Blood Stains

by Sharon Sala

He took his time eating, waiting for time to pass. Taking out one lone man in a location so far away from prying eyes was going to be a piece of cake. And as the thought crossed his mind, he flagged down his waitress and ordered some dessert.

  By the time Sam had cooked and eaten his supper, it was nearly dark. He carried his table scraps out the back door of his cabin and scraped them into Pooch’s bowl. A low rumble of thunder reminded him that the weatherman had promised thunderstorms for the area. He glanced up at the darkening sky, then circled the cabin so he could see toward the bait shop, making sure he’d left the night-lights turned on. A soft yellow glow from the neon Coors light in the window cast shadows on the ground beside the building. As always, everything was locked up and tied down.

  After scratching Pooch’s ears, he went back inside and finished cleaning up the dishes, then headed for the living room to watch a little TV. But it was hard to concentrate. He hadn’t been able to get over Mary Blake coming to see him. Granted, she wouldn’t have been here without the cop and the fact that they were reopening her mother’s murder case, but that was fine with him. He was still blown away by how much she looked like Sally, and had high hopes that Sally’s killer would finally be brought to justice. By the time he was ready for bed, Pooch was scratching at the door, wanting to come in, and Tank went over to oblige him.

  The giant Rhodesian Ridgeback sauntered in slowly with his tongue lolling off to the side, dripping water from a swim in the lake.

  “Looks like you already had your bath,” Sam said. “Do me the favor of staying off the furniture while I take mine now…you hear?”

  The dog paid him no mind, and Sam didn’t wait to make sure the dog stayed on the floor. They both knew the routine.

  Time passed slowly as Sam took his shower, then puttered around the cabin, until finally he headed up the stairs to the loft where he slept. Out of habit, his gaze slid toward the table where Sally’s photo used to sit, and then he remembered that he’d given it to Mary. Smiling to himself, he turned back the covers and crawled into bed.

  The thunderstorm moved closer. Intermittent flashes of lightning were followed by angry rumbles of thunder. When the rain began pelting the roof over Sam’s bed, he finally drifted off to sleep.

  Downstairs, Pooch had curled up at the bottom of the stairs leading to the sleeping loft, lulled—like his master—by the sound of wind and rain.

  Harley turned off his lights and engine, and coasted toward the bait shop. It was still raining, but the worst of the storm had moved past. His tires made little popping noises as they rolled along the graveled road, but the sounds were muffled by the rain and wind coming off the lake.

  The neon light from the Coors beer sign was shining in the bait shop window, casting a pale glow out onto the ground. The cabin behind the shop was in darkness. He didn’t even have to deal with a halogen yard light.

  Perfect.

  He parked the car beneath the trees nearest the shop, then grabbed his gun and a flashlight and got out, wishing he’d thought to grab a jacket before he left Tulsa. The rain was cold, and while the leather shed water, his shirt and jeans didn’t, and he was soon soaked to the skin.

  As he reached the cabin, he paused beneath a window and listened, making sure the old man wasn’t sitting inside watching television in the dark. The roof was minus a rain gutter, and as he leaned forward and peered into a window he got a steady flow of rainwater down the back of his neck, which pissed him off a bit more.

  The house was completely in darkness, not even a night-light inside to tell him how the place was laid out. His best guess was that it was one big room, maybe two at most.

  His boots made soft little squishing noises in the grass as he circled the cabin. When he got to the back door, he aimed his flashlight toward the door long enough to see that it had a dead bolt. Frowning, he made his way back around to the front of the cabin and then started up the steps.

  Sam was sound asleep on his side with his hand hanging off the side of the bed. Suddenly Pooch’s cold wet nose was in his palm.

  He woke immediately, then sat up, his head cocked to the side, listening.

  Pooch woofed softly, then turned and ran swiftly down the stairs and across the room as Sam slipped out of bed and into a pair of pants. He grabbed a twelve-gauge shotgun from the rack above his bed, and then opened the drawer in the table near his bed and pulled out a handful of shells.

