by Andrew Gruse
Orb nodded and slid the bottle of beer inside his pants pocket. “I ran a background on the PI. He’s good. Running him out of town wouldn’t exactly be very friendly now, would it?”
“He was asking some suspicious questions to Coach Weber,” said one of the men. “Like he’s a suspect or something. Orb, we don’t need no outsiders.”
The leader nodded and put a hand on Orb’s shoulder. “Calm down,” he told the other man. “Orb, I understand. It’s just that this town gets a little uneasy with outsiders butting into our business. For the sake of the ease of the citizens of Clyde,” the man paused, “maybe it’s time to get the outsiders on their way.”
Orb was silent as he looked at each man’s stare. “And what about Derek Willows?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll turn up just fine. You were 18 once, right?” The leader laughed, and the other five men laughed with him. “We can handle this ourselves. Don’t you agree?”
Orb’s radio buzzed. “Orb, we got the car out of there.”
Orb stared at the men, grabbed the hand mic on his shoulder, and pushed the side button. “Take it to the garage. Get it inside and make sure it’s locked up. I’m on my way. Over and out.” He took a deep breath. “Gentlemen, thanks for the beer. Have a good night.”
The large man locked the door and watched a video monitor behind the bar that showed most of the yard. He watched Orb get into his vehicle and drive off.
“That damn PI. He knows things,” one of the men said. “Too many things. I don’t like it one bit. He keeps asking about searching the Miller woods.”
“Where did they go after they left the high school today? Them snooping around isn’t good for anyone. We have to keep tabs on them or get them out of town.”
“Don’t worry,” a younger man said, “there are always variables. Things happen, and when they do, we have what are called contingencies. We deal with it.”
“How?”
The younger man smiled. “I said, don’t worry. We’ll deal with it.”
* * * *
The ring of the cell phone stirred Julie, but Zack was awake. Sleep eluded him since they arrived in Clyde. He knew exhaustion overwhelmed Julie. When she dove into research, she wore herself out mentally. He, on the other hand, just became wound up over all the unanswered questions.
Zack grabbed the phone on the second ring. “Stack here.”
“Stack, it’s Orb. The car is in the garage. You want to look at it?”
“You’re damn right, I do.”
“Good. See you in five minutes at the station.”
Zack hung up, looked at the sleeping Jules, and grabbed his things.
“Hey,” she mumbled. “What are you doing?”
“Lock the door behind me. I’ll be at the police station.” He kissed her cheek and headed out.
Julie did as she was instructed and tried to get back to sleep. She couldn’t sleep, though. She counted sheep, she read a magazine, Julie played a game on her phone, she paced the room, checked her email, scrolled through her social media feeds and after two hours and still wide awake, decided that opening a bottle of wine for Zack and watch TV was the only thing left to do.
The clock struck one in the morning. Julie was tempted to text Zack when she heard the knock on the motel room door. “It’s me, honey,” said Zack.
Julie jumped off the bed. She fumbled with the lock before she got it open and hugged Zack in the doorway before he entered. Zack saw the wine she had open, poured himself a glass, and sat in the armchair in the corner of the room.
“What happened? Did they find Derek?”
Zack drank again and let out a deep breath. “This is good wine. What is it?”
“A Chianti. I know you like them.”
“Nice choice,” Zack said and got off the chair. He put the wine down, put Julie in his arms, and hugged her again. Zack held her. “Sorry I left tonight,” he said.
“What happened?”
“You might want to sit down for this,” Zack said. She wasn’t used to this mood from him.
“Is he dead?”
“No,” he answered quickly. “Well, I don’t know. It’s just this whole thing about Derek.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and watched him. Zack didn’t pace but couldn’t standstill. She grabbed and squeezed his hand. “Honey, take a breath, take a drink. Sit down and talk to me.”
He sat down on the bed. “I don’t like how this smells.”
“The wine?”
Zack looked confused, looked at his glass, smelled it, and looked at her. “No. The Derek case. The wine smells terrific. He sipped the wine. “The car was clean. I mean, except for being underneath a brick wall. There was a note inside the car along with the keys and his turned-off cell phone. The note was typed. It said he ran away and not to look for him. No explanation. Just, I ran away and don’t come looking for me. I sent Michelle a text asking her to check the print messages on his computer. Derek hadn’t printed anything off his printer and computer in five days. So he either planned it in advance, typed it at school, or it’s bullshit.”
Julie nodded and watched Zack.
“Knowing what we now know about him, maybe being exposed in this town would be enough to make a kid run away without a trace.” Zack finished his wine and grabbed the bottle from the chest of drawers, only an arm’s reach away from the bed. “I don’t know.”
Julie spoke after a long silence. “Do you think he was mad enough to set the high school on fire? Maybe he burned Weber’s office up, and somehow that started a chain reaction.”
“After having sex with the coach?” Zack drank again. “Orb said some guy named Marvin claims he was with Weber Saturday and out of town until afternoon on Sunday. Volunteered the information. So to Orb, Weber is clean.”
Julie put a hand on his leg. “You brought up Weber to Orb tonight?”
