In Search of Eden (20 page)

She put her feet up on the bike frame and held her arms out from her sides as she soared down the hill. No hands, no feet. She put her hands back on the handlebars but kept her feet propped up, admiring her new red tennis shoes. The jeans were new, too, but they would be comfortable in a few more washings. Mom had sent her two dresses and three sets of matching pants and sweaters, but Eden had begged Grandma to let her wear jeans. Grandma said no at first, that Mom had told her what she should wear, but then Uncle Joseph had another talk with her, and afterward Eden was allowed to wear whatever she wanted. Today she was wearing her favorite outfit: jeans, tennis shoes, and a red-and-white print blouse with horses on it, the gold locket Dad had given her, and her friendship bracelet from Riley Thompson. The horse shirt was her favorite. Uncle Joseph had sent it to her last Christmas. He'd also given her the watch she wore—a genuine Smith & Wesson police watch for clandestine assaults. It was all black, and it lit up for night vision. It had a Velcro band that covered it over. The book that came with it said it was ideal for jumping, water ops, and rappelling. And then, of course, there was her brand-new Kenwood mobile radio. She patted her belt with satisfaction. It was just like the one Uncle Joseph and the other officers wore on their belts.

The only thing left that she wanted was a shoulder holster. In fact, she had found one up in the storage room at the police station beside the old file boxes and office supplies. She had it in her desk down at the station and she planned to ask Uncle Joseph today if she could have it. She didn't know what she would put
in it yet, but she would find something.

Eden shook her head slightly and felt the cool breeze stream through her hair. She put her feet back down on the pedals and braked to a stop outside St. James. She hopped off her bike and left it under the big tree in the yard, then took the radio off her belt and pressed the button to send.

“Wolf Mountain One, come in. This is Wolf Mountain Two. Over.”

Scratchy static, then Uncle Joseph's voice replied, “Wolf Mountain Two, this is Wolf Mountain One. What is your location? Over.”

“I'm located at the corner of Main and Elm,” she said, sitting down on the warm marble of the church steps.

“Roger that, Wolf Mountain Two. Tell Pastor Hector I said hello. Talk to you at your next checkpoint. Over.”

“Copy that, Wolf Mountain One. Ten-four. Over and out.” She put the walkie-talkie back on her belt, then stood up and went inside the church.

It was old in here. Really old. It even smelled old. She peered into the sanctuary, and it was deserted. The ceilings looked about a hundred feet high, and there were all kinds of stained-glass windows. The sun was shining in, and it looked all peaceful and cool, but she wasn't staying here today. She went out and around the corner to the back of the building where Pastor Hector was running the food bank.

She looked around and it took her a second to find him. He was kneeling on the floor, stacking bags of rice that someone had donated. People were always giving things to Pastor Hector. The back of his car was full of boxes of canned food and bags of clothes. She practiced describing him the way people were described on the Wanted posters she filed for Uncle Joseph.
Approximately five-feet-ten-inches tall, medium build, partially bald with short gray hair and beard, dark eyebrows. Last seen wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. If you have seen this man, please contact the Abingdon Police Department or the Washington County Sheriff.

“Well, well,” he said, getting up and dusting off his knees. “I was hoping you'd come along and spare my back. How are you today, Ms. Williams?” He always called her Ms. Williams.

“Fine.” She took his place on the floor and stacked the rest of the bags, then pulled the other box toward her. It was filled with pinto beans and dried black-eyed peas. She made neat stacks of both while Pastor Hector plugged in the coffeepot and made them each a cup of coffee. She finished stocking the dry spaghetti and unpacked a box of canned food from the warehouse store. Two people came in, and Pastor Hector gave them sacks. They took some food and some clothes and some diapers.
Man approximately five-feet-six-inches tall, one hundred fifty pounds, dark hair and eyes, goatee. Tattoo of coiled snake on right forearm. Woman five-feet-four, approximately two hundred pounds, blond hair, blue eyes.

“Coffee's ready,” he said as the couple exited the building. “Or do you need to do something, er, official?”

