Chapter Five
Keeping Up With the Joneses
Things had been going fairly well, he thought. He had received enough money from the stuff he had stolen from Joe Mills to buy a half interest in a remodeling business. Moreover, who on earth would ever think of looking for Norman Jones in Kentucky? Particularly a small out-of-the-way place like Dundee. Bill Weedman hadn’t asked any questions at all when he showed up with the money to invest in the business. They had put the partnership agreement in the name of Victor N. Jones which was his full name. He was known as Norman everywhere else but now the ‘Victor’ worked to help hide his identity.
After the incident at the bar in North Carolina, he had had no choice but to get the hell out of Dodge. Sally Denham hadn’t had any right to come on to him as she had, get him all worked up and then try to say ‘no’ at the last minute. He honestly had not had any idea she was only fifteen years old or that she had been a virgin before that night. Of course, he had had too much to drink, too, but that wouldn’t have been considered an excuse for rape. He couldn’t even have tried to claim the sex had been consensual; with her that young, it would still have been statutory rape.
He felt really bad sometimes for framing Ed Wroe, his life-long friend, for the robbery, too. However, he had had to give himself time to fence the stolen property and get enough of a stake to relocate where nobody would find him. Besides, he was sure Ed could talk his way out of it or at least convince the jury there was reasonable doubt of his guilt. The cousin in Chicago had enough “connections” to be able to help him fence the stolen stuff. However, he couldn’t get a job, because it would be too easy to locate him if he used his social security number.
He and Bill had a good job coming up that should last through most of the winter. Bill had asked him to come to Fordsville and see if he could find the particular drawer and door handles their customer wanted for the cabinets they were installing in the apartment building that was being built. If he couldn’t find what he needed in Fordsville, he’d have to go on to Owensboro and try Lowe’s Lumber or Home Depot there. Yeah, things were going pretty good. He didn’t even have to pay his ex-wife the ridiculously high spousal support her lawyer had talked the judge into the last time she took him to court.
Oh, there’s the lumberyard and supply store and a parking place right up front. Whoa! Wait a minute. There’s an SUV that looks exactly like the one Ed drove. It even has that silly diamond-shaped sign that said “Twins on Board” that Norman had given him when they found out they were expecting two babies instead of one. Oh, shit! It has North Carolina plates, too. That couldn’t possibly be Ed’s vehicle. Could it? Norman drove on past but parked almost out of sight nearby. He sat hunched down in the seat and watched the front door carefully to see who came out to drive away in the car. There come two men out the front door and it looks as if they’re heading for the SUV with the North Carolina plates. No that one isn’t him; too muscular and too short. But, damn, the other one IS Ed. How can that possibly be? Surely I’m imagining it’s him. Maybe it’s just my guilty conscience. No, it is definitely Ed. Now what on earth am I going to do? I wonder where he’s living. He could be here in Fordsville or in Hartford or in any one of a dozen other little towns. Or even in Owensboro. How would he be able to avoid running into him if he didn’t know where he lived? He sure didn’t want Ed to see him. After having framed him as he had, he couldn’t blame Ed for turning him in and he sure couldn’t afford to let that happen. And he had just been congratulating himself on how well everything was going.
Norman made a hasty decision. He’d follow him, but he’d have to stay at a safe distance behind him. It looked as though they were heading out of town, so he began to tail them. The weather was lousy; it had been drizzling all day and now it began to come down by the buckets full. He could barely make out the taillights up ahead. As he rounded a sharp bend in the road, they disappeared completely. Fearing he might lose them altogether, he sped up and thought to catch up with them any minute. When he had gone several miles without any sign of them, he decided they must have turned off somewhere, but where? He turned around in someone’s driveway and retraced his route driving relatively slowly. The rain had diminished somewhat but he still almost missed the turn-off. A mailbox on the right said, “The Wroe Family” on the side of it.
“He lives back that road,” Norman reasoned. He probably wasn’t in town often. Did he dare take a chance on meeting him face to face at some point in time? If he stayed out of Fordsville, could he count on not being discovered? What other towns would Ed be likely to frequent? Actually, there wasn't any way to know, was there? What should he do? He couldn’t just walk away. He would have to have some money for another fresh start. He knew Bill Weedman didn’t have the funds to rescind their partnership agreement and give him his money back. What kind of bad luck would have him and Ed relocating to the same damn area? He wondered if there was any way he could talk to Ed, apologize, and convince him not to turn him in. No, he didn’t think he could afford to take a chance on trying that.
Oh, shit. Looking at his watch, he realized that the lumberyard he was supposed to go to in Fordsville would already be closed before he could get back there. The one in Owensboro stays open a half hour later but it’ll be closed, too, before I could get there. Now what was he going to do about that? What could he tell Bill as to why he didn’t get the stuff he needed? Damn, when things went wrong, they went all the way wrong. Just when he thought things were looking up. Maybe he could pretend he had car trouble. Or maybe a flat tire. He’d have to think of something.
He sure couldn’t tell him the truth. “Oh, I just saw a guy that I framed for grand theft because I had raped a fifteen-year-old girl and had to get out of town." No, that wouldn’t go over too well. Bill wouldn’t think too highly of that—particularly since he had two daughters who were teenagers. Well, he’d damn sure have to come up with something.
On the way back to Dundee, he finally came up with something he thought should work. “I’m sorry I’m late. The store in Fordsville didn’t have what we needed." That would keep him from having to make another trip there and run the risk of seeing Ed again. “Then the car started making a funny noise and I decided I shouldn't go on to Owensboro. But, wouldn’t you know it?—on the way home, it quit making the noise and now it’s running fine again.”
“Of course, I’m disappointed. I had thought we could start attaching handles in the morning. But if you couldn’t get them, you couldn’t get them.”
“If you want me to, I can stay here and work while you go to Owensboro tomorrow and see if Lowe’s has them."
“Well, I guess that would be alright." He thought Norman was being nice. He didn’t realize that Norman was afraid to go anywhere right now for fear of running into Ed again. He’d have to go back there some night, though, and see exactly where Ed lived.
The Ghostly Hideaway Page 12