Mister White: The Novel

by John C. Foster

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  - 1 -

  Bud Light. Schlitz. Michelob. Not a single one of the neon signs in the smoke-filled bar were lit.

  Buddy LaChaise had been drinking since noon at the Red Red Rooster, Flintlock’s one and only purveyor of suds. To say he was sober upon entering R-3, as the locals called it, would be ambitious to the point of optimism, what with his useless progeny held overnight in one of Ranger Rick’s jail cells for an offense that would undoubtedly cost Buddy a wad of hard won cash.

  “Redneck,” Buddy said with a raised finger, to which Dave Baillie grunted and, Buddy would swear, farted in response from where he sat watching a corner-mounted television. Still, for the fifth time since Buddy had placed his considerable backside on the cracked vinyl of his preferred stool, Baillie placed the Budweiser and shot of Canadian Club on the faux-wood bar without spilling a drop. Buddy carefully studied the contents of his wallet in the dim, red glow of the holiday lights strung over the mirror behind the bar before laying down a wrinkled five spot to cover it.

  “Grassy ass.”

  Most of the shot hit the back of Buddy’s throat with a satisfying burn, and he brushed a few errant drops from the oval nametag on his blue jacket. BUDDY it read with a cursive flourish. He had a habit of turning his left side towards people as he spoke so they could see his name, this in spite of the fact that everyone he talked to at R-3 knew who he was.

  “Dog’s a menace,” Sam Stout said from two stools down as he tapped his cigarette into a plastic ashtray.

  Everyone in town also knew about Buddy and Gerard Beaumont and a few, like Sam, might have texted a pal with the knowledge that Gerry Beaumont was due at the jail to file a report against young Dickie LaChaise, whose father had been drinking rednecks at the bar next door to the municipal building all afternoon.

  “Little Miss Fingerbang,” Buddy said without slurring, a skill acquired after years of semi-functional alcoholism. He grinned around a mouthful of nicotine-stained teeth and belched. The replacement teeth installed by the dentist after his one and only dance with Beaumont were still factory white. The contrast with his natural beauties invited folks to compare his grin to an ear of two-toned corn.

  “Probably not even his niece,” Jackie Strong said from his stool on the far side of Stout. Bored and out of work, he had walked over when Stout told him there might be some fireworks downtown, if things went just right and Buddy kept on drinking. Not above a little egging on, Strong pulled off his camo cap and wiped at his slick comb-over. “Probably some Russian gal he met over the Internet.”

  Russian gals who could be ordered over the Internet were a subject of great interest to Strong, and he had long since promised himself to get one if he was ever gainfully employed.

  “Little Miss Fingerbang,” Buddy repeated with the air of a debater delivering the coup de grace.

  “Dog bites your kid. Ain’t right that your kid got picked up,” Stout said, worried that Buddy was too drunk for subtlety.

  The door was pushed in and a reluctant shaft of light pressed into the smoky interior. The two newcomers were carrying a flat, greasy box from the Flintlock House of Pizza next door and they set it down at one end of the bar.

  “Saw Beaumont’s truck pull up to the town building,” one said to nobody in particular.

  “Son of a bitch,” Buddy said and pushed against the bar, sliding his ass backwards off the stool with a jangle from his overloaded key ring. His boots smacked down on the stained carpet and he straightened. “Don’t touch my beer,” he said over his shoulder as he lumbered for the door with his trademark limp.

  The men in the bar gave it a moment for propriety’s sake before filing out after Buddy.

  “You know Gerry Beaumont will kick his ass,” Baillie said.

  Jackie Strong glanced back. “So what? Buddy’s a jerk.”

  Baillie shook his head and lifted the cardboard lid of the pizza box, plucking free a dangling length of mozzarella and placing it on his tongue. He used the small key on his keychain to secure the cash drawer on the register behind the bar while he picked up the slightly greasy counter phone to make a call. “Yeah, Aaron, get your ass down to the bar. You got a shift.” He hung up the phone, snagged another piece of mozzarella and headed for the door.

