The Drayton Chronicles

by Bertauski, Tony

  Helpless.

  When she still felt that, she dropped to the floor and buried her head beneath her arms. She would never escape the current.

  XXIV

  The water had reached Drayton’s chest when he let go of Ms. Ruth.

  She floated for a moment, bobbing on the gentle waves. She was not smiling. She was not happy or pleased. The end was near. She accepted it with regret and sorrow.

  Her breath leaked out.

  Drayton watched her go beneath the waves, arms crossed over her chest.

  As the undercurrent took her to her final resting place, Drayton felt her silky essence seep from her body and cool his tongue. Fill his body. What was once the heartbeat of Ms. Ruth Current was absorbed into Drayton.

  He remained in the water, chest-deep, until the clouds revealed the moon.

  Thank you.

  XXV

  Condor took easy steps.

  One of his testicles had ruptured. The right one was the size of a tangerine and rubbing against his leg. He stopped outside his father’s office and braced himself. The pain was pulling at his stomach. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, stained it with sweat and blood.

  He unscrewed a brown bottle, his hands shaking too violently to keep the lid from bouncing on the floor. The sobs from inside the office masked the noise. He doused the rag with the potent contents, felt his head lighten as the fumes penetrated his sinuses. He put it behind his back, dragging his right leg behind him as he walked through the open door.

  Books littered the floor, pages ripped from the bindings. Everything tipped over. The window broken. His father’s portrait was looking over the upturned desk where Carrie was curled up with her head buried in her arms, her body convulsing with sobs.

  Condor wasn’t stealthy. He didn’t need to be. He only needed to be quick. Only needed to be strong enough for just a few moments. And then it would all be over.

  He fell on his sister, jabbing the soaked cloth over her mouth and nose.

  Her sudden movement blinded him with pain.

  He felt his hand fall, but she quickly slowed.

  It took several minutes for him to regain enough strength to stand. Carrie was on her back, mouth open. Unconscious.

  Condor scrambled through the wreckage and pulled the lamp from the rubble by the long, brown cord. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling fan with two broken blades, wrapped the cord around the knuckles of each hand.

  XXVI

  6:00 AM.

  Melanie let herself in the front doors. She went to the kitchen and prepared Ms. Ruth’s breakfast. Her thoughts were concerned with her late walk, hoping that she returned safely. She sliced the grapefruit and arranged the cup of black coffee with a small pitcher of cream. Her steps were short and swift as she carried the sterling silver tray down the middle of the hall, elbows out, back straight.

  She had nearly passed the office of the late Mr. Current when she dropped everything. The cup shattered. The grapefruit rolled away. She held her hands to her mouth and screamed. That moment she would remember in great detail for the rest of her life.

  The books. The overturned desk. The thin curtains waving over the hole in the window. And the bodies.

  Ms. Carrie was on the floor, her skin pale. Eyes staring at the fan wobbling on the ceiling. The other was Mr. Condor, dangling from a lamp cord tied from a hook on the wall. His face was blue and bloated. His tongue jutted between his rubbery lips like it had been squeezed out.

  Melanie ran away, called police. She stayed in the kitchen until they arrived.

  Later, investigators would find a cryptic message scribbled moments before Condor unwrapped the cord from his sister’s neck and fastened it around his. It said: “We were camels that tried to pass through the eye.”

  No one bothered to make sense of it.

  They later found his closet and assumed the note was simply the ramblings of a boy that lost his way.

  XXVII

  The funeral was quiet.

  Few people were present. Mainly business associates, some of the staff and some distant relatives.

  Three coffins were lowered into the ground. One was empty, the body lost at sea.

  Few words were said. Most faces were void of emotion, empty expressions of sadness. On a bright, sunny day, the graves were filled with soil while the preacher found good things to say about people he never met. The mourners left and would never come back to see the site again. One person remained, watching the workers disassemble the tent and finish filling the holes. Drayton remained, unnoticed. He read the inscription above the grave that contained the empty casket.

  Ruth Current

  1926 – 2011

  All good things come to an end.

  Other things must be cut out.

  XXVIII

  A month passed when the last will and testament of Ruth Current was delivered.

  The office was permanently closed, so the lawyers had convened in the dining room. They spread their papers out, then opened a laptop. The staff was present, as were distant family members. They trembled with excitement.

  The lead lawyer explained the legality of Ruth Current’s state of mind and the documents she prepared before she was murdered by the gardener, allegedly. Some of those present hoped to use some of the estate’s funds to privately investigate the whereabouts of the gardener.

  Soon, they were watching a lucid old woman speaking on the laptop. Ruth Current explained the reasons for why she was changing her last will and testament, confirming her sound frame of mind with testimony from a local psychologist. Much of her estate would be dedicated to aiding various charities that specialized in rehabilitation and mental health. A year’s salary was given to each of her staff. The only variation was the bonus provided Melanie for her exceptional dedication to a bitter old woman. She had earned it.

  Anyone related to Ruth Current, through blood or marriage, received nothing.

  When the meeting was finished, when hands were shook and papers signed and everyone dismissed, Melanie was left to clean up the remains. There were half-filled water bottles and empty Coke cans.

