by Chris Culver
They had been arguing since they left Mary Joe’s house. She couldn’t handle the thought of sharing him with another woman. To punish him, she had kicked him or shouted at him every time he had closed his eyes. She hadn’t let him sleep since they had lost Jude and Paige. She was such a jealous bitch.
“Her wishes don’t matter,” said Glenn, shaking his head and positioning his rifle in his gun vise. “She’ll learn how the world works. If she doesn’t, I’ll punish her.”
Worse than merely keeping him awake, Helen had taken every chance she had to remind him that Mary Joe had called the FBI when she found out he had been in her home. She invited Agent Lawson inside. Glenn saw it on the news. Ostensibly, he was there to collect evidence and investigate, but Glenn knew Agent Lawson’s true purposes. The FBI agent saw a beautiful woman and decided to take her for himself—never mind that she already belonged to him.
Agent Lawson was a snake. Glenn would protect her, but first Mary Joe had to learn a lesson. She had to learn he was the only man in her life worth having. Good girls didn’t invite strange men into their houses. Good girls said no when men knocked on their doors. And if Mary Joe couldn’t keep Agent Lawson out of her house, she should have burned it down around him while he was inside. That was how you took care of snakes. You smoked them out and cut off their heads.
Helen thought he was a pervert for ordering Mary Joe new, comfortable underwear, but Agent Lawson probably took entire duffel bags full of her clothes. Lawson didn’t care about Mary Joe, but he wanted her all the same. Men like him couldn’t understand women. Thrusting, grinding, sweating, screwing. That was all they knew. They didn’t know what it meant to love or protect someone.
Glenn hated his sister, but at the moment, he hated Mary Joe even more. He saw the way she looked at that FBI agent. She liked him. Realizing that had been like a dagger to his heart. She shouldn’t have let Agent Lawson in. She shouldn’t have smiled at him. Those smiles were for him alone. Good girls didn’t smile for strange men.
He needed to teach Mary Joe to be a good girl. He needed to hear her scream for what she did. No one escaped punishment for their sins, not even her.
Glenn focused on his rifle. The weapon had a fiberglass stock coated in gray non-slip rubber and a heavy twenty-inch barrel with a muzzle threaded for a suppressor. After he’d added a good optics package, it had become his favorite weapon in the world to shoot.
“She’s already hunting you,” said Helen. “She’ll kill us if she finds us.”
Glenn glanced up at her but said nothing as he reached into the trigger guard assembly to press the release button. The bolt slid out with little resistance.
“I don’t want to have this conversation with you,” he said, taking the bolt to his vise so he could disassemble and clean it.
“You need to have this conversation with me,” she said. Glenn slid the underlug on the bolt’s cocking piece into his vise, allowing him to separate the bolt’s body from the striker assembly. “We started this to put the world right and to punish the wicked. What are we doing now? Trying to pick up some stupid girl?”
Glenn continued disassembling the bolt action on his rifle until he had everything inside the bolt on a clean white towel on his bench. From there, he removed the trigger guard and barrel action from the stock.
“Do you think Dad would want you doing this?” asked Helen.
Glenn’s hands trembled, but he didn’t look up at her.
“Look at me, honey,” said Helen, her voice soft. “You knew our father better than I did. Would he want you doing this?”
“Dad taught me how to do this,” said Glenn.
“No, he didn’t,” said Helen, reaching to his face and tilting his chin upward so he’d look her in the eyes. “Our father may have taught you to hunt, but he didn’t teach you to do this.”
Only he did. Glenn’s father, Edward, had been a Marine sniper and fought in Korea during the Chosin Reservoir campaign. The Marines credited him with fifty-three confirmed kills during his military career. Glenn’s father hadn’t spoken about the war often, but he had never left it.
“You didn’t know our father,” said Glenn. “You left too early. If you had known him, you’d know this was the only thing he’d want me to do.”
Helen paused and cocked her head at him.
