Poor Boy Road (Jake Caldwell #1) (17 page)

Bear kicked him out of the police station to deal with the death of his inmate, promising to call Jake’s cell when Bear got free. Jake emerged under the worn, white porch railings of the red-brick structure. He read the etched stone on the front of the building that said it was originally constructed in 1856 as Benton County’s first bank called the Mechanic’s Bank of St. Louis, the most expensive bank building in Western Missouri at the time. Can’t have been much competition.

His cell rang. Keats. “Good morning.”

“Is he dead yet?”

“No. Getting close.”

Keats’s heavy breath crackled the speaker. “Close doesn’t count and your time is running out.”

Jake ran his hands through his hair, resisting the urge to tear it out. “What about all that bullshit about years of loyal service.”

Keats chuckled. “You’re trying to leave with all that knowledge turning around in that handsome head of yours. Those years of loyal service are the only reason you’re not tied to a fucking chain at the bottom of the Missouri River. I’m giving you a way out, Jake. You gonna to take it or make me do something I don’t wanna do?”

“I’m taking it.”

“Good. I’d better get a call by midnight.”

The line went dead and Jake pocketed the phone. This trip to see his dying father had evolved into a convoluted, A-1 clusterfuck. Caught dead in the middle of meth, kidnapping, murder. His mind still hadn’t wrapped around the fact he had a daughter. Why hadn’t he been able to put the timeline of Halle’s age together with the length of his absence? It seemed so clear now. His life wasn’t worth much, but he’d give it up to get Halle out of this mess. That much he could do. But he needed Bear to make it happen and ensure Jake didn’t end up in a body bag of his own. That would take a bit of work. Maybe he could see if those dumbasses he beat by the Community Center were around town.

He walked across the street, under the large oak on the courthouse lawn and stopped at the sidewalk, scanning up and down Main Street. Shit. Too early for the drug dealers to be out and about. He looked toward the shops, thinking of grabbing a bite at one of two open diners since he didn’t have a car. He wasn’t terribly hungry, but he once had an adventure in Colorado with an ex-army MP who drank more coffee than any other human being he’d ever met. The guy lived by the motto of “Eat when you can.” Jake found that to be sound advice, and headed to the diner.

He stopped in front of a store called Lyla’s Homemade Fudge, admiring the tasty looking treats and stained glass hanging in the window of the darkened store. Maybe he should’ve come clean with Bear about the reason he returned home besides waiting for his old man to die. What held him back? They shared the same goal, taking down Shane Langston. The only difference, Bear wanted Langston in a six foot jail cell. Keats wanted him six-feet under.

The diner hid behind a green awning across the street, a dozen heads sitting at tables. If the place was half full, maybe it wasn’t half bad. He waited for an old guy in a red Cobra kit car to rumble past and crossed the street. Already muggy at eight in the morning, his shirt clung to the middle of his back.

As he got to the door, he peered inside. Janey’s husband, Luther, sat alone at a table, scowling as he stirred his coffee and stared at the chipped Formica in front of him. It might have been sixteen years, but Jake recognized that slack-jawed look of stupidity. Older, balder and fatter, but definitely Luther. A plate of eggs and bacon lay untouched next to his cup. Luther’s black, thinning and rumpled hair looked like he’d either just got out of bed or finished with a long night. Jake had no desire whatsoever to talk to his brother-in-law. He spun back toward the courthouse before Luther could spot him.

The troubled appearance of Luther made him think of Janey. He needed to stay close in case Bear wanted to resume the search for Halle. But only two blocks separated her house from the jail, and Jake had his cell. He strolled north at the end of the block on Van Buren and down the hill, the courthouse on the right and the old Roxy Theater on his left, no movie posters or any other signs of life. When did it close? He followed the tree-lined, crumbling sidewalk past Jackson Avenue and veered on to Osage Street.

The cheap, tan vinyl siding covering Janey’s house hung crooked. Hardly surprising considering Luther probably did it himself. Sparse grass cropped up among patches of dirt and weeds. A broken walkway led to a front porch with a rusted, metal rocking chair that probably hadn’t seen any action since Reagan occupied the White House.

Jake cruised up the sidewalk, the wooden steps groaning under his weight. The front door stood open, a ripped screen door in place to keep out the flies. Did he really want to go in? He knocked, a faded “No Solicitors” sticker slapped to the chipped, white paint. The appearance of the house would eliminate anyone from trying to sell anything.

Inside, Janey’s head popped around the corner. She crossed a living room crammed with an ugly, beige couch and a recliner with cushioning threatening to burst through popped seams. Carrying a broom, she swam in a gray Disneyworld sweatshirt. She reached the door and pushed it open. An angry red welt stretched across her cheekbone.

