The priest couldn’t be more wrong. Bart’s list of sins were large by any standard. Plus, even as they spoke, a pair of corpses lay frozen solid in his trunk outside.
“What if I’m not sorry,” Bart asked, his question surprising even Father O’Brien. “I mean, do you have to be repentant to get forgiveness?”
“Well yes. That’s how it works,” the priest responded. “How can you be forgiven if you aren’t sorry for what you’ve done?”
“Can you forgive me for something I’m about to do?” Bart asked.
“No, my son. I don’t think I can do that either,” the priest replied. “What are you about to do that’s so bad?”
“I’m sorry father. This was a bad idea,” Bart said as he stood up and left the confessional. “I need to be going. I’ve got to be somewhere in a few minutes.”
Father O’Brien emerged from the confessional and watched as Bart walked briskly toward the door.
“Come back when you get things straight,” the priest called after the unrepentant soul.
“Tell you what father,” Bart said as he paused before going out the door. “If things go my way tonight, I’ll be at church tomorrow.”
With that Bart turned to leave.
Sam’s phone rang just as he passed the Castle County line. His eyes were starting to cross from straining them into the blowing snow that pelted his windshield.
“Well I think I’ve got what you want,” Cliff revealed. “I went back and looked up the old story and let me tell you, I was kind of surprised. Do you realize it’s been nearly twenty-two years since that old bar burned down? Time flies doesn’t it?”
Time had flown, yet, in a way it seemed to Sam it had just happened yesterday. He could still see the Red Dog in his mind’s eye just as if it was still standing.
“What about the girl?” Sam asked.
“Well that’s a funny thing,” Cliff began. “I couldn’t for the life of me remember her name, that is, until I went back and looked up the fire.”
“And?” Sam interjected, hoping to get the old journalist to the point.
“And, I kept turning through the pages, looking at the old stories from back then,” Cliff continued. “That’s when I came across a wreck that happened a few weeks after the Red Dog burned.”
“What’s that have to do with anything?” Sam wondered.
“Well if you’ll listen for a second, I’ll tell you,” Cliff replied. “So anyway, there was a girl involved in the wreck. She had to be flown out, got hurt pretty bad. It was the girl who was with the Porter girl that night at the bar. I remember thinking that to myself back then, connecting the two. It’s funny how a memory works, isn’t it sheriff?”
“Yes, hilarious,” Sam said. “What was her name?”
“I’ve got it right here in front of me so I wouldn’t forget,” Cliff replied as he looked at his notes. “Her name is Elizabeth Warner.”
“Is she still around Easton?” Sam asked excitedly.
“That I wouldn’t know,” Cliff responded. “There’s not a lot of Warners around so it shouldn’t be hard to find out.”
“That’s true,” Sam agreed. “I’ll do that as soon as I get to the office.”
“So you ready to tell me what you’ve got going on?” Cliff asked. “I mean, I spent my Saturday night doing your research.”
“Trust me, if this works out you will be the first to know,” Sam said thanking the reporter as he pulled up outside the sheriff’s office, anxious to look through the phone book.
Sam found six listings under the name “Warner” in the Castle County phone book. None of them were for Elizabeth Warner. He realized there was no guarantee any of them would have any relation to the woman he was looking for but then he was due for a bit of luck.
That luck seemed far away at first as, one by one, the listings failed to pay off. The sheriff had pretty well lost hope as he dialed the last listing, one for Randolph Warner.
“Hello. Is Elizabeth there?” Sam asked.
“Who is this?” Randolph Warner replied in a stern voice.
“I was calling for Elizabeth Warner,” Sam repeated. “Do you know her?”
“I don’t know who this is but I don’t appreciate what you’re doing,” he responded in an angry tone. “Now who is this before I hang up?”
The man’s response made Sam's heart jump. He may have just hit pay dirt.
“I’m sorry. This is Sheriff Sam Delaney,” he explained. “I’m trying to reach Elizabeth Warner.”
