A Field of Poppies (2 page)

“
It’s clean,” Duroy said. “The whole place is clean.”

Mike frowned. “Just because someone’s poor doesn’t mean they’re dirty. Now shut up before she wakes up and hears you saying something else stupid.”

Kenny’s face turned pink. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

Mike pressed the wet cloth on Poppy’s forehead, then on her cheeks, then beneath her chin. When she began to come to, he rocked back on his heels.

“
Miss Sadler...Miss Sadler, can you hear me?”

Poppy’s eyelids were fluttering. When Mike heard her moan, he hoped she wasn’t the kind for hysterics.

Her eyes opened.

Their gazes locked.

A thousand thoughts went through his head, but all he managed to say was, “you fainted.”

“
Obviously,” Poppy mumbled, and began to get herself up off the floor.

Mike helped her stand, steadying her until he was sure she wasn’t going to buckle, then handed over the wet cloth.

“
This is yours. We…uh, we got it from the kitchen.”

She clutched it absently against her belly, unaware it was soaking into her blouse. The room was spinning. She could hear someone screaming, but it took a few moments for her to realize the sound was just inside her head.

“
Daddy’s car. Have you found Daddy’s car? It’s a 1999 Ford. The left rear fender is black, but the rest of the car is blue.”

They looked startled. It was an odd question, considering everything that had happened.

“
No ma’am, we haven’t, but when we do, it will have to be taken into evidence.”

She shoved a hand through her hair, unaware it was trembling, and then looked down at the front of her shirt.

“
How will I get back and forth to work? I have to bury Mama... and now Daddy, too.” She choked on a sob then took a breath, struggling to maintain some composure. “Just look at me. I’m all wet. I’ll have to change before I go to work.”

She was rambling. Mike had never seen anyone blink in slow-motion. Obviously she was in shock.

“
Considering everything that’s just happened, don’t you think you should call in sick today?”

Panic spread across her face.

“
I can’t. The boss would fire me and I need the job. Will you give me a ride to The Depot? It’s on-“

Mike realized she was going whether they took her or not. “I know where it is and yeah, sure, we’ll give you a ride. On the way we can talk. There are a few more questions I need to ask you.”

“
Whatever,” Poppy mumbled. “I’ll be right back.”

She made it out of the room, stumbling and swaying with every other step.

Duroy gave Mike a dubious look. “Do you suppose she’s gonna be okay going to work and all?”

Mike was mad but he didn’t really know why.

“
Hell no, she’s not going to be okay. She may never be okay, again. But she wants a ride to work, it’s raining like crazy, her mother just died, and we just pulled her father’s body out of the Little Man, so I’m gonna give her a ride, and then we’re going to go find that fucking car.”

Kenny’s eyes widened. He’d never seen his partner get this worked up about anything or anyone. Ever.

When Poppy came back, her hair was pulled away from her face, she was wearing a different blouse and a hooded raincoat over her clothes. She got her purse, checked to make sure she had her house keys, and then turned on a porch light. But it was the composure on her face that seemed out of place.

“
It might be dark by the time I get home,” she said, then tucked her purse beneath her arm. “I’m ready to go.”

“
Yes, ma’am,” Mike said. “After you.”

They exited the house. Poppy paused long enough to lock the door, then made a run toward the car while the rain pelted her body and washed what was left of the tears off her face.

“
In front!” Mike said, and quickly opened the door.

Poppy ducked inside as Duroy jumped in the back seat. Mike circled the car and then got in behind the wheel.

“
Terrible weather,” he said as he waited for her to buckle up.

“
It fits the day,” Poppy said, and then stared blindly out the window as Mike backed into the street.

Poppy eyed the houses as they drove out of Coal Town, and wondered how long it would take for the news to spread. Everyone here knew everyone else. She’d thought everyone liked her Daddy. Obviously someone hadn’t liked him as much as she’d believed.

When they began to cross the bridge over the Little Man, she closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to think about his body tossing about in the downpour, waiting to be found.

Mike felt her anxiety. She was most likely thinking about her father’s body being pulled out of the river below, but they had to cross the bridge to get to her job.

All of a sudden a stooped figure jumped off the footpath and into their lane of traffic. Duroy braced himself against the back seat as Mike slammed on the brakes.

“
What the hell?” Duroy said.

“
It’s Prophet Jones,” Mike said, as the car slid to a halt.

Poppy recognized the old homeless man who roamed the streets of Caulfield. She’d heard stories that he’d once been a preacher, but didn’t know if that was true. She’d never seen him this close before.

“
What’s happening?” she asked.

“
Sit tight,” Mike muttered, and jumped out in the rain, quickly grabbing the old man standing in front of the car. “Damn it, Prophet! You nearly got yourself killed! What are you doing out in this weather?”

The old man’s eyes were red-rimmed and swollen and it was hard to tell how many layers of clothing he had on, but it was completely sodden and molded to his skeletal body. He twisted out of Mike’s grasp and began to shout.

“
The devil! The devil is afoot!”

Mike stifled a curse. Prophet was a menace to himself.

“
Yeah, well the devil isn’t here now,” Mike said. “Come get in the car with us and we’ll take you some place dry.”

He reached for Prophet’s arm, but not in time. Before he knew it the old man had bolted in the opposite direction in a scuttling, crab-like motion. Mike thought he was going to have to chase him down to get him off of the highway when Prophet suddenly jumped back on the footpath and kept going.

“
Crazy old bastard,” Mike muttered, and got back in the car. Despite the raincoat, he was now soaked to the skin.

