Chapter One

Ground zero was a bin. A big metal box with a pull-down chute. Its opened double doors exposed a mound of clothing and something heavy on top. Cadaver, I guessed. The granddaddy of discards. Some guy was up on a ladder clicking a camera, while the lab-coat twins stood by with their black cases waiting their turn.

People were spilling from shops and cars, and deputies were scurrying to keep them away. Above a feed shop across the street a man straddled the sill of a second story window aiming a camcorder. Probably hoped to tape the cops kicking the corpse.

With the crowd now blocking my view and my demons in need of a playground, I got out and followed the lady. She stopped at the edge of the throng. I eased up close, my chin an inch from her bouffant of blond curls. She turned into my armpit, gave me a belligerent glare, then wiggled out and around and over to another spot. She looked back. I winked. Acey the agitator, that's me.

I turned my attention to the bin. The cops were lifting the body out feet first and with one hairy, tattooed arm hanging down. An old coat covered the face and torso. The poor stiff had lost his shoes and his purple socks had more holes than fabric. Little guy. Old, too, judging from the colony of liver spots on the back of his hand.

They bagged the body, zipped it in, heaved it up onto a stretcher and headed for the coroner's ... Oh, shit. The lamp-shade lady was parked next to a deputy and pointing in my direction. No doubt spouting a theory about perps returning to the scene of their crime.

The coroner’s van sped off. People began to scatter. I stood my ground and waited. Sheriff Whitcomb was headed my way. We locked eyeballs.

“Mr. Tapp, isn’t it?” he asked.

I nodded, surprised he knew my name.

“Seems you riled some feathers,” he said.

I shrugged.

“What are you doing here?”

“Gawking.”

“Don’t happen to know the deceased, do you?”

“Is that a trick question, Sheriff?”

“Why do you say that?”

“They brought him out with his face covered. And I haven’t yet learned to recognize a man by his brand of socks.”

“I hear your Ma’s not well,” said the sheriff.

I didn’t answer.

“I say that in sympathy.” The man made a small adjustment to the fit of his amber shades.

“She’s doing better,” I lied.

“You still living in that flat above the barber shop?”

I nodded. God, the man was a walking file.

“I should take you back to the station. Show the lady I take tips seriously.” He smiled and winked.

“Is that what she is, a lady?” I answered, winking back.

He continued to smile. So did I. He was a handsome man in an aging way. He kept his gray hair in a short brush, had a mustache to match, flat ears, few wrinkles, and a reputation for getting the job done. Should add a prodigious memory to the list. Willow Falls wasn’t exactly a one store town with everybody knowing everybody’s business. And even if I did do an overnight stint in the county parlor for being drunk and disorderly, it was eons ago. We sparred for another few minutes, me allowing him the best lines, letting him keep the high ground. When he left, I trudged over to my van. My conscience was back and I had somewhere to be.

They were changing her. I walked on by, two hundred and thirty pounds of self-pitying manhood hurrying away from hospital unpleasantries. The end of the hall forced me over to a window. I glanced out through the top sash. It was a fine evening for someone. Not for folks with death on their plate. I wiped dust from the top of the frame and thought back to the day Ma’s doc delivered the news. "Your mother has a twenty-five percent chance to finish the year," he’d said, in our man-to-man talk in the hall with people passing, the clock ticking, and my bladder begging for attention. Said it like Mom was in a race and the finish-line, Christmas. And the prize if she got there? An extra serving of pain, maybe? Pain prettied up with pills? Then the doc gave me this back slap, changed the odds to thirty-five and spouted something about how we all got to go, and all I wanted to think about was finding a john.

I turned from the window and headed back down the hall. Go get some coffee, I told myself. Another donut to keep company with the one you had for lunch. They’ll be a while, yet. They being the pint-size lady aid doing for Mom what needed to be done. I picked up speed, my feet slamming the hard gray linoleum. I had the sudden sensation of being back on the football field. Revved up, ball in hand, running like the wind.

“Mr. Tapp. Your mother was just asking about you.”

Tackled. I looked down at this little lady with the splotchy face, chapped lips, and a bundle of soiled linen held away from her person. A gold bar engraved with the name, Gertrude, dangled from chains attached to a smiley pin on her uniform pocket. She gave me a knowing smirk, and I stepped into the room, sure Ma had been telling tales about her only child.

She seemed asleep. I closed the door as quietly as a man can. The game plan, sit five minutes, then bolt. Her eyes opened and lighted on me with all the warmth of a long ago summer. I wondered who I was to be today. Yesterday I was husband, Karl. My father. Can you imagine how upsetting it is to sit at the bedside of a seventy-year-old woman, who happens to be your mother, and have her flirt with you as though she were twenty and you her beau? I know what brings it on. I mean, besides the illness and the drugs. It’s that damnable phenomenon called the spitting image. At least they got the spitting part right. As that’s how I’d greet my father, if we ever meet. A sudden thought made me shudder. What if he hears of Ma’s condition and comes to pay his respects to ex-wife, Laura. Pay his respects! I pictured an older version of me standing near Mom with his wallet open and handing out all the IOUs of a life time - slips of paper with scenes of a man hugging her, a man holding her, loving her, cutting the grass, fixing a leak. Then I saw this sorry figment of my imagination turn and toss me a scrap of paper with the image of a little boy astride the shoulders of a six foot hunk. IOU to a son.