The News in Small Towns (Small Town Series, Book 1) (32 page)

Special bonus chapter from Book 2 in the Small Town Series

Madness in Small Towns

Chapter One

of

Madness in Small Towns

I blame the full moon.  It was just after 1 a.m. on a cool night in early December.  I was lying in bed feeling lousy and wondering whether I should go out and put the blankets on the horses when my phone rang, shattering the first little bit of peace I’d enjoyed for almost a week.  I snatched up the receiver before it had a chance to ring again.

“Yes?”

“Hi.  Is this Sue-Ann?”  The voice was high pitched and whiney, sounding uncomfortable and uncertain, a girlish voice, but one definitely issuing from the mouth of a man.

 “Yes it is.”

“Sue-Ann McKeown?”

“That’s right.”

“This is Cletus Donnelly speakin.  Clete.  We went to hah school together, d’you remember?”

The name was vaguely familiar and I tried to hang a face on it: a gangly, pimply faced boy.  A loner?  I wasn’t certain.  Had he been nursing a crush on me for 25 years and finally got brave enough—or drunk enough more likely—to ask me out?  Shit.  “It was a small high school, Clete.  I’m sure I saw you around.  Listen, it’s the middle of the night and I’ve been on the road for two days straight.  Is this important?” 

“Oh, raht.  I’m really sorry to bother you.  I jist wanted to tell you that ah’m gettin ready to kill mahself.”

Brilliant, I thought.  Just what I needed.  I closed my eyes.  “That’s great, Cletus,” I answered.  “I really appreciate you telling me that, but if there’s nothing else—”

“Don’t ya want to know how ah’m gon do it?”  he broke in.

“No, not really.  What I really want is a little sleep and—”

“Ah got Mama tied to the bedposts,” he said quickly. 

I opened my eyes and sat up.  “You what?”

“And ah poured gasoline all round her bed.  Round the whole house, too.  Jist before ah die ah’m goin to torch the whole place.”  That voice.  Almost hysterical, as if Cletus was trapped in a corner by an army of rats.  It was the voice more than the words that gave me the whammy jammies. 

“Why are you telling me this, Cletus . . . Clete?”  I asked.  “You need to call a hotline or the police or a mortuary.”  I threw off the covers and got to my feet, still holding onto the receiver.

“No way, José,” he said.

“But why me?”

“You’re a reporter.”

“And?”

“And ah want you to raht up mah story . . . make sure ah get on the first page.”

“Your story?”

“Ah have a story.”

“Let me get this straight.  You’re going to kill yourself unless I put a story about you in the paper?”

“No, you don’t understand.  Ah’m
goin
to kill mahself sure enough.  You need to raht about whah ah did it.”

Everybody has a story, even though most of us don’t have to threaten murder and suicide to get it told.  Well, it’s not as if I had expected to get any sleep that night.  I decided to give him his fifteen minutes.  “All right then, Clete,” I told him.  “Hold on and I’ll get my notebook and my pencil.  Don’t go killing anybody before I get back okay?”

“Yeah, but hurry.”

Actually, I had a notebook within reach on my nightstand.  What I really needed was in my purse.  Placing the phone receiver softly on the bed, I quickly flicked on the light, padded into the living room, and took my cell phone from my purse.  I pressed the speed dial number for the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department—it was much faster than going through all that 911 rigmarole.  A female voice answered, “Jasper County Sheriff, Tequesta speaking.  How—”

“Tequesta,” I broke in.  “This is Sue-Ann McKeown.  Listen quick.  Some guy named Cletus Donnelly is on my other line.  He says he’s going to kill himself and his mother.”

“Hey, I know Clete.  What—”

“Just listen.  You need to get somebody to his house and stop him from whatever he’s about to do.  He’s probably armed and he says he’s saturated the house with gasoline.  You got that?  I’ll try to keep him talking until you get there.”

“Yeah, but where does he live?”

“No idea.  Look in the phone book!  Who’s on duty tonight?  Dilly Dollar?  Have have him call me at this number when he gets there.”

“Right, okay.”

