With the loss of that opportunity, she had gained another one: caring for the person who had been grandfather, father, and mother to her for most of her life. From her perspective, it was the only decision possible. But someday, she told herself, she would go to college and pursue the education she had sacrificed.
Wilma readjusted herself in the office chair and, to Harley’s relief, changed the subject. “You been at the whiskey since early this mornin’?”
“Busiest time of the year.”
“Well, I’ll get you a pot of coffee made up here directly.”
“That’d be great, thanks. I’ll just head upstairs and check on the whiskey.”
On the way to the stairwell, Harley walked past her great-aunt’s desk. The older woman had removed her pink shower cap, revealing an army of curlers bound to dyed red hair. Harley paused in the doorway, perplexed.
“Aunt Wilma,” she said, motioning toward the top of her head, “I think you may’ve forgotten to take out your curlers this morning.”
Compact in hand, Wilma glided on a coat of pink salmon lipstick and smacked her lips. “Oh no, honey, them’s is supposed to be in there. You see, this here’s gonna be a permanent.” She angled her head, giving Harley an aerial view. “Them needs to stay in all day.”
3
A Patient Spirit
Harley started up the stairs, realizing that today, like all the other days in Notchey Creek, would not be normal. On the third floor, she half expected to find her grandfather kneeling beside a charred oak barrel as he once had, his eyes closed in quiet concentration as he sipped from a small whiskey tasting glass.
To her, he had always appeared more like a monk lost in prayer than a whiskey distiller, but instead of a habit and tonsure, he had worn a pair of denim overalls and a University of Tennessee Volunteers baseball cap. But the upper room was empty of his presence, only her memories left to fill the space.
“Needs more time,” her grandfather had always said, at last opening his eyes from the tasting glass to meet hers.
Harley removed that same tasting glass from the shelf and, after unplugging the cork from the barrel, filled the glass with whiskey and took a sip. She drew in the aroma of caramel, vanilla, and char, rolling the sweet smokiness over her tongue. As was usually the case, it needed a little more time.
Whiskey was a patient spirit, not held to timetables or human impatience. “It’ll be ready when it’s ready,” her grandfather had always said, “and it’s best not to rush it.” According to Jackson Henrickson, all of the best things in life took years to develop richness—friendships, marriages, and bottles of whiskey being just three of them. At the age of twenty-six, Harley believed that to be true as well.
Returning to the sink, she rinsed the whiskey glass before placing it on the shelf. As she dried her hands on a towel, she thought of her grandfather, the man who had been not only her mother and father but also her very best friend. Oh, how she missed him.
“You all finished up outside?” Wilma called from the stairwell.
“Charcoal’s down to a smolder,” Harley said, coming back down the steps. “Should be ready for Uncle Tater to collect in another hour or so.”
“If he’s even up by then. I swear that brother of mine. His bedroom was as quiet as Grant’s tomb this mornin’ when I passed by the house. He and Floyd must’ve tied on a big one at Bud’s last night.”
Bud’s Pool Hall was a notorious beer joint and the favorite watering hole for Uncle Tater and the large cast of characters he called friends. Wilma and Harley were grateful every day they didn’t find him in a jail cell in the Notchey Creek police station.
“Coffee’s about ready,” Wilma said, not glancing up from her nail filing. “And how about that new whiskey upstairs? Let me guess. It ain’t ready yet?”
“Not ready, but almost.”
Wilma blew nail dust from her emery board. “Figures. Waitin’ on that old stuff is like waitin’ at the Walmart pharmacy on a Saturday.” She returned to her nail filing. “Well, anyway, them bottles is filled up and sealed, waitin’ for you on the counter yonder.”
Harley retrieved her barn coat from the hook, and as she guided her arms through the sleeves, Wilma said, “Oh, and Tina called earlier. Says you need to answer your friggin’ cell phone. Says it’s aggravatin’ how you never pick up, and I’ve got to agree with her on that. Secondly, she said it’s an emergency. She needs to talk to you ASAP.” Wilma lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Of course, she always says it’s an emergency, don’t she? I swear that girl can stir up drama like a bear can stir up a honey bee’s nest.”
