My old man didn’t teach me much before he split last year, but at least one lesson he hammered home with fist and boot has served me well so far.
“Never let the bastards know what you know.”
He never really said who the bastards were, but I had a good idea that he meant the people who thought they were superior to us. That’s pretty much the rest of Howland Township.
Dad always said play dumb and people will believe it, so I’ve been pretending nearly all of my 20 years on this earth. Always listening, never talking; letting people assume I am stupid and never proving them wrong. I’m good at acting slow; just slow enough for people to feel superior, but not enough to end up institutionalized. I have created a persona I wear in public; the face I show the world. And, of course, people want to believe it because it makes them feel better. Better than me, anyway.
I’ve been working at Smitty’s Garage since high school, cleaning up and helping with whatever task needs more muscle than brains. The job doesn’t pay much, but it’s enough. Jeff Smith inherited the place from his dad, Rex, when a truck he was working on fell off the jack and crushed the old man. There was talk around town that Jeff might have helped the jack fall, but the police could never prove anything. Not that they really tried.
My old man used to work at the garage when he needed drinking money, so after he split, I approached Jeff about taking my dad’s place. Jeff said it would be like a family tradition for me to work for him, so he gave me a job.
Jeff’s a spineless, greasy little opportunistic geek. He reminds me of those yappy runt dogs that bark all the time but run and hide if you confront them. He likes having me around to make himself feel more important. I don’t put up any resistance, so I’m the butt of his pranks and the target of his rage, especially when whoever pisses him off is someone he fears.
I could snap his neck like a pencil if I wanted to, but he’s not worth the trouble that would come from the police. “Bide your time,” my old man used to say. “Watch and listen. Don’t give yourself away.”
The cops used to roust Dad first if anything went missing around the Township. Any random acts of mischief were always initially blamed on old Jim Brogan. He never seemed all that upset about the attention and used to joke that he had his own private cell downtown. He wasn’t an innocent man by any reckoning, but neither was he the one-man crime wave they seemed to think he was.
After he split, I became the usual suspect.
Most of the time there’s no reason to suspect me of whatever they are rousting me for, but they come find me anyway. The funny thing is how often I get over because the cops are just going through the motions of checking me out.
With the old man gone, his shack and junkyard are all mine. It’s not much, but it’s paid for. I’ve got what I need. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom. I’ve got a couch, an old TV and a VCR that still plays movies. None of it cost me anything; it’s all stuff that people threw away when they got something newer or better. Perfect for me. I collect things that nobody else wants.
Some of it I find in my junk yard, but I also like to go out walking at night to see what folks have put out for the garbage man. That’s how I get most of my collection. People used to call the cops on me – or threaten to anyway – but over time they got used to seeing me walking through their neighborhoods at all hours with my finds in an old grocery cart.
After a while it was like I became invisible to them, even during the day. That’s kind of hard to imagine if you’ve seen me. I stand about six feet tall and weigh nearly 200 pounds. I keep my head shaved bald like Mr. Clean or The Rock. I know I’m hard to miss.
Sometimes conversations stop when I’m nearby, but they pick right back up again when the gossipers see it’s just Tony who might overhear them. I never speak unless spoken to and keep my eyes averted, so I figure a lot of folks think I’m mute or mentally challenged or both. I collect a lot of secrets this way.
For example, I know the high school girls’ soccer coach, Wilson Edwards, has had sex with some of his players – and sometimes their parents. More than once, he’s had to pay for girls to go out of town to get “out of trouble.” At least once, Coach Edwards took a girl to Doc Perry, the local medicine man, and he “fixed” things. Sometimes the girls just disappeared, and their folks figured they’d run away. But I know better.
I know Jeff Smith thinks his wife is fooling around with another man, probably from Mather Township. I heard him talking to some private eye from outside. He was almost crying on the phone. I also know he’s wrong. His wife is having sex with Jeff’s sister, Anna. They laugh at Jeff a lot and make fun of his suspicions.
He doesn’t know that, but I do.
I also know that Mr. Deason, the selectman, treats his wife, Helen, horribly. He beats her and makes her do awful things for him. This makes me sad, because she was nice to me when I was in school and she worked in the cafeteria. She would make sure I had food to eat and wouldn’t let the other kids bother me while she was there. I guess she felt sorry for me because my dad was a drunk and my mom had died of cancer when I was little. Whatever her reasons, she always treated me better than anyone else did.
I could cause a lot of trouble with the secrets I’ve collected, and I have considered it. Imagine the fun I could have in exposing the seedy side of all those people who looked down at me every day. Oh, how I would love to rub their snooty noses in their dirty little deeds.
