Benny James Mystery Series Box Set Read online

  “I hear you,” Benny said, still amused by Red’s innocence and ignorance of even the simplest of things. “But remember,” he said, “you just said that it was my talky machine and since you bought the house from me it is now your talky machine. So, if you want to take a marker and draw an ear on the ear side and a mouth on the side you talk into, it is yours to do whatever you like with.”

  “I think I better be doing that one day soon,” Red answered. “We doing that next time you come visit so I don’t not doing it upside backwards.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Have you been doing OK? I miss you already.”

  “I missing you too like a crazy man. I doing OK though. Ned comed by and made a visit. We haded a good time talking and looking at plants.”

  “How are your plants?” Benny knew this would get Red excited and he loved to hear it.

  “The squashes are about ready to picked up and the hotty green peppers is bigger than I ever seed. You must have some goodest dirt in Georgia.”

  “You have the best dirt in Georgia,” Benny put forth. “I don’t own that land anymore. You bought it and you own it.”

  He had tried to have this conversation with Red a hundred times or more. Red’s family had basically been sharecroppers. They did not own their land. They grew crops for the landlord and gave him basically all the profits for the right to live on the land.

  “Why I not seeing you on TV machine with Rachael?” Red asked.

  “I told my client, Reverend Jim that I would not do that,” Benny tried.

  “But you is so good!”

  “I had to sign my name to a contract that stated I would not be a guest on any television shows.”

  “Oh,” Red said. “Brother Jim daddy not wanting people to knowing how smart you be?”

  “Maybe,” Benny answered, with a huge smile. Red always made Benny feel like he was a superstar.

  “You bees the smartest man I ever meeted,” Red stated. “You smarter than Bill Really.”

  “Do you mean, Bill O’Reilly?”

  “Yep,” Red answered. “Bill Really is being a smarty asshole guy,” Red said.

  “He does have some strong opinions,” Benny answered. Changing the subject Benny said, “I need you to help me with this case.”

  “I help you with anything.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time to watch TV here as I am out interviewing people and doing basic police work. I need you to watch a certain television program for me and tell me what you think about it.”

  “I not liking television funny shows,” Red said.

  “No,” Benny assured. “It's not a sitcom or anything silly like that. I want you to watch Reverend Jim’s Happy Hour and tell me what kind of vibe you get from the show.”

  “I seed his show some times on Sunday morning. But, what is vibe?” Red asked.

  “It’s a feeling,” Benny answered. “Tell me what you feel about Reverend Jim. Do you think he is a good man? Do you think he is honest? Watch him and tell me what you think about him as a man. I want to know if he is making his son do these killings or something weird like that without Brother Jim knowing what he is doing.”

  “I like him very much,” Red stated.

  “We haven’t even started!” Benny said. “Why do you like him?”

  “He has a mustache,” Red stated as a matter of fact.

  “So,” Benny began, “a mustache makes a man a good guy?”

  “It do him,” Red stated.

  “Why?”

  “Papa had biggy hairy face,” Red answered.

  “Oh,” Benny said. “And Reverend Jim’s mustache reminds you of your father’s mustache?"

  “Yep,” Red said dropping the phone. He picked it up and froze before putting it to his ear, thinking of the dilemma he had just minutes before. He held it sideways out in front of his face and yelled, “Bye, Bendy,” and he hung up.

  Chapter 9

  Wingz-N-Legz restaurant sold almost as many chicken wings as they did cold beers. The clientele consisted mainly of men, as the waitresses wore the tiniest denim shorts one has ever seen, and to make them even more appealing they looked as though they had been blasted with buckshot more than once. Their shirts, if they could even be called that were more like miniature vests fashioned vaguely after a fisherman’s. The backs were made out of some type of see-through netting material and the fronts barely held and contained what they were haphazardly designed to conceal.

  Charlene looked good in her Wingz-N-Legz uniform. She spilled out of it in all the right places and her customers always needed extra napkins for their drool. Men tipped her routinely forty, fifty, a hundred, and on occasion a hundred plus percent of their bills. Women hated her.

  She made so much in tips she could have lived off them working two nights a week. But she chose to work six nights a week. Charlene wanted to open her own restaurant one day. Secretly, as she worked and played the sultry role, she had been paying close attention to the ins and outs of restaurant management. Her bank account had been growing and growing and as the numbers in her savings registry grew and grew, she realized that her dream would come true sooner than she had ever thought.

  Unfortunately for her—someone else had plans for her that would end all of that. As she left work after an especially amazing night of tips, she had not yet made it to her car when a man appeared from behind her, grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her to him. He pushed something into her face as he grabbed the scruff of her neck as if she was a cat. Within seconds Charlene went limp into his arms. Before she did, he whispered, “You are gonna be baptized tonight, girl. Did you say your prayers this morning? Daddy says heaven don’t take people like you. You’re about to find out.”

  Tossed into the side of a white van like a piece of cargo, she tumbled in and the door shut behind her. Whatever substance had been forced into her face had her mind reeling and her ability to control her arms, legs, and other physical attributes taken away from her completely. Her mind was severely disadvantaged and functioned as if stuck inside a nightmare. Charlene had a vague sense of what was happening but could not do anything to make her body move or her mind think outside the fog it found itself trapped inside.

