From A Dead Sleep Page 4

  Lumbergh’s body jolted, but he kept his cool, raising his eyebrows to direct a silent warning.

  “I’ve never asked you for anything, Gary!” Sean shouted. “And I don’t want you to start doing me any favors! I just want you to do your goddamned job! You run this place like a Chicago police department, but when someone reports a dead body, you blow him off? Are you kidding me?”

  “Enough!” Lumbergh held up both palms in front of Sean’s chest. With his eyes large in sincerity, he said, “I’m going to check it out, okay?”

  “You are?” said a stunned Sean. He alertly stood up straight.

  Lumbergh held his hand beside his mouth and yelled, “Jefferson!”

  Three seconds later, Jefferson was heard racing down the hallway. He opened the office door and poked his head inside. He purposely didn’t make eye contact with Sean.

  Lumbergh didn’t look at his officer. “Pull the cruiser around back. We’re going to Meyers Bridge.”

  A sly smile formed on Sean’s face, and he crossed his arms in front of his chest. “And make it snappy, Jefferson,” he added in a gloating tone.

  “Shut up, Sean,” said Lumbergh.

  Jefferson pretended not to hear the exchange and attempted to leave, but Lumbergh stopped him.

  “But first,” the chief said, “give Sean’s uncle a call and have him pick him up.”

  At the same time, but in different tones, both Jefferson and Sean replied with, “What?”

  Lumbergh held his hand up to Sean. “You heard me, Jefferson.”

  Even before the door closed behind the officer, Sean was up in arms. “What are you calling him for? I’m coming out with you guys!”

  Lumbergh shook his head and discreetly rolled his eyes. “We can take it from here, Sean. I’ve got the location. I’ll have Jefferson call you if we have any questions.”

  “This is unbelievable! This is un-fucking-believable! I witnessed the whole thing!”

  “And I listened to your entire story,” Lumbergh sharply added. “Now you have to let me do my job! If what you say is true, a crime wasn’t even committed. This will be open and shut.”

  Sean’s eye twitched as he glared back at Lumbergh.

  The chief lowered his head and took a deep breath. He then pressed his thumb against his police chief ’s badge, which shined proudly on his dress-shirt pocket. “Sean, this badge means that I have a duty to the people of Winston. They elected me to serve them to the best of my abilities. I’m convinced that having you there would only hinder our investigation.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Jefferson and I aren’t going to have time to answer all of your questions and entertain all of your theories. And we certainly don’t need your abrasive attitude at the scene.”

  Lumbergh meant every word he said. Sean was a liability—a dreamer with a wild imagination—which often led him to overstep an imagined level of authority he never had in the first place.

  “Gary, come on! I know what I’m doing!”

  Lumbergh took offense to his words. “No, you don’t, Sean! No, you don’t! Watching Law and Order every week doesn’t make you a cop! That badge you wear isn’t a real badge; you’re a security guard!”

  In Sean’s eyes, Lumbergh had just crossed the line. Sean was proud of his job, and he didn’t like it being disrespected. “Do you think your badge scares me, Gary?”

  He leaned in close with his forehead almost touching Lumbergh’s. He glared into the chief ’s eyes with frightening intensity, and his right index finger pressed imposingly into the officer’s chest. “Just between you and me, I would have kicked your scrawny ass years ago if it wasn’t for Diana!”

  Lumbergh bit his lip and twisted his body away from Sean. Retreating to the back of his desk with a red face, he suddenly held his hand in the air. “Are you threatening me now, Sean? Is that what you’re doing? How many times do you think you can hit rock-bottom before you won’t be able to drag yourself up again?” At that point, Lumbergh should have stopped. He immediately regretted that he didn’t. But Sean knew just how to push his buttons, and Lumbergh let his bitterness get the better of him. “And the fact that you don’t think I’ve done you any favors is a joke! Do have any idea what sacrifices Diana and I have made for you?”

  Sean took a step back, his jaw squared and his chest heaving in and out. It took a second for Lumbergh’s words to settle in, but once they did, he found himself at a loss for words. Lumbergh’s eyes lowered to the top of his desk in guilt, and neither man spoke for what seemed like an eternity.

