From a Dead Sleep (17 page)

It was that fear that made taking women out to a restaurant for dinner an exhausting routine. It wasn’t about trying to have fun and getting to know someone. Instead, it felt like the heat of a self-imposed microscope was bearing down on him, intent on exposing his slightest misstep as a lethal contaminant in a time-sensitive experiment. The pressure would reliably lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure, as it did with Susan.

By the end of their date, Sean had accidentally laughed at a sentimental story she had told him of her grandmother’s funeral, got caught in a lie about being co-owner of his uncle’s business, and spilt hot coffee across her lap during the loud and animated retelling of a memorable football play from his glory days.

It was possible that something could have still been salvaged from the night if he hadn’t wrapped a headlock around a man in the restaurant parking lot after watching him back his car into the Nova’s bumper.

The drive back to Susan’s place was silent and overbearingly awkward, and when he walked her up to her front door and asked her if she’d like to go out again sometime, the appalled expression on her face burned itself into his memory. It was the same look he received from the woman at the gas station—the scorching condemnation of not only his gall but his mere existence.

As the sun bore down on his thick arm resting along the lower window frame of the driver’s side door, he wondered if anyone back in Winston had even noticed he’d left. He rubbed a nagging soreness at the back of his head before twisting the tuner knob on his factory radio from country song to country song until he found a classic rock station that was winding down “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner.

The open road provided him with a lot of time to think about the stranger from the bridge and Lumbergh’s flippant handling of his claims. The last sentence the chief had left on his answering machine the night before he’d left kept replaying in his mind: “I don’t know what else to say, Sean.”

He wanted to give the chief something to say, and that something would be, “I’m sorry, Sean. You were right and I was wrong.”

But the longer he drove, the more he came to realize that it wasn’t just about Lumbergh. It was also about himself and what he believed was a ripe opportunity to finally follow through with something in his life—to see something through until its end. And when he completed his journey and had answers to his questions, only then would he have proven his relevance not just to him, but everyone who knew him.

Chapter 18

A
jubilant grin had been pinned to Toby Parker’s round face from the moment he’d peeled a bag of dog treats off a dusty general store shelf that drizzly late morning. Beef flavored, in the shape of bones. Despite the dampness in the air and on the ground, he briskly rode his bike along the pebbly and intermittently steep back roads of Winston to Sean’s place. He paid no mind to the splattered mud gathering on his shoes and pant legs. Instead, he pictured the gritty old dachshund’s gray jowls flopping from side to side as he devoured the food from his open hand.

The boy wasn’t really a dog lover, but he was fascinated with Rocco. Being Sean Coleman’s companion certainly earned the dachshund points, but it was more than that. Rocco was also a lot like his master—tough, tenacious, and blind to the things around him.

Toby’s mother often asked her son what he saw in Sean Coleman.

“He’s not nice to you,” she’d say. “He’s not nice to anyone.”

One time, after pressing for an answer to her question, Toby reluctantly responded, “He treats me like he treats everyone.”

His mother took the statement as a validation of her argument, but that wasn’t what the boy meant. He was drawn to Sean Coleman for his
blindness
. The crass security guard never treated Toby like someone whose feelings required special consideration. He never viewed Toby through a window of sympathy. He treated the boy with the same annoyance and discontent as he treated the rest of the town of Winston. The boy’s mother probably never considered that her son was well aware of the favorable discrimination he was subjected to, but he was. He certainly didn’t begrudge those who treated him as someone who was different, but he felt unsolicited loyalty toward the one person who didn’t.

The boy pinched the bell on his bike as he pulled up to Sean’s front steps—a special greeting to let Rocco know he had arrived. Though he didn’t feel that cold, he could see his own breath.

Large evergreens hovered above. Steady beads of water fell from their branches and tapped the ground cover below. The faint, more constant sound of slow-flowing water trickled up from the creek that wound its way along the opposite side of the building. There were no other buildings in sight. Sean’s home was fairly secluded. Far enough away from others to avoid chit-chatty neighbors but close enough to town for him not to be mistaken for a hermit. Bailey lived in the walkout basement below. Neither he nor Sean liked company.

