by J. Wachowski
We watched him walk away and I asked, “Why’s he busting your ass?”
Curzon cracked a smile, then shook his finger at me. “No family business on the first date. It’s a rule.”
“This isn’t a date. This is work.”
He countered with a frown but his good humor didn’t fade. “In that case, I believe Marc is indicating that should Jost’s suicide become publicized, Nicky’s reprimand will be fair game in the race for sheriff.”
“All that from three sentences?”
“We’ve known each other a while.”
“And what do you want me to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why am I here?”
Green-eyed death glare. Before he could fire off another one of those scintillating one-word answers, Jenny obliged him by crashing into the conversation, red-faced and breathless. I’d never seen her so charged up.
“Hey kid, nice timing.”
“Why don’t you come see me at the station around lunchtime tomorrow?” Curzon threw out suddenly. “Leave your boy. Come hungry.”
“Did you see me?” Jenny asked. “Wasn’t that great? Come hungry where? What are you talking about?”
“You can’t be hungry, kid.” I slipped off the wall, careful of how my weight landed. “I saw that hamburger you ate.”
“Remind your aunt tomorrow morning, she’s having lunch with me, so she can tell me all about her incident,” Curzon said to Jenny, with a head nod toward my bad leg.
Jenny’s face squinched suspiciously. “What does he mean ‘incident’?”
He answered before I thought to stop him. “With the car, when she hurt her leg.”
“What car?” Jenny rounded on me with all the drama of a soap diva. “You said you fell.”
“I did fall.” I glared at Curzon, even though-technically-this wasn’t his fault. “A car made me fall.”
All the fun visible on Jenny’s face vanished.
Hit-and-run. It happens just that fast.
4:34:25 p.m.
“We need to make a stop, College.” I looked over my shoulder into the back seat. “That fine with you, Jen?”
She managed the effort of a single shoulder shrug while staring grimly out the window.
I really needed to work. We needed more material if we were going to squeeze out six decent minutes. The desire to be in the studio-in the dark and absorbed by my process-bubbled in my blood like a junkie’s addiction.
My hands even shook a little at the thought of going straight home, straight back to my sister’s empty house with Jenny. She had not said one word to me since Curzon dropped the bomb. Mistake after mistake, I was piling them on as fast as Tom Jost did in his last weeks.
For some reason my brain kept replaying Curzon’s comment that Jost must have stood on those boxes a while before he died.
What had he been doing? The Amish clothes and his choice of location suggested he was spitting in his father’s eye. But the fact that he wanted to marry Rachel in the Amish church also suggested the costume was for her benefit.
Is it date rape if the guy is trying to compel you to marry him?
Or is it kidnapping?
Ainsley glanced in his rearview mirror, monitoring Jenny’s mood. “Where’re we stopping?”
“Let’s try Tom Jost’s apartment building again. It’s Sunday afternoon. The neighbors should be home. Maybe we can talk to the super or something.”
“Tom’s apartment.” Ainsley hooked the turn that would put us closer to Jost’s apartment on the fringe of town. “I’m on it.”
Jenny said nothing. Every so often, I’d catch a snap of anger in her eyes right before everything stiffened into the child zombie routine.
“What’s the problem, Jenny? You’ve been sulking since we left the party.”
“No problem,” she mumbled.
“You can see I’m fine. I didn’t say anything about the stupid car because I thought it would bother you, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
Ainsley raised both eyebrows.
This time the drive seemed to take forever, even without the whole Top 40 sing-along. It was close to sunset when we finally pulled into Jost’s parking lot. There were windows open in several apartments and more cars in the lot than the last time we visited. I could smell a charcoal grill. Good signs. The “All Stressed Out and No One To Choke” bumper sticker showed a certain amount of ambient hostility but who am I to criticize?
“You want to come in with us?” I asked Jenny over my shoulder, “or wait here in the car?”
“Car.”
“Fine.”
