Jason Deas - Benny James 03 - Brushed Away

by Jason Deas

  “And you said it’s impossible to drive around the gate?”

  “No. It’s not impossible. Somebody could do it, but if I didn’t see it, I’d hear it. Even if they turned out their headlights, I swear to you I would hear it. And if I didn’t, my dog would, and she would bark her head off.”

  “Perfect,” Vernon said. “I know how they got in.”

  “Huh?” the camp attendant asked, but Vernon was already headed to his car.

  Vernon knew the campground was still closed, but flew down the roads anyway. His hands tightly gripped the steering wheel as he gritted his teeth with anticipation. His foot that was not on the accelerator tapped with excess energy.

  Vernon drove up to the gates of the Talking Pines Campground. Officer Andy Mandelino recognized his car and pulled the gate open.

  “What’s up Vernon?” Officer Mandelino asked.

  “Just had a wild idea,” Vernon stated. “I’ll radio you in a minute. If what I’m thinking is right, we’re going to need to get the team back over here to take some more photos and to collect evidence.”

  “I hope you’re right. I’ll be listening.”

  Vernon parked the car at site number four. Yellow tape still surrounded the camping area. The body, of course, had been removed from the tent, but the tent was still staked to the ground. Vernon had requested a truck to move the tent, not collapsed, to a climate-controlled storage space where it could be kept intact until he decided what to do with the piece of evidence. He felt by collapsing it and rolling it up, it could in some way destroy the integrity of the evidence they may not have uncovered inside. The truck was due within the hour.

  Vernon emerged from his vehicle. He viewed the camp site and attempted to see it with new eyes. He stood still and scanned the entire area. After taking in the visual information, his eyes turned toward the water. He looked for the most direct route to the water and slowly walked that way. As he walked, his eyes searched the ground for clues. He veered slightly from the path he thought the killer might have taken so as to avoid disturbing any possible evidence.

  At the water’s edge, Vernon spied the first bit of visual evidence that told him his hunch was correct. A wide gash in the sand running at least four to five feet onto the beach told him a boat had landed in haste. Most boaters would have eased their vessels onto the beach. This particular boater hit the beach head on at a pretty fast clip. Scanning the ground, he did not find any signs that something had been dragged, nor did he see any footprints. The small waves from the passing boats would have erased the ones near the water.

  A cloud, which had been hiding the sun, drifted east revealing the sun’s full brilliance. A reflection of light caught Vernon’s attention. He shifted his gaze in the direction of the sparkle, and it glimmered once again.

  Sticking up, out of the sand, with the handle jammed into the soft earth was an artist’s paint brush.

  “Yes! There it is,” Vernon said aloud. He laughed and squeezed his fists tight and shook them in victory as he smiled.

  Without removing the paint brush from the ground, Vernon studied it. From what little he knew about art, he decided it was about a one inch fan brush. It had a red wooden handle with one notch carved into its surface.

  Realizing the killer wanted law enforcement to find this and deciding the killer was keeping track of the deaths with the carved notch, Vernon hurried back to his car and radio.

  “Get the crime scene team back over here,” Vernon said to Officer Mandelino. He tried to keep the glee out of his voice.

  “You find something boss?”

  “I did.”

  “Great. The trucking company you called for just pulled up. Should I tell them they’re going to have to wait?”

  “I don’t think so. The evidence is down near the water and they’ll be working up by the site. Send them on. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Vernon heard the truck before he saw it. He knew this wasn’t in the department’s budget, but felt his decision was the right one.

  Parking in front of the site, the driver hopped down out of the truck. Vernon waited for men to emerge, but the driver was alone. He was a Hispanic male with a friendly face. The driver saw Vernon and walked toward him with a skip in his step.

  Vernon reached for his hand and the two men shook.

  “Officer Kearns, I assume?”

  “Yes.”

  “Emilio.”

  Vernon smiled. The other man’s smile was infectious. “If you don’t mind me asking, why so cheery?”

