One bong. One hour to live.
Ervin's eyes glazed. "Pyle's fault. He should have been home. He let Amber leave me with Little Bit. Pyle adopted Little Bit. Took my wife and my girl. Should have kept safe." He stopped pacing and stared into space. "Stone should have left him in prison."
Ervin raised a clenched fist and shook it. "But Elaine . . . she wouldn't . . . and she wouldn't let me get close to her pretty daughter. Touched Kerri one time. Elaine went crazy. Wouldn't let me back in her house. Met me at the cabin to screw, to keep me away from her kid. Then she got tight."
I shifted in my chair.
He lowered his hand and stood quietly. "I came to see Little Bit, like I always did. Amber and the boy came home. Amber went crazy. I didn't . . ."
Ervin waved the gun in my direction. "Everyone is gone now. Because of you, Stone. I'm going to get a piece of this bitch here, then I'm going to cut her—" Ervin stopped mid-sentence.
I was glad. I didn't want to hear anymore.
Bloom's voice broke into the quiet. "Chief, my people have a car for you, and they're working on the money, seeing what they can do. The mayor needs to sign off, and he's in a meeting downtown. It might take extra time because of the traffic."
Bloom was distracting him from talking about the violence he planned for me. I hoped his tactics worked.
"That's good. That's fine." Ervin went back to his pacing. "Where's Stone? Is he understandin' all this?"
"He can hear everything. Keep talking."
"Then Elaine, I had her understandin', cooperatin'. Then Stone had to come up here."
"Where Chief? To Parkview?" Bloom asked.
Ervin was slipping deeper into the abyss. He'd lost his sense of place. I hoped he'd lost his orientation to time, too. The clock bonged twice.
He shook his head as if trying to clear his thoughts. "Ya, up there to Parkview. Elaine understood about Bullock. I thought she'd understand about Amber and the boy too, but no. Tried to run away. I told her I'd arrest her kid for drugs. Kept running. Saying she'd tell Stone. I couldn't let her. You understand, don't you, Bloom?"
"That must have been stressful." Bloom was empathic, but he didn't agree. He never said he understood.
"Where's the car? Is it time yet?"
"We're working on it," Bloom said. "Hang on a minute, can you, chief? I need to use the facilities."
I heard a click and glanced at my watch. Ervin had lost track of the time. He'd paced and raved for more than six hours. The longer he talked, the better for me. I hoped he didn't notice when the clock chimed again.
Ervin pointed at me. "Food."
"Sure. I'll make you a sandwich. Bologna okay?" I stood and used the opportunity to flex my sore hip and thigh while I walked around the counter to the refrigerator.
He didn't answer. He resumed pacing and fiddling with his gun. Bloom used the facilities for almost fifteen minutes, and Ervin seemed unaware. The clock's chiming passed without comment.
I set his sandwich on the arm of the sofa, and went back to my chair, nibbling on a piece of bread I grabbed for myself in the process. If he started shooting at me, I planned to hit the floor and roll as close as possible to the island counter, figuring he couldn't shoot around a corner.
Bloom said, "Then what happened?"
"Stone pissed me off." Ervin picked up the strain without missing a note.
"Stone makes you angry." Bloom paused for several seconds. "Then what happened?"
Ervin's staccato delivery intensified. "Need to get even. Son of a bitch. Ruined everything, always. Tried to kill him. The son of a bitch didn't die. Some other bastard died. Who'd of thought some other bastard would want to look like Stone. Damn. I'd cut my head off if I looked like that ugly muther."
"You tried very hard to fix the problem. Can we help you fix this problem?" Bloom pushed at my captor.
The clock chimed twelve notes. Three forty-five. I'd been fixated on two o'clock, and I found the passing of time to be disorienting. I'd lost my landmark in the day. Still, I knew my only hope of survival was in Ervin's lost sense of time.
"No, how can you help? They'll send me to Stark. Fried." He stopped, looking confused. He paced a couple of broad circles. "Maybe better that way. The other prisoners will kill me. Stone ruined my whole life."
I doubted Ervin would be competent to stand trial.
"I'll guarantee no one hurts you. Come out now while you can." Bloom intensified his efforts.
"Are you threatening me?" Ervin said.
He seemed to have his focus back. Not a good thing in my opinion.
"No, Chief. Telling it like it is. It's an option. We can try to work this out."
"No, no. Had enough working it out." He quit pacing, picked up the portable phone, and flung it across the room. It crashed, shattering three figurines on my display shelf.
Sunshine yelped.
Dread paralyzed me. I forced myself to take a deep breath and to exhale slowly, then again, and again. Ervin moved across the floor in my direction, a cold vacant stare in his eyes, and a five-inch blade in his left hand. Ray had said Ervin liked a blade. I gulped down waves of nausea. My tremulous hands felt icy.
"I'm going to do this where your lover boy can watch you suffer. Bitch. You'll wish you'd dropped your panties for me in Parkview."
He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to my feet, dragging me in front of the living room window.
I caught a glimpse of the portable phone. The red light glowed, connecting us to the SSRV—I hoped.
Ervin held me tight against his cheek and belly, blocking any clear shot through the window. I felt the blade against my neck as he pawed at my breasts with his other hand.
Knowing Ervin was showing his power to Ray, I tried to block out the humiliation. Then I felt Ervin getting aroused. I feared he would rape me—then kill me. A plan formed in my mind. I had nothing to lose.
