Murder in a Very Small Town

by Greg Jolley

  “Thank you, Wiki,” he said, not looking up. “I know what model it is. My favorite.”

  “Tell me,” Jame asked.

  “These are in my book with the story and photos of the pilots and stuff. Jame?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets? I keep looking at them.”

  “I don’t—” Jame started and stopped, nonplussed.

  “Me either,” Charlie agreed.

  The airplane took flight again, flying high overhead in the boy’s banana sticky fingers.

  ✳ ✳ ✳

  When Jame backed his pickup into the driveway, he was aiming Abel’s hut carefully. Charlie was napping and Wiki sat on the front porch in her white and gold starred dress, watching the hut wheels roll on the gravel toward her. Jame pulled forward and back, adjusting, to get the little house to the cleared side of the driveway.

  When he first towed the hut from the lake, he had driven it to the lot next to the blackened rubble of the Lorenzo home. Moving it again, to his house, was a decision he made without asking Abel. He unhitched the trailer and worked around the little house with jacks. Wiki scooted to the side of the porch, careful to keep her pale legs from the sun.

  “It looks good there,” she said when Jame walked to her from the leveled hut. “All it needs is some flower boxes. Maybe a deck. I bet she’ll be pleased.”

  “Think so? I hope so.”

  Jame took off his gloves and sat down on the porch beside her. They both looked to the driveway. The little blue house had a backdrop of tall green trees.

  “I should get going,” Wiki said after a couple of minutes. “Get the Danser place swept, cleaned, and aired.”

  Jame did not reply.

  Wiki waited for a response that she didn’t expect. She stood up somewhat awkwardly, her balance a little off. She went inside with her hands caressing her tummy.

  The first hot days of summer brought waves of humidity. Along with the hot damp air, sunset was occurring later into the night.

  As the hot days continued, Wiki adopted a playful, cranky attitude. She took three showers each day, rinsing away the stickiness from her face and her changing body. Charlie also took to the water often, most of the time dashing up Jame’s dock and cannonballing into the lake.

  Abel ventured from her blue home more often with each passing day, especially when Jame was around. The two of them had painted it. And the hut had expanded. Jame built her a good-sized deck, adding planter boxes around the front and along the deck. He also plumbed Abel’s place and ran electricity to it. The gunshot wound no longer affected her movements, but she was self-conscious of the scars on her rear and the exit wound on her left lower stomach.

  Abel adjusted the rear of her swimsuit while walking from her house to Jame’s. Out on Jame’s back deck, she spotted Wiki and Charlie off to the side of the seawall building another one of their hubcap-sized fires. Wiki sat in the shade of the umbrella that Jame set up for her, the pole set inside a coffee can with cement poured inside. She and Charlie were sitting in the dirt with their legs out wide, forming a rough diamond, their bare feet touching. Wiki was in her usual role of gatherer and Charlie was the architect. Within the diamond of their legs, Charlie was working with the small stones, twigs, and bark Wiki was handing him. Wiki leaned back and collected more sticks and stones, then set them in two neat piles for Charlie to work with.

  Abel couldn’t make out the design of that day’s fire, but it didn’t resemble the often-built grade school building. It looked like Charlie was getting creative, stretching out; there were a few structures with paths of crunched grass and leaves connecting them. She stayed on the deck in the shade that would soon disappear when the sun cleared the cottage roof. Wiki waved to her in a cautious manner and looked for a response.

  It was easier to deal with Wiki when Jame was around, but he was in town picking up groceries. Abel felt her shoulders tighten, her reflex response each time she saw Wiki. She turned to Charlie and his series of little wood and bark-roofed buildings. Abel lifted her hand and waved back, but it was too late, the hello went to the back of Wiki’s head.

  Abel went inside for a bottled water from Jame’s refrigerator. She took a sip, sitting in a chair at the back patio table. She was studying Charlie and Wiki when she heard the cottage doors open and close.

  “Hello,” Jame called out.

  Abel let out a long-held breath, turned around, watched, and waited. Charlie and Wiki were talking and laughing. She listened to Jame talking to himself as he moved through the cottage to the kitchen.

