Brush Creek Charlie by D. B. Reynolds (which ebook reader .txt) 📖

man, Derrick had enough courage to smack Kathy across both firm buttocks. “Girl, it’s this juicy ass of your’s that attracts black men to you.”
“Considering that black men are truly ‘ass men’, you’re telling the sho nuff truth.”
“Your ass is the bait that hooks them in.”
“Just like kryptonite makes Superman weak, a nice juicy ass weakens brothers.”
“And a few white men, too,” Derrick added, careful not to offend his longtime lover.
“Of course, there’re white men who can appreciate a woman with a nice ass.”
Derrick and Kathy talked explicitly before other IRS employees came to the conference room.
A strong comfort level existed between them.
Neither wanted to hurt the other’s feelings. Mitchell reached across the table for a fresh newspaper at the request of Derrick.
“Hey, Kathy, take a look at today’s paper,” Derrick said while capturing Kathy’s attention.
Kathy unfolded the paper. “Yikes! That’s what’cha call a ‘nightmare-of-a-face.”
Ironically, yet coincidentally, others who saw the face in person or in the newspaper, used the exact same expression.
“Yuckie is what I said, Kathy,” Derrick reiterated. “A face like that belongs on a monster from a creature-feature movie.”
How surprising it was for the same face printed up in the newspaper to belong to a mentally-disturbed, shell-shocked Vietnam Veteran who lived one flight up from Derrick and Mitchell? The caption across the front page read: KCPD MAY HAVE SPOTTED SUSPECT IN BRUSH CREEK KILLINGS.
Mitchell flashed before Derrick a newspaper edition from the prior day. “Here’s another copy from yesterday talking about the bastard who might’ve chopped up and dumped Lisa down in Brush Creek.”
Kathy expeditiously read one line after another until she came to the bottom of the page. “Says that the cops and detectives might be closer to capturing the suspect in the Brush Creek killings. And to think, Lisa Wallace was one of those women.”
Being the sensitive creature he’d grown into, Mitchell smashed light tears from the corner of both eyes. “Lisa had to be one of the sweetest women ever put on this Earth.”
Derrick cried a few tears of his own. “I just don’t get it, she’d never hurt a flea, not to mention how she’d reach out to help anybody.”
“She’s gone on to a much better place.”
Kathy moved her eyes to the middle of the page. “Says here that the cops got into a scuffle with this maniac. Says that he killed their canine and got away through one of the tunnels down in Brush Creek.”
Derrick had some investigative thoughts of his own. Afterall, he and Mitchell did have a neighbor whose face’d been beaten up by life itself. The loving men did live below a man who worshipped the engineering marvel known as Brush Creek.
“If someone could get away with all of that, then they’ve got crazy skills.”
Kathy had some opinions of her own. “If you’re a native Kansas Citian, then you’d know something about Brush Creek. Those tunnels are filled with great big sewer rats, the kind of rats that would love to have anything for dinner. I wonder if he made it through that tunnel alive?”
“Good question, Kathy,” Derrick said in his analytical voice. “If he did make it, I’ll betcha he got bit by a thousand rats.”
“Enough rabies to carry around for the next one-hundred years.”
Derrick dangled his hand on the side of Kathy’s leg. “You talked about the ‘nightmare-of-face’ earlier. The craziest idea ever just popped up inside my head.”
“What idea?”
“There’s a guy who lives on the floor above Mitchell and I. This guy has a scarred and pitted face like you’ve never seen before.”
“You said that to say what, Derrick?”
Derrick sort of mumbled the answer. “Could there be a chance that he’s the suspect they’re looking for?”
“C’mon Derrick,” Kathy dejected. “How many guys do you know in this city with scarred and pitted faces? You can’t just go on someone with really bad skin.”
“Know what else?”
“What?”
“Inside this guy’s apartment, he’s got lots of framed posters and pictures of Brush Creek everywhere. Every inch of his walls are covered with something about Brush Creek.”
“Have you turned into Mr. Inspector-Detective on me?”
“Not at all, sweetheart. Nowadays, you can never tell. Remember the big flood down in Brush Creek back in 1977?”
“Sure, my mom and grandma talk about it all the time. I was only a little girl back then, but my relatives talk about it enough to make me feel as though I lived through it.”
“This guy that I’m telling you about, he’s about as weird as they come. He keeps all kinds of crazy hours, not to mention that he makes all kinds of crazy noises upstairs. Mitchell and I had to go up there a few times to make him quiet down.”
“Are you saying that he might be the Brush Creek Killer?”
“I’m not saying that at all,” Derrick reversed. “But this guy gives me the creeps everytime he’s in my presence.”
“Is it the nightmare-of-a-face?”
“The face is most of it.”
“What’s this guy’s name?”
“Charles Rastelli, but people call him Charlie.”
“The name doesn’t register.”
“The face probably wouldn’t register, either.”
Derrick and and Kathy knew time at the IRS crept upon you like patches of thick fog. The duo concentrated their efforts on preparing the dinner and prayer vigil for Lisa Wallace.


