Birdsongs

Chapter 1

    The streetlights flickered with the summer storm. Benny’s umbrella pulled him down the boulevard like a mad dog on a short leash. With each step water gushed from the pores of his boots. His toes flayed in rhythm with a flip-flop beat. Glad to have an excuse to splash around in the forming puddles, Benny kicked and jumped through the growing pools. A schoolboy grin spread across Benny’s face as light divided the charcoal sky. The boom that followed, like God cracking his knuckles, tickled his insides. The night’s endeavors were unsuccessful with a stakeout resulting in naught.

    Benny strolled a mile and saw his ride. Michelle waited in his car as coached. She had the engine running, contrary to Benny’s instructions.

    “There’s smoke coming out of the damn pipes,” Benny said as he slid into the passenger seat next to her.

    “I was cold,” Michelle drawled, fully equipped with a Georgian drip. “And I wanted to hear the radio.”

    In no mood for a fight, Benny did not speak. His face tightened.

    “Do you want me to drive you home or not?” Michelle asked.

    “Yes, please drive me home, rookie.” Benny relaxed as he decided it wouldn’t have mattered if she honked the horn to the beat of the radio songs flashing the high beams on and off. The guy who he was looking for didn’t show. Nobody was out in this rain.

    “Do you want to go to your house or the boat?” Michelle asked.

    “The boat.”

    The beat of the windshield wipers hypnotized Benny. The rain frizzled in his ears. He snapped out of it as they rode over the speed bump that accompanied the thirteen mile an hour sign at the entrance of the marina. “Do you want me to come in tonight?” Michelle asked.

    “Not tonight, I’m beat,” Benny answered.
Jesus Christ, I only slept with you once. It was a mistake. Can we ever forget it?
Benny decided she never would.

    Once home, Benny’s eyes found the clock on the microwave as he dropped his umbrella and shoes directly inside the door. His pupils narrowed in surprise as he realized it was past two o’clock in the morning. The city slept. Benny coveted the sight of his bed. The floor pulled at his eyelids and his head followed lead. He tossed his drenched shirt towards the kitchen. It slapped the floor with a startling smack. His pants trailed. Benny lifted his gaze and a blinking red light signaling a message on his answering machine gave him his second wind. A delivery driver discovered a crucified body in a house under construction. Benny threw on a new set of clothes and just like that he was back in the rain.

    As he parked his Jeep behind a Blazer, Benny saw homicide detective Vernon Kearns leaning over, eying a muddy area along the gravel drive.

    “What’s going on here?” Benny asked, emerging from his vehicle.

    “Goddamned if I know,” Vernon answered, wiping his mouth and looking back at the muddy patch once more.

    Benny James was a retired FBI agent; he was not an official member of the Tilley police force. He was Encyclopedia Brown’s grown-up equivalent, a natural know-it-all crime solver, and the police department’s new best friend. The two friends shook hands and locked eyes. Benny recognized the look. Vernon had thrown up.

    “Where’s the guy who called it in?” Benny asked.

    “Gone to meet Chief Neighbors.”

    Benny grimaced.

    The gent who stumbled on the gruesome scene headed down to the police station to give a statement. Scheduled to deliver a bathtub with colossal porcelain feet, he was now sorry the contractor complied with his request to leave a hidden key.

    Benny walked toward the house and noticed the vomit on the ground where Vernon stood. Benny entered the vast bathroom and observed the staging and positioning of the body.

    “Jesus Christ,” Benny said.

    “Yeah,” Vernon answered, “I think that’s what our killer was getting at.”

    The victim, a young man, hung in a crucifixion pose, tied to a rugged cross, made from two-by-fours that leaned on one wall. The killer had attached an odd assortment of items to the right side of the body. Rings from a bubble gum machine donned all five digits. Benny queried over the pair of binoculars duct taped to the palm of the victim’s hand.

    “What the hell?” Benny said aloud. His tone bordered on funny.

    As Vernon began sweating again and feeling queasy he wondered how Benny could be so detached from the violence.

