“Know what?” Harry said tentatively. “All I know is you have a gun pointed at me. I’d really appreciate it if you lowered it so you could tell me what’s wrong.”
“Me! You don’t know me!” David yelled. Then, sobering, “You take my daughter away from me, and you don’t even know who I am.” He took a step closer. Under the harsh office lights, David’s defeated appearance was undeniable: bloodshot eyes, unshaven face, sunken cheekbones, greasy hair. Desperation’s last stand.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about. But I didn’t take anyone from you. And you’re right, I don’t know who you are. I know you’re a local, I’ve seen you before, but I can’t say I know you. Maybe if you told me your name—”
“Oh, go fuck yourself with all that country-charm bullshit. You raped my daughter, and now you want to try and pretend you care about getting to know me?” David tightened his grip on the gun.
“So you’re David Price… the girl’s father,” Harry said, as if it all made sense now. “And that’s what this is about? Your daughter?” He allowed his hands to drift downward. “Mr. Price—David—I don’t know what you’ve been told, but I swear by my life that what your daughter is accusing me of never happened. I could never do such awful—”
“Shut up! Just shut your goddamn mouth!” David snapped. “Everyone else may buy into your bullshit, but I don’t. I know my girl. I know when she’s lying. And she isn’t. You really think I’d be standing here if I wasn’t sure? Do you?” He ran his free hand frantically through his hair, sweeping it to the side. “Now stand up. Stand up and look me level in the eyes. I want to hear you admit it.” He didn’t want to hear the words; he needed to hear them. They were his validation, his final assurance that what he was doing was right and just.
David raised the gun higher and stiffened his arm, fixing his aim on Harry’s face and taking another half-step forward.
Harry flinched back. “Listen, just calm down. You don’t know what you’re doing. Your daughter isn’t telling the truth.”
“I said stand!” David swept the gun a few inches to the right of Harry’s head and fired at the wall. The pistol cracked, and a picture fell to the floor in a chorus of broken glass. He reset his aim on Harry, whose head was now ducked down and away from where the bullet had struck.
“All right. Jesus. Okay. You win,” Harry said. He lifted the lock box off his lap, setting it on the desk. “But just listen to me. If I did what she said—”
“Kara. Her name is Kara,” David interrupted. “You can’t even say her name, can you?”
“Okay, sorry… Kara. If what Kara said is true, where is the evidence? Besides what she claims, where is the proof I did what she said? You’re just going to execute me based on what your teenage daughter said about me? She’s lying.” Harry’s words were calm and calculated. “I don’t know why she is, but she is. Maybe she needs help.”
“I know you did it. I know my girl. I know—” A figure registered in David’s periphery, and he turned to look.
“Christ, David, what are you doing?” Gaines stood in the doorway, his pistol drawn but aimed at the floor. “I heard a gunshot. What’s going—”
“Stay out of this, Calvin. I didn’t want to involve you in this,” David said.
“Little late for that.” Gaines took a small step forward.
“Sheriff, get this nut out of my office,” Harry said.
David turned back to Harry, reinforcing his aim. He began to apply pressure to the trigger. Just one bullet and Harry Bennett was gone. That simple. Justice served.
“Don’t say a word, Harry,” Gaines said. “David, stop, please. Don’t do this. He isn’t worth it.”
“I know he isn’t, but my daughter is.”
“I know she is, David. I know she is. But if you kill him, what good’ll that do her?”
“Listen to him,” Harry said. “Take that pistol off me. We can talk this out.”
“Harry, I swear to God I’ll shoot you myself if you don’t shut your damn mouth.” Gaines took another slow step into the room.
Harry’s face darkened, but he kept silent.
Gaines lowered his arms more, his gun down by his side, still in both hands. “David, please, just listen to me. It’s over.”
“No, it’s over when he’s dead. He took my daughter from me. He took my Kara. You know she won’t even talk to me? Did you know that? Every time she sees me, all she can think of is him. He can’t get away with this.” Two fat tears streaked down David’s cheeks.
