by Matt Drabble
“Mr. Norton?” The warden greeted him.
“Mr. Meeks?” Sam answered.
“One and the same,” the warden said humorlessly.
“It’s nice of you to meet me, especially so early.”
“Well on the phone you said that it was a matter of life and death. I do hope that you weren’t exaggerating.”
“That’s kind of a strange thing to wish for don’t you think?” Sam asked with a smile.
“I guess that it kind of is,” Meeks said, his stone face cracking the tiniest bit. “Well you wouldn’t tell me much over the phone, but I agreed to meet you because of our family connection. Perhaps now you would like to furnish me with a reason for our clandestine appointment?”
“Arnold Trotter,” Sam stated.
The warden released a heavy sigh. “Now there is one name that I hoped I would never have to hear again.”
“Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he’s come home and he’s pissed.”
“But I thought that he died in the fire at the asylum?” Meeks asked with a terrified expression on his face.
“No such luck I’m afraid.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I’ve got a morgue stacked with his victims,” Sam said tiredly.
“You better come in,” Meeks motioned towards the door. “We’ve got a lot to talk about and none of it is going to be pleasant.”
Gaines got the call at a little after 6am. The phone system at the station rerouted the messages to his cell phone whenever the telephone wasn’t picked up.
He had been dozing on Tommy’s chair. The three of them were still in Tommy’s house waiting to hear back from Norton. Tommy and Ally were snuggled together on the long sofa and he didn’t have the heart to wake either of them. After everything that they had been through, the two of them could use a little sleep. They had been discussing the situation round and round in circles until the black sky began to lighten. All they still had was a pile of bodies and a tone of guilt. He had decided to wait until he heard back from the doc before he called in for reinforcements. It was becoming increasingly more likely that his three deputies had met with unfortunate ends. The only way that he could continue to function was to lock away his fears and grief. His deputies may be missing but there were no bodies as yet and without bodies there was always hope, especially for Katy. The one thing that he didn’t want to do was to throw more people into harm’s way before he knew all of the facts. At this point more police could only mean more potential victims. He wasn’t a superstitious man by nature, but more and more he couldn’t shake the feeling that Trotter wasn’t of this world. The man seemed to be able to appear and disappear at will. He had left no evidence anywhere at any of the crime scenes and outside of Tommy and Ally no-one had even seen his face. If he handed the investigation over now, then the investigating officer would no doubt turn a blind eye to the real culprit based on the lack of evidence. This would leave Trotter free to continue his business until he just up and vanished again.
The call was another dagger to his heart. An anonymous man had left a message at the station saying that there were bodies in the dumpster behind the diner. He didn’t blame the man for not wanting to get involved. Only a few hours earlier his heart had been full with the hope of finding his deputies alive, but the caller had said that there were two men and a woman in the dumpster. Henry, Freddie, and Katy were all missing and he knew that it couldn’t be just a coincidence.
He eased his way out of the house and left the two lovebirds sleeping. They could both do without starting their day staring into yet more dead eyes.
The day was already growing warm as the town was still in summer’s grip. The diner was only a 10 minute or so walk from Tommy’s house and he felt like he could do with the time to prepare himself. His pace was brisk and he tried to hope for the best.
He soon rounded the bend and saw the diner. He headed around the back and found the dumpster. The building was yet to be occupied although the morning shift would no doubt be there soon. He walked towards the enormous metal canister and gripped the lid. He took a deep breath and lifted the lid quickly like ripping off a plaster.
The stench of death hit him hard like a boxer’s blow to the solar plexus and it took him a minute to process what he was seeing. Two pairs of entangled male legs wore the unmistakable color and material of the Denver Mills police force. It was Freddie Burns and Henry Trinder. Both of their faces were upturned with ivory skin drained of life. The third body had the clearly identifiable soft curves of a female form. The breath was sucked from his body as he thought of Katy. She had been so full of life and prospects that had now been suddenly ripped from her future. He felt the anger rise as his guts twisted. A small part of his intellectual brain attempted to prise a hole through the reptilian rage that threatened to consume him. He forced himself to look closer at the woman. Beneath the crusted shared blood something seemed out of place and wrong. The woman’s head was buried face down beneath the men’s. He suddenly realised that she had been called into duty when he had last seen her. She had been wearing her uniform, but the female legs that poked out in the dumpster were bare. This woman was clad in a short black skirt that had been pushed further up her naked legs than was dignified. Deciding that the integrity of the crime scene came a poor second to his need for knowledge he moved the bodies. His heart leapt before crashing under the guilt of his joy. The woman was not Katy. He recognised her as Courtney King, a waitress from the diner and Freddie Burns’ fiancée.
He was so consumed with his relief that he didn’t feel the presence behind him and he didn’t have time to feel the sharp needle sting of the syringe that rendered him unconscious.
