My iPhone beeped an email alert. I exited the Hardee’s restroom in Springville, where I’d relieved myself for the second time in twenty-five minutes. My frequent bathroom breaks should be an ongoing reminder I needed to see a urologist.
The email was from Bert Stallings. I settled into my Hyundai and read his response to the one I’d sent before leaving the airport. “The committee has approved your request for emergency leave.” Bert’s terseness reminded me of Micaden. Thankfully, my law school colleague’s words were more forthcoming when dealing with personal matters. Bert’s P.S. expression of care and sympathy for Rob’s health, and for speed and effectiveness in dealing with the Hunt House fire, was heartfelt and welcomed.
So far, the timing has been perfect. The last day of classes and the beginning of the Thanksgiving recess had been the 20th, a week ago today. Beginning next Monday, the students begin a seven-day reading period to prepare for their fall exams. The testing period will end December the 18th.
Thankfully, two of my colleagues, Lea Doherty and Steve Cunningham, had agreed to proctor my exams in Torts I, Appellate Advocacy, and Legal Writing, and overnight them to me for grading. I entered Reminders in Evernote to buy Lea and Steve a delightful Christmas gift, and to book a return flight that will put me in New Haven no later than Friday, January 29th, three days before the beginning of Spring term.
I started the Hyundai and exited Hardee’s parking lot. I’d always favored a tight schedule, knowing it helped occupy my mind and control my curiosity. However, two months seemed laughingly inadequate to alter the trajectory of Ray Archer’s life. In fact, it felt like a noose around my neck. And this said nothing about the time and effort required to grade a hundred and ten bluebooks, and prep for my Spring-term classes.
I called Lillian when I took the Highway 77 exit. She would know the answer to my question. “Hey.”
“Hi, it’s Lee.”
She didn’t pause. “I figured you were over Virginia by now.” Before Lillian finished her statement, I heard three bleats in unison. The goats. I doubted my former girlfriend had twisted into a tomboy and purchased her own Nubians. She had to be at Harding Hillside.
“Are you with Kyla? Outside?” My second question was unnecessary.
“Yes. Kind of. She’s in the barn.” Clear and cohesive speech is rare.
“Lillian, please don’t tell her it’s me. I’m in Attalla and need your help. I’ll tell sis later.”
“Okay. What do you need?” I heard Kyla ask Lillian to turn on a faucet.
“Can you meet at your house in thirty minutes?” I couldn’t imagine a scenario where Kyla didn’t sense it was me. Lillian wasn’t a good liar.
“I can. You didn’t tell me what this is about.”
“A stakeout. Tonight. Ray and Buddy. You know.”
Lillian ended our call with a “Thanks Justin for calling me back so soon. I’ll see you in half an hour.” I didn’t know Justin, but I suspected Lillian did, probably a plumber, an electrician, or a heating and air guy.
***
Lillian was sitting at her kitchen table staring at her open laptop when I walked in. Five minutes ago, she had sent a text telling me where to park and to enter through the back porch.
“Hey. Sit here.” Without greeting, she patted the extra chair positioned next to her own. I sat my duffel on the floor and did as instructed. With barely a glance, Lillian asked, “Do you know Barry and Vanessa Clausen?”
I craned my neck toward the laptop and Google Maps. “No. Never heard of them.” Lillian magnified Google Maps’ satellite view and used a number two pencil to point at a large house with an in-ground swimming pool nestled among a forest of trees. I gave her a confused look: cocked head and squinting eyebrows with creased forehead. I even held both hands palm up.
“Doesn’t matter, but I do. We’ll use their place to access Ted’s cabin.”
“Okay.” After half a century, I’d forgotten Lillian’s take-charge nature. If, and only if, it concerned a mystery. Normal stuff, like ‘the barn’s on fire’ (the girl loved candles in the barn loft) were boring and others (mostly me) could take care of them.
“Vanessa is CEO of Colormasters in Albertville. Her and Barry left Wednesday for Gatlinburg.” I didn’t need to ask how Lillian knew this. I wondered what Barry did for work.
