Vendetta Stone (1)

by Tom Wood

  Jackson swung his car into the parking lot at Maude’s Neighborhood Grille and went inside. After several minutes,

  the red pickup pulled into the gas station across the street where the dark-haired driver could keep an eye on things.

  Taking a seat in the no-smoking section of the restaurant, away from the bar side, Jackson got out his smartphone and checked the newspaper website.

  My story, up for an hour, had already drawn sixteen comments. Titled “BREAKING NEWS: Jackson Stone granted leave of absence,” it ran four paragraphs long with the picture I’d taken of him next to Marty Martin. Below the “Return to TenneSceneToday.com for the latest news” tagline, Jackson read some of the posted comments.

  At 11:14 a.m. GEMINI wrote: “Good move on Stony Soprano’s part to take a leave of absence if he’s serious about finding his wife’s killer. It’s hard to be in two places at once, unless you’ve got a twin. I don’t see how he’s gonna be able to do the website thing AND be a bounty hunter at the same time. Good luck Stony!”

  At 11:38 a.m., SCORPION wrote: “His firm should have just fired Stone. He was an embarrassment to them and he’s an embarrassment to Nashville. The national media is having a field day with this. SHUT UP ALREADY and GET A LIFE. You’re not the first man to lose a wife or child to some senseless tragedy!”

  At 12:07 p.m. SHANGHAI SUE wrote: “My husband and I planned a trip to Nashville this fall to visit the capital of country music, which has a growing following here in China. But now I don’t know. Are all Nashvillians running around with guns? Will we be safe? This Jackson Stone sounds dangerous. I sympathize with his loss but more violence is not the solution.”

  At 12:26 p.m., MARGE wrote: “The man should really listen to his preacher. Thou shalt not—”

  “Here’s your sandwich,” the waitress said, setting the fiery salsalito chicken hero with a side of roasted red pepper potato salad before him. “Want another beer?”

  Jackson looked up at the harried waitress working too many tables at the popular watering hole. Her nametag identified her as Marge.

  “No, I’m driving. I just read a post from a woman named Marge. Not you, I’m guessing.”

  “You kidding? Yeah I’m back there textin’ and emailin’ and all that stuff,” Marge said as she picked up her tip at the table across from Stone, cleared dishes, and went to the kitchen.

  Jackson watched the baseball game on TV as he ate. About ten minutes later, Marge asked if he needed anything. Told no thanks, Marge started to leave, but lingered and stared. Finally, she realized who he was. His picture appeared on the front of the paper at the table she just cleaned.

  “Scuse me, but aren’t you that fella they’re callin’ Stony on the radio?”

  “Call me Jack,” he said, grinning. “Good sandwich Marge. I’ll remember this place.”

  “First visit, huh? Sure, come on back, Jack. Tell all your friends. We don’t get many celebrities here. It’s pretty tame, although we did have a bad incident out in the parking lot a coupla nights ago.”

  Before leaving the restaurant, Jackson dialed the cell phone number he’d gotten from George Dunkirk. He smiled at Big Red’s familiar drawl. They’d talked only twice since that ten-year Gulf War reunion in 2001, but picked up the conversation like they skyped on the computer every other day.

  “Jack? I just talked about you on the radio.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. I’m taking my sister-in-law to the doctor, but I wonder if we could get together for dinner tonight. I’m heading to Murfreesboro after I run her home.”

  5

  Patrick Stone didn’t need to shout. The brooding silent treatment, just sitting, sulking, and staring as his wife tried to explain her actions of the last few days said plenty. But the more she talked and explained why, the more he relented and finally agreed with her plan.

  “I’m worried about Jack and all the stress he’s under,” Sheila said, pacing the kitchen as Patrick put up the food and loaded the dishwasher. “I’m stressed out. I know he’s your big, tough brother, but this is getting way out of control. Who knows what he’s going to do next? If he’s not careful, this could cost him his job. I mean, how’s he going to keep working while starting this website he’s talking about and tracking down Angela’s killer? And all this media coverage and the police and Brother Armstrong—my God, Patrick, look what’s happening to us.”

  “And so you decided to go behind Jackson’s back to get him to see this doctor? Why not do an intervention or just have him committed?”