  “I used to drive a liquid tanker for a big company, and I just started my own. You’re my first job. I’m pretty excited to be out on my own.”

  “Well, that is something to smile about. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “This job is a little weird,” Vernon cautioned.

  “I’ve done weird. One time, my liquid tanker was filled with red water, and I released it over a waterfall at a kid’s summer camp. They thought the falls were bleeding.”

  “That’s pretty weird,” Vernon said, thinking. “Wasn’t that a part of a reality show on television?”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “Interesting.” Vernon described to Emilio what he wanted accomplished and exactly how he wanted it handled. The two men slipped on gloves and Vernon removed the stakes from the tent, depositing the stakes into an evidence bag. With one man on each side, they lifted the tent and carried it to the back of the truck where Emilio had already opened the sliding door.

  They slid the tent into the truck. Vernon was surprised at how easily it fit. He had worried it would not. With the tent in the truck, Vernon reminded Emilio of exactly what he wanted to happen at the warehouse. Emilio repeated back to him the instructions, and Vernon was confident it would all be taken care of as he planned.

  Vernon watched Emilio pull away and decided to have another look at the strange art on the concrete picnic table as he waited for the crime team. As he turned, an item on the ground underneath the tent had him frozen in place. As the two men had carried the tent to the truck, he had not looked at the ground the tent had hidden. A newspaper sat in the spot where the tent had been.

  Vernon crept forward, still tingling from the new revelation. He had read the Tilley Bee earlier in the day as he drank his coffee and had his breakfast. From across the camp site he could see the headline, “Murder. Again.” The killer had been back since the murder.

  Chapter 5

  Uncle Karl invited Benny into his studio to talk. Benny thought it would be a strange place, and it was. Hanging on the walls and from the ceiling he saw a green tuba, a polka dotted swordfish, antique saws, dream catchers, scuba gear, and a plethora of other random items. Benny guessed there must have been at least twenty paintings in various stages of completion. Canvases leaned against the walls ten or so deep under handmade signs. Each sign had a symbol which looked to Benny to be Chinese script.

  “Did you make those signs?” Benny asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that Chinese?”

  “Nope.”

  “Japanese?”

  “Nope.”

  “I give up.”

  “It’s Uncle Karlnese.” Uncle Karl walked over to one of the signs that stood above the biggest line of leaning canvases. “This one reads, ‘Waste of Time, Get a New Hobby.’” Uncle Karl tried to kick his foot through the first canvas but was unsuccessful. He merely put a giant scuff mark across the painting’s surface. He looked at the painting with the new feature and picked it up. His eyes twinkled. “Now we’re talking.”

  Uncle Karl put the painting in a different line of paintings, under a different sign. “This one reads, ‘Maybe.’”

  “What does the last sign say?” Benny asked, pointing to the last line of paintings.

  “It don’t say anything. Signs can’t talk.”

  “What does it read?”

  “It reads, ‘Golden,’” Uncle Karl said,
making a rainbow motion above his head. “Those are the paintings that keep me going.”

  “I thought you were a sculptor?”

  “I dabble with a little bit of everything.”

  Uncle Karl pulled the tube of lotion out of his pocket and started to inch closer to Benny. Benny jammed his hands into his pockets and cut him off before he could even ask.

  “My hands are beginning to itch. I forgot I’m allergic to aloe,” Benny lied.

  Uncle Karl took three steps to his left and grabbed a thick rope that hung from the ceiling. He yanked it down and a loud clanging noise filled the air. He repeated the action two more times and stopped. Before the last chime had stopped reverberating in Benny’s ears, Angel appeared in the doorway.

  Upon seeing nothing was wrong she scolded, “Uncle Karl! The church bell is for emergencies only.”

  “This is an emergency.”

  “Mr. James is here, what could be your emergency?”

  “He won’t rub aloe on my back. Says he’s allergic.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” she said taking the tube of aloe from her uncle. “Good morning, Mr. James,” she said pleasantly, turning and smiling at Benny.

  “Good morning.”

  “Uncle Karl, you have got to stop welding with your shirt off.”

