Finally, he’d decided to just stay in Michaeltown. He was comfortable there. He had Kate, and he was guaranteed a job at the factory. He figured that he and Kate would get married and have a couple of boys and maybe a girl. They’d continue their perfect life as adults. But why hadn’t he asked her to marry him yet? Had he taken her for granted too long, figuring he had plenty of time? Whom else would she marry? He was the only one in town good enough for her. Once he fixed their latest problem, he needed to remedy the situation by popping the question.
His thoughts shifted to the other night and the scene outside the bar Why had he hit Kate? That had been a really stupid move. Thinking back on it, he remembered feeling like he had left his body and was watching some stranger slapping Kate. Maybe if she didn’t piss him off so badly, he wouldn’t have to hit her! He’d had similar feelings a lot lately. It felt like road rage that could happen anywhere, anytime. A few weeks earlier, he’d been waiting in line at a store and some old lady ahead of him took forever to dig through her purse trying to find exactly eighty-eight cents to give the cashier. Tommy had had to force himself to control the urge to just push her aside, or to yell out “just give him a damn dollar, you old hag!” If she had taken another few seconds, he didn’t know if he could have controlled himself. This seemed to be happening to him more and more often lately. His temper could snap at any moment.
But, hopefully, Kate would forgive him. Things would be right again. He pledged that he would control himself next time.
He pulled into a parking spot near the flower shop and went in to pay.
At 4:15, Tommy pushed open the front door of the diner and swaggered in. He saw Joe standing near the swinging kitchen door. When Joe saw him, he quickly turned to go in the back.
“Hey, Joe, wait,” called Tommy. Joe stopped and turned toward him, but avoided eye contact. Tommy glanced at Kathy, the waitress now on duty, and walked over to Joe. He was smiling. “Did Kate” he cut off his sentence when Joe’s eyes dropped toward the floor. “What’s wrong?” asked Tommy.
Joe said nothing. He just motioned with his head toward the front of the diner.
Tommy’s eyes followed the movement and saw the box hanging out of the waste basket. His smile disappeared immediately. Stepping over to the trash can, he pried open the end of the box. When he saw a red rosebud, he froze facing the wall for several seconds while trying to compose his rage. He felt a dozen sets of eyes burning into his back. They had all probably heard about Kate’s breaking up with him and had seen what she’d done with his flowers.
Tommy turned, kept his eyes down, and stomped angrily out of the diner.
Chapter 7
The gas gauge had dropped below a quarter, so Zack started looking for an exit with a gas station. A green freeway sign read “Dayton, 15 miles.” He got off at the next exit and pulled into a gas station.
He had been putting together his plan along the way and had decided to search for a job as he headed south, then maybe west, through Texas, and if nothing came up by then, he might head to California. As a last resort before starvation set in, he could always visit the local military recruiting office. “It’s not a job; it’s an adventure,” kept flashing through his mind. That’s one adventure he preferred not to experience unless he had no other choice.
Thistrip was like a vacation, although it couldn’t be called a real vacation; it was more like a desperate search for survival. He remembered the last time he’d taken time off from work, when his father had died more than a year-and-a-half earlier. As he pumped gas, his mind drifted back to that trip
On that cold February day, he had gotten word that his old man had died of head injuries after falling, drunk as usual, down a flight of stairs. Zack had always expected a massive heart attack, liver failure, or lung cancer to take out the old lush, although tripping and falling down the stairs did seem quite appropriate when Zack thought about it.
Because he had never felt close to his dad, he considered skipping the funeral. Then he learned that his mother was taking the death really hard; he remembered the phone call from some doctor, telling him that his mother had slipped into what the doctor called a mild depression. After seeing her and talking with her a few days later, Zack thought “mild” didn’t begin to describe her condition. He finally decided that attending the funeral was his duty as his mother’s son. Also, maybe he had felt a little guilty for his ill feelings toward his dad. Then he decided, screw his dad, he’d only go for his mom’s benefit. If the old man were alive, Zack wouldn’t be able to stand being in the same room with him, but as a dead man, he wouldn’t be so bad.
