From a Dead Sleep (7 page)

“Ah, shit!” he roared, before leaning forward and intensely scanning the floor and seat of the truck while distraughtly patting his hand across the other barren pocket.

“What’s the problem?” asked Zed.

Sean felt too humiliated to say, instead punishing himself over losing his badge. Despite his fuzzy head, he clearly remembered reattaching it to his shirt after waking up at the bottom of the trench by Meyers Bridge. After the morning he’d been through, it could have fallen off just about anywhere in between.

He glanced up at his uncle’s eyes. Zed’s expression revealed that he had already gathered what was up.

“Lose your badge?”

Before Sean could say a word, his uncle attempted to put his mind to rest.

“It’s no big deal, Sean. I have others.” Zed read defeat in his nephew’s eyes, and the look on his face showed that it pained his heart.

“Hey!” he said with a wink and a smile, understanding all too well the pride that Sean took in his job. With a friendly backhand to his nephew’s shoulder, he added, “It’s not the badge . . . it’s the man behind it.”

Sean had never questioned Zed’s loyalty or sincerity. His uncle cared about him. He had no doubts about that. But after the morning he was having, Zed’s words unintentionally prompted a sense of disesteem in Sean’s gut; a challenge to the faith his uncle had invested in him.

“What did Jefferson tell you on the phone?” Sean muttered, watching for a reaction in his uncle’s eyes, but finding none. Zed’s silence indicated that he had indeed been briefed. “You believe me? That I saw a man kill himself?”

Zed’s upper lip disappeared and his square chin extended. His lack of response generated an odd smugness from Sean, whose own need to self-deprecate had just been validated. Keeping his eyes trained forward on the road, Zed’s throat tightened and his toothpick swept to the opposite side of his mouth.

After what seemed like an eternity, without removing his eyes from the road, Zed stated, “I don’t think you made it up, Sean.”

With a disdainful sneer, Sean shook his head. “It was a yes or no question, Uncle Zed, but at least you’re being honest. It’s just that drunken Sean Coleman and his silly imagination. Right?”

“Sean . . .”

“Save it!” Sean snapped. “You and everyone else can go ahead and think I’m crazy. I know what I saw.”

Zed didn’t respond at first, but he felt it time to get something off his chest. “Why do you think Lumbergh doesn’t believe you, Sean?”

Sean sneered. “Don’t need another lecture.”

“Sean . . . Gary’s a good man. He’s a good husband to your sister. Now, I know the two of you don’t see eye to eye, but—”

Sean interrupted. “You know, I am so sick and tired of everyone telling me how good of a guy Gary is. I get it! Okay?” He shook his head. “The man spent twelve years down in Illinois, kissing more ass than he kicked. Did you know he’s never even fired a gun?”

Zed sighed and said, “Never fired a gun
in the line of duty
, Sean. Of course he’s fired a gun before. He’s a trained police officer.”

“Trained at kissing ass, maybe!” Sean barked. “Diana always talks about all the promotions he got. If he’s never even fired a gun before, how else do you think he got them? He comes into this town like a goddamned celebrity and they throw a police chief ’s badge right on him without even asking him a single question!”

“Sean . . .”

“Did you know that he voted for Al Gore?” He glared soberly at his uncle.

Zed winced at Sean’s words, as if he had just stepped on jagged glass. He shook his head. “I did hear that. And I ain’t making any excuses for that. But, Sean, we both know that this isn’t about Gary’s past or his politics . . .”

Breathing hard, Sean awaited his uncle’s explanation while already articulating a rebuttal in his mind.

Taking his eyes off of the road to meet his nephew’s glower, Zed said, “Sean . . . I’ve known you all of your life. You’ve wanted to be the police chief of Winston since you were a little boy.”

Sean wasn’t expecting those words to drop from his uncle’s mouth. He didn’t know what to say.

“Now, maybe that was a pipe dream,” Zed continued. “Maybe it’s something you outgrew. I can’t say for sure. But something tells me that you feel he’s got what should be yours. I think that’s the reason you’re always conning the police into looking into possible crimes. You think you’re the one who should be calling the shots over there—not Gary.”