   The victim’s skin drooped purple. Bracelets made of wire, pipe cleaners, and vines created a scribble of lines lacing his arm. Beneath his right foot laid a dead bird. Benny noted a bluish-purple line encircling the victim’s neck and concluded strangulation occurred before the hanging of the body. The victim’s side had a jagged gash just below the ribcage.

    Jerry Lee popped his head in the door and requested permission to enter. He was an eager reporter for the town’s newspaper, the
Tilley Bee
. The daily paper usually had a front-page story detailing a community center activity or something with just as much excitement. This scene was a Broadway opening night for Jerry Lee.

    “I was listening to the police scanner and scuttled on over, Vernon?” Jerry Lee waited for an invitation and without one extended he entered the bathroom. “Holy Jesus and God’s mommy!” he exclaimed upon taking in the ghastly spectacle. “What in the Jim Lewis Larry happened here?” Jerry Lee loved to make up his own curse words after he found the Lord and these were his “F” words in the greatest strength.

    “Aren’t you the reporter?” Benny asked, annoyed by his arrival. “We obviously have a sick individual on our hands. This is a crime scene Jerry - I am going to ask you once and only once to get out before you contaminate the scene with your big-ass clumsy feet.”

    “If you don’t get to stepping,” Vernon said, “I’ll arrest ya’ ass for entering a crime scene without proper authority.” Vernon stepped aside to get another perspective of the scene. “These are Johnsonville Binoculars, Benny. Talk to your tech buddy Ned and see if he knows where they’re sold. I’ve never heard of the brand, have you?”

    “Nope.” Benny stared, grimacing, with his eyes about an arm’s length away from the victim’s midsection. “This cut in his side is enormous! Looks like some sort of sword made the incision.” Turning to Jerry Lee he said,” Put in tomorrow’s paper that investigators found key evidence at the murder scene. Say we sent it off to the state crime lab to put a scare in this asshole. Now do what we both asked of you and get out. And don’t touch a goddamned thing on your way.” Jerry Lee nodded sickly and scrawled something in his notebook as he exited the house. “When your boys get here,” Benny said to Vernon, “make sure they note that Jerry Lee entered the crime scene at 3:03 a.m. and exited at 3:06 a.m. through the front door. Where is everybody else?”

    “Slow moving, Benny,” Vernon said as he continued to inspect the body. “When was the last time anything like this happened in Tilley?” he asked rhetorically. “I’m sure those guys think their phones are ringing with wrong numbers. They’ll be here eventually.”

    By the time the official crime team arrived, Benny saw all that was necessary after perusing the entire house in search for anything out of the ordinary and split.

Chapter 2

   Ray Clint Boyd stared through the bars of his cell. His eyes were empty windows. He sat cross-legged, a Zen master. His vision appeared to see simultaneously all and nothing. Like a wax figure, his body was motionless, yet it seemed to possess the ability to spring to life at any moment. Contrasting a Zen master, his mind was not clear and void of all thoughts. He was deep into his daily mental exercises that consisted of fantasizing about how he might kill a certain someone. There were so many methods, each painfully unique, that Ray Clint was remorseful in the fact he could only kill this special someone once. The corner of his mouth twitched and a smile slowly crept across his face as he visualized the technique he doggedly believed would deliver the greatest amount of personal satisfaction—a good old-fashioned baseball bat bludgeoning. A rugged face surrounded his mouth that told the tale of countless cigarettes. Long, greasy, braided hair fell down his back. If he was given a guitar or motorcycle, he would pass as Willie Nelson’s next of kin or a worn out Harley rider.

    For nearly three decades he stewed with an anger that bubbled and boiled in him like an evil spirit. He did his time in a nine by twelve cell in the Fairbrook County Penitentiary. He thought it was anything but fair being put away for a crime he swore and never wavered he did not commit. He impatiently waited for this day. He was about to receive his walking papers and stroll out of the prison gates. Ray Clint knew there was a high probability of a prompt return following his revenge. He told himself again he did not do it as he heard a guard nearing his cell. Inside one of his few books, the only one he decided to take with him, Ray Clint tucked an aged letter.

