Darkness Once More (Archie Lemons #1)

"Shouldn't you be in school?" I was talking to Elliot, who was 6 years old and had just started kindergarten this year.

  He laughed and said, "It’s Saturday, silly!"

  "It isssss?" I replied. I played it off like I was just messing around, but seriously, its Saturday?

  I looked at Elise, "Thanks for bringing them down. They always brighten my day. And thank you for coming, obviously. You're okay, too," and I gave her a little smile.

  "Of course. We were worried about you."

  "Ah, I'm just a little banged up. I'll be okay soon."

  "I hope so. Your detective friend came by in the middle of the night and dropped off Wrecker and your phone charger, and a few other things. Oh, your laptop. I remembered seeing him around after Marianne...ya know."

  "Yeah, I know. Look, I'm really grateful for you letting me stay with you guys for a while. I think it will do me some good."

  "Do you think you're in danger?"

  "Actually, Elise, I don't know what to think right now. It might all just be a coincidence or it might be something more. The guy I was chasing before I was hit was definitely up to something bad. I'll tell you when You-Know-Whoooo are not around." I looked suspiciously at the kids then couldn't keep the seriousness on my face and started laughing (Ahhhh!!!). They joined in.

  "What I know right now is that I need to take it easy for a few days. Any work I have to do can be accomplished with my phone and computer. The detectives that came to your house this morning are more than capable of running the show and hopefully they'll keep me posted. My job was to find a missing girl, anyway. Their job is homicide."

  "When was the last time you had a real meal, Archie Lemons?"

  "Actually, I have no idea. Do Sugar-Free Rockstars count?"

  "Funny. I need to get you fed. And none of this hospital horse slop they serve here. You need some real home cookin'."

  "I can't wait," I replied. "Now I just have to get out of here, ASAP."

  She smiled and said, "Well sir, I have some good news for you. I spoke to the doctors and it looks like you'll be sleeping at our house tonight."

  "Oh yeah? That’s great! I hate hospitals."

  "Yeah, and doctors," she's said, adding a sarcastic snort and chuckle.

  "Yeah, those know-it-alls with their fancy degrees."

  "Yeah, what a God-complex."

  "Yeah, just like that crazy Jack Sheppard and his ghost dad."

  "I can't believe they killed off Locke."

  "Right?! Damn you, Ben Linus!"

  Four-year-old Eric interrupted, "Mommy, Uncle Archie said a Poo-Poo Word!"

  And with that, we both giggled at our totally off topic Lost rant and decided that I should get some more rest and they should head home. They had to go get ready for my stay, anyway. Elise had a spare bedroom but it hadn't been used in a long time. Her husband had slept in there for a while before he ended up abandoning her and the children almost two years ago. He was a selfish piece of shit anyway and I was glad he was gone.

  Elise rallied the children up and headed out the door, saying they would be back in the evening when I was cut loose to take my home. She dug in her purse and pulled out my phone charger. "Oh hey, I almost forgot. I knew you’d need this," and she plugged it into the wall outlet near my bed and then hooked my phone up.

  "Thank you so much. I wouldn't know what to do without you guys."

  "No sweat. Get some rest and we'll see you tonight."

  The kids came back over to give me the lightest of hugs each then scampered out the door. As Elise was walking out behind them, proving that my mind focuses on the most random of things, I asked, "Hey, Elise. You remember Ghost Dad?"

  She laughed slightly at my mind's ability to get so easily sidetracked and said, "Yeah, what a turd that was!" She closed the door gently behind her.

  That movie did suck. Remember Leonard Part 6 though?

  I arrived at Elise's house a little after 8 o'clock that same night. Her and the kids had picked me up from the hospital and taken me to my car, which was still parked in the Starbucks shopping center, and then I followed them back to the house. Elise and her douche of a husband Jason had bought this place when their oldest son was almost two and the market was booming. They paid more for it than it is currently worth, unfortunately. Jason had somehow managed to impregnate Elise for the second time, even though he seemed to not even like her or their current child. He treated Elise like shit and he and I had had quite a few altercations over the years. I’m not usually one to bite my tongue when shit bothers me and I am always willing to call people out on their bullshit. It was something I did often with him, even though I knew it probably bothered Elise that the two of us never got along. It made family get-togethers somewhat awkward, to say the least.

