A Place For No One: A David Colton Novel

By James Rozhon

David Colton meets with his parents for dinner, and they surprise him by giving him ten thousand dollars in cash. That little offering confuses him and then the next morning he hears that both of them, his mother and father had been killed overnight in the convenience store not far from the bookstore he manages. The rest of the story is about ho

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gotham Books
• Release date: Dec 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798887751795

Book preview

Chapter 1

It might have been the weirdest birthday I’d ever had. My parents called me five days before my August third birthday and asked me to spend it with them. The issue with that? I was going to be thirty-three on my next one and hadn’t spent one with them in at least ten years. Since I was going to be alone otherwise, I accepted their request.

My name is David Colton and I live in Riverside, California. That place is on the outer fringes of the Southern California sprawl. As much as I’d like to blame my hometown for how outcast I have always felt, the truth is that it’s me and not the place where I live. Need an example? I was married once to a bitch named Helen, but that went south after not even two years. The only piece of luck – or any other piece of anything – I got out of that marriage was that we had no kids. I have no idea where she is now and I count that as the best piece of luck I’ve had since I met her. I’d like to lie and say I have a couple of brothers and sisters, but I try to not to lie – especially when such a lie as that one can be so easily debunked. No, I am an only child with few friends and no love life at all. Well, not since Helen.

I manage a bookstore – The Reader’s Nest - that is in downtown Riverside. No, I do not own it. A very hand’s off guy named Leon Ortega does and the only times I see him are on the first of the month and on the fifteenth. Since my birthday is so near to the first of the month, I asked him if I could have that day off when he came in on that day. I’d like to lie and say that since his last name is Ortega that he’s Hispanic, but that would be a gigantic half-lie because his bloodline is obviously mixed between Hispanic and something else, Caucasian I’d say. We’ve never spoken of it, but it’s only as obvious as all hell whenever he visits. Still, he gave me the day off only because my birthday fell on the slowest day of our week – Tuesday. Then he checked our sales for the previous month, smiled and left. Yeah, in an age of people walking around and zeroing in on their mobile devices we had a very good month of July.

Well, since my days off are Wednesday and Thursday, I had a three-day weekend and only one of them was going to be spent with my parents. Yippee!

Mom told me to be there at six o’clock and I wasn’t going to tempt the fates by being either a few minutes late or early. I rang their doorbell exactly at six and the door opened to my mother. Her name is Doreen and his name is Peter.

The first clue I got – or should have because I saw nothing amiss – was when she threw open her arms, cried out, David! My only child! and hugged me. Had she sobbed in any way, I think I would have caught on long before I did, but she didn’t. Neither did Dad. For his part, he extended his hand to me and when I took it, he wrapped me in a man-hug. You know, one of those quick-and-out hugs you see athletes give one another when they do something great for their team.

Mom said, We’re having steak for dinner, your favorite meal and I won’t hear any complaints about it. Just smile and eat your dinner.

Yep, like I was a five-year-old.

With that, she took me to the dining room and not even that brought anything like suspicion to my thick skull. What does that mean? Well, if I held up a finger for every time I came here and had dinner in the dining room, I’d have four fingers left over. Nope, this had never happened before. Dinner was served and eaten from TV trays as we watched the tube in the living room. Another clue I missed were the two burning candles on the dining room table.

Well, not even I’m that dense. I smiled at her and said, What’s so special about this birthday that we’re eating in here and not watching Fox News?

Look, Mr. Smarty Pants, you just sit down and let me get dinner served, she said, and then went off to the kitchen.

Dad indicated the chair at the top of the table and said, That one is yours. Don’t piss her off by arguing about it either.

Well, he said it in good humor, so I sat in the chair at the top of the table and he sat to my left. Mom brought in three plates of food – and don’t ask me how she managed it because I wasn’t paying attention. She put the biggest steak of the three in front of me, gave one to dad and put hers to my right. No, it never dawned on me that my right-hand man would be a woman who was my mother. She hurried away to the kitchen again and the next time she came back to the table, she placed a Coors in front of me and another one in front of Dad and a glass of water in front of her plate.

