Coin-Operated Machines (12 page)

THE GUEST HOUSE
 

The guest house was used for extra storage.  Another large sewing loom took up a quarter of the space.  After blocking the front and only door with a set of fine oak chairs, they were convinced the barricade was enough protection to flag their attention if anybody tried to break in.  The windows were locked and would have to smashed, and that would surely wake them being in such short vicinity of the noise.

Hannah rushed to the phone hanging on the far wall and was once again disappointed there was no access to the digits thanks to the steel covering.  She trailed her finger along the center slot.  "What's th
is hole for?  I mean, seriously."

Brock turned his head at the phone.  "
I don't know.  And any guess can't be proven right or wrong.  I really don't know."  He walked towards the corner sofa and entered the small alcove for a kitchen and was startled by the sight.  "What in hell is this about?"

Hannah followed him to the kitchen.  She saw it to
o.  They both approached it like a fallen meteor that could spread cancer if they came too close.  The handle of the refrigerator was bolted down by a strip of steel, making it impossible to open.  And there was the thin slit in the middle of the steel square.  He imagined the slit where one placed a quarter into a vending machine, but it was longer, and wider, and purposeless. 

"First the phones, and now the refrigerator."

Hannah rubbed nervously at her eyes, and then ran her hand through her hair, issuing out a long exaggerated breath.  "I can't take anymore of this shit."

Brock agreed.
  "Let's just sit and relax.  There isn't anything we can do until sunup."

He urged her to
wards the couch with a coaxing arm.  Hannah lowered her head into his chest.  Brock rocked her softly, easing each scene from the day from her mental slate.  He catalogued his thoughts during the quiet time, imagining what they'd be doing tomorrow to get out of Blue Hills.

The main roads aren't safe.  Or maybe they are.  It could be just those four people
we have to worry about.  Maybe Michael from the store knew they were coming, or he was with the four, and he later joined them.  If the phones aren't working, then I have to locate the actual police station.  And I can't leave without seeing Angel.  I don't even know if she's here.  She didn't say how long she was staying.  It's only been a few days since she contacted you.  Either way, I have to find the Piedmont Inn.  I have a feeling the way things have been going, she's still here. Maybe she knows why things are growing locks on them. 

Afte
r fifteen minutes, Hannah spoke.  She sounded like she was on the verge of sleep. "It's a strange feeling being in someone's house.  Using their stuff, making ourselves at home, I feel like I'm intruding.  It's interesting."

"Interesting?"

"Yeah, it's interesting."  Brock knew she was speaking for the sake of speaking, to alleviate the tension in her body that was slowly unwinding itself.  "I wonder what it'd be like under different circumstances to crash someone's house.  A better house.  If they had good liquor, or a hot tub, or what about a sauna?  That'd be nice."

A laugh escaped him, alien sou
nding.  "What if that was our honeymoon?  Breaking into vacated houses and enjoying their amenities, I mean.  You would save money on expenses.  We could hit twelve different houses before the honeymoon was up."

"You wouldn't have to make the bed."

"Or pay for room service."

"I want to use one of those showers that have four different heads spraying you from up top and from the sides.  It'
d be lavish."

"Could you imagine finding someone in your apartment
doing that?  If it was your sister's place, she'd kick the shit out of them."

"
Hah
," a snort.  "She beat the shit out of you, didn't she?  I still picture her scissor-kicking and upper-cutting you.  It's funny."

"I'm laug
hing so hard."  Brock rubbed his belly where the bruises continued to throb.  Thanks to the extreme events of the day, he hadn't thought about his recent pummeling.  "You have a prize fighter for a sister."

"Too bad she's not here to make us feel safer."

"I don't make you feel safer?"

"
I mean strength in numbers"  She turned serious.  "I feel so far away from everything being here.  I'm so scared we could end up dead because of something nobody will ever understand."

"That won't happen."  The last thing they needed to talk about was dying
.  "Why don't we try and rest?  Close your eyes and relax.  We'll get up early in the morning and start following a main road, and we'll be real careful.  If anybody's coming, we'll hide.  It's that simple."

