The Man with Butterscotch Hair - 1. Chapter 1

The Man with Butterscotch Hair

“How’s it going, Monte?” the man with wavy brown hair asked. He was leaning against a grocery cart, grinning, a tiny bit of his lip curling. The smirk, for that was the more accurate description, had a knowing quality that suggested familiarity.

The man facing the deli counter, short black hair, almost cropped, seemed to ignore the query.

“Monte?” the guy said again, waving his hand and straightening up. “How’s it hanging, dude?”

“How much did you want?” the young woman behind the counter asked, hefting a chunk of ham. The guy with the severe military cut black hair nodded and said, “A pound should be fine. Thin, not shaved.”

The counter girl chewed furiously on what could only be a giant wad of gum, and turned to slice the cold cut.

“Monte?” the agitated man said again, this time waving both arms excitedly. His lush, long, auburn locks swayed and bounced.

The short man finally turned and looked, confused, at the other man. He didn’t say anything, just stared.

“Dude, don’t you remember me? I worked with you on that Lawry’s job,” he said to him animatedly. He grinned broadly now, white shining teeth flashing against his deep brown, tanned skin. He was a good-looking guy, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. His tall body was leanly muscled, rawboned, and sleek.

A girl, maybe six or seven, came running up and threw her arms around the man with the army-cut. She, too, had black hair and an easy smile that mirrored the man’s.

The man’s hair wasn’t just black though, it was obvious now in the fluorescent lights it had a sprinkling of salt showing through the pepper when he dipped his head in greeting, smiling to the girl. She hugged his arm.

“You gotta remember me,” the guy said loudly, drawing attention back to himself. He’d leaned against the grocery cart again, and now the light revealed his brown hair was a little more golden, but not the color of caramel, darker, like butterscotch. “I thought we really hit it off.”

Army-cut looked back over, curled his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, and pulled her closer. “You got the wrong guy,” he said softly, but there could be a bit of a growl in the sound of his voice. Then, he turned back to the deli counter.

“Dude,” the man with the butterscotch hair said again, this time almost like a whine. “I can’t believe you don’t remember. We did this job…”

“Who’s this?” a woman said, stepping close to Army-cut and the young girl. She had a hard look, her eyes flashing a little. She had come out of nowhere seemingly, but now commanded the space in front of the deli counter. Her face was rigid, in control, and a little frightening. A grocery basket with a couple of items, dangled from the crook of her arm.

“I have no idea,” Army-cut said, shaking his head.

She flinched, and looked at him closely, and then her tight face seemed to relax. She was dark-haired as well, not black like her what? partner? and it was pulled back efficiently into a ponytail. Her skin was tan and taut, also in the bloom of young adulthood, certainly younger than the man.

He smiled at her, and there were crinkle lines at the corners of his eyes.

“Dude,” the man with the butterscotch hair said, now shaking his head furiously, trying to get his attention, and frustrated with his attempts.

“Give it up,” Army-cut said firmly. “I don’t know you.”

Pulling back his cart, the tall man snorted and marched off into the bowels of the store toward the produce area. “Whatever,” he muttered rather loudly.

Army-cut pointedly stared at the array of hams and salamis. The woman watched as the man with the butterscotch hair marched away. The little girl was now chewing thoughtfully on a lock of her hair.

“Here’s your ham,” the deli counter girl said, holding the package over the counter at the little assembled family or whatever they were, but the woman seemed to have taken possession of Army-cut. She touched his arm protectively.

He stepped up, dragging her with him, grabbed the package and tossed it into the basket hanging from the woman’s arm. The deli girl turned away, her task having been completed.

The woman’s features had softened a bit, “Anything else?” she asked, kissing him on the lips. That little act smacked of ownership, and he leaned into the kiss with eagerness.

“Nothing else -- wait,” he said, holding up a finger. “Lettuce for the sandwiches.”

“And pickles,” the girl said, tugging on the basket, trying to peer inside. “What about pickles?”

“Okay,” the woman said, looking more settled now. “Lettuce and pickles.”

