Complicated Shadows

by James D F Hannah

  Complicated Shadows

  A Henry Malone Novel

  James D.F. Hannah

  Copyright © 2016 by James D.F. Hannah

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Photography from Samuel Zeller (https://unsplash.com/search/crow?photo=mqc_ocLIUYw).

  Also by James D.F. Hannah

  MIDNIGHT LULLABY

  For John B.

  He never would have have read the damn thing, but he would have been amused by it anyway.

  “There’s no such thing as an original sin.”

  ― Elvis Costello

  Perry: Do not play detective. This is not a book. This is not a movie.

  — Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, written by Shane Black

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  A Note from the Author

  1

  Billy helped get me the job, a fact I wasn't ready to forgive him for.

  See, after things had settled following everything with the National Brotherhood, what with this band of white supremacists falling apart, some folks getting arrested, other folks getting killed, and the Feds bulldozing the compound into a blank space in the middle of nowhere, I found myself with too much time on my hands.

  Beforehand, I'd have been okay with it, since I had a disability retirement from the state police thanks to the shotgun blast that had left me with a gimpy knee. The thing was, I'd rediscovered the joy of getting off of my ass and doing things again, even if some of those things had almost gotten me killed. Still, the whole clusterfuck had opened up a desire to be a productive member of society again. I gave it a little while to see if any of it passed, like a cold or a case of the shits. When it didn't, I decided I’d better find a job.

  Billy Malone — who’s had the misfortune of being my father for 42 years — had retired from the coal mines years ago, but he still knew people, and among those people was a guy who needed someone to work security at a strip mine. It might have sounded fun, but it shouldn't have, because it wasn't.

  The job put me at the front gate of Witcher Shoals Mine #4, where my main priority was to sure the gate rose and dropped when folks swiped their electronic pass across the scanner, and to shoo away protesters if they violated the hundred-yard limit. There'd been folks with their panties in a bunch over strip mining operations, based off the idea they didn't think blowing up the tops of mountains and turning it into flat land was a good thing.

  I should have an opinion on the whole thing; I had watched my coffee cup dance across the tabletop following some of the earth-shattering kabooms – explosions that sheared more rock from a mountaintop in the search for coal. Sometimes an explosion let loose a chunk of mountain that took out a house or some cars. No one had been hurt yet, but you had to wonder how long luck like that could last.

  I can’t say I was a big fan of the landscape left behind. All of this work knocked the mountains into barren nubs, shorn of century-old growth, empty for years until reclamation work came around and rolled out grass deer ate within weeks, and planted trees that would take decades to grow.

  Losing the mountains also gave way to views of the horizon none of us knew what to do with. We'd grown up with mountains surrounding us, enclosing and encasing us, keeping us safe from the outside world and the 21st century. Before you knew it, we'd have a clear view of Ohio, and no one wanted that shit.

  But I wasn't smart enough to figure out a better option, either. The world wanted coal — if less of it than in years prior — and the universe had seen fit to shove it into seams that weren’t reached easily through conventional means. Plus, Parker County needed the jobs; nobody else was asking us to dance, and you couldn't expect anyone to keep their family fed wearing a blue vest and stocking shelves.

  Long story short, I suppose, was I had a job. It was early May, but the weather was already hot as the crotch of flannel boxers at the equator, and the little box they put me in didn't have air conditioning. I did have a fan which pushed warm, thick air around, and the ultimate effect was like getting smacked in the face with a wet towel.

  The company gave me a pale blue polo shirt with a badge stitched on where a pocket should have been, a nightstick, and a can of pepper spray. I spent the days sitting in the little box, waving through miners who drove in and out for their shifts, and reading. Woody, my AA sponsor, had given me a copy of The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler. I'd heard of the movie, had never seen it, and didn't realize there was a book. Woody said I should read up on the basics and aim to become a shamus. I'd laughed, then went home and Googled what "shamus" meant.

  The sun was up, and the early morning rays beat down on us like we owed them money. Mist hung from what remained of the mountaintops, clinging to the trees like cobwebs. You learned to dread humidity like that. It was a sign that the day would get oppressive. I hoped the air conditioner in my shit-hole trailer kept working.

  The plan was to go home and try to sleep, most likely with Izzy next to me. Izzy was the Shetland pony-sized bullmastiff who kept reign over my house. I'd had her since coming back to Parker County, when Woody told me I needed something to care about besides myself. She kept me decent company if you counted snoring as company.