I broke the connection, ran back to the bedroom, and grabbed up my notebook.  “Okay, got it.  You still there Clete?”

“Yeah, raht.”

I sat down on my bed with my back against the wall, phone in one hand, pencil in the other.  My notebook was on my lap and my cell phone, set on vibrate, was on the bed next to me.  “Okay,” I told him.  “Go ahead.”

“Go ahead what?”

“Tell me your story.”

The voice that came over the wire was still shriekily unnerving, but more hesitant, more tense than it was previously.  “Ah don’t, you know, have it written down or nothin.  You haveta ask me questions.”

I sighed, but not into the phone.  “Right.  Okay, then, Clete, how are you planning to kill yourself?”

This time he answered without hesitation.  “Samurai sword,” 

“I’m impressed.  Are you going to cut off your own head or what?”

“That’s not . . . You’re making fun a me, aren’t you?”

I spoke quickly.  “No, no really.  I’m just asking.”

“You can’t cut off your own head.”

“Right, I can see that now.”

“Ah mean, think about it.”  He paused, then resumed, “Ah’m goin ta fall on it.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s a honorable death,” he said.  “Samurai guys sometimes had to do it so they wouldn’t be disgraced.  Even some guy in the bible did it.  Ah’ve thought about it a lot.  Ah’m goin to put the tip a the blade against mah chest—raht where mah heart is—and just close mah eyes and fall forward.  It’ll be just lahk steppin off inta space.”

I tried to visualize what he was saying.  “Um, what if the handle slips on the floor?”  I asked.

“Ah’ll, you know, anchor it down some way.”  Clete’s voice was starting to sound a little more frantic if that was possible, so I changed the subject.

“Why are you going to kill your mother?”  I asked.

“Well, you know, how could she get along bah herself? She has heart trouble and rheumatism.  No, if ah go, she hasta go, too.”

“Just a thought here, but are you going to let her burn to death, or are you going to kill her with the sword first?”

“Naw, she’ll be dead from the smoke a long time before the fahr gets to her.”

“Clete,” I began a new train of thought.  “Has something bad happened to you recently?  Got laid off?  Money troubles?”

“Naw, nothin lahk that.  Nothin ever happens to me.  That’s the trouble.  Everything is the same day after day.  Go to work, come home, give Mama her medicine, cook dinner, go to bed.  That’s it.”

“Where do you work?”

“Ah’m a correctional officer at the prison.  A guard.”

“Don’t you like it there?”  I asked.  “I mean, you’re helping to keep criminals off the street, right?”

“Bullshee-it.  Ever one a those convicts should be electrocuted.  An ah don’t mean tomorrow, neither.  Good-for-nothin drug addicts, murderers, an child molesters.  An you know what else? The COs are just as bad.  Ever damn one of them smugglin drugs inside and takin home a pocketful a money.”

“If that’s true, then why not tell somebody about it?”

“Tail who?  The Captain?  He probly knows all about it.  The warden?  He’s a crook, too.  Besides, ah just don’t give a fuck.  Don’t even give half a fuck.  Let em all rot; at least ah won’t be here to see it anymore.  Anyway, ah
am
tellin somebody.  Ah’m tellin you.”

“But Clete, I can’t print something like that without proof.”

“Who asked you to?  Ah want you to raht about
me
.”  He stopped talking for so long that I was just about to ask if he was still there.  But when he started up again, his voice was softer, more wistful.  “Ah wanted to be in the army,” he said.  “But they wouldn’t take me.  History was mah favorite subject in hah school and ah read about all the wars an battles an generals.  Ah wanted to be a general but ah didn’t even get to be a prahvate.  Ah mean, look at raht now.  Ah’d have a chance to be in Afghanistan or Iraq.  Ah would love that.  Havin on the gear, walkin down the streets of a foreign city raht in the middle of a war zone . . . ”

I’d had about enough.  “I’ve been to Iraq, Clete, and believe me, you don’t want to go there.”

“Ah guess ah know what ah want, all raht,” he told me.

“All I’ve heard out of your mouth so far, Mr. Wannabe Soldier, is a bunch of whining.”

