Cold Tears

by AR Simmons

  Tanner was still feeling for the right tone.

  “All I’m giving you is an estimation of the type of man you’re looking for. Some of that profile is dead on. Some of it is probably off. I’m here to help you whenever you need me. If you find something that you want my analysis on, just let me know.”

  “I’ll do whatever I have to,” said the sheriff. “I want this guy.”

  •••

  Van Buren, MO, April 27, 12:10 PM

  Brent Halliday saw something wedged between the driver’s seat and the carpet where it curved up to the door. Using his pen, he flicked it out of the crack and onto the floorboard in the back. Careful to touch only the edges, he held it close to read the name.

  “Son-of-a-gun,” he said to himself as he hurried up the steps, hoping to catch the sheriff before he left for lunch.

  “I know who our car thief is,” he said before he was half way through the door. “It’s like on the radio. You know: ‘He was arrested a short time later.’”

  The sheriff looked at his new deputy sourly. “What are you talking about?”

  He dropped the credit card on the blotter of the sheriff’s desk. “That’s our guy. Let’s put out an APB.”

  The sheriff read the name and stiffened.

  “No, Brent. I know where to find this guy,” he said as he picked up the phone. “He’s laying on a slab down in Arkansas.”

  •••

  Elsinore, MO, April 30, 7:05 AM

  Paget fumed, as the voice of the bubblehead blonde on local TV echoed in his brain.

  “Unconfirmed reports suggest that a terrorist or paramilitary group may be responsible.”

  The woman was cooperating, and no curious friends or family had called, but he couldn’t stay much longer. He’d leave immediately if he could think of a place to go. Oregon was out the question now.

  He rapped the bathroom door impatiently. “Ain’t you about through?”

  “I’m just drying Billy, now,” came the muffled reply. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Hurry,” he said, going back down the hall.

  Paget stared at a morning show with the sound muted. He was conflicted, which was new to him. The way she treated the kid bothered him. Every time he was about to do her, she started her “mommy thing,” and the urge just evaporated.

  Best I get rid of her for you before she starts in, Billy. Probably best if you don’t even remember her.

  A picture appeared on the screen, and he stood in disbelief. It was a mug shot of the skinny kid he had been five years earlier, before he had bulked up. He scrambled to find the remote.

  “… are looking for this man in connection with a brutal triple homicide in Marked Tree, Arkansas. He is Robert Lee Paget, wanted on an outstanding warrant for burglary and parole violation. A stolen car with property taken from the scene of the murders in Marked Tree, Arkansas was found wrecked and abandoned on highway sixty near Elsinore in rural Carter County on Tuesday morning. Paget comes from the northwestern Arkansas town of Fayetteville. It is believed that he is still in the area, and a manhunt is currently underway. Paget is described as thin, six feet tall, and weighing one hundred and sixty-five pounds. He has dark-brown eyes, brown longish hair, a mustache, and ruddy complexion. Authorities warn that he is armed and should be considered extremely dangerous. Anyone with information concerning the crime or the whereabouts of Paget should call the toll-free number you see at the bottom of your screen.”

  “What stolen property?” he said as he patted his pocket to make sure he still had the necklace.

  He had burned all the cards and photos before leaving the motel.

  The credit card!

  It must have gotten left in the car. Now they had his fingerprints. He paced the floor, thinking furiously. Arkansas had the death penalty, and the gun robbery would bring in the feds. Going to another state wouldn’t solve the problem.

  I wonder if they’ll put roadblocks up.

  In his whole life, nothing had ever been his fault, and it was no different now. He blamed the militia for his predicament. He did, however, reserve for himself a token censure for his bad judgment.

  “Why the hell did I let those lunatics get me into this?” he muttered.

  The unfairness of it burned like an ulcer in his gut.

  I can’t get away with even one little mistake!

  He felt like breaking things, trashing the place, burning it down, beating the hell out of the woman. Of course she would give them an updated description of him if he let her live.

  That ain’t going to happen! You’d already be dead except for the kid.

  He clicked the TV off and went down the hall. “Come on out of there!” he yelled, rapping on the bathroom door. “What the hell’s keeping you in there?”

  “We’re finished,” said Cathy.

  She came out with Billy wrapped in a bath towel. She dabbed at him nervously, pretending to dry him as she tried to keep her abductor from knowing that she had overheard the news bulletin.

  “You want me to fix breakfast?” she asked.

  He took her chin and forced her to look at him while he searched for a telltale sly smile.

  “Put the kid down and get over to the chair,” he said.

  Her hands trembled as she placed Billy in the bassinet. “Did I do something to make you mad?” she asked, trying to reassure him that she didn’t know about the murders.

  “Shut up,” he commanded as he roughly pulled her arms behind her.

  She sat meekly as he tied her up, but tried to position her wrists so that there was a little space between them. Although clearly distracted, he cinched her tightly. Without a word, he snatched up her purse and dumped the contents onto the couch. He took her money and then tossed her wallet aside. Grabbing the keys, he left without a glance back.

