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Rose Hill
Chapter One
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Theo Eldridge fortified himself with half a bottle of good Kentucky bourbon and
several lines of coke before he got behind the wheel of his bright yellow Hummer.
As he wound down the two lane mountain road toward the town of Rose Hill he
reviewed his list of grievances. He was irritated about several things but was mad
as hell about being stood up for dinner, and was determined to take it out on
somebody.
When he got to town he drove slowly past the veterinary clinic. He considered
setting it on fire, but decided it might be more fun to trash the place instead. It was
conveniently located right across the street from the newspaper office, which was
also on his list. His third target lay several miles outside of town. With three places
to hit and one night in which to do it, he needed an accomplice.
He found the ferrety-looking handyman Willy Neff trying to argue his way into the
Rose and Thorn, where the little man was banned for life. Theo parked the
Hummer by the curb a few doors down, clamped his cigar between his back teeth,
and eagerly entered the fray.
“He’s with me,” Theo told bartender Patrick Fitzpatrick, who not only refused to let
him bring Willy in, but also refused to sell him a bottle of whiskey he could take
with him. Theo communicated his indignation at this affront by threatening to
remove one part of the bartender’s body with the intention of inserting it in
another.
“You could try it,” Patrick said, “but you wouldn’t survive it.”
Theo cursed the bartender but walked away with little Willy in tow. They drove
out to Hollyhock Ridge to make mischief at the home of somebody else Theo
hated, but found the inhabitants awake and armed. After a shot was fired over
their heads Theo decided it might be wiser to focus their efforts on less occupied
premises.
When they returned to Rose Hill Willy dropped Theo off at the Rose and Thorn,
where Patrick again refused to sell him any whiskey, telling him, “You’ve had
enough to drink.”
Theo turned to the row of amused locals seated at the bar and demanded, “What
are you looking at?”
When they refused to be provoked he made a crude pass at Mandy, the young
waitress.
“Not in a million years,” Mandy told him. “Not if you was the last man on earth
and I was so horny my pants caught fire.”
“Leave her alone, Theo,” Patrick warned.
Theo turned and glared. The mirror on the wall behind the rows of liquor bottles
reflected a brutish looking man, well over six feet tall, with a thick neck, a meaty
red nose, bloodshot pale blue eyes, and a joker smile punctuated by a rancid cigar.
Theo leaned over the bar and put his face very close to Patrick’s, but the bartender
did not flinch.
“You’ll never have her,” Theo said, in his gravelly growl. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“That’s enough,” Patrick said. He picked up a wooden bat that was kept behind the
bar and pointed it at Theo’s head. “You can walk out of here or get carried out. It’s
up to you.”
Theo sneered at Patrick but left the bar, sweeping a table full of glassware onto the
floor as he went. As he departed he could hear the locals snickering behind his
back. He consoled himself by imagining violent acts of retribution for which he
was sure to be credited but never arrested. The most difficult part of taking
revenge on the people who crossed him was not bragging about it afterward,
especially when he’d had a few too many drinks.
Having reached the next low point in what had so far been a real pisser of a day,
Theo decided he needed someone to cheer him up. He turned the corner and
lurched downhill toward the mobile home park. As soon as he left the curb to cross
the street, however, he stepped in a deep pothole full of icy water camouflaged by
slush. The frigid water filled his boots and soaked through his socks within
seconds. To make matters worse, the shock of the cold water unhinged his jaw’s
vise-like grip, his cigar fell out of his mouth and landed with a plop in the icy
water. Theo cursed the pothole, cursed the weather, cursed the town, and cursed
everyone who had conspired to thwart and frustrate him all day.
A few minutes later, standing outside a shabby trailer where he had expected to
find a warm, willing body, some booze, and an alibi for what he planned to do later,
he instead found himself in the middle of another heated altercation.
“It will be a cold day in hell before you or that little snot-head get a penny of my
money!” he yelled as he left the mobile home park.
The neighbors were used to these little dramas, and only a few curtains twitched in
the nearby trailers.
With sopping, frozen feet, Theo squished his way down the icy brick-paved alley
behind the businesses on Rose Hill Avenue toward the spot where he’d told little
Willy to wait. The man’s rickety truck was parked in front of the antique store, but
Willy was passed out across the front seats with both doors locked. Theo pounded
on the windows and the hood of the old truck, but Willy didn’t stir.
“This is what I get for leaving that good-for-nothing idiot alone with a twelve-pack
of beer,” Theo grumbled, and then thoroughly cursed the unconscious man.
Determined to punish Willy for being such a worthless piece of excrement, Theo
looked for something with which to break the windshield. He found an aluminum
baseball bat in the bed of the truck, and was just about to swing it down on the
glass when he heard a trashcan fall over in the alley behind him. He turned, almost
throwing himself off balance, but couldn’t see or hear anything in the darkness of
the passageway.
“This whole damn town is covered with cats,” he muttered.
Reaching into his coat pocket for his cell phone, he realized he’d left it in the
Hummer along with his keys. Swearing over his bad luck, he leaned back against
Willy’s truck and considered his options. It was 1:45 a.m., Willy was useless, and
even if he could get his SUV unlocked somehow, he was in no shape to drive back
up the mountain. Looking down the street he could see the fog creeping steadily
uphill toward him.
Music and raised voices from a party in a nearby apartment building drew his
attention. He considered crashing it, if only to use the phone, but couldn’t think of
anyone to call. There was no one left in this town he hadn’t pissed off or ripped off,
and certainly no one who would be willing to come out in the cold and drive him
home, let alone give him a place to sleep. He briefly considered rousing his
previous night’s playmate, the one who’d stood him up for a repeat performance
earlier in the evening, but discarded the idea as way too risky.
A dog barking in the distance reminded him of what he intended to do when he
told Willy to park where he did. He gripped the bat tightly in his hand as he crossed
the deserted street and stumbled up the steps to the back door of the veterinary
clinic. He took a swing at the motion detection light above the door and was
rewarded by the gratifying thwack of impact and shattering glass. With a swarm of
bitter resentments, festering grudges, and petty irritations buzzing around inside
his head, Theo attacked the back door.
Once inside he was disappointed to find only empty cages illuminated by a
nightlight. He paused to catch his breath while deciding what to destroy next, and
heard the crunch of someone stepping on the broken glass and splintered wood on
the floor behind him. The blow, when it came, struck the man’s head with such
force that he was already unconscious before he landed on the cold tile floor,
where he would bleed to death within fifteen minutes.
After the assailant fled the scene, the party music thumped and wailed for another
half hour, and a few dogs in town barked back and forth to each other. Meanwhile
the fog from the Little Bear River continued to creep uphill until it engulfed the
entire town of Rose Hill.
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