Sin And Vengeance

by West, CJ

  Charlie closed in with the bat high, ready to strike until his knee jarred with the force of Oliver’s heel. As he fell, he witnessed Oliver’s gruesome transformation. Moments earlier he’d been eerily jovial, prodding, encouraging Charlie to kill him. Now, he was gripped by a fierce determination. Despite his injured arms, Oliver was ready to fight to the end, stopping at nothing until one of them paid the ultimate price. Death was what he wanted, whose didn’t matter anymore.

  Death was something Charlie wasn’t ready to submit to.

  Charlie crashed to the floor, the pain from the bar fight flaring in his ribs. As he rolled onto his back, Oliver was already pushing himself up, intent on the gun. Charlie quickly gripped the bat and whipped it in an awkward one-hand snap that caught Oliver in the forehead with enough force to knock him back to the carpet. Feet flailed everywhere. A heel caught Charlie in the ribs, stunning him long enough for three more solid strikes in the arms and chest before he could escape Oliver’s reach by rolling away.

  Both men got to their feet; Oliver with his back to the gap in the railing, Charlie in the center of the narrow landing feinting with the bat to cajole Oliver into position. He pushed him back to the brink, wound up, and lashed for his knees. Oliver dodged and the bat missed cleanly, but the maneuver cost his balance. He narrowly missed a plunge past Charles by clinging to the rail with his bleeding left arm. Charlie hacked down for another swing before Oliver could recover. This time, the bat caught his thigh, dropping him to the floor writhing in agony. Immobilized by three damaged limbs, Oliver glared up plotting his reprisal.

  Charlie sprung for the tape in the corner, rolled Oliver face down, and dropped on top of him. His weight pinned Oliver to the floor and in seconds he wrapped the bloody wrist with two layers of tape. Catching the stronger wrist was difficult, but once he yanked Oliver’s hands together and completed the first loop, Oliver was helpless. Charlie wrapped another dozen loops, tighter and tighter with each pass. He did the same with his ankles, rolled him over, and bound his chest to the corner post with his hands behind his back. He made wide loops around Oliver’s neck, securing him to the post in case he should somehow get his hands free.

  Back in the bedroom, Charlie cut the women free, but left them to peel the tape from their own lips. He picked up the gun and returned to Oliver wondering what he expected to accomplish by dying. Surely he’d thought this through. Charlie weighed the gun in his hands and realized Oliver’s death could have only one goal—to bring on Charlie’s penultimate fear: prison. He’d left something behind to speak for him. Death would release Oliver from his guilt and imprison Charlie in his.

  Charlie tucked the gun into his belt as Elizabeth emerged from the guest room.

  “No!” She screamed. Frantic, she spun left and right, screaming, lingering at the edge of the landing as if jumping to her husband would somehow help.

  Charlie pulled her back, shielding Charles from view with his body.

  She saw Oliver bound to the post and the bat just a few feet away. She pushed free of Charlie and lurched to the floor, possessed, scrambling for the handle. She came up swinging, missed, and almost caught Charlie with her follow-through. Her next swing splintered two spindles and still managed to thump the side of Oliver’s head hard enough to snap it sideways.

  Charlie grabbed his mother’s arms. “Stop. Stop. You’re going to kill him.”

  She jerked to get free, incensed that her son would interfere.

  “You don’t understand. That’s what he wants.”

  Immune to his logic, Elizabeth struggled to escape her son’s grasp. “Don’t be foolish. Let me go.”

  “Think, Mom. He left me a loaded gun.” Charlie wrestled the bat away and tossed it toward the bedroom. “He expected to be dead by now.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Remember when we tried to sneak away along the stone wall?”

  She nodded.

  “I saw where he was hiding. He could have killed us then or a dozen other times. He’s been setting us up for this—for right now. He left me the gun then taunted me to use it. You heard him, didn’t you? He wanted me to shoot.”

  “He attacked you with a bat. He wanted to kill you and then do God-knows-what to Deirdre and me.”

  “He wasn’t trying to hurt me until I dropped the gun. Think, Mom. Flames are shooting out of the barn twenty feet high. The police are coming. If he wanted to torture us, he’d have done it last night.”

  The authorities would arrive any minute to investigate. If they found him dead, they’d search for evidence here and at his home. The fresh clothes and the clean-cut look were a show for the police. The trail would start in the first place they would look: his ID. Charlie had to beat the cops to whatever he’d left for them.

  “So what do we do?” Elizabeth asked.

  Charlie squatted behind him and fished out his wallet. He stared at the license in disbelief, while the women looked on. “Nothing,” he said from his daze. “Don’t do anything. The police will take care of him.”

  “He’ll plague us forever. He’ll never leave us alone,” Elizabeth said with the bat in her hands again.

  “Listen to your mother, Charlie. I’ll be back,” Oliver said defiantly.

  Charlie peeled off another piece of tape and sealed Oliver’s lips then slapped his face hard enough to strain the tape at his neck. “Now be a good boy,” he said then turned to his mother. “Don’t listen to him, Mom. He’s going to jail for a long, long time.” Charlie hugged her and put a hand on the bat. “If he tries to get away, smash his knees. Beat the Hell out of him if you want, but stay away from his head.”

