Dead to the World

by B. D. Smith

  Anne called Doug, who told her to stay where she was. “Don’t pull a Jack Walker here Anne. This woman is a trained killer.”

  Doug was on the way – maybe five minutes out, and quickly alerted the sheriff’s office to dispatch deputies from the other end of town. It looked like they might have a hostage situation.

  Anne risked another look around the corner of the building just as Katie came out the front door, followed closely by Binford, who had a firm grip on Katie’s belt with one hand, and held a Ka-Bar Marine Corps fighting knife in her other hand. Judging from the knife’s bloody blade, Lou had already used it on someone inside the bar that morning. Katie appeared unhurt but seemed in shock.

  Thinking back on it later, Anne wasn’t sure why she did it, exactly, but she suddenly stepped out of the alley into view and caught the attention of Binford and her hostage. Binford smiled warmly when she caught sight of Anne, and turning toward her, let go of Katie. Katie slowly slid along the front of the building away from Binford, whose attention was now locked on Anne. Binford, whose smile was now more of a rictus of rage, waved her Ka-Bar at Anne, and crouching into a fighting stance, began to close on her.

  Anne reached for her sidearm, but it slipped from her grasp, clattering on the pavement. Lou snarled when she saw this. Rather than retreating, as Lou no doubt expected, Anne flexed her knees, extended her right foot forward, toe pointed toward Binford, and slid her back foot sideways, perpendicular to her forward foot. As she positioned herself in a classic fencer’s stance, with her trailing arm cocked up at a jaunty angle, Anne pulled out her steel baton, extended it with a quick snap of her wrist, and leading with her forward foot, took two quick steps and lunged.

  Reacting to the lunge, Binford anticipated a high outside attack by Anne, targeting the knife arm. Instead, Anne attacked high inside, thrusting the baton like a foil directly at Binford’s chest. The strike was off a bit, with the baton tip catching Lou squarely in the throat.

  Given Anne’s strong lunge, and Lou’s corresponding move toward her, the baton struck with considerable force. Letting out a harsh squeak of surprise, Lou dropped her weapon. Falling forward, she did a face plant on the sidewalk. Anne quickly cuffed her before rolling her over and checking the extent of the damage to her throat. Ignoring for a moment Binford’s difficulty breathing, Anne leaned down and spoke softly into the woman’s ear.

  “Looks like that fencing class my sophomore year ended up paying off after all.”

  19.

  Jack Walker was still in intensive care when they were allowed in to see him the following day at the hospital in Bangor. The surgery had gone well, and he was expected to make a full recovery. He was still quite groggy and disoriented, and Doug and Anne avoided pointing out what a stupid move it had been for him to take on Louise Binford without any backup. Jack had no memory of the shooting or its aftermath, and they gave him a brief recap, describing the race to the Mayo hospital in Dover-Foxcroft and how Tim Wakeland had no doubt saved his life. Jack dozed off a half hour or so into their visit, and they quietly stepped out.

  Louise Binford had also been transferred down to Bangor for surgery on her crushed larynx. Stopping on the second floor, Anne and Doug identified themselves to the state trooper standing guard outside Binford’s room and briefly looked in on her. Lou glared back at them from her bed. Her neck was wrapped in thick bandages and she was unable to speak. Binford’s face was beet red and she writhed under the sheets in rage. Her mouth moved but no sounds came out. Anne managed to lip-read several of the silent curse words and winked at her in response. One of Lou’s hands was handcuffed to the bed frame, but she raised her free hand and offered an enthusiastic middle finger to her visitors, who both smiled broadly back at her.

