01-A View to Die For (2012) Page 3

  The clerk kept Kevin busy gawking at her until she got up to retrieve the printout. She was young – about his age – with a gold stud in her nose. “I gotta go out and have a smoke, Uncle Martin,” he said after she disappeared into the back room.

  I started to watch my nephew light up in the no-smoking area right outside the entrance lobby when I saw my nurse again. She was arguing with an older man; he had parked at the entrance to pick her up. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he seemed to be upset. He slammed the passenger door before she barely had settled into the SUV. It was a very expensive Mercedes; the kind that would cost me a year’s salary when I had been gainfully employed.

  “Sorry it took so long, Mister Martin,” said Sue, the admissions clerk. She had returned with my release form while I had been watching the show outside.

  “No problem,” I said and folded the printout, so it would fit in my shirt pocket. Then I smiled at her, trying not to stare at her nose, and left to join Kevin.

  “Wonder what that’s all about?” I asked my nephew.

  He took a final drag on his cigarette before flicking it on the ground, despite the several sand-filled cigarette cans behind him. It was clearly marked with the icon of a crossed-out circle and a smoking cigarette. “That’s my friend Taylor’s dad. She must be his mom,” he answered, starting off toward the parking lot.

  “You know her?” I asked, trying to keep up.

  “Na. Not ‘till now. Taylor said she was a nurse, but I never seen her before. She’s never home when Taylor and me hang at his place. But his dad’s really cool.” I barely heard him. He was several yards ahead of me when he stopped at a beat-up junker parked in a handicap spot close to the entrance.

  We had to drive the thirty-some miles from Clinton to Truman in Kevin’s ‘92 Ford Tempo. He said how my van was not going anywhere but the scrap heap, so he would be my wheels as long as I needed. I knew I would be looking elsewhere for a car, or I had to at least learn to ride a bicycle again, assuming we made it to Meg’s house. He sped along the same road that had made me a god-fearing man.

  The Tempo’s air conditioning was blowing hot air. Nothing happened when I pressed the window’s down-button. “Sorry Uncle Martin, that button don’t work. I gotta lower it for you.”

  The July air hit my face, hot and humid, with an occasional bug or two, but it felt great. The temperature in the car had risen to well over one hundred.

  “Did Mike have a nice service?” I asked, catching a breath of the moist air blowing into the car.

  “I guess. Me and Grandpa missed most of it. He started hacking, so I got elected to take him out back.”

  It sounded like my father was back to smoking his two packs a day. “Maybe the tar from the cigarettes will patch the hole in his lung,” I said.

  Kevin must have missed out on the family’s sarcasm gene. He gave me a blank look then turned his attention back to his driving, just before nearly rear-ending a slower car in front of him. After giving the other driver a one-finger salute in his rear-view mirror, he turned toward me again. “What you going to tell the cops, Uncle Martin?”

  “Haven’t given it much thought, Kevin. If it wasn’t for my wallet, I’d make them wait. I really want to check on Fred first, but I’ll need money to pay his bill. And please. I’m not a Martian – call me Jake.”

  “Huh.” he said, his expression going blank again. Either I was showing my age by referring to the old sixties television show, My Favorite Martian, or my nephew had some kind of synaptic short circuit.

  Except for asking Kevin to slow down every few minutes, we didn’t talk much the rest of the trip. He was too busy practicing his stockcar skills, and I was trying to second-guess the sheriff. I couldn’t imagine why he wanted to see me. We then passed the accident scene, and I almost freaked out. “Pull over, Kevin!” I yelled.

  “Here? There ain’t no friggin place to pull over!”

  “Then slow down for Christ sake. Okay, pull over by that bridge.” There was a scenic turnout right before the bridge crossed the lake. Kevin and I got out of the Tempo and started following some tire tracks back to where my van had jumped the ditch. The tow truck must have come this way to get my van. I hobbled after my nephew who was yards ahead of me. Then I saw tracks leading toward a big oak tree, and another set that hadn’t been so lucky. I slid down the bank to where my van had been stopped by the tree, only yards from the edge of a steep bluff. From there it was straight down to the water. The other tire tracks went right up to the edge and disappeared.

