Greene County Killer

by Ann Mullen

  I didn’t want to start out the day on a dark note, but I could see there was going to be many dark days to come. I thought about Christmas and our planned celebration. I guess we would need to put that on hold. I would also wait to tell Billy about my dream.

  “Let’s save this until after the children are fed. It’s going to be a sad time in our lives, and I’d like to have this one moment of serenity with my children.”

  “Yes,” Billy said. “We should not discuss such sad matters around the children. It can wait.”

  “Why don’t you sit down and feed your son?” I asked, handing Ethan to him. “It will help you to feel better.”

  “That sounds like a good idea to me,” he said and then looked at Ethan. “What do you think, son? Would you like your old dad to feed you?”

  Ethan let out a cry.

  Billy immediately stuck the bottle in his mouth and said, “I guess that was a yes!”

  Mom and I let out a little giggle.

  “They sure do let you know when they’re hungry,” Mom said. “I remember when my kids were little. That seems like a lifetime ago.”

  “It was, Mom.”

  “I agree,” Geneva said as she stood in the doorway. She looked unkempt and in need of refreshing her makeup. “Kids have a way about them, whether it’s in their cries or grunts, to let you know what they want.”

  Athena and Thor circled and then sat down in the doorway, refusing to let her pass.

  “Move,” I commanded the dogs. They got up and moved to each side of the door. If they could’ve given me a dirty look, they would have.

  “That’s okay,” Geneva said. “I need to be getting home. I’m surprised that Eli hasn’t called here already. He probably woke up and wondered where I was. His memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  The phone rang.

  Geneva smiled and said, “I’ll get that. It’s probably him right now.” She turned and left to answer the phone.

  With the children fed and ready to start the day, we went to the kitchen. I placed Ethan in his baby lounger that Billy had built just for the purpose of having a safe place for Ethan to sit among the adults. Maisy had her own high chair next to the table. We sat down at the table while Mom busied herself in the kitchen. When she stayed with us, she ran the kitchen. That was fine with me. Cooking wasn’t my forte.

  Geneva was still talking on the wall phone.

  Ah, the wall phone. I remember you well. I had planned on getting rid of that old dinosaur, but after Mom’s wall phone helped save her life, I wasn’t about to give it up. But that’s another story.

  Geneva hung up the phone and turned to us. “That was Eli. He said to tell you how sorry he was and that he’d stop by later today. I’m going home and fix him something to eat. It’s like a ritual with us. I fix his breakfast and he cooks dinner.”

  “That sounds good to me. I hate to cook,” I said. “I’m terrible at it.”

  Mom and Billy laughed.

  Jonathan walked into the kitchen and said, “And that’s the truth.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  Jonathan rolled his eyes and said, “I’ve eaten some of your cooking. You do well when everything is instant. It’s the complicated dishes like potato salad that gives you a hard time.”

  I looked over at Billy and said, “You told him?”

  “I think I might have mentioned the first time I taught you how to make potato salad. The incident is still quite fresh in my memory. I was surprised that you couldn’t cook, considering your mother is such a fine one.”

  “That was so funny,” Mom agreed. “You should’ve been there, Geneva. You would’ve fallen over laughing. I still laugh when I think about Jesse and that potato salad.”

  “That’s enough,” I said. “I know I’m not a good cook. I never claimed to be.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. Did we hurt your feelings?” Mom asked.

  “Yes, you did. I’ll probably be scarred for the rest of my life.”

  That statement cracked up everyone. They all laughed. At least, they were laughing and not crying. I had contributed something that would help them start their day out on a happy note. There were going to be so many sad days ahead of us. I hated to think about it.

  “I have to go,” Geneva said as she walked to the door.

  Billy got up from the table and followed her. He opened the door and peeked out.

  “There’s six inches of snow on the ground, Geneva. Would you like for me to drive you home?”

