Murder in a Small College Town

By Gregory N. Chase

The reminiscence of an old man leads him on a search for answers to the whys of his character--his soul's final chapter--that began long ago on the eve of an ominous winter blizzard that did more than just encapsulate a small college town. As Chance Bigalow Harbor, part time bartender and full time college student, began his duties behind the bar, he was soon faced with the uncomfortable possibility that a murder had been committed there. While he wrestled with the everyday trials and tribulations that occur between roommates, love interests and other youthful roads traveled, little did he know that darker, foreboding shadows would portend to change his life. This story is intended for an adult audience. It may be especially of interest to the readers of mystery and murder genres and those of college age or above.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098364694

Book preview

cover.jpg

© Gregory N. Chase.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 9781098364687 (printed)

ISBN: 9781098364694 (eBook)

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

For my wife, Linda and my daughter, Shana

and for those that play with my heart:

Alex, Mason and Elise

Monsters are real and ghosts are real too, they live inside us and sometimes they win.

Stephen King

1

Yeah, I knew Jed. Good customer, he was. You’re lucky he vouched for ya, ‘cause I don’t deal with just anyone, ya know. Ya got to be careful, see. Too many rats tryin’ to climb aboard the ship; steal ya blind if ya turn your back to ‘em. Cops? Naw, I don’t worry about them none. This place is as safe as it gets; no one will see us and no one can hear us. So stop your worryin’, Mac. Enough with the chitchat, let’s get this thing over with. Can’t be sittin’ here jawin’ all night … I’m busy. That’ll be three bills. Ya had your taste. Good hit, right? So, what’s the hold up, anyway? Hey, what ya tryin’ to pull here? Robbery? Put that gun away before I wrap it around your scrawny neck. Don’t be stupid now! Ya better—

He awoke with a snort and a jerk, sure that there was a body lying at his feet. Fogged, and a bit shaken, he looked about for confirmation, then chuckled disconcertedly, and eased himself to the edge of his recliner, as if teetering on the edge of a precipitous cliff, gripped the over-sized arm rests as though they were slippery trout and cautiously leaned forward to right himself on a floor that seemed to have developed undulations all its own. Strange how alive I feel whenever I have those crazy dreams. Just can’t be natural, though. The old man cursed softly, but angrily at the sharply honed thorn that bit him abruptly and deeply within his sacrum, obliging a peculiar, and all too familiar, statuesque moment.

Off to the West, a long, slow drum roll rumbled through the clouds, tumbling over the landscape with a ponderous wave raking pre-storm admonition. Shuffling robotically, he made his way to the bay window overlooking the backyard where the earth seemed to shiver restlessly from a pervasive, eerie silence that foretold of a heavy hand afoot. He loved a good frothy storm. It stirred his blood; made him feel alive. But it was the silence, that empty vacuum before the brouhaha, he found so titillating, for it crept up on him like a playful lover; surrounded and overtook the whole of him and embraced him with tender warmth, but of late, it began to change—it had begun to house solicitous phantoms that he knew he would rest with soon enough, and he felt no compulsion to join them until then; yet he was drawn to the fury.

The rumblings surged ever closer, louder, and more ominous. Soon we’ll be in the thick of it, he gleefully muttered. Thunderous storms that once roared over his boyhood haunts now rolled through his mind as quickly as one could roll through a rolodex. He didn’t pay much attention to the consequences of such storms then; when he was young. But of winter storms— real winter storms—that was another matter. Of those, he always felt the haunting chill of isolation and vulnerability in the face of their ferocity—but things took a turn, some years ago, during just such a storm.

He tottered stiffly toward the kitchen, muttering obscenities, on limbs that laboriously shifted into first, then thankfully, eased into second. I’m in great shape for the shape I’m in, he growled. He straightened up when he neared the coffeemaker. I’ll bet if I’ve heard that phrase once, I’ve heard it a hundred times, he murmured, and that one, too, he voiced a little louder. He stood next to the sink, waiting for the red ready light to signal. He was used to waiting; it no longer bothered him, after all, he hadn’t been in a hurry for years—and when ready, he filled his cup to the brim.

