Blind River: A Thriller

by Ben Follows

  The gun slid along the ground five feet away from him. Curtis walked over to the gun and picked it up. He was panting heavily, his entire body still screaming from lack of oxygen, his head pounding, his clothes soaked in sweat from the scorching sun above them.

  Curtis turned and raised the gun, pointing it at Marino's head.

  Marino had managed to turn around and was sitting against a tree, his shirt wrapped around his injured hand. Blood still flowed onto his shirt.

  “Are you going to shoot me?” said Marino, strangely calm. “You ruined my entire life. You destroyed everything I spent my entire life building. Why not finish it off?”

  As much as Curtis wanted to put a bullet through Marino’s head, he took a deep breath and returned his gun to the holster. He took out his cellphone.

  “You know, Josh was weak, too,” said Marino, a chuckle passing through his lips. “Right up until the end.”

  Curtis spun back to him, his phone in one hand and the other going to his gun. “What did you say?”

  Marino smirked. “Josh was weak. He was one of the best of the people in my network, but he wanted too much. He thought he would take over from me, that he could lead better than I could. So I cracked his skull with a baseball bat in front of everyone. I let him bleed out on the floor as an example. We buried Josh’s body so deep in the forest no one would ever find it, where the scavenging animals would eat it until there was nothing left but bones, and the bones would disintegrate and return to nature. Now tell me, Curtis, are you still going to leave me alive, knowing what I did to your brother?”

  Curtis stood there for a few moments, letting the new information seep in. He knew Marino was baiting him, trying to do anything not to return to his cell. Somehow, Curtis knew it was the truth. He had always suspected Marino had been connected to Josh’s disappearance, and that Josh’s own actions had been at least partly responsible.

  He didn’t feel the need for vengeance that Matt Oberman had insisted he would feel. He felt something different.

  In that moment, Curtis understood how the O’Connell’s could have misidentified their daughters body in the morgue, how the relief had washed over the other parents when they identified their own offspring. It was the weight of uncertainty being lifted off their shoulders. For the first time in decades, Curtis felt at peace.

  “No,” he said to Marino. "You don't deserve a quick death." He took out his phone and dialed Frankie’s number.

  Marino glared at him, the light going out of his eyes more and more as the blood from his hand soaked the shirt.

  Curtis frowned as the call rang and no one answered. As Frankie’s voicemail message played, he realized that he had never heard the message before. Frankie always answered her phone. She believed federal agent should always be reachable.

  Curtis ended the call without leaving a message and called Trevor. Trevor answered on the third ring. “Curtis," he said, "what the hell happened?”

  “I have Marino, he was at Randall’s Pub. What are you talking about?”

  “Frankie sent out a communication that got cut off about Marino," said Trevor. "We haven’t been able to reach her. I’m heading over to Randall’s Tavern now. Call Tucker and tell him where Marino is. Meet me at the tavern.”

  Before Curtis could answer, the call ended. Curtis turned and was about to call Tucker when he thought of something he couldn’t believe hadn’t occurred to him earlier.

  He turned back to Marino. “Why were you at the tavern?”

  Marino laughed. “Because I needed some muscle, and Robert Randall is one of the best in the business.”

  “What are you talking about?” Curtis tried to process what he was saying.

  Marino laughed again. “You should have seen him in his prime. He was an insane motherfucker. I killed people because it had a reason, but Robert didn’t need any of that. It was like a drug to him. He once told me that if he didn’t feel the life leave someone on a regular basis, he started getting cold shakes and headaches. If there was a support group for serial killers, he would have been there in a second.”

  The pieces started to fall together in Curtis's head too perfectly to ignore. He could see it. Robert Randall living a law-abiding life while the rest of the criminals he'd associated with languished behind bars. He'd lived with his addiction, ignoring the urges that came to him, then he'd learned that Bobby was sneaking alcohol to the high schoolers, and all of a sudden he had a new outlet. He knew about the pond in the forest because Curtis had told him about it twenty years earlier when Robert had been sneaking alcohol to him and Jeff.

  He must have gone to an adjacent town to get that first kill, that unidentified body in the river, to get the feeling back, then had come back to Blind River, watching the girls Bobby was sneaking booze to. When he saw his chances, he took them, and that was how he had killed the three local girls.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw Frankie standing in the middle of the bar without that knowledge, moments after they had told a serial killer that his son had been murdered by the cops.

  Curtis dialed the police station as quickly as he could, a cold sweat coming over him.

  Behind him, Marino laughed.

  55

  Robert Randall parked and climbed out of his car. He checked that the handgun was securely attached to his waist and wasn’t immediately visible.

  A few police officers nodded to him as he walked toward the station. He nodded back, remaining calm. He would have preferred to bring the shotgun, but there was no way he would get into the building.

  He stepped inside and the receptionist gave him a sympathetic look. She covered the mouthpiece to the phone she was talking on. “The chief is in the jail dealing with some things," she said. "If you go to his office, he’ll be there in a moment. I’m so sorry for what happened.”

