by Dudley Lynch
I made small pivoting movements with my head to give my one eye the widest view possible. Otherwise, I sat still as a yogi. I wanted to see my chief deputy and his captive before they saw me.
That might take awhile because I was gazing into an ocean of granite slabs. There had to be hundreds, maybe more. I wasn’t certain I’d be able to pick Sawyers and his captive out unless they started moving.
Then I saw him.
My chief deputy stood up.
Angie was still not in view, but I could see Sawyers looking down. Once, he pointed at something. That had to mean he was pointing it out to someone.
The last thing I wanted either individual to feel was the kind of surprise that would panic them. That ruled out triggering my siren. Or calling out on my car’s loudspeaker. Or sneaking up on them unawares and announcing myself.
I decided the least threatening way to reveal my presence was to slam my car door. Not in dramatic fashion. Like a normal exit. Then stand by my vehicle, unmoving. And see how my chief deputy reacted.
The sound caused Sawyers to crane his head in my direction. When he saw who it was, his next move was decisive and threatening.
He reached down behind the sizable red-granite tombstone he’d popped up from behind and half-jerked, half-hoisted Angie into view. She was still handcuffed, and he was using the chain on the cuffs like a handle. No doubt, as they’d walked, he’d steered her first one way, then another. It had to have been exhausting for her. I was too far away to tell how she was taking it.
I knew what a TV detective would do in a moment like this. Avoid being a hero. The strategy seemed apt.
I stepped away from my car and made an exaggerated show of unbuckling my duty belt. I opened my rear door and laid the belt, my gun still in its holster, on the seat. The only thing I clipped on the back of my pants belt was my walkie-talkie.
I was ready as I was ever going to be to make the longest walk of my life.
Chapter 72
I was guessing my chief deputy hadn’t deliberately taken Angie as a hostage. He’d probably needed a shield to get himself through a gauntlet of law officers, and she was the first person he could grab.
In that case, he shouldn’t be vested in keeping her. That was going to be my most immediate goal. Get him to release her. Start her walking to my car. Then stay behind and see if we could go to work on finding solutions to his immediate problems. That was standard negotiating procedure.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I was still twenty feet away from the pair when Sawyers made it clear that kidnapping Angie herself had been part of a plan. “Now you know how it feels.”
“How what feels, Sawyers?”
“Having someone you love fall into evil hands.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “Sounds like you do.”
His voice was soaked with menace. “Don’t try that with me. I’ve had as much training in talking crazies back from the edge as you have.”
“Probably more.”
“That’s right.” Then he laughed. Not in a pleasant way. A rueful way. “That’s what they train us to do, isn’t it? Get the bad guy to thinking he’s being understood.”
I’d arrived at this dangerous juncture wearing too many hats. When you are dealing with a hostage-taker, the scene commander and the negotiator need to be two different people. Here, I was both. More than that, I was a victim. Three roles.
Not good at all.
And we’d had no standoff phase. No time when the kidnapper made his demands. Sawyers had made none so far. Unless there was an oblique demand wrapped in the cryptic comment he’d greeted me with.
I wanted to ask for more information from him. But he was right. I’d never known how it felt to have a person you love handcuffed to a mass murderer. But I’d lost someone I loved dearly to 9/11. And on this very day, I’d experienced moments when I didn’t know whether Angie was dead or alive or whether she would make it through the events that were unfolding.
Until now. And the fear from the thought of this was paralyzing my tongue. So I said nothing.
The pause kept dragging out. Maybe that was what made it powerful.
Other than the three people involved in this standoff, the one participant that couldn’t be ignored was the fair-sized red-granite marker at Sawyers’s and Angie’s feet.
The closer I’d gotten to it, the more I’d suspected this was what my hunch had been about. To confirm that, I needed to be able to view it from the other side. See what was engraved on it. Then I should know. “There’s a reason why we’re here, isn’t there?”
Sawyers squinted. “Don’t play the dumb game with me.”
I chewed on that for a couple of heartbeats. “No games being played.”
“Always games. In this town, they never quit.”
I was about to ask for an example when Angie caught my eye. Gave her head a flick so slight I almost missed it. I had no idea what it could mean other than go in another direction.
I decided to try a neutral comment. “I’m in the dark here.”
He waved a hand toward the grave marker. “You really didn’t know about this?”
“Don’t know what this is about — I’ve never been in this part of the cemetery before.”
The tug Sawyers gave the handcuffs forced Angie to look up at him. “He’s lying, isn’t he?”
Angie’s voice squeaked, causing her to clear her throat. “Don’t think so.” Then added something I’m certain neither Sawyers nor I expected. “But I’m too far away to tell.”
“You’re what?”
“I can’t see his nostrils that well. When he lies, they flare, you know.”
My chief deputy gave up a sharp, unexpected laugh that came all the way from his belly. “They do, don’t they.”
