Fair to Middlings – a Bad Novel in 200-Word Chapters (Part 9)

A Tale of the Roaring Presses
Part 9
Possumhaw, Randolph County
The Big News

81

Slade’s breath vaporized in the frosty air. “It’s a freezer,” he announced.

Sheriff Jimbo growled. “Check the meathooks,” he said, perspiration turning into painful ice. His fingers throbbed. “I’ll do the frozen desserts.”

Slade chewed the last of the chocolate and tapped the blunt objects in front of him as he passed by. “Cow, cow, pig, horse, calf, sheep, sheep, sheep…” He wiped his hands on his shirt. “This isn’t telling us anything.”

The clatter of tins somewhere ahead told him the sheriff was on the trail. “Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, what th-…”

Slade sidestepped a femur and stared at the dessert racks.

Frost in his mustache, the sheriff wore a ghastly gleam.

“I hate lemon merengue,” he said. He grinned, causing a few frozen mustache hairs to shatter on the floor. “It was just an idea,” he said, shivering. “You know, I half-expected to find him hanging from one of those hooks with an apple in his mouth.”

Slade coughed, breathing out more steam. “That’s crazy talk.”

The sheriff laughed nervously. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Fast,” he muttered under his breath as they made a hasty retreat.

A Shriner fez fluttered unseen to the floor.

82

The metal drawer slid open and the cadaverous face of Happy Dailey peered in.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said, raising the hood and unwinding the microfilm from Roy Henry’s face.

The newsman screamed. “I’ll change my ways!” he exclaimed as the elderly mortician motioned to his son, a doltish slacker of forty-five and they each began to unravel him from the entire 1970s-worth of that stuff. “I’ll keep Christmas! Two or three times a year, if necessary!”

Happy Dailey Sr. checked Roy Henry’s pulse, shook his head dourly, and helped him to his feet.

“Coffee him,” he ordered Happy Dailey Jr., who sulked and hurried upstairs.

He gave the hood a curious glance, then tossed it back in the drawer. “We weren’t expecting you,” he said as Roy Henry produced two notebooks of undecipherable scrawlings from his pockets. “Yet,” he added softly as his son returned with two steaming mugs of coffee.

“You’re early,” Junior informed the newsman, thrusting a mug into his hands.

His father gave him a warning glare and examined the microfilm.

“These are just old papers,” he said, with a derisive sneer. “Why, here’s you. When did you ever run for mayor?”

83

“Ham Stewart’s dead,” Roy Henry informed the funeral home director, noticing the huge dent in the bottom of an adjacent drawer.

Happy slammed it shut with his foot. “So are you,” he said.

The newsman stared at his coffee mug.

“That’s just whiskey,” argued Junior, handing him a bran muffin. “Go ahead,” he said, offering one to his father, who declined. “No one’s trying to poison you.”

“Thanks.” The newsman tasted and found the bran muffin surprisingly tasty. He shuddered as he realized that he was now less than two years away from being old enough to join AARP. Maybe poison was a good thing after all.

The mortician reached behind a casket and produced a large sheet of cardboard with circles and scrawlings in various colors. “I knew you’d end up here eventually,” he said, placing it on top of the rendering table, “so I made a handy chart to help you remember who is after you and why.” He grinned a sallow, sickly grin and rattled his wattles. “I also set it to music to help you to remember.”

Junior took a deep swig of coffee and groaned.

His father produced a pitch pipe and blew an E-flat.

84

“Oh, the people at the diner who are baking all the pie,” the mortician sang to the tune of “Oh Susannah,” “they all want to win the contest and will only if you die.”

Roy Henry swigged his coffee.

“There’s the sheriff’s stupid brother and an alderman or two

And the people at the chamber who’ve been here since ’62.

Mama’s mincemeat! They loved in days gone by,

And she’s getting much too old now, it’s the last chance for the pie.”

Happy Dailey Sr. played a solo on the rendering table.

“There’s more,” said his son, handing the stunned newsman the half-empty bottle of whiskey. Roy Henry nodded thanks and finished it in one long, long, long gulp.

“Now you look like old Ham Stewart, no one knows it but he’s dead.

Capper’s dad stole his election, so he stole his wine instead.

Then there’s all his long-lost kinfolk and the folks who saw him die.

Then there’s those with lots of secrets who’re afraid you’re gonna pry.”

Roy Henry raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“What wine?” he asked.

“Folks on tractors! And a band director too,

And a billy goat and midgets. I would scram if I were you-oooooo.”

85

“That mysterious phone call telling me not to look in the basement tipped me off that you’d be there,” Happy Dailey explained as the newsman gathered all his microfilm and prepared to leave. “That’s how they always drop off bodies.”

Roy Henry stopped raveling. “Was one of the bodies Ham Stewart?” he asked.

The mortician chuckled. “No. And if you say ‘Big Bill,’ I’ll put you back in the drawer and call Mama myself.”

Junior shuddered.

“You got a freezer?” asked Roy Henry.

Happy glowered.
***

The drawer slid open and the fear-stricken faces of Sheriff Jimbo, Slade and Greenleigh peered inside.

“Thank God he’s safe,” said the sheriff, unwinding the microfilm from the terrified newsman’s face.

“He looks so peaceful there,” said Greenleigh as he and Slade quickly unraveled his limbs.

Roy Henry fought for breath. “I’ll change my ways!” he whispered loudly, tears in his bloodshot eyes. “I’ll keep Christmas! Two, maybe three times a year if necessary!”

“He’s incoherent,” said Slade. “Coffee him.”

Greenleigh brandished a styrofoam cup.

