‘Don’t need a hostage situation here. I’m going to go up to the door like it’s nothing serious—’
Before he could finish talking, he heard the sound of a rifle shot and the glass on the passenger-side window blew out. Emmett then felt a sharp sting on the back of his neck as the driver’s-side window blew out. He wasn’t sure if a bullet had grazed his neck or if the blood seeping down his back was from glass cuts from the broken windows. At that point he really didn’t care – he just fell to his side. Lying across the front seat, he called out to Anthony, ‘Shots fired! Shots fired! I’m hit, but it’s not much. Call Charlie Smith for back-up and get your butts back here!’
They were in city territory. He’d forgotten to call Charlie and let him know he was serving a search warrant on Sinclair. He was gonna get his ass chewed out for this – if everything turned out OK.
He turned on the loudspeaker and spoke into the handset. ‘Miz Sinclair! You need to stop shooting at us. You need to throw out your gun and come out with your hands up—’
What Emmett considered to be a reasonable request was met by a barrage of bullets. He started to count them then figured why bother? She was in her own home – she probably had boxes of ammo. He would if he was a world-class-almost Olympic shot. His car was hit with all six shots, one even coming through the front door passenger side, very close to his head. He twisted around until he could open the driver’s-side door then slid his body out to the street. He had his gun in his hand but was afraid to shoot for fear of hitting Beth Atkins.
Anthony pulled up sideways to Emmett’s car, virtually blocking the street. He and Nita bailed out, guns drawn.
‘What do you wanna do, Emmett?’ Anthony asked.
‘She’s got a hostage. We can’t go shooting her house. We’d probably kill Beth Atkins.’
Nita handed Emmett the bullhorn from the car they’d been in. ‘Hard to get to the loudspeaker,’ she said.
Emmett turned the bullhorn on. ‘Reba, the city police are on their way. This place is going to be surrounded in a very few minutes. Is Beth OK? Just let me know if she’s OK.’
The front door opened and Beth Atkins stood there, her arms raised, Reba Sinclair standing behind her.
‘Deputy!’ Beth Atkins called out. ‘She said for y’all to back off! She wants to leave in her car and she said she’ll drop me off somewhere and call you and tell you where.’
‘No way, Reba. You’re not taking Beth anywhere! Just give it up before the police get here and it really gets bad. Right now all we’ve got you on is keeping Beth in your house against her will, which is just a minor infraction,’ Emmett lied.
‘Bullshit!’ Reba yelled from the doorway. And Emmett had to wonder how in the world this woman got the job as principal at a Christian school! ‘This would be considered kidnapping! I was pre-law at SMU! And you think I killed Darby Hunt, so that’s even worse! Just get out of my way or I’ll kill this bitch!’
At that moment police squad cars with sirens blazing came tearing down the street, which distracted Reba Sinclair. Beth Atkins tore away from her, falling to the ground. Reba looked after her with a shocked expression and Nita stood up and fired, hitting Reba in her gun arm. She dropped her weapon, her left hand grabbing her bleeding arm.
‘Didn’t wanna kill her, Emmett,’ Nita said.
Emmett stood up and slapped Nita on the back. ‘You done good,’ he said, and jogged up to the front door.
Reba was crying, looking down at Beth, and Emmett soon realized she wasn’t crying from pain but from perceived betrayal. ‘Why? Why did you do that? You told me to do this!’
I helped Beth to a standing position. ‘I told her to take me out here to tell you her demands, Emmett,’ Beth said.
‘No!’ Reba shouted. ‘She told me to shoot her father! And if y’all figured it out, we’d run away together! That’s what you said!’
‘I told you she was nuts, Emmett,’ Beth said, again using Emmett’s name instead of her usual use of ‘Deputy.’
Emmett looked at Anthony, who had come up behind him. ‘Anthony, why don’t you cuff Miz Atkins here, just in case, while I take Miz Reba to the ER. We’ll meet you back at the station. Just put Beth here in the interrogation room.’
