by Glenn Trust
An Eye for Death
By
Glenn Trust
Blue Eyes
Book 1
Copyright © 2013
Revised 2017
An Eye for Death
By Glenn S. Trust
All rights reserved
An Eye for Death (originally published as An Empty Tree) is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are, either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Products and services mentioned in An Eye for Death were used to give realism and authenticity to the story. Their use in no way implies that the manufacturers or producers of those products or services agree with, or endorse, the author’s opinions on any subject.
This publication, in electronic and/or printed version, is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The publication may not be resold, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
For permission requests, email the author/publisher, include in the subject line “Attention: Permissions,” at the mail address below:
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Dedication
For all those whose “ripples” have touched my life.
Table of Contents
An Eye for Death
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Day One - Ripples
1. The Man in the Cap
2. The Sensible Thing to Do
3. All Was Right with the World
4. No More Pretending
5. Can You Guess My Name
6. Tired
7. BOLO
8. The Miles Ground By
9. The Whistling Stopped
10. Better to be the Dumb Ass
11. We're Elected
12. Crashing Waves
13. Wonder What His Name Was
14. Devils, Saints and Jackasses
15. Too Late Buddy
16. Dot on the Map
17. Balance Sheet
18. Ripples
Day Two - Converging Particles
19. A Good Enough Day
20. A Helluva Partner
21. A Trail of Dust
22. Breakfast on the Road
23. Watch Old Bandit Run
24. Guilt
25. Respect
26. Family Matter
27. Close It Up
28. Squirming
29. Adrenalin Surged
30. A Good Pee
31. This Would Do
32. Better to Wait
33. He sprang from the car
34. Bloody
35. Barry Was Going To Drive
36. Officer Down
37. An Eye for Death and An Empty Tree
38. Epilogue
Alternate Ending – The Blue Eyes Series
35. Barry Was Going To Drive
36. Officer Down
37. An Eye for Death
38. Epilogue
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Day One - Ripples
“I threw a pebble in a brook,
and watched the ripples run away.
They never made a sound,
and the leaves that are green turn to brown
Paul Simon, Leaves that are Green
1. The Man in the Cap
She knew she needed help; she couldn't remember why. Looking up from the cracked linoleum, her mouth opened, lips moving without speaking. A question formed on her face. Maybe he would help her, she thought, staring at the man in the cap.
His dark eyes, set deep into a stubbled face, gazed down at her under the brim of a blue baseball cap. The little threads where the patch on the front had been torn off were visible.
Strange, she thought. Why would he do that? Why take the patch off? She wanted to ask him but couldn't. Her mouth moved again. No sound came out. The man in the blue cap smiled at her.
Pearl Hendrix and her husband John owned the small store and gas station for forty years. Their kids worked there growing up. They were gone now, but Pearl and John still opened every morning like clockwork at the stroke of seven.
Located on a country crossroads fifty miles out of Kansas City, a modest but steady stream of customers kept the store in the black. Even this early in the day, over four hundred dollars, filled the tray in the cash register. That may not have seemed like much in the city, but out here in the country, it was plenty and more than sufficient for their small needs.
Her lips moved, and Pearl tried to speak. “Help me,” she whispered, struggling to make the words come from her mouth.
The man in the blue ball cap nodded and smiled, understanding. He knelt beside her, and reaching down, lifted Pearl’s limp hand from the floor and placed it on her stomach.
Her eyebrows furrowed, puzzled. She was wet. Her stomach was wet. Her hand slid from her stomach and came to rest in a sticky pool on the linoleum. Opening her eyes wider trying to understand, her mouth moved soundlessly. She shook her head feebly side to side. No.
He drew his other hand quickly across her neck. The blade of the heavy knife prevented any sound from escaping. What little blood remained in the old woman's body drained rapidly to the floor, pumped from her severed carotid artery.
Standing, the man in the cap moved behind the counter. He stepped over the body of the thin old man lying on the floor. As he did, he was careful to avoid stepping into the blood drying to a rusty brown at the edges of the puddle that surrounded the old man.
Lifting the cash drawer out of the register, he dumped the contents into a brown paper sack he found on a shelf underneath the counter. Who used brown paper sacks anymore, he wondered curiously? Looking at the two bodies, he nodded to himself with a smile. Oh, right, old people.
There was money in his pocket. He checked that need off of his to-do list for the morning. Now he had to find some transportation.
Pushing the glass door hard enough that it banged against the wall with a loud thud, he stopped and scanned the lot. Smiling, he strode briskly to the gas pumps.
