One Life

Sundown in zion

CHAPTER TWENTY

Sunday morning: Still visiting with the victim's family

            “Give us ten,” Eli said. He stood and walked to the door of a small bathroom in a corner of the shop. He closed the door and the sound of water running drifted through door. Moments later, the door opened and he returned to the table, his face bright from the washing and a smile returning to it. “We flyboys aren’t as tough as you bad-assed swabbies,” he said.

            “Mr. Stubblefield, it’s far easier to train men to be tough than it is to train them to respect humanity.”

            Eli seemed for a second on the verge of another breakdown but he took a breath, looked away, and said, “Thanks.” Then he added, “Please call me Eli.”

            “This is a nice shop,” Nelson said. “Did you build it yourself?”

            Eli said, “I call it the ‘War Room.’ The girls allowed me to put all my combat pay into a special account for it. I pulled four tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.” He paused. “It added up.”

            Nelson said, “Isn’t it funny what war does to a man?” Eli knitted his eyebrows. “I’ll use mine to go to college,” Nelson said, “my war money.” He smiled.

            “I want to thank you for both of us for helping,” Eli said. “You’ll never know.”

            “Don’t thank me too soon. I’m not a trained investigator.”

            “Martin said you did pretty well in Armistead County.”

            Nelson shrugged. “I got lucky,” he said.

            “I didn’t think you guys believed in luck.”

            Nelson laughed. “A person hears a lot about the teams,” he said. “Some of it, not all though, may even be true.”

            Someone knocked on the door and Eli stood up quickly and walked toward it. He opened the door for Martha who eased by him carrying a tray with coffee cups, a carafe, and a platter of muffins. “Snack time,” she said, placing the tray on the table before Nelson. She took two cups and poured coffee for Eli and Nelson, then placed the platter before them. After seeing that they were served, she poured coffee for herself and sat opposite them. “Now you two better enjoy those muffins,” she said. “I made them myself.”

            “Best obey,” Eli said. “She is the commanding officer here.” He placed muffins on two plates and handed one, along with a napkin, to Nelson. “You don’t want to know the penalty for ignoring orders.”

            Nelson smiled and took a bite of his muffin. He followed it with a sip of coffee. “Delicious,” he said.

            “Now,” Martha said, nibbling at a muffin, “tell us what you know about Abbey.”

            Nelson shrugged. “Not much,” he said. “She sounds like quite an individual.”

            “We thought so,” Martha said.

            “I went to the church in Connorville,” Nelson said. “Nobody claims to remember her.”

            “An African-American child attending a church in Connorville?” Martha smiled. “Who would notice that?”

            “I didn’t expect much,” Nelson said. “That town’s reputation exceeds itself.”

            “They haven’t released the medical examiner’ report,” Eli said.

            “That was going to be one of the things I checked on,” Nelson said. “Is there a problem?”

            Martha leaned forward and spoke. “There appears to be a jurisdictional dispute.”

            “A what?” Nelson turned his full attention to her.

            “Seems,” Martha said, “from what we can dredge out of them, that the police chief is now claiming the place where they found the body is not in the city.”

            Nelson drew a deep breath. “I would think it either is or isn’t.”

            “Not that simple,” Eli said. “We found that out when we were redrawing our flight zones at the Air Base. Apparently, there are no standards in the state for preparing descriptions of city limits lines. So the quality varies, and that is an understatement. Most of the cities in the state have no idea where their corporate limits are.”

            “They are arguing over the spot where your daughter’s body was found?”

            Martha said, “They apparently don’t want to admit that a person of color—that’s not exactly what they call us—was in town after dark, even if they were dead.”

            The three sat in silence for a minute. Nelson broke it. “I may have to ask you some tough questions if we are to get underway with this.”

            Eli said, “Such as?”

            Nelson composed himself. “Is there any chance Abbey may have fallen in with any bad influences?”

            Martha stiffened. “Why do you ask that?” she said.

            “I hate to,” Nelson said, “but there will be some claims arise that she may have been the victim of gang violence.”

            “I wish you could have known her,” Martha said.

            Nelson said nothing.

            “Then you would have known how baseless that is,” Martha said, “wherever it comes from.”

             “I just needed to get that out of the way,” Nelson said. “Nobody who knew her seems to disagree with you.”

            “She could be strong-headed,” Eli said. “She was particularly good at controlling me.” He smiled.

            “When she wanted to con him, she would call him ‘Daddykins’ to soften him up,” Martha said. “By the time she got around to whatever it was she wanted, he would be like putty.”

            “She never asked for anything that I wouldn’t have wanted her to have anyway,” Eli said.

            “Remember the time she wanted a new microscope?” Martha said, looking at Eli.

            He laughed, “Oh do I?” He turned to Nelson. “She found these old glasses, probably at a flea-market, with these half-inch thick lenses—made her look like a teen-aged girl version of Mr. McGoo. She walked around for several days wearing them and bumping into things.” He stopped to savor the memory. “She’d say, ‘Daddykins, I just can’t see what I need to see,’ and then she’d pretend to trip over something. She finally asked for the microscope and what could I say?”

            “She must have been fun to have around,” Nelson said.

            “You’ll never know,” Eli said, “how much I resent now those overseas deployments that took me away from her.”