The funeral home had been depressing. Very few “friends” had come to pay their respects, and he could tell that even family members would rather not have come, but they were paying their respects to Zack’s mother, not his dead old man.
The eulogy had been short, given by Zack’s only sibling, his older sister, Carrie. A fresh blanket of snow from the previous night had covered the graveyard, and Zack remembered the icy wind that had cut through him as he weaved through the maze of hundreds of headstones, which all seemed to be different shapes and sizes, on his way to the gravesite. He had wondered if it was possible to dig in these conditions. He guessed that they could penetrate the frozen earth with a backhoe, unlike the old days when they used shovels.
The graveside ceremony had been less than eventful until his mother broke down and sobbed as the casket was lowered. Zack and his sister had to hold her arms and lead her back to the car while she tried to fight them off.
Over the next few days, Zack dialed his mom’s number a dozen times, but the only answer was ring after ring after ring. When she finally did answer on the third day, she only babbled like a child, making little or no sense at all. Frustrated, he finally decided to take a one-week vacation and head for the house where he grew up to be with his ailing mother. The drive north to Madison Heights from his southern Detroit suburb of Southgate took two hours instead of the usual forty-five minutes, because of the heavy snow that had fallen during the night.
He turned onto his old street, where early morning snowplows had piled four-foot high banks, blocking driveways and trapping cars left parked along the street. Neighbors, bundled in heavy coats, hats, and gloves, shoveled narrow, high-walled paths to the street so they could get out to drive to work through snow packed neighborhood streets leading to larger, plowed and salted main roads.
Zack pulled up to the high snow bank running in front of the 1950s-era, aluminum-sided, Cape Cod house. Huge icicles, hanging from blocked rain gutters, buried themselves in snowdrifts mounded high against the house.
He climbed over the mountain of snow and took high steps toward the front door, his legs disappearing below the white surface up to his knees. Finally, he reached the porch, or at least a bulge in the snow adjacent to the front door. A wooden handle stuck out from the snow mound. With a pull, Zack produced a snow shovel, which he used to clear off the porch. He pried open the storm door and knocked on the interior front door. No answer. He knocked again, waited, and still she didn’t answer. She had to be home, since her car was still parked in the driveway, buried under the snow. He tried the doorknob and found it turned, but the door wouldn’t open. It must be frozen shut. He leaned against it with his shoulder and shoved, but it didn’t budge. Then he stepped back and slammed his body hard against it. With a crack, it flew open.
Inside, the drapes were drawn closed; the living room was shrouded in darkness. “Mom, are you here?” he called. Silence answered. The heater kicked in, startling him. He turned on the hall light and walked toward the kitchen, where a dim light shone.
He found his mother sitting at a small, marbled, green formica-topped table in the center of the room. The only light came from a 25-watt bulb above the stove. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead and trickled inside his collar, making him think that the heat must be turned up to near 90 degrees.
He flipped on the overhead light and looked at his
aging mother. She sat still and silent, a cup of probably cold coffee sat in front of her, and her vacant eyes pointed toward the bare wall. Her hair hadn’t been combed, and her robe hung loose from her gaunt frame. Even the bright light coming on hadn’t jolted her out of her daydream.
“Mom?” He walked over to her, put a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she slowly turned to him.
“Zack? Shouldn’t you be at work? Your father left already. He’ll be at the plant by now.” Her eyes pointed in his direction but didn’t seem to focus on him.
“What are you talking about?” he asked calmly.
“Are you hungry, son? I could fix some eggs.”
He wasn’t going to get upset. After all, it wasn’t her fault. She really had loved her worthless husband, even after all the years of pain he’d caused her. Love was a strange thing, thought Zack. “Mom, I want you to listen to me, okay?” He waited for her response, but she just stared up at him with empty eyes. He slid a chair around in front of her and sat. “Dad is dead,” he said as gently as possible. “He died a week ago, and we went to the funeral together. Remember?”