But if I start telling my secrets, they won’t be mine anymore. I don’t like the idea of giving away anything I’ve collected. Not anything.
I was working on my collection when Sanders dropped by to knock on my door. I’m sure he has a first name, but I don’t believe I ever heard anybody call him by it. Just Sanders. I guess I didn’t answer his knock fast enough, because when I did, he was acting annoyed with me.
“Hi, Sanders,” I said, careful not to look him in the eye. “Whatcha doing out so late?”
“It’s Sheriff Sanders, Tony. You know that.”
“Oh, yeah. Sheriff Sanders. I remember now.”
I knew damn well he was the sheriff, but I loved pissing in his oatmeal when I had the chance. He wasn’t much older than me, maybe a few years, and he loved being seen as somebody important.
“So, whatcha doing out so late, Sheriff Sanders?”
“A young girl was reported missing today, Tony,” Sanders said. “Her mom thinks she might have run away. Have you seen any young girls around here?
I giggled and looked at my shoes. “Sheriff Sanders, ain’t no girls want to hang out with me…you know that.”
He sighed and took off his cop hat to run his hand through his greasy black hair. I noticed he was showing more forehead these days, but I didn’t mention it. “Yeah, I figured it was a long shot,” he said, “but Marcie Grace is raising all kinds of hell wanting her daughter home.”
I frowned and stepped back from the door. “Marcie Grace from school?” She was one of the popular kids a grade ahead of me. “Last time I saw her she was fat. And mean to me like always.”
“Yeah, that’s her,” Sanders confirmed. “Her daughter Molly just turned 14 last week and she’s been giving her mom fits. But she’s my problem now. Sorry to have bothered you so late.”
“Naw, Sheriff Sanders, that’s OK. I was just working on my collection.”
Sanders obviously wanted to leave, but he feigned interest. “Oh, that’s right. How is your collection coming along?”
“I’ve been adding to it lately,” I admitted. “Do you want to see it?”
I knew he didn’t.
“No, Tony, I’ve got to talk to a lot more people tonight if I’m going to find Molly Grace,” Sanders said. “If you do happen to see her, send her home.”
“Sheriff, you know ain’t no girls want to come around here.”
“Yeah, I know Tony. I’ll talk to you later.”
I watched him drive away, then went to the back room where I keep the VHS tapes that I save from the trash heap. Everybody seems to be moving to DVDs or BlueRay, so they just toss the old stuff out. They might not intend them for me, but I get them.
The tape I was looking for was on the second shelf, behind the Disney movies, in the same blue case it had been in when I found it. I popped it in my player and watched as Marcie Grace pranced naked across the TV screen. The lighting wasn’t good, but I could see this was filmed before she got fat. She was covering her tits with her hands and looking sexy for the camera. Then the camera shifted and there was Sanders – also naked – and then she was touching him and doing things. A third naked figure entered the picture. A young girl, maybe 8 or 9; it was Molly.
I had to stop the tape before I got too excited. This was one of the best videos I had rescued, but I had plenty more. Nobody wanted them and now they are part of my collection.
The only thing people were talking about for the week after Sanders’ visit was how Molly had run off. Some folks said she had a secret boyfriend in Mather Township, and they had eloped. Some said it was some guy she met on the interwebs. Others said she had just run off by herself to get away from her mama, and of course the older folks blamed everything on drugs.
Then the sheriff found a body out near Williwaw Creek.
Sanders told Mary Grace he was pretty sure it was Molly, but he had to have some tests done to make sure. People got afraid then and I almost had to stop collecting. I had the police called on me four times the next week even though I wasn’t doing anything.
The gossip about Molly shifted to who killed her and why. Some thought it was her mama in a drunken rage, while others blamed the secret boyfriend from Mather Township. Molly had accidentally gotten pregnant, they said, causing the boyfriend – sometimes a married man depending on who was telling the story – to fly off the handle and commit murder.
Things slowly started to get back to normal after about a month with no clues from the sheriff. People still double-checked the locks on their doors and windows at night and drew the curtains when the streetlights came on, but they were less likely to call the police on me.
Then one day in May, people were talking about another missing person.
This time it was Mrs. Deason.
The sheriff had arrested Mr. Deason one night after he got drunk and proceeded to beat on his wife. Apparently one of her neighbors had called in anonymously to report a disturbance and the sheriff caught the old man in the act. He was hauled off to jail, where he spent the night before posting bail the next day. When he got back home, Mr. Deason called to report his wife missing.
