Hometown Favorite: A Novel

by BILL BARTON

  There never had been a new Tyler. Bruce was right all along.

  When Tyler reached over to zip his bag closed, he turned around in the desk chair and looked at the door. No one was there. He finished zipping his bag and returned to typing on the computer as he continued his phone conversation.

  "You're doing great, girl;" he said, speaking just above a whisper. "It's just like taking a nap. Listen to me. I've got everything set up, and I'm about to buy our plane tickets. Tonight we're gonna be flying south of the border and ... hold on. Hold on"

  Tyler heard the baby starting to crank up into a full-blown squall from the kitchen, and he did not want Sabrina to hear the noise in the background and turn her anxiety into full-blown panic. He swung the chair around and saw Bruce standing in front of him, holding a nine iron.

  "I'll call you right back, baby," Tyler said and closed his phone and set it on the desk. "That was your sister. Says your uncle's not feeling well and she's bringing him back to the house"

  Bruce stood his ground and waited for Tyler to move. The crying intensified.

  "Ain't you gonna do something to keep that baby quiet?"

  But Bruce did nothing, said nothing. He was waiting. It would not hurt Robert to cry.

  "So is history gonna repeat itself, my little brother?"

  It would repeat itself but with a different outcome. Bruce was not going to wait until the others got home. He was going to finish it now, his way. He was going to finish what he started in Los Angles outside his apartment door, and this time there was no posse to eliminate. It was man-to-man, and he was determined to rid his family of this evil for the last time.

  "You know when I get out of this chair, you're gonna die," Tyler said, drumming his fingers on top of the desk. "Do not go to the hospital. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Go straight to the morgue"

  Thus saith the old Tyler. If Bruce had only spoken up sooner, if he had only expressed his fears about Tyler from the beginning, perhaps this moment might never have arrived. But it was here. It was real. And it would be over soon.

  The crash in the kitchen and the ensuing shriek from the baby were the distraction Tyler needed. He leaped out of the chair the second Bruce turned his head toward the noise. Bruce recovered enough to make one swing with the club, hitting Tyler in the rib cage, but did little to stop his momentum. Tyler grabbed the iron with one hand and slammed the heel of his other hand into Bruce's nose, knocking him backward into the glass coffee table.

  The glass exploded, and Tyler turned away, squatting down to shield his face and body from the flying glass.

  When the glass settled to the floor, Tyler stood and raised the golf club in preparation for a second assault, but there was no counterattack. Bruce lay motionless on his back. A shard of glass had pierced his neck.

  Bruce felt a current pulsating through him like a small electrical charge. His impending death did not frighten him. He accepted it. What he struggled to accept was the failure of his second attempt to prevent this malevolence from overtaking his domain. He saw the blurry image of Tyler standing above him, resting the nine iron on his shoulder.

  He closed his eyes, feeling the strength flow out of him. He knew it was time to rest. He had done all he could do, and he felt a peace replacing the loss of vitality, a peace that brought knowledge-a knowing that the world would someday recognize what he had know all this time.

  Tyler watched until the last flicker of life had departed, and then he went into the kitchen to quiet the shrieking baby. The baby had knocked the bottle off his tray, spilling juice on the floor. Pure rage merged with the adrenaline coursing through Tyler, and within minutes, he had silenced the baby's cries. Permanently.

  He surveyed the kitchen like a dissatisfied artist trying to determine what brushstroke he needed to complete the picture. Tyler listened. The only sound was his own breathing. A cluster of fresh ice cubes dropping into the ice container in the freezer startled him, and he raised the golf club, prepared to strike. He opened the door to the freezer just to satisfy his curiosity and then slammed it shut.

  He reviewed the murder in each room and realized it was not quite the plan he and Sabrina had discussed, nor was it what he had envisioned in his private contingencies, but after pausing long enough to contemplate what had been accomplished, he felt as if he could live with this alternative. In fact, this scenario would be better for the future at large. He had crossed a line from which there would be no turning. He had made irrevocable choices, and it would require a few innovative brushstrokes before the canvas was complete. But he could see the big picture. He could do the simple math and figure out this reduction in the population would give him fewer responsibilities down the road. Nothing like a little pandemonium to help clear the mind and bring everything into focus.

  If he was committed to this altered plan and would see the upcoming challenges through to the end, this could very well evolve into the master plan that would make him famous. He had raised the bar. The criminal world would marvel for years to come about this day and what he pulled off. But he had to be very, very smart.

  Tyler's cell phone started ringing, and he saw it was Sabrina's number. He returned to the office, leaned the golf club against the desk, and unzipped his bag. He peeled off the latex gloves, put on a fresh pair, and then removed a nine-millimeter Glock and zipped the bag closed. After securing a round in the chamber, he stuffed the weapon into the back of his pants and took a few deep breaths. He decided it would be best to shield her eyes from the calamity in the kitchen as he guided her from the garage through the house to the office. He had to keep the visual trauma to a minimum, and there was no time to clean up the aftermath. Besides, leaving things as they were might work well in his master plan, he thought. He trusted his instincts to improvise. Still, it was going to be hard to keep Sabrina focused on the task at hand on the computer with the bloody scene just a few feet away.

