Killing Cousins (4 page)

Velasco's Pizza is probably my favorite casual hang-out place in New Kassel. Chuck had decorated it in 1950s memorabilia, which he'd done way before the movie
Pulp Fiction
came out, so he liked to tell people that Quentin Tarantino had ripped him off. I tried explaining to him that somewhere in the world somebody else had probably thought of it before Tarantino did, that sometimes good ideas will be thought of simultaneously, but he resisted that notion.

It was later on Sunday evening, and Rudy, Rachel, Mary and I were all seated in a booth. Matthew was sound asleep in his pumpkin seat, which was cradled in one of the high chairs that we had turned upside down. Who would have thought that one of those straight wooden high chairs, turned upside down, was the perfect pumpkin seat holder? I thought about things like that and things like baby monitors, car seats, bottle warmers, bottle carriers that keep milk cold, and thermometers built into pacifiers, just to name a few. How did anybody ever raise a child without those things? It seems like the sixties were the Dark Ages. I don't think my mother even owned a diaper bag when I was a baby.

We were halfway through a half veggie deluxe and half pepperoni pizza when none other than the mayor walked into Chuck's. “There's Bill,” Rudy said. He didn't really mean anything by that declaration. If Elmer or Wilma had walked through the door, he would have looked at me and said, “There's Elmer. There's Wilma.” It was something to say.

“Yeah,” I acknowledged, giving the mayor a dirty look.

“Don't talk to him about the casino thing right now, okay?” Rudy asked. “Let us eat dinner in peace, without making a scene.”

“When do you suggest I talk to him about it? When it's too late?”

“No, now, Torie, quit being so touchy over everything,” he said. He took a bite of pizza and made that slurp sound that means he nearly burned the roof of his mouth.

Rudy telling me not to talk to the mayor right now about the casino just made me want to waltz right over there and talk to the mayor about the casino. I wouldn't, though, because I didn't plan on holding anything back if Bill was unreasonable about it, and I really didn't want everybody else in the restaurant to witness it.

I wanted to be able to say to Bill that he was a complete money-hungry idiot, if the situation called for it, and how could I do that with an entire restaurant watching? No, I would refrain.

“Mom,” Rachel said, “when are we going to get our school supplies?”

“This week, probably,” I said to her.

“Cool!” she said and made a fist.

“I want a Backstreet Boys lunchbox,” Mary said.

“You will get no such thing,” I said. “You're six years old and you will get something befitting a six-year-old. Like Tigger or Pokémon.”

Mary's expression dropped.

“What's a Backstreet Boy?” Rudy asked.

“Only the coolest band in the world,” Rachel said.

“No, they are not,” I said. “None of them play instruments, so therefore they cannot be a band. Am I right, Rudy? You have to play instruments to be a band.”

“Last time I checked,” Rudy agreed, “you must have instruments to be a band.”

“Does Rachel get a Backstreet Boys lunchbox?” Mary asked with her lower lip looking impossibly fat and protruded.

“Mary, pick your face up before it gets in your pizza. No, Rachel's not getting one either.”

“Mom!” Rachel said. Now her face was all droopy, too.

“They don't even make lunchboxes with them on it, anyway,” I said. In truth, I didn't know if they did or didn't, but it seemed like the right thing to say. “So don't worry about it.”

“If they did make them, would you let us have one?” Rachel asked.

“Nope.”

The mayor sat down in the booth next to us, the vinyl seat making a scrunch sound as he did so. Rudy gave me that look. You know, the one that says, “Keep your mouth shut or I'm going to put my foot in it.” He's so cute.

“Rudy,” the mayor said and nodded.

“Bill. How ya doin'?” Rudy asked.

“Good, good.” The mayor opened his newspaper and began reading.

“Your wife kick you out of the house?” Rudy asked him.

“No. She's visiting her sister,” he said. “They're planning a baby shower for their niece.”

“Oh,” Rudy said.

“So, I'm fending for myself tonight,” Bill said. He hadn't looked up from his newspaper. The restaurant lights made his bald head look shinier than it really was. Otherwise, I'd say that he had to buff it to get it that shiny. He was short and cantankerous and loved to bowl. From his backyard I could see into his family room, which was decorated in nothing but bowling trophies and bowling mementos. He even had his bowling shoes bronzed. Not that I ever really studied what was in his family room.

