Do One Thing Chapter Two

Sorry! I've been away from this blog for a long time. An upcoming post will go into all that. Anyway, here is the second chapter of the novel I started posting here last year. This is all I have written on it and haven't had the time to take more writing courses in which I'm deadlined to write. If you enjoy this, let me know. Maybe I'll make the time to dig out my notes and get back to it. Thanks, Jack.

Chapter 2

I was happy with my decision to come back here, I thought while driving home from work the next night, the windows open and a cool breeze coming down the river valley. I was born and raised about 30 miles from here, out in Wayne County. When I was a kid, coming to Huntington was a big deal—a trip to the big city. The Huntington I returned to, the Huntington of 1984 glowed dimly as only a shadow of its former glory. A lot of the industry had closed up or moved away, and a lot of its citizens had left, too. The other day I saw a line out the door, down the block and then around the corner snaking from the Unemployment Office on Fourth Avenue. It was like that.

Still, Huntington was a good place for a fresh start. I could speak the language. The cost of living was never that high. Marshall University is a quiet place to study, has a good reputation and is about the only thing in the city still growing. Huntington is part of the Tri-State Area, bordering Ohio and Kentucky on the Ohio River. Sometimes, in the early evening, I’d walk the two blocks to the river and study for my tests and watch the river traffic.

When I got to work that afternoon, Jamie called me into her office. Naturally, it was about the Emmons fire and Luke Mason. She wasn’t angry, but I hadn’t thought she would be. She poured us coffee and handed me a cup. She sat down behind her desk and pulled her long, blonde hair behind her shoulders. I was on the chair in front of her.

“All right,” she opened. “Let’s talk about this.”

“Okay,” I sipped the coffee and got out my smokes, “but I’m sure you know more about it than I do.”

“Not unless you’re keeping secrets.” She watched me light one.

“I’m not keeping secrets,” I stated firmly. “You talked to Mr. Bacon, right?” She nodded her answer and I continued. “So you know I had no idea that I bought the house from Mason or that he owned the old Emmons place. Mr. Bacon’s lawyer found the house for me and it was all handled through the agent here. Mason’s name wasn’t even on any of the papers I signed. It belonged to some company. I knew none of the details of any of it. I swear.” And raised both palms in the air.

“Okay, okay,” she smiled. “Mr. Bacon confirmed all that, so it’s true, I know, still. There’s a lot of coincidence here.”

“Yeah, there is,” I shrugged. “Detective Fletcher wasn’t that happy about it either.”

“Mark is a good detective and he’s straight. He’s just doing his job. I haven’t talked to him since you two talked.”

“I’d say he’s still checking out Luke’s apartment.”

“How well did you know Luke?” I couldn’t exactly tell from her voice what she was really asking.

“I met him at the tenants’ party I threw when I moved in and took over the house. Maybe saw him 5 or 6 times on the stairs. There was a girl with him a couple of times.”

“And you don’t know his story?” She asked, sipping her coffee.

“His story---no.”

Jamie seemed to know just about everyone in Huntington. Maybe she thought it was part of her job. She put her long legs up on the desk and started Luke’s story. Luke’s mother had been the only heir to the Emmons’ fortune, which at the time had been a pretty big one. Luke’s father was a doctor and didn’t know or care that much about money and business, so he got his brother, a lawyer, to work with his wife and deal with all the estate business. There were factories, warehouses and rental property—and some other investments outside the area.

On the 14^th of November 1970, an airplane carrying the Marshall University football team, coaching staff and some rich supporters crashed while trying to land at Tri-State Airport in a thunderstorm. Everyone on board, including Luke’s parents and older brother, were killed. There were no close relatives on the Emmons side of the family left, so the uncle, the lawyer, took Luke in to live with him and his family. Luke would inherit everything. As probate over the will and the settlement of the estate got started, it turned out that there was nothing much left to inherit. It was almost all gone, except for a few properties and then the house I bought, which had been where Luke had grown up, and the huge old Emmons home place up in the hills above Ritter Park.

Every agency around came swooping down to snoop around. From the city police to the SEC, they all looked and asked questions and read documents and none of them could find the money. What they found was that over the years Luke’s mother had been selling everything off, a little at a time. There were documents with her signatures. The money, if any of it was left, was never found.

One of the company’s accountants committed suicide early on in the investigation. The police never established that his suicide had anything to do with the missing estate money. They checked everything with the accountant’s name on it, everything he’d touched and he didn’t have the money. Suspicion really fell on the uncle, but he let them look at everything he owned and all his account details and he didn’t have the money either.

He and his wife raised Luke as their own son. He gave Luke anything he wanted, best clothes, best car, travel, anything. He was paying for Luke’s university. Luke said he wanted to be a doctor, like his father.

