by Bill WENHAM
Doc smiled and looked relieved.
“It’s called retrograde or short term amnesia, Carl. It’s only temporary and the person’s memory can return at any time. Usually it’s caused by a blow to the head or could be due to some intense or severe visual shock.”
Carl nodded.
“Yeah, right, that makes sense. Thanks, Doc,” he said as he turned and waved at Lisa and Rosetta.
“Doc needs a refill over there, Rosie, and I’ll bring Ol’ Blue Eyes in next time for you, I promise.”
He stuck his hat jauntily on his head and walked on out. He’d had a good day. Christ, he’d had a bloody marvelous goddamned day!
Chapter Twenty Seven
David had settled in very nicely at Judy’s place and had come to an amicable agreement with her regarding payment. Judy had reluctantly accepted a monthly room rental payment from David on the condition that she provided the majority of his meals for him.
Having already partaken at her dinner table, it was an offer he neither could nor wanted to refuse. Judy had also taken the morning off so she could take him out shopping again. Being a fairly standard forty two tall, he had no trouble getting a dark charcoal grey suit to fit him off the rack. He added a white shirt, a somber tie, black socks and black shoes to his outfit.
He wasn’t a suit kind of guy though. Put him in jeans, a tee shirt, an old sweater and boat shoes or boots and he was happy. Not well dressed perhaps, but happy. He’d always been clean shaven, didn’t like his hair to be overly long and couldn’t stand studs, pins and earrings on men, certainly not on himself. He was completely turned off by any female who sported any kind of body piercing ornamentation, other than earrings.
He knew he was attractive to women; otherwise he wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds with Maria. She’d wanted him as much as a trophy, to show off to the other girls, as she did for any love for him, even more so, perhaps.
In retrospect, and now it was too late anyway, he wondered why he’d stayed with her so long. She was stunningly beautiful, of course, but she had some very nasty and socially unacceptable habits to go along with it as well. Whenever he’d caught her stealing it had usually been something trivial. She had just laughed it off, and, rather than upset her, so had he.
Then, of course, there was her jealousy and her callous and almost brutal treatment of some of the other girls and guys, both in and out of their group.
David was devastated she was gone now and stunned by the way in which it had happened. But in a way, he was strangely relieved. He was relieved that he no longer had to make a decision to leave her. It had been made for him.
She’d made the decision to leave him and someone else had finalized it for her. Now he could stand back and look hard at their former relationship objectively, he saw it quite differently.
He realized, from his point of view at least, it was merely infatuation, based solely upon her beauty. It certainly wasn’t love, as he’d once thought it was. She’d said she’d loved him too, but looking back now, he very much doubted the sincerity of her words.
He would go to her funeral on Tuesday, and he had no doubt at all it would be a very emotional experience for him. Afterwards he would close the book on that chapter of his life. Then he’d move on by trying to build a new one for himself right here in Cooper’s Corners.
In the couple of days he’d been here, the local folks seemed to have gone out of their way to make him welcome.
Both Carl and Judy had very effectively paved the way for him. Carl had taken him out to O’Shaunessy’s Pub and back out to Lisa’s diner. Carl had made it quite clear to everyone, in the eyes of the law, and that also meant in his eyes; David was a victim, not a criminal.
He’d even gone a step further by going to the Holy Cross church on Sunday and had asked the minister if he could address the congregation. He told the assembled worshipers the same thing. David Gates was just another victim and should be treated as such.
Judy, in the meantime, had addressed the Friday night Bingo goers and had also set the gossip mill straight. She told them the Sheriff’s office believed both Forrest Appleyard and Maria Caspar had been killed by the same man. And, as she’d emphasized, that man wasn’t David Gates.
“Do you seriously think I’d welcome a killer to actually stay under my roof and to sit down at my own dinner table? Well, do you?” she’d said.
The gossip mill had shaken their collective grey or white heads and that was the end of that.
