Rising Spirit

by Wayne Stinnett

  Sheriff Taliaferro rolled over and slowly pushed himself to a kneeling position.

  “I’ll be there,” I said, then pointed at Taliaferro. “Now take him and leave. Luke’s tied up in the first townhouse being built across the street.”

  Pritchard helped Taliaferro get to his feet and the two started toward the home team dugout. I waited on the mound until they both went down into the dugout and out the back door.

  Then I picked up the sheriff’s Glock and started toward the outfield wall as I pulled my phone from my shirt pocket and held it to my ear. “You get all that?”

  It was already dark when Stuart Lane’s plane landed at Miami International Airport. It’d been dark when he’d left his house fourteen hours earlier, too. In all, he’d spent less than five hours in the air on the three connecting flights. But he’d sat longer than that in the terminal at Dulles. A shorter layover in New Jersey threatened to turn into days; there’d been talk of canceling the flight due to an approaching snowstorm. Stuart had rarely seen snow so early in the year, but the folks up there seemed to expect it.

  Once he’d found his backpack in the luggage carousel, he left the massive airport terminal and stepped out into the sweltering heat of a late November night in Miami. Outside was a cab stand and he approached the first one, showing the driver an address, he’d written on a sheet of paper.

  “You know any hotels near here?” he asked the black man, hoping he spoke English.

  “Coconut Grove? Yeah, there’s a few, man. But I don’t know if any are close to where you wanna be.”

  “Take me to this address so I’ll know where it is, then take me to the nearest place where I can sleep.”

  “You gonna sleep in Miami on a Saturday night, man?”

  “Just take me there,” Stuart ordered, getting in the back seat.

  “Whatever you say, man.”

  Stuart wished he’d been able to bring a gun. But even in a checked bag, he knew that would have been risky. With a gun, he could have finished this tonight and been back home tomorrow. Without one, he’d have to find a way to get close. Maybe wait for the woman to go jogging or for a walk. He’d have to play it by ear. It might even take him a couple of days to get close enough to strangle the life out of the pain in the ass woman.

  He remembered how she’d appeared in the courtroom back home; arrogant and snotty—looking down on them because they were farmers. But she wasn’t a bad-looking woman. A few years older than he preferred; Stuart liked younger women. But still… she was hot.

  Maybe I can make it last a while, he thought with a lecherous grin.

  Thirty minutes later, the cab driver turned onto a residential street. He pointed to the GPS on the dash and said, “Your address is right up here on the right, my man. Want me to stop?”

  “No,” Stuart said. “Just drive by slow.”

  The cab driver did as he was told and slowed as they passed a white van parked in the street in front of the house next door to the one the woman was hiding out in. The lights were on inside the house. The neighborhood was nice, upscale, with sidewalks and fenced backyards.

  “Okay,” Stuart said, as they passed on by. “Find the nearest hotel.”

  The driver stopped for a moment and stabbed at the GPS screen with his finger. “There’s a Hampton less than half a mile away.”

  “Perfect,” Stuart said. “Take me there.”

  The driver circled the block to get back to the main road, then turned in the direction they’d come—back toward the city.

  Stuart had learned that the meddling woman was staying with her daughter, Eve Maggio, and her husband, who was a lawyer. Stuart didn’t much like lawyers and thought maybe he could just barge in and make it a trifecta. No witnesses.

  How much of a fight could a couple of women put up while I squeezed the life out of the husband?

  Stuart was a big man and knew his capabilities. His muscles were powerful from working in the fields since he was a kid. He’d killed with his bare hands before. Usually young hookers in the towns where he made deliveries.

  Stuart memorized the name of the main road they’d turned onto and the name of the next street they passed, where the woman was hiding.

  He continued to recall how she’d looked in court. She’d struck him as a snobby librarian with her shirt buttoned to the neck under her business coat. But Stuart saw a nasty streak, too. He could tell by the fit and shortness of her skirt that she could be a wild one. Her legs were long and very shapely. She probably ran every day to keep her body looking so tight at her age. He wondered if the daughter would be as good-looking.

  She’s younger, Stuart thought, so probably hotter.

  The two women might be able to put up a fight, while he took care of the husband. Stuart had been in more than a few bar fights with big, powerful men, and had taken some solid licks and not gone down. He could just punch the lawyer’s lights out, then restrain the women so he could finish the guy off.

  I’ll add a day, he decided. Do the lawyer quick, and the women slow.

  Five minutes and just three turns later, the cab pulled into a fancy hotel. Stuart had memorized each turn and would have no trouble getting to the house on foot. Maybe later tonight.

  “Pull around to the back,” Stuart said. “I just texted a buddy and he’s meeting me in the parking lot.”

  “Good idea,” the driver said, his shaved head bobbing in agreement. “Hit South Beach. You can get anything you want on a Saturday night, man.”

  The driver again did as he was told, as Stuart pulled open his pack and took out a long, thin guitar string and a pair of heavy leather gloves. He put the gloves on and wound the guitar string around his protected hands.

