The Finder of Lost Things

By Frank Hibbs

A man with an unusual talent for finding lost objects searches for the man that kidnapped and assaulted his young niece. The search and chase leads him across half the nation to a large metropolitan area where his senses tell him the culprit is hiding. During his search, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful widow. The culprit is a sly and cunning adversary and leads the hunter on a long and arduous chase.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 13, 2007
• ISBN: 9781462830251

Frank Hibbs

Frank Hibbs was born and raised in Sevier County in southwestern Arkansas, the son of a lumberjack. Drafted in 1944 he served with the Army in WWII as an infantryman with 3rd Army in the ETO. Reenlisting he became a B-29 Flight Engineer in the Air Force and few 21 combat missions in the Korean War. He ended his 21-year service in the military with the Strategic Air Command flying b-36's and C-124's. Married with two children he worked thirty years as an electronic technician in industry and retired in 1992. After retirement he began painting and writing all types of fiction.

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Copyright © 2007 by Frank Hibbs.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4257-8389-1

         eBook                                 9781462830251

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:Xlibris [e-mail]

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CHAPTER ONE

Walter Graham impatiently pressed his foot harder on the accelerator and watched the speedometer needle of his pickup truck climb to eighty-five MPH. Somewhere in the back of his mind some part screamed at him to hurry and find his niece, Adele, before the SOB’s that adducted her did something awful to her. A vision of Adele forced to submit to a brutal stranger increased his emotional anxiety and the accelerator went down even further. The concrete surface of the four-lane highway began to pass beneath the pickup truck’s tires at a faster pace but he cautioned himself to not get too fast and miss something along the roadway.

His eyes evaluated each vehicle he approached, passed, or saw parked on the side of the four-lane highway, for any sign of his niece. He was looking for a foreign car, a blue two door Toyota with two bearded men in it plus Adele. He had reasoned that the men he was seeking would head north because in that direction the region was the most thinly populated.

His strange ability to generate accurate hunches when he was puzzled about some problem told him he should be searching in this direction. Was there some reason I saw that bridge in my mind or was it that I have fished near there and knew where it was? He asked himself over and over. Could it be just desperation causing these ideas to pop into my hard head, he worried. Am I wasting my time on this mad drive north on this highway was the second dominant worry on his mind.

Traffic became almost nonexistent along the highway allowing his mind to dwell on what had happened almost three hours ago near his younger brother Clyde’s family home. The highway ahead was clear of cars allowing Walter to drive without having to concentrate on traffic while his mind went over the recent events that motivated his desperate drive up this highway.

Walter’s memory told him that, according to Adele’s younger brother and sister, two bearded men had forced Adele into the blue car the boy identified as a Toyota. The two younger children were seven and nine years old, Adele was thirteen. Walter recalled that his niece was just blooming into a beautiful blond headed teen girl but had not started dating yet.

Incredible, Walter reasoned, that Adele was kidnapped in broad daylight in front of her home in an upscale residential district. Lord god, he marveled, the evil idiots are getting bolder and bolder these days. Growing fear for the abducted child’s safety prodded him into something near panicky, reckless behavior and caused his foot to press harder on the accelerator again.

Divorced and childless, Walter doted on his brother’s three children and spoiled them rotten. He spent as much time as he could with his brothers family and even more so since his messy divorce from his wife Joyce. Joyce never wanted children; he mused, but never had the guts to admit it to me. She only wanted for Joyce and nothing else and children did not fit into her ideal existence.

Walter lived a bachelor’s existence in an apartment complex ten blocks from his brother Clyde’s house. After his traumatic divorce, he had chosen to live in the complex to be near his brother’s family. Walter was an architect and owned his own firm in partnership with another man named Ben Hill. This Saturday afternoon he had been home working on some house plans in his small study when the frantic phone call came from his sister in law. She had almost screamed into the phone that Adele had been kidnapped and she couldn’t reach Clyde.

Cassy have you called the police? Walter asked.

No, it just happned, the neighbors are all crowding into the yard and I can’t reach Clyde, his frantic sister in law answered.

Forget Clyde for now, Cassy and call 911, get the police out there as fast as possible, I am on the way, Walter said, hung up the phone, and rushed out the door.

In the shortest time possible, he had parked his pickup truck in front of Clyde’s house and hit the ground running toward the front door. He heard a police siren very close and guessed it was the police responding to Cassy’s 911 calls. The front door was open and the living room filled with both men and women neighbors, all trying to talk at once.

