One Lane Bridge: A Novel Read online

  “What now? Do we all go to jail?” Katherine asked with a sneer.

  “No. You can go home, Katherine,” J. D. answered just as curtly.

  “And I may stay home.”

  “That’s your choice. We told you this was not easy for us before we even started.” J. D.’s words were coming faster, and his voice was rising with each syllable. “We didn’t ask for this problem, and we didn’t know any better way of doing it. If you were in our position, you would have done the same thing.”

  “Yeah, I might have done the same thing, but I don’t think I’d have done it the same way. This is pretty insulting, J. D.”

  “So is getting robbed, Katherine. So if you want to quit, if you want to stay home, you go right ahead. No one has done anything to you. And frankly, I’m just a little bit tired of your attitude.”

  Katherine turned on her heel and walked out of the office door. Lottie looked at J. D. and then at Karlie and, without saying anything to anyone, turned and did the same. It was only Crystal who asked, “Can we all go?”

  “No, Crystal. Sit down. And lay your money out on the table again.”

  What Bobby Caywood saw from his vantage point in the first booth to the right of the front door was a tight-faced Katherine Kimball storming the length of the restaurant and exiting the main door without turning her head in either direction. Lottie Arello took a short right turn and exited the back door leading to the parking lot. The office door closed again. It was maybe thirty seconds before he was jolted from his sitting position along with a dozen other customers by a spine-cringing scream from behind the office door.

  He ran toward it.

  Chapter Ten

  Crystal was standing in the middle of the floor with her fists by the sides of her head screaming, “No! No! No!” when Bobby Caywood burst through the doorway. Karlie was reaching for her and trying to calm her hysteria by putting her arms around her. J. D. was standing helplessly, watching the uncontrollable situation unfold.

  “Crystal, calm down now. Just calm down.” Crystal fell rather than sat in the chair behind her and buried her head in her hands and resorted to quiet sobs. J. D. handed her some tissues, and Caywood leaned against the door.

  Crystal looked up with red eyes and scanned each face in the room. Finally she said, “I did not take that money. I’ve never stolen anything in my life.”

  “Then how do you explain it being in your purse, Crystal?” J. D. asked with just a tinge of impatience.

  “I don’t know. Somebody put it in there.”

  “Who would put money in your purse?”

  “Whoever stole it.”

  “Crystal, does that make any sense to you? Somebody steals money and puts it in your purse instead of their own? How stupid do you think we are?” asked J. D.

  “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think you’re stupid, but I think somebody is smarter than you think they are.”

  “What do you mean by that, honey?” Karlie asked as she walked behind the girl and rubbed her shoulders like a mother consoling a child.

  “I mean I know I didn’t take that money. Whoever took it stuffed it in my bag when I wasn’t looking.”

  Detective Caywood spoke next. “Have you found money in your purse that wasn’t yours before?”

  “No.”

  “Then why today?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Crystal,” J. D. said as he sat down in a chair in front of her, “you have to know what this looks like to us. What would you do if you were us? Would you believe what you’re saying right now?”

  “I guess not.” Crystal showed signs of calming as the sobs abated. “But somebody must have gotten scared and thought you all were getting close to them, and they got rid of the money so you wouldn’t find it on them.”

  “When would anyone have had a chance to do that?”

  “Maybe when they saw Mr. Caywood come in and sit down just before shift change.”

  “Mr. Caywood comes in often, Crystal,” Karlie said. “Why would anyone think anything was odd about that?

  “Well, he didn’t sit at the counter the way he usually does, but I just thought he was waiting on someone else to join him. But if I had been guilty of something, I might have thought something was up. You know what I mean?”

  J. D. turned and looked up at Caywood and said with a mixture of sarcasm and tension-breaking humor, “Good job, Caywood. You want to take it from here?”

  Bobby crossed his arms and didn’t respond to J. D.’s remark but took it as an opening to address Crystal again.

  “Everybody who breaks the law always claims they’re innocent. Circumstantial. Red-handed. Whatever the evidence may be, they always tell you somebody else is to blame and that they’re victims. Crystal, you’re not a criminal at heart. You’re a sweet girl who has done an irresponsible thing. So be honest with these folks. I think I know them well enough to assure you it can be solved right here in this room. Just be honest.”

  Crystal looked up with tears streaming down her young, pretty face and dripping off her chin. She looked directly into J. D.’s eyes and said, “Mr. Wickman, you don’t have any idea what it’s like to be telling someone the truth with all your heart and they just won’t believe you. I don’t know what else I can say to make you not doubt me. No matter how unbelievable it all sounds and looks, as sure as there’s a God in heaven, I didn’t take that money.”

