WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (86 - 90)

86

I spent the next half hour pretending to be interested as Pastor Don told me all about his community, his church, his parishioners. Eventually, he shut up and reached across the table and placed a hand on my forearm. “I should be going soon, TC. Miss Rhonda told me about your … your … relationship with Michael Welch. The Bible says that homosexuality is an abomination! I came here to pray for you to be delivered from it!”

“I can pray for myself,” I said. “But thank you.” I just wanted him to leave.

Pastor Don nodded, and I felt kind of bad for being so rude.

As I watched him shuffling out the door and to his car, I thought of a dozen things I could have said that would have been better, but it was too late now. I went back into the kitchen, took my juice glass to the sink. The microwave clock said 10:14.

I stood with my back to the sink, resting my hands on the counter and wondering what the preacher had meant about the Bible and homosexuality. What made him think that I had anything to do with that?

Rhonda Gates would have no doubt made it her business to know everything about her tenant. If Welch/Mulligan was gay, and had mentioned that a friend, or maybe someone who was more than a friend would be coming to stay, she would be watching, waiting for an opportunity to check out the new arrival.

Apparently, Welch’s friend had not yet moved to Messerton, which meant Rhonda Gates and Pastor Don must have assumed that I was Welch’s friend . . . or current significant other. My mind was racing full speed now. If Mulligan . . . I mean Welch, had told Rhonda Gates that a friend would soon be coming, how long did I have before he actually arrived? Days? Minutes? And what would I do when he got here?

I went into the living room and for the first time actually looked at the photographs on the wall. Two men in tuxedoes, smiling, embracing. There was Welch, and from the look of it, his life partner. Judging by the photograph, probably his spouse. Michael Welch. Gay Marine hit man. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” I said aloud, quoting Jerry Seinfeld.

87

I couldn’t stay in Messerton. And I’d better be getting out of there fast.

If I stayed, I would be caught. I would be tried for murder. I would spend the rest of my life face down, ass up in a prison cell with some dude with more tattoos than teeth.

I should have thought about a lot of things. Too late now. I had to gather up anything of value—computer, cash, and of course the password list. Just gather them all up and go—now! Get away from Messerton and figure out what came next when I had the luxury of time to think.

I raced through the house, wiping off the refrigerator door handle, the kitchen counter top, chairs, the toilet seat and flush lever, anywhere that I might have placed my hands. I grabbed the computer, the cash that I’d found, and threw my clothes into my backpack.

I hopped into the truck and drove for hours, well into the night, putting as many miles behind me as I could. I needed a good night’s rest, so I checked into a Hampton Inn just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Before turning in, I ventured across the street to Walmart, where I purchased some first aid supplies and extra gauze bandages for my wounds.

88

I had Mulligan’s driver’s license and passport. I had his credit cards. And I had a little over four hundred dollars in cash. How far could I get on that? No one was likely to cancel the credit cards. I should be able to use them right up to the limit as long as I made the minimum monthly payments. I resembled the photographs on the passport and driver’s license enough that I would pass a cursory inspection, but did I dare risk trying to go through TSA security to board an airplane?

With no better ideas for a better plan coming to mind, I proceeded to the Port of Tampa. It made me nervous, driving to Florida. Such a long distance. A lot could happen between Messerton, Illinois and Tampa, Florida. I could be driving down the interstate, and someone from my hometown back in Indiana could be in the next lane, look over and recognize me without my even knowing it. ‘Hey, isn’t that Ty Hamilton? I thought he was dead.’

I wondered if it might be possible to just drive to Los Angeles and pick up the cruise from there, but that would mean making inquiries, which would draw attention, the one thing I wanted to avoid. Besides, what better place to lay low than on a cruise ship?

I decided that I would drive to Tampa, but only after dark. I would allow plenty of time, stay at or under the speed limit, and keep a low profile in general.

I paid for an extra night at the Hampton Inn, and slept as much as I could, which wasn’t a lot. I catnapped a lot, rested and meditated with my eyes closed. But I couldn’t shut down my brain. It kept thinking about that desktop computer and all the information it contained, and how I couldn’t very well lug it onto the cruise ship.

89

I left the Hampton Inn shortly after midnight. Sometime around two-thirty in the morning, I pulled into a truck stop just outside Chattanooga. Using Jared Mulligan’s credit card, I filled the tank, then moved the truck away from the pumps and went in to take a leak. While inside, I bought a large roller suitcase, one of those kits that have electrical adapters for anywhere in the world that you would care to go, and a backpack, plus a cup of coffee and a couple of chocolate bars, again using Mulligan’s credit card. I’d always thought it kind of odd that a truck stop would sell luggage. But when you need it, you need it, and I was glad they had it.

On the way back out to the truck, I heard a car with no muffler pulling in. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed a familiar-looking Chevy with no bumper and Tennessee license plate duct taped to the inside of its rear windshield. Ollie and Edie.

I watched as they got out. Ollie slowly shuffling toward the convenience store. Edie scurrying ahead on high heels like she was walking on hot coals. I waited a minute or so, then using their car to conceal me from anyone coming out of the building, I stepped up and peered into the window behind the driver’s seat. They hadn’t even bothered to cover up the backpack. A thief could see it and do a quick smash and grab.

I looked around to make sure no one was watching. I scanned the immediate area, looking for something to use to break the window. There always seem to be rocks lying around when you don’t need one. None here, though. I thought about using the handle of a window squeegee from over by the gas pump, but thought I’d probably only break the plastic handle.

Was there anything in the truck I could use?

A quick smash and grab. Not a stand around, drawing attention to yourself while you take your time looking for something to use, botched-up attempt that gets you caught.

I decided to use the butt of the gun. I pulled it from my waistband, readied myself to deliver the blow. It suddenly occurred to me that there would probably be video surveillance cameras scanning the parking lot.  I couldn’t risk it.

I turned to go. Then, as an afterthought I checked to see if they had bothered to lock the doors.

90

Taking the phone and iPad—there was no cash—and leaving the backpack in the back seat of the unlocked car had been easy and, I figured, low-risk. No damage to the car, and the backpack still there meant that nothing would be noticed. Nothing noticed, nothing reported. Nothing reported meant no need to review the surveillance video.

Ollie and Edie might not even realize that the items in the backpack were gone until much later. Even then, they wouldn’t report that someone had taken stolen property from them. I was glad to have it back, and was anxious to try again to guess the PIN.

For good measure, and payback, I took the license plate off the back window, and also the registration from the glove box and pitched them in a nearby trash can. Not surprisingly, there was no proof of insurance.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (81 - 85)

81

Ty Hamilton

I had no idea who it could be. One of Mulligan’s relatives? A friend? The cops? I pondered the notion of not answering the door but decided against it. The house was lit up. It was obvious that someone was at home. I peeked through a slit in the blinds at the living room picture window. All I could see was the top of a head of platinum blonde hair. I took a deep breath, opened the door partially. “Yes?”

I guessed the woman at the doorstep to be several years older than me, but still quite attractive. She got right to the point. “Where is Mr. Welch?” “He’s not here at the moment,” I replied, a bit too quickly. Immediately I regretted it. This woman might figure out that something was not right and call the police I could be in jail before dinnertime.

“You must be his . . . friend,” she said. “Mr. Welch told me all about you.” It sounded like an accusation, perhaps a judgment. “He said that you might be coming here soon.”

“Really?” I said, hoping that she would bring me up to speed on this friend, whoever he might be. I waited. And waited. Finally, to break the silence, I said, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t get your name . . . Whom should I say came by to see him?”

“Rhonda,” she softened her expression and smiled. “Rhonda Gates,” she said.

I offered my hand. She hesitated, then shook it. “Where is Mr. Welch?” she repeated. “It’s important that I speak with him.”

“He’s out of town on business, Ms. Gates.” I knew that to be true. Of course, he had been killed on the job, but I saw no need to mention that minor detail. “I’m house sitting while he is away.” Again, a mistake. Too much information, and possibly contradictory to what she expected, or maybe had been told previously.

“Oh!” her head snapped back slightly, as if surprised. “Really?” Apparently, I failed to avoid raising suspicion. She raised an eyebrow.

I tried to slide the door shut, saying, “I’ll let him know you stopped by.”

She put her hand on the door and leaned forward as if she wanted to come inside. “His rent is due today. And he promised that he would serve as a judge for the Miss Polecat pageant. That’s this coming Thursday! What am I supposed to do? He said he would be a judge!” Only then did she notice my bandage. “What happened to your arm?”

Before I could formulate a response, she went on, “I was Miss Polecat, back in 1970!” It was impossible not to detect the pride that she felt in the telling of it. “I was 26 years old. I had just finished college and gotten my teaching certification. I was engaged at the time to a young man who was overseas. Viet Nam.” She sighed heavily. “But he never came home.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Shit happens.” She shrugged, brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. “So, what about you?”

“What about me?”

“You can fill in for him.” It was more a directive than a request.

“Fill in?”

“I’ll put you down to take his place as judge.”

“Whoa, wait … I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“It will only take up a couple hours of your time. The pageant is Thursday at 7 o’clock. You need to be there by Six.”

“Ummm … Okay, I guess …”

“Here’s the itinerary,” she stuck an envelope toward me, through the narrow opening in the doorway. “It gives you a schedule … everything that you need to know.”

“Okay, thank you,” I said. What was I thanking her for? I didn’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to say.

She started to go, then hesitated. “Your name,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“I never did get your name.” She said. “I’ll need it for the program.”

“Program?”

“For the pageant. We always like to acknowledge the judges by including their names on the programs that we pass out to the audience. It goes to the printer tomorrow morning.”

“Just call me …” I hesitated a second, thinking. “TC,” I said, using the first and middle initials from my recently abandoned previous life. At least that way I could keep it straight.

“What’s that stand for?”

“Hmmm?”

“I assume TC’s not your actual name. What does it stand for?”

Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea, giving her my initials like that. Especially if she was going to print my name. Quit being so paranoid!

“Curtis,” I said. “T. Curtis.” I brought a hand up to the side of my mouth and leaned toward her conspiratorially, “I just go by TC. So, if you’ll just print it that way, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.” There, problem solved. I’d managed to maintain an abundance of caution without being overly paranoid. I mean, really, would anyone read Tyler Curtis on the Miss Polecat pageant program and say, ‘Hey! Wasn’t that fellow they’re looking for over in Indiana named Tyler Curtis Hamilton? I didn’t think so.

“Okay, TC. Thank you for helping us with the pageant. One other thing,” she hesitated, just a second or two, then continued, I want you to know that I will be sure to include you in our prayer circle this morning. The Lord still works miracles every day, you know. Not just in the olden Bible times.”

I had no clue what the former Miss Polecat was talking about. I just assumed she was grateful to have a judge for the pageant. “That’s very kind of you,” I said, smiling as I closed the door.

82

The doorbell rang again. Rhonda Gates. Again. “Hello,” she said in a sing-song voice. “Sorry to keep bothering you.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Yes?” I said, “Was there something else?”

“Well, I know it’s nothing to do with you, but Mr. Welch usually has his rent check for me on the first of the month, and here it is the second already . . . so I was wondering if maybe he had left it with you to pass along to me?”

“Rent?”

“Yes,” she said. “I own this house. He likes to pay cash.” She leaned in and said in a hushed tone, “which is just fine by me, if you know what I mean.” She put a hand to her mouth, as if to stop herself before she said too much. “You’re not with the IRS, are you?” she giggled.

I thought it might be fun to mess with her. “No. Illinois Department of Revenue,” I said, with no hint of amusement in my voice or expression.

Rhonda Gates gasped. “Oh my! I hope I didn’t give you the wrong idea. I . . . I . . . I certainly didn’t mean to imply that I . . .”

“Relax, Ms. Gates,” I said with a smile. “I’m just goofing with you.”

Her shoulders sagged, and she let out her breath in relief. “My God, but you scared me. Don’t ever do that again to an old lady.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “But no, I haven’t seen any cash lying around.”

“He always puts it in an envelope. I don’t suppose you’ve seen one anywhere around have you?”

“No,” I shook my head, “Can’t say that I have.”

Rhonda Gates stiffened. Sniffed. “I see. Well, then if you speak to him remind him that his rent is past due.”

83

Ty Hamilton

I don’t know what came over me. I needed to get moving, get out of town as soon as possible, but within seconds of Rhonda Gates leaving, I became immobilized. Maybe it was PTSD after having a couple different people—professionals both—try to kill me. Maybe it was the whole changing identity thing. Or maybe it was grief for the loss of my old life. Of all things, I faced indecision over the request to serve as a Miss Polecat judge on Thursday evening.

Maybe I could stay a few days and do the Miss Polecat pageant thing, I supposed. It might not be so bad. Probably wouldn’t lead to disaster, but then again, you never know. In a small town like Masterton everyone knows everyone, and people like Rhonda Gates made it their business to know everything about everyone. And tell everyone else about it. She made me nervous. Not to mention, I had just killed a sheriff from Indiana, and I kind of wanted to get the hell out of there before someone found the body.

I felt a tightness in my chest, and my breath was shallow, rapid. I didn’t think it was a heart attack. The pressure in my head was so great it felt as if it might explode. Without willing myself to do it, I closed my eyes and held them tightly shut. I’d had this before, many times. And then, when I opened them again, the blindness had come over me. Again.

84

It had been a while—months, maybe—and I’d pretty much forgotten about it. Figured it to be just one of those things. Periphery vision loss can be caused by any one of a number of things, ranging from migraines to glaucoma to a brain tumor, and anything in between. Back when it was happening more frequently, I did a little research and reached the conclusion that most likely I was experiencing ocular migraines. They always happened when I was under a lot of stress. Since I refused to entertain the thought of a brain tumor, I chose ocular migraines.

It was my leg to fly, and everything was progressing normally. The weather was good, and we had just begun our descent from cruising altitude. Without warning, I began experiencing what I guess you would call tunnel vision. My peripheral vision clouded up, all around, with just a small circle in the center where I could actually see. Kind of like on television or in the movies when they are showing a dream sequence.

The little tunnel through which I could see kept getting smaller and smaller. And the airport was getting closer and closer. “Ed,” I said to the first officer, “I’m not feeling well. Why don’t you do this landing?” And at that moment, I had this feeling, like the future had been changed. Not maybe in a big way, but maybe like we both were going to live because Ed did the landing instead of me. I’ve only had that feeling a few times in my life. So, Ed did the approach and landing, and I read the checklists.  Actually, I held the checklist up and verbally recited from memory. The landing was uneventful, and I called in sick for my outbound flight.

I was under a tremendous amount of pressure, so I figured it was just a matter of time until everything cleared up. It did, for a while. Then it came back again. It was intermittent, completely unpredictable. It happened a couple of times when I was flying my seaplane, and there was no first officer there to land it for me. 

The doorbell rang again. I glanced at the clock. My vision had returned, enough so that I could read it. Had I really been sitting there for two hours?

85

Rhonda Gates again? Or maybe a cop, come to take me away? I grabbed the gun I’d taken from the sheriff’s car. I wouldn’t shoot a cop come to arrest me, but I wouldn’t be taken alive, either.

I looked through the peephole and saw a middle-aged man in the dark blue suit and red and white striped tie. His graying hair was immaculately groomed, kind of like that former NFL football coach I see on television every Sunday in the fall—you know, the one who does the pre-game and halftime shows. I couldn’t think of his name, but it didn’t really matter. He appeared to be alone, but there could be others around back, ready to nab me if I made a run for it.

I mentally rehearsed what would happen if he flashed a badge or made any attempt to apprehend me. I would use my left arm—the injured one—to keep him away. It would be painful, sure, but only for a moment. With my right hand I would put the gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. I kept the man at the door waiting as I ran through it again, rehearsed the move a couple of times. The doorbell rang again, and he knocked. I took a deep breath and opened the door, holding the gun behind my back.

“Good morning!” The man at the door greeted me with a little too much enthusiasm for so early in the morning. “You must be TC!” he said. “I’m Pastor Don!” He smiled benevolently and extended his right hand. In his left, he held a worn Bible close to his heart. “Your neighbor, Rhonda Gates, asked me to drop by.”

I hadn’t rehearsed what I would do if the visitor turned out to be someone other than a cop. “Nice to meet you,” I said, moving my left hand behind my back, wincing with the pain of the movement, to take the gun, allowing me to shake his hand with my right. Otherwise, I would look like an asshole.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Pastor Don broke it by asking, “Do you mind if I come in?”

Again, not wanting to be an asshole, I stepped back, opened the door wider and gestured for him to enter my abode. “Ms. Gates asked you to come by?”

“Yes. Yes, she did.” Without my offering it, Pastor Don took a seat at the kitchen table. “I always like to meet new people who have moved into our community. Especially those who might have special prayer needs or concerns.”

That kind of took me by surprise. “What are you talking about, pastor?” I went to the refrigerator for some orange juice, then took a chair opposite him at the table. I didn’t bother to offer him anything.

He smiled, and changed the subject. “How do you like Messerton, TC?” Obviously, he knew that I was new in town. Rhonda Gates had probably told him as much.

I took a sip of juice. “So far, so good.”

“What happened to your arm?” he pointed to my home-made bandage.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “Just a minor scrape, that’s all.”

“Where are you from originally, TC?

Whoa! That was getting a little too close. “Is where I’m from really important?” I asked. Probably a mistake to be so defensive. “Ohio,” I said before he could reply. “Dayton.”

Pastor Don leaned forward. “I understand. Sometimes it’s best to leave the past in the past. It’s more important where we are going than where we have been. ” He looked out the window, took a deep breath. “Messerton’s a good town. Good people.”

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (76 - 80)

76

Perry Winters checked the lat/long coordinates and determined that Sheriff Bridges was outside of Messerton, Illinois. Something had obviously gone wrong. The sheriff would fill him in when he got there. Or not. Sometimes it was better not to know, and he trusted Mike Bridges’ judgment on that.

77

After nearly two hours, Larry Brown and his cousin Leon crossed the Wabash River and the Illinois state line. Larry looked over at Leon, his face pressed against the window, fast asleep. Leon was twice as big as Larry, and maybe half as bright. Not management material, but a loyal employee nonetheless. That’s all Leon was to Larry, an employee, and a cousin, although Leon thought they were friends. He would do anything Larry asked of him.

Larry pressed the window control for the passenger side. The glass rubbed against Leon’s face, waking him as it lowered.

“Huh? What’s going on?” Leon said, groggy and confused.

“What’s wrong, Leon?” Larry said. “You havin’ a dream?”

“My window came down.”

“You must’ve pushed down on the button while you were leaning against the door,” Larry said. “Hey, how’s your nose doing?”

“It hurts, Larry. I still think I should go see a doctor at the emergency room.”

“Can’t do that. Remember, I told you, they find out a honey badger bit you, and then it gets out of control. They have to call it in. Fish and Wildlife, and who knows what other government agencies will be crawling up my ass before it’s all said and done. No doctors, Leon.”

“Okay.”

Larry laughed. “You got any idea how ridiculous you look, with your nose all bandaged up like that?”

“I can’t help it, Larry.”

“All because you wanted to pet a honey badger.”

“I just thought—“

“What, Leon? What’d you think?” Larry said. “Oh looky at the purdy aminal. I will hug him and hold him and love him and squeeze him. And he will be my very own!” Larry laughed.

“Stop it, Larry,” Leon said.

“You’re lucky that sumbitch didn’t take your nose clean off.”

“Where is it we’re goin’, Larry?”

“A place called Messerton, Leon,” Larry said. Like Perry Winters, he had gotten the lat/long coordinates. Apparently, whatever kind of mess Sheriff Bridges had gotten himself into, it wasn’t anywhere that would have an address. “That’s in Illinois. Not much further.”

“Good,” Leon said, “On accounta I gotta pee.”

78

Ty Hamilton

The key worked. First thing I did inside the house was strip out of my dirty clothes and clean up. Standing in the shower, I assessed my gunshot wounds. It looked to me like I’d taken two pellets. They had ripped through the flesh of my tricep, but had not lodged.

It hurt to do it, but I could still move the arm. I cleaned it as best I could, using soap and water. It took forever to get all the mud out of the wounds. Probably not such a smart thing, doing that, but I’d seen it once on TV.

I didn’t see any bandages that would be large enough, so I rummaged through Mulligan’s chest of drawers and found a T-shirt. I ripped it into four pieces and wrapped one around the arm, tying it securely but not enough so as to cut off circulation. It would have to do.

Mulligan had a desktop computer. Come on. Seriously, who has a desktop computer these days? It kind of pissed me off, because I had wanted to just grab his laptop and get out of there. Look at it later. I sat at his desk and powered it up, ready to use the knowledge that I had at my disposal.

As long as I was going to be staying for a while, I decided to throw my clothes in the wash. Make good use of my time. Multi-task. I found a pair of shorts and another T-shirt to wear while mine were in the laundry.

An image of the Marine Corps logo appeared on the screen. Below was a prompt for a password. Could it really be so easy? I typed in “Semper Fidelis” and hit the ENTER key. The Eagle, Globe, and Anchor wiggled back and forth, sort of like someone shaking their head ‘No’. “Hmmm,” I said. I took a swig of water and tried “Semper Fi”, with the same result. Okay, so it wasn’t going to be as easy as I had hoped.

Not ready to give up just yet, I tried “Do or die.” Again, nothing. Heavy sigh. “I really thought it would be Semper Fidelis,” I said. Then, I wondered, ‘What does that mean, anyway?’ I leaned into the computer and

typed “Always faithful”. With a sly grin, I hit ENTER. And yet again, no luck.

“Aw, Come On!” I yelled. I slammed my fist on the counter. “Son of a bitch!”

79

I was in over my head with trying to guess the password, so I decided to examine the copies I’d run off at the library. Some of the suggestions included street address, birthday, interests and hobbies, and so on. With time, I could probably crack it, but damn, that eagle, globe and anchor logo just wouldn’t let go. Then, I returned to the keyboard and typed “Always Loyal,” and just like that, I was in.

I remembered my clothes in the washer and took a break from the computer to transfer them to the dryer. I was tempted to call it a night, but I’m not one to quit when I’m on a roll, so I went back to the computer and began perusing files. It was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There were bank accounts – both domestic and offshore – and passwords. Stored, ironically, under a file named accounts. Everything I needed.

The mail, the plaques on the wall, the checking and savings accounts at the local bank accounts were all in the name of Michael Welch. It became obvious to me that Jared Mulligan was not the real name of the man I had killed on the island. Which begged the questions, who was Michael Welch, and why did he carry fake ID?

He had accumulated a great deal of wealth, at least by my standards. The big accounts, all in the name of Jared Mulligan, added up to something to the tune of about three million and change. Maybe more, if I kept digging. I bit my lower lip lightly, stared blankly at the computer screen. I was about to take another step that, once taken, I could not retrace.

Mulligan had spread his assets in numbered accounts around the world. He had substantial accounts in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Caymans, and Singapore and smaller deposits in Barbados and Belize. Maybe the purpose was to diversify, spread it around so that all the eggs weren’t in one basket. Or, in one country. I now realized that Jared Mulligan was not your average Joe. He had money, yet lived modestly, by all indications, as Michael Welch.

I wanted to know how to access the money without drawing unwanted attention. Which is to say, I wanted to do it without drawing any attention at all.

“And how did you come into all this money, Mr. Welch?” I asked aloud in the empty room. “Or Mr. Mulligan? . . .  Whoever you are.”

I noticed a trend. When he travelled, he was Mulligan. In Messerton, he was Welch.

80

Ty Hamilton

Jared Mulligan had booked a cruise, according to a confirmation e-mail I was looking at. Not just any cruise. A thirty-six day cruise, leaving Tampa on the last Saturday of August. I suppose even a hit man needs a vacation now and then. Ports of call – Panama Canal; Los Angeles; Tahiti; Fiji and eventually ending up in Sydney, Australia on a repositioning cruise. Once there, the ship and crew would serve the Down Under market with cruises to places like New Zealand, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji, as well as other Australian ports.

I’d had a full day, and I was ready to sleep, but the thought of lying in Mulligan’s, or rather, Welch’s bed, was something I was not yet ready to embrace, so I sat in the recliner, sipping on a beer that I’d taken from the refrigerator. I doubted Mulligan would mind, him being dead and all. I kept turning it over in my mind how I could have better handled the incident with the sheriff. There was no way I could have anticipated what happened. And if he hadn’t been hiding something himself, if he’d been a good cop instead of a dirty cop, none of it would have happened. It was all on him. Still, I felt a sense of failure for not having taken control of the situation.

