by James Swain
“I left the keys in the ignition,” I said. “Go back to the farm, and tell Special Agent Linderman what we found.”
“I want to stay here, and help you,” Seppi said.
I grabbed her by the shoulders. Seppi had shown a lot of courage, but sometimes bravery got people killed. I said, “Do as I say. It’s for the best.”
“Please don’t let Lonnie get away.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
She left, and I ran down the path with Buster. The forest was dark and foreboding, the air cooler than out in the sunlight. Lonnie had a big head start, but he also had Sara with him, and hopefully that had slowed him down enough for me to catch up.
“Find the girl,” I told Buster.
He sprinted ahead. Soon I couldn’t see him. My breathing grew labored, and my legs felt like lead. I thought back to the night I’d gone to the Sunny Isle apartments, and confronted Lonnie as he’d come out the door carrying Naomi Dunn over his shoulder. Had I stopped him then, none of this would have happened. But now God was giving me a chance to redeem myself. I told myself not to blow it.
A scream pierced the air. It was the voice of a man, but childlike. The scream was followed by a harsh tearing sound. My dog had found Lonnie.
I went off path and tore through the woods. I heard Buster’s frantic bark, and followed it into a clearing. It was the most beautiful of places, with golden sunlight filtering through the trees and blooming sunflowers everywhere I looked. A barefoot Sara Long stood in the center of the clearing, wearing a white nightgown and a band of flowers in her hair. A rope was tied around her waist that Lonnie was holding on to.
“Bad dog! Go away!” Lonnie said.
Buster had taken a bite out of Lonnie’s pant leg, and was circling his prey. Lonnie was trying to swat him away with a tree limb while continuing to hold the rope. Lonnie was shirtless, his muscles so huge they didn’t look real. He was so preoccupied fighting off my dog that he didn’t see me approach.
“Sara,” I whispered.
Sara jerked her head and let out a gasp.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
“Duck,” I said.
Lonnie suddenly realized I was there. He roped Sara in, and used her body as a shield. He tossed the tree limb at Buster, knocking him to the ground.
“Go away!” Lonnie demanded.
I moved sideways to get a clean shot. Lonnie moved sideways as well, keeping Sara between himself and me.
“Let her go,” I said.
Lonnie laughed wickedly. He grabbed Sara from behind by the neck, and lifted her clean off the ground. Sara struggled helplessly, her legs flailing in all directions.
“I’ll kill her!” Lonnie shouted.
I instinctively started backing up.
“Don’t leave,” Sara begged me.
I glanced at Buster. My dog was dazed from getting hit with the branch, and slow to get up. I wanted him to make another run at Lonnie, and distract him. Lonnie had enough intellect to understand what I was thinking, and he shook Sara like a rag doll.
“Now!” the giant said.
Lonnie was going to break Sara’s neck. I lowered my gun, and continued my retreat. A look of burning hatred filled Sara’s eyes.
“Don’t you dare leave me!” she shrieked.
She sounded just like her father. Bringing her hands up, she grabbed Lonnie’s arms, and pulled herself into the air. She stuck both her legs straight out like a gymnast doing a split.
“Shoot him!” she ordered me.
Sara wanted me to shoot through her nightgown and take Lonnie down. Only I couldn’t tell where her nightgown ended, and her body began.
“Do it!” she screamed.
I told myself that it was her life, not mine. Raising my Colt, I aimed a foot below her outstretched legs. My arm was trembling, and I grabbed my wrist with my other hand, and squeezed the trigger.
A black gunpowder hole appeared in Sara’s nightgown. Lonnie howled, and staggered backward. He released Sara, and she rolled on the ground next to Buster.
“Freeze,” I said.
With a puzzled look on his face, Lonnie examined the bullet hole in his pant leg. A flesh wound. Realizing he was not badly hurt, he charged me like a mad bull.
I didn’t like shooting an unarmed man, but I had no other choice. I fired again. The bullet went into the center of Lonnie’s chest, but did not slow him down. I got off two more rounds and saw the bullets smack into his body, yet somehow he kept coming forward. It was as if he didn’t know he was dead.
There are people who don’t believe in evil. I am not one of them. Lonnie was filled with evil, and killing him was the only way to stop his murderous ways. I waited until he was right on top of me before firing again. The shot went straight into his heart, what cops call a kill shot. This time he went down for good.
I sat on the ground with Sara and let her cry on my shoulder. Buster began to lick her face, and Sara pulled him into her chest and hugged him. Lonnie lay nearby with a childlike grin on his face.
“You’re very brave,” I said.
“Lonnie wanted to marry me,” she said. “I’d rather get shot than let that happen.”
Lonnie had killed four women that I knew about. I wondered how many of them had shared Sara’s sentiment. My cell phone rang and I pulled it from my pocket. It was Linderman. I answered it, and over the line heard heavy gunfire.
“I’ve got Sara Long,” I said.
“She’s not in the farm house with Mouse?” Linderman asked.