Sean felt his temper simmer, but repressed the urge to unload on his uncle. Instead, he sunk his teeth down into his lower lip. He wasn’t going to lie; he did have aspirations of one day being the big man in Winston. But too much time had passed. He never had the drive. He had no credibility left in the eyes of the town folk. He had tested too many people and burned too many bridges.

Zed was more perceptive than Sean had thought.
Was he, Sean
Coleman, really that open of a book? Did others see through him as well as
his uncle did?

An uncomfortable minute went by with no conversation between the two.

“Your car’s at O’Rafferty’s, right?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“I read about it in the paper.”

“Christ,” Sean said in annoyance. “That Hughes kid stays up all night to get his stupid tabloid column to print. He should work for the
National Enquirer
. He needs a life.” With his eyelids tightened, he leaned forward and began massaging his temples with his hands.

“There’s some aspirin in the glove compartment, Sean.”

Sean didn’t waste a second, leaning forward and letting the steel drawer drop open. A white plastic bottle of medicine rested clearly in view, but it might as well have been invisible. Sean’s gaze had been intercepted by the visual feast of a shiny and black holstered handgun that was now caressed in the glow of the small illuminating bulb beside it.

“Holy shit!” Sean rumbled with his lips slowly forming into an uncharacteristic grin. With wide eyes, he quickly turned to his uncle who was now displaying a smug smirk of his own. Zed winked an eye at him and turned his attention back to the road. His smile widened.

“Is this what I think it is?” an impassioned Sean asked.

Zed was grinning from ear to ear now. “Give it a look!”

For the better part of a year, Zed, who had a well-known passion for gun collecting, had been looking for a Heckler & Koch P9S Sport Mark III in a .45 caliber. It was an extremely difficult weapon to find, not to mention very expensive.

Sean’s hand trembled as it carefully glided inside the glove box. Goosebumps rose along the back of his neck once his fingers brushed along the glossy wooden handgrip of the thirty-year-old German masterpiece of weaponry. He let out a long whistle of praise. His cautious handling and clear admiration of the gun prompted a giddy snicker from Zed.

He knew Sean would be one of the few to appreciate it. “Don’t be shy! Take it out of its holster!”

With his eyes outlining each groove and curve, Sean said, “Tell me you’re not keeping this baby in your glove box, Uncle Zed. This should be hanging from a rack above the fireplace.” He knew his uncle normally only carried a standard revolver on him and left his hobby at home.

“Of course not. I just brought it along to show you.”

“She’s a real beauty.”

The tip of Sean’s tongue slid to the corner of his mouth as he popped out the gun’s clip and snapped it back in place. The crisp sound of metal on metal prompted an approving nod from him.

“We should go to the range on Monday and turn her loose,” suggested Zed. “There’s hardly any recoil at all. It’s as slick as snot.”

“You’ve fired it?” Sean asked in surprise.

“Sure. What good is a lady if you can’t take her for a dance?”

Sean had heard his uncle use that phrase several times before. He still didn’t get it.

“Wait a minute,” he said, confusion in his eyes after spinning his head toward his uncle. “I’m working on Monday.”

“Eh . . . I tried to call you last night. They ended up going with Bodie’s outfit. He put in a lower bid.”

“Shit. You don’t have anything else for me?”

“No. Not until Thursday. A museum over in Branston needs someone to work some exhibit they’ll be hosting throughout next weekend. It will be a four-day job.”

“Branston?” Sean said with a scowl. “That’s almost an hour’s drive. And over the weekend?”

With an agitated grunt, Zed eyeballed Sean. “What’s the matter? You afraid of missing another lucrative game of pool?” After a brief pause, he continued. “It’s good money, Sean, and don’t tell me you don’t need it.”

Sean hesitantly nodded his head. “Fine.”

Gravel crackled beneath the oversized tires of Zed’s truck as the two men pulled off of the road and into the parking lot of O’Rafferty’s. Sean’s pale-blue ’78 Chevy Nova sat by its lonesome along the east corner of the building.

Zed looked at the faded paint of the building. “When’s old Ted gonna break down and give his shack a new paint job? I can barely even tell that the wood is red anymore.”

Sean grinned, peering at the rotted and twisted planking that decorated the front of the small building just below the slanted crest and tilting tin entrance sign. “He better have left my keys on the dashboard.”

“He always does.” Zed came to a halt behind Sean’s car.

With a deep breath, Sean carefully placed the gun back into his uncle’s glove compartment.

