Good Deeds: A Thriller Read online

  Good Deeds

  by Aaron Polson

  © 2012 Aaron Polson / Skull Salad Press

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  - 1 -

  Wayne Tibbins passed the car on the side of Wellman Road without much thought. It was after dark, and folks did break down during the commute from rural Jefferson County to the highway and bigger cities. Of course this car was facing the wrong way, toward the highway at night—but it wasn’t Wayne’s problem, was it? His wife, Stacia, dozing in the passenger seat, hadn’t noticed. If Wayne hadn’t said anything, she wouldn’t have noticed the man walking at the side of the road with a plastic gas canister, either.

  “Shit,” Wayne muttered.

  Stacia sat up and pushed hair from her face. “Shit what?”

  “Just that guy.”

  She didn’t need to ask which guy—there was only the one. They were more likely to see a deer or opossum family than a human on Wellman after dark. She’d made her hate for Wellman and Wayne’s insistence on the short cut clear in the past. What if they broke down? What if they hit one of those deer?

  Stacia twisted in her seat.

  “Stop.”

  “What?” Wayne’s lips curled in a slight frown. “What do I want to stop for?”

  “For me,” she said. The guy needs help. Looks like he’s out of gas. Did you see a car? I told you this road is stupid. A stupid, stupid road to travel after dark. We can’t just leave him. Did you see his car?”

  Wayne rolled his tongue in his mouth, thinking. He could lie. He glanced at Stacia. Her dark, wide eyes tugged on him. “Back about a half mile,” he muttered. Lying was apparently out of the question.

  “So stop. We can give him a lift to the Conoco at the on ramp and be back in ten minutes. Please.”

  “Ten minutes? More like a half hour. Hell. He could be some nutty hacksaw murderer. Some kind of serial rapist. Hell, he lives out here in Jeff County, he might just have relations with his livestock.”

  “For God’s sake. Do you really believe that garbage, Wayne. Really? He’s just a guy who looks like he could use a little help. Besides, my cousin lives in Jeff County.”

  “And you hate it when I take this road. You think white boy there wants a black man to stop and give him a ride?”

  “Don’t start with that stuff, Wayne.”

  Wayne’s finger tapped the clock in the Camry’s dash. “The game—”

  “You’re recording it, right? So turn the car around.”

  Wayne’s stomach bunched. He held his breath as he steered the car to the shoulder. Tires crunched gravel as he maneuvered a three-point turn and aimed their Camry in the opposite direction. Accelerating, he let out a puff of air.

  “I hate when you do that,” Stacia said.

  “Do what?”

  “Sigh like that.” She crossed her arms, suddenly cold. “You do that when you’re mad. Don’t think I can’t tell.”

  “Sorry,” Wayne muttered, not feeling very sorry at all. He was tired, though, and ready for bed. It had been a long night at Stacia’s cousin’s place in Winchester, a blink-and-you-miss-it town thirty miles from anything Wayne considered civilization. Stacia insisted on bi-monthly visits, Cousin Kate being the only relatives either had within three-hundred miles. Stacia insisted on taking U.S. 59, too, but Wayne always took the county roads.

  The car’s high beams washed across the figure. The gas canister flamed bright red. Wayne slowed, not bothering to steer to the side of the road.

  The man shielded his eyes with his free hand. He was plain-looking, medium build with a swell around his midsection. A hunter green jacket hung from his shoulders, and both sleeves were bunched slightly at the wrists. He wore a plaid shirt underneath. His jeans, dark blue, looked clean and crisp under the bright lights, and were turned up at the ankles.

  “Turn the lights down for Chrissakes.” Stacia reached across the car, groping for the light switch.

  “All right, all right.” Wayne clicked the high beams to low.

  The man dropped his arm. His face, round and pale and moony, broke into a smile. He took a step toward the Camry.

  “He looks like one of those religious nuts,” Wayne said. “Straight out of the fifties. Isn’t there a cult around here?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Look at the way he’s wearing his pants. Got to be ten inches above his navel.”

