As the sun was setting, Walter arrived at the trailer he called home and drove his tricycle into the darkness of the open shed. The door had been half torn off its hinges in a wind storm and Walter had never been able to shut it since. Guided by the moonlight, Walter took the grocery bags full of cans from the tricycle baskets and went through the unlocked front door. Walter didn’t bother taking his shoes off as he went inside the smelly trailer, his nose long ago having become accustomed to the stench. He made his way past some clutter to the brightly lit kitchen and set the bags on the dirty, cluttered, fly-specked counter top. He stood before the cupboards, which had many drawers and doors standing open, and stared at the bags and the clutter for a few moments, as if processing what he should do next. After nearly two minutes of contemplation, Walter opened a bottom cabinet door and removed a wrinkled garbage bag and began taking empty cans from the counter top and putting them into the bag. He took the bag outside and into the back yard, where he emptied the trash bag at the top of a sloping lawn. The cans nosily tumbled down the embankment to settle at the bottom with the rest of the trash that lay at the base of some wild brush. He pocketed the crumpled trash bag and urinated outside before going back inside, putting the bag where he had gotten it, under the cupboards. He paused again, but only for a moment this time as his growling stomach reminded him what he needed to do next. Eat. Walter was hungry and his mother wasn’t there to cut the crusts off his sandwiches anymore, let alone make him one of his favourite dishes. Walter looked at the caked dirty pot that still sat in the sink, rinsed but never actually washed. Mould had grown on it over time.
“Thursday,” Walter muttered. A tear streaked down his cheek as he remembered his mother’s beef stew. He unpacked the groceries, which consisted of canned goods only: pastas, stews, and other various things that had appealing pictures on the labels. He placed most of the cans on the counter top and a few in an already opened cupboard. He took one of the cans and reached for the electric can opener and then paused partway. He remembered how the can opener no longer worked and so took the manual one from the already open drawer on his right. After some struggle, Walter managed to remove the lid of the can enough to get at the food inside. He took a dirty spoon from the countertop, wiped it on his shirt, and took a spoonful of the Irish stew from the can and shakily put it in his mouth. He was famished. He stared at the dark microwave with longing as he ate the cold stew.
Walter had forgotten he wasn’t supposed to put the can in the microwave and thrown the breaker for the kitchen outlets long ago. None of the electrical appliances worked anymore. The old Walter would have gone to the electrical panel in his bedroom, the one behind the cheap wooden cupboard door, and thrown the breaker back on. Even though now that would have been pointless, he still would have tried it. But the new Walter couldn’t even remember where the breaker box was, let alone make the mental connection between the lack of electricity and the wood panel behind the door of his bedroom. Without his mother, he couldn’t manage these things anymore. He couldn’t even remember his mother making him run those wires that meant a few things still worked even if the trailer had no electricity anymore. She had him do this a month before his surgery to save money on electricity. Now those wires were the only reason he still had what he had. And on a good day he might remember something about that, but those good days were rare now.
Walter felt his stomach calm down as he finished his can of Irish stew. He placed the empty can on the cupboards, supplying the flies something new to investigate. He licked and sucked the spoon as clean as he could and placed it at the exact spot he had retrieved it.
He made his way to his bedroom but paused before a cluttered freezer on the way. Strewn about on top of the freezer was a pile of papers and junk mail, most of which was unopened. Amidst this clutter was an out-of-place, large, battered box. Walter clumsily cracked open the box and set the lid aside as he reached into his pockets. He removed all of the money he had left from his day’s work collecting cans and looked at it. He looked in the box, which contained coins and bills that sat on a red silk cloth that peeked out in between the money. The last time Walter tried to count his money to see if he had enough, he had gotten so flustered and confused that he had left the box open and had not gone on his usual recycling collections for two full days. He looked at the thirty-three dollars and forty-five cents with certainty even though he forgot that he paid for groceries with some of it. He was pretty sure O’Neil hadn’t ripped him off today.
He put the money in the box with the rest of the cash and didn’t bother putting the lid on the box. He was tired and didn’t know how long he could keep this up. Being a moron was exhausting, thought Walter. He had a sense of who he had become, but he couldn’t form a proper train of thought to figure all this out. He knew he needed to wash his clothes and try and wash himself, but that would have to wait until the morning. If he remembered by then. And washing to Walter was going to consist of rinsing out his clothes and standing under a cold shower for a few minutes. No soap would be used on either the clothes or himself, but he would be satisfied with his efforts. These thoughts crossed his mind but were fleeting as he climbed onto his bed, fully clothed, and dragged a large, heavy, dirty blanket on top of himself. Walter was asleep the moment he settled himself under his blanket.
Walter wept softly in his sleep as he dreamt of his mother, but he wouldn’t remember the dreams come morning. Only that he would need to eat more stew and go collect more bottles and cans. Walter had good days and bad days, but the good days were rare now and getting scarcer as time passed.