Toby leaped up the stairs, skipping the middle step and nearly wiping out when he got to the slick landing. He jammed his hand into the pocket of his beige cargo pants to retrieve the spare key Sean had left in his care. Because he always preferred to be underdressed for the weather, his mother had to plead with him that morning not to wear shorts. She also had to compromise on a windbreaker instead of a more suitable coat.

While fiddling with the door, he was curious why the dog hadn’t responded with an aroused flurry of barking. The boy had never walked up Sean’s front steps before without receiving the coarse greeting. Perhaps he was still asleep. Toby unlocked the door, entered, and closed the door quickly behind him, unsure whether or not the dog would try to bolt outside. He figured it was unlikely, but he didn’t want to take the chance.

Particles of dust swam aimlessly in the faint glow of hampered daylight that streamed in around the edges of the closed living room curtains. He took notice that the well-worn curtains nearly matched his orange and white striped shirt that hung down from under his jacket. Still, nothing from the dog—not even the pitter-patter of paws.

“Rocco,” the boy said slowly with a mischievous smile draped between his cheeks. “I’ve got something for you.”

The loud creak of a floorboard sounded off from a dark corner of the room, prompting him to turn his head.

“Something tells me that you’re not Sean Coleman,” an unexpected statement plunged out from the gloom.

Toby gasped and felt his body hurl itself away from the haunting voice. His wobbly legs collapsed under the weight of his own indecision, and he toppled to the floor with a loud thud. His heart battered the inside of his chest while his breath eluded his lungs. The bottomless tone and calmness of the male voice left a deep chill in the already cold air. The boy rapidly scooted backwards on his butt, creating a rasping sound from his nylon jacket until he felt the corner of a kitchen cabinet press into the swell of his back. His eyes shifted feverishly back and forth from the darkened corner to the closed front door until he spotted some movement from the corner, accompanied by another groan from the floorboards. Entering into one of the narrow beams of light was a large hand clasping an even larger, black pistol. Toby’s watering eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room and he could make out the silhouette of a large figure nearly six and a half feet tall with very broad shoulders.

“I know Mr. Coleman lives in this shit-hole. Who lives in the shit-hole downstairs?” asked the voice.

Toby couldn’t speak. His head was light from adrenaline pumping through his body. His eyes bobbed back and forth in every direction. The intruder almost sounded as if he was speaking through some sort of low-pitched, voice manipulation device, but the clarity and steadiness of his query suggested otherwise. The voice waited for the boy to answer.

Trembling, Toby forced himself to talk. “Mr. Bailey, sir. Mr. Bailey lives downstairs. Did . . . did he let you in?”

The man ignored the boy’s question. “Who are you, kid?”

Toby’s lips felt numb. The trembling was getting worse, making his next attempt to speak even more difficult.

“Who are you?” the man pressed.

Toby tried has best to focus. “T . . . T–Toby. I’m Toby, sir,” he said before flipping his eyes back to the door.

“Don’t look over there. You keep your eyes on me.”

Toby’s eyes swept back to the man’s hand, still partially illuminated. He glanced up toward the man’s face for a second before looking back to the hand.

“So tell me, Toby . . . What brings you here today?”

Toby swallowed and replied, “I’m h-here to feed Rocco.” He could hear the man’s steady breathing, as if he was closer than he really was.

Seconds that seemed like minutes streamed by before the stranger spoke again. “Is Rocco the dog?”

Toby nodded quickly, then discreetly scanned the room with his eyes. He had still heard nothing from Rocco.

“Keep your eyes on me,” the voice calmly commanded.

Toby homed back onto the gun. “I’m s-s-sorry. Yes, sir; he’s the dog.”

The intruder asked Toby how he knew Sean. The boy managed to keep himself from hyperventilating. Seconds later, a sporadic, largely incoherent account describing the time when Sean and he first met began dribbling from Toby’s mouth. If someone would have asked him a minute later what he had just said, he wouldn’t have remembered. He stopped the story short when he saw the man raise his gun toward him.

“You’re friends. I get it,” the intruder said. “Where can I find your friend?”

