by Rick Mofina
“Must’ve been a shock.”
“She turned white as a sheet. That I remember. Right before my eyes.”
“He must’ve gone nuts.”
“He came to the newsroom to confront me. Then he got a lawyer. Threatened to sue if we ran the story. There was nothing he could do. We had the facts. It was all true. A murder mystery. We lined the story, I never heard from him. A few weeks later, I tried to call him. His phone had been disconnected. He just vanished.”
“That’s it?”
“No. About a year went by. I’d forgotten all about him. Then I got a call from Hal Forester.”
“The Star’s court reporter? He retired when I came to the paper.”
“Right. Hal said I might be interested in the case of a man charged in several armed robberies and drug deals by the name of John Mark Engler.”
“You go down?”
“I did. To see if Engler would go for an interview.”
“And?”
“In court we exchanged glances; then he went cold on me. He crumpled the notes I passed to his lawyer. He got six years.” Reed checked the file. “Six years in Folsom.”
“Driscoll went to Folsom, probably met Engler there. We got to get this to Sydowski fast. See if Engler’s the guy who took Ann.” Wilson stood. “I hope to hell it’s not him but if it is, it’s a lead, Tom. Let’s go.”
Reed hadn’t moved. He was staring at Engler’s picture. “Tom? What is it? Is there something else about Engler’s case?”
“A few weeks after he was processed, Engler called me from Folsom, had his lawyer patch the call to the newsroom.”
“To say what? Agree to an interview?”
“Molly, we all get crazy calls all the time, right?” Reed swallowed, his eyes stung. “Threats. Like we said, comes with the territory, right?”
“Tom, what did Engler say to you?”
Reed removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“Who thinks anything will come of these things? I mean I truly believed Engler was a two-time loser who probably did kill that clerk in Florida and was going to Folsom for six years—”
“Tom.”
“I’ve had bikers, drug dealers, killers, threaten me, say things to me, drive by my house. I mean you cover crime, people rise from the sewer and say things—”
“Tom.”
Reed’s body quaked as the presses rumbled.
“Engler said that one day, when I least expected it, fate would see to it that I felt his pain for what I did to him.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
In the suffocating night heat of the Moonlit Dreams Motor Inn, Engler ignored Ann’s questions until she gave up.
She stared at the cracked walls, the cheap oil painting of a palm-lined beach cove in the moonlight. Engler opened another beer, engrossed by the minister raving on the television.
“—and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.” The minister waved the Good Book around.
Engler raised his sweating can to the screen, saying, “Hallelujah, Reverend. I hear destiny calling.”
He took a long swallow, switched off the set and stood before Ann for the longest time, taking inventory of every inch of her from head to toe and back again. Not in the ravenous way Tribe had feasted on her, but with the look people get when they think about something they had loved and lost.
“You still don’t understand, Ann, do you?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t understand who I am or what I am?”
“No.”
“I told you some people make mistakes in life, remember?”
“Yes.”
“And some people are life’s mistakes.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“My mother was a seventeen-year-old prostitute. My father was a twenty-dollar trick. I’m the result she dumped nine months later, like something she’d leave in a toilet. I was never meant to be in this world.”
Ann looked away blinking. He’s crazy.
“I was abused in every foster home I was sent to. By the adults and the older kids. Until the last home. Fate intervened and burned it to the ground when I turned sixteen. Then I was on my own. Unleashed myself on America.”
Engler walked around Ann.
“I traveled. Had my scrapes with the law. The state of Florida did everything, every damned thing within its mighty power to kill me for something I never did. I was twenty hours from being executed when destiny plucked me from the jaws of death and set me free.” Engler drank some beer. “I built a new life for myself.”
At that moment, the first tiny drop of knowledge fell on Ann. He’d walked off death row. Fear and fatigue clouded her memory, but within its deepest corners, she was certain she recalled Tom having once written about a man who’d beaten his death sentence at the final moment.