“Well . . . thanks for the ride.”

Zed nodded. A hint of a smile formed on his lips before his face contorted in thought.

“What?” asked Sean.

After a few seconds of reluctance, Zed asked, “How’s your mother?”

The delivery of the question was clearly uncomfortable—for both men. Sean’s face turned pale, which Zed hadn’t expected.

“Sad, ain’t it? I don’t even know,” Sean said. “I haven’t been over there in a month. I guess she’s fine. Diana hasn’t said anything.”

Zed recognized the look of despair in Sean’s eyes. He’d seen it many times. It was the same look that Sean used to display when he’d asked about his father so many years ago. He was but a child back then, but those droopy eyes and those low shoulders sent Zed back in time. “Well, you’ve got me beat at least.”

Sean dropped a sneer and let out a chuckle. “Yeah, but at least you have an excuse.”

Zed slowly nodded his head and lifted his eyes. “Maybe I used to. But I’m not so sure I have one these days.”

“Uncle Zed, we both know that her problem with you has always been her problem. You didn’t do anything wrong. It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now.”

“Well, no one ever said that guilt by association was fair. But I’ve got no bad feelings for her. I guess that when you hate someone that much, it’s hard to see the face of his brother who looks a lot like him every time you go into town.” Zed pulled his toothpick from his mouth and held it vertically before his eyes. It was well chewed and bent at the top. After tossing it out his open window, he said, “For her, I’m a photograph that doesn’t fade. A constant reminder.”

“You’re not
him
. You’re just related to him. Like me. Bad genes.”

Zed reached into his front pocket and pulled out a couple of folded twenty-dollar bills. He reached across the cab and shoved them into Sean’s front pocket—the pocket where his missing badge normally hung. Sean opened his mouth to protest, but Zed cut him off.

“It’s an advance, on the Branston job.” Zed’s warm eyes glowed at Sean.

Sean’s mouth curled at the edges. His eyes expressed gratitude.

“Thanks, Uncle Zed.”

Chapter 8

T
he constant peck-peck finally got to her. With her eyes narrowed and her soft lips forming a smirk, Lisa raised her head from behind her large glass of ice-cold lemonade and the hardback novel she was reading. Her nose, with its slightly raised tip, crinkled. After ten annoyed minutes, she thought that the woodpecker had finally moved on to another tree. No such luck.

Peck, peck, peck! She didn’t know what puzzled her more—the woodpecker’s persistence and decision to stick to a single tree or the fact that the subtle sound was bothering her so much. It wasn’t the bird’s fault that she was in a bad mood.

Sitting back on an old wicker chair with her shapely legs crossed and her feet propped up on a short wooden stool, Lisa could only shake her head in aggravation. The redwood deck sprawled out beneath her groaned from the subtle movement.

When would he show up? In an hour? A couple more days, maybe?

Her husband had a secret mistress—his career. It kept him away for days at a time and often bound him from even revealing to her where he was. She knew and understood this prior to the marriage, but living with it for the past couple of years had brought loneliness with little consolation. Once again, his job had even interfered with vacation plans despite his promises that
this
time would be different.
Would it ever end?
She had little faith left in her husband’s ability to do his part—his part in holding together what was left of their marriage.

Wearing an aged and faded UNLV sweatshirt with matching shorts, she stood up straight and stretched her arms to the sky. Despite an afternoon nip in the air, the sun felt good against her face.

She walked to the backdoor at the edge of the porch. Upon opening it, she smiled at the sound of the attached doggy-door that flapped loosely from her action. Good old Cletus. God, she missed him. No one could have asked for a better dog. The German shepherd had kept her company and made her feel safe through so many lonely nights, whether it was there at the cottage or back in the city. He was a loyal friend up until he was hit by a car late last year. His companionship was difficult to forget, and it sometimes felt as if he had never left. Just that morning, she had routinely unlatched his door, fully expecting to hear his brisk clatter of nails echo up from the kitchen floor, as they had last summer when he would brush past her to play outside.

With her eyes glazed over in reminiscence, she thought about how odd of a paradox the human memory could be. Six months had passed, and she still remembered the sounds that Cletus made. It was like it was just yesterday. Yet, she couldn’t remember the last time she and her husband had kissed—really kissed.