Alerted at the sound of his footsteps, the girl filling the old Toyota turned. In another instant the tip of the knife's blade would have plunged through her kidney. Wide-eyed she stared into the face of the man in the cap.
Her eyes were blue, luminous, sparkling bright and clear in a way that fascinated him. They drew him in, holding his gaze. She would live, at least for a while.
2. The Sensible Thing to Do
Lying on his back, gradually gaining consciousness, he stared through slitted lids at the spotted ceiling and thought the thought. One good day. It was the thought that greeted him first thing every day.
Pudgy, balding, with a wisp of silver hair circling his head, he mouthed the words. One good day. Can I have just one?
He wondered if the thought was a prayer. He wasn't sure. Who would he be praying to? God? Maybe. Someone. No one. No matter.
He closed his eyes, putting his arm over his face and waited for the pain to subside. Little by little he woke, parting the cobwebs and joining the living, his brain began to review the day ahead.
Barry Broomfield, Regional Sales Manager, Marketing Rep, Order Taker, Customer Service Phone Answerer and President of Atlanta Electronics and Supplies, was moving today. The small one-bedroom apartment had been his base of operations since The Day. Now, he was leaving, headed west.
He heard somewhere Sioux Falls, South Dakota was a burgeoning high tech center. Some other salesman told him at an airport bar in a city he couldn't remember. In between flights, they sat sipping scotch, pickling their brains and talking about the trials of life on the road and the dumbass store buyers they dealt with.
Barry didn't recall much else about the conversation or the face of the man who shared the drinks with him, but South Dakota was as likely a place as any to relocate his small electronics supply business. Besides, he liked the sound of the name—Sioux Falls. It sounded western, different, cool and clean, a place for a new start, far away from Atlanta. Someplace quiet, someplace to think and make sense of things.
Sense. He groaned as he kicked off the sheet and stretched. That was what he needed—to make sense of things, pull his brain out of the fog that had surrounded it.
He hadn't figured much out in the last year, but at least he made a decision. He was moving. It was the sensible thing to do.
3. All Was Right with the World
“Forty-two Alpha, 10-48, I-229 at Berington Road, mile marker fifty-eight.”
“10-4, Forty-two Alpha, traffic stop, I-229 at mile marker fifty-eight, Berington Road.” The dispatcher sounded young for the fifty-three-year-old grandmother Sorensen knew her to be.
Straightening the 'Smokey Bear' campaign hat squarely on his head as he stepped from the patrol cruiser, Sergeant Paul Sorensen approached the vehicle, walking on the left, close to the side of the car. Even more than the possibility of a threat from the car's driver, the prospect of some dumbass watching the blue lights and not the road worried him.
It was the 'moth effect,' drivers transfixed by the emergency lights, steering right into them. More than one trooper had been injured, not paying attention to traffic, a driver sideswiping them as they stood beside a car on a routine traffic stop. Some were killed.
His right hand trailed along the trunk lid, pulling up on it as he passed to ensure no one would be popping out behind him. His eyes scanned the backseat briefly—empty—and returned to the man behind the wheel, watching him approach in the side mirror.
“License and registration, sir.”
Sorensen appreciated that the man, mid-forties, well dressed, driving a Ford Fusion, rental car license plate, did not make the standard inquiry. Is there a problem, officer? It was a point in his favor.
The contract on the seat confirmed the dispatcher's response to his request for 10-28, license and registration, information on the tag and vehicle prior to making the traffic stop. The Ford was definitely a rental.
Leaning forward, the driver reached into his rear pocket for the wallet containing his driver's license. Sorensen watched, hand relaxed, but positioned on the butt of his service weapon.
Smiling, the man handed the trooper the license and said, “Here you go. It's a rental. Have the contract but no registration. Picked the car up at the airport in Sioux Falls.”
Sorensen nodded, looking under the wide brim of the hat at the license, holding it, so he saw the man as he scanned the information.
“From Texas, Mr. Perkins?”
“Yes, I am.” There was the slightest hint of a twang.
“Know, why I stopped you?”
Smiling a 'you got me, officer' smile he probably used a hundred times, he said, “Well, I'm pretty sure I was speeding. Sorry about that.”
“Yes, you were,” Sorensen said, nodding in confirmation. “Eighty miles per hour. Speed limit on the interstate is seventy.”
“Yep, I know. Sorry.” Mr. Perkins resigned himself to his fate and waited for the trooper to finish the customary inquisition.
Another point in his favor, he avoided the usual excuse that the speed limit in South Dakota was seventy-five and he forgot to slow down when he crossed the state line into Iowa. Feeling generous and not in the mood to ruin anyone's day, Sorensen smiled as he handed the driver's license back.