Over the next several minutes, Lillian provided all the context I needed. She started with geography. Bruce Road was the only access to Ted King’s estate. The arched brick entrance and paved driveway led to his grand, sprawling home with two turrets. A gravel road started just beyond an Olympic-sized pool and red metal lawn mower shed and led a quarter mile through a forest of trees to a log cabin Ted had built ten years ago as a ‘boys-night’ hangout. The gravel road ended at the cabin, but the forest continued another half mile to include and surround the Clausen’s home. Access to their place was via a long private driveway off Simpson Road to the north. From Lillian’s pencil pointing, I concluded there was no workable way for us to drive to Ted’s cabin, hide a vehicle, and make a safe getaway if needed. The only logical way for the two of us to witness the midnight meeting was to park at the Clausen’s and hike southward through the woods to the backside of Ted’s cabin. It didn’t sound fun, given the drizzling rain and the declining temperature.
Lillian next introduced me to Julie King, the current principal of Boaz High School. She is Mayor King’s wife. Sort of. Like Lillian, Julie is estranged from her husband. In fact, she is distraught over a failed relationship with a man named Carl Stallings, who married a woman thirty years his junior. They now live in Knoxville, Tennessee. I considered introducing Lillian to Bert Stallings but recognized she had already sidelined our conversation. “Julie lived at the cabin before she shacked up with Carl.”
“That’s helpful.” Lillian’s eyeroll told me to be quiet and listen. The laptop said it was approaching 9:00 p.m.
“Two years ago. Julie’s party became a sleepover. Just us five girls. She showed the hidden key in case any of us ever needed a safe house.” I kept quiet. If Lillian’s words were a book, she’d need an excellent editor. “We need to go inside and hide these.” Lillian reached to her left for two boxes lying on a chair tucked underneath the table. ‘Spyware’ was written across each black and gold box.
The smaller print said they were voice-activated recording and transmission devices. “Leftovers from the Lodge?”
Lillian laid one box on the table and started opening the other. “These came today. Pricier but longer reach.” At that moment, I realized the woman without a college degree had thought out our mission better than me, the seasoned attorney and law professor.
After reading the box, I offered an opinion and a fact: “Those will record voices and sounds, but not visuals, and the only camera I have is my iPhone.” Lillian scooted her chair backwards and whispered, “hold on.” She left the kitchen and returned with an expensive-looking camera.
“Nikon D7500 with a 70-200mm lens. The lens cost more than the camera.” Lillian shared, laying the expensive-looking camera in front of me for my inspection. I knew nothing about photography. My iPhone’s pointing and shooting didn’t count.
“Hobby?” Kyla had said Lillian never finished college. That apparently hadn’t stopped her education or curiosity.
“Mostly.” She then cut short my inspection and moved the Nikon with attached lens next to the Spyware. She untied the rubber band that was holding up her hair and asked, “You want coffee?” I pinched my leg to divert my attention and avoid an instant trip to 1971. Rachel said nothing.
“Not now, maybe later. Do you have a thermos?” I was visualizing cops on stakeouts. They always had coffee.
“I do.” Lillian walked to a pantry in the corner, opened the door, and grabbed a stainless-steel Yeti from an upper shelf. “Here it is.” Women are graceful creatures.
While she made a pot of coffee for the thermos, we discussed Connor Ford. I shared my unsuccessful efforts to reach him and learned he and his wife were also in Gatlinburg.
“Woman,” Lillian corrected me and provided a quick rundown. Connor’s female companion, Camilla, was the best hairdresser at Serenity Salon. She and the private investigator had lived together for several years. Although they were engaged, they’d never officially tied the knot.
“You realize Connor is the one who should conduct this stakeout?” As an attorney, I knew depositing myself inside a case was a thousand times worse than ideal. The legal community frowned upon the lawyer as a boots-on-ground investigator, at least in the United States. Becoming a witness in my case was clearly a duty-divider, as Professor Goff, my law school ethics instructor, had called it. Worse still, it could be dangerous.
“Yeah, probably, but he’s unavailable. What choice do we have?”
Lillian was correct. In a way. “One choice is to do nothing, let the criminal justice system do its thing.” I was back in the classroom with my theoretical argument.
“Like it’s done for Kyle these past fifty years?”
