Killer Nashville Noir

by Clay Stafford

  “Good. No troubles of any kind? You know I like to keep my finger on the pulse of my friends at Williams.”

  “Well, my Ford Madox Ford essay is a bit behind.” Sam’s eyes bored into the administrator’s, which once again, slipped away. “But that’s the only problem on the horizon.”

  “Good, glad to hear it.”

  This was about as personal as any conversation was going to get in this locale. Sam reflected that in New York, a discussion between an administrator and a professor could be like bare-knuckle boxing.

  He decided that denial and avoidance could be startlingly refreshing.

  The chancellor smiled. “Didn’t mean to stir up anything. You know me, just playing Uncle Remus here.”

  Sam blinked. “What was that?” he said with a bit of the edge that had characterized him lately.

  “Uhm, Uncle Remus?”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Wait, Sam. Please don’t take it the wrong way!” The chancellor was alarmed, undoubtedly thinking he’d given offense with the reference to the politically questionable short stories of Joel Chandler Harris, featuring Uncle Remus and Br’ers Rabbit, Fox, and Bear.

  But that wasn’t what had hit Sam in the gut.

  He jumped from his chair. “No, no, Jonah. It’s just, there’s someone I’ve got to see.”

  • • •

  To Sam’s dismay, Dr. Brenda wouldn’t agree to an appointment on the spur of the moment.

  He’d arrived in the parking lot outside her office when she finally returned his phone call. He was starting to climb out of the car when she said, “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m glad you’ve had a revelation, but you’ll have to wait till our regular session.”

  “But…” He wasn’t sure what to say after that.

  She continued, “Therapy is about working within the protocols of the patient-doctor relationship. There have to be boundaries. And I have other commitments now.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll see you tomorrow. The regular time.”

  “Good, Sam.”

  As he disconnected, he realized what commitments she was talking about: The patient he’d seen earlier, the sullen young woman with the short hair was walking into Dr. Brenda’s office. So, she’d have two sessions a week—one after Sam’s weekly visit and the one today. And maybe more.

  My own problems could be worse…

  The next day, in his regular session, Dr. Brenda began with: “Now, tell me about this revelation.”

  “It’s double-barreled.”

  “How’s that?” she offered with a smile.

  He’d thought of the expression at 4:30 A.M. “Well, first, I realized that whatever happened back then, when I was twelve, had something to do with guilt.”

  “Guilt’s a very powerful force. That was probably the invisible monster. But guilt about what?”

  “I don’t know what, not yet.”

  “That’s all right. We can work on that. And what was the other revelation?”

  “My uncle.”

  “Seth, right. He was your father’s younger brother, the outdoorsman you’d go fishing with. You liked him.”

  “Yes.” Again, Sam was impressed she remembered. He’d only referred to him once.

  “A man I work with mentioned Uncle Remus, the character from the Song of the South. Hearing the word, I thought of my uncle and I knew he was connected somehow.” Sam sighed, indicative of the frustration he felt. “I’ve tried to figure it out more than that. But I can’t.” The black cloud was looming.

  Dr. Brenda said, “Tell me more about your uncle.”

  “Well, like I said, he was really cool. He drove a sports car—”

  “Nothing like the Buick?”

  “No, a gray Mustang. It was neat. Uncle Seth was about fifteen years older than me, so he could’ve been an older brother.” Sam closed his eyes briefly and remembered more. “He dated a lot. There were some pretty girls in that part of Georgia. And he was a good-looking guy. Even back then, twelve, or so, I remember he had some pretty hot girls.”

  “Do you still stay in touch with him?”

  “No, he died a few years ago.”

  “He was young.”

  “Heart attack. Just a weird thing.”

  “That must’ve been hard.”

  Sam shrugged; the question stymied him, for some reason. But he didn’t have time to consider it further because suddenly the cloud started to fade. Some new memory was looming; he could feel it. And low in his gut was the frustration, the anger, the tension that had infected him like pneumonia.

  Oh, Christ…what’s the fucking memory? I can almost feel it!