“We got an anonymous tip telling us not to look in the funeral’s home basement,” the sheriff explained while the managing editor poured Irish coffee down the correspondent’s throat.

86

“How does Happy Dailey feel about all this?” asked Roy Henry as the others helped him to his feet.

“He doesn’t know,” said the sheriff. “He’s suspect. We came in through the basement.”

They certainly had. A loose panel in the back of the walk-in freezer led to a tunnel that eventually led to a cold, soggy metal panel. “The diner,” the newsman said. “Big Bill’s body could have been moved here from the funeral home.”

“How?” asked Greenleigh as Sheriff Jimbo glanced at them uneasily. “Name four people who could lift the jerk.”

They looked at Slade. “I hated the guy,” the big man explained. Scowling at their thoughtful glares, he quickly added, “I wasn’t anywhere around. I woulda helped them.”

“He’s clean,” said the sheriff. “No skid marks on the floor, no sign of a conveyance of any kind. Just water stains. Nice try, though.” He coughed nervously. “That’s real detective thinking. Follow me.”

The group followed the lawman back into the tunnel and to a branch-off on the right. “Gettin’ nervous, Scoopie?” asked Greenleigh as Roy Henry wiped his brow with his fingers. “You thinking about that sewer?”

“Don’t,” Slade warned as the correspondent began to shiver.

87

They took the next passage on the right and eventually found themselves at a dead end.

“I want a piece of cheese when this is over,” Greenleigh complained.

Sheriff Jimbo smiled as he slid a panel at the top of the wall, causing it to slide, revealing a state-of-the-art rec room.

“Oh wowwwww,” said Greenleigh, racing for the remote and turning on the giant-screen digital TV.

“Strategy meeting time,” said Slade, pulling a six-pack of longnecks from the fridge.

“Make yourself at home,” said the sheriff, replacing the wall and steering Roy Henry toward the DVDs. “There’s ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ ‘Alive,’ Soylent Green…’”

The newsman thought of his scribblings. “We need to talk,” he said.

***

“It was an accident,” said the sheriff, taking the same spooky back road to Sparta at a similarly frightening speed. “The campaign got ugly. Smear tactics, sabotage, dirty tricks and fighting – some even by Ham. He really did lose by two votes, and those votes came from his own household.”

He swerved to avoid a cyclist, who shook his fist at him and smacked into a juniper tree.

“His wife and baby voted against him?” Roy’s head throbbed. He found himself humming “Oh Susannah.”

88

The sheriff smiled. “No,” he said gently, honking his horn at a runaway cow, causing a stampede. “She had a sister.” He swerved to avoid an angry farmer and waved out the window. “The pieces are finally starting to fit together, right?”

Roy Henry nodded, then shook his head no. “So they destroyed his house, his life,” he said, scribbling.

“No,” said the sheriff, neatly jumping over a washed-out bridge, scattering a group of elderly picnickers on the other bank. “Those were freak accidents, just like the crash that killed his father.” He grinned. “Ever want to see a rock star’s cranium, dropped from a height of four thousand feet, after skidding for two-and-a-half city blocks?” He studied the newsman. “Ham would’ve,” he added, disappointed.

Roy circled a few words in his notebook and turned the page.

“Hey,” said the sheriff, a little harshly this time. “We may have had our differences, but we really liked the guy. Played the uke. Election just business. Then Winona. That’s what drove him out of town, cost him his whole family. Said he’d be back. For Thanksgiving.”

He turned onto a gravel road marked “No Trespassing.”

Roy Henry stopped scribbling.

“For dinner?”

89

Five minutes later, Roy was puking heavily over the side of a ravine, doors still open on the quickly-parked squad car.

An angry groundhog peered up at him and scampered for cover.

“So you understand why I can’t let you go back, don’t you?” asked the sheriff, ready with a bottle of whiskey.

Roy Henry wiped his sodden whiskers, stared upward, then puked anew.

The sheriff checked his Rolex. “Good thing we didn’t feed you,” he said. “I stocked the safehouse,” he said, fanning the sick man with his ticket book.

The newsman wiped his face on his sleeve and glared up woefully.

“It’s not my place to judge,” he said quietly, eyes watering. “You did what you had to do, and Lord knows you’ve been paying for it all these years.” He wiped his eyes on his other sleeve. “And you tried to make up for it and lost your brothers. What makes me really sick…”

He leaned over the side of the ravine again.

Four minutes later he looked up. He did not wipe.

“What makes me really sick,” he began again, swallowed very hard, took a deep breath and continued, “is that those who knew keep eating…”

90

“It’s still Wednesday,” argued Roy Henry, willfully ignoring a “Dexter” marathon on cable TV. “What will they say when people start asking where I am?”

“Hushup,” said Swampy, recuperating on the couch. “I wanna be that fat guy in the Hawaiian shirt with the stupid hat.”

Petey handed Roy Henry another pizza carton. “Think of it as a week-long paid vacation,” he said, imitating Greenleigh. He brandished one of his crutches. “You can have his salary and his desk.”

“Big Bill,” said the newsman, pulling a piece of pepperoncini and anchovy with extra cheese out of the box and putting it back very quickly. “This is scalding hot,” he said, sticking his sore fingers into his frosty maple milkshake. “Was this just delivered or something?”

Petey thought about this for one horrible instant.

An Uzi cocked behind them.

“Oh wowwwwwwww,” groaned Petey.

***

“Now there’s plenty of grub here,” said Randy. He smiled as he handed the newsman another maple shake.

Roy Henry finished his fourth Capburger and nodded thanks.

Randy studied him awhile. “You do understand,” he said, taking back the empty glass, “I did it all for Mama.”

He gazed up at the meathook. “Two more days,” he said.


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