“How ‘bout I fix you some breakfast before you go?”
“Pancakes?” he asked, all smiles now.
“Chocolate chip?”
“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”
“Okay, chocolate chip it is. You get the stuff ready and I’ll find the other boot, okay?”
“Okay, “ he said getting to his feet.
“Give me a kiss.”
With everything all right again, Kevin dropped a little peck on her cheek and ran down the hall to the kitchen.
Dressed and showered, Sean sauntered into the sunny kitchen and headed straight for the coffee. The warm aroma of fresh pancakes and melted chocolate got his stomach rumbling. He checked the time. No time.
As he poured his coffee he watched Petra leaning against the counter watching Kevin inhale a short stack of pancakes that dripped with maple syrup. He realized that everything he loved was in this room. They were his world. It was a small world, but it was all he needed. Warm and secure. Safe and happy.
“You gonna be able to skate with all that food?” Sean asked, as he dropped two sugars into his travel mug.
“I need the energy, Dad,” Kevin replied between mouthfuls.
“Well, that’s true,” Sean said, sliding down the counter, bumping hips with Petra.
“You need any extra energy, honey?” she said with a smile that said so much more. “You want some breakfast?”
Sean kissed her mouth gently.
“Hey! I’m eating over here,” Kevin warned, screwing his face up.
“All right, all right! Eat your food, we’re gonna be late,” Sean said.
Kevin gobbled up the last few bits of pancake, smearing in the remnants of chocolate and maple syrup that remained on his plate.
“All ready, Dad,” he announced, pushing his clean plate away from him.
Sean tossed him the car keys.
“Okay, go start it up and throw in your gear. I’ll be right out.”
Kevin snagged the keys out of the air and raced for the door where his hockey stick and equipment bag lay waiting.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Petra said, stopping Kevin in his tracks. “How about a kiss for the cook?”
“Aw, come on,” Kevin whined, making his way slowly back to the counter.
“C’mere, you.”
Petra wrapped the boy in her arms and squeezed him tight.
“Have a good practice, Kev.”
“I will.”
Kevin kissed her cheek and then bolted for the door.
“You see that,” she said. “He’s forgetting about me already.”
Sean leaned into her and slipped his arm around her.
“I won’t forget about you,” he whispered, kissing her neck, as his hands slid under her shirt.
“Hey!”
“He’s outside,” Sean mumbled against her neck.
Petra scanned the door and the two windows facing the driveway.
“But he can still come in.”
Sean’s head came up quickly. “I’ll lock the door.”
Petra laughed and pushed him off.
“Get out of here, you’re going to be late. Put it on your
Christmas list.”
Sean sighed dramatically as he grabbed his mug and headed for the door.
“But all I want for Christmas is to fill your stocking.”
Petra’s mouth hung open. “You are filthy, Sheriff!” she said and slapped Sean on the ass as he walked by.
6
In the parking lot of Danaid’s arena, Sean pulled Kevin’s hockey bag out of the back of their five-year-old Jeep and closed the hatch. “Remember who you’re getting a ride to school with?” Sean asked.
“Ricky’s dad.”
“And after school Aunt Violet is going to pick you up, okay?”
Kevin slung his bag over his shoulder and said, “Aw, Dad, do I have to stay there tonight?”
“C’mon, buddy, we talked about this. It’s just for tonight”
“I know,” Kevin said. “But you owe me. Big time. She’s not even my real aunt. Plus she’s fat.”
Sean knew he shouldn’t laugh, but he couldn’t help it.
“I mean like orca fat,” Kevin said. “Free Willy!”
“Come on,” Sean said, “Be nice. I could make you sleep in the wood shed.”
Kevin beamed, “Could I?”
“No.”
Sean stared down at his son as he shifted from foot to foot, struggling with his heavy equipment bag, and watched the boy smile. He had a beautiful smile, and when his eyes found you, you were his. It had been the same with his mother.