  “What are you thinking, Sam?” Dr. Brenda asked softly, sitting forward.

  “I can see…I’m close. There’s something else about that night in the clearing, the fallen tree, the hedge, the car, the hill.”

  “It seems it’s hard for you to think about it.”

  “It is hard. I’m feeling more and more guilty. My uncle…” Then the black cloud closed in again. “Shit. It’s gone.”

  There was some urgency in her voice as she said, “Let’s keep going, Sam, I think we’re getting close. Let’s go back to the Buick. The inciting event.”

  He nodded.

  “Tell me more about it. Picture it, see it, smell it. Describe it to me again. In as much depth as you can. It’s the day of the car show. Go back there.”

  He repeated some of the information: “It was that ugly yellow, a brown vinyl roof, like lizard skin. That’s what it reminded me of. It had shiny wheel covers, plaid cloth seats, bucket seats in front. White-wall tires.”

  “Where was it parked?”

  “In the—” His eyes went wide. “My God.”

  “What, Sam?”

  “It was parked in a clearing in the woods at the fairgrounds! Just like the woods from my memories, the U-shaped clearing, unmowed grass and dirt. Maybe that’s why it made an impression on me at first.”

  The cloud was thinner, but holding.

  He shook his head.

  “Okay, Sam. You’re doing great. Stay there, stay in that clearing around the yellow Buick. Remember everything you can.”

  And Sam dragged himself back to that Saturday several weeks ago. Walking around the yellow Buick, seeing the grass, smelling the interior when he thought he was going to faint, reading the placard. “I thought the man who restored it—this guy Fred or Frank Killdaire—must’ve spent months or years—”

  A detonation within him. Not a ping, but a full-fledged explosion.

  “What, Sam?” Dr. Brenda might have been sworn by her Freudian oath to remain placid, but she was sitting forward, eyes intense.

  “Killdaire,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “The Buick doesn’t mean anything. What’s significant is the clearing where it was parked, the U-shaped clearing, and the fallen tree—and the man restored it. Somebody named Killdaire.”

  “Why is that significant? Do you know him?”

  “No, it’s not him. It’s the name.”

  Sam closed his eyes, his hands curled to fists. “In the clearing back when I was twelve. I can hear it perfectly. This man is shouting, ‘I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you!’”

  “You saw ‘Killdaire’ on the placard, but in your mind you were hearing ‘kill’.”

  He nodded, quivering now as if freezing. His voice cracked. “It’s coming back. It’s coming back. My uncle and I had been fishing, but until now, it was a trip I never remembered.”

  “Tell me, Sam.”

  Coming back now. The cloud lifting.

  He whispered, “It was dusk. I’d gone to get something in the car, and from behind me I heard shouts. This guy attacked my uncle.”

  “Who?”

  “This man, a big guy. A local, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  The cloud was gone now. He could remember everything.

  The doctor repeated her question. Sam blinked and looked at her “Why? I don’
t know. He was crazy, I guess. This was the woods in northern Georgia. Like in the movie Deliverance. He kept pummeling my uncle and shouting, ‘I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you!’ And he pulled a knife on him.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “They were fighting and they fell down this hill.” His palms were soaking, armpits too. His heart beating like a drum. Panic shook him like a lion shaking a gazelle.

  He whispered, “And I just stood there. I was holding one of the fishing knives. I could’ve gone to save him. But I didn’t.”

  “You were afraid.”

  “Yes! I should have gone, but I didn’t.”

  “You were a boy. It wasn’t your job to defend your uncle.”

  Sam started crying. There were tissues next to his chair. He’d seen them when he’d first walked into her office. He thought, who the hell cries in a shrink’s office? He snatched up the box of Kleenex angrily and wiped his eyes.

  “And what happened? Was your uncle hurt badly?”

  “No.”

  “What happened to the attacker?”

  “He ran off. I guess he hadn’t figured Uncle Seth was so strong.”

  She looked into his eyes. “So, you see, Sam, that your coming to rescue him wouldn’t have had any effect.”

