He had camped out in the comfy chair, watching TV in the dark, and fallen asleep. I couldn’t decide whether to wake him and give him grief, or just watch him sleep. The little imp sitting on my shoulder voted for waking him, and just now her vote was carrying the day. I set my keys on the counter and crossed the living room to give him a shake.
I was almost close enough to touch him before I could see the ropes holding Ben upright in the chair.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Supposedly there’s a part of the brain dedicated to instinct, to self-preservation, to survival. Until that moment, I’d never been sure that part of my brain was functional.
I twisted and lifted my arms to shield myself while shifting away from the dark spot in the room. Deacon must have been waiting in the hallway, just at the edge of the living room. His first blow landed on the fleshy part of my arm where it meets the shoulder rather than on my head, but the power of it still knocked me to the floor. Whatever he hit me with, it felt like my arm was broken. My body curled around the pain.
He must have swung again and missed as I fell, or maybe it was his follow-through. Glass shattered, and the flickering light from the TV died. Now the only light in the room was from the small bulb in the exhaust hood over the kitchen stove. After the sound of glass faded, I could hear the grating nastiness of Deacon’s voice, but I couldn’t make out the words. Then his boot kicked the back of my thigh so hard my leg spasmed involuntarily. I rolled onto my knees and tried to crawl away, but his foot caught my ribs next, not as hard as the last kick but still with enough force to lift me from the ground.
Darkness. I couldn’t see. I was on my back and someone was slapping my face hard. I finally realized I wasn’t blind; my eyes were closed. When I opened them, maybe it was the shock of Deacon looming over me, my brain finally figured out that I was supposed to be breathing. I sucked air into my lungs so hard it rasped in my throat and burned it raw. My chest continued to heave, too hard, and tears ran from my eyes. I felt like I had died, but I was still dying and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t get enough air, I couldn’t stop gasping, and I knew I was going to black out again. Deacon pulled my legs out straight and put his hand in the middle of my chest, above my breasts.
“Shit, girl,” he said. “You got to calm down and breath right, or you’re not gonna be no good to me. And you definitely won’t be no good to your little friend.”
That eventually penetrated the layers of panic. All I could see from the floor was Ben’s knees, but I concentrated on them until my vision cleared and breathing grew as even as it was likely to with a psychopath in my face. Deacon stood, and I backed away from him on my butt until I hit the wall. I looked at Ben. In the dim light, I could see a rope or extension cord or something around his chest, and another around his neck. It was tight enough to keep his head upright, but beyond that I couldn’t say. His face was bloody and his eyes were closed, maybe swollen shut.
“Don’t worry, he’s alive,” Deacon said. “I haven’t decided for how long. After all, the boy’s seen me.”
I forced my voice out through numb lips. “It doesn’t matter if he’s seen you or not. They’ll know you did this. When you’re done with me, some of your old buddies might think I got what was coming to me, and maybe they won’t put in too many extra hours trying to track you down. But kill an innocent 15-year-old, and your own brother’d be after your ass. Kill the boy, and your own brother—not to mention every cop in Tallahassee—might not care if you’re brought in dead or alive.”
Probably bullshit, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. Deacon leaned back against my counter and shook his head, smiling. He probably thought he looked like a bad ass. I thought he looked like a crazed fat freak. His shaggy dark mustache mirrored his caterpillar eyebrows, and together they emphasized his bulging eyes. His hair was wet with sweat or rain, and he pushed it away from his forehead with the back of his hand. He was wearing a thin blue windbreaker and dark jeans. I wasn’t surprised to see the pigeon-toed boots beneath them; the pointy fuckers looked just like they felt.
“You are cold, you know that? I been thinking about that bitch a lot lately, thanks to you, and you remind me of her. Thought I was gonna call her a nigger, didn’t you? Yeah, you did—don’t deny it. I could see it in your face. Well maybe I’m not such a dumb-fuck cracker after all.” He laughed.
“Hell, when it comes to screwing, I’m downright liberal.”