“
What the hell was that about?” Duroy asked.

Mike wiped his face and put the car back in gear.

“
Just Prophet being Prophet. He wanted to tell me the devil was afoot.”

Poppy shivered. From her viewpoint, there was more than a note of truth to the statement.

Mike waited until they’d crossed the river before he returned to the subject of Poppy’s father.

“
Miss Sadler, I’m sorry to keep pressuring you, but it’s important that we find out as much as we can early on. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“
You asked if he’d gotten drunk and drowned. Was drinking a problem for your father?”

“
It had been years ago, but not lately. However the stress of Mama’s health was weighing heavy on him. I just assumed that’s what must have happened. I shouldn’t have.”

“
Was your father having problems with anyone?”

They braked for a red light. Poppy eyed a pink dress on a department store mannequin and wondered how much it cost. She’d have to buy something to bury Mama in and pink had been her favorite color.

“
Miss Sadler?”

She realized he was still talking and made herself focus. “Sorry, uh, not that I knew of.”

“
He wasn’t angry with the boss after he got fired?”

Poppy reeled as if she’d just been slapped. Her eyes darkened. “Daddy got fired? When? I didn’t know. He never said.”

“
I’m sorry. I assumed you knew. We were told it happened about a week ago.”

Poppy mind was racing. “Oh my God! That means he lost the medical insurance, too. He would have been crazy worried about that and he never said a word. Mama’s hospital care... all those doctor bills.” Her face twisted with sudden rage. “Exactly what was it he did that got him fired, or did Mr. High and Mighty Caulfield decide Mama’s care was costing him too much money and they just kicked us to the curb?”

Mike felt bad that he was making it worse, but they had to know all they could to figure out who had wanted Jessup dead bad enough to pump three bullets into his body.

“
I don’t know, Miss Sadler. We have a man checking into it.”

She shoved her hands through her hair again, but the anger had steadied them.

“
It doesn’t matter. Nothing’s going to bring him back. Nothing’s going to bring either one of them back.”

She suddenly threw back her head and laughed. The sound gave Amblin chills, as did the raw anger in her words.

“
There should be a law in the universe that if you are born into hell, you get a free pass to heaven when you die. It would make the current facts of my life somewhat easier to bear.”

Mike glanced up in the rearview mirror at his partner’s face, and then stared straight through the windshield. The despair in her voice was palpable.

“
We’re very sorry.”

“
Yes, well… thank you. In the meantime when you find Daddy’s car, if you find it and do whatever it is you need to do, I would appreciate it if you’d let me know when I can have it back. I have nothing else to drive and no money to buy another one.”

“
Do you have any idea where he was going when he left your house last night?”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “The same place he went every night after he got home from the mine and cleaned up... to Saint Anne’s to sit with Mama.”

****

Justin Caulfield stood at the windows of his office overlooking the Little Man River, but it was without focus. He’d heard all about the body they’d found this morning, but it had gone in one ear and out the other. He had a much bigger problem, and for once, it was something the Caulfield fortune couldn’t fix.

His great-great-great grandfather Wilson Caulfield had immigrated to North America from England in the mid-eighteen hundreds, investing all he had into mining and lumber and made a fortune his heirs continued to grow. It had given Justin an opulent life and an edge he’d taken for granted.

Caulfield Industries kept the city of Caulfield alive and prosperous, except for the people who worked the mines. They were the have-nots who lived on the south side of Little Man, leaving the north side to the well-to-do.

The northern residents called the settlement across the river Coal Town, and the south, being less concerned with names and more concerned about putting enough food on the tables to feed their families bore the name with silent indignity.

But Justin’s concern at the moment was personal and involved his only child - his fourteen year old daughter, Callie, who was on the verge of dying.

Before Callie’s diagnosis two weeks ago, they’d spent months in the corporate jet going from state to state – hospital to hospital, and he’d spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on specialists trying to find out what was wrong with her.

Her symptoms began with her feeling slightly listless and fatigued, to constant nausea, shortness of breath, and lately, coughing up blood. By the time they finally had a diagnosis, Justin considered it closer to a death sentence than he might be able to handle.

According to the team of doctors who made the diagnosis, she had an auto-immune disease called Goodpasture’s Syndrome. The cause was not fully understood, but researchers had theories ranging from an inherited factor, to exposure to deadly chemicals, and even the possibility of something viral.

The symptoms were many and varied, while often mistaken for the flu, but the bottom line was bleeding in her lungs and the danger of renal failure.

The treatments ranged from oral immunosuppressive drugs to the use of a process called plasmapheresis, which basically involved cleaning her blood of the lethal antibodies by separating the red and white cells from her plasma, then putting them back into a plasma substitute and returning the clean stuff to her body. The process seemed like a scene out of a bad Frankenstein movie, but he wouldn’t argue if they could just make it work.

A couple of weeks ago he’d called his mother, Amelia for help and she’d come from her opulent retirement home in Florida back to Caulfield without hesitation to help in anyway possible.

Last night Justin had spent his time in Callie’s room cursing God. Her struggles to breathe were brutal to witness. And if that wasn’t enough, as the doctors had warned, her kidneys were failing. If she survived the treatment, she would most likely need a kidney transplant, but only if they managed to stop the bleeding in her lungs before she bled out and died. He was sick at heart and as mad at God as he’d ever been.

Today he felt like an old man. Callie was the future of Caulfield Industries, and if Callie died, there would be no one left to take his place, because his ability to father children was over, as well.