It was now Tuesday night and they were having dinner at Judy’s, following the funeral. There’d only been a handful of people present, including Judy, David and, of course, Erica. In spite of her beauty, Maria had very few friends, but plenty of enemies and enemies don’t usually attend funerals, except to gloat.
Judy had asked Erica to come back to Cooper’s Corners with them to stay for a few days. She’d already explained that David was staying with her as well and he’d been cleared of any wrong doing. Erica gladly accepted the offer and returned with them in Judy’s car.
In the middle of the meal, Carl dropped by, primarily with some news for David. After greeting Erica again, Carl had difficulty dragging his eyes away from the large lemon meringue pie that sat on the end of the table.
“Being so busy, I guess you don’t have time for a piece of pie then, Carl, do you?” Judy said mischievously.
“What?” Carl said, finally getting around to looking at her. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, I just thought with all this real police work you’ve been doing lately, you’d just be too busy to sit around here eating my pies,” she said.
“Oh, for Christ sake, Jude, just dish the damned thing up, will you?” he said, and to David and Erica he added, “She’s just fishing for compliments. She knows she makes the best damned pies in the whole County.”
He pulled up a chair and sat down at the table. “Happy now, woman?” he said to Judy.
“Only best pies, Carl?” Judy said, raising her eyebrows. “So what’s wrong with my other food?”
Carl spread his hands out.
“There you go, see. I just can’t win with this woman, can I?” he said.
“I didn’t know you wanted to win, Carl,” Judy said sweetly, handing him a huge slice. “I just thought you wanted a piece of pie. And in any case, you should know by now you can’t win against a woman. We don’t play fair, do we, Erica?”
Carl gave her an exasperated look as the two women exchanged grins.
“I think a thank you would be nice, Carl. You aren’t doing too badly with your ‘pleases’, but you’ve got a way to go yet with your ‘thank yous’,” she said, needling him a bit more.
“Thank you, Jude,” he muttered. “Happy now?”
“Only if you are, Carl dear,” Jude said, grinning at Erica.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, woman, give me a break,” he said. “Anyway, I just came by to tell Dave here something. Dave, Alvin Ryan, over at the appliance store in town is interested in talking to you. He said he’s looking for a salesman, assistant manager or whatever for his place. He’d like to talk to you, if you’re interested. I told him you worked for G.E. and knew all about appliances.”
David smiled.
“Well, I know a bit about them, Carl. I certainly don’t know all about them, but yes, sure, I’d love to talk to him, thanks.”
“Alright, then, that’s settled. I’ll swing by in the morning to pick you up. Then, if you like, after you’ve talked Alvin into hiring you, we’ll pop over to Burlington to get your own car back, okay?”
“That’s great, Carl, and thank you.”
“See how easy it is, Carl?” Jude said sweetly.
“See how easy what is, Jude?”
“Saying thank you, Carl. David does it all the time.”
Carl pretended to ponder for a moment.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to look this one up in the books, Dave,” he said. “But I know a couple of the Judges around here so I think I can m
ake it stick.”
“What on earth are you talking about, Carl?” Judy asked.
Carl pointed at David,
“Him,” Carl said, with a serious look on his face. “I think I can still arrest him for behavior likely to cause a duly elected law officer to be held up to ridicule by his staff. A very serious offence that is, Dave, so just watch your tongue with all this please and thank you stuff, okay?”
“There, Erica, that just proves it. It doesn’t matter how much you dress them up, even in a uniform, you still can’t get some men to be polite to a lady, can you?”
Carl bit back a further retort and took a bite of his pie instead. It was much safer. Dave was a pretty lucky guy, he thought, to have all of this as part of his lodging deal.
But he didn’t do so badly himself either, he thought. Alternating between Lisa’s diner and Jude’s dining room, he had two of the best cooks in the County feeding him on a regular basis.
