Rainy Fall

by Claudio Hernández

  Peter moved his head aside, fixing his gaze on the edge of his seat, and then he lifted his butt from his own seat.

  "Do you still drink, Burt?"

  "You have come here to speak about the case, haven't you?"

  "I just want to know if you keep on drinking, Burt..."

  "Just a beer every now and then" He said, taking his hand off the back of the chair with a can of beer. He made a grimace and he felt the silliest man in the world for a moment.

  Peter nodded and then he sat back on his chair.

  "Anyway, let's go to the point. I believe it happened in Bob's barn."

  Burt's face showed a broad smile, and almost inadvertently, he took a sip of beer. His grey moustache got stained with foam.

  "We've got some work to do, lad." Burt urged, leaving the can of beer under the table making a banging noise. He got up, dragging his chair noisily, and then he went out to call Jack and Richard.

  35

  The fucking storm was still covering Boad Hill's sky, and the car wipers could not clean the windshield, there was too much water and it was raining too much, so they drove slowly towards Bob's barn. Jack Hodge was driving. Burt was in the passenger seat, and Richard and Peter were on the back of the car. Denny had come back home, and most likely he was telling what had happened to his sister Ann, Peter's platonic love.

  On their way to the barn Peter had been explaining Burt that he had seen the word Bob written on one side of the tractor. Bob's tractor was now abandoned because it was not harvest season. All the corn plants would probably be as tall as a basketball player by now. Burt was not that much into basketball. He preferred baseball.

  Now they had to talk to Bob the fool. He was bold, tall and quite fat, but he was an energetic man. He had a big beard and his eyes were sunken, because he didn't sleep much. He was wearing the same plaid shirt as always. Bob the fool was never cold or hot, it was as if time was not passing by for him. He always wore the same plaid shirt, with the sleeves rolled up at the elbow.

  The wheels of the car went deep into the mud when they entered Bob's property with all its lights on, ejecting a lot of mud backwards and leaving the car as brown and dirty as if it had gone through a toilet full of feces.

  "Damn it, the wheels are slipping on the mud" Jack barked while footing on the clutch, changing to lower gears.

  "We are getting closer, Jack. Keep your pants on." Burt said.

  The vehicle purred all the way down until they reached the turnoff to Bob's house. It kept spitting a blue cloud up in the sky, but it went mute when Jack took the key out of the ignition.

  The door cars opened slowly, and their booted feet sunk into the sludge.

  "Fuck!" Burt yelled, getting soaked under the rain, when his feet ankle deep sunk into the mud.

  Peter, on the other side, well could be Jack Feather Feet; he seemed to be soaring over the mud.

  Carefully, they walked together to the door, which was ajar, although they didn’t really know why. He felt his heart racing when the worst thought crossed his mind.

  He thought that Bob the fool might be dead.

  But luckily he wasn’t. The door was half opened because Bob was sitting on his rocking chair behind it. He was watching TV in the darkness, and the sound of the TV program could be barely heard from the sitting room.

  “Bob, are you there?” Burt asked, knocking at the wooden door. The knocks couldn’t be heard because of the heavy rain.

  “Damn it! Who is it?” Bob’s voice rose above the sound of the rain, and he jumped from his rocking chair as if he were scared. He hit the door with the chair.

  “I’m Sheriff Burt. I have come to ask you some questions, Bob. It will be just a few minutes.”

  “Ask me questions about what?” He asked from behind the door.

  “We believe we can find something here, Bob...”

  “What do you mean, find?” Bob’s voice interrupted. “I smoke a joint every now and then, but I have nothing else here. Now I’m resting, I am waiting for the maize harvest. But I’m afraid that this fucking rain is going to spoil the whole harvest.”

  “Can you open the door for us, please?”

  There was no answer.

  Peter, with his glasses soaked, and officers Jack and Richard with their raincoats on, were waiting patiently behind Burt, who was bent towards the door.

  Finally the door opened with an exasperating squeak, and Bob the fool showed up.

