Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 22
Let’s try again. Booker practiced the words in his mind as he held the door open for Bradley to enter the dealership. Come home. We’ll go fishing. We’ll start over, and I’ll keep my clumsy fourteen-double-E foot out of my mouth. His heart raced with concern of saying it all wrong.
Bradley crossed the painted concrete floor to a full-size Silverado pickup. Beneath the dealer lights designed to enhance the sleek lines of their product, forest green paint sparkled like a big chuck of emerald. Booker couldn’t resist rubbing the luminous hood as he circled to the driver’s side.
“Look, Dad, a gun rack.” Bradley pointed to a pair of brackets inside the cab. “Double brute force.”
Aaron rounded the customer service counter and introduced himself to Bradley.
“Dealing with so many hunters in this area,” he said, “we found a local custom shop to make the racks for us.”
Booker ducked inside and slid behind the wheel. “Could it be used as a bow rack?”
“Sure, depending on the bow. I didn’t realize you were a bowman, Mr. Krane.”
“I bought some stuff, thought I’d give it a try.”
“He’s outfitted for a month in the wilderness,” Bradley amended.
Booker examined the dash gauges.
“Trying on that gear last night, I felt like a kid again, running through the woods, shooting at imaginary bad guys.” A self-conscious smile pulled at his lips. “Robin Hood of the people.”
Bradley grinned at him, a real one, not strained at all, and climbed onto the passenger seat.
“Me, I was Little John,” Aaron said. “Knocking heads together when I wasn’t slinging arrows at the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham.”
Booker pictured the hole in Chuck Fowler’s shirt, and a quick shiver overtook him.
“I saw your trophy at the Gilded Trout. You father being such an accomplished hunter, I suppose you grew up with a bow in your hand.” Testing the turning indicators, Booker avoided looking at Bradley. “Always wished my father and I had something in common, a hobby we could enjoy together.”
“Ye-ah.” Aaron dragged the word out, his gaze aimed at Bradley. “Our whole family used to get off on shooting, mostly competition and small game. Some bow-fishing. Frogging.The best times were just fooling around, though.” He hesitated, as if remembering. “One year, me and Jeremy got these ping-pong guns. Take a shot between the eyes and it’d never hurt, but the guns made a loud ping when you scored a hit. Pop had one, too. We’d lay for each other in the back yard until one of us made a run for it, then ping! Pop always won, but we gave him a hard battle.” Aaron looked away suddenly, and a muscle twitched beside his mouth. “Those were good times.”
Booker averted his gaze to give the boy some privacy. Bradley stared straight at him.
“Jeremy? Jeremy Fowler?”
Aaron nodded. “Yeah, my brother.”
“I just met him,” Bradley said. “Sorry about your dad.”
Aaron’s lip muscle twitched again. “Yeah.” Then his chin jutted and he stepped away from the truck. “Maybe you’d like to look at the mid-size model over there, Mr. Krane.”
Booker scarcely heard him, his brain wrapped around the question of where Bradley had met Jeremy Fowler. Bradley hopped out of the cab and jogged over to a red version of the smaller pickup Booker had seen outside. Booker took his time.
“Sounds like the family changed as you got older,” he said softly to Aaron. “I suppose that’s not uncommon.”
“Yeah. It changed.” Aaron’s voice turned hard and sharp. “But we were always a tight family, until Ms. Swizzlehips McCray moved to Masonville.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, ah.” Aaron glanced at Bradley, then turned his flinty gray eyes on Booker. “You were sitting with her at the lodge. I hope you aren’t making the same mistake Pop did.”
Booker frowned. “What mistake?”
“I’m not naïve, Mr. Krane. Pop had women before her. I met some of them. He’d brag to me and Jeremy, same as he’d brag about taking down a deer, but those other women never threatened the family. We were close. Picnics, camping, fishing, boating, hunting, we did it all together.” Aaron took a hard, quick breath and let it out slowly. “Then Pop met
Melinda McCray and turned fifty.”
Ah, yes. Fifty. Booker sighted it right around the next curve, the psychological jumping off place where you look at life and decide you’re running out of time to do whatever you’ve been missing. He’d headed for that bend a few years early, at the time of his divorce.
He looked at Bradley, and guilt gnawed in his belly. Booker had never been a skirt chaser, but he had plenty of other faults. Just ask Lauren.
“Did you talk to your father about it?”
“Talk to him?” Aaron snorted. “There wasn’t any talking to Pop about anything. After his birthday in January, we suddenly didn’t matter. He cared only about himself and his gold-digging bitch.”
Bradley frowned at them from under the hood of the Colorado, and Booker wished he hadn’t opened this particular can of worms.
