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1 Tatum Este'l % Estel B. Murdock 80 S. 900 E. #35 Provo, Utah 84606 @copyright Sept 1998 VICKIE CHAPTER ONE I'm an ordinary guy with an ordinary job in a no-place town. My name John is ordinary. I have no striking features that would attract women. I'm healthy and keep myself fit. I eat well. I don't have any bad habits. Women wouldn't drool over my body in a bathing suit. I'm of Scotch-Irish descent, six feet tall, brown hair, brown eyes and a red beard when I let it grow. I spent time in the Navy and went to New Mexico State on the G.I. Bill, graduating in electrical engineering. After working in an electric motor plant (I mean gigantic electric motors and generators) for four years, I wound up as maintenance man at the King's Hotel in smalltown Arizona, waiting for the plant to drum up more business. 2 I thought my life was slanted down hill a little, nothing I couldn't fix with a little effort, but then I was hit with a bombshell. Her name was Vickie. That's all I knew her by. She told me her name the same day I saw her get shot in the back – murdered in cold blood – gunned down in broad daylight. I swam in the hotel's pool in the basement every morning at 5:30 before I'd go to work. That's where I first met her. She was swimming. I was staring at her. She climbed out of the pool and hesitated on the ladder, giving me a peculiar look. Yes, she had a nice figure, short blonde curly hair, and a slight overbite that made her cute, but that look she gave me pulled me in like a magnet – more than animal magnetism … more than an invitation. It was like making a compact with me. I had never married, and I was already thirty-two. I only dated three girls my whole life. It wasn't that I wasn't interested. It was that whenever I asked women out they usually would say "No." They could probably tell I was just ordinary. I didn't ask very often because of that. Vickie had glanced at me just before she dove into the pool again. The water splashed and covered her body, folding over it, caressing it. She slid through the water, climbed out and up the ladder on the women's side and glanced at me again. It was as though she were a little girl who wanted me to play. It only took this small encounter to hook me for life. She was so graceful that I completely forgot I was supposed to be 3 swimming. Perhaps I thought I would be disturbing her or disturbing the picture I saw of her, so when she climbed out to go to the shower, turned, smiled, and went in, I said, "Oh!" and dove into the pool to swim. I only swam one lap because it was time to leave. After my shower, I got dressed and went back to the pool. No one was there. The silence deadened my hopes of ever seeing her again. I headed for the cafeteria feeling very disappointed. Entering the cafeteria, I stood in the buffet line to have my usual whole wheat pancakes with peanut butter and maple syrup. As I picked up my tray I noticed a shapely lady in front of me wearing a red dress with white polka dots. I couldn't look at the polka dots for two seconds before they started vibrating, so I concentrated on her hair. It was short and blonde and curly, a bit damp and had a faint odor of chlorine. I became very timid and anxious. It was the woman from the pool. I guess I was staring too hard, for she turned around to look and said, "Oh, hey." Her crystal blue eyes looked into my soul. Her gaze was sharp as a razor. "Hi," I responded. "Hey, were you the life-guard? No, I guess not." She answered her own question. "You would still be there." She spoke softly as she looked me over in a flick of an eye. People in front of her filed off to find their tables. The line shortened 4 quickly, and we arrived at the buffet table. She helped herself to toast and scrambled eggs with bacon bits. She said under her breath, "No grits!" She picked up a dish of sliced oranges and a glass of orange juice. She turned to me and said matter-of-factly, "You were watching me swim. I thought you were the life-guard." I felt my face go red like a little boy who gets caught by his mother with a girly magazine. "You were swimming so gracefully," I volunteered. "Thank you," she responded. I poured too much syrup on my pancakes and she chuckled, seeing that I was paying attention to her instead of my pancakes, the syrup running over the edge of my plate. "I go swimming every morning before I go to work," I said, explaining why I wasn't the life-guard. "I don't know why," I said, picking up a glass of milk, "but the life-guard isn't there that early in the morning." "I guess it will be you and me then. I plan to be there every morning, too." She picked up her tray off the rail and looked around for a table. There were quite a few to choose from. "If there's no life-guard, who turns on the lights?" "I do. Did you just check into the King's?" "Yes. Yesterday." We both hesitated, looking around. "Can I sit with you?" she asked. 5 "Sure," and I led her to the table I usually sat at. When we got there, she said, "There's a jar of peanut butter!" "Yeah," I responded. "It's mine. The cook sets it out for me every morning." "You work here!" she said, taking the dishes off her tray and placing it on the adjoining table. I left my dishes on my tray and sat down when she did. "You're also from the South," she said. "I can tell." She sipped her orange juice. "Is it my accent?" I asked perplexed, because I know I didn't have much of one. My mother grew up in California, even though her folks and my father's were Texans, so I didn't pick up a southern accent. "No," she giggled, trying to muffle it with a piece of toast. "It's the peanut butter." "Oh, you don't like peanut butter?" I asked, spreading it on my pancakes. "Not on pancakes!" she exclaimed. She almost laughed but tried very hard not too. "I like peanut butter cookies, I think – no, not even that. I did like to put peanuts in my RC Cola when I was growing up, you know, so the peanuts would come out when you took a drink." "I've only seen Royal Crown Cola in the South. I had a cousin out in South Carolina that drank that all the time." 6 I tried concentrating on my breakfast, but it was hard to do with such a beautiful girl sitting in front of me, nibbling her eggs, staring at me. "Yes?" she said taking a small bite of toast. "I was born in South Carolina, but we moved a lot. My daddy is a Naval officer, retired now – became a Commander." "I was in the Navy for four years. Took a tour of Vietnam – Tonkin Gulf on an aircraft carrier." I gulped my milk to wash down the pancakes and asked, "Where was your father stationed?" "Italy, Greece, Turkey – all over the Mediterranean. Retired now and teaches at Annapolis." "At the Academy?" "Yes." "My dad never left the states during the war. He stayed in Roswell working on airplanes. He worked on the Enola Gay. But my Grandaddy made it to North Africa during World War One. I know a handful of folks that went to the Mediterranean. So. Your folks live in Annapolis?" "No. My dad just teaches there half the week. The other half, he's home with Mom in Richmond." I kept staring at this radiantly beautiful girl in front of me, no matter how much it hurt my sensibilities. It was like staring into the sun. I hoped she didn't think me rude. Was she an angel or from some other world? I found my heart 7 racing and had to do some deep breathing to calm down. Why was she paying attention to ordinary me? “Are you okay?” she asked, looking very concerned. “Huh? Oh. I'm sorry. I have this heart condition.” I lied. I took another deep breath and asked. "May I ask why you came to Arizona?" "My parents think me dead. Let me explain." I raised my eyebrows, and she took a deep breath and let it out. "I was in an auto accident," she said. "They left me at the hospital thinking I was dead. I had been unconscious, but I remember having to sneak out of the morgue.” This intrigued me. Here was this goddess unfolding a mystery. "Let me back up a bit. I bought this white alabaster box in Cairo." She took a small box out of her purse. It was about three by three by six inches. "I love to carry it around with me and open it and smell it.

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