Black Bird

by Greg Enslen

  Chapter 10 - Monday,

  September 19

  Julie caught the Orange Line train at West Falls Church, taking the D.C.’s Metro system into town. The Metro system for Washington D.C. was recognized as one of the country’s finest, and in the week she had ridden it daily into town, Julie had seen why. The stations were beautiful and always crystal clean, and the trains always came on time; during the rush-hour times in the morning and afternoon, the trains came every four or five minutes, carrying thousands of commuters comfortably in and out of the downtown area and removing thousands of cars daily from the already-crowded freeways.

  By 7:30 the seats on the Orange Line, one of the five different colored subway lines that lead into and out of D.C., were already full as the train reached West Falls Church, the fourth stop on the eastbound run, and Julie was forced to stand. As usual, no one offered her their seats; evidently chivalry and the quaint custom of men offering their seats to standing women had disappeared, going out with Women’s Lib.

  A couple of the men were younger guys, younger than her, and one guy with dark hair and wearing a big green winter coat against the cold outside had fallen asleep, his head resting against the vibrating window.

  She’d grabbed a copy of USA Today on her way through the subway station, and she hung her purse and bag over one arm and began reading the front page. Stories caught her interest and she read them, including the large front-page article on Hurricane Mandy, showing the storm’s path as it had moved back through Florida again yesterday and was now looking like it would be heading this way.

  She read the article with interest, seeing that the hurricane was predicted to start affecting the weather in D.C. on Thursday at the earliest, but of course that was only a guess.

  Page three had stories from regions all over the United States, and one of them caught her attention. It was accompanied by a picture of a cute young boy and another picture of policemen standing on the edge of a wide river, pointing upstream.

  ONE LEGGED BOY FOUND DROWNED

  Clearwater, SC (AP) - Authorities found the body of Kevin Neeson floating in the Columbus River here yesterday, just north of Charleston, South Carolina.

  Neeson, 21, was a resident of Thomasville, Georgia, and was reported missing since leaving his home in the summer of 1992. An early childhood bout with cholera left him with only one leg and he wore a specially designed prosthetic leg that was not found at the scene. Authorities say the leg was not found because it most likely came loose from the floating body and sank to the bottom of the slow-moving river.

  Authorities reported that a local fisherman discovered the body very early Saturday morning along the northern bank of the river, where it had become entangled in a large group of weeds and branches near the Charleston Municipal Bridge. The fisherman then used a CB radio to report the body to the local police department.

  Police spokesman said that homicide had not been ruled out as a possible means of death because of several reported “unusual” wounds found on the boy’s body. The police spokesman also reported that the state office of the FBI would be involved in the investigation of the case, and that the local police expected to work in full cooperation with state and Federal authorities. Authorities were also reportedly investigating possible locations upriver, trying to find where the body had entered the water, and were reporting some success in that area but would not comment further.

  Julie finished the article and several more before climbing off of the Orange Line at the Old Post Office stop, the closest one on the Orange Line to the FBI Building. She was getting into the habit of reading the paper every day now on the way to work, and she liked staying well informed.

  But even as she crossed Pennsylvania Avenue in the warming morning air, she couldn’t get the picture of that one-legged boy out of her head.

  David woke up with a terrible crick in his neck.

  He sat up, rubbing idly at the sharp pain that had invaded the back and sides of neck, and looked around, trying to ignore the twinge.

  The sun hadn’t been up long and it barely lit the surroundings. He was in the parking lot of a hotel on the southern side of Lexington, Virginia, having only made it five hours before deciding to look for a room. Driving was a lot more tiring than he thought, and he’d decided to take it easy on the first day, stopping his driving around 5 or 6 and pulling off to find a place to eat and a room. Unfortunately, by the time he’d gotten finished eating and started looking for a room, the few hotels in town were all booked up - some kind of convention in town or something, the desk clerks all told him. And there weren’t any good size towns until Charleston, West Virginia, and that was four hours away, and he didn’t feel like driving any more. Most of the parking slots at this last motel were full, and he had ended up just parking in this parking lot and falling asleep in his car, waking up every hour or so when he got too cold and had started up the car to warm it up.

  The pain in his neck slowly faded, but he would have to remember that laying down in the front seat of a 1989 Mazda 323 and trying to get a full nights’ sleep were two concepts that were, evidently, mutually exclusive.

  He popped the door handle and climbed out, feeling the muscles and bones in the rest of his body moan and groan as he stretched. There was a distinct chill in the air, the type of pervasive cold that David didn’t think would just burn off with the rising sun. No, this was the kind of chill that was blustery and solid, as surely an indication of the change of season as the numbers of colored leaves that painted the dark asphalt around his feet. Fall was here and winter was coming, and fast, carrying the frosty visage of snowfalls on his shoulders, and the wind and the falling leaves and the sudden nakedness of the bare trees were only harbingers, calling cards of the approaching cold.