  Sean finally mustered up enough nerve to respond. “So that’s what this is all about, Gary? Sean’s too incompetent to care for his own mother, so Hollywood has to quit the big time and move out here with his new wife to Jerkwater USA? Diana said she was homesick, but that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  Lumbergh had promised Diana that he’d never bring up the sensitive topic with Sean. It was to remain a secret—an unacknowledged burden. However, the heat of the moment finally let the truth slip out into the open. Diana loved her brother dearly, but she knew he didn’t have the patience or the capacity to effectively care for their stroke-stricken mother. Lumbergh couldn’t bring himself to respond to Sean’s question. Instead he just kept his head lowered.

  After several seconds, in a tone odd in its composure, Sean said, “Well, Gary . . . I’m sorry I fucked up your life.”

  He then immediately spun around and sidestepped the fallen blind. Without another word, he opened the office door and gently closed it behind him on his way out.

  Chapter 5

  “Come on, you wuss! Don’t give up!” yelled a young red-haired boy through his own laughter, glancing down at his plastic wristwatch. “Fifteen more seconds!”

  “Fifteen more seconds?” came the reply, laden with exhausted disbelief from the boy’s heavy-set friend. He sat waist-deep in a shallow stream of water along the smooth sand. His eyes were wide and his voice shaky but excited. “Are you s-s-serious???”

  Jogging by briskly along an isolated beach, Lisa Kimble couldn’t help but form a smile upon eavesdropping in on the boys’ conversation. They were the same two kids she had seen the day before searching through the nearby woods for Indian arrowheads. Now they were in their swimming trunks, contesting who could sit in freezing-cold spring water the longest.

  Lisa loved Traverse City, Michigan. It was a place she held close to her heart since the day her husband had first brought her there. The rain had stopped after two days of showers, and she took advantage of the calmer weather for a quick run.

  The sun shone down unhindered above the clear blue sky and onto her bright blonde hair, which was tied back in a ponytail. It was so much easier to breathe in upstate Michigan. The air was crisp and clean—much unlike what she was used to.

  The distant sound of a boat horn prompted Lisa to glance out along the calm and crystal-clear water of Little Traverse Bay. About a hundred yards out, a proud sailboat skimmed along like it floated on air. The lake looked just like the ocean—outlying buoys, swooping gulls, and water as far as the eye could see. The view was something she never grew tired of. The sand below her feet was bright and clean, as if it had been completely filtered of all impurities.

  She saw the boy with the wristwatch wave to her, a large, toothy grin on his face, and she waved back. He reminded her of one of her students.

  She sometimes ventured a glance into the future with her mind picturing children of her own playing along that very beach. Sandcastles, bodysurfing, picnics . . . It was a fabulous dream, but it seemed increasingly unlikely.

  At thirty-three years of age, Lisa looked no older than twenty—a testimonial to a healthy diet and staying active. Her friends often joked with her about her youthful appearance. Most people might have taken such remarks as a compliment. However, Lisa felt that her youthful appearance often led others into not taking her seriously. Whether the perception was real or something merely in her head, it got under her sk
in when she felt people were talking down to her.

  Her athletic frame and pretty face caught the eye of a couple of middle-aged men with overly tanned skin wearing almost matching white polo shirts with raised collars. They had been looking out along the water with their arms crossed in front of them—probably discussing their businesses or a golf game. One of them winked at Lisa. She pretended she didn’t see him.

  She turned to head up a narrow, angled dirt path that was almost hidden by a line of thick brush at the back edge of the beach. Keeping up her pace, she disappeared into a dense forest of tall cottonwood trees, which blocked out the sunlight like a blanket.

  She liked to turn up the intensity at the tail end of her jogs, digging the tips of her running shoes into the steep incline and pumping her legs hard to make it to the top of the hill. With perspiration gliding down along her neck, she reached the top of the path, which intersected into her paved blacktop driveway. Emerging from the darkened woods, she decided not to slow down there, instead keeping her speed and continuing up toward the top of the driveway, which bent sharply to the right. She was pretending to race her husband, as they’d sometimes do, though they hadn’t in a while.