  “That’s not fair. You know he would never agree to see a psychiatrist.”

  The younger brother grew quiet again, mulling over the statement. He wanted to stick up for his brother, but backed down.

  “You’re right, and I’m sorry. Jackson’s sure not listening to us. Okay, I’m in.”

  Patrick drove downtown where he would be waiting for their arrival.

  Minutes after Patrick backed out of his driveway, Jackson pulled into it. He arrived in plenty of time to get Sheila to the appointment. Jackson noticed the red pickup in the rearview mirror, but thought nothing about it. He would later recall also seeing a beat-up old blue Firebird that earlier barreled past him in East Nashville, but wouldn’t make a connection that time, either.

  Sheila, dressed in a floral print, was ready to go when Jackson pulled into the driveway. She got up from the white back-porch rocker and sat in the car in good humor.

  “Thanks, Jack, or should I call you Stony? It sounds like everyone else is.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty funny,” Jackson grinned back. “Did you hear Big Red’s interview?”

  Sheila nodded, but frowned when Jackson mentioned the leave of absence.

  “I know you don’t agree with what I’m doing, but I can’t stop now,” he said, gripping the wheel as he focused on the road ahead and the path he chose.

  “Part of me wants to say ‘it’s your life,’ but it’s our lives, too,” she said, twisting in the seat to put a hand on his shoulder. “What you do affects Patrick and me and the kids. Setting up this website is admirable, but plotting revenge?” She shook her head. “I’m having a hard time with that one. You’re not a killer.”

  “I know, and I hear you.”

  “Do you?”

  He wanted to explain, but just sighed.

  “I’m just doing what I’ve got to do,” he said. An uncomfortable silence ensued until they at last reached the Vanderbilt campus and pulled into the parking deck, finding a spot on the third level. Jackson wanted to wait in the car, but Sheila shook her head.

  “It’s too hot out here. You’ll be more comfortable in the doctor’s waiting room. Besides, I might have to wait awhile and then go downstairs for tests and you wouldn’t know where—”

  “Fine. Let’s go already.” Getting out and looking at his watch, he wondered if he’d get away in time to meet Big Red. “What tests are you having anyway?”

  Sheila didn’t answer as they cut through the next row and headed to the elevator, walking past a red pickup.

  In her plush office, Doctor Erica Karnoff scanned recent articles on Jackson Stone at the TenneSceneToday.com website. She looked forward to the session with him. She was re-reading the updated story on his leave of absence when a ruckus began in the reception area.

  “I don’t care. I’m leaving,” the loud male voice boomed through the door.

  “You’re not going anywhere, if I have to tie you to that chair,” shouted a similar, more youthful male voice that matched anger for anger.

  A woman’s voice shouted next. “Stop it, you—”

  “Yes, stop this right now. What’s going on out here?” Doctor Karnoff said firmly as she opened the door and stepped into the waiting room.

  “This is all a set-up, and I’m not seeing any psychiatrist,” Jackson said angrily. “Go tell your boss he’s wasting his time.”

  “You’re here to see me, Mister Stone. But you won’t. Not today,” Erica said, surprising the Ston
e brothers. The psychiatrist turned on the smiling sister-in-law. “Mrs. Stone, when you said you were making an appointment for your brother-in-law, I assumed he agreed to this meeting, and you were doing so with his blessing. You can’t gain a patient’s trust by getting him here under false pretenses. Mister Stone, I am so sorry for this misunderstanding. If somewhere down the road you would like to talk, I would be happy to arrange an appointment.”

  The doctor went back into her office and closed the door. Jackson appreciated her jumping on Sheila for—for what, for trying to help him? Sheila knew he would never agree to a session on his own volition. He grinned. She could be sneaky, a Stone after all. He looked up at Sheila, who was red-faced as others in the busy waiting room stared. Patrick put an arm around her, and pulled her toward the glass door.

  Jackson watched them get on the elevator, then knocked on Dr. Karnoff’s door. After a brief wait the door opened.

  It surprised Doctor Karnoff to see Jackson. He was equally surprised to be standing there.

  “Got a few minutes, Doc? I think I have an appointment.”

  6

  Delmore Wolfe found Jackson once, but also found trouble when he saw him talking to that cop, which was why he fled the pub. Not to worry, he’d find him again. A long overdue “accident” awaited Stone.

