Woulds

by J. L. Wilson

  “Each kid? It’s only PJ and Richard, right? Those are the only kids who people mention.”

  Alan shook his head. “The oldest was William, but he died when he was little. I think it was a fever or measles. Young Henry died right after he graduated from college. I think he got food poisoning or an infection. He and his father fought tooth and nail over the business, and I heard a rumor Old Henry disinherited Young Henry right before Young Henry got sick. Old Henry had a fit of remorse but it was too late. His kid was dead.” Alan recited this with a faint air of satisfaction, as if pleased the old man got his comeuppance.

  “That’s a tragedy. So young.”

  “Good riddance,” Alan said blithely. “Young Henry was an asshole. Richard and John both wanted a part of the business. I don’t think anybody else cared. Geoff was younger than us. He got as far away from the family as he could. He’s breeding dogs, Brittany spaniels, I think, in California. The girls all married and moved out of state. I think Matilda is in Indiana and Eleanor married somebody who owns a soap company. Poor Joan, the youngest, was married to Cecil Somebody, who died. She married someone else who was a nasty S.O.B. When he died, she joined a nunnery.”

  I blinked in surprise. “A nunnery. Heavens, she and my ex would be a match made in heaven.”

  Alan almost choked on his beer. “I always forget Ron joined the church.”

  “It’s hard to argue with God,” I said with a straight face. “When God calls, a man must answer.” I started grinning. “At least he finally lived up to his name.” When Ronald Charles Church and I divorced, we all said how apt it was that he joined a monastery.

  Alan’s grin faded when his gaze went past me. I turned to see Richard Fitz heading our way. I moved back to the center of the bar as Fitz said, “Alan Dale, is that you? It’s good to see you. How long has it been?”

  From the look on Alan’s face, I think the appropriate answer would be not long enough. I busied myself with customers at the far end of the bar, but soon rejoined Alan in order to wait on some new arrivals.

  “Tucker, this is Richard Fitz.” Alan leaned back on his bar stool to tacitly include the other man in our conversation. “PJ’s brother,” he added.

  Richard’s face hardened momentarily, his lips twisting slightly in distaste. It must have rankled to have his claim to fame to be PJ’s brother. “I’ve heard great things about this pub and the restaurant,” Richard said, his gaze going from Alan to me. “It’s what Barnsdale needed, an upscale sort of establishment.”

  He was right, but something in his supercilious attitude grated on my nerves. “We’re pleased with our success,” I said noncommittally. “Marianne Archer mentioned you were visiting for the town celebration.”

  “That’s one reason.” He leaned a tanned forearm on the counter and edged closer to Alan, who sat back slightly, avoiding contact. Fitz was crowding him, almost leaning on him. But then Fitz spoke in a low voice and I decided it was his way of being conspiratorial. “Did you hear about the problem at the factory last night?”

  “Problem?” I kept my voice steady, but it was hard. Fitz was equating death with something as mundane as a problem?

  Alan’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head slightly, warning me to keep my temper under control. “Can you talk about it? Do you know what happened?”

  Richard shot him a speculative gaze. “Don’t you know all about it? Aren’t you and the Sheriff friends?” His voice was carefully neutral but I detected curiosity and maybe distaste or censure.

  “Despite what you may have heard, the Sheriff has always acted in a totally professional manner. If there is an ongoing investigation, he wouldn’t jeopardize it by speaking out of turn.” Alan started to stand. “Tuck, I hope you’re feeling better. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “I’m sorry, Alan. I didn’t mean to offend you.” Richard put a restraining hand on Alan’s forearm. There was something strangely intimate about the gesture, something almost, I don’t know, something obscene.

  Alan shook off his hand. “Sorry, but I’m busy, Richard.” He left, moving so quickly he almost knocked over the man who sat next to him at the bar.

  “I think I must have irritated him.” Richard smiled at me like he was inviting me to share his bemusement. “I suppose I should apologize.”