Zack shook his head and sipped the wine. “No, that’s the thing. I never mentioned Weber. Orb pulled me aside after we looked over the car and told me this. He said he heard I was raising trouble at the school this morning. He said Weber is all upset and worried his reputation will be ruined, and he’ll be put out of a job. Orb told me that sort of thing happened before so Weber was beside himself and that’s why his good friend, Marvin, whoever that is, found Orb to let Orb know he and Weber were out of town until after the fire started.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. Marvin made sure Orb understood they weren’t back maybe twenty to thirty minutes before they contacted everyone they knew to head to Hobby to search for Derek. The search started at one so, they covered their asses well.”
“It may not have been Weber at all,” Julie pointed out. “He could be telling the truth.”
“He lied. You listened to him sidestep every question we asked him. Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
Julie frowned. “So, what now?”
He sipped the wine and set in on the chest before he stretched his back and laid flat on the bed. “We wait to see if Michelle can hack into his email. Beyond that, everything we’ve learned is a red flag.”
Julie laid next to him, on her side to face him. “We’ll find him, babe.”
He sighed and rolled to face her. “I know.”
The two laid on the bed, the lights dim, both curled with hands under the heads, noses only inches apart, the warmth of each other’s breath soothing the other. The clock neared two in the morning, but Julie knew Zack wouldn’t sleep. He needed to rest, but he wouldn’t sleep. She knew that.
“Tell me about the Eurasian Tree Sparrow again, honey,” Jules said softly. “Where will we see it? I need to know what I’m looking at.”
Zack smiled. “I saw them only once here in the states,” he began. “I was heading to Peoria for some reason from the Quad Cities area. Some highway went right through a wildlife preserve, and I pulled off into a boat launch parking lot, thinking I might see some birds.” The memory was fresh in his head though it had been several years on a
short leave. “There, by a garbage can in a patch of grass, a flock of about twelve sparrows landed. But right away, I knew they weren’t House Sparrows though they looked similar. So I quickly grabbed my binoculars, and I felt the excitement in me grow because something told me this was a new bird.”
The sound of a window shattering and a car alarm shrieking filled the air. Zack raced to the motel room door and burst outside into the darkness.
There was no movement. Zack’s Honda Accord horn blared. Julie scrambled for the keychain and pressed a button on the remote as Zack ran outside. The horn silenced. Zack walked to the driver’s side of his car and saw the reason behind the alarm. A brick was thrown through the window.
Zack scanned the area, but only saw darkness in every direction. Shattered glass spread everywhere. Zack let out a deep breath and looked back at Julie. “Welcome to Clyde. Where it all begins. They just don’t know what they’ve begun.”
CHAPTER 18
Zack examined his patch job when Julie exited their motel room with her steaming cup of coffee in her hands. She looked at the car window. “The plan?”
Zack zipped up his jacket early that morning. Clouds rolled in overnight and threatened rain. “Well, Barney recommended his brother-in-law for replacing the window. His brother-in-law, Fred, I am not making that up, is going to charge me $500.”
“That seems high.” Julie sipped her coffee. Zack had to pack a coffee maker and a giant bag of the coffee beans she liked for the trip. He didn’t like it, but she was sleeping with him again, so it seemed a fair trade.
“Yeah, about 300 bucks high.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll take it downstate to an actual Honda dealer. The window is there, it will cost about 200 bucks. Until that time, this duct tape and garbage bag will have to suffice.”
“Looks like it’s going to rain, hon,” Julie said, her eyes at the sky. “Will that keep the rain out?”
“It better,” he said and smiled. “Or you’re driving. Your ass looks better wet than mine.”
She smiled and shook her head. “What about today?”
Zack frowned. Finding Derek Willows was his main priority. “The window has to wait. We have to find Derek.”
“What about the search west of town? I heard everyone in town will be there.”
Zack grabbed two sets of rain gear from the trunk and handed one to Jules. “Yeah, that makes no sense to me, and we aren’t going there.”
“Why not?”
“Because he isn’t there.”
“If Weber is behind any of this, organizing searches for Derek is pretty smart. You wouldn’t do that if you killed him, would you?”
“If I killed him, they would have found his body already, and still no one would ever know I did it.”
She remembered Senator Michael Rosler. “That’s you, though.”
They put on the forest green rain gear. “You look good in green,” Zack said. “Makes the blue in your eyes pop more than normal.”
She winked. “I hoped you’d notice.”
“You know something, Jules, you really should marry me.” He opened the car door and got inside. She got in the passenger side, closed her door, leaned over and kissed him deeply. Her hand caressed his face as she kissed him.
“As they say, good things come to those who wait.”
Zack started the car; a smile covered his face with the taste of Julie fresh on his lips. “Now, let’s go find Derek Willows so we can get the hell out of this place.”
* * * *
Before Zack and Julie reached the high school, the raindrops turned into a downpour. Even parked, the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain. The lot covered with water and wind rocked the car. Thunder boomed overhead, and the sky lit up with streaks of lightning.
A police car parked on the opposite end of the parking lot, near the cordoned-off section of the lot alone. No one else around.
“What now?”
Zack stared at the police car. “We can’t drive around the building, and there’s no way this car won’t get stuck on that road with all this rain,” he said. “Want to go for a walk?”
