Vengeance Is Mine (An Owen Day Thriller)

by Rachel Ford

  “I’m not tracking him, and I didn’t invent him. I’ll show you the data if you want.”

  “Oh, I already saw it.”

  That surprised Owen. He frowned. “What?”

  “Someone who might even decide to go to the press with his story about the imaginary serial killer, so it breaks the same day he’s marching into the station telling us how he’s chasing some killer who doesn’t exist.”

  Owen stared at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Brady raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you know, Mr. Day?”

  “Know what?”

  Brady lifted his phone and navigated away from the recording application. He tapped and scrolled and then set the phone down again, closer to Owen this time. “You’re denying this was you?”

  Owen stared at the screen. It was a headline from a local affiliate news station. Wynder the victim of a serial killer? The man who brought down NRK thinks so

  Owen knew who NRK was. Dubbed the Nursery Rhyme Killer by the media, he’d prowled the streets of Kennington killing residents and leaving behind cryptic nursery rhymes. Owen’s own brother had been one of the victims. And Owen had been personally involved in taking him down.

  So he didn’t doubt that the second half of the headline referred to him. Not after Brady’s lead-in. What he didn’t understand was how any of it got into the press.

  “Are you going to deny that was you?” Brady pressed.

  Owen ignored him and scrolled down. Then he got to the reporter’s name, and he understood, part of it at least. “Nancy Krispen. Son of a bitch.”

  “So you know her? You’re not denying it?”

  Owen tried to explain that she’d heard him in the restaurant, that he’d spoken completely off the record; that he’d refused to go on the record, and explicitly turned down her request for an interview.

  Brady wasn’t buying any of it. “She’s got way too much information for an overheard conversation in a diner.”

  And she did: names, dates, times. It was like she was working out of his dossier. “I can’t explain it,” Owen said. “Maybe she did the research I did. Maybe she put it together after hearing me and Halverson, and thought mentioning my name would help her.”

  “Because you’re such a big deal, right? You’re such a smart guy, you helped crack the NRK case.”

  “No,” Owen said. “Because my name was in the papers a few months ago, tied to another serial killer.”

  “You do seem to be linked to a lot of deaths, don’t you Owen? Sean, the Wynder’s, your brother. You say you look for patterns. Well, that’s a pattern I see.”

  “Right,” Owen said. “We’re done. Are you charging me with something, Detective? Because otherwise, I’m leaving. Right now.”

  Brady drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “I’ve got you at the scene of the crime around the time of the killing, Mr. Day. By your own admission. I’ve got two guys on tape – my two killers – who match your and Mr. Tanney’s height and build. If you were me, what would you think?”

  Owen shook his head. He didn’t know what game the detective was playing, but he knew it was a game. “It wasn’t us, and I think you know it. If your camera showed us, which it can’t, because it wasn’t us, you’d say that. You wouldn’t be saying ‘height and build,’ you’d be…” He trailed off sharply. “Son of a bitch.”

  Brady watched him slowly, carefully. He said nothing.

  “They wore ski masks, didn’t they? Black clothes and ski masks.”

  Something passed over Brady’s face – a shadow of suspicion. Then it was gone. His tone was neutral as he asked, “I didn’t say that. What would give you that idea?”

  “Two reasons. First, their faces had to be hidden somehow, because you would have known it wasn’t Tanney and me if you saw the faces.”

  Brady scoffed.

  “And second, because I think I saw them later that day. Detective, I think your killers are the same guys who tried to kill Sheriff Halverson.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  At about the same time, Ryan and Jake were on their knees in the snow begging for their lives.

  They’d spent the darkness hours cleaning and scrubbing and sterilizing. Then Walker had had them drive the Cadillac to a spot down the road, on the edge of an old quarry.

  The pit below had filled with water over the years, the way abandoned quarries did. Deep water, that took more than a few freezing nights to turn to ice. It would be the perfect place to drive a car over the edge, and have it disappear.