I stared at the package sitting on the table at its other end, a blue envelope leaning up against it. My present. The box was no bigger than those that held model airplanes. Its wrapping proclaimed, Happy Birthday! in huge, garish letters.

I smiled at them and said, Well, this is as weird as that time I dated a black girl just to see if the parts were same as on a white girl.

Okay, I never did that and only said it in order to get my mother to do or say something about not being a sexist jerk. When she didn’t say anything? Well, that was my first clue that this was something more than a mere birthday party for a son who had already been through one marriage, one that didn’t produce any grandkids for her and that brought her son to her home alone. I stared at her and said, Okay, Mom. What’s up and don’t say nothing is because we both know that something is weird here.

She has – or had because she’s fifty-four now – the reddest hair this side of Santa Claus’ coat. She has a hairdresser that makes certain it still has the ability to make you stop and stare at it, too. Since Dad has the blondest hair this side of The Beach Boys, you’d wonder how they managed to have a kid whose hair is as black as mine.

But Mom hesitated a bit and then said only, Let’s eat first, okay? I want my son to have a great birthday and this is my chance to give him one.

I looked at Dad and said, Okay. What did you do with my mother? This obviously isn’t her.

Dad isn’t usually the one of them that makes jokes. He seldom turns anything his wife says into something mildly humorous or wildly erotic. Well, to be fair, whenever he says something that counts as blatant sexuality, she smacks him on his bicep with her best girl-punch. No, they never hurt because Mom doesn’t have the ability to hurt people that she loves. Anyway, Mom is the one that has the fun. Like now. Like this dinner. This was her idea even if neither of them said anything.

Which brings up our family, our extended family. Well, this was it. Us. My mother, my father and me. Both sets of their parents are dead and neither of them has any brothers or sisters. Unless I came up with a kid or two, the family line ends with me.

A toast, Mom said, raising her water glass to Dad and me. We clinked her glass with our beer cans and Mom said, To my dearest son. I am and always have been extremely proud of you. Have the happiest of birthdays!

Dad added, Here, here!

Well, all that meant was that dinner went well. It was one of our better times together and that was possible only because both of them put so much effort into it. Mom has a great smile and she kept it on display all through dinner. Dad has a dry sense of humor and together they kept up a routine that would have made Abbott and Costello proud. For example, at one point in the dinner, Mom’s eyes went wide and she said, Oh, do you remember when Davie pooped his pants when we were shopping at Sears? Dad’s face froze and he said, And then he screamed, ‘I pooped ma pants!’ Everyone within fifty yards heard him, too!

Mom smacked him playfully, her smile on display and said, Oh, those were good times!

Then Dad’s eyebrows went up and he said, Do you remember Little League when he hit a ball off the fence in left field and was thrown out at second base? His coach called him the slowest poke he’d ever seen.

It went like that all night, their memories of me.

Then, it was time for my present.

Look, I know they aren’t rich, merely well-to-do. Mom is a supervisor of people who work answering phones at a local hospital. It’s as stressful as you’d expect it to be, too. Dad is a realtor and has been for maybe ten years or so. Before that, he sold computers and other electronics in retail stores. I remember him saying that it was easy but had no future because the more digital the country became, the fewer people walked into stores. The future, he said, was online. In that sense, I think he was right.

What do those little asides have to do with my present? Well, nothing besides the point that I think I had good parents. Dad took the time to show me about that digital world that was unfolding around me and Mom taught me about phones and how to use them without pissing off anyone. I hope I presented them in a way that indicated I had no illusions about my birthday present. I expected a nice card, maybe a few bucks in it and maybe a pair of shoes. It was the sort of stuff I’d gotten before.

Mom handed the card to me and said, It’s statement of how we feel about you, David.

