Morning all, this week is just chugging along isn’t it? Far more running around than usual for me anyway. But as this weekend is a giftwrapping extravaganza I wanted everything I had to wrap in one place. Still waiting on a few orders, but fingers crossed. For now lets set those timers and see what happens when we start with the above sentence. Ready, set, write!
It took me a while to figure out where I was going with this one. But some mornings are just like that.
Thursday, December 11th: The scent of the newly laid asphalt permeated the air.
The scent of the newly laid asphalt permeated the air. I sipped my coffee as I stared at the parking lot. It was a sea of fresh asphalt. Even though I knew it was dry, the black of it looked wet somehow.
‘Oil,’ I surmised. Wasn’t there some sort of oil in asphalt? ‘I know there is tar.’
It didn’t matter, not really. I saw Henry Marks walk across it. Nothing stuck to his work boots and I knew he wouldn’t walk across it unless he knew it was dry or cured or whatever the term for a new parking lot was. Henry wore work boots constantly. It wasn’t unusual, not here. Given the surrounding plants and factories that kept the town employed nearly everyone had a pair of work boots in their wardrobe.
The difference was that Henry’s looked nearly new. There were slight wear marks from where his feet bent the leather walking, but there were no scuff marks, abrasions, or god forbid actual dirt on the boots. This pair had lasted him more than a decade. He wore them in town to blend, to look like one of the guys.
They were just for show.
‘Much like the rest of Henry,’ I thought leaning against the brick of the building behind me and taking another long draw from my travel mug.
Henry was all about appearances. He tried his best to blend in with whatever crowd he found himself sitting with. He was much better with the out-of-town investors than he was blending with the work crews. It didn’t stop him from trying.
It was the reason the work boots paired with the flannel and Carhart’s was making an appearance today. Oddly both the pants and shirt looked somehow crisp, as though they were taken from the wash, and sprayed with starch while they were ironed.
As I watched Henry cross the new parking lot I watched his legs. There was something very peculiar about seeing a freshly ironed line in a pair of Carhart’s. It looked unnatural.
The reason for the outfit was clear as I watched him stop near the crew set to paint lines on his newly laid lot. They had heavy machinery and more worn in looking versions of Henry’s crisply starched gear. A few of the men in the crew were favoring Henry with strange looks.
‘I guess I’m not the only who finds the ironing strange.’ The crew looked more puzzled by him than hostile.
As was typical, Henry spoke only to the crew’s leader and ignored the men working under him. I was too far away to hear the directive but as I knew the crew was hired to paint lines on the new asphalt I doubted the instructions amounted to much.
Message given, Henry walked away looking satisfied. The other men began preparing for the painting of the lines so that cars could soon park on the newly created lot. I lost interest and instead watched Henry.
Lulu had been missing for three weeks at this point. Henry was my only suspect. Having watched the lot go in, spending many nights on stake out, I knew the body was not beneath the asphalt. Still all signs pointed to Henry having something to do with the disappearance.
Ten til Midnight 