I had three wonderful lazy days at home with Rusty. We slept in late and enjoyed luxurious showers together. I was beginning to think he ached worse right before we showered just so he’d get a massage out of it.
The deer came down to our yard more frequently now. When we’d been considering buying the house Rusty thought he’d enjoy sitting in the bay window of our bedroom and watching me stalk the deer. I wasn’t quite to the stalking stage, but he sat in the window watching me make friends with them. They were still skittish, but I was making progress by not pushing myself on them.
I got an email from Rusty’s parents:
“Cassidy, thank you so much for the wonderful pictures you sent home with Chase. I’m glad you and Rusty had a memorable honeymoon. I’ll show the pictures to Sandy when she comes over. I don’t think she’s seen her brother with a beard before…” Bev rambled on and I politely replied to it, telling her we were all doing fine and looked forward to seeing them again.
Then Rusty received an email from his younger brother, Cody:
“Hey Rusty, great pics. I want to see the ones Cassidy wouldn’t send to Mom and Dad. Cody.”
This triggered a quick email from me to Jesse:
“Jesse, help! I need some scrapbooking done. Everybody wants to see some pictures Rusty took on our honeymoon and I don’t know how to make them rated G. I have to admit they are only PG13 right now but I’m embarrassed and they keep falling into the wrong hands. What can I do? Cass.”
And then from Jesse:
“Dear Sis, if the pictures are only PG13 don’t worry about it. All these people are over 13, right? So who cares? I wish James would take some PG13 pictures of me! BTW Did you take any PG13 pictures of Rusty? If so you better not hold out on me. Seriously though, if you want a scrapbook done just send me the pics in the order you want them in the book and I’ll get started on it. If I’m not done by Thanksgiving you can help me finish it up. Bring an album with you when you come so we can put it all together. Love ya, your sis.”
Rusty was amused by all the emails.
“So, if Jesse thinks the pictures are okay can I have them back?”
“It depends. If I’d taken those pictures of you would you want me to show them to Jesse? She said I better not hold out on her. If I knew women at the station, what about them? You wanted to show those pictures to Landon. I work with Landon. I have to camp with Landon. So, if the women at the station wanted to see pictures of you, should I show them?”
“No, you shouldn’t, out of professional consideration. If it was just you and Jesse or some girlfriend and it was just a girl thing I wouldn’t care.”
“Now, there’s the glitch. What exactly defines a ‘guy thing’? You never know who I’m going to end up working with. I don’t want to go out on a search with guys who remember me from bedroom pictures. With Chase, okay, it was a guy thing. He knew the pictures existed. He knew they were only mildly entertaining. I didn’t mind that. It was embarrassing when Schroeder came across them.”
“Only because you were there. Even people who might see the pictures wouldn’t admit they had seen them. That’s like privileged information. You just don’t ask people for privileged information. Either you get it or you don’t and you never brag about it. The guys are used to that. So think of it that way.”
I tried to ease up and he tried to be considerate, but we never came to an agreement. It was difficult because I didn’t want to know who had seen the pictures, but also wondered who might have seen them. I tried to keep a loose hold on them and trust Rusty, but my curiosity would get the better of me. I’d open the envelope to check and see if the pictures had been rearranged from the last time I looked at them, but then I couldn’t remember their order. It was frustrating.
I made copies of all the pictures to be scrapbooked and sent them to Jesse stacked in the order they were photographed, or in the order I wanted people to think they were taken. The questionable pictures I asked to be placed on just one two-page spread so it could be skipped over easily. When Jesse got the pictures I received another email:
“Cass, I am so jealous. There is absolutely nothing wrong with those pictures. They are beautiful. Mom thought so too and you know what a prude Mom is. I didn’t show Dad. Randy wants extra copies. I said no. Before you get mad, I didn’t show Randy, James did. I can’t wait to go to the scrapbooking store and buy cute paper to go with the pictures. When are you going to get your wedding pictures back? I’ll KIT, Luv, Jess.”
I covered my face with my hands and counted to twenty. Then I looked at the calendar because the day to pick up the wedding pictures was fast approaching. Two days. Yay! I couldn’t wait to see them.
I was trying to reply to Jesse’s email when Rusty got home from work. I dropped what I was doing and went to start dinner. When he came in a short time later he appeared a little hesitant about bringing up the subject of our honeymoon pictures again.
“If you need the computer just close that program. I’ll answer it later,” I said as I rushed around.
“Now can I have the pictures back?” he asked.