It was nothing real special – at least on the outside. Smiling parents looked down at a crib where a happy baby laid. The caption read, Happy Birthday, son. I fully expected either money or a check to fall out of it when I opened it. Neither did. Instead, there was a statement that had obviously been written by my mother. Its curlicues gave away its author. However, it was what the words said that guaranteed they collaborated on the exact words. They read, David, our son: you have made us proud and we love you without reservation. Please accept this gift in the manner it was given, with love, gratitude and happiness. David Colton? We love you so much. With that, she slid the packaged box to me and said, This is yours from us.

It was wrapped in a generic blue wrapping paper that proclaimed, Happy Birthday around it. It was easy to remove and forget. I did both and was presented with a box too narrow to contain shoes. I didn’t know whether or not to be relieved at that understanding.

I opened the box with some curiosity because this was just about the strangest thing that had ever happened to me. When I had the lid off, I saw a pile of fifty-dollar bills that was so deep that I might have said something indelicate. Either way, Mom said nothing just like Dad did.

Well, until Mom said, There are two hundred fifty-dollar bills there. Ten thousand dollars. Please, take it as the gift it is. We love you and we want your life to be easier than it has been. Put a down payment on a car. Take a vacation. Use it further your ambitions. Just use it however you want and remember that it was pure love that motivated us to do this.

Dad? I said to him. Really? Ten grand?

It’s like your mother said. We love you, won’t miss the money because both of us have growing 401Ks that we contribute to, so this money won’t be missed by either of us. Then he flashed a rare smile and said, I’d use it to have a nice vacation.

It was unlike anything that had ever happened to me. It was so unsettling that I was convinced there was a catch to it.

That made me ask Mom, Okay, what’s the deal. What do I have to do?

That’s when my first real clue popped up.

She started crying.

She ran off toward the back of the house where her bedroom was and Dad just rose, pushed me and that damned envelope toward the door and said, I’ll handle it, Dave. You go on home.

I was confused and really didn’t know what to do.

He said it again.

Go on home. We’ll be fine.

Well, crap. We did the man-hug thing again and I went home.

And never dreamed what was going to greet me the next morning.

Or who.

Chapter 2

I was eating frozen waffles and watching the morning news drone on and on about the president and what an asshole he was when my doorbell rang. Annoyed more than angry, I got up and went to open it. I was coping with the ten thousand dollars that was sitting on my nightstand and was the reason I was still tired. I hadn’t slept much last night only because that gift was anything but a present.

A female cop was standing on the doorstep, another bigger male cop was behind her and to her left. The lady had her badge in her left hand and was holding so I could see it. The cop behind her just stared at me. She said, Are you David Colton?

I am, I said, because I was.

It was only then that I noticed she was holding a packet in her right hand. It was of the eight-and-a-half by eleven variety which meant it could be anything.

Your parents are Doreen and Peter Colton of Highlander Drive here in Riverside?

They are, I answered, the first signs of fear grumbling in my stomach.

Can we come in? We have some news about them that we would like to share with you, the lady cop said.

I nodded because there was nothing else to do. I threw open the screen door and said, Yeah. Come on inside and let’s hear it.

They entered but did not seek a place to sit. Instead, they stood apart in the middle of the room. It made me stand to face them. The lady cop stuffed her badge in her pocket and slid out what I assumed were photographs that were face down. Instead of showing me whatever they were, she said, When was the last time you saw them?

Last night, I answered.

The lady cop’s face fluttered, but just for a moment. Can you relate to us what happened when you saw them?

Why the fuck not, I said, finally exasperated. I slumped onto the couch and said, Last night was my birthday and Mom asked me to come to their home at six o’clock. I did and had no illusions at all that it was going to be anything but my birthday party. I looked up at the lady cop, one who still hadn’t announced her name and said, "Well, the nicely done steak dinner was my first clue, one that I missed entirely. I mean, my mother has never cooked me a steak dinner much less had one herself until last night."

Well, call me slow. Call me stupid, but it was only during that moment that something like common sense hit me and I asked, Why are you here? What’s wrong with my parents?

The lady cop took two sheets from her right hand, held them together and showed them to me. Are these your parents? she asked, with a neutral voice.

