Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, No. 5. Whole No. 813, May 2009

Off Paper by Patricia McFall

Patricia McFall is a freelance writer, editor, and journalist who also teaches fiction writing. She’s the author of the suspense novel Night Butterfly and a half-dozen short stories, three of them (including this one) mysteries and all published in EQMM. See 2004’s “The Foreigner’s Watch” and 2005’s “The Resurrection of Daniel Mason.” The latter featured Lane Terry, the performance artist.

Whenever you’re playing a role, you’re lying, which may be why all of Southern California wears the unfair mantle of Hollywood’s artificiality. But be nice. We’re only practicing our lines. I’m a good liar because I used to be an actress, more of a performance artist, really, but now I practice in the line of work. As a private investigator, I sometimes have to assume an identity. I work as Lane Terry & Associates, and that last word is technically another lie, nothing more than a performance with a supporting cast when I need one. I prefer to act alone, in both senses.

With an agency located in luxurious Laguna Beach, I often call upon my theatrical background. Recently, my being a good actress even saved lives — mine, for instance.

I’ll start with the woman standing in my open office door staring at the lettering on the glass. A mousy little woman about my mother’s age, tail end of the Baby Boomers, but that was the only resemblance. Mom is well kept, in an artistic, natural-beauty, wouldn’t-think-of-plastic-surgery, handcrafted-clothes-and-jewelry kind of way. This woman’s sloppy T-shirt, padded vest, and stained grey relaxed-fit jeans weren’t aimed at effortless classic style. They were aimed at keeping the rain off and the wind out, and could as easily have come from a shelter as a thrift shop.

I wondered if she was some poor soul who had lost her home and family and was in need of someone to share with. She surprised me by opening the door, giving me a sharp look, and asking, “Are you Lane Terry or an associate?” When I said I was Lane Terry, she mumbled that she’d expected a man, and that I looked awful young to be an investigator.

I get this underestimation all the time if I don’t dress right or wear makeup. I’m twenty-six, but since I look younger, these days I’ve taken to wearing my hair expensively cut to shoulder length with feathery bangs I can peer intelligently out from under. I also acquired a business wardrobe of sorts.

But at that moment, my expensive hair was stuck up under a baseball cap, and I was wearing deck sandals, a pair of khaki cargo shorts, and a Hawaiian shirt in aggressive tropical-bird colors. Maybe I looked like a surfer, but I was culturally appropriate since it’s a beach town and the morning had been unusually warm for March. Besides, why should she care? She didn’t have an appointment.

I grabbed a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with zero prescription I keep by the phone. Not much, but the only prop I could find on short notice, and this was improv. I stuck them on and asked, “Did you have a question about something?”

All she did was stare back, looking forlorn, catching her breath from the walk up the hill. I almost felt sorry for her, but my clients generally come from referrals, and she was a walk-in. I wanted her to make her point so I could get some work done.

She took a quick breath and said, “I need you to find my daughter.”

Outside, a driver honked at a too-mellow pedestrian carrying his Boogie Board across the street in a leisurely mid-block diagonal. With her back to the windows, the woman couldn’t see, but she flinched and glanced over her shoulder. She was still out of breath, so I offered her a chair.

She sank into it, sighing, “Lord, what a hike.”

It was. My new hilltop office is on a nice little side street near the public library. People who can’t find a parking place have to walk, and a lot of visitors to Laguna Beach don’t know where to look for one. It’s like cracking a cipher. I consider it good exercise for them and always give newcomers a minute to defib before I ask any questions.

But she didn’t wait. “I’m Ruth Holloway,” she said. “My girl’s seventeen, be eighteen in June. Her name’s—” she hesitated, which struck me as unusual — “Megan Doyle, but she could be using some other name. See, she run off from our home in Westland. Just a little town nobody’s ever heard of, population of two thousand. It’s south of Jackson in Calaveras County, off Route Forty-nine, up in the gold country where they have the Jumping Frog Gun Show?”

I nodded, though I had never been there, or to a gun show, either. I have nothing against frogs, but I don’t much like guns.

Ruth went on, “Megan took off about six months ago. The law was no help. They said half the kids in a little town take off.” She winced out a smile that showed how agreeable she’d look if she made a habit of it. She shrugged. “Guess they can’t stand the peace and quiet.”

I knew about small towns, even if this was a glamorous one. They do get to feeling smaller in your teens, and I’d done my walkabout, too. But there was something about her. This woman was afraid of something, and she was telling lies, even if they were masked by some truth.

Now that I was suspicious, I made a point of asking her why her daughter took off. She studied her ragged cuticles and shrugged, not even bothering to come up with a story. “My husband’s strict, and she — she disobeyed him.” Her voice squeezed off, her expression crumbled, and she started crying. I handed her a box of tissues. Oh boy, I thought, there’s an iceberg right underneath here. I wondered about the “my husband,” not “her father,” and the different last names. Megan’s stepfather? I tried not to feel too sorry for Ruth. My kind-of-boyfriend Sean thinks I could afford to toughen up a little, that it takes a big shield to cover such a big heart. I don’t know about that, but I do know I don’t like to watch someone who’s hurting, so I have to guard against manipulation.

Ruth blew her nose. Then she wiped her eyes and told me between sniffles that the family got information on her daughter’s whereabouts, that Megan had apparently been at The Little Church on the Hill, where they helped street kids in Laguna Beach. I knew the place, and I’d heard that they were good people. In fact, I had sent a few lost kids up there, one not long before.

Ruth said she’d been to talk to “a lady preacher,” but the woman wouldn’t tell her a thing, not even whether Megan had been there. She said, “And I knew she was there because she called a friend from there.”

But Megan hadn’t called home, had she? I waited for Ruth to finish.

“I don’t know what kind of Christian that so-called pastor thinks she is,” she snapped, and I could see a nasty edge to her now.

“How do you mean?” I asked evenly.

