Lance Brody Omnibus

by Michael Robertson Jr

  “That’d be great,” Lance said, stepping out and closing the door behind him. “I was about to start walking.”

  Luke took a step back and looked from Lance back to the Mercedes and then at the house. Raised an eyebrow.

  “Somebody here to clean,” Lance said, offering no more unless pressed. Just like with Sheriff Kruger earlier, Lance tried to make a habit of not throwing people’s names into the mix unless necessary.

  Luke grinned. “Is that a euphemism?”

  Lance shook his head and started walking down the steps. “I’m not that lucky.”

  “Yeah,” Luke said, following toward his Jeep. “I hear ya.”

  Lance got into the front passenger seat and Luke backed all the way down the driveway, staring intently into his rearview mirror. He pulled out of the driveway and started the winding road down the hillside, an awkward silence all at once heavy in the air.

  Lance broke it. “How was the movie?”

  “Shit,” Luke said. Then he sighed. “I mean, it was okay I guess. Some rom-com Suze wanted to see. I made her see the new Transformers last time we went, so I figured I owed her one.”

  Lance smiled. “How chivalrous.”

  “Right? I’m still stuck at third base, though.”

  Lance didn’t know what it was that made Luke feel comfortable enough with him to divulge this sort of information. Maybe it was their similar age, or their odd connection from their basketball days. Maybe Lance just had an honest face.

  “She’s worth it, though, man. Totally worth it. You know what I mean?”

  Lance thought of Leah, then quickly pushed the thought away. Not now.

  “Yes,” Lance said. “I do.” Then, to change the subject, “I appreciate you stopping by. I’m starving.”

  “No sweat, man. Seems like you sorta had your evening rushed last night, what with getting in later in the day, and then all the damn rain. I was headed to grab a coffee and hit the gym, and Suze thought maybe you’d need a lift. Are you going to rent a car today? I think we’ve got a couple Uber drivers around, but I can’t guarantee that. Most of them are closer to the city. And there’s a taxi service, I think.”

  “I’ll figure something out,” Lance said, then asked, “Hey, what day is it?” He tried to think back, count the days in his head. “Saturday?”

  Luke kept his eyes on the road, but Lance could feel the shift of his gaze toward him. A quick, questioning look. “Yeah,” Luke said. “It’s Saturday. Man, you must stay busy if you don’t even know what day it is.”

  Lance nodded. “Something like that.”

  The roads were still damp in places, but the sun was doing a good job of drying everything off. The sky was bright blue, few clouds. No traces of the heavy rains from the night before. Luke drove the Jeep expertly around the sharp bends in the road, and soon they were spat out onto flat ground, headed in the direction of town. Lance was hungry and craving coffee, but something tugged at his gut, an odd sensation that he should not have left the house. He tried to swallow it down, blaming his hunger and caffeine deprivation.

  But then the thought about the bathroom mirror again. How it had seemed to be reaching out to him.

  But that had been a bust. He’d seen nothing in the mirror. Found nothing inside.

  “So where to?” Luke asked.

  Lance was about to tell his new friend to turn around, take him back. But then his stomach grumbled loud enough to be heard over the rumble of the off-road tires, and he asked, “Does Mama’s serve breakfast?”

  “Best in town.”

  Lance grinned. “Of course it is.”

  A few minutes later Luke had pulled the Jeep into the small parking lot in front of Mama’s, and Lance opened the passenger door. “Thanks again,” he said.

  Luke reached across the center console and balled his fist. “Sure thing, man.”

  Lance bumped Luke’s fist with his own, an action that brought to light a sense of normalcy and regularity that seemed so unfamiliar it was almost overwhelming. Just two guys hanging out. Two friends saying goodbye. It was moments like these that startled Lance into realizing just how abnormal his existence was. Sometimes he felt so inhuman, so detached from the real world it was like drowning in a blackness so deep and dark nobody could hear you scream. On the surface, he appeared to be a functioning member of society. But inside, at times he felt like nothing more than a tool the Universe was using for its own bidding.

