by Craig Smith
‘We’re coming,’ Ben answered. He could hardly breathe he was so sick with fear. He knew Will would have to punish them now. Benny or Penny…
Tabit opened the door, and Ben could see Will in the flickering shadows caused by the candlelight on the floor. ‘ Everyone out!’ Will shouted. He was scared, dancing from foot to foot. The shotgun shifted from Ben to Benny now as they came. Will backed down the hall, careful to keep his distance from Ben and his son. The three girls followed behind them.
They came into the basement recreation room. Will placed them as they had been before.
Benny next to Ben, the three girls farther away.
Will paced nervously before them. His eyes were bright, manic. Ben hadn’t seen him like this since the phone call to the police had excited him to threaten to kill Benny and Penny. It terrified him because he knew this time Will was going to take a life.
The cool control, the whispering confidence: it was gone. What Ben saw now was the unadorned man: pure madness.
‘I didn’t want to do this. You pushed me to it!’ He left the room for a split second and returned with a bloodied baseball bat. Was it Judy’s blood? The thought came with a clutching of Ben’s heart. A certainty that he had not admitted until now.
Will told Penny to stand. The girl did as she was told, her mouth open, her dark eyes wide, unblinking. ‘You’ll do it for me, won’t you?’ As he said this, Will handed Penny the bat and pointed at Tammy Merriweather. ‘Right where she sits – take her!’
Ben could hardly believe what he was seeing. Will walked away from Penny and waited.
Penny held the bat and looked down at Tammy Merriweather.
‘Kill her, Penny. Hit her and don’t stop until she’s dead or so help me God everyone dies tonight!’
‘Will?’ Tammy’s voice creaked in fear and confusion.
‘Now, Penny! DO IT NOW!’
Ben Lyons shifted uncomfortably.
Will " wр:fspun toward him, pulling his handgun and pointing it suddenly at Ben. ‘I’ll start with your dad, and I won’t stop until it’s just you and me!’
Tammy was weeping and calling Will’s name plaintively.
‘She’s a traitor, Penny! She betrayed you!’
He walked toward Tabit, pointing the gun at her skull. Ben was sure Tabit Merriweather was about to die, but Will did not pull the trigger. ‘Do you want me to show you how it’s done?’
Penny wept as both Tabit and Tammy wailed for mercy.
Will shifted his gun again, now pointing at Benny. ‘Take her, or I shoot Benny! Your choice!’
Ben spoke. ‘Will, for the love of God!’
Will shifted the gun sights to Ben and shot him in the chest. ‘Shut up, Ben!’
Ben grabbed his chest and stared in utter wonder at the madman. Then he looked at his daughter. ‘Penny, put the bat down! You don’t have to do this! Just put the bat down!’
A second shot hit him, and Ben fell back.
‘Next is Benny!’ Will shouted. ‘You can save him if you want, Penny! All you have to do is kill the traitor!’
Ben heard only the gasps of the others as he struggled vainly to breathe. Then came the surf-sound of blood roaring in his ears, the vision of Will Booker standing over him, his little gun pointing into his face. The coup de grace. Ben waited. Ready, knowing it was the end.
TABIT AND TAMMY ARE wailing. Penny has dropped the bat to the floor. Ben Lyons’s gasps are ragged, loud. Will considers the man, the wounds, then the others. Penny watches with a pale face, her arms wrapped around her chest, her lips hanging open in surprise. Her eyes wet. Penny is not like Tamara, who weeps, nor Tabit, who holds her face in her hands, her breath failing her as she gags. Nor like Boy who wants to join his father in a hero’s grave.
Will shifts the gun to Boy. ‘You want it too, Benny?’
Will feels the blackness coming over him. The ache of his wounds reviving. He hasn’t much time left. He can barely stand before them. Boy sees it, too. His eyes are hot, eager. Will cannot give him the chance. Will points the gun down until it is almost touching Boy’s forehead.
In his rage, Boy fails even to tremble. Instead, he swears at Will with filthy words. Does not even lower his gaze.
Penny pleads, ‘Please, Will, no!’
Will drops the gun to his side in response. They all think it is over. Boy draws a solid breath of relief. Will smiles at him – right before he lifts the gun up again and pulls the trigger.
Part VI Comes an Old Man
An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle.
I Samuel 28: 14.
Chapter 51
Thursday 9:40 p.m., March 25.
I STARTED MY COUNTY CAR AND drove east toward Garrat’s farm on white roads. I pushed past the guardhouse with a wave of my hand maybe twenty-five minutes later and rolled up to the barn.
Garrat was inside riding a big bay stallion in an arena that looked close to seventy yards long. The place was lit up like noon, but it was cold. I stood with her manager and watched her turning the big horse in the tight smooth circles of dressage. Garrat rode in a beat up hunt outfit, jodhpurs, high boots, a worn wool riding coat, and a knocked about cap of felt and steel. She had the look of a woman who did this four or five times a week, a couple-three horses a night. It had been her father’s passion as well.
