by Hunt, James
The phone on his desk rang, and Bellingham cleared his throat and picked up the receiver.
“Sheriff, this is Kyle Warber over at the DMV’s office in Oregon, how are you?”
“Fine, Mr. Warber.”
“I found the information you wanted on Donald Kieffer. It looks like Mr. Kieffer passed away last year, but according to our records, he lived in Oregon his entire life. Never had a residence in your town.”
Bellingham lingered for a moment, those connections growing stronger. He thanked Mr. Warber for the information, and then hung up. So now he had a missing boy, and a family missing from twenty-five years ago, both of whom lived in a house owned by the Toussaint family.
Bellingham reached for the coffee mug and walked over to pour himself a fresh cup. The majority of his deputies were out scouting for the Cooley boy. And with Veronica over at the factory waiting for the final word on that grievance report, he was all alone. Not that he minded it. He’d discovered that being sheriff rarely afforded him a moment of peace and quiet.
It was his wife that had made him run for the position in the first place. He would have been content to retire four years ago after thirty years in the department, but Laura said he still had some gumption left in the tank. And while he didn’t want to admit it, he knew she was right. The woman could read him like a book, especially when he didn’t want to turn the next page.
Truth was she’d been the driving force pushing him to be better since the moment they met. He smiled at the memory of their first date as he reached for the coffee pot. He’d picked her up at her house. His jaw nearly dropped to the floor when she opened the door to her parents’ place. She was dressed in a low crop tank top, with her hair done up like Farrah Fawcett, and cut-off jean shorts. It was a hot summer night, and he was glad to see that she had dressed for the occasion.
It was a stark contrast from the uniform Bellingham had seen her wear at school, but while a physical attraction began their courtship, it was a friendship that kept it going.
Bellingham walked her out to the car, doing his best to try and not stare at her chest, and parted when they got close to hop in the driver side.
“What are you doing?” Laura asked.
Bellingham stopped at the hood of his Trans-Am, which he’d bought a month before after a year of saving. He pointed to the driver seat. “Getting in?”
“And you’re not going to open my door for me?” She raised her eyebrows in coordination with her tone and crossed her arms.
“I thought women didn’t like that?” Bellingham answered, still lingering at the hood of the car. “You know, cause of feminism.”
“Addler Bellingham.” Laura uncrossed her arms and placed them on her hips. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but not opening a door for a woman or any person in general is not helping to promote feminism, just bad manners.” She glanced down at her own chest, and his eyes quickly followed, but lingered there much longer than hers did. “And I did not wear this outfit for you.” He lifted his eyes and blushed. “I wore it because it’s hot outside, and god forbid I’d want to be in something other than the potato sacks they make us wear at school.” She stepped to the car door and opened it herself. “Women do things for themselves because they want to do them for themselves.”
Bellingham stood there, mouth open.
“Now, get in,” Laura said, sliding one tan, smooth leg into the car. “I have to be back by ten.”
And that’s how it went for the majority of their first date, with Bellingham doing his best to not look like an even bigger ass. By the end of the night, he didn’t think he succeeded.
But when he walked her back to the front door of her parents’ house, she leaned in and kissed him, long, hard, and passionate, slipping in a very talented tongue that triggered a burning hot coal in his stomach and woke up his manhood.
Laura pulled back, and he stood there with an embarrassing erection that she looked down at, and then smirked. “There. You’ve got a peek at mine, and now I’ve got a peek at yours.” She laughed and then stepped inside, leaving Bellingham on the front porch, trying to hide the bulge in his pants.
Nearly forty years later she was still teaching him, and in a place like Ocoee, it was well-needed preaching. He took a sip from his mug, throwing up a thank you to the man upstairs for strong women and strong coffee.
The phone in his office rang again, and Bellingham hurried back, balancing the full-to-the-brim mug carefully in his hand on his way back to his desk. “Sheriff Bellingham.”
“Sheriff,” Veronica said. “I finally got a name on that grievance you wanted information on.”