“Do you talk to Dad?”
He looked down at his weapon and removed the magazine spring and follower.
“Dad’s gone. He left me like you did.”
Helen reached for his chin again to lift his head, but she yelped as he slapped her hand away.
“Sorry,” he muttered as he disassembled the trigger assembly.
“That’s okay,” said Helen, rubbing her hand. She took a deep breath and leaned forward. “Did Dad come back like I did?”
“Drop it, Helen,” he said, glancing up at her. “After you disappeared, it was just the two of us.”
“Do you talk to him now?” she asked.
Once he had the trigger assembly taken apart, Glenn moved to his barrel vise.
“Did Dad come back?” asked Helen, her voice growing lower and more insistent. “Tell me, Glenn.”
Glenn glanced up at his sister.
“No. Jesus, Helen. Are you seriously asking whether I see the ghost of our dead father? I’m not crazy. Our father died. You’ve seen his grave.”
Helen nodded and breathed through her nose.
“Good. Then what are you doing?”
For just a split second, he clenched his jaw as a sharp, piercing pain radiated out from the front of his head. Then he took two breaths before securing his rifle’s receiver to the top half of his action wrench. Once he finished, he clamped the barrel between a pair of oak bushings in the vise and used the action wrench to separate the barrel from the action. The process took strength and several specialized tools, but within ten minutes of sitting down at his workbench, he had his entire rifle disassembled and ready for a thorough cleaning.
“I can’t keep my eyes open, Helen. If I answer your question, will you shut up and let me sleep?”
She considered. “Depends on your answer.”
“Fine,” he said, glaring at her. “I’m preparing.”
“What are you preparing for?”
Glenn felt his lips press into a tight line as he glanced up.
“You think you’re smarter than everyone,” he said.
“I’ve never thought I was smarter than you,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “Because you’re not. You didn’t even have a plan, did you?”
“What are you saying?”
“There’s no end game to this,” he said, allowing his anger to enter his voice. “I listened to you. I did everything you told me to do. You told me we would right the wrongs done to you, but all you’ve done is hold me back. You’re a liar, and you ran away when I needed you most. Mom died, and then you left me and Dad alone.”
“I never wanted to leave you,” she said, leaning across the workbench to cover his hands with her own. “It wasn’t my choice. You’re my little brother. I love you, and I’m here to protect you. What’s gotten into you? This doesn’t even sound like you.”
He pulled his hands back and then stood. “Maybe I learned who I should put my faith in.”
Helen blinked and then straightened. “And who is that?”
“You know,” he said. “She’s been here all along.”
“Her,” said Helen, her voice sharp. “Your shadow.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding and feeling his skin grow warm with self-righteousness. “She told me the truth. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re just trying to control me.”
A tear slid down his sister’s cheek and then to the ground.
“How can you say that?”
“How can you deny it?” he asked. “You’re weak. You left when I needed you. You left when Dad needed you. You mean nothing to me, and you meant nothing to him.”
“I’ve kept you alive.”
“You’ve kept me in the dark.”
Helen covered her mouth as red spread across her forehead and into her cheeks, marring her beautiful face.
“Do you want me to leave? I’ll walk out right now. You’ll never see me again. Is that what you want?”
Let her go. You’re stronger without her.
Though his shadow’s voice sounded soft, she was powerful. She had been coming to him at night, whispering to him, telling him the truth. She wasn’t family, though. He didn’t know what she was, but she wasn’t kin. Helen was all he had left.
“I don’t know what I want. You’ve got me so screwed up, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore.”
“Then stick to the plan,” said Helen, once more covering his hands with her own and squeezing. This time, he didn’t pull away. “This can still work.”
No plan can work without a goal. What are you going to accomplish?
Glenn put his hands flat on his workbench and stared at his rifle. He wasn’t a military-trained sniper, but with that rifle and the Schmidt Bender PMII optics he had installed, he could hit targets with a .300 Winchester round at nine hundred yards. At that distance, his opponents wouldn’t even hear the shot before they died.
