Candy from a Stranger

by Buckner, Daryl;

  I said, “Did anybody? I mean, were there kids or relatives?”

  “Yeah, Rudy said there were two sons. One was away from the home, and the other one they never found, not in the fire – not anywhere in Kerrville. Rudy says it was a big mystery for that area – ‘where’d the kid go’?” Charlie shook his head and swallowed beer.

  “Did this Rudy say how the fire started?”

  Charlie leaned forward, a conspiratorial look on his face. “Here’s where it gets good. Rudy says all the evidence pointed to ignition in the bedroom, a cigarette – like they fell asleep smoking and poof – smoke inhalation.”

  “And?”

  “Here’s the problem: the whole family was religious. Very religious and they didn’t allow smoking in the house – the ‘body is a temple’ and all that. That’s why people around the area didn’t like the Muellers so much – they were fanatics. People with German ancestry are pretty serious about their religion but I guess the Muellers took it to the Nth degree: speaking in tongues, foaming at the mouth, a whack for this, a whack for that.”

  Incredulous, I said, “Jesus! ‘Foaming at the mouth’?”

  Charlie looked at me with one eye closed. “I’m exaggerating, for Christ sakes. The point is: this is Texas. Not Texas back in the old days, Texas in the nineties. We got computers and MTV and kids smoking pot – I don’t know what your religious feelings are, Ben, but that kind of fire-and brimstone just don’t fly down here. Don’t get me wrong – you’re from Texas and you ought to know that we’re God-fearing people but I’ve seen more people get worked up about a football game than fussing about whether-or-not you can buy beer on a Sunday. You get me?”

  Yeah... I got him.

  Charlie continued, “So, they couldn’t prove arson, the locals said ‘goodbye-to-bad-garbage’, and the property stood vacant all these years. I’ll have another?” He held up his Amstel.

  Opening the fridge door, I said, “Didn’t the property fall to the surviving son?”

  Nodding his head up-and-down, Charlie said, “Here’s where it’s good to know an old German who works in the fire department. Rudy says the kid inherited the property but the property was never re-registered in his name.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Who paid the property taxes?” I thought back to the working light bulb but didn’t mention the power.

  Accepting another beer, Charlie said, “Here’s the deal: the taxes on the property were paid by a Bruno Kristopher, another German... Jesus we’re swimming in Germans down here!”

  “You are cordially invited to witness the joining, in the Lord’s presence, of Arnold Russell and Launi Kristopher…”

  Bruno Kristopher had to be Launi’s father. I had the air-conditioner turned up to the max but it still felt oppressively hot. I rubbed my fresh beer across my forehead.

  Charlie said, “You alright? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  Not a ghost. I’ve just heard that a thirteen year old boy probably killed his own parents because the parents killed his only brother, and then he lived with Elma and Henry Russell till he turned sixteen and…? He had to have known Launi Kristopher at thirteen, knew he was going to kill his parents, and planned to live with the Kristophers even back then! How he ever talked the elder Kristopher into it is unfathomable. It’s…

  Crazy is crazy.

  I must have been staring off into space because Charlie said, “Hello? Earth calling Ben, Earth calling Ben…”

  I put my beer on the table a little too loudly. Charlie regarded me with guarded eyes. I said, “Over twenty years? The property is just sitting there all that time?”

  “Rudy didn’t say so but I imagine somebody tried to buy it sometime. Pretty shrewd if you think about it – land was cheap in those days. That’s before Dell and the software companies invested heavily. Now, that piece of land is worth ten times what it was then – not that I think this Bruno Kristopher could sell it and make his money back.”

  No – because Bruno Kristopher is dead. Sometime years later the ownership was transferred to Bruno on paper and when he died the land fell to his daughter Launi, who was now conveniently married to an Arnold Russell and the land is now back in the hands of a Mueller with no one the wiser.

  Charlie said, “Is that what this is about? You think you can buy it cheap and sell it high?” Charlie’s voice sounded like he didn’t believe that at all.

