FLIPKA

Chapter Sixteen

As soon as we were out of sight, Creamo stopped the limo by the side of the road. “Tell me,” he asked, as we got out to unhitch the Jeep, “what was she in for?”

“Nothing much—just a little murder and mayhem,” I chuckled, rapping on the window of the passenger compartment. “You can come out now, Nancy Jean. Time for show-and-tell.”

“Should I cuff her?” he asked, as she sheepishly crept into the sunlight, her scrawny body looking even more pathetic in one of my bulky sweatshirts. Luckily, the state doesn’t pay well. A wad of Hyman’s cash to the matron in charge, and she was ours for an hour, hopefully to keep her promise.

“No, don’t cuff her,” I replied stupidly. “What harm can she do?” 

“Remember your promise,” she whined, the soggy cigarette still dangling from her lip. 

“Could you give her a light please, Creamo?”

“You’re the doc.”

I didn’t feel like much of a doctor, watching a sixteen-year-old puff away. Damn Hyman for putting me in this position; damn Meredith Hyman for disappearing; damn the cavalry for coming out to fight the Indians. Damn them all!

Taking the Jeep, we drove to the ridge behind Enev, from where we could see the other less significant mountains in Cavalry Peak’s shadow. The area was rarely explored, as it had nothing of significance to offer either hunters or adventure junkies, no hunting lodges or pristine lakes, just struggling bristle cones and scrubby hills. Following the girl’s direction, we drove down the rocky slope to a narrow gulch bordered on either side by distinctive rock formations so symmetrical that they resembled manufactured steel beams leaning against the side of the building. I’d seen similar rock formations in the high Sierra, called Devil’s Post Pile or Satan’s Furnace, but such formations of basalt were rare (or so I thought) in an area so relatively low in altitude. I was about to point out this geological oddity when Creamo began his interrogation of our prisoner: 

“Where is it, young lady?”

“We have to find the Space Man,” Nancy Jean replied, as she puffed away in the back seat.

“What is the Space Man?” I asked. 

“The Space Man points to the caves of Osceola. That’s where you’ll find Merry.”

Creamo slammed on the brakes. At first I thought his disgust with Nancy Jean had percolated from simmer to boil, but actually it was a series of fresh tire treads crisscrossing our path that caused him to stop. “These ruts are fresh,” he said. “I bet this is where she met the fella. Yeah, I bet she got through one of those breaches in the back fence—cripes, did you see that thing? Goddamn worst security I’ve ever seen. Yup, out the back fence, over the hill, and there he was, waiting.”

“That’s not true!” Nancy Jean interrupted. “She hated all her old boyfriends!” 

“Yeah, why have a flesh-and-blood boyfriend when she could have a dead one?” Creamo laughed. He’d barely endured, the (to him) bullshit story that Meredith Hyman was infatuated with a ghost. All dames, young or old, lived to torment men. Real men, not ghosts. He continued, “If I can get some good shots of these prints and send them to the lab, they should be able to tell us what make of vehicle we’re looking for. Yup, should be able to wrap this thing up pretty quick now.”

“That’s not true—she was going to find Echoing waters.”

“Oh Lord,” Creamo groaned, glaring over the seat at Nancy Jean. “Not this horse crap again. Just tell us the name of the idiot she’s with.” 

She began to tremble, “I need another ciggie.”

Creamo tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “We’re wasting our time with this little piece of shit. I don’t know why I let you talk me into it. I feel sorry for your parents, you little dipshit.”

“You’re an asshole!” Nancy Jean screamed, shutting down like a windup toy whose spring had sprung. 

“I thought I was supposed to handle this,” I whispered. “Isn’t that why Hyman insisted I accompany you? This kid’s heard it all before. That she’s not worthy of attention, affection, or even love from a too-busy mother and absent father. Probably heard it from the moment she was born and, by dint of too much hair or common facial features, immediately became the apple that had fallen too far from the tree, the child neither side wanted to claim, the freckle in the cradle of the unblemished.”

“Save the bleeding-heart bullshit. She’s bluffing. She doesn’t know nothing.” 

I’d considered that possibility. That her tough act was a ruse to get attention, any attention—even negative attention. She was definitely smart enough to yank our chains. Part of me didn’t blame her, but I didn’t have time to deal with her wide variety of psychoses through the normal channels. Meredith Hyman was missing, and until she was found, I was screwed. 

“Hey I have an idea,” I whispered to Creamo.

“Yeah?”

“Not here—lock her in the car, and come away from it for a minute. I need to talk to you in private.” He was leery, but he did as I asked. As we stood shivering on the ridge, I told him my plan. He gave exactly the response I expected to hear.

“Hypnotism? It’s a sham! I’ve seen police use it, and it never works.” 

“It’s a myth,” I explained, “that people will do something under hypnosis they wouldn’t do if fully conscious, like confess to murder. Especially if said murderer is a sociopath.”

“Exactly—if she won’t tell us anything now, why will she under hypnosis?”

“Because I plan to tap into her memory through regression. Remember the therapist who regressed a Colorado housewife back to another lifetime—the Bridey Murphy case? Folks got all excited, until it turned out she was remembering stories told to her by a neighbor when she was three! Regression was pooh-poohed for a time as unacceptable therapy, even quackery, but I think . . .”

“Oh, for the love of Pete!” Creamo groaned. He was looking past me to the car. “What the hell is she doing now?” 

Nancy Jean had removed all of her clothes and was now slithering over the backseat and onto the front like a slippery, pink eel in a black fright wig. She nestled behind the steering wheel and began frantically seesawing the wheel like a four-year-old on a joyride. 

“Should have cuffed her,” Creamo snarled.

I had to agree he was right. “Look at it this way,” I explained, “our only clue to what happened to Meredith is a psychotic teenager. If she knows anything at all, if there is any island of sanity in her mind, we need to get through to it. Think of hypnotism as our boat.”

He watched in disgust, as Nancy Jean licked the dashboard and then, realizing she’d scored an audience, smashed her naked breasts against the window. They looked like two eggs over easy. “Come and get me,” she howled. 

Alas, I had no valium or I would have given one to Creamo and taken one myself.

“Ok, Doc,” he sighed. “I’ll get some pictures of the tire treads, while you go fishing in the psycho’s noggin.”