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Beth demanded. ‘I had nothing to do with this! She killed him!’ She whirled on Anthony as he tried to cuff her. ‘Stop that!’ she said, but he grabbed her arms behind her back and cuffed her.
Emmett put some gauze on Reba Sinclair’s gunshot arm, taped it up good, then handcuffed her good arm to a metal ring on the back seat of his squad car. On the drive to the ER, and while in the ER, Reba Sinclair told a different story than the one he’d heard from Beth Atkins.
It started off the same: they’d met at a women’s bar in Dallas, gone on a date, then Beth had gone back to Longbranch with no plans of seeing Reba again. But Reba had other ideas. She had fallen in love with Beth rather quickly, so sent her résumé out to schools all around the Prophesy County area, and had finally been picked for the Christian school principal’s job, mainly because she was willing to take the really, really bad salary they offered. She’d called Beth many times to let her know she was in town and wanted to see her, but Beth always put her off – that is, until about a year and a half ago.
That’s when, according to Reba, she found out about what had happened with Beth’s parents. Beth called her out of the blue, and asked her out to dinner at the new vegetarian restaurant. This was followed by an intimate evening at Beth’s home. It was after sex that Beth began to cry, and told her about what her birth father had done to her mother.
‘She told me his sentence would be up in a year and half, said she just couldn’t stand the idea that he was going to be free after what he’d done,’ Reba told Emmett. ‘Do you know what her mother told her right before she died? She said, “Lizzie,” – that’s what she called her – “Lizzie, you just can’t trust a man.”’ Reba beamed at him. ‘But she knew she could trust me.’
Emmett felt a little sick to his stomach. Most of what Reba had told him she could have made up, and the part about Beth’s parents was local history. But the Lizzie part? That had to come from Beth herself.
‘So what was the plan?’ Emmett asked.
‘She thought I should start emailing him, go to see him, become his girlfriend. She even had me take that old bat, his mother, up to see him. After the first trip with her, when she didn’t shut up the entire way, I brought a thermos of coffee laced with a sleeping pill for her. Did the trick. I could get to the prison without having to listen to her rattle on and on about how awful Beth and her family were.’
‘But why did you buy him those expensive gifts?’ I asked, thinking of the Harley and the huge flat-screen TV.
‘Beth told me to. She said that would give him a false sense of security! Her idea was to kill him when he was in bed with me!’ Reba said, and shuddered. ‘I said no way, Jose! I wasn’t about to sleep with him. But then she remembered me almost going to the Olympics,’ she said, and I could see her in the rear-view mirror smiling timidly, ‘and she said I should do the honors. And I knew I could do it clean, no sweat.’
‘Did she ask you to shoot her father?’ Emmett asked.
‘Yes! And I was happy to do it. I love her,’ Reba said.
‘And after you shot him? Did you tell her?’ Emmett asked.
‘Oh, yes!’ Reba said smiling. ‘I went right to her house and told her. She hugged me and said thank you.’
‘What did you use?’ he asked.
‘My favorite! A Marlin 336 XLR, with a five-pound trigger pull. Sweet piece,’ she said, smiling. OK, Emmett thought, maybe she is a little crazy.
‘I’m gonna need you to repeat all this to the county attorney, Reba. Think you can do that?’
‘Sure, if that’s what you want,’ she said.
Milt – Day Seven
‘I was really beginning to like you, Milt,’ Heinrich said as he slowly came into the room.
‘Never,’ he said, his entire body oozing confidence on that subject. ‘She’s my wife; she’d never betray me.’
I laughed. It sounded funny to my own ears. ‘Are you shitting me?’ I said. ‘She was trying to seduce Mike and who knows who else? Oh, and how were you saving her from Josh? I take it you’re the one who strangled the boy?’
‘It was in my wife’s defense!’ Heinrich said, his face becoming hard with anger. ‘He was raping her!’
I just looked at him for a minute. ‘Are you sure about that? That wimpy little fourteen-year-old, who looked anorexic, was assaulting Crys— I’m sorry, I keep doing that! I mean Lizbet? I don’t think so. But I gotta know, why did you kill Lance? Was he raping Lizbet, too?’
