The Other Side of Bad (The Tucker Novels) (11 page)

Standing by my stainless steel stove top waiting for the kettle to whistle, it hit me. They knew where I lived. My son, Emmett, could have been home.

Emmett was the product of a relationship with a friend of Margie’s and mine during a vulnerable period of my convalescence. Marriage was not an option for either of us. Emmett was legitimized through the courts and carried my name. Without the courts being involved, his mother and I shared equal time with our son. Since the age of two, when we started living in separate homes, Emmett stayed with each of us for two weeks of every month. Emmett was literally my salvation. He was my beacon and reason for living during a time of extreme nigrescence. He could have been home.

Later in the morning, I would have to call Spain and find out where E. T. hangs out. I’d have to have a chat with Eddie Tuma.

Chapter 21

Lyles, TN December 12
th
, Present Day

I was cooking a mushroom, asparagus, and egg white omelet when I heard Razor’s ‘somebody’s driving down the driveway’ bark. Tuesday joined in, and Buck went into his Stevie Wonder impersonation. I looked at the clock on the double oven. It was 6:17 a.m., and not quite daylight.

I had changed into jeans and a sweat shirt. As I went to the single atrium door, I tucked the Colt into the small of my back and pulled the sweatshirt over it. Earlier, while drinking tea, I’d loaded the shotgun and sidesaddle back up to capacity, and it was leaning in the corner to the right of the door, barrel down so I could pick it up by the grip.

Before I opened the door, I saw a flash of colored lights and heard one small blast of a police siren.

I turned on the floodlights and waited. It only took about twenty seconds before Larry Deal, the constable of Lyles, was standing on the patio.

“Come on in, Larry,” I said, turning and walking back toward the kitchen.

I heard the door close, and when I turned around Larry was standing there, his hat in his hand, displaying a bald shaved head sitting atop heavy shoulders. He had no neck, literally. He looked in the corner and saw the shotgun. It was black and ominous, looking just like what it was, a killing machine.

“Can I make you some coffee? I’m just finishing up this omelet and would be glad to share it with you.”

“I gotta few calls earlier this morning, Tucker,” he said.

“I bet you did,” I said, slipping the omelet out of the non-stick pan onto a plate. “How about that coffee? I can make you a fresh cup.”

“No thanks. What the hell was going on here earlier? Mildred Thomas called and said it sounded like a war over here.”

Mildred Thomas is my closest neighbor, about a third of a mile away.

“Must’ve been someone shining deer up on Willow Branch,” I said, sitting down at the dining table.

“With a machine gun?” he said. “That’s what Mildred said it sounded like. And Wayne Baker called right after and said there was something going on over here, and it sounded bad, like a gunfight.”

Wayne lives on the other side of the creek, way up the hill, about three quarters of a mile, as the crow flies.

“Yeah, that’s what it sounded like to me, too. Scared me to death. I wasn’t about to go up there and check to see what was going on. The only reason I didn’t call you was, I figured someone else already had. Figured I’d see you sooner. It was over an hour ago I heard all the commotion.”

“Ya know, Tucker, we read the papers out here, too. I know what you do for a living. Always kinda liked having you out here. I figured if you was still alive, you’d still be here, and if you weren’t, well, there just wouldn’t be any reason for me to hightail it over here so early.”

Larry was a good ole country boy. He was born and raised here in Hickman County and got along with just about everyone. Constable was an elected office. He also wasn’t going to get his head shot off if he had anything to say about it.

Larry Deal walked over to the corner and stuck his finger in the barrel of the shotgun, twisted it around, then pulled it out. It had a black smudge on it. He held it to his nose and sniffed.

“Smells like it’s been fired recently,” he said, then looked over at me. “What in the hell are you eatin’?”

“A mushroom and asparagus egg white omelet.” I said, still chewing.

“Jesus, Tucker,” he said, scrunching his face like he just got a whiff of something bad. Constable Deal was a sausage and egg man, the eggs cooked in the grease from the sausage.

