Clean Cut Kid (A Logan Connor Thriller Book 1)

  CLEAN CUT KID

  A LOGAN CONNOR THRILLER: ONE

  by

  Micheal Maxwell

  Copyright © 2020 Micheal Maxwell

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Micheal Maxwell.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Please Consider This

  Excerpt from East of the Jordan

  About the Author

  They took a clean-cut kid

  And they made a killer out of him,

  That’s what they did

  – Bob Dylan

  CHAPTER ONE

  As they climbed in the back of the Chevy Nova, there was a flush of excitement that came over Melissa. Melissa told her folks she was going to a birthday party at her friend Chrissy’s house. There was a party, but she didn’t go. She went to the Starlight Drive-in with Lenny. She was 15 and Lenny was seventeen, almost eighteen.

  For a while, they actually watched the movie, but she knew what they were there for. When Lenny bent over and kissed her neck she shuddered. He whispered about the things he would do when he graduated as he unbuttoned her blue satin blouse. Lenny carefully draped it across the car seat, not wanting to give her parents anything to question her about. Melissa began to pant softly. Lenny told her of the places they would go this summer, as he unclipped her bra.

  As the Werewolf fought with a Vampire Woman on screen, Melissa pulled up her skirt and wiggled out of her panties and carelessly tossed them over the front seat. Somewhere during the process of disrobing Melissa, Lenny got his jeans undone and pulled down around his ankles.

  As the pair feverishly kissed, petted, and fondled each other, Lenny whispered about how they would grow old together, the big house they would have, and as he took her virginity, he swore he would love her until the day he died.

  As it turned out that would be three hours later when a drunk driver crossed the center divider on Mill Bridge Road hitting him head-on.

  On New Year’s Eve Chrissy’s parents, with the help of a couple of other parents, rented the Elk’s Lodge and hired a band all in an effort to cut down on underage drinking. Melissa wasn’t invited. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t invited to anything anymore.

  She was the dark tragic figure that everyone talked about and avoided. Lenny going out in a fiery wreck was the stuff urban legends are made of. Her being nine months pregnant was the basis of her shunning.

  At eight o’clock New Year’s Eve 1979 while getting ready for bed, Melissa’s water broke. A fair-haired baby boy was born at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 1980. Traditionally, the New Year’s baby would have their picture along with the happy parents in the local paper. That was not to be, an unwed mother and her bastard child were not the things the paper, or the citizens of the small Iowa town, wanted to be reminded of.

  Three days later, as the biting cold of a furious blizzard slammed the windows of the hospital, Kate and Roger Connor, all bundled up in layers of winter wool, entered the warm safety of New Hope Adventist Hospital’s lobby. Their minister, lawyer, and a county social worker were waiting.

  The social worker, Rhonda Spellman by name, reviewed the three-sheet document prepared by the attorney. Satisfied it met all the requirements of the State she made her way to the elevator. Five minutes later Ms. Spellman returned with Melissa’s signature, along with that of her mother’s since Melissa was still a minor, and gave the documents to the waiting, clock-watching lawyer. He bid the Connor’s a good day and was gone. Rhonda Spellman smiled for the first time and said, “That makes it official. Shall we go get your baby?”

  As they gazed through the window of the nursery, Kate and Roger watched as the social worker spoke with the nurse. The nurse shook her head several times during the conversation, which worried the Connors terribly. Finally, the nurse moved to a crib in the center row and picked up a baby wrapped in a blue blanket and wearing a blue stocking cap.

  She walked across the room to Rhonda Spellman, kissed the baby’s forehead, and handed it to the social worker. Rhonda held the child up and turned it toward the window.

  “He’s beautiful,” Kate said fighting back tears.

  “Boys aren’t beautiful.” Roger teased.

  “This one is, and he’s all ours.”

  A child could not have been loved more or asked for a better home. They named the boy Logan Lanford Connor. Ford was Kate’s mother’s maiden name and Landon was Roger’s mother’s maiden name. Both were gone and it seemed a fitting way to pay homage to them.

  Logan was loved and nurtured, but not doted upon. He was corrected when necessary, denied toys and material possessions that a more spoiled child would have been buried in. That is not to say he was deprived. He was well dressed and always got the latest fad gifts on birthdays and Christmas. He was just like the other kids in his class at school and fit in well. The Connors could afford to spoil the boy but knew to build strength and character in the child he needed to understand that life does not hand you everything you want when you want it.

  By middle school, Logan was a taller and better looking than average strawberry blond. His teachers remarked that he was a very bright young man, but often was daydreaming when he should have been focusing on the task at hand. He was quite good at sports but showed little interest.

  Logan Connor was a little above average kid in a little above average school. He was popular but didn’t have any close friends. He seldom brought anyone home to play or study.

  “Logan, why don’t you invite some of your friends over this weekend?” Kate encouraged on a spring afternoon.

  “Why?” the boy replied.

  “Well, it would be fun to hang out with them, wouldn’t it?”

