The Vigilante Life of Scott Mckenzie: A Middle Falls Time Travel Story

by Shawn Inmon

  “I knew this would get you out here.”

  “Smells good, brother.”

  “Want a beer?”

  Scott shook his head. “Nah, I don’t do so well with that stuff. That was my downfall quite a few times, along with some worse things. No more of that for me.”

  “Smart man. Problems with it ran in my family, so I avoid it too. I keep some for company, though. How about the more gentle beer, then? I’ve got root beer, and a few other pops in the house. Pick your poison.”

  “You know, a root beer sounds pretty damn good. Perfect with whatever you’ve got cooking there.”

  Joe stepped back inside for a moment then emerged with two bottles of root beer. He popped them open and offered one to Scott.

  Joe tipped his as a toast. “To friends.”

  “I agree. To friends. I don’t have a lot of them. Being a vagabond crime fighter, moving from state to state, doesn’t allow you a lot of time to develop friendships.”

  Joe opened the lid of the barbecue and turned the steaks.

  He pointed to a couple of lawn chairs with a TV tray between them. “Here, take a load off. I never did get a chance to thank you for saving my life. The guy was drawing down on John, and I have no doubt I would have been next. There would have been two dead bodies at the Dakota that night instead of just one.”

  “It was nothing. Seriously. If the roles were reversed, tell me you wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing.”

  “Oh, sure, if I could have, but I think you were better prepared. No one ever told me—what did you use to break his arm? Some kind of Special Ops Jiu-Jitsu or something?”

  Scott smiled. “I am no kind of special operative. I was regular army. It was my trusty twenty-four inch collapsible baton. It packs a wallop. Perfect for the vigilante on the go. My adrenaline was pretty high that night, so I might have used a little more force than was absolutely necessary. I heard his radius break on the first swing. Whatever happened to him, do you know?”

  “He’s locked up in some mental hospital. I’ve got a connection with a few of the police officers who responded that night. They told me they’d let me know if he ever got out.” Joe looked wistful. “That doesn’t matter as much, now that John’s gone. That was my worry—that he’d try to get to John again.”

  “No way for us to know what happens now. Everything with him will be different.”

  “John recorded one of my dad’s songs, you know.”

  “I know. I was eating lunch in a diner and heard Kasey Kasem talking about it on American Top 40. That’s a pretty cool story.”

  “I’d like to split the proceeds of the royalties from the song.”

  Would that be good? To profit from this? It would make life easier. I could maybe buy a new pickup or Jeep instead of the beaters I usually drive. It wouldn’t feel right, though. That’s not why I’m doing this.

  “Nope, no need. You keep all the money and the worry. I’ll take my freedom and happiness.”

  “You’re a wise man. Just know that the money’s not going anywhere. If you need it, let me know. One thing’s for sure—it woulda meant the world to my dad. It does leave me with a little problem, though. I am the sole heir of my dad’s estate, and all those royalties are still coming in. There’s money in the bank that I have no idea what to do with. I wanted to give half of it to you, but now you say you don’t want it either. Are you sure I can’t change your mind?”

  “No, I won’t change my mind. Hey, you burnin’ those steaks, or just cooking them?”

  Joe opened the barbecue to a rush of smoke. He grabbed the steaks and smacked them onto a plate. “Soup’s on.”

  “I am ready. In fact, I was ready when I first smelled the steaks. I might be a little past ready now.”

  “Would you like some steak sauce?”

  Scott made a face. “I feel no need to insult the cook with that.”

  “Medium-rare okay?”

  “Quit kidding around and give me the damned steak before I have to go get my baton.”

  Joe raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, just kidding around. Let’s eat!”

  For the next fifteen minutes, they ate in silence while they watched the sun set.

  While he ate, Scott let Joe’s problem roll around in his mind.

  What would I do, if I had more money than I knew what to do with? It’s a lot of money, but not enough to change the whole world. It won’t end hunger or cure cancer or any Miss America speech like that. But, it could make a difference. And I know who deserves to get a better shake.

  “If you’re still looking for a way to unload some of that money, I think I’ve got an idea.”

  “If you’re serious, I would love that. I do my best to ignore the pile of cash accumulating in my bank account. If I could, I’d rather do something useful with it.”

  Scott McKenzie suddenly looked very pleased with himself.

  I don’t have a lot of great ideas, but I think this is one.

  Scott leaned forward in his lawn chair, excitement suffusing his face. “There are a lot of vets who haven’t had the benefit of a few dozen lives to get their heads screwed on straight.”

  Joe nodded. “I can’t imagine what you and everyone who fought over there went through.”

  “Right. I could tell you horror stories all day. Wiping out villages, killing kids when we thought we were only hitting the enemy, things worse than that. But, none of those stories will capture what it was like to actually be in the shit there. Vietnam was the last time the U.S. forced young men to join. We ruined a big chunk of a generation by doing so. A lot never came back, but those who did were never themselves again. The rates of mental illness, suicide, and homelessness for veterans is astronomical.”

