WISHFUL THINKING

Chapter 1

It rained. Bernard thought that Hogeye looked dreary enough, but the approach of towering dark clouds with lightning made it even more imposing. He peered out the front window of Lucious Wood's hideaway home. His eyes followed a lonely road that wound north and away. There were no neighbors for miles around. Solitude was nice, but it was getting time to go up into Fayetteville. Housesitting for his uncle was a labor of love that had to be fed. What I really need is another one of those

cheeseburgers at Martin's, he thought to himself.

Weather dictated his wardrobe for the day, so Bernard selected an old, worn-in, off-white trench coat. It had seen better days during his stint with the Fayetteville police force. Bernard had been its primary, and most trusted, janitor. Along the wafting smell of the coat traveled a memory. The officer on duty in the evidence locker had called in Bernard to assist with evidence recovery. A cellophane wrapper containing a suspected narcotic substance had busted that day, and showered its contents all over the floor.

Bernard Wood hurried to leave. He left the house from a side door that faced the car shed, entered another door for the shed, and lifted a garage door that made up its entire north wall. He entered his trusty sky-blue, two-door Cavalier and backed the car out. A pool of icky fluids remained on the floor, and Bernard noticed that they trailed along, faithfully following his car like a hopeful, stray puppy. One more thing to add to my list, he thought. He quickly exited the car, returned the garage door to its down and locked position, and then reentered the vehicle. Instead of backing around the side of the garage to point the car properly onto the driveway, Bernard chose instead to back out all the way. Maneuvering a curve around the front of the brick house and continuing up an incline to the road, Bernard hung his head out of the window and looked to the rear. He imagined that he behaved like so many dogs made to ride in vehicles with their masters. No one has to know. I just won't mention it to anyone.

Martin's Taj Mahal and Hamburger Emporium, Etc., lay just inside Fayetteville's city limit. It was strategically located within plain view of Arkansas State Highway 71. As Bernard approached from the south, he noticed that Martin had already lit his restaurant's sign to advertise in the early dark afforded by the occluded sky. It began to rain harder.

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