  Unfortunately for Anne, one of the clerks at the True Value Hardware store across the street from Allie Oops had caught her takedown of Lou Binford with his iPhone and quickly posted it to his social media accounts. The video soon went viral with the hashtag “Touché,” and it made the national news that evening. At first Anne was able to avoid much of the resulting attention by taking a few personal leave days, turning off her phone, and spending a lot of time on the water and with their dog Jack. But as the Whoopie Pie Festival weekend arrived, and everyone at the sheriff’s office was needed to help with crowd control and security, Anne was forced out of hiding and for a few hours on Saturday morning had to endure a seemingly non-stop onslaught of well-wishers, reporters seeking interviews, and people wanting photo ops. The University of Michigan, Anne’s alma mater, even got into the act, using footage of her fencing lunge to feature the skills she learned on campus and to highlight the real-world applications of the U of M student sports programs.

  Anne hadn’t slept well the night before. Lying awake in the dark next to Doug, she kept replaying the encounter with Louise Binford over and over again in her mind - the look of calm calculation on Louise’s face as she moved in her knife fighter’s crouch toward her and the large bloodied blade of the Ka-Bar in Lou’s hand. The sound of Katie shuffling away down the sidewalk, and the country music drifting out of Allie Oops. Anne couldn’t remember making the conscious decision to take a fencer’s stance and to lunge – there hadn’t really been time.

  For once the weather cooperated for the Whoopie Pie festival weekend, with temperatures in the seventies and clear skies. Doug had never particularly been drawn to whoopie pies – circular slabs of cake, traditionally chocolate, with a marshmallow fluff filling. They were too rich, too sweet for his taste, but lots of people would converge on Dover-Foxcroft in June every year to enjoy a wide variety of creative flavor combinations and vote for their favorites. Bakers from across Maine and beyond were increasingly being drawn to the competition and the crowds of Whoopie Pie Festival weekend. The festival had started out small in 2010, but had grown each year, and now drew more than five thousand people, making it the largest event in Piscataquis County, outdrawing even the Piscataquis Valley Fair. And it wasn’t just whoopie pies. A 3K race was held early Saturday morning, a number of bands from around the state provided constant musical entertainment, and the streets were lined with more than a hundred vendors hawking various crafts and food items. There were also rides and games for the kids, a best-dressed pet contest, and of course a whoopie pie eating contest.

  Anne was getting increasingly freaked out by all the unwanted attention, all the people who would grab their necks in faux fear when they saw her, and finally found a pretty good hiding place. She sat in the deep shadows at the rear of the main entrance tent for the festival, watching as Kiwanis Club volunteers took festival goers’ entrance fees in exchange for the wooden tokens that they could in turn use to purchase whoopie pies from the various vendors. It was a logical place for Anne to be positioned. A lot of cash was coming into the entrance tents for the festival, where it was kept in metal boxes and periodically shuttled under guard up the street to the Bangor Savings Bank. And although she was mostly hidden from view, Anne enjoyed a good vantage point from which to watch the passing parade of people intent on trying the different whoopie pie flavor combinations on offer.

  It was getting warm in the tent and Anne was struggling to stay awake when a familiar face came into view at the festival ticket counter right in front of her. Nigel Underwood, fresh out of the hospital and sporting crutches, a bright green leg cast, and two bodyguards, reached the front of the line and handed the cashier his credit card, asking for three admissions, each of which included a set of wooden tokens and a hand stamp. Moving up beside the cashier, Anne caught Nigel’s attention, curious to see how he was going to address the loss of his drone queen.

  “Nigel. Great to see you up and about. What are your plans for finding someone to take over for Louise Binford? Is there a replacement being flown in from somewhere?”

  It took Nigel a moment to place Anne, and he frown
ed when he did.

  “No thanks to you – we’ve had to scramble. Nobody of Lou’s skill level is available for next weekend, but I am hoping that Lou’s intern, Becky Hull, can fill in adequately. I’ve talked with her, and I think she’s up to the challenge. What can I say – the show must go on.”

