Forever Man

by Brian Matthews

Izzy Morris sat at her desk, staring out her office window, trying to gather her thoughts. People strolled along the tree-shaded sidewalks of Asher Street, enjoying the cool fall weather and doing a little window shopping. Mrs. Lee had once again stopped to consider the clothes on display at Rose Dwight’s resale shop. A widow whose husband had died in the first Gulf War, Olivia Lee had never recovered from her loss. She constantly sought the perfect dress to wear when her long dead husband finally returned from Iraq. As the woman entered SecondHand Rose’s Resale Repository, Izzy finally understood Liv’s pain. And the shallow comfort of her denial.

  Stanley had been admitted to the hospital in critical condition. While his heart had stabilized, he remained unconscious. The doctors were running tests and monitoring his condition. They were still uncertain as to what had happened or if it could happen again.

  She had considered staying with him, but there wasn’t anything she could do there. She had a missing daughter and a person of interest in the case, so she’d decided to come back to the station. Finding Natalie was the best thing she could do for Stanley—and for herself.

  Izzy picked up the file containing what little information she had on Bart Owens and scanned Sten Billick’s preliminary report.

  With Owens’ consent, Sten had run the man’s fingerprints through the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. The search had come up empty. The man had no criminal record.

  When asked for ID, Owens had produced an expired Tennessee driver’s license. A call to that state had also been a bust. Except for possibly driving without a valid license, Owens was clean in Tennessee. Then again, their DMV had also said that Owens didn’t have a car registered in their state. In fact, looking as far back as their on-line records go, he hadn't ever registered a car there. She’d known people who had a driver’s license but no car, except they usually lived in crowded cities like New York, Chicago, LA. But Nashville? She’d been there twice for police conferences. Everything was spaced well apart. That meant expensive taxi rides or a lot of walking.

  Just to be thorough, Sten had searched Michigan’s LEIN system. Izzy wasn’t surprised when that came back negative, too.

  She wanted a work history on this guy, but that would take more time. For now, she would use what was available.

  Izzy didn’t like to follow instinct. She trusted routine, methodical police procedures. But she’d also be a fool if she didn’t trust her gut once in a while. This Owens guy was strange, and her gut told her that he was involved somehow.

  It was time to talk to him. But first, she needed to do one thing. It might destroy her case against Owens, should there ever be one. But with Natalie missing, she was willing to take the chance.

  She picked up the phone and contacted her dispatcher. “Aggie, who’s out on the road right now?”

  Izzy Morris opened the gunmetal gray door and stepped inside the interview room. It was a small, pale yellow cinder-block enclosure with a two-way window in one wall. Twin fluorescent fixtures spilled harsh light from the ceiling. To Izzy, the stale air smelled of old guilt and denial.

  Bart Owens sat in one of two metal folding chairs, his hands together on the scratched surface of a long wood table. He’d shed the jacket he had worn during the search. Now he was dressed in a Nashville Predators sweatshirt, his head bowed, his short, crinkly hair almost glinting under the room’s light.

  His eyes were closed. Was he meditating? Praying? Sleeping?

  On the far side of the table, Detective Sten Billick occupied the other chair. The tap-tapping of his pencil on a yellow legal pad meant that something was bothering him. Izzy could list five things off the top of her head that bothered her about this case. At least she wasn’t alone.

  At one end of the table sat a cassette tape recorder, its wheels slowly spinning.

  She moved to stand next to Sten. “Mind if we talk, Mr. Owens?

  Owens opened his eyes. “I’m sorry about your husband. Is he going to be okay?”

  Izzy waved aside his question. “Let’s talk about you. Detective Billick tells me you’re being evasive. That you’re not answering his questions.”

  “I’m not trying to be difficult,” Owens said, one finger tracing vague patterns on the table top. “I simply don’t have the answers you want.”

  Izzy said, “And you maintain that you had nothing to do with my daughter’s disappearance? Or Jimmy Cain’s death?”

  “I don’t know where she is,” Owens said. “And I believe the boy was killed by an animal. That would rule me out, wouldn’t it?”