  He didn’t like me because I had the nerve to be friends with his wife. I guess it didn’t matter that she was my wife’s best friend and my sister-in-law! I suppose that’s just a side effect caused by his micro-penis and ridiculous chin-pubes. Everyone tried to get us to be civil to each other but he was bad news and I knew it. A sad, pathetic, jealous, bitter, piss-poor excuse of a man and I was proven correct when he up and left one night, shortly after their second son was born, leaving the entire burden of everything on Elise. One of these days, I am going to track him down even though she swears she doesn’t want anything from him or anything to do with him ever again and that I should just let him be gone. I always agree with her, but I know I won’t be able to keep that promise forever. One of these days, Douchebag…One of these days.

  With all the bills and mortgage left for Elise to deal with, she struggled to make ends meet, sometimes carrying on two jobs, on top of managing a household and two small children. She currently has no job though due to massive layoffs and is living solely off her savings account and unemployment. When she was let go from her last job she lost her family’s health insurance, so she is on her own there, too. Add that cost to the cost of childcare while looking for a job and it is no wonder she is struggling. Marianne and I helped out whenever we could, even though Elise never once asked for it. She was family, though, and I felt she was my responsibility. I hoped one day I could really help her and pull her out from the crushing weight of her debt.

  When I got to the house I was welcomed with some fresh baked cookies, compliments of Elliot and Eric, even though I suspect they had little to do with the actual baking. I was told we couldn't have one until after dinner, though.

  "Isn't it a little late to cook dinner?" I asked.

  Elise responded, "Nah, I ordered pizza in the car. It'll be here soon. We'll work on those homemade meals tomorrow."

  "Awesome!" I said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. The kids seemed thrilled too, even though they had to have already known. "Do you mind if I hobble on back and take a quick shower?"

  "Please do, you smell like an Arby's bathroom."

  "Aw, come on. Nothing smells worse than an Arby's. That was just mean."

  "Go take your shower, Stinky, and I'll try to find something for you to wear and I'll throw your old clothes in the wash."

  "Actually, I have a gym bag full of a change of clothes and stuff in my trunk, if you don't mind just grabbing that. Spare clothes have actually come in handy for me on a number of occasions."

  She laughed and said she would get it, and then I hobbled my crippled ass back to the bathroom. Getting undressed was extremely painful. I never knew taking off a t-shirt could be so grueling. My ribs, by far, were the most painful part of my badly bruised and broken-down body.

  The water warmed up and I limped into the shower, trying my best to wash away the pain. It wasn't entirely successful, but I felt a whole lot better when I got out. Refreshed, I toweled off and made my way into the bedroom, where Elise had put my gym bag and fished out some fresh clothes. Nothing fancy, just an old pair of Abercrombie shorts with an unfortunate stain in the crotch region and a Digital Underground t-shirt along with a few toi
letries for those long nights at the office. My pain fired back up as I attempted to get dressed and once I finished I had to lie on the bed just to ease it.

  As soon as I lay back, there was a light knock on the bedroom door and Elise poked her head in to tell me the pizza was here. I told her I would be right out.

  At dinner, I had asked Elise if she had today's newspaper handy and I quickly glanced through it and found what I was looking for. The small little blurb about the death of Amanda Colley. I wondered if this article even would matter anymore. It was still worth a shot though. When I was done devouring the pizza and several cookies, I retreated into my bedroom with my phone and laptop and managed to prop myself on some pillows in a way that allowed the bare minimum of pain to seep through my body. I fired up the MacBook and while it was booting I checked the messages on my phone. I had missed a few calls while I was incapacitated.

  The first one was from Jackson Webb at the Times' office, informing me that the article was in the paper on page 2 of the local section, and that the man who took the story and wrote it was named Matt Hendricks, in case I wanted to thank him or give him an exclusive story. He laughed and told me to take it easy. He didn't know about my injury.

  The second call was from a potential new client telling me that he believes his wife is cheating on him and asking if I could help. I saved his message and would call him back on Monday.

  The third call was Mr. Buster Cherry himself, Max Raddich, telling me to call him back, it was about the background checks I had him run.

