Chapter 13
The next morning, Joel contacted Sterling first thing, checking on Chelsea.
“She’s still sleeping. I’m letting her get however many hours she needs.”
Joel asked him, “Did she tell you what her beef with Richard was? With that twelve-hour shift of hers, she just kept telling me that she would fill me in later.”
“Nope. Didn’t know about that, just about her warning in the parking lot. Now you’ve got me even more worried. I’ll ask her when she wakes up, and I’ll let you know whatever I find out.”
With that, Joel headed into town, stopping off first where the old man had rented a room. As he got out and walked up to the apartment building, a man stepped outside.
“We’re full up,” he announced, his tone gruff. “I don’t have any more places to rent.”
“No problem. I’m here about one of your past renters.”
He sighed. “You’re talking about John Peacock, aren’t you?”
“Sure am,” he stated.
“He is a character. He’s a good man. He suffered a lot in the war and was never quite the same when he came back. I don’t think he deserved the kind of life that he was living, but, hey, that’s the military for you.”
Joel didn’t argue with him because, for some people, it was pretty rough when they came back from service. Yet trying to find answers for that right now was not part of Joel’s objective here. He nodded. “How long did he live here?”
“Oh, ten years, easy, but nobody would know it, as he never left his apartment except to sit in the park,” he said.
“Nicest kind of renter. Doesn’t bother people with loud parties or with drug dealers coming here to sell them stuff.
Always paid his rent on time and in full.
Never late. Then he wanted to end his lease, saying he was going into the hospital before heading to hospice care.
I hadn’t even realized he was sick.” He just shook his head.
“He never reconciled with that no-good son of his.”
“Well, somebody was at the hospital with him.”
He stared at Joel in surprise. “I don’t know who that would have been because he didn’t have anybody.”
“And the son?”
“I don’t know anything about him. Peacock mentioned once that he had a son, that they were estranged, and that the son didn’t want to forgive him for God-only-knows whatever it was. Thus he didn’t want anything to do with him,” he shared.
“And did he leave any stuff or anything in his room?”
“Yeah, just a couple boxes of stuff he wanted to go to charity, and I told him that I would take it there for him,” he said. “Damn if I just haven’t had the time.”
“Any chance I could take a look at it?”
The manager just stared, unsure what to make of him. “You can take a look at it, as long as you dispose of it, since I sure as hell haven’t had a chance to do it.”
“Done. Where did you plan to drop it off?”
“At the church.” He shrugged. “I don’t even know if they want anything or could put anything to use though. Honest to God, it’s just household stuff and old at that.”
Joel shared, “His body was just dumped down the road in his truck.”
The super stared at him, clearly stunned. “What? He’s dead?”
Joel kept his eye on the super. “He was found in the back of his red pickup truck out on a rural road on the other side of town.”
He just stared at him. “In the truck bed?”
“Yeah, rolled in a carpet. I doubt he got up, walked out there, and just lay there until he died.”
“Yet, if he could have, he would have. That would absolutely be something he would do,” the super exclaimed, with a laugh.
“Not to confound anybody, but he wasn’t a big fan of hospitals, nor was he a big fan of institutions.
He even told me that, if they wanted him to go to hospice, he would never go.
He’d just take a walk and let Mother Nature finish him off. ”
Joel frowned. “Now that’s an interesting twist.”
“Yeah, absolutely he would have done that, if he was capable of it.”
“If he was capable,” Joel repeated, emphasizing the words.
The super considered that, then nodded. “You’re right, if he was capable.
I know he was not in great shape when I last saw him.
I was actually pretty shocked to see the condition he was in.
It’s just not right seeing our veterans go by the wayside with nobody giving a crap.
Still, you mentioned somebody was at his bedside? ”
“There was a man, not a young man but middle-aged.”
“Huh. I wonder if somebody got a hold of his son after all.”
“I don’t know. One of the hospital nurses thought it was his son. Did anyone come here and talk to you about anything?”
He nodded. “Yeah, a couple people came through looking for him, which is why I assumed he was being looked after,” he explained, with a shrug. “But apparently, from what you’re saying, it was neither.”
“We don’t know that. I just know that he was found in his truck.”
The super stared at him. “Honest to God, he would have loved that, so you might want to keep that in mind when you guys are trying to charge people with murder.”
“Interesting point,” Joel noted, with a nod.
“Yeah, I’m not kidding. I shit you not. That would have been an absolutely ideal end for him, to go outside, sit in the back of his truck, and just die. He didn’t have any money so—”
“You know he didn’t have any money?”
He frowned. “No, I guess I don’t know that. I just know that he paid his rent on time, and that he wasn’t …” He hesitated for a moment, then added, “I don’t want to say he wasn’t all there, but he wasn’t all there.”
“Right.” Joel nodded. “Time, age, war?” he asked, trying to get a measure of the man.
“I’d put it down to war.”
“Got it. I’m sorry for him because that’s a hard one.”
“It was hard on a lot of us,” the super declared.
At that Joel nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed, with a smile. “I don’t know if you’ve heard about Timber’s place, not all that far from here, called the Haven?”
“Yeah, I heard something about a rescue, but I wasn’t sure if it was for people or animals.”
“I don’t think the verdict’s out on that one either, right about now.” Joel laughed. “Honest to God, the intent was animals, but he’s got a lot of us vets out there working on the place. Vets who are adjusting to life after major injuries and life-changing events.”
