Killing Weeds (21 page)

“Can you call the police and take me across the lake to that house over there?” Peggy pointed.

“I’ll be glad to take you wherever you need to go—?”

“Peggy Lee.” She gave him her hand. “I’m sorry. Thank you for rescuing me. But I have a friend over there that’s been shot and may be dying.”

“Is that Peggy Lee like the singer?” He grinned. “I love her stuff.”

“No. I’m a botanist. Lee is my married name.”

It struck her that she hadn’t gone back to her maiden name when John had died, but she also hadn’t taken Steve’s name when they’d married. How did he feel about her still having John’s name?

It was another stupid, random thought probably brought on by shock and fear. She shook her head and focused.

“Let’s head on over there.” Edgar turned on his trolling motor. “I can’t call the police. I don’t have a cell phone with me. We could go back to my place and use the house phone first, if you like. That’s the best I can do.”

Peggy needed to get to Sam, but she also needed medical response and police at Ruth’s old house. She chose to go to Edgar’s place first and get help. There wasn’t much she could do for Sam by herself.

The trolling motor was so slow. Peggy felt as though she might burst with impatience every minute it took them to get across Lake Tillery and reach Edgar’s cabin.

I’m so sorry, Sam. Hang in there. Help is coming.

Peggy wiped away tears that slipped from her eyes. She prayed he was still alive. It had been a while, maybe an hour or more. She never wore a watch, relying on her cell phone which Diane had destroyed.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked Edgar.

“Nope. Sorry, ma’am. I have a clock at the house too, though. I don’t like to be reminded what time it is when I’m fishing.”

“Thanks anyway.”

The steady hum from the trolling motor seemed to have gone on forever by the time they reached the hazardous-looking dock at Edgar’s place. The cabin, close to the edge of the water, was in about the same condition. A large German shepherd barked beside a door that was almost hanging off its hinges.

“What a quaint little place,” Peggy struggled to say something nice about her rescuer’s shack.

“I like it.” Edgar offered her his hand to get out of the boat after he’d jumped on the dock. “My wife won’t come out here at all since there’s no indoor plumbing. That makes it all the better for me. I have to cut grass, paint siding and clean out gutters at our house in Albemarle. I don’t want to do that stuff when I’m out here, you know?”

“I understand. My late husband was a fisherman too. When he was out on the lake, all he wanted to do was fish.”

“He had the right of it, Peggy. Let me get you to the phone, and then we can take a ride in the truck around the lake and see if we can help your friend while we wait for the paramedics to get there.”

“Thank you, Edgar.”

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry about the loss of your husband. It’s something we have to live with—knowing we might lose them at any minute.”

“Yes. It is.”

They ducked inside the cabin door, and Edgar pointed to the old green rotary dial phone.

Peggy eagerly grabbed the handset and immediately looked for buttons to call 911. There weren’t any.

She impatiently stuck her finger in the nine hole on the dial and watched as the circle went around until she could dial the next number.

How had anyone ever lived this way?

“County 911 operator. What’s your location and emergency?”

She wasted no time telling the operator where to find Sam. She still had to answer more questions before the operator let her go.
Who was shot? Where was the shooter? Who was she?

Finally, when she thought the woman had enough information, she hung up.

“I’m ready if you’ll take me to my friend’s house,” she said.

Edgar had pulled out an old rifle. He carefully loaded it and then nodded.

“I’m ready. Just getting prepared in case this woman who shot your friend is still around.”

“I think she’s probably long gone.” That truth presented its own problems. How would they ever find Diane? She could be anywhere by now.

Peggy sighed as she got in Edgar’s pickup. It smelled like old fish and bacon.

She had to remember that it wasn’t as important to find Diane as it was to save Sam. At least for the moment. But if they didn’t locate her and put her in jail, she could be right back again killing people for whatever her motives were at that time.

The old pickup was almost as slow as the trolling motor had been. It kept backfiring every time Edgar tried to get it up above thirty miles an hour. Edgar apologized as they went slowly around the side of the lake.

“Thank you for doing this,” Peggy said. “Sam would have no chance at all if we couldn’t get to him.”

