by John Etzil
Maybe Centralia, also known as the town that time forgot, had never recovered from the coal bust? This place was in the middle of nowhere. How could they make any money? Farming, maybe? I logged in to the closest satellite over Centralia and looked into its photo archives. The most recent photos were two-inch resolution, which meant that you could identify an object on the ground that was at least two inches, like a letter on a license plate. They had been taken just a few weeks ago, and they didn’t show any farmland, only mountainous forest, which surrounded the town.
I printed out the best photos I could find of Fred and Jeffrey and stuck them in my briefcase. I’d show them to Frances tonight and see if she recognized either one of them. The selfish part of me was hoping that she didn’t, because if she did, I might have to take a road trip to check them out. If I did, I might have to postpone our trip to Key West. We’d been planning Debbie’s birthday trip for months, and I knew that she’d be disappointed if I canceled it.
I heard Debbie start the shower and decided to pack up my laptop and make us breakfast. I threw a couple of steaks on the grill and scrambled some eggs. I made her some coffee and topped off my own mug just as she came out of my bedroom. She wore one of my V-neck T-shirts, and nothing else. Sexy as ever with wet hair and no makeup, and she smelled as fresh as a daisy.
I gave her a big squeeze, the better to press and stick my T-shirt against her still-damp skin, and topped my romantic groping off with a soft kiss. She sat down, the now-moist T-shirt glued against her chest, and shook her head and smirked at me.
I served her, and after our leisurely breakfast, we lounged around on the couch for a while before she got up and turned on some Barry White. I chased the dogs out of the living room.
With a tinge of sadness, I drove her back to the Red Barn to retrieve her car. After Flight 2262, I’d wondered if I’d be spending the rest of my life in an emotionally dead and vengeful state, which I used to be fine with. But my time spent with Debbie kept reminding me that there could be a lot more to my life than killing bad guys. I frowned and pushed the thought from my mind. No. Not yet. I had a lot more to do before I could allow myself to move on. A lot more.
I pulled into the parking lot of the Red Barn. She kissed me long and hard, told me that she’d had a great time and that she’d see me here later tonight.
I didn’t dare tell her that I was thinking of canceling our trip…
7
Road Trip
I went back to my house and spent the rest of the day researching Fred, determined to find something amiss with him. I came up empty. Again. There was a ton of HFS intel on him, but it was all as vanilla as a Marie Osmond concert.
Investigating Jeffrey Wells was even worse. I grew frustrated with his lack of an electronic footprint, so I let Saber and Buddy out for one final trip to the backyard, grabbed the photographs of the two men and stuffed them in my briefcase. I let the dogs back in, made sure that they had plenty of water, and hopped into my truck and headed over to the Red Barn.
Saturday evenings at the Red Barn were always a hit-or-miss affair, depending on if it was a holiday weekend or not. If there was a band playing, it could be crowded, but tonight was like most nights. Empty. Except for the regulars.
Max and Gus were playing pool while Frances watched and cheered them on. The three of them lived together and Frances had insinuated a vibrant sex life between the three on numerous occasions. Too much info for me, thank you. She was, after all, in her nineties, and the visual of her sandwiched between Max and Gus in an intimate embrace made my body shiver like I had typhoid fever. I’m pretty stoic when it comes to killing, never missing a second’s sleep over it, but I draw the line at ninety-year-old threesomes.
I sat down on my barstool and nodded over to Bobby. He was slouched over and appeared tired, but he looked better than he had yesterday, which I was happy to see. He was even back to his usual self, flirting with my Debbie, which I was not happy to see. Debbie looked my way, smiled, and brought me over a Triple X complete with ice chips, which I was happy to see. She made her way back to the beer cooler in front of Bobby and reached in to retrieve a cold one, and Bobby sat up ramrod straight, all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, grinning like a lovesick fool while he googly-eyed my honey’s cleavage, which I was not happy to see. I smiled to myself in spite of it all, knowing full well that it was part of her gig, and that I was lucky to be intimate with such a hot body.
Debbie delivered the beers to the other end of the bar, flirted with the two young drinkers, and came back and gave me a big kiss. “Well, hello, lover. I missed you.”
“God, you’re sweet.”
“How was your day? Find out anything about your runaway or the fellow that Bobby saw driving the car?”
I pulled out the two photographs and showed them to her. “Yeah, I think I’ve narrowed it down, but I want to show them to Frances. Maybe she can ID one of them.” I laid the photographs on the bar and waved over to Frances. She came over, straight-up whiskey in one hand, long-ashed cigarette in the other, and wrapped her arms around my neck in a tight hug. I prayed that she wouldn’t spill her whiskey on my back and set me on fire with her cigarette.
“Wow, what a greeting,” I said to Frances when she finally released me. “You trying to make Max and Gus jealous?”
“Oh, I don’t need to do that. They already pine for me. Hard.” She elbowed me, smiled, and winked at me through the smoke from her Lucky Strike.
“I’m sure they do.” I pointed to the photos on the bar. “You recognize either of these two from Harry’s Bait Shop?”
