She forced herself to breathe. She drank some water. Hauk waited for her, standing behind her, close but not touching.
Hauk indicated the garage door and Sandra went that way without question. Hauk’s police vehicle was parked inside her dad’s garage. He lifted the door while wordlessly, Sandra climbed inside. Hauk backed out, stopped and appeared to be waiting. Sandra understood that she was expected to get out and close the door. She considered getting out of the car and running. That would not fix tomorrow. She did not budge. Finally, Hauk backed out of the driveway with the garage door left open.
He pushed her shoulder as a suggestion that she slide down in her seat. Someone would spot her inside the vehicle through the streets or on the highway. Friday evening traffic was consistent, several cars parked at the gas station, their owners filling up their ride and buying beer. The site of Hauk’s vehicle put the fear of God into them.
As the moonlit fields passed her window, she remembered that Martin was not home. He’d gone with Tillie and Bill into Sioux Falls shopping for something his ex-wife wanted for Carmen. At least for tonight Martin was safe. Crook would be watching Kirby.
Hauk turned on the gravel and drove fast, faster than the gravel road allowed. She thought to turn the wheel in one quick grab and then run for Crook. She started to position herself when Hauk brought the vehicle to sudden and complete stop. They were just past Bill’s place and down the slight hill to Martin’s house.
“Here is the plan, Carl.” Hauk turned toward her and stopped. Apparently realizing she was not Carl, he started again. “The plan is to drive right to the barn, lights off. Show me the money. We take it and leave. Simple. We will not hear one single complaint about it.” He laughed a horrible half-silent sound.
She nodded.
He turned off the lights and drove slow to Martin’s driveway. She wondered why would he need her once he had the money. “You plan to kill me in the barn.” It was a statement, not a question.
“You know, you royal pain in my ass, that is a brilliant idea. The crazy guy would be blamed and I could laugh all the way to the bank.” He spoke in an exaggerated thoughtful tone. It was at that point Sandra took comfort in Hauk’s failure to know about Crook. He knew everything about everybody, but he didn’t.
The vehicle slowly crunched down the road and into Martin’s driveway. As they rounded the slight curve and saw the house, it was completely dark. Sandra’s heart clenched. No one was home. Crook must have gone with Martin.
She said, “The crazy guy has an alibi if he is not at home.”
With a nasty laugh, Hauk said, “I don’t think that is a problem.”
“People won’t always lie for you,” she said.
“Yes, they will.”
As the vehicle, lights off, rolled past the house, Hauk looked straight ahead toward the sloping barn roof outlined against the night sky. Sandra saw a rectangle patch of light waving in the wind on the tall weeds. Hope blossomed. She was excruciatingly careful not to look up at the bedroom window on the north side of the house facing the barn. In his room, Crook would have the radio on low so Kirby could learn country music. She forced her eyes forward.
Hauk stopped with the bumper nearly against the water tank. Suddenly Carl’s voice blasted into the silence. Sandra screamed, and Hauk smirked.
“Checking in, Bossman. Quiet night.” Carl sounded hesitant. Hauk ignored the radio and Carl. Sandra thought to grab the radio and scream for help, but Hauk called her Carl, so she did not. If Hauk called her Carl while planning his crime, Carl must be his partner. Screaming for help to Carl might bring help, but not for her.
The house was dark, but Sandra knew Crook’s room was on the barn side of the house. He and Kirby were upstairs for the night. Hauk did not look back at the house once he drove passed it.
For the four miles to Martin’s, Sandra had studied the configuration of the dashboard. She had spotted a worn button near the wheel and determined that was the siren. With her left hand she reached out, quick, and pushed it. She was rewarded with a squeak of siren sound and a backhand from Hauk. As her head spun she glimpsed the light in Crook’s window go out. Crook was coming.
Sandra straightened herself in the seat and looked through the windshield at the moonlit night. “It will be pitch dark inside the barn,” she said. He grabbed a flashlight from its casing attached to the dashboard.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“No,” Sandra said, quiet but firm. “If you are going to shoot me you will have to do it now, here in your car. Then lie your way out of that.”
