by Rachel Ford
Vengeance is Mine
An Owen Day Thriller, Book 2
By Rachel Ford
Chapter One
He watched the judge through his scope.
His breathing was slow. His heartrate was slow. He was ahead of schedule. Today was supposed to be reconnaissance. But then the forecast changed.
The snow was coming tonight, not tomorrow night. The snow would bury evidence tonight. It would preserve it tomorrow.
He thought about it. He didn’t like deviating from the plan. The plan saved his ass more than once. But part of the plan was flexibility, dealing with an ever-changing situation.
And the situation had changed. Tomorrow would be too late. And tonight?
He glanced around. He saw no one. No one but the judge.
The judge’s wife was gone. He’d watched her leave that morning. He didn’t know when she’d be home. That was part of what he was supposed to learn today.
But did it matter?
He tracked the judge as he walked up the old garden path, coming closer and closer. Opportunity presenting itself.
No, he decided. It didn’t matter. As long as he was gone by time she got there, it wouldn’t matter.
And he would be gone. Long gone.
He cast his careful glance all around. No one. Nothing.
He pulled the trigger. The judge’s brain exploded out the back of his skull. He didn’t see that. The gun moved with the recoil, and the scope shifted. But he saw the puff of pink mist that followed. He saw the pieces of tissue and bone falling. He saw the judge, falling.
Dead.
Ted Walters heard the shot at twenty-one minutes past five exactly. He was sure of that, because he looked at his watch when he heard it. He was going to call the sheriff when he got home. Again.
Not that it would do any good. No, it’d take someone getting killed before the damned sheriff actually dealt with the problem.
Ted pressed a button on the side of the light hanging from his dog’s collar. A strobing orange started up. He adjusted the customized blaze orange jacket Moses wore, and the reflective stripes along the edges caught the orange light.
He nodded with satisfaction. Whatever else buck fever might claim, it wouldn’t be him or Moses.
Moses was a medium-sized tawny, Heinz 57 kind of mutt, so named because Ted had found him wandering the barrens. No collar, no chip, and a whole colony of critters.
Ted took him home and headed to Walmart for something to deal with the critters. He got a variety of chemicals approved for the purpose, some in shampoo, some in drops and some in collars.
The next morning he took the dog to his brother-in-law the vet. Which was something that chafed a little, because he generally regarded his brother-in-law as a pretentious asshole. But the brother-in-law was the only vet in town, and the critters weren’t all gone yet.
He didn’t want to take a hundred-mile trip with a colony of critters in tow. The brother-in-law ran some bloodwork and checked for a microchip. He declared Moses to be unclaimed and largely healthy, maybe about a year old.
He criticized the chemicals Ted had chosen for the creepy crawlers – the cheaper end ones – and sold him drops that cost about five times as much. But, to the brother-in-law’s credit, they worked a lot better.
Which meant that Moses got to be an inside dog a lot sooner. Which he’d remained ever since. Ted lived by himself. He’d divorced ten years earlier. The ex kept the larger share of the 401k’s, and he’d kept the house. That suited him fine. He liked the location and the solitude. He didn’t mind living alone.
But completely alone got to be too alone. Which is where Moses came in. He was the perfect companion. He never complained about the toilet seat being up, or socks being on the floor. He never argued about how Ted spent his money, or complained that he spent too long fishing, or had the TV too loud.
He just wagged his tail and followed Ted around, happy to see him whenever he stumbled in the door, regardless of hour or reason.
Ted returned the slavish loyalty with a fierce protectiveness. He’d never been much of a dog person, not since he’d been a kid. He hadn’t had time. But Moses was different.
Which is why Ted was so jumpy whenever hunting season rolled around. There were too many goddamned idiots in the woods these days. It wasn’t like when he was a kid, when people used their heads.
No, people were fools today. They drank too much and stayed out too late and were too eager. Not like when he was young. Oh, there’d been drinking then, of course. And a few times him and the boys had bent the start and end times. But they’d been smart about it. Not shooting with people’s houses right next door. Not shooting when people were out walking their pets.
Goddamned idiots.
And the sheriff was no better. He should have been arresting people who were hunting past curfew. Instead, he just ignored it. It didn’t matter how many times Ted complained. It didn’t matter how many calls he put in.
Well, there’d be another one for the sheriff to ignore as soon as he got home.
But he wasn’t headed home. Not yet. He and Moses had to stop by the judge’s house first. That was the two-mile marker on their walk. They’d stop, maybe have a beer if the judge was in the mood for drinking, and then head back.
Moses could have kept on walking, of course. But Ted needed the breather. Not that he was old. Sixty was the new fifty, or whatever they said. Then again, a rest never hurt anyone either.
An SUV rolled past. Some kind of foreign thing, from Japan or South Korea probably. He shook his head at that. “People bitching about jobs going overseas, but buying foreign cars,” he told Moses.
The dog wagged its tail.
Ted wasn’t a political guy, as such. He hated politics, and he especially hated politicians and political parties. But he was a man of strong opinions. He hated rich people, and he hated lazy people. He hated people who were too smart for their own good, and he hated people who were too stupid for anyone’s good.
