One Lane Bridge: A Novel Read online

  He stood for a long time looking across the shallow water and then brought his gaze back to meet hers. “Okay. You drive. We’ll keep going a bit. But I’m sure this is where it was.”

  Karlie drove while J. D. stared out the passenger window. She had driven for another five miles when he finally said, “Turn around here. There’s no sense in going any farther.”

  Karlie turned into the pull-off area, but instead of turning around in the road, she stopped and turned off the engine. She looked at her husband, who was still staring out the windshield.

  “J. D., something is seriously wrong here. You have been under a lot of stress with everything that’s going on. Now either you admit we might be on the wrong road, or when we get back to town we are going to see a doctor and get you some rest. You have to know all this is not normal.”

  “We’re not on the wrong road, Karlie. Turn around, and I’ll show you where the house is. Or was.”

  She did as requested, and as the two-lane-bridge crossing came into sight, J. D. said, “Pull in here.”

  He pointed to a country convenience store on the left that they had passed a few minutes earlier coming the other way. She stopped next to the front door and sat in the car as J. D. got out and went inside. A bell dinged when he opened the front door, and a heavyset man in his mid-forties reached over and turned down a television set behind the counter. He said, “Mornin’.”

  “Good morning. I’m lost—I’m wondering if you could help me.”

  “Do what I can.”

  “I’m looking for a family by the name of Clem that lives out here somewhere. I thought they lived right along here, about where this store is.”

  “Clems. I don’t know any Clems. There’s some Clements that live down the road a piece. But Clems. I don’t think I know any.”

  “Well, can you tell me this?” J. D. asked with all the strength he could muster. “How long has this store been here?”

  “Oh, man, I don’t know. I bought it about fifteen years ago when I moved from Wisconsin. But the store was here years before.”

  J. D.’s voice and legs were getting weaker, but he still had to ask, “Do you know of any one lane bridges around here?”

  “One lane bridges.” The big man frowned as he looked out over the rims of his glasses. “You mean one of those covered wooden bridges?”

  “No, no. One of those big steel ones with the twenty-foot sides on it and the steel cables and all.”

  “Naw,” he shook his head. “Never saw anything like that. Not since I been here.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I’m pretty sure I would remember if I’d seen one. What are you a photographer or something? Looking for old bridges?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Well, thanks. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  Karlie was waiting in the car with the same concerned look on her face as when he had left. “Well?” she said.

  “The house was just beyond where this store is. I know you think I’m crazy, but it was there, and the bridge was right where that new bridge is.”

  “J. D., let’s go home. Let’s just forget about it and go home.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said, much too quickly and way too loudly. He pulled out his cell phone, opened it, and stared down at the bars looking back at him. He looked at his wife and said, “We have service.”

  “Was there some reason you thought we wouldn’t?”

  J. D. snapped his cell phone shut and put it back on his belt. He laid his head back against the headrest, closed his eyes, and with a sigh said, “Yeah, let’s go home. We have ice cream that’s melting.”

  Chapter Four

  They drove the eighteen miles back to Hanson in total silence. Neither one of them even turned the radio on. Karlie knew J. D. was expecting her to weigh in on the situation every second of the trip, and she had her mouth open and ready to say something a dozen times but just couldn’t think of the right thing to say. She didn’t want to aggravate him with her concerns, but she was full of worry over what must have been going on in his mind. She kept watching him out of the corner of her eye and observed he was staring at instead of simply watching the road. She was helpless to know where to begin. So nothing was said until they pulled up in front of Maple Manor.

  Karlie spoke first. “Are you up to this?”

  “No, but let’s do it anyway.”

  “J. D., you have to admit that everything that is happening is not normal. You’ve been having headaches in the past month like you’ve never had before. And I know this restaurant problem has your blood pressure sky-high. You take everything so hard and so serious. And now all this with Angela. I worry about you.”

  “Well, don’t. I’m okay.”

  “You’re not okay. Even you don’t believe that. If you did, you’d be able to explain all these things that are happening.”

  “Karlie, don’t make everything worse than it is. I’m all right now, and I’ll be all right later. Can we just leave it at that?”

  She heard this as more of a demand than a question and knew she would be challenging him if she continued.

  “No, we can’t.” She was firm, angry, and scared all at the same time.

  “So what do you suggest I do?”

  “We’ll visit for a little while with your mother, and then I want you to promise me you’ll make an appointment this afternoon to go see Dr. Maxton.”

  J. D. looked at her, incredulous. “He’s a GP. What’s he going to tell me? That I’ve got the flu or something?”

  “Don’t be silly. Tell him about all the stress you’re under, and maybe he can recommend another doctor. Or maybe he can give you something. I don’t know. Just go to him and talk to him.”

  “All right. I’ll go to our family doctor and tell him my wife thinks I’m a nut job. That I’ve been seeing people and houses that aren’t there, and maybe would he please take my blood pressure and give me some aspirin. That ought to do it.”

  “Be as cynical as you like, but you have to start someplace.”

  Karlie saw his shoulders relax for the first time that day. And when he spoke, she could hear in the softness of his voice that he was trying to reassure her.

