Among the Dead

by J. R. Backlund

  Bishop, blood trickling down his chin, didn’t respond.

  “And you sorry sonsabitches . . .” He pointed his pistol at Braddock. “Y’all don’t plan on doin’ shit about it.”

  “That’s not true,” Rachel said, stepping between them. “The whole reason we’re here is because he’s a suspect.”

  “Then why ain’t you arrested his ass yet?”

  “It takes time to build a case. You just have to give us time.”

  “Time? I ain’t got time to be waitin’ on you all to fuck around. I got bullets, though. And shotgun shells too. I got plenty of them.”

  “That’s right,” one of the shotgunners said. “Let’s kill this sumbitch and get outta here. What the fuck are we waitin’ for?”

  “I’m startin’ to agree with my colleague over there. Anything else you wanna say to try and change my mind?”

  Rachel turned to Bishop and dropped down to her knees. “Tell them. Confess. Give Danny enough to arrest you with, and maybe they’ll let you live.”

  Bishop looked at her like she was crazy.

  “Better to fight it out in court,” she whispered, “than die here.”

  The leader laughed. “Nice try, honey. But I ain’t takin’ a chance that this shitbag gets out on some technicality. Besides, we didn’t get all dressed up for nothin’.”

  He pulled Rachel back to her feet and out of the line of fire. The shotgunners leveled on Bishop.

  “No, wait!” Rachel yelled. “None of you have killed anyone yet. If you do this, you’ll all be murderers. No better than him.”

  “I can live with that,” he said, turning to take aim. “You ready, boys?”

  Bishop closed his eyes.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Rachel jumped forward. Braddock yelled, “Rachel, no!” as she hit the leader’s arm. A deafening shot exploded. It missed Bishop’s head by less than a foot, and he dropped to his side, panting as if he might hyperventilate. Rachel was on her knees again, ears ringing a dull tone.

  Braddock grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away. The shotgunners converged on him. One of them pressed the muzzle of his weapon against Braddock’s cheek and drove him back to the wall.

  “You’re one crazy bitch!” the leader yelled. “And I admire that shit. But if you try that again, I will straight up kill your ass.”

  “I can guarantee that he goes to prison,” Rachel said.

  “What?”

  “I promise you. I can guarantee it. Just don’t kill him. Not yet.”

  60

  “It’s time to come clean,” Rachel said. “It’s time to confess, or they will kill you. And I’m not getting between you and another bullet. This is it. Prison or death. Your choice.”

  Everyone had calmed down. Bishop was back on his knees with Rachel standing above him. One of the shotgunners was seated on the sofa. The other was leaning against a wall, watching Braddock. The leader was pacing, circling the room anxiously.

  “I did it,” Bishop said. “I killed him.”

  “That’s not good enough,” she said. “You need to tell us the whole story. Convince us that you know things you shouldn’t know.”

  He closed his eyes and exhaled. He seemed to be thinking, trying to conjure a story. Perhaps one that would satisfy the gunmen but leave him with enough room to fight his way out of a conviction.

  Rachel leaned close to him. “I want you to understand something. I believe wholeheartedly that you’re responsible for killing seven people. As far as I’m concerned, it would be justice served if I let them shoot you. The only reason I saved you is because I want the truth more than I want you dead. Beyond that, I have zero incentive to help you get out of this alive. If you don’t give me enough to put you away for life, I’m going to tell them. Now get on with it.”

  He looked into her eyes for a long moment. The fear in them turned to defeat. She saw his head drop and his shoulders slump, and she knew he had accepted his fate.

  “It all started with Lawton’s daughter,” he said.

  “Jamie Moody.”

  “Yeah. She killed herself last year. Lawton was crushed. Apparently, they had been fighting the night she died. He had accused her of using him for his money. And she said he hadn’t supported her enough when she was a kid. She said that no one knew what she had gone through when she was a teenager and how it had messed her up.”

  “Did she tell him she had been raped?”