  “No, that’s okay, Billy. I can handle a little snow. I lived in Maine for over five years. If you can drive in the snow there, you can drive in anything.” She waved good-bye as she walked out the door.

  Billy walked her to her car, making sure she didn’t fall. When he returned, he walked over and sat down at the kitchen table.

  The smell of bacon filled the air. We sat around the table and ate as we discussed our plans for the day. Billy and Jonathan talked around Daniel’s death and tried their best to deal with the situation without being maudlin.

  “I’ll call Mom after breakfast,” Billy said. “We need to go over there to discuss what’s going to happen in the upcoming days.” He looked at me.

  “I’ll stay here and take care of the kids. You need to be with your folks. You can let me know what the arrangements are when you get back,” I replied. “That way Mom can take a break and go home for a while if she wants to.”

  Mom lives in Dogwood Valley in the little town of Stanardsville an hour away, but she doesn’t spend much time there. She stays at our house more often than not. I once suggested she sell the house, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She wasn’t about to give up her independence. She felt that as long as she had a place of her own, she’d always be in control of her life. I agreed, and let it go. Besides, having her own place allowed her to get away from everyone and have a little peace and quiet. She could also spend time with Eddie, the new man in her life. I told her to invite Eddie to dinner more often, but we’ve only had him over a few times. I think Mom feels guilty about seeing him. I’ve told her more than once to get over it. We just want her to be happy. She’s slowly coming around.

  “I’ll go home and check on everything, but I’ll be coming right back. You’ll need me now more than ever. The next few days are going to be really hard.”

  “That’s true,” Jonathan said. “I called Mom on my cell phone last night, and she’s having a bad time. She cried the whole time I tried to talk to her.”

  “I know how she feels,” Mom said. “When Mack died, I felt lost.” She reached over and placed her hand on Jonathan’s, and then reached over and grabbed Billy’s. “If it hadn’t been for this guy insisting that I start my life again, I’d probably be in the loony bin. I was a mess. Billy came over one day and asked me to help him at work. He said he desperately needed someone to run the office while he and Jesse chased down bad guys. I knew that was a ruse, but I did what he asked of me, and I’m so glad I did. It saved my life. I was so depressed. Jesse can tell you. Neither one of us got out of bed for days… until Billy came over and told us to get moving. We did, and we made it through. He’s a wonderful son-in-law.”

  Billy smiled.

  “See, I got you to smile,” Mom said. “My job is done.”

  A terrible smell floated through the air. I looked over at Ethan and then back at Mom.

  “Not yet,” I said, laughing.

  “Jesse, you’re something else,” Mom said. She got up to go get Ethan.

  “Mom, I’m kidding. You don’t have to do that. Billy will.”

  Everyone laughed again.

  I smiled, got up from the table, and then walked over and picked up Ethan. I tried to hold my breath, but that was a useless feat against the foul odor coming from such a small child.

  “Come on, stinky fellow. We have business to take care of. Billy, would you join us?”

  “I can’t wait,” he replied as he got up from the table and walked with us out of the room.�
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  “Would you keep an eye on Maisy?” I asked Mom.

  “Sure, honey. You know I will.”

  The phone rang just as we walked out of the room.

  Once we reached Ethan’s room, Billy turned to me and asked, “What’s on your mind? I know you didn’t get me to come in here with you so that I could watch you change our son’s diaper. You have something to tell me that you didn’t want to say in front of your mother, or you would’ve…”

  “I had a dream last night… or this morning. I guess it was this morning since we didn’t go to bed until after four.”

  I lay Ethan on the changing table and changed his diaper.

  “What was the dream about?”

  “That doesn’t matter, but the point is, I think the man who accosted me in the parking garage last night wasn’t a man at all. He was a boy, possibly a teenager.”

  I picked up Ethan and held him close, loving the feel of his soft baby skin and the now pleasant smell of a freshly diapered infant.

  “That’s interesting. Why didn’t you want to tell me this in front of your mother?”