  Joe was leaning forward now, too, so close to Scott their knees were almost touching. “So, that’s an area of need. I know the government has programs for vets. Education, home loans, medical care, disability checks. What’s missing?”

  “Government programs are fine for broad brush areas like that. But, the truth is, a lot of vets slip through the cracks. I’ve been wandering around America for quite a while now, and I see them in every city. I hate to say it, but some are so lost, I don’t know if they can ever find their way back. But there’s a whole group that’s wandered off the path a little. I think the right kind of helping hand could make all the difference.”

  As the impact of the idea hit Joe, he leaned back to take it all in. “I like it. What kind of specific thing are you thinking about?”

  “Maybe some kind of housing, where a vet could come and spend a week, or a month, or whatever’s necessary. It would need to have things to keep them busy. It would be good if there was a therapist or two that would be available if and when they were ready to talk.”

  Joe looked up at the darkening sky. The clouds had parted and there was a patch of clear sky where bright stars were twinkling.

  “You done with your dinner?” Joe asked.

  “Unless you want me to eat the plate.”

  “Let’s go inside and sit down and hash things out. I already have a million questions.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Scott and Joe sat at the kitchen table for hours, trying to get a handle on what this project actually looked like.

  Eventually, the little red dog, who Scott learned was named Jenny, quietly laid her head on Joe’s knee.

  Joe laughed a little. “She’s reminding me that it’s past time for her walk around the neighborhood so she can smell whatever secret messages the other dogs have left for her. Wanna come on the walk with us?”

  “Of course. I need to do about ten miles to work off that steak you fed me. Let’s go.”

  Spring evenings can be chilly in western Oregon, but this night remained warm. Scott didn’t walk Jenny on a leash, but just opened the door and let her out. She knew their route and Scott and Joe followed along behind.

  As they walked, the two men quietly batted ideas back and forth about the upcoming pro
ject to help out veterans. The whole plan began to take shape in their minds.

  They had walked half a mile from Joe’s house when Scott looked up and stopped cold.

  They were in front of a one-story house with a small porch off the front door and decorative shutters on the windows. It was a cute house and looked like most of the other homes in the neighborhood.

  “When were the houses in this neighborhood built?”

  Joe had to focus on the question, as his mind had been on what they had been talking about a moment before. “Ummm, I think most of this neighborhood was built for families of men returning from World War II. So, maybe late forties? Why?”

  Scott stared at the little house. If he had been asked if he might recognize his old home, he would have said no. That was a long time ago. Many lifetimes, literally.

  He would have been wrong. “Is there still a little park up ahead on this street? Swings, and teeter totters and things like that?”

  Joe reconnoitered where they were and said, “Yeah. How in the world would you know that? Did you walk through here on the way to the house today?”

  Scott shook his head. “No. It doesn’t matter.”

  They started to walk again, but twice Scott looked at the little house, with its porchlight on, looking absolutely non-threatening in every way.

  That house was the stuff of my nightmares for so many years. Seeing it from this perspective, I can see it for what it is—an ordinary house where something extraordinarily bad happened. Nothing more.

  Joe, who had been chattering a mile a minute about their new project, stayed quiet and let Scott have his thoughts.

  I was a child. Ten years old. The two of them picked their own path to that moment and there was nothing I could have done about it. I think I can let that go, now.

  Scott flashed a little smile at Joe—a thank you for the break in their conversation while he kept his own counsel. “So, do you have a place here in Middle Falls where we can put this whole thing?”

  THE NEXT MORNING, SCOTT woke up a few minutes before 6:00 a.m. He had never learned to sleep late, no matter where he was.

  He found a bookshelf in the living room and riffled through the books until he found one by Kurt Vonnegut that he hadn’t read—Breakfast of Champions—and sat down to read. At a more civilized hour, he poked his head in through Joe’s backdoor and smelled coffee brewing.

  “Come in, no need to knock!

  They looked through the notes they had scrawled the night before and came to a conclusion. This project was too big for both of them. It required skills and expertise neither of them possessed.

  Scott leaned back in his chair. “I love that we’re doing this. I can’t imagine all the good we are going to do for the people who deserve it. But, there’s a reason I’m not a middle manager in corporate America somewhere. As much as I love this project, overseeing a lot of details just isn’t me.”

  Joe chewed on his pen. “It’s not really me, either. I’ve got a high school education. We need to bring in people to help us. A project manager. A lawyer to help us with all the legal stuff. Luckily, this is one place where having a big bank account will help.”

  Joe walked over to the wall phone and dialed a number he had written on his pad. He waited a few seconds, then said, “Hello, this is Joe Hart. I’m in need of some legal advice on a project I’m preparing to launch, and I wonder if your firm handles that type of project?”

  Two minutes later, they had an appointment with a local attorney named Ben Jenkins for that afternoon.

  BY THE TIME THEY HAD finished with that appointment, they had retained Jenkins—who, it turned out, had gone to high school with Joe—and they had a recommendation for a project manager.

  They met with the potential project manager—a young woman with a penchant for organization named Samantha Straley—for dinner the following night and both knew she was a perfect fit.

  That left Joe as the man with the vision of the project and Sam Straley as the woman in charge of everything else. It also left Scott at loose ends.

