The Boulevard Monster, page 8
“Here you go,” the officer said, holding my license out for me when he finally came back.
I put it in my wallet as he bounced his flashlight around the bed of my truck. The shovels, buckets, tools, wood, sheet rock. Burlap sack. Every time it crossed the sack, my heart hiccupped. When he finished, he walked to the cab and shown the beam through the open window, jiggled it around a bit, then came back to me. I don’t think he noticed the bird staring down at him like a tiny gargoyle. “You had anything to drink tonight?” he asked.
He must’ve seen the two DWI arrests on my record. One fourteen years earlier, the other, two months after Esperanza died. “No, sir,” I replied, silently thanking God that I hadn’t met up with Ryan and the guys at Wizzards after work like I’d initially planned. A call from Brianne asking me to stop by the store for some flour had derailed those plans.
He inhaled deeply up his nose as I answered. A deliberate search for alcohol on my breath. “I understand you guys don’t want anyone damaging your trucks, but for your own safety I’d suggest that you don’t come out here this late at night. We are sending patrol cars out here every couple of hours to check on the place.”
I nodded. “Yes, sir. I was just nervous, you know? Deadlines?”
“I hear you,” he said, and gave a curt farewell head nod. “Have a good night.”
“You, too,” I said, and then got in my truck. Not until I sat down did I realize my legs and hands were shaking. I started my truck, turned on the headlights, took a series of deep breaths, and waited for the cruiser to pull away first.
After filling up with gas at a nearby Toot ‘n Totum, the same one the officer had coincidentally stopped at, I turned off my phone so no one would be able to reach me and drove forty-five miles northeast of Mercy.
Plemons was out in the middle of nowhere, thirty miles from any modern city. In the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds it had been a lively pioneer town. Bank. Post office. Jail. The works. But like many original plains towns, it had been abandoned after a measles outbreak killed most of the children. A small gravesite is all that’s left of it now. Cattle ranchers and oil companies own the land. And they’ve blocked off or bulldozed the old roads that led to the town to discourage visitors. Most people, including myself, probably couldn’t find the actual town site, but anyone could find the metal, one-way Plemons Bridge that crossed the Canadian River headed that direction. Oil pump repairmen, dirt bikers, and hunters frequented the dirt roads and trails that crisscrossed the dry riverbed beneath the bridge, and teens were regularly busted there, using old oil pumps as gathering points for keg parties. That’s how I originally learned of the area—high school keg parties.
After crossing the bridge, I parked in a copse of mesquite trees and made my way down to the dry river bed’s edge with the burlap sack and a shovel. The soil was sandy and easy to maneuver. I dug as fast and as quietly as I could, and it didn’t take long to complete the job.
I didn’t notice any of Luther’s birds until I crossed the bridge afterwards. Six or seven of them were lining the metal railing on the driver’s side. Their heads swiveled to follow me as I passed, like motion-detector cameras.
Twelve
Breaking News
I hired a part-time home assistant for Dad in spring. Lucy Jordan was her name. She was a twenty-six-year-old, doe-eyed nurse who worked for The Mercy Home Nursing Alliance. She was tough as nails, inside and out. Just the type of person Dad needed to keep him in line. Her husband had died in Afghanistan a year earlier—road side bomb one month into his first tour—leaving her a five-year-old son to care for.
She came to Dad’s house five days a week, Monday through Friday, five hours a day, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes morning, sometimes night. She helped him clean, organize his meals and medications, drove him to the store and doctor appointments, and did memory exercises with him every day. She and Dr. Hale said that the simple mental exercises along with his medication could help slow his dementia. When I arrived at his home one Sunday to eat dinner and play Texas Rummy with him and Brenda, Lucy was just leaving. I stopped on the front porch and asked how Dad was today.
She flashed a tired PR smile. “He’s good. He’s got a lot of energy so we did some yard work in the back, and then I helped him and Brenda cook dinner for you guys. Where’s Brianne and Sera? Brenda said they were coming.”
I checked the time on my cell phone. “Brianne just got off work. She’s going to pick up Sera from a friend’s house and then they’ll be here.”