  “Nah…to tell you the truth, I don’t know what to think.” I was stalling. For one brief second I wanted to drag Charlie into the bedroom and show him the panel of blond photos, nine-year-old boys that didn’t do anything to anybody except fall under the eye of a psychopath and now they’re in danger. Charlie’s own son is in danger.

  I needed a lie.

  “Arggh! I don’t know how I got so far off track with this!” I would have to be clever – I couldn’t afford to let Charlie’s fireman-instincts catch me in a lie. “Jeanie’s got some assets from before we were married and I thought... well, you know... if we ever move towards a divorce I thought she might be hiding them there.” I saluted him with my beer. “Just goes to show how wrong a guy can be.”

  I didn’t have to act – my face blushed beet-red.

  Charlie seemed to bite hook-line-and-sinker. “Divorce? You think it’s going to come to that?”

  All those years of psychological training must be paying off. I said, “I don’t know, man. We’re talking but there’s a lot of pressure on her. Her parents don’t exactly like me all that much.” At least that much was true.

  “Hey, you’re preaching to the choir here, brother. Karen’s mom wanted her to marry a doctor and her dad…” He laughed, “He’s reasonably sure I’m the freakin’ Anti-Christ. Southerners!” He gave me a look: Know what I mean?

  Relieved that he was taking in my cock-and-bull story, I said, “I’ve got to apologize for getting you involved in this. It’s much appreciated but I think I got a little too ‘out there’ on the whole thing.”

  “Well, I understand. What I said about Karen’s parents? They’re great grandparents... even if Kyle does have my DNA…” He laughed again.

  “He’s a good kid. You should be proud.”

  “Oh, I am. He likes you too, you know.”

  “That’s nice – I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side come Halloween.”

  Charlie got my joke. “No... no T.P. on the trees in this neighborhood!”

  Charlie got up. “Well, keep the rest of those beers cool for me. I haven’t even been home yet.” He paused on the way to the door. “I’ve been meaning to ask you... your bumper sticker? ‘What do you think it means?’ I don’t get it.”

  I started to tell him the whole psychiatry joke but thought better of it. I put him off with: “Old college joke... and not a funny one. It’s one of those ‘you had to be there’ kinds of jokes.”

  He gave me a nod and said, “To each his own. Fireman jokes? I gotta million of ‘em,” and left, a draft of hot sneaking in to the otherwise cool room.

  What do you think it means?

  I think it means I’m running out of time.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The old lush was certain. In his inebriated state he doesn’t notice much but in this one thing he was certain: he saw the sticker and read what it said. Probably a good thing the old fool was so hard of hearing because when he heard a noise he thought that bag-of-fleas of his had gotten out again and had looked out the window to see if the mutt was running down the street. If only! Just the thought of that filthy bag of bones being next door was enough to make your skin crawl.

  The sticker. A God-cursed foreign vehicle. “Open thy eyes and I shall reveal thy enemy” the Lord said.

  Yes, Lord.

  *

  The next evening Kyle had dinner with me, free of his parents, because he saw the Papa John’s delivery guy roll up and he remarked how they were having meatloaf that night and there was no amount of catsup in the world that would cure its foul taste. I went next door and
offered to share with all of them but Karen assured me that it was her mother’s recipe and no, they weren’t trying to poison their only son. Charlie just raised an eyebrow as if to say: you see what I have to put up with?

  Sausage, black olives, and mushrooms were just right for me and Kyle and we whiled away an hour or two talking about the Spurs and the Astros and why did that old neighbor down the street keep up his Christmas lights all year long? I took Charlie’s approval of our pizza dinner as a sign that he had no weird feelings after our little discussion. Of course, I watched through the big front window as Kyle crossed my lawn on his way next door. It was impossible to see him without seeing the face of my missing son. My dead son.

