Widow Town (23 page)

Footsteps receded down the stairs but there was still heavy breathing in the hall. She tried to calculate where it was and if she could send a shot through the wall. Tears again, blurring her vision. She wiped them away and glanced at the window beside
her and then back at the door.

Voices came from downstairs, muddled and indistinct.
Then a yell that made her gasp.

Joe was downstairs.

“Joe! Get help! There’s two of them!”

Silence except fo
r the breathing in the hallway.

“
Darrin? You okay?” Ryan called.

“Yeah, we’re good.”

Siri waited, her stomach roiling in time with the baby’s movements. Vomit tried to make a run for the back of her throat but she gagged and managed to hold it down.

“Siri, you’re going to put that gun down and come out of your room in ten seconds, you hear me?” Darrin said from what sounded
like the bottom of the stairs.

Si
ri licked her arid lips. “Joe?”

“
He’s right here, and if you don’t come out of the room unarmed I’m going to slit his throat.”

“You’re lying.”

There was a sliding thump and then a moan.

“Tell her
to drop the gun,” Darrin said.

A pause and then Joe’s voice, weak and groggy came up the stairway. “Don’t do it, Siri, don’t
—”

Joe cried out
and there was a scuffle followed by a gagged groan of pain.

“Don’t hurt him!” Siri yelled, her arms trembling f
rom holding the gun so tightly.

“You do what I say and you both live. You don’t, he dies first, slow, and then we burn the house down with you inside. Your choice, Siri, we’ve got all night.”

She waited, the baby kicked.

With another look at the window, she stood, the blood flowing back to her legs in painful ebbs that coalesced into tingling needles. She crossed the room as quietly as she
could and stopped at the door.

“I’m coming out, don’t shoot.”

“Lay the gun on the floor of the hall,” Darrin said.

She bent over and tossed
the pistol through the doorway.

“Good girl. Now come out,
nice and slow and no one dies.”

She stepped into the hallway.
Darrin and Ryan stood at the base of the stairs. Adam, the huge middle brother, held Joe with one massive forearm pressed to his neck from behind. Joe’s lip was swollen and seeping blood. Darrin had the deseminator poised below Joe’s chin and he watched her over one shoulder, his dark eyes gleaming. Ryan held an unsteady bead on her with the pistol.

“Let him go.”

“Come down the stairs first, then we’ll talk. Make any sudden moves and I’ll shish-kebob his fuckin’ brain.”

Siri took a
step as Joe gurgled something and shook his head. Darrin gouged the soft skin of Joe’s neck and a small runner of blood appeared that slid out of sight into the collar of his shirt.

“Stop, I’m coming, don’t hurt him.
” She stumbled down the last several stairs and Ryan caught her arm, breaking her fall.

“Take her, Adam,” Darrin said.

Adam released Ruthers who sagged as Darrin clutched the back of his shirt, moving the weapon from his neck to his lower back.

“You know, I’ve never been shot before, but it wasn’t like I thought it would be. More like a bee sting.
”

“Let her go,” Ruthers wheezed.

Darrin ground the sharp end of the instrument into his back. “Shut up, Joey. You always were a pain in the ass.”

“Stop,” Siri said. Tears finally broke free of her eyes and slid
down her face.

“Does our good sheriff suspect anything about us?” Darrin said,
shaking Ruthers by the collar.

Ruthers stared into Siri’s eyes, his jaw tight.

“Always the hard-ass. Well, probably couldn’t believe anything you’d tell us anyway. What’s the world coming to when law enforcement can’t be trusted?” Darrin let out his screeching laughter again.

“Darrin, we have to go,” Ryan said,
looking out the front windows.

Darrin didn’t seem to hear him.

“It’s thrilling, isn’t it? What we’re experiencing now? We’re on the edge of something beautiful, predator and prey locked in the dance.” Darrin gripped Ruthers harder, drawing him close. “You’d do anything to save her, wouldn’t you?” he whispered into Ruthers’s ear. “What’s it feel like to know you can’t?”

He
triggered the deseminator.

There was the same metallic click and Ruthers stiffened, his eyes flying wide. Darrin held him fast and pressed the second button. There was a hollow thunk that came from inside Ruthers’s stomach and his legs dropped from b
eneath him.

