Hollow Green

by Hannibal Adofo

  “Oh my God…”

  “I’ll call for help,” she said. “But you have to go after Sandoval. Now!”

  “Stone—”

  “Go, Vincent! Now!”

  Vincent looked away, touched her cheek gently, got up out of his crouch, and went after his now-homicidal partner.

  18

  Vincent flew out of the station and spotted an HGPD officer off to his left talking to a National Guard soldier.

  “Hey!” Vincent shouted. “Sandoval! Detective Sandoval! Have you seen him?”

  The officer pointed to the right. “He just got in his car. He was headed toward Main.”

  Main Street.

  He’s just gonna leave town.

  Not if I can help it…

  Vincent’s car was parked out in front, the keys still dangling from the ignition. As he made it to the driver’s side, he spotted Sandoval’s car hauling ass up the road and banking left toward Main.

  Got you.

  Vincent hopped in, twisted the key, and threw the car into gear. He stamped on the gas, shot the car straight up the road, and hooked a left down the same street Sandoval was fleeing down.

  As Vincent turned down the road, he saw that Sandoval’s car was only a hundred yards ahead of him after Sandoval had to go around an overturned police cruiser in the middle of the road.

  Yes!

  Vincent managed to make up ground behind Sandoval as he turned around the wreck, aiming for the rear end of Sandoval’s cruiser in an attempt to fishtail it.

  Come on! Come on! Come on!

  But Sandoval saw him coming. He accelerated and turned the wheel, Sandoval aimed his pistol out the window.

  Duck!

  Vincent fell below the steering column as Sandoval unloaded his pistol in the windshield, the rounds punching through the glass and tearing apart the headrests as the front end of the car clipped the rear of Sandoval’s.

  Vincent’s car came to a dead stop as Sandoval’s did a one-eighty, the pistol knocked from his grip and his head smacking against the airbags that deployed.

  Smoke billowed out of the front end of Sandoval’s car as he and Vincent took a moment to regain their senses. Sandoval spilled out of the passenger side, slumped to the pavement, pushed off, and began running toward Main.

  Vincent, about a half-second behind him in the struggle to shake off his double vision, saw Sandoval running as he brought his head upright and began jiggling the handle on his door.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  “Come on, damn it!” Vincent cried out.

  He hit it. Shoved it with his shoulder. But nothing was working.

  Vincent slid onto the lower part of his back, raised his right foot, and began kicking out the bullet-peppered windshield.

  One kicks. Two kicks. Three kicks. Four.

  The glass gave way.

  Vincent crawled onto the hood, slid off it, and ran after Sandoval with his pistol still clutched in his hand.

  Sandoval took a left, then a right, then another left, sidestepping and running through the alleyway between the convenience store and the auto parts place, Vincent fifty feet away from him and closing.

  Sandoval hopped a fence, turned left, then right, then left again—and smacked into an FBI sedan coasting onto Main Street slow enough that it didn’t kill him, but fast enough that it rolled him head over heels.

  Down for the count.

  Vincent closed in on Sandoval, pistol aimed at his back, as the agent behind the wheel of the sedan climbed out.

  “What’s going on?”

  Without taking his eyes off Sandoval, Vincent said, “HGPD. We need to take this man into custody. Call in an ambulance. Quick.”

  Vincent holstered his pistol and crouched beside Sandoval. “What were you thinking, man? Why? Why did you do this?”

  Sandoval spat blood and shook his head as his eyes glazed over. “The hell with you, man… The hell with the world…”

  Vincent stood back to process all that had happened. The sirens of an ambulance rang out in the distance as the madness, confusion, chaos, and the killing in the sleepy town of Hollow Green finally came to an end.

  19

  One Year Later

  No one remembered much of what happened. Most of the people in the town had made it a point to forget.

  After the dust had settled, and the media hordes took their bite of the story, the sleepy town of Hollow Green returned to its preferred state of anonymity, with all the damage repaired, the proper people reprimanded, and memorial services for the five slain law enforcement officials that had perished as a result:

  CHIEF LEONARD MASON

  OFFICER LOUISE KING

  OFFICER HOLLAND BECK

  OFFICER JOHN SLATTERY

  FBI SPECIAL AGENT SARAH WHITBECK

  FBI SPECIAL AGENT KELLY O’REILLY

  Plaques were made. A granite and brass rock carving was erected in the park. After all the vigils were held, after all the apologies were made, Edgar Vincent found himself the new acting chief of the Hollow Green Police Department.

  And for the moment that job suited him just fine.

  He spent more of his time behind a desk, and being that the post-riot Hollow Green would never face obstacles or stakes that difficult or high again, most of the work was easy breezy.

  Today, Memorial Day, he was setting a red, white, and blue wreath over the carving in the park molded to look like a fire. The names of the officers and agents who died were etched into the sides of the flames that gracefully twisted toward the sky with an inscription on the bottom that read:

  To our fallen heroes, a fire will forever burn bright for you…

  Vincent sighed, adjusted the wreath, and stood back to check it like a curator hanging a painting.

  Vincent turned after hearing the sound of a horn, looked at the driver, and saw a relaxed Special Agent Miranda Stone behind the wheel. “Evening, Chief Vincent,” she said. “Long time.”

