On The Devil's Side of Heaven

by Roger Peppercorn

  On the morning of the second day, when Ronald and I stepped outside, we could see the clouds off to the west.

  “Well looky there,” Ronald quipped. “Looks like we’re going to have more snow today.”

  I shuddered against the cool morning air and grumped, “Great, just what I need is more rickets of snow.”

  “Florida hasn’t made you too keen on cold weather, I see.”

  “Why do you think I moved there, Ronald?”

  “Always figured it was for the broads, booze and boobs,” he said, laughing.

  “You know two of those are the same, right?”

  “Actually, it’s true. Last time I check, broads had two of them fun bags.”

  “Classy, you have no respect for women, you know that?

  “Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” Ronald scoffed. “Pot, kettle. Kettle, Pot,” he said while miming a faux introduction.

  I shook my head and stepped out in front of him. My mood had turned sharply downward from the night before. The incident at the bar hadn’t provided my dreams with anything other than gargoyles and spiders. Ronald hadn’t said anything last night or this morning, which only fed the guilty conscience of what I had entered into. I still wondered if there were any lines of moral authority I had yet to cross or how far the bloodlust that had built up in the overnight hours would carry me.

  We hiked around the north side and then up and behind the cabin, looking for an easy entrance. On our first pass across the back of the cabin, we both took note that it wasn’t as heavily guarded by motion detectors or cameras as the front. However, there were enough to make us give up and move on. Ronald had carried a sniper rifle that he had broken down and stored in his backpack. When I had asked why he was taking it with us, his answer was simple: “Varmints.”

  After we had hiked all around the outlying areas of our target, we took a break and pulled beef jerky from our knapsacks and ate a rather unsatisfying lunch. We took time to talk about the different options of approach and ingress we could take. In the end, it all came back to the rear of the cabin. Packing out our trash, we took a long route back up the hill for a second pass.

  The man who had been driving when I was attacked appeared on the back deck. He was a large man with heavily muscled shoulders and a trim waist. Ronald and I were far back in the trees and safe from view. I watched him through a pair of binoculars that Ronald had given me. He paced back and forth, his brow knitted in concentration. I felt the urge to charge the house and wring his neck or better yet, put the same fear in him that he had instilled in me. As I scanned the back porch of the cabin I noticed what appeared to be two large objects covered with a tarp in the far left corner. I watched as he moved from the tarp to the other side of the back deck. Then a strange thing occurred. The man who had been driving when I was almost killed, turned on his heel and walked back over to the tarp. He crossed himself like a priest at communion, knelt down on one knee and appeared to pray. It began to dawn on me what was under the tarp.

  “You should see this Ronald. I’m pretty sure those lumps under that tarp are dead bodies.” I could hear Ronald moving around behind me. “He’s going to hear you if you don’t stop stomping around. Hey, stop whatever you’re doing and take a look at this and tell me what you think.” I said, my eyes glued to the scene in front of me.

  “He’s about to hear more than that,” Ronald deadpanned.

  I looked over my shoulder at Ronald just in time to see him finish assembling the rifle. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  “Sending him our RSVP.”

  “Ronald, put the gun down. You’re not going to kill him.”

  “Who said anything about killing him?” he said as he pointed the rifle toward the house, the butt of the gun going easily against his shoulder as his eye settled in front of the scope.

  “I’m serious, don’t do it.”

  He took a deep breath and after letting it out slowly, Ronald pulled the trigger. The report of the gunshot echoed off the surrounding mountaintops. The boom rendered me temporarily deaf. Instinctively, I dove into the snow-covered ground, my ears ringing from the sound of the rifle.

  He smirked and then began to casually break down the gun and place it lovingly back inside the backpack. “Could be your right about what’s under that tarp. Pretty sure I can see a boot sticking out of it.”

  “You asshole!” I screamed.

  He nodded toward the house. “Well, now they know we're here, they can’t complain we surprised them now.”

  Sitting up, I put the binoculars to my eyes and scanned the house below. The muscular man who had tried to kill me was nowhere in sight. The large sliding glass door that used to be behind him was now shattered. I focused the lens on the tarp and looked for the boot Ronald had mentioned. It was hard to tell through the low powered field glasses, but I thought he may be right. The misgivings from last night faded a bit at the thought of two dead bodies piled on the back of the porch like blocks of wood.

  “What was the point of that exactly?”

  He looked at me for a long time, then shook his head. “Now begins the hard part for them. They’ve been in that house for a long time without knowing if we’re out here or not. Now they know we’re here.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of the element of surprise?”

  “Walter, you’re playing by the cop book. The rules you live by don’t pertain to the people inside that house. The easy part was the pins and needles of waiting and watching. The hard part is knowing we’re coming but not knowing when.”

  “Jesus, you get that out of a movie?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t get it out of a movie… Wait, you know, come to think of it, I think I did hear the Duke say it once. Pretty sure it was Big John. Check your phone, see if you’ve got service.”