“I was supposed to eat one of those chicken potpie things,” he said. “But I only eat those when my wife's watching. To me, pie should be made out of pudding or fruit.”

“Won't she get wise to the fact that the chicken potpie is still in the oven?” Rudy asked. “I mean, I can't even throw stuff away, because Torie goes through the trash.”

I nudged Rudy's leg under the table. He just smiled at me.

The mayor smiled and looked over at Rudy for the first time. “You think your chickens are getting that fat on the feed you guys give 'em? Hell, no. I give them whatever food my wife cooks that I don't like.”

Rudy and I stared at each other across the table. We were both too flabbergasted to say anything: first, that he would actually do such a childish thing; and second, that he would admit it to us. And didn't that mean that our chickens were cannibals now? But that was Bill for you. He thought he was above any sort of code of conduct. In any arena.

“Well, gee,” Rudy finally said. “Bill. You might ask next time. Our chickens are going to get hardening of the arteries.”

“Ahh, pooh,” he said and waved a hand in our direction.

We sat in silence a moment and then the mayor looked over and winked at Mary. She became all goofy and snarfed her pizza and waved back.

“How are you today, little lady?” he asked.

“Fine,” Mary said. “Mom won't let us have a Backstreet Boys lunchbox.”

When Mary spoke, all of her
s
's ran together because she was missing so many teeth. It seemed as if every tooth in her head had got loose all in the same month. We teased her that she was missing more teeth than she had teeth. I couldn't help but smile when she smiled because there were no less than four gaps in the front of her mouth.

“Well,” Bill said. “Mean old Mom.”

“Yeah,” Mary said and then looked at me. Suddenly realizing I was sitting right there, she blushed and looked away. She was quiet a minute, and then out of nowhere she spoke like a true six-year-old, without regret or knowledge of what it was she was actually saying. “My daddy told my mommy not to talk to you about that casino thing.”

The mayor said nothing. He only looked at Mary, with the color rising slightly in his face.

“He said that he wanted to eat in peace for once,” she added.

It was my turn to squirm. My face grew hot.

“We never eat in peace,” she added dramatically, with her eyes downcast.

And it didn't look as though this meal was going to be any different. “Mary,” I said and tugged on her sleeve.

“You got something you want to say to me, Torie?” the mayor asked.

“Ahh…well.” I looked to Rudy, who narrowed his eyes and tried to look as evil as he could. “Now that you mention it…”

“Oh, Jesus,” Rudy said and threw his hands up.

“Well, Rudy, he asked,” I defended.

“Yeah…but…”

“I think you're making a big mistake,” I said to the mayor quickly, before Rudy could say anything.

“That's nothing new. You always think I'm making a mistake,” he said.

“Well, that's because usually you are.”

He didn't get angry as I thought he would. Instead he just laughed. “It's going to be voted on,” he said. “The Gaming Commission gave me the go-ahead. If people don't think it's a good idea, they won't vote it in.”

“Yes, but it shouldn't even be on the ballot,” I said. “People have a habit of voting for things because it seems like a good idea and it's going to bring money and jobs.”

“There's certainly nothing wrong with that,” he said.

“Except they don't know the consequences of the monster that they create,” I said.

“If they don't know the consequences, then how could you?”

I hate it when people ask such logical questions that you can't answer without looking like an idiot. “All I'm saying is people are misled by all the money and the promises. What they don't realize is a casino will compromise the integrity of the town. We don't want people stumbling around our streets at two in the morning after they've just lost a buttload of money and drunk enough to sink a ship. Even though we go to great lengths to ‘sell' our town, it is still a community of homes and families. People live right next door to the shops and the restaurants, Bill. You know that.”

“You're just afraid of change,” he said.

Well, yes, that was true, but it had nothing to do with this. “Didn't you listen to anything I just said? If you came up with some other money-making gimmick that was geared for a historic town, I'd be all for it. A riverboat casino, with its flashy lights and music, and noisy people, does not fit our town. I don't care how much money it makes.”

“That's the great thing about a democracy, Torie. The people of this town are going to vote on it, and for once…you have no control over it. You can't bully and finagle, wiggle, or talk fast enough to get your way. If the town votes it in, you can't do a blasted thing about it,” he said and smiled at me.

Oooh, he looked so unbelievably smug.