  Five minutes passed.

  She continued to study the back door, listening to Jame, and waiting.

  Jame came outside with the pie Wiki had baked earlier on top of a stack of plates. Abel knew he had silverware in his shorts pocket and didn’t have to look, which was good because she could focus on his eyes and expressions.

  She frowned. He entered the sunlight looking across to Wiki and Charlie instead of her. He turned to the table and set the pie, plates, and silverware on the rough wood.

  “Abel,” he said with kind eyes.

  She felt flush, smiled back, and she was still smiling when he turned away. “Be right back,” he said.

  Abel watched Jame go back inside. She watched the door until he returned with a long knife and spatula.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Thank you, I got it.”

  He turned again, but that was okay. He was giving her his attention instead of the two across the way. He came out to the table with a stack of plastic clear glasses and a pitcher of unsweetened tea. He set them down, standing very close beside her.

  She watched his eyes. He wasn’t looking to Charlie and Wiki. He was looking to her and didn’t look away, even when Charlie called out his name. Abel heard the pad of the boy’s feet growing closer. Jame’s hand glided to hers. For the first time since the hospital, he took her hand and raised it, his touch light and warm.

  Charlie bounded up onto the deck with a yelp.

  With Jame’s hand in hers, Abel felt a glow in her neck and cheekbones. She turned and was pleased to see that Wiki could see the two of them holding hands.

  Wiki walked awkwardly carrying the umbrella in the coffee can. She set it on the deck and patted the dirt and dust from her white dress. She offered them a pretend cough with her black sunglasses steady on the three at the table.

  She is so odd and hot looking, Abel thought, using her free hand to touch her own, clear glasses.

  “Wonder what’s for lunch?” Wiki asked, smiling.

  Charlie used the nickname he had given Wiki, “No pie for you, Chubby—have a carrot. Have some lettuce, Mrs. Rabbit.” The last was new and Charlie laughed, proud with his own cleverness.

  Wiki frowned and shook her head, and then she let up on the faked displeasure and grinned to the boy.

  “Look at you two,” she said to Jame and Abel.

  Abel felt a third rush of warmth, this one expanding through her chest. She squeezed Jame’s hand slightly and smiled wider.

  After lunch, Jame rose from beside Abel and went inside. He returned with a plastic water pistol and presented it to Charlie, who was pleased and grateful.

  “Is it loaded?” he asked.

  Yes,” Jame said.

  Charlie took aim and fired at the dock and then the far away cottages across the lake. Jame sat down next to the boy, and they chattered about targets and Charlie’s hits and misses, both happy and boy-serious.

  Wiki and Abel were not as pleased as both watched the guys play with the plastic gun.

  ✳ ✳ ✳

  Charlie and Jame were forty yards off shore, standing belly deep beside one of the surfboards. Like the day before, Charlie climbed up onto the board and smiled at the scent of coconut scented surf wax. Jame waded over behind him and when Charlie dipped his head once, he began pushing the boy and the board through the flat warm water. Jame pushed the tail of the board with all his might, an
d the boy on the surfboard glided away from his open hands. Charlie clambered to his feet, keeping to the center of the board. He crouched forward with his arms out to his sides as he hooted and surfed to shore.

  Jame helped Charlie catch six more waves. The last ride was the longest—the nose of the surfboard cracking gently against the sea wall. Charlie bounded off into the shallow water, spun to Jame and shouted, “Time to burn the school yard!”

  Abel turned from Jame to that day’s fire design in the dirt off to her right. The construction was spread out between Wiki’s open legs. She didn’t look to Wiki’s face, but to her hands. As instructed by Charlie, Wiki was setting wood matches, flame tip up, among the buildings.

  Charlie dropped to his knees beside Wiki, dripping water and nudging her shoulder for room under the umbrella. Abel wanted to watch what happened next, but she wanted Jame’s hand much more.

  “Buckethead’s gonna drown me,” Jame said to her, wiping water from his face and shaking his hair with a smile. He sat down beside her and she took his hand.

