At 12:20, I took my car and drove to Lennox Limousine. It took me 30 minutes to get there, driving on long stretches of road going 55 miles an hour without seeing any cars. Flat farmlands made for a scenic view. Even if it didn’t seem like much, I still found it captivating to stare out into a vast open space.
I pulled my car into a parking lot that shared its space with a pharmacy. Lennox Limousine was a pastel yellow building with brown sign near the top. It had a large garage door, and an office entrance with a window that had an open sign dangling behind the glass. I turned the chrome knob and walked inside; the wood paneled walls and black tiles made me feel like I was in the 1970’s. An old gentleman sat behind a counter. He had a gray mustache and wireframe glasses on the edge of his nose. “Hello. Are you my 1:00 appointment?” his voice was gruff but soft. It was the exact one I heard on the phone.
“Yes, Edward Wright.”
“Mr. Ed. Welcome. I’m Mr. Lennox. In case you missed it, my name is on the sign. You wanna look at documents, right?”
“Correct, a log of people who have rented any limousines from you.”
“You see this door here?” He pointed to his right with a dry sense of humor. “Come on through, and I’ll show you what I got.”
I opened the door inside Mr. Lennox’s office. He had two desks, plenty of file cabinets, and a few cushioned rolling chairs. Mr. Lennox took a deep breath and stood up, pointing at a binder on the second desk. “Feel free to sit there. Those are all the logs of people who have rented a limousine from me. Knock yourself out.”
Mr. Lennox sat in his chair at the counter, gazing at his phone as I sat at the desk and started flipping through the pages inside the binder. I went to the exact date that Cole Allen received his visitor at the coffee shop, but I didn’t see any reservations for that day. Damn. I saw that there was a name, though from the night before.
“Are people allowed to rent a limousine for more than 24 hours?” I asked.
“Nope. I’ve never allowed that during all my years of running this business,” Mr. Lennox said.
“Good to know. So no one came in then on this date at the end of June?”
“If it’s not in the logs, then no, no one came in that day.”
“Do you ever sell your limousines by chance?”
“Nope. I only rent them out.”
“Do you have any competitors?”
Mr. Lennox chuckled, which I was surprised to hear. He was so deadpan with all of his responses. “You’re not going to find another limousine company until you get to Indianapolis. There’s no one around for almost 100 miles.”
“And it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for someone to rent out the limousine elsewhere and then drive to Hickory, right?”
“That would be dumb. They’d go through me if they needed one.”
“Do you by chance know if anyone might own their own limousine?”
“Nope. I got ‘em all here.”
“Well, thank you for all this information.”
“No problem. Is that it then?”
“Yeah, I guess I’ll get out of your hair. Unless by chance you happen to know a fellow by the name of Cole Allen, Vince Nelson, or Charles Green?” I stood up and looked at Mr. Lennox. He was deep in thought.
“Charles Green... Chucky?”
“You know him?”
Mr. Lennox smiled. “Yeah, Chucky Green. Hot damn, I haven’t thought about him for a while. Good kid.”
My heart raced with excitement. I sat down and pulled out my notepad, and clicked the top button on my pen. “What can you tell me about him? Anything and everything.”
“Well, I suppose I’ll start with how I met the kid. So back in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, I forget exactly when, but it was around that time. Chucky’s parents passed away tragically. I remember driving the hearse for his parents because we don’t just do limousines here; we also supply funeral homes with hearses.
“Anyways, I found out Chucky didn’t have godparents nor anyone else in his life. No siblings or cousins. It’s kinda crazy to me that there wasn’t anyone he could connect with, but the funeral was massive. Of course, his parents had friends, and Chucky had a couple of his schoolmates attend, I think. He was 18 at the time, technically a grown adult but, Mr. Ed, you, and I both know that an 18-year-old still has a lot of growin’ and learnin’ to do.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Now, I had someone close to me pass away when I was close to his age. I was about 25. It was my uncle, and my uncle had asked me to work here when I was 18. This is technically my uncle’s business he started up, y’know. And the best thing for me was being able to take my mind off his death by working. Even though my uncle and I worked here together, you might think it’d make me emotional, but it didn’t. In fact, it was the opposite. You gotta be well composed driving limos and hearses around. It was actually a welcome distraction from the pain I was going through, and I knew I was making my uncle proud.
