Journeys West - Chapter 11 - Help Arrives

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Chapter 11 - Help Arrives

by Monica Rose and Marina Kelly
Editor: Qmodo

The smile on her face seemed to be at odds with the ominous nature of her question. She used little makeup and she really did not need it. Her dark brown hair was pulled back from her face into a bun or pony tail. Probably because of some dress code regulation. Her nose was a bit wide, but it seemed to fit her face properly. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. All-in-all, she looked like a girl you would be happy to take home to mother, not someone who could draw the revolver under her hand and use it.

She looked to be just short of six feet tall with wiry muscles on a lean frame. It occurred to Pat that this lady looked quite capable of running down an escaping suspect and then hog tying him once she had him.

Both Mary and Pat had the looks of a deer caught in an oncoming car's headlights.

"Yes?" Mary ventured in a tentative voice. It was obvious that the officer already knew who she was looking for and was asking purely out of politeness.

Mary's confirmation was enough to break the ice. When she realized where their eyes were focused, she moved her hand to join her left on the brim of the hat she held before her.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," she said as she stepped into the room. "I'm Lieutenant Leslie Caldwell with the State Police. I'd like to ask you some questions if I could."

Once they realized that they were not looking at some sort of confrontation, Mary and Pat both let out sighs of relief and relaxed.

"Yes, ma'am," Pat said. "How can we help you?"

Leslie put her Smokey the Bear hat down on the tray table and took out a notepad that she set beside it. She looked up at them and said, "We were sent over to investigate your fire and I'm told that the two of you were present when the fires started."

"Yes, I guess that we were," Pat said, "at least technically present. You see, Mary and I were working in the basement storage area and we smelled smoke. I'm not sure where the fire was started and how."

Leslie nodded. "That is what was in both the fire chief's report and the report filed by the sheriff. However, the fire chief indicated that there might be more to your story than you stated."

Her brows went up as Pat described how they had gone out a window because of the chain on the door.

"The sheriff neglected to include that in his report, but there was mention of a lock and chain on the door in the fire chief's report," she said. "That is one of the reasons I want to speak with the two of you."

Mary raised her hand to get Leslie's attention and said, "Could I ask why the state police are investigating this?"

Leslie smiled slightly and nodded.

"One of our responsibilities as the State Patrol is to safeguard and investigate problems with state and federal landmarks. The library is in one of the oldest buildings in town and it was designated a landmark. That makes it our business." She paused and then continued, "Sheriff Jackson is not happy to have us here."

"He thinks of this county as his own little empire," Pat said.

"He does seem to have a problem with you Mr. Summerfield."

Pat nodded. "I'm afraid that he... and I go way back. He has never gotten over high school." At Leslie's questioning look, Pat added, "Ron Kaylock, Sheriff Jackson, and I were in school together. Even though we were all on the football team, the girls preferred to be around me. We had a few fights about the fact that they couldn't get dates when I could.

"They got thrown off the team in their senior year for bullying. The only reason they weren't in jail is because Royce's father was the sheriff and the money in the Kaylock family."

Leslie shook her head sadly. It was apparent that her opinion of the sheriff was not necessarily favorable.

"It sounds like there are a fair number of problems going around here."

Mary spoke up again. "I believe that we might be able to shed some light on that." She proceeded to tell about why she had come to town, the behavior of the sheriff and the Kaylocks whenever she tried to get information about a wagon train over 100 years in the past, and ending with their theory that the Kaylock family did not want Yolanda's past to be made public.

Leslie's expression was a quizzical smile that made it obvious that she thought that trying to suppress a century-old incident to save a reputation as silly.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll keep what you've told me in mind, but I have to say that it's difficult to believe that the Kaylock's would be doing this just to save their reputation. The risk is just too great." It was obvious that she just did not believe that the Kaylock's could be responsible for the crime she was investigating. "I have some other leads that I will be looking into though. Along with everything else, I heard that you had problems with your car."

At Mary Sue's acknowledging nod, she continued, "I was at the garage Ms. McHenry's call came in about the accident. When I heard that a witness in the case I was investigating was involved, I waited until Hiram had brought the car in."

"I lost control of the car and almost went off the road and into a ditch on the way here. I don't know what happened. The steering must have gone out," Mary Sue said.

Leslie looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. "I asked Hiram to look the car over before I came out here and he says that it looked like your steering system had been tampered with because he had worked on your car just a couple of days ago. Is that correct?"

"Yes. I had some problems with overheating on my way out from New York and Hiram took care of it."

Leslie nodded again. "Hiram told me that he would have your car ready in about an hour. It didn't appear to be a big problem for him to fix."

