Grave Mistakes_A Deadly Vigilante Crime Thriller

by Brian Spangler

  “Thanks Brian. It’s not good news, but it is news. Could you let me know if there are any changes?”

  “Of course,” he said, his eyes focusing beyond the camera as the sound of people and chairs being moved filled the car. “Gotta run, my meeting is about to begin.”

  “Oh, okay—” I began, only to be cut off by a blank console. “Isn’t he the busy-busy man?”

  The rain slowed, and I looked behind me to see the cloudy bruise turning bright as sunlight jutted through. There’d be a misty steam above the pavement soon and I wanted to walk, to smell the wet pavement, and to feel the humidity on my skin.

  “Computer. Park the car a mile from the destination.”

  “We will reach your destination in fifteen minutes.”

  “Resume music.”

  SEVENTEEN

  “WE HAVE ARRIVED AT your destination.”

  I startled from a doze, the car’s voice alerting me I’d arrived at my husband’s home, my ex-husband. But in my heart we’d always be married. His home was small and about what one would expect on a municipal salary, but that’s not what I focused on. It was the single car parked in the driveway. Had he remained alone all these years? Had he never moved on? I scanned the street and pavement and front of his house for any evidence he might be with someone. I found none. A regrettable, but bittersweet emotion swept through me. The suddenness of it giving me goosebumps. Had he never loved again because he was still in love with me?

  The car door opened, and I stepped around storm puddles, their oval faces glinting the sun’s reflection, set afire with tiny orange flames. A rattle of nerves erupted in my gut as I approached the front door. I hoped Steve was more receptive than Michael and Snacks. And even if he doesn’t want to see me, this trip wasn’t about him. It was about me. Visiting him was what I needed to do. Now that I’ve served my time and could finally tell him the truth about what happened.

  My hands were clammy, and I struggled to find the words I’d rehearsed the last twenty years. I’d written them down at one time, hiding the pages in a bible, the nubby end of a pencil tucked into the book’s fold with just enough led to add a little more. But the book disappeared, returned to the prisons’ library, my words to Steve gone forever. For weeks, months maybe, I searched every bible in Holmesburg prison, fanning the pages, turning the book upside down and shaking them. All I had left was in my head, and now my nerves were getting in the way. In my memories, I could see the page, some of what I’d written, but much of it was a jumbled mess.

  “Fuck it,” I mumbled. “Gonna have to wing this one.”

  His patio and front door were absent of any touches a woman might give it—plain, almost bachelor, and not all that different from when I’d first met him. I shook out my hands and took a deep breath. I knocked. Immediately, I heard the hollow sound of footsteps, his stride hampered by the bullets from the Wilts shooting. In my head I could see him clutching the leg as he walked, and I realized that if I told him the truth, the whole truth, and not just about Garret Williams, he’d learn that I was responsible for his being shot. I decided I’d only settle up on the immediate debt. Tell him why I killed Garret Williams. And tell him it wasn’t a sordid affair like the press had made it out to be.

  The mechanical sounds of metal sliding on metal and gears shifting and unlatching reverberated inside the door. My nerves were in full swing and my chest was stricken heavy and tight with a thumping I could hear in my ears. This was the man I’d loved with all my heart . . . still loved. Steve opened the door and took my breath with the air rushing past me. Age had lined his eyes and salted his hair, the years shedding his boyish looks and replacing them with a handsome man—he looked better than ever.

  We locked eyes briefly and my heart swelled. But then he abruptly looked past me, searching the street and walkway. He continued searching until it was almost awkward—a habit maybe from reporters poking around since he’d been in the public eye?

  “Can I help you?” he finally asked, satisfied that I’d come to his home alone. His tone was cold, sterile even, and once again I felt my heart squeeze painfully. Had I sunk so low, become so unimportant that I couldn’t even strike up the courtesy of a warm, Hello, how are you doing?

