Jack’s eyebrows rose. “And if he’s not inclined to talk?”
She put a big forkful of velvety, rich chocolate cake into her mouth, scraping the icing off the fork with her teeth and lips. She let her eyes drop closed for a brief luxurious moment. Then she smiled at Jack Sheridan and said, “Then I’ll be his worst nightmare until he comes around. I’m not giving up.”
Before Marcie had finished her coffee, a good-looking Hispanic man came into the bar by way of the side door. He had a disgruntled look on his face and was carrying a catalog. “Your wife has me in search of the perfect tree topper,” he said to Jack. “Whose idea was this again?” “I think it was yours,” Jack said. “And don’t complain to me—there’s no way to decorate that tree without a cherry picker. I’m going to have to rent one before I see Mel using ropes and pulleys to get to the top. Mike, meet Marcie—Marcie, say hello to Mike Valenzuela.”
“How do you do,” she said, sticking out a hand.
He took it, smiled and said, “Pleasure. This was his idea—the big tree. Trying to impress his wife. She requested a large tree—he had us out in the hills a full day till he found the biggest tree we could take down in one piece.”
Just a little embarrassed, Jack interrupted Mike, “Marcie here is looking for a marine who dropped out after Iraq. Show him the picture, Marcie.”
She pulled it out again and once again explained the possible changes in his appearance since the photo was taken.
“Don’t know him,” Mike said.
“But he might be so different…”
“Don’t know the eyes,” Mike said.
She let out a heavy sigh. “Any ideas where I might look?”
“Well,” Mike began, scratching his chin. “I haven’t seen him, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been seen. There are a lot of people out in the mountains who have been there for years and they aren’t real sociable—maybe one of them has seen him.”
“Can you tell me where to go?” she asked.
“I can give you a couple of markers,” he said. “More important, I’d like to tell you a few places to steer clear of—there are some illegal growers out there who get real territorial. Real unfriendly. Sometimes their property is booby-trapped.” He pulled a large napkin out from under the bar, brought his pen out of his shirt pocket and drew a line on the napkin. “Here’s highway 36…” In ten minutes, he had drawn a rough map of a half-dozen cabins in the mountains where people lived—people who just might have seen Ian Buchanan. As well, he listed three locations she should avoid.
The cabins Mike X’d on the map were located down abandoned logging roads, sometimes gated, snuggled behind trees and shrubs, impossible to see from the highway. A lot of that mountain property had been homesteaded and logged. Once a property was logged, the owner had to wait another thirty to fifty years to log it again. It became an acreage full of oak, madrone, young fir and pine fifty to sixty feet tall—real pretty, but not mature enough for logging.
“I’ve been roaming around back in there, just checking it out, just to know who’s out there. There are a couple of old men living alone out in the sticks and a couple of old widows. There’s a man and woman combo or two, even a family of five. But so far, no single thirty-five-year-old male.”
“Maybe he’s not single anymore.”
Mike shook his head. “Pretty sure there’s no one in that age group; not with those eyes. Even with a beard.”
“Believe him,” Jack said. “He used to be a real cop, LAPD, before he was Andy of Mayberry where we have almost no crime.”
“Nice,” Marcie said. “No crime and a big tree. I take it you’ve never done a big tree like that before?”
They both laughed. “Twenty-seven feet,” Jack said. “We thought we were so manly, finding us a big one like that, till we had it down and almost had to rent a flatbed truck to bring it back to town. We tied the limbs tight and dragged it behind a truck. And that wasn’t the hard part. Standing it up took a day.”
“Two days,” Mike corrected. “We got up the next morning and it was lying in the street. Frickin’ miracle it didn’t fall on the bar and crush the roof.”
She laughed at them. “Why now? You’re trying to show off for your wife?”
“Nah. Now was the time. We just lost a comrade in Iraq and one of the local boys—a real special one—went into the Corps. We thought it would be good to erect a symbol, a monument to the men and women who serve. Next year, I think we look for a slightly smaller symbol. Cheaper and easier on the nerves. But I’ll go over to Eureka and find a cherry picker for rent and get it done. Melinda and the other women have put a lot into making it a perfect tree.”