Sanders went over to investigate and said he figured Helen had just run off to get away from her abusive husband. He did note that it was strange she didn’t take her wallet or any clothes. People immediately started blaming Mr. Deason, but Sanders said he was locked up and couldn’t have caused her any more harm that night.
Everybody was really getting spun up again, so I stopped going out for a while and stayed home to work on my collection. The police hadn’t rousted me again, so I figured laying low would keep me out of trouble. But Sanders came back at the end of the week and asked me to take a ride with him in his police car.
“Where we going?” I asked.
“I just need to ask you a few questions, Tony. That’s all.”
This worried me. “Whachu wanna know, Sanders – I mean Sheriff Sanders? I need to work on my collection.”
“Dammit, Tony,” he snapped. “Don’t make me call for backup and haul you outta here! I need you to come with me.”
Oh, shit. I wasn’t sure what Sanders wanted, but I figured I’d better go with him.
“OK, but let me finish working on my collection first.”
“No, Tony! I don’t give a damn about your collection! I need you to come now!”
Wow, he was really worked up. This scared me a bit.
“Okay,” I agreed. “But can I ride up front with you?”
Sanders sighed. “Yes, Tony, you can ride up front with me.”
“And can I do the siren noise?”
“Just get in the damn car, Tony!”
We drove to the police station mostly in silence. I did ask a few questions, but Sanders was being grumpy and wouldn’t say anything else.
At the station, Sanders led me into a small room, just like in all the cop movies. He left and came back a few minutes later with a guy in a suit. I didn’t recognize him. He made me nervous.
“Tony this is Investigator Edwards from the State Troopers,” Sanders said. “We asked him to come down and help us with an extra pair of eyes for our two recent murders.”
Two murders? That meant they must have found Helen Deason.
“I don’t understand,” I lied. “Murders?”
“Yes, Mr. Brogan, murders,” the man in the suit replied. “Ms. Molly Grace and Mrs. Helen Deason.”
“But I thought they just run off?” I feigned surprise and dismay. “Now you say they’re dead?”
“Yes, Tony,” Sanders said. “The test results confirmed the first body we found was Molly’s, and today we found Helen’s remains in a field out along Route 2. Please focus for us now, we have some important questions for you.”
The suit man went first. “Mr. Brogan, can you tell us where you were May 18?”
I giggled. I tried to hide it behind my hand, but I knew they saw it.
“Is there something funny, Mr. Brogan? I assure you this is a serious discussion.”
“Mr. Brogan was my dad,” I explained. “He split last year.”
“Tony,” Sanders interrupted “Please just focus on answering the questions.”
“Okay. May 18…what day was that?”
“It was last Tuesday, Tony. The day Helen Deason went missing.”
I paused as I thought back to the previous Tuesday. “Well, I worked at Jeff’s until about four,” I said. “Then I went home and had dinner and worked on my collection.”
Suit man raised an eyebrow. “Your collection?”
Sanders sighed. “Yeah, Tony has a habit of collecting things that nobody else wants. Mostly stuff he finds on the curb on trash days. He keeps it out at his shack.”
Suit man leaned back in his seat and nodded. “Ah, a collector. Have you collected anything from the two missing women? Anything of Molly’s? Helen Deason’s?”
I recoiled from the question. “I ain’t stole nothing! I only collect what people don’t want no more! Sanders, you know that’s true!”
Sanders put his hand on my arm. “Calm down, Tony. We’re not accusing you of theft. We just wondered if you might have picked up something they threw out. Or if maybe you saw something. Lots of people have reported you wandering around at all hours of the night.”
“I-I-I don’t know, maybe,” I lied again. “I collect a lot of things from all around town. If they throwed something out, I mighta picked it up. But Sanders, you know that I ain’t done nothing.”
The suit man leaned forward toward me. “Is there anyone who can verify you were where you said you were on May 18?”
I thought about it. “Well, Jeff knows I was at work. You can ask him. He’ll tell you.”
“Okay, we’ll talk to him,” the suit man said. “What about later? Did anybody see you at home?”
“Ain’t nobody at home but me since my old man split,” I said. “It’s just me and my collection. You’re not gonna take it away from me, are you Sanders?”
Sanders gave the suit man a knowing look and a shrug of his shoulders. “I told you it wouldn’t be productive to bring him in. Tony doesn’t know anything.”
The suit man shrugged back at him, then turned his attention to me. “No, Mr. Brogan, we don’t plan on taking your collection away; but I would like to stop by your house tomorrow and see it. If that’s okay with you?”
