once it had climbed a hill outside of Southport, it took the first of what would be half a dozen exits onto secondary roads. Tertiary might be a better term. Initially it looked as if they were headed north, but it wasn’t long before they were going east, then south, and, after awhile, in a direction that was hard to figure out under a cloudy, sunless sky.
“Who creates these routes?” Carol asked.
“Depends on who you ask,” Joe answered. “I’m technically in charge, so I suppose you could say I pick the course. But over the years quite a few people have had a say. The veteran cyclists, of course. There’ll be places where you’re confronted with options, like that place we passed through a couple of miles ago. They can be kind of fun. Go one way and you’re headed for a dead end, go another and first thing you know you’ll be facing another choice - a one lane dirt road to the left, a pot holed stretch to the right. We try to keep the riders on their toes.”
Joe stopped, mid-thought. Perhaps it had occurred to him that Ernie Eakins had, at just such a location, not been on his toes.
“Sort of like Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken,” she said, only to realize seconds later that Reiger didn’t know what she was talking about. Neither did she, on second thought. Without thinking about it, she’d been showing off.
“Do you have the impression that your riders do get lost from time to time?”
“No question, it’s happened. Usually no problem. You discover that nothing looks right, so you turn around and retrace your steps. Or your wheels - you know what I mean.”
“I’ve seen signs here and there. It looks like you try to keep everyone on the straight and narrow.”
“We try to do that, but sign posts don’t last. People are always taking them down, complaining that they will mislead drivers other than those in a race or some other bike outing. See that corner up ahead, where there’s a switchback? No sign. I know there was one there yesterday.”
Carol gradually realized that the Gravel Grinder had been a long one. Not only did it frequently take her into territory with which she was unfamiliar; it also seemed to back track now and then, and, with the exception of the small town of Grovespring, managed to avoid paved roads.
But her purpose had been to see if anywhere along the way there was anything - a roadside house or barn, a hidden gully or debris field - which just might have something to do with Ernie’s disappearance.
“I’ve enjoyed the drive. Thanks for introducing me to no man’s land in upstate New York. But frankly I haven’t seen anything that’s likely to encourage Mrs. Eakins. You haven’t seen anything that looks unusual, have you?”
“No, but my assignment has to do with chauffeuring you around the county. I’ve always assumed that Ernie used the occasion to visit friends or relatives, but I don’t know the Eakins well enough to make that more than a guess. You aren’t really looking for his body, are you?”
“Yes and no. But between us, and please don’t discuss this with anyone else, Ernie’s wife is inclined to dismiss every ordinary explanation for his failure to make it home. Which has her worried that he’s dead. I hope to disabuse her of that view, which is why we’ve been doing what we’re doing today. So far I’ve seen nothing that gives me a clue that he’s either alive or dead, but I didn’t expect to. So back to my question about you seeing anything unusual. Forget about how things look - I’m sure they look like they do day in and day out. But what about side roads, roads that weren’t on the map the cyclists were following. You said that it was easy to get lost, make a wrong turn. Have we passed any side road that Ernie could have taken by mistake? I’m not suggesting anything, just trying to consider every possibility.”
“Oh, lord, that’s a tough one. We’ve probably passed three dozen or more dirt driveways to old trailers or barely habitable shacks. I can’t imagine why Ernie or anyone else would take one of those God forsaken roads. It’s pretty obvious that they aren’t a way to any place except somebody’s ramshackle home. Or an abandoned house that never got torn down. There are a lot of them around here, but you know that as well as I do.”
“I’m afraid so,” Carol said. Like Joe, she couldn’t imagine why Ernie would have taken any of these side roads to nowhere.
It had been a long and tiring morning when they got back to Southport. Carol knew nothing about Ernie Eakins that she hadn’t known before the drive. She knew a great deal more about what a Gravel Grinder was, including the fact that she was happy that she got her exercise in other less exhausting ways.
CHAPTER 6
The next morning Carol was engaged in uncharacteristic procrastination, doing whatever she could to avoid the call she had to make to Connie Eakins. She had promised herself that she would do it at ten o’clock; but it was already 10:25, and she was stalling by handling some correspondence which was conspicuously non-urgent.
JoAnne interrupted this piece of routine business to report that a couple of people named Kennedy were sitting in the outer office and that they hoped to see her ‘if it wasn’t too much trouble.’
“They’re very concerned that they may be bothering you, and would be glad to come back at another time. I said I’d see.”
“They say what’s on their mind?”
“Only that it concerns their son.”
“Why don’t you give me five more minutes and then bring them in. Kennedy, you say.”
“Right. Ruth and Henry Kennedy. They’re African-American.”
Carol urged them to have the two seats across from her and offered them coffee, which they politely accepted - ‘cream and sugar, please.’
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said. It was apparent that they were ill at ease, and she tried to encourage them to relax. “I’m Carol Kelleher, and I’m the sheriff of Cumberland County, as you must know. It’s Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, according to my assistant. What brings you here today?”
“It’s a complicated story,” Mr. Kennedy said. “We shouldn’t be taking much of your time, but -”
“Let me tell her, Henry.” Mrs. Kennedy spoke up. “He’s right, it is complicated. But the real problem is quite simple. Our son is missing. The man he’s working for called us yesterday and told us he’d disappeared. We’re new here and we don’t know many people. That includes Adolph Slocomb. He’s the man Martin is helping.”
“It probably wasn’t a very good idea to agree to let him work out there,” Mr. Kennedy interrupted. “We’d didn’t really know Mr. Slocomb. But he needed help and we were anxious to find a place where Martin could get away from the house and get some fresh air. Anyway, now he’s run away. At least Mr. Slocomb doesn’t know where he is.”
A second man gone missing in only two days. And the Kennedys were obviously not sure how to go about the task of telling their story. They seemed to be right, Carol thought. It is going to be complicated.
“Excuse me,” Carol said. “Let’s go back to the beginning. Your son is missing and he has been working for a Mr. Slocomb. Why don’t you tell me something about your son and about Mr. Slocomb.”
The
