by PJ Fernor
“A buzz from a parade?”
“Everyone will be there,” Mayor Jim said. “You can stand on the sidewalk or right on your front porch. It’s small-town heaven! It’ll be great.”
“The logistics of it…”
“Which you’ll handle.”
I took a deep breath. “If I say yes to this parade, will you leave?”
“Consider me gone,” Mayor Jim said.
He nudged the box of croissants in my direction and backed away.
He touched his tie again, threw me another politician’s smile, and even added a wink.
When he turned, he took one step and paused.
Here we go…
“Just one thing,” he said.
“You used your one thing already, Jim. The parade is your one thing.”
“I need you to go talk to Mrs. Mickels.”
“About what?” I asked, shuddering at the idea of talking to her. She had emerged as a bit of a pain in the you know where. Forever gossiping. Forever calling about the most random issues that weren’t issues at all.
“She doesn’t want the parade,” Mayor Jim said. “And I have to have it come right down her street. It’s got to be on the main street, Allie. Not twisting and turning. That runs us into risk. Do you agree?”
“Sure.”
“So you see the problem then. She’s threatening to shut the road down. She’ll block the parade route. And you know she will. I don’t want any issues here, Allie. No drama allowed. This is a happy time. A great time. A time for kids and adults to come together and rejoice in old memories and new ones. Understand?”
“What am I going to do?”
“Remind her where her property line ends,” Mayor Jim grinned. “Maybe offer her the chance to leave town for the night. Or just work your charming magic and calm her down. Assure her she has nothing to worry about.”
“You’re more of a smooth talker than I am,” I said.
“True, but I’m busy today.”
Mayor Jim winked again and left my office.
The last thing I wanted to do was deal with an ornery elderly woman. Especially when I was mostly on her side over this parade idea.
But I was stuck.
Taking the top job at the station meant dabbling in politics a little.
I reached forward and pushed the box of croissants off my desk.
When they hit the floor, I smiled.
“Oops,” I whispered.
It was the small victories that kept me going.
Chapter Five
Mrs. Mickels put the f in feisty.
And that was putting it lightly.
She lived in a quieter part of our small town. Yes, there were quieter and louder parts of the town.
About a tenth of a mile from an open field and gravel parking lot, Mrs. Mickel’s house - and street - was on the path for Mayor Jim’s parade. It made sense why the parade path mattered to him. Everyone would have enough room to set up and line up in the field and parking lot.
To go around Mrs. Mickels’ house would require some careful planning and a whole lot of detouring.
Yet she was stubborn as anything about the situation.
The moment Ben and I arrived, she stood on her porch, arms crossed, lips pouty, ready for a fight.
Mrs. Mickels had jet black hair, was short and skinny, and had the sour face of a woman who spent far too many years complaining about far too much. Actually, when you looked at her, all she needed was the hat and broom and she would make the perfect witch. She looked good for her seventy-eight years in this world.
I started to approach but Ben cut me off.
“Hello there,” Ben called out.
“I’ve got hot apple cider,” Mrs. Mickels said. “Just plain. But I can add something extra in it.”
“I’m on duty,” Ben said with a smile. “Otherwise I’d take that something extra.”
“And you?” Mrs. Mickels asked me.
“No, thanks.”
“I know why you’re here,” she said. “I’m not budging.”
“I don’t think you realize,” I started to say but Ben inched in front of me.
“How long have you been here? In this house?” he asked.
“A long time. My husband built this house. With his two hands. He built it for me. I’m not letting some parade and all these young fools trash it. And that mayor of ours… oh, I’ll tell you something about him…”
“That guy is all hot air,” Ben said. “I bet if we tossed him up into the air he’d float away.”
That caused Mrs. Mickels to smile for a second.
Her eyes moved to me. “You don’t seem happy to be here.”
“I’m actually not,” I said. “I have a lot of things to take care of. I find this whole parade and parade route to be nonsense.”
“Good. Then it’s settled.”
“Not so much,” I said. “Mayor Jim made a great point. It’s been a long year for the town. Everyone could use a little fun.”
“Then have everyone trash your house,” Mrs. Mickels said.
“Nobody is going to go near your house,” Ben said. He smiled at her again. “I promise.”
“The sidewalk,” Mrs. Mickels said. “My late husband even poured the concrete for the sidewalk. He planted the grass. I can’t have my property get messed up.”
“Then we’ll block it all for you,” I offered.
“No,” Mrs. Mickels said.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ben said. “Everyone take a breath. We don’t even know if this parade is happening. And even if it does, it’ll be quick. You’re at the beginning of the route. Nobody is going to want to be here. They’ll want to be at the middle and end.”
“I just don’t like Halloween,” Mrs. Mickels said. “I don’t like anything about it. The sights and sounds. The spooky stuff. Who in their right mind wants to dress up as a dead person? Or some kind of foolish monster?”