  Maybe until spring. Maybe for the next hundred years.

  There was an old, weathered guard rail along the edge of the road, to keep people from going over and winding up in that deep, deep water. It had probably been installed fifty years ago, maybe when the granite company cleared out and ceded the land to the county.

  But way back when, apparently budgets had been an issue, because there were fifteen foot stretches on either side of the quarry with no border at all, except a few scraggly bushes and dried grasses.

  Walker had indicated that they should pull over there, and Ryan had done it. Then he had them shovel the snowbank away, making a gap large enough for a vehicle to pass through, and they did.

  Then he told them to get into the backseat, along with the dead guys. He had his gun out now, and so did the rest of his crew.

  Only when Ryan saw the guns, and the grim expressions, did he understand, finally, what kind of cleanup Roy had in mind.

  Total.

  They’d screwed up. Maybe not him or Jake specifically, but their team. People had died – their people. That meant regrets, and guilt, and maybe even PTSD.

  So Walker and his boys had stepped in to take care of it. To make a problem go away. To make them go away.

  Jake was swearing that he’d never cross Roy, or the company. “Jesus, Walker: I’m the one who did him when he wouldn’t pull over. You don’t have to do this man. You don’t have to do this.”

  “We do it one of two ways,” Walker said. “Either you get into the backseat like I told you, and you close your eyes, and boom – you wake up with the angels. Or we tie your hands and feet and throw you in the back, and you go into the water alive.

  “You’re dead either way. But whether you go screaming and choking or peacefully and quietly is up to you.”

  “Please, Walker,” Ryan said. “Please, man, don’t do this. We got lives, families, commitments.”

  “You got to the count of three to choose or screaming and choking it is.”

  “Please, man.”

  “One.”

  “Jesus, don’t do it.”

  “Two.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? We’re all on the same team here.”

  “Last chance. Choose now.”

  So they did. They chose to get into the back of the SUV and close their eyes. They didn’t hear the shots. The bullets had already exited the barrel and entered their skull before the sound could register.

  The kinetic force of the projectiles ripped a hole through the bone of each of their skulls and exploded into the soft matter beyond – fragmenting it, shredding it, pulverizing it. They were dead long before Walker shut the back doors, or turned the wheel and put the Cadillac in drive. They were dead long before the vehicle bounced once off the sheer stone, and then hit the water.

  * * *

  Sheriff Trey Halverson woke with the mother of all aches. Not in any one spot, but everywhere. His ribs hurt like hell, his head throbbed, and his back felt like fire ants were chowing down on it. Or stinging, or whatever it was fire ants did. He wasn’t quite sure, except that he knew it hurt, and his back was burning with hurt.

  Even his teeth felt like someone put them in a vise. That, the nurse said was from clenching his jaw: a stress reaction. The rest was a combination of whiplash and impact and dehydration. Apparently, living off of coffee and high sodium meals wasn’t much better for long term wellbeing than running into killers on dark, lonely roads.<
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  Perversely, Halverson wanted nothing more than coffee and a high sodium meal. The longer he stayed in the hospital, the more he craved both.

  But his doctor wouldn’t sign off on it. Not for an instant. He wasn’t going anywhere, and he wasn’t allowed a drop of coffee. Not while his vitals looked as shaky as they did. He could eat something from the cafeteria – something that met his dietary and medical needs at the moment.

  The something in question ended up a bland scoop of scrambled eggs and steamed vegetables with cold toast, and a packet of sugar-free jam and salt-free seasoning.

  It was about now, staring at the limp broccoli and shriveled spinach someone had decided to throw into his eggs, that Halverson decided he’d had enough. He was getting out of the hospital.

  The nurses and doctors had different ideas, but he didn’t allow himself to be talked down. He hadn’t broken or ruptured anything. “Bruises aren’t going to kill me, but this food just might.”

