by Tess Oliver
“I’m ready. I just want this to be over.” In the distance, the distinctive sound of a train whistle pummeled the warm stale air. As the ground along the tracks vibrated, birds that had been hiding in the weeds, spurted out of their hiding places, leaving behind their bug feasts.
Julian was still counting ties.
“Hey, Jules, the train’s coming,” Sugar called to him. No reaction. He’d gotten even farther from us.
I whistled, and, it too, sent the birds skittering. “Julian, train coming!” I yelled. There was no way he hadn’t heard me. We looked back toward the sound, the rhythmic click-clack Julian had mentioned.
We picked up our pace, taking long strides to close the gap. The train closed its gap as well. The vibration under our feet increased in intensity. The next whistle startled us but not Julian. He was absorbed in his number task, not paying attention to anything going on around him.
I picked up a run. “Julian, get off the fucking tracks!”
“Julian,” Sugar screamed. The massive train, one of those old fashioned engine types with a lot of box cars was barreling down on us like a fucking steam blowing dragon.
I ran faster, but even with a lot of cars behind it, the thing was racing along. The engineer was close enough now to see the figure on the track. He blew the whistle again. It was deafening, but Julian didn’t flinch or look back. He just kept moving at the same damn pace, counting the railroad ties.
“Tommy!” Sugar screamed. “It’s going to hit him.”
The ground rocked under my feet like an earthquake and the smell of the train penetrated my nose and mouth. I leapt across the tracks and tackled Julian. A rush of air blew against us as the train roared past. We rolled across the rough dirt stopping in a patch of tall weeds. The long chain of box cars rumbled past.
Sugar raced over to us. Sharp thorns poked through my shirt and skin and Julian was stiff in my arms, his side against me and his elbow in my stomach. His computer was underneath him.
“Are you guys all right?” Sugar asked, her voice nearly gone from fright.
Julian pushed off of me and got up to his feet without a word. He picked up the computer. It was scraped up, but it seemed to have survived the tackle. Angrily, Julian stomped toward the tracks. He paced back and forth next to them scratching his head. His body was rigid, and dead weeds clung to his shirt and hair, but he didn’t seem to notice. Just like he hadn’t seemed to notice that he’d almost been obliterated by a train.
Sugar lowered her hand to me, and I pulled myself up. My leg cramped. I leaned down to rub out the pain while Sugar pulled every size, shape and species of weed out of my long hair and shirt.
Julian turned to us. “Which tie was it? Where did you push me off? I might have to start over.”
“Shit,” I said under my breath. “We’re losing him fast.”
Sugar walked over to him. “You don’t have to start over. I remember exactly where you were, Jules.” She walked confidently over to a tie and pointed down at it. “I remember this gap between the joints, just like you talked about. It was this one.”
With that, Julian stepped back onto the ties and continued counting. I caught up to Sugar. We watched in disbelief as he went on with his task, as if the last few moments had never happened. “Are you bullshitting him?” I asked quietly.
“Yep.”
I reached under my shirt and pulled out another weed. “That next town can’t come soon enough.”
Chapter 26
We got by with only the one train incident. As we passed a broken down tractor that someone had left off the side of the road, Julian, for some unexplained reason, that only he seemed to understand, decided it was time to quit counting the tracks.
“Seven thousand sixty-three,” he announced, as if this had been a perfectly normal day and he was just a perfectly normal guy counting railroad ties. “If the data about three thousand ties per mile is correct, then we’ve traveled two and twenty-one thousandth miles since we started on the tracks.”
“Thank goodness we have that information.” It had been a long walk. I was done watching him deteriorate into this strange, hard to understand person, who seemed less cerebral and more off-balance with each passing minute. Sugar squeezed my hand.
“Sorry,” I said, “but he’s standing on my last fucking nerve.” Julian could hear me but he pretended not to listen. Or it was entirely possible that he was so out of it, he didn’t know how to listen.
“Don’t forget this is hard on him, Tommy. He just hasn’t figured out how to react to it yet.”
“It’s been pretty fucking hard on me too. I’m the one facing arrest and hours of interrogation for a murder that all started with his father. I’m the one who the rest of the country now knows as a murdering madman. Even when this gets cleared up, which I hope is soon, those images flashed by the media, my picture beneath headlines about the Green Willow murders will stick in everyone’s memory. No matter how innocent I am, the seed has been set and for some people, I will always be associated with the murders. So, excuse me if I’m not feeling like catering to his quirks right now.”
She pulled me to a stop and turned into my arms. Her hand circled behind my head and she pulled my face to hers. “Just remember, after all this is over, I’ll be waiting for you.” She kissed me and I wrapped my arms around her.
“Are you kidding? You’re the only thing making me put one foot in front of the other today. I want to get this over with and then spend the rest of my days with you in my arms . . . preferably naked.” We kissed for a long time, standing in the barren, weed choked landscape with the warm summer breeze pushing against us, knowing that these days of complete freedom would be over soon. For that time, with Sugar’s lips pressed against my mouth, it was easy to forget everything, Green Willow, the murders, the police and even the drugs and alcohol. Sugar was all I needed to be happy.