“Well, it’s the time of the year,” Ben said. “The leaves are changing. The air is crisp and cool. The smell of cider…”
Mrs. Mickels started to buy into Ben’s charm. “The cider is very good.”
“See?”
“Well, I still say no way,” she said. “Not going to happen here. I don’t need that on my doorstep. One night or one minute.”
“It’s only going to cause us trouble,” I said. “We’ll have to keep talking. Coming back.”
“Maybe you should,” she said.
“You want us to come back here?” I asked.
“You know something? Last night… I saw something.”
“What did you see?” Ben asked. “A ghost? A goblin? A zombie?”
“Oh, stop it,” Mrs. Mickels said. “But I did see something. Right across the street. My eyes don’t fail me. Never had a bad eye exam in my entire life. Perfect vision. Always. I swore I saw things moving around. This is supposed to be a quiet area.”
“What exactly did you see?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you drank too much of that cider of yours,” Ben said, lifting an eyebrow.
Mrs. Mickels laughed. “I most certainly did not.”
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Ben said. “Allie and I are going to leave now. We can go back to Mayor Jim and tell him we spoke. That’s all I have to tell him. We spoke. Okay?”
“Okay,” Mrs. Mickels said. “We spoke. Which we did.”
“What do you think, Allie?” Ben asked.
“That’s a great plan,” I said. “Keep everyone calm.”
“Thanks for your time, Mrs. Mickels,” Ben said.
He smiled and nodded.
Mrs. Mickels folded her arms again. A proud and stubborn woman guarding her home.
Ben and I walked down the sidewalk in silence.
Once there was enough distance, I elbowed him. “That was smooth.”
“That was to keep everyone under control,” he said. “I don’t need Mayor Jim doing anything crazy. Or her.”<
br />
“Sometimes I can’t believe this is part of the job,” I said as I opened the driver’s door.
Now that I was running the department, Ben had to deal with me driving.
“It’s better than other things,” he said with a frown.
That was certainly true.
Maybe arguing over a parade route felt boring, but it was better than almost freezing to death while trying to fight off The One.
I swallowed hard.
It had been months since all that happened yet it felt fresh in my mind.
I got into the car and looked at Mrs. Mickels’ house again.
She hadn’t moved an inch.
“You know, you were good with her,” I said. “You could be a politician.”
“Mayor Ben,” Ben said and laughed.
“It sounds good to me,” I said.
Before I could say anything else, my phone began to ring.
It was a text from Johnny.
Wanting to meet.
To talk about information pertaining to my sister’s death.
Chapter Six
I hated to do it but I asked Ben to leave the car.
At first he laughed, thinking I was joking.
Then he realized I wasn’t.
He wanted to go with me to see Johnny, but I knew how that would end up going.
Him and Johnny near each other was always like dripping gasoline on a fire.
Especially when it came down to Johnny helping me with finding who killed my sister.
The truth was Johnny had more contacts than both Ben and I combined. All I had to offer were old contacts from the city which wouldn’t do a thing for me in Sandemor.
Johnny knew people. Both good and bad.
He always had his certain way of getting information too.
Always over the line of ethics and sometimes logic, which put him forever in trouble.
But I trusted him and considered him to be… a friend?
I shuddered at the thought of that.
Johnny Barby as a friend.
I drove to meet him where he sat outside a small coffeeshop.
Thanks to the weather being extra crisp with a little hint of a winter chill, there was nobody else outside.
Johnny sat at a round, metal table with two coffees in front of him.
I approached and he smiled at me.
“One of those mine?” I asked, pointing to the coffees.
“One is for me,” he said. “One is for the first woman who kisses me.”
“I guess I’m not having coffee then,” I said.
“You’re too quick with that, Allie. Makes me think you really don’t like me in that way.”
“I don’t, Johnny.”
“I know you’re still with Ben. Things don’t last forever.”
“Maybe that does.”
“That means you’re going to leave me as a lonely man, withering, wondering, and waiting…”
He slid one of the coffees toward me.
I grabbed it and took the lid off, letting the steam pour out into the chilly air.
“Thanks,” I said as I lifted the coffee.
“Don’t mention it.”
“You have news about my sister’s murder?”
“A little,” Johnny said. “This is like finding a needle in ten thousand haystacks.”
“I don’t need a lecture on how hard this is,” I said. “I know what I want.”
“Well, what I’ve got is a possible video of the vehicle that night.”
“Really?” I asked. I put my coffee aside. “Let me see it.”
“Before we get too excited here,” Johnny said, “it’s bad quality. Now if my guy is right with the information and we follow the traffic cams before they no longer are in existence thanks to your small-town living, this is probably the vehicle that did it.”
“Video. Now.”
Johnny took his cell phone out and tapped his fingers on the screen a few times.
He then stood and moved his chair along the concrete to get closer to me.
