From A Dead Sleep Read online

  “We should go to the range on Monday and turn her loose,” suggested Zed. “There’s hardly any recoil at all. It’s as slick as snot.”

  “You’ve fired it?” Sean asked in surprise.

  “Sure. What good is a lady if you can’t take her for a dance?”

  Sean had heard his uncle use that phrase several times before. He still didn’t get it.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, confusion in his eyes after spinning his head toward his uncle. “I’m working on Monday.”

  “Eh . . . I tried to call you last night. They ended up going with Bodie’s outfit. He put in a lower bid.”

  “Shit. You don’t have anything else for me?”

  “No. Not until Thursday. A museum over in Branston needs someone to work some exhibit they’ll be hosting throughout next weekend. It will be a four-day job.”

  “Branston?” Sean said with a scowl. “That’s almost an hour’s drive. And over the weekend?”

  With an agitated grunt, Zed eyeballed Sean. “What’s the matter? You afraid of missing another lucrative game of pool?” After a brief pause, he continued. “It’s good money, Sean, and don’t tell me you don’t need it.”

  Sean hesitantly nodded his head. “Fine.”

  Gravel crackled beneath the oversized tires of Zed’s truck as the two men pulled off of the road and into the parking lot of O’Rafferty’s. Sean’s pale-blue ’78 Chevy Nova sat by its lonesome along the east corner of the building.

  Zed looked at the faded paint of the building. “When’s old Ted gonna break down and give his shack a new paint job? I can barely even tell that the wood is red anymore.”

  Sean grinned, peering at the rotted and twisted planking that decorated the front of the small building just below the slanted crest and tilting tin entrance sign. “He better have left my keys on the dashboard.”

  “He always does.” Zed came to a halt behind Sean’s car.

  With a deep breath, Sean carefully placed the gun back into his uncle’s glove compartment.

  “Well . . . thanks for the ride.”

  Zed nodded. A hint of a smile formed on his lips before his face contorted in thought.

  “What?” asked Sean.

  After a few seconds of reluctance, Zed asked, “How’s your mother?”

  The delivery of the question was clearly uncomfortable—for both men. Sean’s face turned pale, which Zed hadn’t expected.

  “Sad, ain’t it? I don’t even know,” Sean said. “I haven’t been over there in a month. I guess she’s fine. Diana hasn’t said anything.”

  Zed recognized the look of despair in Sean’s eyes. He’d seen it many times. It was the same look that Sean used to display when he’d asked about his father so many years ago. He was but a child back then, but those droopy eyes and those low shoulders sent Zed back in time. “Well, you’ve got me beat at least.”

  Sean dropped a sneer and let out a chuckle. “Yeah, but at least you have an excuse.”

  Zed slowly nodded his head and lifted his eyes. “Maybe I used to. But I’m not so sure I have one these days.”

  “Uncle Zed, we both know that her problem with you has always been her problem. You didn’t do anything wrong. It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now.”

  “Well, no one ever said that guilt by association was fair. But I’ve got no bad feelings for her. I guess that when you hate someone that much, it’s hard to see the face of his brother who looks a lot like him every time you go into town.” Zed pulled his toothpick from his mouth and held it vertically before his eyes. It was well chewed and bent at the top. After tossing it out his open window, he said, “For her, I’m a photograph that doesn’t fade. A constant reminder.”

  “You’re not him. You’re just related to him. Like me. Bad genes.”

  Zed reached into his front pocket and pulled out a couple of folded twenty-dollar bills. He reached across the cab and shoved them into Sean’s front pocket—the pocket where his missing badge normally hung. Sean opened his mouth to protest, but Zed cut him off.

  “It’s an advance, on the Branston job.” Zed’s warm eyes glowed at Sean.

  Sean’s mouth curled at the edges. His eyes expressed gratitude.

  “Thanks, Uncle Zed.”

