by Nolon King
It could only have been a few minutes at most. And that was concerning enough.
He decided to wait until he was home to listen to the recording. Or better yet, get home and have a few drinks. Then some sleep. Then listen to the recording.
Chapter Twelve
The sound of the lawnmower woke him up. Like it was sitting under his window. Even if he blocked out the morning sun, rolled over and hugged his pillow, the noise would keep him awake.
Either Mo was trying to wake him up on purpose, or there was a patch of grass in desperate need of trimming right outside. Some mutant strain that grew while you looked at it. Unlike the rest of the grass in the yard that Mo insisted on cutting. Short, brown, and brittle.
Frank kicked his sheet off. Put his foot down on an empty beer can. Kicked it aside so he could stand. Stumbled over to the coffee. When he dug into the little tray of pods, all he found was pumpkin spice. Something he had probably gotten from Gen. He shrugged. Jammed it into the machine and hit the button.
Then he hissed in surprise and darted over to get a cup out of the cabinet. Had it under the dispenser just before the coffee started sputtering out of the nozzle. A few steaming drops splattered onto his skin, and he jerked his hand up to flap it through the air as he danced back.
With his stinging finger in his mouth, he walked to the balcony door. Stepped out into the light and leaned over the side railing. There was Mo. Sitting on the idling lawnmower. Arms crossed as he waited, staring up at Frank’s window.
Frank waved. Got no response. Leaned out farther to wave both arms. Mo glanced over. Then he put his hands over his heart in an oh, I didn’t see you there pantomime. He dropped his big feet to the pedals, put the mower in gear, and waved goodbye with an enthusiastic grin.
The mower rattled and bounced all the way back to the shed by the RV. Frank watched until Mo disappeared around the front corner of the house. He shook his head as he turned back inside to get his coffee. He had needed to get up anyway.
The flavor of the coffee made him shudder in disgust, but at least it was hot. The pile of beer cans on the floor — coupled with his headache — told him he didn’t need to be drinking any alcohol for a while, but when he sat at the kitchen table, he reached for the brandy. Just to spice up that pumpkin.
It barely made it tolerable. One notch above I can’t even.
He scrubbed the grit from his eyes as he settled in. Pulled his journal close, but hesitated to open the laptop. Stan had always told him that technology was his friend. Even though Frank wasn’t quite yet convinced, it wasn’t the technology that made him pause.
He took another sip. Blew out another sigh. Opened the laptop and plugged the recorder into it. Readied himself to play the file. Hit the button and sat back with a sneer of dread.
It only recorded when the sound around it was above a certain decibel threshold. A lot of wind noise. Car stereos. A loud exhaust or two. And voices. The first of which Frank recognized right away.
Ty Kirby speaking to somebody, but there were no responses. Frank assumed he was on the phone. Then Kirby called the person babe. Must be talking to a girlfriend. Whining to her was more like it. Something about how it was the night of the big game, and he would make it up to her.
The poker game Frank had seen?
Then Frank heard the first name. “Hines said it would be the last one for a while,” Kirby squeaked. “I promise I’ll make it up to you, babe. Week after next, yes. I swear.”
Hines. Frank paused the recording to put it in his journal.
A few minutes into listening again, and he was convinced Kirby’s girlfriend was a saint. Constantly listening to her boyfriend — the glory hound — complaining about how he wasn’t appreciated. Maybe it was his wealth. Sometimes love didn’t start out blind, but was blinded by money.
When the wind noise followed by digital silence told him this particular conversation was done, Frank clipped it out and put it in a folder he titled, Kirby Kisses Babe’s Booty.
He wasn’t entirely sure he had done it right until the next part of the recording started playing.
When he was finished with the entire week, he had a folder for every conversation, but eight of them were just Kirby talking to Babe. He consolidated them all into that original folder. Surveyed the names of all the other ones.
Whenever there had been a person mentioned, Frank had noted it in his journal. Names of any people talking to Kirby on the recording got a star next to them. Names of men that seemed to recur in reference to Friday night activities got their own page. There were six of them.
Jacobs, Hines, Rosedale, Hernandez, Wilson, and Reed.
They each got their own folder with copies of conversations that featured them. The only other names that got folders were Owens — mentioned quite often, and Frank — mentioned only a disappointingly few times.
The final folder was a miscellaneous place to catch the odd noises and snatches of distant voices. Conversations with no relevance. He copied them all to two different flash drives. One that he would store in his loft. The other would go in the van. Once he copied his notes over to both, there would be a nice pool of evidence against Kirby and his friends.
Stan would be so proud of him.
Frank was too sickened by what he had heard to eat, so he pulled a few beers out instead. Calories and alcohol. By the time he was done with his image search, he could have a good buzz going to face it all again. A little something to numb the pain and anger.
He sat back down with a bottle and an opener and a plan. Couple each name with a search term. Rose County Sheriff’s Office. Willett County. Enola PD. Rosa Alta PD. Anything else that might get him an official image of the men meeting at the Watchtower. An image he could study so he knew who he was killing.