He reached beneath his windbreaker, exposing a belly that strained shirt buttons and fell over his belt, and pulled out a gun. I didn’t know what kind of gun, but it was plenty big enough to have bullets and that’s all I needed to know.
“Yeah, you got that same attitude. Neither one of you could ever tell when to keep your goddamned mouth shut.”
He set his gun behind him on the counter.
“As you can see, I came prepared, but to be honest I’d rather not use my firearm. I have other plans for you. Besides, shooting somebody just lacks that personal touch.”
I thought of his marksmanship at WFC.
“Really? I thought you just couldn’t hit the broad side of your own fat ass.”
For a big man he moved quickly, and my living room is small. In two long steps he’d back-handed me, and my head fell back against the wall. When it bounced back, he smacked the other side of my face. Maybe he switched hands, to keep from over-working his right. The second one caught my nose, bringing tears to my eyes. The stinging pain was almost rejuvenating.
“Now see, that’s what I’m talking about. Just can’t keep your goddamned mouth shut.”
I tried not to stare at the counter, at his gun, but I couldn’t help it. Deacon may have “other plans” for my demise, but I was sure none of them included me walking out of here alive, and I had no illusions about Ben’s fate once I was gone. I had to get the gun. Deacon looked that way and nodded.
“Anytime you think you can get that gun, you go right ahead and try.” He took a shuddering breath. “Kinda spices things up a little, huh?”
He came down on both knees, pushing my own legs down flat so they were pinned beneath him. Then he grabbed both my arms around the wrists and held them down at my side. I had a feeling of déjà vu as his rancid body odor swept over me. His voice was soft when he spoke, an attempt at intimacy.
“You’re one of those people, you just won’t be satisfied until you know what happened, will you? Yeah, I can tell. You just gotta know the truth. And it ain’t just her truth either, but you knew that, didn’t you? Somewhere deep down. Just like you know there’s only one way to find out what happened to her, to them, only one way you can ever really understand it.”
He leaned against me and whispered in my ear. “You gotta live it.”
My splint made for an awkward grip, and I think Deacon’s hands loosened the slightest bit in anticipation of slipping them around my neck. I smashed my head against his face, but pinned down I had no leverage. It was just enough to get my splinted right hand free. He was so close I couldn’t reach his face, but I raked my nails across his neck and tried to dig in. He snarled, or maybe it was me.
I’d hoped to get free, but instead my scratching just made him more pissed. With his free hand, he gripped my throat, pushed my head back against the wall and began a slow, measured squeezing. I went for his eyes, but I was moving through thick water. He still held my good arm, and I smacked my splinted one against him ineffectually.
Through the building pressure in my ears, I heard a distant sound. Deacon stopped squeezing and looked up. It was the kitchen screen door slamming. Deacon released my throat and started to his feet, but it was too late.
Noel stood on the other side of the counter, holding Deacon’s gun in her hand.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
If, as Deacon said, Vanda was in me that night, she was in each of us, most of all in Noel. The woman pointing his gun at Deacon was her mother’s daughter, a figure of impervious calm. Deacon was still crouching, like a man f
acing an attack dog, trying not to make any sudden moves. He spoke in the same soothing voice.
“Easy there, honey. That thing’s loaded, and you might hurt somebody.”
“Don’t worry. I know how to use it.”
“We were just messing around, and maybe I got a little carried away, but it’s nothing to get excited about?”
“Really? You must be Deacon.”
I wondered how long his legs could support him in his crouch, but he didn’t move, except his head. He looked Noel over, top to bottom. His eyes narrowed. “Do I know you?”
“It’s been a long time, but I hoped you’d recognize me.” Noel gave him an icy smile. “I’m the whore’s daughter.”
The recognition wasn’t instantaneous, but it happened. I’d expected him to leer, make some crude remark, but as he’d said, maybe Deacon wasn’t such a dumb-fuck cracker after all. He lunged quickly to his left, and when he returned to his crouch he was holding a crow bar. My shoulder throbbed in recognition. He edged back slowly, closer to me. Closer to Ben.
“Put down the gun, I head out the front door and we all walk away from this in one piece.”
“I don’t think so.”
