Sleepless Nights

by Pierre C. Arseneault

  21

  Dwayne damned near shot out of his chair when the phone rang. He knocked his half empty can of Redbull off the desk in a scramble to reach the phone. This would have looked very foolish had someone been there to see his reaction. He had only gotten a few hours sleep before coming in for his graveyard shift and wanted to make sure he didn’t miss any calls. Just in case he was to doze off like he sometimes did. So to prevent from missing calls, Dwayne had gotten the bright idea of turning the phone’s ringtone to its loudest. And conveniently forgot all about doing this not long after. The phone wasn’t to his ear yet as he spoke a slightly slurred greeting.

  “Carlton Police. Officer Dwayne Adams speaking.”

  He heard a voice ask. “Did I wake you?”

  Half asleep, Dwayne had to look at the screen on the phone’s base for him to realize who he was speaking to.

  “Clovis. Chief, what’s going on?” asked Dwayne in a sudden slight panic. The Chief never calls at this hour.

  “Nothing,” replied Clovis. “I was about to ask you the same thing. I can only assume all is quiet.”

  “So far, yes,” replied Dwayne. “A little too quiet if you ask me.”

  “Don’t be paranoid, Dwayne. I can’t believe I’m about to say this to you,” said Clovis. “Log onto Facebook. If anything happens in town, most likely you’ll see it there before someone calls you about it.”

  Dwayne couldn’t help but laugh at the Chief’s suggestion. “I’ll tell you a secret if you don’t fire me,” replied Dwayne. “I log into Facebook every night for that exact reason actually.”

  “Well don’t bother going for a cruise around town,” said Clovis. “I couldn’t sleep so I just spent an hour doing just that. All is quiet tonight in our sleepy little town.”

  “Good-good!” replied Dwayne.

  “Call me if you hear anything from Stonevalley P.D. or if anything happens.”

  “Will do, Chief. Get some sleep.”

  22

  The clock read “3:27 AM” as a dishevelled Clovis sat on the edge of the bed wearing his boxers and a Bangor Maine T-shirt he’d gotten on one of their last vacations. He turned off his cordless phone and set it next to its cradle on the night stand. He turned and for a moment, watched his wife as she slept soundly as if nothing was wrong in her world.

  “I wish I could sleep as soundly as you,” said Clovis in a hushed voice. He leaned in and kissed his wife on the cheek before getting up from the groove on his side of the well-worn mattress.

  “Cuba,” he muttered to himself, half smiling as he went to their son’s old room to get dressed. Not wanting to wake his wife whenever he had to get up in the middle of the night, he kept all his clothes plus cop stuff in the room across the hall.

  23

  Raylene woke to find the other half of the bed empty. She laid her hand on her husband’s side of the bed and felt it cold to the touch. She half hoped it would still be warm and that her husband would be in the bathroom or making coffee. Lifting her head from her pillow she saw her cell phone resting on his nightstand. This meant she would have a text from her missing husband. He would have sent it for her to find when she woke. She smiled as she reached for the phone thinking about how he only learned to text once his daughter left for university.

  The text read. “Gone to get Anna. Be back soon. Love you.”

  Raylene smiled and she rested her head thinking it would just be for a moment as she drifted off to sleep again.

  24

  The sun was still rising as Clovis sat in his truck outside a campus building in Stonevalley. The three story brick building where his daughter Anna resided. He watched feeling slightly comforted by the sight of the campus security vehicle as it approached, the driver peering at him through his windshield leaning forward in his seat. The vehicle slowed to a crawl as it pulled up next to Clovis’s truck. Clovis already had his window rolled down, his arm resting on the door as he watched as the campus security officer put his window down. Clovis couldn’t help but think if he had been dangerous I could have shot him before he even had time to put his window down. But the security guard looked quite young. So young in fact he could be a student himself.

  Half full of arrogance the young security guard spoke. “Awfully early to be hanging out on campus isn’t it, Mister.”

  “Picking up my daughter,” said Clovis.

  “She live in this building?” asked the guard.

