by Kym Roberts
“Nothin’ good comes out of these doors, Ms. Rilee.”
“I need some answers, Tommy.”
“Look, I’m sorry ‘bout acting up in your shop. I was outta line...”
I held up my hand to stop him from going down that road. “That’s in the past, Tommy. What I need to know is what Stone was doing with Brandy Kay when you caught him paying her?”
Tommy’s jaw tightened, his voice lowered bringing a very serious tone to his drawl. “If you’re talking about the vet who carried you into town in your skivvies—”
I sucked in a large chunk of air, but it somehow refused to enter my body.
“—it was pretty obvious they were getting randy. I found them on the other side of the bar a couple weeks back. It ain’t the first time I came across a hook-up.” The light disappeared from his eyes. “But it was the first time Brandy Kay stepped out on me.”
That meant it had happened before Ryan. The date was correct on the DVD from Bob’s office, and Stone hadn’t sought out Brandy Kay’s companionship after meeting me.
Tommy’s discomfort had soothed my desperation. I felt completely pathetic over the fact that it mattered to me when Stone visited a prostitute. I totally got that. Paying for sex is a major character flaw, but I needed to know the man who teased my libido hadn’t paid for sex after he met me. Call me vain, call me psycho, but that information gave me strength and peace of mind.
Unfortunately, I had a more important question to ask. I swallowed my apprehension and went for it. “Tommy, do you know what happened between the man who was killed on the tracks and Brandy Kay?”
A mixture of emotions crossed his face. Rage. Like the type I’d seen boiling under the surface when I left the bar with Stone, and fear. I understood the anger, but I didn’t understand the distress at all. Before I could decipher what it all meant, Tommy pulled on his Southern gentleman mask, the one where nothing could get your tail feathers in a ruffle, and answered less than honestly. “Nothin’ happened. If you’ll excuse the expression, he had no business being in a strip bar chasin’ the treasure. It just ain’t right when a man’s promised to be married.”
“Brandy Kay’s a bloody treasuurrre.” The slurred shaky voice of the toothless-wonder stopped Tommy’s lies, and we turned to see Carl, who was closer to my garage than I ever wanted to see again, his mouth a dark hole where teeth should have been.
The guy creeped me out.
“I think it’s time to turn in, Carl.” Tommy growled, his feathers definitely bristling.
“Ya can’t kill me, shhee already did.” His drunken laugh sent chills down my back. His ashen complexion gave him the look of a dead man, as he walked across the parking lot in our direction. Then suddenly his humor disappeared and his steps faltered. “That’s whatch-yer out here doing, ain’t it? You’re plottin’ my murder!” His head swung accusingly from one of us to the other, and he almost lost his balance as he backed away.
“Go home, sir. You’re five drinks into the wind too many; we won’t be serving y’all anymore.” Tommy’s voice was as hard as petrified wood — different than the anger and frustration he’d displayed in class, this was a low level threat that couldn’t be identified if you hadn’t heard the tone and known the man.
The drunk didn’t know the man.
“Baahhhh...” Carl swiped downward at the air like swatting a pesky mosquito before stumbling away toward the street and muttering, “Trains don’t kill people...” He swayed and slouched down on one knee, “People kill people...” With one hand on the ground and the other on the bumper of the nearest car, the drunk I’d come to view in the most pathetic light, (and still gave me the heebie-jeebies from here to Mount Saint Helens) pushed himself up before finishing in an exhausted whisper, “I’ll be waitin’ fer ya...” He squinted one last time in challenge to Tommy, then disappeared around the corner of Woody’s.
“Ms. Rilee, I think it’s high time you went inside.” His hand firmly on my arm, Tommy led me away from the bar.
“Thomas?”
Brandy Kay’s voice stopped us in our tracks. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about us and blow my chances of getting the carving for Missy. Tommy however, seemed ready to throw in the towel. He let out an exhausted breath and released my arm. “Ma’am, don’t come out in the lot at night, you’ll be swimmin’ in all kinds of trouble if you do.” He nodded in the direction of my back porch before turning toward Brandy Kay waiting at Woody’s rear door.