“Damn.” I put out my second cigarette and ran a hand through my dark hair. “Not a very pretty story. And now the kid is dead, too. That family has sure been through it. Did you know them?”

“No, not really. I met the uncle and his wife a few times at parties. They seemed nice enough.” Jamie recalled. “Luke, well, Luke was a good-lookin’ kid, but he always seemed kind of sad and moody—but then, that’s understandable.”

I looked her square in the face, my brown eyes seeking out her blue ones for a few beats. “I have mixed feelings about this, Jamie.”

“Mixed feelings? Why? You didn’t even know him.” She leaned forward against her desk.

“I didn’t have a chance to tell you this part. He came to me for help.” And that landed between us like a lead balloon.

“When? What kind of help? Did you tell Detective Fletcher?” She fired questions at me.

“Just let me finish, okay? I wasn’t home when he came by, I was working. He left a note on my door saying he needed help with something, no details. I went down there as soon as I got home. I was tired and had been up all night and I thought maybe it was a busted water pipe or something. I knocked and knocked—nothing. Went back upstairs, telephoned him. It rang and rang—nothing. I put a message on his machine to come see me anytime. Then I wrote a note and went down and put it on his door. I never got to talk to him. The next night was the fire.” I poured that out quickly.

“What about the detective?”

“I told him what I just told you and gave him the note. He bagged and tagged it.”

“Okay then, you’re clear.”

“I feel a little guilty, Jamie,” I was probably blushing a little when I said that. “The guy came to me for help and I wasn’t there.”

“You, you feel guilty?” She shook her head. “I know your history, Cooper. Mr. Bacon gave me all your details.”

“Just because I was a little wild back in the day doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings and that I can’t feel guilty.” I argued.

“Now is not the time to get a conscience, Coop. There was nothing you could do to help the kid. You’re a security guard, for god’s sake. Your name is already in this too much as it is. Stay out of it. Let the police handle it. Hear me—loud and clear. Stay out of it. I mean that or I’ll make some real problems for you. Understand me.” I understood her.

There were several lights on in the house when I got home. It was a little after eleven. I parked the car, unlocked the front door after checking the mailbox and headed up the stairs, quietly. My apartment is the old attic, now the fourth floor.

As I hit the second floor, the door to five slipped open and Ethan stood there. His sandy brown hair was messed up and he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, barefoot. He pushed his glasses back up his slender nose with a hand holding a beer bottle. I didn’t need to see that to know he was drunk.

“Ethan?” I started toward him.

“Shithead,” he slurred.

“What?” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You sent that detective here,” he said.

“Come on, let’s go inside.” I turned him around and led him inside, closing the door behind us. I sat him on the sofa and then reached behind it to open the window. The place was really smoky. I took a chair next to the sofa.

“Ethan, I’m sorry,” I looked him in the eyes. “He would have talked to you anyway, just think about it. His father lives here on this floor and I’m sure he’s seen you with Luke.”

“Luke’s dead,” he said and lowered his head trying hard not to cry. “And I can’t find Molly.”

“Who’s Molly?”

“His girlfriend,” he answered, sniffing. “I don’t really know Luke all that well. He’s not very friendly, to tell the truth. I know Molly. She was in my freshman English class and we became friends--.”

“Okay, okay, hold no now for just a minute,” I wanted to slow things down. “This Molly was Luke’s girlfriend and you two were friends? I don’t remember seeing her around here with you.”

“She’s a grad ass—like me,” Ethan said. “We’d be on campus all day and her apartment was closer than mine, so usually we’d hang out there. She was here a few times, you just probably weren’t around. She met Luke here about a year ago and they started dating. I was surprised, because they aren’t alike at all.”

“Okay, then, what do you mean you can’t find her?”

“What the hell do you think I mean, Coop,” he snapped. “I’ve looked everywhere, called everyone. No one’s seen her.”

“Maybe she’s somewhere you don’t know about,” I offered. “Her boyfriend just died—maybe she went to her family or to his family.”

“We’re like best friends, Coop.” He finished the beer and set the bottle on the coffee table. He used the back of his hands to push the water away from his blue eyes. “She may not even know he’s dead. If she knew, she’d be here, with me. I’m sure of it.”

“Okay, Ethan, okay.” I light a cigarette.

“I know what’s going on,” he spoke softly in an odd monotone. “Some of it, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“And I didn’t tell the cop. I was afraid to.” He turned to me. “I sent Luke to you for help. He came to me first, but I don’t know anything about that kind of crap.”

“Wait, what kind of crap?”

“Protection, security, you know.”

“Luke thought he needed protection?”

