Greene County Killer

by Ann Mullen

  “I don’t want to sit down and wait,” Sarah said.

  “I know. Give me a minute. Wait until she gets busy and then we’ll go find out what’s going on ourselves. From the looks of things it won’t be long. This place is hopping.”

  A group of people came in and walked up to the front desk, and as soon as Heidi got busy with them, I grabbed Sarah’s hand and off we went down the corridor. “We’re going to find our guys and no one’s going to stop us!” I looked this way and that, but didn’t see Billy. “Where can they be?”

  “I don’t, but they have to be here somewhere. Maybe we should wait in the lobby like that girl said.”

  “That’s not happening. I want to find my husband. I have to, or I’ll go nuts with worry.”

  We came to a large double door that had the words NO ADMITTANCE on it.

  “Where does that lead to?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” I put both of my hands on one of the doors and pushed, but nothing happened. The door wouldn’t budge. “Isn’t this just dandy? The doors won’t open from this side. Come on. Let’s go this way.” I pointed to the next hall over.

  We walked down a different corridor. As soon as we got to the end of it and turned the corner, we saw Chief Sam standing in the hallway. His head was hung down, and Jonathan had his hand on his father’s shoulder. Both men looked sooty as if they had tried to fight the fire themselves. They were talking to Dr. Bryant, the same doctor who had given us the news about my dad the day he died.

  I looked at Sarah and then the two of us took off, hand in hand.

  The minute the chief looked up, I knew a tragedy had struck. It was written all over his face. When we reached him, he put his arm around Sarah and said, “Daniel is dead.”

  Chapter 4

  I was just about to ask about Billy when Sarah let out a wail that could’ve been heard all the way out in the parking lot. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she went into a much worse tirade than she had earlier in the car. She was inconsolable and looked as if she was about to collapse. There was no fixing this disaster.

  “I want to see my son,” she cried. “He’s not dead. I know he’s not dead! I want to see him! Let me see my son!” She pushed past the chief and headed for the double doors.

  I was too shaken to speak. I couldn’t move… and I was concerned that Sarah was going to have a heart attack. This kind of news is hard to take for anyone.

  Jonathan reached her before she got through the doors that now stood open, and wrapped his arms around her, trying to give her comfort.

  “Mom, he’s gone. There’s nothing we can do for him. It was his time.”

  “I don’t believe that bull!” she cried as she pulled back. “People don’t have a certain time they’re going to die. If they did, why would they call it an accident? If it was his time to die then I want to talk to God about it! Daniel is too young to die. He has his whole life ahead of him! He has a family!” She stopped for a second and looked around. “Oh, my God! What about his family? What about little Greg? What’s he going to do without his father? No, this can’t be happening!”

  Sarah turned her anger toward Dr. Bryant. She grabbed his shirt and started screaming at him. “Why didn’t you save my son? Why did you let him die? What kind of doctor are you? Where’s Billy? Is my Billy dead, too?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Blackhawk,” Dr. Bryant said, not trying to pull away from her. He’d obviously dealt with hysterical family members many times. “We did all that we could for Daniel. His injuries from the fall were too extensive.”

  “What fall?” Sarah screamed. She turned to Chief Sam. “What’s he talking about?”

  “Daniel fell through the floor,” Jonathan said. “We should’ve never…”

  “It is not your fault, son,” Chief Sam said. “It was an accident. My boys should’ve never gone in the house to begin with, but it’s too late now to change things.”

  “Billy’s going to make it,” Dr. Bryant said as he looked at me and nodded reassuringly. “He’s suffering from smoke inhalation, but he’s going to be all right.”

  His last words were a welcomed relief to my ears. Billy was going to live! I almost fell to the floor when I heard that, but I kept it together for Sarah’s sake. I couldn’t jump up and down and sing praises, because Sarah was dealing with the grief of losing a son.

