The News in Small Towns (Small Town Series, Book 1)

by Moreau, Iza

  “Your story?”

  “Ah have a story.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re going to kill yourself unless I put a story about you in the paper?”

  “No, you don’t understand. Ah’m goin to kill mahself sure enough. You need to raht about whah ah did it.”

  Everybody has a story, even though most of us don’t have to threaten murder and suicide to get it told. Well, it’s not as if I had expected to get any sleep that night. I decided to give him his fifteen minutes. “All right then, Clete,” I told him. “Hold on and I’ll get my notebook and my pencil. Don’t go killing anybody before I get back okay?”

  “Yeah, but hurry.”

  Actually, I had a notebook within reach on my nightstand. What I really needed was in my purse. Placing the phone receiver softly on the bed, I quickly flicked on the light, padded into the living room, and took my cell phone from my purse. I pressed the speed dial number for the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department—it was much faster than going through all that 911 rigmarole. A female voice answered, “Jasper County Sheriff, Tequesta speaking. How—”

  “Tequesta,” I broke in. “This is Sue-Ann McKeown. Listen quick. Some guy named Cletus Donnelly is on my other line. He says he’s going to kill himself and his mother.”

  “Hey, I know Clete. What—”

  “Just listen. You need to get somebody to his house and stop him from whatever he’s about to do. He’s probably armed and he says he’s saturated the house with gasoline. You got that? I’ll try to keep him talking until you get there.”

  “Yeah, but where does he live?”

  “No idea. Look in the phone book! Who’s on duty tonight? Dilly Dollar? Have have him call me at this number when he gets there.”

  “Right, okay.”

  I broke the connection, ran back to the bedroom, and grabbed up my notebook. “Okay, got it. You still there Clete?”

  “Yeah, raht.”

  I sat down on my bed with my back against the wall, phone in one hand, pencil in the other. My notebook was on my lap and my cell phone, set on vibrate, was on the bed next to me. “Okay,” I told him. “Go ahead.”

  “Go ahead what?”

  “Tell me your story.”

  The voice that came over the wire was still shriekily unnerving, but more hesitant, more tense than it was previously. “Ah don’t, you know, have it written down or nothin. You haveta ask me questions.”

  I sighed, but not into the phone. “Right. Okay, then, Clete, how are you planning to kill yourself?”

  This time he answered without hesitation. “Samurai sword,”

  “I’m impressed. Are you going to cut off your own head or what?”

  “That’s not . . . You’re making fun a me, aren’t you?”

  I spoke quickly. “No, no really. I’m just asking.”

  “You can’t cut off your own head.”

  “Right, I can see that now.”

  “Ah mean, think about it.” He paused, then resumed, “Ah’m goin ta fall on it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s a honorable death,” he said. “Samurai guys sometimes had to do it so they wouldn’t be disgraced. Even some guy in the bible did it. Ah’ve thought about it a lot. Ah’m goin to put the tip a the blade against mah chest—raht where mah heart is—and just close mah eyes and fall forward. It’ll be just lahk steppin off inta space.”

  I tried to visualize what he was saying. “Um, what if the handle slips on the floor?” I asked.

  “Ah’ll, you know, anchor it down some way.” Clete’s voice was starting to sound a little more frantic if that was possible, so I changed the subject.

  “Why are you going to kill your mother?” I asked.

  “Well, you know, how could she get along bah herself? She has heart trouble and rheumatism. No, if ah go, she hasta go, too.”

  “Just a thought here, but are you going to let her burn to death, or are you going to kill her with the sword first?”

  “Naw, she’ll be dead from the smoke a long time before the fahr gets to her.”

  “Clete,” I began a new train of thought. “Has something bad happened to you recently? Got laid off? Money troubles?”

  “Naw, nothin lahk that. Nothin ever happens to me. That’s the trouble. Everything is the same day after day. Go to work, come home, give Mama her medicine, cook dinner, go to bed. That’s it.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “Ah’m a correctional officer at the prison. A guard.”

  “Don’t you like it there?” I asked. “I mean, you’re helping to keep criminals off the street, right?”

