The Traveling Prayer by YentaPatrol - Chapter Seven

[flipit]

Chapter 7

The house was empty when Chelsea finally threw back the covers and swung her feet over the bed, daintily placing each carefully pedicured foot into a low-heeled slipper. Her silk robe lay across the bottom of the bed where she had carelessly thrown it, when she had brought her morning coffee back up from the kitchen. Lately, it had become far more enjoyable to drink her coffee in the comfort of her bedroom, instead of the kitchen where she would have been subjected to Lori’s chilly silences. By now, Lori would have left for school and John would have gone off to work. Not that she had seen him much to begin with. Since John had taken to sulking in his workshop at night, Chelsea saw very little of him.

Chelsea made an irritated motion with her hands, as she thought about her family’s immaturity in coping with the present situation. A small chip in the paint of one of her nails caught her attention and she frowned at it. She would need to get her nails done this afternoon, maybe a nice light rose color this time to offset her tan.

The big cast iron tub had been an anniversary present from John years before. It was deep enough and long enough that she could stretch out on the bottom and fully submerge herself, if she wanted to. Turning on the water, she poured out a generous amount of bath beads and released the scent of citrus into the small room. Chelsea took a deep breath and smiled.

When the tub was full and the bathroom filled with a sweetly scented steam, Chelsea stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, and let her silk pajamas slide to the floor. With a feeling of satisfaction, she carefully inspected her naked reflection. No one would know that her body belonged to a woman in her mid-forties. Long, lithe and tan she could have passed for someone in her mid-twenties. Except, Chelsea carefully relaxed her face, those little lines around her eyes and around the corners of her mouth. Laugh lines, John had called them, when she had mentioned that she’d like to see a plastic surgeon in Boston about getting rid of them. Not that he’d been sympathetic in the least. But, then again, he never was sympathetic to the things that interested her. All he ever thought about was Lori. If it wasn’t Lori, it was his work or some book he was reading. And really, Chelsea decided, stepping into the hot scented water, that was the root of the problem. She sank down so that the warm water washed over the tense muscles of her shoulders and breathed deeply. If John would have just taken a little more interest in her, paid her a little more attention, maybe the thing with Kyle wouldn’t have started. It would have been just another one night fling like the others, and John would never have known.

As she sunk into the warm water, there was no doubt in Chelsea’s mind that John and her daughter were blowing the entire episode out of proportion. If people would just stop being so dramatic, life could be so easy, she told herself sadly. First there was Kyle’s wife, Amy, getting all upset over nothing, really, and threatening to leave Kyle. Then what does Kyle have to do? But ‘reevaluate’ their relationship and realize how important his family is to him. Chelsea rolled her eyes at the memory. It wasn’t like either of them was in love. Chelsea was just bored.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, she had told John reasonably. After all, she had been honest with him from the beginning. She wasn’t made for marriage or small town life. Besides, if John and Amy hadn’t found out, everything would be just fine right now.

Of course now, with her father found suddenly and horribly dead in his house, she thought that if John had the least sensibility, he would have been trying to support her, not trying to divorce her.

Chelsea floated in the bath and thought about how horrible Henri had been to her the last time she had seen him. She remembered him calling her a whore and threatening to change his will if she didn’t end the affair with Kyle. Really, maybe it was for the best that he was gone.
****

Zane’s lack of sleep was catching up with him. He glanced at his watch and decided that a cup of coffee at the diner would be in order. Jenny had gotten home late from the hospital, where she had been sitting with Annie, and she’d gone directly to bed without saying much to her son. Zane had been left to spend the better part of the night awake, worrying about how to find Henri’s killer. Despite Annie’s written confession, Zane agreed with Donald that it was unlikely that Annie had murdered Henri and started the fire. Still, he figured that there must be some connection. Yesterday’s search of Annie’s house had failed to turn up anything important, but today he hoped to at least find the path that she had followed the night Henri died.

