Karen Harper - Deep Down

Mariah and Cassie had also been close for years. Sometimes, Jessie thought with a pang, it was as if, after Cassie’s mother died and her father left the area, Cassie took Jessie’s place. Besides digging some sang, both Mariah and Cassie made their livings from wildcrafting for seasonal moss, ferns, morel mushrooms and herbs to sell to craft and floral shops, health stores and dyers in Kentucky towns. But Cassie had said, just before they went to bed, that she had not been to most of Mariah’s sang sites with her and she couldn’t find a trace of her in their usual wildcrafting areas. Jessie could only pray she’d find some of her mother’s notes in the house or that she’d recall the sang counting sites once she was out in the woods with Drew.

She snapped open her big suitcase and pulled out two of the silk scarves she’d bought in Hong Kong as gifts for friends and coworkers—and for her mother, as strange as it would be to see her in silk. The jade-hued one she tied around Pearl’s cotton nightgown like a sash while the child was all big eyes, so excited at the gift. The scarlet one she kept out for Cassie, since that was her favorite color.

“Now you just stay snug as a bug in a rug in that bed until I take a bath, and, after I get dressed, you can help me set the table for breakfast,” she told Pearl.

She bent back down to her tightly packed suitcase and dug past her two business suits and the array of blouses she’d taken until she found the single pair of clean jeans and a long-sleeved sweatshirt that, unfortunately, was emblazoned with a Phi Beta Kappa key. Not that most Deep Downers would know or care what that was, but what had seemed so right for the conference was all wrong here. She decided she’d just wear it inside out and find something of her mother’s to wear later—if Drew let her touch anything in her house.

“You from the Highboro Herald or another paper?” Drew asked the blond guy with the expensive camera equipment. The stranger was leaning against Jessie’s car, in front of the police office, to steady himself while he took a picture down the street toward the bridge. He looked almost Nordic—like a Viking—with light blue eyes and white-blond hair.

Drew had been wondering if Mariah’s disappearance would attract any media. Unless he could find out she’d been abducted and taken out of the area, he didn’t want them involved, but it was hard to keep the search low-key with so many people helping.

“Newspaper? Not me,” the man said almost defensively as he lowered the camera and turned to face Drew. “Officer, I plead not guilty to being part or parcel of the American media today.” Unlike most civilians, he did not hesitate to step forward and shake hands. “Tyler Finch,” he said. “I was just in the area, that’s all. I’m doing a photo book on Appalachia.”

“Sheriff Drew Webb. You just drive in this morning?”

“I stayed in Highboro last night at a B and B—my cousin’s place, actually—so I do know the basic area. My bread-and-butter job is as a site analyst for the advertising firm Bailey and Keller, in New York City.”

Drew observed he had a video camera as well, hanging behind his back on a shoulder sling. A notebook and pen stuck out of his denim jacket. Drew didn’t put it past a reporter to try to sneak in around here, but for some reason, he believed this man.

“We’ve got a missing person case ongoing here, Mr. Finch. That’s why I thought you might be media.”

“Sure, no problem. Besides my own stuff, my paying assignment is to shoot some possible scenes for future magazine and TV ads, but I’ll be sure to stay out of your way. Actually, I’m going to photograph what my boss calls the mecca of ginseng. Bailey and Keller’s going to do some ads for G-Men and G-Women new caffeine and ginseng drinks. Their company rep, Beth Brazzo, has already scouted some places, but I’m not very good at directions, even with notes.”

Drew thought of Mariah’s notes on her sang sites. He hoped they weren’t missing. But he could hardly force this guy to stay out of the woods around here.

“I’ve met Ms. Brazzo,” he told Finch. “Tall, brunette.”

“That’s her. Look, I know you’re busy, but could you suggest someone who’d like to be my assistant—point out spots for shots?—I’d pay them.”

“I do have someone in mind. How about I meet you right here around eight-thirty and bring her along? Cassandra Keenan’s her name, and she’s what they call a wildcrafter, knows the hills well from gathering herbs and such.”

“That would be great. Let me know if I can do anything for you.”

After he drove away, Drew did think of something Tyler Finch might be able to do for him, besides providing Cassie and Pearl with some income to get them through the winter. If Drew and Jess found any evidence of foul play in Mariah’s disappearance, he might need a photographer faster than it would take Sheriff Akers or the highway patrol to get one in here. He had an old camera in the Cherokee, but he was lousy with it.

As he turned down Cassie’s bumpy lane, he shook his head as if to rid himself of the growing fear that something really bad had happened to Mariah. More than once, he’d wanted a case to prove himself around here, but not this one.

Through the front window, Jessie watched Cassie arguing with Drew outside. She wore her new scarf, tied around her like a thin shawl, and it fluttered in the breeze, snapping itself into an S shape.

The scarlet letter, Jessie thought. An edge-of-the-forest unwed mother who wouldn’t identify the father and an elfin child named Pearl, no less. Elinor would surely see some sort of portent or symbol in all that. In Hawthorne’s novel, the heroine was keeping the man who had fathered her child a secret because he was respected in the community. He turned out to be a Puritan minister, who had his reputation at stake.

Jessie studied Drew, then Cassie. Why had Cassie asked him to step outside when he’d told her he’d met a man who would pay her for advice about sites to shoot photos? Drew seemed very protective of Cassie and Pearl, but Jessie admired him for that. Maybe he knew who Pearl’s father was; it could be some friend of his. When, exactly, had his younger brothers left town to join the marines? Surely, Drew himself hadn’t been anywhere around Deep Down when Cassie fell in love with someone who left her pregnant.

She scolded herself silently as she moved away from the window. It was just that she was so on edge that everything looked dark to her, everyone looked guilty.

As Jessie returned to listening to Pearl read aloud from a book of fairy tales—interspersed with her own babblings about buried treasure and magical spells—Cassie stormed in, untying her scarf. “We’re going into town, Pearl, to meet a man about a job.”

“In Drew’s big car?” the child asked.

“No, in the truck. Run and get ready now. Wear your jacket.”

They had all shared a peaceful breakfast until Drew had mentioned that he’d suggested Cassie’s name to Tyler Finch. Cassie had about choked on the next bite of pawpaw pancakes, so rich with huckleberries and walnuts it was almost like eating Christmas fruitcake.

“Not a job you like the sound of?” Jessie asked Cassie now as she grabbed her purse. Drew had already loaded Jessie’s bags back into his Cherokee.

“Grateful for the money, but don’t like Drew fixin’ me up with a stranger.”

“Oh. But it’s only a business deal.”

“Never you mind. We got to get going so you can go through Mariah’s house. Thought maybe I could help today if you’re not sure ‘bout something there, but now I’ll be busy. I been in there more than you have since January. Pearl, shake a leg now!”