  “But, no…you don’t understand!” he muttered, trying to stifle the tears.

  Then Dr. Brenda nodded and smiled. “I think I do. You and your uncle never went fishing or hiking again, did you?”

  Sam was bawling like a kid. “No, never again. He said it wasn’t safe. He never wanted that to happen again.”

  “And that meant the end of the fun times you had with him.”

  “Just that one time things went bad. He just didn’t understand.”

  “And that was the disagreement you had with the driver in your dream. Your uncle was driving the car and the invisible monster wasn’t guilt; it was the loneliness and unhappiness that would return if you stopped going on those trips. You wanted to go back to fishing. To the fun time. And you felt that if you’d come to help him, he’d feel differently, that you’d continue to have those fun times with him.”

  Slowly Sam mastered his breathing, but not the tears. He said, “I guess that’s what I thought, yes.”

  “You have to remember what I said. It wasn’t your job to save him. You might even have made things worse. If you’d tried to interfere, both of you might’ve died.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe.” He slumped. “In the end, I gave up on everything that had made me happy—fishing, hiking, going outdoors. I went into teaching. I became my father…Jesus, I’m crying like a baby!”

  It took him five minutes to calm. He dried his eyes completely. He gave a weak smile. “I can’t believe that night was gone completely.”

  “I told you repression is rare, but when it occurs, it’s very powerful.” She looked him over. “And very helpful too.”

  “Helpful? How?”

  “It’s the key to healing. You have to take what you’ve learned about that night and integrate it into your behavior, use what you’ve learned. Change the old patterns. You have only one goal now—to get back to how you felt earlier during that day on the fishing trip, when you were happy.

  She glanced at the clock. Fifty minutes on the dot.

  Sam rose and, smiling hugely, stepped closer to her. He suspected “therapy protocol” did not include embracing one’s doctor, despite the magnet of transference patients invariably felt for therapists (he’d learned about that, too, on Wikipedia). But he found himself warmly shaking her hand in both of his. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “Thank yourself, too,” she said. “You’re the one who did the hard work.”

  Outside, in the waiting area, he saw the young woman patient, sitting solemnly staring at the opposite wall, a limp magazine drooping in her hand. So pleased was Sam with his revelations that he involuntarily smiled at the woman.

  She glanced his way, but returned to the magazine, lost in her depression.

  Sam stepped outside into the beautiful spring afternoon and walked to his car, enjoying every second of the boisterous sunlight, the smell of honeysuckle, the buzz of persistent bees. Sam sat in the front seat, but he didn’t start the engine. He leaned back and reflected on his session, the astonishing fifty minutes that had unlocked the terrible secret from his past.

  He continued to replay the recovered memories from that night thirty years ago, thinking of how to go about what Dr. Brenda had suggested, putting them to use to change his life.

  He believed he had some good ideas.

  • • •

  At eight that evening, Sam returned home.

  “Hey, everybody!”

  At the sound of the good cheer, and the sight of his beaming face, Janie and the children eyed him warily. He nearly laughed at their expressions.

  “Hi, Dad,” his son said cautiously.

  He wondered if his wife was thinking: bipolar. The kids wouldn’t know the condition, but they’d get the idea that he seemed just a little too happy.

  He joined them at the dinner table, where they were having dessert, and Janie served him some slightly warm meatloaf and slightly cool salad. He ate with gusto and then reached into his backpack and said, “It’s Christmas in May!”

  He handed Alissa two tickets to the concert she’d wanted to go to and $100 for souvenirs. “Oh, my God, Dad. They’re in the orchestra!”

  Jake was done one better—at least in the boy’s opinion, it seemed: two tickets to the U.S. Open. “There’s a downside,” Sam announced solemnly. Then laughed. “Your dad’s going with you.”

  “Wait! You’re serious?” The boy beamed.

  “Like, totally.” Sam couldn’t help himself.

  Then he turned to Janie, who was less cautious, but more perplexed. She said, “Honey—”

  He handed her a Tiffany’s box, the seductive, sensuous turquoise.

