A Long December

by Richard Chizmar

  The first gift I can remember making was an ashtray in the shape of a bullfrog. Painted green, of course. Very bright green. The only frog in class with big yellow teeth, too. Dad loved it. Let out a bellow that rattled the bed frame when he pulled it from the box. Shook my tiny hand and told me how proud he was of me. And he was too; you could just tell.

  Then there was the year that Marty gave the old man a wooden pipe-holder for his desktop. Sanded and polished and varnished to a fine finish; it was a thing of beauty; it really was. To this day, I think Marty could’ve had a successful career as a craftsman; it was that nice a job.

  Lawrence, who was the youngest and the brightest, was the writer of the family and for a three year period in his early teens, he gave the old man an “original Lawrence Finley book” each Father’s Day. Each “book” was composed of five short chapters and each chapter ended with a suspenseful cliff-hanger. They were typed out in dark, clear script on folded construction paper and carefully stapled down the middle. A remarkably-detailed pencil sketch decorated the title page of each new volume. The story itself was equally impressive: it featured the old man as an outlaw gunfighter in the Old West. Strong and brave and with a heart of gold. A mid-west Robin Hood with a six-shooter on his hip and a fast, white horse named Gypsy. Of all the gifts the three of us gave him back when we were kids, I think these stories were the old man’s favorite. Not that he ever would’ve admitted it, of course.

  Years later, when all three of us were over at the University and working good part-time jobs, we each saved up and chipped in for something special: a John Deere riding mower. A brand spanking new one with a big red ribbon laced through the steering wheel. We surprised him with it right after breakfast that year, and he flat out couldn’t believe his eyes. Neither could we; it was the first time any of us—Mom included—had ever seen the old guy speechless. Makes me smile even now just to think about it. Makes me smile even more when I remember all the times I called home from college and Mom would tell me he couldn’t come to the phone right now because he was out cutting the lawn…again…for the second time that week.

  Yes, sir, Father’s Day was always a big deal back when I was growing up.

  The drive out to Hagerstown Prison takes just under three hours on a good day. I figure the traffic to be a bit heavier than usual this morning, so I leave when it’s still dark outside. I ride with the radio off and the heat on; it rained last night and the June air has a nasty little bite to it.

  I drive the winding country roads faster than I should, but visiting hours have been extended because of the holiday, and I want to show up a few minutes early to get a head start on the registration forms and to check in the gifts I’ve brought along with me. In the back seat, I have a big bag of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies, a stack of brand new paperbacks—westerns, mostly—and a half-dozen pouches of his favorite pipe tobacco.

  The road is fairly clear and the trip takes two hours and thirty-five minutes. Plenty of time for a man to think…even if he doesn’t want to.

  When I step out onto the gravel parking lot, the morning sun is shining and the chill has vanished from the air. I can hear birds singing in the trees across the way, and I can’t help but wonder what they must sound like to the men locked inside these walls.

  There are already a scattered handful of visitors waiting inside the lobby. Mostly young women with pale, dirty, restless children. But a few older couples, too. None of them look up at me when I take off my coat and sit down, but the hush of whispering momentarily fades to silence then picks up again. In all my visits here, I’ve never once heard anyone speak in a normal tone of voice in this room; only whispers. It’s always like this in the waiting room. There’s an awkward kind of acceptance here. No one gawks or stares. It’s like we’re all charter members of the same club—each and every one of us joined together by our love for someone behind these bars and each of us sharing the same white-hot emotions of embarrassment and fear and despair that coming here brings to the surface.

  My father has been here for almost three years now. And unless his case is reopened—which is very unlikely—he will remain here until the day he dies. I don’t like to think about that, though. I’d rather dream about the day when he might be free again to spend his retirement years back where he belongs—back at the house with me.

  But we both know that day will never come. He will never come home again…and still the old man claims he has no regrets. Swears he’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. After all, he tells me, I was just protecting my family.

  Sometimes families just drift apart and it’s almost impossible to put a finger on the reason. Age old secrets remain secret. Hidden feelings remain hidden. Sometimes the family was never really that close in the first place, and it simply took the passage of time to bring this sad fact to light.

  But you know that’s the funny thing. We never drifted apart. We remained close right up to a point and then boom—it was over. One day we’re a family; the next day we’re not. It was almost as if Marty and Lawrence had gotten together behind our backs and planned the whole terrible thing.

  After college, Marty went into real estate. He married a fairly snobby woman named Jennifer (not Jenny or Jenn, but Jennifer) and moved east to Annapolis and earned a six-figure income selling waterfront property to yuppies. By the time he was thirty-five, he’d had two boys of his own, divorced Jennifer after discovering that she’d been unfaithful with a co-worker, and entered into a second marriage, this time with an older woman who also worked in real estate. I’ve never met her, but her name is Vicki and she has a very pleasant voice and is downright friendly on the telephone (although I’ve only spoken with her twice.)

