Chapter Eight --

 

I thought about Mimi, the former member of the Board of Ed. She had been forced to resign after the affair became fodder for local gossip. The public backlash over the shabby treatment Carole received from her husband and his mistress didn’t die down as quickly as Mimi hoped. When she left for her new job as a corporate lawyer and town solicitor, it was clear she expected to re-launch her political career. Those triplets were almost ready to walk and talk. Maybe Mimi felt this was the time to put herself back into the public spotlight. What if this was her effort to somehow make Carole look like an unfit mother?

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said into the darkness, hearing my own voice break the stillness. “It has to be something else.”

Between the constant, dull ache of my shoulder and the nagging worry that Daisy was in grave danger, I tossed and turned until three, when I got up, thinking I would watch something on TV downstairs. As I padded into the living room, I found myself wondering if Doc was still awake. Pulling the drapes apart a scant six inches or so, I peered out. Doc’s van was gone, and in its place was a dark pickup truck, not unlike the one that carted away Daisy’s fleeing assailant. For a moment, my heart stopped. I saw a slight movement in the front seat, and then a man got out. I clung to the shadows, glad that I hadn’t turned on the lamp. I watched as he headed towards the Walchuk unit.

The rush up to the bedroom to retrieve my cell phone took a lot out of me. I was moaning and groaning by the time I finally wrapped my trembling fingers around the case and went through my contacts list to find Doc’s number. I hit “call” and waited. Seconds later, it went to voicemail. When it beeped, I left a breathy message.

“Doc, there’s a guy heading for Carole’s condo. He got out of a dark pickup truck. I think it might be the guy from the other night.” As soon as I hung up, I dialed Carole’s cell. She answered on the third ring. “There’s a man heading to your house and Doc’s gone!”

“It’s okay, Cady,” she told me, her voice calm. “Doc took us to a safe place. He and his friends are waiting inside the house.”

“Oh.” Relief flooded over me, knowing that Carole and the kids were elsewhere. I was glad Doc was careful enough to remove them, but I wished he had shared that with me. I wondered what would happen next. When I asked, Carole told me Doc had been rather vague about the plan.

“Call me when it’s over,” I told her, before I terminated the call and stumbled back to the window. The truck was still parked in its spot, but its driver was nowhere to be seen. I pulled the ottoman over to the window and sat down, wondering, waiting. Listening. The minutes ticked on. A glance at the living room clock told me it was quarter past three. Another fifteen minutes crawled by before I saw a giant black spider sprint across the sidewalk, like something out of a horror film. As I looked closer, I saw it was really four men, all dressed in black, restraining a fifth man. The man from the pickup truck. The man who assaulted Daisy. He was tossed in the bed of the truck, accompanied by two of his guards, while a third got behind the wheel. The fourth man passed in front of my living room window before disappearing. It was Doc. A minute later, Doc’s van pulled beside the pickup truck. In the faint light, I observed the pickup truck driver sliding over on the front seat. Suddenly his head was out the window. There seemed to be a conversation going on between Doc and the driver. It ended quickly. Doc backed his van out of the space and rolled about fifty feet forward. The lights on the truck went on, the engine started up, and the truck slowly backed out of the parking spot. Taking its place behind Doc’s van, the pickup truck followed dutifully, and the two vehicles left the parking lot of the Soundings. The tail lights glowed deep red as they wound their way out to Sandy Point Road.

Ten minutes later, I was back in bed, propped up on a pile of pillows in the hope of getting comfortable. No longer worried about Daisy’s fate, I drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

Just after seven, I awoke to a banging on my front door. Hurrying down the stairs, I wrapped my robe around my sore shoulder, peeked out the sidelight, and recognized the medic on my doorstep.

“Doc!”

“Cady,” he nodded noncommittally.

“Come on in,” I urged him, throwing open the door. Doc seemed secretive, almost guarded. “How did it go last night?”

“Fine.” No explanation.

“So, you got the guy?” I had to know.

“Yup.”

“What did you do with him?” Doc’s eyes seemed guarded, unwilling to meet mine. He brushed past me as I stood in the doorway, his overnight bag in hand.

“We took care of the problem. He won’t be bothering Daisy or anyone else anymore.”

“Was he arrested?” Persistent, I couldn’t let it go.

“Hey, if we don’t get a move on, we’re going to be late, and you’ve got to get that cake to the wedding on time,” he reminded me. “I’ll take a quick shower and then make some breakfast for us.”

With that, Doc disappeared up the stairs, and a few moments later, I heard the shower running. I hauled my aching body back up the stairs, made my bed using my good arm, and laid out my clothes for the day. I picked a big shirt with buttons, a colorful scarf to use as a belt, and another pair of leggings that were easy to put on, easy to take off. I would look like a hippie who escaped from a seventies love-in, but at least I would be comfortable.