  Stacia punched Wayne on the arm. “Open your damn window and tell him to get in.”

  Wayne grunted, but pressed the window button. The glass whirred out of sight. “Need a ride?”

  The man glanced at the red container in his hand and back to Wayne. “I ran out of gas.”

  Wayne glanced at Stacia, offering his best “what the fuck” expression. Stacia nodded toward the window.

  “We can give you a lift to the Conoco in North Lawrence and back, if that might help.”

  The man—and as he was closer now, Wayne could see the hint of an embarrassingly underdeveloped mustache on his lower lip—came a step closer. He was no standing in the middle of Wellman Road, a dangerous place on any well-traveled byway. His boots, brown and caked with dried mud, scraped the asphalt. Wayne fought a frown. He’d have to vacuum the car tomorrow.

  “Sounds fine. Thanks.”

  With that, Wayne clicked the Camry’s read door lock, and the stranger climbed inside. Stacia touched Wayne’s forearm and mouthed thanks. The stranger slammed the door shut. A pungent sting of gasoline wrinkled Wayne’s nose. Another odor accompanied it, a faint barnyard hint, no doubt the mud on the stranger’s boots was more than mud. Probably cow shit. Wayne shoved the gear shift into drive and cranked the wheel. The Camry spun, passenger tires struggling against shoulder gravel.

  “Wayne!”

  The stranger chuckled. “Careful on the shoulder. Road’s pretty narrow.”

  Wayne’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the wheel. Thirty minutes more he’d have to spend in this bum-fuck county. Thirty minutes more before he could hit his couch with a cold Rolling Rock and catch the game on DVR. If it wasn’t for gasoline man—whatever his name was—he could have caught the last ten minutes live.

  “Dan,” the stranger said. “Name’s Dan. I can’t thank you enough for the ride. The fuel gauge is busted on the Caprice. I thought I’d gassed up last week, but I guess it slipped my mind. I was heading home and ran out.”

  Wayne rolled his eyes.

  “It’s no problem,” Stacia said. “I’m Stacia.”

  Wayne glared at her. Her face shone pale green in the reflection from the dashboard.

  Her lips drew into a tight line. “And this is my husband, Wayne.”

  “Pleased,” Dan said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Yeah. You said that.” Wayne adjusted his mirror to get a look at the stranger. Up close, Dan’s face looked even more mooney, like a pasty wad of dough left out to knead and shape into loaves. Despite the stink of manure and Dan’s drawl, Wayne wasn’t quite ready to place him as one of Jefferson County
’s famous hobby farmers. The whole damn county was full of them, folks who didn’t farm to pay the bills like his grandfather. Dan was… Just too weird.

  No one spoke as they joined U.S. 24 at the end of Wellman’s run and followed a big curve to the edge of Lawrence. Wayne steered the Conoco station’s bright fluorescent lights. The rear door opened and shut. Stacia carved into Wayne with her razor-sharp blue eyes.

  “What?”

  “You know what.” Stacia’s arms were crossed again. “You know exactly what.”

  Wayne glanced through the window. Dan was bent over the red canister with the nozzle in the opening.

  “Him?”

  “You could have been a little nicer. You were kind of rude.”

  Wayne pinched the top of his nose between his eyes, his I-have-a-headache-now gesture. Another puff of breath pushed out of his mouth.

  “You’re doing it again.”

  “I have to breathe.”

  “You don’t have to be a jerk, though. The guy is just down on his luck. A broken gas gauge. You heard him.”

  Wayne shook his head. “Did you see his mustache? The guy has child molester written all over him.”

  “That’s ridiculous. He’s just a guy. Probably commutes.”

  “With those boots? The guy is a home-grown weirdo. A genuine freak. I wouldn’t be surprised—”

  A tap sounded at the window. Dan’s face hovered on the other side. Wayne’s gaze drifted to his left, and he jumped. Dan’s mouth was moving.

  “What?”

