by Alan Lee
My hands released the weapons and I dove forward, arms outstretched. Kix landed on my forearms as I hit the cement, cushioning his fall. My jaw hit the ground hard, and bells rang in my head. My son rolled forward out of my grip. Dazed, I grabbed at him but missed. In my fingers I held only the tape which used to be around his mouth.
The pistols clattered to the ground on each side of me, and Cannon fell like a sack of wet sand.
Free from the tape, Kix began crying. I peered through the pain at Cannon. His body lay still, his gun several feet from his hand. He was dead.
Kix army-crawled forward to me, his face pitiful and scared.
I reached out and picked him off the ground before Cannon’s blood, diluted and spreading quickly in the falling rain, reached him. More blood on the school’s sidewalk. At least it wasn’t ours. Rolling over onto my back, I laid Kix on my chest, facedown, and let him cry.
“You crawled.” I smiled. “Daddy’s proud of you.”
Chapter Fifty-One
No matter how many flowery wallpapers they try, hospitals will always be depressing places. I sat on a chair with my head in my hands. I hadn’t slept in thirty-eight hours. Kix lay in bed beside me, a machine monitoring his heartbeat. His chest rose and fell, and every few minutes he’d take a deep breath and shift underneath the pressed white sheet. The halls were quiet; visiting hours were over. I’d turned the lights off but the door to our room was open and a nurse walked by periodically. Rain beat silently on the window. I’d only recently dried out, and I still kept the blanket around my shoulders.
Detective Andrews arrived, soft footfalls. He stood framed in the doorway, looking at Kix.
“How is he?”
“He’s good,” I said. My voice was hoarse. “Cannon overdosed him with some kind of sleeping medicine. They pumped his stomach to be safe, and they’re checking his blood. But he should be fine when he wakes.”
Andrews sank into a chair opposite me and rubbed his face.
“Got a call from people across from the school, saying they heard gunshots. What else is new,” he said.
“You’d think by now they’d be used to it.”
“We found Cannon, or what’s left of Cannon, some duct tape, and three guns. Now we’re really confused.”
“Rookies. Can’t read the clues.”
“Then the dispatcher calls on the radio. Says Leta High called 911, said someone kidnapped Kix. So now I know most of the story.”
“Cannon is your killer. One of the revolvers is mine, the .38. The other will match the one you’re looking for. I found Cannon at the school after Leta told me Kix was taken. He told me he killed Allen and Davis to discipline me, remove distractions.”
“So he was obsessed.”
“Yes.”
“Then you shot him,” he said.
“Yes.”
“One hundred times.”
“I lost count.” No I didn’t. Ten times. All hits. I could still hear blasts in my head. “I was a little emotional. He had a gun on Kix.”
“Man.”
“Yeah, it was awful.”
“So the Murphy drug bust? Cleaning parties?” he wondered aloud.
“Catching Murphy was a bonus, but had nothing to do with the homicides. The cleaning parties appear to be legit. They just happened to be a good excuse for Cannon to catch victims at school late. Cannon was pretty good with computers, and I bet his machines will divulge how he accessed emails.”
“Sounds like you got it all figured out.”
“I’m pretty amazing,” I sighed and looked at my son on the hospital bed.
“I’ll get an official statement from you later. Need anything?” He stood up and paused at the door.
“Keep press out of the hospital.”
“Done.” He left.
I punched in a number on my cell.
“Bingham,” he said.
“Cancel your plane ticket. I got him.”
“About time,” he said. I could hear hidden relief on the other end.
“Agreed.”
“You said ‘him.’ Who was it?”
“Watch the news tomorrow. I don’t want to spoil it,” I said.
“I’ll tell Anne. She’ll be relieved.”
We hung up. I thought about eating some of the soup and sandwich someone brought from the cafeteria. But I couldn’t move. The love seat against the far wall looked comfortable but it was so far away.
* * *
Kix’s laughter woke me up. I pried open an eye and saw Mr. Suhr bouncing an Elmo doll around on the bed.
“You’re ubiquitous,” I croaked.
“What does that mean?”
“Seemingly everywhere,”
“You English teachers.” He grinned.
