Lady in Flames Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Lady in Flames

  Every Town Has Dirty Secrets

  Leland Shaw Goes for Broke

  A Simple Maniac

  The Doubt of a Righteous Man

  Bound by Duty, Bound by Souls

  Kindling

  Are We Strong Enough?

  Give ’Em What They Deserve, Johnny

  Watching the Lady Burn

  Chasing After Grimley

  I’ve Got Ears All Over This Town

  The Driver Intervenes

  Every Last Shred

  Brutality, Firsthand

  A Seed

  Plowed

  Loose Ends

  Those More Hopeful

  Lady in Flames

  By Ian Lewis

  Copyright 2012 by Ian Lewis

  Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Ian Lewis and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The Camaro Murders

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  Lady in Flames

  By Ian Lewis

  Every Town Has Dirty Secrets

  February 26th, 2002 8:05 PM

  Inside the Driver’s Camaro

  I haven’t looked for my ghost in years.

  It’s a weary, sickening sensation to wander without the need for sleep and never find what you’re looking for. After a while you give up, either because you don’t care anymore or you know you don’t deserve it.

  That’s how I get along in the Upper Territory. I wander between its cocktail of splintered dreams and the physical world, hoping to earn some kind of redemption. Anyone who cuts his teeth as a member of Abel’s Fold will tell you the same.

  Tonight I’ve crossed over to the living, lured not by duty but by my own curiosity. The brazen moon washes across the broad, black hood of my Camaro and does its best to scold me into shame. Its sheen creeps across the dash and says, “I’ve found you out. I know who you are and you don’t belong.”

  It’s true, I shouldn’t be here. When I take on bodily form, it appears as if I’m still driving the car in which I died. And at first glance I might look the same as I did in 1985—longish midnight hair and a worn, red flannel—but I’m as natural as an apparition flitting across a window.

  In the Territory, time spent piecing together the murdered offers little reassurance that you’re doing something worthwhile. There’s no warm, cheery feeling in knowing you’ve helped another soul get to eternity. There’s just a tortuous lack of justice.

  Linger too long in the hollow bowels of self-righteousness and it becomes clear what you’ll do. You ignore your better judgment and plunge headlong into a struggle for sanitized revenge only to find you’re really fighting to save yourself.

  After seventeen years of hiding in the Fold, the certainty of lingering doubt is as sharp as the day I crossed that line—a line drawn in the blood-soaked, down-trodden dirt packed hard by the feet of many. I’ve got evidence against myself and that’s enough to keep me sealed in guilt like some twisted pact.

  Since then, it’s been a bitter ride. I travel on my own and leave the hopefulness to those more hopeful. Anyone who sees me barrel past says, “There goes the Driver,” and then forgets me like the murky dreamscapes they leave behind.

  It’s the hallucinations of the subconscious that paint the Territory in memoirs of the murdered. The entire landscape is fabricated from these—someone’s childhood home, a burned out office, endless miles of burgeoning forest.

  I never acquired a taste for this chalky substitute. The reminders of a life once lived are just that—reminders. Having the real thing before me is cathartic, even if I can’t breathe it in or taste it.

  That’s my best attempt at rationalization. I’ll admit it’s a flimsy excuse for why I’m navigating salt-stained roads in a place as forgotten as Halgraeve.

  I’ve been watching this cursed little town for a while. Low-lit haunts speckle the backside of the terrain like cigarette burns. The usual characters wander to and from them, each with their own part to play.

  In the center of town near the graying, one-room Shepherd Church, a severe man stabs violent steps through three inches of snow. His uneven gait carves a broken trail in the drifts alongside the vacant streets.

  Dim lamplight casts a washed-out silhouette of his black, leg-length stockman coat, storm cape caught in the wisps of powdery gusts. He moves at a furious pace, hands crammed into his pockets.

  Dark hair streaked with silver sweeps back and feathers his neck. Spectacled eyes remain fixed on the next five feet of road. Never a quiver, his rigid mouth sits firm on a stubborn jaw, face bent toward his destination.

  On the western edge of Halgraeve, the bus station sleeps under a few stark, leafless trees. Savoring the cold, a solitary man stands stoic near the rusty snow plow bolted to his brown and beige Dodge Power Ram.

  He’s wrapped in a bulky blue down vest zipped over a black hooded sweatshirt. Faded denim and scuffed boots complete the picture—a real worker. Measured trails of steam escape from his bearded face, gray as his scruff.

  Tired eyes maintain a fix on the horizon in hopes of what headlights might bring. Calloused hands remain clenched in anticipation. Lone lamplight falls like a halo over the pool of white.

  Trolling the sparse, northernmost back roads is a retired police cruiser bought at auction. Stripped of its decals three years prior, a black ribbon of paint still flanks the white doors.

  Its driver grasps the wheel with oafish hands, fingernails lined with dirt. His close-shorn scalp rests on the black vinyl headrest as his chapped mouth erupts in a crude mess of haphazard teeth.

  A red, “mag-mount” emergency beacon sits nestled in the passenger seat, ready to be slapped onto the roof. He’s burning to use it. In his bent, merry-go-round of a mind, he says he wants to catch somebody—catch somebody tonight.

