“You want a fucking lesson, too?” he screamed. “’Cause I got seven more with your name on them, Deputy.”
Catherine ducked into a recessed doorway. Quietly, she radioed in for backup and an ambulance.
CRACK! CRACK! Harry rattled off two more shots. The wooden molding of the doorjamb splintered, fragments landing in Catherine’s hair.
How many shots was that? Catherine tried to calculate: seven… no, eight… maybe it was six? It was the kind of thing she had always envisioned being able to keep track of in a situation like this—that little piece of knowledge that would save her life. But in the end, it all boiled down to dumb luck and guts, it seemed.
“Where the hell did those pictures come from?” Harry called down the hall. “I gotta tell you, I’m really curious.”
Pictures? Catherine didn’t yet know about the photos. “Put it down, Harry. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything about any pictures. Let’s you and me just talk.” But who was she kidding? That never worked. This was well past negotiation. Only one of them would be walking away from this.
There was a beat of silence. Slowly the void filled with the approach of sirens.
“You called your friends? You bitch. You shouldn’t’ve done that.” There was a sarcastic malevolence in his voice that sent chills up Catherine’s spine.
CRACK! CRACK!
The bullets shook the framing beneath the wall and vibrated against her shoulder. She peered around the corner. Harry was in the doorway to his office twenty feet away, gun fixed on her position. Beside him on the ground, Gaines was unconscious, blood soaking the front of his shirt. There was no sign of life, but she only caught a glimpse before Harry fired on her again and she was forced back into cover. She managed to squeeze off one blind round. It struck the window beside the door, shattering it into a rain of broken shards. She needed to conserve her ammunition. She was outmatched. Harry’s pistol was a semi-automatic that seemed to hold an endless supply of bullets. She only had six—now five—rounds, plus a spare six on her belt. But her revolver was a bear to reload quickly.
“I was wondering if you were ever gonna use that thing. That’s good, I’d like a little fight,” Harry said. “Most girls never fight back. Kara didn’t. She just cried like a little baby. Are you gonna cry, Deputy?”
Pressed flat into the doorway, she gripped her gun tightly, breathed deep, and closed her eyes for a moment. “You got this, Catherine,” she whispered to herself. There would be no waiting for backup. She was on her own.
Then something occurred to her: every shot Harry had taken at her had been high, presumably aimed at her head and torso. Shoot for the center of mass, she recalled from her training. That’s what he was doing. He was shooting where he thought she was, and where he thought would inflict the most damage. If Catherine went low Harry might be caught off guard just long enough to buy her a clean shot.
She peered out again to set the bait.
Harry bit and fired, this time the round cutting through the hollow corner of the wall and striking behind her. Debris burst against the side of her face.
Harry was slowly making his way up the hall, opening up his angle on her. A few more feet and her cover would be gone. It would turn into an all-out mess of gunfire on each other. No reason or tactics, just empty the pistol and pray your bullets land first.
Catherine crouched as low as she could and waited, making sure no part of her could be seen.
Harry couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet away now. “Calvin’s not looking so good, Deputy,” he said. “You going to let him bleed out? I’ll let you tend to him if you’d like. Just come out here. I promise I won’t—”
Catherine leaned out, low on one knee. Harry had his gun aimed high over her head. His face fell flat.
And before he could relock Catherine in his sights, she squeezed the trigger.