“How do you know my husband? Did he write about you?”
He froze, glaring at her for several moments.
“Your husband hunted me down to question me about the past.”
Ann swallowed.
“Your husband said he had information about my long-forgotten brushes with the law in Florida. I answered his questions, then begged him to leave me and my wife alone.” She was starting to remember.
“Your husband refused to let up. Pounded his chest about freedom of the press. Said he had the facts and was going to write the truth about me.”
Tears rolled down Ann’s face. It was all coming back. “Do you know what your husband did? He waited until I wasn’t around and ambushed my wife, showed her selected records, told her about the facts of my past and asked what she thought of the man she’d married.”
Ann remembered how Tom never talked about the story. “I tried to explain the truth to my wife, but he’d done too much damage. I called a lawyer to beg your husband and his newspaper to stop his story. They ignored me.”
It was so long ago, but Ann remembered how Tom was bothered by it. Wanted to forget about it.
“They put the story on the front page with our pictures splashed all over it. A long article mixed with facts and police lies. Other reporters found us.”
Ann had a vague memory of the story flaring, then fading. Then a long period of nothing on it until Tom got a call about a court case.
“Your husband’s story destroyed the new life I’d built. My auto shop business collapsed. Debts mounted. People turned on me. I turned to drugs, I robbed banks. And I was sent back to prison. Folsom.”
Engler stared at the moon and palm trees in the sun-faded picture.
“Do you know what that does to a man? I’d survived a wrongful conviction on death row. Twenty hours from execution, I’d triumphed and walked away. I went to school. I started my own business. Got married. Then your husband decides he’ll write a story in a newspaper that costs twenty-five cents before people wrap fish in it or let their pets crap on it.”
He turned and faced Ann.
“Have you begun to understand?”
Ann nodded.
“Every minute of every hour of every day inside, I thought of your husband. Of what he did. Of what he took from me.” Engler studied his beer can. “At first I thought I would look for him when I got out. I plotted it, planned it, fantasized about what I’d do, and savored it. It kept me going for nearly four years. But one day, I figured, naw, John, the asshole ain’t worth it, that’s what I told the prison psychiatrist.
“The shrink said I had deeply rooted vengeance issues.” Engler’s eyes twitched. “Imagine that, I told him. But I decided, I’ll just let it all go. And when I’d done my time, I’d get a stake to build a new life in a place where people can’t ever find me.” Engler swallowed the remainder of his beer.
“But there’s one thing, I told the shrink, if fate ever deemed it necessary for Tom Reed’s path to cross with mine, then I’ll make certain he atones.” Engler looked upon Ann. “And here we are.”
She blinked away her
tears.
“Please, I’m begging you, please just let me go.”
“You still don’t understand.” Engler repositioned the coffee table, sat on it so he could lean closer to her. “A few days after the story appeared, I came home from another useless meeting with my lawyer. I wanted to talk to my wife about moving away. But I couldn’t find her in the house. I went to my garage. I saw her, standing there in the upper loft. I thought it was funny, she never went up there. I called to her. She wouldn’t answer. It was too quiet.
“I went up the stairs. My eyes had to adjust to the way the sun came through the gaps of the wooden frame. I saw her standing there with her head down. ‘Babe,’ I said, ‘we can pull out and start over somewhere else.’ But she didn’t answer. Then I saw the rope. Taut to the beam, creaking as she swayed, the toes of her bare feet brushing the floor. A copy of the newspaper splayed out under her. The one with your husband’s article.”
Ann looked at the floor. She didn’t know.
“I can still hear it, that rope creaking, knocking—the sound of my world ending.” Engler pulled his face within an inch of Ann’s.
“She was three months pregnant.”
Ann shut her eyes.
“Now do you understand?” Engler’s eyes became disturbingly tender as he stroked Ann’s dyed hair and smiled.
“He took my wife; now fate has given me his. You’re mine now.”
Engler’s eyes grew wide as he pressed duct tape over Ann’s mouth before she could scream.
