Prudence McCoy My Diary.  Again

Grey Wolf Lodge (evening)

There might be trouble out here at the End of the World.  Ruth’s son, J.R., is missing.   Well, maybe not missing, exactly, but Ruth doesn’t know where he is.  Which isn’t that strange, is it, but she’s afraid there’s something wrong.  She’s a mother.  Mothers have a sixth sense about this sort of thing.   Well, most mothers do… I have doubts about mine. But, dear Ruth clearly does and she’s worried sick.  Even more upsetting to her, J.R. hadn’t called her in days and then suddenly he left a very unsettling answering machine message.  He said he needed to talk to her about something really important.  That’s all he said before he hung up. Ruth and I drove out to his cabin to see if he was there.  He wasn’t.  While we were there, I noticed some things in the cabin – a dented candlestick, something that just had to be blood on the floor and the kitchen table – that started to make me worry.  I didn’t mention it to Ruth.  It might be nothing.  Or… … right, then.  This is where my sixth sense kicks in.   I’ve got a very keen eye for things out of the ordinary, out of place, not quite kosher, if you get my meaning.  Nigel says I’m often totally delusional, plagued by fits of narcissistic self-aggrandizement and an overly active imagination.  Well, yes, I suppose I could be, from time to time, but that doesn’t mean I’m not right when I know what I know.  And I know something’s not right out here in the Wild West.  I bloody well know it.

Back at Grey Wolf Lodge (midnight)

So much for a vacation.  This night absolutely flew by.  Back at the lodge, I had to draw a very, very hot bath where I’ve been submerged for nearly an hour, nursing a perfectly lovely glass of Chateauneuf-du-Pape red (thank you, Jeffrey) and reviewing the night. First, about the drink I had with Mr. Lovely Smile.  He didn’t disappoint, I’m happy to say.  The evening – the first part, at least -- was wonderful, with a crackling fire, witty conversation, smiles, and a significant pause or two.  Nothing earth-shattering, mind you, but enjoyable.

I met a dashing young Frenchman, Jean Phillipe Andrews – a friend of Ruth and Doug Craig -- and had my hand kissed for the first time in, oh, I don’t know… foreverA question:  when and why did men stop kissing womens’ hands?  It’s so bloody civilized, isn’t it?  Not to mention romantic and a whack of innocent flirtatious fun, to boot.   Personally, I blame that loss on feminists, who insisted on tossing all the babies out with the bath water.  Cutting off noses to spite faces- sound familiar?  Of course women deserve to be treated as equals, but frankly I don’t mind being placed on a pedestal and totally idolized now and then.  If women were honest, you wouldn’t find one in her right mind who doesn’t find that deliciously pleasant.  Am I right, ladies?  Of course I am… Later, I asked Doug what he knew about Ruth’s son, J.R., who he’d hired for a summer job at his law firm one year.  His comments were more than a little unsettling:  it seems J.R. had been in some ‘hot water’, as Doug delicately put it.   When I asked him how hot that water had been, he said, ‘very’.  That’s not what I wanted to hear.  Not at all.  Not after what I’d discovered at J.R.’s cabin. 

I decided I needed to talk to the police, a professional law enforcement person.  Ten minutes later, I was walking in the front door of the local police station, which looked far too quaint to be a police station.  In New York City, the stations look like bomb shelters . Unfortunately, other than the completely humorous man at the front desk – do they call these people receptionists? – the closest thing to a law enforcement person on duty was the razor burned Red Sox fan, Eddie Duncan.  And he was in a hurry to go home.  Home?  It was only one a.m.  In New York, that’s when we go out, for God’s sake!.  He probably wanted to put more oatmeal on his face which, by the way, looked marvelous.  I knew it would.  At any rate, I wouldn’t let him go.  He was half way out the door when I told him I thought someone had been murdered.  That got his attention – what there was of it.  He decided to put in some overtime. To be fair, I’m sure Detective Duncan’s poor mother thinks he’s absolutely top drawer, but it was clear to me in a second that this bloke doesn’t have much of an edge on his mental sword.  I mean, I had to spell it out, word by word, as I explained what I’d found:  a murder weapon (the candlestick), J.R.’s blood (the ‘alleged’ blood he kept calling it), and on and on.   Hello?  Can you say, murder? He couldn’t.  It’s so bloody obvious what happened, but the twit obviously didn’t believe a word I was saying. He had a daft look on his face that reminded me of the Mad Hatter in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and basically told me to bugger off.   You’re on vacation, he said.  Get your nails done.  Just don’t try to be a cop.

I assured him that was the very last thing I could imagine ever being.  But, I wasn’t about to let this go.  I knew something very wrong had happened to Ruth’s son and I was going to find out what.  But, I can’t do this alone and clearly the local police aren’t going to be any help.  So, I’m calling in reinforcements from New York City – Nigel Forsythe III.   Not without some trepidation, naturally, remembering the altercation with the Hari Krishna people, but I figure as long as I can keep Nigel from having any sustained, direct interaction with human beings, he can’t do too much damage.   I hope.   He’s brilliant and sweet and fun, in a strange sort of way, but I just hope he doesn’t go walkabout on me and muck things up too badly.  We’ll see.   Pray for us.  More from me as things develop.  Prudence.


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