  Exasperated, I said, “It was Big Jake, not Big John. That was the scene where they’re in the hotel room, right after he picked a fight with the fat guy from Nacogdoches. And don’t change the subject! Who am I going to call?”

  “Just look, would you?”

  Reaching into my coat pocket, I pulled out my phone and checked it. I was surprised to see I had three bars of service. “So I’ve got service, now what?”

  “Call her.”

  “Call who?”

  “The woman who tried to kill you. Ask her if she’s ready to give up.” Handing me the slip of paper he had written it on.

  Reluctantly, I did as he asked. After punching in the number, I listened to it ring three times. Half way through the fourth, it was answered.

  “That sliding glass door was expensive. If you wanted to say hello, you could have come to the front door like normal people,” she said dryly.

  “We didn’t want to intrude on such a nice day. And think of it more like an exceptional RSVP to the party you're planning for us,” I replied.

  “The Jones are going to be pissed about interlopers shooting out people’s glass doors. If I were you, I would come on down and I’ll help you write an apology letter to the board of Alexander Lodge,” she said sarcastically.

  “One question, who’s the dead bodies piled on your back porch?”

  “Tell you what, when you come over later for weenies and cocktails, you can look for yourself.”

  “It’s a date then.”

  “I don’t date men of your ilk.”

  “Ta-ta,” I said, ending the call.

  Ronald had finished packing up the rifle and was now standing beside me, looking more closely at the log house. “There’s a security alarm panel against the back wall of that kitchen. Pretty sure I knocked it out. We better get moving, that storm is starting to roll in.”

  “What was the point of all that?”

  Ronald stared at the house for a moment before he answered me. “Years ago I was on a job that is a lot like this one. I was young and just starting out. The difference was, I was the one in the house. My adversaries did the same thing I just did. It rattled me pretty good. They didn’
t come for three days after they had taunted us. My partner and I were so jumpy we almost killed each other before they tried to take us.”

  “So this was just to stir them up a bit?”

  He shook his head. “Nope, it is a lot more than that. Up till now, they’ve been pretty cavalier about how they moved about. Now they’ll button things up: stay away from windows and move around in only the rooms where they can’t be seen. Also, with the storm moving in it’ll be even worse. Trust me, the stress is going to play a big factor in how they react later, when it’s for real.”

  “So what happened on that other occasion?”

  He shrugged, “We killed ‘em.”

  I stared back at him. “That’s not real comforting right now, Ronald.”

  He grinned. “You know what is it they say – if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.”

  That night we ordered our dinner in. The storm had begun to roll in shortly after we returned to our own cabin. When it started, the wind buffeted the walls and windows every few minutes. We could hear the roof creak with every gust. The snow was falling fast and accumulating at about an inch an hour. By ten that night, the snow and wind were blowing so hard we could no longer see any lights from the lodge or from the other cabins. Although it was slim, we took turns watching for signs of our advisories making a break for it. Ronald took the first shift and I wandered into the sole bedroom and lay down.

  Ronald had turned the clock radio in one of the bedrooms to a station that provided regular updates on the road conditions and weather reports. By all accounts, we were going to be in for a long night and an even longer day. Before it was over we were supposed to get around two feet of snow. I confess snow wasn’t something I’d had to deal with in a long time. In my childhood, my father and mother would take time off to bring us to Powderhorn for some skiing and snow sledding.

  Jessica and I would play for hours on the slopes. Our faces would be wind burned and we’d be soaked to the bone. My father didn’t believe in fancy snowsuits so we played in the snow wearing a good pair of jeans and heavy coats. Thinking about Jessica when we were kids brought a smile to my lips.

  My mind continued to turn over the events of the past week. I still wasn’t certain how I had lost so much in such a short amount of time. When I was a cop riding a beat, I was used to street lords looking to make a name for themselves. The threat of violence was real, but I never worried about my actions on the street adversely affecting my family. Now that net of security had been ripped away and the naïve notion that they were beyond reproach left me hollow and sad.

  Lori and I hadn’t really been right for each other, but together we had withstood the lumps of life. Our kids had been the one area where we had come together. The booze-fueled violence that filled my nocturnal hours had been a constant strain but until Ronald had invaded our lives in Florida, she had always stuck it out. Later on, the constant media barrage of Shannon being killed and the suspicion that was heaped upon me had finally led her away from our marital bed.

  Now she was dead and justice had to be served. The right thing to do would be to turn ourselves in and work inside the system, but men like Fritz Washington had the money and the power to always guarantee them a free pass. I told myself this was the reason I had allowed myself to be involved in the assassination of a powerful man and the people who protected him.

  That was a falsehood I had allowed myself to buy into. In truth, I had always resented the constraints the law placed on cops. Ask a cop sometime what it’s like to watch a pedophile strut out of a courtroom because a form hasn’t been filled out, or a depraved killer get a pass because the defense attorney blamed the arresting officer with excessive violence. He’ll tell you the only remedy is to turn them into bars of soaps at birth.