FIFTY-NINE
Delmar Tribe devoured his chicken dinner while marching aimlessly from the motel across vast fields lit by the stars.
Rage and adrenaline throbbed through his body from fighting with Engler. Sweat and grease put a sheen on his skin and goatee, creating the aura of something dangerous. Something hunting in the night.
Gnawing the last bones clean of meat, he shot a glance over his shoulder at the motel, now tiny on the horizon as he moved farther away. He had been achingly close to having her until Engler ruined the moment. That sick puppy was probably in there with her right now. Man, who could resist a woman like that? It was a wonder either of them had lasted this long. Tribe spat. Hell. It don’t matter. One way or another he would have his turn. Then he would kill her, which they should’ve done the first night.
Tribe squinted at the grove of trees about three hundred yards ahead. A series of outbuildings and tents, a large campfire, a couple dozen cars, vans, pickups. Sounded like singing. Tribe tossed his trash aside, popped open one of his beers, downed half, then released a thunderous belch.
He stopped. Undid his zipper and urinated while assessing the encampment. Might as well check it out. He had time and no fear of being left behind. Engler had dropped the truck’s keys when they fought in the motel. They were now in Tribe’s pocket. He belched again and moved on.
In the darkness, no one at the Heavenly Inspiration Girls’ Bible Camp saw Tribe lurking at the edge. He was invisible, standing beyond the firelight, finishing yet another beer.
Girls who looked to be twelve to late teens were ringed around the blaze singing under the stars. Maybe thirty of them, Tribe figured. He scanned the herd. All female. Not a man in sight. Praise the Lord.
The singing stopped, pages with lyrics flapped; then the singing resumed with an old folk song. Tribe heard “If I had a hammer...” before his nostrils flared at the sight of a loner. Looked like a leader. Off by herself near a tent that the light barely reached. Looked like she was sewing something.
He began moving in her direction, careful to stay in the darkness. He crept up to within ten yards of her without making a sound.
She was in her late twenties. Tanned. Brunette. Kinda pretty. Good shape. Sewing a button, or something. Alone near a tent behind a car. Perfect. She would do.
Tribe moved like a cat behind her. Six yards, four, three, two. In a heartbeat his powerful hand cupped her mouth and nose. She kicked at the air, but she was light and the singing was loud. He liked how she smelled, sweet like flowers, as he forced her into the empty tent and onto her back. He pressed down with his full weight and strength. Her eyes bulged, nearly popping from their sockets, her chest was heaving.
“Don’t make a sound and you’ll live,” Tribe whispered in her ear. “Okay?”
She nodded.
Tribe moved his hand to undo her jeans, but in an instant she shifted and he was the one screaming, for in the darkness he’d failed to see she’d been gripping small scissors which she’d plunged into his face, paralyzing every fiber of his body with electrifying pain.
The woman fled from the tent, screeching warnings to the others.
The handles stuck out from Tribe’s skull two inches under his left eye, the blades piercing his face, embedding in his upper gum until they ground against the roots of his upper left teeth.
Tribe staggered from the tent toward the fire, growling. Blood gushed from his face as he clawed at the scissors. Touching them magnified his pain. Gripping his head, Tribe found his bearings for the motel. Before anyone knew what had happened or which way he went, Tribe disappeared back into the darkness.
In the chaos of the camp, orders were shouted as the singing turned into a chorus of panicked shrieking. “Stranger! Attacker! Get the girls in the cars now!” Doors slammed, locks locked, horns sounded, engines were started. “Get the sheriff! Betty’s got a cell phone. Marge’s got a CB!”
SIXTY
Tribe lurched into the motel room, his shirt crimson, his face a horrible mask with the small scissors still protruding.
Engler, who’d consumed a few cans of beer, started to laugh. “You idiot, this a joke?”
Ann’s screams were muffled by the duct tape.