  “Well, that would be about as useful as a football bat.” I caught a glimpse of PJ, who stood near the back doorway, talking to a woman with her back turned to me. I recognized her plump butt in skin-tight denim short shorts and the mop of three-T hair—teased, tangled, and tumbling down her back. I shook my head in disgust. What did PJ want with some tramp when he had such a classy wife at home?

  Richard looked over his shoulder at the pair and sighed. “My brother has questionable taste in women.” He turned back to me, dark eyes amused, inviting me to once again share in his jokes.

  “If brains were leather, he couldn’t saddle a flea.” PJ chose that moment to shift his attention, his eyes meeting mine over the crowd. His gaze shifted from me to his brother and one corner of his mouth turned up in a sour grimace. The woman tugged on his arm and they vanished through the back door.

  His brother, unaware of PJ’s exit, laughed softly. “Colorful phrasing, but true. I don’t know why Isabel married him.”

  Well, duh. For the money. I almost said it aloud, but I restrained myself. “Nice to meet you.” I moved away on pretense of helping one of the waitresses.

  As I filled orders, I wondered how I was going to meet Alan. The plan was for me to go to his house with him, but I was supposed to be ill, so it might seem odd if I left the bar and went to his place. Of course, maybe nobody was watching me. Maybe this was all a lot of paranoia for nothing.

  I mentally reviewed the files on Will’s memory stick while I worked. From what I could remember, it was all copies of invoices, bills, and those disgusting photographs. Thinking about the pictures made my stomach twist. I considered the laughing people around me and I could imagine their horror if they knew how their eggs were produced.

  And I could easily imagine how quickly they would forget when it came time to compare prices in the grocery store. Rob and PJ were right. Factory farming produced cheap food. Whether it was ethical, moral, or good for you was another story. Many people couldn’t afford to make the distinction, especially given the economy.

  “So are Alan and Owen Knott involved?”

  I raised my head. Richard Fitz was in front of me, having sat while I was woolgathering. “That’s really no one’s concern, is it?” I said in an I’m not talking about it tone of voice.

  He took the hint. “I’ll have a glass of your dark stout. What is it?” He eyed the framed advertisements over the mirrored back of the bar. “A glass of the Friar’s Folly. Named for you, I presume?”

  I carefully poured a glass and knifed the suds from the top before setting it in front of him. “I don’t know if I can be accused of a lot of follies in my day.”

  “Oh, I’m sure there are depths to you which might be surprising.” He took a sip. “Very nice. Who’s your brew master?”

  “Miller Muchson. You probably don’t know him. He came here from Des Moines. He owned a brewpub there.” I started to walk away.

  “Ah, yes. The Ploughman’s Pub.” Fitz set his glass down, centering it on the coaster. “It was unfortunate what happened to him. He was probably happy to have a second chance here.”

  I stopped in my tracks. “If you knew who the brew master was, why did you ask?”

  “I was curious to see if you’d answer.”

  “Since his name is on the plaque outside, it’s not really a secret.” My hands trembled when I wiped the counter. “I’m surprised you know what happened.”

  “I did some research.” Fitz’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, which flickered past me to the booze wall, the beer pulls, and the back bar, probably estimating the cost of everything. “I was curious about your establishment. It’s done very well.”

  “We’ve worked har
d,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “Miller is a fine brew master.”

  “Except for that small problem in Des Moines, when a batch of the beer was tainted and so many people got sick.” Fitz’s gaze came back to rest on me.

  I leaned forward, meeting his gaze. “Just like the eggs in your factory, I guess.” We stared at one another for a few long seconds before he nodded.

  “True. Of course, the egg problem is nationwide. It wasn’t limited to one neighborhood in one town. And it’s received so much attention. Unlike the problem Mr. Muchson had.”

  My mind raced while I considered and discarded several retorts. I knew about the lawsuit which forced Miller into bankruptcy but it happened decades earlier and brewing techniques and equipment had changed radically since that time. I trusted Miller and I knew he was a conscientious, careful man. We were forced to get hefty insurance policies because of what happened to him, but I didn’t mind. Well, not much anyway.

  “What happened with Miller happened years ago,” I said. “And no one died. Unlike those children at the day care who died when they ate scrambled eggs.”