Pat laughed briefly. "Hiram may come across as a bit strange, but he is a good mechanic. If he says that the car was tampered with, he is probably right." He looked at Mary and said, "You need to be careful. I don't like the fact that someone tried to hurt you."

Mary swallowed at the thought that someone might have been trying to hurt her or even kill her. Was her car sabotaged in conjunction with the attack on Pat? The fact that the doors to library had been chained meant that they were both targets and it had to be because of her research. That fire had to have been intended to kill them and not just destroy documents.

Leslie picked up her hat and moved to the door. Before she left, she looked at Mary Sue and said, "I'm going to be here in town for the next few days while we look into things. Please do not plan on leaving town until you hear from me."

Mary Sue was disappointed that the officer wasn't more concerned about what appeared to be going on in this town. It seemed obvious that the town's most prominent family was in control and that they were trying to stop her. But the law had to look into all of the facts before making any kind of judgment. Leslie asked a few more questions to round out the backgrounds of them both before she thanked them for the left to do some more interviews. She had a thoughtful expression as she took her leave.

Pat shook his head slowly. "You can tell that she really doesn't believe that Ron or his father is involved."

"We'll just have to wait until she catches up with where we are," Mary answered. "We can't expect her to take our word for things or to just accept our theories. She strikes me as being sharp, so she'll have as many questions as we do by the end."

"What makes you think that?"

Mary smiled. "I've discovered over the years that my first impressions aren't too far off and that I just have to wait for everyone else to arrive at the same conclusion I have."

"Woman's intuition?" Pat teased.

"Maybe." She shrugged. "I guess I just make snap judgments and decisions. Sometimes I'm wrong though, I've hurt some feelings in the past. In this case, all we were doing is telling her the facts and then our suspicions. She isn't going to take any action until she has some kind of proof though."

Pat agreed with a nod. They were interrupted by Pat's doctor knocking on the door and coming into the room.

"I have good news," he said as he came up to the bed. "Your x-rays and scans show that you don't have a fracture or even a concussion. You're going to have some headaches for the next couple of days, but you can manage those with Tylenol or aspirin. I think that I can let you go home."

Mary sighed with relief and Pat just smiled. Her worry about Pat and its removal left her feeling limp as she sat in the chair. She hadn't realized how worried she had been, but her relief was replaced by the sadness she had pushed to the back at the fact that she planned to leave town. She kept the smile on her face for the moment.

Pat looked over to her, missing the shadow that crossed her face. "Could I ask you to retrieve some clothes for me? I don't think that I can wear the clothes that they brought me in with."

She just nodded jerkily. "I still have your keys. I'll run back to your house and get you a change of clothes. Then we can get you home."

"We can release you as soon as you're ready to go."

"I'll be back as soon as I can. I'll stop and get my car," Mary said. She hurried out of the hospital room and out to the parking lot. On one hand, she wanted to see Pat get out of the hospital and back home and on the other, that meant that she would be leaving. She couldn't stay though. The state police wouldn't be in town forever and things could go bad again once they were gone. She paused at the door of the pickup truck to put her head on her arm for a moment. Why did the Kaylocks have to be so defensive and why couldn't they believe her when she said that she had no interest in exposing their family history?

She pulled herself together and drove back into town. The trip itself only took 20 minutes and she parked the truck inside Pat's garage. She reasoned that it would be easier to leave the truck here at the house, walk down to Hiram's, and drive her own car. She could drop Pat off at home and then just leave town, regardless of what the officer had told her. It would be less painful that way.

She took care of the truck first and then went into the house. She stood inside the front door and just soaked up the atmosphere. An empty old house never feels empty. All of the generations of families, the children, parents, and grandparents radiated their love and well-being and those emotions just seemed to go into the floors and walls to give the home a warm feeling. A sterile apartment or a newly constructed house never felt like this.

This felt like the farm house she grew up in and the few times that she had been home alone. It seemed that she could feel the house talking to her. At one time, she had thought that she was somehow sensitive to paranormal things, but her parents and brothers had laughed at her. After her experience in the library where she had seen the girl who had not been there, she had come to believe in things like ghosts and spirits.

She closed her eyes and tried to reach out. She felt safe here; it was just too bad that she couldn't hide here from the world. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks from her sense of upcoming loss. She had finally found someone she wanted to know much better and she was going to run away to keep him from being hurt more. He might have lost his job and even killed. All because of her.

She shook herself out of her pity party and went down the hall to Pat's room. The place was still a shambles from the chaos of his assault. For some reason, she felt the need to strip the bed and remake it. A brief search turned up clean sheets. The blankets and spread had been thrown into a corner at some point and were still clean. She made short work of turning the bed into a useable place again so that it would be ready for Pat when he came home.

