Saving Cecil (9 page)

“Ah,” I laughed, “now the real reason for your longevity as a bachelor is starting to emerge … ” I paused, hearing a car door slam outside. Suddenly I realized I'd forgotten all about my dinner plans with Will and Henri. Figuring it must be them, I braced.

“Mom!” Henri exclaimed as she and Will busted into the room. “What's going on? You missed dinner—and who is this?”

“Henri!” Will snapped, taking in my sorry state. “Look at Mom! Can't you see something's happened.”

“And where are your manners?” I demanded. “We'll do dinner another time. Right now I'd like you to meet my friend, Detective Chris Bryant—”

Henri, ignored my introduction and cut me off. “Not at that catering house, we won't,” she snapped. “That was a tasting they were holding just for us to be sure the selections I've made are what you and Dad want and what happens? Dad leaves town and you're a no-show! Well, I can tell you, I've about had it. You have no idea how hard it is planning an event of this magnitude!”

I turned to Detective Bryant to apologize. He was staring at Henri like he'd encountered an alien being. “I'm so sorry, Chris,” I said, although it was obvious I didn't have his attention. I addressed him again, more forcefully this time, “Chris.” Nothing.

“Chris!” This time I snapped my fingers.

“What?” he startled, dragging his eyes from Henri.

“Tell you what,” I said, standing and guiding the bedazzled detective to the front door. “I'll call you first thing when I get back on the job tomorrow and we'll make arrangements to meet at the section of road where I tried to fly the Jeep.”

“Okay,” he said, then pointed back toward the den. “Who was that?”

“Those two ungrateful wretches are my children. My daughter, Henri is the uber-rude one. She's 26 and my son, Will, the slightly less rude one, is 28.”

“Is she … ”

“Tomorrow, Chris,” I said, then thought of something. “Oh, and before you go back to where I had the wreck, you should know there is a very territorial bull in that pasture. Seriously, get the dairy manager—guy named Luther—to go with you.”

Back in the den all hell broke loose.

I told both children what I thought of their transformation from normal young people into wedding vampires who sucked the life out of everyone and everything, feeding on an unnatural, unrealistic desire to create something perfect. I know, it didn't make a lot of sense, but it was the best I could do in my out-of-control state.

I mean, I'd nearly been killed in a wreck that cost me my magic Jeep, then been chased by a bull. I knew my venting was perhaps a tad over the top, but I couldn't help ending my tirade with, “And for your information, you two idiots, perfection is an illusion. You can chase it all you want, but it's unattainable.”

Henri burst into tears, stormed out of the house, into her car, and left.

Will quickly made me another drink. “Tell me about your day, Mom. How did you get all bruised and banged up and where's your Jeep?”

I felt a little better after he and I had a long d
iscussion, including a detailed account of my day, but without any mention of the sheriff and my run-in with him or the fact that a bullet had likely caused my accident. No sense worrying him. While we talked, Will made me a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled chees
e sandwich. I didn't realize how hungry I was or how tired. I wanted to call Bud, tell him about my dismal day, but I was too damn done in. Tomorrow, I promised myself.

Wednesday morning dawned dull and grey, mirroring my mood and physical state. My body, as I clomped downstairs, was one stiff, sore aching muscle. And that was after a hot shower and a BC powder. Then I smelled coffee. My heart leaped. Bud was back!

When I stepped into the kitchen, I encountered Will and was instantly disappointed, which in the next instant made me feel guilty. I sighed and made myself another promise to call Bud first chance I got. Fortunately Will was busy scrambling eggs and buttering English muffins and missed my emotional struggles. “What are you still doing here?” I asked. “I thought you left last night.”

Will looked up from his task and licked his fingers. “I was going to,” he said. “But after I called Henri and told her what had happened to you, she insisted one of us needed to stay and check on you during the night. You did hit your head, you know. Since I was here, it made sense I stay.”

“I see,” I said, still ticked over last night's display.

“We're really sorry, Mom. Especially Henri. She feels just awful.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It's just, well, you know how she can be sometimes. She'll call you soon. And from now on we're going to keep a tight rein on getting too caught up in this party. I mean, wedding.”

Yeah and humans will soon vacation on Mars.
“Fine.” I snipped. “Soon as we eat, I need a ride to the iPhone store and a car rental place.”

After purchasing a phone, completing the download of my contacts and other information from my computer, and renting a plain grey minivan—folks coming in for a major NC State football game on the weekend had taken the good ones—I prepared to leave the car rental parking lot.

Will slid the van door open for Tulip. She climbed in, showing a slight stiffness, too, and proceeded to check out her vast new domain.

“Drive careful, Mom,” Will said with a forlorn look on his face.

“I will,” I said. “And thanks for all the help, sugar.”

“No problem, and don't worry. Henri'll calm down and everything will be just fine. You'll see.”

