Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 17
Booker slid behind the wheel and punched the automatic door lock open for Bradley.
“Didn’t know you were such a lady-killer, Dad.”
“Don’t know that I am.”
“That Melinda lady was hot for you.”
“You think so?”
“And the one in the granny dress, what was that about?”
“Roxanna owns the inn and dresses to depict the era.”
“I mean, why was she boring holes in you with those dagger eyes?”
Booker had hoped it wasn’t that obvious. “Guess she mistook a friendly conversation for something more.”
“Melinda was holding your hand.”
“But I wasn’t holding hers.” Splitting that hair wasn’t likely to win any points with Roxanna, though.
“Is it the old-fashioned one who’s going to the play with us?”
“That’s the plan.”
Bradley shook his head. “I don’t know. I think you’re passing up the good stuff.”
Booker wasn’t sure how to respond. Explain that “easy” and “good” were not synonymous? Sounded preachy. Yet he wondered if such an opening might lead to Bradley telling him more about Rachel. Then they might move to the topic of smoking crack.
A deer darted across the road and into the woods.
“Optimum, Dad! Look at that! Is that why you’re suiting up to be a big-game bow-hunter?”
“I wouldn’t kill a deer.”
“Why not? We kill fish. Catch ‘em, gut ‘em, eat ‘em. I’ve heard venison is great, so what’s the difference?”
“I’m not sure.” Booker cruised past his turn at Turtle Lake Road and took the long way around, past Fowler’s property. “Hand me that spotlight from under the seat,” he said.
Bradley scrambled around and found it. Driving slowly, Booker trained the light on the shadowy depths of each lot he passed, searching out metal stakes at the property lines. A rabbit hunkered beneath the trees.
“What are we looking for?”
“Chuck Fowler died on the property next to mine.”
“Quantum gross. So are we, like, investigating?”
“More like snooping.” He counted six lots bearing for-sale signs from Melinda’s agency. Tallow trees, sweet gums, and live oaks crowded together with yaupon thicket—not a place you’d want to walk around in after dark. He bet the sun didn’t brighten it much even in daylight.
When they reached the farthest empty lot, Booker played the beam over three peach trees growing in a row. Dewberries and muscadine grapes grew wild at Lakeside, but he figured these peach trees must’ve been planted. The underbrush had been cleared away at some point, not entirely but a third or so, as if attacked on weekends and never finished.
Plenty of lots at Lakeside were in similar condition, owners enthusiastic at first then losing interest. No one had tended this property recently. Except for a trail near the fruit trees, native yaupon was fast reclaiming the area. Yaupon was a year-round nuisance, while Texas peaches usually didn’t last past July—yet the three little trees stood heavy with ripe fruit, their sweet odor permeating the night air.
“If all six of these lots were Fowler’s, that’s more than an acre of ground.” Seemed like plenty of room for target practice.
“It’d make a boss dirt-bike track. Think the old folks around here would go for it? We could make a mint.”
“It would cost a mint to buy that much property.”
“Oh. Guess it would.”
Handing the light back to Bradley, he turned the LaCrosse toward home. They unloaded the trunk, Bradley insisting on carrying more than his share. Pup sat on the front stoop, wearing his “poor dog” face, one paw resting on his empty food dish. Booker, having left the mutt’s dishes full that morning, walked right past, refusing to shoulder any guilt, but Bradley stopped to scratch Pup’s whiskers.
“I think I’ll take the bike down some of these country roads,” he said. “Try out my new riding boots.”
“Aren’t you hungry?” He didn’t want Bradley leaving already. This was one of those small moments Booker wanted to grab hold of.
“I’ll eat some cereal when I get in.”
“You just traveled miles of country road coming up here. Wouldn’t you rather unwrap your new tackle?”
“I want to ride while it’s still early enough to see the curves.”
Booker couldn’t argue with his logic. Were country roads safer than highways? With all the dips, gravel and unexpected wildlife, probably not.
“Don’t stay gone long,” he cautioned. “Or I’ll worry that some redneck has tried to quiet that beast with a shotgun.”
Watching Bradley rip down the road, leather jacket ballooning around him, Booker itched to take a sledgehammer to the Harley. Start with the engine, beat the racket out of it. Then hammer the wheels flat. Mangle the steering mechanism. Smash the gauges. A motorcycle, and all the biker club nonsense that went with it, had driven him away from his own father. At eighty, Brad Senior still loved the damn things. Miraculously, he’d retained his hearing, never had a serious accident, and to his credit, never insisted Booker take up the sport.
In the hospital, Booker had spent some time calculating the life he’d come close to losing. Figuring eighty as a reasonable expectancy, and subtracting his forty-six years, he’d tallied it out as nearly eighteen million minutes. He didn’t want to squander those minutes, especially ones like the present. In coming here, Bradley had made the first overture toward patching their broken relationship. Booker was wary of doing something stupid to send the boy off again. But damn he hated to see his son wearing biker leather.
The cycle’s roar became a distant hum while Booker stood in the dusk listening, until he could hear only a chorus of frogs. Suddenly needing a little uncomplicated affection, he opened the door and whistled Pup inside. Upstairs in the kitchen, he opened a can of premium dog food. When he dumped it into Pup’s supper dish, the mutt responded with tail-wagging, face-licking enthusiasm. If kids were as easy to satisfy, fatherhood would be less intimidating.