  I checked the time on my phone and decided it wasn't too late to call him back. It was a Saturday night, after all...apparently. I think. He must have checked his ID this time because he answered with, "What’s up, Cocks?"

  Cute. "Hey buddy, what’s goin' on?"

  "Jesus Christ man, you don't know how to call somebody back or what? I go down to work on a Saturday and pull these reports for you and I can't even get a call back. You better have a good reason for this." He was joking but I decided to play along with his serious tone.

  "Well, a giant American-made behemoth did plow in to me on the corner of Coffee and Stockdale Highway last night and I've been in the hospital for 24 hours healing my poor broken body."

  "Fuck me, man. You serious?"

  "As a heart attack. Speaking of, whatcha got for me?"

  "You okay though, man? I was only givin' ya a hard time, ya know. Get it? A HARD time… Cocks… Arch?"

  The same jokes for the past nineteen years. "I get it. And yeah, I'm going to be okay. Just working from home for a few days and taking it nice and slow, just the way I like it."

  He got the childish joke and laughed then got down to business. "Ok, so here’s the deal. I ran a check on all three of your people, right. I got nothin‘. The only thing I can find is on the mom, Amanda Colley. Nothing good though. She has a few parking tickets and her credit has gone to shit in the past few months. It seems like she kinda ran out of money and stopped paying her bills. I did some snooping around and discovered her cell phone was shut off a few weeks ago due to non-payment." That would explain why she never answered my calls. She probably didn't even have a landline. Nobody has those anymore, and besides, the cell number was the only number she had given me. With that, and knowing now that she was broke, I can tie up that loose end, I suppose. He continued, "See, nothing too exciting there. I found nothing on the daughter, which isn't really unusual since she is young, right?"

  "Yeah, she just turned eighteen not too long ago."

  "See, yeah, that’s no big deal. The thing that is weird though is that I can’t find anything on this David Fick character. And I mean nothin'! It’s as if he's a phantom. He doesn't exist. Granted, I found a few David Ficks out in the world, but nothing local and no evidence of any of these other fucks being your Fick."

  "So, what are you telling me here?"

  "I'm telling you this guy is either a ghost, or is squeaky clean."

  "That doesn't sit right with me, just like when they replaced comic legend John Ritter with that shaggy haired idiot David Spade on that TV show.” Wow, I really dislike David Spade.

  “Whatcha thinking’, man?”

  “His wife had mentioned that he had a problem with gambling and with the booze from time to time. Also, he'd been in a few brawls, too. This doesn't sound like the type of guy who wouldn't have a single blemish on his record. His wife thinks he is dead, which leads me to believe he may have been into it with some bad people and she knew about it. Doesn't sound right to me."

  "Look Arch, if you could get me his social maybe I could do a better job. As of right now, I couldn’t find him or his social so I really have nothing to go on other than the name. Maybe it's an alias or maybe he just never was caught doing anything. If you can get me the social I will be able to tell you more details."

  "Ok man, thanks. I'll work on getting it. I don't even have a picture of this guy yet. Kinda hard to find someone when you don't even know what you're looking for."

  "Did this lady pay you cash?"

  "Yeah."

  "Always respect the cash paying customer, man. Ride this one out as long as you can."

  "Yeah, I just might. Thanks buddy, I'll be in touch."

  "Heal up and let’s go play some golf."

  "Sounds good," even though the thought of swinging a golf club sent a pain to my gut like a swift kick in the balls.

  “I love smackin’ around a few balls with…”

  I hung up

  I laid in bed for a little while longer, pondering over the news I had just received. It should have motivated me to work, but instead my mind was darting off in all different directions and I couldn't find a focus. I decided to turn on the TV and see what crappy shows it could offer me for entertainment.

  I grabbed the remote off the nightstand and hit the power button, igniting the tubes of a little 19-inch piece-of-shit TV sitting atop the dresser against the far wall. I began swimming the channels and it didn't take me long before I came across an old rerun of Cheers. I was content. I tossed the remote on the bed next to me and watched. It was the one where Sam has to do the sportscast on the local news and ends up doing a rap about having a groin injury. One of my favorites. I fell asleep with my laptop still sitting on me.

  14.

