The Boulevard Monster, page 1
The Boulevard
Monster
A novel by Jeremy Hepler
For Tricia and Noah,
My two greatest allies
Copyright © 2017 by Jeremy Hepler
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the author’s written consent, except for the purposes of review
Cover Design © 2017 by Ben Baldwin
http://benbaldwin.co.uk/
ISBN-13: 978-0-9980679-5-7
ISBN-10: 0-9980679-5-4
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s fertile imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
READ UNTIL YOU BLEED!
Prologue
For the Record
My name’s Seth Fowler, and I’m not delusional. Not in my understanding of the role I played in the Boulevard murders, or in my understanding of what telling my story can accomplish.
Right now on Channel 10 Michelle Farmer is standing on my front lawn warning people that I should be considered armed and dangerous. There’s a little picture of me in the upper right corner of the screen—the one from my DWI arrest ten years ago—and a phone number on the bottom for viewers to call if they know my whereabouts. A ten thousand dollar reward has been offered for information leading to my arrest. In the background, Detective Morrell and a large group of officers are moving in and out of my house, collecting evidence. They searched Ryan’s apartment earlier this morning, my dad’s house shortly before that.
Even if I were found and arrested and had my day in court, and even if I could afford the best lawyer Mercy has to offer, I would be found guilty. The evidence would be stacked too high. No matter how detailed my account, no matter how hard I tried to convey my true intentions, my testimony would sound too contrived, too incredible, for sensible ears. Jurors would never see me as an honest, sane, God-fearing man. I get that. I understand. I’m not writing this in hopes of clearing my name with the authorities or the public. I’m writing it so my wife Brianne and daughter Sera will know my side of the story. They need to know what happened to Ryan and my dad.
They need to know about Luther and the birds.
One
Corpse in a Burlap Sack
Luther’s birds followed Randy to my duplex the night I discovered the corpse. I didn’t know to look out for them at the time, or notice them when he arrived, but they were there. They had to be. Watching. Listening.
I did notice Randy’s new cherry-red F-150, though. When he parked in front of the carport and gunned the engine, everyone on the block probably noticed. He stepped out of the cab and waited with the driver’s door open. His hair was wet and neatly parted, his T-shirt tucked into his jeans.
I shook my head in disbelief as I approached him. He and I both worked for Howe’s Construction Company, and although he made a little more money than I did, he didn’t make enough to afford a new truck on top of his mortgage and child support payments. “How the hell can you swing payments on something like this?” I asked. “Don’t they cost like fifty-thousand bucks?”
He smiled and stroked his mustache the cocky way he did when he was scoping out the female situation in a bar. “Unlike you, I know how to save money.” He leaned in the truck cab and grabbed a six pack of Coors Light. “And I invest well.”
I laughed. “Invest? You don’t know shit about investing.”
He handed me a beer. “Well, I invested six bucks in this beer, and I bet you’ll agree that was a damn good investment.”
I popped open my can and took a swig. “Pretty good.”
“That’s what I thought,” he said, and we both chuckled. When my eyes slid to his truck cab, he stepped back and gestured at the open door. “Get in. Check it out. It’s got heated seats, satellite radio, Bose speakers, built-in GPS, iPod connector. The whole shebang.”
To say I was jealous would be an understatement. My ’79 Chevy Silverado had 211,000 hard miles on it. The radiator was rusting out on the bottom, the transmission had started slipping, the air conditioner leaked Freon like a stuck pig, the windshield was cracked, the seats were patched with duct tape in multiple places, and the cassette player ate tapes if you tried to fast forward or rewind. My dad had given me the Chevy twenty years earlier, and I figured it would be another twenty before I could trade up.
I inspected the F-150 cab as Randy proudly looked on, and then we made our way to the lawn chairs under the carport where we sat and drank and talked about work and women like we had every Wednesday night for years. When Randy finished his third beer, he crushed the can and burped. “I need to drain the weasel before I hit the road,” he said, and headed toward the front door.
My attention moved to his F-150. In particular, the chrome toolbox attached to the bed. As a man who relied on tools to provide for his family and stored his tools in tarp-covered paint buckets, I coveted any toolbox. After opening my last beer and taking a sip, I walked over to the truck to take a closer look.
I balanced my beer can on the bed’s ledge, but as I reached to open the toolbox, I accidentally knocked it off, spilling beer all over Randy’s hard hat and a burlap sack sticking out from under the toolbox.
“Damn it,” I said, and righted the can. I grabbed a rag that was in the bed, wiped down the hard hat, and then wanting to make sure the beer hadn’t soaked through the burlap sack, found the opening and looked inside.
It took a second to register what I saw, but when I realized it was a human ear covered by strands of light brown hair, I let go of the sack and jumped back.
I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. It was getting dark out. The sun had already dipped halfway below the horizon. The ear probably belonged to a stupid sex doll or Halloween mask or something. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I shook the nerves out of my hands and opened the sack again. This time wide enough not only to see the ear and hair, but also a pair of brown eyes, girl’s eyes. Eyes large enough to swallow the moon. And they seemed to be staring right at me, pleading for help. I felt a strong urge to run, to flee, to get as far away from the truck as possible, but I didn’t. Instead, I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, and told myself that I was just freaking out. There was no way she was a flesh-and-blood human.