“Okay,” Ainsley added.
I’m not entirely sure he wasn’t making fun of us. I slammed my car door before opening the back hatch.
We’d packed cameras, of course. Ainsley had loaded the car without a repeat of the we-sleep-with-equipment speech. At least the boy retained new information.
“Let’s carry cameras to the door this time.” I pulled my press card out of my messenger bag and clipped it to my shirt.
We aren’t supposed to be class snobs in the good ol’ U.S. of A. but there’s a certain segment of the population that still got so tickled at the thought of seeing their faces on television, they’d say or do just about anything to get there. Perhaps even give a lady a tour of an apartment that might normally be considered off limits.
I could see Jenny was busy not watching us from the car.
It took two rings before we got an answer.
The intercom buzzed. “Whozzit?”
“Looking for the building manager?”
There was a long pause and then the electric click and hum of the lock release.
No one came out to greet us but I gravitated toward the only door in the hall that had a buzzer button. Someone had posted a line of notices down the door that included a shiny Volunteer Fire Department sticker and Solicitors Will Be Shot on Sight.
I could hear voices coming from inside the apartment, raised over the sound of the television.
“…they want?”
“…the hell should I know?”
The door popped open and a fine native specimen in a Chicago Bears T-shirt announced, “I’m the manager. What d’ya need?” He had a round face, belly and shiny spot on top where the hair was missing. He’d make a terrific contrast to our first interview, Farmer Lowe, and even better one to Old Mr. Jost, if I could ever get the Amish man on film.
“Sorry to bother you. I’m Maddy O’Hara from WWST and we’re working on a story about someone who used to live in this building. Guy named Tom Jost?”
“Television?”
“That’s right.” I smiled. Moments like these always feel a bit like I’m holding out the dog biscuit with one hand, while the net dangles behind my back in the other.
“You want to put me on television?” he said with a grin. He sucked in his gut and puffed out his chest a la Fred Flintstone. He didn’t sound surprised, more like his moment had finally arrived.
“If you aren’t too busy.” More smiling.
“Hold on a minute.” He shut the door in our faces.
Ainsley set the camera case on the ground and scratched his head. In a bad-news tone, he told me, “Uh, Maddy, I didn’t bring enough lighting to shoot an interior interview.”
“What?”
“Sorry. You said it was a picnic. Picnics are outside. I can do docudrama style.”
“‘Docudrama style’? That’s two, College.”
He rolled his eyes up to heaven hoping for a second opinion.
“Maybe we can shoot the manager on Jost’s patio.”
The sound of a ball game on television mingled with the voices inside.
“…no shit?” a woman’s voice asked.
“…clean fuckin’ shirt?” answered our Fred Flintstone with the potty mouth.
“Not as if lighting is going to make the difference for this guy,” I had to concede.
Fred re-emerged a few minutes later in a clean knit shirt, with very unfortunate horizontal stripes, and the word Manager embroidered above the pocket. He’d clipped a carabiner full of keys to his belt loop that gave him a jingle as he walked.
“Tom’s place is right down here. You want to see inside?”
“That would be great.”
“Cops were here last week but they didn’t say nothing about it being off limits. I can let you in. No problem.” He had one eye on Ainsley’s camera box. “Am I gonna be on TV?”
“I was hoping you might agree to let us interview you if you’ve got a minute? We’d like to ask a few questions about Mr. Jost.”
Ainsley unsnapped the case and had the camera on his shoulder ready to roll faster than I’ve ever seen.
“Did the police remove much from the apartment?”
“Nothing to take,” he assured me. “Guy lived like a hermit. Cops walked through. Took some pictures, a few personal papers. That was it.”
“Did you know Tom?”