“Really,” I said. This was a challenge. He meant it as one, and I took it as one. “And just who is going to be out there campaigning for it?”

He smiled.

“And who do you think is going to campaign against it?” I asked.

He just looked at me and so I smiled deliberately back at him. I got up out of my seat then, and motioned for everybody else to get up. We were finished eating. I was ready to leave. As I walked past the mayor's booth, I leaned in toward him. “And who do you think, between the two of us, is the most liked and respected in this town?”

The mayor's face grew pale. “Yeah…my thoughts exactly,” I said.

“The nerve of him!” I stammered as I threw the car into reverse. The pavement was still wet from the showers that we'd received a little while ago. My tires spun, which actually made me happy. The tires spinning made me feel as if I were actually doing something with my anger. I know, it was juvenile. “Can you believe him?”

“Torie,” Rudy said. “When was the last time you had your hormones checked?”

“Don't talk to me about hormones,” I said through clenched teeth. I pulled out of the parking lot of Velasco's Pizza and headed for home. “The man is insufferable. What's more, he's turning our chickens into cannibals!”

“What's a cannibal?” Rachel asked.

“You are overreacting,” Rudy said. “Don't give me that look, Torie. You know that you're overreacting.”

I stewed in silence awhile as I made a turn and drove down River Point Road. I stopped at the stop sign, with Ye Olde Train Depot, which was now a restaurant, on my right and the old abandoned Yates house farther up the road. I sat there for a minute breathing deliberately, trying to cool my jets. Finally, Mary's tiny voice came from the backseat.

“It's a can of vegetables, silly.”

“A cannibal is…is…oh, you tell her,” I said to Rudy.

“I'm not telling her,” he said. “You're the one who can't hold your temper. Get yourself out of this one.”

I sighed heavily and gave the car some gas. The speed limit in town is ten miles per hour, so I had to make myself obey the law. Because I really wanted to gun it and break the sound barrier. Of course, for me that would have probably been about thirty-five miles per hour. We were moving slowly up the road when something caught my eye at the Yates house. I slammed on my brakes without thinking that somebody could have been behind me. Thank goodness it was just us on the street. “Did you see that?”

“See what?” Rudy asked.

Seat belts came undone in the backseat as Mary and Rachel clambered to the window to see what I was talking about. “Get your seat belts back on.”

“What?” Rachel asked. “What did you see?”

“I think I saw a light,” I said. I rolled Rudy's window down with the push of a button so that I could get a better view. The two-story house was basically a black silhouette with the moonlight sprinkling along the river behind it. The house had been abandoned for years, namely because when the river flooded, the Yates house always ended up with four feet of water in it, no matter how diligent our sandbagging efforts. No grass grew in the yard, and the paint had long ago curled and peeled off.

“There's no light. Nobody's lived in there for years,” Rudy said.

“Maybe it's a ghost,” Rachel added.

“It's not a ghost,” I said. “No, Rudy, I saw something.”

“So what? You want me to go in there armed with a supersonic pacifier and a couple of radioactive dirty diapers? Torie, let's get home and we'll call the authorities. Besides, it was probably just the light from a tugboat or a barge coming through the window.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “Look, there it is again.”

“I saw it,” Rachel said. “It's a ghost.”

“Mom, she's trying to scare me,” Mary chimed in.

Just then, blackness in the form of a man glided silently out of the house and along the edge of the river. “I knew it,” I said. “There was somebody in there. What is that in his hand?”

I watched as the shadow picked up speed and ran along the river carrying something in his right hand. I could barely make it out in the moonlight but it was long and slender. The harassing sound of a car horn honked behind us, sending us all into adrenaline overtime. I think I actually squealed, and realized that I had once again stopped in the middle of the road. I gave my car some gas and headed for home, all the while trying to watch the person running along the railroad tracks until he disappeared behind the hill our house was on.

“You get Matthew; I'm going to call Deputy Duran,” I said and ran for the door.

Ten minutes later Deputy Duran's squad car was stopped in front of the Yates house with its lights on and radio blaring. I drove my car down there to meet him because, quite frankly, I was too afraid to walk. I mean, what if the person came back?

“Deputy,” I said. “Sorry to bother you.”