“When’s the last time you fired this here riot gun?” he said, holding up his smudged finger.

“Must have been a couple of months, at least,” I said, with my mouth full. Dining etiquette would have been lost on him.

“Yeah, right,” he said with a smirk. “And you always have it parked right here by the door.”

“No. I guess I was nervous about those poachers up the hill, what with the automatic gunfire and all. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got up and put that in easy reach just in case, you know.”

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “Those
poachers
must have shot them a deer right up there by the split of your drive. My headlights picked up a shiny blood trail that started right about there and went up past your gate.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said, twirling his hat around his finger like a cowboy twirling a gun. He was enjoying himself.

I said, “I never thought they were that close. You reckon they didn’t know anyone was living down here?”

He walked back to the door and put his hand on the knob, put his hat on and said, “Well, I’m sure they do now. I’ll go tell Mildred your poacher story, then go by and talk to Wayne. I like you, Tucker, but I hope you can keep your Nashville business in Nashville, know what I mean?”

I stopped eating and put my fork down. The anger was coming up. They had come to my home. My son could have been here, alone. I looked him in the eye and quietly said, “I know exactly what you mean, Larry, and I’m going to make sure those poachers get the message.”

He suddenly looked like he needed to put on my heavy robe to chase away a chill. He nodded, then was gone.

After eating and cleaning up, I fed the dogs, then did some paperwork for about an hour. After changing into camo pants and rubber boots, I put Tuesday in the truck and drove the two miles to the Henry farm, where I had permission to use their pasture that contained a pond.

For the next hour Tuesday heeled, sat, and played baseball, a training exercise. Baseball is where she sat alone about 20 feet away. She’s the pitcher’s mound. I’m home plate. I throw dummies at the first, second and third base positions. I send her to each base where she retrieves the dummy and brings it to me, then goes back to the pitcher’s mound for the next command. At least that’s what happens when it’s done properly. At the end of the hour I thought, maybe tomorrow it would be done properly. I was determined not to let anything get in the way of my daily routine. Everything will go on as normal.

It may have had something to do with the black shotgun laying in the grass next to me. Tuesday kept going over to it and smelling it, like it was somehow important. She knew it wasn’t routine.

After returning to the house, I took a shower, shaved, tied my hair back, and got dressed. I pulled on a black t-shirt that I tucked into blue jeans held up with a custom-made, wide leather belt, sturdy enough to hold my Colt filled holster, and put on my Lucchese boots.

I sat down on the couch and called Spain.

“Brad, I need to know how to get to Eddie Tuma,” I said after he answered.

There was a long pause then, “What do you mean by, ‘get to’?

“They made a run at me last night. At my home. I can’t have that.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, but one of his goons isn’t.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Only if I got lucky, shotgun in the dark, up the hillside from the house. I knocked him down. His partner hauled him off, left a pretty good blood trail.”

Spain was quiet for a moment. I could hear the background noise of a police station.

I said, “Razor let me know they were there. I sort of got the drop on them when they were fumbling down the driveway in the dark.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was a blast.”

He laughed and said, “Like I said, Tucker, what do you mean by ‘get to’?”

“I just want to talk to him. Explain my side of it, you know, express my feelings. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen because of non-communication.”

“Can I come and watch?” he snickered.

“That may put a damper on what I’d like to convey.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“I want to talk to him where he feels safe, on his own turf.”

“Can I have your gun if he offs you?”.

“Sure. Where can I find him. . . tonight?”

He let out a long
 breath and said, “Fuck it. He owns a couple of titty bars, one on Nolensville Rd. and the other one is on Dickerson Rd.  The one on Dickerson is called The Men’s Room. He uses it as an office. He can usually be found there every night after 11 o’clock. His office is on the first floor. It’s the door on the left in the back of the place. He’ll have some muscle. Be careful.”

Tuesday came up and put her head in my lap and I rubbed behind her ears. I took love where I found it.

I said, “Sounds like you have done a study on this guy.”

