Damage

by Mark Feggeler

  "You can't keep bribing me with food, you know," she said before taking a large bite out of her treat. Her eyes rolled up. "Gaw, thash delishush!"

  The office door swung all the way open and Charlie Lee entered the room, an ever-present look of consternation accenting his puckered pug face. He was a pleasant enough man with whom Ray had always been on agreeable terms, but he tried too hard to be an authority figure ever since being promoted to assistant editor. Ray, and the others who had worked at the Citizen-Gazette for some time, enjoyed yanking his chain every now and then to remind him he was once just a beat reporter like the rest of them. The mere sight of Charlie standing in the doorway, surprise registering on his face as he looked from Ray to Becky and back to Ray, was comical enough to send Becky straight into another fit of giggling that started with a spray of powdered sugar across her desk.

  "Where have you been?" Charlie closed the door behind him and approached Ray as Becky sipped at her coffee to help wash down her donut.

  "I went to visit Avery Lowson at the St. Thomas old folks home," Ray said.

  "Of course you did," Becky said between throat clearing coughs.

  "Any particular reason why you had to see Lowson today when we needed you here?" Charlie asked.

  "Because he's the father of Correen Wallace and the father-in-law of Evan Wallace, the guy somebody shot and killed last night," Ray said. Becky stopped her dramatic choking. "He asked me to go up and meet with him, so I went."

  "How was he?" Becky asked.

  "Well, he looks like he's at death's door, physically, but he seems to have taken this whole tragedy pretty well."

  "When did he call you?" Charlie moved closer and sat next to him on the love seat. Ray shifted to make room for him.

  "Late this morning, after he read the article in today's paper."

  "I spoke with Sheriff Redmond this afternoon," Becky said. Ray's lingering smile vanished, though Becky's still tugged at one corner of her mouth. "He was not happy about you emailing me the pictures we ran. He said something about you being there as a guest of the department and, therefore, any pictures you took required his approval for us to use."

  "That's a new rule," Ray said. "What did you say?"

  "I called him out on his bullshit," she said. "I told him, if he wants complete control then they need to spell out all the restrictions beforehand and get us to sign a waiver. Otherwise, we're free to do whatever we want. I also told him to get us our camera back within twenty-four hours to avoid going to court over it."

  "You're a mean bitch, aren't you?" Ray said.

  Becky raised her bushy eyebrows with a smile and took another mouth-filling bite of her jelly donut. Charlie ruffled next to him.

  "Yeah, well, Redmond also told her your story was wrong," Charlie said. "He says evidence at the scene shows Correen Wallace jumped in a suicide attempt. He says you never bothered to talk to him about the facts. What was it he said about the article?"

  Becky swallowed hard so she could speak. "Redmond said it was full of 'erroneous' information and would prove 'deleterious' to the ongoing investigation. Who knew he could even pronounce words with so many syllables?"

  "I had a proper source from within the Sheriff's Department," Ray said to Becky.

  "Who?" Charlie asked peevishly. "That retarded cousin of yours?"

  Becky threw a handful of paperclips at her assistant editor. "Get your panties out of a wad, princess. I've run plenty of corrections for you in the past for worse screw ups than this."

  "Thank you," Ray said.

  "But that doesn't mean you're off the hook, either," she added, pointing at Ray. "Was Billy your source?"

  "For your information," Ray said through a forced smile, "Billy is the one who called to tell me I got it wrong. My source was a detective."

  "Williams?" Charlie asked.

  Ray shook his head. "Pritchard," he said.

  "He is the cutest little man," Becky said, her rough exterior softening a bit. She met Charlie's glare with one of her own. "What? He is."

  "Cute or not, Ray needs to get up with him and see what he has to say about it," Charlie told her.

  "That's what Avery Lowson wants me to do to," Ray said. "He doesn't believe Redmond's official ruling of murder-suicide."

  "He told you that directly?" Becky asked.

  "If it's one thing Lowson doesn't do, it's mince words," Ray said. "He had Chief Yeager put a security detail in the hospital in case whoever shot Wallace decides to come back to finish off the missus."

