She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be

by J. D. Barker

  Scratching.

  Still, the scratching. Coming from one of the bedrooms.

  I got up quietly and went through the pile of clothes on the table, tugged on my jeans. I found the shotgun on the counter where I left it the night before and gently picked it up, careful not to make a sound. I knew it was loaded and primed. I flicked off the safety with my index finger and started down the short hall.

  I found him in the pink room.

  A man of about five-ten, with long, tangled brown hair riddled with gray tucked up under a hat that reminded me of the kind worn by hunters, fur-lined with flaps over the ears. He wore dirty jeans, brown boots, and a blue flannel shirt.

  He had brought his own gun, some kind of hunting rifle. The weapon was propped up in the corner of the room.

  This man had his back to me, feverishly scribbling on the walls with a thick, black marker.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  With the barrel of the shotgun pointing at the man’s back, I noiselessly circled the room, following the outer wall past the closet, past the corner, until I was close enough to reach out and silently snatch the rifle. I put my head through the attached sling and hung it behind me, against my back. Then I pointed the shotgun at the stranger again.

  “Who are you?” I said, hoping my voice didn’t betray my nerves.

  The man continued to write.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  I cocked the shotgun, ejecting one unspent shell and loading another. A completely futile effort, but I hoped the sound would snap him out of whatever fugue held him.

  The marker still moving, he said, “Where’s Cammie Brotherton?”

  The man had a freakishly large forehead. His wiry hair looked like it had been cut with a knife and hung down over his face at varying lengths. His eyes had this blank, dead look. His beard was a tangled mess. I figured he was in his late forties or early fifties, but I found it hard to tell.

  “She’s supposed to be here,” he said. “This is where she said she’d be. David wants me to say hello to her. Have you seen Cammie Brotherton?”

  “Who are you?” I repeated.

  The man glanced over at me, then went back to his writing. “You’re Eddie’s kid, aren’t you?”

  With that, I nearly lowered the shotgun, but thought better of it. Something was wrong. The way he talked. Like someone speaking in the moments before they fell asleep.

  “How do you know my father?”

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  David Pickford is a beautiful man.

  “He and I go way back,” the man said. “Your momma, too.”

  I thought about the names on my list, the people from the yearbook. All dead but three. If the man in the GTO was Jeffery Dalton, then, “You’re Dewey Hobson, aren’t you?”

  He tilted his head as if the thought just registered with him. “Dewey Hobson, that’s right.”

  I hadn’t heard Stella get up. She was standing in the doorway, dressed in the same clothes as yesterday. We never did get to the laundry. She opened her mouth to say something, and I quickly shook my head. I handed her the shotgun and nodded toward Hobson. She understood, raising the barrel and pointing the weapon at him.

  I showed him both of my empty palms, the rifle still dangling on my back. “I’ve been looking for you, Dewey. You and all the others. You’re a hard man to find. Do you know where my father is hiding?”

  Hobson finished one wall and moved on to the next. If he saw Stella, he didn’t acknowledge her. “I’m here to see Cammie Brotherton. David wants me to say hello. Then I’m supposed to shoot her.” He pointed his index finger and thumb at me in the shape of a gun. “Pop, pop! Double tap, right in the forehead. Good and dead.”

  “You talked to David?” Stella said. “What exactly did he tell you?”

  Hobson said, “He told me to go to Cammie’s house and say hello for him, then kill her. Shoot her dead. He also said he loves you, Stella, and he’s cleaning up the whole mess, just for you.”

  Hobson dropped the marker then, turned, and walked quickly toward Stella. I thought for sure she’d shoot him, he came at her so fast, but she just stepped aside, and he walked right by as if she wasn’t there at all.

  Stella and I exchanged a look, she as confused as I, and we both followed after him.

  22

  Stack zipped up.

  He’d be damned if he’d be found dead with his pecker hanging out.

  The board above him creaked again.