“Yeah, sure. I manage this building so he had to come through me for everything. Keys, light bulbs, shower clogs, I do it all. I think he had one clog, once. Odd guy. Nice enough, sure, but something about him. Wasn’t right, you know?” He tapped his temple with his finger. “Guy was a firefighter for the city though. You knew that, right? I’m local VFD myself, so when this guy calls saying there’s a fellow fireman looking for a place, I’m gonna help him out, you know, Amish or whatever.” He unlocked the door and waved us through.
Jost’s apartment was as spare as I remembered. Ainsley set up with a flood lamp attachment, which would probably look crappy, but was the best choice given the circumstances. I walked around pointing out the pick-ups I wanted: the lonely bed, the uniform fresh from the cleaner, the photo of Tom and Rachel at the carnival.
“Tell me more about Tom.”
He crossed his arms above his gut and propped himself against the table, the picture of authority. “Well, he was real quiet. Never heard him coming in, going out. Most of the people in this building, I know when they come and go. Not Tom. Never drank beer, either, and I offered plenty of times. Never took me up on it. Then, there was the problem with the animals. Couple times, I had to give him warnings about that. No pets allowed, you know.”
“What about the dog sign out front?” Ainsley pointed out.
“That’s a guard dog.”
Ah. “What kind of pets did Jost keep?”
“They weren’t pets. They were pests. Baby birds that made a nest in the firehouse and had to be fed like every commercial break, you know? No one in the firehouse would take them so he did. Shit like that, pardon my French.” He glanced at the camera. “Sorry.”
A woman with straw-colored hair and freshly applied lipstick popped her head around the corner. “Honey? Mrs. B is on the phone.”
“I’m busy here,” Fred replied.
“She says it’s an emergency.” She whined at him, but smiled at me. “They never leave him alone. Especially on weekends.”
Fred heaved a gusty sigh. “This’ll only take a minute.”
“No problem.”
I was afraid the wife would stay to supervise but Fred pulled her into a hotly whispered argument on his way out, the gist of which seemed to be if he couldn’t stay to be on TV, neither would she.
“Leave the set up,” I told Ainsley the minute the door closed. “Let’s look around.” Ainsley made a face like he’d swallowed something nasty and shook his head no. I got busy opening kitchen cabinets, the utility closet, the fridge.
“Don’t panic. I’m not going to ask you to roll camera on his underwear drawer.”
In a worry-whisper, he asked, “What are you looking for?”
“You’ll know when you see it.”
The best thing about my college boy was he mostly did as he was told. The camera came with him. In most camera jocks, this would be because the camera is as much a part of them as some people see their shoes, their keys, their wallets. Ainsley wanted it for his cover story, in case we got busted searching the place.
Exploring Jost’s place did not take long. If there was anything interesting to find, we’d have found it. The only halfway remarkable item was the sheer mass of strawberry jam-at least two dozen jars in the cabinet.
“How much jam can a guy eat?”
“Don’t knock it. This is really good stuff.” Ainsley pulled down a jar and held it out for me. “You ever had Amish fruit spread?”
“Focus, College. Stay focused.”
I grabbed the jam jar and looked more closely at the label. The handwriting on the front was a thin, slanted script that seemed to barely touch the paper. It made me wonder if Tom’s taste for preserves had more to do with the strawberries or the girl who made them.
“Let’s try the bedroom.”
Empty, except for a full-sized box spring and mattress. I looked under the bed. “Nothing.”
“Why do you say it like that?” Ainsley asked. “Is being neat such a crime?”
“Guy had a trunk full of pornography, remember?”
“So?”
“It occurs to me, College, there are more convenient places to peruse your porno collection than the car.”
“Oh. I get you.” Ainsley ducked behind the viewfinder.
There was nowhere in the room to hide anything. The guy didn’t even have a night stand. His phone charger sat empty on the floor, plugged into the outlet closest to the bed. The closet was as sparsely arranged as the kitchen cupboards. I shuffled the few hanging items over to the far side of the closet. A tool belt hung on a hook above a set of construction boots. There was something tucked behind his boots in the back corner, an empty box for a pair of brand new, long-range binoculars.