To convince myself, I gently grazed my fingers through her hair, over her cheek. The hair felt soft and released a faint flowery scent, like it had recently been washed and conditioned. The skin felt smooth and cool, definitely real. Too real.
After glancing at the door to make sure Randy wasn’t coming, I ran my hand over the rest of the sack, pushing down hard enough to feel bones beneath the little flesh clinging to her frame.
I pulled my hand away when the front door opened. Randy stepped out onto the porch but turned back around and yelled something to Brianne before looking my way. I quickly grabbed my empty beer can, hurried back to my lawn chair and plopped down.
It was no secret that Randy had a sketchy relationship past. He’d been divorced four times, and two of his ex-wives had told Brianne that he’d hit them. Likewise, one of his ex-girlfriends—a stripper who worked at The Yellow Rose—claimed he’d broken her nose and had a restraining order put on him. Maybe the girl in the sack was someone he’d met at a bar the night before. Maybe he’d gotten into an argument with her and lost his temper. He didn’t weigh more than a hundred-and-fifty pounds with a bag of wrenches in his hand, but as tiny as she felt in that sack, it wouldn’t have taken much to snap her neck or crack her skull. But if he did kill her, how was he acting so casual? So normal?
I felt like I sat there trying to rationalize the situation for hours, but it couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds before Randy slapped my shoulder. “That woman of yours, she’s a hoot, man.”
Keeping my eyes locked on the bed of his truck, I slowly nodded.
He pulled his keys out of his pocket and grinned like his world was right as rivets. “Well, I’ve got places to be, and women to do. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I slightly lifted my beer can and managed a faint, “Okay,” as he headed toward his truck. He’d made the women-to-do statement countless times over the years, but that night it took on a new meaning. A brown-eyed-dead-girl-in-a-sack meaning.
He fired up the engine, gassed it a few times, and honked the horn twice as he roared away with the windows down and the radio blaring.
I’d known Randy since our Mercy High days, and although we’d often butted heads at work and in leisure, we’d been through some sticky times together and I considered him a good friend. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, I did, but my gut told me that the girl in the sack was real, and since the truck was fresh off the lot, no one else could’ve put her there but him. Still, I sat there for twenty or thirty minutes staring at the empty beer can in my hand before calling the Mercy Police Department.
A few minutes after I hung up, Brianne stepped out onto the front porch in her Snoopy pajama bottoms and a tank top. “Why are you sitting out here in the dark?” she asked, and turned on the porch light. “Dinner’s ready.”
I stood, and as I silently made my way toward her, she searched my face.
“Do you feel okay?” she asked.
I stopped a few feet in front of her.
“Seth, what’s wrong?”
I looked back over my shoulder where Randy’s truc
“Did you say anything to Randy?”
I shook my head. “I found her when he was inside using the bathroom.”
“Did you call the cops?”
“I just got off the phone with them.”
Whispering curses under her breath, she pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights and lighter out of her pajama pocket, lit up, and took a long, hard drag. “You know, it doesn’t surprise me one fucking bit. If anyone we know is capable of killing someone, it’s him.” She took another long, hard drag. “What did the cops say?”
“They’re sending someone over to talk to me,” I said. “Will you go inside and keep Sera busy so she doesn’t come out here?”
“Don’t worry. She’s in her room with the door closed. She claimed that she had so much homework she didn’t even have time to come eat, so I took her spaghetti to her in there.”
“Okay, but if she does come out here will you—” I broke off when an unmarked cruiser eased up to the curb in front of the duplex.
“If she comes out, I’ll take care of it,” Brianne said, smashing her cigarette out on the porch as Detective Morrell and Sergeant Adair made their way toward us.
Morrell was dressed in a black suit, had a trimmed mustache, and his silver hair was slicked down with enough grease to lubricate a front loader axle. I’d seen him on the news before, talking about a murder or drug bust or something.
Adair wore a tight Polo shirt and khakis, and appeared at least fifteen years younger than Morrell. His rigid posture, hardened eyes, and crew cut screamed military.
“Are you Seth Fowler?” Morrell asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m Detective Morrell, and this is Sergeant Adair.”
I shook both of their hands, introduced Brianne, and Morrell pulled a notepad and pen out of his coat pocket. “Okay, now will you start from the beginning and tell me everything that happened from when Randy arrived until he left?”
He took notes as I talked, and when I finished, he asked, “Exactly how many beers have you had tonight?” His voice had a casual Texas drawl, making the question come across matter-of-fact rather than accusatory.
“Three. Randy and I split a six pack.”
“And you guys didn’t do any illegal drugs?” Adair asked, his words coming out fast and clipped, definitely accusatory. “No pot or coke or anything like that?”
“No. Never.”
Adair crossed his arms in front of his chest. “And you’re sure it wasn’t an old movie prop, or mannequin, or Halloween decoration? They make those things pretty life-like these days.”
