by Rod Reynolds
‘Settle down.’
We turned south onto Central Avenue – heading away from the police building. I watched a moment as we drove, seeing the houses and stores thin out as we got further from town, red pines and white-flowered magnolia trees along the side of the road now, glimpses of a body of water in the far distance ahead of us. ‘Where are we going?’
Layfield eyed me in the rearview and said nothing.
I felt a rising tension in my chest. I tugged at the cuffs surreptitiously, but they held firm. I took a breath and waited a minute more, urging myself to be calm.
We kept travelling south, towards the water. The only buildings I could see were farmhouses now, set a long way back from the blacktop. A memory blitzed me, brought on by the landscape – of Texarkana, the empty fields around the town; the abandoned farmhouse I’d fled from in the dead of night. Tension gave way to panic. ‘Where the hell are you taking me?’
‘Shut your mouth.’
I watched the sliver of his face I could see in the rearview; he kept his eyes on the road. My arms started shaking, and I yanked harder at the cuffs, felt them cut into my skin.
I clenched my teeth and waited until I was sure there wouldn’t be a tremor in my voice before I spoke again. ‘You’re making a mistake. Take me back to the station.’
He said nothing and drove on.
We reached the lake, and a bridge carried us out over a wide channel, more land visible up ahead of us. The lake stretched for miles either side of the roadway, the sun catching the flat surface in such a way that the water looked like concrete. Reaching the other side, we passed a pleasure boat dock and small hotel on the shore.
Lake Catherine was east of town, so this had to be Lake Hamilton – the same stretch of water where Ginny Kolkhorst was found.
We followed the road across what turned out to be a small island, then onto another bridge across a narrower channel. At the far side of it, Layfield turned off onto a dirt road.
The land around the track was heavily wooded, and he drove slow. After two or three minutes, the water appeared in front of us again. A small clearing on the shoreline opened up, and he pulled the car around to a stop. A jetty on the bank ran fifteen feet out into the lake.
He climbed out and drew his gun. My heart was hammering so hard I didn’t think it could keep it up for long. I could hear the engine ticking, cooling down, and bird calls coming from the trees. Nothing made sense. He opened my door. ‘On your feet.’
I swung my legs around and levered myself out slowly. ‘What the hell is going on?’
He gestured with his gun hand for me to walk in front of him, towards the pier. I could hear the water lapping against it quietly.
I glanced around, looking for any means of escape. Trees lined the banks either side of me, and I couldn’t see any houses or buildings at all. The opposite shore was just visible across the water, at least a half-mile distant.
Layfield prodded me with his revolver. ‘Move.’
I dragged my feet in the dirt, going as slowly as possible, my mind racing. The lake prompted a question. ‘Did you kill Geneve Kolkhorst? Is this what happened to her?’
He didn’t answer and I couldn’t see his face to read his expression.
‘She didn’t stay down, did she?’ I said, desperate. ‘Think about that. What happens when my carcass washes up somewhere?’
He dug into my back again, and I kept shuffling forward. I thought of Lizzie, my heart about to burst, prayed that she wouldn’t be left wondering. I started yapping quick-fire, anything that came into my head. ‘Did you kill the others too? For Coughlin?’ I stopped when I reached the jetty but he shoved me forward, the mud of the bank giving way to solid planks underfoot. ‘You gutless son of a bitch, tell me. TELL ME.’
‘Enough.’ I felt the cold metal of the gun barrel touch my head. ‘You know it all already, Yates. That’s why we here.’
A shadow crossed my mind’s eye, something reminiscent about the gun and his voice, but I didn’t understand. I heard his shoes scuff on the planks as he stepped back.
I pulled at the cuffs again, but there was no give. Numbness was spreading from my shoulders, overtaking the panic I felt – an acceptance that it was always going to end this way. That I’d sealed my fate the minute I came back. Maybe long before that.
He cocked the hammer. I kept my eyes open and took in the beauty around me, my last try at defiance, and whispered a goodbye to Lizzie. See you the next go-around.