  The van rumbled along with an AM radio station tuned to a fire and brimstone preacher spitting venom and a message of deliverance. They bumped and bounced along what felt like dirt or unfinished roads. When the van stopped and the motor turned off, Charlene could only hear breathing and the sound of water—she still could not move. The fog in her mind had cleared a bit but still hung thick. The side door to the van flung open with such vigor it bounced and shook the entire vehicle. Once again, the man grabbed Charlene by the scruff of her neck and hauled her out of the van. Of the things she should have been aware of, she could not help focusing her attention on his breathing.

  From his breathing, Charlene understood he was scared or on some sort of drug like cocaine, meth, or some other form of speed. His excitement level maxed out as he pulled her to whatever destination he had in mind. Stopping, he deliberately grabbed one of her breasts. As he did he gasped for air. A moment later his hand dug under her shirt to grab her bare breast and upon finding it he squeezed with all his might. His breathing reached a point where Charlene thought she might be saved as whoever had her was about to pass out from overstimulation. She was not so lucky. He overcame his delirium and prayed aloud for the strength to baptize. Before he did his baptism, as he pulled her to the edge of what she perceived in her disorientation to be the side of a bridge—he did the unthinkable and shoved his hand down her pants and into her crotch. He pulled his hand out and screamed as he pushed her off the bridge, “I baptize you in the name of my Father.”

  Chapter 10

  Brother Jim woke up in the back of a white van which sat in a vacant parking lot by the beach in Jupiter, Florida. For some reason, the first thing he did was instinctively smell the middle finger of his right hand. He pulled his head back with the first sniff. The aroma pulled at a memo
ry and he pulled his finger back to his nose to inhale again. As if it were a magical perfume, he fell back to sleep with his finger basically jammed up one of his nostrils.

  An hour later he awoke again. Confused as he had been lately, he sat up and tried to get his bearings. When he did, Jim saw the book of maps laying at his feet. He grabbed it and opened it to find new markings. He recognized the handwriting as his own and prayed for answers.

  Jim pulled back the outdated curtains that covered the van’s windows and looked through the panes. Through the right window he saw the empty beach and the quiet waters. From what little he knew about tides he thought the tide must be well on its way out. Through the opposite one he read a sign in the distance that clued him in to his location of Jupiter.

  “Feels more like Saturn or Pluto,” Jim said aloud to no one. He laughed to himself and scratched his head and beard.

  Feeling the cobwebs in his brain begin to fade away, he grabbed the book of maps again and studied its details. He noticed that all the lines and circles and entries of dates were written in what looked to be a silver marker. He did not even have a silver marker! Brother Jim decided to search the van from top to bottom and find it.

  He tore the van apart and looked in every crevice, nook, hole, and every possible place he could have hidden it or dropped it in some sort of delirium. He found no writing utensils whatsoever. He also found no keys to the van. Under a sleeping bag toward the back of the van, he did find some camping equipment. Jim wondered if in some delusional state the previous night he had tossed the van keys and his silver marker into the ocean.

  He did find a number of braided snakes. Three were made out of some long grassy material he imagined he found on the dunes. One was created with wires of different colors an electrician would use to run power in a house, and two others looked as if they were composed of kite string and/or fishing line worked into meticulous patterns.

  Brother Jim studied the book of maps and found Jupiter, Florida, which had been circled in his handwriting. Next to the circle, once again in his own handwriting was the word, “Success.” Next to that it read, “See inside back cover.”

  Jim quickly turned to the inside back cover and found instructions. It read, “Walk south to Mickey Mouse.” Once again, it was his handwriting.

  Jim got himself together mentally and exited the van. Deciding to test his fragile mental faculties, he purposely left the book of maps behind, hoping to never see it again. Since he had been forgetting things lately, he used a method he had been taught once when he worried about whether he had turned off the stove or not. A friend had taught him to scream the word “off” and to slap himself. His friend said that when he would wonder later in the day if he had turned off the stove, he would definitely remember screaming the word and physically assaulting himself. Although weird and extreme, Jim had to admit that the method did work. How could one forget yelling and striking oneself?

  Standing outside the van, Jim punched himself in the left eye with his right fist and screamed, “I left it behind!”

  Wincing from the pain of his self-inflicted wound, Brother Jim looked up at the sun to figure out which way was south and began to walk. He did not have to take his shoes off to trudge across the sand as he did not have any on his feet. He began to wonder about the absence of his shoes and stopped as the thought could not fit into his already overcrowded brain.

  Jim only passed four or five people as he trudged south. As he saw the few others approaching he adjusted his walking path to farther up the beach and away from the water where the other parties were walking. He kept his head down as they passed and acted as if he was looking for shells or something.

  After what he thought might be about thirty minutes, Jim saw a lone beach house. From a distance, he could tell there was something hanging on the porch, but from the far distance could not tell exactly what it was. As he got closer and closer to the house it became clear that the towel was in fact a Mickey Mouse beach towel.