  Chapter 8

  The constant peck-peck finally got to her. With her eyes narrowed and her soft lips forming a smirk, Lisa raised her head from behind her large glass of ice-cold lemonade and the hardback novel she was reading. Her nose, with its slightly raised tip, crinkled. After ten annoyed minutes, she thought that the woodpecker had finally moved on to another tree. No such luck.

  Peck, peck, peck! She didn’t know what puzzled her more—the woodpecker’s persistence and decision to stick to a single tree or the fact that the subtle sound was bothering her so much. It wasn’t the bird’s fault that she was in a bad mood.

  Sitting back on an old wicker chair with her shapely legs crossed and her feet propped up on a short wooden stool, Lisa could only shake her head in aggravation. The redwood deck sprawled out beneath her groaned from the subtle movement.

  When would he show up? In an hour? A couple more days, maybe?

  Her husband had a secret mistress—his career. It kept him away for days at a time and often bound him from even revealing to her where he was. She knew and understood this prior to the marriage, but living with it for the past couple of years had brought loneliness with little consolation. Once again, his job had even interfered with vacation plans despite his promises that this time would be different. Would it ever end? She had little faith left in her husband’s ability to do his part—his part in holding together what was left of their marriage.

  Wearing an aged and faded UNLV sweatshirt with matching shorts, she stood up straight and stretched her arms to the sky. Despite an afternoon nip in the air, the sun felt good against her face.

  She walked to the backdoor at the edge of the porch. Upon opening it, she smiled at the sound of the attached doggy-door that flapped loosely from her action. Good old Cletus. God, she missed him. No one could have asked for a better dog. The German shepherd had kept her company and made her feel safe through so many lonely nights, whether it was there at the cottage or back in the city. He was a loyal friend up until he was hit by a car late last year. His companionship was difficult to forget, and it sometimes felt as if he had never left. Just that morning, she had routinely unlatched his door, fully expecting to hear his brisk clatter of nails echo up from the kitchen floor, as they had last summer when he would brush past her to play outside.

  With her eyes glazed over in reminiscence, she thought about how odd of a paradox the human memory could be. Six months had passed, and she still remembered the sounds that Cletus made. It was like it was just yesterday. Yet, she couldn’t remember the last time she and her husband had kissed—really kissed.

  Something her father once told her just then drifted through her mind. “Honey, you’re smart in everything but men.”

  At the time, the comment had infuriated her even though she knew deep down that he was probably right. Growing up, she’d always found herself attracted to the wrong boys; the ones who played by their own rules and didn’t respect authority. Ironically, her husband was perhaps the only man she’d brought home who her father actually liked. He respected her husband’s career, especially with the obstacles his disability forced him to overcome in order to achieve it. Even with her father’s approval, she feared his original assessment of her might have still held true.

  Her back slumped against the bottom cushions of a brown leather couch at the edge of the living room. It creaked with age. She interlaced her fingers behind her head, kicked off her running shoes, and found herself glaring straight up at the high ceiling. The silence was deafening, other than the sound of her own breathing and the occasional settling of the foundation.

  Two years ago, the cottage was a place that promised a future of fond memories, like when her husband lay in the same position as she
was now in, on that very couch, with his eyes closed and faint snoring drifting up from his mouth. He had, for once, seemed relaxed. From the open bedroom loft directly above, she’d sprinkled rose petals down across his body until he awoke with his hair disheveled and that bright smile she hadn’t seen in so long. She remembered the spontaneous giggle that leapt from between her lips as he playfully ran up the spiral staircase, skipping every other step, to join her.

  She yearned for those pleasant times to return. She had hoped that coming back to the cottage might rekindle some of those old feelings. Instead, with him being gone again, it served as a torture chamber of false assurances.

  Chapter 9

  The imposing howl of the Nova’s shot muffler wreaked pandemonium across the otherwise tranquil forest. The smell of exhaust clouded out the usual scent of pine and mountain water.

