Deep Down (I) (6 page)

“First of all,” Drew said, “does anything look out of place—not just moved, but really disturbed?”

From where they were standing in the front door, Jessie surveyed the place that was once her home. A white, wood-sided house with a shingled roof, it had hardly changed over the years, while she had changed so much. This front entry opened onto a living area, with a big hooked rug and a flagstone fireplace. Six worn, dark wood chairs surrounded a long wooden table that served as the dining area; a store-bought sofa and two hand-crafted rockers faced each other before the long front window looking out over the porch. A short hall led to a kitchen at the back left and two bedrooms on the right with a small bathroom
between. Her mother had put modern plumbing in after Daddy died. A long, glassed-in sunporch stretched along the back of the house, a place for storage but a lot of living, too. That was still Jessie’s favorite room.

It was so strange to be here without her mother’s presence. The place seemed too silent—haunted. “I don’t think anything’s out of place,” she said, going in to look around the main room and kitchen. She peered into the back rooms. “It’s as if she just stepped outside for something. But her denim jacket is gone from its peg by the back door and her favorite old, scuffed hiking boots aren’t here.” She heard a scratching sound and saw that Drew was taking notes.

“Do you know where she kept her sang records?” he asked.

“Some in her desk, some in a tin box in the closet—her idea of a filing cabinet.” She sat down at her mother’s pine desk in the front room, one her father had crafted with his own hands, jack-of-all trades that he was. Sliding different drawers open and gently rifling through things, she said, “Believe me, it took some convincing, from both me and Professor Gering—Elinor, to get Mother the sang counting job in this area. I made her take all the modern devices like a GPS and cell phone they offered, but she refused to e-mail her findings in on spreadsheets and snail-mailed them instead. Still, they knew she was the best person to find sang around here.”

“As I said, we’re going to have to find her sang spots,” Drew said, hovering over her. “Anything about her counts there at all?”

“No, though I can go through everything more thoroughly later. Let’s go check her lockbox.”

“Will you need a key?” he asked, following her into the
larger of the two small bedrooms. Mariah had made her bed; the familiar wedding ring heirloom quilt looked untouched, slumping into the shape of two human forms in the double bed her mother had once shared with her father and refused to replace.

“Believe it or not, she seldom locks it,” Jessie said.

She opened the closet door and the earthy, fresh aroma of the forest hit her with stunning impact. Jessie closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in the scent she most associated with her mother, wishing this were a magic entry into the forest, to the spot where Mariah must have met with some accident. You’re being foolish, she scolded herself. Too many childhood readings of Alice in Wonderland or The Chronicles of Narnia from Elinor.

Her mother’s closet looked small but roomy, compared to her own walk-in closet at home that was stuffed with clothes, but that made it easy to see what was on the floor. Hiking boots, walking shoes, only one pair of nice-looking flats, one extra purse. In the back right corner of the closet Jessie spotted the black metal tin box, despite the fact it was covered by a still new-looking Lands’ End backpack she’d bought her mother last year. Stubborn as ever, Mariah must still prefer her own, old, shoulder-sling pack.

Jessie knelt and slid the box out into the room. Drew squatted down to help her. It was about two-feet square and a foot deep and as old as the hills. Sitting cross-legged, Jessie lifted the lid—yes, unlocked.

“You mentioned about urging people to use locks,” she told Drew, “but you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” To her surprise, the papers in the box looked in great disarray, as if someone had pawed through the contents.

“Is it always that messy?” Drew asked, his shoulder bumping hers as he sat down cross-legged next to her.

“I haven’t looked in it for years, but it’s not like her. This looks like it’s been stirred.”

“Or ransacked. Let me carry it into the kitchen so you can go over it better. Don’t touch the lid again, in case we need to dust it for prints.”

Jessie watched, wide-eyed, as Drew took a pair of latex gloves out of a packet from inside his jacket and pulled them on. That bright yellow police tape he’d had across the front door—now this.

Her insides churned as a memory hit her hard. “Drew, when I was in Hong Kong visiting a ginseng shop, I had a panic attack.”

Frowning, he snapped the gloves onto his big hands. “Tell me about it.”

“I—I got suddenly claustrophobic, even though I’d been really looking forward to visiting such a shop. I couldn’t breathe, the smells got to me and I almost threw up. I’ve never had anything like that happen before,” she said as he hefted the box and bounced it once to get a better grasp.