The breakfast crowd had left, and the diner was almost empty when Zane walked in. Only a few older folk were seated at the counter and, with a flash of irritation, Zane spotted Travis seated at one of the booths grinning at him. Zane took a moment to consider his options. He could wave and leave, explaining that he had just stuck his head in looking for someone, or he could get his coffee to go. Neither option felt good. Besides, he needed to talk to Travis. Zane sighed and walked over to the booth wishing that Donald was back on the job.

“Morning Zane,” Travis said, looking up with a pleased expression.

Travis was working his way through a plate of pancakes drenched in butter and syrup, with sausage links lying alongside them. The pancakes had cooled and the butter had congealed into thickening yellow blobs that Zane found entirely unappetizing. Travis didn’t seem to notice, as he continued to methodically work his way through the food.

“The pancakes are good,” Travis suggested hopefully.

Zane had a momentary flash of ordering the same breakfast, a breakfast that could potentially become the first in a tradition of Zane and Travis’ pancake breakfasts. “Just coffee, please,” he told Lucille when she came over. Zane had never been much for the male bonding macho stuff.

Lucille’s expression was sympathetic, as if she divined his thoughts, and found his situation amusing. “Sure thing, Zane. I’ve got a fresh pot just about ready.”

Travis looked a little downcast, but shrugged and went on eating.

Zane studied the younger man for a moment, noting the easy boyish manner that had been markedly absent at the station lately. “So what’s going on with you and Cari?” he asked curiously.

Travis shrugged his broad shoulders and kept his eyes on his plate, as he mumbled, “Nothing important.”

“Seems like you’re not real happy with her,” Zane commented.

Travis glanced up and gave Zane an easy grin. “I just don’t think her kid has any place in the police station.”

Zane nodded and turned to accept the mug of coffee that Lucille was handing him. He gave her a smile and asked, “How’s Annie doing?”

Lucille’s carefully made-up face seemed to age for a second. “Better,” she said in a cautious voice. “The doctor says she could come out of her coma any time now. Your mother sure is helping,” Lucille added, forcing herself to smile.

Her words produced an uncomfortable twisting sensation in the pit of Zane’s stomach and he said awkwardly, “I’m glad she can help.”

As Lucille moved away, Zane saw Travis’s look of surprise and purposefully turned the conversation back to the office, saying abruptly, “Since she’s working longer hours, I expect that Cari’s having some trouble with childcare and transportation to get Jimmy to and from his preschool.” Zane shrugged and reached for the bright little packets of artificial sweetener adding, “It’s not a permanent arrangement.”

Zane was more troubled by Jimmy’s continued presence at the station than he was willing to admit. Not only were Donald’s comments about children at work fresh in his mind, but he was guiltily aware that by not speaking to Cari, he was letting her think that it was okay to bring Jimmy to work. Just that morning, Zane had tried to address the problem, but Cari had looked so worried and overwhelmed, that he found he didn’t have the heart to continue.

Travis had nodded with an appearance of good-natured complaisance, but Zane had been quick to see the flash of pouty irritation that had passed over his face. “Do you and Cari have some other conflict?” he asked cautiously, unsure of whether he wanted to encourage Travis’ confidences.

Travis grimaced and looked back at Zane saying evenly, “It’s water under the bridge now.”

Zane sipped his coffee and waited for the inevitable confession of hurt feelings that was bound to follow. He was a little surprised. From what he knew of Cari and Travis, he doubted that their paths had ever crossed socially.

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(con't)

Travis didn’t disappoint him. “It was during our senior year of high school,” he said grudgingly. “Cari got pregnant and blamed it on my best friend, Matt Wahler.”

Zane swallowed some more coffee trying to place the name. “Wasn’t he the young man who was killed over in Iraq last year?”

A glazed look of pain came over Travis’s eyes. “Yup that was him,” he mechanically shoveled the last of his pancakes into his mouth and chewed furiously.

“I’m sorry.” Zane shook his head feeling inadequate. “It’s hard to lose friends.” It struck him that this was the first time he had seen a sincere emotion from Travis and he was sad to see that it was anger.

Travis nodded. “Yeah, Matt and me had been best friends since we were little.” He grimaced, “That’s why it bugs me so much to see Cari with her kid. She’s always telling Jimmy that his father was a war hero. But I know Matt wasn’t his father.”