‘I didn’t kill Lance!’ he shouted as he lunged for me.
It appeared I was to have the same fate as poor Josh. Heinrich had his hands around my neck and was squeezing. The edges of my vision were beginning to blacken. Then the pressure was gone and Heinrich was falling to the floor. Behind him stood my beautiful wife, leaning on one crutch. The other lay on the floor where it had dropped after she’d bashed in Heinrich’s skull.
Meanwhile, Back In Prophesy County
After the ER doc got Reba sewn up, Emmett called Midge Murphy, the county attorney, right then and asked her to meet them at the shop, then drove over there. Emmett didn’t want Reba realizing she was throwing the love of her life under the bus until after she’d told Midge the whole story.
Unfortunately she figured it out on the drive to the shop and clammed up. But Emmett had a feeling he could get her to open up one more time.
He left Reba with Midge and Anthony in the break room while he went into the interrogation room with Beth. She was still cuffed so Emmett went to her and took the cuffs off.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said.
She rubbed her wrists and looked at him. ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked, a hurt look on her face.
‘I’m afraid I bought into what Reba Sinclair was saying there for a minute. You know, about you telling her to do it.’
Beth shook her head. ‘God! I told you I wanted nothing to do with that woman! Anything she did she did on her own! I haven’t even talked to her but a couple of times since she moved here, and both those times were to tell her to leave me alone! I don’t want to sound shallow, Emmett, but have you looked at her?’ Beth said and laughed.
‘Yeah, that does sound shallow,’ Emmett said.
‘Well, it’s not just her looks. Obviously she’s crazy! Who else would follow me from a one-night stand all the way from another state? I mean, move here? That was nuts enough, but to kill Darby Hunt?’ Beth threw up her arms. ‘That’s just crazy, Emmett.’
‘Yeah, that’s crazy all right.’
Emmett got up and left the room, making sure the door was locked behind him, and went into the break room. Midge and Reba were sitting at the table, Reba crying, while Midge held her tape recorder in front of her and Reba tearfully told her everything she’d told Emmett earlier.
Looked like Beth Atkins was going to go down for soliciting the murder of her father.
Johnny Mac – Day Eight
Sometime in the early morning hours of their last day at sea, Johnny Mac’s dad had another heart attack. This time a helicopter from Galveston flew out to Life-Flight him to Houston for emergency surgery. Johnny Mac and Early packed their stuff quickly and tried to pack some of Johnny Mac’s mom’s stuff, but Mrs Tulia told them not to worry about it, that she’d take care of it, and hurried them up to the top deck where the helicopter was going to land. It was the wee hours of the morning and they could see the lights of Galveston in the far distance. The ship would be docking in an hour or so, but the ship’s doctor said there wasn’t time for that. Mr Tulia and Janna were already up there.
Janna ran to Johnny Mac and hugged him. There were tears in her eyes. ‘He’s gonna be fine!’ she said.
Johnny Mac could only nod. He knew if he said anything he’d start crying.
‘As soon as we dock, Daddy said we’d drive straight to the hospital! So I’ll see you there, OK?’
Again Johnny Mac nodded. It was windy on the top deck, but got windier when the helicopter reached them and started to descend. Two crewmen, the doctor and Johnny Mac’s mom came out of the door with the gurney that carried his dad. There were tubes running in and out of him, a mask on his face and a blanket covering his body. Johnny Mac barely suppressed a sob. Janna reached for his hand and squeezed it.
Mr Tulia put a hand on each of the boys’ shoulders and moved them towards the helicopter, bending forward as he did so. Instinctively Johnny Mac and Early did the same, although they were way too short for it to matter. Once all were aboard, the helicopter took off, but Johnny Mac was too worried about his dad to be either scared or awestruck regarding his first trip in a chopper.
Five hours later the boys were curled up on a couch in the cardiac waiting room of Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, covered with blankets and sound asleep. Johnny Mac was roused when he heard his mother’s crutches bang against a metal table. She was up and a guy in scrubs and a weird hat was walking toward her. The doctor, he figured. Johnny Mac jumped up and joined his mom.