  Anne had more questions for Nigel, but he quickly moved away into the crowd, flanked by his two bodyguards. She would have to check in with Becky to make sure she was OK, she decided. Scanning the crowd, which was growing larger by the moment, Anne briefly caught sight of Bob Lutz just before he disappeared from view in the crowd. He was saying something to the woman next to him, who looked familiar to Anne, but she couldn’t quite place her. The crowd cleared and Anne recognized the women next to Lutz – it was Mary Payne, the younger sister of Elizabeth Eastman. Laughing at something Lutz said to her, Mary leaned up against him affectionately and they again disappeared into the moving mass of festival goers.

  Anne thought again about Tom Richard’s call late last night. He had information his contact had provided about Louise Binford’s military career. She had quite an impressive record, it turned out, of targeted drone attacks on enemy combatants, as well as several commendations for bravery in close combat situations. Her weapon of choice apparently was a Ka-Bar knife, and she was known to be quite good with it.

  Along with Lou’s prowess with a knife, Anne also thought about just how lucky her baton lunge had been. She had aimed for a center of chest strike - her biggest target area. But Lou had crouched lower as Anne lunged, turning sideways and leading with her knife hand. Anne’s planned chest strike ended up hitting Lou higher up than she expected - square in the larynx. It was, Anne knew, an incredibly lucky blow. If the baton, or Lou’s larynx, had been just an inch or so to either side, her baton would have slid by harmlessly, and Lou would have quickly closed and buried the knife at the base of Anne’s neck, or maybe between her ribs. She would have bled out in a matter of minutes – all caught on camera and uploaded to the internet.

  The close encounter with Louise Binford’s Ka-Bar had also resurfaced Anne’s deeper ongoing worry with what she was doing with her life. Dover-Foxcroft had been a new start for her – and in the time she had lived there, more than three years now, she had grown to feel comfortable in the community. She now knew a lot of the townsfolk, at least to wave to from her truck or to say hello to in passing on the street. Anne also had a group of close women friends, including the sheriff’s wife June Torben, along with several of the mothers of the girls Anne helped coach on the Foxcroft Academy basketball team, and a group of women she regularly cycled with.

  And then there was Douglas Bateman – her best friend and the love of her life. She and Doug had built a solid relationship – one that was easygoing and full of laughter and far more silliness than one would expect from law enforcement professionals. She had long been confident that they were a pair bond for life. Anne and Doug had never broached the topic of marriage, however, and Anne knew that Doug was understandably gun shy after his first marriage fell apart. She had decided early on to take their relationship slow and steady, and to trust her instincts that while it might take a while for Doug to take the next step, it was only a matter of time.

  But last night, lying awake in the early morning hours, having just dodged death in front of a sports bar, Anne realized that her dreams of a bright future with Doug could go off the tracks any time, in the blink of an eye. Slow and steady didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. Anne didn’t ask for her current celebrity status, and didn’t want it. She didn’t want children to shy away from her, or teens to choke themselves and fall down in mock agony when they saw her. Admiration, sure. Respect, of course. Being treated as a solid citizen and a valued member of the community. Absolutely. But right now she felt like a sideshow freak at the Piscataquis Valley Fair – step right up, see the tall woman with a silver pinky where a serial killer cut off her finger. The one seen scuffling in the street with a killer in that YouTube video.

  That’s the last thing Anne wanted. She didn’t want Jim Torben to look sideways at her, wondering if she might be thinking about parlaying her notoriety into running against him for county sheriff next time. She didn’t want to have to worry about whether other deputies thought she was somehow special - better than them. She didn’t want nut cases seeking her out to try their luck. Things would have been so much better if that stupid clerk at the hardware store hadn’t caught her lunge on his camera. And lying in the dark next to Doug, listening to Jack’s snores from the foot of the bed, Anne also faced up to the reality of her biological clock, which was ticking away. She wanted kids. A family. A real life.

  Hearing a commotion over by the long picnic table where the whoopie Pie eating contest was going on, Anne looked over in time to see a pretty young girl pull her blond braids out of the way as she threw up what appeared to be a considerable number of whoopie pies into the lap of the boy sitting next to her. Unfazed, the boy continued stuffing his pie hole. Anne laughed at the scene, her mood lifting – life was good. Things would all work out. After all, she and Doug were in love.