Tina Rizchek, Harley’s childhood best friend, seemed to call her at all hours of the day and night with self-perceived emergencies.
“I’ll give her a call,” Harley said over her shoulder, then hurried out the door before Wilma could catch her again.
4
An Early-Morning Phone Call
Fallen leaves and blades of wet grass clung to Harley’s boots as she trekked across the barnyard, passing Uncle Tater’s two-story white farmhouse, a house that had sheltered their family since their arrival in Notchey Creek a hundred years prior. The creek babbled beside her, but she could not see it for the veil of mist blanketing the water and most of its bank. Finding her trusted seat, she sat down, flinching as her back rested against slats of cold wrought iron.
Cradling the coffee mug in both hands, she blew on the surface, her breaths indecipherable from the rising steam. As she took small sips, she enjoyed the nature around her, the twittering of birds, the scampering of squirrels. The undisturbed forest behind Uncle Tater’s house was an ideal habitat for God’s creatures, the quiet only scattered by the occasional passing of a car.
She drew her gaze up the trunk of a neighboring tree. Shrouded in morning dew, the intricate handiwork of the orb weaver was revealed, the craftsman long awake and at work, having consumed yesterday’s web and started anew. Harley studied the spider, amazed its black and yellow body contained six different kinds of precious silk, used to craft some of nature’s most amazing artwork. Though often associated with ugliness and fear, few other creatures did greater for humankind than the spider.
Not everything has to be beautiful for us, she thought, not if we can appreciate the function it provides to the world, not if we can appreciate beauty of a different quality. And in a season associated with death and decay, the orb weaver seemed to teem with life.
Harley’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket, and she drew it to her ear. “Morning, Tina. Everything okay?”
As usual, it wasn’t, and Tina began their conversation as she often did, frantic and breathless. “Oh, my gosh, Harley, you won’t believe it.”
She probably wouldn’t. Nonetheless, she said, “Okay, slow down. Now, tell me what’s happened.”
“I was drivin’ into work this morning ’n at.”
Tina, a native of Pittsburgh, had moved with her family to Notchey Creek in the fifth grade after her father had taken a job with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Despite spending the last sixteen years in East Tennessee, Tina had retained her Pittsburgh accent, which became more pronounced when she was stressed.
“And I decided to take a shortcut, you know, drivin’ up past Briarwood Park ’n at. And that’s when I seen him.”
“Saw who?”
Tina groaned in duress. “Oh, I knew I shoulda went a different way.”
“Saw who?”
“Steven Tyler. He was sittin’ up in bed there lookin’ at me.”
“Who?”
“You know, from Aerosmith.”
When the name didn’t register with Harley, Tina said, “Oh, for Pete’s sake. Will you please get cable? Read an entertainment magazine every once in a while? Aerosmith is a legendary rock band. Their lead singer is Steven Tyler.”
“And you’re saying he was sitting in a bed on the side of the road in Notchey Creek looking at you?”
“No, silly, of course it wasn’t him. It was
one of those stupid scarecrows. But I’ll tell you, Harley, they really did dress it up like him. Big black wavy wig, leopard print pajamas, pink feather boa.”
Each year as part of the fall celebrations, the Notchey Creek Chamber of Commerce invited the local businesses to stage scarecrows in front of their respective properties. The rules, lax at best, carried only one stipulation, that said scarecrows had to represent the business in some way. Given Tina’s description of the pajamas and the bed, Harley wagered a strong guess.
“Beds-to-Go?”
“Yeah, Beds-to-Go. Oh, gosh, I hate that place. Anyhow, that’s not why I’m callin’ you. You see when I saw Steven Tyler … I mean the scarecrow, it freaked me out so bad, I crashed my van in the creek.” A groan oozed down the line. “I think the radiator’s busted, and there’s steam comin’ from her hood. And I don’t know what I’m gonna do ’cause—”
“I’ll come by there now, and we can call a tow truck. We can use my truck for your deliveries.”