A quick search of the bureau against the wall revealed underclothes and socks. She pulled a pair of jeans from a shelf in the closet, along with a shirt. It all went into a gym bag that she found on the floor of the closet. (In the gym bag she discovered a deodorant Stick that seemed out of place.

She looked around the house a little before she left to walk down to Hiram's. Even though she didn't go upstairs, she felt like she knew the house intimately. It just seemed to radiate that a warm, welcoming feeling. It was hard for her to pull the door shut behind her and lock it up.

It was a bit cool, even for mid-day, but the walk in the sun would be enough to keep her warm. She would be in the car and on road soon enough, so she could warm up then.

At the gate, she turned to look back at the house. She frowned for a minute when she saw the violets growing among the other flowers beside the house. She didn't remember them when she had been here earlier, but then things had become rather hectic pretty quickly.

Hiram's garage was about a quarter of a mile away, which she considered to be a short walk. If you spent any time in New York City itself, you learned to take a taxi or walk to your destination. Walking was cheaper.

The only part of the trip she was unhappy about was that she would pass the sheriff's office. Considering that there was a large window that faced the street, she knew that the jerk of a law man would take the opportunity to harass her. She could only hope that he was out when she went by.

The road had a bit of a curve to it and she was able to see one of the state police patrol cars in front of the sheriff's office as she rounded the bend. She also could see two troopers come out of the building and get into the car. From the way the doors were slammed, she could tell that they were not happy. She was able to hear the sound from a hundred yards away.

They were long gone by the time she got there and she took a deep breath as she reached the building. Her prayer that she could get by without being bothered went unanswered as the door opened behind as she was hurrying past.

"Hold it missy!" drawled the sheriff. "Where are you going?"

Mary Sue turned back to face the sheriff and saw Ron Kaylock standing next to him. Why did this hick lawman think he could intimidate her? She knew that giving him any kind of an attitude would be foolish though. The basic rule of primates was to never show any weakness and the sheriff would not want to do that in front the younger Kaylock. If nothing else, Ron would just egg the sheriff on to do something she would be unhappy about.

She pause to marshal her thoughts and to get a handle on her temper before she said, "I'm walking down to the garage to get my car. Hiram gave a message to the state trooper who talked to us at the hospital. Then I am going to go back to the hospital to pick up Pat." She tried to throw in a bit of dig when she continued, "I'm going to talk to that state trooper some more."

For some reason, the sheriff smiled while Ron gave out a short laugh. "The troopers were called home again."

"Yes," Ron said. "It appears that someone in the capitol didn't think that they needed to be here bothering the folks in town." The snide look on his face let her know who was responsible for getting the state police recalled. "It's good to have friends you can rely upon."

Before she could turn to leave, the sheriff pointed to the bag in her hand. "What do you have there?"

"Some clothes for Pat Summerfield. They're releasing him and he needs something clean."

"I'm not so sure. I'll need to make sure that you aren't stealing from Mr. Summerfield. Please come into my office."

Ron turned to him and said, "Ralph??? I need to get going. I'll talk to you later." He got into his sparkling new pickup and headed out of town.

Mary watched Ron leave, almost as if she wanted to make sure that he was gone and the he wouldn't be behind her.

The sheriff coughed to get her attention and said, "In here missy."

She was getting tired of hearing that word and really wished that he would use her name instead. But was he even capable of remembering her name?

The sheriff held the door open for her so that she preceded him into the building. His desk was in the back of the office area, but it still had a clear view of everything as well as the large display window. It appeared that this building could have been a retail store at some point. Doors in the back probably lead to interview rooms and holding cells. All-in-all, a rather cut-rate county sheriff's office. Like Pat's house, Mary Sue got a vibe from the place. But this feeling was dark and sharp-edged. There had been a lot of nasty emotions in this place.

He directed her to the same chair in front of his desk that she had occupied the first time he had her in here. She knew that this had to be more harassment intended to make her go away. But she refused to just tell this guy that he had won and that she was leaving.

Instead of search the bag like he had stated, he just looked at her for a minute or two. Mary refused to lose the stare-down contest and looked right back at him, but made sure that she kept any kind of angry expression off her face.

He gave up first and said, "Hiram says that your car is ready. It was apparently loose linkage of some sort."

"Yes, that is what I was told by Leslie."

"You should be more careful about your vehicle maintenance missy. I don't like it when people drive in my town with broken-down cars. Somebody could get hurt and we wouldn't want that would we?" The look the sheriff gave her said that he did not care if she got hurt. She had the feeling that he would have been quite happy if she had been hurt when her car malfunctioned.

