by Glenn Trust
Fel watched the ritual grinning as if it was the first time he had ever seen it and not how every day for the last year had started. Sharon caught his eye and added, “Even with family here.”
The old man’s grin spread from ear to ear. Family. That’s what they had become. An unlikely trio, they sat in the tiny apartment over a barn…family. The word felt right.
*****
The rushing thump of feet running was followed by a louder, heavier thump as something, or someone, hit the floor.
“Oowww!”
It was someone. Atlanta homicide detective, Andrew Barnes, stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom putting a tight, neat knot in the silk of the flower print tie. Satisfied with the result on the first try, he checked the nine-millimeter pistol on the dresser, holstered it and picked up the black pin striped suit jacket from the back of a chair across from the bed. Stepping into the hallway, he looked down.
“What’s up, Carl?”
Carlton Barnes lay curled up on the floor, his knee hugged up to his chest by both arms. Eyes closed, he moaned and rolled from side to side in pain. Real or feigned, Andy wasn’t sure, but he knew his boy and his propensity for dramatics.
Opening his eyes, Carl looked up at his father. “They took something, Dad. It’s mine, and they won’t give it back.” He closed his eyes and rolled some more.
Looking across the hall at the open door of the girls’ bedroom, he saw his oldest daughter, Cayla, standing in the doorway. Silent, but wide-eyed, as if to emphasize the import of her discovery, she held up her brother’s secret for her father to see. Little Tanya, the youngest, stood beside her sister hands over her mouth, trying to stifle her laughter.
Extending his arm, he waited for his daughter to deposit the Penthouse magazine in his hand. Rolling it cover side in, he looked at the girls and then his son curled on the floor.
“So what happened, Carl?”
The boy stopped rocking back and forth, but kept his eyes clenched shut. Maybe if he didn’t open them, he wouldn’t have to explain. How could he be expected to talk about it in front of…girls? It was too much. Better just to lie there and be in pain.
Andy clarified. “How did you hurt yourself?”
He cranked his eyes open a hair and looked up at his father. “They came into my room…stole my…” Careful, he thought. He had to be careful how he said it. ‘They took it. It’s not theirs, so I chased them. Banged my knee on the side of the door.” He clenched his eyes back shut and moaned. Overall, it was a great performance. “It hurts.”
Andy nodded solemnly. “Straighten your leg out. Let’s see.”
The boy grimaced, but managed to straighten the leg completely. Kneeling beside his son, Andy ran his hands along the limb and over the knee. Carl winced. Andy stood.
“Well, you bruised it pretty good. I don’t think you broke anything, but you’ll be sore for a few days.” He reached down, took his son’s hand and lifted him to his feet. “Get ready for school now.” Carlton eased a small sigh of relief. There had been no mention of the Penthouse.
“We’ll talk about this tonight.” Andy held out the rolled up magazine indicating his meaning. “Now get moving. You’ll be late.”
“Yes sir.” The boy’s shoulders sagged, deflated at the thought of reopening the issue later with his father. His sisters were going to have a field day with this. The embarrassment might be more than he could bear. He wondered how far a thirteen year old could get on the one hundred and eighty-three dollars he had saved in his sock drawer.
Looking at the girls, still standing in the doorway Andy had to suppress his own smile. “Stay out of your brother’s room.”
“But, Dad, you wouldn’t know about the…” Cayla’s words were cut off by the look of warning in her father’s eyes.
“You want me to let him prowl around your things…you want me and your mother snooping in your room?”
Both girls shook their heads in unison.
“Right. You wouldn’t like that. So, you stay out of Carlton’s room and away from his things. Now you two get ready for school.”
“Yes sir.” Warned and forewarned, they turned somberly and gently closed the door to their room. Their muffled whispers were audible in the hallway.
“I told you not to.”
“You did not.”
“Did so. You’re a snoop”
“Whatever.”
Having resolved the first case of the day, Detective Andrew Barnes walked through the house to the kitchen.