“Jesus,” Jake said. “What the hell happened?”

“Nothing.” Janey walked back across the living room and into the kitchen with Jake following close behind. She swept dirt from a broken, red clay pot holding a handful of shriveled, green leaves.

“Luther?” Jake asked. Janey didn’t confirm or deny it, but the slump of her shoulders solidified the truth. Jake resisted his first instinct to storm to the diner and beat Luther’s ass.

“Been awhile since we had a blowup like this,” she said. Jake picked up the pieces of the broken pot and searched for a trash can to dump them in. Based on the piles of dishes and crap everywhere, they could easily blend in just lying on the floor where they were.

“What happened?”

She swept up the last of the dirt and dumped it in a cardboard box on a round breakfast table. “It’s my fault. I haven’t been keeping up the house like I should because I’ve been dealing with Dad. He came home after being out all night and I started in on him.”

“That gives him the right to smack you around? Has it happened before?”

“Once or twice. Not a bad record considering how long we’ve been married.”

Jake could only shake his head at the stupidity of the statement.

“You should leave the dumb son of a bitch.”

Janey laughed; a sad laugh. “And go where? Live on what? I’m stashing some extra money away, but I don’t have enough to start over.”

He could give her some, but that could raise unwanted questions about the source of the funds. “Where are the boys?”

“School. At least they’d better be.” She sat at the messy table and took a sip of coffee from a chipped mug, “World’s Greatest Mom” on the side. “You want coffee?”

“I’ll get it,” Jake said. He grabbed a rag off the counter, got some ice from the freezer covered with pictures of his nephews who he hadn’t seen since Janey’s last Christmas card. They were getting big and, unfortunately, taking after Luther more than Janey. Poor little bastards. He handed the ice to Janey who winced as she laid it against her swollen cheek. He poured a cup of thick coffee into a relatively clean cup. It tasted as bad as it looked.

Janey lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke as she looked into the yard, lip curled in disdain as if she just noticed the clutter of rusted junk, like they tried to have a yard sale a decade ago and left everything that didn’t sell there. Jake leaned against the counter, anger boiling at what Luther did to his baby sister, despair at what she let her life do to her, and the ever present guilt for having put her in such a position in the first place.

“You stay at Hospice last night with Daddy?” she asked.

“No. Got him settled in his room. Been dealing with some other stuff.”

“Maggie’s missing daughter, you mean?”

He almost forgot she worked in the sheriff’s office. Hell, everyone in town probably knew about Halle at this point. Not much of a point in letting Janey know Halle was his daughter. She’d find out soon enough.

“What have you heard?”

She flicked the cigarette ashes into the box with the broken pot. “Nothing other than nobody can find her. It ain’t good though.”

“You don’t think she’s holed up with some hormonal teenager or a girlfriend?”

“Not Halle. She stirs up a little trouble here and there, but she’s a good kid. Spirited like her mom, but she wouldn’t do anything stupid like disappear on her own.”

“So what’s your guess?” Jake asked.

“Beats the hell outta me.”

“Tell me about Shane Langston or Willie Banks.”

She took a deep drag of her cigarette and dropped the butt into her coffee mug.

“Both drug dealing criminals,” she said. “Willie spent a few days in jail with us for possession. Langston is the one you have to watch out for. Mean as a snake.”

“You work yesterday? See the kid they brought in?”

“Howie Skaggs? Yeah, I saw him. Bear and Sad Dog talked to him for a while before some lawyer showed up. Bear took off when he went to see you. Howie was sitting alone in a cell when I went home around midnight.”

Best not to say anything about Howie still sitting in a cell, but without a pulse. He poured the horrid coffee down the drain and set the cup on top of a pile of noodle-crusted dishes.

“Where can I find Shane?”

“Why?”

“Don’t worry about it, Janey. I just need to find him. It’s important.”

“What the hell have you got yourself mixed up in?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. Do you know or not?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Not sure if I’d tell you even if I did. He’s a bad man, big brother.”

Goddamn it. He wouldn’t get anything out of her. “You working today?”

“No,” she said. “Thought I’d go spend some time with Dad. He can’t have more than a day or two. Bear told me to stay with him until the end.” She climbed to her feet. “You’re different, calmer. Figured you’d be out the door looking for Luther.”

Jake set his jaw. “Oh, I’ll deal with Luther. He isn’t getting away with smacking my little sister around.”

Janey set the makeshift ice bag in the sink. She placed her tiny hands on Jake’s chest with a wide-eyed gaze taking him back to when they were kids. “Leave Luther alone. You’ll make things worse for me and the kids. Go with me to Sedalia?”

