Benny James Mystery Series Box Set Page 34

  “Yes?” Ned answered when Benny called.

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “No, no. I just rolled out of bed.”

  “It’s two in the afternoon!”

  “I know, I know. I was working into the wee hours of the night on my mushroom farm.”

  “Farm?” Benny knew Ned grew mushrooms in a walk-in closet, but he had never heard him refer to it as a farm.

  “I had a great idea, Benny.”

  “Oh, goodness. What this time?”

  “You know how I make the world’s best mushroom pizza with my produce?”

  “I’m going to take your word for it, buddy. You know I won’t be eating mushrooms grown in a man’s closet.”

  “Well, you’re just different. I decided a couple of weeks ago to clean out the basement and to turn it into a mushroom farm. I’ve been extremely busy collecting organic material to grow the different kinds of mushrooms. Did you know Benny, that mushrooms do not grow in soil?”

  “I never really thought about it to tell you the truth.”

  “Well, they don’t. I’ve collected aged manure and compost. I found the greatest and most perfect rotting log that took me forever to get down to the basement. I’ve collected sawdust and …”

  “Ned.” Benny cut him off. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t really have time to get schooled in the mushroom growing process right now.”

  “Of course. I’ll just give you a tour of the farm when you come home.”

  “I would love that,” Benny lied. “Before I ask you what I called about, I would like to ask what you are going to do with all those mushrooms.”

  “Sell them to restaurants, eat them, and give them to friends like you!”

  “Great. Good luck with that.” Benny tried to shake the idea of homegrown mushrooms and turned his thoughts to his current needs. “I need you to do some searching around on the computer for me.”

  “Sure. Hold on one second while I get a pen.” Drawers opened and shut and the sounds of rustling papers and something falling made Benny pull the phone away from his ear for a moment. “Did I ever tell you I invented a pen that never runs out of ink?” Ned asked.

  “You gave me one.”

  “Did it run out of ink yet?”

  “Nope. I don’t think it ever will.” The ink Ned concocted smelled like cat urine and the smell of a paper mill combined. Benny’s pen would never run out of ink, because he was never going to use it again.

  “I should get in touch with Bic or Paper Mate.”

  “Ned! Focus!”

  “Sorry. I’m ready.”

  “I need you to research two things for me. First, do you know who the television evangelist Reverend Jim is?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Great. Supposedly he has a son referred to as Brother Jim. He is an elusive person with no pictures or documents that prove to me he is actually alive. I need whatever you can find about him so I don’t feel like I’m chasing a ghost.”

  “OK.”

  “Second. A girl was interviewed as a witness to an attempted murder by Brother Jim, and she has disappeared as well. Her name is Beth Marvin. See what you can find out about her. If she has credit cards, I want to know where she was the last time she used them. Whatever kind of trace she has left of any sort, I want to know about it. I want to find this girl.”

  “Got it,” Ned said.

  “You know I’ll pay you well, right buddy.”

  “You always do, Benny.”

  “Can I ask you one more favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you check up on Red for me? He’s having trouble with the phone again. I know he’s probably fine, but I worry about him.”

  “I’ll check on him today. I went by the other day and he was making a big pot of vegetable soup. He told me to come back by with some containers and I could take some home. Too bad my mushrooms weren’t ready to add to the recipe.”

  “Real shame,” Benny said.

  Ned did as promised and dropped in on Red. He looked around Red’s expansive garden, surprised at his absence. Red spent most of his daylight hours in his garden either tending to his plants or talking to them. Red swore they also liked classic rock which he called “oldie guitar sounds.” Red still listened to his extensive cassette collection, but had recently discovered radio. He grew up deep in the Ozark Mountains, where radios did not pick up signals with any quality or consistency. Plus, his parents had been deaf and had no reason to own a radio. Luckily, his father had the good sense to buy Red a cassette player and books on tape, as well as music, so Red could hear the English language. His parents were mute in addition to being deaf. Red had fared pretty well for a kid who started his language development late and in an odd way.