“No!” Siri screamed, trying to lunge forward but Adam grasped her by the hair and yanked her back. Darrin pulled the instrument free as Ruthers fell, its end one piece again. Crimson coated its length and ran from the needled tip. Ruthers crumpled to the floor, a whoosh of air coming from his chest, the sound of a balloon deflating in one blast. Siri sobbed and Adam twisted her hair, holding her tighter. Ryan stared at the fallen deputy.

“Oh shit! That worked great!” Darrin yelled, stepping back from Ruthers to look at him. “Must’ve cut a nerve to his legs along with his liver. Damn, he pissed himself, look at that!”

“We should go,” Ryan said, his eyes locked on Ruthers as
he shuddered against the floor.

“You’re a fucking coward, Ry-Ry, and for that you get the duty of haulin
g our fine deputy out of here.”

“We’re taking him with us?”

“Can’t leave a body here. They’d be able to ID him even after the fire.”

Siri cried out again and tried to lunge at Darrin.

“Will you shut her up, Adam?”

Adam nodded and pulled a small plastic tube from his pocket. One end was slim and pointed and he jammed this into Siri’s left nostril as he wrenched her head back.
Her eyes fluttered and she gagged before slumping forward. Adam held her upright easily and dragged her across the living room toward the front door.

“Nice thing about this is almost all the bleeding is internal. No messy cleanup,” Darrin said, gazing at the
weapon in his hand. “Although I kind of like the mess.” He motioned to Ryan. “Go ahead and drag him to the door, we’ll load him in the van from there.”

Darrin moved t
oward the front of the house while Ryan swayed and took a step forward, tucking the pistol in the back of his pants. Ruthers gasped in a hitching breath, a ratcheting sound coming from deep in his chest, and his eyes found Ryan’s as he approached. He tried pushing himself along the floor with his arms but he barely moved an inch. Finally he lay still, bringing his hands to his sides as Ryan bent over him to grasp his ankles.

Ruthers fumbled with something and then slowly lifted his hand up, half sitting as he did so. Ryan glanced at him, thinking that the dying deputy was reaching to him for help. When he looked
up, the other man’s hand was in front of his face. There was something in Ruthers’s palm, something metallic.

The
six-inch blade shot from the end of the knife and slid into Ryan’s right eye.

For a moment he remained where he was, holding Ruthers’s ankles and then his body convulsed, snapping him upright as his hands came instinctually to the injury. Ruthers lost his grip on the knife and it went with Ryan as he stood, its handle jutting from his ruined eye socket. There was a beat of quiet stillness as Ryan’s jittering fingers found the blade
, his jaw dropping loose, and Ruthers watched him through the fading that was filling up his vision. Then the younger man’s legs unhinged and he slammed to his knees before tipping forward. He landed on his face, driving the knife even deeper into his skull just as Darrin stepped back into the room.

“What the fuck?”

Darrin latched onto Ryan’s shoulder and rolled him over. Blood poured out around the knife’s haft and expanded in a dark pool on the floor. Ryan’s body shuddered once and fell still.

Darrin let go of his brother and stood to his full heig
ht, teeth gritted, eyes aflame.

“You sonofabitch,” he said, stooping over Ruthers as he drew out the deseminator again. He was about to thrust it into the deputy’s chest when he noticed the glaze coating the prone man’s eyes.

“Hey Darrin, how many cans of gas should I bring in?” Adam said, stepping into the room. He stopped, taking in the scene before him. “What happened to Ryan?”

Darrin’s breath came and went in labored puffs. He wound up a kick and delivered it to Ruthers’s side. He kicked the body again and again, grunting deep in his chest each time. Finally he stood still, b
reathing hard through his nose.

“What’re we going to do?” Adam asked, still staring at the knife-han
dle protruding from Ryan’s eye.

Darrin kept his gaze on the deputy’s slack face for a long time before
he put the deseminator back in his pocket.

“Brin
g in the gas, Adam. All of it.”

Gray stopped the cruiser behind Mitchel’s shining SUV and climbed out.

The sun was a
disc of ash on the horizon, a negative of what it would become later in the day. The early morning hung muggy and thick, cloistering as he made his way up the drive toward the smoking ruins of the two-story brick house.

