[Benny James 01.0] Birdsongs

by Jason Deas

  “Thanks,” he said gratefully. Chuckie spoke for a moment and expounded upon his virgin media experience, agreeing with Vernon that he was wonderful. When he was finished stroking his ego he asked, “What now?”

  “We’re looking boss,” Vernon said as he cut his eyes at Benny nonverbally asking when he was going to pipe in.

  “Actually,” Benny began in a deep monotone. “We’re waiting on the crime lab to turn around some results. We have a strong lead Charles. Don’t call the Feds in—please, please. They’ll just play rock star and fuck everything up.”

  “I agree with Benny,” Vernon said cautiously. “We have a lot to go on. If we run out of leads we will let you know and at that point we’ll give you our blessing to call in the Feds.”

  “What about the media?” Chief Neighbors asked.

  “Do you want me to take care of that?” Benny asked.

  “Please do.” Chief Neighbors stood up. He eyed both men. “You have ten days until I request the help of the FBI.”

  Chapter 40

  The home office of Baker Foods was in Atlanta, Georgia. The top three floors of the forty-story building rightly named the Baker Building housed the law offices which Robert Baker occupied. Robert “Bobby” Baker was a slick, near fifties Bill Clinton type. Everybody loved him, especially him. At a glance he was devilishly handsome, charismatic, and happy. As reality would have it, he was not as happy as he falsely put forth. The charisma he exhibited was a cover for his fear of slowing down. If you jump and scream and constantly move nobody can pin you down. And nobody did until Mr. Benny James came along.

  Bobby Baker made a pocketful of friends in Washington D.C. and they turned him on to power. When Bobby felt it for the first time it tingled through his insides and his veins like a new drug. It gave him a sensation similar to being horny as hell. As events unfolded through his dealings with powerful individuals, his favorite clique decided he should run for the opening Senate seat in Georgia. They figured he was a shoo-in, being a Baker and all. Being named Baker in the south was like being named Kennedy in the north.

  At his older brother’s request, Bobby took care of all claims that professed to have knowledge of the whereabouts of the Baker baby. He sent out the tests, reviewed the results, and wrote the letters stating there was no match. In some cases, he enlisted a detective by the name of Peter Banks. Peter was currently on Bobby’s secret payroll uncovering dirt on his opponents in the Senate race. When Peter arrived for a scheduled meeting with Bobby, the package being mailed to Benny was sitting on the edge of his desk ready. At the close of the meeting, Bobby asked Peter if he would drop the box in the mailroom on his way out. Peter picked up the box and the addressee’s name jumped out at him.

  “I’m not being nosey and I wasn’t trying to read your package,” Peter began, “but do you know Benny James?”

  “Benny who?” Bobby asked confused.

  “Benny James. You’re sending him a package,” Peter said, playfully waving the box in front of him.

  “No, do you?” Bobby said, piping with interest.

  “Not personally but he’s kind of a legend in my field. Rumor has it he can solve any case.”

  “He called the main office yesterday saying that he knows the whereabouts of the Baker baby,” Bobby said with his mind reeling.

  “What?” Peter said stunned.

  “You heard me,” Bobby said, sitting down as his head thumped. “So from what you’ve said, he sounds like a standup guy who wouldn’t just make up stories and try to shake some money out of us?”

  “No,” Peter said, sitting back down again. “From what I’ve heard about him I don’t think he would.”

  “Can you imagine what this would mean to my campaign if we found William James Baker?” he said, selfishly not thinking for a moment of what it would mean to his brother Jack and his wife to find their son after two and a half decades. “It would be the feel good story of the year. We would get more positive publicity than we could ever dream of.” He paused, thinking, and Peter was silent. “Unpack that box Peter and ship it overnight. Put in the box a prepaid envelope that can be shipped back overnight to your address.”

  “Why my address?” Peter asked.

  “When you get it you can take it right over to the lab to see if it’s a match and nobody will see me or get my name mixed up with this until we’re ready. If it is a match we can time the release of the information in a way that will give my campaign the most beneficial coverage. I’ll have to ask my campaign manager what she thinks as soon as we find something out.”