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Tommy woke in Ally’s warm embrace. He stirred gently, unwilling to remove her arm that was stretched across his torso. With some reluctance he pulled her fingers from his arm and raised himself slowly from the sofa. He hadn’t expected to sleep at all, but lying in Ally’s arms he had fallen deeply. It suddenly dawned on him that today was his birthday. He could not have felt less like celebrating in his life.
He looked around the room to find that they were alone. Gaines had been in the chair opposite last night, but now it lay empty and deserted. He cocked his head and listened for the shower running or bacon frying. There was neither.
He scanned the room like a mother hen looking for a note of some kind to explain the cop’s absence, but again there was nothing. After everything he couldn’t believe that Gaines would have just upped and left without a word. They weren’t exactly close, but surely Gaines would have realised that they would be worried to find him missing. Despite the cop’s age he was still a reassuring presence. The badge and gun brought with it an air of confidence and authority. It was a sense of order that could ultimately deny Trotter’s mad agenda in the end.
He quickly checked the doors and found them locked on the latch. There was no sign of forced entry or of a struggle. He felt reasonably confident that he could rule out Gaines being snatched in the middle of the night. Wherever the man had gone, it was clearly under his own steam.
Ally rolled over and slipped back into a deep sleep. He left her and headed up for a shower and a change of clothes. Apparently desperation and terror made for an unpleasant cologne.
His mind was still trying to process the fact that it was his father who had been the man in question when it came to Mary Trotter’s unnamed lover. The photographs were taken with an almost palpable sense of longing from his father’s lens. His father had obviously held an affection from afar since their schooldays. His memory was spotty when it came to the breakup of his parent’s marriage. His 12 year old life had consisted mainly of trying to deal with the implosion of his close friends circle and the twisted poisonous secret that had rotted them all from the inside. His dreams had been full of bouncing severed heads and the splattering of blood. He hadn’t taken in much of his home life at the time and had only vague recollections of
quiet nights at home. Thinking back he couldn’t remember a lot of harsh screaming and vicious fights, but that would not have been his parents’ way. Whenever there had been a disagreement, theirs was a silent resentment that lived in the shadows before dying in a corner. Even after his father had sat him down and told him that his mother was leaving town and taking him with her, Tommy had been in no fit state to ask why. He had packed his bags with a sigh of relief as they put Denver Mills in the rear view mirror. He had hoped that a change of scenery would bring about a fresh state of mind for him, but there had been no escape from the nightmares. His formative adolescence had been through a fog of therapists and medication. He had missed his father eventually when the fog had slipped enough for him to notice the absence, but his mother had always refused to discuss the issue. She had spoken in vague platitudes and never with a straight answer. He could now see why. His father’s affair had been uncovered by his mother and she had walked, unable to forgive or forget. Just how much guilt his father wore was still unclear. Surely it had to be more than a coincidence that Mary Trotter died on the Marsh’s lawn.
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Adrian Todd always rose early. It was an inbuilt mechanism handed down through his family’s generations of farmers. His body clock was in constant tune with the rising and setting of the sun.
He stood on his bedroom’s balcony and looked out across his land with a steaming coffee mug in his hand. The world before him had always seemed like it belonged to him, but the last few days had shattered that illusion. Seemingly one person was all it had taken to show him that he was as mortal as the rest of the ants.
He sipped the red hot liquid and let the warmth scald his throat. The caffeine struck his system hard and got the engine running. He knew that he had to get back on the horse and fast. He could feel the vultures circling, looking for signs of weakness. He was starting to wonder just how much he had underestimated Russell Dixon. The man had been conspicuous by his absence of late and by now he was positive that he calls were being deliberately ignored.
He started to wane and drank more of the coffee to perk himself up. His eyes still felt a little sleepy and he snapped them open hard, blinking away the sleepiness furiously. Normally he was up and out in one movement, ready to face and conquer, but today he felt sluggish and lethargic.
He drained the rest of the mug and waited for the rush to hit his system again, only this time he felt more tired than ever. The room around him began to spin and he looked down into the empty mug with dawning realisation. He dropped the mug and it shattered on the floor sending shards across the bedroom floor.
“Shit,” he managed to mumble before the drugged coffee took its toll and he fell to the floor unconscious.
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“Coffee?” Warden Leyland Meeks offered.
Sam Norton deciding that any way to wake his weary bones would be gratefully received. “Please,” he responded.
The warden’s private office was a small room with soft warm colours and wooden paneled walls. The surfaces were covered with photographs depicting happy smiling faces in multitudes of family gatherings. The children were prominent in the images and exclusively cheerful.
“Something to brighten my days,” Meeks said as he saw Sam looking at the photos.
“I guess working here can be pretty depressing,” Sam conceded.
“Some days, but I can always retreat into here and look at what it is all for.”
Sam felt the prison’s oppressive nature outside of the office, but in here it felt like a sanctum away from the lifeless black hole.
“So what do you want to know about Trotter?” Meeks asked as he sat down behind his desk and ushered Sam to a facing chair.
“Basically anything that you can tell us,” Sam answered vaguely. “Our knowledge of Mr. Trotter’s life post Denver Mills is somewhat spotty to say the least.”