***
It was late afternoon by the time we reached our destination. It was bigger than most of the towns we’d encountered, but it still had that rural, deserted feel. The main street had a stretch of shops, a dry cleaners, a dentist office right next to a donut shop and a small police station that was only easy to spot because of two small signs marking off a space on the curb that was reserved for patrol cars only.
We headed straight into the market. A lack of food and water had made the last few miles of the trek feel as if we were pulling wagons of bricks behind us. Julian’s hat had kept the sun off his face, and he’d remained a pasty white, even less color than usual for him. Sugar and I looked as if we’d both been stretched out on a beach without sun block.
The clerk, a short, stout lady with a grandmotherly smile, greeted us as we walked in. “The three of you look as if you just crossed the Sahara desert.”
“That’s how we feel too,” Sugar said cheerily.
We each grabbed two water bottles. I finished one before we’d even paid for them. Food choices were limited, but we found a few readymade sandwiches in the refrigerator. We were too hungry to be picky.
We sat on a bench in front of the market and gobbled down the food. Even Julian was too starved to worry about flavor or quality. We hadn’t really discussed how all of this was going to end today. It was a subject that was too depressing to bring up. My main concern was Sugar.
“Assuming I’m going to be booked and taken into custody, probably closer to Green Willow,” I said as I looked at Sugar, “where will you go?” I pulled out my wallet. There was seventy-three dollars left. “Take this. I won’t need it. Both of you can catch a bus out of here. Obviously, Julian, you’ll need to head back home.” He had no answer for that. He stared down at the computer in his lap, looking sad suddenly, a twinge of emotion I hadn’t seen all day.
“Wherever they take you, Tommy, that’s where I want to be.” Sugar was holding back tears.
“I’ll be fine. I have money, and I have some friends who’ll take me in for a little while. I just want this to be over.”
“That’s all I want too, baby.” I pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. I fished out my cigarettes. “I’m just going to take a walk and have one more smoke. Just need a few minutes alone.”
I walked along the sidewalk past the cleaners and crossed to the other side where there was an open parking lot sitting in front of a store with boarded up windows. I stood under a tree with drooping branches that were just begging for water and took a long drag on my cigarette. A lot of shit had happened in a short span of time. It was hard to grasp it all. But, somewhere in the midst of everything, I’d faced my biggest enemy. Sugar had helped with that. I’d finally found someone who listened, and someone who didn’t judge or try and understand or fix the way I was feeling. She just listened. She had understood me from the start. That was what I’d needed. Someone who understood me. And I loved her. I was fucking nuts, head over heels, out of my mind in love with Sugar Scarborough.
She lifted her face and smiled at me as I smoked my cigarette. It gave me the courage I needed. I wanted this over. I wanted to be back with Sugar as soon as possible. She needed me and I needed her. I put out my cigarette and stepped onto the street to walk it to the trash can across the way. I heard the loud rumble of a muscle car behind me but didn’t turn to look.
“Tommy!” Sugar screamed as she flew off the bench.
I glanced back up the road just as the yellow Camaro crept toward me. The tinted driver’s window rolled down, and the metal tip of a gun barrel glinted in the late afternoon sun. I was in the center of the road with no place to duck or hide. It was one of those weird, frozen in time moments when everything moved at a snail’s pace, even though it was all happening in real time. Sugar was moving in slow motion toward me as the car rolled slowly past. An evil smile crept up onto Frank’s face as he shut one eye for better aim.
“Get back,” I yelled to Sugar.
I heard the shot at the same time I felt the bullet, like it had moved at the speed of sound. My leg went out from beneath me, and my chin hit the asphalt hard, snapping my teeth together and catching my tongue between them. Blood filled my mouth as a searing, burning pain shot through my already fucked up leg. Sugar raced toward me. The yellow car stopped. I pushed to my feet, but only one foot found the ground. I spit out a fountain of blood and lunged toward Sugar. I knocked her hard onto her bottom and fell to my knees.
Behind me, more tires screeched to a stop. The Camaro tore off leaving behind a trail of smoke and the strong scent of burning rubber. A police car followed it, while two more pulled up next to me.
Sugar crawled over and threw her arms around me. “Tommy,” she sobbed. She turned to the police. “Get an ambulance!”
It took only a second to figure that they hadn’t just arrived coincidentally. They had their guns pulled as they climbed out of the vehicles. People, now seemingly assured of their safety with the arrival of the police, started drifting out from the shops to watch. Julian stood a good distance away, looking even paler and clutching his computer. God, how I wished he had some meds. I really could have used the other Julian right then, the one who would climb his rock wall and give solid advice and act like a genius.
An officer stood over me with a gun pointed toward my head. “Thomas Jameson?” he asked.