Sipping his coffee, as if he were kissing a girl for the first time, he stepped out onto the porch where the wind was toying with nature’s statuary. Gusts of sand and leaves raced across the yard in great haste, running from a sky that bore mutating shades of gray, over a landscape caught in the unfolding process of a world preparing itself to be cleansed and refreshed. The rain stepped center stage, slowly at first, then erupted with more conviction. He gazed, admiringly upon the transformation, transfixed—until thoughts of another great storm captured his applause. Chilled by that memory, he wrapped his arms about his torso and returned to the house.

When was it … about 1970 or so? He eased himself into his overstuffed recliner and let his mind run with the sound of the rain, and of another time. He closed his eyes to voices uttered long ago and to a storm that laid bare the problematic core of his soul. His head grew heavy and began to nod. Soon it was yesterday and outside there were whispers wafting in the wind.

2

Sky painters dueled far off to the north with broad sweeping strokes of foreboding, charging over land and waterway with endless changing hues, growing ever darker, and engulfing. Few really slowed their pace enough to notice, but this canvas of tomorrows, with its calm and keen, burgeoning chill, signaled a thing that was too soon coming, and breathing hard, as if it were a living entity, it cared not if mountains, forests, towns or irreverent clowns of defiance got in its way—it was coming.

Trumpeting weather stations about the country announced that the developing storm front would most likely channel through the Dakotas then swing easterly through Iowa to lower Illinois, humping the Ohio valley on its way toward the New England coast and out to sea. For outlying areas it was just a yawn and a go-about-business-as-usual stroll, but the Alberta Clipper had changed its course and crept into the night before last on velvet paws. Silently at first, as if stalking some hapless truant, it menacingly picked up its pace with every heaving breath and overtook an unsuspecting sun climbing to the horizon. Suddenly leaping, claws extended, it had sprung into a full gale, and by noon you could tell it was just warming up as the mercury headed south and the wind churned into overdrive. By noon the small Upper Midwestern college town was engulfed in two feet of icy, blinding snow. The sun had fallen in full retreat behind swirls of ghostly white that obscured the deserted shops and byways. By nightfall only the hoods of surrendered cars could be seen; all else was barren grey and dark—and cold. The sun would not be seen for three days hence. Only a very few of the more resolute watering holes, never loathsome for the greenback, would be found daring the elements and providing fixes for the needy, the lonely, and mirthful. By 3 a.m. the following morning, only the polar winds and the forsaken were left howling in the dark.

From the far side of a now barren market square, an orphaned illumination flickered intermittently behind an endless vertical of snow and ice. Now you’d see it, then you wouldn’t—a predawn moment as this day melted into night shades, just as it began. Inside, the to and fro rhythm of a listless mop, swaying lazily in small arcs over the soil laden, terrazzo floor, dulled and cocooned his senses into a monotonous nothingness; a kaleidoscopic dance from nonsense to sensibility and back again. A bucket of hot, soapy water steamed reverently with an air of indifference, like a sentinel standing watch over some long forgotten historical testament.

Chance Bigalow Harbor, numb and blurry eyed, was in effect, suspended in a wasteland, alone with only the faint sensation of the mop’s regimental waltz. He leaned wearily against its handle and closed his eyes to a wave of uneasiness. But for fleeting consciousness, and the irrepressible cold shiver that ran down his back, he was oblivious to his yesterdays and the premonitions of tomorrows—a state that encapsulated him from the faint tapping at the back door, almost inaudible under the incessant drone of the neon lights behind the bar. It went unheeded—the wind perhaps? The air hung heavy with the acrid smell of stale cigarettes and fermenting beer, remnants of an evening filled with gaiety and frivolity. The soft but anxious, almost apologetic, rapping broke the silence, as if the hands of time had suddenly broken free of constraint.

Dammit! Just what I need! he groaned. He cursed Mike ‘The Handicapper’ for his one more for the road persistence last night at the Slippery Eel, as he reluctantly laid the mop against the pool table. He checked his watch. It was 6:05 a.m. He had little doubt as to who it was. They must have found some change, he reasoned, perhaps from some feel sorry for ya schmuck, or perhaps, it was a gift from some frozen doorstep, carelessly dropped by one of last night’s merry makers.