  I couldn’t hear what Dr. Bryant whispered to the chief, but I figured that he had plans to sedate Sarah. She needed it. He motioned to an intern who had been standing behind him, and then I heard the word Valium. A minute or two later, the intern returned with a syringe and a gurney. Dr. Bryant managed to get Sarah to sit on the gurney while he administered the shot.

  Then I thought about the pill I had taken earlier. That’s probably why I didn’t go ballistic when I heard about Daniel’s fate. During Sarah’s outburst, I stood quietly off to the side. I was in shock and consumed with grief. I cried silently as not to be a bother to anyone. I was in my own little world. I was crushed by Daniel’s sudden death, but once Dr. Bryant said that Billy was going to be all right, I let out a sigh of relief.

  Jonathan walked over and put his huge arm around my tiny shoulder and said, “Come on, I’ll take you to see Billy.”

  “Thank God, he’s alive!” I said, relieved.

  I looked over at Sarah, who was now sitting on the gurney and being held by Chief Sam. The look in her eyes broke my heart. She had the same look my mother had when she found out that Dad had died… empty, forlorn, and consumed with pain. I reached out to her, my tears unrestrained. “I’m so sorry,” I cried as I walked over to her and hugged her. “I hate this. I’m so tired of worrying about our family. Does it ever get any better?”

  “This is the way life is,” the chief said. “We live. We die.” He wrapped his arms around the two of us, and then Jonathan followed suit. The four of us stood by the gurney and cried.

  We cried until there was nothing left. Our tears dried up, and we tried to pull ourselves together and deal with our tragedy. We had lost one of our own, but we would make it through.

  Finally, I looked up at Jonathan and asked, “Will you take me to see Billy now? I don’t think I can make it on my own. I’m a little weak at the knees.”

  “Sure,” he whispered. “Put your arm around my waist and hold onto me.”

  I did as he told me to.

  “Oops, sorry about the soot,” he said, offering his apologies.

  “I don’t care about that. A little soot ain’t going to hurt me, pal. I’m just glad that you’re alive.”

  “I am, too.”

  Sarah crawled down off the gurney and was a little wobbly from the shot, but she wasn’t about to let us go without her. She said so.

  “I’m going, too. I want to see Billy. I want to make sure that he’s all right like the doctor says.”

  Dr. Bryant, who had been patiently standing by, turned and led the way. Behind the double doors, patients lined the walls and were separated by curtains. We passed several who, at the sight of them, made me gag. Their bloody cuts and broken bones were a sight to behold.

  “Are you going to be all right?” Dr. Bryant asked.

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  He motioned to the intern, who in turn, quickly led me to a bathroom.

  I closed the door behind me and tried to throw up. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in the cards. All I did was dry-heave. I grabbed a paper towel, ran it under cold water, and after squeezing the excess water out, I wiped my face. The cold paper towel felt good. I stood and stared at myself in the mirror, and the first thing that came to mind was the night Billy and I made love right after Ethan was born—which was a no-no so soon after giving birth. For a second I thought I might be pregnant, but realized that wasn’t possible. I had already had my six-week check up a long time ago and a period since then, so I was out of the woods. No, this was just a case of nerves and drugs. I never should have taken that pill on an empty stomach. It had been hour
s since dinner. I needed some food on my stomach, but that was going to have to wait. Then I looked in the mirror again and smiled at the thought that I would still have a husband to give me more babies if I wanted them. I had to go see Billy. I threw the paper towel in the trash and left the bathroom.

  Jonathan was waiting in the hall for me.

  “I’m going to make it,” I said. “Thanks for waiting. I guess Sarah and the chief have gone to see Billy.”

  “Yeah, Mom couldn’t wait. She’s a mess. This is going to be hard on her.”

  “Losing a child is hard on anybody. She needs to be with Billy. Maybe seeing that he’s alive and going to be okay will be a comfort.”

  I put my arm around Jonathan’s waist and the two of us walked down the aisle. I tried not to look at the other patients, but it was hard. There was so much blood and suffering. It tore me apart.

