A Winsome Murder

by James DeVita

  He heard something.

  He gripped the handle of his Glock and felt the familiar rush of adrenaline through his body.

  If of life you keep a care,

  Shake off slumber, and beware.

  Something was outside, making a sort of purring noise, a soft, elongated buzz. He eased off the safety of his gun. And then he saw it.

  A bird.

  Jesus. He put the gun away. It was a hummingbird, hovering head high, just on the other side of the screen. What is it with birds lately? he thought. It was just sort of floating there, eye level, its head and tail a glint of emerald, its wings a lavender blur—and then it was gone. So fast that it seemed not to fly but to melt into the air.

  Mangan pressed close to the screen to see where it might have gone.

  He was watching them.

  From the island.

  Watching all of them from his aerie high above, in his father’s tree stand, nestled tightly among the limbs of the great white pine. He was very still, as still as the branch on which he nestled his .243-caliber Remington. He chambered a round—softly—nestled his cheek into the rifle stock, and centered the crosshairs of his scope on the policeman on his porch. The man had been walking back and forth, but now he was standing still and looking out the screen, looking straight at him.

  Three hundred yards. No wind.

  They must think I’m stupid, he thought, bracing his back against the padded crossbar of the tree stand. They must think I’m too stupid to buy a police scanner and listen to everything they’re saying, or at least to hear enough of what they’re up to before they switch to secure frequencies or use their cell phones. The SWAT team was smart, but the local police put out calls for their ambulances and firemen to be on standby and gave away everyone’s positions.

  They had come, just as he knew they would one day. That’s why he had prepared. That’s why he was ready. He adjusted his rifle scope minutely. His breathing was good, calm. The sun was at his back. The target, standing behind a dark screen on his porch. He’d made harder shots than this, much harder. Given the distance, he didn’t really want to take a head shot, but the target was probably wearing a vest, so there wasn’t much choice. He calibrated his boresighted 40-millimeter scope slightly, rifle zeroed in 2 inches high at 100, elevation good, dead on—and then the man walked back inside the cabin.

  He lowered his rifle.

  And waited.

  He could outwait them all.

  He pulled the safety back and folded his arms around the rifle. The lake shimmered a mottled gold. In the distance, he could hear the smallest slapping of waves against the shoreline, not really waves, more like gentle pushes of water, easing themselves up the sand and then falling back again, being pulled into the darker thing behind them. They tried to leave the lake, tried to break free, but the pull was too strong.

  They would never be free.

  Like Lynnette.

  She could never break free.

  She always got pulled back into the darker thing behind her.

  A good home. A safe home. A normal home, he’d thought. Work, church, school. Sports. Proms. College visits. Homecoming. And then … He could not help her. She would not listen. She could only hear the other thing, the thing behind her that she could not resist. And then she began to change, a metamorphosing before his eyes, unstoppable, until, like some malformed butterfly, she emerged from her bedroom one day a still-breathing abortion of herself, a skeletonized shadow gorging on her own flesh. Her body, their beautiful daughter’s body, ravaged and decayed by poison—oh god, oh god, oh …

  His mind was doing it again.

  He tried to stop his thoughts but he couldn’t.

  A lightning crack flashed through his skull, blistering his brain. He doubled over, gripping his rifle so hard his fingers hurt. His thoughts were dragged to the ruined part of his mind again, where the other world was, and he saw his still smoldering flesh there, the actual physical part of his brain that had been ripped open during the earthquake of his mind. He walked to the edge of it and peered down into the dark canyon and watched it fracture open even wider, and he saw—more vividly than ever before—he saw the gaping, milk-white chasm of his mind.

  A movement in the cabin window freed him from his thoughts.

  He raised his rifle.

  What were you doing out there?” Coose asked when Mangan found him in the cabin.

  “Bird watching.”

  “Yeah, well, come here. I got something to show you.” Coose led him into the kitchen where CSI was snapping photos of the open freezer section of a refrigerator. Coose asked the techie, “You almost finished?” The man took two more photos and stepped away. Coose reached in and removed a plastic bag containing a small human hand.