He struggled to keep the cumbersome backdoor from bowling him over, as a savage wind slapped him mercilessly in the face, chilling him instantly to the bone. Come in! Come in! Quick! Come in! he barked, with an aroused passion that seemed almost equal to nature’s raw indignation. Having elbowed their way through the doorway, the two snow encrusted ragamuffins stood stiff as corpses, looking awkwardly at the doorman’s exasperated expression, now embroidered in white.

What the hell are you two doing out in this weather? You should get yourselves down to the city shelter, he growled, wiping the snow from his face with his sleeve.

Looking at them huddled together, shivering, looking anxiously about to see if there were any surprises lurking about, his temperament mellowed. It’s a tad cool out there, isn’t it, fellas?

They smiled wide, tooth gaped, smiles; their heads nodding in agreement like dashboard plastic dolls. Stevie Good Boy’s hand was outstretched with several coins glistening beneath the faint silvery-blue sheen cast from the neon glow emanating from the cooler on his right. Stevie Good Boy is what those that frequented the local taverns called him; a name Stevie had obligingly perked up to. To the rest of the city he was an unknown; a shadow; a specter they preferred to ignore.

Come in, guys. Grab a stool and warm up for a bit, while I finish cleaning things up.

Hindered by a slight hitch in his right hip, Stevie Good Boy limped slowly toward the bar, peering cautiously about from under a soiled, caved-in, brown felt fedora. His clothes, tattered remnants from a bygone era, were draped loosely over his frame as though his body had shrunk under their weight, and when he moved, he emitted a distinctive whistling swish-swish sound, as though he was wading through a field of tall, brittle grass.

They stopped at the neon lit cooler that caged several aged lemons and limes,—faded condiments that were consigned to retirement the very moment they were purchased, for this wasn’t a bar that lent itself to such sophistications—and having taken inventory of the assorted carryouts, and comparing his coinage with the prices marked on the bottles, Stevie turned away sorrowfully, wiped his runny nose with the back of his gnarled hand, and moved on.

Lucky huddled timidly at his friend’s side, tugging persistently at his sleeve; clinging to him as though he were afraid he would slip down between the cracks in the terrazzo floor, only to be rebuffed by his more stalwart friend, who would yank his arm rudely away, the way an annoyed dandy might shun attention from a boorish, persistent pan handler. He peered nervously at Chance with quick, birdlike, darting glances; peek-a-booing, first down to the floor and then up to his friend and back again. Both sported several days stubble that shimmered silver and gray, depending how they held their head in the light, and with little imagination, one could easily picture them leaping headlong from some late night, coal fired, freight train, laboriously grinding to a halt in a steam hissing, metal grinding, car bumping moment, fleeing anxiously from an angry yardman’s waving billy. They epitomized, or what one could imagine, if there were such a thing—a King of the Road poster tribute to the nomadic rapture and glamour of the open road. That would be, of course, if they were tempered of such inner strength. But they were not. That was not in their nature. These were timid vagrants; broken men—society’s refuse; men that never felt the warmth of a woman’s embrace, the inclination to swagger, or know the camaraderie other men shared among men. They needed the familiar, the steadiness of it all. They were, however, men of endurance who survived where most others would most likely perish. They knew where the summer gardens lay, where the fruited orchards of fall swelled and where the rabbit ran. The town they hugged was generally compliant, even to their sort, thus affording them places to loiter, and on a good day, be the butt of a joke for the price of a drink. No, they would not be hooking their tendrils to any fire stoked dream down the rail, at least, not in this life time.

