Up in Smoke (16 page)

“Changes weekly. I can just text you what day ahead of time for the following few weeks.” I paused. “Well, I’m retiring soon, so really any day is fine.”

The pastor set his pen down and his eyes widened. “Really? Retiring?”

“Yep. I got early retirement because of budget cuts.”

“That’s great news! When’s your last day?” he asked.

“November 27
th
.”

“Oh wow, so next month. That’s great. So we’ll stick to text messages until then.”

“Okay. For the next few weeks, Thursday will be fine,” I replied, smiling as I watched him mark down the next few weeks. “I’ll talk to the wife about coming. I’ll do it today.”

W
hen I arrived home later that morning, Susan’s car was gone. I headed to the back of the house to relax on the deck. It was a little nippy outside, but the cool air was refreshing. Taking a deep breath, I kicked my feet up in front of me and relaxed, settling myself in the chair. For the first time in a while I felt lighthearted and hopeful. The pastor thought we had a chance to work things out.

I watched two birds sitting up in a tree in the neighboring yard. They were chirping away as they jumped from branch to branch. A smile came onto my face as I recalled bird watching with little Beth when she was younger. We had a robin make a nest in our backyard, and we spent hours watching the mother fly back and forth between the yard and the nest to feed her young. Suddenly, my phone rang, pulling me from my thoughts.

It was Cole. I said, “Hello.”

“Hey. You know Fred Foster?” he asked.

“Doesn’t ring a bell. Why? What about him? Who is he?” I asked, sitting up to a more alert position.

“He’s a cop. Anyway, he found a lead on your guy, Lincoln.”

“Oh, yeah? What’d he find out?”

“He’s wanted in a few different states along the western coast. He’s a high time drug dealer and a wicked bad guy. Fred wanted your number and I said I’d get back to him on it. Wanted to make sure that was okay with you first. I know how you are about your personal information.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Give it to him.”

We hung up. Fred called me within a few minutes.

“Alderman?” he asked.

“You can call me Rick. This Fred?”

“Yeah. So this Lincoln guy . . . when and where did you play poker with him? It wasn’t in your report.”

“Ahh. It was in the Valley at a warehouse. I remember he had pallets of diapers.”

“Diapers?”

“Yeah. Diapers.” I glanced out to the guest house as I thought another moment about Lincoln. “He also had this bouncer guy, his name was Bear. Big, scary looking guy. Bald with a beard that would make a lumberjack jealous.”

“Okay.” I could hear him write stuff down on a piece of paper. “He had an RV too. He took me inside that at the casino.”

“Which casino?”

“North Bend, the one up in Airway Heights.”

“Okay. Did you see the plates or know the model of the RV?”

“No. I wasn’t thinking about that kind of stuff. I had a gun pressed into my back. I was trying survive and protect my family.”

A crashing sound suddenly came from behind me on the deck. I turned and looked. It was Susan. She had tripped over a clay pot and shattered it. The flowers and dirt were everywhere. It was a mess. It matched the expression on my wife’s face quite well. She had tears running down both sides of her face.

“What was that?” Fred asked.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. Rick, is there anything else you can tell me about this Lincoln?” Fred asked.

I kept my eyes on Susan. “No. That’s all I know.”

“Okay. I’ll update you directly on anything we figure out.”

“Thanks, Fred.”

I hung up with him and got up from my seat. Susan shook her head and started to cry more. “Why couldn’t you tell me, Rick?”

I grabbed her arms and said, “I was scared. We were all in danger, and I was just trying to get it to go away.”

She shook her head and cried again. After a few moments, she was able to speak. “Why were you able to tell whoever that was on the phone with such ease, but not me?”

“That was a cop. They’re going to find him and put him away. They have resources and can do something besides worry!” I began to say. “It was to protect you, Susan.” I looked her deep in the eyes to help communicate to her my passion as I continued. “They knew about Beth and the grandkids.” I shook my head as my eyes welled with tears. “I had to do it the way I did. That’s all there is to it, Susan.”

She walked past me and sat down in one of the chairs on the deck. She folded over into her palms and cried.

“What can I do to fix this?” I asked, coming over to her and resting a hand on her shoulder. “Just tell me what you need.”

She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “Never have done it to begin with?”

“That’s not even possible!” I snapped at her. Guilt immediately crushed me at my harsh tone. I tried to retract my anger, but it was too late.

“You’re never going to change,” she said with a soft and hopeless tone. It hurt.

I took in a deep breath and focused on my breathing.
Keep
breathing
.
Stay calm to think clearly, like Ron said
. Thinking about my time with the pastor earlier that morning, I looked at her.

“Pastor Conner reminded me that I need to love you like my own body. The passage in Ephesians. Somehow, I had gotten so wrapped up in myself that I had forgotten to show you how much I care for you, and I’m going to work on that.” I continued to rub her shoulder as I bent my knees to get at eye level with her. “I love you, Susan.”

“You talked to the pastor? When?” she asked, startled.

“This morning, and I went ahead and set up counseling every week with him for the both of us.”

“I’m not going,” she replied bluntly. “There’s no reason.”

Someone could have busted my knee caps right then with a baseball bat, and I’d welcome the pain from it compared to the way Susan made me feel in that moment. I was devastated. “Really? No counseling?” I asked.

She shook her head. “We’re too old. We’re not just a couple of young, dumb kids with years ahead of us.”

“Well, I’m going with or without you . . . but I would love for you to join me.” Standing up, I left her on the deck and went inside when she didn’t say anything else.

