A Time of Torment (12 page)

‘Jesus,’ said Kezia, and Paige began whimpering.

‘Please,’ said Bryce again. ‘Please …’

‘My bro—’ the gunman began, then paused. ‘My
friend
here,’ he corrected himself, ‘is going to keep an eye on you all while I take a look behind that door. He doesn’t care much for firearms. He’s better with a blade. Don’t make him prove it.’

He pointed his gun at Paige.

‘You, missy. Up you get. You’re going to open that door for me, and show me around.’

Paige didn’t move. She knew what was going to happen behind the door.

‘No,’ she whispered.

The gunman squatted before her, and pushed the muzzle of the gun against her mouth so hard that the sight split her lip.

‘I think you misheard me,’ he said.

He snagged the sight under her teeth, and used it to draw her to her feet. As he did so, he looked from her to Burnel.

‘And you,’ he said. ‘I like your jacket.’

Which was when the Sagadahoc County sheriff’s deputy pulled up outside.

B
ack at the Bear, Burnel took a sip of beer.

‘Have you ever been in that position?’ he asked Parker. ‘You know, at the mercy of someone without mercy?’

He smiled at his own formulation, and Parker was given a brief glimpse of the man Burnel once was – and somewhere deep inside, might still be: clever, but not overly so; confident and educated, but not arrogant. But the kind of man to store child pornography in both physical and electronic form, and not secure it?

That remained to be seen.

‘We all have,’ said Parker, which was when Louis joined them. ‘Well,’ Parker added, regarding Louis, and reconsidering his own answer in light of his presence, ‘most of us.’

‘And you survived,’ said Burnel. He looked from Parker to Angel and Louis, then back again.

‘The fact that you have an audience suggests we did,’ said Angel. His tone gave no indication that his attitude toward Burnel had softened in the course of his tale.

‘And the other party involved?’

‘It’s happened on more than one occasion,’ said Parker.

‘The
parties
involved, then.’

There was silence for a time, until Louis answered the question.

‘They didn’t come out of it so good.’

‘But,’ said Parker to Burnel, ‘we have that in common, don’t we?’

‘Yes,’ Burnel replied, ‘I think we do.’

And he returned to his story.

S
agadahoc County was the smallest county in the state of Maine, with a lot of inhabitants of Scots-Irish Presbyterian heritage, of which Deputy Ralph Erskine was one. He was named after a prominent eighteenth-century Presbyterian churchman, a statue of whom stood in the center of the town of Dunfermline in Scotland. Deputy Erskine intended to have his photograph taken alongside his namesake just as soon as he had enough money on which to retire, and thus enable him to make a pilgrimage to his ancestral homeland.

Erskine felt that he’d gotten off easy when it came to his nomenclature: his older brother, Ebenezer Erskine, was also named after a Scottish cleric, who had been, in turn, the older brother of the original Ralph Erskine. All of this had come about because Deputy Erskine’s late father, a man of impressive miserabilism, had been a Teaching Elder in the Presbytery of Northern New England. Upon his death, it was revealed that, in addition to leaving various small sums to his family in his will, and larger sums to his beloved church, he had also set aside a figure of $500 for a ‘modest celebration of his life’, as long as it was spent on nothing stronger than tea and lemonade. Just to be sure that everyone got the message, his will had included the relevant portion of the constitution of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, which advised that ‘it is altogether wise and proper that Christians refrain from the use, sale and manufacture of alcoholic beverages.’ It had given Deputy Erskine no small amount of pleasure to redirect some of that $500 toward the purchase of a bottle of fifteen-year-old Balvenie, which he and Ebenezer had shared by their father’s graveside.

Deputy Erskine was one week short of his fifty-third birthday when he pulled up outside the Dunstan family gas station. He had a wife, four children, and a grandchild. He also had a liking for the pastries cooked by Bryce Dunstan’s wife, Dot. Since he was prediabetic, this was a weakness which his own wife regularly warned might kill him someday.