Both men hesitated for a moment where the floor had been freshly swabbed, carefully traversed the wetted area and made their way to the far end of the bar, near the large window that overlooked the square. Stevie climbed onto a stool and grinned smugly at Lucky who was trying to wrestle his stool closer to his friend and simultaneously climb onto its seat, and accomplishing neither, churned the affair into a comical, one man, whirling dervish. Stevie closed his eyes and released a deep ponderous sigh, as though his body had suddenly surrendered to the warmth of his surroundings. Lucky, finally seated upon his stool and apparently unfazed by his own antics, mimicked a mild, listless yawn and turned to look out the window. His body fidgeted nervously; shoulders, fingers, head, all moving at once in a twitching, discombobulated fandango. He stopped and abruptly turned toward his friend as if he had just remembered something. He nudged Stevie sharply with his elbow, to which Stevie, as if he too had suddenly remembered why they had come, catapulted his arm in Chance’s direction, revealing his soiled palm, dressed with a number of small coins. Chance leaned over from behind the bar and plucked the coins from his hand and laid them out on the bar.

Piwa? You boys want a piwa?

They turned to one another, blank faced.

Didn’t know I could speak Polish, did you? Well actually that’s all I really know but— He stopped suddenly upon noticing the anguished shock on Stevie’s contorted face.

"Piwa? Neima, neima! Weez want Musc, ya know. Musc, yah? Vino, vino ... yah?" Stevie’s finger was frantically dancing over the coins on the bar. Lucky was frantically nodding in agreement. It was obvious that they misunderstood his intentions, fore they were not about to waste their money on anything less robust than their usual, more reliable sustenance.

Chance shook his head reassuringly, realizing he had not made his purpose clear. Look... it’s on the house, fellas.

Stevie’s head snapped back. Yah? His eyes lit up saucer wide. And once Lucky also became aware of their good fortune, they both were bouncing their heads enthusiastically up and down in jackhammer unison.

I have to drain the taps a bit before I open, anyway, boys. It’s not stale. Hell, they would have been happy with last night’s left-on-the-bar leftovers, for a drink was a drink in their world and a free drink was really a fine drink. He wiped the bar in front of them and served them each a cold glass of beer. Stevie stared at it as if fixated on God, not touching it, just waiting; waiting for it to disappear like so many other dashed dreams. He straightened up, licked his chafed lips, flexed his interlocked fingers and stretching his arms beyond their God given limits, took a deep wheezing breath, gripped the glass tightly with both hands and moved in on it like a cat on a preoccupied mouse. Lucky, staring nervously at this rigid struggle, waited obediently. Chance moved further down the bar, cleaning as he went, not wishing to embarrass them, for he knew they were gathering all the will, and salvaged power they could muster, to grasp the glass with ungovernable hands so as not to spill a drop. Stevie leaned over his glass, sealed it tight to the bar and tilted it, ever so slightly, until he was able to slurp an inch of the golden elixir from the glass. Lucky, less adeptly, followed suit, then licked the overflow from his trembling hands. As ceremonial moments go, this was no less important in their grand scheme of things.

Chance went about wiping down the back bar and washing last evening’s glasses in disinfectant, knowing full well that these refugees from the damned could use a dip themselves. He wiped the dust from the liquor bottles and cleaned the taps and drip trays with more disinfectant and after he put the dirty ash trays in soapy water to soak, he asked them if they would like another piwa, on the house, of course—after all, as he rationalized it, he had to drain a little more from the tap in order to bring it to the required freshness necessary for those with a more discriminating palate. They quickly drained their glasses and pushed them eagerly forward, looking as if heaven’s gates had finally, and gloriously, opened.

Where most self-assured people make friends readily, these two unfortunates did not. For them, friendships got in the way of opportunity. Nevertheless, Chance liked these old devils. He respected their tenacity for survival; their respect for, and use of nature; their craftiness and unencumbered wanderlust, even though that latter trait had waned over the years. But most of all he detested the scornful and malicious dismissiveness, and arrogance, that fell upon those less fortunate by those who professed to be of superior breeding.

Chance took twenty-five cents from the back bar, walked over to the jukebox, threw a quarter down its throat and continued, where he left off, swabbing the floor. As an old country sad song begged for attention, he could almost hear the pithy ire spew from Jed and Ester’s sour lips, owners of this den of iniquity, as he often refer to it, chastising him for wasting their hard earned money on two old maggots from the bowels of hell. Little would it matter that at the end of the evening, Jed would retrieve a handful of tokens from this roadhouse crooner and loose them as quickly in a game of eight ball. Jed liked to gamble and for Jed, pool was truly