The Silent Ones

by James Hunt

  The cop said nothing, only watched as Sam retreated into the bedroom and slammed the door so hard that it rattled the walls and ceiling.

  “Fuck.” Sam pressed her palms against her eyes and paced around the bed in the center of the room. “Fuck!” She hunched forward, her face beet red from the scream. And while Sam was furious with those reporters, who had taken Grant’s past completely out of context, being in the public eye didn’t scare her.

  What frightened her most was what it would do to Grant. Because as far as he’d come over the past two years, he had never been one for the limelight. Not even in his prime.

  Worried, Sam grabbed her phone, calling Grant in lieu of waiting for a text. She paced anxiously, the phone ringing in her ear, and then cursed when Grant didn’t pick up. She hung up, then tried to text him.

  Where are you? Call me when you can.

  Sam waited for a reply. But one minute went by, then two, then five, and ten, and Grant still hadn’t responded. She collapsed onto the edge of the bed, knowing that their future together was in jeopardy. She had wanted a happy ending for both of them, but after that news report, she wasn’t sure if they’d survive to see it.

  33

  It had taken five tries before Dennis found an unlocked vehicle with a pair of keys in them. With so many vehicles with push start ignitions, he’d read about cases of people leaving their keys in the car all the time. The public’s level of stupidity never ceased to amaze him.

  It also probably didn’t hurt that Dennis had trekked through a more well-to-do neighborhood, and the residents that lived here never thought that they’d be in the position to have their car stolen in the first place.

  During the drive, Dennis kept off the main roads and took the mountainous country roads on his trek east. The steep inclines and declines made for tough and slow going. But it was the quiet that drove Dennis mad.

  After ten years of nearly complete solitary confinement, Dennis loathed the quiet. The first few years were the hardest, having zero stimulation save for the few books he was given the opportunity to read, most of which he’d already read before.

  He’d tried masturbating for a while. He’d never been one for it, always found it too self-servicing, and while it provided a few seconds of orgasmic forgetfulness, it was always followed by an inevitable emptiness and an additional mess to clean up in his room.

  But when Dennis turned on the radio and listened to the newsbreak about Grant’s involvement with the death of Mary Sullivan, his mood brightened.

  Everything was falling into place. Brockwater and Winger were dead. He had the list of jurors, and that reporter was following every little breadcrumb that Dennis had left for her to find. And now, with Grant exposed to the world, he was susceptible to attack.

  Dennis had a long time to think about how to bring down the only man who had stopped him. And the more he learned about Grant, the more Dennis realized that the only way to truly beat the man was to thrust him into the light. Put him beneath the same microscope that Dennis had been put under during his own trial. Because while Dennis’s future did not depend on public opinion, Grant’s did.

  People would scream for Grant’s head on a silver platter, pinning the former detective against the wall. And once the man had no other place to go, Dennis would give Grant that final nudge over the edge, proving once and for all that the pair were two sides of the same coin.

  Dennis turned down the radio broadcast and fished out the disposable phone he’d bought from the cup holder. He dialed the number he’d memorized and waited for someone to pick up.

  “KVLR tip line,” the voice said.

  “I need to speak with Lacey White,” Dennis said.

  “Sir, if you have something—”

  “Tell her it’s Dennis Pullman.”

  The silence lingered for a quarter mile, and then the voice on the other end of the line changed from a man to a woman.

  “This is Lacey,” she said.

  “I listened to your report,” Dennis said. “I’m glad that you put those documents to good use.”

  Lacey was quiet for a minute, though the silence didn’t linger as long as before. “Why would Dennis Pullman contact me?”

  Dennis chuckled. “Because, like me, you’re hungry, looking to make your mark on the world. We can help each other with that. Do you have a pen and paper? You’ll need to write a few things down.”

  Dennis waited for Lacey to collect her items, and then gave her a pair of coordinates and a time for later in the evening, then made her repeat both back to him.

  “Very good,” Dennis said. “Be sure to bring your camera, and don’t be late. This will be the biggest exclusive of your entire life, and I don’t want you to miss it.”