  He knew the board. Top of the stairs, three deep into the hallway from the last step. He’d pulled up that damn board about a dozen times over the past decades, pulled out the existing nails, replaced them with 50mm screws, replaced those screws with longer screws. He tried gluing the board down. He even dumped talcum powder down around the seams, nails, and screws of that board as well as the ones around it, in hopes of softening the sound. None of that worked. The damn board still squeaked the second you put a little weight on it.

  Stack reached for his magnum, pointed the gun at the ceiling about two inches south of the light fixture, and squeezed off three quick shots.

  The fucking thing kicked back hard against his old bones, but this wasn’t his first rodeo. His aim held, and the shots landed within an inch of each other, leaving a gaping hole above.

  23

  We found Dewey Hobson standing in the living room, staring out the large window at the street. I came up beside him, keeping a safe distance.

  He said, “Cammie’s not home, is she?”

  “No, Dewey. We think she left yesterday.”

  “That’s too bad. I really wanted to say hello, for David.”

  “Do you know where she might have gone? Where she would go if she had to leave here?”

  Hobson said nothing, his eyes fixed on some point across the street.

  “Would she have gone to my father? Does she know where he is?”

  Hobson said, “He’ll be here soon.”

  “My father is coming here?”

  “No, David is. They were right behind me.”

  I looked back at Stella. She was already moving—racing around the kitchen, shoving our clothes back in our bags, grabbing the books from the table.

  The large window shattered a millisecond before I heard the shot.

  A bullet struck Hobson in his left shoulder. He jerked back but remained standing.

  A white SUV had stopped in the middle of Windmore Road. The woman who had fired the shot stood beside the open driver-side door in a long, white trench coat, a thin trail of smoke drifting up from the barrel of her nickel-plated semiautomatic pistol, a smug look on her face.

  “Down!” I shouted, crouching behind the wall under the window, hoping the brick would be enough.

  Hobson didn’t move. He remained still as the shoulder of his shirt bloomed red with blood.

  Three more bullets peppered the wall behind us. I reached out and yanked Dewey’s leg. He lost his balance and fell beside me.

  Stella ran in from the other room, our bags in one hand and the shotgun in her other. “The neighbors will call the police. We need to get out of here!”

  Another shot. The bullet struck a tall lamp in the corner of the room.

  I raised my head just enough to see outside. “I think there’s three of them. We open up on them with everything we’ve got and make a run for the car.” I quickly put on my backpack, pulled Stella’s bag closed, and checked the rifle. “We go on three. Ready?”

  Stell
a nodded.

  Another bullet ricocheted off the brick just below the windowsill.

  I started to count down. The second SUV skidded to a stop behind the first before I reached two.

  24

  Stack heard a heavy weight hit the floor directly above his head, then roll down the stairs. Plaster rained down on him from the newly created window from his bathroom to the second floor.

  Never one to waste a trip, when Stack got the beer from the kitchen, he took the opportunity to fill his left pocket with twenty-nine rounds of .357 ammo from the box in the utility drawer beside the refrigerator. All he had in the house. He clicked open the cylinder, removed the three spent shells, and replaced them with fresh bullets. Then he flushed the toilet, opened the door, and stepped back out into his living room.

  The man who came down the stairs the hard way was lying in a heap against the coat closet door. His white trench coat had twisted around his body, and his right leg had gotten caught up in the shotgun slung over his shoulder and hidden under the coat. His fibula split halfway between his knee and ankle, broke through the skin, and stuck out from a hole in his white slacks. If the man had still been alive, that leg would be bothersome. As it currently stood, one or more of Stack’s shots caught him between the legs and exited out the small of his back—both of those wounds looked far more painful.

  Stack froze in the living room, not out of shock or fright, but because his hearing was terrible and he couldn’t tell if there were more people upstairs.

