Rusty Logic

by Robin Alexander

  “There were seeds and things that didn’t belong with pickles.” Kirsten stared into space. “They tasted like dirty socks but juicy. I have two older brothers, and believe me when I say I know what a sock tastes like.”

  “I’ve been having a recurring dream, and I need to know what it means.”

  Kirsten shook her head to dispel her own memories. “I’ve never been one to examine them too closely, but tell me about it with as much detail as you can, and maybe we’ll find the obvious answer.”

  Rusty began with stepping into the charred forest. She told Kirsten everything she saw and the dismal feelings it caused. By the time she was finished, the sandwiches were made, drinks were poured, and they’d taken a seat at the table. Kirsten listened so intently she didn’t touch her lunch even after Rusty finished speaking.

  “I may have to ask you some personal questions to get a better understanding. Are you okay with that?” Kirsten asked.

  “Do you remember telling me what you would do to me if I told anyone about your reaction to the rat?”

  Kirsten nodded.

  “If you tell anyone what I share with you, my retaliation will be much worse.”

  Kirsten raised her right hand. “You have my word that what you say stays right here.”

  Rusty debated for a moment. She had a lot of things going on in her mind and felt if she didn’t purge them, she would crack. Neil was her confidant, but since he was in Dr. Mom mode, Rusty wasn’t comfortable revealing any more of herself to him. “All right, ask your questions.”

  “Did something really traumatic happen in your life recently?”

  Rusty stared at her sandwich as she said, “Two years ago, my mother died. We weren’t particularly close, and we only talked on the phone once a week. I called, and she didn’t answer. She didn’t call me back, either. I know it sounds strange, but I had this weird feeling that something was wrong. My business partner is a close friend, and he rode with me to her house. My mom didn’t answer the door when I knocked, and I never used the key she’d given me until that day. The second I opened the door, I knew what had happened. Neil shoved me out of the way and wouldn’t let me in the house. He found her facedown in the kitchen. She’d been dead a few days.”

  Kirsten scrubbed her face with both hands and released a groan. “Oh, Rusty, I am so sorry.”

  “Almost a year ago, I was giving a presentation, and my knees went weak, and I sort of felt like I was coming down with the flu. Neil said my face became very pale, and I had to sit down. I felt so fatigued that I could barely answer his questions, so he called an ambulance. According to the doctors, I had a mild heart attack that day.” Rusty put up a hand. “Yes, it’s not common for a thirty-eight-year-old to have a heart attack, and no, I wasn’t on drugs. Heart disease runs in my family. That’s what killed my mother and my grandmother.”

  Rusty spread her napkin over her lap. “I did smoke a lot, drank tons of energy drinks, and my diet wasn’t doing me any favors, either.” Rusty forced the next sentence out of her mouth, and it tasted bitter on her tongue. “I’m a workaholic, and I pushed my body to the point where it broke. So that’s why I’m here temporarily, to basically detox from my habits because I couldn’t do it at home. I changed after the heart attack, but it didn’t take long for me to go right back to my old ways, and my doctor told me that if I didn’t do something radical, he doubted seriously I’d see my fifties or even mid-forties.”

  Kirsten was silent for a moment while she processed all that she’d heard and tried to correlate it to the dream. “I’m just guessing, but I think the war zone you described in the dream would be a representation of what you’ve been through the last couple of years.”

  “All right,” Rusty said with a nod. “So the house my mother wants me to build, is that my health? Do you think my brain is trying to reaffirm that I need to take better care of myself?”

  Kirsten shrugged. “That seems to be the most plausible answer.”

  “Well, this is what’s so confusing. I’ve taken positive steps. I don’t smoke anymore, I eat much better, and I came here to recoup. Why do I keep having the dream? I feel like I’m missing something.”

  “What do Elvis, the Kennedys, and pie signify to you?” Kirsten asked as she picked up her sandwich.

  “My mom was a huge Elvis fan, and she was fascinated with the Kennedys. Pie was the only thing she really knew how to bake, and she did it when she was stressed out, which was most of the time.”