The family walked slowly toward the produce section as well. The man with the butterscotch hair was nowhere in sight now. He’d vanished. The voice startled me out of my reverie over the little play I’d watch unfold before my eyes.

“What can I get for you?” the deli girl asked, chawing on her gum, snapping noises ringing loudly in the space.

“I’d like a pound of pastrami,” I said. It was crazy how the entire play, presented before me, had engaged and enraptured me. I wasn’t a person in a grocery store, waiting to order some bologna and some salami. I watched something interesting, and then it was gone. The little tableau playing out had registered, but was almost already forgotten.

I looked up and smiled at the girl behind the counter and said, “And do you have any horseradish cheddar?”

Later, I would realize that was the only time I’d seen the man with butterscotch hair alive.

***

At first it was just another corpse. I’d seen hundreds. This one was grislier than others, but it was just a dead body. Then, something began to stir as I stood next to my colleague and looked more closely.

I would never have recognized the man without his butterscotch-colored hair. As I looked down at the mangled remains of a person, the dark, dried blood-matted hair, the ashen skin glowing under the brilliant fluorescent lighting amid the shattered face, I felt my heart rise in my throat.

That reaction was odd for me. I was accustomed to the indignities and disarray of the deceased. Blood, broken bones, missing skin, were all horrific, just not terribly shocking any longer. I’d lived with the dead for long enough it didn’t bother me.

Fuck. Hell. This was the man with the butterscotch hair. Flashing before my eyes, I saw him confront the man, a guy with army-hair, and then after a short exchange, he marched away, his magnificent hair flowing. And still, something else really chiseled into me as well. Something was not right, though I’d seen this often enough.

For some reason, his gnarled body affected me.

“Have you spoken with the family yet?” my employee asked.

I cleared my throat, brushed down my tie, unnecessarily, and shook my head. “Not yet. They’re in the office waiting for me. I wanted to get a quick look to see if an open casket was possible.”

Joffrey snapped the gloves on his hands for effect, and angled his head for a quick assessment. “I’m not sure we’ll get it to look exactly right, but I can make him look more peaceful, I think.”

My head embalmer also oversaw the reconstruction portion of the process. Technically molding and makeup were Jessica’s job, but they worked pretty closely together. I trusted Eric Joffrey’s opinion. He would only promise what he knew the team could deliver.

I sighed and looked more closely. The face was smashed up pretty badly, with a chunk missing from the side of his head. “Looks like he got hit by a train or a truck carrying rocks or something.”

“Yeah,” Joffrey agreed, but shaking his head. “He was driving one of the throwaway cars, one of those miniature things and it looks like an enormous giant balled it up and threw it into the ditch. Nasty stuff.”

“Where did you see that?” I asked, surprised he’d have seen accident photos.

“When we picked up the body from the hospital morgue, a couple of cops were there. I asked what had happened and they showed me scene photos. Jeezus, the little car was completely crumpled from impact on both ends.”

“Nasty,” I said. “So can they have a viewing, do you think?”

“Yep,” Joffrey nodded, chewing his lower lip. “Jessica won’t have a problem with the face.”

I thanked him and left the embalming room, to see my newest clients and help them cope with their grief.

***

The song on the radio was so familiar. I didn’t know the name of it, but one line from the chorus kept leaping out at me, “their tears are filling up their glasses, no expression, no expression,” and that’s exactly what I’d just experienced. As I mentioned, I’m inured to the shock of death, but I’m never comfortable with the emotions roiling up within the survivors as I thought back to earlier this afternoon.

The two people in my office had been so stunned. So filled with the emptiness of grief, that I couldn’t get a handle on what they were feeling. The mother of the man with butterscotch hair was stony-faced, wooden, like she had taken something, downers or even a mood-stabilizer. The other woman, the former girlfriend, had been even more inanimate. Her expression was flat, her affect mechanical, accepting my sympathies and waving off a tissue. Twice she repeated that she was the man’s “ex”-girlfriend, making sure I knew, apparently. Her aggressive denials seemed, rather artificial, and almost like she protested too much.

