Pieces of the Puzzle

by Robert Stanek

  Every day. The pattern of every day of her life was before his eyes. On Wednesday afternoons, twice a month, she went to Piedro’s. She got her hair done and sometimes a manicure. She spent an average of fifty-two dollars a week on groceries, which she charged to a card that she didn’t use for anything else. She charged gas at Texaco, except for her weekend trips. Those charges went to Chevron.

  Every day. Every day of her life was before his eyes.

  On the other hand, Helen had one credit card, MasterCard.

  Not platinum, not gold, just a plain old ordinary credit card with a five-hundred-dollar limit. In December, she had used the card only once: A charge to T & T Towing when her jalopy broke down. The car was still at the garage where the tow truck left it.

  Tom, the owner of the garage, told Scott, “You can get the car back if you pay the repair bill.” “How much is it?” “Twenty-six hundred.” “Dollars?” “Yep, repairs ain’t cheap, you know.” The car in Scott’s estimation was barely worth its weight in scrap metal.

  Scott asked, “Can I check the car? I think my wife left some things in the back seat.” The owner told him, “Sure, when you pay the twenty-six hundred you can do whatever you want.” “Did she ask for these repairs?” “Sure, got it right here in writing.” It was a note scratched on a cocktail napkin:

  Fix this piece of shit car when you get achance. Call me if it’s under amillion. 555-8125.

  Helen

  Scott told Tom, “Enjoy your investment,” and slipped the cocktail napkin into his pocket when old Tom wasn’t looking.

  So now after a second long day of running around Southeast Florida, he was back to the scraps of paper organized neatly on a cheap motel bed. Helen, the single piece of paper and a napkin on the pillow. Jessica, the meticulously separated heaps occupying the rest of the bed.

  He was staring at the cocktail napkin from Pete’s Bar & Grill when he thought of Glen—Glen, who he hadn’t called in two days. He would’ve called Glen right then if it wasn’t for the phone number Helen had scrawled on the napkin. It wasn’t the number to Helen’s apartment, Jessica’s apartment or either of Jessica’s office phones. Whose phone number was it? And why did it catch his eye now when he had looked at it a dozen times?

  The number was to a cellular phone. The phone belonged to Jessica Wellmen and the phone bill was sixty days past due, so the phone company had disconnected service. He found that out in two phone calls and fifteen minutes. He offered, “I’ll pay the bill if you’ll send me an audit of calls for the last three months. How much is owed?” “Six-hundred eighteen dollars and fifty-three cents.” “Six hundred dollars? That’s outrageous. There has to be a mistake. How long will it take to get the phone audit? “Seven to ten business days.” “Seven to ten days? Are you kidding me?

  Who do I have to talk to to get that now?” “You can talk to my supervisor but it ain’t going to do you no good.”

  On a hunch Scott decided to drive out to Pete’s Bar & Grill. He needed to wind down and perhaps he could find someone there who knew Helen and Jessica. Pete’s Bar & Grill was in West Palm Beach, on the beach. The music was a blend of calypso that wasn’t really reggae. The crowd, mostly tourists. And Pete was a permanent fixture behind the bar. Pete was a gator, one big, stuffed alligator.

  After two Mai Tais, nonalcoholic, he showed the picture of Jessica and Helen to the bartender. “Seen either of them?”

  The bartender continued mixing a drink and didn’t look in Scott’s direction. “Not that many regulars, not a local hangout.”

  “You didn’t look at the picture.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  Scott edged an Andrew Jackson across the bar.

  The bartender didn’t take the money, but did glance at the picture. “Everyone’s looking for a pretty lady tonight. I see lots of pretty ladies.”

  Scott pushed the picture and his glass across the bar. “Take a closer look. I’m not a cop. I’m a friend.”

  “Isn’t everyone… Here’s your drink. My recommendation is drink it and leave.”

  Scott put the picture into his pocket. “How’s the food here?”

  “Go upstairs and find out, I’m not the cook.”