  “Michael called you?” I asked, suspecting as much.

  Steve nodded, answering, “He did.” His expression remained empty and fixed like chiseled stone.

  “Well, it’s good to see you too, Steve,” I said, trying to entice a reaction. Instinctively, I reached to touch his hand—a muscle memory. He moved just enough to be out of reach, his hand finding his pocket and disappearing. I realized my mistake and quickly withdrew. “It’s been a long time.”

  “It has,” he agreed, his voice unwavering and absent of any inflections.

  There was a deafening silence that fell between us then and I could sense the discomfort as it edged toward humiliation. He shifted his weight and braced the frame of the door to lean against.

  “You look good, Steve. I saw a news clipping of you once, very political . . . very handsome too.” I cringed at the choice of my words, unsure of how to compliment him.

  “You killed us, Amy,” he said abruptly, catching me off-guard like a sudden slap in the face. His voice was hoarse, and his eyes were cold. “I never expected to see you again. Is there something you need?”

  I reeled back, my smile disappearing while I tried to find the right words to fix this. “I’m not sure,” I muttered. “I just wanted to see you, to maybe sit down and talk, and tell you the truth about what happened that night.”

  “The truth? Now?”

  I waved my hands, hearing his frustration and searched for some patience, “Please. Steve, listen, there were circumstances. Dangerous circumstances. I could never reveal to you before—”

  “You had twenty years to say something,” he interrupted with his voice rising to a near shout.

  “You’re not listening,” I said, stepping closer to him, an urgent need to hold him and have him hold me the way he only could. We fit like puzzle pieces and I so desperately wanted to be in his arms again. “Please, Steve, just let me explain.”

  He shook his head, his expression slipping back to the stoney look he’d had when answering the door. “Maybe it’s time you moved on,” he told me. He searched the street again and added, “I know I have.”

  His words stung my heart, but I sensed it was a lie. He was trying to be hurtful, but still, his words hurt.

  The hinges creaked as he eased the door shut, and I found myself in a familiar position, only it was Steve and not Michael this time. I wouldn't back down that easily. I shoved my hand defiantly, stopping the door, stopping Steve from shutting me out. I was hoping for one more chance as the first onslaught of tears stole my dignity. “Steve, please. You need to know the truth.”

  “Why now?” he asked, a genuine curiosity in his voice—there was a solemness there too, a sentiment, a sadness. “Why not before? During the arrest? Or a phone call? A letter from prison?”

  “I couldn’t,” I exclaimed, widening my eyes. “Steve, when you hear the truth, you will understand.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Let me think about it,” he told me, conceding as I backed away.

  “Please, I hope you do,” I told him as he tried closing the door again. I held it open and fixed my eyes on his and waited for him to agree. I used to do the same when we were together, stare him down until he’d tell me what I wanted to hear. “Will you? We’ll get a coffee and I’ll tell you everything.”

  The corner of his mouth curled as I pushed against the door and held it open, “Still so stubborn,” he said.

  “I am,” I agreed. “I have to be . . . until you let me talk to you. Will you give me that? Just that?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “So stubborn.”

  “Good,” I replied and turned to return to my car. I didn’t hear him close the door as I’d expected and knew he was already considering my invitation. And I could tell he was watching me, or
maybe searching for the press. But I told myself it was the former. I needed something positive to end this dreaded day. When I reached my car, I stopped to look back over my shoulder. I was right. Steve was watching me. I knew this the way a woman knows when a man is watching them. I turned around to give him a wave, but found the look he held for me was the kind I remembered from when we were young—it took my breath and seemed to reach inside me and touch my soul.

  “You look good, Amy,” he told me and then closed the door before I could say anything else.

  EIGHTTEEN

  I WOKE UP IN A soundless room, the air dreadfully stiff, stale to the smell, the cramped space craving for an opened window. My head ached too, which didn’t help. The Team Two office was my home now, and I was quick to wrap myself in a blanket and make my way to the nearest window, opening it to a summer breeze carrying the smell of lilacs and the low roar of morning traffic. I needed a shower and some aspirin, a hangover, twenty-years in the making, had rocked me to my core.

