by Gen Griffin
“Kerry should have been armed too.” David pulled the abandoned shotgun out of the cab of the red Toyota. He checked the chamber to see how many rounds the gun was holding.
“I didn't see his gun anywhere. I looked for it.”
“All I'm doing is asking whether y'all are 100 percent sure we want to risk our own sorry asses to save a guy who has done nothing but try to ruin our lives since he got back to town?” Ian frowned at his friends. “You see what I'm saying?”
“You think we should just let Perkins kill him?” David didn't even try to hide his disgust.
“I didn't say that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I'm saying that I don't really want to die for Kerry.” Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “We've spent the last week trying to sabotage everything the guy has done. Now we're going to go plunging off into the woods after an armed killer to save him?”
“And y'all keep saying I'm the cold emotionless one.” David played with the trigger on the gun. “I have to admit you have a point. The bastard does want me strapped to the electric chair.”
“He wants to dig up Casey too.” Ian scowled at the Toyota. “Perkins is going to come back for his truck. Y'all know he ain't going to walk anywhere he doesn't have to. Does it really make us bad people if we just kind of hang out here and arrest Perkins when he gets back?”
“What if he's already killed Kerry?”
“Um,” Ian scratched his head. “I guess that would be bad?”
“You know, evil triumphs when good people do nothing,” David stared down at his boots, lost in thought as he kicked at the thick covering of leaves that dusted the ground.
“Who said we were good people?”
“I did.” Addison spoke up firmly, his jaw locked in a tight line as he adjusted his grip on his gun. “I say we're good people. Besides, I have a hard enough time sleeping at night as it is. I don't like Kerry, but I'm not having his death on my conscience either.”
David and Ian both looked over at him in surprise.
“Okay.” Ian let out a soft whistle and shrugged. “If that's how you feel. Let's get this over with. But give me that shotgun, will you? I'm not a real good shot with this thing.” He thumped the butt of his service revolver and gestured for David to hand him the shotgun.
“Fine.” David held out his hand for Ian's service weapon. “Trade me. I'm not going in unarmed, and all my guns are back at my house.”
Chapter 37
Kerry didn't know how long Perkins made him walk. It wasn't nearly as long as Kerry would have made a hostage walk if he'd been planning on murdering somebody. He didn't think they were too far from the highway when Perkins ordered him to stop. The fat deputy’s face was flushed red. He was dripping with sweat as he ordered Kerry to stand next to a tree at the edge of the clearing.
Kerry had no idea what his odds would be if he managed to escape into the woods. He knew that if he held still, he'd die. Perkins was still holding the gun on him. Its long black nose and big bored barrel sent chills down Kerry's spine. He felt transfixed by the sight of it, frozen like a deer standing in the middle of the highway while the headlights of a tractor trailer came barreling down the road to end his life. He forced a choked breath into his lungs. He had to move. He had to.
His small size was no advantage in a fight, but Kerry suspected he stood a decent chance of outrunning the old tub of lard. He heard a click as Perkins cocked his handgun.
Running away might be his only chance for survival. He tore his gaze away from the gun and jerked his stubborn, unwilling feet into motion. He made his break for freedom before he even realized he was committing to the plan. He hoped Perkins would be too surprised to react as Kerry dropped backwards into the woods, heading away from the road and screaming at the top of his lungs.
A shot rang out behind him and Kerry heard the solid thunk of a bullet hitting the tree he'd just run past. Two more shots hit the dirt somewhere behind him. After that, if Perkins was still firing, Kerry didn't hear him. All he could hear was the pounding of his own heart as he ran like he'd never run before, dodging in and out of trees, bouncing roughly off the bark because his handcuffed hands were completely useless when it came to helping him keep his balance. He heard Perkins yelling behind him as he charged into the trees after him.