Cassy sat clutching the two younger children with a wild look on her face that turned to grief when Walter touched her shoulder then hugged her tight. The two kids also slipped into his arms sobbing as he asked Cassy to tell him what happned. Two policemen entered the room and stood behind him as Cassy began to sob out the story.

Adele was skating on her inline skates with Bobby and Mary watching in front of the house. Bobby said a blue Toyota came down the street fast, turned in front of Adele and a man got out, grabbed her and shoved her into the car. The kids came into the house and told me what happened and I tried to call Clyde then you. I did as you said and called 911. Oh Walter, what are we going to do?

Tell these two policemen standing here exactly what happned Cassy, right now.

Are you Bobby? the officer asked the boy and nodded. How many were in the car and were they men or women?

All I saw were two men, Bobby answered.

What did they look like, son, asked the officer.

Both had long whiskers on their face and wore floppy hats and overcoats. Oh yea both those guys wore dark glasses like they do on TV cop shows.

Tell me about the car, how big, color and make of the car.

I know that for sure, a blue Toyota with two doors. They really burned rubber when they took off.

Which direction did they take son?

Down Henderson Street there in front of the house, Mary answered.

A woman with a scared look on her face standing nearby cut in to say she was working in her yard and saw the car turn right two blocks down.

Turned right eh mamm? That would be onto Cain Creek Road toward the highway going north. Did any one else see the car turn?

I did Officer; it definitely turned right on Cain Creek Road, another woman related.

Walters mind snapped back to where he was when he overtook a car on the highway ahead of him. He passed the car and scanned it closely as he sped by. It was a dark colored ford and a woman was driving. The highway ahead was empty of traffic and his mind wandered again to the chaotic scene in his brother’s living room.

He remembered one police officer continued to question Bobby and seven-year-old Mary while his partner used the telephone to report the kidnapping and alert all law enforcement agencies in town. Cassy took the phone and finally located Clyde and tearfully told him what happned. Walter heard his sister in law tell Clyde to hurry and guessed that Clyde was now on the way home. Thirty minutes later Walter began to fidget because it seemed nothing was being done, just people milling around doing nothing. His brother Clyde burst into the living room and for another half hour it seemed as if panic was the only thing happening.

Feeling helpless and clueless himself Walter began to get angry first then a desire to do something came over him, anything rather than the nothing going on in the living room. Then a scene of a highway bridge crossing a river with a house trailer in a clearing in the foreground flashed across his mind. An intense urge come over him to reach that spot that he had recognized as a bridge crossing a river some distance north of the city. He had fished in the river nearby the bridge, the house trailer he could not recall. He also realized that one of his strange hunches had just come over him that usually proved accurate when it appeared in stressful situations.

Walter’s patience boiled over and he made a quick decision. He grabbed Clyde by the arm and began to tell him what he intended to do. His brother’s worried face grew grimmer as Walter began to talk.

Clyde it has been damn near three hours since Adele was taken and damn little is being done. I know they have to get the Amber Alert going but that will take too much time. I have to do something and I believe the kidnappers will head for the boondocks north of here up highway 233. I am going to head north in my truck and see it I can find that blue Toyota. It may be a wild goose chase but I have to do something.

I’ll get my gun and go with you.

No, you have to stay here with Cassy and the two kids and keep the heat on the law. One of us on a wild goose chase is enough.

Clyde agreed after a moments thought, You are right Walt, I can’t leave Cassy and the kids just now. Good luck, be sure to take a gun.

Take a gun he had, Walter reflected as he drove along the almost deserted highway. A quick goodbye to Cassy and the two kids, then a quick stop at his apartment for a heavy leather coat and his 45 automatic pistol. The pistol and its two clips of ammunition lay beside him in the pickup’s front seat in a soft cloth bag.

Walter began to pass points along the highway he remembered were close to the river bridge his flash of insight or whatever had shown him. He slowed the pickup’s speed trying to decide whether to proceed past the bridge or not. About a hundred yards distance before he reached the river bridge he passed a blacktop county crossroad before he crossed the bridge over the river. Walter looked at his watch and became aware it was almost an hour and a half before sundown

Walter slowed the truck to a bare five miles an hour as he slowly crossed the bridge over the river, looking up and down stream as he did so. There was nothing down stream to the south but woods and bare riverbanks. To the north, upstream, the river curved around a bare rocky open area filled with brushy growth that at first seemed deserted but gave him a partial glimpse of a house trailer obscured by a grove of trees. His heart leaped with excitement when he spotted the house trailer and hope of finding Adele bloomed again in his expectations.

