by Bo Thunboe
April released Lynn and picked up the book, angling it so Lynn could see it too. “Dad told me about the journals he found.” It was a diary, the handwriting loose, almost childlike. “This is Dad’s handwriting, in pencil here in the margin.” She pointed, her finger shaking. But her voice was strong. “It says silver, with a question mark.”
The madman came behind them and stuck his head between theirs, his breath hot on Lynn’s neck. The knife came around April’s shoulder and the point scraped the page. April flinched away from it. A dark red sludge circled the blade where it met the handle. Lynn’s stomach heaved, and she fought the urge to puke.
“Read that,” he said, pointing with the knife. “That’s the first time the book mentions my silver.”
April’s index finger swept back and forth over the paragraph as she scanned it. Lynn read along.
Today was one of the most interesting days ever. A man came to the house in a neat truck. I got to unload what was in it. It was full of secret things that looked like buns for meat sandwiches and loafs of bread. Gifts for Momma and me from my Great Uncle Werner. The loafs were for Momma. The twenty buns were for me. Do you know why silver is heavier than gold? Because a hundred dollars of silver is a lot heavier than a hundred dollars of gold. That’s why!”
“Twenty buns?” April said, her voice questioning. “Those must be the little bars Dad found. Dad would have figured the loaves were big bars. And he was right. They look just like a loaf of bread.”
“You’ve seen my silver! I knew it!”
The madman spun away, the point of his knife dragging across April’s shoulder.
She yelped and turned away. A thin line of blood stained her sweatshirt, then spread wider. Tears squeezed from Lynn’s eyes at her daughter’s pain. She dropped the napkins pressed to her cheek, wrapped her arm around April, and held her tight.
The man stepped toward the living room, then turned around, his face splotchy red. He held the big knife under April’s chin. “Tell me the truth, God damn it! I looked through your daddy’s entire house and barn. There was nothing there worth two squirts. Where’s my silver?”
“I just saw the one bar!” April’s voice shook. “I swear. That’s the truth.”
“Where is it?”
“The detective—the woman—took it from me today.”
“Damn it!” He pulled the knife from under her chin and went back to his pacing, mumbling over and over that the silver was his, then growling: “You’re no god damn help to me at all.”
“Wait!” April said. “Here’s something about hiding the buns… the little bars.”
“I don’t give two shits about where the little bars were! I want to know where the big bars are and I want to know now!”
“Caves!” April shouted.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Jake pushed the swinging door open a few inches. April sat at the far side of the table facing his way. Blood soaked her right shoulder through a tear in her sweatshirt, and damp strands of hair framed her pale face. Lynn sat with her back to the sink giving him a three-quarter view of her face. Her right eye was swollen nearly shut, the skin over her cheekbone split, and blood ran down to her neck.
Jake pulled his gun from his holster and held it along his leg, squeezing the grip. Trane would pay for every drop of that blood.
Trane stood behind the women, his wrist resting on April’s bloodied shoulder with the knife next to her face. “I didn’t see anything about caves.”
“Listen,” April said. She read out loud.
“I put Momma’s loaves where I found the beer bottles. It took me almost four full days going up and down that long ladder and lowering them in a bucket one by each one. But theyre hid good.”
“The beer companies a hundred years ago or whatever all had tunnels under their breweries where they stored the beer to keep it cold,” April explained. “Some were dug up when the library was built.” She pointed at the journal. “But the Spiner Brewery—like it says on this beer bottle my dad drew in the margin—cooled its beer in caves. Dad told me all about it.”
“Where are these caves?” Trane stepped out from behind the women.
This could be my opportunity, Jake thought. He brought the gun up into a two-handed grip.
“The Spiner Brewery was up on the bluff back before the Bristol mansion was built there,” April said. “I know this cave. I can take you there.”
“How can I trust you when you think I killed your daddy?”
“Because we want the silver too,” Lynn said. “At least a piece of it.”
Trane laughed. “You are a cold one, even for an ex-wife.”
April’s gaze flicked Jake’s way. She squinted, and her face went still. She’d seen him.
Trane stepped toward the living room. When he entered the hallway on this loop through the house, Jake would flip on the light and have Trane in his sights.
He would not let Trane get past him.
* * *
Lynn followed April’s gaze and saw the door into the hallway cracked open, a dark shadow covering most of the gap.
Jake! What is he waiting for?
The big man’s crazy eyes jiggered away, then he darted off to make another loop through the house.
“Now!” Lynn yelled, jumping to her feet.
The big man was back quicker than he’d left, the big knife out in front of him, coming for her. “Now what?”
Lynn looked for Jake, but the door was still closed. Her knees shook. “Get out of here!” she yelled.
He lunged, the knife’s wicked tip punching into her shoulder.
Lynn screeched, then bit off the sound as he raised the knife to stab her again.
April sprang up from her chair as Jake burst through the door, gun in front of him.
“Freeze!”
The big man spun, his left arm encircling April and pulling her to his chest. “Well, if it isn’t Jake. Looks like I brought a knife to a gun fight.”