  “Roll down your window, Wayne.” Stacia bit off his name, Wayne, like it was a curse word.

  The window dropped and Dan kept talking. “…in the trunk. If you pop it, I think it’s best. The gas will—”

  “Sure whatever.” Wayne leaned forward and yanked the trunk release.

  Once Dan settled in the back seat, they were off again, Wayne’s hands firmly planted on either side of the steering wheel, Stacia’s face firmly gripped in a frown, and Dan’s boots still offering their bouquet of mud and shit and something else, some subtle stink which the gas must have covered. Wayne tried to breathe through his mouth. They drove from the city toward Wellman road again, not one of them speaking until Stacia glared at Wayne and turned in her seat.

  “So, Dan, what is it you do?”

  Wayne glanced in the rear view. Dan’s face was smooth and expressionless. A moment passed.

  “Retired.”

  “Oh?” Stacia tapped Wayne on the leg. Wayne scowled.

  “Really, you seem kind of young. Did you—”

  “Good business decision.” Dan clipped the word decision and drew his lips into a hard line.

  Another minute passed.

  Wayne took a deep breath. “So, Dan. Give a guy a tip.”

  Stacia glared.

  “I mean, I could use some business advice. My wife has needs, you know. Expensive tastes. I can barely keep up with her,” Wayne said. He looked to the mirror again, and a lance of ice pushed through his stomach. Dan’s eyes, black as night, watched back.

  “You’ll have to kill me first,” Dan said. His lips hardly quivered.

  Wayne blinked hard. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a joke. Here’s my car,” Dan said.

  Wayne slowed the Camry and pulled to the side of the road. The back door opened and shut. Dan appeared at the window again, his mouth moving. Wayne bent forward and popped the trunk. Stacia’s eyes burned a hole in Wayne’s face as he performed another three point turn and pointed the Camry back toward Lawrence. The high beams flickered across the back of Dan’s car, glinting off the rear bumper, and highlighted him against the side. Stacia spun in her seat as they sped past.

  “My god,” she said.

  “What now.”

  “There was a woman in the passenger seat.”

  “What?” Wayne glanced at Stacia. Her face had gone pale, as white as copy paper. “A woman?”

  Stacia nodded. “I couldn’t see her face, but she was there. The lights hit her hair, and I turned, and she was just a black mass. But it was a woman.”

  “Probably his wife.”

  “Why was she in the car, Wayne? Why did he leave her in the dark?”

  “Maybe she talked too much.” Wayne chuckled. He leaned forward, sure the conversation was over—much like the game. At least he had the DVR…

  “Stop the car.”

  “What?”

  “Stop the God-damned car.”

  Wayne glanced to his right. Stacia had her cell phone in her lap. Her fingers were shaking.

  “I don’t have a signal,” she said.

  “It’s this road. You can’t get any signal from Winchester until you hit 24. We’re almost there. Again, of—”

  “I need to know.”

  “Know what?”

  Stacia touched Wayne’s wrist. Her fingers were cold and clammy. “The car… Dan’s Caprice. It didn’t have a license plate.”

  “So?”

  “If I’m going to call the cops, I have to know where he lives. He said he was heading home.”

  Wayne huffed. “Call the fucking cops? Are you nuts?”

  “Damn you, Wayne. There was a woman in that car… Call it intuition—whatever. Something isn’t right.”

  “Fifteen minutes ago, everything was fine. Now, you’re convinced Dan’s a murderer or something?” Wayne slammed his left hand on the steering wheel. “That’s just crazy. You’re being crazy.”

  Stacia began to sob. “Stop it. Stop it. That’s not fair.”

  Guilt crawled into Wayne stomach, scratching his guts with tiny, ice-cold claws. He shouldn’t have used the word crazy. He shouldn’t have said crazy. His memory flashed through the ten-day stint Stacia stayed in Stormont-Vail two years ago, the psychiatric ward, after she lost their second child. Her wrists still showed the white scars, his brain still held full Technicolor memories of blood and pale flesh. It’s why he drove to Winchester with Stacia. It’s why he always recorded the games and watched them later, or at least part of them after she went to sleep.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She wiped her face on her shirt sleeve. “Will you please turn around?”

