Wind was roiling dust from plowed fields, shrouding I-70. The dust had discouraged drivers from pushing down the road, that plus the sight of semis lying on their sides like slaughtered elephants. The restaurant was as busy as it had ever been. Hunters had taken over the banquet room. Pheasant season had started. They had come in drunker and more obnoxious than usual after a day ruined by the wind.
Josie, the waitress, hated wind, always had. She hated pretty much everything about western Kansas. The farthest away she’d ever gotten was St. Louis, a place that scared her more than she’d admit. She had planned to be in California checking out cooking schools by September but right before she was set to get on the plane Gran had another stroke. Everybody said, if you go, you’ll have to come right back for the funeral. Five months on, Gran was still alive, running and ruining others’ lives. Never mind. Josie had a reservation to fly out from Denver at the end of the month; she was leaving, no matter what.
The extreme weather, more and more frequent, made exactly one person happy, and she was behind the cash register in stretch pants that fulfilled their job description: Victoria, the manager. From her high-stool elevation she consigned Ellie to the banquet room, that pit of testosterone display. Ellie was the backup waitress. “Ellie is unflappable, aren’t you, Ellie?” Victoria said, giving the rubber band bundling the twenties a happy snap. Victoria allowed herself a celebratory shot of the cherry brandy which she drank out of a teacup. Vern Swindell, the owner of the restaurant and the adjacent filling station, was going to be tickled. The brandy sparked Victoria’s fantasy that Vern might revert to his horn-dog ways. Lately Vern didn’t exhibit much interest in women in general except when Ellie was within sniffing distance. Then he was the dog of old.
Josie bused a table in a booth, spritzed it and wiped it down. Before she had time to set it up, a man in a gray hoodie slid in, right under the sign. Two or more per booth. She placed tableware for four with extra percussion. Victoria would harass her if she didn’t shoo him to the counter but she was past caring. It was pheasant season. She wouldn’t get fired. The man slipped off his hood. His hair was as black as Victoria’s but a natural black, except for a spot like bird shit above his ear. His glasses had thin blue rims. He was not a hunter. He shaved. A chemical smell wafted from him, maybe his hoodie off-gassing. It looked brand new, like he just bought it at Walmart. It didn’t look in any way adequate to the weather outside. He was probably a psycho. “Is your coffee drinkable?” he asked
Josie made snap judgments, who to stall and who to impress with punctuality. “Depends,” she said. This guy she would torment in the nicest possible way. She might as well have some fun. She’d never see him again.
She took Henry and Clarice Burns’ bill to the corner table where they were finishing their pie a la mode, the capstone of their ritual Friday night on the town, which included a survey of all thirty square blocks in their maroon Lincoln Continental, cataloguing things to complain about. Larry Marylebone’s busted tractor still on his lawn. The old cafe rotting into the ground. Nobody giving a damn about anything. Waiting an extra two minutes for their bill was often on Clarice’s complaint list, and would probably be again tonight. Clarice put starch into her complaints, as if it could keep her husband from sagging like an old sweater.
Their choice of pie was always oatmeal, even though Henry didn’t much like it. He deferred to Clarice. He hung onto her for dear life, but who could blame him? Their daughters were estranged and their son, Henry’s supreme joy, was killed by lightning on the back of an alfalfa truck the same week Emerald’s body was discovered in a ditch near the lake. Emerald was their niece, staying with them for the summer.
Henry scrounged around and found his wallet and handed Josie a fifty. She suffered an injection of optimism there would be a decent tip, though the only time they left her a tip more than ten percent, calculated with a pencil from Mrs. Burns’ purse, was when she was high on antihistamines. The strict ten per cent applied only to Josie. Ellie reported fifteen per cent tips. What was the message? Was it about Emerald?
Josie handed Victoria the bill and the fifty, and drained a cup of coffee from the forty-two-cup maker. It was ten hours old. She knew it tasted like aluminum. One cup could scour a digestive system for hours. If you emptied enough blue, pink or white packets into it, you had half a chance of getting it down. She grabbed a handful of packets and took the steaming cup to the guy in the booth. “Did I order that?” he asked.
“Want me to take it back?
He was studying the menu, which didn’t reward diligence. “Leave it. What do you recommend?”
“Fried chicken.”
“What if I told you I don’t eat meat?”
“I’d shoot you and put you out of your misery.” Like she never met a vegetarian. She was one herself for three years, perfecting her anorexia. These pricks drove through, convinced they were in the land of the uneducated and unwashed. It was half true. Poorly educated for sure, but predominantly washed. She pointed, “We got a salad bar over there.”
