Page 1 of Barkley

Chapter 1

Barkley watched the people in the mall.He didn’t come there often, but he’d been close to the place when he decided he was starving and couldn’t wait the extra thirty minutes to get home and fix himself something to fill the void.So now that he was finished eating, he just watched the people while keeping an eye on his laptop for news from a couple of firms and people that he was finding out if they’d sell to them.And at a reasonable price.He was always in the market for a floundering company to restructure.In the end, everyone benefited from the deal.

He liked to people-watch and noticed that most of the people walking around were women.For the most part, today, the place was nearly empty.Most of the women there today were fairly young.Some had small children with them, from about the age of four down.Infants, too, in strollers that more than likely cost more than his first car.But what boggled his mind the most was that about eighty percent of the mothers or nannies, he supposed it could be, were carrying the babies and piling their purchases into the infant’s seat.He just didn’t understand people nowadays.

Looking down at his laptop when it dinged that an email was dropped into his box, he pulled it up just as shouting down by one of the anchor stores began.It wasn’t just shouting, but the two women were using language he’d not heard since he’d been in college.Boy, oh boy, they were both pissed off about something.He had a very scary thought about the two strollers that were near each woman as they screamed something about clothing and a sale.

Opening the email, he thought about how angry people seemed to be about the dumbest things nowadays.He supposed there was reason for it.Money was tight everywhere.People were being laid off right and left.And children, older married kids were moving back home to save money on necessities such as food, transportation as well as just being able to take care of their children.He read the email twice before he realized this person was serious.

“Since we both know you and your family have more money than sense, I’m going to need four million dollars for my place.That way, I can get me something out of the deal after having had to wait on my mother to die so that I can have it.I don’t want it, you understand.But if I’m going to sell it, I want to get as much as you’ll give me.”He laughed before starting a response to the man.The fight at the other end of the mall, however, had him putting away his things and heading to the closest restaurant that was still open.

The gun firing off had both women down on the floor surprised him.The older woman had pulled her gun out from under her shirt and just fired at the purple-haired one.The people who had been watching what was going on scattered, heading to the doors.He watched as all the stores at that end of the mall closed up their heavy sliding doors.Barkley knew for a fact it was an automated thing that had been recently put into service.Barton had been working on the design with Jade since she’d told him how much it would save in the long run for stores.

People were rushing by him to get out of the mall.Not that he blamed them, as one of the women stood up with their firearm still in their hand and pointed it at the woman still on the floor.Barkley shoved all his things into his briefcase and handed it over to the restaurant that was closest to him for safekeeping.

“Call the police.”The kid just stared at him.“Wake up, damn it.Call the police and tell them there has been a shooting at the mall.Do it now!”

The kid, because he couldn’t have been much more than sixteen, finally got over the shock of what was going on not ten feet from him and closed the doors to the little place.The manager, someone he thought he knew, told him he’d put his things in the office and it would be locked up.

“Good.Get out of here.And make sure you pass it along to others to get out as well.And to lock the door behind you, only letting the police in when they arrive.You can do that, right?”Nodding, the man called the police as Barkley was making his way to the two women.He was terrified out of his mind but more afraid for the two strollers that did have children in them around the two women.The babies were screaming loudly, no doubt terrified of the yelling and the gun going off so close to them.Barkley hoped that neither of them had been shot or injured when the gun had been fired.

He got their attention by whistling.Loud and long that he’d perfected over the years with five brothers in the house.They both looked at him.“I could care less right now if you kill each other.But there is no reason those children should be harmed in the process.If you’ll allow me to take them to—”

“Stay the fuck away from my grandkids.”He nodded, putting his hands up when he was told to do so.“You’re not the fucking police.Why are you even here?Mind your own business.”

“I was until you two started up.The police have been called and are on their way.”He heard the sirens just as he finished telling the blond woman, the one who had claimed that the babies were her grandchildren.“Hear them?They’re not going to be very happy when they get here.”

Barkley looked at the other woman.Her hair was bright purple, and it didn’t suit her skin tone at all, he thought.It washed her out until she was almost clear with it.However, it occurred to him then it could have been from loss of blood.But it soon wouldn’t matter to anyone what color she had her hair dyed.Because the way she was losing blood while sitting back down on the floor meant she wasn’t going to make it to the hospital, no matter what sort of tricks the medic’s tired.

“This is all her fault.If she’d just backed off when I told her to move, I could have gotten the little dresses I wanted before her.She took them all.She started this.I don’t understand one bit why my son went and married her.She’s useless.”Barkley wanted to ask her if prison was something she was willing to go to rather than have a dress on sale.But he didn’t.He wasn’t stupid.“You tell the police when they get here you saw the whole thing, and it was her fault.Or I might just shoot you too.”

“I didn’t see anything.Just heard you two shouting at each other.”The police announced that they wanted Blond to put down her gun.Barkley didn’t move when he heard them coming up behind him.But he did tell them what was going on when asked.“This woman here killed the other woman that’s on the floor.They’re in-laws to each other.The son is married, I guess, to the purple-haired woman.If she’s not already dead, then she will be soon enough.I only came here to see if I could get the babies out of harm’s way.”

