Chapter Five

by Lori Robertson

Mrs. Li pushed her bowl of soggy bread aside and calmly reached for her cup of tea. 

“Okay… wait just a minute,” I said. “You told me it was an ‘evil environment’ at my father’s house. What did you mean?”

“I mean bad energy. All the time he goes away. She all the time drinks too much, makes a mess, and cries, cries, cries all day. No good.”

“He goes away all the time? You mean he’s done this before?”

“Many times.”

“But he always comes back.”

“Yes.”

I let my fist drop to the table with more force than I’d intended. “Then why would Caroline make such a fuss this time?” 

Mrs. Li only shrugged and took another sip of her tea. Frustration shot through my body like a jolt of electricity, but I suppressed the urge to unleash it on the serene woman sitting across from me. I sat back, took a deep breath, and spoke slowly: “So…every now and then… my father goes off on a fishing trip. And while he’s gone, Caroline drinks herself into a pathetic, sniveling, lazy-ass state of paranoia. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Mrs. Li set her cup down and said nothing for a minute. Finally she looked at me and shook her head. “No, no fishing.”

“How do you know? And don’t tell me it’s in the bread. Have you ever asked him where he’s been?”

She nodded.

“And?”

“He say fishing.”

“Well then?”

“He never bring home a fish.”

“So he’s a lousy fisherman. Maybe he just wants to get away.  God knows, I would—”

“No fish. No fish smell. No fish pole.”  She sipped again at her tea and met my eyes over the rim of the cup. “Your father keeps secrets,” she said.  She lowered her cup slowly to the table and glanced at her watch. “I have to go now, I have work to do.”

I reached for her hand. “Wait, Mrs. Li. What kind of secrets? What do you think is going on here?”

She pulled her hand away and slid out of the booth. “I don’t know what is the truth  here. I only know what is not the truth.” She hiked her purse onto her tiny shoulder. “He is your father, Zeldanna. You know him best.” 

I shook my head. “You’re wrong about that. He’s my father, but I barely know the man.”

“Whatever you need to know,” she tapped two fingers firmly against her chest, “in your heart, you will know.”

I sniffed. “What, is that written in the bread, too?”

The barest hint of a smile played at the corner of her mouth. She nodded toward her soup bowl. “Nothing written in the bread. Americans love a psychic message. You go home now, Zeldanna. Nothing more you can do here.” 

I sat stock still until the diner door closed behind her with a jarring clang of bells. Then, resting my elbows on the cool Formica tabletop, I let my head drop into my hands. What I needed to know was in my heart? More phony mysticism, or something she’d read in a fortune cookie, no doubt. I closed my eyes and conjured up my father’s face, his voice. A staccato montage of images played through my mind and settled gently on a memory infused with the scent of soap and shaving cream. We’re in his car, he’s driving me to school, we’re laughing at something on the radio. He tries to sing along and mangles the words. I tell him, “no, no, you’re saying it all wrong!” and he sings louder, makes up his own absurd lyrics, and I think he’s hilarious, I think he’s the best, I think—

“Can I get you some more coffee there, Hon?”

It’s Darla, her coffee pot poised above the table and ready to pour.  “Sure, “ I said, and slid my cup toward her. “Tell me something, Darla, you happen to know Sheriff Harvey?”

“Sheriff Harvey? Sure, he comes in here now and then.” She eased the steaming cup in front of me and eyed me warily. “You got some kind of trouble going on?”

I shook my head. “I’m just wondering what people think of him. I mean, is he a pretty straight-up kind of guy?”

Darla’s eyes widened and she took a step back from the table. “Well I don’t know him that well.  I mean, I don’t know anything about his personal life. He’s married, though, I’m pretty sure.”

We stared at one another for the few seconds it took for her meaning to sink in. “No," I said. "What I mean is, do people think of him as a straight-talker, an honest Joe. Is he well liked?”