Susan kept herself cooped up in the guest house for the rest of the day. Making use of my free time, I did a few loads of laundry and repaired the leaky faucet in the bathroom. By the time the dinner hour rolled around, I found myself hating the silence in the house. I headed down to Heidi’s diner to see if I could catch Ron and have dinner there.

When I got inside the diner, I was surprised by how packed it was. Every seat up at the bar had a butt in it, and there was only one empty table in the whole establishment—and that was only because a man and a woman were getting up to leave.

Still at the door, I watched the couple make their way to the register to pay for their meals. Penny was there, taking their money.

“What’s going on?” I shouted toward Lucy over the noise of the restaurant.

She looked up from the register and flashed a smile. Pointing up to the wall behind her, I glanced up at the sign. It was prime rib night. Twelve dollars got you a ten ounce slab of meat and a baked potato. Smiling, I nodded to her. “That explains it.”

She pointed over to the empty table and said, “Take a seat, Ricky. I’ll be there in a bit. I got two tables with food ready and then I’ll be over, so don’t get huffy.” She handed the gentleman at the register his change and receipt.

“Understood,” I replied. Weaving through the restaurant and around the servers, I made it over to my booth. As I took a seat, a small child—maybe two or three—popped his head up from his seat in the booth next to mine. His little eyes stared blankly at me. His mom told him to turn around and I grinned. It made me think of Beth being that age all those years ago.

“Coffee?” Penny asked, coming up to my booth a few minutes later.

“Nope. Going to have dinner.” Looking up at her, I saw past her and into the kitchen through the serve window. It was a different cook. “Where’s Ron at?”

“He took the night off,” she said, seeming to be holding back.

“What’s going on with him?” I asked, looking intently into her eyes. “He okay?”

“He’s okay,” she replied. “Just a cold or something.”

“Yeah. Crazy he’s missing prime rib night.”

“Yeah, he’d be here if he could. So what’ll it be?” she asked, pen ready to write on the pad in her other hand.

“I’ll take the Chicken Parm. To go.”

“Not staying?” she asked as she put the pad away without writing on it.

I smiled. “That’s what ‘to go’ usually means, right?” We both laughed. “No, I’m not staying. I’m going to see Ron.”

“He’s living with his son, Brackon, F-Y-I.”

“When did that happen?” I asked.

“Back a few months ago. He wanted to spend more time with Emmy and Joy and figured that would be the best way to do it.”

“Okay.” I stood up. “How long on that chicken parm, you think?”

“I’ll get it done quick for ya.” She left my table and headed to another table. I watched for a moment as she grabbed their empty soda glasses and headed up to the front to the server’s station.

I walked over to the register and leaned against the door frame that led out of the diner as I waited for my meal. Looking across the lively restaurant, I thought about Ron. I sure hoped he was okay. I watched families and other patrons enjoying their meals, and it made me smile knowing that Ron was responsible for building such a wonderful place.

Not long after, probably fifteen minutes or so, my food was ready. Penny brought it out of the kitchen in a white plastic sack. She set it down on the counter and I stepped up to the register to pay. She rang it up and took my money. As she handed me the change, she said, “Take care of yourself, and tell Ron he’d better get to feeling better.”

“The other cook not that good?” I asked half-jokingly.

She said, “He’s fine. He’s just no Ron McCray.”

Smiling, I put the change in my pocket and tipped my chin to her as I grabbed the plastic sack off the counter. “Have a good night, Penny.”

The drive over to Brackon’s house was a bit unnerving. Ron was the closest thing to a father figure I still had in my life. I prayed on the way over that he was really okay like Penny insisted he was. My plate didn’t have much room for extra drama. It was already spilling over the edges like an over-stuffed turkey on Thanksgiving.

Pulling up to Brackon’s house, I turned off the car and headed up the walkway to the house. The house wasn’t in a nice neighborhood, and it fit right in with the other dives on the street. The burned up grass in the front yard was a clear indicator to me that Brackon hadn’t changed since I last saw him five years ago at a barbecue that Susan and I were invited to by Ron. Something drove me nuts about the guy, and really any person that lived life aimlessly. People like him always make me think of leeches. They move from host to host and leech off whatever victim they can attach themselves to. Brackon was a special kind of leech. He attached himself to Ron and the government. Ron paid his rent and bills while the government kept him fed. There wasn’t any problem with people who need help here and there, but he was one of the people who abused it.

Ringing the doorbell, I could hear the chimes play through the house and the dogs in the backyard started to bark. Footsteps shuffled across the floor and the door opened. Shielding his eyes from the sun, Brackon stood on the other end of the screen door looking like he’d just woken up. No shirt, hair a mess, and what looked to be a fresh scar going across the top part of his left shoulder. And you can’t forget the dumb grin on his face. The kind that just makes you want to haul off and punch the guy right in the jaw.

“Brackon,” I said.

“Hey, man. You’re the firefighter dude. You like save people and stuff, right?” He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back.

“Yeah . . .”

His eyebrows furrowed as he must have recalled the barbecue right then. I had wrestled the bottle of vodka from his hands and thrown him on the ground after he backhanded the girlfriend he had at the time. “What you doing here?” His voice was sharp and annoyed.

“Your pops. He here?” I asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“What business do you have with him?” he asked, tipping his chin with an air of arrogance about him.

“It’s not business. It’s personal.”

“Who is it?” Ron asked in a holler from a room down the hall. His voice was faint, but I could tell it was him.

I opened the screen door and pushed through Brackon’s arm that he had raised up to block the doorway. “It’s me, Rick,” I shouted as I walked down the hallway.