The Patsy's Patsy

by Brooke Shelby

  “It is bad how other people can sink our livelihoods when we do nothing wrong, right, Jaimie?” Donnie lamented. His brother nodded, separating some new stock from its wrapping on the other side of the till.

  “Yeah, they make everything difficult for us. Standing around here and acting all crazy,” Jaimie finally added. “Makes you wish the cops would do their damn job, you know?”

  Donnie nodded profusely in agreement.

  “I heard that the police think the dealer is going to be arrested soon,” Maggie lied, taking a verse from the Walden Bible of Questioning. “And they said they are going to apprehend him here at this gas station.”

  “Bullshit,” Jaimie said inadvertently. “I mean, how do they know if he is hanging out here if they don’t even know who he is and stuff? I think it’s a stupid … dumb idea.”

  “Hey, watch your language, Jay,” his brother chastised him. “We are at a place of business, so talk professionally.”

  “Big deal,” Jaimie scoffed under his breath.

  “Where do you think they should start then?” Maggie confronted the know-it-all young man with the unkempt brown hair and skinny frame.

  He shrugged, curling his bottom lip and mumbling, “Whatever man.”

  That was not much of an answer, but Maggie could see that Donnie was a little embarrassed for his brother’s behavior and she felt sorry for him.

  “No worries, Donnie,” she sighed as she cracked open her soda. “Most younger people are still too immature to understand how things work. It is something one only acquires with age, I’m sure. Like you and me.”

  Maggie winked at Donnie, but she could see that Jaimie was out of arguments and it frustrated him to no end not to be able to counter the obvious condescension of the pretty woman.

  “Yes, true,” Donnie beamed at the charm of Maggie Corey, while maintaining his distance from the woman with the sordid reputation that his reverend had warned them of. Donnie did not really catch most of what Maggie meant, but his innate need to be liked propelled his favorable reactions.

  “Well, you boys have yourself a good day,” Maggie said as she walked off to the door.

  “Thanks! You too!” Donnie called out, but Maggie could feel the tension in the gas station shop as she exited the doors. Unfortunately, she could not determine anything concretely useful for Carl, but she felt accomplished nonetheless. The fact that she’d made them uncomfortable by suggesting that the cops were onto the criminal would hopefully cause a ripple in the pond and bring the dealer to the surface.

  20

  “Just a question, my dear, but when are you going to reopen the shop?” Bramble asked Maggie while he lay on her lap. She was watching a crime program and stuffed her face with pretzels and wine.

  “Oh, Bramble, let me just chill for a week or so,” she yawned lazily. “I think I have earned the rest, don’t you? Besides, I still have my inheritance to keep us afloat while I take some time away from the shop, so it is not as if I have to keep the shop open all the time.”

  “I know,” he replied. “I was just wondering, hoping that all these new tribulations have not defeated you into closing up for good.”

  “Hey! Never! I thought you knew me,” she grunted playfully, teasing him with a finger along his spine that was Bramble’s equivalent of being tickled. “All I am going to do is make sure people see me in public. The shop stays closed so that they can’t blame anything on me, while I will remain visible. That way they will know that I am not hiding, see. The picketers backed down because Reverend Bastard told them to stop, so all I have to concern myself with is to be seen. They can’t blame me if I have no shop, right?”

  “That is a feeble plan, but it could actually prove that simpler is sometimes more effective,” he agreed. “I trust that you have seen the monitors?”

  “Monitors?” she asked. “What a peculiar choice of word. I like it.”

  “Thought you might find some amusement in it,” Bramble purred.

  It was true. Lately, several church members had been keeping an eye on Maggie more than usual. Calling them monitors was dead-on. That was all they did, thinking that she was not observant enough to see them following her around town. Maggie enjoyed the attention because that way she could effectively prove that she had nothing to do with the Green Demon epidemic. She steered clear of any hotspots where she might be engaged by teenagers and college students. The only time she was seen speaking to any kids was when she loudly refused them and assured them that she had nothing of the sort in her stock.