  Wiki opened the matchbox and handed a match to Charlie. Apparently, the fire was a roaring success. It was hard to see with the rising smoke, but Charlie was cheering and Wiki was laughing as she scooted back in the red dust, back from the small flames.

  ✳ ✳ ✳

  After Jame left for work, Abel went out back and watched Wiki rake and shovel up the fire scene. She kept an ear to the cottage. Sheriff Deane often came by around that time. Abel suspected that the rehired sheriff waited for Jame to depart before she drove on over. Sure enough, the two front doors opened and closed. Could be Jame, having forgotten his lunch, but that wasn’t like him. Abel decided was it best to be sitting still focused on Wiki when the sheriff found her.

  Sheriff Deane entered the cottage quietly. Like the day before, Charlie was napping on his couch of a bed. She noticed that more toys and clothes had been brought over from the Sew What. She wondered if it was Jame or Wiki who had made the latest run. The white furniture of the room was cool blue in the shade, and the lights were off. She crossed to the lake-view room, glancing at the boy breathing deeply, likely dreaming.

  “Just be her friend,” Deane reminded herself, entering the next room. “Try not to even mention the case.” Abel must have helped with her father and brother’s madness, but the girl had been in a tight spot with a horrid life with those two, fishing hut or not. “No need for any questions today. Just try to enjoy and charm, but also learn.”

  Deane stepped out back and there was Abel seated at the table. The girl turned and offered a new, friendly smile. True to her promise to herself, Deane gave the girl a smile and sat down beside her, not saying a word. The two of them watched preggy Wiki add the last shovel full of ash and ember to the trash can at her side.

  ✳ ✳ ✳

  Sunset was at nine o’clock. Wiki was still impatient with the long evenings in Michigan; in her past, sunset was much earlier in the day, and was the time when she would leave Sara and Pauline still on the set. Those two liked their late nights. When the filming was done in the failing light, there were the big table dinners with cast and crew.

  She got up carefully from her couch and went to Charlie’s room to peak in on him and share a few buddy comments.

  He was sitting on the white carpet in front of the television Jame had brought in from storage. There was no television service to the cottage, and it wasn’t needed. Upon request, she had brought Charlie’s PlayStation 1 over from the Sew What and then sat back and watched the boy expertly connect all the wires and start the device.

  His little hands were fingering and thumbing the control with his wide eyes aimed at the television. He was rocking side to side and ducking from the action on the screen. Wiki watched him, not the game he was absorbed in. She knelt behind him and gently placed her hands on his swaying shoulders.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said loud enough to be heard over the game sounds. He didn’t turn from the action.

  “Hey, buddy.”

  When his swaying head momentarily paused, she kissed the back of his head.

  “Love you,” he said without turning.

  “Love you, too. Creep.”

  Charlie laughed and didn’t turn. He added, “Rabbit.”

  Wiki smirked and pushed at the back his head. She stood carefully and left his bedroom for her couch.

  With Abel also gone—likely asleep in her little blue house in the driveway—Wiki had the lake view and her iPad to her own.

  She was sleepy, but curious. It had been six days without a message from Sara to delete. For scary bemusement, Wiki decided to open the single message from Twat. She scrolled down into the middle of the stream, and it felt like stepping into another person’s dark and dirty bath water, filled with the twisted and self-concerned, hot, accusatory drivel. She ignored the repeated accusation that Wiki was conspiring and meddling. Right, from a mere six thousand miles away.

  The night before, Wiki had been declared guilty of causing Twat’s firing from the studio. Right, Twat, oh, and I, also masterminded 9-11.

  Wiki scrolled rather than read to the end and yawned.

  “Sleepy time,” she whispered to the iPad. There was a three asterisk in the text. She decided to finish the email and delete it like all the others.

  This closing was different. It had same the chaotic sentence structure and began with a foul vindictive. Then the words “Sara is missing. What the fuck did you do now?”

  Wiki read on, wading into the vile, looking for any clue to what Twat meant by “missing.” There was no information.