  He nodded. “Just to see where he lives. Then you can… Call the police from home.” He hated saying the words; he knew they were ridiculous, unnecessary. Dan was a weirdo—but he’d been joking when he said rapist and child molester. If it would make Stacia happy, he felt as though it would be easy enough. He worried about her happiness too much—he’d worried about it since they were married, since her uncles didn’t show at the wedding because she was marrying a black man. For the fourth time that evening, he maneuvered the Camry into another three-point turn on Wellman.

  “Your lights,” Stacia said.

  “What about them?”

  “Turn them off.”

  Wayne held his breath, counting slowly. He dimmed the head lights.

  “Off. I don’t want him to see us.”

  The lights winked out.

  “This isn’t safe,” Wayne said. “The road—”

  “You know the road well enough. It’s only a little way. There—” Stacia pointed. “He’s already moving.”

  A set of red tail lights appeared on the road ahead of them, moving slowly.

  “He’s going the wrong way,” Wayne said. The guilt melted, and the icy prick of fear returned. “Why’s he going the wrong way?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “His car was pointed toward Lawrence, but now he’s heading the other way. If he said he was going home…”

  Stacia let out a small gasp.

  Neither spoke for a long minute as they followed the glowing lights. Wayne’s mouth had gone dry, and he wasn’t sure what he’d say, anyway. His hand slipped to his side, and without thinking, he clutched Stacia’s. She gave him a squeeze.

  “This is all just a coincidence, of course,” Wayne said.

  “Right.”

  He chuckled, a cool, quick laugh which wa
sn’t fooling either of them. “I mean, if there was somebody in the car, that’s Dan the Man’s business.” Why was he letting Stacia’s paranoia get to him? Why was he letting her—and he hated the thought—crazy ideas worm into his brain?

  The headlights quickly veered from the main road, a sudden action which snapped Wayne out of his stupor and brought his attention back to the car. The passenger side of the Camry slipped from Wellman’s narrow asphalt path, and tires ground against gravel. The wheel shook.

  “Wayne,” Stacia said. “Careful.”

  He blinked. “Yes. Careful. It’s too damn dark.”

  He cranked the steering wheel toward the left. As he did, his eyes flashed across the field to his left. A dark farmhouse stood against the darker blot of hills and trees in the distance, a pale blue rectangle against a field of near-black. A series of bright red dots winked and went out. The Camry lurched and pulled hard to the right. Wayne wrestled the wheel.

  “What is it?” Stacia asked, her voice high and tense. She pressed both hands against the dash to balance. “What’s happening? Why are we slowing down?”

  Wayne grunted. “Tire’s blown. Feels like it, anyway. Maybe the front one on your side.” When they came to a stop at the side of the road, he slammed his hands against the steering wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “Sorry.”

  Wayne counted to ten in his head, slowly feeling each number, allowing his tongue to play with the shape of them without verbalizing. When he finished, he turned to his wife and looked at her big, dark eyes. “Not your fault. We probably picked something up when I slid off the road. Maybe one of these times I turned around.”

  Stacia’s eyes narrowed. “Are you feeling okay?”

  He reached forward, clicked off the headlights, and sighed. “No. I’m not feeling okay. I’m tired. We have a God-damned flat tire. You think Dan the hitchhiker is a murderer or whatever, and we’re stranded on the side of a bum-fuck county road in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere. What is remotely okay about any of that?”

  Stacia covered her face.

  “Jesus,” Wayne muttered. He wrenched his door open and stepped onto the pavement. The air had grown cooler than he remembered—not surprising since he’d been in the car since leaving Winchester. A short, forty minute drive had morphed into a sprawling, nearly two-hour ordeal. He leaned over and pulled the lever for the trunk. His head was pounding, his anger seething.