  Lance closed the Jeep’s door and watched Luke back out of the parking lot and drive away. Then he went inside.

  The aroma of bacon and biscuits and coffee sent all negative thoughts fleeing from his mind. He could practically taste the food on the air, and he had to refrain from doing his best snake impression and darting his tongue out of his mouth to try.

  “Sit anywhere you like!” a voice called from the kitchen. A familiar voice. One full of energy and slight irritation.

  Joan.

  Lance looked around the restaurant and saw most of the tables where full, but the booth in the rear corner, the booth Sheriff Kruger had sat in the night before, was empty, and Lance walked over and slumped into it, facing the door. A moment later, Joan emerged through the swinging kitchen door, scanned the room, saw the new face, and waddled over to him, sliding a plastic menu onto the table.

  “You were here last night,” she said. Her face was red from the heat of the kitchen, or maybe she always looked like that. Forever flushed.

  Lance nodded. “I was. So were you.”

  Joan was unimpressed with his observation. “Coffee?”

  “Please,” Lance said.

  She walked away, saying something to the group at another table, causing them all to laugh. Lance smiled and looked over the menu. It was full of all the makings of a hearty country breakfast: pancakes, country ham, eggs, bacon, biscuits, grits, sausage—the only remotely healthy item Lance could see was a blueberry muffin. But that was fine. His metabolism was in perfect working order. Plus, he walked a lot.

  Joan returned and set a coffee mug on the table and then filled it right to the brim with black coffee. “You seem like a black guy to me,” she said.

  “Sorry?” Lance asked.

  “Coffee. You take it black, don’t you?”

  “Oh. Yes, I do.” He smiled up at her. “How’d you know?”

  Joan shrugged, the skin around her neck rolling up and down like rippling waves. “Been doing this a long time.” She winked and then got back to business. “What’ll you have?”

  Lance ordered pancakes with eggs and bacon and asked Joan if she could double however many pancakes they normally served. She nodded, turned to leave, and then turned back. “You really staying up at that place?”

  Lance took a slow sip of his coffee. It was hot and wonderful. He didn’t need to ask for clarification. “I am.”

  Joan crinkled her brow, Lance’s neutral tone causing her to pause. “And you know what happened?”

  “I know a family was killed there.”

  Another sip of coffee. Nobody actually knew what had happened that night, and Lance wasn’t going to support any theories quite yet.

  Joan looked at him hard, then nodded again and walked to the kitchen, disappearing through the swinging door. Lance held his mug to his lips and blew on it, cooling the coffee before taking another sip. He looked out the window and watched a few cars drive by lazily, the Saturday morning traffic slow and sleepy. The asphalt was dotted with wet spots and puddles, the sun heliographing off the wet surfaces. It was a tranquil scene. Relaxing. Lance felt momentarily at ease, ready to enjoy his meal.

  And then there was a rocking of the table and booth and Lance turned and saw Joan sliding into the seat across from him.

  “So what are you?” she asked. “A reporter? Are you writing a book? Doing research?”

  “What?”

  “I know you’re staying at that house, and I know you’re telling everyone you’re a consultant. To me that just means you’re hiding the truth.”<
br />
  Small towns. No secrets.

  Lance said nothing.

  Joan kept going. “I don’t think you’re up to anything bad, mostly because little Susan seems to have taken a liking to you, and that girl’s got about some of the best intuition I’ve seen for somebody her age.” She held up her hands when she saw Lance’s face. “Oh, no, not ‘like you’ like that. She’s dating that Luke fella. I just mean she seems to think you’re one of the good ones. And I believe her. Like I told you, I’ve been doing this a long time. You work in food service long enough, you start to get good at reading people. Do you understand?”

  Lance nodded.

  “Good. So listen. I don’t know what you’re really doing up there, but I know you’re involved somehow. I don’t believe for a second that you randomly ended up there. You came here with the intention of staying at that house. So, if you are writing a book or an article or researching whatever project it is you’re working on, I want to tell you something. You can quote me, but I want it to be anonymous.”

