Killing Sanford (Gary Cannon Book 1)

by Mike Kershner

  Killing

  Sanford

  GARY CANNON: BOOK I

  MIKE KERSHNER

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used factiously. All characters are fictional and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other – except for brief quotations in critical reviews and articles, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Copyright © 2015 Mike Kershner

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1506150934

  ISBN-13: 978-1506150932

  For my loving family, I am thankful for you each day.

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  June 3, 1976

  September 6, 1965

  September 12, 1965

  June 3, 1976

  June 6, 1976

  June 13, 1976

  June 20, 1976

  June 24, 1976

  September 12, 1965

  September 13, 1965

  September 19, 1965

  September 20, 1965

  June 25, 1976

  June 26, 1976

  July 1, 1976 01:29

  July 1, 1976 18:55

  July 2, 1976 05:30

  July 2, 1976 09:15

  July 2, 1976 09:36

  July 3, 1976 05:55

  July 4, 1976 08:20

  July 4th, 1976 18:00

  September 24, 1965

  September 24, 1965

  January 4, 1946

  May 31, 1947

  July 4, 1976

  October 6, 1965

  July 4, 1976 19:10

  June 3, 1947

  July 5, 1976

  October 6, 1966

  March 14, 1967

  July 5, 1976

  March 20, 1967

  March 22, 1967

  July 6, 1976 02:00

  July 4, 1976 18:12

  July 6, 1976 02:35

  July 4, 1976 19:45

  July 6, 1976 10:10

  July 7, 1976

  July 1, 1977

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my wife for helping me to have the time to complete this, and for putting up with me when my face was buried in the screen.

  Also, a thank you to Scott for encouraging me to write again.

  There are so many more who have all helped me in some way, either by influence or encouragement. I believe those of you who know will feel something familiar somewhere in the pages that follow.

  June 3, 1976

  Bright sun and hot air flooded into the stale smoky Hawker’s interior. He pulled his bag from its overhead stowage and moved toward the open porthole. He donned his dark glasses as he moved, his head was lowered as to not hit it on the fuselage interior. He ducked again lower to clear the doorway, his left hand came up to shield his eyes from the sun and its reflection off the desert tarmac.

  His hair was light, almost straw colored, not long but not cut short. His skin was tan and smooth. He was not a terrifically tall man, just even at six feet in the shoes he had on he was still taller than most. To the people who notice things he was obviously fit. His posture was confident but inviting, and his movements were casual and active at the same time.

  He made his way down the stairs and for the first time in just over two and a half years stepped onto American soil. Gary Cannon had spent the previous three years of his life almost full time in Western Europe and the four before that in and out of Southeast Asia.

  As much as he had missed his home, stepping off this aircraft in San Diego felt no different to him than it had touching down in some of the foreign cities he had passed through in the past months and years.

  Gary’s return to the United States was happening much as his last departure had, on a hot runway and no one knowing who he was or appearing to care. The high in the sky sun looked just the same as it had half a world away, but it felt different. His omens of time spent working in the States weighed on him.

  This trip home was so different than the others, his other trips had been short and for his own relaxation. Time for him to try and forget his pain, and his work, and to put pieces of a life in an order that made sense to him.

  All the same memories and pain lived here in his home and the time he had spent abroad thinking of home, and thinking of returning were quickly now outweighed by the feeling of knowing he was home. The deep down feeling of knowing just how difficult his job could be here.

  At the bottom stairs he lightly adjusted the Combat Commander wedged inside the waistband on his right hip and stepped forward onto the sticky asphalt. Gary’s walk was as carefree as a man walking on a peaceful beach, he was alert, and relaxed at the same time. However he had the look of a coiled spring that could be tripped at any moment.

  He gave a smooth glance over his right shoulder looking back at the cockpit, the pilot was clearing the plane to take off and even as he walked he could hear the engines spooling up again to power the jet skyward.

  He moved forward small duffel hanging from his left hand; he checked the Speedmaster on his right wrist, 15:25, still hours until he had to catch his bus.

  Gary reached the shade of the concourse, he stopped and casually looked back across the airfield, and the thin sliver of shade was not affording him much relief from the mid afternoon sun and the southern California heat.

  He reached into his breast pocket of the manila colored shirt he wore and pulled a butt from his pack of Lucky's, lit it and near one of the supports, and glanced forward into the glass of the building. Lucky’s were not the brand he was used to and even though he had been burning them up the last couple of days the taste of them tore at his throat.

  Through the glass he noted nothing that made him uneasy, another scan of the tarmac and a member of the ground crew who was preparing to greet another flight yelled, “Hey…hey asshole, you can’t smoke there, the jet fuel! Hey, read the sign!”