Most of them, like Lieutenant Carl Wilson from the Enola Police Department, were easy hits. But they were all in the habit of only using each other’s last names, so without a first name, a few of them were difficult. They required multiple searches, but the most difficult had been Justin Hines.
He was the first cop Frank had seen talking to Kirby, and it was only luck that led to his identification. He was in a picture standing next to Wilson at a funeral, identified by the caption. He was an investigator in the Florida Attorney General’s office.
That put Ty Kirby closer to the top than Frank had thought. And it put Frank in more danger. Even as close as Frank was to being done, it didn't matter. In spite of all the public scrutiny into the Tallahassee incident — peddled by Kirby himself — and the official wariness in supporting the previous members, the men had wasted no time in setting up a new den.
And it would happen again and again. Proven by the conversations Frank had recorded where they detailed what they had done. At first, just trickles here and there. Girlfriends. Prostitutes. Any woman foolish enough to agree to go there.
Frank imagined the desperate shock of those women after walking into what they had been told was an empty room only to find eager men waiting.
Frank’s heart ached at every soul who had been humiliated inside that place. All the abuse. But he couldn’t go in and start swinging a bat. The men had a defense. All the women had been of legal consenting age, and the bondage fun had been consensual, they would say.
But Hines had spoken to Kirby about the girls they were bringing in two weeks. One Friday after the game. Had he just been using a word? Or were they really girls?
Frank had heard many terms for the women being brought to the upper floor. Chicks. Bitches. Skanks. Women. Kirby had even called his own girlfriend a cunt and a cum dumpster. Hines had laughed. Then what sounded like a slap to Kirby’s shoulder.
This was the first time Frank had heard the word girls. Or perhaps he had heard it before — occasionally — but without the emphasis Hines seemed to use. The weight Frank now heard in the word.
He had told Ty there would be a couple of girls. Just two? Shared between six men?
His stomach roiled with s
uppressed rage.
It didn’t matter that Owens was temporarily out of the game. It just left Kirby and Hines as the point men. Besides, if Owens could hear the thing Frank had heard in the recording, he might not be nearly as trusting when it came to his prior allies.
It seemed that the protection Owens thought he had inside the force was waning. Except for a strong foothold in upper management protecting him, the cop wasn’t nearly as untouchable as he used to be. Frank took pride in knowing he was partly responsible for the shift in attitude.
Owens had been able to hide his own agenda, shielded from the cops he was playing by officers higher up in the food chain. But a once-essential cog was apparently becoming an embarrassment. Frank now knew he didn’t have to look for Owens himself.
Other cops like Hines would do it for him. As long as Frank raised a big enough stink.
According to Hines and Kirby, there had already been a few meetings in the upper floor next to the Watchtower for some initial “fun.” Some adult BDSM. Trains and gang bangs. All on young adult women whose consent was questionable at best.
Hines had made it clear that there was an interest in younger participants. Spoken of as casually as discussing a weekly poker game.
Kirby had expressed his extreme regret in the fact that he couldn’t make it to the next “session.” He’d said it was a family thing, but Frank had heard the conversation between Kirby and Babe where he had apologized for forgetting their anniversary. Promised to make it up to her next Friday. A fancy dinner at Thompson’s Steakhouse.
Frank had taken Sarah several years ago. Neither of them had been impressed. Maybe the place had improved since then. But probably not.
So six names: the men that were supposedly meeting at Kirby’s studio — sans Kirby — to have their fun on the upper floor. These six men were going to have the experience of their lives, but Frank doubted it would end up being anywhere near the calliope of pitch-black delight they were planning.
Chapter Thirteen
Frank couldn’t stay in the barn while he waited. There was too much potential to be confronted by things he just wasn’t yet ready to face. Or just one thing. GG. Frank burned at the thought, but he knew if he died in the Watchtower, he wouldn’t have to watch GG fade away. Wouldn't have to keep seeing the disappointment when he told him no.
He couldn’t sit on the beach at Rosa Alta either. With a bottle in his hand while he looked up at the windows. Ready to charge in and save a girl — even if it meant ruining the plan. But maybe he could end up there after a nice drive.
He packed a bag and a cooler, and he fled. He ran away. Something Sarah had often accused him of. Even with the little things. Since before Jenny was born.
He always gave in.
Jenny had been a small bundle of energy. A hard charger from the moment she learned how to walk. He had adored her. Struggled with giving her everything she asked for while trying to teach her discipline and respect. He thought he had believed in spanking. Little corrective swats. But the first time he had pulled her off her feet to smack her little behind, he had cried more than her.
“I’m sowwy, Dada!”
For days he had been terrified that she would no longer love him. He hated how it had made him feel like a bully. How he towered over her. Descended upon her in anger. Made her feel helpless.
He had never spanked her again. Love and gentle communication. Firm rules. He and Sarah standing united. And they had raised a good person. He often dreamed about what she would have been like as an adult.
Calm and wise and beautiful.
She had been six years old when they first sorted through her growing mountain of toys. Where some children had a box, Jenny had a whole room. When she got older, they converted it into an art studio. Mostly messy painting, clay sculptures that all looked alike, and Legos. But before that it had been wall-to-wall dolls.