  He figured Sabrina was calling to tell him she was almost there, so he glided through the kitchen and opened the door into the garage. The moment he silenced his phone, the door to the garage started opening, and he stepped back into the kitchen until he saw Sabrina driving Dewayne's car into its slot. The car flew into the garage, and she stopped it just before crashing into the back wall. Sabrina catapulted out of the car as if a snake had just slithered out from under the seat, her arms waving as though sending a distress signal.

  "I can't believe we're doing this. I can't believe we're doing this;' she said, skating in circles over the paved open space where Rosella parked her car.

  Tyler pushed the button in the kitchen to close the garage door, then scooped Sabrina into his arms and pressed her close, encouraging her with words of praise and comfort while covering her face with multiple kisses until she was able to gain control.

  "We're going to see this through, baby. It'll be over soon;" he said as he looked over her shoulder at Dewayne's slumped body in the front seat.

  After making sure Sabrina was calm enough to release, he reached into the front seat and unbuckled Dewayne's seat belt. He grabbed Dewayne by the arm and leg and was surprised at how easily the dead weight of the big man slid across the leather bench seat of the Denali. Maybe the pulsating adrenaline rush had given him superhuman strength.

  Once he positioned Dewayne in the driver's seat, Tyler tested which posture looked more natural to his master plan: would it be more natural to have Dewayne slumped over, his head resting on the steering wheel, or would it be better if they found him leaning with the back of his neck on the headrest?

  He asked Sabrina for her opinion and immediately regretted it. He knew from her response he needed to be direct in all his requests, so he grabbed her arm, pulled her over to the opened door, flattened out the fingers of her right hand, and scraped her nails down Dewayne's left cheek, which left his head leaning to one side, a position Tyler had not considered but liked for its ordinary pose.

  This simple task reinvigorated the hysteria from minutes ago when
Sabrina leaped out of the car, so Tyler decided it was time to let her know the original plan had advanced into a master plan much greater than the sum of its parts. The master plan required him to downgrade her role.

  With one hand, Tyler covered Sabrina's mouth, and with the other, he placed the barrel of the Glock against her temple.

  Her eyes widened to take in this incomprehensible universe as she sucked air through the mesh of Tyler's fingers. What horror had befallen her? What had happened to change the dream of paradise?

  In a whisper as gentle as the breath of a sleeper, he told her it would be best not to scream, and if she did everything he asked of her, then all would be well. He kissed her head and her eyes and then moved his hand from her mouth and kissed her lips. When he felt some of the tension begin to subside, Tyler placed his hand over Sabrina's eyes and led her out of the garage, through the kitchen, and into the office.

  The second decisive moment was at hand. When he sat her down in the desk chair, he spun it around so she would see the gravity of her situation and cooperate with him.

  "It was an accident;" Tyler said before spinning the seat around and pinning her shoulders against the high back of the leather chair to keep her from attacking him if she was so inclined.

  Sabrina's eyes began to throb as if to reject what she just saw, but her eyes failed to protect her and the image of her brother's death registering on her brain like a massive weight. She felt her head sinking into her shoulders unable to support the heaviness. She saw Tyler's lips moving, but she had to concentrate to hear the words.

  ". . . he just fell;" Tyler said. "We were messing around ... the fool tripped ... I'm telling you. . ."

  What was he telling her? What was he saying? Sabrina heard the words, but she could not understand them.

  "... And when that baby wouldn't shut up ... I tried, you know ... I tried to calm it down, but things went bad ... I picked it up and things went bad..

  Sabrina protectively moved her hands over her abdomen. She felt her heart and lungs burst into flames. This must be what hell is like, she thought. This is what it is going to feel like inside my body. I'm going to hell when this is over. For her part in this tragedy, she was convinced she deserved nothing less.

  Tyler pulled out the drawer and saw the taped, laminated sheet of the log-ins and passwords for the different business accounts. He blocked Sabrina's side vision and pressed the tip of the weapon against her head while she worked on the computer. He thought it best that her brother's body should not visually distract her as he pushed her to work in haste.

  Through the magic of SWIFT codes, Tyler was becoming a wealthy man. He could feel the tingle in his spine as Sabrina typed in each password for a Jobe Enterprises, Inc., business account, and he watched the millions depleted from each account into his own. Tyler had set up a numbered account in a Caribbean bank for the transferred money.

  Using the office computer to establish the account as well as to book the airline tickets was a stroke of genius, he thought. It would all make logical sense to those who would come upon the aftermath of this event and have to interpret and make sense of this bedlam.

  With the click of the keyboard, millions disappeared from one account and appeared in another. In a matter of only a few minutes, Tyler had fulfilled his rags-to-riches American dream. But he must not become giddy or careless here at the end, he reminded himself. He must remain focused and not be sidetracked from what he had set in motion.

  Sabrina had not spoken a word through the entire computerized banking process. The only account that did not have a log-in and password on the sheet was the Jobe personal checking account, which, she swore, contained only a few hundred thousand dollars.