The “ex”-girlfriend was the one who picked out the coffin, our cheapest, without asking the other woman’s opinion, and chose a very modest plan for a brief service and burial. The man with butterscotch hair was named Trevor Johnston. The ex-girlfriend, Heather Long, spit out his name like it was poisonous, while Trevor’s mother just stared into space, waxen and pale.

After getting all the paperwork out of the way, Heather asked to use the rest room. After pointing out the way, I tried speaking with the older woman, but she just waved her hand and let out a long breath.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked, still trying to engage her. She shook her head.

Heather returned and shook my hand. The older woman didn’t respond, but stood up ready to go. Trevor’s mother responded like a child would, or a zombie. The younger woman led the way, and at the last moment, Trevor’s mother turned and said a single word.

“Why?” she asked, her voice as soft and still as a snowfall. It was then, the woman choked out a cough, and Heather came back, gently touched her arm. The woman nodded, looked at me expectantly as though I had some kind of answer. I tried to look reassuring, but I could feel my face heat up in embarrassment. I had no answers for her.

They left together, after the “ex”-girlfriend kindly tugged on Trevor’s mother’s arm. The older woman was leaning on the younger one, looking broken and frail as they exited the building.

Now, driving home, I began to wonder. What had happened to Trevor Johnston? Well, I knew he’d been in a truly horrific car accident, caught between two vehicles, but it seemed so random. So odd.

I thought about the man with butterscotch hair and his eager, friendly greeting to the man in the grocery store. The man in the grocery store seemed completely taken aback, or was it confused? As I thought about it, I wasn’t sure what I was remembering.

As I drove into my garage, I pondered that little scene in Albertson’s at the deli counter, and the odd exchange.

I put the scene out of my head and went into the house. I made dinner and watched a movie without thinking about Trevor Johnston for the rest of the night.

***

“Hey, Scotty,” I said into my cell phone, looking out my kitchen window at the hummingbirds chasing each other. The one that lived in the mesquite tree was very possessive of the feeder I kept full of sugar water. Other hummingbirds would try to sneak onto the little perches and sup, but the keen-eyed male would swoop down and chase them away. While he chased off one, another would fly in and take a couple of sips and then dart back to the lemon tree. It was quite comical.

“I was wondering if you could fill me in on a client of mine,” I said after my high school buddy responded with a similar greeting.

“Hard case?” he asked, familiar with my work. As a funeral director, there were times when the loved ones of the deceased would need some of my assistance with the grieving process. While technically Sergeant Scott Muller of the Mesa Police wasn’t supposed to fill in a local mortician on the details of a death, my old friend would throw me a bone now and again.

“Got a mother who is quite shell-shocked. Her son died in a car crash. He was only thirty-three.”

“Oh God,” Scotty exclaimed. “That’s rough. Is it that three-way crash over on Baseline?”

“That’s the one,” I said.

“It’s still an active investigation,” Scotty warned. “It’s a hit and run. I really can’t talk about it.”

I waited, watching the tiny hummingbird chase off a much bigger finch, who didn’t want the hassle for a few drops of sweet nectar. “This is just between you and me,” I said, baiting the hook a little.

Scotty sighed and said, “It was a bad hit. The green SUV smashed right into the little Mini-Cooper which pushed it right into the Chevy Silverado in front of it. The people that did it backed up and took off. We have cam footage from the gas station on the corner where it happened.”

“So, it was an accident?” I asked, feeling a bit relieved at that.

“Well, yeah, of course,” he said. The silence on the phone grew. “Why wouldn’t it be an accident?”

“Nothing,” I blurted immediately. “I just, never mind,” I stammered.

“Brett, dude, if there was something odd with the body or something, we need…” Scotty paused. “I mean, the medical examiner just signed off on it as an accident.”

“There is nothing,” I said quickly. “I’m sure the shock of losing a son so young, and the fact it was a hit and run just freaked the family out.”

Scotty was quiet for a moment and then replied, “That’s probably it. If I found out Kerry was dead and some asshole drove off without a care, I’d be pissed too.”