Once across the bridge Walter pulled onto the shoulder of the road and stopped to plan his next move. He secured a set of binoculars from the glove compartment and scanned the scene upriver through the trucks right window. At a distance he estimated to be about fifteen hundred yards he could see one end of a house trailer sitting near the riverbank past a grove of trees. His heart began to pound with excitement again when the scan with the glasses revealed the rear end of a blue automobile parked in front of the dwelling. He was certain that the vehicle presented the shape and form of a Toyota automobile.

Nerves tingling with excitement he gunned the truck up the highway until he found a place he could safely drive across the median onto the other two lanes of the road. Emotion caused his throat to tighten up as he roared across the grassy median and back onto the road. The driver of a passing automobile stared at him astounded as he pulled back on the road and careened back across the bridge.

Walter reached the macadam surfaced county road crossing the main highway and turned north on the smaller road. He sped up a small wooded hill toward where he thought the house trailer he saw in the binoculars on the riverbank was located. Just as the blacktop road began to curve around the other side of the hill he saw a turn off down a graveled approach road toward the site of the house trailer residence on the riverbank. Slowing to a low speed he turned into the lane and slowly began an approach on the house trailer that was still partially obscured by the grove of trees. When he eased out of the grove and could see the dwelling some two hundred yards ahead he stopped the pick up truck and scanned the dwelling and the blue vehicle parked in front again. It was for sure a blue Toyota.

Heart hammering with excitement he exclaimed exultantly, Well I’ll be dammed; I believe I have lucked out and found the sons of bitches. His next words were grim as he reached for the bag containing the 45, Now to see if they still have Adele.

Excitement coursing along his nerves like lightning bolts Walter took the pistol and two clips from the bag and placed one clip in the gun then placed the other clip in his coat pocket. A quick pull on the slide loaded the 45 and made it ready for action. With the safety on he gripped the pistol in his right hand, slid out of the trucks seat, locked the truck and began a stealthy approach to the house trailer. He noticed that the sunlight was slanting into late evening shadows.

Using bushes as cover and keeping some low outlying sheds between him and the dwelling, Walter approached the house trailer along the driveway that ended in front of the house trailer residence. Walter noted the trailer sat on high cinder block piers to keep it above any flooding by the nearby river at flood stage. Upon reaching the trailer, he eased around back of the dwelling and along the high riverbank to find a window to look inside the trailer home.

When he reached the backside of the dwelling, he crept along its side until he was beneath a small window. The window was too high to peek into by a standing man so Walter looked about for something to stand on. A large metal barrel that had once contained some kind of animal feed was lying nearby and he quickly placed it beneath the window and stood on its solid bottom. He cringed as the bottom of the barrel made a popping sound as he stood on it but no alarm ensued. His perch was very unsteady but he managed to balance himself on the metal barrel without falling. He could now see through a slit in the brown curtain that covered the window.

A lighted bedroom met his eyes and he could dimly hear something making a squeaking noise inside the room. After moving his eyes as close as possible to the slit in the curtain, a partial view of a bed came into view to reveal the top half of two people lying on it. Adele lay on the bed apparently nude with her hands tied to the bedstead and eyes closed. A red bearded man crouched above her busily engaged and Walter knew full well what he was engaged in doing. The only thing that Walter remembered clearly after he saw that was Adele’s hands tied to the bedstead and she looked like she was silently crying.

Walter almost yelled for the man to stop but caught himself in time and leaped from his perch to the ground and run around the building to the front entrance. He raced around the end of the dwelling just in time to see a woman about to enter the front door with her arms loaded with two sticks of firewood. She was dressed in a long dress with her head bound up in a scarf in the fashion of a nun or a Moslem woman. She never saw Walter before he jammed the muzzle of the pistol into her side and whispered to her to be quiet or he would shoot her. She gasped then froze motionless still holding the firewood.

Walter reached around the woman that smelled like body odor and dish soap, opened the door and pushed her inside. He quickly located two longhaired and bushy bearded men and a woman sitting before a fireplace in a larger room built into the back of the trailer house. Both men looked around with startled looks but sat still when Walter pointed the pistol at them and told them not to move.

Walter pushed the woman ahead of him and moved further into the room while again cautioning the two men and other woman not to move. He was very anxious to reach the back bedroom but realized he had to secure this room first. To keep control of the situation he decided he had to force the entire group into the bedroom where he had seen Adele. His apparent confusion must have seemed like an opportunity to one of the bearded men who made a dive toward a shotgun racked on a wall near him.

