Echoes of the Fall

by Hank Early

  The bell in the front room rang as she spoke, and she shook her head as if to tell me not to worry, she wouldn’t let a customer interrupt what I had to say.

  “Well,” I said, “I did want to check in with you about something I found recently.”

  “Oh, goody,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to help solve a mystery.”

  “Well, it’s not too exciting.” I held out the bookmark. “I assume you give these out to customers?” As soon as I asked the question, I realized she hadn’t given me a bookmark.

  “No. Well, I did at one point, but I ran out.”

  “When did you run out?”

  “A couple of days ago. The owners are supposed to print some more soon, but with a different design.” She made a face. “This one makes me want to vomit. Where’d you find it? Was there a criminal in the bookstore?”

  “I’m not sure about that, but I am looking for the man it belonged to.”

  She moved a strand of blonde-gray hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “I can look at the credit card receipts and give you a list of names.”

  “That would be amazing. Would you mind?”

  “Not at all. I’ll have to figure out how to do it, of course. And it’s not going to work if he paid cash.”

  “Sure. I don’t mind waiting.”

  “Oh, I can’t do it now. I’ll have to talk to the Robinsons. They’re the owners. They handle the technical stuff. I’m just a glorified clerk.” She laughed.

  “Can you run checks too?” I asked.

  “We don’t take personal checks.”

  “Not a bad policy around these parts.”

  “Hey,” she said. “I have an idea. Why don’t we make a dinner date to discuss it further?”

  She fixed me with a penetrating gaze that made me look away. I realized suddenly that I found her attractive.

  “I’m actually, uh, spoken for,” I said.

  “Ugh, please forgive me,” she said. “I’m not usually like this. I feel like a jerk.”

  “No problem. You had no way of knowing …” I felt myself blushing a little and wasn’t sure why.

  “Well,” she said. “This is awkward.” A floorboard creaked out in the front of the store, and I remembered we weren’t alone. “I’ll get that information to you soon, Mr. Marcus. Can you just leave me your number?”

  I lowered my voice a little, keenly aware someone else was in the store. “Call me Earl. And sure, you got a pen?”

  She reached for a pen, and I scribbled my name and number down on a yellow legal pad.

  “Would you mind telling me a little bit about the case you’re working on? I’d love to help.”

  A floorboard creaked again out front, and I smiled at her. “Do you need to check on that customer?”

  She cupped her hands to her mouth and hollered hoarsely. “You need any help?”

  No one answered.

  “Gone,” she said.

  “But …”

  She waved her hand, dismissing my concern. I wasn’t ready to let it drop. “How many ways out are there?”

  “Just one, but you never answered my question.”

  I had to admire her persistence.

  “You mean about the case?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, let’s just say it’s a case of secret identity. I’m trying to find out who a man is.”

  “The man with my bookmark?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is he dangerous?” I swear I thought I saw excitement in her eyes.

  “No,” I said. “Hate to disappoint.”

  She frowned. “I suppose that’s good.”

  “Yeah. It’s good. I do have one more question for you, if you don’t mind?”

  “Please.”

  “Do you know much about the Harden School?”

  “I’ve heard of it. Reform school, right? On the eastern edge of the county. It seems like there was a tragedy there in the eighties, or maybe it was the early nineties.”

  “Tragedy?”

  She smiled. “I remember bits and pieces of things. I’ll have to look it up.”

  “If you find anything, can you please let me know?”

  “Of course. I’ll be in touch.”

  I stood up and reached across the table to shake her hand. She smiled at me as we shook, and I felt a little better, the awkwardness gone.

  “I hope you succeed,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said, and headed out of the kitchen, down the hallway. I glanced in the rooms off the hallway as I passed each but didn’t see anyone there. Once I reached the front room, I looked around but didn’t see anyone there either. Perhaps the customer I’d heard come in had left. But I had a way to test that theory easily enough. I walked to the exit and pushed the door open. The bell rang loudly.

  10

  I tried three of the rooms before I understood what had happened. Or at least before I felt comfortable considering my theory of what had happened.

  In the fourth room, which consisted of local history, true crime, and westerns, I found a window partially ajar. I raised it and leaned out, noting that the shrubs just below the windowsill had been mangled. I squinted past the shrubs, looking for a footprint in the small patch of soil, but didn’t see anything. Probably because whoever had climbed out had made the short leap to the concrete after getting tangled briefly in the shrubs.

  Closing the window, I rushed to the front of the store and peered out one of the windows. My truck was the only vehicle in the lot. Shit.

  So, what did it mean? I wasn’t sure, but my best guess was I’d been followed here. Whoever it was had decided to also follow me inside the bookstore. While eavesdropping on our conversation, he or she had hidden out in the true crime/western room before escaping out the window in time to avoid being seen.

  All of that seemed reasonable enough. The problem I couldn’t get my head around was why. Why would someone would be following me? I’d told no one about the body I’d found. Unless, of course, the killer himself was following me, trying to make sure I didn’t trace things to him.

  I felt a chill. What exactly was going on here? It was like being on the outside of a large house filled with secret doors and rooms. Until I could get inside, I was essentially in the dark, missing too much information. That was what was happening, I realized. Somebody wanted to make sure I didn’t find a key to get inside the house.