  Scott registered the sudden chill, took his drink and filtered into the crowd. It was nearly ten. The band was starting to play louder. The dance floor had expanded and moved toward the sand. The tourists were swaying and bobbing their heads. For a Friday night, Pete’s was hopping.

  He didn’t plan on leaving right away. He wanted to watch the bartender for a while. The bartender had seemed agitated and protective, especially if Helen and Jessica were just another pair of pretty ladies. And if that were the case, why didn’t he take the twenty?

  He moved out to the shadowed beach and leaned against a palm tree. The bar was visible only intermittently through the gyrating crowd. He found the beat of the music strangely piquant. The lyrics didn’t seem to make much sense. The lead singer was no Garth Brooks. But he thought maybe that was the point.

  He listened and watched. The hours slipped away. Slowly the crowd thinned out. The music got quieter. Eventually, all that was left of the mammoth array of cars that had been lining the beach and filling the parking lot were a handful of vehicles belonging to the employees of Pete’s Bar & Grill, and Scott’s rented convertible.

  The bartender seemed to be finished washing glasses. Scott stood and wiped the sand off his buttocks, but didn’t go toward the bar. Two bouncers and most of the band were now occupying the stools along the bar. He decided to make his way to the parking lot and his car. There he’d wait for the bartender. Midway up the sandy hill from the beach, he got a clear view of the vehicles near the lot. Only five now. A panel van. A pickup. His convertible, and two others. As he walked into the lot, he thought maybe there was a sixth car parked behind the panel van. And then as he moved closer, he knew there was no maybe about it. Even in the poor lighting of the lot, he could see the color of the car was red. It was a red T-bird, and not just any red T-bird. It was the smashed-up red T-bird he had rented in Tampa.

  The car was locked and unoccupied, but that didn’t bother him. He knew in that moment that Helen had been here and he was making headway.

  He went around to the driver’s side door, reached through the broken window and unlocked the door. Unfortunately, other than a crumpled bag from McDonald’s, the car didn’t offer many clues. The mileage on the car, 12076, was the biggest clue to where Helen had been. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the original mileage.

  Remembering the rental car paperwork in the glove box, he found what he needed. The original mileage before he left Tampa International was 11551. Almost three hundred miles to Miami Beach, a trip to Boca Raton, a trip to West Palm Beach—about a hundred and fifty miles unaccounted for.

  There was a trunk release in the glove box. He pushed it, heard a click. The trunk slowly opened. He was almost afraid of what he might find but checked anyway. He grinned, and in a way was pleased, when he looked into the trunk and found it was empty.

  He went back to his car, which was parked along the road adjacent to the lot. While he waited for the bartender, he got out the Florida state map and drew three lines. One seventy-five miles north of West Palm Beach, one midway along the Florida Keys, and the last one at Fort Myers.

  He searched with his hands across the map, city by city, working east, south, then north. Fort Myers was a long way off, and seventy-five miles even by the best of routes left him in the middle of nowhere. The same was true about the Keys: Key Largo wasn’t that far, Marathon was too far. He worked his way north from West Palm Beach and finally came to Palm Bay. Palm Bay was one of Jessica’s stops on her weekenders.

  Maybe Jessica had done more than eat in Palm Bay? Maybe there was a connection to Helen? Maybe Helen believed Jessica might have gone off on one of her weekend jaunts? He thought about this, but didn’t have time to dwell on it. He heard voices, then saw shadows mounting the hill to the lot. He slipped do
wn in the convertible’s front seat. The voices came closer and closer.

  He twisted the rearview mirror so he could watch them get in their vehicles. The bartender got into the pickup by himself. The members of the band piled into the panel van and the two bouncers got in separate cars.

  The pickup was the last to leave the lot. He waited to follow, but as the pickup started past him, the driver hit the brakes and wheeled in front of the convertible. The bartender emerged from the pickup wielding a baseball bat.

  He yelled, “Come on, you S.O.B.! You like to hit women, try me on for size!”

  Scott stepped out of the car. A moment later the panel van and the two other cars returned. The bartender grinned and slapped the baseball bat against his hand.