  “I guess your house is a goner, huh?” I asked Jonathan, trying not to think about my surroundings.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s done for. There’s nothing left but a brick chimney and a pile of rubble. Someone set fire to my house, and then an explosion took out the garage, the sheds, and even burned the leaves off every tree for at least a five-hundred foot circle around the house.”

  “What kind of blast could do something like that?”

  “Dynamite. C4.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Who would do such a thing?”

  “I found this.” Jonathan reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small piece of metal.

  I looked at it closely and asked, “What is that? It looks like a broach of some sort, like a woman would wear on the collar of a suit jacket. I’ve seen Mom wear something similar.”

  “It’s the Purple Heart.”

  “That’s the medal one gets when they’ve been wounded in battle. My dad got one for his injuries sustained in the line of duty. Hey, could this one be yours? I’m sure you earned a few medals. Where did you find it?”

  “No,” was all he said. We reached Billy’s bed, so our conversation ended. “We’ll discuss this later,” Jonathan said as he motioned with a wave of his arm in Billy’s direction. “He’s over here.”

  I stopped listening to Jonathan the minute I saw Billy. I burst into tears at the sight of him. He was still covered with soot, had tubes in his nose, and an I.V. drip was connected to the top part of his hand—the only visible part of his body that had been cleaned. He had a few small patches that looked like burns on his arms.

  I walked over, took his hand in mine, and then kissed it. “I… I…” I tried to speak, but couldn’t.

  “You don’t have to say anything, `ge ya,” he said and then went into a coughing spasm.

  “Nurse!” I screamed.

  An intern appeared from around the curtain.

  Billy coughed a couple times and then took a deep breath. The coughing stopped.

  “He’s going to be coughing a lot,” the intern said. “But that’ll let up after a while. It’ll take time, but for now, if he doesn’t cough up blood, and he doesn’t have any problem breathing, he’s okay.”

  I was still holding onto Billy’s hand as I cried.

  Sarah was sitting in the only chair in the small alcove of the room and appeared calmer than earlier. The shot the doctor gave her must be working. The chief stood beside her with his hand on her shoulder, his concern for her undeniable. He watched as she patted the top part of Billy’s arm and then ran her hand through his hair trying to smooth it over like a mother would do to a child when giving comfort.

  I stood beside his bed. I was exhausted. My energy was drained, and I figured that had something to do with the pill that I had downed earlier. I didn’t say anything, but I kept holding onto Billy’s hand—as if I were to let it go, he would go, too. I leaned over, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered into his ear, “I’m so sorry about Daniel.”

  “What about Daniel?” he asked, and then had another coughing fit. “Where is he?”

  Stunned, I looked up at everyone.

  There was a hush in the room.

  “We haven’t had time to tell him,” Chief Sam whispered. “We just found out and this is the first time we’ve been allowed in to see Billy.”

  Billy’s coughing stopped, but his face was still red. He was very angry. He’s a Cherokee like the rest of his brothers and sisters, and when he got angry, his olive skin took on the color of a dark crimson.

  “Where’s my brother? Is he hurt?” Billy looked around the room at our faces. “Is Daniel dead?”

  Softly, Jonathan uttered the one word, “Yes.”

  Billy was outraged. He sat straight up in bed and let out a howl unsurpassed by anything I had ever heard. It sounded like the growl of a lone wolf about ready to attack. “I will kill the one responsible for my brother’s death. He will die a thousand deaths.” His scream resonated throughout the emergency room, and for a split second, silence filled the air.

  “Shh,” I said, putting my finger to my lips. “You’ll have the cops in here, and then they’ll take you off to jail for making threats. You know how they are. They take one little word out of context, and then they haul you off to the slammer.”

  Billy lay back down on the bed and closed his eyes. A tear ran down the side of his face. I wiped it away with my fingertips and kissed his face where the tear had been. It broke my heart to see him hurt like this.

  “The cops are already here,” Jonathan said. “They’re everywhere and they’re going to be in our faces for a long time. They want to find out who did this almost as much as we do. You can’t go set fire to a person’s house and not have it all over the news, especially when there’s such a big explosion.”

