Clouded Rainbow (12 page)

“No, sir. We are about done here anyway. They’re going to send a car by for a stake-out,” the scrawny patrolman continued.

Det. Cleveland realized these first responders were worthless to him. He did give them credit for checking the immediacy of the situation and for taking care of returning the stolen car to its owner, but they lacked the killer instinct that only a well-bred detective could offer.

“I see. Thanks, guys. I’m going to give the place a walk through. I’ll lock up,” Det. Cleveland responded.

The two patrolmen removed their gaze from the prominent detective and walked past him with their heads held low. They resembled mischievous schoolboys leaving the principal’s office after being drilled with questions. Det. Cleveland heard the door shut behind him, which quickly brought silence into the spacious house. He walked over to the liquor cabinet, the structure that intrigued the two immature patrolmen. Several bottles of rum and brandy lined the top, but the large jug of wine that dominated the other inferior bottles caught his attention. Det. Cleveland picked up the jug and winced from its hefty weight. The label revealed it as Lambrusco. While the detective did not have much knowledge of wine, he figured this must have been a delicacy for the residents of the home.

Det. Cleveland set the bottle down and turned to take in the kitchen. He walked slowly toward the window above the sink. It was as if he tried to mask the echo of his footsteps, but the hardwood floors provided no cushion to his posh dress shoes. Det. Cleveland peered through the window and noticed the swaying clothes hanging on the neighbor’s line. The fabric’s movement was soft and slow from the night breeze and it took some strength to remove his eyes from the hypnotic motion. After a minute, the detective turned and moved toward a floral arrangement. The daisies, tulips, and lilacs were still glowing and vibrant, which suggested to him that they had received a drink not more than thirty-six hours ago. Det. Cleveland walked toward the exit of the kitchen, and then flipped the light switch. He paused for a moment as his mind suddenly went blank. It was as if he couldn’t think or move. Little did the detective know, he was standing in the precise spot as the man he was trying to locate with the same radiating glow silhouetting his body from the entryway light. The only difference, however, was that he faced the opposite way that Roger had faced earlier in the evening.

The sound of Det. Cleveland’s footsteps changed tone as he moved onto the older hardwood floors. Roger had remodeled the kitchen last year with new flooring and the entryway still had the original wood from the house’s construction some ten years ago. The detective, however, had no way of knowing this, and if he somehow found Roger hiding upstairs, the reason his footsteps sounded differently would probably be the last question he would ask.

Det. Cleveland looked up the stairway before transcending. He always looked and assessed before he did anything, even just walking up stairs. The hallway was dark, but the light from the master bedroom immediately drew his attention. He pondered whether the front-line officers had left the light illuminated or whether it had been the owner of the house before his great escape.

Det. Cleveland stood at the doorway to the master bedroom. He took in the queen-sized bed in the center with nightstands on each side. He moved into the room. Immediately, the smell of alcohol tickled his nose. Det. Cleveland looked on top of the counters, but nothing that would have emitted the smell revealed itself. Checking the next probable location, he looked at the base of the bed, moving the flowing skirt on each side. Then he found the culprit—a bottle of opened “Jack Daniel’s Old Tennessee Whiskey.” Det. Cleveland put the bottle on the nightstand and looked at the side of the bed next to him. The covers were slightly imprinted on one side and near the pillow, just enough for the detective to confirm that a body had recently rested on top of the bed. He assumed the officers did not tamper with the light and the signs therefore suggested that Mr. Belkin, the owner, had used alcohol as a downer to induce sleep. Then, he had exercised the side of the bed as his resting place closest to the bottle. Det. Cleveland conjectured that when the patrolmen had startled him awake from the front door, Roger Belkin fled through the path of least resistance, the back door. Det. Cleveland made note of this in his notepad, trying to put a timeline and sequence to the man’s actions.

The bathroom behind him begged inspection. Although Det. Cleveland was anxious to check out the backyard for clues, he knew he had to exhaust the immediate area to look for a smoking gun. He walked into the dark bathroom, flipping the light switch. He caressed the towel hanging over the shower door. Toiletries lined the back of the clean toilet and sink. The lipstick case caught the detective’s eyes as he gravitated toward the seemingly innocuous object. He wondered whether this was, in fact, the lipstick used by the unconscious Jane Doe lying in Southern General Hospital. As he looked at the woman’s make-up, his eyes shifted to the mirror in front of him. He paused, staring at his cool mug peering back at him. He looked at his dark eyebrows and green eyes. The man staring back appeared in-control and collected, but there was a slight wrinkle on his skin under his left eye. Det. Cleveland did not notice it before, but something about the concentrated lighting brought out all of the reflection’s flaws. Even though the wrinkle was subtle, it made Det. Cleveland question the man staring at him. He suddenly felt older and no longer impenetrable. The wrinkle signified a chink in his armor and made him think about death. There must have been something about this mirror, he finally concluded, something that made him see things he had never seen before. He thought about Roger Belkin standing in the same spot and wondered how many answers to his questions the all-seeing mirror had concealed.

Det. Cleveland turned and left the confines of the bathroom. He flipped the switch, leaving the small space in darkness. He moved toward the master bedroom door as his steps created a filtered “clump” on the carpet. As he turned off the light switch, he hesitated with his hand still resting on the plastic toggle. His mind thought about any other clues he may have missed. As his brain calculated, his gut told him there was something else in the room, something that he had overlooked. Det. Cleveland flipped the switch back on. He gave the room another once over, and then it became clear. He galloped toward the pictures on the nightstand. A photograph behind a phone burned into his view. He grabbed it and saw a man smiling with a bubbly woman in his arms. He took a moment to assess the female, and then realized the animated woman was the same lifeless body alone in Nurse Ann’s care.

