Unconsciously, he patted his vest for a smoke.
It was a small town, barely a dot on most maps and on some not there at all. Reaching its suburbs was no harder than turning off the main road. But its size was not due to youth. In fact, its founding predated that of its much larger neighbor, Bedford, by almost ten years. Rather, its size, from the start, had been a matter of choice. While the other towns had invited industry and commerce and loosened their belts with the resultant expansion, Isherwood was content to watch from the sidelines. It was still doing that to this day; it wasn’t so long ago that the city council decried “fast food,” but finally bowed to pressure and allowed an A & W stand to be set up. Still, there was some carefully measured growth these days, but all of a residential nature. Land and housing were cheaper here than the rest of Lawrence County, but still close enough to Bedford to allow a leisurely commute to the foundry or the quarries. Those moving to Isherwood offset those leaving, whether they be graduating high-schoolers or out-of-work families or simply people tired of the slow-as-molasses pace of small-town life. The population wavered at times, but on a good day it reached almost eight hundred.
Stiles passed the “Welcome to Isherwood” sign and the so-called Tri-Lakes that flanked the road just beyond—actually three overlarge ponds suffering from natural erosion. The adjacent motel, naturally called the Tri-Lakes Inn, was a small cluster of cabins and an empty parking lot with a perennial “Vacancy” sign out front. He noted that for future reference. On past the elementary school and the equally small junior high, he came to the four-block stretch of brick buildings that marked the center of town. He eased his van into the first empty space he found, got out, stretched, rubbed the tired eyes behind his sunglasses, and made a sweeping inspection of the town. He was parked in front of the Isherwood Barbershop, and it was flanked in turn by Isherwood Hardware and the Isherwood Coin-Op Laundry. At least they were imaginative, he mused. In the next block was a Woolworth’s and a clothing store and Ed’s Automotive, and in the block past that the signs pointed out the courthouse and the town marshal’s office and, across the way, the local fire department. One engine, no doubt. There were a lot of empty shops and office space on either side of the street, one on the corner where Dante’s Pizzeria had moved out, another across the way between the Isherwood Herald’s office and Moore’s Drug and Diner. There were a few people on the street, just enough to cancel the first impression of a contemporary ghost town. Most were older men, retired to the benches that lined the fronts of the shops, content to watch the days slowly pass them by. Their faces all looked alike to him after a while; wherever he went they were the same small towns, the same old men. A hundred Isherwoods over the years had jaded him.
He sniffed the air wishfully, as if his quarry might have some telltale scent he could follow. If only it were that easy. But there was nothing, only the aroma of fresh coffee drifting over from the diner. His stomach groaned. He could use something to wash down that damned Egg McMuffin.
“Pardon me, bud,” someone said from behind him in a slow drawl, “you wouldn’t have a spare nickel, would you?”
Stiles turned, half-expecting some down-on-his-luck derelict scrounging for Ripple money. What he didn’t expect was a uniform.
The deputy was standing by the Pepsi machine outside the barbershop, counting out a handful of change he’d quarried from his pocket. He was really wearing only an officer’s coat and cap; the rest of his uniform, a plaid shirt and Levi’s and a worn pair of Converse tennis shoes, were not very businesslike, but somehow fit the rest of the town. He wasn’t even wearing a gun. He was at least ten years older than Stiles and a few inches taller, and the snug fit of his clothes suggested that he ate better and a bit more often.
“Sure,” Stiles managed, digging into his pocket but keeping his arms close to the body to hide any bulge from his shoulder holsters. He pulled out a coin and flipped it to the deputy, received a nod and an appreciative horsegrin in return.
Gears were turning in Stiles’s head. He’d dealt with the law before, more times than he cared to remember. And something on a purely gut level told him that this man wasn’t what he appeared to be. This one was sharp. He’d have to be careful.
The officer punched the button for Mountain Dew (appropriate for the surroundings) and pulled a hair-flecked towelette from his collar. “Thanks again, Russell!” he yelled back into the shop, running a hand over his close-cropped hair. The man inside with the broom nodded and waved.
He turned and ambled slowly toward the van like a big, lanky bear, extending a gibbonous right hand. “The name’s Bean. Charlie Bean. Either one’ll do. I don’t think we’ve seen you ’round here before, have we?”