“You have a point. ‘The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow.’ I think this came from Longfellow, the poet.”
Again, Lillian surprised me. “I think it was Plutarch. In the first century, he said, ‘The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.’ It’s about divine justice.”
As she stood and backed to the kitchen sink, we engaged in a softball argument about God, the afterlife, and the likelihood that evil was ever truly punished. In the end, I learned Lillian was an active reader and had grave doubts about the divine or anything else that could be supernatural. In my experience, those who read broadly, especially fiction, are more open-minded and empathetic.
I was glad she suggested we get going. “You can have the bathroom,” she said, glancing at my duffel. I grabbed my bag and followed her to the short hallway connecting the cabin’s two bedrooms. The bath was squeezed into the middle. For a few seconds, it was like she lost her way. Finally, she turned and walked to the front room containing an oversized bed. I entered the bathroom and closed the door. As I stripped down and climbed into an unmatched insulated bottom and top, a pair of camouflaged pants, and a sweatshirt, my thoughts returned to New Year’s Day 1971 and seeing Lillian naked inside Kyla’s bedroom. The knock on the door confused me. I didn’t remember putting on my boots, my windbreaker, or my toboggan.
“I’m coming.”
***
We left Lillian’s SUV a few minutes before 10:00. Hopefully, this would give us plenty of time to prepare for Ray and Buddy’s arrival.
The Clausen’s place was ultra-secluded, including a quarter-mile gravel driveway off Simpson Road. After our ten-minute trip, I felt I could recognize Barry at a party or at Walmart. However, striking up a conversation wouldn’t be easy. According to Lillian, Barry wasn’t homegrown, but Vanessa was.
Barry was from Dothan, short, bald, and a good forty pounds overweight. He wore thick glasses and had trouble mowing the lawn. He’d retired from the Alabama Department of Revenue and now preferred sitting at his computer, trading stocks, bonds, options, and commodities.
Vanessa was only a year younger than Lillian and me. I couldn’t spin-up a memory. The voluptuous freshman clarinet player was Ray’s first girlfriend after Rachel left town in the middle of tenth grade. The two were on and off during Ray’s senior year but shut down completely when the jock moved to Tuscaloosa. It was several years later that Lillian learned Vanessa and Ray had carried on a torrid affair after he had proposed and during their married-student days. The sex exchange had ended when Ray graduated. Apparently, Barry was Vanessa’s rebound, and after long careers as accountants in Montgomery, the odd couple had returned to her hometown and built this colossal home.
Lillian followed the circular driveway to the rear and pulled into a three-car carport next to a like-new red Alfa Romeo. I was dying to ask how in heck she and Vanessa had become friends. I stayed silent, convincing myself the common denominator had to be Ray Archer. Sergeant Bryant ordered me out of the Aviator and to follow her, pausing briefly to smear black paint on my cheeks. The toboggan-hidden, silky-haired commander had to be a clone of my sister.
We crossed the side yard and were ten feet inside a grove of pines when Lillian stopped me for the second time. She removed her backpack, knelt, and removed two pairs of sophisticated goggles. “Here, wear these.” I bit my lip and did as told.
Although I’d seen Lillian place two flashlights in her bag, she was smart enough to recognize the danger. I wondered how often she used the night vision goggles and why she had two pairs. Again, I chose silence.
The pelting rain and plunging temperature made our long hike through the woods triply difficult. Tracking Lillian was demanding, given her pace, but it still gave me time to ponder the weather and its effect on our plans.
When we reached the creek behind the cabin, I removed my iPhone and checked the time. I’d never seen Lillian move so fast. It was like an attack. She lunged at me, using both hands to engulf my cell. “Lee, think.” I quickly realized what I’d done and jammed the iPhone back inside my pocket. She continued clutching my left hand and stared into my eyes. Hers were bright green, distorted by the goggles. I smelled a luscious lavender as she reached up and touched my cheek, exclaiming via whisper, “this is not a game. Remember who you are dealing with.” At that moment, I thought about Ray and the fact he was a murderer. However, what consumed me was the radical new feelings Lillian had triggered. I accepted them as a portal into a whole new world.
The Pencil-Driven Life 