  Becky sat back, mulling over the matter while chewing another sizable portion of her donut. The two men waited silently for her judgement. Her jaw worked as feverishly as Ray imagined her brain must at times.

  "Okay," she started, addressing Ray. "Whatever follow up article you were planning to write, just stick in your drawer for now until we get this mess figured out. Start this evening and take tomorrow, if you need it, to track down Pritchard and see what has to say. Redmond probably won't notice if we don't run the correction, but I'm not going to press with anything else until we have a source that's willing to go on the record. I also want you to verify what Lowson said about Chief Yeager and the additional security."

  Neither man argued her orders. Ray left Becky's office with the idea of calling Detective Pritchard. If he backed the sheriff's version of events, then he had no source for that morning's article and delaying the correction would serve no purpose. He dug through to the back of the shallow center drawer of his desk and eventually found the business card he was seeking. Pritchard had given it to him the year before when he ran against Redmond for the sheriff's office. Ray had tried to interview them both back then, Pritchard and Redmond, but only Pritchard took it seriously, outlining his platform and focusing on well-organized talking points. Redmond could have cared less, leaving little for Ray with which to cobble together an article. When he dialed Pritchard's number the call rang immediately through to voicemail. Ray left a brief message asking him to return his call.

  Next, he tried Glen Meadows Police Chief Yeager. It was almost three-thirty, so he ought to be able to catch the man in his office. The phone rang twice and a woman picked up at the other end. Ray announced himself and asked to speak to the chief. After a brief pause, he heard the chief's smooth, smoky voice.

  "Yeager," he declared.

  "Hi chief, it's Ray Waugh over at the Citizen-Gazette."

  "Raymond! I had a sneaking suspicion I'd be hearing from you before the day was out. You've been a busy boy. What can I do for you?"

  Yeager's warm tone was not uncharacteristic. The man seemed always to have an endless reserve of good natured enthusiasm.

  "Chief, I'm calling to confirm if you've placed a security detail at the hospital for Correen Wallace."

  "Now Raymond," Yeager said, his bluesy voice maintaining its upbeat rhythm. "It would be inappropriate for me to make any comment on such a matter at this time."

  "I'm not looking for any quotes for an article, chief," Ray interjected. "I just need to know if it's true."

  Yeager drew a deep, bracing breath and puffed it out into the receiver. "The Wallaces and their respective extended families have been through enough today, Raymond. Maybe you could cut them a break and let this whole thing drop for a few days. It probably wouldn't be bad for you, either."

  "That's probably what will happen, chief," Ray said. "But first I have to confirm what Avery Lowson told me about you putting a man at the hospital because you share his opinion that his daughter did not try to kill herself."

  "Whoa!" Yeager crooned. "When did he tell you that?"

  "A couple hours ago when I met with him at St. Thomas," Ray said.

  Yeager chuckled. "There's no such thing as a clandestine operation when old Avery's involved. Since he spilled the beans, he must not mind people knowing, but I don't want this turning into a pissing contest between me and Sheriff Redmond. You understand?"

  "So, it's true?"

  "Officially? At the request of
family members, the Glen Meadows Police Department is providing additional security to ensure Mrs. Wallace's safety while she is in our jurisdiction."

  "And unofficially?" Ray prodded as he scribbled down Yeager's statement.

  "I think you have what you need, Raymond," Yeager said after a brief pause.

  "Yes, chief," Ray said. "Thank you."

  Ray glanced over at Becky's closed office door. He could hear raised voices coming from behind it. As he stared blankly at the door, it swung quickly open and slammed against the interior wall of the office. Charlie, his face redder than his cheap tie, stormed past Ray without looking at him and burst through the swinging double doors on his way back to production. Ray turned back to Becky's office just in time to see the door close with a soft click.

  Monday, Part XIII

  Ray stopped at a fast food drive-thru to pick up dinner. Parked on the cracked concrete driveway in front of his apartment, he looked up and down the street at his eerily still neighborhood. The wind persisted, tossing around the tops of trees, but the clouds were slowly dispersing to allow hints of waning sunlight to cut some of the chill from the air. Not a soul could be seen.