He patted her hand. “Don’t fret. We might go slow, but we’ll get there. I hope the emergency people are faster than we are. Sometimes it can be like pushing a boulder uphill to get help out here.”

Peggy was beginning to feel the effects of being hit in the head, dragged down a hill, and almost drowned. She dozed off until her head met the window next to her. She jerked herself upright then, and concentrated on the road.

It was twenty minutes until the old pickup turned into Ruth’s overgrown driveway. It bumped up and down as Edgar pushed it into the area by the garage behind the house where she’d left Sam.

Peggy jumped out before the truck stopped. “Thank you again.”

“Hey now. Hold on a minute. I don’t see your friend who was shot. Where is he?”

She stared at the spot where Sam’s blood was still on the ground.

“She said she was going to hide his body in the woods.” Peggy glanced around. The house was completely surrounded by trees. “I guess he could be anywhere out here.”

Edgar got out of the truck, rifle in hand. “Don’t you worry. I’ll help you find him.

Pine

Pine trees are widely distributed throughout the world. Pine nuts, which are extracted from the pine cone, are edible and often frozen to preserve their flavor. The Italian pine nut was brought to America by immigrants. It became a craze along the East Coast in the early 1930s.

Chapter Thirty

Peggy and Edgar were searching through the trees when the ambulance and two county sheriff cars arrived.

She ran to tell them what had happened. The paramedics took one look at her bruised and bloody face and arms and tried to lower her to a stretcher to take her to the hospital right away.

“That’s not happening,” she said. “We need to find my friend, Sam Ollson. He was shot here at least two hours ago. That’s his blood on the ground.”

She explained everything as the deputy sheriffs and paramedics listened carefully.

“I just got the missing person call on you, Dr. Lee,” a deputy sheriff told her. “The FBI and Charlotte PD are looking for you.”

“There was supposed to be a light green truck,” the other deputy said. He read off the make, model, and license number. “Is that you?”

“There needs to be a search for that truck. The woman who tried to kill me and my friend is probably driving it right now.” Peggy gave them Diane’s name and description. “But right now, my friend is bleeding to death out here in the woods. Can you organize a search team for him?”

The deputies called it in. Peggy borrowed a cell phone from one of the paramedics and called Steve.

“Where the hell are you?” he demanded. “I’ve been going out of my mind after I found your bike and smashed cell phone at The Potting Shed. What’s going on, Peggy? Where’s Sam? Are you okay?”

She started to cry, hated herself for it, and pinched her nose until she stopped sniffling.

“I’m fine. We were kidnapped by Ruth Sargent’s daughter. She’s the killer. Sam is with me. She shot him and then hid him somewhere. I can’t find him, Steve. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. Please come out and bring as many people with you as you can.”

“Where are you? Did you call local law enforcement?”

Peggy gave the phone to one of the deputies. “Could you talk to someone from the FBI, please?”

The paramedics kept harassing her about going to the hospital. She ignored them and headed into the woods with one of the deputies. He’d tried to convince her to stay with the ambulance or go to the hospital. She flatly refused and told him that Edgar was out in the woods with her, before they got the wrong idea about him.

Peggy, Edgar, and two deputies scrupulously searched the heavily-wooded area around Ruth’s house. There was no sign of Sam.

They regrouped back at the garage about an hour later.

“I didn’t see any blood trail leading from this spot,” one of the deputies said. “If he’s out there, the woman did a good job hiding him. We need to call in the dogs. They’ll find him.”

“How long will that take?” Peggy asked.

“Not sure, ma’am,” the deputy said. “We’ll have to put in a request and then wait until the dogs and their handler get here. He’s a local man. He knows these woods and he’s real good at tracking.”

Two more SUVs arrived on the scene. It was Steve and Al.

Steve jumped out of the driver’s side of the first vehicle and ran to Peggy.

“Are you okay? You need a doctor.” He hugged her as though he would never let her go again.

She winced from the cuts on her back. “I’m fine.”

“I tried to get her in the ambulance,” a paramedic said. “She’s not having it.”