The roof was gone, wilted inward in a spine-broken way, small flames chuckling amongst the tiles. The windows were black holes with laughing shadows from the fire inside. A fire unit idled a dozen yards away from the house, its personnel doing final checks of the scene, one automated hose attached to a mobile crane extinguishing the sputtering embers. Mitchel leaned against the hood of a deputy’s car speaking with one of his men, his round form shaking with laughter
at a joke Gray had just missed.

“Good morning, Mitchel,”
he said, stopping a dozen paces from the building’s husk.

“What are you doing he
re?” Mitchel said, standing up.

“I’m being courteo
us, let’s play nice, shall we?”

“The county line’s two miles in that direction,” Mitchel said, pointing the w
ay Gray had come. “I’d suggest you check your boundaries when you get back to your office.”

“Is Siri okay?”

Mitchel sighed. “Are you deaf, Mac? Do you want me to have you removed, is that it?”

“I’m merely checking on a friend,
Mitchel. Courteous, remember?”

“We’re not sure at this time.”

“Not sure if she’s a friend of mine or if she’s okay?”

“Fuck you, Mac.”

“So where is she?”

“We do
n’t know. Her vehicle is gone.”

Gray turned his hea
d to look at the other sheriff.

“She’s missing?”

“No, she’s not here, there’s a difference. You leave your house from time to time, right Mac? She’s just gone somewhere, I’m sure. It is the weekend, people travel, it’s in their nature.”

“What started the fire?”

“It began in the kitchen near the stove, other than that the crew hasn’t been able to determine anything else.”

“Why?”

“Because the fire was extremely hot. It burned the center of the house all the way out as you can see. We’re just lucky it was one of the older homes in the area and made of brick, it kept the fire somewhat contained. That and the neighbors called it in shortly after it was started.”

“Have you questioned them yet?”

“About?”

“About their feelings on this year’s election. About
the fire, Mitchel, what else.”

“I just told you they called it in. They saw flames in the early morning hours and alerted the department.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“So where’s the forensic team?”

“Why in hell would we need a forensic team, Mac?” Mitchel took a step forward, close enough for Gray to smell sweat and not enough bad cologne to cover it
up. “This isn’t a crime scene.”

“The homeowner is missing, her house is gutted, and y
ou don’t think that’s strange?”

“I’ll thank you to find your way back to your cruiser, Mac,” Mitchel said, spinning on his heel. “Or I can have one of my men escort you if you’ve forgotten the way.”

“I suppose you have plenty of manpower since you hire out rent-a-cops whenever you can.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know damn well what I mean. You said you’d have a man on Miles’s door round the clock.”

“Baron died of natural causes. A
re you losing it, Mac?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Get off this property, now.”

“Mitchel, was there a defining moment when you knew for sure you were a full-blown asshole?”

Enson paused in mid-step but shook his head and kept going, waving his hand at a deputy who was beginning to make his way toward Gray.

Gray studied the house again. The smoke drifted in pale wreaths toward the lightening sky, ghosts leaving a carcass. He inhaled and spit once on the ground
before walking back to his car.

~

“Mary Jo, has Joseph called back yet?”

The intercom was quiet for a beat and then the dispatcher’s vo
ice drifted out of its speaker.

“No,
Sheriff, he hasn’t. It is his day off, you know.”

“
I do. When I went past his home this morning his truck wasn’t there and he’s yet to answer his phone. Uncharacteristic of our Joseph.”

“I suppose it is. Maybe he went for a drive.
”

“Maybe.
”

“He had a date with Siri last night, didn’t he?”

“I believe so.”

“An
d that’s why you’re concerned.”

“I’
m like a book to you, Mary Jo.”

“There were no bodies in the house.”

“No there weren’t.”

“You think it’s still going on, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore.” Gray flicked the pad of his computer and watched the pointer fly across the screen. “Anything on the schedule this morning?”

“No, but the reports for the landowner history you asked for came back just now.”

“And?”

“Before the current owner, Mister, um, Oyster, purchased it there was only one other listed. A Mister Clarence Drucker who is now deceased.
Before that it was state land used for commercial pesticide testing.”

Gray rubbed his temples and closed his eyes.

“When did Drucker die?”

“December seventeenth,
2075.”

“Forty years ago.”

“Yes sir.”