“Drop the knife and let go of April,” Jake said.
The man pulled April tighter against him, then put the knife against her throat.
“Drop your gun or I slit this pretty throat.”
April fought against him. The blade caught the soft flesh on her neck and a line of blood began to run along the blade.
“For God’s sake shoot him!” Lynn shrieked. “Shoot him!”
April tilted her head back and off the blade, panting through clenched teeth. “Shoot him!”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Jake didn’t shoot. His plan had failed when Lynn’s yell brought Trane back into the kitchen. But no one had to die. He’d find another opportunity.
“I said drop the knife, Trane. Let April go and I’ll let you leave.”
Trane hunched down behind April, nothing visible but the side of his head, his encircling arm, and a sliver of his body as his weight shifted from foot to foot. He kept the knife on April’s neck, and her blood ran down over his knuckles.
“It’s my silver,” he said. “I paid for it.” He re-gripped the knife, and the motion gouged another slit in April’s neck, blood running faster, dripping off the hilt and splattering on the linoleum. She whimpered, then squeezed her lips tight. “Drop the gun or I’ll slit her stem to stern right fucking now.”
“Do something, Jake!” Lynn yelled.
Dropping the gun was a bad idea, but Jake had to get the knife off April’s throat. And there were distractions here: greed and anger and Lynn and April. One of those could help separate April from Trane. When that happened, Jake would make his move.
Jake put the gun back in its holster, then raised his hands. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, looking from April to Lynn. “We will work this out.” April’s eyes were wild, her breath coming in snorts, tears and snot running down her face.
“Will we? Wha
t do you propose?” Trane scoffed, but the knife came an inch off April’s throat.
“It’s not too late, Trane. I’m sure what happened with Cole was self-defense. And Officer Grady is going to be fine.” Jake edged around the table. Trane was directly in front of him now. Nothing between them except April.
“That cop is on you.” Trane gestured toward Jake with the knife, the motion flinging April’s blood in his face. But the blade was back at April’s throat before the saltiness registered on Jake’s lips. “I only figured out he was trailing me when you said you knew I’d been searching the Bristol Yard,” Trane said.
Jake had given Grady away. He’d think about that failure later. Now, he needed to focus.
“Why are you sneaking around?” Jake asked. He had to keep talking, waiting for his opportunity. Weight on the balls of his feet. “Like you said. You own the silver, so why not be up front about it?”
Trane laughed, the knife bouncing near April’s throat. The blood was shiny on her soft white flesh and on the glinting blade. “Oh, I own it all right. I even have proof. But when lawyers get involved the truth gets slippery. Plus my creditors will snatch it before I can use it if I get too public about it. I got plans for that money. A wreck off Florida that’ll make my last discovery look like chump change.”
“The one you lost to Spain.”
“That was bullshit.” Trane took a step toward Jake, pointing the knife, but he moved April with him, held tight against his chest. “Lawyer bullshit.”
Jake took a short step back and Trane bit, buying it as a retreat and taking another step forward, shaking the knife, his body emerging from behind April.
Jake went for his gun.
Trane’s eyes bugged out and he raised his knife.
April spun out of Trane’s grip and dropped to the floor.
Jake sighted and fired, the report a cannon shot in the small space. Trane lurched backwards, blood splotching his chest. He yelled—an unintelligible bellow of rage—then stepped forward, leading with the knife. As Jake brought the gun back to acquire another sight picture, Lynn kicked the side of Trane’s knee. It buckled. He slashed at her as he went down.
A red splash against the cabinets.
Trane on his knees now. The red stain growing on his chest. He planted a foot and started to rise.
Jake shot him again, the bullet punching a hole in his forehead, the back of his head blowing out in a pink and gray mist. Trane toppled back against the cabinets, then slid sideways until his slack face hit the floor, a red smear against the cabinet.
“Call an ambulance!” Lynn yelled.
Jake found his holster and put the gun away, then dropped to his knees next to April. Trane’s desperate lunge with the knife had missed Lynn and hit April across the side of her neck. Blood pumped from a sharp-edged furrow.
“April!” Lynn pressed her hands over the wound. “Help me, Jake!”
He pulled out his phone and dialed 911. A beam of light stabbed through the window in the back door, and another lit the curtain on the window above the sink.
Jake told the emergency dispatcher to send an ambulance to the address, and when she repeated it back to him he hung up.
The back door burst open.
“Police!”
“Stand down!” Jake yelled. “Detective Houser here. The suspect is down.”
A patrol officer stepped through the door with his gun drawn and his eyes wide. He blanched when he saw Trane. But when he saw Jake, recognition passed over his face and he lowered his gun.
Jake knelt beside Lynn. She had both hands pressed to her daughter’s neck. He put an arm around her. “An ambulance is on its way,” he said.
April’s face was turned to the side, eyes open. Her eyelids fluttered, her face speckled with blood, her mouth opening and closing. Weak, airy gasps.
“Hang on, April. Help’s coming,” Lynn said, tears dropping onto her daughter’s face.
