A Field of Poppies

by Sharon Sala

  She lifted her chin, and as she did their gazes locked. She saw anger and pride in Vic’s face and understood why he was behaving like a tyrant, but she wasn’t in the mood to kiss ass.

  He took her silence for defiance, but the longer he stared the more certain he became that something was wrong. She was unusually pale and her fingers were shaking. Because the behavior was so unlike her, it disarmed him.

  “Just get back to work and see that it doesn’t happen again,” he muttered.

  She went back into the dining room before he could change his mind, and slipped into the routine without a single word of explanation, leaving the rest of the crew to think what they liked.

  It wasn’t until a couple of her regulars came in for their mid-morning coffee that the fragile hold on her sanity began to unravel. They sat at their usual table and then waved her over.

  “Poppy! Did you save us any jelly doughnuts?”

  “Hey Bug. Hey Charlie. Where’s your ark? I thought you two would know better than to get out in a flood.”

  The old men laughed. “Twenty-two years of coal dust went and fogged up our brains. All we do now is follow our bellies. What about them doughnuts and coffee?”

  She tried a smile. It felt strange on her face but hoped they wouldn’t notice.

  “I saved you some. Be right back.”

  She returned quickly with the doughnuts and coffee then moved on to her other tables to top off their cups. It wasn’t until she walked past her last table that she realized word was beginning to spread about her father’s murder.

  “...heard it on the news right before I drove down here. They pulled a dead body out of the Little Man. Said they he was all shot up. Scary shit, hunh? I guess he pissed off the wrong person and that’s what he got.”

  “Really? Did they say who it was?”

  “No. They were still notifying next of kin. Imagine getting that wake up call.”

  Then the woman looked up, saw Poppy and pointed toward her coffee cup. “Hey, honey, I’d like a little more.”

  Poppy managed to pour the coffee without making a mess and quickly headed for the counter, pretending to switch coffee pots and wipe up a spill to get herself together.

  Jewel saw Poppy stagger as she reached for the cleaning rag then noticed her hands were trembling.

  “What’s the matter with you? Are you sick? If you are, you shouldn’t have come in and spread your damn germs around.”

  Poppy flinched as if she’d been slapped, then turned on Jewel, spitting words in short, staccato bursts.

  “Thank you for your concern but you can’t catch what’s wrong with me.”

  Jewel took a quick step back, thinking Poppy was going to hit her. Not once in the four years they’d worked together had she ever seen her act like this.

  And once again, it was anger that pulled Poppy back from the edge. She picked up an order and walked away, blanking her mind on everything but the job. All she had to do was get to the end of the day and then she could scream.

  But not now.

  Not here.

  Not in front of people who didn’t have her back.

  ****

  Vic kept watching Poppy from across the room, convinced something was wrong. He was considering sending her home when his cell phone rang. When he saw it was his fiancé, Michelle, he mentally shifted gears, making sure he sounded happy that she’d called him at work - again.

  “Good morning, my sweetheart. How are you?”

  Michelle Burkhart smiled. Vic was such a honey and she was the luckiest girl on earth.

  “I’m fine, darling. Did you make it in okay? This rain is just awful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is, and I hope you’re staying home. I don’t want you out driving around in this mess. Can’t have anything happening to my best girl.”

  Michelle giggled. “I won’t, I promise. Oh my, I almost forgot why I called. Isn’t there a woman named Sadler who works at The Depot?”

  Vic’s gaze immediately slid toward Poppy.

  “Yes, there is. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, it’s all over the news and it’s just awful. You heard about them pulling a body out of the Little Man this morning, right?”

  Vic frowned. “No, I didn’t. Why? What does that have to do with Poppy?”

  “Oh. Is that her name? Anyway, about that body they found. They said the man was murdered but they hadn’t given out his name until just now. They identified the man as Jessup Sadler. I wondered if they were any relation?”

  Vic’s gut knotted. “That’s her father.”

  “Eww, how awful. I thought I should let you know since she works for us. Maybe we should send flowers or something, whatever you think best.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ll make sure to take care of that. Thank you for calling, honey. I’ll see you this evening.”

  “I can’t wait,” Michelle said, and then giggled again before she hung up.

  Vic slipped the phone back in his pocket, debating with himself about what to say to Poppy. She had to know. The cops would have already told her before the name was released. He couldn’t believe she’d still come to work. Why hadn’t she told him straight out what had happened? And the minute he thought it, he knew.

  Money.

  In Coal Town, it was always the first word on the worry list. He guessed they were already struggling because of her mother’s cancer and now this. He couldn’t imagine what she must be thinking.

  He watched, waiting until she headed into the kitchen with a tray of dirty dishes before he followed her inside.

  “Uh...Poppy, we need to talk.”

  She turned around, saw the pity on his face and knew he’d heard.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

  No, no, no, we’re not having this discussion. “Tell you what?”

  “About your dad.”

  “What about him?”

  Vic felt sick. Oh hell, maybe she doesn’t know. “Have you talked to the police this morning?”

  She leaned against the sink, giving herself time to think. Once she gave life to these words, there would be no taking them back. The reality of what happened would become fact. Finally, her shoulders slumped.