  I woke up a few hours later, cleared everything off the bed and myself and looked at the TV to see an episode of the Nanny annoying me already. That shit shouldn't even be on my TV when I'm sleeping. I grabbed the remote and hit the power button, instantly shutting that annoying bitch up, and then gently rolled to my left side so I could pull the covers down and get underneath. I got myself nice and bundled up and continued my sleep.

  In the morning, I awoke to the smell of coffee in the house. I don't understand how something can smell so good yet taste so terrible. I decided to stay in bed a little while longer as just the thought of getting up caused my ribs to get mad at me. I flipped the TV back on. It was almost time for back-to-back Full House episodes. Awesome. Thanks Family Channel! Wait, no. It’s Sunday! Drat!!!

  The kids came knocking a few minutes later and came in to visit me and bring me something. Apparently, Elliot was telling Eric about my Rubik’s Cube skills but he didn't believe him, so they brought me one and Eliot asked me if I could do it really fast. I said no problem, took the cube, and quickly twisted it until I got one solid side of red. I told the kids that this was never the way to do it because it was deceiving and impossible to keep one side intact while working the other five sides. I quickly mixed all the colors up again and solved the whole thing in less than a minute. Puzzles were always my specialty and never, ever a challenge for me; that’s why I would turn the lights off while doing them. That provided me the proper challenge. I always felt good after completing a puzzle. Putting all those pieces together to form something whole. Made me feel accomplished. But now, I had some missing pieces to a different kind of puzzle I needed to work on.

  E
lise came into the bedroom and told the kids to go into the kitchen for breakfast and then she offered to bring my food to me in bed. I told her thanks but I wasn't really hungry and that I really needed to get to work. She walked over towards me, picked up my laptop off the floor, and put it on the bed, saving me a lot of pain from having to do that myself. I thanked her for that, then again thanked her for letting me crash here. It was my first full night in a bed since Marianne died.

  "You're welcome, Arch," she replied. "You know you're always welcome here."

  "I know. And that means a lot. Thanks for sticking with me, too. I mean, you didn't really have to. You don't have any ties to me anymore. Am I even considered your brother-in-law, still?"

  "Of course you are. People don't cease being a family when one member passes on. And besides, you were a good husband. I wish I had been so lucky."

  "Yeah, me too," as I gave her a smile. "That Jason sure was a piece of shit. And come on, who names their kid Jason anyway? More like Gayson. Unless you‘re wearing a hockey mask and killing sluts, you shouldn’t be named Jason."

  She laughed and said, “Gayson is right."

  "Jason Statham is pretty cool, though. Actually, I‘m pretty sure it’s just your limp-dick ex-husband that gives the name such a bad…name?" I laughed and added, “The machete wielding slut-killer is okay, but your bug-eyed husband tarnishes the name for everyone. “ I finally noticed that Elise had showered and was fully dressed and ready for her day. "Jesus Christ, what time did you wake up?"

  "I wake up at five every day. I like starting the day out early, it gives me a little quiet time, too before I have to get Eliot up for school and watch the four-year-old human wrecking ball all day."

  "Hey speaking of, where is Wrecker? He usually always sleeps with me."

  "The kids stole him. He slept with them last night. Actually, Eric slept in Elliot’s room because they were fighting over which room the dog got to stay in. They had a campout on the floor."

  "Cute. I bet Wrecker enjoyed the company." I looked down at Elise's feet and noticed her shoes. Her awful, awful shoes. "Shut up! You are not wearing Sketcher's Shape-Ups!" Shape-Ups are these god-awful looking shoes aimed towards women who were 'Handicapped- American Style.' Ya know; FAT! Anyway, up top they looked like normal hideous Sketcher brand shoes, but the soles, my god, the soles. They were Spice Girl thick and curved like a smiley-face. The point of these shoes, according to the hot babe in the skimpy gym outfit on the commercial, was to totally make you lose weight just by walking your fat ass to the fridge and toilet and where ever else fat people walk. They were hideous and a total scam but white woman were flocking to them like black people to a Tyler Perry movie. Elise weighed about 110 pounds soaking wet, maybe! I had no idea why she bought into this gimmick. "You shut up! These things are so comfortable. They totally help you lose weight, too!"