Murders Among Dead Trees

by Chute, Robert Chazz

  Marcus took a sip of bottled water and thought for a moment. “Mysteries aren’t divine just because we don’t understand them…and one mystery doesn’t explain another. Saying God did it means nothing. One day we’ll know about the things we don’t know about now and then we’ll know we would have been better off doing good deeds on Sunday mornings instead of screwing around in church. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. Hope you find peace for your achy-breaky heart.”

  He turned up the music and soon Billy Ray Cyrus was singing Achy Breaky Heart. Marcus’s smile faded as he looked up to see Donegal’s great red sweating moon face. Even through the thick glass, Marcus could hear his boss was yelling at Jimmy, the summer intern and Marcus’s call screener, but the man’s eyes were boring into Marcus’ head as he yelled.

  Jimmy was speaking to someone on the phone and waving for Marcus to come into the production booth. Billy Ray Cyrus’s voice followed him out as he leaned out of the studio door, careful to keep the door between him and his irate employer.

  “What’s up, boss?”

  “If you’re going to change the format of my radio station, it would be a courtesy for you to let me know.”

  “Next time I change the format, I’ll definitely let you know.”

  “The Sheilas are getting a lot of angry calls.”

  “Yes. Should I pack up my stuff?”

  “Why?” Donegal said, suddenly looking more serene. “I was going to fire you because I didn’t think anyone was listening to your show. Turns out you can turn up the heat. Just make sure you don’t let the callers swear on air again. You let that last goddamn bastard say goddamn.”

  “Goddamn,” Marcus said. “So, you’re saying I’m not fired?”

  “People are listening. That’s all I care. You sucked last week because you were bored. When anybody’s bored, they’re boring. Get back in there and hit ’em again.”

  “I don’t know what else to say. I thought I’d get pulled from the booth by now.”

  “Try slagging the government on taxes and gas prices. That always works. Tell ’em they need to pay more for gas and we need to raise taxes. That’ll piss ’em off.”

  “You really aren’t worried about ratings?” Marcus said.

  “People listen longer to people they hate than those they love. Look at Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern.”

  “Shit,” Marcus said. “That’s the nicest thing anyone ever said to me since last night. You should know I really pissed off Mr. Chigley. The sponsor.”

  “Screw Chigley. He’s a lousy winner when I have to play a round with him and he pays late. When he calls I’ll listen to his complaint and then jack up the price. You keep up this intensity, your spots are worth more, anyway.”

  Jimmy got off the phone, his eyebrows high in surprise. “That movie star is missing and her uncle’s house burned to the ground last night.”

  “Shit again,” said Marcus. “Boss, I quit. Jimmy, you just moved up to on-air personality. You’ve got about fifteen seconds till that song is over.”

  Marcus didn’t bother saying goodbye to anyone. He’d been the morning guy for years. so he was always at work before everyone else and left as soon as his time slot was over. Today, he walked out with a file box that contained his coffee mug and a bunch of stolen office supplies.

  He paused at the front door, balancing the full box on one knee as he struggled with his key ring. He got the key to the front door off the ring and casually tossed it over his shoulder to the floor.

  “I wanted to say something dramatic!” he yelled back to the two Sheilas at the front desk, “but frankly, nothing occurs to me! I don’t have a single cogent thought to share at the moment. See you!” He opened the door and was half way out.

  “Bye!” the two Sheilas chorused.

  “Oh, yeah,” Marcus said. “One detail. You two were never very friendly but I always thought it would have been amusing if you both faked Australian accents.”

  The young and old Sheilas looked at each other and laughed.

  “Especially if you did it while we had a threesome!” The young one looked angry. The old one blushed and gave him a smile and a flirty wink.

  A sad old man sat in the back of a pickup in the parking lot pulling on a bottle of Jack. Marcus knew right away just looking at him, he had to be Burt. It was a small town. He’d seen him around.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’d love to chat but my ex-girlfriend is missing and the world is about to descend on Poeticule Bay. I’m thinking I don’t want to be here when that happens.”