  Paget backtracked to Poplar Bluff. The questions he wanted to ask would attract less attention in the town of twenty thousand than in tiny Elsinore. On the way, he watched for cops stopping westbound cars on the highway. If they were, he would take back roads around the stop and hole up with the woman a few more days until the roads were clear. He made it there without spotting a single patrol car. At the Huddle House just off the highway, he grabbed a stool beside a UPS driver. Professional haulers knew the road conditions.

  While peeling a packet of creamer for his coffee, he asked casually, “Run into any roadblocks?”

  “Not today. They took them down already.”

  “Yeah. They never run them for long.”

  He maintained the conversation by asking a few questions about baseball. He didn’t give a damn about sports, but figured that if he got the guy talking about that kind of crap, he would forget that he was curious about what the cops were doing.

  •••

  Despite the pain, Cathy managed to slide her right hand upward. The bath oil with which she had doused her hands and wrists before leaving the bathroom had helped at first. Now the cord was stuck just above the knuckles at the base of her fingers. Dogs caught in a fence will chew their own legs off to escape. She wasn’t driven by such a basic survival instinct, but by a mother’s desperation. Even if she lost her hand she had to get loose. She twisted and pulled until her hands were slick with blood. Biting back the nausea, she struggled to free herself and save her baby. The man had killed three people. He would think nothing of killing Billy! She had known he would rape her as soon as she saw his eyes in the rearview mirror that night. Why he hadn’t yet was a mystery, but it was coming, and then he would kill her. Even if he only killed her, Billy could die of dehydration or starve before anyone came to see about them.

  Cathy squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth as the nylon cord sawed through skin and dug into her knuckles. Summoning will she didn’t know she possessed, she pulled harder and twisted frantically, but the cord only cut deeper. She tried to concentrate on Billy instead of the pain. She pictured him laughing, taking his first step, saying “Momma” for the first time. The
pain mounted as she wriggled and tugged.

  Unbelievably, the hand slid free!

  “Aahhh!” she gasped in relief mingled with searing pain.

  Pulse throbbed in the injured hand and pinpricks of light swirled in her vision as she descended toward blackout, just like when she had fallen from the top of a pyramid formation and hit her head against another cheerleader’s knee during homecoming two years ago. To stave it off, she tried to relax and breathe deeply. The feeling slowly ebbed, but left her wobbly.

  The sound of car tires on gravel brought an adrenaline rush of terror. She bent frantically to free her feet with her left hand. The right one had gone numb and fingers wouldn’t work. The car pulled away.

  “Mail carrier,” she mumbled.

  Chancing a glance at her injured hand, she saw gleaming white gristle and oozing dark blood.

  “I’ll live,” she said as she stood unsteadily, fighting her rising gorge.

  Picking up Billy, she went through the kitchen to the back porch. She stood there uncertainly a moment. A life vest hanging near the screen door gave her an idea.

  “That’s what we’ll do, Billy,” she said as she put him down and slipped it on.

  “Wait here. Mommy will be right back,” she told him.

  She ran back to the living room, took the phone from its stand, and placed it on a chair near the front door. Then she opened the front door and left it ajar, hoping to make him think that she had gone to the highway and flagged down a car. She decided not to do that for fear that he would come back and find them on the road. Instead, she went out the back. As she was about to lock the door behind her, she saw the cooler and decided to take it along. Making her way through the brush behind the house, she went down to Cane Creek.

  “I should have called 911, Billy,” she muttered.

  The baby smiled at her voice, and that gave her the courage to believe that everything was going to be all right. The creek was shallow but frigid. Momentarily, she worried that Billy would catch a cold if he got wet, but they had no choice. She waded downstream with Billy in one arm and towing the cooler for half a mile until she came to Kenner’s Hole, a deep, slow-moving pool. There she placed Billy in the lidless cooler and floated with the current.

  “You’re doing great, Little Man,” she said to him. “Mommy done good too.”

  Using the bad English as a sort of joke to herself made her feel good. In less than a mile they would come to the Hankins’ house. They were going to be all right. They were going to live.

  “Mommy done good,” she repeated.

  •••

  Paget kept glancing fearfully at the rearview, expecting the flashing lights at any moment.

  “I should have killed her to begin with,” he screamed, pounding the wheel in impotent rage. “It’s what I get for trusting one of them.”

  Glancing down, he saw that he was going eighty. He backed off to sixty, but it seemed that he was crawling. He couldn’t risk being pulled over for speeding, but he had to put distance between him and his pursuers. By now, she had given his description to them, and they would be looking for her car.

  His luck held all the way to Mountain View, but the two hours it took to get there was as far as he thought he should push it. He pulled to the back of the lot at a McDonald’s and sat with the motor running. For the last fifty miles, he had been fantasizing about what he would do to the woman the next time they met. He pushed those pleasant thoughts aside to think about what he was going to do now. He needed another car and a place to leave the one he came in, a place where it wouldn’t be noticed too soon. Wherever he left it in Mountain View, it couldn’t remain unnoticed for long—but a day was all he needed.

