A Field of Red

by Greg Enslen

She nodded.

  “I filed the report, like you said. And gave them the envelope with all the photos of our property and me, so there was proof, if he ever hits me again,” she said, glancing around. “Not sure how that’s going to work, though. His buddies might protect him. But my sister’s staying over, and things are already a lot better.”

  Frank nodded slowly and looked her in the eyes.

  “Keep an eye open,” Frank said, frowning. “Things will get worse for a while—a lot worse—before they get better.”

  She was taken aback.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, glancing around comically, as if her ex-husband were hiding behind the crane game machine that stood near the front door.

  Frank nodded and resisted saying anything else. He looked at her and nodded again, then turned back to his breakfast. After a long moment, she walked away, much less chipper than she had been before.

  Why did he do that? Frank knew he should say something to her, something more comforting, but he couldn’t force himself to bullshit her.

  He’d had enough bullshit in his life. Too many lies, too much death. He liked to keep things simple, truthful. Maybe he’d been too truthful too often. Maybe that’s how he ended up sitting at this random table, eating breakfast alone in a small town he’d never heard of.

  Sugarcoating things never worked. Trudy never wanted to hear about his work or the troubling things he saw. She only wanted to hear the good stories, and there weren’t many of those. Frank must’ve started repeating himself somewhere along the line, because she’d lost interest. First in his career, then in him, and then their marriage.

  Gina, the waitress, had asked for advice on his first visit, and he’d given it to her. Why had she asked? Maybe he still looked like a cop. That barkeep Saturday night had said the same, so maybe Frank still gave off the appearance of someone who cared. Or should care, at least.

  But Gina had asked for his advice, and he’d given it, freely. He’d walked her through the steps, and she’d jotted them all down on the back of her ticket book. She asked intelligent questions, questions that told Frank she might have a chance of extricating herself from the situation.

  He’d seen it enough to know the chances weren’t good, but he thought she might be able to pull it off. Of course, it was up to her to follow through, to make it work. Either way, he didn’t really care—he’d seen too many people in bad situations to assume it would work out. It usually didn’t.

  He resisted the temptation to call Gina back over and say something comforting, like “oh, you don’t need to worry,” or “he’s probably moved on.” Instead, Frank slipped out his flask, added a little vodka to his OJ, and went back to his paper.

  There was trouble all over, he knew. But, reading the paper, the news in the Midwest seemed less dire than it had in other places he had lived. The Dayton paper was full of stories about unemployment and petty crimes and the occasional murder, but there were also a fair share of upbeat items. As he ate, he read about some new construction going on at the nearby Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the large military installation in Kettering and a major local employer.

  There was also ongoing construction on the highway heading down to Cincinnati, and the paper had included complicated maps to avoid the area and the traffic. And there had been several shootings in Dayton. Evidently, there was some kind of ongoing turf war over drugs, and several young men had been killed over the past 48 hours.

  But there were several charming stories, too, something he didn’t remember from Birmingham or the big Atlanta papers. Chili cook-off’s and fundraisers and animal rescue stories might not save the planet, but they broke up the gloom and doom.

  Frank heard the jingle of the bell on the front door.

  He didn’t look up.

  He’d been trying to work on relaxing, on avoiding the temptation—or the habit—of monitoring every situation down to the “nth” degree. Instead, Frank forced himself to continue reading.

  But his mind wandered, falling back into the old habits. He could hear two people. One spoke to the greeter, who led them to a nearby, empty booth. Frank managed to read the whole rest of the newspaper story before he gave in and glanced over at the pair.

  It was an older man and a young woman, looking at menus. The man was in his late forties, dark hair, nice boots. Clean boots, too, not the kind you saw on the farmers around here. These boots were for dressing up, not shit-kicking or mucking out stalls or taking care of horses. He was probably a lawyer or a banker. Maybe a dentist.

  The woman was younger, early twenties, brunette, her shoulders and face down and pointed at the table. Her hair hung down in wet tangled clumps. Frank knew immediately that there was something wrong with her.