  25

  From the corner of the shattered front window, Stella and I watched Latrese Oliver step out in her familiar flowing white trench. Her left arm was in a sling, partially hidden under the coat. If she carried a weapon, I didn’t see it.

  The old woman looked up and down the street, then at the bullet-riddled front of Cammie Brotherton’s small house. “Are you in there, sweet Stella?”

  Stella, who was still crouched low on my right side, started to rise. I shot her a quick glance and shook my head.

  She froze.

  “I know it was an accident, dear,” Oliver said. “You didn’t mean to hurt me, did you? It was all because of him—Dalton, Preacher, whatever he calls himself these days—he confused you with his little escape plan, told you things, didn’t he? Untrue things. Not a single question of ‘would you like to leave?’ Instead, he took you from me, then left you alone in the streets—a bird from her cage lost to flutter in solitude on broken wings. You can come back, Stella! You know I love you. Nobody loves you like I do! I forgive you for what you did to me!”

  Stella stirred but said nothing.

  Oliver took a step closer to the house, favoring her left leg. “That Dalton, he’s a hitman, you know. It’s one thing to kill those who deserve it, but he simply kills for money. He puts a price on a head and accepts it—fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters—he doesn’t care, he’s killed them all. I taught you values, I taught you morals, I made you the grandest of women. Come home to me, continue your studies, and all is forgiven!”

  “You imprisoned me!” Stella shouted. “Made me kill for you!”

  “I kept you alive, dear, kept you safe. I brought you what you needed. Who else would do such a thing? And you’re overdue! Two days! You must be famished! Let me feed you, Stella. I know exactly what you need! I have one all picked out! One might not be enough anymore. Perhaps two or three.” Oliver took another step closer and frowned. “The Thatch boy is in there too, isn’t he? With that awful Hobson fellow? I can smell them. Put them down, Stella, then come home with me. I have a new place, a wonderful place. You’ll find it so lovely. Let me give you what you need, my sweet, sweet girl. All is forgiven, I promise you!”

  Hobson was looking down at Stella’s hands, her long, black gloves back on. He turned back to the window as a man rounded the SUV.

  “David,” Stella whispered.

  David held up his wrist and tapped the front of his watch. “We’re on a bit of a time crunch, Latrese. How about we save the bonding speech for back at Charter, huh?” He smiled toward the house. “Hey, Jack? Did you like the Jameson I left for you back in Pittsburgh? I heard it was your favorite. I’ve got another bottle here in the car. It’s all yours. I just need you to do a little something for me first. Nothing serious, just a little favor. You’ve got a gun, right? I bet you’ve got a cannon in there. All loaded up, ready to go? I need you to point your gun at Dewey Hobson’s head, get it right up on there, nice and close.”

  My arms swung around, and the rifle with them, the narrow barrel less than an inch from Hobson’s forehead. I tried to point it away, but my limbs wouldn’t respond.

  David then said, “When you’ve got the shot lined up, I need you to—”

  A blast roared through the house as Stella raised her shotgun and pulled the trigger right next to my ear. The entire world went silent, David’s voice, Stella and Hobson breathing near me, all of it replaced in a millisecond by a high-pitched ringing. I dropped the rifle, and it fell to my side on the sling. I covered both ears with my hands, but the ringing only grew louder.

  Stella slapped my back, then began firing toward David, toward Oliver and the other people in white. She shouted something at me, right in my face, but I couldn’t hear her. Her eyes jumped to the rifle dangling from my neck before going back to the window. I remembered the plan, scooped up the rifle, and fired—each shot nothing but a distant thud buried beneath the ringing.

  Stella got to her feet and grabbed Hobson. She was out the door in an instant, pulling the man behind her. She released him just long enough to get a firm hold on the shotgun and squeeze off a series of shots, peppering the SUVs, then tugged at him again, pulling him across the yard. One shot struck the woman with the nickel-plated pistol and she fell back against the driver’s seat, then to the ground. I fired, too. Four shots rained against the side of the vehicle. A fifth blew the front tire of the first SUV. I fired at a man huddled low in the passenger seat of Oliver’s SUV while Stella took aim at a man who had rounded the vehicle and was now kneeling beside it, using the fender as cover. I shoved Hobson toward our Mercedes, fired another round, then yanked open the back door and pushed him inside. I threw our bags in behind him.