July
31
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t divulge that information,” the young woman said from behind the front desk of the Magnolia Wellness and Rehabilitation Centre. She wore the clerical staff’s dark burgundy-coloured uniform with a gold nametag that read ‘Amber’, and Amber’s patience was clearly wearing thin. It was way too early in the morning for this, she thought, as she forced a smile that was starting to look painful.
“Like I told Dale, I have an appointment with Lucy Shaffer at 8:30,” Marci Grant said. “He was smart enough to let me in,” she added, normally a very convincing liar. Although the truth was that Dale had let her in because she had worn her low-cut blouse and red blazer. Armed with this, she had flashed him some cleavage and leg and got poor Dale flustered and confused. He had made what he quickly realized was the wrong decision by opening the gate so that Marci could drive onto the grounds. Dale had already been dreading the chewing-out he would get while he had watched the older model red Corvette with the word RED on the vanity plate disappear behind the closing entrance gate.
Amber, still smiling her best placating smile, looked Marci up and down, thinking that Marci was dressed to impress, although perhaps with too much sex appeal for most. The red blazer and matching skirt suited her well, but the battered brown leather driving gloves looked out of place to Amber. The Wellness Center employee spoke as calmly as she could manage under the circumstances.
“Look, Miss Grant, you try something like this every time Miss Shaffer is in town, okay?” Amber’s smile was finally replaced by a stern look.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Marci replied, with what some might consider an award-wining performance. “She told me that next time she was in town, she wanted to look at some properties—in the more upscale part of Poplar Falls, of course.”
From across the lobby came a pair of men dressed in white uniforms of the care- giving staff. Both men looked at Amber as if wanting to know why they had been called.
“Could you please escort Miss Grant off the grounds?” Amber requested coldly. “And please tell Dale not to let her in again without checking with me first.”
The larger of the men reached out to grasp Marci Grant’s arm as he gestured towards the door. Marci shrugged off his grasp and gave him a dirty look, as if to indicate that he’d better not touch her again.
“Fine!” Marci stormed off in her red high heels. As she opened the door to her Corvette, she heard ‘Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty’ emanating from her purse. Once in the driver’s seat, Marci dug the phone from her purse and quickly answered the call.
“Hey…” she began in a cheerful tone before being cut off.
“You’re at the rehab centre, aren’t you?” Trudy blurted. “Don’t try and deny it.”
“I’m here to see a client,” Marci said. A lie, which was partly true as she did intend on trying to sell Lucy Shaffer a house in Poplar Falls; although selling her a house wasn’t the only thing Marci had on her mind.
“I hate it when you lie to me,” Trudy replied, muttering a curse and hanging up on her.
Marci knew Trudy would call her again later. Hopefully she would be calmer, but that was wishful thinking she realized as she drove off the Magnolia grounds.
32
Dodge sat at his desk, still running the previous night’s events through his mind. After returning to the station to drop off the busted laptop, he had gone home. After his usual run, he had sat in his porch still smelling of sweat, sipping a beer, and rummaged through all the recent social media pertaining to the late Charlie Baker.
What Dodge had begun referring to as the Charlie Baker Fan Club had gained a few members, but there seemed to be a lot more hate coming out now. People had taken to referring to Charlie Baker as a gigolo, even if there was no indication that he had taken payment in any form. There was no indication anywhere that he had gotten money or gifts from the women he was seeing. Plus, not many of these women actually had money, thought Dodge. Charlie Baker was independently well to do and didn’t need their money, but that didn’t keep people from using the word gigolo. Dodge assumed that most who called him that didn’t really know what the word meant. The words they should have used was man-whore or male slut, thought Dodge. But other than getting up to speed with what social media had to offer, the night’s internet surfing had garnered no additional leads. The only thing it had led to was his clicking on a link and seeing some older porn with Charlie Baker in the starring role. Apparently word had gotten around that Charlie had made pornographic movies in the past. He regretted clicking on that link, as he could not un-see any of it. Although the link was quickly reported and removed from the social media site, a thing he was thankful for, he remembered thinking this sort of thing wouldn’t help the case.
Dodge snapped back to reality as Detective Tilley entered the detective’s bullpen with two coffees from Jabba-da-Java Coffee Hut. She placed one on Dodge’s desk, rousing him completely from his deep thoughts about Facebook and porn.
“Find anything interesting?” Tilley asked as she cracked open her coffee and took a sip. She sat behind her desk and leaned her chair back.
“I don’t know about Dodge, but I sure did,” Lemkie said, startling both detectives as he spoke. They looked puzzled but said nothing as they waited for Lemkie to explain himself. He always did, although Tilley thought he had too much of a flair for the dramatic.
“Where the hell did you find that thing?” Lemkie asked.
“What?” Tilley asked, and before Dodge could speak Lemkie continued.
“Charlie Baker’s laptop,” Lemkie replied. “Calvin’s going through the files as we speak.”
Tilley looked at Dodge with a furrowed brow, which Dodge read as her being upset. Something had happened, which he hadn’t shared with her, and this was disturbing.