  “Christ,” Mangan said. There were still rings on its fingers. “The Ellison girl?”

  “Pretty good bet.”

  The cabin was a hush of activity, everyone engaged in their own jobs: bagging, dusting, boxing, photographing, cataloging, videotaping. Captain Pribyl came over, taking off his vest, his blues soaked through with sweat.

  “Need anything else?” he asked Mangan. “I’m gonna get my guys back to Rockford.”

  “No. You’ve been great today. Thank your team for me.”

  Captain Pribyl turned to a young uniformed officer behind him. “This is Dean Gaffney, from Lena.”

  Gaffney, looking as if he’d just stepped out of the academy, came forward. “Sir.”

  “He cleared the other cabins around the lake for us,” Pribyl told Mangan. “He knows the area well, grew up here. He’ll do a search of the grounds, take a look around the lake.”

  “Good,” Mangan said to Gaffney. “Take some guys with you.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young officer said.

  “What about the other cabins?” Mangan asked Pribyl.

  “We evacuated everybody we could find.”

  “You talk to any of them?”

  “No. They’re still outside the perimeter. We’ll open the roads soon and get them back in here. You can question them then.”

  “I talked to two guys,” Gaffney said. “When we did the evac.” He took out his notes. “A father and son from Chicago. Their cabin’s a rental directly across from this one, on the other side of the lake. Said they haven’t seen anything over this way, except the lights on at night sometimes. Said there hasn’t been much traffic on or off the lake either. Deer season hasn’t started, too early for walleye.”

  “What about the owner of the rental?” Mangan asked.

  “I’ll find out who it is,” Gaffney said.

  Mangan stripped off his vest and joined Coose in the bedroom, the room he had looked into from the porch. Against the wall was a small desk with a laptop on it. On the sill of a window just above the desk was a line of coffee cups and empty glasses. Scattered about the desk were stacks of paper, pencils, pens, a notepad, and a small razor knife with what appeared to be blood on it. A garbage pail on the floor was filled with bloodstained paper towels and ink cartridges. A CSI tech, kneeling beside it, was bagging samples. Another techie was at the desk working on the computer.

  “Shit,” Coose said.

  “What?” Mangan asked.

  Coose pointed to some writing on a small notepad beside the computer.

  Kathleen Mangan, 635 Stanwell Avenue, Milwaukee, WI.

  “Christ.” A wintriness shot through Mangan’s veins as he groped for his cell phone.

  “I got something,” said the CSI tech working on the computer. “A file. Looks like this guy wrote everything down. There’s a title page … chapters.”

  Mangan leaned in and read as he pressed the speed dial for his daughter.

  The Righter, by Daniel Alan Anderson.

  The CSI tech scrolled through the document, pausing every few pages at the chapter headings, one for each victim. Mangan read them, waiting for his daughter to pick up.

  DEBBIE ELLISON

  MARA DAVIES

  JILL
IAN MCCLAY

  JENNIFER FABER PAULSEN

  JEANNIE SCHAEFER

  POLICEMAN IN MY CABIN

  —the crack of a gunshot smashed through the window pane at that moment and a piece of skull the size of a softball disappeared from the back of the CSI tech’s head, misting the room and Mangan in blood and brain matter. Coose and Mangan dropped to the floor as the CSI tech rose from his chair for a bewildered moment. A second bullet slammed into his chest and thudded him dead to the floor. Pribyl came rushing into the room, gun drawn, and Mangan hit him hard, tackling him to the ground as a third shot splintered the pine doorway just above Pribyl’s head. Out of the corner of his eye, as he was taking Pribyl to the floor, Mangan glimpsed a muzzle flash outside the window.

  “The island!” he yelled. “He’s on the goddamn island!”

  Mangan crawled over to the CSI tech’s body. He knew the man was dead, half his head was gone. He checked for a pulse anyway, then made his way out of the room at a crouch. They regrouped in the hallway. “Get SWAT back here,” he told Pribyl. “We need a boat. Who’s got a boat?”

