Widow Town (14 page)

With a deep breath that stung to the bottom of his lungs,
he inhaled and held the tainted air as he barreled forward in the direction of the door. His head spun and all was blinding whiteness, a blizzard indoors.

There was nothing but the fray of movement and cataract air until at last h
is shoulder met with solid wood. There was a snapping shriek as old nails and boards gave way, and then he was outside, falling on the hot, dry grass, its touch more welcome than any other he’d ever known. Gray hacked, sucking in the clean breaths that tasted like velvet honey on his tongue. The air bubbled with black spots and he blinked, trying to clear his vision.

The dog
yapped somewhere nearby but the sound shifted, melding with the wind nuzzling his face as a bearded man carrying an axe rounded the corner of the barn. Gray had a half second to register the manic flicker in the man’s eyes as well as the open sores on his face before he raised the axe over one shoulder and charged.

Gray brought the Colt up and fired.

A red spatter appeared on the barn wall behind the other man’s head. The sound of the pistol shot was detached and came a moment later, thunder beneath the clear sky.

The man jerked once and pitched forward, the axe coming down. Gr
ay rolled to the side as the blade bit into the ground where he’d been. The man’s weight landed on his legs, no movement from him, just heaviness. Gray kicked him once, rolling the body away before collapsing into a fit of coughing so deep, his entire core ached with it. His lungs were on fire, burning with each breath. The oxygen was fueling it.

The dog barked, closer, very close.

He heaved and vomited into the dry grass. The falling night at the corners of his vision became deeper as the sun winked out in a supernova of darkness.

Gray opened his eyes to a white ceiling he didn’t know.

He blinked, letting his mind spool back, the memories unwinding like a Celtic knot coming undone. He tried breathing deeply and encountered the sensation of a cement block re
sting on his chest. He wheezed.

“Sheriff?”

Gray turned his head to see Ruthers rise from a chair beside the bed he lay in.

“Joseph, good to see you.” His voic
e cracked just above a whisper.

Ruthers laughed and gripped the bed’s railing. “Holy shit,
sir, I thought we’d lost you.”

“Can’t have my job yet, Joseph.”
He swallowed broken glass, winced. “Water?”

Ruthers nodded and picked up a
plastic cup with a straw poking from its top. “Don’t want the job, it’s all yours.” The deputy’s grin seemed to fill up his entire face. He bent the straw toward Gray’s mouth. The water was cold ecstasy sliding down.

“You got him, sir, you got the killer.”

Gray finished drinking and Ruthers took the cup away. “It was him?” Gray asked, his voice stronger.

“It sure looks that way. Dodger and I started out with Tex right where you told us and Tex caught a scent immediately. We started following it and it was leading toward that property you were on. Right before we heard you shoot, Tex tried to pull off to the left toward Wilson Creek but by then we were almost in the yard. It only must’ve been thirty seconds after you
passed out that we found you.”

Gray closed his eyes and then opened them in a long blink. “How long have I been out?”

“Only four hours or so.”

“Get me sitting up, Joseph.”

Ruthers fumbled with the bed’s controls and began to adjust the mattress, raising Gray’s upper body into a sitting position.

“What do we know so far?”
he said, suppressing a cough.

“The guy’s name was Donald Hudson. He’d been in the system a couple times for minor assault and public intoxication, but nothing major.
His property belonged to an uncle that got passed down to him about five years back. Well, and you can see what he decided to do there.”

“He was brewing Red Rock.”

Ruthers nodded. “We hauled out two hundred pounds of the stuff. Enough to get every person in the county high twice with some left over.”

“He was using too
, I saw the sores on his face.”

“I’m sure you’re right, although there wasn’t much left of his face after you shot him.
Dr. Swenson’s doing the autopsy as we speak, she’ll be able to tell us for sure.”

“Have the knives and hooks been analyzed that
were in the back of the barn?”

“Yes sir. They came back with a positive match
to Miles along with the Jacobses. There’s some unidentified DNA that the lab is still working on, Dr. Swenson could tell you better than I could. We also found what appears to be the money taken from the Jacobses’ place.”

Gray tried to
breathe deeply again and failed, his chest inflating without the satisfying rush of air.

“What the hell
did he use on me?”

Ruthers opened his mouth to reply but at that moment the door to the
room opened and Dr. Barder walked inside carrying a small box in his hand.

“Ah
, good, you’re awake,” Barder said, walking to Gray’s other side.

“I know you told me what he inhaled, doctor, but could you repeat it so I don’t get it wrong?” Ruthers said.

“It was a clever mixture of vaporized formaldehyde and another highly noxious gas called diborane. Whatever else that man was, he was fairly gifted when it came to chemistry.”

