by Denise Gwen
Pulled off the plastic, wadded it up, tossed it into the trash, found a fresh pair of Jockey undershorts and a pair of socks in the bottom of the locker, and he was good to go.
As an afterthought, and because his soiled uniform was so disgusting, he grabbed the bundle and took it to the sinks. Dumped the uniform into one of the sinks and turned on the tap until it was soaking. Squeezed it out with a towel and although his uniform was now wet, at least now it didn’t stink of urine. Stuffed the sodden uniform into a laundry bag, knotted it up, then finished dressing. As he looped his belt through the loops, he felt a hundred-percent better.
He’d even forgotten what happened earlier.
Locked the locker, dropped off the laundry bag for dry-cleaning with the new girl receptionist, walked to his office and closed the door. Sat down behind his desk, turned on the PC, and went to Google and typed in, Shelbyville Courier Times, and instantly saw the homepage for the local newspaper. Thought he might have to do a little bit of digging, but to his pleased surprise, on a panel running down the left side of the homepage, appeared the following language: Our newspaper delivery boys and girls are happy to serve you! Please make sure you pay your delivery boy or girl promptly to ensure courteous, prompt service! And remember, tips are welcome!
And there, just as if he’d asked specially for them to run a page of them, appeared a row of bright, beaming faces of the kids who delivered the paper. He hovered the cursor over the first child’s face and when the cursor became a hand, double-clicked on the child’s face, and there, on the second page, appeared the following text:
Joey Andrews is a third-grader at Shelbyville Elementary and has been delivering to the residents of Sycamore Knolls Township for the past nine months. Joey sure does enjoy the extra money he earns delivering the paper and hopes the people of Sycamore Knolls appreciate his service.
Okay, so each kid came with a biography.
He clicked back and the homepage appeared again, with the faces of the children running down the length of it. But not one of the kids jumped out at him as the face of the child he’d seen earlier that morning.
Was his mind going, or did he make a mistake?
“Keep looking,” he muttered.
He studied the kids’ faces, searching for recognizable features, but nothing stuck out at him. God-dammit, was he going to have to look through every one of these kids to find the one he was looking for? Then he realized the names were in alphabetical order based on surname. Great. If he knew the kid’s name, it’d be no problem . . .
Oh, the idiots at the newspaper, they were a colossal bunch of morons, no doubt about it.
He worked his way up and down the homepage, but not a single face registered with him. He’d have to go through each child individually.
Oh, wait. He saw a search bar and clicked on it. Oh, thank God.
To search for your newspaper delivery person by area, please click here.
And in the scroll-down menu, down toward the bottom, appeared the words for his neighborhood, Wells Falls Lane Subdivision.
Bingo.
His cell phone chirped.
It was the secret one. He had to answer it.
“Dammit,” he said. Picked up the cell. “Sheriff.”
“Uh, Chief,” Rob Billings said uneasily. “I think you need to see this.”
A chill swept through him and he forgot, for the moment, his search for the newspaper delivery boy. Rob, his second-in-command, his right-hand man, and the only person he trusted with his life, needed him to see something. Rob alone knew how bad things had been between him and Miranda, but he didn’t know of this morning’s events. Sheriff wondered how, and when, he’d tell Rob.
He glanced back at the homepage. An innocuous looking page, but when he thought of his first mis-step this morning, he needed to be doubly careful, so he closed the lid to his PC, and left the office.
A few minutes later.
Uneasy as she walked back to her cubicle, Kathryn checked the hallway to make sure the Sheriff wasn’t around, then sat down at her desk and pulled up the secure database of domestic violence filings. She scanned through it for a few seconds—a depressing number of domestic violence filings in just the past several days—and stopped when she came to the name Randalls, Miranda. She studied the listing:
Miranda Randalls, married, filed for a civil protection order with children on Friday, March 8, at 8:55 a.m. and came before Magistrate Penelope Gates. She testified that her husband choked her and threw her up against a wall and screamed obscenities at her and finally left the house. After the ex parte hearing, a domestic violence order was issued, protecting Mrs. Randalls and her minor daughter Tiffany Delacourt, from any contact with the Respondent, Randy Randalls. Mr. Randalls is not to come within five-hundred feet of Mrs. Randalls. Should he find himself near wherever Mrs. Randalls or Miss Delacourt are, he is ordered to immediately remove himself.
The second hearing is scheduled for—
Mrs. Randalls got the CPO on Friday morning, and here it was, Monday, March 11, and the second hearing hadn’t occurred yet; surely, she hadn’t already withdrawn the protection order, had she? Elsewise why did Sheriff have a Tupperware container of his wife’s delicious and hot soup with him? He must’ve gone to the house that morning, and if the CPO was still in effect, which appeared likely, then he’d violated a court order.
“Hey, kid, how’re you settling back in?” Margie hovered over Kathryn’s shoulder, holding a cup of coffee.
“Oh, I’m doing just great,” Kathryn said, making a half-futile gesture to conceal the computer screen.