  The television continued its murmuring about Bruins hockey to an empty room.

  - 2 -

  It was a one-room police station with two holding cells and a small cubicle that served as an interrogation room or nap room, depending on how business was going. A small bank of radios murmured in background conversation.

  Business was booming today.

  “Well shoot, Bill, if you think it was rabid you gotta take it with you to the doctor’s office,” Officer Rick Wannamaker was saying into the phone. “No, don’t cut off the head, bring in the whole carcass.” He listened while rubbing his eyes. “No, just forget the vet. Let the doctor worry about that part. Take your body and the animal’s body right over to Dr. Saunders.”

  He hung up the phone as Gerard Beaumont and his niece entered. He already had a headache.

  “Gerry,” he said and nodded at the girl, struggling for her name. “Hedde.”

  “Lot going on?” Gerard asked.

  “Crazy stuff,” Wannamaker said. “That was Bill Evers. Said he just ran down a goat who charged his bumper out on Route Thirteen. When he went to check on it, the animal bit part of his thumb off. And an hour ago Reverend Lawson at the Methodist called to say a flock of crows barged straight through the storm windows at the rectory. Killed themselves trying to get in.” He looked at Gerard and cocked an eyebrow. “Ronnie Chasen said you killed a boar.”

  “That loudmouth son of a bitch,” Gerard said. “Don’t give me any shit about seasons, Rick. The pig was trying to get into my barn and after Sophie.”

  Wannamaker held up a placating hand.

  “Who’s Ronnie Chasen?” Hedde asked and Wannamaker silently thanked her.

  “He’ll butcher an animal for quarter of the meat,” Wannamaker said.

  “And blab out his ass,” Gerard said. “Damned animal could’ve killed Etienne.”

  “That’d be a shame,” Dickie LaChaise called out from the cell where he lounged alongside Ray Childers, the both of them chewing through the contents of a McDonald’s bag. “Be an even worse shame if the mutt ate some poisoned bait.”

  “Now goddammit,” Wannamaker said, rising and thrusting a finger at the boys. “No more out of you.”

  It wasn’t Gerard who moved, however, but Hedde taking a step towards the boys, eyes narrowing. She stopped when her uncle’s scarred hand rested on her shoulder.

  “Gerry, ignore those two,” Wannamaker pleaded, switching gears. “I ain’t worried about hunting seasons. I’m worried that I’ve heard about three damned weird animal incidents and thinking about rabies.”

  Gerard held his gaze on the occupied cell for a beat longer before nodding to Wannamaker. “I’ll tell Ronnie to cut off the head and run it over to Saunders.”

  “That’s good, and tell him to freeze the meat until Saunders gives us the all clear.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I want some chops off that pig,” he added.

  Gerard’s mouth moved into what Hedde took to be his smile. “You got it.”

  The phone rang again and Wannamaker glanced at the incoming call before letting it go to voicemail. “Martha Leroux, probably complaining about the UN trying to steal her land.” He looked at Hedde and unconsciously adopted an Officer Friendly tone of voice. “Now hon, we need to go into this room over here so I can take your statement down. Just you, not your Uncle Gerry.”

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug. “But that’s a cubicle.”

  Wannamaker sighed. “It’s what we got.” He looked at Gerard. “Gerry, how about you go downstairs and smoke a cigarette or two. I’ll walk her down when we’re done.”

  “I’ll stay.”

  “Gerry, dammit, I’ve been listening to t
hese two bitch and whine all night and they finally ran out of steam. I don’t need you getting them going again.” He paused. “Actually, you could do me a favor and pick up a bottle of Tylenol at the store.”

  Gerard looked at his niece, and Wannamaker thought he was going to ask if she’d be okay, or offer some assurances about his proximity, but what he said was, “You be nice to Ranger Rick here, he’s having an Excedrin kind of day.”

  “Tylenol,” Wannamaker said as Gerard clomped across the hardwood floor to the doors. “Excedrin has caffeine.” Wannamaker shrugged at Hedde.