“What’s all the commotion?” Deirdre Barnes stood at the counter organizing lunches for the children, a small, insulated box with a carry strap for each. Fruit and yogurt for Cayla. Ham sandwich for Carlton. Peanut butter and jelly for Tanya. It didn’t vary much from day to day, but preparing the lunches was not a chore. She took pleasure in sending her children off with something from home, something from their mother. An attorney for a downtown law firm, she had decided long ago not to be an absentee parent. She and Andy found ways to make sure that one of them was always there for them. Andy’s promotion to sergeant after his work on the GBI taskforce had given him more schedule flexibility. The kids were rarely alone for long.
“Been reviewing our son’s choice in reading material.” He dropped the Penthouse on the counter beside the lunch boxes.
Raising her eyebrows, Deirdre turned to her husband. “That explains it. I’ve been wondering why he spends so much time in the bathroom lately.”
“Yep. Happens to all of us heathen male types.” Andy grinned at his wife and poured a cup of coffee. “Just a fact of life.”
“Well, I don’t know how to break this to you, Detective, but it happens to us female types to.”
The coffee cup stopped in midair as Andy turned his head towards his wife. “Really?”
“You didn’t know? You think boys are the only ones that go through puberty?”
He shook his head and took a gulp of hot coffee as if to clear a bad taste out of his mouth. “Don’t want to know. Too much information for a father.”
“Oh, so it’s okay for your son to grow up, but not your daughters.”
“That about sums it up.” He smiled placing the cup in the sink. “I’m outta here. See you tonight, babe.” He leaned down, and they exchanged a quick kiss.
At peace, driving down the street in his unmarked city car, the world felt right. Houses with green yards and flowers lined the way. Neighbors nodded or raised a hand in greeting as he passed by. You could almost hear the ‘Mayberry’ theme whistling in the background. The thought made him smile. They had a good life, and he knew it. They were a family.
4. Survive
“They in there?” Thin and pale, the girl ran her hand over her forehead, brushing the stringy blond hair to the side. Pulling her eyes from the charred remains of the house, she turned her head towards her companion. Even in the dim, pre-dawn gray the tweaks and twitches that played across her face were evident. Meth had taken its toll on the twenty-two year old giving her the appearance of a woman a decade older.
“Don’t know. Maybe.” Several years older than the blond, she looked ten years younger. Her chocolate brown face was hardened by life and years of selling her body to the men who came around Nicks Cove. But she had avoided the temptation to try and soften that life with drugs and her physical appearance had not been ravaged in the way her companion’s had.
“What do we do?” There was no reply. “Sonya, what do we do?”
Saying nothing, Sonya, pushed through the bushes surrounding the clearing where the remains of the house smoldered. She stopped, scanning, looking for signs of life. There was none. A single crow called somewhere in the distance, out on his morning hunt.
“Sonya!”
Spinning, Sonya put her finger to her lips. Her face was stern. “Bandy, hush. You make one more sound, and I’m gonna bust you one.” She turned and took a step into the open.
“Sonya!” Pale, thin Bandy was more afraid of being left alone at the edge of the w
oods than of Sonya’s anger. “Sonya, what you doin’?”
Eyes flashing, Sonya turned to the girl. “Gonna check things out. See what it is.” Her eyebrows furrowed downward in a final stern warning. “Now, you can come, or you can stay here, or you can walk back to the Cove, but you best hush. You hear me? You hush, Bandy. Not one more sound.”
The girl nodded and walked softly and quickly to Sonya’s side, eyes lowered, avoiding the stern gaze the way a child does after a scolding. She stood there waiting. With a shake of her head, Sonya reached out, took Bandy’s bone thin hand in hers, and led her into the clearing.
A light mist floated, hovering above the ground, not yet burned off by the rising sun. The air smelled thickly of charred wood…and something else. Blackened timbers piled in a heap smoldered, the morning breeze swirling the smoke around, carrying it into their nostrils.
