The Unyielding Future
Page 25
Give me just another moment and all of this will be over, he imagined her saying, and then she turned to Dane’s throat and it was over in a moment.
Mark Dane. Age 27. Race: Caucasian. Date of Death: August 21, 2016. Time of Death: 0710 (estimate). Cause of death: Exsanguination due to trauma. Secondary cause of death: Poetic justice. I would amend the last to read Texas Justice.
Sharpe rifled through the dead man’s pockets and after finding a ring of keys finally clued into the smell of gas that had been tickling his nose from the moment he opened the front door. Nitrox chuffed at him and then sprinted down the stairs. It took him several tries to find the right key, and he opened the door to a pitch black room filled with the smell of mercaptan (the additive that gives natural gas that rotten egg smell). He reached for the light switch and Nitrox barked so loud that Sharpe’s ears rang. She grabbed a cuff of his pants and tried to pull him back into the light of the hallway. He resisted, and she barked even louder, and then began to growl. Wisely, Sharpe backed into the hallway and Nitrox squeezed passed him and went into the small bedroom. She stood staring at a shelf over the television and again chuffed at a flashlight.
“Adis?” Sharpe asked the dog who answered with a small “Woof.” “All right, I can deal with that,” he said, and he retrieved the flashlight.
The pair returned to the room and found the four children chained and unconscious. He fumbled with the keys and light for several minutes and finally turned to the dog and said, “This would be so much easier if I turn on the light.” He panned the flashlight beam to the ceiling and found a naked bulb. A broken naked bulb. With the electrical contacts still intact. “Holy shit,” Sharpe said. It took him ten minutes to find the correct keys, free the children from the heavy iron chains, and carry them one by one into the backyard. All four were unconscious but breathing. As Sharpe was carrying the last of the children into the light, he saw that Nitrox had dragged the other three down into the dry creek that dominated the backyard. He stared at her odd behavior for a moment and then was lifted off his feet as the house behind him exploded.
Obviously, there has been much speculation regarding the cause of the explosion. Officially, it was determined to be an electrical short, and technically that is probably correct. However, even before the detective and the child he was carrying, Maggie Dale, hit the ground, my phone received a text. It was a simple one-word message: Boom. Sida probably should have just signed his name; instead, the originating number was my office’s back line.
In the end, the Manor police, EMS, and Fire Department had enough warning (I assume from Adis) that they arrived in time to save Aldo Caberra, Sharpe, and the four children. The scent of blood was in the air, so naturally the media showed up in droves. Amber Lee and the Highton twins would ultimately make a full physical recovery, but I doubt that psychologically they will ever be the same. In that respect, Sida had achieved at least one goal, but more on that later. Maggie Dale, despite being the smallest and the frailest, survived with only a number of contusions and a broken arm after John Sharpe’s body absorbed most of the concussive blast. She had few memories of her nearly 115 days of captivity, and most of them were about the “big brown dog.”
John Sharpe had been shot, stabbed, and blown up. I could go through the long list of physical injuries, but I don’t think many would find that interesting. For a long time I had real concerns that he would survive, much less live an independent life. In the end though, he not only survived but to great fanfare would return to work in a limited capacity. I doubt he will last to retirement; I just don’t see him as a desk kind of guy. Surprisingly, few questions were ever asked about how he knew where to find the children, and his stock answer of following up on a lead seemed to suffice. The children were found, the bad guys had been dealt with, and the public had its hero. Case closed.
As Adis had predicted, the body of William Hartenstein was found in Illinois in late August. Forensics would link him back to Austin and the kidnappings, so now the case was really closed. The question of how he ended up in a field almost a thousand miles away remains unanswered officially, but I don’t think many have an interest in pulling that string.
Which leaves us with Sida.
Chapter Twenty Five