  Scott raised his arms with open hands and circled as the bartender circled. “This is a mistake. I’m a friend of Helen’s. I’m trying to find her.”

  “Well, she don’t want to be found, now does she?”

  In a moment, it was eight against one. He put his back against the convertible, took a deep breath. He could have pulled out his guns and ground this to a quick standstill, but he didn’t. He waited.

  He took another deep breath, told himself to remain calm, and more importantly, to look calm. He could put a bullet in each one of them, but would that help anything?

  He said, “You have me mistaken with someone else. All I want to know is where she is?”

  “She doesn’t want to be found,” yelled the bartender as he took a swing at Scott with the baseball bat.

  Scott jumped back to get out of the way. “When was she here?”

  “No business of yours.”

  They edged closer, closing Scott in a tight circle. The two bouncers had baseball bats like the bartender. One of the band members had a tire iron.

  It was about to get ugly. Scott reached back and pulled out the gun casually, as if he was taking a cigarette out of a pack. He said calmly, “Is she worth dying for?”

  The bouncers and the bartender came in swinging. Scott bobbed and weaved but held back from putting a bullet in one of them. Irritated when a bat buzzed his ear, he fired a shot. The bullet whooshed by one of the bouncers and broke out a window in the panel van.

  The shot and the breaking glass got their attention. They stopped advancing, held their ground. The driver of the van was saying, “Not my van, not my van.”

  Scott reached down slowly with his free hand and took the .22 Beretta out of his boot. It evened the odds and helped him to keep a cool exterior. He glared at the bartender, said again, “Is she worth dying for?”

  The van driver started edging away. He was mumbling, “Me no play that game, me no play that game,” as if it were the lyrics to one of his songs.

  Scott smiled at his right hand then his left. “Belgium and Italy. Ever been there? Old Pietro Beretta did a good thing here, don’t you think? Not as much power as this—” He brandished the Browning as if it were a prize and cocked the hammer back on the Beretta. “But does it matter at point-blank range?”

  He heard the panel van’s engine start. The band members backed out one by one. The bouncers edged back to their cars and waited. Then it was only Scott and the bartender.

  But just when he thought things were turning in his favor, the van driver stomped on the gas and the van lurched forward, right at Scott and the bartender. They both had to dive out of the way to avoid being hit. Missing the target, the driver plowed into the T-bird, but that didn’t stop him. He put the van in reverse, gunned it again.

  Scott shot out one of the rear tires just before he jumped out of the way, rolling in the sand. When the van passed him, he fired two shots, one hitting a front tire. The driver got out of the van and started kicking the tire just as the bartender came back in with the baseball bat. The aluminum bat careened off the side of the van as Scott ducked. Scott slapped the side of the bartender’s head with the butt end of the Beretta.

  The bartender went down. He put the Beretta to the side of the man’s head, swept the Browning in a wide arc to keep the bouncers and their bats away. “Back off!” he shouted. “Back off!”

  He turned back to the bartender and said coldly, “What’s your name? If I’m going to kill a man, I like to know his name.”

  “Screw you!”

  He went to rap the bartender’s head again with the butt end of the Beretta but stopped short. “Ten seconds and I pull the trigger. Look, all I’m asking for right now is your name.”

  One of the band members shouted, “I’m on the phone to 91-1. West Palm Beach P.D. is on the way, you asshole!”

  Scott glanced in the direction the voice came from, still brandishing the Browning, and then looked back down at the bartender. “I’m not the one hurting Helen. I’m a friend, and I think she needs me right now more than you know. Your name?”

  The bartender stuttered out his name. “Terr-ill. Terrill Johnson.”

  Scott started to respond, stopped. “As in Jessica Johnson?”

  “As in brother.”

  Scott took a step back. They stared each other down for a moment. Scott didn’t say anything. Terrill didn’t say anything. Finally Scott said, “Where is Helen?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “And Jessica?”

  Terrill repeated, “I wish I knew.”

  “What’s in Palm Bay?”

  “My mother, you asshole!”