  On the way home, Ray began to think in earnest about those tiny fragments of glass lodged in Jake's hands. If he didn't have the same small cuts on his own hands from helping Correen Wallace, he probably wouldn't have thought twice about it. The similarities troubled him. It also troubled him that he was stuck in limbo with this entire tragedy hanging around him. He wanted to speak with Pritchard to escalate the story or put it to rest, and he wanted to talk to Billy to hand off the concern about their mutual friend, which Billy might already suspect, anyway. After all, hadn't Billy called Ray specifically trying to find Jake? Maybe Billy was trying to find his old fraternity brother because he had found something at the Wallace's estate tying Jake to the scene. Without definitive facts from a reliable source his mind simply chased these thoughts round and round until they exhausted him.

  All he knew for certain about Jake's whereabouts on Sunday was the following: Jake showed up at Marco's pub in the afternoon to drink instead of work; Billy arrived some time later to take him home; Jake walked to Ray's apartment, arriving after 5:20AM Monday morning, since that was when Ray left to meet Billy at the Sheriff's Department for the ride-along. The rest was a mystery.

  Using his home phone instead of his cell, Ray dialed Billy's home number. A woman with a high-pitched voice answered.

  "Amy, is Billy there?"

  "Hello to you, too, asshole," said Billy's wife in her thick rural accent. Ray gave a perfunctory apology and asked again for Billy.

  "He's not here, Ray," Amy said.

  "Do you know when you expect to see him?"

  "I haven't heard a peep from that boy since he left to pick you up this morning," she said. "His ass was supposed to be here by two to watch the kids so I could go for my well-check appointment. Do you know how hard I had to beg my OBG not to charge me for canceling?"

  "I haven't seen him since I left the Wallace estate around nine-thirty," Ray said. "He called me around eleven trying to find Jake, but that's the last I heard from him."

  "What does he want with Jake?" Amy spoke as though she expected Ray to tell her Billy and Jake were out bowling when she needed her husband home to watch the kids. Ray sat on one of the stools at the kitchen counter and stared out the front door.

  "It's a long story, I think, anyway," Ray fumbled. "Billy found him drunk at Marco's yesterday and gave him a ride home. I guess he's trying to check up on him."

  "Billy pulled a double shift last night down around Oxton," Amy said. "What the hell was he doing all the way up at Marco's? Besides, the last time those two were together, Billy chased after him with a baseball bat."

  Ray chuckled. "That made for a lively cookout. Anyway, what do you expect when you and Jake keep flirting in front of him?"

  "Flirting?" Amy said, dismissively. "Jake and I like to joke around. We dated for two weeks in college before I figured out how big an asshole he is and dumped him. My big, dumb husband needs to learn to deal with the fact that I saw other people before I met him."

  "I don't think any of us has much sense of humor left when it comes to Jake," Ray said. "Have you heard anything from him recently?"

  "Who, Jake? He called a few weeks ago."

  "Before his latest lost weekend started?" Ray asked.

  "I guess so," Amy said. "He sounded like he does when he's clean. He was excited about his job at Marco's and said he was working his way up to assistant manager."

  "Not any more," Ray said.

  A loud knock at the metal storm door behind him startled Ray. He dropped the phone and nearly fell off the stool trying to catch it before it hit the tile floor with a crack. The back popped off the receiver and skittered away from him. He could hear Amy calling his name. He collected the phone and moved to the kitchen window to see who was knocking at his back door. Although the waning light made it difficult to make out specific features, he knew from the size and shape of the man that it was Billy.

  "I'm fine," Ray said in answer to Amy's repeated calling. "Just dropped the phone. Guess who's at my back door right this very minute."

  "Jake?" she tried.

  "Deputy Dawg," Ray said. "You wanna talk to him?"

  She said she did.

  Ray unlocked his back door and Billy let himself in. He still had on his sheriff's uniform from earlier in the day. It looked like he had slept in it. Ray couldn't fault him for his appearance, since he also felt especially tired and bedraggled from the day's events. He probably looked no better than Billy who, if Amy was correct about the double shift, hadn't slept for almost two solid days. Billy was about to speak when Ray thrust the cell phone at him.

