Signs of Struggle (9 page)

“How do you know so much about estate planning and distribution of assets?”

“I read a lot,” I said.

Payne cut off a piece of chicken, stabbed it with his fork, and put the morsel in his mouth.

“Another thing,” I said, “when Larry was leaving the church just now I spoke to him. I said, ‘I know’ and I thought he was going to spit.”

The Sheriff looked like he was in pain. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Whatever Larry wants it to. I could have meant that I know what he’s going through, or, if he has a guilty conscience, he could take it to mean that I know what he did. Judging from his reaction, I’d have to say he didn’t take comfort from my remark, which beckons me down the path of suspicion.”

The Sheriff chewed his food and shook his head, clearly a coordinated guy. Point guard in high school? He said, “Do you want me to arrest him now, or may I finish my lunch first?”

“Be as cautious as you want to be, but when I get an insight like this, it’s almost always accurate. Course we can’t arrest him now—we’ve got to get some evidence first.”

Payne’s eyes brightened. “I never thought of that! You do read a lot!”

“Touché,” I said.

“Mr. O’Shea, I have had more than one run-in with Larry, and I can tell you that, just because he’s a nefarious individual, it doesn’t mean he murdered his brother.” Payne returned to his food, eating deliberately and with serious purpose.

“Okay, so who was the guy driving the Jaguar XKJ?”

Payne stopped eating and very deliberately wiped his mouth with his napkin. He said, “Jurgen Clontz, Junior, the richest man in northeast Iowa.”

“Real estate.”

“How’d you know that? Oh, the ‘MYLAND’ vanity plate. Of course,” Payne said.

“Where’d he get his money in the first place?”

“Family.”

“A rich daddy, huh?”

I waited for his response while Payne completed his meal, wiping down the plate with half a roll that remained and popping it in his mouth. He pushed his plate to the side of the table and Bernice swooped down and took it away. We turned down apple pie.

I ate. The meal was good. Fast food home cooking. I wondered how long my steak had been sitting under a lamp. It didn’t matter, it was tender, fork-cutable.

Payne went on. “There’s pretty strong evidence, great word there, evidence, that his grandpaw parlayed winnings from high stakes poker games, running moonshine, and smuggling Canadian whiskey during Prohibition into a fortune in cash and land. The old folks say that in the twenties private planes used to fly into Rockbluff County with gangsters and high rollers from Chicago, Kansas City and Omaha, big landowners from all over the Midwest, to play a little five-card stud game every Thursday night through Sunday afternoon. Fortunes won and lost. There’s supposed to be a hidden airstrip in some valley up there in the bluffs somewhere, but I’ve never seen it.”

“That proves it’s hidden,” I said. The Law ignored me and continued.

“Old man Clontz’s son took over from there and, through pure genius, and I have to give him credit for it, built even greater assets through all kinds of commodities trading, building shopping malls, and he even had a piece of the Chicago Bulls just before they got Michael Jordan. Sold off his share three years later. Considerable profit.

“From that, Jurgen Junior, Jaguar dude, took over the business when Daddy fell to his death on a hiking trip during a family outing up in Baraboo—actually just Jurgen and his dad were on the hike, the rest of the family was back at the lodge—which raised questions that went away very quickly, which raised even more questions from my perspective. Anyway, Jurgen Junior inherited the gift. Owns enormous chunks of property. Crazy about land. With his dad and grandpaw, it was a game and a challenge. With Junior, now,” Payne said, shaking his head, “it’s more like a sickness.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked between bites of my Conestoga Tenderloin.

“It doesn’t make him happy. Always wants more. Seems pretty miserable most of the time, even with his Armani suits, which come in real handy here in Rockbluff, you know, at the Grange meetings and tractor pulls, and the Rolex and private jet and so on.”

“The hunger that can never be satisfied,” I said.

“Yeah, that and he’s always asking people to sell their land. Sometimes he asks nice and sometimes he’s a little pushy for this part of the country, if you know what I mean. If a man doesn’t want to sell, he doesn’t want to sell, but Jurgen won’t take no for an answer. Course, some people who said no in public later said yes, perhaps under duress, in private. And then moved away with their money.”

“Makes me wonder,” I said.

Payne looked at me. His eyes were somehow different, more serious than serious. “One other thing.”

“What?”

The tall officer rose, leaving money on the table for our food plus a nice tip, and grabbed his hat. He looked at me and said, “I’ve never come face to face with any cannibalistic serial killers; but other than that possibility, Jurgen Clontz is the only person I’ve ever met who is capable of giving me the willies.”

I
spent the next week getting used to living in my new home, determined to back off from questioning people and to let Payne do the heavy lifting. I drank beer and wine, forgot to go church shopping, and re-read everything written by Ron Rash. I caught up with the Red Sox and wrote out several routines to try at Mulehoff’s. I needed to get back into good, hard condition, but frankly, I wasn’t motivated. My daily three-mile runs on the blacktop road at the bottom of my drive temporarily assuaged my guilt.