  Scott didn’t have time to ask any more questions. He heard sirens off in the distance.

  Terrill said, “They’re going to lock you up for a long time, you sick son of a bitch.”

  Scott glared at Terrill as he backed away. The convertible top was down; he jumped in without opening the door. He was pulling away when he saw the first squad car coming over the hill.

  He kept going, didn’t look back.

  The pieces were starting to fall into place. This was good.

  Chapter 12

  Palm Bay, Florida Saturday,

  15 January

  Mom Johnson lived in a retirement community that was a few miles outside Palm Bay. She was a pleasant woman in her sixties with the light of youth still in her eyes. Her hair was a rusted blonde that flowed to her shoulders. Her face was wrinkled in a pleasant way. And she was as strikingly beautiful as her daughters, yet this came from a delicate balance of refinement and youthful mannerisms, and not from the beauty of the flesh.

  Behind her eyes she hid the pain of a hard life, Scott grasped at hints of this in her words as she walked him through the family photo albums and as he asked questions about Jessica and Helen.

  “Did Helen say where she was going?”

  “Helen and I aren’t exactly conversant. On her rare visits, she doesn’t tell and I don’t ask.” Mom Johnson touched a hand to her mouth and wavered her head. “Oh, would you look at this, my little seraph going to the prom.”

  Scott admired the picture of Jessica and Helen. Mom Johnson rocked back and forth.

  “Harry always liked Summer Haven, you know. Sure he and Jessica had their differences, but she always was a daddy’s girl. She visits him every couple of weeks. And Helen, well, she visits every now and again when she’s in trouble.”

  “Harry?”

  “My husband, Harry.”

  “Harry Johnson?” Scott paused to try to think of how to phrase the question correctly. “I thought he passed away?”

  “Naw, Harry’s up at Meadow Park. He likes it up there, told you he always liked Summer Haven. If you’re looking for Jessica, you’ll find her there. That’s for sure.” Mom Johnson turned to the next page of the album, put her hand to her mouth again. “Would you look at that? Graduation. Jessica was straight A’s, valedictorian. I bet you didn’t know that.”

  “—and Helen?”

  “Well, Helen was Helen.”

  “Is there an address in Summer Haven? That would help out a lot.”

  “Naw, when you get to Summer Haven, ask someone how to get to Meadow Park. They’ll tell you. I haven’t been up
there in years. Jessica didn’t come last weekend, you know. I miss my little seraph. You see her, you tell her.”

  It was late in the afternoon when he left Mrs. Johnson’s home. He had soaked up as much about Helen and Jessica as he possibly could. He wanted to get a good feel for their backgrounds and Mrs. Johnson provided that and more. The sisters had grown up in a stable home. No hints of violence. The family, once affluent, lost nearly everything on Black Monday and what they didn’t lose, the banks foreclosed on. Jessica was, as far as her mother was concerned, forever polite, always outgoing and always with a handsome man on her arm. Helen was always unusual and introverted, and as of late, what her mother termed as “quaint like Uncle Howard.” And Uncle Howard was in a “sanitarium” upstate.

  It would take about three hours to drive to Summer Haven. Scott was famished. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, discounting the cookies and milk Mrs. Johnson had given him and he had obligingly eaten. He stopped at a 7-11 to fill up the car, and afterward, he bought two frozen burritos and a Big Gulp. He set the timer on a tiny microwave next to the counter to seven minutes and went to make a phone call. He didn’t know why, but suddenly he remembered Glen. Glen who he hadn’t called since Tuesday.

  He dialed the office first, just in case Glen was still there. He let the phone ring while he stared at the cars racing up and down Palm Bay Road. Then for a moment, he closed his eyes and saw the face that had been gnawing at the back of his mind for days. Every time he closed his eyes, every time, he saw her face and all because of a single instant when he had recalled everything but her face.

  The phone ringing in his ear brought him back. He hung up and dialed Glen’s home number. The phone rang and rang, but no one picked it up. He slammed the phone down and went back into the 7-11 for his burritos.