Which left him with not many people he didn’t hate. Judge Richard Wynder was one of the few who made the cut. They disagreed on things, sure. But the way people used to do, back when it wasn’t an offense to have a damned opinion. Back before people got their panties in a twist about every word. Back before anyone had ever heard of micro aggressions or macro aggressions or any such thing.
Another SUV passed. A domestic make this time. It was too dark to make out who it was, or even determine if he recognized the driver. But Ted nodded all the same.
He squinted into the deepening dusk. Figured he better turn his flashlight on. He was too old to twist an ankle, and the side of the road was a lot rougher than it had been.
“Come on, boy,” he said. “We’re almost there.” Which was true. He could see the outline of Rick’s place, a dark roof just peeking out over the silhouette of pines ahead.
The dog wagged his tail again and sauntered on, at the end of a reflective orange leash that had cost him just shy of thirty bucks at the pet store an hour away. His daughter told him he could have bought it online for less, but Ted preferred to see a product, to feel it and hold it in his hands, before he put money down for it.
The night was a cool, crisp one, typical of late November. But there hadn’t been snow. Not yet. That was a little less typical, but Ted was okay with it.
Sixty might be the new fifty, but his bones hadn’t got the memo. They still didn’t like the cold.
His son told him he should head south, maybe get a place in Florida. Which he might have done. Except that would mean living next to a bunch of Floridians.
He didn’t know if it was something in the water or the air. Maybe s
ome kind of military experiment that had had lingering effects, poisoning generation after generation. Maybe they got too much sun. Or maybe it was the elevation, or something like that. But people were nuts in Florida.
He was convinced of that. So he’d stay put, snow and ice or not.
He turned into the drive. Rick’s place was a big Georgian-style colonial place, built to look like the Longfellow House in Cambridge, where George Washington had once had his headquarters, and some poet had lived. It was a scaled down model, of course.
But Rick was quite proud of the place. He could – and did, at any given opportunity – explain exactly where and how it differed from the original.
Ted didn’t begrudge the other man his pride in the place. Rick’s great-granddad had come to the States with nothing more than the shoes on his feet and the clothes on his back. Three generations later, his descendants had done alright for themselves. That was worth being proud of.
Even if it did bore him to drink now and again. But Rick was always smart enough to provide his unwilling listeners with ample libations. Which was its own testament to the judge’s smarts.
Ted was thinking of those libations as he walked up the paved drive, up the slow slope of the quarter mile long drive, toward the great yellow mansion. He was still thinking of them as he walked up the steps, toward the front door and the white pilasters on either side with the great pediment overhead.
He went on thinking of them as he rang the bell, and as Moses tugged on the leash, trying to head off along one of the walking paths.
He could see lights on inside the house. Rick would be home, and maybe even Marsha, his wife. Maybe not. She worked long hours at the hospital and had an hour drive after.
Ted hoped she wasn’t home yet. He had nothing against Marsha. She was alright. But things were different when she was around. He couldn’t make the same jokes or tell the same stories. He and Rick had to limit reminiscences to those suitable for a wife to hear.
Not that either of them had ever done anything too awful. They’d partied a little was all. But wives didn’t want to hear their husbands talking about ex-girlfriends or one-night stands, or threesomes or hookers. Those kinds of things led to big fights and nights on the couch. They didn’t want to hear about late night, alcohol-fueled drag racing on moonlit roads, or bar fights long ago. Those stories led to head shaking and tutting, and all kinds of judgement; and explanations and that was a long time ago, baby: I’m a smarter man now.
No one answered the door, so he rang the bell a second time. And he waited.
Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.
Moses kept pulling at his leash. He was whining now. Ted frowned at him. “Jesus. You wait until we’re at the door to take a dump?”
He shook his head and glanced at the big window with the light on inside. He saw Rick’s armchair, and his bookcases full of books. He saw no one inside. Maybe he’s on the can.
“Fine,” he said, a little less exasperated. “It’s shitting time, I guess.”
He knelt down and let Moses off his leash. The dog knew the yard fairly well. They spent enough time here. So he’d run off into the bushes, away from the lawn. He’d take care of what needed to be taken care of, and be back in a jiffy.
And he was wearing blaze orange and a pulsing light. Not even the drunkest dumbass could mistake him for a deer. So he’d be alright.
But Moses didn’t run for the bushes. He didn’t make for the far end of the yard. He headed straight for the stone path that wrapped around the side of the house to the gardens.
That was a problem. The gardens were Marsha’s domain. And if Marsha found a giant dog steamer among her roses or wisteria or whatever, well, there would be problems. Problems for Rick, then problems for Ted and Moses.
So Ted barked out the dog’s name, the way he would when his little mutt darted out the door after a motorcycle. It usually worked.
It didn’t work this time. He tried it twice more, to no effect. So complaining just under his breath as he went, he followed. He reached the side of the house. “Dammit, Moses, get your furry ass back here before you get us both…”
He cut off as he rounded the corner. The dog wasn’t taking a dump. He wasn’t even digging among the roses. He was licking Rick’s face. More accurately, he was licking up a long, red line of blood running from a hole in Rick’s forehead.