  I had the dream again, twisting and pulling the sheets, but this time the van was not a van at all but a Jeep. A green Jeep partially obscured by the tornado of wrappers, the only thing clear being a thin pale hand beating the back window, over and over again until the car turned a corner and sped out of sight.

  During our pizza Kyle had let slip that their whole clan was going to visit his grandparents tomorrow and would be gone the whole day. So would I. It’s a Saturday, and instead of waiting in the park to see if the white Bono’s van shows up, after coffee and reshaping my by-now professorial beard, I went shooting.

  Before my father, Edmund Cain, had gifted me with the Taurus .45 pistol, the “Judge”, the sum total of my experience with firearms was confined to a single boyhood winter trying to hit a grackle with a Lucas McCain-Rifleman BB-gun. The fact that I named my son Lucas and the part played by Chuck Connors in the Rifleman series, Lucas McCain, was close to the family name gave my father the mistaken impression that my whole life had been guided by his masterful fatherly gift of the manly toy. I barely remember it and hadn’t shot a gun since. Till now. The only advice my father gave me that I clung to is: “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” Sound advice. Never did hit that grackle, though.

  *

  Truly the quintessential Texas experience: a public shooting range with no supervision and a barbecue hut right down the road. I found Dry Run Road in Lockhart a little after one, having carefully dug out the Judge from the flour bin, driving with it tucked under the front seat two miles under the speed limit and sweating all the way. The Shooting Post was just that: a weathered board building that could have doubled for the OK Corral (complete with hitchin’ post), one side open and facing out to either far away targets (rifles), or near targets, bales of hay with man-sized paper figures (handguns). No one was interested in any documentation or licenses and a nice lady named Sheri gave me a choice between a paper figure of the President and a figure with a picture of Yosemite Sam. Remembering my dance with Bubba in the lot of Rolly’s, I picked the Yosemite Sam one and spent hours and almost all of my ammunition drilling Sam until he was dead. Sheri provided me with ear protection and gave me some helpful tips on how to clean my pistol, eventually selling me a small cleaning kit and a box of .45 caliber ammunition labeled Bushwhackers APC (“with a Bushwhackers, when they go down – they stay down!”).

  Sheri also vouched for the ribs at Arturo’s and after a full meal of ribs, slaw, bread and onions, I drove back to the Prospect house belching barbeque sauce and cursing my aching gun hand. I was looking forward to a drink and cigarette out in a lawn chair in my puny back yard but as soon as I stepped inside my door with the boxed Judge in my hands I knew something was wrong.

  Someone had been here.

  Somehow I sensed it but nothing was glaringly apparent. I eased the Judge out of the box and the velvet bag anyway and crept to the back door, expecting to see broken glass and large footprints in the dirt and brown grass of my backyard. There was nothing. The door was still locked and there was no sign of anything misplaced. My nerves on fire, I checked the load in the gun even though I had filled the chambers before I left the firing range, and stealthily crossed to the hallway that led to my bedroom. What am I doing? I realized that I had adopted a crouching stance like I had seen in a thousand cop movies. If I had half a brain I’d run next door, get fireman Charlie and his axe, and let him do what he’s trained to do.

  It took me a few seconds to realize I was panicking. I told myself to get my shit together, took a deep breath, and threw my bedroom door open, sweeping the room with the gun in an imitation of T.J. Hooker.

  Nobody. I took a quick look in all the other rooms, noting the placement of a book or a discarded piece of clothing. Nothing.

  Laughing at myself, I went to the kitchen and poured two, three... no five fingers of bourbon into a glass and stood looking at my living room trying to figure out what had spooked me. That’s when I saw it.

  From the kitchen I saw the window I always keep an eye on Kyle through, the table and computer wedged judiciously up against it, and then I noticed the laptop screen. It’s off. I always turn it off. But not like this – I always put it into “power-saver” mode which leaves it powered-up but dormant. It looks off. My computer, right now, is off.

  Someone has turned on my laptop while I was gone, viewed my phony novel, and turned it back off again. Really, really off.