  “I see them at school, that’s enough.”

  “You aren’t embarrassed by us, are you?” Kate’s voice quaked a bit.

  Logan rushed to his mother and threw his arms around her waist and lay his head on her shoulder and sobbed. “Never mama, never.”

  “Is something wrong?” Roger asked entering the room.

  “Nothing at all, nothing at all.” Kate smiled.

  High school was not easy on Logan. The cliques and levels of social strata were not welcoming to a handsome, soft-spoken young man. He did well in his studies but shied away from the parties, football games, and pep rallies that were the center of his classmate’s lives, gravitating instead to art.

  He showed no talent for drawing or painting, and he was a dismal failure in ceramics and clay modeling as well. That didn’t deter his love of the creative outlet. Often, he would spend his lunch period in the art room working on a drawing or attempting to paint. His teacher was fond of the quiet boy who would quietly slip into the room. It was well known that there was an open-door policy in the Art department.

  “What are you working on today Logan?”

  Mrs. Franklin was a middle-aged woman who wore her hair long, with a wide variety of ha
ndcrafted clips in her graying locks. Logan wasn’t particularly fond of the woman but she for the most part left him alone and gave him space to do pretty much what he wanted, allowing him to use whatever materials he found an interest in.

  “I want to illustrate a song I heard on the radio. It is way harder than I imagined.” Logan’s answer showed his disappointment in his skill.

  “That is an incredible idea.” The teacher smiled knowing the boy possessed nowhere near the talent for such a difficult task. “How does the song make you feel when you hear it?”

  “Well,” Logan began. “It kind of confuses me. I mean, the words seem to paint a picture in my head, but I don’t know how to put it on the canvas.”

  “What colors do you see? In the picture in your head, I mean.” The teacher saw a deep struggle within the boy. He truly had the soul of an artist, and certainly the frustration of releasing his vision. She continued, “Are there objects or people or places that the song brings up?

  “I see the leaves of fall; browns, oranges, yellows. The other stuff is so fleeting I can’t even see it clearly.”

  The urge to ask the name of the song was strong, but Mrs. Franklin resisted, not wanting to lead Logan one way or another.

  “Here is a thought,” the teacher said, trying not to direct too strongly. “Don’t worry about the precise images. Andy Warhol said, ‘if you’re not trying to be real, you don’t have to get it right’. Why not go with your feelings and colors the song gives you. Don’t worry about the girl, or the town of houses, of whatever it is. Go with the colors and blurred fleeting images.”

  “You mean like abstract?”

  “Exactly, let your mind find the colors and shapes for you. Relax, sing the song in your head, close your eyes if you want. The next time you hear the song listen with your eyes. What are the colors? Write them down. What are those fleeting images you referred to? Write them down, too. Then, when you look at that canvas in front of you project it all, then let the paint flow.”

  Logan looked up at his teacher. The smile he gave her nearly made her weep. She saw in the boy a metamorphosis, an awakening, a rebirth. Gone was the tentative, captive of his inability to paint a photographic image of his idea. Instead, born was the impressionistic lover of all things spatial, colorful, undefined, and the beautiful light of understanding shone in his eyes.

  Over the next two weeks, Logan came to the lunch hour sessions, with a new independence. He kept the painting under wraps facing away from Mrs. Franklin and worked with a relaxed, peaceful grace.

  In his senior year, Logan was asked by Mrs. Franklin to be her teacher’s assistant third period. She required nothing of him and since his lunch period came next, he could paint for two hours uninterrupted.

  His work was awkward, often a mess of conflicting shapes, colors, and ideas. It didn’t matter, the teacher loved her protégés’ ability to lose himself in the colors, and the way his mind, no matter how inept his skill, provided him with an outlet that rendered the rest of his high school experience trivial. The byproduct of all this was the way his grades improved. He lost his awkwardness socially as he came to the realization the rest of the student body were captives of a system and structure that no longer held him bound.

  For all the time he spent painting, he never mentioned it to Roger and Kate. They credited growing up for the new confidence and contentment they saw in their son. They gave up on trying to make Logan a social success long ago. It seemed that he was happy at home with them and doing homework, watching TV, helping in the kitchen, washing the car, mowing the lawn, and being old beyond his years.

  For graduation, Logan was given the keys to a dark green Toyota pickup. He went with Roger one Saturday morning armed with a budget and a free hand at picking whatever he wanted. Roger was surprised by his son’s choice. He figured a young man on his way to college would pick something sporty, fast or flashy. Instead, he found himself paying for a low mileage, base model, stick shift vehicle that was even too boring for Roger’s taste.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something with more zip, or more stylish?” Roger pressed, feeling that maybe Logan was trying to be as thrifty as possible.

  “No, I think this will last me a long time. News flash dad, I’m not a stylish guy.” Logan laughed and gave his dad a hug. “Thanks, I love it.”

  “Alright then! It’s all yours.”

  The odd choice was to last Logan for nearly fifteen years.