  “Right up there,” Stuart said. “Park next to that white pickup. How much do I owe you?”

  The driver took two parking spaces next to the white truck, so he could more easily back out, then put the car in park. As he started to reach over to stop the electronic meter, Stuart looped the G-string over his head and pulled back hard, pressing a knee into the seat back in front of him. The driver writhed and clawed at the strong wire as it cut into his flesh. He made a few gurgling noises, but soon stopped struggling.

  Stuart liked the G-string. And not just for the titillating name—it was the third string on the guitar and the thickest of the three that were single, solid steel wires. The low E, A, and D strings were thicker, but they were wound strings, not a single wire. He’d won a few bar bets by breaking the thinner B and high E strings just by stretching them with his hands. But the G—no man could break the G-string.

  Reaching over the driver’s body, Stuart stopped the meter and cleared the entry, then searched the man’s pockets until he found the roll of cash that he knew would be there. Getting out of the car, he looked around, stuffing the dead man’s money into his pants pocket. There wasn’t anyone in the parking lot that he could see.

  Stuart shoved the makeshift garrote and gloves back into his pack. Then, using a handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped down everything he’d touched and reached through the driver’s window to turn off the cab’s headlights and shut off the engine. With any luck, nobody would find the body until the next day. As if nothing had happened and he was just another weary traveler, Stuart shouldered his pack and walked around to the front of the hotel.

  Ten minutes later, he entered a very nice room that looked out over the parking lot. He turned on the bathroom light, nothing else. Then he tossed his pack onto the bed.

  The heavy curtains that could be drawn over the window were gathered to the sides, but the sheer ones behind them were closed. He opened the nearly transparent fabric wide enough to see down to the parking lot. It was mostly dark; only a few lights. If anyone looked in the cab, the driver would appear to be sleeping. If anyone called the cops, they’d come with their lights on, alerting him. The air conditioner below the wi
ndow hummed and the window itself wasn’t the opening kind, so the lights would be his only warning.

  He was hungry, but Stuart had been able to go without food for days and could ignore the pangs for now. There was another hunger that was becoming more urgent as he thought about the meddlesome environmentalist woman.

  Taking his phone from his pocket, he tried to connect to the hotel Wi-Fi, but realized he’d left it on airplane mode. When he was able to sign on, he opened Facebook first, to see if the Sneed woman had an account. It was a pretty common name, but he already knew where she lived in North Carolina, and he found her easily enough.

  Her posts were primarily about environmental crap and most of her pictures were of flowers, birds, and trees. There was one of her dressed in shorts and a tank top, carrying a backpack. The straps seemed to pull her shoulders back, poking her boobs out like a stripper. Stuart liked the pose. The date of the picture was only three years ago. Yeah, she was hot, all right.

  He searched for the daughter’s name in Miami and found her right at the top of the results. Her profile was private, so all he could see was the one profile picture. She wore a slinky, white dress that clung tightly to her body. She was with a man and two little kids; a boy about six and a girl who was probably just walking. The husband was also dressed for a night on the town. Eve Maggio was young, dark-haired, tall, and built like a brick shithouse. Just like the hookers he prowled the streets looking for after dropping off his last load of ’shine.

  “Oh, yeah,” he moaned. “This could turn into a lot of fun.”

  The kids were a problem. Stuart had never killed a kid before.

  I spent the afternoon driving around on the roads north of Staunton. Only the sheriff knew my truck, so I didn’t worry much about anyone seeing me. There was a secondary paved road that ran along the west side of Pritchard’s property. I turned onto it, heading north. The road ran straight as an arrow for three miles, crossing low hills and small streams before veering away to the west to start a series of switchbacks up the mountain, just like the dirt road farther to the west.

  Halfway up the mountain, I found an overlook with a clear view of the valley several hundred feet below. I pulled into the small parking area and climbed out of the truck with my binoculars. In front of the truck was a short walkway with a safety rail to keep people from getting too close to the steep drop-off. I leaned against it and scanned the prosecutor’s property. Finding his house far in the distance was easy. It was large, probably bigger than the four houses on my island combined. The grass around it was bright and verdant, with old-growth oak trees set away from the house at a considerable distance. Japanese maples lined most of the driveway, their fallen leaves creating a red and brown carpet along the edges of the drive. The branches were nearly bare, save for a few stubborn leaves left on the lower boughs.

  I shivered as a cold breeze blew down from the mountain. I didn’t like cold, unless it was a beer bottle. The temperature was hovering around forty degrees, but the wind made it feel quite a bit colder. Knowing I might be out at night in the cold, I should have stopped somewhere and bought better gear; at least a pair of long johns.

  Pritchard’s driveway turned to dirt once it passed his house. There was a white Mercedes SUV parked in front of the garage; probably the wife’s. The dirt track led back behind the house to two buildings, one obviously a horse stable, with a grazing pasture behind it. The pasture was fenced with the same white rail fencing that spanned the front of the property.