“How do you know it wasn’t Matt?” Zane asked.

Travis pushed his plate away and leaned back in the booth before saying, with a cynical expression that sat oddly on his boyish good looks, “Cari had always had a thing for Matt, ever since middle school. She was always following him around and mooning after him. It was kind of embarrassing. She was real straight laced back then. Got straight A’s, didn’t smoke, didn’t swear, didn’t drink.” He didn’t need to add that it was unlikely that Matt, or any of his other friends, would ever have been interested in Cari Plodgett.

“I think she had a pretty rough family life,” Zane said mildly. “I expect she was trying to escape from that.”

Travis made a dismissive gesture. “There was this drinking party, it was over Christmas break. I wasn’t there for some reason, I was either sick or grounded, I can’t remember which. Anyway, somehow Cari heard about it and got herself invited. I guess she ended up getting really smashed and sleeping with a lot of the guys. A couple of months later she tells Matt that she’s pregnant and he’s the father.” Travis shook his head in disgust. “Could have been anyone of the guys, but she kept insisting it was Matt. Almost got him booted out of the reserves. He was eighteen and she skipped a grade, so she was only sixteen. Her dad started screaming about statutory rape. It was real bad for Matt, until the other guys came forward and said what really happened.”

“She could have had a paternity test,” Zane commented.

“Could have, but wouldn’t. I guess she knew that it might have proved what really happened.” Travis shrugged, a look of resignation on his face.

Zane stirred his coffee and considered the mix of feelings that Travis’s story had roused in him. Disgust at the cruelty of teenagers and loyalty to the young scared Cari Plodgett were foremost among them. A favorite line of his mother’s passed through his mind and with a grim smile he repeated it to Travis, “Truth is rarely as simple as we think it is.”

Travis blinked in confusion as Zane leaned back and stretched.

“At any rate, you and Cari are going to have to make things work in the office.” He grinned at Travis’ obvious reluctance adding, “I’ve got to get going and I have some things that I need for you to do today. One of the uniforms that central sent over can cover your patrol.”

Zane drove slowly toward Annie’s house, mulling over his breakfast with Travis. He had been quick to see the look of repressed excitement in the younger man’s expression when he had pulled him off his patrol duty and assigned him to interviewing people. In response, Zane had spent a fair amount of time stressing that what he was asking Travis to do was routine inquiry, no more, no less. It was basic legwork that would take him house-to-house, not that there were that many houses along Lake Road. Travis was simply to take the resident’s statements about any traffic they had noticed either on foot, or in vehicles of any sort, heading up to Henri Walden’s house the night of the fire. Zane wanted complete, well-written statements from anybody that might have anything worth noting.

Despite his careful instructions, Zane still felt uneasy. He thought that Travis was both eager and arrogant, and it was combination that made Zane uncomfortable. Donald had hired Travis because there had been no other qualified applicants for the job in Monaco Lake. And Zane grudgingly admitted that during the few months that Travis had been with the department, he’d done a decent job. Zane shook his head as he approached Brett’s driveway, he wasn’t quite sure what it was about Travis that never failed to irritate him.

“It’s the quarter back syndrome,” Donald had commented after the first few weeks. “He just naturally expects a squad of cheerleaders to jump out of the woodwork and applaud whatever he’s doing. It’s the curse of a small town,” he had added a little cryptically.

But Zane had understood his meaning. If you were at all talented, growing up in a small community like Lake Monaco did little to nurture a sense of humility that might have developed naturally after meeting enough people who were smarter, faster and stronger than you.

Zane had found himself painstakingly stressing to Travis, “We do not want to alarm our citizens. If they ask, this is just routine. There’s no need to offer up information.” Or puff yourself up, he added silently.

There were, in fact, several paths that led from Brett’s property either to the lake or the woods, and it took Zane a few minutes to discover the trailhead for the path that led up toward Henri Walden’s house. Brett had told Zane that the path actually ended at the Lake Road overlook about a quarter of a mile below Henri’s house. The overlook was a favorite spot of Annie’s and Brett had thought that there was a good chance that that was where she had gone.