‘Mrs Kovak?’ the doctor said.
‘Yes?’ his mom said.
‘Doctor Denton,’ he said, extending his hand. His mom shook it quickly.
‘How is he?’ she asked.
‘He made it through with flying colors,’ the doctor said, smiling. ‘We had to do a quadruple bypass on him, and he’s going to have to change his wicked ways, but he should be good to go for at least another twenty/thirty years.’
And that’s when Johnny Mac saw his mom cry for the very first time in his life.
Milt – Aftermath
I woke up with a crowd around me. Jean and Johnny Mac and Early, Mike and Lucy and their daughter, and Esther Monte and her daughter.
‘Hey, gang,’ I said. ‘We having a party?’
‘Man, what won’t you do for attention?’ Mike said.
‘Hey, baby,’ my wife said, bending down to kiss me.
‘Get her a chair, Mike,’ I said.
‘I’ve been trying, but she won’t sit down!’ Mike said.
‘Jeez, I’ll sit, I’ll sit!’ Jean said, and accepted the chair Mike brought to my bedside.
Mike lifted Johnny Mac up to sit on my bed. He leaned down and hugged me. ‘Don’t do that again, OK?’ he said in my ear.
‘Promise,’ I said back.
‘OK, so what happened on-board? Mike, did you get to Vern in time?’
‘Man, you can’t stop a cop, can you? Yeah, I got to the fat bastard before she even got there, told him what you told me. So I hid in his room, let her come in and get the pillow and stick it over his face, then he grabbed her arm and I switched on the lights, and voila, we had her. And by the way, he took Ryan home and told me he was going to stay there, if Lois would let him.’
‘She will,’ Lucy said.
‘And Heinrich? Darlin’,’ I said to my wife, ‘did you kill him?’
‘No, of course not!’ Jean said. ‘He just had a bit of concussion.’
‘So they’ve been arrested, I take it?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Mike said. ‘And Crystal – did you know that’s not even her name? It’s really Lizbet Heinrich! She’s Heinrich’s wife!’
‘Yeah, I knew that,’ I said.
‘Oh. Well, anyway, she’s singing like a bird! Blaming it all on Heinrich, but the kids found proof that she was having sex with Josh—’
‘God, Mike!’ Lucy said.
‘Honey! They’re the ones who found the proof
, for God’s sake! They knew what it meant!’ Then, with a worried frown, he turned to his daughter, ‘Didn’t you?’
‘Of course, Daddy,’ Janna said, and she and Lyssa giggled.
Lucy shook her head in despair.
‘Anyway,’ Mike continued, ‘she was doing Josh and he was stealing for her, and old Heinrich didn’t know a thing about it! But the kids, here,’ he put his arm around his daughter and drew her close, ‘with all their misbehaving, were able to prove it. Honey?’
Janna smiled sweetly at her father. I was gonna have to warn my boy about girls like this – you could get in real deep with those baby blues of hers. And she said, ‘Well,’ stretching out the ‘well’ and encompassing her little gang of brats with a look, ‘we were talking one day, and decided maybe we needed to see inside Josh’s cabin—’
‘That was sealed,’ I said. ‘With crime scene tape! I put it up myself.’ It hadn’t actually been crime scene tape as they didn’t have any aboard, but did have ‘under construction’ tape and I’d used that.
Janna’s smile faded and she looked at her father. ‘You said he wouldn’t yell at me,’ she said accusingly.
‘Milt, don’t yell,’ Mike and my wife said almost in unison.
‘Sorry,’ I said to Janna. ‘Continue. Please.’
‘OK,’ she said, giving me a guarded look. Then she smiled and said, ‘So, anyway, the boys were stuck in their cabin,’ she gave me a withering look, ‘but we came up with this idea to double check Josh’s cabin. We knew the security crew had already done that, but really, Sheriff Kovak?’
‘Yes, Janna?’ I said.
She frowned and said, ‘I don’t think they were very good.’
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