  Vincent gave a toothy smile and approached the driver’s side. “Acting Chief,” he corrected “Long time indeed. What brings you back to Hollow Green?”

  Stone motioned around the scenery. “Just came to try some of that good diner food you were raving about last time.”

  Vincent shrugged. “I doubt that. You look like you’re here on business.”

  Stone nodded, somewhat bashfully. “Unfortunately, yes. Just need to ask a few closing questions about Angel Sandoval’s case and everything that went on here. For the record. They’re tying off all loose ends, and I just need to an official statement from you about a couple of things.”

  “Don’t suppose a phone call could have sufficed?”

  Stone smiled. “Now where’s the fun in that?”

  Vincent grinned and nodded at the sunshine. “Mind if we do this outside? Kind of nice today. I’d like to enjoy it as long as possible.”

  Stone had already killed the engine.

  “Why not?”

  They strolled through the park, Stone asking her questions, and Vincent giving his answers. They had already covered all of the major stuff way back when Sandoval was on the mend and then charged with a litany of offenses that landed him in a maximum-security facility for the rest of his life.

  It was a quick trial, with Sandoval convicted of the murders of the original three victims, the chief, two Hollow Green Police officers, and one FBI agent. The others killed during the riot perished in accidents on the highway at one of the roadblocks.

  It turned out, through a long-overdue blood test, that Sandoval was indeed John Doe’s brother that Doe was a drifter with amnesia that kept falling in and out of a system that Sandoval couldn’t get him out of.

  Sandoval tried to keep it quiet from everyone at the department, but apparently went into a fit after his brother committed suicide, and then he murdered people he felt were responsible for his brother’s demise.

  During his confession, Sandoval said that the three victims he killed in the same fashion as Trevor Michaels’
killing spree were a pair of guards he’d felt abused his brother to the point that he killed himself, and the bookkeeper—victim number two—who told Davidson they needed to cut their budget, which made Sandoval feel like his brother wasn’t receiving the treatment he required.

  Sandoval located his long-lost brother, found him, couldn’t get him out, and then blamed four people for his death.

  So he came up with a plan. First Sandoval tracked down Trevor Michaels after his release, killed him, and buried him. Then he staged the first three murders in Hollow Green to look like Michaels had committed them.

  In order to kill Davidson, the fourth individual he held responsible, Sandoval kept in touch with an inmate at the facility and convinced him to start a riot and kill Dr. Davidson while Sandoval committed the murders in Hollow Green. It was a plan fueled by passion and madness created to cover up a revenge spree.

  Needless to say, though, it all fell apart.

  “I’m not sure what else you need to know,” Vincent said to Stone. “I’ve told you everything. This was settled a year ago.”

  “Believe me, I know,” Stone said. “I was in bed for the first two weeks of it recovering.”

  “How are you feeling, by the way?”

  “Better. Healed. You?”

  Vincent nodded. “Much better. After everything happened, Danny—my ex-wife—called me up, and she… Well, let’s just say things are going better. Much better.”

  “Good,” Stone said. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I’m happy to say it. What about you? What about your family?”

  Stone looked off into the distance. Shrugged. “Not all of us have happy endings, Chief.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said. “I just think we get them at different times.”

  “You saying I’m going to get a positive ending at some point?”

  He nodded. “Indeed I do.”

  They shared the silence, watching the golden sun beginning to set in the west.

  “You’re not here on business,” Vincent said. “We answered all these questions about Sandoval a year ago. You’re here for something else.”

  She nodded. Shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just… Everything that happened was sorted out. But I still feel… off about all of it.”

  “Because it was insane. Sandoval was operating off emotion, and when emotions are brought into the mix, it gets messy.”

  “I just don’t understand. Why the ruse? Why did he kill all those people?”

  “To distract us.”

  “I know the reasoning. I just don’t understand it. So many people died. He could have just… I don’t know. He could have just hired a hitman. Killed the people he wanted and made it look like an accident.”

  “But he didn’t. He chose a different route.”

  Stone sighed.

  It just didn’t make any sense…

  “You know what happens when people bring emotions into the mix,” Vincent said. “Nothing is logical at that point. We think with our guts, even though we try not to. We love, even though love is a nebulous concept. We’re human beings, Stone. And sometimes, human beings just don’t make any sense.”

  Stone took the time to soak in his words.

  For the first time in a long time, she was comforted. For someone who worked for an organization so analytical, for a person who was so used to the facts telling her the truth, she had forgotten about the one thing that drove every living person to make the most crucial choices in their lives: emotion.

  And sometimes, for no reason at all, it just gets messy…

  “I was serious about one thing, though,” she said.

  Vincent asked, “What’s that?”

  “The diner food you told me about when I was in the hospital a year ago getting stitched up. You raved about that woman’s pancakes. What was her name?”

  “Joanne,” Vincent said. “Best damn cakes in the state.”

  Stone made a gun with her fingers, cocked a thumb, and shot Vincent in the chest. “You’re buying, ace.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  They went off to have the best breakfast of their lives.

  From The Author

  I’d like to thank you for not only downloading but for reading Hollow Green. Edgar Vincent’s stories will continue in a series of upcoming novellas and even full blown novels depending on how his story ends and I hope you enjoy reading every one of them.

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