  Ned decided Red must be inside the house having lunch or using the bathroom. With one foot on the front porch, Ned heard Red yell out, “Amen!” Ned continued to the door, perplexed, and knocked.

  Red opened the door and Ned spied the television on behind him. He had never seen Red watch television and at one point Red had even covered it with a quilt. When asked why he was keeping it under covers, Red explained that he did not want it watching him back. Ned tried to tell Red it didn’t work that way, but Red decided not to believe him.

  Ned held up his large plastic container and said, “I’m here to get some of your vegetable soup.”

  “It very good,” Red said, walking over to the television and turning it off. Red waved goodbye to the television, picked up a quilt off the floor next to the set, and covered the television.

  Ned started to tell him again that the television could not watch him, but felt it wouldn’t do any good.

  “Come in.”

  “What were you watching on the tube, Red? I’ve never seen you watch it before.”

  “It not a tube,” Red corrected. “It a telebision.”

  “Right.”

  “Bendy ask me to watch Reverend Jim show to help he find he son.”

  “How exactly are you going to help?”

  “I not know. I know he confuse.”

  “Benny is confused?”

  “No. Reverend Jim. He says three people be one people. He talk that three is one and one is three.”

  “The trinity,” Ned said. “Some preachers explain it better than others.”

  “Tell Bendy, Reverend Jim want to be a lady.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. Reverend Jim want to be a lady.”

  “Was he wearing a dress?”

  “He paint he face.”

  “You mean make-up?” Ned asked. Red nodded his head with the affirmative. “Oh, a lot of people on television wear make-up so they’ll look better on screen.”

  “He wear too much.”

  Changing the subject, Ned said, “Benny says you’ve been having some trouble with the phone.”

  “Both side looking the same.”

  “Benny suggested we draw a mouth on the side you talk into and an ear on the side you listen with.”

  “You draw,” Red instructed.

  “OK.” Ned had brought a permanent marker from home because he thought, surely, Red would not own one. Ned had a talent for drawing as he did lots of sketching to come up with his ideas.

  When finished, Ned showed Red his drawings on the phone and Red yelled, “Amen!”

  Chapter 25

  Brother Jim stood in shock and stared at the book of maps on the pillow. He felt the rage enter his mind he had experienced earlier on the beach as it flowed through his body once again. Jim picked up the Florida atlas and spiked it like a football. His toes kicked at the book and he stomped the cover with his bare foot. Picking it up once again, he hurled it against the bedroom wall and screamed as loud as his lungs would allow. Pounding his fists against the same wall, Brother Jim cried and knew what he had to do.

  “Time to get baptized, Kendra!” he screamed at the ceiling.

  Falling to the floor with great drama, Jim pulled the book of m
aps to his body. Sitting up with the book in his lap, he stroked it and tried to undo the harm he had caused with his kicks and his violent throw.

  “Kendra,” he said again out loud as he turned pages. “Kendra, Kendra, Kendra. Damn the snakes, damn the serpent. Damn the snakes, damn the serpent.”

  Brother Jim turned to the page that focused on the city of Jacksonville, and put his finger on the Dames Point Bridge.

  He popped up off the floor and ran to the pants he had worn to the beach house the day before. Brother Jim put them on. He pulled on a shirt and felt something nudge his thigh from his pocket. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out something that felt hard and metal. The key to the van.

  Kendra picked out two tomatoes and a package of pita bread at the grocery store near the house she rented. She also bought some celery and baby carrots. Behind the healthy food, on the checkout conveyor belt, she tried to hide a pint of cookie dough ice cream. Kendra was a regular at the store and knew the cashiers by name.

  “How are you this evening, Miss Perkins?” a young man asked.

  “I’m great Lee, and stop calling me Miss Perkins,” she said. “It’s Kendra.”

  “You’ve told me. My boss won’t allow me to call you that.”