“My first time,” Stiles said with a smile accepting the greeting. The handshake was a real knucklepopper, one of those manly rites of passage that some individuals never seem able to surrender. Stiles just winced a little and endured. One thing he’d learned over the years was to avoid attracting attention, especially the law’s, and matching the deputy strength-wise might tend to make him stick in mind a little longer than necessary. “Chris Stiles. It’s good to meet you.” He sighed (mostly from getting his hand back) and looked around him. “You’ve got a pretty nice little town here.”
Bean laughed, probably at the familiarity of the line. “We like it,” he nodded. “It ain’t nothing big, you know, but it’s comfortable. You got relations around here, Mr. Stiles? Coming to visit, or . . .” He left the line open deliberately. Stiles smiled to himself. The deputy was baiting him already.
“No, no relatives. Just passing through, I guess. It’s kind of a working holiday.”
“Oh?” Deputy Bean seemed genuinely interested, but Stiles caught his roving eye and saw his interest was mainly in the van. He drifted past Stiles’s shoulder in a casual, unsuspicious movement. “What kind of work do you do?” He glanced through the side window, raising a hand to cut the glare on the glass. His gaze fell immediately on the rack of power tools Stiles had taken pains to situate in plain view. It always diverted prying eyes, and Charlie Bean was no exception. “A handyman, eh?” the deputy grunted, moving on to the fine paneling and cabinetry and the hardwood bunk built across the back. “You fix this up yourself?” He nodded appreciatively—“That’s mighty fine work there, mighty fine”—and continued to peer through the window, searching.
Stiles grew a little anxious at the officer’s curiosity. “Is there something I can show you, Deputy?” he finally said.
“Nah, that’s okay,” Bean shrugged, turning from the van with a bit of a guilty chuckle. “But I was just thinking, Mr. St— . . . Chris, right? I was just thinking, Chris, if you’re looking to pick up some change, we’ve got a desk up at the office that could use some minor repairs. You interested?”
“I might be.”
“Well, good,” Bean’s perpetual smile widened. “You want to go look it over now?”
Stiles shook his head. “Maybe later. I was thinking about taking my van somewhere to get the transmission looked at.” He motioned toward the diner across the way. “And I have been looking forward to a good cup of coffee. Can I get you one?”
The deputy held up the still half-full Mountain Dew. “Thanks, but I’d best be getting back. You might try the gas station ’round the block, over by the IGA. They do pretty good work. Tell ’em I sent ya.”
“I’ll do that.”
“And whenever you want to look at that desk, you just stop by, okay?” He started his slow and measured stride up the sidewalk, and Stiles saw for the first time that he was indeed wearing a gun. It was a Ruger .357, holstered way back on his hip, the combat grips mostly hidden by the tail of his jacket. He stopped abruptly and turned. “Oh, Mr. Stiles. I mean Chris. One more thing.” There was a measured pause, then an equally measured grin. “You enjoy your stay in Isherwood. You hear?”
The soldier laughed himself and waved and finally let his ja
ws unclench. That was too close, he reminded himself. This deputy was sharp, a lot more so than the folksy exterior would suggest. A suspicious lawman could complicate things. “You’re not making this easy, are you, Alex?” he whispered as he locked the van and headed for the drugstore across the street.
A cowbell clanked overhead, triggered by his opening the door, and it made Stiles wince. He didn’t like attracting attention, but that was just what it did. All four people in the store looked in his direction. There was a girl behind the register and another behind the lunch counter along the north wall and a couple of locals sitting in the dining area nearby. Stiles tried to ignore them. The smell of fresh coffee was stronger in here, enticing, and mingled with it was what, hot apple pie? He started picking his way through the aisles and displays.
A placard caught his eye. It was white poster board on which someone had scrawled Bargain Basket in Magic Marker. It leaned against an oversized laundry basket full of damaged goods and underselling merchandise. There was an abused He-Man doll, some kitchen utensils, lotions, dishtowels, a fire truck missing one wheel, and several Harlequin Romances.
