It wasn’t an easy task. Their three bedroom house was filled with entirely too many people. Sophie had to move into her parents’ bedroom, as she was displaced by Steve and Claire. Luckily Hope and Andrew’s room was large and there was plenty of room to move Sophie’s small bed into a corner. No more privacy for them.
Everyone knew it was just a temporary situation. Steve and Claire had told all of them that once they got jobs and were back on their feet that they would be moving out. Their daughter and Sissy both tried to argue with them about the house, but Claire dug her heels in. Hope and Dustin had inherited the house when their parents were declared dead. They had lived in it their entire lives and Steve and Claire were not about to uproot them just because it would be the easiest thing for them to do.
Unfortunately the Jamisons had no money. Their savings had been depleted when Hope used it to help pay Dustin’s legal bills. So, they had been spending a lot of their time job hunting.
Claire, who had been a stay at home mother, and now had no work experience at all over the last 20 plus years to list on a resume, couldn’t afford to be picky. She had to take any job that would have her. She ended up finding a cashier job at the local hardware store. She had been a passing acquaintance of the owner, Dooley, for years. He wanted to start working his way toward retiring and he hired her on the spot.
Steve was in the same predicament as his wife. Though he had worked full-time before they disappeared, he also had no work experience for the last 20 years. He was able to find some construction work on the island, though it was just job to job. So he never knew when he would be out of work. It was not ideal, but would do for the time being. Building houses certainly was not his dream job. During his off hours, he scoured the newspaper for job openings. He did not want to do construction for the rest of his life.
“Did you hear that three houses here in our neighborhood were broken into recently?” Andrew, Hope’s husband, asked one night at dinner.
All eyes turned toward Dustin. His body went rigid.
“What? Why are you all looking at me? I didn’t do it.”
“Really Dustin, what are we supposed to think?” Hope was the only one that would speak up.
“I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what any of you think!” Dustin glared at everyone at the table. He smiled when his eyes landed on his sweet niece, Sophie. “You all just need to get over it. That’s not me anymore. I learned my lesson.”
“Sure you did,” Hope badgered. “It sure seems like quite a coincidence that the break-ins happen right after you get out. There was not a single one while you were locked up.”
Steve, Claire, and Sissy all began fidgeting in their chairs. They all wished Andrew had not brought up the uncomfortable subject.
“I don’t need to stay here and listen to this!” With that, Dustin pushed his chair back, stood up, and stormed off. His chair fell over noisily in the process. He didn’t care and made no move to pick it up. He slammed the door as he walked out of the house.
Minutes later, there was a knock at the front door. Sissy got up to answer it.
“I need to talk to your sister.” The man pushed his way past Sissy and walked directly to the kitchen where everyone was still seated.
“We need to have a talk about your son.” He directed angry eyes directly at Steve and Claire.
“Excuse me. Who are you?” Steve asked, standing up and getting between the man and Claire.
“This is our neighbor, Lyle,” Sissy said. “Remember, I told you about him.”
“Okay, yes,” Steve replied to Sissy, but never took his eyes off of Lyle. It was clear that he was there for trouble.
“I think I’ll take Sophie to play in the backyard,” Andrew said.
Everyone stood quietly while he helped his daughter out of her chair, took her hand, and they walked out the back door. She had a swing set out back and wanted to swing. Her father obliged.
“What about our son?” Claire asked, once Andrew and Sophie were gone. She stood also and walked around to stand next to her husband.
“He’s been skulking around my house.”
“What do you mean by that?” Steve asked.
“I’ve seen him walking by and watching my house. I think he’s casing it.” The man was glaring at Steve.
“Are you serious? Casing it? Who talks like that?” Steve’s face was starting to turn red. “Did my son even go onto your property? Or just walk by and look your way?”
“Well…he… he was looking my house over. He’s probably that guy that’s been breaking into houses in the neighborhood.” Lyle had no definitive answers for Steve. “I know he just got out of prison. I wouldn’t doubt it if it turned out to be him.”
“Why do you look so familiar?” Claire asked him, completely ignoring their conversation. “Have you lived on the island a long time? Maybe we know you from somewhere you used to work many years ago?”
“No, you don’t know me,” he blurted out way too quickly.
It looked like he was hiding something to everyone in the room, but they couldn’t put a finger on it.
“Aren’t you that couple that split from your family for something like two decades and just returned like nothing happened?”
His question wasn’t fooling anyone. They could tell that it was the real reason for his visit. He wanted to get the scoop on their disappearance.
“I think you better leave, Lyle,” Sissy told him, as she took his right arm in a gesture to head him toward the door.
He yanked his arm away from her and she stepped back in surprise.
“I know the man that went to prison for killing you. He’s a friend of mine. Why did you do that to him?” His words were getting angrier and louder by the moment.
“Sir, we didn’t do anything to him,” Claire tried to explain, her voice cracking a bit. “We didn’t leave our family. It just happened to us. We can’t really explain it because we don’t know exactly what happened ourselves.”