  Right then Officer Richard understood why he was called that way. His eyes seemed to look everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They were dark and there was a blaze of insanity in them. He had thick eyebrows and his long beard almost reached his chest. His swollen face showed a strange symmetry, his right side was different from his left side. He was bold and he had square teeth that stuck out over his lips.

  “Hi, Burt” Bob’s voice was almost as grave as the sheriff’s.

  “Hi, Bob” But extended his hand to shook his, but Bob did not move.

  “What do you want to ask me?” Bob inquired looking up at the sky as if they he hadn’t seen them at the entrance of his house.

  “We need to know if you have heard anything these days in your barn.”

  “Yes I have. The tractor started its engine suddenly. I went out and I noticed it was moving by itself and his headlights had turned into evil’s eyes.” Bob bragged.

  Burt frowned.

  “We have not come here to listen to your stupid jokes.” Burt said with a serious face. He was getting angry.

  “Then, you admit you heard something...”

  “What? When did I admit anything?” Bob interrupted.

  “I mean if you heard any suspicious noise, something that made you pay attention.”

  Bob did not answer.

  “Can we have a look at the barn?” Peter intervened with a tremulous voice.

  “And who is this scarecrow, Burt?” He pointed towards Peter.

  “He is collaborating with us.”

  “This is the guy who reads minds.” Bob went a step ahead, leaning against the door jamb, and he added: “Tell me, clever boy, what I am thinking right now?”

  Peter gave a step back.

  “That’s enough” Burt said, approaching his face to Bob’s, clenching his feet. “Will you let us see your barn? It will only take us a minute. You are not a suspect.”

  “Me? Suspected of what?”

  “Are you going to collaborate, Bob? Or should I bring a warrant?”

  Silence surrounded everything that dark evening.

  36

  “Did you know that Peter can see through the killer’s eyes?” Denny asked his sister. They were in her bedroom, and she was combing her hair sitting in front of her mirror.

  Ann stopped cold, letting the comb tangled in her hair.

  “What?”

  “He has told me today” Denny confessed, with an unusual sparkle in his eyes. “Besides, we have been at the police station today to tell the sheriff he should go and visit Bob the fool.

  Ann’s eyebrows arched.

  “Not only you believe him, but you also accompany him to the police station, just like that.” Ann’s voice rose above the rain, and it sounded high-pitched.

  “How you no memory of what he saw in you or who discovered the killer last winter?”

  Ann did not answer immediately.

  She turned her back to her brother, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, and started combing her hair again. Finally, after an ominous silence, she said:

  “Yes, I remember it. But sometimes I am afraid of thinking about it. What you have just said is impossible. Ok, he can see what your own eyes have recorded inside your brain by touching you. But seeing through somebody else’s eyes without touching them... without going inside them, as he explains it in his book, is absurd. It is incomprehensible and unreal. By the way, he does not mention me much, and, on top of that, he has changed my name.”

  Denny leaned on his hands, which were sunken in the soft duvet,
leaving his body curved backwards.

  “He said it is weird, but it is happening. Right now, they have gone to visit Bob the fool.”

  “Yes, that man is weird too” Ann said and then she finished combing her hair.

  Denny smiled when his sister turned round in the little chair where she was sitting.

  “Do you know something, sis?” It did not sound as a question. He was not asking. He was just trying to say something that only he knew.

  “What? Does Peter move objects with his mind, too?” She wrinkled her nose.

  “Who told you that?”

  Ann arched her eyebrows.

  “Is it true?”

  Denny showed a smile from ear to ear and shook his head. Outside the rain was beating on the window panes, which seemed to bend before the gusts of wind.

  “No. It is not that.”

  “Well, then I have gone blank.” Ann said, moving her hands inside the warm room.

  “Now you will turn pale indeed, as soon as you know that...”

  “Say it!” Ann gasped, smiling at the same time. She had dimples on her cheeks when she smiled, near her lips. Those dimples made Peter crazy.

