by Dave Balcom
Sandy was holding Jeremy and had one arm also around Sara. She seemed to shrink under the weight of her children and her fear. Her face was a mixture of terror and hate all at once, and then her eyes locked on mine, as if she was sending me a message – more like a command.
I was trying to think of anything I could do to turn this around when Jennifer stood up and stepped toward me, looking me up and down, “You, on the other hand, I wonder if I can acquire a taste for big, strong studs? I wonder if you can scream the way the girls do; that’s the magic, you know. It’s the screaming.” Her face was contorted into something like the whimsical smile that accompanies a fond memory, but her eyes were as cold as a snake’s.
“I always know I’m in control and that it’s over even before it’s begun – that’s a real high – when they start screaming and I know they know it too ... That’s the rush that you can’t believe. Will you scream, tough guy?”
I could see Sandy’s face change from the impact of her words. She had started to smile, just a bit around the corners of her mouth and I knew she was counting on me if it came to one-on-one with this madwoman.
I knew that the only chance I had would come but once, and though I didn’t have a clue as to what that chance would be, I vowed to myself that my only focus would be on being ready for it.
I heard the front door open, and Max’s voice. “Jim?”
“We’re in here, lover,” Jennifer called out.
I watched as Max hesitated before coming into the room. He peeked around the corner, sized up the situation, and then sidled in. “I’m here.”
“I thought you’d never come,” Jennifer said, her eyes locked on mine. “Which one do you want first? Mommy or the girl?”
A wide grin spread across his face, and I suddenly realized that he was a consummate actor who had been playing a part. She sat back down and waved her gun in a magnanimous gesture as if she were ushering a guest into a feast.
I could see her relax at his presence, and he stepped close to her, letting his hand pet her head, stroking down to the back of her neck. “I thought we were going to wait until the weekend, Jen.”
“Things are moving too fast. I figured the time is now. Where do you want to start?”
“That’s a choice I’ve been trying to make ever since they came to Lake City. Do you want Jim to watch all this, or are you going to take him to another room?”
“Oh, I want him to see everything.”
“Max?” Sandy said with disbelief. “You’re with her?”
“Of course, dear,” he said with a wicked smile. He sat on the arm of the chair. “I created her. Isn’t she brilliant?” He petted her hair again, “I had no idea she was wired this way when we got married, but I started training her from the get-go, and she was a natural.”
I heard a sob escape Sandy’s lips, but I never took my eyes off Max. I could see he was loving this moment, relishing in showing off his control and glowing as he explained his brilliance to this captive audience.
“When I first saw you three, you’d just come to town, and I knew right then, this would be the perfect, final step in all that we’ve created. You, the perfect American family, living just for the love of it ...” He stood and towered over us, looking down at Sara and Jeremy, asleep under Sandy’s arm, before looking back at me. “We’ve had a great run, and now it’s time for us to fade into oblivion. But before we go, we’re going to make you folks famous.”
I glanced at Sandy just as he paused in his soliloquy, and I saw a shudder ripple through her, and then I saw a new, fierce fire light up in her eyes. “You sick bastard.”
“Oh, Jen,” he said, stepping back to her chair. “I have to have her first. Hear that fire? She’ll be begging for your knife in no time.”
“You want to do it right here?”
“Why not?” He said as he started towards Sandy’s position with his hands out in front of him. “Hand me the kids.”
Sandy pulled her babies closer to her, and Max let his shoulders sag and I could see it was all part of his act. I could see Jennifer eating it up, looking at him with a mixture of admiration and worship. “Don’t make me yank them from you, Sandy. I’m not ready to hurt them yet,” he said with exaggerated sympathy.
As he spoke, he stepped toward her and came between Jennifer and me, and in that split second I heard the front door open again, and heard Randy’s voice, “Hey, folks! The fishmonger is here. Fresh lake trout delivery! Where is everyone?”
Max’s head snapped to look down at Jennifer and I reacted with every ounce of pent up energy I could muster.
My right foot fired out at Max’s right knee, connecting right on the joint; at the same time I “kipped” off the couch and jerked on his right arm, pulling him to me just as Jennifer fired the automatic.
The roar of the weapon woke Sara and Jeremy into screams that were lost in the noise. The bullet took Max just above the buttocks; a second bullet, probably fired in reaction to recoil, took him between the shoulders, straightening him. I shoved him with all my might and he landed as a limp bundle on top of Jennifer.
She was squirming under his dead weight, trying to bring her weapon on target. The knife in her left hand was flailing around as she tried to find purchase to push him off her.
I brought my left hand down on her right wrist and heard and felt the snap that made her let go of the gun with a clipped off scream of her own. At the same time, she lunged at me with her left hand, reaching over Max’s dead body, slashing my stomach.
Blood spurted from my shirt onto Max’s back, and she let out a scream of joy at the sight of it. She expected me to stagger away from her thrust, but I didn’t. I was focused on that weapon and her mouth.
My left connected with her chin just as I released all of its power. The impact snapped her head around, her eyes rolled back into her head, and all movement stopped.