  Lawrence, who turned out to be not only the brightest, but also the hardest working Finley boy, put his creative skills to profitable use—he went into advertising. He worked a back-breaking schedule and squirreled away his pennies for damn near a decade then opened his own small agency in downtown Baltimore when he was still in his early thirties. Just a handful of years later, he was one of the field’s fastest risers, appeared regularly in all the trade magazines, and oversaw an operation of some two dozen employees. Last year (and I read this in the newspaper, we haven’t spoken in over five years), he opened a second office—in New York City.

  But for all of their successes, it quickly became apparent that Marty and Lawrence had changed—and not for the better. Sure, there were gifts and cards at Christmas and on birthdays, but that was pretty much it. Mom and Dad and I rarely spoke with the two of them—much less saw them—and whenever friends and neighbors asked, our responses were quick, our smiles forced. For a couple of years we kept trying, we honestly did, but our letters went mostly unanswered, our phone calls ignored. The whole situation made Mom and Dad furious. They’d sit around the dining room table, nibbling at their desserts and say, “If they’re so ashamed of their small town roots and their small town family, then so be it. Couple of big shots is what they think they are. Good riddance to them.” But I could see past their bitterness and resentment. At the end of the day, they were just like me—they were left feeling hurt and confused and abandoned. And it was a miserable feeling, let me tell you. Things like this might happen to other families, but for God’s sake not the Finleys.

  And so, just like that, we became a family of three.

  And, soon after, a family of two.

  Mom died in her sleep on Easter weekend 1989, and everyone—including Dad—thought it was a good thing. She’d been suffering something terrible. Lung cancer, if you can believe that. Only fifty-three years old and never smoked a day in her life.

  Of course, neither Marty nor Lawrence made it home for the funeral. And if you ask me (and the state police boys did ask me in a roundabout way later on), Mom’s death coupled with their failure to show up at the service was the final straw. Something inside the old man’s mind snapped like a soggy twig and he was never the same again.

  Shortly after, he began bri
nging home the cats. Strays, store-bought; it didn’t matter a lick. Sometimes as many as two or three a month. His new family, he called them. The two of us need a family to take care of, he’d say. A family that will stay together and live under the same roof. Just wait and see.

  By Christmas later that year, we were living with over twenty cats of various sizes, shapes, and colors. The old man had a name for each and every one of them. And I have to admit, he was right; we were like a family again. He must have felt it, too; he was the happiest I’d seen him in a long time.

  Then, just after Easter, right after the first anniversary of Mom’s passing, the old man lost it and killed the Benson kid and all hell broke loose.

  The drive home takes forever. It’s raining again—really coming down now in thick, flapping sheets—and it’s all I can do to keep the tires on the road. I change the radio station, try to think of something cheerful, but I can’t stop myself from thinking of his eyes. Sparkling with such happiness and love, pleased with my gifts, overjoyed with my presence on his special day. But then, as always, the conversation soon turns and he is asking about his family, and his eyes are transforming into something alien and frightening. Eyes so focused and intense and determined, they belong to someone decades younger; they are the eyes of the stranger who stormed out of the house and chased down the Benson kid that long ago night.

  So, that’s when I take his trembling hand and gently squeeze and tell him what I always tell him: that they are fine. That I am taking good care of them. That his family is safe and sound, and they are all very happy and healthy.

  Before I leave he almost breaks my heart when he thanks me with fat tears streaming down his cheeks, and in a quaking voice tells me that I am the man of the family now, that I am the one responsible for their care.

  It is after midnight when I pull into the mud-streaked driveway. In the shine of the headlights, I glimpse a blur of black and white fur flash past me and disappear beneath the front porch. For just one moment, I can’t decide if I should laugh or cry.

  As for me…well, I’m still here. I never did leave this town (except for college and, hell, even then, I was back living in my old room ten days after graduation). I never did marry. Never had children. Never made my first million. In fact, you can still find me six days a week working the desk over at Bradshaw County Library and every other Saturday night taking tickets at the movie theater downtown. Not very exciting, I’m afraid.

  But you know, that’s okay with me. I turned forty-six a month ago today. I’m finally starting to lose a little ground—going bald on top and a little pudgy on the bottom. Started wearing glasses awhile back too. The kids at the library snicker behind my back once in a while, but they’re just being kids; they don’t mean anything by it. And, sure, I hear the whispers sometimes, I know the stories they tell—about how old man Finley went off his rocker and strangled little Billy Benson with his bare hands. And all because he’d set one of the old man’s cats on fire.

  I know they’re starting to talk about me, too: about how I’m just as crazy as my old man was. Spending all that time with a house full of stinky old cats. Just like an old blue-haired spinster.

  But you know what? I don’t mind. Despite everything, I still like this town. I still like my life. There’s just something that feels right about it. That’s the best way I can explain it. It just feels right.

  Sure there are nights—usually after drinking too many beers out on the front porch—when I lay awake in bed and stare off into the darkness and wonder what else my life might amount to. I wonder about Marty and Lawrence and why they did what they did. I wonder about Mom and what she would think about all this if she were still alive. And I can’t help but wonder about the old man and those haunted eyes of his and that old green bullfrog ashtray and the evening drives for ice cream we used to take back when I was a little kid. But, you know, nothing good ever comes from those thoughts. There are never any easy answers, and those nights are long and lonely and sometimes even a little scary.