Afraid I’d get in the way of their reconciliation, I listened to his advice and went home to my cabin in the woods — my home, my safe harbor — with a strip bar for a neighbor.
***
Officer Martin’s call came too early, but he was heading home after his shift on dogwatch so I couldn’t complain too much. Bogart, however, ‘humphed’ and rolled over, kicking me in the gut on his way.
“Good morning, Ms. Dust. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Not at all.” I lied. Badly.
Officer Martin let it slide in his monotone way. “Your sculpture is no longer considered evidence in the death of Ryan Hart. His parents asked that it be released over to you.”
I sat up on the edge of the bed and tried to wipe the sleep off my face. Steve had arranged with Ryan’s parents to have the piece ‘repaired’ to its original condition as a gift for Missy. In other words, I needed to get the blood off and fill in Bogart’s teeth imprints. “Do I need to come and get it now?”
“No, I thought I’d drop it off on my way home. I’m outside.”
I looked toward my window. “Outside…where?”
“At the front door of your shop.”
I didn’t have a mirror in my bedroom, but I didn’t need one to know what my hair looked like. Last night had been one of those ‘flop till you drop’ battles with sleep.
“Ms. Dust?”
I scrambled out of bed. “Of course, I’ll be right there.” I hung up, ran for the closet and quickly threw on a sweatshirt and my Ducks ball cap along with a pair of slippers.
Bogart snored across the room.
“Don’t bother getting up. Just because the bogey man could be raiding the shop right now, doesn’t mean you have to interrupt your beauty sleep.”
He didn’t budge. I shook my head and went down to get the carving that would need to be repaired before it was given to Missy.
Officer Martin actually complimented me when I arrived at the door. Not my appearance, but the fact that I was going to fix the sculpture before Missy saw the evidence of her fiancé’s death first hand. He said it was a ‘classy act of kindness’ that he rarely saw. I wished I felt the same way about it.
I returned to the shop with my carving and began restoring the piece as quickly as possible. First sanding off most of the paint (blood) and the teeth imprints from Bogart, then filling in the deeper ones and allowing the compound to dry. Once that was complete, I prayed I could repaint the sculpture and have him look like Ryan once more.
I glanced at the clock and saw that I was running short on time before the store opened, so I returned to my house and jumped in the shower. Then I made Bogart get out of bed so I could make it.
He didn’t appreciate that.
Wednesday progressed without much drama. I didn’t see or hear from Stone, and wondered if the video had kept him away. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole ‘paying for sex’ video, and I found myself relishing this time apart from the man who’d turned my life inside out.
Several customers came in while I worked and kept me busy throughout the day. By closing time I was exhausted, but knew I’d spend the night reviewing tapes from Bob’s.
The two things I learned throughout my night of less than pleasurable viewing. One, reality TV can be very boring without editing. And two, editing is a crappy job.
When I finally pushed away from the computer, the sun had been gone for hours and my screen seemed to be the most sordid, yet incredibly boring view into the world I lived in. I lon
ged for someone to talk to, someone to make fun of the images with. Bogart laid his head on my lap and looked up at me.
“You’re right, it’s time for bed. Let’s go out, then we can rest our weary heads on a soft, down-filled pillow.”
Mr. Bogart jumped to his feet and raced to the back door. As we exited, Porcupine Patty sat up at the bottom of the stairs with her front paws in the air. She coughed and clicked her teeth in total dissatisfaction at finding her regular dinner bowl empty. I was suddenly filled with guilt over the pet I’d neglected since the first night Bogart had slept in my bed, and Bogart froze in running position.
“Oh, Patty, I’m so sorry! I’ll be right back with your dinner.”
I headed back inside, with Bogart following me rather than risk time alone with the girl who’d slapped his face for getting fresh the last time they’d met. I grabbed some cabbage and a whole cantaloupe as a bribe for my absence and returned to the porch, where Patty sat patiently at the bottom of the steps. Quills down, she totally trusted me to make sure the big oaf nervously panting behind me didn’t bother her.
