Last night, after the quick trip to her house, Jane had reluctantly agreed to sleep in Kyla and Lee’s parents’ old bedroom. It had remained the same since Bonnie and Zeke Harding had spent their last night snuggled in each other’s arms. Less than sixteen hours after awakening, a horrible auto accident ended their lives. That was New Year’s Eve 2018, minutes before the dawning of a new year.
Before crawling into bed, Jane had spent an hour researching home safes. There were many brands, models, and sizes, but only two types: dial and digital. The latter would contain a keypad and require the entry of a numerical code. Numbers also dictated the dial type, but the method of entry was more complicated, including a four-step process of spinning the dial in alternating counter-clockwise and clockwise directions. The final article she’d read described the emergency key feature of all dial types, but Jane didn’t pay it much mind since she figured Ray’s safe would be the digital type; he always tried to shun the difficult.
Jane felt befuddled. Ray’s safe was the combination type. Unusual, she thought, more difficult than simply punching in a code on a keypad, but doable.
Jane turned the dial counterclockwise, passing 12 four times. She stopped at 12 on her 5th rotation. Her best guess, again, was that Ray had chosen his football number in some alternating sequence. She next turned the dial clockwise, past 21 twice, and stopped at 21 on her third time. Jane removed the slip of paper from her jeans pocket containing notes she’d made from an article found last night online. She wanted to verify the third step. She did, and proceeded, turning the dial counterclockwise, passing 42 once, and stopping at 42 the second time. On to step 4, which required her to turn the dial clockwise until the dial stopped. Jane eased the dial towards the diary table, hoping she’d guessed right. She hadn’t. The dial didn’t stop.
Forty-five minutes later, Jane was ready to give up. She had attempted four additional times to discover the correct combination, using various sequences (including doubling and tripling) from the numbers embroidered across Ray’s football jersey.
Jane had also left the hidden room and searched in three places for the infamous emergency key: Ray’s desk, his gun-cleaning kit atop the giant gun cabinet in the great room, and the cabinet style toolbox in the detached garage on the wall behind Ray’s shiny Corvette. No key anywhere, but she had discovered the weather was getting colder, and it was sleeting.
Now, shivering and staring at Ray’s safe, she decided she needed a break. Maybe that would somehow generate a better idea. Jane exited the hidden room, yearning for a cup of coffee. She closed the bookcase door. As she slid the bolt to the left, she recalled something she’d seen when helping Ray remove his ankle monitor. It was a small and weirdly shaped piece of copper wedged inside a clear plastic sleeve rolled up with a dozen sizes and types of tweezers. That day, also a Saturday, the last place Jane remembered Ray had gone before the little green pouch had appeared, was the master bathroom. And that’s where Jane found it, lying along the right edge of the middle drawer of the massive mahogany dresser that served as the vanity.
After returning to the hidden room, Jane pushed back the diaries and unrolled the pouch, laying it open and flat against the table’s top. There, in the brightness of her flashlight, lay twenty or more types of tweezers. And that odd-shaped piece of copper. It had to be the emergency key.
And it was. From her research, she had learned how to remove the dial contraption itself from the front of the safe. All it took was a firm grip and a quick snap to the left. Once removed, Jane used the flashlight to locate the tiny keyhole. In the center, with three teethed wheels forming a pyramid style triangle around it, the emergency key fit snug like a gloved hand. One simple and easy turn to the right was all it took. Jane depressed the handle and pulled the thick door open. She had done it. With God’s help. It had to be a miracle. “Thank you, Jesus,” she said in a whisper.
***
This time, it was Lillian’s voice. “If you’re successful at opening the safe, snap a photo of the insides. This way you can return the contents to their same position. Ray would notice this type of thing.” Jane laid the flashlight on top of the diaries, removed her iPhone from her left rear pocket, and did as instructed. A timesaving and light enhancing idea came to mind.
It took three trips for Jane to remove the safe’s contents, walk them to Ray’s study, and lay them across his giant desk. Nothing struck her as a smoking gun: a ledger book with frayed spine; one bundle of cash; one or more deeds folded inside a plastic sleeve; an opaque ziplock bag containing what felt like an assortment of jewelry; and one canary-colored envelope, thick like it contained several DVDs.
Jane stared at the items and pondered where to start, jewelry or the envelope. The former seemed uninteresting—probably trophies from the many women Ray had bedded. The envelope it was.