Sandy was shushing and hugging kids to no avail, their screams continued between gasping breaths, a two-part harmony of terror.
Time seemed frozen to me. I had my hand on my stomach and was bent over the unconscious woman when I heard Randy come into the room. “What the hell?” He screamed over the kids.
His yell sent me to action, and I hurried to Sandy. “Come on,” I said, pulling her and the kids up. “Let’s get out of here.”
I half-hugged, half-carried them as we crabbed sideways, skirting the bodies, and out of the room and toward the stairs. Sandy seemed in a daze. I took Jeremy from her, and herded her and Sara up the stairs. In our room, I sat them on the bed and pulled a comforter and wrapped it around them.
“Police and folks will be here shortly,” I realized I was talking loudly, but the children had stopped screaming. I lowered my voice to something close to normal. “Keep yourselves warm, okay?”
“Jim, what about you?”
I looked down at my chest and stomach. “A scratch.”
“Look at all that blood!”
“A bloody scratch, then. I’ll deal with it. Stay here. Comfort them. Help will be here soon.”
She started to say something, but she stopped. She seemed to run out of energy. She held Sara to her cheek and murmured something and Sara shut her eyes hugging her mother’s neck. Jeremy looked to have gone back to sleep.
I went back to the kitchen where I found Randy sitting on a stool at the island. “Can you dial nine-one-one? Get police and an ambulance; we need help here ASAP,” I said in a voice that sounded wounded to me.
“I did that. They’ll be here any minute.”
“Okay.” I took another stool.
Randy nodded toward the living room, “Is she dead?”
I realized I was exhausted. It had been years, but I remembered the feelings of survival, the bone-weary tired that came when the adrenaline worked its way out of the system.
“Jim? Is she dead?”
I forced myself up off the stool, “I’ll have a look.”
I walked into the living room. Jennifer was again strugg
ling to get Max’s body off her. I saw the gun on the floor, but I couldn’t see the knife. I picked up the auto, checked the safety, and then moved around to see if I could locate the knife.
Randy poked his head into the room, “What are you looking for?”
“She had a knife.”
“It may be stuck in you, the way you’re bleeding.”
I looked at my stomach again, and realized my blood was flowing down my pants. “I think I need to get some pressure on this,” I said absently, “but I need to find the knife.”
About that moment, Jennifer turned her head towards me. I could see that the movement was painful, and the swelling around her jaw had reached her eye, giving her face a lopsided, grotesque effect.
“Where’s the knife, Jennifer?”
She couldn’t smile, actually, but she managed something that looked more like a death head’s rigor. She tried to speak, but I couldn’t interpret it.
I turned to the kitchen. “Keep an eye on her, Randy. If she gets out from under that body, call me; I’ll come shoot her.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need a towel, I gotta stop this blood.”
I was fishing a dish towel out of a drawer when the first police officer hit the front door. “Mr. Patterson!?”
“In here,” Randy called back. “That’s Mr. Stanton, the homeowner, in the kitchen.”
The officer spoke into a microphone clipped to his shirt collar, “We need an EMT in here stat; looks like a nasty wound.”
He had his service weapon drawn as he stopped at the entrance to the living room, and his partner came in from the deck, on the opposite side of the room. I heard Randy speak in a more conversational tone, “The woman is awake; the body is dead, and there is apparently a knife missing in that mess somewhere.”
The officer stepped behind the chair Jennifer was trapped in and looked down her left side. “No knife there.”
His partner came to the chair from the other side of the sofa, and stooped just out of reach of the body. “It’s on the floor, next to her left foot.”
“What happened to her?” The first officer asked Randy.
“I think she got hit in the face by Mr. Stanton.”
“Ma’am,” the officer said quietly. “We’re going to handcuff you now. Can you raise your right hand?”
She did, and he cuffed it. “Now can you reach over to your left hand?”
She brought them together in front of her face, and he reached over to cuff that one, but she tried to bite him. He pulled his hand back with a jerk.
I stepped forward, “I don’t think she can bite; her jaw is broken, I think.”
The officer then ignored her efforts to bite him, and cuffed that hand to the other as an EMT entered the room. “Somebody’s bleeding in here?”
I turned and he got a good look at me, “That would be you. Please come out here in the kitchen, the light’s better.”
He cleaned me up, and bandaged me. “I think you’re going to need some stitches. Let me take care of the woman in there, and we’ll get you to the hospital with her, and they can sew you up.”
“I think I’ll pass on that ride, if you don’t mind. I’ll arrange my own transportation. I think I’m going to be needed to let these officers get the whole picture of what happened here tonight.”
The officers called the chief, and in minutes we were surrounded by officials. One of the people summoned to the scene was a home healthcare nurse from family services who went upstairs to Sandy, Sara, and Jeremy.
After a while the nurse came down and asked about making hot chocolate, and I showed her the supplies. She said all of them had had baths, and Sara and Jeremy were both asleep. “Sandy needs some time and quiet is all.”
At about eleven o’clock, agents Reynolds and Segura appeared on the scene. “You drove down here?” I asked.
Segura rolled his eyes. “This is the FBI. We came by chopper.”