  “Wow, this is the same place Mike ate his lunch,” Kevin said when I caught up with him. “Kind of weird, huh.”

  “Very weird. I wonder what the odds are that I almost dined here too.”

  He turned away from the water and looked at me blankly. Then the light went on. “Oh, I get it, Uncle Martin. You meant ate your lunch, too.”

  “Something like that,” I answered while looking past him, toward the road. Several cars had gone by in the time it took us to reach the accident scene, and now one of them was slowing down to watch us. I waved at him even though I hadn’t a clue who he was. The driver waved back then sped up.

  “What’s weird, Kevin, are those tracks by the road.”

  “Think they were Mike’s, Uncle Martin?”

  “No. Mike’s tracks go straight to the water. Those tracks parallel the road.”

  “Must have been the ambulance,” he said.

  Or the people who nearly killed me, I thought and started back toward the Tempo.

  Chapter 3

  Kevin stopped the Tempo at a bank a block from the county jail. He didn’t really park the car, nor did he turn off his motor. The bank’s thermometer read ninety-nine – and that was in the shade. Compared to the sauna Kevin called a car, it felt great when I stepped out on the sidewalk. “I ain’t going nowhere near that jailhouse,” Kevin said, still sitting in the car. “You can call my cell when you need me.” And then he took off without giving me his cellphone number.

  The jail wasn’t exactly out of Mayberry, but it was close. The jail and sheriff’s office was housed in an old, two-story, brick building right across from the town square, one of those old town squares with a hundred-year-old courthouse, surrounded by all the local businesses. But most of those businesses were gone – run out of town by a new SuperMart in a newer part of town. Now the stores were either boarded up or selling junk they called antiques.

  When I entered the building, I half expected to see either Andy or Barney sitting at a big oak desk. But the inside was as modern as any police station I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve been in a lot of police stations, but I’ve seen my share on television. I went up to the glass window separating the good citizens of Truman from their protectors. “Hi, my name is Jake Martin. Is Sergeant Bennet in?” I asked a pretty bleached-blond clerk, who sat behind the glass.

  She sized me up through the window, and then spoke: “He’s busy right now. Can I help you?”

  “The sergeant left me a message at the hospital to come in and see him. I was in an accident the day before yesterday. I think he has my wallet.”

  “Can I see some identification, please?” she asked without the slightest sign of how absurd her question was.

  “It’s in my wallet,” I answered. “That’s why I’m here. Driver’s license, credit cards, and all my money are in my wallet.”

  “I can’t let you in without any ID,” she said, reaching for a phone on her desk. “But if you want to wait, I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  She waited for me to take a seat at a bench across from her window before speaking into the receiver. I assumed whatever she had to say to the sergeant was not meant for my ears. The bench was either from a church remodel, or it was intended to put the fear of God in me. The back was straight and hard – just like the pews that used to keep me awake during Sunday service. It didn’t work.

  “Can I help you?” I must have dozed off while waiting. I didn’t hear or see
the deputy approach.

  “I need to see Sergeant Bennet,” I replied, noting the weird resemblance to Don Knotts.

  “I’m Sergeant Bennet,” he said, extending a hand. “How are you feeling?”

  “A little sore and a killer headache. Thanks for asking,” I said, returning the handshake.

  “Heard you almost met your maker. Lucky you had your seat belt on. I hate to tell you how many tickets I give out around here to people who won’t wear them. We could use you for a poster child. Speaking metaphorically, that is. I can see you’re not a child.”

  ‘Metaphorically?’ Now there was a word I didn’t expect to hear in these parts. Be careful what I say, I thought, this guy is no Barney Fife.