  I worked the job with another guard, and his job was to periodically patrol the grounds on a four-wheeler. Mitchell was an older guy, built like the Southern sheriff from every movie made in the 1970s, all chest and torso and attitude, with gray-white hair growing out in tufts aimed in every direction. He had more gut than shirt, and the bottom of the shirt was always coming out from the waist of his polyester slacks, and he forever had his hand down the front of his pants, tucking the shirt back in. At least, that's all I thought
he was doing. He had his hand down there often enough, he could be checking for lumps. He was in the midst of doing when he walked up to the box as our shifts were about to end.

  Mitchell finished ball-checking like he was Michael Jordan and whipped his cell phone from his back pocket.

  "You see those naked pictures of the chick from that movie?" he said. He smiled and licked his lips, and I felt a bubble of bile reach up through my throat.

  "You're gonna have to narrow it down," I said. "I'm trying to think of actresses who haven't had photos of everything they've got show up."

  He danced his thumb across the screen. "This young one, she's gotta be about my daughter's age. Real hot piece of ass."

  The bile threatened to charge further, and I worked to keep it at bay. "Mitchell, that statement’s fucked up for so many reasons, I'd have to diagram the ways it's wrong," I said. "Thanks for the generous offer, but no, I don't want to see them."

  He furrowed his eyebrows together. They were hairy little fuckers, and knitted together they made him look like a missing evolutionary step.

  "You a fag or something?" he said.

  "No, I'm not, and it'd be none of your goddamn business if I was, anyway," I said. "But I don’t get off on pictures of a naked chick when I’m not the one she’s taking picture for. I would prefer to see a real woman who wants me to see her naked."

  Mitchell laughed. "Goddamn, you are a fag. She's some Hollywood slut, that’s all. They put their shit up there on the screen all the time."

  Coming up from the distance, I saw my shift replacement walking toward the guard station. I checked my watch. Three minutes 'til seven.

  Goddamn close enough for me.

  I said, "I'm out of here. But I hope you enjoy staring at daughter-aged starlet ass."

  I got out of the box and said “hey” to my replacement. He was a young guy named Plants, and our only interaction was uttering that "hey" to one another every morning when he took over the next shift. He nodded in my direction, and we moved on through our lives. It was a good arrangement that worked for us.

  I headed to the main office to clock out and glanced back. Mitchell leaned through the box window, showing Plants his phone, and laughing.

  2

  It was Tuesday, which was my de facto Friday. Even though my job involved doing equal amounts of jack and shit, I needed the next two days off. I didn't feel the greatest, and if I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was coming down with something, but this was one of those rare moments where I knew better.

  Part of the problem was I was still married, at least in the legal sense. Maggie had left Morgantown and taken a job with a newspaper in Philadelphia. It was getting harder to not sign the divorce papers. We hadn't seen one another in more than a year, when I'd gone up to Morgantown one weekend, and she'd made it clear she wasn't interested in trying. We still talked, sometimes not even about divorce, but if you had to narrow down most of our conversations, that would have been the most frequent topic.

  I'd made a go at dating. Her name was Doria, and things didn't work out well after she was kidnapped by white supremacists and got shot in the leg and decided I wasn't worth the effort. I couldn't say I blamed her, but in my defense, I wasn't the one who had shot her, and her getting shot had probably saved her life. There's just no talking to some people, I suppose.

  I sat in my car, tapping my fingers across the steering wheel. It was five after seven.

  I could hear Woody's voice in the back of my head, telling me I should go to a meeting. I'm not sure why I'd want to listen to him, though; he'd been the one who shot Doria. I could have argued he was part of the problem.

  There was the eight o'clock meeting at St. Anthony's. Why not? I thought. I could always use the coffee.

  Folks hung outside the church entrance, smoking and bullshitting, both vital to AA meetings. I pulled my car between faded yellow lines as my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number and let it go to voicemail. Odds were it was a bill collector, and I didn't feel like lying to anyone that early in the day.

  Woody saw me as I walked toward the entrance. He was one of those lean, lanky guys who'd looked 50 since he was 20, but hadn't aged since. He kept his black hair pulled back in a ponytail, and he dressed in black T-shirts and blue jeans, and he looked like he should have been on the poster for the movie Tombstone. He'd been my sponsor since I'd moved home. I didn't know much about him, such as why he kept canister grenades in his truck box. Maybe I didn't need to know anything. Maybe I only needed someone to help keep me sober and alive, and his past didn't matter. That he was a general-issue badass and sniper-grade shot didn't hurt, though, and those seemed as good of reasons as any to keep him around.