  “We do,” Gaffney said, running up to them, his walkie-talkie out. “Fire department’s got a water rescue team. There’s a boat back at the station.”

  “Get it here fast as you can.”

  Mangan remembered seeing, when he was on the porch, a small boat disappear behind the far side of the island. It had to have been the shooter. The other cabins had been evacuated. Shit, he thought, Where is my judgment fled, that censures falsely when I see aright? Too busy looking at a friggin’ bird.

  “Get eyes on the lake,” Mangan told Pribyl and the others. “Keep out of range. Take whatever guys you’ve got to the north side. Watch that island and—wait,” he said. “Hey, Gaffney.”

  Gaffney yelled from down the hallway, “Yes, sir?”

  “The guys in that other cabin, did they have a boat?”

  “Uh, yes, yes, they did.”

  Mangan threw on his vest and found Coose. “Come on,” he said.

  They jumped into their car.

  It was getting darker outside, still enough light to see by, but fading fast. “Keep the lights off,” Mangan told Coose, who floored it and headed toward the south end of the lake. A twisty dirt road skirted the perimeter of the lake and Coose took it at about sixty. Mangan held on to the dashboard and kept an eye on the lake as they sped toward the other cabin, the darkening island flitting in and out of view behind clumps of trees along the roadside. Neither man in the car said a word. They usually didn’t at times like this. They knew what they had to do. They knew everything that could go wrong. They knew that they should wait for SWAT to arrive, but the shooter might be long gone by then. It wasn’t that big of an island, though; a boat leaving would easily be seen.

  Too easily, Mangan thought.

  Coose took a hard curve, just missing a stump, as Mangan unlocked the 870 short barrel from its mount between the seats. The car fishtailed to the right and slid to a stop on the side of the Chicago man’s cabin. Mangan hopped out, meeting Coose at the back of the car.

  “He’s waiting for us,” Mangan said, handing Coose the shotgun. “You know that, right?”

  Coose popped the trunk. “Yeah, I kinda figured that.” They both grabbed flashlights. “Then again, maybe he’s just stupid.”

  “He’s not been stupid yet, why now?”

  “I don’t know,” Coose said, pushing the cross-bolt safety on the shotgun. “Suicide-by-me?” Coose stopped what he was doing. “You want we should wait for the troops?”

  Mangan thought for a moment. “He’d expect that, wouldn’t he?”

  “What?”

  “If he wanted to draw us out there, he’d expect us to come with everyone.”

  They both looked out at the island.

  “It’s almost dark,” Coose said. “We could use some more light.”

  “So could he.”

  Mangan wanted the guy. Badly. He knew he should wait for backup, but he also knew that every second he waited was another opportunity for the guy to get away. Plus, if the shooter was waiting for them, the fewer targets the better. Mangan glanced down at the dock by the water. There was a boat tied up to it. He looked back to Coose.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Coose took off at a run, Mangan following close behind. Coose jumped in the boat and untied the lines as Mangan lowered himself in. It was an outboard, two-seater, with a dashboard and small storage area below the bow.

  “You know how to drive this thing?” he asked Coose.

  “Anybody can drive a boat. Help me find the keys.”

  “They’re right there.”

  “Where?”

  “In the ignition.”

  Coose pushed the boat away from the dock. He turned the key and a muffled spit of smoke and water kicked up behind the engine. He grabbed the wheel and slammed the outboard into gear. The boat lurched forward, the bow rising out of the water for a moment before leveling off. They sped toward the island. Mangan, holding onto the side railing, made his way to the seat beside Coose and ducked below the windshield to keep from getting soaked. He radioed in to Pribyl.

  “How far away are your guys?” he asked him.

  “Ten minutes.”

  “You see anything on the island? Any movement at all?”

  “Nothing,” Pribyl said. “The water’s like glass, no boats, no lights, nothing. I’ve got men all along the north side here. He comes this way, we’ll see him.”

  “What about Gaffney’s guys, with the boat?”

  “He’s not in my sights right now. I’ll find him.”

  “Radio me when they get here. And don’t send anyone out here without telling us. I don’t want us stuck in a shooting gallery with each other.”