“Okay. You do this for me and tomorrow night we’ll go down into the city and watch that new movie you wanted to see.” Movies were Kevin’s passion and any mention of going into Braden, the next biggest city to the south, to see one on the big screen lit up Kevin’s face like a Christmas tree.
“ ‘They Crawl Again!’ “
“ ‘They Crawl Again’?” Sean asked.
“It’s the sequel. I saw the first one at Toby Myers’ house, on his satellite. It was awesome. But Petra said I couldn’t go.” “Why not?”
“She said that kind of stuff would warp my mind.”
“Well, she’s probably right,” Sean said, watching his son’s smile fade.
“She’s not even my real mom.”
“Hey, enough. You be good tonight—”
“Oh, I will. I promise.”
“You be good and listen to Violet. And no fat jokes.”
“Okay.”
“You do that and I guarantee we’ll see that movie, okay?” Kevin threw his arms around his dad and squeezed him tight.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Sean waited until Kevin disappeared behind the doors of the arena and then headed over to Station Street.
He pulled into the freshly plowed parking lot of a small squat building where only one other vehicle, an even older Jeep, sat parked in front of a battered metal sign that read:
DANAID SHERIFF DEPARTMENT.
Inside the glass doors were chairs, magazines and a low coffee table giving the place the look of a dentist’s office waiting room. And in fact, until six months ago, it was.
The high front desk stood empty, with only a little silver bell left on the desk blotter attached to a note that read: Ring for Service! Sean slipped past the front desk without ringing the bell and entered the main processing area under a string of green garland. In the cramped little space that the town provided, his office and their only jail cell took up the entire back wall. What remained was dominated by two desks, a main briefing table, a few chairs and some notice boards crammed with local announcements, bake sales, the odd missing person report and Christmas cards that the station received.
As Sean snaked his way through the furniture to his office, the sound of Bing Crosby finishing “White Christmas” leaked out through the building’s tinny speakers. He threw his coat into the arms of a chair that faced his desk, sat down and switched on his computer. As Bing began “Silver Bells,” a toilet flushed nearby, his office being right next door to the only toilet in the building.
After a moment, Kelly Fike, soon to be Kelly Hanson if the engagement stuck, stepped soundlessly past the glass walls of his office and poked her blonde head into his open doorway. She had the wide, pretty face of a farmer’s wife who knows how to bake an apple pie and change the blades on a roto-tiller all with a toddler riding her considerable hip. A hip that had been steadily widening, along with the rest of her, Sean had noticed, since the engagement was announced four months ago.
“Mornin’, Sheriff.”
“Morning, Kelly,” Sean said casting a glance down at her slippered feet, where two fuzzy brown beavers stared up at him, baring their buck teeth. “Think you could put some boots on today, you know, at least look the part?”
“I’m on dispatch today, Sean,” she replied, leaving him with a quizzical look. “Where am I going?”
Sean watched her half walk, half sl
ide her way back to the dispatch desk.
Dispatch, Sean thought. Jesus. There were about 1500 people in this town during the summer, and fewer than 200 now that winter had rolled in, and only three policemen. Two of whom were in the building. What the hell did they need a dispatch for?
Kelly pulled her slippered feet under her as she shifted her bulk into the chair and grabbed a radio. She squeezed the TALK button and said, “Jordan, come in, over.”
There was a crackle of static and then, “I’m here, honeypie,” Jordan replied. Sean shook his head. He opened the logbook to last night’s entries and found only three. Busy night, he thought. He called for Kelly and she slid into his office stirring what smelled like a mug of hot chocolate. Her mug was yellow, decorated with a smiley face that grinned wildly.
“What’s up, Chief?”
“What are these three entries? It says ‘tows.’ Jordan was out towing people last night?”
Kelly took a sip of her hot chocolate and nodded.