  "Talk to your wife," he commanded.

  Billy took the phone. Apart from an infrequent "yes" or "no" and a single "you're right," he appeared to be on the receiving end of a one-way conversation. He paid Amy little attention, listening just closely enough to know when to respond with the correct answer. He rushed through an "I love you" and handed the phone back to Ray. Amy had hung up.

  "You look like shit," Ray said.

  Billy didn't argue. He dropped heavily onto the sofa Jake had slept on that morning and ran his thick fingers over his short-cropped hair. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it before any sound escaped. With a quizzical look on his face, Billy picked up the flask-shaped bottle Jake had left on the wicker coffee table. He unscrewed the cap, sniffed the contents, and looked at Ray.

  "Jake left it here this morning," Ray said. He couldn't figure out why Billy was so focused on the bottle. "What?"

  "You said you didn't see him," Billy said.

  "When did I say that?"

  "I called you at work today. You said you hadn't seen him."

  "Oh yeah, that was true," Ray said. "Then I came home a while later and found him passed out right where you're sitting. If you scoot your ass another foot to the right you can do me a favor and wipe off the mud he smeared all over my furniture."

  Billy looked down at the caked mud on the beige imitation leather.

  "I've been trying to reach you to talk to you about him," Ray said, taking the chair next to his cousin. He took a moment to gather his thoughts. "This is going to sound far fetched, but... I'm worried Jake might have had something to do with what happened at the Wallace's estate."

  Billy let out a long breath and sank back into the sofa. His head bobbed up and down, though Ray couldn't tell if it was in agreement or from exasperation. A hand disappeared into his pants pocket and he took out a small multipurpose knife and placed it on the coffee table next to the flask.

  "Look familiar?" he asked.

  Ray didn't need to examine it. Throughout the years he had known Jake Veitch, the man used the tiny Swiss Army knife more times than he could recall. In high school Jake would joke about carrying a concealed weapon, even though the knife blade itself was less than two inches long. Once, when
he thought he had lost it during a night out drinking while at college, Ray helped him search until they found it next to a toilet in one of the dive bars they frequented. It was a gift from Jake's grandfather -- a cherished family heirloom of no value to anyone but Jake.

  "I found it under a chair in the Wallace's living room, not twenty feet from the body," Billy said.

  Ray leaned forward and rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers.

  "I had a bad feeling," Ray said. He held out his hands, palms up, to show Billy the many scrapes and cuts. "You see this? I've got a few on my knees, as well. It's from all that broken glass on the ground around Correen Wallace. Jake's hands were cut up exactly the same way."

  They stared at each other, Ray lost in thought about how Jake might have snapped. Maybe his friend was robbing the Wallace's house and the couple caught him in the act? Ray couldn't fathom any other reason why Jake might have tried to murder the Wallaces in their home.

  "What time did you pick Jake up at Marco's yesterday?" he asked.

  Billy screwed up his face and gave the question some thought. "Three? Quarter after three, maybe?"

  "And you took him home?"

  "Not straight away. We went to my house first," Billy said. "I tried to sober him up before taking him back to his place, but he was too far gone. Kept running his mouth about..."

  "About what?"

  Billy looked sheepishly at Ray. "You gotta understand, Ray. If I knew something like this was gonna happen I never would have let him be on his own."

  "What was he running his mouth about, Billy?"

  Billy reclined again and started talking. It was the longest chain of words Ray had ever heard Billy string together at one time.

  "You know he submitted an application for that new clubhouse they're putting up out near St. Thomas? Well, he had it in his head they'd hire him to run the restaurant. Forget he's a drunk with no experience, he had it stuck deep in his head he'd be perfect for the job. When he shows up for the interview a couple weeks ago, I guess the answers he's giving them don't match the horse shit on his resume. He says they laughed in his face and threw him out. Whatever the truth is, he's been fuming over it. That's what he kept running his mouth about. How Lonesome Pines Country Club, a place that don't even exist yet, ruined his life."