by Ken Oder
He was right. He’d badly underestimated her. “How did you know I would come for you?”
“I know why you killed the others. You want us all dead cause you think we know who you are. You’re wrong. Only Betty Lou and Momma knew, but you couldn’t be sure of that so you had to kill us all and I’m the only one left. I thought you’d come for me sooner. What took you so long?”
“Your boyfriend’s dog tried to make a meal of me. Took me a while to heal up.”
“Too bad he didn’t kill you. Wish I’d killed you thirty years ago.”
He searched her face for the meaning of her comment. “I don’t understand.”
“Bullshit. You understand good and well.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She frowned, looking uncertain for the first time. “Take off your coat.”
He took off his coat and draped it over the back of a chair.
“Take off your shirt.”
“Why?”
“Do it!”
“All right. All right. Cool down.”
He took off his shirt and dropped it on the chair.
“Keep your hands up. Raise em high!”
He did as she said.
Her eyes ran over his bare flesh, a fierce look on her face.
He looked down at his sagging chest and soft paunch, milk-white under the light, wondering what she found so interesting.
She seemed to focus on his midriff.
“Keep your hands up and turn sideways.”
He turned. He stood that way for a long time with her peering at his side, her brow furrowed.
“Face the bedroom.”
He turned his back to her. He heard her step closer to him. She was quiet for a short while and then said, “Turn around.”
He faced her, his hands still over his head.
She stood only a foot from him, bending her knees, eye level with his stomach, squinting at it, the gun pointed at it. Her hands began to shake. “You’re not the snake,” she said, her voice quavering.
“What?”
“You’re not him. There’s no scar. You’re not the snake.”
Her hands shook more. Years of experience told him this moment was his best chance. He grabbed the gun barrel with his right hand and swung at her with his left. The left cross hit her jaw straight-on. The gun fired as he wrenched it out of her grasp. The silencer suppressed the explosion, but the bullet shattered the living room window. His blow to her face threw her into the wall. Her head bounced off the wood paneling and she knocked a lamp off a table, causing another loud crash. Stunned, but still standing, she reached for the gun in her back pocket. Jim hit her over the head with the butt of the Colt Python and she collapsed on the floor facedown. He leaned over her and took her gun out of her pocket. A little derringer of some sort. Old with rust spots. He jammed it in his pants pocket.
Reba rolled over on her back, groaning, her eye purple and swollen, her jaw jutting to one side, blood bathing her forehead and streaking her hair.
Shattering the window and crashing the lamp probably woke the NRA member. Jim had to kill her and get out. He grabbed his shirt and put it on. He picked up his coat and started to approach her for the kill shot when a high-pitched howl shattered the silence.
Jim looked up at the open door as a scrawny man with a twisted face and wild eyes charged him. Before he could react, the man’s head bowled into his belly, knocking all the wind out of him. He tumbled backwards, lost his grip on the gun, and watched it fly out the window.
Jim fell into an easy chair, still in the man’s grasp. It toppled over backwards and they rolled around on the floor. Still howling, the man clawed at Jim’s eyes. Jim grabbed the man’s pencil-thin wrists and struggled to his feet, pulling him up with him. He held the man upright and kneed him in the groin. The man fell silent, his mouth open midhowl, and sank to the floor like a balloon losing air, his hands clutching his crotch.
Jim staggered across the room, his knee grinding mercilessly. He picked up his coat and limped over to where Reba was lying on her back, holding her jaw, blood dribbling out of her mouth. He placed the derringer’s barrel on the center of her forehead. Her eyes saucered. He pulled the trigger. The gun misfired. He tried to pull the trigger again, but the gun jammed. “God damn it!” He threw the gun across the room.
Headlights washed over the front windows. The hell with Reba. Get out now or perish. He put on his coat and hobbled to the front door and down the steps.
