These Truths

September 11th, 2016. 8:30AM

  Burlwood, Indiana

  The tension and drama of the back alley dreamscape was suddenly colored by peaceful and comforting notes of music. As the big man took his hit, the sound of a piano softly singing overwhelmed the varsity team. Bahm-da-da-dum-ba-da-ba-ba-ba-da-dum-bada-dum, it rang sweetly. The players stopped what they were doing, a cloud of acetone scented fog swirling, swirling around them as they calmly looked around to find the source of the sound.

  Da-da-ba-ba-ba-buh-dum-ba-ba-da-da-baba-dum... so sweet, so serene... baba-daba-dum-daba-dada-baba-dash

  Young Jacob knew the piece... it was Pachelbel's Canon in D Major, adapted from its original form into a peaceful single-instrument movement. In the smoke, in the fog of dreamland, the sounds spoke from the ethos in the electronic voice of a synthesized and soulless pianist.

  Why was it here, though, why was it echoing through the haze of crystal meth and memories?

  His eyes opened with effort, because they were glued shut with sleep, and he slowly started to gather that he wasn't at The Garthby Icehouse at all. He was on a couch, in a vaguely familiar room that he couldn't quite place. Balled up and stiff, he uncoiled his limbs and stretched out in the most pleasurable stretch he'd ever experienced. Prying the lids of his eyes apart, feeling the crystallized mess left behind by the sandman peeling and cracking, he started to piece everything together.

  He was at Chucky's place...

  He was working on a case...

  He was barely awake, but he could still hear the music from his dream...

  The music wasn't from his dream, it was real...

  It was close, it was vibrating...

  It was his fucking phone ringing, and it had been ringing for a long time!

  Shit!

  Reaching for it, he swiped the screen to answer without looking to see who it was, lest he miss the call.

  "Hello?" he asked, hoping he wasn't too late.

  "Jake, it's Donnell," Launchpad replied. "I've got a few things for you."

  "Oh," Jake answered, stretching more to bask in the sensation as he held the phone to his ear. "Sorry, Don, I was still asleep."

  "You sound like it," Donnell said. "Did you decide to paint the town on your first night back or something?"

  "You might say that," Jake concurred, letting his muscles relax and feeling sore at the effort. "I didn't expect to hear back from you so soon, what've you got?"

  "Not much," Donnell lamented, "and that's kind of why I was able to get it together so quickly. I ran into brick walls on just about everything you asked for. All I came away with was a phone number for that cop you were after, and a tidbit about one of your suspects."

  "Which suspect?"

  "Doctor Jack Morris," Launchpad began. "Born January fifth, 1931, died March nineteenth, 1998."

  "Well I guess that rules him out on this Marsh thing," Jake sighed.

  And then there were three, he thought.

  Of course, three still implied that he was willing to consider that Daryl Lane had totally duped him with his meltdown the night before. In his heart, he was pretty well convinced that Lane was not The Butcher Of Burlwood. Emotions and gut-feelings can be deceptive, and he knew that, so his head still held Timmy's father as a suspect. It would take some incredible evidence to convince him that his heart was wrong, but he was leaving the door open to anything he might find.

  Three also implied that he hadn't dismissed the possibility that Evander Hughes had killed Billy Marsh. Based on Donnell's description of his condition, his being guilty would mean that he somehow escaped his bondage and collected his scattered faculties enough to do away with the boy, perhaps in a half-witted homage to his deeds of old. That would explain the differences, the fact that many of the hallmarks attributed to the acts of The Butcher in the nineties were absent in this new case. Jake wouldn't be able to convict or recuse Evander until he determined whether or not that series of events was feasible and attainable to him in any way. To make that judgement, he would have to gauge the man's condition for himself, in person and in the flesh.

  Either way, Donnell's work narrowed the field by one. It was evident, now, that Jack Morris -- whether he had been The Butcher of old or not -- was in no way involved with the death of Billy Marsh. That was a step in the right direction, so he closed the file on the town veterinarian and pushed it aside in his mind.

  "Yeah, I'd say he's a dead end... literally." Donnell added.

  "What's Blake's info?" Jake asked, scrambling to the kitchen for a pen and paper.

  Donnell explained that the man's name was Joseph Blake and rattled off a phone number. Apparently, he'd gotten it from LinkedIn and couldn't swear that it was still good. It was the extent of what he'd uncovered, so it would have to do.

  "So far as the criminal records go," Launchpad continued, "I wasn't able to find anything in the public record for Rusty or Daryl. That doesn't mean that they're squeaky clean, criminal charges are often expunged or sealed. All we can say for sure is that neither of them have anything terribly egregious to hide. Nothing that ever made the news or anything like that."

  "How about your old man?"

  "Well, as you know, that's a different story. I've got an old copy of his rap sheet that I pulled when I defended him in a possession case ten years or so ago. I'll scan it and send it over. I've already given you my opinion on that, so take it as you will."

  "And the Brougham situation? Can we get that list of what was registered and when?"

  "No, that's gonna have to come from Louie. I mean, I might be able to track down some papers about my old man's ride, but they're gonna be buried and won't tell us shit besides a VIN number and the old plate."

  "That would still be useful, see what you can do."

  "I'll get LeTonya on that," Donnell nearly whispered, as though it was a secret to be kept until the weekend expired.

