The White River Killer: A Mystery Novel (14 page)

Standing outside his truck, Luis’s left hand rested on top of the pickup. In contrast to his earlier visit, Luis smiled and talked leisurely with his two passengers, as if Hubbard’s farm was a tropical resort he hated to leave. Hubbard kept a good pace, trying to get there before Luis pulled his arm down. When he was only a few feet away, Luis turned to him and smiled.

“So, how was Maria’s first day?” Luis said.

“Fine, I guess,” Hubbard said.

“Maria’s great!” Emily waved at Maria.

Hubbard nodded in polite agreement as his eyes focused on Luis’s big watch and its gold metal band, gleaming in the last rays of sunset. Its large dial was gold as well.

It was a Seiko, not a Rolex.
I must’ve imagined it . . . Or did I? . . . No . . . Maybe.

“Maria’s a very good cook,” Luis said. “She took classes at the finest—”

Emily looked up at Luis. “She made us Daddy Cookies.”

“Daddy Cookies? What’re those?” Luis said, his brow furrowing at the interruption.

Emily described the imagined pastry to Luis, while Hubbard revisited his memory of Luis’s watch.

His attention, however, was drawn away by the passengers in Luis’s truck.

Maria beamed at Emily; she seemed to enjoy watching the little girl’s animated discussion of cookie baking with the disinterested Luis.

Her brother’s friend, Pablo, sitting beside her, stared boldly at him. Hubbard returned his sharp glare, arching one eyebrow.

Was the boy this challenging to everyone? It was difficult to take him seriously. Wearing a thick neck brace, he looked like a Latino
Pez
dispenser.

Pablo shifted awkwardly in his seat, twisting both of his shoulders to gaze at Maria’s profile.
He’s jealous . . . Of me? . . . Why?

Searching for something to say, Hubbard complimented Luis on his impressive mastery of English. Luis told him, that unlike Pablo, he been educated at a school for Guatemalan elite destined for government service.

It sounded like fantasy. Luis’s membership at the top of society was difficult to imagine. Maria,
oh yeah
, she would be at the top of anyone’s list, anywhere in the world. But, Luis?

Hubbard attempted a convoluted strategy to work a discussion of Rolex watches into their conversation, but Luis ignored him. He got into his truck, and they drove away.

Hubbard watched them depart, deep in thought. The blue vehicle was on the other side of the trees when he realized he’d failed to fire Maria.

“Damn it,” he whispered.

The watch Luis wore distracted him: the Seiko was not reassuring.

“I’m hungry,” Emily said.

“I thought you ate cookies?”

“I did, but I’m still growing.”

Hubbard patted her shoulder. “Yes, you are. Let’s go into town and grab something fast. Pretty soon all you’ll get to eat is home-cooked meals. No more junk food for you, young lady.”

“Can we drive through
The Big Grape?”

“Might as well, it’s the most unhealthy stuff I can imagine.”

“Junk food is my favorite kind of food.”

“Mine too.”

Hubbard decided during their drive, and over Emily’s vocal protests, the best course of action was to go to
Piggly Wiggly
first. Whoever replaced Maria would need a fully-stocked kitchen, and the shopping list, written in her delicate hand, was better than anything he could devise.

At the grocery, Emily seemed to forget her hunger pangs when she became commander of their shopping expedition. Very quickly, the simple errand evolved into a grand scavenger hunt. They wove through the aisles, Hubbard pushing the cart and Emily charting their path. Emily’s head bobbed up and down as she read and then surveyed the store shelves, stopping to point with delight when she spotted a prize from the list.

Hubbard nixed the vegetables on Maria’s list. He had plenty of them stored in the large concrete bomb shelter that his grandfather built behind their farmhouse during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Inside the formidable concrete structure, which always remained cool, there were two rows of large wood slat baskets filled with root vegetables packed in sawdust.

The agri-contents of the family bomb shelter reflected his hope, despite all contrary signs, that his life would one day find one semblance of normalcy: A farmer feeding his family from the harvest of his fields.

After he had loaded all the bags in back of the truck, Emily informed him that she was practically starved to death, and if they didn’t eat right away she would faint.

Hubbard agreed this was an emergency situation and they hurried toward
The Big Grape.

Their destination was a purple-colored, concrete block and neon-bedecked building on 281. The restaurant specialized in every type of food that could be deep fried, and was most popular at night when the journey to Monticello seemed too daunting. He joined a short line of vehicles waiting to order at a speaker entombed in a giant fiberglass grape that bore a toothy grin and faded eyes.