“You didn’t tell me you found Charlie Baker’s laptop!” she stated before turning back to Lemkie. “You’re sure it’s Charlie Baker’s laptop?” she asked.
“Yes, his prints were all over it. Plus, some of yours, of course,” Lemkie said as he looked at Dodge. “Calvin’s already hacked into it, so we know for sure.”
Tilley sat upright, and her eyes lit up as she nearly choked on a sip of coffee. The realisation of what this could actually mean was setting in.
“I was worried it wouldn’t even work, in the condition it was in when I found it,” Dodge replied.
“It was battered to shit,” Lemkie replied. “Calvin did have to fix it before he could hack it. The keyboard no longer works, and the battery was dead, but we were able to get it running…sorta. Well, Calvin got it working, so he’s backing up all the files as we speak since he’s worried the thing could die anytime. Plus, parts of it look to be password-protected, but that shouldn’t be hard for Calvin; as long as I can pry him away from the porn,” said Calvin with a smile.
“Does it have any video footage on it?” Tilley asked.
“From what we can see, yes,” Lemkie replied, and he smiled again. “Calvin nearly cried when he saw how much data was on it. He’s already had to watch a lot of Charlie’s homemade porn from the portable hard drives and he thought he was done. With four cameras filming, I think there’s a lot on it.” Lemkie’s smile vanished as he continued. “But what I want to know is why the laptop also has the Panty Bandit’s fingerprints on it.”
“What!” Tilley roughly set her cup down on her desk, spilling coffee in the process.
Dodge’s expression went blank as both Lemkie and Tilley glared at him, waiting on an explanation. Dodge took a big gulp from his hot coffee and swallowed hard. He cast his eyes to the floor while reflecting on the situation at hand.
“Well?” Tilley inquired an air of annoyance.
“I’m sorry but I can’t tell you where I got it just yet,” Dodge said. “I need to check something out first to be sure.” He got up from behind his desk. “I need you to trust me and not do anything with that just yet.” He looked at both Tilley and Lemkie, then picked up his coffee and walked out of the bullpen as the dumbstruck Tilley and Lemkie merely watched, speechless.
“Just when I thought I knew that man,” Lemkie said.
“You’re telling me,” Tilley replied.
33
Vernon locked the door to Vernon’s Meats as he watched the delivery guy get back into his truck. He waved and smiled as they exchanged glances through the glass door. Vernon glanced at the large package he had left on the counter next to the cash register. He wondered what it might be as he waited for the delivery truck to drive away. Once gone and the door locked, he flipped the sign on the door that read Back in a Flash.
He scooped up the package, marvelling how such a big box could be so light as he headed for his office. Once there he locked the office door as if expecting someone to walk in unexpectedly, even though he was the only one there. Moving a few things out of the way, he placed the box on his desk. He looked it over, hoping the labels would tell him where the package had come from; more importantly, who sent it. He took a dull paring knife from a cup that also contained pens, which he always used as a letter opener, and with some effort cut the packing tape and opened the box, revealing packing paper. Picking out some of the paper, he grasped at a wire and pulled out a large beige lampshade. A string with a small note attached to it dangled from the shade.
I made this especially for you, the note read. The note was signed Dave and had an XOX below the name.
Vernon smiled briefly, then set the shade down and set to digging through the paper and finding the other half of the lamp. He pulled the lamp from the box, spilling some of the crumpled packing paper in the process. The upper half of the lamp had paper wrapped around it, which was held in place with a large blue elastic band.
The lamp was made of varnished hardwood and looked to be hand-carved, and it had an ornate wide base with a pattern carved into it. The lamp narrowed as it got taller and was covered with ornate carvings. Vernon removed the paper, revealing a wide part that had a double set of small glass LED bulbs. Under that wrapping was another note.
I thought of you when making this. Make sure it’s dark and you’re alone when you try it, the second note read.
Vernon peeled off the remaining wrapping and gasped. The
upper part of the lamp was an intricately carved penis that Vernon recognized right away for its veins, lack of curvature, and bulbous head. He wrapped his hand around it, marvelling at how accurate it was. He set it on his desk and looked at the tall beige lampshade. He placed the lamp shade on the lamp. The metal rings clasped the top of the lamp and held firmly in place. He plugged the lamp in and flicked it on. The lamp cast a warm glow to the room. Vernon took a moment to turn off the office lights to better appreciate the glow. Then remembering how long he had been back here with nobody to serve customers, he flicked the lamp’s switch to turn it off, only it didn’t turn off. Instead it turned off all the bulbs except one, making the light faint. And while it made the light faint, it cast a large shadow on the wall. A shadow shaped like Dave’s manhood, thought Vernon, and he became flushed as he finally understood why his lover had wanted him to be alone when he tried the lamp. Another flick of the switch turned off the lamp and Vernon left his office, to find Agatha and Geraldine waiting at the door of his shop. He smiled as he opened the door for the ladies.
“You okay, Vernon?” Geraldine asked. “You look a bit flushed.”
Poplar Falls Page 9