“Well, Miss Terry, I shouldn’t have said that. She was acting like some government bureaucrat, you know, talking all about how they don’t give out information. I’m sure she was just doing her job.” She paused for me to respond, which I didn’t, then answered herself. “But she thinks her job is to keep kids away from their own parents. Well, but I’m sure she was doing right as she seen it...”

Ruth Holloway gave me the impression that she could easily change her opinion a hundred and eighty degrees just to avoid the listener’s displeasure. I had seen this kind of conversational dodging before, from someone I met at a women’s shelter. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I was curious enough to ask her what they’d already done, whether they’d officially reported the girl missing to the unhelpful police in Westland or been in touch with our locals. No to both. Maybe I did feel sorry for her, but I was running out of time, patience, and a good reason to get involved.

“Can you show me some identification, Mrs. Holloway?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, putting a hand to her lank hair and looking away. “I come down here in such a rush I must have forgot it.”

“That can happen,” I said. Her body language and her eyes both told me she was lying. “Do you have a picture of Megan?”

That she had remembered to bring. She hooked a finger into a vest pocket and extracted a snapshot of a dark-haired teenager leaning over a picnic table in the desert, looking up as she reached into a cooler for something. She was wearing a pink T-shirt and a denim mini that showed off long, well-tanned legs. Even so, I could see some family resemblance. The daughter was delicate-boned like the mother, but her expression was full of independent spirit that had yet to be extinguished. Pretty, smart, and her own person. No wonder she was out of there.

One more thing about that picture: I immediately recognized the girl as the one I’d sent to the church less than a month before. I’d seen her on the sidewalk in front of the library, she panhandled me, and before I gave her my five-dollar contribution I talked to her long enough to tell that she wasn’t a druggie or a crazy that needed other kinds of help. On the contrary, she seemed like a nice kid. I told her about the church, and she smiled happily, thanked me three times, and took off straight up the hill. I hadn’t seen her since.

I looked back up at Ruth, thinking that with such a weird family, Megan could be running away for good reason. I heard myself say, “Tell you what, Mrs. Holloway. I don’t see how I can take you on as a client, because I just don’t have enough to go on, but let me tell you what I can do. I’ll go see if someone at the church will talk to me. For that I’d charge one hundred dollars as a flat fee, but if I get information and we decide to work together, that would be a deposit. That work for you?”

“Oh yes, that would be fine.”

“How did you want to take care of that?”

“Oh, we only use cash,” she said, picking around in an inside vest pocket. She wasn’t carrying a purse. “We’re sure not rich,” she said more loudly than necessary. “Rich man’s got less chance of gettin’ into heaven than a camel through the eye of a needle.” She glared out the window as though hoping that there were rich men around to hear her. “We’re gettin’ our reward, though — we’re rich enough in faith to know we’re chosen.”

Well, didn’t that sound smug.

She pulled two fifties out of a vest pocket and put them on my desk.

I took them and said, “I’ll also need a number where I can reach you.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow or call you tonight,” she said, taking a business card.

“No, that won’t work. I’m not in the office and I’m in the process of changing my cellular service,” I lied. “Why don’t I leave a message on your home phone?”

“Don’t have no phone.” She sounded smug about that too.

“How about a motel number or something local, then? Where are you staying?”

“With an old friend in Anaheim,” she said reluctantly. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to take a message for me.” She got out and unfolded a piece of paper from some grinning realtor’s giveaway pad and pushed it across for me to copy the friend’s number penciled across it.

I gave back the original, noting that the phone number was in the 714 area code, which would be right for Anaheim. A little nugget of truth? Who knew? I stood up and told her I’d call her that evening or the next day. “You have transportation, Mrs. Holloway?”

She nodded and said, “You can call me Ruth. I left my girlfriend waiting in her car.” She pointed up the hill.

You don’t generally get all breathless walking downhill.

I gave her a good lead and put on my uncolorful jacket before I tailed her — downhill — to a public coin lot where she got into a mud-spattered old pickup with Texas plates. No girlfriend, either. A man was at the wheel, and I watched them stop at the bottom of the hill and turn left on Pacific Coast Highway. South, the direction opposite Anaheim.

I returned to my office, called in a chip to Ron Walker, a really nice but unfortunately married acquaintance in a slightly shady netherworld of employment, to see if he could find out who owned the truck. I put the hundred dollars into my floor safe to protect it from me. Maybe I’d give it to the kid if I found her. In the combination break/conference/quick-change dressing room, I put on a dress, sandals, hoop earrings, and a jacket, grabbed my leather tote, and hiked up to The Little Church on the Hill.

According to the glass-front announcement board in the foyer, there was a youth-group meeting in session, and I decided to wait until it let out. There was a pretty little meditation garden which had not been sacrificed for more parking area, which made me like the place even more. I tried to keep my imagination in check while I picked up messages. One from my mother inviting me to see Medea with her that weekend, assuring me, “It’s entirely modern. I understand the whole cast is only going to meet on the one night of the performance. No rehearsals. Thought you’d like it, baby. Let me know.”

They really shouldn’t let schoolteachers retire early. I decided to call her back later.

I’m not religious myself, but it was a meditation garden, so I meditated on how lucky I was to have great parents, even if my mother was a bit ethereal at times, my dad a bit too analytical all the time. This kid Megan had run away from her parents, and one of them had just been lying to me. I connected the dots to create dramatic links from Texas to a mousy housewife who talked in religious references to a family that hung out at gun shows. Then I reminded myself not to get ahead of the information I had.

I scanned the cloud-sponged sky to its shimmering horizon, then closed my eyes to smell the ocean, wet earth, sage, and eucalyptus. Maybe yesterday’s would be the last rain of the season.

A minute later, a group of teens came out of the church with a middle-aged woman. She wore her salt-and-pepper hair like a helmet, and her short, stocky build, made shorter and stockier by a thick brown sweater and wide tweed slacks, resembled a mother bear. When she caught sight of me, her expression turned wary. She finished her conversation with a couple of lingering boys with a gentle shoulder-punch for each, and they left looking happy, one with a book-bag slung carelessly over his shoulder, their running shoes scuffling along. I approached her with a business card held out, explaining that I was looking for a runaway named Megan Doyle. Could she help?

