by Lisa D Jones
It was rare for a new girl to show up in Hopeville, so I caught the eye of everyone in school, no matter how hard I tried to stay under the radar.
Zach introduced himself then offered to show me around the school. I agreed. He gave me a quick tour then walked me to my next class. English 101.
We hit it off so well that we dated the rest of the year and half of the next, which at that age consisted of holding hands in the hallways and a lot of time talking on the phone.
We broke up when the next new girl moved to town: Belinda Mayfield. Zach and all of the other boys flocked to her like she was on fire. And it was all because Belinda Mayfield had big boobs. I eventually forgave him for his boyhood stupidity and we became pretty good friends.
Wade moved to Dallas our sophomore year, breaking the hearts of all the girls in town. Zach and Parker are still around and go fishing every weekend off of Jackson’s Pier on the south side of Paradise Cove. I join them when time permits, like today. I prefer to be out here when I don’t have a psycho stalker after me, but there have been so many lately that if I wait, I’ll never get to go fishing. I generally keep my gun on my hip and my knife on my ankle, just in case.
It was just after 11 AM when I got to the pier. I don’t do mornings, so for me, this is early as hell. By Zach’s internal fisherman’s clock, I’m late.
The men had five fishing poles set-up along the rails of the pier, leaving one slot open between each pole.
Parker was laid out on the pier with his cap pulled down over his face, snoring like an old grizzly bear. His arms were crossed over his chest and his feet were spread slightly apart.
“Hey, Dufus”, said Zach. “Wake up. Savannah’s here.”
Parker didn’t budge so Zach gave him a good swift kick in the shin. He grunted slightly, but didn’t move.
“You get on my last fucking nerve, I swear”, mutters Zach. He stepped over Parker, grabbed the fishing pole, and started reeling in the catch.
Zach cranked the reel a few times, tugged on the pole then cranked the reel again.
Parker woke up and quickly realized what was going on. He jumped up and grabbed a hold of the rod and reel to help Zach. They clumsily struggled with the fish (and each other) until the line snapped.
“Son of a bitch! That was my last lure!” yelled Parker. Fully clothed, he immediately jumped into the lake.
“What the hell is he doing?” I asked, dumfounded.
Zach shook his head and sighed. “He’s a dumbass.”
Parker splashed around like a maniac. He looked like one of those wind-up mechanical monkeys with the hand-held cymbals.
“Help me already!” cried Parker.
“No, don’t tell me. Let me guess - you can’t swim”, yelled Zach with a highly sarcastic tone.
“I can swim, asshole! Get out here and gimme me a hand!” yelled Parker between splashes. “I’ve got the line, but it’s stuck on something.”
Zach shook his head and sighed as he handed me his lucky fishing cap.
“Hold this.”
He jumped in and swam towards Parker.
The two of them thrashing around looked like some sort of wild gorilla mating ritual, except it’s with water and a broken fishing line.
“I got it! I got it!” yelled Zach.
Zach pulled the line as hard as he could. Tree branches, leaves, an old shoe, a beer bottle, and a large ice chest broke free and rose to the surface.
“Shit!” yelled Parker in disgust. He held up his hands, showing one end of the fishing line in each. No lure.
“Hey, maybe it’s stuck to some of that shit over there”, said Zach as he pointed to the recently resurfaced debris.
The two of them continued to splash around like idiots while they tried to stay afloat.
“There!” cries Zach.
“Where?”
“There! Right there!” yells Zach.
“Where?!?” yells Parker.
“Hanging off the side of that ice chest!”
After flailing around each other in the water, they both swam in an awkward fashion towards the lure.
They made their way through the floating debris and grabbed a hold of the sinking ice chest.
Parker grabbed the lure and pulled it free, being careful not to snag himself on the remaining hooks. He let go of the ice chest and started swimming back towards the pier.
Zach, however, holds firm to the ice chest and swam along behind him.
With Parker’s help, Zach pulled the ice chest from the water and climbed back up onto the pier. He opened up the ice chest and found three unopened beer cans surrounded by partially melted ice. Nothing else was inside.
Parker reached for a beer and I knew what was coming. All I could do was shake my head and sigh.
“And just what in the hell do you think you’re doing, Parker?” asked Zach.
“I’m getting a beer. What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”
“Well, it looks like you’re trying to do something really stupid. THOSE beers are for me and Savannah. You didn’t want to save the ice chest in the first place so the beer inside it is MINE!”
Parker shook his head, gave a little smart ass laugh, and said, “I’m getting a beer.”
As Parker reached for a beer the second time, Zach growled and lunged for the ice chest. The two of them, along with the ice chest, fell back into the water and the beers floated under the pier.
Zach fought a path away from Parker and swam for the beer. He retrieved two of them and looked for the third. When he saw it, he realized that it had started to float out into the water and away from the pier. He started for it then something else caught his eye: a plastic bag floating with something inside.
None of us could make out what it was, that is, until we got a closer look. Inside the clear, cellophane bag was the decapitated head of a man with a daisy shoved into his mouth. Written in permanent ink marker on his forehead were the words, “I chose Heads”.