“Go with him,” Steve urged her. “You’re not going to help anyone by keeling over out here.”

“No.” She wasn’t arguing about it. “I’m not going anywhere until we find Sam.”

He rubbed his hand around the back of his neck. “All right. I brought some guys out with me from Charlotte. Let’s find him.”

Paul and Al were in the second SUV with eight CMPD officers. They both stopped to try to convince her to go to the hospital.

Al grunted and walked away when she told him no.

Paul shook his head. “And people say I’m stubborn. It’s only because they haven’t met you, Mom.”

“Thanks. I’m going back out now that reinforcements are here. I’m really scared for Sam. I hope he’s still alive.”

He carefully hugged her, mindful of the blood on her back. “We’ll find him. Don’t give up. Remember when Dad used to say that? It was his mantra. I always remember him saying it when I was a kid.”

Peggy thought again about her vision of John. “Yes, he always said that.”

Two more groups of civilian volunteers arrived to help with the search. Usually once the FBI arrived, they took over the scene. Steve didn’t try to usurp the county’s territory. The deputies coordinated the search in quadrants around the lake.

Peggy was in the woods again with Edgar. She introduced him to Paul.

“You know, there’s just no way Diane dragged or carried Sam further into the woods,” she told them. “He’s a big guy, and she wasn’t that strong.”

Edgar nodded. “She probably buried him out here, closer to the house. Anyone could get that done. We’re probably out too far.”

Peggy’s heart felt like someone was squeezing it in her chest. She had a hard time breathing, but didn’t dare say anything if she wanted to stay.

They heard the sound of dogs baying in the distance.

“Sounds like another search party,” Paul said. “If he’s out here, they’ll find him, Mom. They’re trained to smell blood.”

“I’m gonna head back now, Peggy,” Edgar said. “Sorry for your friend. My wife is probably worried about me.”

“You could use my cell phone, sir, to call her,” Paul offered.

He grinned. “If I do that, she’ll want me to have one out here all the time. It’s better for her to worry about me than to ruin a perfectly good fishing shack.”

Peggy hugged him and thanked him again. He gave her his full name and phone number in Albemarle so she could let him know when they found Sam.

“You were lucky, Mom,” Paul said after Edgar was stomping back through the woods toward the house. “We could be looking for
you
too.”

“I didn’t have much choice in this. I did the best I could,” she told him. “How was I supposed to know that Ruth had a daughter who was even more devious and deadly than she was?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“I guess I could’ve looked the other way when I found out that Ruth had killed those people. Or you didn’t have to help Diane by getting your private investigator’s license.”

“I see your point.”

They continued through the woods, carefully examining any spots that looked higher than the land around them.

“I don’t think we’re going to find Sam.” Her voice was barely a whisper. Tears started to her eyes. She barely had the strength to wipe them away.

“Sure we will. It’s probably gonna take a while, but we’ll find him.”

“We don’t have a while,” Peggy said. “
He
doesn’t have a while. I hate that he got trapped in this. She thought he was my other son. I’ve felt like that about him for years. I never said anything because I didn’t want him to think I was being too maternal or something. He’s been such a big help…and he’s so dear to me.”

“You’ll have a chance to tell him,” Paul insisted. “I believe it. There are lots of us out here. We’ll find him.”

But the afternoon wore on until evening, and there was no sign of Sam.

The trackers had been there for hours with the dogs, but they kept following false trails and heading back to the garage. The trackers asked her for something that belonged to him. Paul drove back to Charlotte and brought one of Sam’s T-shirts with him.

Tucker came with him too.

Paul cut up the T-shirt and gave the pieces to the trackers.

Peggy was too sore to hug Tucker. She smiled at him and patted his hand. They both had tears rolling down their cheeks.

“How are we ever gonna find him out here?” Tucker was overwhelmed by the hundreds of acres of rocky, forested terrain around them. “What can I do?”

“Everyone is searching for him. Maybe now that the dogs have something with his scent, that will make a difference. It’ll be dark soon. I don’t know if they’ll search at night or wait until tomorrow.”