  No one said a word… or asked any questions about what might have caused the explosion. They knew Jonathan well.

  “Someone has to be held accountable,” Jonathan continued. “And when someone dies as a result, it’s twice as bad.”

  “Yes, it is,” the chief said. “It is bad. We will find this person and we will make him suffer. He will suffer as we have… as we will for years to come.”

  “I agree,” Sarah added. “The person who killed my son must die.”

  I was shocked. Sarah was normally the sane one in the Blackhawk bunch when it came to letting the police do their jobs… but not this time. This time it was evident that she wanted revenge. She wanted someone to pay for this terrible atrocity that had been done to her family. She wanted blood. We all did.

  “Where’s Robert?” Billy asked as he opened his eyes.

  I had forgotten about Robert. He wasn’t around when we met up with Jonathan and the chief, and once we found out about Daniel, he had slipped my mind.

  “He left the same time Cole did. Cole got a call from his mother. It seems she took a spill and needed his help. Robert went to find Greg. He didn’t want him to hear about this on the news or over the phone, so he went to tell him in person. He’s going to bring him here. He said he would make the rest of the calls once he got up with Greg.”

  “That’s right,” Billy said. “He’s got all those ex-wives that have to be told.”

  “And don’t forget the rest of the kids. You know this is going to be hard on them,” the chief added. “We will have to give them comfort.”

  I was listening to everyone talk about Daniel when I realized that I hadn’t called my mother. “Oh, God! I have to go call my mother and tell her what happened, Billy,” I said. “She’ll go nuts with worry. I’ll be right back.”

  “We don’t want Minnie to be put in a padded cell. Go, `ge ya. I’ll be here when you get back. But make it quick. I’m not staying in this hospital for long.” Billy tried to smile, but his pain was too deep. His hurt would never go away—this I knew for sure. He coughed again.

  “Stop, before you hack up a lung.”

  He actually smiled this time, without coughing. “You are such a silly `ge ya.”

  “And you are a stubborn warrior.�
�� I looked around at everyone. “See what I’m going to have to put up with in Ethan? He’s just like his father. I dread the day the two of them start running around chasing after bad guys… and you know they will. Lord, I’ll lose my mind.”

  “And where will you be when that happens?” the chief asked.

  “Right behind them, I guess… me and Maisy… the whole crew together. We’ll be one big happy family of private detectives. I can see it now.”

  I kissed Billy again and then left him alone with his family. I was sure they would discuss what they were going to do about avenging Daniel’s death since it was declared that they would. For the time being, I didn’t want to know. It was all I could do to absorb the situation and come to terms with losing someone I love… again. The anger inside of me concerned me. I felt as if I could kill the person responsible, and I didn’t want to think that way—not today, anyway. I walked down the corridor, out into the lobby, and then out the front doors. I stood under the covered roof over the sidewalk and pulled the cell phone from my coat pocket. Sarah and I had left our handbags in the car, but not before I stuffed my phone and keys in my coat. I punched in the numbered key for my house, and waited.

  Mom answered the phone on the third ring. “Hello, Jesse,” she said. “Don’t beat around the bush. Tell me straight out. What happened? How is everyone? Where are you?”

  “Somebody set Jonathan’s house on fire and then there was an explosion of some kind. The place was burned down to the ground.”

  “Knowing Jonathan, he probably had dynamite in his basement. That’s probably why there was an explosion. He’s a real character!”

  “True. He also said something about C4, but that’s not important right now.”

  “What else, Jesse?”

  “Billy’s in the hospital suffering from smoke inhalation, but he’s going to make it. He has a few burns, but nothing serious.”

  “And…”

  “Daniel is dead.”

  “Oh, no…” she said, sadly. A moment passed before she spoke again. “I’m so sorry, honey. I knew something was wrong when you didn’t call. It’s been over two hours since you left. It’s almost midnight. I was so worried. I’ve had two cups of coffee so I could stay awake, and now I’m as jittery as a June bug.”