  They protested, but he insisted, and in the end they struck a compromise: he’d follow up with his primary care provider on Monday.

  Now, Sheriff Halverson had no intention of talking to his primary care provider, or any other doctor if he could help it. But that’s what it took to put the well-meaning busybodies at ease, so that’s what he promised.

  Then he collected his phone and the rest of his clothes – the jacket with the blood-spattered collar, and the shirt and pants and shoes. He signed his discharge papers, indicating that he was refusing further treatment. He ignored the disapproving scowls the staff gave him.

  And he walked outside a free man. He breathed in, a long, damp, warmish breath. Warm compared to the day before, at least, in that it was maybe ten degrees above freezing. Practically tropical for a Midwest autumn.

  The hospital was about an hour away from town, but Halverson didn’t go back directly. Firstly, because he didn’t have a car, and secondly, because he hadn’t had a real breakfast.

  He walked to the first diner that caught his eye and took a seat. He hadn’t entirely forgotten what the doctor said about sodium and trans fats and heart disease in men his age. So he stayed away from the biscuits and the fried food and got an omelet instead. But he added cheese and ham and got a pot of coffee with it.

  It all tasted like manna from heaven, probably partly because it was actually good, and partly because of the hospital food he had to compare it to.

  He called Deputy Murphy after the first few bites satisfied the gnawing hunger pains. She sounded tired, but happy to hear from him. He explained that he’d been discharged. She seemed surprised by that.

  “Really? Already?”

  “Yup. They didn’t find anything wrong, so no reason to keep me any longer.”

  “Oh. I hope they know what they’re talking about. You got banged up pretty good, boss.”

  “Well, they’re the doctors. I guess they know better than us.”

  “Guess so.”

  “Anyway, I was wondering if you could give me a ride? Or send someone?”

  “On my way.”

  And that was that. He gave her the address of the restaurant, and took his time eating. He ordered a slice of pie afterwards, and more coffee. Because why not?

  He checked his phone notifications. He had messages from just about everyone he knew. He ignored all of them. He needed a lot more coffee before he was that sociable.

  He browsed to the news, and he immediately saw two headlines that stunned him. The first was that former Attorney General Sean Abbot was dead, with foul play suspected. The second was about a midwestern serial killer – and Owen Day.

  The latter pissed him off. Owen had promised to buzz off, and stop stirring up trouble. Had he been lying all along? Had he run off to the press instead? Halverson figured he must have, and the idea irritated him.

  The former, though, filled him with a sense of unease that he couldn’t quite explain. He’d seen Sean that very morning, asking him about Wynder and Reed Hill. Someone had murdered him just hours later.

  And then someone had come for Halverson too.

  If that was a coincidence, it was a hell of a coincidence. County sheriffs made all kinds of enemies. He wouldn’t have been the first to wind up dead on a country road, gunned down by a disgruntled local.

  But county sheriffs didn’t usually make enemies who worked together like professional hit squads. And everything about the guys who had come for him screamed professional. They hadn’t been country boys with a vendetta.

  These had been men on a mission. And as far as Halverson knew, he hadn’t poked any hornets’ nests lately. Except the Reed Hill business.

  His mind drifted back to the reporter, Arthur Covington. He thought about the article he’d read in the Montana paper. Investigative reporter Arthur Covington, killed over the weekend. A robbery gone wrong. Body discovered in a field. Police uncertain what led Covington to the field.

  A remote, unexplained death. Except maybe it hadn’t been unexplained. Maybe the same article provided the answer all along.

  He continued his one-man crusade throughout his career.

  Maybe Reed Hill was the answer: The answer to why someone put a bullet through Rick Wynder’s head in his own yard. The answer to why someone killed Sean Abbot in his own home, and Arthur Covington in a remote field in upstate New York. And the answer to why four guys drove him off the road in the middle of nowhere and wanted to kill him.

