Freeney

by Clay Zimmerman

  “Medicine, eh? Think there could be drugs involved?”

  “I don’t know. I guess everybody has a different definition of medicine. I know back in high school we sure did.”

  Rosicky snorted.

  “At least we have some finger prints this time.”

  “Oh yeah?” This fortune cookie had lottery numbers and everything. “Whatcha got?”

  “Two sets, on the front and screen door, the doorway wall and the light switch. Youngsters. One we don’t know, the other matched some files from June. Rory Sieverson, 14. We got a squad car on the way to his folks’ house right now.”

  “Good.” Rosicky remarked as he cupped his hat, ducking under another set of police tape, heading for the exit.

  “Where you headed?”

  “Oh, you know. Think of me like Toucan Sam. Sometimes you just gotta ‘follow your nose’.” Willard completed the sentence with him underwhelmingly.

  “You need to eat, my dear.”

  Mrs. Wilkerson placed a heaping bowl of salmon bisc in front of her eldest daughter. It was replete with Premium saltine crackers stacked in rows threatening to spill over the large dinner plate the soup bowl rested upon. It smelled delicious, with vapor wafting seductively towards Challista’s face but she shunned the thought of food and even went to the length of pushing up from the table to seek refuge in the outside world shining through the kitchen window. Isn’t it ironic? The most desirable of dishes make themselves available to those who eye food with contempt for whatever drama of the moment that might be taking precedence in the grand center stage of life.

  She nervously peered out the window, her eyes much less focused on what lay beyond the glass, her strained sockets, moist with mascara, searching for answers that dared not surface. Her elbow, supporting her head acutely, her back slouching to one side in order to compensate, sat below a fore arm whose respective hand had been converted to handkerchief/chew toy. Her nervous habit of gnawing, grinding her teeth, was honed in on it as the object of an oral fixation that seemingly knew no sate.

  “If she won’t eat it, I will.”

  Kathleen Coleman, Challista’s full grown daughter, without hesitation slid the platter over to her with eager eyes for the creamy seafood specialty, throwing back her long blonde locks over her shoulder so it might not interfere with the steaming concoction percolating in the ceramic dinnerware before her.

  “Let your mother have that, Kathy baby. She hasn’t eaten today. Don’t you want some, hmm?” Her plea falling on deaf ears.

  “Aw, jeez, ma. You and daddy haven’t even fought before. You should see me and Devon. If we don’t have an argument at least once a week, we start to lose that, you know, fire.”

  “Kathleen, what have I told you about taking the Lord’s name in vain?” Challista snapped. “Your father is a man of the clothe, for crying out loud.”

  “’Jeez’ really isn’t the same thing as saying ‘Jesus’.” She muttered defiantly.

  If her mother hadn’t been experiencing some hardship, she surely would’ve made the utterance more readily audible but she stiffened it out of regard.

  “Don’t tease her right now.”

  The matriarch comfortably presumed the referee role, whether the circumstances called for it or not. Maybe she fancied the business of her offspring, by proxy, hers. Or perhaps she inherently knew that without arbitration from her position, there was little reason the large family would successfully navigate discrepancies and maintain solidarity. They did, after all, tend to gravitate toward the Wilkerson’s home, all four generations now. If it came from my loins, it’s my business. If it happens in my home, it’s definitely my business. The logic, actively considered or not, was sound.

  “Do you mean to tell me,” something odd struck her, “That you or he actually instigate conflicts between the two of you?” She scowled.

  “Yes.” After a slight pause, “To be honest, it’s usually me. Devon is so non-confrontational and laid back.”

  “That’s awful.” Granny shook her head in disapproval.

  “Oh, it’s better that way, gramma. It’s usually over something small so he knows everything’s ok. Like the remote or what kind of diet we’re trying that month. He can be so passionless. I just love to ruffle his feathers or just nag him until he explodes. It’s so worth it.”

