by Chris Culver
Every day, I saw fresh signs of his aging body, but every day, he gave me a new reason to love him. I couldn’t ask for more from a friend.
It was about six when we finished playing. I figured I might as well exercise, so I changed into some athletic gear and then hit the trails in the woods near my house. Roger didn’t follow far, but he came with me at first. Then a squirrel caught his attention, and he ran home.
I worked up a sweat, came home, and had my dinner on the front porch. Roger sat at my feet. It was a comfortable night, but it was lonely. I figured I had done enough drinking while alone these past few days, so I changed into some clean clothes and went to a bar on the edge of St. Augustine.
I wouldn’t take a friend to The Barking Spider, but I knew it would be the least crowded bar in town during fair week. It had two pool tables, a bar, and cheap tables and chairs through a big, open room. Someone always smoked no matter when I came in, and the jukebox seemed to play only Def Leppard.
I parked on the edge of a full lot and went inside. There weren’t many seats left, but the room wasn’t so crowded that I had a hard time making my way to the bar where I found a single open stool near the bathroom. Everyone around me seemed to be talking at once, so I couldn’t hear what anyone said. It was just enough noise to leave me alone with my thoughts.
As I sat down, the bartender nodded a greeting as he filled a plastic pitcher with Bud Light.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“Jack and Coke with a shot of Wild Turkey on the side.”
He raised his eyebrows for a moment and then poured. I downed the shot and slipped him a ten before looking at the surrounding room. I rarely drank bourbon, but it seemed to fit the decor better than a shot of vodka would have. Plus, The Barking Spider’s vodka tasted more like rubbing alcohol than something a human being should have ingested.
The shot hit me about five minutes later, and I felt my shoulders relax. After two more shots, my mood lightened even further. I drew from the energy of the crowd. For the first time that day, I didn’t think about Paige Maxwell or her boyfriend, Jude Lewis; I didn’t think about Christopher Hughes, or Megan and Emily Young; I didn’t think about the shooting last night or the dead mechanic. I felt normal.
After about an hour, a man about my age sat beside me and smiled. I knew most of The Barking Spider’s regulars, and this guy didn’t fit in. He wore jeans and a T-shirt and polished black shoes. He didn’t even try to hide the wedding ring on his left ring finger.
“Hey,” he said. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“No thanks,” I said, already feeling my words slur.
“It’s all right,” he said, motioning toward the bartender. “Two shots. Whatever the lady’s having.”
The bartender poured, and the tourist pushed one to me. I pushed it back. My pleasant buzz subsided.
“No, thank you,” I said, forcing myself to smile as I reached to my purse for my wallet. I looked to the bartender. “I’ll cash out now.”
“It’s just a drink,” said my new friend. He smiled. “Come on. It won’t hurt you. Have a drink with me. You’re the prettiest girl in the bar.”
“No, thank you,” I said.
He put his hand on my leg and squeezed my thigh above the knee. His smile never wavered.
“I just bought you a drink. At least have the courtesy of being nice.”
I looked down. “Remove your hand, please.”
He took his hand away but then leaned his torso toward mine, crowding me.
“It’s just a drink, sweetheart,” he said. His smile wasn’t so friendly. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me. I’m alone. You’re alone. I’m asking for you to have a drink with me. No pressure.”
I looked to the bartender again. “Leo, call me a cab, please.”
The guy beside me leaned closer so that I could feel his breath on my cheek. His eyes traveled down my neck and then my chest.
“I’ll drive you home. I’ve got a car outside.”
Leo, the bartender, grabbed a phone but stayed close.
“Buddy,” he said. “Joe asked you to leave her alone. You should listen.”
The tourist smiled at me. “A pretty girl named Joe. I like that.”
I had spent a lot of evenings in bars, so men had pushed drinks on me before. As long as they backed off when I declined, I didn’t mind. Men who didn’t understand the word no pissed me off.
“When I was fifteen, a guy like you pushed a lot of alcohol on me. Then he raped me when I passed out,” I said, my voice a whisper. “I’m not a kid anymore. I’ve got a Glock 19 in my purse, a Glock 26 in a holster on my ankle, and a badge on my belt. If you don’t back off, you will see one of the three, and I can’t guarantee which one it’ll be. Your choice, but the odds are high you’ll get some gratuitous holes in you if you don’t leave me alone.”
He held his gaze on me for a moment and then leaned back.
“Fuck you, bitch,” he said, reaching to the bar for his shot. He downed it and then walked away. Leo watched him and then leaned close so we could talk over the din of the room.
“You still want that cab?” he asked. I nodded, having lost my buzz.
“Yeah. I need to get out of here.”
“Want a drink before you go? Consider it a thank you for not shooting him.”
I looked to the bar where the asshole had left the shot he ordered me. I picked it up, downed it in a gulp, and then shook my head as I stood on legs wobbly from booze.
“No, but thanks,” I said, taking deep breaths and willing the room to stop spinning. When I felt I could walk to the door without tripping over my own feet, I took a deep breath. I felt a little better. “I’ll wait outside.”
Leo nodded and leaned a little closer. He lowered his voice.