Then there was another noise, somewhere in the trees behind us. A car, coming down the same track we had. I stole a glance over my shoulder, saw Layfield looking around at it too. His gun was still on me, but I couldn’t make a grab for it with my hands cuffed behind my back.
The car came into sight and drew up next to Layfield’s Ford. My neck tensed when I recognised it – Cole Barrett’s grey LaSalle. He climbed out and walked to the edge of the bank, where the jetty started. ‘Hold up a minute, Harlan.’
Layfield took another step back from me, checked I hadn’t moved, then turned his head to Barrett again. His mouth was ajar, his uncertainty obvious. ‘What you doing here, Barrett?’
‘Plan’s changed. Teddy wants him alive for now. Bring him on back up.’ He gestured with his head to walk me back to the bank.
Layfield hesitated. ‘That a fact?’ He glanced at me again, then back. ‘How come?’
Barrett shrugged. ‘He ain’t tell me. I carry the bags, I ain’t ask what’s in them. C’mon.’ He made a half-turn as if to go back to his car.
As he did, Layfield swung his gun around to aim at him. Barrett sensed the movement, grabbing for his weapon. They fired at the same time. I ducked, heard two, three, four shots. Barrett dropped to one knee. Layfield charged him.
I jumped up and gave chase without thinking. Layfield had his gun out in front of him, firing as he pelted along the jetty. Barrett raised his own weapon again and got another shot off, but Layfield didn’t slow. When he got close, Layfield dived and speared him with a football tackle.
The sound of the gunshots echoed around the lake. I was two seconds behind Layfield. He was on top of Barrett, so I dipped my head and rammed my right shoulder into him, sending us sprawling.
My momentum carried me clear of the two men. I landed face down in the mud, no hands to break my fall. I rolled and managed to clamber to my knees, saw Layfield sit up and raise his gun. He trained it on Barrett.
Barrett was on all fours now, panting. There was blood all over his shirt. He looked up at Layfield and smiled, his eyes blazing, then lifted his gun slowly.
Layfield sprang up. He jarred his hand doing it and dropped his gun. He looked to where it lay, saw Barrett take aim, and ran instead. He ducked behind the LaSalle just as Barrett fired, the back passenger window shattering and crumbling. I heard the door of the Ford open and close and the engine start. I staggered to my feet, tried to go after him. The tyres spun and got purchase, and Layfield took off up the track.
The sound of the car faded, muffled by the trees. I looked over to Barrett, still on all fours, his head hung low. Blood was streaming from his torso to the ground, like water from a faucet. I ran over to him. ‘Where’re you hit?’
He grunted. He tried to push himself to his feet, but the mud was slick with his own blood and the effort was too much. He collapsed onto his side. I saw two wounds in his chest, and what looked like a third in his neck; it was hard to be certain because of the blood and dirt caking him.
‘Son of a bitch.’ His voice was weak.
‘I’ll get you out of here.’ I glanced at the car, scrambling to think of a way to help him. ‘My hands. I can’t—’
He winced as he moved his arm, digging into his pocket. He produced a set of keys, and let them fall to the dirt. ‘Cuffs. They all the same.’
I saw a small key on the ring and realised what he meant. I dropped to my knees and managed to scoop them up. Working over my shoulder, I angled the key into the lock and wrenched it until the clasp
popped open. I threw the cuffs aside and spun around to face him.
Ripping off a part of my shirttail, I pressed it to one of the wounds. ‘Hold it there.’ I started to tear another piece, but he’d already discarded the first one. ‘Goddammit—’ I moved so I was positioned over his head and grasped him under the armpits, meaning to drag him to the car. ‘Come on.’
He coughed, blood coming up with it, and fought to shrug me off. ‘Let me rest.’
His face was the colour of milk and his shirt was soaked red. I let go of him and went to the water, scooped some up in my hand. I cupped it to his lips and poured a trickle into his mouth. Most of it ran down his cheek. His eyes were half-closed and his breath came short.
‘How did you know?’ I said.
‘Tailed you. Had to do something.’
‘Why?’