Treasure! He rescued one of the paperbacks. Love at Sunset. Had he read that one? It didn’t sound familiar. Neither did Train to Istanbul or Under a Pale Moon. And there were others, not in the greatest condition but still readable. He checked the price . . . three for a dollar! He dug the sole five-dollar bill from his pocket and looked it over and tried to talk himself out of it, then stacked six of the books and took them to the register. The young girl behind the counter snapped her gum and smirked at seeing the covers but didn’t say anything.
She didn’t give him a sack either.
He took his bounty to the lunch counter and chose a stool away from a spindly old woman in a scarf and sunglasses with too much makeup and a match between her teeth. He sat the books on the counter and made sure the receipt was in plain view, then picked up the menu and glanced over it, careful not to let the jelly stains rub off on him.
“Hey, you read those too?” the woman behind the counter said in a husky voice, soft but with an appealing, gravelly edge to it. “Or are they for your wife?” The voice brought his eyes up from the menu card. Two things about her caught his attention. First, her face. She was lightly freckled and wore no makeup, at least none that he could see. Her features were strong but feminine and had that ageless quality that could have been twenty or forty, though he placed her somewhere a bit younger than himself. Her dark hair was almost shoulder length and curled about her face and contrasted the light of her smile. No raving beauty, but nice. What Charlie Bean had said about Isherwood. Comfortable.
The second thing he caught was a bit of plastic pinned to the ample bosom of her turtleneck sweater. It bore a happy face and said, “HI, MY NAME IS” with Billie written below. Billie, huh? The name fit the voice, and the voice fit the face.
Comfortable.
“Yours or your wife’s?” she repeated, blushing a bit, and he finally realized he was staring at her.
“I’m not married,” he managed.
“So, in other words, they’re yours,” she said, teasing. “Hey, don’t be ashamed of that. A good read’s a good read, you know?” She plucked the top book off the stack and flipped through it. “Now this one’s pretty good.” She leaned a little closer, and whispered, “I guess I’m the reason they’re on sale. I read when it gets slow here, and I guess I kinda bend the covers.” She worked as she talked, wiping the counter and setting a cup and saucer in front of him. “But, no harm done, right? I mean, so much the better for you, right? You did want coffee, right?”
“How did you know?”
She gave a mock salute. “It’s my job, sir. In case you didn’t see this god-awful tag, my name’s Billie. I’ve never been much for wearing the stupid thing seeing as how I know most everyone in town, well, at least the ones that come in here. But you never know when strangers might come through, and here you are. That is what you are, isn’t it? A stranger?”
He laughed. “I think I might qualify, yes. My name’s Chris.” He offered a hand over the counter and was relieved to find her grip a little less relentless than Charlie Bean’s.
“I guess you got the third degree from Charlie already.” She motioned toward the window. “I couldn’t help but notice. I hope it didn’t bother you too much. He doesn’t mean anything by it, you know, he’s just doing his job.”
Stiles nodded. “He was nice enough about it. Even offered to give me some work.”
“Oh? What do you do?”
“Woodworking mostly,” he said, blowing the steam from his coffee. “But it’s just to pay the bills. I’m really a writer. At least at heart.”
“Oh, really?” Her eyes lit up and she leaned further over the counter as if they were sharing some fascinating secret. Her closeness surprised Stiles. She smelled like Dial soap. Something in him growled, and he knew it wasn’t the Egg McMuffin this time. “Have I read any of your stuff?” she asked.
Writing was a popular cover with him because it fit with his traveling and afforded him at least a modicum of respect—something the handyman story seldom garnered. But it was always tricky, especially around well-read people. That’s why he stuck to “Small presses, anthologies, that kind of thing. Nothing major. Yet.” He caught her eye drifting back to the Harlequins. “Oh, no, that’s just to read. I don’t have the flair for that kind of story. I write horror for the most part.”
“Oh,” she said, still interested but a little disappointed that he wasn’t some handsome, romantic scribe come to sweep her off her feet. “Is there any money in that scary stuff?”
He laughed into his coffee. “I haven’t seen any of it. But you never know. Maybe there’s a best seller somewhere down the road. In a way that’s why I’m here.”
The old woman with the match in her teeth cocked her neck sideways like a wizened old dinosaur and squeaked, “Billie honey, could you get me another Coky-Cola?”