  Many kids who tried to get the drug from her had to hear Maggie’s pleas for them to enter rehab. This was as far as she came in contact with the youths in town and the sly bloodhounds of Reverend Mason had to concede that she was innocent of any solicitation to addicts.

  When the week wound down and Saturday night picked up, Donnie Kiernan took up his second shift for the day. His brother was absent, having told Donnie that he had an appointment with Reverend Mason, a solid reason not to come in to work. Donnie had been trying to generate a good rapport between the church and his wayward little brother since Jaimie moved to town from Boston a few weeks before.

  It was no problem for Donnie to work alone, as business was slow even for a Saturday night. He had the local radio station on the speakers, listening to some old pop hits on the countdown. Donnie was a simple man and had no qualms with settling for little. He sat down on his chair and thumbed through one of the magazines on his sale stand.

  By ten o’clock, it had become so quiet that he considered closing up for the night, but there was not much more to do at home. At least at the shop he had an occasional patron to chat with. Donnie picked a carton of flavored milk from the drink fridge and picked a girly magazine to spy on the feminine secrets shared in the glossy pages. Reading women’s magazines was a guilty pleasure for Donnie, and quite innocent in nature. Like any man, women were a mystery to him, and he saw the advice in ladies’ magazines as helpful research.

  A loud clank split the peace in the shop and startled Donnie. He looked out the glass shop windows, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The usual bunch of kids loitered outside. He saw some regulars, like young Carol Keyes, among others, but this was normal. His eyes fell to the article he was reading and he started the paragraph over. Before he got to the second sentence, another crack started him.

  “What the hell?” he muttered.

  Donnie got up and came out from behind the counter in order to survey the situation. His brown eyes darted from the pumps to the public toilet outside as he ruffled his already cowlicked hair in confusion. Carol was gone. Her companions were also out of sight and Donnie found this oddly unsettling. In the distance, he could see Carol hiding behind a bush on the edge of the premises.

  He shook his head and tutted. “Don’t your mama ever wonder where you are?”

  A violent crash dented the glass plate right next to Donnie, throwing him instinctively to his knees. He could hear running footsteps outside. It sounded like more than one person and he ducked as another brick shattered the next window’s glass.

  “What the hell do you want?” he shrieked, crawling over broken glass towards the counter for shelter.

  “We want our Green Demon!” someone shouted furiously as they stormed the shop.

  They came inside, but Donnie was already cowering behind his shop counter, trying to reach his phone to call the police.

  “Yeah, man! You want to hold out on us? We’ll take it from you if you don’t want to give it!” another boy hollered, followed by another bashing of the glass doors. The boy, no older than fourteen, was taking a tire iron to the shelves. They were destroying all the products and smashed the fridge doors as well, screaming for more drugs and threatening Donnie.

  “Who do you think you are screwing with, pal?” they kept screaming as they ransacked and damaged the shelves. “You better have some new stash by tomorrow or else we’ll show up at your house!”

  “Yes, yes, this is Donnie K
iernan,” he panted wildly under his breath as the dispatcher answered his call. “Please send the sheriff immediately! I am being attacked at the gas station! Please hurry!”

  Being a mild-mannered man, Donnie elected to stay hidden until police arrived. He was not violent and feared getting in trouble if he was forced to defend himself, but by the time a squad car arrived, the shop had been all but decimated. The kids were gone, having heard the sirens, but thankfully, Donnie was physically unscathed. His nerves and his finances, however, suffered greatly.

  21

  While his brother’s shop was being reduced to a mess, Jaimie Kiernan was on his way to church. He had an appointment with Reverend Mason, which was not unusual. The reverend often offered one-on-one counseling with his flock, even on weekends, should they need his guidance.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance as the young man swaggered across the church lawn. Rain was imminent, but Jaimie was unfazed by the coming lightning that usually had the townspeople scampering. He felt invincible in his arrogant attitude, something that had made him unpopular in his previous home as well. His desperate brother had done his best to rehabilitate young Jaimie from his obnoxious demeanor by introducing him to church and to Reverend Mason. However, thus far, the young man was unperturbed by the church’s supervision.

