A Shadow of Death in The Woods (8 page)

Chapter 9

The Postcard

I had just come home from work when Kat told me I had a strange postcard in the mail. She sounded irritated, which was common these days.

On the face of the card was a picture of a cabin in California mountains. I read the postcard. It was posted in L.A. I didn’t know anyone in L.A. The postcard said, “Everything is great at The Cabin.” signed, Bud. I knew no one who went by the name Bud.

Kat asked me in an icy tone who Bud was and what the card meant. She stood, looking at me expecting an answer.

Before I left The Cabin in West Virginia, Bob told me that he would get a postcard to me telling me the results of the sheriff’s investigation into the incident in The Woods. I had received one postcard previously that Kat didn’t see. The card said that things looked good but it didn’t say things were great. It was signed by Bud and also posted in L.A. I took that card to mean that the sheriff was still investigating and that it looked good but there were no conclusions as yet. This postcard meant that the sheriff had concluded his investigation and they had accepted the murder-suicide as just that.

This was a tremendous load off my mind. There is no statute of limitations on the crime of murder so it could come up again. The only safe thing for sure is to be charged, tried and found not guilty. Then even if new evidence comes forth, you cannot be tried again for the same crime. Of course such a route is fraught with danger. You could be found guilty, lose all your money in legal fees or lose your reputation even if found not guilty. Notice you are not found innocent as some people say. Unlike much of the world, in the U.S. the jury only has to find you not guilty. This doesn’t mean you are innocent, only that there wasn’t enough evidence to find you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a fine but important distinction.

The best result is to have never been identified as having anything to do with the crime and even better if the law can be diverted in another direction entirely. This seemed to be our case. The law didn’t know about us and weren’t looking for anyone since they thought it a murder-suicide. As time passes things are forgotten, evidence is lost and interest fades. Time in this case is your friend. It looked like we were free and clear as far as the law was concerned.

I wanted to sing and dance. I felt like a load had been lifted from my shoulders and I sprang up a couple of feet.

But I couldn’t sing and dance. I had to remain calm and uninterested in the postcard and explain it away to Kat. I told her it was nothing. I had met a group of bikers headed back to California some months ago and they promised to send me a postcard when they got back to L.A. It sounded lame even to me but I didn’t have a better story.

Kat’s eyes bored into me. I couldn’t tell if she thought I was lying or whether she was upset over my “secret life.” She was convinced that I led a secret life on the road and that somehow I had friends out there that she did not know. She knew I occasionally rode with some bikers in town and that irritated her since she didn’t know them and wasn’t included. I invited her to ride along but she refused. She was not going to get on the back of a motorcycle. Too windy. I offered to bring the group over to the house so she could meet them but she was horrified at the thought. Well, catch-22, my dear.

I suppose she was right in a way. It was a life completely foreign to her way of life and thinking. It was a world where the rules were different and the dress code drastically different. But if you got beyond the surface, you found the people nice, honorable, family oriented and trustworthy. This is not to say all bikers are that way. Some are criminals and just as evil as you can imagine. Not the bikers I rode with. At least not most of them. Unfortunately to the average citizen they all look alike. All Asians look alike to westerners. All westerners look alike to Asians. Pick any group of people that can be identified by looks and the results will be the same. It is the way the human brain works. Live with it.

There was no explaining of any of this to Kat. She had her mind made up and it was just one more irritant between us. I was worried. Our marriage was on the skids and I didn’t know how to fix it.

I hoped that this news would help alleviate my nightmares so Kat and I could sleep together. The separate bedroom thing was not helping our marriage. I wanted to get back to sharing a bed. I would have to see how it went but I feared that there was no magical cure. I wasn’t meant to be a killer and my conscience bothered me although logically I knew I had done the right thing. Doing the right thing didn’t change the fact that I had killed a man and helped kill another.