“Be right there,” she called back. “Are you writing a book about Isherwood or something?”
“Depends on whether I find one worth writing.” He fixed an eye on her and prepared to catch even a slight response with his next question. “You wouldn’t know anything about the name Danner, would you?”
Billie rolled her eyes and nodded her understanding. “I should’ve put that much together,” she laughed. “You must’ve heard about that anniversary stuff, huh? Seventy-five years later, or something like that? There was something about it in the morning paper, if I can remember where I put it. . . .”
From down the counter came, “Billie honey . . .”
“Okay, okay.” She found the folded paper over by the stove and dropped it in front of him. “That should get you started, if you haven’t seen it already. I’ll be right back, so don’t you go anywhere.”
“I’ll be here,” he said, watching her walk away. Then he turned to the newspaper on the counter. She’d been referring to a small local-interest column to one side of the day’s headlines. The title immediately caught his eye. DANNER “MURDERS”: REAL STORY BEHIND LOCAL LEGEND. There was even an old, grainy photograph there, the small portrait of a stern-faced young man whom the caption identified as, SEBASTIAN DANNER: MURDERER? Stiles silently studied the face for a long time, then reached behind the counter for the coffee pot, refilled his cup, and made himself at home. He was going to be here for a while.
Chapter Two
Charlie Bean eased the squad car away from the doughnut shop and made another patrol through town, cursing Rusty Sanders every inch of the way.
It was just like that little sonuvabitch to call in sick at the last minute, making Bean pull a double shift on a Friday night. Fever, my ass, he fumed. The only thing fevered about Rusty was the head of his dick. Twenty bucks said he was across town at the Nevermore Trailer Park right now, in his “sick bed” with that big-titted bimbo George
tta Stovall and a quart of Wesson Oil.
What a waste of good oil.
Jesus, had Susie hit the ceiling when he told her he had to work! Bean had hated to even call her—not that she had any kind of hold on him. Certainly not. They just lived together, and shared the rent and utilities, and a bed. It wasn’t really what he’d call a relationship, but whatever it was, it worked and he had no qualms in admitting that she was the best thing to happen to him in years. He really hated to disappoint her like this. He knew she’d had plans for tonight: there was a new Chuck Norris movie at the theater in Bedford, and they were going to catch the early show, then splurge on steaks and salad at the Golden Corral before taking a drive up to Lake Monroe. It was a chilly night out, but he was going to pack his heavy sleeping bag into the back of the station wagon along with a coolerful of Bud for him and Little Kings for her and shit, would they have been set!
There would be no lovin’ tonight, he realized. Susie’d still be on her high horse when he got home, and he guessed she had a right to be. He was on duty for the next couple of nights, and next week she had the second shift at the Woolworth, so no night out then either, and by the time they finally got around to it the movie would probably be gone and some damn Meryl Streep film in its place. Oh well, no sense complaining, he decided. If she bitches, she bitches. Nothing he could do. It was, after all, his job. They couldn’t just get someone else to fill in for Sanders—they were the only two deputies on Isherwood’s paltry three-man force. Okay, technically he could have backed out, could have simply patched the lines in to county authorities as they did every night when the last shift was over. But dammit, he needed the money. What with the bills, and child support to his ex, and that new Ruger P85 semi-auto on the market. If only they hadn’t waved overtime under his nose.
Rusty Sanders, you little shit. . . .
It was no way to run a law enforcement agency. How many times had he said that over the years? No matter, it was never as obvious as now. He wished he could be rid of incompetents like Sanders or even Larson for that matter. But Isherwood was small, and public office had less to do with actual skill than popularity. Dutch Larson was a community name and property holder, not a lawman, but it was all the qualification he needed for town marshal. And Rusty Sanders—shit, Bean could remember when that punk was pushing kids on the playground and smoking dope in the bathroom. But he was Asa Sanders’s boy, and Old Asa and Old Dutch were butt buddies from way back. It was all who you know or who you blow, same as it was everywhere, and Bean had no taste for it. The only reason he held a position at all was to cover Larson’s ass: there had to be someone responsible around, just in case something big ever did go down around here.
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