  A strange stillness came over the room. J. D. Wickman, coproprietor and recent bearer of his own hard-to-believe story, looked at his wife, who was staring at him through tears. No one spoke, but even if they had, J. D. would not have heard anything but a replay of Crystal’s plea. His ears were full of her words, and his heart was full of her feelings. He truly believed this girl was innocent. And if she wasn’t? Chances were she was scared enough right now that she would never do anything like this again. But wasn’t this exactly what Karlie had been saying from the beginning? Wasn’t it her notion from the start that just the fear of getting caught would stop the stealing, and a good person who had done “an irresponsible thing,” as Caywood had put it, would see the light and all would be well? Was it possible that he was wrong for bringing this unfortunate situation this far? Or was he changing his mind just because he could relate to the frustration Crystal was feeling in not being able to find anyone who would believe her story?

  “Crystal, I want you to go wash your face and then go home,” said J. D. “And then I want you back here at six in the morning ready to go to work.”

  She looked at him with a childish innocence that made him feel worse than he’d felt since the whole thing had begun and said, “Do you mean it?”

  “Yes, I mean it. It’s over. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Crystal gathered her belongings and went out the office door, closing it softly behind her. Bobby Caywood moved just enough to let her squeeze by. He was the first to speak after she left the room.

  “You know what this means, don’t you? You still have money missing, and you don’t know who took it.”

  “I know Crystal didn’t,” said J. D.

  “Do you?”

  “No, not really,” J. D. admitted.

  “And if she didn’t, one of the other two did. Either way you’ve got a thief working for you and handling your money.”

  “And so did Jesus. So what?” J. D. was frustrated and defiant and realized he was striking out at the very person who was trying to help him.

  “I could say ‘and look where that got Him,’ but I won’t.” Bobby was protecting his territory, but his calm expression told J. D. he knew this was a difficult situation for them. Bobby would support whatever they decided.

  “Do you want me to talk to the other two women?”

  “No. Thank you, Bobby, for being here, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s over. We’re going to let it go.” He looked to Karlie for her nod of consent and got it, plus a smile.

  “They may not come back, you know,” Caywood warned. “You ma
y never see the three of them again. Just because you think it’s over, they may not think so.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, then we might need you to wait tables till we can find some more help.”

  They laughed nervously at this and welcomed the much-needed tension breaker. Bobby Caywood said, as he was opening the door to leave, “And, hey, I’m sorry about that sitting-at-the-counter thing. That girl was smarter than I thought she was.”

  “Yeah, she just might be smarter than we all thought she was.”

  And then there were two. Karlie came over to J. D. and put her arms around him and said, “I love you more right this minute than I did even the day our daughter was born.”

  He held her. “I might have done the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life here today.”

  “I don’t care. I love you for it even if it was wrong.”

  “Thank you. I love you, too.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “When you went out to that … house … out in the country last night … the van was full of groceries. Those groceries were gone this morning.” She paused. “Where are those groceries?”

  J. D. waited a long time before he answered. He weighed the question and decided against three or four possible responses, all the time never letting her go from their embrace. “You may love me more right now than you ever have, but you don’t believe me any more than you ever did.”

  “I want to.”

  “I know you do, honey. I know you do.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Angela Wickman sat in the passenger seat with her purse and a small suitcase crowding her feet. She watched the houses, pastures, billboards, and utility poles whiz by the side window as the radio blasted song after song toward her inattentive ear. She could never remember feeling lonelier. She had always wished she had an older sister. Even pretended that she did. She would talk to her the same way kids often talked to imaginary friends. But she never thought of her as a typical imaginary friend; it was more practical when she thought of her as a sister. She would tell her why she was sad and why she was happy and have conversations about boys who chased her on the playground and boys who ignored her on the playground. Her “sister” would offer advice on what she should do to make this boy go away or that one notice her.

  She even went to her imaginary sister for help in dealing with her parents. Angela often felt her mother was too hard on her about the clothes she wanted to wear or her dad was too strict with her on homework assignments. Once when she was ten years old and hadn’t gotten the computer game she wanted for her birthday, she stormed into her bedroom, slammed the door, and got into an argument with her sister, who had somehow taken the side of her parents. After a long, sleepless night, she came to the realization that her sister was right and she was wrong. This had been a revelation. Angela knew from that day on that it wasn’t just a little girl’s game she was playing. It was an ongoing conversation with her conscience. Sometimes even a ten-year-old can see the truth through someone else’s eyes.

  So the sister she never had became the sister she invented, and to some extent she still talked to her today even as a nineteen-year old freshman. She didn’t call her “Sally” the way she did when she was a little girl, but she talked to her in her head nonetheless. She would lay out her problems, and her conscience would review them and point out the pros and cons like a good friend or big sister often does. Sally/conscience would agree with her on the easy stuff but was surprisingly hard on her when it came to the big things that really meant something.