As soon as I got back onsite, I set about trying to catch up on logging all the samples I'd missed yesterday. A knock at the door preceded Jackie's entrance with more bags of samples.

“Once we got back drilling, we made good progress,” he said, dropping the samples on the table. “What's with the minivan?”

“It's a long story,” I said. Jackie folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the table as I recounted my activities after I left him yesterday. When I got to the part about my tire being shot out, his immediate reaction was to suspect the sheriff.

“Maybe you should ask Greenlite for a replacement. You know, someone to take over for you here,” he said. “A gas well ain't worth getting killed over.”

“I hear you,” I said. “Keep in mind, we don't know for sure if it was him. But I'll take your advice and keep a sharp eye.”

“Okay, then,” he said dubiously. “'Course, long as you're up here around me and the boys, we've got your six.”

“I appreciate it, but I don't think we need to worry,” I lied. “It probably was just a stray hunter's shot. It is deer season, after all.”

The rest of the day passed without incident. Chris called and left a message that the sheriff had him on another case all day, but he'd get up with me soon. I tried to reach Bud one more time before leaving for home.

I'd tried several times during the day but his phone just went to voicemail. As luck would have it, I was on the highway by the time he returned my call. When the phone vibrated in the drink holder, I resisted the urge to answer, or even pick it up. Maybe I
had
learned my lesson about messing with the phone while driving.

The very moment I pulled in the driveway, fifteen minutes later, I reached for the phone to return his call and noticed I had a message too. It was from Annette Lauderbach wanting me to stop by or call when I got a chance. I made a mental note to do so, then called Bud. Greece is seven hours ahead so it was close to midnight there. “You just getting home?” he asked across the miles and time zones that separated us.

“Yes,” I said, feeling giddy at hearing his voice. What was it about that guy that turned me into a pile of mush? I didn't know. Never had. I'd loved him and hated him so intensely for so many years—the hate being for his controlling nature—that now that I was about to commit to him again, I surprised myself at the depth of my feelings for him. “What are you doing?” I asked goofily. God. I sounded like a schoolgirl.

“Laying here thinking about you,” he answered, sounding just as goofy. We went on like that for a few minutes. He said his return time was still up in the air. Then he asked if there was any word regarding the boy's hunting accident and I told him what I'd learned. I considered telling him about totaling the magic Jeep, my run in with the sheriff, and the big meltdown with the kids but decided against it. There was simply no point in worrying him. When we hung up, I felt wonderful.

Love is a great healer of all types of wounds.

NINE

My plan of action
Thursday morning: an early start in the doghouse, logging the samples collected during the night while I'd been sleeping and the crew had been drilling ahead. We were down hole a little over 100 feet and still in the Sanford Formation.

I'd logged sandstones and mudstones interbedded with each other seemingly forever. The grain size hadn't started to coarsen up yet and that was the indicator I was looking for. When it did, I'd know we were approaching the basal beds of conglomerates in the Sanford, including one unit containing very large pebbles, termed “millstone grit” because it was quarried back in the 1800s for that very purpose.

Around lunchtime I gobbled down the KFC snack lunch I'd bought on the way in. Tulip ate the biscuits, which, after hours in the mini-fridge, were as appetizing as cardboard. After freshening up a bit, I headed for the Lauderbachs. Besides finding out what Annette wanted, I was hoping to get some additional information on Clinton and take care of thanking Luther in a more substantial way. Once I'd accomplished those things, I'd take care of flagging the site for Lauderbach #2.

When I arrived, Annette opened the door—a pleasant surprise—and led me back to the sunroom again. Arthur put down his copy of the Herald when I entered, but pointed back to it and said, “Very informative article in there on Clinton Baker, the young man killed on our farm. Have you seen it?”

“No,” I said, taking the chair he offered.

“Lots of detail about him, his hopes and dreams. Really gives some insight into what a fine fellow he was. He was interested in everything. It's just so sad,” Arthur sighed deeply. “Now nothing he dreamed of will ever come to fruition.”

Mentally scratching questions regarding Clinton from my to-do list, I said, “I'll have to read it later. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.” Suddenly, there was a clamor outside the window. A flurry of shouting and running created by a bevy of teenag
e boys playing tag football lifted the somber mood in the room.

“What fun!” I laughed. “And how convenient to have those old outbuildings in just the right spots to serve as end markers. It's good they can still serve a useful purpose. Plus, it's wonderful you've preserved them.”

“Thank you,” Arthur said, laughing at the antics of the players. “Now days that's about all they're good for, that and homes for bats and mice, but it's important for the kids to see how things were done in the old days.”

“Are all those yours?” I asked, nodding at the players.

“Gracious, no,” he said, feigning astonishment. “Only three of them.”

