Welcome to Golden, Chapter 11

Fred was troubled, and when he was troubled his relief came by getting stoned. It was something he wasn't exactly proud of, but in his mind his every action was justified in some manner. Including puffing on a pipe to make himself feel better.

As he got back to his house, a million thoughts were competing to be heard and Fred needed something to quiet them, organize them and deal with them. His first stop was at his typewriter, where he noticed a piece of paper inserted in the platen. That meant there was a message from Ollie in the Real World and Fred wasn't surprised at what he read, “Lily died.” So now it was murder that they were dealing with instead of just assault. That made his trip to the door of his basement that much more desired. Down the 17 steps into the dank, dusty, darkness waited the release from his stress.

It was a standard basement, much like the one in the last home he had lived in the Real World. There was a furnace and storage shelves and discarded toys from a young girl who never much liked playing with girls' toys. To Fred's right, a sofa sat underneath a window that looked out into his backyard, providing the right amount of ambient light in the day time. Except that now it was dark. He headed the opposite direction, though, to a work bench piled high with tools that had been used and left out.

Jenny had never gone into the basement of their old house in California claiming she was scared to descend the stairs into the subterranean room. Fred knew he could have made the basement in that old house more child-friendly, but he really didn't want his daughter in there. It was his sanctuary, the place he kept his stash.

He pulled the string of a light fixture above the work bench, reached behind a Mason jar full of screws and pulled out a mahogany box that fit comfortably in his hands. An inlay of turquoise in the box top formed a horse; it had been a gift for Jenny until he appropriated it when she showed little interest in either boxes or horses. He carried the box over to the sofa and plopped down. After sitting he'd realized he forgot to turn on the stereo so he could listen to music as he got toasted, but a simple thought of Lowell George and Little Feat playing Dixie Chicken made the music start. He loved Golden.

“So, what's your pleasure tonight, Mr. McKenzie?” he asked himself as he sat the box in front of him on an old coffee table, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. He opened the box and began going through the selections that never needed restocking.

“Alaskan Thunder Fuck?” he said picking up one of the baggies rolled tight over itself. “No, too harsh for the circumstances. We need something mellow, something to help us relax and think.”

One after another he took out baggie after baggie and examined their contents, sometimes by looking and sometimes by opening and smelling. He set aside each one until he found what he was looking for — the Apple Sweet, his own special hybrid. It was smooth, fruity and relaxing; just what the doctor ordered for someone who needed to gather his thoughts. He dug into the box and brought out a dogwood pipe he had acquired in Mexico and a Zippo lighter.

Packing the bowl went quick and he hummed along with the music as he leaned back into the sofa as he lit the Zippo, holding it to the bowl and inhaling. The smoke traveled into his lungs, leaving a slight taste of apples in his mouth. He held the smoke in as long as he could, then after exhaling brought the lighter back up. He held the smoke in once more and marveled at how quick the cannabis had worked its way into his blood stream and to his brain. Two hits would be enough and he put the lighter and pipe back on the table.

Leaning back, he closed his eyes and let himself listen to the music. He was quite pleased at the reaction his mind was having to the marijuana. He'd been having problems lately getting high. He knew he wasn't really getting stoned, there was no chemical reaction going on in his body so it had to be manufactured by the computers for him. For a while, he could mock the feeling of marijuana inebriation, but he knew that it was just a sham. It took intense concentration now to do anything. An indication that his body in the real world was close to dying? Fred chose not to think about that right now.

Sitting in his basement on a comfy sofa Fred avoided thoughts of whether he was stoned or not — or dying or not — and set to work out in his mind what was happening. His worst fears about Golden were coming true. In the years that he and Ollie had been working on the architecture for the computer town there was little thought given to how the residents of such a town would govern themselves. Sure, the question had been asked about law and order and who would keep things running in Golden without an authority. The answer everyone gave, and they were all convinced that it would work, was that the selection of residents would weed out the bad apples and that the group within would be kept small enough that they would govern themselves. Besides, these were terminal patients, they wouldn't cause trouble. They would be happy to just get another chance at living.