“I doubt it,” she said, the welcome dimming in her eyes as she read the card, adding, “You didn’t think she was in our little group here, did you? Because—”

“No, I was just waiting to talk to you. Nice little garden. Very Zen.”

“—because you’re no doubt aware the place to report missing persons is the police. Have you contacted them?”

“Not yet. I have a picture. Would you mind?” I dug for it in my leather tote.

“Don’t bother. I already saw it,” she said, shaking her head. “So you’re working for the mother. I already told her I don’t know the child. Even if I did...” She let her voice trail off, and the downward cast of her eyes told me worlds about why she wasn’t always eager to send runaways back home.

“Just so you know,” I said, “I met Megan on the street and sent her up here to you. And Ruth Holloway isn’t really a client. I only said I’d see if you’d talk to me. That’s the extent of the deal.”

She took another look at me, and waited, maybe for more information.

I said, “I took off myself once,” not entirely lying but stealing a glance upward for incoming bolts of lightning. “I know some kids have good reasons for leaving and don’t want to be found. But I understand that a friend heard from Megan and she said she was here, at least she was a few days ago—”

“The mother didn’t tell me that, not that it makes any difference, Miss—” She glanced down at the card — “Miss Terry.”

“Why don’t you call me Lane? That’s what my friends call me.”

“Then call me Marcella. I’m assistant pastor.” She smiled a little in spite of herself, maybe hoping I really wasn’t on the wrong side of things. But she didn’t offer to shake hands or invite me inside, either. We were still in the little garden, both of us standing, neither giving way.

Finally, I asked, “Sure there’s nothing you could do?”

“The answer’s still the same. Sorry, can’t help you.”

“Can’t, not won’t?” My words slipped out. She gave me another appraising look but said nothing, so I added, “I also want you to know that it’s my policy when I look for someone and find them, I don’t tell the client until after the person they’re looking for says they want to be found. Understand? I would never put someone in harm’s way. Anyway, you have my card. Nice meeting you.”

“Goodbye,” she said.

The next morning, I took a quick beach walk, showered off the sand, and put on my cat-burglar outfit, black wool slacks and black cashmere sweatshirt, because the day was overcast and almost chilly. Then I pulled on a matching pair of black Keds and walked to the farmer’s market for some produce. When I got back, I dialed the number Ruth Holloway had given me one more time — after about ten attempts the night before — and let it ring on my speaker phone as I filled my veggie crispers. If someone answered, I could report that the “lady preacher” had not been forthcoming and that I had thus discharged all professional services agreed to and good luck to her.

But there was no answer, no machine, and no particular surprise. As far as I was concerned, that closed the case that never was.

Five minutes later, my phone rang.

“Lane Terry? This is Marcella Perkins from The Little Church on the Hill.” Her voice sounded weak and a little slurred. “I need to see you right away.”

I checked my watch. “What’s it about? I’m at home, in South Laguna,” I said. “You want me to meet you at the church?”

“I’m not at the church. I’m at Hoag.”

As in Hoag Hospital. “Is everything okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, grunting with probable discomfort. “I need to see you, but they’re keeping me here a couple of days for observation. I took a fall and hit my head.”

“Oh, no. Sorry to hear that.”

“Would it be convenient for you to come right away?”

It wasn’t, but she hadn’t impressed me as someone who played games. “Look, I’ll come as soon as I can. If traffic isn’t too bad I should make it in about forty-five minutes.”

She gave me a room number, and we hung up.

Though I was uneasy not knowing what she wanted, I assumed that something was wrong. Traffic was heavy but moving, and I motored up Pacific Coast Highway making good time, my Honda wheezing up the hill to the hospital with its admirable Japanese spirit of endurance. As I took the elevator up and saw my reflection, I realized I was dressed for a funeral.

Marcella Perkins was in a semiprivate room with someone who slept the whole time I was there. Marcella’s bed had a big flower arrangement next to it, on one of those wheelie tables where they put a plastic pitcher, a cup, and a little spittoon. When I walked in, she opened her eyes and smiled like a survivor. She had a black eye and a split lip. The bandages that wrapped around just above her ears left her gray hair sticking comically out the top, but it wasn’t funny at all. More bandages wound down her right forearm and hand. The index and middle fingers were splinted and wrapped together.

A fall down the stairs it wasn’t, but I played along politely.

“I’m so sorry about your accident,” I said. “What do the docs tell you?”

Her painful little smile widened. “Of course they don’t tell you a thing. ‘Wait and see,’ they say. Even though they claim I don’t have a concussion, they want me to stay so we can all wait and see together. It may be they think I’ll sue them, as if I would! In any case, I’m okay, and I’m not lonely. I called you for a reason.”

I let my face ask the question.

“I didn’t really fall,” she explained without the slightest air of drama. “A man came just after you left. He said he was Megan’s father. You can see what he did. When I wouldn’t tell him anything, he punched me a couple of times, hit me with a telephone, and took off with my purse. I found it just outside the door. All he took was some cash and my address book.”

“Well, you’re sure calm enough about it,” I said, trying not to imagine being beaten. “Marcella, he did that to you and you didn’t call nine-one-one?”

“I did. I knew I needed medical attention.”

“Yeah, but what about the cops?”

“I didn’t want to report it. Still don’t.” She had a finality about her statement that made it pointless to ask why. Maybe she thought he’d come back and finish the job if she did report it, given what she’d said about the address book.

I felt the pounding pulse of imagination in my ears when she said, “I want to hire you to take a message to someone for me.”