  “You used to hold your liquor better,” I mumbled, my voice scratchy, my throat aching. My mouth felt filmy and was slick with a sour taste. I found my way to the bathroom and the shower and stood beneath the spray, leaving it cold, stinging my bare skin, helping to clear my head. I made a mental note to thank Brian’s wife for setting everything up. From the shampoo and bath soaps, to a coarse, spongy thing on a stick which I had no name for, she’d decked out the amenities like a five star hotel. “You used to do a lot of things better.” When my head cleared, I turned up the heat and stood beneath the shower head and washed away yesterday. I’d start fresh today.

  In the rolling steam, I cleared the bathroom mirror and saw Wilma. I found my friend and heard the promise I’d made to her. Today would be her day. I’d devote my freedom to her. And that meant planning the murder of Derek Robbins. When the thought hit me, I braced the bathroom sink’s cold porcelain, clutching it, overcome with an unfamiliar reservation. There was a time when I’d go into planning a murder eagerly—sometimes, too eagerly. But this time was different. Maybe prison had changed me, reformed me to the point where murder was no longer my way, or a way to solve a vigilante’s puzzle.

  “Nonsense,” I blurted to the empty room, my voice a nasally echo that only the resident spiders could hear. “This one isn’t for the money.”

  An old memory surfaced then—cobwebbed, dusty, the kind that’s a vague recollection at first and slow to come. I’d said almost the same words before, only, the results were disastrous. It was more sentiment than memory, but it raised the hair on my arms and gave me another reason to reconsider what I was planning.

  “You can’t go back on your word. You owe her,” I said, my voice filled with uncertainty. My mind raced, thoughts veering left and right, disjointed, confused by the reluctance to do what had normally come naturally. Before I knew it, my face was an inch from the mirror, grimacing, anger steaming as I searched for answers. I backed away, a shiver running from my toes to my head. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  There was something wrong, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Why was I suddenly second guessing what needed to be done? I placed my palm against the mirror, covering the sight of me, and said, “Just do it. Go through the motions and figure out the rest later.”

  ***

  Black coffee. And double the prescribed dosage of aspirin. That was just what I needed to help squash the prison reform that had sprouted roots somewhere deep in my psyche. Not sure when it happened, but it had. My murderous ideas were being teased by a newfound sense of right and wrong—a conscience, attacked like a bully picking on the smallest kid in a grade school playground.

  “We’ll see about that,” I said angrily and filled my cup. I’d finish the carafe, maybe make a second pot and work through the morning. In prison, the only coffee available was a God-awful grayish water that was best when dumped down the drain. Don’t want you gals hopped up caffeine, the guards assured us, sounding as though they were doing us a favor.

  When I was ready, I found my way to our old desks—the two lawyerly left-overs we’d adopted when we first picked up the lease on the building. The furniture was far too big to move, and would likely live out their days within the Team Two building. I didn’t mind though, they were perfect. I sat down, cleaning the chair of some dust and then tried to understand how to use what I could only guess was a computer. Times had changed a lot more than I cared to confess, and a sentimental tug had me wishing to see my old computer and keyboard. I’d even take the old mouse that skipped now and then. The top of the desk held a single pane of glass. That’s it, a piece of large tinted glass, perched upright, and angled backward slightly. I couldn’t tell what held it in place, but was careful to touch the empty picture frame. I dared to tap the glass, finding it felt warm much like the phone Brian had given me.

  “Transparent aluminum?” I said, trying to remember what he called the material. Beneath the desk’s surface, the pull-out drawer still carried my old keyboard and mouse, the pair instantly familiar and a welcome sight. If I had to guess, I’d say Brian kept them only to help me adjust to the new technology. I pressed the keyboard and watched the glass come alive, busy with news feeds and pictures and videos. Gone were the desktop links Brian had placed there years earlier. The ones that opened the door to the darknet, the ones that led to our place of business.