  “Don’t tell anybody about the ice cream.”

  “You know I won’t.”

  “You’re sweet,” Kendra said, touching him lightly on top of his hand and securing the promise.

  Kendra was a cheerleader for the Jacksonville Jaguars, an NFL franchise. She also taught classes at several local gyms and did a bit of modeling. She dreamed of being an actress and had lowered herself to taking a sleazy role as a topless dancer in a HBO television program. She was only in the background of the shot, and she used a fake name in the credits, but a sports website made the connection, and it had caused a bit of an uproar with the Jacksonville Jaguar brass. After promising not to delve into the seedy world of naked television again, they gave her one more chance. In actuality, the struggling franchise had benefited from the story and recognized its best ratings the week after the story broke. On more than one occasion during the game, the cameras focused on Kendra.

  Brother Jim had circled Kendra’s address in the book of maps. Heading north on I-95, he looked in the rear view mirror and studied his forehead where he had split the skin on the bathroom sink. The salt water had done it a world of good, he thought, as it did not look as bad as he figured it might. He calculated he would be in the Jacksonville area in under five hours if he only stopped once for gas and to use the bathroom. Driving under the cover of darkness gave him an advantage, but he knew he’d have to wait until the following day to deal with her, as it would be near sunrise when he arrived. He feared another blackout and hoped it would wait until he relieved the urge that stewed in his gut and pounded in his heart.

  “Damn the snakes, damn the serpent. Damn the snakes, damn the serpent,” Jim said aloud. He began to rock in his seat, repeating the chant. “Damn the snakes, damn the serpent.”

  Brother Jim noticed the light change in the sky and looked at the clock on the dashboard. It read four thirty-six. He also noticed the gas tank was three quarters full and he had a cup of coffee in the holder. Jim did not remember stopping for gas or coffee and his heart skipped as his muscles tensed. Checking the rear view mirror, he did not see any cars behind him. Looking back to the road ahead of him, he tried to find a sign to know if he was still driving in the correct direction. A sign soon appeared signaling the interchange he remembered from the map to bypass Jacksonville, and his muscles relaxed.

  Jim spotted a billboard for a campground called Swift Water Creek. He remembered a tent and some other camping equipment in the back of the van he had found while searching for the permanent marker. The billboard stated the gate was open twenty-four hours with a pay station. Brother Jim followed the directions on the sign and hoped to find a secluded site.

  He stopped at the gate to read the directions on the pay station board and continued on into the park to pick out a campsite. Once he found a site with plenty of trees, he returned to the pay station and shoved a twenty dollar bill into an envelope, circled the number of his site, and dropped it in the slot. The fee was only eighteen dollars. He hoped the ranger would not bring him change. Although it was too late, he thought he should have included a note that he did not want change. If someone tried to bring it to him, Jim decided he would just pretend he was resting or changing clothes, and speak to them through the tent.

  Back on the site, Brother Jim felt the adrenaline begin to leave his body. All of a sudden his eyes began to sag and he knew he needed sleep. For a moment he contemplated forgoing the tent and sleeping in the van like he had before, but decided it might look creepy if the ranger looked and found a nondescript van on a site without a tent. Jim set up the tent and threw a sleeping bag and pillow inside. The sun hinted at an appearance, and he knew it would not be cool for many more hours. Zipping the tent up, he fell back, closed his eyes, and slept.

  Brother Jim slept deeply until a tapping on the outside of the tent woke him. He sat up and tried to catch his breath before speaking. He knew if he spoke before he calmed down, the fear in his voice might encourage suspicion.

  “You awake in there, Mr. Franklin?” the voice outside the tent asked.

  Jim wondered who this Mr. Franklin was until he remembered it was the name he used on the campground paperwork that accompanied his money.

  “I am now,” Brother Jim said, thinking he sounded normal.

  “I brought you your change, Mr. Franklin.”