  The night before he was to leave for college, there were tears, chicken curry broccoli casserole, Logan’s favorite, and a lifetime of memories teased about, cherished and embraced.

  “Mom,” Logan began after an uncomfortable silence that fell upon the room. “Tell me about my adoption.”

  “Kate looked at Roger, whose look of surprise did nothing to ease the knot suddenly twisting within Kate. The subject of adoption was never talked about. Not since Roger’s sister blurted out something about Logan looking like Kate at Christmas when Logan was eleven. Only to be followed by, “That’s impossible of course. He’s adopted! How silly.”

  “What do you want to know?” Roger asked. “You are entitled to know as much or as little as you want.”

  “I’m not sure exactly what it is I am missing. You know I love you both more than anything. If it will hurt you, don’t tell me. You are my parents no matter what DNA says. You always will be. It’s just there is a piece of me that needs to be filled. Maybe it is just all the emotions of going away for the first time. Maybe it is something biological. I don’t know but it is there, it is real, and well, I would really like to deal with it.”

  “You want to start?” Kate asked Roger.

  “No, that’s OK, you are the family storyteller.” Roger smiled hesitantly.

  “Well, let’s start at the beginning,” Kate began.

  “Wait I’ll start. I had the mumps in the Army. My balls swelled up like grapefruits and it left me sterile. There. No mysteries.” Roger shrugged.

  “TMI, Dad!” Logan laughed.

  The laughter seemed to release the tension at the table. Kate took a deep breath and chuckled. “I didn’t see that coming. So, where do I begin? We wanted a child really bad. There was no way but to adopt. We went through all the steps, interviews, counseling, a stack of paperwork a foot high, and got approved. That was completed on a Tuesday, the day before Christmas Eve. They told us it would be months before a baby would probably be available. January second we got a call from the adoption agency. They had been contacted by Social Services. A baby that was born on New Year’s Eve was available. Did they have anybody wanting a boy?”

  The lady at the adoption agency gave her our name. She called us, we called our attorney, the pastor, and went to meet her at the hospital. It only took about ten minutes and you were on your way home with us.”

  “How did they pick you guys?”

  “There weren’t a lot of white babies available back then. We put down we only wanted a Caucasian child. We didn’t specify boy or girl. Back then people didn’t adopt kids out of their race. Nobody went to India, or China, or wherever to get kids either. It just wasn’t done. Now nobody thinks anything about it.”

  “Did you meet the lady who gave me up?” Logan was careful not to say “mother”.

  “No, she was sixteen or seventeen. It was kind of hush, hush. The boy who got her pregnant was killed in a car wreck the night they had sex for the first and only time.”

  “So, I have no biological father. I mean alive.”

  “Right. He never knew.”

  “What about her? Is she still alive?” Logan asked.

  “She’d be thirty-four or thirty-five now, so I would think so,” Roger replied.

  “Huh,” Logan said without emotion.

  “That is all we know really. She was local. High school kid. That’s about it.”

  “OK. Thanks.” Logan shrugged, a gesture he learned from Roger. It signaled the end of the discussion.

  It didn’t end the thought
s that Logan struggled with as he tried to get to sleep. Where was his mother? Alone in his bed, he could call her mother. Who was she, what was she like? Did she ever think of him? His thoughts were filled with her for the last year.

  He forgot to ask about paperwork. He slapped the bed. How could he ever bring it up again? Logan dozed off around midnight but woke up shortly after two. His parents had been asleep for hours. They slept like the dead and kept their door closed. As a freshman, Logan was the one who answered the door to the police when a car crashed into the neighbor’s house. They were on vacation and the officer needed contact information. Kate and Roger slept through it all.

  Logan sat up. He sat on the edge of the bed for several minutes. He struggled with the thoughts racing through his head. He decided it was now or never. He quietly went down the hall and into the den. As he stood before his father’s roll top desk, he nearly turned and returned to bed. Was it betrayal? Invasion of privacy? Trespassing? Logan flicked on the gooseneck lamp atop the desk. He looked at the closed cover of the desk. Then with a swift decisive movement rolled the top up. The little cubby holes of envelopes, rubber bands, paper clips, pencils, and stamps were as neat and tidy as his father’s workbench in the garage. A stack of bills and mail were sitting under a small snow globe of Mt. Rushmore his father got as a child. Nothing here, Logan thought.

  He slid the top down and took a seat in the cracked leather desk chair. Two drawers on either side of the desk. The top right was a mish-mash of junk. Political pins, business cards, three pairs of old eyeglasses, two dead wristwatches, a harmonica, and a bunch of birthday cards bundled up with a rubber band.

  The bottom right-hand drawer was filled with files. Insurance, car registration, a variety of receipts for paid bills, warranties on appliances long gone, but nothing that would help.

  In the bottom left side drawer was a metal box. Logan removed it from the drawer. The button on the front was immovable. It was locked. He set the box in his lap. The slot was very small. Little key, Logan thought.