But Fred worried. Would it be okay? Could conflicts be easily resolved? It only took two days after Golden opened for business for the answer to become an apparent and resounding “No.” Billy, though, proved to be invaluable as an authority figure in Golden, and the fact the town was Fred's creation, forced the two of them to intervene when necessary. Billy didn't seem to mind, but to Fred it was an annoyance — he didn't create Golden to become its sheriff. It was obvious, though, that there was no one better suited for the job.

Regardless of the problems and conflicts that arose, Fred was still concerned about real crime in his fake town. He never said anything about it, though. Now, however, he had a very real crime and the only cops around were a former actor, a geriatric psychiatrist and an old woman who wanted to be a little girl. Would they be able to figure this out? Would they be able to save Golden from being shut? Fred didn't know. He didn't dwell on what was against them, but what they had going for them. On the outside was Jenny, Ollie and Billy — three very capable people. Inside was him and Ruth, who knew more about how Golden worked than anyone else, including the person who killed Lily.

Although the diorama of Lily's apartment was still there when he and Ruth left, Fred assumed that it would not be there much longer. Billy would have to have it removed in order to keep the government inspectors from getting suspicious. Once that happened, the clues within that diorama would disappear as well. So would the murder weapon. It would be nice to be able to search for that, but Fred put those thoughts out of his head, no use getting worked up about something he couldn't control. He remembered the envelope with the flower petals in them that he had found in Lily's bathroom. He pulled it out of his pocket and found that the petals were still there. That meant, if Lily's diorama had been erased, that the flowers were brought into the apartment. But where were the rest of the flowers? Who brought them in?

Fred's mind drifted to who might be a suspect. Ruth was right that most of the residents could easily be eliminated from any list of suspects. In Fred's mind though, he was convinced it was one person who had done this and that was Andrew Joslin. Everyone knew Andrew didn't like Lily, or anyone else of color. He was mean and had already shown he could be prone to violence. What Fred found troubling, though, was that there were no signs of a struggle in Lily's apartment, and if there had been, someone cleaned them well. That didn't fit Andrew's profile. If he did something, he'd want people to know, and he certainly wouldn't clean up his mess.

Perhaps, then, Fred thought, it was one of his cronies. Maybe Cal Everitt? Or maybe Anne Knox had something to do with it? As Fred drifted off to sleep, one thought was clear — he was going to have to talk to Anne, Cal and Andrew. He didn't look forward to that, and assumed he wouldn't get much information out of any of them. First, though, he had to sleep and he slung his legs onto the sofa and closed his eyes.

Fred woke with a bolt and a feeling someone was watching him. The light from the basement window was blocked by a face looking down at him. It was a face that looked like Elvis.

“Hey!” Fred screamed. “I see you! You stay right there!” He jumped from the sofa and went up the basement stairs. Nothing slowed him as he shot out the back door of the house to find … nothing. Whoever it was that had been looking at him was now gone. Fred walked to the back of the yard and looked both ways down the alley to see if the person was running away. There was nothing.

He went back in the house, took a shower and ate a small breakfast. He was trying to think of some way to get information out of the trio of suspects. He didn't want to come out and accuse them of killing Lily because he didn't have anything more than a hunch as evidence. He didn't even really want to talk to any of them, but knew he had to. The best one to approach would be Anne and maybe hope that Teen Idol Freddie McKenzie might be able to charm her. He wasn't very optimistic; there was a past between the two of them that would be hard to avoid.

If it came down to it, he would just have to confront them head on. Heading out of the house, Fred thought about walking, then decided to render himself a car and his thoughts went immediately to a white Cadillac convertible with a red interior that he owned when he was sixteen. It was the car he bought with the money he made after “Teenage Dreams,” his first Top 40 hit. He hated that song and everything it stood for, but he loved the car. In the end, the car came to represent everything he had hated about his life and the way he had been robbed of his childhood. He sold it in 1963 and gave the money to children's cancer research.