She had pegged him for around forty but he walked with a hitch like somebody old or injured. His pants, unlike his hoodie, were well-worn, with a waxy, grubby sheen. If she was going to dislodge him from the booth, this was the moment, when he was at the salad bar. Another snap decision: it was preferable to have a table between him and her.
Her tables were pacified, so she went into the banquet room to see how Ellie was managing. The uproar was brutal. Ellie’s face was as red as the ketchup stains on her apron. Josie made a couple of rounds, gathering used silverware, getting felt up twice.
Last summer Josie unearthed a Nina Simone album from her father’s vinyl collection. She played and replayed the song “Pirate Jenny” about a murderous cleaning woman. Ellie loved it, too. Now, standing at the head of the table, clanging the steak knives to momentarily shush the pheasant hunters, Josie gave Ellie her cue. “Asking me…”
Ellie took up the line in her clarion alto, “…kill them now, or later. Asking me, now or later. And I said, ‘Right now‘.” A few hunters applauded uncertainly.
“Pirate Ellie,” Josie said, giving Ellie a shadow hug. “May you be forever unflappable.”
Poor Ellie. Everyone was out to get a piece of her. Too much heat in that body and no clue how to regulate it. Josie got felt up twice; Ellie probably had bruises from knocking away gropers. When Josie skipped town, she would be abandoning Ellie to these yahoos. She felt bad about that.
Back in the main room, Henry and Clarice Burns were struggling against the wind to open the door. Josie contributed her shoulder. Napkins flew like ruffled pigeons. Josie called out a chirpy, Clarice-like goodbye to the old couple which they wouldn’t hear over the roar of the wind, not that she cared.
Fifty-three more minutes. Hunter threesomes straggled out, into the black, bitterly cold night. The streetlight over the parking lot was out. They yelled directions to each other in the swirling dust before they either found their SUV’s and drove off, hazards on the road, or else wandered drunk into the nearby stubble-field and froze to death, the latter being preferable.
The lights inside flickered. Josie thought it might be her own circuits shorting out. This was her tenth shift in five days. Her ankles were swollen. She did a circuit to remind everyone that if they wanted dessert, the kitchen was closing in twenty minutes. She included the guy in the hoodie though he hadn’t ordered anything from the kitchen and wasn’t going to. He was poking a rusty lettuce leaf with his fork.
“I am impressed by the variety of Jello offerings in your salad bar,” he said. Josie’s sarcasm shield went up. He eased into a smile that lowered her shield a bit. She looked him in the eye.
“Everyone comments on that. But I didn’t notice any on your plate. You must be aware that gelatin is made from animal by-products. Cows. Pigs, too. Maybe we should put up a warning sign.”
“That would be thoughtful. And unprecedented. Luckily I was able to restrain myself. I’m afraid to ask, what are the white globs in the green variety?”
“No need to be afraid. Baby marshmallows. They are quite gentle. And one hundred per cent vegetarian.”
“Not so. Marshmallows also have gelatin. You’ll want to add that to your sign. Is there anything in this establishment I can eat?”
“Quite a lot, actually. Iceberg lettuce, as you’ve discovered. Potatoes in many costumes. Radishes, carrots, cottage cheese. Beans. There are some good Mexican restaurants down the highway, but not in this metropolis. But they probably use lard. As a vegetarian you will miss out on the pleasure of roasted pheasant, and the thrill of busting a tooth on a pellet. It’s our contribution to the locavore movement.”
“Is that so?”
“Well no. It’s not on the menu. No one eats the stringy carcasses. It’s a sport, shooting beautiful birds. If you’re vegan,” she pointed to a packet of non-dairy creamer, “that’s all we can offer but we have a truckload.”
His lowered his head, absorbing the news. “What would you do if you were me? Is there anywhere to buy a bag of peanuts?”
“I would order the pie. It’s made with Crisco. Can you handle that?” She pointed to the half-full cup. “Want a warm-up?”
“Do I look suicidal?”
“I wasn’t going to go there.” He laughed, which pleased her. “Did you get blowed off the road?” She knew it was blown but she liked the way it sounded rough and how it made her sound dumb, a camouflage.
“I came on purpose. I’ll be here a few days.”
“Came here on purpose. That hasn’t happened since about 1880. Except, of course, the fellows in the next room.”
“I’m a journalist. I’m writing about the murders of the two women on the interstate last February. Yesterday I interviewed the boy Walter who was convicted. I want to talk to some of the people he mentioned.” He took a sip of coffee and winced. “What kind of pie do you recommend?”
“Nix the apple. Store-bought. Edna the cook makes the others fresh every morning. Chocolate meringue. Lemon meringue, coconut, cherry and oatmeal. Oatmeal is not as bad as it sounds. Tastes like pecan that’s slightly moldy.”
“You make it sound so appealing. Lemon meringue.”