  Going out for lunch, maybe a late breakfast, and then to score some more weed, he turned on the crackling car radio. Gotta break down and get a newer car than this old clunker, Wolfe told himself, as he found a station with a strong enough signal for his antenna to lock on.

  “And in local news,” the sing-song newscaster said, “both TenneScene Today and Channel 11 are reporting that controversial Nashville advertising executive Jackson Stone has taken a leave of absence from the firm Martin and Robbins in order to start up the Angela’s Angels website and to track down his wife’s killer.”

  Wolfe guessed wrong that Jackson would head home after leaving work. He stepped on the gas and drove down Dickerson Pike past the football stadium and turned left on Shelby Avenue. He got to Jackson’s house and kept on going without slowing down. Two groups of a half-dozen people each were walking up and down the sidewalk in front of the brick cottage. A Channel 7 newsvan was parked at the corner and the videographer set up for a live shot of the protesters. The group of sign-carrying Christian conservatives beseeched Jackson to “Turn The Other Cheek Now” and “For The LOVE OF GOD, Don’t Become A Murderer.” The group of atheist activists’ signs of the times blared “Revenge

  Is Still Murder” and “YOUR god Has Deserted You.” Polar opposites in their beliefs, the two sides seemed to agree that Jackson should not kill.

  Later, while sitting in line at the Burger Barn drive-thru, Wolfe remembered that Jackson had a brother—Patrick. Yeah, that’s it. After paying for his burger, Wolfe whipped into the gas station and went inside. He asked the clerk for the phone book and flipped through the White Pages until he found the listings for “Stone.” He ran his finger down the page.

  Barry-Chad-Don-Eddie-Eric-Frank-Greg-Harold-Keith-Jackson-Lawrence-Melvin-Nicholas-Oscar-Gotcha! A finger traced right, and he memorized Patrick’s address—2175 Prescott, West Meade.

  Wolfe made it to West Meade in fifteen minutes. But Jackson had picked up Sheila five minutes earlier and headed to Vanderbilt. Wolfe found the Stone house, but the driveway sat empty. He planned to prowl around, but thought better of it. He didn’t know which nosy neighbors might be snooping and decided to watch from a distance. A few houses down the street, he pulled over and put the hood up, then got back in his car where he could see the Stones’ driveway. He didn’t wait long. He had bought one of those late-night TV infomercial “Super Hearing” directional earpieces last year and used it to eavesdrop on Sheila and Patrick as they walked to the front door.

  “I can’t believe the way Jack acted,” he heard Patrick say. “Where’d you find that psychiatrist anyway?”

  “Maybe he’ll make an appointment to see her.”

  7

  Jackson cruised on autopilot as he drove to Murfreesboro. Brad Paisley’s 2002 hit “I’m Gonna Miss Her” blared on Classic Country 750-AM, but Jackson’s mind replayed over and over his forty-five-minute session with the psychiatrist.

  “I’m so glad you decided to go through with the session, even though your sister-in-law duped you into it,” Doctor Karnoff had said. “I’ve followed the case in the media and know how much courage it required on your part just to carry on.”

  Jackson told her about all the shocks of the first few hours, how he almost threw up when he saw the bloody sheets in their bedroom, all the fear, uncertainty, and confusion he experienced. Anger followed at the lack of information coming from the police, turning to rage and frustration over the discovery of Angela’s body a week after she disappeared. Doctor Karnoff asked if there were times when Jackson wished that he’d died in Angela’s place.

  “No death wish here,” Jackson replied derisively, “but I do wish to spend eternity with Angela at my side.”

  Doctor Karnoff asked Jackson how he felt about reactions from the police chief, his pastor, the media, and the public after announcing his intentions. Jackson said he anticipated strong public and police backlash from the media coverage, although it seemed more intense and divisive than he ever expected. “The biggest surprise, though, came when

  Brother Armstrong pounded the pulpit on Sunday,” Jackson said.

  “You have strong religious views, don’t you?” She wanted to get to the root of Jackson’s attacks. “How do you reconcile desires for vengeance with your faith?”

  Jackson admitted it tugged at his conscience, but remained adamant.

  “I have to do this.”

