Authors: Cameron Judd
“That’s the real question,” said Sally Ogle. “The one I never allowed to pursue to the end.”
“Tell me one thing,” Eli said. “Does Davy Carl know what was done at Harvestman Lodge? Does Mr. Carl?”
“I’m not sure. Davy Carl, I don’t think so. Mr. Carl … it depends on what Rudy Hawes told him.”
Eli found it depressing to think that either Carl Brecht, his own employer and supposedly a dedicated newspaperman, or Rudy Hawes, a former man of the law and now a devout man of faith, would knowingly participate in hiding such evils. And he certainly hoped that David, his boss and the very man who hired him, would not hold such a secret.
“I have a request,” said Melinda.
“What is it?” Sally replied.
“Can we quit talking around the edges of the subject? That’s all anybody’s done when it comes to the Harvestmen. Can you just say, straight out in plain English, what the sin of Harvestman Lodge was? I think I know, but I don’t feel certain.”
Sally Ogle shrugged. “We’re alone here, so why not?”
“No reason I can see,” Eli said. “Go ahead.”
She did.
Chapter Forty-Four
HER SKIN CRAWLING FROM THINGS she’d just heard, Melinda said, “I’m going out and check on Megan,” and rose. Eli nodded.
He and Sally had not even the chance to resume the conversation before the office door burst open again and a pallid Melinda rushed in. “She’s gone, Eli. She’s gone!”
“What? Who?”
“Megan! She’s gone, Eli. There’s nobody out in the dining area at all. And there’s blood on the table where Megan was sitting. Dear God, Eli! What’s happened to my little sister? Why did I leave her out there?”
“Did you check the restroom?”
“Of course! She’s not there.”
Sally and Eli bounded to their feet in tandem and almost knocked Melinda over rushing out and up to the dining area. There they found the remnants of Megan’s meal on the table, oddly scattered, and on the edge of the table, a small amount of blood. There were drips of blood trailing away from the table and circling around to the cafe door.
Eli found himself breathless and virtually frozen. “We’ve got to find her,” Melinda said.
She yanked Eli out the door, breaking him out of his paralysis. Sally, meanwhile, explored the cafe in a rush, interrogating her employees, looking for anyone who might have seen what happened to the little girl eating alone at her table. All claimed ignorance.
Outside, Eli and Melinda broadened the search in a panic, quizzing strangers, looking for blood drops on the ground, and at last spotting a security guard: a pimple-faced young man who would have fit in well in a crowded high school hallway between bells. Melinda ran to him, Eli close behind.
“Yeah, I saw her. Pretty little gal, dark hair, curly … I don’t remember how she was dressed – jeans or shorts, most likely, but I didn’t notice. She’d had a nosebleed, though. I could tell that because there was still some rusty crust under her nose.”
A nosebleed. Megan was prone to those. Melinda relief in finding an likely and mundane explanation for the blood at the table.
“Who was she with?”
“By herself.”
“Was there a family near? An Asian man with a wife and children?”
“Not with the little girl, no. But I seen that family, too. They’re over at the General Store right now.”
ELI WAS GLAD HE’D WORN a University of Tennessee Volunteers tee-shirt today, because the family of Dr. N.J. Pang were similarly attired. It provided a point of connection Eli could use as he walked up to the cheerful-looking man and his wife as they stood examining a shelf laden with shot glasses bearing the images of cartoon hillbillies.
“Fellow Vols, I see!” Eli said, approaching the man, who seemed for a moment startled, then increased the intensity of what seemed an ever-present smile. “I’m one myself. Eli Scudder, proud graduate of UT.”
“Go Big Orange! Hurrah for Coach Johnny!” said Pang in a heavily accented voice. He introduced himself and his wife as Dr. Nelson and Lois Pang. “I am a full professor at UT,” he said. “Chemistry.”
Eli had encountered the name during his student days, and said so. “I wasn’t much involved in chemistry myself, in my area of study,” he said. “But I knew some chemistry majors, and I hear you aren’t a pushover professor.”