  Ahead, she thought she heard what sounded like the slam of a car door. A sense of wishful thinking pulsed along with her heartbeat as she rounded the bend. With bright blue eyes, she leaned her head at an angle in hopes of catching a glimpse of the sight she crossed her fingers would be there. He wasn’t. Her momentum came to an exhausted halt once the front of the cottage’s side garage came into clear sight. Only her car sat by itself outside. Her shoulders deflated like a punctured balloon. He still hadn’t arrived.

  Chapter 6

  Lumbergh gazed expressionlessly outside the passenger side window of the new police cruiser. It still had that new car smell, which he liked. The vast mountain range alongside County Road 2 glowed under the bright, unhindered sun. Its decor of thick pine and low-lying aspen was always a captivating sight. He saw it as one of the few perks that Winston offered that he could never find in Chicago. It was a wonder the land managed to escape being converted into winter ski resorts for all these years—the direction several of the surrounding regions had succumbed to. Winston and the land around it were like secret hideaways, untouched by major civilization. Still, the scenery was a blurry haze through eyes of remorse. The pit of Lumbergh’s stomach laid submerged deep in his body.

  He asked himself why he even cared whether or not Sean knew the truth. His brother-in-law had been nothing but a thorn in his side and a pain in his ass since the day they met. Maybe learning the truth would finally earn some respect out of that ungrateful jerk.

  Lumbergh often wondered how Sean and Diana could belong to the same gene pool. They were polar opposites. One was sweet, compassionate, and caring, while the other one was just . . . Sean. They didn’t even look anything alike. Regardless, there was no way around it. Sean Coleman would always be a part of Lumbergh’s life, like a persistent wart that can be repeatedly shaved down flat, yet keeps growing back.

  Lumbergh’s daze was abruptly broken by the unpleasant sound of Jefferson’s thick lips smacking as the officer devoured the last half of a large jelly donut as he drove. The pastry left a thin layer of powdered sugar across the big man’s freckled hand. Lumbergh’s nose crinkled in nausea as he then observed Jefferson meticulously lick his hand before dipping it into his front uniformed pocket to retrieve an undersized plastic comb. His officer used the comb to shamelessly brush the crumbs from his thick and curvy mustache onto his lap.

  “You ever think about trimming that off?” Lumbergh asked openly.

  Jefferson’s eyes widened, and he lifted his gaze from the road to glance at Lumbergh. The subordinate was noticeably concerned by the comment.

  “Why? Do you think I should?”

  “It might help your career.”

  “It might? Really?”

  Lumbergh chuckled and relaxed back in his seat. “No. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

  Jefferson nodded his head and turned his focus back to his driving before saying, “Coltraine told me Sean’s story. That brother-in-law of yours really can’t hold his liquor, can he? You don’t think there’s really anything to it, do you?”

  “Well, Jefferson, as we both know, he doesn’t have the best of track records.”

  Jefferson chuckled.

  Lumbergh’s eyes traced the path of a small brown hawk that he noticed flying above. “To answer your question though . . . No. I’m thinking this is just another Sean Coleman goose hunt.”

  He couldn’t help but shake his head. He had never used the term goose hunt before coming to Winston. The day before, he had joked with his wife that he was losing his social graces with each passing day.

  “However,” he added, “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t look into it.”

  Jefferson nodded his head and cleared his throat.

  Squinting a bit, and glancing back out his window, Lumbergh reached into his front pocket for a stick of chewing gum. “There’s only one thing that’s got me thinking, though.”

  Jefferson glanced back over at him—always an attentive listener of his boss’s insights.

  “The level of detail in his story. So many odd details. It wasn’t the regular paranoia . . . An injured hand. The way the guy shot himself.” Lumbergh folded his thin piece of gum in half and pushed it into his mouth.

  “Injured hand?”

  “Milo didn’t tell you about that?”

  “No.”