  He nodded. “She told him it happened the day she was kicked out of school. Two boys had done it while another two were acting as lookouts. She even told the school resource officer, but no one believed her. Lawton didn’t believe her either when she told him. He thought she was exaggerating. Then she turned up dead, and that changed his mind. He figured she wouldn’t have killed herself over something that was just in her imagination. It had to be real.”

  “How did you get involved?”

  “I was still chief deputy at the time. Lawton paid me to look into it. Asked me to investigate, to see if there was any chance of bringing charges against the four boys.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Not much. There was the officer’s report, but that was about it. He took her statement, but nothing came of it. When I talked to him, he said that Jamie had a bad reputation back then, so no one took her seriously. The school administrators got her in a room and told her she could be charged with a crime for falsely accusing those boys. They said they were doing her a favor by expelling her for the drugs, so they wouldn’t have to tell her mom she’d been busted having sex with two boys. I guess that scared her enough to keep quiet about it. For a few years, anyway.”

  “Did you talk to Coach Grisley about what he saw?”

  “Vernon Grisley died six years ago. Nobody knows what he saw.”

  “So what did you tell Jones?”

  “I told him it was a lost cause.”

  He shifted his weight to one knee. The leader stepped over and tapped the back of his head with his pistol and said, “Sit still and keep talkin’. You don’t want me to think you’re fixin’ to try somethin’ stupid.”

  Bishop rubbed his thigh. “I told him that without Jamie to testify against the boys, there was no hope of getting a conviction for rape. Not to mention the fact that they were only fifteen when it happened. Even if by some miracle we could prosecute them, they would never get the punishment they deserved.”

  “How did he react to that?”

  “Not good. He was inconsolable. Couldn’t let it go. He kept asking me if there was anything else that could be done. Over and over again. Then one day, he came to me and asked what would happen to him if he killed the boys himself. If I thought there was a way for him to get away with it.”

  “Is that when you offered to take care of it for him?”

  He glanced at Braddock. “The bullying case last year . . . when the one kid beat the other one so bad he ended up in the hospital? I was frustrated after that. The bully got away with it, just like the boys who raped Jamie Moody got away with it. So I resigned and told Lawton I’d take care of his problem for him.”

  “How noble of you.”

  “Yeah, all right, I got paid. He got me started with my company, but that made him money too. Or it would have.”

  “This is takin’ too long,” the leader said. “I wanna hear about Dylan.”

  Rachel said, “You heard him. Tell us about Dylan.”

  “I liked him. He was tough, resourceful. He knew how to get in and out of places without getting caught. The only time he ever got in trouble for breaking and entering was when he decided to get one of his idiot friends involved.” Bishop glanced over his shoulder at the leader. “And I knew he would kill too.”

  “How?”

  “The last time I busted him, he had beat this poor bastard unconscious outside of a bar. The guy was completely helpless. But Dylan pulled out a lock-blade knife from his pocket and put it to the guy’s throat, then looked around like he was making sure no
one was watching. There’s only one reason you do something like that. I stopped him from killing that guy. No doubt about it. He even admitted it to me later.”

  “Okay. So how did you convince him to work for you?”

  “Money. Lawton set aside forty thousand to pay him.”

  “Bullshit,” the leader said. “He was scared. Scared you was gonna kill his mom or his brother.”

  “I wouldn’t have—”

  He kicked Bishop in the back. “Don’t lie to me, motherfucker.”

  “All right,” Rachel said. “That’s enough.”

  He stepped back and eyed her, then reached under the ski mask to scratch his jaw. “This damn things gettin’ itchy. Do you have what you need, or do we get to shoot him?”

  Rachel understood everything now. Jones’s motive had been revenge for his daughter’s rape, the trauma of which had contributed to her suicide. Bishop had used that to his advantage, fashioning a deal that would make him a lot of money while appearing to be legitimate. And he had forced Gifford to kill for him, threatening the safety of Gifford’s family but offering to reward him if he did what he was told.

