by John Moralee
His Land Rover was in the pit.
“Boy, you fix what’s wrong by noon or I’ll get Joe to fire you, you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” George said.
George grovelled until Coach Wilkins left, heading for the bar on 5th street. As soon as Coach wasn’t looking George straightened his back and gritted his teeth, changing from humble mechanic to ex-criminal persona. Then he stormed into the garage, looked left and right, then closed the metal doors so nobody could see what was going on.
I parked opposite, thinking. Worrying.
A few minutes later, George opened the garage doors and walked towards the bathroom behind Joe’s showroom. His overalls were black with grease, but they’d been clean earlier. Once he had disappeared, I ran across the street.
The hood of the Land Rover was popped open. What had he been doing? I entered the darkened garage, approaching the engine compartment. I was confronted by a hulk of metal and pipes. George’s words rattled my skull: I can even fix a Land Rover engine.
After his humiliating encounter with the coach, could he have altered the engine?
I leaned over, looking for something out of place. Maybe George had undone a nut or two. I didn’t have much time to look, I knew, because George would be back from the bathroom in moments. I scrabbled about in the darkness, feeling my way around the rubber pipes and wires. The engine was like the entrails of a mechanical beast, warm and sticky. I could feel electrician’s tape on one pipe - something that was obviously not meant to be there. I pulled it off just as I heard George coming out of the bathroom. I sneaked out of the garage’s side entrance and crept back to my pickup.
I was glad no one saw me because I looked like the creature from the Black Lagoon. I drove home hoping George would not notice I had stopped him from killing Coach Wilkins. I passed the ravine on the way, slowing to avoid the dangerous curve, then drove by Coach Wilkins’ house before turning off towards my and Susie’s home. He would be safe now.
I felt like a Boy Scout doing his one good deed of the day.
*
The phone rang.
Dripping wet after a long, hot shower, I padded across the bathroom into the bedroom. I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Matt? This is Sheriff Burton.” My heart stopped. “Have you seen your brother today?”
“No,” I lied, “why?”
“It looks like he killed Arn Wilkins this afternoon.”
I could say nothing.
The sheriff continued: “George has been heard making threats about killing Wilkins to a bunch of folks. Normally, I don’t listen to rumour, but now Wilkins’ vehicle has been found at the bottom of Parson’s Ravine upside down in the water. His body must have been washed downstream. We got a dozen guys looking for it. There are plenty of guys who’d like to kill Wilkins, but George ain’t been seen since this morning.”
“He’s gone?”
“Yep. You see George you tell him from me it’s better he turns himself in than running, right? We’re going to find him, be sure of that. There’s an APB out for him. You sure you don’t know where he is?”
“Yes, Sheriff.”
He hung up.
I was left holding the receiver.
*
I dressed and drove towards the town. As I passed the ravine, I saw the swarm of people gathered at the edge, looking down at the crushed Land Rover. I could see where the tyre tracks had shot over the edge. Black smoke rose in a thin plume. Feeling sick, I kept driving. In ten minutes I would be in Dark Pine. I hoped to find George before the police did, so he didn’t do anything stupid and get himself killed.
Dark Pine looked deserted. Most people had gone up to Parson’s Ravine at the news, but Bill and Henry were taking up stools in Dawson’s bar. I asked them if they’d seen George, but they were too drunk to answer.
If I could find George before the sheriff, I was fairly sure I could convince him to turn himself in. I could tell the police about Coach Wilkins provoking him and maybe he wouldn’t be charged with murder.
As I was leaving Dawson’s bar, I glimpsed someone lurking in the trees across the road.
There was definitely someone there.
“George?”
The figure mumbled something, then hid behind a tree. I crossed the road and stumbled through the tangled grass and weeds.
“George? Is that you?”
There was no reply. Maybe he thought I was going to turn him in? I reached the tree, pushing aside branches.
I recognised the short white hair.
“Coach Wilkins?”
I could smell the whisky on him. He was completely drunk. He was snoring. I guessed he had wandered here after leaving the bar, which meant he had not been driving his car. Someone else had been driving it. I could only think of one person around with access to the keys and a history of grand theft auto. My brother. He had taken the Land Rover. George had crashed over the ravine.
But why?
Because he believed there was nothing wrong with it.
It was my fault George was dead.
I had removed the tape. I had tampered with the brakes.
Yes, it was a mistake. But would a jury believe that?
I had killed George while trying to save Coach Wilkins.
Numb, I half-carried Wilkins to my pickup, pushing him into the passenger seat. Then there was a long ride up through the mountains. I was going to confess to the sheriff.
“Where am I?”
“Don’t bother asking,” I said.
Wilkins spat out of the side window. “Didn’t pass out again, did I?”
“You sure did.”
He rubbed his face awake. Ahead, I could see the ravine.
“What’s all the noise about?”
“There’s been an accident,” I said.
He perked up at that. “Yeah, who caused it?”
“Me,” I said.
He went back to sleep.