Looking back later, I’d come to see this abrupt departure from the script as the turning point. But at the time it happened, it was only one more unexpected moment. Another one in a day already overflowing with them.
The next one followed right on its heels.
Sawyers steered Angie backwards for several feet. Then motioned that I could advance around the marker to the point where I could read what was engraved on it.
I’m sure everyone present — Angie, Sawyers, and the police I’d called for stationed secretly around the perimeter — sensed my hesitancy in moving forward. My feet felt like they were chained to an anchor. The marker had been a dike, holding back all those secrets, games, and lies that Sawyers had been inveighing against. Now, the dike was about to be breached.
Sawyers and Angie were standing stock-still, their eyes scrutinizing my face. And that was the last thing I remembered before realizing that I was squatting before the polished tombstone. Running my fingers over the rough channels cut by the graver’s chisel. And feeling my heart race at the implications of all that was written there.
Star Renae Stark McWhorter
“The Prairie Canary”
1948–1998
she sang of truth & hope
The tone in Sawyers’s voice was that of a man who realized too much water had flowed under the bridge.
“Don’t know if it’d have made any difference if we’d known a long time ago. But after your mom died, your dad married mine.”
Chapter 73
After resting a hand on the gravestone for a few moments, I felt compelled to stand. Put my head in motion. Sweep it back and forth. Give my eye every assistance in taking stock of where this grave was located.
Enlarging my field of vision didn’t help. I saw nothing that helped me understand. I’d never had reason to visit this part of the cemetery. My parents were buried closer to the entrance. And I’d attended no other burials in this part of the graveyard.
But you don’t serve four terms as sheriff without crossing paths with a sizable army of willing sco
uts. The name McWhorter wasn’t a common one. Someone would have seen this. Someone would have told me about it. But no one had.
I confessed as much to the two people watching me. “Can’t believe I never knew about this headstone.”
Angie half-turned to her captor, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t do this, Sawyers. Tell him.”
My chief deputy shifted his weight. The adrenaline of the chase was waning. He was getting tired. “Hasn’t been here that long.”
This wasn’t enough information to satisfy the FBI special agent. I noted the new assertiveness in her voice. “The upright marker was only delivered yesterday, Luke. Before that, there was just a flat grass marker here.”
That helped a little, but it didn’t begin to explain how the information being claimed on this upright slab had eluded me. “People read flat markers too. Any marker with the name McWhorter in this cemetery is eventually going to be noticed by somebody.”
Angie glanced at Tanner, then turned away to the extent that she could move her shoulders. It was his story. She was inviting him to tell it.
“Your family’s precious name wasn’t on the grass marker.”
I ran with that — to where I knew not. There were a half dozen major mysteries extant in that gravestone inscription, maybe more. “So the grave has been marked all these years as belonging to Star Renae Stark.”
“My mother.”
“And the Prairie Canary?”
“That’s the byline she put on her book.”
This confirmed another of my growing suspicions. He’d read the manuscript. But how long ago? “When did you order the new marker?”
“About three months ago.”
“So you’ve been planning all these killings that long?”
“Ever since I read the book.”
“Why’d you wait?”
“Wanted to be sure the grave was properly marked. And I don’t know, maybe I wanted to have this little reunion. My adoptive parents didn’t provide much in the way of a family. In a way, the McWhorters have always been the only family I’ve ever had. Even if I didn’t know it.”
This ruthless killer now seemed to be suffering, if not remorse, at least late-arriving feelings of humanity. I noticed it. Angie noticed it. And there was one more question that begged to be answered.
Why had he turned against the only family he said he’d ever known? Attempted to poison its only surviving member? And might still put a bullet in both Angie and me?
I stepped forward slightly. “What else did you learn from the Prairie Canary’s book?”
“So you haven’t read it?”
“Haven’t. Two hours ago, I didn’t even know it existed.”
He pointed toward the headstone. “Did you know about her before?”
I saw Angie’s chest rise, pause, then fall. The movement in her chin wasn’t quite so pronounced but the pattern was the same. She realized my dilemma. And wasn’t sure what I was going to say. Wasn’t sure, I sensed, what I should say.
That made two of us.
The man with the gun was unstable. Volatile. He’d killed on several occasions already. Twice on this day alone. He might be on the brink of killing again.
I could lie to him here. But that might be more dangerous than telling the truth. “I did know, though not very much.”
“Because your dad told you?”
“No. He saved her letters to him. But it was twenty years after her death before I found them. Just the other day, in fact.”
“Did she mention me?”
“She did. But only in passing.” That sounded harsh. Knowing he was hungry for context, I tried to provide him with some. “Her reference to you was brief. But she loved you. It wasn’t her choice to give you up.”
“The book told me that.” That comment was for me. The next one seemed to be for his own personal consumption. “Told me a lot of things.”
