His father stood motionless, staring at the man with the knife as if he was daring him to come closer.
John looked away from the scope. Russell glanced in John’s direction, and he swore he saw his father give a slight nod of his head. In the next second, no longer thinking about what he was about to do but what he was expected to do, John peered through the scope again and lined up his shot. He pulled the trigger. The traitor went down in a heap. The knife dropped to the ground by his side.
It wasn’t until John lowered the rifle that he started to shake all over and not just in his knees. His entire body rocked with tremors. His vision blurred. What happened? He felt confused. His head was fuzzy. He wasn’t aware of time passing. He wasn’t aware of anything but the trembling. And then a hand resting on his shoulder.
“John,” his father said. “You still with us, Son? Come on, now. Pull yourself together.”
John shook his head, trying to clear his eyes. He knocked his father’s hand off his shoulder and marched to where the traitor had gone down. But what he saw on the ground wasn’t a man but a deer. It was only a deer. He’d shot a deer. Something like relief washed over him, and he knelt beside his kill. He found the knife on the ground and began to field dress the animal. His father was standing over him, cursing him.
“What the hell are you doing? He’s dead, Son. There’s no need to do that.” He put his hand on John’s shoulder again.
“Get off me,” John snapped.
“Son,” his father said, his voice low and reassuring. “It’s going to be okay. You did the right thing. For the club. For me.”
John blocked out his father’s words. He concentrated on the job at hand. When he’d finished, his father pushed him out of the way. Hap was there. When had he gotten there? John didn’t remember Hap coming with them. He heard his father say something about John and shock.
He watched as his father and Hap dragged the deer down the bank to the river. Yes, that was good. Put him in the river. John wasn’t in the mood for venison anyway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Parker linked his fingers behind his head, stretched his back, continued pacing. Papers were strewn about the kitchen, covering the countertop, the stove, the table and chairs. He’d reread every slip of paper in both files, studied the photos of the victims, and scrutinized the details in the wound analysis reports, looking for similarities between the two field dressings. He was going on a hunch that field dressings could be as unique as a person’s handwriting. There could be some identifying factor like the slant of a letter, the pressure of the scrawl, the slice of the blade. If he could prove both wounds had been inflicted by the same person, he’d be that much closer to making an arrest.
What Parker needed to do was put the files back together and have an expert at the lab take a closer look at the evidence, specifically the knife wounds. But right now, he wanted a little more time with his thoughts. He didn’t want to disrupt the organized mess in his kitchen, but he was starting to get hungry.
He picked up his phone, checked for messages. Nothing.
He opened the refrigerator and pulled out lettuce, tomatoes, celery, an onion. He’d heat up the leftover fish he’d had the night before and make a fish taco. When he’d finished preparing his meal, he carried it on a plate and ate in the living room. He didn’t want to drop any food on the scattered papers at the kitchen table, nor did he want to disrupt the visual he’d created with the pieces of the puzzle to the case. It wasn’t until he finished eating that he remembered the pumpkins in the trunk of his car.
He brought the pumpkins inside, laying old newspapers on the coffee table, placing the pumpkins on top. Every year since he could remember, he’d carved pumpkins to put on his front porch for Halloween. He’d done it with his parents when he’d been younger, and he’d kept the tradition going through the years. Back then, Becca had joined him. She’d made fun, silly-faced jack-o’-lanterns, where Parker had preferred a scarier look.
“It’s Halloween,” he’d said after seeing the big toothy smile on her pumpkin. “It’s supposed to look scary.” He’d turned his pumpkin for her to see his work, the angry eyes slanting inward, the crooked nose, the evil grin.
“I didn’t know we were carving self-portraits.”
“Ha ha.” He’d tossed a handful of slime and seeds at her. She’d tossed it right back, and by the time they’d finished, they’d both been covered in pumpkin brains.
He pushed the thought away after hearing his phone go off. He wiped his hands on his jeans and picked it up. It was a text message from Mara about the partial print. Still searching.
