1 Twisted Perception
Page 24
Elliot continued his verbal assault. “Marcia Barnes was your first, wasn’t she, Ralph? You killed her because she reminded you of Rachael. But more to the point, she reminded you of yourself, what you’d become.”
The distraction began to work. Ralph Kincaid came toward Elliot, away from Carmen. “Your father is to blame,” Elliot said. “He made you what you are. It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? I spent most of my life wishing I could meet my father, and now I ‘m glad I didn’t. He wasn’t a very nice person, was he?”
In a flash of movement, Ralph made the distance from his side of the room to Elliot’s, dropping the knife and grasping Elliot’s throat with his free hand. “You shut the hell up.”
Charlie Johnson spoke, “Don’t do this, Ralph. Please don’t.”
“Papa Terrance made you do it,” Elliot said, “forced you to pretend to be Rachael whenever the need arose to cover her murder.”
Ralph’s eyes grew wet. “She torments me, screams at me from her grave. I have to shut her up.”
“But she loves you, looks out for you, killing those who would harm you.”
“Don’t kid yourself. She’s no angel, our Rachael. Looking out for number one, that’s what she’s doing. I resurrected her. If I die, she dies.”
With a collage of razor sharp pains, Elliot tore his hand free of the cuff. “But it didn’t stop there, did it, Ralph? Once Papa saw how well you carried out the performance, he made you become your sister more often. He made you become sweet Rachael just for him, to satisfy his longing for her at night.”
Ralph’s lips quivered, his eyes shining with moisture, and it was then that Elliot made his move. He spun loose from his captor’s grip and caught him square on the chin with a hard right. Ralph stumbled, dropped the Glock, then came at Elliot. Elliot didn’t have time to pick up the fallen weapon. He sidestepped and dug his left fist into Ralph’s solar plexus. But still he came, and then he was on top of Elliot, those burning eyes glaring like hot coals.
Ralph Kincaid was incredibly powerful, running on adrenaline, and Elliot couldn’t match his strength, but he could take his mobility. Lowering his left shoulder, Elliot plowed into his attacker, lifting him from his feet. Once he had him, he continued the forward motion, running him into the wall. When Elliot released him, Ralph fell to the floor.
Elliot couldn’t find the Glock, but the knife was there. He scooped it up and spun around behind Ralph, putting the blade to his throat. “Capital T for Papa Terrance, Ralphie.”
Coming from the wall where she was chained, Elliot heard the weak but distinctive voice of Carmen. “Kenny?”
With Elliot’s attention loosened, Ralph made a grunting noise, like that of an animal, and suddenly their roles were reversed. Elliot lay on the floor with his arms splayed out, and stared at the angry man hovering over him, holding the Glock in his face. Elliot knew it was over, and that his recently acquired understanding would die right there in the house where it had all started, though the touch of cold steel against his hand brought a glimmer of hope. A flash belched from the barrel of the Glock followed by a deafening blast. At the same time, maybe a little before and even as Elliot’s soul prepared for his executioner’s prevailing effort, his flesh reacted to the chance it had been given. He fired one well-placed shot from the .38 Chief Johnson had slipped into his hand. Elliot waited to feel the pain of the bullet tearing through his chest but it never came. Ralph Kincaid crumpled to the floor with blood drooling from the hole in his head.
Carmen was sobbing pitifully.
Charlie Johnson dropped to his knees and he too began to cry, lifting his nephew’s head from the floor to cradle it in his arms while blood trickled down the dead man’s face and stained the chief’s shirt. With sorrow and tenderness befitting the love of a father, the kind of father Ralph Kincaid never had, Charlie held the boy and cried. It was as painful to watch as it was to hear. “He loved going to the games,” Charlie said, “watching you and Johnnie play. To be like you and Johnnie was all he ever wanted.”
Tears rolled down Charlie’s cheeks, falling onto the face of Ralph Kincaid, the tiny swells of saltwater diluting the blood in those areas where they mixed. “He lived in shame, afraid those who might look him in the eye would see what he was, what he’d done.”
Emotion settled over Elliot like a heavy fog as he watched Deputy Stanton walk into the room, going quickly to the side of Chief Johnson. Stanton picked up the Glock that lay beside Ralph Kincaid then, gesturing toward Carmen, asked Charlie for the keys. Stanton in turn gave them to Elliot.