She shrugged. “I guess so. It’s pretty quiet around here, we got no big crime rings or nothing. Seems like he mostly hands out speeding tickets to out of towners in too big a hurry to get to Sedona.” She scooped up the credit card I’d placed on the table and gave it a quick glance. “I’ll just ring this up for you,” she said, and squeaked away.

I breathed in the scent of badly roasted coffee and considered what I’d learned so far. My father might or might not be off on a fishing trip. Half-wit and fully soused Caroline was convinced there was mayhem, but refused to call the cops. Mrs. Li knows nothing except that what’s been said is untrue, and that the small town cop who spends his days writing traffic tickets would affirm the phony fish tale.  I swallowed the dregs in my cup and considered the stack of case files I still needed to get to. Go home, Zeldanna. Nothing more you can do here. Maybe Mrs. Li was right.

  

Chapter Four

by Lala Corriere

I’ve travelled the world and I’ve seen some weird dining customs. I know you never eat with your left hand in the Middle East, and you use only your fingers, sans utensils, in many African villages. I know to sit on pillows in Morocco and to expect a salad after the main course throughout much of Europe.

This does not excuse how my eyes must have protruded from their sockets after our minestrone arrived and I observed Mrs. Li’s bizarre behavior.

She removed her bowl from the serving plate and began lifting out the various chunks of ingredients. She then spooned them onto the plate, leaving only a weak broth in the bowl. She then hovered her fingers above the basket of bread, selected one slice, tore it into pieces, and stuffed those pieces into the bowl.

Putting the now swelling mixture of bread and minestrone broth aside, Mrs. Li then picked at a few of the items on her plate. She ate one chickpea at a time. One carrot piece at a time. One shred of spinach at a time.

I tried to dismiss the image. “Mrs. Li, my father seems to have disappeared. No one knows where he is. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

“No. Your father is a private man. I respect that.”

“You’ve been with Daddy for a long time. Why did you quit?”

“Some say I’m a stubborn woman. I prefer to think that I am stoic. With scruples. I will not work in an evil environment.”

Evil? The cabin was filthy, but that must have occurred only in Mrs. Li’s absence. What about Clueless Caroline? What had she said to me?

“Mrs. Li, did my father and Caroline quarrel?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders in confusion. Mrs. Li spoke excellent English. After all, she had just used the words stoic and scruples. I decided to rephrase my question.

“Did they argue? Did they fight?” I asked.

While Mrs. Li responded, she kept an even eye on the bowl of soaked bread. “No. They rarely spoke to one another. No words.”

We sat together in an awkward silence. I finally told her that I had had enough. I needed to go to the local authorities and report my father as missing. Mrs. Li put her plate aside and brought the bowl in front of her, near the edge of the table. A frown seized her face. Her eyebrows knitted above the frames of old horn-rimmed glasses.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I read tea leaves, you know.”

“Yes.”

“Diner too cheap. Tea bags. Disgraceful.”

I smiled. Mrs. Li owned a piece of my heart. Irascible, yes. But pure.

Mrs. Li glanced up at me, then focused her stare back to her bowl.

I grew impatient, signaling for the check from the waitress.

“Thank you for meeting me, Mrs. Li. I must leave. I need to go to the sheriff’s office and report my dad as missing.”

“It’s too late,” Mrs. Li sighed. As harsh as her words resounded, her resignation is what surprised me.

“Why would you say that?”

“No tea leaves. But it’s in the bread. It is written.”

Now I’d heard everything. The woman was reading swollen pieces of sourdough bread?

She continued. “I am able to see it through how long it takes each morsel of bread to absorb the nutrients of the broth. Which pieces sink to the bottom. Which pieces rise to the top. And where.”

“Forgive me, but...”

“...forgive me, Zeldana” Mrs. Li interrupted. “Sheriff Harvey will now tell you that your father is off fishing. The sheriff will say that your father told him so. A long trip. Sheriff Harvey will tell you there is nothing wrong. He will tell you to go back home and not worry.”

