Brush Creek Charlie, D. B. Reynolds [top non fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

sticks of dynamite, I couldn’t think hard enough to blow down a one-story building.”
“I’ve had enough of this lowlife slipping from under the radar. When I figure out which apartment he lives at, I’m showing up there with the whole police force. It sickens me to know that a pathetic psychopath keeps making a clean getaway. In the plainest view, I saw him walking with a woman carrying sacks from The Cheesecake Factory. Tonight, I’ll cry my eyeballs out of the sockets, knowing full well that he’ll probably ending killing her too. Then, he’ll cut her up and put her in trashbags and dump her somewhere in Brush Creek.”
Sandy’s prediction could well have been in the making. The pain of knowing she couldn’t’ve stopped it set in. The lesbian duo learned in life there were winners and losers, there were heroes and villains.


CHAPTER—39

Charlie arranged a few items to make Amy feel quite welcome inside his cozy apartment. Nighttime fell upon the city. The massive crowd hung around The Country Club Plaza to soak up the rest of The Plaza Lighting Ceremony. Groups of drunk idiots paraded through the streets yelling while disturbing the peace of the more tranquil tenants around The Plaza. Charlie tuned out the undesirables by closing his blinds and playing some of his favorite rock tunes. Amy flipped open the carry-out box and the aroma of the rib-eye steak and marinated French fries stimulated her tastebuds. She’d been pampered with silverware and condiments.
“A drink, you’d like one?” Charlie offered, demonic forces making their way into his mind.
“What’cha got?” Amy asked, cutting right into her succulent rib-eye steak.
Charlie parted the doors to the kitchen cabinets and showcased his liquor display. “Let’s see, I’ve got Remy Martin, Canadian Mist, Vodka, Hennessy XO, Courvoisier, Cognac, and Jack Daniels.” Yes, he was also a part-time alcoholic.
“Wow! You’ve got the finer, the more expensive liquors. I take it you’ve got scotch, rum, bourbon and gin.”
“The works, darling.”
“Only thing, Charlie, I’m a recovering alcoholic. I’m eight months sober and don’t wanna go and ruin things.”
“It’s the holidays, go ahead and have a little fun. A couple of drinks for Thanksgiving won’t hurt nothing.”
“Well----.”
“C’mon, have a couple’a drinks with me.”
“Well, I guess two wouldn’t hurt. What’cha have to mix it with it?”
Charlie whipped open the refrigerator door to showcase his soda collection. “Pepsi, Coca Cola, Sprite, Root Beer, Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper.”
“Hennessy and Coke sounds good.”
“Great, I’ll have a Remi Martin with Pepsi.”
While Amy cut up portions of her succulent steak, Charlie stood in the kitchen preparing their holiday cocktails. He brought the drinks into the front room and placed them on coasters. She ate one portion of the delicious steak after another.
“How’s your steak?” Charlie asked, watching Amy dive into the steak.
“Tastes very splendid. It’s like finding a new friend.”
“So, tell me a little bit about yourself.”
Amy swallowed a big portion of tender meat. “Anything in particular you’d like to know?”
“Ever been married, any kids, your hobbies, your educational level, the type of people you frequent with, things of that sort?”
“Never been married, no kids, I like to travel, read, study tarot cards, and hang out in bars. Educationally, I did graduate high school and went to a Jesuit college in Chicago before dropping out my sophomore year. People I frequent with are usually the cool, rock and hip hopish type, the ones with crazy tattoos and piercings everywhere.”
“I forgot to ask, how old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Rather young, aren’t you?”
“How old are you?”
“Won’t give you an exact number, but I served two tours of duty over in Vietnam.”
“Which puts you somewhere in the neighborhood of late fifties or early sixties?”
“Won’t say, but you’re awfully close. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“One brother and one sister.”
“There are three of you all,” Charlie said, going to work on his scrumptious steak. “Your folks still married?”
“Divorced when I was ten. How about your folks?”
“Both deceased.”
“Sorry.”
“Father died when I was in high school. Mother died when I was in Vietnam.” Charlie spoke in sentimental tones, only to disguise his true evil intentions.
Amy took a break from devouring her steak. She looked around the walls inside his apartment and noticed all the posters and other memorabilia of Brush Creek.
Everyone had their fascinations with something or another in life. But it puzzled Amy to see his super magnetic attraction for a creek infested with raw sewage.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but are the posters on your wall that of Brush Creek?”
“The one and only Brush Creek.”
“Forgive me for asking, but what is it exactly that you love about Brush Creek?”