  “Bloodstained bandages wrapped around one of his hands. Sean doesn’t strike me as someone creative enough to come up with that.”

  Chapter 7

  Sean felt like hell. He was dehydrated with a pounding head. The shouting match with his brother-in-law certainly hadn’t helped. Sean’s drying pants still clung to his legs, and his underarms smelled terribly rank.

  Sitting on a green wooden bench outside the police department, Sean’s body was doubled forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands covering his unshaven face. His fingertips tugged at his lower eyelids to play out an odd urge to air out his own eyeballs. Lumbergh’s words replayed in his mind, leaving behind a wrenching knot in Sean’s gut. His eyes lay transfixed on a long, yellow blade of grass that crept up from cracks in the uneven concrete sidewalk beneath his feet. Moving his fingers and letting his eyes tighten, he cleared his throat and moved a hand to the back of his head to scratch that same pesky itch.

  An image of his mother, with her face twisted into a permanent scowl, flashed under his eyelids. That agonizing voice of hers, struggling for unfound clarity, echoed in his ears. He rarely visited her, even now that her health had disintegrated. Maybe he knew all along why Diana had come back. Maybe the convenience of it all prevented him from questioning the motive. Maybe he had convinced himself that her return was an advantageous out for him—a way of freeing himself from an obligation he should have been man enough to accept on his own. Lumbergh may have been right; what good was Sean Coleman?

  Just when Sean felt the day had no other direction left to go but up, the familiar sharp and high-pitched dual ring of a bell drained the remaining energy out of his body. He shook his head slowly in annoyance.

  “Hey there, Sean!” a child’s voice exuberantly greeted.

  “Toby,” Sean muttered in subtle acknowledgment, without turning his head.

  “Boy, it sure sounds like you had one heck of a night last night. Don’t worry, though. Moses Jones may have gotten lucky, but he would be best not to make the mistake of underestimating you the next time you two square off.”

  The boy’s words struck a final nerve, causing Sean to clench his fists and bite his lip. He kept his head lowered but couldn’t keep silent. His hand slid from his face to his hairline, where he clawed his fingers into his very short bangs.

  “How the hell does everyone in this goddamned town know about Moses Jones?” he snapped. “Was it in the morning paper or something
?”

  “Yes. Page three. There’s even an interview with Moses. He said that alcohol wasn’t a factor in his win, and that he’d be more than happy to offer a rematch.”

  The Winston Beacon claimed to be a legit newspaper, but the local news that graced its pages was often mere town gossip. Needless to say, Sean’s antics had made print on numerous occasions. He even had a couple of front page headlines under his belt.

  Sean was too tired and annoyed to display an appropriate reaction. He looked like a rotting, overturned tree.

  “Hey, Sean?”

  “What, Toby?”

  “Do you know what I learned the other day?”

  Sean scratched the back of his head more rapidly, offering no confirmation that he’d heard the boy.

  Toby continued anyway. “Dachshunds were originally bred to hunt badgers in their dens. Do you think Rocco has ever tangled with a badger? I hope not, because I’m afraid Rocco wouldn’t fare too well with his bad eyes. How is Rocco anyway? Has he lost any weight? I’ve been on a diet myself. Those carbohydrates are tough to stay away from.”

  Toby was only thirteen years old, but he often sounded more like a chatty grandmother that one might be trapped next to on a long airplane trip. Always inquisitive and often repetitive, it wasn’t hard to mistake Toby’s demeanor for that of any other high-strung and intelligent child. However, Toby was different—he had a mild form of the mental disorder autism known as Asperger syndrome.

  While demonstrating many of the classic traits of most autists, he also displayed some atypical ones. Rather than exuding socially deficient behavior, he was quite accomplished in the arena of conversation; often too accomplished for Sean’s liking.

  Sean took a breath and reluctantly raised his head to meet the friendly smile of the portly freckle-faced boy who sat proudly along the banana seat of his bright-red Stingray bicycle. Toby’s large, pale-blue eyes, beneath long lashes, were filled with clear adoration . . . a feat in itself that Sean had been told to take with the highest regard.