“But back to Chucky. You’re the one that’s asking about him. So after the funeral, Chucky was gracious enough to invite me to the wake, he didn’t have to, but I obliged. And I asked him during a moment when he was dry-eyed, ‘Hey, are you working anywhere or doing anything when you’re not in school?’ And he shook his head. So I offered him a job to help detail the limos, wash the cars, and wax the cars. He was good at it. Had a solid work ethic and didn’t talk too much. Couldn’t ask for better help. So then I started letting him drive after he got his chauffeur’s license, but the other thing that was great about him was his interest in cars. Chucky wanted to get his hands dirty under the hood, y’know. Always tinkering around and fixing things up, he was really talented with it. So much so, I didn’t need a mechanic come down for a while when I had Chucky around. Chucky would do all of my fixes and keep everything well maintained. I was surprised at how fast he learned about it all too. But, he was also a perfect student in school, as if that’s any surprise.”
“How long did he work here for?” I asked, still taking notes on everything he said.
“Gosh. I think he worked for me for 3 years? Yeah, that sounds about right. He started straight out of high school. I asked him if he was going to college, and he said he wasn’t planning on it yet. Apparently, he still had some things he was sorting out in his head, but I kept encouraging him to go because the kid was bright. I knew if he had a degree, he’d go far in life. The following year he went to a local community college to take care of his gen ed credits, and I feel like I had a lot to do with that. Not to take all of the credit, especially since he put in all of the work, but he didn’t have anyone in his life encouraging him like me.
“So after his third year with me and his second year at the community college, Charles Green transferred to Purdue and pursued a mechanical engineering degree.” Mr. Lennox paused for a moment and chuckled. “That’s kind of funny to say, ‘innit? Pursued Purdue, pursued Purdue.”
“Yes, very funny. So Charles went to Purdue?”
“Yeah, he went there, graduated, invited me to his graduation, which was a very proud moment for me. I went with my wife, and it was only people he had there to support him. Then he moved to Detroit and started working for the automotive companies. He was an engineer at GM last I heard. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“So you don’t know if he moved back to the area or not?” I asked.
“If he did, he hasn’t paid me a visit, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Chucky was never a sentimental person. I mean, sure, he invited my wife and me to his graduation, but it’s only because I asked him about it. Had I not, I don’t think he would have invited us.”
“When his parents passed away, I assume that he owned the house after them?”
“Yes, Chucky told me he was staying there while working for me, and he drove his mom’s car around.”
“Do you know if he ever sold the house?”
Mr. Lennox rubbed his chin and scrunched his brow. “I don’t think so. I can’t remember if he ever did. I feel like I would’ve heard about it. But, like I said. He wasn’t sentimental. Kept to himself, and to be honest, no one has really ever asked about him until today. What’s going on with Chucky Green? He hasn’t done something wrong, has he?” Mr. Lennox frowned.
“I’m not sure.”
“Why are you asking me about him?”
“Do you think he could ever harm another person? Did he ever show any angry outbursts or questionable behavior?”
“Chucky? I don’t think he’d ever hurt a fly. I mean, he kept to himself a lot, but there’s nothing wrong with not talking to people. Anytime you ever drove a client, they always had nice things to say about them. Nice and polite. I’ve never witnessed an angry outburst. He cried a couple times on the job before, I remember that, but he had just lost both of his parents. What do you expect?”
“Right, of course, I understand. Charles hasn’t done anything to warrant an arrest, but Sheriff Martha over at Wilton says he hangs around town and stalks people at night. Apparently, he doesn’t do anything, just follows them around. She’s had to talk to him before about it.”
Mr. Lennox shook his head and sighed. “I can’t imagine him doing something like that. But I don’t know, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. If Chucky was back in town, I assume he’d come visit me to catch up, but I guess it’s possible Chucky hasn’t contacted me.”
“I’m really sorry to inform you like that, but it sounds like he is around.”
“That’s okay. I just hope I have helped. You don’t think any murders or anything happened in my limos, do you? Is that what this is about?”
“No, Mr. Lennox. I just thought someone may have rented a limousine from you who then used it to coerce someone into stealing blood at St Mary’s hospital in Hickory.”
Mr. Lennox’s eyes widened. “Oh shit.”
“But it doesn’t appear that anyone rented out a limousine the night that it happened. Nor do any of the dates seem to indicate someone else came in and did it on a different date. Thank you for your help.” I packed up my notebook but then pulled it back out after remembering something else. “Oh, I know we talked a lot about Chucky, but do you remember if he had a friend named Vincent Nelson?”
“No, he didn’t really talk about friends, and I never saw him hang out with anyone. At least around here. Whatever he did at home, he could have been a popular guy who threw parties every night, and I’d never know.”
“Got it. Thank you for everything. I’m going to get out of your hair now,” I said.
“Pleasure meeting you, Mr. Ed. Good luck with your case.”
Mr. Lennox shook my hand, and I walked out of the office and back into my car.