“And?” he prompted. “Tell me the rest.”

“I thought—felt—someone was chasing me, when that was ridiculous. I ran back to the hotel and collapsed for hours—then your call woke me. The time zones are hard to figure, but I’m thinking that would have been around sunset here, the night she went missing.”

She walked ahead of him into the kitchen where he put the box on the table. He straightened, turned and put his gloved hands on her shoulders. Grateful, needful, she lifted her hands to grip his wrists, encased in the thin latex.

“So you’re thinking it was some kind of ESP from Mariah?” he asked. “Like she was in some kind of trouble right then? You’ve never had the mountain woman sixth sense, have you?”

“Never. I don’t really believe in it, even though my mother said her mother had that gift. I didn’t mean to sound crazy—I know we need hard facts.”

“I’m glad you told me,” he said, letting her go and pulling out a ladder-backed chair at the table for her. “If there’s anything else like that, let me know. But right now, let’s see if we can find something to really go on. I’d like us to check some of her deepest forest spots in a couple of hours, but I think it’s worth it to go through this stuff first. If you come across anything that seems even vaguely useful, tell me and I’ll write it down. Go ahead, Jess, okay?” he added when he saw her hesitate.

Why did she feel so afraid? She felt almost closed in again, as if a big, black box were shutting around her. Or a coffin with the thud, thud of soil hitting its lid. With a shudder, she dug into the jumble of papers and photos.

6

“I never would have found this back road,” Tyler Finch told Cassie as they bounced along a rutted track in her old Ford truck.

“No offense, Mr. Finch, but even if you would have found it, that compact rental car wouldn’t get you back in where we’re going.”

“I’d like it if you’d call me Tyler.”

Pearl, squeezed in between them, piped up, “Finch is better ’cause it’s a real pretty bird. It crunches seeds in its pow-ful beak.”

“Pearl’s getting to be quite a reader,” Cassie said. “All right, I’ll call you Tyler and you call me Cassie, but Pearl has to mind her manners and call you Mr. Finch.”

“And I promise I won’t crunch any seeds,” he said.

Pearl found that funny. Her girl was warming up to this stranger fast, a good reminder for her mother to keep her distance. Poor Pearl, with no daddy—not one she knew, anyway. Shy as she was, she took to most men once she knew them. Pearl’s loss was even greater than her own, and another reason a certain man deserved to die.

“What’s this mountain ahead of us called?” Tyler asked.

“Big Blue, but the place we’re going for your first shots is right by Shrieking Peak.”

“Sounds haunted. Does a story go with that?”

“Not that I know of. When the wind blows, which is most of the time, it sounds like a woman screaming.”

“Your friend’s mother you were telling me about—”

“Mariah Lockwood.”

“Yes. Could she have wandered up into this area?”

“That’s one of the good things about working for you, Mr.—Tyler. We’re going to keep a good eye out for signs of her, as well as for pretty places for your photos. Mariah Lockwood wandered far and wide, that’s why it’s been so hellfire hard to find her. Oh, sorry for the cussing. Pearl, you just forget you heard that now.”

She parked the truck where the thick stands of oak and basswood began, and they hiked up toward the place she knew would not only suit Tyler Finch but awe him. Their pace was slow, because he didn’t seem used to the rough terrain and Pearl’s legs were still so short. Besides, might as well treasure their time together—the extra money, that is, ’cause he said he’d pay her each and every day.

“So,” she said, trying not to stare at him, “tell me more about your work.”

“There’s hard work and then there is joy work. Not that I don’t like my job, but I often have to go into the city—New York. It’s a bit too crowded and noisy for me, and I’m always fenced in by someone else’s ideas. For example, my assignment here is to get some photos of sites where TV ads for a power drink could be shot later—with live people.”

“Better’n dead ones. Ginseng power drinks?”

“Right. I’d like some really winsome ads, but we’ll probably have pro athletes hiking or rafting around here.”

Cassie wasn’t sure what winsome meant, but it must have something to do with winning. She nodded to encourage him.

“Our client puts caffeine and ginseng in their liquid sports aids,” he explained. “G-Man and G-Woman Drinks. Bailey and Keller, my advertising firm, helps a client build a brand name and tell their story.”

“Tell their story,” she repeated. “That’s important, I reckon, even for things, let alone for people.”

“Someday, Cassie,” he said, stopping and turning to face her, “will you tell me your story?”

