by T. Braddy
Shifting the phone to my other ear, I asked, “What were Paula and Vanessa doing during all of this?”
“They stayed away, back in the room. And I went about the rest of my business. I told Paula to take Vanessa to the beach, that I’d meet them there, and then I drove the impostors to a secluded section of swamp a few hours away. I put two bullets in their heads and dumped them and the gun in the water.”
He let the silence stagnate and then said, “I’ve never regretted it, in all my days.”
“You think Vanessa unearthed any of that? Maybe years later? Maybe it contributed to her addiction somehow.”
“Vanessa turned eighteen years old, and out of the blue one day, she got a phone call from a stranger with a deep voice who told her everything. She came to us and asked us about it, and of course we denied the whole thing, called it all a horrible prank, but Vanessa saw right through it. She started ‘remembering,’ but she was too young when everything happened to have retained any memories, so we think it was her trying to square a circle. She never told you anything?”
I said, “Never. Not one word.”
“Huh.”
“Yup. She cried a lot back then, and she started experimenting with stuff – mostly pot – but she never went into detail about what was making her so sad.”
Reticence peeked its head for the very first time. At long last, he said, “We don’t know who could have found out, and there was no way she knew what happened after the fact, back at the swamp, but the situation with the photographs really got to her. They found Paula’s brother and his wife in the crawl space under the house. Some bills came up late, and the creditors got the police involved, and then the discovery was made. Back then, it was different. The papers didn’t go around making a big fuss of what should have been private matters, so the fact that two perverts had taken up residence in that house was quieted, at some people’s discretion.”
“D.L., I don’t even know what to say.”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say a goddamned word, my son.”
I let him interpret the dead air however he wanted.
“Well,” he said, “this bottle of scotch isn’t going to finish itself.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me about what to do about Vanessa’s overdose?”
Without missing a step, he said, “Oh, I trust you to handle it. You always do. Maybe sit me down and tell me everything someday. That’ll do for me. Bye, now, Rolson.”
Before I could respond, the phone went dead in my ear.
I staggered under the weight of this new information. It caused every cell in my body to ache, but what I wanted was not absolution for not knowing about it but bourbon whiskey. I wanted to drown myself in amber liquid and not think twice about leaving a corpse to be thrown in some shallow grave. No one here knew or cared about me, and I felt the same could be said of Lumber Junction.
You’re making this about you, I told myself. This is not about you.
I wandered down to the water and considered throwing myself in, but my half-baked suicide delusion was interrupted by Richie racing up and then slamming on the brakes in his newish Camaro.
His eyes were wild-looking. “Something fucked up happened,” he said.
I got in, and Richie sped through the row of trees without regard for either of us.
“What is it, Richie?”
“Somebody took a pistol into your AA meeting and opened fire.”
fifteenth chapter
On the ride, Richie cranked this guy named Kanye West to save me from having to tell him to shut the fuck up. I stared out the window, watching the water pass in a blur, except where we dipped into a copse of trees and it disappeared altogether.
I didn’t think about Winston. I didn’t think about Bernie. I didn’t think about the dozens of men and women who had shepherded me through the program.
I was thinking about Yaelis.
If this could be placed on my shoulders – and there was no reason to suggest anyone else could be to blame – then I owed that young woman the rest of my life, whatever that amounted to.
Richie abruptly killed the music, leaving a gulf of noise buzzing in my ears.
“Are you sure you’re going to want to do this, man? I mean, the cops are in heat over you. I doubt you’d even make it to the station before somebody ‘accidentally’ put a slug in you.”
I bit back my first instinct and answered his question with as much honesty as I could muster. “I’m going to take my chances on this one. I have to see.”
I sent a message to Winston:“Text me back, if you get this.”
“I’m with you, partner,” he said. “I’ll see this thing through with you, man.”
“Your life,” I said absently.
Roads directly surrounding the church had been blocked off, and cops were stationed at every single intersection, so we had to park quite a ways away. It was a maze of official vehicles and people.
Richie tossed his keys into my lap. He was shaking so badly, he practically rattled.
“Go to your house. Pick up any last-minute things you need, before the cops start swarming the place. This’ll be the last time you’ll have a chance to.”
“I don’t think it’ll be safe,” I said.
“You kidding? Every single cop in Chatham County is at that church, unless they’re out looking for the prick who did this.”
“Which could include my house.”
“Not yet, I’d go out on a limb and guess. Take my car. It’s fine. Just stay far away from here. I’m going to check out what’s going on, and I’ll text you when I’m done.”
“Okay,” I said, and Richie started to get out of the car.
“Richie,” I said, and he turned back. “Thank you.”
“Shit, this excitement makes me want to be sober again.”
I drove carefully through the crowded, rubbernecking streets on my way back to my place.
As I approached one four-way stop, I made the mistake of going straight when I should have turned left, because I ended up slap in the middle of a police checkpoint.
