by Shawn Inmon
Scott didn’t answer, but stepped on the gas, let up, and turned the key again. He smelled the strong odor of gasoline, but miraculously, the truck started. He shifted into drive. The old man jumped back with an agility that surprised Scott.
He stomped on the gas one more time, aiming the front wheels for the mass of humanity that lay in front of him. Scott felt both passenger wheels raise and lower as he passed over the body. He accelerated and the windshield slid off the hood and onto the street.
Scott’s adrenaline was too high to drive slowly. He whipped past the 25 MPH sign doing sixty and didn’t slow. He raced to the edge of town, turned off the main drag, and dropped his speed. He followed a web of side streets he had planned out the week before until they led him to the Valiant parked in the woods.
He pulled the ski mask off and wiped the steering wheel, the door, the radio knob. Anywhere he could think of that he had touched. He grabbed his thermos and book, threw them into the Valiant and drove away.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Scott had enjoyed his time in the U-District, but after the stomach-churning reality of what he had done, he was ready to be gone from the Rainy City.
He gave his notice to his landlord on Roosevelt, sold the valiant little Valiant for half of what he had paid for it, and bought a ticket to fly back to Chicago. From there, he caught a train to Evansville. He hadn’t called Cheryl in advance, although he couldn’t have said why. He had gotten used to not answering to anyone but himself when it came to his comings and goings.
He did call her from the train station, though.
He picked up a pay phone, dropped a dime in, and dialed their home number. A few rings later, he heard Cheryl’s voice say, “Hello?”
“Is there any room at the inn for a wandering stranger?”
“Scotty!” Cheryl cried. “Oh, it is so good to hear from you. There’s always room for you. When are you coming to town?”
“About ten minutes ago. I’m at the train station.”
“What? You’re here? Foolish brother, you’ve got to let me know, and I’ll be there to pick you up. Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Eighteen minutes later, she pushed through the double doors, slightly out of breath.
She wrapped Scott in a hug. “You are so bad—not letting me know you are coming!”
“Guilty. Can I say I wanted to surprise you guys?”
“You certainly did that! I’m as bad as you are. I’m not even going to call Mike and tell him. I’ll let him be surprised when he walks in tonight.”
They walked together arm in arm to the car. Scott began to feel more human, less time-traveling assassin, almost immediately.
Unless my math is wrong, or something is different this life, she’s pregnant with Andrea right now. I wonder if she knows yet.
Scott looked down on his baby sister. “You look like you’re glowing a little today.”
She smacked him in the arm. “Oh my God, you can tell, can’t you? I can never sneak anything past you. We just found out a few days ago. How could you possibly know?”
Because I’ve lived this life a few times and things like that haven’t changed. Every life I’ve made it this far, you’ve had Andrea on the same day.
When they got home, Mike was already there, but he was suitably surprised by his brother-in-law’s sudden appearance.
He smiled a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile at Cheryl, but she shook her head. “Give it up. He guessed I was preggers the first minute he saw me.”
Crestfallen, Mike said, “Are we never going to be able to surprise you?” He tipped Cheryl a wink. “We may have more than one surprise up our sleeve.”
Cheryl gave Mike a look that warned him into quiet, but Scott was on the scent.
“What? You’re having triplets? You’ve been elected the president of the local Rotary? What?”
Cheryl shook her head. “There will be no peace, now that you’ve brought it up.” She turned to Scott. “It’s getting late and I haven’t started dinner because I was called away by a sudden errand this afternoon. Mike, what do you say we celebrate by going to Chen’s for dinner?”
“I can always be talked into Chinese food,” Mike said. “But you already knew that.”
“And you, my bloodhound big brother, can wait until we get our chow mein before asking any more questions.”
Half an hour later, they were seated in a comfortable booth in Chen’s Chinese Restaurant. They had indeed ordered chow mein and half a dozen other dishes.
“Okay,” Scott said, dipping a piece of BBQ Pork into hot mustard and sesame seeds, “what’s the big secret?” He fixed Scott with an attempt at a menacing look. “Now that I already know what you’ve been doing to my sister while I’m away, what else is there?”
“Scotty!”
Scott had the good grace to look slightly abashed and smiled at Mike. “All right, kidding aside, what are you two crazy kids up to?”
Mike glanced at Cheryl with a “He’s your brother, you go,” sort of look.
“We want to sell the house.”
Whoa, that’s something new. They’ve never done this before. Maybe there will be more changes coming.
“Okay,” Scott said, simply.
“Okay? That’s it? No arguments at all?”
“Nope,” Scott said. “I’ve run off and been gallivanting around the country, leaving all the upkeep to you guys. As far as I’m concerned, it’s yours, not mine. If you want to sell it, that’s absolutely A-OK with me.”
Cheryl reached a hand out and laid it on Scott’s. “Oh, Scotty, thank you for making this easy. We’ve been afraid to talk to you about it. We thought you might be mad.”
“I can’t even pretend to be mad. So, where are you guys going?”
Another glance shared between the young couple.
“You’ve already bought something, haven’t you?”