Doc paused at my bedroom door on his way downstairs.

“One egg or two?” he asked.

“One, please.”

“One piece of toast or two?”

“One, please.”

“Juice?”

“Please. Doc, what did you do with the guy?”

“Nothing you have to worry about, Cady.”

“But I do. I saw you and your friends last night.”

“Did you?” Doc’s eyes got narrow. I nodded. “And now you want to know where we buried the body?”

I gasped as Doc uttered those words and they made their way into my brain. It hadn’t occurred to me that they murdered the man who assaulted Daisy.

“You killed him?” My heart was pounding as I stood in my bedroom, feeling very vulnerable. I was facing a dangerous man. Would I be his next victim now that he had confessed his crime to me? Those green eyes bore a hole right through my forehead.

“Well, isn’t that what you’re afraid of, Cady? That we offed the guy, all because we didn’t haul his bad ass self to the police department?”

I stood there, stunned, not really sure how to answer. All I knew was that there was a stranger in my bedroom. Glancing around, I wondered where I would go to escape him. Had he wormed his way into my life because he was a cold-blooded killer or because he’d had some kind of psychological breakdown? What had I let myself in for when I let down my guard?

“Relax, Cady. The guy’s alive and well and kicking up his heels far, far away by now. Yes, we snatched him. Yes, we took him to what we in the Army like to call an undisclosed location. We questioned him, scared the hell out of him, and then a couple of the guys drove his lowlife ass up to the Canadian border, warned him not to come back to Old Saybrook anytime soon, and then left him there. He was alive and well.”

“Really?” I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until I heard those words and the air escaped from my lips in a whoosh. Doc was shaking his head, but his lips curled up into a slight smile.

“You sure do have trust issues, don’t you?” he chuckled. “It’s a wonder you ever had a boyfriend.”

“I’m not that bad,” I responded defensively.

“Not that bad? Good God, woman! Every time I do something, you assume the worst. It’s like you can’t help yourself.” Doc paused on his way out of the bedroom. “Shake a leg. That wedding cake isn’t going to bake itself, Fanny Farmer.”

When I came down, dressed and ready for work, Doc was at the fry pan.

“Over easy or sunny side up?”

“Put a little sunshine in my life, Doc,” I found myself saying. He glanced at me with a look of surprise before giving me a grin.

“You’ve got it.” As he set down the plate in front of me, I realized that something had changed between us. I had never realized how much I mistrusted men. Not just some men. All men. Doc was the only man who ever called me on it. And he wasn’t afraid to poke at the scab.

We got to the shop a little before nine. Carole was sitting at the cash register, talking to Karl Schindler about the upcoming book talk at the library, featuring Mona Dubiel, author of Thunder in the Valley. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he had the hots for my friend. And judging from the rosy cheeks on Carole, it might be mutual. Darlene was icing pastries at the counter behind her and she gave me a little smirk as she nodded at the pair of them. I hid my own mirth as I passed by on my way to my tiny cubicle of an office. Tossing down my pocketbook, I slipped my coat off my shoulders and went through the mail. Walter was busy in the kitchen and Doc went to help him. I could hear them talking as they worked. I noticed that Doc treated Walter with respect, asking questions about why he did certain things that way. The experienced baker explained the processes to the novice, and even as I listened, I found myself learning a thing or two. There was more to Walter than just a reliable employee who always showed up for his shift.

“What branch?” I heard Doc ask.

“Air Force. I was stationed at Phan Rang for a while, later Korat in Thailand. Air traffic controller.” They chatted about how stressful the job was of monitoring the comings and goings of the larger aircraft on the base, and how there were many close calls back during the Vietnam War. “You?”

“Iraq, Afghanistan. Medic.”

“Brutal,” Walter responded. “Those IED’s are bitch. We didn’t have to deal with that crap in my day.”

“You’ve got that right, buddy. You had other stuff thrown at you, though.”

“Yeah, we did.”

The men worked side by side as the morning went on. I paid the bills, put in supply orders, and by noon, I was ready to roast coffee to replace our dwindling supply of beans.

“Doc, can I get some help with this?” I asked, my hand on the roaster.

“No problem. What’s the plan?”

I went over all the details of how the machine worked and what to watch for, and then I gave him a formula for the two-pound batches we would roast over the next several hours. He would add the green coffee beans in the proportions I gave him and each batch would go through an eighteen-minute process. If we did it continually for the next four hours, we’d end up with about twelve pounds of beans, enough to last about two days at Cady’s Cakes.

“You know, you could sell your coffee in little bags, probably make some decent money,” he told me after he complete three rounds with the roasting machine.

