A Dead Issue

by John Evans

  I counted back through the days to Jonah’s death. If the security system was being used as scheduled, the Phil and Dexter show would be lost forever.

  “On the other hand,” Cash cut into my thoughts as if he had been reading them, “that tape you’re worried about could be sitting on the shelf just waiting for somebody.”

  “Did ‘somebody’ express any interest in them?”

  Cash studied me closely, and the twinkle in his eye pissed me off. I knew where this was headed. Keeping the tape out of Devereaux’s hands was going to cost me money.

  “I’m sensing you want to make use of my services again.”

  Cash sat back and watched patiently as I considered my position. He was pulling me in like quicksand. The more I struggled, the deeper I got. It wouldn’t be long until I was in over my head. Even though I knew that, Cash was the only lifeline I had.

  “You got to erase that tape.”

  “No problem. I can pop that sucker in tonight and it will be taped over by morning.”

  “And the fee?”

  “Let’s keep this simple—a thousand should do it.”

  That seemed like a bargain. I nodded.

  “I’ll give you a full report in twenty-four hours. I’ll collect my fee tomorrow—same time, same place.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Did Devereaux ask about the tapes?”

  “Well,” he said slowly and thoughtfully, “not in so many words. He saw the cameras and told me I should press charges—use the tapes as evidence to cover my ass in case they think I did it.”

  I grabbed another beer and so did Cash.

  “Almost got tangled up in my own lie,” Cash admitted as he popped open the can. “Had to do some fancy talking because unless you actually did dip into the till, the video wouldn’t show anyone doing anything worth beating your ass for.”

  I took a swallow of beer and dropped my arm to the table with the can in my fist. “That’s the trouble with lying,” I said, “you got to keep all those pesky little facts from getting in the way. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.’”

  Cash laughed, “Oh, yeah. Gomer Pyle said that. I remember from that show. It’s the truth, man. You can get yourself all turned around if you’re not careful.”

  I smiled agreeably. “You got to remember everything—and think ahead.”

  Cash seemed to be enjoying our discussion on the fine art of lying. I continued. “Like someone dipping into the till. That little lie is going to show up when they check the books and everything balances.”

  “Balances?” His smile faded. He looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face. “Books ain’t going to balance.” The smile spread across his face and his teeth sparkled with sly pride. “The day you quit, I skimmed four hundred and twenty dollars off the proceeds that night. Figured I owed myself a going away present—on account of you were going away.”

  CHAPTER 32

  I watched the headlights approach from the distance, winding through the curves of Belhaven Road—sometimes a ghostly glow among the trees, sometimes a beacon snaking through open fields. As the lights neared Cameron Drive, I took a keener interest in whatever was coming my way. I was fairly certain the car would pass by as countless others had, but I knew that one day—almost certainly the day I stopped lookingStomp would find me. It would not be hard. Cameron Industries was well known throughout the valley, and everyone in Fannett Meadow could point upward in the general direction of the Crow’s Nest.

  The lights slowed at one point, perhaps waiting for a deer. I edged closer to the window keeping off to the side behind the curtains. The car crept along as if searching for something and I had little doubt that that something was a forest green sign with gold lettering—“The Crow’s Nest.” The car approached the lane and coasted to a stop well beyond it.

  I turned off the lights and pushed back the curtains all the way. I stared down at the headlights casting a wash of light down Belhaven Road and wondered what the driver was doing—car idling while he read a map, talked on a cell phone, or loaded a gun. Cash’s words came back to me almost as if he were in the room. Better get yourself a gun. My father had guns at one time—a good collection, but I had not seen one since moving in. And now was not the time to go on a mad search for one—I could not take my eyes off the headlights.

  I flipped open my cell phone and called my father, hoping I would not be interrupting something—I needed his full attention. He picked up almost immediately.

  “Mark!” There was joy in his voice.

  “How’s it going?” I tried to lift my spirit to match his, but the headlights in the valley made that impossible. There was silence after my empty greeting.

  “Something wrong?” His mood dropped instantly to match mine.

  “No,” I lied. “I just wanted to check in, let you know everything’s OK and to see how you’re doing.”

  There was a pause and he continued cautiously, “I’m doing fine. Making some good progress . . . met some nice people.” He wasn’t buying my reason for the call.

  “That’s good.” There was no sincerity in my voice. I was distracted by the car in the valley. There was another pause—an enormous void of silence.

  “You sure there’s nothing wrong?” he asked at length. “You sound . . . troubled.”

  That was a good opening and I jumped on it. “Yeah, I guess I am,” I fumbled for the right words. “It’s . . . I don’t know. I’m at the Crow’s Nest . . . it’s dark, and . . .”

  “You’re afraid?”

  “Uncomfortable,” I corrected him. I didn’t want to invite scorn, but understanding. “It’s going to sound silly, but I’m not used to being this alone.”

  “So invite someone to stay over.” There was a casual friendliness in his voice that was foreign to me, like he was going out of his way to accommodate me and not to piss me off. “Get a roommate. I don’t care. Whatever makes you . . . comfortable.” He seemed to select that word carefully and deliberately because I had used it.

