Sibley's Secret

by Frank Perry

gave basic aid to people and animals. He knew from the severity of the wound that Fletcher could not save Hicks. He drove at dangerous speed toward Jackson.

  Carter was too upset to start the truck. His father had taught him how to control the spark advance lever on the steering wheel and how to use the foot shifters to set the gears in neutral, but he couldn’t do it right. He cranked and cranked, until his arm gave out, then pushed the truck into the roadside brush to let the wagon pass. He then ran to the house with the guns to get them out of sight. He felt, or knew, his actions were vital to preserving family life as he’d known it. His dad had let him drive the truck at ten and to manage the plow-horse, which was all men’s work, but he knew instinctively that this was even more important. He ran through the front door and up the stairs to his room, throwing the guns under his bed. He had wanted a gun and Dad had promised him a .22 for his next birthday, but now he hated guns. He’d seen what guns do. He turned to see his mother standing in the hall looking at him. “What are you doing, Carter!”

  While Carter tried to explain what he’d seen, John was driving the big car as fast as its wooden wheels would go. At times he was exceeding fifty miles per hour as the high-pressure tires pounded over every ripple in the oil-soaked dirt. He wasn’t thinking; he was trying to save a man’s life. It made no difference that he’d shot him.

  “Ah ... Ah! Albrecht, you’re killing me! Please stop!” Hicks sounded strangely strong in the back.

  “You’ll die if the medics don’t get to work on you fast!” He was yelling above the wind and engine noise and ignored pleas from Hicks. He’d seen men with seemingly minor thorax wounds go into shock and die in minutes. The hospital was still miles away.

  “You gotta save me, Albrecht. I, I know it was an accident, but you gotta save me.” He knew that the Sergeant and most of his men had wanted to kill him many times before, but he’d never given them a chance. Now Albrecht had shot him. He wasn’t taking him to a hospital; he was driving deep into the countryside to let him die! “Albrecht, listen to me. Listen to me. I can pay you. I can make you rich, just don’t kill me!”

  John didn’t answer. The man was hallucinating, irrational. He pressed the accelerator harder. Hicks cried out again, “John! Listen to me. At the granary, in the old barn, my stuff, my stuff from the war, you can have it, just don’t kill me.” He was crying now, and vomiting on himself and the mohair car seat. He finally stopped talking.

  It had been silent in the back for minutes when the hospital came into sight, less than a mile away. John glanced back and Hicks wasn’t moving. He had been happier when the man was screaming at him. He turned off the road toward the hospital doorway at full speed before pressing the mechanical brakes hard. With brakes only on the rear wheels and three-inch wide tires, the car skidded uncontrollably in the gravel, turning completely around before stopping within feet of the building.

  He ran inside screaming for help and grabbed a folding stretcher that was leaning against the wall near the door. “Someone help! I have a wounded man here.” He ran back to the car, unfolding the stretcher without looking to see if Hicks was alive. He’d either survived this far or died, but Albrecht had done everything he could to save the man. When he stood to look inside the car, he was pushed aside by two men in white coats and a nurse. Within seconds, they had removed Hicks from the car and taken him inside.

  For a brief moment, he contemplated following them, but, instead, he jumped back into the still-running car and sped off. He looked back briefly, seeing the blood pool soaking into the tufted cloth seat. Now, he needed to be with his wife and son, hoping this was all a bad nightmare.

  Feelings

  Evan agreed to stay away from her in the future, hoping that Jelavich would forget about him, or at least not harm him. She’d promised they could see each other again when she felt it was safe, probably not working together again, but as friends. The way she had expressed it, he had hoped it meant they would be close friends, maybe even intimate friends. There was hope for them in the future.

  She began sending him text messages or email when she was planning to be at the museum or the Russian State Library. He would either use the internet on those days or go to the repositories opposite her. It was a strange clandestine relationship, but it made them both feel safer. She was vital to the Russian mobster’s plans and therefore safe, but Evan wasn’t.