  But this winter he would spend in sunny Southern California, David Beaumont reminded himself with a smile creeping across his sleepy face. The decision felt right, solid and pure like a glittering trophy, hard-won after years of indecision and bickering and denial of David’s true nature. He’d always wanted to break away from the suffocating history of Liberty, and now, he was finally doing it. It felt RIGHT that he was leaving; it felt good that he was on his way to warmer climes, especially now, as the air chilled in expectation of winter’s cold stretch of months. It was as if the planets in his mind, his planets, had finally come into some sort of cosmic alignment, and he had been changed forever.

  It felt good to be on the road, chasing a dream.

  David smiled and climbed back into the car, intent on grabbing some breakfast and hitting the road when his eyes caught upon something in the passenger seat. There, among the maps and the empty cups and papers with scribbled directions (he could see one that read 95 SOUTH TO 64 WEST TO 81 SOUTH TO, but the rest was covered) was the red binder. It was the binder Bethany had given him yesterday morning, just showing up at his Aunt’s house and handing it to him. And then she’d turned away from him and climbed in her car and driven away.

  He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t read it for a long time, but he was probably just lying to himself - he was never very good at that sort of thing. He didn’t really need to look at what was in the binder anyway - she had probably written him a long letter, at least twenty or thirty pages by the look of the binder. And he already knew what the letter would say: “Stay here, David, don’t leave Liberty...” He’d told himself that too many times - he didn’t need her telling him that too.

  Maybe if he got out to California and got settled, then maybe she could come out and they could try again...no, that would never work either, he quietly told himself. He had made a break with the past, and as much as he loved her, it would never work out between them. Nothing ever worked out for him, or at least, never the way he planned.

  No, it wouldn’t be a good idea to look at the binder, at least not yet. He slid a map and some papers over the corner of the red binder, covering it completely. Maybe a few more states between us, and then I’ll read it.

&nbs
p; You’re just scared. Maybe you know that if you read what she sent along with you, you’ll change your mind and stay. Maybe your decision’s not so final.

  No. No, he wasn’t going to read Bethany‘s book, or note, or whatever you wanted to call it, at least not yet. He was sure about his decision, very sure, but there wasn’t any need to tempt himself, to make himself question the decision. The binder could wait.

  Bethany was on hold again, the third time in the last half-hour. Her call to the Sheriff’s station last night had been pointless - she’d left a message when some metallic recorded voice had informed her that no one was available. She wondered what they would do with a real emergency - schedule a meeting or something? She was desperate to talk to the cops, to report that Lisa was gone and that no one had seen a sign of her since last night. Twice already this morning, Bethany had called and been put straight onto hold, and here she was again, floating around in the modern version of limbo, waiting for someone to talk to her.

  Several long minutes later she slammed the receiver down, cursing. No one was talking to her and Lisa could be out there right now, hurt or something. These cops were useless. Her three calls to the Steven’s house this morning had also gone unanswered, and Bethany‘s messages had become more and more anxious as she left them.

  She grabbed her car keys and headed out the door, leaving a note in her mailbox for Lisa in case she showed up. She had to get out there and do something - the phone wasn’t helping.

  Bethany couldn’t get the picture out of her head of Lisa wandering along the side of some road somewhere, her car wrecked and Lisa stumbling along, holding one hand to her bloody head, dazed and unable to think straight. There were a lot of creepy back roads around this part of the country (though why Lisa would’ve been on any of them Bethany could not say), and somebody could wreck their car and wander for hours looking for a house before they found one with a phone to call the cops or an ambulance. There was one road in particular was completely deserted for miles in every direction - someone wrecking their car out there on that particular stretch of lonely blacktop could die from blood loss before they found a phone and called the wreck in. Some people said that the stretch of road itself was haunted or something, and that was why nobody lived there and why so few people drove it. Either way, it was like many other back roads around here, and Bethany could see it all so clearly in her mind’s eye. Lisa was in trouble, and Bethany would find out where.

  Back for the second time in twelve hours, Bethany pulled up in front of the Stevens house, but Lisa‘s little red Tercel still wasn’t there, and neither was her parent’s car, as far as she could tell. The car could’ve been in the garage, but Bethany had no way of knowing.

  She tried the door and rang the doorbell, but got no answer. She found the little note she had written last night on the ground behind a potted plant, and wedged it back into the doorjamb. Her parents had probably stayed overnight in D.C., and if they weren’t here, that meant it was up to Bethany to report Lisa‘s disappearance. Bethany put her Honda into drive and headed for the Sheriff’s Office.

  “Did you hear something?” Mrs. Stevens asked her sleeping husband, her voice groggy from the wine and the exhaustion from the night before. It wasn’t often that they went all the way into D.C. for entertainment, and last night they had really painted the town. Dinner had been at the open terrace atop the Hotel Washington, with its spectacular view of the city from the restaurant’s choice location, and the wine had flowed liberally. She’d been a little worried about the drive home, but after the brisk walk down Pennsylvania to the Kennedy Center and the two-hour-plus performance, Gavin had been clear-headed enough to drive.

  But now he was out of it, mumbling his non-committal response into his pillow. He needed a few more hours of sleep before he’d be ready to face the world, and so did she.