Ahead, I could see the ravine. Sheriff Burton waved me to stop. He looked through the side window, saw the coach and blinked.
“Hey, is that Arn Wilkins?”
“Yes,” I said. “It wasn’t him driving the car. It was my brother. He was -”
Burton’s radio crackled. He ignored me as he nodded a dozen times. “Chuck Neeson spotted your brother in the water a quarter of a mile downstream. He’s been rescued and is going to be fine.” He frowned. “But there’s still the matter of stealing the coach’s car. I’m going to have to charge him with it.”
I thought quickly. “George was testing it. Wilkins threatened him with being fired if he didn’t repair it quickly - so he went on a test drive. I was a witness. It’s a good thing he did test it, or that accident might have happened to the coach.”
Sheriff Burton didn’t believe a word of it, but he looked at the unconscious coach and nodded. There was no proof George hadn’t intended to return the car. “Okay, I won’t charge him for driving without a license. This time. But there’s still the matter of the destruction to the car. Who’s going to pay for it?”
“I’ll pay.”
He shrugged. “The coach might want to press charges when he sobers up.”
“I don’t think so. If he’d got behind the wheel he would have been committing a crime. Just look at him, could he drive? No, he’ll be happy with the compensation.”
*
I visited George in hospital. He couldn’t remember a thing about the whole day, which was just as well. I told him about what had happened. He laughed.
“You know that day when you left prison,” I asked, “you said it was a good day for killing. Were you serious?”
“I was. But I was wrong. It wasn’t a good day, and I realised that later. No, I’m still waiting for one to come along. But thanks for showing me the wrong way to do it, little brother. I won’t make the same mistake.”
I hoped he was joking.
I really did.
Bonus Flash Fiction
The Vow
Whenever I woke in the dark, alone, I still felt her presence in our bedroom, just as as though she had not died. Her rose-scented perfume lingered, bringing back good memories of the time we had spent together – before the so-called accident.
One day I followed the man responsible, intending to kill him.
I watched him leave his office at five and ride the train home. He lived in the suburbs in a large house. There was a FOR SALE sign on the lawn, which gave me an idea. Under a fake name, I called the estate agent and made inquiries. I pretended to be interested in buying the property – but I wanted to see it first. The agent arranged it with her client.
A week later I showed up at his door in a disguise. I didn’t want him to recognise me from the trial, but he barely registered my appearance when he opened the door.
“Please come in,” he said.
“Thank you.”
I had a knife in my jacket, but I didn’t want to draw it.
Not yet.
I asked him to show me around.
He showed me around without enthusiasm. He started with the kitchen and living room. Then he led me up some stairs. “There are three bedrooms. This one’s en suite. My wife decorated it. You can see it’s as good as new.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. I knew he had a wife. I’d seen her in the court. She had been there every day, loyally supporting her husband with their two children. “She did a great job.”
“I know,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’re no longer together.”
“You’re divorced?”
“She’s filed the papers,” he said. He sighed. “My wife took our kids with her, so I need a smaller place.”
At least you have a wife and kids, I thought.
I felt for the knife in my jacket.
I could kill him in the bathroom.
“Why’d she leave you?” I asked.
I wanted to know if he would answer truthfully.
“I’m an alcoholic,” he said. “I did some bad things. Very bad things.”
My hand tightened on the knife. “Do you still drink?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ve given up. I will never drink again.”
I looked into his eyes.
I saw the sorrow and regret.
He meant it.
I left the knife in my pocket and thanked him for showing me his home.
.
The Eggs
It seemed simple. We drove down to Mexico during spring break, where we’d booked rooms at a cheap hotel close to the border. My frat brother introduced us to the guy selling the stuff. It cost a lot of dollars, but we figured the profit State-side would be worth the investment.
A local company made Easter baskets filled with chocolate eggs. They were totally legitimate. Tourists bought them and drove home with their baskets every day. We bought some and spent a day carefully cutting the eggs in half, filling them with the stuff, then sealing them again.
For the rest of our week-long vacation we stored the eggs in a refrigerator while we acted like the other college students on spring break.
We had fun.
Then we headed home in our car with the baskets in plain sight on the back seats. They were less suspicious that way.
Unfortunately, there was a long queue at the border crossing.
And it was a hot day.
The chocolate started to melt.
The border guards pulled us over. They looked inside. They saw the melted eggs. They saw what was inside, too.
“Get out of the vehicle!” they ordered. They had guns and hard faces. We obeyed.
It seemed simple.
Now I’m on an extended vacation – ten to twenty for smuggling.
I live in a small cell and hardly see my old friends except in the yard. We don’t talk. There is nothing to say.
I eat alone in the mornings, afraid of everyone.
Sometimes they serve eggs.
I don’t touch them.
Bonus Feature
Afterburn
(alternative version)
Author’s note: Why are there two versions of this story here? I decided to rewrite the original before publishing this collection, but the changes resulted in a completely different story. This is the second version.