  “Bullshee-it. Ever one a those convicts should be electrocuted. An ah don’t mean tomorrow, neither. Good-for-nothin drug addicts, murderers, an child molesters. An you know what else? The COs are just as bad. Ever damn one of them smugglin drugs inside and takin home a pocketful a money.”

  “If that’s true, then why not tell somebody about it?”

  “Tail who? The Captain? He probly knows all about it. The warden? He’s a crook, too. Besides, ah just don’t give a fuck. Don’t even give half a fuck. Let em all rot; at least ah won’t be here to see it anymore. Anyway, ah am tellin somebody. Ah’m tellin you.”

  “But Clete, I can’t print something like that without proof.”

  “Who asked you to? Ah want you to raht about me.” He stopped talking for so long that I was just about to ask if he was still there. But when he started up again, his voice was softer, more wistful. “Ah wanted to be in the army,” he said. “But they wouldn’t take me. History was mah favorite subject in hah school and ah read about all the wars an battles an generals. Ah wanted to be a general but ah didn’t even get to be a prahvate. Ah mean, look at raht now. Ah’d have a chance to be in Afghanistan or Iraq. Ah would love that. Havin on the gear, walkin down the streets of a foreign city raht in the middle of a war zone . . . ”

  I’d had about enough. “I’ve been to Iraq, Clete, and believe me, you don’t want to go there.”

  “Ah guess ah know what ah want, all raht,” he told me.

  “All I’ve heard out of your mouth so far, Mr. Wannabe Soldier, is a bunch of whining.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Shut up. You can’t stand to live because nothing good ever happens to you? Your job sucks and your mother’s old. So what? Everybody’s job sucks sometimes—most of the time—and everybody’s mother dies sooner or later. At least you still have yours with you, which is more than I can say. I mean, how would you feel if maybe your mother got killed and you weren’t around? What if you had a disease that forced you to take drugs every fucking day of your life? How would you feel if your girlfriend just up and disappeared without saying fuck-all to anybody?”

  Clete’s voice now had a confused tone to it. “Ah don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Maybe if you’d stop whining about what a—”

  “Ah don’t really lahk women,” he interrupted softly.

  “You what?”

  “Ah think ah’m probly a queer.”

  “You think?”

  “Ah mean, ah ain’t never done nothin, but sometahms ah get strange feelins when ah look at somma the other COs. Even somma the inmates. Hey, you’re not goin to raht that in the paper, are you?”

  “You want me to tell people that you’re a loser and a murderer, but not that you might be gay?”

  “People respect a killer—specially a soldier or somebody on Death Row. But if you’re a fag, you’re worse than shit.”

  “Come on, Clete. A lot of great men and women have been gay. James Baldwin, Elton John, Rock Hudson, Sappho . . .” I could have gone on and on.

  “Do any of em live in Pine Oak?”

  He had me there. Pine Oak could have been a small town in Iran as far as its acceptance of homosexuality went.

  “Um, I don’t think so—” Just then my cell phone vibrated. I grabbed it up and tried to think of something to keep Clete on the line while I answered it. “Listen,�
�� I said.

  What does your mother think?”

  “Mama, well, at least she won’t . . . ” I lost the thread of his words as I covered the mouthpiece of the land phone and answered the cell. “Sue-Ann,” I said both quickly and softly.

  “Sue-Ann, it’s Bill Dollar. I’m almost there. Sgt. Bickley is backing me up—he lives pretty close to Clete.”

  Bill Dollar—some of us that had gone to school with him called him Dilly—was one of only a handful of officers who patrolled Pine Oak. He often called in tips for news stories, so we knew each other pretty well.

  “Right. What’s the address?”

  It was a number on Sawdust Street. I wrote it down on my notepad and hung up. I put the big phone back to my ear.

  “. . . sure hope ah’ll be dead bah the tahm the flames hit me cause ah don’t lahk fire much.”

  “Clete,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with you that can’t be worked out. There are people that can help you, places you can go.”

  “Ah ain’t goin back to Wackoville, no way. No more a that psychology crap for this puppy.”

