“Yeah, of course,” replied Dwayne. “But there’s always Thinking-Lincoln. He wasn’t at your party so he must have been at Burnett’s getting drunk like always.”
“True. He has been drinking more than ever these days. He could have been at Burnett’s and might have seen something that might help us understand how this could happen.” Clovis looked around assessing the situation. “I think they don’t need us here right this minute.” He clapped Dwayne on the shoulder. “Let’s go for a drive and pay a visit to my old school buddy Lincoln.”
49
“I sure don’t like the look of this,” said Dwayne from the passenger seat of Chief Clovis’s cruiser.
“Me either,” replied Clovis.
They were parked on the roadside looking at Floyd’s truck, which sat askew in Lincoln’s gravel driveway. It had a large dried blood smear on the driver’s door. Upon closer inspection they would see the interior completely smeared in blood as well. Clovis didn’t have to say anything to Dwayne as the look on his face said it all. Something was terribly wrong here. Both men drew their guns as they approached Lincoln’s small dilapidated house. Clovis smelled the vodka before stepping on the broken glass on the porch. A shattered bottle no doubt full at the time still lay where it had broken. Clovis glanced behind him to see Dwayne stopped in his tracks at the bottom of the stairs as he fiddled with his pocket and pulled out his Blackberry. With a confused look he put it to his ear and spoke.
“Hello!”
Clovis knew their element of surprise had just been blown. If anyone was inside they would’ve heard Dwayne. They probably would have thought he was speaking to them. The door was ajar and now the smell of death assaulted Clovis as he took a step closer. The gun in his right hand was pointed towards the floor as he gently pushed the door open. Daylight streamed through the thin curtains of the double wide living room window. A quick glance behind him showed Dwayne talking on his Blackberry, scratching his head with the barrel of his gun, which was pointed skyward. Luckily his finger wasn’t on the trigger thought Clovis. He also felt a little relieved that Dwayne’s gun wasn’t pointed in his direction as he stepped through the doorway.
The strong stench of death for the second time that day made him gag slightly as he covered his mouth with the back of his hand. Bloody footprints in no discernable pattern covered the already littered floor. On the recliner, which had its back towards him, he could see feet propped up and an arm outstretched limply. The reflection in the blank television screen confirmed it to be Lincoln before he even stepped in to have a closer look.
Clovis stood next to the recliner when Dwayne walked through the open doorway. He still had his gun casually in his right hand as he extended his left holding up his Blackberry.
“It’s for you,” he said grimacing from the smell as he gave the phone to Clovis. “It’s Nowlan.”
Clovis took the phone from Dwayne. “Hey, Nowlan,” he said as he put the phone to his ear.
He heard Nowlan speaking to someone on the other end as he did so. “Clovis. It wasn’t Crandall who killed those people at Brunette’s.”
“That’s Burnett’s,” replied Clovis. “And how do you know that?”
“We had a couple places under surveillance for days now. Crandall finally came out from hiding and so he couldn’t have been in Carlton last night.”
“You caught him?” asked Clovis.
“About a half hour ago,” replied Nowlan. “And the way the victims were found at Burnett’s, I think we have a copycat on our hands.”
“I’m thinking something went terribly wrong and all of it was a cover up,” replied Clovis as he stood before Lincoln’s body.
“What makes you say that?” asked Nowlan.
“Let’s just say I’m pretty sure I’ve found my killer.”
Clovis asked Nowlan to send a team of CSI to Lincoln’s address as he looked about the room. On the coffee table was a blood-smeared cardboard box full of liquor bottles. On the floor beneath Lincoln’s outstretched arm lay an empty bottle of spiced rum. Lincoln’s lifeless body, covered in blood, was slumped in the recliner. The smell indicated that he had died in the night. Clovis assumed he died most likely from alcohol poisoning or a stroke or something. On the floor next to the empty rum bottle lay a very large blood-caked kitchen knife. Also on the floor next to the knife was a blood-smeared copy of the Carlton Gazette with the headline reading.
