The Righteous Path

by James D F Hannah

  THE RIGHTEOUS PATH

  A Parker County Novel

  James D.F. Hannah

  Copyright © 2019 by James D.F. Hannah

  First Down & Out Books Edition July 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design by Eric Beetner

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  The Righteous Path

  About the Author

  Books by the Author

  Preview from Murder by Moonlight by Vincent Zandri

  Preview from A Place for Snakes to Breed by Patrick Michael Finn

  Preview from To Bring My Shadow by Matt Phillips

  To Messrs. McBain and Parker,

  without whom I might have never written a word.

  Your stories will long inspire.

  Chapter 1

  Diggtown was an unincorporated part of Parker County, outside Serenity city limits, so it fell under the sheriff’s department jurisdiction. Once upon a time, it had been a coal camp built to house workers. The narrow road reflected the history, lined on both sides by identical A-frames, one right after another. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

  Ask people and they’d tell you this shit never used to happen. Neighbors stayed tight then. Everyone kept an eye on each other. You caught the neighbor’s kid doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, you didn’t think twice about breaking a switch and laying a beating on the kid’s ass. Try that now and you’d have cops knocking at your door. End up in court for laying hands on someone’s precious angel. All of it ignoring how the little demon had a puppy tied to a tree, half a gallon of gasoline, a box of matches, and a smile that implied the kid would hit full-fledged psycho mode before he had a high school diploma in his hands. Yeah, those days were long gone, folks. What you got in its place, you got shit like tonight.

  The coal companies sold the A-frames years ago, and now the homes sat in various states. Some wore fresh paint, flowers in the front yard, kept the lawn mowed. Might be a loose shingle or two, but there were still the signs someone took time and cared, still had a sense of pride. Other houses hardly qualified as shacks, tumbling toward oblivion. Weeds up to the waist bloomed like actual flowers. Windows busted out, paint chipped and faded away to nothing. Year after year of coal dust filled cracked wood and made houses seem filthy in a way a power washer and five coats of paint would never fix.

  Now, you didn’t even know the name of whoever lived next to you anymore. You weren’t supposed to, everyone wanting to be left alone. You didn’t watch over your neighbor, and they sure as hell didn’t watch over you. You got told to mind your own goddamn business—you knew what was fucking good for you.

  It’s a different world, Sheriff Matt Simms thought as he pulled the cruiser into the driveway.

  He had been in bed when Crash called, the cell phone breaking his concentration as he stared at the bedroom ceiling, Rachel snoring next to him. He had been tired but couldn’t sleep. Where was the justice in that?

  Crash only told him it was “bad.” Crash, only a few years out of college—little more than a kid in Matt’s mind—didn’t seem to have any true gauge on what qualified as bad. Matt—sitting in his second term as sheriff, and an MP before that during a stint with Uncle Sam—he understood bad. Bad was the teddy bear on the side of the road next to a three-car pileup. Bad was explaining to a man how his wife ended up dead in a motel with a syringe hanging out of her arm. Bad was seeing a couple realize now they had grandchildren to raise and funerals to plan.

  Matt dressed in jeans and a sheriff’s department polo shirt. He cinched the belt to the last notch, and the jeans still hung loose on his frame. Nothing fit anymore. He wondered if he needed to break down, buy new clothes.

  He shook his head. Nope. Refused. He figured there were only two outcomes for his situation: either shit would get fixed and he’d put the weight back on, and everything would fit again, or it wouldn’t get fixed, and the last bit of clothing he would need to buy would be the suit for his funeral. Either way, he couldn’t justify paying fifty bucks for new jeans.

  He kissed Rachel on the forehead before he left. She never stirred. It was just after midnight.

  There were two sheriff’s cruisers already parked across the street. The deputies had parked there so Matt could pull up into the driveway, so he wouldn’t have far to walk. He hated that.

  Charlotte “Crash” Landing came out the front of the house as Matt closed the cruiser door. Twenty-five, she could have been Matt’s daughter. Short and wiry, Crash wore her dark hair just long enough for a ponytail. She looked no-nonsense, dark eyes focused and intense, more intimidating than her size implied, and she used it to her advantage. She was local, with a degree in criminology from WVU, but she bypassed the state police option. Came straight from college and applied for an open position with the sheriff’s department.

  It was only a six-person department, and even though she had less seniority than every other deputy, it was agreed when Matt selected a new chief deputy, that Crash was the best option. Part of that may have been because no one wanted to deal with the extra paperwork that came with the job, whereas Crash had boundless enthusiasm for the minutiae that drove everyone else nuts.

  Matt was halfway up the sidewalk when Crash met him and said, “We’ve got this if you want to go on back home.”

  “The hell you say. You don’t drag a man from bed, the middle of the night, then send him home. I was content laying and listening to my wife snore.”