  “Actually, I was thinking of two friends,” I said. “Smith and Wesson.”

  The laugh on the other end was genuine and somehow reassuring. “OK,” he finally said as if he totally understood, but then there was a long silence, a hesitance, that I couldn’t account for right away. I hoped he would say, “Grab the one in the hall closet,” but he said nothing and I feared that he would to tell me that he had sold off his collection or didn’t want me playing with guns. Eventually, I had to break the silence.

  “So, where are you hiding them?”

  Again, there was a long pause. This time I let the silence work until he was forced to break it. “They’re all locked up . . . in the vault.”

  It was then that I understood. My father’s study, darkly paneled and furnished like something belonging to a nineteenth century railroad baron, contained a vault—a walk-in closet the size of the bedroom back at my apartment. Its door was of hardened steel in moss green with a five-pronged banker’s wheel, twelve locking bolts, and a heavy dial. The guns were safely stored within. My father was not hesitant about arming me with a gun, but with the combination to his vault.

  He breathed a heavy sigh of resignation and continued almost as though thinking out loud, “Maybe it wouldn’t be bad for someone else to know the combination.” He paused. Then speaking louder and with more assurance. “I might need you to go in there anyway sometime while I’m here. Don’t write this down—anywhere.” And he gave me the combination slowly, twice, and I repeated it to his satisfaction. “Open it now while the numbers are fresh.”

  My eyes were still locked on the glow of headlights in the valley, and I had no doubt that I was going to open the vault immediately.

  “You know what you want?” my father asked. I wondered if an elephant gun would bring down Stomp.

  “Nothing complicated,” I said. “Just something you squeeze the trigger and bullets fly out the end.”

  He laughed again, poli
tely acknowledging my self-depreciating humor.

  “Let’s keep it simple. Take a revolver—the .357 Magnum would be my choice. The ammo’s in the drawer, and, for Christ’s sake, be careful.”

  “I’ll keep it in my sock drawer.”

  He chuckled into the phone. “So now that that’s out of the way, what else is new?”

  “Not too much. Everything is fine here. I decided to use one of the guest rooms. I’m driving the Beamer until my car gets fixed.” I was rambling and I knew it.

  “How about Jonah? Anything new there?”

  His question stopped me cold. The “anything new” was happening while we chatted away. The unmoving headlights in the valley could be a diversion as Stomp plodded his way to the Crow’s Nest.

  “Nothing new,” I finally managed. “That detective, Devereaux, comes around every once and again to ask questions. He even took me to Jonah’s house to look the place over—to see if anything was missing.”

  “Well . . . ?”

  “I didn’t see anything. Jonah didn’t have anything worth stealing.”

  My father did not respond, and I took that as a sign that our small talk was dying a slow death.

  My eyes flashed down at he headlights. The fact that they had not moved, dimmed, or gone out was still a mystery to me. Maybe this was a stranded motorist, out of gas, waiting for assistance. Then, again, it might be Stomp pretending to be a stranded motorist. The only way to find out was to go down into the valley and see for myself. I made up my mind to do that as soon as my father and I found a convenient place in our struggling conversation to hang up.

  “Have you seen Moe?” my father asked, breaking my train of thought and sending it into a tailspin.

  “Yes—just briefly. He ran into the weeds when he saw me. He looked mangier than usual.”

  “He’s getting up there. I’ve been setting food out for him.” His statement was almost apologetic—an admission of weakness, compassion for a cat struggling to remain independent. I wondered how that translated to a son fighting the same battle. “There’s a bag of dry food down in the barn.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Dad.” The word slipped out and my gut knotted like I had been punched. I hadn’t called my father Dad for years, always referring to him as ‘my father’ in his absence and always avoiding addressing him in person. It was personal. It was affectionate. It was scary.

  I think it hit my father the same way and his discomfort was evident in the ensuing silence and his tone. Our conversation ended quickly. And just as quickly, my focus centered on the headlights in the valley.

  CHAPTER 33

  I watched the distant glow in the valley for a full minute, assuring myself that there had been no change and that there would likely be no change while I rushed to the vault room to arm myself. My fingers turned the dial—heavy and smooth, weighted by quality, and velvet with the feel of precision. After landing on the last digit, I spun the banker’s wheel and the door opened with a soft suck of air. The lights came on as the door opened, and my eyes quickly scanned the interior. The rifles stood at attention in a gun rack that ran across the back wall. To the right, three cherry wood cases held pistols, labeled and spaced evenly on green velvet, the glass lids sloped at an angle for easy display. I pulled out the .357 and looked around for ammunition. Drawers, custom built into the wall next to the display tables, seemed to be the perfect place for ammunition. I tucked my fingers into the pull slot, and opened the top drawer.

  The ammo was not there, but I stopped breathing as I stared at stacks of cold, hard cash—hundred-dollar bills banded into packages, ten thousand dollars to a pack. The drawer was filled from top to bottom, back to front, and side-to-side. It was as if the dimensions of the drawers were carefully crafted to hold cash. The other drawers were reserved for tens, twenties, and fifties. And each drawer was filled to capacity without a single Osama bin Laden in the bunch. No wonder my father was hesitant to give me the combination. Brazil? I could own the place.

