The Caretaker's Wife

by Vincent Zandri

Tears were streaming down her face as Cora made her way to the open door and, stepping over two or three dead bodies, began her descent back down to the first floor of the insurance building.

  Moments later, we stood in the middle of the main street, observing the carnage and the destruction. Dead and severely wounded bodies were everywhere. Some of them had been shot to pieces, some of them burned, others just lying still like they simply lay down and fell into a deep sleep. Buildings were burning or entirely destroyed. So were two of the Suburbans. A crashed state trooper helicopter clogged the middle of the road along with the now shot up Sheriff’s prowler. It wasn’t like staring at a war zone. It was like staring at the apocalypse.

  “What a mess,” Cora said after a time.

  She then did something I never would have expected. She started to laugh. I could recall some of my men laughing after a particularly hard-fought battle. It seemed like the only way you dealt with all that violent death and destruction was to laugh it off. It was either laugh or go insane. Then, a head emerged from out of what used to be the entry to Bunny’s Place. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t Bunny herself. She’d somehow survived the onslaught. But then, I wasn’t the least bit surprised that she had.

  I waved her over.

  “Come with us, Bunny!” I shouted. “This place is way too hot to stick around!”

  “No, thanks,” she said. “I’m gonna stay and salvage what I can. I’ll catch up with you two later on.”

  “Be safe, Bun,” Cora added.

  I took hold of my girl’s hand then, and we made our way to my Jeep, which was still parked in front of the sheriff’s office. The office itself might have been gone, but the Jeep didn’t look a whole lot worse for wear. It had taken a few rounds and some shrapnel damage. The windshield was cracked, but other than that, my Jeep had been spared. I wasn’t sure why, but it made me very happy.

  I slipped behind the wheel, and Cora got into the passenger seat. Firing it up, I pulled out of the lot and drove in the opposite direction of Loon Lake Inn. I didn’t know where we were going, I just took hold of Cora’s hand again, held it tightly, and I drove. I drove to nowhere.

  26

  Sixteen Months Later

  News of what was now being called the Battle for Loon Lake spread faster than the fire that consumed Big Billy’s body. Cora and I lawyered up with a hotshot attorney from New York City who, in exchange for working pro-bono, was getting himself a ton of air time on all the national news and morning shows. We were interviewed over and over again by members of the state police who apparently weren’t on the take, including Lieutenant Spencer who, by now, considered Sonny’s untimely death directly related to the war waged in town.

  “Of course they’re connected,” I freely admitted. “It was his family who tried to destroy us.”

  While the Essex County DA searched for ways to prosecute us on various illegal weapons charges that not only included the use of war-like weaponry such as a surface-to-air missile and a flamethrower, but also petty issues like the thirty-round AR15 magazines, in the end he decided not to pursue the issue since the public sentiment was overwhelmingly on our side. And that would be bad for politics.

  Cora and I had not only defended our town against some very evil people, we’d fallen in love in the process. It was a love story for the ages. As my new Manhattan-based literary agent put it, ours was “a story that had all the drama, conflict, action, and romance of a Hemingway novel.” Cora and I had survived a modern-day For Whom the Bell Tolls, and because of it, the book and movie offers were rolling it. In a word, Cora and I were getting rich, but we didn’t act like it.

  Sheriff Woods never did get the chance to give me the one-hundred K he owed me, but then, I not only didn’t need it anymore, he died trying to save Cora’s and my life, and I would be forever grateful to his memory.

  Ironically, the little sleepy town of Loon Lake became a major tourist attraction. Investors were pouring in. The place had been quickly cleaned up, the buildings leveled while new, far bigger and more modern building complexes were being constructed. Even the old insurance building that we’d utilized as The Alamo was turned into a museum dedicated to the Battle of Loon Lake. There were three floors of exhibits, a fifteen-minute filmed documentary, and the damaged wall that had been hit by the state trooper rocket was left intact. It was the museum’s most dramatic display.