I headed out toward the desert in the persona of a crusty old prospector with a map to a hidden mine. Marcella couldn’t write, so she’d had to tell me how to draw the map, which was of the inland desert northeast of San Diego a few miles from Warner Springs, according to her estimation. She had been there only once, she said, “so some of the details might be off.” I wondered if that meant I’d just have to knock at derelict trailers until I found the one without a serial killer in it. Or if I took a wrong turn south, I might end up in Mexico, be taken for a drug mule or a journalist, and never be heard from again. Sometimes you just have to slap yourself for having thoughts like that.

It was getting dark, and it was my own fault that I’d gotten stuck in getaway traffic in Orange County. I went out of my way to save time, but instead the highway was choked with high-end cars, SUVs, and monster trucks with aggressive drivers heading home with very poor manners. I got off as soon as I could, but Marcella’s map didn’t direct me to do anything specific before I crossed into San Diego County. In fact, her map stank, but it wasn’t her fault that Holloway had stolen her address book. Her little map was all I had to go on, because my regular state map left out the really small roads, and since I had no route numbers and no address, even a GPS would have been useless. On the plus side, I had a certain blind confidence, and I wanted to help Marcella. As I was leaving, I’d tried to talk her into reporting the crime, but if she didn’t, I’d do it myself as soon as I got back. What kind of animal beats up a sweet little old bear-lady minister?

As I shot straight south on a middling desert highway with few cars swishing by, my cell phone played a few bars of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. It was Ron, his voice breaking up with a poor signal, telling me that the Texas car was registered to Naomi Conkling of Brownsville.

I asked, “Any relation to the Conklings?”

“Yes, ma’am. That would be the sister of Gary Conkling. He’s now a long-term guest at the Leavenworth Marriott.”

“Omigod,” I said. “Guess I owe you one—”

For a few seconds the speaker sent out crunchy noises. I waited, and Ron came back in at “—paid up. You ready to let me take you to dinner, though?”

“Sounds great,” I said slowly and clearly. “Why don’t you bring along Tiffany and the baby?”

“You go messing with Conkling’s friends and relations, you’re [crunch, crunch] need my help.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Give my love to your family.”

He either hung up or the call got dropped.

Out here in the boonies, it was already quite dark, country dark. The road was right out of Atmosphere 101 in set design. It was increasingly foggy, like a translucent scrim, layered and billowing. The hill-and-dale two-lane road I’d turned onto at the end of the middling highway, as instructed, dated from before they leveled land to build roads, I guessed. It was like a little roller coaster with near-zero visibility. There were almost no cars out there, fortunately for me, because even the center line was hard to see and easy to cross, and the shoulder didn’t even amount to a place to pull over and cringe. I kept it in second gear and crept up and down, up and down, getting queasier by the minute. Marcella had said to watch for a certain small unpaved turnoff “just after the one Shell station out there,” and I had to thank the owner for having terrific lights on, because I never would have seen it otherwise. I felt so appreciative that I topped up my gas tank and asked the attendant in his little glass box if he knew where the geologists were.

“Geologists,” he said blankly. Not a good sign.

I tried a different tack. “There’s supposed to be a mobile home around here somewhere where some rock collectors or prospectors stay.”

“I don’t know. Trailer up the next road, though.”

I sighed. “Do you have a public phone?”

“Sure do. Clean bathrooms, too, especially the ladies’. Take care of it myself.”

I didn’t dignify that with comment, and phoned the hospital, where the call got routed to voicemail. Presumably Marcella was sleeping or something. I left a message telling her where I was, tucked away the gas credit-card receipt, and went looking for the turnoff.

Even though I didn’t have far to go, the fog made it seem like leagues. I could barely make out a small metal sign at the next turning, actually got out of the car and walked around and looked. It read “Western State University Geological Research Station,” with a stylized university seal superimposed over what looked like a pile of rocks or some mountains. An arrow pointed down the side road. I got back in the Honda and crept along a few hundred feet uphill in first gear until I saw a light up ahead. I turned in at a driveway with a surprisingly large parking area and could just make out a trailer like you see on construction sites, next to it a double-wide mobile home, and in front of that, a white Chevy pickup truck. I parked next to it, got out, and found out that it had license plates identifying it as the property of the State of California, and walked to the trailer, since it seemed to have a dim light inside. I couldn’t see in through the blinds but climbed up the wooden ramp to the door and knocked.

The door squeaked open and a fortyish guy with a beard, a receding hairline, and glasses he was sliding onto his nose came out onto the porch looking spooked. He wore a T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. I took it he didn’t get a lot of night visitors.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said and, taking a likely stab, went on, “Professor—”

“Weibold,” he finished.

“Sorry to disturb you, but I had to come in person. Your aunt Marcella sent me here to see Megan.”

He really looked uncomfortable. “I haven’t heard anything from her about this.”

I smiled sheer harmlessness and tucked a naive little lock of hair behind my ear, the one without the row of piercings, which remained covered. “I’m a licensed investigator,” I said, holding up my ID wallet, which he glanced at but didn’t take. “You can call Marcella at Hoag Hospital and ask her if you like.”

His distrustful expression leapt to fear. “What’s she doing there?”

“Why don’t I come in and tell you?”

He stood to one side and let me in.

I took a quick look around. The office was anonymous in furnishings of laminate tables, file cabinets, and Scotchgarded upholstered chairs and sofa. But on the shelves, books shared space with various rocks, arrowheads, and petrified bones. The weapons and animal skulls lent a certain creepiness to the otherwise unremarkable decor.

Dr. Weibold, obviously an introvert, avoided eye contact as he waved me to a chair and asked if I’d like some coffee. I said thanks, I would, and that I’d also like to make a phone call. He said, “Help yourself to the phone and then come on over to the residence and I’ll have your coffee ready. I’ll let Megan know you’re here.”

Either he didn’t get many visitors or he was a really nice man.

I checked Hoag. Still no Marcella. Thinking she might have left a message, I checked my voicemail — to find a message from Ron Walker.