“Yep. First one was Craig Button. Y’know he got that new Land Rover last month and, well, I guess he ditched it over near Peacock Street. Jordan had to pull him out of the ditch.” “So these three entries were people he pulled out of the ditch, not towing them because of traffic violations?”
“Right. They didn’t do anything, ‘cept get stuck. The second one,” she said, shuffling in behind Sean to get a better look at the log, “was, oh yeah, over on Brant Street. Mrs. Wilkes got hung up on a drift. The last one I think was a snowmobile.”
“When did we start towing?” he asked, “What about the garage over at the Texaco, what’s his name ... Marvin?”
Kelly shrugged her shoulders, “Since Marvin didn’t show up for work.”
“Well, where is he?”
“I don’t know, Sean, no one does. Jordan went over to the garage and it was closed. No answer at Marvin’s place either. He lives over on Saturn Crescent in them little townhouses over there.” Kelly wrinkled her nose as she mentioned the townhouses as if the very mention of low-income housing offended her delicate sensibilities.
“Beautiful. Winter’s just starting and our resident tow truck driver goes AWOL.”
“Yup,” she said, sliding her way out of his office on her fuzzy brown slippers.
“That’s it? You got nothing?”
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I can’t drive that thing.”
“Thanks, Kelly,” he replied. “You’re all about solutions. I like that about you.”
“Hey, that’s why you get paid the big bucks.”
Sean sat at his desk, thinking about possible tow truck drivers when his eyes found the calendar. His calendar. It sat squarely on the left corner of his desk, just beyond his phone. It was the kind where each square page was a day of the year. The date still read October 21, 2004. The day Kate, Kevin’s mother, died.
He hadn’t thought about the calendar in a while. In fact he couldn’t remember the last time he looked at it. It was odd and a little scary how time had a way of speeding by you while your back was turned, while you were busy with the business of life.
Three years. More than that now. Had it really been that long?
He had called home in the middle of the afternoon to find out what was for supper and to chat a little bit. He had no idea that it would be the last time he would speak to his wife. She said that she was tired and going to lie down. She asked if he wouldn’t mind picking up Chinese for dinner as she just didn’t feel up to cooking. He joked with her about being lazy and she laughed and gave it back to him, as was their way with each other.
When he and Kevin arrived home they found her in the bedroom, asleep. Sean asked Kevin to set the table for dinner and Sean sat on the edge of the bed and kissed her forehead. Her skin was cold.
Dr. Ronald Baron, the town’s only year-round physician, performed the autopsy and ruled that Kate had died from an embolism in her brain. Just like that. In an instant, she was gone.
It had taken him a year to even consider removing some of Kate’s things from the house. It had taken another to let it happen. And he couldn’t do it alone. Violet Monroe and Billy Walters were there to help box things up. But they were there mostly to stop Sean from hiding some of her things and holding on to them. In the end they took everything. Her perfume and jewelry, her shirts and jeans. Even her dresses and skirts, the few that there were. She was never a dress and skirt girl. Not his Kate.
After a while the house stopped smelling like her. And then one day he found it difficult to remember the sound of her voice. Now, more than four years later, all he had was the stupid little calendar that he just couldn’t seem to get rid of.
He picked it up and it was so light, so inconsequential. He found it impossible to rationalize that something like this little package of plastic and paper could have such a hold on him. He rolled his chair to the garbage can in his office and dropped it in.
“There,” he said. “Done.”
He rolled back to his desk and immediately felt sick. He quickly rolled back and plucked the little calendar from the garbage.
“Not yet,” he said just above a whisper. “Not yet.”
Thoughts of Petra crept in and he found himself touching the calendar as if it were some weird talisman, some last connection with his dead wife.
“I don’t want to forget you,” he whispered, “but I think I found someone.”
He carefully placed the calendar back on the desk and took the time to straighten it to just the right angle. When he was finished he leaned in close and said, “I think you’d really like her.”
