Hunting Michael Underwood

by L V Gaudet

  “Do you think he was behind it?”

  “I did. I guess not. The sheriff arrested someone else for it and he went to prison. That didn’t stop the town from blaming William McAllister. A bunch of them even went to the farm to take matters into their own hands when the sheriff didn’t seem to be doing anything about it.”

  “A lynch mob?” Lawrence almost chuckles. “That sounds so old West.”

  That’s what it felt like back then. The older generation, my generations’ parents, they know more.”

  “That’s proving a little harder to find,” Lawrence says. “I tracked down some people who lived here then. A lot of the closer farms are gone now, part of the city.”

  Cliff nods. “The town exploded seemingly overnight and was re-branded as a small city some years back. The police force expanded to more than a sheriff with a few men working out of a single building into a municipal force with a couple of stations. The old tags like Sherriff were dropped, the officers’ titles changed to be in line with other urban municipal forces. Can’t help but think it still feels like a small town, though.”

  “Do you know where I can find some of these older people?”

  “The old hardware store is still around and it’s still the hangout for the old farmers and town men who were around when the building boom started.”

  “Is there anything else you remember?”

  “Amy Dodds.”

  Lawrence looks at him questioningly.

  “She was a kid Jason’s age. She went missing around the time of the others. The only kid too. Amy was never found.”

  Cliff shrugs. “Again, I don’t know a lot. Didn’t really pay much attention. I had other interests back then. The older generation would know more.”

  “Where do I find this old hardware store?”

  Cliff gives him directions and Lawrence is on his way back to his office.

  5Lawrence

  Lawrence shifts in his chair and looks again at the phone on his desk, waiting impatiently for Jim McNelly to call him back.

  The discovery months ago of the mass graveyard in the woods exploded on the news wires in a media frenzy immediately after I put up that first report about it, he thinks.

  For that brief moment, Lawrence had thrilled with basking in the glory that he had the lead on it, had been the one to break the story of the century. But, like all big stories, the momentum quickly died with nothing new to report and the story sank to the dark underbelly of the media world where common everyday atrocities steep quietly without breaking to the public while newer and flashier stories make the headlines.

  It’s all about selling the news. Shock and awe sells, and the more exciting feel good stories. Even the same old political stories tossed out there with new shocking headlines sells. Depressing stories without the thrill of new shocks only depress the readers. They don't sell papers or advertising slots.

  My editor told me to leave it alone, but I can’t.

  No one doubts there is something big behind the graves. They just doubt anyone will find out what it is soon enough to keep anyone interested in the story.

  I will find it.

  Somehow, the history of the McAllister Family and their farm holds the secret and Michael Underwood is somehow connected to both the farm and to Jason McAllister. I just have to find that missing link.

  Frustrated with waiting for McNelly’s call, Lawrence pushes his chair away from his desk and gets up. He grabs his leather case with all his files and notes on the McAllisters and the town history and heads for the exit.

  He is ducking past his editor’s office when his editor, Paul Giovanni, calls out, waving him back. “Lawrence, get in here.”

  Lawrence thinks about not stopping, just pretending he didn’t hear.

  “I know you heard me,” Paul calls.

  Lawrence turns, caught, and stops in his boss’s doorway.

  “You aren’t wasting time on that graveyard thing are you?” Paul warns.

  “No, absolutely not.”

  “Or the Jason McAllister thing?” Paul eyes him warily.

  I have no doubts Hawkworth is doing exactly what I told him not to do. The man is a brilliant reporter, but he is an odd bird too and never plays by anyone’s rules. I would have fired him years ago if he wasn’t such a good reporter.

  “No sir,” Lawrence smirks. He can’t help it, the grin just came out. It’s a nervous response to knowing he is doing something his boss had expressly forbidden. He isn’t lying, of course. You only waste your time if you chase down a story that doesn’t exist, and he knows the story behind the graves and the McAllisters is just waiting to be uncovered.

  “Good,” Paul says. “I have a couple stories I want you to work on. I sent them to your phone.”

  Lawrence’s blank look says it all.

  “You forgot your phone.” Paul is bordering on exasperated. They are probably one of the last newspapers to equip their reporters with smart phones, except maybe the small town rags. Hawkworth is the only one of his reporters who can’t seem to get on board with it.

  “Go get it and don’t lose it,” Paul huffs.

  Lawrence nods and ducks out of his office, returning to his desk. The phone is in the third drawer he checks. He tries turning it on and nothing happens.

  “Must be dead,” he shrugs.

  Lashaya snickers from the next desk. “You have to hold the button down for a few,” she says, teasing.

  Lawrence smiles and nods. He knows he is the joke around the news office over his failure to learn how to use the phone.

  Holding the button down, he waits the interminably long few seconds it takes for it to turn on and boot up. Finally, it blips at him. He glances at the screen, sees the number 56 on the mailbox and 25 on the text box, 34 on the little phone for missed calls, and shoves it into his pocket without checking any of the messages.

  He hurries out of the office before his editor can stop him again.

  “I hope the old regulars are hanging around that old hardware store.”