I grabbed his phone and saw a black and white grainy video paused on his screen.
I sighed.
“I know,” he said. “I told you it was bad. But…”
I hit the play button.
“Give it a few seconds,” he said. “And… there…”
A vehicle came into the frame.
A huge car, whipping around the corner.
The car then stopped and made a wide U-turn, then stopped again.
It parked a few feet from the curb, the door opened and out stepped someone.
“Can I zoom in?” I asked.
“No,” Johnny said.
“And it’s from the front. No license plate.”
“No.”
I sighed again.
I watched as the driver looked at the front of their car.
It was too grainy of a video to tell if it was a male or female driving.
Then the video scrambled for a second.
It came back, a tad clearer, just in time for the driver to get into the car and speed off.
That’s when the video ended.
I looked at Johnny and handed him his phone.
“I know it’s not much,” he said. “But it’s better than nothing.”
“What do I do with that?” I asked.
“We have a location. I can track as much as I need to. I’ll make calls. I’ll have my guy do all he can too. Something has to pop up from there. That’s actual proof, Allie. I know it was hard to see and all, but that’s proof.”
I nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. I was just hoping…” I shook my head. “And nobody else thought to look for this footage?”
“I’m sorry but your town doesn’t think outside the box,” he said. “You do though. Which is why you’re going to do great at the new position. But before you…”
“They didn’t care,” I said. “She didn’t care. Laura was too busy with other things. She just pushed it along like it was nothing. That’s what happened. Then came the report that Alex had alcohol in her system. Why bother then, right? She probably deserved it!”
“Don’t say that,” Johnny said. “Nobody thinks that. Even if, say, your sister caused the accident… this other person drove off. They left her there. Who knows what could have happened if they had stayed. One way or another, all we can do is go with the facts right here. Footage. I can tell where the car came from and where it was going. That’s something.”
“And what if the person was from the other side of the country? Huh?”
“There was damage to the car, Allie.”
“Not enough to stop the car.” I sighed. “Let me see it again.”
I watched the video two more times.
I was desperate to find something in it.
Some kind of clue.
A hint.
Anything…
The truth was, it had been so long since Alex’s death, this video probably meant nothing.
“I appreciate you showing me this, Johnny.”
“I told you I’d help and I meant it. Anything I find out, I’ll call you. It may not be what you want to hear, but it’s better than nothing.”
“True,” I said. I stood up. “I have to go.”
“So soon?”
“I’m dealing with a grumpy woman in town and an annoying mayor who thinks a Halloween parade is going to make everything okay.”
“See? This is why I prefer to deal with criminals and dead people. Less drama.”
“Thanks, Johnny,” I said. I grabbed my coffee and took a sip. My nose wrinkled up. “Tell me you ordered some kind of fancy autumn coffee.”
“It’s a fall spice blend,” he said.
“Yeah, I can smell it now too,” I said.
“No good?” Johnny asked.
I put the coffee down. “Ben makes my coffee the way I like it.”
I smiled, knowing that was a dagger to Johnny’s ice-cold heart.
As I walked away, my s
mile faded.
I made a promise to myself and Alex that I would figure this out.
I then made a second promise.
No more distractions were allowed in my life…
Chapter Seven
He takes a deep breath and walks to a boarded-up window.
This is by choice, not by necessity or design.
“I have to do this,” he whispers.
No you don’t. You know this is nothing but trouble.
He nods. “I know you’re right. I know it’s trouble. But I just… feel… this…”
He looks at his hands.
For a long time he was fascinated by the commercials with women rubbing their hands. One hand perfectly straight, fingers curled forward to make their hand skinnier. The other hand rubbing the first hand… all for the allure of great skin.
His hands were nothing fancy at all.
They weren’t grimy and gross, but they weren’t commercial worthy either.
He turns from the boarded-up window and leans back.
He puts his head back.
“I just have to do this. You must understand me.”
I do understand you. I understand you more than anyone else does. Believe me. We’re connected.
He smiles. “Sometimes I forget that we’re connected. I really do. Forgive me for that.”
I’ll always forgive you.
He shuts his eyes.
He wants to just fall asleep right there. He wants to collapse to the floor and sleep all night. Even if he woke up the next morning with a mess on the floor from not emptying his bladder, so what? That mess could be easily cleaned up.
“Just like other messes,” he says.
Stop saying it.
He can’t stop saying it. He can’t stop wanting something that makes him happy.
This time he wants the real thing. No more pretending.
He takes another deep breath and throws his head back.
Hard enough that one of the boards breaks on the window.
The back of his head stings for a second.
He rushes to the bathroom and touches the back of his head.
If there’s blood… he’ll be in trouble.
Big trouble.
His fingertips are dry. At least at the moment they are.
He turns his head and looks.
There’s nothing to see.
After touching his head a second time and still not finding blood, he sighs with relief.
