_______________________________________
DARKENING
STURGEONS
Chapter Seven
by John L. Harmon
The widow
Waterbottom sways gently on her porch swing, keeping time with the
country/gospel blaring from window speakers.
It is a near-perfect summer evening in Sturgeons, in one of her many opinions. The sun is beginning to set, a gentle breeze
floats lazily around, and there is a glass of homemade iced-tea in her hand.
She
observes with mild interest the Sheriff’s SUV pulling into the neighboring
driveway. Out of the vehicle emerges
Benjamin Straker, a young man she doesn’t really know, but would gladly relate
her version of his biography to anyone within earshot. Speaking of earshot, the widow Waterbottom
decides to stop the young man from wasting his time.
“He’s
gone!” she hollers over the country/gospel.
Acting
Sheriff Ben Straker, barely hearing the old woman’s voice, stops and faces the
music.
“What?”
“He’s
gone!”
Ben walks
over to the Waterbottom front porch and asks the widow to turn down the music.
She
complies and then reiterates, “He’s gone.”
A dark,
worrisome fear creeps underneath Ben’s skin, conjuring the names of Bob Kinney
and Tommy Schroder. “Where did Sheriff
Lawrence go?”
“Don’t
know. He just packed up and left in a
hurry,” Bertha Waterbottom answers vaguely.
Much like some of her neighbors, she doesn’t ask questions, she just
simply observes and judges.
“When?
“Yesterday.”
Lester Lawrence obviously wasted no time in
vacating not only his position but Sturgeons, as well. This does not detour Ben from going forth
with his original plan.
“Thank
you, Mrs. Waterbottom,” he gives a nod and turns away, but then stops and turns
back, always an officer. “By the way,
please keep the music down. As Lawrence
always tells the teens with their rap/metal, not everyone likes your kind of
music.”
“What does
aluminum foil have to do with it?”
“Never
mind, Mrs. Waterbottom. Never mind.”
Ben turns
away again, not knowing if he should smile or scream as Mrs. Waterbottom
brazenly ups the volume of her country/gospel.
The twangy reverence serenades him to the next-door porch. Once there he reaches up, removing a spare
key from the light fixture, and quickly enters the house of Lawrence, muffling
the blaring music as he shuts the heavy door.
Switching
on lights, Ben is confronted with the truth.
Empty, abandoned rooms are what he finds upon a search of the familiar
house. Only one space, the living room,
shows remaining evidence of the man who had lived there.
Two items
are propped up on the fireplace mantel, the smaller leaning against the
larger. Ben approaches the scene
curiously, but cautiously, uncertain of anything after the events of this
weekend. He suddenly recognizes his own
name written on a white envelope in Lawrence’s loose-style scrawl.
He impulsively
grabs the envelope, hastily opens it, and pulls out a letter, hoping it will
provide answers. Reading it aloud, his
voice echoing in the surrounding emptiness, Ben is dismayed at its brevity.
“Ben—You
are a good man and you will make a great Sheriff.—Lester Lawrence.”
The
parentally abandoned man slips the letter, more note really, back into the
envelope and the whole thing into a back pocket. He then picks the second item off the
mantel. It is a decades-old high school
yearbook. Ben flips aimlessly through
the black & white pages, shaking his head in confusion and disappointment.
Sheriff
Benjamin Straker leaves the house of Lawrence, once again serenaded by the
widow Waterbottom’s country/gospel, and unilaterally decides that he could use
a drink. All the while, unbeknownst to
him, binoculared eyes have been watching from behind blue velvet curtains.
__________________
JLH