  Gary noted the sign as he had walked to the shade of the concourse. Gary was not a heavy smoker and he often could go for days and never light one up, he had just had a smoke on the plane as it was on approach. What he needed was just a few more minutes to stand and look, and to just do it like a guy having a puff before he went inside and pushed through the bustle of the airport.

  But Mr. Overcautious out on the tarmac cut this opportunity short for him. Gary took one more drag, dropped the cigarette to the ground, crushed it with his heel and gave a wave and a smile to the ground crew, nodded his head to them and walked through the glass door.

  ***

  The bus station was hot and dimly lit. The taxi ride from the airport had been longer than Gary expected it to take but he was still more than early for the bus that was going to take him east.

  Gary entered from the side, and moved along the wall, slowly calmly taking note of everything in the large open room but looking at nothing. There was a young man in a Navy uniform sitting in one of the hard wooden chairs in the lobby, and the other chairs were empty.

  Gary was acutely aware of the booming his steps made as he made his way across the wooden floor. He stepped to the ticket window and purchased a ticket, the bus for Omaha would be leaving at 17:20, he had a while to wait still and he picked a seat with a view of the entrances, checked his watch and waited.

  ***

  Gary stepped onto the hot dirty bus. Two passengers loaded in with Gary, the young man in the Navy uniform from the station and a y
oung woman in a sundress.

  Gary started looking through the rest of his fellow passengers, working his way from the front. No one was drawing any real attention from him. He did make small mental notes of how they were acting, how and where they were seated.

  In his mind Gary evaluated each of them for the possibility that they had followed him. He looked at their faces, tried to picture if they were faces he knew. As he looked at each face he searched his memory for ones he had seen before, or ones he had seen from intelligence passed his way.

  Beyond the faces there always seemed to be a certain posture to look for one he never found a way to describe, one he just knew.

  In the business Gary was in he was at the top of the pyramid, there were maybe six people in the world at his level. If he was being hunted it would either be one of those other five, or it would be a team.

  None of the faces on the bus were ones he recognized, there was no way an entire team would be on the bus with him, he just needed to watch out for one member that could be shadowing him.

  All of the windows were open, and the hot southern California breeze cut through the bus in random eddies and seemed to suck the water from his body.

  The smell of the bus reminded him of every bus he had ever been on, and the isle he walked down had just enough tackiness that his shoes lightly stuck to it as he stepped. Gary picked an aisle seat at the back, stowed his duffel under the seat. After sitting adjusted the .45 in his waistband the hammer of which was digging sharply into his side.

  The bus, nearly empty lumbered forward, its old loud engine protesting the driver’s command to move the heavy piece of iron down the road. The bus was moving through the city streets making its way to the open road.

  ***

  September 6, 1965

  As a boy in High School Gary knew, girls were a mystery to him, school came easy, and being outdoors was heaven.

  His life was comfortable he rarely wanted or needed for much of anything, but he could see the people around him and knew that his family was not a wealthy one.

  School had just restarted for the year. Gary was still thinking of his summer vacation as Mr. Bee talked about the importance of Sherman’s march to the sea, but Gary remembered all about it from what he had read a few years ago. That seemed to be the case with almost everything, it seemed Gary actually had to try not to remember things. Everything he saw, read or did, just stuck.

  Out the window the rain pounded down on the small western Missouri town. Rain, heavy at times had been falling most of the day that day, Gary was thinking of how he hoped the fish would be biting on the river because of the storm. In his mind he was already on the river wetting his lines.

  Lost in his daydream Gary failed to notice Sheriff Metzler had come to the classroom door. Watching the rain dance with the setting puddles in the street he was hypnotized. Metzler talked with Mr. Bee and Bee called for Gary, “Gary…Gary Cannon,” Gary looked up.

  “Gary, Sheriff Metzler needs to speak with you in the hall.”

  There was a bustle of heckles and calls from the room behind, Bee shot them a look and the room fell silent.

  Gary rose from his desk and walked to the door, well aware of the eyes watching him as he walked. He was searching his mind for what he might have done, or where he slipped up and got caught.

  The Sheriff and Mr. Bee followed Gary in to the hall. Mr. Bee shut the door behind them.

  There in the long empty hallway, Gary stood opposite the Sheriff and Mr. Bee, the high sheen on the tile reflected the light spilling in from the gray afternoon, Metzler spoke, “Gary, I have something to tell you, this morning your parents were on their way to the City, and did you know they were going that way?”

  “Yes Sir, I think Dad wanted to look at the new Fords.”

  “Well, son…” he paused, looked at Bee, “Gary, their car lost control and slid off the road…it over turned into a full fast moving stream. By the time anyone came upon the car, they were gone Gary. There was nothing that could be done.”

  Gary looked up at these men in front of him, he felt himself moving away from his body moving upward and looking down on himself and the two men. The dark corridor echoed with his heartbeat, he could hear his breathing, see the sweat beading on his neck. He took a breath and he was in his head again, hands and feet numb, eyes darting from side to side, desperately looking for something to pull his mind and attention from what this uniformed man had just told him.