  There were a lot of questions, and I didn’t have any suitable answers. I headed for the western/true crime room to look around again.

  “I’m still here,” I called out to Claire.

  “Oh, that’s fine. Take your time.”

  The room consisted of two tables, where books lay faceup, and three bookshelves. I glanced at the bookshelves first to see if there were any gaps and didn’t find any. The tables likewise appeared undisturbed. Something caught my eye on the floor beneath the table. I knelt for a closer look and saw a small black piece of plastic. I picked it up and turned it over. On the other side, I saw a tiny flexible aberration on one end of the plastic. It looked like the battery door for a small electronic device.

  Could someone have been taping my conversation with Claire? It seemed highly unlikely, but the piece of plastic seemed almost certainly to have come off the back of a mini recorder. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the intruder deciding to split quickly and knocking the device against the window frame as he or she climbed out.

  “See anything good?” Claire said.

  I jumped, shocked by her voice, the nearly soundless way she’d approached.

  I turned and smiled, trying to play it off. “You lose this?” I held up the plastic.

  She eyed it suspiciously. “No. Where’d you find it?”

  “Underneath this open window.”

  “Open?” She stepped closer for a better look. “Why, I didn’t leave it open.”

  “I think we had an eavesdropper on our conversation.” I nodded at the plastic battery door. “And
maybe whoever was here wasn’t just listening. Maybe they were taping us too.”

  She scratched the side of her face, perplexed. Her eyes did something curious then. They seemed to go nearly blank, or at least clouded over, losing their focus. I felt as if she were riffling through all the knowledge she’d tucked away over the years in order to fit these possible events into some kind of decipherable framework. “Weird,” she said at last, as her eyes came back into focus. “Just very, very weird.”

  * * *

  I thought it was weird too. More than weird. I couldn’t help but go back to my brief conversation with Blevins. Had he taken it upon himself to investigate me? How could he, since I’d blocked my number? But maybe there was something I’d missed? He clearly had some connection with Joe’s murder. Maybe he’d sent someone to follow me to make sure I didn’t connect the dots.

  On the way up the mountain to my house, I watched the rearview mirror nearly as much as I watched the road in front of me. Sure enough, I saw a pair of headlights once or twice when the long, winding mountain road straightened out behind me like a bullwhip before curling back into its sinister coil.

  When I reached my house near the top of the mountain, I saw Goose trotting over to the truck, beating the wind with his big, bushy tail. I’d saved him from a rattlesnake not too far from the spot where he stood now. That had been over three years ago, and he’d already managed to return the favor, not just by saving me, but also through his boundless enthusiasm for my presence. I parked under one of the large oaks that stood like sentries on one side of the small house and got out, immediately kneeling to let Goose lick my face. I patted his head and neck and rubbed his belly until he flopped onto the ground with a contented sigh. Then I rubbed him some more, just the way he liked, until his back leg twitched uncontrollably and this upper lip stretched out, revealing his dark gums.

  “Keep an eye out,” I said. “Something ain’t right in the world.” I patted his belly once more for good measure and headed into the kitchen to open a new bottle of whiskey.

  11

  Rufus came by that evening, wanting to hang out again. He seemed a little out of sorts and tired. His usual gaunt face was positively hollowed out. Once again, he wouldn’t say what was bothering him, and when I pressed him on it, he changed the subject to his favorite whipping boy, Ronnie Thrash.

  “He’s back,” Rufus said.

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. Asshole showed up today. That piece of shit he calls a truck nearly blew out the doors of my place, and I knew he was back.”

  “Well, shit. He didn’t even call me.”

  “He’s probably still mad at you,” Rufus said.

  “Nah, I visited him a few times and we worked it out. Ronnie can’t stay mad at me.”

  “Eight months?” he said, shaking his head. “For running a man down in that truck? A man lost his life because of that asshole. Don’t seem much like justice to me.”

  We were sitting in the two wooden chairs near the ridge. From here, I could see nearly the whole southern valley—the lights of Riley, the endless trees on the ridges below, the peaks of the nearby mountains, the way the stars circled them like halos adorned with space dust—and beyond that I could see vast fields fading into a horizon still bleeding purple from the resonance of a recently vanished sun.

  “The man he hit was a violent white supremacist. He was participating in the kidnapping and torture of a police officer. Ronnie was there purely to help put a stop to that. He didn’t intend to kill anyone. If you ask me, the punishment was too harsh.”

  “Nobody asked you,” Rufus scoffed.

  I chuckled. “Jesus, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Just pass that bottle.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “Nope. I’ll be okay. Just pissed off that out of all the places in these mountains, that piece of steaming shit decided to live twenty fucking yards from me.”

  I wasn’t stupid. I understood Rufus didn’t like Ronnie, but I also understood Ronnie was just a punching bag right now. Something else was definitely on his mind.

  “Did you get any sleep last night?” I asked him. Based on the bags under his eyes, I thought the answer was probably no.

  He didn’t bother answering. Instead, he tilted the bottle back and took a large swallow. “I’m going to sleep tonight.”