“
Glad you’re thoroughly impressed with him, doc, but it feels like I can’t take a full breath here,” Gray said.

“That’s normal. The compound you inhaled was designed to literally burn the cilia in your lungs away and scar the tissue beneath so that you couldn’t absorb oxygen. Fortunately you inhaled very little of the gas, only enough to do some minor damage to your brachial tube and the upper area of your lungs.
One more full breath and your lungs would be smooth as glass. Here,” Barder said, holding out a canister he pulled from the box. “This is a nebulizer that will soothe the airways and speed up your recovery. We gave you a shot when you arrived to neutralize the toxins and flush them from your system.”

Gray took the inhaler and placed it between his lips before triggering the medicine. An icy wave tasting of peppermi
nt coated the back of his tongue and he coughed once but when he inhaled the air seemed to travel farther into his chest than before.

“Thanks doc
.”

“You’re welcome. Now, you have to use that every few hours, whether you feel like you need it or not, otherwise the healing will slow.”

“Got it.”

“I’ll have a nurse come in and give yo
u something else for the pain.”

“No need, I’ve got things to do.” Gray hoisted himself up
farther and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Hold on,
Sheriff, you can’t go anywhere, you’ve had major trauma to your upper respiratory system.”

“I appreciate the concern but I’m feeling better. I’ll give this thing a pull every so often like you said. I like the taste of it anyway, might hit you up for a few mont
h’s supply.”

Barder’s frown was almost comical and after a moment he shook his head a
nd laughed. Ruthers stepped forward and gripped Gray’s upper arm, steadying him as he stood.

“I’ll keep an eye on him, doc,” Ruthers said.

“Yeah, Joseph here has me on a tight leash.”

Barder laughed again and tilted his head. “Okay, if you’re able to move under your own power I’m not g
oing to stop you from leaving.”

“Good man
.”

“There is one thing I wanted to ask you though,” Barder said, glancing at the closed door. “The man that attacked you, you think he’s t
he one that killed the others?”

“We’re not sure of anything yet,” Gray sa
id, throwing a look at Ruthers.

Barder nodded. “I understand, it’s just scary since he lived so close to me and my sons. If he was the one responsible,
I’m glad you did what you did.”

Barder reached out a hand and Gray shook it. “I’m sure there’ll be more information soon, doctor.
By the way, how’s Miles doing?”

“The same as this morning, catatonic. We’ve cleaned all his wounds and
we’re keeping him sedated to help him rest. Other than that we’ll have to wait and see.”

“The
re’s a guard outside his door?”

“Yes there is.”

“Good.”

“I’ll leave you gentlemen to your business,” Barder said and moved into the hallway shutting the door behind him.

“Thank you for waiting here with me, Joseph. I’m beginning to think you have a crush on me.”

Ruthers laughed. “You’re welcome, sir. B
ut I wasn’t your only visitor.”

“Really?”

“Nope. Lynn came to see you as soon as she got word.”

Gray sighed, leaning on the bed. “I forgot to change my emergency contacts. I’m assuming she left as soon as
she saw you were here with me?”

“No, she asked me to step outside for a bit. I
, ah—” Ruthers made an uncomfortable movement with his hands. “I heard her talking to you through the door.”

“Great. The one time the woman actually speaks to me and I’m unconscious.”

“Sorry, Sheriff.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know, all this?”

“It’s not your fault, Joseph. Don’t go taking blame for things you didn’
t do, we crucified the last man that did that.”

“
Yes sir.”

Gray stood away from the bed and swayed, diz
ziness reeling him on his feet.

“Sheriff, you sure you’re up to leaving so soon?” Ruthers said, handing Gr
ay a bag containing his clothes after he’d steadied himself.

Gray took another pull from the nebulizer
and smiled. “We’re not going far, Joseph, just to the basement to see our killer.”

The morgue smelled of fresh blood and old disinfectant.

Gray made his way inside, his breathing feeling almost normal one second and strangled the next. When the door shut behind them, Tilly looked up from where she sto
oped over an examination table.

“Sure keeping you busy, Tilly,” Gray called as he walked as steady as he could to the far end of the room. Tilly gave him a long stare behind her protective glasses and then stood, pulling down th
e mask she wore over her mouth.

“
You’re one lucky bastard, Mac.”

“You see Joseph, no one ever gives me credit f
or anything. It’s always luck.”

Tilly shook her head and moved c
loser to them. “Seriously, what the hell are you doing out of bed. This sicko hit you with some nasty stuff.”

Gray waggled the inhaler at her. “Got some magic peppermint, I’m all better.”

Tilly made an exasperated sound and turned back to the table. “What do you want, Mac?”

“Seems like people are always asking me that. I’m beginning to feel needy.”

Tilly only looked at him.