  People moved away from the puker and Anne noticed Doug standing next to the table, deep in conversation with a woman who had her back to Anne. As the woman turned and stalked away from Doug, Anne saw that she was crying, and that it was Beth, Doug’s ex-wife. Even crying, Beth was a quite attractive woman, and had picked up an impressive tan and lost a few pounds since Anne had last seen her over a year ago. Anne’s breath caught in her throat – “Just what I need right now,” she muttered to herself as she left her shadowy refuge in the entrance tent and made her way over to Doug.

  Doug saw her coming, and closing the distance between them, pulled her into a tight embrace. Pulling away, Anne scanned his face with concern.

  “Are you OK Doug? What was all that?”

  “A bad dream Anne. That’s what that was,” Doug replied, leading her across the parking lot to a bench in the shade. “She sure caught me by surprise. Just back in town. She walked right up and started right in on how fucked up her life is. It turns out that her relocation out to New Mexico was a disaster, and now she’s back where she belongs, as she puts it. Did you know that Santa Fe is in the high desert, and it gets really hot in the summer? There aren’t any trees, all the plants have thorns, and there are obnoxious Texans playing cowboy all over the place. Everybody lives in mud houses. And her lover man tired of her, apparently, and left her high and dry.”

  Anne looked away, hiding a smile. She should feel sorry for Beth, but didn’t. The woman had made Doug’s life miserable and now was back, looking for a shoulder to cry on. Suddenly wondering if Doug might feel obligated to try to help Beth, Anne stopped smiling.

  “Sooo, what now Doug?” she asked, with some concern.

  “What do you mean?” Doug replied, looking puzzled.

  “You know, Beth being back and all.”

  Doug continued looking puzzled, and then realized what Anne was getting at and smiled.

  “I have to admit, Beth is still a good-looking woman, and a master manipulator, I would say. And it does sound like she has had a rough time and could use some support and empathy. But she’s not my problem any more Anne. All the time she was spilling her problems and seeking sympathy, I was thinking about how good our life is together, and how different it is from my marriage to Beth.”

  Doug paused, suddenly gave Anne his best come-hither look, which invariably made her snicker, and continued.

  “But now that I think about it, since my ex-wife is back in town and looking fantastic, and clearly wants to rekindle our relationship, it would probably be a good idea if we headed back to my place so you would have the opportunity to remind me of how amazing we are together, and what a great life we have going here in the middle of Maine.”

 
Anne would have liked nothing better than to spend the rest of the afternoon in bed with Doug, reaffirming their strong physical attraction to each other. She was about to suggest an early exit from the Whoopie Pie Festival when a ruckus broke out over by the stage. Inanna, an all-female drummer band from a small town halfway between Bangor and Portland, had paused their performance to watch the drama unfolding in front of the stage. Nigel Underwood was slumped up against the front of the stage with his crutches lying akimbo and his bright green fiberglass leg cast sticking out in front of him. Nigel appeared to have been punched in the face, given the swelling around his left eye and his bloody nose. His two bodyguards, incongruous in their suits and ties, stood in front of Nigel, blocking several local men from trying to kick the downed man.

  “You fuckin prick,” one of the men screamed at Nigel. “You try bringin one of them souped-up patio boats into Buck’s Cove again and you’ll end up with more than a broken leg. You’ll be needin a wheelchair on a permanent basis, not those crutches.”

  Anne and Doug hurried over and pulled the three attackers away from Nigel and his bodyguards. Doug knew all three men, could smell the beer on their breath, and figured they were just letting off a little steam. If it had just been a spat between locals, Doug could probably have resolved things amicably with apologies and a stern talking to. But he wasn’t sure how Nigel would react. It soon became clear that with the patio boat race only a week off, Nigel would not want to make even the smallest waves in the community. When Doug turned around to get Nigel’s side of the story, he and his two bodyguards had disappeared.