Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery

by T. Blake Braddy

  I nodded. "I've been thinking about dreams lately myself."

  She smiled knowingly. "Dreams are powerful things."

  "But they aren't reality, Mrs. Laveau." I sounded like I was trying to convince myself.

  The woman shook her head, disappointed in me. "Just because you're not awake doesn't mean it isn't real."

  "I don't know, Janita. I’ve gotta think about this."

  "What's there to think about?" She glanced at the empty liquor bottles. "What else is burning up your schedule? You need to look for a probation officer? There a highway needs garbage picked up?"

  "I'm trying to clear everything out. I'm no longer a cop. This is my opportunity to have a clean break from the force."

  "Well, you are just about there. After you help me, you can have that clean break. You can pack up and get the hell out of this town and never see me again. But for the time being, you need to be a cop again."

  "Seems to me I wasn't ever meant to be a police officer in the first place."

  "What you were meant to be isn't up to you. Haven't you listened to a word I've said?"

  "Cops don't take up personal causes. I'd be a vigilante, an unlicensed PI. Working for free, no less."

  She got to her feet and shrugged. “And some things are worth more than money,” she said. “Think about it. But I think the choice has already been made for you.”

  Fifth Chapter

  I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning my filthy house, thinking about the ways I’ve failed at being a good man. I’ve always tried, but I think everybody tries, and I can’t always see the line well enough to stay on it.

  But cleaning helped me think. Beyond feeling embarrassed at Janita Laveau seeing my house, with bottles and cans propped like family heirlooms everywhere, I was melancholy in a way that sitting still was only going to make worse. I broomed down spiderwebs in the corners of rooms, and because I couldn’t remember what my bedroom floor looked like, I did two loads of laundry.

  But mostly I thought. Why did she need my help? Why did she need my help? My help? She was a strong woman, and who was I? I could barely take care of myself, and I was no one’s savior. In fact, I had ruined more lives than I had enhanced, and my armor, it should be known, has never been shiny.

  What it made me think was, chances were, I’d end up being the fool who dragged the whole thing over the side of the cliff as I went down. Somebody else would have to save me to then save everything else.

  I even squirted some WD-40 on the window latches in the kitchen and the living room. Some windows had no screens and I usually don't let them up except for when the mosquito and gnat populations are down. If good and greased up, most of the windows opened at least three-quarters of the way.

  I saved the bedroom windows for later. They were nearly impossible to open anyway, and it took extra work to loosen them up. The locking latch on each caused major problems. The bedroom ones had been painted over, and when I bought the house I managed to get all the paint off, but underneath, the latches had rusted. I was too lazy to replace them, so I just let them be.

  Afterward, I showered and dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans and hopped in the truck. The sun was incapable of killing off the chill, but it was a beautiful day, and the ride revealed a wide expanse of finely-manicured farmland. Once you turned off the road which ran by my house, the stands of trees sat back from the road like feral dogs, sparse and ragged-looking. In other places, expansive stretches of cotton blanketed the land, the dirty white sea stretching out until it was overtaken by trees.

  The Brickmeyer house, too, was a sight to behold. I pulled into a driveway a half-mile long and coasted between rows of recently planted pecan trees, all while admiring the building’s sheer immensity. It was a two-story neocolonial set off by a wide-open field. Leland had bought the land for pennies on the dollar with his daddy's money, and the estate was now in the awkward teenage years. Once the sod took root and the trees grew up around the house, it would become an even more impressive view.

  For years - decades - the Brickmeyers had lived in a withered, vine-covered mansion, but that had since become a little museum of no importance, even in the town’s city limits. Day travelers with a distorted sense of history visited, but otherwise it was a forgotten legend of a house. Leland wanted to make his own shadow, not live in the darkness of his father’s.

  A Hispanic woman in a modern-day maid's outfit opened the door when I knocked. "Leland here?" I asked. She made no reply, stared at me as if she didn't know who I was asking for. "Guy who owns the house? No?"