  Inside the church, it was quiet.

  “Reverend Mason?” he cried. His voice had never sounded so secluded. Only the dead wood of the pews and the etched idol of Christ absorbed his summoning. Reverend Mason was not there. Annoyed, the young man walked along the aisle and studied the corners of the darkening church. The smell of wood polish and musty cloth filled his nostrils as the thunder growled. Jaimie had never been religious, but he could not deny a certain presence in the great worship hall with its elaborate iconography. It made him very uncomfortable; almost haunted.

  “Hey, Reverend Mason! It’s Jaimie! Hello?” he shouted a bit louder, but there was no response. “For God’s sake, answer me or I’ll leave!”

  A dark and solemn voice startled Jaimie out of his wits, coming from a dark corner beyond the pulpit.

  “Refrain from raising your voice in the house of God!”

  It came from the entrance to the reverend’s office, hidden behind maroon-velvet curtains with gilded fringes.

  “Oh my God!” the young man squealed, grasping his shirt in fright. “You scared me to death!”

  “Mr. Kiernan, you are going to have to curb the blasphemy or suffer the consequence,” the preacher insisted in his gentle tone. His face, however, was far from serene. In fact, Reverend Mason’s face looked distorted in either illness or disposition. Around his eyes, the skin was dark and fraught with visible veins, while his mouth sagged more than usual. His bony thin chin pointed in a V-shape over his almost jaw-high cassock collar and in the shadows, it gave the impression of a disembodied head.

  “Sorry, Reverend,” Jaimie gasped. “You just look very …”

  “Very what?” the preacher asked plainly.

  “Never mind,” the young man waved it off. Likening the old minister to an emaciated vampire would not serve him well, he reckoned, and was best kept a secret. “You wanted to see me.”

  “Yes, please, come into the office so that we can speak in private,” the old man croaked in his confident authority.

  As Jaimie entered the stuffy study with its antique biblical adornments, he saw the preacher reach into the top drawer of his desk. Jaimie stopped in his tracks as Reverend Mason turned to face him from the other side of the desk. With indifference, the old clergyman tossed an envelope on the desk.

  “Thanks,” Jaimie said, taking the envelope to count the money inside.

  “Sit down, Jaimie,” the snide minister ordered and the boy immediately obliged. Reverend Mason was probably the only figure Jaimie ever obeyed. Almost imperceptibly, the reverend sat down in his high-back chair and inhaled deeply. He arched his long fingers and leaned forward on his forearms, piercing the errant boy’s eyes with his. “Now, tell me what you have managed thus far.”

  “Um, well,” Jaimie stammered, “we have them hooked.”

  “That is not good enough. I told you to turn the young people of this town into frenzied animals, not hooked,” the old preacher moaned irately.

  “Oh I do! I have managed to get them crazy,” Jaimie grinned, suddenly drenched in his own ego. “I have done as you said. I get them addicted and then I keep them from getting more, just enough to make them desperate before I give them more. I just tell them I am out of product at regular intervals.”

  “Yes, but I need them aggressive. I need them violent, unstable … uncontrollable,” Reverend Mason imparted.

  “That is exactly what I am doing, Reverend,” Jaimie assured him smoothly, grinning in his baleful accomplishment. “I have most of them locked in that cycle, ya know, like binging, and then pull back until they hit serious withdrawal. Don’t worry. It’s working like a charm.”

  Reverend Mason looked unimpressed. “Like a charm. How uncanny.”

  “How do you mean?” Jaimie asked, but the old man just shook his head. The remark was between him and himself and he did not entertain the curiosity of his latest lackey.

  “Listen, Mr. Kiernan,” Reverend Mason sighed wearily, “I am paying you to make them vicious and dangerous. All of them.”