She shrugged but smiled. “Not much to tell. Will you tell me yours then?”

“Yeah,” Pearl said with an impish grin. “Like you have to go first!”

He smiled at both of them, then got serious again. “On paper, my story is not important. I plead guilty to being an artistic workaholic unhappily wedded to the corporate world. Divorced, no kids, not much family left but some cousins—one who lives in Highboro, so I know the general area and love it. I make a good salary, but that doesn’t fulfill me. The joy work I mentioned is my own project, a book about Appalachia, mostly pictures, some text.”

“So these photos you want are for both your hard work and joy work?”

Their gazes snagged and held. The wind ruffled his short, sun-struck hair. He looked so wholesome—winsome—kind of like he belonged here and yet was some sort of alien invader. Don’t do this, Cassie told herself. Don’t go feeling all shaky about this man just ’cause he looks like that and talks to you real heartfeltlike.

“Exactly,” he said when she’d forgotten what she’d asked
and Pearl tugged at her hand. “Are we almost there? I think I hear the shrieking woman and something else—a roar.”

“It’s not a monster, so don’t worry!” Pearl put in.

Cassie thought of Mariah again, lost or hurt in these parts somewhere. Had Mariah called for help but there was no one to hear? Or had someone hurt her—or worse? Tyler was staring at her again, and Pearl was yanking her along.

“That roar’s Indian Falls,” Cassie said, as the world seemed to rotate back into place again. She had to keep shoving strands of her long red hair out of her eyes. “By the way, there’s a Cherokee man lives ’round here you might like to meet if you want good stories for your book. He says his people believe waterfalls and large trees can capture your soul, and that the woods are a sacred but scary place.”

Even when they climbed to the crest of the open hillside and Cassie pointed toward Big Blue’s massive gray-and-purple shoulders shrugging off the crashing waters of the falls, Tyler Finch kept looking at her for a long moment.

“This takes my breath away,” he said as he finally turned to see the sights stretched out before them.

“I feel like we didn’t find a darned thing,” Jessie told Drew as they headed for Mariah’s door. She’d added one of her mother’s jackets and a pair of hiking boots to her jeans and sweatshirt. They had found no clue about where to start looking for a needle in this massive haystack of trees and hollows and hills.

Jessie’s feet and spirits were dragging now. Earlier, she’d been on a roller-coaster ride of emotions as she’d searched through her mother’s things in her metal box. The deed to this land, records of income tax returns. A
large, dried ginseng plant—a five-pronger—pressed between pieces of wax paper had somehow gotten stuck in the big envelope with her parent’s marriage license. There had been old school photos of herself, skinny and gawky. “Man, you have changed!” Drew had said, looking over her shoulder. They had also found faded pictures of her parents in their courting days, a few of her father she’d never seen.

Also, copies of past ginseng counts, which had been pulled from another large envelope, then half-stuffed back in. But to their dismay, nothing hinted at particular sang counting sites, past or present. In haste, had her mother pulled what she needed from this envelope, then thrust the rest back in?

Jessie could tell Drew was upset, too, though he promised they’d spend days looking for signs of Mariah if they had to. His words echoed in Jessie’s head and heart. Signs, as if her mother had left a message behind, but wasn’t around herself anymore…

“What’s this behind the door?” Drew asked as he opened it for her to go outside ahead of him. He reached down to pick up a calendar that was wedged on its side, standing upright against the wall.

“Oh, a calendar I gave her for Christmas,” she told him as he handed it to her. “I thought she’d like all the photos of the flowers for each month. It must have been tacked on the wall behind the door and got bumped off.”

“Check it to see if she listed places she was going to count sang.”

She flipped back a page to Mariah’s major counting month of August and skimmed the entries. Vern Tarver’s name was listed about twice a week with the name of
restaurants in Highboro. Mariah’s scrawling handwriting recorded a church covered-dish supper to raise money for Widow Winchester. “Look,” she said, pointing at a Wednesday in August. “This doesn’t say Sang but Sung—Peter Sung’s name!”

“Your hunch about talking to him sounds right on. I’ll have to check if he was in town then. Anything under the first few September dates?”

She flipped to the current month. Since her mother had disappeared on the fourth, not much was filled in but for Vern’s name—this time crossed off heavily, jaggedly, on the third. On the fourth, scribbled in light pencil, was Semples OK.