“It's okay,” he said. Edwin Duran was a few years older than I was and he had been the star quarterback for one of our rival Granite County teams, the Meyersville Lions. He was built like quarterbacks usually are, muscular, but his center of gravity was lower to the ground than with the big defensive players. He was a handsome guy for the most part, but he had huge ears and that always distracted me. “So, you and Rudy saw somebody inside with a flashlight?”

“Well, I didn't see the flashlight, I just saw a light coming from inside. I just assumed he had a flashlight,” I said with an odd sense of being watched. I looked around nervously and finally settled back on Edwin's trusting eyes. “Then we saw somebody run out of the house and along the river. I'm not sure, but it looked like he was carrying a shovel or something with a long handle.”

“Okay,” he said. “I'm gonna go inside and check it out, make sure that there's nobody left in there, and then I'm gonna come back out and talk to you some more.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Did your mom and the boss make it to Alaska all right?”

“Yes,” I said as he headed for the house. “They called this afternoon.”

I got back in my station wagon and locked all of the doors and waited for Edwin to finish looking the house over. When he came out, he motioned for me. I fumbled with the lock and then got out of the car. “Well?”

“I want you to come look at this. Tell me what you think,” he said.

“Okay,” I said and headed inside with him.

As soon as I entered the house, I wished I hadn't. It stank of rotted wood and river sludge. And trust me when I say there's no smell like it in the world. We stepped over a few boards on our way to the main wall in the living room, which faced to the west. The darkness was suffocating, and I just knew that there were more things crawling around with six or more legs than I cared to know about.

“I know there's a lot of damage to the house,” he said. “But this is different.”

He shone his flashlight on a section of the wall that looked as though somebody had been hacking away at it. The other walls had cracks and peeling paint, but this was a concentrated area of fresh marks. “Could the perp have been carrying an ax?”

“I…uh, I suppose so,” I said.

“Because this…this is looking like somebody just went at it with a sharp object,” he said.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“I don't know,” he said in the darkness. He shone his flashlight up on the water-stained ceiling. “Maybe he was trying to get a jump on the demolition.”

“Demolition?” I asked as Deputy Duran led me back toward the door. “Are they finally going to tear down this place?”

“Oh, yeah. What with the riverboat and all,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

We emerged from the claustrophobic house to the familiar street. I knew every street, every building, every light and every crack in this town. As a child I had explored it on long summer days until the sun set and I was exhausted. As an adult, I savored it. I didn't wait for Edwin to answer. “What do you mean?” I asked again.

“Well, if the riverboat goes through, this is where they're going to put it,” he said.

“What?!” I exclaimed. “But…but…it's less than a half mile down the road from my house. I will be able to see it from my living room window. And…and hear it! My God, where will everybody park?”

“Sorry, Torie. I'm just the messenger. If it means anything to you, I'm against it one hundred percent. We can only hope it won't go through. But I heard from Elmer, who heard it from Sylvia, that Bill wanted to go ahead and have the building torn down so that it will make a good impression on people. You know…‘Oh, look at this big empty spot that we have. We can fill it with a riverboat and make lots of money.' I think it's lame, but Bill thinks it's a great idea. They're supposed to tear it down on Friday.”

Oh, this was too much. My head was reeling. In fact, it was reeling so much, I felt like just hurling my pizza. What did it say that our beloved mayor was willing to leave an abandoned, dilapidated building sitting in view for ten years? The eyesore of all eyesores in this town. He didn't want to spend the money for demolition because it was a hazard for our children. He didn't want to spend the money to have it torn down because it was a deterrent for tourists. No. But he could tear it down to try and convince people that we needed to fill the space up with a gambling casino.

“Torie?” Deputy Duran said.

“Yeah?” I asked. I had been off on my mayor-hating tangent in my head and missed what the deputy had said to me.

“I asked if you were all right?”

“I'm fine,” I said. “So, what are you going to do about tonight?”

“About the prowler?”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing much. I mean, I'll sit out here and watch it tonight in case they come back. And I'll make sure we patrol extra until Friday. But after that, I don't have to worry about it, since that's the day it's supposed to be tore down,” he said as he put his hat on and headed for his car. “I mean, I am going to fill out a report, Torie. It's not like I'm blowing it off.”

“I know, Edwin. I wasn't suggesting that you were,” I said.

“Well, that look on your face. You look…disgusted.”

“Oh, it's not with you, Edwin. Don't worry. It's not with you.”