  He looked back at the paper and tried to ignore it. It wasn’t something he needed to get involved in—she was probably just a depressed wife, a sad traveler. Maybe they were crossing the country, driving for long stretches. The man looked chipper and well-rested, but the woman looked like she’d just seen a hundred miles of hard road. Husband and wife or, more likely, father and daughter.

  “Get ya something?” the other server, Donna, asked the pair.

  The young woman glanced up at the waitress. Frank saw the young woman was one of those kids who liked piercings; she must’ve had a dozen in her lips, nose, and up her earlobe. She was also wearing dark makeup and had a streak of blue in the front of her otherwise black hair. He’d run into a bunch of Goth kids in the bigger cities—Atlanta had a whole area dedicated to spiky collars and tattoo parlors—but he hadn’t seen a member of that honored crowd in a while.

  “Got any Red Bull?” the girl asked, mumbling.

  Frank saw Donna’s eyes go wide. “Oh, no, but they have it at Speedway,” Donna stammered, indicating out the windows at the gas station across the road.

  “Please excuse my daughter,” the man said, smiling. He was cool, collected, taking it all in stride. “She’s not in the best of moods. We’ll both take coffee.”

  Donna scooted away, and Frank went back to his paper, relaxing. It looked like the dad had it together. The daughter was busy rebelling, and the father looked like the sort of person who knew how to handle it. If Frank had to guess, it looked like the father was retrieving his daughter from some all-night party or rave.

  Frank wondered idly if Laura had gone through a phase like that. She was 24 now. It had been years since he’d seen her. He’d missed out on so much of her life—actually, only the last four years, but it seemed like a lifetime. She’d moved to Ohio, gotten married, had a kid, had her husband walk out on her.

  Trudy, Frank’s ex-wife, had made it clear — Laura had wanted her own life, away from her father. He’d respected that for a while. Trudy had said that Laura had moved to Ohio but wouldn’t tell him where. Of course, a few calls to the right people, and he had found out. People he used to work with, work for. They tracked down the name and passed it along to Frank, along with a small town in Ohio that he’d never heard of. And he hadn’t used the information for two years, not sure what to do with it.

  Now he was here.

  Frank continued reading, trying to not eavesdrop on the whispered conversation between the man and his daughter. He was retired now. Other people were in charge, other people were making decisions. Trudy didn’t want Frank around Laura, and even though it pained him, he’d left it alone.

  It sounded like the father was trying to get the pierced girl to order some food, but she just wanted coffee and to antagonize him.

  Frank shook his head and eased the small flask out of his pocket, adding another splash of vodka to his OJ. Trudy would have loved that, drinking this early.

  Maybe, if Frank hadn’t pressed Trudy all the time, they would still be together. Happily married, a family, all that jazz. And he wouldn’t be sitting in a booth in a greasy spoon, alone with his coffee, reading the paper, wishing he could reconnect with a daughter he hadn’t seen in years.

  Frank finished his meal and the
coffee and paid, heading out. He was depressed after seeing the father and daughter; it only reminded him of his lost time away from Laura. Frank walked back across the wet parking lot and climbed into his Taurus. He flipped angrily through the CDs, picking out some Pinetop Perkins and starting up the car. Before this trip was over, he’d probably listen to every CD in the stack a dozen times.

  Frank had errands to run. He checked his phone again, but there were no messages.

  Exiting the parking lot, he turned right onto Main Street and crossed over the highway, heading downtown. He passed the gas stations and two strip malls, one on either side of the road. The one to the north held the liquor store, and, seeing that it was open, he swung off the road, parked, and went inside.

  It was a typical liquor store, but they had a larger selection of wines and other spirits than he’d expected. Rows of wines marched across the store and ended near a large walk-in beer cooler. To the left of the beer cooler was a smaller area stocked with liquor, stretching all the way to the ceiling. Gin, bourbon, whiskey, and a hundred other shining, beautiful bottles catching the sunlight. It looked like the magnificent stained glass window of some lofty cathedral.