With a blink, though, there it was in front of his house; and in the spirit of his youth, he decided to take on the appearance of a teenaged Freddie McKenzie. Maybe that would make it easier for people to talk to him about the crime that had been committed, but he doubted it. The only reason he didn't take the appearance of youth all the time — despite what he told Billy — was that he felt he had to be seen as an authority figure in Golden. He worried about the town constantly and it was turning out to be more work than he had anticipated.

He jumped in the car and started it. The Caddy's engine roared to life, then hummed with contentment. Man, how he loved that car he thought as he pulled out onto the road. He decided when this was all over he was going to do this more often.

As he was cruising down Main Street looking for Anne Knox he saw Janet and Russ coming out of the soda shop holding hands and heading to the park. Fred figured now was as good as any time to start his investigation and the couple were on his list to talk to. He didn't suspect either of them had anything to do with the attack on Lily although they weren't at the club. Janet and Russ where too into themselves and into being in love to have any thoughts of hurting anyone. But they might have seen something that could help.

“Hey, Freddie,” Janet said coming over to the passenger side of the car as he pulled to the curb, “out on the prowl this morning?”

Fred wouldn't admit it to himself, but when he was rendered young, it was pretty well known among the residents of Golden that he was looking for some company. Fred conveniently ignored Janet's inference.

“No,” he said. “Just out for a drive, looking to talk to some folks about Lily.”

Russ had stepped to the curb and leaned over next to Janet. “We heard something was up,” Russ said.

Fred asked them if they had a couple of minutes to talk and offered them a ride in the Caddy. Janet accepted a bit too quick and Russ obviously wasn't happy about that, but he had no choice but to join Janet in the front seat with Fred.

“This is a nice car, Freddie,” Janet said, looking at the dash and feeling the seat. “Is this leather?”

“Thanks, Janet,” Fred said as he pulled away from the curb. “It's a car I had when I was a kid. I loved that car, but I don't think the seats were leather.”

Without much of a pause, Fred started asking what they had heard about Lily. He liked Janet and Russ okay. The pair were making the most of their second chance in Golden, but lived with the guilt that they both had spouses in the Real World who were very much alive and very much concerned about each being “in” the computer. It's not that either were bad people, they just realized that life was too short to spend it alone. That didn't make their relationship any easier to explain to themselves.

“What did you hear about Lily?” Fred asked.

“Frank said that she died last night and that Dr. Watson was around to take her … on,” Russ said. “He said it was odd, because she didn't seem like she was getting ready to go.”

They all knew and had all seen the signs when it was getting close for residents to die. They stopped living, such as it was in Golden. Their avatars usually aged or they didn't take care of themselves.

“Do you know what happened?” Janet asked. She was a pretty blond girl with ruby red lips and brown eyes, the kind of girl who was a drum majorette in high school.

Fred wasn't sure how to answer her question. The truth was probably not something they wanted to spread around Golden, but it was obvious that suspicions were being raised. Fred didn't mind, though, a few rumors might be helpful to someone who knows the truth.

“Yeah, she died,” Fred said. “It was an unattended, which as you know is pretty serious — for Dr. Watson, anyway. He feels like he's supposed to be there for everyone when they leave. He asked me to talk to anyone who might have seen Lily yesterday; see if anything unusual happened. Did you guys talk to her at all?”

Janet bit her lower lip in thought. Fred could see why Russ found her so attractive and was so protective of her.

“I never even talked to her other than a ‘hello’ or something of that nature,” Russ said. “I'd see her from time to time, like in the grocery store or at the movies. She mostly hung out with Gloria and that gang.”

“But you didn't see her at all yesterday?” Fred repeated. Russ shook his head, but Janet interjected.

“Wait!” she said. “Lily was at the park yesterday afternoon. Remember Russ?”

“You're right,” he said, “but we didn't say anything to her. She was talking with some guy.”

“I'd never seen him before,” Janet piped in before Fred could ask. “He was a tall guy wearing khakis and some Cuban shirt. His hair was slicked back; he was very handsome.”

“How could you tell he was handsome?” Russ asked her, clearly jealous. “We weren't close enough to tell if he was handsome.”

