The First Time I Hunted

by Jo Macgregor

  In one of my visions, I’d sensed that the killer wanted to be like his victims in some way. Now, I thought I understood why. Derek had loathed them for their sexuality and judged them to be less worthy as human beings because of it, but perhaps he’d also envied their freedom, their courage to be themselves and live their lives with integrity and honesty, when he’d still been living under the thumb of the twisted man who’d ruled his life. And he’d somehow decided that he could atone for his guilt in killing his grandfather by enacting that man’s bigotry in the form of real-life death sentences.

  “How did you know which of those young men were the kind your grandfather hated?” I asked Kehoe.

  “Mostly, I just knew.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Ryan said, apparently unable to stay silent any longer. “Next thing you’re going to say is that it was their fault for making a pass at you.”

  Kehoe glared at him, but I said kindly, “Don’t mind him, Derek. You can tell me. I’ll understand.”

  He sniffed as though feeling hurt, and I had to bite down on my lip to keep from telling him that he wasn’t the injured party here. Making a show of speaking only to me, he said he could usually tell when men were gay, and when he wasn’t sure, he checked. He’d make a pass at a guy just to see how he reacted. If the guy tolerated his advance or responded, his number was up.

  As he spoke, I found myself imagining the scene, seeing him as he cruised up streets and down highways in the Thunderbird, searching for his next victim. It was like I was beside him in the memory, hunting along with him.

  He’s humming along to a tune on the car radio when he spots a young man in a sky-blue shirt, standing on the side of the highway with his thumb stuck out. He pulls the Ford over, rolls down the window, and smiles. “Want a ride?”

  The young man gets into the car, grinning at his luck. This driver seems safe enough, and the wedding ring is reassuring. Just a family man out for a drive.

  Kehoe makes a move, and when it’s not rejected, he flips his switch, beats up his passenger, and somewhere — in the car, in the woods, in his house — takes time to enjoy the intoxicating control he has over the young man before he kills him. It’s ecstasy having this much power. Nothing else has ever come close. Then he shoves a button into the dead man’s mouth or sews the lips closed with the button stitched on dead center and gets rid of the body.

  He’s done his duty and buttoned up the man permanently. Grandpa would be so pleased. He’d say it was a fitting punishment.

  Afterward, he feels wonderful. It’s the best high ever, bliss. He’s a good boy. A powerful man. He’s atoned for what he did to Grandpa. That night, he sleeps deeply, his conscience clear, his body relaxed, his fantasy sated. But all too soon, the tension begins to build again, and the guilt resurfaces like stinking fumes from a manure cellar.

  He resists as long as he can, living on the meager joy of memories, the pale imitation of fantasies, while the compulsion grows and grows until he has to get back in his car and onto the highway, and start the hunt all over again.

  – 51 –

  I shook my head to clear the imagined images. In front of me stood the killer, still rationalizing his behavior by defending the indefensible. A few times, he said, he’d made a pass at the wrong person and gotten beaten up for his trouble. And he hadn’t defended himself because those men were in the right, weren’t they? They were real men. Twice, he’d been robbed by straight men, but he hadn’t hurt them because they, too, weren’t bad.

  “Grandpa wouldn’t have wanted you to hurt them,” I said.

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “Why did you move your grandfather to the forest?” I asked.

  “I didn’t like to think of him down there in the well, all alone. I don’t think he would’ve liked it.” A show of the old fear crossed his features. “I was living in New Hampshire by then, and I’d found that lovely spot, so I decided to bring him there. It was the right thing. I could visit him there.”

  “It was like a shrine.”

  “That’s the word!” he said. “I could bring him my work, like offerings. And I could start fresh, regain control.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “I’d been doing it more often as the years went by, taking out more and more problems,” he said casually, as though describing taking out the trash.

  I remembered how the number of his known and suspected murders had escalated in the late 2000s.

  “And I was getting a little … reckless. So once I had grandpa all settled, I decided that from then on, I’d do just one a year.”

  “On May sixth?”