Mike nodded. “We’ve got a sweet little two story being built out in Maple Glen Estates.”
“Maple Glen?”
“Yeah, it’s new. It’s a little outside of town, but all the houses around us will be new, there will be lots of kids around for little Mike to play with—“
“Or little Andrea,” Scott interjected and once again saw Cheryl’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. She fixed him with a narrow stare.
He smiled. “Sorry. Whatever you’re having. Good for you guys. I completely understand. Gran and Gramps’ house is in an old neighborhood. Most of the people around you are old. I really do get it.”
“And, it will always be Gran and Gramps’ house. We love them, of course, but we’re ready to start our own story now, too.”
Scott lifted his tiny cup of hot tea and offered it in a toast. “To starting your own story.”
SCOTT STAYED WITH CHERYL and Mike through the holidays. Their new house in Maple Glenn wouldn’t be completed until April, so they weren’t planning on putting the old house on the market until after they made the move.
It didn’t matter to Scott. Before he returned to the road, he said his good-byes to the house where his grandparents had taken him in. He wandered through Earl’s basement shop, which was now Mike’s. Earl’s spirit was still everywhere there. A 1971 calendar with a picture of a duck in flight still hung above the workbench, not to mention that his array of hammers, chisels, wrenches and screwdrivers still hung in their proper spots.
I should pick out some souvenir of Gramps I can carry with me.
He walked along the bench, touching the hand tools one by one. Finally his fingers closed around an old 5/8” wrench. It may have been forty years old, but there wasn’t a spot of rust on it anywhere.
You’ll do.
Scott slipped it into the bottom of his pack, where he could carry it with him always.
By the time the first week of January arrived, Scott had experienced as much domesticity as he could stand, and his list awaited him.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Scott was a busy trave
ler, not to mention, a busy vigilante, over the next five years. He traveled to all four corners of the country and crisscrossed the heartland any number of times.
When Cheryl and Mike closed on the house, they had insisted on putting half the proceeds into a bank account for Scott. Along with his check from the Army, as long as he kept his spending in check, he never needed to worry about money. In fact, each time he checked his balance, it was larger than it had been the month before.
Scott’s arsenal had grown. In addition to his karambit, telescoping baton, and jo, he had added a canister of mace and one of the first consumer versions of a stun gun. More important than the new tools of the trade, was his sense of confidence. After resolving so many bad situations, he had grown sure of his own abilities and tendency to stay cool under pressure.
There were times when he felt that in saving the lives of so many others, he was losing his own soul. It was a dark night when he realized that he had killed more people than any of the other serial killers he had neutralized. There were still moments when he wondered how much of his own soul he was sacrificing in the service of others.
Not every target worked out perfectly. Sometimes situations had changed and there was no need for him to do anything.
In 1978, Scott had returned to Middle Falls, Oregon, to take out Michael Hollister, the West Coast Strangler. Hollister had begun his killing spree that year and even though he never revealed where or how he had taken his victims, Scott knew where he lived. He intended to take him out, quickly and quietly, before he had a chance to take his first victim.
Scott wasn’t excited about returning to Middle Falls. It was the scene of his greatest nightmare, but he vowed to do his best to steer clear of the neighborhood where his father had killed his mother.
When he arrived to scout out the address, though, he found Michael Hollister didn’t live there—it was an entirely different family. Scott looked in the phone book and found an address for Clayton Hollister, who Scott knew was his father.
He staked out his father’s house—an impressive two story colonial on a large lot in Middle Falls’ best neighborhood—for three days. An older man, who Scott surmised was Clayton Hollister, came and went, as did a housekeeper, but no other people.
Finally, Scott decided to risk direct contact. Scott had learned to change his appearance dramatically as he moved from town to town—the way he dressed, the way he wore his hair, whether he grew his beard and moustache out. At that moment, he had long hair and a moustache. After this, he would return to a barber and change his look.
He waited until the older man had left in the morning and the housekeeper had arrived. He parked on the street and walked up the walk to the front door. He rang the doorbell and listened to three deep, resonant notes play inside the house. He stood there for quite some time, waiting. Eventually the housekeeper, dressed in a gray uniform and a white apron, answered the door.
“Hi, is Michael here?”
A blank look sat on her face for several seconds. “Michael?”
“Hollister.”
She looked as though that was a connection she should be making but wasn’t. “Oh, Mr. Hollister’s son. I’ve only met him once. He doesn’t live here.”
“You don’t happen to know where he is, do you? I’m an old friend.”
“No, I’m embarrassed to say, I don’t. I never hear of Mr. Hollister speak of him.”
Scott thanked her and retreated to his car.
Something’s changed here. In all the research I did, Michael Hollister stayed with his parents until 1979. Then, his father died of a heart attack and Michael took over the company business. By then, he had also started murdering strangers up and down the I-5 corridor.
But now, everything seems to have changed.
Scott drove to the Middle Falls Public Library and asked where the copies of daily newspapers from previous years were kept. A librarian led him to a well-lit back room and showed him where both the paper and microfiche versions of The Middle Falls Chronicle and The Oregonian were kept.