“Lane, I’m hoping you check home because I couldn’t get you on the cell, and I really gotta warn ya about those assholes you’re dealing with. I checked with my sources, and it looks like they’re major leaguers, gun dealers, part of a militia of wack-jobs who like shooting at illegals coming over the border. I believe you may be dealing with Conkling’s other sister Ruth and his brother-in-law Levi. Their surname is Halliday, and you said they were going by Holloway. Sorry to tell you, sweetie, but there’s a fugitive warrant out on Levi. He bought a small arsenal from a gun dealer who happened to be working as a confidential informant for the ATF. The feds blew the bust and our boy got away, but not before he shot and wounded the dealer. The guy’s in protective custody until they can have him testify against Levi, but first they have to find Levi. Stay away from it, Lane, and call me the minute you get this. Where are you, anyway? Why haven’t you been answering your house or cell?”

My machine played another message, from Sean, wondering the same thing.

I stood there and stared at a petrified carnivore skull.

I’d have to call back later, because the danger made talking to Megan more urgent. I had to take care of that, and then head back through the desert fog with a vow to stay away for good.

I knocked lightly and let myself into the double-wide, hearing an intermittently noisy espresso machine. In a lull between the hissing and screeching, Professor Weibold puttered until the fragrant brew was in cups, then went down the hall and came out with Megan, looking much as I remembered except for the lack of makeup and some weight loss. She was barefoot, dressed in obviously borrowed men’s clothes, another pair of khaki shorts — how did these people keep from freezing out here? — and an oversized T-shirt commemorating a science leadership conference in 1998.

I stuck out my hand, which she regarded warily for a split second before grabbing it and shaking it hard.

Before either of us could say anything, the professor broke his silence. “This is the person Marcella sent.” Frothing milk now, he went back to topping the cups and putting them onto saucers with spoons in a practiced ritual.

I introduced myself and said, “Megan, I have some things to tell you. Is this a good time?” If it wasn’t, I couldn’t exactly come back later, but I was trying to give her a little chance at control.

“I don’t know. It depends on what you want. How come Marcella didn’t come with you?”

I softly told her that Marcella was in the hospital, and why. Her eyes filled with tears, and sounding like a little girl, she matched my soft voice and asked, “Is she going to be okay?”

I nodded.

She stifled a sob that was trying to break the surface and, almost to herself, said, “Oh, Jesus, he’s going to find me and then he’s going to kill me.”

I murmured, “Your father doesn’t know where you are. Can you sit down and we’ll try to work out a game plan?”

She nodded and turned to the reluctant keeper of her safe house. “Jerry, is it okay if we take our coffee over to the office so we don’t bother you?”

“That’s okay; I was just going myself. I have some data to work on for my Monday report.” At least the guy could take a hint. He served our coffee, taking his outside with him with an almost apologetic smile. Could be he didn’t want to know the details, even if he didn’t mind doing a favor for his aunt.

Megan went back quickly to put on some shoes and a windbreaker — did she think she was going somewhere? If I took her with me, it would be too risky, unless we went straight to the closest cops. I didn’t even know where that was. She might be better off staying here. Before I made any decisions, I needed to get her story.

We had a few sips of coffee before she took a deep breath and looked as though she was going to tell me something she was reluctant to tell, but when she spoke, her voice was calm. “I met you before, in Laguna. You gave me money.”

I smiled. “I didn’t think you’d remember me. I’m Lane Terry.”

“My real name’s Megan Halliday, but I want people to call me just Megan. I’m not proud of my father’s name.” I nodded in sympathy, and she asked, “Do you know anything about the Protectors of the Blood?”

“Not a whole lot.” I had heard that they were a racist armed group that splintered off from some religious survivalist cult, but I wanted to say as little as possible so she’d open up.

“My father’s been the leader ever since my uncle Gary went to prison. His name’s Levi Halliday. When I got away from home, I kind of had a chance to go sane. I never went to school. When I would try and ask questions, my father would beat on me until I stopped. But I couldn’t stop. I guess I’m stubborn. That’s what Marcella says.” She paused. “I’m confused and I’m stubborn.”

“Sometimes stubborn can be good,” I said. I could tell it wasn’t easy for her. I’m sure I didn’t have that much nerve when I was her age. Seventeen seemed like long ago.

“Marcella helped me a lot,” she went on, hugging her knees as she hunkered into a corner of the sofa. “When I first came to her I was traveling with a couple of other street kids, a boy and a girl, about a year ago. I ran away because my dad killed Jesse.”

“Was he your boyfriend?”

“Jesse’s my brother. Was. He got away with it because they were down by the border and our dad shot him and got rid of his body. Everyone in that little town is afraid of him, so he thinks he can do whatever he wants to women and kids.” She looked at me, then back down, and now I could really see the child there, rocking with her arms wrapped around her tight, like a closed bud, as though to keep herself from flying apart. I had a sense I needed to keep her talking.

“So he got away with it?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Nobody said anything. Jesse wasn’t strong enough to be a man, that’s what he thought. He didn’t like guns, and he didn’t learn what my father tried to teach him. My father really thought he was going to be leading an army of Protectors, and our big brother, when he gets out of the Marines, he’ll be next in line. But Jesse, when he got big enough, would have to be his backup lieutenant to take over the Protectors later on. He wanted both his sons to follow in his footsteps. He called Jesse a faggot and hit him a lot. He hit all of us.”

Then she suggested another cup of coffee. “I can do it now. That machine was so complicated to learn.”

“I wouldn’t even try,” I fibbed. I wondered if she needed a little break. When she’d delivered our refills, she stretched, walked over to the window, lifted a slat to look outside, murmuring, “Quiet as a tomb,” then came back to the sofa. She lifted her little cup, then set it down again.

“My dad wanted guns and money, so he decided the best way to get both was to kill this gun dealer that he knew. Him and his wife had lots of merchandise and lots of cash. Where I’m from, nobody’s got no credit or taxes or nothing if they can help it, and they don’t use their real names.