  Once more, Kehoe’s face creased into an unsettling smile. “Grandpa’s birthday. I thought it would be a way to honor it, fixing a problem and burying it there where he could see my work. A nice tribute to him.”

  I wanted to yell at Kehoe, to tell him he was crazed and vile and evil, but I cleared the words from my throat and made myself to speak calmly. “When did you move him?”

  “In the spring of 2010.”

  “So,” I said, trying to remember the dates of the recent murders, “Denzel Harris would’ve been the first man you buried there. And the last man before that was the one you left near the quarry outside of Pitchford.”

  Kehoe shrugged.

  “His name was Jacob. Jacob Wertheimer.”

  “If you say so,” he said indifferently.

  I wanted to hit him. My hands closed into fists, and a cold rage swamped me. “I was the one who found his remains, you know?”

  Kehoe’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “That’s why you’re so interested in me?”

  “Yes. I wanted to find you because I found him. I held one of his ribs in my hand.”

  Kehoe’s eyes glittered with avid curiosity. “And what did that feel like?”

  “Bad, Derek. It felt very bad.”

  He grunted. “You know what feels bad to me? Knowing I can’t go back and visit my grandfather now. Knowing that he’s lying on a cold steel table in a mortuary somewhere.”

  “That must be hard for you,” I said. “I’m sorry, Derek.” Though I didn’t feel it, not at all.

  “Sorry? For him?” Ryan gave a humorless laugh and although he said nothing more, his expression as he stared at Kehoe was one of unmistakable contempt.

  Kehoe’s face, which had softened in response to my compassion, now twisted in fury. He marched over to Ryan and kicked him in the ribs. Ryan grunted and slumped over.

  “Derek, please don’t. Please,” I begged.

  Kehoe’s nostrils flared, and he landed another kick on Ryan’s hip, but at my continued pleading, he spun around and walked away. Back beside the lantern, he rocked on his heels for a few seconds, contemplating Ryan, who was sucking in shallow, painful breaths. I stayed still, afraid any movement might tip Kehoe into uncontrolled fury.

  At last, he spoke. “Say you’re sorry,” he said to Ryan, and I tensed.

  Ryan raised his head and looked Kehoe in the eye. “I am truly very sorry,” he wheezed, and I released the breath I’d been holding. But then Ryan added, “I’m sorry for the poor people you hurt and killed.”

  Kehoe’s lips curled, and he nodded as if he’d been expecting that sort of response. “I’ve had enough of you. You’re a problem I need to fix,” he said. Then he raised the gun and pointed it at Ryan.

  “No!” I screamed, and at that moment, my phone rang.

  Kehoe looked disoriented for a second. He patted his pockets with his free hand, searching for the ringing phone. When I started to get mine from my back pocket, he yelled, “Let it ring!”

  “But—”

  “Let it ring!”

  For a moment, I debated, flipping through the permutations of what might happen if I reached for it anyway.

  Leave it. Danger!

  It was agonizing to do nothing but listen to Colby’s warnings and the sound of my phone echoing in the barn. The noise stopped. Seconds later, it started again. And again, I
did nothing. When it finally stopped ringing and stayed silent, Kehoe ordered me to stand up.

  I got to my feet, and he said, “Take that phone out with one finger and thumb. Don’t try anything!”

  Hole.

  I fished the phone out of my back pocket, wondering what Colby meant.

  “Now bring it here.”

  Hole.

  “Slowly,” Kehoe said, keeping the weapon in his left hand trained on me.

  Open hole. Behind!

  I grasped what Colby was trying to tell me, and as I drew closer, I started to toss the phone to Kehoe, planning to aim high so he’d have to step back.

  But he uttered a sharp “No!” then added, “Just hand it to me. No fast moves.”

  Slowing my steps, I glanced left and right. Old shreds of hay were underfoot, the hoe lay about five yards away, and the hay hook and chain were hanging near the lantern on the floor. I transferred my phone to my left hand and held it slightly out of reach of Kehoe’s empty right hand. Then, in the split-second when his gaze flicked to the phone and he reached out to snatch it from my grasp, I seized the heavy chain with my free hand and swung it at him with all my strength. He stepped back quickly, so it only brushed against him, but those few steps were enough. With a short scream, he fell through the open trapdoor into the manure cellar.