  Dennis ended the call with Lacey in mid-question. It was important to leave her wanting more. He was confident she would show up, just as he was confident that Grant would find him. They were on a collision course with destiny, and as Dennis passed the entrance to the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face.

  34

  Isolated on a platform three stories up from the forest floor, Michelle Bentz had a three-hundred-sixty-degree bird’s eye view of the dense forest landscape that engulfed the ranger station where she was located.

  At fifty-two, Michelle was a seasoned veteran, with almost thirty years on the job, and she still wore her uniform with pride. She kept her shoulder-length gray hair pulled tight in a top knot bun, which was concealed beneath the fedora she wore to protect her from the elements.

  Years of working outside had left Michelle with plenty of wrinkles, but she kept in shape from all of the activity of patrolling the massive park. During her career patrolling these woods, she had seen her fair share of predators. But when the call came in over the radio from the park’s headquarters about Dennis Pullman, it was the first time she had been afraid of the wild that surrounded her.

  The police had told her to stay put, to lock the door, stay in the shelter, and keep away from windows until the helicopter arrived to airlift her out. But as Michelle lowered the binoculars, finding nothing in the dense foliage to the east, she walked to the window facing the west, struggling to grasp the reality of what was happening.

  Ten years ago, she and a jury of her peers had found Dennis Pullman guilty of murder in the first degree on all twelve counts that the prosecution had charged him with. She sat in that courtroom, watching that animal smirk as they laid out all of the evidence, reveling in gruesome detail how he killed his victims, how he scalped them when he was done and kept the skins as trophies.

  Michelle turned away from the window, lowering the binoculars as she pinned her back up against the wall. Her pulse raced, and her breathing had suddenly hyperventilated. She shut her eyes, reminding herself that help was on the way.

  But the images from the courtroom flashed in her memory. She saw the bruised and bloodied bodies, contorted in the small, shallow graves that Dennis had dug for them. The way that he discarded those people like they were nothing but trash. She didn’t want that to happen to her. And she wasn’t going to let that happen to her.

  Michelle mustered enough courage to push herself off the wall, keeping low and now avoiding the windows as she returned to the radio. “Station one, this is station seven, do you have an update on my evacuation?”

  She released her hand off of the talk button, and static blew through the speaker. She waited, growing more anxious the longer the silence lingered.

  “Station one, this is station seven, do you copy?” Michelle spoke with urgency, hoping it would propel her message toward her rescuers. But again, only static answered. She slammed her fist onto the table, knocking over the receiver.

  Sweat dampened the undershirt of her uniform, and Michelle paced the center of the small station that was feeling more and more like a coffin the longer she was forced to stay.

  “It’s fine.” Michelle shut her eyes and drew in a breath. “Everything is going t
o be fine. They said to stay put, they said that—”

  The sound of the gunshot and the shattered glass were instantaneous, and Michelle screamed as she hit the floor. She covered her head even though she was nowhere near the window and waited for more bullets. None came.

  Michelle glanced back to the window, which now lay in tiny pieces on the floor, like crushed ice. She crawled to the desk, unclasping the keys from her belt, and quickly rifled through the dozen brass and silver keys until she found the one that granted her access to the bottom drawer.

  She reached inside and removed a small .38 special snub nose revolver. When she opened the box of ammunition, bullets spilled and rolled over the wooden floorboards, getting stuck in the cracks.

  With shaking hands, Michelle loaded six bullets into the chamber, and then snapped it shut. Weapon loaded, her confidence returned a little and she rose to her hands and knees.

  The window that was shot out faced west. Michelle remembered that Pullman’s weapon of choice was a rifle, and that he was a good shot. Because of how high she was positioned at the top of the watch tower, she figured that he was probably one hundred yards out to give him a good angle, but he could be moving closer to her now.

  Michelle maneuvered to the door, the only entrance and exit point in the station. Outside was a full wraparound observation deck. Cover was best on the south side of the deck where the treetop foliage was thickest, and it just so happened to be where the staircase was located.