“Fuckin’ A, we’d love to nail this bastard on something. He’s crazy, but he’s smart and seems to be connected. Like I said, be careful, I don’t want your gun that badly.”

“Thanks, Brad.”

“No sweat. I’m just worried that if you have to kill him, you’ll leave the wrong witnesses.”

“Well, there’s that,” I said. “But how ya gonna act?”

That had him laughing again, “Another Tuckerism?”

“Well, that’s what life boils down to, isn’t it?” I said. “No matter what happens, you’ll be judged on one thing, so ‘how ya gonna act.”

“Tucker, what’re you gonna do about Carr?” he said.

“I’m going over to his house this afternoon, at 1 o’clock. He wants me to stay for dinner, too. Sounds like a long interview. I hope I don’t get sleepy.”

“George Carr’s anything but boring,” he said.

I had the feeling he was leaving something out.

“What?” I said.

“Whatta you mean…what?”

“I just have a feeling you wanted to say something else.”

“You’re right,” he said, and hung up.

Chapter 22

Present Day, 1:00 p.m.

I pulled into the circular, tightly laid flagstone driveway of George Carr’s mansion. It led me under two giant stone arches with cupolas at each end of a tall covered entrance before the front door. The door looked like something taken from a 17
th
Century church. It was all wood timbers and large metal hinges held together with nails, or more like spikes.

I rang the bell hoping I wouldn’t hear someone yell ‘come in’. I had my doubts about my ability to open the door.

The door opened and standing in the dim foyer light was a medium-sized woman whose gray and white uniform, and old face, didn’t fit her beautiful hair or Gestapo gaze. From the lines on her face, she was somewhere in her mid hundreds, and by the ease with which she opened the door, I ascertained the door was either hung and balanced by an artist or this old biddy could clean my clock.

“Come in, Mr. Tucker, we have been expecting you.” She smiled, and I was taken aback. She had a gorgeous smile, and her voice sounded like music. As I came in and closer, it became apparent the lines in her face I had taken for age, were scars. Hundreds of little scars. She’d had a very good plastic surgeon. I didn’t know what had happened to her, but it had to have hurt, and she was younger than me.

“It’s just Tucker, and to whom am I speaking?” I said, putting out my hand and looking her in the eyes, but not with the intensity of someone avoiding her face.

I must have turned on a little charm. She tilted her head just a little towards the floor, her shoulder length strawberry blonde hair falling around her face, then extended her hand that I gently held without shaking it.

“I’m Rachael, head of housekeeping,” she said, her eyes darting to the scar on my face.

I found her attractive.

“This house looks like it would take some keeping,” I said, looking around, still holding her hand.

She laughed warmly and slowly took her hand back.

Before she could close the door, I said, “Do you mind, I would love to close this door, if I can.”

She laughed again and stepped aside.

As I closed the door, which took no more effort than any door, I thought, when my ship comes in I’m going to have a head of housekeeping, one just like her, with a laugh like that.

“That’s amazing,” I said. “I thought you were like Superwoman, when you opened that door.

“Then I shouldn’t have let you,
like
. . .  close the door.” She smiled again, increasing the depth of the scars.

She turned and walked away from me into the foyer. She looked great walking away. She couldn’t be any older than mid thirties, wonderful legs, and exceptionally fit.

The floor was granite with an array of Persian rugs with a few Kalim’s strewn around. English Hunter tapestries hung down from 30 feet up. Pieces of art ranging from alabaster Buddha heads to an array of Edmondson sculptures stood atop pedestals surrounding the foyer. A chandelier hung in the middle that looked to be made of diamonds. The cut crystal shimmered like a sunrise after an ice storm.

“Rachael, could we just stand here for a moment? It’s not every day I see something like this.”

She turned around and walked back and stood by my side.

“I’m used to it, but you’re right. To me, it’s all become something to be cleaned, without being broken.”

I took her hand and looped it through my arm and patted it. I leaned closer and whispered to her, “It must be a real pain….”