  Cathy’s smile flashed into his mind, mocking him. He saw himself landing a fist in her gut, throwing her to the ground, and sitting astraddle of her, while he choked the life out of her.

  “Put it on hold, Bobby Lee,” he told himself. “You got more important problems.”

  Just across a strip of concrete framed turf, lay a pocket mall, a cluster of shops hanging to the skirt of a Wal-Mart. A scattering of cars sat at the various businesses, and several were parked in a loose knot at the edge of the lot nearest the McDonald’s. It was either a carpool drop area, or where the manager of the restaurant told his employees to park to save space for customers. Stealing one in daylight wasn’t an option with the restaurant so near, and it wouldn’t exactly take a genius to figure out who took it if he left the one he was in nearby.

  Paget stared at the motley of old and new cars and decided to take it one step at a time. He backed out, drove over, and parked. He pocketed the keys in case he changed his mind. On his way back to the restaurant, an old woman came out, walking slowly, head down to watch her footing. When he saw her heading for a house car near the edge of the lot, he first scanned the area to see if anyone was watching, and then angled to intercept her. Balancing a carryout tray with two large drinks, and burdened with a purse big enough to carry a small watermelon, she didn’t notice as he quickly closed the distance.

  The old man is probably in the john. I’ll knock the old bag in the head and drag her inside, and then take care of him when he gets here.

  He was within two steps of her when a thumping bass, loud enough to make his chest vibrate, heralded the arrival of a convertible full of teenage boys. As his lousy luck would have it, they parked only two empty slots from the house car. They jumped out, horsing around as raucously as a flock of crows. Cursing the punks under his breath, he walked past just as a shaky old man came through the door, shuffling toward him.

  “That close,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Blaring rap lyrics mocked his simmering frustration.

  White boys listening to that stuff!

  It made him sick.

  He altered course again and went across to the Wal-Mart where he bought disposable razors, shaving cream, and a pair of scissors. At a nearby service station, he locked himself in the bathroom where he stayed for fifteen minutes, ignoring several knocks. He emerged clean-shaven. He threw the shaving stuff into a dumpster on his way to the mall barbershop. While the barber gave him a short cut, he studied his face in the mirror, deciding that it now bore little resemblance to the five-year-old mug shot they had shown on TV. He considered dying his hair and eyebrows, but that required a humiliating trip to a beauty parlor where some bitch would probably think he was queer. Worse, they’d remember him.

  Paget walked back across to the restaurant feeling distinctly more in control of things. Something would turn up. It always did if you paid attention. He sat at a booth by the window and munched his food while watching the lot with a predator’s patience. His ride would present itself. It didn’t matter where he went so long as he put distance between himself and the car.

  He came from Fayetteville so they’d be looking for him there. Maybe he should backtrack to the east. The two thousand in his pocket opened options.

  I’ll find a place to crash for a few days. Then get me some new wheels.

  Gradually, he became aware of the conversation in the booth behind him, something about religion and farming.

  Amish or Mennonites idiots, he decided contemptuously. Stop using machines and you get to heaven! Let me tell you how it is, boys. Take advantage of everything and everyone you can. You see something you want? Just take it.

  Evidently, a couple of them were feeding a line of bull to a poor slob who didn’t have the nerve to escape. Paget was stuck too. Leaving would take him away from the window.

  He heard “Father Joshua,” and “prophet,” and the term “Canaan.” He tried to block it out, and mostly succeeded until something they said caught his attention.

  “No one’s allowed past the outer camp. We keep the world out of Canaan because the Devil pretty well controls things out here,” said one of the missionaries, or whatever they were.

  “He’s a ravening lion seeking to devour whom he will,” said his teammate.

  “So
what if I don’t want to stay?” asked the kid.

  “You’re free to leave whenever you want.”

  “How about my friends and family? Can I see them?”

  “No one comes in except potential members, and then only to the outer camp.”

  “How about phoning?”

  “We don’t use phones. Leaving the world behind is not just a figure of speech. You have to completely forsake it to join the Wilderness Church.”

  When their potential mark continued to waver, his recruiters gave up. Paget followed the three of them outside and watched with narrowed eyes until they parted.

  “Hey!” he called out. “Wait a minute.”

  When the two recruiters stopped and turned, he caught up with them.

  The Richard Carter Novels

  Bonne Femme (#1)

  e-published June, 2013 ©

  Cold Tears (#2)

  hard print under pen name Ray Auldmon 2007

  e-published September, 2013 ©

  Canaan Camp (#3)

  e-published August, 2013 ©

  Secret Song (#4)

  To be e-published November, 2013

  Visit www.bluecreeknovels.com

  Disclaimer

  The characters portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons (living or dead) is coincidental and unintended. Many of the places (towns, cities, and counties) portrayed herein do exist, as do certain businesses, government entities, and private organizations. The events that take place in this novel, however, are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are, in no manner, intended to be representative of real people, offices, organizations, agencies, or other entities.

  Text copyright 2013 ©