The Other Frank

CHAPTER 1“Do you mean to tell me, Frank, that you are actually taking some of your vacation time? Am I dreaming here?” Detective Frank Vandegraf looked across the cluttered desk at his Lieutenant, Hank Castillo, and shrugged. “Technically, Lou, I’m taking personal time, not vacation time. But, yeah. Is there a problem?” “A problem?” Castillo mused, a bit of a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. “No, of course not. I just wasn’t sure I heard you right. You pretty much never take your time, Frank. It’s actually become a bit of a problem with Personnel, just how much you’ve accrued. Are you feeling all right?” Frank reached up to rub the back of his neck and then stopped himself. He was constantly being kidded about that involuntary gesture. “I’m fine. It’s just that I need to go out of town for a few days. A funeral and all that kind of thing.” “Somebody close to you, I assume?” “My ex-wife, Muriel.” “Oh yes.” Castillo nodded. “I remember her. I’m sorry. Was it unexpected?” “Apparently she had an accident. They called me this morning. Small town in the Midwest.” “I get the impression you hadn’t stayed very close with her all these years.” “Um…no. She moved back to her hometown, met some guy there and remarried. Hadn’t heard from her in years.” There was an awkward silence. Frank shrugged. “And clearly I won’t after this either.” “Maybe this is a good thing to be doing, then. Sounds like you decided you need to go.” Frank nodded, lips pursed. “Yeah, well…I just figured, well, I’ve got the time and all.” Castillo continued to nod sagely. He was a muscular man, whose thick eyebrows, salt-and-pepper mustache, and graying temples all lent him an air of gravitas. As usual he had his suit jacket off but could still look dapper in shirt, tie, and vest. He looked down at the forms Frank had handed him. “So you’re departing tomorrow?” “Got a flight out first thing. I’ll be back next week.” “Works for me, Frank. Good luck. You have a few things open, I believe.” “Nothing really pressing anyway, just some pain in the neck re-canvasses and so forth. I’m happy to hand them off if you’d like.” “I think that’s wise. Unless I’m mistaken, Morrison is up right now.” Frank suppressed a smile. Both he and Castillo understood that Detective Marlon Morrison was almost always unoccupied. He was just gifted that way. “I’ll put the stuff together for him, no problem.” “All right, then,” Castillo said, looking anxious to return to his own workload. “My condolences on your loss, Frank. Have a safe trip.” “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.” * * * * If Frank had been asked to rate his coping skills, he probably would have given himself reasonable marks. He would figure that he met whatever life threw at him with a fair amount of equanimity, but there were several things he especially disliked and with which he did not necessarily cope all that well. One of these was flying. He avoided it whenever possible, but in this case, it was unavoidable. With one stopover, he wound up spending over four hours in a cramped airline seat between two portly seat mates before finally and mercifully deplaning. Frank normally did like to drive. Driving offered a time he could use to let his mind work out problems, mull over cases and look for new solutions. Often he would suddenly realize he had been driving on “automatic pilot” for long periods of time while he had gotten lost in his labyrinths of thought. He had about a two hour drive in his rental car from the airport to his final destination, but found he really had nothing to mull over at the moment. Surprisingly he found himself bored and uncomfortable as he drove. This entire trip, he anticipated, was going to be uncomfortable. The Interstate highway would only take him so far before he had to exit and take local roads. Just outside of the town of Easton, he pulled into a small gas station to fill up. There were two pumps under a metal canopy in front of a garage and mini-market, with a sign that read RALPH’S AUTOMOTIVE SERVICES. Another sign declared, PLEASE DO NOT SERVE YOURSELF GAS. WAIT FOR ATTENDANT. Frank found this rather refreshing, given that almost all the stations he encountered back home were self-service and largely automated. Even finding a live breathing cashier, much less a station attendant, was sometimes an impossible dream. Some states, he considered, had laws prohibiting self-dispensing of fuel. Maybe this was one of them. He didn’t have long to wait before a graying, weathered-looking soul in a coverall and baseball cap strolled out from the garage, wiping his hands on a rag, and approached his window. The guy nodded to Frank and said nothing. “Regular, please,” Frank said. “Fill it up.” He fumbled around under the dashboard of the rental car to find the gas tank release and popped it. The guy nodded again and reached for one of the pumps. Frank got out to stretch his legs while the gas pumped. He noted that the guy made no offer to check the oil or wipe the windshield. Those days were long, long gone. “How far to Easton?” he asked the guy. He noted his coverall had the name RALPH stitched over the pocket. “You’re almost there. Another mile. Visiting?” “Sort of. Come for a funeral, actually.” Ralph nodded, a strange twitchy kind of nod, knitting his bushy eyebrows. “Sorry for your loss. Hardly anybody comes this way who isn’t a local.” “You do seem a little off the beaten track here. You the owner?” Ralph nodded again. “That would be me.” “Lived here all your life?” The man smiled at some private joke. He shook his head, again with that strange twitchiness. “Not yet.” A wise guy, okay. Another person in another small town had pulled the same old joke on him not all that long ago. A thought occurred to Frank. “Hey, I need to find some cigars for someone I’m going to see. You wouldn’t happen to sell any, would