  "Oh! That reminds me!" Jake said spiritedly, remembering the Cadillac he'd spotted at The Downs the night before. "I saw a Brougham at the track last night! I don't know that it's related, but there weren't many of them around this neck of the woods as I remember. I figured due diligence requires us to check it out."

  "What do you know about it?"

  Thinking hard, Jake tried to recall what he committed to memory through repetition. G... S... F... I... S... F... I... G... something. It was a company name -- something Services, Blackmoor, Indiana... but what was it? Struggling, begging his brain to pull a rabbit out of the hat, he tried to see the letters on the view screen of his mind. He watched the gate car approaching in a grainy projection, tried to focus on the beige characters on the quarter panels. G... S... F... G... F... G... S...

  "FGSI Services," he finally announced, the puzzle falling into place in his mind. "It belongs to a company called FGSI Services, out of Blackmoor. See what you can find out about the company, I imagine they have something to do with The Downs."

  "Got it," Donnell replied. "Anything else I should work on?"

  Referencing the latest version of his mental checklist, Jake decided there wasn't. The ball was largely in his court, he needed to get out and beat the streets. Thanking Donnell for his help, he hung up and set about preparing for his day.

  He was going to need a shower, because a certain region of his body was quite sticky. That meant the spare linens he used as bedding would likely need a wash as well, but that was an issue he could deal with later.

  Marching into the bathroom, he took a long look at himself in the mirror. The man looking back at him in a stained pair of black boxer-briefs seemed more lively than the one he'd seen in the days of recent past. There was a sparkle in his eye that he hadn't noticed there in quite some time. Hell, there was even a hint of a smile on his face. Pleased at what he saw, he wondered what had caused such a dramatic shift in the paradigm.

  Perhaps it was as simple as sexual release, which he hadn't enjoyed in many moons. It was
a solo session, of course, but it could've done the job just the same and brought about the change. Perhaps he just needed to release his nuts to lift the weight off of his shoulders.

  Maybe it was his interaction with Nikki, an attractive young woman. Wait... an attractive girl. He couldn't let himself forget that she was a girl to him. Either way, she seemed to hang on his every word and expressed an interest in getting to know him. At the core of it all, what she really wanted was to fuck him, that much was obvious. Maybe it was the ego boost that caused his slight emergence from the shadows.

  Perhaps it was the fight he'd been in, though it was more a beat down than it was a fight. The guy didn't stand a chance from the beginning, there was no challenge in it or anything. A surge of adrenaline is like an infusion of intravenous amphetamine, though, it does wonders for the body and the spirit. Perhaps it was the natural high that painted his face with this brighter hue.

  Maybe it was the interaction with Daryl Lane. The verbal snare he'd set and watched the man fall haplessly into was expertly crafted, and it was fun -- until it turned sad. It takes a sharp mind to paint an intelligent person into a corner and force him to show his hand, and he got off on feeling superior. Maybe it was that sense of superiority that brought the fire back to his body.

  Whatever it was, he liked it. He liked the sly grin his reflection in the mirror cast back at him, in living color.

  There would be rain in the forecast for this parade, however, because when he felt the tingle of happiness breaking through the wall of depression and darkness, his first inclination was to call his wife and share the joy with her, the love of his life. If he made that call, the storm cloud would burst. He would be drenched, and not with anything that would please him to be dripping with.

  It would be spite, it would be malice, it would be scorn, it would be bad blood that soaked his body after she had her way with him. She was still feeling the sting of the things he'd done, still suffering the slings and the arrows of his missteps and his trespasses. She still bore the scars of his fouls, still felt the pain of the mistakes that he made when he let his feculent inner self spill from his mouth, from his eyes, from his hands, from his body, in every way that it could. She was still crying in the bleachers above center ice at the sight of his true self.

  It was incumbent upon him to keep his true self caged, to keep his it in its pit. It was his burden to keep watch, to keep it where it should've stayed forever locked away and held prisoner, held harmless, held in limbo, held in its crypt and wrapped in chains from which it could never escape. His charge was to never allow it to see the light of day, to never allow it to reek its havoc, to never allow it to cast a shadow over his wife or his son, and he had failed to meet his obligations in that matter.

  Feeling the fog of depression rolling back in, feeling its damp and murky essence stirring around him, feeling it trying to swallow him, he shook it off and forced himself back into the stoic state of numbness that was his home. It was hard, but he was experienced at doing it. Physically flicking his hands and shoulders in an effort to fling the influence of dark sentiments from his body, he sucked up the neutral air of the world around him. When he did, he smelled for the first time since his arrival that awful stench that greeted him when he initially pulled into Burlwood Meadows. It suited his mood, suited what he figured he deserved. He'd pulled his family down into the shit, it was only fitting that he should have to live in it.

  After taking it all in for a moment, he decided that he needed to shave. His dark facial hair caused a shadow to form across his face with haste, and he hadn't used a razor in two days at this point. When that was done, he would take a nice, hot shower and rinse the drama of the previous night from every crevice of his body.

  Once he dried himself off, he would have to dig out his very best threads from his duffle bag and potentially use Chucky's clothes iron. It was important that he look his Sunday best, because he had an appointment to keep in town.

  For the first time in many, many years, Jacob Gigu?re was going to church.

  THIRTY