“Jane Doe!” he exclaimed.

He was baffled by how an attractive and vivacious woman who radiated from a piece of glossy paper could transform into an inanimate object with a grim future. He studied the good-looking man holding the woman. The man looked content and blissful as he embraced her. Det. Cleveland took a moment to put himself in the shoes of the photographer. The couple stood in front of the gigantic Hoover Dam, proud to share the moment together. A pair of birds soared in the blue sky above them. Then, Det. Cleveland shifted his eyes toward the bottom of the picture and saw written, “Roger and his
Dynamite
Lois.”

Det. Cleveland grabbed the picture frame. He received the burning answer to his question of Jane Doe’s identity. She was Lois Belkin, wife to Roger Belkin of One Thirty Three Dietrich Road. He thought about Roger, a family man who lived in a perfect house in a perfect neighborhood, and wondered where this seemingly perfect man was at this moment. He wished he could tell him where his wife was and how to see her, but he could not do that at the moment. Det. Cleveland set the picture down and headed out of the room, eager to get this newly acquired information to those who needed it.

13

The purr of the tractor-trailer rhythmically rocked the powerful beast. The V-12 diesel was low, hypnotic, and enough to put someone to sleep, which was exactly what had happened to Roger. Jack glanced over and saw the weary man’s head tilted and his eyes closed. His mouth was slightly open, and his chest swayed with each breath. He wondered about Roger.

“Where did this man come from?” he asked himself under his breath, but then he thought about the unwritten rule of the road—a traveler’s past should remain his past without judgment.

While Roger appeared peaceful sitting on the urine-stained vinyl seat, his mind was under duress. It saw vivid, disjointed images juxtaposed in a way that created a trapped world of terror. Roger was back at the serene lake sitting on a blanket with the love of his life. Birds chirped in the flowing trees and the warm sun glistened off the placid lake. Roger felt protected as the lucid image of Lois made this dream worth experiencing, but again, he was paralyzed. He could see his wife in perfect clarity, her soft hair, spongy skin, and innocent smile, but as he tried to reach out and touch her, his hand failed to respond. Lois grabbed a small hors d’oeuvre and took a dainty bite. As the image soothed Roger’s senses, his wife reached into the basket and unearthed two sparkling glasses. She grasped a bottle of deep red wine and, while Roger couldn’t see the label, he knew it was Lambrusco. Lois poured two glasses and handed one to Roger, a spectator in his own dream. Both tipped glasses with a “tink” and sipped the ripened wine. Roger felt powerless by not having physical control of his body. However, the image of the woman he had so desperately craved was all that mattered. He gazed into her brown eyes, which glimmered in the sun like a fresh pile of autumn leaves. Just as his focus was on the perfect image of his college sweetheart, clouds quickly stole the sunlight from her face. Light became dark, bright became dim, and life became death as the sky rapidly grew into a morose mess. Thunder crashed and a bolt of lightning electrified the water. Roger trembled. He tried to speak, to move, and even to look away, but he was forced to endure the terrifying experience. Lois’ smile turned into a frown. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows heightened as her expression changed into a look of horror. Rain dumped down and soaked Lois’ dress. Her hair transformed into a clumped mess and her hint of eye make-up ran down her cheek like black tears. Lois bolted from the blanket. Roger tried to fight the paralysis, but it prevailed. He watched as Lois darted behind a massive oak tree. As his senses screamed, thunder crashed again, pulsating Roger’s incapacitated body. Then, a bolt of electricity sparked the top of the oak trees.

“Roger, come find me. Please Roger, find me,” a ghostly voice of Lois uttered from somewhere.

Lois was gone from Roger’s view. She was lost in an image of panic. Suddenly, he saw the intense lights of the angry sky. It overwhelmed his sore eyes with light so bright it was no longer light.

The lights quickly transformed into bright headlights in an oncoming lane of a highway. Roger sprang awake from his impossible nightmare and blinked his eyes rapidly. He was in the moment just after awakening when dreams and reality blurred. His other senses began to rouse. The concocted smell of body odor, rotting food, and diesel fumes provoked his nose. Then, Jack’s deep voice filled Roger’s ears.

“Hey, buddy! Hey!” the trucker shouted.

Roger sat up and glanced around. He knew he was back into his aching body on his way into the city, but the vivid dream left him with more questions.

Was this bizarre dream some sort of subconscious sign?
he thought.

Roger was a man who didn’t give much thought to his dreams. He never wrote down the strange images he had experienced, and figured the meaning of these visions was at a magnitude higher in the echelon of human life. Dreams, however, were important to Lois, and she would always write them down and discuss them with Roger over breakfast if something interesting filled her mind as she slept. When she was in the mood to write creatively, Lois always drew her inspiration from the visions that had touched her.

As Roger regained focus in the truck’s cab, he wished he had a notepad to attempt to map the universe that had filled his dreaming mind, but as he looked around, the only object resembling paper was a mustard-stained parking ticket.

“Oh, I must have…dozed off,” Roger finally responded.

“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t know if I should wake you, but we’re coming into the city. Just passed the Pleasant Place Bridge. Did you hear about that bad accident last night? A few were killed from that tractor-trailer wreck. That driver must’ve been a pissin’ idiot!”

News and current events were the last thing on Roger’s mind. He knew he didn’t have time to watch television or to read the paper. Those activities were part of a normal person’s daily routine, not on the schedule of a man lost in his world. The bridge, however, jogged Roger’s memory as he pondered his journey each day across the structure for work or for a date with his wife into the nightlife of the city.