‘You was right.’ His face contorted in pain. ‘I ain’t done enough to stop it.’
‘Was it Layfield? That’s who Coughlin was protecting?’
He tried to say something more, but it was lost in a burst of choking coughs. He rolled his head to the side and spat. Then he spoke again, so quiet I couldn’t hear it. I bent low, my ear to his mouth. He whispered, ‘Run.’
His face went slack and he was still. I froze up then, stayed crouched next to his corpse for what seemed like a long time. I thought of the wife I’d seen behind him at his cabin.
When I got to my feet, I gazed out across the lake, the sunlight reflecting off it in a blaze of orange-white light. I remembered the words Heinrich Kolkhorst had spoken in irony – ‘A nice place to do it at least.’ They seemed even more vicious now.
I walked over and used my handkerchief to pick up Layfield’s revolver – empty. I got wise late: he knew he was out of bullets and that’s why he ran. Barrett must have cottoned to it too. I put it in my jacket pocket and walked back to where Barrett lay. His gun was to one side, his set of keys the other. I pocketed both and bent down to close his eyelids.
Then I went to his car and set myself behind the wheel, seeing his blood on my hands, and the cuts on my wrists that the cuffs had left. I imagined killing Layfield. If you gaze long into an abyss—
My jaw shook and I gripped the wheel. I started pounding it with my palms. I kept going until I couldn’t hold my arms up any longer.
I draped them over the wheel and sunk my head against my forearms, breathing hard. Barrett’s corpse was still in sight, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I wondered how much of what he’d told me was true. If he really did follow me, or if he’d known something about Layfield all along. Maybe he was always deeper into it than he could admit to himself. He talked as though he was caught up in events, as powerless as a stick in a stream, but Coughlin went a long way to protect him. Made me think Barrett was lying the whole time – to himself most of all.
My breathing started to return to normal. It was then, with the clarity release brings, that I saw a way to make sense of what happened. Why Layfield would have cause to kill Geneve Kolkhorst.
The implications were almost too big to conceive.
Chapter Twenty-nine
It took me more than five minutes to scrub the blood from my hands. The sink in the gas station washroom streaked with red when I was done.
The telephone kiosk outside overlooked the highway, a handful of cars travelling along the blacktop in the glow of the late afternoon sun. The operator connected me to the Recorder and I reached Dinsmore at his desk.
‘I’m starting to feel like I’m at your beck and call—’
‘The Kolkhorst girl. Did you look into it?’ I said.
‘As a matter of fact I did. And look, don’t run away with this, but Cole Barrett was in charge of the investigation into her death. But that doesn’t prove—’
‘I already know that. I need the other thing – the trouble she had with Hot Springs PD—’
‘What do you mean you already know? Why the hell have you got me running in circles?’
‘Things are moving fast. This is the whole case, right here, Clyde. Did you look into it?’
‘Yes, goddammit, I talked to some people, but it’s thinner than the eyelashes on a fly. The nurse was accused of moonlighting in one of the hotels for extra money, if you take my meaning. The hospital management got wind of it. Guess they didn’t like how it would make them look – hence they involved the cops. But the PD looked into it, talked to the girl, and they decided the allegation was baseless. Some kinda hatchet job on the part of a boy she’d given the flick to. He wanted to get her the boot from her job as revenge. That was the end of it.’
It came together in my mind like storm clouds closing on the last patch of clear sky. ‘It was Harlan Layfield investigated, wasn’t it?’
‘How— Yes, it was. He was a beat cop at the time. Why in the hell do you keep asking me things you already know?’
Pine Street Hospital; the ‘cop’ who snatched Alice Anderson; Jimmy Robinson’s tip-off, and the nurse who provided it. Harlan Layfield killed Geneve Kolkhorst. She knew him from her time in Hot Springs, and that’s how she could identify him to Jimmy Robinson nine months later in Texarkana, when she spotted him hanging around the day Alice disappeared.
Which meant Harlan Layfield almost certainly killed Jeannie Runnels and Bess Prescott.
Which meant Harlan Layfield killed Jimmy Robinson.