  Maybe Reed Hill was the answer all along.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Ted Walters rose late and found himself enthralled by different news: someone had tried to murder Sheriff Trey Halverson the night before. Someone in a dark SUV had run him off the road, and only by the fortuitous timing of a passerby was the murder attempt thwarted.

  Ted knew exactly who Halverson’s would-be killer was. He was sure of it. It could only be one person: Owen Day.

  Who else drove a dark SUV and went around murdering people? Owen Day.

  Ted wasn’t happy, exactly. He didn’t want Halverson dead. But there was something that bordered on schadenfreude in the excitement that filled him.

  He’d told Halverson, hadn’t he? He’d warned him, over and over.

  Hell, he’d warned him that very night, and what had Halverson done? Blown him off. Threatened to arrest him.

  Well, the sheriff would sing a different tune now.

  He tried to find an article that named the assailant, or that said he’d been arrested. But the more he looked, the more frustrated Ted grew. There was talk of a statewide manhunt, but no talk of an arrest. There was talk of unidentified assailants, but no mention of Day’s name.

  His sense of vindication started to wane. Owen Day had outwitted the sheriff yet again. He’d gotten away, somehow. They didn’t know his name, somehow.

  He growled a few four-letter words into the stillness. Then he decided he needed to take action. He’d go to the sheriff’s department and tell them what he knew.

  Halverson was probably still in the hospital, so maybe he could talk to someone who had a brain in their head. Maybe they’d take the problem seriously, now that Day had gone after one of their own.

  So he got dressed and headed out to the truck. Moses followed him, tail wagging. It had snowed overnight, but not much: just a dusting.

  Still, the sight irritated Ted. Winter hadn’t even started, and he’d already had enough of the snow and cold. It was going to be a long year, that was for sure.

  They motored into town, with Ted slowing down at the sight of a disturbed snowbank. He wondered if that’s where the incident had occurred. There were tire tracks all over. And the news had said it was on this road, though it hadn’t been more specific than that.

  He could see it in his mind’s eye: Owen Day and that old son of a bitch Tanney, running Halverson off the road. Probably taking the dumbass completely by surprise. He could see the sheriff’s big, stupid mouth hanging open. Owen? What is this? What’s going on?

  He shook his h
ead. He almost wished he could have seen it in person, if only to see the look on Halverson’s face. And maybe to get another chance at taking a swing at Day.

  He drove faster than the road conditions probably warranted, but the day was warm enough. Things had already started to melt. What had been ice the night before was water this morning – water or slush. The only real danger was probably the spray of water hitting the rusted-out underbody of his truck.

  And he wasn’t going that fast. They reached town in one piece, and he slowed his pace a little at this point. He wanted to talk to a deputy, but not because he got pulled over.

  He reached the sheriff’s office, and saw a dark SUV parked right by the door: Owen Day’s SUV. He was sure of it.

  He was one part happy, and another disappointed. Had they already got him? If so, he was too late. But that was still mission accomplished, right?

  He cracked the windows and told Moses, “Wait here, buddy.” Then he climbed out and plodded through the slush.

  He found the entire place in a kind of uproar when he walked in. There were deputies everywhere, and the woman at the front desk look harried. He grunted by way of greeting, and she asked politely enough if she could help him.

  “I’ve got information about what happened to the sheriff. I need to talk to someone.”

  It was like he had said the words to some kind of magic spell. Open Sesame. The place rolled out the red carpet for him.

  He was ushered into a room and offered coffee by a tired looking young guy with a godawful mustache. But the kid was all politeness, bordering on ass-kissing. Not that Ted was complaining. A little ass kissing wasn’t out of line, given the disrespect he’d dealt with from Halverson.

  The kid’s name was Richardson, and he remained all politeness, all ass kissing, right until Ted got into the meat of the story. But as soon as he mentioned Day’s name, the tone of the conversation shifted.

  “You’re saying you have reason to believe Mr. Day was involved as a perpetrator?”