On this particular evening, Erskine had not intended to indulge himself with a crafty muffin, as he’d just eaten a Firehouse sub back in Topsham, but the absence of lights at the gas station had drawn his attention. Bryce sometimes closed up early if the mood struck him, but early for him was nine p.m., and that was still more than an hour away. Erskine pulled up outside, walked to the door, and tested it. Most of the lights were out, apart from a couple at the rear, and he caught signs of movement. He rapped on the glass, and called Bryce’s name, but received no reply.

‘Hey, all okay in there?’ he asked.

Bryce appeared at the back of the store, and waved to him.

‘Fine,’ he shouted. ‘Just closing up.’

But he did not approach the door.

Ralph Erskine was slightly overweight and, when under stress, was inclined to stammer. He’d never aspired to be sheriff, or even chief deputy. Neither did he want to be a lieutenant, a sergeant, or a corporal. Promotion might have meant more money, but it would also have involved administration, and additional paperwork, and meetings, and Erskine hated meetings more than he hated hemorrhoids.

None of this meant that Erskine was not smart. He just liked being a patrol cop, and he was good at it. It was as though he’d been bred for it in the womb. Now he felt instinctively that something was wrong at Dunstan’s, and only the requirement to establish some certainty about it prevented him from returning to his car and calling for backup.

Erskine kept his voice as casual as he could.

‘Come on, Bryce. I’m cold and damp, and I need a cup of coffee. Do the Christian thing here.’

Bryce’s face was hard to see from where Erskine stood, but he was pretty damned sure that the old man was listening to someone standing to his left. He could glimpse it in the slight inclination of Bryce’s head. Erskine turned his body and let his hand slip to his holster, where he gently undid the strap securing his weapon.

‘I just threw out the pot,’ said Bryce, finally.

‘Then you can darn well make another one. You can afford it, prices you charge.’

Bryce started walking toward the door, but he moved like an actor playing a role, a performer with an unwanted audience. Erskine watched him come, but his eyes were also taking in the spaces around Bryce. The angle of the shelves obscured his view, but he didn’t want to make his surveillance too obvious. Dot might be back there, or Bryce’s daughter Paige, and if Erskine was right, then they weren’t alone.

Bryce reached the door, but didn’t unlock it.

‘I’m real tired, Ed,’ he said. ‘And I don’t feel so good. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to just finish up and head home.’

Ed. Not Ralph: Ed. Ralph Erskine and Bryce Dunstan had known each other for decades. This wasn’t a mistake.

Erskine held his gaze. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I understand. Is Dot around to help you?’

‘No, but Paige is here.’

‘Nobody else?’

Bryce licked his lips. ‘We had a couple of folks in here earlier—’ he began, which is when the man who called himself Henry appeared from behind the register and shot Ralph Erskine through the glass. The first bullet took Erskine high on the left shoulder, but he managed to draw his weapon before the second bullet hit him in the chest.

Bryce Dunstan cowered, and covered his head with his right hand, as though that could ward off any bullet that might come his way. Ralph Erskine lay on the ground outside, spangled by broken glass, the life bubbling redly from him. A final gush came from his mouth, and then Erskine grew still.

From behind his splayed hand, Bryce risked a peek up. The gun was now pointing directly at his face.

‘You stupid old bastard,’ said the gunman.

And Bryce closed his eyes, squeezing them tighter as he heard the first shot, only opening them to discover why, against all expectations, he was not dead.

Burnel was watching the tall man, who had been forced to crouch down to avoid the possibility of being glimpsed by the deputy at the door. It increased his resemblance to a great pale insect, his head bobbing as he tried to hear what was being said by the deputy and Bryce, and see them through the gaps in the shelving. His right hand held the short machete against Paige’s throat, while his left was buried in her hair. Burnel saw that the tall man’s face was contorted with pain. He kept shifting position, and Burnel understood that he was profoundly physically as well as morally corrupt. The older woman, Kezia, had lapsed into shock and semi-consciousness. She mumbled to herself – not loudly, but just loud enough to concern the tall man, whose little eyes now latched on to her before moving to Burnel.

‘Shut her up,’ he said.

It was the first time the tall man had spoken, and he slurred his words, so they came out as ‘Shuzurup’.