A two-hour documentary on World War II was running on the television. Somebody should tell the folks at the History Channel that we all know by now who won that war, and we’d like to move on and learn about something else now. But, there is no better sedative than a two-hour documentary on World War II. I closed my eyes and thought of Dianna as I fell asleep in the recliner.

When I awoke early the next morning, I thought about trying to go back to sleep, but I resisted the urge. I was ready to start my new life. Jared Mulligan had given me a gift, and I was not going to let it go to waste. I’d already squandered one life. I had a lot to do. Choices to make. But first, coffee and a bagel with cream cheese.

I had just poured the coffee when the doorbell rang. I glanced at the clock on the microwave as I shuffled to the front door – 7:41 was a little early for visitors, wasn’t it? Maybe not in the Midwest. Farm country, even in town.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (71- 75)

71

Ty Hamilton

I hadn’t had time to buckle the seatbelt when I accelerated away from Sheriff Bridges, and had it not been for the airbag, I probably would have died right then and there. When the air bag deployed, I remember it felt as though someone had back-handed me full force right in the nose, and an acrid smell, sort of like that of a sulfur match when you strike it, only stronger. And dust. Lots of dust.

I don’t remember if the explosion happened immediately on impact, or if it was later as I was crawling out of the car. I only know I felt an intense heat. And the urge to go back up, away from the flames to the top of the ravine. But that would not be smart.

How Sheriff Bridges had lived long enough to shoot me, I had no idea. I was certain I had driven the blade of the shovel into his throat with authority. The last thing I remembered seeing just before running off the dirt road and into the ravine, was him dropping the shotgun, falling to his knees, clutching his throat, and then plopping forward, face first onto the ground. He would surely be dead by now. But, someone would see the flames, and make the 911 call. People would be coming. People who could help me with my injuries, yes. But also people who could send me to jail for the rest of my life.

I crawled downhill, away from it all. When I reached the creek bank, I reached down, found a handful of mud, and covered my gunshot wound. And for the second time in less than a week, I puked.

I had killed two men now. There was no reason for me to think that it would help to tell the truth about Mulligan. About what had happened that night on the island. About what had just happened with the sheriff. No one on Earth would believe me.

72

There was an explosion. Sheriff Mike Bridges struggled back up onto his knees, saw the flames from the bottom of the ravine. He seldom made the mistake of underestimating the people he’d come into contact with during his time as a law enforcement officer. But it had happened tonight, with Ty Hamilton.

Hamilton had no criminal background. Nothing more than the occasional traffic ticket. Nothing about the guy said ‘trouble maker,’ or ‘badass’. There was no reason to expect him to put up much more than a token resistance when confronted by a law enforcement officer, cuffed and shoved into the back of the unmarked cruiser. It should have been a simple matter, bringing him out here in the middle of nowhere, getting rid of him.

So, Hamilton had successfully fought for his life against a professional killer. The sheriff cursed himself for not thinking Hamilton might fight for his life again, when forced to dig his own grave. I should have just shot him and dug the hole myself.

Sheriff Bridges hurt like hell, but thankfully, he was breathing. He’d seen the shovel blade just in time to lower his head. The blade struck him just under the chin and scraped along the jawline back to the throat. He was bloodied and in pain, but he survived.

Hamilton’s lucky, he thought as he watched the flames. If he’d lived through the crash, I would have made him beg me to kill him.

Sheriff Bridges reached for his cell phone, went to the contact list, and selected the number for Page County Coroner Perry Winters.

“Hello?” Winters said. “Mike?”

The sheriff struggled to speak. He was choking, and his injury prevented it. “Hello?” Winters repeated. “Talk to me, Mike.”

The sheriff terminated the call. He couldn’t talk, but he could text.

73

Under ordinary circumstances, he would have called 911, gotten medical help. But these were not ordinary circumstances and he was a long way from Page County, Indiana. Using police “10” codes, which he knew that the coroner would understand, he texted to Perry Winters:

1024 1018 100 1087.

Translation: Trouble, send help; urgent; fatality; pick-up.

And to Larry Brown:

1018 1051 100

Translation: Urgent; wrecker; fatality.

Then, using the compass function on his iPhone to determine exactly where he was, he sent another, addressed to both:

The code 1020, followed by the latitude/longitude coordinates to give him his location, and 1077, to request an ETA.

Perry Winters received the message almost immediately. He’d been worried moments before, when Sheriff Bridges had called, and wasn’t there on the other end when Winters had answered. Being the coroner, Winters had a familiarity with the police codes. 10-24 Trouble; 10-18 Send help; 10-0 Fatality; and 10-87 Pick-up.

74

Larry Brown, on the other hand, was busy with Linda, one of his two live-in women, in the master bedroom of his mobile home. It was a good hour before he was ready to call it quits, and made his way down the hall to the refrigerator to grab a beer and watch the ballgame. The Reds were playing the Dodgers out on the west coast, and the game should be starting in a couple of minutes.

Out of habit, he retrieved his cell phone from where it was charging on the kitchen counter, checked for missed calls and messages.

From a number that he recognized as Sheriff Bridges throwaway phone, he saw the text: 1018 1051 100.

Larry was not as familiar with the police codes, and had to look it up. He jotted down the numbers. The easiest way to find anything was with Google.

10-18 meant Urgent; 10-51 meant tow truck; and Holy Shit!—10-0 meant fatality. Larry called Leon. “Hey, Leon.”

“Hi Larry.”

“Listen, we gotta saddle up and go. Got an emergency.”

“What happened?”

“Don’t know.”

“Where we goin’?”

“Don’t know.”

“Okay.”

75

Ty Hamilton

I walked back to Messerton, just as I had walked a few days ago back to the boat launch. I was hurt. My face dinged-up by the airbag. My arm pierced by buckshot, was hurting like a son of a bitch. And my inner thighs were chafing from all the walking I’d been doing lately. This time, though, I had shoes.

By the time I got to the pizza parlor’s parking lot, I was exhausted. The thought of walking the remaining distance to Mulligan’s house held no appeal. I would take the truck. I would pull into the driveway, and I would use the key on the same ring as the truck key to get in. If that didn’t work, I would break in. And if a cop came along, I would take the throwaway gun I’d found in the sheriff’s car and put it in my mouth.

Screw trying to explain. Screw going to trial. And screw going to prison. They would never take me alive.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (66 - 70)

66

Ty Hamilton

In the corner of my eye, near the end of the woodpile, I spotted movement. A snow-white cat. And there was my hope of not being spotted. I crawled quietly toward it, reached out to scoop it up and toss it toward the oncoming dog. The creature, suddenly aware of my presence, wheeled around to face me. I froze in position. Not a white cat. An albino skunk.

I’d had no previous experience with skunks, so I had no idea if it was smarter for me to remain quiet, and allow the skunk to go on its way, or to turn tail and run. I elected the latter. I sprung to my feet, and began running, just as a car alarm began honking on the street.

67

The man behind the woodpile began running full steam toward the potting shed with the dog not far behind. Soon, the prowler would be spotted, the police called, and tonight’s fact-finding mission would be a bust. Struck by inspiration, the sheriff reached into his pocket, withdrew a key fob and pressed the panic button.The neighbor, distracted by the honking car alarm, turned toward the street, away from the retreating prowler.

Sheriff Bridges stepped out from around the corner of the shed, stuck out an arm, clotheslining the intruder, knocking him on his ass. The sheriff was on top of him in an instant, rolling him over and cuffing him. There was something familiar about this fellow.

68

Ty Hamilton

I ran for all I was worth, away from the skunk. I headed for a nearby potting shed. I didn’t plan to stop there, but rather to use it as concealment as I headed toward the footbridge. Next thing I knew, I ran right into something, and it knocked me over backwards. I landed hard on my back.

Someone was on top of me, rolling me over. I winced as my face made contact with the ground. He pinned me down with a knee to my back, grabbed and cuffed first my left wrist, then the right. I winced as he brought it forcefully behind my back and cuffed it. “Hamilton?” the man whispered. “Is that you?”

The sound of my name startled me. Who would know me here, in Messerton? I turned slightly, onto my side, and saw a squarely built man, standing six feet or more. Sheriff Bridges. Out of uniform, I had not recognized him at first.

So this was it, then. He had been waiting, expecting me to come here, and was arresting me for murder. “Get up,” he said. “And be quiet about it.” The sheriff grabbed my elbow and yanked. It hurt like hell. I struggled, but I did get to my feet just as he shoved me forward. “Move,” he ordered. “And don’t make a sound, or so help me God, I’ll snap your neck,” It was unsettling, hearing an officer of the law make a threat like that. I immediately thought of the people he’d shot trying to escape, or take his gun from him. Was I next?

He shoved me forward. We walked through the yard, out onto the street and toward the Crown Vic parked near the corner. He shoved me hard over the hood of his unmarked unit. “You got any weapons on you?” he asked. “Anything in your pockets that will stick me?”

“No,” I said. “Nothing.”

He rummaged through my pockets. And of course found nothing. He forcefully ushered me to the back of the cruiser, opened the door and shoved me in. In the process, I banged my head against the door frame. He closed the door behind me, and walked back down the street toward the lawn service trailer. A minute later, he returned, put something in the trunk, and got in behind the wheel.

My head was throbbing, and I could feel a small stream of blood running down the side of my face. There was a barely audible ‘click’, followed by a buzzer, and then we were moving. I stared out the side window. We’d gone several blocks, without a word spoken. Finally, I said, “Aren’t you going to read me my rights?” No response. Sheriff Bridges kept driving, apparently deep in thought.

“Okay,” I said. “I watch enough television. I think I know them.” I took a deep breath. “It was self-defense.”

Sheriff Bridges head jerked up slightly, looking at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes narrowed. “Say again?”

“The guy in the river,” I said. “He was hurt. Drowning. I pulled him out and he tried to kill me. Twice.” It felt good to get it off my chest. Tell the truth, and trust that things will work out. “It was him or me,” I said. “I panicked and tried to cover it up. I realize now that was a mistake.”

“I’m impressed,” the sheriff said.

I saw the sign with the arrow for Interstate 70. He drove past it. I said, “Hey, you missed your turn.” Not that I was in a hurry to be booked into the Page County jail. There was no response from the sheriff. I was beginning to feel uneasy. “Where are we going?”

And on we drove, past the city limits, several miles out into the country. Lots of hills, winding roads, and steep ravines. Eventually, the sheriff pulled onto an oil lease road, turned off his headlights and somehow managed to follow the dirt tracks back to a solitary oil well. The only light was from the natural gas flare several yards away from a slow moving pumpjack.

The sheriff brought the car to a stop, put it in PARK. My hands were still cuffed behind my back, and by now my arms were in agony from lack of circulation. “I’m hurting pretty bad back here,” I said. “Can you at least cuff me in front?”

He looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Shut up,” he said, and got out.

69

Ty Hamilton

I swiveled in the back seat as best I could, watching him as he went behind the car and opened the trunk. He came to my door with a shovel in his left hand a shotgun cradled in the crook of his right elbow. He opened the door, pulled me out and unceremoniously shoved me ahead of him.

“Lean over the hood,” he ordered. I did as I was told. He placed the shotgun on the roof of the car and uncuffed me, then yanked me upright by the collar. “Over there,” he tossed the shovel and pointed toward it.

“What the—” I didn’t like where this was going. “Why?”

Sheriff Bridges retrieved the shotgun, pumped a round into the chamber. That is a sound that you can never forget. “Start digging.

Digging my own grave brought back memories of my night on the island, when I had attempted to bury Jared Mulligan, or Michael Welch, whichever he was. Now, like then, there were several rocks of various size that impeded my progress. As I said before, it’s funny how the mind works—mine, anyway—because I couldn’t help but think how helpful it would have been to have had a shovel that night. “Hurry it up,” Sheriff Bridges commanded.

“I’ll trade places if you think you could do it faster,” I said. “Can I have a drink of water?”

“No.”

“Why were you impressed?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“Back in the car. You said my story impressed you.”

The sheriff smirked. “The guy you killed. He had skills. One of the best in the business.”

“What business?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

“Less talk,” he said, “More digging.”

I went through the motions, bringing up a half spade full at a time. I was already mid-thigh depth. I wanted to prolong the inevitable. “He knew me,” I said. “Called me by name. He had a picture of me in his car.” None of this seemed to surprise the sheriff. “I think he was hired to kill me. And I think that now you’re here to finish the job. Can you at least tell me why?”

“I can finish digging the hole myself, if I have to,” Sheriff Bridges said.

I got busy, spading up the earth that would soon be covering me. It might not be so bad, being buried out here. The devil himself might not find me. So, at least I’d have that going for me.

“I lied to you,” I said. “When I told you that I hadn’t looked at the video.” The truth was, I really hadn’t looked at it, but I wanted to press him.

Sheriff Bridges nodded. “We figured as much. That’s why we called in our boy Mulligan, only you somehow managed to get the better of him.”

“Why hire a hit man?” I asked, leaning on the shovel handle.

“Dig, Hamilton,” The sheriff clicked off the safety, and raised the barrel of the shotgun slightly, so that it was aimed at my lower abdomen. “Don’t make me tell you again.”

“Alright, alright,” I said, returning to the task at hand. “Who was he, anyway?”

“Ex-marine. A loner who couldn’t adjust to civilian life. Too boring, I suppose,” the sheriff said. “He was basically a problem solver.”

“I’ve always been curious. How do you find a guy like that? Yellow pages? Google?”

Sheriff Bridges chuckled. Maybe he would change his mind about killing me if he liked my sense of humor. “You deal with a wide variety of people in my business,” he said. “From time to time, you find their services are needed. You help one another.”

“He must have owed you big,” I said.

“He did,” the sheriff replied. “Looks like you’re almost done there.”

There was rustling in the brush, behind him. In the faint glow from the gas flare I saw something white moving about. I’d seen something very similar earlier in the evening. The sheriff turned, shined his flashlight. It was now or never. I reached out, grabbed a rock I had shoveled out a minute before, and heaved it as hard as I could at the sheriff’s head.

70

Ty Hamilton

In my high school baseball days, my favorite position was catcher. I fancied myself the next Johnny Bench. I had a pretty good throwing arm, if I say so myself. I could snap off a throw to pick off a runner who’d taken too big a lead off first, and was equally adept at gunning down those who attempted to steal a base. That was then.

Now, decades later, my best effort to plant a small stone in the sheriff’s temple looked more like what you would expect of a little girl. The stone never came close. But it did hit the albino skunk in the bush not ten feet from him.

What happened next is still kind of a blur in my memory, but it went something like this:

The stone hit the skunk, pissing it off. The skunk wheeled around and sprayed the sheriff, who raised his hands to his face. He dropped the flashlight, and I think maybe he dropped the shotgun, too. He turned his back to the skunk, and I drove the blade of the shovel toward his throat. I scurried out of the hole I had dug, ran to the sheriff’s unmarked car. The sheriff, despite his injury, found his shotgun and managed to fire off two rounds in my general direction. The first took out the driver’s side window. Some of pellets from the second round hit me in my left arm, and I yelped in pain. The other pellets peppered the driver’s side door.

The pain was excruciating, but I had to ignore it or I would never make it out of there. With my good hand, I opened the door and slid in behind the wheel. The sheriff, like all cops everywhere, had kept the engine running. I grasped the shift selector. It wouldn’t budge.

From the dark recesses of my memory, I recalled earlier, when the sheriff had me cuffed, sitting in the back of the car. Before he put the car in gear, there had been a buzzer. And before that, something else. What? A click? Like the sound of a switch. It made sense. Cops always leave their engines running. There had to be some sort of an emergency safety switch, something to prevent unauthorized people from making off with the cop car.

Okay, where? I felt around with my hand across the dashboard, along the front of the seat. No switch, but there was a gun. I grabbed it to return fire through the already shattered window. I squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. Without thinking about it, I reverted to my Flight Deck Officer training. Tap, rack, and fire. I tapped the bottom of the magazine, racked a round into the chamber, and fired two rounds in the general direction of the sheriff. All in a time frame of two, maybe three seconds, max.

I reached back down, feeling along the front of the seat once more. Again, nothing. As I moved around, my left foot bumped something next to the interior wall, just forward of the door frame. It felt like one of those old floorboard-mounted headlight dimmer switches that were on the cars back in the sixties, when I was a teenager learning to drive. The sheriff was staggering toward me, one hand clutching this throat. With the other, he raised the shotgun. I pressed the switch with my foot. Click. Buzz. I threw the transmission into gear and hit the gas just as the rear windshield exploded.

I ducked instinctively, tried to steer going backwards without seeing where I was going, my foot buried in the accelerator pedal. I sat up just in time to see the main road coming up, too fast. I failed to negotiate the turn, and sailed off the road into a deep ravine.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (61 - 65)

61

Ty Hamilton

I proceeded to the section and row indicated on the back of the parking stub and began looking for vehicles with Illinois plates, which I assumed Mulligan would have been driving. With Illinois being right next door to Indiana, it figured that there might be several.  The first one I saw was a beat-up white Ford F-150. A couple of dents on the bed, scrapes on the doors. Nothing major. Looked like it had been well-used, if not well cared for.  I did a walk around, looking for any obvious place where a key might have been stashed. In the process, I bumped my knee on the trailer hitch receiver because I wasn’t paying enough attention. I found nothing.

Right next to it was another one from Illinois, a black Nissan. Same as before, with the same results. No key. I was worried that I might draw attention—I was acting rather suspiciously.

The third Illinois vehicle was maybe another hundred feet or so away, another Nissan. Silver, or maybe grey. I can’t tell the difference. Again, nothing. I was debating whether to move on in search of another likely vehicle, or just give up on it when another truck, newer, with one of those full-size crew cabs, pulled into a space in the row across from me. The driver got out, grabbed a rolling suitcase from the back seat, and then hustled around to the back of the truck. He glanced around, making sure no one was watching, but somehow didn’t notice me. He removed a rectangular cover from his trailer hitch receiver and placed something inside, then replaced the cover.

I made my way back to the F-150 I’d checked earlier. Checked the trailer hitch receiver, where I’d bumped my knee. Yup, it had a cover. I removed it, and sure enough, there was a key. “Hope it’s the right truck,” I said aloud as I hopped in. Just to be on the safe side, I checked the registration in the glove box. Michael Welch, Messerton, Illinois. Bingo. I cranked it up and made for the exit, stopping to pay the cashier on the way out.

62

Sheriff Mike Bridges set the unmarked Ford Crown Victoria’s cruise control at eighty miles per hour and flipped open his cell phone.

Perry Winters answered on the first ring. “Hello.”

“Perry. Mike here.”

“Still haven’t heard from your friend?”

“Not yet. And, I told you, he’s not my friend.”

“What do you think? I would have thought he’d have wanted to be paid by now.”

“Me too,” the sheriff said. “My guess is he’s laying low, until the other job is done.”

“Probably right,” Winters agreed.

“All the same, my gut tells me I should maybe run over, scope things out at his place. I’m doing a prisoner transfer in Terre Haute, so it’s not that far out of the way. Plus I can expense the trip.”

“Our tax dollars at work,” Winters quipped.

“I’ll let you know what I learn.”

Two hours later, Sheriff Bridges found the house, and parked about a half block up the street, near the corner. He’d been here before. Not as a guest, but rather on a fact-finding mission. It always pays to know as much as possible about the people you do business with.

For example, on his previous visit, when Mulligan was not at home, he had learned that Mulligan’s real name was Michael Welch. It made sense. A killer for hire would not want anyone knowing who he really was. Tonight, though, the sheriff had a different mission objective. Mulligan worked with a partner. Tonight, he wanted to find out who that was. This job, or rather, these jobs—plural—would be the last for Mulligan. Too closely connected. The sheriff and Coroner Winters both agreed. It was time to terminate the terminator. And if they were going to do that, they also had to terminate his partner.

63

Ty Hamilton

As I came around a curve in the road, a sign welcomed me to the town of Messerton, population 6,042. A couple hundred yards further, a banner stretched overhead across the street, letting everyone know that the annual Polecat Festival would be taking place the following weekend.

Shortly after getting on I-70, I had set Home on the GPS, and it took me to the address listed on Mulligan’s driver’s license. I did a drive-by inspection. Looking for what, I didn’t exactly know.

It was a small ranch style house, white vinyl siding, on about a half- acre lot. The yard was freshly mowed, landscaped with a variety of trees. A flowerbed of petunias lined the sidewalk.

I drove around the block, scoping out the entire neighborhood. There wasn’t much going on. A young couple walking hand in hand. One runner. An older fellow, about my age. More like a trotter, really. I should talk. At least he’s doing it.

Most everyone parked in their driveways. The only exceptions being a black Ford Crown Victoria near the corner and a lawn service truck and trailer one house down from Mulligan’s place. I found it reassuring to see that the owners felt comfortable leaving his equipment outside. I wondered if they bothered locking their doors at night. Small town America.

I parked a few blocks away, in a parking lot that served a pizza parlor across from a high school and from there I hoofed it back to the house.

64

Sheriff Mike Bridges, in plain clothes and wearing night vision goggles, had been observing the Mulligan house for twenty minutes. A light was on, but there was no sign of activity from within. The neighborhood was quiet. Nothing more than the occasional runner or dog walker. Satisfied that it was safe to proceed, he began to move from his hiding spot behind a neighbor’s potting shed to the house, where he would wait for Mulligan’s return. And at that moment, there was movement, someone approaching quickly in a crouched position. The sheriff slowly retreated to his position behind the shed without drawing attention.

He watched as the lone figure came to a stop, watching the house from behind the trunk of a tree. The sheriff knew that this new arrival was an amateur, evidenced by his maintaining position behind the tree for barely a minute before moving from the tree to the woodpile behind the house.

As the amateur moved toward the woodpile, the neighbor whose shed the sheriff was hiding behind, stepped out into the yard with her dog.

65

Ty Hamilton

Rather than walk up to the front of the house from the well-lit street, I chose to make my way across a vacant lot that sat behind and diagonal to it. A small creek, lined with tall oak trees crisscrossed property lines. Someone had built a footbridge across it, which meant I could stay dry.

I hustled past a potting shed on the next-door property, electing to take position behind the trunk of an oak. From there, I watched the house for any sign of activity, all the while maintaining vigilance so as not to be spotted by a neighbor or a cop patrolling the neighborhood.

After a while, with no activity in the house, I decided to move in for a closer look. There was a screened-in deck on the back side of the house, and fifty feet or so prior to the deck, a woodpile. I moved toward it just as the next door neighbor stepped out the backdoor with her cocker spaniel.

I suppose it is possible that the dog might not have noticed me if I had remained still, but my instinct made me sprint toward the woodpile. I kneeled and peeked through an opening between the stacked firewood.  The dog barked and immediately bolted toward me, yanking the leash out of its owner’s hand.

“Shadow!” the neighbor yelled. Not really yelled—it was more like a loud, scolding whisper, intended to get the dog’s attention but not disturb the neighbors. “Get back over here!” The dog paid her no attention, and was within a few yards of me, barking ferociously, not daring to close the distance. “Shadow!” the owner tentatively walked a few steps toward her dog. Toward me. I had to think of something.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (56 - 60)

56

Ty Hamilton

I wasn’t too happy with Ollie’s shopping choices. I wanted some real shoes, and another couple of shirts and a pair of slacks. And some snacks. Chips. Cookies. Cokes. No one in the Lassiter Walmart seemed to notice that I was wearing flip-flops with a security uniform. I didn’t waste any time there, just grabbed what I needed, paid for it and headed for the library before it closed.

57

Ty Hamilton

If I was going to get any benefit from having Jared Mulligan’s computer, I had to figure out his password, or more likely passwords—plural. I decided that it wouldn’t be much risk to make a trip to the Lassiter Community Library to do some research on one of their computers.

A Google search on how to guess passwords yielded what I hoped would prove to be useful guidelines. With no regard for grammar or writing style, I typed the following notes:

Birthday; passwords on other accounts; favorite food; drink; sports team; phrase from a movie; title of a movie; favorite actor; band; etc.

If a number is required or desired: street address; person’s lucky number; something simple, like 1 or 123; birthdates;

A hint could help.

Interests; hobbies.

Case sensitive (Could be in a weiRd comBInatioN)

If you crack one, that could be where a new password is sent.

Try setting up a new account in order to see the requirements.

“Safety Valve” – 3 false attempts every 2 minutes. Too many fails could cause permanent shutdown.

Search the computer for folders named “accounts”; “info”; or “passwords”.