I let him have his private moment, not that there was anything strategic in my silence. Once again, in this encounter, I was at a loss about what to say, where to try to steer this conversation. Sawyers knew all the ropes of hostage negotiating. My training felt useless.
I was about to see if the family angle would provide any leverage when he brought it up again himself. “You know, one thing the book doesn’t explain.”
“Ask me.”
“What did she see in your father?”
“In her words?”
“That would be nice.”
“She said he was a man of principle in a town full of liars, cheats, and criminals.”
The look on Sawyers’s face was still quizzical. “I wonder what she’d have thought if she’d known Professor Carmichael was strangled with your dad’s belt.”
There was no hesitation in my reply. “I think she did know.”
“She mentioned it in her letters?”
“Not in so many words. But she warned him to watch his back — told him he’d crossed a line that had put him in peril.”
I saw a sneer start to develop on Sawyers’s face. But it was quickly replaced with confusion. “So, you don’t think Sheriff John was a murderer?”
“No, never. I think his belt was placed around the professor’s neck to control him. Blackmail him. Somebody else killed Carmichael.”
Knowing my father’s penchant for steering directly into a headwind, I had one other suspicion. When I read the Prairie Canary’s book, I might find out otherwise. Or I might never know. But I didn’t sense that now would be a good time to tell Sawyers about that particular suspicion. That my father had married his mother because it was the most effective way he could think of to tell both sides in Flagler’s religious wars where they could stuff it. And that they’d better be careful when and how they did it.
The Prairie Canary’s journalistic skills were going to blow the lid off secrets that none of Flagler’s deranged religious combatants wanted revealed. But Sheriff John had wagered they’d not harm the lady if she was married to the man who wore the star.
Not wanting to add to Sawyers’s gremlins, I went another route. “And I think I know why he married your mother.”
“Why was that?”
“Because he loved her.”
* * *
That short exchange broke the log jam. The quickness of his replies suggested he was eager to share his story. And the lack of tension in his voice hinted that he was holding nothing back. I decided to push the envelope. See how much I could learn. This might be my one and only chance.
“How did you know about the manuscript?”
“Miss Ruthie.”
“Our county librarian thought you needed to know about it?”
“I was the one who brought it up.”
“You went to her asking about a work called The Expiator’s Curse?”
“Didn’t know about anything like that. I went to her asking if she had anything in her files about Professor Huntgardner’s beloved fragment.”
“Why the sudden interest in the fragment?”
He worked his jaw before answering. “I started out as a detective, remember? And it wasn’t sudden.”
“So you’ve been investigating the fragment all along?”
“Investigating? Don’t think you could call it that. Well, maybe you could. But mainly, I was curious.”
“About what?”
“What a myth can do to a town.”
Why hadn’t I realized how perceptive my easygoing chief deputy was beneath that aw-shucks demeanor of his?
Our town had been in the clutches of myths, half-truths, and malicious rumors. More than a few, in fact. For more than seventy years. Ever since the arrival of that one man. The one associated with the fragment.
And Sawyers had hit the other bull’s-eye too.
These myths and half-truths and rumors had deade
ned our imagination and left us a sterile shadow of what we could have been. He’d voiced the reality in eight meaning-packed words. And I was supposed to be the one with the graduate degree in the value of ideas and ideas about values.
I couldn’t stop now. “When did you decide Professor Huntgardner had fabricated a myth?”
“That’s what makes my mother’s book so powerful. So beautiful.”
“She shows the fragment was a myth?”
“Doesn’t do that. Don’t know that she thought the fragment was a myth. Something else, really. She explains why if you can’t help someone you love realize what their myths and lies have done to them, you have to move on.”
“So she did? Move on?”
“Yes. And in ways I’ll never know the truth about, it cost her her life.”
“You’ve been settling scores?”
“Some of that. But I view it differently. I’ve been removing the causes of the cancer that infects this town.”
As this conversation unfolded, my awareness never left Angie. I was watching her for a clue to how I needed to respond to her presence. So far, she was trying to be as invisible as possible. She obviously realized that offering Sawyers’s deranged mind a reminder who it was he had in his grasp would be a development fraught with danger.
That caused my mind to make one of those instantaneous transports it’s capable of making. A feeling of déjà vu washed over me.
I was back at the cattle guard near the original crime scene at Professor Huntgardner’s house. In Angie’s SUV. Listening to Sawyers’s suggestion that the nine corpses might be victims of somebody’s vindictiveness. I recalled what my thought had been then: Lordy, is this whole thing about somebody’s sour grapes?
Now, I realized he had been talking about himself. Thanks to his mother’s book, his past had been dumped on him without warning like a collapsing mountainside. The power of the Prairie Canary’s prose had swept away his ability to think rationally. And in its place, a Niagara of rage had been loosened. He’d been taking his revenge against people who had mistreated him. Some of them were the crucial players mentioned in the Prairie Canary’s book.