  He stayed in the comfortable little mother-in-law in Joe’s backyard for six weeks. He enjoyed the time there. It was nice to have someone who knew who and what he was. They had coffee together every morning and dinner together most every night, but Joe instinctively left Scott alone for long stretches of every day.

  Still, Scott wasn’t used to staying around in one place for long, and he did feel the pull of the road.

  One morning in early July, as they sat drinking their morning coffee, Scott said, “I’ve gotta head out, brother. I haven’t been in one place this long in years, and my feet are itching for the open road.”

  Joe glanced at the back door and saw Scott’s backpack was there.

  “You’re not gonna leave me to do this all alone, are you?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Good,” Joe said. “I thought you were serious, hauling your bug out bag around with you like that.”

  “Oh, I’m serious about leaving. But, you won’t be alone, and you know it. You are the money and idea man. Sam is the person that actually does all the work. Happily, that means you don’t need this old soldier.”

  “Damn. I was hoping you were going to hang around through the duration of the project.”

  “This project is bigger than both of us. It’s going to take years. No insult intended to the tiny hamlet of Middle Falls, Oregon, but if I had to stay here until then, I’d be crazier than I am now. It’s not my nature to stay in one place this long.”

  “Tell me that you’ll at least check in, so I can tell you all the ways I’m messing up.”

  “Deal.”

  Scott set his empty cup in the sink and headed toward the front door. He was never one for long good-byes.

  “Hold on, brother,” Joe said as he grabbed Scott in a bear hug. “Don’t stay gone too long, all right?”

  Scott gripped Joe on the shoulder. “I won’t. I’m going to be out there, scouting for our first customers, remember?”

  Joe nodded. “You’re right. That was our plan.”

  “For now, though, I’ve got a few people on my list I want to get to before I get too old to wield this baton. Right now, a certain Green River Killer should be looking over his shoulder, because I’m coming for him.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  In the life Scott used as a baseline for all his missions, Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer, had been actively killing women throughout the eighties and nineties. However, he hadn’t been arrested for his crimes until 2001. Scott had died before Ridgway had pled guilty to forty-eight murders in exchange for not receiving the death penalty, so he had limited details.

  He knew his name and what he looked like, though, and the approximate area in Puget Sound where Ridgway lived. Scott had been to the area so often, he had become comfortable with navigating the area.

  Ridgway had a familiar modus operandi. He had lured prostitutes along Highway 99 south of Seattle into his vehicle, then strangled them. He counted on the fact that when sex workers disappeared, they were less likely to be noticed and reported. It wasn’t unusual for days or weeks to pass before someone reported the murdered women as missing.

  Scott thought it would be good to have a vehicle, so he stopped in Olympia, Washington’s state capital, and bought a 1977 Chevy Luv pickup. It was small, dinged-up, and somewhat underpowered, but it would serve his needs nicely.

  He drove north from Olympia, through Lacey, then Tacoma. He pulled off Interstate 5 at Auburn, a sleepy little town that would eventually become one of many bedroom communities of Seattle. He stopped at a gas station and filled up. While he was there, Scott tore the page out of the South King County phonebook that had the listing for Gary Ridgway.

  Scott wasn’t familiar with the address, or the area around Auburn, but he wasn’t in an incredible hurry. He had been bedded down in one spot for a month and a half. He was enjoying the freedom of being in the wind, as Joe Hart had said.
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  It got dark before Scott found the address, so he retreated to a busy street he had passed a mile back that had a lot of fast food franchises and a few inexpensive motels. He checked in and noted for the thousandth time that all crappy motel rooms looked the same. Cheap television on an equally cheap dresser, a bed covered in a glossy bedspread that repelled stains and with sheets and pillowcases that smelled strongly of bleach. Although they were thousands of miles apart, the myriad motels he stayed in had taken on the feeling of home in this lifetime, and he was glad to have it.

  The next morning, he had breakfast at the Denny’s down the street from his motel and read the newspaper. An article buried in the local news section mentioned that another body had been found in a remote area. It was attributed to the unknown person known as The Green River Killer.

  Unknown to everyone else, but not to me.

  After breakfast, he drove the Luv to the quaint downtown area of Auburn. There was a used bookstore there. Although Scott loved to while away the hours at bookstores, this time he was looking for something specific.

  An older lady that might have been the spiritual twin of Greta back in Waitsfield, Vermont, sat behind the counter, sorting books out of a brown paper bag. She peered at Scott over her half-spectacles and said, “Can I help you?”

  “I’m new to the area and I find myself getting lost. I’ve got a state map, but that’s not helping me. Have you got something that’s got the local streets on it?”

  “Of course,” she said with a slight groan as she pushed herself off her stool. “You need a Thomas Brothers Guide.” She glanced at Scott. “Never heard of Thomas Brothers? Huh. They’ve been around forever. Or, sixty years or more, I guess, which counts as forever in these times.”

  She walked to a spinning rack of oversized books and plucked one from the top row. She handed it to Scott. “9.99, and it’s got both King and Pierce counties in it. Can’t go wrong.”