  He led me to a seat by an empty desk, and he took the desk chair. There were three other desks crammed into the old room, and they were empty. “I was the officer at your accident,” he said, motioning for me to sit. “I just need to ask you a few questions so I can finish my report.”

  The chair was as hard as the pew in the waiting room. It was one of those old, straight-back office chairs with a padded seat – except the seat on this chair was long gone, leaving only a few tacks left to assure a thorough interrogation. “They tell me at the hospital that you rescued my dog. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”

  “No problem. I had a Golden myself when I was a kid. Best dogs in the world,” he smiled. It was the first sign that he might be human after all. “I would have taken him home until you could pick him up. But it looked like he might have been hurt, so I dropped him off at the vet’s. Doctor said it’s just a few bruises, and he should recover in a couple days.”

  “I still can’t thank you enough, Sergeant. The old guy means a lot to me.”

  “By the way, you might want this back,” he said as he opened his desk drawer and removed my wallet. “I took it from the scene of your accident, so I could identify you. It was empty except for a couple credit cards and your driver’s license. You should be able to pay Doctor Alton with one of those.”

  I could see my money had been removed even before I picked it up. “I had over a thousand in cash, Sergeant. It looks like I’ve been robbed.”

  “That’s a lot of money to be carrying around. Only people I know with that much cash are drug dealers and pimps.” He paused long enough to study my reaction. It made me very uncomfortable. He had piercing-blue eyes that seemed to be reading my mind.

  “I cashed in a CD before leaving Colorado.”

  “Strange they didn’t take everything. Are all your credit cards there?”

  One of my credit cards was missing. Ironically, it was a card I couldn’t use because I had maxed out my credit limit on it. “It looks like my VISA card is missing.”

  The sergeant opened a filing drawer in his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. “I’m supposed to do this on the computer, but that’s not why I asked you to come in. You can fill this out and give it to the girl at the front desk when you have time, and if I was you, I’d cancel that card.” Then he slid the form across his uncluttered desk without taking his eyes off me. I would never be able to do that at my desk back home. I usually had every square inch covered with notes, bills, or various papers. I envied this guy’s tidiness. It was either a sign of organization or a person with something to hide.

  I glanced at the form he gave me. It was an accident report with boxes for all the information he must have already had in his computer. “Don’t you already have this information in your report?” I asked.

  “More or less. But we need a signature to make it official. What we don’t have are the details of the accident. How did you manage to wreck your van at that particular spot in the road? We know you weren’t drinking, and there’s no skid marks. Did you pull over at that spot to take a leak or something?”

  “No. I swerved to avoid a deer. He jumped right in front of me, and the jerk behind me decided to pass at the same time. I missed the deer, but the passing car clipped the back of my van and sent me over the ditch.”

  Bennet’s computer beeped at him, and he glanced at his monitor. “Quite a coincidence when you think about it,” he said while typing something on his keyboard. “You went off the road at almost the same spot as your brother-in-law. Lucky you hit that tree. Your sister’s husband wasn’t as fortunate.”

  I thought I saw a gleam in his eyes when he turned back toward me. “Tell me about the car that clipped your rear? Did you happen to notice the make or model?”

  “No. It was too dark. You don’t think it was the driver of the other car that robbed me, do you?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time someone took advantage of an accident. It would help if you could describe the other vehicle. At the least, they committed a felony by leaving the scene of an accident.” He was staring into my head again. He must have been with the Gestapo in a previous life. “Unless, of course, there never was another vehicle involved, and the cash in your wallet never existed.”

  His tone put me on the defensive again. “Call my bank if you don’t believe me, Sergeant. They can verify that I cashed out a CD before I left Colorado.”

  He smiled the grin of a hunter with a big buck in his cross hairs. “I don’t believe in coincidence, so I ran you through the system. You and your sister have quite a history of collecting from insurance companies. Two total wrecks in less than a year. You want to know what I think really happened.” His voice had risen a few decibels, causing the clerk in the adjoining room to poke her head through the open door.

