn't he ordinarily tell you where he was going when he went out of town?"

“He always made it a rule not to discuss the cases—his investigations."

“Would there be anyone he might have talked with down here beside Chief Randall and myself, in law enforcement? For instance, did he mention any contacts in New Madrid or Clearwater counties?"

“No, I can't think of anyone.” She'd never heard him speak of his unofficial contacts, what she'd once teasingly called the Old Goy Network.

“Okay. So he was going to St. Louis today, he said, then coming back home immediately. Is it possible he'd come back tonight and not phone in the interim if he'd had a change in where he went?"

“Yes, I suppose so. It isn't likely, but it's certainly possible. He didn't plan to come home that soon anyway, Sheriff. He was going to St. Louis today to take care of some business, then coming on back to Kansas City either Wednesday or Thursday, I think he said.” It was hard to recall specific conversations, and she was beginning to doubt her memory.

“But if he drew a blank on his investigation, he could have headed on up to St. Louis, huh?"

“His things are still here. I think something's happened to him.” It made Sharon suddenly cold to put voice to it. She was wide awake and frightened.

“All right. Well, stay in touch with me and we'll be talking soon."

She assured the sheriff she would, as the spitting phone line went dead in her hand.

Her wristwatch revealed an astonishing piece of information, as she glanced at it to check the time. It was morning. How long had she slept? Twelve, thirteen hours? She rubbed sleep out of her eyes and walked over to the heavy curtains, peering around into the parking lot and street beyond. Rain was sluicing down in torrents, and she'd been in such a fog she hadn't realized it, though it was audible inside the motel room. The fact she wasn't totally functioning at the top of her abilities descended on her like cold rain. She watched a vehicle splash by and thought, Daddy's out in that mess, somewhere.

Sharon went in and peed, came back, sat on the edge of the bed, and tried to marshal her strength and street smarts. There was work to be done. She had to snap out of it.

She forced herself into action, picking up the phone and asking for Raymond's number. It rang and rang. While she listened to the buzzing, crackling line, she made a scribbled note, something she'd forgotten to tell the sheriff a minute ago. Called Jimmie Randall, two other county sheriffs, and, finally, the FBI office in Cape Girardeau. Dressed. Wrote a letter. Back to the phone. Tried Meara again. Phoned Kansas City, a couple of numbers in St. Louis, and Meara's line a third time. The ringing was loud and hollow, and nobody answered.

“Office,” the woman at the motel desk said for the umpteenth time.

“I was wondering, do you know where Mr. Ray Meara's farm is located?"

“Yes."

“Could you give me directions on how to get there? I know some of the roads are getting bad."

“Highway 80's closed, I just heard this morning."

“I see."

“I can tell you how to go around the back way. It's a little longer but you shouldn't have to drive through much water."

“Yeah.” Wonderful. “Please, I'd appreciate it."

“Well, first go through town to 102 and take a right at the levee,” she began. Fine, Sharon thought, but what's a levee? Her mind simply would not kick in. She would kill for a cup of strong, black coffee. “Then you take the second gravel road after 740 and when you come to the next fork—"

The more convinced Sharon became that something had happened to her father, the more she tried to push the bad thoughts out of her mind. She could almost step back and watch herself begin to deal with it the same way she had with the shooting at the shelter. By simply shutting down.

She sat by the phone, wondering if she should try Ray again, listening to the hum of traffic moving through the rain. She kept thinking about the scarred, solid face of her rescuer as he took her arm and lifted her off the hard pavement, pulling her to safety.

Sharon rejected the notion, but she imagined she could conjure up this strange man's smell, the powerful and distinctive aroma of a pair of leather cowboy chaps, she decided. A dumb western fantasy she was having. Romance on the Range. Even though she rejected the notion of Meara out of hand, laughed at the idea of anything between them, and thought he could never mean anything to her, he was in her nose like a fragrance she craved but couldn't afford. Go figure.

She forced herself into action, slamming the door and dashing for the car. The rain was solidifying, a soaking downpour, and as she started the vehicle and pulled away, the windshield wipers were already fighting to keep the glass clear enough for her to see.

By the time she was through Bayou City, heading east, she hoped, the blades had been turned to maximum speed and they responded angrily, with a slapping noise that sounded inanely like hyper-wiper, hyper-wiper, hyper-wiper. She realized two things: she was psyching herself out, and she was driving way the hell too fast.

Sharon slowed the car, making a conscious effort to relax her mind. After a few more miles there was nothing. The farmhouses stopped and there was only the white line and blacktop, and the silvery gray of the rain-drenched fields. No farmers or tractors. No traffic. Just the road and the sound of the wipers, the song of the tires, and steady, hard rain against a sky the color of a destroyer. Visibility extremely limited.

About the time she started to consider pulling over, the rain stopped, and she quickly cut the annoying wipers. Not a car or truck was on the road beside her. Zero population. Just soybean and wheat fields. Milo. Corn. Rice. Immense expanses of flatland tilled for grain crops or cotton, the staples of the Bible Belt.

If a tire rolled over a nail out here, if a radiator hose came loose, if a fan belt did whatever fan belts do, she'd be alone. A pretty woman trapped in a car. Isolated. Victim written all over her. Nobody would hear her screams out in these desolate boonies. Screams? Hell, you wouldn't hear dynamite out here.

And then, standing by itself at the side of the road, a two-story sign! Surreal and mind-bending out in the silvery nothingness:

KEHOE'S PLACE

in immense white letters on a black background. As she drew closer she realized it wasn't at the side of the road but out in a field a quarter of a mile or more away.

My God! What sort of an ego needed their name visible like that? It was an advertisement for someone's screaming need: Hey, look at me, folks. I'm successful! Admire me!

It got worse the closer one came and she could make out dots that the poor visibility had obscured, dots between the letters. P L A C E was an acronym and further on down the road one could see the massive archway over a private drive, doubtless inspired by Giant, Tara, and a lot of bad episodic TV. Kehoe's P.L.A.C.E.—Petroleum, Land, And Cattle Enterprises.

Wow, she thought, almost skidding as she braked, startled by a pickup truck that roared out of nowhere as if it were going to charge out onto the highway, but braked just in time. She had a glimpse of three laughing faces in the truck cab.

The weekly Bayou City newspaper lay on the seat beside her: “VIRGO (Aug. 23—Sept. 22),” her horoscope read. “Invigorating travel helps unravel mystery."