  “Hi,” a young man smiled from behind the counter, breaking Frank’s reverie. “Can I help you find something?”

  Frank shook his head and walked around the counter and into the colorful aisle of bottles, heading straight to the bourbon. They had an excellent selection—too bad it was all out of his price range. Dozens of bottles, imported and domestic, all sizes. Brands he’d never heard of, with prices that would break his budget. Frank shook his head and looked lower on the wall, settling on two bottles of cheap vodka from some region in Europe he’d never heard of.

  “That going to be it for you?” the guy asked from behind the counter. He was still trying to be friendly. Frank wasn’t sure why he bothered.

  Frank just nodded and grunted and handed the man enough cash, then waited for his change. The guy wanted to talk about the weather, but Frank just nodded and mumbled, not taking the bait. Sometimes he just hated dealing with people.

  As he left, Frank heard the young man say something like “have a good one,” but the rest was cut off by the closing door.

  Outside, Frank got in the Taurus and opened one bottle, transferring some of it to the flask and taking a long tug on the bottle. It wasn’t good vodka, by any stretch, but it settled his stomach. After a minute, he climbed out and put the bottles into the trunk. No need to get arrested for open container, not in a little town where almost no one knew him.

  Back out on Main Street, Frank turned and continued east, enjoying Pinetop and the warmth in his belly.

  Cooper’s Mill was a cute town, small and pretty. There was the busier area near the highway, with the McDonald’s and hotels and chain restaurants. He passed several more shops, including a CVS and a Burger King, before Main turned into all residences. He thought maybe he’d gone the wrong way, but the waitresses had all been adamant that he see the small downtown in the daytime, so he continued east on Main.

  He passed a strip of smaller homes and stopped at the next intersection at Hyatt Avenue. This intersection sported a Dairy Queen, a fire station, and another small strip of businesses, including a laundromat. On the fourth corner sat a beautiful memorial park, which included a gorgeous white gazebo and a maze of paved brickwork that looked to be dedicated to veterans and fallen soldiers.

  Beyond Hyatt, the houses on Main became much larger and more ornate: Victorian homes and brick mansions marched along both sides of Main. Beautiful old homes, with porches and tall trees and a few old wrought iron hitching posts for long-gone horses. The homes all looked well-maintained. One particularly ornate Victorian home, now a funeral home, featured a massive front staircase bedecked with white columns.

  He continued on Main until he reached a set of train tracks, which he remembered marked the start of the small historical downtown. Passing over the tracks, he began to understand why the waitresses had wanted him to visit. The small downtown was spectacular. He’d been down here on Saturday night, but it had been dark, and he hadn’t noticed how nice the buildings looked.

  On either side of Main, four blocks of quaint shops and restaurants lined each side of the road. People were out walking, enjoying the break in the weather, and Frank saw they had a good variety of stores downtown—antique stores, restaurants, a bank, a toy store, and a dozen other shops. He could tell immediately that this was a real downtown and not one of those “fakes” he’d seen other places. These authentic buildings were a mix of exteriors, brick and wood and plaster. The sidewalks were lined with trees of differing sizes and benches and bike racks. None of the storefronts matched, and it appeared that all the buildings were different heights, a sure sign they’d been built at different times. Trees lined the streets; some had dropped all their leaves, but others still held on to wild colors that ran from green to flaming red. He’d been to newer “downtowns,” and outdoor malls designed to look like an old-timey downtown. They always looked fake, like they’d been airlifted in and dropped into the middle of an open field.

  Frank found the corner barber shop and started searching for a parking spot, finding one nearby.

  He took a last pull on the flask and tucked it under his seat, then climbed out and walked back up to Main Street, turned, and made his way to the intersection of Second and Main. The corner seemed like a busy destination. All four corners were taken up with stores and shops—two restaurants, an art gallery, and the place Frank had been looking for, Willie’s Barber Shop. It looked like one of those places you saw in the movies: there was even one of those old-style barber poles on the wall outside. When he pushed the doors open and headed inside, a small bell above the door rang, just like something out of Mayberry.