“Oh, Pop kept up appearances,” Aaron continued. “Came with Mama to the lake house every weekend. Insisted we all gather once a month for barbecue or a fish fry. But just try asking him for anything. Might as well be strangers, for all he cared.”
The young man looked suddenly embarrassed, talking to a stranger about family business. Moving away, he slapped the tail of a rugged-looking SUV. “This Tahoe might be more your style, Mr. Krane.”
Booker looked it over and had to agree. The closed bed would offer more protection for his equipment. He opened the door and eyed the interior. Tough leather seats. Sensible gauges.
Bradley opened the opposite door.
“What do you think?” Booker asked.
“Boss, Dad. This is you. Can you mount one of those bow racks?” he asked Aaron.
“Not a problem.”
Booker took the truck for a spin, with Bradley riding shotgun, then followed Aaron into a glass cubicle. Thirty minutes later, he folded the papers to his new Tahoe. A bowman andan off-roader, all in twenty-four hours. Times they were a-changing.
Aaron walked with him back into the showroom, where Bradley stood with his head under the hood of a monster pickup.
“Mr. Krane, you seem like a nice guy,” Aaron said. His eyes turned serious and his voice had lost all its professional smoothness. “It’s none of my business, but I’d think twice before mixing it up with Melinda McCray. She’s…well…”
“A barracuda?”
Aaron laughed. For the first time, Booker saw a touch of the Fowler attraction that must have drawn women to Chuck over the years. He hoped Aaron made better use of it.
“She’s a barracuda, all right, but you look man enough to handle that. What I meant was, she has this old boyfriend that hangs around. Ramsey Crawford. One mean mother. Runs a shade-tree auto repair shop in Masonville. He and Pop had a few run-ins. But Pop, well, I guess Pop was meaner and bigger.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Yeah. Well, like I said, it’s none of my business, but Crawford’s nobody I’d want to tangle with.”
Aaron offered a handshake, and Booker took it. He watched the boy walk away, wide, tall, two-hundred-plus pounds of solid youth, and decided that if hard-fisted Aaron Fowler would shy away from Crawford, then Booker hoped to never lay eyes on the man.
He tapped Bradley on the shoulder with his new contract. “Time to drive it home.”
“It’s yours?”
“As long as I keep the bank’s finance department satisfied. Come ride back with me.”
Bradley closed the pickup’s hood and fell in step.
“We could rent a trailer for your Harley,” Booker added.
A few seconds passed. Finally, Bradley spoke, his accusing tone unmistakable. “I heard what Aaron said about Ms. McCray. Sounds like his dad was ready to blow off the family even before he died.”
Booker felt his son’s anger like waves of heat.
“That’s what Aaron believes, anyway.” He injected his own voice with as much soothing balm as he could manage.
“Why do people get married if it’s all a sham?”
“Marriage doesn’t come with a lifetime guarantee.”
“Then parents should work out their problems without ruining a kid’s life.”
“Bradley, I—”
“Why did you give up on us?”
Booker resisted the edge that threatened to color his voice. “Would’ve gotten pretty crowded, don’t you think? You, me, your mom, and the computer guy?”
“She’s not even with him anymore. You quit—”
“I didn’t—”
“Just like you quit your job to hide out in Seniorville.”
A fist tightened around Booker’s heart. He couldn’t argue. Anything he said now would be wrong. He’d lose his son again, maybe this time forever. Booker forced a breath into his stubborn lungs. They had reached the Tahoe, polished and ready to drive away.
“At least the fishing’s good in Seniorville,” he said finally.
Bradley stared at him. After a dozen heartbeats, he smiled thinly.
“Yeah. The fishing’s optimum.”
“Before dark, we could catch enough for a fish dinner.”
The boy nodded, but without smiling. “Maybe later. Right now, I need some time alone.”
“Like I said, it’s a big house.” But Booker sensed he’d made all the headway he could for now. Legally, Bradley was still a minor. Booker could insist the boy return with him, or to his mother. And next time he ran away, the break would be final. No contact, no answer to the milk carton ads.
Booker squeezed his boy’s shoulder as they walked toward the Harley.
“Son, you have a room at my house anytime you decide to use it. Don’t forget that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where are you staying?” Finding which motel Bradley had booked would take about ten minutes on the phone.
Bradley hesitated then named a place at the edge of town.
“Are you sure you won’t join Roxanna and me for that play?”
Bradley shook his head. “This is the first date for you two, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure it’s actually a date.”
“It’s a date, Dad. And you don’t need me tagging along.” He started the Harley’s engine and roared off down the road.
A quitter, his son had called him. The word soured in Booker’s stomach as he drove the new Tahoe toward home.
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