  “Eggs which probably were undercooked,” Fitz said immediately.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Good defense. Blame it on the underpaid cooks at the school.”

  “A school shouldn’t blame a food supplier if they can’t afford to hire competent staff.” He said this with such glib assurance I realized I was hearing a line the defense would take.

  “I’m sure it will be consolation to the parents whose children died.” I walked to the far end of the bar, relieved to see Miller coming in the back door. He was a small, wizened man with a shock of dark hair sprinkled with white and strong arms, muscled from years of lifting heavy equipment.

  “I talked to Alan and he said you needed help.” He ducked under the bar divider. “That’s one heck of a black eye.”

  I forgot all about it. I touched my cheek and winced. “Yeah, it still hurts. Thanks for coming in. I’m beat.” I smiled shakily but I didn’t have to fake it that I felt sick. My little conversation with Richard Fitz set my stomach to churning and my head to pounding. “I think I’ll go home and take a nap.”

  “Don’t worry about anything here. I’ll close ’er up later on. Anything I need to know?”

  “No, not really. I’m running a tab for the bourbon and coke at the far end and the guy in the middle with the beer hasn’t paid. Other than them, we’re mostly current.”

  “Sounds good.” He moved to the center of the bar where Richard Fitz was seated. I headed for the staff room and my purse, anxious to leave before I got into any more verbal fistfights with Fitz.

  The alliteration of the thought made me grin. Fist Fights with Fitz. It sounded like a movie. I slung my purse strap over my shoulder and had my hand on the knob when the back door was flung open. Bright afternoon sunlight momentarily blinded me. A woman took a step inside, stopped, bumped into me and yelled, “Is a doctor here? I need help!”

  “Call 911, Miller,” I yelled over my shoulder.

  He nodded and picked up the phone.

  “What’s up?” I turned to the woman. It was PJ’s girlfriend, the short-short girl with big hair. Her blouse was only half-buttoned, revealing a large amount of her white right breast and her shorts were unbuttoned, sagging on her hips. I stepped back. “What’s going on?”

  “He’s dying. I don’t know what’s wrong. He’s dying.”

  “What?”

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me to the door. “It’s PJ. He’s dying.”

  Chapter 8

  “What the hell?” I tried to pull away from the woman, but I was pushed from behind by Richard Fitz, who put his hands on my shoulders and propelled me through the door. Fitz almost ran over me as we hurried along the back sidewalk to the parking lot.

  The woman—Marsha? Marcie?—I couldn’t remember her name, dithered ahead of us, stopping so we almost collided before racing ahead only to stop again a few steps from a black SUV parked at the southeast end, as far as you could get and still be in the lot. It was set off from the other cars by the simple method of parking at a diagonal and taking up extra space.

  “Asshole. What right does he have to take up three parking spaces?”

  “Probably worried about dents,” Richard said. “It’s an eighty-thousand dollar car.”

  “What is it, made of gold?” The idea of a car costing almost as much as my house was mind-boggling. I expected it of sleek BMWs or sports cars, but an SUV?

  “There,” the woman sobbed, her pointing arm wobbling up and down. “He’s there.”

  “That doesn’t give him the right to use three parking slots. What did you do?” I asked the woman, venting my anger on her.

  “I didn’t do any-any-anything,” she stammered, tears streaming off her face. She seemed oblivious to the mascara-streaked tears or her breast which was clearly visible now. “We were fooling around and-and—” A new gush of tears obliterated anything she tried to say.

  “Get a grip. Tuck yourself in. Button your pants. Your mother must be spinning in her grave to see you like this.”

  My harsh words seemed to have the effect I intended. “My mother isn’t dead,” she protested, fumbling with her pants snap.

  “Well, if she isn’t dead, you’d give her a heart attack, acting like this. What happened?” I took a couple of steps nearer the SUV where Richard stood, staring through one dark gray-tinted window into the back seat.

  “We decided to have fun,” the woman said, tears mingled with makeup dribbling onto her blouse. She must have felt their contact with her skin, because she gasped at the sight of her breast, bobbing free for all to see. She stuffed it back in her blouse while she babbled her tale. “PJ was hot to trot, so we got in the back seat. I told him he had to use a condom, so we got the condom on.”