“Good, good,” she said. “Well, I have to go to my mom’s house and pick up Jimmy so I better get.”
Jimmy was her five-year-old son. “All right. Have a…oh, wait. I almost forgot.” I fished five twenty-dollar bills from my pocket and held them out for her. “Here you go.”
She looked at the money but didn’t take it. “I’ve told you before that you don’t have to tip me, Mr. Fow—I mean, Seth.”
“I know. I want to.”
Her tired smile and her chocolate eyes perked up, and she took the money. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Have a good one.”
Shortly after Lucy drove off, Brianne and Sera pulled up in Brianne’s whiny, white Taurus that had a mismatched tan fender and a glued-on driver’s side mirror. We’d bought the car eight years earlier when Brianne landed a job at Golden Corral and had pumped no less than five hundred bucks into it every year to keep it afloat. I met them on the sidewalk, hugged them, and we all went inside.
Dad was in his recliner watching a John Wayne flick. Brenda was adding the extension to the dining table so everyone could sit together. Brianne rushed to help her while Sera and I greeted Dad, who seemed mentally lucid and energetic like Lucy had said. Which was good. Sera knew her Papa had bad days when he didn’t know his asshole from a hole in the ground, and that he sometimes cussed at me and became violent for no apparent reason, I just didn’t want her to see those ugly moments with her own eyes. I wanted her to remember my dad as the quirky old man who pulled small treasures out of her ear, told tasteless jokes, and teased her about the springiness of her curly hair.
For dinner, Lucy, Brenda, and Dad had made a stroganoff casserole, rolls, green beans, and sweet tea. Brownies for dessert. For an hour we ate and engaged in small talk. We chatted about Brenda’s homegrown tomatoes and green beans, Sera’s “hideous” math teacher whose breath smelled of cigarettes and beard regularly had powdered donut crumbs stuck in it, Brianne’s sixteen-year-old co-worker who was pregnant for the second time, and my latest job—building a storage facility in western Mercy so the rich had more space to store their toys.
After dinner, Brianne and I cleared the table and cleaned up the kitchen while Sera cut the brownies and Brenda and Dad prepared the table for the card game, finding the deck of cards and pencil and paper needed to keep score. Playing Texas Rummy had been a ritual at all my mom’s family’s holiday gatherings when I was a kid. She’d taught me and Dad how to play and I’d taught Brianne, Ryan, and Sera. The four of us had spent countless hours playing under our carport on warm summer evenings, and we played an annual Christmas Eve game every year. Good memories.
We laughed and played until almost ten o’clock. Sera came out on top, earning the grand prize customarily taped to the center of the table—twenty bucks. Which used to be five in less prosperous times. Dad ribbed her, accused her of cheating and demanded she fork over the twenty. She was the score keeper and no one had verified her math, he claimed. She gave him a sassy, ornery look—a look that her mom had given me numerous times—and told him to prove it.
Brenda hugged everyone and went home to let her Chihuahua Fruity out to pee. Dad sat down in his recliner and cranked up the volume on the news. After we shrunk the table back into a small square, Brianne and I joined Sera on the couch. We watched the weather and listened to Dad chide the weatherman, calling him a “smarmy liar,” claiming flipping a coin would give the same results as all their fancy gadgetry. During the next commercial break, Brianne gave me her let’s-go look.
Sera hugged Dad first, and he pulled a five-dollar bill out of her ear. Brianne hugged him next, then I shook his hand and told him I’d call him tomorrow. We were headed out the door when Channel 10 news anchor Michelle Farmer, a skinny blonde-haired girl with blue eyes and thick black glasses, appeared on the television screen and said something that shattered the peaceful sensation I’d had the entire evening. I hadn’t thought of Luther or the birds once since we’d arrived.
“In the last ten months, four alleged prostitutes who frequented Mercy Boulevard have been reported missing,” Michelle said, her words like a snake bite to my neck. I froze with my hand on the door knob and stared at the TV as Brianne and Sera continued chatting on their way to the Taurus.