Chapter 5:
“Musical Chairs”
far too many stalkers, murderers, and all-around psychos have shown up here lately. Frankly, I’m a bit tired of it. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I need a break. Maybe I need a vacation. Maybe I just need coffee…a lot of coffee…and donuts…a lot of donuts.
I easily gave in to the thought of it and stopped off at Babe’s. I ate and hung out there for a little while, chatting with Babe before heading over to my office.
By the time I got there, it was a little after three in the afternoon. I gave a coffee and a couple of donuts to Keith and Claudia. Both of them had a strange look on their face.
“I take it you two heard about the notes.”
“What notes?” asked Claudia. At first, I was waiting for the punch line then I realized that she really didn’t know.
“Forget it. We’ll talk about it later. Um….I should start on my back log of cases. They must be feeling neglected by now.”
“I’m sorry”, said Claudia. “Really, I am.”
“Sorry for what?” I asked.
“Rhodes is in your office”, said Keith. He had a huge shit eating grin on his face. “He showed up early this morning because you weren’t here yesterday for his appointment. And he’s already seen you, so you can’t get out of it.”
“Ohhhhhhh Savannnnnahhhhh”, bellowed Rhodes from inside my quaint, little office. I have a feeling Keith is going to be in there in the not-so-far-off-future cleaning up blood stains and body parts.
“Son of a-“, I said and darted around towards Keith. “You are so fired”.
Keith just chuckled and went back to work.
“Cool your heels there, Toots”, said Rhodes.
“Toots? Toots?! Did you just call me Toots??” I asked, glaring at him. I was oh-so-close to drawing my gun and shooting him in several places. I can dream, can’t I?
Rhodes just smirked and said, “Yeah. Yeah I did, TOOTS. Now why don’t you go be a good little bitch and fetch me some of that coffee?”
“How about I shove my glock up your ass instead?” I asked.
“Oooh feisty! That’s just hot. How about I bend you over this desk and give you what you really want right here and now?”
I didn’t think Rhodes could disgust me any more than he had in the past, but when he said that, I was instantly proven wrong.
“One more word out of you and I swear I’ll hit you with my stun gun. Get the fucking hell out of my office right now!” I screamed. “I mean it, Rhodes! Out!”
Rhodes just laughed and winced, putting his hand up to his broken, bandaged nose. He smiled, licked his lips in a truly disgusting manner, and said “One word - Toots.”
With a knee-jerk reaction, I grabbed my stun gun from my desk and lit that idiot up like a Christmas tree.
“Maybe next time you’ll take my threats seriously, asshole.”
Keith let out a big sigh and said, “He’s gonna be pissed when he wakes up.”
“Yeah”, I said then smiled. “He’ll be fucking livid.”
“We should probably move him outside”, said Claudia.
“Savannah, you grab his feet. Claudia, get the doors”, said Keith.
We carried Rhodes through the office, and the small lobby then out the front door. I didn’t want him to block the door, so we rolled him over a few times until he was out of the way.
Claudia laughed and said he looked like a drunken homeless guy lying out here on the sidewalk.
Keith stopped where he was and grinned the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on him. His eyes lit up brighter than the Texas sun in August. And he started to giggle like a maniac.
“Don’t move” said Keith as he ran back into the office, chuckling.
Until he ran back outside, we weren’t entirely sure if he was talking to us or to Rhodes. Keith had my bottle of rum in one hand and a camera in the other. He drizzled several drops of rum on Rhodes’ face and on the crotch of his pants. He giggled again, laid the bottle on the ground next to Rhodes, and rolled Howard’s hand up onto the neck of the bottle.
Keith chuckled again and stepped back to snap a few pictures.
“You just never know when blackmail photos will come in handy”, said Keith. He was still smiling like the cat that caught the canary.
“I vote that we call it a day” said Claudia.
“I second that”, said Keith.
I nodded.
“As funny as it would be to see the expression on his face, I don’t particularly want to be here when he wakes up”, I said.
I grabbed the bottle of rum then the three of us went back into the office long enough to grab our belongings. I grabbed my stack of files, and we headed out, turning off the lights and locking the door behind us.
Chapter 6:
“Pizza and Beer”
BY THE TIME I got home, it was close to five. I laid my stack of case files on the kitchen table and went on a food hunt.
I opened the freezer, but all I found was disappointment. My search of the fridge, however, was a bit more fruitful: leftovers from Pietro’s Pizza and a few very cold bottles of beer.
I grabbed a beer and popped it open then sat down at the table with the files. Some of them were the new ones from Todd. The rest were my current collection of back-logged cases that I don’t particularly want to do.
Honestly, all I really wanted to do at that moment was finish my beer and go to bed. I have too many cases to work on so I couldn’t get away with it anyway. Besides, I needed the distraction.
The first file in the stack was a thick one. It was a collection of case information and gruesome photographs of my latest stalker’s short, but numerous, killing spree. I knew if I worked this case file first, I would obsess over it and not get anything else done. I closed the folder and put it at the bottom of the stack.
I picked up the next case file. It was for a man named Julian Carter. Mr. Carter had been recently hospitalized near Amarillo for arsenic poisoning and believed that his wife was responsible.