  Bishop was the center of it all. His greed had set Jones’s revenge fantasy in motion. His desire for self-preservation had swept Gifford into his plans. And when it had all started to go sideways, he simply tried to cut his losses and walk away, no matter who died in the process.

  “We have what we need,” Braddock said. He gave Rachel a look that begged her to agree. “We can put him away forever now.”

  “Not yet,” she said.

  Braddock looked shocked, but Rachel wasn’t finished. It wasn’t enough to know the story. She wanted physical evidence.

  “Where’s the rifle?” she asked.

  “In the garage,” Bishop said. “Most of it, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got rid of the barrel. Beat it with a sledgehammer and encased it in concrete. Then I buried it at a construction site. They covered it with a concrete foundation this morning.”

  “That sounds pretty thorough. We’re still going to need it, though.” She reached into her pocket, which caught one of the shotgunners’ attention. She withdrew her Steno pad and pen slowly, holding it out so they could see it. Then she turned back to Bishop. “What’s the address?”

  He gave it to her, and she wrote it down.

  “Is that it?” the leader asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I need something more.”

  “Rachel . . .” Braddock said.

  She ignored him. Stared into Bishop’s eyes and said, “There’s something else. There has to be.”

  She thought about everything she knew about the case. Every note she had taken. Every idea that had crossed her mind since the beginning. Every assumption she had made when she was trying to get a picture of the killer. And then it struck her.

  “You knew the victims too well. Dylan didn’t know them. You taught him everything he needed to know. You must have been watching them, studying them, for months. Where’s your computer?”

  Bishop smiled. “It was the last thing I was going to destroy. Just as soon as I was sure I wouldn’t need it anymore.”

  The chrome pistol tapped the back of his head. “Where is it?”

  “My bedroom closet. On the shelf above the clothes.”

  “Watch ’em,” the leader said and went to find it. A minute later, he returned with the laptop, carried it over to the dining table, and powered it up. When the login screen came up, he asked, “What’s the password?”

  Bishop hesitated.

  “Don’t make me come over there.”

  “B-D seven two eight two.”

  Rachel wrote it in her pad as the leader typed it. A second later, he was in. “What am I lookin’ for?”

  “Mind if I take a look?” she asked.

  “Go right ahead.”

  It didn’t take her long to find it. Photos, videos, audio files . . . an immense amount of data, all divided into four folders—one for each target. Some of the media had even come from inside their homes, as if Bishop had bugged them.

  “Holy shit,” she said.

  “What is it? Did you hit the jackpot?”

  She looked at Braddock and nodded.

  “Well, all right,” the leader said. “I guess we can get outta here, boys.” He walked over to Bishop and waved the gun in his face. “Looks like you lucked out, buddy. If you call livin’ in a cage for the rest of your life lucky. Then again, I hear they’ve brought back the death penalty. Maybe your ass is doomed after—”

  It was a quick motion of the hands, and he hadn’t been ready for it, not that he could’ve stopped it anyway. Bishop had twisted the gun free of his grip and was holding it, pointing it straight at his face.

  “Shit!” The shotgunners shook off their surprise and aimed their weapons. “Drop it!” one of them yelled.

  Braddock had his hands in the air. “Whoa. Everybody just stay calm, okay? No one needs to die here tonight.”

  “Derek,” Rachel said. “Put the gun down.”

  Bishop backed away toward the corner of the room, shifting his aim between the shotgunners, who glanced at each other nervously, unsure of what to do. The leader sank to his butt and scurried backward until he ran into the sofa.

  Rachel stepped forward. “Derek, look at me. It’s over. You’re not doing any good right now. There’s no way out of this situation as long as you’re holding that gun.”

  “I beg to differ,” Bishop said. “Danny, I’m sorry about Shane and Melissa.”

  He put the muzzle of the pistol beneath his chin, closed his eyes, and drew in a sharp breath.