Chapter 3

by Lori Robertson

I sat down and took a closer look around the room. The place was missing its usual, ostentatiously contrived, “rustic” charm.  A pile of dirty laundry spilled from an overturned basket beside the couch.  Coffee mugs, meal remnants, wads of Kleenex, and a collection of empty wine bottles littered every horizontal surface throughout the room. Dusty cobwebs trailed in long tendrils from a heavy wooden beam above our heads, and a greasy film clung to the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows, muting a stunning red-rock view. And in the center of it all, Caroline, looking like Past-Her-Prime-Barbie on Quaaludes.

“What the hell is going on here?” I demanded.

Caroline dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. In a gesture that struck me as staged, she sighed loudly and let one arm fall in a slow-motion arc over the side of her chair. Cigarette ash fluttered to the floor. “That’s what I need you to help me figure out,” she said.

God, she was irritating. “Look,” I said, “Is there reason to think my father is in danger? Is he in some kind of trouble? Or is this just some domestic squabble?”

She laughed. “We don’t have domestic squabbles. We might fight, but we do not squabble.”

“Fine. You’re a couple of pit bulls. What does this have to do with me?”

“You’re the only one who might know where to find him.”

Now I laughed. “Really? Why on earth would you think that?”

“Because you’re his flesh and blood. Because you’re smart, Zelda. And because he’d answer if you called him.”

“Yeah, well, I reluctantly acknowledge your first point and humbly accept the second, but I beg to differ on the third. Have Mrs. Li call him, she’s always had a way of commanding his attention.” Mrs. Li was the housekeeper; a tiny but irascible woman whose way of bullying my father had amused me for years.

“Mrs. Li quit,” Caroline said.

This explained the dingy condition of the cabin. It had obviously been some time since Mrs. Li had been there. “Why?”

“I don’t know why. She just stopped coming.” Caroline sat upright and seemed to be trying to focus. “That’s another strange thing,” she said, as if this had only now occurred to her.

“Have you called her?”

“No.” She slouched back in the chair again. “I don’t need her bossing me around.”

“Right. Best to avoid her even if she does have some clue about what’s going on here,” I said, fairly certain the sarcasm would sail over Caroline’s head. It did.

“I don’t care if Mrs. Li never shows up here again. It’s your father I need to find.”

“All right,” I said, resigned to dig for evidence like the prosecutor I was. “What happened the last time you saw him?”

She turned glassy eyes on me. “He wouldn’t hardly speak to me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why.”

“Well think. Had there been some disagreement? Was he angry about something?”

She stared into space as though trying to remember, but then seemed on the brink of nodding off.

I stood up and reached for my briefcase. “I don’t see how I can help you, Caroline. If you’re worried about him, call the cops.”

Her head snapped up. “I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about what happens next,” she said.

“What do you mean, what happens next?”

She stubbed out her cigarette and lurched to her feet. “Well now, Miss high and mighty, I think maybe we’ll just wait and see. I think maybe that’s something you ought to be worried about, too.” She took a couple steps forward and began listing starboard. “I think,” she said, steadying herself on the arm of Dad’s chair, “maybe I’m going to be sick.”

                                                                                

                                                       ****

Mrs. Li reluctantly agreed to meet me at a truck stop diner near her home on the outskirts of town. I found her already seated and staring intently at a menu when I arrived. I slipped into the booth across from her and accepted a menu from a stout young woman whose peach-hued uniform matched the blush on her cheeks. Her nametag read “Darla.”

“Can I get you all something to drink?” Darla asked.

“This food no good,” Mrs. Li replied.

Darla’s smile faded. “How’s that?

“No good. No good! She splayed her fingers and waved them over the menu. “No vegetable here.”