“I should stay around here, keep looking for Halle. Just waiting for Bear to finish some things at the office.”

Janey’s brown eyes pleaded, like one of those weathered kittens from an animal shelter poster. “Please, Jake? You can come back quick, but I need you there when I see him. At least at the start.”

He couldn’t resist those eyes. “Can you drive? I rode in with Bear, and I gotta get Maggie’s car anyway.”

“Let me go change.”

She disappeared up a narrow staircase. Jake leaned against the counter. If his little sister believed he’d let Luther get away with this unscathed, she didn’t know him very well. But he had bigger issues to deal with like finding his daughter and Langston. Luther could wait.

Neither of them could think of much to say on the ride to Sedalia. The low volume radio filled the quiet, a local country station that faded to static past Lincoln. Jake called Maggie and let her know where they were going. Still no word from Halle. Maggie’s voice trembled and Jake could picture her sitting on the couch in the living room, rocking back and forth, biting her nails and eying the door. He also called Bear but it went straight to voicemail.

“So, what’s your plan after he…you know,” Janey said.

“Dies? I don’t know. Seeing Maggie has been good.”

“So, you might stick around for a while?”

“I didn’t say all the memories were good, Janey. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe it’s time for a change.”

Janey lit another cigarette, coughed harshly and cracked the window. Her aged Accord already smelled like a bar-room ashtray.

“It’d be nice if you stayed. You’re all I got, big brother.” She blew out another plume of smoke, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You promised you’d come back.”

The miles of open fields darted past, dotted periodically with spotted cows and old farm houses. It didn’t seem long ago when his eighteen-year-old self took in a similar scene as he hitchhiked out of town. He carried nothing with him at the time but a bag of clothes and a meager wad of cash.

Janey had sobbed and begged him to stay. He couldn’t leave her and Nicky alone with Stony. What about the house? What about Maggie? She listed off a million reasons for him to stay, but none were powerful enough to hold him there. Though the doctors fixed his knee, and he limped slightly, the big dreams were dead. Nothing remained but a burning ball of anger. If he stayed, the ball would erupt and he’d kill Stony. Maybe if he got the hell out of Warsaw, he could breathe. If he could breathe he could let go and start to live. Until he could do that, there’d be nothing for him at home. He’d be no good to anyone or anything. He promised to be back in a few days, too much of a coward to tell anyone the truth. Nothing could quench the anger at what Stony took from him.

Now, the anger for his old man may have dulled, but it still held heat, like the embers of a dying fire. He rested his head against the cool glass of the Accord’s passenger window. He was tired of the hate. Exhausted from carrying the guilt of what he left behind. Weary of the loneliness. Stony stole the dream with a couple of drunken swings of a pipe. Maybe when he died, he’d take the anger and the guilt with him to the grave. Maybe then Jake could start to live. With Maggie and Halle in the picture, he had something to live for.

                                                        #

Thirty minutes later they rolled into Sedalia and into the parking lot of Hospice House. Janey coasted to the red-brick building and shut off the car. She yanked her visor and tried to adjust her hair to cover the bruise darkening her cheek. She slammed up the visor at the useless endeavor and climbed out of the car. Jake forced himself to follow suit.

Inside, soft music played in the hallway, one of those elevator-music mix tapes supposed to soothe and comfort. Though Jake found it annoying, he supposed it sounded better than stark silence. Outside of a closed door, a woman in a blue dress cried into the arms of a stoic gray-suited man. Further down the hall, a family laughed quietly as they passed around scrapbooks and ate cookies in a comfortable waiting area by the nurse’s station. The laughter a welcome sound in this place.

They walked silently past the waiting area and down a softly lit, brown-carpeted hallway, lined with doors. Some were open, revealing empty beds and others occupied by patients with empty stares. The patients at Hospice lasted mere hours, days or even weeks. The doctors wouldn’t give you a timeline.

Stony’s door was cracked open a few inches. Janey and Jake waited outside after spotting a nurse inside moving deftly around the cords and monitors attached to their sleeping father, sunken eyes closed and mouth open. After a minute, she emerged. Late forties, dark hair streaked with gray and cropped short. She offered a tight-lipped smile.

“You must be Mr. Caldwell’s children,” she said. “I can see the family resemblance.”

“How is he?” Janey asked. Tears dripped from her eyes like a leaky faucet you could never fully shut off.

“Resting.” The nurse reached into her pocket and handed Janey a tissue. “We had a bit of a rough night, but we gave him some medicine to make him comfortable.”

“How much longer does he have?” Jake asked. The nurse narrowed her eyes a bit at the coldness in his voice but, to her credit, the hardened stare disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

“We really don’t like to speculate. You should talk to his doctor.”