  Robert nodded, trying to look as stoic and sad as he could. He felt nothing for his son and never had. Everything he'd ever done for Bobby was done with the intention of keeping up appearances, of appearing to be the joyous and loving fat guy everyone in town loved. He wanted to seemed like a loving father.

  He was about to do was what any loving father would do.

  He walked through the station, getting sympathetic nods and averted glances. Not a single person, FBI nor Police, checked him for weapons. This was what his carefully cultivated personality had earned him, the right to not be suspected. He walked to the door of the jail. The FBI agent standing there put up a hand.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Randall,” he said. “You can’t go in.”

  “My son died in there.” His voice was intentionally desperate and pleading.

  “I’m sorry. You can’t.”

  Robert sighed and nodded. He took the gun from his waistband, and shoved it into the agent’s ribs. The agent’s eyes opened wide, but he said nothing. Robert glanced over his shoulder at the station. No one had reacted.

  “Open the door,” said Robert.

  The agent grabbed the key card from his waist, his fingers fumbling with the card. The door clicked open.

  “Come with me,” said Robert, walking the agent backwards into the jail.

  Inside, Chief Tucker was standing outside the second cell on the right, leaning through the bars. He was lecturing someone and didn’t look up when Robert entered. Robert locked the door of the jail. The loud click made the occupants of the cells look up.

  Robert smiled at Natasha in the cell to his right. She smiled back. He had missed her. She was one of the only people who understood him.

  “Robert?” said Chief Tucker, stepping back from the bars and looking up. “Can you wait in my office? You can’t be in here.”

  Robert didn’t reply. He shoved the agent forward, revealing the gun. “You're responsible my son’s death.”

  He glanced to the left, seeing Ken Hagerty. He kept the gun trained on Chief Tucker, who had moved into a shooters stance, his left foot forward and his hand on his gun.

  “Robert, put down the gun," said Tu
cker. "I'll be forced to shoot you. I understand you’re upset, but I won’t have any more bloodshed here. Wait outside.”

  “He killed my son," said Robert, gesturing at Ken.

  Ken didn’t reply. He almost seemed accepting of his fate.

  “Robert, I’m warning you," said Tucker.

  “Chief, can I ask you something?”

  Chief Tucker frowned.

  “Have you ever shot someone?”

  “What?”

  Robert rolled his neck to get out a kink. “I asked if you’d ever shot someone. You became chief after Marino and his cronies were in prison. You’ve never lived or been the chief in a town filled with crime, a town where people die every day. Have you ever pulled out your gun and shot somebody?”

  Tucker didn’t respond, his hand still on the gun. The FBI agent Robert had taken hostage was on the ground a few feet away, looking up at him.

  “That’s a shame,” said Robert, “because I have.”

  He fired once at Chief Tucker. The chief took the bullet in the center of his forehead and pitched backward. His gun was still holstered.

  The agent began to scream for help. Robert put one between his eyes as well.

  “What the fuck?” screamed Ken Hagerty, scrambling to the back of his cell.

  “Wait your turn,” said Robert calmly.

  There were sounds of commotion coming from inside the station. Apparently, the soundproof walls didn't work with gunshots.

  Robert bent over and grabbed the ring of keys and the gun from Chief Tucker's waist. He looked to his right, at Matt Oberman and Joe Hagerty. They were the two officers who'd been responsible for the death of his son. He smiled at them with his most joyous and happy smile. Neither of the officers said a word, as though hoping to blend into the walls.

  Robert stood and looked back, seeing the partially cleaned blood on the floor of the cell where his son had been. For a moment, he felt what most people would call empathy, then it was gone, and he was just a man with a task. This was what a father did when his child was murdered. There was nothing he could do about it.

  The door to the jail began rattling as officers responded to the gunshots. Someone shouted for keys.

  Robert walked back to Natasha’s cell. Robert unlocked the cell. She stood and walked up to him.

  “It’s good to see you again,” said Robert.

  “I missed you.” Natasha went up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

  He smiled back at her, holding out the gun he’d taken from Chief Tucker. “Don’t let anyone in, but don’t shoot unless you have to.”

  Natasha took the gun and slid it into the back of her pants. “I have a better idea,” she said. She turned and walked to the door, from the other side of which came the jingle of keys.

  “Help!” Natasha screamed through the door, “Don’t come in! He’s going to kill me!"

  Robert smiled as the jingling ceased, replaced with frantic whispering. He'd known Natasha was someone who could understand him from the first time he'd met her, although their relationship hadn’t flourished until he'd started killing again.

  As soon as he'd seen her stories in the Blind River Observer and realized that she understood, he had propositioned her with an offer. She could write the story about the case once it was all over, and in return he would feed her information that only the cops and the killer would have. There had always been a chance she would turn him in, but he'd never worried.

  It had also caused the unexpected advantage of the cops thinking one of their own were giving information to the paper, causing a sense of distrust which Robert believed had helped his killing spree.

  From that point he and Natasha's relationship had only grown, until he had come to think that she was the only woman he'd ever met who understood him, more than his wife, more than his mother. They had a connection he hadn’t believed possible. She had listened while he proudly recounted killing the girls, of kidnapping them and keeping them in the freezer beneath his bar, of slicing their throats, of throwing them into the river where they would sink to the bottom and their bodies would disappear, never to be found.