  It was a paltry sum compared to the millions waiting for him. Tyler would not be a greedy man. Let them say of him when people recited this story that he had not left this family in destitution, that he had shown restraint.

  "I thought you had changed," Sabrina said, and she covered her mouth to stifle the sob bubbling from her throat.

  "I changed my address;' he said, checking the last of the numbers on the screen to make sure they matched the numbers he had printed off when he set up the account.

  "But your job ... and church, the things you told me ... how you treated me..

  "You can read about it in my autobiography," he said, and once he was assured that all the numbers checked out, he had her shut off the computer. "I'd like to thank the academy for this award for best actor in a leading role in bringing down the house of Jobe;" he said as he caressed Sabrina's swollen face with the tip of the gun.

  In the final terrifying moments as Sabrina felt the cool end of the gun slide over her skin and she looked into Tyler's grinning face, one lucid thought came to her. She had opened the door of her heart and this house to the devil. There could be no forgiveness for what she had done, only punishment and death.

  Sabrina knew what was coming and she would not go without some level of resistance. Tyler grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked. She released her grip of the armrests and rose to her feet. He kept the tension on her hair, lifting her almost off her feet as he jammed his weapon inside his pocket and clutched the nine iron leaning against the desk.

  Sabrina realized she still had her bag slung over her right shoulder as she was marched into the kitchen. She grasped her bag and swung around, striking Tyler in the side of the face with this newfound weapon. The heroic burst of energy to change fortune only amused Tyler, and Sabrina stared at him in wonder at the ineffectiveness of her strike.

  The blow to the side of her head was so swift, it did not have time to register in her brain.

  Tyler watched Sabrina crumple to the floor, a human rag doll among the scattered contents of her purse. This could not have been a more perfect outcome. He would not have to move her body at all. He bent down, picked up Sabrina's cell phone and passport, and slipped back into the office.

  One final sweep of the desk netted him another twenty-five hundred dollars and Dewayne's passport. This luck felt orchestrated, but he would never admit to it. No, when his criminal peers told this story, they would speak of him as the architect of this master plan. The glory belonged to him alone. He dropped the extra cash, Sabrina's cell phone, and his weapon into his bag, and then laid Sabrina's and Dewayne's passports on top of the fax machine next to the E-tickets and travel itinerary sent over from the agency-one-way flights to Argentina departing that afternoon.

  He needed to delay the admiration for his work. A few more details needed his attention. Satisfied with the condition of the office, he threw his bag over his shoulder, snatched the golf club-he may actually take up golf, he thought, once he had settled into a new location-and returned to the kitchen. Sabrina had not moved from the point on the floor where she had fallen, but to be sure she had indeed expired from the deft strike to the head, he placed two latexed fingers on her neck in search of a pulse. He found none, so he tiptoed out of the kitchen, careful to avoid contact with the bodies.

  Once in the garage he quickened his pace. After removing the smoothie containers from the cooler and dropping them into his bag, he decided he liked the door of the Denali to remain open. He then counted out five thousand in cash from what he had lifted from the desk in the office, leaving him a balance of just over ten thousand, and stuffed the money into Dewayne's coat pocket. He wrapped Dewayne's hand around the leather grip of the nine iron and set the end resting on the garage floor. Finally, he reached over the steering wheel and turned on the ignition.

  The master stepped back to the kitchen and took one last look before closing the door. Then the master reviewed all the steps he had taken to implement his plan, those calculated and those spontaneous. He almost hated to leave the scene, considering how perfectly everything had gone. He wished he could be here when Rosella arrived, followed by the paramedics and the police. He wished he could hear their interpretations of the gallery of scenes laid out for them, gloat as they deduced the wrong conclusions
, even muster a level of false sympathy for the accused.

  Yes, he would write this story of exactly how it happened. He would not leave this masterwork for lesser mortals to write. His account would be definitive.

  "This is OnStar. My name is Martha. How may we assist you, Mr. Jobe?"

  The voice startled him out of his reverie. Martha had to ask the question a second time before Tyler was sure of the voice's origin. How did that happen? He did not move. He held his breath, his mind racing with new alternatives to this unexpected twist. Martha asked the question a third time with a slight edge of impatience, and Tyler realized he must have hit the OnStar button when turning on the ignition to the car.

  "Due to lack of response, OnStar is disconnecting:'

  No one would believe this ending except the aficionados of pulp fiction. It was a detail even the master planner had to admit he would never have chosen to tempt fate's whims. It was brilliant, and the master planner filled the enclosed darkening atmosphere with uproarious laughter.

  Just hours before the Jobe calamity, Cherie had left Webb Furniture early, complaining of some pains in her chest and an upset stomach, a delayed reaction to last night's Chinese takeout, she explained. She took a half day of sick leave, a rarity in Cherie's professional life. On her sofa was where she wanted to be, watching Dr. Phil and Oprah, shows she never saw because she was stretching sheets of simulated leather over the metal frames during daylight hours.