I froze in place. He’d obviously read the message from Jesse that had been on the screen. Rusty looked pitiful; big, round, hound doggie eyes, hands in pockets, head bowed, as if waiting to be released from a timeout. I’m sure he wasn’t doing it on purpose, which made it even worse. Okay, I admit it. I fell for it.
“Rusty, that’s no fair,” I laughed. “Can you wait two days?”
“What difference does two days make?”
“We pick up our wedding pictures in two days. I got copies for the people in the photos and once they’ve all been packaged up we’ll make a set for you to show everyone. I’ll give you back the pictures then and I’ll just have to trust you to be considerate.”
His mood brightened and his eyes changed from recalcitrant kid to grateful husband in an instant. He wrapped me in a hug so suddenly I had to be careful I didn’t hit him with the spatula I was holding. I sure hoped, if we had kids, they didn’t have eyes like that. I’d be a sucker for sure.
“I can’t help it if I’m proud of you,” he said seriously, but his eyes were still smiling.
“Me? You’re proud of me? What have I ever done to make you proud?” I asked, genuinely surprised.
“Cass, I was proud of you in the first five minutes I talked to you. You had me from day one. Any girl who would take on a bank robber and carjacker, choose to stay there and reason her way out of being kidnapped when help was standing on her doorstep had my admiration. I wanted to yank you right out the door but I didn’t know what could happen if I did. So I had to trust you. You had spirit, from day one, and it hasn’t dimmed in the least.”
“What does that have to do with the pictures?” I asked.
“You take all that spirit and your big heart and put it in someone as beautiful as you and any guy would be proud. I like the pictures because they show the real you. No tough girl camouflage, no guns, they just show your true self and you’re more beautiful that way.”
Gosh, if he wanted dinner he sure better be quiet, I thought. I was very close to abandoning the whole idea and going for him instead. He removed the spatula from my hand and looked around the kitchen. He didn’t see much in the way of dinner preparations, but that was because he’d come home early and surprised me. He opened the microwave and poked at the meat. It was still mostly frozen so he put it back in the freezer. He then led me to the couch and sat down. When he held out his arms I climbed into his lap and gave him a big kiss. He hesitated.
“This can’t end up in bed,” he said. “We have a dinner invitation. You’re not going to like it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked warily.
“Hazel and Wally. Do you remember them?”
“Yeah, our neighbors up the road. They invited us for dinner?”
“Hazel caught me on my way to work this morning. I know. I should have called you. I told her we would come unless work interfered and that I’d call if something came up.”
“Aw, can’t something come up? I’ll call in a tip for you.”
“We ought to get to know them a little. It can’t hurt to be on good terms with the neighbors.”
I took a look at my clothes and then Rusty’s. As usual, he looked great in a coat and tie and I was wearing old blue jeans and a t-shirt.
“I should change clothes if we’re going to be dinner guests.”
I dragged myself away from the couch. Even if I put on my good casual clothes I’d feel underdressed next to Rusty. I decided to dress up a little and picked the blouse and slacks I’d worn to start academy, then started feeling just as awkward as I had the first day of class.
Hazel and Wally were not the happy hosts I had expected. There appeared to be a strained atmosphere to the evening and it didn’t come from unfamiliarity. We made small talk about the weather, where we were from and how long we had all lived in the area. Still the tension hung in the air. The casserole was good. I got the idea that Hazel and Wally probably lived on casseroles. When Hazel and I were getting drinks to go with the meal I noticed three old casseroles in the refrigerator. She must make a new one for dinner and then eat leftover casseroles for lunch. As the meal started winding down Hazel and Wally looked at each other uncomfortably. There appeared to be a silent exchange between them as to who would begin the uncomfortable topic of conversation that had been looming between them all evening. As expected Wally lost but Hazel quickly took control when she thought he wasn’t expressing himself adequately.
“We couldn’t help but notice there were a lot of policemen at your wedding,” Wally said.
“We know a lot of officers,” Rusty answered simply.
“We’ve been trying to get the police to look into a matter but they haven’t been helpful,” Wally continued.
“Have you ever heard of Mark Mireau?” Hazel interrupted.
“Yes!” I answered, curious as to how this tied in with the topic of the local police. “He’s a nature photographer.”
Hazel beamed, pleased that I had recognized the name. “He’s our son. We have two sons and a daughter.”
Wally interrupted enthusiastically, “Mark was doing a series of photographs about the animals of the Channel Islands because there are several species of animals that are indigenous to the island chain.”
The thought occurred to me that Mark must have used the word ‘indigenous’ around Wally a lot.