Or maybe she was that confident in her ability to kick his ass. Bogart jumped off the end of the porch and went to do his thing while I took a seat on the swing to keep an eye on the two.
Woody’s seemed to be in rare form that evening, making me wonder if the increase in popularity had anything to do with the news stories about the vice-filled business. Cars were parked in the grass along the back of the lot and a Camaro had actually squeezed in between my garage and my house. It irritated me enough that I thought about calling the police to have it ticketed.
The sound of a revving engine echoed from the lot, bouncing between the log walls of my cabin and Woody’s metal frame. A squeal followed and burnt rubber filled the air. Bogart stopped his sniffing, Patty ambled under the porch with her melon and I got up off the swing to see how many cars would be damaged by the drunk leaving the lot.
Stupid, I know, but I’d had my eyes closed for too long. It was time to see the world for what it really was.
I rounded the side of my house, squeezing between the corner and a bright white Camaro just in time to see the back end of Tommy’s truck leaving the lot. I couldn’t see him, but the next events happened so quickly, the picture was painted forever in my mind’s eye.
Chills raced through my spine as the truck engine exploded with deadly acceleration. A frantic male scream filled the air, worse than any cry I’d ever heard. And just an instant later a sickening thud silenced the town. Tires squealed and metal screeched to a grinding halt.
I ran to the street in front of my shop with Bogart hot on my heels. We came to a skidding stop, however, as we took in the scene. A crumpled form lay sprawled in the middle of the street. Its legs bent in an inhuman direction, its face buried in the pavement. Images of Ryan immediately popped into my head.
But this victim was not clean cut, if anything he appeared homeless. He wasn’t young with his whole life in front of him. He was old and frail. He did not look toward heaven as if the pearly gates were open and ready to accept him. The only view he had was of the dark blacktop that had torn apart his cheek as he slid into hell on his face.
Tommy’s white truck was stationary a couple blocks down the street with its front end crashed into the dumpster next to Lucky Drugs Pharmacy. Again my feet had a mind of their own, like the dog in front of me. I ran to the body in the middle of the road, knowing I didn’t want to be there, but unable to stop myself. Voices broke through my haze, and I yelled behind me for someone to call 911.
Brendan reached the man before I did. Kneeling down next to him, our town pharmacist was the closest thing we had to a doctor. I saw him checking the body over for injuries, and I hoped a pharmaceutical education would keep the man alive until an ambulance got there. When I made it to his side, Brendan was checking his wrist for a pulse.
“Sir, can you hear me?” I asked, knowing darn well he couldn’t. When I received no answer, I looked at Brendan, but the small nerdy man with the dark glasses was too busy being the hero of the night, and I was the worst partner he could ask for.
Bogart sat down beside me and nudged the victim’s hand, exposing the watch on his wrist.
I stared at the heavy platinum links with the owner’s initial engraved on the side. Thick and masculine, it was meant for a scuba diver, not a person who wandered the streets of Tickle Creek drunk as a skunk, a vagrant who liked to pass out in garages behind strip bars. The crystal was marred with road rash and blood, but I knew exactly when and where I’d seen it before.
In my shop, on the wrist of Missy’s groom. The initial ‘R’ for Ryan Hart was engraved on the side.
“Help is on the way. Can you hear me?” I needed him to hear me. To tell me where he got that watch, but for the second time, I received no response.
A hand squeezed my arm and I jumped, startled by the intrusion into the bubble I’d created around Brendan, Bogart, myself and the victim.
Tommy’s handsome face full of concern, gazed down at me.
I could only imagine the guilt he felt for the injury he’d caused.
“Are you alright, Ms. Rilee?” He asked.
I wanted to laugh at his politeness. At the sympathy I saw on his face. Instead I nodded, as my eyes trailed over his body looking for any injuries.