Look around for notes on the person’s desk calendar.

Forgotten password link.

i-Phone – just guess the 4-digit pin or if that is disabled … you are in!

easy to remember = easy to guess

hard to remember = hard to guess = easy to forget.

They write them down! Esp. if they change monthly or mix of upper and lower case / #’s, etc.

More common passwords: Dragon; baseball; passw0rd; last 4 digits of SS for pin.

Use unusual words with rare letter combinations.

I printed off copies to use later.

It might be a good idea to go to Messerton, Illinois to see what, if anything, I could learn. So, I did a Google search on Messerton.

Messerton was located in eastern Illinois. Basically a farming community with a population of 6,712 as of the most recent census. Its list of notable people was short. General Reginald “Slim” Chance had lived in Messerton until the age of seven, at which time his family moved to St. Louis. And Joel Brannigan, a highly recruited high school basketball star who went on to play in the NCAA Final Four, was drafted and played for a couple seasons in the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks.

It turns out that Messerton holds the dubious honor of being the albino skunk capital of the world due to the fact that albino skunks exist in large numbers there. Yeah, I kid you not. Albino skunks. Who knew?

How do they decide such a thing—which town can call itself the capital of something like that? How many other communities were vying for the title? What a disappointment it must have been for them to learn that they had been beaten out by Messerton. Yes, I actually do think about these things.

Skunks are also known as polecats, in case you didn’t already know. According to the internet, they have two glands, one on each side of the anus, that produce a mixture of sulfur-containing chemicals, which have a highly offensive smell that is strong enough to ward off bears and other potential attackers. Muscles located next to the scent glands allow them to spray with a high degree of accuracy, as far as ten feet. The spray can also cause irritation, even temporary blindness, and the smell can be detected by a human nose up to a mile downwind. All of which was a lot more than I ever cared to know about skunks.

58

Ty Hamilton

On the way back to the motel, it struck me. Mulligan had an eagle, globe and anchor tattoo. That gave me an idea.

I pulled into the Lakeside Resort parking lot, anxious to give my idea a try. Ollie and Edie’s car was gone. The moment I walked into my room, I saw that the cash I’d left out to dry was gone as well. Likewise the backpack, the iPhone, and the iPad.

59

Ty Hamilton

For a millisecond, I thought of calling the cops to report the robbery. Like I said, just for a millisecond. Without the iPad and the phone, there really wasn’t much left for me to do in Lassiter. I couldn’t access any of Mulligan’s e-mail or financial accounts. They were gone, and that was that. So, where did that leave me, with regard to my assuming Mulligan’s identity, his life?

To tell you the truth, I was still on the fence about what to do. I mean, I really wanted to explore the possibility of changing identities. It was an exciting prospect. So long as I didn’t dive in without checking out the water depth.

I know, by now you’re thinking I’m wishy-washy. How many times already have I said that “this is the moment my life changed” or “there was no more turning back,” or words to that effect? I should just make a decision and stick with it. Crap or get off the pot. And you are right. You gotta admit, though, it is a HUGE step. A life-changing event, literally.

I wanted to learn more about Mulligan before I took a Mulligan.

60

Ty Hamilton

I now knew that Jared Mulligan/Michael Welch was from Messerton, Illinois. I had no place else better to be, so I decided to go there. See what I could learn.

Before I could do that, I had to attend to the rental car. I found paperwork from the car rental company in the console. It indicated that Mulligan had rented the Camry from the airport in Indianapolis, for three days. I assumed that he had flown in, but that didn’t really make any sense. It was closer to drive to Indy from Messerton than to drive to Chicago or St. Louis to catch a plane.

Then I remembered the parking stub. I gave it another look. On the back, the section and row were jotted down. Unfortunately, not the space number. I had no key to provide me a hint as to the make, so I was going to just have to wing it. And hope that Mulligan had stashed a key somewhere on the vehicle.

Dad used to say, “Do something, even if it’s wrong.” Not knowing if it was a smart move, I drove to Indy, to the rental car return lot, dropped off the keys, and walked to the ground transportation center just outside the baggage claim area. From there it was a short ride on the shuttle to the economy lot.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (51- 55)

51

Ty Hamilton

I knew the Lakeview Resort. I’d gone there once, about sixteen years ago, when Dianna and I were going through rough times. It was one of those mistakes you make, and then you learn to forgive yourself and just live with it, if you know what I mean. The Lakeview Resort was nowhere near a lake, and it wasn’t anything resembling a resort. Not sixteen years ago.  And certainly not now. From the look of it, there had not been any renovations since my last visit.

The decision to come here had been an easy one to make. I needed to get Mulligan’s rental car away from the river, where his body had been dumped. It made sense to move the fallen limb out of the way and take the Camry back to the motel, where he was registered. Any search, if there was to be one, would begin there. And hopefully end there as well. I still had to figure out how to get back to my truck and what to do with it.

Years ago, all hotel rooms came with real keys, and they all had numbers engraved on them. Back then, all you had to do was look at the number on the key and you knew which room it went to. Now, it’s not so simple. Everyone gets a card with a magnetic strip, and you have to remember which room you are in, because it’s not printed on the card. Even little Mom and Pop no-tell motels like the Lakeview Resort had kept pace with the times. Sort of. The familiar sign outside said “Color TV”—like that was still a novelty—but there was no mention of WIFI. There are limits on progress.

The parking lot had only a handful of cars. A beat-up pink Cadillac circa 1973. Must have at one time belonged to a Mary Kay rep. A late-model Hyundai. And a Chevy of indeterminable vintage, painted with primer only, no rear bumper, and Tennessee license plates duct taped on the inside of the rear windshield. Despite the lack of guests using the lot, apparently there was a problem with patrons from the bowling alley next door parking here. This I surmised from the hand-painted sign that said:

PARKING FOR

MOTEL GUESTS ONLY

ALL OTHER’S

WILL BE TOAD

52

Ty Hamilton

I sat in the Camry, trying to guess which of the dozen rooms the key card would open. I supposed that I could simply go through the process of elimination, pressing the card into each slot, one by one, until I found a winner. It wouldn’t take long, being that the place was so small. But, unless I hit the jackpot on one of the first tries, I could easily draw attention to myself—barefooted and dressed in a security guard uniform. Soon after my arrival, a fat guy in tattered denim shorts and a stained wife beater undershirt stepped out of unit 11. His right arm and both legs were splattered with tattoos. His left arm was relatively untouched, with the only visible ink being the stars and bars of the confederate flag on his shoulder. I watched as he leaned against the doorframe and lit a cigarette. After deeply inhaling a few drags, he flipped what was left of the cigarette out into the parking lot, leaving it to burn itself out.

Small things like that can trigger a flashback. I was around ten, maybe eleven years old. Dad had been using some older boys from town to help work on the farm on Saturdays. A couple of them were smokers.

One day, after one of Mom’s famous noon meals that always kept them wanting to work on the Hamilton farm, one of them flipped a half-smoked cigarette into our gravel driveway just before getting into the truck to go back to the field with Dad.

I stayed there. So did my younger brother, Jay. Neither of us moved, each hoping the other would leave us alone with the cigarette. We looked at one another. Then we looked at the cigarette. And back at one another. We both grinned. I grabbed the cigarette, and ran behind the garage, where Mom couldn’t see us. Jay was right behind me.

I took a couple of puffs, and coughed. Not to be outdone by his big brother, Jay did likewise. And, in that moment we became men. We had smoked. That was the end of it. Until Jay’s conscience got the better of him, and he confessed to Dad and Mom.

I remember being called into the kitchen that evening after supper. There was Dad, sitting at the head of the table, a stern look on his face. Mom at the other end, making no effort to conceal her disappointment. And Jay, his head hanging in shame, sitting between them.

To this day I don’t even remember what our punishment was. It must have been traumatic, though, for me to completely erase it from memory. I do know that, as the older brother, I usually got the worst of it, because according to Dad, I was old enough to know better, and I was supposed to be setting an example for my little brother.

God, how I miss my parents. And my brother. How will Jay feel if I go through with my plan? He won’t know I am still alive.

53

Ty Hamilton

A woman with tangled waist-length silver hair, wearing a bathrobe and the worn expression of one who’d lived a hard life came to the doorway, said something to the guy in the wife beater, and he followed her back into the room. I eliminated unit 11 from the list of possibilities.

By being patient, watching the housekeepers and other guests come and go, I narrowed it down to only three possibilities – Units 7; 9; or 12. I started at 7 and worked my way up. I felt stupid, dressed in a security uniform, standing in bare feet. Naturally, it was not until the third attempt, unit 12, that I was successful. I made certain that the DO NOT DISTURB sign was placed on the doorknob, and then began going through the personal belongings Jared Mulligan had left behind.

The first thing I looked for when I entered the room was a pair of shoes. No such luck. Okay, worry about that later.

The fat guy and the silver-haired woman were really going at it in Unit 11. It sounded as if they were trying to knock down the wall separating their room from mine—or should I say, Mulligan’s. She was making a lot of noise, encouraging her lover with every thump of the headboard against the wall. Hard to ignore.

I flipped on the television. The local 24-hour news station helped drown out the noise from next door as I looked around the room for . . . I didn’t know what . . . anything that would tell me something about the man who had tried to end my life.

Mulligan had left an iPad in the Camry, but I didn’t know the Passcode. I’d found an iPhone on him on the island, but it wasn’t working. I assumed that was because he had fallen in the river. I undressed and went into the bathroom, took a few minutes for a good sit-down. And then, a long, hot shower. It felt great, the hot water opening my pores, cleansing and warming me.  I stayed in until the water turned cold.

I came out, toweled myself off, feeling human again, remembering the last time I’d showered here. Coming around the corner, seeing her there on the bed, smiling, inviting. It didn’t seem all that long ago.

There was a hair dryer mounted on a bracket next to the sink, and that gave me an idea. I took the iPhone, removed it from its case, and laid it on a towel on the bathroom counter. I positioned the hair dryer close to it, aimed so that the air would blow over the phone, not directly on it. I turned the dryer on low setting, and left them there. It was probably pointless, but there was nothing to lose by trying. Then it occurred to me to dry out the paper money and all the contents of his wallet, so I placed all of it on the counter, weighing down the corners with soap, hand cleanser, a Kleenex box, anything I could find.

Mulligan hadn’t left much in the motel room. Just a backpack containing a change of clothes and another wallet with a few hundred dollars more cash and a second ID. No shoes, unfortunately.

I needed to think. I sat on the bed, wondering what I should do. I was still having second thoughts about my plan to assume Mulligan’s identity. I was thinking, maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe I could leave the Camry at the motel, then manage to somehow get back to the launch ramp, hop in my truck and drive home. I could invent some story about how I’d had a problem with the boat, and . . . and then what if they found the body? Found my boat, all bloody? My clothes on the island where they’d been drying near the fire? The body of the man I’d shot?

I could just tell the truth. Something like, ‘Well, it happened like this: I pulled this guy out of the river, and then we ended up on an island, where I shot and killed him. But, it was self-defense, I want to make that perfectly clear. The gun? Oh, I threw it in the river. And the body? Well, I tried to bury it. But then, when that didn’t work, I decided I should maybe weigh it down with an anchor and dump it in the river. So you see, I’m completely innocent. Am I free to go now?’

I made a mental note to do a better job of thinking things through before doing anything in the future.

The image of my face—from a recent photograph—was on the television screen, and then a live video feed from a helicopter hovering over my truck and trailer, with personnel from the Page County Sheriff Department and the Indiana State Police milling about. The banner at the bottom of the screen read:

Missing Fisherman Feared Dead

I reached for the remote, turned up the volume to listen to the reporter saying how my family had become concerned when I failed to come home from a fishing trip, and that they were still holding out hope I would be found alive and well. To my relief, there was no mention of Mulligan’s body having been found.

The address listed on his driver’s license showed him to be from New York City. But the other driver’s license—with the same photo as the one on the other license—said he was Michael Welch, and the address was in Messerton, Illinois. I’d never heard of Messerton, but everyone has to be from somewhere, I suppose. So, who was this guy, really? And why did he need two ID’s? Was he running away from himself, too?

I was exhausted. A good night’s sleep, even in a run-down place like this, would be just what I needed. That, and pizza. I called the front desk. “What’s the best pizza place in town that delivers here?” I asked.

54

Ty Hamilton

Sometime during the night, I awoke to go to the bathroom. The hair blower had shut itself down, probably due to an over-temp. When I came out of the bathroom, I picked up the iPhone and gave it a try. The good news was that the hair dryer had done its job, the phone came to life. The bad news was that I needed a passcode in order to use it. And the battery was low.

I took the iPhone to the desk and retrieved Mulligan’s driver’s license. What was his birthday? November 4th. I tapped in 1104. Nothing. Okay, that would have been too easy. He was born in the year 1965. Same result.

His first name was Jared. Using the phone alphabet, I tapped 5273. No good. Mike?—6453—again, no good.

I flopped back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling with the phone in my hand, and fell fast asleep.

Next thing I knew, I was awakened shortly after eight o’clock the next morning when the housekeeper let herself into the room and shrieked at the sight of a naked man lying face-up on the bed. And of course, I jumped up, thinking I was under attack, and rushed toward her. She screamed again, even louder this time.

In the span of only a few seconds, I grabbed a pillow and covered up, the guy in the wife beater shirt came charging into my room with a baseball bat raised and ready to strike, and Jared Mulligan’s cell phone rang.

Just like in the old Pink Panther movies, whenever Inspector Clouseau was fighting Cato, the ringing telephone stopped everything. “Ain’t you gonna get that?” asked the guy with the bat.

I debated the merits of answering the call, and decided against it. I couldn’t risk someone hearing my voice and concluding something had happened to Mulligan. “I’ll let it go to voicemail,” I said. “Probably just a telemarketer.”

The silver-haired woman had joined us, and I was not entirely comfortable with the way she was looking at me, particularly with her boyfriend standing next to her holding a baseball bat.

“I hate them sumbitches,” he said, lowering the bat to rest on his shoulder. “You should gitcherseff on that do not call me list. They call you again, ‘n’ you turn they ass in, you get thirteen grand from ’em.”

Which I knew was bullshit, but what I said was, “Thanks, I’ll do that.” And then, “If you all don’t mind, I think I’ll get dressed now.” No one objected. Nor did they move. “Could I have some privacy, please?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” the fat guy with the baseball bat said. He turned to go, at first not noticing that his companion was lingering behind, eying me with a mischievous smile. Then, “C’mon, Edie. We gotta run out to the Walmart.”

“I’m comin’, Ollie. Don’t get your shorts all in a knot.”

“You want me to come back and make up your room later?” the housekeeper asked.

“Yeah, sure, that’ll be fine,” I said. “Say, Ollie!” I called out to the fat guy.

“What time?” the housekeeper asked.

“What?” Ollie said, with a hint of annoyance.

“What time you want I should come back?” the housekeeper demanded of me.

“I don’t care,” I said. “Come back in an hour.” I turned my attention back to Ollie. “If I give you some cash, could you bring me back some things from Walmart?”

“What’s in it for me?” he said.

“I’m on my break in an hour,” the housekeeper said.

“Come make up the room when you get back from your break, then.” And then back to Ollie again, “I’ll give you fifty bucks to buy some shoes for me,” I said. “And another fifty when you deliver them to me.”

“I want fifty now and fifty later,” Ollie said, “but you give me another fifty to cover the cost of the shoes. And I keep whatever’s left. So, that’d be . . .” Ollie lifted his head, his eyes rolled back as if searching for the answer inside his head. His lips were moving slightly, and he moved his right forefinger along the palm of his left hand as he did his cyphering.

I couldn’t take it anymore. “One-fifty,” I said.

“One-fifty,” said Ollie with a smile that revealed a mouth half-full of tobacco-stained teeth

“I get off work at two,” the housekeeper said. “I don’t stay past two.”

“Look,” I said, readjusting the pillow for better coverage. “I don’t care when you do it, just do it sometime after an hour from now and before you leave work.”

“Okay,” she said. On her way out the door she muttered, “Why didn’t you just say that?”

“Okay, Ollie,” I said. “That will work. I wear size ten.” I wanted something to go with my security uniform. “Get me some kind of comfortable walking shoes that are black, preferably. And some socks. Oh, and underwear!” I said. “I need underwear. XL boxer briefs.”

Ollie and Edie waited for me to get the cash, which was not an easy thing to do without dropping the pillow. Finally I just gave up and set the pillow on the dresser. I took a hundred and fifty from the bills that were on the counter. They were still a bit soggy. “Here.”

“See you soon,” Ollie said. “C’mon, Edie.”

“I’ve got a bit of a headache,” Edie said, winking at me. “I think I’ll stay here. You take your time, Ollie.”

Moments later I heard Ollie revving up the engine of the Chevy from Tennessee. Besides needing a bumper, it sounded as if it could use a new muffler as well.

55

Ty Hamilton

Ollie hadn’t been gone two minutes before there was a knock on my door. I opened it just enough to allow me to see who was there.

“I told Ollie I needed some things, too,” Edie said when I opened the door. “Gave him a shopping list. Should take him at least an hour.”

“Whoa! Hold on,” I said. “Not a good idea.” I’d slipped on my pants right after everyone had left my room. I wasn’t about to take them off again for Edie.

“Oh, c’mon, Sugar,” Edie purred. “I seen the way you was lookin’ at me.” She pushed gently against the door.

“Look,” I said, “Ollie’s a lucky fellow to have someone like you. Far be it from me to come between two people who—”

“What Ollie don’t know won’t hurt him,” she said, adding, “Or us! Come on, baby, let me in.”

“No, Edie!” I said firmly. “No offense. I just went through a breakup and I’m not ready for something like this.”

“Oh!” she said. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it. You’ll never know what you’re missing.” And with that, she turned and went back to her room, and slammed the door.

I got busy again, trying to guess the passcode for the iPhone and the iPad. Most likely the same one would work on both, but I couldn’t crack it.

I hadn’t been at it very long before there was another knock on my door. I looked through the peephole, expecting to see Edie again. To my surprise, Ollie’s Walmart run hadn’t taken nearly an hour. Maybe half that at most. “That was quick,” I said, opening the door and gesturing for him to come in. He seemed surprised. Like maybe he’d expected me to not come to the door, or to not invite him in because I had something to hide. Or rather, someone. I suspected I was not the first one that Edie had offered herself to.

Ollie handed me a couple of bags. One with underwear. The other with a pair of flip-flops. “What’s this?” I asked holding them up.

“Shoes.”

“Um, no,” I said. “These are not shoes.”

“They look fine to me.”

I looked down, at Ollie’s shoes. Old, badly worn sneakers. By comparison, the flip-flops looked pretty good. “Okay,” I said. “These will work.” Better than going around barefoot. I could buy something better later. “I see you got the underwear, too. Thanks, Ollie. I appreciate it.”

Ollie said, “No problem, man.” He turned to go, then stopped at the door. “You never told me your name.”

“Ty . . .” I caught the mistake, cleared my throat, and tried to recover. “Time I introduced myself,” I said. “Jared. Jared Mulligan.” We shook hands.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (46 - 50)

46

Ty Hamilton

The darkness was grudgingly surrendering to gloomy dawn as I dumped the contents of my toolbox into the boat. Unless I was willing to risk being seen in broad daylight, I had to work quickly. I dipped the toolbox into the river and walked to the fire. Reluctant to give up the warmth that had saved my life, I hesitated for only a second before dumping the water on the fire. I had to repeat the process perhaps a dozen times before the fire was completely out. The remaining wood in the pile was charred black, sizzling and steaming in the rain. I placed Jared Mulligan’s socks over my left hand and grabbed the burnt logs one at a time and tossed them into the river, letting the current take them away. As an extra measure, I used the flat rock to scrape up as much mud as I could and threw it over the spot where the fire had been, hoping to conceal the site of the campfire. I didn’t want to leave any evidence that I could possibly eliminate.

I knew that if I spent much time thinking about it, debating its merits, I would back out, because, let’s face it, this was a half-baked plan at best. Besides, I reminded myself, I had already tried to bury the corpse. Granted, I could probably clean up most evidence of that failed attempt, but I watch a lot of television, and even though I understand that all those CSI shows are fiction, and in real life they never solve a crime in an hour, the crime labs nowadays are in fact equipped with a lot of high-tech stuff, and I had to assume that they could detect anything I did. If I was going to have any chance at all, I had to operate under that assumption. It was frightening. And at the same time, exhilarating.

With a resolve that I hadn’t shown in anything I’d attempted in decades, I drug the body down to the shoreline and with considerable effort, placed it inside the boat.

I took the rope and anchor, wrapped the rope around the hands and feet. That didn’t look like it would work. I took the bundle with Mulligan’s clothing and personal effects, undid the belt from it before placing it in the boat.

I looped Mulligan’s belt over his left shoulder, across his torso and under his right armpit, and buckled it. I then looped the anchor rope through the belt around the body a couple of times, tied it securely, and hitched the belt buckle as snugly as I could. It was the best I could do. I turned to go back to retrieve my warm, dry clothes.

Halfway up the embankment I was aware of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned and saw with alarm my boat sliding away, into the river. I glanced to my clothes. Warm, dry, inviting, hanging on the tree branch. Then back to the boat, now fully in the water, pivoting to the right and moving away from the island. I dove for it.

47

Ty Hamilton

I tried holding onto the boat with both hands and moving it back to the beach by kicking my feet in the water. It was useless. I was still moving backward, downstream. I had to get into the boat. I nearly capsized it as I clambered aboard and fell onto the corpse.

Ordinarily I would have been unnerved to find myself lying face to face on top of a dead body, but after the night I’d had, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. I moved slowly, careful not to tip the boat, sat up on my knees and began paddling with my hands toward the island. It took only a few seconds to conclude that the effort was futile. I was drifting away.

“I’m going to hell for this,” I said ten minutes later as I dumped the body overboard without ceremony a couple hundred yards downstream. The moment that it went over the side, I was consumed by a hot wave of emotions—guilt, remorse, but mostly fear and anxiety. What have I just done?  What was I thinking? This has no chance of working. Good Lord, if—no, when—someone finds that body, weighted down in the river, I could spend the rest of my life in prison for murder! I prayed no one would find my clothing on the island. If they did, they would certainly notice the blood stains.

I am not a murderer, I reminded myself. So, why am I acting like one? It would have been so easy to just wait for rescue, or take a chance, like I was now, of drifting to a safe place in the boat.

Maybe it can work, after all. This would be my fresh start. A second chance. A new life. A Mulligan. No turning back now. I felt my self-confidence returning, like a friend long-lost and given up for dead, for having thought of a plan on such short notice. I was calm. I was focused. I was more alive than I had been in thirty years.

Thus began the first day of the rest of my life. In nothing but my underwear.

48

Ty Hamilton

I stayed in the boat, steering as best I could by moving the lifeless motor like a rudder. A quarter mile or so downstream, I spotted an abandoned river cabin leaning precariously on rotting stilts. The windows were broken, probably by the same vandals who had spray-painted vulgarities on its exterior. I maneuvered toward the cabin, slamming into one of the stilts and expecting the entire structure to come crashing down upon me in retribution for what I had done. I hopped out into waist-high water, pushed the boat back out into the current, and waded to the bank.

The slope was slippery, and it was slow going as I made my way up the hill, grabbing onto saplings every few feet, using them to pull myself up the embankment. I was soaking wet, cold and covered with mud, clothed only in my boxer briefs.

The cabin looked as if it could collapse any moment. From the looks of it, no one had been inside for years. Beer cans littering the driveway and yard were mostly covered by vegetation. Even the graffiti was faded. I started out on the old, washed-out driveway that went for a hundred yards or so, eventually leading to a gravel road. I turned right, paralleling the river, working my way upstream along the country backroads. I had to jump into the brush a few times, scratching myself up on the thorns in order to avoid being seen whenever a car or pickup truck went by. It took nearly two hours to get back to the public boat launch, during which time, I thought about the details that I was going to be confronted with. That is, when I wasn’t thinking about my scratched up body and bare feet, now sore and bleeding from the long hike.

I knew nothing about this guy, Mulligan, other than I liked his name and it inspired me. I realize now just how dumb that sounds. Kind of like the couple I saw on the news one night back in the 70’s, shortly after the first Rocky movie came out, who were so inspired by it that they took out a second mortgage on their house and used the proceeds to purchase lottery tickets. I never heard anything more about them. Always wondered whatever became of them.

Anyway, yeah, I was inspired to start out with a new identity, but as they say, the Devil is in the details. And I knew nothing.

