Blue Stew (Second Edition) (4 page)

“I’m not fucking tripping.” Walter started down the hallway, each footstep leaving behind a puddle on the glossy hardwood floor. “I’m deadly serious.” He was heading towards the kitchen and the nearest known telephone. He didn’t notice the utterly silent crowd of slack-jawed people standing in the clean, elegantly-furnished living room as he passed.

“You
really
were in an accident?” Nigel, momentarily stunned, called after him.

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

In the bright, high-ceilinged kitchen, Walter grabbed the phone and pressed 9-1-1.

Nigel stood by in silent bewilderment as Walter talked to the emergency operator. He explained the gruesome and unbelievable situation just as poorly as he had for Nigel.

Walter hung up.

“They’re on their way.”

“What the hell is going on, Walter?” Henry Potter had been the only one among the bewildered crowd in the living room brave enough to move while Walter had been on the phone.

Walter sighed deeply, “I really don’t know. All I know is I was rammed off the road by some dead guy who had half of his face cut off.”

“. . .
What
. . . why are you so sure he didn’t get his face busted open in the
accident
?”

Nigel nodded his endorsement of this levelheaded question. At that moment he was struggling to generate levelheaded thinking of his own.

“If you had seen it you’d understand.” The color left Walter’s face. “Just be glad you
didn’t
see it.”

“. . . Well, the police will sort all that out, I guess,” said Nigel, plainly unconvinced.

Henry scratched his thin black beard. “So . . . I guess, now we just
wait
?”

Jamie Astley walked into the kitchen as Walter said, “No. I’m gonna piss, then me and you are gonna head outside and follow the river downstream—try to fish out the other body.”

“You just got into a
serious
accident, Walter,” said Nigel. “You really think you should go out trudging through the forest at night, in a severe rainstorm like this?”

“If I might save someone’s life, sure.”

“What about tonight?” piped in Jamie, trying to sound assertive, but failing and sounding even more meager for the effort. “We have things to talk about.
Important
things.”

“
Obviously
that’s not going to happen anymore,” Nigel spoke curtly. “You can tell everyone to leave. They can get their food out of the fridge.”

A flash of protest came to Jamie’s eyes, faltered, and then she just looked hurt. She didn’t say a word as she turned and retreated back down the hallway.

Walter, in truth, felt bad for her, but he didn’t express anything to this effect. Instead, he taunted Nigel on his way to the bathroom, “
Someone’s
not getting
any
tonight . . .”

In the bathroom, Walter couldn’t avoid catching sight of himself in the awkward full-sized mirror beside to the toilet.

Walter Boyd could be a good-looking fellow if he wanted to be. He had dirty-blonde hair that, when washed and unburdened by grease, wove lightly along his forehead like the pretty-boys on cheesy TV dramas. His face, when shaved smooth, could appear strong and assertive, symmetrical as most of it was—except for his left ear, which he was
sure
was lower than his right. Unfortunately, his hair became greasy if not washed daily, and would clump and form to his skull in an unpleasant way, and his beard grew in in wiry patches, so when he neglected to shave, instead of making him appear rugged—like Henry told everyone
his
did—his facial hair just made him appear ragged.

It should come as no surprised that faltering personal hygiene coincided with Walter’s increasing substance abuse, and more and more of late he looked like trailer-trash.

That night he had actually tried to make himself presentable, yet the man that stared back at Walter through the mirror, as he peed into the toilet, looked like absolute hell.

When he came back out into the kitchen, Walter found that Henry had already thrown on his dirty cardigan jacket that he usually wore dirt-biking and had located a set of flashlights.

“Okay, Nigel you talk to the cops when they show up. Tell them where we are. I’ll try to call if we find the body.” Walter took one of the flashlights.

“Sure. Just, don’t go crazy out there. I’m sure they will want to talk to you about
everything
, Walter,” said Nigel.

Walter agreed shortly, and then he and Henry went out the back door and took an infrequently-used trail down to the river.

•   •   •

“Well, it’s no hunting for Horcruxes,” said Walter, his voice barely rising over the loud rushing of the river.

“Wow,” said Henry Potter, running his flashlight along the frothy buildup of sticks along the high river bank. “Just
wow
.”

Walter smiled as he hobbled along beside Henry.

They had been trudging through the woods for ten minutes. The rain had subsided and was now less apocalyptic.

Walter’s comment had been a successful attempt to crack the uneasy tension. He had already chosen not to share with Henry his fear that a psycho-killer was on the loose that night. He felt that the basic nature of what they were doing was creepy enough already. Seeing more of the river, a roaring testament to nature’s power, it was becoming harder and harder for either man to imagine fishing out
alive
anyone who’d been swept up in it.