CHAPTER 38
Kara slipped into the tub, the frigid water stealing her breath as she submerged. This wasn’t what she’d planned on—if anything, she’d heard hot water worked best to open capillaries—but in building up her conviction, she’d filled and drained the bath four times in the last hour. Each time she’d fill it, she’d sit on the edge of the tub, staring into the water, then lose her nerve and yank the plug. She’d stay and watch it completely empty out, listening to the slurping sounds the drain made as it drank up the last bits of water. Then she’d find her resolve, fill it up again, and do it all over. So now the water-heater was empty, and cold water was all that remained for her. Tough luck, but compromises could be made for the occasion. Cold water would suffice. And wasn’t going out with a chill just perfectly ironic, anyway? A little secret joke between her and God. It was just like the creek where she had washed herself clean after Harry had raped her, even if the two were only comparable in a symbolic way. What she was after now was a different kind of cleansing, but a purifying act just the same. Blood could be washed off. Cuts could be cleaned out, patched, healed. Sweat, tears, and dirt could be wiped away. That kind of stuff was surface grime, cosmetic damage. But how do you clean a soul? How do you deal with internal filth? How do you purge pain so deep-rooted that it’s become your identity? Simple. This was how. A deep breath. Two cuts. Slowly fade to darkness while all the poison drains out. Clean.
Kara’s shirt sucked against her stomach as she slid deeper into the water, her breath returning in slow, steady drags.
When she was a kid, she used to spend hours in that very same tub, pretending she was a frog, a fish, some aquatic thing, blowing bubbles, seeing how long she could hold her breath, rubbing her eyes raw with soapy water, until her mother or father would come in and make her get out. But there was no one to make her get out now. The house was empty, save for the ghosts of childhood memories. And those nostalgic glimpses into a better time only served to edge her toward release.
Beginning to shiver, she slid her hand farther down the porcelain ledge of the tub and picked up the razor resting on the soap tray. It was a straight blade with a pearl handle. Her father had bought it for himself a few years back and had been so proud of it, proclaiming on the day that he walked through the front door with it that from then on he would shave like a “real man.” That lasted exactly one day. A failed attempt, which led to him looking as if he had wrestled a barbed-wire fence using nothing more than his face, decommissioned the razor. He kept it in the bathroom, though, refusing to throw it away, as if doing so would be admitting defeat. So there it sat on the soap tray for years, growing rust but holding its edge just fine. Sharp as ever. Kara smiled at the thought of her father’s bleeding, toilet-paper-dressed face. How he had insisted that the razor was defective and his unsteady hand was certainly not to blame. The man had pride; she couldn’t deny that. The way she had treated him the last few days was, perhaps, her only regret in this moment. But regrets, like secrets, were acceptable things to carry to the grave. They’re honest weight, the burden of which is the holder’s right to bear.
She opened the razor and ran the blade over the back of her hand, testing the edge. A thin, dark thread began to sweat blood. A drop traced her wrist and dripped into the tub, diluting into the water. Defined then gone, just like her.
The phone rang again, but Kara ignored it. She slipped deeper into the water until her ears submerged and all she could hear were her own steady breaths.
CHAPTER 39
A jet of blood sprayed from Harry’s neck as he staggered backwards, backpedalling slowly until he was back in his office and sitting on the edge of his desk. He slapped his hand over the gunshot wound, but it did nothing. Dark crimson oozed out in thick pulses. “You bitch,” he gurgled, still clutching his pistol.
Catherine held her position in the hall, her revolver held tight on Harry. “Drop the gun.”
He said nothing, only panted stiff breaths with an angry grimace. The lower right side of his face was painted in fresh blood, where a large flap of flesh hung down from between his fingers.
“C’mon, Harry, put it down.” Catherine rose off her knee and got to her feet.
Harry stared down, wheezing, the gun hanging by his side. Either he couldn’t talk, or he wouldn’t. Small breaths hissed from his nose as blood started to darken his shirt in a hurry.
Catherine cautiously walked toward him, her gun held fast on his center of mass. “Harry, I won’t tell you again.”
Both understood what came next. The mayor of Heartsridge looked up at Catherine, and their eyes locked. She could see it—a clear view of the immediate future. A predestined fate hanging in the space between them. It was going to happen whether she wanted it to or not. Harry smiled at her balefully, bearing his bloody teeth, then the pistol twitched in his hand and his arm rose toward her.