“How nice for you.”
“You seem to be in good spirits for a guy who tried to bleed to death,” Reynolds quipped. “We’re glad you’re okay. How is your family?”
“Tough. Pretty tough. Last I was up there, Sara and Jeremy were down for the count; Sandy’s waiting things out with chocolate.”
“We’ll be outta your hair pretty quick, now that we’re here,” she said confidently as she patted my arm.
And within minutes everyone was gone, leaving Randy and me downstairs, Sandy and the kids upstairs.
I poured two hefty shots of bourbon into rocks glasses, and put one on the counter in front of Randy. “Need water?”
“No, just ice.”
I returned with a handful of cubes.
“You gotta hell of a story to cover tomorrow.”
He nodded and took a sip of his drink, “Ahh, that’s good,” he said smacking his lips. “I saw Cindy out front with the rest of the herd; Fritz was on scene. I borrowed a camera from him, and I have shots of you being interviewed by the chief. We’ll have coverage.”
“Think you could run me to the hospital to get some stitches?”
“Sure. You want to leave Sandy and the kids alone?”
“I don’t see any threat on the horizon, do you?”
He didn’t say anything, just got up and walked out the front door only to return a few minutes later with an elderly woman in tow. “Jim, this is my aunt Christine. She lives across the street, and she’ll be happy to stay while we’re out.”
I stood to greet her, “It’s nice to meet you, Christine.”
“It’s not the way I would have liked to meet you, Mr. Stanton,” she said with a nervous chuckle. “But I know Sandy, and I’m sure she will feel better with someone here, even if it’s just nosey old Christine from across the street.”
“I’ll go let her know where we’re going,” I said as I started to leave, but I stopped, “Christine, may I offer you something to drink?”
She grinned widely and pointed to the drink in Randy’s fist, “If you had a little one of those, maybe?”
“Randy, can you see to that for me?”
“Sure,” he said, turning to the cabinet where the bourbon lived. “But be warned, Jim, now you don’t just have a nosey neighbor, you’ve got a true friend in the neighborhood.”
69
The story went national and Lake City was the center of the news cycle for more than a week.
I even got a letter of commendation from the Director of the FBI, and I was lauded in the halls of Congress by our local Representative, a man we hadn’t endorsed in his run for re-election. The resolution was framed and hung in the lobby of the newspaper, to my everlasting mortification.
Jake Hardy never returned to his hometown. The company his father had built and he had resurrected from the whole demise of the U.S. steel industry was purchased by a Japanese firm.
On my first day back on the job, I walked into the newsroom to find the entire staff waiting for me at six-thirty in the morning. They rose as one and applauded. I was ambushed and speechless. I thanked my lucky stars that I was a Stanton man, and Stanton men don’t blush, no matter what those in attendance might have claimed later. We just don’t blush, ever.
Randy spoke for all of them. “We just wanted to welcome you back, and shake your hand, Mr. Stanton.” I walked the room, shook everyone’s hand and thanked them for this demonstration.
“Let’s get to work, folks.” was all I had to say.
The calendar turned. Sara graduated from kindergarten, and Jeremy was starting to make words. We bought a small boat with an outboard to better explore the Finger Lakes.
Randy took us on the lakes and showed us how to catch lake trout, and I even played a few rounds of golf that summer, but it was apparent to me and I knew Sandy felt the same way: Everything was different.
We had survived an ordeal, and we expected time would heal us, but we didn’t have any appreciation for the amount of time that might take while surrounded by the constant reminders of those dark
days.
We did all the functional things young married couples with a family did, and we did enjoy them, but too often as we were doing something normal and healthy, one of us would mentally wander off to that dark night...
I tried to explain myself to Sandy, and she tried to explain herself to me.
“I was so terrified, not so much for me as I was for the kids and you. I was angry and most of that was my feeling of inadequacy. It’s hard to explain, but I haven’t ever felt so helpless,” she said more than once. But her efforts at explaining that night from her point of view were as ineffective as my own.
One night, lying awake in the dark, I thought I might have found the nut of it, and wanted to go downstairs and write it down, but was afraid I’d wake Sandy in the process.
“Jim? What is it?”
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, but I heard your breathing change, and I thought you might be having a nightmare...”
“No. No nightmare. I sit around day after day and wonder at my failure to see Max Hennessey for what he was. It drives me crazy. He never denied it in Buffalo. He never said he was innocent. I just eliminated him from the possible column without a word from him, and it haunts me.”
70
October came, and on the first Saturday I was in the back yard, making preparations for the opening day of duck season. I had all the decoys out for inspection, and Sara was having a big time “helping daddy.”
“Wayne Crosby is on the phone,” Sandy called from the back porch.
I took the phone in the garage workshop. “Jim,” he said. “I was just thinking about opening day, and wondered if you’d join us up at the marsh?”
“You got room?”
“Yeah, time weeds some folks out and makes room for others. Roberta and Chris and I are the only ones planning on making it, and Roberta thinks Sandy, Sara and Jeremy would really enjoy a weekend in the wild.”
“I’d jump at the chance to join that hunt, you know that.”