Stopping several feet from the smoldering ruins of the Nicks’ home, Sonya looked into the woods, and towards the creek running to the side of where the house had stood. She thought for a minute, her eyes moving constantly, scanning. Then making a decision, she opened her mouth.
“Jobie. Elma.” She called the names in a hoarse whisper that seemed obscenely loud in the empty clearing. “You around?”
Bandy, startled by the words after the warning for her to remain silent, squeezed Sonya’s hand with amazing strength, causing her to pull away and flex her fingers.
“Damn, girl. What you trying to do? Break my bones?”
“Sorry. You said to hush. I just got scared.” Bandy’s eyes were lowered, staring at the ground.
“Humph.” Sonya continued to work her fingers, looking at the other girl. “Come on.”
Turning, she led the way around the wreckage of the house. Some things, not many, in the ruins were identifiable. They could make out the stove and refrigerator charred black, the enamel paint boiled off, sitting at odd angles in the area where the small kitchen had been. What looked like the melted ruins of the old television the Nicks used to watch the Braves’ games was a pile of warped plastic and tangled wires. Walking around to the charred rubble where the single bedroom would have been, the two girls stopped.
“Is that…them?” Bandy’s voice was barely audible. Her hand clenched Sonya’s again.
Nodding somberly, Sonya said, “I reckon so.”
There beside the exposed springs of the bed that had burned away were two bodies. They were black, charred lumps really, nearly unidentifiable as human remains. A work boot, blistered and curled from the heat, with part of a leg extending from it identified the body of Jobie Nicks. What was left of Elma had been even more devastated by the flames, but an old stainless steel charm bracelet that she had worn for years was still wrapped around the bones of her left wrist.
Bandy put her head down as her shoulders began shaking rhythmically in soft sobs. “What we gonna do Sonya?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head slowly, eyes fixed on the two lumps that had been living human beings a few hours earlier.
“We got to tell somebody.” Bandy looked up at the stronger Sonya. “We got to,” she said, her voice pleading.
“Who we gonna tell, girl?” She turned her head to Bandy. “Who gonna believe two whores?”
“It ain’t right, we don’t tell somebody.” Shaking her head, her tear filled eyes looked at Sonya. “It ain’t right.”
“You heard what that big man who came around said. Things are changing. We work for him now.” She looked back at the blackened lumps that had been Jobie and Elma Nicks. “Reckon they have changed for sure now.”
“But the Nicks…”
“The Nicks are gone. Best you start thinking about you and how we gonna come out of this.”
Pulling her by the arm, Sonya led Bandy across the clearing and back to the path. They walked the half mile to Nicks Cove in silence. When they arrived at the spot, named for the widening of the creek that wound through the swamp, and the couple who had owned the land for forty years, they went into the house that Sonya occupied. It had been given to her to use by the Nicks as the senior member of the group, and the most sought after by the men who visited the Cove. The other girls who lived in the trailers scattered around the area, waited in the small front room. Sonya spent fifteen minutes explaining and describing what they had found in the clearing where the Nicks had lived for their married life. Several sobbed. One of them stood up and walked to the door.
“We got to get out, now.”
Sonya shook her head. “No, that’s not the way. These people, that big man, he’ll find us if we try to run. You heard what he said.”
The girl stopped, her hand on the doorknob. “Not if we all head out at once. They can’t chase us all down.”
“You know that for a fact?” Sonya’s voice was harsh. “You didn’t see what he did to Elma and Jobie.” She closed her eyes trying to force the picture out of her mind. “You didn’t see.”
“We got to try, Sonya. We got to do something.”
“What we got to do is survive.” The eyes in the room, some wide with fear, others narrowed and thoughtful, considering the odds, all of them concerned turned in her direction. “Now let’s just set here and figure out how we do that.” Sonya’s head moved side to side scanning each face. “Survive.”