  South of town in a cluttered apartment, a kid plays a BIC lighter on repeat—zip, click, flame, zip, click, flame. He leans back in a dingy brown recliner, T.V. full blast, oblivious to the stacks of magazines and fast food wrappers near his flame.

  His jeans, faded near white, are torn and frayed at the bottom. A gray, short-sleeve work shirt hangs loose over them. A discolored oval on the chest indicates where a name patch used to reside.

  With his free hand he brushes coarse bangs away from his dark circled eyes, focus skewed by the blue glow in the unlit room. Scraggly fuzz grows on his upper lip. A quarter-inch scar mars his lower.

  Driving in from the east is a broad-shouldered man behind the wheel of a red GMC Yukon. Its 5.7 liter small block V8 bellows under the heavy foot of his 6′2″ frame. The roar subsides for a moment as he shifts into fifth gear.

  Squared-off in the back, his short, sandy hair tracks a neat line around his ears. His neck is wrapped in the collar of a wool pea coat, which is missing one of its buttons. Below that, dark denim and waterproof boots cover his lower extre
mities.

  Tucked at the small of his back is an “inside the waistband” holster carrying a Sig Sauer P239 chambered in .40S&W. An extra magazine hides in a pouch clipped to his belt.

  None of these five know that each has a role in what’s about to transpire. Halgraeve is the stage, and they are the misguided marionettes pulling each others’ strings. Some motives are more pure than others. Some wills are stronger. And some wrongs won’t get righted on their own.

  That’s where I fit in. There’s no doubt that duty will eventually call. Until then, I will weave in and out of their existence, watching, waiting.

  Every town has dirty secrets. And some say the sun doesn’t shine on Halgraeve. All I know is there’s one secret that’s about to be let out, and when it is, this town’s going to burn like the sun.

  Leland Shaw Goes for Broke

  February 26th, 2002 8:11 PM

  Outside Leland Shaw’s pickup truck

  The dented driver-side door groans as it slams home against the truck frame. Caked snow slides off the hood. I step forward and huddle near the beefy yellow snow plow. Huddle near as I can.

  The eight-car lot hides under a sheet of white. Hasn’t been plowed yet. Bare utility poles sprout here and there. Light powder whips up in a stiff gust near the brick bus depot. It’s after hours, but the line from up north comes through some nights.

  Stubby bristles rake across my collar as I brace for the chill. It’s human to feel cold and I’m glad I can still claim my humanity. Seems like lots of other folks have devolved.

  Some say we’re progressing as a society. Watch the news any night and you’ll see different. People kill each other for money. Little kids go missing. Government leaders end up in jail. We’re chopped up for feed and nobody cares.

  My Lilly is out there somewhere, fallen into God knows what. My little girl… I hope she’s healthy and happy, but who am I kidding? I can hope for a lot more than that. If I could see the clear blue sparkle of her eyes, that pure promise a father sees in his child.

  “I’ll be home for my birthday,” she said the last time I talked to her. That was seven years ago. Tomorrow is her birthday and some gullible sense of hope welled up inside me. So I drove out here to see. Just to see. Maybe she’ll come back to visit her daddy.

  She’s not a little girl anymore. Seven years. She wasn’t even a little girl when she left, but that’s the way I like to keep her. Soft, innocent Lilly. I tried to raise her right. Her mother and I both did.

  June died in ’93 and that’s when Lilly changed. Lilly pretended she was strong like it didn’t bother her, but she had a sadness I could see. Sometimes I could hear her crying in her room at night. Didn’t think I was listening.

  I couldn’t sleep much then and lay awake in that empty bed wondering how I’d manage a daughter on my own. Cancer was bad enough—June fought as hard as she could—but I didn’t know if I had it in me to see things through with Lilly.

  I’m a rough, coarse kind of a guy, after all. Can’t always say what’s on my mind. But at some point I decided it didn’t matter. Lilly didn’t have anyone else, so I had to get past my doubts and love her the best I knew how.

  I worked my ass off, kept the house spic and span. Tried cooking a couple nights a week… Most stuff I cooked probably tasted like dog food, but Lilly always ate it, always kissed me good night.

  I sure had my unrest about the crowd she ran with. Most of them smoke and drank. Lilly was supposed to be smarter than that. She said they were her real friends and that I needed to trust her more. I let go, bit by bit, but I should’ve been holding on.

  Such a good kid. I don’t know where I went wrong with her. Maybe there’s nothing I could’ve done, nothing that would have kept her safe in bed the night she snuck out and never came back.

  Ah, hell. The world’s a big place and I never could have kept her here. She would’ve left anyhow. There’s nothing in our little house worth staying for. Nothing worthwhile.

  The muted squawk of the two-way interrupts. I hear it muffled inside the truck. Turning, I retrace my boot prints and yank the driver-side door.

  “Shaw!” the voice pleads from the radio lying on the bench seat. It’s Fenton Meyer, one of the other volunteer firefighters in town.

  “Yeah,” I say into the black hand-held. I’m not sure what he’s calling about. I’m not on this week.