Kerry kept tripping and stumbling through the woods, moving as fast as his asthmatic lungs and clumsy feet would allow him to. Every breath burned but burning was better than asphyxiation due to bullet holes in the lungs any day of the week. Kerry choked down another hot breath of rancid swamp air and ran like he'd never run before deep into the depths of the bayou.
Chapter 38
“That report is a doozy. Even for Addison's overactive imagination.” Frank Chasson made a face as he ambled back into his office and caught Cal reading the report Addison had given him earlier in the day.
“It’s creative. To say the least.” Cal was trying to search his mind for a word that didn't convey that he found the plot despicable, conniving or crooked.
“It's wrong.” Gracie filled in the blank for him. Frank nodded his head in agreement and held out his arm to give Gracie a hug.
“What's this your mother called me crying about earlier today?” he asked her. “She kept going on and on about how you were dropping out of college and marrying David?”
“Good Lord.” Cal raised an eyebrow at Gracie and the two of them exchanged a look. “Maybe we should go ahead and have the engagement announcement dinner tonight.”
“Before any more rumors get started?”
“Precisely.” Cal dug around in his pocket until he pulled out his phone. He tossed it to Gracie. “Do me a favor and call my Momma and get everything set up.”
“Engagement?” The Sheriff was clearly surprised. “I thought she was marrying David.”
“She's marrying me,” Cal said, a bit grumpily.
“Does your Momma even know we're back together?” Gracie asked him.
“No. Well, unless she heard it from your brother. I don't know. Maybe.”
Gracie sighed. “If she thinks I'm sleeping with David, she's going to freak out on me.”
“Then tell her that you're not.”
“Do I tell her that we're getting married?”
“Sure. Why not?” Cal shrugged his shoulders and grinned teasingly at Gracie. “It'll give her an excuse to break out the good china.”
“Okay, but if she yells at me I'm blaming it on you,” Gracie sighed and scrolled through the contact list on the phone. “I guess I'll leave y'all to talk and go call Miss Loretta.” She headed out the office door and over to Addison's desk, where she flopped down in the chair and prepared pour her heart and soul out to her future mother-in-law.
Frank laughed then looked over at Cal. “You've had a busy day, haven't you?”
“Busy week.” Cal sunk into the chair beside Frank's desk and set the report back down.
“You ready to talk to me about that murder yet?” Frank asked.
“That's why I'm here.” He picked up the file he'd liberated from Addison's desk when he'd come back in to the office half an hour ago. He flipped it open to display the picture of Benjamin Gomez he'd taken to Leon's earlier. “I saw this guy Friday night drinking in Leon's Bar. He was with a woman.”
“Oh boy. This oughta be good. Go ahead.” Frank gestured for him to continue.
“I'd forgotten all about him until this morning. I guess because the mess between David and Kerry had gotten me all kinds of distracted. When Pappy was fixing to shoot that guy earlier, I all of a sudden remembered seeing another homeless guy.” Cal held up the picture. “This guy. The night before his body got dumped in Johnson's pasture.”
“Okay. Who was the woman?” Frank tugged on his mustache. Cal noted that it was getting a bit threadbare.
“Sharyn Perkins.” Cal pulled out Kerry's neatly folded printout listing the registration of every 80's model Toyota in Callahan County. “Formerly known
as-”
“Sharyn Lowell.” Frank plucked the printout out of Cal's hand and glared at it as if simply staring at the woman's name could make her magically appear in his office. “Dammit.”
“After I left here earlier, I took the picture to Leon. He agreed it was the same guy.”
“You think Sharyn killed him?”
“Not Sharyn.” Cal rubbed his chin. “I mean, I guess it would be possible, but she was looking pretty hot and heavy with him.”
“Dammit,” Frank cursed again. “I knew that son-of-a-bitch was going to make trouble eventually. I didn't want him on my force. I got stuck with him because his application had legal priority since technically he'd been laid off from his last position. The state doesn't care that the reason the Connertown PD put a force veteran on their chopping block at the first sign of a budget cut was because he'd been accused of beating his wife's lover half to death with a steel pipe.”