“Check this out,” I called.
“This guy doesn’t even have a stereo,” Ainsley pointed out. “Why’s he got those?”
“Watching the neighbors?”
Ainsley peeked out around the camera. “You’ve got a bad opinion of humans for the most part.”
“You think?”
“Maybe Jost was a bird watcher,” Ainsley suggested, hopefully.
“I’m back,” Fred called.
I stood up and faced the door.
“Oh, here you are.” He gave a little self-effacing chuckle and then bluntly asked, “Look my wife’s wondering if you can put her on TV too?”
“Sure. Great idea.”
An hour’s worth of interview with Fred and his wife and I was generating spin-offs for future stories: Dangers of Rural Housing Developments.
“We are on a roll, College,” I reported as we pulled out of Jost’s parking lot. “We scored background and meat on the same day. Things are looking up.”
The sun was at the hard edge of the horizon and setting the sky on fire. The green-white light of the street lamps burned like spot-flares above Butterfield Road’s five lanes of strip mall flow. Everything looks better when the work goes well.
The empty binocular box kept running through my head. According to Manager Fred, the cops hadn’t removed anything from the place. “What’s there to take?” he’d scoffed.
The cops wouldn’t make the connection to the death scene I was making because they hadn’t seen my photos. At this point, I was the only one who knew someone had been watching Jost hang through binoculars. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask the cops if they knew anything that might explain the empty box or the watcher in the barn without Curzon requesting full disclosure.
Technically, there was no crime here-a broken heart, a soiled reputation, the hell of a public shame. Nope. That’s no crime.
Could Tom Jost have arranged for someone to be looking through binoculars when he kicked that box out from under him? Or did he figure his father would want to check it out after the fact, when the commotion of police and fire trucks arrived on the scene?
Rachel told us her father wouldn’t let her watch. Was that because her father knew exactly what she’d see? No
thing quite made sense.
“Let’s make one more stop, College.”
There might have been a sigh but it was a small one. The Boy Wonder was getting used to me.
“Where?”
“That sporting goods store up ahead, where 355 meets Butterfield.”
A plan started percolating, based on my curiosity and a chink of suspected guilt. There’s more than one way to squeeze info from a situation. Sometimes it’s a question of the right tool.
Ainsley parked but left it running. Swearing I didn’t need a lot of time, I slipped into the store as the manager was locking up. Nobody remembered Jost. I found what I needed and was out in less than ten.
The sky had already faded to twilight-black. I opened my car door. Ainsley and Jenny hit the mute button. They’d been talking, I could hear the silence in Ainsley’s sudden smile.
“What’s in the bag?” he asked.
“Project for tomorrow morning.”
All the stores were closing and it took a while to maneuver through the glut of cars in the parking lot. Ainsley was watching his mirrors closely. I should have known something was up. Boys don’t check their mirrors when they drive; everything important is in front of them.
At the second stop light, he leaned toward me, speaking softly, “What sort of car was it gave you trouble?”
“This morning? Silver SUV.”
“Crap.” Ainsley jerked his chin, toward the rearview mirror. I twisted to look out the back window.
One lane over, one car back, hummed a silver SUV with tinted windows.
“How long has he been back there?”
“First noticed him when we left Jost’s place.” Ainsley was watching the guy in the side mirror. “I didn’t think anything of it, except he followed us into the parking lot. I never saw anybody get out of the car and then when we pulled out of the lot, suddenly he’s behind us again.”
The left turn arrow went green. I had half a minute, maybe.
Something happened to me a long time ago, wires got crossed that were never meant to be crossed. When most people are frightened of something, they back away. I run straight at it.
“Maddy-” Ainsley called. “Jee-zus. Wait!”
Too late. I’d flung open my door and started stalking my way through the traffic. The headlights of the cars I crossed in front of flared like spotlights. A horn blew.