  “She has this thing about young kids… teenagers especially. She believes that if people were better parents, kids wouldn’t turn out so bad. She’s probably right. That’s why I didn’t want to bring this up in front of her. I’m positive it was a teenager, or a young adult. From his size and the tone of his voice, I’d say he wasn’t much older than sixteen, maybe seventeen. That’s pretty young to start burning down houses. And speaking of that, Jonathan said something about C4 and dynamite. Is that why his house not only burned, but also exploded?”

  “There could have been other materials that would have caused an explosion. I don’t know what he had in his basement, but it was enough to cause a big boom. That’s for sure. We’d have to ask Jonathan.”

  I thought to myself for a second. “Ah, that’s why we didn’t hang around the crime scene for long. Jonathan had explosive material stored in his house. Could it be that he didn’t want the cops to find out?”

  “The fire inspector will discover what was in the house, but Jonathan says not to worry. He has it covered.”

  We stared at each other for a minute. “I don’t think I want to discuss this further right now.”

  “That’s a good idea. For now, the less you know about the contents of Jonathan’s house when it was torched, the better.”

  “What about the vision you had?”

  “Oh, of my brother’s killer… yeah, it might well be a young adult. I have a feeling the dream you had has something to do with my vision. There is definitely more to come. He isn’t finished. I saw others die.”

  “That’s scary.”

  When we returned with a freshly diapered Ethan, Mom was talking to someone on the phone.

  “Who’s she talking to?” I asked Jonathan who now was sitting over by Maisy’s highchair.

  He looked up at me and said, “She was getting fussy because everyone left her alone. She wanted some attention.” He stroked Maisy’s tiny arm. “Oh, your mom’s talking to Claire, and from the way the conversation’s going, I think Claire’s coming here.”

  “I figured she would.”

  Mom hung up the phone, walked back over to the table and sat down. “Claire said the children will be out of school for the Christmas holidays after tomorrow. She said she’d be here for the funeral.”

  We didn’t say anything.

  “I’m going to stay here with the kids while Billy and Jonathan go to see Sarah and the chief,” I said.

  “I’ll go check on things at the house and be back in time to fix supper,” Mom added.

  “Don’t worry about supper,” Billy said. “I’ll get Robert to have his restaurant employees bring over some food. I’m sure he’s already thought about it, but in case he hasn’t, I’ll tell him to send food to our folks’ house and then bring some here.”

  “I don’t mind cooking. I want to do something to help. “

  “I know you don’t mind, but maybe you could just be here and help with the kids.”

  “You never know when we’ll have to run out after some bad guy,” I added.

  For once, Billy agreed with my statement.

  “We do have a bad guy to catch.” He looked over at Jonathan. “We need to put a stop to his madness before he kills someone else.”

  Jonathan reached into his pocket, pulled out something, and then handed it to Billy.

  “I found this last night in the driveway. Someone’s sending me a message.” Jonathan had showed the medal to me at the hospital and said that it was a Purple Heart, but we didn’t get a chance to discuss it further.

  “It’s a Purple Heart, or what’s left of it. The ribbon’s missing.”

  Billy looked at the medal and said, “Is there any way to identify the recipient?”

  “I’m afraid not. Shoot, nowadays you can go online and buy one of these medals for $36.00.”

  “I bet you got a lot of medals in your line of work,” I said.

  “Medals are for those who are in the public eye. My whole career was based on secrecy and being able to go unnoticed by others. SF operates in small groups and is highly trained to endure what others couldn’t. We do the job that can’t be done. The highest honor for us is the Green Beret. That’s the goal of an Army Ranger.”

  “Do you have one?”

  “Haven’t you seen the picture Mom has of me in the family room?”

  “Gosh, I don’t remember.”

  “Check it out some time. I was hoping that one of these days I’d have a son who would let his daddy take a picture of him in it. You know—a kind of father and son thing. I could take a picture of him wearing my Green Beret and then sit the picture next to mine. Hey, wouldn’t it be a hoot if he joined the Rangers? But I guess that’s not going to happen. I think I’m destined to be single.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” I said. “You never know what the future holds.”