  “Rachel snores?”

  “Used to be worse. Probably used to it now. The key to a good marriage is overlooking the shit that would drive you crazy if they were anyone else.”

  “You should write a book, offer up advice of that sort.”

  “I believe people would profit from my wisdom and years of experience.” Matt looked toward the house. “Ambulance take ’em already?”

  “Right before you got here.” Crash flipped open a notebook. “Their names are Gary and Wilma Campbell. Both early seventies. They came home from a meeting at church. From the look of it, the perps—”

  “‘Perps?’”

  “Yeah, perps. Perpetrators.”

  “I know what it means; I just never heard anyone use the term before who wasn’t Dennis Franz.”

  “What do you suggest I call them?”

  “There’s plenty of choice words but none we can type into a report. But please continue.”

  “Anyway, the perps—” Crash paused for a beat, letting the word hang there, then shrugged and soldiered on. “It looks like they came in through the rear entrance. Busted the doorknob off of the back door. They tore the place up before the Campbells got home.”

  “Either of the Campbells able to talk?”

  “No. Someone called 911 and Tim caught the call.”

  Tim Martin was a deputy who handled night duties five nights out of seven. Divorced, no kids, didn’t mind being out all night. He didn’t talk much. Seemed to like the solitude.

  “Anyone see anything?” Matt
said.

  “Haven’t had a chance to start a canvass, but I wouldn’t want to put money on the possibility. This late at night, no one pays attention to what’s going on next door.”

  “Once upon a time, someone would have been.”

  Crash pointed to the house on the other side of the road. It was a mirror image of where she and Matt stood, except no lights on inside, the grass overgrown, “No Trespassing” signs posted on the fence.

  “World’s not 1955 anymore,” she said. “It’s not Leave It to Beaver, or whatever you people watched. People want left alone.”

  “I get it. I don’t have to like it, though.”

  Matt followed Crash inside. Matt guessed the place looked the same way it had for thirty, forty years. The furniture might have changed out at some point—the couch seemed like it had cost a penny or two around a few decades ago—but otherwise it had been a house in stasis. Until tonight.

  The living room furniture had been ripped open and its insides pulled out, foam and stuffing all over the floor and couch. Photographs of grandchildren had been yanked from walls and the glass shattered. A bowling ball rested inside the frame of an ancient console TV. Matt noticed pools of blood drying into the carpet.

  Broken shards of dishes were scattered across the kitchen linoleum. The wooden handles of knives jutted out of the wall as if from a circus act. Brown streaks were smeared around it.

  Matt sniffed and made a face. “Jesus, that’s what I think it is, isn’t it?”

  “There’s urine on the hallway carpet,” Crash said. She gestured at the brown streaks. “We’re thinking feces and not chocolate icing.”

  Matt rubbed at his chin with a balled fist. “Tim called the paramedics when he came on scene?”

  “Yes. He found the Campbells unresponsive. Mrs. Campbell was unconscious in the living room, so probably that’s her blood in there. Mr. Campbell was here in the kitchen. He had the phone in his hand when we found him.”

  “What do we know about the Campbells?”

  “Mr. Campbell’s retired. Owned a group of local grocery stores until the big chains made it too much to keep that up, so he closed ’em seven or eight years ago.”

  “What about family? Kids? Photos looked like there are grandkids.”

  “We found an address book next to the base for the cordless phone and called a daughter in Ohio.”

  “How’d she sound?”

  “Tim made the call, not me. He said the daughter didn’t say much. Asked if they were okay and said she’d be here in the morning.”

  Matt surveyed the scene. The more he looked at it all, the angrier he got. Enough years doing this, and the anger never went away. “It won’t do much, but we’ll need to canvass the neighbors. Maybe someone’s got a security camera that recorded something, or they’ve got a weak bladder and had to get up to piss, or the dog needed let out. Something.”

  “We’ll get on it, Matt.”

  They walked back outside. Matt sucked in lungfuls of cool night air, trying to push out the fetid stink. He leaned against the house, head resting on the wall, eyes closed.

  Crash stood there without a word.

  “How you feeling?” she said.

  Eyes still closed, Matt said, “Fucking perfection. Couldn’t be better.”

  “Talk to Carl?”

  Matt’s eyes flickered open. “The other day.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “About however you would expect him to be doing. He’s at his most Carl-like state.”

  Crash smiled. “That has to be exhausting.”

  “Mostly for his sister.”

  “He still living with her?”

  “Until his place gets fixed up. A wheelchair ramp, rework the bathroom, things like that. All accessibility issues.”

  “Tell him if he needs anything, we’re there.”

  “I will.”

  “You think he’s gonna want to talk to any of us anytime soon?”

  “His call, not mine, and it’ll be on his time, no one else’s. Takes time, Crash. Carl’s a proud man.” Matt pushed himself upright, flat onto his feet. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment first thing, so I’ll be late coming in.”