“Oh, sure, we’ve got vegetables.” Darla moved in and tapped her pen on the laminated page. “Let’s see now, we have a nice side salad, and the chicken fried steak comes with mashed potatoes and corn, and—”

“Potato mush no vegetable!” Mrs. Li sat back abruptly and folded her arms across her tiny chest. “No good, this food.”

Darla looked helplessly at me. “Um, can I get you something?”

“Bring us each a bowl of minestrone and some sourdough,” I said.

Darla gave an approving nod as she wrote this down.  “How about something to drink with that?”

“Coffee, black.” I slapped the menu closed and cut a glance at Mrs. Li, who was still clutching her arms over her chest as if warding off evil. “And she’ll have hot tea,” I said. Darla wrote this down and gave her pad a smart tap with the tip of her pen. Then she collected the menus, gave me a brilliant smile, and headed for the kitchen. Her thick-soled shoes squeaked, gymnasium-style, as she moved away.

“No good, the food here. Make you fat,” Mrs. Li announced loudly. She stabbed a finger in the direction of Darla’s retreating figure by way of illustration.

I suppressed a smile, grateful for the fact that the woman could always be counted on to speak her mind. “I need to ask you some questions about my father,” I said.

Her expression darkened. “No working there.”

“Yes, I heard that today, from Caroline. Can you tell me why?”

She held my gaze, her eyes as bright and unflinching as a starling's. “No good,” she said.

Chapter Two

By Lala Corriere

On gut instinct I immediately called Clueless Caroline back, which is unusual for me. Unless it was business related, even my best of friends knew that a delayed response to phone messages was my modus operandi.

Caroline’s words were simple. Flat. Laconic. “I need you to drive up here.”

     “What is it? What’s wrong?” I demanded.

“I’ll tell you when you get here,” she said.

I asked her to put my dad on the phone. She hung up.

Contrary to some notions, lawyers don’t work through Friday. It was Saturday, and I had a two-foot high stack of depositions to go over before my next case went to trial the following week.

     Caroline was asking me to drop everything and make the two hour drive from Scottsdale, Arizona, up to Oak Creek, a slice of mountain paradise near Sedona that was reminiscent of my childhood days in both the Blue Ridge Mountains and Colorado. Dad seemed to pack up and move with each new bride.

     I tossed the top half of my file folders into the back seat of my SUV. I assumed I’d be bored to a degree of mania within ten minutes and could at least peruse some of my paperwork while I was there.

     The drive is a pleasant one. I reasoned it couldn’t hurt to check on my dad and make the road trip as a gift of time, taking in the fresh air more than my dad’s blissful marriage. Still, knowing Caroline, and I really didn’t, I felt the anger pulsing in my temples. She probably needed help figuring out how to use email. Or how to use her convection oven. Damn. She might have broken one of her false fingernails and wondered why Elmer’s glue wasn’t working.

     Walking through the large cabin’s front door, always unlocked, the living room was blurred by the dense haze of cigarette smoke. Caroline was sitting in Dad’s leather recliner, snubbing out another butt in an already overflowing ashtray. The glass of bourbon next to it was nearly empty. The bottle next to the glass was nearly empty. She looked up at me, and with a slight flip of her hand, waved me inside.

     “Zel,” she mumbled.

Sheesh. Now the woman couldn’t even abbreviate my name to Zelda. Dumb. Or drunk.

     “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

     “I don’t know,” she replied. Were the tears from a weak woman? A scared woman? Fake and forced?

     “You don’t know where he is? He’s missing?”

     She nodded, her long blonde strands of hair falling down her ample cleavage.

     I tossed my briefcase down to the hardwood floor. “How long?”

     “Three nights”, she said, reaching for another cigarette.

     “What did the police say when you reported him missing?”

     “I didn’t call them.”

     “Caroline, we have to call them. Now.” I reached to my waist where my cradled cell phone stood constant guard.

     She shook her head. Not too much. The blonde tresses remained stuck between her breasts.

     “No,” she whispered. “Absolutely not.”