The tone on the other end changed.
“Sheriff Delaney. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize your voice,” Randolph said. “I was afraid it was someone playing a sick joke or something.”
“So you do know Elizabeth Warner then?” Sam clarified.
“Why yes. She was my daughter,” Randolph said, the sheriff quietly pumping his fist as he stood up from his chair.
“Do you suppose I could talk to her or get a number or something?” Sam asked.
His request was met with silence on the other end of the line. Randolph didn't know how to respond to the sheriff’s request.
“I’m sorry sheriff, but that’d be impossible,” Randolph began. “Elizabeth died three months ago.”
“Died?” Sam repeated aloud.
“Yes. She had cancer for quite a while,” Randolph said in a hushed tone. “She fought it hard but lost her battle.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam apologized as he racked his brain trying to place her seeing Castle County wasn’t exactly a metropolis. “I didn’t know. Did she have any children?”
His question was met with a slight chuckle from the other end of the line. Sam found that odd given the subject matter of their discussion.
“Yes she does. He was adopted as an infant and she raised him as her own,” Randolph responded. “I figured you knew that.”
Sam was confused. What would make Randolph think he would know about his daughter or her son?
“How would I know that?” Sam asked.
“Because you just hired him a couple months back. He works for you,” Randolph responded his words causing the sheriff to catch his breath as he heard the sound of his own blood pumping in his ears. “He isn’t a Warner though. Maybe that’s why you didn’t recognize the name. He goes by his adopted father’s name – Faulkner. He’s your deputy Ben Faulkner.”
Sam dropped the receiver, his mouth agape, ignoring Randolph calling out wondering where he had gone.
“Sheriff! Sheriff! You there, sheriff?” the far off sound of Randolph’s voice continued as the receiver swung back and forth on its cord beneath the sheriff’s desk.
“That’s how he did it,” Sam whispered to himself.
It was obvious now why there were no clues found at the scenes of the first two crimes. Deputy Faulkner had been first on the scene at both the Andy Crouch and Eddie Young murders. The CSI team was looking for strange prints, those that couldn’t be accounted for. Prints belonging to the sheriff and his deputies were discounted since they were “supposed to be there.” It was also apparent who doctored the phone records, something that had bothered Sam given his suspicion he had a mole in his department. The deputy had been able to hack the system, or more likely figure out the sheriff’s passcode, to erase Rhody’s conversation with his girlfriend on the eve of his short-lived escape. And, he had done it all to avenge what they had done to his mother so long ago.
Forgetting he had just been talking on the phone with Randolph, Sam clicked on his intercom to dispatch.
“Is Ben Faulkner on duty tonight?” Sam asked as he stared blankly at the wall, still in a state of shock.
“Yes sheriff,” the dispatcher responded. “He’s out on a call right now.”
“Where?” Sam questioned.
“He’s out on a call of shots fired,” she responded. “It’s in the vicinity of the old Red Dog.”
FAMILY REUNION
Bart wept as he fell to his knees in the snow looking into the face of his father.
Only a wire held the former sheriff to the pole, keeping his lifeless body from falling face down in the powder. Bart’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. He could see the gaping holes where his bullets had ripped through his father’s body, exiting out his chest. The form he thought was the dark man through his night sight was actually his own father. He had been tethered to the pole like a condemned man before a firing squad. Bart had in fact hit his target when sniping from the top of the hill, striking the center of mass with every squeeze of the trigger. The first shot had likely proved fatal to the long-time lawman.
Bart wouldn’t be afforded a formal period of mourning as the sound of a voice behind him interrupted his macabre gaze into his father’s dead eyes.
“Put your hands behind your head and kick the gun away from you!” Deputy Ben Faulkner ordered in a firm voice, his gun trained at Bart’s head. “Do it now, sir!”
Recognizing the young deputy, worried the gun might go off by accident if he made a false move, Bart did as ordered. He slowly rose from his knees before kicking his rifle away.