She gave the man and woman one last glance and frowned, then shook her head. “No. I guess not.” She followed him to the table in the corner. He moved aside a box of canned tuna and brought another chair from the storage room. She took a sip of her coffee. “Aah,” she said, just like Uncle Joseph did when he sipped his coffee.

“Did I get it the way you like it? I put three spoons of sugar and three spoons of Coffee-Mate.”

“It's just right,” she said and took another sip, then frowned. “This isn't decaf, is it?”

“Oh, heavens no.” He shook his head. “I wouldn't dream of insulting you with anything less than full-bodied Colombian.”

She frowned. He was teasing her. Everyone always teased her.

They sipped companionably for a minute or two; then she took out her notebook.

“Anything happening I should know about?” He nodded toward the pages filled with entries she had made after yesterday's rounds.

She read over them quickly. “Well, somebody poked a hole
in Clyde Turner's hot air balloon.”

“The one he uses to give rides to tourists, or the one that used to be the World War II weather balloon?”

“The tourist one. While he was at church on Sunday morning. They started the hole with a knife and then tore it.”

Pastor Hector shook his head. “You don't say.”

Eden nodded. “He thinks Harvey Winthrop did it.”

“Harvey! Why on earth would he do that?”

“Because, you know, he does the horse and carriage rides, and people usually don't have enough money for that and a balloon ride, too.”

Pastor Hector was nodding. That was one thing Eden liked about him. She hardly ever had to explain things. He caught on quick.

“I see. Of course. His motive would be to hobble the competition, so to speak.”

Eden wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but she was pretty sure Pastor Hector had the right idea, so she nodded back.

“I'm checkin' Harvey Winthrop's alibi. Says he was at church.”

Pastor Hector lifted up his eyebrow and shook his head. “He's a Baptist,” he said. “I wouldn't know.”

She wrote that down.

“What else have you got in there?”

She looked down again. “Well, Robert Jacobs was arrested for public drunkenness. He was outside the Wash-O-Matic, howlin' like a wolf, and when Cletus Turner tried to get him to stop, he bit him. He's in the jail this very minute, unless somebody posted bail for him since I left for school this morning.”

Pastor Hector didn't say anything to that, just raised his eyebrows again and took another sip of coffee. “Intriguing.”

She checked her list again. Flipped back a page, then forward. “That's about all since yesterday. Except Elna at the Hasty Taste has to have surgery on her back. Busted disk.”

Now Pastor Hector took out his notebook and pen. He made
a note. “Thank you for the information,” he said. “I'll call on her. She's one of my parishioners.”

“Scheduled for next Tuesday. She's going to the hospital in Bristol, 'cause that's where her daughter lives. She'll be off work for three months.”

“Umm.” He shook his head in sympathy.

“I guess that's about it,” she said. “Have you got any information for me?”

He cleared his throat and leaned forward. “I did hear something.”

She took out her pen that changed colors and used green ink. Pastor Hector was green, Father Leonard at the Catholics was black, Pastor Annenberg over at the Presbyterians was red, and Father Stallworth over at the Episcopals would have been blue, but he never told her anything. She had tried to be friendly a time or two, but he had just looked at her with his buggy old wrinkly eyes and asked could he
help
her with something, so she had made friends with Roy the groundskeeper instead. Roy gave her a tip now and then and so did Sue, the secretary. “Okay,” she said, “I'm ready.”

“It's probably not the kind of thing you're looking for, but you know Frank Applegate up on White Mountain Road?”

Eden nodded.

“Well, his youngest daughter just went off to college at Sweetbrier.”

Eden looked at Pastor Hector, then down at her pad. She made a few scribbles just so she wouldn't hurt his feelings.

“Okeydokey,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “I mention it because the daughter— Susannah is her name, I believe—has a horse that she had to leave at home, of course. I don't know much about such things, but Frank was mentioning that he was in a bind. Horse needs exercising, but he and his wife are too old. Anyway, I just thought you might want to know.”

Eden's brain was ticking along. Now she could definitely see
some possibilities. “Applegate?” She wrote it down in capital letters and put an exclamation point after the name.

“That's right. Frank Applegate. White Mountain Road. Big white house with a rail fence. I imagine your uncle knows how to reach him.”