Her head tilted, and she squinted. “Your father will be home at six. You know that, Zack.” The voice wasn’t that of a fifty-four year old woman; it was high-pitched like a little girl’s.
Zack felt his patience slipping. “He’s dead, Mom. Can’t you understand? Dead!” He didn’t want to be cruel, but he didn’t know how else to reach her.
Her hands came up and caught her face on each side. She began to rock slowly, forward and back, sobbing heavy drops that ran down her hands and arms. “Don’t say that,” she said in her child’s voice. “He’s fine. I kissed him good-bye this morning.”
Zack reached over and pulled her close to him. “He is dead,” he repeated simply. “Remember the funeral, mother?” He sighed, frustrated.
She pushed him away and looked at him coldly. “He is not!” she said stubbornly. “Heeee’s nooooot, you liar,” she yelled.
Zack stood, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back. “Shit!” he yelled, and he ran out of the room.
He jumped off the porch, falling twice in the snow on the way to the car. It was no use, he told himself, as he drove away.
The next morning the phone rang, waking him. His sister repeated the same sentence three times between sobs before he knew he wasn’t dreaming. “Mom committed suicide,” she said.
---
The gas pump clicked off, bringing Zack back to the present. A cute, blonde-haired attendant, not more than eighteen, leaned against the pump, staring at him. How long had she been standing there? She must think I’m on drugs, the way I was just spacing out. He paid his bill and sped off toward the freeway entrance ramp.
Chapter 8
The sun hung low in the western sky, and Zack’s Camaro slipped into a long shadow as he passed a Greyhound bus. Billboards advertised three motels at the next exit leading to some small town on the northern outskirts of Dayton. He decided to check them out.
An hour later, after a long hot shower, he lay back on his motel bed. He relaxed a while, watching TV for the next hour. At about nine, he dressed and drove into town. He wanted to get a feel for the area where he would be job hunting the next morning.
“I’ll take a Bud,” said Zack to the chubby bartender at the Blue Collar Bar, a typical neighborhood joint with ten tables, a half-dozen video games, and three pool tables. The crowd was light, but it was still early. Zack sat drinking his beer at the short end of the L-shaped bar. Three Hispanic men sat a few tables down from him, and a wiry black guy played pool against a white, pockmarked gas station worker with “Pete” embroidered across his left breast pocket. The two appeared to be friends by the way they talked and joked with each other. Zack wondered if their friendship was the pool-room-only kind or the “bring the wife and kids over Saturday and we’ll barbecue some steaks” kind. As Zack watched them play, he knew they’d spent many an hour and hundreds of quarters working that same table. They knew the rails, and they could gauge just what odd rolls the ball would take. The game ended quickly. The gas station worker ran all but one of his balls after the break, and his friend finished him off in one turn.
Zack drank a few more beers and continued watching the two men play. Their other games didn’t go as quickly as the first, which might have been mostly luck. The customers poured in until about ten-thirty, and another couple claimed the middle pool table just as she walked in. She was above-average-looking and obviously a regular, since she waved to some and hugged some other patrons. Zack reconsidered his first assessment of her as she came closer and decided that she was actually pretty. She greeted people as she worked her way slowly across the room before sitting alone at a scarred table with her back to the corner.
Zack watched her for a while as she ordered and received her drink. “No, not tonight,” he said to nobody in a low voice.
“Can I help you?” asked the friendly bartender, wiping the bar top with a rag and inspecting Zack’s bottle, which was still half full.
“I’m good, just thinking out loud.” He stood and walked over to the unused pool table, slid two quarters into the slots, slapped the wooden rack on the table, and began filling it with the balls.
“Alone?” asked a soft, female voice from the other end of the table.
Squinting from the bright, low-hanging fluorescent light over the green cloth table, he saw her. She looked good, even in the harsh light, but she was slightly older than he had first thought. The beginning of tiny wrinkles forming at the corner of her eyes put her age at about thirty or thirty-five, he guessed. She wore a low-cut, black leather halter top over heavy, firm breasts.
