Saltwater in the Bluegrass (28 page)

“And you thought…?”

“Nothing,” Texi said. “I didn’t think anything about it. You’ve just been sort of quiet.”

“We’ve been over this.”

“We have?”

“We talked.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Yes, we did.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Yes, we did. The first night, when I first got here.”

“That’s what you call talking? Five minutes at K-T’s restaurant with a half dozen people around the table drinking.”

“So, what is it that you want to know?”

“I’m just wondering, are you here to avenge your uncle’s death?

Are you here for you, or are you here to save Kristina from herself?”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“I wish it were that simple.”

“Well, are you?”

“No, why would you even asked that?”

“I told you; I’m here to find out who’s responsible for killing Buddy. As for Kristina, she is the least of my worries. She’s obviously only out for herself. She’s a big girl now. Maybe with enough money she’ll forget about her father. As for me, I can’t.”

“Then tell me this: if you were home, how would you be handling this case?” Texi asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What the hell do you mean, Jimmy? You don’t know? You’d be busting down doors, kicking some ass, and taking names.”

“I guess so.”

“You guess?”

“It’s just a lack of focus, all of the surroundings. There’s no history here.”

“Are you kidding me, Jimmy? Quit jerking around. It’s no different here, just different surroundings, different people. Heck, most of the people around here spend their winters down in Florida with us, anyway. Tell me what you want, what you need, and I’ll get it. Together, let’s finish this up, and then we can go home.”

“I thought this was your home?”

“No, this is not my home. This is where I grew up, where I lived, where my parents live, where my old friends are, where I visit when I want to come and recharge my life. Florida is my home now, where I live, where I work, where I work with you—with you. You know that. So, let’s get this case wrapped up, find out what we need to know, and then let’s go home.”

“Are you always so straightforward?”

“Isn’t that why you hired me?”

“Yes.”

“Then, you’ve come a long way to find who it was that killed your uncle, so.”

“Okay, tomorrow then,” I said. “Tomorrow we go back to work.

I had been reminded,
with all the things we were participating in, that I had, for the moment, neglected my grownup duties. I was supposed to be here working on the case. Texi was good at reminding me of the structure and duties in my life, the direction she saw me traveling.

For a moment, I started to feel as though I was in Florida, back at home, only fourteen steps from the sand. I couldn’t quite keep my feet out of it. I needed to get my mind back on my work. With all of the activities that were going on around town, I was finding myself partaking of the fun instead of working like I should. This had to stop. Well, maybe tomorrow.

Texi and her friends worked their way through the large crowd, running into several old college friends. I talked with Lamar Jr., Charlie, and his friend Jenny Jenkins between races, sharing drinks, nachos, and popcorn. Independent types; I turned to look at her, smiling. I was intrigued with the Jenny’s story and the crickets her dad sold for a living. I found it quite humorous. Little did I know that this casual meeting of friends, through my cousin Kristina, would somehow lead me down an avenue to the information I needed. Some people are hard to talk too. Luckily for me, Charlie, Lamar Jr., and Jenny were not. The three of them seemed okay. Don’t get me wrong, now; they all had their own quirks, but everybody has those. They each seemed downright normal compared to some of the people I have met, and besides, Jenny was cute as all get out. If nothing else, I was more than happy standing around talking with her all afternoon.

The feeling was laid back. Was there a hidden message? Possibly. The company was enjoyable. I might have been lost earlier thinking about the Florida shore, but for now I was content being where I was. Charlie seemed interested in what I did for a living. He mentioned, through small talk, that he might have a few things he would want me to do for him later. Since I do not like mixing business and pleasure, I concurred that I would be more than happy to talk with him back in Louisville at another time, on another day, but right now the evening was young, and I had more on my mind than solving the world’s problems.

Jenny was standing beside me with an empty cup in her hand, and I was there with a passion full of thirst quencher for her.

“Would you like another drink?” I asked.

She nodded, touched my hand, and then touched my arm, communicating her agreement. “Yes, I certainly would. Just give me a second. Let me check with Charlie, see if he’s ok, see if he’d like us to bring him anything.”

“Is he always this quiet?”

“It happens a lot. Sometimes he’s in his own little world.”

I continued looking around, taking in the sights, waiting for Jenny while she stepped over to the rail and talked with Charlie. As crazy as it sounded, it was only time until the two of us would connect, filling each others needs, before eventually parting ways.

Charlie Baxter Ingram
was a lost little boy trapped in the strains of an adult-sized person. He was aware of his future in forms of absolute, in forms of vagueness, and in forms of theoretical patterns, but still he was lost between the insecurities of his past. How it had happened? He was not sure. Why it had happened, he could not remember. Where it had happened, he did not know, but most assuredly, in a perpetual cosmic frame of memories, he could only hope that he would somehow eventually escape from the torture. In time, Charlie would be allowed back. He would be back from the abnormal sanctions and discretion. Eventually, he would balance his emotions the same way a normal person could.

He had been lost for decades. Still, somehow he had survived the trails of indecision. It had come with admirable ability and aptitude, following signs and symbols. Eventually it would lead him back from the obscurities of what disturbed him the most.

What was it that caused him so much torment? Why could he not remember? Why was he so unhappy, especially when he was around his immediate family?

Charlie had lived through nights with drunken flashbacks, nights of betrayal with half-baked hesitations, forming improbabilities. In the past few years he had started remembering things, but they only came to him in glimpses and flashes. Questions were finding their way out. Still he was confused. What was triggering the past?

Who would bridge the gaps? Who would help him remember the past?

That someone would be the man who intrigued him. The man he met during the Bluegrass Stakes at Keeneland. Charlie instantly took a liking to the man he had just met.

Stringer was the man who was going to help him. How, he didn’t know. Together they would form a bond. Together they would uncover his past and what had tormented Charlie for all these many years.