“So, what looks good to you?” Hubbard asked, as they examined the menu board positioned alongside the bloated fruit.

“Can I get the
Onion Life Raft
with chili and cheese?”

“Are you sure you can handle it? It’s quite stout.”

“It’s my favorite. And a
Cherry Swamp Water
soda, please.”

“You’re a brave little girl.”

When he began their dinner order, a familiar voice interrupted him.

“Is this John Riley?”

“Missy? . . . How’re you? Is Carla Jo working tonight? And uh, uh . . .”

“Amy?”

“Yeah . . . Amy.”

Missy affected a cultured accent. “Amy is on her continental tour, dah-ling. She’s vacationing in Europe ’til fall. It’s the social season, you know.”

“Must be nice.”

Missy’s drawl returned to its roots. “
You bet your ass
. I didn’t know there was so much money in pouring asphalt. She didn’t even give us a clue that she planned to go to Europe until she woke us both up about a week ago, and said—”

A new voice purred over the speaker, “Hello, John Riley. How’s that big farmer man tonight?”

“Carla Jo?”

“We’re graduating in May,” Carla Jo said, and playfully added, “We’re legal now. You don’t have to worry about—”

Speaking quickly, Hubbard said, “And I’m here tonight with my precious daughter, Emily.”

The girls didn’t miss a beat.

“Hello, Emily. We’ve missed seeing you,” Carla Jo said. “How old are you now?”

“Ten and almost half, more or less.”

“Ooooh, you’ve grown up,” Missy said.

“Pretty much,” Emily agreed. “Most of what they teach me in school I already knew.” The college girls made appropriate sounds of awe at his daughter’s expansive knowledge.

Ignoring parental prudence, Hubbard ordered two
Onion Life Rafts
with the works. The Hubbard family stomachs would share the same digestive fate tonight, sinking or swimming together.

At the window, Hubbard had his customary trouble reaching down from his supersized truck to a drive-through service window designed to serve shorter, portion-controlled vehicles of the 1950s. He leaned out the door window, trying to retrieve the cardboard tray that Missy held aloft. With her lithe body and graceful arms arching up to him, she looked like a ballet dancer taking a star turn in a southern-fried pas de deux.

Hubbard regarded her hazel eyes.

This seemed so familiar it felt like déjà vu.

Missy’s head tilted. She batted her long eyelashes in response to Hubbard’s new interest.

It all clicked.

“And I thought I’d never find you . . . Hello,
Cleopatra
.”

Cleopatra blushed.

“I think we may have a friend in common. Could I come by sometime and visit?”

14

H
OUSES
K
EEP
S
ECRETS,
E
X-WIVES
D
ON’T

O
N THE DRIVE HOME FROM
The Big Grape,
Hubbard sidestepped Emily’s questions as deftly as he could. He could tell her ten-year-old mind was churning away, trying to understand his unusual interest in the pretty girls at the drive-in. He couldn’t tell her that these girls could provide the key to understanding the reason for Amir Abadi’s murder.

“Daddy, why did you call that girl ‘Cleopatra’?”

“Because she wore a Cleopatra costume on Halloween.”

“So, why do you need her phone number?”

“I want to talk to her about a boy who went to her school and get some information to help his parents.”

The thrust and parry of questions and answers continued until sleepiness overtook his daughter. By the time they got home, Emily’s eyelids were fluttering. It was well past bedtime, she needed to eat quickly and get some sleep.

Hubbard grabbed the items needing refrigeration and left the other sacks in the back of his pickup to retrieve later.

When he closed the freezer door in the kitchen, he noticed Emily had polished off her
Life Raft
dinner at the kitchen table. The only bit remaining was her chili-colored mustache.

“Okay, wash your face and get ready for bed.”

She nodded, stood, and with eyes blinking and her arms drooped to her sides, she used the minimum amount of energy necessary to propel her from the kitchen.

Checking the time, he returned to the truck for the remaining groceries. Picking up the last grocery sack in the truck bed, he heard a brittle snap coming from the direction of the pines by the road. He glanced up, paused for a moment, but couldn’t spot deer moving through the trees. He had no fondness for any of the tick-covered beasts; they did a great deal of damage to a crop if they hopped their way onto a field. Another item for the list: check fencing.

By the time Hubbard made it to Emily’s room, she was in bed wearing her favorite pink pajamas, her eyes closed. He stood in the doorway for a moment, marveling at how much she still resembled the toddler he bounced on his knee. He tried to step lightly to the bedside table and the small lamp with the translucent shade featuring the smiling visages of a dozen animated princesses.

“Daddy, do you still have nightmares?”

