by Arthur Day
I grinned. “Sounds like a plan Stan.”
“Okay while I’m doing that try to keep us alive Clive,” she shot back.
The phone rang, and I went out to answer it. “Oh hi…yes…got it. Thanks a lot. I owe you big time.”
I laughed and then the idea hit me. I went and stood behind her in the kitchen as she applied thick slabs of peanut butter and jelly to some wheat bread. “What if we were here and not here?”
Dianne turned. “Explain.”
“Suppose he just wants to get me. That’s what we’ve been thinking all along. So, you need to go and drive your truck down to the end of the driveway and park it. I’ll meet you there. No time for debate. Trust me and just do it.”
Dianne looked at me for a second and saw something in my eyes. She handed me a sandwich and went out the kitchen door towards her truck. I followed her as far as the garage.
Jacob worked hard at regaining his skill in the woods. He looked where his feet would land. He sensed the trees and bushes around him automatically plotting the quietest path. He was wearing moccasins that made hardly a rustle in the leaves. He could have been a squirrel for all the noise he made as he slipped slowly through the wood to his blind. He was dressed in camo and had painted his face. He had a .45 strapped to his belt and s cell phone in one of the pockets in his jacket. He was as ready as he was ever going to be. He felt calm, almost sleepy and yet all of his senses were working to their max. He felt like a wondrous machine that would complete its mission with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of satisfaction as he completed the destruction of the people who had wrecked his life. It was as if, momentarily, he had become a god complete with lightning bolts. Pushing the last bush carefully aside he came to his blind. It seemed disturbed as if someone had crashed into it. That surprised him for he had camouflaged it carefully. He slipped into the hole and pulled a pair of binoculars from a pouch slung around his neck. The gloom of the oncoming darkness made vision difficult but there were lights on in the living room of the house and that brought everything there into sharp focus.
The problem was that the room appeared to be empty. There was smoke coming from the chimney, so somebody was there unless they’d gone out to eat or take an evening stroll. Somehow, McCaal didn’t seem the type for that and Jacob had watched McCaal until the man was more familiar than even Jacob’s own family had been. At eight o’clock most people were in their cabins reading or playing cards or watching Netflix or talking over coffee and cognac. All he could see was the light in the room and the floor joists for the upstairs room. He would only have one shot at this so he had to make sure. He eased closer to the house.
He had not planned this, but all plans hit the shitter at some point. Jacob tried to move as quietly as possible but even so the noise he was making was loud, he thought. Loud enough to be heard across the lake let alone inside Pam’s house. Even his breath seemed loud as if betraying his excitement. Jacob kept his eyes and head moving trying to see in all directions at once, but he saw nothing but the gloom of the pines around him as he neared the house. There was the crack of a branch from behind him but there was no one there when he turned around. Just one of the neighbors in a different part of the wood, Jacob thought. Nevertheless, he needed to get this done and get back to his blind.
Screened by branches of trees bordering the house he looked through the double doors into the living room and the back of a couch there. Shit. He needed to get closer still and every second he stood there he risked being discovered. Hell, if anyone looked through the doors they would probably see him. Jacob gnawed on a fingernail in frustration. He should go back to the blind but what good would that do it the fucking room was empty? Slowly he eased out of the trees and, bent over, made his way to the double doors. There he was, big as life. Jacob could see McCaal’s head sticking above the back of the sofa. He had on a red baseball cap. The asshole was probably a sox fan. Soon they would have one less fan. Jacob eased away from the window and back into the darkness of the woods.
John Buckmaster was one tired law enforcement officer. He had felt the weakness and lack of energy at the hostage crisis and now driving over to Lake Compton to check out Worth’s sighting made him feel even worse. In spite of two cups of strong coffee, he felt his eyelids droop. He powered down his window and let the evening air blow against his face. The air was hot and syrupy and did little good. God, he hoped that Worth had reported some animal’s hole and Buckmaster would only be out the time it took to drive to Compton and back. He knew he ought to pull over for a stretch and maybe a quick cat nap, but he didn’t dare. If Jacob Warren was roaming around up there, then MJ McCaal and his sidekick would be in real danger. He called dispatch and asked to be patched through to the Junctionville police headquarters. He arranged to meet one of their officers at the Worth house. It would take them some time to get there though. He then called Doug who answered immediately.