She set her drink down and stabbed out her cigarette in an ashtray. She fumbled in her fanny pack to retrieve a pair of reading glasses, which were covered in fingerprints, which she seemed to be oblivious to. She examined both photos like a jeweler would a rare diamond, holding them close and far, tilting them left and right to get better light from the overhead twenty-watt bulbs that hung above the bar. “Hmm, nope, not this one.” She handed me back Fred. “Might be this one. I can’t tell for sure. I need to hear his voice or see him in person, close up.” She laid the photo down on the bar and picked up her whiskey.
“Okay, thanks,” I said.
She smiled and made her way over to the pool table, where Max and Gus were still smacking balls around and laughing like a couple of giddy eighteen-year-olds out for their first beer.
Debbie came over to chat. “So what’s next, O Mighty Sheriff?”
“I’m kind of feeling that I need to go on a road trip, just to see if this girl that Bobby saw is our runaway. I think I should go to Centralia and visit Jeffrey Wells. If I don’t turn up anything, I’ll run down to Harrisburg and check out Fred Sinclair.”
“What? When? What about Key West?”
“We might have to postpone.”
“No way, Jack.” Her concerned look changed to stubbornness, and I could see by the fire in her eyes that she wouldn’t be giving up on our trip. “It’s my birthday. I had my heart set on this, and I’m going.”
“Yeah, I know. Me too, but this is important. There’s a young girl involved. I don’t think that I’d enjoy myself with this hanging over my head.”
“You know how much I love Key West. Especially by private jet.”
“Yeah, I love it too, but this is something that I need to do.” I finished my beer and pushed the empty glass toward her. She ignored it.
“Fine. You better get your ass back here before Tuesday.” She turned and stomped away, yelling over her shoulder, “Or I’m taking Bobby.”
Man, was she pissed…
8
It’s Recon Only
As much as I hated to admit it, I had to ask Frances to go with me to Centralia and Harrisburg. A road trip with Frances. Dear God. I wasn’t looking forward to this trip, even without the baggage of an old lady, but deep down, I knew that it was the logical thing to do. She had to positively identify Menthol Man—otherwise, what was the point of my trip?
I
put that train of thought on the back burner and pondered the legal ramifications of a New York sheriff visiting Pennsylvania, which is totally outside of my jurisdiction. If the shit hit the fan while I was there, that could come back and haunt me. What a waste it would be if I went on a wild goose chase, ran afoul of the law, and got into hot water. I might have to lay low for six months, or even longer, depending on the circumstances. And that would kill me.
I should just sit tight in my home state, take the prudent way out, and avoid potential problems that could hinder my future kill missions.
But I couldn’t. So I decided that as long as I kept strictly to recon, I’d be fine. Plus, there was no way that I was going to let a good lead die. That’s what HFS did all the time with criminals that weren’t deemed terrorist threats, and it sickened me. It was the main reason why I was no longer a full-time HFS employee. I’d be damned if I was going to do that. Especially when it came to a missing child.
Decision made. I’d run this mission as a recon, with no intent other than gathering intelligence. I’d pack light, just my go bag with the usual: laptop, cellular router, some bottled water, binoculars, Buck hunting knife, Glock 17, and a bunch of spare magazines. The Glock 9mm always stayed on my side, and I carried two extra magazines in the cargo pockets of my Vertx tactical pants, so I was plenty armed. Chances were I wouldn’t even need the Glock, but I’d take it with me anyway.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
9
Fore!
Debbie came over and placed a fresh beer before me. “Be back by Tuesday.” And she walked away.
I grabbed it and headed over to the pool table to ask Frances if she would do me the honor of accompanying me on my road trip to Centralia, Pennsylvania. Max and Gus, the two teenagers in eighty-something-year-old bodies, were busy bantering back and forth between errant shots. Somehow their stale jokes still amused each other. I guess that’s one bright aspect of aging—it only taking one beer to make you laugh out loud at old jokes that you’d either forgotten or now thought were funny.
“Hello, gentlemen.” I nodded their way and sat next to Frances.
“Hi, Sheriff,” Max said. “Gonna play some? I’m warning you, I’m on fire.” He lined up a shot and whacked away at the cue ball with a grunt, knocking it off the table. It went bouncing across the dance floor, and Gus went scurrying after it, yelling “Fore!” as he weaved his way through the dancers.
“Ah, not tonight. I just wanted to ask Frances something.”
“Oh?” Frances responded. She brushed her hair back, lifted her chin, and straightened her back. “Yes, Jack. You can escort me to dinner.”
“Um, I need your help identifying the person of interest in Cecile’s runaway. Only problem is that I don’t have any other photos of him, so I was wondering if you would come with me to Pennsylvania. Maybe you’ll recognize him if you see him in person. You game?”
“A road trip with Sheriff Jack? You bet I’m game!” She stood up, downed her whiskey, high-fived me, and grabbed her purse. “I’m ready to go. When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’ll pick you up at eight.”
“Oh. In that case…” She sat down and lit a Lucky Strike. “The night’s still young. No sense wasting it.”
“Thanks, I’ll see you in the morning.” I nodded and walked away. Before I could make my escape, she grabbed me by the elbow and stood on her toes to whisper in my ear.