Her uncle. She checked her watch. “Gotta go. Thanks for the coffee. And the information.”

“My pleasure, as always.” He held his hand out to her, palm up. She slapped it, then hooked her fingers into his. “Friends forever,” he said.

“Friends forever,” she repeated. She took the stairs two at a time and made her second call-in from St. James's.

“Over and out,” Uncle Joseph said, and she was good for another half hour.

Not much was going on at the Catholics. Father Leonard was answering the phones today because the secretary, Maude Lucy, was out with a sick baby, so he was in a bad mood and she didn't stay long. He was like that. Really grouchy some days and really nice others. She made a note about Maude Lucy's baby and then went on to the Episcopals. She hit the jackpot because Father Stallworth wasn't there, but the Ladies' Circle was meeting, so she just sat under a window near the kitchen and found out that the pastor at the Soda Springs Baptist Church had gotten replaced and Bernadette Jacobs was leaving her husband. Eden flipped back to the note she'd made about Robert Jacobs and the public drunkenness and howling at the moon and reckoned he was still in the jail unless he'd talked his mother into posting bail. But it was a known fact she didn't have two nickels to rub together. She noted a few more things, then got on her bike again. She still had to stop at the post office and the Hasty Taste and show Floyd at the bus station the new Wanted posters to see if any drifters had come through town. And she was supposed to be at work at the PD by four. There was a stack of Wanted posters and arrest reports to file. But instead, she turned her bike around and headed in the opposite direction. Toward White Mountain Road and the big
white house with the rail fence and the horse that needed exercise.

She made good time and was nearly there when she glanced at her watch. It was nearly time for a check-in, and it wouldn't do to have Uncle Joseph ask where she was. She wasn't supposed to go anywhere that wasn't on the approved list. She pedaled faster.

She didn't see the tree branch until she'd hit it, and by then she was on her way over the handlebars. She took note that she was flying through the air, but the next thing she knew she was on her face in the middle of the road, and there was gravel on her cheek and in her palms and she couldn't breathe or even cry. She heard feet scrambling and a shout. Then somebody helped her sit up, and a boy with blue eyes and freckles like hers and the reddest hair she'd ever seen was kneeling beside her looking real worried.

chapter
20

Y
ou just about broke your neck,” he said.

Eden felt like her insides were being sucked out. Finally she gave a cough and pulled in a good breath or two. Ordinarily she would have cried, but not with this boy reared back on his haunches, watching her.

She leaned over again and concentrated on taking some breaths, ignoring the tears that were backing up in her eyes and dripping down her nose. The boy picked up her bike and walked it to the side of the road.

He came back and held out his hand. She shook her head and leaned over again. She hoped she wasn't going to throw up right here in the middle of the road. In front of that boy.

“You better get yourself up before a car comes by and runs you flat,” he said and held out his hand again.

She ignored his hand. She gasped again two or three times, then started wiggling things to see if anything was broken. After a minute or two she stood up without his help and brushed the gravel out of her hands. She would not cry. She would not cry. She would not cry.

“You're bleeding pretty good on your face.” He looked and
sounded as if this was something he admired.

She raised her hand and felt the sticky blood on the side of her cheek. She felt a moment of panic. Grandma would have a fit, and then no matter what Uncle Joseph said, she would be sitting at home every day after school watching stupid after-school specials and baking cookies.

“Stupid stick!” she exploded and sent it flying with a kick. “Stupid, stupid, stupid stick!” She kicked it again and spit on it.

He looked even more admiring.

“I can't go home looking like this,” she said, probably sounding as desperate as she felt.

He looked thoughtful for a minute and chewed the inside of his lip. “You could come to our place and wash up. I guess my dad wouldn't mind.”

Eden thought about it. She knew it was against the rules. She should never go off with strangers. But the boy didn't mean to harm her, or he would have already done it. And besides, there was a lot at stake here. She checked her watch. It was still on and still ticking. She patted her radio. Still all right. Her notebook was lying by the ditch. She picked it up and brushed it off. Her bike had a few scratches on it, but nothing was bent or broken. There was a little tear in the elbow of her horse shirt, but other than that things were okay. But they wouldn't be okay for long if Grandma found out about this.