“Enjoying the process, Doc?” I had to laugh. I could see he was getting into it. No doubt he was still in search of that perfect cup of coffee. By the time we had the Henslacker wedding cake in the oven, baking, Doc was even more enthusiastic.

“You could sell the beans, Cady, in little bags with your store logo. You could probably turn a good profit on it.”

“The coffee is really just a sideline for me,” I explained. “I’m really a baker, Doc.”

“But still....”

We had our back-up cakes ready to go into the freezer by two-thirty. Normally, I didn’t ever freeze my cakes, but I needed to hedge my bets for the wedding, just in case we faced another disaster. If I didn’t need them, I would frost them and sell them as individual cakes or slices in the shop after the wedding. Tomorrow, we would bake the actual wedding cake I would use, frost it, and come Saturday morning, it would be decorated and delivered to the Saybrook Point Inn.

“Daisy, how are you?” I heard Mrs. Ruttinger call out from the front of the shop. “I heard what happened. I’m so sorry you had that terrible experience, dear.”

The elderly lady’s kind voice floated through the air like a warm hug and soon several other voices were raised in agreement. It seemed to bring comfort to the teenage girl that so many town folk commiserated with her plight. I poked my head out in time to see the group conversing at the little table where Dorothy Ruttiger sat with her afternoon cup of English tea, a weekday ritual at Cady’s Cakes. I went back to the kitchen, knowing that Daisy would find me soon enough.

I was showing Doc how to run the commercial dishwasher when I felt a hand on my good shoulder.

“Guess what. Rowan McGowen asked me if I wanted to be in his study group for biology.” Daisy had a satisfied smile on her face. The handsome boy was constantly being chased by the majority of girls at the high school.

“That’s good,” I told her, returning the smile.

“It gets better. Jacinda Olav got really mad at him for inviting me.”

“And that’s good because....” I wasn’t sure where she was going with that.

“He told her to stop being such a bitch and that’s when she tried to slap him!”

By now Doc was leaning back against the counter, fascinated by the teenage tales of high school angst. Walter had to work around him. Doc didn’t seem to care. He was focused on the girl.

“Please tell me he wasn’t dumb enough to hit her back,” Doc wanted to know.

“Oh, she didn’t even get to hit him. Rowan grabbed her hand, but Mrs. Pazzo saw the whole thing and now Jacinda has detention for two whole weeks!” It was hard to ignore the glee in Daisy’s voice. She had finally been vindicated. The teen queen who ruled the halls with an iron fist had gotten her comeuppance. “And she’s out of the study group!”

Leave it to the young to bounce back. I realized how different my experience was as a teenager compared with what Daisy had gone through. All around her were adults who looked out for her and protected her. We were not going to let her suffer, no matter what the purpose of the attack, be it an assailant at night in the parking lot behind the shop or a teenage bully who wanted to get rid of her competition for the teenage heartthrob in biology class. A little part of me suddenly felt a pang of jealousy. Why not me? Why couldn’t I have been the lucky one, instead of being the girl brutalized by the man with the bad breath and cruel hands? Why did I have to carry this shame with me everywhere I went? Because I earned it. Because I didn’t fight hard enough. I didn’t run fast enough. Because I failed to get away. As soon as I felt those feelings, I pushed back, trying desperately to keep them at bay. There was a world of difference between what happened last night and what happened all those years ago. Daisy didn’t deserve what happened to her last night. She was just a kid taking out the trash. But then, neither did I all those years ago. I was just a kid saying goodbye to my dying mother. I was just waiting for Aunt Pinkie to take me home with her. Not my own home. Her home. A place I never really ever felt I belonged. I should have been with my mother, but she got sick and died. I should have been with my father, but he was killed in the war. So many reasons for heartache -- that assault was just the rotten cherry on a horrible sundae. All I had ever wanted as a kid was to have a real family, my real family, even before I was touched that night by a man who left his indelible mark on my soul. It was one moment in time, but it had forever wrenched me out of line and cut me loose from the pack. I was destined to drift through life, unable to anchor my heart to any other. I didn’t even want to have kids, for fear of somehow causing them the same kind of pain I had experienced. Would I always be alone?

Looking back on the events of that night, I could see it wasn’t a lack of trying on the part of Aunt Pinkie, my mother or even Roger. Aunt Pinkie was trying to comfort my mother as she lay dying that night. Roger was thousands of miles away, on his submarine, unable to come home and be with us. And I was aching for what I knew was to come, my mother’s final breath. My assailant took pleasure in adding to my burden of pain, using the cover of darkness for his evil act, but it was because he saw me in the light that I became his target. Coming out of the hospital, a girl alone and crying. What kind of monster attacks such a wretched soul?

“You okay?” It was Doc, speaking softly into my ear. “A little flashback?”