  I saw her start to take a step back, and then she stopped. She was debating whether or not Leland would abide having me in his house. She shook her head, and just when I thought she was going to slam the door, a voice in the background said, "I got it, Mahaila.”

  I had met Leland Brickmeyer on a few unnotable occasions as an officer, but the light of recognition wavered in his eyes until we had shaken hands. "Rolson, right," he said, his voice managing certitude and inquiry simultaneously. His handshake was firm, and he maintained level eye contact, even as he asked, "What can I do you for?"

  Leland, rather than asking me in, stepped out onto the top step of the front portico and closed the door behind him. He was a tall man, late forties, clean-shaven and crisply dressed. He was mostly svelte, though a slight paunch pushed against his aqua-colored Oxford shirt. He didn't smell like money but his cologne certainly did.

  I took an appreciative glance of the house. "This is what my Aunt Birdie would have called rare air," I said.

  "That’s a saying I ain't ever heard." He was southern but disconnected, and it showed in the way he carried himself. Even the people who had known him for decades couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he had snuck down here from some northern state.

  "Probably not. Birdie had quite a few. Rare air's just a phrase for something most folks don't get to see up close. Like climbing a mountain, I suppose. The view's something else."

  "Ah," Leland said, sort of feigning interest. He was a busy man.

  I decided not to waste his time with trivialities. "The man who was found on your land. I'm the one found him. He looked awful. Neck broke, grisled and stinking like old hamburger meat." I watched him, watched his gestures, his facial expressions.

  His lips curled back, revealing teeth straightened by God or money. You could picture him in front of a podium, flashbulbs erupting around him. "I heard about that. It's a shame, huh, and out there in that old juke joint, no less. Real shame, I tell you what."

  "Looked like he'd been tortured something awful, a real hate crime-type situation. You seem like the kind of man who could get that situation solved in a hurry."

  Leland unfolded his arms and placed them on his hips, looking away from me for the first time. The sun had begun to turn the sky into a fluorescent pink splatter, and sunset wouldn’t come officially for another hour.

  A hint of impatience crept into his posture, yet the smile remained. "Let's take a stroll, shall we? Awful close here on the steps, isn't it?"

  The steps seemed fine to me, but I said, "Yeah, sure."

  He led me around the side of the house to a gated wooden fence, eight or so feet high and painted a subtle shade of brown. Through that gate a small enclosure featured a hole being covered in concrete. "My whole life, I wanted an in-ground pool. My father was too damned cheap for one."

  I wandered over to it and peered inside. "Looks deep," I said.

  "Thirteen feet down by where the diving board will be. I am going all out for this thing." He paused. "I'm putting a hold on finishing it until this whole Laveau business is squared away."

  "Why is that?"

  He slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks and said, "Well, it's distracting, and I can't work distracted. It’s like trying to have a conversation with somebody who’s got something stuck in their teeth. I can’t do that. I want to oversee the mixing of every inch of concrete."

  "Seems like a pain in the
ass."

  His face changed under the glow of the fading light, the expression turning toward some manner of self-interest. "It's interesting, especially laying the concrete. The concrete seals the pool. It is the foundation, keeps the water and earth separate. Something bout it speaks to me."

  "Otherwise you've got a pond."

  "Otherwise, I've got a giant, slopping mess. And it's the concrete that does it, something that transforms completely. Starts soupy and wet and ends up able to withstand hundreds of pounds of water pressure."

  "Listen, I-"

  "You know how many people died building the Hoover Dam? A hundred. You know how many were buried in the concrete?"

  "No." Frankly, I didn’t fucking care.

  "Not a single one. The old rumors aren't true, not one of them. But it’s still interesting to think about, men encased in concrete. Or dumped into the harbor wearing concrete shoes. Hell, I reckon I’ve got about enough concrete in my shed to bury ten men down in that hole I dug."

  He smiled and winked. It was a gesture meant to seem completely harmless, but I got what he was saying, even if he didn’t mean exactly what he was implying.