  And that meant, I’d have to do this old-school. My research on Wilma’s ex, Derek Robbins. I’d work above board, public domain, researching anything and everything that had ever been posted about the guy. It’d be a grind, finding and following links from courthouses to news articles, and everything in between, but like my days in prison, I had time—nothing but time. As I reached for my mouse, the motion of my hand moved the cursor on the screen—I could navigate almost entirely without the mouse or keyboard.

  “Nice touch,” but when my arms ached, I went back to what I knew—typing and clicking. “Old school.”

  I stumbled a few times—my fingers slow to move at my request, missing the keys, the typed characters appearing on the screen in a gibberish language that no amount of auto-correct could unerringly resurrect. But within the hour, I found my computer legs like a sailor going to sea, and discovered what I could only assume was today’s equivalent of the Internet. From today’s web, almost effortlessly, I navigated to the court system records, finding what was publicly available, and pulled up the cases against Derek Robbins. All the paperwork had a single address and gave me the first place I’d visit. I had no idea what I’d do when I got there, but that was part of the planning too.

  When I collected the paperwork and put them in a folder, my phone vibrated briefly with a green box glowing on its screen. I followed the suggestion without giving it a second thought, and swiped the computer’s screen, conveniently sending the folder to my phone. My phone thumped and displayed the word: Received.

  ***

  I ate a light lunch and worked on new ideas until the sunlight dipped beneath the top of the front window. It chased the day away and with it, my plans for Derek Robbins’ murder was coming together.

  It was good to be back at work, I thought, but was nagged by my conscience, by the questions of what was right and wrong. I dismissed the questions and turned my attention to a computer folder with my name on it. It was a care package from Brian and I’d ignored it until now.

  When I went to prison, the easiest thing for everyone was to cut-off all communications. Completely. I wouldn’t accept visitors. I wouldn’t receive personal mail. I never took a phone-call. Nothing. I regret that now, and there’s nothing I’ll ever be able to do to make up for what was lost.

  I’d also left instructions for Brian to take care of my family, to be their guardian angel, giving them support without ever finding out where it came from. And from the looks of the folder on my desktop, he’d also been a scribe, saving twenty-years of their lives in digital form. It was a gift for me, and my finger twitched as I tried to find the courage to o
pen the folder.

  I clicked on the digital scrapbook, holding my breath, telling myself not to cry. Immediately, the computer screen bloomed like flowers in the spring, and colorfully filled every pixel with the last twenty years of my family’s lives.

  And when the first photos of missed birthday parties appeared, I simply lost it and had to get up and walk away. I plunked my face into the palm of my hands and told myself to take a breath. My knees went weak, the regret of my old decisions hitting me like a truck.

  “We will not regret the past,” I said aloud, having heard the remarks in a prison support group I’d been ordered to sit through. I let out a snide guffaw, adding, “Yeah we will. It’s fucking remorse.”

  I shook out my hands and put on the radio, spinning the dial through clouds of static feedback until I found a song I liked. I danced out the emotions and encouraged myself to sit down again and go through what Brian took so much care to put together for me. I owed him that much. I owed my family too. I owed them more.

  My belly was still full from the late lunch and I glanced at the front windows to find the sun was lower in the sky. I decided I’d need a glass of wine to help while I sifted through the lost years. I’d bring the whole bottle, knowing the pictures were a reflection of good memories that would never be mine. Regret was taking its toll on me today and I wasn’t sure if I should thank Brian or punch him in his face.

  “Careful, Amy,” I said, having been warned by the old-timers in prison. The ones who’d had been outside, only to end up coming back, unable to free the ghosts of their past. “Don’t be like them. Don’t let this get to you.”