  “I’m guessing here, but maybe you have a deep-seated fear of…what happened to her will happen to you.”

  The muscles along Rusty’s jaw twitched as she nodded.

  Kirsten wanted to hug Rusty but wasn’t sure if that would make her uncomfortable. “Did she overwork herself too?”

  “She’s the reason I am the way I am. Nothing I ever did was enough for her,” Rusty said bitterly. “I’d bring home a report card with straight A’s, and instead of congratulating me, she’d look at the percentages and want to know why they weren’t all at a hundred. Dear God, if they were close to a B, she made me feel like a failure.” Rusty shook her head slowly. “I could not wait to get away from her. As soon as I was old enough, I moved away from home and never looked back. When my business became a success, I felt I at least owed her a better life, so I offered to buy her a nicer house, but she refused. She said she’d rather die than take charity, even from me.”

  Rusty sighed and tore a corner off her sandwich. “As much as I despised the way she treated me, I respected her at the same time. She was a single mother who never collected one food stamp or asked for financial assistance, though we certainly qualified. She worked three jobs to keep a roof over my head and clothes on my back.”

  “What happened to your father?”

  Rusty set the piece of sandwich back on her plate. “He was a sperm donor she met one time when she was cleaning his hotel room. The affair lasted a few hours, and Mom told me she never saw him again after that. She was young and beguiled by his charms, and she was a virgin until that day.” Rusty met Kirsten’s gaze. “Honestly, I think she resented the byproduct of that encounter. She raised me like it was her duty, but once I left home, she was done. What happened after that was on me.”

  “So…y’all were basically estranged?”

  Rusty nodded. “A few years before she died, she called me at the office. There had been some write-ups in the paper and a few local business magazines as Smart Shopper continued to grow. She saw one of them, and her excuse for calling me was to say that I looked more like her mother as I got older. I started calling her once a week, thinking that was her way of sending an olive branch. Our conversations were about business. She was managing a small real estate office and doing well. She talked fast about traffic and politics. I kind of got the impression she was afraid I’d bring up something personal, so all I did was listen.”

  “Did she ever express pride in what you did as an adult?” Kirsten asked gently.

  Rusty inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. “I wanted that. When I did talk, it was about Smart Shopper and what Neil and I had accomplished. Her response every time was, ‘There are no laurels to rest upon. It can all be taken away if you get lazy.’ So the answer to your question is a big fat no.”

  “Mmm” was all Kirsten could say.

  “How’d you get that scar on your lip?”

  Kirsten blinked at the abrupt subject change and smiled. “Shaving. I used to get up when my dad did, and after he was showered and dressed, he’d let me sit on the bathroom cabinet while he shaved. Then he’d put on his uniform shirt, badge, and gun belt. I wanted to be him, so I pulled a chair into the bathroom, covered my face with cream, and got to work. Mom said she heard me scream, and when she ran in there, I was sporting a white beard and a red mustache. I looked like a peppermint.”

  “The image you just described does not make me think of candy.”

  “Well, the cream beard was streaked with red too.” Kirsten’s blue eyes twinkl
ed. “I got a plastic shaving kit for Christmas that year.”

  Rusty smiled and picked up her sandwich, and Kirsten gazed at her with a tingle of disappointment. She liked Rusty, found her very interesting and attractive, but Rusty had admitted that she was in Ancelet Bay temporarily. Kirsten had considered asking her out but thought better of it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rusty put the last screw in the bridge and gazed at it. The structure served no real purpose. It was designed as a garden accent, and she doubted it would bear her weight. It was far more satisfying to finish than a jigsaw puzzle, though.

  Kirsten had been a good listener. She didn’t make any lectures, didn’t give any definitive answers on the dream, just a few theories for Rusty to think on. For that, she’d scored major points with Rusty. Neil would’ve derived something from the dream, then would have tried to fix it. Rusty loved him because while she minded their business, he minded her. Aside from Nana, Neil was the most nurturing person Rusty had ever known. Kirsten seemed to be the type to provide support, but she would not interfere with what Rusty felt she had to do, and Rusty appreciated and needed that.