Brock wasn't sure what Hannah
thought about what he said, but she was quiet for the rest of the night.  It wasn't long before they closed their weary eyes and hid into a safe hideaway slumber. 

READING OF THE WILL

Willy Hawker was sitting in a Blue Hills historic spot called "The Noleman House."  H
. P. Noleman was one of many slave owners who willingly sold off his plantations when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed into law.  H. P. Noleman was famous for his uncharacteristic change of heart from slave owner to emancipation enforcer.  The house was now a place for tourists to visit.  The story was nice and everything, but Willy Hawker kept wondering why the hell he was called out from his home a five hour's drive away to this place to receive his inheritance.  Stranger still, why was he receiving an inheritance from a man who had been dead for the better part of fifteen years?

Willy was sandwiched in the single row of chairs
between distant relatives he vaguely recognized.  There was John and Tammy Kippwell (Tammy's maiden name was Hawker), a middle aged set of snobs who were rich from John's corporate law practice and Tammy's modeling career.  They were both slender, well groomed, and sucked-cheeked type of people.  They also looked like they had sweated in a car for too long in each other's company and were ready to get the formality of their presence here out of the way.  His aunt and uncle on his father's side, Wilma and Harris Hawker, were well into their seventies and sat quietly to themselves.  Brandy and Jake Hawker were second cousins to Willy's family, both being farmers in Iowa and owning two dairy farms.  Four other people with Hawker blood sat in the row, but Willy hadn't met them before today.

Nobody talked to one another, though Willy tried to chat with Tammy Kipwell who sucked
in her cheeks even harder and gave him two piercing eyes that insisted he need not try any form of conversation with her.  This was about money, not about remembering Tim Hawker, Willy's uncle who had died fifteen years ago in a tragic house fire.

Tim Hawker had died in that fire while saving Willy when he was only seven years old.  Remembering the fire at his uncle's house, Willy's scar tissue along his ba
ck and neck seemed to hum.  He had been sent to the emergency room with those minor burns, while his uncle died in the emergency room.  Some said Tim couldn't find his way out of the basement once he got Willy to the upstairs floor.  Others said the staircase collapsed right after he saved Willy, and Tim burned to death in the basement.  Either way, his uncle died a horrible death.  Willy heard many versions of the same story, but they each had the same ending. 

Death.

Uncle Hawker was Willy's favorite uncle, as far as his kid mind could remember.  Tim was a country man with country sensibilities, but he had an imagination like no other and hands that could build things to exact his imagination.  The toys and machines that man built and kept in his basement, Tim had chills remembering them.  He loved those toys.

His relatives had no bond with Tim Hawker.  They were here to collect money, and it must've been serious money for John and Tammy Kipwell to attend the reading of the will. 

The last friend of Tim Hawker had just entered the room and sat right next to Willy.  He wore a gray suit top, blue jeans, and a checkered red and white button up shirt.  Include the white hair and rough beard, the package said he wasn't a stuck up snob, but a real down to earth person. 

"Put 'er t
here, pal.  The name's Tally.  My friends call me Tally, so you can call me Tally."

"No problem,
Tally
."  Willy accepted the man's firm one pump shake.  "What brings you here?  Are you a family friend?  I don't believe we've met before now."

"Oh no, we wouldn't have met.  Me and Timothy go way back.  High school, that far back.  And you, how
do you know Timothy?"

"I'm his nephew."

"So you lived around here around the time he passed on?"

You mean around the time he burned in a house and died saving me?  Yeah, I lived around here.
The words slipped out of him.
"He saved me from his house when it was burning down, yes."

"That whole business
was a sour lot.  But I'm glad you survived, kiddo. You must be the Willy Tim always talked about when we got together every now and again.  We both like to work with our hands, your uncle and I.  I was a carpenter most of my life, and he was an engineer, but his mind was a creative one.  Tim used both sides of his brain.  Real smart and crafty, that guy.  The best friend I ever had.  I still miss him."