The woods behind Brett’s house, like all of the woods in western Maine, were filled with black flies, mosquitoes and gnats. Zane had the forethought to spray himself down with insect repellent, and even though a cloud of insects swarmed around him, they had yet to actually land on him.

The path was narrow and overgrown with ferns and low bushes that partially obscured moss covered boulders. For the most part, the trees were tall, narrow pines that didn’t block too much of the sunlight. Zane made his way slowly so as not to miss anything. The summer had been wet, and here and there, the path dipped and its surface gave way to soft leaf covered mud, making it easy to see the footprints. From what Zane could make out, there was one set of footprints going away from the house and another coming back, seeming to support Brett’s story of Annie’s walk. He wished he could get someone out to cast the prints, but he settled for a quick sketch in his notebook, and using the tape ruler he kept on his belt, took careful measurements. Zane was willing to assume that they were Annie’s prints and from the amount of water still in the bottom of them, he guessed that they had been made within the last couple of days. The only other prints he saw were easily identified as bird, deer, and the deeper, larger imprints of a Moose.

It was a good steady upwards hike and the heavy Maine humidity had Zane sweating after the first couple of miles. Somewhere ahead, the path would open up onto the overlook and Zane would be able to rest. A little sadly, he remembered when he could scramble though the woods and up and down the hills all day without tiring. Time was starting to change him and not for the better, he thought sadly, and, once again, made a half-hearted resolution to start jogging in the morning.

The path had followed a sharp switch back up a steep incline. At the base of the curve, Zane could clearly see a large scrape in the mud where Annie must have fallen with enough force to slide for a few feet. He surveyed the ground until he found a small boulder, partially camouflaged by the mud, and projecting just enough to trip a person who was unlucky enough to not see it.

Zane frowned and considered why a boulder might have tripped Annie on a path she traveled many times before. Brett had said that she didn’t take a flashlight with her, so it would have been dark when she was coming back. But then, she would have known to watch her footsteps and pick her way along carefully. Zane moved around the switch back and up the hill studying her prints. He could see clearly where they were longer and deeper than the regularly spaced prints that marked the path she had taken away from the house. Something had sent Annie running down the hill surrounded by darkness, until she tripped and fell, skidding in the mud. The fall would have shaken her or even possibly injured her, and she would have continued the rest of the way more carefully.

Zane followed the path up several more switch backs, always watching Annie’s prints, calm and orderly going up, deep and haphazard coming down, until they disappeared into the grass covered overlook. Zane stepped onto the well-maintained lawn and looked appreciatively at the picnic tables and canopy structures, strategically placed to take advantage of the lake view. On the other side of the clearing, he could see the small parking area that sat off of Lake Road. Zane wondered if Annie had come up to the overlook to sit and think through whatever was bothering her. If he accepted Brett’s story she wouldn’t have started the fire, but that didn’t mean she had stayed at the overlook.

The sight of Henri’s house at the top of the hill was hidden from sight by a grove of trees. It wasn’t clear to Zane if Annie would have seen the fire from the overlook, until it was well underway and by then, surely she would have heard the fire trucks.

Zane walked across the clearing to the trees, then slowly paced back and forth until he found a path heading toward Henri’s house. It more closely resembled a deer path than the often-traveled path from Annie’s house up to the overlook and there was no clear sign that Annie had traveled up it to Henri’s house.

The path was steep, and Zane had to catch at branches to pull himself up, grimacing at the effort. When he reached the top, he found himself in Henri Walden’s yard, with the partially burnt house sitting squarely in front of him. The air still carried the scent of smoke and the property felt vacant as if it had been abandoned.

The sight of the house was depressing and Zane walked quickly around it, heading toward the garage at the other end of the property. Finding the door unlocked, he let himself in and did a quick cursory search of the almost empty structure. A half empty container of gasoline sat on the ground next to the lawn mower. Zane frowned and made a note to have the container picked up and run for prints, but he didn’t think it likely that the murderer would have used only half of the gasoline and left the rest.

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