  I rolled over and got up to see if things had changed. Ronald was sitting by the window, staring blankly at the wall across the room. His eyes moved over to meet mine. “Pretty sure it’s still my turn,” he said.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “You alright?”

  I nodded once and sat down on the couch. “This isn’t easy for me. The past few days have started to catch up and now I’m wondering if this is the right thing to do.”

  “You want to pack it in and take your chance with the Feds?” He asked, cocking his head to one side, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

  I shrugged, “I waffle back and forth.”

  He stood up and stretched. “What time is it?”

  “A little after midnight.”

  “Walt, I’m not going to lie, if you’re not up to this then you should walk away when the weather clears up. This isn’t a profession everyone is cut out for.”

  “You never did tell me how you got into this line of work.”

  He walked past me, went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of water. Turning back to me, he used his foot to close the door. I had seen him do this countless times when we were boys and for a moment I was again struck by how long we had been friends.

  “I guess it started when we were boys playing up on the National Monument. The thrill of the outdoors and living off the land… I guess you could say it captured my attention.”

  “Well, that’s very Hemingway,” I retorted.

  “You remember the BB gun fights we had when we were boys?”

  I nodded.

  “That time I shook what’s-his-face off that roof. You remember that?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I do. What about it?”

  “In that instant I knew I was different from you and everyone else. By the time I threw Tyler off that rig in the gulf, I was nothing more than a primed pump just waiting to explode. I intended to kill him and was really upset the next morning when I found out he was still alive.”

  “Just goes to show you never really know anyone, do you?” I said dejectedly.

  “Look, when I came back here and got with Jess, all I wanted was some time off. I had just finished a job with Tommy Bones aka Freeze, the guy who tried to off you in the bathroom. But after our first date, I knew then I had to give her or my job up. I chose her. That should count for something.”

  I shook my head, “That’s not how it works and you know it.”

  “Walter, I’m not going to stand here and debate this now. I won’t stop you if you decide to leave, but I’m going to finish this tomorrow with or without you.”

  “What about Jessica and the promise you made to her?”

  His face fell flat, his eyes turning from green to coal black. His pupils shrunk, becoming pinpoints. “If they’re alive when I walk away and die later, then as far as I’m concerned my hands are clean.”

  For reasons I can’t begin to explain, the morass of my moral ineptitude faded away, leaving me with a clear conscience. No, that wasn’t quite right. I had decided the only fighting chance I had of ever being free of my transgressions was to bring the man who had orchestrated my personal destruction in front of a jury of his peers.

  “Go to sleep killer, we’ve got work to do tomorrow.”

  He grinned and then saluted me as he walked into the bedroom, his foot pushing the door closed behind him.

  Chapter 37

  The next morning Jenny woke early. The house was dark and foreboding and no longer held the gentle warmth from days past. For his part, Fritz had bounced back and no longer resembled a man locked in a cage facing his final days. Now he fancied himself the tragic hero in an old movie. When she had checked on him minutes ago, he was up and moving about. She noticed he had showered and changed into casual attire. The tan colored neatly pressed denim jeans and flannel shirt he had adorned were in stark contrast to the rumpled suit from the night before. The TV was on and tuned to one of the twenty-four-hour news channels.

  The drapes were drawn against the glass French doors that led to the balcony. His bed showed the tell-tale signs of having been slept in. On the far wall next to the armoire that held the TV, his large oak desk glowed under the lamp he ha
d turned on. She could see the automatic handgun lying on top of it and a box of shells open with the bullets scattered around it. Fritz, however, was standing in front of the floor-length mirror next to the bed, combing his wet hair.

  “Good to see you feeling better this morning, sir,” she said.

  “Aw yes, about that Jenny. I must apologize to you for my cowardly behavior. I can assure you that won’t be happening again. Let’s call it a lapse in leadership and let it go at that, shall we?”

  Jenny nodded, but didn’t respond. She was struggling to figure out what exactly his intentions were. Since that first night they had arrived, he had been scared to the point of almost being catatonic. She wondered if the strain of the reality of their situation was more than he had bargained for. After they had killed Scott and Tony, Jenny had gone to report the outcome. When she had pushed open the door he was in the corner, hiding like a child. Now here he was, acting like Patton before the siege of Bastogne.

  “Sir, there are a few developments I think you should know about.”

  He turned to face her. “What developments?”

  Jenny instantly regretted saying anything. Clearing her throat, she said, “Last night Jacobs fired on the back of the house, the bullet shattered the glass door. Unfortunately, we were unable to find anything to cover it up. So we’ve had to close the doors leading to the kitchen to keep the snow out of the rest of the house.”

  “Did anyone return fire? I know Tony is a crack shot with that sidearm of his and Scott is no slouch when it comes to protection.”

  Jenny hesitated before she answered. “That’s the other thing. In the middle of it all, your body men were killed by the sniper,” she lied.

  “What do you mean, they were killed? Why am I just now finding out about this? What about the reinforcements? Have they arrived?”