“Whatcha looking at?” Margie asked, and leaned in to read the narrative report as Kathryn sat back in an agony of shame. A long-standing employee of the Sheriff, Margie was fiercely loyal to him; Kathryn had no idea how she’d take it, her snooping into the Sheriff’s private affairs. But Margie remained silent, and when she finished, she fetched a heavy sigh, straightened up, and took a sip of her coffee. “You know, I saw Miranda at Kroger this weekend, and I noticed a scarf around her neck.” She shook her head. “One of these days, he’s going to kill her, you know?”
Kathryn looked up at her. “She’s sure not helping herself when she gets a CPO one minute, then dismisses it the next.”
Margie pointed the coffee cup at the screen. “What makes you think she dismissed this one?”
Kathryn peered over the cubicle, saw nobody around. “Well, how else do I account for the hot Tupperware container of Mrs. Randalls’s soup?”
“You’re still on that?”
“I am,” she admitted. “I thought he acted . . . odd, earlier. And Margie, I don’t know how you didn’t notice, but he stank to high heaven.”
“Yeah, you told me.” Margie grinned. “Just like your Mamaw used to say.”
“Right.”
“What’s got you all worked up?”
“I don’t know,” Kathryn said, shaking her head. “Something just feels wrong to me. It feels hinky.”
“I think you’re overthinking this.”
“But you yourself said, maybe he got it from Miranda this morning. Maybe she ladled some soup into his container from him from the hot stove, but if she took out a Civil Protection Order on Friday, and didn’t dismiss it over the weekend, then, clearly, she didn’t fix him some soup this morning.”
“Kathryn,” Margie said patiently, “honey. You’ve never been married, and you don’t understand the way things happen in a marriage.”
“You mean domestic violence? A husband beating the living crap out of his wife, and everybody says it’s okay?” Kathryn hated how her voice sounded. She was whining.
“No, not that, but sometimes, things between husbands and wives . . . well, things can get complicated.”
“So, a man can—” and here Kathryn peered at the narrative report “—choke his wife, and then throw her up against a wall, and scream obscenities at her, and she’s so fearful for her life and for her safety, she goes to a hearing offi
cer to receive a protection order, and not three days later, everything’s all cozy and happy again and she’s let him into the house and she’s so happy with him, she’s pouring soup into a Tupperware container for him? Are you kidding me, Margie? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Her voice was getting louder.
“Lower your voice,” Margie said.
“This explains why domestic violence goes on unchecked,” Kathryn said bitterly, “because everybody behaves like it’s just a husband and wife thing, when really, it’s a husband not being able to control his ugly temper thing.”
“Lower your voice,” Margie said sharply.
Kathryn stopped.
“You’re getting yourself all worked up,” Margie said, “and you just got back from a six-week leave of absence.”
“Thank you for reminding me.”
“Knock off the sarcasm, kid. I’m on your side.”
“Yeah, but who’s on Mrs. Randalls’s side?”
Margie cocked her head. “Why are you so worried about Mrs. Randalls?”
“I don’t know,” Kathryn said helplessly. “I guess I’m worried about all women who fear their men.”
“That’s sweet of you,” Margie said. “But you need to focus on keeping your job.”
“I understand.”
Margie pointed at the screen. “Let’s just keep this between us for now, okay? I don’t know how Randy came to have a container of his wife’s hot soup this morning, and I don’t know why he rolled in here stinking like a hobo. But I do know one thing, and do you know what that is?”
“What?”
“It ain’t none of my business.”
Kathryn nodded glumly. “He violated the CPO, Margie.”
“We don’t know that for sure, so don’t go around saying anything, okay?”
Kathryn bowed her head. “Okay.”
“I will tell you one thing, though,” Margie said.
“What’s that?”
“Things are changing around here. And not in a good way.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Margie patted her on the shoulder and walked away. “Keep your head down, kid. That’s my advice to you.”
Good advice, that.
Only one problem. Dad wouldn’t have approved of that at all.
A few minutes later.
Randy walked down the hallway leading to the side exit door, where all the staff went to smoke. A shady area, protected by pretty shade trees, and with a picnic bench, it’d turned into the outdoors employee eating area as well, and thankfully this morning, the place was empty. He stood for a moment, then reached into his back pocket for the tin of chewing tobacco, pinched off a bit, massaged it into his mouth, and sighed with satisfaction when it settled in. He leaned against the concrete wall to wait and chew.
The most pleasant moment of his entire fucking day.
Rob Billings, his most trusted assistant deputy sheriff, poked his head out through the door and looked around.
“Ain’t nobody here,” Randy said, as he pushed himself off the wall and stepped forward.
Rob, looking apprehensive, walked outside and pulled out his own tin of chewing tobacco. “Let’s walk over there,” he said, jerking his head toward a copse of trees. “Where we can’t be overheard.”
“Sure,” Randy said, fighting back a flare of apprehension. Damping down his disquietude, he followed the man who’d served him loyally as an assistant deputy sheriff for the past fifteen years, and as a devoted foster son, for even longer than that.
When they reached the shelter of the trees, Rob turned around and gazed at him. “Last night, we had a brief power outage.”
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Sheriff said, not following where this was going.
