DEAD CONNECTION : a novel by Charlie Price

« JANOCHEK : KEEPER OF THE GROUNDS

VERN BILLUP

Billup didn’t like the kid lurking around the graveyard. He had wanted to get even with the little freak since that day he had interfered with Billup’s interrogation of his mother, Vera. He hadn’t known the kid was home. He was in the slut’s living room, slapping her around to get the name of her pimp or escort service. And then he figured she could buy her way out of the bust by giving him some satisfaction. He was just getting on her when the kid came out of the bedroom with a goddamn phone and threatened to call 911 unless Billup left. Standoff. So Billup split, but he knew that sooner or later, he’d get even. In spades. Billup hated to be embarrassed.
      As Public Affairs Officer, it was his business to protect the town’s moral fiber, to prevent trouble. He’d been keeping tabs on Kiefer for a month. He thought the kid looked like a pervert, but he couldn’t prove it. The geek didn’t have a juvie sheet. Billup had checked at the school: C grades, no suspensions. Still, Billup believed Kiefer was a sleaze, just like his mama. Acorns and oaks. He would make the little creep pay for obstructing justice. It might take a while, but he would pay. Billup would see to it.
      Graveyards. Give me a break. The kid was either pulling something or planning something, probably robbing crypts. When Billup talked to the caretaker, Janochek said the kid wasn’t digging anything up, wasn’t bothering anyone. When Billup rousted the kid on the street outside the cemetery a couple of weeks ago, the boy was clean—no pot odor on his clothes, no pipe or papers. Billup had expected the kid would smell like corpses or sinsemilla.
      He saw the boy with Janochek’s girl tonight. Nothing but trouble there. Billup remained surprised that Janochek didn’t eighty-six that kid and file a report. The man could probably get a restraining order to bar the kid just on weirdness alone. Made Billup glad he’d never had a child. His boy turned out like that, he’d put him in a sack and throw him in the river.
      Billup figured he ought to toss the kid’s mama again. Every job deserved a few perks.
      He brought another beer out of his cooler and listened to the Kings game out of Sacramento while he waited for Kiefer to double back and climb over the near cemetery wall. He would bust him for trespassing. Nip this little creep in the bud.

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