One of the older files was a case for Jaynie Shepherd. She owns Jaynie’s Cupboard, the little corner store way out in the boondocks, not too far from my house. The file said that someone had apparently been allowing phony money to pass through her store for quite a while now.
It only seemed to happen when her manager, Betty Levine, and/or her assistant manager, Ed Copeland, were in charge of the store. She thought that either Betty, Ed, or both are somehow involved and wanted me to investigate. Since I live nearby and am there often, they’d think nothing of it if I came into the store. It’s so much easier to investigate people when they don’t know that I’m watching them.
I needed a few things for the fridge, freezer, and the pantry - ok so maybe more than just a few things. I grabbed my purse, my gun, and my phone and headed for Jaynie’s Cupboard.
When I got to the store, there were two cars parked outside: Betty’s four door sedan and an old, beat-up, piece of shit pick-up truck with a dull layer of light grey primer on it. If they were going for the super fucking ugly look, they definitely succeeded.
I grabbed a shopping cart from the small parking lot and took it inside with me.
I started putting some of the basics in my cart: eggs, milk, cereal, & steak then headed towards the walk-in beer cooler. As I got closer, I heard glass breaking. I stepped away from my cart and tried to see if there was anything that I needed to worry about.
“Betty? Are you alright?” I asked cautiously.
Things momentarily got quiet then I heard what sounded like a gunshot and a woman’s scream. I drew my gun, stepped into the beer cooler and saw a male, about 6’2”, wearing a grey hoodie. He was running towards me with his gun aimed in my direction.
He took a shot and hit the wall behind me. I darted back out of the cooler and ran around the next corner onto the feminine hygiene aisle.
He ran after me again, stopping as soon as he saw me. He smiled, showing me his one gold tooth then took aim and asked me if I was ready to die.
“Not today, maybe tomorrow”, I replied as I raised my gun and fired. I hit him with two rounds to the chest, knocking him to the floor.
I kicked his gun away from him, checked his vitals then called Nate and told him what happened.
“Betty?” I asked quietly, hoping but not expecting a response as I went back into the beer cooler. There was blood all over the floor, on her shirt, and her face.
I waited a few moments then saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I quickly turned around. Betty was lying there with one eye open.
“Is he gone?” she asked.
I was dumbfounded for a moment before I shook it off and told her that I had shot him. She blew out a sigh of relief, got up then tried to brush herself off.
“I – how? There’s so much blood. I thought for sure you were dead”, I said.
“Naaa”, said Betty. “You can’t get rid of a tough old broad like me that easily. Besides, that dumbass couldn’t shoot worth a shit. He hit the bottles of Bloody Mary mixers and I took a jump backwards to make him think he killed me. I got a few scrapes and cuts from the broken glass, but other than that, I think I’m okay.”
“Well, let’s get you checked out anyway just to make sure. I’d hate to find out tomorrow that you bled to death from a sliver of glass in the back of your neck”, I said.
She agreed. Between the two of us, we checked her for gouges and embedded broken glass. All looked well, so I called Nate back with an update on Betty and waited with her in the office until the paramedics arrived and gave her the good word. Nate arrived soon after.
Betty insisted that I finish my grocery shopping while Nate took her statement. She rang up my purchase while I took my turn telling Nate my account of tonight’s festivities.
“Can I go home now?” asked Betty.
“I think I have everything I need from you for now, but we still need to collect evidence”, said Nate.
“Would you mind locking up for me when you’re done so I can go on home?” aske
d Betty as she handed Nate her store key.
“Yes ma’am, will do. We will be here for a while. We can’t touch the body until the coroner comes out and gives us the go-ahead. We interrupted his dinner, so I’m pretty sure he won’t be in any hurry to get here. I’ll stop by tomorrow if I think of anything else”, replied Nate.
Chapter 7:
“A Daisy for Your Thoughts”
IT WAS A LITTLE after seven pm when I finally made it home. I put away the food, popped open a beer, and sat down on the couch to watch tonight’s ball game. My boys, The Texas Lone Stars, were playing in New York against The Sluggers. I’m hoping for another shut-out.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a huge baseball fan. My friends and I used to go to as many games as we could scrounge up the money for. They would usually walk around looking for boys or hitting the concession stands. Me, I just wanted to watch the game. I could talk to boys anytime. I was there to watch baseball.
I almost had the TV set up for the game when my buddy, Karma Joe, texted me that the game had been called due to rain. So much for that. If they’d been playing at home, this wouldn’t be a problem. It doesn’t rain much in Texas in the middle of July.
Screw it. I’ll just go soak in the tub for a while then go to bed. This day feels like it’s been going on far too long anyway.
I turned on the faucet and emptied a bottle of bubble bath into the tub. I put a clean towel on the rack and hung my robe on the door then finished my beer before stripping down and very carefully climbed into the tub. I’d hate to fall in the bathroom naked and have to explain to Nate or anyone else what had happened. I would never live down the embarrassment.
This bath was just what I needed. I don’t know exactly how long I was in there (pretty sure I dozed off), but it was long enough that my skin looked like I was turning into my Grandma. I sighed and decided I’d have another beer before bed.