Jane unfolded the metal clasp and removed the contents. One rubber-banded stack of 4 inch by 6-inch photographs was it. An over-sized sticky note concealed the top photo. Ray had scrawled ‘Destroy,’ across it. Jane whispered, “who keeps photos in a safe unless they are vitally important?” She sat in Ray’s antique desk chair, removed the rubber band and note, and was shocked by what she saw. Who in the hell had captured this on camera? It was her, Ray, and Rachel standing in front of his blue Chevrolet pickup; it had to be the night Kyle disappeared, and there she was, decked out in his clothes, all for Ray and Rachel to create a story, one untrue, but one to be masqueraded and marshaled to sustain a fictional account. Given the required position of the photographer, someone took the photos (all fourteen of them) from the direction of Jackie Frasier’s mobile home.
Then Jane recalled the rumors. Jade, Jackie’s daughter, disabled, disfigured, lived a lonesome and solitary life in the tiny mobile home. She wouldn’t dare appear in public, but word was, she roamed the sparsely populated neighborhood at night, secretly capturing outdoor scenes in the rural world she loved to explore.
It was Rachel’s idea. “It’s well known that us four left the warehouse to return the church’s PA system, and for Ray to taxi each of us home. We made it look like that’s what he did.” Rachel’s statement had come after her, Ray, and Jane had bound, gagged, and stashed Kyle inside an old shed between the train station and the ice plant. Ray had pointed a gun at Kyle to convince him to strip down. Rachel had insisted Jane slip on his clothes. Ray had driven to King Street and the intersection of Kent and Kyle’s driveway. Someone, no doubt Jade Frazier, had captured multiple photos of Jane walking away, along the Bennetts’ driveway towards their house. Until she was out of sight. A hundred feet before reaching the old rickety house, Jane had turned right into the woods and hiked a semi-circular path back to King Street, where Ray and Rachel were waiting. Jane couldn’t do anything but close her eyes and shake her head. This was unbelievable. But how had Ray come to have these photos in the first place?
Jane used her iPhone to snap a copy of each of the photos before returning them to the envelope. The last one, the fourteenth one, felt thicker than the others. As she tucked them away, she noticed it was two stuck together, making fifteen photographs that Ray had labeled ‘Destroy.’ Jane gently separated the two and was again surprised. It wasn’t a photo of her strolling down Kyle’s driveway. It was a snapshot of a much younger Stella Lancaster (now Newsome). Jackie Frasier was standing beside her. The two were in front of Jackie’s mobile home, posing along the edge of the small front porch. It looked like someone snapped the photo at sundown, given the dark sky beyond the single bulb to the top right of the door. The only thing Jane could conclude was that Jade was a former patient of Stella, who was a private nurse for at least twenty-five years before going to work at the hospital in the ICU. Jane snapped a copy of Stella and Jackie and returned the stack to the envelope, not forgetting to secure them with the rubber band.
Five minutes later, Jane believed she had figured it out. From a quick review of the ledger, she discovered Ray had recently paid Jade Frasier $25,000. Jane surmised that somehow he had learned Jade possessed incriminating evidence against him. Maybe it was Jade who had started the conversation and asked for money. Either way, Ray now possessed photos that revealed Ray, Rachel, and Jane were involved with Kyle’s disappearance.
The ledger was old. In fact, it predated Ray’s adulthood. There were payments to Rob and Rosa Kern, payments to Buddy and Billy James, and many others. The amounts varied from small to large. The writer provided no explanations. Each contained only the name, date, and amount. The most recent payment was to Jade. The one before that was to Buddy James for $100,000. Jane figured one had to do with the Hunt House, given its proximity to the fire.
Jane flipped through the few remaining blank pages in the ledger and found a half-folded sheet of notebook paper tucked inside the back cover. Written across the top was $7,500. Underneath was “Darrell Clements/Buddy’s truck and HorsePens 40.” Jane didn’t have a clue what this meant. Had Ray paid this Clements fellow $7,500? And how was this related to Buddy’s truck and HorsePens 40? Finally, why hadn’t Ray already recorded the amount and date (what date?) in the ledger?
It took several minutes to snap photos of every page in the ledger, including the Clements note. It was now 9:00 AM. The three hours Jane had allotted were racing by. She sat aside the ledger and picked up the plastic sleeve.
