by R.M. Haig
September 17th, 2016. 1:25PM
Burlwood, Indiana
Jake decided to press the green answer button on his steering wheel instead of the one that was red for reject because he realized that nineteen years were more than enough. He hadn't come to that conclusion in the intervening period between the death of his mother and the phone call that brought him out to Burlwood to begin with, but he was comfortable in accepting it now. He'd taken that first call from Launchpad blind, with no idea who was calling him as he sat hungover in the parking lot of Bottoms Up back home.
Donnell had probably been forced to choke down his pride to make that initial contact, and he was doing the same in reaching out now, after Jake had told the details of his crimes to a Clyde Rambo who was out to see Ron Boudreaux chopped down to size. Rambo didn't really care about Donnell's involvement, and none of what was happening now was at all related to what happened to Janet Gigu?re on that cold and snowy afternoon in what seemed like another life.
Finally deciding that it was time to forgive, finally understanding that the decades had a power to heal, Jake made a conscious effort to put the past behind him as he accepted Donnell's call this time.
"Hey Donnell," he said flatly, "I found out about Sarge the hard way, but thanks for trying to warn me. I've got the confession of Rusty Parker on my passenger seat, and Sarge spelled out all the details to me verbally before he -- well, before he set off."
"So you're okay?" Donnell asked, the worry obvious in his voice. "Jesus Christ, all I've been thinking about for the past four hours is you laying dead in that man's living room!"
"Yeah, it went a little differently than that," Jake advised, "but you weren't far off. Sarge is dead, and Rusty's gone right behind him."
"Holy shit," Donnell sighed, "I bet Boudreaux is losing his mind!"
Realizing that his friend knew nothing about what happened at Safe & Secure Self Storage, Jake decided he didn't have the energy to explain and would simply leave it all where it lie. He wanted to focus his energy, instead, on what would become of Chucky as a result of all the action.
"Look," he began, "Rusty owned up in his own hand-writing to all of the original murders, and he confessed that Billy Marsh was killed in his garage. He stopped short of saying he did it, though, so where does that leave us?"
"Did you come across the van in all of this?" Donnell asked curiously. "That's kind of key."
"I think so, back at Sarge's place," Jake said. "He wouldn't cop to it, but I'm about positive that I was looking right at it."
"If you can prove that," the lawyer replied, "and we couple it with Rusty's confession, we're in the clear. I'll make a motion for a summary dismissal of the charges against Chucky based on that evidence, and I'd bet we'll get it on the back of what you've dug up!"
"Perfect," Jake praised the words. "I'm headed back to Chucky's place to pack my shit and grab the registration for the van. I've about had my fill of this town again, I'm ready to leave as quickly as I can. I'll swing back by Sarge's place with the papers on my way out and compare the VIN's. Once I've got that in place, I'll pass it and the confession note along to --" he paused, remembering that Donnell didn't know Alberto Gomez was back on the case, "someone besides Boudreaux."
"That'll cinch it," Donnell explained. "Let me know when it's done, and I'll file the motion."
"You got it, man," Jake answered. "I'll call the moment it's wrapped up."
Thinking it over, considering how it would all play out, he realized there was one more thing he wanted to do before he left town all together. In his mind, he'd decided that he would be leaving Burlwood behind for good this time, perhaps as he should've with the first go around. He couldn't leave this time without explaining himself to Chucky like he had last time, though. He couldn't leave his pal hanging, like he'd done before. The man deserved a proper goodbye, and he intended to give it.
"I'd like to see Chucky again," he said in closing, "before I leave, because I don't think I'll ever be back. Can you arrange another visit for me? This evening, maybe?"
Donnell drew a deep breath, thinking through the procedure required to arrange such a thing. "It's possible," he said, "but I can't make any promises. I'll put the call in to the jail and let you know what I come up with, that's all I can do."
"Alright, let me know," Jake concluded. "I'll talk to you in a bit."
With a simple bye, they ended the call. Neither said a word about the past; neither the distant nor the more recent. They wrapped up peacefully this time, which was more than could be said about either other instance before. Considering the book finally closed with the gesture, closed and sealed once and for all, Jake turned onto Route 4 and cruised along towards Burlwood Meadows.
