by Edwin Dasso
Unfortunately, Betty and the others all decided to leave. Nobody even bothered to help put the chairs away. Ben carried the chairs to the racks, wadding up Franks’ plastic chair covering and tossing into the trash with a laugh. He dumped the coffee pot and gathered up the remaining pastries to take to the homeless shelter on 13th Street SW on his way to work at his restaurant.
As he was outside locking up the church, he saw an unfamiliar blue sedan at the far corner of the parking lot. It wouldn’t have been one of the members of the Group as they would not have wanted to walk that far. He started toward the sedan, and as he did, it quickly accelerated and left by the Crestwood Drive exit. Had his eyes been better, he might have been able to see the driver and passenger if there was one, but his best acuity was 20/40 – barely legal to drive and certainly not good enough to see anything clearly across a parking lot.
He got in his white BMW X5 SUV and tossed the pastries into the backseat. On his way to the homeless shelter, he stopped at Heggy’s for a triple cheeseburger and an order of French fries with quadruple butter and finished it off with a chocolate malt.
After eating, he pulled in front of the huge two-story home that now served as the Greater Southwest Canton Home for the Needy and beeped the horn. Norman, the young, eager house leader, bounded down the front steps and came up and gave Ben a high-five through the open window of the BMW.
“Ben, my man, how you been doing?” he asked as he spied the bag in the back seat.
“Tough day, Norman. I don’t feel much like talking about it or anything. I just need to get to work and take my mind off it. Some sweets for you guys in the back seat of the car.”
“I saw them already. Thanks, Bro, you always come through for us. Stop by when you need to talk. Anytime.”
“Sure thing, Norm,” Ben replied as he placed the shift lever into Drive. As he left the shelter, he noticed a blue sedan parked in the driveway. Did Norman have a blue sedan, or somebody else at the shelter?
Ben drove North on Raff Road, then turned left onto West Tuscarawas. He made most of the lights on green or a late yellow and got to work at 4:45 PM, just as Mark Patrilli, the night manager, was gearing up for the supper crowd. It was all-you-can-eat spaghetti night with a choice of alfredo, meat, or marinara sauce, and the crowd was always huge and hungry. Ben refused to use bagged salad mixes, so the sous chef was busy washing and tearing romaine and arugula, smoking mozzarella cheese, and cutting tomatoes, salamis, and leeks. A gallon jug of house dressing with a pump top sat on the stainless-steel table.
After an hour checking on kitchen and wait staff, Ben took a break behind the restaurant and checked his mobile. He opened up Facebook and there was a friend request from Sharon Young. Thank God! She’s not dead after all. It was somebody else. He quickly pressed the CONFIRM button and a picture of Sharon appeared. She was sitting in a restaurant looking incredibly happy with a wine glass to her mouth. Ten seconds later, a picture appeared of Sharon on top of the Volkswagen, then a few seconds later, a close-up with the fragment of the wine bottle sticking into her neck. A few seconds later, the entire profile of Sharon Young disappeared.
Ben’s head spun and he leaned against the building for support. The blood – just like his wife Janet after the home invasion.
“Ben, what’s wrong?” the grill cook Tomas said as he came out for a smoke. “You look like something bad happened to you.“ Tomas lit his cigarette then he said, “Real busy in there, Boss. Lots of customers who want to talk with you. You know, they think it’s special when you come up to their table and remember them all and their kids’ names too. If you could…”
Ben looked at Tomas with eyes like a condemned man, and Tomas knew not to ask any more. “Tell Mark I am sorry, but I have to go – right now. You’re right, something happened, and I don’t know how to deal with it.”
3
Wednesday, July 31st, 11:45 PM
Ben got to his ground floor Meyers Lake Condo and immediately poured three fingers of Chivas into a bourbon glass full of clear ice from an icemaker on his white granite countertop. Next, he picked up a poker from the ventless gas fireplace and walked to the bathroom. He flipped the light switch and saw that the shower curtain was drawn to the side like he had left it that morning. He relaxed his poker arm and took a deep swig of the Scotch.