She cut him a slice bigger than standard, shielding it from Victoria’s disapproval. She wanted to find out if she herself was someone Walter mentioned, before admitting it was a dumb question. Of course she was. She testified at his trial. The journalist already knew who she was; all he had to do was say her name in town and learn she worked at the restaurant Fridays. Why did he mention two murdered women, not three? And not the little boy? Was it because Walter wasn’t convicted for Emerald’s murder, only the two women abducted from their car? He got manslaughter for the little boy, like an afterthought.
She put the piece of pie on the table, along with a clean napkin and fork.
“Did you know him?” he asked, digging in.
“Walter? Why do you ask?”
“From your reaction.”
“A lot of people knew him. He came down from Plainville for Saturday night dances.” The lights flickered again, the off intervals longer than before.
“The pie’s good.” He put down his fork and wiped meringue off his upper lip. “He mentioned the dances.” It was obvious he was angling toward something. “Did you know his father?”
“First time I laid eyes on him was at the courthouse.” She could still see the man vividly sitting a few rows behind Walter, his creased, sunburnt neck, the red baseball cap he took off to run his hand over his flattop. He looked to be in his mid-fifties but was still muscular, like he pumped iron or was on steroids. “He beat the hell out of Walter,” she said, “but that doesn’t excuse it.”
“Some people think his dad did it. That he let Walter take the rap. Walter said as much. That the only reason he was arrested was he found the bodies in the abandoned farmhouse.”
“There was blood in his pickup.”
“That doesn’t rule out the dad.”
“He didn’t say one word about his dad doing it at the trial.”
She walked away. Setting up the empty tables for breakfast, she tried to shake Walter out of her mind. There was a short period when she thought he might be boyfriend material, before she found out how needy he was. He was the kind of person who when you’re nice to him, makes ridiculous assumptions. She hadn’t ghosted him or been cruel. After she dropped him, he got fixated on Emerald who, like herself, had a period of mild interest before he started creeping her out. The evidence against him in Emerald’s murder was inconclusive: his pickup sighted at the lake a few days before the body was found. No DNA of hers was found in it. He was known to be stalking her. It was Josie’s own testimony at the trial, testimony that probably influenced the jury into convicting Walter for the murders of the two women and the death of the child.
After the trial, she had watched a clip of Walter being interviewed, swearing he was innocent. He was in tears. If it was performance, it was so polished she had trouble believing Walter could pull it off. Or that he could shoot out the tire of the women’s car from an overpass on interstate. But the sunburnt, sweating bulldog in the red cap sitting in the courtroom? She could believe he did it and she could barely stomach the thought.
What did it matter what she believed? She had told the truth, what she knew of it. That’s all she had done, all she could do.
By the time she got back to the journalist, he was the only customer left. He asked for a second piece of pie.
“Kitchen’s closed.” She could easily have cut another slice. The pie was right behind the counter looking available. She put his bill face down on the tabletop.
“I think Walter took the rap,” he said pulling cash from his wallet.
“You said that. That’s how you’ll tell the story and get some attention. But there were three murders. Emerald, the niece of the couple who was here earlier, what about her? What did he say about her?”
She went into the storage room, took off her apron and tossed it into the basket on top of Ellie’s stained one. She took some long breaths, and identified his smell: lighter fluid. She imagined him living out of his car, cooking his tofu-burgers on an encrusted grill in the local park. A loser thinking he’s going to write the next In Cold Blood.
“We’re closed,” Victoria yelled, massaging her limbs for a vertical orientation.
He was taking his sweet time zipping up and arranging his hoodie, as if that flimsy thing might keep him from freezing his ass. “The evidence against him in Emerald’s murder was circumstantial.”
“It’s also circumstantial that there have been no more raped and strangled women in the county lately. Now you have to go. You heard what Victoria said, we’re closed.”
He tried to stare her down. “Your name came up several times. I’ve been wanting to get your viewpoint. ”
“I’ll tell you right now, I don’t care what Walter said about me.”
“It wasn’t only Walter. Other people. That you were the reason he hung around town. How do you feel about that? I’d like to interview you.”
There was something grossly consistent about men: they asked the most asinine questions. How did she feel about being guilt-tripped for something she had no responsibility for? She fantasized stabbing her Bic pen into the white patch above his ear.
“That’s not going to happen,” she said. Right away she had second thoughts. It would be her chance to be on the record, to silence the jabberers. But it was still a solid no. Her presence in his narrative would be false. One more half-truth or downright lie. There was no recourse but to erase the slate, move on. That’s what she was going to do in less than a month, but she knew, without a doubt, neither time nor distance would make the story more bearable, those strangled bodies and the little boy, walking the dirt road in the sub-zero night.
In Faro's Garden