Tribe struggled to speak, shoving his slurred words painfully through his clenched teeth. “She stabbed me. Christ almighty, you got to help me, John!” Tribe scrambled to collect things while holding his face.
“What the hell are you talking about, Del? What’re you doing?”
“The camp behind us.” Tribe thrust his hand into his pocket, tossing the keys to Engler. “Goddammit! It hurts. John, I went to the camp, the bitch stabbed me. Oh Jesus! Get something from the truck! God, it hurts!”
Engler rushed outside to the back of the motel. Several hundred yards across the fields he saw headlights going in every direction, heard the echo of honking horns, revving engines, faint shrieking. What had transpired was crystal clear: Tribe had gone hunting for a woman.
“Did anyone see you or follow you back here?” Engler gathered things, thinking quickly while Tribe moaned on the bed.
“I don’t know. It was fast. Christ, John, help me now. It hurts!”
“You’ll live. We’ve got to go.”
“John, help me.”
“Hang on.”
Engler loaded the SUV while Tribe groaned.
“Jesus, please, John, do something now, goddammit!” Tribe slurred, spraying blood-laced spittle.
On alert for sirens or flashing lights, Engler got the small bottle of whiskey he’d kept hidden with the jack in the truck. He also got a pair of pliers, a screwdriver, and a small first-aid kit from Carrie Addison’s bag.
“Lie down on the floor and let me help you now, or sure as hell you’re gonna die, because I should leave you here.” Ann’s attention went to the motel door. It was unlocked. She was handcuffed to the heavy wooden chair. Neither of them was watching her. If she stood she could work her way to the door...
Engler had taken CPR and emergency medical courses inside Folsom. He wasn’t sure what to do, but reasoned he should do something right now, right here to tend to Tribe’s wound. If it was wrong, or it hurt him, too bad. He brought this on himself.
“Here.” Engler gave Tribe the whiskey after he was on the floor. “Take a big drink,” he said, tearing the bedsheet into strips. “Hurry up! Drink. Now bite down on the screwdriver. Hard.”
Engler got on his knees, poured some of the whiskey on the point where
the scissors pierced Tribe’s face, the pain arched his back. “They’re small scissors. It’s not that bad. Hold still and don’t you dare scream.”
The activity made the door open a crack. Ann stood and shifted the chair two feet. Engler clamped the pliers on the handles, his muscles glistening as slowly he extracted the scissors in a small eruption of blood, skin, and tissue. Tribe’s teeth nearly bent the screwdriver, his body writhed, his throat warbled in a guttural hum. Engler splashed whiskey into the wound. It was a small hole, not a tear. No stitches. Not too bad.
“Hold still, damn it!” Engler put a square bandage on it, gave Tribe a cotton ball to tuck between his cheek and gum, then tied a bedsheet strip around Tribe’s head to keep pressure on it. He looked like a soldier wounded in a Civil War battle.
By now Ann had moved closer to the door. If she could smash the chair against something it might break. She could run.
Engler finished working on Tribe’s face, passing him the rest of the bottle. Ann stood just as Engler pointed his handgun at her and pulled back the hammer.
“We’ve killed three people already. Four won’t matter now.”
Tribe climbed into the rear end of the truck and moaned. Engler handcuffed Ann in the SUV’s seat directly behind the front passenger seat, just as before. Her right wrist to the handgrip under the window. Her right ankle to the bottom frame of the front passenger seat.
They sped away into the night.
In the rearview mirror, Engler saw one police car, its lights flashing as it turned down the dirt road that led to the encampment behind the motel. If they were lucky there’d be few cars on shift at this hour. It would take time to rouse more deputies. If they were lucky. Engler eyed the rearview mirror and drove the speed limit before he began pounding his fist on the dash.
“You stupid, stupid, stupid goddamn idiot!”
“Fuck you! “ Tribe groaned from the rear, his pain driving his rage. “If you’d just let me have my way with her none of this would’ve happened.”
Ann gazed into the darkness.