Elliot turned away from the sadness and went to the wall where Carmen was shackled. Cautiously he unlocked the bindings, and like a rag doll she melted into his arms. She was barely conscious as Elliot helped her out of the house, but still he could hear her words as she mumbled them, for she said that she loved him. They were powerful, heartfelt words.
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Elliot noticed the glow from the neighbors’ security light scattering dimly across his room as he leaned back against the headboard. He wasn’t concerned about the light. It was so easily set off it almost didn’t matter, and at times like this he actually found it comforting. He’d dreamed of Carmen. She’d come to him in the middle of the night, tiptoeing into his room and taking his hand to place upon her rounded stomach. “He lives,” she’d said. “I carried your child, now I carry his.”
With that Carmen began to laugh, though it wasn’t the soft laughter of the woman Elliot loved, but the harsh and heavy breathing of a man, and when she leaned closer, bringing her face into the glow of the moonlight, it wasn’t Carmen that Elliot saw, but the ugly and distorted face of Terrance Kincaid.
Elliot had sat up in a cold sweat, breathing hard until he had realized it was a dream and had fallen against the headboard where he now lay. It was the third night this week the nightmare had brought him out of his sleep. He could only attribute it to the thoughts of unfinished business that crawled around inside his head. It was Carmen. Elliot had tried to arrange dinner with her, to talk things out and see where they stood. But Carmen was still uncertain about her marriage.
Once again Elliot owed his freedom and his life to Charlie Johnson, who’d made sure Deputy Stanton knew Elliot had nothing to do with what was going on in that room, and that he would not have been there in the first place had he not been brought against his will. Charlie told Stanton everything—the whole story, beginning with his finding out about the existence of his nephew. Elliot had asked Johnson why he hadn’t done something earlier, stepped forward to help Ralph, but Charlie had only confirmed what was already obvious. He’d said he hadn’t known about the boy, until it was too late. No one had. Terrance Kincaid had kept his son locked away in a boarded-up part of the house. The only child the family—or anyone else for that matter—had ever known about was Rachael.
Charlie blamed himself, claiming responsibility for everything, though his only crime was in doing the world a favor by putting a bullet between the eyes of his sister’s husband. Then Charlie Johnson had told his deputy he had some things to take care of before turning himself in. God only knows what was going through his mind. Anyway he took one last walk through his house, the one he’d loved and maintained with a fresh coat of paint every year, then went outside and leaned against one of the old oak trees in his backyard, put his service revolver in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
Time had passed since the ordeal. Dombrowski had given Elliot a thirty-day suspension and it was nearly over. The black-handled knife with Elliot’s fingerprints would have been tough to explain had Nick not corroborated the fact that Ralph Kincaid had come into his garage that day, pretending to ask for directions. Kincaid had seen Elliot handling the knife, and had broken into the garage and stolen it. Nick also confirmed the break-in, and the missing knife. Kincaid knew the body of his sister, Rachael—actually Suzie Miller, the waitress he’d murdered—had not been discovered, so he returned to the scene and left the knife there, hoping the effort would throw t
he police off his trail. It had nearly worked.
Nick was back in Porter, spending his days at the garage and working on cars. Maybe it all turned out best for him. He’d kept to himself mostly, and no one had understood the depth of his problems. As it turned out, seeing Elliot again had plunged Nick a little too deeply into the reality of his fantasy world. He was seeing a therapist now and doing much better.
As for Detective Beaumont, his little problem took care of itself without any help from Elliot. Beaumont was no longer with the department.
Elliot had sent Wayne a football and one of his old Porter Pirates jerseys. Carmen said he loved it. She’d agreed that he and Wayne should spend some time together, get to know one another. But Carmen was the one who tortured Elliot. Seeing her again after all those years had done more than rekindle the old flame. He got out of bed. Perhaps he would call her today and tell her how he felt. He went to the window and pressed his face against the cool glass and looked out over the yard, but somehow the old view just didn’t look the same. He suspected it never would.
Detective Elliot Mysteries
by Bob Avey
Twisted Perception
Kindle – Nook - Kobo
Beneath a Buried House
Kindle – Nook - Kobo
Footprints of a Dancer
Kindle – Nook - Kobo
Bob Avey’s website: bobavey.com
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my appreciation to the Tulsa NightWriters and the Crossroads Writers for offering inspiration, encouragement, and appropriate criticism; and to the Tulsa Police Department, and Cpl. Tom Vallely, for graciously answering my questions.
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