  * * *

  We both did. Right there in our chairs, overlooking the ridge, we fell asleep. It took me a while because Joe and his connection to Dr. Blevins and the Harden School were weighing heavy on my mind. I’d considered mentioning it to Rufus several times, but then stopped short. Not only did he seem to have enough on his mind at the moment, but I also felt hesitant to bring up the issue with Rufus because he’d proven so unfailingly sharp at seeing through me in the past. Opening that door would almost certainly allow him to figure out the secret I was hiding about Joe. And the last thing I wanted was Rufus knowing what I’d done. Knowledge was implication, and I meant to make sure no one else but me had a chance of being implicated.

  When I did finally fall asleep, rest was short-lived. Something woke me up in the early dark of the morning. Sounds from the ridge below. A car engine, country music floating through the night, the sound of a door creaking open.

  I opened my eyes, found the dark sky, gone cloudy now, the moon in silhouette, its pale fire surreal and dreamlike.

  A voice on the ridge below almost got me out of my chair. It was female, something low and sexy in the tone. She was murmuring, the way Mary murmured sometimes just before sex. God, how long had it been? Weeks, going on a month. Too long even for my old ass.

  But I still didn’t get up. I closed my eyes again, fading into blackness like the moon, like all of those stars that had seemed to vanish from earlier. The woman’s voice from the ridge below walked into my dreams, and now it was Mary’s voice. She’d come to the house like she’d promised. A total surprise. Except she’d only been home a short time before we were thrown into turmoil. The dream didn’t make anything clear except the emotions. A bitter despair settled over me.

  Then I woke, the sun shining in my eyes. I sat up. Rufus was gone. How long gone, I wasn’t sure. Maybe he’d walked home in the darkness the night before, or maybe he’d waited until morning. Either way was the same to him.

  I walked over to the ridge for a piss. I’d already started when I remembered the voice from last night. I looked down and saw that the vacant trailer that had been there since I’d moved in now appeared to be occupied. A Toyota Corolla was parked out in the grass in front of the trailer. Inside, I saw someone move past the open door. I turned around so that I was peeing on the ground in my yard instead of out over the ridge. When I finished, I zipped up quickly and turned back to see if anyone had been watching me.

  As soon as I did, a woman stepped out of the trailer. She walked over and stood beside the driver’s side of the car, pausing to light a cigarette. She smoked it for a moment, just standing there, her hair an electric gold in the morning light. Despite the distance, despite the odd angle from above, I was struck by her. There was an energy about her, a kind of attitude that drew me. I felt a sudden attraction but tried to repress it. It was just going a month without sex that caused it, I told myself.

  Then something happened, something I hadn’t been expecting. She looked up. I felt like I’d been caught and started to back away from the ridge before realizing how foolish that would be. Instead, I stayed put and lifted a hand awkwardly.

  “Hello,” I said.

  She blew out some more smoke, her face upturned, her features nearly invisible, lost to the harsh light of morning.

  “I can barely see you,” she said, squinting up at me.

  “I’m up here. On the ridge. We’re neighbors.”

  “That right?”

  “Yes. My name is Earl. Earl Marcus.”

  “Hey, you were running for sheriff,” she said.

  “That’s right, but I didn’t win.
”

  “Good for me,” she said.

  I waited, expecting more, some explanation of the cryptic comment, but she said nothing else.

  “Well,” I said. “If you need anything …”

  “I’ll holler,” she said, and opened the car door and climbed inside. I watched her pull away from the trailer and onto the rutted dirt road. It wasn’t until her taillights had disappeared that I realized she’d never told me her name.

  12

  The next morning, before heading over to my appointment at the Harden School, I decided to give Ronnie a call to see if he wanted to join me. At least that was my plan. I didn’t actually get to ask him the question. Ronnie was—to put it mildly—excited about hearing from me. And he couldn’t wait to fill me in on how prison had changed him.

  “Got a vision inside the joint, Earl. Well, I got lots of visions, actually, but they all told me the same thing. You know what they told me?”

  “What?”

  “You gotta guess.”

  “Okay, let me see. Maybe they told you it was time to get your life together?”

  “Close, so fucking close, Earl. No, they all told—well, actually they all showed—me the same thing. They showed me it was time to get the band back together.”

  “The band?”

  “Yeah, you know I play guitar.”

  “Actually …”

  “Sure, you knew that. Anyway, I’m building a fucking studio, and I’ve already gotten in touch with my old drummer and bass man. We’re going to cut an album. DIY, baby. Fuck the labels. Hell, you want to get the production credit, Earl? I’ll give it to you. Imagine that, ‘produced by Earl Marcus.’ I like it. We got three songs I wrote in jail, and Hunter’s got two of his own, and—”

  “Ronnie?”

  “Yeah, Earl?”

  “I’m on my way over, okay?”

  “Sweet. I’ll throw on some steaks for you and the boys.”

  “The boys?”

  “You ain’t been listening, have you?”

  “I’ll see you in a few.”

  “Hell yeah,” Ronnie said. “Ain’t nothing like being a free man again.”