One ear tuned for Bradley’s return, he stood for a full two minutes gazing into his Tealstone refrigerator at the near empty shelves. Plenty of food in the freezer, if he were in the mood to cook. He removed a dish containing the withered remains of a barbecued chicken, decided it was past redemption, and settled on a bowl of Cheerios. Fingering a blackened banana, he found a section that felt more or less firm, and sliced it into his cereal. His pantry offered up a partial bag of chopped pecans and a snack-size box of raisins.
He added half of those to the bowl, leaving the other half for Bradley, then covered the whole mess with milk.
Once he thought he heard the buzz of an engine and carried his cereal out to the balcony, but it was only Booker’s ears playing tricks. Mosquitoes chased him back inside.
While he and Pup finished wolfing down their dinner, Booker eyed his bag of new toys: he needed a distraction. How long had it been since he’d played cowboys and Indians? He remembered a shiny Roy Rogers six-shooter, complete with white hat, fake leather holster, and a deputy sheriff’s badge pinned to a fake leather vest. Prized possessions. In his parents’ attic, in a wooden chest painted green and crayoned with KEEP OUT signs, the cowboy suit mildewed alongside a secret decoder ring, a space patrol flashlight, and countless other boyhood treasures. Even in fraud investigation, Booker had secretly enjoyed the trappings. Whipping out his ID badge. Flashing the card in his wallet declaring him a member of the American Society of Industrial Security. Perhaps a small part of him had never grown up.
Lauren would say a large part of him had never grown up.
Now the package of archery equipment beckoned like a wrapped gift under a Christmas tree. Booker rinsed his bowl, then rinsed Pup’s bowl, delaying the moment, wishing
Bradley would roar up the driveway and they could enjoy their purchases together. He’d read somewhere that delaying gratification was a sign of maturity. Like eating around the edge of a filled doughnut, saving the best part for last.
With the kitchen clean, he walked downstairs and out to the balcony again. The only buzz in the falling night came from those persistent mosquitoes. He retreated to the living room, where he’d left the bags of equipment, and lined up his items on a coffee table. Unwrapping the archery glove and pulling it over his fingers, he couldn’t help thinking about what Bradley had said in the car. Booker had no interest in deer hunting or any other kind of hunting. He simply liked testing his skill.
The plastic wrapper the glove had come in fluttered down from the table. Pup chased it across the floor, and suddenly Chuck Fowler’s body bobbed up in Booker’s mind. A shudder went through him. He’d finally forgiven the dog for dragging that whopping big problem from the lake. Now, with the sheriff declaring Fowler’s death accidental, the sensible thing would be to forget it. Anyway, after hearing Spiner’s view, Booker thought maybe Fowler got what he deserved. A hunter who would shoot dogs for practice had a wickedly twisted nature.
The glove fit snug. The book said to soak it in water the first time out, break it in wet. Flexing his fingers, he wondered if Fowler had worn a glove for practice that day. Booker hadn’t noticed one, but he’d been rushing, not wanting to see more than necessary to take the sheriff’s photographs.
He hung the quiver on his belt like a holster and tied down the leg thong. Stuffed the quiver with arrows then practiced pulling them out: Quick-Draw Krane.
Pup growled as Booker assessed himself in a mirror.
“What d’ya think, Pup? One of Robin’s merry men, or Geronimo’s scout?”
Unstrung bow in hand, Booker whipped out an arrow and nocked it against an imaginary bowstring. Plunk! A smile tickled his lips wide. He could get to like this retirement game if it came with plenty of neat gear.
“En garde!” He aimed playfully at Pup, fumbled the arrow, dropped the bow.
Pup scooped the bow up by one end and dragged it toward the stairs.
Some Robin Hood. Booker caught sight of himself in the mirror, standing with the arrow in his hand as if to lunge at the dog, and all the play went out of him. The arrows he’d bought were barely sharp enough to pierce a paper target, but he’d seen stronger, sharper, more vicious arrows tonight, and no one needed a permit to purchase them.
Swift, silent, deadly. Anyone handy with a hunting bow had no need for a gun.
He repacked the gear, then strolled out to the balcony again. All was quiet. Bradley had been gone an hour. Booker debated sitting on the doorstep with Pup, but his son probably wouldn’t appreciate a sentinel.
Instead, he settled in a chair and thumbed through Archery Basics. It gave step-by-step instructions for bow stringing, which required some body contortions and came with a warning: Improper stringing methods can result in the bow recoiling with tremendous force, easily putting out an eye or breaking an eardrum.
That was enough to instill caution.
The book also depicted a bow-stringing device, boasted to be faster, safer, and costing only a few bucks. Why hadn’t Spiner mentioned that little goodie? Another picayune attempt at getting even for Roxanna, no doubt.
Well, two could play that silly game. He’d buy a bow-stringer on Monday, when he went to Bryan to look up Aaron. Gary Spiner deserved to lose the business.
When Booker had read himself sleepy, Bradley still hadn’t returned. Had he changed his mind about staying?
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