  Lance was about to hold up his hands, try and slow Joan down so he could end her conspiracy about him. But then he thought better of it. If she was willing to divulge information to him that might help him figure out what this mess was all about, he might as well let her.

  Lance looked around at the other tables. Nobody seemed to be paying him and Joan any mind, so he set his mug down and leaned in close over the table, playing the role of interested listener. “Okay. What is it you want to say?”

  Joan leaned in, her ample bosom spilling onto the tabletop. “And you’ll keep my name out of anything you write?”

  Lance nodded. “I promise.” It was an easy promise to make. He’d never write anything about this, period.

  Joan’s eyes flicked to her right, out toward the dining room. “Shit,” she said. “One sec.” Then she heaved herself out of the booth, rushed across the room to refill a glass of water, and then was back, the booth shifting again with her weight as she slid back in across from Lance.

  “Look,” she started. “I know what they say about me around here. ‘Ol’ Joan’s nothing but a gossip. Nosy. She’ll say anything to anyone for a bigger tip.’ Sure, folks seem to like me okay, but I don’t know that a one of them actually trusts me. Not sure anybody has since my husband passed.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Lance said.

  She waved him off. “S’okay. Henry was a pain in the ass.” She said it jokingly, but Lance felt the twinge of pain flash through her at the memory.

  “Anyway, my opinion might not mean much to the folks round here, but I’ll just go ahead and set the record straight for you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Joan looked over toward the rest of the dining room again, only this time it was apparent she wasn’t checking for empty glasses or dirty dishes that needed to be bussed. She was seeing if anybody was eavesdropping. Satisfied, she leaned in close again and said, “I don’t know what happened that night, but Mark Benchley didn’t kill his family.”

  13

  Lance sat back and lifted his coffee cup to his mouth, taking another sip. It was cooling now, and he would soon need a refill. He looked at Joan, who had sat back as well after her revelation, and saw the conviction in her eyes. She was as serious as a heart attack.

  “I’ve only heard one version of the story,” Lance said, downing the rest of his coffee. “And in that version, Mr. Benchley killed his wife and daughter and then shot himself in the living room.”

  Joan rolled her eyes and nodded. “Yeah, yeah … that’s what everybody thinks. Easiest explanation, right? Blame the God-fearing lunatic?”

  “But you don’t think that’s what happened.”

  “I know it’s not what happened.”

  Lance made a sympathetic face, tried not to sound harsh with his next words. “Were you there that night? Did you see what happened?”

  Joan’s face softened. “No, of course not. That’s … that’s not what I mean.”

  “So you can’t say for sure.”

  She eyed him, as if suddenly suspicious. “Yeah … you’ve got reporter written all over you.”

  Lance had never considered a career in journalism. He suspected too many of his sources would be of the spirit variety for him to be taken seriously. He backed off a bit, tried to lighten his tone. “Help me understand.”

  Joan leaned forward again, eying his coffee mug and asked, “You need a refill?”

  Lance waved her off. “No, thank you. I can wait till you’re finished.” This answer seemed not to sit well with Joan, as if her inner waitress was jumpy, twitching at the thought of a customer in need of a refill.

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  She took one last glance at the mug, then shrugged, as if to indicate there was nothing else she could do. Then she leaned back, crossed her arms, and started talking.

  “Mark came in here at least twice a week for breakfast. Wheat toast, two eggs over easy. Coffee with a splash of cream. He’d sit right here in this booth,” she said. “Right where you’re sitting now.”

  Lance felt a strange chill at this. Joan continued.

  “He was always friendly, always polite. Never bothered anyone. Sat here and would read the paper, both the local and national. And then,” she sighed, “yes, he spent a lot of time going through his Bible. He was always making notes in the margins, underlining passages. To say he was well read in regard to scripture would be an understatement. He took his faith very seriously.” Then: “It made some people uncomfortable. But otherwise, there was nothing out of the ordinary about him, except he was a tall drink of water. Had a good couple inches on just about most men.”