  Loon Lake was now being considered as a possible site for the 2040 Winter Olympic Games, not that I’d live long enough to see it. Bunny’s Place was booming, and the walls of her reconstructed business were covered with newspaper and magazine accounts of the battle. The AR15 she’d used in the battle was now mounted proudly over the bar back. Cora and I received more offers for Loon Lake Inn than we could count. Some of them so lucrative they made our mouths water, but in the end, we didn’t sell out. Truth is, we refused to sell out.

  Now that the town was turning into a big attraction with new hotels, restaurants, a multiplex movie theater, and even a Play-O-Rama complex with go-carts, batting cages, and waterslide facility, we wanted to keep the inn in its original rustic form. Naturally, we were booked up for going on three years, and we could pretty much charge what we wanted for the nightly rentals of the cabins. But it was our home now, and nothing could change that. Not even money and fame.

  Cora and I even kept the cabin beyond the pines situated away from the others as our own. We still enjoyed sleeping there, drinking red wine in bed, making love until we were exhausted, and in the morning, getting up early and drinking coffee down on the small dock while the fish jumped in the lake and the birds sang and circled around us. Because we’d rid ourselves of Sonny Torchi and defended Loon Lake, our lives had become nothing short of idyllic.

  When the blue and yellow prowler showed up in the inn’s parking lot, I had no doubt who was seated behind the wheel, nor was I surprised to see him. Because it was inevitable that he would show back up one day. He got out of the car, looking big and serious, especially when he put his gray Stetson on, pulling the brim far enough down on his forehead that it somewhat concealed his intense eyes. I walked out onto the tavern porch while he slowly approached the steps.

  “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Spencer,” I said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Mind if I come in?” he asked politely.

  “I’ve got fresh coffee going,” I said. Then, smiling wryly, “Unless, that is, you prefer something stronger.”

  “Coffee is fine,” he said, climbing the three steps and following me inside.

  I got the coffee and set it out for him on the bar while I stood facing him from the bar back. He sipped the coffee and pursed his lips.

  “It’s good,” he said. “What kind is it?”

  “Death Wish Coffee,” I said. “It’s supposed to have the most caffeine of any coffee out there. Won a bunch of awards. Only the best for you, Lieutenant.”

  He stared into his cup contemplatively.

  “That’s not a metaphor, is it, Mr. Kingsley?” he asked. “Death wish, I mean.”

  “Not at all.” I smiled. “It’s just good coffee. That’s all.”

  He cleared the frog in his throat. “You and Cora have become genuine celebrities,” he said. “You’re rich, you’re famous, you’re healthy, despite that blood bath of a battle. I guess you could say you two are the best thing not only to happen to one another but to Loon Lake in general.”

  “I like to think so, Lieutenant,” I said. “These days, I live the simple life of the caretaker.”

  He sipped his coffee.

  “That’s funny,” he said.

  “What’s funny?” I said.

  “I’m told that’s what Sonny Torchi always referred to himself as.”

  “The caretaker.”

  “Precisely,” he said. “And now you have the caretaker’s wife, don’t you?”

  I smiled. “Guess you could say that. But I’m just a writer who also runs an inn.”

/>   He sipped more coffee, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “He was left-handed, you know.”

  “I’m sorry?” I said.

  “Sonny Torchi. You know, Loon Lake Inn’s original caretaker. He was left-handed. Which is why the massive cut he suffered on his left thigh was inconsistent with a left-handed man. Strange, isn’t it?”

  That’s when I felt the goosebumps rise on my skin. It was almost like a frigid wind had just blown in through the door.

  “Something else was strange, too,” he went on. “The way the flesh was cut. It was slashed at an upward angle, which, of course, would be impossible for a man to accomplish by himself. That is, unless he was a professional contortionist.” He snickered. “A chainsaw blade revolves around its housing in a clockwise fashion, but the gash on Sonny’s thigh indicates that it was made when the blade was going counter-clockwise. You see, Kingsley, when he was cut, the machine was being held upside down. No way big Sonny Torchi was a contortionist. Not with that big belly.”