He held the crow bar with both hands and settled it across his right shoulder. “Okay, let me put it another way. Put down the gun, or you’ll spend the next couple of weeks trying to scrub all the boy’s brains off the wall.”
I looked at Noel, at Deacon, at Ben, and made some quick calculations. They all added up to, no way in hell could I get to Deacon in time to stop him if he wanted to take a swing at Ben. I began edging toward Deacon and Ben. I hoped Noel wasn’t lying when she said she knew what she was doing. I’d never been shot before, and it wasn’t an experience I looked forward to. I kept my eyes on Deacon as Noel spoke.
“How about I put it another way? You’re not leaving here alive.”
I wasn’t sure any of us was getting out alive. There was too much adrenaline, and too many unknowns. It wasn’t just the crow bar I was worried about. If Deacon was carrying another gun, where would it be? Not his ankle, not if he wanted to get to it quick. He was too heavy. Small of the back? Could he draw with the crow bar in his hand, or would he have to switch off? I had to distract Deacon, get his focus and his body away from Ben if Noel was to have a chance at stopping him.
“No matter what happens here tonight, Deacon, this is my last chance,” I said.
He didn’t shift his body or his gaze away from Ben and Noel, but I could tell he was listening to me.
“It’s my last chance to ask you what the hell you were thinking when you killed Isaac Thomas.”
Both he and Noel swung their gazes toward me. I was afraid that would happen, with what I had to say. Come on Noel, don’t fail me now. Keep watching Deacon. Keep your eyes on Deacon.
“You thought he knew, didn’t you? You thought he knew that you killed Vanda.”
He didn’t speak, but I had his full attention now.
“Of course you did. Why else would he be transferred to Latham?” Deacon’s head started to nod involuntarily, and I saw something in his eyes. Something…
“You were afraid of him, weren’t you? Afraid of what he would do to you for killing his wife.”
“I’m not afraid of anybody, least of all a fucking inmate.”
“No C/O with a bit of sense isn’t afraid of the inmates. It’s too easy to hide a shiv, or get somebody to do it for you. Besides, Isaac might not have been an inmate forever. Sure, now life means life, but when he was sentenced it was 25 to life. He might have gotten out one day, and you couldn’t take that chance.”
I gave Deacon a smile so acidic it nearly burned my lips. “You never were very bright, were you? Isaac didn’t have a clue about Vanda! He was turning you in because you couldn’t keep your pathetic little pecker in your pants. You had to go around blackmailing teenagers for sex. Once you’d made it through all the hookers, what else could you do? Plus, blackmail a teenager and she doesn’t talk back. Blackmail a virgin and she doesn’t know any better, doesn’t know how inadequate you are. Is that what happened with Vanda? It is, isn’t it? She told you what a lousy lover you were, and you couldn’t take it. You killed her for telling the truth.”
Deacon’s bulk shifted. Gun or crowbar? Me or Ben? I looked toward Noel, and my gaze was somewhere between her and Deacon when I heard the gunshots. One, two, three. The first one was so loud, I didn’t really hear the next two, but I could feel them in my organs. I never thought a gunshot would be so loud. My eyes saw bright ghosts, like headlights in the rearview mirror at night, and the smell made me think of a lightning strike in an industrial area. I stood dumbly until the worst of the ringing in my ears faded away, but I still couldn’t hear very well. Then I realized I had my hands over my ears. Removing them helped.
Noel hadn’t moved. She stood still, one hand bracing the other, holding the gun. “Noel, put the gun down.”
My voice echoed in my ears, coming from inside me, but I wasn’t sure if Noel had heard. I finally looked around at the rest of the room. Deacon was lying on his back on the floor, and Ben was still sitting in the chair. Beyond that, I couldn’t tell. My eyes were still spotty.
“Noel, I need light.”
I spoke as if to a hearing-impaired old man. I didn’t watch to see if she complied, but in a few moments the kitchen lights came on. I flipped the rest of the switches in the hallway and went first to Ben. I couldn’t decide if he looked better or worse for the illumination, but he was breathing. When I touched his bloody face, he moaned softly.