  “That movie star. She dead, too? You think that movie star burned up? It’s all over the radio.”

  “I’m guessing probably,” Marcus said. “God is capricious in His wrath, but I sure didn’t see that coming. Maybe she just moved to Cincinnati. You okay, dude?”

  “I liked you better when you let Johnny Cash sing.”

  Burt looked at him with red, wounded eyes. “The problem is, Mr. Marcus in the Morning, you convinced me you’re right about everything. My Genie’s out of the bottle.”

  “Huh. I don’t hear that often. Mostly when you argue with people it’s my experience that they dig in their heels and are even more convinced of whatever shit they believe. Good for you.”

  “Didn’t see that coming, huh?”

  Marcus smiled and moved toward his car. Burt reached for the .22 caliber rifle in the bed of the pick up.

  CORRECTIVE MEASURES

  This is another story that has a root in real life. Many of us have run into trouble over a parking space, haven’t we? I don’t suggest this solution…but everyone has a revenge fantasy. Right? ~ Chazz

  Jack pulled his car to the right, out of the way, so the woman in the green family van could drive into the Poeticule Bay Elementary parking lot. Instead, her car stood still at the mouth of the school’s gate. Another car slid up behind her, yet she did not enter. He waved her in and she sat blocking the street, blinker blinking, waiting for what, Jack couldn’t guess.

  A horn honked. He assumed it must be the little white car behind her, urging her forward. The bell had already rung. The last of the kids who were on time had already streamed into the school. Jack glanced at the green numerals of his dashboard clock and huffed with impatience. Was she stalled?

  He was about to pull forward and forget about being a good Samaritan when she wheeled into the lot and accelerated up beside him, frantically cranking down her window. “Are you deaf?”

  “Pardon me?” he said, giving her a confused smile. He looked in her eyes and saw a savage animal. Her bright yellow peroxide hair was mussed, reinforcing the impression of something wild at the wheel.

  “Didn’t you hear me honk? You’re in my way! I want to park right there.” Peroxide Woman pointed at the empty parking space his car now blocked. Jack glanced in his rearview mirror. Half of the lot behind him was empty. She could park anywhere. Why hold people up for one spot that was no closer than any of the others available?

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You win. I’ll never do a good deed for a stranger again.”

  “I’m trying to park!” she screeched. “I want that spot right there.” She pointed again to the spot behind him. We’re late!”

  He stifled the impulse to pull her out of her seat through her window. There still might be a few children straggling down the sidewalk, coming late to school. The van’s windows were tinted, but he detected movement in the back seat. She no doubt had at least one child in there. There were too many witnesses. He took a cleansing breath as his therapist, Dr. Circe Papua, had taught him. “There are lots of parking spots,” he said evenly, “and you’re making yourself late. You, me and the poor guy behind you.”

  Jack glanced to the forlorn-looking guy in the little white car who sat waiting behind her. The swarthy man wore a hang-dog look on his face that told Jack the man at the wheel was tired. He had the look of a beaten man who expected a fresh beating every d
ay. Jack could see in a moment that this was a man who had seen life and death. His intuition told him the man waiting behind the ranting woman had, like himself, learned the truth of existence in a war zone. Jack recognized the haunted civilian look when he saw it.

  As he looked back in the woman’s face, the contrast was startling. She was the sort of person who breezed through life with an air of entitlement. Nothing really bad had ever happened to her and she expected that nothing ever would. She could inflict suffering on all those lives she touched, but never experience a flicker of self-doubt. Pain was for other people. She would never consider that she had ever done anything wrong.

  Peroxide Woman gave him the finger.

  “You’ve caused several car accidents in your life, haven’t you?” he said, his face deceptively serene.

  “Are you a fucking idiot?”

  “You’ve got kids in your car, right? Nice mouth.”