  On her way out, sitting on a small table in the corner of the room, was an empty tea cup.

  XXIX

  December was unusually warm.

  So much so that Private Investigator Andy Warren was sweating. He stood on the sand dune, watching dolphins dip in and out of the water about a hundred yards off the coast. It wasn’t often he got this far out to Kiawah Island. Most of his clients needed him to sit in a car for twenty-some hours outside a hotel. Investigating the murder of an old millionaire was like vacation.

  He knew his luck would run out, so he wasn’t surprised when his partner, Peter Simmons, gave him the news.

  “Case closed.” Peter snapped the phone shut to illustrate his point.

  “But we didn’t get any evidence.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Peter said. “The estate shut off funding for the investigation. Apparently, they’re satisfied with natural cases or missing person or whatever happened to the old lady.”

  “Huh.” Andy ran his palm over his slick forehead. His pits felt sticky. “They still think the kid did it?”

  “The grandkid? That sick fuck?” Peter rammed his hands in his pockets. “He strangled his sister, so they pretty much think he offed the old lady, too.”

  “Someone said something about a gardener.”

  “Gardener?” Peter said. “There was no gardener, the chambermaid is still reeling. No one else ever heard of the gardener. Naw, it was the boy. He flipped.”

  “Yeah,” Andy said. “Too bad.”

  “What, about the sister? She was as batshit as the rest of them. You see the testimonies? People were lined up around the corner to sue the estate on her account. You ask me, they’re wasting their money on an investigation, it’s clear. God did it.”

  Andy smirked. “God?”

  “Yeah, God. Don’t laugh. You saw what the kid wrote before he hung hims
elf, that passage about camels going through the eye of a needle. He thought they were cursed with money.”

  “Well, curse me for a while. Please.” Andy looked down the empty beach. “I wouldn’t mind this a bit.”

  “The kid didn’t believe the rich would go to heaven.”

  “So, he sent them all to hell, is that it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. They were wasting their money on us, if you ask me. But, hey, money is money. I got kids to feed, too.”

  Andy took a bottle of water out of his pocket. He suddenly felt parched. It was the wind and sand and the afternoon heat. He needed a nap. Maybe he’d clock out early. There was nothing to do anyway.

  The wind whistled into the side of his face, pelting him with sand. He didn’t hear the footsteps from behind him. He was startled when a kid came walking around him. A black kid wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans and heavy boots.

  “Gentlemen,” the kid said.

  “How are you?” Andy replied. A moment later, he said, “Kid, this is private property. What’re you doing here?”

  He turned around. His arm filled with dead roses. “I’m just cleaning up.”

  “No one lives here.”

  “I was Ms. Current’s gardener.”

  The investigators looked at each other. “The old lady never had no gardener.”

  “Today is my last day.” The kid looked at each of them. “I’ll be on my way when I’m finished.”

  Beyond the kid, the garden appeared to be overgrown. Andy didn’t think much about the kid claiming to be a gardener. He suddenly didn’t care and laughed. “You don’t sweat much for a gardener, kid.”

  Drayton looked up at the sun. “I’ve become accustomed to the heat.”

  The investigators believed him. And they didn’t care. So they wished him well and watched him deposit the spent flowers in the water. The kid stood there until the tide took them out before walking along the beach.

  Time seemed to drift. It was cooler, the shadows longer when Peter looked at his watch. “I could’ve swore it was only 2:00.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Dinner, man. Let’s hit the bricks.”

  Andy saw a dead rose on the path and turned around. The beach was empty. He couldn’t quite remember why they were there.

  Yellow

  Forgiveness is a difficult journey.

  I

  Father Gordon was a master of sleeping in a chair.

  His posture was naturally hunched, whether he was walking up steps or hovered over a plate of pancakes. And the distant look that fogged his eyes, like he was solving the theory of relativity, was ever-present. He could even sleep with his eyes open.

  Master.

  He wasn’t sleeping this time. He’d made it through the morning mass on the fumes of strong coffee, but he rarely made it through 11:00 mass. The chair was too comfortable and air so stuffy. The good Lord made late Sunday morning mass for sleeping.

  But not this Sunday.

  This Sunday, heat pricked his skin like tiny red needles.

  Father Gordon raised his eyelids like rusty hinges. The congregation was a blurry mob organized in horizontal lines. He blinked once-twice and they came into focus, wearing their Sunday best. Father Walker was still at the pulpit, his words mushing together like a recording running at the wrong speed.

  Father Gordon plumped out his lower lip and hummed. It was a short little affirmation, kind of his own little mantra to bring himself back online. It focused his attention in the present moment. It woke him up.

  Hmmmm.

  “Corinthians,” Father Walker said, “states we should not give for the sake of entering the gates of heaven, but give for the sake of caring for our brothers and sisters. Give, for the sake of God.”

  Yes, give till it hurts, my children. Give until the basket is brimming with stuffed envelopes and then give some more. Daddy needs a new annex.

  Father Gordon suppressed a chuckle. It was no secret they needed to raise some cash to expand the holy facilities. They were in need of restoring the recreational facilities and adding onto daycare. Times were tough. The non-denominational churches – the Christian get-togethers, as Father Gordon liked to call them – were luring their sheep away from the Catholic Church with their casual Sunday blue jeans and flip-flops and speaking in tongues.

