Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery (45 page)

But the third member of their relationship was clearly who Jeffrey loved, and even the desperate cries of a worn and broken lover could not convince him otherwise. Standing in the sunshine of someone else’s affection could not cast off the shadow of his father’s influence.

"Where to now?" I asked aloud. The wind picked up in a sort of response, but that was all I got.

Some pine needles drifted down to me, and I anticipated them landing, but they passed on through. Everything seemed to pass on through. I stepped away from the tree where I pretended to lean and walked slowly down the pathway, admiring the sad, haunting beauty of the trees, leading me down toward the place where the land met the highway.

It was where I would wait, because I had nothing better to do. Hell, I had nothing
else
to do. I certainly wasn't going to trek back up to the Boogie House.

I waited down by the roadside for a few minutes before beginning to babble to myself. Soon, the babbling turned into a wailing scream. "Laveau!" I screamed, and then realizing there were more than one, said, "Uncle K. Help me out of here. I. Need. A. Way. Out."

Nothing happened. The breeze blew. I screamed. The darkness remained. That was it.

When I was done screaming, I sat on the ground and stared at the dirt. I closed my eyes. My mind wasn't exactly at its clearest, and the more I concentrated, the more aware I became of a distinct pain in my abdomen. At first, it felt like a pinprick. Then the sensation deepened, becoming a throb. I kept my eyes closed, waiting. Wondering. It was all I had left to do. I silently implored the old man to help me, expecting him to appear in the darkness and lead me to whatever occurred after this. Was it Hell I had to look forward to, or was I subject to this for the rest of eternity, to occupy the junction between memories and dreams?

Two loud bursts punctuated the darkness, and I opened my eyes. Gunshots. They seemed to have come from somewhere above me. I rose and hurried out into the open air beyond the trees, staring into the cloudy sky. I craned my neck up and spun around several times, looking for my exit. I didn't see anything, but the world around me had changed. I didn't feel as aloof or distant as before, and the pain in my stomach was becoming unbearable.

The sky changed colors. Clouds swirled into vast, twisting shapes, and I felt the first beads of rain on my forehead. I soon found it difficult to stand, and I dropped to the ground, going first to my knees and then landing face-down on old pine straw.

I opened one eye and felt excruciating pain. A cough welled inside me, and though it hurt to do so, I let out a rasping series of hacks. I raised my head, feeling it throb, and knew it wasn’t a dream.

I was
outside
, lying in the dirt. The Boogie House itself had all but collapsed. If before it had looked like a face made of fire, now it resembled a funeral pyre. The fire leaped up and licked the sky, and though there was nothing overtly supernatural about it, I thought I heard music under the violent chaos of the Boogie House’s final moments.

I watched it burn, trying to make sense of things, and then the pain swelled, and though I tried to fight it, I succumbed to an uncomfortable sleep. I would be told later it was because of all the blood loss, that I shouldn’t have been awake at all, that I had probably imagined all of this in the first place.

But I hadn’t. I knew better.

The sensation of bouncing up and down knocked me out of my unconsciousness. I felt numb and weak and tired, and I grunted in dismay. I heard a familiar voice say, "I got you, man. Just hang on. Just make it 'til we get to the car. I'm going to make sure you live through this."

"Deuce," I said, and then was out again. This time, it seemed, for a good long while.

Epilogue

Very often, you are not your own life’s hero. As hard as I had fought to solve Emmitt Laveau’s murder, turns out Deuce was the real Samaritan. On seeing my missing phone calls, he had gone to the one place that seemed to be drawing me perpetually to it. He disarmed Jeffrey Brickmeyer and left him bleeding there in the Boogie House while he dragged out the survivors.

Ronald Bullen bled to death on the way to the hospital, in the back of the ambulance. Several bullets from his gun were found in the bodies of Lyle Kearns, Red Tyson, and H.W. Bullen. It's still not clear if these murders occurred before or after Jeffrey Brickmeyer kidnapped Ronald. He was given a low-key funeral. No one but the preacher and gravediggers attended.