  Peter grabbed the box and quickly exited the room as both men laughed with anticipation and nervousness. Bobby was anticipatory and Peter was nervous.

  Chapter 41

  Peter Banks looked like Mario from the Nintendo Super Mario Brothers video games. He had a Rollie Fingers handlebar mustache that was salt and pepper colored and a bushy mess of waxy curls to match. People oftentimes marveled at the amount of hair in his ears. Peter’s belly made him look pregnant as his skin held tight to his potted girth. His eyes were gentle and kind and were the key to his ability to pull any kind of information out of all types of people. He was short and extremely calm which didn’t hurt his cause either. It also appeared as if he had no butt.

  Peter at one time had been a cutthroat investigator with few to no morals. He worked the better part of his career for a bookie. It was his job to find out who had money, who didn’t, and who could get some, or possibly pay a very large and unique favor of his boss’s choosing. The profession fashioned his taste for unhealthy doses of cynicism splashed with lusty hints of vigilante flavors. He was still effective in his work but after the loss of his wife, he lost his edge when he replaced her with gambling. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very lucky. With his increasing debt came an increasing need to please Robert “Bobby” Baker. Peter continued to work for Bobby despite his growing malcontent for Bobby’s character mutations.

  Peter mailed the package as instructed and was surprised to see it returned from Benny two days later. Peter immediately took the box to the lab and requested to speak to the manager. Peter kindly demanded the results by the end of the day as he casually slid the young manager five, one hundred dollar bills per Bobby’s instructions. The manager promised a result by four o’clock and the two men parted ways.

  Chapter 42

  Before the murder madness hit Tilley, Benny worked a case for a few days that he mentally referred to as the case of the wilting tree. There was an ongoing battle between the city and a tree owner and the tree’s owner suspected someone was taking the matter into their own hands, unable to wait for a judicial ruling. The owner, ironically named Ken Green, noticed the tree’s leaves on the side fronting the street beginning to turn brown. Aware of Benny’s discreet inquiries, Mr. Green called Benny.

  Recovered from his previous stakeout, Benny loaded up his coffee carrying carafe and headed out for another lonely night under the stars. He figured there wasn’t much else he could accomplish at this point in the murder investigation after midnight and Rachael was fast asleep. He had previously made a visual inspection of the tree.

  Benny immediately determined foul play was involved in the case of the wilting tree, as near the base of the tree dirt and pine straw lay scattered about as if hurriedly hurled. It had rained two days earlier and Benny surmised by the mud splatter that someone threw handfuls of muddy earth at the tree’s base. Above the resting place of said dirt were the remnants of forcible explosions of mud. It was not long after Benny had settled into himself, mentally glued to his car’s seat that he spotted a man in a raincoat walking towards the tree with the hood of his coat extended above his head. Benny froze.

  He let the seat swallow him halfway until his eyes shot directly over the steering wheel. The gentleman in question stopped in front of the tree and pulled something out of his jacket. He knelt at the base of the tree and brushed his hand over the dirt and mud. Out of the jacket another item appeared. From Benny�
��s vantage point it looked like a coat hanger, or something of the like being stuck in and out of the ground repeatedly. The man’s magic jacket produced next a funnel. Into the funnel, he poured another item from the seemingly bottomless jacket, redistributed the dirt, and quickly exited the scene.

  Quietly exiting and closing the car door, Benny pursued on foot. His hot pursuit lasted only about forty steps as two houses down the supposed tree killer entered a home through the opened garage. Benny watched as he unloaded the supplies from his jacket into a wooden trunk in the corner of the garage and locked it with a padlock. Once inside, the home lights began to shine and Benny mentally photographed the man as he shut his front blinds.