“So he took Jesse with him to help, and Jesse was only fifteen years old, and even if he seen a lot of animals dead, he never seen a dead man before, and when my father shot the gun man and told Jesse that it was his turn, that he had to shoot the wife, Jesse couldn’t, and my father had to and then kind of disowned him. They loaded up the guns and money, and my father knew how not to leave any traces, and how to put bodies where nobody would find them. The dealer people lived way up out in the desert, and nobody even missed either of them for weeks, since they was always away at gun shows.

“But when they did, in come the ATF and the FBI, and everybody’s twice as paranoid as before, and my father’s telling all his friends that the feds probably killed the gun dealers just so they’d have an excuse to clamp down on everyone who hates the government and the illegals. And they acted like they believed him, too.”

“When did he kill your brother?”

“Well, Jesse was his number-one problem, wasn’t he? With the government getting into it, he could tell them, and he would have been a great witness against him. He was there when he killed them people.” Her eyes were watery again, and she shook her head as though to clear it.

My mouth was dry, and I took a sip of coffee to avoid clearing my throat and said, “Tell me what happened after that.”

“Okay, he had to get rid of Jesse because he didn’t trust him, said he was born wrong, should have been a girl, like that was the worst curse you could put on a person.

“So the next time they went border hunting, he killed my brother. He thought nobody could touch him, but it must have been eating at him because he started asking me if Jesse ever told me anything about the trip they took the year before, and I told him I didn’t know a thing about it, that Jesse didn’t confide in me because I was only a girl. I think he believed me, but I knew it was only for a while because he’s crazy and he wouldn’t think twice about killing me if he knew that I knew all about it. Jesse told me every detail, and I wrote it all down since then and give it to Marcella in case he ever got to me, so they could finally get him for something. And then I went off paper and on the run.” She shrugged. “That’s it.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what ‘off paper’ means.”

“When you break off connections with the government and drop out of sight. You use a fake identity, move around, and pay cash for everything. Cover all the traces you were ever alive. That’s what I done. I found some new IDs my father forgot about because they were for women, and he was complaining that his supplier had screwed it up again, and how women only had a small part in it, and he needed men’s identities. But he didn’t give them back, and they sat in a drawer, three of them, and I took all three so if he remembered any of the names he wouldn’t know which one I took. And it turned out it wasn’t important anyway because I didn’t have to work or rent a place or even have a bank account.”

“How did you live?”

She told me she’d stolen some of her father’s cash and come to California, finding other runaways, traveling, finally running out of money in Laguna Beach. Then, she said, just like her guardian angel I gave her five dollars and sent her to Marcella.

I smiled. “Don’t think I’m qualified for that job, but thanks for the thought.”

“Welcome. When I got here, I heard that when they tried to take my father in for gun trafficking, he shot up a gun dealer who was helping the ATF, and then he escaped. That’s all I know.”

Attempted murder added to the list of things to keep him in jail, but a bonus would be to have him on ice while they got a search warrant for the stolen firearms that could tie him to the earlier double homicide. Unless they’d already made the connection to that crime themselves, I needed to get word to someone, and talk Megan into an interview.

I made an executive decision.

“Megan, you’ve been through a lot, and you’re safe, but this situation is too dangerous. I need you to come with me right now as soon as I—”

I was reaching for the phone when I heard a car coming. I looked at Megan, but she was already on her feet, saying, “We got a plan, so you just keep him distracted. I got a place I can hide. Go ahead. Let him search.”

And she headed toward the back of the mobile home.

I couldn’t hear her leaving, but I did hear a car door slam outside. I had to keep him away from the professor, no doubt the world’s worst liar, and I had just enough time to grab her coffee cup and shove it into the dishwasher. I raced to the door and opened it a crack to peek out, standing slightly to one side just in case.

A man was getting out of a black Tundra with heavily tinted windows and California plates. It sure didn’t look like a rental to me; it was probably stolen.

That bastard had either given Marcella a second helping in her hospital room, or found some note in her book next to Weibold’s address, or followed me in the fog and temporarily lost me.

Had he also come in on foot first to eavesdrop? No, I’d have heard his footsteps on the gravel. It was all around the place. Even so, I should have been more careful. I wondered if Megan had gotten to where she was going, and how come I hadn’t heard any gravel as she left.

I put on a neutral face, opened the door, and came out. I got a look at him as the porch light hit his face. He fairly exuded meanness and the need to dominate, and especially in light of Megan’s story, I was shaking scared. But we actors learn how to breathe, we practice, even the understudies, so we know how to look calm when our knees are ready to buckle. Standing on the wooden porch, I said, “Hi. If you’re here for the professor, he’s—”

“You know why I’m here,” he said with a sigh that might have been fatigue or a signal that he wasn’t going to suffer fools. “I heard my daughter’s here.”

His foot was on the bottom step. I stood my ground, stalling. “I’m Lane Terry, the investigator your wife hired.” He ignored my outstretched hand, so I let it drop back to my side. “I guess the minister got in touch with Ruth, huh?”

He said nothing, but started up the steps.

“Mr. Holloway, I’d have saved you all the trouble but I couldn’t get through to that number in Anaheim she left. Anyway, your daughter was here until yesterday, but she left.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, clearly not buying my story.

“Why don’t you come on in?” I turned to the door, avoiding eye contact and sort of ignoring him, the only form of self-defense that might work, like when you meet a really big dog.

Steps ahead of him, I could hear some scrabbling on the kitchen ceiling that I didn’t think was a nesting bird, so I went for the kitchen counter with more hope than expectation, hit the “brew” button on the espresso machine, and said, “I’ll bet you could use a cup of coffee, too.”

“All right.”

The machine gave off a loud hydraulic mutter, and I hoped I hadn’t destroyed it, but when it made a satisfyingly loud grinding sound, the wheeze of steam and smell of coffee immediately reassured me that it was acting on cue. I eyed the spigot in case it started to drip, and announced loudly, “The professor’s working, but he was nice enough to offer me some coffee before I headed back. See, Megan left yesterday with two other kids.” I rattled around looking for cups and heard a clunk directly over my head but slammed that cupboard door as though I couldn’t find them, and tried another. Adrenaline having come to my rescue like the cavalry, my hand was rock steady as I retrieved cups, stuck one under the dispenser, hit “serve,” and the brewing noise continued as the fragrant brew flowed. In a pause from the machine, all was quiet above.