“We had one a year for a while there,” Annette said wistfully.

A
n
d you're still sane. Impressive
. “You have a beautiful family,” I said with true admiration. Now I remembered that Sara had told me about her three younger brothers. “And you have one other son, right?”

“Yes, he's at State, majoring in Animal Science so he can take over the farm one day.”

“Well,” I said, moving on to the reason for my visit, “besides being here in answer to your voicemail, I wanted to drop in and thank you so much again for the help you and your employees gave me Tuesday. Without Luther and Ruby, I'm sure my day would have been much harder.”

“Now, now, none of that!” Arthur said. “We're just sorry that old buzzard, Boss, got after you. And as to Annette's voicemail … ”

“Now, Arthur, I can answer for myself,” Annette said. “I called just hoping you'd gotten some test results or something that would let you know that billions of barrels of gas are right below the farm, just waiting for us to tap into them.”

Arthur rolled his eyes.

I laughed. “Actually gas is measured in cubic feet, billions or trillions as the case may be, and it's a little early to know anything yet.”

“Oh, dear,” Annette said with a nervous laugh. “I'm just a silly goose.”

Arthur reached out and patted her knee, then looked at me and said, “I guess we are anxious because … well, we've had a tough go of it since the accident … ” He paused as he collected his thoughts. “In truth, we were falling on hard times for several years before that. Just the economy, I suppose, but now, with school tuitions and the added pressure of unexpected doctor and hospital bills, we had to find some way to get financial relief. These wells are it. We've thrown everything we have left into them in the hope of pulling ourselves back into the black.”

“You see, my dear,” Annette said. “We have so many people depending on us. All our employees, some of whom have worked here all their lives like Ruby and Luther and lots of others. If we go bust, we take a lot of families down with us.”

“Our major problem is the equipment,” Arthur explained. “In order to meet new regulations and standards required by the FDA and state and local agencies, we need to upgrade. Plus some of our barns are about to fall down. We house over 500 cows here that have to be milked and fed twice a day. Plus there are new waste treatment requirements that are very stringent. If we don't do upkeep and maintenance and modernize the equipment, they'll close us down. It's just as simple as that.”

They looked so tense I wished I could offer some assurances, but there were none. Exploration is a gamble any way you look at it, even in a production field. The odds are three to one against you. Still, it was better now than it used to be.

“Big rewards require big risks,” I offered. “If it makes you feel any better, you're not alone. I've been on several jobs in the Pennsylvania gas fields in the last few years. All were on large farms, hoping for the same outcome as you and for the same reason. Just keep in mind that while we wouldn't necessarily call the Triassic Basin a production field yet, several good wells have been brought in and put on line, so that kicks your odds up a little.”

“And,” Arthur said, reaching for his wife's hand and giving it an encouraging squeeze, “we have you. As we hear it from Greenlite, you've got a top-notch reputation for bringing in stubborn wells.”

“Thanks for that, Arthur,” I said. “Call me anytime you want a report on how things are going. We've got a few more days of grinding through the Sanford Formation. Then, right before we
break into the Cumnock, because it's only about 580 feet thick at the most, we'll begin our turn to run horizontal. The idea being to tap into the gas-bearing shale above the last coal seam. That should take about a week, give or take a few days.” I stood to leave. “Oh, one last thing. I'd like to thank Ruby again for patching me up.”

“No need,” Annette said. “She loves helping people and she knows you appreciated it. Anyway, she's not here. Thursday's her grocery day. Getting ready for the weekend. But if it makes you feel better, I'll tell her again for you.”

“I'd appreciate that,” I said. “I thanked Luther personally on Tuesday, but I feel I should stop by the barn and offer a little financial token. After all, he was in his truck, using his gas. I'd feel better if he let me repay him.”

“I'm sure he'd welcome it,” Arthur said. “He and Ruby have several children in college too.”

Walking to the minivan, I remembered a bag of apples I'd left on the passenger side of the backseat and stepped around to get it. I took a bite of one and slid the door closed. Just then, a slight movement to my right caught my attention. Through the lacy limbs of a Hollywood cypress, I spotted another unique outbuilding, this one had not been visible from the sunroom.

The movement I'd detected was the door slowly swinging open. Just as I started to leave, thinking it was only a matter of the door being unlatched, a familiar face peered around it. You know how you can tell in an instant when someone is doing something they don't want anyone to know about?

The moment I saw Ruby step down out of an old stick-built chicken house—the kind raised several feet off the ground on stacks of rocks—I could tell she didn't want to be seen. I also knew that the chances of her noticing me from that distance and through tree limbs were slim and none, especially if I remained motionless. I watched as she warily checked her surroundings before latching the door and scurrying from sight.