Ben double-checked the window and door locks, then he sat down on his Mid-century modern orange fabric sofa. His buddy Ralph had a shop in the warehouse district off of Cherry Avenue where he refurbished pieces from the 1950’s and Ben had loved the sofa when it was just a frame with cotton batting on it and a swatch of fabric choices. He wondered if the 1950’s were any safer than today or was it just that people didn’t hear about what was going on.
He thought about calling the police, but what would he tell them? Something horrible had appeared on his Facebook page and then it was gone. Maybe they could trace the profile posting as Sharon Young, but Ben was a businessman in Canton. He might just sound like a madman to the police, and what would that do to business? Besides, it was just a picture of a dead woman, maybe snapped by a passerby shortly after she hit the roof of the Volkswagen and before the police arrived? But how did that person know to send it to Ben and to Connie, both members of the Phobias Anonymous group. An ominous thought occurred to Ben – was the person who put the fake Sharon Young profile on Facebook a member of the Phobias Anonymous group? Ben thought he knew the group members pretty well, but obviously, he didn’t know Sharon was suicidal. How much did he know about any of them?
He finished his Scotch, then turned out the lights successively as he went to his first-floor bedroom. Before he turned on the light in his bedroom, he looked through the large glass panes of the sliding patio door to see the full moon hanging low in the sky. The reflected rays of the sun shone strongly through the glass door and he saw a moving shadow dart across the dock on the other side of the window.
He was not a brave man, but he pulled out the wooden rod preventing the sliding panel from opening and slid the door open. Lake smells and cool humid air blew into the room as he walked out onto the dock. “Hello?” he yelled to the night. Nothing.
He thought he saw a movement out by his pontoon boat moored at one of the right-angle docks. “Who’s there?” he called out. He heard the rapid shuffle of feet, then he heard splashes into the water and the sound of young laughter. “Damn kids!” he yelled. “This is private property. No skinny dipping and whatever else you are doing out there. At least use some damn protection so you don’t breed and ruin the gene pool!”
“What the Hell are you doing, Ben?” A female voice called from the condo next to his. “You’re disturbing the neighborhood a lot more than a couple of skinny-dipping kids! Get to bed!”
“Sorry, Ben said and with a bowed head like a chastened child, he went back to his condo. He secured the door, took a whole Ambien, then fell onto his bed into an alcohol-induced sleep with his mobile on the bed beside him.
Usually the Ambien let him sleep the night through, but he woke up after a couple of hours of sleep. The moon had long since set, and the room was a deep purple dark like only rooms near a lake can be. He heard a ding from across the bed and he saw the screen on his mobile light up. He tapped the screen and saw it was 3am – the Devil’s Hour. The screen said Facebook notification. He pressed the screen and saw a friend request from Anonymous6666. He pressed Delete on the screen and threw the phone on the bed and went back to his stomach sleeping.
He dreamed the dream he had had so many nights since that fateful night. He dreamed he rolled over in bed to feel for his wife Casey and she wasn’t there. “Casey, honey,” he called into the night. “Where are you?”
“I’m here in the bathroom, Ben. Come on in!”
Ben dream-walked out of bed and stood outside the closed bathroom door.
“Come on in,” Casey teased. “I want to touch you. I want to feel your body. Come on.”
“Honey, I don’t want to. I think something ba
d is going to happen. Just come back to bed.”
“You’re no fun, Ben. Let’s play a little. Her voice was urgent. “I need you.”
Against Ben’s best instincts, he opened the door. He flipped the light switch, but it didn’t go on.
“We don’t need lights,” Casey said. I just want to touch you.”
Ben tried to stop his feet from advancing into the bathroom, but they slid on the sticky surface of the white porcelain tiles. He felt a hand reach out and touch him. “Honey, you’re all wet – were you taking a shower?”
“No, silly. Here, come hold me.”
“I’m getting my pajamas all wet, Casey. “Here, let me get the light.”