  Of course, he shouldn’t have been surprised. This place was as well preserved as the rest of the downtown. It was an authentic old barber shop—wood paneling, two large metal chairs in the middle of the wide, tiled floor. A row of metal seats by the front window for waiting customers, flanked by low tables piled high with old magazines. On one wall, above a doorway that evidently led into a back room, was a mounted deer head with a sign below that read “The Buck Stops Here.” Toward the back, faded pinups from the 1980s decorated the walls. Racks of dusty shelves held rows of dated hair care products, a few of which Frank thought probably weren’t even on the market any more.

  But the place was busier than he’d expected. Two barbers were on duty, and both of the big swivel chairs in the middle of the room were occupied by customers. Next to the windows, three other men were waiting. Frank nodded at the older barber, a black man with graying hair at the temples. He wore a nametag that read “Willie.”

  “Be with you in a couple minutes,” Willie said to Frank, nodding at the other waiting men.

  Frank nodded and sat down to wait. He glanced at the magazines on the table and grabbed an issue of Field and Stream—it was seven years old—and began thumbing through it.

  A conversation, probably interrupted by Frank when he entered, started up again mid-stream.

  “But that’s what I’m saying, Willie,” the customer in the left chair said to the older barber. “It’s just not right.”

  Willie nodded, continuing to trim. He didn’t answer for a moment. The only sound was the scissors chopping at the customer’s thinning hair.

  “I know, Bill. I know,” Willie said finally. “Whoever is doing this, they must hate the Martins, or want something out of ‘em. But we got good cops in this town. They’ll figure it out.”

  The man in the chair, Bill, laughed, a short squeaky bark that sounded almost like a seal.

  “Not likely,” Bill said. “I’ve been in all the meetings. Chief King came before the City Council and updated us Friday night at that emergency meeting. These cops are in over their head. He sat right there and said ‘Mayor, we’ve never had a kidnapping,’ like that explains everything.”

  The other barber
spoke up. His nametag read “Chuck.” He was a younger man, white, both of his arms and the back of his neck heavily tattooed. Frank knew immediately that Chuck was an ex-con. But working here, working under Willie, it looked like the guy was trying to go straight.

  “I don’t know about that—these cops can dog you,” Chuck said. “I should know. They don’t ever stop watching. And didn’t Chief King help on a kidnapping case ‘couple years back down in Dayton?”

  Willie shook his head. “Don’t remember that.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Bill said. “He did help out, but he wasn’t the lead. No one knows what they’re doing. That’s why they called in that idiot from the Cincinnati FBI. But he’s just a kid, and he’s just made things worse. Anyway, they ain’t gonna find those girls. Been too long.”

  “Six days?” Willie asked?

  “Seven, counting today,” Bill answered, nodding at a calendar on the wall from some place called Maple Hill Nurseries. “Girls went missing last week, Monday. Like I said, Chief King is optimistic. But I can read people. And I heard somewhere they almost never find them when they’re gone that long.”

  It got quiet in the barber shop. Frank guessed that, along with him, everyone in the shop was listening to the conversation. It was a conversation Frank had heard, and been involved in, a hundred times before. He tried to block it out—it wasn’t any of his business.

  Chuck, the younger barber, finished up his customer, and the young man stood up out of the chair, thanking him and paying. The ex-con nodded and waived over one of the other men sitting next to Frank. The new customer sat down in the empty chair, using his hands and quietly describing what kind of cut he wanted. Chuck nodded and got started, then looked up at the others.

  “So the FBI, they’re not going to be any help?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Bill said, shaking his head. With the movement of Bill’s head, Willie pulled the scissors away and waited for his customer to stop moving before starting again. “The kid is wet behind the ears—that tells me Cincinnati doesn’t think there’s much that can be done. Or else they would have sent somebody who knew what the hell they were doing, not some fool who’s only been on five or six cases,” Bill said. Frank could see the man was angry. “Anyway, sounds like they’re working on the phone call. The kidnappers finally called yesterday to set up another call.”