  The other building was barn-shaped, with the typical multi-pitched roof. Both were designed to tie into the architecture of the house; painted the same color and having similar doors, windows, and trim. The two outbuildings looked like they’d probably been constructed at the same time as the house. Chyrel had said his moonshine still was in his old barn, so it probably wasn’t either of those two buildings.

  I continued scanning the property, finding another track that led north, away from the house and outbuildings. I followed it with the binos and lost it a few times. It wasn’t very worn, so probably saw little use. It passed a cluster of trees, then disappeared into the hills. I followed it back slowly and studied the group of trees.

  Through gaps in the mostly dead leaves of the oak cluster, I could just make out a rusted metal roof. I looked more closely around the base of the trees. The back end of a van was just visible.

  “Gotcha.”

  I moved over to the far end of the rail, away from where I was parked, and took another look. The angle was a little better and I could make out more of the van. It was parked under the oaks, and next to it, I spotted the lower left corner of the building. The planks were older, unpainted, and weathered by years of sun and rain.

  The old barn.

  If the van was making daily runs during the week, the track should have been more worn. There was grass growing between the double tracks and even over them in places. A van driving up and down that trail twice a day would leave ruts and keep the grass clear.

  Checking my watch, I saw that it was after 1600. It would be getting dark soon. I passed the binos over the rest of the property and saw little else of interest, but with one final glance at the old barn, I noticed the van backing out from under the trees, steam rising from its tailpipe.

  The van turned west instead of following the track back toward the house. I quickly realized why I could see only the one trail. As the van moved slowly west, the tires and lower part of the body were hidden by tall grass that lined a second egress. I kept my eyes on the van as it headed toward the road I’d just driven up.

  When the vehicle stopped, it was very near the middle of the long, straight, paved road. Someone got out of the passenger side and walked toward the front of the van, but they were too far away for me to get a good look.

  I didn’t need to see where the man was going. He’d gotten out to open a gate on the west side of Pritchard’s property. I quickly ran back to the pickup and jumped in. Backing out of the parking spot, I turned left and started back down the hill. Odds were, the van was going to go south, toward the main road. I wanted to catch it and follow it.

  When I reached the bottom of the hill, I floored the gas pedal and quickly reached 80 miles per hour. Keeping an eye out for the gate the van had just come through, I spotted the cattle guard first. The fence and gate were just barbed wire on this side of Pritchard’s property. I checked the odometer to figure out how far the gate was from the main highway.

  Topping a low hill, I saw the van in the distance, turning right. When I got to the stop sign a minute later, the van was half a mile west, just going around a bend in the road. I turned and followed it, checking the mileage again. The gate was a hair over two miles from the main highway.

  Pritchard had said they used the van to make deliveries and it left at sunrise, five days a week. So, I had to assume that it being a Saturday, the van was being used for something else now. When I reached the curve the van had disappeared around, I caught sight of it again. So, I sped up to close the distance a little.

  The van slowed as it neared the small town of Buffalo Gap—more a crossroads than a town. When I reached the intersection, there was a convenience store across the road and little else. The van had turned left.

  I made the same left turn onto Parkersburg Turnpike—Highway 254—the same east-west road that went through Staunton. Apparently, the van was taking a different route back to town. I kept a good distance between us as it continued through the outskirts on the west side of town.

  The van continued past the loop road, heading toward downtown. Finally, it turned into the parking lot of a tall, red-brick, colonial-style building. I slowed as I approached. It was a hotel—the Stonewall Jackson.

  I needed to ID who was in the van, so I turned into the parking lot as well. It was risky, since it might be Pritchard himself driving, but I didn’t think it would be. He struck me as a man who hired others t
o do everything. The van turned into a parking fairway and I went past it to the main entrance, then stopped short of the entry, as though I was waiting to pick someone up.

  As I watched, the van parked, and two men got out. They started walking toward where I was idling and I pretended to be busy with my phone, which I was resting on the steering wheel. I managed to shoot several seconds of video of the two men as they approached. One of the men was talking, but I couldn’t hear him. I’d never seen either man before.

  The driver was an older man, gray-haired and intelligent-looking. The other man—the one who’d gotten out and opened the gate—was younger, probably in his mid-twenties.

  Neither man ticked the box in my head for a weapon. Adversaries were logged into my brain under two categories and they were based solely on size. Under two hundred pounds, I didn’t need a weapon unless they had one, and even then, maybe not. Over two hundred, I might need one. It was not a cocky attitude, just where I drew the line for the sake of prudence. At six foot three, 220 pounds, and highly trained in many disciplines of combat fighting, I could handle most armed aggressors without a weapon. The sheriff had proven that. But I didn’t fight even odds if I could help it. If a man was close to my size, I wanted a weapon. Neither of these men deserved that classification. In fact, they looked like a teacher and a student.

  After they went inside, I circled the parking lot and backed into a spot in the corner where there weren’t any other cars. I always thought it strange how the best parking spots were seldom used. There were a lot of benefits to parking in the corner; aside from adding a few seconds of exercise, there was far less chance of someone dinging your door, fewer people noticed, and if they did, they were too far away for a positive ID. There was only one reason for parking close; laziness.