  Back on the boat, after breaking the record for the world’s shortest stakeout, Benny lay down on his couch to rest his eyes for a moment before preparing for bed. When he opened his eyes he saw a hint of the rising sun and noticed his answering machine’s light was flashing. He slept so hard he had not heard the phone ring. He pushed the retrieval button. The message was from Vernon. Benny wanted to sleep a couple more hours but the call stirred even his mind, altered and numbed as it was by heinous crimes. There had been another murder.

  When the call came in to the police station reporting the third murder and requesting help, two people had already vomited. Judy, from down at the Quick Thread Sewing Parlor found a body suspended from the ceiling of her store and lost her breakfast. She had Chuckie Neighbors’s personal cell number from a previous affair and called him directly. Chief Neighbors arrived moments later and spewed all over the floor, contaminating all of the evidence. It didn’t matter though; our Lucifer had left not a clue.

  Simultaneous to the time that Benny and Vernon arrived, Chuckie Neighbors was swallowing the last drop of the bottled water he had been sipping, interspaced with the Sprite that had one remaining sip.

  The body Benny and Vernon viewed was a female. It was immediately apparent the killer had become brave with his murderous art. There was blood covering distinct sections of the walls and she was dressed obscenely precious.

  They saw the hell of hell. The female body hung from the ceiling on a swivel. It turned, turned, turned. She was dressed like Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The baby blue cloth that should have hid her chest was slit, deliberately revealing her breasts. Blasphemy. There were deep slashes beneath each breast, creating a V entrenched deep in her upper torso. The red blood mixed with the cheap blue material made purple and Benny spotted a stain that looked like a heart. Lifeless, she stayed in motion, somehow continuously turning, and Benny for a moment pondered the possibility of creating perpetual motion. Moving on to the perplexities at hand the two men visually gathered information without words.

  They did not have to wait for an identification of victim number three. Everybody knew her. She cut just about everybody’s hair in town or served them lunch. It was Michelle.

  It was rare for Benny to feel emotion in the midst of dead bodies. This one hurt. He knew of this one’s spirit.

  Vernon broke the long silence asking Benny, “Where’s the bird?”

  “It’s here somewhere,” Benny mumbled. “He thinks he’s being clever. He finally got the balls to spill some blood.” Benny was angry. “She’s wearing a locket,” Benny said as his eyes shot up and he followed immediately with, “do you think there’s a picture in there?”

  “Of course there is,” Vernon said, as his mind erupted with the possibilities of what hid between the clasps of the fake, gold-chipped locket. He approached the locket in slow motion and smelled perfume and the fading scent of woman as it dissipated from the turning body. Vernon stopped the body, unconsciously held his breath and opened the locket doors. He did the unthinkable and laughed.

  Benny waited, eventually slipping off his pins and needles, interrupting Vernon’s laughter to ask, “What the hell is it, a list of jokes?”

  Getting a hold of his laughter, his face returning to grim, Vernon simply said, “It’s a picture of Big Bird from Sesame Street.”

  Chapter 43

  The two men exited the Quick Thread Sewing Parlor. Rachael and Jerry Lee were waiting for them impatiently on the sidewalk. Benny had awakened Rachael before leaving and as promised, Rachael called Jerry Lee with the lead.

  “Jerry Lee,” Vernon said as he stuck his index finger uncomfortably in his face. “Don’t you dare step a foot inside that door. You hear me?”

  “What in the Harry Houdini happened in there?” Jerry Lee asked.

  “What do you think,” Vernon snapped, aggravated with his presence. He told Jerry Lee and Rachael what he could, staying within his professional boundaries. “Put in your story that Chief Neighbors has threatened his staff that if they don’t produce results in an undisclosed amount of time he will request the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “Rachael,” Benny said, pulling her eyes away from her notebook. “Chief Asshole asked me to be the spokesman for any media requests. He surpassed his potential in his interview with you and I’m fairly certain we won’t be seeing much more of him.”

  “But he’s the Chief,” Rachael said in disbelief.

  “It’s a small town Rachael; he has never had to do anything but look pretty.”

  “Will you go on the air with me tonight?” Rachael asked.