“You don’t understand,” Gaines said earnestly. “He’s not getting away with anything. Not anymore. You need to listen to me.”
Harry’s eyes widened. Why wasn’t he going to get away with it? He sure as hell was!
“‘Listen to you?’ Is that what you want me to do?” David said, his voice cracking. “So far you’ve done nothing. Not a damn thing. If you’d done your job, I wouldn’t be here right now. So why should I listen?”
Gaines took another step. “I know. You’re right. I screwed up. I should’ve done more. But my hands were tied, and it wasn’t that simple.” He was making excuses for his cowardice. His stomach tightened with guilt, but he would need to worry about that later.
David looked pleadingly at Gaines. “Please, just turn around and leave. Do that one thing for me. Wait for me downstairs if you’d like. I won’t put up any kind of fight. I’ll go with you after this is over. Just leave for now. Please.”
“I can’t do that, and you know it. I can’t allow you to just murder someone… and I don’t think you really want to either. But look, I’m going to put my gun away so we can talk.” Gaines slid it carefully back into his holster and showed his hands. “You need to know something before you pull that trigger.”
“How’d you know I’d even be here?” David asked, his tone breaking in confusion as though something new had connected in his brain.
“I didn’t. I’m not here for you, David. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m here for Harry.”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand,” David said, his eyes still set hard on Harry.
“I came to arrest him. That’s why I’m here. Not to stop you. That was just good timing, I suppose. But I can’t arrest him if you pull that trigger,” Gaines said, slowly easing toward David, hands up.
“Hold on. What?” Harry said, taking a step forward and ignoring the gun pointed at him, as if it had never fazed him to begin with. “Arrest me for what?”
“Get back!” David yelled, nearly driving the barrel of the gun into Harry’s eye socket.
Harry backed up but continued: “Arrest me for what? Are you out of your damn mind, Calvin? I thought we already talked about this. That girl is spitting lies like snake venom. She has it in for me, and I don’t know why. You can’t believe—”
“Just stop, Harry. You’re done. I know you did it,” Gaines said, looking Harry dead in the eyes. He wanted him to know he was for real. “Hell, I think I always knew you did it, but now there’s proof.”
“Proof? What proof?” Harry wrinkled his face.
“Let’s talk about that in a second,” Gaines said, gesturing to David. “In case you didn’t notice, Mr. Price here has you fitted for a toe-tag.”
David looked over at Gaines. “What are you talking about? What did you find?”
“You don’t want to know that right now. You need to trust me on this. I know you got no reason to, but please, I’m begging you, give me the gun. He’s going to jail, and I promise you that’ll be a whole lot worse.” He knew if he showed David those pictures, rage would take the place of any reason he had left inside him. There would be no stopping him after that.
“But you don’t get it… my daughter… she…” David was losing focus, and the gun was beginning to tremble.
“Yes, I know. And I don’t blame you. I can’t say I would be doing the same thing if I was you,” Gaines said. “But you’re a better man than me, so just give me the gun and go home. Go te
ll your family that it’s over. Go tell Kara.”
Again, Harry stiffened nervously. Why was he going to jail? Why was Gaines so certain?
David started lowering the gun. “How’re you just going to let me walk out of here? You can’t do that. Not after this.”
“Yes I can, and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. I owe you at least that much.”
David grappled with the decision, tightening and then retightening his fingers on the pistol grip, lowering his arm a few inches and then raising it again. He’d come so far. There was no turning back… or maybe there was.
Harry remained calm as the gun trembled in front of his face.
“You deserve every damn bullet in this chamber,” David said coldly to Harry. “I should put you down like the sick dog you are. People like you shouldn’t be allowed to live.” He reset his aim one last time, stiffening his arm to steel, grinding his teeth, clenching until it felt like his molars might pop. His finger danced softly against the cold curve of the trigger. So easy. One pull and he’s gone. But was that the best justice for Kara? A father kept behind bars might only serve as an awful reminder, make it impossible for her to live a normal life. Finally, David dropped his arm, the gun hanging listlessly in his hand. “You aren’t worth it,” he said.