Pang laughed heartily, apparently finding the “pushover professor” term authentically funny. Lois laughed as well, and said, “No. He quite tough. Students sometimes complain of the tough of Pang.” Eli had to smile at the “tough of Pang” phrase, but Lois seemingly took it as him sharing her own laughter.
Dr. Pang’s English was significantly better than his wife’s, but both were warm and friendly personalities who seemed happy Eli had approached them. When Melinda wandered up and was introduced, she was given as equally hearty a greeting.
“I need to ask you something,” Melinda said. “My little sister, twelve years old, was with us in the restaurant where your family was, as well. Now she’s vanished. Did you see her?”
Lois nodded. “Little girl with black hair and bleed-nose,” she said.
“Yes … we found some blood drippings where she’d been seated. I thought she might have had one of her nose bleeds. She’s always been prone to them.”
“Did you see where she went?” Eli asked.
“I’m here,” said a voice from behind Melinda. Melinda wheeled and looked down into her little sister’s face. Megan had come, apparently, out of the restroom nearby, where she had washed away most of the blood that had crusted on and above her upper lip.
“Megan!” Melinda bent and hugged Megan close, crushing the very breath out of her. “Oh sweety! I was so afraid something had happened to you!”
“I just had a nose bleed, that’s all. It made me embarrassed, so I ran out. And I was mad at you.”
“Mad?”
“You left me all alone. I felt nervous sitting there all by myself.”
“Oh, Meggy, I’m sorry!” Another hug, this one not so bone-crushing. “I shouldn’t have left you. Even so, you shouldn’t have run out like that.”
“I was bleeding and didn’t know what to do.”
“Of course you knew. You should have tilted your head back and pressed a napkin up against your nose and held it there until the bleeding stopped. And you could have come to the restroom area in the restaurant where we were … we were nearby there and would have seen you, probably.”
“I’m sorry, Melly. I was just embarrassed, and kind of scared because of that … ” Just then she saw Dr. Pang and family, all gazing at her. “ … of that blood coming out.” Melinda could tell Megan had changed what she would have said. She hadn’t been afraid of her own blood. She had been afraid of Dr. Pang. Megan drew near to Melinda, seeking protection as she glanced repeatedly at the man, then as quickly averted her eyes.
“Megan, let me introduce you to someone,” Eli said. “This gentleman is Dr. Pang, and this is his wife, Lois. And these are his children … am I right about that, Dr. Pang? I just assumed they are your kids.”
“They are,” Pang said. Then to Megan: “I am pleased to meet you, young lady. I’m sorry you have had a bad moment today.”
“You very pretty child,” said Lois.
Megan wouldn’t look directly at them, embarrassing Melinda by that seeming rudeness. “I’m sorry,” she said to Pang and his wife. “She had a fright recently when she thought she saw someone who looked much like you in a setting that disturbed her. I’m afraid it left her a little nervous.”
Eli gave Melinda an inquiring look. Who would Megan have seen who would look to her like Dr. Pang? His mind flashed back to the Asian man he’d seen in a car, with the Parvin-looking man, outside Tylerville’s Arcade building.
Had Megan maybe seen the same man?
Dr. Pang smiled a smile so calming that Melinda felt her sister’s grasp on her loosen a little, and Megan now looked directly at Pang rather than acting afraid to do so.
“She’s a freakin’ freak,” one of the Pang children a little younger than Megan said, whispering to an older sibling, but not quite softly enough.
“Shut up, dummy!” barked the sibling.
“Children, quiet!” Dr. Pang commanded in a voice loud enough to startle everyone in the shop.
“It was a pleasure to meet all of you,” Eli said to the Pangs. “Sorry about the, uh, oddity of the situation.”
“It scares all when child run away,” said Lois. “Not odd.”
“THAT WASN’T THE MAN I SAW,” Megan said after they had left the Pang family behind in the shop and headed out to find the Flooded Mine ride, one of the park’s key attractions that left its riders soaked. “I thought it was, but it wasn’t.”