  He knew the house as well in the dark of night as he did in broad daylight, and now he peered over the loft down into the room below. From where he was standing, he had a straight line of sight to the front door.

  It took him a few moments to locate Pooch, and when he saw him with his ears up, silently trailing along the wall from the back of the room toward the front, marking the path of whatever was outside the cabin, he knew he had a visitor.

  It occurred to him that it might be a cougar. They were seen in the area from time to time, although since it was raining, he doubted it would have picked up Pooch’s scent, which would be the only reason a big cat would come around human habitation.

  Then all of a sudden Sam heard the front steps groan and knew his late-night visitor had to be human. It would take considerable weight to make those steps creak, and whoever was out there had just come up onto the porch.

  Confident that his approach had been muffled by the rain and wind, Harley swept his flashlight across the locks. Another damn dead bolt. Whatever. He’d kicked in plenty of doors before, and there was no time like the present.

  He lifted his knee toward his chest, then lunged forward, putting all of his two hundred and twenty pounds into the kick.

  The door splintered, and he was inside the cabin and reaching for the light switch when something huge hit him chest high and took him down to the ground.

  The old man had a dog!

  He saw a flash of white teeth, heard a deep, angry growl and threw his arm up to deflect the bite aiming for his throat. The bite went bone-deep into his forearm, and he was screaming as he swung his handgun up against the dog’s furry belly and fired twice as fast as he could.

  The dog yelped and went down, howling and writhing, as if confused by the pain. He rolled the animal off himself and swiftly crawled behind an easy chair.

  Whatever surprise he’d been planning was over. He was dog-bit and bleeding, and the room was still dark.

  All of a sudden the inside of the cabin was flooded with light. He peered out from behind the chair, his gun at the ready. That was when he saw the stairs at the back of the room leading to a sleeping loft. He looked up, just as a huge silhouette loomed over the railing.

  “Tank!” Harley yelled, hoping that would distract the man enough for him to get off a good shot.

  Instead, Sam emptied the twelve-gauge shotgun he was holding into the easy chair—and right into Harley’s chest.

  Harley screamed, not unlike the dog still writhing on the floor, as fire spread throughout his body.

  Sam came flying down the stairs, reloading as he ran. He recognized the intruder immediately and realized that the earlier visit had been to case the joint. Assuming the man had come to rob him, he shoved the shotgun in his face.

  “What’s your name?” Sam yelled.

  “Tank…come on, man, help me. I’m hurt real bad.”

  Sam froze. It suddenly hit him that this man he didn’t know had twice called him Tank, a name he hadn’t used in twenty years. Not just that, down here he was Sam Vincent. No one knew him as Tank.

  “Who are you?” Sam yelled, and then poked the barrel of the shotgun in the man’s belly.

  Harley moaned from the pain, and then he started to seize. Before he could answer the question, his eyes rolled back in his head, and then he was gone.

  Fourteen

  S am wasn’t the only one having a problem with crime. Back in Tulsa, a man named Marino had gotten sick at his night job and clocked out early from the warehouse where he loaded trailers for tractor-trailer rigs. Battling a fever and sick
to his stomach, it was all he could do to get home. Expecting sympathy and some much needed rest, he walked into his bedroom and found his wife in their bed with another man.

  Shock escalated to fury, and before he took time to think it over, Marino killed the man, then his own wife, in a fit of rage. In a state of shock and still reeling from the sickness that had sent him home, he took some medicine and passed out on his living room sofa. When he woke the next morning, he made himself some coffee, then sat down on a kitchen stool and called the police.

  A couple of hours later, a lab tech from the crime-scene crew was taking photos, while two others were bagging evidence, even though Marino had already confessed and been taken into custody. They continued to gather evidence as if the killer was an unknown. It wouldn’t be the first time a perp connected with a lawyer and decided to change his plea. Bodie was already guessing that a wily lawyer was going to put the man’s illness and state of mind into play when it came time for trial. However, evidence told its own story, even when killers changed theirs.

