Bumstead's Well

by R E Swirsky

  Detective Daly had no idea what horror once rested down at the bottom of that well. If he did, he would have mentioned it when he showed up earlier. The skull problem seems to have been resolved for now. But a new quandary concerning the rope surfaced now. How exactly did his rope end up around Officer Wu's neck?

  Hours passed as he organized his thoughts and puffed away on more cigarettes. The smoke above his head eventually formed long rivulets that stretched across the entire room. He continued to search through his memories. The numerous long lines of smoke seemed to mimic his thoughts. Some of the smoky trails crossed the entire room while other small strips merged into the largest trail, faded away, or sat suspended off on their own. He began to see a pattern.

  It was the mysterious appearance of his damned rope around the Officer’s neck that had incited his present line of thinking. He didn’t remove the rope from the shed out back. But who did? Only Anita and Vincent knew he brought the rope back to the house.

  Was Officer Wu already dead when he buzzed his condo? The thought was creepy. He was glad he didn’t place a single finger on Wu’s vehicle when he spotted the cell phone.

  Then, without any warning, a few other odd pieces meshed themselves together and things slowly began to make sense.

  Anita’s phone calls.

  "Oh, for Christ's sake," Chris whispered.

  The laughter and ease with which Anita and Arlene got along now stuck out to Chris.

  Was it really possible that so many insignificant components of his life were actually connected in some enigmatic conspiracy that existed around him for nearly a decade without his knowledge?

  "Goddamn it. I've been such a fool!”

  He uprooted himself from his chair and dashed out to the front room where Anita sat with the phone pressed up tight to one ear. She immediately frowned and waved her arms at him as he approached. She was attempting to push him out of the room like she always did.

  Today he wasn't about to be shushed. He remained at the doorway staring at her until she covered the receiver with one hand and barked at him.

  "What are you doing standing there? Can't you see I'm on the phone?"

  His mouth hung open in awe. How blind he had been all of these years. "Who are you talking to?" he asked.

  "Never mind who," she replied. She waved her hands at him again.

  He let a bemused smile slip in. A short chuckle unexpectedly expelled from his mouth, which he quickly covered with one hand. He was sure he knew exactly who she was talking to. Of course! He felt like such an old idiot.

  "Chris, I asked you to leave."

  He nodded politely, backed out of the room, and returned down the hall to his study.

  She called out behind him. "And turn that fan on in there! I can smell that damn smoke all the way out here!"

  CHAPTER 72 Day Fifteen - Friday 3:05 PM

  A muffled indiscernible conversation traveled through the earpiece, and it left Arlene unsettled. She waited patiently for the voice to come back on the phone.

  “Arlene?” the voice asked.

  “I’m here,” she replied.

  “Oh, good.”

  Arlene could hear discomfort in the voice. “Was that him again?” she asked.

  "I hushed him away. He does this every once in a while when I get on the phone. The big old busybody."

  Arlene laughed heartily, but her mother was not laughing. She seemed apprehensive and reserved. "Is everything okay?” she asked.

  "I'm worried, that's all. And now that your father’s come by, I can't even remember why I called you. What were we talking about?”

  "It's okay, mom. It's just your darned dementia again."

  "Oh yes, you're probably right. It seems I have to be reminded of things all of the time these days. I forget some things. It's the dementia I am told."

  The phone went silent as her mother hesitated. Arlene sat listening quietly and allowed her mother time to recollect her reason for calling.

  "I really wish you could come home sometime soon. I should talk to your father and make him see some sense about all of this. It's been years since you've been home."

  "I was just out to see you last week, mom."

  "You were?” she questioned. She was clearly flustered.

  "Dad called me about Vincent. He was down in that well, remember?"

  Arlene could almost hear her mother struggle to remember.

  "Chris called you? About Vincent down in a well? I really don't know what you're talking about. My brain these days… It's this dementia. I just can't remember everything all of the time."

  "It's okay mom. Dad called me to come home, and I was there for nearly a week. I got to see you and Vincent and the rest of the family. Vincent disappeared for a few days and was stuck down inside a well."

  "Oh my, that's awful." Her voice started to rise as she began to fret. "I don't even know where Vincent is right now."

  "He's okay mom. He's safe. He's back out here in Vancouver at University."

  "Of course he is," she replied. Her voice seemed to calm down. "He's such a big boy now. You should really come out some time to see him. I can talk to your father about it."

  "I will come out again soon, mom. And don't talk to dad right now. He's not supposed to know we talk all the time, remember?"

  "Yes, yes," she replied, but it was clear she was struggling. It was best to stop the call as soon as possible.

  "I love you, mom," Arlene said.

  "I love you too, dear."

  "Call me again soon, okay?"

  "I will, dear. Bye," she said and hung up the phone.

  Her dementia was very bad today. Arlene tucked the phone into the pocket of her pullover and waited. At times over the past few months, her mother would call back after a few minutes because she forgot that she only hung up moments before. This afternoon she sounded the most discombobulated she ever had.