April’s eyes went wide and a faint sound came from her lips. Lynn bent low, bringing her ear to her daughter’s mouth.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m the—”
The front door burst open. Shouting and confusion.
“Back here!” yelled the officer who’d entered through the back door.
A pair of uniformed officers came in from the dining room, guns leading the way.
“Detective Houser here.” Jake waved his arms to get their attention. “Look at me.”
The officers pulled their eyes off the blood.
“Lower your guns.”
They did.
“Clear the house and secure the scene.”
As they left the room, Jake took over applying pressure to the wound on April’s neck. The blood pumped weakly against his palm.
“I do forgive you, honey.” Lynn pressed her forehead to her daughter’s. “I know you didn’t mean it.”
The rhythmic pressure against Jake’s hand slowed and weakened. April’s face went slack and her eyes were suddenly dull.
“My baby!” Lynn’s wail rattled the back window. She turned to Jake and pummeled him with her fists. “Why didn’t you shoot him? She’d be alive if you had just shot him!”
“No. I—” Jake started to defend himself, then shut up. He kept his hands in place on April’s neck until the paramedics pulled him away. An officer took Lynn’s arm and walked her into the living room. Jake stood in the corner and watched the paramedics bustle around until he admitted the obvious and called the coroner. Then he leaned back against the wall and slid down to a squat. His vision faded and blurred.
Time passed.
Then Callie came.
“You got him, Jake. You got Henry’s killer.”
Jake said nothing, because now he wasn’t sure.
He let Callie take him home.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Jake rose early the morning of the funerals, his head thick from its nighttime churnings. He was on modified duty while the department investigated his officer-involved shooting, and he’d spent most of his time split between rehashing the events in the kitchen and chasing down a few last details to complete the book on Henry’s murder. When he received the forensics reports and the transcripts of Callie’s interviews, he was sure he’d then know the truth.
He stepped out onto his screened-in porch and pulled in a lungful of the clean cold air.
Thank God Grady had pulled through. It had been touch-and-go for the first forty-eight hours, his brain swelling, the doctors’ efforts to relieve the pressure failing. Jake had been there often, talking with Grady’s family and watching football news with the unconscious man. He was there when Grady suddenly woke at three thirty in the morning. Grady’s first words were, “Did you get him?” Jake explained how it shook out, then called Grady’s family with the good news. The doctors now expected Grady to recover fully.
Jake decided to go for a run while he waited for the reports. He dressed in his running gear and got moving, starting slowly to get his blood pumping and warm his leg muscles. Only Weston’s earliest risers were out: deliverymen and dog walkers and a few other runners. When he hit the brick path along the river, he lengthened his stride and his mind began to clear. The air was thick and heavy with humidity and the rich organic smells coming off the rain-swelled waters of the Paget River. The path was dry and clear on the high ground by Centennial Beach, but when it dropped down near the river along the base of the bluff, wet leaves and rain-washed mud made the trail treacherous. Jake slowed and ran with short flat steps until the trail was clear.
He crossed the river on the Jefferson Avenue Bridge, then cut north on the asphalt bike trail.
His plan for handling Trane had been solid. Trane kept making that fast circuit through the house every few minutes. Waiting until Trane’s next circuit separated him from the women had been Jake’s best chance to end the situation
with the least risk to Lynn and April. With the gun in his hand and the women behind him, he could have forced Trane to surrender. Or scared him out the front door where uniformed officers waited.
Without firing a shot.
But Lynn’s scream for Jake to enter the kitchen “Now!” had stopped Trane’s circuit and forced a situation that led to… everything else that happened.
Lynn had told the investigators working the shooting that April died because Jake waited too long to shoot. Jake worried that she was right. He’d been quick with the gun the afternoon he shot Royce Fletcher and had been haunted by it ever since. Had that experience and its long aftermath slowed him down in Lynn’s kitchen?
He’d had a chance to shoot Trane when he first burst through the door into the kitchen. Instead he’d yelled, “Freeze.” If he hadn’t given Trane that chance to surrender—and instead shot the man immediately—Jake would have always wondered if a warning would have worked. He would have always wondered if he’d had to shoot. If Trane had to die.
Like with Royce Fletcher.
He pushed himself harder, focusing on his form and his breathing. He passed a dog walker and two women speed-walking, and then was under the Burlington Northern tracks, his foot strikes echoing off the concrete.
Once Trane was using April as a shield, Jake’s best play had been to put his gun in its holster and draw Trane out. And that play had worked. April had seen the opening and spun out of Trane’s grip. And Jake had acted immediately. At the earliest safe moment. He’d had to shoot; that was clear without a doubt. And his shot had struck true. Center mass. But that first shot hadn’t taken Trane out. And before Jake could reacquire his target…
It was a fluke, his knife catching April like that.
Jake’s legs burned as he pushed up the hill leading away from the railroad bridge, leaning forward and lifting his feet to maintain his pace, his calves tightening into twin knots of pain.
It had been his call to go into the house alone. With his gun and surprise on his side, that had been the best option. He still believed that. If he had called in backup, or even SWAT, things would have likely ended even worse.