“I was just going to shoot around by myself. Why, do you want to play?”
“Sure.” She smiled and walked off toward the stick rack.
Zack watched as she swayed her rear end to the beat of a Merle Haggard tune playing on the jukebox. He knew she meant for him to watch. They played three games. Zack took the first two; she won the last. He’d tried to win them all, but the third game she just plain outplayed him. He wondered if she had let him win the first two.
“Well,” he said. “That’s enough for me. I’ve got a long day ahead of me tomorrow. I have to look for a job.”
“You’re not inviting me over for a nightcap?” She leaned one hand against a hip, cocking her short black skirt to the side, while her deep blue eyes accented with makeup grew wide, and her shiny red lips formed a pretty pout.
“Iuh well, I don’t have any…”
“There’s a liquor store on the corner. We’ll buy a bottle on the way, unless you prefer beer.” She looped her arm through his.
Zack hadn’t come here to pick up a girl, but since he was the one who had gotten picked up, then hey, what the hell. He motioned with his free hand. “Shall we?”
---
Zack awoke the next morning alone and smelling of sex and cheap booze. His watch read 7:23 as he sat up and quickly scooped up his wallet. Empty! The last thing he remembered was downing shots of whiskey. Wait a minute had she been drinking with him? He couldn’t remember actually seeing her take a drink.
He sighed and quickly pulled on his clothes. Then he realized that his keys were also gone. “Oh, my God!” he swore, thinking about the $1,180 cash locked in the glove compartment of his car.
Hurrying outside, he found his car parked where he’d left it, thank God. His happiness was short-lived, however, at the sight of the open glove box door and the crumpled brown envelope lying on the seat. Inside, he sat in the driver’s seat. He stared at the envelope, afraid to touch it. He finally picked it up and was surprised to find it wasn’t empty. He counted out two hundred dollars. She had left a tip.
---
After interviewing patrons of the bar, the police found out that the woman had only been a customer for the past few weeks. She had done her best to make friends with the regulars as she apparently looked for her next mark, which turned out to be Zac
k.
Zack spent the rest of the day at the police station flipping through mug shot books. The pictures all looked the same after an hour or two. He only succeeded in confusing himself on what the sexy thief had looked like.
“You’re lucky she left you anything at all,” said a hairy, overweight sergeant. “Ya musta been good in bed.” He laughed with a sneer, but seeing that Zack wasn’t smiling, he added, “All you can do now is wait.”
“How long does it usually take?”
“We may bust her today, or we may never catch her. My guess is she skipped town, maybe to Chicago, and she’s pulling the same scam. The thing is, even if we catch her, you’ll never see your money again.” He shrugged. “Sorry. Here’s my card. You can call us in a week or two to check if there is any progress on the case. I’ll write the case number on the back.”
Zack drove back to his motel and shoved his few belongings in his suitcase. He didn’t want to work in this town anymore. He headed further south.
Chapter 9
Zack spent two days reading classified ads and making phone calls in Cincinnati. He went on four interviews that resulted in zilch. “Computers,” one agency told him. “That’s where all the jobs are. The big bucks, too.” Well, that was nice, but he wasn’t interested in computers.
Motels were out from now on. His sore neck reminded him of the past two nights of sleeping in the car. How long would $172 last? He supposed it would last a week, maybe two, if he ate sparingly and drove 55 to save gas.
He entered the familiar expressway.
---
He wasn’t sure if it was the name Michaeltown that seemed to grab him and pull him off the highway or maybe, he thought, he needed to take that exit because his stomach ached for food and his gas tank was running low. Anyway, he exited and drove east along a rolling country road, where thick woods alternated with open pastures. The sign at the freeway said 8 miles to Michaeltown, but it seemed as if he’d gone much farther, and still he saw no town.
Kentucky Murders: A Small Town Murder Mystery Page 3