Like, for instance, did this guy have a family that might at this very moment be contacting the police to report him missing? Or, was he maybe a fugitive from justice?

49

The first thing I did when I got back to the launch ramp was move my truck and trailer from where I’d left them on the ramp back up the hill to a parking spot. I stopped, pondering what to do next.  I kept the engine running, with the heater on. It was still late summer, but the storm had cooled things down and I was wet. I needed to get into some dry clothes, and all I had in the truck was my security uniform. It would have to do. It was still raining, so I dressed inside the truck, slipping out of my soaking wet boxer briefs, tossing them in the back of the cab, and going commando.

A million thoughts flooded my mind as I sat there in my truck, in familiar surroundings that allowed me to think normally once more. What I had experienced during the past twelve or so hours now seemed more like a bad dream.

But it wasn’t a dream. I had done things that could never be undone. I hadn’t killed Jared Mulligan for any reason other than my own personal self-defense. Certainly not for the purpose of assuming his identity. But it had happened, and I’ll be honest with you, it unnerved me when he spoke my name. I didn’t know him from Adam. As far as I knew, we had never met, never seen one another before in our lives. So that led me to believe that his sole reason for being there was to kill me. But that made no sense.

Maybe he planned to kill me so that he could take my identity. If so, that meant he was every bit as stupid as me, because I had a family—dysfunctional though it may be—and I was drowning in debt. If so, and he had succeeded in killing me, I thought, the joke would have been on him.

50

Ty Hamilton

As I sat in my truck at the launch ramp, I wondered, had I already reached the point of no return? Was there still a chance that I could act as if I had been forced to spend the night on the island when I ran out of gas in the boat? Pretend that I hadn’t seen Mulligan? They’d be less likely to find him if they weren’t out there on the river searching for me. And if they did find him sometime later, there wouldn’t be much likelihood of my being linked to him. How do you explain that the body was found with a rope and anchor, which are both missing from your boat, Mr. Hamilton?

That’s what any reasonable person would do. That, or, better yet, not dispose of the body in the first place, like I had done. Just tell the truth about what happened. Why hadn’t I done that? Why had that possibility not even occurred to me?

I don’t think of myself as being crazy, but I have to admit, sometimes I do crazy things. I wondered if maybe I had subconsciously rejected the notion, not allowing myself to think about it at a conscious level because I wanted so desperately to just walk away from my current life and circumstances. I’m no psychologist, or psychiatrist, so all I had was questions. No answers. Anyway, you can’t unring a bell, and I couldn’t undo what I’d already done.

There was a silver Toyota Camry parked in the far corner of the lot. A tree branch had narrowly missed falling on it during the storm last night. It would have to be moved before the car could go anywhere.

I slipped on the security windbreaker and the cap, and, because the uniform I’d intended to return did not include shoes, walked to the Camry in my bleeding bare feet.

The door was unlocked, and the keys were in the ignition. There was an envelope on the front passenger side and a hotel key card in the cup holder. I checked the glove box and the console, found a rental agreement in the name of Jared Mulligan from a rental car company at the Indianapolis airport.

I checked the envelope. It had never been sealed, and the only thing in it was a photograph. Of me. My name was scribbled on the back side. Okay, so a stranger who knows my name and has a photograph of me tries to kill me. I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but even I knew, something was afoot.

I looked at the hotel key card.

Lakeview Resort,

206 E. Birch Avenue

Lassiter, Indiana

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (41-45)

41

Any way you cut it, my marriage with Dianna was in ruins. Financial problems were a big part of it. Any day now, the bank would serve notice of foreclosure. And I would lose my part of the family farm that had been passed down to me because I had used it as collateral to pay for the big new house and the barn, the stables, the motorhome and horse trailer,  and all the things that Dianna needed to show all over the country on the Quarter Horse show circuit. And, of course, Dallas Remington.

I thought about all that, all the reasons I wanted a new start. All but one. The big one. The real reason.

“No,” I said aloud. “The problem’s not with them. It’s me.” I was the one I couldn’t live with. I was the one I wanted to get away from. So, there it was. The truth. Sitting with a dead man on an island in the middle of a river in severe weather can be downright therapeutic.

I looked again at the name on the driver’s license. Jared Mulligan.

42

Ty Hamilton

In golf, a Mulligan is a term used to describe a do-over, something that you do when you hit your tee shot off the first green into a water hazard. ‘Take a Mulligan,’ someone in your foursome says. And, more often than not, you do. You tee up another one and let it rip. The previous attempt is forgotten. As if it never happened. Hopefully, it will result in a long drive down the middle of the fairway, or at least something better than the first attempt. Depending upon the group you are with, you may be limited to one Mulligan per round, or you may take more. There comes a point, though, when it is deemed excessive. Taking one per hole would be considered to be in poor taste, a breach of etiquette.

Of course, there is no such thing as a Mulligan in the legitimate rules of golf. Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods don’t take Mulligans on the PGA tour. Jack Nicholas and Arnold Palmer wouldn’t dream of it. But guys like me, hackers who will never play with big money on the line, heck yeah. I take a Mulligan from time to time.

Too bad you don’t get any do-overs in life, I lamented. Too bad you can’t just tee it up again and take a Mulligan.

I tilted my head and rubbed my chin, as I tend to do when deep in thought. I had an idea. My mind turned it over again. And again. And, yet again. I looked once more at the photograph on the driver’s license. You would have no trouble telling us apart if we were standing next to one another. But, there was more than a passing resemblance.

Too bad you don’t get any do-overs in life . . . I mean, hell, the guy’s name was like an omen in itself. Jared Mulligan. That he had literally dropped into my life from out of nowhere, only to die right in front of me, and by my hand—well, maybe that was some sort of sign. Maybe God, the Universe, Karma, whatever higher power you choose to believe in, was talking to me. He had been about to shoot me and missed when a lightning bolt knocked a tree down on him, if I needed any more proof.

Just tee it up again, Ty! Take a Mulligan!

Guys like Tiger Woods and all the others who are rich and famous can’t do it. They could never do it on the golf course. They have to follow the rules. They could never pull it off in life, either, because there is literally nowhere on the planet that they could go without being recognized. But maybe, just maybe, I could. Did I have rules that prevented me from taking a Mulligan? Would I be recognized anywhere but Page, Indiana?

There had to be a hundred reasons not to do it. And a thousand things that could go wrong. So why was I even thinking about it? More to the point, did I really have the balls to go through with it?

43

Ty Hamilton

I had acted in self-defense. It might be hard to convince a cop or prosecuting attorney, or if it ever came to it, a jury. Especially since I had tossed the gun into the river. That would look suspicious. I figured my odds of getting off without being sent to the state pen to be about fifty-fifty at best.

As I look back on it now, hindsight being twenty-twenty, I doubt my situation was really as grim as I thought at the time. And I probably should have taken a smarter course of action than the one I was contemplating, but hell, what would you do if you’d just gone through all that I had?

I sat there, naked as the day I was born, soaked to the gills in the torrential rain, staring at the dead man. Jared Mulligan. There were so many things that I wanted to ask of him, dozens of questions whose answers would determine if the idea that was forming in my head had any merit.

How did he get here? He wasn’t wearing a flotation device. And he wasn’t dressed for a day on the river.

I remembered seeing a car in the parking lot at the launching ramp. What kind it was, and what color, I couldn’t say. Maybe he had driven to the launch ramp. But why? There were no keys in his pocket.

Once again, I asked myself, How did he know my name? And, why did he try to kill me? After I’d tried to save him. Not once, but twice. I pulled him out of the river. And he tried to kill me. I pulled him out from under a tree trunk that had fallen on him. And he tried again. I’ll say this about him: Jared Mulligan was one ungrateful son of a bitch. And, another thing—Why was he bleeding when I found him in the river? It looked like he’d been shot.

So many questions. But Jared Mulligan wasn’t talking. I was going to have to find out for myself, or forget about my idea and report his death to the authorities.

I can now see that this was the moment when I reached the proverbial fork in the road. That moment when you have to decide one way or another, and once you do, you can’t change your mind.

44

Ty Hamilton

I took the granite slate that I had used as a tray for the burning kindling over to a spot no more than thirty feet from the fire and dropped to my knees to begin digging. I kept to the task, stopping occasionally to drag another log to the fire and stand next to for a couple minutes it to warm up. I was still naked. As long as the fire was burning, it would keep my clothes dry for later. To put them on now would not be of any use. In the pouring rain, they would be soaked again in no time. I had lost all track of time, and I was totally exhausted. I had dug a hole roughly seven feet in length and two feet wide, maybe three feet deep. I kept hitting tree roots and rocks. The bottom was solid rock, and kept filling with water. I couldn’t go any deeper. The sun was coming up. This was just going to have to do.

I sat down next to the fire, and for a few minutes the rain let up a bit. I was hungry, and wished I’d bought more snacks at the convenience store. I’d finished off the last of the beef jerky just before heading back to the boat ramp. Looking around the small island, I saw nothing that looked fit to eat. Maybe in another couple of days the tree bark or earthworms might have some appeal, but for now I wasn’t that desperate.

One way or another, I needed to get off the island, the sooner the better. If I chose to stay on the island and wait for rescue, I would be the prime suspect if the body was ever found.

I stood, walked over to the dead man and removed all his clothing, along with a gold necklace and a pinky ring from his right hand, put them all together on his pants, which I wrapped up in a bundle and tied the corners off. Anything that would not decompose. Mulligan had one tattoo. The Marine Corps eagle, globe, and anchor on his left shoulder, with the words, Semper Fidelis inscribed at the top. I grabbed him by the ankles to drag him to the shallow grave. His legs and my hands were all wet, and the footing was slippery. I fell on my ass three times. I needed a better plan.

45

Ty Hamilton

After studying the situation, I decided to get behind him, hook my arms under his armpits and drag him that way. Before trying that, though, I needed to at least put on my undershorts. The idea of my uncovered genitalia making contact with any part of another man, dead or alive, dictated the decision.

It was slow going, but I managed to get him next to the pit, dropping him with a thud. The rain had resumed its intensity, and the hole was already filled with water.

I looked down at the dead man. At the watery grave. The time had come. The moment of truth. Was I really going to go through with it? Once again, the rest of my life would be determined by what I did next. That seemed to be a theme for the past few hours.

“Rest in peace,” was all I could think to offer as a eulogy for this man I’d never known. I tried to nudge him into the hole with my foot, but failed to budge him. I dropped to my knees and used both hands to push him in.

The body floated. I tried pushing it down under water with one hand and scooping mud onto it with the other, but that didn’t work. I sighed heavily. This was going to be a problem. Dawn would come soon and if there was a break in the weather there might be people out in boats or helicopters, looking for survivors to rescue. Hell, they’d probably be looking for me, considering that I’d left my truck and trailer sitting unattended on the ramp. I needed to get this job done and get off the island.

I tried weighing him down with rocks, but they just slid off him and fell. I could leave him there, and cover him up with brush. Maybe wild animals would consume the remains, scatter the bones around so that no one would notice. That of course would take weeks, months, maybe, but it could be quite some time before anyone came to the island again, after all this flooding, if anyone ever came here at all. I couldn’t envision why anyone, save a modern-day Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer would want to. I doubted there were any.  In this day of Internet video games, kids never went outside anymore.

Nonetheless, I had to operate on the assumption that someone, be it a mushroom hunter, a ginseng harvester, or some fisherman just looking for a place to take a dump, would eventually come along and discover the body. It occurred to me then that I was going to one hell of a lot of trouble to hide the body of a man that I had tried to save. I was acting more like a murderer than a would-be rescuer.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (36-40)

36

Ty Hamilton

I had to move the guy I’d shot closer to the fire just in case he might still be alive. It felt weird, me being naked, so I grabbed my boxer shorts and slipped them back on. They were still wet, but at least I didn’t feel so creeped out. I put the gun on a rock several feet away, well out of reach. I tried imagining how to move him without aggravating his wounds, causing him more pain. There was no way, so I just bent down and grabbed him, reaching under his armpits, lifted, and drug him over to the fire. He moved, and scared the bejeezus out of me, because even though I was going through the motions of trying to save him, I had written him off for dead.

His breathing was shallow, and he began coughing again. I felt helpless, not knowing what to do to help him. I’d shot him, true, but I didn’t want him to die.

He looked into my eyes, and I could see that he knew he was dying. “You’re one . . . lucky . . .  sonofabitch . . . Hamilton.” And then, that was it. He was gone. No doubt about it this time. His eyes stayed open, with that thousand yard stare you hear about.

I let him slide gently out of my arms and onto the ground. The air that he had inhaled during his last moment now escaped through his open mouth in an eerie groan that sent me scrambling away, slipping and falling backward in the mud. I think I may have even let out a scream not unlike that of a frightened little girl.

Lightning raged and thunder exploded all around us. Around me. I regained my composure, and after perhaps a minute, crawled over to the body and tried with trembling hand to close his eyelids, like they do in the movies and on TV.  They stayed open. I tried again, this time willing my hand to stop shaking and use more pressure against the eyelids. The result was the same as before, except my fingers slid off the eyelids and made contact with the actual eyeballs, causing me to recoil. All the while, his eyes kept looking at me.

I said a brief prayer over the stranger I’d killed, then moved away from the body to take  what little shelter was offered by the low lying branches of a nearby pine tree. It is quite unsettling to have a dead man staring at you in a thunderstorm. You begin to believe his eyes are following you as you move around.

Like most people, I had seen plenty of dead people at funeral homes, but this was the first time I’d actually witnessed the death of a fellow human being, and even though I had not known this man, I don’t mind telling you that it shook me up. I swear to you, the guy had a hard-on. I’d read about that, but didn’t know if it was actually true. And apparently, judging from the smell, when one dies, they empty their bowels.

Horrified by what I had done, combined with what I was now seeing and smelling, I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw the gun into the river and bent over, placed both hands on my knees, and began puking. I couldn’t help it. I puked up everything that was in my stomach. Then I puked a while longer, producing nothing. The dry heaves, they call it. When I was finally done, I stood, wiped my mouth with my hand and said aloud, “How did he know my name?”

37

Ty Hamilton

I’ve never experienced a hurricane firsthand. And I now knew I never wanted to, if what I endured on the island that night was merely the remnants, as the television weather people call it. I did what I could to survive. Kept the fire burning, took shelter under the bough of an evergreen. After a while, exhaustion took over, and I fell asleep.

Sometime around midnight, the rain picked up, even harder than before, and I awoke, shivering. It took a few seconds to get my bearings. The fire! It was nearly burned out, and in this rain . . . I jumped up with the agility of a man half my age, and scrambled for the fire. With bare hands, I grabbed some of the smaller branches that were nearly burned out but still glowing, brought them together in a loosely-formed heap, and on all fours, began breathing life into the embers.

Once I got it going enough that I could leave it for a minute, I busied myself with the task of gathering more firewood in the downpour, stacking it so that it would burn. After a few minutes, I had a roaring fire again, despite Mother Nature’s never-ending attempt to extinguish it.

Throughout the remainder of the night, I sat under the evergreen, tending the fire, fighting off sleep. I kept staring at the dead man. The man I had killed. When the lightning flashed, I could see him, with his purplish skin and pale lips, staring back at me through cold, dead eyes.

‘You’re one lucky son of a bitch, Hamilton,’ he had said. And before that, even though I was trying to save him, he still tried to kill me. Not once, but twice. Why?

His mouth was slightly open, as if he was desperately trying to say something of great importance. Like there was one last thing, perhaps the most profound thought he’d had in his entire life that was on his mind and the tip of his tongue at the moment of death.

“HOW THE HELL DID YOU END UP HERE?” I shouted to the dead man. Then, to myself, “And how the hell did I end up here?”

Did I really kill him? Technically, no, in my way of thinking. He was probably going to die anyway from his wound. And how did that even happen? For sure the son of a bitch would have drowned if I hadn’t come along. Two ways for him to have died, neither one involving me. But he forced me to shoot him. And that was when his heart stopped beating, and his breathing stopped. And, he hadn’t blinked. So yeah, his time of death pretty much coincided with the time when the bullets I fired penetrated his torso. So, the question kept running through my mind over and again. Did I really kill him? If he was going to die anyway, did I really kill him?

38

Ty Hamilton

It would be a few more hours before daylight came, and I had nothing else to do, and I was curious. I decided to find out just who this fellow was. And how did he know who I was? I moved toward him, rolled him over. Rigor mortis was setting in, and it made going through his pockets a bit more difficult.

I retrieved a wallet from his right hip pocket. In his front pockets I found a couple of sheets of wet notepaper, a pocket knife, some loose change. And, a cigarette lighter. I could have used that earlier.

In the process of handling the body, I felt the man’s cell phone on a holster clipped to his belt. If it wasn’t destroyed by the water, maybe I could use it to dial 911 to get someone to come rescue me. I could tell them what had happened and provide directions. But then, I thought better of it. How would it look? Me, covered in blood. Him, dead. With gunshot wounds. Would I still have gunpowder residue on my hands, after being so wet for so long? Plus, I’d already tossed the gun into the river. That would raise eyebrows. I could be charged with murder.

I left him there and went back to rest under the evergreen branch, close to the fire. Using the light from the fire, I looked at his wallet. There was a Powerball ticket, a parking stub from the Indianapolis airport, and a little over five hundred dollars. Who walked around with that kind of money?

There were some credit cards—VISA, Master Card, J.C. Penney’s and Home Depot. The driver’s license said that he was Jared Mulligan. I checked the photograph on the driver’s license against the face of the deceased. Kind of hard to tell, given his current state, but yeah, I decided, it was a match.  And then I took another good, long look at the photograph. Damned if he and I didn’t look a hell of a lot alike!

39

Ty Hamilton

Marriage, it has been said, is the institution you enter when you meet that special person you want to irritate for the rest of your life. Chris Rock hit the nail on the head in his comedy routine when he talked about Nelson Mandela. How they kept him in prison for all those years and couldn’t break him. At long last, Mr. Mandela was released. He walked out unphased by the harsh treatment, to go home to his wife. After only a few months, they divorced. “I CAN’T TAKE THIS SHIT NO MORE!” Chris Rock shouts, imitating Mandela. Not a married man alive who can’t identify with that.

Would I have been any happier had I remained a life-long bachelor? Maybe yes, maybe no. I do know that enough is enough. And, I’d had more than enough. I suppose Dianna had, too. Any doubt of that was erased by Dallas Remington.

Dallas never liked me, and I never liked him. Not from the moment we first met. He was a big name in the Quarter Horse industry. Won a few national and world championships over the years. Trained a lot of winners. He knew his business, but he rubbed me the wrong way.

I remember one evening down at the barn, when Dianna and a few of her boarders who also trained with Dallas were standing around, drinking a few beers and talking. I’d just finished feeding the horses and came over to join them. One of the women commented on Dallas’ world champion belt buckle that he always wore.

“I’d sell it to you for a hundred bucks,” he said. I suppose the remark was intended to impress us that he’d won so many of them it wouldn’t bother him to part with one.

I, being an asshole, pulled out my wallet and whipped out a Ben Franklin and said, “Here, Dallas. Take this. You can keep the belt buckle. I didn’t realize you were going through hard times. You should’ve said something.” And the dickhead took the money! Kept the belt buckle, too. He never did thank me.

Dallas’ and my relationship never improved. Dianna was pissed, to say the least. I think it was shortly after that they started cozying up to one another more than before. I pretended not to notice. After a while, I just didn’t care.

I should have filed for a divorce a long time ago. I had for some time now been planning on it, but so far just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Believe it or not, I didn’t want to hurt Dianna. I’d been no saint, but I had proof that Dallas Remington was more than a horse trainer where Dianna was concerned.

Dianna and I were done. I don’t know why I had waited until now, but I vowed right then and there, on the island, that I was not going to spend one more day as her husband. It was finished. Ironically, I wondered if Dianna had called the police yet. I’d never been this late getting home from a day of fishing. I tossed another log on the fire.

We’d started our lives together like most young couples, madly in love, blind to one another’s shortcomings. That was thirty-some years ago, when her face was smooth and I had “six-pack” abdominals. My gut looks more like a keg, now.

We made a fine-looking couple, back then. We had a lot of fun, and couldn’t keep our hands off one another. But, like I said, that was more than thirty years ago. I don’t know where the time went. Back then, when we were in our mid-twenties, we didn’t own anything, yet the world was ours for the taking. Time was on our side. I don’t know who said it, but it is true that “Youth is wasted on the young.”

40

Ty Hamilton

I guess I still loved Dianna. Not in the same way that I did in the beginning, but more like you love a life-long friend. At the same time, I resented her. There was this feeling within me that I had given too much of myself, and gotten far too little in return.

Not like I’d been all that much fun. Ever since I retired I’ve been a royal pain in the ass. Long before that, too, if I’m going to be honest. Somewhere along the way I transformed from a fun-loving, easy-going guy to a cynical, grumpy old man.

There was the initial feeling of overwhelming joy in knowing that there was someone who actually found me attractive enough to want to spend the rest of her life with me.  Then, telling our families and friends of our engagement. Picking out rings. Finding a place to live. Planning the future. As if you can. Hell, a few hours ago I couldn’t have imagined that I would be assuming the identity of a stranger. For that matter, a few hours ago, Jared Mulligan probably didn’t expect to be dead so soon, either.

The wedding rehearsal. The bachelor party. The wedding. The honeymoon. Coming home as a Mr. and Mrs. Tyler Curtis Hamilton, confident and eager to start a new life together. Two become one. And then, day by day, month by month, growing more comfortable, more familiar, more compromising, sacrificing, tolerant, annoyed, frustrated, exasperated, resigned, and finally, years later, distant. Bitter.

Having children was a mixed blessing. The precious little bundles you bring home fill you with love, hope, and joy. They renew your bond of love for one another. You learn as you go, caring for them, rocking, feeding, burping, and changing dirty diapers. You watch them grow and develop. You are so proud when they learn to crawl, begin to jabber, cut teeth, stand up, flash you a goofy grin, fall down, get back up and do it all over again. Everything is a photo op. You bore your friends at work with stories about your kids. You wait impatiently, pretending to listen while they tell you about their kids, all the while thinking about what you are going to say next about yours the moment an opportunity comes along to get another word in.

You swell with pride as they take their first steps, when they say “Da-da!” and when they laugh. You play with them, give them rides on your shoulders. Let them sit on your back while you crawl around on all fours, letting them “ride the horsey”. You play hide-and-seek, always letting them win. Never finding them, even though they always go to the same corner of the same room behind the same chair, and giggle loudly while you search in futility. You teach them how to catch and throw a ball, how to say “please” and “thank you”. You act silly and they laugh. You are their best friend. You read to them. You tell them stories about the things you did when you were young. They hang on your every word. They believe you can do anything. You are, at that moment in time, a Superhero!

Did Jared Mulligan have kids? How old would they be? How would they feel about his death?

Little League. Soccer. Girl Scouts. Family vacations. Your kids. The best the world has ever known. Mankind’s hope for the future.

You just know that they are going to make a difference, and the human race will be forever grateful to you for bringing them into the world. Life is good.

Then, without warning, they become teenagers. You are suddenly lame. An embarrassment to them. They hate you. They tell you to go screw yourself. But you still serve a purpose. They still want your money.

Then, finally, at long last they become adults.

And your son becomes a professional student whose only accomplishment in twenty-five years on this earth is knocking up his girlfriend. That, and persuading you to invest a little over a hundred grand in training and computers and everything he could possibly need to market himself as an expert in computer forensics—a business venture that he would soon after walk away from.

And on top of all that, you have no contact with your daughter for three years.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (31-35)

31

Ty Hamilton

I lay there in the mud, dazed and confused. My head was ringing like a fire bell as I slowly regained my senses.  Surprised to be alive, aware of a weight upon me, I waited for the second shot. I remained as still as I could, hoping against hope that he would believe me dead and not put a bullet into the back of my skull, administering the “coup de grace”.

By now the river had risen to the point that the water was lapping against my mouth and nose. I couldn’t continue playing possum much longer. I opened one eye and saw that I was covered by a rather large limb. Twigs and leaves poked into virtually every part of me. I searched in the darkness for my assailant, fighting the urge to jerk up away from the rising water and gasp for breath. Another flash of lightning illuminated the night for a moment, and I saw him lying face down in the mud, pinned down by a fallen tree. The next flash revealed him groping, searching for something. The gun!

As near as I could tell, the lightning had hit a nearby tree, splitting it in two. One of the halves had crashed down upon him, and one of its limbs had struck me in the head. It was a miracle—or close enough for me.

