Oh By The Way, This One Time In Missouri...

What used to be a rougher part of Boston is now sophisticated and expensive, and I don't feel as welcome there as I used to.  

Kenmore Square, which is right in the thick of so many colleges and universities, has always been a fun spot for me.  I can't tell you how many nights I spent drinking beer there in college. I have pissed in every alley in Kenmore Square at least three times. I love it there.

Eve and I are meeting Natalie for drinks and dinner, and Eve made arrangements with the owner to let us come through a side door and sit in a private room.

As we entered the room, I remembered a night many years ago when Ben Mason and I had about forty gallons of draft beer in this same room.

It was a biker bar then, and we had a good time with about ten other students. 

We were asked to leave at one point, and it wasn't even the last call. 

I kept my "Glory Days" memory to myself.

Natalie asked us out because she wanted to hire me. The snazzy business card I gave her must have shifted her into buy mode. I enjoyed that theory until the waitress dropped off our first round and menus.

Natalie shifted the gears into serious, and Eve and I leaned in toward the center of the table when Natalie said, 

TEXT EVE: Have you ever been to Kenmore Square? TEXT ALLSTON: Is That Near The CITGO sign? TEXT EVE: I think you'll like it.

"I know who stabbed me in the parking lot in Maine, and I'd like you to find out a few things about him before I go to the police with what I know."

Interesting, I thought. "Why wouldn't you go straight to the police and have them pull this guy in?"

She went on, "I have to figure out how much trouble I may be in first; when I was seventeen and hitchhiking from Ashland to Los Angeles, I may have killed the brother of the man who stabbed me."

Eve looked at Natalie, as cool as it gets, and they both started laughing.

Eve said, "I gotta hear this story, Nat."

I'm sitting here dumbfounded, as an Emmy Award-winning actress just cooly dumped "I may have killed someone." into my universe. 

I said, "I gotta hear this story as well, Nat."

The following two and a half hours were filled with tears, fears, and awe as Natalie recounted that evening in Missouri so long ago. The story was interrupted for short breaks when the waitress took our orders and brought refills and dinners. 

I listened while Eve asked what I would call inciteful questions that drew the whole story out of Natalie in a logical, step-by-step manner. I'll have to put Eve on the payroll.

So here is what Natalie fears, and her fears are valid as far as I am concerned. She was in a fight-and-flight situation, and whatever his name was, he got something he deserved. Natalie's instincts were correct about the possibility of never leaving that truck alive that night.

I'm glad she had the smarts to get out of the truck. It says a lot.

So here are the questions that the judicial system, the press, and all of America will be asking and debating in tabloids, true crime TV shows, Podcasts, and even the videos you watch on gas pumps.

"Why didn't she go to the police the night it happened or the next day?"

"Why didn't she clue the police in right after she, Natalie, got stabbed in Maine?"

I think there are deep-rooted plausible reasons that cover these first two questions. The incident was traumatic, and a smart seventeen-year-old sat and thought about returning to her journey. 

She got back on course by continuing her plan to move toward Los Angeles. Some people stew and wallow in problems that happen to them, but Natalie somehow shrugged it off and kept moving west.

That's one hell of a Marine move. Keep moving forward with a plan.

She did another thing that was rooted in self-preservation. Her system suppressed the memories of the incident.

Eve asked her during dinner, "Did you ever think about that night through the years?"

Natalie said, "There were a few times when something would flash in her head, but she would start planning or doing something else to push it away."

She told us about her dream from last night and how she remembered everything, even the smell, which is what tied it all together for her.

She was not sure if she killed the man, but in her own Kentucky words, she said,

"I gutted him to the point where the pink possum road kill parts were visible."

She knew she was innocent, but because of her celebrity status, every aspect of any case brought against her would be scrutinized and magnified. 

She wanted me to find out who these two clowns were, with one being dead.

Where they were located. Dead or alive.

And any details about them I could dig up. Did they have records of rape and assault? Had they done jail time?

Natalie wanted to prepare a legal team before she went to the police.

Natalie "Freaking Idiot" Leuze and my girl Eve are two of the most incredible people I know.

Natalie agreed to my financial and legal terms, and I reviewed my absolute confidentiality policy with her. Eve got in on it and took the Allston pledge.

We all had Bourbon and Cokes, and my head was already working on the case.

The incident happened long ago, and I needed to start assembling the Legos that led to the two drivers.

Columbus Ohio

Bradley Falter was frustrated by the lack of news about Natalie's recovery or demise. He knew that if he searched her name, a digital finger might point at him as a suspect in her stabbing. He stuck to the tabloids in the supermarket.

Natalie killed his brother in the truck, and now that he was dying of lung cancer, Brad needed to kill her. Somehow he screwed up in Maine, and she lived.

He remembered the night many years ago when he sat down with a microwaved burrito to watch Stanley's Girls, a new comedy. He first viewed Gina in the show and thought nothing of it, but as the show went on, he heard her voice a few times and could not believe what he saw.

That girl, Gina, Natalie, it was Natalie. He thought. That was the girl who killed Brad's only brother.

Brad was so pissed at Steve that night for letting her get away. She was the best-looking girl they ever got in the back of the truck, and he let her slip away by being in awe of her rack. None of the others got away.

Then he realized that Steve was dead.

Brad panicked. He thought they would be going after Natalie, but that plan had to change. 

Brad had to drop off the cargo on time and then find a place to put Steve's body. Brad would put Steve where the others were. It would work out.

Somewhere on the coast in New England

This evening, I viewed Eve from a new angle. I always knew she was smart, but her behavior tonight was expert. 

She shook a story out of Natalie and didn't make Nat feel like she was being downloaded. It was textbook and complete. Where did that come from? 

I looked at her lying next to me and felt lucky. I feel fortunate that she is in my life and that the possibility of a great future partnership eclipsed my past. 

We click; there is no doubt about it. She's beautiful in every sense of the word, from the tip of her cute nose to her little toes. As I looked at her, thinking about "us," she caught me and looked up from her crossword puzzle, pushing her glasses up a bit. 

"What?" she asked. 

"Could you bring home a few blueberry muffins tomorrow?" 

"Tango asked me to ask you."