  He continued: "You’re not out here for official business, Mr. McKane, and though I don’t know you very well, I'd have to be living in a cave to be unaware of your recent troubles."

  "That you would," I replied.

  "But if you think coming around here, sniffing at my ass, is going to get you back on the force - or worse, some kind of financial reward - then you're sadly mistaken."

  Brickmeyer's hair was a thick black mat, a genetic wonder, and he used this opportunity to smooth it down. It was almost subconscious for him, a simple yet distinct mannerism.

  I tried to reel it in a bit. I'd taken it as far as I cared to this afternoon. I said, "No need to skip that far ahead into the conversation. I promised someone I'd take a minute to speak with you, maybe poke my head around and see if I could make some progress."

  He rolled his eyes.

  I said, "You know who it was that was found out there, on your land?"

  He sighed. Here was his dealing-with-the-political-opposition tone. "Emmitt Laveau. Twenty-six years old. African-American. Mere facts, that's all I got. Listen, just because some black kid got himself killed on my land-"

  "I'm not accusing you of anything. That kid’s mother has asked me to help out. Coming out here, I was undecided. Didn't know if I was up to playing Sam Spade for that poor woman."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Looking at you know, way you're acting, I'm convinced I need to help her. I feel I owe her something, since I almost caused her son to bury her, instead of the other way around. I'm sure you don't like me coming out here, but I figured the least I could do is ask some questions on her behalf."

  "That's illegal, being as you're no longer a police officer.”

  “I’m not investigating. I’m just talking to you, man to man.”

  “Besides,” he said, ignoring me, “though Mrs. Laveau is a fine citizen, has no one entertained the idea that, conceivably, the son set himself up for a fall?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Looks pretty awful, doesn't it? Sure it does. S'posed to. What if it was, I don't know, a drug deal gone bad?"

  "Seems like a jump to make."

  "No, no. Not saying anything hard and fast at all. Not whatsoever. Don't know the first thing about him. I am elaborating on the possibilities of what could have happened. Nobody wants the murderer found more than I do, but vigilantism is not the way to go. You were a police officer. Don't you have any trust in their abilities?"

  "Ability has nothing to do with it. All it takes is a single dishonest officer, even in a small town, for a case to go unsolved."

  "If you're wrong, you could make a complete fool of yourself."

  I shrugged. "I don't really give a shit."

  We stood there for a moment. I glanced at him and saw the muscles in his jaw working up and down. "Let's head back up front," he said, moving stiffly back toward the gate door.

  When we got around to our starting place, he said, "Expect to be contacted about a restraining order, Mr. McKane. And if you want to play detective, you best go looking for the people who did this, the people who actually did this. Sobering up might help, as well."

  "If you have nothing to hide-"

  "I don't have to have anything to hide in order to want my privacy. I'm an elected official. If I give off the impression of being defensive here, it's only because it can seriously hurt my career. I’ve got aspirations beyond this town. You understand that?"

  I nodded.

  "See? Right, I knew you'd get that. These things tend to have a, well, a, um, snowball effect. One person gets it into his head that there's something fishy about a dead body being found on his land, pretty soon the whole town's going to whispering about me having somebody offed behind my back."

  "I understand that," I said.

  "Me even having to deny such a rumor is beneath my contempt. I don't want to do it. Shouldn't have to do it. The longer I entertain the people digging around for dirt, the more absurd and far-fetched the claims become. It's just the last thing I need right now."

  "I get that. But if I find anything that places you in a bad light, I won't hesitate to come back out here and have this conversation again."

  He stared at me with a hard, lawyerly air, trying with some difficulty to come up with a retort. When it became obvious he wouldn't, he stepped back inside and said, "Have a good one, Mr. McKane."

  “Being cold to a member of your constituency is a rookie mistake,” I said. “If you want to move up higher on the political food chain, you need to figure out how to kiss everybody’s ass.”