And she had known which tiny boots went to which tiny outfit went to which tiny doll.
Every day for a week, he and Sarah had taken the older toys — broken, forgotten, or just less used — and they had put them in a plastic bag by the door. Neither had said a word about it, but of course they did it while Jenny was asleep. Finally, when they had two bags full, they took them to Goodwill.
He couldn’t even leave the parking lot without breaking down in tears. Sarah had looked at him in confusion. Like somebody had asked her to help them remove their spleen. “Frank … what is it, honey?”
He jabbed a finger at the thrift shop in angry accusation. “We’re throwing away her childhood!”
They had gotten through it. Just as they had gotten through everything. The fear that Jenny would end up deaf from her persistent ear infections. Her fall from the top of the refrigerator because that was where Frank had hidden the oatmeal cream pies. Losing her for a heart-wrenching moment at the county fair.
Sarah’s ovarian cysts. His recovery after getting shot. When she begged for him to retire. Or to get a job in security at Jenny's school. Arguments about Stan. About work. About how unfulfilled she felt. Putting her life on hold for an older man. Then again for her baby girl.
She often asked when it was going to be her turn, and he would often look at Jenny and wonder what else Sarah could possibly need.
As he pulled onto the highway to head toward Heirloom Cove, he wondered how he had never seen it before. The signs of her unhappiness. The mental illness under the surface that was ready to burst through given the right catalyst. Like a murdered daughter. A cheating husband.
A life that hadn’t turned out the way she had wanted it to.
But he had ignored his own problems for so long, it was no wonder he was blind to other people's. It was hard to see what you were unwilling to look at.
There had been a time when they loved each other. Deeply, and with breathtaking passion. A life he had never dared to dream of. But good things never lasted forever … all things came to an end … Murphy’s law … blah blah blah.
He passed the hours in silence. Pretending Sarah was next to him. Jenny playing quietly in the back. By the time he got to the cemetery, it was early afternoon. A scorching sun but a cool breeze.
He didn’t dare go to their graves. Even as different as he looked, he couldn’t risk being seen. He couldn’t imagine somebody actually watching the graves of his dead wife and daughter, but he could imagine what it would be like if they were. So he stopped at the first grave off of the path leading away from the parking lot.
Meagan Arnette. Born in 1974. Died in 1990. Not yet a woman.
Frank took his hat off. Shuffled his feet on the perfect grass. “Hi Meagan. You don’t know me, but my name is Frank.” He tipped his head toward the slope that led away. Down toward the edge of the lake where his family plot was. “I’m sure you know Jenny and Sarah, right? You all talk to each other around here, right?”
This was silly.
He growled a sigh through his nose. Forced a smile. Looked back at the small stone at his feet. “I can’t be seen talking to them. Bad men might be watching. I’m also not sure they would even want me over there. I’ve messed up some things pretty bad, Meagan.”
He shook his head with a bitter laugh. “It’s not fair for me to ask you, but could you tell them? That I’m sorry. That I’m doing the best I can. That I’m okay, and that I love them. Could you tell them that?”
Several minutes passed as he crumpled his hat in one hand and then the other. While he looked up at the sky like the words he needed would be written in clouds. He argued with himself about even being here, let alone staying. But he could smell the water. Hear the birds. See the colors of the flowers planted and placed at gravesites.
“There’s not much left to say. Nothing worth apologizing for anymore. I just want them to know that it’s coming to the end now. The finish line, as they say. Good or bad, it will be finished, and I can finally focus on something else. Maybe accept the help that Rogers offered. Maybe help somebody else. The sky’s the limit. That’s
another thing they say.”
He suddenly felt foolish. Talking to a dead relative through a third party that was also dead. He threw his hands out in frustration. “I’m sorry.” He looked down at her name. “I’m sorry you died so young, Meagan. Just tell them I was here, okay?”
He hurried back to the van like he was being followed. Climbed inside and slammed the door. He glanced up at himself in the rearview mirror. Curled his lip in disgust.
He started the van and drove down to the water. Looked out over the glittering reflections. He turned toward the nearest exit. Managed to leave without screeching his tires, but he had a long drive ahead of him. He wanted the cemetery behind him. No need to linger.
He was coming back soon.
Chapter Fourteen
The Enola Public Library was closed by the time he got into town, but that was okay. There was a Staples out in a shopping center under a giant water tower painted to look like a jellyfish. ENOLA was written across it to look like jolts of electricity. Frank had driven past it every time he had come into Rosa Alta, and not once had he been curious enough to ask about it.
He just didn’t care about the history of a town he wouldn’t be in much longer.
Inside the painful bright of artificial store lighting, Frank paid the thirty-five cents per page to make a copy of his journal. Even the fitness portion. All of his notes about Jenny’s death, all the way up to his discoveries at Ty Kirby’s studio. Bought a mailer box on his way out and got back in the van to head to a late dinner. A burger bar across the highway called Brisket Doug’s.
Warm lights over the tables. Soft jazz. Righteous hamburgers, and hundreds of craft beers on tap. Stan would love it, and that seemed appropriate. Many of their best times, and most of their best conversations, had been had over food.