“Maybe next time leave your firearm home when you’re not on duty.”
“I’m not armed,” I said. “I don’t drink and shoot. It doesn’t work out well for anybody. See you later.”
He straightened. “See you later, Detective Court. Your cab should be here soon. Have a good night.”
I thanked him and then walked out, hoping I wouldn’t puke on the ride home.
35
The house was remote, and the front porch sagged. Christopher had seen worse, but he had seen better, too. He was almost surprised it didn’t have a car on cinder blocks in the front lawn or an old washing machine beside the rocking chairs on the front porch. Hopefully Sherlock would get his ass in gear and put together a workable escape plan because he didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to.
The Uber driver had dropped him off about a quarter of a mile from the home. Christopher felt the weight of Warren’s weapon in his pocket. It was a revolver, and it had six rounds in the chamber. He hadn’t fired a gun in almost thirteen years, which was a problem. Shooting wasn’t like riding a bicycle. A kid learns to ride a bike when he’s ten, and he could pick up a bike twenty years later and ride just fine.
To shoot a firearm well, though, you needed fine motor control, muscle memory, and keen eyesight. Your stance had to be perfect, your weapon had to be clean, and the environmental conditions had to be right. At any kind of distance, rain and wind could throw off what would be an accurate shot. An experienced shooter could compensate for the environmental conditions, but that took practice he hadn’t been able to put in.
The house was far from town. Maybe if he stuck around long enough, he could set up a backstop somewhere and get some target shooting in. He’d leave the country and retire somewhere nice, but he didn’t know where that’d be. No matter where he ended up, though, chances were that he’d be safer with a gun than without one.
As he walked closer to the house, a dog barked inside. It wasn’t the high-pitched yip of a Chihuahua, but the deep, throaty boom of something much larger. He was glad Sherlock had warned him about the animal. And he was glad he had the firearm. Something that size could rip his arm off.
When he reached the home,
he stopped and looked around. A big oak tree shaded the lawn and front porch while hostas decorated the home’s foundation. The clapboard siding looked clean, and the windows were intact. A good contractor could have made it perfect for fifty or sixty grand, but it wasn’t a dump.
“Home sweet home,” he said, stepping onto the porch. The dog inside stopped barking. Christopher didn’t like dogs, but they sure made effective alarms.
The road in front of the home was straight for a quarter of a mile in either direction, affording him sightlines only blocked by trees. There were deep woods behind the house. If he put a car on the other side of those woods, he’d have an effective escape route, and with that dog, he’d know when anyone unwanted approached within a couple hundred yards. Sherlock had chosen well.
He put his hands in his pockets, one over his revolver and the second over a stack of seventy hundred-dollar bills. This place would be just fine.
I rolled over in bed and felt the world spin. My head pounded, but I wasn’t hungover. I was still too drunk for that. Roger had just sprinted out of the room so fast he ran into my dresser, almost knocking over a lamp. Now, he was barking his head off at something outside.
I swung my legs off the bed. Once my feet touched the hardwood, the world came into focus and stopped spinning. I wasn’t too drunk, at least. I wouldn’t have wanted to drive anywhere, but I could walk. That was something. My throat felt dry. I could still taste the bourbon I had been drinking at the bar. Sweat dampened my sheets and pajamas.
Roger had run through the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed, scattering everything I had worn earlier that day. I picked up my pants and shirt and tossed them in the hamper before leaving my bedroom. Roger ran from the front window. He bowed in front of me and then yawned.
“Do you want out?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. He stretched, bowing again. It was his way of saying yes. I grumbled and walked to the kitchen. “If you had to pee, you could have just told me earlier, asshole. You didn’t have to wake up the entire world.”
Roger maintained his characteristic silence until I opened the back door. Then he sprinted out into the night while I filled a glass with water. The sky was pitch black.
“It’s way too early for this shit, honey,” I shouted toward my open kitchen door. I heard nothing in response, so I stuck my head outside. When Roger had to go to the bathroom, he stayed in the yard. I couldn’t see him at all. “Roger?”
Then I heard him growl from the front of my house. Roger didn’t growl like that at squirrels, rabbits, or possums. Someone was there, someone he found threatening. With everything else going on, he was probably right. A little precaution would go a long way to keeping me safe. I went to the front hall closet and grabbed my Mossberg pump-action shotgun before running to the yard after my dog, all the while hoping this was just a stupid reporter.
**
It wasn’t a dog. It was a fucking horse, and it came sprinting around the house straight toward him. Christopher took his hands out of his pockets and backed off.
“Easy, boy,” he said, hoping to placate it. The animal stopped running about twenty feet from him. The fur on its back stood straight, and it leaned its weight on its front legs. Its mouth was open. The sound it produced was primal and menacing.
Christopher reached into his pocket for his revolver while taking stutter steps back. The dog matched his movements and slunk low along the ground, growling deep in its throat. This couldn’t have been right. The old lady knew he was coming. If she had a dog this vicious, she should have locked it up.
Somebody called from behind the house. The dog stopped growling and cocked his head to the side. Christopher had owned dogs growing up. Dogs growled when scared, but this dog didn’t fear him. He was protecting his home. If he ran far enough from the house, maybe the dog would stop.