Some people were unable to give up the follies of youth, Fred thought as the couple argued back and forth over the man who talked to Lily. As old as both of them really were, it seemed odd that things like jealousy would still be a problem. Of course, Janet did seem to be trying to raise Russ's ire.

They didn't have any more information than that, especially about the young man with Lily. Fred let them off in front of Janet's house and continued on his rounds. He stopped by and talked to several other people — usually ones he didn't visit with often or he knew hated him. He was smart enough to realize that not everyone liked him, but it was starting to wear on him talking to people who sometimes were openly hostile. Rose Stinson, who was at church all the time, gave him a lecture about morals and browbeat him about some of the rooms that had been created at the school. Chuck Hoyt only would answer questions in one-word responses, and only then after some prodding. Mary Pritchard, the town busybody, who Fred figured would be the biggest help of all of them; turned out to have gossip about everyone except Lily.

One by one, he went down his list of names and crossed them all off. They either had alibis, or they didn't know Lily, or Fred just simply didn't think they did it. Among his questions, though, was whether anyone had seen either the Cuban man or Elvis. Almost everyone had encountered Elvis during the past week.

“I don't know who he is,” Mary Pritchard said. “He wouldn't talk to me, and when I tried to confront him about it, he just walked away. How rude.”

The only person who had some good information turned out to be Dale Goldman. Dale was a big man, nearly six and a half feet tall. Although Billy would never talk about patients, Fred suspected that Dale had been a short man in real life, and carried with him a short man's complex. He liked to try and intimidate people with his size as if it were something new to him. His words toward other people were always confrontational as if he were trying to pick a fight. Fred knew he had to be careful with Dale, who was trying his best to court Lois Boyce and most likely unaware of Lois' past. Lois, for her part, was trying her best to play a role she had never played in real life — her real name had been Louis — and she liked the attention she was getting.

Dale was coming out of the school when Fred spied him.

“Hi Dale, how are you getting along with Lois?” Fred asked when he pulled up to him. Dale's brow furrowed.

“Just fine, why do you ask?” Dale countered suspiciously. Fred threw on his best winning smile, hoping this wouldn't lead to an argument.

“Look, man,” Fred said. “I'm not trying to get in a fight, I'm just making small talk.” Dale didn't say anything, just glared at Fred.

“Listen, Dr. Watson asked me to ask everyone in town about Lily Perez. I don't know if you heard, but last night she had an unattended and the doc wants to know if anyone knows why. Or saw anything?”

The expression on Dale's face turned from one of hatred to one of sadness.

“Lily?” he asked, Fred nodded. “I really liked her. She was always so nice to me. I saw her last night about nine-thirty. She looked fine, but those three knuckleheads were giving her a hard time.”

“Which three knuckleheads are you talking about?” Fred asked. There were quite a few of those in Golden, but he suspected he knew the three Dale was referring to.

“Joslin and Cal and their bitch sidekick, that Knox woman,” Dale said. “Lily was walking home, by the looks of it. I just walked Lois home and was going to the club for a drink. Across the street, I saw the three of them following her. I couldn't make out what they were saying to her, but I could tell she was getting upset. I was about to run over and knock some heads together when some guy comes out of nowhere and decks Joslin.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“Naw,” Dale said, straining his brow in thought. “It happened pretty quick. He was tall, dark hair; but I couldn't see who it was. Joslin's gang picked him up and hauled him off. He was screaming that he was going to get her and she'd pay for what she did. Lily and that guy hustled off pretty quick, she seemed to know him so I didn't go after them. I took off on my own, I didn't think much about it, Joslin's always talking crap.”

The big man leaned into the car and quietly spoke to Fred.

“You don't think he had something to do with her dying, do you?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Fred said. “I don't know.”

Dale leaned further into the car, getting his face into Fred's.

“I just wanted to tell you that I know Lois has been coming to see you,” he said. Fred gulped, waiting for the confrontation to escalate. It didn't though. Dale simply stood, scowled and walked away. Fred wasn't sure if he had been threatened. At that point, he didn't want to deal with that issue. He had bigger fish to fry.

He had decided that he'd put off confronting Anne Knox long enough.