CHAPTER—31

Fresh white tablecloths were spread across the long tables inside the main IRS conference room. Employees from every department brought more pans of meats and casseroles and pots of soups. Tables set aside for soda and deserts were lined against the east wall. Balloons and glitter paper and banners bearing the name of “Lisa Wallace” stretched across the room. Employees came out in full force. From NTEU to data conversion to customer service, they came. From quality control to code and editing to extracting, they came.
From machine services to batching to exams, they came out, to pay homage to a dedicated IRS veteran who brought pride to the government agency. For the prayer vigil, white candles were brought in small boxes. Within minutes, the atmosphere shifted to standing room only. People stood shoulder-to-shoulder. If someone farted, everyone would’ve gotten a whiff of their sour insides. A long white cake was rolled inside and placed on the table in the middle of the room. The most recent photo of Lisa graced the center of the cake.
A woman who many IRS employees considered God himself, Dr. Barbara Bonnet, the same woman who ran the entire Kansas City Processing Service Center, made her entry up towards the stage. Dr. Bonnet was one of those conservative country girls, born and bred most of her life deep in the state of Texas, a proud graduate of Texas Southern University. Some sun and twenty pounds added to her cardboard figure would’ve done her grand. Maybe a fresh hairdo and a pair of stylish glasses would’ve brought her into modern times. A group of men and women from IRS service centers in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Andover, Austin and Cincinnati flanked Dr. Bonnet up on stage.
Dr. Bonnet moved the microphone up to her thin red lips. “Good afternoon to all the IRS employees from here at the Kansas City Processing Service Center.”
A sea of inquisitive faces responded with their positive salutations.
Dr. Bonnet cleared a dry pocket from her throat. “It gives me great pleasure to see how all of you have come out to pay homage to our favorite daughter, Miss Lisa Wallace.”
The dedicated workers broke out into a mild applause.
“Let me begin by saying this,” Dr. Bonnet continued. “Here at the IRS, we are a community. We are like a family, a family who’s there for one another in the time of need. Lisa Wallace was a true family member of our’s. She remains our favorite IRS daughter, and it would be a crime against humanity to not honor her memory.”
Once again, the IRS employees responded with a civil applause.
“Lisa built a legacy here at the Internal Revenue Service,” Dr. Bonnet praised, then gulping down a swallow of water. “It’s been said that a person doesn’t leave a legacy behind by doing something to help themselves, but a person leaves a legacy behind when they do something to help others. Lisa Wallace left a legacy because she helped others.”
Derrick and Kathy stood towards the back of the room staring at Dr. Bonnet with eyes of disbelief. It wasn’t necessarily her oratorical skills which captivated them, but how her own personal legacy wasn’t admired by many at the IRS.
“How dare that tramp talk about leaving a legacy,” Derrick whispered into Kathy’s ear. “Isn’t she the same racist whore who had a small Confederate Flag in the back of her car window? Her only legacy is being a closet racist.”
“Having that flag in her back windshield was only a rumor,” Kathy repressed, whispering back into Derrick’s ear.
“A rumor confirmed by both black and white people here at the IRS,” Derrick added, his feminine side growing more sensitive.
“What you expect, Derrick, she’s from Texas.”
“A bigoted bitch from Texas.”
“I thought we were here to pay our respects to Lisa Wallace.”
“We are, but that pale bitch up at that podium is a phony-racist-whore. Like we said earlier, Lisa was a real sweetheart who wouldn’t hurt a flea. Lisa didn’t have a prejudice bone in her body, let alone in her heart and mind.”
“Then, let’s pay the tribute to her that she deserves. Let’s put all of our differences aside and listen to what Dr. Bonnet has to say.”
Derrick twitched his nose upwards. “Look at all those young black women being killed and dumped along Gillham Park.”
“Another body was found a couple’a days ago.”
“My point