Meeks sat back on his well worn chair and the springs creaked and groaned. His elbows rested on the arms and his fingers linked under his chin in contemplation.
“And how much of what I tell you will leave this office?” Meeks asked.
“As much as is necessary to save lives,” Sam answered firmly. “If you’ve got dirty secrets Mr. Meeks, then I can’t promise you confidentiality or absolution.”
Meeks looked at him for a long time. His eyes were hard and thoughtful. “Well, I guess that any repercussions could be delayed long enough until after I retire. I’ve only got a couple of months left until I’m sitting on my boat sipping a beer and cursing the fish that don’t bite.”
Sam studied the man back. “And what is it that you have to hide Mr. Meeks?”
“Just a little misplaced loyalty,” Meeks answered enigmatically.
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Tommy held his head under the steaming water from the shower head for as long as he could take it. The hot water splashed his face against his closed eyes and he fought for a little peace. His whole world felt like it was in some kind of limbo. He had never felt so helpless or directionless in his life. Even during therapy there had always been some kind of direction, some kind of forward momentum. But now he felt like they were all waiting for something to happen.
He toweled himself off and thought about breakfast. His mind wanted to race ahead and plan for the future. To fight back against the invading force that was terrifying them all. To find some kind of impetus for Trotter and the world that may lay beyond. He wanted to dream of his own future and Ally’s place in it. He knew that the heightened emotional circumstances that they found themselves currently in lent themselves to flights of fancy. He desperately tried to shut these thoughts away. If any of them lived, then the future could wait. So all he focused on now was breakfast.
He dressed quickly. For some reason he had now finally unpacked his clothes from their cases and hung them in the wardrobe. It was a small but significant subconscious gesture.
He crept back downstairs and passed the lounge and into the kitchen. He raided the fridge for some culinary delights and found little that was tempting. He almost slapped his head with a grinning expression as he remembered that sleeping a few feet away was the woman who owned a diner.
“How about breakfast at your place?” He called out.
There was no answer.
“Hey sleepy head up and at ‘em,” he called again as he walked into the lounge. “You’re taking me out for breakfast.”
He stopped dead in his tracks as he reached the sofa and found it empty. His stomach flipped over and he ran through the house checking every room. He didn’t waste time shouting and only ran.
The downstairs was empty. He tore up the stairs and into the bedrooms and bathroom, nothing. His heart sank and he tried desperately to think happy thoughts. Perhaps she’d woken with the same idea and was going for takeout? Perhaps he’d missed a note?
He ran back to the lounge, praying as he went. He flung the curtains open to shed more light on the room. He scanned around furiously, desperate for a sign. The sofa was empty and so was the table beside it. He was about to go into a full blown panic attack when his eyes caught a folded piece of paper on the floor. He almost laughed aloud in relief as he realised just how terrified he had been. He must have blown the paper to the floor as he’d rushed through earlier. He leaned over and picked up the paper. It was a pastel blue and folded in half with the writing on the inside. He opened the note and his heart stopped. It wasn’t a handwritten note from Ally, it was a children’s birthday party invitation. The invite was decorated with grinning clowns and balloons. The top line read “You are cordially invited to” with a dotted line for the words, “Tommy’s Birthday Party” and underneath was an address.
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Dixon was parked and watching the Todd farm intently. He had been there all night and hadn’t managed to see anyone coming or going. Adrian was alone as far as he knew. There had been no-one called back on protection duty and his phone had been thrown out of the truck window yesterday. Todd was alon
e and vulnerable. Unable or unwilling to call for help. He hoped that Tommy was still in police custody and that Todd’s guard was down, way down.
He’d half toyed with the idea of taking Todd out himself and pinning it on the killer, but if Trotter just did his damn job then all he had to do was to sit back and watch. He wasn’t oblivious to his own sense of endangerment. Surely he was also on Trotter’s list. The plan would be perfect if he could wait until after Trotter killed Todd and then catch the lunatic unawares. The only trouble was that Todd’s farm was so large that it would take several people from a multitude of angles to cover the property. It was something that he hadn’t considered. For all he knew Trotter had already come and gone leaving Todd’s bloody corpse in the process. On the other hand if he went down there and Todd was alone and unharmed, then he would have lost the element of surprise. It was a conundrum indeed.
He was about to risk a closer look when a man appeared from the farmhouse. Even from this secluded distance he immediately recognised Todd’s cowboy hat. The thing was bright white and leather. Todd looked like a prized asshole but no-one had quite found the balls to tell him so. The figure pointed directly at Dixon and then waved him down. Dixon stood from his vantage point and stomped down the hill grumpily. There was no point in hiding or driving away as both would raise too many suspicions in Todd’s paranoid mind. He was halfway to the house when he suddenly hit upon a calculating thought. He could tell Todd that he was watching over him instead of just watching him; a little protection duty from his #1 employee and trusted right hand. If he played this right then he could be closer than ever to Todd; the one man that had not deserted him, and still had his back.