  Jim sat on the beach in front of the house as a couple holding hands approached. He pretended as though he was waiting for someone and checked his imaginary watch as he saw the female companion look in his direction. He shot her a weak smile and wave and when she responded with one of her own his heart rested.

  Jim watched the couple walk away from him as he counted in his head. When he made it to two hundred and neither of them had looked back even once, he decided they were not spying on him. With no one coming from the other direction, he sprinted to the porch and on the porch floor was a single key on a Mickey Mouse key ring matching the beach towel hanging over the porch rail.

  Brother Jim wondered which door it would open and tried the back door first. The key slid easily into the lock and turned with just as much ease, opening the door. He ducked inside and quickly locked the door behind him.

  Once inside, Jim had a sudden thought that he was about to be ambushed. He clenched his fists and prepared for an onslaught. After standing in a frozen pose for a few moments and hearing the screaming in his mind subside, he calmed to hear nothing but the hum of an air conditioner. Jim skeptically looked around the airy room to find no one waiting to hurt him and only a quiet and calm room with a note sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. It read:

  “Stay two days. Shave beard. Cut hair. Fridge is full. Pray.”

  The note was written in his own handwriting. He shivered, wondering how this had happened. So many thoughts raced through his head. He wondered if somehow he was the mastermind behind all of this and was somehow tricking himself? Was someone else drugging him and fooling him? Or was it God’s will? Being raised as he was, he decided that everything that happened to him was God’s will.

  Jim looked in the bathroom to find a pack of triple-bladed razors, shaving cream, an electric razor, and scissors. His hair and beard had been itching all morning in the heat and he longed to be free of the beard his daddy made him grow for spiritual reasons he did not ever fully explain.

  Brother Jim plugged in the electric razor first and turned it on. The buzz of the little machine excited him as he pulled it across his face and watched a shower of hairs tumble into the sink. Jim could not even remember when he had begun to grow the beard and a feeling of liberation filled the little bathroom. At one point, he had to stop shaving and take the plug out of the bottom of the sink and run scorching hot water to get all the hairs through the bathroom pipes. Having the sink cleared, he finished the job with the shaving cream and the hand razors.

  Finished with shaving his face, Jim barely recognized himself in the mirror. He thought he looked young. The long beard for years had made him feel like an old man. Inspired, he turned to his hair. The directions from the kitchen table directed him to cut his hair and he did. He cut it short. Not buzz short, but short enough.

  Jim ran a bath and soaked in a sweltering hot bath and tried to wash all thoughts out of his mind. After about thirty minutes, he let the water drain and reclined in the tub until it was completely empty. Feeling good, Jim decided to shower and wash his hair and body and did so until the hot water ran out.

  Exiting the shower, Jim caught a glimpse of himself in the foggy bathroom mirror. He momentarily froze. Through the fog filled glass, he moved his head left and right trying to get a better view of himself. Sweat trickled down his brow as he feared wiping the glass. His daddy would be so mad at him, he thought. Jim said a quick prayer and picked up an unused washcloth. Very slowly, he wiped the mirror clear of its foggy residue.

  With his new image in full view, Jim threw his head back as if he had seen a ghost. His breathing took off at a sprint and he dropped the towel that hung around his body as he stumbled into the toilet and lost his footing in a pool of water. Already weak from the curious happenings of the previous days, his feet went up and his head went down. On its way down, his head connected with the edge of the toilet as his forehead made solid contact with the bowl. As blood poured from his forehead he lost consciousness.

  Chapt
er 11

  Benny placed a call to an old friend in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or FDLE as the locals call it.

  His friend obviously had caller ID, as he answered saying, “You old son of a gun!”

  “I’m going to take that as a nice hello, Ted,” Benny laughed.

  “Let me, let me, let me guess whys you calling?”

  “Shoot,” Benny said.

  “Brother Jim case.”

  “You got it, you old drunk bastard.”

  “I quit drinking,” Ted said.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Benny almost laughed out loud but held it in before demanding, “Prove it to me by saying your ABC’s without any of the vowels.”

  “Easy as pie. A… darn! B, C, D, E, and sometimes Y, darn it! I wasn’t good in Language English class.”

  “How do you keep your job?” Benny asked.

  “Tomorrow’s my day off,” Ted answered.

  “Do you mean today?”

  “I hope so.”

  “It’s not even noon.”

  “What’s that got to do with the price of sesame chicken in China?”

  “Most people wait until about five in the evening to start drinking,” Benny suggested.

  “Those people are dumb, stupid, and ignorant. Those stupid dumb ignorants are going to be hung-over at work the next day. Me, I pass out by five and get thirteen or fourteen hours of sleep and I’s ready to get back at working.”

  “Well, when you are ready to be back at working,” Benny mimicked, “give me a call. I could use some inside help from a guy I trust.”

  “Come over,” Ted suggested.

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  “Why don’t we do this tomorrow when you’re sober and a bit more coherent?”

  “Cause I won’t.”

  “Why not?”