“Oh hi sheriff.”
“Doug, I’m on my way and should be at your house in about ten minutes. You will need to show me where you found this spot.”
“Umm. Okay. It’s not far. Just up the hill from my house actually.”
“Good. Be ready.”
Doug was ready. When Buckmaster pulled up in front of the Worth house Doug was standing on the porch holding a beer and looking slightly nervous as if he had been caught doing something wrong, and, indeed, the town of Compton Connecticut had passed so many rules and regulations that stepping outside one’s house could be slightly risky and anything not covered by local and state regs were covered by an EPA that had decided that even puddles of rain water fell under their authority. Buckmaster smiled at Doug’s evident discomfort. “Ready?” he called as he got out of the cruiser and picked a flashlight off the seat beside him.
“Ready,” Doug answered and set the beer down on the porch. He too had a flashlight although it was with still enough light to see. They walked down the driveway to the road and along the road for maybe fifty yards before Doug turned right and went into the woods. The gloom of approaching night immediately cut their visibility in half. Doug switched on his flashlight and forged ahead.
There was a tremendous flash of light through the trees ahead of them and an ear-shattering roar. Both men ducked down instinctively as debris rained down on them through the trees. Pam’s house had disappeared in a cloud of smoke and flame. There was another explosion as the propane tanks on the other side of the house went up. Buckmaster raised his head slightly and saw a shadowy figure running towards them
“Stop,” he screamed while trying to get his piston out of its holster.
Doug staggered to his feet in front of the sheriff.
There was a shot and he went down with a scream.
Jacob stumbled through the dark woods no longer caring how much noise he made. Buckmaster would be after him as soon as he checked on the man Jacob had shot. He had seen that same man many times before while stalking Pam. So much for clean escapes but at least the electronics had worked, and the house was history along with McCaal, damn his soul to hell. Jacob smiled as he crashed out of the woods and onto the road. All plans go to shit as soon as they go into effect. That is why he had a plan B in the event he could not make it away from the crime scene unobserved. All he had to do was make it to his rental car, drive it to a dirt road outside of Compton and switch it with another. He would look different as well with a wig and padding around his middle and different colored contacts. First things first though, something his mother had repeated to him over and over as he was growing up. First things first. He trotted down the road keeping the silhouettes of the tree tops on either side of him so that he would not veer off the road and maybe break a leg. Wouldn’t that be the epitome of irony?
There it was. Small beige colored, unremarkable and one of a thousand similar cars in the area. He holstered his pistol and took the key fob out of his pocket.
“Stop right there Wa
rren.”
A man’s voice and a familiar one at that but Jacob could not make out the man’s face in the dark nor did he try but fired a shot in the direction of the voice and then tucked and rolled even as. He felt the snap of the air as the bullet went past his ear as he came up against the side of the car. Where was this guy? Jacob peered under the car but saw nobody’s legs on the other side. He crawled to his left a few feet and peered around the front fender.
And found himself looking into the barrel of a .358. “Give it up, Warren. You have no place to go. Throw your gun out in front of you”
Jacob heard a car coming up behind them, Buckmaster probably. Sighing, he threw out his gun as someone came up behind him and pushed him to the ground. He turned his head to one side and looked up at the figure of Michael McCaal. “You,” he screamed. “You’re dead. I fucking saw you die.”
A woman came around from the front of the car still holding her gun on him. “Guess you need glasses little man,” Dianne said.