“Suppose we take another couple,” he said, keeping his voice slow and composed. “What will we accomplish?”
“We save other girls from a predator. You know what happened to me. Only you can put that right. That was enough at one time.”
It was never enough. You can change the world.
Glenn blinked and shook his head before standing and walking to the cabinet where he kept his gun-cleaning supplies. When he returned to his bench with solvent and clean rags, he looked to his sister.
“The police are too close. There won’t be an arrest; the FBI will kill me.”
“If that’s how you feel, we can run,” said Helen. “You’ve got the money. We can start over. We can be a family.”
If we run today, we’ll run every day of our lives.
He listened to his shadow and knew she spoke the truth. She understood the world.
“We can’t run. We have to make a stand.”
“I don’t like this,” said Helen, shaking her head. “This isn’t you.”
“But it is,” said Glenn. “All this time, you’ve told me I was doing something right. You told me we were bringing you justice, but we weren’t. You were getting revenge.”
Helen’s face went hard.
“Revenge is justice, Glenn.”
“If that’s true, you were looking at the wrong people.”
Glenn held his sister’s glare until her face softened.
“What are you saying?”
“While you’ve been bitching about Mary Joe, I’ve been planning,” said Glenn. “We’re broadening our target list. They need to hurt for what they did to us.”
“Who’s going to hurt? What are you even talking about?”
He smiled at her. “Everybody. If you want to hurt the shepherd, slaughter his lambs. Now shut up and let me work.”
Helen didn’t look convinced, but she nodded anyway and shut her mouth. For that, at least, Glenn felt grateful. He hadn’t wanted to kill her, too.
26
I signed out a marked cruiser and drove to County Road 10, where I found two white Highway Patrol cruisers and a black Highway Patrol SUV off the side of the road. Forested hills dotted the landscape, as they did all over this part of Missouri, and the road swooped and curved back on itself, hugging the hillsides. We worked a lot of car accidents in areas like this. Few, thankfully, resulted in fatalities.
I parked behind the SUV and stepped out of my vehicle. The air carried a hint of pine resin and dirt on a warm breeze. Ahead of me, the road curved to the left. To the right of the pavement, the ground sloped to a tree line about fifty feet away. There was a white car at the base of the slope with several uniformed officers arrayed around it. Judging by the damage to the sod and to the vehicle’s roof, it had rolled at least a few times on the way down.
A woman in her midthirties stepped out of the SUV as I approached. She wore a navy blazer, jeans, and a blue and white striped shirt. It was a nice, professional outfit, the kind I would have liked to have been wearing. Instead, I wore the same blazer I had worn the day before and a top I had purchased at Walmart. I flashed my badge at her and then looked down to the accident.
“I’m Detective Joe Court,” I said. “My dispatcher told me you found Thad Stevens and Trinity Foster.”
“Detective Jill Turley,” she said, holding out a hand, which I shook. She nodded toward the car. “We found them. What’s your interest?”
“They were potentially my suspects in a double homicide. I wanted to talk to them and eliminate them.”
Turley put her hands on her hips and looked toward the crashed vehicle.
“Your homicide involve a nine-millimeter, by chance?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Coroner pulled five nine-millimeter bullets from the bodies. Our forensic technician thought they came from a Glock 19.”
Turley turned toward me, her eyebrows raised.
“You may have solved your homicide, then. We recovered a Glock 19 from the vehicle.”
I sighed and put my hands on my hips.
“Not how I hoped this would end, but I’ll take it. My forensics team will need the pistol.”
“I’ll make it available to you,” she said, taking a step back. “There’s something else you should see. Come on.”
I followed her toward the spot where Thad’s car had slipped off the road. A sports car might whip around that corner at fifty miles an hour on a dry day, but any rain or snow would prevent the tires from getting traction. A small miscalculation could make a driver slide right off the hill—just as Thad’s car apparently had.
