“Yeah,” Owen retorted. “Who’d have thought someone would have put trash in a trash can? What is the world coming to? Next thing you know, people will be putting files in filing cabinets and taking baths in bath tubs.” He shook his head in feigned disbelief. “It’s a shame, really.”
“You know what I mean. How could this just be trash?” I pointed at a bloody tissue. “Look at that, Owen. Looks like you’re not the only one who needs tampons.”
“That’s disgusting.”
We replaced the lid and walked back to Owen’s porch, where we sat contemplating what we’d seen – or more accurately, what we hadn’t seen.
We talked about how we’d expected to find something – anything – to explain Jenson’s actions, but instead had walked away more confused than ever. If he had regular trash, and he disposed of it in a regular manner, what was in the black bags? And why did he dispose of them in such an odd manner? Where did he take them? It was killing me to know what was in them.
We figured the best way to figure out Jenson was to piece together what we knew of him, which was next to nothing. But we pooled our information anyway. It was pretty much a waste of time, though. We figured out nothing we didn’t already know.
“Carla pointed out something to me that I’d missed,” Owen said.
He told me about the two-year theory. All the deaths – which hadn’t seemed odd as they happened, but looking back now seemed very peculiar – had taken place since Jenson’s arrival to Hewitt Street, just over two years ago.
I thought about what he said. It was true. I don’t know how we’d missed it, but we had. We’d never realized how many odd things had happened on this street because as they happened, they just appeared to be horrible twists of fate. Terrible things happen all the time, everywhere. To think our little street was an exception was crazy thinking. But it also seemed crazy to think that so many terrible things could happen to a small group of people and still be considered happenstance.
Three deaths, two years, one street.
That was one hell of a coincidence.
I looked at Owen. It was difficult to read his face with so little light, but he appeared to be worried, probably concerned more about Carla and her kids than himself. Typical Owen. Out of morbid curiosity, as well as concern for my friend and his girlfriend, I smiled mischievously and asked, “You still against stalking?”
12 Owen
Andy seemed shocked and surprised about the two-year theory. He couldn’t believe we hadn’t noticed the relationship between Jenson’s arrival and the three deaths that had occurred on our street. He felt bad that we’d been so consumed with our own lives, but I assured him that that’s just the way things were. There was no reason to feel guilty about anything. It was human nature, a type of self-preservation, to be more focused on us and things that affect us than on anyone else.
We talked into the morning light about the things in each of our lives’ that had held our attention in the last two years. A recap while we waited for daylight.
For Andy and Jill, the past two years had been full of ups and downs. They’d been trying to have a baby. It seemed once that it was going to happen for them. Jill had gotten pregnant, only to miscarry two months later. They’d been devastated for a while, but figured it was meant to be. They’d been trying since.
Andy’s father had suffered a stroke. There was a while when it didn’t appear he was going to make it, but he did. After months of therapy, he pulled through virtually unchanged. He’d gone from being unable to speak or use his right side to doing everything he was before, with only a hint of a speech impediment. He was so proud of himself, as he should’ve been. He worked so hard to get better. Six weeks after leaving the hospital, he had a heart attack in his sleep and died. After his father’s death, Andy and his brother took turns staying with their mother. In the end, she’d gone to live with Andy’s brother.
And me, well, I’d spent the first of the previous two years working myself to death, and the last year depressed. Most of that time was spent on the front porch, trying to forget everything that had ever happened within the walls of my house. I’d considered moving, but wasn’t prepared to let go. I didn’t want to face the memories, but I didn’t want to erase them either. Selling the house had never been an option for me. So I’d taken to the front porch.
Holly had been my only family, and when she left, in her place remained a huge hole. That hole seemed permanent until Carla moved in. The time spent with Carla was time well spent. The ache that I’d suffered through every day had finally eased. The knot in my stomach had relaxed. The weight that had felt so heavy on my shoulders had finally been lifted. I was starting to see things in a new and different light now. My world wasn’t made up of only shades of grey.
So looking back, it was easy to see how we’d missed the correlation between the many events that had taken place on Hewitt Street. We’d all been caught up in our own versions of hell, too far down to see much else.
We decided then, at about five in the morning, that we were going to pay closer attention. Our eyes were open now, and it was very unlikely that anything else was going to be escaping us. We agreed that in addition to keeping watch, we would do a little digging, see what we could come up with as far as what lay beneath the horrible events that had occurred on our sleepy little street.
Maybe it was all a big coincidence. Maybe there would be nothing to find. Maybe sometimes these things just happened. The principle of three. You know, people always die in threes. Well, with the old couple and Elaine, that made three. Maybe the stress we’d been under lately had finally caused us to crack.
We were about to find out.
Andy and I sat on the porch, still contemplating our sanity when Jenson came out, dragging a large black trash bag as usual, down the steps, across his lawn, and to his car where he loaded it into the trunk. He rested, like always, before getting in the driver’s seat.
While he performed these tasks, Andy pestered me about following him.
“Come on,” Andy said urgently. “What are the chances that he’s doing this today? It’s like we were meant to follow him. We’ve sat here all night, even dug through his trash, and now he’s doing it.” Though he was speaking in a whisper, I heard the excitement in his voice.
Feeling Andy’s eyes fly back and forth from me to Jenson, I said, “We’re going to have to hurry.”
We went as quickly as we could to Andy’s car without seeming obvious or suspicious in any way. We were backing out of Andy’s driveway as Jenson made a left at the end of the street.
13 Bernie
The sound of a racing engine startled me awake. I figured it was some damn punk teenagers, but when I ran to the door and threw it open, all I saw was that red-haired guy’s car turning the corner at the end of the street.
I looked across the street at his house, and then the house beside his. Owen’s house. I saw no signs of life over there, but that wasn’t saying anything. Unless Owen was on the porch, which he usually was, I never saw signs of life there.
I closed the door and stretched. I’d been waiting for those two morons to go inside so I could go next door and see the brown haired broad who wanted me. But those sons of bitches had sat out there all night long. I’d been sitting on the couch, peeking through the curtains, waiting. I thought the red-haired guy would be going to work, but he never did. The two of them sat on Owen’s porch all night, no doubt talking about me. Or the broad next door to me.