“Well, I’d like to start with what you’ve found out about our fr
iend here.”

Tilly regarded the partially dissected body on the table. “Male, age
forty-six. Toxicology report came back with extremely high levels of Phenocartal.”

“Red Rock,” Gray said.

“Yes, Red Rock. The guy was in the late stages of addiction from what I can tell. His circulatory system looks like a series of rusty culverts and the upper dermis was decaying nicely.”

“Is decaying nicely,” Gray said.

Tilly gave him a withering look. “He may have not even known who you were.”

“He knew he wanted to kill me.”

“Oh, I have no doubt about that. The aggression and delusions associated with Phenocartal is well documented. I’m guessing that’s what drove him to do what he did to the Jacobses and to Miles.”

Gray’s jaw hardened. His eyes slid over the corpse, the open chest c
avity, internal organs removed, face collapsed inward like a sinkhole, the back of the skull a jagged line of shattered bone.

“This isn’t right,” Gray said finally, bringing his eyes up to meet Tilly’s.

“What do you mean?”

“Him, he doesn’t fit.
” Gray saw Ruthers move closer to his side but he didn’t turn to look at the deputy. “This guy, his brain addled by Rock, goes to the Olsons’, robs them, kills them, burns their place down, then a month later storms into the Jacobses’ place, robs and tortures them, tries to burn their house down. And sometime in there he captures Miles for unknown reasons and chains him up in his barn and tortures him.” Gray looked from Ruthers to Tilly. “That make any sense to you guys?”

“He was an addict, making sense went out the window a long time ago for him,” Tilly said. “He obviously needed money for more supplies, that was his motive and as the drug took over more and more of his mind, he became violent and murderous as well as desperate.
He had the murder weapons, Mac. He threaded hooks through Miles’s flesh like a worm. Your own deputy walked Miles’s trail that led right to the guy’s place.”

“I thought we were in agreement that there was most likely more than one person responsible.
”

“One person was d
efinitely capable of the crimes, especially given the evidence.”

“Look, I’m not denying the evidence, but this guy didn’t have the smarts
or the capability to murder those people and cover his tracks.

“He had the smarts to get the upper hand on you.”

“Yep,” Gray said, pointing at the ruined remains on the table. “It sure worked out well for him too.”

“The bottom line is he was crazy enough to commit the crimes, his mind was gone and he was running on
enough drugs to kill a bull.”

“Damn it, Tilly, you’re basing
your thinking on one thing,” Gray said, stepping forward to jab a finger into the dead man’s cold shoulder at the line of orange dots. “This. You can’t get past the idea that the Line might not be foolproof.”

“And you can’t get past that it is!” Tilly said, her voice
peaking short of a yell. “You don’t want it to be him, Mac, you want it to be someone else so you can prove your theories. This isn’t the past, no matter how much you want it to be.”

“You can learn a lot from the past, Tilly, it has a way of r
epeating itself.”

She
stood like a statue for a long time and then adjusted her mask back into place, covering the grim line of her mouth. “I have work to do, I’ll send over the rest of the reports as soon as they’re available.”

Without another look at either of them, she went back to
her task, the whirring of a pneumatic bone saw began shrieking off the tiled walls. Gray turned and made his way past the empty tables until he and Ruthers stood in the vacant hallway outside the morgue. Gray leaned against the wall, the burning in his lungs from the argument sapping the strength in his limbs. Glancing at his deputy’s face, he drew out the nebulizer and inhaled another blast.

“Go ahead, Jose
ph, I know you have questions.”

Ruthers frowned. “I’m confused, sir. I thought
this was pretty cut and dried.”

“Then let me hear it. Tell me
a story.”

“Well, Dr. Swenson is right, the guy’s mind was gone so that would allow him to kill time and time ag
ain without being an actual psychopath.”

“Go on.”

“And we did match the weapons as well as the blood to the victims.”

“Continue.”

“And we tracked Miles’s trail to his property, so I would have to say the simplest answer is the right one.”

Gray took in Ruthers’s apologetic look and chuckled a little. “You don’t need to be sorry for deducing
, Joseph. You’re right on all accounts.”

“Then what makes you
think that he’s not our man?”

Gray started walking down the hall and placed the inhaler in his pocket. “Remember when I told
you about links in the chain?”

“Yes.”

“What I didn’t get to is that when a case is closed, the chain becomes a full circle without any loose ends. Loose ends mean reasonable doubt, not only in the courtroom but also in the minds of those who catch the criminals.”

“I guess I’m not following a hundred percent, sir,” Ruthers said, keeping pace with him as they reached the stairwa
y leading up to the main floor.

Gray paused on the first step and turned to the younger man. “There’s a loose end in our case, Joseph,
and her name is Joslyn Worth.”