Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

The little bitch said she’d called her daddy. He hadn’t wanted to believe it. It meant his life would shortly be falling apart. Which meant it couldn’t be true. Except it was true. It was true and it still is. He doesn’t know how she knew about the bodies, but she did, she must have known about them, and-

After the two cars pass by, he makes a u-turn.

The beer is canceled. Work is canceled. His life is canceled.

It’s time for a new plan. He drives toward home, toward what has been home for over forty years, and thinks about what he should do. His brother Ron has a place in California, in a practically deserted mining town called Kaiser just other side of the Arizona state line. He and Beatrice and Sarah can go there. They’ll hide out there till the heat dies down. He has no doubt that there will be heat. People care about dead little girls. He’ll be tried and convicted on the news shows within days. The media need a villain. But they can hide out in Kaiser till the heat dies down, and once it does. . well, that’s where things break down a little bit in his mind.

If the police don’t have enough to arrest him he might be able to come back home. His running will be suspicious, but suspicious behavior ain’t evidence. It seems more likely, though, that Bulls Mouth is about to become a part of his past. In which case they’ll head down to Mexico. It won’t be safe to try for Mexico till things quiet down, but once they do quiet down they should be able to make it across the border without too much trouble. Most eyes are usually focused on those trying to enter the United States, not on those trying to leave it. He’s not sure how exactly they’ll get by in Mexico, but he’s sure they will get by. Maybe they can even get a house on the ocean. He’s always wanted to see the ocean. Or maybe Canada instead. They speak English there. He can work that out later.

Up ahead Chief Davis’s car and the Mustang pull to the shoulder of the road. Henry drives by them a moment later. He maintains his speed despite a great urge to put the gas pedal to the floorboard. He can’t act suspicious.

At Crouch Avenue he turns right, and again into his driveway two minutes later. Gravel kicks out from the tires and shotguns against the side of the house as he brings the truck to a stop.

He storms up the wood stairs to the porch, takes two steps across the porch, and pushes his way through the door and into the house.

‘Bee!’

‘What?’

He walks into the kitchen.

Beatrice stands at the sink, a soapy plate in her hands. She looks at him, her eyes searching his face. ‘What is it?’

‘Put that down. We gotta get out of here.’

‘Get out of here? What are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about we gotta get out of here. Pack some shit. Whatever you want to take with you. Whatever you can get into boxes in the next twenty minutes or so. We’re leaving town and my gut says we gotta make it snappy.’

‘Leaving town? Why would we leave town?’

‘There’s some trouble.’

‘What kind of trouble? Did we do something wrong?’

‘We didn’t do nothing wrong, but people will say we did. Pack some shit. We gotta go.’

‘Well, how long we going for?’

‘Probably forever. Goddamn it, Bee, we don’t have time for questions.’

‘How are we supposed to pack everything in twenty m-’

‘We’re not packing everything. Only things we have to take. Now, goddamn it, get your fat ass moving. We don’t have time to fuck around. I got no idea when the police will be here, but I fucking know they will be. So move.’

Beatrice’s chin begins to tremble and her eyes get glossy with tears. A strange, sad squeak escapes her throat.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I yelled at you, Bee, but we need to leave. I don’t have time to answer a lotta questions. What I need is for you to go to the garage, find some cardboard boxes, and start packing whatever you can think to pack. Can you do that?’ He strokes her round smooth cheek with a callused hand. ‘Can you do that, Bee?’

She nods.

‘Good girl. Now get to it.’

He gives her a quick kiss on the mouth, then turns to the bedroom.

‘Bill’s Liquor.’

‘Donald.’

‘Henry. What’s up?’

‘Me and Bee are leaving town. You might want to do the same, though I don’t know for sure if it’s necessary for you.’

‘What’s going on?’

Seventeen minutes later there’s a knock at the front door. It came faster than he’d expected. He was hoping to be out of town before this could happen. They shouldn’t have tried to pack anything. They should have simply got in the truck and gone. But the idea of leaving behind all those years of life without taking even-

‘Henry?’

‘I’ll get it, Bee!’

‘Okay.’

He closes his eyes and exhales and opens his eyes. Then slips a hand between his mattress and box spring and wraps it around a Lupara and pulls it out. He breaks it open and checks both barrels are loaded. They are. He tucks the gun into the back of his Levis, then grabs a few more shells and stuffs them into his pockets. He doesn’t think it will come to gunfire, but he’s not counting it out only to find hisself with his face in the gravel while some cocksucker from the sheriff ’s department is slapping cuffs on his wrists and ramming a knee up into his balls. His hope is that it’s just Chief Davis come by to let him know what’s going on. Sorry to bother you, Henry, how you been? Good to hear it. Just stopping by because, well, have you ever seen anything suspicious out in your woods? Any trespassers or anything? He hopes that will be the beginning and the end of it, but he’s not counting on it. As he heads out of the bedroom, he stops at the closet and grabs a.22 rifle from the shelf.

No one ever went into battle with too many weapons.

He walks into the kitchen where Beatrice is packing dishes. He grabs her by the arm and spins her around. A plate slips from her hands. It drops to the floor and shatters.

‘Not dishes, Bee. Goddamn it, we don’t need to take no fucking dishes.’

‘But-’

‘Look, just head downstairs till I say so.’

‘Oh. Okay.’

‘Go.’

‘Okay.’ She nods at him, looking like she’s fighting back tears.

There’s another knock at the front door. Buckshot barks at the people on the other side.

‘On my way.’

He glances over his shoulder to see Beatrice pulling open the basement door and disappearing behind it.

He nods to himself. Good, she’ll be safe down there. He heads to the front door. Buckshot sits staring at it. He barks once. Two human shapes behind the yellow pebbled glass. He leans the.22 against the wall where they won’t be able to see it with the door open.

He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a pack of Rolaids and thumbs one of them into his mouth and chews it with his eyes closed. Nothing going on here. Everything is finer than frog hairs. No, sir, I didn’t see nothing out of the ordinary, but truth is, I don’t really keep too close an eye on that land. Trees don’t tend to cause much trouble unless they get a few drinks in ’em, you know, and these ones are twelve-stepping it. Ha-ha.

He tongues chalky powder from a molar.

‘It’s okay, boy,’ he says, petting the dog’s head.

A fist rises into the air on the other side of the glass, ready to knock a third time.

He grabs the door handle, thumbs the paddle, and yanks open the door before it can.

Ian sits in his car watching Chief Davis and Bill Finch walk across the gravel driveway to the front door. He wants to be there with them. He wants to look into the man’s eyes. If he could look into the man’s eyes he would know. Instead he is here in his car. The window’s rolled down and a convection-oven wind is blowing against his face. His stomach feels sour and his mouth is dry and his eyes are burning. He pulls a plug of cigar from his ashtray and stabs his mouth with it and chews on it but does not light it.