“You! Stop!” A shirtless teenage skinhead stood in the dirt road beside Reba’s Impala, aiming a handgun at him. A pickup truck in front of the NRA member’s trailer had its headlights pointed at Reba’s place. An old man in pajamas and a cowboy hat stood next to the truck holding a rifle.
Jim ran to the corner of the trailer, pain stabbing his knee with every step. The boy fired the handgun. Pump, pump, pump. Muted reports. Two pinpricks in his shoulder blade, but he didn’t go down. He grabbed his shoulder and looked at the kid. A small gun, black. A goddamn pellet gun!
He would have laughed, but the rifle boomed, blowing a hole in the aluminum siding just above his head. He rounded the trailer and headed to the shed, half running and half fast-walking, every step a knife slicing into his knee.
Pump. Pump. A pellet stung the back of his leg. He stopped and pointed his hand with two fingers extended at the skinhead teenager at the corner of the trailer. In the darkness, the ruse worked. The boy hit the ground and rolled under the trailer. The old man was nowhere to be seen.
Jim ran around the shed and into the forest. The rifle fired and a bullet rushed by his ear and cracked into a pine tree. He ran on into the woods, his knee an inflamed mass of ground meat, searing with pain. He ran on and on. Halfway to the truck, his knee gave way and he fell. He rolled under a clump of bushes and looked at the woods behind him, breathing hard. No one was there. They hadn’t given chase yet. The old man looked too old to run after him and the stupid kid thought he had a gun.
Two full minutes passed while he lay under the bushes gasping for air. He had to get up and flee. They’d seen him go into the woods. They would come for him sooner or later.
He struggled to his feet and found a broken branch to serve as a makeshift cane so he could limp on toward his truck. When he was twenty feet from the road, he heard a siren in the distance. He stood in the woods and watched the flashing lights of a patrol car speed around a turn and head into the cove toward the trailer park. He caned to the truck and climbed in.
Another siren wailed. Flashing lights painted the night sky as he watched another patrol car round the turn and speed away. There would be more responders. He had to get out before they blocked Whiskey Road.
He started the truck and spun out. He was only a mile from Fox Run when he heard another siren approaching. They would recognize his truck in the glare of their headlights. He looked frantically for a place to pull off the road, but there was nowhere to hide. Red and blue lights washed over his windshield and a pair of headlights blinded him. He pulled off the shoulder, expecting the vehicle to block his path and its driver to jump out and level a gun on him. He’d lost the Colt Python. He couldn’t even go down fighting. The hell with it. He would charge at his assailant. Force his hand. End it here.
The lights sped past him and a white van with blue markings disappeared around a turn. An ambulance. He laughed, a high nervous titter.
He slumped against the driver’s door for a few moments, breathing hard, before he regained his composure. You can’t relax, he told himself. It’s only a matter of time until they block the end of Whiskey Road. He jammed the truck into gear and raced to the T intersection in Fox Run, turned left at Kirby’s Store, and drove along Whippoorwill Hollow Road to the turnoff to Tinker’s Mill. At the turnoff, he slowed to a reasonable speed. He was far enough away now. He was in the clear. He breathed easier. He had escaped. He would survive.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Lover
Ju
ne, 1937
On a cloudy day in June thirty years earlier, Cole sat in an unmarked county car under a big sycamore tree across the road from his house. He had rolled down the windows. It was hot and muggy, and the air was close. Thunder rumbled in the distance and he could smell the coming rain. He waited.
Shortly after noon, Carrie’s black Chevrolet coupe rolled down the driveway and turned left onto Whippoorwill Hollow Road. Cole gave her time to get ahead of him, then started his car and pulled out onto the road.
There was no traffic on the country road in the middle of the day, so he was careful to keep his distance. Five miles north of their house, Carrie turned right and headed east on the road to Tinker’s Mill. Cole was a quarter mile behind her on a long straightaway when she turned left onto a dirt road that cut a path through a poplar forest.