  “Honey, I know you mean well. And I would be just as worried about you if the tables were turned. I have no answers right now. But let’s go in and see Mom, and then we’ll go by the restaurants….”

  “And then to the doctor?”

  “We’ll see. And get the ice cream out of one of those bags back there. We’ll take it to Mom.”

  J. D. realized that no matter how many faux antebellum columns were put up in front of a brick building, it was still hard to make a nursing home look warm and fuzzy. And once the front door was opened, it was nearly impossible. The smells that filled his nostrils every time, the sights that invaded his vision no matter how hard he tried not to look, and the sounds that he willed himself to ignore were always the same. He looked straight ahead and walked to his destination in hopes of finding the object of his journey in a good frame of mind and body. And since that object was Beatrice McKinley Wickman, this was usually very possible.

  Bea Wickman was eighty-four years old and of extremely sound mind. It was her body that had let her down. She needed round-the-clock attention and found in Maple Manor the home she was looking for. She paid for it herself, and her every decision was still hers alone. She did not dread waking there every morning. She rather enjoyed it. She had a private room, a TV and radio, a sitting area, meals delivered to her quarters three times a day, and even some old friends down the hall who visited and played Hearts every afternoon. J. D. knew that, from her point of view, life could be so much worse. Her biggest problem was convincing her offspring of this. J. D.’s two sisters, Alice and Becky, had tried for years to get her to move closer to them in Kentucky and Virginia so they could look after her, but leaving Hanson was never a consideration for her. J. D. knew that his mother was aware of the undue pressure this put on him, since
he still lived in town and felt even more guilt seeing her so often in this environment. Although she had preached to him all his life, “It’s the eyes with which you view that make a scene beautiful or not,” she couldn’t convince him she was happy and satisfied with her home at Maple Manor. She didn’t miss a thing—she knew these visits were harder on him each week, and likely sensed that today he seemed more distant than ever. And she surely noticed that even sweet, considerate Karlie did too.

  J. D. set his coffee cup on the table by the brown recliner. “Mom, we can’t stay long. We’ve got a mess at one of the restaurants, and we’re heading over there right now.”

  “That’s quite all right. I understand. What’s the problem?”

  J. D. and Karlie looked at one another, smiled, and sighed.

  Karlie spoke first, “One of the employees is stealing money from us.”

  “Oh my goodness.” Beatrice’s eyes were the shape of a full moon and almost as big. Most people, upon hearing that an employee was stealing money would have said, “Who is it?” or “How much have they stolen?” or maybe even “Have you caught them yet?” But Beatrice asked, “Do they know that you know yet?”

  Her question took all the tension out of J. D. and Karlie for a moment as they laughed at her off-center way of thinking, which incidentally had nothing to do with her age or condition. It was her chosen way of seeing life—with a different slant from anyone else.

  J. D. answered, “Not yet.”

  Beatrice leaned closer and lowered her voice and looked toward the open door that led to the hallway. “Be careful. Once they know that you know, they may come and stab you in your sleep. That happened to a friend I went to school with. She caught someone stealing from her, and she confronted him before she went to the police, and he stabbed her in her sleep.”

  J. D. always knew when it was time to wash up the coffee cups in her little sink in the corner and begin the good-byeing process. And this was the time.

  Back in the car, Karlie took charge. “Let’s go by the Club—downtown; I’ll call Dr. Maxton’s nurse, and then you slip over there and talk to him.”

  The lack of response told her immediately it wasn’t going to be that simple. J. D. backed out of the parking lot in silence. She watched him drive intently through town without speaking a word and thought how unlike him it was to be this inward about anything. He always opened up to her with the little things that bothered him, but this was not a little thing. This was something strange and unwanted, and she was getting more frightened by the minute.

  “J. D., whatever you’re going to do or not going to do, talk to me. That’s all I ask. Just talk to me. I want to help.”

  “I know that. I’m sorry if I’m acting weird, but I’m going to be fine. I’ll figure it out. But here’s what you can do. You go to the restaurant and check the receipts. Confront whomever you want about whether they’re stealing from us or not. I’ll concede to you on that one. We’ll do it your way. Then let me do this my way. I’m not going to see Dr. Maxton. I’ve got a couple of errands to run and a few other things to do. Just let me do them and give me a little room. That’s how you can help.”

  He pulled the car to the curb in front of the Dining Club Restaurant. Karlie got out, and J. D. drove off.

  Before parking in the public lot behind the courthouse, J. D. dialed Angela’s number on his cell phone. Just hearing her voice and getting reassurance that everything was all right would bring him a step closer to restoring his heartbeat to normal. Then he could focus on what his procedure should be inside the records room under the old courthouse. But the constant ring and eventual sound of Angela’s voice greeting told him he wasn’t going to feel that relief until sometime later in the day.

  The girl behind the desk was young and pretty, her bright eyes suggesting that she just might know what she was doing.

  “Hi. My name is J. D. Wickman, and I’m looking for some historical land deeds on a particular country road. What information do I need to have?”

  The girl, just a few years older than Angela, he guessed, went to the computer and said, “Come on back, Mr. Wickman, and we’ll start searching maps on the screen till we find what you want.”