  Mangan held on to the side of the boat, watching the island loom larger as they neared it. The sun was going down quickly now. The island appeared before them as a low, broad, silhouette cut out of a deepening lavender sky. Coose slowed the boat to a stop, keeping well out of range. They could make out a dock on the island. A boat was tied to it.

  “We pull up to that dock, he’s got an easy shot,” Coose said.

  They studied the island’s shoreline, the engine idling. The dock extended far out onto the water and had a small building on it, about the size of a tollbooth. Only the one boat was tied up to it, a small skiff with a thin outboard motor, a trolling motor. To the left side of the dock was a long stretch of sand and marsh grass.

  Coose pointed to the sandy area. “What do you say I run us up over there? I’ll run us right up onto the beach. We use the boat for cover.”

  Mangan nodded. Coose spun the wheel in the direction of the island and gunned it. Mangan stayed low and braced himself as the shoreline came rushing at them. The boat crashed the beach at an angle, running a good ten feet up onto the sand, engines screaming as the propellers hit the open air. Coose killed the motor and both men were out of the boat and taking cover before the props stopped spinning.

  They waited. Nothing.

  Coose slid over to Mangan. He gestured to the woods. “I think we—”

  A barrage of gunfire exploded across the boat, obliterating most of its stern. Mangan and Coose hit the ground, rolling close against the keel, bullets striking the inside of the fiberglass boat and flying straight through it.

  “Go!” Mangan yelled at Coose. “Go! Go!”

  Coose ran for the trees as Mangan leaned out from behind the stern and let off five rounds from his Glock in the direction of the shooter.

  Coose, in the tree line, yelled, “Come on!” and fired cover rounds for Mangan, who ran and joined him.

  The firing stopped.

  “He’s in the branches,” Coose whispered.

  Mangan, catching his breath, said, “What?”

  “Up in the trees! I saw the muzzle flash, it’s high.”

  Mangan’s radio crackled loudly and he heard Pribyl’s voice. He tried to shut it off, but the sound brought an imme
diate hail of gunfire in their direction. Mangan dropped the radio and he and Coose took off deeper into the woods, a spit of gunfire trailing after them. They left their flashlights off, ducking under the low limbs and feeling their way among tree trunks, trying to flank the shooter. They heard more gunfire now, but the bullets weren’t coming at them. The sound was farther away, and lower.

  “Sounds like he’s on the ground,” Mangan said.

  “What’s he shooting at?”

  “I don’t know. The guys on shore maybe?”

  Mangan knew this was the time to close distance. They made their way in the direction of the gunfire, which was intermittent now, as if the shooter were taking more time to aim between shots. They followed the sound until it stopped.

  “What now?” Coose asked.

  Mangan looked around. To his right, the trees thinned away into a small clearing. Past it, he could make out the lake again.

  “Over there,” Coose said, pointing to a shadowy outline near the shoreline. There was a small cabin in the distance, barely visible in the near dark. Attached to it was another dock, which led almost up to the building. A teeny glimmer of a light suddenly lit up a window of the cabin.

  “What the hell’s he doing?” Mangan asked.

  “I don’t know, he—”

  Mangan heard the muffled pfft of a silencer and Coose’s neck burst open in a flow of black liquid. “Fuck!” Mangan said, spinning in the direction of the shot and firing blindly. “Fuck!”

  Coose went to his knees, clutching his throat.

  “Coose!” Mangan yelled, firing his gun till it was empty. He smacked another magazine into the chamber, and crawled beside Coose. “Goddamnit! Coose!” No answer. There was blood everywhere. “Jesus Christ!” He tried putting pressure on the wound. “Jesus.” The blood was hot and Mangan could feel the frantic throb of Coose’s heart pushing against his hand. “Coose,” he said, “Coose!”

  Coose clutched the hole in his throat, his eyes looking everywhere but at Mangan, as if watching some curious scene play out around him. His lips were moving, trying to say something. Out of habit, Mangan reached for his radio to call for help, but it wasn’t there.