Cole took the turnoff and stopped just inside the woods to make sure she stayed well ahead of him. He knew there was no risk he would lose her. The road dead-ended in a clearing not too far ahead.
After a short wait, he drove into the forest and pulled off the road behind a clump of tangled vines, got out, and walked out to the edge of the trees. Blood of the Lamb Church sat in the clearing. The coupe was not parked in the churchyard, and he saw no movement in the church’s windows. The air was still; the surroundings eerily quiet.
Staying inside the woods, he walked around toward the rear of the church. Lightning splintered the sky to the west. Rolling thunder sounded like distant kettle drums and a light mist began to fall.
The coupe was parked near the back stoop and a county patrol truck sat at the far corner of the building. Cole stared at the coupe and the truck, his heart pounding.
A long time passed before he was able to move his legs. He stepped out of the woods and walked unsteadily across the yard. He stopped in front of the back stoop, two concrete steps up to a little porch with black wrought iron railings on each side, a back door, a window to its right.
He climbed the steps and stared at the door, mist glistening on its rust-red surface, its doorknob round, brass, ornate, with little raised ridges and curlicues. He stood there without moving, afraid to open the door.
The rain picked up. Water dripped off the brim of his hat. His shirt clung to his flesh.
On the other side of the door, the voices of a man and Carrie murmured, muted by the sound of the rain.
Cole grasped the railing to steady himself and turned his back on the door. He watched the water beading on the hood of the car he’d bought Carrie because she complained of being lonely and housebound.
Lightning lit up the sky; a clap of thunder boomed; and the rain came down in torrents.
Cole walked down the steps. Water puddled in a little depression where he stood. Rain pattered the back of his neck as he looked down at the puddle. He looked over at the woods.
Go back to the car. Drive away. Talk to her when your blood isn’t running high.
The sound of faint laughter came from inside, near the window. He looked over at it for a long time. Then he stepped around the stoop, edged along the wall to the window, and stopped just this side of it. He looked at the patrol truck, water rolling off its hood in sheets.
Don’t look inside. Walk away. Confront her at home.
He wiped water from his face with his hand. His brow felt warm, almost feverish. He took a step toward the window and looked inside.
Through the rain-streaked pane, he saw Jim Lloyd lying on a bed on his back. Carrie sat astride him, leaning forward, the palms of her hands on his bare chest, her body moving up and down rhythmically, her breasts swaying with the motion, a wedge of red hair covering one eye, the other eye closed, her lips parted.
All the air went out of his lungs. He collapsed to the ground and sat with his back against the church, his head bowed.
A panorama of scenes of Carrie and Cole rolled through his mind and faded away to be replaced by Carrie and Jim in the church window.
Lightning flashed. A peal of thunder crashed in the woods and slowly rumbled away.
The image of Carrie and Jim exploded blinding white in his mind’s eye and then went dark.
* * *
He lurched awake, still sitting on the ground, his back against the church wall. He leaned over and retched.
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked around. He didn’t know how long he had been out. The rain had died down to a steady drizzle. His clothes were soaked through. His hat was overturned on the ground beside him, its crown a pool of water.
He didn’t remember drawing his service revolver, but it lay in his lap. He grasped it with both hands and stroked the barrel. It was cool to the touch and beaded with rain water.
The faint ripple of Jim’s laughter came again from inside. The soft tones of Carrie’s voice.
He clicked off the revolver’s safety, gripped the walnut handle, put his finger through the trigger guard, and closed his eyes. He saw them on the bed. He saw himself open the door, point the gun at Jim, fire, and turn the gun on himself.
He opened his eyes and gazed at the Chevy coupe. Lonely and housebound, she had said. His vision blurred with tears.
He allowed himself to weep silently for only a few seconds. Then he forced himself to gather all his strength. Even at that moment, in the depth of his despair, he knew what he would do. He would work his way through the pain. He would heal the wound. He would make her love him again. Even more than before. And he would get rid of Jim.