  I realized I hear a rattling sound and it’s the sound of my drink – my hand beating out a shaky Morse code with the ice.

  Shit.

  This time, even though I haven’t turned on any lights other than the small table lamp I keep on all the time, my eyes see everything.

  Feeling like I broke into a stranger’s house, I walk baby-steps and bend down to look at the kitchen’s half-island countertop that separates the kitchen from the living room. When I had gotten the Judge out of the flour container this morning I had left a fine mist of spilled flour on the counter top. It was no more than a layer equivalent to day-old dust but... son-of-a-bitch. Imprinted in the floury mist is the shape of three fingers. The print is not enough to see the whorls of the fingertips but I know instinctively that these are not my fingerprints.

  Shit. Hurriedly I walked to the second bedroom, threw on the light and stared at my bulletin board; the photos staring back like some post office most-wanted board. Nothing on the cork-backed board looked out of place.

  My legs ready to give out, I hobbled to my living room chair and sat, taking long pulls of the whiskey and trying to slow my racing heart.

  Someone has gotten into my house, seen all my gathered evidence, and left thinking I’m none-the-wiser. My carefully constructed identity: the book, my beard, the leisurely walks to the park, the casual watering of the yard – someone knows they’re a sham.

  I try to tell myself that nothing has changed. The Judge was with me when the intruder was here. I still have it, I know my enemy, I still have my purpose. But who is hunting me? Thoughts racing, only one name comes to mind. Only one person has the resources to find me. Only one person knows how to enter a house illegally and supposedly leave without a trace.

  Fulton.

  *

  Sunday, Monday – I was a zombie; watching from my perch at the window, pretending to type on my laptop, eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and drinking beer. I saw mailmen go by, a neighbor or two chasing an errant Frisbee down the street, even a small argument between the young couple living in sin, four houses down on the other side. Several times I made small jaunts to the liquor store and Bob’s Market, all the time watching my rear-view mirror – waiting for men in a government-green Ford to pull me over, straddle me in handcuffs over the front hood of the Volvo, and demand to know why I was stalking young boys and where on my computer was the kiddie-porn and by the way: where did you bury your son and all the others?

  Old habits die hard. The feeling of paranoia was oppressive so I waited till dark on Tuesday, got in the car and drove to my house in Austin, ostensibly to bring in the papers and check the mail, but mostly to regain a feeling of whom I really am. I expected the look of Jeanie’s and my home, the sights and smells of lived-in familiarity to reconnect me to my true self. It didn’t. I should have known. The Benjamin Cain that was a husband and a
father; the man that went to work, watered the plants, waxed the car, took care of those scary spiders in the corner; who came home and guarded hearth and home against the Philistines outside – he no longer existed. I had canvassed the whole house when I came in, looking for signs of an intruder, but I had found only dust. Dust and a hollowed-out shell of a home.

  I grabbed a left-over bottle of something brown, fished a half-gone bag of seeds out of the pantry, and walked the two blocks to Jackson Elementary to try and make up with my old buddy Rocky.

  It turns out the brown stuff is rum and by putting a capful a short distance away, the squirrel decided to let bygones-be-bygones and join me just as my cell went off.

  “Bennie?”

  I steeled myself for what could only be bad news. I mumbled, “Yeah, baby. I’m here.”

  “Ben, I’m getting worried... more worried about you. That Agent Fulton has been calling over and over trying to talk with me. He’s got it in his head that you’re ‘losing it’ – at least that’s what he’s leaving me on voicemail, and he thinks I can talk you into acting more responsibly.”

  I said, “Could you ever?”

  “Not funny, Ben. I’m avoiding his calls but I don’t see why I should be subjected to all this.”

  How about because you’re my wife?

  I said, “Don’t worry about it. He’s just covering his ass in case I do something to make him look foolish. I’m the only one trying to do something about Lucas and…” Screw it! I’m drunk and I’m tired and I’m tired of looking over my shoulder.