  Of course, they had been found. He'd never imagined that Curtis Mackley, one of the only people who knew about the pond and its secret, would come back to investigate.

  “Help!” Natasha cried again. “He’s going to kill everyone!”

  She turned back and gave Robert a playful smile.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” shouted Ken Hagerty from his cell.

  “Wait your turn,” said Robert. “I’ve got to do this in order. Those two first.”

  He walked to the cell where Oberman and Hagerty were being kept, both of whom were wide eyed and terrified. They'd been stripped of their weapons.

  The shot he put into each of their heads didn’t meet any resistance. They slumped against the wall beside each other, still seated on the bench. It had been more of an execution than a killing.

  Robert didn’t mind.

  “That’s amazing,” said Natasha. “How are you so accurate?”

  “Staying calm and lots of practice, sweetie. Just one more, then we can get out of here.”

  “Get out of here?”

  “I have a plan," he said. "Just one more thing to do, isn’t there, Ken?”

  Ken had pushed himself against the wall of the cell, his eyes wide in the same abject terror Robert had seen from his other victim’s.

  “Please,” said Ken, “I thought he killed my daughter. My Ashley. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand.”

  Ken looked up at him. “You do?”

  “Yes, I do." Robert Smiled. "If I thought someone had killed my son, I would do everything I could to make sure he was buried so deep underground that he never saw a moment of sunlight. I understand completely.”

  With that, he fired the gun's fifth bullet, followed by the sixth. One hit Ken in the chest and the other in the cheek. He fell to the ground, grabbing his chest frantically, his movements slowing as he lost strength. Robert looked at the empty gun in his hand and threw it onto the floor. It stopped a few feet away from Ken, who looked at it for a moment through his strained breaths.

  “Pass me the gun,” said Robert. Natasha gave him Chief Tucker’s gun. Robert checked the magazine. Four bullets.

  Chief Tucker needed to check his bullets more often. The maintenance on the gun was so poor Robert worried the gun would backfire.

  He grabbed Natasha, pulling her toward him and kissing her as passionately as he could. After a moment, she returned the kiss. They held each other there for a moment, his beard brushing against her perfect skin and her hair falling into his eyes. They held each other in an embrace of true love in the middle of a jail filled with death.

  After a few moments, Robert spun Natasha around so she was facing away and put the gun to her head. “This is how we’re getting out of here,” he said. “Make sure to look afraid.”

  Natasha nodded. Robert could feel her heartbeat against him. It excited him.

  “Unlock the door,” he said. Robert glanced behind him and saw the death and misery he'd caused. It made him feel warm inside.

  Natasha unlocked the door, swinging it open to reveal the station. Police officers were gathered around, their guns aimed at the jail door. They all looked uneasy when they saw Natasha squirming and grabbing at Robert’s arm, the gun pressed to her temple as he walked out. Her legs flailed against him, but he made no response.

  “Help!” Natasha screamed.

  “Anyone do anything,” said Robert calmly, “And I blow her brains out.”

  None of the cops nor agents knew what to do. They looked helpless. Robert was able to walk around the edge of the station, his back to the wall, all the way to the door.

  Natasha kept screaming and flailing, playing her role to perfection. They made it out to the parking lot without a single shot fired.

  They walked backwards to Robert’s car. With his free hand, he took the keys fro
m his pocket and unlocked it.

  “Open the trunk,” he said. The cops and agents were moving out of the police station and into the parking lot around them.

  Natasha gave him an angry glare.

  “Get into the trunk, or I will shoot you.”

  Natasha nodded, opened the trunk and climbed in. She would understand eventually.

  Robert slammed the trunk, then walked to the driver’s seat. He pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street as aggressively as he could, sending the message to the police that a few more casualties would mean nothing. He hit a speed bump and heard Natasha smash against the top of the trunk.

  He could hear her muffled curses, but he kept driving.

  They had to get out of Blind River as fast as possible.

  It was the only way they could have a life together.

  56

  Curtis made it back to the pub just as Trevor pulled into the parking lot.

  “Where is Frankie?” said Curtis as Trevor stepped out of the car.

  “I don’t know," said Trevor. "She was inside?”

  “Yes!” Curtis could feel a cold sweat breaking out on the backs of his hands.

  “Okay, lets--“

  They were cut off as the radio inside Trevor’s car started calling out, “All units report in! All units!”

  Curtis nodded to the car and Trevor leaned inside. He listened for a few moments.

  His face went white and scared. When he finished, he stepped out of the car with a blank expression, as though the world had lost all color.

  “What happened?” said Curtis.

  Trevor didn’t respond. He didn’t even seem aware of Curtis’s existence.

  Curtis grabbed his arm and spoke slowly. “What happened?”

  Trevor focused on him. “Robert Randall attacked the station," he said. "Chief Tucker, Officers Hagerty and Oberman, Ken Hagerty, and one of the FBI agents are all dead. He took Nolowinski captive.”

  Curtis took a deep breath, assessing the new information.