  Dave was still on the porch talking to a uniformed officer and Bodie was heading for the car when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, saw Out Of Area and started to let it go to voice mail, then changed his mind.

  “This is Detective Bodie Scott.”

  “Detective…Sam Vincent.”

  Bodie stopped. Tank? “Uh…yeah, hi, Sam. How’s it going?”

  “I’ve seen better days,” Sam said.

  Bodie frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Last night I had a visitor break into my house around two a.m. Killed my dog and tried to kill me.”

  Bodie thought of that huge Rhodesian Ridgeback coming at him in the dark and winced.

  “Sorry to hear it. What happened? Robbery gone bad?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but just before he died, the guy called me Tank.”

  Now Bodie was paying attention. “He’s dead?”

  “Yeah, a twelve-gauge will do that to you if you’re in the wrong place. So…I’ve been thinking. I left Tulsa twenty years ago, and when I did, I left Tank Vincent behind. Even though my sister lives there, I haven’t been back. Everyone down here knows me as Sam. No one ever calls me anything but Sam. Then you show up with Mary Blake all grown up telling me that you’re reopening the case. You interrogate me, and the next night some thug breaks into my house, calls me by my pimp name and tries to kill me, and now I’m starting to get antsy.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Bodie muttered.

  “Took the words right out of my mouth,” Sam replied.

  “Are you okay?” Bodie asked.

  “Hell no. I had to bury my dog and get a new door. I haven’t decided whether I’m gonna get my easy chair recovered or just toss it. Gonna be hell trying to pick all the shot out of the stuffing.”

  “Are you good with the local law?”

  “Yeah. They know me. Besides, it was pretty obvious after they saw the door kicked in that he hadn’t planned on knocking.”

  “Did you know the shooter?”

  “No, but he came in the bait shop a few hours earlier, I guess to look me over. Thinking about it, if he’d been planning to rob me, he would have done it then and been long gone, instead of waiting ’til dark and hitting my house.”

  “Have the police identified him?”

  “I don’t know. You can call the county sheriff about all that.”

  “Yeah, I will, and thanks for letting me know.”

  “Look. I’m not trying to tell you how to run your business,” Sam said. “But I’d be paying attention to Mary right now, if I was you. If this was connected to the investigation, she could be their next target.”

  A chill went up Bodie’s back as the line went dead in his ear. He signaled to Dave that they needed to leave, and then got into the car. Dave came running and jumped in next to him.

  “What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to Lieutenant Carver about that cold case we reopened. I think someone’s leaked information that’s already gotten one man killed. I don’t want Maria Slade next on the list.”

  Franklin Sheets had a habit of turning on the television set in his bedroom as soon as he woke up. It was his way of catching up with what went on in Tulsa after he went to bed and what news was breaking that morning. It played in the background as he began his morning routine. He’d already showered and was standing in front of the mirror swiping shaving cream on his face when he heard the television anchor mention the word shooting, then Lake Eufaula.

  He grabbed a hand towel and ran out of the bathroom, grabbed the remote and upped the volume.

  “…attack took place in the early morning hours at the home of Samuel Vincent, owner of the Bait and Beer on the far southwest shores of Lake Eufaula. After the intruder invaded his home, shot and killed his dog and took aim at him, the home owner shot back in self-defense. The perpetrator was pronounced dead on the scene. Identification is being withheld until notification of next of kin. The authorities are surmising this was a robbery gone bad. In other news…”

  Franklin’s stomach rolled. Harley was dead. He was out ten thousand dollars, and Tank Vincent was still alive. What had started out as nothing more than housekeeping was turning into an issue. His cell phone rang on the stand next to his bed, but he ignored it. He needed to think. Then he glanced at the clock.

  He needed to think fast, because he was due in court in a couple of hours.