  Father Gordon wasn’t about to sit around and watch his flock diminish. They were the Catholic Church. They were the Vatican. They were a superhighway – no, not a but THE superhighway through the pearly gates and he was goddamned if he was going to let souls wander away from his watchful eye.

  He raised his left hand, heavy with sleep, and wiped his scalp. He had what the older parishioners called a “Friar Tuck” hairdo. His palm came back wet.

  Shit.

  He was going to soak through every layer of his holy robes. He didn’t see any stains on the pits, that was good. He was naked beneath the robes (the nuns said he needed to confess for such a transgression, but he didn’t listen to those cackling hens; he was saving souls, goddamnit). The sweat pooled where his fat thighs rubbed together.

  Chance and Suzy Miller, sitting in the third row on the right, were laughing. They saw him check for pit stains, thought it was funny. Father Gordon winked and smirked. He could do that, smile without moving his lips. It was in the eyes and cheeks. He was so unlike Father Walker. That stiff smiled with his mouth, showed his capped teeth without an ounce of mirth. He was a joyless fuck that no one liked.

  The guy shined at the pulpit, though. He could deliver a homily like a dagger, save a soul from a thousand miles away, swindle money from the congregation like a class A beggar. But, Christ Almighty, he was a social turd. Father Walker carried a wooden paddle up his ass.

  Farther Gordon was thirty years his senior. He was well into his 70s and he was still laying down the word of the Lord. He tried to counsel the young priest, tell him he needed to loosen up, mix it up with the youth, get to know them. Get them to like you, for heaven’s sake. This was the 21st century. I mean, the days of fire and brimstone, of scaring these lost sheep through the pearly gates was long gone. Now it was all techno-gadget bullshit and they needed to relate. Learn to text, get on Facebook, send an Instagram. It used to be you had to lug a bible in the crook of your arm if you needed the scripture. Now you just google a phrase and it was WHABAM!

  Instant salvation.

  Still, the square sonofabitch sat like a stiff and smiled like a hollow pumpkin. Father Gordon gave up on molding him. They still made a great team. Father Walker could give the homilies and Father Gordon handled the social interactions.

  He was good at that.

  “I was reminded the other day of giving when Father Gordon and I were in the garden.” Father Walker stepped away from the pulpit and stood on the top step. “We were pulling weeds with one of the youths—”

  One of the youths? Holy shit.

  Father Gordon looked at one of the youths. She was serving as an altar server like she did every Sunday. She sat dutifully in her chair, hands on her lap watching the back of Father Walker’s head. She was a Mexican cutie with a yellow ribbon in her hair.

  Amarillo. That was the God-given name. Her parents were gone, so Father Gordon called her Yellow. As reliable as the sun rising.

  Her foster mother was in the front pew. She was white, but, through the eyes of God, she saw no color, no race or creed. She only saw God’s children.

  She rarely took her eye off the girl, always making sure she did what she was told. Father Gordon liked that woman. She minded her man. She was Old Testament material, she didn’t spare the rod. Yellow didn’t question adults. She did what she was told.

  Father Gordon rather liked that.

  He reached into his right sleeve and rubbed the nub at his elbow where his arm ended. He lost that arm at about eight years old, about the same age as Yellow. Farming accident. He fell off a tractor, damn lucky the back wheel didn’t squash his head like a melon. He remembered it, though. He
remembered hitting the ground, looking up at the blue sky as the back wheel went over his arm. He heard the snapping of bones like dry kindling. He remembered it hanging from his elbow like a dishrag.

  After all these years, he still felt like the arm was there. Phantom pain, they called it. As he rubbed the bald nub – slick with perspiration – it wasn’t ghost itching but ghost tingling, shooting through his shoulder and out his ghost fingertips.

  Because it was so hot.

  Hot as hell.

  Father Gordon winked at Yellow. She twitched and returned to listening to Father Stick-up-his-ass. She couldn’t let her mother see her smile or wink back. That would get her ten licks with a ruler. That woman should’ve been a nun.

  He let his eyelids droop. Despite the sweat tracking down his cheeks and the shooting pain, he found sweet relief in slumber. Father Walker’s voice carried him off like a metronome, one that inspired sleep and giving money to the basket. Money that would frame a new building and fill it with children that needed guidance and a firm hand. Father Gordon would have his own little office in the back, one where he could prop a small stereo system on the shelves, show the teens he was hip. He rather liked that Adele singer. She wasn’t gospel but, then again, everything didn’t have to be about Jesus. Sometimes it could just be good plain fun. Something that made you feel good.

  Didn’t God want all his children to feel loved?

  Father Gordon could even hear the hammer tapping on the new walls, driving finish nails where he could hang pictures. It was rhythmic. The hammer went tap-tap-tap… and it got louder… tap-tap-tap.

  He pried his eyes open.

  The front doors – heavy oak with brass circlet handles – were wide open. A young man was on the threshold, his boots clicked on the historic marble that was purchased from a renovated home in the Charleston historic district.