In the backsplash of light she saw his features contort in fury. She prepared for pain, but none came. Instead he opened his door and the interior light burned her eyes. He started around the front of the car. She fumbled to lock her door but he held his keys and unlocked it at the same time ripping her door open. He grabbed her by her right arm and pulled her from the car with as little effort as grabbing a stuffed doll.
Sandra cried out as the pain in her shoulder seared through her neck and down to her fingers. He let go of her and waved his flashlight for her to precede him through the weeds to the side door of the barn.
Slowly Sandra led the way. Never having been inside the barn, Sandra stepped slowly, thinking of something to do, anything. Once inside, she would be lost. She stopped still about two feet from the door. The flashlight exposed the rusty latch and door pull. “It pulls hard,” she said.
“So what,” he said.
She took a deep breath and reached for the latch and at that moment she heard a slight crunch in the dry weeds like a footstep. She dared not stop her motion and let on that she heard anything, but Hauk held her arm for her to stop. He obviously heard the sound. He waved the flashlight across the weeds in a sweeping motion but nothing appeared from the darkness but the budding tops of ragweed.
He pushed for her to go on, but he was wary now, alert, and took his weapon from the holster. She heard a click and started to pray. Just as she expected, stepping into the interior of the barn was stepping into a black hole with rough, hard-packed earth beneath her feet. She felt the scamper of feet across her tennis shoes. Martin had not cleared the rats from the barn.
“Find the money,” Hauk ordered her and then he handed over to her the flashlight. The weight was substantial in her hand. He read her thoughts and said, “Don’t think about it. You find the money and I might let you live. You try anything and you are dead as you stand, and I will find the money myself.” He had no need to raise his voice; the low deep sound was enough to create prickles down her spine.
She moved the flashlight in a slow arch across whatever was in front of her. They moved cautiously across a wide walkway with storage rooms and a milk room, then black emptiness on one side and a feeding trough and stanchions on the other. Sandra spotted a makeshift ladder. She brought the light back to it and started that way.
During these minutes the only thing that prevented Sandra from propelling herself into a dead run into the blackness of the barn was Crook. She trusted Crook to keep his word.
She had to use the light to mark her footing. The old dirt floor was lumpy under her feet. She heard Hauk breathing behind her. She tried to appear confident of the way, stepping carefully but without hesitation. She listened for any sound other than her own and Hauk. She listened and she begged God for His mercy.
Once at the ladder, she turned and handed Hauk the flashlight, astounded that he took it from her hand without question. She pointed up and glanced at his face. His whole face, not just his eyes, but every plane and crevice was filled with greed, money-lust. He had a tiny speck of saliva on his lips, which he licked away.
Sandra thought, I am a dead girl walking. But she climbed, one rung at a time, reaching with her left arm and stepping up. Her sweat pants caught on the slivered wood and she continually had to yank the material free. Nine long steps and her head poked above the hole in the hay-mound floor. Up here was light. With a good third of the roof leaning inwar
d, the moonlight created shadows and dark places.
Sandra stepped through, Hauk quickly climbing after her. She ran, suddenly bolting without purpose for the old basketball hoop leaning toward her like a grinning face. She lost her footing on the slope of the floor and rolled until the wall beneath the hoop stopped her. She covered her face in her arms, waiting for death. When nothing happened she looked up to see Hauk searching the old hay toward the hay-mound door. She pulled out some desperate courage and started crawling uphill to the ladder. Crook would not get here in time, she had to reach the ladder. Then she would drop down and run.
The flashlight swept across the mounds of moldy dry hay and into the space beyond the open hay-mound door. She held her breath as she crawled, closer and closer, but he suddenly whirled the light upon her.
“Where is it?” In five steps he was upon her, on his knees, holding her down, with the flashlight raised, poised to strike.