Which meant—
Harlan Layfield killed Alice.
Dinsmore was still speaking, but he could have been across an ocean, he sounded so distant.
I’d sat in Layfield’s car, inches away from him. I’d shaken his goddamn hand.
I doubled over and heaved, still clutching the receiver. Nothing came up.
‘Yates? You hear me? How in the world is that the whole story?’
I wiped the drool from my mouth with the back of my hand. ‘I’ll tell you when I know the rest.’
I cut the call and re-dialled for Hot Springs PD. I asked for Detective Layfield and was told he wasn’t on shift today. I asked for his home address, and the cop on the other end got hinky, answered my question with a question. I hung up.
I dialled again, this time to Sam Masters. When he came on the line, I talked over him before he even said his name.
‘Detective Harlan Layfield just tried to kill me.’
‘Yates? What the—’
‘Cole Barrett is dead. Layfield shot him.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘I’ve got the gun he used to do it. You’ll find Layfield’s fingerprints all over it.’ I fought to keep my tone level, the anger seething just under my skin.
‘Why? I don’t— What in god’s name is going on?’
‘I was two seconds from taking a bullet. Barrett saved my life and Layfield killed him for it.’
‘Why would Layfield want you dead?’
I barely knew where to start. I decided to hold back what I knew until I could make sense of it. ‘No clue. Is he on Coughlin’s payroll?’
‘His name’s never come up, but anything’s possible with Teddy. Even so, these are some wild claims. You need to take a minute. I had a man look into your story, about the call from Coughlin’s office on the night of the fire. It checks out.’
Dinsmore’s tip, corroborated. ‘Is that your way of saying you believe me?’
‘Where did this all happen?’
‘Lake Hamilton.’ I reeled off the route we’d driven from town. ‘Barrett’s body is still there.’
‘All right. Now if you’ve got the evidence like you say you have, let’s get it to the proper authorities and we can start putting this thing together.’
‘Is there a single damn cop in this town that isn’t crooked? Someone who could bring Layfield in?’
‘What? Of course, maybe, but—’
‘Good. Then you set him on his tail and hope he finds him before I do.’
Chapter Thirty
Barrett’s face haunted me as I drove; all the blood, and still it wouldn’t stop coming. I look
ed at my hand on the wheel, saw there was still some under my fingernails. Maybe you never can wash it all away.
I saw now that the nightmare had never stopped, but unpicking it was a different matter. Everything started with Alice; Layfield killed Kolkhorst and Robinson because they knew about his involvement in her death. Had to be. But that left more questions than answers. What did Jeannie Runnels and Bess Prescott have to do with it? Why would Coughlin protect him for their murders? And what was Layfield doing in Texarkana in the first place?
Faces mingled in my mind; Coughlin, Layfield, the two hovering like spectres. Then Barrett, Sam Masters, Alice. Ella Borland.
That last one lingered. Even though she’d turned me in, I couldn’t shed my fears for her safety. What she’d done felt like a betrayal, but I looked at it from her perspective: a man wanted on a murder rap telling her to skip town because her life was in danger. And what if she hadn’t called the cops? What if she’d called Layfield – knowing damn well what he intended to do? The memory of her face stayed with me, that look of guilt as she’d stood in front of me while he cuffed me – as if she was forcing herself to watch as a punishment. It sounded crazy, even to me, and I wondered if it was the product of a paranoid mind, seeing conspiracies everywhere. Another step in Robinson’s shadow.
I pressed my foot down, tearing up the miles back to town. I followed Central all the way north, along Bathhouse Row to the Arlington, any pretence at moving covertly now abandoned.
I parked on Fountain Street by the side of the hotel, in a spot that afforded a view along the main drag. I took out Barrett’s gun, held it in my lap and opened the cylinder. There were three bullets chambered. I remembered Ella asking me before if I was driven by revenge, and me denying it as firmly as I could. Maybe it was true then. Seemed like a memory from a different lifetime now. Alice’s killer. The thought of having to tell Lizzie made me sick. I sat there terrified by my own rage, no longer sure what I was capable of.