The Clayton Chronicles

Chapter One-2

“I have something important to tell you, Sheriff.”

“Well, go ahead Danny.”

Danny Tremain gave Deputy Clifford Golan quite a sour look. Harris sensed Golan stiffen considerably under that stare and sighed inwardly.

“Clifford—will you be a sport and go to Betsy's Luncheon and bring me a coffee,” Harris said, pausing to eye young master Danny. “And an ice-cream soda for our young visitor here. What flavor, Dan? Chocolate?”

“Vanilla would be nice.”

Vanilla, oh, great. I should have figured that out, Harris thought.

Clifford harrumphed noticeably, his face flushed by the subdued anger of being suddenly turned into an errand boy, especially when it turned out that he had to bring a treat for a ten-year-old kid. Nevertheless, he got off his chair and headed toward the exit door.

Harris smiled as he heard the door slam shut.

“Ok, that will get him out from our hair for awhile. Step into my office, Danny.”

The Sheriff's 'office' being the desk farther from the door and the one sided by more file cabinets than the other two, Danny sat in one of the chairs facing it. The kid curiously examined Harris's nameplate for a second or two and then took the initiative.

“Sheriff, I was bumming around Hector's Junkyard and found something that you must see.” The kid said this with such a serious and straight face that Harris had to briefly fight the urge to laugh. That certainly would look like bad form.

“Were you alone, Danny?”

The kid nodded wordlessly.

“You know that kids your age shouldn't be hanging around that area alone, Danny,” Harris commented, matter-of-factly. “It's one of the most lonesome spots in town and there's no one at a shouting distance in case you get into trouble—so it's best if you take a few friends along.”

Danny nodded again.

The sound of the door opening called the attention of both males, Sheriff and kid, toward it. Clifford had returned from Betsy's Luncheon with the coffee and the ice-cream soda. Damn, he was fast!

“Thanks, Clifford,” Clayton said.

“Thanks, Deputy Golan,” muttered Danny.

Cliff scowled at them both. Then he returned to his desk and buried himself again beneath his copy of the Nosfort Gazette.

Sheriff Harris had pulled out a notepad and a pencil, and was readying himself to take notes, just in case Danny Tremain had stumbled onto something really important. Nosfort was a town caught in the middle between being a big town and a small city, and almost nothing that truly mattered happened there, but you never knew. “Will you tell me now what have you found, Danny? Please?” he asked.

Danny Tremain was noisily slurping the last remains of his vanilla ice-cream soda through the straw, making Harris wonder if the little holier-than-thou twerp had a penchant for the dramatic.

Sheriff Clayton Harris nearly dropped his pencil when Danny finally said what he had come to say: “I found a dead body among the bushes, sir.”

* * *

It seemed that it was a day filled with special delights for young Danny Tremain. First, he had made an interesting discovery, which provided him with a swell personal secret (at least for a few hours); second, the sheriff had treated him to an ice-cream soda when Dan's personal funds had been at their lowest; and third, he was now riding shotgun in the town's only police cruiser.

Of course, while the little wait he and the sheriff had—expecting Deputy Pritchett to return from his patrol in the police car—had been a bummer, the excitement of his journey back to Hector's junkyard, this time riding in a police patrol car, was overwhelming Danny's little heart.

Finally, after traveling along Elm Street's semi-industrial area (Danny had to concede this to Sheriff Clayton: it truly was a lonesome place, now that he had pointed it out for him), they arrived at Hector Lozano's Junkyard.

As they stepped down from the car, Danny really noticed the true loneliness of the area. Crickets were lazily chirping in the summer haziness that seemed to rise from the hot pavement and every sun-blasted surface in the area. Lozano's junkyard consisted of three or four acres of assorted trash and junked cars, surrounded by a decaying chain link fence. Today, its front gate, which was plated with corrugated metal held fast to the chain link with rusty wires, was chained and padlocked.

Sheriff Harris wasn't particularly fond of Hector Lozano. He suspected the seedy Latino of being responsible for the petty d**g smuggling and illegal weaponry traffic that went on around the Nosfort Township. Nothing serious yet; some Mary Jane, perhaps some firearms dealt under the counter. The guy was certainly sneaky, for these were still unconfirmed rumors Harris wasn't able to pin on him. Then, on the other hand, Hector seemed to possess the uncanny ability to perfectly point out a person's resemblance to an object, animal or another person. It was a silly little game that many in town wished Hector kept to himself; the problem was that the Latino guy had the less-than-endearing custom of yelling it out to the four winds for everyone to find out. Ada Stevenson, for instance, a reasonably portly woman, had a very hard time when Hector compared her with a rosewood dresser—and a big rosewood dresser at that. After Hector had publicly glued this likeness on her, she had to quit her second grade teaching job because of it, with all the kids in the classroom doing eerie imitations of creaking hinges and the squeaks of opening drawers behind her back. Sheriff Harris himself didn't escape the Latino's wit; Lozano had once commented that Clayton had a striking and more-than-passing resemblance to James Garner, that actor in the old Maverick TV show. Everyone in town agreed, faced with this sudden epiphany, including Clayton Harris. It wasn't an unflattering comparison, but it certainly wasn't one that the sheriff wanted to cultivate.