  He walked through the swinging gate to the girl’s desk, which was next to a set of windows looking up into an alley full of air-conditioning units that served the two-century-old building. He rubbed his eyes while she clicked on icons and pulled up the needed programs.

  After about a minute, she said, “Okay, do you have an address?”

  “No, I don’t. I have a route number.”

  “Okay. What’s that?”

  “Route 814. It’s a state road. It turns off of 724.”

  “Alrighty. Then what’s the name of the landowner?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  The girl looked at him, trying to mask her apparent disbelief. With a practiced smile she said, “If you need to look up a historical deed, we need to have the address or the name of the current owner of the property.”

  “I don’t have any of that. I just know it’s about fifteen miles or so out that road going south, on the right just past a bridge.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. But that’s not enough information …”

  “Wait a minute. There’s a store there now. A country convenience store. It’s probably in the phone book, but then we’ll still need a name, won’t we?”

  “Afraid so. Wait … maybe not. Is that the road that comes out in New Park?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never gone all the way through on that road.”

  The girl smiled and lowered her voice. “I used to date a guy who lived in New Park, and I think I know that back road. Just a minute.”

  She picked up the phone, buzzed someone in another part of the building, and said, “Ellen, don’t you live out in the New Park area? I thought so. Do you know of a convenience store that’s between here and there on Route 814?” She held her hand over the mouthpiece and said to J. D., “It’s not a Subway shop, is it?”

  J. D. shook his head.

  “No,” the girl said back into the phone. “It’s not Subway. A convenience store,” she emphasized and rolled her eyes at J. D., still smiling. She sat listening to Ellen for what seemed like minutes to J. D., and he watched her facial expressions change from a frown to raised eyebrows to chuckles and wondered if maybe they had started talking about something besides the business at hand. But then suddenly she put her hand over the mouthpiece again and said, “How about Stan’s One Stop? A real big guy. He never comes out from behind the counter.”

  “That’s it!” J. D. said much too loudly. “That’s him. Stan.”

  “Thanks, Ellen. See you. Okay,” she said, hanging up the phone and looking at J. D. “Now we’ve got something to go on. Ellen said his name is Stanley Wilshaw. So let’s look him up, and we’ll find the lot—and then we can search it.”

  J. D. watched her work through the grids and maps and lot numbers that kept popping up on her computer screen. She typed letters in, deleted others, and added more reference numbers with the skill and flourish of a swordsman on the deck of a pirate ship. She never paused or glanced up until she said, “Got you something. Wilshaw bought the store in September of ’92. He bought it from a man named Noah Allmarode. Know him?”

  J. D. told her he didn’t.

  Studying intently as she scrolled, the girl continued, “Allmarode bought the land in 1947 for nine hundred dollars from Lavern Justice. Mmm. Any of this ringing any bells for you?”

  “Nothing,” J. D. said honestly. “I really don’t expect to know any of these people. I’m just trying to find out when the store was built and if there was ever a house out there.”

  “Oh, I think I can help you there. Looks like the store was built by Allmarode in … let’s see. Yes, here it is. Improved property with a commercial building in June of 1964.”

  “And before that? Still no house?”

  The girl’s sigh hinted at her gro
wing impatience, or maybe it expressed her increased interest in the thrill of bringing old facts to the present. She did work in the courthouse records room. Maybe she loved it. Or maybe she was just biding her time until she got married and started that dream family. J. D. decided not to worry about it as long as she found what he was looking for. What he was looking for was an old two-story frame house. And the reason he was looking for this was … the reason was … he wasn’t really sure what the reason was. What would finding a house prove, anyway?

  “Here’s the house, Mr. Wickman! You are Mr. Wickman who owns the Dining Club restaurants, aren’t you?” She continued as J. D. nodded his head, “My dad knows you. Tinker Knicely? You remember him. I think you went to school together.”

  J. D. remembered him—and remembered he cared little for Tinker in high school and didn’t want to get sidetracked on another subject at this particular moment. He just wanted to get back to … “The house. You found something?”

  “Yes, it looks like all that land was owned at one time by Carmine Justice. I’ve heard his name around the courthouse for years. They tell all kinds of stories around here about him. I know you’ve heard of him. He was a lawyer or a state senator or something. He owned everything on that side of the road for miles at one time, and then in 1945 he died, and his family later split it all up in lots and sold off farm and grazing land.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of him, but what about the house? Does it say anything in there about a house ever being on the property?”

  Tinker Knicely’s patient daughter stared at her screen for at least two minutes without saying a word. Then, “There were some rental houses on that plot of land, and it looks as if they were torn down in 1946 when the family began to divide it all up.”

  “Does it say who the family was … or is?”

  “Mr. Carmine had two sons and one daughter. You want the daughter’s address?”

  “What? That would be a 1946 address wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, in the computer listing here it would be. But I can tell you where she lives today. She used to work upstairs in the file room until about six months ago. She retired. I’m not supposed to give out this information, but she doesn’t work here anymore so I guess it’ll be okay. You know where Belmont Avenue is, don’t you? Well, go to the end. Last house on the left.”