My gut feeling was to slam on brakes and throw the car into reverse, but I didn’t. Up ahead, a cop was stopping cars at random, leaning on the driver’s side window and asking a few questions before letting them through.
Cars pulled in behind me, the woman in my rearview mirror checking her makeup in her own rearview mirror. No way out now.
My hand stayed in place. I leaned back as nonchalantly as I could.
The cop motioned for the car two places ahead of mine to pull aside for further investigation, and a Hispanic cop in gloves helped the driver from the car and began to dig through the glove compartment while the beleaguered driver watched.
For a moment, I thought the driver ahead of me was going to make a run for it. There was a lot of brakes-pressing and revving the engine, attempting to move forward. If there ever was a time I wanted someone to break the law, it was now.
The car eventually came to a full stop. An old Chevette with a dilapidated frame and a half-busted exhaust system. The driver hung one arm out the window and made grand gestures when the officer tried to talk to him. I saw the cop’s complexion go from regular to fiery red in a matter of moments. The officer was restraining herself, but the driver was on the verge of doing something stupid, I could tell.
Suddenly, the arm went back inside the old beater, and the cop slapped her hand on the hood as a warning. The car surged forward, and the cop went for her weapon. She sidled around to the front of the vehicle and held one hand out, while the other was placed firmly on the butt of her pistol.
Her face was a mess of anger lines. “Pull over! Pull the fuck over!”
The Hispanic officer exited the car he’d been searching and was also screaming obscenities at the Chevette’s driver. He hadn’t gone for his piece, but he was making a lot more noise. The car went into reverse, and the female officer had had enough. She pulled her weapon, raced around to the driver’s
side, and placed the gun mere inches from the the guy’s head.
“Pull to the side and put the car into park, sir,” she said, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes. She was sweating, red, and royally pissed off.
A moment passed with no result, but finally the driver did as she asked.
The Hispanic cop wiped his forehead and took up the line. He looked at me, squinted, and then waved me through.
My heart didn’t slow down until I pulled into a spot a block from my house.
It had the demeanor of an abandoned building, since I was seeing it with new eyes. Just a small, decrepit house with a maniac for a tenant.
I half expected Willie to be sitting on the front stoop, wagging his tail and ready for his afternoon feeding as if nothing had happened. I checked around back and saw no dog, so I went on inside. Carefully. I had my piece – it was always on me these days – and I checked every corner of the house before I settled in to grabbing things.
I didn’t quite know what I should take with me. I filled a duffel bag with clothes, but I left most everything else alone. There were other things in the house I might want to take, but I didn’t. It was like I was living in an outer shell that I no longer needed, the remnants of my cocoon a mere dead husk.
The only other item important enough to take with me involved a complicated process of retrieval. My gun went into the back of my pants and I snuck outside, checking my perimeter for signs of prying eyes.
The small, square door leading to the space under the house was closed and locked up, so the case was still safe. I unlocked it, crawled to where I’d hidden the case, and retrieved it. Still felt heavy enough to be full.
I went back inside.
In my rush to get everything together, I had not paid real attention to the shenanigans which had taken place in my absence. Or maybe I did notice it but didn’t think it important until I was almost finished with the most important tasks.
It was something out of a movie with an obsessive for a protagonist.
If the straightjacket fits, I thought.
All the countertops, tables, and shelves had been filled with trinkets and items owned by Vanessa. Not just a single item, which had been the opening salvo for my troubles here in Savannah, but a whole collection of possessions I either hadn’t seen in years or didn’t know existed whatsoever.
I wandered among the detritus, no more than the faded talismans of an unlucky life, and tried to keep the fractured pieces of myself intact.
This was the final taunt. I had nothing left to hide. The decision had been made for me, and it was clear: the money had to go.
sixteenth chapter
The roads were packed, and the cops had rerouted most of the traffic in the areas surrounding the church, so I circled around the long way and parked on a tree-lined street several blocks away. Some tourists in Hawaiian shirts led the way, and I followed in close behind to camouflage myself. They were speaking ebulliently about the prospect of dinner at one of Paula Deen’s restaurants.
The church itself was taped off, and yet I spied Richie on the other side of the barricade, talking intently with a police officer. They were on the front steps of the church, standing more or less in the entrance. Richie seemed to be asking questions and receiving forthright answers. From this distance, he didn’t even appear to be that high.
Most of the ambulances had cleared out, save for one being used to treat minor wounds. In the back sat someone I recognized from meetings but whose name I couldn’t quite recall. She had two kids, I remembered, but that was about it. I wanted to go near, to find my way to the front and ask her about what happened, but I wouldn’t risk being outed. I couldn’t be a suspect, not with the presence of witnesses – at least I hoped – but I wasn’t going to test the odds.