  I held up a hand. “Too much information. Cut to the chase, what happened?”

  “You can’t see in,” Marcie-Marsha said to Richard, who was trying to peer into the back of the SUV. “PJ said it’s special glass, you can’t see anything. Did you call a doctor?” she asked, swinging to me and almost overbalancing in her high-heeled sandals.

  “Somebody inside did.” I saw a few pub patrons grouped around the door. I waved them back inside. “Nothing to see!” I called out. They waved in response and meandered away, curiosity satisfied.

  Richard threw open the SUV’s door and I got a clear view into the back seat. PJ Fitz sprawled on the leather upholstery, his feet pointing at me and his head lolling near the far foot well. He was twitching, his hands jerking and his tongue flapping around like a beached fish gulping for air. His pants were wadded around his knees, revealing a surprising glimpse of chubby white thighs, his flaccid belly and something I didn’t want to identify.

  I hastily averted my eyes. “Holy hell. What happened? What did you do?”

  Marsha-Marcie took a step toward the SUV and her eyes widened. She seemed to crumple, her knees buckling like all her bones dissolved. I caught her when she went past me, but she was at least six inches taller than me and heftier.

  I landed on my right side when her dead weight descended on top of me, the injured side of my face making contact with the pavement and her body colliding with my purse and pushing it into my stomach. I heard a tearing sound then my elbow cracked against the asphalt and I saw stars.

  For one panicked second I lost all the breath in my lungs. I heaved in a gasp, almost choking in my anxiety to get oxygen. “Get off of me!” I poked and prodded at the female flesh on me but I was pinned to the sweltering pavement, enveloped by mixed odors of cloying perfume, tar, and sweat. If the weight didn’t kill me, the smells would.

  I floundered, finally managing to get an elbow into her waist to roll her off of me. My purse went with her, but I grabbed it and tugged, dragging it from under her inert body. Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer. The firehouse and EMTs were only three blocks to the south and the police station was eight blocks north,
so I expected to see an ambulance, but instead it was a patrol car that pulled in first, screeching to a halt between rows of parked cars, lights flashing.

  I sat up and rested my bleeding elbows on my knees, my head ringing and my stomach heaving. Two police officers emerged from the car and one headed for me. “I’m fine,” I called out. “Go help in the car there!” I waved them to the SUV. The door nearest me was closed, with Richard on the other side, as was the patrol car. One of the officers joined Richard and the other continued on to me.

  “I’m okay.” I wiped sweat from my face with one grimy forearm. When I lowered the arm, I saw the blood. “Oh, cripes, now what?”

  “You got a cut on your cheek.” The young officer knelt next to Marsha-Marcie, who was starting to stir. “Ma’am, are you okay?”

  She rolled over and her boobs nearly escaped her blouse again. “What happened? Where am I?” she asked in true fainting damsel-in-distress fashion.

  The guy’s eyes bugged at the sight of all her female flesh. I used his distraction to get on my feet, starting on all fours before pushing upward off my knees, my purse dangling off my shoulder. I groaned aloud when my hands made contact with new bruises and I was pretty sure the warmth on my cheek was trickling blood. I retrieved Alan’s hanky which was still in my pocket and dabbed at my face. It came away dotted with blood but not saturated, so apparently I escaped serious injury.

  I edged past the distressed damsel and her rescuer and rounded the rear of the SUV. The police officer and Richard were staring inside. “What happened?” I asked, still patting my face with the once-white hanky.

  “I don’t know.” Richard’s voice was tremulous. His face seemed odd and I realized it was leeched of color, his tan skin mottled and mixed with an ashy gray. He appeared ten years older than he was minutes earlier.

  I looked past him into the SUV. PJ Fitz’s head drooped over the window, his tongue swollen and protruding and his eyes—Lordy, his eyes were like a doll’s eyes, all bulging and glassy in his beet red face. I took an involuntary step back when the smell reached me, a stench of feces and sweat. “Is he—?” Stupid question. Of course he’s dead. Or damn close to it.