  In my head, I relived the moment I cut Sonny. I saw myself burying the screaming blade in his thigh. It never dawned on me one way or the other that the forensics experts could figure out which direction the blade was spinning when it cut into his thigh. But I could have kicked myself for not anticipating it.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” I whispered to myself.

  The front door opened slowly. So slowly, it was like it wasn’t being opened at all. More like I imagined it being opened up. Cora slipped inside, began tiptoeing toward the bar. In her hand, she held a French knife. The blade glistened in the ray of sunlight that shined in through the door opening.

  The dying Sonny Torchi came immediately to mind. “Well, you’ll soon…find out…what Cora’s all about. She’s…no better…than me.”

  “So, if I were to come to a logical conclusion,” the lieutenant went on, “I would say you knew that if Sonny cut himself badly enough in the thigh, he’d sever his femoral artery and bleed out on the spot. At least, that’s what you were going for when you purposely cut him with the chainsaw.”

  I turned then, pulled the bottle of Irish whiskey off the bar back. I got a clean glass from under the bar and poured myself a shot.

  “How about a sweetener for your Death Wish Coffee, Lieutenant Spencer?” I said. “It’s got to be five o’clock somewhere.”

  He grinned, shook his head.

  “I never drink on duty,” he said. “I’m one of the good cops. Not like those cops who were on Sonny’s payroll. Sonny is better off dead, that’s the truth. And between you and me, Mr. Kingsley, I don’t mind saying that you did the world a great big favor when you murdered him in his own cold blood. And that’s why I’m here, on my own, to let you be the first to know that I know exactly what you did to Sonny Torchi out there on Loon Lake Trail. Not even the county DA knows, not the press, not nobody. Just you and me. And you can take that shit to the bank.”

  I downed my shot and poured another. Cora was only a few feet away from the state trooper now. Her eyes were glaring into mine, unblinking, determined, unforgiving. I knew what she was about to do, and I knew that in her heart, there was no way she was going to allow this one policeman the chance to upset our lives. Our perfect, idyllic lives. Not after everything we fought for. Not a chance in hell.

  “But the law is the law, Mr. Kingsley,” the lieutenant went on unapologetically. “And I can’t keep our secret a secret for very long. The law must be respected, or I would be no better than those men and women who betrayed the state trooper oath. That said, I must insist that you allow me to take you in without a struggle.” He shook his head, almost sadly, bit down on his bottom lip. “To be perfectly honest, I nearly let this one slide. I almost let it go because Sonny was such a bad man. But in the end, I spoke to God, and God spoke back to me. And you know what he said, Mr. Kingsley?”

  For a long beat, I looked into Spencer’s big brown eyes. “I bet God said, ‘Lieutenant Spencer, you most definitely have a death wish.’”

  His eyes grew extra wide as the long razor-sharp blade cut his neck wide open like an overly ripe melon. The blood spurted out and he grabbed hold of his throat, and his eyes never blinked nor did they stop focusing on mine while he choked and drowned in his own dark red blood.

  Of course, he wasn’t able to talk. I didn’t have much to say to him anyway, other than goodbye. But here’s the million dollar question: was the Trooper lying when he said he was one of the good guys in all of this? Because maybe I should have felt bad about what we did to him. Correction, what we had no choice in doing.

  But in the end, I felt at peace. I trusted his every word when he said he never told anyone about Sonny’s murder. But at the same time, I knew he was also lying through his teeth about being one of the good troopers. And now, I was about to prove it.

  “Cora,” I said. “Do you have Sonny’s phone?”

  “I have a bag of his stuff the funeral parlor gave me after they cremated what was left of his body.”

  “Grab it and the charger,” I said.

  Smartly, she made her way to the front door and locked it. Then she entered her office. She came back with a smartphone in hand along with a black charger. She went around the bar and plugged the charger into an outlet located on the bar back. She plugged the charger into the phone and brought it to life. She entered a four-digit code into the phone’s security portal.

  “You know Sonny’s PIN?” I asked.