  With the sole of his boot clamped to the brake pedal at the center of Meyers Bridge, Sean’s neck swung from window to window looking for the police cruiser or any sign of Lumbergh or Jefferson. Nothing. He couldn’t believe they had already come and left, but that had to be the case. They had left the station for the bridge long before Zed arrived to pick him up.

  With his ample back pressed into the deteriorating vinyl car seat, he found himself gazing out through the open passenger window and along the fast-moving water that roared steadily below. The river’s path disappeared around a distant barrage of trees.

  A suffocating feeling of insignificance overcame the small town security guard, and he coughed on his own breath. He popped the transmission into park, stepped out of the car, and crossed to the railing where the stranger had let himself fall. He dropped to his hands and knees, and extended his head over the guardrail, scanning for a splatter of blood along the metal and wood planking. He spent several minutes doing this, occasionally using his knees to work himself to the side. Nothing.

  Sean’s jaw squared, and he shook his head in disgust. He felt his blood boil, and he raised his head to the sky, aiming a scary glare at God. Sean was a Christian and never questioned his faith, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why his Maker seemed to take such delight in hanging him out to dry. It was as if he was a prop for the Big Man’s amusement.

  He thought back to the sight of the stranger that sat on the edge of the bridge mere hours earlier. The hopelessness he must have felt, deciding that there was no other solution than to rid the world of his existence. At what point had enough become enough? At what point was the battle no longer worth fighting?

  Sean knew hopelessness.

  He had promised himself countless times before last night that he would never let it get that bad again.

  The drinking.

  No more blacking out, he’d sometimes tell his reflection in the mirror. Memories of old friends and family, who had long written him off, drifted through his mind as they often had. He understood their discouragement with his inability to come to odds with his problem. He knew they were right, but he always had an excuse for why they were wrong. He could understand what might put that man on the bridge.

  A sudden, cool breeze whipped against his face as he climbed back to his feet. His right eye started to water up. He quickly used the back of his hand to sweep away all moisture. Crying is for sissies. Sean Coleman doesn’t cry.

  A moment later he was back in the car. His foot left the brake pedal and he pumped the gas, sending gravel and dust in his wake as he sped across the bridge. A quarter of a mile up the road, he passed the hunched-over frame of Ruth Golding who was clad in a white knit sweater and retrieving a handful of envelopes from her mailbox. She waved to Sean as he flew by, like she always did with any car that happened to be driving by while she was outside. He ignored her as usual, but then suddenly slammed on the brakes when a thought arose. He quickly backed up and popped his head out his window.

  “Ruth!” he yelled.

  The elderly woman was frail and slow, and had probably spent the last ten minutes crossing her property to reach the road. She was bent forward at the waist, retrieving a small American flag from the ground. Years ago, she’d started using the old classroom flag with its pencil mast as an outgoing mail alert after the plastic red one on her mailbox had broken off. The position of her body revealed more than Sean was ready for with the horizon of her pale blue underwear poking up from her skirt.

  He looked away in disgust and again called out her name. Once upright and favoring her hip, she turned to greet him from under her frazzled white hair and large, dark-framed bifocals.

  “Did you see some guy walking around here this morning?” he asked.

  “Who?” she replied in a dainty voice.

  “Some guy. I don’t know his name. He was dressed in black. Did you see him out on the road this morning?”

  She took a moment and squinted at him. “Who?” she repeated.

  “Jesus,” Sean said in annoyance. He raised his voice. “Anybody! Did you see anybody at all down here by the road this morning?”

  Her wrinkled face twisted in befuddlement. She arched her back and her eyes rose to the air as if she was straining to recollect a memory from her youth.

  Sean tapped the side of his door impatiently with the broad palm of his hand.

  “Well . . . I can’t say as I did.”

  Without another second wasted, the rear tires of the Nova spun circles and Ruth Golding was left behind in a cloud of dust as Sean advanced hurriedly back down the road.