“Does that say samples?” Drew asked, reading it upside-down. “Maybe Peter Sung wanted some samples of wild ginseng to know the quality he could expect to buy this year.”

“No, see—the S is capitalized. Semples.”

“Junior and Charity Semple? They’re the only Semples in the area, and he grows raised sang up in the woods above his place. But would she count sang that’s not wild but cultivated?”

“I’m pretty sure she always kept an eye on his crop—technical name, virtually wild sang. The crop’s health is a valid indicator since, once he plants the seeds, Mother Nature takes over. He used to have a couple acres of sang, scattered throughout the woods above his house.”

“It’s worth a try, a place to start. And that notation is on the day she disappeared.”

“You’re sure she got that far—that is, left the house that day and wasn’t somehow taken from here?” she asked.

“A couple of people spotted her walking along the
highway that morning—come to think of it, in the direction of the Semples’. I’ll go check on this at their place.”

“You?” she challenged, stepping ahead and turning to face him as he tried to pass her to head out the door. She raised her chin to look him in the eye. “I thought we were working together on this.”

“Jess, you remember Junior Semple. Believe me, he’s gotten more cantankerous and off-the-wall over the years.”

“Is he the one who tied copperhead snakes around his sang patch?”

“No, but he’s paranoid about poachers. He’s been in trouble before for his belief that the best defense is a good offense. I’ll take you with me whenever I need help finding a sang site, but not out to the Semples’.”

They faced each other squarely in the doorway, half in, half out. She didn’t budge. “I realize the man used to be trigger-happy,” she conceded, “but he might tell you more if I were there. It would be like a daughter just looking for her mother with your help, not some official investigation. You’d probably spook him, now that you’re sheriff here.”

“I don’t want you getting hurt. You should be here, in case word comes about Mariah’s whereabouts.”

“You mean I’m allowed to stay here now?”

“Yes, but don’t make this—”

“Difficult? It is, Drew! I’m going with you. Please, or else you can just lock me up in your jail cell!”

He opened his mouth to say something else, then just shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair. “All right. You just might be of help. But if Junior pulls anything, you do exactly what I say.”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

He cocked his big head and squinted down at her. “You
been around marines, ma’am? Then you know the chain of command is not something to mock or ignore. Let me have that calendar,” he said, taking it from her and glaring down at it instead of her. “It may just be our first piece of evidence, not only because of Semples being listed here. Her crossing out of Vern Tarver’s name, after this long string of dates, looks really angry. And if she was upset, maybe he was, too.”

No one answered Drew’s “Hello!” or knock at the Semples’ one-story clapboard house back in Crooked Creek Hollow. Jessie hadn’t been here for years, but the place boasted a typical scattering of buildings—not as ramshackle as she recalled—with deep forests hunkered above. Actually, the house looked newly painted, so maybe raised sang had paid for that. Her eyes took in the chicken coop with no chickens, the old rundown, roofless barn, sturdy smokehouse, and a work shed, all strung up a narrowing valley. Tombstones like broken teeth guarded a small family graveyard, the kind not allowed anymore. She couldn’t read the dates on the mossy limestone markers, but the pioneers buried here had probably known Daniel Boone and Seth Bearclaws’s ancestors, when all of this territory was their hunting ground.

“You got any memories about where Junior’s sang patches are?” Drew asked her in a low voice. He kept shifting his narrowed stare, especially up into the deep shadows under the trees where a ragged dirt path zigzagged upward.

“No, but the patches will be on the northern exposure side of a gully, steep hillside or cove. Ginseng loves its privacy and leaf litter intact. Maybe in a woodlot with a
beech or maple canopy overhead and maidenhair ferns and goldenseal to tip us off. I’ll spot it if we walk up in there a ways. See, you do need me.”

He turned and gave her a look that made her knees go weak. She hadn’t meant to goad him. Was he just ticked off, or was that fierce look something else? He put a finger to his lips to signal silence as they went on.

After about a five-minute walk, they heard something before they saw anyone. A thud, crunch, thud, crunch. Someone digging. Maybe digging sang. Though Jessie had been leading, Drew seized her wrist and pulled her back behind him.

“Me first, now,” he whispered as he unsnapped the holster on his belt and pulled out his gun.

Drew noticed a couple of .22 caliber casings on the ground, the choice of rifle shells around here. Junior was one of the few men in the area who didn’t keep coonhounds, so he was grateful they didn’t have to fend those off.