“Wait a sec while I check something,” Harris said, getting closer to the junkyard's entrance gate. When he reached the closed gate, he extended his right hand and gave the padlock two or three firm tugs. Seeing Danny's questioning looks, he explained: “Hector's in Boston, hunting down '57 Thunderbirds spare parts. I was due to check on the place, anyway.” Harris smiled. “Good to kill two birds with one stone. Now show me your dead body, Danny.”

“Over here,” Danny said as he pointed to the far eastern reach of the junkyard. While Danny's young legs seemed to easily find ways around the brambles and goldenrod tufts that were peppered all over the place, Sheriff Harris didn't know how to readily handle the small obstacles he met along the way; he followed with difficulty the tiny trail that the kid was beating for him. At last they reached the greenbelt area.

“Here, Sheriff—about ten yards from where the bushes really start,” Danny said.

Both males, young and adult, walked along the small trickling stream that extended past Elm Street's culvert. When they entered the greenery, Sheriff Clayton Harris was struck by the nice coolness of this shady area, and didn't find it odd that kids ventured so far to horse around in this spot; it was both an adventurous trek and cool refuge from the mid-summer's heat. Harris, who knew deep inside that he'd always be a kid at heart, was half-tempted to play Pirate's Cave or something. Still, this wasn't a safe place for young boys to roam without company.

Exactly ten yards after the overgrown bushes began (the kid must have a terrific sense of distances, Harris thought), slumped on the concrete ditch that supposedly took care of a stronger water current during rainy season, was the corpse. It was lying on its side, head slightly lolling from the massive neck and shoulders.

Clayton Harris got closer to the body, crouching next to its head, trying to ascertain its identity. It was a Caucasian male, about fifty; big, towering kinda fellow, six feet tall, built like a refrigerator—and no one he knew from town. Most probably a drifter whose karma had casually decided it was this dude's time and place to die in Nosfort, Massachusetts. Man, I've seen karma at work, Clayton crazily thought. And it's flipping burgers at the nearest McDonald's. The man's pale and dirty features, with its salt 'n' pepper unshaven whiskers, struck a strong resemblance to someone he knew. Harris frowned while trying to place that disheveled face on one belonging to a local restless native… and failed miserably.

Harris noticed that Danny was hunching next to him. He was balancing his weight with both hands on his scraped knees, leaning as best he could for a better look.

“Did you touch anything the first time you were here, Danny?”

The kid violently shook his head. “No, Sheriff—I see enough TV and I know that cops are very strict about f**k-rensics.”

Harris's eyebrows raised, wondering if that was honest confusion, or if it was only an excuse for Danny to say the eff-word. Knowing the kid's overall reputation for high morals, he just shrugged it off and let it pass.

“Okay—I've seen enough,” Harris said while straightening up. “Let's go back to the police car.”

He suddenly stopped, scowling at something that worried him beyond words. He had caught a glimpse of something on the man's neck. Something he had only seen in his favorite movies and books.

The man had two punctures in his neck, right on the spot where his jugular was.

* * *

Back in the car, Harris immediately noticed the sweltering heat that seemed to have increased since they had entered the leafy greenbelt. He knew it all was psychological; that after exiting the shade, the heat would seem intolerable to him until he re-acclimatized. And yet, he felt that heat had become truly unbearable, particularly after he saw what he thought he saw. Jezzum crow. He reached for the two-way radio's mike and pressed the call button. A burst of static greeted him.

“Sheriff's dispatch,” said Hugh Pritchett's nicely modulated voice.

“Hugh, Sheriff Clayton here,” he said. Danny was patiently waiting in the passenger seat of the cruiser. The kid was sitting as far as he could from the slanting sunrays that streamed through the car's windows. Harris took note of the hour; it was ten past one. “Call Leonard Hamilton's office and tell him to meet me in twenty minutes in front of Lozano's junkyard. Tell him to bring in the f**k-rensics team. Over.”

Harris released the button and another burst of static followed.

“Beg your pardon? Over.”

Harris pressed the mike's button again—more static.

“You heard me,” Harris said while eyeing Danny, who seemed bored to the point of tears. “Twenty minutes—I have to drop young Daniel Tremain at his home and make an unscheduled stop. Over and out.” He set the radio's mike back into its cradle and got the car's engine started.

Clayton Harris drove back all the way to Elm Street, unmaking the road he had traveled to reach Lozano's junkyard.

* * *

Clayton Harris made that unscheduled stop first, parking for two minutes in front of Sal's Basement to buy the mint condition Vault of Horror magazine as he had agreed on the phone. He noticed with pleasure Danny's big round eyes when the kid realized what the sheriff held in his hand, protected by a collector's acid-free plastic bag. Of course, Harris also saw the kid's disappointment as he casually tossed the mag onto the car's back seat.

Sorry, kiddo, he thought. This treat is not for you.

He drove Danny home and he found his mom nervously waiting for him in front of her well-kept home. She was a tall, lanky woman with short and curly ash-blonde locks framing her gaunt face. There was no occasion that Clay could remember that he didn't see the woman constantly wrenching her hands whenever he met her.