At that moment, I only knew that I was not hurt, at least not badly. Somehow I had managed to dodge the bullet, as the saying goes. Another flash of lightning revealed the gun, next to the fallen tree trunk, just beyond his reach. I struggled to my hands and knees, scrambled out from under the limb. Slipping in the mud, I bear crawled quickly to grab the gun. I felt him grabbing my leg as I tried to get away with it. I lashed out with my other foot, connecting solidly with the side of his face, and he let out a yelp but did not release his grip. Two more kicks to his face, and I was able to pull away.

32

I crawled through the mud to my boat. The water had risen to the point that it was mostly afloat, only the front one-third was still grounded. I looked to the stranger who just minutes ago I had saved, only to have my kindness repaid by violence. The tree trunk had him pinned, and the water was now dangerously close to him.

“Help me!” he cried out.

My response was, “You have got to be shitting me!” I pointed the revolver at him for emphasis. The water kept rising, much quicker than I could have ever imagined possible. In a couple of minutes, he would either drown, or the water would lift the tree trunk enough so that he could get out from under it. I could just leave it up to God to decide what would become of him. But, what if God decided to lift the tree off him? What would I then do to keep him from killing me? Well, I did have the gun.

I sometimes imagine that God sits in his own private theater, eating popcorn, watching the earthly human drama unfold before him. I further imagined that it was one of those interactive plots, like they have on video games, where He could decide which option to choose for any given scenario, depending upon his mood and preferences on that particular day. Which option will God choose today? I wondered.

“Please . . .” he said, “don’t let me drown!”

I reassessed his predicament. The tree trunk was on slightly higher ground than he was. He would drown before the water rose high enough to lift it off him.  God was leaving this man’s fate for me to decide. “If I help you,” I said, “are you going to try to kill me again?” What a stupid question, I thought. Like he’s going to say ‘Yes’ to that?

“No . . . I swear,” he sighed. "I won’t.” From somewhere deep in my memory came a recollection of a story about a scorpion and a frog. You may have heard it . . . The one where the scorpion begs the frog to take him across the river, but the frog refuses, because he’s afraid the scorpion will sting him? And the scorpion promises the frog faithfully that he would never do that. And the frog figures, Oh hell, why not? So he gives the scorpion a lift.

I stood and tucked the revolver inside my waistband in the back of my pants. I walked over to the tree trunk and tried to lift it. It didn’t budge. I tried putting my shoulder into it and using my legs to apply force. I slipped and fell in the mud. Same result on the second and third efforts. “Come on!” the man on the ground pleaded, “The water . . . it’s getting . . . too close!” From the looks of him, he might bleed out before he drowned. I still hadn’t done anything to tend to his wound. Looked like a gunshot to me.

33

I dropped to my knees, next to the tree trunk, and began digging with my bare hands. "There’s no more time!” he shouted frantically. I looked over my shoulder. The water was now so high that he was straining to hold his head up just to stay above it. He was right.  There was no more time. I walked around, splashing in the rising water to position myself in front of him. I knelt down again and scooped my arms under his armpits. He screamed in agony.

“Grab on,” I said. We held one another in a tight bear hug and I strained, putting everything I had into the effort to free him. He screamed again from the pain in his shoulder, where the blood was coming from. Then, he suddenly popped out from under the trunk like a cork from a champagne bottle, and I fell backward into the water.  A moment later, he was helping me up, and before I knew it, reaching behind me for the gun.

The scorpion couldn’t help himself. Midway across the stream, he breaks his promise and stings the frog. And in the process, seals both their fates. He couldn’t stop himself.  It was just his nature to do it.

Instinctively, I elbowed him in the face, stepped back and pulled out the gun. I hesitated perhaps a second, just enough time for him to hold up his good arm, as if pleading for mercy. I fired twice. He fell. I walked to him, put the gun to his head at point blank range. I began applying pressure on the trigger with my finger. Something stopped me. I could kill him if I had to, but, lying there on the ground, wounded and bleeding, he no longer seemed a threat. He might live, or he might not.

His blood had splattered all over my arm and chest. I think maybe some even got on my face.

I felt a wave of panic course through me, and reached instinctively for my missing cell phone. Not knowing what else to do, I knelt down beside him and pressed the bloodied tips of my index and middle fingers against his neck, checking for a pulse. Faint or non-existent. I couldn’t tell which.

34

Ty Hamilton

I sat there on my knees, thinking about what had just happened. My shirt and the thighs of my denim jeans were now covered in blood, where I had unconsciously wiped my hands. But I had other, more immediate concerns. I was cold, and I was wet. I had no shelter, and no way off the island. True, I did have the boat, but without gasoline to run the motor, it was just too dangerous to put out into the rapidly flowing current in the darkness.

If I was going to save the other man—if he was still alive—and if I was going to survive myself, I was going to have to start a fire. Hypothermia was a very real threat, and I could end up dead if I didn’t get warm,and quick. Already I was beginning to shiver as my body tried to maintain heat.

I had always intended to put together a survival kit to keep in the boat, but I had never gotten around to actually doing it. If I lived through this, I told myself, that kit was going straight to the top of my To Do list. And at the top of the list of items to be included in the kit would be some of those fire starting sticks I’d seen in sporting goods stores, as well as some matches in a floating, waterproof container, and a couple of lighters. I’ve hunted and camped in the mountains in the dead of winter. I’ve ridden snowmobiles in Alaska. But I had no idea of what it felt like to be really cold until now, soaked to the gills on a late summer’s night on a small island in the middle of a river. What I wouldn’t give to have my poncho right now.

Desperate to find something, anything, that could be used to start a fire, I searched the contents of the boat. I grabbed the red plastic gas can and shook it. There was just a bit of gasoline remaining. Not enough to run the engine, but maybe enough to start a fire. What could I use for kindling? Everything on the island was soaked. Then I remembered that I had my wallet. Paper money. Receipts. Photographs.

Getting colder by the minute, I grabbed a couple of rocks from the water’s edge. I scraped some fallen needles from the pine tree into a loose pile. They were wet, but I hoped they might ignite once I got a small flame going. Next, I broke off some twigs and laid them out carefully. In the middle of it all I placed all my paper money – all fourteen dollars of it—along with my receipt from the convenience store. I felt a wave of excitement. Many times, back in the day, I’d seen MacGyver do more with less on television.

I poured the last drops of gasoline from the can onto the kindling pile, picked up the rocks, and began striking one against the other. Over and over. And over again. Nothing. This went on for about ten minutes before I shouted, “SCREW THIS!” And threw one of the rocks toward the river in frustration. It hit the side of the boat’s outboard motor with a clank! I was shivering uncontrollably now, and my teeth were chattering. My mind was beginning to shut down. I was ready to give up. At that moment, I was seriously considering throwing myself into the river to expedite the inevitable.

As I said, my mind was shutting down, so I don’t know where the idea came from, but, there it was, right in front of me. I doubt I would have thought of it had the rock not hit the motor. I ran over to the dead man, pulled the shirt off his torso. Moving quickly, I scooped up the kindling pile that I had so carefully stacked earlier, and tossed what I could into the shirt. I then bundled it all up and took it to the rear of the boat. There was water on the floor, so I laid it all out on the seat. I spotted a couple of flat rocks a few feet away, and went for the larger of them. I lifted the shirt and slid the flat rock beneath it.

I hadn’t remembered to check for fuel earlier in the day, and I had never gotten around to preparing a survival kit, but the one thing I did do right was to keep a small tool box in the boat. I flipped open the latches and found a spark plug socket and snapped it onto its ratchet. I pulled the lead and set to the task of removing a plug from one of the cylinders. Seconds later, the lead was reattached to the plug, which was now placed in the middle of the kindling pile. I could only hope that the gasoline had not all evaporated or been washed away. That at least some small amount of it had soaked into the kindling. I would know in a moment. I pulled the start cord. I could see blue sparks jumping the gap between the center and ground electrodes, but nothing happened. I pulled again. Same result. “Third time’s the charm,” I said with false confidence, and pulled again. And again, nothing. I removed my baseball cap and began flogging the motor. “COME ON, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” I shouted. I put my cap back on, pulled it down over my forehead, and heaved on the cord for the fourth time with all my strength. I fell over backward when the cord broke off.

I lay there, flat on my back in four inches of water that had accumulated in the bottom of the johnboat. Damn my luck! It was true. No good deed goes unpunished. Had I not attempted to help a dying stranger, I would be sitting in my truck, warm and dry. Heading back to my miserable life at home. Now, all that was left was to get up and jump into the water. Let it all end. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe it was meant to—I smelled smoke!

35

Ty Hamilton

Something was burning. I sat upright, and could not believe my eyes. With the final pull of the cord, the spark plug had done its job. The kindling had ignited! It wasn’t a roaring fire, by any means. But it was a start, and it renewed my hope, my will to live. I scrambled to the rear of the boat, retrieved the flat rock and the burning kindling. Very carefully, shielding the small fire from the wind with my free hand and my body, I took it over to the pile of wood that I had originally stacked. A couple of times, the fire nearly went out, and I had to blow on it to revive it. I placed it on the ground and began stacking wood on and around it. There were plenty of fallen limbs. I looked for the ones that appeared to be dead and, hopefully, drier, but it was hard to determine exactly what I was getting in the darkness. My efforts paid off, and in time, I began to warm up in front of the fire, which had grown in intensity to a respectable size. I stripped naked, except for my baseball cap, which I kept on to keep the rain out of my eyes, and placed my clothing on sticks beneath an evergreen branch close to the fire to dry them out. In time, I began to feel warmth soaking into my body. I could think more clearly.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (26 - 30)

Walkabout

Taking a Mulligan

Wayne Baker writing as Austin Jett

26

Ty Hamilton

Ten minutes before my life changed forever, I was sitting in my boat, feeling frustrated, discouraged. My life had not gone according to plan. Not even close. I was now in my sixties, and time was running out. Not that I was dying. Not physically. Much worse than that. My dreams were dying. And worse still, I might hang on for another thirty or forty years, living every day in regret. I remember once, years ago, hearing someone say that as you sit in your rocking chair reflecting on your life, you won’t regret the things that you did. You will only regret the things that you didn’t do. That always stayed with me.  At one time, I had a bucket list of about thirty-five, maybe forty things I wanted to do before I died. Now, I could see all those things I’d ever hoped to do slipping away from me one by one. Like reconciling with my daughter, Rocky.

I used to bring a handgun along whenever I went out alone on the river, for protection. If you’ve ever spent time on the river, you know why. Lately, I’d been leaving the gun at home. I felt less threatened by the people I encountered than by my own self, given my present state of mind.

Before going home, I still needed to drop off my security uniform at the Sheepdog Security office. two pairs of black cargo pants—the kind with all the pockets—and two white polo shirts, along with a jacket and a baseball-style cap, each with the Sheepdog  logo and the word SECURITY on them. And I needed to stop by the flower shop to get something for Dianna. I’d been acting like a jerk the past few days. But then I thought of her and Dallas Remington. How I’d pretended not to see them in one another’s arms last week when I’d walked down the hill to watch Dianna training. Forget the flowers. I checked my watch. I’d better get moving.

It was getting chilly, and the first heavy raindrops splattered on the floor and seats of the boat. My yellow poncho was on the floor of the boat, next to my tackle box. As I reached for it, I knocked the Styrofoam container full of night crawlers onto it. I wanted to stay dry, so I slipped on the poncho despite the mess.

With the immediate threat of the weather, none of that mattered to me right now, eight minutes before my life would change forever, as much as getting back to the safety of my truck. The outboard motor came to life on the second pull of the start cord. I pulled the loose end of the double-braided nylon dock line, releasing the slipknot from a willow limb that extended out over the riverbank, and pointed the flat-bottomed boat upstream.

We’d had above average rainfall this year, and the river was deep, with a swift current that carried mud from washed-out river banks, making the water look like creamed coffee. No wonder the fish weren’t biting. But like I said, I go out on the river for more than just fishing. I had to run full throttle just to work my way upstream to the boat launch. I was concerned, because I didn’t have much fuel left in the tank.

In just under five minutes, my life would change forever. I didn’t know that, of course, so my mind was preoccupied with annoyance at my son Travis, who had taken the boat out earlier in the week, and despite my reminder, neglected to top off the tank or fill the spare can that I keep in the boat. As much as I would have liked to, I really couldn’t put all the blame on Travis. I should have checked it myself when I stopped in at the convenience store up the road before launching the boat. I’d fueled up my truck, stocked up with beer and ice, beef jerky, a dozen night crawlers and a lottery ticket, but it did not occur to me to check the fuel for the boat. To make matters worse, I hadn’t even noticed it until after I had gone a mile or so downstream and tied up to the limb of the willow tree. I do dumb things when my mind is preoccupied with thoughts of a trashed career, a boring job, a broken marriage, an estranged relationship with my daughter, and a son who couldn’t find his ass with both hands.

It was late in the afternoon, and getting darker by the minute with the storm clouds filtering out the sun. As I pulled up alongside the dock, my life would be changing forever in only two more minutes.

27

Ty Hamilton

I wrapped the rope around the dock cleat, hopped out, and hustled up the hill to my truck.

The storm was getting close now, raindrops were splattering the pavement on the boat launch, and I could hear the rumbling thunder getting closer and closer. I wasn’t about to wear the worm-slime-covered poncho in my truck cab, so I quickly removed it and tossed it into the truck bed.

A gust of wind hit the door of my truck just as I was getting in, slamming it against my leg and pinning it against the doorframe. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but it was only pain, not a severe injury. I pushed the door against the wind and brought my leg up into the cab. Overhead, the treetops swayed like a drunken chorus line.

I backed the trailer down the ramp and into the water without swerving. With less than a minute remaining before my life changed forever, I placed the shift selector into PARK, set the emergency brake, and got out. A moment later, I was back in the boat, motoring toward the awaiting trailer. That was when I saw him. That was the moment when my life changed forever.

28

Ty Hamilton

He looked more like a drowned rat than a man, clinging to life with one bloody arm draped over a small tree branch that hung out over the water from the embankment. Without thinking, I broke off my approach to the trailer and executed a two-hundred-seventy degree turn to the right. I backed off the throttle, made a one-eighty, again to the right, and let the current take me backward, just downstream of him. I then increased the throttle to ease forward. I was on top of him in seconds.

I held the throttle to maintain position against the current with one hand, and just as he lost his hold on the branch, grabbed him by the collar with the other. A second later, and he would have been swept away and my life would have not taken its alternate path.

“HOLD ON!” I shouted, trying to be heard above the now-driving rain and the thunder. You dumb bastard, I thought. How the hell did you get yourself into this predicament?

It was all I could do to maintain a grip on him with one hand while steering and operating the tiller and throttle with the other, but somehow, it was all working. My plan, if you could call it that, was to get back to the public launch, forget about pulling onto my trailer and just run up on the ramp. To hell with the damage it would do to my boat and propeller. It was the only option. And it would have worked, had there been another twenty seconds worth of gas left in the tank.

The motor sputtered, coughed, and, inevitably, died. There was nothing I could do, other than hold on to the man’s collar and try to steer the boat as best I could, using the outboard motor like a rudder as we were swept downstream at an alarming rate. I quickly realized the futility in the effort. I could no more control the course of the boat than I could stop the rain. And, I was losing my grip on the dumb bastard’s collar. I let go of the tiller and repositioned myself so that I could hold onto him with both hands without being pulled over the side to drown for my effort.

The boat drifted out into the middle of the river, did a couple of  three-sixties along the way, and eventually struck hard against a fallen log that was protruding from the beach of a small island in the middle of the river. I fell out of the boat into about four feet of water. I somehow managed to retain my grip on the man, and hauled him up onto the shore. Then, just as the boat was sliding back into the stream, I reached out, grabbed the bow line and hauled it back in. With my last ounce of strength, I heaved it up onto ground. I lay there gasping for breath. After a couple minutes, I rose to my feet and staggered to a small tree a few feet away from the river’s edge, and tied the bow line to it.

29

Ty Hamilton

It was now dark, and the driving rain pelted my face as I knelt by the stranger. I placed one hand behind his neck and the other across his chest to clasp his shoulder, supporting him as he made a vain attempt to sit up. Still breathing heavily, it occurred to me that I could very well suffer a heart attack from all this physical exertion. I looked down at him. “You okay, mister?” I gasped.

The storm was upon us now. A bolt of lightning illuminated the heavily wooded river island, accompanied by a deafening thunderclap. It startled me, and I cried out. The stranger seemed unconcerned by it. His breath was heavy, rattling, and a bloodstain covered his left shoulder. He was going to need some first aid. He reached up, grabbed my shirt collar and with what little strength he had left, pulled me close to him. His breath was heavy, laboring. He looked into my eyes and said, “Thank . . . you . . . I . . . wudna . . .  made it if you hadn’t . . .”

“Glad I could help,” I said. But we were not yet out of danger. We had to stop his bleeding and survive the storm. Then we had to somehow get safely from the island to the riverbank, dry off and warm up. I was about to say all that, but the words got caught in my mouth as I watched him reach across his torso and struggle awkwardly with his left hand to pull a stainless steel revolver from inside his waistband.

“It’s . . . nothing . . . personal,” he said. I watched, paralyzed in terror as he aimed the gun at my head and began to squeeze the trigger. Acting on instinct, I threw up my hands in an effort to shield my face, elbows tucked in to cover up at least some of my torso.

There was a bright flash and a loud report. I felt a solid impact to my forehead. I jerked back, stumbled, and fell to the ground.

30

The wind was nearing gale force as the contract killer reached across his body for the revolver that was tucked inside the waistband on his right hip. It was an awkward move, not easily or quickly accomplished.

He’d trained himself to shoot accurately with either hand, but in all his years of military service and work in the private sector, it had never been necessary to do it on the job. “It’s . . . nothing . . . personal,” he said, and squeezed the trigger.

There was a simultaneous flash of lightning and thunderclap, causing him to flinch like an amateur just as the tree trunk came crashing down.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (21 - 25)

Walkabout

Taking a Mulligan

Wayne Baker writing as Austin Jett

21

Sheriff Bridges opened his cell phone. There was a voicemail message from Larry Brown, owner of the local junk yard. Larry was a shady character. Ran a junk salvage yard which also served as a chop shop and a dog fighting venue on his property. The sheriff turned a blind eye to it, and Larry gave him a cut of the action. That and the pick of the litter whenever his Tosa Inu bitch had pups. Larry would keep and feed the dog, train it to fight. Sheriff Bridges enjoyed watching the fights from Larry’s “Executive Suite”, a ratty office with an acrylic two-way mirror set above the pit. It was always good to have a dog in the fight.

Every now and then, Larry felt a sense of civic duty. From the sound of the voicemail, apparently today was one of those times. “Yeah, it’s me, Larry Brown. I had a guy come by ‘bout a half an hour ago—GOD DAMN IT LEON, PUT IT BACK!—‘bout half a hour ago, wantin’ to know could I fix his Dodge truck. Said it was banged up pretty bad. Said he hit a cow out on Davis Meyer Road. One of the Amish’s. So anyways, I said sure, and—GOD DAMN IT LEON! I DONE TOLD YOU—” and then the message timed out.

The sheriff turned west and headed toward Larry Brown’s place. While driving, he found Perry Winter’s name in Contacts, made the call.

Perry Winter’s cell phone rang. “Hello, Mike.”

“Perry, we need to talk.”

“Meet me at Trudy’s. Ten minutes.”

“Make it an hour. I need to drop by Larry Brown’s place on the way back into town.”

22

Perry Winters was seated in a corner booth in Trudy’s Uptown Diner. Sheriff Bridges slid in opposite him. Before they could exchange greetings, the waitress appeared out of thin air. “What can I get you today, Sheriff?”

“Just a coffee, thanks.” Sheriff Bridges waited until she was out of earshot. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Perry. It took a little longer than I thought it would at Larry’s,” he said. “Larry’s got a honey badger out there. Don’t ask me where he found it. I don’t want to know. He’s going to put it up against a couple of dogs next week. The dog owners pay an entry fee. Two grand apiece. Larry matches it. Last one standing wins. Winner takes all. Of course, with all the gambling, Larry wins even if he loses.”

“You gotta give it to Larry,” Winters said, “He’s an entrepreneur, and a hell of a promoter.”

“Anyway, just before I got there, Larry’s cousin Leon got the honey badger out of its cage,” The sheriff laughed as he spoke. “He wanted to pet it. It bit him on the nose and jumped out of his arms. It didn’t get outside the shop, but it damn near tore the building down.” The sheriff chuckled. “Larry was pissed. And Leon’s bleeding like a stuck hog.”

Winters had just taken a sip of water, and it came out through his nose. He sat there, simultaneously laughing and choking with the image of Larry and Leon chasing a honey badger. “Oh, God!” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Leon!”

The sheriff waited for Winters to get over the choking spell. “On a more somber note, Larry gave me a lead on that hit and run that killed the Carmichael twins.”

Winters raised an eyebrow. “Larry Brown’s a snitch?”

“Larry is what he is and he ain’t what he ain’t,” Sheriff Bridges said. “He is a career criminal. But, he is also someone I can count on when I need him. So yeah, I tend to look the other way where he’s concerned. That’s the way it works. But, Larry ain’t someone who will repair a truck for cash money under the table, no dealing with an insurance company, so that a hit and run driver can get away with killing two little girls. He did take two hundred bucks cash up front, got the address where he could come pick up the truck with his wrecker later tonight. I’ll follow along, and make the arrest, make it look like I’m following an anonymous tip. Gotta protect Larry’s credibility as a badass.”

“So that’s what you wanted to tell me?” Winters asked. “I mean, I am glad to hear it, but …” he leaned in, raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice, “anyone I know?”

“Can’t talk about it. Shouldn’t have said anything. Keep it to yourself. And, no, that’s not why I wanted to meet with you.”

“Okay, what then?”

“The security guard at Lanter Construction, a guy named Hamilton—”

“Tyler Hamilton? Dianna’s husband?”

“You know him?”

“Not very well. His wife goes to our church. Nice lady. Don’t see him there, except maybe on Easter. A security guard, you say? I thought he was a pilot.”

“Anyway—”

“No, now that I think about it, I remember Dianna saying he’d retired from flying, some time back.”

“Okay,” Bridges sighed heavily. “Whatever. He’s the guy who was working security out at Lanter Construction the night that your son and my niece were . . .”

“Associating with the wrong sort of people,” Winters said.

“Exactly.”

The sheriff waited while the waitress set his coffee on the table for him. “There you go,” she said with a smile. “You want creamer for that?”

“No, thanks,” he said.

“Either of you need anything else, just let me know.”

Sheriff Bridges nodded. “We will.” She went to another table, and he turned his attention back to Winters. “Seems this guy Hamilton’s found a video camera.”

“Where at?”

“On your property. In the pasture out behind your crematory.”

“What the hell was it doing there?”

“Beats me,” the sheriff said. “Look, Perry, I looked, and this camera has something you need to see.”

“Okay, let’s have a look.”

“Not here. I’ll leave now. You wait a few minutes, then come meet me at the Target parking lot.”

23

At the southwest corner of the Target parking lot, far from any other vehicles or shoppers, Perry Winters slid into the front passenger seat of the Sheriff’s cruiser. “What’s with all the cloak and dagger, Mike?”

Sheriff Bridges handed him the camcorder. “See for yourself. Just hit the play button.”

It was dark. Maybe in a park. A young girl in a short skirt walked up to a lump of something on the ground and stopped. “That’s my niece, Shelby,” Sheriff Bridges said.

Whoever was operating the camera began speaking to someone. “Check it out! She’s standing right over him.”

“And that voice belongs to my son, Jimmy,” Winters said.

There was some off-camera snickering by at least two people as the girl poked the lump with the toe of her shoe. The lump on the ground moved. It was a man, a homeless guy, by all appearances.

The off-camera voice of Jimmy Winters said, “You believe this? She’s letting him look right up her skirt!” The snickers gave way to laughter.

The homeless man sat up, engaged the girl in conversation. She turned and walked—sashayed, really—toward the camera. As she got close, in better light under a streetlamp, Shelby Meyers came close to the camera and spoke directly into it. “He said okay,” she tossed her head back, laughing. “He said he’ll do it.”

“All right!” another off-camera voices said.

“You recognize that voice, Perry?” the sheriff asked.

Winters shook his head.

“I can’t believe she actually did that!” Jimmy’s voice again.

“Okay,” Winters said. “That was interesting, but not really all that much to it.”