Leland Brickmeyer's death was ruled a homicide, though no physical evidence was found on the premises and both the maid and landscaper admitted to seeing no one at the house at the time. I doubt if a warrant for Uncle K will ever be issued, and I still wonder what he saw in his own dreams that made him carry out the murder.

And as for Jeffrey Brickmeyer.

When visiting me in the hospital, Deuce became clued in to what I had known all along. "I shot him once, and rather than come running out into the open air, he went flailing towards the back of the building. Suppose he thought he'd find a window leading out back. But he didn't. I dragged you and Janita and Owen outside and went back in to see if I could find his body. But I can tell you it wasn't there. Whole place burned up, and yet they still ain't found the man's body, not a trace of it. No tissue. No clothes. No bones. No nothing."

Staring up at him from my hospital bed, I did not reply. I saw his mind working on something he wasn’t quite ready to deal with, and I wasn’t ready to let him in on everything I knew.

With a sad, confused expression, he said, "Something unearthly went on there.” It was the truth, and I let the silence linger some more. “Can I tell you something else, Rol?"

In my heavily-medicated state, I could only nod. It was one of the few beneficial things about being shot. I didn't have to explain nearly as much as everyone else wanted me to.

Deuce almost seemed embarrassed at what he said next. "I'm hoping the medication will erase this from your memory, because I don't want it getting out, but here goes. The other night, when I shot him, and I was cutting the duct tape off all of you, it wasn't Jeffrey Brickmeyer's legs that carried him to the fire. It was something else."

I nodded, trying to convey that I understood. He ignored me and kept talking. He said, "I remember, I was working on your tape, holding one of your hands away from the knife blade so I wouldn’t accidentally slice off a finger, and I looked up to see two smoky figures perched on Jeffrey, one on each shoulder. Dragging him toward the fire, him fighting it the entire time. I know it sounds like I inhaled too much smoke. You think I'm crazy?"

I shook my head.

"Good," he said. "Then let me tell you the most fucked-up part. It wasn't smoke at all, but, well, shit, I don't know,
spirits
or something. Smoke with human faces. God, this sounds so stupid. Looked like two old fellas used to live here, I guess. Anyway, they dragged him off into the fire, him kicking and screaming, and, I've got to be honest, it looked like - to me - the fire wrapped around him like two arms and made him disappear. Janita didn't even register that she'd seen it. And once I let go of your hand, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, either."

He laughed uncomfortably. "Hell, maybe I did inhale too much smoke. That'll be our little secret, won't it?"

I nodded, and he stood up. "Fine, good, Rolson. You go on and get better. I'm going to get on finding you a new lawyer. Seems like your buddy Clements has skipped town. Maybe he had something to do with this whole situation."

He got up, stretching his back, and headed for the door.

There was one mystery I did need to ask him about. “I lent you twenty bucks last week. I ain’t asking for the money, but how bad is it, Deuce?”

“I can’t tell yet,” he replied. “I’m always hoping for my luck to change.”

And, with that, he left.

*  *  *

The Boogie House burned to the ground, as expected. The fire department tried to put it out, without much success. Even with all the recent storms, the juke was a collection of burnt embers before anyone could do much to stop it. All that remained was the tin roof, and even it was severely scorched.

On digging out the foundation, in an effort to get rid of the memories as much as the building itself, some human remains surfaced. Two adult males, both of whom had been shot in the head and stuffed into pine boxes, were pulled out and sent off to labs for testing. It is believed the two skeletons belong to the club's former owners, who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances years ago. Detective Hunter told me the man wanted in connection with the murder was Jarrell Clements.

*  *  *

A suicide note left behind by Jarvis Garvey confirmed his involvement in the death of Terrence Birrell, naming both himself and Clements as accomplices. My discussion with Clements had sent him into a manic state, and he'd called Jarvis to warn him. It set a whole chain of events into motion.