Saturday afternoon, the next-to-last day in May, I nearly jumped out of my skin when my cell phone sounded off to the tune of “Three Blind Mice,” the Stooges theme song. It was Ernie Timmons, my pastor in Georgia, and the second phone call I’d had since moving. Both from him. We had exchanged a couple of e-mails, one from me when I bought the house. So he wouldn’t worry. I traced the music to a stack of newspapers on a kitchen counter, the black umbilicus to the charger a major help.

“Found a church yet?” he asked.

“No, have you?”

“So when will you?”

“Not yet, Ernie. Good to hear your voice.”

“Do I need to send a church planting team up to Iowa, Thomas? You know I will if the Lord leads me.”

“The Lord leads you where you want to go, it seems to me,” I teased.

“We can all say that, can’t we? ‘The Lord is leading me to be a missionary in Congo.’ And then, when we find out they have green mambas and folks who hate whitey, we say, ‘The Lord’s leading me to start a strip club in Reno so I can minister to exotic dancers.’”

“Sorry the strip club didn’t work out, Ernie. So, how are things in Belue?” I asked.

“Bleak. You left, remember?”

“Vaguely. How’re Jan and the boys?”

“Pretty good. She wants you to come by for Italian tonight. The boys, too. Can you make it?”

I laughed. “I’m afraid I’d be late. Rain check?”

“Sure. Always.”

“Thanks, I do appreciate it as long as you use Stouffer’s lasagna. Jan’s a terrible cook.” This was a running joke between us. Jan is a glorious cook. Her last name before Ernie ruined her was DiBella, and she learned her way around the supermarket and kitchen before she could reach the knobs on an oven.

“Your house is a mess,” he said.

“How would you know?”

“Because I know that it is not good for man to live alone, and you be livin’ alone, bubba. You need to pick up your clothes and wash them, take the trash out, tidy up. Run the vacuum. Dust.”

He was right. Before the accident, I did all of those things. And I did them for Karen because I loved her, and for the girls, so they could see that a guy can clean up after himself.

After they all died, I found myself being a slob for days on end, and then I would suddenly do everything, including cleaning out the lint filter in the dryer. But my heart wasn’t in it. My heart was buried in a cemetery in Belue.

“What else, Ernie?”

“Why haven’t you found a body of believers, Thomas?”

“I’m looking,” I lied. “Besides, I hate church shopping.”

“A necessary evil,” Ernie said. “Do you even have churches in Iowa? I’ve read somewhere that Iowans need missionaries more than the lost in the Sudan.”

“Why is that?”

“They think to themselves, ‘We’re good, salt-of-the-earth people and we do good things. That should be enough.’ No problems with sin rearing its ugly head.”

“Pride isn’t a sin, is it?” I asked.

It was quiet for a moment. Ernie was thinking. I could tell he was going to bring up something serious.

“Any more thoughts of suicide?”

“Ernie, why don’t you quit dancing around the issue and, you know, come right out and say what’s on your mind?”

“Any more thoughts of suicide?” Over the last few months, he had asked often.

“No. They’re gone. I’ve progressed from wanting to kill myself to not wanting very much to live, to just trying to find something to look forward to.”

“Do you still have the shotgun you pushed under the sofa when I dropped by after the accident?”

“You know I do, and you also know it’s only for sentimental reasons. Dad gave me the gun when I turned twelve. That Stevens .410-.22 over-and-under is a classic.”

“I keep seeing that shotgun poking out a little from beneath your sofa.”

“The shotgun was for you, in case you dropped by and said, ‘The Lord won’t give you any more than you can handle,’ or, ‘He’ll make you stronger in the broken places.’”

“Some of those things are true. He will give you more than you can handle. That way you’ll have to turn to Him for help.”

“Yes, but the timing of that advice is crucial. So each day, I say, ‘Your will, Lord, not mine.’ Sometimes I even mean it. Anyway, I’m doing okay on my own.”

“So, since you’re doing okay on your own, we can stop praying for you? It takes so much of our time to cover all the bases.”

“No, don’t stop. I can’t, you know, pray for myself right yet.”

“Okey-dokey.”

When Ernie stopped by for the second straight day after the accident, I had taken out the old Stevens and put a shotgun shell in the chamber. I had done it the night before, too. But this time my thumb was on the trigger and the barrel was in my mouth. It didn’t taste very nice—metallic, with a thin essence of oil. I couldn’t come up with the proper wine to go with it, even though I thought and thought about it.

That’s when the doorbell rang. That’s when I put the gun under the sofa.

“Are you hiding in your new house all day and all night?” he asked.

“No. I’ve joined the Elks, Lions, Moose, Rotarians, and Kiwanis clubs, and I’m taking lessons in macramé, stenciling, gourmet cooking, and financial planning. I’ve joined the Rockbluff Choraleers (a men’s barbershop quartet), and I’m working part time at Momma’s Little Blessings Daycare. I’ve been here two weeks, Ernie! Two weeks! And, yes, I realize I’ve been dragging my feet.”

“Are you staying in the house all day and all night?”

I told Ernie about the farm accident.

“Maybe you should stay in the house all day and all night.”