“Although many of the alleged Boulevard prostitutes are transients and often leave town unannounced, the news is still very disconcerting to the friends and families of the missing,” Michelle continued. “Especially Amber Powell’s. She was the only one of the four women who was a lifelong Mercy resident, and her sister is the person who contacted us for help finding her sister.”
The screen cut to a small woman with light brown hair and hazel eyes who looked oddly familiar. She held a flyer in front her chest. Below the name rendered in all capitals—AMBER POWELL—was a picture of a pretty girl who appeared to be a teenager. I inched toward the TV. Her hair was shorter and styled with bangs, and her eyes were squinty from the giant smile on her face, but it was her. The girl in the sack in back of Randy’s truck. The girl I’d called the police about. That’s why the sister looked familiar. The family resemblance. Her sister (Darcy Powell according to the label on the bottom of the screen) told Michelle Farmer that she last talked to Amber last summer. She admitted Amber was a prostitute and struggled with drug addiction, but she claimed Amber would never go this long without contacting her. Or just up and leave town like the police suggested. They were best friends. Shared an apartment. “Something bad has happened to her, I know it. And somebody out there knows what. Please help me find my sister.” Her plea brought tears to her eyes and an ache to my chest.
The screen cut back to the live studio where Michelle Farmer said, “I also spoke with Detective Morrell of the Mercy Police Department this afternoon.”
Morrell was standing slumped-shouldered in front of the police building downtown. He wore a ’70s-style brown suit and looked like he’d dipped his hair in vat of oil, making the comb trails appear deep as ravines. I hadn’t spoken to him about Randy in more than six months. “We are giving the disappearances of Amber Powell, C.C. Jackson, Staci Umbarger, and J’Qaunda Jones the due attention they deserve. We take their family’s and friend’s reports seriously and are taking all actions necessary to find these women. Unfortunately, missing person cases involving women who are allegedly involved in prostitution are often the hardest to solve. They tend to move around and change appearances frequently.”
“What would you say to any of the women if they’re watching?” Michelle asked.
Morrell’s droopy eyes slid to the camera. To me. “I’d tell them that their family and friends are worried, and I’d ask them to please contact just one person so we’ll know they’re okay. That’s all we want.”
The honk of Brianne’s Taurus pulled my eyes away from TV as Michelle Farmer began giving statistics about missing women in Texas and the entire United States. I glanced out the front door and saw them pulling away from the curb, Sera waving from the passenger seat. I waved back, then turned to Dad. He was staring at the TV, at a blaring commercial about foundation repair. I told him “bye” again, made sure the door was locked, then hurried to my truck.
I sat there for a long while, staring at the blue jay in Dad’s elm tree. Learning Amber Powell’s name, seeing her face—her vibrant smiling face— was like a punch to the gut. Like a spotlight of reality cast on my actions. Before she’d just been a random woman, a nameless pair of eyes. A sex-doll. But now she was a young prostitute from Mercy with addiction problems and a heart-broken sister. If I had just taken her out of Randy’s truck that night, right then and there, and had the cojones to make him face the music, everything would be different. She’d still be dead, sure, but her sister would know where she was. And I wouldn’t be in the position I was…and on and on.
For about the hundredth time, regret pummeled me as I thought of all the things I could’ve done different. Done better. But as I stared at that blue jay staring at me, deep down I knew that things wouldn’t have been better-different. Just different.
First off, I would’ve been dead. Perhaps tied to a tree and slaughtered to prove a point to some other poor soul. Luther would’ve found someone else to be his puppet, his utensil, his temporary play-thing. And the killings definitely would’ve continued. If not in Mercy then somewhere else. Because Luther would’ve gone on doing what Luther does. And God knows what would’ve happened to Brianne and Sera. And Dad. Maybe nothing. But maybe more than I want my imagination to guess at. Besides, if I allow myself a moment of selfishness, Dad wouldn’t have had the extra help. Esperanza wouldn’t have a proper tombstone. Brianne’s and Ryan’s mom wouldn’t have a bed and the medicine she needed. Lucy wouldn’t have had a job with massive tips to help with her son Jimmy. Our neighbors wouldn’t have had the new set of tires on their Beretta—tires that kept them from losing their jobs and becoming homeless. Ryan wouldn’t have been able to open his first savings account. Brianne wouldn’t have had a sparkle in her eyes when she talked about having enough of a financial cushion to maybe, possibly, have a baby of her own. And Sera wouldn’t have had everything a young girl needs in today’s world in order to maximize her opportunities, both socially and economically.