  Rusty had many acquaintances through business but not genuine friends. Though she didn’t know Kirsten very well, she sensed that Kirsten could become someone she could count on. The only indication of Rusty’s wealth was the BMW in the driveway. Kirsten had no clue how much financial clout Rusty actually held, but she’d offered her friendship regardless, and that meant something to Rusty.

  “What am I going to do with you?” Rusty said aloud as she walked around the bridge.

  The trellis, she liked. It looked good over the front walk regardless if it had flowers planted around it or not. The bridge, however, would look like she’d just thrown it in the front yard if it wasn’t festooned with something. Rusty had never liked kitschy lawn décor, and that was what the bridge looked like to her. She felt it belonged across the street on Stella’s lawn with her stupid plastic birds, but she wasn’t about to ask Stella if she wanted it. Nope, she’d save that chore for Kirsten.

  With a grunt, Rusty slid one end of the useless structure toward the corner, then repeated the process on each end until it was out of the middle of the floor. Then she laid out the planks for her section of picket fence and stroked her new drill lovingly before she got to work.

  *******

  Kirsten went back to the station and pored over the reports that Ellen had run for her. After an hour or so, she’d only found a few incidents that she felt warranted further scrutiny. One of them, she’d worked herself when she was still an officer. Kirsten read her report carefully, then sat back in her chair, closed her eyes, and tried to recall the day she’d gone out to the Medinas’ house to investigate a possible attempted breakin.

  The Medinas had gone on vacation and had hired nineteen-year-old Sharon Klienpeter to house-sit and take care of their dog Fritz and their horses. Around midnight, the dog became agitated and whimpered until Sharon got up and let him out because she assumed the pooch needed a potty break. It was cold and she was tired, so she wrapped herself in a blanket, sat on the couch, and waited for Fritz to scratch at the door like he normally did when he wanted in. Sharon admitted that she fell asleep, and an hour or two later, she awoke and remembered the dog was outside. She opened the door, whistled, and Fritz came in. They both went back to bed.

  The next morning, she noticed a little blood on the white schnauzer’s fur near its neck. Sharon inspected Fritz closely and didn’t find any injuries. She assumed he may’ve gotten the better of an animal that had come into his yard. Sharon took Fritz for a walk and discovered that one of the screens had been removed from a window and what looked like blood on the ground beneath the eaves of the house.

  Kirsten had made a notation on her report that Fritz had probably heard the would-be intruder and had attacked when Sharon let him out. Sharon, however, said she didn’t hear Fritz barking when he was outside. Kirsten had questioned all the local miscreants and even had them raise their pants legs to see if they’d been bitten by a dog recently and came up empty-handed. After discussing the case with her father, he’d decided that most everyone knew that the Medinas were going on vacation and assumed they’d find the house empty until Fritz had proven otherwise. The case went cold after that.

  Kirsten remembered arguing with Tal back then because she’d clipped some of the bloodstained fur off of Fitz and wanted to send it off to a lab to be analyzed. “If we had a spree of breakins, I might consider that. This is Ancelet Bay, our budget doesn’t allow for goose chasing, girl. Cool your jets.”

  The other two incidents were sort of what Tal said Mrs. Talley had reported to him. Chairs had been moved off patios and placed in front of windows; Mitch investigated one and decided that one of the owner’s children had been responsible. Antoine had investigated the most recent that had occurred before the peeper story had begun to evolve.

  “Hey, Ellen, where’s Antoine?”

  “He’s at the coffee shop.”

  “Good, tell him to stay there. I’m on my way to meet him.” Kirsten stood and gathered her things.

  *******

  Antoine folded his arms, looked skyward, and thought after Kirsten asked him if he remembered anything about the call. “I know it was at the Jewetts’ house and during the time when Terrance and Patrice weren’t getting along. Terrance had gone to stay with his brother a few weeks, and Patrice found a chair by her living room window. Someone had been sitting there watching her, and they didn’t try to hide that fact. The ground was littered with cigarette butts, but they were the same kind Terrance smoked. Patrice wanted me to arrest him for peeping, but they weren’t divorced and it was his house, so I couldn’t very well do that.”