  What a stupid question, thought Clovis. “Yup, in 3B.”

  At that moment the front door burst open and the young Anna struggled through it pulling a medium sized pink suitcase behind her. Backpack and purse slung on her shoulder. At the sight of Anna, the young security officer struggled to open his car door and stood behind it.

  “A-Anna,” he half stammered. “You need a hand with that?” he asked, clearly enamoured with sight of the young woman.

  “No thanks, Jaffer,” she replied.

  “Is this your dad?” the young security officer asked. “Is he… The Chief of Police in Carlton?”

  Clovis smiled. He liked the idea that the campus kids knew he was a cop. He liked that he knew the girl he was lusting after had a father who carried a gun. This amused Clovis as he saw the look of arrogance had vanished on the kid in the security guard uniform.

  Stepping out from behind the door of his campus security cruiser, security guard Jaffer spoke. “We’ve beefed up security on campus,” he made this statement as he glanced around. “With that psycho on the loose, we’re not taking chances.”

  Clovis knew he was looking for approval now that he knew who he was talking to. His air of arrogance had all but vanished now as he stepped up to the truck. Anna tossed her bag in the back of the truck and climbed in.

  Clovis never took his eyes of the kid as he spoke. “Has anything out of the ordinary happened on campus?”

  “Not so far. But we’re not taking any chances,” replied Jaffer.

  “Heard on the radio that calls on sightings called into the hotline are down to almost none,” said Clovis.

  “Yeah, I heard that too,” answered Jaffer hooking his thumb into the waistband of his uniform. Clovis noticed that the young security guard wore a Taser on his belt where cops wore their gun.

  “That’s good, kid,” replied Clovis. “Remember to report anything unusual.”

  Jaffer leaned in and pointed at Anna. “See you Monday?”

  “I don’t have classes Monday,” replied Anna. “Maybe Tuesday.”

  Clovis looked at his daughter in an attempt to read her. He wanted to know if she liked this young man who stood before him. Not sure what to think at the moment, he spoke to the young man as he drove away. “Be careful, kid.”

  Clovis watched the kid dwindle away in his rear-view mirror as he drove. Standing in the middle of the road scratching his head as he stepped towards his car only to stop and watch them drive off some more. Clovis’s gut told him this kid had a thing for his young daughter. He hadn’t decided how he felt about that just yet but he liked that he was doing his best to keep his daughter and the other students safe.

  “I hear you’ve got a boyfriend?” asked Clovis.

  “Not anymore,” replied Anna. “He was an idiot. One of those… too cool for school types.”

  Clovis laughed at his daughter’s comment knowing full well she always wanted to be the cool girl even though she wasn’t the type. Anna jerked in her seat suddenly and pulled her iPhone from her pocket. She smiled as she looked at it nonchalantly.

  “So! I hear mom is finally gonna take you to Cuba.”

  They both burst out laughing as they turned off campus and into the parking lot of the first Jabba-da-Java Coffee Hut they saw.

  25

  Luckily for her, she had the country road to herself as Raylene’s car swerved slightly when the cell phone in her crotch vibrated. The
feeling spooked her since she had already forgotten she set it there mere moments ago as she left Pinewood Lodge. She had been so preoccupied with checking up on Winston to make sure all was in order. A quick glance showed her a text from Libby.

  “Where’s Clovis?” was all the text read.

  Raylene drove on for a moment before giving into the urge to pull over.

  “Home sleeping,” was Raylene’s first reply. She followed it up with a short question simply stating. “Why?”

  “Can you talk?” replied Libby.

  “Yes!” Raylene texted in reply a mere moment before her phone received an incoming call from Libby.

  “Hey, Libby,” answered Raylene. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing really, but Dwayne and I were getting nervous since we hadn’t heard from Clovis all day.”

  “He’s home sleeping,” replied Raylene. “He hasn’t slept much since this all started. He’s been worried about Anna ever since those senseless murders happened in Stonevalley six months back. But now that Anna is home he’s sleeping like a baby.”