  That answered a couple of questions. The state mental hospital was in nearby Waxahatchee—called Wackoville by most of the folks that didn’t live there. Clete had obviously had problems before. I was getting really antsy. I knew I had to keep him on the phone until the police were in place, but I also wanted to be there at the scene.

  “They keep you drugged twenty-four seven until you feel like you’re made outta tar. No bones, no—” I heard a quick intake of breath, then the phone clattered and I heard the rushing of heavy shoes on a wooden floor. I hung up my own phone, threw on a pair of jeans and a blouse, stepped into some Crocs, and rushed out the door. My old Toyota pickup started on the first try and I was soon rushing toward Sawdust Street, cursing the ruts that corrugated the dirt road for the mile before it became blacktop. I buttoned my blouse with one hand and held on to the wheel with the other. I pressed the number Dilly had just called me from, but he didn’t answer. I hoped he was all right.

  Sawdust Street was only about ten minutes away if I sped, so I sped. And during those ten minutes, all I could think about was Cletus sitting in some room reeking of gasoline with his mother struggling to free her arms from whatever ropes or tape her son had bound her with. And yes, I was already writing the story in my head. It was much like writing the story of a major election. First you write “Republicans in a Landslide,” then “Dems in a Squeaker.” Add some background that everybody already knows and voilà, you are ready to plug in the numbers. In this case it was “Local Man in Tragic Murder-Suicide” vs. “Local Man Captured after Armed Standoff—Hostage Safe.”

  Better to concentrate on my article than on some of the things Clete had been saying—things that hit a little too close to home. I had reached the third paragraph when I braked heavily for Sawdust Street and turned the corner. It wasn’t hard to figure out which was Clete’s house. On my left, in the middle of an ordinary residential block, two JCSD cruisers were lined up like spokes toward a hub, their headlights glued to the front door. Two officers crouched behind. One of them—I recognized him by his build and his bullhorn—was Sgt. Joey Bickley, Dilly’s superior officer. The other was Dilly himself.

  Up and down the block porch lights were on and the eyes of curious neighbors peeped through the blinds. I pulled to a stop next to one of the squad cars and glanced at the besieged house. I caught a brief flash of movement behind one of the living room windows. The bullhorn shouted “Stop!” Almost immediately, I both heard and felt a cold metallic thwack against the car door, then cried out from a sharp pain in my side. My first thought was that I’d been hit by a stray bullet, but when I brought my hand to the pain, I realized that I’d been hit by some type of a shaft. An arrow? I’d been shot by some fucking asshole with a bow and arrow? Whatever it was had pierced the car door and entered my side between a couple of ribs. What now? I didn’t dare move because the bulk of the arrow was still embedded in the door. Also, I didn’t know how badly I was hurt. Cautiously, I reached down and felt my way along the shaft until I felt—ouch!—the pointed back tip of a broadhead blade. It was a three-bladed hunting arrow, and sharp. I felt along its edge; only the very tip—maybe half an inch—of the broadhead had penetrated into my side. I’d been lucky; if the whole point had gone into me it would have taken surgery to get it out. As it was, I gingerly scooched sideways until I was free, then scrambled out the passenger door and crouched low on the pavement. Almost at once, a dark form materialized beside me: Billy Dollar, gun drawn, riot helmet fitted snugly to his head. “Sue-Ann, what are you—”

  “Billy, I said, breathing as hard as if I had run from my house rather than driven. “Is he still in there? Damn it, I didn’t know he had a bow.”

  “Crossbow, yeah. He didn’t start shooting until you drove up. What were you—Jeez, Sue-Ann, look at your blouse. Did he hit you?”

  I looked at my side. In the light of the full moon I saw a red stain spreading out on my blouse like an out-of-control Rorschach blot. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I told him. “What’s been happening?”

  Billy looked at me carefully, then began, “He’s just been doing a lot of yelling about how he’s going to burn down the neighborhood. He mentioned your name a couple of times—he figured out that you tipped us off somehow and he’s really pissed.”

  “Yeah, well. What about his mother?” I asked.

