by S. J. Harris
“Stop right there you son of a bitch,” I said.
Bill turned. He reached into the waistband of his work pants, pulled a pistol out and pointed it toward me.
“Kim, Kim,” he said, still using the cockney accent. His voice reverberated in the large, hollow room. He stood on the scaffold like an actor on a stage. “Such a sweet girl. It’s a shame it had to come to this. I knew your sense of loyalty wouldn’t allow you to leave the plant without Peter. Neither of you will leave now. Not in one piece, anyway.”
Bill took aim with the pistol.
“Tell me one thing,” I said, trying to buy time. “Why are you killing Diane Kuhlman?”
“Everything was going so well until you found that fucking finger,” Bill said, unable to resist the opportunity to brag some more. “That almost ruined everything. Almost. You see, Diane wanted her husband to disappear and I needed a few thousand bucks for this.” He pulled the spinal cord from his back pocket and tossed it into the grinding pit. The auger chewed it up. “That was such a good investment. It’s going to destroy the beef industry in the United States, clearing the way for ostrich as a replacement. I’m going to be rich. I’ll be able to buy Sonya anything she wants. Lori Barbera, a woman obsessed with Ron Kuhlman, will take the rap for all the murders. And, with a little anonymous call to the department of agriculture, she’ll get nailed for the Mad Cow epidemic as well. Perfect. Everything’s going to be perfect. I have to get rid of Diane now because, like you, she knows too much. I can’t risk having her around.”
“Maybe all this would have worked out perfectly for you,” I said. “Except for one thing. Steve Morrow.”
“What about Morrow? He’s a fucking vegetable. He’s no threat.”
“He can talk,” I said. “Pretty soon everybody will know you pushed him in front of that truck.”
“You’re lying, you cunt.” Bill raised his weapon.
Before he pulled the trigger, I whizzed the piece of glass I was holding toward him. I’m a champion at Frisbee golf, but I guess I was a little rusty. The shard of glass completely missed Bill, but it nicked the rubber hose as it flew over the scaffold. A steady spray of pressurized water spouted toward him. It acted as a conduit and closed a circuit from the breaker panel to the scaffold to Bill.
Bill seized, started making spastic movements, started foaming at the mouth. The pistol flew from his hand and landed a few feet away on the scaffold.
I watched in horror as Bill was electrocuted.
Then something blew. The lights went out and a shower of sparks arced over the scaffold. The power was out for maybe five seconds and then came back. A backup generator must have kicked in and the current must have automatically been rerouted, away from the scaffold and away from Bill. He crawled to where his gun had landed, stood and took aim.
I decided it was a good time to bring prayer back into my life.
I heard the shot fire. A numbing chill engulfed me. I looked down and saw my own blood dripping on the concrete floor.
29
I’d been hit high on my right arm, in the deltoid muscle. At least the blood was dripping, not spraying from an artery. I felt dizzy, lightheaded.
Bill fired again but missed.
I ran to the Bobcat, ducked behind the console for protection, heard several shots ricochet off the machine. I turned the ignition key and felt the engine rumble behind me. I started pulling levers at random, trying to figure out the function of each. The bucket tilted and Diane Kuhlman and Peter Daniels went tumbling to the floor in a heap.
Using the bucket as a shield, I throttled to full speed--ten miles an hour maybe--toward the scaffold.
Bill continued firing and then must have run out of bullets. I heard him scream “fuck” just before I collided with the scaffold’s foundation.
Bill flipped over the railing and fell fifteen feet into the grinding pit. I shut down the Bobcat, raced up the scaffold and frantically switched off all the circuit breakers. But the breakers had been bypassed, and I didn’t know where to look for the ones that closed the emergency power.
The bottom of the pit was slightly funnel-shaped. Bill was digging and swimming on the slippery stainless steel, trying futilely to get a grip. But there was nothing to hold on to.
The auger caught his feet first and twirled him like a figure skater. He shouted “Mama.” All I heard after that was the ghastly sound of his body being ground to mush.
I climbed back down to floor level, ran to check on Peter and Diane.
A stray bullet had found Peter’s heart. He was dead.
“No, no, no,” I shouted. I’d worked so hard to save him, but my efforts had been useless. I knelt and cried, fat tears streaming down my face.
I reached and touched the side of Diane’s neck, feeling for a carotid pulse. In one motion she swiftly sat up and grabbed me by the throat with both hands. Her thumbs compressed my trachea.
I made a fist with my one good hand and punched her face, again and again. I pounded her, felt the bridge of her nose crumble, saw blood gush from her nostrils.
Still she wouldn’t let go. If anything, her fingers tightened. I couldn’t breathe. I was losing the battle. I felt my soul slipping away. I was giving up the ghost.
Then my ten-thousand angels came crashing through one of the big rollup loading doors that led to the outside. My angels were in the form of an old white car, a Ford Falcon. Hard rock music blared from the car’s stereo, filling the room with the chorus from Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog.”
Now you’re messin’ with a son of a bitch...
Sonya Shafer was in the passenger’s seat with a cell phone to her head. The driver, a man I’d never seen, flung his door open and raced to Diane and me.
He had a gun.
He tried to pull Diane off, but she had a death grip on my throat. He put the barrel of the pistol against Diane’s right shoulder and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Nothing happened.
With an uppercut motion, he cracked the butt of the pistol hard against Diane’s forehead. Her expression went blank. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her grip loosened and she collapsed on the floor.
Several uniformed police officers and an EMS team rushed in. I accepted a ride to the hospital this time, but I wouldn’t let them load me on a stretcher. I walked to the ambulance under my own power.