He’d thought that he should maybe ask Lisa out again, as a thank you for everything. There was that ‘thank you’ thing again. It was popping up everywhere these days!
When he’d taken David back into the diner the other day, Lisa’s sister, Rosetta, had hovered around them like a wasp around a jam jar. And it was Dave that Rosie was obviously interested in, he thought. It looked as though young Dave had already found himself an ardent admirer in Cooper’s Corners.
Maybe he could arrange a foursome, Lisa and himself, with Dave and Rosie. That might do it. Lisa was very fond of Japanese food and liked the flair with which the meals were prepared. It would be a fair distance to go but he knew the Sakura Japanese Restaurant over on Church Street in Burlington was her favorite.
He and Dave wouldn’t have dress up either, since it was casual dining. It would make conversation a little easier if there were four of them too. He’d planned to mention it the next time he saw Dave and here it was now, the next time.
“Dave, buddy, I’ve had an idea. Something to get you out and about a bit socially,” Carl began.
Judy raised her eloquent eyebrows, as Doc called them, once again.
Ignoring her, Carl carried on.
“I thought you and I could ask the diner sisters out for an evening.”
“The diner sisters? Who on earth are they?’ David asked.
Judy laughed.
“He means Lisa and Rosetta, David,” she said.
“Lisa!” David exclaimed. “Do you think she’s forgiven me enough to go out with us?”
“Dave,” Carl said, “For the sake of her little sister, Lisa would forgive Jack the Ripper himself. Didn’t you notice how young Rosie was hanging around you?”
“I thought she was just giving us good service,” David said.
“Yeah, sure!” Carl scoffed. “You noticed all right. Anyway, she’s cute, isn’t she?”
“Yes, I guess she is, but you know, Carl, so soon after Maria’s funeral…” David left the rest of the sentence unsaid, glancing over in embarrassment at Erica.
“I didn’t mean tomorrow, for Christ sake, Dave, but are you okay with it if I set it up for later?”
David looked at Judy, and then again at Erica.
“It’s alright, David,” Erica said, “She’s gone and nothing we can do or say will ever bring her back, will it? You need to get on with your life now. We all do.”
She secretly would have been perfectly happy if Carl had included her in the foursome instead of Lisa. But not living here made that impossible.
Maybe she should think of relocating up here as well, just as David was doing. There was nothing left for her in Rutland either. She could easily sell the house, since it had been in just her name only. Her parents had willed it to her as a place to take care of her sister. Like David, her job wasn’t a prime factor in keeping her in Rutland either. As tears started to stream down her face, she excused herself and headed for the bathroom.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Once, while a student at UVM, his Scottish professor had referred to him as the ‘Calendar Guy’.
“You think I’m good looking enough for a Playgirl calendar then, do you, sir?” he had laughed.
“Not at all laddie, so don’t you go kidding yourself. If they ever have a category for mongrels, then the Westminster Kennel Club might be interested in you maybe. But, no, I was just referring to your name.”
“My name?” he echoed. “What’s my name got to do with a calendar, or vice versa?”
The professor explained what his reference had meant,
“Oh, right,” the student said, “The Holy Grail and all that kind of old stuff.”
The professor laughed.
“Right part of the world, lad. Wrong band of ruffians and it’s just as well for you that I’m attempting to drum Physics into you. If I’d been teaching History or Mythology, I’d have failed you on the spot for that comment.”
Because the professor’s remarks about his name had been made in class, the ‘Calendar Guy’ took a lot of playful ribbing about it. Especially about his own dumb comment.
Until the professor had pointed it out though, he’d never thought of it like that before. It probably had no bearing on the origin of his name either. It was probably just coincidence the letters were arranged like that.
Up until that day many of his fellow students called him by his full name, some shortened it and others now started to call him ‘Cal’, short for ‘Calendar Guy’. Some of the better looking girls, particularly Maria Caspar, didn’t call him at all, which made him fairly seethe with anger.