“He’s traveled to Africa and down the Amazon and explored the Sahara Desert, but he saved this project close to home for one reason. He wanted to be at his brother’s fiftieth birthday party. He said it was easy to catch a boat back to the mainland the day before the party, and he chose to photograph the islands so he could be at the party,” Hazel continued.
“The only thing is,” Wally took over, “the party was two days ago and there’s been no sign of Mark. To rearrange a busy schedule and make plans to be here was not an easy thing for Mark to do, so we are sure he definitely planned on attending… and yet he didn’t show.”
It was Hazel’s turn, “The police told us Mark was a very capable, grown man and unless we could come up with some evidence of foul play they couldn’t help us. We don’t know what happened to prevent him from being here. We only know he would have been here, or called, and we haven’t heard anything.”
“It’s unlikely he could call from the islands,” I suggested. “Cell phones don’t work from there and if he was photographing animals he wasn’t near any buildings.”
“We know, but we were just hoping you could ask your police friends what our next step should be. How could we find someone to go over there and ask around? Maybe the rangers on the island could hike the trails? Maybe… we just don’t know what’s possible but we need to find out what’s happened.”
Hazel was wringing her hands now, the worry evident on her face.
“Hazel,” I said, “there isn’t anything on those islands that can hurt a person. There aren’t even any poisonous snakes. There are no large carnivores. There’s nothing dangerous there. So I doubt he is hurt. What could possibly have happened?”
They didn’t know but that didn’t lessen the worry.
Hazel and Wally didn’t know anything about our professional lives and we were very tempted to keep it that way. I argued with myself about whether to go over there and look around. I decided I required more information, but I needed to get it in such a way that they wouldn’t get their hopes up.
Rusty saved me temporarily by saying, “The Joshua Hills police won’t get involved with things going on in the Channel Islands. You need to contact someone with jurisdiction there.”
Hazel replied, “Nobody will do anything until he’s been missing a week. But anything could happen in a week. If something prevented Mark from coming it would have happened two days ago.”
I was getting warning glares from Rusty.
“Do you know what island he was on?” I asked.
“No, but we know he had already spent time on Anacapa. He did that in the spring when the birds were nesting. He got some excellent photographs of baby birds, spectacular photographs. They made me want to hug the poor little things,” Hazel said.
“Where did his boat take off from? Does he have his own boat or did he hire a boat to take him out there?”
“He just hops on a tourist boat. He gets whatever permits are necessary and explores on his own. So many of those islands are nature preserves so he has to be very careful about where he can and cannot go. His reputation is good though. His name helps. Most people know his motto to ‘never leave a mark’. You know the old phrase ‘take only pictures, leave only footprints’? That’s Mark. He takes it very seriously.”
Rusty gave them some tips, suggesting they look into what company provides boat trips to the Channel Islands and then call them to see if they could pin down what island their son might be on. Once they knew which island, they could find the people in charge of the comings and goings on that particular island and start asking questions. The more information they had when they contacted the authorities the more they would be taken seriously.
While Rusty had been speaking, I was doing my best to stay quiet. It took tremendous effort because I really wanted to go hike around the Channel Islands. If I did, I would just be considered a tourist there, relegated to the trails. To do any real tracking I’d have to convince the authorities I had reason to and so far Mark was not considered a missing person, just a photographer late for an appointment. The tracker part of me said the trail would be dead in a week. The humidity and wind would destroy the trail quickly. It was hard to stay quiet but Rusty was right; they needed to learn more first. I was sure as soon as they reached a dead end I’d hear from Hazel.
As we were walking back to our house down the pitch black road Rusty said, “I’m proud of you again. The whole time Hazel and Wally were talking I expected you to rush out the door and hop on the next boat for the Channel Islands.”
“I was tempted but it’s not that simple,” I replied. “Knowing which island he is on would help. But you were right, they will feel better and the authorities will take them more seriously if they do their homework first. It’s just so hard to turn my back on it. I’d love to hike the Channel Islands.”
“At least give them a few days to uncover what they can. It really would be better if people on the island handled this. They know better where to look. They may have even talked to Mark and just need to be tipped off that he hasn’t shown up. This could all blow over in a few days. Hazel and Wally are probably just over reacting.”
“If anybody can weasel the information out of the tour company Hazel can. She’ll push all their wrong buttons until they give up in self defense,” I added.
In spite of our discussion and the decision to let things ride for a few days I couldn’t wait. That evening I used the computer and did a search for the Channel Islands to learn what I could about them. By the time I’d read through a couple of websites I knew the company Mark had probably used to reach the islands and also where to board a boat to go there. However I waited to see what information Hazel and Wally were able to uncover.