  Sten cut smoothly into the interrogation. “For the sake of completeness, let’s go over the basics again. When did you arrive in town?”

  Owens turned to Sten. “Friday evening.”

  Picking up his notebook, Sten reviewed what he’d written. “You say you left Nashville early last Thursday. Arrived in Newberry on Friday afternoon by bus. However, you didn’t show up at the Lula until Saturday afternoon. Where were you between Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon?”

  “I walked to Kinsey. By the time I’d arrived, it was dark.”

  “You walked all that way?” Sten said. “Why not take a taxi?”

  “I needed the exercise,” Owens replied calmly.

  “And where’d you spend Friday night?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Bullshit,” said Sten. “Where’d you stay?”

  “It was a hotel. I don’t remember the name.”

  “The same one you’re staying at now?”

  “No.”

  “How’d you pay for your room?”

  “Cash.”

  “Why didn’t you just charge it?” asked Sten.

  “No credit card,” said Owens, gesturing to the reports sitting on the table. “But you already know that, Detective.”

  Sten raised an eyebrow. From a stack of papers, he pulled out the credit report on Owens. No credit cards. No loans. No mortgages. No history of anything. He placed the paper in front of Owens.

  “This isn’t possible,” Sten said, tapping the report with a finger.

  Owens picked up the report, his eyes scanning it. “Everything looks correct to me.”

  “I couldn’t even find a checking account. How do you pay your bills?”

  Owens’ gaze shifted to Izzy. “I don’t see how any of this will help find your daughter.”

  Izzy pointed to the report in his hands. “Just answer the question.”

  “I like to pay cash,” Owens replied, sliding the paper across the table. “I’m quite sure that’s not illegal.”

  “Mr. Owens,” Izzy said. “I know you’re not under arrest. That you’re here voluntarily. But look at it from our side. You’re new in town. You have an unusual history, which in this case means no history at all. And we found something of yours at the crime scene. You have to admit, it would make any cop suspicious.”

  “I am who I am. All your reports are correct. And none of them points to me being a criminal.”

  “No, not directly,” admitted Izzy. She was going to continue, but the door banged open. Aggie Ripley hurried into the room. She looked frazzled as she handed Izzy a piece of paper.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” the dispatcher said. “But I thought you’d want to see this.” Then she left, closing the door behind her.

  Izzy read the paper. The message told her all she needed to know.

  Bart Owens had been lying the entire time.

  She handed the paper to Sten. Then she leaned over and turned off the cassette recorder. Looking back at Owens, she said, “Before I came here, I sent a couple patrol cars over to the hotel where you’re staying. I know the manager, and she let Officers Hamilton and Manick into your room.”

  Wariness bled into the man’s features. His eyes darted to the paper in Sten’s hand.

  “That’s right,” Izzy said. “Now, they didn’t find anything during their look around the room—you’re obviously too clever to leave anything out in the open. So I also left orders for
them to go through your possessions.”

  Owens’ eyebrows rose in surprise. “Without a search warrant?”

  “My daughter’s missing,” Izzy said evenly. “I don’t give a damn about a warrant.”

  Owens stared at her for a moment, then nodded heavily. “You may as well tell me what they found.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what they found,” interjected Sten.

  “I don’t know,” answered Owens. “Because I had nothing to do with this.”

  Izzy snatched the paper from Sten’s hands and shook it at Owens. “They found my daughter’s necklace, you lying bastard! It was hidden in the bottom of your duffel bag!”

  Owens laid his hands flat on the tabletop. “That necklace wasn’t in there when I left this morning. I promise you.”

  Sten placed a restraining hand on Izzy’s arm. Then he turned his attention to Owens. “I doubt that’ll score you any points with a judge, Mr. Owens. But for now”—he turned the recorder back on—“I’m placing you under arrest.” He read Owens his Miranda Rights. “Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?”

  “Listen to me,” Owens said, his hands closing into fists. “This is the worst thing you could do right now.”

  “Do you understand your rights?” repeated Sten.

  “I can’t be locked up,” insisted Owens.