  “Yes, I talked to them.”

  Vic’s relief was instantaneous. “Oh. Thank God, I thought... anyway, never mind what I thought. Dang it Poppy, you should have told me. What kind of an ogre do you think I am? I would have understood. I would have expected you to stay home.”

  Poppy’s eyes welled, but she wouldn’t cry.

  “What good would it do to stay home and watch it rain? I can’t do anything. I can’t change anything. They haven’t even found our car. I need the money and I’m in limbo. The best place for me to be is here. I just can’t talk about it, okay?”

  Jewel walked in on that line and realized she’d interrupted something. But since no one told her to get lost, she stood her ground as Vic continued.

  “But honey, now that it’s been on the news everyone is going to know what happened to your daddy. They’re going to know he was murdered. When the lunch crowd arrives, the people who know you will either be watching to see if you break into tears or they’ll want to talk about it. Surely you’d rather be with your Mom at the hospital today. Does she know?”

  Poppy started to shake. “She’s not there.”

  Vic frowned. “But I thought-“

  Poppy took a deep breath. Help me Jesus.

  “She died this morning. The hospital called right before the cops showed up at the door.” She tried to focus but her words sounded like she was talking down a well. “When they said Daddy was dead, that they’d pulled his body from the Little Man, I thought he’d probably gotten drunk and drowned.”

  She glanced up. Everyone in the kitchen was listening and the expressions on their faces were almost her undoing. She blinked then looked away.

  “But I was wrong. Someone shot my daddy three times and threw his body in the Little Man and I don’t know why. So they
’re dead. They’re both dead.”

  Jewel wasn’t the kind for emotional displays, but she felt guilty on so many levels for how she’d treated Poppy this morning that she reached for her without thinking.

  “Oh honey! I’m so sorry. If I’d known I-“

  Poppy flinched and pulled back. “Don’t! You didn’t care this morning before you knew, so you don’t get to care now. Don’t touch me. Don’t anybody touch me.”

  All of a sudden the walls started to move. She had to get out. She had to get out now before they came any closer. She staggered toward the break room to her locker, grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder, pulled on her raincoat and headed for the back door.

  “Wait, Poppy! Wait damn it! I’ll take you home,” Vic yelled.

  Poppy stopped. “No. I don’t want your pity. Am I fired?”

  Vic threw up his hands. “Hell no, you’re not fired! Just call when you’re ready to come back, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you at least let me call a cab for you?” he asked.

  She shook her head and opened the door. There was a moment when she was silhouetted against the rain and the wall of graffiti on the other side of the alley then she walked out into the downpour, slamming the door behind her.

  Jewel was ashamed and left the kitchen.

  Vic felt like a heel.

  Sonny started shouting orders, making everyone get busy.

  “God damn it,” Vic muttered, and followed Jewel back into the dining area.

  ****

  Detective Harmon was on his way to Caulfield #14 to talk to the foreman who’d fired Jessup Sadler. They needed a break in the case. Whatever evidence might have been left on the riverbank when Sadler’s body was dumped had been washed away with the rain and the same for the forensic evidence that might have been on Jessup Sadler. It disappeared when he went into the river.

  However, he knew Bonaventure and Sadler had some bad blood between them and Bonaventure better have a damn good alibi or he was going to be the first name on the suspect list.

  The road up to the mine was blacktopped, but the runoff from the rain was like driving on a water slide. Once he even hydro-planed but managed to regain control before he went off the road.

  “God damn rain,” Harmon muttered as he steered the car out of a slide.

  He’d made the last payment on it less than three months ago. The last thing he needed was to wreck it and glared at his surroundings. The road leading to the mine had been cut through what must have once been a heavily forested area. Now it was raw and denuded from the mining, like a half-dressed woman slowly stripping for whoever paid to watch.

  The damage throughout West Virginia from both strip and mountain top mining would have been painful to see for anyone who loved nature, but that did not include Harmon. He’d grown up in a city and did not love the great outdoors. He did not appreciate how much destruction had occurred, or the amount of years and money in reclamation it would take to put it back. All he knew was that the mine he was going to today was the kind that gave him the creeps. He couldn’t imagine working inside the belly of a mountain and sucking in coal dust while knowing at any time that a pocket of poison gas or a cave-in would be what ended your life.

  According to his GPS he was less than a mile from the mine. He began watching for the sign that would show him where to turn when all of a sudden something darted out of the bushes and across his path. He stomped the brakes, but not in time. There was a heavy thud, the familiar sound of crumpling metal, and then the sudden cacophony of an animal in mortal pain.

  “Well, son-of-a-bitch!” he muttered, and shoved the car in park.

  He got out, immediately soaked despite the raincoat he was wearing, and moved around to the front of his car just as a teenage boy came flying out of the trees with a rifle in his hand.

  Between the mangled dog on the road and the look of shock on the boy’s face, Harmon knew his day was about to get worse.

  The boy leaped across the bar ditch and knelt by the redbone hound that was yelping and writhing in pain.

  “Oh Mister, what did you do?”