He put the phone down and picked up the knife. As he slid the blade into the skin of the pumpkin, cutting around the stem, creating a lid, he wondered what the killer had been thinking when he’d taken the knife to his victims. Why would he field dress them after they’d been shot dead? What was the purpose? Maybe the answer was simple—to send a message. But for whom?
Parker set the pumpkin lid aside and stuck his hand into the fruit, grabbing fistfuls of strands and seeds, removing the guts.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Ten-year-old Becca loved nothing more than riding her bike. Jumping rope came in a close second. But riding her bike, well, that felt like freedom—the wind in her face, the sun on her back, the means to flee from home.
It wasn’t unusual for her to hop on her bike and ride off without telling her parents where she was going, especially if she’d been left in her father’s care. She’d overheard him tell her mother once, “Children should be seen, not heard. And sometimes they shouldn’t even be seen.” He hadn’t sounded angry or even cruel when he’d said this but more reflective, as though he’d had his own private reasons for believing it to be true.
When her mother left for the nursing home where she volunteered and her father was put in charge, Becca did what she always did: she got on her bike and fled, racing down the driveway and onto the street.
She pedaled past cornfields that flanked the road. She coasted downhill, tapping the brake to control her speed. She was approaching Russell’s farmhouse at a rapid pace. Old man Russell was big and burly, with leathery skin and dirty hair, and she was frightened of him, but it wasn’t his size or his looks that scared her. There was a feeling she’d get whenever she came in contact with him, a sense he didn’t like her. Maybe it had something to do with her father. The two men couldn’t be in the same room without going at each other.
On any given day, a row of motorcycles lined Russell’s driveway, the same bikes that roared up and down their otherwise-quiet country road, sometimes at all hours of the night. Her father complained about the noise and the men and Russell, but he never did anything about any of them. And he could’ve, given his position in town.
The autumn air was crisp in her face. Her knuckles were white, her fingers cold. She was close to the bottom of the hill where Russell’s farmhouse squatted to her left. His old barn leaned next to it. Her plan was to pedal fast, pick up speed, and race by without being seen. The closer she got to his farm, the harder her legs pumped. Her heart rate accelerated.
She was almost past his place, free and clear, when she heard the sound of a dog yelping. The cries were coming from somewhere inside the barn. She hit the brake. The back tire skidded sideways, nearly tossing her to the ground. She regained her balance and listened, straining to hear over her panicked breathing.
Sheba, her six-month-old puppy, had gotten out earlier that day, and Becca hadn’t seen her since. She’d searched the woods and fields around her house all morning, calling for her, fearing the worst. There were hawks that circled the cornfields looking for small prey. And Sheba was small, a mutt of unknown breeds. Becca’s mother had picked her up at the SPCA for Becca’s birthday that spring. Her father had been angry.
“I don’t want that mutt shitting in my yard,” he’d hollered. He spent the weekends, the ones he wasn’t working, riding his John Deere lawn mower, fertilizing, mowing, tending
to their yard with a passion that baffled Becca. To her, it was just grass.
“I’ll clean it up,” her mother had said. “You won’t even notice the dog’s here.” She had turned, mumbled under her breath, “Just like you don’t notice anyone else in this family.”
The dog yelped again. The sound was definitely coming from inside the barn. Becca got off her bike and pushed it off the road, laying it down in the yard. She looked over her shoulder. She didn’t see any motorcycles in the driveway. The house looked dark and empty. She prayed Russell wasn’t home.
“Sheba,” she said in a quiet voice. There was another bark, but this one sounded like it came from a much bigger, meaner dog. Panic crept further up Becca’s throat as she inched closer to the building. The barn doors were flung open. She stood off to the side and peeked in.
In the far corner by the piles of hay, a Doberman pinscher bared its teeth. White foam dripped from its jowls. Becca glimpsed the plump black belly of a smaller animal, recognizing the spot of white fur on its paw. Becca’s chin trembled. She fought back tears.