I was feeling some deep mistrust. He wanted to go through my collection. What if he found something? Was there anything to find? I felt confused, scared and boxed in. What if I said no? Would they arrest me?
“Okay, I guess,” I finally muttered. “I have to work though.”
“Sheriff Sanders and I will drop by in the evening. When do you normally eat dinner? Maybe we can bring some burgers? Or pizza?”
“I like cheese pizza,” I said. “From Del Monte’s. And root beer?”
“You’ve got it,” Sanders said as he stood up. “Now let’s get you home.”
The ride home was as quiet as the ride to the station. I sat up front with Sanders and he still wouldn’t let me make the siren noise.
The next day at work I kept noticing people looking at me funny. As if they were judging me or something. Even Jeff was a bit standoffish, just giving me tasks rather than picking on me. At the end of the day, he called me into his office and handed me a wad of cash.
“What’s this?” I asked. There had to be a couple hundred dollars there.
“I’m cashing you out, Tony,” Jeff explained. “You don’t work here anymore.”
“I don’t? Did I do something wrong?”
Jeff looked uncomfortable. And a little scared. “People are talking. They know the sheriff pulled you in last night. They’re putting two and two together. And two dead bodies are bad for business.”
“But Jeff…”
“Nope, no buts, Tony. You are fired. I need you to clear out your locker and go home now.”
It didn’t take long to gather my things and toss them into the bed of my old pickup truck. I was angry at Jeff for being such a coward. I was angry at people for thinking I was guilty of doing something – especially since I knew their secrets. I was angry at Sanders for making me go to the police station with him.
But at the same time, I was kind of excited to have pizza and root beer and let the suit man see my collection. I thought about it overnight, and I had decided that I could simply show him the parts that I wanted him to see. I just wouldn’t show him the other stuff.
I have a special spot for the things I take without permission. Mostly it’s just trivial things that people won’t miss. Things I picked up while visiting folks when they’re not at home. Things that people might think they’ve just misplaced. Some photos, rings, a little box of baby teeth and some other stuff. Keepsakes. Mementos.
Sanders and the suit man showed up that evening just like they promised, with a giant cheese pizza from Del Monte’s and a 12-pack of root beer. I invited them in and got out paper plates and plastic cups.
For most of the rest of an hour we ate and talked about the weather. I watched carefully as my visitors drank one root beer each. I hoped they were planning to leave the rest for me. As if reading my mind, Sanders asked if I wanted to keep the leftovers. I said yes, of course.
The suit man pushed back from the table. “Now, Mr. Brogan…” I giggled, and he corrected himself. “Now, Tony, you said you were willing to let us look at your collection.”
This was it. The decisive moment. I had never shared my collection with anyone before.
“Yes…I guess.” I stood and led them to my picture room. The walls are covered with photographs of various townspeople going through their daily routines. Some are of celebrations like birthdays and anniversaries, others are just mundane. My favorites are the vacation photos with people I recognize standing in front of cool, strange places I know I’ll never visit. None of the photos are framed. Most are stuck to the wall with thumbtacks or tape. I rearrange them often as the mood strikes me. I guess that’s just part of having a collection.
Sanders whistled as he looked around the room. “This is quite an art gallery you have here, Tony. Where did you get all these pictures?”
“People throwed them out and I picked them up,” I explained with pride. “This is my favorite room. It’s almost like having visitors. I like to sit in here if I get lonely.”
The suit man was walking slowly around the room, eyeballing the photos with apparent interest. Some he even took off the wall to look at more closely. I kept an eye on him to make sure he didn’t try to pocket any of them.
“Do you like them?” I asked, hoping for approval. “I ain’t got my own camera, but I figure this is the next best thing.”
Suit man turned toward me. “These are fascinating, Tony. Do any of the people in these pictures know you have them?”
“I guess not,” I replied. “None of them has ever been over to visit.”
We moved into the final room, and I pointed out various furniture items I had acquired by collecting. The men seemed less interested in the furniture. I showed them my VHS player and television, and the collection of VHS tapes that filled almost a whole wall. I had made shelves out of old lumber I found lying around, and they were all full of tapes. Some were sagging under the weight.
“We could watch a movie if you want,” I offered. “I’ve got Disney, or westerns or just about anything else.” But both men declined, as I figured they would.
I noticed with excitement that suit man was standing on the rug that covers the trap door to my basement. It’s not really a basement, it’s more like a crawl space. But that was where I hide the parts of my collection I don’t want people to see.
Suit man took a half-step to his right, and he was standing directly on the trap door. I giggled with nervous energy.