It was now several years later as ‘Cal’ sat in a jeep and watched Ellis Perrin park his battered pickup outside O’Shaunessy’s Pub. This was now the third day in a row he’d observed Perrin’s actions. Each day he did the same thing at pretty much the same time. Very much a creature of habit was Mr. Perrin.
Each time he’d parked, he’d just slammed the door beside him and walked on into the Pub. But so far he’d never bothered to lock it! And once he was inside the Pub, he stayed in there for several hours.
The man known by some as Cal looked over at the pair of rifles sitting clearly in view on a rack in the pickup’s rear window.
He started up his Jeep, moved up the road and swung it into the vacant spot behind the pickup. Then he got out, walked around to the front of the Jeep and on to the sidewalk in front of the Pub. He paused for a moment, leaning casually on the hood of the Jeep.
He waited for a moment until two people, a man and a woman who were on the same side of the street, went into a store. As they disappeared from view, he went forward and as unobtrusively as he could, he tried the handle of the pickup’s rear passenger side door. He breathed a sigh of relief as it cracked open.
He looked around to make sure no one else was in sight and then quickly opened the door wide enough to reach inside. Breathing heavily, he reached up and grabbed a rifle, the bottom one, off the rack and then he backed out of the truck again. As he was leaving, he glanced down and saw two boxes of ammunition on the floor.
He took the rifle and carrying it as hidden as he could beside his leg, he walked quickly back to his Jeep. He opened the rear passenger door and laid the rifle carefully on the back seat.
But a rifle was just a useless piece of junk metal without the bullets to go with it. He’d only completed half of his task and he needed to go back again. His heart was pounding crazily as he closed the Jeep’s door. After a moment or two to settle his nerves, he repeated the maneuver, but this time he returned with one of the ammunition boxes.
Just as he’d gotten back into the Jeep and had slid over into the driver’s seat, a man came out of O’Shaunessy’s. The Jeep’s driver thought he was going to have a heart attack as he turned his head away, pretending to be looking across the street. But it hadn’t been the pickup’s driver. The man turned right and went away from him, to where his car was parked further down the street.
As soon as he was gone, ‘Cal’ checked the street again quickly, and seein
g no one else, he started up his vehicle and drove away.
However, in the appliance store across the street, David Gates was rather intrigued by what he thought was the rather odd behavior of the Jeep’s driver. David could have sworn the man was stealing something from the pickup parked in front of his vehicle, or perhaps he was just merely putting something into it. David thought it was even odder when the man did it again.
Also, when another man had come out of the Pub in front of him, the driver had turned his head away, as though he didn’t want to be recognized. By doing so, he had looked directly at David.
For a moment, as their eyes met, David thought the man looked familiar to him but he couldn’t place him. The man appeared to look shocked but the next minute he and his vehicle had driven off. David wasn’t being paid to gaze out of the windows and he thought no more about it until later that evening.
About a half an hour after the vehicle had driven away, Judy got a very angry call from Ellis Perrin. Ellis told her that some lousy bastard had just stolen one of his rifles. The insurance adjuster hadn’t even been out to look at them yet either, Ellis complained bitterly. First, that stupid old woman had plowed into the back of him. And now someone had stolen one of his goddamned rifles before he could even get the insurance company to pay out on it. Ellis Perrin was not a happy man!
Chapter Twenty Nine
“Hi, Jude, Erica, David,” Carl said. “How are things going with you guys today?”
“We’re fine and your timing is perfect as usual. Pull up a chair. I’m just dishing up dinner, as if you didn’t know.” Judy said.
Dinner today was a huge steak and mushroom pie, with potatoes and mixed vegetables. Erica brought in the pie and set it down as Judy followed her in and fussed around the table with rest of the meal.
Carl noted, with a grin, that a place had already been set for him at the table. He really must do something special for Jude one of these days, he thought, for all of her hospitality. In the beginning he’d insulted her badly by offering to pay for the meals.