“Crap,” the super muttered. “It really pisses me off when shit like that happens, and they have no place to go.”
“Well, you know as well as I do that sometimes they come home, and their wives don’t know who they are because they aren’t the same people anymore.
Plus, times have changed. Parents have died, and siblings are gone.
They’ve lost touch with everybody, and they come home and try to give it a go, but they feel like they’re alone, and it sucks. ”
“It really does. I’m not against the idea of his being found in his truck,” the man repeated, “but …” Then he frowned.
“You know, there was talk about his owning property, something about a family farm or a family place he might have owned. I asked him at one point why he didn’t go back, and he told me something like, You couldn’t go back in life. ”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know what happens next, or if they can find the son and see how that works,” he said, followed by a shrug. “God only knows, but I sure don’t.”
“No, I don’t know either, but hopefully somebody can sort that out.”
The super nodded. “Let me know, will you?” They exchanged phone numbers. “I’ll give you these boxes. Deal with them however you want to.” He shrugged. “I just know that he wanted to gift it all away.”
“That’s fine,” Joel replied. “I’ll do that for him.”
The super nodded. “Damn, outside of absolutely loving the fact that he would have preferred to go out this way,” he added, “it still sucks that he’s gone.
I knew him over a lot of years, and he was a good man.
Tied up in knots over things he’d done in the war, like all of us, but that part of his past was something that he couldn’t leave behind.
He preferred to be outside in the woods, always sitting outside as much as he could. ”
Joel found it strange hearing this because he was the same.
The super continued. “Peacock hated the four walls, and he spent as much time as he could just being outside, not necessarily doing anything, just existing,” the landlord described. “That’s one of the reasons he really didn’t want to go into an old folks home, hospice, or something like that.”
“Maybe, but at some point in time, people are no longer physically capable of fighting.”
“You’re right about that. Anyway, I’ve got to get back to work. Let me grab the boxes.” He headed inside, returned to leave Joel with the boxes of Peacock’s personal belongings. Not a whole lot, just two boxes.
“One more thing I just thought of. Peacock mentioned wanting to run one of those animal sanctuaries too. He said he wanted to make up for some of the things he did in the war. So he wanted to save some animals.” The super chuckled.
“Life circles right around, doesn’t it? Here you are, from Timber’s place, helping out vets and animals. Godspeed.”
Joel drove to the small coffee shop nearby and picked up a coffee, then, out in the parking lot, he slowly went through all the items gathered here.
Nothing was worth stealing, just clothing and other day-to-day items for somebody who was just trying to get through the last stage of his life.
From the looks of it, he’d been wearing the same damn clothes forever.
In which case, Joel had to wonder how much of his pension was left and whether anybody knew about it.
Peacock was definitely not the type to ask for help.
Feeling like he was stumbling around in the dark, Joel sat here for a long time, staring at the contents of these boxes. Only as he got to the very bottom of the second box did he find a small notebook. He picked it up, then sat back with his cup of coffee. He winced when he realized what it was.
It was a code book, one that snipers used.
Many snipers in the military kept a kill book.
Not only was it proof of how good they were but it was also proof of the deeds they had done.
In some cases, these kill books were enough to drive men mad afterward.
For others it was a quiet source of pride, evidence that they had helped take down as many enemies as they had.
It was a hard thing for Joel to look at, but he’d seen plenty. He’d never read any of them, but he knew of many men who had kept them.
He sat here and went through it, the code a familiar one. At the very back page was a note about how much he regretted everything he had ever done, how he could never get free of the guilt. The outpouring of emotions in his words was heartbreaking, but there was more.
I know that these killings were mandated by the US military and that they were to keep us safe, but I can’t in my hearts of hearts believe that they were anything but wrong.
He wrote more about his guilt, more about his pain. Yet at the very end was something that made Joel sit up and take notice.
The fact that I did mandated jobs, while Tiger did it for fun, makes me sick.
I didn’t see how he could want to be a part of it, but he thought it was the best thing ever. And then to realize that another killing had happened on base—friendly fire they had called it—but I knew it was him.
I knew it was him all along, but I didn’t know who to tell or how to tell it.
He warned me that, if I ever said anything, he would come back after my son.
That was another reason I didn’t try to reach out to my boy when I had an opportunity.
I just didn’t want to bring all this down on his head.
I didn’t want to bring any of this violence into his world.
It’s just so dark, so ugly, and I didn’t want that for him.
He has his own business and seems to be doing fine, and, as long as I know that, I’m okay.
But to know that Tiger was still out there and was still doing what he was doing—under the guise of whatever he wanted to call it—was more than I could take.
I told him to stop and that, if he ever killed anybody ever again, I would have something to say.
He just laughed at me and reminded me that he hadn’t caught up with my kill number, so I shouldn’t begrudge him a few more hits.
I told him that what I did was sanctioned and that those hits were part of keeping America safe and following orders.
Tiger just laughed at that and stated that his weren’t, but they were still keeping other people safe, at least in his mind.
Usually because they were people who had crossed him.
The fact that nobody ever investigated him or ever found him always terrified me because I knew he would do it again and again.
I couldn’t stop him without bringing it down on my family, and that was something I could never do.
I may not have been a good husband, and I was a terrible father, but the one last thing I could do was to keep them safe from Tiger but at such a terrible cost to so many other people.
The last page was a list of names and dates. The last entry had no date.
Tiger aka Simon Macaulay.