Chapter 1
THURSDAY
The alarm on my bedside clock went off at 6:00 AM and truthfully, if I’d been able to find my pistol, I would’ve have shot the damn thing. Right then, I should have known it wasn’t going to be a good day.
The rain ticking on the windows confirmed the weatherman’s prediction that clouds covering the entire mid-south would be with us till up in the evening. It wasn’t likely we’d see the sun all day.
It was still dark outside and even though I was the only occupant, my bed was warm and cozy. The thought of having to get up and go to work made my stomach turn, and I seriously thought about pulling the covers over my head and hiding until hell froze over.
The feeling that something was wrong was still with me. I’d tried to shake the notion of impending disaster but nothing had worked.
I tried reading and watching movies, thinking if I immersed myself in someone else’s troubles, I wouldn’t fret over my own. I listened to music, tried long walks, and even signed up to go to a gym, suffering through a week of excruciating pain every time I moved a muscle that I’d allowed to go soft. I even tried drinking, but the view of the world through the amber bottom of a beer bottle wasn’t to my liking. It just made things worse the next day.
Over the past thirty or so years, I’d fought this demon more times than I wanted to admit. At one point I’d sought medical help for the cloud that seemed to periodically hang over my life, only to be told it was all in my head. The Docs prescribed pills to take the edge off, but they had the opposite effect, and made me feel like a zombie. I finally flushed the meds down the toilet when I caught myself looking longingly at my .9mm, thinking it would be so easy to stop the merry-go-round.
Always before, I’d been able to pull myself out of it somehow. This time though, the feeling was worse and I knew if I didn’t do something about it pretty fast, I’d never be able to get out. I’d be stuck, alone in the crowd, doing shit that didn’t matter to anyone, for the rest of my life.
The only way I knew of to break the cycle was to take some time off and go home.
There were people back home who knew me and cared about me. I had friends there. The mountains that surrounded the place were like the walls of a fortress. I was protected there. I was safe.
So I forced myself to get up that morning.
By the time I left the house at 8:00, the rain had slowed to a light drizzle that was just enough to keep me from seeing the road. The streaks left behind after each sweep of the blades reminded me I’d again forgotten to replace the worn wipers, and apparently not trusting me to actually look at the gauges, the low-fuel alarm began dinging as soon as I pulled onto Thompson Lane.
Somehow I managed to navigate through the traffic to the Shell Station on the corner of Murfreesboro Road. Having to pay $2.49 a gallon to pump my own gas was highway robbery, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I dodged the drips coming off the edge of the canopy over the pumps and searched inside the station for an attendant. The kid sitting behind the counter barely looked up when I asked about replacement wiper blades, pointing to a rack that was sandwiched between bags of potato chips and peanuts on one side and a cooler full of beer and soft drinks on the other. I set the wiper blades, on the counter, went back outside to finish filling the tank and then trekked back inside to pay for my purchases.
It took another fifteen minutes to figure out how to secure the new wipers so they wouldn’t fly off as soon as I turned the switch to activate the blade arms. The kid never moved from his dry perch on a stool inside the station, and by the time I finished changing the blades, the front of my raincoat was soaked from leaning over the wet sides of my Explorer.
It was a disgustingly different world. When I worked with Danny at his Dad’s service station back in Lincoln, we fell all over ourselves when someone pulled up to the pumps, checking oil levels, tire pressure and filling the gas tank. But those days were long gone. Nobody seemed to care anymore.
As I pulled into the reserved parking space next to the entrance to my office on the east side of Nashville, the dashboard clock read 8:45. The storm grate was stopped up again, and water standing in the parking lot soaked through my Penny-loafers as I exited the car.
As was usual when it rained, the internet connection was down and a search of my desk failed to reveal the report and photos I needed for the accident case I’d been working on. A quick glance over the other work stations told me half of our staff still hadn’t made it in, and of those that had, none had bothered to venture into the breakroom to make coffee.
Nothing went right that day, and for the millionth time I asked myself why I was still doing this? Why was I fighting the traffic every day? Why did I bother working late every night, just to go back to an empty house so I could choke down supper from cans or take-out boxes, and then fall asleep on the couch before the 10:00 news was over?
By 4:00 I’d had my fill of it. Nothing I touched was right, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I picked up the phone and buzzed Leo’s office.
“Are you still serious about your offer?”
After a short pause, I heard his voice on the other end.
“Wait there… I’ll be right in,” and the receiver clicked in my ear.
Before I could hang up, I heard him telling Mrs. McEwen to take a message if either of us got any calls. He closed the door, settled his bulk into one of the chairs in front of my desk, and once again we began the negotiations we’d cussed over numerous times in the past two years.
But it was different this time. This time I was really serious.
Leo Blackman knew me pretty well. We’d been friends since college, and business partners since the mid-1980s. He knew the signs. He knew I was close to the breaking point and he’d been trying to give me a way out.
Ten years earlier, around the time Angel left, he’d offered to buy my half of our business. At the time, the doctors at Vanderbilt thought the numbness in the side of my body was due to stress. But with a little more digging and a lot of expensive tests, scans and X-rays, they found the problem, surgically fixed a couple of disks in my upper back, and after a few weeks I went back to work.