The other men looked at me questioningly, so I tried to explain. “I was just thinking of Bugs Bunny…he’s my favorite…he always makes me giggle…” They seemed to accept my story, although Sanders rolled his eyes.
That’s when I saw something that caused my heart to drop. The blue case for the VHS tape of Sanders and Marcie Grace was sitting on top of the television. The sheriff showed no evidence that he had seen the case, but I held my breath and watched him for a reaction.
Nothing. I relaxed and a few minutes later they were on their way out the front door to leave; Sanders kept walking, but suit man stopped and turned to face me. For a second, I was afraid he was going to ask for another root beer.
“You have a good collection here, Tony,” he said. “I’d really like to see the rest of it.”
I froze with my mouth hanging open and my hand extended to shake his. “The rest of it?” I turned to the sheriff looking for an explanation. “What does he mean, Sanders?”
The sheriff raised his hand in what I guess he thought was a calming manner. “Now Tony, don’t get excited. Investigator Edwards and I just want to be sure you’ve shown us everything.”
My mind raced. Did they suspect I was hiding something? What had I done to give them that idea? Was it the blue video case? I stammered my innocence as the two men seemed to see right through my facade.
“B-b-but Sanders…Instigator Edwards…I showed you…”
Suit man was like a shark with blood in the water. “You showed us what you wanted us to see, Mr. Brogan. Now we’d like you to show us what we want to see.”
I backed a couple more steps away from his verbal assault. “I-I-I don’t know what you mean!” Looking to Sanders for help, I begged, “Sanders, tell him he’s wrong. I’m not hiding anything!”
But Sanders just looked at me stone-faced. “Tony, the best thing you can do is to tell us the truth. Both ladies we found were severely mutilated with parts of the bodies missing. We think the missing pieces might have been kept by somebody. Like a collector.”
I backed away toward the kitchen. “No! No! No!”
Both men followed closely, pressing their perceived advantage.
I knew I had to act quickly. As I backed into the kitchen I reached for another part of my collection – a steel baseball bat that I kept beside the refrigerator. Swinging it wildly I bloodied both men before they could react. They both had holstered pistols, but I was on them too fast.
“No! I told you!” Thump, thump, thump. “You can’t take my collection!”
The two men were both down on the kitchen floor now, groaning and trying to crawl away. I walked to them purposefully. I aimed carefully. I brought the bat down twice, hard, and crushed each of their skulls. Then, still panting and shaking from the adrenaline rush, I opened the refrigerator, got myself a root beer and collapsed in a sobbing heap on the bloody kitchen floor.
What had I done?
Sometime later – I’m not sure how long – I stood up and started moving again. Sanders and the suit man were still there, still dead, still in pools of their own blood and brains. I knew I had to do something, but I wasn’t sure what. I just started doing.
I went to the back room and opened the trap door. Climbing down into the darkness, I retrieved my secret collection and loaded the items into a cardboard box. Some photos, rings, a little box of baby teeth … a mayonnaise jar with my dad’s heart in it. This item was my favorite. I collected it shortly after our final argument, using a dull machete to split his chest as he lay dead in the front room.
There was also a smaller jar with Molly’s tongue and eyes, and a Tupperware container with Mrs. Deason’s right hand. There were lots of little baby food jars with other body parts I had collected over the years; all stacked neatly in with the others. I carried the box up into the picture room and started taking vacation photos off the wall and stowing them away, then I took the box out to my truck.
Back inside I had to struggle to keep from loading my entire collection into the truck. Although I knew I wouldn’t need most of the items, parting with anything was emotional. I selected a few small items and took them out to the truck. Everything else would have to stay. Everything except the pizza and root beer.
I returned to the kitchen and dragged the two bodies to the back room and dropped them through the trap door. I grabbed a couple more jars from the cabinet and a serrated steak knife.
I normally would spend longer adding such important items to my collection, but time was short. I collected Sanders’ ears and suit man’s nose and climbed back up to the main floor where I closed the door and covered it with a rug, then mopped up as much blood as I could.
I drove Sanders’ car back into the junk yard and hid it, then grabbed my bat and jumped in the truck. I needed to pay Jeff Smith a visit before I left town. I wanted one more item for my collection.
J. T. Fisherman’s background includes working as a military photojournalist for more than 20 years, combined with another 20 years working for the Army as a civilian writer and photographer. An avid reader since childhood, he was drawn to the horror genre after reading ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. He now spends his days enjoying Alaska’s scenic beauty and photographing the state’s flora and fauna, and spends his nights writing. At least when he can keep his cat off the keyboard.
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