Looking straight ahead she said, “In the ass.”

“Thanks, just the word I was looking for.”

Turning her head, she looked at me and said, “You don’t seem the type of man to lose many words.”

I almost smiled.

“If it’s not too personal, how long have you been working for Mr. Carr?”

“I’ve been with Mr. and. . . Mrs. Carr, for a little over nine years,” she said, the sadness in her face making her look old again.

I hadn’t met George Carr yet, but I was already liking him. Any man that could keep this woman employed for nine years must have something other than money going for him.

“Rachael, I’m sorry to hear about Mrs. Carr. I can see you liked her.”

“We were very close,” she said, looking through the foyer as if someone was coming, or maybe the absence of someone.

In a confidential tone she said, “It has been very hard on Mr. Carr. We are all close here in the Carr household, and not much goes on that I don’t know about.”

There was nothing to say to that, so I didn’t.

“I hope you can help us, Tucker. Now it’s time for you to meet Mr. Carr.”

The way she said us, like a family, all I could do was nod.

She led me through opulent rooms to a hallway that had a different feel to it. It had been decorated by someone other than the one who decorated the rest of the house. At the end of the hallway was a plain solid oak door.

Rachael knocked softly, twice, on the door.

“Come in, Rachael,” I heard from the other side.

Rachael opened the door, and I stepped into a large office, about 1,000 square feet of office. This was a man’s office, and sitting behind a polished teak wood desk the size of a small dining room table was the man. He was sitting in a plush high- backed wine leather chair, the pleated tufts studded with brass. His hair was jet black, streaked with gray. It was thick and combed straight back, revealing a strong forehead. From 30 feet away, I could see the blue in his eyes. As he stood and walked around the desk, his movements were confident and graceful for a man his size.

“Mr. Tucker, I want to thank you for taking the time to see me today,” he said, walking toward me with his right hand extended.

He had to be at least six-foot-six or seven. He reminded me of a retired pro basketball player, a fit one.

As I tried to get a comfortable grip in his bear paw, I said, “I am sorry for your loss, Mr. Carr.”

His lean rugged face lost some of the confidence that I had first seen in it.

“Thank you, Mr. Tucker. I understand you are no stranger to loss, so your words are appreciated.”

While still holding my hand, he put his left hand around my right arm and gently led me toward his desk. In front of the desk, facing each other, one to the left and one to the right of center, were two chairs identical to the one behind it.

On the hike to the chairs, I took in more of the office. The hardwood floors were randomly covered with rugs, some were Navajo, and looked old. There were bookshelves made of polished cherry, and a glass fronted gun case with a display of long guns and hand guns. Some were antiques, collector pieces. Two fish mounts, one a Grayling and the other a large German Brown, were placed on either side of a Pronghorn antelope high on the wall behind his desk. It smelled of lemon polish, wood and fine cigars. I liked his office.

“Please sit down, Mr. Tucker,” he said, indicating the chair to the right.

As I sat down, I noticed a picture on one of the bookshelves behind his desk, he and a beautiful auburn-haired woman with a dazzling smile. He had his left arm around her shoulders, his right hand holding ski poles. The bright colors of their ski clothes burned through a light snow shower. I could see the fullness of their relationship embossed on their faces. They were in love and happy.

“That was my wife, Jean,” he said, hoarsely.

I must have been staring at the picture. I continued to look at her. Her hair was like Margie’s, auburn and thick, falling down around her shoulders. Her ski goggles propped up on top of her head, holding her hair off her face. The small laugh lines around her eyes and mouth were eye-catching, accenting her character as well as her beauty.

I slowly turned my head and looked at George Carr in the eyes. I didn’t even notice that he’d taken the chair opposite me. We sat like that for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes, each looking for ourselves in the other, I found ‘the me’ of years ago.

“It gets better with time,” I said. “A lot of time. I know it’s been three months and there are some people who think you should be getting better by now, that you should be getting on with your life. To hell with them. Three months is nothing. It’s going to take years.”

