in Uncategorized, Blog, Lit, Serial Fiction 9:40 am Sunday, September 2nd, 2007

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

“Nobody’s gonna believe this business about insurance claims,” Angie exclaimed as she pulled Danny’s pickup into the ramshackle parking lot of the Amboy Market. The sun was high in the sky and the noon hour was heating up. She picked a spot in the shade of a tall tree and turned off the engine. Danny smiled benignly. It was not the first criticism she’d muttered since the previous evening’s meal. Bean sat sweating miserably in his hastily mended suit and said nothing.

“Suspicion is part of the ruse,” Danny reiterated for about the twentieth time. “If Bean comes on too plausibly, somebody will make him. But truth is stranger than fiction, kiddo, and folks will let this story pass once they mull it over a bit, you just wait.”

“Is it that hard to believe?” Bean blurted out, annoyed at being discussed as though he weren’t there. “I talked to your guy Bauman for more than two hours yesterday. He told me everything I need to know. Christ, I could apply at State Farm for a job and they’d probably take me on.”

Angie patted his thigh condescendingly and added, “You’re nineteen, Bean. Those insurance guys are all over the hill, retired military or cops. You might pass for an Amway salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness, but a claims investigator?” she shook her head. “No way.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Bean muttered. “I look pretty stupid in this fucking suit, I’ll say that much.”

Danny chuckled. “I’ve been spared the spectacle by divine providence.”

“Funny,” Bean snorted. He took a deep breath, climbed out of the truck and marched off with a notebook in hand and a pocketful of faked-up business cards that read Jason Simmons, Assiduous Trust Insurance, Claims Division and had Bean’s cell number along with an embossed logo featuring an eagle in flight.

“Nobody’s gonna tell him a damn thing,” Angie said as Bean disappeared into the market. “And you know it, Danny.”

Danny shrugged. “You never know, it could happen. Doesn’t hurt to try.”

Angie rolled down the window and hung one tanned elbow on the doorframe. “Why dress him up and send him in there without a good story? It’s just mean.”

“What did you think was gonna happen, girl? Old Bob in the meat department’s gonna pause between cuts of beef and reflect, ‘Funny you should ask, young man. I was just over at Schaller’s place the other night choking him to death…’” Danny laughed wryly. “Give me a break.”

Angie was sickened by the imagery, but her curiosity got the better of her. “What are you on about then?” she asked.

“Just trying to beat the bushes,” Danny said. “I wanna know who’s curious enough to check on Bean’s story. When the phone starts ringing, we can start asking real questions. At least we’ll know who to ask. As it stands, we don’t know where to start.”

“You think anybody will call?”

“Wouldn’t you, if you had reason to be suspicious?”

Angie twisted a lock of hair in one hand. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

Danny ribbed her with a stocky index finger and she coiled up on the edge of ticklishness.

“You might, kid,” he said with a smile, “but I sure as hell won’t.”

*          *          *

Bean, Angie and Danny covered a lot of ground. They left the market and made the rest of the rounds in Amboy—they hit the video shop that still rented VHS, they stopped at the liquor store, the drive-through espresso stand next to the creek, and of course that old bucket of blood, Nick’s Tavern, complete with its omnipresent lineup of ancient Harleys out front.

The trio stopped into every business from Fargher Lake to the ranger station at the base of Mount St. Helens. They canvassed the sinister little village of Yacolt, the trailer park and gas station at the fork in the highway leading either north to the big reservoirs or east up into the hills and the byzantine network of logging roads that snaked through them; they stopped at the old white church on the hill near the tiny community of View, and even the forbidding piecemeal compound that housed the wolf sanctuary and German Shepherd kennel next to the cold, deep green of Lake Merwin.

Everywhere they went it was the same story. Bean spit his pathetic cover at the locals and attempted fruitlessly to ply them for information about Herb’s life. Most people were polite—though the bartender at Nick’s laughed in his face when he tried to order a glass of Chardonnay—but he learned nothing that wasn’t already common knowledge.

The sun had dropped as they made their way along the twisting highway back to the garage. Bean was beat.

“Let’s face it,” he muttered hopelessly. “I didn’t get one goddamn thing.”

Angie smiled and Danny explained that the goal of the exercise had been to stir up a cast of suspects, that he never expected Bean to stumble across a smoking gun.

“You could’ve told me that for christsake!” Bean practically hollered.

Angie tousled his hair and laughed at him kindly.

“It would’ve bitched up your style,” Danny said.

“What am I, a method actor?”

“Well,” Danny said, “if your investigatory acumen is any clue, I wouldn’t quit your day job.”

By the time they dropped Angie at her house it was dark as pitch, with no moon and cloud cover to hide the stars. Danny relented and poured Bean a small scotch as they settled into two chairs in front of the stove.

“You earned it,” Danny said, handing him the glass. Then he lit a match to the dry kindling piled up in the stove. It took, and was blazing almost at once.

“I guess,” Bean said, setting his glass down and pulling the dress shirt off over his head, “but I don’t know if we’ll get much out of it.”

Danny said nothing. He closed the stove door and warmed his hands in front of the glass.

Bean was climbing out of the chair in search of more wood and possibly a second scotch when the cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

 

[Editor’s Note: Tune in next Sunday for Chapter 7!]