“Who was it?”
“Donald Kieffer.”
“Make a copy of that report and then bring it back to the station and add it to the Cooley file.” Bellingham hung up, and took a sip from his Saints mug before setting it down and reaching for his car keys. It was time to pay Billy Rouche a visit.
10
Owen’s phone navigation flitted out twice on the winding dirt paths that were a result of his journey to the address that Chuck had given him. They were even farther out from town than the house on Cypress.
The 9mm Glock sat in the passenger seat, loaded with a fifteen-round capacity magazine. Its presence made Owen both nervous and safe at the same time.
Owen slowed, spying the turn up ahead through the trees and swamp. He stopped the car just before the turn, looking farther down the path. A small house stood at the very end. The roof sagged, the windows were dirty, and the paint had long ago faded and peeled from its exterior. There was a truck parked out front, one he didn’t recognize.
Shadows from the trees crawled over the car as he came to a stop ten yards from the house. He parked, grabbed the gun, and took a deep breath before stepping outside.
The gravel drive crunched beneath Owen’s feet. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his heart pounded like a jackhammer. By the time he reached the shade of the short awning over the front door, he couldn’t stop shaking.
The door was cracked open, and Owen aimed the pistol at the gap, then pushed it open. The contrast of darkness inside blinded him for a moment, and he panicked, but it calmed once the shapes of chairs and couches filled the living room.
Owen kept the gun pointed in front of him as he scanned the room. A few steps later he noticed a smell, hot like the weather, but fleshy. And when he turned the corner into the kitchen he saw Billy Rouche lying belly up, a bloody wound on his stomach and his clothes and body wet and soaking the floor around him.
“Drop the gun, Owen.”
Owen shuddered from the pistol jammed in his back. Slowly he held up his hands, and then Chuck relieved him of the weapon.
“The police know I’m here,” Owen said.
Chuck scoffed. “No, they don’t.” He spun Owen around and had both guns gripped in his hands, aimed at Owen. “They don’t know you’re here because you knew I wouldn’t show if they did. And I have something you need.”
“He’s only ten,” Owen said, his eyes watering. “He’s a boy. He’s scared. And he’s my son.”
Chuck stepped back a few paces. He was wet and dirty and sunburnt like the dead man on the floor, complete with a matching lifeless stare. “Kill or be killed, Owen.”
“You mother—” Owen stepped forward, and Chuck raised the pistols a little higher, shaking his head.
“Nah, ah, ah,” Chuck said. “You’ve still got a few things to do.” With his head, he gestured to a chair. “Sit down. Call your wife.”
The sunlight from the opened front door behind Chuck cast his body in shadow. Only his silhouette was visible, the gun part of the outline. Owen stiffened. “No.”
Chuck stepped forward, the features of his face filling the closer he moved. The southern charm from their first meeting had disappeared. The varnish wiped clean and exposing the dirty truth beneath all of the money and nice clothes. “Then I’ll kill her after I kill you.”
“You kill me and she goes
to the police,” Owen said.
“After what you tell her it won’t matter what she tells the police,” Chuck said, then he pressed the pistol against Owen’s chest. “Call. Her.”
Owen carefully reached for his phone, and took a seat in the chair; his eyes fixated on Chuck the whole time.
“Good boy,” Chuck said. “Now, when she answers, you’re going to tell her that you’re very angry, and that you know Billy and Jake have your son, and that you’re going to do something about it.” Chuck’s eyes widened. “And make sure you sell it.”
Owen shifted his eyes from the phone to the dead body. “So you put a bullet in my head after I make the call and frame me for Billy’s murder? Is that it?”
“And Jake’s,” Chuck said, his voice on the brink of madness. “Let’s not forget about Jake, Owen.” There was a light tremor to his arm. “Call.” Chuck walked forward and cut the distance between the two of them in half. “Now.”
“I’ve seen cowards before,” Owen said, grimacing. “But I’ve never seen one like you.”