  Gerard’s boots were banging down the stairs outside when Hedde said, “Ranger Rick?”

  Wannamaker sighed.

  - 3 -

  Because the store was in the opposite direction from R-3, Gerard didn’t notice the man lumbering towards him or the small crowd gathered in front of the bar. He paused to light a cigarette, leaning into his cupped hands to shield it from the wind and trying to recall what he knew about rabies.

  By the time Gerard heard the phlegmatic breath of an obese man running, he had just enough time to glance back before Buddy LaChaise swung a fistful of tire chains at his head while bellowing something that was more spit than words.

  It should be noted that the crowd of men who had egged Buddy on did protest when he pulled the chains from his truck bed, and Jackie Strong had a genuine Oh shit moment when he saw that Gerry Beaumont would be caught unawares, but the taciturn son of a bitch was quick. Gerard threw up his left hand and slowed the blow, but the swinging chain whipped around his wrist and struck his forehead even as he hurled himself backwards and went “ass over tea kettle,” according to Dave Baillie. The momentum of the swing caused Buddy to stumble to one knee.

  “Get up, Beaumont,” someone shouted, and both men did.

  “Kill you, motherfucker,” Buddy slurred and drew back the chain as Gerard leapt in with an overhand right, more power than grace, but it dropped Buddy onto his ass in the street.

  Buddy looked up from where he sat with a red welt already swelling on his forehead, and Gerard paused to touch his own wound, studying the fresh blood on his fingertips for a moment as the tenor of the shouting audience changed and they felt the shifting of the ice across the distance.

  Gerard lashed out with a short kick that rocked Buddy’s head back and then stomped hard on the crotch of the man’s blue Dickie’s. He turned and spit, stepping around the writhing man on the ground until he was no longer standing on slippery ice.

  “Gerry, don’t!” Baillie called out, running forward even as Gerard Beaumont went to work with his boots.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  - 1 -

  Martha Leroux drew a stick-thin finger back and let the faded drapes fall over the darkening window as she backpedaled, piloting her gangly form around furniture and stacks of magazines with a skill born of long experience.

  She rarely left the house anymore; it was too frightening out there. So long had she been inside her home that the absence of its comforting smells—equal parts vegetable soup and eau de litter box—triggered an almost Pavlovian panic, flooding her mind with horrific headlines.

  A godless communist was in the White House, scheming to sell American land to the United Nations. Waves of foreigners were carrying new and unheard-of diseases across the borders, and the streets were filled with drug-fueled rapists who preyed on good Christian women. These things, and others she knew from her research, filled her with dread.

  When the hem of her lank dress caught on a stack of tabloids and sent several thumping to the floor, she nearly screamed. Instead, she held her hands over her damp eyes and prayed quietly that someone would answer their phone when she called.

  Her heart was beating fast, too fast, and Dr. Woolrich would have put her on bed rest immediately if he knew. She pressed a hand against her drawn-in stomach as the acid burned at her middle. There was so little she could eat these days that wouldn’t upset her system.

  Martha glanced around to make sure every light in her three room double-wide was still blazing brightly—no energy saving light bulbs for her, thank you very much—and all of the drapes and shades had been pulled to keep out prying eyes.

  And they were out there. Hundreds of them.

  Even with all the lights in the trailer burning bright, the brown faux-wood paneling was squeezing inward like a vise. She hurried once more to see that the door was dead-bolted. There had been no other sound from outside since the dreadful tap-tap-tapping had interrupted her favorite afternoon program, General Hospital. She had unfolded from the couch, letting loose an unladylike curse as she opened the two doors and prepared to give whomever was outside looking for a handout a double-barrel load of hell.

  Her first shock had come when she saw her unmoving cat on the ice-covered walk leading up to her door. “Leo?” She hadn’t even known he was outside.

  When she had noticed all of those terrible eyes watching her from the woods, she moved back inside with uncanny quickness before locking the doors.