“Oh, but wait,” Sheriff Bridges said. “There’s more.”

The next video was a bit of a shock to Winters. The sheriff had already seen it once, in his cruiser, so it didn’t have quite the impact as the first time. Still, it made him very uneasy.

Two homeless men, punching, kicking, gouging and grappling on the ground. A half-dozen or so young people shouting encouragement, laughing. A royal blue party van in the background, loud music coming from its audio system. Occasional lightning flashes.

“Bum fights,” Winters said. “Kids find a couple of homeless guys and give them a few bucks to kick one another’s teeth in. They get it on video, then post it on the internet.”

“What’s this world coming to?” Sheriff Bridges shook his head. “Every time I think I’ve seen it all . . .”

One of the men gained a distinct advantage over the other, and began pounding his opponent mercilessly. No one stepped in to stop it.

The man on the ground, in desperation, grabbed a rock and brought it square against the head of his attacker. And the fight was over.

Lots of cheers, whooping and shouting. And then, someone said, “Dude, I think this guy’s dead!”

Winters looked at the sheriff. “Idiots!”

“It gets worse,” Bridges said. And it did. The two men watched as the video continued. The argument over money. The discussion about the merits of calling 911. Jimmy Winters saying that he worked at the crematory.

And then, later, one more video clip. The chasing down of the lone survivor of the fight. Darkness, mostly. The only light came from headlamps on ATVs, occasional lightning, and a searchlight. That clip ended before they could catch him.

“I’m guessing this fellow they are chasing was the one that the security guard at Lanter Construction saw.”

Bridges nodded. “No doubt.”

“Anyone besides the two of us seen this?”

“Hamilton swore to God he hadn’t looked at it.”

“That’s good.”

“Except that when I picked it up at his house, it was fully charged and turned on.”

“We can’t let this come to the surface, Mike. It will destroy both our families,” Winters said. “Not to mention it could lead to other things coming to light. Things that could be very damaging to us both.”

“I agree.”

“Any idea who the other kids were? The ones that were off camera?”

“Shelby tried to lie at first. Made up some bullshit story about it being fake, but in the end . . . Well, she’s my sister’s baby, so I had to handle her with kid gloves. Let’s just say I convinced her that it was better to tell me than for someone else to find out.”

“So you got names?”

“I did.” The sheriff flipped open his note pad. “There were six, counting Jimmy and Shelby,” he said. “Chuck Coffey—”

“The basketball player? The one going to IU on a scholarship?”

“Yup. Benny Harris. Tina Gibson.”

“Don’t know either one of them,” Winters said. “Oh, wait . . . Tina Gibson . . . Would that be Wade and Cindy Gibson’s daughter?”

“Could be,” the sheriff said. “I’ll check.” He paused, made a note next to the name. “Doug Blanchette.  He’s no stranger to the department. We’ve busted him a few times for possession with intent to distribute. That was his party van. Dumbass kid. No job, drives something like that, with orange stripes that just scream ‘Look at me!’ and then can’t understand why we keep an eye on him. Who can afford a rig like that? You should see it. He’s got a bar and a plasma TV in there. Leather couch. Hell, there’s even a galley and a lav. Gotta be dealing. I can’t wait until we catch the little bastard transporting contraband in that van. I’ll confiscate it and use it for a mobile command post.” Bridges laughed. “Ten to one, he’s the one brought the party supplies.”

“Name doesn’t ring a bell,” Winters said. “That everyone?”

Sheriff Bridges nodded. “Yup. Except, Shelby talked with one of her friends.” He checked his notepad again. “Dani Henderson.”

“Oh, my God!” Winters exclaimed. “That’s our preacher’s daughter.”

“We have to get this under control, right away, Perry,” the sheriff said. “Painful as it may be.”

“I know,” Winters nodded. “And we need to assume the worst with regard to Mr. Hamilton.” Winters slammed the palm of his hand on the dashboard. “God damn it!” There was a long pause. Winters spoke again. “That’s where your friend comes in,” he said. “The one who helped us last August.”

Bridges nodded, grim-faced. “I’ll give him a call.” Then, as an afterthought, “but, just so you know, he’s not my friend.”

24

No two jobs are alike for a contract killer. That was what made it so interesting for the man in the silver Toyota Camry. It wasn’t the act of killing itself. Although he never hesitated to do it, he took no particular pleasure in it. It was the challenges that had to be overcome. The thrill of the hunt. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome,” like the Marines always say. Find a way to get it done. It was never personal, and he kept the suffering to an absolute minimum. It was a matter of professionalism, after all.

This particular job should not prove to be too difficult. All he had to do was stick around and kill the guy, do the one other job, and then go home and pack for his trip.

The hardest part was staying awake until the guy returned in his boat. He powered the Camry window down perhaps an inch, in order to better hear the outboard motor that would signal the approach of his intended target. It helped to think of those he was hired to kill as targets rather than people. And he never once considered any of them to be innocent victims. If they were really innocent, they would not have contracts on their lives. Except for the kids. But, he’d done it in the war and he’d told himself then that they were collateral casualties. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong parents. It had only gotten to him once. Now, every year, on the anniversary of his one big mistake, Jared Mulligan visited the grave of the innocent child he had buried in an unmarked grave in Illinois.

He looked at the photograph of the man he’d been sent to kill and thought, ‘Hmm. He looks a lot like me.’ Ironically, under other circumstances, he had killed a handful of other men throughout the country for no pay at all, for no other reason than they bore a striking resemblance to him. But not this fellow. He flipped the photograph over, looked at the name. This was work. And besides, Ty Hamilton had too much baggage.

Why anyone would be out on the water with a storm coming was beyond his imagination. Fishing and golf. Two completely different hobbies, but the people who pursued them all shared one thing in common. They were all raving lunatics.

A mosquito took advantage of the partially-opened driver’s-side window and flew inside the car to buzz around the inside of his ear. The man cursed, pressed a finger inside his ear to mash the mosquito, and closed the window. After a few minutes, the interior of the car began to get stuffy, or perhaps it was his imagination. Even as a child, he had always felt stifled in enclosed spaces. He started the engine. There was plenty of gas in the car, and he could sit there running the air conditioner for hours if necessary. It would increase the level of difficulty somewhat. With the window up and the air conditioner blower on, he would not hear the boat as it drew near. Backed into the parking space as he was, he should still have no problem seeing it.

He’d waited two hours already for this Hamilton guy, but that came with the job. Early on in his career, to avoid death by boredom, he’d learned to bring along a crossword puzzle or a book to help pass the time. Nowadays he carried an iPad with and plenty of e-books to choose from on the Kindle App.

He was more at home in the city, but this remote location did offer its advantages. For one, he could do his job without having to worry about witnesses. In an urban area, he would have to limit himself to minimal consumption of liquids while sitting in the car. When nature called, he would’ve had to make use of a wide-mouth plastic jug, something he never went without on such an assignment. He’d become quite adept at pissing in a jug while seated without getting any on himself. It was an acquired skill, although not one that would ever be found on a resume. Today, though, it didn’t matter. There was no one around, maybe for miles. No need to go without water and suffer dehydration headaches. He’d consumed three bottles, and now it was time to empty his bladder.

He left the key in the ignition—you never know when you’ll need to make a quick departure. As a precaution against locking himself out, he left the door slightly ajar. It would also allow him to get back in more quickly. Unnecessary precautions, perhaps, but precautions were what had kept him alive all this time. He walked a dozen yards or so away from the car to the boat launch, unzipped his fly and began to piss into the river, enjoying the freedom of being able to do such a thing in the great outdoors—it was a guy thing, he supposed—and just as he finished, he sensed rather than heard the presence of another.

Being a professional, he showed no outward sign of fear, nothing to betray any sense of alarm that he felt. He slowly, imperceptibly inhaled deeply, zipped up, and turned around. When he recognized the familiar face, he exhaled, and his shoulders sagged in relief. “Oh, it’s you!” he smiled. “Jesus, you scared the hell out of me.” Then, “What are you doing here?” He saw the hand move, knew what it meant, and dove into the river just as the forty-five caliber hollow point tore into his right shoulder.

25

Ty Hamilton

Heavy thunderstorms were rapidly approaching.  The weather system had come to life as a tropical depression in the Atlantic, built itself up to a tropical storm as it skirted through the Florida Straits, and eventually became a full-fledged hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. After making landfall in the Pensacola area and wreaking havoc on the Gulf coast, it had meandered up through the southern states. What was left of it was now working its way north into the Midwest, making the storm that had blown through my last night on the job look like a non-event. Judging by the darkening sky and the rumbling thunder, it was almost upon me.

I decided to call an early end to my day. The fishing hadn’t been all that good anyway. I’d caught and released a couple of catfish in the three to four pound range. With all the chemical runoff and sewage that gets in the water, it’s just not safe to eat anything taken from the river anymore.

My mind wasn’t really on fishing anyway. I went out on the river, as I often do, to just get away, to have a little time alone, sort things out. On the river, for me anyway, it seems like all things are possible. The river eventually feeds into the ocean. From there you can go anywhere. Do anything. Be whoever you want to be. You are free. All things are possible.

Just to give you an idea, here’s how the day that would forever change my life had started:

I’d just gotten back from taking Pepper for a walk so he could do his business, and was seated at the kitchen table eating cereal when my wife, Dianna shuffled into the kitchen in her bathrobe. She yawned and poured a cup of coffee, then turned her attention toward me. “What are you doing today?”

I shrugged. “Thought I might go fishing.”

“Fishing.” She sighed heavily, scowled and shook her head. “Heaven forbid you go out and look for a job,” she muttered.

“Sorry.” I said.

“And what exactly is it that are you sorry for, Ty?”

“For whatever I did. Or said. Or you dreamed that I did or said,” I replied, adding, “Sorry for believing that this time Travis was going to follow through on something. Sorry I took the security job. Definitely sorry I took the early retirement.” Sorry I walked across the room to introduce myself way back when. But I didn’t say that.

I stood there, imagining a parallel universe where Ty Hamilton had chosen Door Number 2, and stayed single, what his life must be like. Dianna rolled her eyes, slowly shook her head, and exhaled. “So now you wish you were still flying? All you used to talk about was how you couldn’t wait to retire.”

She had me there. For the last few years of my career, I was burned out. Being gone two weeks or more at a time, living out of a suitcase. Missing holidays, birthdays and anniversaries. Battling thunderstorms, gusty crosswinds on snow-packed runways, icing, freezing rain, and fog. Suffering sleep deprivation and, every now and then, a copilot with a bad attitude. Like many airline pilots, I no longer appreciated the good things—flying jets around the world, going places other people only read about or see on television, staying in four and five star hotels, making damn good money. I thought I was burned out on flying. Turns out, all I really needed was a long vacation.

“I just wanted more time at home,” I said as I took my empty bowl to rinse it and put it in the dishwasher, the way Dianna insisted on doing it. Rinse it clean and then put it in the dishwasher. I never saw the point in that, but after thirty-plus years living with a woman, you learn to go with the flow.

Dianna leaned back against the kitchen counter, sipping from her “World’s Greatest Mom” cup. She wasn’t aware of it, but her robe was slightly open, accidentally giving me a peek at her ample bosom.  Seeing her like that, I felt something stirring south of my belt buckle. Despite the fact that we appeared to be heading for another argument, I decided to turn on the old Hamilton charm, make my best move on her, knowing the odds were against success. “And now I can spend some of that time with the woman I love,” I said as I slipped both arms around her and leaned in for a kiss.”

She turned her head. “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

“A little morning breath never killed anyone.” I leaned in again.

“Look, I’m just not in the mood today, Ty.” She slipped out of my grasp and left me standing there.

“Help me out here, Dianna,” I said. “I’m trying to remember the last time you were in the mood. Two months ago? No, longer than that. More like three, maybe four?”

“Enjoy your fishing trip,” she said, her voice dull, monotone.

I reached out, gently placed my hand on her upper arm. “Look,” I said. “Getting fired hurts. Even from a dead-end job that pays peanuts. I’m going to give myself a few days, okay?” I said.  “I need to lick my wounds. Get my head back on straight. I don’t want to just jump at the first thing that comes along.” “Plus, I am a bit overqualified for most jobs . . . You know how it is.”

Dianna wasn’t ready to declare a truce. “I do know how it is, Tyler,” she said. “I know you should be out looking for a job. I know you should sell that stupid boat! And get rid of your motorcycle! Why a man your age thinks he has any business riding around on one of those things is beyond me. I’ll tell you one thing—I’m not going to be the one spoon-feeding you and wiping your ass for the next twenty years if you wrap that thing around a tree and are paralyzed from the neck down.

“And, I know why you don’t want to go looking for a job. You’re used to being in charge. You were a captain for what, twenty years? And the idea of taking orders from someone else is hard for you to accept.”

“Well hell, Di,” I lashed out. “I should be used to taking orders by now. I’ve been married to you for thirty-some years.”

I had done it again. Dianna glared at me. She said nothing, just turned and walked away, back toward the bedroom. The bedroom I would not likely see anytime soon.

I hated to admit it, but she was right. An older guy like me, with my background, would not be inclined to take any crap from some snot-nosed twenty-something MBA middle-management asswipe.

So, that is how people like me end up working security jobs all alone in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. Except now I wasn’t even doing that. I’d been fired. There is nothing worse than a man with time on his hands.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (16-20)

Walkabout

Taking a Mulligan

Wayne Baker writing as Austin Jett

16

Ty Hamilton

“Did you get the promotion?” Dianna asked.

“No.”

“Who’d they give it to? Not that new guy, the one that resigned from the Muncie PD? You know, the one all those rumors are about?”

“No. Well, maybe. I don’t know who they gave it to. I just know it wasn’t me.”

“I thought you said—”

“I know what I said!” I shouted, and regretted it immediately. “Sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

“You’re right. I didn’t.” There was an awkward silence. Dianna finally ended it. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“I got fired.”

“What?”

“Fired.”

“Fired? Why?”

I shook my head, “Evidently they don’t want their security officers calling 911 when they hear gunshots or find intruders on the property.”

“What?” Dianna’s jaw dropped. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You thinking about flying again?” she asked. “I saw Fred Jones at church last Sunday. He said to tell you to let him know anytime you want to come to work for him.”

“I do not want to be a flight instructor,” I said.

“Why not? With all your experience, you’d be great. You were always good with the kids at the martial arts school, teaching them while you were working toward earning your black belt. I remember at one time you were even talking about running your own school when you retired.”

“I did kick that idea around. But that was a long time ago. I’m out of shape, now. And rusty. I haven’t been to a class in at least three years.”

Dianna sighed. I could tell she was losing her patience. “Well, I still think you should at least go talk to Fred.”

“Nothing against Chandelle Aviation. I think Fred’s flight school is a good one. But, Dianna, I did the flight   instructor thing all those years ago, when I was just starting out. It’s a time-building job. Not something you do when you have thousands of hours in jets.”

“Reality Alert!” Dianna shouted, extending both hands upward with the fingers spread. “You don’t fly jets! You are not a 767 captain anymore, Ty. You’re not a pilot at all now. You could pass on some of what you learned over the years to new pilots if you’d just get over yourself.” Dianna paused, allowing what she’d said to soak in.  “And let’s face it,” she said, “It can’t pay any worse than your security job,” she said. “I know you miss flying. I see you looking at that web site on the internet every day.”

“Yeah. Most of the good jobs are overseas. But, I’m too old.”

Dianna said, “What do you mean, too old? They raised the retirement age to sixty-five. You’re barely sixty.”

“Sixty-one,” I reminded her. “I had another birthday last week.” I let that hang in the air for a few seconds. Dianna hadn’t even wished me Happy Birthday. Must have slipped her mind. “But to get hired in China, where the big money is, you have to be under fifty-five. Some of the jobs, they want you to be under fifty.”

“That doesn’t seem right.”

“I guess it makes sense, if you think about it. They don’t want to invest in your training and then only get a couple years of service out of you,” I said. “Plus, China’s a helluva commute. Six weeks on. Two weeks off. Spend half your off time just getting back and forth from home to work and resetting your body clock.” I sighed, shook my head. “So, I keep looking, hoping something local might come up.” I shrugged. “You know, part-time corporate or maybe fixed base operator manager.”

Dianna shook her head and gave me “the wife look”—if you’re married, you know what I mean—her eyebrows narrowed together as one uni-brow, her lips pressed together like a duck’s bill. She sighed, “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Ty. I just know you need to do something. You’re too young to sit around the house all day. And we do need the money.” There was a pause. I knew what was coming. Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . . “Need I remind you we are two months behind on our house payment?”

“No,” I said, “you don’t need to remind me, but I appreciate the fact that you do anyway, at least once a day. We’ll be okay. I still have my pension.”

“And your motorcycle,” she said. “And your boat. And your spending habits!”

“My spending habits?”

“When you were flying, and you wanted something, like your fishing boat, all you had to do was pick up some overtime, fly an extra trip or two every month. It didn’t bother me then, but your pension is nothing compared to what you used to make when you were flying.”

I sucked in my cheeks, not wanting to say anything that would throw us into a full-fledged argument.

“What?” Dianna put a hand on her hip. Her eyes were narrowed. “You have something to say?”

“You’re a fine one to talk about spending habits,” I said, unable to keep it bottled up inside me.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” I said. “You were the one who couldn’t be happy living in the old house. Remember? The one that was all paid for? No mortgage?”

“It was too small, Ty, and what, a hundred years old?”

“It was in my family for four generations,” I said. “My father was born in that house.”

“We needed an upgrade,” she said, sticking her chin out defiantly. I swear, every time she does that, I think of Jackie Gleason making a fist and saying, “To the moon, Alice!”

“And a big, new house wasn’t enough,” I pressed on, not knowing when to quit. “You had to have a nice new, state of the art barn and stables, complete with an indoor riding arena.”

“If I’m going to show my horses at the highest level, I have to train year-round.”

“Just saying, I think the one with the spending problem is you, not me,” I said.

“You were the one making the money, Ty,” she said.

“True that,” I said, “And—”

“And you were the one who walked away from it. And you are the one who needs to figure it out before the bank takes it all away!” She glared at me, burning a hole through me with her eyes. “I don’t do poverty, Ty.”

My lower lip began to tremble a bit. It was embarrassing. Why was I having this type of reaction? I didn’t even like the security job. I suppose it was a matter of pride. I’d been fired. Me. A former airline captain. Fired from a minimum-wage security job. It was humiliating.

When I took the early retirement, I thought I had the money issues all worked out. My pension, Dianna’s job, and the additional income began coming in from the business that our son Travis and I were starting up should cover everything with plenty to spare. But then, Travis quit, and that was the end of that.

“You need to quit feeling sorry for yourself and get out there and do something with the rest of your life, Tyler Hamilton.”

“But—”

“Don’t give me ‘but’,” Dianna said. “Give me back the man I married.” And then, she left the room.

“I don’t know if I can find him,” I said to myself. “Hell, I don’t even know where to look.”

17

Ty Hamilton

It wasn’t the first time Dianna and I had argued about money. I didn’t want to give up my toys any more than she wanted to give up her show horses. I looked out the kitchen window just in time to see Dallas Remington brake his shiny new Chevy Silverado to a stop in front of the barn at the bottom of the hill.  I felt a sneer forming on my face as I exhaled a steady flow of hatred from my nostrils.

I had a bit of a dilemma, which had nothing to do with either Dallas Remington or Dianna. There was a video camera in my possession which didn’t belong to me. I had found it while trespassing, so I didn’t know if that would be considered stealing or not. Or if, under the circumstances, it would be admissible as evidence. I supposed that I could take it back, after dark, and put it in the general area where I’d found it. Leave it there for whomever had dropped it to find if and when they came back looking for it.

Or, I could pitch it in the dumpster and forget about it.  Why shouldn’t I? It was really none of my business, now that I’d been fired.

But I had seen a man, injured and bleeding, whether anyone else believed me or not. And I had heard a gunshot. Found and followed a blood trail that led me right to the camera. I couldn’t just let it go.

18

Ty Hamilton

The Page County Sheriff Department’s recorded message said if I had an emergency to hang up and call 911. From there, it prompted me on how to reach the party I wanted, or to stay on the line for dispatch. I left a message for Deputy Smiley. “This is Ty Hamilton, formerly of Sheepdog Security. I was the officer on duty at Lanter Construction the other night. I’ve found something that I believe will collaborate what I told you. A video camera. I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call.” I left my number and hung up.

19

Sheriff Mike Bridges removed his duty belt and placed it on his desk. He plopped down onto his chair and started rummaging through his desk drawers in search of some aspirin to combat his headache. There was a knock. Suzanne Smiley, one of his veteran deputies, stood in the doorway. “Got a minute, Sheriff?”

“What’s on your mind, Suzanne?”

“I just retrieved a voice mail from the security officer out at Lanter Construction, Ty Hamilton.”

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Sheriff Bridges said. “I spoke to Bobby Lanter, and he called the security company—which one did you say it was?”

“Sheepdog.”

“What a dumbass name for a company. Anyway, they canned him. There’ll be someone else out there from now on. Hopefully someone not so jumpy.”

“All good and fine,” Smiley said, “but he said in his message that he’d found something after I left. A video camera.”

The sheriff stiffened. “He say anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Did he check to see if anything was on it?”

Deputy Smiley shook her head. “Didn’t say. You want me to go get it, take a look at it? He lives in Hickory Hills.”

“I’m heading out that way in a few minutes anyway,” the sheriff said. “I’ll swing by and talk to him. See what this is all about.”

“You’re the boss,” Smiley said, and left him there alone with his throbbing headache.

20

Ty Hamilton

The dog went nuts when the doorbell rang. Why we had to keep a dog in the house when we lived out in the country was beyond me. But Dianna insisted. “Shut up, Pepper!” I shouted. I looked through the peephole, saw it was a cop, and opened the door.

“I’m Sheriff Bridges,” he said. “Are you Mr. Hamilton? Ty Hamilton?”

I nodded. “That’s me.” Pepper was barking louder now, using me as a shield between himself and the sheriff. I noticed the sheriff’s hand resting on his gun, and remembered him having used it on a couple occasions. Once when a suspect he was apprehending tried to take his gun from him. During the struggle, the suspect was shot. Twice. Which seemed odd to me, but the subsequent investigation cleared Sheriff Bridges of any wrongdoing. The other time, I seemed to recall, another suspect had been shot and killed while trying to escape. Again, the shooting was ruled justifiable. So, it seemed, Sheriff Bridges was a good cop. Just don’t screw with him.

Pepper was getting louder now, and I needed to do something about it. “Hang on a second,” I said, “while I put Cujo in his cage.” I grabbed Pepper by the collar and drug him to the wire kennel in the family room that we keep for just such occasions.

With Pepper inside, I slid the kennel latches closed and turned to go back to the door. In the process I nearly bumped into the sheriff, who’d walked into the house uninvited. It kind of pissed me off, but I supposed it was only a minor breach of etiquette.

“What can I do for you, Sheriff?” I said.

“Deputy Smiley said you found something?” he sniffed. “She had some other duties to attend to. I told her I’d swing by to see you.”

Since he was already in the house, and Pepper had stopped barking, and I couldn’t think of any reason not to invite the sheriff to have a seat at the kitchen table. “Make yourself comfortable,” I said, nodding to the nearest chair, “while I fetch the camera from my office.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything on here that will be of any use to you or not,” I said as I handed it over to him a minute or so later.

“You mean you haven’t looked at it?” he asked.

“No,” I said, “I haven’t.” And it was true. The camera was identical to the one that Travis owned. I had found his charger cord and a USB cord and plugged them in, then uploaded—or was it downloaded? I can never keep it straight—all the video content onto my computer. But, I had not looked at it. Not yet. And I might never. I wasn’t nearly as curious about it today.

“Where did you find this, Mr. Hamilton?” the sheriff asked.

“On the property next to where I was working.”

“Lanter Construction, right?”

I nodded. “Right. Not any longer, though,” I said, not bothering to conceal my displeasure. “Not since someone from your department complained about me making one too many calls.”

The sheriff tilted his head up, stuck his chin outward and said, “That someone would be me.”

I elected to drop the subject. “Anyway, yeah, I found it in the pasture behind the crematory.”

“What were you doing back there?”

“Following a blood trail.”

“A blood trail?”

“After your deputy left, I decided to have a look. See what I could find.”

“And what did you find?”

I pointed to the camera. “That.”

“You are aware that you were trespassing?” The sheriff’s expression let me know that he was dead serious. “And the owner of the property could have you arrested?”