The barn manager had about ten years on me, a liver ready for life support. He was a short, physically tough man with meaty cheeks, a couple of chins. He had eyes that measured by inches. We didn’t use each other’s name or bother with hello. He’d been around the farm for about forty years and had a good way with horses and the folks who worked with them. He pretty much lumped the rest of the world into his own private dung heap. He was devoted to Pat Garrat and Wild Turkey whiskey, not necessarily in that order. I was competition for Garrat’s affection; we both knew that. I didn’t try for his good opinion or even angle a smile out of the old bastard. We stood together and his small watery eyes never left the centre of the big arena.
Finally he told me, ‘Beautiful, huh?’
I didn’t know if he meant the riding, the horse, or the woman. I grunted in agreement and watched as Garrat cantered the horse. The animal moved with such a compact stride it hardly took any ground at all. I had seen rocking chairs that didn’t look as comfortable. As Garrat came down the line she finally saw me. She said nothing, rode the horse a long way past the gate, stopped and walked the horse out a few more strides. The bay let his head nudge lazily toward the silt floor of the arena. Settling her shoulders quietly without a word or a touch of the reins, Garrat stopped the big horse cold. She slipped off the stallion easily and led him back to the gate. She gave the reins to the manager, who took the horse right back into the arena, walking it toward the other end as we talked.
I had been to the farm plenty but never uninvited. Garrat was certain I was going to tell her one of the Merriweather girls had just been found dead. When I told her about the prints on the bat not matching Booker’s, her face tipped to the side thoughtfully, a mix of relief and frustration as she offered the sum of her reaction: ‘Son-of-a-bitch!’
‘We’ll connect him to the jacket we found in the bag with his DNA,’ I said, ‘but for the moment we’ve got –’
My phone rang and I pulled it from my sports coat. It was Max. ‘We just got a match on those prints, Rick. You’re never going to guess –’
‘Missy Worth,’ I said.
Garrat looked at me curiously. After a long pause, Max asked me, ‘Now how in the hell did you know that?’
‘Just a minute,’ I answered and covered the speaker. ‘The prints on the bat belong to Missy Worth. You want to talk to Max about it or wait until tomorrow?’
Garrat stared at me blankly, absorbing the meaning slowly. Finally, she shook her head.
‘Eight o’clock tomorrow morning. My office.m">р ’
I passed it on to Max and thanked him. ‘How did you know, Rick?’
‘Lucky guess,’ I said
and switched him off.
Garrat kicked the arena gate angrily. From the other end of the arena her stallion lifted his head at the sound. Garrat’s barn manager kept his eyes on the dirt, as I pretty much did too.
Garrat didn’t need to explain herself to me. Max Dunn, as happy as a kid at his own birthday party, had just fallen on the cake. ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked when she didn’t saying anything.
She looked at me curiously. ‘What would the old man do, Rick?’
I looked out at the arena and shook my head. I didn’t have any advice to give. Garrat had stood up to fight when everyone had thought she should walk away; then she’d given up on the thing a few short hours before her opinion proved correct. She had Will Booker for any number of crimes, but her capital case was now irreparably compromised. The state’s star witness had just become a suspect in the narrative the defence attorney would undoubtedly tell.
Will Booker might have lost his world class lawyer when he disappeared with the Merriweather girls, but even a public defender could make a run at this one. And no one beyond the courthouse steps would ever forgive a prosecutor who could not return Booker to his Death Row cell.
A sympathetic view would have put Pat Garrat’s political destiny in the balance, but the truth was bad luck and Max Dunn had finished all talk of higher ambitions. What would the old man have done in her position? I had no wisdom to give her, though she waited with a patience I had never seen in her before.
And then it came to me, one of those awful nights that hit us all eventually. Governor Garrat assailed on all sides, support running away like a routed army – and what had he done? I tipped my head out toward the big bay stallion. ‘The governor would climb back up on that horse out there and just ride, Pat.’
She smiled, a girl who had loved her daddy but was too young when he passed on to understand him entirely. ‘What good would that do him?’
‘Your daddy did his best thinking on top of a horse. I think there were nights he rode five horses sore and went back for another. Next morning, he’d be ready to take on the world.’ I felt a tear boiling up in my old eyes and silently cursed my renegade sentiments. Seventeen years dead ought to kill off the emotions for an old friend, and did for most, but not for the governor.
It didn’t seem to have hardly got a good start.
The barn manager was coming back down the line toward us. ‘You want him back or should I run him on the line, Ms Garrat?’
‘I’ll take him,’ she answered. Taking the reins, she turned back toward me, ‘Max just had to get on TV, didn’t he?’
‘It seemed like a sure thing,’ I said with a sorrowful shrug.
Garrat leaped up on the stallion’s back without the benefit of her stirrups. ‘The only sure things in life are death and taxes. A good politician like Max ought to know that.’
I watched Garrat for nearly half-an-hour befohimрbre I left. She worked like a professional rider training for events, though she hadn’t ridden competitively since her childhood. This was what passed for fun in the Garrat clan. The focus of the woman was comprehensive: for the moment, all that existed was that horse.
The rest of the world was just a surface to ride over.
I WAVED AT GARRAT’S security guard as I left the farm and then rolled out into the country.