  “That was very kind of you. You really didn’t have to do that. Could you just leave it outside on the picnic table. I’m not dressed and I don’t want to keep you waiting.”

  “No problem, sir. Enjoy your stay at Swift Water Creek.”

  “Thanks so much,” Jim answered.

  Jim barely breathed until he heard the man he assumed to be the ranger or camp attendant drive away. Slowly unzipping the tent door, he peeked out and looked around. To the left, through a dense patch of trees, he spotted a motor home and a Ford Explorer. He didn’t see or hear any people. To the right, he could see a concrete picnic table and an empty site.

  Stepping out of his tent, the sun filtered through the trees, and Jim felt the heat of the day. He walked over to the picnic table and picked up the two dollars of change, finding a Swift Water Creek brochure that had been left with the money. His stomach was growling and he looked to the brochure for answers. Vending machines were located at three different areas. He began a search for quarters and hoped the machine accepted dollar bills as well.

  Brother Jim found three dollars in loose change and another dollar bill, in addition to the two from his campsite change. Driving the van around the road that circled the grounds, he passed the first of the vending machines. It seemed to be a gathering spot for an old folks roundtable discussion. He passed it by and diverted his eyes from the group. The next vending machine had what looked like a teenager peering through the glass of the snack machine. Jim figured he would not be there long and parked the van. As he did, the teenager fed a dollar bill into the machine and made his selection. Jim was happy the machine took bills and that the kid was finished. As Brother Jim exited the van and shut the door, the kid turned his head to see who was approaching. The teenager started to walk toward Jim.

  “Hey Mister.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said.

  “I’ll give ya ten bucks if you’ll buy me and my friends a case of beer.”

  “Lost my identification,” Jim answered, thinking quickly.

  “You look old enough.”

  “They card everyone around here. I tried earlier and they turned me away.”

  “Bummer,” the kid said, walking away.

  Jim looked around to find he was now alone with the vending machine. He inserted his first dollar and bought a honey bun. The change clinked in the return slot and he inserted another dollar. With the second dollar he bought chips. He
proceeded to buy three more items from the snack machine and two drinks from the soda machine. Hopping back in the van, he hurried back to the campsite before anyone else tried to talk with him. Jim planned to eat, go back to sleep, and leave for Kendra’s house at dusk.

  The lights at Kendra’s address were weak at best. The front porch light looked as if it hung from a single wire that had the potential to cause a fire at any moment. Brother Jim drove by once before stopping. On his drive by he didn’t see any cars in the driveway or the open carport. A single light lit the interior of the house and Jim guessed it was probably a lamp to make someone like himself think somebody was home. He was not fooled.

  As he was turning the van around to head back to her house, Jim spied a trashcan left by the side of the road for pickup, with a pizza box sitting atop the mound of waste. Stopping the van, Jim pretended to look at one of the rear van tires, and as he made his way back to the driver’s door, he grabbed the empty pizza box and continued back to Kendra’s house.

  Jim pulled into her driveway and left the vehicle running. With the pizza box in hand, he made his way to the front door. Jim rang the front bell and waited. As he waited he stood extremely still, and even held his breath, listening for the slightest noise. He did not hear a sound. If she had peeked out the window or moved, he would have heard the sound.

  The neighboring house sat a good fifty yards away, but just in case, Brother Jim suddenly had an idea.

  “Do what?” he said to the door. “You want me to pull the van around back?” He waited as if someone inside was talking to him. “OK. Why?” Another pause. “I see. OK. I’ll pull the van around back.”

  Jim walked back to the van, tossed the empty pizza box in the back, and drove to the backyard. As he rounded the house, he turned off the van’s headlights. Opening the door, the interior light came on and reminded him to shut it off. He did not want it to come on when he was loading Kendra into the van later. Getting out of the van, Brother Jim stopped to listen again. Hearing nothing but the normal sounds of night he continued to the back of Kendra’s house to find a way inside.