  He handed me a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I shook seven minutes of my life free, lit it, and took in a lung-deep drag of carcinogens.

  "You just off work?" Woody said.

  I nodded. "The uniform was a tip off, wasn’t it?”

  “Thought maybe you just wore it on account it gave you a sense of power of authority.”

  “Men tremble at the sight of me, and women crumble to my feet. Truth told, I didn't feel like going home and staring at the TV or the dog."

  "The dog might miss you."

  "The dog is the one creature on this planet who I guarantee misses me."

  "Yet here you are, amid the bungled and the botched."

  "Like you always tell me: a dollar here buys you all the coffee and human misery a man could ever want."

  "Where else you gonna get that value for your money?" He took a last pull of his cigarette and crushed it underneath the scuffed toe of his Doc Martens. "Come on and let's listen to everyone bitch."

  Morning meetings run on the small side, because people have jobs and lives, and they don't want to be up that early if they don't need to be. This meeting had a dozen or so in it, and they were long-timers. You got a lot of shift workers in morning meetings, and I recognized a guy from the mines across the table from me. We gathered in one of the Sunday school rooms. I poured myself a cup of coffee, dumped sugar and powdered creamer in there, and hoped for the best.

  We went around the room, one by one, talking about what we had going on in our lives and what we were doing to not be drinking. When it got to me, I said, "Hi, my name's Henry, and I'm an alcoholic. Today, I'm happy to not be drinking, because it doesn't get me anywhere. It's not solving my problems. It's not fixing anything with me that's broken. I miss it, and I hate people who can do it without their lives turning into disasters, but I can't, so I'm content to be here, to be sober, and taking it a day at a time." I let it move on to the person next to me.

  After the meeting, once we all got started smoking again, and Woody said, "Talk to Maggie?"

  "No."

  "How long you plan on dodging the inevitable?".

  "I figure I might have another 30, 35 years ahead of me. I think I can pull off at least another 10 before she gets too upset."

  Woody inhaled off of his cigarette. He held it between his forefinger and thumb as he drew the smoke in and let it out.

  "You are a fucking asshole," he said.

  "Seems to be the consensus."

  Woody finished his cigarette. "I'm headed over to the Riverside to get breakfast. Want to join?"

  I shook my head. "I've got to let Izzy out. I’d wager she’s bouncing around the inside of the house with her legs crossed, and she's got bladder enough, if she lets loose, it'll flood the place."

  "Call me later, then. Come by and we'll shoot things."

  Woody had built his own range behind his house, and put in regular efforts to make me a better shot. Things were improving, but there'd be seismic shifts and political revolutions happening quicker than me hitting a bull's-eye anytime soon.

  Back in my car, I checked my phone. Whoever had called before the meeting had left a message.

  "Henry, it's Pete Calhoun. I'm in Parker County for a few days and wanted to see if you wanted to grab a bite to eat, have a bee
r. I'm staying at the Days Inn near the One Stop. Gimme a call. It's been a month of Tuesday since I seen ya, since ... well, since what shit happened. I'll even buy the first round. Later, tater."

  There's nothing like a voice from the past to make life drop on you like test results from the doctor.

  3

  Pete Calhoun and I had been stationed at the same state police detachment when we were troopers. He was a bear in people clothes, a giant, lumbering dude who looked like the friendliest guy you'd never want to fight with. He worked a desk most of the time I were stationed together, with him pushing paperwork and making duty rosters and other general issue office bullshit. You were almost court-mandated to like Pete: he knew the dirtiest jokes, gave everyone a decent amount of hell but treated them fair, and he took the job serious, but he never let it drag him down the way some of us did.

  I heard from Pete after I got shot and left the force. The calls and emails dwindled off, though, because we were guys, and "out of sight, out of mind" is one of our primary settings, and I guess I turned into a reminder people didn't want to hear, a warning they didn't want to have to heed.

  I got home and let Izzy out and watched her squat in about a hundred different locations, squeezing out droplets of moisture to make sure every inch of the grass was marked. We went back inside and turned on the AC. It was a wall unit I’d shoved into a bedroom window. It sputtered and coughed and the motor whined like a four-year-old who wasn’t getting candy at the store. I pounded at the top of the unit up and it made one last protest before stirring to life and pushing out cold air.