“Alright, do me a favor and slow down.” He turned and walked back to his cruiser, with a pleasant nod.
“Will do, Officer.” Mr. Perkins was going to have a good day too.
Waiting until the trooper returned to his car, the man from Texas driving a rental car from South Dakota, pulled smoothly from the shoulder. Merging with traffic, he was careful to wait until a semi rig passed and then accelerated quickly to highway speed.
The trooper watched with appreciation. No argument, no ingratiating pleading, no whining, simple business, straightforward and courteous. Sorensen realized Perkins probably used those tactics many times to avoid citations, and he didn't care.
A sense of contentment enveloped Sergeant Paul Sorensen. The new stripes on his shirt were fresh, still stiff and starched. Eight years he waited, longer than most, but he made sergeant. It had never been an issue for him. He had been in no hurry and had waited until the time seemed right to him to take the sergeant’s exam and go through the oral review boards.
Sorensen was one of those rare people who had the good fortune to do precisely what he loved doing every day of his life. A natural born trooper, he relished the independence of the road, working with no one looking over his shoulder.
Some of the local cops—county and city—liked to poke fun at the troopers. They called them glorified traffic cops and said they didn't do real police work.
It didn't bother Sorensen. Sitting in diners over coffee with local officers, good-natured, taking their jibes, he smiled at their jokes and gave back as good as he got, calling the local deputies Barney Fifes.
In short, he enjoyed being an Iowa State Trooper. There was nothing else he wanted to do. Sometimes he thought he would have paid the state to be able to work the highways in his patrol car every day.
He reached down and turned the volume up on the police radio. The swirling chatter from troopers and dispatchers filled the car. All was right with the world. Smiling, he accelerated and merged into traffic.
4. No More Pretending
The tiny apartment in an Atlanta suburb sat on the opposite side of the city from the large Cape Cod that Barry's wife occupied. Actually, she was his ex-wife. What had been their house now was hers, along with the bank accounts, savings, personal possessions, and the monthly alimony check amounting to half of his income.
Barry's friends were astonished at the divorce settlement. Some already divorced, others contemplating divorce, none had ever seen an agreement so one-sided. They chided Barry, saying he made things harder for everyone by giving in so readily.
Unlike fifty-fifty community property states, Georgia is an equitable distribution state in the matter of marriage and divorce. He did not fully understand what that meant until going through the process.
In the words of a drunken friend commiserating with him over beers one night, equitable distribution meant the wife is a victim until proven otherwise. Of course, that didn't qualify as a technical legal definition, but for all intents and purposes, it was the practical application.
So, on The Day, the judge, charged with the law and the moral responsibility to
protect southern womanhood, determined in a very Southern-gentlemanly way that his ex-wife got—everything. Barry received the one thing he wanted most—peace. He considered it a fair trade and perfect settlement.
He got his eyes open again and looked around the small room to the window. A few hopeful rays of sunlight slanted across the beige carpet, shining through the slatted blinds in long, thin horizontal blocks.
The light made his eyes hurt again. This time the needles didn't pierce through his pupils to lodge somewhere in the center of his skull. They were reduced to a dull, throbbing ache behind his retinas, circling his head. It was a definite improvement.
He sat up and surveyed the empty room. The entire apartment was empty. A fourteen-foot rental truck sat in the parking space outside, loaded with his few possessions. Larger than was necessary for his scant furnishings, he selected the fourteen footer from the rental agency because he needed one big enough to haul a car trailer with his old Nissan on the back.
Knees creaking and cracking, he pushed himself to his feet. He had loaded the truck the day before, struggling with some of the larger items, but managing to drag them all in. He had left out the sofa pillows so he would have someplace to sleep after his good-bye party at the bar and grill at the end of the street.
The little gathering turned out not to be much of a party, just the regular evening of drinking and making small talk with the bartender, Trish, and the other regulars. Paying his tab to leave, he placed a bigger than usual tip on the credit card slip. It was a farewell after all. Trish said goodbye and that she would miss him, trying to sound like she meant it. She even came around the bar to give him a goodbye hug. By the time he got to the door, she was laughing with another customer, drawing a beer from the tap as the door closed behind him.
Now, lifting his body from the floor, he went to the bathroom and performed the morning routine. Teeth brushed, he dragged a razor over his stubble then sat on the john and took a dump. The final step, he squeezed into the tiny shower and stood under water as hot as he could bear to clean himself and start the blood flowing to his brain. It took twenty minutes to warm up his alcohol-infused neurons to minimal functioning speed.