On the news, a reporter spoke of the attack at the Summer Shindig.
A man two barstools to Max’s left huffed.
“I told the police. The guy in the black van is behind those dead kids. He’s an escaped mental patient from the Northern Michigan Asylum. You ask me, that’s what we’ve got running around in the woods. Some looney toon who’s better off in a straight-jacket.”
Max stared into his glass, tilted halfway to his lips. The amber liquid swirled and released its noxious aroma.
A moment later, the man’s words registered. He’d said, “the man in the black van.”
Max turned and blinked at him.
The man wore a blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt over cut off jean shorts. He was entirely bald, and his head was smooth, as if he’d shaved it. He drank from a tall glass of beer.
Max stood, still steady on his feet, and walked to the stool next to the man.
“Do you mind?” Max asked, gesturing at the seat.
“No, I do not. I like company myself. My ex-wife never did. About shit a cat if I told her my parents were coming for a visit. But that’s why she’s the ex now, isn’t it?”
Max offered the obligatory laugh and gestured at the TV. “I heard you say something about a black van.”
The man nodded, opened his mouth, and then narrowed his eyes at Max. “You don’t own a black van, do ya?”
Max shook his head. “Just a motorcycle and a Toyota I drive in the winter.”
“A Toyota?” The man scoffed, eyes big and watery. “You trust those foreigners to build your car? Might need to be in the looney bin yourself.”
The man took another drink and eyed Max’s glass.
“Smells mighty potent, what you’re drinking there. If my hair hadn’t already fallen out, I’d be worried that stuff would do the trick. You grievin’ or celebratin’?”
Max gazed at the glass. He couldn’t answer. He didn’t want to see the sheet again, and yet there it was, looming in his mind, floating like a ghost.
“Can you tell me about the black van Mr.-?
“Mr. Rice was my father. Call me Tom.”
“Nice to meet you, Tom. I’m Max.”
“Mad Max,” Tom said, smiling. “You must be mad to be drinking that paint thinner.”
“Tom, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve had a terrible day. I don’t want to talk, but I need to hear your story about the black van.”
Tom arched an eyebrow.
Grieving then.” Tom nodded. “Last time I had a drink like that was the day my mother passed. My pops and I drank a bottle of scotch.” Tim grimaced. “Can barely smell the stuff now. Scotch and gardenias. Can’t smell one without the other. Those were her favorite flowers, gardenias.” Tim shuddered.
Max finished his drink and started to lift his finger to signal to the bartender, but Tom stopped him with a look.
“It only makes it worse, Mad Max.” He nodded at the glass. “Take it from someone who knows.”
The bartender paused in front of Max.
“I’ll take a coffee, please,” Max told him.
“Good man,” Tom said. “Anyhoo, I saw that black van about six months back when Vern Ripley went missing.”
Max braced his hands on the edge of the counter. “Here in town?”
Tom nodded. “Cruising the street real slow like. I live not three houses down from Vern and his family. I saw him walk out the door with his sled. I went out to get the mail and then looked off down the street the way he’d been walking. That kid and the van were gone.”
“You think the person in the van abducted him.”
“I sure do, and I told the police as much, but they looked at me like a I was a few crackers short of a full box. Damn coppers. Never have had much luck convincing them of things they ain’t seen with their own eyes.”
“Why did you say it was an asylum patient in the van?”
“Oh, that’s easy. He left a calling card on the side of the road. Or maybe it flew out when he opened a door, hard sayin’. It was blank sheet of paper. Stationary you call it. Printed right on the top was The Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane.”
34
“Hi, Linda,” Max said, reaching out and squeezing the woman’s arm.
“Oh, Max,” she murmured. “Oh, Max I’m so sorry. I know you and Joan or Kim had become close. She was such a dear. We absolutely adored her here, and the animals, my goodness they treated her like a regular Dr. Dolittle.”
Max smiled, but his chest constricted at her words. He swallowed and gulped a shuddering breath.
Over the counter he saw Kim’s Polaroid beneath block letters that read STAFF. Kim was sitting, legs splayed with a Burnese mountain dog laying across her legs. The dog had exposed his belly to Kim and gazed at her with soupy adoring eyes.
His throat grew thick, and he blinked away rising tears, looking toward the window, not daring to glance at her photograph a second time.
“Linda, I stopped by because Kim called me yesterday. I wondered if you knew why?”
Linda frowned and swiped her graying hair behind her ears. She turned to a paper calendar that took up half the counter.
“The day is a little blurry now,” Linda admitted. She brushed a hand beneath her eye where Max saw a single tear sliding over her cheekbone. “Mr. Yessif brought in his lab, Punkie. Kitty Jenson stopped by with her new schnauzer pup for shots. Hmmm…”
She tapped an unpainted fingernail on the calendar. “You know what? Joan left for her break that day. She’s never done that before. Usually she sits in the staff room with an old paperback and drinks coffee and reads. She stepped out, and she came back five or ten minutes late.”
“Do you have any idea where she went?”
Linda shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Max. I don’t. Does this have something to do with the man who killed her? Her ex-husband?”
Max shook his head.
“I don’t think so. I’m just trying to figure something out, I guess.”
Linda nodded as if she understood completely.
“I hope you do, Max.”
Max left the vet and stood in the parking lot.
In the center of the lot, a dark stain stood out from the other pavement. It no longer looked like blood, but he knew it was. It was the blood that had seeped quickly through the cracks, and that no amount of washing could erase.
He gazed at the stores on either side of the vet clinic. Across the street, a strip mall contained the arcade, a pet store, and other several other businesses. To his right was a pawnshop. He glanced away from the pawnshop and then looked back. A small dark surveillance camera hung from the eaves.
The man behind the counter perked up when Max walked through the door. “Looking for a gently used television? Had a beauty come in just this morning?” The man patted the tv sitting on the counter.
“No, thanks. I’m wondering if I could see your video camera footage. I saw the camera outside.”
The man nodded. “Oh, sure, yeah. You with the police? I suspected they might be comin’ round to retrieve my tapes. Not enough people use video cameras, if you ask me. I watch the tapes just for entertainment. You wouldn’t think they’d be all that interesting, but I’ve seen some oddities on here, let me tell you. I’ve had half a mind to call the National Enquirer after a few of the things I’ve seen on the late-night footage."
The man stood and shuffled into the back room.
Max heard him talking to himself, counting back the days.
“Lucky, you came by,” the man said offering Max the VHS tape. I tape over them every couple of weeks. Though in all truth, I probably would have set this one aside. I didn’t watch it myself. I don’t have a stomach for such things.”