  “Good job!” Ryan said, but his relieved tone changed when I made to follow Kehoe down the hole. “Stop! What are you doing?”

  “It’s not that big of a drop,” I said.

  “Are you insane? He has a gun! You’ll be a sitting duck.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling stupid. “I’ll go around then.” I gestured to the barn door.

  “He’ll still have the gun!”

  I knew Ryan wanted to protect me. Making sure I stayed safe was the reason he’d insisted on accompanying me on this trip. He’d be feeling mad and miserable that he’d so far failed to do so.

  “Garnet, listen to me, please. You’ll get yourself killed.”

  “I can’t just let him get away, Ryan.”

  “Wait here with me until help arrives.”

  Stay.

  “We don’t even know if help is on the way,” I pointed out, inching my feet toward the barn entrance. “And if he gets away now, we might never find him again.”

  Back when Ryan and I had played darts at the Tuppenny Tavern, he’d urged me to stop overthinking things and trust my instincts. At that moment in the barn, my instincts warned me that the Button Man was about to escape.

  “Don’t go!” Ryan yelled, fear for me making him angrier than I’d ever seen him.

  Don’t go! Stay!

  How funny that the one time the two men in my life were in agreement, I couldn’t oblige.

  I’m sorry, I thought to Colby. To Ryan, I said, “What would you do if I was the one tied up and you were free?”

  As I ran out of the barn, I could’ve sworn I heard his teeth grinding.

  – 52 –

  I raced out of the barn and sped around to the outside entrance to the manure cellar. The double-wide doors were ajar, a silent invitation for me to enter, but taking a page out of Ryan’s cop book, I took a moment to peep through a chink in the wall and immediately solved the mystery of the missing van. It was parked inside the cellar, where no doubt, he’d hidden the Thunderbird, too, all those years ago.

  I so did not want to go into that dark place with its even darker memories. And I did not want to confront the armed serial killer hiding inside. Why did I keep finding myself doing the very things I feared most — going into murky, rat-infested holes, trusting people, daring to care again?

  Stay. Stay safe. Danger!

  Yeah, okay, Colby. I heard you the first time.

  Spying a rusty tire iron leaning against the outside wall, I grabbed it. It felt good to have something heavy in my hands. Working on the assumption that if Kehoe took a shot, it would be aimed at my head or chest, I got down on my hands and knees and, keeping low to the ground, crawled through the gap between the doors. I paused to listen. Above the rustlings and skittering of little creatures, I heard something else — labored breathing.

  As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I spotted Kehoe. He was lying down, perched on his right elbow, just outside the square of golden lantern light shining through the open trapdoor above. One of his feet was bent at an impossible angle. That was the good news. The bad news was that the hand holding the firearm pointed directly at me, was steady.

  “Derek?” I said in my soft, sympathetic voice. “It looks like you’ve broken your ankle. Why don’t you let me call for help?”

  “Stay where you are, or I’ll shoot,” he said.

  I could hear pain in his voice but also determination. He wasn’t kidding.

  “Okay, but I’m just going to stand up. Is that all right?” I got to my feet slowly, but so did he, grabbing a nearby rake and using it to pull himself up.

  “Throw that tire iron away,” he said. “Throw it outside.”

  Since I wasn’t within striking distance, my weapon was useless against his firearm anyway, so I flung it out the door, then took a small step toward him.

  “Stop! I don’t want to kill you.” He sounded sincere.

  “I don’t want you to kill me either,” I said. “But, Derek, we’ve got ourselves a situation here, don’t we? What’s your plan?”

  He flipped the rake upside-down and, using it as a crutch, hobbled sideways toward his vehicle. “You’re going to stay right where you are. I’m going to get into my van and leave.”