“I can explain, deputy,” Bart began. “It’s not what it looks like. It was the killer who did this. He called me here and killed my father. It was the dark man. He’s still here …somewhere.”
Bart’s explanation fell on deaf ears as the deputy stood silently with his gun still trained on him.
“Well, aren’t you going to do something, officer?” Bart said, looking down the barrel of the deputy’s gun. “He is still out here. He could kill us both. Don't you hear what I’m saying?”
The deputy remained silent despite Bart’s emotional plea. The night was so quiet he could hear the snow hitting the ground.
“Did you bring the head?” the deputy asked calmly.
“What?” Bart stammered.
“I asked, did you bring the head like I told you,” Ben repeated in a calm voice. “Eddie Young’s head. I loaned it to you this morning. I’d like it back.”
Bart couldn’t believe his ears. The young deputy was the dark man!
“I won’t ask you again,” Ben repeated as he cocked back his gun’s hammer.
“It’s in my bowling bag in the car,” Bart replied quickly. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
“Let’s just say I’m a man who cares,” Ben replied. “But, while we’re playing twenty questions I just have to ask - do you have a soul?”
Bart couldn’t fathom the deputy’s query. Here they stood in the middle of a vacant lot, the cold freezing them to the bone, his father riddled with bullet holes, his blood still running onto the snow and he was asking if he had a soul.
“I’ve killed a lot of men,” Ben confessed. “It’s just part of my line of work, nothing personal. But I’ve never seen a person who would kill their friends at the drop of a hat like you. You're pure evil.”
Bart claimed ignorance to the deputy’s assertion. He wasn't about to confess his long list of wrongdoings.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bart replied.
“Come on Bart. It’s just me and you here. No one else,” Ben began. “I’ll share if you’ll share. You know, they say confession is good for the soul.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Bart countered, his eyes darting to the ground, his attempts at absolution minutes earlier at the church a miserable failure.
Ben wore a wry smile on his youthful face as he looked knowingly down his barrel at Bart.
“Your friend Andy - I almost backed out,” Ben confessed. “I showed up at his place not knowing what I’d do. I’d planned it all out, how I was going to get rid of all of you. I mean he had it coming but I still wasn’t sure when I got there. It was actually pure bad luck on his part.”
“Bad luck?” Bart asked timidly.
“Yes, I suppose you could say that,” Ben thoughtfully responded. “Frankly, the fact he had a wood burning stove cost him his life. I was walking up to his house when I saw the ax lodged in a piece of wood out front so I grabbed it. I mean I couldn’t shoot him in the face with my sidearm.”
“I suppose not,” Bart agreed.
“So anyway, I walked up his steps and was standing there, in my uniform mind you, holding the ax in my hand trying to decide if I wanted to go through with it,” Ben recalled. “That’s when he opened the door. I figure he was heading to work or something because he was dressed in his factory shirt. He left me no choice. I was standing there with an ax. He forced my hand so I killed him. The good news for him is that he never knew what hit him.”
Bart stood silently considering the deputy’s confession to the murder - a murder which had started the house of cards to fall.
“Your turn,” Ben said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Bart replied.
“Yes you do,” Ben retorted. “I was there the next night outside Eddie Young’s trailer.”
“What?” Bart snapped back, still trying to deny his guilt.
“Imagine my surprise,” Ben began. “I go there with plans to get Eddie and I hear gun shots so I turn off my headlights and just sit there and watch. And what do you suppose I see? Is it coming back to yet, Bart? I see Eddie stumbling out of his trailer, running around in the snow like a drunken maniac with a gun in his hand and then I see someone dressed all in black sneaking into his trailer. That’s where I got the whole idea to dress in black when I went out hunting. You were the original dark man. I’m just a copycat.”
Bart realized his crime was witnessed by the deputy. He thought there were no witnesses to his murderous deed that night.