Steve patted Claire’s back in a comforting gesture. She looked up and smiled at him.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Mister, you need to go,” Steve told him in no uncertain terms.
When Steve took his arm, Lyle did not yank it away. Steve had a death grip on it as he led him to the front door.
“You are not going to get away with it. You are all going to rot in hell for this,” Lyle yelled over his shoulder as Steve shoved him out the open front door and slammed it behind him.
Three days later, the unthinkable happened.
Chapter 30
“Sweetheart,” Claire said sweetly to her only son, “would you mind running to the liquor store on the corner and picking up some milk? We are out and will need it in the morning.”
Dustin had been sitting at the kitchen table looking at the want ads, not that he expected anyone to hire an ex-con like him. In the weeks since his release, not a single company had granted him an interview.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Claire handed her son a few dollars and he headed to the liquor store on foot. He didn’t have a car, or a driver license. As he walked into the store, he noticed Lyle, the man that lived across the street. Lyle glared at Dustin, which confused him. They had never had any contact at all, and had never spoken a single word to each other. Dustin could not figure out why the man would look at him with a clenched jaw and tight face. His family had not told Dustin about their encounter with Lyle a few days prior. They had decided that it was better to keep the peace.
Lyle glared, but never said a word to the young man. Dustin tried to ignore his neighbor and walked directly to the back of the store, where the refrigerated glass cases were. He opened the far left door and plucked out the carton of milk in the front, not bothering to look at the expiration date.
When he turned around, Dustin saw Lyle standing in the line by the register. He was not facing the cashier, as expected, but had his back to the front counter and was watching Dustin’s every
move. That was it. Dustin had had enough. He stormed to the front of the store and right up to Lyle.
“Dude, what is your problem?”
Lyle stepped back a pace and turned around toward the counter. “Nothing, sorry.” Lyle did not need a confrontation. Getting the police involved in his business was the last thing he wanted.
“Is there a problem here?” the clerk asked both men, as he rang up the next customer in line.
“No. Everything is fine,” Dustin answered him.
Though Dustin was not afraid of a fight, he decided to let it go. He also did not need the police all up in his business. Going back to prison was not going to happen. He would do anything he needed to before he would go back.
Lyle quickly paid for his items and walked out of the store without so much as a glance at Dustin. By the time Dustin paid and got to the parking lot, Lyle was nowhere to be seen.
On his walk home, Dustin’s mind would not let go of the strange encounter at the liquor store. He formulated a plan for that very night.
Though he very much wanted to complain about the neighbor, and how much the man angered Dustin, he said nothing to his family about it. He would never be known as the brains in the family, but he was at least smart enough to know to keep his mouth shut.
During dinner he was conspicuously quiet. His family noticed, but no one said a word. The fact was that they were a little leery of saying too much to him, afraid of starting a big fight. Ever since Dustin’s stint in prison, he flew off the handle at every little provocation.
Once Dustin finished with dinner, he got up and went and sat on the couch. He had no bedroom to hide in. They were all taken up by the time he was released. He knew that he wanted to move out, but he was just unable to at the moment. For the time being he would just have to sleep on the couch. He had no good friends, no one that he could bunk with. He had burned those bridges long ago.
That night, after everyone had fallen asleep, Dustin laid on the couch watching the clock. At precisely 3 a.m., a time he knew everybody in the neighborhood would be long asleep, he got up and quietly got dressed. He wore dark clothes, just in case there happened to be somebody up and about. He didn't want to be easily seen on the dark street. The street lights were on, but they were fairly dim and didn't brighten the street much at all.
He opened the front door quietly and closed it behind him, without locking it. He stood on the front porch for two full minutes watching the street and the neighboring houses for any signs of life. When he was satisfied that no one was up and about, he skulked across the street. He walked up alongside Lyle’s house, between the bushes and the side of the house, careful not to rustle them around much and rile up his next door neighbor’s chihuahua.
It was warm out, even at that late hour, and Dustin had no trouble finding an open window in the back of the house. The window led into the bathroom. It was a small window, but Dustin managed to squeeze in anyway. Once he landed on his feet, he tiptoed across the linoleum floor and peered out the bathroom door into the hallway. There was no sound at all, save for a faint snoring coming from behind a closed bedroom door at the end of the hall.
As he took one step into the hallway, he heard a light jingling sound. He knew immediately what it was. Just as he turned in the direction of the living room, a large chocolate lab was bounding toward him. Dustin suddenly regretted not staking out the house and making sure there were no dogs. It didn't appear that the lab was going to attack him. They were generally friendly dogs, and it probably just wanted to investigate who he was. But the problem was that the dog let out two loud warning barks.
“Shhh,” Dustin said to the dog, as he turned his head in the opposite direction to see if Lyle heard the barking and would come out to investigate.