  Wiki closed the iPad. She took off all her clothes, lay down, and stretched while pulling the white flannel sheet up over herself. She was sleepy. And curious. And concerned.

  “Charlie? Wake up, lumber head. It’s the Fourth of July.”

  Charlie opened one eye. “Piss off, Chubby,” he replied and giggled, as did Wiki.

  There was a bacon and eggs pie for breakfast. The lake-view windows were filled with crisp sun light, and the lake was a warm, royal blue.

  After breakfast, Jame and Abel left for town. Both of them were volunteers in the group responsible for decorating Dent for the holiday. Like the years before, there wouldn’t be any parade or concessions or music or speeches. Dent didn’t have the resources and, really, there wasn’t anything interesting among the neighbors around the lake. There would be nighttime fireworks from a wood float in the center of the lake, and the Quickee was serving free ice cream all day.

  Jame and Abel put up buntings on the vacant storefronts. They and two others set up aluminum ladders in the middle of Main Street and draped a flag from the town’s solo, always blinking, yellow traffic light.

  Other volunteers set American flags on sticks on the front lawns of the cottages across from the shops. Jame’s dad made a rare trip to town and attempted to help the fireworks crew launch their float from the dock behind Mayor Sheaan’s place. When Jame and Abel were done, they headed over to the Quickee for a free vanilla and chocolate swirled cone. They walked close together, Abel holding Jame’s hand. The pack of teens joined them halfway up Main Street. Looks and “hey’s” were exchanged as well as a few rich comments about the Jame and Abel handholding. The tallest teen told Jame he was going to park his jeep in the center of Main Street.

  “I’m gonna crank the stereo,” he explained, “and blast Neil Young’s Stars and Bars.”

  ✳ ✳ ✳

  Back at the cottage, Wiki sat in the comfortable white wide chair that Charlie had dragged outside for her.

  “No more sitting in the dirt for Chubby,” he exclaimed.

  He hefted the umbrella in a bucket and set it beside her. Wiki was looking down between her bare feet while Charlie opened the umbrella for her.

  The lake at her toe tips was clear and warm. The miniature lake wasn’t leaking because Charlie had lined its underbelly with Saran Wrap. Main Street was a handmade furrow in the red dust. Dent was surrounded by brown trees made of dr
ied leafy twigs found about the yard. At Charlie’s left knee, a replica of Jame’s cottage had been constructed using wood chips and short sticks. The houses and shops along Main Street were also constructed with the same materials. Along the street and around the lake, wooden matches were the people. Charlie had made a smooth dirt airfield where the die-cast kamikaze airplane was parked.

  Some of the shops and cottages were incomplete. Charlie was emitting construction sounds from the corner of his mouth as he stuffed each with dry grass and then affixed their rooftops.

  Wiki leaned forward with some difficulty and drew her fingers through the soil at the edge of town. Charlie watched her hand.

  “The road to the city,” she explained.

  “I don’t think so, Chubby,” he told her firmly, “I just want town.”

  Wiki swept her addition away.

  Charlie nodded and said, “Thank you, Wiki.”

  It felt good to lean back, and Wiki decided to leave the construction of the diorama of Dent to her buddy.

  After all the buildings of Dent were filled with flammable grass, Charlie got up and rubbed his hands, forming a dust cloud. “I need a break,” he told Wiki in his adult voice. “And a Popsicle. Want one?”

  “Oh hell yes, buddy.”

  Charlie crossed to the deck and went inside. After he let the door slam, she smiled and looked down at the lake he had built. The surface was smooth, like a mirror laid flat. A replica of Jame’s surfboard floated peacefully beside the dock. She looked past Jame’s cottage to Abel’s house beside it, her place made of an empty matchbox that has been colored blue with a crayon.

  When Charlie returned, he and Wiki bit and licked their root beer popsicles and discussed what else the town needed. Charlie couldn’t work with only one free hand, so he talked in his serious voice of the dangers of the dry season.

  When they finished their popsicles, the sticks were put to good use like those over the past three days of construction.