“Tell me what you see,” said Turley.
I glanced at her and furrowed my brow. She raised her eyebrows, imploring me to continue, so I looked straight ahead again.
“The scene of an accident,” I said. “Thad and Trinity were driving and misjudged their speed. Maybe it was dark, maybe their car slipped on debris, or maybe they were drunk. However it happened, they didn’t make the turn, and their car rolled off the hill.”
“That’s what it looks like,” said Turley. “But where are the skid marks? Where are the indications the car slid? Where’s the debris on the road the driver had to swerve to avoid? It’s summer, so they didn’t have to worry about snow or ice. The road’s in good shape, too, so they didn’t slide on gravel. If they were drunk, we would have smelled booze on the corpses. We didn’t. This was no accident.”
“You think somebody set them up?” I asked, furrowing my brow.
“I think somebody pushed the car off the hill,” said Turley. “Once we found a firearm in the trunk, we dusted the trunk lid for prints. Someone had wiped it clean. The steering wheel, interior door handles, and gear selector have also been wiped clean. If Thad drove this car off the hill, he did so without touching a single thing inside.”
“That’s a problem,” I said, nodding and thinking. “We found a car not too far from here that belonged to Paige Maxwell. The Apostate abducted her and her boyfriend. They escaped before he killed them.”
Detective Turley lowered her chin and furrowed her brow.
“You think the Apostate did this?”
I tilted my head to the side. “It’s possible, but if he did, he stepped way out of his routine. What do you need me to do?”
Turley considered. “You offering to assist on this case?”
“For now,” I said. “My boss will have me cleaning toilets by the end of the day, but I’ll do what I can until he tells me otherwise.”
“Sorry about the toilets,” she said. “If you want to help, I need information. Who comes out here, who are the nearest neighbors, and who owns the property? It’s background information, but it could point me toward potential witnesses.”
I nodded, more to myself than to
her.
“Sure. I can find the property owner in county records, and a guy at my station can tell me about the neighbors.”
“That’s why I like working with locals,” she said, reaching into the inside pocket of her blazer for a business card. I did the same, and we exchanged cards. She looked at mine. “Call me if you find anything good. In the meantime, if I need you, I’ll call.”
“Sounds good,” I said, turning toward my cruiser. While Detective Turley got back to work, I sat in my car to think.
I had driven all over St. Augustine County, but even I rarely got out to that stretch of County Road 10. Trinity and Thad’s killer not only knew where it was, he also knew where the guardrail had a break, he knew where a car could roll off, and he knew when to come so that employees from the chicken processing plant—the nearest business—wouldn’t be around. Our killer was a local.
Once I got back in my car, I drove to the county courthouse, but I pulled out my phone along the way and called Dave Skelton, a uniformed officer in my department. Dave had grown up in St. Augustine, and he knew the county well. He was a good cop now, but he had raised hell as a teenager. From the stories I had heard, he slept with just about every woman his age in the county, and he had smoked marijuana on every hilltop, valley, glade, and meadow within a hundred-mile radius. He also knew every moonshiner, survivalist, and backwoods guide in the area. If anybody could tell me about that stretch of Highway 10, it’d be him.
His phone went to voicemail, so I left him a message. Detective Turley would have to wait. After that, I parked beside the courthouse and looked up property records. That stretch of property had last been owned by Pennington Hotels, Inc. It was part of a twenty-four-acre parcel that had included a gravel driveway and a twelve-hundred-square-foot cinder-block building. The company had stopped paying property taxes almost twenty years ago, which made me wonder how helpful this would be.
I thanked the clerk and walked back to my car. A twelve-hundred-square-foot building was too small for a hotel, and cinder block was too cheap for a villa or cabin for wealthy customers. If I had to guess, it was a garage or a maintenance shed. Someone who worked at the shop might know where cars were likely to slide off the hill. A mechanic or maintenance worker might have even known how to rig a car to drive over an embankment.