  “Well that’s good,” replied Libby. “Dwayne and I figured we’d pop into the station and take care of anything Crandall related but there’s nothing. Not a peep. Almost makes me nervous.” There was a pause and Libby added. “Dwayne just got off the phone with Officer Nowlan.”

  “You want Clovis to call you when he gets up?” asked Raylene while she secretly hoped that Libby would say no. Weeks of planning a birthday party could be wasted with one phone call thought Raylene. All it would take would be the one call reporting a sighting of Crandall in the Carlton area and all her hard work would have been for nothing. Lousy timing she thought that this escaped psychopathic serial killer would still be on the loose the same night of her husband’s surprise birthday party. Raylene started to get nervous as Libby seemed to pause on the other end of the call. Her reply delayed.

  “Raylene,” replied Libby. “Dwayne wants to talk to you. Hang on for a sec.”

  “Raylene. It’s me, Dwayne. Listen. I have a plan for tonight,” said Dwayne as Raylene felt her heart sink at the thought of Dwayne having a plan.

  26

  Raylene glanced at the time as she pulled into the driveway of her country home on the outskirts of Carlton. Nearly six o’clock already she thought. At that moment she looked up and her mind went completely blank. She shut off her engine and marvelled at the empty driveway. It took her a moment before processing what must have happened. Clovis couldn’t drive two vehicles at once and so he would have let Anna take the truck. And he then would have had to take his police cruiser into town. She hurried to get in the house knowing she would most likely find a note on the kitchen counter. The note sat in the same place it always did when the kids lived at home. This was the way they left messages before the days when Clovis learned to text. It sat on the cutting board with a now empty milk glass as a paperweight. Written in Clovis’s familiar scribbling.

  “Thanks for the meatloaf. We saved you some. It’s in the fridge. Gone to the office to check on things. Be back soon. Love you.”

  Raylene took her cell phone from her purse and after a few swift motions, put the phone to her ear.

  “Dwayne?” Raylene asked. “Is Clovis with you?”

  “Libby just texted me,” replied Dwayne. “He just got to the station.”

  “What should I do?” asked Raylene with panic apparent in her voice.

  Dwayne let out a quick guffaw before speaking as if nothing was wrong. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

  Still standing at the kitchen counter with the note in hand, Raylene disconnected the call and quickly made another.

  “Libby? It’s Raylene. Listen, is Clovis with you?”

  “Yes-Yes, Bonnie. You know I can’t share police information,” said Libby.

  “Libby? Is he right there with you? Can you talk?”

  “Not now, Bonnie. But don’t worry. It’s all under control.”

  “Call me when you can,” said a panicked Raylene before ending the call. Taking a deep breath through her nose and exhaling through her mouth, she braced herself against the kitchen counter and tried hard to calm herself.

  “Not gonna panic. Not gonna panic,” she repeated aloud. More deep breathing exercises although they had little affected on her state of mind. Just then her cell phone vibrated. The display screen read the name Jack Ledger.

  “Jack?” she said even before the phone was at her ear.

  “Raylene. What’s this I hear about Clovis being at the station?”

  “How’d you hear that?” asked Raylene.

  “Maureen says it’s all over Facebook.”

  “Tell Maureen to stick to the plan,” said a frustrated Raylene in a harsh tone. “Her husband is supposed to take care of it.”

  “Ok-sheesh. Relax, Raylene,” replied Jack in meek tone.

  “Sorry, Jack. Call me if anything important comes up.”

  Raylene disconnects the call, crumpled the note and tossed it on the counter. Setting her cell phone down, she opened the fridge door, paused for a moment and then returned to the counter to pick up her cell phone again and dialled one of the many programmed numbers.

  “Anna?” asks Raylene. “Where are you? Did you tell your dad about the party?”