  Kirsten compared everything Antoine said with his report. “It says here you talked to Terrance to rule out that there was someone else at the window, and he was uncooperative.”

  Antoine nodded. “He was, but his brother assured me that Terrance had been home that night. Dan said Terrance drank every last drop of his beer and crashed on the couch. Dan claimed he was a light sleeper and would’ve heard if his brother had left, which I believed, because Terrance’s truck is extremely loud, and Dan is a decent guy. Is there something wrong with what I wrote?”

  “No,” Kirsten said as she slipped the paper into a folder. I’m just going back over reports to see if the peeping has been going on for a while.”

  “I appreciate the approach you’re taking on this. I have a wife and two daughters, and unlike Mitch, I don’t think you’re taking this too seriously.”

  “He said that?”

  “He thinks it’s Noah. Everybody does.”

  “Mitch gripes about everything, don’t sweat him. I don’t.” Kirsten picked up her coffee and took a sip.

  “He should’ve stayed in retirement, or better yet, in Baton Rouge on the force there. I wish your daddy wouldn’t have hired him.”

  “Give me your thoughts about the peeper thing. What’s your gut say?”

  “Well, on this, I must have two stomachs like a cow because one says it’s Noah. The other…well…” Antoine sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “This could’ve been going on a long time right under our noses, and the guy’s a predator. The more I think about the call you just asked me about, the more uncomfortable I get.”

  “Why?”

  Antoine met Kirsten’s eye. “I know you’re on the same track, and you’re already looking for common denominators. The women associated with these events are all relatively young and attractive, even Carla Danner. I don’t think she’s nice-looking, but most men do. Phil Jessup works a rotating day and night shift at the plant. Carla lives alone. Patrice Jewett was alone the night somebody was outside her window. This guy hears gossip and talk around here. He knows everyone’s habits. I’m sure he wants to do more than just watch. Maybe he has done more somewhere else. Maybe he knows it’s too risky to step it up a notch in Ancelet because he can be easily recognized.�
��

  “Yeah, we’re on the same page.” Kirsten took another sip of her coffee. “And I hope we’re wrong.”

  *******

  “Ancelet is a quiet town, and we really don’t work ourselves to death. This peeper thing may be nothing, but it does afford us the opportunity to put our skills to work,” Kirsten said at the shift change meeting. “So let’s take it seriously. We all know how word spreads around here, so anything we find stays between us. Don’t discuss it with family or friends. Mitch and Bryan, you know the women who live alone, and you also know whose husbands work the night shift. Make your patrols in those areas more intensive.”

  “Are you saying you want us to walk around those houses?” Mitch asked.

  “I want you to patrol as you usually would, but if you see something out of place or someone skulking around, then yes, I want you out of the car.”

  Mitch gave a derisive snort. “So do what we normally do.”

  “What you normally do is park along the highway coming into town and sleep,” Kirsten said coolly. “We get paid to protect and serve this town, let’s do it. Any more questions?” When no one responded, Kirsten adjourned the meeting, and everyone left but Mitch.

  There was no privacy, Kirsten’s desk sat in the middle of the room with two others. Tasha was at the dispatch station pretending not to listen, but she’d turned the radio down. “You’re making this situation worse,” Mitch said and glanced at Tasha.

  “How so?” Kirsten stuffed her keys into her pocket.

  “The more active we get, the more nervous everyone else becomes.”

  “As a resident, the effect would be the opposite on me. I’d feel like the police were taking a more active role regarding my safety.” Kirsten feigned concern. “Are you too tired, Mitch? You’ve been talking about seriously going into retirement for a while. Is that what you’re trying to tell me you want to do?”

  “Riding around Ancelet ain’t work compared to what I’m used to. I’m telling you, you’re making a big deal outta nothing and playing into hysteria.”