When he finally made the turn onto Woodstock Boulevard, when he was finally entering the park for this final time, he again smelled that terrible malodor that had greeted him when he first made his return to his old stomping grounds. Shit and sewage, poverty and desperation, vice and criminality just below the radar of King Ron Boudreaux, the town pusher turned hero and one-eye-blind enforcer of the law. Again it was nauseating, again it was vile and all-encompassing. With the sweet stench rolling around in his nose, he knew this would be the final time he should smell it. But, for once, it wasn't because he was en route to double indemnity, it wasn't because his cold nostrils wouldn't be drawing further breath once he left this place behind and set off down the road of the rest of his life. It was because he needed to move on, whatever that meant. He needed to press forward with his life, not bring it all to a stop. Whatever that was, whatever it looked like, it did not involve Burlwood or Burlwood Meadows. This was to be the final goodbye to the chapter of his time that involved the things he saw as he cruised down Oakwood.
Reaching Chucky's trailer, he did not park in the driveway because this was not his home. Like the visitor that he was, he parked out front on the side of the road before marching over the lawn to the front door to make his entrance. Once inside, he hurriedly found and started to pack his travel bag with the belongings that he'd strewn about the place during his residence there. Stuffing the thing as full as it was when he first came to this place, he tried to stop the train of feelings and emotions that he'd endured during the past week from distracting him and hijacking his concentration. It was hard, as he'd ridden an incredible roller coaster since he arrived and it flatly refused to be ignored entirely. He'd been higher than he thought possible in his condition, and he'd been lower than he knew the bottom went. He'd been in command, and he'd been helpless. He'd been ready to die, and he'd been eager to live.
Before he was able to pick up all the pieces, before he was ready to test the limits of his bag's zipper one more time, he heard her voice in the doorway. He was in the kitchen when it rang out, and immediately there was a spear impaled through his chest. Nikki and what she represented to him were the last things he'd hoped to encounter before he left this place for good, and there she was.
"Jake?" She called into the place, not seeing him immediately. "Jake, are you here?"
Exhaling all of his anger, all of his resentment, and then sucking the blackness back in like the toxic fumes of Ron Boudreaux's meth, he moved into her sight. She was standing in the open doorway, clutching her tiny purse as her eyes brightened at seeing him. As he planted himself in the arch to the hallway, she saw the slash across his face that Grover's vase had given him.
"What happened to your face, sweetie?" She asked, concerned.
"Don't sweetie me, you fucking whore!" He growled lightly, barely audibly.
As quiet as he'd been, Nikki managed to hear every word. It was evident in her face that each of them struck her like the pike of a grimace that Jake was wearing, mortally wounding her as she wondered why he would speak such icy words.
"What?" She asked, bleeding from her soul with a look of agony to match overcoming her pretty face.
"You heard me," he doubled down. "Do you make house-cal
ls to all of your customers, or do you expect that I'll pay extra?"
Stunned, her shoulders dropped and her heart seemed to break in two before his eyes. Wounded, she replied in dismay. "What are you talking about, Jake?"
"You know goddamn well what I'm talking about, Nikki!" He shouted before recovering his control and delivering the rest as words of scorn spoken through his teeth. "I know all about you, Nikki, a lot more than you ever figured that you ought to tell me!"
Staggered, she stood still and braced herself. A tear running down her face, knowing exactly how he would reply, she asked "like what, Jake?"
"Like everything," he replied harshly. "Your habit, your profession, your time as a guest of the county!"
"So, what?" She asked, wiping the waterfall of tears pouring from her eyes. "That makes me a piece of shit or something? That makes everything we had turn to nothing?"
"What we had?" He snapped, choking back his fury and disgust as best he could. "What exactly did you think that we had, Nikki? Just what do you think we built? Whatever it is, did you really believe that it could stand on a foundation of lies? Did you really think we had something that meant anything at all?"
"I thought so," she sobbed, "I thought it was something, which is obviously more than you think!"
"No," he chuckled with disdain. "No, Nikki, we didn't have shit! How long was it gonna be before you gave me the bill, Nikki? How long before you expected me to pay for your affection? Huh?"
Losing her handle on the bout, Nikki was overcome by a fit of violent crying that bent her at the waist, her hand over her pained stomach. "That's not fair!" She bellowed. "How can you say that after --"
"After WHAT?" He fired again. "After what?"