  Doris Wilkerson coyly pretended not to know what her granddaughter meant. Kathleen scooped the thick and chunky preparation with a couple of crackers as makeshift spoons. Any time is a good time for bisc. She wasn’t exactly famished but the discomfort of her mother’s distraction and resolute resistance to the hot meal made her nervously hungry.

  Doris soothed her daughter’s anxieties, rubbing her back lightly, trying to gain her eye contact back into the kitchen.

  “It’s past noon, honey. Let’s try to eat something, I’m sure he’ll call any moment now.”

  “The lock-in must have finished up a couple of hours ago. Why hasn’t he called or come over already?”

  No one seemed eager to address the enormous pink elephant in the room of what the discrepancy between the two of them concerned. They’d quarreled feverishly in the early years of their marriage but once the children were locked into their routines, the little things began to seem insignificant. Barry was quite agreeable and perhaps they were simply a zodiacal powerhouse. Once the church had been created and subsequently built a substantial following, things had really kicked into gear and fallen into place. Amazing how some families can create so much. Businesses, homesteads, multiple generations and yet, the same amount of time passes for some who may have lived just two or three years.

  “I want to go. I want my husband.”

  The public realization ended the chatter in the kitchen. She wants her husband. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Challista listened carefully for anyone to dispute that assertion. She turned from the window to face the countertop.

  “I. Want. To. Go. I. Want. My. Husband.” She carefully enunciated each word.

  “Ok, I heard you the first time. What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Don’t take that tone with your mother, Kathy.” Doris objected.

  “I want you to take me to the church to check on him. If he’s not there, then you can take me home.”

  That sounded reasonable enough. The short moments of silence acted as little, mini-affirmations.

  “Well, ok.” The daughter replied finally. “I’ve already called his phone a couple of times, though. He must be busy with the parents or something.”

  “What? How long have you tried him?” She demanded. That’s my husband we’re talking about. I should be mitigating the frequency of communication here.

  Kathy’s eyes shifted as she recalled. “Like three or four times altogether. I just wanted to check on him. I know you guys are going through something so I just figured he needed some private time, you know? I could never imagine going through a thirty year marriage to Devon without a few vacations from him, maybe even every season. Did you ever think maybe you were suffocating him?”

  Challista’s eyes glared with rage. She looked like she wanted to say more but she came back to herself. Her daughter was a petulant little brat but she meant well. There was always genuine concern hidden behind her reckless jabs.

  She deliberately snatched up her purse and headed for the door, retrieving some sunglasses from inside as she walked briskly. The best bet to get something done is to not justify unconstructive comments. She could feel Kathleen’s eyes rolling in her skull behind her back but she knew she wouldn’t have to wait long for her daughter to come outside with the keys. She was still obedient deep down inside. She’d only developed her resentful sarcasm since starting her own family and unwittingly mortgaging her free time.

  Kathleen joined her mother street side where the gray Toyota Prius was parked. Still crunching and munching on some saltines, her long coat, scarf and purse in tow. Challista couldn’t fault her pedestrian attitude. I didn’t exac
tly tell them what I’ve been through in the past twenty four hours.

  They climbed into the hybrid car and situated themselves for the short trip to the next neighborhood over where the church lay. How many times have we nonchalantly driven a family member somewhere relatively close by to satisfy whatever whim or notion that might be begging their attention? They’d be traveling for roughly five minutes but, for Challista, it could never be fast enough and she knew there was no point trying to rush Kathleen. Didn’t mother’s always seem to be in a rush? We always want to honor our mother’s wishes but how are we to know when times are really critical? Why worry my daughter if I’m overreacting? What happened to me was serious but Barry is all I know. He’d always been there and at this point, there was no reason to think otherwise. Except intuition, of course. And that was a big reason. Not that she had the time or patience to explain it to her eldest daughter. She already knows everything anyway. There was simply no explaining a mother’s intuition. Something was wrong. Very wrong. All that remained to be seen was what exactly. This was not good.

  Kathleen used a stop sign to light up a Marlboro light 100, perhaps intentionally not rolling her mother’s window down for causing such a fuss on an otherwise enjoyable day. She was almost positive whatever dispute they were having was her mom’s fault. Besides, it was her window. She can do whatever she wants with it. Who doesn’t smoke these days, anyway? Especially someone from her generation.