  He gave me one final nod and disappeared inside. I stood on the portico for another few minutes, surveying the expanse of land stretching out around me. Through a stand of trees, the sky looked electric, as if backlit by neon lights. The first truly clear day we'd had in a week. The wind had died and it was humid outside and the air smelled of burnt dust, but at least the rain was gone.

  I took my time getting back to the truck, trying hard to steal glances back at the windows. Leland seemed like a peeker, but I never once saw the curtains of a single window pulled aside.

  Oh well.

  It was then I noticed a nice, big obstacle in my way.

  A truck the size of a freight liner blocked the driveway, in a circular alcove designed for cars to lie in wait. If there was a flaw, it was that the driveway only had enough space for one vehicle.

  The windows were tinted but the windshield was not, so I saw the outline of a husky dude hunched over the wheel. I waved and he gave a few fingers in response. The truck was a diesel, white, had all the qualities of the one I was looking for. Even as I turned to leave, trying to get a better look at the truck's tag, it had pulled forward, giving me nothing but a blurry glance at the back license plate.

  I kept glancing uncomfortably at the rearview mirror as I drove home, but this time, nothing followed me.

  * * *

  Despite my better judgment, I ended up at Virgil's Bar again. I felt a sense of accomplishment for giving Brickmeyer the what’s what, so a couple of beers were in order. It was still light out, but the regulars already seemed to be tilting dangerously to one side. Most of them were in the bar to get business done. They were not fucking around. They drank real drinks. Got real drunk. Told sloppy, outrageous lies with a slight glimmer in their eyes. I felt very much at home.

  I pinned a stool down at one end of the bar and felt a familiarity in the tattered leather as I leaned back. Every chair in the place had a heavily-used feel, and stuffing poked out of the holes not covered by beer labels or duct tape.

  I took the bar-thinker's pose, hunched forward and staring into the senseless gold of my High Life. Unlike the other patrons, I wasn't contemplating where it had gone wrong with me. There would be time for that when this was all over. I was thinking about Emmitt Laveau, what reason he
had entered my life, and the distraction helped keep my blood from doing the jitterbug inside of me.

  In a late afternoon draining of color, the bar was a good companion, the stale beer smell and hazy smoke cloud pressing against the ceiling. The doors had been left open to let in some fresh air. It was conducive to drinking.

  So that's what I did. I drank, and it felt nice. The beer gave me a pleasant buzz, even if I had to fight off the nagging feeling that maybe it wasn’t making me a better dude.

  A hard clap on the back jarred me out of my thoughts. I jerked and turned to face the third or fourth biggest man I'd ever seen in my life.

  Luckily, he smiled. "Rol, it looked like you were staring into a crystal ball there.” He pointed at the beer. “There ain’t where you’ll see anything worth finding."

  "Deuce. Jesus. You scared me. Shit. Don't you know it's not a good thing to do to me these days?"

  Deuce took a seat, pointed at my beer, signaling to the barkeep for a High Life. The stool seemed to grunt under his weight. "Fuck, man, you're the talk of the town. This is the last place I should expect you to be.”

  He paused and sighed. “Yet, here you are."

  "Should I be worried?" I lit a cigarette.

  "As a bail bondsman, I would offer up that you don't be seen drinking in public, especially with a bail bondsman. Might complicate your case. Still, man’s got to make his own mistakes. Can’t make them for him."

  "Least this way," I said, taking a long tug on my cigarette, "you know I'm not a flight risk. Can't go very far if I'm tickling my drunk bone here."

  Louis arrived with the High Life, and Deuce knocked back a third of it in a single gulp. He grimaced like a man who'd found a cigarette in his coffee mug. "I normally drink Bud. This stuff, pigs wouldn't roll around in." He shrugged and took another swig before putting it down. "It's cold, I guess."

  "That it is. Cold beer and cold hearts; that's all they got in here."

  Looking around, Deuce said, "Beats working for a living."

  He turned and raised his beer to a few people, who grinned and waved back. He was the only black dude in the bar, and though the George Wallace mentality sometimes still pervaded the Junction, it had never applied to him.