“And you know we’ve got a backup system to catch any calls that may come in while the power’s out.”
“Okay.” Randy was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. “And?”
“And a call came in, over 911.”
Randy licked his suddenly dry lips. “Okay.”
“I was here last night, Chief,” Rob said, “and Margie wasn’t, and I caught this message. For some weird reason, it went straight to archives, and I don’t know why her call didn’t go through, but somehow it didn’t.”
“Play it for me,” Randy rasped.
“Not here,” Rob said. “Listen to it somewhere else.” He handed over a zip drive. “Don’t listen to it with anyone else present.”
Randy held the tiny zip drive in the palm of his hand. It weighed nothing, yet it carried the world.
“Miranda.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. She called while the power was out. Nobody got the message. Well, I got it, but nobody else.”
“What’s happened with the original tape?”
“I destroyed it.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“And that,” Rob said, indicating the zip drive in Randy’s hand, “is the only remaining copy. After you listen to it, toss it in the river, burn it, or do something with it, but don’t just throw it away. If it falls into the wrong hands . . .”
“Thanks, Rob.” Randy looked away, then forced himself to gaze into the bright blue eyes of Rob Billings. “Rob, you’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty here. I don’t know how, or when, I’ll ever find the way to repay you for all you’ve done for me, but I swear to you, I will.”
“Chief,” Rob said, his voice thick, “you took me in when my step-dad threw me out of my own house when I was fourteen and my mother didn’t have the guts to stand up to him. You raised me up, gave me a roof over my head, fed me, clothed me.”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“You took me in and you made it possible for me to get through high school and then the training course for the sheriff’s office. I owe you my life.”
“Thanks, son.” Randy put the zip drive into his shirt pocket.
Rob patted him on the shoulder, shoved his hands into his pockets. “Just wanted you to know, Chief.”
“You head on back. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Okay, Chief.”
Rob walked back into the building, leaving Randy standing in the trees, thinking his thoughts.
Rob might be loyal as hell, but even Rob might be hard pressed to find it in himself to conceal the evidence of his wife’s murder. Randy decided he didn’t want to be around to see the look on Rob’s face when the news got out. He walked over to the parking lot, slid behind the wheel of his cruiser, and drove away.
46
Monday, March 11, 8:29 a.m.
A disquieting stillness held sway in the bedroom community of Wells Falls, in Shelbyville, Ohio, at a little past nine o'clock in the morning on an otherwise lovely spring day, with not one sound to shatter the silence, not even the chirping of birds.
After the school busses rumbled away, belching fumes of exhaust and oil, after the hard-working men and women of the tidy, cozy neighborhood left for work, some driving as far away as Indianapolis, forty-five miles to the west; others driving only as far as the dingy businesses lining the main thoroughfare off Highway 74, and yet still others driving an hour east, to Cincinnati, every one of these hard-working people had left their neighborhood, oblivious to the knowledge that a killer had arrived, noiselessly, into their safe haven, and was at that moment planning to carry out his crime.
The killer sat in his car, parked a few blocks away from the cozy craftsman home located at 2354 Wells Falls Lane; even if the lady of the house were to peek outside through the dining room window, she wouldn’t see him, parked perpendicular to the house and across the street, on Plum Run Road, and hidden behind a copse of trees. He’d tested the angle himself.
Thankful to the architect who designed this subdivision, for planting the copse of trees along the sidewalks ten years earlier—long before the killer even moved here—for the pretty white flowers blooming on the trees provided extra coverage.
The killer ran his fingers lightly acro
ss the length of rope resting on his lap. Not worried about fingerprints; he wore blue plastic surgical gloves. He kept a box of these gloves in the trunk; a required part of his job, nobody’d think anything askance of him for keeping a box of surgical gloves in his car.
Ah, the beauty of it.
He closed his eyes, rested his head against the back rest, and counted to ten. When he finished counting and opened his eyes, he asked himself the question.
Do I still want to go through with this?
And the answer bubbled up into his head. Yes, yes, he did still want to go through with it.
“Okay,” he said aloud. “Let’s get this puppy going.”
He opened his car door and got out, shutting it as quietly as he’d opened it. He didn’t bother locking it; nobody’d bother his car. Nobody’d dare.
He walked down the street, took a sharp right at the Ruehlmans’ driveway at 2352 Wells Falls Lane, and ducked down below the hedges serving as a barrier between their house and his.
What was the saying? Strong fences make good neighbors?
He duck-walked down the hedge-line all the way to the Ruehlmans’ back yard, then, when he reached the back fence, pushed his way through a slight opening in the hedgerow and moved stealthily up to the back of the garage at 2354. He peeked through the window and sighed with relief at the sight of her 2017 Mercedes Benz C-Class Sedan, parked in the garage. She was home.
He walked up to the back plate-glass sliding door, removed a key from his right front pocket, and tried the lock. If she’d changed the locks, he was prepared for this, for he knew she hid a spare key under the potted planter to the right of the back door, but his instincts were right, she hadn’t gotten around to changing the locks yet. The lock snapped open and he slid the sliding door open and walked into the kitchen.