“Thank you, Mary Jo.”

“You’re welcome. And Sheriff?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sure Joseph is fine.”

The intercom clicked
off and he stared at the wall, the empty chair on the other side of the desk. His cell phone buzzed against his hip and he dug for it, studied the number for a moment before answering.

“Good morning.”

“Hi,” Lynn said.

“How did y
ou sleep?”

“Good unt
il you left, then not so good.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault, it was just—”

“B
eing in the house?”

“Yeah.”

Gray stood from the desk and shut the door to the office.

“Last ni
ght,” he started, then stopped.

“Let’s not talk about it,” Lynn said.

“Why? Because it’ll cheapen it or you want to forget it?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Well when you figure it out, let me know.”

Lynn fell quiet for a long time. He could hear some of the background music she pla
yed in the store tinkling away.

“I turned on the water pump for th
e stream, hope you don’t mind,” she said finally.

“Not at al
l. I was going to do it today.”

“I c
ouldn’t bear to see it so dry.”

“It’s s
upposed to rain in a few days.”

“So they say.”

“Yeah. Lynn, can we—”

“Just leave it alone, Mac. It was what it was.”

“I’d like to see you.”

“I need some
space, will you give it to me?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

He paused, licking
his lips that were dry, so dry.

“I never stopped
—”

“I have to go, Mac,” she said. “I have cust
omers.”

“
All right.”

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” he said, but she’d already hung up.

He was still holding the phone, scrutinizing it, when a knock came from the door and Mary Jo stepped into the room.

“Sheriff, a call just came in from Vincent Barder. He says his son, Ryan, is missing. He wondered if you’d stop out as soon as you could.”

“I’ll go presently,” Gray said
, adjusting his hat. “Anyone respond as far as getting our air fixed?”

“Not yet,” Mary Jo said, mak
ing her way back down the hall.

“It is a Godforsaken oven in here, Mary
Jo. How are you not sweating?”

“Women don’t sweat,
Sheriff, they glow,” she said over her shoulder.

Gray
shook his head and turned to the right, stepping out the back door to where his cruiser was parked. The concrete baked and steel ticked under the fist of sun hanging in the mocking blue sky. He was almost to the door of the cruiser when Mark Sheldon rounded the corner of the building. The DA’s shoulders were thrown back and he squinted against the glare. They narrowed further as he spotted Gray by the car.

“Hold up,
Sheriff.”

“I’m on a call, Mark
, I need to get going.”

“This will only take a minute.”

“It never takes a minute with you Mark.”

The other man stopped a short d
istance away and glared at him.

“You didn’t take
my advice.”

“
I didn’t know you gave me any.”

“Mitchel called me this morning and said you were out of jurisdiction
, trying to undermine his authority.”

“Now I’m just a commoner, Mark, and
those were a lot of big words.”

“Quit fucking around,
Gray. You and I both know why you went out there.”

“I heard about the fire at Siri’s and wan
ted to make sure she was okay.”

“
You wanted to keep your weird little fantasy going by making problems where there aren’t any.”

Gray took a step forward, closing the distan
ce between them.

“I
want to find the truth, whether it’s comforting or not.”

“The truth is you’re delusional and
not fit to hold office.”

“You can tell that to the people who electe
d me,” Gray said, turning away.

“I intend to,” Mark said, following him
to the car.

“Good.”

“Oh, and I don’t know what ideas you have concerning Lynn, but forget them. She’s moved on.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“She told me herself the night of the celebration.” The DA paused as he placed one hand against the cruiser’s hood. “Right after I fucked her.”

Gray hit him in the mouth just as he began to say something else, his fist cutting off the words
before they were fully formed.

Mark fell to his ass and rolled onto his back, his polished shoes flying up in the air. Gray caught himself stepping over the fallen man to deliver another blow, and stopped. He
moved back, passing a hand over his throbbing knuckles. The DA’s lips were both split in their centers, blood painting his chin in a crimson goatee. Mark looked up at him, cobwebs of pain and shock covering his face.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have a call to go to. And if you get a chance, send someone over here to fix our fucki
ng air conditioning,” Gray said before climbing into the cruiser. He backed out of the parking space and sped away, throwing a last glance at the fallen man who was trying unsuccessfully to sit up.