“There a bathroom down that hall?”

“Sure is. Second door on the left. You go right ahead, and I’ll go get Dr. Weibold to talk to you.” I wanted to give him just enough time for a superficial search, and I hoped that Megan was well hidden and didn’t move. As I saw him head down the hall, I admit to wanting to make a mad grab for my car keys and take my chances with the fog at seventy miles per hour. Instead, I went lamblike to the trailer. The professor was at his computer, staring at a screenful of numbers and unfamiliar symbols.

“Her father’s here,” I said in a near whisper.

He nodded, his Adam’s apple jumping out of the way as he swallowed. “I heard the car door slam.”

“Professor, I think you should avoid seeing him. I’ll tell him you’re busy and see if he buys that. If he doesn’t, I’ll come get you and you take my lead, play along with absolutely anything I say. Understand?”

He nodded again.

I grabbed a paper and a pencil with “National Geographic Survey” written on the side, and made up an address in the last town I’d passed. I pointed at it, talking fast. “Now, this is where she went with her two friends, a boy and a girl, yesterday afternoon. The minute I’m out the door now, call nine-one-one.”

I heard crunching gravel outside, then boots on the steps. Weibold got up as though facing a firing squad and went to open the door. As the two men shook hands, I said, “Dr. Weibold, this is Mr. Holloway. He’s Megan’s dad.”

Weibold surprised me under pressure. Though avoiding eye contact, he sounded sincere enough when he said, “Sorry you missed her, sir. I imagine you came quite a substantial distance and that you’re understandably concerned about her welfare. She was fine when she left yesterday afternoon with some young people she met in town. This is the address they gave me.”

He held out the paper to Holloway. “I’m not sure if it’s a residence or some kind of shelter, actually. It’s outside Quarry. That’s a small town where you can find most things, not that far north of here, maybe ten or fifteen miles. Of course, in this fog and with these roads, one could reliably calculate that it would take you in the neighborhood of—”

“That’s all right,” said our visitor as he snatched the paper from Weibold’s hand. I was about to jump for joy as he read it and turned toward the door, but my impulse was premature. He turned back. “Tell you what,” he said to me. “You drive me over there so I won’t get lost by myself or following you.”

“You’re the boss,” I said in as cheerful a manner as I could manage.

Then he turned to the professor. “You come along, too.”

“Well, I do have an early meeting in the morning, and while I didn’t mind doing a favor—”

“You’re coming,” Holloway said in a tone firm enough to freeze anyone in mid-excuse.

He watched me as I retrieved my purse, and I knew there was no trying to get help. I had no idea whether he believed me or if he planned to take us out somewhere and dump our bodies. Maybe, as a fugitive, he just didn’t want to take the chance of using the car that he’d come in. Long, tall Weibold folded up like a pocket knife to get into the backseat of the Honda, and Holloway took the front passenger seat. He clearly intended for me to drive, probably so I couldn’t pull anything. Even if he didn’t suspect us, a person with his background would keep watch, even on someone I sincerely hoped he’d taken for some ditzy detective wannabe from a tourist town filled with “illegal alien” servants of the corrupt and godless town residents.

He’d be wrong about that last part. I was teaching myself how to pray.

Though the fog was cooperating well enough to keep my speed down, I drove like a real granny, checking each turn in the road with Weibold, who of course was in the backseat, couldn’t see jack, and by his own nature had to think every question over. What a team. I kept having to give the geek credit, and though neither of us had any idea of what to do, I was very grateful not to be alone with Halliday/Holloway. No, I had to keep thinking of him as Holloway or I’d make the one slip that would hand the whole script over to him.

We were coming into town, and a real live traffic signal loomed up vaguely in the gloom ahead. It was red in my direction, and a hulking SUV was entering the intersection cautiously from my right. I did what any sensible person would do in the circumstances. I hit the gas.

Just as Holloway said, “What are you—” the SUV hit my poor Honda on the right side just ahead of his door, unfortunately. I had been hoping for them to hit my passenger.

I wailed with real dismay, “Oh, shit, where did they come from?” I left the keys in the ignition, half hoping Holloway would steal my car. But that would be unfair to Weibold.

Both vehicles were still in the intersection, not that there was any traffic that would have to maneuver around them. A red-faced, overweight fellow was trundling over, and I grabbed my purse just like in the real world and walked over to talk to him.

He started out calm. “My direction was green,” he said, the upset making his voice quaver. “Are you stupid? I have the right of way.” Then, his voice rising to a roar, he asked, “Where in the hell did you think you were going, missy? I have my little boy in that car!” The kid inside, about two, looked just fine in his little kid seat, strapped in and whining to be set free to get a better view of the excitement.

“It’s this fog. I’m sorry,” I said, walking around my car to the far side of his, pretending to note the nonexistent damage to the behemoth as he continued to assert his rights. I fished my driver’s license and insurance card out along with my P.I. identification but let him run on, trying to sidle out of earshot around the front of the SUV. Damned Holloway was out of the car but standing next to it, not moving. Weibold was wisely doing nothing in the rear seat.

I couldn’t say anything in front of Holloway, but I got out a piece of paper and pretended to write my information for the SUV guy. Actually, what I wrote was, “Crash was on purpose! Hostages! Call police. Federal fugitive Levi Halliday.”

“Read the note,” I suggested.

But the guy stuffed it in his pocket and kept getting more belligerent. “I don’t care what your insurance company says to my insurance company,” he said with all his neck veins puffing out. “I live here in Quarry. You’re some idiot out-of-towner who doesn’t know how to drive. We’re going to see what my good friend Sheriff Yates has to say about this.” He produced a cell phone. “Don’t you dare leave the scene.”