Gaines moved the rest of the distance to David and placed his hand on the pistol. David didn’t fight it but kept his hate-rich stare on the mayor.
Harry angled his head back and narrowed his eyes. “I’m sorry you feel that way. But I promise you you’re mistaken. Whatever the sheriff thinks he has or knows I’m sure will prove to be another lie. This is all just a big misunderstanding.”
David glanced over at Gaines, who shook his head, as if to assure him that Harry was wrong: there were no misunderstandings. “I don’t think so.” David turned away from Harry and walked to the door, stopping next to Gaines. “I really hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I do. You did the right thing,” Gaines said, and patted David’s arm. “Now go home. I’ll be by when I’m done here.” He leaned forward and tucked David’s pistol behind his back. “I’m going to hold onto this for now.”
David offered something close to a smile but said nothing. Then he walked out of the room, down the hall, and was gone.
When David was out of sight, Gaines shifted his attention back to Harry. The room had grown thick with the tension of unresolved conflict. “Calvin, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Harry threw his hands in the air. “What’s the matter with you? Have you lost it? I’m telling you, as mayor, it’s an order, go arrest him. You can’t just let him walk. He pulled a gun on me, for Christ’s sake. I’m the mayor. That wasn’t just some empty threat. He was going to kill me if you hadn’t shown up. You and I can talk about this Kara Price stuff later. I assure you, whatever you’ve heard, it’s just more rumors—”
“I don’t think so, Harry. You’re done talking. Sit down,” Gaines said, pointing to the chair. “I don’t take my orders from you. I take them from the people who elected me. I work for them, and it’s about time I actually started to.”
Harry scowled. “You really want to go this route? Once you head down this path, there’s no turning back.”
Gaines took a firm step toward the mayor. “I said sit.”
A hateful look washed over Harry, but he obeyed, lowering himself slowly back into his chair. “You have no idea the shit-storm that’s in for you. You’re going to be finished, all because some high school girl has some fucked-up grudge against—”
“Finished? Really? Because I was thinking the same thing about you.” Gaines slid two fingers into his pocket and produced the photographs, throwing them on the desk in front of Harry. “Whadya make of these? Because I think they are pretty clear. Don’t you?”
Harry leaned forward and inspected the pictures. His face slowly fell into a frown, and his lips parted. “Where did you get these? This isn’t me,” Harry said dismissively. There was a desperate, nervous quality to his voice. “I don’t know where you got these, but someone’s pulling your leg.”
“Oh really?” Gaines said, leaning on the desk and looking down at the pictures. “So that isn’t you?” He pointed to the clear shot of Harry. It was unmistakably him. “And that isn’t Kara Price? And that isn’t your car with your matching license plate? ’Cause it sure looks like it to me—and I’m sure it will look like it to a judge and jury, too.”
Harry placed both hands on his desk and shook his head, his eyes darting between the pictures and Gaines anxiously. “This isn’t what you think—”
“I know what I think. I think you’re a smug son of a bitch who thought he’d never get caught. You fooled a lot of people—hell, you fooled me—but it’s over. People will know who you are.” Gaines hadn’t really been fooled, though. Worse. Harry had forced him to see a character flaw in himself he had never known existed: cowardice. And that was far worse than being fooled. From now on, that would be what Gaines saw when he looked into a mirror: a man too selfish, too afraid, to do what needed to be done. For that, a large part of Gaines wished he hadn’t stopped David from pulling that trigger.
“You’re dumber than I thought if you think people want to hear the truth. You really think they don’t already know? They’ll hate you more than me for rubbing their faces in it. People believe what’s easiest for them, just like you did.” Harry interlaced his fingers over his head, leaned back, and started laughing. “Without these pictures, you’d be right back on the other side of the fence, same place you were two days ago.”