Another groan, this time of relief. “Oh, thank goodness … but that’s only part of the reason I’m calling. You see, the other reason is that there’s a man here … in the ditch.”
Harley sat forward in her seat. “What?”
“Yeah, and I think—well, I think he might be dead.”
5
Stranger Things
It was just after seven in the morning when Harley’s red 1958 Chevy truck rumbled down Main Street, having traversed the region’s intricate web of country roads. As the truck entered downtown, it passed beneath the amber, gold, and red canopy formed by Main Street’s parallel rows of maple trees. Leaves fluttered like confetti in the truck’s headlights, while others danced beneath the tires, creating a flurry of movement and shadow.
Behind the maples stood Notchey Creek’s half-mile stretch of three-story brick buildings, many built during the 1830s when the town was a small timber and coal-mining outpost.
Today, the buildings served the many Smoky Mountain tourists who flocked to Main Street on nights and weekends, the restaurants and shops decked out with awnings in a myriad of stripes and colors. Patio tables and park benches flanked the sidewalks, favorite spots for outdoor dining or resting one’s feet after a long day of antique shopping or leaf gazing. Though Notchey Creek had its fair share of tourists, they tended to be older and more affluent, preferring the town’s quieter atmosphere to that of its bustling neighbors Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.
Main Street was quiet that morning. Just a few people walked past the dark storefronts, waiting for their mid-afternoon tourist traffic. Harley slowed her truck to an idle in front of the town gazebo, where The Notchey Creek Historical Society had hung a banner advertising Pioneer Days, a fall harvest festival celebrating the town’s agrarian past. Each year, the festival drew thousands of tourists and thousands of their much-needed dollars, all donated to the historical society. To make Main Street more festive, colorful wreaths, hay bales, and scarecrows adorned the streetlights, and terracotta pots full of chrysanthemums filled the spaces between.
Harley turned left onto Briarwood Avenue and headed north toward Briarwood Park, a stretch of tall pines and walking trails connecting the elite neighborhood of Briarwood with downtown. At this hour, the deserted road appeared ghostly and gray, enveloped in a veil of early morning mist. Ahead, in the truck’s headlights, Tina’s pink minivan peeked from the ditch and the giant model cupcake, Rosie, which usually sat atop the van’s roof, lay in the middle of the road, sans cherry. In the grass behind them, the Beds-to-Go scarecrow display had fared much better: Not a hair on Steven Tyler’s wig was out of place and his queen-sized bed was perfectly made. Propped on a bed of fluffy pillows, he grinned at Harley, his corncob hands holding a sign that read “Dream On.”
Tina, on the other hand, wasn’t grinning. She shivered in a black wool sweater, an embroidered jack-o’-lantern smiling from her chest. Her orange sequined miniskirt did not detract from the purple-and-green tights encasing her short legs, nor her three-inch orange stilettos as they tapped against the pavement. Secured to her peroxide blond locks were orange, black, and purple extensions that fell past her shoulders and she looked intently at each of her long fingernails, painted with scenes of a haunted house.
Regarding Tina’s fashion sense, Harley had always thought of a quote by their beloved East Tennessee native, Dolly Parton: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”
And so it was with Tina. Harley supposed they were both misfits of sorts. Somehow they formed a friendship in the fifth grade, and the timing couldn’t have been better for Harley. At the age of ten, she was a friendless orphan and was in desperate need of someone. Tina had been that person for her, and despite their apparent differences, Harley was eternally grateful.
She stopped the truck at a safe distance and, before she could turn off the engine, Tina scuttled over and tugged at the driver’s side door.
“Oh, thank goodness. I didn’t think you were ever gonna get here.”
When Harley opened the door, Tina threw her arms around her, as much for comfort, it seemed, as for warmth. Tina released her and rubbed her hands together. “Gosh, it’s cold out this mornin’.”
Harley reached inside the truck and took one of her barn coats from the passenger seat before handing it to Tina. She made a face of disgust as she led her arms through the sleeves, but the need for warmth overcame that of vanity, and soon she was holding the coat close to her body.