  “Sure,” Benny answered as a light bulb went off in his head. “Let’s go over to my place and you can prep me for your questions.” They left, thinking they had Vernon and Jerry Lee snowed over. This was true for Jerry Lee, but Vernon laughed to himself with a bit of jealousy as the two pulled away in Benny’s Jeep.

  Chapter 44

  When R.C. returned from Atlanta to his room at the Tuck ‘Em Inn, he was glad to hear his rambunctious neighbors had departed. With the door double locked and the drapes closed, he slowly pulled the newly-engraved bat from his bag and studied every inch of it with admiration, as he imagined the bloodstains that would soon be soaked into the pine.

  At first he handled it with extreme care as if it was some sort of bomb that could possibly detonate at any moment if touched inappropriately. Gradually his grip tightened until he was grasping the handle with all his might. R.C.’s muscles tightened as he took a right handed batting stance. He imagined his enemy before him and began to swing in a baseball fashion.

  Some of his swings were like that of a player attempting to hit a fastball strike thrown down the middle of the plate and R.C. envisioned himself battering the abdomen and chest of his future victim. Other swats of the bat were high as he pleasured in the thought of repeatedly cracking his skull. R.C. then switched from a baseball swing to a golf swing as he visualized his prey begging for his life on the floor.

  He swung like a long drive champion going for a four hundred yard drive. R.C. repeated this action, working himself into a frenzy, sweating so steadily the droplets falling from his forehead clouded his vision. R.C. wiped his eyes with his shirt and swung with a final style before he reached exhaustion.

  This time, as if he was chopping wood, he pounded the bat into the pillows and mattress as he clearly pictured the bludgeoning he would deliver. He swung so hard at times his feet left the ground. His grunts filled the room with savagery and a wolf-like ferocious anger. Like a crazed, rabid animal, he was salivating uncontrollably and slobber flew from his mouth as he grinded his teeth against one another to near breakage.

  Physically exhausted and mentally spent, R.C. fell on his back, landing hard on the tousled bed. His breath was heavy for a few moments as his chest rose and fell in an effort to satisfy his oxygen-starved lungs. As sweat continued to seep through his pores, R.C. dazedly smiled with the hope that revenge would somehow sedate the part of him that mourned for the years he would never regain because of imprisonment.

  Although R.C. was comfortable with the person he had become, it still stung to think he had spent the prime of his life in an institution of correction. Even though he had thought the subject through thousands of times, he once again mentally toyed
with the idea of letting the whole thing die with the past and begin his life anew from this point forward.

  Once again, the cerebral journey ended with R.C. dismissing the idea of forgiveness or forgetting. He did not necessarily want to go back to prison but R.C. also was not willing to live the rest of his life on the outside knowing his adversary had escaped punishment for what he had done; neither did he want to be on the run from the law. Therefore, settled yet again in his mind was the unavoidable task and knowledge of the fact he would even the score.

  Before he did though, there was one more thing he wanted to do before he spent the rest of his life behind steel bars.

  Chapter 45

  Leaning against the giant oak tree in Benny’s front yard, Red waited for Ned with a shovel, a hoe, a pickax, and a wheel barrow. Inside, Benny was poring through case documents and looking at crime scene photos for the umpteenth time. Benny transcended the clichés of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and getting into the mind of the killer. The two hackneyed phrases did not describe his innate gift of imagining every aspect of a violent crime. Most people don’t have the mental guts to visualize and feel gruesome details, which might include physical actions, emotions, motivations, and mindsets before, after, and during crimes. Benny did.

  When Benny heard Ned’s vehicle pulling into the driveway, he put down his work and went outside to introduce the two fellows to one another. Benny did not want Red to be uncomfortable with Ned and acted once again as Red’s protector. Ned gimped up the walkway, eyes bugging out of his head as usual, with a yellow tackle box in one hand and a bag of homegrown tomatoes in the other. Red smiled as he surmised this was the man with the seeds.

  “Going fishing?” Benny called down to Ned in jest.