“Maybe. You’re probably right. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re going to jail.” Gaines slid his handcuffs off his belt.
Harry eyed them. “Okay, fine, you got me. You caught the bad guy. Big deal. The little cunt deserved it. Nothing changes that. You should’ve heard the way she was talking about this town—about our traditions—like it… like we were all just some big joke to her.”
“She was fifteen, Harry. Fifteen! Same age as my daughter. Now stand up and put your hands behind your back. Let’s get this over w—”
“I don’t give a shit!” Harry screamed, snapping forward and slamming his hand down on the photos. “She was old enough. She was old enough to learn her lesson and take her damn medicine.”
Gaines backed up a step, his hand instinctively moving to his gun. “Relax, Harry. I’m not going to tell you twice. I’m not here to debate with you. I’m here to take you in. You can talk all you want at the station.”
Harry’s eyes curled up at their corners and he cackled again. It was a loud, mad, insane laugh. “Or what? You’re going to shoot me? Is that it? You’ll put one right between my fuckin’ eyes?” He took his finger and pressed it hard against his own forehead. “Blow my brains out? That what you wanna do, Cal? Wanna be the hero, Sheriff? Do it. Do me a favor.”
The moment was escalating. Gaines would’ve waited for Catherine had he not heard a gunshot and come to investigate. Control was slipping away from him. The hairs on his neck were on end. His face thumped to the beat of his heart.
Harry stood and leaned forward on his desk, smiling wickedly. “Let me ask you something, Sheriff—is this all the evidence you have? Do you have anymore photos, or are these all of ’em?”
Gaines straightened his shoulders and stuck out his chest. Harry was a big man, but so was he. The veiled threat hung in the air. “I’m not going to ask you again. Turn around.” His right hand hovering near his gun and his left clutching the handcuffs, he began moving around the desk toward Harry.
“No problem,” Harry said, with an I-know-something-you-don’t smile. He turned around and faced his open safe. His hands remained at his sides, his fingers itching like a gunslinger’s directly before a duel. The moment Gaines noticed this…
“Calvin, you up here?” a voice called from down the hall. It was Catherine. “I thought you were going to wait for me.” She rounded the corner.
Gaines turned and looked in her directi
on. “I got this.”
Catherine’s eyes widened, and her face set to stone. She reached for her revolver. “Gun!” she yelled, and began to draw.
Gaines looked back to Harry. He was turning away from his safe. The nickel-plated pistol glimmered as it cut a swath through the air and set its sights on Catherine.
Gaines sidestepped into the line of fire, his pistol half out of its holster.
Harry fired.
The bullet struck Gaines in the chest and spun him sideways. The handcuffs flew out of his hand. There was another bright flash and a loud crack as Harry pulled the trigger again. This time it caught Gaines in the arm, and he fell against the wall, sliding to the floor. His gun tumbled beneath the desk. It felt as if he had taken two blows with a sledgehammer. His breath was immediately out of reach, his throat hot with trespassing blood. He coughed, and blood sprayed out onto his hands and down his chin. The room sounded muffled, as though he had his fingers in his ears. Everything around him was moving slowly. The walls and the ceiling started to turn and spin, his mind detaching from his body. His thoughts became thick and clumsy. His face tingled, and his hands went numb. He tried to look up, but he couldn’t find the strength. His chin against his chest, blackness enveloped him, and he was unconscious.
“Cal!” Catherine yelled, and took two steps toward him, but Harry fired on her, striking the wall. Small cloud-bursts of drywall exploded with each shot, crumbling to the floor with the sound of dense sand. It was happening so fast. She had imagined this type of thing a million times—what it would be like, how she would react. But this was the real thing. Actions were quick. Life and death hanging milliseconds apart.
Harry fired again, the bullet striking inches above her head. He stepped out from behind his desk and stood beside Gaines, who was breathing shallowly on the floor, head down. Harry ignored him and moved into the doorway. A fearless man with everything to lose.
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