Surprised, Hubbard straightened abruptly, trying to disguise his embarrassment at the question. “I thought you were asleep . . . Why do you think I have nightmares?”

“Mama told me . . . She said it was because some people have dark secrets in their past. What’re your
dark secrets?
Will you tell me? I can keep a secret.
I promise
.”

His jaw clenched. His ex-wife was the gift that kept on giving. Emily would have to deal with those terrible stories one day, but please, not now. He tried to force a chuckle of amusement. “I don’t know what your mother is—”

Emily lowered her voice to a whisper. “Daddy, some nights I heard you . . . It scared me.”

Reaching down to the floor, Hubbard pretended to straighten her bunny slippers. He came back up, forced a half-smile, and pulled her covers up. “I’m fine. I don’t have
night-mares
. I have funny dreams. I laugh at them in my sleep. That’s what you heard. Isn’t that silly? Let’s have a contest to see who can remember a funny dream. The funniest dream wins.”

Emily stuck out her pinkie finger. “You promise?”

Hubbard ignored her tiny finger and lowered her hand under the bed covers. “I think I’ve made more than enough binding contracts with your pinkie this week. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“I have dreams, too . . . Sometimes.”

Hubbard reached for the
Princess
light. “I know you do.” He switched the lamp off, leaving only the nightlight burning.

“Maria will decide who had the funniest dream,” Emily said.

Hubbard sighed. “We’ll see.”

He closed Emily’s door, remaining outside her bedroom for a moment.
What else had his ex told Emily? . . . Why did he think he had the know-how to raise a daughter? . . . Why was it always so damn dark in this hallway?
Stop thinking.

Maria will be the judge
. He should have fired that girl-woman when he had the chance. The longer she stayed, the more Emily would become attached to her. Tomorrow was Maria’s last day, come hell or high water.

Downstairs he turned off most of the lights in the house, while discovering more things to add to his to-do list. His circuit stopped at the kitchen. He pulled a notepad from a drawer and sat down at the kitchen table. Taking a deep breath, he slowly released it.

Overhead, a milk-white globe put Hubbard at the center of its circle of direct light. The incandescent pool surrounding him was a stark contrast to the soft gray just outside the door. The rest of the house was silent, except for the faint ticking of a mantel clock coming from the seldom-used living room. Hubbard glanced up when the home’s wood flooring popped, contracting due to cooler air circulating underneath the house.

He recalled sitting at the same spot at this table the summer his world fell apart.

After they buried his father, Mr. Carlos decided the allowance R.J. provided for the family’s household expense was safer when given directly to the Hubbard boy. He didn’t trust the pharmaceutically-fogged mother with a generous amount of cash.

Within a week, the twelve-year-old Hubbard discovered the kind folks at the liquor store were very accommodating; allowing the underage nephew to buy supplies for a get-together his uncle supposedly had in the works. The large number of greenbacks Hubbard held in his hand did much of the convincing.

“Anything to help the grieving family,” the owner said. Even at twelve, Hubbard caught the underlying sarcasm.

Before he left the house on his late-night walks in search of ghosts in Shanty Town, he’d fortify himself with a few of beers. Back then, when he was drinking, he heard the floorboards squeak outside the kitchen doorway and thought his mother was approaching, finally wise to her child’s drinking and his disappearances.

It was never her, just the strange creak of contracting joists.

By that autumn, older girls were showing the growing boy with a fistful of cash how he could buy moonshine and pot . . . and teaching him other things.

Until he left the house for college when he was eighteen, he had it pretty much to himself. His mother never ventured far from the safety of her bedroom. It was a solitary six years. After two weeks in a college dorm, he returned home with laundry and found his mother, as always, lying in bed. This time, however, she was unnaturally still. A pill bottle in one hand and a note gripped tightly in the other. The slip of paper, torn from his high school notebook read:
Please forgive me
.

It was a simple message that he didn’t understand. Was she sorry she took her own life? Did she regret the past few years where she was little more than an apparition in his life? Or was his mother seeking his forgiveness for something that he wouldn’t put words to?

That night, after they removed her body and all the neighbors had finished their solicitous, yet sanctimonious visits, he climbed the stairs, threw open her bedroom door, flipped the double bed over, and dragged it piece by piece into the backyard. The bed frame, mattress, box springs, and all the linens were tossed into a lopsided pile. He took a liter bottle of Jack Daniels and poured half of it all over the mound, tossed a match on top of it, and watched as it was slowly consumed by waves of yellow.

As he stared at the flames, he drank as much as he could of the remainder of the Jack Daniels while watching black smoke rise into the moonless sky.