  “Funny thing about that,” Billy said. “One of the neighbors told us that his mother’s been dead for years.”

  “He’s just loony, then,” I said.

  “Yeah, I think so too. But what are we going to do? We just can’t just rush in there and shoot him; hell, you and me and Joey, we all went to school with him. It’s kind of like he’s one of ours, you know.”

  I did know. However much or little it might have been, we had all gone through it together. “Let me talk to him.”

  “You look like you need to go to the hospital.”

  “Damn it, Billy. Let me alone. Come on; I’m the one he called. He trusts me, or at least he did.” I started making my way over to where Joey Bickley was standing, being careful to keep down—I wasn’t anxious to feel another Muzzy rip into me.

  Joey looked down at me—he’s about six foot six and his riot helmet made him seem even taller—and nodded. “You’re bleeding,” he said, almost admiringly.

  The blot was spreading. I could feel blood oozing down my side and into my jeans. “It’s not serious,” I told him.

  “Yeah, but you’re bleeding a lot,” he said.

  As Dilly said earlier, Joey had gone to the same high school we had, although he was a couple of years older. He had been a basketball player, but only because of his height. His bulk made him too slow and he had never learned how to move. But if the coach needed someone to go in and foul someone, Joey was his guy.

  “I need to talk to Cletus,” I told him. “I think I can convince him to—” But before I could finish my sentence, the front door of Clete’s house flew open.

  Joey stiffened and stood up. “Looks like it’s too late for that,” he said.

  As we watched, a figure right out of a comic book rushed out the door toward the police vehicles. The man—I would never have recognized him as Cletus Donnelly—had a Mohawk haircut and had black stripes painted down both cheeks. He was wearing baggy camouflage trousers and high combat boots; his upper body was bare and covered with tattoos. As he rushed toward us he held a samurai sword over his head and screeched at the top of his lungs.

  “Yiiiiiiiiiiii!”

  While Dilly and I ducked behind Joey’s cruiser, Joey stepped out to meet him. He dropped his bullhorn and stood his ground. Clete stopped yelling and screamed, “Shoot me, you bastard. Shoot me!” but Joey didn’t budge. Still running at full speed, Clete brought his sword down toward Joey’s head. I heard Dilly gasp, but instead of being cleft to the breastbone, Joey managed to duck out of the way and Clete’s sword came down o
n the hood of the car, snapping the blade like a pencil. Evidently, Officer Training School had replaced some of Joey’s dead weight with muscle and quickened his reflexes. I was impressed.

  Clete looked uncomprehendingly at the foot or so of blade he had left in his hands. Then he reversed the hilt and tried to commit hara-kiri with the stub, but there was no longer a point and it wouldn’t penetrate his chest. Cursing, Clete brought the blade up toward his own jugular, but before he could dispatch himself that way, Joey touched him on the side with a stun gun, and Clete, without a single word or sound, dropped like a brick onto the lawn.

  I rushed out from behind the car, but I was suddenly lightheaded, as if some part of the stunning operation had affected me as well. I felt myself falling, felt the cool, damp grass on my skin, felt a pain in my side and a soft squelch of blood. I groaned and looked up at the sky, where the full moon was shining onto my face like a headlight.

  Then I passed out.

  About the Author

  Iza Moreau was born and raised in New Mexico, where she was introduced to Arabian horses and to the art of riding them. After a stint in journalism school, she roamed the country for a couple of years before settling down in one of the Southern states, where she has a small farm with a couple of horses. She counts Sarah Waters, Maggie Estep, and the Bronte sisters—Acton, Currer, and Ellis—among her literary influences.

  You can reach Iza at iza@blackbayfarm.com. Or check out her blog, “Blogging in Small Towns.”

  About the Small Town Series

  The News in Small Towns was a finalist in the 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in two categories: Regional Fiction and Mystery. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review at the place where you downloaded it and on Goodreads—they help an incredible amount.

  The two sequels, Madness in Small Towns and Secrets in Small Towns are available at the site where you purchased this one. There are also a number of Small Town short stories that will eventually be collected and uploaded to this site as a volume in itself. At present, some of these stories can be found here.