It contained two deeds. One evidencing Ray purchased the Hunt House property. Rob Kern was the grantor. The second deed posed another mystery. Again, Ray was the buyer/grantee. The seller/grantor was a man named Harlan Johnson. Jane attempted to read the legal description, but it was all gibberish, stuff like “Southeast quarter of Southeast quarter (SE 1/4 of SE 1/4),” but a little farther down she noticed a comprehensible phrase, “containing sixty (60) acres of land, more or less, together with residence, garage, barns and garden used by Henry and Nancy Johnson for the past sixty-eight (68) years.” The date at the bottom of the deed was December 11th, 2020. Two weeks ago. Jane had no inclination why Ray had purchased another piece of real estate. What was he up to? She surmised it was a response to his father refusing to sell him the Dogwood Trail farm. Ray would never, could never, cede defeat.
Jane started brainstorming ideas to find the sixty acres. A gust of wind against the side of the Lodge made the blinds rattle. A heavy thud followed. Jane walked to the window and saw that a large limb had fallen from the tree nearest the driveway. What really startled her was a landscape of solid white. The sleet had turned to snow. “I’ve got to get out of here,” Jane whispered, and activated her iPhone. It was now 9:24, but she still wanted to inspect the jewelry.
She returned to the antique chair, opened the brownish-colored bag, and gently dumped the contents on Ray’s desk. Jane had been correct. There was an assortment: ten or twelve rings, all for females, some with diamonds, some without; a gold cross and chain; and two items wrapped in tissue paper. Jane removed the paper from the lightest and thinnest item. What she saw further validated that the contents of Ray’s safe would be his undoing. The small, thin, silver-colored metal was easily identified. It was a dog tag. Jane held it near her eyes. The machine-stamped indentions read:
KYLE THOMAS BENNETT
DOROTHY BENNETT
294 KING STREET
BOAZ, ALA,
12 3 53 P
“Kyle’s dog tag? Ray is so stupid. This is almost as bad as having a video recording of him committing murder.” Unbelievable, Jane muttered, shaking her head with eyes closed. She couldn’t help but recall what Kyla had told her that Lee had discovered: Mrs. Bennett had Sharon Teague’s dog tag. She had found it in a shoebox in Kyle’s closet after he disappeared.
Jane removed the tissue paper from the second item. It was roundish and much thicker and heavier, a class ring. It too was gold or gold plated. Starting at the left side of the beautiful emerald stone and continuing in an arch were the words, “Albertville High School.” Inscribed inside the band was “Sharon Elizabeth Teague.” Oh, my fucking god, Jane thought, pausing a second to seek God’s forgiveness. “Ray’s ass is cooked,” was her loudest whisper so far.
Another gust of wind, this one stronger than the previous, was Jane’s siren call. She had to leave even if she wanted to stay and read a while in the diaries.
It took five minutes to photograph the jewelry and return everything to its proper place. Jane verified her arrangement by thrice checking her previous photos. She removed the emergency key and re-affixed the dial to the outside of the safe. After returning the tweezer pouch to the vanity drawer, Jane returned and snapped a few photos of the diary table. She exited the hidden room, closed the bookshelf door, and slid the bolt in place. She stuffed the flashlight inside her duffel, walked to the kitchen, and stared outside at the snow-covered deck.
Jane’s journey to her car took several minutes, given the icy, snowy conditions. She nearly slipped when she transitioned from the steps to the sidewalk. Thankfully, the backyard provided more traction and improved her pace. When she reached the Equinox, she looked at her iPhone. It was 10:48 AM. She had been at the Lodge going on four hours. As she tossed her duffel in the back seat, she remembered she’d forgotten to reset the disconnect breakers. “Oh my God, that was close.”
During the two-minute walk to and from the corner of the house, Jane worried about two things: what if Ray returns home before the snow melts and sees all her tracks? And, what if he has some type of battery-operated camera that captures her every move?
She almost slipped again as she crawled inside the Equinox. It started on the first attempt. Jane breathed a sigh of relief, concerned that her soon-to-be car might present problems given the harshness of the weather. She let the engine warm a minute before shifting the transmission into reverse. She eased pressure on the gas pedal. That’s when she learned she had another problem. Her rear tires were spinning. She was stuck in the ice and snow. She’d made a terrible mistake pulling onto the grass beside the detached garage. Oh, my fucking god, Jane thought, pausing a second to seek God’s forgiveness.
The Pencil Driven Life 