When I finally left my dad’s house, I drove to Wizzards, sat in the same booth I’d sat in the night I met Luther, and drank until my conscience stopped being able to offer up questions. Then I drank more. Until I fully drowned the feeling of regret swimming in my chest.
Thirteen
A Fit Proposal and Wedding
Shortly after Brianne's shift started one sunny summer afternoon, Ryan dropped me and Sera off behind the Corral next to the dumpsters. Brianne and the other Golden Corral employees parked behind the restaurant. Using a spare of set of keys, we took Brianne’s Taurus to the Honda dealership downtown and traded it (I got a whopping three hundred bucks for it) toward a silver Honda Fit.
Brianne had been coveting the Fits for a while. Every time we’d pass the lot she’d comment on how cute and spunky they were, or how good of gas mileage they got compared to her Taurus, or how the hatch back would be perfect for when she helped deliver the Golden Corral’s catering. She wanted one, bad, but having been raised in a way that didn’t allow personal purchases for anything other than necessities, never for anything that cost more than five or ten dollars at that, she never would’ve asked for one outright. Old habits die hard. So I bought it for her.
And since I’d taken such a big step, big in our world anyway, I decided to take one more and ask her to marry me.
Beginning with the conversation we’d had the first night I laid eyes on her at Wizzards and bought her a couple of drinks, we’d both always expressed a lack of interest in marriage. She never actually admitted it, but I attributed her lack of interest to the various failed marriages she and Ryan had watched her mother endure. Cecilia Collier had been married five times and none of those guys were Brianne’s or Ryan’s fathers. Husbands number one, three, and four were mooching drunks with aggressive tempers who hit their mom regularly (not that she didn’t occasionally throw the first punch). Number three actually beat her bad enough to put her in the hospital a couple of times. Husband two turned out to be gay—she caught him sucking a neighbor’s dick in the garage one afternoon—and husband five was a flat-out pervert. “He’ll fuck anything with a hole,” Brianne’s mom had once said. He’d even tried to poke Brianne one night while she slept in her panties and T-shirt on the couch when she was twelve. Her mom initially pressed charges on the guy, but later, just before the divorce, dropped them for some unknown reason.
My initial disinterest in marriage was because of Esperanza. At one time, I thought she was my “soul mate,” my “one true love,” and I honestly didn’t see ever loving anyone that hard again. But I was wrong. Within six months of knowing Brianne, I loved her every bit as much as I had Esperanza and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Yet I continued with the marriage-doesn’t-matter façade for years. We both did. Anytime Ryan or someone else asked, “When are you two gonna get hitched already?” we’d laugh it off as irrelevant. A piece of paper. A tax-thing. A waste of money we didn’t have. We were committed to one another with our hearts and that’s all that mattered. But I could tell by the look in Brianne’s eyes, by the hesitation of her response, a hesitation that grew longer every time the issue arose, that she’d turned a corner. She wanted to get married.
Five minutes before Brianne’s lunch break, Sera and I placed the engagement ring I’d bought a few weeks earlier on the Fit’s key ring, put the key in the ignition, then hid with Ryan behind the dumpsters.
As Brianne walked out the back door and headed to her Taurus for her customary smoke, my stomach danced with excitement. I covered Sera’s mouth to stifle her giggling when Brianne realized her Taurus was missing. Brianne stopped and her mouth dropped open. She slammed her hands onto her hips, threw her head back, and yelled, “Goddammit!” As she lowered her head and noticed the Fit, the dealer tags, her expression changed from anger to confusion. I took my hand off Sera’s mouth, and told her and Ryan, “Let’s go.”