  Lawrence is driving to the old part of the small city where the hardware store is when the sudden rude and unexpected intrusion of his phone ringing makes him almost jump.

  With his focus half on the road, Lawrence fumbles for the phone, finds it, fumbles again for the answer button, and almost drops it before finally holding it to his ear.

  “Hawkworth, InterCity Voice. You bury ‘em, I dig ‘em up.”

  It’s his own private joke, that no matter how hard you bury the bodies or evidence, he’ll find it, dig it up, and write about it.

  “Lawrence, Jim here, what do you want?” McNelly’s voice sounds like he is trapped somewhere in a deep hole far away.

  “Jim, I’m on my way to talk to some old-timers at the old hardware store. I’m digging into the McAllister family’s past. Do you want to come?”

  “I can’t make it there now,” McNelly says. “I’m on my own thing right now. Meet me at the pub tonight.”

  “All right, but you don’t know what you are missing.”

  “Yeah, a bunch of old men shooting the shit over the old days.” McNelly laughs. “I can miss it.”

  “Tonight then.” Lawrence fumbles for the button to disconnect the call, the car swerving as he takes his attention off the road and narrowly misses taking out the side mirror on a parked car. He drops the phone on the passenger seat and focuses on the road again, searching street signs.

  When he finds the place, he parks and hesitates before getting out. This is the oldest part of town. Some of the buildings received facelifts over the years, but the predominant architecture here is from the nineteen-sixties and older. The buildings are all small and rundown, the odd newer building making a mockery of its neighbours with its glass walls and bright neon glowing signage.

  The front of the hardware store is lined with battered old pickup trucks. He gets out and heads for the door to the hardware store.

  The paint is peeling on the outside, the steps are cracked an
d sagging to one side, and the door looks like it had been yanked from the nineteen-fifties.

  “This place must have been old in its prime.”

  From the outside, the building belongs in a small town in another era.

  He pushes the door open with a creak of its hinges, an old-style spring-loaded closure pushing back against him. The old bell over the door jangles sickly.

  Lawrence steps inside and looks around, the bell jangling again as he lets the door close behind him. He just stepped through a time warp back to the past.

  Everything about the place is stuck in the past, from the old worn wooden floor to the old worn wooden counter. The shelves, clutter of old-style general use and household products piled and hanging everywhere, and old signage meant to give the store a rustic look, all adds to the dated feel.

  The clincher is the row of stools pulled up to the L-shaped counter where wrinkled prune-like faces, skin yellowed and leathery from a lifetime in the sun and wind and cigarette smoke, stare in mute curiosity at the odd tall buzzard-like man who must have walked in by mistake.

  The elderly clerk standing behind the counter leans against the counter. The dated but modern by comparison cash register is the one thing that doesn’t fit with the rest of the picture.

  Lawrence studies the men out of the corner of his eye like escaped zoo animals that must be approached carefully. Not dangerous animals, mind you, more of the slow-moving sloth variety that might skitter away if startled. He wanders idly, pretending to be interested in what might be on the shelves.

  He can feel their stares on him.

  Finally, Lawrence picks up a strange looking object, its purpose and use a mystery to him, and goes to the cash register.

  “Found what you are looking for?” the old man behind the register asks with a crooked half smile.

  “Yes, I think so.” Lawrence puts the object down on the counter between them.

  The old men at the counter all snicker.

  “Yup, I think he got what he came for,” one of them says.

  “You even know what that’s used for?” the clerk asks with an amused grin.

  Lawrence looks at him with a blank expression, trying to come up with his best guess.

  “You ever even been on a farm?” one of the men teases.

  “No.” Lawrence turns to him. He looks back down at the object, trying to figure out what use it could possibly have.

  The old men just laugh harder at his expense, their shoulders shaking.

  “Okay, I give up,” Lawrence finally cedes. “I don’t know what this thing is.”

  He picks it up and holds it in front of his face, inspecting it. “What’s it for?”

  The old men laugh so hard that Lawrence half expects them to fall off their chairs.

  He looks at them quizzically.

  One raises his fist in a squeezing gesture and the others break into a fresh fit, laughing so hard that one has to wipe a tear from his eye.

  “It’s a ball crusher,” one of the men laughs as the clerk makes a slicing and squeezing motion at his genitals.

  “Castration,” the clerk laughs, “crushes the bull’s balls.” Emphasizing their great size, he mimics the treacherous act committed against the bulls’ most private of parts with his hands before Lawrence’s face as he says this.

  Lawrence pales and feels sick. He puts the offending object down in a hurry, feeling the taint of its gross purpose forever staining his hands. He has to wipe his hands on his pants as if they have somehow been dirtied.

  The old farmers roar with laughter.

  Lawrence suspects he may never know the truth of the object’s real purpose, but now that they had their fun at his expense it is time to get down to the real reason he is there.

  He moves away from the old-style hand juicer, avoiding looking at it again.

  Lawrence tries to look properly sheepish, but it’s a look he just can’t pull off with his skinny face and long buzzard beak-like nose.

  “You got me,” he chuckles. “I didn’t really come here for that thing. I came to talk. I want to ask you a few questions.”