  “We can handle things from here.”

  “I know you can.”

  “Go home, Matt. Listen to Rachel snore.”

  Matt nodded and got into his cruiser.

  Chapter 2

  Under normal circumstances, the nurse made Matt put on one of those ridiculous gowns—the one with the open back and the tie around his neck and his ass showing to the world—but this was just a follow-up, talking over test results from the previous week’s blood work, so he got to keep on his jeans and black button-up with “Parker County Sheriff’s Department” sewn into the chest.

  He sat in the exam room, hands on his legs, looking at the wall. He wished he could be someone able to kill time staring at a cell phone: flinging birds across ravines, battling warring societies, liking photos of last night’s dinner. Hell, he still had a flip phone. Phone calls and text messages. Simple and functional.

  Though when waiting in the exam room, having a way to murder the minutes that dragged their asses across the floor would have been nice. Instead, Matt listened to the hum of the nurses outside chattering away about the TV show from the night before, asking about the new cardiovascular surgeon and if he was single, and complaining because of the new paperwork the insurance companies required for billing.

  When that got old, Matt turned to the methodical tick of the wall clock. The clock was a gimme from a pharmaceutical rep advertising a diabetes drug Matt knew was pulled off the market two years ago after it was traced back to a string of strokes in patients. Which, he guessed, had jack-shit to do with whether the clock itself kept accurate time. But still.

  Dr. Fordham came in, manila folders tucked underneath his arm. Fordham was older than Matt, stocky with a bloom of white hair encircling his head, and a flat, twisted nose that might have gotten that way from a punch years ago. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and an expression like he was pissed off. He always looked that way, like all of life’s little annoyances had come together to a rolling boil and he wasn’t ready to dismiss a single fucking one of them.

  Fordham plopped onto a small stool and rolled across the exam room until his knees almost met Matt’s. In the time he had been seeing Fordham, Matt discovered the man lacked any concept of respect for personal space.

  The doctor flipped open the top folder and tilted his head back, deepened his look of disgust, and closed the folder. He stared at Matt for seconds that seemed like days. Matt stared back. This was how it always played with the old man.

  “Good news,” Fordham said. “You’re cured.”

  “Awesome,” Matt said, half rising out of his chair. “It’s been great to know you, Doc—”

  “Sit your ass down. You’re still riddled with cancer.”

  Matt collapsed back into his seat. “You have a hell of a way of dropping news on a patient.”

  “It’s taken me years to develop this bedside manner. Don’t make plans on me changing it soon.”

  Fordham opened the folder again and leafed through several pages. His face softened as he looked up at Matt.

  “You ever a drinker?” Fordham said.

  “No more than anyone else. The occasional beer and whatnot.”

  Fordham set the folder aside. “Which is why I’m fucking mystified by this. Because what you have is hepatocellular carcinoma, which you normally see in hepatitis B and C patients or morbidly obese diabetics, of which you’re neither. While we caught it too far along for surgery to be an option, the chemo was holding it at bay. That window’s closing now, though.”

  “Am I to presume that I’m still dying?”

  “Yes. Faster than before, even. The cancer’s becoming more aggressive, as if you pissed it off.”

  “I piss people off. Can’t imagine it being any different f
or malignant cells.”

  “We need to get you moved up the donor’s list as soon as possible. Your clock is ticking hard and fast.”

  Matt looked down at his hands. He remembered when they’d been strong and substantial. When he’d played football in the army. When he’d gone hunting on weekends, holding the weight of the rifle as he lined a buck up in his sights. When he lifted Rachel and carried her into the bedroom, and the way her body trembled with anticipation.

  “How soon?” Matt said. “Before you can hook me up with a new liver?”

  “I don’t know,” Fordham said. “You cut lines on these things, it’s not like skipping the popcorn aisle at the movie theater. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”

  “Not a problem. If you die, I don’t want to dump my bill on Rachel.”

  “She thanks you for that, as well.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s good. She takes it all in stride.”

  “I hope you lie better than that to other people.”

  Matt raised his open palms into the air as if swearing an oath. “She’s doing how you’d think she was doing if you told anyone their husband was dying.”

  Fordham flipped through the manila folders. His finger traced a path down a sheet of lined notebook paper clipped to computer printouts. “You guys just got remarried, right?”

  “Three months ago. Right before the diagnosis.”

  “Goddamn. Wasn’t she married before that?”

  “She was. We were, I mean. Married. We divorced a few years back, and she got married to an attorney.”

  “She left that to come back to your sorry cancer-filled ass?”

  “And here I thought it was just my liver with the cancer. Great. But so you know, the attorney cheated on her. Plus, he was laundering drug money for white supremacists.”

  “Nonetheless, she still left him for you?”