Chapter Two
Sheriff Halvorson got the call at nine to six. Dispatch had got a call two minutes earlier from a frantic man identifying himself as Theodore Walters, the neighbor down the street from the deceased. Dispatch radioed the sheriff, who switched on lights and sirens, pulled a U-turn and sped toward the judge’s house.
He was about half an hour out, but he knew exactly where he was going. Everyone knew the Wynder place. It was a scaled down replica of Henry W. Longfellow’s home. More importantly, it was the judge’s pride and joy. You didn’t live in Yellow River Falls without hearing about the Wynder place. And no one who was anyone hadn’t seen it at least once.
It wasn’t for Halvorson to say, of course, if he was a someone. But he’d been invited to annual barbecues at the Wynder residence for the last twenty years. So he knew the place.
He blitzed into the driveway at seventeen past the hour. He had deputies behind him, but they were twenty minutes out yet.
A man in a blaze orange hat and a green safety vest was standing on the steps, hands under his armpits, arms wrapped around himself – for warmth, maybe. Or from nerves.
Halvorson knew the guy. He was Ted Walters, the neighbor who had found the body. And a regular caller who fancied himself something of a citizen crime fighter. Speeding kids, stray dogs, inconsiderate hunters: Walters reported them all.
Halvorson parked his car and killed the siren. He got out. A dog came running over: a tawny little mutt of maybe forty or fifty pounds, with tall, pointed ears and a fluffy, active tail. He was wearing a vest that matched Walter’s hat, with a bunch of reflective stripes all over it.
Halvorson almost looked away. But there was something else on the dog and his vest. Something dark and crimson.
Blood.
The dog jumped up and tried to lick his hand. It left a bloody partial pawprint on his trouser leg.
Walters had started to descend the steps now. His hands came out from under his arms. He ignored Halvorson’s question – “Where’s the body?” – and waited until he was a few steps away.
Then he jabbed his finger forward, toward the sheriff. “Goddammit Halverson, I warned you this would happen. I warned you those stupid sons-of-bitches were going to kill someone. But you wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t do your damned job, and now Rick’s dead.”
It took two more tries, and then moving past Walters toward the house, before the other man offered a real answer. “Not in the house, dumbass. He’s in the rose garden. This way.”
It was dark out now. Not quite pitch black, but well past dusk. Halverson switched on his flashlight and followed the path toward the side of the house. He avoided the bloody paw prints – there were plenty of those.
He rounded the house and saw the body. Wynder was laying on his back, eyes open wide. He’d been shot in the head. The bullet had made a neat entry wound, and a messy exit. There were pieces of the judge’s brain and skull all over the path behind him.
And lots of blood. Pools of it, with wet dog prints leading to and from.
Wynder had no pulse. Not that the sheriff expected one, but he had to check. He was cold to the touch. So he called the meat wagon, and started taking pictures with his phone.
The scene had already been contaminated. Walters and his dog had been all over it. But he needed to preserve what he could. So he ordered the man and the mutt into the house. He had to threaten the man with jail and the mutt with the pound before he got any kind of compliance from the former. The little mutt followed readily enough when his master turned.
Then things got worse. A car screeched into the driveway, tires squealing and
high beams burning bright. Halvorson shielded his eyes and caught a glimpse of a middle-aged woman running from her car.
Marsha Wynder, the judge’s wife. Which Walters took as a cue to abandon his retreat and return to the scene. The dog took his cues from his owner and came bounding back.
Marsha wanted to know where her husband was. Walters wanted her to know that it was the sheriff’s fault, for not stopping those damned hunters like he’d warned him to do. The dog just seemed excited by all the commotion.
Halvorson tried to run interference. But he had to strike a delicate balance between respectful condolence and forceful authority. He was the sheriff, but this woman’s husband had just died.
She seemed to accept his caution that she needed to stay back and avoid contaminating the scene. She moved toward Walters, like she was about to sob into his arms. Then she darted forward like a running back, brushing right past the sheriff.
He followed and got to her, but not before she threw herself, sobbing, onto her husband’s body.
His crime scene was a disaster. Any evidence that the killer might have left behind had been lost, or possibly even consumed by the dog.
Which probably also explained the missing fragments of the judge’s head. That was the medical examiner’s theory, upon evaluating the body and its recovered pieces.
Parts of the brain had been vaporized by the kinetic energy of the bullet. Parts had been blown off. Some of the blown off portions had been recovered at the scene. Some of the adjacent bits of brain matter and skull – bits that should have survived – had gone missing.
All of which made for a very bad time for the sheriff. Plus, it was Friday, and the opening weekend of hunting season. Both of which spelled trouble on their own; and together? A nightmare.
Vehicular accidents involving deer were up. There were two crashes that night: two dead deer, one totaled car and one damaged SUV.
Bar fights were up. There were three calls that Friday alone, two of which netted arrests. Almost a dozen people in total. The third was a report of a fight in the parking lot. But there were no cameras, and even though the involved parties looked busted up, they insisted nothing had happened.