“And you’ve never been backed into a corner?” Chuck asked, spitting the words back like venom. “You’ve never had to do things that you weren’t proud of? Never had to crawl through the shit on your hands and knees to get out on the other side?” Chuck shook his head, crying now. “Oh, I think you have. I think that’s why you took the job down here in the first place. I think that’s why even after you started noticing things wrong with that house, you stayed. Because this was it, your one shot at redemption, and you ignored everything else for the job and the money I offered you. It was too good to be true, and you knew it. But you kept your family here anyway. You could have left days ago, but you didn’t. This isn’t on me.” He shook his head in wild defiance. “No. Your son’s blood is on your hands. Not mine.” He shook uncontrollably now. “Not mine!”
Skipped meals. No showers. No power. Wearing the same dirty clothes to school. Owen knew the shit Chuck was talking about. The job down here at the factory was supposed to save them, not damn them to this new hell. He didn’t listen to Claire when she told him there was something wrong. He’d ignored her when she said they should leave. Matt was gone because of him. And he couldn’t wash that blood off, no matter how hard or how long he scrubbed.
“Well?” Chuck asked. “What’s it gonna be?”
Owen looked down at the phone. He wasn’t sure what he would say. A version of what Chuck had told him to be sure, but what else? Tell her that she was right? That he was sorry? No. His last words to his wife wouldn’t be so selfish as to clear his own conscience. Not when they were still in danger.
He dialed Claire, his heart caught in his throat as the phone rang. A small portion of him didn’t want her to pick up, and after five rings he thought she wouldn’t, but then…
“Owen? What’s going on? Are you all right?”
Owen closed his eyes, and he nearly broke down right then and there. But he held it. He still had one last job. “Hey, baby.” He opened his eyes and saw the black emptiness of the gun barrel. He’d never been shot before and suddenly wondered if it would hurt, and then in an almost premonition type of warning, a hot pain filled his chest. “I’m sorry, Claire. I should have listened to you before. We should have left. You were right.”
Claire was crying now. “Whatever you’re doing, Owen, don’t you dare!”
“I had to, baby,” Owen answered, fighting back his own tears now. “It’s not safe for you and Chloe. I have to make it safe for you.”
And so this was it. The final push. Owen briefly wondered if his life would flash before his eyes as his tongue turned to sandpaper in his mouth. “Take Chloe and your dad and leave town.” He opened his eyes, Claire stuttering in his ear. “Chuck just killed Billy Rouche and he’s—”
Chuck lunged forward, screaming at the top of his lungs as he cracked the weapon against Owen’s cheek, knocking the phone from his hand and Owen to the floor. Trembling, Chuck picked up the phone and then ended the call as Owen rolled and moaned on the floor. “You fucking prick!” He hovered over Owen and then jammed the pistol’s barrel into Owen’s temple. He foamed at the corners of his mouth like a rabid dog. “You fucking shit! You—”
Red and blue lights flashed outside. Both Owen and Chuck snapped their heads towards it at the same time and the violent turn caused the necklace around Chuck’s neck to pop from his wifebeater and dangle right in front of Owen’s eyes.
The bright green stone sparkled in the leather spider web that held it in place. The pistol’s pressure on the side of Owen’s head lightened, and he punched Chuck’s nose, knocking the man off him and to his side. He ripped the amulet off Chuck’s neck, and then sprinted out the back door.
Owen’s feet splashed in the water and he turned back only once. In the brief glimpse behind him, Owen saw Chuck stumbling out of the back door and the sheriff’s car pulling up next to his van. For a moment, Chuck thought about stopping, but stopping meant explaining, and explaining took time. With the sun fading lower in the sky, it was time he didn’t have.
Owen sprinted into the trees, the mud slowing his pace and Chuck gaining on him as he disappeared deeper and deeper into the wilderness. In his last glimpse of the house, Owen saw the sheriff walk out the back, gun in hand and scanning the edge of the swamp.
Owen tightened his fist around the amulet and while the rest of his body remained hot and sweaty, the hand holding the amulet grew colder.