“You're kidding me.”
“I wish. It was never proven and no charges were filed. Captain Lewis wanted him gone after that. First budget cut that came along and his ass got kicked right off their force. And right onto mine.”
“You had to hire him?”
“Unfortunately. It’s political. He had seniority and legal priority because he'd been cut from a state job due to budget rather than misconduct. Now the bastard has gone and killed somebody else.”
“You make that sound like he's killed more than one person.” Cal watched worriedly as the Sheriff continued to yank on his mustache.
“The man's a walking blood bath, Cal. He was an Army Ranger, and he never got back out of the war mindset. He'd just as soon shoot a suspect as arrest him. He'd shot something like 17 people during his 14 years in Connertown. Why do you think I kept him on our weekday night shift?”
“Nothing ever happens on weeknights in Possum Creek,” Cal said.
“Exactly. The guy was riding out his pension anyway. He's lazy. I figured if I let him be lazy he'd eventually retire when his pension matured. Hopefully without killing anyone else.”
“No offense, but I don't think your plan worked,” Cal thumbed the file at him.
Chapter 39
The sound of bullets being fired followed by an extremely loud, high-pitched scream nearby made both Ian and Addison jump. David dropped down to his knees on the trail, muttering obscenities. “Get down, you idiots!”
Addison immediately dropped back against the base of an old pine tree on the side of the trail. After a moment, he reached out and snagged Ian's arm and pulled him out of the open area of the trail as another three rounds boomed through the mid-afternoon air.
“Oh, this is great.” Addison gripped his service weapon with both hands. Ian was sitting squarely on his rear end beside him, clutching the shotgun like it was his favorite teddy bear rather than a form of self-defense. “Who's up for heading back to the truck now?”
More screams echoed through the trees. Another couple of blasts followed.
“If we're going to go, we have to do it now.” David gestured towards the clearing ahead of their position.
“What?”
“I counted 10 shots,” David said, sounding deceptively calm. “He's empty.”
“He's reloading,” Addison said, his eyes wide.
“You two chickenshits coming or staying here?” David countered. He'd shifted into a hunched position and was already beginning to make his way forward.
Ian and Addison exchanged a look, and then Ian stood up on shaky legs, using the shotgun as a prop. “Come on,” he told Addison. “We're the law, right?”
Another scream pierced the air.
“We're the law,” Addison spoke the words with more force than necessary. “And I'd like to be the law for at least the next 50 years. Deer don't shoot back, y'all know? This is why I'm the game warden.”
“Come on.” Ian started to follow David down the trail towards the area where the shots had been fired.
Addison took a deep breath. David broke into a jog and headed down the trail, the .45 caliber handgun clutched in his left hand.
A moment later the three of them were standing at the edge of a small, empty clearing.
“Where are they?” Ian whispered so softly his voice could barely be heard above the wind.
“There.” David nodded towards the far right section of the clearing next to a thick, old cypress whose trunk was swollen from all the water it had absorbed over the years. “See where they broke through the trees.”
“Kerry must have made a run for it,” Addison mused aloud.
“Perkins isn't going to run far,” David said. Addison could practically hear David gritting his teeth as he scanned the tree line for any sign of movement.
“You think he shot him?”
“Maybe,” David shrugged his shoulders. His gesture was casual but he had the gun pointed into the woods and was standing in a classic shooter's stance. He was a damn good shot and had pretty snappy reflexes. Addison planned on standing behind David if Perkins came barreling back out of those trees like an enraged rhinoceros. David was far more likely to successfully take the man down with his first shot than Addison was. “Maybe not.”
“Um, guys?” Ian shifted his weight back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Should we really be standing out here in the open like this?”
“Depends, are we going in after them?”
“You know, I think we've reached the point in the movie where everyone but the main hero and his girl get killed.” Addison made a faint attempt at humor. The other two ignored him completely.