Killing someone is the greatest robbery of all. You steal a person’s most prized possession, his or her life. You can’t undo a killing. It is for keeps, forever. In my case it wasn’t a big loss to society when I killed the guy. He was a pervert but still you can’t go around killing people just because you don’t agree with them. What kind of a society would we have if we did that? All this was true but my real problem was that I didn’t believe in killing. I had committed an immoral act, which affected me deeply.

The only people I could potentially talk with about these feelings were the people at The Cabin. From time to time I had notions of going there and talking to them but I knew I couldn’t. They might see it as a sign of weakness and feel the need to kill me. As it was, I suspected that they might be watching me.

Several times I had spotted a guy shadowing me. I strongly suspected it was one of Mike’s guys checking up on me. Some friends around town mentioned to me that a guy had been asking about me. The questions were always aimed at my behavior and character. Did I seem to be the same old guy? Had I changed recently? I told my friends that they would be doing me a big favor by telling them that I was the same old guy.

The problem with living under a cloud is that you can get rained on. I was going to have to take it a day at a time. This postcard was a bit of good news. The guys in West Virginia would be completely free and clear of this thing except for me. I was still their remaining risk. In fact, it seemed that I was their only risk. They had to make sure I would remain silent or discredit me so no one would believe me. I knew Bob would be for keeping me alive. I still worried about Mike. And I was sure Mike was watching me. Why watch me? It would be cheaper to kill me. The answer was Bob wasn’t letting him but if Mike could find some evidence that I was weakening, then I would turn to ashes. Have a nice day, Jack. Better yet, sleep tight.

Time was on my side. When enough time had passed, there would be no evidence and no interest. If I came forward, I would look stupid and would be ignored. Meanwhile I was a risk.

Thinking about the gang at The Cabin made me think of Lydia. It was sort of like getting a song stuck in your head. I had the name Lydia stuck in my head and I had never even seen her. Maybe that was why the name was stuck in my head. She had an apartment at The Cabin. That made her special in some way. I doubted that she was Bob’s mistress. Jane wouldn’t put up with that. The funny look on Bob’s face when he talked about her intrigued me.

She had no surname, just Lydia. She had an apartment that Bob was careful to point out that no one except Lydia went in. The whole thing seemed odd. I hadn’t thought a lot about it at the time because I was more concerned about my future or, more specifically, the lack of a future. I had never seen her and probably never would. I needed to get the name out of my head.

Strange to be thinking about a woman that I had never met. It would make more sense to be thinking about Frankie. She was a heartthrob, a stunning woman. You weren’t about to forget her.

All of these thoughts were academic. I was happily married to Kat although since the trip to West Virginia things had not been going well between Kat and me. There was a growing tension that I did not understand. I felt like I was losing my grip on my life. All I needed was another crisis.

Chapter 10

The Shadow

I spotted the tail again on my way to the bakery. I wanted to get a Bavarian cream donut covered with powdered sugar. I hated glazed donuts and donuts with drizzled sugar. Real donuts have powdered sugar outside and the cream inside makes life worth living. Rather than falling into a life-threatening depression, I could make do with a strawberry jam filled donut but it had to have the powdered sugar on the outside. The baker knew that I am a guaranteed sale so they always made sure they saved a donut or two for me.

The donut also had to be a raised dough donut. I tried to keep it a secret but in an extreme emergency, like, say, a war shortage, I could get along with the non-raised dough donut but it still had to have the powdered sugar on the outside. Those were my standards.

My shadow was across the street, pretending that he wasn’t watching me. He was acting like a little kid, thinking that if he didn’t look at me, then I wouldn’t see him. I was reasonably sure it was a tail that Mike put on me but I didn’t know for sure. The uncertainty was nagging at me. It could be a cop but I couldn’t see why the cops would be tailing me, not after receiving the second postcard. Besides most police departments didn’t have a budget for tailing people. That happened only in movies.