  “This is the first time this has happened.”

  “Really?” Angel rubbed lotion into his shoulders with attitude. “Would you like to try that one more time?”

  “It’s the first time it has happened this month.”

  “It’s the first day of the month! It happened once last month. And, it happened last Thanksgiving. Remember how you missed the meal because you couldn’t sit down? I don’t even want to think about how it happened.”

  “I was welding in a strange position behind me and the flap of my pants was blocking my vision.”

  “I said I don’t care.” Angel finished rubbing the lotion and handed the tube back to him. She wiped her greasy hands on the back of her jeans and looked at Benny. “I think I’m starting to be allergic to aloe myself.” She turned and walked out of the barn.

  “Where were we?” Uncle Karl asked.

  “You were just about to tell me about the art scene here in Tilley.”

  “Ah. Chattanooga, Tennessee.”

  “No. I said Tilley, Georgia.”

  “But the riff started in Chattanooga. Sit down.”

  Uncle Karl pointed to a purple bean bag chair behind Benny. It had been a long time since Benny had sat in a bean bag chair, and he slowly lowered himself to the ground and fell into the oddly-shaped thing. Uncle Karl grabbed a wooden rocking horse and pulled it in front of Benny. From a post, he unhooked a cowboy hat, put it on his head, and climbed onto the wooden rocking horse. He began rocking.

  “In 1960, I was twenty and full of ideas. Still am. I left the plantation here in search of ideas.” Uncle Karl continued rocking and adjusted the cowboy hat atop his head. “This house here was all about money. I wanted something more. Art in the 1960’s was evolving as it always does, and I had heard about a group of artists forming in Chattanooga. A bus full of flower-power folks stopped in, heading that way, and one of them let me look at his sketch book. Now, I didn’t know one thing about art. I couldn’t draw a stick person or dog or pony to save my life. But, I wanted to be a part of what I was seeing. Something about the images in that sketch book set my soul on fire. I wanted to learn how to do that.”

  Uncle Karl once again pulled the tube of aloe out of his pocket and started rubbing it on his chest and shoulders. As he reached for his back, Benny reluctantly pulled himself out of the bean bag chair and held out his hand for the tube.

  “Stop rocking and give me the tube,” Benny said.

  “I thought you were allergic?”

  “I lied. I’m allergic to hairy old white men, but I’ll get over it.”

  Benny filled his hands with aloe and covered Uncle Karl’s back with the lotion. As he rubbed, Uncle Karl continued his tale.

  “When the next flower-power bus came through town, I climbed aboard and went with them. They didn’t care that I didn’t understand art. They were just happy that I was in love with it. I soon found out that I was actually talented at making sculptures. I could make anything I could touch. It was so easy; I was a natural. And then I tried painting and drawing. I was lost. I failed. My brain didn’t think that way. I guess I could say I have a 3-D brain. To make a long story short—I have devoted my life to art. I still make my sculptures with ease, but I live in hopes that one day something in my brain will click and I’ll be able to paint and draw the things I see in my mind’s eye.”

  Benny handed the aloe back to Uncle Karl and once again lowered himself into the purple bean bag chair. “This is a fascinating story, don’t get me wrong, but what does it have to do with the Tilley art scene?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  Uncle Karl started rocking again.

  “In Chattanooga I quickly learned there were two schools of thought when it came to art. There were the new thinkers and the old.”

  “They were a little behind the times, weren’t they? I mean, I’m no art historian, but didn’t art take a major turn away from realism and classic ideas in the 1920’s?”

  “Remember, we’re talking about Chattanooga, Tennessee, not New York City.”

  Uncle Karl pulled the cowboy hat off his head and tossed it to his right without looking. It knocked over a glass jar full of brown water and paint brushes and shattered on the concrete floor. Uncle Karl acted as though he didn’t hear it as he didn’t turn his head to look and see what happened.

  “Switch,” Uncle Karl said as he got off the wooden rocking horse.

  “You want to sit here?”