  “I think your sister had you stop at the scene where she dumped her husband’s body, maybe to retrieve some incriminating evidence. You must have lost control of your van trying to jump the ditch and crashed into the tree. Can we just cut to the chase and tell me what you were looking for, Mr. Martin?”

  “This is crazy, Sergeant. Those wrecks were my ex-wife’s. She’s a terrible driver. And I had no idea that was where Mike went off the road. Honest.”

  Bennet was standing now. “And you still believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, right?”

  “Do I need a lawyer, Sergeant?”

  “Okay, you win,” he said as he sat back down. “I don’t need your lawyer to make me look a fool to the DA again, but I promise, I will find out what is going on with you and your sister.”

  I had heard of the good-cop/bad-cop routine before, nearly every cop show had it. This was the first time I’d seen it played out by a single cop. I owed the man dearly for saving Fred from the local SPCA (which I assumed was a redneck with a twelve gauge), but I knew I better get out of Dodge ASAP before Bennet’s evil twin found a way to hang me.

  When I hit the street, the hot wet-air nearly floored me. There was no chance the perspiration from my interrogation would be drying out anytime soon. I looked around to see if Kevin had come back to give me a ride. It must have occurred to him by now that I had no idea what his cell number was. He was nowhere in sight, but I saw a bench in the town square under a big shady tree. It would do while I thought about what to do next. My cell started ringing the minute I sat down on the bench. The caller ID said Carver M.

  “Megan! God, it’s good to hear from you. How are you?”

  “Hi, Porky, where are you?” she asked.

  I hated that nickname. Only Megan called me Porky. It was a name she had given me because I stuttered all the time as I was learning to talk. How could I help but stutter? She never let me finish a sentence.

  “Sitting under a tree in the town square, contemplating the ironies of life,” I answered.

  “What are you doing there?”

  “Long story, Sis. I’ll tell you when I get to Mom’s, but first I need a ride to Doctor Alton’s office. They took Fred there when I had my accident. Do you know where that’s at?”

  “Only one vet in this town,” she said. “Meet us at the Rusted Kettle for lunch, and we can get Fred on the way home.”

  “Didn’t you have enough to eat at Mike’s reception? And how do I get
to this Rusted Kettle?”

  “Mom’s neighbors catered the reception, and no one could eat the food. Everything was either pickled or sour. It was horrible. The Kettle is on Main Street, right down the street from the square. We’ll see you there in five minutes.”

  The ‘us’ turned out to be the whole family, sans Kevin. The Rusted Kettle was a busy little place, two blocks away, well within walking distance, even for an invalid. When I got there, everyone was just getting out of my father’s van. After the obligatory hugs and cheek pecking, we all entered the restaurant.

  We were greeted by a middle-aged waitress who reminded me of Oktoberfest. She had her hair in pigtails that fell half way down her back and were tied off with red and white ribbons. She wore a name tag on her tight fitting vest, proclaiming her name was Linda. I nearly missed the name because of the way the vest pushed up on her ample breasts. “Hi, Meg. We were just talking about you,” she said, showing us to a long table in the middle of the room.

  Father drove his scooter to the end of the table while the rest of us sat down. He was in the middle of the aisle, causing our waitress to nearly pop out of her bra as she squeezed around him to hand us our menus.

  Megan didn’t take her menu. “Oh?” she asked, looking straight at Linda.

  “Nothing bad, I assure you,” Linda added with a nervous smile, still holding the menu in midair. “Sally said you’re the talk of the town the way your lawyer finally put that DA in her place. That DA has been making everyone’s life miserable ever since they hired her.”

  Megan at last accepted the one-page, plastic-coated menu. “You can thank my little brother for that. He’s the one who found me a lawyer.” she answered.

  Linda forced a smile, and then turned toward me. “And what’s your name, Handsome.”