Then a different voice, a near whisper, said, “Sandra, when he lets go of you, roll away.” Hauk did let go, and Sandra did roll away. Before Hauk could regain his feet, Crook buried his carving knife in Hauk’s neck, in and out quick as lightening. Hauk’s body continued to stand for two or three endless seconds and then he dropped the flashlight and he fell heavy to the floor. The flashlight rolled down the sloping floor, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk until it stopped at Sandra’s shoulder.
No sound at all, not even a breath entered the hay-mound. Then a chilly blast of wind suddenly cracked through the slanting roof and shook the hay-mound floor. Sandra felt nothing. She knew only that she lived. Crook knelt beside her, caressing her hair and face. He said, “It’s over, at least this part. Are you hurt?”
She shook her head beneath Crook’s hand. When he helped her to stand, the pain in her shoulder brought a gasp.
Crook picked up the flashlight. Hauk’s unmoving body lay diagonal across the slope of the floor. The two of them turned the 250-pound dead-weight to the slope and rolled him to the rectangle hole along the far wall and pushed him through. Sandra and Crook heard the thud as Hauk hit the stanchions below.
Crook waved her around the huge puddle of blood soaking the floor. The splatter from when Crook stabbed Hauk reached Sandra’s sweatshirt and dotted the letters spelling WHS Athletic Dept. He ran the light across her face. Sandra looked into the light with dry eyes and tight lips. Her heart did not race. She felt no more regret for Hauk than she felt for the rats. She felt a tremendous sense of relief.
“We need to get him to the water tank,” Crook told her.
“Wheel barrow?” Sandra whispered.
“We can’t leave a trace of blood on anything,” Crook answered.
It was an extraordinarily difficult task. After a half hour the two of them together had barely managed to extract the body from the stanchions. They stood panting in the darkness with the rats smelling blood around them.
“Sandra,” Crook said quietly and gently, “go to the house and bring Martin’s coat and the garbage bags under the sink and check on Kirby. I had to leave him in my room. He generally sleeps through the night for me, but check on him, please.” She nodded and left the darkness. He tried to light her passage to the side door but it was an odd angle. She had to feel her way out.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It seemed a long time to stand with the ghosts of the dead, but Crook did, thinking and planning. He ran through his mind what they had to do, and at last Sandra returned.
“Kirby?” he asked.
“Sleeping like a baby,” she answered.
With effort, they managed to get Hauk onto the coat and then the two of them pulling together managed to drag the coat and the body out of the barn into the moonlight. They were careful to drag him along the path already there, but nonetheless they damaged and broke a wide swath of weeds.
At the pump, Crook used the new electric pull switch and directed the flow to the nearly empty cattle tank. Crook completely undressed the corpse. Revulsion turned in his stomach, but he continued without hesitation. Then he and Sandra lifted the body, first the head and shoulders onto the rim and then the torso splashed into the deepening water.
It was no easy task.
Sandra grimaced with obvious pain but did not refrain from lifting. Crook said, “Is anything broken in your arm or shoulder?”
Sandra shook her head. Crook did not believe her but he dropped it.
“Let it fill,” Crook told her. He bunched Hauk’s blood drenched-clothes into a garbage bag, keeping out his belt, weapon, holster, boots and badge. He did not know if Hauk had another pair of boots. He would see. Then he followed the path to the house.
He carried Hauk’s things to the house. He had to have light. Sandra would wait outside because Crook worried about the transference of Hauk’s blood into the kitchen. He had blood on himself, his shirt, and his jeans. He took his clothes off outside and put them into a clean garbage bag that Sandra held for him. He removed his shoes and worked in his stocking feet.
Inside the kitchen, he poured an entire bottle of vinegar into Martin’s beautiful new stainless steel sink and ran water into the deep side. Using a sponge, Crook carefully cleaned the wet blood from each of Hauk’s possessions. He wore rubber gloves as he cleaned. Crook used the damp sponge to wipe Hauk’s gun off, then once the holster was clean he put the weapon back.
Methodically, he cleaned each item with the vinegar until the water was crimson. Not a visible sign of blood remained on boots, badge, belt, or holster. If Hauk carried a wallet, that was with his clothes and beyond repair. A technician could test to his heart’s content but would find nothing but degraded signs of Hauk’s own blood which could be from any time and any place. At last satisfied, Crook placed the items into a new garbage bag.