She noticed John sitting on an old wooden stool. His head was down. His shoulders slumped. On the ground at his feet was a pile of clothes, dirty jeans and a red-stained blue hooded sweatshirt. The Doberman growled. It didn’t seem as though John was aware of the dogs or the attack that was taking place around him.
Becca summoned all the courage she could, which wasn’t much, and squeaked out her puppy’s name again. “Sheba.”
It was loud enough for John to look up. He saw her standing outside the barn door, but she didn’t think he really saw her. His eyes were empty, as though he were somewhere else. His face was pale. More of that peach fuzz covered his chin. He was a man now. And he looked scared, more frightened than Becca herself.
The Doberman continued growling, snapping, trying to reach Sheba. The puppy managed to crawl in between two hay bales, just out of reach of the mean dog’s bite.
John stood and looked down at his hand, where a bloody knife dangled from his fingers. It wasn’t a hunting knife. It didn’t have the gut hook at the tip. Becca knew this because her father was a hunter. Most of the men in the small town were hunters, and some of the women were too. She lived in a community where the school closed its doors the first two days of hunting season every year after Thanksgiving. Otherwise, they’d have to mark more than half of the boys and even some of the girls absent. Becca’s father made her wear bright-colored clothes whenever she wandered into the woods during this time. “You have to make sure the hunters can see you so you don’t get shot,” he’d said.
And hunting season hadn’t started yet. It wouldn’t start for another month, and Becca was wearing jeans and an old gray sweatshirt, not the bright-orange jacket that was too big for her small frame and hung to her knees.
John’s movements were slow yet jerky. He moved like someone who was “on the drugs,” as Becca’s father would say. Her father had not only warned her about hunters in the woods but also about drugs and alcohol and the dangers of all three separately and combined. He’d seen it all as chief of police. And John was acting like how her father had described—slow, erratic, confused. Dangerous. Someone on the drugs.
The Doberman lunged. Sheba yelped and scurried farther back inside the hay bales. Becca inhaled sharply, swallowing the scream that had worked its way from her chest to her mouth, gulping it back down her throat. John whipped around and stared at the dogs for the first time, registering the commotion in the corner of the barn.
“Rubes,” he called and yanked on the Doberman’s spiked collar, pulling the dog away from the puppy, commanding the dog to stay. To Becca’s amazement the dog obeyed. John scooped Becca’s puppy from between the hay bales, cradled her in his arm.
“Is this your dog?” he asked, more alert but somehow still off.
“Yes.” She stepped on wobbly legs into the barn, glanced at the bloody knife still in his hand, the red-stained sweatshirt in a heap on the ground, the snarling Doberman.
“Did your mom get her for you?”
“Yes,” Becca said, taking another step closer. “She got her for me for my birthday when the barn cat died. You remember giving me the barn cat?”
He nodded. “I bet your dad isn’t happy about a dog.”
“No, he isn’t,” she said, inching closer still, until she was an arm’s reach away. “He likes the puppy even less than he liked the cat.” Carefully, she took the knife from his hand and her puppy from his arm. He seemed not to notice nor care.
“Good thing she had that collar on.” He pointed to the pink collar around Sheba’s neck. “Or I might’ve let old Rubes here have her for lunch.”
Rubes glared at Becca and the puppy, waiting for the attack command that wasn’t coming.
Becca looked from the mean dog to the front of John’s shirt and the leather vest he wore with the Scion patch. Both were smattered in blood.
She swallowed hard and took a step back, carrying Sheba in her arms. The puppy’s roly-poly belly went out and in with each breath. She was alive, but Becca had no way of knowing if she was injured. “Is that blood from my dog?” she asked.
John looked at his hands, which Becca noticed were also bloody; then he looked at his shirt and vest. Rubes lowered his head, teeth bared, but stayed where he was.
