I started to follow, then stopped and looked down the road. About a block away sat the old train station. As I said the railroad had stopped coming to town decades ago, but the station, a classic in railroad architecture, still stood proud and handsome. It has changed hands at least a dozen times and has been everything from beer joint to thrift shop.
But the current business has existed for almost three years. It’s a gym called The Muscle Stop, and gossip has it that it caters to both serious and novice weightlifters, unlike the other gym in town, Blood, Sweat, and Black Iron, which caters to hardcore bodybuilders. I don’t see the sense of gyms or health clubs and have never belonged to one. Why pay for something that you can do at home for naught?
But a little reconnaissance wouldn’t hurt.
The entrance door was a polished masterpiece of Victorian craftsmanship that looked as if it weighed as much as Betty. With effort I pulled it open and walked the bike down a hall adorned with polished Wainscoting to a counter manned by a guy who looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger on a bad day. He was perhaps thirty five, with vein wrapped muscles bulging out of a blue tank top and a neck that belonged on a buffalo. His hazel eyes were bloodshot and I could use the bags under them to carry home the groceries.
He sighed and forced a smile as I leaned the bike against the counter. From a large open door behind me I could hear weights clanging, rock music blaring, and people grunting and yelling. The place was warm and humid and smelled like dirty socks and pizza mingled with a subtle bouquet of fart. The counterman’s breath smelled strongly of mints and Listerine.
I smiled back at the guy and said, “How much is a membership?”
His voice was a high gentle tone played by a mutant. “Forty-five a month gets you unlimited visits. From now until after the holidays we close at five, the rest of the year at ten. Lock and towel service is five bucks extra.” He looked at Cat and said, “It’s okay to bring the cat in with you but don’t let it run around loose. And if you or the cat exhibit aggressive or dysfunctional behavior you’re both out the door.”
“I’m pretty much under control but the cat’s a feral savage.”
He looked at Cat, who was half hanging out of the sling, taking in the sights and smells, and said, “Yeah, it looks like it just wandered out of the jungle, but I’ll take a chance on both of youse.”
… . .
I LOCKED THE BIKE TO A thick U bolt jutting out of the wall and was about to enter the weight room when I saw a sign that stated: Weight Machines Upstairs. A cartoon finger pointed to a curving staircase with a hand carved banister. I went up.
Arranged in a large semi circle in an otherwise empty room with mirrored walls were thirteen gleaming exercise machines. I spent several minutes gawking at a lean, tough looking woman in yellow Spandex working the machines, then hung the sling and Cat on a wall hook, stretched, and started in.
After a set at each machine I was hooked. The contraptions forced me to work like a demented draft horse and it was obvious I was giving myself a hell of a workout, which pleased me no end. I was on my second round, seated at a gleaming machine and doing military presses with fifty pounds on the cable when it abruptly became twice as heavy. I eased it back down and turned my head.
Priscilla Matson took her hand off the cable and stepped back. There was a hint of a smile on her plain face and her eyes had that look Cat’s has when playing with her kill. She was dressed in purple sweat pants and a faded purple sweat shirt with the arms cut off. Her skin and the sweatsuit were sopping wet and her arm muscles were pumped up and wrapped with swollen veins. She sat on the machine next to mine, gazed at me a moment, smiled that damn smile and said, “I saw you stumble up here a while ago. I didn’t think you were a joiner, Old Man.”
I shrugged and said, “When I tried to do weights at home I found myself outdone by the cold and wind. So this winter I’m inside, doing the machines.” To make my point I moved to the next one and started doing seated bench presses. Priscilla watched me for a while and said, “You do want to take it easy, Old Man. Those things will torque muscles you never knew you had, and if you overdo it you’ll spend tomorrow in bed, whimpering like a lost puppy.”
I grunted out one more press and muttered, “This is my last circuit.”
She kept watching me as I worked the circuit. Having her watch, and I assume judge my every move annoyed me, but I don’t think this one cared if I was annoyed or not.
“Have you been looking into the thing with my Grandfather, or was that whole gig just a way to cage a couple of drinks and kill an afternoon?”
I finished a set of leg lifts and told her what I had done so far.