“Who did you see?” Eli asked.
Megan opened her mouth to answer Eli, but Melinda cut her off. “Meggy had a dream that there were a couple of men watching our house across the backyard. One of them was an Asian, and when she saw Dr. Pang in the cafe, it brought the dream to mind and creeped her out. Right, Meggy?”
“Yeah … except it wasn’t a dream.”
Melinda had wearied of the entire matter. “Meggy, there are no Asian men in our county. So yes, if you saw one in our yard in the middle of the night, it was a dream.” She looked to Eli for backup. “Right, Eli?”
“Well, actually … we’ll talk about it later.” He lowered his voice and spoke the next words to Melinda in a way to keep Megan from hearing them. “In private.”
Melinda frowned at him, bewildered and somewhat unsettled. Did Eli know something she didn’t?
They pressed on, going through the Flooded Mine three times and finding a sunny place to dry off afterward. A troupe of clog dancers came by, heavy taps clattering in rhythm on the cobblestones. Megan was delighted, but slightly judgmental.
“My dance team is as good as that,” she said. “We might even be better.”
“Well, you’ll get your chance to put your money where your mouth is come Thursday,” said Melinda. “You’re dancing in the July 4 parade, right?”
“Yeah. We’re doing our ‘Bicentennial Preview Dance’ on the back of a big wagon with Buster and Custer.”
“I can’t wait to see that!” Eli said. “I’ve heard what a good dancer you are, and I know the Twin Cousins have a great reputation and following, but I’ve never really seen them perform.”
“Have you heard about the press conference the mayor is holding on Tuesday?” Melinda asked.
“Nothing official. But Jim Crowder from the radio station told me on the street that there’s going to be an official announcement about the historical drama, finally. Is that what you heard?”
“That’s it. The whole thing has grown into a joint project between the county, the city, and the state. And the governor’s office was able to make some federal connections and get some funding for site development and stagecrafting costs. In short, it seems like everything is coming into place. And Mr. Darwin may not have to empty his bank account to make it happen, after all.”
“I’m glad it’s going to happen. And I’m even more glad I took your advice not to take the writing job. We’re about to dig hard and heavy into the magazine now … Davy Carl has got a bug up his butt about it all at once. And it’s about time. My problem is that I just realized yesterday that my book deadline is running up closer and closer. And I’ve got a lot of writing to do to get there.”
“It sounds like I’m going to be lucky to get to see you much at all.”
“I sure hope not. You’re about the only thing that gets me through the day sometimes.”
“That’s sweet. Same for me. We’ll make sure we find time to be together. But it’ll be a challenge … the station wants me to really crank out some Kincheloe and Tylerville feature stories for the latter half of summer. So I’m going to be busy, too.”
Megan began begging for the Blazing Fury ride, so there they went. And went again, and then again. When Megan asked for a fourth time, Eli and Melinda both begged off, having had their fill, and with Eli feeling slightly queasy, as such rides tended to make him. They walked away and across the park, Megan griping at the top of her lungs as if three rides weren’t nearly enough.
More shop visits, a ride on the locomotive-drawn train and survival of a fake train robbery by “outlaws,” and suppertime rolled around. They made their way to another cafe and had pancakes and sausage … breakfast for dinner.
“Going to the bathroom,” Megan announced when they were done.
“Don’t vanish again,” Melinda told her, and Megan said she would not.
Alone with Melinda, Eli said, “Tell me about these men Megan said she saw in your yard.”
Melinda described Megan’s claim. “It’s absurd, of course,” she said.
“Maybe not,” replied Eli. “Because when I was in Coleman Caldwell’s office, I saw the same men in a car outside.”
Melinda found no words, but her eyes went wide.
“I doubt there is any cause for worry … though the idea of them looking at your house at night is a little frightening.”
“Especially after what we talked about in that back office today.”
“I know what you mean. But that was then, at Harvestman Lodge. This is now, and there is no Harvestman Lodge anymore.”