“No, we’re better like this. Here in the dark.”
As Casey brought her lips up to Ben and as she opened her mouth for a kiss, a smell like a scoured cast iron skillet crawled up his nose. It was always that smell, that’s when he knew things were wrong. Terribly wrong. “Sorry, I need to see.” Ben turned around and this time the switch worked, and the overhead LED lights illuminated the bathroom. Ben looked at the switch and saw blood on it. He looked down at his hands and saw they were covered in blood. The front of his blue and green striped pajamas glistened bright red.
He looked straight ahead toward the mirror. Nothing. He looked to his left and saw that the shower curtain was pulled closed. “No! No!” He tried to run, but his feet were glued to the floor. The shower curtain slowly opened to the right, and he saw the white shower tiles stained red like the killing stone on top of an ancient Aztec temple. His wife’s bloody hands reached out for him and he screamed.
He felt the softness of his bedspread, and he knew he was safely back in his bed. He opened his eyes slowly as if the nightmare might still be continuing, but all he saw were the first few rays of dawn. The night was over. He went to the bathroom for his morning ritual, and saw that the shower curtain was pulled back where it should be and the tiles that his cleaning woman, Esther, polished with such diligence, gleamed like the inside of a mountain tunnel at night.
He flushed, decided his face had the right amount of beard for the day, then he spent the next fifteen minutes in the shower trying to wash away the horrors of the previous night.
He came back to the bedroom, turned his phone back on, and saw there were friend requests from Anonymous6667 and Anonymous6668. “What the damn Hell!” He promptly deleted the friend requests and put the mobile on the antique oak five drawer marble top chest – one of the only things he had been able to salvage from his grandparents’ house after the fire. They had died in the fire, but at least this was something to remember them by.
He remembered removing layers of burnt varnish and polishing the marble top with a buffer and pumice to get off the black. There were still a few stains on the top where his grandmother’s cherished Bakelite bracelets had melted on the marble.
He went to the patio window and saw something scribbled on the outside of it. He could read it from the inside, so somebody had written it backwards on the outside of the glass. It read, “Don’t ignore my friend requests.”
Ben didn’t know what to think and he surely didn’t know what to do? Should he call the police?
He grabbed his mobile, and still in his gray terry robe, he went into the kitchen, put a pod of French roast into the Keurig, and placed his “BEN” cup under the spout. The smell woke up his nostrils, and the taste with heavy cream and Splenda eventually woke up the rest of his body. He picked up the morning Canton Repository from the front stoop, looked briefly at the headlines, then went to the obituary section. There he saw the obit for Sharon Young. She looked so much better in the paper. He wondered if they would have an open casket. He hoped the undertaker wouldn’t have a sick sense of humor and leave the broken wine bottle in her neck. He noted that calling hours were in two days at 7:00 pm at Willow Funeral Home. He didn’t know if he would attend, but he thought the anonymous person might for some sort of sick pleasure. If he went, he planned to take his camera and snap a lot of pictures.
He took his coffee back to his room with the idea of working the crossword puzzle out on the dock. He stopped dead when he looked at the patio door. The writing had been erased. Had he even seen it at all?
4
Monday, August 5th, 10:00 AM
Ben had had a good several days and had nearly forgotten about the events of the previous week. He had planned to go to Sharon’s calling hours on the previous Friday night, but he got carried away talking to customers at the restaurant that night and forgot to go. He felt bad – still, it felt good to be back to his old gregarious self.
Today, he planned to go to the restaurant and tally the receipts from the weekend. He had felt like his old self again those last several days and had mingled with the guests, recalling children’s names to the delight of the patrons and telling and retelling the family-friendly jokes that always got a laugh from everyone at the tables.
Ben picked up his mobile and dialed the Greater Southwest Canton Home for the Needy.
“Yeah, this is Norman,” a man replied.
“Norman, it’s Ben. Listen, I’m going to the restaurant to check the accounts and I thought I’d bring over some leftover food from the weekend…”
“You gotta be kidding me, right?” Norman replied.