  Izzy threw the paper onto the table. “Then tell me where my daughter is!”

  Owens raised his voice for the first time. “I don’t know where she is.”

  Sten got up and placed his muscular body between Izzy and Owens. “All right. We’re done for now. Come on, Owens. You need to be processed. Looks like you’re going to be our guest for a while.”

  Izzy was about to protest—this man knew where her daughter was!—when Sten turned to her.

  “This back and forth is useless, Chief. For now, let me dig a little deeper into his past. See what I can find. Then I’ll come back and talk to him.” He lowered his voice. “We’re not giving up on your daughter.”

  Izzy’s mouth worked silently as she struggled with her emotions. She knew Sten was right. He needed time to do his job properly. And that didn’t mean she was giving up on her daughter.

  But why did she feel like she was?

  Chapter 12

  Chet Boardman arrived early at Memorial Park. Picnic basket in hand, he strolled toward the large gazebo that sat at the western edge of the park; past the rusty swings and monkey bars and slides that made up the playground; past picnic tables and little steel barbecue units crusted black from years of grilling burgers and franks; past the Little League field where Stanley Morris had organized the children’s Fourth of July baseball games. Behind the gazebo, the land gave way to a sandy beach and the dark water of Black Pine Lake gently lapping at the shoreline. The sun was a smear of vermilion clinging to the horizon, the sky a broad brushstroke of crimson clouds.

  “Red sky at night, sailors delight,” said Chet, reciting an old fisherman’s rhyme he’d learned from his father when, as a boy, he’d helped his dad pull fish from Lake Superior. Fishing was a hard life. It’d taken his old man with pneumonia at the age of thirty-seven. Chet, then only seventeen and the oldest of three boys, had become the man of the house. He hadn’t even been laid yet, but he was expected to work daily and provide for the family and help his mom raise his two brothers. So he’d dropped out of school—no great shakes since he’d never done well anyway—got all the necessary licenses and permits, and began his life as a fisherman.

  Forty years on the water hadn’t been easy on him either. His hands were like granite slabs, thick with calluses. His fingers were gnarled—they’d been broken countless times and set using Popsicle sticks and duct tape because Big Blue wouldn’t insure him without taking every last dime he pulled out of the lake. Clothes hung loosely on his thin frame. People often mistook him for a pushover, the skinny kid in those Charles Atlas ads he’d seen in the comics long ago. But pulling in loads of fish day after day wasn’t easy, and Chet was wiry strong, the veteran of many bar fights. Wearing his faded red-and-black checked cap and rumpled blue shirt, he looked like an extra from Jaws.

  He arrived at the gazebo and climbed the risers. The wood boards creaked with each step. As he set foot on the floor of the structure, the sun dipped below the horizon and winked out. Chet set his wicker basket on the picnic table in the center of the gazebo. Thankful for the lack of wind, he pulled out two thick, white candles and placed them at either end of the table. He used his Zippo—the only thing his old man had left him—to light the wicks. Next out of the basket came dinner plates, silverware, and a platter of fried chicken covered with plastic wrap. Then two bowls, one filled with coleslaw, the other with corn. Last out were two bottles of wine—red, which a guy at the Kwik-N-Go said you were supposed to serve with meat—and plastic cups. After uncorking the wine—this was something else the guy had told him, though Chet wondered how could wine breathe?—he sat on the table’s bench seat, listened to the chorus of frogs singing from the woods lining the northern edge of the park, and looked out into the darkness. The park was empty. Perfect, he thought with a smile.

  His date should be here soon.

  It wasn’t long before a pair of headlights appeared at the park entrance. A car crawled across the blacktop and pulled alongside his old Ford F-150. Chet winced when the front of the car came too close to his and the grating sound of metal kissing metal cut through the air. It silenced the frogs, allowing the sound of branches breaking far in the woods to filter through. Chet shook his head. Damn deer were everywhere this year.