I spit out more blood. “Yes, that’s me.” The road was starting to roll under me in waves and the only thing still clearly in view was Sugar’s beautiful face. In the midst of this ugly mess and the pain, I smiled thinking that if I had to die right here, it would be all right because Sugar’s face would be the last thing I saw. I lifted a shaky hand to touch her, but the cop grabbed it and yanked it painfully behind me along with my other hand. I leaned my forehead against hers. “You wait for me, baby. Do you hear me? You fucking wait for me, because I’ve never loved anyone until you. You stay safe, and you wait for me.” I spoke over her sobs.
She put her hands on my face and nodded. “Forever,” she whispered. “I love you too, Tommy.”
One of the officers grabbed her under the elbow and lifted her back from me. She jerked away from his arm.
My hands were bound behind my back, and blood was squirting from a bullet wound in my leg, but for some fucking reason they felt the need to push me to the ground. My chin bounced off the hot asphalt again. “Fuck.” Blood flowed down my throat as one officer held my head down against the street. I could only see the boots of the officer reading me my rights. Sugar was crying uncontrollably. I just wanted them to get this fucking drama show finished and shove me into an ambulance or car or whatever they planned to haul me off in.
Two of them grabbed my arms and yanked me to my feet, but I couldn’t support myself.
“Can’t you see he’s been shot?” Sugar yelled.
“M’am you need to stay right where you are.”
“Sugar, it’s all right.”
“After you nearly killed a man in a fight last night, some of the witnesses identified you as the man wanted for the Green Willow murders. It seems your explosive temper finally gave you away,” one officer sneered, as if he was already planning the acceptance of his medal of honor for putting me away for good.
“He didn’t do it,” Sugar cried. “The real killer just drove away in that yellow Camaro. That’s why he’s shot.” She sobbed harder now. “Tommy saved my life. I would have been dead along with Dr. Kirkendall.” They were discounting her rant as the desperate plea of a woman trying to save her boyfriend.
“She is telling the truth,” Julian’s voice came from behind. Then he stepped into view. He looked calm and pulled together, not like the guy who’d been counting ties on the railroad tracks.
“Who are you?” an officer asked.
“I’m Julian Fitzpatrick, and I’d like to report the murder of my twin brother, Justin Fitzpatrick.”
The policemen looked around at each other in confusion.
“His murder was the motive behind the killings at Green Willow and the reason my father, Jonathan Fitzpatrick killed himself this morning.” He spoke with such authority and clarity, he had their attention. “Wherever you’re taking Mr. Jameson, you need to take Miss Scarborough and me too. We were eyewitnesses at Green Willow. We know exactly what happened. And, as she mentioned, one of the real killers just passed through town in that yellow and black car.” It was amazing, the transformation. He’d pulled himself together, and now, I felt like I had my own personal, high caliber lawyer standing in the street with me.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
“Is that ambulance for me?” I asked weakly.
“Yes,” an officer answered.
“Good.” I was done. Spots filled my eyes, and my head spun. My good leg gave out, and I collapsed into darkness.
Chapter 27
Present
I pulled up the new jeans. My parents had had them delivered along with a shirt and shoes for my release. The hole in my calf had healed into an ugly, puckered scar, a perfect match for the puckered scar left behind by my femur. I’d lost weight. The jeans hung loosely, but the shirt fit tightly across my chest. Two years of the exercise yard, with little else to keep me occupied, had helped with that. I headed down the final short strip of cement to the steel exit door.
The guard nodded and a switch was thrown. The latch echoed in the hallway as he pushed it. “Hope we don’t see you anytime soon, Jameson.”
“You won’t.” Two years in this hell hole had been more than enough. Never again. Even though I’d been defending Sugar in that pool hall, my final fist throwing tantrum had left a man partially blind. And with my priors, the judge assured me that I was getting off easy.
I
walked out and raised my arm to block the harsh daylight. A shiny silver Jaguar was parked at the curb. My dad climbed out. He was grayer and looked a little smaller than I remembered, but he still had a commanding presence. Just standing on the mostly empty roadside outside of the state penitentiary where he was picking up his son, his only son, after a two year stint for assault, even with all of that, he still looked powerful and important.
He walked around to the sidewalk. “Your mom and sisters are waiting for you at home,” he said. He lifted his dark sunglasses. Even his eyebrows were grayer. He looked at me. He’d come to see me several times, but the visits had only seemed to make both of us angry. I hadn’t seen him in a year. “You look good, son.” He lifted his arms. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d lifted his arms to me. I hesitated, but only for a second. We hugged.
“Thomas,” there was a hitch in his voice. “I want to start this father and son thing over. I made a lot of mistakes.”
“So did I, Dad. I was thinking about what you said about coming to work for Jameson Enterprises.”
“Are you still considering it?”
“Well, it’s my name on the company sign, isn’t it?”
He smiled. “It is.”
“I want to start at the bottom. Working in the warehouse making the same pay as the guys in the loading docks.”
He opened his mouth to protest.
“Really, Dad. No special treatment, otherwise, I’ll find work elsewhere.”
He nodded. “If that’s what you want.”
A car pulled up to the curb behind me. Dad looked past me and smiled. “I think someone else is here to see you.”
I turned around. She stepped out of the car. Nothing about my reaction to her had changed. The breath jammed in my lungs.