Sean left his computer on and grabbed his coat from the chair. He suddenly needed fresh air. He was nearly past the front desk when Kelly called him back.
“Sean, wait!” She whispered into the walkie-talkie, “I’ll call you back, honey,” adding, “over and out,” just to make it official.
“What’s up, Kelly?”
“Where’re you goin’?” she asked.
“Out to get a muffin.”
“Oooh,” she moaned. “Mabel’s? Are you going to Mabel’s?” “Yeah, probably.”
“Could you do me a teencie-weencie little favor?” “Anything,” he said.
“Could you bring me back a piece of bumbleberry pie?” she asked.
“I might not be coming straight back.”
“Oh, that’s all right, whenever. It’s always a good time for pie,” she said, giving him a wink with her not-too-bright country grin. “Just tell Mabel it’s for me, she still owes me a piece on the house after last week’s nightmare. Did Jordan tell you ab—”
“Anything else?” he asked quickly as he inched backwards toward the door.
“Another poster came in for Kevin,” she said. “I left it over by the fax machine.”
“Where’s it from this time?”
“New York, I think, I didn’t really look at it.”
Sean lifted the sheet from the scarred wood table where the ancient fax machine/copier sat. The picture had been taken from far away but the subject was perfectly centered. He looked to be sitting behind the wheel of a big SUV. He looked straight toward the camera. The details of his face were blurred and softened by the distance, but the menace in his gaze was not. His hooded glare burned right through Sean.
“I don’t get why you let Kevin have those things.”
“Some kids collect baseball cards, and some kids—” “Collect Wanted posters of criminals at large?” she finished,
“It’s creepy.”
“He’s a kid. Creepy is cool. I mean, how many kids get to have real copies of police Wanted bulletins?”
“Only the creepy ones.”
“You’re creepy,” Sean snapped.
Kelly stuck her tongue out at Sean and crossed her eyes.
“Beautiful,” he said. “Was there anything else before I leave you?”
“Just that Billy Walters called for you a couple times already. Said it was pretty important.”
S
ean left without another word. Not as important as bumbleberry pie, though. Right, Kelly?
Past the garland hanging in the entranceway, around the front desk he could still hear her as he passed through the double glass doors when she pushed the TALK button on the walkie-talkie.
“Jordan, sweetie, are you there?”
After a squelch of static, “I’m here, honeybear.”
7
The Trading Post was a converted log cabin at the corner of First and Main. A neon OPEN sign hung in the window. Sean tried to find a spot in front of the little store and couldn’t. Cars and trucks were lined up on both sides of the street, leaving only one space available. Sean hesitated for a second then said, “Fuck it,” and pulled into the handicapped parking space, knowing full well that old Mr. Doogan, whom the spot was for, was down south visiting his sister. He had to remind himself to thank Kelly for that little tidbit, for if nothing else, she was extremely efficient at keeping everyone up to date on the current movements and juicy gossip concerning her fellow locals.
Sean turned up his collar against the wind that seemed equally determined to either bury the Trading Post in snow or blow it off the face of the earth altogether. Huge drifts sailed across the open street to slam against the front of the general store, much to the dismay of Stevie Marshall, the young kid in a ripped leather jacket and blue jeans trying to keep up with the accumulation, shoveling drift after drift off the store-wide front porch.
As Sean passed him he leaned on his shovel, holding a cigarette to his lips with two fingers the color of bone, shivering in the snow that had quickly buried the ankles of his high-tops.
“Looks like it might snow today,” Sean said with a grin.
Stevie shot him a black look that could have killed a small army.
Sean smiled and stamped the snow from his feet on the welcome mat before he slipped inside.
Inside the store was bedlam. In a place where you could get everything from corn flakes to shotgun shells, the line stretched from the cash register to the far west corner of the store, where rental videos were kept. Shoppers pushed their way down the narrow aisles pulling everything they could into their tiny carts.
Sleepers Awake Page 4