5. Making Her Smile
Sitting astride the old John Deere mower, Fel Tobin stood sentinel, as he did every morning, waiting for George to pass by in the brown Pickham County Ford F-150. He mowed a path along the edge of the driveway and stopped, facing the road, looking into the woods on the other side, occasionally turning his head one way or the other, watching a car or truck pass by on the two-lane.
Gravel crunched. George’s pickup came up the two hundred feet of driveway, and stopped briefly. He looked to his left and gave a short wave to Fel who lifted his hand in return. Turning onto the road, he accelerated rapidly away, towards Everett, the county seat. George Mackey, Chief Deputy to Pickham County Sheriff Sandy Davies, had a big day ahead. They were going to start cleaning up some local garbage, and it was long overdue.
Watching Fel in the rearview mirror, he knew the old man would also be busy, riding the John Deere back and forth across the yard. There wouldn’t be much mowing going on since Fel kept it scalped so low the grass was barely alive. When they returned home to the apartment over Fel’s barn that evening he would be out on the house’s front porch in one of the old kitchen chairs sipping beer and waiting for them to join him. They would. Their time with him was as important to them as it was to him.
George saw Fel take off the old straw hat and wipe out the inside with a handkerchief he carried in a pocket of his overalls. He felt peaceful of late, and the little family routines that Sharon’s presence had brought to their lives made him at ease. It was a comfortable feeling. An unconscious smile crossed his face as he took the turn around the bend in the road.
Five minutes later, the gravel crunched again and Fel waited patiently on the idling mower, looking straight ahead across the road until Sharon pulled even with him in the small SUV she had bought soon after moving into the barn apartment with George. She rolled the window down and leaned out.
“Bye, Fel. See you tonight.”
Turning his head, the old man gave a toothy grin that lit his face up under the straw hat’s wide brim. “Bye, darlin’. You have a good day.”
“You too.” They gave each other a short lift of the hand wave and Sharon turned the SUV onto the pavement following George’s route into Everett.
After the shooting, during her recovery, Bob Shaklee, her boss at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, held her job open for her. It was still open, he told her frequently. But after leaving the hospital, she had decided to take George up on his offer and come to Pickham County. George and Sheriff Davies had put in a good word for her and the District Attorney had taken her on as a special investigator and case preparation assistant.
She thought about George as she drove. Their relationshi
p had become…well, neither of them were sure what it had become. It was warm and comfortable, passionate at times in a way neither had experienced before. Somehow it didn’t seem like the kind of relationship she remembered her parents having, or even the one old Fel described when he talked about his wife Colleen who had been dead more than twenty years now. What did that mean? Was it supposed to be the same? Should it be the same? Or was what she and George had right for them? She had no answers. She knew that it made her happy when he was there.
Dappled sunlight blinked in and out of the car as she passed under the trees lining the country road. The memory of George standing in his undershorts on the deck by the apartment’s front door, hair tousled and sleepy eyed handing Fel a mug of coffee made her smile. The big deputy did that a lot. He made her smile. It was enough.
6. Some Pay, Some Get Rich
Seated behind the wheel, the heavyset man regarded his new partner out of the corner of his eye. The starched, open collar of a light blue shirt was visible above the lapels of the beige suit, dressed for traveling, but not like an American traveler, more formal. The driver wore the same cargo shorts and sandals he had worn the day before at the pool. The Hawaiian shirt was different. He was dressed for traveling too, more comfortable.
The black Cadillac Escalade moved away from the beach, leaving the Gulf of Mexico behind. Winding its way through the streets of Clearwater, Florida it came to the multiple-lane Highway 60 and turned east heading across Tampa Bay. The Courtney Campbell Causeway extended ten miles across the bay, linking Tampa and Hillsborough County with Clearwater and Pinellas County and took twenty miles off the land route.
Moving along the causeway, open water glittering in the sun on both sides, the men rode quietly. They had concluded their business agreement the day before at the hotel.
“May I?” The thin olive skinned man held up a robusto sized Cohiba cigar.
The heavyset driver turned his head and smiled. “Absolutely.”