  “Look son. I’m real sorry, but the dog ran out in front of me. With this rain and all, I didn’t even see him until it was too late. If he’s hurt bad we can load him up and take him back down to Caulfield to the vet.”

  “Easy Sam, easy old boy,” the boy murmured as he ran his hands over the dog’s body, although the obvious wounds were already visible to the eye.

  The dog’s yelps and cries of pain had diminished to an occasional whimper. There were broken bones piercing the dog’s flesh in several locations and two of his legs lay in the opposite position to the way God had meant them. Basically, the dog was dead and just didn’t know it yet.

  “He’s ruined,” the boy said. “His ribs are all broke up. There’s blood coming out of both ears. His legs, oh God, his legs... he’ll never run on them legs again, even if nothing else was wrong.”

  “I’d be happy to pay the vet bill,” Harmon said. “You pick him up and we can go back-“

  Before he could finish what he’d been going to say, the boy stood, put the barrel of his rifle against the dog’s head, and pulled the trigger.

  Harmon jumped like he was the one who’d been shot. It was obvious the boy was heartbroken, and yet he’d been man enough to do what had to be done so the dog would not suffer.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Harmon asked.

  But the boy was through talking. He slung the rifle strap over his shoulder, picked the big hound up in his arms and crossed the road into the trees.

  Harmon stood in the downpour while his eyes burned and his stomach rolled. He started back toward the car then stopped and threw up until his ribs were aching. Finally, he dragged himself into the car and shut the door.

  The engine was still running and the rain hammering on the roof of the car was almost deafening.

  He glanced at the GPS.

  He was less than a hundred yards from his turn-off. Five seconds difference one way or the other and the accident would never have happened. He wouldn’t let himself think about the years of that dog’s life or of his own daily routine, and why the universe decided that today was the day they would meet and one be the reason for the other one’s death.

  He started to put the car in gear and then stopped, crossed his arms on the steering wheel and dropped his head. Before he knew it he was sobbing.

  It took almost five minutes before he got himself under control, and another five minutes before he trusted himself enough to drive. When he finally took off, he was shaking.

  By the time he got to Caulfield #14, he was in one hell of a mood.

  He parked, killed the engine, and then looked at the muddy expanse he was going to have to cross to get to the trailer house that served as an office. He reminded himself it was part of the job, but when he got out and lost both shoes in the mud before he’d gone five steps, he got pissed all over again.

  He stomped past the truck yard with his shoes in his hand while the mud slowly pulled the socks off his feet. By the time he reached the office he was barefoot. There wasn’t a rational thought left in his head as he knocked on the office door.

  The door opened abruptly, as if the man inside had seen him coming and had been waiting for the knock.

  “Come on in here out of that miserable weather,” the man said.

  “Are you Tom Bonaventure?” Harmon snapped.

  “Why, yes sir. Yes, I am.”

  All Harmon saw was the man’s black eye and busted lip before his mind slid to how that might have happened, like maybe two men fighting on the banks of the Little Man before one of them pulled a gun and ended the fight.

  “We need to talk,” he stated, and pushed his way inside.

  Bonaventure had been a little anxious before, but now he was nervous.

  “Detective Harmon, right? Here you go, have a seat right here and I’ll pour you up a cup of hot coffee to break that chi
ll.”

  Harmon shed his raincoat by the door, dropped his shoes on the floor and threw his socks in a trash can. His bare muddy feet made little splat-splat sounds as he walked across the cheap green linoleum and wondered why they hadn’t laid down a color in some shade of brown. It would have at least matched the grime on top of it.

  Bonaventure politely ignored the man’s condition as he poured coffee to within an inch of the rim. “How do you take your coffee, Detective?”

  “Black,” Harmon said, and managed to nod a brief thank you as the man put it in his hands.

  It was hot and bitter and at least a day and a half old, but it had caffeine, and for now that was enough. He took a quick sip, set it on the desk between them, then opened his notebook and fixed Bonaventure with a hard, angry stare.

  “I understand you fired Jessup Sadler less than a week ago. What was your reason?”

  “Why, drinking on the job,” Bonaventure said. “It’s against strict policy, you understand. Can’t have a drunk down in the hole. Makes him a danger to more people than himself.”

  Harmon made a quick note.

  “How did he take it?”

  “Well sir, he was mad. He was real mad, but he knew the rules.”

  “Did he mention anything about the fact that it would cost him his pension - a pension he was only months away from drawing? Or that losing his job would end his health insurance and put his dying wife’s care in jeopardy?”

  Bonaventure felt like a trapped rat. This wasn’t going well. The way the detective sounded, it made it seem as if he was the one at fault, not the man who’d come drunk.

  “He mentioned all of that,” Bonaventure said.

  “And you weren’t persuaded that he might have a second chance? Like sending him home and docking his pay instead of firing him just before his thirty years were up?”

  Bonaventure frowned. “A rule is a rule, Detective and I didn’t make none of them. I was just hired to follow them.”

  “So who has the final word here?”

  “Why, that would be Mr. Caulfield. Of course it didn’t come to that. Jessup took his firin’ like a man and left after he’d said his piece. I didn’t hear from him again.”