  “Well, next time, listen for God’s sake! I honked my fucking horn!”

  Before he could move his car, she did what she should have done in the first place and tore off for another empty slot behind him. His head heated up and he clenched his teeth. Jack could feel the pressure at the front of his head and there was a familiar, angry tingle in his gut. The rage made his jaws hurt. Before he left, he turned in his seat. He didn’t know what he was going to do with the information then, but he memorized her license plate — ATA 667. He’d remember it: 667, Next-door Neighbor of the Beast. Then he vaguely remembered that some rabbinical scholars had said that the actual number of the beast was not 666, but 667. He’d have to google that.

  And he would think a lot about the woman in the green van. He considered waiting to follow her home, but he would have to allow some time to pass. She had screamed at him. People had surely heard. The swarthy man in the little white car glanced over at Jack as he passed. Striking at her too soon would be a gift to the police. He would have to wait until the witnesses’ memories had faded.

  Jack could key her car in the night, he supposed, but insurance would take care of that, and a petty act of vandalism was something a teen in a tantrum might do. It wasn’t creative or personal. Ditto, chucking a brick through her front window.

  Driving on, Jack fantasized about following her home and doing things he had promised himself, and Dr. Papua, he wouldn’t do anymore. At least, not unless she told him to do it. What if, in a bit of synchronicity granted by God, Dr. Papua called and told him she had a patient who needed deletion? He could tell her about the incident in the parking lot and maybe she’d say it would be okay to do a twofer? It would be delightful to confuse old Chief Rose by putting two murder victims on display in the same spot, by the steam-powered clock at the town hall, for instance. Usually he had to make sure his victims disappear, swallowed by the Atlantic forever. That didn’t make news. Across America, lots of people disappeared. When he pictured Peroxide Woman, though, he wanted to make big news.

  Last winter, Dr. Papua gave Jack the name of a man who abused children. He drowned that man in a bathtub, over and over again until Jack couldn’t resuscitate him anymore. It was a memory to cherish. Jack had always had a cruel streak, but if he channeled the urges the right way and went after only those people his therapist said should die, he deemed himself righteous in the eyes of the Lord. Lacking a conscience of his own, Dr. Papua guided him away from acts that would make him prey in a state that still had the death penalty.

  Not that death frightened Jack. Dying’s easy. Blending in and not getting caught is hard. Living among humans demanded a far higher price of Jack than Death could ask him to pay. To live, to pursue his calling, he had to wear a mask all the time. He breathed free only when he went through a cleansing ritual, and each ritual demanded blood sacrifice from a sinner.

  Jack descended the back steps to his little basement apartment. He sat in front of the television, but all he could see was the woman’s face on the flickering screen. He picked up a length of rope from beside his chair and practiced knots for the rest of the morning. He thought about how untouchable the woman assumed she was. What amazing first-world circumstances had come together to allow that privileged woman a life so secure she thought she could talk to him, a stranger, like that?

  Later that week, when Jack arrived at his session, he wasn’t his usual self. He needed no urging from Dr. Papua to speak. He recounted the details of the school parking lot incident to her. To his chagrin, his therapist focused more on his reactions than the evil woman’s sins. He hated Dr. Papua a little for asking again, “How did you feel about that? What reaction did you choose?”

  “I felt that there should be a little more random violence in the world,” Jack lamented, “just to make bitches like ATA 667 more polite when talking to people she doesn’t know.”

  Dr. Papua said it was not okay to kill Peroxide Woman, no matter how Jack hinted at the service he would be performing for humanity.

  “This is the sort of social friction you must learn to manage, Jack,” Dr. Papua said. “If you are ever to reintegrate into normal society, you have to — ”

  “Eat a little shit while ATA 667 goes through life tasting nothing but chocolate croissants?”

  “Socrates said we should be kind to everyone we meet because everyone is in a terrible battle.”

  “Socrates never met the Beast, ma’am.”