I have to admit, the idea of selling out and taking early retirement was appealing even back then. I wasn’t happy. Even though Leo and I had made something of a moderate success of our business, I really didn’t enjoy doing what I did.
But I couldn’t bring myself to just leave and throw thirty-five years of my life out the window. I’d worked too hard for what I had.
The first time he mentioned it, I didn’t take him seriously. I thought it was the beer talking. But over the past ten years, he’d made the offer again and again.
Always before, I’d resisted the temptation to call it quits. But this time was different. I could feel it. I was tired of the rat race; I was frustrated; I was depressed; and to tell the truth, I was more than a little homesick.
The middle part of Tennessee was a beautiful place, and I’d lived and worked there since 1974 when I finished college. But it had never been home, and the periodic visits back to the mountains, when I could steal a few days, just weren’t enough for me anymore.
I wanted to wake up in the mornings and smell the pine trees and the laurel. I wanted to look out my window and see ridges rising up around me. I wanted to see the smoky vapor that drifted out of the hollows and cast shadows on the gray-blue of the mountains. I wanted to roll down the car windows and feel the wind as I drove around the winding curves that climbed into the hills. I wanted to be able to walk through town, and greet the people I knew and have actual conversations with folks who knew me.
I wanted to be in a place where I could be happy.
I needed to take some time off—go home for a few weeks and talk everything over with Danny and sort it all out. Maybe I’d come back… or maybe it was time to take what I had and leave.
I’d been able to put a few bucks in the bank and make a few solid investments. I wasn’t rich by any means, but if I managed what I’d been able to accumulate, I figured I could actually be pretty comfortable.
Leo and I had been over this same ground before, and we were in agreement on most all of the negotiating points. By 5:30, I was about as close as I’d ever been to pulling the pin and walking away. But I still couldn’t bring myself to say yes. I was only fifty-six, and the way I saw it, I still had a few good years ahead of me.
We were close, but without my final decision, it was beginning to look like we’d end that day like all the others. As Leo pushed his wide body out of the chair, I stood up and stretched. From the window of our second floor office, I could see that I-24 was still just a slowly moving parking lot, and I began to dread the thought of having to battle the traffic on the drive home.
Leo got as far as the door, and had turned to make one final point when the phone rang. Everyone else in the office had already left for the day and I almost ignored it and let the machine take a message, but when I looked at the caller ID, I saw the number was one I knew.
I held up my hand, motioning for Leo to wait, picked up the phone, and answered, “Tennessee Claims Investigation.”
“Cubby…? You answerin’ your own phone?”
“Hell fire, Will… It’s almost 6:00 here… Ever’body’s gone, ‘cept the bosses, an’ we’re gettin’ ready to call it a day. What’s up?”
“Dang. I didn’t realize it was that late.” He paused for a second and I could envision him raising his arm to look at his watch. “I’m glad I caught ya. I really didn’t wanna hafta track ya down.”
“How’re you’all doin’? Ever’thing all right?”
“Well… That’s what I’m callin’ about.” The connection went silent for a few seconds and I could sense that Will was searching for words.
“Cubby… You need to come home for a few days.” He paused again, carefully choosing his words. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Danny’s had a car wreck, an’ he’s in pretty bad shape.”
“Aw shit… What happened?”
“We don’t know all that much at this point. I got a call this mornin’ from his office. THP’s doin’ the accident investigation since he was drivin’ a County car. Only thing I know is he piled up his cruiser on one of the curves just outside-a town on Oak Creek Road. He’s at the hospital in Maryville. He’s been in surgery most of the day, an’ they’ve got him in ICU now. The doctor says he’s busted up pretty bad inside, an’ if they can get him stabilized, they’ll send him on to UT... But right now, he’s pretty bad off.
“Me and Mary Beth are at the hospital now. She’s callin’ Amy to tell her what’s goin’ on. Cubby… it don’t look good for him, an’ I reckon we’re ’bout all he’s got.”
I looked up at Leo, who was still standing at the door with a questioning look on his face. I’m sure he could tell from my expression the call wasn’t good news.
“OK… I’ve gotta make a few arrangements an’ get some clothes packed. I should be able to get on the road pretty quick. But with losin’ an hour, I’ll be pushin’ it to get to the hospital before midnight. Think they’ll let me in to see him?”
“I’ll tell ‘em you’re on your way an’ get it worked out for ya. We’ll be waitin’ for ya. Just be careful.”
“OK. I’ll see ya as soon as I can.”
I hung up and looked at Leo. “That was Judge Boyd, from back home. He said Danny’s had a car wreck, an’ he’s in pretty bad shape. He says I need to get over there.”
Leo nodded. He’d met both Danny and Will a couple of times, and knew how close we were.
“Cubby, tomorrow’s Friday, and we’ll be wrappin’ ever’thing up for the week anyway. You don’t have any active cases you’re workin’ on that one of us doesn’t know about. Take a week or two, or whatever ya need. I’ll take care of ever’thing here. Go get your stuff together an’ get on the road…
“An’ while you’re over there, try to take a little time for yourself. I’ve known ya long enough to know when you’re gettin’ ready to lose it. We’re basically in agreement on ever’thing. All ya need to do is say ‘do it.’ For your own good, ya really need to give my offer some serious consideration.”
