Authors: Chelsea Heights
His brother Henry, ten years his junior, served as the congregation’s pastor.
Henry was a large man, with a protruding belly always hanging over his belt buckle.
As much as Wally worked outside cutting the lawn and pulling weeds around headstones, Henry sat in his air-conditioned office reading his bible and preparing for the next week’s sermon.
His hands were soft, with short pudgy white fingers.
He had one callus, on the inside of his right middle finger caused by having an incorrect grip on his pen.
He always brought a plate of homemade cookies or pastries made by his wife Agnes.
His office was filled with books on theology, philosophy, and business.
Henry was acutely aware that most of his congregation was not actually Methodist, but included Catholics, Protestants, Episcopalians, and even a few Jews.
He catered to all of them, assuring that enough money was collected every Sunday to keep the church doors open.
Henry was notorious for greeting new people in town.
Shortly after moving in he would ring their doorbells and introduce himself.
He would always close with “I expect to see you on Sunday.”
When someone would announce “Oh, but I’m not Methodist,” Henry was always quick to respond with “You live in this town, you’re a Methodist” before turning on his heel and walking away not giving the person a chance to disagree.
Whether it was from guilt or a desire to belong, most people would show up and put their hard earned money in the collection plate.
On occasion Henry would look up from his writings to watch his older brother through the office window weeping over the grave of his little family.
Only once did Henry attempt to encourage Wally to move on with his life, which resulted in them not speaking for two years. He would never allow that to happen again.
Wally and Henry had four sisters sandwiched between them but they were all deceased from an aggressive genetic form of breast cancer.
Wally also dug their graves, but now had the luxury of using a tractor instead of his back.
He hadn’t wept a single tear for any of his sisters, though he loved them dearly.
Wally believed all his tears were poured into the grave of Sara and Gracie, and he had no more to give.
Chapter Three
Delaney arrived to work twenty minutes early and sat in her cubicle, ignoring the ringing phone on her desk.
Her cube walls were empty, only random thumbtack holes where photos of her and Kevin use to hang.
She had felt the eyes of her coworkers on her on the morning she came in and tore them all down and fed them into the shredding machine.
None of the men in her office asked what was wrong; they already knew.
It was Delaney who was the last to find out about her husband’s infidelity, and she felt like the town fool.
She cried for months over the loss of her marriage and several more wondering what she had done wrong.
She overheard other officers talking about Kevin and calling him the “happy humper” as they speculated how he got away with it for so long before Delaney found out.
It had been a year after their divorce was final when Kevin died.
He was drunk and screwing some nurse on a dock during low tide.
It was reported in the Daily Post that when they were finished having sex, Kevin rolled off of her and then dropped ten feet into the water.
It was summertime, the water was warm, but according to the woman Kevin had finished a six pack followed by a couple shots of whiskey during dinner.
The Coast Guard spent twenty-four hours looking for him before the search was changed from a rescue mission to a recover mission.
A diving team found his body four days later impaled by an underwater piling.
Delaney heard his shirt was wrapped around his neck and his pants were still down around his ankles.
By the time he was found the crabs had already eaten off his manhood and only a fleshy stump was left.
She could never eat crabs again.
“Davenport, wake up and smell the coffee,” shouted her chief, Marsh O’Malley.
He was pushing fifty, overweight, balding, and smelled like ten years worth of cigarettes. His shirts were always stained with food and he was constantly sweating.
All the hair had left his head decades ago and now sprouted from his nose and ears.
His chins wiggled when he spoke and he didn’t have a neck.
The department even had to purchase an extra wide chair for him to sit in.
Delaney had briefly wondered what the taxpayers would think of that.
He was arrogant and openly disdained her.
He didn’t try to hide his feelings of having a woman cop on his police force.
O’Malley made sure she had the oldest, most beat up cruiser in the lot, even when newer vehicles sat unused.
Even during physical fitness training, when she beat all the men on the obstacle course, O’Malley stated it was only because they let her win.
She outshot the men on the pistol range, ran faster, and solved more cases yet she was always passed over for promotion.
Chief O’Malley plopped down a stack of manila folders onto her desk and waddled away.
Delaney was grateful she didn’t have an extra wide chair in her cubicle.
She skimmed through the tabs on the folders and noticed “Caroline” was scrolled across the top of one of them.
Delaney opened her bottom desk drawer, dropped the folder in and closed it just as fast.
She started reading through the other files, all petty small town issues; that was all she ever got.
She grabbed the top one and her keys and headed toward the Town Store.