“Perkins isn't going to get far,” David repeated, chewing on the inside of his lip as he considered his options. He began moving towards the area where he suspected Kerry had fled into the woods. “Watch my back.”
“Oh shit,” Addison muttered.
David ran his fingers across the scarred bark of the cypress tree. “Here's one shot,” he said, fingering the hole where the bullet had sunk into the bark.
“Tell me he's shooting a .22.” Ian had gone noticeably pale. Addison shook his head no.
“They should have .45's. Him and Kerry both.” David spoke without thinking about it. He was staring down at the crushed brush just below the tree line.
“Oh fantastic. We're getting shot. Either way. Perkins will kill us because he knows we know he's a murderer,” Addison grumbled. “Kerry will shoot us because his aim sucks.”
“Might as well get on with it then.” David seemed completely oblivious to everything but the trail in front of him. Addison groaned.
“Just for the record, y'all, this is a bad idea.”
“Point taken. Now let’s get moving.” David headed into the woods, following the trail of crushed leaves and squashed saplings.
Chapter 40
Kerry didn't know how long he'd run or how far. He knew he was bleeding. An old tree with miserable thorny vines growing all over it had provided the best cover Kerry could find. He'd hit his shoulder when he'd tripped the last time. Something in it was throbbing now. The pain was awful but even through the blazing hurt and the tears he was fighting to keep from running down his face, he kept reminding himself that it wasn't as awful as the bullet wound that Perkins wanted to give him.
His legs were sinking into the mucky, wet ground underneath him, and his pants were wet. He had to pee something awful. He'd had to pee for the last half hour before he'd pulled Perkins over. He'd drank an entire liter size bottle of water earlier and, despite the misery of his situation, the urge to pee was making itself all too well known.
Kerry didn't want to piss himself here in the woods, hiding next to the trunk of an old tree and praying that Richard Perkins wouldn't find him.
He'd read that people always lost control of their bodily functions when they died. He supposed it didn't really matter if he peed before Perkins shot him or after. The end result was the same. He was wet. He was hurt. He was handcuffed with his own stupid handcuffs. He'd lost his gun. He'd lost
his phone. He was going to lose his miserable life if Perkins found him. What did it matter if he was also soaked in pee?
He could hear Perkins coming now. His heavy footfalls clomped down on the wet leaves that coated the ground. His raspy breaths were coming fast and labored as he trudged past Kerry's hiding place 20 feet off to the left.
The back of Perkins' shirt was soaked with sweat. He had one gun sticking out of his back pocket and the other clasped in his meaty palm. His back was heaving with the effort it was taking him to draw his next breath. Kerry thought he heard twigs snap somewhere behind him.
Perkins was staring down at the ground where Kerry had fallen. Where Kerry's haphazard stumble through the brush and trees had turned into a scramble to find a hiding place. Perkins let out a snort and started twisting around, looking from side to side.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Perkins growled. The impatience in his raspy voice was clear.
Kerry figured he had moments to live when he heard the laugh. It came from somewhere not too far behind him. He didn't dare move, for fear of alerting Perkins to his presence.
“Put down the gun, Richard,” someone spoke from the woods behind Perkins and Kerry.
Perkins' head jerked up abruptly, and he spun around, facing back towards the direction he and Kerry had come from. His meaty face was flushed beet red and sweat was pouring off his mustache and beard, then dripping down onto the middle of his already soaked shirt.
Kerry could hear the footsteps approaching. A solid thump, thump as someone – or something – approached Perkins.
“Go to hell,” Perkins choked out the words. “You don't have a horse in this race.”
“You can't just go around killing people whenever you feel like it.”
Kerry was stunned to hear a second voice. A voice he recognized all too well. Ian McIntyre.
“Why not?” Perkins snorted and jerked his chin at someone Kerry couldn't see. “He does.”