I could see him laboring.

“My name is George,” he said.

“Tucker,” I said.

He leaned over, put his elbows on his knees, looking at the floor. I could hear him breathing.

Through his teeth he said, “How did you get through it? Brad Spain told me about the car wreck that took your wife. I have never heard of anything so horrible.”

He looked up at me, slowly straightened and sat back deep in the chair. “Brad said you probably wouldn’t mind talking about your experience. He said you used to do it all the time when you did grief counseling. Would you mind talking to me? Or would it be too painful?”

This was one baggage car that was always open.

Over the years, between grief counseling, therapy and just plain venting, I came to identify grief as a sneaking, slithering monster that only attacked when I was least expecting it. It would never pounce when I was describing what had happened, even in a graphic way, but when I was alone, tired and vulnerable. I once watched a television commercial and saw a ballerina dancing in the morning mist and the tears just appeared. The naïve effort it took not to cry would break my jaws and the sob I wouldn’t let out, burst in my heart. It took some difficult learning, to cry.

George Carr sat there, hands folded in his lap, waiting.

“Badly,” I said.

He looked confused.

“You asked how I got through it,” I said.

“Badly?” he asked.

“Oh yeah. I turned to booze and drugs. I couldn’t eat. Every time I tried to eat, I’d cry. I cried in more than one restaurant.”

“I know what you mean,” he said, with a ‘finally being understood’ groan. “Why does that happen?”

“It takes a lot of energy not to fall apart,” I said, nodding to his implicit sigh. “It also takes energy to digest food. Sometimes there’s not enough to do both at the same time. But, then I found if I did a bump of cocaine and had a drink, I could stay on top of it.”

He looked over at a closed cabinet and said, “Yeah, I’ve been drinking more than I used to.”

“George,” I said, “you do anything you have to do to make yourself feel better. Just know this, what you don’t process now, you’ll process later.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Grieving is a process and you
will
go through it. It helps to know what that process is, so when you experience it, you won’t think you’re crazy. I suggest if you haven’t already started, get some grief counseling.”

“Brad said you suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” he said uncertainly, like maybe he was overstepping a boundary.

“Suffered . . . that’s an interesting word,” I said. After thinking about it for a moment, I added, “Appropriate.”

Riding the currents of a gentle breeze blown in from my past, I heard the faint sounds of a train clacking on the tracks.

I said, “I remember the first time I went grocery shopping by myself. It had to be about a month after her death. Grocery shopping was something we always did together. Pushing the cart was my job, and putting the groceries in it was hers. One moment I was pushing the cart, and then I was lost, not really knowing what to do. I needed her. The next moment I was in the car. I was trapped under her. I could taste and smell the blood. I was in the nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. All the terror and fear was there, I was choking on her blood and spitting her brains out of my mouth. Then I could feel myself waking up, knowing she would be there by my side and everything would be okay. But when I woke up, I was on my back on the floor of Kroger, soaked in sweat with people standing over me. Then I had to deal with the fact it wasn’t a dream, it was real. Then it started all over again, from ground zero. Any processing I’d done around grief was erased. That’s Post Traumatic Stress. It took a few years for that to stop.”

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“Jesus?” I said. “At the time, I was certain he wasn’t there.”

Carr’s perceptive stare said it all. “I’ve had my doubts about my faith in Jesus. . . and God too, since all this has happened. Jean was such a kind soul.”

In his eyes, I could see the guilt boiling up like lava. His face had a pallid, beleaguered pallor.

“You said you’ve been drinking more lately.” I said. “I think one now would be appropriate.”

He stared at his watch. It was one so expensive, I didn’t know what kind it was.

I said, “It’s happy hour somewhere.” I knew it was old and trite, but the timing felt right.

“Okay.” he said. “Could I get you something?”

“Sure,” I said. It was way too early for me to have alcohol, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw myself twenty years ago and knew what he needed now was a companion. Someone to share with, even if it was a drink at one o’clock in the afternoon.