Catherine fired twice, the revolver bucking in her hand. The bullets struck Harry’s chest and he jerked back, sprawling over his desk, his gun dropping to the floor. There was a long, wet gasp, and finally, his mouth fell open and he lay motionless. Silence blanketed the room, and time stopped. Her ears rang. It had all happened so fast. It didn’t seem possible that taking a life was only a matter of moving your finger an inch. So easy. So quick. Pull a trigger, and it’s here one second, gone the next.
Catherine held her gun on Harry for a moment longer, frozen in her firing stance, waiting for him to get up. “Harry?” she said doubtfully, but there was no answer.
The sound of sirens and screeching tires were no longer far-off, pouring into the parking lot right outside Town Hall. Finally, Catherine lowered her gun and rushed to Gaines, surprised to find that he was still breathing. She pressed two fingers against his carotid. There was a pulse—faint but there. He moved his head to the side, and his eyes fluttered open. He reached up and placed his hand on hers.
“Hold still, Cal. I called an ambulance. You’re gonna be fine.” Catherine applied pressure to his wounds.
Gaines grimaced. “I can’t hear them anymore,” he whispered.
“Hear what, Cal?”
“The cicadas—I can’t hear them.” His words were disconnected and slow.
“Just focus on the sound of my voice and hang on.”
There was a loud crash as first-responders came in through the front door.
“Up here,” Catherine raised her head and yelled. When she looked back Gaines’s eyes were closed.
“Cal… Cal, c’mon, stay with me.” She tapped the side of his face.
Nothing.
Deputy Gerund and another rookie appeared at the end of the hallway and rushed over, guns drawn, followed by two emergency personnel with medical kits and a gurney.
“What happened?” One of the paramedics knelt beside Gaines and began assessing him.
Catherine stumbled for a second, her mind reeling. It was a good question. But she fought through the shock. “Gunshot… two of them. One in the chest, the other I think in the arm.”
“All right, we’ll take it from here,” someone said. She couldn’t be sure who; the scene was so surreal. She was in the midst of some cruel dream, and before she knew it, the sheriff was being carried down the stairs with an oxygen mask over his face.
Catherine stood and interlaced her fingers over her head. They were sticky with her colleague’s blood. It took a moment, but finally she breathed, reality setting in.
“Jesus, what went down here?” Gerund asked, holstering his revolver.
The second deputy emerged from Harry’s office visibly shaken. “I can’t find a pulse. I think he’s dead.” There was a brief pause, then he said, “I ain’t never seen a dead body up close before.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you shot Harry Bennett. Shit. What the hell happened?”
Catherine looked around. “I don’t know—not exactly. I walked into it. It all happened so fast…” She trailed off when her eyes fell on the bloodstain Gaines had left behind on the floor.
Silence filled the hallway, and Catherine looked up. The two deputies, baby-faced and doe-eyed, were just standing there, staring at her.
Why aren’t they saying anything? she thought.
And suddenly a startling realization hit her: with Sam gone, and Sheriff Gaines in God knows what condition, she was the senior officer. This was her show now, and they were waiting to be told what to do.
“All right, this is a crime scene now,” she said, a new, powerful clarity taking over. “Deputy Gerund, you go downstairs and make sure only badges get up here. The media is going to be all over this. We got plenty of part-timers on this week for the festival, so call ’em in if you need to.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gerund said. He headed downstairs.
“You—” Catherine stalled. She didn’t even know the name of the deputy standing in front of her. She glanced down at his tag. “Conroy, is it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“Conroy, find a phone and call the coroner. Tell him we have a body, don’t mention who yet. Let’s see if we can’t keep a lid on this as long as possible. To be safe, don’t talk to anyone who isn’t with the sheriff’s department. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Conroy repeated.
“And after you do that, get to the hospital. I want an update on Calvin every half-hour. Can you do that?”
“I’m on it.”
“Good. Okay. Try the offices down at the end of the hall for a phone.” She gestured behind him.