Jarvis, in the years following the murders, had grown penitent and was almost relieved that the truth might actually,
finally
come out. Clements didn't share his sentiment and demanded he keep quiet. When Jarvis responded that, well, no, he'd just go along with whatever happened, Clements became incensed and told Jarvis
he
'd be the only one to go to jail.

Apparently, he didn't believe his own hype. The authorities tracked Jarrell Clements to a ratty hotel just outside Memphis. Riding a pretty harsh drunk, he'd left a sloppy trail behind him and was dragged forcefully to the waiting cruiser.

*  *  *

I got out of the hospital and went to court. Deuce found me a young lawyer fresh out of school who practiced near Dublin. The judge, given all that had happened, sentenced me to the bare minimum for my DUI. By then, the whole story had reached the public, and I was considered a somewhat mysterious celebrity.

While spending a single day in lock-up - the bare minimum - I decided a change of scenery might be good for me. I had sucked about every last drop of juice out of Lumber Junction, and the contemptuous looks others had given me in the wake of my DUI had been replaced by bizarre and frightened stares, so it was not a stretch that I pack everything up and put the house on the market.

During that period, I went to Vanessa's funeral drunk on beer and high on painkillers, and I made it through the whole graveside service without breaking down. I placed a rose on the coffin before it was lowered and hugged her parents on my way out.

The memory of that day remains more blurry than the dreams of the Boogie House. Drinking no longer affects me adversely, though I've promised myself I would try sobriety out, complete with the AA chip she had brought home from her first meeting. I'd accepted Van's death as a wound that would eventually scar over, rather than heal.

I’m a different person, I know, but life is like a stone in a river. You don’t notice the waters taking the edges off until they’re all smooth. I’d like to say this has fundamentally changed my life, and I’m on the other side of the darkness, but I can’t say that. It’s just too early to tell.

I’m not over Vanessa, probably never will be. Don’t know I’ll ever be at peace with how things ended up between us. But I did some things right. I just didn’t do all the things right, and I’ll have to live with that, too.

Over the course of the week where I boxed things up, threw things away, boxed things up again and then unboxed and subsequently threw them away, I found the collection of things Van brought with her, including a small, silver briefcase. I fiddled with the locks for a few minutes but was in too much of a hurry to crack them open. I resolved to open it as soon as I could, and the potential contents kept me occupied when it was hard to think of her.

Janita Laveau, without her uncle to keep her tied to this town, moved on. She went to Louisiana to live with a distant relative. Apparently, she and I’d had the same idea. I got to speak to her once, but I was so high on meds I couldn’t quite get any words out.

I wanted to apologize for not helping. I wanted to let her know that I had done nothing, that she had placed her faith in me for no good reason. But I suppose she got what she needed out of me, and not for a bad purpose, either.

It is something I still think about. I played a part in this investigation, but I was nowhere near the hero I thought I might become. I’m the same person I was before, only now I realize I might be a broken man, as well.

Curiously, a dog started hanging around the house about then, coming first within viewing distance and then occasionally working its way toward the front yard. It was timid and old and probably feral, so anytime I showed any interest in it, the damned thing would run off into the woods for hours at a time. I put out fresh water and some leftovers everyday until finally, with me peering secretly through the blinds, it ambled up and began to eat. It ate slowly at first but then gulped down the food and water and then licked the bowl. It would still bolt whenever I showed my face, but I expected that to only last for a little while.

Finally, the dog came to trust me, and I sort of adopted him. He was old and ugly, but it made me happy to take care of something. Took my mind off of things. On the first afternoon he let me pet him, I came out onto the front steps and sat down, slowly stroking his coarse and tangled fur.

I stared into the distance, peering at the trees across the way. It was a cloudless, windless day, and at some point I thought I heard the sound of an acoustic guitar. I continued to pet the dog, but my whole body went cold.

Moments later, I heard the engine of an old beater, and a teenager in his daddy’s truck roared by, an old blues song blaring on the radio. I smiled and waved, and he kind of acknowledged me.

I went back inside and poured out every ounce of booze in the house while the dog watched. Tired and weary, still building my stamina back up, I took a long nap. I did not dream.