  I stood mesmerized by what was before me. Vague suspicions arose as I tried to justify my father’s need for huge amounts of cash. Nothing legal came to mind. My thoughts slowly returned to my reason for being in the vault, to get a gun . . . because a car was in the valley . . . waiting.

  I found a drawer in the lower section of the gun rack containing dozens of boxes labeled Federal and dumped out a handful of .357 cartridges. It took a few seconds for me to figure out how to load the pistol. Then I dropped extra bullets into my pocket and ran back to check on the headlights. They were still there shining steadily into the night.

  Sucking in a lungful of air, I headed for the garage.

  I rolled the BMW off the garage apron and headed down the lane toward the Farmhouse. I felt a good measure of security wrapped in a metal shell with locked doors and the potential escape velocity of a cheetah. Through the open window I heard night sounds and tires crunching on blacktop dusted with fall’s litter. The moon cast a silvery wash over the landscape. No need for headlights. Whoever was down there would never see me coming.

  I coasted down to the highway, turned left, and flashed on my headlights. A woman leaned against the trunk of a green Mustang, legs crossed at the ankles, hands folded in front—waiting.

  CHAPTER 34

  I sat watching her for a moment as she stood unmoving in the glare of my headlights. The fact that she showed no fear, uncertainty, or relief was unsettling. It was nearly midnight. She was alone on a dark country road standing outside her car. Things prowled in the night and a car had pulled up behind her, yet she appeared unconcerned by either approaching danger or salvation. She stared into and beyond my headlights and seemed to be making eye contact with me.

  I opened my door and stepped out. The car sloped toward the side of the road, and the door fell closed when I released it.

  “Sheesh! It’s about time!” Her voice was impatient like I was late for an appointment. She stood erect. Her hands unclasped and fell to her side. Her long black hair framed a creamy white face, oval and marked by eyes I would later learn were violet. A large crucifix glowed against a dark sweater that blended into her hair and slacks. Even with the backwash of her headlights, she was a face floating in the night above a golden cross.

  “You were expecting me?” I asked half in jest.

  “Well, I was expecting somebody to come along. I just didn’t think it would take like an hour.”

  “Car trouble?” I asked as I stepped into the light, and for the first time she seemed to take an interest in the stranger who had stopped to help her on a dark, lonely road. She tilted her head and studied my face before answering.

  “Yeah. Transmission. I felt it slipping a few miles back. That last little hill killed it. I got nothing.”

  That explained the headlights creeping and struggling through the night.

  “You have any kind of roadside assistance? Triple A? Anything?”

  “Yeah, Triple A, and some kind of roadside service with my cell phone—and I think one of my credit cards has something. Trouble is, they’re not psychic.”

  She smiled showing even white teeth, and the bridge of her perky nose wrinkled.

  “You’ve called?”

  “Phone’s dead, no charger—this just isn’t my freakin’ night.” And then she stopped. The wrinkles disappeared as her smile faded and concern came into her eyes. “You’ve been . . . hurt,” she said and her brow furrowed as her violet eyes searched mine.

  I raised my hand to my nose and brushed my fingertips under my eyes where the skin had faded from purple to an unattractive yellow. Her hand came up and rested on my hand.

  “Not there,” she said gently and pulled my hand away from my face. “Here,” she said, guiding my hand to my heart.

  For a long while we stood in that pose, which was at the same time awkward and wonderful.

  “How do you know?” I asked as memories of heartfelt injuries rushed through me—Jonah’s death, my parents’ divorce, my father . . . />
  “Because I felt it . . . here.” She took my hand, turned the palm toward her, and, with eyes still boring into me, she gently placed my hand on her heart where the curve of my fingers fit the swell of her breast.

  Our pose had surged into the realm of extremely wonderful and the needle on the awkward meter spun wildly. My right hand absorbed the feel of her firm breast while my pinky finger brushed the crucifix. It seemed like a good time to introduce myself.

  “My name is Mark—Mark Cameron.” She allowed my hand to slip through her fingers as I gently removed it from her body.

  “Liza Lovell,” she said softly with the same penetrating stare.

  We stood silently for a few seconds until my reeling mind came into focus. Saying, “Pleased to meet you,” seemed inappropriate, and shaking her hand after holding her breast was absurd. Instead, I fumbled for my cell phone.

  “Want me to call?” I asked flipping it open.

  She reached out with both hands and cupped mine. The cell phone closed like the wings of a butterfly.

  “Actually, if you don’t mind, it might be easier if you would just give me a lift. A tow truck could take an hour to get here, and I’m only going down the road.”

  I slipped the phone back into my pocket and smiled. I liked the idea of sitting in the comfort of my car and getting to know her better. “I don’t mind a bit,” I said, and her nose crinkled with her smile.

  She opened the trunk of her car and I removed two suitcases. As I took them to the BMW, she got into her car and cut the engine and headlights, but left the hazards on. Slinging a purse over her shoulder, she slid comfortably into the passenger seat. Her eyes landed on the revolver, sitting nose down in the center console. She studied it a moment before closing the door, dropping us into darkness.