            Martha patted his arm. “Now honey,” she said, “the Air Force gave us a good life and you were faithful to it.” She looked at Nelson and said, “Did he happen to tell you that he was in the running for Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force?”

            Nelson drew in a sharp breath. “No,” he said. “I was already impressed. Now I’m in awe.”

            “Problem was,” Eli said, “they insisted that I sign up for four more years. I chose to spend them with Abbey instead.”

            “You made the right decision,” Martha said. “We had some good days.”

            The room became quiet. Sounds from the street filtered through the walls and mixed with the fine dust leftover from the woodworking. Nelson said, “Was Abbey religious?”

            “No,” Eli said. “We weren’t. No apologies. You would have to understand growing up poor and black. Martha goes now just to fill time on Sunday mornings.”

            “I don’t practice the art of judging,” Nelson said. “I just wonder why she began attending church during the last weeks of her life.”

            Martha looked at Eli and he looked at his coffee cup. She waited and he finally raised his eyes to hers and nodded. She said, “We need to be honest with you.” Nelson waited. “Abbey did change after her friend Bridgette had her problems. Not enough to make her go bad. She just …”

            “She changed, that’s all,” Eli said. “It was like her childhood went away and some new personality moved into its place.”

            “She could be moody,” Martha said. Eli nodded. She said, “She could be testy. I thought it was just part of growing up. You know …when the bear cubs start fighting with the momma.”

            “Disrespectful?” Nelson said.

            “Oh no,” Eli said. “Just secretive and quieter than normal. She even made a “B plus” on an exam. That’s when we were sure she was behaving a little differently.”

            “This Bridgette,” Nelson said, “tell me about her.”

            “A white girl,” Eli said, “and that was a little different because most of Abbey’s friends over the years hadn’t been white.”

            “I don’t think she thought about it in terms of color,” Martha said. “She tended to focus so much on learning that she didn’t venture much into strong friendships, and then it was with kids much like her in terms of background.”

            “Until she met Bridgette,” Eli said.

            “Until she met Bridgett,” Martha said. “They were in the swimming club together and began hanging out, as they called it. Before long, they were inseparable. Mostly they hung out at our house because Bridgett was, you know, from Connorville,” She paused. “and because the swim club was located here.

            “Both good athletes,” Eli said, “although Bridgette was never quite the swimmer that Abbey was.” He paused. “Abbey seemed to have been born part fish … and Bridgette was just a blink of an eye slower,” he said. “And that’s what caused the problem.”

            Nelson said, “What problem?”

            “The problem with drugs,” Eli said. When the others waited, he said, “Bridgette was extremely competitive. You never saw a more determined person. She had the strength and determination of Hercules when she set a goal.”

            “Let me guess,” Nelson said, “steroids.”

            “Oh no,” Martha said. “She would never resort to that.”

            “No,” Eli said, “she was so determined to match Abbey that she overdid the practicing and strained some muscles. That led to pain medication and that is what led to the drugs.”

            “It devastated Abbey,” Martha said, “to see her best friend in trouble and because of her, the competitive obsession and all. They were very close but Abbey wasn’t able to help her.”

            “Then she disappeared,” Eli said, “Bridgette did.”

            “Into the drug culture?” Nelson said.

            “Oh no,” Eli said. “She was working on getting over the drugs, it seems.”

            Nelson appeared confused but didn’t respond.

            “He’s jumping ahead,” Martha said. “He’s apt to do that because his mind works so fast.” She smiled and patted Eli’s arm. “When Bridgette’s mom realized there was a drug problem, she got her some help. Lord knows how she afforded it. According to another young girl who was in treatment with her, Bridgette was responding and was going to be released from treatment soon. According to the girl, Bridgette had been a model patient. She had even started an exercise class for the others.”

            Eli said, “That’s an example of how strong she could be when she put her mind to it.”

            “Abbey was so excited,” Martha said. “She was planning a big party when Bridgette got home.”

            “You can imagine how disappointed she was when Bridgette disappeared,” Eli said.

            Nelson leaned forward. “Relapse?”

            “Don’t know,” Eli said. “Nobody knows.”

            Nelson said, “What happened?”

            “She just disappeared,” Martha said. “Ran away.”

            “Nobody has seen her since,” Martha said.

            Nelson said, “You mean she was responding to drug rehab and then just ran away?”

            “That’s how is seems,” Eli said, “although Abbey didn’t believe it happened that way.”

            “Why not?”

            “She had talked to Bridgette and, according to Abbey, Bridgette was making all sorts of plans for the future. She had even had athletic scholarship offers from a couple of schools.”

            “Not any as prestigious as Miami U, though,” Eli said.

            “No,” Martha said, “Not like our Abbey. Did you know the swim coach called us personally when he heard?”

            “Does Bridgette’s mother have any idea where she may have gone?” Nelson said.

            “Not a clue,” Eli said. “And the folks at the center haven’t been much help. They just kept saying that they have girls run away from time to time and it isn’t their responsibility to find them. They can only treat them while they are on campus.”

            “On campus?”

            “At the Ransom Center.”

            Nelson’s had been looking away as he listened. His head jerked around. “Did you say the Ransom Center?”