BUCKMASTER
Buckmaster stood by the garage looking at the large blackened area that used to be a house. Firemen were still hosing down the smoking timbers. Two chimneys still stuck up like the fingers of a dead man. The air was thick and hot and smelled of wet wood, charcoal, and something more acrid that he couldn’t identify. At the end of the day, though, it had been just a house. No one had been hurt thanks to MJ’s inspired trick. Buckmaster wondered briefly what would have happened if Warren had seen through the ruse, had gone back into the woods and then disappeared to strike again at some other time but he pushed that thought away. It had worked. Warren was currently on his way to Rockmarsh to be formally charged with arson and attempted murder. Bert Conbey, the Compton fire chief, walked out of the blackened patch of earth that had been the living room of Pam’s house.
“Just confirming what you already know John. It started underneath the living room with an explosion. Looks like Dynamite but we’ll need to send trace off for analysis.’” He took a rag from his pocket and wiped the sweat and soot off his face leaving it streaked as if he had put on camo paint. “I hate it when one of these old camps goes. Part of the town’s history, you know?”
Buckmaster nodded grimly. “Nobody hurt, at least,” he replied. He looked around to see if MJ and Dianne were still there. They had been standing beside him, but MJ was probably in shock and Dianne had taken him to lie down in the Junctionville Ambulance that Buckmaster had called for Worth who was also inside. It was still parked down the driveway a little. He could see lights inside the open doors and Dianne standing staring inside. Now there was a strange one, he thought. If fire and ice can coexist in one person, it would be Vargas.
Buckmaster remembered the chaos following the explosion, pieces of the house raining down through the trees, Doug holding his shoulder and screaming like a stuck pig and smoke obscuring everything further than a few yards away. His ears were ringing, and tears poured from his eyes as he tried to get Worth back to Worth’s house or at least back to the road. He remembered choking on the smoke that rolled through the woods like a greasy blanket as he threw his arm across his face and got Worth moving in what Buckmaster hoped was the right direction while trying get dispatch on his phone to call the fire department, backup and an ambulance. No sooner had he clicked off than he heard sirens. One of the neighbors must have called. Through the haze of smoke, he thought he saw the road and pulled Worth in that direction until they stumbled down a slight bank onto it.
“Stay here,” he told Doug and pushed him onto the bank beside the road. The man looked pale from shock and loss of blood and he sat down abruptly with a groan. Buckmaster empathized. He wasn’t feeling so hot himself. He knelt and vomited onto the road and then stumbled to his feet and walked towards the end of the road wiping his sleeve across his mouth to clear the vomit on his chin. “Shit,” he muttered to himself. “Shit, shit, shit.” MJ and Dianne must have been caught in the blast and Warren had a head start on him. He felt dizzy and staggered slightly to where he could lean against the trunk of a birch tree bordering the road. He clicked on his phone. “Where’s backup?” he croaked and then he heard more sirens coming closer. “Never mind.” He clicked off and continued down the road. Warren was probably long gone but Buckmaster had to make sure. He was dammed if he was going to let that murdering bastard calmly drive away while he was blowing lunch on some dirt road. Buckmaster gritted his teeth and kept on walking as fast as he could though it seemed as if he was not making any progress and the road was much longer than he remembered.
He came over a slight rise and found Warren’s car about ten yards away pulled over to the right side of the road. Warren was lying on the ground with his hands clasped over his head. Dianne was standing over him with her pistol pointed at his head. MJ was sitting on the ground with his back against the rear wheel of the car, the very picture of someone passing a lazy summer day. As Buckmaster stopped to take in this sight a sheriff’s car pulled into the road and stopped so that no one could leave.
Buckmaster walked down the slope and collapsed next to MJ who turned towards him raising an eyebrow as he did so. “You look like shit,” he commented.
Buckmaster grunted. “Is that any way to talk to an officer of the law?”
MJ grinned. “Ah. So it’s you. I could see through all that soot and dirt. I thought one of my neighbors was practicing for Halloween.”