Lester Crandall, a.k.a. Crazy Crandall on the loose.
Dwayne stood with a hand over his nose as he spoke. “Why would Lincoln do such a horrible thing?”
“I guess we’ll never really know,” replied Clovis. “But my guess would be that he killed Floyd in self-defense.” Clovis gagged on the smell and wiped a tear away as he continued. “Then panicked and tried to cover it up and make it look like Crandall. But that’s just a guess.”
Author’s Note
First I want to use this note to explain the fact that the title of Sleepless Nights wasn’t intended to mean the contents of this collection of short stories would be so horrific that they would keep you up at night. Instead I hoped they would peak your curiosity so much that you couldn’t stop reading and so you, the reader would spend many a sleepless night lost in my weaves. Every would-be writer dreams of hearing the words, I couldn’t put it down. Why should I be any different?
All of the tales from this book are not drawn from some giant source of inspiration but rather from my imagination only. Nothing Ever Happens in Carlton for example was written after I read two books of stories set in small towns with many characters. One of those books was Needful Things which crept in as sort of a nod to the book and its author.
Penny For Your Thoughts was a concept born from a sit down in a coffee shop with my sometimes collaborative partner, Angella Jacob. She is one of those people who shares in my passion for stories. Be they movie, television series or book. We chatted about story ideas coming from anywhere. Like the rows of pennies which fit perfectly into a slot in the moulding around the very booth we sat in. The bronze color trim inserted by the patrons went around the coffee shop. This became one of my examples.
“Penny for your thoughts,” I said as I proceeding to blurt out the idea of the character of Delroy and his gift / curse.
Bill and Frank and The Statues of Pine Glen Forest were not originally intended for publication but I liked them enough to want to share them.
I love all aspect of story creation but the best part of it for me is imagining the characters and places. I get great pleasure from dreaming these up as they would have never existed if my imagination had never given them birth. Stonevalley which is the setting for Subliminal was originally created because I needed a small city that was large enough to have a university. So I loosely based the idea of it on the community of Moncton, NB which is where I currently live. A city that has a small town appeal if you want it to. But one that also feels like a bigger city of one hundred and twenty or so thousand total strangers.
(I should also mention that pierre means stone in French.)
Stonevalley is a short hour long drive along a winding country road away from a small town I named Carlton. This town I created as a fictional version of my hometown of Rogersville, NB. Said town was once known as Carleton before being renamed by a religious figure for whatever reason they had back then. I dropped the ‘e’ and pretended the renaming had never happened in my fictional version of this tiny town of twelve hundred people. I also revived an old dinner and coffee shop named Santorene which was owned and operated for a time by two of my many uncles. This was the very same place where my father first laid eyes on a woman who would become his wife and my mother. Mind you the town of Carlton was inspired by my hometown it was not meant to be that town at all. The town is completely fictional and its characters and places will most likely reappear in some future stories as I feel a there are many more to tell.
&n
bsp; On another note, the cover picture is a house nestled in my hometown. In my younger days I spent many a night perched on its porch, hanging out with friends and I felt it would be a great fit for the cover. It would be especially fitting with the idea born from the previously mentioned book title. I took the picture myself while standing on the sidewalk in front of the home in broad daylight. What you see on the cover is a combination of photography, photo editing and creative inspiration.
With all that said, if you’re anything like me and so read this book from start to finish then this would be the last of the book which you’re about to close. I do sincerely hope that you enjoyed this book enough to want to read more from me, whether in collaboration or not as I do have many more stories to tell.
Regards
Pierre C Arseneault
Table of Contents
Subliminal
The Statues of Pine Glen Forest
Sleepy Meadows
Bill and Frank
Pre-ordering Murder
Flljan, Flljan
Penny For Your Thoughts
Speechless
Nothing Ever Happens in Carlton
Author’s Note
Sleepless Nights Page 23