“Eddie was a drunk,” Bart declared. “He was in a panic. He figured he was next. I knew it was only a matter of time until his drunken tongue got us all, so I took the liberty. He’d filled up my voice mail with crazy messages. Pretty soon, I knew he’d be calling other folks and it wasn’t exactly like you sent out a schedule of when you’d pay him a call so I couldn’t take the chance of him spilling his guts.”
“The liberty of killing your friend?” Ben clarified. “You cut his head clean off.”
“I don’t know if you’d call him a friend,” Bart said pointing out the two rarely spoke since the Red Dog burned down. “As far as the head thing, that was just a lucky swing."
“You could have been shot,” Ben countered. “He did have a gun you know.”
“He couldn’t have hit the broad side of a barn in his condition,” Bart replied, cracking a grin despite his situation. “If you ask me, I did him a favor. Left to his own deserts he would have died from cirrhosis of the liver.”
Ben shook his head in disbelief at Bart’s coldness.
“I guess I should thank you for leaving his head,” Ben said. “When I went in after you left it was just lying there, staring at me. Now it’ll serve as the prime piece of evidence against you.”
“So you’re planning on taking me in?” Bart asked in a hopeful voice.
“Then there’s the little matter of Stevie Grissom,” Ben continued as he ignored Bart’s question. “I really would have felt bad killing him, given the way he’s turned his life around and all. Of course, again, you didn’t give me that opportunity.”
Bart again grinned at the deputy’s grasp of the situation.
“He was on the edge of telling the sheriff everything,” Bart replied. “His wife had his stones. I had to take advantage of the situation. We followed him from his house, me and my two colleagues who you stuffed in my trunk. When he got out at the store I crawled in his back seat and waited for him to leave. It was easy after that. He never saw it coming.”
“See, confession is good for the soul,” Ben said. “And while you’re confessing I have to confess that I followed you from the parking lot to the place you thought you’d hidden his vehicle. Just like the night before, you’d beat me to the prey.”
“I was going to come back the next night once Rhody broke out of jail and kill two birds with one stone,” Bart admitted. “But the car and the body were gone so I had to make arrangemen
ts for another vehicle to pick up our escapee.”
“The car is still there. I just pulled it down the trail from where you hid it in the woods,” Ben noted. “I, as you know by now, removed the body of the late Stevie Grissom and deposited him into the closet of the Honorable Mayor Satterfield later that night. I had to let you know someone was watching. He was still bleeding when I got there. You left a fresh kill.”
Ben looked for a twinkle of regret in Bart’s eyes. There was none.
“And then there was Rhody Turner. I have to admit I hadn’t a clue how I was going to get to him but you are very good at what you do,” Ben noted. “Oh, and you’re welcome for my getting rid of the recording of his conversation with Tia. I couldn’t take the chance of the sheriff implicating you in the escape, um, and the murder - or should I say murders - since you’re the one who killed Tia too. I hate that worst of all since she really had nothing to do with all of this. I couldn’t have you locked up in his jail like Rhody was. I have a schedule to keep.”
“The girl was expendable,” Bart snapped.
“You are a real piece of work,” Ben said shaking his head in amazement and disgust.
Bart took Ben’s words as a compliment. He was impressed by his own ability to adapt to the static situation and eliminate those who posed a threat.
“It’s my turn,” Bart declared, wondering about Ben’s motivations. “You never told me why you’re a man who cares. Are you kin to Earl Cutts, maybe a grandson or something? He wasn’t exactly man of the year you know. He did some bad things, some very bad things.”
Ben couldn’t help but laugh at Bart’s ignorance.
“You really don’t get it do you?” Ben declared through his laughter. “This isn’t about Earl Cutts. Besides, you did a bad job killing him since he’s still alive. It looks like he’s the only one you didn’t kill given the head count you’ve amassed in under a week, most of them your friends. I barely had to lift a finger. I feel like Tom Sawyer and the picket fence.”
“Alive? Impossible!” Bart snapped. “I saw him burn up right here.”
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