That's weird.
I'd thought Annette said she was grocery shopping. And why, if mice and bats infested those old buildings, would she be storing anything out there? I got back in the van, took the first left past the drive on the main farm road, and motored toward the two massive silos visible over the trees. They sat beside twin barns, both gigantic white two-story affairs with red roofs. I pulled up to the first barn and went in.

Apparently they were in cleaning mode. Five men of varying ages and ethnicities, all in coveralls and black rubber boots, hosed down the concrete floors and raised milking stations in the vast barn. It looked pretty modern to me, but what did I know? I asked the first person whose attention I could get where Luther Green might be. He pointed in a curving manner towards outside and shouted, “Over yonder.”

Nodding thanks for the precise information, I changed my direction and headed “over yonder” to the other barn. It was a complete rerun of the goings on in the first barn. I waved down another man in coveralls and asked again for Mr. Green only to get a shrug. The guy did stop hosing long enough to holler to his co-workers but the consensus remained the same: for s
ure he wasn't in the barn area and beyond that no one knew where he was.

Lu
cky no one needs the barn manager
. Deciding to come back later, I headed off to fulfill the next item on my agenda: flagging the site for Lauderbach #2. Again, I planned to kill two birds with one stone. Since my curiosity regarding the murder of Clinton Baker knew no bounds, and since, as far as I knew, I was still Sheriff Stuckey's prime suspect, I decided to reach the new wellsite by a different route than the one I used on my ill-fated attempt Tuesday.

Instead of trying to drive as close to it as possible and then hike the rest of the way, I'd go the entire distance on foot, cutting across pastures and woods. Besides, using the same shortcut I'd taken the day I found Clinton would take me back to the crime scene. Who knew, maybe I'd see something others hadn't.

Back at the dog
house, I pulled the relevant aerial of the farm from my file drawer. The state of North Carolina uses 160 acres as the standard drainage area for wells. Including low, wet areas and roads, the center of the drainage area for #2 was a little over three hundred acres from my present location. I made a copy of the photo, stuffed it and a bottled wat
er in my canvas carryall, and buckled on my Beretta. Then Tulip and I left on foot.

Following the ruts across the pasture created by law enforcement and emergency vehicles, I headed for the yellow strip of crime scene tape, marking the point where the trees were sparse enough to allow their entry. Just before reaching there, the call of a Carolina wren drew my attention to the right and I noticed a game trail.

I wondered if it was the same one that passed by the crime scene and decided to follow it. At the head of the trail, I noticed something else: a marker in the form of a notch cut in a small pine. Though the cut was well healed, it was no more than a year old.

Nose down, Tulip snuffled ahead of me on the faint trail. It meandered about and though, at times, seemed to disappear altogether,
I could tell it had been used lately … and by a human. An OIT—old Indian trick? No. Expert tracking technique? No. The Chiclet I'd found in the leaf litter while stooping under low-hanging limbs was a dead giveaway. The fact that it still had its candy coating me
ant it hadn't been rained on. Besides the gum, I had no luck with evidence upon reaching the crime scene.

Though the area was still taped off, the ground had been so disturbed I doubted if one more person poking around could do any harm. So I studied the area all I wanted, but didn't see anything beyond what I'd seen the last time I was here. My dream of finding … oh, I don't know, say a hunting knife thrown in the bushes, went unfulfilled.

Resuming my hike to #2, I passed the tree where I'd spent a few
miserable hours and was reminded to be on the lookout for feral hogs. Finally I reached the far side of the woods and stepped back into the bright autumn sunshine. I looked at the base of the trees at this end of the trail. Sure enough, a scooped notch, similar to the one at the other end of the trail, had been hacked in a small oak.

It looked to be the same age as the first mark and it wasn't done by a surveyor. They use a very distinctive system of hatch marks to blaze a trial. Basically, they use one notch on each side of a tree to indicate a straight boundary line, three in a row to mark a corner, and they use a machete to make the cuts. These were made by something much smaller, like a hunting knife

Still retracing my steps of last Wednesday, I marched on until I reached my marker at the edge of a vast cornfield. The Lauderbachs grew their own feed. Corn, coastal Bermuda hay, and soybeans thrived in large, well-maintained fields. As soon as I entered this one, I was quickly swallowed up. The towering corn stalks, now dried and ready for harvest, reached over my head, giving me the childlike feeling of hiding in grass in a land of giants.

Midfield, at the site of #2, I retrieved my orange plastic marker flag, jammed it in my tote and took out my aerial. I did a quick recheck of where I'd highlighted the new #2, using the company man's coordinates.

Ahead of me, on the other side of a fifty-foot swath of open land that circled the field, was another patch of old-growth woods. Beyond those woods, another cornfield, then another pasture, midway across which was the new location for Lauderbach #2. I could have been annoyed at Overmire's changing the location after I'd already flagged his first choice, but I wasn't. Any reason to be outdoors was okay with me.