She finally reached her boiling point and exploded at him. "My name is Mary Sue McLaughlin. Sir. There was nothing wrong with the steering linkage before yesterday. I'm familiar enough with cars to know that the steering doesn't behave in the way. If anything, the hydraulic system will fail first."

She had remained sitting during her outburst to avoid appearing to be threatening. He leaned forward across his desk to sneer into her face. "I will call you anything I please. Missy. You don't have any rights or authority in my town that I don't give you."

As much as she wished she could take the man down a peg, Mary knew that it was a battle she could not win. She took the wisest option, which was to try to remain non-confrontational.

Her tone was calm and even. "Sheriff, I'm only working on my thesis and the last wagon train. I'm not trying to cause problems. Since I've come to town, someone has tried to burn down a historical landmark, attacked Pat Summerfield, and apparently tried to kill me."

The sheriff sat back in his chair and studied her. "I don't know who has done these things and I really don't want to find out. I can tell you that your research has people concerned about what it might mean to them. If you were smart, you would just leave."

The last thing she wanted to admit was that she was folding her tents and running away. All she could say was, "I'm honestly not trying to cause trouble. I only want to gather my material and move on."

"Look. I answer to people who will be here long after you are gone. I don't like treating people this way."

Based upon his past behavior, his words didn't have the ring of truth to her, but she kept her mouth shut.

The sheriff continued, "You need to finish whatever you are doing and get out of town. I don't like all of the hassle this is causing me."

He allowed her to leave after that and it took her another 10 minutes to reach the garage. Her car was parked out front and looked okay. It didn't look like she had done any damage during her incident. Inside the garage, she found Hiram up to his elbows of an engine block of an old pickup truck.

"Hi Mary. Give me a few minutes to get this done and I'll be right with you."

Mary Sue stayed along the side of the garage. It looked like Hiram wasn't the best housekeeper in his garage; there were a fair number of car parts lying around, covered with grease and oil. Everyone seemed to think that he was a wiz mechanic, so there was no accounting for how he managed things.

Hiram was working away and glancing up every minute or so. Mary was sure that he was harmless, but his behavior was still kind of creepy. She moved to where he couldn't see her, but there was no clean place to sit or lean while she waited and it wasn't comfortable just standing around. The day was warming up and it looked fairly cloudless. She walked out to look over her car and hoped that nothing else would go wrong before she got to the end of the trail.

She looked up at the sound of Hiram closing the hood of the truck he was working on. She turned to go back to the garage. As she walked up to the door, something hit her in the shoulder and spun her around. She heard Hiram yelling at her as she fell against the wall of the building and collapsed, the pain overpowering her ability to stay conscious.

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Comments

Makes you wonder if Mary is

Makes you wonder if Mary is going to make it out of town alive. If the State Police cannot do anything, then it is time to call in the Feds, as they certainly can. Hopefully Hiram has seen what happened with Mary and will be able to help her out.

What now?

Will the real criminal come forward?

Nice episode.

Gwen

Sounds like.......

D. Eden's picture

She got shot to me. I know that feeling well.

D

D. Eden

Dum Vivimus, Vivamus

Dammit

Podracer's picture

Someone can't leave well enough alone, can they? Now there will definitely be further law involvement, which can only be a good thing. Just hope Mary isn't paying too high for it.

"Reach for the sun."

So Ron Kaylock...

...knew she was going to the garage (which his family owns), and the sheriff held her only for long enough for him to get there first. Question, I guess, is whether Hiram's an active accomplice or just someone being told to stay out of the way: he drew Mary's suspicions by looking up every couple of minutes, in retrospect presumably to see whether something he expected had happened yet.

I'm hoping the state police are running a sting here, though Lt. Caldwell didn't seem inclined to believe that Kaylock was to blame. On the other hand, that was before he instigated their reassignment out of town, which had to arouse suspicions.

Eric

What a nice cliff-hanger

I'm a fan of the cliffhanger, and this one is a doozie.
The sheriff's behavior makes me want to tell her to record every conversation, and later play back to the State Police. Who investigate local law enforcement abuse complaints.
Obviously, great story !

Karen
PS: Mary's insurance payment just doubled. ;-)

Cliffhanger Booo!

Elsbeth's picture

So now the plot thickens even more. I'm sure the area's representative had the state police pulled. Can't say that I'm that surprised, however, I can see the Federals getting involved. Beginning to wonder if it's a larger issue going on then something that happened 100 years ago. Looking forward to finding out :)

-Elsbeth

Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla clíste.

Broken Irish is better than clever English.