Walter shot the man twice in the chest just as he was bringing the gun to bear on him and the man collapsed. The other man that was now running toward him yelling with a straight chair held ready to swing at him. The 45 bucked twice as Walter missed with his next shot then hit the man with the next try in his forehead just above the eyebrows. The running man fell in a crumpled heap with his legs still making running motions, tangled in the chair legs. The other woman was now also running toward him screaming and Walter reacted by putting two bullets in her chest. She crumpled to the floor in a heap like a rag doll, kicked once then remained still. He heard a clatter from a nearby kitchen sink filled with dirty dishes and turned in time to see the woman he had forced through the door charging him with a large kitchen knife. Walter coldly shot her two times in the chest before she reached him with the knife. The room now looked like a charnel house was supposed to look when filled with four dead people.

The bedroom!! The bedroom!! Walters mind screamed at him and he started looking for the hallway that must lead to the room where he had seen Adele. Before he could find the passageway, a back door slammed then bounced back open and he glimpsed a nude, red bearded man fleeing the trailer. Walter reached the gaping back door and looked out in time to see the shadowy blur of a nude male figure run around the trailer house toward the front carrying a bundle of clothing.

Trying to head the running man off, Walter turned, ran back through the house but stumbled over a body and fell headlong before he reached the front door. When he finally got back on his feet and out the front door he was just in time to see the man drive the blue Toyota down the lane at top speed. Walter fired two shots at the speeding vehicle with no effect as the fleeing man sped down the lane toward the county road. Walter watched and after few moments saw the blue car race across the river bridge half a mile away, headed west. Anxiety and dread driving him with nervous speed Walter turned back into the house and headed for the back room where he had seen Adele.

Dreading what he might find he raced down a short hallway past the gaping back door and burst into the bedroom. Adele lay whimpered on the bed, struggling with her bound hands. She was nude and blood streaked her upper legs and groin. Walter quickly untied her hands then threw a rumpled bed blanket over her body. He hugged her shivering body close and urged her to calm down, it was all over, and she was safe.

It took several minutes for Adele to stop shivering and crying in Walter’s arms. When she calmed somewhat he looked around and spotted her blue jeans, blouse and light coat on a nearby stool before a dresser. Her white socks lay on the floor beside the bed but the skates she wore when she was forced into the car were missing. He gathered her clothes and handed them to her and urged her to dress.

Adele with a scared look said she was all bloody and still bleeding. Walter went to a bathroom, found some terrycloth hand towels and handed three of them to his niece. She wiped her bloody legs and groin area then began to dress. While she pulled on her blue jeans she complained that she hurt and was still bleeding. Walter urged her to stuff a hand towel in her pants until they could reach a doctor.

Adele had trouble walking so Walter scooped her up and carried her into the front room. Adele gasped in awe at the four sprawled dead people in the room as he carried her through it and on outside through the front door. Moving at a trot it took him less than three minutes to reach his pick up, start the engine and turn the heater to full blast.

He was tempted to leave at once and seek medical help for Adele but she said she thought she had stopped bleeding. Walter asked her to hang on and drove the pickup to the front of the house. His mind boiling with what he faced, the death of four people sprawled in the living room, he reentered the dwelling. Walter’s reasoning told him the law would conclude from the evidence that he had murdered the four in revenge for what happned to Adele. Walter, his emotions in a near panic, concluded that he had to hide his part in the death of the four people, for without witnesses, it would be hard to prove he had not coldly murdered the four.

Leaving Adele huddled in the idling truck with the heater going; Walter stood in the living room and desperately tried to decide what to do. He surveyed the scene for any evidence that he had ever been there then reasoned that if he set fire to the trailer it would destroy any or all of his fingerprints and other evidence. He quickly located and turned off the propane central heater in the middle of the house trailer dwelling, smothered the pilot light then turned the heater on full. Gas hissed from the burner and he beat a hasty retreat back to the front room.

He made sure the fireplace was burning, closed the back door and locked the front as he left the building and headed back to the pickup. Telling Adele to hang on he gunned the truck, spun it around and raced back down the lane. He drove to the county road and waited until he heard a dull explosion and could see the trailer was engulfed in flames. Walter finally noticed it was after sundown when the glow from the fire lit up the grove of trees between the fire and his position on the county road. He quickly drove the truck to the main highway and headed for the city and an emergency room for Adele. He began to instruct the still scared girl sitting huddled under a blanket close beside him.

"Kiddo I have to ask you to tell a lie to keep the law from prosecuting me for blowing those four rats away back at the trailer. I killed them in self-defense while trying to rescue you but the law will say I took the law into my own hands and murdered them in an act of revenge. The fire I started should destroy all evidence of either of us ever being inside that place but we must make up a simple