“Hang in there, kid. Everything’s okay now. Syd’s here.”
I didn’t want to, but I went to Deacon next. Blood had seeped from his chest through his shirt and onto the floor, and there were drops spattered randomly across his face. His eyes bulged open, as they had in life. I knew he was dead, but I went through the motions anyway. It wasn’t because I thought he might leap to his feet or haunt my dreams if I didn’t see for myself that he was dead. My paranoid, pragmatic mind was already assessing the possibilities, trying to determine the legal consequences of Noel thrice fatally shooting a law enforcement officer (albeit a psychotic one) with his own gun. I considered looking for his second gun, maybe even putting it in his hand, then rejected the idea as too risky. We had to do everything by the book.
I couldn’t bring myself to touch his neck, so I grabbed his wrist. My hands were slippery with blood—his, Ben’s, or mine, I couldn’t tell. It all looked the same. No pulse—big surprise. Now what? I took a deep breath, but it didn’t have the calming effect I’d hoped. The smell of blood made my stomach queasy. Blood and pain. My adrenaline was starting to wear thin, leaving me strung out and exhausted. I had to get us out of here while I could still think.
Noel was still standing behind the counter, leaning a bit, but she had set the gun down. I stood up. My voice stood sounded hollow in my ears.
“He’s not going anywhere, and we need to get Ben to the hospital. Don’t touch anything else, and don’t move anything. We’re going to lock up, leave everything as it is, and call the cops on the way. Let them deal with the mess.”
We were able to slip the chest rope up and over Ben, but I had to cut off the rope around his neck. There was no slack, so it bit into his neck while I hacked at it mostly left-handed with my scissors. My right hand was pretty useless again, and I didn’t trust Noel’s hands or my own with a knife. Ben’s breathing was shallow, and as the rope tightened he started coughing. I stopped to let him catch his breath and wiped the tears from my eyes, probably smearing my face with blood in the bargain. Looking at Deacon, my hand tightened around the scissors. Dead or not, I wanted to carve him up into little pieces for what he did to Ben, what he would have done to him.
One of Ben’s arms was swollen and discolored, probably from the crow bar, so we tried to avoid it as we half-carried, half-dragged him to Noel’s car. She’d parked on the street, but I’d sent her to pull up the yard to the front door while I wo
rked on Ben’s ropes. It was a straighter shot out the front door than the kitchen to the carport, and I didn’t want to drag him through the worst of the crime scene if I could help it. We used Noel’s car because it was a 4-door, and there was no way we could wrestle Ben into my Cabrio. I wasn’t sure I could get into it myself.
We settled Ben across the back seat, then I went back around to the carport and locked the kitchen door from the outside. I slipped a key in my car frame above the right front tire so the cops didn’t feel compelled to break my locks. When I stood up, I suddenly noticed how much it hurt to breathe. Thank God Noel was driving. She’d left the passenger’s door open for me, and I relied too much on gravity to shut it. The dome light had gone out, but when I turned for my seatbelt, I could still see space between the door and frame. Screw it, and I wasn’t wearing the seatbelt either.
“Shit. I forgot my cell phone.”
Noel backed out of the driveway with such speed I almost reconsidered the seatbelt. “Mine’s in the glove box,” she said.
I leaned forward, wincing, and after a couple of tries got the button to catch so it would open. When the tiny bulb came on, the first thing I saw wasn’t her cell phone. It was a gun.
“This isn’t Deacon’s gun, is it?” I was pretty sure it had been on the counter when we left.
“No,” she said. “It’s Grandma Harrison’s.”
I was so full of adrenaline my mind wouldn’t stop racing, even when I wanted it to. How long had Noel been carrying her grandmother’s gun in her car? Had she taken it in with her? Would she have used it if Deacon’s gun hadn’t been on the counter? I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t want to know. I managed to retrieve Noel’s cell phone without touching the gun and slammed the glove box shut. Instead of dialing 911, I tried my old buddies in Stetler County. No one I knew was in the office, but a secretary managed to track down Sutton at home and work some kind of technological magic so I could speak to him.
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