  They look at him with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.

  “Cliff Hofstead sent me.”

  The announcement is met with a round of “Ah, Old Hofstead’s boy,” “How’s the kid doing?” and, a debate as to just when old man Hofstead passed on.

  The “kid” Cliff Hofstead is no kid at sixty-five years old.

  “So what do you want?” the clerk finally asks.

  Lawrence’s expression sobers up and he turns to them, trying to be casual and friendly.

  “I want to know about the McAllisters.”

  The name drops like a stink bomb; sobering up the old men, drying out their tears of laughter, and making them scowl.

  One of them twists his face up into a disgusted pucker and is about to spit his distaste on the floor, but is stopped by a look from the clerk.

  “Don’t you go spitting on my floor,” he warns.

  “What do you want with the McAllisters?” one of the other men asks suspiciously.

  “I want to know everything about them.” Lawrence looks at him hopefully. “I’m investigating Jason McAllister’s background.”

  “Are you a cop or something?” one of them snorts.

  “They say that boy was behind all those bodies found in the woods past the old McAllister place.”

  “Humph, they’re chasing down the wrong McAllister,” the one who almost spat on the floor complains. “That boy was never nothing but a punk kid. It’s the old man they should be after, William McAllister, that’s who had to have buried all those bodies up there. The whole bloody clan of them McAllisters going all the way back are suspicious, if you ask me.”

  “Are you a cop?” the clerk repeats the other man’s question, staring Lawrence down as if daring him to say yes. “They already tried to lock the McAllister boy up, but it didn’t do any good. They say he kidnapped and murdered those women. Heard he’s getting off scot free, moving him to the nut house. He won’t even be getting any prison time.”

  “Scot free,” one of the old men chuckled. “Free as a Scotsman and just as guilty.”

  The old man sitting next to him jabs him in the ribs with an elbow, scowling, the old Scotsman not finding the joke very funny.

  It’s a private matter between the two, and a long-standing sore spot.

  “I’m not a cop,” Lawrence confesses. His lips turn up into a sly grin and he leans forward conspiratorially. “Worse, I’m a reporter.”

  The old men look at him with an odd look until recognition dawns on one of their faces.

  “Hey, I know you!” he declares. “You’re that reporter from The Voice!”

  The others look at him with confusion.

  “You know who he is,” the old farmer insists, turning to Lawrence eagerly. “You got that Durnst guy convicted for killing that kid! He got off on all these burglaries and assaults and finally on killing this teenaged kid. Said it was self defence when he shot the kid. You dug up shit that got that bastard put away.”

  The other old men stare at Lawrence with a new interest.

  “You are going to get that Jason McAllister put away too, aren’t you?” The old man who a moment ago almost literally spat out his distaste at the lanky man before him is now staring at him in awe.

  “I’m going to try.” Lawrence is pleased that he has won these old men over, even if it was initially at the expense of his wounded pride.

  “You should get that William McAllister too,” the old Scotsman mutters, shaking his head. “I just know he got off on a lot of bad stuff; always secretive those McAllisters. Didn’t associate with anyone or let anyone on their property.”

  “So, what do you know about the McAllisters and their farm?” Lawrence asks.

  The clerk shuffles out from behind the counter, waving him to follow.

  “Let me show you something.”

  Lawrence follows, the other old men shuffling a
long behind them. They crowd into a little office where the clerk proudly displays an old aerial photography map that covers much of one wall.

  “Not what it was anymore is it?” he mutters as they all study the map that all of them except Lawrence saw many times before.

  The aerial photograph is of a small town surrounded by farms and a few scattered unidentifiable buildings. It’s this same town before the construction boom made it quickly quadruple in size, turning it into a small city.

  “This is us here, the hardware store. This is the old McCreary place. This is the Hofstead place.” He goes through more names, pointing out the various farms surrounding the town.

  His finger settles on one place towards the edge of the map and stays there after tapping it a few times with a finality weighted down with a heavy heart.

  “The old McAllister place.”

  “It looks further on the map than it seems.” Lawrence absorbs it all, taking in the map as a whole and mentally comparing it to what he knows of the area.

  “That’s because all this area here is now city.” The clerk motions to the area between them and the McAllister Farm that the map shows as mostly fields of farmland.

  “It’s hard to believe this used to be just a small town with only a couple of businesses,” Lawrence says.

  “It’s a small city now,” the clerk shrugs. “When the building boom hit, it just kind of kept going. A lot of these farms aren’t there anymore. Got eaten up by the developers and split up into housing lots.” He sounds regretful, like something that mattered had somehow been lost when nobody was looking.

  “So, you want to know about the McAllisters,” one of the old men says, turning to Lawrence.

  “Everything you can tell me,” Lawrence smiles, his lips cracking into a predatory grin.

  6Peabody’s

  Jim is sitting in Peabody’s, the beer on the badly used round table before him staring back at him. The jar of questionable pickled eggs on the bar across the way mocks his roiling gut as the acid in his stomach is pushed up in a wave of heartburn.

  “Hours spent going through files and I found nothing”, he laments quietly. “Beth, didn’t find anything either, except . . ..”