Moments later, Richie finished up his conversation with the officer, waved, and then walked away, typing on his phone. I responded to his texts, and we met up back at the car.
Richie got in, cranked up, and started talking. “Guy walked in, said something about you–”
“Like what? What was said?”
“They only know he said the name ‘Rolson.’ None of the witnesses got any clue, because they’re all traumatized. He just opened fire randomly.”
I didn’t quite know how to ask the next question.
Richie seemed to anticipate it. “No clue on who was...hurt,” he said awkwardly, turning his car toward the river. “I managed to pump the cop for information, but the identities of the injured are very emphatically not being given out.”
“So that’s all you got?”
“Minor details. Guy walked in, started yelling, and then he unloaded two full clips into the crowd of people.”
“He stopped to reload?”
“Yup. I talked to somebody over by the ambulance, name of Janine, and she told me a little bit more, but she was hysterical, so all she would mention was how he started picking up people’s wallets and stuff.”
“Wallets? So, like it was a robbery?”
“Or would look like one, I guess. She said he picked at the dead people’s pockets until he found what he wanted, and then he just walked out. Just like that. Calm as a cool breeze.”
“Christ.”
“Where to, Rol?”
My phone buzzed, and I checked the message.
The name across the display saidWinston Cell.
I couldn’t believe it. Speaking of perfect timing.
I slid my thumb to unlock the phone and opened the messages app.
Instead of being greeted by the message I had expected, the one telling me he was all right, not to worry about him, I received a declaration it took me a while to digest.
It read:“Now the real game begins.”
“I need you to take me to this guy’s house, name of Winston,” I said. “His daughter is there, and she’s all by herself.”
* * *
I didn’t wait for Yaelis to open the door. I burst in through the front door and commenced to yelling her name. My mind had been populated with images not unlike the ones from the church. Not finding her would be a worse sentence, because it would mean that lunatic had her.
However, she wasn’t gone or dead or injured. She was sitting on the couch, alive and in one piece.
She popped up, kicking over her soda. “What is it?” she asked. Her eyes widened with the knowledge only someone living in the household of an addict can muster.
She was thinking about her dad, thinking maybe he was off the wagon, drunk or in jail. It’s the first natural thought family members of alcoholics have, and it’s usually not that far off the mark.
“I need you to come with me,” I insisted. “Pack some things and let’s go. Right now. Right now. We have to go.”
She looked over my shoulder, and I turned to see Richie. She looked from him to me. “Did my father tell you to do this?”
A single step back. Just enough to tell me what I needed to know.
I straightened up, tried to calm down. I must have looked crazy.
“There’s no time to discuss. Your life’s in danger, Y. I will tell you everything once we’re in the car and headed down the road, I swear. Do you trust me?”
She began to shake her head. “No. Give me a minute. I need to talk to my dad. Let me call him real quick. It’ll just take a minute.”
“Yaelis, I – Y, it’s not like that.”
Her eyes filled with tears. She was beginning to get a fuzzy message of what was going on. Even as she continued to move her head slowly back and forth, her hand moved toward her phone. She had begun to take on a defensive posture.
“The hospital?” she asked weakly. The phone was in her hand, thumb moving erratically on the screen.
I took a step forward, shook my head. I didn’t know what I was doing. What the hell was I doing? “Yaelis,” I said. “He–”
She crumpled under her weight, fell to the couch, and elicited a high-pitched, yowling sob, which descended into a fit of wild, convulsiv
e crying. I took a place on the far end of the couch but was wary to keep my distance.
Her face hidden behind her hands, she wailed a single syllable in repeated succession, allowing the word to be torn in a long, slow arc from within her lungs. It was the sound of death in micro-bursts. Each time the sound left her, she died. When it returned to her, when she began to elicit that banshee-like howl, she began to die all over again.
I let her be, and after minutes that felt like eons, she surmounted her former position on the couch and managed to straighten up somewhat. She placed her head on my shoulder, sobbing gently into the fabric of my shirt. Her voice was wrecked, the sound of a two dollar watch left underwater. I put my arms around her and hugged her, this girl who had lost both her mother and her father in her childhood years, and she let me.
Between her hitching, jerky wails she asked, “What happened?”
“Do you–”
“Yes, I want to know.”
“There was a man, he- something happened at the meeting.”
She sat up and wiped her eyes. Her face lay in shambles, a surrealist experimenting with the human form. She said, “What man?”
Saying it as if she distrusted the word itself and not merely what it represented.
“A very bad man.”
On my lips, it reeked of being patronizing. Things were not so black and white that I could represent the evil of that man in such simplistic terms. Yaelis was too smart to be spoken to in such condescending terms.
Her eyes recognized the falsity of my representation. “Someone in the program?”
I shook my head.
From behind me, Richie said, “I’m going to wait in the car.”
I held up one hand in response and listened to his retreating footsteps.