Long story made short? Yes, they were. Long story? They appeared to be asleep except for one garish exception. Both of them had a single hole in their forehead. The fucking lady cop was telling me that my parents were dead because someone shot them in the forehead. The goddamn bitch.

Yes, I said. Look, I said to her. What are you saying here? What’s wrong with them?

She half-turned to the cop behind her and said, Note that he identified them positively.

Already noted, the male cop said.

Then she turned back to me and finished driving in the last nail. Both of them were killed last night in a liquor store on Third Street. The person on duty was killed also. I am going to need a statement about your visit last night to your parents’ home. Agreed?

It hit me so hard that I froze, my mother’s face in my mind. I’ve already said that she had a nice smile and in that moment, I realized that was how I was going to remember her. But dead? No, that was impossible. I know I froze for a while, just froze as the news washed over me. I was alone. No parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents or even a close friend. Still, that facet of my life hadn’t hit me as hard as the one that said my parents had been murdered in a liquor store. The pain that hit me was so gut-wrenching that I curled forward cried out, No!

The two cops didn’t interfere with my overwhelming pain. They both managed to remain silent as the sudden realization hit me that I was alone in the world with not even my parents for consolation. It hurt so bad that I couldn’t think and couldn’t even ask the basic questions. You ask, What questions? Well, how about this one: "Why would my parents go to a liquor store right after they had dinner for me on my birthday? Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse? Besides, they had enough foresight to have beer available for dinner. Instead, the only thing I could think to ask was, Can I see them?"

Yes, when that becomes possible, she said.

It still hurt too much to think.

The male cop said, We need to ask you some questions.

Sure, I said. Hell, with the way my mind was screwed up, I wouldn’t be able to lie to them anyway even if they expected it. Look, I had no reason to lie and every reason to stay as coherent as possible for no other reason than to get some facts about their deaths.

The female cop said, I apologize that I haven’t identified myself. I am Officer Brenda Yates.

The male cop said, And I am Officer Samuel Morrison.

You said that your dinner with them was at six o’clock. When did you leave? Yates asked.

I shook my head trying to remember as exactly as I could and said, Seven, or maybe a little before that. It was a weird dinner and I was trying to make heads or tails of it.

What was the mood of the dinner? she asked.

I shrugged and said, Good for the most part. I mean, still it was weird. Then that present they gave me.

What was wrong with the present? she asked.

I smiled and said, They gave me ten thousand dollars last night. Mom told me to take a vacation. Then I zeroed in on another thing she said. Without a smile, I said, Another thing she told me was to further my ambitions.

She nodded and wrote down what I’d said. Yeah, both of them were transcribing everything I said, so it dawned on me to watch my words. No, I didn’t have anything to hide. I just didn’t want them to waste their time thinking I did it.

Still, the longer they stayed questioning me, the harder it got to answer their inane questions. It got so bad that I asked them, Were they just innocent bystanders? I mean, why would anyone want to kill them? They were good people. The best. Then, the question that was going to push everything before it. And which liquor store on Third Street? Damn, it’s not like they went into a lot of them anyway. I mean, when Mom didn’t drink anything alcoholic last night I wasn’t surprised. When Dad had a beer? Well, okay. I was mildly surprised because they aren’t and never have been people who needed to go to liquor stores to refreshen their supply. Heck, if anything, they would have gone to a liquor store before I got there and not after I left.

The lady cop – Officer Yates – nodded her head and said, And yet they gave you ten thousand dollars? In what form? Cash, a check, a money order? Exactly which?

Cash, I said. Two hundred fifty-dollar bills.

Can we see that money? Do you still have it? Officer Yates said.

Sure, I said. It’s on my nightstand. Been staring at it all night long. I’ll be right back.

Officer Morrison followed me back to my bedroom and stood in the doorway while I merely picked up the card and the box the money was in. I have to admit to being wobbly as I walked back there. I kept seeing those two pictures and the more time lapsed, the sadder I was getting. Fuck, if they wanted the money as evidence, I’d give it to them. To that end, I showed the box of money and the greeting card I got from them to Officer Morrison and said, "You might as well take them.