  “It’s his birthday,” she explained. “What is it you need to see? Whatever it is, be quick. We have a dead body bleeding all over the place.”

  “I think you know what I want to see,” I said.

  “I don’t know if I can look at it,” she said.

  I took the phone from her and went to pictures and videos. When I found what I wanted, I tapped the icon with my fingertip, and the video came to life. My blood was pounding because what I saw not only broke my heart, but it confirmed every suspicion I had in my bones about Lt. Spencer. The video was shaky because Sonny was holding the smartphone in his hand and moving around a lot. But it showed the Kennedy family duct taped to the chairs in their kitchen. The kitchen was on fire, and so were the Kennedys. They were screaming in agony.

  But at one point, Sonny turned the camera on himself. He was laughing so hard he was crying. Big Billy was standing behind him. He was also laughing. Four more men entered into the frame. They were state troopers. One of them was a black man. It was Lt. Spencer. He wasn’t laughing. None of the troopers were laughing. But then, they weren’t doing anything to stop the family from burning up either. They weren’t attempting to arrest Sonny or Big Billy. They were just standing there watching the gruesome scene.

  Until Lt. Spencer called out to Sonny.

  “We’ve got to get the hell out of here before the fire flashes,” he shouted.

  “So much for fun,” Sonny said. Then, speaking directly into the camera, “This is what happens when you defy Sonny Torchi. You get torched. Get it?”

  Just before the video ended, you could hear Sonny’s squeaky laughter as it drowned out the screams and cries of the dying.

  “What my husband did to that family was murder,” Cora said. “They were all murderers. Sonny and Big Billy got what they had coming. Lt. Spencer got what he had coming.”

  “And Sheriff Woods?” I said. “Did he know all along that Spencer was one of the troopers complicit in the Kennedy family murders?”

  “What the hell could he do about it, Kingsley?” she said. “What the hell could I do?”

  “I guess you just had to wait around until someone like me came along. A drifter with a stainless steel spine and not a thing in the world to lose.”

  “We needed someone who would kill Sonny,” she said. “Someone we could trust without question. Someone who would help us fight Sonny’s family. Somebody who would fight for us.”

  “But it’s still murder,” I said, watching the troope
r bleed out on the floor. “But I guess, sometimes murder is the right thing to do.”

  But murder was also a messy business if nothing else. I used to write crime novels that romanticized murder. Trust me when I say there’s not a single romantic thing about it. We had to clean the place up and keep the tourists a safe enough distance away, which meant closing the tavern for the day under the excuse of a leaky gas line. The bar, the barstool the trooper occupied, and the floor had to be scrubbed and disinfected. I even thought about replacing some of the floorboards, but my gut told me that Lieutenant Spencer was not fibbing when he said he came here of his own accord, meaning he never told a soul where he was heading when he left the state trooper barracks off Exit 28 to make his way to Loon Lake Inn. Correction, maybe God knew and perhaps the devil, but that’s as far as the chain extended.

  We dragged the body down to the onion cellar. Pulling the trooper’s wallet from his pants pocket and his smartphone from his shirt pocket, I shoved them inside my own pockets.

  We then made our way back upstairs. When we were sure none of the vacationers were watching, we got in the state trooper cruiser and drove it out of the parking lot and to the main road. Without giving it a second thought, our plan was to dump the car in Lake Champlain, which was only a few miles up the road. We knew this would be the trickiest part of the operation since the vehicle might be electronically tracked with GPS and we might pass by another trooper cruiser. Which was why I decided to don the Lieutenant’s Stetson—which was two sizes too big so that I had to keep pushing it up on my forehead—while I drove. At the same time, I made Cora scrunch down in her seat so that she wouldn’t be spotted should the worst happen.

  When we came to a spot in the road that not only offered a great view of the massive lake but that also abutted a sheer vertical cliffside drop into the lake of one-hundred feet or more, I hit the brakes. Turning onto the soft shoulder, I plowed through the wood safety barrier. Then I threw the vehicle in park and kept the engine running.