  There had been a lot of those silent conversations that last year in high school when she was trying to decide if and where she was going to college. The “if” was pretty much a foregone conclusion where her mom and dad were concerned, but Angela had succeeded in keeping the “where” an open option. She had visited two different campuses with her mother and one with her dad, and each time she had brought the brochures home and studied them in conversation with her “sis.” Distance from home was a big factor. She wanted to get as far away as possible, not because she didn’t love her parents, but because she just felt it was the best way to start life on her own. But the other voice in her head had told her she might need the assurance of being only a couple hours away from everyone she knew and loved. Her sister, in the end, had won that argument. She was only three hours from Hanson. Far enough to be away—close enough to be home on Friday nights if she wanted to.

  Majors were another big discussion. They had gone round and round on this one. What was she interested in? What would benefit her most? Where was she most likely to meet the right husband? What would give her more time for a social life on campus? What would require the most study? What would make her happy? When her heart and mind couldn’t come to an agreement, she deferred the question until later. Give it a year, and get used to the life.

  Today she wished her sister were real. Today she needed her not just for the decision-making help, but for the moral support—someone to stand beside her in what she was going to say, do. But Angela was on her own in this. There was no one else to blame. No one else to share the heat. What she was about to face, she would face alone.

  J. D. and Karlie were standing in the kitchen of their home on Circle Drive. They had decided to come home and eat a late lunch and do some book work in J. D.’s small office in the basement. The afternoon shift at the restaurant was intrigued and puzzled by the pieces of news trickling in about what had gone on in the Dining Club office an hour before, and before anyone asked them to explain, Karlie and J. D. decided to put a little distance between themselves and the curious. They would address the problem to those who needed to know in proper time.

  J. D. was looking in the refrigerator while Karlie was going through the mail at the kitchen counter.

  “Have you checked the phone messages?” J. D. asked with his head bent nearly to the bottom shelf as he reached for a carton of milk.

  “No. I’ll check in a minute.” Karlie sounded distracted, as if she were reading something.

  “You know, honey, I could feel bad about the outcome on a lot of different levels, but I also feel good about it on those same levels,” J. D. said, straightening up with milk and mayonnaise in his hands. “Take Katherine, for instance.”

  “Katherine surprised me most,” Karlie confessed. “I thought she would be the one who would calm the other two, and she turned out to be the one most offended by it all. She’s been in this business much too long not to understand that sometimes things have to be done that are not pleasant.”

  “She surprised me, too. But she’ll be all right by morning. To tell the truth, I expect to hear from her before the night’s over. I’m betting she’ll call. If she doesn’t, I’ll call her to make sure she’s all right.”

  “That would be a good thing to do,” said Karlie. “And I’ll call Lottie. And should one of us call Crystal?”

  “I suppose. But before we call anybody, we need to be real careful what we say. One of those women stole money from us and is probably celebrating having gotten away with it. Scared to death maybe, but celebrating at the same time. Maybe we don’t want to call any of them. Maybe just let it be and see who comes in tomorrow.”

  Karlie turned and looked at her husband. “Are you suggesting that the one who doesn’t come in is the guilty one?”

  “Not necessarily. Could be exactly the other way around.”

  “Do you think it’s down to two, or do you think it’s possible that Crystal is still the one?”

  J. D. measured what he felt in his heart about Crystal’s convincing words, what he felt Caywood was thinking, and what he saw in her eyes and in the eyes of Lottie and Katherine as they stormed off the premises, and he changed his answer in his mind at least three time before it reached his lips.

  “I’m ninety, ninety-five percent sure Crystal is telling the truth. I don’t want it to be Katherine, and I’m probably leaning toward Lottie just beca
use I don’t know her as well as I do the other two and don’t like her as well.”

  “Why don’t you like her?”

  “Well, for one thing….”

  And at this they both turned as they heard the back door open and stood in total shock at seeing Angela coming in with a smile on her face that expressed little joy and plenty of apprehension. They both spoke the same words at the same time: “What are you doing here?”

  Angela pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat down, placing her oversized purse on the floor in front of her. She looked at the two of them and said, “Hi,” feeling uncomfortable and trying to project confidence. Her parents waited in silence for her to answer their question.

  “I decided to come home after all. Things are such a mess down there, and I just felt like I wanted to be here. I knew you’d understand.”

  “I’m not sure we do,” said her mother. “How did you get here?”

  “I came with a friend. Jenna. She’s a junior and has a car. She comes home sometimes a couple of times a week.”

  “Jenna?” her father asked. “Do we know a Jenna?”

  “Jenna Cummings. She’s from here. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. She was coming, so I hitched a ride with her.”

  “I thought you were staying to go to some sort of mixer this weekend. That’s what you told me on the phone yesterday. What’s changed?” Her father’s tone sounded more suspicious than concerned.

  “Yeah, I know I said that, and at the time I thought I would. But then I decided to come home. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “Well, you’re always welcome on the weekends, Angela. But it’s the middle of the week. Are you missing classes? Because that’s not okay.” Her mother didn’t even try to hide her irritation.