Unable to respond, she continued in her fit of tears as he looked upon her with disgust in his eyes. Seeing her in such misery, watching as she suffered at his words, he felt a tinge of regret at having attacked her so roughly. It didn't last long, though, because -- so far as he was concerned -- she had deceived him. While he was tempted to move to comfort her, to scoop her up in a forgiving hug, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He'd hurt her, sure. But no worse than she'd hurt him by pretending that they did have something. By pretending that she had an interest in him outside of the tab she would eventually present to him.
Recovering herself in his silence, she eventually regained the ability to speak and addressed him with shouting of her own, though she was still doubled over in pain. "It's true," she cried. "Everything you heard about me, it's true! I was an addict! I was a prostitute! I did lose custody of Sammy to my mother! But you know something, Jake? People can change! People can better themselves! I've changed! All of that shit, that was before! I don't do any of it anymore, because I wanted to be better than I was! I wanted to do better than I was! So, here I am! What you see, that's what you get, Jake! I'm not perfect, but neither are you, I'm sure! I've done things I'm not proud of, but I dare you to tell me that you haven't! Can you? Can you say that honestly? Because if you can, then I'll let you go ahead and call me a whore! I'll let you go ahead and call me a fuck-up, Jake, if you can look me in the eye and say that you've always done right!"
The response, of course, was silence and staring from the target she'd made of him. He couldn't say any of those things, because those things certainly weren't true. All he did in response was continue to stare at her, but the disgust and hatred in his beautiful eyes seemed to be fading away with each tick of the clock.
"I didn't think so," she eventually declared as his front continued to soften.
"So why?" Jake asked, his tone gentle and tender now in a strange juxtaposition to what it had been just moment ago. "Why did you come after me? Why did you chase me?"
Nikki continued to calm herself, standing erect to face him with her smokey wet eyes as she delivered her hopes. "Because I wanted to have a second chance!" She said. "People do get second chances in your world, don't they? I wanted to have a chance with a good guy, Jake. Everybody else, everybody I've been with, they always turned out to be pieces of shit! I just wanted to try to do it all right for once! With you, because you seemed different."
"And so you thought I was better than the others?" He asked, a crooked and dismissive grin on his face. "You thought I was a good guy? If so, you were wrong, babe. I'm not a good guy, I'm not a good man. You say you've made mistakes, well trust me... I'm the king of mistakes! If you're after a good guy, Nikki, then you're most definitely looking in the wrong place!"
Seeing him still softening, seeing him calling her with his eyes, she moved to him and the two of them wrapped their arms around each other tightly. Turning her head up to his, she opened her mouth and met his waiting kiss with passion. As they made out, she slid her hands down to his belt and unfastened it, working to undo the button of his jeans as well, and he let her do it. Before long, she had the button undone and rolled his zipper down to its cradle in the denim. Breaking their amorous exchange, she dropped to her knees before him and pulled at his underwear until he fell out of them, erect and ready for what might come next. As she prepared to take them further than they had ever been, and she readied to open a new horizon for their relationship, he lovingly put a hand on her shoulder and pushed as he pulled himself away from her.
"No," he said in a whisper as he gently held her clear of him. "No, baby, I can't do that."
Looking up at him, tears seeming to well in his eyes as they kept raining from hers, she stared intently into his soul as she spoke.
"Of course you can't, sweetie," she said. "What kind of guy would you be if you could?"
Without another word, she pulled her eyes from his and turned them to the tiny purse in her clutches. Unzipping it as she had his done to his pants, she dug around inside for something that he couldn't see from above her. Having found it, she grabbed hold of his left hand and slid a cold titanium ring around his third finger. Spreading his hand, he looked and saw that it was his wedding band... the one he'd thrown away when he arrived at Chucky's trailer... the one that had sat in a pool of congealing TV dinner gravy until she came over and emptied his trash... the one that she'd taken out, taken home and cleaned... the one that she'd saved for him, because she knew that he would eventually want it back.
Pulling at her face, trying to force her to look into his eyes as she resisted, he called her name. When she gave up the fight and met his pupils, he saw the sorrow in her heart at giving him back. There was wonder and appreciation in his stare, now, which was what he wanted her to see. His eyes told her that they did have something... they had built something, and -- if the circumstances were different -- there would be more to build in the days ahead.