  Oddly, their affection grew through the new relationship. Karina found it easier to express herself and accept his dialogue, whatever he talked about, through email rather than in person. She was growing fond of him and his feelings were intensifying. One evening after an hour of messaging back and forth, they had progressed to the point of sending jokes; something Evan would never have felt possible after their first days side-by-side at the museum. He was feeling more adventurous than ever, and with new found courage asked, “So, you gonna come back to the States with me?”

  When she didn’t answer quickly, he worried that he’d gone too far, presumed too much, misread her intentions. He panicked and began writing an apology when he received mail from her. He was afraid to open it. He held his breath and double clicked – “Yes.”

  Lonely

  Kiki finished her call to Chad. They talked almost every night. She smiled to herself: he’d grown to be such a sensitive young man. He had an active social life at school, but he called his mother because she would be lonely. It couldn’t be helped in Tranquility. She’d lived there over five years and didn’t have any close friends. She talked to Sherry at the station and to the other officer, but it was business, not personal. His mother was a woman like any other and she needed companionship. Everyone does.

  There weren’t any single men in Tranquility who interested her. She didn’t know anyone interesting on the East Coast. She’d been burned once in a bad marriage and was guarded about men in general. Chad smiled to himself. Maybe if she were ugly, she’d find someone actually interested in her as a person. Tonight’s call was mostly serious. She asked if he’d seen any grave markers when he walked around the farm. He told her that he hadn’t seen the entire farm, and the orchard was so overgrown it could hide almost anything. He hadn’t seen anything that looked like a grave. It freaked him out to think about it. She had to explain what she had heard from Jim Olander. At one point he suggested that they might want to go back again and look more closely. He’d also grown more curious about the metal building with the tractor, dirt floor and no electricity. It was a big building and the entire back half was filled with fruit picking crates stacked from both sides to the roof. Half of the interior was hidden. With the intrigue surrounding the property almost a century earlier, he was now curious to look closely at everything.

  After their call ended, she called Olander. They were talking more frequently and some of it was personal. She was beginning to like it. He was just a hick from her home town, but he had more good qualities that the other men she’d known, including her husband -- especially her husband. She wasn’t looking for a life-time companion, but she felt strangely attracted to Jim, strange in a good way. He answered “Hi, lady friend.”

  “Hi, yourself, what’s going on?”

  “Is this a social call?”

  “Um, maybe. I just got off with Chad and I was feeling lonely. Do I need an excuse to call?”

  He sounded relaxed, “Not you, I like talking to you.”

  “So, do we have any business to talk about?”

  “Not really, I’ve seen a couple of cars on the property this week. When I stopped, it was always somebody knocking on the door looking for the owner, probably to pay some bill.”

  “Ugh, I wish I could do something about that; but hey, it’s not my house according to the judge.”

  He knew that it was bothering her, “Look, be grateful it’s not your problem. Right now, the owner is someone unknown, at least to you and me.”

  “Any more luck finding
them?”

  “Maybe, I’m looking into something, but I don’t want to say anything yet. Give me a couple days.”

  “All right, let’s talk about something else.” She was relaxed on the sofa with a glass of wine.

  In Trouble

  He was working in the barn on Saturday morning, cleaning the horse stalls, when the sheriff drove onto the property, stopping near the house. Sarah was sitting on the porch folding clothes and didn’t move or say anything while the big man struggled to disentangle himself from the driver’s seat. The new Dodge sedan was large compared to their Model T truck, but he still had trouble, finally getting both feet on the ground and standing erect. “How do, ma’am. I’m looking for Mr. John Albrecht; I was told that he lived here.”

  She was nervous seeing the big star painted on the door as the fat man put his hands on his hips, pushing his suit coat back far enough to expose his pistol on his belt. It wasn’t an accidental display. Cass Jasick was notorious. He’d been the Jackson County Sheriff for over twenty years. His first election to the position was just as corrupt as his entire record since then. The prior sheriff had not campaigned hard; he didn’t need to after so many years of good service, but Cass was an out-of-work road worker who received