She came over and put her face close to mine. “Hey, you’re really doing something. We assumed you would just go back to some pub for another pop of the grape. Ona has about as much faith in you as she has in God curing Eva.”
“I haven’t done anything of note yet, just gathered a little information.”
“What are you going to do next?”
“I’d like to see where your Grandfather died. And, I want to talk to Eva again and get a list of friends and people he was close to.”
She gazed at me moment, suddenly looked away and pushed a hand through her ratty flattop and said softly, “Mind if I tag along?”
“Why?”
“Because Frank and I were tight, and I agree with Eva, he didn’t die of a heart attack. Also I’ve got some time off until I go back to work.”
“Where do you work?”
“Here. I run high intensity aerobic and kick boxing classes for the fanatics. But around the holidays things are slow, so I stopped while the joint recruits new members, which are usually the old members plus a few newbie’s. “
“Do you have a vehicle?” I asked.
“Yeah, a Dodge Maxi Van, give me three thousand and I’ll put an engine in the thing and we can drive, just like real people.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then we pedal.”
… . .
BRANCH HILL ROAD WAS UNPAVED, MINED with rocks, and hemmed in on both sides by third growth timber and brush. And Frank Jankey probably did die of a heart attack, because after twenty minutes of pedaling ever upward the summit was still a hoped for fantasy. Branch Hill Road was an infinite gut busting hell and he had to have been a bit dotty to run it. At least Cat, clinging to her quilt with her face pressed against the plastic window, seemed to be enjoying the adventure.
I wasn’t so fortunate. My legs were turning to stone and it felt like a determined Anaconda was wrapped around my chest. Priscilla was right about the machines, I had cooked myself on them and my aging muscles were letting me know it.
Finally… the summit. I stood weak kneed beside the bike, trying to act like I wasn’t on the verge of a meltdown. I slid a water bottle out of its clasp and sucked it dry. Cat started meowing so I unzipped the door and she jumped-fell out of the trailer, hunkered down in the road and cried until I picked her up and slipped her into the sling.
Straddling her bike some ten feet away, Priscilla watched my struggle for a while, and then said, “You’d better stay upright, Old Man, CPR’s not an option with me. The most I’ll do is jump up and down on your chest and kick you in the balls. And if you don’t come around?” She gave me a savage grin and shrugged elaborately. “And listen, hauling that pathetic hairball around in that trailer is really a seriously smart thing to do. Why don’t you let me fill it up with rocks, then you’ll really break a sweat.”
I fished the police report out of the trailer, slipped another water bottle from its clasp and headed for the side of the road. As I hobbled past her I said, “May a diseased Aardvark shit in your sock drawer.”
Uttering muted groans, I sank by the side of the road and pulled papers out of the envelope. Priscilla plopped down beside me and drank from her water bottle. She was flushed and sweaty, but her breathing was slow and even, and it was obvious the ride up Branch Hill Road hadn’t bothered her a whit.
I studied the police reports while trying to suck in maximum air without going into spasm. The reports were hand written by patrolman David Rundle in small hard to read print, much like a child’s. “Okay,” I said, “According to this a town patrolman named David Rundle found Frank’s body a hundred yards east of the top of the hill at twelve-thirty five P.M. He sought and didn’t get a pulse, heartbeat, or respiration, and the body was beginning to cool so he didn’t attempt CPR.” I read the rest, looked at Priscilla and shrugged. “Nothing more, after ascertaining that Frank was dead, he put the body in the back of his cruiser and took it to the hospital.”
Priscilla stood up and pointed the opposite way we had come and said, “That way.” She picked up her bike and paced off a hundred yards. I lurched to my feet, and pushing bike and trailer also paced off a hundred yards, stopping six feet past her.
Stunted, twisted pines hugged the dirty little road. Inside the tree line the ground was a mat of pine needles marked with the occasional boulder. It didn’t feel like a place where a man had died, but I’ve visited Civil War battlefields where thousands had been slaughtered and I hadn’t felt anything there either. Priscilla said, “I wonder if he was running up or down the hill.”
“I don’t know, probably the same way we came up. But if he didn’t die of a heart attack running this road I’ll be surprised.”