“Where is he?” Harley asked, looking over Tina’s shoulder. “The man you saw?”
She pointed behind them to the ditch. “He’s over there. And he’s still not movin’.”
Tina’s stilettos scuttled behind Harley as the two women made their way toward the ditch. A blanket of mist covered a large portion of the road’s shoulder, making it difficult to see anything of substance beyond. It was then that Tina latched onto Harley’s elbow, pointing to something in the ditch below. Harley paused, her eyes focusing in the early morning light.
A flash of something.
Black.
A garbage bag, perhaps? But on closer inspection, the garbage bag turned out to be a black raincoat, slick with dew. Inside the coat lay a man, face up, his eyes closed, pale face etched with dirt and bits of grass. He had been a handsome man once, Harley surmised, but time and something else, something terrible, had been unkind to him.
A road map of scars coursed down the contours of his face, making his age indecipherable. He could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy years of age, she guessed. A pale triangle of flesh peeked from his shirt collar, exposing a pair of dog tags linked by a silver chain. But the tags were turned away, obscuring any identifying information. She deflected her gaze to the wet grass and thought of her late mother, a regressive pain pressing against the back of her eyelids.
“Who do you think he is?” Tina asked.
Harley examined the mismatch of tattered clothes, the pants too short, the shirt sleeves too long. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe a vet who’s fallen on hard times.”
“What in the world’s he doin’ here?”
Harley had a guess. A tragic one. Taking careful steps, she lowered herself into the ditch, Tina watching her from the road’s shoulder.
“Harley, what are you doin’?” she asked. “You’re not gonna touch him, are you?”
“Just a little.”
Crouching to her knees, Harley pressed her fingers to the side of the man’s neck, checking for a pulse.
Behind her, Tina screamed.
The man’s eyes had popped open, and he was staring ahead, not at Harley, but at something beyond her, to a horror only he could see.
“Get out of there, Harley!”
But Harley drew herself closer to the man, and when he did not lash out, she said in a gentle whisper, “Sir, we’re here to help you.”
At the sound of her voice, the man’s eyes shot back in his head, the white sockets twisting back and forth. “I need to know.”
<
br /> “You need to know what?”
“I need to know what happened.”
Taking the man’s hand in hers, Harley waited for him to continue.
“That boy. I need to know what happened to that boy.”
“Harley, please!” Tina yelled from the bank. “Get out of there!”
“What boy?” Harley whispered, drawing her face closer to his.
“Innocent. He was innocent.”
Behind her, Tina’s fingernails tapped against her cell phone, dialing for help. But that was all she heard, because the man was stumbling to his feet. He rose above her, his arms thrashing out in front of him for balance.
Harley shrunk back in the wet grass, shielding herself from any violence he might intend, but he was staggering out of the ditch in the direction of Briarwood Park, moving toward the tree line, his eyes fixed on the woods.
“Jed’s on his way,” Tina said, her voice shaking.
The man had already disappeared among the tall pines of Briarwood Park.
6
Jed
“What do you mean he just disappeared?”
Sheriff Jed Turner towered over Harley and Tina, muscled arms flexed against his hips. Since he arrived at the scene, his attention had been solely on Tina, treating Harley as she had been to him since they were children, invisible. Behind him, two deputies emerged from the park where they had been searching for the man.
“Nothing,” one of the deputies called out to Jed.
“Let’s head on back to the station,” he told them. “Nothin’ of importance here.”
Harley wondered how often Jed replayed the vicious tackle that left his knee ligaments torn to shreds, ending not only his season but also his career in the NFL.
A year later, he had retired with millions to his hometown of Notchey Creek, the only place where he was still considered a hero. After a very brief and unsuccessful stint as a sports commentator for the University of Tennessee Volunteers, he had run for county sheriff, which he won by a landslide. In a county with meager crime rates where football was king, it mattered very little to anyone that Jed lacked prior law enforcement experience. To the still-wealthy Jed, acting as sheriff was a mere hobby.
Murder Comes to Notchey Creek Page 2