Despite his cramping stomach and a migraine that was forming between his eyes, Buckmaster rocked back against the side of Warren’s car laughing. “Dan,” he called the deputy who had handcuffed Warren and stood him upright. “Take this vagabond up to the house. When the ambulance arrives send it up to the driveway at the fire scene and have them check this guy out.” He struggled to his feet and turned to make his way back up the road to the remains of Pam’s house as Dan, Warren and MJ drove past him towards the plume of smoke rising over the trees. He heard another car and turned in time to see Warren’s rental with Dianne at the wheel pull alongside of him.
“You look a bit strung-out yourself,” she told him. “Hop in.”
Buckmaster still feeling a little dizzy after two Advil from the EMTs in the ambulance walked slowly down the drive towards the vehicle. At least his nausea had subsided, and Worth and Warren had both been taken care of so there was much to be thankful for. Dianne turned towards the Sheriff as he approached. He thought she looked better than any of them, almost as if she had simply been through another day of selling real estate. Were it not for the look in her eyes, he would have sworn that she had just arrived at the scene.
“Sherriff.” Dianne nodded and turned back towards the ambulance where MJ was being examined by an EMT with long cornrows hanging down past his shoulders.
“I’m really happy that you and MJ weren’t in the house when it went up,” he said to her partially turned back.
Dianne turned back and smiled. “Believe me so are we. It was MJ’s decoy that saved our bacon.”
“How so?”
“He set it up in the living room with one of his hats on it and then we beat feet away from there. He thought Warren would use a rifle. Neither of us imagined this,” she waved her arm towards the ruin. “We weren’t even certain he was out there.”
Buckmaster nodded his understanding. “When you and MJ have recovered I’ll need you to come in and give a statement but that can wait a bit. You know maybe the two of you should get away from here for a few days. A change of scene might be just the thing.” He wasn’t sure that was true but, after seeing how MJ looked, Buckmaster thought he had to say something positive. His headache was worse, and he felt anything but positive. What to do next? He looked at MJ who seemed perfectly normal save for a pale face. Buckmaster saw Worth in the opposite corner getting a sling put on his bandaged arm and shoulder. He turned to Dianne. “Will you get him back to his house? I can have a deputy drive the two of you if you don’t feel up to it.”
&nbs
p; Dianne pointed up the driveway to her right to where her vehicle sat, miraculously untouched by the explosion and the fire. “No worries sheriff.” She turned back to the ambulance as MJ climbed out. “Ready to roll?”
Buckmaster watched them walk up to the vehicle. Dianne was in the best shape of the two he thought but even she looked stern, even worried. Buckmaster wondered what she was keeping to herself. She should be happy or at least relieved that it was all over.
She wasn’t.
McCAAL
I had gone into Rockmarsh and given a statement detailing my view of the events culminating in the destruction of Pam’s house. It had been like picking a new scab off a fresh wound and I had come away from the sheriff’s office vowing to put it all behind me once and for all. I had been in tougher situations and survived but they had been on the battlefield and had not involved my family and, although I was no longer part of the Pease family, I still felt a part of it. I suppose I had a case of survivor’s syndrome. I felt guilty and a little embarrassed that I was still alive, but Pam was dead and her cousin in the hospital although Buckmaster told me that Worth was getting out today. I did not know the man, but I was glad that he had survived. If he was like Pam, then the world was a better place.
It was in the middle of this turmoil that I got a call from a Jason Masstrict. Could I stop by his office in the near future? It was important. When I asked what it was all about he said that he would rather discuss it in person. I couldn’t imagine a subject that could not at least be broached over the phone, so I imagined the worst and thought that someone involved in Pam’s death wanted to sue me for some reason I could not imagine. We live in a litigious society where everyone is a victim and its always someone else’s fault and juries award huge sums of money simply because they’re pissed that they got caught up in jury duty and hate someone beating up on a little guy. This was a gloomy thought that only got worse as time passed. Maybe Warren’s family, if he had one still, wanted to punish me. Maybe a greedy friend of his. Who knew? Certainly, the Courant and other papers, not to mention social media, had been full of the explosion and subsequent arrest just as Pam’s disappearance and murder had moved to the back pages.