“She’s sitting right next to me. Would you like to speak with her?”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
I heard Linderman tell Wood that the hostage was not in the house. Wood responded by telling the SWAT team to open fire. Over the phone I heard an explosion of bullets as the SWAT team’s assault rifles riddled the building.
I’d had enough killing for one day, and folded my cell phone. In the trees, the birds were chirping; next to me, Buster wagged his tail. It was the way things were supposed to be. Quiet, serene, beautiful. I glanced at Sara, and saw the beginnings of a smile.
“What’s that sound?” she asked.
I didn’t hear anything, and shook my head.
“It sounds like a cell phone.”
Sara got to her feet and walked over next to Lonnie. “It’s coming from him.”
I stood up and moved next to the dead man. A chime was coming from his pants pocket. Kneeling, I stuck my fingers into his pocket and extracted a cell phone. There was a call coming in, and I looked at the cell phone’s face. It said MOUSE.
I let Sara see the phone. Then I put my fingers to my lips.
“Don’t say a word,” I said.
I flipped open the phone and we both listened.
“Lonnie, it’s me. I’m coming out through the tunnel. Meet me by the old outhouse behind the property.”
The line went dead. Sara said, “Mouse showed me the outhouse when we got here yesterday. He said he’d make me go to the bathroom there if I didn’t behave.”
“Think you can find it?”
“I sure can.”
CHAPTER 60
He left the clearing and headed down the path toward the house. I tried to reach Linderman and tell him that Mouse was escaping but had to leave a message on his voice mail. As we drew closer to the farm, the sound of gunfire became more pronounced.
Sara stopped at the fence that surrounded the property. She pointed at a building the size of a phone booth that sat outside the fence. It had a half moon carved into the door and a wash basin with a dripping faucet.
“Get behind me,” I said.
Sara slipped behind me. I aimed my Colt at the outhouse and started walking toward it. Buster ran in front of me with his nose stuck to the ground. Reaching the outhouse, I walked around it with my eyes peeled to the ground. I didn’t see any hidden trapdoors in the earth, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one there.
A few feet away, the ground sta
rted to shift. I made Sara stand behind a tree, then went into a crouch and aimed my Colt at the spot. Buster was kneeling a few feet away, not knowing what to make of the situation. I heard a man’s voice.
“Fuck, this thing is heavy.”
It was Mouse. As I watched, a round piece of earth came out of the ground, and was tossed aside. Then a man popped out of the hole with his back to me. He was covered in shit and smelled like the devil. At his trial, Mouse had played with his own feces to convince a judge he was crazy. It was a perfect metaphor for who he was.
Mouse crawled out of the hole. I couldn’t see his pistol, but felt certain that he was carrying it. I got up right behind him, and pressed my Colt to the back of his head.
“Freeze.”
Mouse stuck his arms into the air. He looked over his shoulder at me, saw Sara and my dog, and knew it was over. He turned around slowly. His pistol was tucked down behind his belt buckle. I reached for it, and he took a step back.
“Where’s my buddy?” Mouse asked.
“Give me your gun,” I said.
“You shot him, didn’t you?”
“Right now.”
“Did you kill him?”
I didn’t answer. But it was answer enough. A look of sadness spread over Mouse’s face. Taking a step forward, he jumped back into the hole.
Sara came out from behind the tree. “Aren’t you going to go after him?”
I shook my head. There was no reason to chase a man who’s run out of road.
A gunshot ripped through the air. I went to the hole and had a look. Mouse lay on the bottom with the pistol stuck in his mouth and the back of his head gone.
It was over.
CHAPTER 61
An ambulance took Sara to a hospital in Daytona for a series of tests. As she was taken into the emergency room, I heard Sara tell the doctors that she was fine, and asked if she could be released. Abduction victims often suffered post-traumatic stress, and I talked her into staying at the hospital until the tests were completed.
A few hours later, Karl Long arrived at the hospital, and came into the hospital’s emergency room hobbling on a cane. I was sitting in the visitor area thumbing through a magazine. I rose from my chair, and Long hugged me like a long-lost brother.
“How’s my baby?” Long asked.
“Your baby is doing fine. We got her just in time,” I said.
“Can I take her home? My private plane is at the airport.”
“You’ll have to talk to the doctors, but I don’t see why not.”
Long made a check appear out of thin air. Something told me that he’d been practicing doing that on the ride up, just to impress me. With a smile he stuffed it into my shirt pocket. “Thank you, my friend,” he said.
I waited until Long had gone back to see Sara before looking at the check. It was for more money than we’d agreed upon. A lot more.
Hey, I’d earned it.
– – Sara was released a few hours later. She was good to go, and I drove her and her father to the airport, and waved good-bye as they stepped on Karl Long’s private plane. Then I drove back to Chatham.
The dairy farm was swarming with police and FBI agents when I returned. I was cleared to enter, and took a walk around the property. Mouse and Lonnie’s bodies had been brought back to the farm, and lay beneath a pair of white sheets on the ground. The police did not appear to be in any hurry to take them away.