Willy didn't feel like reminiscing about the man who died saving his life, and Tally sensed it,
and even apologized.  "I'm a perfect stranger, kid, and I'm going on about things like we're pals.  Forgive me.  I'll skip the sentimental stuff.  I'll tell you something you might not have known before today.  It's bullshit what those local boys did to your uncle's house.  I heard they threw flaming jars at his property and lit that place up.  They knew your uncle was gone, but they didn't know you were in the basement playing with his toys."

Willy didn't want to hear this. 
"Hey man, I don't mean to be a jerk or anything—"

"Hear me out, Willy.  Then I'll leave you alone
.  You need to hear this."  There was a pressing need in the man's eyes that caused Willy to stop resisting the story.  "This is what this meeting's about.  Reparations.  The county finally opened up the cold case again.  It turns out some people on the city council put those boys up to lighting up that house.  They wanted your uncle's property for a highway project.  It'd bring in new tourists.  A rogue detective got to the bottom of it.  This is why we're finally here.  A pending lawsuit was filed, and we won.  Plus, somebody finally found an existing will.  Listen, I knew your uncle well enough to know that he'd be happy you survived the fire.  You've got nothing to feel sorry about, my friend.  Tim loved you very much."

As if Tally had memorized and said his piece, he stopped talking.  The man was satisfied.  They waited in sluggish silence for another ten minutes before a man in a gray business suit entered the room.  He had a long handlebar white mustache and a face that had seen the gamut of good and bad blood between relatives and could care less about people's feelings.  This was a job and nothing more.  The executor of the will introduced himself as Neil Hunter. 
Neil read off of a piece of paper he had pulled out of a thick manila envelope whose seal had been broken at the top. 

"To the order of the family, friends, and relatives of Tim Ryan Hawker, I hereby bequeath..."

Willy heard counts of money, trusts, and stock in companies he had never heard of nor cared to know.  He didn't really listen until his name was called.  When the executor licked his lips and reshaped his mouth to speak with public forum eloquence, it made the entire room go still.  Everybody's head was aimed straight at Neil Hunter and the words he was about to unleash.  The burning eyes in the room seemed to break the man's confidence.  The executor paused, started to read, stumbled on his words, and then sat down the papers he was reading from and motioned with his pointer finger for Willy to join him at the front of the room.

Willy was confused.  He
hesitantly walked up to the executor.  Neil whispered to Willy, "It says I should tell you this in private.  Shall we take a walk?  These folks will understand.  When it comes to money, they learn patience."

Willy wanted to say "these folks" were rich assholes or dumb hicks who didn't care about his uncle, but he
simply said that was fine.  He would go outside and take a walk.

They
made their way out the front entrance steps and faced a wide open yard of green grass.  They went as far as crossing the other side of the road to a trail in the nearby woods.  Once they were far enough from the historical house, or any vague possibility of earshot, Neil spoke.

"You were Tim's favorite, from what I've read in the notes your uncle made in his will.  This is really special, so before you ask me any questions, just let me finish.  Your uncle had something different in mind for you.  It's not a handout or a pile of money.  Your uncle had more respect for you than that.  You're going to have to have a leap of faith for his wishes to come true.  Things won't be very clear at first.  In his file, he's given me directions for you to follow.  You are to drive out to his house.  He's given me directions to his place.  Follow them precisely, that's very important.  You're done with the reading
of the will.  I wouldn't bother sitting in on the rest.  Oh, and let me explain another thing.  Why this will's being read fifteen years after your uncle's death is very complicated.  A lot of red tape, some broken laws, city violations, but it's mostly about red tape you don't want to hear about.  So drive to his house and enjoy the property.  You'll know what to do from there."

He followed Neil back to the historical house's parking lot.  Neil waited for Willy to enter his car before he went back inside to finish the reading of the will inside.  Willy reserved his questions, reading the piece of paper the man had given him with hand-scrawled directions on it.  He got into his car to read them over. 

Willy was about to drive out to his uncle's house when he remembered the man's house had burned down fifteen years ago.