“In this rain? Are you crazy?”
“Never clinically diagnosed, but there are rumors.” He zipped up his coat. “I’ll drive as close as I can, sweet talk the deputy, and go for a walk. Why don’t you stay in the car here until I get back?”
“And you’re sure going in will help us find Derek?”
“You heard what Michelle said. He sent an email to someone named PoohBear1775 saying he’d meet him behind the high school. Unless he’s buried in that rubble, my guess is he’s out in those woods,” Zack said.
“Or he ran away,” Julie said, not wanting to accept defeat. “I mean, from what we know, that is a possibility.”
“From what we know, he met a guy behind the high school,” Zack said. “Yes,” Zack conceded, “he may have run away like the note said, and he may have run away with whoever PoohBear1775 is. But no one is going back there.” He pointed at the forest behind the school. “Private property or not, it’s also a possibility.”
Thunder boomed, and a gust of wind buffeted the car. The rain blew sideways.
“I’m not staying here. I’m coming with you.”
Zack leaned forward and rested his chin on the back of his hands atop the steering wheel. He turned his head to look at Jules. “You sure? Your hair will get ruined.”
Julie laughed. “Like that’s my main concern right now?” She shook her head. “Pull up to the cop. Let’s do this.”
* * * *
The heavy rain and high winds eased into a steady downpour. Straight down, no gusts. The leading edge of the storm was the worst. Now the area just had to soak up the water. And there was a lot of it. The prediction was for up to two inches of rain. As far as Zack was concerned, it didn’t matter.
He stopped the car in a parking stall near the police car, and both got out. The deputy lowered his window and recognized Stack. He smiled.
“What brings you out here? The car was found,” he said.
Zack bent slightly to keep the rain out of his face, even with his hood over his head. Deputy Sam, who he met at the station. “Julie and I were thinking about going for a walk.” Zack pointed towards the rear of the school. “Down that road. Saw it the other day, looks like a nice place for a walk.”
Sam turned to look then laughed. “Are you crazy?”
Zack looked at Julie, who smiled. “Maybe.”
“You want to go, go,” Sam said. “Just stay on this side of the fence.”
“Why is that? Are there man-eating coyotes on the other side?”
“Stack,” Sam laughed, “you ain’t from around here, are you?”
Zack had no reply and looked at Julie. She tilted her head and shrugged as if the question was meant to be rhetorical. He looked back at Sam.
“Stack, those woods, that forest, that whole plot of land, all six hundred acres are haunted. No one goes in them unless they have a death wish.”
“You don’t say?” Haunted? And he wants to know if I’m crazy?
“As a matter of fact, I do. It all started about eight years ago or so,” Sam said. He stopped and looked at the two. “If you want to go, go. Just stay on this side of the fence.” Sam’s cell phone rang. “I have to take this. Have a nice walk.”
Zack took Julie’s hand, and the two walked towards the road to the forest.
“This is so creepy,” Julie said.
Zack smiled. “Made up stories usually are.”
CHAPTER 19
Zack held Julie’s hand as they walked down the two-wheel path behind the school lot, past the pond and prairie and into the thick stand of trees on the school property. Thunder rumbled steadily all around them. Zack couldn’t tell if the storm cell was ahead, behind, or above them. As everyone else in the town trudged through the muddy forest floor west of the village of Clyde, no one believed Derek Willows would have left his car and walked south through the forest behind the scho
ol.
Not even Zack.
But there was a reason no one went here, and Zack had to know.
Judging by the lack of a search at the school, it looked like the powers that be already decided Derek’s body was not there. They concluded that awfully quick.
Zack and Julie could have made an argument supporting any theory about the disappearance of Derek Willows. If what Molly Lockett told Zack was correct, which he believed it was, and one of the people at the school was Derek, more possibilities arose, none of them good. And who was Molly hiding from? It wasn’t the man having sex with Derek. So who was it?
Zack was sure whoever chased her was not familiar with the school. Or was that person in a hurry to escape since the flames already burned and spread quickly near the room? Holes and questions.
They needed answers.
Possibly, Zack realized, there were multiple people involved. That meant a conspiracy. Could have included the whole town, including Sheriff Orbison. But why? Was the fire to hide a crime, or to commit a crime? Which lead back to Derek Willows. Did he start it because he lost the scholarship, and his former coach mislead him? Or did someone kill him, hide his body in the school and torch the place so Derek’s body would never be found?
Or was the fire merely the result of old age and negligence?
Zack KNEW he saw orange smoke twice, both in explosions. Did he see things, or did someone use C4 explosives at each one? Why? To destroy the silo at a farm in the middle of nowhere? That farm seemed to be of little significance to anyone, wasn’t it? Or was someone hiding murder? Murder and a complete loss of the farm buildings to force the widow to sell?
Zack’s mind spun faster and faster. The explosive in the boiler room at the school made sense if someone wanted total destruction. The explosive detonated near the stack and oil tank, which would cause another explosion, the one that brought the stack down ultimately and leveled many of the walls of the school. But why would someone want to do that?
Was Derek even capable of doing that? How would he get his hands on C4 explosive?