The next week was a drunken haze. In that swirling alcohol fog, he stumbled into Anne.

Just like that it was over. College. The City of Lights. Everything.

The house was too quiet tonight. He needed a tall bottle and a short glass.
No, goddamn it. No.

He shoved away from the table and banged out the front door, down the steps to the grass. He took a gulp of cool air and bent over, placing his hands on his knees.

Rising up, he took a few steps toward the road, seeking composure. He glanced at the dark ruts in the ground caused by Luis’s truck.
You can tell a lot about a farmer by the condition of his front lawn.
He looked away and sighed.

An orange firefly, flitting in the air among the pines by the road caught his eye as it fell to the ground and blinked out.

He stopped in place.

It was too early in the season for fireflies.

A chill of surprise ran down his back. Hidden in the trees, a man had crushed a cigarette out on the ground.

Whoever it was; he’d been concealed there for some time. He felt his heart beating faster, his breath quickening.

He glanced up at Emily’s second story window. Her nightlight gave the room a soft, warm glow.

You sick son-of-a-bitch.
Hubbard’s right hand balled into a fist. With an effort at casualness, he pretended he was in the midst of an aimless walk that was taking him closer to the trees.

The crackle of a brittle pine cone breaking under a footfall was clear in the calm night. Two cypresses in the distance, highlighted by the low moon, bent to the right and bounced back. Something small and solid soared into the air in his direction, bouncing to a stop in front of him.

With the need for pretense gone, Hubbard bolted for the line of trees almost fifty yards away.

Twenty yards from the trees, he heard an engine turn over. He pushed himself to go faster.
Get the license number
. . .
anything that would put that sick bastard away.

Hubbard blew into the trees at full stride just as a rifle fired on the road. The narrow tree in front of him cracked open and wood splinters blew into his face. He threw his arm up for protection, as if this were a snowball fight. Distracted by the bullet’s near miss, he tripped on a branch and stumbled forward.

He saw a barrel flash and heard a shot. At the same time there was a dull thump as a bullet pounded into the ground a step in front of his faltering pursuit.

“
Shit.
”

Losing his balance, he fell and rolled into the shallow drainage ditch that ran alongside the road. He was breathing heavily, in the grip of adrenaline and rage. Another gunshot and a third slug dug into the ground.

Despite the risk, despite the warning shots, he couldn’t stay down. He lifted his head, and came off the cold ground as if he’d fallen on a hot griddle. The creep’s car was peeling away, his lights turned off in the shadowy night. Hubbard caught a glimpse of the vehicle’s dim form rounding the bend before it was concealed by thick foliage. A second later, he spotted a flicker of bright red through the dense branches as the vehicle’s lights came on.

He spun around to race for his truck and continue the chase. But rational thinking returned, unwelcomed, with each of his strides forward.

He didn’t know what kind of vehicle he was looking for . . . or the direction it had taken on 281 . . . he didn’t have a gun . . . and he’d be leaving his daughter alone in the house . . . He slowed to a halt, breathing heavily.

He took steps toward his house to call the sheriff, but soon halted. Toil would simply call the state police. And the state police would be led by Connors. After his TV interview, he could expect little help from anyone wearing a Smokey hat. Connors would attribute the shooting to an off-season hunter and tell Hubbard to call the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to complain.

He turned back toward the road and his eyes were drawn to the object that the intruder had thrown. It looked like a rock, but there was something more. He walked fifteen yards to get a better look. Rubber bands secured a small piece of paper to the rock. He pulled it off. In the dim light, he could still read the large block letters:
STOP NOW BEFORE YOU GET HURT.

Hubbard felt his pulse race. This was about the Arab. The murderer? Why would he be more concerned with him than the FBI? His anger returned and he ached something to hit.
Don’t push me. I won’t run.

The secondary plan was not as satisfying as finding the bastard and beating him senseless. He went to his truck and got his flashlight. He walked back to the trees and began a search in the pine needles where he thought he’d seen the firefly fall.

After a few minutes, he spotted the cigarette butt on the ground and picked up the stub. It was still warm. Two words, “Kool Menthol” were printed just above the filter. Without a DNA lab at his disposal, it would have to do.

Hubbard found the cedar tree that stopped the first bullet. The soft wood had shattered at the point of impact, which was head height. If the shooter aimed a few inches to the right, the bullet would have lodged in his skull, killing him.

The shallow drainage conduit lay in front of him. His momentum would’ve carried him there if he’d been hit; the second body discovered in a Hayslip ditch in less than a week.

The lethal coincidence would make interesting conversation at his autopsy.