Splashes alerted Owen to Chuck’s distance behind him and he knew it was only a matter of time before he used that pistol. The only reason Chuck hadn’t fired yet was because he didn’t want to give away their location to the sheriff. Chuck was still hoping to finish this quietly.
Owen’s muscles burned as the distance lengthened, and a thousand tiny knives stabbed his lungs with each breath. Directionless, he wandered through the swamp, pushed only by the fact that if he stopped, Chuck would kill him, or the Sheriff would arrest him, and his son would be lost forever.
The swamp water rose to his chest and significantly slowed Owen’s pace. He twisted his body left and right, his legs churning under the water like he was running on the moon.
“You can’t keep this up forever, Owen.” Chuck’s voice carried over the water, bouncing off the trees like an echo chamber. “Whatever you think that stone can help you do is a lie.”
Owen turned back, searching for Chuck amongst the trees. He kept quiet and trudged forward, doing his best to limit his own noise.
“The cops won’t believe you,” Chuck said, his voice swirling around like a hurricane. “You don’t have any proof. You can’t do this on your own.”
Owen dodged a piece of moss dangling from a tree, some of its wiry tentacles brushing the side of his neck where the dead had scratched him. He looked to the stone, knowing that this was the only proof he needed.
Water rippled to his left and Owen snapped his head in the same direction, frozen terror icing his veins as he imagined Chuck there with pistol in hand, smiling as he squeezed the trigger. But there was nothing.
He glanced up to the sky, the sun growing dimmer and dimmer the farther he waded into the swamp. He had no idea where he was now, and even if he was able to evade Chuck, he had no idea of how to get back to the road.
Owen stopped, noticing the silence. Insects buzzed and another ripple of water, this time to his right, caught his attention. He spun in a circle, arms still above the water, the knuckles on his right hand white from the tight grip on the amulet.
Gunshots thundered, and bark from the tree trunk only a foot from Owen’s head splintered off and fell to the water. Wide-eyed, Owen turned left and saw Chuck between the trees, Roger’s 9mm Glock aimed in his outstretched arm.
Another gunshot triggered Owen into action, and he sprinted forward as fast as his legs would allow in the high water. He kept his head ducked low, his body moving at a tormenting slow pace as more bullets zipped over the still black water.
“You’re a dead m
an!” Chuck said, screaming now as he chased Owen through the trees, his motion just as slow, but aided by the long reach of the pistol.
One more bullet ricocheted off a tree trunk to Owen’s left, and a harsh burn spread across his shoulder. Owen gritted his teeth and winced, clutching the wound, but kept moving. He was hesitant to look down at it, afraid that he’d discover he’d been shot, a trail of blood leaking from him and into the water which would catch the scent of gators looking for a quick, easy meal.
But when he finally glanced down and removed his hand from his shoulder, he saw nothing more than a red line. The bullet barely nicked him.
Bullet-size splashes erupted to his left in three geyser-like sprays, and adrenaline powered him onward. One more gunshot thundered, but Owen didn’t hear a ricochet as he continued his slow-motion sprint through the water, which had risen to his shoulders now. He started to swim, which propelled him faster than the tippy toe walk through the water.
Behind him, Chuck’s voice echoed in the swamp. “I’ll kill you! You hear me? You’re a fucking dead man! I’ll get to your family first! I’ll get there and slit their throats, and then I’ll kill you when you show up! It’s all on you now! You hear me? Your family’s death is on you!”
And while Chuck’s voice faded the farther Owen swam, the words resonated. He looked to his fist that held the amulet. His family’s fate did rest on his shoulders. And he didn’t have any plans on letting them down.
11
Claire stood near the front windows of the shop, her arms clutched protectively around her body in a tight hug, her left foot tapping nervously as she chewed on her lower lip. She stared out to the beautiful evening sky that had transformed into an array of oranges, pinks, purples, reds, and blues. And what should have been a beautiful sight was nothing more than an impending doom for her son.