“What are you talking about?” Ben replied with a bit of an edge in his voice. “Your guys love my food.”
“You don’t know that everybody in the place got sick from the pastries you brought last week? I was sick as hell. There’s puke all over the place. Yeah, don’t bother bringing anything ever again!”
Ben felt the receiver of the land line crash down on the cradle. What the Hell? He had eaten one of the pastries on his way to the meeting of Phobias Anonymous the previous Wednesday and he had been fine. He thought a couple of the people at the meeting had eaten them as well. Did they get sick? He would ask them at the meeting on Wednesday.
Ben got an uneasy thought. Had somebody done something to the pastries during the meeting? There was such chaos after Connie had come in with news of Sharon’s death that anything could have happened. But somebody in the group? Ben had gotten to know each of them over the past several months, and he didn’t believe any of them capable of doing something like that. What else? That was right, he had stopped at Heggy’s for lunch after the meeting and had left the pastries in the back seat. It was a sweltering day and he had left the windows down and the doors unlocked. Did they get too hot in the car? Had somebody done something to them while he was inside eating? But why? He had no answers to his questions.
Ben’s rosy outlook for the day evaporated and he opened his front door and walked into a merciless August sun. He walked toward his white BMW X5 SUV.
“Hey there!” cut the air across the parking lot.
Ben unlocked the door of the Beemer and started to get in when he saw a blue sedan parked on the other side of the already scorching asphalt lot. A man in a suit got out and came toward him. After what had been happening to him lately, he didn’t know whether to run or not.
“Ben. Ben Angelo? I’m Detective Fetterman. I’d like to talk with you.”
Jesus, Ben thought. Did Norman report me for trying to poison the homeless? That’s all I need! It was too late to run, so Ben just waited in the heat as the detective approached.
The man quickly flashed a badge in a black leather case, then he put it back in his inside breast pocket, letting he coat hang open wide and long so Ben was sure to see the stainless snub nose revolver in the brown quick release shoulder holster.
“Detective Max Fetterman with the Canton Police Department,” the man said without a hint of emotion on his face.
“Do you investigate poisonings?” Ben asked weakly.
“Well, I guess I could,” Max replied. “I work homicide.”
“Did somebody die?” Ben blurted out.
Max held up a hand as if to quiet Ben. “Let’s go inside, Ben. More private there.”
&n
bsp; The short walk back to his condo seemed like a Bataan death march to Ben. He was ruined if somebody had died from one of his cannoli. Ruined. Ben unlocked the door and Max followed him into the condo. “I was just heading to my restaurant – I’ve got work to do. Uh, will this take long? I can get you a drink…”
Max helped himself to a chair as if answering Ben’s question with his action. “I had some coffee in the car. I was out there for a while.”
“Why didn’t you just come to the door?”
“I’ve been cooped up in the office for days. It was nice just to get out and see the outdoors. I love looking at the lake, and the department let me get Sirius radio in the car. I may be a cop, but I like my rock and roll. I figured you would come out eventually.”
“So, is this about the homeless shelter? I swear I didn’t know.”
“What about the homeless shelter?”
Jesus, I’m a fool. Ben thought as he mentally slapped himself. Why did I say that? Let the detective ask the questions.
“Isn’t that why you are here? Some people got sick there?”
“Yeah, I know,” Max replied. Couple of them had to go by ambulance to Aultman Hospital emergency room. I was in the area, so the Department asked me to stop in. That’s where I got your name.”
“So, somebody at the shelter died?”
“Luckily for you, nobody.” Max replied. He pulled out a small spiral pad bound with a metal spring at the top, opened the cover and flipped through a couple of pages. “Wednesday night, July 13th, 6:00 PM. I talked with a Norman Kellerman. Nice guy even though he was puking his guts out. He said you owned a restaurant out on West Tusc. Angelo’s House of Pasta. I take my family there a lot, mostly during the day. Don’t remember seeing you there.”