30
Diane Kuhlman and I were transported to the trauma center in downtown Jacksonville. I was admitted to orthopedics for a dislocated shoulder. The gunshot wound was only superficial. Diane was observed overnight and then released to the custody of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
She was charged as an accomplice to the murders of her husband and Darla Bose, and with first degree murder for the death of Rodney Youngkins. Rodney, the dialysis patient I’d met the day I explored Darla’s home, had apparently taken up residence there in her absence. His was the shrouded body I saw being carried from the burning house. Diane Kuhlman had lit the fire. Diane had also delivered that little nasty-gram under my motel door. Bill had given her a pass key to The Parkside. She was a great liar. I never suspected her. In the end, though, she confessed to everything. Bill had seduced her and had told her about her husband’s out of town adventures with women. Diane helped Bill set Ron up, and she gave Bill the money he needed for the diseased spinal cord. Darla Bose had been innocent in the whole matter. I had flowers sent to her memorial service in Texas.
Kessler’s Meats was shut down for a few days, went through multiple cleanings and inspections before the Department of Agriculture assured the public that the plant was free of disease. They resumed operations after the Fourth of July holiday.
The source of the diseased spinal cord was under international investigation.
When I finally got my cell phone back and charged it up, I found several messages from Blake Wales warning me that Bill Driscoll had been arrested on a domestic charge back in November of 2004. That information hadn’t come up on his fi
rst background check. Blake had come through for me, just a little too late. I called him and told him about everything.
I underwent orthopedic surgery and ended up on the sixth floor. Two days after my surgery, Sonya Shafer came for a visit and introduced me to her father, the man who had saved my life. Lenny Shafer was carrying a guitar case.
He opened the case, showed me the guitar and handed me the pistol.
“No firing pin,” he said.
The pistol, a Colt .22, had an engraving on the barrel: TO PETER ON HIS TWELFTH BIRTHDAY LOVE DAD.
Lenny Shafer was the “bum” Peter thought had stolen his guitar up near Quincy, Illinois and Hannibal, Missouri. The whole thing had been an accidental mix-up.
“I put the guitar case in a closet at my cousin’s house in Hannibal,” Lenny said. “I didn’t even know it wasn’t my guitar until recently when I took it out to play it. Then I come down here and find out my daughter was dating the guy who owned it. Small world, ain’t it?”
Small world indeed.
I handed the pistol back to Lenny. He planned to have the items sent to Peter’s family in Illinois.
Lori Barbera stopped by my room one afternoon. She gave me my clutch, the one with my initials on it. Bill had hidden it in her office at Kessler’s as part of his effort to frame her. Lori thanked me for clearing her of any wrongdoing. I didn’t tell her that I’d suspected her all along.
I was discharged from the hospital on July tenth, the day I’d been scheduled to start working there. I left with a sling and an order not to work for at least six weeks.
The rental car company had retrieved the Ford Escort from police impound and offered to deliver it to the hospital for me. I insisted on an upgrade. I planned to drive to San Diego, take my time and make frequent stops to tack up some Jenny posters. Louisville, Kentucky seemed like a good place to stop first. Jim Higgins said I could stay at his place.
The rental car company gave me a Lincoln navigator for the same price as the Escort. I guess they figured they might be getting a free commercial, with all the press I was getting.
Before leaving Florida I took one last swing through Hallows Cove. The town was as peaceful and quiet as ever. I drove around for a while and thought about all that had happened.
I will never forgive Bill Driscoll for his atrocities. Forgiveness of that caliber is for God alone. But as I sped past a burger joint called Frosty Bear’s, a Dairy Queen clone situated on SR 13 at the edge of town, I decided perhaps I could forgive myself.
Jenny’s kidnapping was not my fault. And it wasn’t God’s fault. My experience with Bill Driscoll taught me that. Only the bad man, or woman, the It who abducted her, was at fault. It was responsible for It’s actions, for causing unbearable heartache and agony.
An awful childhood, insanity, demon possession--none of that shit cuts it with me. It was a grown person with a free will, a will to inflict pain. No brain scan showing abnormalities, no blood test revealing chemical imbalances, no psychiatric profile could convince me otherwise. I would scour the earth until It was brought down. If, along the way, other dragons crossed my path, I would do my best to see them fall.
I planned on taking some classes in forensics. A trauma nurse, a flight nurse, sees much more than the results of accidents. We see victims of domestic abuse, rape, you name it, even murder. With some additional training I could make forensic nursing my specialty and be actively involved in bringing the Its of the world to justice.
I had some on-the-job training under my belt already.
I made a U-turn and pulled into the parking lot of Frosty Bear’s. I swept my upper lip with my tongue and tasted salty beads of sweat. I parked and went inside. A high school girl put my order together, her complexion as creamy and her smile as sweet and innocent as the concoction she prepared.
I don’t believe in Hell. I believe in punishment here on Earth, as severe as the death penalty for the most wicked. But I have to think that God’s compassion is superior to mine and that of my fellow mortals. I have to think that a kind, forgiving, loving God would never condemn one of his children to eternal torment.
It has a soul.
Bill Driscoll has a soul, and somewhere that soul is being punished, somehow. But not forever.
Bill’s last garbled word as he was being devoured by the grinder was “Mama.” Not a plea for help, but a recognition, as if he saw her in that tapered dress getting ready for Sunday school. Maybe eternity for Bill, after a good old fashioned spanking, would be like an 8mm loop of film, forever running with a soiled diaper, forever laughing, forever thinking what all boys must think when they see Mama after a long absence--that everything is going to be all right.
I found a bench outside of Frosty Bear’s and took a long look at the mackerel sky, the pink and gold ribbons streaming across the horizon, the curtain closing on another day.
I bit through the fragile shell of chocolate and peanuts and found cold vanilla peace. Nothing ever tasted so good.