Birdeater

Chapter 12

It was driving past Calvin's old house that reminded Jackie to call Florence.

She could understand why Florence sold it. There couldn't have been too many good memories in there. As far as she understood, most of the good happened when Calvin took his grandson up to the family cabin. It was only twenty minutes away, but it was deep enough in the mountains and close to a popular campsite. Hillcreek was already small. It was really only built to be a convenient spot for tourists to get groceries or take advantage of a running toilet.

The house in town had seen a lot of Sabrina's drunken rages. The police had been called on her several times. It was a serious enough concern that a town meeting had been held about cracking down on sobriety.

It never went anywhere because Judge Perkins was a known inebriate.

Florence had said his number was still the same. Jackie decided to test that out. She picked up her phone and hit the contact button. It rang. That gave her hope.

He didn't pick up. It went to voicemail. Jackie licked her lips and thought about what she was trying to say.

"Hey Florence. It's Jackie. I wanted to talk to you about meeting up and having that lunch together. I know that you think Amos won't react well but I think he'd take it better than you think. I'm trying to get his mind off this case he's been working and I think it would do him good to see you. I don't know. It's up to you. I just think it would help. Think about it, okay? Talk to you later."

She hung up. That was that.

A few minutes later she was back in her own driveway. Amos was out mowing the lawn. It was his Sunday routine. He didn't smoke often as a rule. He only smoked when he mowed. Today he looked like he really needed the cigar that was dangling from his lips.

It broke Jackie's heart to see him so stressed out. She shut the car door and grabbed her bags from the passenger side.

"Come inside and take a break." She called and hoped she was loud enough to be heard over the mower.

He lifted his head and waved when he saw her. He brought the mower to the edge of the driveway and then stopped.

"Let me take that." He spoke around his cigar. He held out his hands to take the bags from her.

"I can get them." She said. She let him take them anyway.

"Yeah." He shut the car door with his free hand and then pulled his cigar away from his mouth to kiss her. "I'm glad you came home."

"I always do." She teased. "You haven't run me off yet."

He shook his head. "You know what I mean. I don't know what I'm doing with myself. Out here mowing the grass when I could be back at the station covering some ground."

"You mean running yourself into the dirt? Yeah, you're good at that." She started walking into the house. He followed her. "You get one day off a week, Amos, and you spend it worrying about work. You've been over that file a dozen or more times and you turn up the same nothing. Give your brain a rest."

"He's out there, Jackie. And he's going to kill again if I don't stop him."

Jackie had to fight down her frustration. Amos set the bags on the kitchen table. She started to go through them.

"If you're just going to mope around the house all day, go back to the station." She said.

"I'm not going to do that." He said testily. "And I am not moping. I don't think you understand what we are dealing with."

"He broke into our house. I think I understand."

"You never talked to me about that. You never told me how it made you feel."