  “Look, sir, there is like only a handful of kids who aren’t hooked yet, because their parents pay attention. I’m not stupid, you know. I can’t push those kids or else their parents will know something is up,” Jaimie explained. “Those we have in our little army of psychos are the ones that have parents who are too busy to care. Those are enough to do the damage you are paying me to do.”

  “Good. Keep at it,” the reverend nodded, the corners of his thin lips drooping. “And report back to me in a week. I want them to wreak havoc in this town. This time, I need to do it properly.”

  “Do what?” the young man smiled.

  The preacher rose from his chair like a shadow demon and leered down on the brat in the tacky clothing. “That is none of your business.”

  Jaimie’s throat closed up at the old man’s gray eyes, fraught with spite, and he nodded obediently in acknowledgment. “Yes, Reverend. Understood.”

  “Now, get your miserable face out of my church and don’t bother me until next week,” Reverend Mason ordered, watching his greedy, but willing slave scuttle off like the cockroach he was.

  Maggie had reported her meager findings to Carl Walden, recounting the behavior of Jaimie Kiernan especially after she had a brief talk with the Kiernan brothers. In turn, Carl told Maggie about the recent attack on the gas station.

  “I never thought I’d say this, Maggie, but I feel like I have completely lost control this time,” he admitted when he spoke to her on her porch. Nellie and Bramble were playing on the other side of the porch to keep out of the fresh summer rain while Maggie and Carl enjoyed some coffee.

  “No, you haven’t,” she consoled him. “How do you expect to get this much done with the number of officers you have under your command? Nobody would be able to keep up.”

  “I know, but still, it is beginning to really make me doubt my position,” he sighed as the rain clattered in the gutters. “I checked out the Kiernan brothers. So far, I have only been able to use the local database, but I am waiting for word back from Boston and Salem. As far as I know, Donnie is a clean customer, so I doubt we’ll get anything on them.”

  “Always the innocent-looking ones that end up being the devil. You know this,” Maggie insisted. “But I am still the prime suspect?”

  He looked extremely hopeless and frustrated. “Yeah, you are still the only suspect until we can present a better candidate. And for that …”

  “You need proof,” she ended the sentence. “Isn’t it funny how you need evidence to implicate someone new, yet I am seen as the guilty party without any concrete evidence?”

  Carl knew this to be accurate and he hated it. He hated having to dance
to the strings of his puppet masters, those spiteful agents of clandestine fate, and in the process look like a fool in front of Maggie. It vexed him most that he had to incriminate his own friend and subject her to the unfair selective justice of Hope’s Crossing.

  “I am caught between the devil and the deep blue sea,” he remarked.

  “Exactly, so either I have to find this dealer or you should just go ahead and arrest me,” she shrugged.

  Carl looked at her in disbelief. “Excuse me, what?”

  “Listen, if you lock me up for … whatever … they will see that I am not the supplier. I can’t very well supply drugs if I am locked up, can I?” she reasoned.

  “That is absurd,” he scoffed, looking at Maggie and seeing how scared she had become of the entire affair.

  “Far from it! It is actually the perfect proof,” she rejoined, but Carl would have none of it. It was clear that she was grasping at straws from sheer desperation, no matter how terrified she was of what was coming.

  “Maggie, forget it. I am not locking you up!” he insisted. “Put that crap right out of your head. We will find this guy soon. I can feel it.”

  “Yeah, I don’t doubt that, but until that happens …”she said.

  “Look, we just have to narrow down our suspects before this gets completely out of hand,” Carl suggested. “As soon as I hear back from the larger agencies, we will have a better scope on the Kiernan brothers and then I can investigate more intently.”

  Maggie was relieved that the sheriff was reluctant to jail her, but she still reckoned that it would absolve her.

  22

  The following day, Sheriff Walden made good on his promise to Maggie to find out more about the Kiernan brothers. He probed the database for those individuals having moved to Hope’s Crossing in the last three months and found three possible suspects—Maggie, David Brown, and Jaimie Kiernan.