My mind was speeding ahead, wondering if some trigger-happy Yates — or Holloway, more likely, since I had to assume he was armed — would start shooting and hit that kid, or one of us. I wanted to play along and hope for a turn of events, but Holloway must have seen what was happening. He leaned into the driver’s seat, slammed the seat back, and said something to the professor, who flipped the front passenger seatback forward and got out.

“Nobody’s hurt,” Holloway barked, startling everyone. He lifted his chin in the direction of the backseat and said to me, “Get in. We’re going.”

The SUV guy said, “Like hell you are! I told you, I’m—”

We got in, Holloway fired up the Honda, and off we sped, to the extent that my old car could speed. It’s not bad out of the hole, and we must have been most of the way through the little town by the time the guy could react. I hoped that a sedentary lifestyle hadn’t taken its toll and that he’d be faster on his feet than he looked.

Holloway was saying, “We’re going to that place that my daughter’s at. We ain’t got time for that back there. You,” he said to the professor. “Keep your hands where I can see them, and don’t move. You either. See this?” I took that as permission to peek around the headrest. He purposely pulled his jacket aside to show us a small revolver tucked into his belt. I knew we were deep in the deep and kept waiting to hear help coming behind us, but there was nothing. The fog had started to lift, giving maybe fifty yards’ visibility. Even if the other driver saw the note, who knew whether he’d call 911 or play the hero and follow? I hoped not, thinking of that little kid.

“Where’s the house at?”

Weibold said, “I’m not familiar, actually—”

“We’ll come back later,” Holloway said.

When I sneaked a look behind us, I saw only the thinning signs of civilization as we cleared the outskirts of town, where the yards got bigger and the houses farther apart. But as I turned back, I saw something Weibold must have left on the backseat. It was medium tan, the same color as my upholstery, or Holloway would have seen it too when the dome light came on for the seat-swap. About five inches in diameter, wedged partway between the seat and back, and hard as a rock. As a matter of fact, it was a rock, and it fit right into my hand. At that moment, I loved the professor for being a geologist with a pragmatic side.

As Holloway turned right onto a small dirt road, I slid my hand over unobtrusively at the exact time Weibold provided a distraction by learnedly and politely demanding to know where we were going.

“Shut up,” Holloway replied. He turned his head slightly to the right to say something to me, and I simultaneously said, “I’m not sure, but I think we passed the street back—” and slammed the rock into Holloway’s temple. It was a stupid thing to do, and it could have gotten us killed, but it might also have been crazy intuition in the presence of evil. He travels fastest who travels alone, right? Holloway had just taken a turn that in the lifting fog you could easily see led straight to open desert, and I somehow knew that before he went back to town, he was going to lighten his load as soon as he was in a place where nobody would hear shots.

As the primitive rock connected, Holloway let out an involuntary cry, and my little car bucked as the steering wheel went solo on the bumpy road. He let go of the wheel because Weibold was trying to get his gun out of his waistband. I tried to get my balance enough to hit Holloway again, and managed to glance one off the top of his head. There was a lot of blood that ran into his eyes — or so I later understood — and as his hands flew to his head, Weibold pulled the trigger while the pistol was still in Holloway’s belt. The sound was huge, like an added physical impact as the car jolted off the road and thudded to a stop in a ditch. The engine died. Holloway’s mouth moved, and I could see blood between his teeth, like something from a horror film, but there was no sound.

Weibold was also mouthing something, the gun now in both his hands, and even though Holloway was blinded by his own blood, he made a move to get it. Weibold fired again, and Holloway slowly slumped against the driver’s-side window. His chest was heaving, so he wasn’t dead. I watched a trickle of blood travel down the window and all of a sudden I had to get out.

I must have said something, because Weibold, his hands shaking, managed to slide out, still holding the gun, and open the door. I found the little flipper to let myself out of the backseat. It was slippery in my hand. I had blood on my hand.

Weibold kept the stubby barrel trained on Holloway, the dome light shining down on the gory tableau. The headlights were aimed into the desert night. I ran in the opposite direction, doubled over with my arms around my middle, making for the main road to get help.

It’s a terrible thing to wish for someone else’s death, but right then I hoped that Levi Holloway, who had killed at least two people besides his own son, not to mention his planning to kill three more, would die. If only the other driver hadn’t sensibly called the sheriff, who called the FBI. If only the fog hadn’t cleared and a Medivac helicopter been available.

And if a fine surgeon hadn’t been on call at the hospital in Hemet, he’d have drowned in his own blood.

I guess I inherited some of my mother’s moral outlook. Some things just aren’t supposed to happen. Good and evil aren’t abstractions to me anymore. They’re found in people and what they do or don’t do. It bothers me that reward and punishment don’t necessarily relate to justice. It took me an especially long time to get my head around the fact that Levi Halliday shot his own son in cold blood, felt righteous about it, and was probably going to get away with it. All that, and he hadn’t been struck dead.

The irony is that Levi may just get the death penalty for the gun-dealing couple’s murder once he’s well enough to stand trial. His wife, in protective custody, will make a good witness now she’s turned her nasty side on him. So will Megan, of course. The aftermath of a great crime is the ongoing involvement required of people who’ve already been traumatized. Especially Megan, but also Jerry Weibold, still waiting to retrieve his stone axe from the evidence lockup, Marcella Perkins, and even me. No choice but to revisit pain and horror in courtrooms, waiting for their sidetracked lives to resume, lives that will always be divided into before and after.

I don’t know if Megan will ever really heal. Nothing can erase those toxic doses of paranoia, superstition, abuse, and sheer malevolence administered by two disturbed parents. No number of new friends can outweigh that, though we’ll try.

Time will carry Megan farther and farther from this history. When enough years have passed, her memories may fade like the names once recorded in fresh ink, now only pale shadows on the yellowed page of an old family Bible.

©2009 by Patricia McFall