  “Yeah. And you got to take a ride on this filly.”

  Uncle Karl fell into the purple bean bag with a sigh. Benny threw his right leg over the wooden horse and settled into the painted saddle.

  “If you want the hat, it’s over there on the floor. It might be wet and have some glass in it.”

  “I’ll pass.” Benny started rocking.

  “You ever seen West Side Story?”

  “I have.”

  “The old and new art groups were like the Jets and the Sharks. Two gangs that hated each other.”

  “The old is always scared of the new,” Benny said, “but what does this have to do with Tilley, Georgia?”

  Uncle Karl heard something off in the distance and Benny could almost see his ears perk up. Uncle Karl’s eyes doubled in size, and he planted his palms down on the concrete floor, ready to pop up out of the bean bag. In the next instant, Benny heard it—the ice cream truck. As Uncle Karl sprinted out the door, Benny checked his watch. It was 9:30 and too early in his mind for an ice cream truck to be making its rounds.

  Uncle Karl hopped in place as he waited. Benny walked up beside him and wanted to say something, but somehow he wasn’t sure what. As the obnoxious repertoire of songs blaring from the ice cream truck crept closer, Benny finally thought of something to say.

  “Really? It’s not even ten o’clock in the morning.”

  “Ice cream is good,” Uncle Karl said.

  “I’ve never thought of ice cream as a breakfast food.”

  “Don’t be an old thinker. Join me in new thoughts. What do you pour over cereal?”

  “Milk.” Benny already knew where this was going.

  “What is the main ingredient in ice cream?”

  “Milk.”

  “Thank you! I like my milk frozen.”

  The truck appeared. It was not an ordinary ice cream truck. A white vehicle approached, which had hundreds of rubber duckies glued to its exterior.

  Something clicked in Benny’s brain and he asked, “Do you own this truck?”

  “Yes! How did you know?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the rubber duckies gave it away. Maybe because instead of Yankee Doodle Dandy or Pop Goes the Weasel, the music coming from the truck is unrec
ognizable noise yet beautiful.”

  “It’s Mozart backwards,” Uncle Karl said with a smile.

  “Nice touch.”

  “I make my employee come here first every morning.”

  “Interesting.”

  The truck stopped in front of Uncle Karl and Benny. Uncle Karl continued to hop up and down like a child. The driver slid the glass window open and greeted Uncle Karl with cheer.

  “Two Super Buddy Chocolate Dips.”

  “Coming right up, sir.”

  The man handed Uncle Karl the two ice creams and he gave him money.

  “I don’t want one of those,” Benny said.

  “One of them is not for you. But get whatever you like.”

  “No thanks,” Benny said.

  Uncle Karl nodded to the driver and he slid the window shut and drove away.

  With an ice cream in each hand, Uncle Karl began to eat, going back and forth between cones. It was as if Benny had disappeared. Benny stood and watched in amazement as he devoured the treats like a professional eater. When he was almost finished he popped his head up and walked toward the back of the house. Benny followed.

  Clarice, the ostrich was waiting by the fence. Walking over to her, Uncle Karl said, “I didn’t forget you.” He held out the nearly finished cones and Clarice gobbled both of them.

  “Nap time!” Uncle Karl announced.

  “What? You haven’t finished the story about the art here in Tilley. You actually haven’t even started talking about the art in Tilley.”

  “That’s why they make tomorrows.” Uncle Karl saluted Benny and said, “Toodles,” and disappeared into the house.

  Chapter 6

  Walking down the dock toward his houseboat, Benny noticed the blinds were now back up in Donny’s office. Thoughts of Rachael slipped across his mind and he tried to push them away. Looking toward his boat, he noticed slight movement and knew Vernon was already inside and waiting. Benny had given him a key after a time in which he’d found Vernon camped out on the upper deck of the houseboat one late evening in emotional shambles. It had been a bad day at home and Vernon needed a place to escape to calm his mind. Benny made him a key the next day and told him anytime he needed a place to breath, he was welcome to let himself in and relax.