“You can’t—”

“Shut up.  You can’t stand to live because nothing good ever happens to you?  Your job sucks and your mother’s old.  So what?  Everybody’s job sucks sometimes—
most
of the time—and everybody’s mother dies sooner or later.  At least you still have yours with you, which is more than
I
can say.  I mean, how would you feel if maybe your mother got killed and you weren’t around?  What if you had a disease that forced you to take drugs every fucking day of your life?  How would you feel if your girlfriend just up and disappeared without saying fuck-all to anybody?”

Clete’s voice now had a confused tone to it.  “Ah don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Maybe if you’d stop whining about what a—”

“Ah don’t really lahk women,” he interrupted softly.

“You what?”

“Ah think ah’m probly a queer.”

“You
think
?”

“Ah mean, ah ain’t never done nothin, but sometahms ah get strange feelins when ah look at somma the other COs.  Even somma the inmates.  Hey, you’re not goin to raht that in the paper, are you?”

“You want me to tell people that you’re a loser and a murderer, but not that you might be gay?”

“People respect a killer—specially a soldier or somebody on Death Row.  But if you’re a fag, you’re worse than shit.”

“Come on, Clete.  A lot of great men and women have been gay.  James Baldwin, Elton John, Rock Hudson, Sappho .  .  .”  I could have gone on and on.

“Do any of em live in Pine Oak?”

He had me there.  Pine Oak could have been a small town in Iran as far as its acceptance of homosexuality went.

“Um, I don’t think so—”  Just then my cell phone vibrated.  I grabbed it up and tried to think of something to keep Clete on the line while I answered it.  “Listen,” I said. 

What does your mother think?”

“Mama, well, at least she won’t . . . ”  I lost the thread of his words as I covered the mouthpiece of the land phone and answered the cell.  “Sue-Ann,” I said both quickly and softly.

“Sue-Ann, it’s Bill Dollar.  I’m almost there.  Sgt. Bickley is backing me up—he lives pretty close to Clete.”

Bill Dollar—some of us that had gone to school with him called him Dilly—was one of only a handful of officers who patrolled Pine Oak. He often called in tips for news stories, so we knew each other pretty well.

“Right.  What’s the address?”

It was a number on Sawdust Street.  I wrote it down on my notepad and hung up.  I put the big phone back to my ear.

“.  .  .  sure hope ah’ll be dead bah the tahm the flames hit me cause ah don’t lahk fire much.”

“Clete,” I said.  “There’s nothing wrong with you that can’t be worked out.  There are people that can help you, places you can go.”

“Ah ain’t goin back to Wackoville, no way.  No more a that psychology crap for this puppy.”

That answered a couple of questions.  The state mental hospital was in nearby Waxahatchee—called Wackoville by most of the folks that didn’t live there.  Clete had obviously had problems before.  I was getting really antsy.  I knew I had to keep him on the phone until the police were in place, but I also wanted to be there at the scene.

“They keep you drugged twenty-four seven until you feel like you’re made outta tar.  No bones, no—”  I heard a quick intake of breath, then the phone clattered and I heard the rushing of heavy shoes on a wooden floor.  I hung up my own phone, threw on a pair of jeans and a blouse, stepped into some Crocs, and rushed out the door.  My old Toyota pickup started on the first try and I was soon rushing toward Sawdust Street, cursing the ruts that corrugated the dirt road for the mile before it became blacktop.  I buttoned my blouse with one hand and held on to the wheel with the other.  I pressed the number Dilly had just called me from, but he didn’t answer.  I hoped he was all right. 

Sawdust Street was only about ten minutes away if I sped, so I sped.  And during those ten minutes, all I could think about was Cletus sitting in some room reeking of gasoline with his mother struggling to free her arms from whatever ropes or tape her son had bound her with.  And yes, I was already writing the story in my head.  It was much like writing the story of a major election.  First you write “Republicans in a Landslide,” then “Dems in a Squeaker.”  Add some background that everybody already knows and
voilà
, you are ready to plug in the numbers.  In this case it was “Local Man in Tragic Murder-Suicide” vs. “Local Man Captured after Armed Standoff—Hostage Safe.”