  “How true,” Billy added.

  “Mack has a Purple Heart,” Mom said. “It’s at home in a velvet case. I haven’t looked at it in a long time. He was wounded in action. That’s what that medal stands for. A man receives one for wounds sustained in battle. Mack had a scar on his leg caused by shrapnel. It almost put him out of commission.”

  “I remember you talking about that,” I said. “I also remember the scar. It was bad.”

  “He recovered and could still perform his duties,” Mom continued. “He used to talk about it all the time, and he never failed to show me his scar every time he talked about it. I guess he thought I had forgotten the story. He would go on and on.”

  “He did like to tell his war stories,” I agreed.

  I got up to clear the table. I scraped the plates and then put them in the dishwasher. I turned to Jonathan and asked, “What do you think happened to your house? You said something about explosives earlier.”

  Billy looked over at me with a frown on his face, as if he didn’t want to go there. But it was too late. I had already opened the can of worms.

  “I can’t say for sure. I think someone torched my house and some of the stuff I had in the basement exploded.”

  He was evading my question. I knew it was time to let it go, but I couldn’t help wonder what he was doing with something so dangerous in his house. I didn’t know, but I was sure that I’d eventually find out.

  “Are you saying that you had dangerous material in your basement? Where would someone get that kind of stuff?” Mom asked.

  Jonathan didn’t have a chance to say anything.

  Mom continued with her trip down memory lane.

  “I remember hearing Mack talk about explosives. He told me that working with them was a short-term career. I asked him what he meant and he said that eventually one goes off that’s not supposed to. I said I thought that was crazy. Why would someone want that job if it was so dangerous? He said there was a person for every job. If there was a job to be done, there was always someone to do i
t.”

  “That was a smart analogy on his part, and how true it is. Explosives are dangerous, but there’s always someone to handle them—like he said—a job for everyone. Being an Army Ranger isn’t for everybody. For me, it was the only thing. I wanted to be one the first time I saw that movie about the Green Berets. I knew that was going to be me some day. Now I serve in the Reserves.”

  “I thought you were a bounty hunter,” Mom said, looking confused.

  “I am, but I can be something else. When it came time to re-up, I decided to take a break and do something else. But I didn’t want to give up my career completely, so I joined the Army Reserves. Once an Army Ranger, always an Army Ranger. That’s what we say, and it’s the truth.”

  “I can see what you mean. Look at Jesse. She used to be a single secretary, and now she carries a gun and goes out at night stalking bad people. That’s a contrast to her previous career.”

  “What career? I earned a wage and that’s about all. I barely had a life. But look at me now! I have a family and a challenging career. My job helps people in need of answers that they can’t get anywhere else. When they need help because the police have done all they can do, those folks come to us. We find the answers for them—most of the time.”

  “I dread thinking about the danger ahead when you all go after Daniel’s killer. It’s going to be different this time. It won’t just be a job. You’ll be out for blood… and rightfully so… I guess.”

  I was a little surprised at her understanding of the situation. She was well aware of what could happen when this guy was found, but didn’t try to dissuade anyone. In the end, I was sure she would try to show us the way of the Bible and inject some of God’s word.

  “We’re always out for blood,” I said, jokingly. “Don’t worry, Mom. Billy and Jonathan won’t scalp him, but the chief might.”

  “I wouldn’t blame him,” she said. “I don’t condone murder, but I could have an open mind when it comes to an eye-for-an-eye.”

  “I’m shocked, Minnie,” Jonathan said. “Now here I thought you were a Christian woman.”

  “I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind. I know neither one of you have it in you to murder someone, but self-defense is another matter. That’s the way it usually turns out, so I’m not going to worry myself. If I do, I might have to start taking some of Jesse’s pills.”