“What time is it?”
“Seven in the morning. A lovely lady named Leta brought you some sausage and egg biscuits.”
“She’s the best,” I said. “And you’re not so bad.”
“Your son’s tests came back. He is clean, and he can go home.”
“No school today?” I asked.
“No school today.”
“I bet Gee is tired of cleaning blood off the sidewalk,” I said.
“The Lord was with you, Mr. August.”
“Doesn’t feel that way in the hospital with my drugged son.”
“It could have been much worse, and the evil has been extinguished. Looking back, you will see God moving more clearly. It is hard to see in the moment.”
I stood up from the couch. Apparently I’d sleep-walked in the night. I stretched out my knotted muscles and crawled into bed with Kix and a biscuit. Kix pointed at the biscuit and smiled at me. I’m a pushover, so we shared.
“Cannon was a Baptist. Baptists are the worst.”
“I’m a Baptist. And I do not know the whole story,” he said. “But I would guess Mr. Cannon was imbalanced mentally. Certainly spiritually.”
“Press outside?”
“Some, yes.” He held up a newspaper. “Would you like to read about yourself?”
“Not really. Summarize it for me,” I said around a bite of sausage.
“Mr. Cannon has been identified as the suspected murderer of Mackenzie Allen and Roy Davis. He stole Mack August’s baby, and so the Fighting Father killed him.”
“Does the paper mention I’m a few pounds over my fighting weight?” I asked.
“It does not.”
“Whew.”
* * *
Andrews called me at home later that day. Kix and I were eating sherbet and watching Sesame Street. He’d earned it. Every few minutes he’d look up at me and smile. I’d earned it too. Outside the rain had stopped and the aching in my jaw was subsiding. Life was good.
“Good thing you got Cannon when you did,” Andrews said.
“You search his house?”
“Yes. One whole freaky room dedicated to you and the murders. Looks like Taylor was going to be next.”
“When?”
“Dunno,” he said. “He had something of a running diary. It includes notes on Allen and Davis, and he started taking notes on Taylor. Bible verses everywhere.”
“What’s the diary say?”
“Haven’t read through it all yet. It mentions you getting the eighth-grade teaching job instead of him, contains a list of your sins, monitoring your emails. That sort of thing.”
“I’ll come take a look later.”
“You know,” he said. “Maybe you better not.”
“Why’s that?”
“Take my word for it. It’s probably just better you don’t.”
“Yikes,” I said and my imagination took off. Pictures of Kix and me? Pictures of us sleeping, maybe? The thought of him in our house, sneaking around with a camera, was disturbing. I decided I didn’t want to know. “Yeah, okay.”
“We boxed the really freaky stuff. Don’t want it leaked. And get this, I got a call from the former manager of a taco joint, down in North Carolina. He saw Cannon on the ne
ws and looked me up. A few years ago Cannon worked for him, and one of the other employees went missing. The manager and the police always suspected Cannon, just never had any proof. Never found the body.”
“Might turn up in the diary,” I offered.
“Yeah.”
“Should make for some nice reading tonight. Cozy by the fire.”
“You’re sick.”
“But I’m alive.”
“Listen, Mack, I really appreciate your help on this. Cannon was a ticking time bomb, and he wasn’t even on our radar screen. This could have gone on a while without us finding him. For a big city cop, you’re okay. A lot of people owe you,” he said.
“You’re probably right. Tell the sheriff that he’s welcome.”
* * *
I stared blankly into the fridge, wondering what to do for dinner. Our supply ran low. Ms. Allen had sent over a basket full of fruit and cheese, and a card, earlier. Too tired to cook, I was considering a fruit, cheese, crackers, chips and salsa night when the front door opened and Taylor Williams stuck her pretty head in.
“If you let me come in,” she said, “I’ll let you have some of the beer and pizza I brought.”
“I can’t say no,” I said.