He cleaned the sink with bleach and let the hot water continue to run. He poured bleach down the drain. He made two bottles for Kirby and went upstairs. Crook dressed and then lifted a sleeping Kirby from his playpen and into his infant seat. He wrapped blankets across the baby, and carried the infant seat to the kitchen. He set Kirby by the door, checked again that he slept comfortably, grabbed the garbage bag, and left the house. He would grab Kirby on the way out.
As the two of them walked back to the pump, Crook said, “I could leave Hauk to rot where he laid and let the rats clean up, but Martin would find him sooner or later and we can’t have that. So, now we do this.”
“We could call the cops, the real ones in Sioux Falls.” Sandra made this suggestion with obvious hesitation. “It was self-defense.”
“Or entrapment,” Crook said.
“He came to me,” Sandra said.
Crook knew the questions that would be asked. He said, “Too late, and we don’t have a phone.” Then he added as an afterthought, “It is all or nothing for us now, but I will keep you out of it.”
“You can’t keep me out of it because I won’t allow it.” Then they said nothing more. The sound of running water carried in the night air. When they reached the tank, it was running over. They could not see the color of the water and they could not see Hauk.
Sandra stripped off her sweats and climbed into the cold water. It circled her to her hips. “I have him,” she said. “I am kicking him to the edge.”
Again they had to lift and shove the body over the edge where Crook guided the body’s fall onto Martin’s coat. Sandra climbed out, shivering in her underwear and quickly putting back on her sweats. She moved to turn off the pump. Crook said, “Let it run.”
A brisk wind blew from the west, and they worked as quickly as possible with the cold stiffening their fingers. Of course the blood on Martin’s coat would again transfer to the body, but Crook would take care of that later. For now they wrapped the huge, naked dead man in Martin’s coat and lifted and hefted and moved it slowly bit by bit into the back seat of his police vehicle.
Crook indicated for Sandra to drive. He found a hat in the back seat window and put it on her head. Passing motorists would only see the cop h
at and not notice Sandra’s face. Again Sandra did as she was asked without hesitation or complaint. Crook used a valuable second to study the girl. Sandra could be in shock. He knew she worked through pain. He thought, I must tell Martin to make sure she sees a shrink.
Sandra backed up and turned around. Crook thought to stop her and then realized it was no time to worry about tracks. Sandra stopped at the house where Crook ran inside and grabbed Kirby, clean diapers and two bottles tucked into the side of his seat. Kirby, seat and all, rode on Crook’s lap because Hauk occupied the back seat. Not only did the huge bulk of Hauk’s body seem to fill the vehicle, but so did Hauk’s evil aura fill the air. Crook covered Kirby’s little face with a light blanket.
Crook said, “Even dead the man gives me the creeps.”
Sandra said, “Not so much now.”
It was the longest four miles in the lives of either of them. For a few seconds, Crook feared they would meet Bill bringing Martin home, but they did not. It was nearly nine o’clock at night, three hours since Sandra left practice. Bill and Tillie and Martin must be eating out in Sioux Falls before bringing home Martin’s new stash of stuff.
Carl’s nagging insistent voice came through the radio just as they neared the lights of town. Sandra shook her head at Crook’s look of alarm. “Hauk didn’t answer,” she said.
“Take back roads,” he said.
The endless blocks finally ended at Hauk’s. He had a garage door opener and Sandra pushed it and drove inside. She pushed to shut the door, shut off the engine and sat there. She made a gasping sound with each breath.
“Are you all right?” Crook asked.
“How are you?” Sandra asked, not turning her head.
Crook observed the layout of the house and the garage. Through the window he observed the corner lot and the lilac bushes. The streetlight cast shadows across the street, but the garage was in darkness. The wind blew in clouds and the night was no longer lightened by the moon. Crook judged this to be good.
Martin, Crook, & Bill Page 21