The tail was real though. He was across the street acting nonchalant. It was a cold November day so he had his overcoat collar turned up, covering as much of his face as possible. He didn’t look like he was a tail, right? It was a cold November day and he is standing on the street, acting like he was enjoying the weather.

It was time to take action. I wanted to shine some light on my shadow, maybe make it go away. I went into the bakery and out through the kitchen. The guys in the kitchen were surprised but didn’t say anything to me. That is one advantage of being a big man; not many people attempt to stop you.

I went out the bakery back door and down the alley to the next street. I worked my way around behind the shadow. He wasn’t a tall man but he was stocky and looked heavy. Still, I thought my plan had a good chance of working.

When the sidewalk was clear of pedestrians, I stepped out behind the shadow and grabbed him in a bear hug from the back, pinning his arms to his side so he couldn’t go for a gun or, for that matter, do anything. I picked him up and carried him back into the alley for privacy. He was swept off his feet literally and didn’t know what was up. He protested but was helpless to do anything. Being a man he couldn’t very well scream for help. Since I figured this would be on somebody’s video tape, I had my coat collar turned up and a stocking cap pulled down as far as it would go and still let me see. I also walked hunched over, making me look shorter. My coat and stocking cap were pretty generic.

In the alley, I told him that if he cooperated, he wouldn’t get hurt. I turned him loose and he started to fight. I slammed my left fist into his belly above his belt where I wouldn’t hit a gun and bust my hand. You can bust your hand if you hit a guy’s gun. He let out a groan and fell to the pavement. I didn’t want it to look like a mugging in case anyone looked down the alley so I helped the man to his feet. The fight had gone out of him but he threatened to sue me for assault. I wasn’t worried because I had a plan involving his future and in this plan he didn’t want to sue me.

I pushed him up against a wall and frisked him for weapons. My reward was a 9mm pistol on his belt. I removed the clip and jacked the slide to make sure nothing was in the chamber. I put his gun and clip in my pocket. I found two wallets, one with an ID and one with his money, driver license, etc. The ID identified him as a private investigator. I took that and his driver license and put them in my pocket with his gun.

I asked him whom he was working for. He refused to tell me. I asked him what he was doing and he claimed nothing and declared that I had kidnapped and assaulted an innocent party. Sure, and my grandmother has three legs. He kept talking about calling the police and suing me.

I told him to shut up and I told him how it was going to be. First, we were going to the library where I was going to make copies of his paperwork. I was going to keep the copy of his PI license and mail the original to the state licensing board, pointing out that they should revoke his license due to incompetence. Then I was going to phone the guy in West Virginia who had hired him to follow me and tell him the same thing unless he cooperated with me.

He grew pale so I knew I was on the right track. He told me that he didn’t work for anyone in West Virginia. He worked for a company in Ohio. I said, “Well, that may be but I’ll bet that your boss sends the reports to West Virginia.”

He began begging for his job, talking about his sick wife, etc. I didn’t think he had a sick wife but I didn’t want the guy to lose his job unnecessarily. I just wanted to verify that Mike was behind the shadow and I didn’t want the PI suing me.

It was only three blocks to the library. I made the copies. Nowadays you are always on camera. With my coat still buttoned, I kept his clip under my coat and unloaded it.

Back on the street I asked if we had a deal or if I should mail his gun back to the state licensing board along with his paperwork. I told him that if he kept quiet, I would keep quiet. I also told him he could keep following me if it saved his job. He agreed so I gave him back his gun, PI ID and driver license. I kept the bullets and a copy of his papers. So much for my shadow. He disappeared but I figured he would be back tailing me. I thought that I should have gotten his phone number. That way I could phone him and tell him where I was going. That would make his life so much easier and he wouldn’t have to stand around in the cold. And maybe we could have coffee together sometime. Become real pals.

I thought about calling Bob McAvoy but I didn’t see what that would really accomplish. He would probably deny that he was behind it and if he admitted it, so what? I thought I would wait and see.