I had agreed,
through conversations between races on Saturday, to meet up with Charlie on Sunday afternoon, the day after the Bluegrass Stakes, at a pub in Louisville called The Brewery. The track was not the right time or place. It was not the right setting or the right atmosphere. But soon, very soon, we would meet. We would sit down together and talk. We would follow the leads that were presented to us, and we would see where these options allowed us to go.

It was now Sunday morning. It was still early enough in the day that fresh ideas were theoretically possible, when the thoughts people have evolve with the notion that everything is possible in the world, the part of the morning when options, hot showers, prayer, meditation, scripture reading, ESPN Sports Reports, daily newspaper reading, stretching, and strong black coffee are each true recipes for the equation.

I had been up for about an hour and a half and had made my way down from the high-rise hotel, through the lobby, and outside for an early jog down to the River Front Park, along the water, up around the new baseball stadium where the Bats play, and then back up Main Street towards the hotel.

The river was up, something not uncommon in the spring. It was still showing six feet below the red danger flood-stage level, but it was six inches above the black numbered markings where it had been yesterday afternoon. The river was rising slow and steady from the rain that had come from up the river towards Madison the night before. It was working its way downriver through the locks and dams. The river current was steady but flowing faster than normal, picking up a variety of debris. Tree trunks, branches, and driftwood were making their way down the river, gathering at turns and across the Falls of the Ohio near the Prehistoric Fossil Beds on the Indiana side of the river.

Steady rain had come during the late hours of the night. Locals that I had talked with at the hotel had commented on the weather. With the end of April and the start of May at the doorstep, they were now climbing into the latter part of the spring showers and heading towards drier, hot summer weather. Spring in the bluegrass was at the peak of its splendor.

It was a beautiful morning to run.

Folks around here have a saying that “If you live a good Christian life while you are alive, when you die you will go to Kentucky.”

Conceivable, yes; well, it’s a good thought anyway. I still prefer the beach as my resting place when that time comes.

The local disc jockey on the radio station was babbling on about NCAA sanctions at some of the major colleges in the country. He was talking about how the coaches of the Louisville Cardinals and the Kentucky Wildcats went about watching out for recruiting violations. He was talking about infractions, things such as buying a hamburger for a player on scholarship or buying pizza or milk and cookies for the team while they are watching game films. About the coach who gives a player a plane ticket home for a family funeral, or the coach that helps a poverty-stricken ball player, who is going to make the college millions in revenue over a four-year period, find an apartment for the player’s family to live in or a job for his parents near the campus. All those really important life straightening, pathetic NCAA rules that undermine the governing body and the power they hold when it comes to eighteen year olds.

By the time I returned from my two-mile jog, put my headphones and compact disc radio away, and took a shower, Dan Patrick was coming on the television to report the schedules for today’s baseball games that would be played in both the National and American League. Mixed in were the highlights from yesterday’s games.
It was now going on two o’clock
in the afternoon. I pulled up in the parking lot behind the Brewery to meet Charlie. Both of us pulled into the parking lot at about the same time. I was happy to see that Charlie had intuitively thought to bring his friend Jenny Jenkins with him. Jenny and I locked eyes as she was getting out of the car. She was looking my way, and I felt a connection.

When we first saw one another, we could not help but smile. Jenny was dressed in a fashionable, short-sleeve leather jacket, designer three-quarter length jeans, and medium-heel, open-toed sandals. Her shoes enhanced the package as she got out of the car, showing off her fashionable model figure with her long, slender legs trimmed with gold ankle bracelets.

“Thanks for coming,” Charlie said.

“No problem. Glad to be of service, Charlie.”

“Any trouble finding the place, Jimmy?”

“No, I just followed my nose. Hi, Jenny. How are you?”

“Good, Jimmy. I’m doing really good, and you?” Jenny asked. There was definitely a presence of shared feelings passed between the two of us. Even without speaking, we had just connected on a close, personal level. Talking would have just spoiled the air and the ambience of the moment.

Besides, something else had just caught my attention, in my peripheral vision. I had just noticed two men sitting in a car and starring in our direction. The men had pulled up to the curb and parked in the shade outside the parking lot along the lower street. They were sitting in a dark gray sedan, just sitting and watching as we moved away from Charlie’s vehicle.

Both men looked out of place, uncomfortable, too close. There was nothing inconspicuous about what they were doing, or not doing. They were just sitting, staring, observing. For a moment I thought seriously about going over and seeing what their problem was but instead held off. I wondered if they had been following me or Charlie. I wasn’t sure, didn’t care, but at the moment I had to guess it was Charlie. Why, I didn’t know. Besides, who cared that much that I was in town. From where I stood, both men looked like street hoods, punks, deviants. They probably were.

I didn’t care.

An awkward five seconds passed.

Once I made eye contact with the two, once it was apparent I had their direct attention from where I stood, they started their car and immediately pulled away. It was obvious they were not interested in a confrontation. This much was apparent.

They were just sitting there, watching and taking notes, working for someone. At this moment I didn’t know who, but I had my guesses.

It was probably Katherine Ingram. She was probably watching little brother. Finding where he was going and who he was with. I didn’t bother saying anything to Charlie or Jenny. They didn’t need to worry.

With the formalities of saying hello over, we were soon inside the pub, sitting at a corner booth making small talk, ordering drinks and appetizers, and listening to some music from the speakers positioned above our heads.

Charlie was intent on leading the conversation, so I let him. He started talking about several issues that had bothered him for quite a long time. The way he turned the topic of conversation to himself was evident that he was well rehearsed in his thoughts. He was quick to change the subject from our monotone chatter and laughter of friendship to a topic Charlie needed us both to just sit there and listen to. It quickly became a one-sided conversation.