  “She is not evil, Jack, merely stupid. This is much more simple than you imagine. You do not like being called an idiot. That is all this is. You are looking for my permission for a cleansing ritual. You do not have it,” Dr. Papua said.

  Jack sighed and nodded and looked at the floor, grinding his teeth.

  “Do you promise not to kill this woman?”

  Jack took a long time to nod his agreement.

  “You are sure you can control your impulses?”

  Jack’s eyes were nail heads when he looked up. “Dr. Papua, you have given me several gifts. I have executed each mission — ”

  “Executed each person,” she corrected him.

  “Yes, ma’am, executed each person,” he said. “I am thankful for your gifts. With God’s strength, I will abide by your wishes.”

  “Good, Jack. Good. If you can control yourself, you are that much closer to feigning real human relationships. We must solidify your mask. Remember the credo?”

  “I am what I pretend to be, ma’am.”

  The mask he wore looked like a human face, a rather handsome one with a kind smile. But it felt hot on his skin and tight over his teeth.

  And here was The Beast again.

  As the kids gathered around Jack on the soccer field, he spotted ATA 667 in the stands, sitting upright and rigid. He couldn’t see her eyes through her sunglasses, but he knew her eyes were on him. She sat beside a child, a little boy, who stared at the ground looking miserable.

  Jack took a cleansing breath that, by the pounding pulse in his ears, didn’t seem to do its job. He asked the kids their names and checked them off on his list, wondering which one belonged to the Neighbor of the Beast. He ran his eyes over the list, examining the names, guessing which felt right for the child of a demon. She looked like she’d spawn a Tyler, Todd or a Chad. Poor little bastard. The kids were only seven and it was a co-ed team. If the bitch had a girl, what would she name her? He eyed the list again. Madeleine? Jocelyn, maybe?

  He got them started on dribbling drills, encouraging the kids to keep control of the ball with little kicks. After a few minutes of getting them to move up and down the field, he played goalie and the kids laughed as they took shots on goal. He deflected a bunch of balls back to them, eventually letting them all through so they could move on to the next drill.

  The late afternoon sun beamed heat on the players and the air was humid. The kids’ faces began to glow red and their mops of hair matted to their heads. “Let’s take a water break!” Jack said finally and the kids walked lazily to the side of the field.

  Jack had brought a bunch of water bottles in a cooler
at the edge of the field. The kids drank. Parents crowded around, voicing encouragement to their tykes. Peroxide Woman stayed in the stands, still watching his every movement. He imagined daggers, then lasers, shooting at him from her eyes. It was easy to imagine. Her body language was clear. She was stiff, preparing for battle.

  A terrible thought occurred to him. What if this was a test from God or even from Dr. Papua? It took him a few minutes to convince himself that was impossible. Looking at all the people on the field, he caught himself dividing up the herd by category, doing precisely what Dr. Papua had warned him not to do.

  “You must just see them as people. Do not look upon them as the sinners and the sinned against,” Dr. Papua had said.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that. I am a predator, ma’am,” Jack had replied. “The world is divided into three categories: The Prey and the Witnesses. And things like me. The Predators.”

  One of the parents, a bearded man dressed entirely in red, descended upon him. The man was very concerned for his child’s safety, he said. “You’re not offering any snacks to the kids that have peanuts, are you? My kid is very sensitive to peanuts. Life and death sensitive.”

  “I’m just offering water but we’ll let the parents know again. The notice is right on the snack schedule.”

  “People don’t read.”

  Jack looked at him without replying. He didn’t know what to say that would satisfy the man.

  “Do you have a back up epi-pen?” the bearded man asked.

  “No. That would be something you would have to supply for your child. We tell everyone the school is a nut-free zone.”

  “People don’t listen.”

  “No,” Jack said. “They sure don’t.”

  He called the kids on the field with his whistle and they trotted out. He split them into two teams and got half of them to turn their jerseys around. “We’re going to have a little fun practice game, guys!”