  Sean didn’t answer his phone once that evening. He let his machine bear the torture. There had already been one scathing message left from his landlord. It had been awaiting attention since early that morning. A similar one came through around six p.m. That fat bastard, Sean thought to himself. Bailey lived right downstairs. He was either too lazy or too scared to come up and speak to him like a man. Sean took some gratification in believing it to be the latter, although he was fine with skipping the confrontation for one more day.

  He spent the next hour searching through cluttered drawers and disheveled closets for possessions to sell off. It wasn’t an uncommon practice, but each sale left him feeling like he had less of an identity. When he had moved out of his mother’s house, she gave him what was left of his father’s stuff. For years, she had kept the belongings around for some unknown reason. Sean speculated that as much as she hated him, it was her way of keeping up hope for her husband returning someday. Finally letting them go was her way of forgetting.

  The mementos were Sean’s only attachments to the man who had left his life so abruptly without as much as a goodbye. But like with his mother, each abandonment relieved his mind of another memory, whether it was an old pair of steel-tipped boots or a small HAM radio with rainbow-colored, entangled wires stemming from the back.

  Pickings were now slim. Almost every keepsake that would bring in more than just spare change was now gone—all but one . . . the one that Sean once promised himself he would not part with. It lay nestled away safely in his locked, top right desk drawer.

  He sat back on his large, overworked, brown leather recliner for hours in the dimmed living room that was growing darker with the sky. Time moved by slowly, like it often did. He found himself barrenly watching flashes of light from his nineteen-inch television set dance across the surrounding walls. The volume was turned down low. Now dressed only in checkered boxer shorts and a frayed t-shirt that had once been white, he repeatedly twisted his raised ankle in a clockwise motion to loosen up the aching and stiffness. One of his hands was wrapped around a warm bottle of beer while the other one massaged the ears of the old overweight dachshund who lay contentedly bundled up in a ball across his lap.

  Rocco. The thirteen-year-old pooch had belonged to Diana before she left for college years earlier. She could have left him with their mother, but she felt the crotchety canine was a better companion for Sean. Both were rambunctious and ill-tempered—a perfect match. He had initially protested the gift, fearing that the responsibility would cramp his style.
But as a favor to his pleading sister, he eventually gave in. He never regretted it. The two were kindred spirits—standoffish, territorial, and set in their ways. Rocco had gone completely blind from old age within the last year, but he was still tough. He didn’t let the disability get to him. Through every fall and collision, he always managed to pick himself right back up. No whining. Sean admired that.

  He moved a finger under Rocco’s coarse, gray beard that years ago had shone with a reddish brown, smooth coat. Rocco always liked having his chin rubbed. It was the one thing that turned the grumpy dog into putty. His tail flopped from side to side against Sean’s chest, and his nose pointed to the ceiling.

  Around nine p.m. came that dreaded call. Lumbergh. Sean sneered at the somber tone in the chief ’s voice that emitted dismally out through the speaker. Lumbergh asked twice for his brother-in-law to pick up, but Sean answered only with a swig of beer. After a sigh, Lumbergh detailed out his findings. No surprises. There was no blood or shells on the bridge, or any other proof of what Sean had seen. A dead end.

  Sean nodded his head, a sour scowl forming on his lips. He slowly cocked his arm back before snapping it forward and sending his half-full bottle of beer sailing at the wall above the kitchen counter where the answering machine resided. The thunderous crash sent glass and liquid spraying in multiple directions, and prompted Rocco to perch up on his front legs with risen ears. The aging dog twisted his head to face his master with eyes as cloudy as Sean’s composure.

  The clear image of the stranger’s body dropping from the bridge before the shot was ever fired reverberated like a scratched record through Sean’s mind. Gravity explained the absence of both blood and the shell.

  Lumbergh offered up some additional, meaningless details before he concluded with, “I don’t know what else to say, Sean.” Click.