Scott took out his increasingly dog-eared notebook and looked at his notes on Michael Hollister. It showed his first victim had been discovered in April, 1979.
Scott looked through every day’s edition for both papers, but found no stories about a mysterious dead body being discovered at a rest stop, which is where he left all his early victims.
Scott looked up the dates around the second and third murders. Again, nothing.
Either you’ve chosen a better path this lifetime, or you’ve died before your time, Michael Hollister. Either way, I have no way to track you down. I’ll have to let you go.
At least twice, Scott arrived too late to make a difference. Once, a multiple murder occurred earlier than it had been reported, and on another, yet another of his many cars had broken down on the way. He mourned the loss of life that day and cursed himself for not being there to save the man who had been killed. At the same time, it reinforced the good he was doing and reminded him of the stakes he was playing for.
Most of the time, Scott accomplished exactly what he set out to do, taking the would-be murderers and rapists out before they had a chance to commit their crimes.
Next, Scott traveled north to Chicago, where he met the Killer Clown, John Wayne Gacy. Scott knew he was too late to save some of the victims, but he did what he could. He arranged to meet Gacy, who owned a construction company at the time, at a home under construction. He set the appointment for late in the evening and the site was deserted, but Gacy suspected nothing. It was the perfect site to kill the man who had already killed many young boys and was slated to kill many more.
Scott always disappeared from the community as soon as the murderer was neutralized, and he did the same with Gacy. As soon as he was three states away, though, he called the police, told them where they could find Gacy’s body and explained exactly what they would find if they would look in the crawlspace of his house.
When the police went to Gacy’s house to inform his mother of his passing, she invited them in. The smell from the crawl space sickened them. They got a search warrant and found exactly what their anonymous caller had promised.
The next day, The Chicago Sun-Times ran an article on the second page of the local news section headlined, Avenging Angel? The story posited that one of the parents of the dead boys had discovered the crime and taken justice into their own hands.
The murder of John Wayne Gacy remained an open file, but the police department did not assign many man-hours to solve it.
Scott worked on well-known criminals like Gacy, David Berkowitz, who never had a chance to be known as The Son of Sam, Arthur Shawcross, and the serial killer Robert Yates. Yates lived and killed in Spokane, Washington, and Scott couldn’t help but wonder if there was something in the water in Washington State that was breeding serial killers.
He didn’t just stop serial killers and other mass murderers, though.
He also had crimes like the Jenkins murders on his list. Whenever he had a chance to stop a parent from killing their spouse or children, he would travel any distance to do so. He spent much of this life trying to make good a debt he felt for having failed his mother at age ten. It was something that would never be settled in full, but he slept better for having made the effort.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
In 1981, Scott traveled to northern California to stop a man named Jeff Pherigo from lighting his house on fire while his family slept inside. Pherigo had stayed inside long enough to get the smoke smell in his clothes and hair, then bolted outside, where he watched it burn. He was not a great arsonist, and was easily caught by the fire investigative team, charged with murder and insurance fraud, and sent to prison. None of that had brought his family back to life.
Scott had made a note that Pherigo had started the fire on the outside of the back porch, using an accelerant that was assumed to be gasoline. The fire had quickly spread to the second floor. The front door had a lock that required a key t
o unlock, even from the inside. Pherigo had pocketed the key to cut off that avenue of escape. The flames had made the back door impassable. The bodies of his wife, two children, and golden retriever had been found lying together on the kitchen floor.
The night Scott knew the fire would be set, he positioned himself among some pine trees in Pherigo’s back yard. He had added a small crossbow to his arsenal, just for occasions like this. His plan was to hit Pherigo with a bolt while he was setting the fire, disabling him. Scott then planned to rush him and take him out. He intended to drag the body away so his family wouldn’t discover it. They would no doubt be saddened by the loss of their husband and father, but they would be alive and able to move on with their lives.
Scott remembered that the first fire alarm had been called in by a neighbor at 2:35 a.m. The first responders had found Pherigo lying outside the back door, coughing and crying out for his family.
Scott checked his watch. 1:15.
Shouldn’t be too long now.
Scott checked his small crossbow and made sure it was ready to fire. He peered around the trunk of the tree at the back porch.
Behind him, he heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun ratcheting a shell into its chamber.
“Drop the bow, then turn around slowly.”
Goddamn it! I’ve been doing this too long, and I got complacent. Now some neighbor thinks I’m stalking the place and wants to blow my head off.
Scott held the crossbow out to arm’s length, lowered it toward the ground, then let it go. It landed softly in the fallen pine needles.
“Now, arms in the air. Turn around.”
Scott did exactly that, and he couldn’t help himself. He gaped at the man holding the shotgun. It was Jeff Pherigo.
“Not who you expected, huh? You thought you were gonna ambush me with that danged little bow of yours, then kill me, right?”
That was exactly Scott’s plan, so he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to be killed and transported back to his grandparents’ couch. He didn’t think he had the strength to do all this work again.