He wiped the tears away, holstered the gun, crawled on hands and knees to the stoop, grabbed the railing, and pulled himself up to stand. He gripped the cold, wet wrought iron bar tightly and pulled himself together.
He looked up at the slate-colored sky. The rain had stopped. The storm had moved on. He steadied himself and walked back to the unmarked car.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Reckoning
March 10-11, 1967, Friday night–Saturday morning
At ten o’clock on the night Jim Lloyd attacked Reba, Cole drove over the dirt road through the poplar forest to Blood of the Lamb Church. He parked his car short of the clearing behind a clump of brush near the spot where he’d parked thirty years earlier. He got out of the car and walked along the edge of the trees to the rear of the church. The black Dodge 100 was not there. He went back to his patrol car and waited.
He'd been thinking about nothing but Jim Lloyd since the meeting at headquarters. When Sheriff Musgrove hired Cole as a deputy, he assigned Jim to shepherd him through the training process. They quickly became friends and over the seven years they worked together their bond intensified. When Cole saw Jim and Carrie in the church window, it almost killed him, but he later came to understand Carrie’s infidelity. Jim’s betrayal was a different matter. He was pure evil, a Judas who pretended to be like a brother to Cole while scheming behind his back to seduce his wife.
Three years ago, Jim had returned and killed Carrie. Now he had returned to kill others, as well as Cole, and Cole was the only one in Selk County who knew him well enough to analyze where he would go and what he would do.
Jim was a smart man, careful, strategic, and deliberate. He had always gone about his business as a deputy sheriff like a chess player. He planned his moves way in advance, and when his adversary checked him, he implemented his backup plan and resumed his attack.
Renting the Jolley place was a smart move. Remote and secluded, it gave Jim a home base well off the radar screen, but Cole was certain Jim had anticipated his cover might be blown and he had no doubt that Jim had devised a backup plan, a retreat to a safe place where he could hole up while he plotted his escape from the county.
The safe place Jim would choose came to Cole quickly. Jim’s father’s church, Blood of the Lamb. It was as remote and secluded as the Jolley place. Vacant most of the week. Familiar ground for Jim. He grew up in the church. He knew every square inch of the building and its surroundings. And it was the last place anyone would look for a murderer on the run.
&n
bsp; Unless the murderer was Jim and the man searching for him was Cole.
Cole had pretended to review the case files all afternoon. He left headquarters at six, assuring Mabel he was headed home, and drove to Sally’s Diner for a light supper. He then drove to the town square, stared at the fountain and the park bench, and thought about Carrie. At nine, he drove out of Jeetersburg, checking his rearview mirror to make sure none of his men had followed him.
It didn’t worry him that Jim wasn’t at the church when he arrived there. He was confident Jim had chosen it as his hiding place and that he would return to it.
Cole waited in his patrol car patiently. At one-thirty, transmissions about the attack on Reba came over his radio. Toby Vess called for an ambulance for Reba and Floyd Spivey and put out an alert for all available personnel to report to Hukstep’s Trailer Park. Karson Deford and Will Garrison responded to the call. No one else checked in.
Molly Ruebush’s grainy voice came over the airwaves. “Dispatch to County One.” Silence. She repeated the call. Another silence, then, “Cole? . . . Pick up, Cole. We’ve got an emergency and we’re shorthanded. . . . Cole? You there?” The alarm buzzer in Cole’s home office sounded off to awaken him in such emergencies. Molly had to be wondering why he didn’t respond.
Cole shut off his radio, got out of the car, walked to a spot in the woods where he had a view of the back door, and waited.
Fifteen minutes later, headlights tunneled through the forest and emerged in the clearing, washing over the church. A black Dodge 100 glided across the churchyard with moonlight playing on its windshield. It rounded the church and parked by the back stoop.
Jim opened the door and eased out one leg. He almost fell as he stepped down off the running board, grabbing hold of the door to keep his balance. He leaned over and rubbed his knee.