Kezia was to Burnel’s right. He wasn’t sure what to do. He supposed that he could cover her mouth, but that might make things worse. What if she came out of her daze and panicked, or started kicking and screaming? Burnel didn’t know how far sound might carry from where they were. What if the cop heard her? But then, he thought, how much worse could the situation get? He didn’t believe they were going to make it out of there alive. Men like these were beyond his experience and understanding, but they smelled of blood and the panicked excretions of their victims.

‘Take it easy,’ he said to Kezia. He turned to her, twisting his body, leaning over to embrace her with his left arm, and then he heard the first shot. The tall man extended his upper body and raised his head, the better to see what was happening, the blade slipping marginally from Paige’s throat, although he kept his grip on her hair, dragging her with him as he tried to discover who had fired. He was still looking away when Burnel, his right hand concealed by his body, reached under his coat and slipped the Ruger from its holster.

The sound of a second shot being fired reached them from the door. Burnel moved away from Kezia, pushing his jacket aside with his left hand, lifting his right. The tall man didn’t even glance in Burnel’s direction until the gun was already out and pointing at him, but by then the last sands in his hourglass were falling. Burnel thought of the targets at the range, removing the tall man’s features and humanity from the equation, reducing him to a two-dimensional image hanging in space.

He had been aiming for the target’s upper body, but the gun bucked in his hand, or maybe it was just the way that Burnel was trembling. Whatever the reason, the bullet hit the tall man beneath the chin, and punched its way through his tongue and upper palate before blowing a path through his brain and exiting from the crown of his head.

The tall man was still falling as Burnel got to his feet. His ears were ringing from the shot. Paige was screaming, and Kezia was muttering louder, but the sounds seemed to Burnel to be coming from a great distance away. He walked as though he were being compelled to move. He could feel a pressure at the small of his back, like a hand pushing him on. He stepped into the aisle and saw the door with its shattered glass, and a figure lying on the ground outside. He saw Bryce crouching to the right of the broken pane, and the gunman to his left, his body partially in the aisle but already turning in Burnel’s direction. Burnel brought his left hand up to support the Ruger under the grip, and noticed that the weapon was no longer shaking.

He heard a shot from the front of the store, and a plastic soda bottle close to his head exploded, spraying him with liquid. Burnel didn’t try to hide. He didn’t look for cover. It was too late for that now. He and the gunman at the door were linked by unseen bonds. Burnel advanced, firing as he did so, but he didn’t trust his aim at this distance. He needed to close the gap.

He saw the gunman flinch and change position. Behind him, Bryce, who had dropped to the ground as the shooting began, was inching toward the body outside the door. Burnel guessed that he was trying to get to the deputy’s gun through the shattered pane. That was good. If Burnel died, then maybe Bryce would shoot the bastard who had killed him.

Two shots came close together. Burnel felt a tug on his jacket, and glass broke somewhere nearby. He fired again, and the gunman jerked like someone who has just received a powerful electric shock. His gun hand dropped to his side, and Burnel pulled the trigger once more, keeping his weapon as level as he could, surprised at how relaxed he felt, even with the adrenaline that he knew must be coursing through his system. The gunman jerked a second time, then turned and stumbled through the glassless door, tripping over the hand of the dead man on the ground, even as Bryce raised the deputy’s weapon but did not fire, seeing something in the gunman’s face as he looked back that told him his race was run, that any threat he had once posed was now negated, and Bryce should not trouble himself by inflicting any further damage on him and carrying this polluted creature’s death on his conscience.

The gunman was bent over as he staggered toward the van. He fired his weapon, but its muzzle was pointing at the ground. Bryce watched Jerome Burnel step out into the rain, his own gun still held steadily before him, his eyes unblinking as he followed implacably after his wounded quarry and shot him twice more, tracking him with the barrel as he collapsed on the oil-stained forecourt, then standing astride him and pulling the trigger over and over as the hammer clicked on the empty chambers.

Except Bryce Dunstan didn’t mention that part to the police later, just as he claimed that the killer had tried to raise his weapon and fire, forcing Burnel to shoot him in the back to finish him off. Not that the cops or the district attorney, or even the media, cared too much about delving into the minutiae of the victim’s death: they had a murdered sheriff’s deputy, and an ordinary man who had avenged his killing while acting to preserve his own life and the lives of others. They had a narrative, and a hero, and that was enough.