“I guess it could’ve been,” I admitted. “But she looked so real. Her eyes...” I glanced down, remembering the way she seemed to be staring at me, pleading for help.
When I looked up, Morrell asked me how I knew Randy.
“We work together at Howe’s Construction,” I said. “I’ve known him nearly twenty-five years.”
“Is he married?”
I shook my head.
“But he’s been married four times,” Brianne added. “And I know for a fact that he hit at least two of his exes. I can give you their names if you want. I’m sure they’d be glad to help.”
Morrell jotted down the names as Brianne spelled them out, and then he closed his notepad and shoved it in his pocket. “We might have more questions for you later, but that should give us enough to go on until we find him and see what’s in the back of his truck.”
I nodded. “What do we do if he comes back?”
“You give us a call, without him knowing if possible, and we’ll get someone here as quick as we can. I wouldn’t worry about that, though. We’ll put an APB out on his truck, and we should find him pretty quick. There aren’t too many places to hide a new cherry-red F-150 in Mercy.” Morrell extended his hand, and I shook it again. “We’ll be in touch soon.”
He and Adair headed back to their cruiser, and Brianne laced her fingers between mine and gave my hand a firm squeeze.
“This is fucked up,” she whispered.
“I know. Let’s not tell anyone about it until we hear back from the cops.”
She agreed.
Two
Bamboozled by the Bird Bandits
I reached the West Hill neighborhood ten minutes before eight the following morning. Ryan and the other guys were huddled around the makeshift shed we’d built the first day on the site, talking, waiting for their assignments. My boss Dan Howe was sitting in his Dodge Ram with the window down, watching them, slurping a Diet Coke. Randy wasn’t there.
Dan lowered his cup and forced a smile as I approached his struck. He had taken the helm at Howe’s Construction Company two years earlier after his dad had suffered a fatal heart attack, falling face-first into a slab of wet cement. Since then, Dan had lost half his hair, his body had ballooned to an enormous size, and he’d stopped smiling real smiles. When ribbed by some of the guys, he blamed his weight gain and hair loss on our lack of work ethic. When he left, we blamed it on his lack of cojones.
“Where the hell’s Randy?”
I shrugged. “No idea.”
Dan shook his head, took a loud slurp. “Are the footings set and everything square and level on 5305?”
“Yep. We’re going to get the cap break and vapor barrier down this morning.”
Another loud slurp, the last gurgling slurp. He poked the straw around in the ice. “You already got the rebar cut, don’t you? Because Sparks should have the cement truck here around one.”
I nodded. “Everything will be ready.”
He glanced toward the shed, back at me. “We need these houses completed before the end of summer, you know.”
He’d told me that every day for six months, and I always told him we would. He wedged his cup between his thighs and put the truck in gear. “I’ve got to go make some calls about that wheelchair ramp project over at Splendor Elementary. I’ll come back later or give you a call at lunch to see how everything’s going.”
As he pulled away, I made my way over to the shed where Ryan shot me a mischievous grin. Ryan was Brianne’s younger brother, and I had helped him land a job at Howe’s two years earlier. “Did he say if he was going to go jerk off or eat first?”
Although absent enthusiasm, I played along, like always. “He didn’t. But my guess is that he’ll jerk off first.”
“I hope he waits until he gets back to the office,” Ryan said. “If he tries to whip it out in his truck he might get stuck.” He put his hair behind his ears, puffed out his cheeks, and widened his close-set eyes. Pretending he had an enormous gut, he struggled to reach his zipper. “I can do this,” he said, mocking Dan’s prissy voice. “I can do it.”
Everyone broke into laughter, and a few guys gave him fist bumps. I flashed a brief smile, but kept my eyes on the dirt road leading to the lot where we parked our trucks. I wanted to know where Randy was, if he’d been arrested, and why Morrell hadn’t called me yet. Once the laughter faded, I reminded everyone of their morning assignments and sent them on their way.
We completed the capillary break and vapor barrier around noon, and I was headed to my truck to grab my lunchbox when my phone vibrated. I fished it out of my pocket and checked the number. It was Dan. I answered, and as I told him about the morning’s work, I noticed a scrap of paper on my driver’s seat. I figured it was piece of trash that had blown into the cab because I’d left the windows down. But when I picked it up and turned it over, I saw a message addressed to Mr. Fowler. The words were written in fancy cursive letters that reminded me of my grandma’s signature on the birthday cards she’d sent me every year until her death.
Mr. Fowler,
I have a tremendous opportunity for you. Come by Murphy’s Coffee Shop tonight at 8 o’clock. If you know what’s good for you.
I read the message and then jerked my eyes toward the shed, expecting Ryan to be watching, waiting to see if I took the bait. Pranks were a daily occurrence with him, and like everyone else, I’d been on the butt-end of my fair share. But he wasn’t looking at me. No one was. He was standing in front of the shed with his Soundgarden T-shirt pulled up over his head and his hands flailing in front of him as though he were swatting at a swarm of bees. Everyone else was sitting in the shade eating, laughing at him.