  “Wait!” Rachel shouted.

  The room was completely silent for an instant, as if everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the pop that would end Derek Bishop’s life. But it never came.

  Bishop exhaled and dropped the pistol. It bounced off his foot and slid away from him. Rachel lunged forward and grabbed it, then trained it on Bishop, keeping her distance in case he thought of trying to disarm her. But there didn’t seem to be any fight left in him. He leaned against the wall and slid to the floor.

  “Man, what a pussy,” said one of the shotgunners.

  Rachel looked over her shoulder. “Get out of here. All of you. Go.”

  The leader scrambled to his feet, took a second to look Rachel in the eye, then gave her a nod and ran for the door. The other two followed right behind him. As soon as they were out of the cabin, Braddock got on his phone and called the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office.

  61

  No one said anything on the trip back. Kevin spent most of the ride staring out the passenger window, lost in thought. When they were almost at the drop-off point, he shook it off and asked his cousin, “You doin’ all right?”

  “I’m good,” Clayton said, trying to sound poised.

  He veered onto the shoulder and shut off the engine and the lights.

  “That was some crazy shit back there,” Kevin said. “But I guess we did all right by Dylan.”

  “Yeah. We done what needed to be done.”

  There was a soft snore behind them. Kevin turned around to look at his other cousin, curled up in the back seat. “I don’t know how in the hell that boy can be asleep right now.”

  “Who knows,” Clayton said.

  Kevin got out and walked around to the driver’s side. Clayton lowered the window as he knelt down next to him.

  “You’ll be good gettin’ rid of them shotguns?”

  “Leave it to me, cuz,” Clayton said.

  “Well, here then. Get rid of this for me too.” Kevin dug into his pocket and produced the burner, handed it over.

  “Will do.” Clayton dropped it into the cup holder. “That was a good trick, leavin’ it in your brother’s truck the way she did. You think you’ll ever see her again?”

  “Listen, man,” he said, ignoring the question, “you two gotta keep this quiet, all right? Forever. The
re ain’t no one you can ever trust with it. You understand?”

  “Yep. You ain’t gotta worry about that, cuz. Trust me.”

  Kevin looked at the black hillside ahead, silhouetted by the waning moon. His property was on the other side about a mile away. He would have to find his way back in the dark and sneak in undetected. The SBI surveillance team was still watching his trailer, but Kevin had a solution for that. He had told the woman about it on the phone earlier that morning. After their third conversation, when she had finally convinced him that she could help him get revenge for his brother’s murder.

  A couple years back, Kevin had cut a hole in the floor of his closet. It was meant to serve as a trapdoor where he could store money, drugs, and guns. But it also worked as a secret escape route. The night that the woman and the chief deputy had paid him a visit, he had used it to get outside without being seen, which was how he had sneaked up on them so easily. And earlier today, he had used it again to make his way outside, into the woods and down to the road where Clayton had picked him up.

  “When this is all over,” Clayton said, “you should get outta this place. Just like Dylan told you. Get your mom and head west. Make a fresh start somewhere new.”

  “Yeah, maybe. She always talked about wantin’ to see the Grand Canyon.”

  They stayed quiet for a minute. Kevin looked up and down the road and scanned the hill ahead like he was getting ready to take off. But then he looked back at Clayton and asked, “You think Dylan woulda been proud of what I done?”

  “I know he would. Now go on and get before I have to chase you outta here with a damn shotgun.”

  He chuckled. “All right.”

  “And be careful.”

  Kevin wandered off down the road and slipped into the shadows of a row of oak trees. He imagined himself walking with his brother, talking for a while until there was nothing much left to say. Then Dylan started to fall back, encouraging Kevin to keep on. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly where he’d lost him. He had turned around every so often to look for him. Had seen him standing on the road, waving. But at some point, it wasn’t him anymore. His eyes could only find a sapling, wavering in the spring breeze. Moonlight danced on its leaves.