I found Linderman standing by a garden behind the house. He’d taken off his body armor, and had an empty coffee cup in his hand. His clothes were streaked with sweat and hung lifelessly off his body.
“Where are they?” I asked.
Linderman pointed at the garden. It was a small plot of land choking with weeds. I hopped over the small fence that surrounded it. The victims’ graves were in the corner, with piles of white rocks for headstones, just like Kathi Bolger’s grave. I checked the rocks, hoping the women’s IDs were there, but there was nothing.
I studied the graves. Four contained the bodies of young women whose identities we knew. The fifth was a mystery. Was it Danny Linderman or someone else? I had worked with medical examiners offices before, and knew it could be awhile before we found out.
I went back to Linderman. His eyes had not left the graves since I’d found him. I took the coffee cup from his hand. He looked at me with dead eyes.
“You okay?” I asked.
“No,” he whispered.
I spent the next three days taking long swims in the ocean and playing with Buster on Daytona Beach. At night, I visited the local haunts that served fresh seafood, and ate my fill of fish and crabs and washed it down with cold beer. I talked to Rose several times, and got caught up. I told her everything that had happened, but left out the money I’d earned from the job. I wanted to surprise her with that the next time we got together.
Muriel Linderman drove up to be with her husband, and they spent most of the time in their motel room, waiting for Daytona’s chief medical examiner to contact them.
On the afternoon of the third day, the ME finally called, and told Linderman she had made positive identifications of the five bodies that had been exhumed from the garden. She asked Linderman to come to her office.
Linderman called me, and told me the news. I offered to drive him and Muriel to the ME’s office. Linderman agreed, and we arrived at the medical examiner’s building on the west side of town a few minutes past closing.
The ME met us in the building’s lobby. She was a short, pleasant woman, dressed in a lab coat, with bifocals that hung around her neck. She was aware of the Lindermans’ situation, and went out of her way to be kind.
She led us to her windowless office. The autopsy reports for each victim lay in a pile on her desk. She offered us seats, which we declined. Picking up the files, she explained how the victims had been identified through dental records. As she named each victim, she placed their file on her desk, until only one file remained in her hands.
“I’m sorry to inform you, but the fifth victim was not your daughter,” the ME said. “Her name was Clarissa Santiago. She was a Nicaraguan nursing student enrolled at Nova University in Miami. Santiago disappeared five years ago. Her friends told the police she’d been homesick, and thought she’d gone back to Nicaragua. That was why the Miami police never filed a missing persons report.”
Muriel Linderman covered her mouth with her hand. Linderman lowered his head and did not speak. He tried to stop the tears, but could not. In all the time I’d helped him look for Danny, I’d never seen him cry. I wanted to tell him that things would be all right, but that would have been a lie.
“Let’s go,” I said.
I drove them back to our motel and walked them to their room. I wanted to leave, but I stayed long enough to tell them the words I thought they both needed to hear.
“I’m not going to stop looking for your daughter,” I said. “Danielle didn’t just disappear off the face of the earth. There are answers to what happened, and I’m going to help you find out what they are, however long it takes.”
I put my arms around Linderman and his wife and hugged them. We stood that way for a while, and then I said good-bye.
CHAPTER 62
I drove home that night with the windows down and the Doobie Brothers’ “The Captain and Me” playing on my tape deck. I hadn’t listened to their music in a long time, and it took me back to a better place than the one I was in.
It was two a.m. when I walked into the Sunset. The Dwarfs had gone home, and the place was quiet. Sonny poured me a cold draft without being asked, and handed me a bowl of table scraps for Buster. I fed my dog, then took a seat at the bar.
“There’s no place like home,” I said.
Sonny picked up the remote from the bar and punched a command into the TV. On the screen appeared a women’s college basketball game. I raised my glass to my lips, then put it back down. One of the teams was the Lady Seminoles.
“Jessie’s team is still in the tourna
ment,” Sonny explained. “They played a few hours ago. I thought you’d want to see it.”
I sipped my beer and watched the game. The Lady Seminoles were having a bad night and did not play well. With a minute and a half left in the first half, they were down by sixteen points.
A substitution was called. A long-legged blonde sprinted onto the court and got high-fives from her teammates. I could not believe my eyes. It was Sara Long.
“Why are they putting her in?” I asked.
“Just watch,” Sonny said.
Sara looked terrible. She threw two air balls, and sent an errant pass into the stands. With the clock winding down, she attempted a three-pointer from midcourt. The crowd seemed to freeze, and I sat up in my chair. The ball went through the net without touching the rim. As Sara came off the court, her team mobbed her.
“The Seminoles won, in case you were wondering,” Sonny said.
“Give me the remote.”
I rewound the tape to where Sara had entered the game, and watched her play again. This time, I saw how hard Sara was trying, and how that effort had affected the other members of the team. What was broken had been fixed.
Maybe there were happy endings after all.
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