Ken’s home could not be seen from the road. Blossoming cherry trees hid it from Geoff Nolan’s view until he had driven up the driveway. Then he could see the ranch-style house surrounded by a lush Japanese garden filled with flowers, rocks and ponds. When Nolan stepped out of his car, he looked around at the garden his friend had created, wishing Ken was there to greet him.
But Ken had died last week.
Ken’s widow Judy was in the garden. She was wearing a long white dress that made her look like an angel. Its sheer whiteness radiated the hot Florida sunshine like a lighthouse beam. She was sitting in the shade of a gazebo, drinking fresh lemonade, watching the butterflies and bees dancing around the orchids and bougainvillaea.
To reach her location, Nolan walked over a small footbridge above a pond, glimpsing silver and orange carp in the deep water. There was a strong Japanese influence to the garden, a country Ken had loved, because Ken’s first wife, Alice, had lived in Tokyo, where he met her while in the US Navy.
Judy was Ken’s third wife. She was a young kindergarten teacher Ken had first met two years ago when he visited her school. She had been twenty years younger than Ken, but that had not stopped them falling in love - a fact Nolan found inspiring.
(There was still some hope he would meet a loving woman just like her. Nolan did not consider himself too old to marry the right person, just too old to marry the wrong one.)
Nolan had last seen Judy at the NASA reunion celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. She had been happy then, but now she looked like a grieving woman pretending everything was fine. Judy was wearing sunglasses that may have been necessary in the sunlight, but not in the shade. Seeing him, she waved him across and tried smiling.
“Geoff! I’m so glad to see you!”
As Nolan climbed up the stone steps into the gazebo, he wished he’d been able to attend the funeral, but he’d been in hospital having a prostate operation. He felt as if he’d betrayed his friend by not attending.
Geoff Nolan and Ken Mayer had been astronauts in the Apollo programme during the early 1970s, when everyone’s dream was to walk on the moon and look back at Earth in wonder. They had experienced something a mere handful of people had, creating a unique life-long bond. Standing on the moon – the moon – had been a religious experience. That communal event had made Nolan and Ken the best of friends forever. And now Ken was gone, just like the shattered dreams of generations.
“I’m sorry about missing the funeral. I would have come to it, but …”
“You were ill,” Judy said, standing up to kiss his cheek. “There’s no need to apologise, Geoff. Ken knows how much you cared for him. Please sit down. Have some lemonade.”
Ken knows how much you cared for him. Knows. The present tense. Judy still thought of Ken as alive. He did, too, Nolan realised. The shock suddenly hit him, knocking the energy out of him.
He sat down on a wicker chair and gladly accepted a glass of lemonade so he wouldn’t have to talk. Neither said anything for a long time. Butterflies fluttered around his head like puppets on strings, sudden jerky movements moving them on the cool breeze. In the distance the Gulf was streaked white and blue, rippling with waves the texture of denim. He could hear lawnmowers and sprinklers somewhere far away. It was a gloriously pretty day, so contrasting their sombre moods that he almost felt like laughing or crying or both.
Judy removed her sunglasses, revealing her dark eyes. “Geoff, what do you know about how Ken died?”
“Not much,” he admitted. “All I know is what I read about in the newspapers – that it was some sort of flying accident involving a test plane.”
She nodded. “Yes, that’s what Peter Falcon told me too.” Peter Falcon was th
e CEO of DART - Dynamic Aeronautics Research Technologies – a private company with a big contract with the US military. For eight years, DART had employed Ken because an ex-astronaut was an excellent propaganda weapon to attract new contracts, much like a sports star was good for a fashion label. “He said Ken lost control of the plane and crashed. But I believe he was covering up what really happened to him.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Ken wasn’t his normal self in the last few weeks before he died. He was distracted at home, like something worrying was on his mind. I was concerned, Geoff. He wasn’t sleeping. He wouldn’t make love. He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, but I suspected it had something to do with his job because everything else hadn’t changed. Something bad happened at DART. That’s why I need you to look into his death for me.”
“I don’t understand, Judy. What can I do?”
“Some of Ken’s things are still in his office at DART. I haven’t wanted to collect them yet. But you could go there instead of me. With your connections, I was hoping you could talk to the other employees and find out the truth. Maybe you could even have a look at the classified files on what happened?”
“You mean by spying for you?”
“Not for me – for Ken. I know you can do it, Geoff. Will you help me learn the truth?”
It was above and beyond the call of duty, but it was for Ken. Nolan reached over the table and gripped Judy’s small hand. “Okay. I’ll see what I can find out. But promise me that if I find out it really was just an accident, you’ll accept it.”
Judy whispered, “I promise.”
*
Back in his car Nolan made a call to an old NASA buddy who now worked in the Pentagon.
“Tommy, I need a big favour. I’m down in Miami visiting Ken’s widow. The company he worked for – DART – they have military contacts for you guys. They won’t tell Ken’s wife Judy the details of how he died.”