  She skirted a couch-side magazine bin and scooped up the receiver of her princess phone, her long finger spearing the dial.

  As the phone at the other end of the line rang in her ear, Martha caught sight of a framed watercolor of The Last Supper, and said another silent prayer until the ringing ended and the voicemail recording began.

  “You have reached the Flintlock Police Department. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911 immediately. If it is not, please wait for the tone and leave a message.”

  Beep.

  “I pay taxes, Ranger Rick! I pay your salary, and you’d better answer your damned phone!”

  She slammed the receiver back into the cradle and planted her hands on her narrow hips, unconcerned that she had not left her name or number. That Ranger Rick knew who she was, all right, and if the idiot had somehow forgotten, she’d already left him five messages to remind him just who he worked for.

  Her eyes strayed to the front door. Locked. To the well-lit kitchen. Empty. To the bathroom and doorway to the bedroom. Closed. As she weighed her options, her eyes strayed again to the painting of the Savior on the wall and she had an inspired thought.

  She picked up the phone again and straightened in place as she composed herself, her hair nearly brushing the low ceiling as her lips turned down and began trembling.

  “It’s Martha Leroux. Thanks so much for answering,” she said, pausing as the greeting ritual was repeated at the other end. “I didn’t know who else to call. I can’t get anyone at the police station and I need someone to come over right away.” She paused again. “Something came to my door and terrified me. Terrified me, I tell you. I can’t go outside and I’ve locked myself in with all of the lights on. Oh, ple—” She paused and then gushed, “Thank you, thank you.”

  And hung up.

  When Martha was younger she could make herself physically sick on days that she wanted to miss school. Even now, despite her genuine fear of all those eyes on her home, she didn’t give a second thought to using the same skills to get what she wanted.

  She glided over to the window and peeked between the drapes one more time, but recoiled immediately.

  She was beginning to understand the meaning of real fear.

  - 2 -

  Father Messina pushed aside the heavy velvet curtain and stepped from the cramped confessional into the airy openness of his church, humble by Catholic standards but suited to the spartan nature of his congregation. As he paused, the white walls were washed in a rainbow of colors as the setting sun sent its orange rays through the stained glass windows in a wonderful reminder of God’s grace, a sight that rarely failed to lift his spirits.

  Messina sat in the first row of wooden pews and looked at the wonderfully wrought cross on the wall behind the pulpit as he struggled to comprehend what the stranger had told him in the dim anonymity of the booth.

  He glanced at the silver-plated watch on his wrist and looked away again without noting the ti
me, a nervous gesture left over from his youth.

  Infidelity. Physical abuse of wives and children. Theft. Lies and lust. His purview was a domain of vapid and petty evil. Confronted by this stranger’s monstrous tale, he was also confronted with the atrophy of his spiritual muscles, the puniness of his belief.

  He scratched his black beard and rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath his wire-rimmed glasses, eyes resting on the closed curtain concealing the stranger.

  Stranger.

  Stranger still was his tale of flight and murder and what could only have been a spiritual confrontation of significant magnitude in the German countryside.

  Messina shifted on the uncomfortable pew, an unfortunate Protestant infiltration of his church, and read again the note by the German monk.

  Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

  Hebrews 11:1.

  The message was not lost on Messina.

  Believe this man.

  “Are you all right, my son?” He spoke quietly and the acoustics of the wonderfully constructed church carried his voice as on wings.

  The curtain stirred and the man appeared, his face gaunt from the effort of his telling.

  “I’m sorry, Father.”

  Messina held up one thick hand, tiny curls of black hair foresting each scarred knuckle. The people in these parts expected a working priest.

  “Come sit.”

  The man sat, clad in a pair of heavy jeans beneath a white sweater. On his feet he wore unmarked but sturdy Timberland boots, and over his arm he carried a long coat of gray material, a coat only a stranger to these parts would wear.

  In his eyes he carried the weight of his truth.

  “I must ask you these questions before we continue,” Messina said. “Please do not take offense.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Are you currently on any medications, or should you be?”