“I grew up as a kid playing down in Brush Creek,” Charlie partially explained, his voice laced with adrenalin. “Brush Creek is where I always found my biggest piece of mind. There’s no greater engineering marvel in this whole wide world. The late great Tom Pendergast built Brush Creek with materials used from his cement company. There was nothing more exciting than catching snakes, birds, frogs, rabbits, fish, and even coons and possums, right down in the creek when I was a little boy. Nothing excited me more than running in and out of those dark tunnels with the big sewer rats splashing water on me and my friends.”
Charlie fed Amy the same trash he’d fed to victim number one and victim number two. The disgusting garbage about Brush Creek transitioning from its semi-natural state upstream from The Country Plaza into its old concrete channel. The babbling bullshit about how forty-eight percent of total annual flow being sewage, the raw sewage backups in homes and businesses, high levels of e-coli leading to gastrointestinal illnesses, hepatitis and respiratory problems, fish dying in record numbers, and downstream drinking water being impacted negatively. The cold-blooded killer told Amy about the pharmaceuticals, detergents, household chemicals, and insecticides which polluted the creek water.
“Wooooooo!” Amy whistled, belting down a mouthful of her drink. “What don’t you know about Brush Creek? Listening to you talk, there seems to be nothing about the entire infrastructure you aren’t familiar with.”
“Did you know that Brush Creek is nicknamed ‘Flush Creek’?”
“No, Charlie, I didn’t know that.”
Amy allotted herself enough time to observe the nightmare-of-a-face Charlie was cursed with. The more she looked at the ravaging scars on his face, the more she became struck with fear. Her drink distorted an image of the man who bewildered her presence. She finished her first drink and hinted she was ready for the second. Charlie fixed her another glass of Hennessy and Coke. One bite of the chocolate oreo mudslide cheesecake and a dose of aphrodisiac inclinations came over her. Amy had been a chocolate lover all her life and her facial language proved it.
“Desert good?” Charlie asked.
“Hmmmmm, the best.”
Charlie volunteered more fact about Brush Creek. “The same big pipe that carries wastewater through toilets, sinks, and drains in homes and businesses is part of a Combined Sewer System, something the engineers call CSS. Can you believe that that system is over a hundred years old? When rainfall is low to moderate, stormwater and wastewater goes to a treatment plant without overflowing into Brush Creek.”
Amy finished her desert. She’d grown dead tired of listening to human trash talk about environmental trash. Didn’t Charlie have anything else to talk about? The boredom grew by the minute. Not having no life whatsoever caused people like him to fall crazily in love with a creek. Halfway through her second drink, he noticed her glass getting low.
“Ready for another drink?” Charlie asked, evil thoughts still corrupting his mind.
“One more and that’s definitely it.”
“Another drink coming right up.”
The effects of the alcohol were tardily felt by Amy. Wandering eyes sometimes stumbled upon unexpected findings. She stared across the floor and noticed bloodstains the size of quarters. The dark red colors were soaked deep into the oakwood floor.
With his back turned to fix her drink, Amy arose from the sofa and caught a closer glimpse of the bloodstains. Human blood it definitely was. Tinier specks were splattered around the larger ones. Pine-Sol and Parson’s Ammonia didn’t quite do the job. Amy took a seat back on the sofa before Charlie brought the drink to her. Feelings of uneasiness crept up on her. Dark and creepy sensibilities condensed the atmosphere. She switched back and forth from watching the front door to watching the blood in the middle of the floor. She sized Charlie up rather good. An alarming illusion raced through her head.
Every local news station had flashed composite sketches of the perpetrator who attacked the two police officers and killed the canine down in Brush Creek. Thousands of television screens lit up with the detailed composites. A ruined mug like Charlie’s became unforgettable. Amy looked up to the ceiling. The match between the drawing on television and what she saw before her came more into focus.
The Brush Creek killer was in her presence. Don’t go home with complete strangers. Mother and father instilled those lessons into their precious little girl. Amy now realized she should’ve taken those lessons to heart, mind, and soul. Charlie dropped his body down on the sofa next to Amy. He eased his drink down on the table. He stared fiercely into her eyes. Her frightened heart pumped into overdrive.
“Uh, I think I should be going,” Amy cordially said to Charlie, scooting to the opposite end of the sofa.
“Where?” Charlie queried, executing masterful body language. “The night’s still young and plus it’s the holiday.”
“Holiday or not, I really have to be going.”
“C’mon now, don’t be that way. Don’t disappoint a lonely guy like me.”
“My boyfriend’s waiting for me at our apartment.”
“But I thought you told me that he’s an