“If only that were true,” she sighed. She wore pink heels, a khaki skirt that swished around her knees when she walked, a pink button-up cotton top, and her hair was held back with a pink headband. She moved like she was on display, deliberate steps with her long legs. I didn’t think I’d be able to say no tonight. I was exhausted, physically and mentally. I was lonely, and company in bed sounded too good. Never let yourself get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired, otherwise you’ll do something you’ll regret. Now that Kix was safe again, I wasn’t really angry, but still had three out of four going.
Pizza never tasted so good. Kix banged on his tray, stuffed pizza into his mouth, drank milk and laughed during dinner. He needed a mom. Taylor talked about how she never guessed Cannon, and recalled the first time she met him.
“So,” she said after a while. “I’m here to tell that I’m done chasing you.”
Darn it. Just one more day.
“Whew,” I said.
“Right.” Could she tell I was close to caving? I drank more beer quickly. “I’ve realized that I’m in a place in my life right now where I feel like I just need to grow up a little bit. Do you know? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about me, and I’m unhappy with myself. First things first, I’m going to stop chasing men. Specifically, you. If you decide you want me, you know where I live.”
I nodded.
“So I bought a yoga DVD and a book on envisioning your way to success.”
“You think stretching will help you find yourself?”
“It’s more than stretching.” She scowled. “Okay, smart guy, what do I do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, the Dali Lama, Ghandi, Tom Cruise. What do I do?”
“Can’t believe Tom Cruise made that list,” I said.
“What? He does stuff like that.”
“I was a wreck, Taylor. Hurting everyone. Too messed up to consider being a Hindu; I’d come back reincarnated as a frog. My mind was too sick to empty it and be a Buddhist. I was tired of violence and I didn’t want to follow Mohammed. I didn’t want to pay money for my salvation or the salvation of my relatives, so I didn’t follow Joseph Smith or Tom Cruise.”
“So what?”
“Jesus seemed like the only guy who’d like me.”
“You sound like a terrible priest.”
I sighed. “I’m not a priest.”
“You’re a hot priest.”
“Well, you may be right.”
“Fine. I’ll get a book on Jesus too.”
“I won’t tell you how it ends.”
“You’ve read the whole thing?” she asked.
“The Bible? Hell no. I suck at this.”
“So can we be friends?”
“Probably not,” I said.
“What? Why not?” She pouted, and it was an elite pout.
“Williams, you’re so hot that I don’t know where to look. And you’re so wrong for me that if I gave in to you then it’d kill me cause I wouldn’t be able to stop. So we’ll be coworkers and I’ll admire you from afar and try not to think about you at night. But that’s it.”
“What’s a girl to do with so many underhanded compliments?”
I shrugged.
“This isn’t fair.” She kept pouting.
“Tell you what. Without looking, tell me what color Kix’s eyes are. If you guess right, I’ll take off my pants this instant.”
“Brown,” she beamed. “Just like yours.”
“Clear blue, like his mother’s.”
“So what? Why is that important?”
“Because Kix is the most important thing in my life,” I said. “And to you he’s a distraction. I killed the last person who called him a distraction.”
“Literally?”
“Shot him ten times.”
“What’s it like killing someone?” she said.
“Not fun.”
“Maybe I can help you recover. Back massage? Front massage?”
“You said you were going to quit this.”
“Old habits.” She smiled. “You’re worth it.”
The End
Epilogue
In April, the administration handed out Intent Forms for teachers to declare whether they’d be returning for the next school year.
Kix and I were going to move to my old home Roanoke, the fourth largest city in Virginia, and home to several big inner-city schools that could use a guy like me. Surely nothing could go wrong there.
I wrote “Hell No” on the form and turned it in.
August boys, going home.
Author’s Note:
I plan on being your favorite mystery writer for the next twenty years.
To that end, the next Mackenzie August novel is ready for your enjoyment.
Fun fact - this was the first novel I wrote, and I didn’t plan on releasing it. But I love Mackenzie so much that I went back, patched it up, wrote a sequel, and released. You will probably note an improvement in craft in the next Mackenzie book.
Many thanks to my parents for letting me write on their computer for so many hours and for so many years, circa the ‘90s.
Thank you to my test readers - Larry Janney and Matt Rawls, in particular.
Thank you to my lovely wife Sarah for indulging dreams.