  But, then, when I awake the next morning and feel the sunlight on my face and smell the coffee in the air and hear the purrs of my family as they gather around my ankles, I have all the answers I’ll ever need.

  And I’ll tell you something else…like father, like son. I have no regrets. Not a one.

  THE TOWER

  1

  They found the first body on a Thursday.

  A couple of kids on their way home from fishing Hanson Creek stopped at the base of the old water tower to take a leak and almost ended up pissing on the missing girl’s Nikes.

  In the old days, one of the boys would have stood guard over the body while the other ran into town for help. In these sadly modern times, they did what most other kids would’ve done: they took out their cell phones, snapped a few pictures to show their friends later, and only then did they call 911 to report their finding.

  The police showed up remarkably fast, not even ten minutes later. Three patrol cars almost colliding in a nearby gravel parking lot, before making the short hike to the old water tower. They forgot to bring a roll of police tape—seldom used in a town like Edgewood—so one of the officers had to jog back to his car to retrieve it—which is where he met the girl’s hysterical parents.

  Some things never change, regardless of the times: news travels fast in a small town.

  The officer radioed ahead to warn the others that the girl’s parents had arrived and were understandably upset. His Sergeant ordered him to hold them there in the parking lot, but that didn’t work out so well, as both Mom and Dad bum-rushed the officer and beat him back to the crime scene by a good forty yards.

  Once there, the Dad—a bearded construction foreman of nearly 250 pounds—took one look at his daughter’s body sprawled there in the bushes and fainted dead to the ground. The kids whipped out their cell phones, of course, and took more pictures, before they were shooed away by the police, with threats to tell their parents. The boys grabbed their fishing rods and stringer full of crappie and yellow perch and beat it. The entire time, the Mom was down on her knees, eyes closed and praying.

  An ambulance arrived a short time later, but the Dad was conscious and back on his feet by then, too distraught to be embarrassed by his fainting. A pair of police officers stood with him by a patrol car, trying to counsel him. The Mom was still off praying in the weeds. It took several more hours for the police to finish their initial investigation and remove the body. In that time, a crowd of townspeople had gathered at the scene. There was incessant whispering and pointing and quite a bit more picture taking. There were also two television reporters and a local newspaperman.

  But by dusk, the scene was eerily quiet and practically deserted. A lone officer remained, sitting guard on a folding chair—the kind you might see at a backyard barbecue—reading a magazine by the glow of his flashlight and swatting at mosquitos.

  Behind him, lost in the shadows, the old water tower watched over the town.

  2

  The dead girl’s name was Bethany Hopkins. She was twelve. Tall for her age, nearsighted, and blonde. A straight “A” student, she was also captain of her swim team and a talented artist. She liked to wear her long hair in braids and was crazy for country music.

  Bethany had gone missing the night before. She had eaten pizza for dinner at a friend’s house and set out to walk the two blocks home just before eight—but she never made it.

  By eight-thirty, her worried parents were combing the neighborhood; her Dad on foot, her Mom behind the wheel of their brand new SUV. By nine-thirty, worry had turned into panic, and they had called in the police. The police did their jobs, and by midnight, every officer in town was on the look-out, a recent school picture of a smiling Bethany Hopkins at their side. Plans were made for a county wide search the next morning, but the two boys discovered Bethany’s body before the search could begin. Which explains why the police had been so quick to arrive; they’d all been assembled in the Food Lion parking lot, s
till going over the details of the upcoming search.

  The coroner’s report for Bethany Hopkins cited strangulation as the cause of death. There were no signs of sexual abuse or torture. Someone simply choked the life out of the little girl and left here there in the bushes.

  The police did their work tirelessly, but there were no leads.

  After awhile, people stopped whispering, and life eventually returned to normal.

  3

  Until the next body was discovered—and in almost exactly the same spot.

  This time by a home-for-the-summer college girl who was jogging along the worn dirt path that snaked through the Hanson Woods and looped past the water tower on its way back toward town.

  The old water tower was as much a part of Edgewood as Main Street or the Campus Hills Movie Theater or Tucker’s Field, where the annual Summer Carnival and Fall Pumpkin Festival were held. The aging tower stood up there on its hill, overlooking the town, looking all the world like one of H.G. Wells’ spindly alien invaders marching over the horizon.

  Long ago, when I was a kid, before the trees and thick bramble overtook the slope, we used to sled there on snowy mornings when school was cancelled. I remember playing flashlight tag and kick the can there on countless summer nights, fireflies dancing around our heads, our young, excited voices carrying in the darkness.

  Once the woods took over, and the years marched on, the old water tower became known for a different kind of playing.

  Instead of sledding, kids snuck up there to party or have bonfires or shoot their fathers’ .22s. Too often, the ground was littered with empty beer cans and broken bottles, left behind and forgotten shoes and shirts and even brassieres. There were stories of drunken fights and carnal abandon and even satan worshippers in the Summer and Fall of ’76.