  “Didn’t you hear the dispatch? We got a fire down on Muir Ave. Get your ass down here; we need your help!”

  “Where’s Greener?” Billy Greener is supposed to be on call this week with Fenton.

  “Who knows? Couldn’t raise him…” Fenton signs off.

  I climb the rest of the way into the cab and swing the door shut behind me. The old motor coughs back to life, then smoothes its way into an even pant. Headlights slice into the dark as I spin the wheel around.

  The frame shimmies a bit. Tires don’t want to stick. With a bit of sliding I get the truck out into the salt-crusted road. Then I’ve got her floored. The transmission jerks and the motor heaves.

  Roads are dead tonight, at least out this way. Rickety fencing lines the right-hand side for a quarter mile or so…a green utility shack on the left. A few dairy farms fly past. Most of the town is a bunch of straightaways.

  This is the second fire in as many weeks. A blaze burst out at Union Chemical and it almost burnt the place to the ground. We caught the fire in time, but all agreed it looked suspicious. Folks were quick to blame one of the high school kids. Johnny Arson, they call him.

  They say Johnny likes to play with fire. He set one in the school restroom one day. Got reamed for that. Then he lit one of the garbage bins afire behind the school. It didn’t burn long before a neighbor saw it.

  His mom told the police she’d keep a better eye on him. They thought it was only a matter of time before he started something bigger, the way he loved fire. Maybe this was it.

  Five miles melt. My boot’s still planted as the outskirts of population come into view. I ease up at the twelve-unit self-storage and coast to forty-five by the time I reach the quaint cottages turned winter homesteads.

  Three blocks away I can see the glow of emergency beacons. I hustle the truck a bit further before leaning hard into a right turn on Muir Ave. The tires complain before straightening out.

  Even in the partial light, I can see the thick, black smoke pouring out the first-level window of a brown bungalow. Not what I’d expect to see from a wooden house. Black smoke usually means gasoline.

  Two firefighters already have a hose in the window, drenching it pretty good. They stand firm, feet shoulder-width apart, as if refusing to back down from something. Fenton’s nowhere to be seen.

  Across the street, a portly EMT kneels next to a woman breathing from an oxygen kit. Three bystanders look on, hooded and huddled in bulky winter coats. I steer the truck to their side of the road and skid to a halt about ten feet away.

  I grab my bunker gear and leatherhead from the passenger-side floor and hop out, slamming the door behind me. As I jog over to the fire engine, Fenton pops out from the other side.

  “Looks like we don’t need you, Shaw.” Fenton’s black turnout coat is unfastened and his helmet sits tilted back on his head. He’s got those gnarled lips that look like he’s always sneering.

  “Know how it started?” I motion to the still smoking house and drop my gear next to the engine.

  “Nope, but it looks like gasoline to me. It’s Amy Armstrong’s house, you know.”

  “Great.” Her dad is Buck Armstrong, the biggest blowhard in three counties. Owns a bar in town called Lady Luck. Once he gets wind of this, it’ll get messy. You can take that to the bank.

  If that’s not gravy, the squeal of tires and an overworked motor turn my head to see Buck’s conversion van race up to the scene. The burgundy Ford stops in the middle of the street and spits out Buck and Jed Brenner, one of his cronies.

  An unzipped ski jacket covers some of Buck’s gut. A checkered shirt is tuck
ed into his trousers. The top few buttons of his shirt are undone, probably so women can see his gold necklace and chest hair.

  Brenner’s lean and gaunt. Silver hair peeks out from under the winter cap that sort of rides on the back of his head. The collar of his overcoat is flipped up. Hands are crammed into his pockets. No doubt he’s got a flask on him.

  They march over and Buck’s puffy, bearded face looks ready to explode. It’s a reddish-purple color. He lets loose every curse word there is, railing from one person to the next. Demands to know what happened. Says he heard it was arson.

  Amy, just a little thing, stands up from the curb and pulls the mask away from her pale face. “I can’t deal with this right now! Just shut up and get outta here!”

  Buck fires back at her. “Don’t sass me! I’ll be damned if I don’t get some answers!” He goes on to question some of the other onlookers as well as Fenton.

  Brenner stands back, real shifty like. He never says a thing.

  Buck gets around to me but just gives me an angry look. “I’ll bet it was Johnny Rollins. That little sonuvabitch! I’ll fix him. I’ll fix him good!” He turns to Brenner. “C’mon, let’s get back to the Lady and round up the boys.”

  They stomp back to Buck’s van, and Buck’s got it in gear almost before he’s got it started. Tears up someone’s yard trying to do a U-turn.

  I saunter over to one of the bystanders and nod to the house. “You guys see anything?”

  A skinny man blowing into his cupped hands says, “No, I didn’t, but Blake here says he saw Billy Greener speeding away from here real fast.”

  “What’s that now?” I lean in.

  Standing next to skinny, Blake is a balding man with yellowish skin. A few strings of hair lay on his scalp. “Yeah, I was on my way home. Saw Billy booking out of here like he was being chased by the devil himself.”

  “How sure are you it was Billy?” I ask.

  “I’d recognize his jeep anywhere. He’s the only one around whose got them swamper tires.”