“Sure thing, ma’am.” Conroy headed toward a stretch of offices at the opposite end of the hall. Catherine didn’t know if anyone was obligated to take orders from her, but she was giving them, and they were listening.
Behind her, Harry Bennett lay sprawled out over his desk, waiting to be officially pronounced and taken to the morgue. Catherine walked over to him. A few feet away on the ground was his pistol, the handle smeared with blood. She left it for now. His eyes were still open, staring up at the ceiling. A pool of dark blood slowly oozed across the desktop like lava, seeping from his neck, dripping over the side and onto the floor. The scent of death hung thick in the air—a mixture of iron, gunpowder, and human waste. There was a good possibility Harry had voided his bowels in his final moment.
Catherine took the whole picture in, allowed herself to understand all of its true colors. She had just killed a man—that color was the brightest—and the scariest thing about that was the realization that it didn’t bother her. A lot of what had just happened twisted her up inside: getting shot at, almost dying, Gaines’s uncertain future, being thrown in charge. But killing Harry was not on that list. Perhaps it was because she was justly defending herself. Or perhaps it was because she knew what kind of man Harry Bennett was, and the world was a little better without someone like that.
Her mind was on fire. How the hell was she going to explain this? People would demand to know exactly what had happened, why this young deputy killed their beloved mayor. Forget that the sheriff had been shot. Forget that Harry had fired first. Because what had Harry really ever done to deserve this? Not him. He was a saint. It must’ve had something to do with that liar, that girl who was saying those awful things. This was her fault, not Harry’s. Catherine could see exactly how this would play out. Anything to preserve their idea of the man they had elected to lead them.
She slowly circled the desk, playing the scenario on repeat over and over again in her head. What proof had Gaines been talking about? He had told her he had found something, some kind of evidence, and Harry had yelled something about pictures during their standoff. She had no idea what he had been referring to. Then something caught her eye as she came around the back of the desk, something pinned under Harry’s shoulder. It was the corner of a photograph. Black and white. Catherine reached down and carefully pinched the edge the pictures between her fingers, dragging them out from underneath Harry. They slid slowly but firmly, greased by blood, and then released. The images were partially obscured by dark red streaks, but what they depicted was still clear.
Looking at the photographs, she took a seat in front of Harr
y’s body and waited for the coroner.
Later, when they arrived to take his body, Catherine would still be sitting there. And when Harry was finally zipped up and carried away, she would allow Dickie Hume to go right along with him.
CHAPTER 40
His hands would not stop shaking. Even when he pulled into the driveway and shut off his car, David could not hold steady. He had almost killed a man. He would’ve gone through with it, too, if the sheriff hadn’t shown up. That was the truth, and it was enough to shake him—shake any man, he reasoned. Knowing how close to the edge he had come. How close to making a decision that would have drastically altered his life forever.
Until ten minutes ago, David wasn’t sure he would ever see his home again. But here it was, right in front of him now: the red front door; the black shutters; the weathered, gray shingles; the crooked chimney. It was a beautiful sight, and looking at it, he couldn’t help but picture Kara and Ellie both inside, waiting for Daddy to come home. In a different time, that was the case, but not today. Although that wasn’t to say that it was outside the realm of possibility. Maybe things between him and his daughter weren’t the way they once were, but for the first time in days, he had a restored hope that they could get there again. It would just take time. And time he had.
He glanced at his watch: 5:39. Kara should be home. In the haze that had been the past few days of his life, he remembered a conversation from the night before. Kara had gone to school today. It was her first day back. He hoped it had gone well. She deserved a return to something normal. And Ellie was working late. That was why her car wasn’t there. Then he remembered a discussion about Kara staying home alone. Both he and Ellie had reluctantly agreed to allow her to. But if Kara was home, why did the house look so empty? Even though it was still light out, Kara always at least turned the kitchen light on when she was home. They’d fought about the electric bill more times than he could remember. Looking through the bay window in the front of the house, the kitchen was dark.
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