“Hours? Days? A week?” Jake pressed.

“If I had to guess, I’d say a day. His breathing is slowing, shallowing out.”

“Has he said anything?” Janey asked.

“Not really,” the nurse said. “He’s cried out a few times but at this stage, he’s not likely to say much. I’ll be at the station if you need anything.”

She patted Janey on the arm and left them. They entered the room, the smell of death and antiseptic cleaner overpowering. Janey sat in a chair positioned by the bed and broke down as soon as she touched Stony’s hand. On the other side of the bed, Jake leaned against the window cutout, as far from his father as possible.

Stony looked a hundred times worse than when Jake brought him in yesterday. With all that happened with Maggie and Halle, dropping him off at Hospice seemed like a week ago. Stony’s skin was jaundiced, the color of an old bruise. He lay on his back with his head tilted into a thin, blue pillow, mouth ajar. His breaths were rattled, labored and few. Almost as if his body forgot how to breathe, and Jake envisioned long hours waiting for the last one.

Jake’s limbs tingled, anxious and jittery. Watching Janey holding their father’s hand and talking about the good things she remembered made him want to hit something hard. He’d rather be out with Bear looking for Halle, rather be sitting with Maggie. Hell, chasing some scumbag who skipped out of paying Keats down a dark alley would be better than sitting in this death room.

Janey blathered about Christmas when she was five years old. She thanked Stony for getting her the Tiny Town dollhouse she’d wanted, even though they didn’t have any at Walmart in town. She wondered where he’d gotten it, how hard he must have scoured the earth for it. Jake wouldn’t tell her he and Nicky got her the dollhouse. He and Nicky lifted the keys to the truck when Stony passed out. He and Nicky drove to Sedalia when they weren’t even old enough for a license. He and Nicky switched price tags on the dollhouse with something less expensive so it fell within the range of the meager dollars they’d scraped together. He and Nicky wrapped it and put it under the tree. Stony took credit for it and the two boys were smart enough to keep quiet.

He couldn’t take the lovefest anymore and pushed off the window ledge to leave.

“Jake,” she said. “You can talk to him, you know? He can hear you.”

“He doesn’t want to hear anything I have to say.” Jake grasped the footboard rail like he was trying to crush it with his bare hands.

“Sure he does. If you just…”

A low croak emanated from Stony. Janey stopped mid-sentence and they both leaned in when the sound repeated. Stony struggled to say something. His emaciated jaw fished open and shut, his eyes clamped as the sound came out again. Janey reached over and grabbed a cloth, dropping the end in a glass of water on a rolling tray. She wrung out a little and wiped it across Stony’s cracked lips. Their father brought his lips together and drank in the few drops Janey offered. His eyes opened to a slit and his wandering pupils settled on Janey.

“Janey,” he said, whispering, struggling. “My little Janey girl.”

Janey sobbed, dropping her head to his shoulder for a minute. Jake stayed at the foot of the bed while she pulled herself together. When she raised her head, she stroked his cheek.

“I’m here, Papa,” she said. “We’re both here.”

Stony’s eyes cracked opened, a sliver of a dull glaze. His head rotated slightly toward Jake. His eyes crimped shut again, and a single tear rolled out and slid down his yellowed cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what, Papa?” Janey asked.

“Sorry,” Stony repeated. His eyes unclenched and his jaw hung open. Jake held his breath. Was this it? Seconds later, the labored breathing came back. He slept again, the wet trail of the single tear clinging to the side of his weathered face.

“What do you think he was sorry for?” Janey asked, stroking their father’s cheek.

“Lots of things,” Jake said. “Most things.”

Janey’s dark eyes flared. “It is never too late to apologize for wrongs done.” A phrase their mother used to say all the time. How in the hell did Janey even know about it?

“Just because he said it, doesn’t mean I have to accept it.”

“He’s dying, Jake. What’s done is done. You don’t have much longer to forgive him.”

He resisted the urge to slide on the jagged gold ring and punch Stony with it for dredging up this shit Jake had buried years ago. Instead, he unclenched the bed frame and walked out the door before Janey could say anything else. As he clumped up the hallway toward the exit, it occurred to him that today was the first time he ever heard his father say “I’m sorry” and the first tear he ever saw from the man’s eyes. Too little, too late. One of Stony’s favorite aphorisms.

He reached Maggie’s car. Inside, his large hands rubbed the steering wheel like a worry stone. He closed his eyes, Stony’s gaunt face looming large, the words "I’m sorry" tumbling out of his mouth and the tear rolling down his cheek. Jake pounded the dashboard with a fist, started the car and darted out of the Hospice House parking lot. The old bastard actually made Jake feel sorry for him.