  Challista resisted the urge to chide her as she activated the switch, rolling her window down. It would just add precious time to the already torturous trek. Her mind was restless, miles away. Is he ok? Is he alright? Did the lock-in happen? Could he have been so distraught from that awful event that he’d gotten hurt somehow or, God forbid, hurt himself? She guiltily recollected how she’d collapsed in her parent’s guest room, exhausted from the ordeal, as soon as she’d heard Barry burn off the night before. She just didn’t have the emotional energy left over to monitor the situation overnight like she might have wanted to.

  As Kathy navigated the neatly trimmed yards and well maintained roadways composing the makeup of the suburban landscape they inhabited, Challista rummaged through her purse for a particularly evasive pack of Trident, anything to take her mind off the impending confrontation. She finally discovered the spearmint chew as they rounded the corner of the traffic light on May Flower Way, where the Abundant Grace parking lot rested on the right.

  The activity in the township was unusually light. They hadn’t noticed the quietness and non-existent nature of the normally bustling community. Strangely enough, though there was routinely a small number of various cars and trucks parked at the church for whatever reason, there were a fair amount more than usual greeting them as they pulled into the south parking lot of the Lutheran Church. As the Prius slowed to adjust to the extra objects on the tarmac, settling in on a strategic location, the freshly tenderized piece of Trident gum fell out of Challista’s agape mouth nearly back into the paper wrapping from which it had so recently been removed. Was the pressure from all the stress she was experiencing all too much? Because she was most assuredly hallucinating, at least she hoped so.

  A fiery spectacle was unfolding before her. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief. Still there. At the far end of the fresh asphalt, from the East parking lot, where the recent additions had been taking place, it was a CAT bulldozer, engulfed in flames, turned the corner of the building and swiveled directly toward them as though attracted to their position by a terror honed magnet.

  “Oh, my God!”

  They hadn’t been travelling faster than five miles per hour up until that time but Kathleen Kennedy slammed on the brakes with conviction. At first, the nature of their concern was less for the loss of property than any humanity that may have been affected by some unfortunate accident. That concern quickly ricocheted back to their own wellbeing as, inexplicably, the emblazoned construction vehicle actually appeared to pick up speed towards them. Columns of fire shot out from all sides of the cabin and even from beneath. The fireball seemed to rise and fall with intensity as though the carnage was alive with some sort of combustible respiration. It very much resembled a modern day fire breathing dragon.

  Kathleen braced her hands against the steering wheel. Her first instinct was to stamp down on the accelerator and speed around the behemoth but the way the newer cars had chosen to align themselves in their respective parking spaces, she was effectively hemmed in to a corridor of mayhem as the bulldozer appeared to be gaining momentum in their direction.

  Challista was panicking. By now they had surmised that they were in some real, immediate danger. The urge to unbuckle her seat belt and bolt from the steel death trap ran through Mrs. Coleman’s mind but a few points stayed her hand. Logically, she might actually be in much more harm if she abandoned the safety of the Prius’ coat of armor. Furthermore, what kind of mother would she be if she selfishly abandoned her first born for the benefit of her own safety, even given the inherencies of this logic defying phenomenon. There was no way someone could be alive in that machine, operating the controls, steering it. Yet it moved with purpose, intelligence.

  Her hand, the pack of gum squeezed tightly with duress, convulsed with urgency as she hesitated to give direction or even scream for some kind of stupification at her daughter’s inaction. With time running out so quickly, do I risk disorienting her with a command when a split second could easily be the deciding factor? Why do I even have to consider whether or not to tell her to get us the hell out of here? Isn’t she supposed to be an alert driver or something?