Delaney pulled into the gravel lot and parked the unmarked cruiser under the shade of a huge oak tree.
She pulled down the visor and glanced at herself in the mirror.
She instantly regretted it.
Her flaws were always magnified in bright natural light.
She quickly closed it and leaned back in the driver’s seat.
She could feel the sweat building between her back and the leather seat.
She found herself thinking of Chief O’Malley sitting in his air-conditioned office while she was cooking in the patrol car.
Her pants suit felt unbearable in the humidity and coupled with the one hundred plus degree heat she felt like a pool of sweat.
The latest weather update said it would be another four days of record temperatures before things would begin to cool down.
Delaney guzzled from her water bottle and put the car keys in her pocket, but left all the windows down.
She didn’t verbally acknowledge it, but opening the door to the Town Store and feeling the sudden burst of cold air on her face was refreshing.
She could immediately feel the beads of sweat dissipating into the air and was instantly in a better mood.
“Delaney, I was hoping the chief would send you.
You’re the only cop in town with any brains,” William said as he handed her an ice cold can of Diet Coke.
Delaney cracked the tab and hesitated just for a second before taking several gulps from the beverage.
She could feel the burn in her eyes and when she looked up at William he chuckled and said, “Brain freeze, it’s written all over your face.”
Wincing, she agreed with a nod and motioned with her hand for William to talk.
William started telling her how a group of teenagers placed a red Life Saver on the floor of his store, just in front of the refrigerator which held the milk.
The teens had pushed the candy just under the lip so it wouldn’t be stepped on.
Delaney patiently listened to his complaint and watched as William’s hands moved all around as he told his side of the story.
Delaney had learned from experience that everyone wanted the opportunity to tell their side of the story and it was better not to interrupt, just listen and take it all in while trying to pull out the important facts.
William had owned the Town Store for most of his life and he lived right above it in a little apartment by himself.
He had never married but was known to bring home a lady friend every now and then.
It was common knowledge that if you arrived at the store and found it closed, it was because he had a woman upstairs.
Seeing that this only happened a few times a year, it was more of an event than an inconvenience and provided people with something to talk about for the week.
William had stopped speaking and asked her what she was going to do.
“Well, what exactly is your complaint?” she asked.
He threw up his hands and sighed, “Isn’t it obvious?
These hooligans are trying to ruin my reputation.
They placed the Life Saver on my floor, and are now telling people I don’t keep the place clean.”
Delaney thought about this for a second, and then asked, “When did the kids put the candy there?”
William put his hands in his pockets and looked down at his feet.
Mumbling so she could barely hear him he said, “Two months ago.”
She let out a laugh, followed by, “I suggest you sweep your floor immediately and be grateful they didn’t call the health department.
I know the kids you’re talking about and when I see them I’ll have a talk with them.”
He looked at her with big doubting eyes, and she said, “Promise.”
Chapter Four
Delaney parked her Mini Cooper in the garage and went inside.
She was immediately attacked by Fetch, her two-year-old golden retriever.
After a quick greeting, she opened the back door and the dog took off across the yard.
She had three acres, and the invisible fence ran around the entire border of her property.
Several months after Kevin died she had received a call from an attorney.
To her utter shock, Kevin had never removed her as the beneficiary from his life insurance policy.
They had purchased equal term life policies after they were married and she immediately removed him from her policy before the divorce was even final.
Delaney had considered giving the windfall to a local charity but had a change of mind.
She decided to pay off the mortgage on her three-bedroom cape cod and get a Mini Cooper.
The Mini Cooper was red with white racing stripes down the center.
It had a leather interior and most importantly, air conditioning.
She then donated the rest of the insurance money to the Ronald McDonald House Charity at University Hospital.
When Delaney was a teenager her younger brother Matthew had come downstairs one morning with a bloody nose.
She called him a loser and was teasing him when she suddenly realized his pajamas were soaked and bloody footsteps had followed him down the stairs.
It was as if someone had turned a fountain on to make the blood flow and there was no stopping it.
She recalled sitting in the emergency room and looking at Matthew as purple blotches began covering his body.
Initially the doctors and nurses falsely accused her parents of child abuse, and she was terrified of what would happen to her family.
Matthew was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit and they were not allowed to visit.
It was two days later when a hematology oncologist physician called her parents and told them to come immediately to the hospital.
They had been cleared of all abuse charges and told their son was diagnosed with ALL, acute lymphocytic leukemia of childhood.
She could still hear the sound of the phone falling to the kitchen floor as her mother vomited.