  “Why, Jack?” she pressed. “Why are you so obsessed?”

  Silence stretched into minutes as Jackson wrestled with whether or not to reveal the truth nobody else knew—not his brother or Sheila, neither the police, nor his pastor. Decision time. He’d carried this secret long enough. Client-patient rules meant it would not leave this office.

  “When I arrived home that night, I couldn’t find any sign of Angela and nearly flipped out on the spot. I frantically searched the house from top to bottom and what I found is why I’m determined to find the man that took the life of my wife—and the life of my unborn child. Yes, child. Angela was pregnant, according to the EPT I found. Then I found the appointment she”—he looked at his watch and shook his head—“scheduled with her OB/GYN as we speak.”

  Jackson shook, and tightened his lips. “She didn’t tell me she was pregnant. She was going to, I think, the last night we were together for dinner out, and I invited another couple to join us. I didn’t give her a chance to tell me. I had a wife and a child to protect. And I didn’t. And that is why I am going to destroy the cursed creature that butchered my precious Angela and our little innocent baby.”

  In both subsequent interviews and her just-released book, the psychiatrist reflected on that turning-point moment with her new patient. Shocked, she still kept her professional composure.

  “It explained everything,” she said, “but I have never witnessed such an instant transformation in persona. A gentle lamb became a savage lion who hunted wolves.”

  HOOOOONK!

  The blast from a passing truck’s airhorn snapped Jackson into the present. Memories of the conversation faded and Jackson realized he neared Murfreesboro. He took his foot off the gas pedal and weaved from his own right lane into the safety lane as if slowing for an emergency, then swerved back onto the road. Jackson wiped a tear, waving as the truck sped by, and got his car back to speed. The remainder of Jackson’s short trip proved less eventful than the short, painful trip down memory lane he’d just taken. Alone with his thoughts, he assumed, but that turned out to be not quite the case.

  A couple of cars back, the red truck also slowed when Jackson did and then resumed a safe speed that kept pace with Jackson’s car.

  Jimmy Boyle sat in Murfreesboro’s Roadside
Cafe off Highway 96 drinking his third cup of black coffee when Jackson arrived. The transition from the bright sunshine to the restaurant’s dark interior caused him to blink, then two big arms engulfed him. Jackson returned the hug.

  “Man, you look great. How you been?”

  Red gave that same laconic shrug that marked his country lifestyle and attitude toward life in general. He rarely sought the spotlight or talked much in any situation, which made his five-minute interview with talk show host George Dunkirk all the more extraordinary. Red would lay down his life for his friend if it came to that, but Jackson hoped it wouldn’t.

  Jackson ordered a beer and asked Boyle if he wanted one for old time’s sake.

  “Naw. I quit about two years back,” Red said. “It became a problem and messed me up pretty good. I went cold turkey; ain’t touched a drop since.”

  Ouch, Jackson thought, as the comment hit him like a punch to the liver. No, that’s what the alcohol is doing, pickling my liver.

  “I’m thinking I should quit, too. All I need is to give the police a reason to arrest me. I’ve already given them a few—if I go through with this. That’s why I wanted to talk.”

  Jackson asked instead for coffee—black—and they ordered dinner. They were sitting in the corner booth and Jackson noticed the furtive looks from nearby tables. Too public a setting. He glanced out the window and recognized a red pickup, realizing he’d seen it—or one just like it—several times. No idea who, or why. Hundreds of thoughts and suspicions formed. The cops, he figured, then wondered. Could be Angela’s killer? Don’t get paranoid, Jack. And for God’s sake, don’t do anything to tip him off.

  Jackson couldn’t make out the driver except for dark hair and sunglasses.

  Paranoid about their possibly bugged conversation, Jackson ditched the original plan to pitch at Red. Instead, they talked over old times and the all-too-few times he met Angela. As they ate, they discussed Red’s radio interview. When Red went to the bathroom, Jackson used the break to scribble a brief note. Among other things, it told Red how to get to his Lascassas cabin, where to find the spare key, and where to find the case Jackson needed. In the parking lot, they shook hands and Jackson whispered as he leaned in for a parting hug. As Red waved goodbye, he watched a red pickup follow Jackson out of the lot. Then Red opened his palm and read the note Jackson slipped him.