  But as Michelle started to make a move toward the door, she froze when her hand wrapped around the warm brass.

  The authorities had told her to stay put. They had warned her that going out into the wilderness was dangerous. But Dennis was here, now, already shooting at her, and she couldn’t reach the station on the radio. She could be dead before her rescue even arrived. And she knew these woods well enough to evade Pullman and escape.

  Plus, the four-wheeler was gassed up and ready to go downstairs. If she could make it out the door and down the steps without getting hit, then she was confident that Dennis wouldn’t be able to keep up.

  But navigating those steps from three stories up with a sharpshooter made the trip down a lot longer. And while there was cover from the trees, she wouldn’t mind something a little more solid to keep between herself and Dennis’s rifle.

  Michelle glanced around the station but couldn’t find anything that was sturdy and would still be easy enough for her to carry. She waited for another gunshot, hoping that another bullet would give her some indication of Dennis’s current position. But there was nothing.

  Knowing that the longer she waited, the closer that Dennis could be moving, Michelle finally stepped out onto the deck, keeping low, gun gripped in her right hand.

  Her knees popped as Michelle hunched forward, moving toward the south end of the deck. She paused at the corner, looking west where the last gunshot had come from, squinting into the trees.

  Decades of traversing the wilderness had sharpened her eyes, allowing her to pick out objects amongst the rocks and trees. She scanned the area in grids, ensuring that each one she passed was clear before moving onto the next. And only after she was certain Dennis wasn’t to the west did she emerge from the cover of the building and dart toward the staircase.

  Hunched forward, making herself as small as possible on the way down, Michelle moved as quickly as her old bones allowed. Every turn down the stairs caused her to look out over her shoulder, wondering if the next step down would be her last. Her job had always held an element of danger, but this was the first time she actually feared for her life.

  A gunshot thundered, and the wooden railing on the last stretch of stairs toward the forest floor exploded into splinters. The surprise from the gunshot cost Michelle her balance and she tumbled down the last few steps, the revolver flung from her hand.

  When she smacked against the rock and dirt, Michelle stretched her arms, fingers clawing in the warm soil as she pulled herself forward. She wasn’t sure if she’d been shot, but the fall had been painful.

  It was only from the burst of adrenaline brought on by her fight or flight response that she managed to get to her feet and head toward the four-wheeler parked nearby.

  Tears rolled from her eyes as Michelle straightened up and limped forward. She’d twisted her ankle, and even the slightest pressure triggered a rush of pain that penetrated the adrenaline’s efforts to block it.

  She was a sitting duck and she knew it, but she kept limping forward, those survival instincts overriding her conscious awareness.

  Sobbing by the time she reached the four-wheeler, Michelle fumbled with the starter, needing three tries before the engine finally caught. The run down had been so hectic and drained her energy so much that she could barely stay upright on the seat.

  Arms trembling, Michelle revved the throttle, and the four-wheeler jettisoned forward across the path.

  The moment the wind smacked her face, a sense of hope filled her. She had made it down the stairs, she had survived the gunshots, and she was now on the ATV heading toward safety.

  And the moment Michelle realized she would survive, a final gunshot rang out through the forest.

  The bullet entered Michelle’s lower back, exploding out of her stomach and leaving an exit hole the size of an orange. The pain was immediate, as explosive and as fleeting as the gunshot itself.

  Michelle’s arms went limp, and the ATV slowed as her body slumped left and was then bucked off the vehicle after the front left tire hit a rock.

  She didn’t feel the collision with the ground, but there was still enough consciousness in her mind to see the four-wheeler roll a few more feet before crashing into a tree trunk and coming to a stop.

  Ahead of Michelle was the open path from her park station. A path she had traveled thousands of times to arrive and leave work. Work that she loved. Work that she would never do again.

  35

  The news about Michelle Bentz was radioed to Mocks and Grant just before they reached the hallway mark to the forest. Both were quiet for a minute, the hum of the road filling the car’s interior, and then Mocks finally responded.