“Is that why you’re here today, Sheriff?” I said. “To arrest me?”

“Just consider it a friendly warning. A word to the wise,” he said. “No sense blowing things out of proportion. You did the right thing, bringing this to our attention.” He stood, and we shook hands.

“You have a good day now, Mr. Hamilton.”

“Same to you. You be careful out there,” I said, and immediately had a flashback to Hill Street Blues.

Halfway out the door, the sheriff stopped. “You sure you haven’t looked at this?”

“Swear to God,” I said.

“Anyone else?”

“No one but you and Deputy Smiley even know that I had it.”

He nodded, then left my house without another word.

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (11-15)

 Walkabout

Taking a Mulligan

Wayne Baker writing as Austin Jett

11

Ty Hamilton

After thinking about it while finishing breakfast and on the way home, I felt I had a pretty good idea why Larry had called me in. They were looking for someone to take on the role of staff trainer. Most of the other officers in our company were half my age or younger, and I figured that, with my maturity, I was the logical choice. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take it on, though, what with all the extra hours I’d be working. But it would be mostly days, which would be better than third shift, and I expected the pay would be better as well. I had a figure that I was going to hold out for, but hoped Larry would make an offer first, just in case they were willing to pay me more than I was planning to ask.

The office of Sheepdog Security was located in a corporate suite on the fifth floor of a large office building on the outskirts of town. I arrived seven minutes early, in uniform, shoes polished, shirt and pants ironed with razor-sharp creases. I wanted to look my best. Over my shoulder, I carried my backpack with the video camera inside.

I knocked and let myself into the suite. “Hey, Carly.” I greeted the receptionist. I could see by her expression that she did not immediately recognize me. “I’m Ty,” I said. “Ty Hamilton. I’m here to see Larry Maxwell.”

“Oh. Yes,” she raised her eyebrows, and quickly glanced at the only other person in the room, one of our sales people whose name I couldn’t remember. I gave him a nod, then turned my attention back to Carly, who said, “Mr. Maxwell will be out in a moment. Make yourself comfortable Mr. . . . I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“Hamilton,” I said. That was the thing about working night shift, especially at a remote location such as my post. No one knew you. For that matter, the only ones I sort of knew were my boss, Larry Maxwell, and my immediate supervisor, Jazi, (pronounced Yazzy) a petite Latina ex-Army MP in her mid-twenties who had swung by my post only once in the past four months while I was on duty.

I only remembered Carly because when I’d interviewed, she had been there and we’d chatted a bit before I went in. She looked enough like Carly Simon that I was able to make a connection somewhere in my brain which allowed me to remember her name. That, and she was hot. Guys always remember hot chicks.

Of course she was in her early twenties and when I’d mentioned to her during our chat that she resembled Carly Simon, she had no idea who I was referring to. Clearly, I had not made much of an impression on her. I took a seat and checked e-mail on my cellphone.

Halfway into my third e-mail, Larry Maxwell came out into the lobby. “Come on in, Ty.” To Carly, he said, “Tell Georgia that Ty is here.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “This shouldn’t take long, but if Harold Carter calls, transfer it over to me. I need to talk to him ASAP about covering a couple of shifts for us until we get someone permanent.”

12

Ty Hamilton

I walked into Larry Maxwell’s office, which was sparsely appointed, to say the least. His desk consisted of a folding table, like the kind the wrestlers on TV are always slamming one another into, and a high-back swivel chair on caster wheels. Other than that, there were only a couple of folding chairs and a few certificates on the wall. He motioned to a folding chair and said, “Georgia should be here in a—” before he could complete the sentence, she walked into the room. I stood, shook her hand, smiled and said hello. She smiled graciously, her eyes glancing from me to Larry, and back to me again.

Georgia Adams was the head of HR at Sheepdog Security, and the kind of woman you would never forget. She was tall—I guessed maybe six feet in her bare feet. In her heels, she was more like six-three or six-four. She wore a black leather skirt that was short enough to get attention but long enough not to raise eyebrows. A red silk blouse complimented her honey bronze complexion, fitting snugly enough to cause me to stare a bit longer than I should. There was just a hint of perfume that accompanied her. I can’t tell one fragrance from another, but I know I liked it. I had smelled it before, but couldn’t remember when.

It seemed only fitting to me that Georgia would be joining us. If I accepted the offer of the promotion, she would need to discuss the compensation package—salary, benefits, job description, et cetera. I liked the way I felt at that moment. Important to the growth of the company, a respected member of the team, recognized and appreciated. I felt myself smiling, for maybe the first time in months. Heading up the training department of a security company wasn’t quite up there with being an airline captain, but it was a position of prestige and authority. I was wrapped up in a warm and fuzzy moment. So much so that when Maxwell said, “There’s no sense beating around the bush, Ty. We are letting you go,” I jerked back as if hit in the head by a two-by-four, and came dangerously close to tipping over backward in my chair.

My jaw dropped. “What? . . .  Why?” I asked.

“I got a call from Bobby Lanter this morning,” Maxwell said. “He’s been hearing from the sheriff. They are tired of getting called out to his place of business for no good reason. They’ve got other calls to answer.”

“I’ve called them exactly twice,” I said. “Once for a gunshot.”

“Everyone out there in that part of the county owns at least three guns, Ty.”

“And the other was for an intruder,” I said, leaning back in my chair, extending my hands out, palms up. “What exactly did you hire me to do out there, Larry?”

“Deputy Smiley found nothing to indicate that there was an intruder anywhere on the property.”

“But—”

Maxwell cut me off with the ‘Talk to the hand’ gesture.. “There was a break-in at the pharmacy on the east side of town while a deputy was dealing with your call Saturday morning. The only other deputy on duty at that hour was at the scene of a fatal accident out near the county line. By the time anyone responded, the perps had already gotten away.”

“Smiley wouldn’t even let me show her where I saw the guy,” I said. “And oh, by the way, after she left, I heard a gunshot.”

“Oh, really?” Maxwell shook his head and sighed. “Another gunshot, Ty?” He made a show of looking through my duty log. “I don’t see anything here about a gunshot, or reporting it to the Sheriff’s Department.”

“I didn’t call it in because I knew they wouldn’t take it seriously,” I said. “So I decided to do some looking around on my own.”

Maxwell sighed heavily. “What did you do, Ty?”

“I went back to where I’d seen the man. I shined my flashlight around, and found a few drops of blood.”

“Out in the country. Lots of animals hunting one another for food. Could have been a bobcat killed a rabbit. Rabbits bleed too, you know.”

He was patronizing me. I didn’t appreciate it, but I stayed calm, refusing to let him get under my skin. “I followed a blood trail,” I said. “Not a lot, just a few drops here and there, all the way to the perimeter fence. There was some material, like from clothing, on the barbed wire. And the blood trail went further, back into the field behind the crematory.”

Maxwell leaned forward, placed his right elbow on the table and stroked his chin. “You’re telling me you abandoned your post? That you trespassed on the property next door?”

“I was following a blood trail, Larry,” I said. “And I found something more. A video camera. I think the Sheriff should have a look at it.”

“I didn’t see any of this in your activity report.” He thumped it twice with his middle and forefinger for emphasis.

“I didn’t think anyone would take it seriously.”

“And you would be correct in your thinking.” Maxwell leaned back in his chair. “So you figured you would do a little investigating on your own, is that it?”

I could feel my face flushing crimson, sweat beading on my forehead. I was not going to be the head of training. I was not going to be a security officer for Sheepdog. I was done, and I knew it. With my last ounce of defiance, I said, “So you’re firing me because the Sheriff’s department is understaffed?”

“You know they’re covering for the city now, too, what with all the budget cuts last year.” Maxwell waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not going to debate the issue, Ty. You’re fired!”

There was no point in showing him the video camera. He had no interest in it. I sat there, jaw clenched, staring straight ahead, listening numbly as Georgia Adams explained the severance package—something highly unusual, she told me, for a part-time employee, but they wanted to “do right” by me. I nodded a lot, staring out the window, thinking how humiliating this was, being fired from a dead-end job that only paid a few cents an hour over minimum wage. When she finished, I stood, shook hands with them and mumbled something to the effect of “no hard feelings,” then started to leave.

“Um, Ty?” Georgia said, “We need your employee badge and your uniform.

“Okay,” I nodded. I removed my badge, which was clipped to my shirt pocket, and placed it with care on Maxwell’s table. I was wearing my uniform, so there was an awkward moment as I weighed my options.

Georgia read my mind. “You can drop it off tomorrow.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I just nodded.

13

Page County Sheriff Mike Bridges parked his cruiser in the driveway. Two large dogs raced up to meet him, stopping only a few feet away, barking ferociously. Instinctively, the sheriff placed a hand on his .40 caliber Glock.

“Bandit! Oscar!” the woman standing on the porch shouted. “Shut up!” The two mongrels momentarily looked away from the sheriff to their owner, then resumed barking.

“Easy there,” Sheriff Bridges spoke to the dogs in a calm, steady voice. He had dealt with this sort of thing many times during his twenty-three years in law enforcement. Don’t look a threatening dog in the eye. Don’t smile, or they will think you are baring your teeth, challenging them. Step back slowly, in a relaxed manner. And never, ever, turn your back to them. Every now and then, even if you followed all these guidelines, you still had to shoot one.

The woman hustled down the porch steps to the water spigot on the side of her house, grabbed the nozzle of the garden hose and began spraying the dogs. Bandit and Oscar decided their owner had things under control and it was time for them to move on. “Sorry about that, Mikey,” the woman said.

The sheriff brought his hand away from his duty weapon.  “No problem, April,” he said. “I guess you don’t need a home security system with them around.”

“Nobody’s gonna sneak up on me, that’s for sure,” she said. “Thanks for coming all the way out here.”

“I need to get out of the office every now and then,” he said. And it was true. April Meyers, the sheriff’s sister, lived a good twenty minutes out of town, and the drive through the country always helped him clear his head.

“Dispatch said you told them it was important, but not an emergency. And that you’d only talk to me,” he said as April gave him a hug. He wrapped one arm around her, kissed the top of her head and sniffed. “You smell good. Glad to know you’re still off the cigarettes.”

“Six months now,” she said as they made their way up the steps. “Still want one now and then, but I know that I don’t dare. Like they say, ‘One’s too many, and ten thousand’s not nearly enough.” She held the screen door open for her brother and motioned him in. “I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee on if you’d care for a cup.”

The sheriff stepped into the kitchen, pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and nodded. “I’ll take you up on that.” His eyes were drawn to the photograph on the refrigerator as his sister went to the cupboard for a cup. Three smiling faces. April, her husband Raymond, and their daughter, Shelby. “How long’s it been?” he asked, “since Raymond passed?”

“Two years next Wednesday,” April said, setting the steaming cup on the table. “I still miss him.”

“I always liked him. He was a good man,” the sheriff said. “Took good care of you. And Shelby.”

April nodded. “Not every man would have wanted a ready-made family. He was her daddy from day one.” She looked at the picture, and sighed heavily. “Cancer doesn’t care how good you are. It just takes you because it can,” she said. “It’s on account of Raymond I gave up smoking. He was so worried that Shelby would be orphaned if I kept it up. Took me a while to do it, but I’m done with cigarettes for good.”

April placed a steaming cup on the table for him. “So tell me, how are your boys doing?”

“Okay, I guess,” he said. “Mike Junior is in the Coast Guard. Training to become a rescue swimmer. And Randy works for his father-in-law—He’s a contractor in Indianapolis—installing gutters on houses and commercial buildings. His wife’s a dental assistant.”

“You tell them hello for me. And if I ever hear that they come back to Page without looking up their aunt, they’ll be in more trouble than they can handle.”

“Okay, I’ll tell them,” he said, then sighed heavily. “Oh, hell, April. The truth is I don’t talk to either one of them all that much since I split with their mother.”

“Understandable.”

“It’s like they blame me for us breaking up.”

“Well, duh!” April said, smacking her older brother on the forehead. “Ya think?”

She had him there, and the sheriff had nothing to come back with. After a long moment, he said, “Am I here on family business, or police business, April?”

“A little of both.”

14

“You know how kids talk,” April began.

The sheriff nodded.

April sighed. “Half of what they say is half true. The rest is complete bullshit.”

“I find that’s true of most people,” he said. “Not just kids.”

“Well, I was taking a load of laundry down the hall to the utility room this morning, and as I went past Shelby’s door I could hear her talking on the phone. You know, to one of her friends?”

He nodded again. “And what did you hear that you were not supposed to hear?”

April sighed, looked out the window. “It’s probably nothing, Mike. But if there’s a chance that it’s true . . .”

Her brother waited. This wasn’t the time to press her. April was not a suspect under interrogation. She was under no obligation to tell him anything. She would tell him more if he let her do it in her own time.

“Mike, I think she may has seen something. Something really bad.”

15

Perry Winters had just returned from the cemetery and parked the hearse in its usual spot, next to the sidewalk that lead to his office at Winters-Snowden Funeral Home. He sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, looking straight ahead. Twenty-six years in the funeral business—half of which he had also served as county coroner—had conditioned him to dealing with death, but every now and then, it hit him hard. Like today. Laying to rest twin sisters, three years of age, victims of a fiery hit and run out on Round Barn Road. Their father had managed to get out of the car, but couldn’t get to the girls. He was still in critical condition with third degree burns and a bleak prognosis. Poor guy couldn’t even make it to the funeral, to say goodbye to his babies. Senseless.

A sheriff’s cruiser backed into the spot next to him. Winters got out of the hearse, offered his right hand. “Afternoon, Sheriff,”

Mike Bridges nodded, shook the coroner’s hand. “How you doin’ today, Perry?”

“I’ve had better days.”

“Carmichael twins?”

Winters nodded. “I hope you catch the son of a bitch, Mike.”

“We will,” Sheriff Bridges said. “Well, between me and you, I hope we will. We’ve got a couple of witnesses. And all the body shops are looking for anything matching the description coming in for body work on the right front. Hopefully somethin’ will turn up. These things take time.”

“I suppose so,” Winters nodded thoughtfully. “But that’s not what brought you here, is it?”

“No.” The sheriff shook his head.  “No, Perry, it isn’t. We need to talk, privately.”

“Come on in to my office.”

Winters led the way up the sidewalk to a door off to the side of the main entrance. He removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and made his way to the coffee pot that sat on a table along the wall.

“What can I do for you today, Mike?” Winters asked, as he poured coffee into his favorite cup. “Care for a cup?”

“No thanks. Already had my limit for the day,” Sheriff Bridges said. “We may have a problem, Perry.”

“What sort of problem?” Winters said, taking a seat in the swivel chair behind his hardwood desk. He invited the sheriff to sit across from him with a gesture. “Somebody wanting more money?” From time to time, the sheriff and the coroner had supplemented their incomes by taking advantage of the opportunities that fell into their laps during the performance of their sworn duties. It was seldom, if ever, legal. Almost always lucrative. Every now and then, it was necessary to pay certain associates in order to keep the wheels turning. Share the wealth, so to speak.

“No, nothing like that.”

Winters took a sip, made a bitter face, and then sat the cup off to the side, nearly out of reach. “David makes the worst coffee. He’s a damn good assistant funeral director, though. I’d have a hell of a time running this business without him. I’m thinking of offering him a partnership, so he won’t go somewhere else. Lord knows my boy Jimmy doesn’t want anything to do with running this business when I retire.” He took another sip, made another sour face. “Well, if it’s not money, what then?”

“It is a family thing.”

“Yours, or mine?”

“Both,” Sheriff Bridges said. “Your son. My niece.”

“My boy knock her up?” Winters shook his head. “That little son of a bitch! I told him once, I told him a thousand times, if you’re gonna do that, you gotta—”

“No, no. Nothing thing like that,” the sheriff waved both hands back and forth, cutting Winters off. “At least as far as I know.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“Actually it’s more serious, Perry.”

“Mike, I’ve known you a long time. You’re not one to beat around the bush. Out with it.”

Sheriff Bridges stood up, walked to the window, peered out through the blinds, then crossed the room and opened the door to check the hallway. Satisfied that no one was around to overhear him, he said, “My niece, April’s girl, Shelby. . . she and your boy were out partying with some friends. The kind of friends that aren’t good for them, if you know what I mean.”

“And?”

“And they got into some booze. A little weed.”

“As kids will do.”

“As kids will do,” Sheriff Bridges agreed. “But then they picked up a couple of homeless guys. Paid them to fight. Your son got it on video.”

“Okay, not good,” Winters said.

“I had to lean heavy on Shelby,” Bridges said. “Made her see me not as her Uncle Mike, but as Sheriff Bridges. Made her see that she’d be better off telling me everything.”

“How’d that work out?”

“Oh, at first she thought she could lie her way out of it. But when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you can smell bullshit a mile away. She eventually told me enough that I could start putting the pieces together.”

Winters removed his tie, undid the button on his shirt collar. “And what did she tell you?”

“The fight got out of control. One of the homeless guys got killed.”

“Jesus.”

“So instead of calling it in and giving us a chance to sort things out, they took matters into their own hands.” Bridges paused, rubbed his hand across his mouth. “In fact it was your son came up with the idea how to destroy the evidence, get rid of the body.”

Winters inhaled deeply, closed his eyes for a moment, then let it out slowly through his nose. “The crematory.”

Bridges nodded. “The crematory.”

WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (6-10)

 Walkabout

Taking a Mulligan

Wayne Baker writing as Austin Jett

6

He ran through the pasture. Slipped on a cow pie and slid. His leg shot out, his back twisted, and he pulled something. As best he could, he kept moving. After a while, he came to a woven wire fence topped with two strands of barbed wire. He started to climb. The woven wire gave way, and he slipped. His sleeve got caught in the barbed wire. They were coming on ATV’s, shining high intensity spotlights at they searched for him, getting close now.

He yanked his sleeve free from the barbed wire, struggled over the fence. A spotlight found him. “There he is!” someone shouted. The light stayed with him. He could hear the sound of someone running behind him, vaulting the fence, landing with a solid thud, running again. He kept hobbling, not daring to look back. He stumbled and fell.

Up ahead was the beam of headlights. Lightning. Flashlight beam. He stopped. So did the sound of the footsteps from behind.

7

Ty Hamilton

The trees were swaying wildly, like those inflatable air dancers that you see at car dealerships, and the first heavy raindrops began to fall. Remembering that I had left my car windows down. I decided to forget about the supposed poachers. Just as I turned to head back up the hill, there was a blood-curdling “Mreeeeyoww!” and a loud crash in the brush.

In the space of about half a second, I wheeled around, saw the beam of my flashlight illuminate a man, bloody, with fear in his eyes. I nearly soiled my pants.

I dropped my searchlight as I turned to flee, ran into a low-lying tree limb, and flipped ass-over-teakettle onto the ground. I could hear the cat scurrying away in the brush.

8

Ty Hamilton

I struggled to get back up on my feet, fumbling for the backup flashlight on my duty belt. I shined the light at the spot where I had seen the intruder. Then, scanned the area. He was gone.

I got back into my car and drove down to the gate just in case I needed to get the hell out of there in a hurry. Then, I made the 911 call. Gave them my name, identified myself as a security officer employed by Sheepdog Security, and my location, Lanter Construction on County Road 564. I told the dispatcher what I had seen and heard. He said they would send someone out. This time, it took nearly half an hour, and by the time the Sheriff Department cruiser arrived the storm had blown through. Ordinarily, I would have done a thorough check around the buildings for wind damage, but I didn’t want to risk missing the deputy, or worse, running into the intruder I’d seen.

Deputy Smiley again. Just my luck. “I hear you had some more excitement,” Smiley said as she pulled alongside and powered her window down.

Her sarcastic tone did not go unnoticed. I chose to ignore it. “A little less than an hour ago, I heard some thrashing in the brush, and saw some lights in the field over there, to the north.” I proceeded to give her my account of what had happened, with emphasis on the bleeding, half-naked man who had been there one moment and gone the next. She pretended to listen, but did not pretend to be interested, or for that matter, to believe me. The stern facial expression I remembered from before hadn’t changed since our first meeting. I try not to judge people by appearance, but she had a face that could make a freight train take a dirt road.

She said, “I’ll go have a look around.”

“You want me to ride along? Show you where I saw him?” There would most certainly be a blood trail. Maybe I could help her find it.

“Hmfff!” Deputy Smiley snorted, then said condescendingly. “Not necessary.” I swear I thought I saw just a hint of a bemused smile in the corner of her mouth. To my surprise, there was no sound of her face cracking.

To her credit, Deputy Smiley did a reasonably thorough search of the property, short of allowing me to show her where to look for blood that would verify my story. She drove down all the little side roads, shining her spotlight, looking, seeing nothing. I sat there, in my car with the engine running, filling out my activity report.

2300: Signed on post. Patrolled property. Checked all doors locked and secure. All clear at 2325.

0010: Patrolled property in golf cart. All clear at 0022.

0210: Patrolled property on foot. Heard thrashing in bushes at north end of property. Observed lights of all-terrain vehicles on neighboring property to the north. Observed a male subject—white or possibly Hispanic—mid-twenties.

0220: Called 911. Reported intruder on property.

02:49 Page County Sheriff Department arrived.

After approximately fifteen minutes, Officer Smiley returned. “I didn’t see anything,” she said as she handed me her business card with the Sheriff Department logo and contact information, her name and badge number, and the incident number, which she had scribbled on the appropriate blank spot. ”Guess I don’t have to tell you to call us if anything else comes up.”

I smiled and nodded. “I have your number.”

03:14 Sheriff Department found no signs of intruder. Departed property.

I’d no sooner made the entry than a gunshot pierced the air. For the briefest of moments, I considered making another 911 call, decided against it. I rolled up my windows, and turned on the radio, ignored the headlights of the three vehicles on the property next door racing out toward the road. I closed my eyes with the intent to nap for the rest of my shift.   But, of course, I couldn’t. I really did try, but I couldn’t.

9

Ty Hamilton

I started the day in a good mood. I had slept well, and after awakening, I dropped in to Trudy’s Uptown Diner for some ham and hash browns with eggs over easy. I said hello to a few friends who came and went, but mostly I kept to myself, thinking about last night’s shift.

After the deputy had left the property, I couldn’t help myself. I went back to the spot where I had seen the intruder. There were blood droplets on the ground, and I had followed them, remembering the recent gunshot but ignoring any danger that might exist. The blood trail led me into the pasture behind the crematory next door to Lanter Construction.

I knew better, but I gave in to the urge to climb the barbed wire fence and snoop around. I was startled by the sight of a large puddle of blood maybe two hundred feet from where I’d crossed the fence. Shining my flashlight around, I spotted a spent shotgun shell. And a video camera. I took my cell phone, punched 9. Then 1. And then deleted the numbers and put the phone back in my pocket.

10

Ty Hamilton

It was my day off, and a nice one at that—clear skies and a forecasted high in the low seventies. My clubs were in the back of the car, next to my backpack, and I figured to head out to the public course on Airport Road, maybe hook up with a threesome looking for a fourth. Halfway through my breakfast, the Marimba ringtone sounded on my phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Ty?” a male voice said.

“Yes.”

“Larry Maxwell, here. Can you come by the office this morning? Say around eleven?”

I didn’t relish the idea of going in to see the boss on my day off. I did have plans, after all. “Well, I suppose I could      . . . although I was—”

“Okay, great,” Maxwell cut me off. “See you then,” Maxwell said, and hung up.

So much for golf.

WALKABOUT -Taking a Mulligan (1-5)

 Walkabout

Taking a Mulligan

Wayne Baker writing as Austin Jett

Walkabout – Taking a Mulligan is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or locations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright @ 2015 by Wayne A. Baker, a.k.a. Austin Jett. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, downloaded or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the express written permission of the publisher and copyright owner. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher and author is illegal and punishable by law.

1

1:51 a.m. Saturday

Page, Indiana

The man lay with his back against the ground, choking on broken teeth and blood. He threw up both hands in an effort to protect his head as his opponent, now sitting astraddle his chest, delivered blows upon him, one after another.

He could feel himself slipping away, the world spinning round. Faces. Laughter. Loud music. Cheers and jeers. In the corner of his eye he spotted a jagged rock, his only hope of ending the merciless beating. As he groped for the rock with his fingertips, desperately trying to bring it closer, his opponent hammered his unprotected eye again and again.

Finally able to grasp the rock, he brought it up in one swift motion, connecting solidly against the side of his opponent’s head. And the fight was over.

2

“That was epic!”

“You get that all on camera?” one of them asked. “It’ll go viral!”