  “Well, you won’t let me finish” Denny answered, sitting up on the bed.

  “Don’t keep me on tenterhooks.”

  They remained in silence for a while, looking at each other, admiring each other as the siblings they were, with the sound of the rain as soundtrack.

  “I think he likes you. He has told me. He is crazy about you.”

  Ann burst out laughing, it was a long laugh that echoed around the bedroom and that went out the door, which was open.

  “I know that, little brother.” Ann answered when she stopped laughing. “I am not stupid.”

  Denny was stunned.

  37

  “Ok, follow me. The barn is behind of the house.” Bob said walking through the rain.

  “Aren’t you going to shelter from the rain?” Burt asked him in good faith.

  “Water does not scare me. And neither does cold. I just want you to go out from my property as soon as possible.”

  “We will, Mr. Bob” Burt answered raising his hands.

  By the time they reached the barn, Bob was soaking wet, and his yellowish t-shirt had turned darker.

  “This fucking fall is going to spoil the crop” Bob mumbled, while he was walking on the mud and leaving his footprints on the ground.

  Burt did not answer.

  “It is the global climate change, Mr. Bob” Richard murmured. Jack looked at him from the corner of his eye, with his raincoat soaking wet, dropping water little streamlets like a tiny river.

  “I know” Bob barked. “Follow me.”

  They went around the house. It was difficult walking with ease, kicking mud all the time to be able to move. They were leaving a zigzag rut behind them.

  When they turned around the corner, they saw a big wooden door which was ajar, and a small part of a tractor could be seen from there. Bob stopped a few meters before the door and pointed at it with his chubby finger.

  “There they are. Those are my barn, my corn, and my tractor. You won’t be able to find anything else.” Bob explained soaking wet; but he was wrong.

  Burt watched the entrance floor. There was only mud and water. The ground was plain, no prints there.

  “When was the last time you went into the barn?” Burt asked.

  “About five days ago” Bob answered without hesitation.

  “Do you always leave the door ajar?”

  “I always do.”

  38

  It was dark night already. Mike, the graveyard digger, was walking by the roadside, with a big flashlight in his hand, like the headlight of a car. He had not retired yet because he loved his job, he loved being around coffins and he always wondered who would dig his grave. He was wearing a hooded brown raincoat. From a distance he could look like the perfect suspect, but once his skinny body bent forward was perfectly seen, he would look just like the opposite. Mike wondered if his assistant Jonesy would finally dig his grave, while the pouring rain kept falling down his shoulders and the threatening clouds kept moving above his head. Then something crushed under his willies. A snail had just suffered the most terrific death of all: Crushing. Mike was looking for snails right then, and he was holding a small thread bag, where all the snails he was finding were being kept, and some of their horns could be seen going out from it.

  “Damn it! Another snail lost!” He complained in the middle of the road, within a thousand feet of Boad Hill’s main avenue. There it was. There was a sign that showed:

  Welcome to Boad Hill

  Mike, with a toothpick in his mouth which he was moving between his old yellowish teeth, was lighting the roadside of that quiet road. The lush forests on both sides of the road and the grebes were part of Boad Hill. There was also a small river and a lake. The small river received the absurd name of Running Water. Mike remembered the name of the river and couldn’t help laughing in the dead of night, when the heavy rain did not stop falling on Maine.

  He stooped down as if he had found a gold coin. Then he picked a snail, which was moving with its peculiar speed towards nowhere. And then he saw her through the weeds under his flashlight.

  His eyes opened wide, and his mouth dropped open, while his old heart gave him a warning with a sharp jab in his neck, chest and left arm. The light beam of his flashlight showed a hand. It looked like a withered plant, her fingers pointing at the ground and her wrist looking up. It was a young woman’s hand. Maybe it was a girl’s hand.

  39

  “If you have not come in here for five days, why is the light on?” Burt observed.

  “Maybe I forgot to switch it off.”

  Burt did not answer.