  CHAPTER 73 Day Fifteen - Friday 3:18 PM

  Chris turned on the ventilation system in his study and returned to the comfort of his chair. The smoky haze began to thin out.

  He wasn't sure of its significance, but there was no doubt in his mind that he had been duped. Anita and Arlene kept in contact over the years. That explained his discord during his original phone call to Arlene to inform her of Vincent’s death. It was clear to him now why she didn’t sound surprised to hear his voice. Anita had already spoken to her. She probably even told her to expect the call from him. He remembered how he thought she had been crying when she first said hello; the indifference and feigned misery that followed irked him so very much. Arlene was playing dumb for him.

  He lit up a cigarette and chuckled in disbelief.

  And when she arrived at the house she headed straight to Anita. And what did Anita say to her? Oh yes: "It's good to see you here right in front of me." And again when Arlene said goodbye: "It's always better talking face to face."

  "It's always better talking face to face," he repeated. "How didn’t I notice this before? After all of these damn years..."

  In his mind, it was now a fact that they secretly kept in touch. But that still didn't explain how or why his rope ended up around Officer Wu's neck.

  He paused to review everything he knew about the rope since he first coiled it up at the well. He was immediately troubled when he went to the shed to grab his tools the night he went out to the well and discovered the rope no longer resting on the shelf where he placed it. Did Officer Wu had somehow confiscate it when he came by? Had Arlene gone out back and handed the rope over to him?

  He mused a while over Officer Wu possibly requesting the rope from Arlene but he eventually dismissed the idea. She had no idea what the rope looked like or where it was, and he and Vincent weren’t even home to put the rope away when Officer Wu came to the house. No. There was another explanation.

  "But hold on one damned second..." Didn’t Anita tell him Arlene stepped outside to talk to Officer Wu? Why would she step outside? Arlene shooed the officer out the f
ront door just like Anita shoos him away when she takes her phone calls in private. Arlene wanted to speak to Officer Wu privately.

  "I'll be Goddamned," Chris whispered. He then recalled Officer Wu saying he just moved here from Vancouver. Vancouver? Another puzzle piece dropped into place. "You knew that son of a bitch the whole time, didn't you, Arlene? That's why you stepped outside with him." He made a mental note to look up Officer Wu’s name in the information he kept on his daughter. He thought for certain it would turn up somewhere.

  "She goes for a lot of walks it seems. Every day. Always around noon and then once again after dinner.” Anita's words jumped out at him. Arlene walked along the river to meet someone every mid-day and evening every single day.

  "Who were you meeting, Arlene? Officer Wu? Someone else?”

  He puzzled over this with a few more cigarettes and mulled over what else he could conclude.

  “And then you suddenly rushed back out to the coast. Why was that?”

  It only took a few moments for Chris to be certain he knew who she met.

  "Damn you, Arlene." He knew he should have looked into it further when he found out she settled in with one her former customers.

  "You couldn't have thrown Officer Wu over the balcony on your own any easier than I could have. You barely weigh over one hundred pounds." Her urgency to leave last Sunday struck him anew. She wanted to be far away.

  "Damn you, Arlene!" he said again. It was suddenly so obvious; she didn’t arrive from Vancouver alone.

  “So who the hell is this Joey Klondike of yours?" he whispered. He appeared often as one of her regulars in many of the surveillance reports over the years, but he abruptly stopped showing up two years ago. He didn’t know why, and he really didn’t care at the time as there was always another name to take his place. But then, around four months ago, Joey’s name resurfaced, and Arlene moved in with him.

  He logged onto his computer and Googled the name "Joey Klondike.”

  Hundreds of hits filled his page; nearly all of them corresponded to a Joey Klondike formally charged with the murder of his wife twenty-one months ago and an ensuing trial in Everett, Washington. Was this the same Joey Klondike?

  He was immediately annoyed that this information, if it was the same Joey, had never been recorded into in any of the reports he paid for. He never asked for anything more than dates and names of her contacts, but this was significant and should have been included. He read quickly and engrossed himself in the endless pages and details of Joey Klondike's lurid past.

  Joey owned a small pest control company in Everett Washington that serviced the entire Seattle area. His wife of twelve years was rushed into the emergency room just under two years ago and died several hours after being admitted. It was later determined she died from strychnine poisoning, and Joey, with an abundance of pest poisons within easy reach, was subsequently charged with her murder.

  The yearlong trial culminated with an acquittal; the defence successfully argued his wife committed suicide by purposely ingesting strychnine from Joey’s business. Why would Joey have rushed her to the hospital to save her if his intention had been to purposely poison her? It was nonsensical, they argued. They suggested that Joey’s wife was distraught after discovering Joey frequented hookers on a regular basis across the border in Canada. She lapsed into a deep depression and made use of one of the many poisons in the storage sheds on their property to take her own life.

  Crossing the border into Canada to meet hookers? It was, without a doubt, the very same Joey Klondike. He read on.