Before I could refuse, Tommy pulled me to my feet and took my spot with Brendan, who was attempting to check the man’s carotid pulse. Brendan’s long slender fingers slid across the victim’s neck several times searching for something, anything, before he gave up and turned toward me, shaking his head. I looked back at the watch on Carl’s wrist.
“Did you see what happened?” Tommy asked gently, as if feeling out my answer for the truth.
“Tommy...” I started, my knees beginning to shake under his scrutiny. He’d just killed a man, and he wanted to know if I’d seen him do it?
I shook my head and pointed to his truck. When he looked down the street, everyone’s eyes followed. I jumped away and stood back with the crowd now beginning to form. Brendan joined me, and would have tried to hold me, hug me in a mutual sign of support if he hadn’t been holding his dirty hands away from his body, completely contaminated by death.
The realization that you don’t know someone like you thought you did? It sucks.
My guts turned upside down. The picture I had in my head of a friendly, polite and protective bouncer didn’t fit the man in front of me. I’d felt compassion for my Tommy, admired the way my Tommy treated Betty and the rest of my customers. I’d bonded with him and encouraged him to join the people I considered my friends in our carving class.
But suddenly everything was crystal clear, like the fog evaporating in a fast-forward time lapse. Tommy’d been jealous of Ryan, and Ryan was dead. The man at my feet — the toothless drunk, the vagrant who’d mumbled about ‘bloody treasure’ and ‘people killing people’ the night before, was dead in the middle of the street. Last night I’d thought he was just a talkative old fool blabbering about nothing. Now I knew he’d been talking about Tommy. The dead man at my feet had seen something he wasn’t supposed to. He’d survived one murder attempt, when my carving tool had been planted at the scene — only to have the second attempt on his life end successfully. And his killer stood over him.
Sirens blared down the road on Mount Hood Highway, they’d soon be turning down Yocum Loop, and I stood between the man in front of me and freedom. As soon as I opened my mouth, he’d be in jail.
“Ms. Rilee. Did you see who stole my truck?”
I looked at Tommy, then Brendan and surveyed the crowd. Knowing, but not being able to stop my jaw from hanging open, I wondered if they were falling for it. Did they really believe Tommy wasn’t the one who left the driver’s door open and then ran back to the scene?
From the expectant look on Brendan’s face, and the way everyone turned and waited for my answer — it appeared they did. They were waiting for me to name the killer.
>
I closed my mouth and swallowed hard and slow. “You...” My voice warbled, barely audible.
I heard people in the back ask, “Who’d she see?” “What?” and, “Did she say he did it?”
Whispers filled the crowd, everyone’s eyes volleyed between me and Tommy, then to Brendan who shook his head to acknowledge he didn’t have a clue. Apparently he hadn’t actually seen the accident. Brendan and I stared at each other and then turned toward Tommy in unison. Waiting for him to say something, but he never got the opportunity.
“The keys are still in the ignition!” A woman yelled from down the street.
Everyone’s attention was drawn down the street, just in time to see Betty reaching into the crime scene to pick up something from the floorboard of Tommy’s truck.
“Betty, don’t!” My voice found its strength once again and I ran to stop her from further contaminating the evidence.
When I reached her side, Betty had turned on the large Samsung phone in her hand that was requesting a password. The wallpaper, however, was easily identifiable. A man with his wife smiled back at us, his arms wrapped around her while she held onto a very small baby dressed in pink. I’d seen the photo several times. It had even graced the front page of the Multnomah County Gazette.
Mayor Bob was showing off his new family.
“Isn’t the mayor still in the hospital?” Betty asked.
“Yes, put it back Betty.” I said with more authority than I had.
Holy crap. Tommy had attacked Bob. And if the mayor died, Tommy would be guilty of not one, not two — hell, it wasn’t even three cases of murder. If the mayor died, he’d make the fourth murder victim in the small town of Tickle Creek in a little over a years’ time, three in the last couple weeks.
Betty listened to my instructions as the first two police cars showed up in town. We stayed near the vehicle, Betty to explain the phone, and me — to keep my distance from Tommy, who was staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face.