    “Ray Clint Boyd?” The guard called. “You ready to go out there and see how the world has changed?”

    “Come on Jimmy,” R.C. responded. “You knowed me o’er twenty years and you ain’t never called me that since day one.”

    “Gotta be formal on a day like this R.C.,” Jimmy apologized. “Warden’s here to supervise your release and I don’t want him in my craw.” Jimmy tuned his voice to a whisper and said, “Now go see my Uncle Sly at his diner. I told him you never caused a lick of trouble in here and you been our best cook. He said he has an old trailer—no electricity, but you’re welcome to stay there and work while you get some sort of plan for yourself worked out.”

    “Does he still got that old Gold Wing for sale?” R.C. asked hopefully.

    “Yeah,” Jimmy said and nodded. “Nobody wants that old motorcycle. Needs too much work I guess. He told me you could work it off.”

    “I’ll get her running good,” R.C. said with confidence. “It’ll keep me busy at night.”

    “Please don’t let me down and cause no trouble. I’m really putting my neck out for you.”

    “I told you at least a hundred times,” R.C. snapped. “I ain’t never caused no trouble my whole life.”

    As Jimmy led him through the prison, R.C. said his farewells to former cellmates and friends with simple nods and a wink or two.

    “There isn’t one guilty man in here is there?” Jimmy asked in jest.

    “There’s at least one innocent man,” R.C. responded with a heavy look on his face.

    “I actually believe you,” Jimmy said ending the conversation and straightening up as they neared the command station to check out.

    The sky was a sloppy Picasso. A graveyard of clouds hung like frozen skeletons above the Fairbrook County Penitentiary. R.C. took a deep breath he felt seep in and out of his eyes. He opened his hands from clinched fists and wiggled his fingers, feeling the blood trickle down his veins, pounding like a heartbeat in his fingernails. R.C. scrunched his toes in and out and began to walk purposely on the grass near the side of the road, feeling the soft green earth that was so foreign in the concrete and steel bar jungle from which he just departed. The desolate landscape was free from homes and businesses, as no one wanted to live or work close to the penitentiary. It was the first time in nearly thirty years Ray Clint Boyd was truly alone.

    It was about three miles to town and R.C. did not try hitchhiking as there were signs warning motorists hitchhikers may be escaped convicts. He did not care how long it took, as he was simply content to take in the surreal experience of being on the outside. Locked up since the age of twenty-three, R.C. was now fifty-two years old. Vegas boy, soldier in Vietnam, and convicted killer; this was his life. He walked steadily, as if he had an invisible rope attached to his gut, pulling him towards an unknown destiny. His eyes blazed. They were not empty this time, nor did they seem the least bit meditative. They were cups, running over and spilling vengeance.

Chapter 3

    As the rain pounded harder, Benny entered his car and drove almost blindly to his boat. The houseboat was also his office and he sat down at his desk to make some notes and to check his messages again. Benny was in the private eye business. It was four in the morning and the Sleepy Cove Marina sang with the pitter-patter of rain. The houseboat named the
Jane Says
was his home for a short time after his ex-wife Jane told him to get the hell out. Since then he had acquired a small house in town with a red picket fence, but he spent the majority of his time and many nights on the boat and away from home. Benny had been meaning to paint the fence white, but the curious red symbolized something he could not quite put his finger on. Until he could decipher the meaning of the former owners’ color choice, Benny decided to let it remain the peculiar red.

    The slip that held his forty-foot houseboat was rent-free since he was the marina’s security guard. The owner of the marina felt comforted by the fact a sign at the front gate warned passersby the area was under guard. He had the choice of a covered slip, but chose uncovered for nights such as this. The rain beating against the boat’s top was soothing in the early morning. Benny spent many nights stargazing in a rocking lounge chair on top of the boat. It brought him answers to his various puzzling questions.