  We were so close to taking him down, and now he was just going to get away? Drive out of here and kill another young man tomorrow? Not if I could help it. I looked around, searching for a weapon, but saw nothing useful.

  He edged closer to the van and opened the driver’s door. “Just stay where you are,” he said.

  But I took another step closer, and he lifted the pistol and fired a shot at me. It missed but not by much. Ears ringing from the bang, I ducked behind one of the stone pillars, panting as if I’d just run a mile. Shit. I hadn’t expected him to actually shoot at me. Now what?

  “Derek?” I called. “Don’t kill me!”

  “Just stay where you are, and I won’t,” he yelled back.

  I heard car keys jingling and peeped around the pillar. He was struggling to climb inside his van. I was running out of time to stop him.

  “I don’t kill good people,” he said.

  “Yes, you do, you shithead!” I yelled in frustration and saw him flinch as though my last word was the blow of a baton.

  That was when I got the idea. I did have a weapon, a very powerful one. Could I bring myself to use it, though? It would go against all my training — against my very nature — to strike at his deepest wounds. Not the broken ankle or the sore back, but those old, primal injuries, the ones in the very core of him that had never healed. I had no option. I either had to attack now or let him escape.

  Holding my hands above my head, I stepped out from behind the pillar. Kehoe’s head snapped around, and he raised the gun again.

  It was a relief to finally allow my face to show my contempt. In a cold, hard voice, I said, “Your grandfather was right, Derek, wasn’t he? You are a shithead.”

  “Shut up!”

  “You were never your own man, just a shadow of him.”

  “I’m warning you!” he yelled, but his voice was higher, and the hand pointing the gun at me shook a little.

  I shook a little too. I’d never been this cruel, not to anyone, but now I forced myself to find more vicious words to hurl at him. “Worthless and unlovable, that’s what you are. Your mother knew it. That’s why she couldn’t even be bothered to keep herself alive for you.”

  “No, I—”

  “Useless. You couldn’t stop her from killing herself, and you didn’t protect her from the men that used her. What kind of a son were you?”

  His face crumpled, and his grip on the rake slackened.

  “You we
re never strong. And brave? Don’t make me laugh.” I swallowed the bile of self-disgust that burned my throat and kept attacking. “You took your anger out on a helpless little cat because you were too weak to stand up to your grandfather, too weak to take him on man to man.”

  The rake fell from Kehoe’s grasp, and he swayed, his balance now precarious.

  “And what did Grandpa do to your mother, Derek? What did he do with her when he was angry and you were kneeling on buttons? Did he take her to his bedroom, get her to fix his mood there?”

  Kehoe held out his hands as though he could fend off my words. “He never! He never did that!” The gun sagged in his hand and his chest heaved as he gasped.

  “I think he did, Derek. And you never did anything to stop him. You just let her get hurt over and over again.” I edged closer and saw that his bottom lip was trembling. “Mind you, she didn’t protect you either. Maybe she didn’t think you were worth it.”

  “I was. I was a good boy.”

  “No, you weren’t. You were a bad boy.” Another step. “Your grandpa knew the truth about you. You’re just a sniveling little coward!”

  He flinched, drawing his shoulders in as though cringing from a coming blow. I was getting there. Standing as tall as I could, I summoned all the harsh, brutal words I knew his grandfather had used against him.

  “You’re a filthy little shit who still wets the bed!” I said, my voice cracking.

  “No, Grandpa!”

  That shook me. He’d merged me with his original abuser. I’d reactivated his abuse, and he was right back there, reliving it. I was crossing all my boundaries, betraying my beliefs, but there was no time to hate myself for breaking another human being like this. The guilt and self-recriminations could come later. Right now, I had to press my advantage.

  Speaking in a rough, deep voice, I said, “Get down on your knees, boy.”

  Half to my surprise, he did.

  “You kneel on those buttons until you learn your lesson. Until you learn some self-control.”

  Kehoe was crying now, hard sobs that shook his shoulders, but he made no sound. I closed the distance between us and kicked his hand, sending the gun into the inky depths of the cellar.