I drove all that night along snowy country roads. I found lanes that weren’t on any maps, cabins and sheds long abandoned. I looked into every dark place that whispered to me. I stopped and got out of the car more than once. I smelled the sweet black air for death. I listened for the faint cry of living girls. I studied the snowfields for footprints.
No fool like an old man.
Chapter 52
Friday 8:00 a.m., March 26.
I HAD TIME FOR A SHOWER, a cup of coffee and a change of clothes when I finally got home. I was out the door and driving my three minute commute to work in time for Garrat’s eight o’clock meeting.
Garrat used her conference table for her meeting. Steve Massey was there, Max Dunn and Max’s chief of detectives, Rolly Tincher. Tincher was about the same age as his boss, an inch or two taller, and seventy pounds heavier. Sitting down winded the guy. Both Tincher and Max wore tweed sports jackets. Their shoulder holsters bulged beneath their jackets with sleek pewter-finished Colt .45 automatics. The jackets came off the minute Garrat pointed toward her conference table. This was a tactical manoeuvre, I decided, though probably an unconscious one. Max was in trouble. He needed to discourage a really nasty mauling. Guns showing tended to quiet the girls. Most girls anyway. I doubted guns much affected Pat Garrat. In her world the servants had always worn guns. The people with power, real power, never did.
The meeting began with Garrat asking about the kidnapping of the Merriweather girls.
The sheriff had nothing good to report, nothing at all, really. City, county, and state police were scouring the area for any sign of the girls or their car, he said. Road blocks had been set up throughout the region, the net expanding now to a seven state search. It was cop talk for ‘we lost him.’ Was there anything her office could do to help? Max shook his head. ‘I think we’ve got it covered, Pat. FBI is minding their manners, watching the phones and the mail, holding hands with the Merriweathers. I’ve got a deputy parked outside the reverend’s house, keeping an eye on things.’ An eye on the FBI, he meant.
Even as he finished his report, Max had the look of bracing himself for nasty winds: the matter, once again, of having operated his mouth without benefit of forethought.
‘Then let’s figure out what we’re going to do about these fingerprints,’ Garrat told us all pleasantly.
‘First of all,’ Max announced, ‘I want to apologise for talking to the press before we verified whose prints we had. I’m taking full responsibility for releasing any information before we had confirmed whose prints were on that bat. The mistake is mine and mine alone.’
‘Nobody here wants to point fingers,’ Garrat answered easily. ‘The only thihenрb Tng I’m interested in at this point is whether or not to proceed with an investigation against Missy Worth.’
Max Dunn’s expression went from tense expectancy to incredulity. ‘Investigation for what, Pat?’
Garrat smiled prettily. ‘Murder in the first.’
Max opened his hands in a gesture of conciliation. ‘We’re still looking at a victim here.’
Garrat gave me a quick look, but I couldn’t read it. Conspiratorial? A plea for help? A friendly face? I had no idea where she was going. ‘Missy Worth was never a suspect, Max, never looked at for possible involvement. I think before we make excuses for her fingerprints showing up on our murder weapon we need to get some answers.’
Max Dunn nearly exploded at this. ‘You don’t seriously think she was involved?’
Garrat looked at me. ‘Rick has a theory.’
I cleared my throat, going slowly in case Garrat wanted to present it. ‘There’s some indication,’ I said, ‘that Booker knew his victims in advance. If that’s the case, we don’t know but that Missy and he had a relationship – maybe even planned the whole thing.’
Garrat spoke while Max and Rolly Tincher were still trying to get their jaws hinged back together. ‘He put her in a grave and shot her through the dirt, Max. The slugs barely penetrated her flesh. Everyone just assumed he over-estimated the gun’s power. Maybe he didn’t. We could be looking at a partnership that only blew up when Missy lost her nerve and started telling Nat Hall and Herm Hammer what they wanted to hear.’
I nodded as though this made perfect sense. I was running on faith now. None of us had anything else to go on. But Max wasn’t buying any of it and said so with a sullen fury. ‘Going after victims is bad business,’ he said solemnly. Bad politics, he meant.
Garrat’s expression was one of quiet dismay. ‘Rick?’
I blinked and managed to meet Garrat’s questioning gaze. What did she want? Max was right, but I knew better than to say that. When in doubt, agree with the boss.
‘I think we have to pursue it,’ I said with as much conviction as I could muster.
Garrat looked gratified. ‘I don’t want this thing with the fingerprints to develop into what happened with Booker ten years ago, Max. I don’t want it to even seem like we’re headed down that road. I say we either pursue Missy Worth as an accomplice to murder or you go forward and correct yourself. You spoke too soon... full responsibility, etcetera, etcetera. Just what you told us here.’
Max, who had been gaining ground up to this point, suddenly had the look of wishing he could circle his wagons. He grabbed at his holster uncomfortably and cleared his throat. ‘I’m not sure I’m quite ready to do that. Publicly, I mean. We’ll have DNA on that jacket in a couple of weeks. At that point it might be better to bring up the thing about the prints not being good enough to admit into evidence.’