  After the acquittal, Joey was released from custody where he immediately packed up his business and relocated across the border into Canada.

  “Into Canada, huh?”

  It was no coincidence. Arlene was waiting for him.

  "But why kill Officer Wu?” he whispered.

  That was the mystifying question he was still unable to answer, but one thing was undeniable: Arlene was somehow connected to the murder of Jet Wu.

  CHAPTER 74 Day Fifteen - Friday 7:20 PM

  The heavy drapes were pulled tightly closed. The computer screen glowed eerily in the darkened room and made the features of Arlene's pale face hover mystically in mid-air. She moved her mouse about the screen and searched through the news feed from the other side of the mountains in Alberta.

  With the exception of the short call from her mother a few hours ago, she was glued to her keyboard all day. Hour after hour passed as her obsession to uncover any news pushed her onward. She scrutinized every article that referenced the town of Bluffington. She looked for something, anything, that might let her know where Joey was and what, if anything, he did. But there was not to be a single word online that related to her Joey nor that bastard, Officer Jet Wu.

  "Damn it!" she called out. She slammed the mouse onto the table in frustration and it bounced onto the floor. The cover popped off and the batteries tumbled out and rolled away. She buried her head in her hands and mumbled Joey's name.

  She lifted her head and eyed the date on the computer screen. Joey should have been home four days ago. "Darn you, Joey! Where the heck are you?" She pounded her fist down on the table in anger. "I only asked you to keep him away from me! What did you do?”

  She thought again about calling him on his cell, but that was out of the question. She really had no idea what Joey’s intentions were when she left him after their last meeting. A full week had now passed since she last saw him. She continued with her scheduled walks to meet with him, but Joey didn’t show up during her last two days at her parents. She worried about him as she waited at the river until she couldn’t stand it anymore and dashed hastily away back home. She didn’t know what else to do.

  Was Joey dead? Did he do something unspeakable and now rested in some dark jail?

  Another hour passed. She reassembled the mouse and returned to surfing for any news across the web. Just after 9:00 PM, she heard a key in the front door and rushed over as Joey let himself inside.

  CHAPTER 75 Day Fifteen - Friday 7:40 PM

  "Your grandparents are so nice," Anna said. She rubbed her hand across Vincent’s chest.

  “I worry about them," Vincent replied. "Gramps has been my rock my entire life."

  Anna shuffled her pillow and pulled the blankets up tight as she turned and gave Vincent a kiss. Vincent loved smuggling her into the dorm and his tiny room for a little evening romp under the sheets. He loved Anna more each day. He truly wished she could be a part of him forever. Never had he loved anyone this much other than his Gram and Gramps.

  “I’m already looking forward to going back for Thanksgiving to see them and school hasn’t even started. But…” He hesitated. “You were right about me coming back out here to continue school." He leaned forward, kissed her gently, and then lay back on the pillow. “Thanksgiving just seems so far away right now."

  “It’s only eight weeks."

  Vincent released a heavy sigh. The events of this past summer left him feeling apprehensive. He felt as if his home back in Bluffington wasn’t home anymore and may never feel like home again.

  “Have you given more thought to what you’re going to do about your mother?"

  “Not really,” he responded. “She ran out of my life when I was ten to be with her boyfriend." He rolled his eyes. "I meant nothing to her. You really think I was hard on her?"

  "I do, Vincent. We talked about this many times already.”

  "She's still a stranger to me. I don’t understand why you think I should open myself up and be sociable with her just because she gave birth to me."

  Anna giggled and stroked Vincent's hair. "Actually, yeah. I really think that is the difference. Ten years is a long time to hold a grudge. Sometimes people change."

  He shook his head. "Not her."

  "C'mon, Vincent. She’s your birth mother and always will be.”

  “No she’s not," he insisted. But he could sense that the corrosive cancer that his mother planted when she left him was
in recession, and a new seed, uncomfortable as it was, now rested deep inside somewhere.

  "She lives only ten minutes away by bus. You should go see her.”

  "I really don't care where she lives. And she's crazy. You saw how her mind just went off to someplace weird.”

  As the words left his lips, he realized he didn’t believe them as deeply as he would have just a few days ago. Something was happening to him and he didn’t quite understand what it was.

  "If it was my mother, I would at least listen and give her the time to explain,” Anna said. “You don't even truly know how she feels about what she did to you because you’ve never let her explain."

  "She's still sick and loony.” He sighed. “I've talked to her enough to know she's not right in the head."

  “Oh come on. She’s not that bad.”

  "I still don't think I want to see her."

  "I think you do. The other night you seemed almost like you needed to see her. Now you’re reluctant again. You know as well as I do, you’re not going to be able to stop yourself from thinking about her. I think it’s going to bother you all semester."

  Vincent pushed the blankets down and sat up. It was difficult to believe what he was hearing from Anna.

  “You are serious?"

  She smiled up at him. "I am," she said. She pulled him back down and kissed him gently.

  "You know where she lives, and you know she wants to talk to you."

  He kissed her back. It was true.