  27

  Libby sat at her desk in her jeans and white blouse instead of her usual police uniform. Her blond hair down instead of tied up neatly. She glanced behind her towards Chief Clovis’s office door just to be sure it was safe before pulling up her Facebook again. A quick post on the event wall she noted. “All is a go as planned. Will let you know when we arrive.” And before she could lower the internet browser, she already had seven ‘likes’ to her post, most likely from mobile devices. A slight smile of satisfaction spread on her face as she heard something emanating from Clovis’s office. She tilted her head in attempt to hear better but she could only make out a muffled voice. She shut down her computer, scooped up her cell phone and walked over to Clovis’s office doorway. She peered in and saw him sitting behind his desk as she caught the tail end of a conversation as he hung up the phone.

  “Who was that?” she inquired with an obvious display of curiosity.

  “Officer Nowlan,” replied Clovis. “Just making sure my sleepy little town is still sleeping is all.”

  Libby asked. “What’d he say?”

  “Not much, but I suppose no news is good news,” said Clovis.

  “I never got that expression,” replied Libby.

  “It means it’s better to not have heard anything about Crandall than to have heard of him leaving a trail of bodies like his last rampage.”

  “Oh!!” replied Libby. “Gotcha!”

  “Big plans tonight?” asked Clovis. “You’ve got the country girl fancies on.”

  “Blue jeans and a white blouse qualify as dressed up to you?”

  With a wide smile, Clovis replied. “On a Saturday night in Carlton, yes it does.”

  “Might have a beer at Burnett’s later,” replied Libby.

  Clovis, in his own jeans and Saturday night special chequered shirt got up from behind his desk. Libby hadn’t noticed until now that he wore his police gun belt.

  “Expecting trouble?” she asked pointing to the gun belt.

  “You can’t be too careful. Things have gotten too quiet for my liking with this Crandall business,” said Clovis as his smile disappeared. “But don’t tell Dwayne.”

  Libby knew the real reason was that Anna was in town now, but she kept that to herself.

  28

  Floyd peaked over his Carlton Gazette newspaper and watched in astonishment as off-duty Officer Robert walked into his otherwise desolate bar. Floyd folded the paper and laid it on top of the bar while smiling.

  “Well now,” said Floyd. “I thought tonight was going to be a compl
ete waste of money. You are gonna have a beer now aren’t you?” Floyd picked up a mug and held it under the tap with his hand on the handle, waiting for Robert to say yes before he poured.

  “Just the one but make it the usual,” replied Robert. Reluctantly he had driven his cruiser just in case he would get a call about Crandall. None of the officers had liked the idea but Dwayne was pretty persistent about them being ready, just in case something actually did happen. Chief Clovis had been more than happy to remind the entire police force that nothing ever happened in Carlton. But everyone was shocked when without a fuss; he had agreed with Dwayne that they should be ready. Just in case.

  “Is Molly off tonight?”

  “She’s in the can,” replied Floyd. “Why aren’t you at the Chief’s birthday bash?” Floyd already knew the answer to the question of why Robert wasn’t at Pinewood Lodge. He had come by to see Molly.

  “I’m gonna go a little later,” replied Robert.

  Floyd set the foamy draft beer in front of Robert as he spoke. “I didn’t think I’d see a single soul tonight.” Floyd paused as the door to the bar opened and in walked an already unsteady Thinking-Lincoln. “Except maybe for Thinkun-Lincoln. I figured he’d show up sooner or later.”

  Both Robert and Floyd watched as Lincoln tried hard to steady himself, but still he staggered slightly as he walked over to the bar. He knew that if Floyd knew how much he had already had today that he wouldn’t sell him anything. But Lincoln had gotten very good at hiding his drinking from people in a physical sense. But the ever so quiet and reserved man known to the residents of Carlton as Thinking-Lincoln wasn’t quite so quiet when he was intoxicated. Lincoln pulled himself onto a barstool at the opposite end of the bar, away from Robert.

  Molly startled Floyd as she walked up behind him and took a beer from the cooler behind the bar and plopped it in front of Lincoln who already had a folded twenty under his hand which rested on the bar. He slid it forward so Molly could take it.

  “It’s gonna be pretty quiet in here tonight,” said a smiling Molly as she winked at Lincoln putting his change on the bar before him.

  “Maybe Floyd shuts down early so you can come to the lodge with me,” said Robert before taking a sip of beer.