  A car door slammed shut. A figure started walking toward the gazebo. Darkness seemed to gather around the person. It wasn’t until she’d reached the pavilion’s steps that he could make out her features. The flickering candlelight made her skin look sallow, transformed the dark circles under her eyes into angry bruises. Her light brown hair looked like it had been worked with a curling iron, and a small blue bow had been clipped to her hair at either temple. She wore a pale blue dress with frilly white lace at the hem and shoulders. Another bow with wide loops and dangling tails decorated the front of the dress at her waist. Chet, who may not have done well in school but had his own measure of smarts, wondered if she realized all the bows made her look like a present waiting to be opened.

  “Hi, Chet,” she said with a smile. Her teeth were perfectly straight. It was her smile that Chet had always found attractive.

  “Why Jenny Bethel, don’t you look wonderful tonight,” was his reply.

  “Thank you, Chet,” said Jenny after they’d finished the candlelight dinner. “You’re a marvelous cook.”

  “Welcome,” he returned with a nod of his head.

  “You caught me off guard when you called.” Jenny refilled her glass with wine. One empty bottle already lay in the picnic basket. The other was half gone as Jenny worked her way through the wine. Chet had had only one glass—the last twenty-four hours had dried him out more than he would’ve expected—and he found he’d lost most of his taste for alcohol. Some strange shit had gone on, enough to give him the creeps. And a bit of perspective.

  “Why?” he asked. “We’ve seen each other before.”

  She sipped her wine. “It was always you sneaking over to my place after Katie went to bed. We’d have a few drinks, fuck around a little, and you’d be gone before she woke up. But a date? A real date with candles and food? And look at the place you picked.” She waved her glass around in a wobbly arc, sloshing a little wine on the table. “It’s beautiful here. The full moon and the sounds of the lake. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were up to something.”

  He brought the cup to his lips, but then set it down before taking a drink. Jenny sat opposite him with slightly unfocused hope in her eyes, wearing what must be an old bridesmaid dress, their knees touching, her hand resting inches from his. And that smile. Bright and inviting in the darkness that surrounded them. He opened his mouth to say something, paused,
and then did take a drink of his wine. After wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he pushed on.

  “I ain’t up to nothin’,” he said. “I just…I wanted to get together. You know, not just mess around. I’m tired of just messing around.” He swirled wine in his cup. “I never had much of a life. No wife. No kids. Been all by myself. I’m tired of having no one and nothin’ to look forward to.” His eyes lit up. “Like a boat that’s broken its anchor line, I’ve been drifting all these years with nothing to hold me steady.” He grinned, impressed with himself. That’s about the most romantic thing he’d ever said.

  Jenny stared at him. One bushy eyebrow crept up like an inchworm. “Did you just call me an anchor? A big, fat piece of metal?”

  Chet’s grin crumbled as his jaw fell open. He blinked, unsure of what to say. Had he gone and screwed it up, after all?

  Jenny laughed and clapped her hands, which, wearing that dress, made her seem more a child than a widow in her mid-fifties. “Relax, Chet. I was just kidding! Seriously, men have no sense of humor.” She placed her hand back on the table, but this time it covered his. “I appreciate what you did tonight. It’s been a while, long before Adam died, that anyone went to so much trouble. But what I really want to know is, why? Why do you want something more now?”

  He turned his hand to hold hers, his thumb caressing her skin. “I’ve had an odd couple days. Seen some of the uglier side of people I thought was my friends. Denny and me, we met this guy. He wants us to help him do something here in town, help him stop some…colored guy Gene’s got playin’ at the Lula. Said this Owens fella wants to cause trouble, hurt a few people, maybe kill someone. He thought the guy might even have Izzy’s daughter.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jenny said with a befuddled frown. “You think this guy knows something about Natalie? Have you told Izzy?”

  “I don’t know if he’s telling the truth, Jenny. I mean, something ain’t right about this Webber, the guy Denny and me met. He…when you’re around him, you feel funny. See things that don’t sit right. I suppose that could be the shakes. Hell, I had ’em before when I stopped drinking.” He looked up at her. “But I feel fine. This wine? Tastes like water. I really don’t want to finish it. And I don’t even want a smoke. But that’s a good thing, ain’t it?