It appeared that Lyle had not heard the dog, because Dustin heard no movement coming from the end of the hallway. However, just as he went to pat the dog on the head, hoping to coach him back to the couch he had been lying on, Dustin heard the unmistakable racking of a shotgun. He dropped to the floor in anticipation of the gun being fired. It didn’t fire though. The room was suddenly illuminated as he laid there thinking he was about to die. He kept his eyes squeezed tight. Perhaps nothing bad would happen if he couldn’t see it coming.
With his eyes still closed, he heard the jingling of the dog’s collar as he bounded back to his spot on the couch.
“Get up, Son,” he heard a voice say. Dustin didn’t move.
“I said get up.”
“Okay, okay,” Dustin responded, standing up slowly and deliberately. He was careful not to make any sudden movements.
Dustin could see by the look in Lyle’s eyes, that Lyle recognized him immediately.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“I..uh..I’m sorry. I..just..” Dustin couldn’t get a coherent sentence out with the shotgun pointing right at him.
“Put your hands up and don’t move,” Lyle ordered.
Dustin’s hands shot up into the air.
“Son, I’m gonna ask you again, and I want an answer this time. What are you doing in my house?”
“Sir, I’m sorry. It was stupid. I was just coming in to look around. I wasn’t going to steal anything, I swear.”
Lyle squinted at Dustin over the barrel of the shotgun. “Now why don’t I believe you? No one breaks into another man’s house in the middle of the night just to look around.”
“I’m sorry. I’m unarmed. See. I don’t want any trouble.” Dustin held out his arms to his side, to show that he wasn’t hiding any weapons.
“I said to get your hands up.”
Dustin’s hands shot back up into the air.
Lyle moved slowly toward Dustin, his eyes cold and noncommittal. Dustin edged away in terror. He did not dare to turn and run, for that shotgun could outrun him.
“You don’t want any trouble? Then why are you here in the middle of the night?”
Dustin’s eyes dropped down to his feet. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“That’s not an answer. I’m sure you are real sorry right about now.” Lyle was not backing down. He held all the cards. And the shotgun.
“Look, I’m real sorry. I’m just going to leave and go home now. Is that okay with you?” Dustin was terrified of the man standing in front of him. He started backing away slowly, toward the front door.
The blast could be heard all the way up the block.
Chapter 31
The sheriff was there in under ten minutes.
When the sheriff arrived, Lyle was sitting on the front porch swing, with his dog pacing in front of him.
“He’s in there in the hallway,” Lyle directed the sheriff before he even asked a single question.
Sheriff Rex looked at him and just walked in without a word. Three minutes later, he walked out.
“Who is that in there?” Rex asked Lyle.
Lyle shook his head back and forth. “Beats me. Some guy broke into my house in the middle of the night and I defended myself.”
“Go in there,” Rex directed his deputy, “and get a picture of that guy. Then show it to these people out here.” Rex gestured toward the gathering crowd of onlookers. “Maybe someone will recognize him. And don’t touch that shotgun.”
“Yes sir,” the deputy responded.
“Oh, his face only. These people don’t need to see what the shotgun did to that boy.”
The deputy nodded and walked into the house. Less than one minute later, he returned to the front porch.
“Sheriff, I know who that is. It’s Dustin Jamison. You know, the one with the parents that disappeared.” He looked up at the crowd. “And they are standing right there.” The deputy indicated Steve and Claire’s position in the crowd with just a tilt of his head.
Rex looked up to see Dustin’s parents standing among the crowd that had gathered to find out what had happened on their quiet little street. Rex dropped his head to his chest. What had happened to their son was horrible and he didn’t kno
w how to break the bad news. It was something he rarely had to do on their island. While he sat there, contemplating his next move, the crime scene investigators showed up. Rex spoke with them for just a moment before they went into the house to do their jobs.
While he waited for the investigators, Rex pulled Steve and Claire aside, away from the small crowd that had gathered. Rex had been sheriff of the island for decades. He remembered the Jamisons.
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, but the man renting this house shot and killed an intruder. He has been positively identified as your son, Dustin.”
“What? No!”
Claire’s knees buckled from under her and Steve caught her before she landed in the street. He looked up at the sheriff from their seated position in the middle of the road.
“Are you sure? Are you absolutely positive it’s him?” Steve desperately hoped there had been a terrible mistake.
Rex nodded. “I’m afraid so. My deputy recognized him.”
Steve and Claire sat in the middle of the street, crying. They knew Dustin was troubled, obviously. But, they never expected anything like what had happened that night. Rex sent his deputy across the street, who returned within minutes with Sissy and Hope. Andrew stayed behind with Sophie. It was no place for a 5 year old. The deputy had explained to the family what had happened to Dustin. They were devastated, but there was nothing they could do for him. They needed to go help Steve and Claire.
“Come on, Mom.” Hope reached down to help her up out of the street. “Let’s go back home. I’ll make you some tea.”
Hope and Sissy assisted the both of them across the street just as the sky was turning orange, marking a brand new day. Sheriff Rex watched as they walked into their house. He was a bit startled when his deputy tapped him on the shoulder.
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