  Oliver stood in the middle of the road, oblivious to all the gunfire, her eyes locked on Stella. She started toward her, a slow shuffle. David had taken cover somewhere. I didn’t see him.

  Stella froze at the sight of Oliver, the old woman creeping toward her, raising her one good arm, the other trapped in the sling. I shouted her name but heard nothing over the ringing. I tugged at her arm, pulled her toward the car, got her into he passenger seat. Then I slid over the hood and got in too.

  Oliver was still walking toward us.

  “Go,” Stella’s lips mouthed silently. “Please… Go. Go! Go!”

  I did.

  The Mercedes roared to life and I shifted into reverse, flooring the gas and spinning us around. The wheels screamed against the blacktop, grabbing the pavement as I shifted into drive and rocketed down Windmore Road, the back end sliding around the bend. A quarter mile away, three white Ford Expeditions flew past us in the opposite direction, heading back toward the house.

  The ringing still shouted in my head, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the sound of the approaching sirens.

  26

  Stack heard something.

  Well, Stack thought he heard something.

  Fucking hearing.

  He edged closer to the stairs, considered taking the man’s shotgun, then decided the magnum would do him just fine.

  He stepped around the body at the base of the stairs, doing his best to keep the magnum trained forward, while pulling himself up the steps with his other hand on the railing. He’d made it up four of those steps before his screaming muscles and joints reminded him that he hadn’t taken an Aleve since sometime the night before. The rattling bottle in his right pocket (not to mention the ammunition in his left) did little to help conceal his current locat
ion, but truth be told, it would take a special bad guy to miss an eighty-two-year-old man clawing his way up the stairs in some kind of geriatric chase. He half hoped someone would shoot him before he got to the top so he wouldn’t have to climb the rest.

  This time when he heard something, he was sure he heard something—a cough.

  Stack took another step. “I’m a retired police detective who’s been jonesing to fire a gun at a trespassing piece-of-shit for the better part of two decades. That last one felt real nice. I don’t know who you are, but you better get the fuck out of my house before I make the last of these steps!”

  The shouting took the wind from his lungs, and Stack had to take a break a half dozen steps from the top. He didn’t sit, although he would have liked to. Instead he stood still, gripped the handrailing—the only thing keeping him from tumbling back down the steps like the man earlier, and drew in a series of breaths.

  He never had a heart problem.

  All the things wrong with his body read like a laundry list, but his ticker had never been part of the problem. Things changed, though, and if the pain in the left side of his chest was any indication, his heart was about to become another line item on his health insurance.

  The pain in his chest was dull, a deep-rooted thump reminding him of his days playing football back in high school. A lifetime ago, the memories creeping back from someplace in his head as if only yesterday. Stack’s brain was funny like that. He couldn’t remember what he ate for dinner two days ago or even what he watched on television last, but at this particular moment he smelled the wet grass of the field behind the Macintosh farm, the scent of the dirt. He remembered the sun beating down from the east for the first time since the previous fall, and he remembered the pain of Henry Otter when he broke the line, got past Daryl Luthing, and barreled into him shoulder first, into his left flank. When the hit came, Stack remembered his mind telling him to hold the ball, and he fully intended to do that, but with Daryl’s shoulder smacking into him like a runaway bull came the sharp crack of a couple ribs, the complete evacuation of all air from his lungs, and the most godawful pain Stack had ever experienced. The football shot out of his hands straight up into the air and landed directly into the arms of Ernie Neidert, who ran it back for a touchdown. All of this played out in the second or two it took for Stack’s beaten body to crumble to the ground.