She gave me a quick hard look. “Listen, he didn’t have a heart attack, the man ran hills all his life and he had arteries like garden hoses.”
“It’s not rare that supposedly fit men have heart attacks. It’s called Sudden Death Syndrome, and what you think or want to believe doesn’t make a thing true. Hopefully I’ll get some concrete information from Young Tommy’s sister.”
Priscilla took off her helmet, ran a hand through her ragged flat top, and jammed the helmet back on her head. She stared at me a moment, looked away and said, “If you want I’ll get a list of Frank’s buddies from Eva.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She drank deeply from her water bottle and whacked her sternum with the side of her fist, loosening a belch that startled two crows dining on a roadside tidbit. She smirked and said, “No problem, just keep that Aardvark out of my sock drawer.”
I was trying to think of a suitable response when I heard a car coming up the hill. It was loud and moving fast. As it made the summit and roared toward us we pushed our bikes off the road and waited. It was a beater, a big white Ford sedan left over from the last century. Dented, mottled with rust and gray primer, and sporting a red left front fender, it lurched and rattled toward us like an old sick rhino. When it rumbled past I glimpsed a pack of little faces with big eyes in the back seat.
The dust settled. With Cat hanging in the sling we started pedaling the direction the Ford went. Bikes, even mountain bikes with their wide knobby tires, do poorly in loose sand and gravel and I slipped and slid all over the road. Priscilla was obviously an expert and was fifty yards ahead of me. I slid through a long curve and saw the Ford in the middle of the road with Priscilla coming to a stop beside it.
I stopped beside her and peered into the car. In the front seat an obese woman with a square face framed by a rat’s nest of dull brown hair peered back at me. Her eyes were buried in pink flesh and she had three, maybe four chins. The driver was a lean man with greasy, shoulder length black hair and a face full of greasy beard. The kids in the back seat were of varying ages but all had big bright eyes, dirty faces, scraggly hair, and resembled the man. The woman looked at me and said, “Howdy, thought you might need a hand so I told William to back up and have a look see.”
“Thanks,” Priscilla said, “But we’re just looking around.”
“Not a whole hell of a lot to see around here ‘cept scrub pine and coon shit.”
“About ten years ago my grandfather, Frank Jankey, died back down the road about a hundred yards from the top and we came up to see if we could find the spot.”
The fat woman lit a cigarette with a dented Zippo with the Marine Corps emblem riveted to it. She blew a cloud of smoke at us and said, “I remember him. We used to see him a lot on this road. Sometimes he’d be running East, sometimes West, and he always looked like he was in a world of hurt, like someone had his nuts in a vise.”
I leaned toward the car and said, “Did you see him that day? The day he died?”
“I just told you, we saw him most days. Me and William and now the kids take this road every goddamn day ‘cept Sunday. It’s a short cut to the country home where his Ma and my Pa is. She’s been there three years come December. Pa’s been there eleven years. Man’s never gonna die. Anyways, we do it every goddamn day ‘cept Sunday. Get back by one so I can see my shows on the television.” Her eyes drifted to Cat. She squinted at her a moment, then raised her eyebrows and said, “I gotta say it, Mister, that’s one pitiable looking animal you got hanging around your neck. I doubt it could catch a mouse if you nailed it to the floor.”
I ignored the comment and asked, “Was there anything unusual about that day?”
She blew more smoke at us and said, “Nope. He was running strong, just like always. And he gave us a wave, just like always. But I’ll tell you this, he didn’t die back there.”
Priscilla held a water bottle toward the woman and said, “Have a pop, seltzer and wine.” The woman snorted, stuck the bottle in her mouth and sucked like a thirsty calf. Then she gave a great sigh and handed the bottle back.
“Thanks a bunch. That stuff’s pretty good.”
Priscilla smiled and said, “We got some papers that claims my grandfather was found at twelve-thirty five in the afternoon a hundred yards from the top of the hill.”