That wasn't the case, though, it couldn't be. He had wrongs to right, he had bridges to repair, he had obligations to be met. Seeing his regret at that as it related to them, she stood and gave him a gentle and plutonic kiss on the cheek before whispering into his ear.
"People get second chances, sweetie," she said softly. "Go back home... it's waiting for you."
He had no words for her, no means to convey what he was feeling. Giving him another kiss, she turned away quickly as though any further eye contact would harm her. As though she couldn't bare to make such intimate contact with him anymore, because to do so would break something inside of her... most likely her heart.
Knowing he was seeing the last of her, knowing that he would never look upon her again, his tongue wished to shout I love you at her back, but he knew those to be the wrong words for this moment.
Instead, he said nothing.
And then she was gone.
His heart feeling the weight of his wedding band and the pull of Nikki's departure, he was slow to continue his packing. Moving at a snail's pace, he gathered more of his belongings and thought about everything that had happened to him in one long week -- a week that seemed like a year in ramifications and backdraft for his life... for Chucky's lif
e.
As he moved, his cellphone vibrated in his pocket and brought his slow pace to a virtual stop. Checking it, he saw that he'd received a text from Donnell that said he'd spoken with Commissioner Dickinson at the Elsmere PD, followed by several question marks. Their presence meant that Dickinson hadn't explained what happened with Boudreaux to him. The remainder of the text said that he authorized a visit with Chucky at six this evening, which was perfect.
Grateful that he would have a chance to say goodbye to his old friend, Jake started thinking less about the things that had happened to his personal life during his period back in Burlwood and started going over the case he'd built for Chucky's freedom. That reminded him that he needed to fetch the registration for the church van so that he could make a final confirmation that one of the key pieces of evidence was sitting in the driveway of Sarge Grover Simmonds. The search for the document, which Jake knew he'd left somewhere in the trailer, led him to the bathroom where he found the small slip of paper settled on the counter near the shower. Finding it there reminded him that he'd pulled it from his pocket as he got undressed several days ago and just abandoned it there. Putting it back in his pocket again, he figured he was about ready to set off for West Pine to make the connection before his scheduled visit at the county jail.
Feeling something tightening in his head, though, feeling like he was about to be overcome by an incredible headache as result of the rapid ups and downs he'd experienced on this day, he decided that he would take some Tylenol from the medicine cabinet before he set about meeting his final obligations in the state of Indiana. He leaned close to check himself out in the mirrored doors of the vanity and found the cut to be no more than a superficial scrape. It was a surprise to him that he'd bled as much as he had from it, given how shallow the wound actually was.
Nonetheless, he figured he should clean the wound out, so he would need some peroxide and perhaps ointment to go with the pain reliever. Checking the left panel of mirror glass first, he found the Tylenol and promptly swallowed two dry. There was no sign of first-aid implements there, so he opened the middle and found that there were none there either. That left only the right panel, of course, which he opened with no drama or theatrics to recover the small brown bottle of antiseptic that he knew must be in there.
It was once the door was open that the drama and theatrics came, and they came as a brutal storm of shock and disbelief. The peroxide was there, of course, and it was right next to the box of Trojan Condoms that he'd seen on his very first day in this trailer but had apparently failed to register and process properly. Standing in his shoes now, though, after everything he'd been through... after everything he'd learned... now he could process what their presence meant.
Why did Charles Edward Murphy have a box of condoms in his trailer?
What purpose did they serve?
Thinking back, he remembered he conversation with the man the last time he'd visited him in jail. He remembered him saying I've never had sex, Darkwing... he remembered him saying I tried once, but I was too nervous...
Checking the box, Jake found that there was, indeed, one condom missing... one and only one...
Jesus Christ...
Jesus...
It had been there all along, hidden in plain sight...
Billy Marsh was not sodomized, Rambo had inferred from the police report...
Jesus Christ...
Jesus...
I didn't kill Billy Marsh, I'm Retired, Sarge had said...
Jesus Christ...
Jesus...
You probably think I'll buy that he broke such a covenant, Boudreaux had said about the second confidential informant...
Jesus Christ...
Jesus...
I've asked in faith every day since Billy Marsh went missing whether or not I truly know Chucky. Those were the words of Father Carl Lovett...
He didn't...
He KNEW he didn't...
It all made sense...
God, it all fit...
Jesus...
Jesus...
SIXTY-FOUR