NOT WITH A BANG
Chapter 8 The Not-So-Quick and the Dead
"Dad, don't you have ANY leads about where Grace might be?" pleaded Joan at Sunday's breakfast. Grace had called the previous night to assure Luke that she was OK, and apparently had done the same with her parents. That had raised Joan's hope that they would soon get her back.
Her father sighed. He clearly didn't like discussing the case at this stage, but realized that the teens had to know. "A few ideas. There's only so far that a horse can reach in a day, and Professor Begh can probably give us a figure out of his expertise. That puts her within a certain circle centered on Arcadia. Maggie Begh said she started southward, though she may not have stayed in that direction. We know she reached shelter. My guess is that reached some small town near here, and checked into some cheap motel. I intend to get a picture of her from the Polonskis, and show it around various motels south of here."
"But what about her horse?" asked Luke, who had vacationed at his cousins' farm last summer and knew a little about tending animals. "Leaving it outside in January weather would be cruel, and a betrayal of Maggie's trust. Grace wouldn't do either of those things."
"I don't know. Maybe she paid a farmer to keep it in his stable overnight. If I find a farm near a motel on the outskirts of a town, that would be a good clue."
"At least it's progress." Joan said hopefully.
"Of a sort. But all this time that I'm spending tracking Grace is time that I'm NOT spending on investigating the bombing. And I can't call attention to her disappearance because I don't want Lucy to treat Grace as a fugitive. Once the work week begins tomorrow and I'm back on the bombing, I'll have to give Grace less priority, so I hope I solve it today."
He left soon after breakfast finished. Helen said she wanted to "work on a painting" -- a sign that she was moody and didn't want to be disturbed. Luke and Joan, thrown on their own resources, decided to go out for some fresh air, bundled up against the cold.
As they walked along the sidewalk, Joan noticed a number of cars heading to Father Ken's church and its Protestant counterparts. She hadn't attended church since early childhood, when her Dad's firm anti-clericalism prevailed over her Mom's weakening piety. There was Grace's bat-mitzvah, of course, but then her focus had been on Grace, not on worship. She wondered why God never complained about that. Because her missions were an acceptable substitute?
"I see Him coming," she muttered to her brother, not feeling too surprised. Given this week's crisis, she was surprised that it had taken Him this long to show up. She wanted how the various congregations would feel if they knew that their deity was presently walking on a sidewalk in shabby clothes and walking a pack of unruly dogs.
"I'm not talking to Him," stated Luke, turning around.
"Huh?"
"Last time we talked, it started ripples that got Grace in trouble. Until she's back, I'm going to say no. It's my free will, isn't it?"
He walked away as Dog-Walker God approached. Joan felt a silly impulse to tell some white lie to explain Luke's absence -- silly because he was omniscient and knew what had happened. Instead she stood her ground, a few feet away from the dogs. Ever since catching Lyme disease from a tick bite nearly two years ago, she had avoided contact with animals.
"Hello, Joan," said God.
"Hi. Do you where Grace is?"
"Yes."
After several seconds passed with no further elaboration, Joan sighed. "But you're not gonna tell me?"
"No. It would interfere with Grace's freedom of action."
"Freedom of action, my ass. She could be in danger!"
"She is not in any hardship except what she is imposing on herself."
Gee, I suppose that's profound and I'm supposed to meditate on it. But Joan was not in a contemplative mood. "What can I do?"
"Visit the cemetery."
"What?"
"You've got friends buried there -- Rocky, Judith, Adam's mother. You can pay them your respects."
He advanced, and Joan dodged sideways in a driveway to let the stupid dogs pass by. He made his characteristic wave.
Joan looked down at her clothes. A heavy gray coat, and jeans. Not exactly mourning, but nothing too gaudy for a trip to the graveyard.
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"Excuse me, Miss?"
"Yes?" replied Joan, turning in the walkway. She found herself facing a young man, tall, blonde but deeply tanned, in Sunday clothes.
"Can you direct me to the Forest Hill section?"
Joan had visited the cemetery often enough to know her way around. "Up this path, and turn right at the statue."
"Thank you." He started off, then hesitated. "Have we met before? You look familiar."
Oh, God. Is he trying to pick me up, and in a cemetery? Ewwwwww
Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "Oh, I remember. There's a painting of Joan of Arc at the church. You look like the picture."
Whew. His interest was innocent, a genuine case of deja vu. "Yeah, I posed for that. My mom was the painter."
He nodded and continued up the path, having apparently lost interest in Joan now that he had accounted for the recognition.
Joan had learned things in two-and-a-half years. Often an incomprehensible errand turned out to be an occasion to meet somebody. Signing up for AP Chemistry had led to Joan's meeting Adam and Grace. A day of community service had put Joan in contact with Bonnie, though she still didn't understand why that was a good idea. So she kept an eye on the stranger as she walked down her own path. She saw him stop at a grave and stand for several minutes, though his back was to her and she could not see his expression. She made a mental note of the grave's location so that she could check it later.
Now she could concentrate on her own business. Judith's grave was just ahead. There had been times where the sight of the grave had reduced her to tears, but it no longer did that, because the real Judith was not here. The real Judith was on the astral plane doing errands for God, as Joan did on Earth. Though there was an unexpected element in Judith's character: what had happened to turn a wild, rebellious teen into a happy worker? Being killed must have been a very sobering event for her.
Joan saw the stranger start back on along his path. She tried to time her own walk to catch up with him at the original intersection.
"Oh, you again," he said startled. "Visiting a dear departed?" He didn't sound particularly interested; more like he felt obligated to say something.
"Yeah. A classmate of mine, Judith."
"You look young to have lost a classmate."
"She was murdered."
He looked startled and, for the first time, interested. "Did they get the ones that did it?"
"Um, sort of." Her Dad had told her that the main suspect had gotten murdered by some rival. He seemed reluctant to talk about it, and Joan had been reluctant to think about that anyway.
"At least you got closure." And, as if that closed the conversation as well, he started toward the entrance. If Joan was supposed to get this guy's acquaintance, it wasn't working.
"By the way, my name's Joan," she called out, "like the painting."
"Manny." But the offer of a name seemed just a polite return from him. He kept on walking to the gate.
Joan didn't dare follow him -- he might think she was a prostitute or something for pressing her attentions on him so much. Instead she turned and took the trail up the hill. Maybe the gravesite he visited might be a clue, or even the main purpose of the mission.
She reached the grave and looked down. The tombsite was quite simple.
MARY WALLACE
1965-2004
R.I.P.
The name meant nothing to Joan.
Suddenly she felt guilty in a way. Manny Whatever had come to mourn a dead loved one. Should she intrude on his grief? Why was it any of her business? To be sure, God had encouraged her to come here, but then God read people's minds all the time. Did the Deity really understand the virtue of respecting privacy?
And what on Earth did any of this have to do with finding Grace?
TBC
(Author's Note: I will be out of town and out of computer reach for about a week, so the story will be put on a short hiatus. It will be continued once I get back.)