  Mrs. Steven’s was a little concerned, thinking she had heard the doorbell, but the postman or whoever it was could go away and come back again some other time. Her head hurt too much to worry about bothering with some salesman.

  Downstairs, the lights on her machine blinked silently.

  Sheriff Jes Brown was a strange man. Most of the time, he carried himself with an almost regal air, as if he was lord and master of his little town, the citizens his subjects, and his size almost matched the size of his opinion of himself. He was a sheriff that was far more concerned with politics and smoothing the feathers of the older and more wealthy citizens than with tracking down criminals or improving the overall situation in Liberty.

  Many times, some of the more disgruntled citizens, unimpressed by his less-than-stellar performance record, had tried to get him voted out of office, but Sheriff Brown seemed to know exactly which people in town to keep close with and he enjoyed their unequivocal support. He looked out for them and their interests, and when election time came around, they always looked out for him.

  A good example of his haphazard methods of justice had taken place a couple of years before, when he’d scored some big points while looking the other way during a criminal investigation. A councilman’s teenage son had been picked up on a marijuana possession charge by one of Jes Brown’s deputies, and the councilman had begged and pleaded with Jes Brown to overlook the “childhood prank,” as Councilman Simons had put it. The sheriff had sat there for a long while, listening to this powerful man in city politics beg and plead for his son’s freedom (the councilman knew as well as Brown that a marijuana possession charge could bring up to six years in jail, along with the added bonus of destroying the councilman’s career), and after a while he’d sat up and smiled and asked the councilman what they should do about it.

  That was the key. Wording it with a “they” in there instead of a “I” or maybe even “the city”. It included the councilman in the decision-making process, and Sheriff Brown, sitting behind his large desk with his hands resting on his ample stomach, had seen the councilman visibly relax, as if realizing that here was a man that could understand, that they would be able to work out some kind of a deal. And working out ‘deals’ was something the Councilman was very good at.

  The smile had come easily to Sheriff Brown’s lips that day, as it did many times after. The deal had been an easy one: the Simons kid did only a three-day stint in the Sheriff’s little backroom cell instead of a long stretch in the Prince William County Youth Farm up in Dumfries, and the Sheriff was pretty much guaranteed his reelection “for as long as he wanted to be Sheriff”, as the smiling Councilman Simons had put it while pumping the sheriffs hand, grateful tears in his eyes.

  Of course, the rest of the town, the less-than-powerful people with nothing to offer the Sheriff, they were not as pleased with his tenure as their leading law enforcement official. Crime was up, drugs had found a new staging area before they were funneled up the ‘95 to DC and all points north, and the town itself had taken on an air of foreboding, as if this lackluster Sheriff and his self-serving policies would someday doom this little town. There had been rumblings for a long time about voting him out of office, but that would never happen - he was simply too well connected with the politicos and the movers-and-shakers of Liberty. And some of the people in town thought that it was unfair to compare him to Sheriff Beaumont, the town’s most famous person. No one would ever be that good again, but Jes Brown had worked under Beaumont and had, by his own accounts, even helped the Sheriff almost catch the Killer before he had gunned Beaumont down and fled town. Jes Brown had been a deputy at the time and in charge of the line of searchers, dogs, and handlers that had driven the Killer toward the roadblock and out of town. And if no one was around who could argue his story, sometimes Jes Brown just went ahead and took all the credit, blaming Beaumont for messing up the collar and getting himself killed.

  “Grin and bear it” was just about all they could do. There was no one in town powerful enough to get rid of him, and a lot of people thought that the only way Brown would leave the Sheriff’s Office would be to get elected or appointe
d to a State Police position down in Richmond. And there were others that argued against that kind of thing ever happening - a position in Richmond could not be protected by his connections in this little town, and some people were convinced that he simply would never leave - he was drunk on the power of his position. He could do anything, and he could get almost anything done, like building a new headquarters for the Sheriff’s Office.

  The Sheriff’s Office was a beautiful building, smoked green glass and shiny black metal, a blemish of modern architecture among the more rustic marble and stone buildings of Liberty’s old historic downtown area. The building itself was only a couple of years old, built to replace the old stone Sheriff’s office that Jes Brown hadn’t liked, and he’d convinced the city council at one of their monthly meetings that they needed a new, modern-looking building, and the objections from citizens at the meeting fell on deaf ears. They argued and complained about the lack of police on the streets and other, more logical uses of the Sheriff’s budget, but none of the councilmen listened to those objections. The city council, the same people that paid Sheriff Brown’s salary, voted 6-1 to approve the building of the new, expensive headquarters, demolishing the old county sheriff’s office that had stood untouched for almost a hundred years. Time and the elements had been unable to do what six votes could, and the building was razed to make way for the new, more modern building.

  The one councilperson who’d voted ‘no’ on the building was forced from office several months later, disgraced after a lengthy and rancorous (and very illegal) criminal investigation into her personal life. Nothing had turned up from the investigation, but enough dirt surfaced about her career and personal life that her career in city politics was in shambles, and her re-election bid had ended in disappointment six months later. It was common knowledge around the coffee shops in town that Sheriff Brown had paid her back.