  “No, Sam, we can’t—”

  “I couldn’t afford not to,” he told her, as she turned the silver bracelet over and over in her hand.

  Then he addressed everyone. “Listen, it’s been a tough time for all of you—thanks to me. There were some things I had to work through. Some bad stuff from my past that came back to bite me in my ass when I least expected it.” He winked at his daughter as he used the expletive. “You’ve been patient and understanding and I can’t thank you enough.”

  No one gathered round and hugged him, à la bad sitcom, but the tension vanished and weeknight routine returned. Dishes were rinsed and stacked in the Kitchen Aid, emails answered, texts sent and received, a TV reality show watched.

  And around 10 P.M., Sam caught Janie’s eye as she was putting away wine glasses.

  Two hours later they were lying in bed beside each other, after making love for the first time in months. Both were naked, both frosted in sweat. The AC was off and they were lying comfortably from the warmth of their bodies and the warmth of a Southern spring evening.

  Crickets and bullfrogs sounded tenor and bass outside—sounds that invariably took him back to that night with his uncle years ago.

  The night of the last fishing trip.

  The night in the U-shaped clearing.

  The night Sammy and his uncle had murdered a young couple beside the lake where they’d been fishing.

  • • •

  Sam had not shared all of the recovered memories with Dr. Brenda.

  But they’d emerged clearly in his mind—and were just as clear now. Stunningly clear. At dusk, he and his uncle had finished up on the lake and gutted and cleaned the fish they’d caught and then stowed the tackle. They were having a beer and a Sprite on the edge of the U-shaped clearing near the lake when a jogger—a pretty brunette in her twenties—ran along the road. She’d pulled up, winded, and nodded to them.

  Seth had smiled at her and asked if she’d wanted a soda. Since they looked like an innocent father and son on an outing she’d said, “Sure, thanks.” His uncle ha
d offered her a Coke. She’d accepted and Seth had gently put his arm around her shoulders, guiding her to sit next to him on a fallen tree.

  She leaped back and said, “Fuck you, perv!”

  In reaction, Seth grabbed her arm. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything!”

  But she swung her fist and connected solidly with his nose. Seth cried out and stumbled back, cradling his bloody face.

  At that moment something happened within Sammy. Maybe it was that he was upset this woman had hurt his beloved uncle, maybe there was some other reason. But he remembered snapping. He’d pulled his fishing knife from the scabbard and stabbed her deeply in the back. She dropped to her knees, gasping. Sammy was shocked…but not in a bad way; he was overwhelmed by the intense, nearly sexual gratification of the act.

  She called out, but Seth shoved the woman onto her back, took the knife and rammed it into her belly again and again, holding his hand over her mouth to mute her screams.

  “Uncle Seth? Please?” Sammy asked.

  Seth looked at the boy’s outstretched hand, hesitated, and then handed the knife back to his nephew. Sam now remembered thinking he wanted to stab her in the breast, but he felt funny about that. That seemed dirty. So he slashed her throat a dozen times.

  As he watched her twitch and die, he’d never felt so alive. Just for the fun of it, he stabbed her again even after she was dead.

  Seth sent Sammy to the car to get his camping shovel to bury the body.

  As he walked to the car, buoyant, he remembered thinking: I want to do that again.

  It was then that the attack happened.

  The woman had not been alone, it seemed. Her boyfriend had been fishing nearby while she was jogging and he stumbled across the scene: the girl dead, Seth beside the body.

  The language, triggered by the auto restorer’s name, wasn’t exactly as he’d shared with Dr. Brenda. There was more than just the word ‘kill’. The car man’s name was “Killdaire,” which echoed what the boyfriend really screamed.

  “You killed her! You killed her!”

  Killdaire…killed her.

  From there, though, the incident had unfolded largely as Sam had recounted to Dr. Brenda. The tumble down the hill, the fighting, Sammy’s paralysis, suddenly terrified, unable to help his uncle.