“No,” he said about the blood. “I was . . . it’s just . . . it was a deer. I was field dressing a deer.”
“I’ve never seen that much blood from a field dressing before.”
He pulled at his fingers and wiped his palms together. “Yeah, well, this one got messy,” he said about the dressing.
“Maybe it’s because you used the wrong knife. You shouldn’t be killing deer when it’s not hunting season anyway,” she said in a low voice. Becca loved animals, and although she liked the taste of venison, she didn’t like the idea of hunting for sport.
“It happened, that’s all.” He looked at her as though he were seeing her clearly for the first time since she’d stepped into the barn.
He continued. “It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to do it. But you can’t tell anyone, okay?”
“I won’t tell,” she said, because she believed him. There was something in his eyes other than fear. She saw kindness.
“Listen,” he said and looked around. “You better get out of here. If your dad finds out you’re here, you’re going to be in a whole lot of trouble.” Rubes was no longer sitting. The dog was standing, glaring at Becca and her puppy.
“I can’t outrun your dog.” She nodded at Rubes. Sheba lifted her head, then laid it back against Becca’s arm. The puppy was exhausted and maybe even bruised from where Rubes had gotten hold of her.
“Rubes won’t go anywhere.” He held on to the dog’s collar. “Now go on,” he said. “And don’t tell anyone what you think you saw.”
Becca left the barn carrying Sheba in her arms, pushing her bike toward home. She wouldn’t tell anyone anything. Not about the knife, the blood, or the dog, Rubes. She should’ve been scared. Everything her father had warned her about had been right there in front of her, staring her in the face, a poster of what a bad person looked like, a representation of the evils of the world. Yet, somehow, she’d known John wouldn’t hurt her. He was sorry for whatever he’d done. She knew that too. But most of all, she believed there was good in him.
After all, he’d saved her puppy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
John stayed tucked inside the hemlock, the rifle raised, straining to hear every word his old man was saying to Clint.
“Your little girl saw something she shouldn’t have,” Russell said.
Clint had been walking away, back toward the John Deere mower he’d left sitting in the yard, but he’d turned back around. The two men stared at each other.
“What did she see?” Clint asked.
“Enough to be a problem.”
Clint was quiet for a long time. He stepped closer to Russell. “What are you asking me to do?”
“I need you to make sure she keeps her mouth shut.”
“She’s a child.”
“Then you should have a lot of influence over her. Explain to her that she’s never to tell anyone about the incident in the barn with my son.”
Clint’s eyes narrowed. “What incident in the barn with your son?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Russell laughed. “Well, maybe she’s forgotten all about it. You better hope so.”
“Are you threatening my kid?”
“If that’s how you want to take it, then yes. But I think you’ll see that what I’m doing is protecting my son, as I suspect you’ll want to protect your daughter.”
The two men continued glaring each other.
John’s breath came in short bursts. His heart pounded, but he didn’t move. He stayed hidden in the pines, hoping Clint would take Russell seriously, would agree to Russell’s terms.
“This incident has nothing to do with you or her or this town. It can all go away if you do what I’m asking,” Russell said and picked up his rifle, the barrel pointed to the ground. “It’s up to you how this ends.”
Clint still didn’t say anything.
“Do we have a deal, Brother?”
“Don’t call me Brother.”
“Do we have a deal, Chief?”
There was a long stretch of silence before Clint answered. He seemed to be taking his time, thinking over his options, although in John’s opinion, he didn’t have any. Maybe Clint had come to the same conclusion, because he said, “Okay. I’ll make sure she forgets everything you think she saw. She won’t talk to anybody about it. You have my word.” He turned and strode through the yard, back to his lawn mower. He climbed into the seat and returned to cutting neat little rows in the grass.
Russell walked back through the woods, passing the hemlock where John was hiding, shaking, sweating.
“You can put the rifle down now, John,” Russell said. “It’s time to go home.”
River Bodies (Northampton County Book 1) Page 21