  She finally cut through her barrier of indecision and shouted a command at Kathleen, her voice rife with alarm. She could see Kathleen had locked up. Without time to prepare one’s self mentally, it is difficult to gage just how long it may take for your mind to adjust to an unpredictable or implausible event until it jumps out in front of you, much less how you might react. She’d had her foot firmly on the accelerator far too long. The chaos ensuing had preempted even their awareness of it until now. They hadn’t moved because her other foot remained absent mindedly planted on the brake pedal, sandwiched to the ground beneath her gray, aqua and yellow Asics running shoes. The smoke from the burning rubber and horrible tire screeching noise, no competition for the abominable sight of the dozer, not to mention the wretched twisting metal sound accompanying it.

  “Put it in reverse and back out!” She yelled hysterically.

  Kathleen’s motor skills must have been want for commands because she readily complied with her mother’s instruction, perhaps too quickly. No sooner had she shifted into reverse, her all too sudden release of the brake pedal caused the Prius to slingshot uncontrollably from the unanticipated power of the already rapidly spinning tires, catapulting them erratically into a white Chevy Suburban. There they rested for lack of orientation. If Kathy had been more resourceful, she might have been able to throw the hybrid back into ‘reverse’ and salvage a makeshift escape but the subsequent confusion was taxing them extra moments they no longer had the luxury of utilizing.

  The bulldozer slammed into them headlong, pinning them to the Suburban, it’s scoop wedged conveniently beneath. The possessed machine wasted no time lifting the plate roughly 8 feet high, capsizing the unmatched Toyota Prius with it’s passengers screaming in terror.

  This time, Challista’s indecisiveness was nowhere to be found. Now that her door was furthest from the maniacal contraption, she forced it open and managed to free herself from the seatbelt, allowing her to plop herself down to the earth where she scurried to some nearby vegetation.

  Her daughter wasn’t as fortunate. The plate lifted to it’s maximum height and the dozer’s mammoth wheels crushed through the cabin like an ordinary twelve ounce aluminum can of beer at a frat party. Kathleen was buried beneath the massive rubber and torn violently under the traction as it ploughed through the Prius with little resistance like a tank on the battlefield.

  Chapter 17

  The g
rimy, thick Allenville smog oozed through the streets, winding and wrapping it’s way around the buildings of the commercial sector of the township. The overcast skies had prevented the escape of the colloquial mist Allenville was famous for as brunch time approached the part of the city known as “The Drag”. This was the area designated to distract the local community college students from becoming too visible to the municipality’s more tourist driven historical district and town square. It was an intimate, two square mile collection of pubs, night clubs, restaurants, tattoo shops and novelty stores. If there was some place where someone might wish to indulge in activities of an illicit nature, they would invariably be directed here.

  The Drag was home to a rag tag group of street urchins known affectionately as the “Drag Dogs”. Primarily composed of college drop outs who’d moved to the city and used up all of daddy’s good graces as well as his dime, effectively stranding themselves. Others, more migratory, having trickled in from various parts of the country, the Drag Dogs had established themselves as part of the environment. By closely observing patrol routines, they’d developed some effective techniques for inhabiting their territory. With nothing more than a wrist watch, some could stagger their sleeping patterns for certain areas at certain times, thus avoiding detection. The presence of numerous alleys didn’t hurt either. Others simply forwent sleep altogether for days at a time with the assistance of a cocktail of street drugs they’d purchase with pan handling proceeds. If they reached a point when their bodies could no longer continue without sleep, some would flop at a bus stop or alcove and rely on the generosity of law enforcement to turn a blind eye. City council had long ago approved statutes effectively outlawing homelessness.

  This sector of town is precisely where Detective Martin Rosicky found himself. He’d ditched the all too recognizable, unmarked Grand Marquis in the adjacent neighborhood and was walking briskly, his hands pocketed in the retro throwback trench coat, the brim of his fedora pulled low over his brow, obscuring his face, avoiding eye contact. Not only was this the typical time that the junkies began getting restless and searching for passersby they could ask for spare change but Rosicky was doing his best not to be identified by any members of the underworld. He was a lifer in the Allenville Police force and there were only so many trouble makers in the small town. It wouldn’t take much for a rapscallion to catch a glimpse of his face and recall him from some previous encounter.