Still, he looked toward the house, hoping the old lady would get her ass out there soon.
Christopher took shuffling steps backwards until he hit the oak tree he had seen earlier. As he slid around it, the dog growled once more and crept to the side, cutting off his avenue of escape.
“You son of a bitch,” he whispered, reaching into his pocket for his revolver. “Don’t make me do this.”
“Roger?”
“He’s out front,” said Christopher, not daring to raise his voice for fear of provoking the enormous animal. His revolver cleared his pocket as he backed around the tree. That at least gave him some cover for the moment. In his experience, most dogs could outpace him in a straight-line foot race, but they had a harder time cornering.
As Christopher tried to maneuver the tree between him and the dog, he saw movement near the side of the house. It was a woman, and she carried a rifle.
“Roger,” she called. He recognized her voice and felt his stomach drop. Christopher stopped moving and focused. It was Joe Court, and she wore flannel pajamas. Their eyes locked, and she raised her weapon to her shoulder. His stomach plunged into his feet.
Sherlock hadn’t sent him to a safe house; the son of a bitch had sent him to Joe Court’s house.
Christopher had just gotten played.
36
It was later than he had expected, but Sherlock pulled his old Mercedes to a stop at the top of the circular driveway in front of Diana Hughes’s home. For a few moments, he sat there, gripping the steering wheel and thinking. It was after two in the morning. He liked seeing Diana, but he didn’t want to be there.
Before he could leave, the light beside the front door popped on. Diana hadn’t expected him, but her alarm had a motion sensor to let her know when someone reached the top of her driveway. It would have been annoying had more traffic stopped to turn around at her place, but her neighborhood had ample places to turn around. Someone moved behind the frosted glass of the front door.
Then she opened it. Even without makeup, even wearing just one of his old, long T-shirts, even without wanting to be, she was gorgeous. Sherlock had never loved anyone in his life. He cared about his parents, and he had told a girl in high school that he loved her, but that had been to get beneath her dress on prom night. His feelings for Diana were different. He wanted her happy, and she wanted him happy, too.
That was why he hated this moment.
As he opened his door and stepped out, the pistol in his pocket felt heavy. Scott Gibson had given it to him earlier for this occasion. Tonight, it would do a job, and then it would disappear again.
Sherlock trudged up the steps to the front door. Even from three feet away, he could smell Diana’s alluring scent, an intoxicating mix of lavender and various kitchen spices combined with just a hint of clean sweat. She smiled at him.
“Didn’t expect to see you tonight,” she said.
“Did I wake you up?”
She nodded and stepped forward to put her hands on his chest. The movement caused her shirt to rise and expose the creamy skin of her upper thighs. “Yeah, but you can make that up to me.”
She bit her lower lip. Sherlock didn’t stop himself. He put his arms around her and kissed her and felt her body press against his. Then he picked her up, kicked the front door shut, and carried her to the bedroom. There, they took off each other’s clothes and made love on her king-sized bed.
As he held her afterwards and felt her body heat against him, he closed his eyes.
“Christopher got away last night.”
She sighed and nodded. “I heard.”
“I hoped that we could capture him and persuade him to tell us where he had stashed his money.”
She put a hand flat on his chest and gave him a soft, warm smile. “If we’re together, we don’t need his money. I’ve got more money than we can spend. It’s yours.”
He nodded and looked at the ceiling. “I talked to him today, though, and convinced him that I could smuggle him out of the country if he paid me well enough. He spilled it all. He had four safety deposit boxes in banks in Clayton.”
Diana pulled away. He didn’t look at her. He couldn�
�t look at her.
“I checked them out,” he said. “There should have been ten million dollars in them, but every one was empty.”
Diana didn’t respond.
“So I talked to the bank manager,” he said. Sherlock paused. “He said you had come and emptied them years ago.”
Diana said nothing, but he could feel her hand on his side, tickling his ribs.
“Do you have the money?” he asked.
Again, she said nothing. So he rolled onto his side to see her face smiling at him. She pursed her lips and made a shushing sound as she cupped his cheek.
“We need that money,” he said. “I don’t care if you stole it. We need it.”
The moment the words left his lips, he felt something hot pierce his side. He drew in a sharp breath. In a flash, Diana had pushed him onto his back. She kept a hand on his cheek and shushed him again.
“Hush, sweetheart,” she said. “No more talking. I don’t want this to hurt more than it has to.”
Sherlock looked down and found the handle of a knife sticking into the left side of his chest. He tried to sit up, but Diana put her hands on his shoulders, keeping him rooted in the spot.
“Don’t move. I’ve put that knife into the intercostal space between your fourth and fifth ribs. If my aim was right—and I’m sure it was—the tip is now inside the left ventricle of your heart. If you move, it will only get worse.”
He felt something cold pass over him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I might ask you the same thing,” she said. “You’ve never carried a firearm into my home before, but tonight you did. It was for me, wasn’t it? If you wanted me to tell you where I put my ex-husband’s money, you could have asked.”
“I would have,” he said. “I didn’t get the chance.”