“I don’t know where he is, sir. I know he’s not in Winston, but he didn’t tell me where he was going. I know he’ll be back in a few days. Maybe you can come back then.”

Toby attempted to form a smile, his eyes pleading with the man for some sense of kindness or at least some alleviation from the intensity of the situation. His eyes ticked up from the gun to the man’s face again. He could see him better now. Short, wavy hair. Glasses that looked to have metal frames, possibly gold in color. His unshaven jaw was square, and his cheeks had noticeable pockmarks. He wore a lightweight jacket with small straps above the shoulders, jeans, and cowboy boots. Toby couldn’t see beyond the lenses of his glasses. They weren’t tinted, but the darkened room kept them opaque. Regardless, the boy could sense diabolism staring down on him.

“Kid, I don’t know if you’re stupid or if you’re trying to be funny. For your sake, I hope you’re just stupid. Listen to me carefully,” the man said. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them. If you don’t, or you lie to me, I’m going to shove this gun down your throat, pull the trigger, and leave you here with a second asshole. Do we understand each other?”

Toby swallowed hard. The crater in his stomach opened wider. No one had ever spoken to him like that, not even Sean. Despite the volatile threat, the man’s tone was still one of composure, as if he was unemotionally reading his words off of an affidavit.

“Y–y–yes, sir,” he managed to respond before collecting a couple shallow breaths.

The man angled his gun toward the kitchen table under the window while running his knuckles along the underside of his grainy chin. “Where’d your friend get that briefcase?”

Toby’s shoulders shook as he slowly panned his head from the man to the kitchen table where the dead man’s satchel rested on its side. It was still caked with dried mud. He explained that he didn’t know where Sean had gotten it. The man then reached into his jacket pocket with his free hand and pulled out the spiral notepad that Sean had written down unanswered questions in Saturday night regarding the man who’d shot himself on the bridge. He held it out in front of Toby with his large hand making it look close to the size of a Post-It notepad.

“Did your friend write this?”

Toby squinted and leaned forward with his eyes quickly tracing the text. “I actually don’t know, sir,” he said before managing a breath. “I . . . I was recently led to believe that handwriting that was not Sean’s was his, but I was wrong. It belonged to someone Sean doesn’t know. But he said that he would let me know once he found out who it belonged to.”

Though Toby could not see the man’s eyes, he could read a mixture of fog and irritation in his face. The boy pointed to the open notepad and continued. “
That
handwriting does not belong to the person who wrote on the newspaper and on the envelope, so it may indeed belong to Sean.”

The man said nothing for a few seconds, seemingly digesting the unintelligible babble. He just stood there like a statue. Seconds later, his mouth slowly formed what appeared to Toby to be a smirk. Toby smiled in return.

The man suddenly took a step forward, startling Toby, causing him to conk the back of his head against the cabinet door behind him. With the gun still in his hand, the man walked to the center of the living room only a few feet from the boy and sat down on a dinged-up, wooden coffee table nested at the front of the recliner. He leaned forward toward the boy, keeping his gun trained. His face was well lit now. He had completely gray hair that looked nearly silver in the way it was illuminated, though he didn’t look old enough for the color to be natural. His eyebrows were darker and thick. The shade of his skin suggested that he was either Hispanic or Arabic.

“How old are you, Toby?” he asked.

The boy’s eyes lifted and he glanced through the lenses of the man’s glasses before reacting with a crippling wince. The intruder’s eyes were dark gray, like charcoal. Toby quickly looked away, as he did with most people, but those eyes stuck with him.

“How old are you?” the man pressed.

“Th–thirteen, sir.”

The man nodded. The smirk slowly transformed into a large grin. His large teeth were divergent; some angled sharply in their outright crookedness. “It’s a fun age, isn’t it?”

Toby timidly nodded. A tear streamed down his cheek and he couldn’t make himself take a second glance at those dead eyes.

The stranger continued. “Here’s the problem I have, Toby. I’m used to having these little, uncomfortable chats with people who are, let’s just say, a little spooked. So I know they’re not necessarily going to react to me with the same dignity and composure they would when chatting with a friend or someone . . . let’s say, in their comfort zone. I get that. It makes sense.”