  “Copy. Have a team set up a perimeter, and have Forensics get a tent ready.” Mocks glanced up at the darkening afternoon clouds. “Looks like we might be in for an afternoon storm.”

  But while Mocks busied herself with the aspects of dealing with the body, Grant felt something shift inside of him. For the past day and a half, he had been playing catch up with evil incarnate.

  “Grant,” Mocks said, saying his name like she’d said it before. “Did you hear me? They found another one of those transponders on the body.”

  “How many is that?” Grant asked.

  “Four,” Mocks answered.

  Grant glanced down at his hand and extended a finger for every name he rattled off. “Jason Williams, Jimmy Shanahan, Harold Brockwater, Larry Winger, Michelle Bentz. And those are just the ones we know about.”

  “Grant, we’re going to catch him,” Mocks said. “Now that we know he’s going after the jurors, we can put them in protective custody. Hickem’s working to—”

  Grant punched the dash, cracking the plastic of the old Crown Vic, silencing Mocks and stoking his anger. “It’s nothing but a game to him! A fucking game!”

  Mocks was hesitant, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “This has been a difficult case—”

  “Difficult?” Grant laughed, feeling himself starting to slip off the edge. “I killed a woman, Mocks!”

  “Grant, that wasn’t your fault—”

  “Then whose was it?” Grant’s anger boiled. “How much more shit do I have to wade through before I’m done? How many more demons from my past am I going to have to face?”

  Mocks slammed on the brakes and veered off the road. The tires screeched from the sudden stop.

  “Enough!” Mocks reddened from her neck all the way to her cheeks. “I’m not going to watch you go down this road again.” Anger turned to exasper
ation, and she shifted in her seat, sitting side saddle. “Grant. Hey, look at me.”

  Grant slowly turned toward Mocks, and in that moment, he saw how much she’d grown. She wasn’t the rash young detective with a mile-a-minute-mouth, say-whatever-comes-to-mind girl that he’d been paired with all those years ago. She was a lieutenant, a wife, and a mother. And his best friend.

  “No one could have gone through what you did and made it out the other side,” Mocks said. “If I lost Rick and Chase…” She shook her head. “What you’ve been able to do, how you’ve been able to help people, to stop the evil in this world… It’s because of all the bad shit that you’ve experienced. All the terrible, life-altering shit you went through gave you a purpose.” Her eyes watered. “But your purpose isn’t meant to run yourself into the ground and give up a future that you’ve worked so hard to have. A future that you deserve.” She exhaled, and then wiped her nose along the sleeve of her jacket. “I’m not going to let you go down that path. And if that means doubting you, or challenging you, then you bet your ass that’s what I’m going to do. I love you, Grant. And so does Sam. But if you can’t forgive yourself, then it will kill you.”

  Grant opened the door and stepped out onto the side of the road, then slammed the door shut behind him. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the car, a few cars passing them on the highway. Mocks walked around and leaned right up next to him.

  “Everything’s falling apart, Mocks,” Grant said. “It’s like I’m caught in quicksand, and everything I do only pulls me down deeper.”

  Grant had never been one for discussing his feelings. It was one of the reasons why it had taken him nearly five years to get over his wife’s death, and to move on from the dark world of crime and police work. He let things fester and rot until it nearly destroyed him.

  “You know, my final time in recovery, I went through some pretty bad withdrawals,” Mocks said. “Chills, shaking, hallucinations. And while most of it turned to kind of a hazy memory that bled together, there was one moment that stood out above all of them.” She removed her hands from her pockets, the digits small, white, and bony. She formed both hands into fists. “I had wanted another hit so bad that I tried to break out of the room. But the door was three inches of steel, and there weren’t any windows for me to crawl out. I didn’t have any tools except the clothes on my back and the mattress and pillows.” She stared at her hands and flexed her fingers. “So, I started punching the door. It hurt, but every time I punched it I realized that it distracted me from how bad I wanted a hit. So, I punched until my knuckles bled and I broke my left hand. But I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream, I just focused every single bit of my rage into that door.”