  Becky Clemmons was pouring her second cup of coffee when her telephone rang. When she saw it was Sammy, she smiled. This was a treat. Hearing from him twice in one week was unusual.

  “Good morning, brother,” she said.

  “Yeah, thought I’d better call you before you heard about it on the news.”

  Becky frowned. “Heard what?”

  “Someone broke into my house early this morning around two a.m. Kicked in my front door, killed Pooch and tried to take me out.”

  “Oh, my God…Sammy…are you okay?”

  “I’m not hurt, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Becky’s thoughts were tumbling. “What do they think…that he was trying to rob you?”

  “I don’t know what they think, but I know what I think.”

  “What?”

  “It has to do with reopening Sally’s murder investigation.”

  “Why would you—”

  “The man who broke into my house called me Tank. Tank is from twenty years ago. Tank never came to Lake Eufaula. Sam lives at the lake.”

  Becky started to shake. Was this horror starting all over again?

  “What do you think we should do? Do you think I’m in danger? Oh, my God…Mary…what if they find out about her?”

  Sam shrugged. “Hell, Beck…they obviously know she’s in town, because she was with the cop who came to interrogate me.”

  Becky’s voice dropped to a whisper. “No, you don’t understand. The reason they’ve reopened the case is because a witness has come forward.”

  A chill suddenly ran up Sam’s spine. “What do you mean? Who is it? Why didn’t they come forward back then? And how the hell do you know this? Why did they tell you and not me?”

  Becky sank into a chair and closed her eyes.

  “It was Mary. Mary was in the apartment the night Sally was killed.”

  Sam’s heart skipped a beat. “No. She was with you. You said all along that she was with you.”

  “I lied. With her last breath, Sally begged us to hide her. She begged the preacher to take Mary. She kept saying that if he knew she saw him, he’d kill her, too.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Sam muttered. “She didn’t say a word when she was here. Why are they interviewing people if she already knows who it was?”

  “Because she has no memory of her past, which means she doesn’t remember that night, either. She only learned of all this after the preacher died. She came back to do the right thing, and I think coming to see us was part of the plan to bring back her memory, only
I don’t think it’s working.”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “I told the cop I had some boxes of stuff from Sally’s apartment. She and that cop are supposed to come back and go through all of it in the hopes that something will trigger some memories for Mary…for Maria. I brought the boxes home last night, so…”

  “Have you called them?”

  “I was just about to when you called.”

  “I already told that detective what happened here last night, and I warned him Mary could be in danger. You could be, too. Pay attention to what’s going on, and don’t let any strangers in your house.”

  “Like you did?”

  “I didn’t let him in. But I made sure he didn’t leave. I’m still dealing with the mess down here. As soon as I get squared away, I’m coming to your house.”

  “You don’t even know where I live,” Becky said.

  “I have an address. Tulsa can’t have changed that much. I’ll find it. In the meantime, be careful.”

  “You, too, Sammy. I love you.”

  Sam sighed. “Love you, too, Beck. See you soon.”

  For the first time since she’d checked in, Maria went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. She was mad at herself for caving in to emotions and determined to gain some control. Eating alone in her room was too much like hiding. Andrew had not raised his girls to hide, and she wasn’t about to start now.

  She saw a trio of young women exit the elevator and start across the hotel lobby. They were laughing and talking and trading bites of a huge cinnamon roll as they headed for the exit. There was a disparity in their ages, but not in their appearance. It was obvious they were from the same family. All three had thick, curly red hair. Just watching them made her lonesome for her own sisters, and she decided to give them a call.

  She didn’t know for sure where they were, or how their journeys back to their pasts were playing out, but she had a sudden urge to reconnect, and she pulled out her phone as soon as she was seated.

  She knew Savannah was in Florida. With the time difference, it was already after 11:00 a.m. there. Savannah wasn’t an early riser by choice, but she should be up by now. Maria punched in the number, then waited to hear her sister’s voice. When the call went to voice mail, she left a message.