A small black dog appeared in the back window. It looked at us for a moment then started licking the nearest child’s face. The child giggled and the woman said, “Here now, I’m talking to these people.” She turned back to Priscilla and said, “Thing is, we do this every goddamn day ‘cept Sunday. Got it timed like a goddamn bus. We top the hill about twelve thirty every time.” She held out her arm. Buried in the fat I saw a gold watch. “Right now it’s twelve-thirty seven. We saw your Grandfather a bit further along, near that boulder field on the left side of the road. He was running strong like always. I remember cause we didn’t see him anymore and then I read in the paper he’d croaked. So you see little girl, he was a good ways from the top of the hill.”
Priscilla handed the water bottle back to the woman. The woman looked at her and said, “You sure child, you still got a ways to pedal that bike and a little thing like you needs all the help she can get.”
Priscilla pushed a hand at her and said, “Enjoy.”
The woman sucked the bottle dry and handed it back to her. “Sorry about your grandfather and all that, but don’t hold to what your paper says. He was way past the top the hill and it was a mite past twelve thirty-five.”
“Did you tell the police that?” I asked.
She gave me a look that would fry rocks and said, “Don’t very goddamn well think so.”
I smiled quickly, nodded in agreement and said, “Good for you, last time I talked to a cop it cost me money.”
“Mister, every time I talk to a cop it cost me money.”
From the driver’s seat William stroked his beard and mumbled assent. There was moments silence, then the woman said, “You two be pedaling and get tired, we’re the folks in the big log house at the end of the drive that’s four miles down the road on the right.” The old ford rumbled and gurgled. Then, its rear window stuffed with grinning faces, it lurched down the road. We watched until it skidded around the next corner, then I put Cat in the trailer and we started pedaling.
Priscilla snorted and said, “Little thing my butt.” She reached over and slapped my shoulder. “According to the blimp, the report Rundle wrote is wrong.”
“There’s about five minutes and a quarter mile difference between what the woman said and what Rundle wrote. My guess is the woman was a little off. It’s bee
n ten years and the human memory is a fallible device.”
She gave me a look, made a face and said, “The human memory is a fallible device? Did you really just say that?”
… . .
PUSHING THE BIKES, WE TROOPED INTO Gretchen’s and leaned them against the back wall. Cat jumped-fell out of the trailer and limped toward the counter where a smiling Gretchen was waiting with a cube of beef. Stoically ignoring multiple aches and pains, I followed Priscilla to a booth and managed to sit without groaning out loud.
After a time, a rather long time, Clara Kosko shuffled up to the table. Clara is somewhere north of seventy and has a face remarkably similar to a stereotypical Halloween witch. She was dressed in old jeans and a tattered man’s shirt that had been washed far too many times. Over her clothes she wore a yellow apron with, ‘Since I Gave Up All Hope, I Feel Much Better,’ printed on it in bold black letters. Her pen and pad at the ready, she stood at the end of the table and looked at me.
“Good afternoon, Clara,” I said. “I’d like a bowl of clam chowder and a mug of red wine please.”
Her pen didn’t move. Her gray head didn’t move. Her damp eyes drifted to Priscilla and locked onto her face. Time passed. Finally Priscilla slapped a splayed hand over her heart, and in a high southern drawl, said loudly, “What I’d like, Clara dear, is liberty and justice for all, a Starbucks on every corner, the winning Megabucks ticket, a mug of wine, and I too, would desire a bowl of clam chowder. And Clara, do put them out of their misery before you dump the little dears into the chowder.”
Clara stared at Priscilla for several seconds, then put her pen and pad into her apron pocket, turned around, and shuffled toward the counter. Hands folded on the table we waited silently, patiently, for her to return with the alcohol and protein, both of which I needed badly.
… . .
INSPIRED BY THE SMELL OF THE chowder Cat limped along behind Clara when she finally brought the food. I picked her up, put her next to the napkin holder and spooned a fat clam out of the chowder and put it on the table between her paws. She immediately snagged it with her good paw and dragged it to the end of the table and looked at Priscilla, who sighed dramatically and gently put her on the floor, then wrinkled her nose and shook her head. Her eyes were large and smoky in the dim light, and I noticed for the first time that her ears were small and almost pointed. She could pass for an elf if such a creature existed on this battered planet. She sucked up wine through a straw, looked at me and said, “So what are we going to do next?”
Bentley Dadmun - Harry Neal and Cat 09 - Dead Dead Dead, the Little Girl Said Page 4