Pissed was not what I’d witnessed with either the mother, or the “ex”-girlfriend. Instead, I’d call their reaction more like shame.

***

“Are you really going to Sally’s Beauty Supply?” I asked, puzzlement tinting my voice.

“Yeah, great stuff, good prices, and right down the street,” Jessica, my reconstructionist said. She was pointedly not looking over at Joffrey, who I could see had a shit-eating grin on his face. “Your supplier is so much more expensive, and the concealer doesn’t work as well.”

“Besides,” Eric piped up, “She can stock up on her own cosmetics and hair color using the commercial discount the funeral home gets.”

Jessica tilted her head coquettishly and smiled. “So, what if I do? A girl’s gotta save a couple bucks here and there when she can.”

I laughed at her as she headed out the door, and I brought up the local news on my tablet.

The top headline was garish and described in graphic detail a terrible fire in the West Valley. A state senator was having an affair. There was a murder in Gilbert, and the police were clueless apparently, something about a strange series of deaths at a hospital.

Sandwiched on a side bar was the headline I’d been waiting for.

“Hit-And-Run SUV Driver Surrenders.”

I read the story. After gleaning all I could, I felt my breath release and my stomach relax. For the past week, I’d been looking for this to relieve my anxiety. I’d got myself all wound up about the man with the butterscotch hair, or, actually, Trevor Johnston and the accident, which I hoped was an accident. Something had made me worry that sometimes accidents could be made to look like accidents, even when they are planned.

I was relieved to see I was wrong, after I read the new article.

Phil and Janice Segdeway, a pair of snowbirds here from North Dakota, had been driving an emerald green Dodge SUV and the husband had smashed into the car at the light. He’d been having chest pains, and they drove off without stopping. He’d been in the hospital ever since and didn’t know about the horrible death of the young man, or at least that’s what their mouthpiece lawyer had told the police.

There were medical records confirming his condition, according to the article, and the wife was hysterical. In the end, they’d surrendered to the authorities. It was all just a terrible mistake.

I sat back relieved. Actually relieved.

***

I had just finished paying for my groceries, grabbed a bag of ice out of the freezer up front, and hustled out of the store. I had a hot date with a frozen pizza, a bag of popcorn, and Snuggles the cat. The funeral home had been busy, more than usual, and a night off was what I needed.

I clicked the doors open on my new Ford Maverick, and tossed the bag of ice on the floor when I heard a vehicle slide in behind me.

I looked over my shoulder, and saw it was a green SUV, gleaming in the twilight of the late afternoon. The back door opened and out popped a little girl, and she looked familiar for some reason.

The front door opened, and a man, shorter than average with a closely cropped haircut, climbed out. A woman appeared from around the front of the vehicle, and approached the two. The memory of the three of them at the deli counter snapped into place.

They walked off towards the store. I watched as the girl skipped, the wife chatted at the man, and he nodded. It was a perfectly lovely looking family, and it made my stomach twist.

I finished putting the last bag in the back seat, closed the door, and stood there, looking at the glistening green SUV. I started opening the front door of my vehicle, but stopped. I paused and resisted for a moment. Then my curiosity took over.

I wandered over to the front of the green SUV and ran my finger along the freshly washed and waxed metal. The chrome of the bumper was immaculate. The paint was bright and unfaded.

I closed my eyes. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help but look back to the rest of the vehicle. There were flecks of black corrosion on the chrome of the back bumper. The paint on the side doors was faded with the normal scratches of a car a couple of years old.

I shuddered as I walked back to my truck and climbed in, unable to catch my racing breath.

In the end, I called my friend, the cop. He told me it was a closed case. The district attorney had signed off on the plea deal. It was over and done. The old guy admitted to it and the cam footage confirmed the make and model of the vehicle including the plate number.

As I ended the call, I remembered the man with the butterscotch hair as he looked so happy at the sight of Army-cut. The joy and warmth on his face was gone, forever.

And justice, as fickle as she is, let this one get by her. That’s what I knew, but couldn’t prove.