Purple had fallen back on the floor.He couldn’t tell if she was still breathing or not, but then he wasn’t a doctor.The police told Blond to drop the gun, and she fired at the cop standing next to him, and that was all it took to have the other officers open fire on her.It was going to be difficult, he thought as he sat down on the floor to determine which bullet had killed the older woman.It looked as if they’d emptied their clips into her head and chest.

Barkley held the two babies in his arms, keeping them entertained while the police were doing whatever was needed to make the scene clear.He’d been asked by Officer Buddy Morgan to see if he could get the little girls to calm down.All he’d done was sit on the floor when they were handed to him, and they quieted right up.

The mall had been pretty much emptied before the police had arrived, and now they were waiting on the coroner to make his decision on what was the cause of death of the two women.Not that it wasn’t obvious.Morgan told him they were doing this by the books so that when it went to trial, it was over with the first time.The entire thing was being recorded, and he was glad the mall manager had turned over all the camera footage as soon as it had been asked for.

“Barkley, are you sure you’re all right?”He said he was fine and he’d not been hurt.He also told the officer, someone he’d gone to school with, that he’d only been trying to get the little ones out of the way.“Yes, the cameras show that you only happened on the scene when the daughter-in-law was shot.”

He’d realized the two women were related, and he could tell the babies were twins.Barkley was one himself and enjoyed watching over the children until the right people came to pick them up.Barkley had been told the daughter-in-law didn’t get along with her mother-in-law from the start.Now they were both dead, and the younger woman’s husband was on his way to the mall now to talk to the police.Jade showed up just as the husband did.

“I’m here to make sure you’re all okay.”He said he’d told them several times that he was.“Yes, but Buddy over there, he said that he knows you, said that shock might make you not feel any pain for hours.I don’t see any blood, so I’m assuming he’s a worry wart.”

“Yes, that’s his first name.I couldn’t remember.But I’m fine.However, this little girl seems to be too fussy.Not that I know a great deal about babies, but she’s nothing like her sister.I can’t seem to be able to put her in any position that she seems comfortable in.”Taking the little girl from him, Mick, the girl’s father, came to ask if he could hold them.“The police said to wait until they were examined.Then you can hold them until they take them to the hospital.They want to check them out, I guess.”

Mick watched as Jade stripped the little girl—Mick said her name was Sunny—down to her bare skin.Finding bruises all over her legs and arms alarmed them all.Jade asked Mick if he could explain the reason for them.They were in different stages of healing, and the most recent ones looked to be about two hours old.

“I don’t know.I mean, my mom, she watches the girls from time to time.She had them both last night.But I’m working on-site in Virginia now and only arrived home an hour ago.I didn’t even know they were meeting here today.This place is a good hour from where we live.”Buddy Morgan was taking notes and asked for his boss’s name and number.After giving it to him, Mick cried.“She, my mother, beat me as a child.But since the girls have been born, she seemed to have changed a great deal.We didn’t use her as a sitter all that often, but the girls, even for as young as they are, never seemed to mind her holding them.Christ, my wife is gone.What am I going to do now?”

Jade didn’t speak to the man, but she did want to make sure the other little girl, Bethany, wasn’t bruised as well.But the fact of the matter was, there seemed to be more on her than on Sunny.Instead of allowing Mick to hold his daughters, he was told that they’d have to be taken to the hospital for x-rays as well as a full work up.Mick was so over the top upset that Barkley was having a hard time believing that he didn’t know what was going on with his own children.Even being away from home as much as he claimed, it bothered him that he’d not noticed what was going on.He certainly would have.

After the children were taken by ambulance to the hospital, Jade sat with him on the floor.He didn’t say anything to her about what had happened, nor did he tell her what he was thinking.But when she asked him his opinion, he couldn’t help but let her know his feelings about the dad.

“I mean, even though I don’t have any knowledge of babies, I knew that one of them was in pain or at least upset about me holding her.I didn’t undress her, well, because that would just make me a target on all kinds of levels I don’t want to have to deal with.Anyway.What do you think?”She said she’d felt the same thing.That even she noticed the children were more happy being with a stranger than they wanted to be with their own father.“I didn’t think about that.But you’re right.Neither of them reached out for him when he showed up.Like they didn’t want their own father to comfort them.”

“It’s something I see quite often, I’m afraid.But the hospital personal will look into things.I mentioned it to the medics when I followed them out with the children.Hopefully, I get to kick some asses to get them to see what the larger picture is.”An elderly man showed up just as the bodies of the two women were being taken away.He only had eyes for his son and no one else.He didn’t ask after the babies either, or the women for that matter.“This is going to be a tell-tale meeting.A thought just occurred to me that he got here fairly quickly for a man who lives an hour away.That is what he said, right?”

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