  “I heard he liked to walk the streets and give impromptu sermons,” Lance said. “And folks didn’t necessarily think he was in his right mind. Is that right?”

  Joan gave another eye roll. “Folks like to gossip. Folks like to blow things out of proportion for the sake of a good story. Now, I’m not saying Mark didn’t try to witness to his fair share of people in town, and, yes, I do believe he did speak to a small gathering of people having a picnic one day in the park—unwarranted, possibly. But it didn’t take long for people to label him as a crazy person. Honestly, the fact he had no job and not much to do to occupy his time during the day is probably what made folks so uneasy about him. He seemed like a bum, a lazy freeloader with nothing better to do than to shove his ideology down people’s throats.” She paused, looked around the dining room. Still, nobody looked their direction.

  “But it wasn’t like that. I won’t say Mark wasn’t a tad fanatical—old-school, even. But he was gentle. And he was smart. Boy, you could ask him about any topic you could think of and he’d be able to carry on a conversation with you. He’d either read a book or read an article about it, and just seemed to know. He was a joy to talk with. Not dull and boring like most of these people.”

  After she’d said it, she quickly turned her head to look and see if anybody had heard, not meaning to offend. She looked back at Lance, her cheeks redder than before.

  “And here’s the other thing, the part that makes me certain he didn’t kill them. Mark was absolutely in love with his family.”

  Lance said nothing. Waited.

  “He talked about them all the time. Loved to boast about how Natalie was helping to save lives over at Central Medical, and you could just tell he thought she was the most beautiful thing on earth. And with Mary…” Joan smiled, her eyes unfocused, clearly lost deep in memory. “Mary was his absolute pride and joy. He was so proud of her. So excited to see the woman she was growing up to be.” She shook her head as if to clear it, then looked Lance dead in the eyes. “Mark would have died if anything had happened to Mary. He’d have killed himself to save her. And that’s why I’d bet my life there’s no way he could do something so horrific to his girl.”

  Lance waited to see if there was more, but Joan had apparently told all she needed to. He asked one last ques
tion. “So what happened at the end? With Mrs. Benchley quitting her job and Mary going off to the new school?”

  Joan’s face grew heavy. “Mark stopped coming for breakfast, too.” She sighed and pushed her way out of the booth, grabbing Lance’s coffee mug as she stood. “You’re the reporter,” she said. “Maybe you can figure out the rest. Because nobody around here knows a thing more than I just told you.”

  Lance watched as Joan carried his mug to a server station against the wall next to the kitchen door and began pouring coffee from a nearly full pot. He couldn’t help but think she was wrong. Maybe not about Mark Benchley, not all of it. But she was wrong if she thought she had all the answers. Somebody in town had to know more about the Benchley family’s situation. Somebody was hiding something. Even if Mark Benchley actually did kill his own family, there was more too it. Of this, Lance was all at once certain.

  Joan returned and set his full cup of coffee on the table with the deft hand of a practiced server. It was completely full and she hadn’t spilled a drop. “If you want to call somebody a kook—a crazy person—look at Natalie’s uncle.” She stood at the side of the table, hands on her hips, as if she’d just challenged Lance to prove her wrong.

  “Thank you,” Lance said. “And also, what?”

  “Natalie’s uncle, Joseph. He was the weird one. Ask anyone who knew him around here. The last ten years or so of his life, he was basically a hermit. Only came to town once a week for groceries and whatnot. Was some sort of engineer in the Army. Could build anything, s’what I always heard. Once he retired, he lived up on that hill all by himself the rest of his life, it seems. Never married, never dated. Kept to himself. But every time somebody tried to talk to him when he came to town, ask him how things were going, he’d go on these long-winded rants about government conspiracies, how the commies were taking over our government. He said the US would be part of Russia or China in no time.”