He has nice ways of asking forgiveness, for a pastor. I told him about Lunatic Mooning and The Grain o’ Truth Bar & Grill.

“Why don’t I come up and you can buy me a beer?”

“You should, and I will, but you’ve got to give me some more time.”

It was quiet for a moment. Ernie said, “You’re not okay, are you?”

“Not yet, but I am not going to kill myself. What would I do the day after? Sheesh. Listen, Ernie, I looked lustfully at a woman a few days ago. I stared at her butt.”

“A hopeful sign! If God could use Balaam’s ass, he could use that woman’s derriere.”

“You’re a sick man of God.”

“Thanks. You’re in our prayers every morning, man. Don’t forget it,” he said, and clicked off.

Just hearing Ernie made me think back to life in Belue. Annie had dated Ernie’s son, Matt.

I pulled two Coronas and a frosted mug out of the refrigerator, then grabbed a bag of chips and a plastic tublet of shrimp dip and meandered out to the deck. I did not see eagles.

I drank both beers while standing on the deck looking out toward Wisconsin, and then I took the empties inside before I touched my food. I grabbed a six-pack and three singles and cruised back outside. Gotcha had been in the yard but now she wanted up on the deck. I swung open the little gate and she joined me. She looked at my beer, then back at me, so I got out her terra cotta beer bowl and poured half a Corona for her. She went to work, slurping and slopping, amber bubbles emerging from around her pendulant chops.

I continued to drink beer and eat chips and dip. Training table fare. When the chips disappeared, I ate roasted almonds scavenged from the pantry. More beer washed down the residue from the almonds. My face was numb, and then I closed my eyes as I stretched out on a deck lounger.

A light rain woke me. Drops pattering on my face. Dark out. I looked around bleary-eyed through wet glasses, sat up, and stood. I stumbled, drifted toward the sliding glass doors I’d left open. I accidentally booted an empty bottle and sent it scooting across the deck. It shattered against the side of the house. I shuffled inside, slid the glass door shut, and aimed straight for the kitchen cabinets.

I took out a bottle of Myer’s Rum, poured about four ounces into a juice glass, and drank it down to get rid of the stale beer taste and clean my palate for sleep. Then I turned out the lights and stripped down to my undies. I gave Gotcha, who was in her recliner, a kiss on her wrinkled forehead, and wiped her foamy mug with the towel on the arm of the recliner just for that purpose. Then I tumbled into bed.

A throbbing head and a mouth tasting like stale rum helped me wake up the next morning. I swung my legs out of bed, put on my glasses. I hesitated, stood, and sat back heavily onto the bed.

“I’m not hung over,” I said to Gotcha, looking up at me from her giant pillow on the floor at the foot of the bed. “I’ll be just fine in a few minutes.” My head hurt. My hair hurt. I tried again.

In the bathroom, I took inventory of my appearance and discovered that I looked old. A quick glance down at my stomach before I remember to tighten it revealed truth I did not particularly want to acknowledge. I realized I would have to step up my running to accommodate my drinking. Not a good thought.

I’m a big guy, and I’ve benefitted from years of weight training. My body looked decent this morning, but I did notice a few gray hairs on my chest, and my face had crow’s feet around the eyes from years of laughter, now gone, and smile lines from the corners of my mouth to my nose. Karen and my girls put those there. My neck hasn’t gone turkey-fleshed yet, but there is a helping of silver in my hair that was once black. I like the silver. I’ve earned it. There’s a little sag between my eyebrows and eyelids. Nothing that cosmetic surgery couldn’t cure, if I wanted it.

Gotcha stood behind me in the bathroom, watching. “Next time I’ll shut and lock the door, Miss Nosey,” I said. She stared at me. “I’d think, after all I’ve done for you, you’d cut me a little slack, so back off!” Gotcha stayed put, her large brown eyes on me. She seemed a little judgmental for a mere dog, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. She’s all I have.

I turned on the hot water in the shower, slipped out of my underwear, slinging it unsteadily with my foot toward the dirty clothes hamper. The briefs and t-shirt landed on the hinged top of the hamper, which gave way. The clothes fell inside.

My shower took a while, the water as hot as I could stand it. Then I began to back off the hot water until the spray was only warm. I shampooed, then held my face up until it practically touched the fixture, the surge of water drumming into my face. Then, abruptly, I shut off the water, stepped outside, and toweled off.

After shaving, I downed four Extra Strength Tylenol with a glass of water, and padded into the bedroom. I slipped on a pair of briefs that were snug at the waist; a plain, gray XL t-shirt, and one of my two pair of faded blue jeans. Flip-flops completed my ensemble.

I made an eight-egg omelet, fried link sausage and bacon, micro-waved a double serving of hash browns, poured myself a tall glass of whole milk and took the food out on the deck, sliding the door shut so Gotcha wouldn’t follow me out and cut her feet on the broken beer bottle. The day was clear and the sky was blue and it was not yet hot. When I finished eating, I swept up the mess on the deck, took Gotcha with me down to the mailbox where the Sunday
Des Moines Chronicle
was waiting, bagged in plastic on the white gravel.