  They reached the huge wooden door after walking in the rain and splashing in puddles, and Bob pushed it wide open.

  “Ok, come on in and be quick.” Bob urged under the rain. His shirt was completely stuck to his skin, and they could see he was really hairy, like a bear.

  There was a big warehouse before them; it had four high wooden walls and two bulbs which lighted dimly the rough dirt floor. They could see some tools: A sickle to reap hanging from a hook, a hammer on a workbench, a shovel, and a tractor’s replacement wheel; a huge wheel leaning against the wall. But those were not the only things they could see. It was oddly tidy and almost empty. Obviously, Bob’s tractor was there. There was a sticker on a side of the vehicle with the words “Bob the fool” written on it. It was exactly the same image Peter had seen when he had touched Hannah’s hand.

  “This is what I saw” Peter said, pointing at the tractor quietly.

  Burt nodded.

  Suddenly, Richard’s gasp set off the alarms.

  “Look there, sir, right behind the tractor!” His index was pointing towards an enormous dark spot on the floor, and he was trembling.

  Bob looked down.

  “Most likely it’s oil” He said, scratching his bald head.

  Burt walked towards the spot and his expression became sullenly thoughtful. He bent down over the dark spot with his dripping raincoat, and it noticed that it looked like a dried crust. He touched it with his fingers and he felt it was clumpy. It was a mixture of sand and something else. He rubbed his index finger and his thumb with a few specks of that dark sand and he took it to his noise. The sweet smell still remained like a fragrance in this small speck of soil.

  “This is blood” He said, with a taciturn expression.

  Bob was going to say something, but he didn’t. It would be foolish.

  “Look here, sheriff” Peter said, pointing at something.

  There was a pair of torn panties beneath the tractor forklift, and there was a bra lying on the ground. Both were blue and white striped.

  Burt stared at Bob, who was making strange grimaces and had started stepping back.

  “I know nothing about all this. I don’t know what you are thinking, but I don’t know anythi
ng...”

  “Bullshit!” Burt yelled while touching the intercom he had on his shoulder, under the raincoat. “You better start telling more than jack shit at the police station, because I swear to God that if I confirm what I am thinking right now you will rot in jail for the rest of your life.” He nodded to his men, who were beside him, to indicate them what they should do: They should handcuff him.

  “I’m sorry, Bob, but you are under arrest” Jack said while putting the shiny cuffs on him under the dim light of the bulbs. He did not smile, which was quite unbecoming of him.

  Now Peter fixed his gaze on an empty pack of cigarettes on the floor. It had been crushed, like Mike’s snails, right beside the tractor.

  “Do you smoke, Bob?” Peter asked with his hands inside his wet pockets.

  “Peter, I’ll ask the questions here” Burt mumbled while he was holding Bob’s arm to let Jack handcuff him.

  “No! I don’t smoke! Why?” Bob was nervous. It was the first time in his life that people looked at him that way, and he was stunned.

  “I just want to check something” Peter said, distracted by the pack of cigarettes.

  “What the hell are you going to check? Ok, the evidence. The only fucking evidence is at Bob’s barn. He’s got some explaining to do”

  Peter did not answer. He went closer to the pack instead, and he stooped down in front of it. He was focused on it, Burt and Bob’s voices were a confuse background noise he wasn’t listening to, and then Peter extended his bony hand towards the paperboard pack and touched it, but he did not feel anything special. He frowned, feeling some beads of sweat falling down his glasses.

  He took it gently, without squeezing it, as if it was something weird, and stood up. Then he started feeling a vague mix of sensations. He felt a tingling sensation on his fingers and his hand. He could feel the nicotine smell like a cloud around him. He grasped the pack tightly now and he started being in darkness. It was a partial darkness, a gloom, but the light came back immediately. His heart was pumping fast, and he felt his blood running through his body like needles. He could smell the nicotine scent mixed with something else. It was something putrid, fetid and sour, like the breath of a dead person.