Ervin stood several inches taller and was many inches broader than I. If I distracted him, getting him to lower the knife, a sniper could get a clear shot—maybe. I rubbed my hips against his pelvis until I felt his jeans bulge.
"Oh, baby," Ervin said. "I knew you were a whore. Knew you'd enjoy putting on a show."
I stomped on Chief Ervin's left foot with all possible force, driving the hard rubber heal of my duty shoes into his canvas-covered arch.
He wailed. Cursed. Jerked the knife, nicking my neck.
I jabbed an elbow into his gut and collapsed to the floor, rolling in the direction of the sofa. I heard the shattering of glass, then the sound of a gunshot.
Ervin dropped the knife, but stood for a second or two before crumpling to the floor. He had a massive head wound.
The house swarmed with the SWAT team, medics, negotiators, and Ray, who ignored them all and held me in his arms, whispering, "Thank God you're okay. You did a good job, honey."
Five tonal chimes echoed off the walls.
Epilogue
About a month later, Ray and the kids stopped by the hospital on a Saturday afternoon to have lunch with me in the cafeteria. We sat around a four-top table near the rear of the cafeteria stuffing ourselves with Velma's Special Mac-Cheese, sliced tomatoes, biscuits, and iced tea. The kids' only complaint was the tea wasn't presweetened, southern style.
"Where you guys been?" I asked, inspecting their smudged tee shirts and beach-style footwear. Kerri wore a swimming suit in lieu of normal undergarments.
"The church youth group had a car wash at the Mobil station on University," Kerri said.
"We're going to the beach for a couple of hours, and on the way back, we'll stop and look at a car for Kerri," Branden said. "Dad says we need another car to get to school and when we want to go somewhere together."
He had a point. Ray was renting a family-style vehicle since he couldn't bring himself to unload the S2000. I'd offered to trade, but he didn't cooperate.
"You get all the fun, and I have to work." I stuck out my lower lip, feigning a pout.
"I'm gettin
g some yogurt." Branden left the table for the soft-serve machine with Kerri following close behind.
Ray patted my hand. "By the way, the official DNA reports came back on the Pyle family yesterday and confirmed what we knew about Ervin."
"That's good, I guess." I was thinking about Amber stuck in foster care. "Pyle is the good guy, and Ervin the bad guy."
"All around it seems. Pyle not being very bright isn't a crime."
"He's a few rays short of a sunny day." I laughed, but then thought about all that had happened. Ervin had flown to Florida, rented the Yaris, and shot Dick, thinking Dick was Ray. Then Ervin had hurried back to Parkview and hardly missed a beat until he lost his hold on reality and came back to settle the score.
Ray's kids weaved between the tables on their return trip from the yogurt counter.
"The wild thing is Ervin set up Pyle on the child molestation charge in Montgomery. The thirteen-year-old child who accused him of touching her admitted she lied at her father's insistence. Ervin had something on her old man. Once Ervin was dead, it was easy for them to tell the truth."
"What about Amber? Does she have to stay in foster care?" I took a sip of my water. "I talked to Kathleen this morning. She's working part-time in a doctor's office, but she's wise enough not to pursue adopting Amber."
"Pyle is working at his old job. Since he adopted Amber, he just has to get through the red tape. The Victim's Advocate referred Pyle to a lawyer who promised to handle the matter with CCS pro bono. Amber should be home with her poppy soon."
"What I don't understand is why Big Al allowed his son to be framed? That doesn't make sense to me."
"Buddy Lee told me Ervin threatened to kill both sons if the old man told the truth. Even though Buddy Lee made some threats at the sentencing, during the trial he refused to use Elaine as an alibi. His silence sealed his fate."
I thought for a minute, then broached the subject that nagged me from the depth of my guilty conscience. "Branden told me he was a bad seed since he might be the son of a murderer."
"Pyle's sterile. Said he always has been. They used donor sperm and in vitro fertilization to conceive the baby boy. He offered to let me verify that in any way I wanted, but I believe him."
"Did you tell Branden?"
"Yup, but I didn't have to. He pulled me over in front of a mirror and pointed out all of the similarities in our looks. We had to live together without fighting long enough to notice."
Branden set a big bowl of frozen yogurt in front of his father and a second more diminutive one in front of me. "Dad, let's hurry. It's getting late."
After a few minutes of silence, interrupted only by the scraping of spoons and smacking of lips, Ray kissed me on the cheek and said he'd see me after I finished my shift. I watched the small family leave the cafeteria, Ray and Branden on either side of Kerri. A tall young woman flanked by two guys with the same little swing in their walk.
I smiled at the twinkling diamond on my left hand and knew I was a part of their lives.
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gregg E. Brickman was born the daughter of a North Dakota country printer. She migrated to Florida and completed her education, embarking on a varied career in clinical, administrative, and academic nursing.
Gregg started writing as a teenager, turning out pages of sappy poetry. In the mid-nineties, she bought a book about writing a novel and committed the story burning in her head to paper. She called that first novel a learner's effort, joined Mystery Writers of America, and actively pursued the craft.
Credits include Imperfect Contract [Kindle and CreateSpace], Illegally Dead [Kindle and CreateSpace], Chapter 14 of Naked Came the Flamingo, a Murder on the Beach progressive novella edited by Barbara Parker and Joan Mickelson, and On the Edge, a short story [MiamiARTzine.com]. The Writers' Network of South Florida recognized On the Edge among the finalists in their Seventh Annual Short Story Contest.
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