“Say, Jack, think there’s a chance that we might kill some bad guys?”
Gus must have seen Frances whispering in my ear, and he let us know that he didn’t like it. “Hey, what are you two whispering about over there? You’re not hitting on our woman, are you, Sheriff? Don’t make me take you outside behind the wood shed and beat some respect into you.” He swung the pool cue at me like a baseball bat and accidentally knocked over Max’s beer, spilling it all over the floor.
Max grabbed the pool cue from him. “Quit dicking around. Give me that stick and go get me another Old Milwaukee.”
They wrestled with the pool cue for a second before Gus finally surrendered it. “Fine, it’s your turn anyway. Try not to kill anybody on the dance floor this time.”
“Uh, fellows, there’s plenty of other pool cues.” I pointed to the wall rack behind them that held an assortment of cues, all different shapes and sizes, to fit the body length of every imaginable pool player.
“Psst.” Frances tugged on my shirtsleeve, and I leaned down so that I could hear. “They like to share.” She winked at me and giggled.
“Everything.”
10
Feisty Frances
I shook my head and walked back to the bar, trying to get that visual of Frances in an intimate embrace with Max and Gus out of my mind. One of my favorite authors, Lawrence Block, pens a protagonist by the name of Keller who’s a killer for hire. Keller has an ingenious system for removing bad images from his memory, like say if he just strangled a pretty young lady and by mistake happened to make eye contact with her just before she passed on. Keller’s way of getting rid of the offending visual, forever, he boasts, entails bringing up that snapshot in his mind, removing the color from the photo to make it black and white, and then shrinking the image smaller and smaller and smaller until it finally disappears.
Keller’s full of shit. I tried that multiple times. Every time I brought up that visual of the three of them, I felt nauseated and had to drink my beer to prevent myself from throwing up.
Why does Frances have to tell me those things?
Debbie came over, a concerned look on her face. “You okay?” she asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“Worse.”
“How’d it go with Frances?”
That visual popped into my mind again. I sighed. “Oh, just great. She’s game.” I asked Debbie for a whiskey.
She came back with a shot of Knob Creek and set it down next to my beer. “Good, I’ll put together a little care package for her.” She raised her empty hand and made a drinking gesture.
“Good thinking. Better make one for me too. It’s going to be a long trip.”
“It better not be longer than Tuesday.”
“I meant because Frances is coming with me.”
“Oh, stop, she’s cool.”
“She talks too much. About intimate details.” I downed the whiskey. “About her, let’s just say, living arrangement with Max and Gus.”
Debbie laughed. “Yeah, I admire her sexual spunk. She and two men. God, she’s my hero. I hope that I can have that much fun when I’m in my nineties. Did you know that the three of them have been living together for almost twenty years? They’re so cute together. Although that Max is a bit of a rascal.”
“Max? Why? What’d he do? Whack you with a pool ball?”
“He and Gus were sitting at the bar one night and I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. You know how old folks tend to talk too loud and all. Well, Max commented that if he were ten years younger, he’d”—Debbie broke out the finger quotes—“give it to me so good that I wouldn’t be able to walk for a week.”
“No way, Max said that? That devil!”
“Yeah, and Frances, God bless her, she has great hearing. Boy, was she pissed at him for being disrespectful to me. Called him a dickhead and everything. And that, my lover, is why Max has a crooked nose.”
I swiveled in my stool and looked over at Max. He caught my eye and waved. I waved back, all the while studying the bend in his nose. “Wow. Frances did that?”
“Uh-huh. With her walking stick. I swear, she doesn’t need it to help her walk; she just carries it to hit people with. Whacked him so hard he bled all over the bar. She’s a feisty one, that Frances. You better be a gentleman, Jack. And…” She grabbed my face with two hands and kissed me on the lips. “You’d better have your butt back here by Tuesday.”
11
Mega Trunk
I hung out until closing time, escorted my honey to her car and, after
a big hug and a long kiss goodbye, followed by another curt “Tuesday” reminder, I headed home to Eminence.
I did a little more HFS research on Centralia but still came up empty. This was crazy. I’d never encountered anywhere near this level of anonymity with an entire town before. How could a real town be so off the grid?
I packed it in around three a.m., exhausted, and poured myself a glass of whiskey. I let Saber and Buddy out one last time before shutting down for the night. I hit the sack, figuring that I’d be asleep before my head hit the pillow, but it wasn’t to be. I tossed and turned most of the night. Something about this wasn’t sitting right with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It gnawed at my subconscious, and my brain raced in search of answers until I finally fell asleep for what seemed like twenty minutes before my iPhone alarm went off. I Keuriged a large cup of Black Rifle coffee to help me wake up, and headed over to Frances’s house.
I arrived at 7:55. Max and Gus were waiting for me on the front porch, each with a coffee in hand, and ambled down the steps and over to my BMW.
“Wow, fancy ride.” Max whistled. He turned to Gus, a worried look on his face. “She might not want to come back to us after spending the week with Sheriff Jack in his yuppie vehicle.”
“Yeah, and in a motel no less,” Gus said. “And far from home. Strangers can turn to each other in times of loneliness. Especially if he’s an authority figure.”