Finding her was easier than Fred thought it would be. He knew she lived in a house on Second Street just west of Gerris, but he never imagined she would actually be there when he went looking. When he drove up, the house looked to be deserted. It was only when he shut off the engine that he heard the sound of music coming from around back. He walked up the driveway and to the side of the house to peer over the fence. There was skinny Anne Knox sitting in a chaise lounge by the side of a pool. A giant umbrella was shading her and a drink of some sort was sitting on a small table beside her.

Anne wasn't unattractive — no one in Golden ever was. She was tall and usually wore denim jeans with the cuffs rolled up to the middle of her shins, socks and saddle shoes, and sleeveless blouses. Her hair was dark and short and had a slight curl to it. Today, though, she was attired in a black one-piece swimsuit that modestly hugged her hips. The pool furniture and the attire all were from the past, but in her hands she was playing a hand-held gaming device that modern kids usually played.

“Come on you stupid plumber,” she said to the game. Fred wasn't sure what to say to get her attention, but he knew if he stood there any longer it could be considered spying.

“Hello,” he said loudly. Anne looked up and put down the game.

“Well,” she said rising from the lounge, “look who we have here. If it isn't America's favorite teen idol.”

She put on a light cover and moved over to a table in the shade close to the house. She took a cigarette out of a case and lit it. Fred opened the gate and walked in the backyard. He was not looking forward to the conversation.

“What's famous Freddie McKenzie doing in my backyard?” she said, puffing away at the cigarette. “Did he come to finger me again? Or is he looking for more this time? Hmm?”

Fred stood silent, unable to keep the erection from rising in his slacks. He wasn't sure how she was able to do that to him. He couldn't find words to say anything.

“What's the matter, Freddie? Cat got your tongue?” she laughed at him and there was nothing he could do but take it. He knew this might happen. Anne Knox was the personification of Fred's dark desires. She was mean and took relish in humiliating people, especially men. Anne had an innate sense about the kind of men who sought her out; and she and Fred had each other pegged within twenty seconds of Billy introducing them on Fred's front porch more than six months before. By the end of that day, Fred had gotten his hand down her pants and not much more. He wanted more, that was true, and she knew that. However, just like a recovering alcoholic knew well enough to stay away from his poison, Fred knew to stay away from Anne Knox.

Like a cat playing with a dead mouse, Anne was playing with Fred.

“I'll bet you're hoping for a blowjob, Freddie. I bet you've been dreaming about it,” she said, not even pretending to hide her hatred toward him. Without a reason, Fred was feeling ashamed of being there. What purpose did he really have for coming? He could have easily talked to Cal Everitt first? He finally was able to calm down enough to speak.

“What did you do to Lily?” he asked. This only served to make Anne angrier. Fred had found something that angered her, a sore spot, and with that the upper hand.

“I didn't do anything to her,” Anne spit.

“That's not what I hear. I hear you and your friends were giving her a hard time last night,” Fred said.

Anne didn't say anything and just stared at him. He didn't stop though.

“Doesn't it just make you angry that Andy makes a fool of himself over her when you are right there for him? Of course, you can't control him like you like. I suppose that makes you want him even more, doesn't it? Here's the one man who can handle you, and he doesn't even want you. How's that make you feel?”

Anne stubbed out her cigarette and made a show of getting out another and lighting it. She sat back down at the table.

“I think you better leave,” she said simply.

Fred smiled at her and tipped an imaginary hat in her direction as he backed away. He had more questions for her, but knew she wasn’t going to say anything. Her reaction to his single query about Lily spoke volumes. Something had happened, and it only deepened his suspicions. He made his way to the gate and before he turned around to leave, he added one more thing.

“When I find out what your psychopathic boyfriend did to Lily, I'll be back. And I'm sure you won't like what happens then,” he said.

By the time he got out to his car, he was shaking with fear and sexual excitement. All he could think was getting away before he changed his mind and went back. It was good morning's work and strengthened his feeling that it was either Anne, Cal or Andrew who had killed Lily. Getting one of them to turn on the other was going to be the hard part.