“Yeah, and it looks like he was right. Why didn’t you help him?” Ethan’s pain edged into his voice.

“Ethan, I tried to reach him, I swear. I was at work. I got home and found his note and went to his door and pounded on it and pounded on it. I tried to call him on the phone. He didn’t answer. I left messages for him to come to me anytime.”

“You were on night shift?”

“Yes. You know I do three of those one week a month. That was my week. Now, I’m back to three evenings a week,” I explained.

“Yeah, I did know that,” Ethan admitted. “I forgot.”

“Now, what do you know about this and why didn’t you tell the detective?” I demanded.

“It’s about some money, a lot of money, that Luke was supposed to have inherited from his parents. You remember the Marshall plane crash----,” he began.

“I know all this. My boss filled me in on most of it.” I stopped him. “It’s old news.”

“Something, and I don’t know what, made Luke believe that it was all a lie. He believed that someone--and either he didn’t tell me or he didn’t know for sure yet who it was—had stolen the money. He wanted them to get caught and punished and he wanted his family’s money back.” Ethan seemed to sober up a little as he focused on Luke’s story.

“And that’s why he wanted protection?” I sounded unconvinced.

“No, well, yeah, but something happened last week,” Ethan paused for a second. “I don’t know what. Luke didn’t tell me and Molly wouldn’t either and Molly tells me everything. Whatever it was scared Molly, really scared her, and she doesn’t scare easily.”

“Okay. I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell the detective any of this.”

“I don’t know.” Ethan whined. “For one thing I wanted to talk to Molly first so she could tell me what to say. Besides, that’s the first time in my life I ever talked to a cop. I was nervous. I didn’t really trust him, anyway.”

“All right,” I nodded and put out my cigarette and thought about what to do. Also, Jamie’s words had been clear. “Make some coffee, Ethan. I’m gonna use your phone.”

“Hi, it’s Coop, has Jamie left yet?” I asked the secretary. “Well, see if you can catch her. Tell her I need to talk to her,” I replied to the fact she’d just walked out the door. I could hear Rhonda, the secretary, drop the phone and run out the front door, calling Jamie’s name. Then a few beats later I heard her push back through the door and clomp over to the phone.

“She’ll be here in a minute, Mr. Blevins. She was just pulling out when I caught her.” She sounded breathless.

“Thanks Rhonda, I owe you one.”

“Just doin’ my job. Oh—here.”

“Hello Cooper what’s wrong?” Jamie snapped.

“I’m fine, thanks. How are you?”

“Stop being a smartass. What’s wrong?” She snapped back.

“Oh, you’ve got a rendezvous, at this hour?” I couldn’t help it.

“Cooper.” She warned.

“I think you’d better swing by my place before you go home—and bring Detective Fletcher with you. Ring the bell for apartment number five. It’s on the second floor.” I could hear her pull in her breath, pre-attack.

“Weren’t you listening to me? I told you--,” she started but I interrupted with what I’d learned from Ethan, how I’d learned it and that he hadn’t told it to Fletcher.

“Don’t you think the police should know?” I asked her. “It could be important.”

“No, no could be, it is important—you’re right.” She paused. “You did the right thing in calling me. Thank you. Sorry I jumped on you.”

“No problem, boss.”

“I’ll track Mark down and we’ll be there soon. Mark won’t be happy this guy lied to him.” She stated.

“Well, Jamie,” I got out the knife and butter. “He didn’t really lie. He just didn’t tell him everything. His friend was dead and he’d never talked to a cop before, he was nervous. Besides, all he knows is second hand stuff—what they told him. He’s not really a witness to anything. Try to get Mark to go easy on him, please, as a favor.”

“I’ll try,” she said and hung up.

Ethan and I sat and talked for about half an hour before they arrived. He told me that he and Molly would finish grad school next summer and neither one had any idea where they’d work. Luke had been pre-med and had two years left before he could start med school. He described Luke as a stuck-up, self-centered jock and he was pretty sure he was cheating on Molly. On the other hand, Molly was really cool and down-to-earth, sweet. I’d always had the feeling that Ethan was gay, but hearing him talk about Molly gave me the impression that he had a crush on her. Ethan was finishing his second cup of coffee when they buzzed. I went down to let them in. It was almost midnight and I was tired. I’d avoided the coffee because I wanted a good night’s sleep.

We exchanged greetings quietly and I shook hands with the detective before they followed me up the stairs. I told them most everyone was already asleep and to walk quietly. The older tenants always complain about the younger ones. We entered Ethan’s apartment and I closed the door behind us. Ethan wasn’t in the living room. I had them sit on the sofa and I went to check the bathroom and then the bedroom. The bedroom window was open, the one that lead to the fire escape. Ethan was gone.