“I don’t know . . . it was pretty graphic. Not so sure we want to post that.”

“Pussy.”

One of the group knelt next to the loser, took a long look and said, “Dude, I think this guy’s dead!”

Quiet.

“You sure?”

“No.”

“Put your fingers against his neck, feel for a pulse,” someone suggested.

“I’m not touching him. You do it.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“We better call 911.”

“No!”

“We got to.”

“No. We’ll all go to jail. I don’t know about you, but I’m not throwing my life away for the likes of . . . this. I start college in the fall.”

The winner struggled to his feet, the rock still in his hand, and staggered toward the group gathered around the man on the ground. “Where’s my money?”

They all exchanged glances. Finally, one of them said, “We ain’t payin’ you shit.”

“You told us you’d pay the winner a hundred bucks and the loser fifty,” the winner said. “I want my money. His, too.”

“You killed a man, dude. We got it all on video. You could go away for a real long time.”

“I ain’t afraid of goin’ back to prison. At least in there I get fed three squares, got me a place to sleep. Out here I eat out of a dumpster, sleep under a bridge. So GIVE me my GODDAMN MONEY!” He looked around at the group. “You better cough it up, ‘less you want me to tell the cops what you done.”

“What we did? Dude, you’re the one killed him.”

“We can’t let anyone find out what happened here tonight.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“We paid a couple of homeless guys to make a bum fight video. One of them died.”

“We didn’t pay him to kill the guy. He did that on his own.”

“I didn’t have no choice! He was gonna kill me!”

“We can’t just leave the body here. We gotta call this in.”

“There might be another way. My dad  . . .  he runs the funeral home.”

“What can he do about this?”

“Nothing. But I work there. In the crematory.” The words hung in the air. “This guy was homeless. Nobody’s gonna be looking for him. Nobody cares. We can make this go away. Like it never happened. It’s easy.”

One of them pointed to the bloody survivor. “What about him?”

3

 Ty Hamilton

I sat in my SUV with the engine off and windows down, listening to the sounds of the night. Traffic, tree frogs, the occasional barking of a dog, distant rumbling thunder. A light breeze caressed my face like a gentle lover. In the eastern sky, the full moon peered through the branches of the trees along the property boundary.

I had just awakened from a brief nap—something strictly forbidden for a third shift security officer, but other than me, who would know? A check of my watch showed 2:14 a.m. I’d been asleep for nearly an hour and a half.  Hopefully no one had taken advantage of the opportunity to sneak past me and steal any equipment or copper wiring from the property.

I got out of the SUV, stretched and farted, adjusted my nuts. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear voices. Loud music, people laughing, talking loudly, whooping every now and then. Rednecks drinking beer into the wee hours. Nothing out of the ordinary. They’d be at it again tomorrow night, too. Just like every weekend.

Overhead, a corporate jet lined up for the approach to the Page County Airport. Off to the west of its approach path I could see lightning, and the thunder was louder now than before. I waited for the next flash and counted, One thousand one, one thousand two, and so on until I heard the thunder at one thousand twelve. The storm was just a bit over two miles away. The trees began to sway as the wind picked up. If I wanted to stay dry, I had to get started making my rounds right away.

I took my cane and searchlight over to the golf cart parked a few feet away. The wind picked up a bit as I began moving forward in the cart to patrol the perimeter of Lanter Construction’s fifteen-acre lot about three miles west of town and consisted of a rather large metal building which served as both office and maintenance shop and row upon row of construction equipment such as drills, pumps, earth-moving equipment, trucks and trailers loaded with tools. All these sat outside and were very tempting for those who preferred thievery to working an honest job for an honest wage. My job was to prevent the thieves from running off with anything valuable. It was basically boring, and the pay sucked.

My life wasn’t always this way. For years, I had lived anything but an ordinary life. I was a pilot. I traveled a lot, met people from all around the world. Made a ton of money. People respected me.

Forrest Gump said, “Life is like a box of chocolates.” True that, but I always thought of it as being like the TV game show, Let’s Make a Deal. You start out with one thing. Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s not. But, then you have choices that you have to make without much time to formulate an intelligent decision. All the while, people are yelling at you. “Door Number 1! Door Number 3! No! Keep what you have!” And so, you take a gamble. Picking what’s behind one of those doors is a gamble. So is choosing to stay where you are. That’s what life is. A series of choices, with lots of people who don’t have to live with the consequences telling you what you should do. Sometimes you make informed decisions, others you go with your gut. In the end, every decision you make—from what to have for breakfast to when and where you get your hair cut—they are all gambles, and they each send your life spinning off in a new direction.

Like I said, I had it pretty good. Then, one day, for reasons that seemed good at the time, I gave up what I had and chose Door Number 1—the early retirement package Polaris Air was offering to those of us over the age of fifty-five. I thought it would be nice to sleep at night, like a normal person, at home in my own bed. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

My downward spiral began about six months later. The novelty of not going to work had worn off, replaced by the reality of living on a pension which amounted to only a fraction of what I previously had been earning. I was driving myself crazy, sitting around home all the time. I gained fifty pounds. The pension didn’t go as far as I thought it would. Now, just to stretch it a bit, I was working again, but for little more than minimum wage. I’d give anything for a chance to go back in time, erase my mistake, and sit in the captain’s seat of a Boeing 767 again.

This particular night was like all the others. Boring as hell. I passed time by scanning the lot with my searchlight, trying to find the black cat that prowled the premises. He was getting better at evading me. In the beginning, I had been able to find him just about every night, sometimes two, or even three times. Now, it had been a week, and no sign of the cat.

4

Ty Hamilton

Just as I was about to accelerate forward on the golf cart, I heard something crashing through the brush at the north end of the property. I figured it was probably a deer, maybe two or three of them. They’d likely been grazing in the alfalfa field and spooked by a pack of dogs. But there was no barking, no yapping of coyotes. Even the redneck party had quieted down. There were, however, the sounds of approaching all-terrain vehicles racing across the field, toward Lanter Construction’s property. Toward me. I made out two sets of headlamps intermittently blinking through the brush.

Poachers? I hate those bastards. They go out in the middle of the night shining high intensity beams on deer, usually out of season, and gun them down. No matter if it is a doe that might be pregnant or with a young fawn at her side. They don’t care. I started to reach for my cell phone to make the call to 911, then hesitated. What if they weren’t really thieves or poachers?

I’d already made an emergency call my second night on the job, when I’d heard a gunshot nearby. I had debated the need to call it in. But I was, after all, a security guard. What if they were to find a dead body with a gunshot wound lying along the side of the road the next day? Wouldn’t they ask me if I’d seen or heard anything? No, nothing out of the ordinary, Lieutenant. Unless you count the gunshot. Of course I had to call it in.

5

Ty Hamilton

A deputy from the Page County Sheriff Department came out to see me. Officer Smiley, who, despite her name, wore such a stern expression that I supposed if she ever did actually smile, her face would crack. From the time I called, it took her sixteen minutes to get there, and she’d seemed somewhat annoyed that I had bothered her for no good reason.

“Sir, you’re out in the country,” she had said before leaving the site. “People shoot their guns out here all the time.”

With that in mind I obviously didn’t want to cry “Wolf!” too many times. And, if it took sixteen minutes to respond tonight, and these guys were in fact poachers, it would be too late to stop them. The deer could be slaughtered long before a deputy arrived on scene.

I decided to try something else. I aimed my high-intensity searchlight in the direction of the four-wheelers. The brush was too thick to get a good look at whoever was there, but they did shut off their engines and turn off the lights. It occurred to me that I was a good target as long as I kept my searchlight on, so I turned it off, and against my better judgment, moved toward them, staying in the shadows.

When I first started the job, I admit that I had in fact been a bit jumpy. I was concerned for my own safety. The property was out in the middle of nowhere, poorly lit, and had been hit a couple times in previous weeks. I was alone and unarmed. If they came back again, would they be armed? Would they hesitate to eliminate the only witness? What might happen if I stumbled upon them while making my rounds? No doubt these thoughts all had something to do with my calling 911 with regards to the gunshot.

By now though, after so many weeks of boredom, I welcomed any break from the routine. I was quite certain that most of the locals knew of my presence on the site. They should. From the first night on, I always made a point of shining my search light all around the property, checking the fences, aiming it across the lot in the general direction of the highway any time a car drove by. I wouldn’t shine it directly at the cars. Didn’t want to piss anyone off or create a traffic hazard. I’d just shine it so that they could see that someone was out there, patrolling the property. I figured that in a small town, people would talk at the diner and the barbershop. Word would get out. Lanter Construction had hired a security guard. And the employees, whom the owners of Lanter Construction considered the most likely suspects in the break-ins, certainly already knew that I was there. They would see me when they arrived for work every morning.

It had been four months now, and since that 911 call on the second night, the only action had been the game of hide-and-seek with the cat. I sure hoped it wasn’t dead. Likely even he had gotten bored and gone on to other things. So, as you can imagine, the thought of scaring off poachers was a welcome relief, in my way of thinking.

The crashing sounds had stopped.  There were no more signs of deer anywhere, or of any activity on the other side of the fence. The lightning was more frequent, the thunder louder and only four seconds between the two. I took shelter under an oak tree. Not the smartest thing to do in a thunderstorm, but it did keep the rain off me.

The Alternate (Part Three)

The Alternate (Part Three)

Copyright Wayne Baker writing as Austin Jett

14

And, just like that, Blake Allen’s fate was in our hands. The bailiff escorted us into a room that was nothing like what I imagined. I suppose that I had expected it to be hot, sweltering, with old, uncomfortable chairs. Like the room in the movie, Twelve Angry Men. I was pleasantly surprised to see our room more resembled a corporate boardroom, with hunter green carpet, elegant wooden wall paneling and wallpaper, a polished wooden tabletop, and swivel chairs.

I briefly considered volunteering to serve as jury foreman, but then thought better of it. I had my own agenda, and I didn’t need to add more to it. As it turned out, there was no shortage of volunteers, and in the end, we chose a music teacher, the fellow who looked like the Dallas Cowboys football coach. Not unexpectedly, he called for a vote before we did anything else, just, as he put it, “to see where we stand.”

Perhaps I was the only one not surprised when it tallied eleven Guilty, one Not Guilty. “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” a skinny guy with a bad combover blurted. “There’s one in every crowd!” He looked around the room, “Who is it?”

 “That would be me,” I said. “I’m not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.” We deliberated. And voted. Deliberated again. Voted again. The results never changed.

15

Throughout the deliberations up to this point, I kept hammering on the lack of quality of the video, and how I was not convinced it was in fact Blake Allen that was shoving the clerk, Harvey Wilson. Even if it was, a threat does not kill anyone. All it shows is that someone is angry enough to say they will kill the other person.

No one bought it. “How do you explain the dog feces on his shoe?” one would say.

“Or in his car?” another would add.

“And then there’s the shoe print in the pile of dog pooh!” the petite seventy-something lady with the penetrating eyes joined in. “It was a perfect match!”

I shook my head. “It was smeared. A little, anyway. I just feel that we’re missing something.”

And so it went, for hours on end. I have to admit they had me in a corner, but I held my ground. All I had to do was wear them down. Wait for an opportunity. Then, when the time was right, I would play my ace. Toward the end of the day, the foreman sent a message to the judge. We were deadlocked.

The judge had us come back into the courtroom. We were joined by the attorneys for both sides.

The judge got right to the point. "Members of the Jury, I ask that you continue your deliberations in an effort to reach agreement upon a verdict and dispose of this case. The trial has been expensive in time, effort, financial and emotional strain to both the defense and the prosecution. If you should fail to agree upon a verdict, the case will be left open and may have to be tried again, and there is no reason to believe that the case can be tried again by either side any better or more exhaustively than it has been tried before you.”

The foreman fidgeted, cast an angry glance my way.

The judge said, “If a substantial majority of your number are in favor of a conviction, those of you who disagree should reconsider whether your doubt is a reasonable one since it appears to make no effective impression upon the minds of the others.”

A couple of my fellow jurors were staring at me. I looked at them, shook my head. No. Not going to happen.

“If, on the other hand,” the judge said, “a majority or even a lesser number of you are in favor of an acquittal, the rest of you should ask yourselves again, and most thoughtfully, whether you should accept the weight and sufficiency of evidence which fails to convince your fellow jurors beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Remember at all times that no juror is expected to give up his or her honest belief as to the significance or effect of the evidence; but, after full deliberation and consideration of the evidence in the case, it is your duty to agree upon a verdict if you can do so.

“You must also remember that if the evidence in the case fails to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the Defendant should have your unanimous verdict of Not Guilty.”        

I nodded approvingly, showing my complete agreement with the judge’s final words to us. I pretended not to hear the heavy sighs all around me in the jury box

We were taken back into our now all-too-familiar deliberation chamber. The foreman called for another vote, no doubt in the hope that the judge’s intervention would change my way of thinking. Again, eleven to one.

The reactions were instantaneous, coming at me at once from every direction.

“For the love of God! —”

“I don’t know about you—,

“I’m losing two grand a day stuck in this—”

“—some kind of power trip—”

I have a life to get back—”

“—desperate cry for attention?”

I let them vent, get it all out. Then, it was my turn to talk. “Remember earlier, when I told you that I felt that we were missing something?” A few nodded. Some glared at me. Others showed that “thousand-yard stare” that is common among soldiers suffering combat fatigue.

I had saved my best for last. Had I said it before, they would have dismissed it. Now, they were ready to listen. “It was the dog poop,” I said.

 “What about it?” one demanded.

“That’s the proof right there!” the foreman said.

“I agree,” I said. “That is the proof!” I held up a hand. “Just hear me out.” The room went quiet. Not that anyone was really prepared to listen. I could tell by the way they were looking at their watches, at the door, the ceiling, anything but me, that they were thinking about how much longer they were going to be stuck with this lunatic. How much longer before we would be considered a hung jury and dismissed.

“Take a look again at the photograph of the dog poop on the sidewalk,” I directed them. No one moved. “I can wait as long as you can,” I said. There were exaggerated sighs, angry glares, all the things you’d expect under the circumstances. I didn’t care. I had to do this. “I am willing to concede that the defendant did in fact step in it.”

“Hallelujah!” the foreman shouted, jumping to his feet. “Let’s take one final vote and get out of here!”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I figured out what we’ve been missing.” Dull stares, silence. “Look at the direction that the shoe was pointed.” I paused a moment for effect. “It’s pointed toward the victim’s house!” I nearly choked on the word ‘victim’. That’s the last thing that Harvey Wilson was.

Skinny Combover shouted, “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

I pressed on, “If he stepped in it on the way in, why is there no dog poop inside the victim’s house?”

You could have heard a pin drop.

“Well,” Skinny said, “that doesn’t prove anything. It only means that the defendant was in fact outside the house sometime that night.”

I said, “Here’s what I think may have happened. The defendant was probably the one doing the shoving and making the threats. I’ll concede that. He showed up that night, fully intending to kill the victim, then at the last minute, lost his nerve, or maybe he looked in the window and saw the dead body and panicked.”

“Or saw the real killer,” the seventy-something lady jumped in. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. She reminded me of the neighbor lady who’d testified. The one person who might remember enough to send me away for a long time.

“That’s a real possibility,” I acknowledged. I knew I had them. “Then, he decides to leave. Doesn’t mean that he forgave the guy. Doesn’t mean he didn’t still intend to kill him . . .”

“Someone else beat him to it, you’re saying?” the foreman drew the conclusion for himself.

“Quite possibly. I think that is worth considering,” I nodded. “Harvey Wilson did have a lot of enemies.”

Skinny Combover even came on board, sort of, “And you think Mr. Allen stepped in the dog crap on the way in? And then changed his mind for whatever reason, and left without going inside the house?”

Uh, yeah, that’s what I said, I thought. To him, I said. “Yes sir, I do.”

“Well why couldn’t he just take off his shoes before he went into the house? You ever think of that?”

“No,” I honestly hadn’t, but it played right into my hand anyway, “but if he was that smart, wouldn’t he have not worn them in the car? And wouldn’t he have discarded them in a dumpster on the way home instead of in his own trash can?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Skinny Combover said. “I suppose it’s possible he didn’t do it, but I’ll lay odds . . . ten to one he did it!”

 The foreman sighed, then said to Skinny Combover, “So, you admit that you do have a reasonable doubt?”  He looked around the room at each member of the jury, lastly me, and nodded. “I think we need to vote again.”

IS IT TIME TO RETIRE?

RETIRE NOW? OR CONTINUE WORKING?

Retirement has long been considered a time for relaxation, travel, and pursuing leisurely activities. However, an increasing number of retirees are choosing a different path by reentering the workforce. The decision to go back to work after retirement is driven by a desire for continued activity, engagement, and personal fulfillment. In this article, we explore the motivations behind retirees’ return to work and the myriad benefits it brings to their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

We work all our lives, with anticipation of one day retiring to a life of leisure. No boss to answer to. Sleep as late as you want, or get up early to go fishing – it’s entirely up to you. Golf, travel, enjoy the grandkids. Go wherever you want. Do whatever you want. Whenever you want. With whomever you want. All the time.

Hopefully, along the way, you managed to take advantage of your good health and built some memories while you were still young while saving money to supplement your pension once you retire. Before you know it, you look in the mirror and don’t recognize the person looking back at you. You are in your 60’s and it’s time to retire. How did it happen so fast? You’ve been looking forward to this day for years, and now … Are you really ready?

Changing perspectives on retirement age.

Don’t misunderstand … I’m not saying retirement is a bad idea. There are many reasons it could be the best thing that ever happened for many people. But not everyone thrives once they stop working. More and more people are choosing to continue working, or after a while, going back into the workforce when they realize that, for them, the retirement life is not all it’s cracked up to be. The good news is, that at this point in your life, you have options. You don’t have to go back to work. So, you can be choosy. Work part time or full time. Try doing something new. If it is not a good fit, you can move on. It’s up to you.

There are a number of benefits of continuing to work past traditional retirement age worthy of consideration.

Financial Security

Financial Security and Extra Income:

Some people choose to go back to work for reasons other than just financial considerations. The supplemental income is a pragmatic benefit that allows retirees to take part in activities they may have otherwise not been able to pursue. Hobbies, traveling, and in ever-increasing instances, supporting family members – it all takes money and stretches resources to the limit and beyond. Extra income earned by working provides retirees with a greater sense of financial freedom.

Pension and Social Security may not be enough to live on, or may not provide enough of a cushion. The extra income earned by working a few more years could make it possibe to delay dipping into savings or cashing in on investments.

Staying Active and Engaged

Retirement can be an enjoyable, rewarding way of life. You now have the time, and hopefully, the money, to pursue interests that you have been dreaming about for years.

Or, it can be the opposite. If you don’t have a reason for getting up in the morning, someplace to go, something to do, it can be depressing, and your brain, for lack of a better term, can turn to mush. You sit around the house, watching Netflix, eating snacks, maybe even drinking. Your health deteriorates. In a couple years’ time, you can go from being a vital, healthy, functioning and contributing individual to someone you don’t even recognize. 

Choosing to go back to work is a good way for some retirees to keep their minds active and engaged. Working often involves solving problems, making decisions, and acquiring new skills – all of which contribute to cognitive stimulation. Taking part in mentally challenging activities helps prevent cognitive degeneration and keeps the brain sharp. Working part-time, consulting, or beginning your own new venture – the mental stimulation that can be gained from working enhances overall cognitive function.

Social Connection and Networking:

Not getting out and about, sitting at home by oneself can be lonely, boring, depressing. The workplace serves as a hub of social interaction. It can provide retirees with a sense of community and purpose. Going back to work cultivates social connections, allowing retirees to interact with fellow workers, and clients. Meeting people at work not only contributes to a an energetic social life but also helps fight off the loneliness that can accompany retirement. And the workplace provides prospects for networking, which can in turn lead to new friendships, alliances, and even mentorship opportunities with younger co-workers.

Sense of Purpose and Achievement:

Working provides a sense of purpose, a sense of achievement which can be challenging to duplicate in leisure activities alone. Goals, deadlines, and responsibilities all serve to provide one with a renewed sense of purpose. Whether pursuing an exciting personal project or injecting their skills to a new endeavor, retirees experience a sense of achievement that positively affects their self-esteem and general well-being. Staying mentally sharp through intellectually stimulating work-related challenges fosters continuous learning and growth.

There are physical benefits as well. Going back to work gets you off the couch. Gets you physically active, burning calories instead of consuming them. Your overall health could drastically improve.

There are many other factors which can influence the decision to go back to work. Here are a few:

Finding meaning and purpose in work. Some people are hard-wired for work. It’s in their DNA. They need a job or a project to go to. A reason to get up in the morning. Contributing to meaningful projects and initiatives – be it a job, business venture, or volunteer organization or project – serves this purpose.

Health insurance benefits are an important consideration for many people, particularly those whose health benefits don’t continue once employment ends. And this of course coincides with the advancement into their senior years, when health declines. One health event could initiate a financial catastrophe.   

Reducing financial strain related to healthcare expenses by accessing employer-sponsored health insurance may be enough reason to continue working until they no longer are physically able. It’s a sad reality. Not everyone is blessed with the option of enjoying a leisurely retirement.

Maximizing Social Security payouts can be accomplished by delaying retirement. Delaying Social Security Benefits will result in a higher monthly benefit when payments begin years later.

Benefits of Supplemental Income

Sustaining a reliable income stream through work builds a cushion for unforeseen expenses. Your house needs a new roof, or a furnace. Healthcare emergencies and other unforeseen expenses … Supplemental income can make this an inconvenience rather than an emergency.

Contributing to retirement savings. Continuously growing retirement accounts. Enhancing overall financial resilience. Money isn’t everything, but you can’t live without it. The more money you have, the more options are available to you.

Taking advantage of additional savings opportunities is an option when you don’t have to live hand to mouth, one monthly pension or Social Security check to the next.

Building a more robust financial portfolio. Postponing withdrawals from retirement accounts. Allowing retirement accounts to grow … Strategically managing retirement fund distributions. Minimizing early withdrawals from investments and retirement accounts as well as tax implications can have major effects on your financial status.

You may be in good shape financially, but you actually want to work, and doing so allows you to build a strong financial legacy, Passing on accumulated wealth and assets to your heirs, or maybe helping them while you are still among the living. There is a fine line between this and being saddled with the burden of carrying them on your back.

Sometimes, despite our best intentions and well thought out strategies, things don’t go according to plan. Speaking from experience, a comfortable retirement plan built for two suddenly begins to take on water and becomes a sinking ship when you find yourself providing financial support for family members, typically adult children and grandchildren. Food, clothing, housing, insurance, health care, funding education for oneself or family members transportation, and baby-sitting and driving grandkids from A to Z and everywhere in between are now everyday concerns. Sometimes it’s only for a few weeks. More likely for months or even years. And, brace yourselves … maybe permanently. Your retirement savings dwindle. Your time is no longer your own. Nor is your house. And all too often … there is no end in sight. All eyes turn to you for the solution. You find yourself checking in on Facebook to see what your friends – the ones who are not in your situation – are doing. The cruises. The trips to all those places you always wanted to go … You live vicariously through them. Going back to work may not be an option – it may be a necessity.

Some retirees find it personally and financially rewarding to stay involved in the industry they worked, building and sustaining new and pre-existing professional relationships as they continue to contribute their valuable skills and expertise working as consultants, trainers, expert witnesses, or by writing articles.

Some benefits of this path would include:

Continuing to receive acknowledgment for contributions.

Earning respect for years of experience and expertise.

Enjoying a positive reputation in the professional community.

Flexibility

Retirees may find that – if they are not desperate – they might benefit from

Flexibility in work arrangements.

Negotiating flexible work schedules.

Exploring part-time or remote work options.

Achieving a better work-life balance.

We’ve covered a lot of negative things, but retirement also offers many positive opportunities for those who are not ready to be turned out to pasture just yet:

Retires may find themselves, for the first time in their lives, in a position to

pursue entrepreneurial opportunities.  

Start a business or consultancy in a field in which you have knowledge and expertise, and/or are passionate about.

Leverage expertise for self-driven ventures.

Explore new career paths.

Pursue passions or interests in a different field.

Embrace a diverse and evolving professional journey.

Enjoy a higher standard of living in retirement.

Accumulate additional wealth for a comfortable lifestyle.

Ensure a more financially stress-free retirement.

Transition to Part-Time Work.

Gradually reduce work hours.

Ease into retirement with part-time employment.

Balance work commitments with leisure time.