Henry found that he preferred focusing on something other than seeking out a likely-dead body in the water, walking farther and farther from Nigel’s house, out in the dark forests of rural Vermont.

He said, “So, you seemed to know the deal with the dinner party, huh?”

“Nigel pretty much told me last night.”

Henry laughed, “I think we both know who
really
planned it.”

“She’s a good girl,” Walter commented with a shrug.

Henry gave Walter a serious look that could not be seen in the dark, “It’s
good
you showed up, though.”

Walter said nothing.

As active thoughts relating to the topic steadily fell from their minds, a nervous mood crept back over the pair. Unconsciously, the two beams of light began getting directed more often into the gloomy woods behind and around them, instead of exclusively switching from their immediate footing to the wild water. Like irrational children checking under their beds for monsters.

They continued on, and they continued to discover nothing but water and trees and darkness and uneasy feelings. By way of distraction, this last item—powerful as it was—helpfully kept the aching pain all through Walter’s body more or less tolerable.

“You’re
sure
you saw someone in the river, right?”

“Yeah,” said Walter. “I mean . . . at the time my head was reeling from the accident . . . and from seeing the most fucking horrible thing I’ve
ever
seen in my life . . .”

“So . . . you’re
not
sure?”

“
No
, I’m sure,” said Walter, in an unsure kind of way.

“Well, either way . . . at this point . . . it must be over a half-hour since you saw him . . .” Henry stopped short of saying it outright.

Walter understood. The floating man probably was dead, if he existed. Additionally, he had freshly reminded himself of the horror scene in the Jeep, and the surrounding darkness was making it difficult for him to banish the chilling, nauseating mental image.

“You’re probably right.”

He stopped and took his flashlight off the water. Eagerly, so did Henry.

Nothing more was said as they turned and began back upstream.

•   •   •

The frantic red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles were obvious as Walter and Henry labored up the steep trail behind Nigel’s house, even muffled as they were by the heavy atmosphere.

Going in through the backdoor, they found Nigel and Jamie alone in the living room, sitting on a luxurious brown wraparound sofa in front of a large, blank, wall-mounted TV.

“No luck,” said Walter.

Nigel started immediately, “You didn’t tell anyone that the dead guy had a huge
rock
pinning his gas pedal to the floor, or a
knife
stuck in him.”

“I didn’t?”

“
No!
” Henry answered for Nigel, morbid intrigue lifting his eyebrows high.

“If you
had
,” said Nigel, “your declaration that the driver of the Jeep was a ‘murder victim’ would have made a
lot
more sense.”

“Oh,” Walter shrugged, faintly embarrassed. “I guess I was . . . whatever. You’ve talked to them?”

“Yes. They want to see you, obviously. Officer Corey just left to grab someone, and they were going to head out downstream after you.”

“Where is—” Walter didn’t need to finish.

The four in the living room heard the front door swing open, and a gruff male voice called out, “So where’s your backdoor, Nigel?”

“In here, officer.
I mean
: they’re back.”

Officer Tom Corey came around the entranceway to the living room. He had a weather-worn face that appeared locked into a permanent frown. Even under much more pleasant circumstances, it was impossible to picture his face with anything approaching a warm smile.

“My god, Walter. Take a seat already.”

Although Officer Corey’s tone
had
been more sympathetic than commanding, Walter had previously learned the wisdom in being obedient with the police. He sat next to Nigel (who under normal circumstances would’ve flinched at someone so filthy touching his couch).

“I commend you for having the
courage
”—the emphasis could well have been a question mark—“to wander off in the dark right now.” A younger officer with a weak face stepped in behind Officer Corey. Officer Corey went on, “Eugene here had to talk me down from calling my mommy crying after seeing what was in the front seat of that Jeep. A few officers already lost their dinners. None of us will be sleeping for a week, at best.”

Usually the first to laugh at humor drawn from wholly humorless things, Walter didn’t even smile, “I can’t imagine the kind of lunatic it would take to do that to someone . . .”

“Hm,” was all Officer Corey said, and he rested a hand on his well-laden belt.

“What?”

Officer Corey said, straightforward as always, “Of course we’re not ruling
out
homicide . . . but some things don’t add up with that scenario.”

“Like what?”

“For one, even though the slate rock was wedged in there pretty securely, none of the brake lines had been cut, and the driver had full access to both foot and emergency brakes . . .”

“Well . . . obviously the murderer is
completely
deranged . . . maybe he wanted the poor guy to have some control, so he could suffer longer . . .” Even as he defended it, Walter began to see the many thin spots in his initial mental outline. He continued with less conviction, “And maybe the guy
meant
to hit me, hoping to get someone’s attention before he bled to death . . .”