you?” “Sorry. Not something I stock. Used to love them, myself. Gave up smoking a while back.” Again he shook his head and smiled at some private joke. “Best place to find decent cigars is at the gift shop in the motel in Easton. Likely you’ll be staying there.” “The Sportsman? That’s where I’ve got a reservation.” As the guy finished up pumping the gas and extracted the pump, Frank couldn’t help staring at him for a long moment. There was something vaguely familiar about him but he couldn’t place it. He was fairly nondescript: average height and build, maybe in his late fifties. The eyes, the mouth. The way he stood. Something. The guy looked up at him. “Something wrong?” Frank shook it off. “Naw, you just looked kinda familiar for a second. Couldn’t be anything. You ever been West?” Ralph shook his head. “Nope. Don’t think you and I have ever had the pleasure, mister.” Beneath his baseball cap, his eyes were a rather piercing clear grey. Again that little involuntary motion of his head. “Oh, I’m sure we haven’t. I’ve never been around here before.” Frank looked at the pump and pulled out his wallet. “You take plastic?” “Sure,” Ralph said, taking a credit card from Frank. “Be right back, I’ll go run this.” Frank decided to check out the convenience store, so he followed him in. He selected a candy bar and some gum and told Ralph to put it on the card as well. “Is the Sportsman comfortable?” Frank asked, just to have something to say. “Yep,” Ralph smiled as he swiped Frank’s card through the machine and keyed in the information of the transaction. “Decent restaurant, cocktail lounge. You’ll be comfortable there.” “I wouldn’t mind a good meal. I’m not much of a drinker these days.” “Me neither. Kind of put the plug in the jug a while back. Don’t drink, don’t smoke. Don’t know that I’ll live longer but it’ll sure seem that way.” Ralph handed a receipt to Frank for his signature and then exchanged the signed copy for the customer copy. “Thank you, hope you have a nice visit.” “As nice as coming for a funeral can be,” muttered Frank as he turned to leave the counter. “One thing I’ve learned is certain,” Ralph said. “Maybe the only thing.” “I’m sorry, what’s that?” Frank asked, stopping. “Death, I mean.” Ralph shrugged. “It’s a constant, isn’t it? For all of us?” “I can’t argue with that,” Frank allowed and continued to his car. Strange guy. A little uncomfortable. Every word seemed to be an effort coming out of him. He still couldn’t figure out why he seemed familiar. Frank somehow got some mixed messages from him, simultaneously looking for conversation but pushing away. He acted laid-back and friendly, but there was that underlying nervousness, that withdrawal. Oh well. Small town. Different mindset and all that. He hoped everyone he met here wasn’t like that. It didn’t help his apprehensive mood one bit. Frank started up the car and pulled back onto the road. The Sportsman’s Lodge and Inn wasn’t half bad, Frank had to admit. The reception area was clean and well maintained, and he didn’t mind the decor, which went heavy on wood paneling with a hunting motif: framed reproductions of hunting scenes and even two glassy-eyed stuffed deer heads. He reflected that several women he knew wouldn’t have been exactly enthused with the ambience (he got why the deer heads would displease, but why did it seem all the women he knew hated wood paneling so much?), but after all, he wasn’t exactly there for a romantic getaway. The inn was a two-story complex, the ground floor of the main building taken up by the lobby, a restaurant, a gift/ souvenir shop, and a convenience store. The woman behind the counter was outgoing and smiling as she signed Frank in, handed him his key and gave him directions to the room. “Let me know of you have any questions, Mr. Vandegraf. Are you here to visit family?” “In a manner of speaking,” he said, taking the key. “I’m here for a funeral.” “Oh my gosh,” she said. “You must mean Muriel Lansdowne.” “That would be her.” “I’m so sorry. Terrible thing. Such a nice lady, to die in such a way.” “I’m told she had an accident? Fell off a ladder, something of that nature?” The woman nodded gravely. She was perhaps fifty, rusty brown hair sprinkled with just a touch of grey, with large earnest eyes behind rimless glasses. “Darnedest thing. Her husband came home and found her on the ground. It seems she was trying to get a birds’ nest out of a gutter of their house, or some such.” “Darnedest thing,” Frank agreed. “Poor Francis. I guess you know him, right? Such a nice fellow. He was heartbroken.” “I don’t really know him,” Frank admitted. “I suppose I’ll get to know him this week.” “So you’re a relative of Muriel’s? She didn’t talk much about her immediate family but I thought they were mostly gone.” “We used to be married. She and I hadn’t talked in some years.” “Oh. I see. Well, my condolences, I’m sorry for your loss. We all liked Muriel very much. She was a very helpful soul, always reaching out to help others.” “That sounds like her, all right.” Frank smiled wanly at the woman and waved his key on its old fashioned plastic fob. “I’ll go park by the room and check it out now. Thank you.” It only took him a few minutes to decide the room would be quite satisfactory and to unpack his bag. The bed seemed comfortable, the television seemed to work, and he planned to only be sleeping and killing a small amount of time here. The room was furnished in similar fashion to the lobby: wood paneling, a couple of framed hunting prints. He was disappointed there was no glassy-eyed deer head on the wall to watch over him while slept. Next he’d check out the motel shops for the cigars and then perhaps try the restaurant. He also realized he had forgotten a few toiletries; he wasn’t accustomed to travel. Well, undoubtedly he could find stuff like toothpaste in the store as well. He locked up and walked back to the lobby.