  Gary found nothing that could turn it off. He looked back to Metzler and Bee, “Okay.”

  Mr. Bee, looked at Sheriff Metzler, confused, Mr. Bee back and Gary, “Son, do you understand what Mr. Metzler just told you?”

  “Yes sir, my folks were on their way to the City, and they slid into a ditch and drown.” His voice was plan and unwavering.

  ***

  September 10, 1965

  It had been his first brush with death. His parents had been snatched away from him in a fail swoop. Gary had never been to a funeral, he had never known anyone who had died. He had never known his grandparents. To further his anguish he had no uncles, or aunts, and no cousins. The only family he had ever known was gone.

  The time between that day in the school corridor and the day he watched his parents lowered into the ground had passed and he had barely noticed, the services were impersonal and brought him little comfort.

  Gary had been in a pew for family, he sat there with his neighbor, a widow, Mrs. Hunter. There was no family to share that pew with him. Likewise, there were no brothers no nephews to carry the caskets. Men from the church had filled in Gary was introduced to them but he did not remember their names, Gary was alone.

  Tomorrow he would turn sixteen, he would be alone for that as well. In his mind all he could see was birthdays to come each of them filled with loneliness.

  Gary had stared at the wooden boxes holding the bodies of his mother and father, sitting in his hard wooden seat next to an old woman who smelled of mothballs, he cried no tears.

  He had cried in the past days, the tears had come in private in an old bed in Mrs. Hunter’s house, his head covered by stale cold sheets.

  Gary would not let himself cry in front of these strangers, not now, not when he had not a clue where he would go, or how he would live.

  He felt he was in the boxes with them, there was a coldness in his life he had never known. The lack of direction, lack of knowing was tearing him apart.

  ***

  Gary stayed with Mrs. Hunter for two days following the funeral, he was not happy there in fact, he was miserable.

  Mrs. Hunter smoked like an old locomotive it was not the sweet smell of his father’s pipe, her cigarettes smelled like the dry grass that was burned with the spring pastures. Her food was bland she cooked with no salt and she had no sugar in the house.

  Mrs. Hunter was nearly deaf, which meant whenever she was talking she was yelling, her voice was a hoarse scratchy thing heavy with twang, and her vocabulary, like her grammar was severely lacking.

  There was a lonely parakeet in her living room that for as many times as Gary had been there looked like it was molting. The cage was in desperate need of cleaning and the putrid smell of bird droppings was an almost ever-present aroma. Ever-present unless Gary opened a closet, and then it was the mothballs.

  A day before the funeral Gary had been visited by a man named Finch. Finch had showed up mid-morning that day at Mrs. Hunter’s, asked for Gary at the door and the old widow yelled back into the house for Gary.

  Gary would remember Finch as the first man to shake his hand. Finch was a short skinny little man, salt and pepper hair and a plug of tobacco tucked into his left cheek. Finch asked Gary out to the porch, where they sat.

  “Gary, I am sorry for your loss... I did not know your folks well, actually I never met your mother. Several years ago I was approached and hired by your father to write his will. He had some very specific instructions, he was one of the most meticulous men I have ever dealt with. Th
e will has been in my keeping.”

  Gary was more than a bit confused, his father, as long as he could remember had worked as a truck driver. James Cannon ran local deliveries mostly and was almost always home in the evening. He knew they were not a wealthy family. A will seemed to Gary like the document of a wealthy man. “A will?”

  “It’s not an uncommon thing Gary, men about his age they think about things, about their life, and they make out a will, someday I ‘spect you’ll know.”

  “You said there were special instructions?”

  “I said specific instructions, ones which I will follow...” Finch stood and spat off the porch and into the yard that sat back down.

  Finch continued, “Look son, after your momma and papa are laid to rest you and I need to set down so that we can read through your papa’s will. There are some important things that will need to be set straight so we can get you taken care of. Okay?”

  Gary nodded, “Yes sir.” still confused, wondering what his father could have had that he would need to pass down to his son in a will.

  Finch stood, “I will send a car for you on Friday.” He shook Gary’s hand again and walked his way back to his Oldsmobile. Gary watched his car as it disappeared down the street.

  There were clouds to the west dark and ominous, Gary looked at them and felt he was looking into his heart. The wind picked up and pushed leaves around in the street. Gary could feel the coolness on the wind preceding the storm, at first it felt good, but then it made him shiver. Gary turned and with great reluctance went into the house.

  ***

  September 12, 1965

  As Gary had been told Finch sent a car for him, it was a Lincoln. The driver came to the door and walked with him to the car. The driver opened the car door and closed it for him. The driver was very polite but did not speak much as they drove north to the city.