  Charlie watched his mother glance back and forth from Oliver to her husband’s body behind him. A tear streamed down her cheek as she backed away from Oliver and sat against the wall.

  Deirdre came into view. She stood in the doorway, the knife blade resting against her thigh, her attention on Oliver’s chest.

  Charlie was losing valuable time. The police would arrive any second, but Deirdre looked as if she’d plunge the knife in the second he walked out the door.

  “Dee, I know this is what you came here for, but you can’t do it. Not now. If you kill him, he wins. Do you hear me?”

  Her focus never left Oliver.

  “This isn’t what Henri would have wanted.”

  Charlie grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

  “Listen to me. We’ve won. He’s going to jail. He’s going to be punished.”

  Deirdre met Charlie’s eyes.

  “Do you understand? If you kill him now, he wins.”

  Deirdre inched the knife upward.

  Charlie needed to grab it and run, but he waited as she haltingly raised it and spun the handle toward him. When she finally let go, Charlie threw it off the balcony where it bounced off the tiles and came to rest in the corner by the door. He gave her a quick hug and stepped back.

  “Just hang on,” he said to both of them. “The police will be here any minute. Tell them everything.” Charlie moved to the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” Elizabeth asked.

  “An errand. Listen. Keep the police busy. Tell them exactly what happened for the last two days. Don’t leave anything out. And whatever you do, keep that tape over Oliver’s mouth as long as possible.”

  Charlie rushed down the stairs with Oliver’s driver’s license in hand, the gun snugly in his belt.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  The McLaren skidded to a stop in front of a huge white-brick colonial that matched the address on Oliver’s driver’s license. Charlie tossed the license on the seat and stepped out onto the grass, feeling idiotic as he stood between Oliver’s house and the Caulfield’s fire-ravaged home across the street. He’d stayed up nights for a week wondering how Oliver knew so much. He’d learned their alarm codes, mastered their schedule, and he’d manipulated them with the finesse of a family member. Halfway to the front door, Charlie noticed the security cameras aimed across the street and wondered if Oli
ver had seen his exchange with Mrs. Caulfield on the lawn. He’d probably rung the bell and prompted it.

  Charlie walked through the unlocked front door, unafraid of Oliver’s trickery. Whatever was waiting inside wasn’t meant for him, it was left behind for the police. He perused three barren rooms at the front of the house, finding only a few scuffs on the floor and a few pieces of furniture to attest that anyone had lived inside. The whole house appeared to be an expensive stake-out to observe the comings and goings next door. The kitchen held little, except a few dishes and an array of beverages in the refrigerator. With a hesitant sniff, Charlie judged the milk to be well over a week old, purchased before the Caulfield’s house burned.

  Once the house burned and Bill was arrested, Oliver had turned his full attention to the Marstons. He’d moved closer to the winery, somewhere he could watch them as closely as he’d watched the Caulfields. He might have been hiding in the tiny observation post or even the cellar of Charles and Elizabeth’s house. When they returned from Piolenc, the snakes and the dead body drove everyone out of Charlie’s house and into theirs. The snake stunt might have been less about scaring them than giving Oliver a place to keep dry, a place he felt was rightfully his.

  In the back hall, Charlie found the only closed door in the house, the study. A table against the far wall held crisp stacks of papers and envelopes. They were addressed, stamped, and laid out in precise ranks as if for display. Above them was a corkboard with columns of photographs aligned above the paperwork on the table. The pictures seemed to identify the addressees on the envelopes or at least the numbers and genders agreed.

  As Charlie scanned the rest of the room, he found a desk to his left arranged similarly with two entire corkboards full of photos.

  Charlie sat and scanned ten years of Oliver’s camera work.

  A column of photographs and news clippings chronicled the demise of Bill Caulfield. Bill, Jo, and their home were photographed in every season and always from the same vantage point in Oliver’s house. In the earliest pictures, the pear trees along the drive were five feet shorter than they were now, which meant Oliver had been snapping photos for three or four years.

  Charlie recognized the next series as the original color photos from the articles in The Standard Times. Oliver might have sent these to the paper, but more likely it was the insurance agent who forwarded them. Workers of all kinds were pictured coming and going. Plumbers, electricians, pest control technicians, furniture delivery men, and heating contractors all visited the house while the pear trees were in full flower. Charlie marveled at the foresight to start the Caulfield’s torment just before the trees came into bloom. Oliver had been working toward these photos from the first time he aimed his camera across the street.

  Several neatly clipped articles were tacked beneath the photos. They covered the fire, alleged arson, and recapped Bill Caulfield’s indictment. The reporter’s characterization of Caulfield as a “wealthy banker using insurance fraud to pay his bills” showed just how convincing Oliver’s manufactured evidence was. The gasoline receipt, the flat tire just a mile from the house, the last-minute 911 call, and the discarded phone in the bushes ten feet from the car: brilliant! Unless the defense lawyers found some glaring mistake, the jury would send Bill away. But after years of work, Oliver missed one important fact. He planned with the obsession of a serial killer, maniacally focused on his objective. His obsession, his unquenchable thirst for revenge screamed out from the assembled evidence. His motivation couldn’t be overlooked by the police.

  Did he think his outrage equated to father’s guilt? And Caulfield’s?

  A photo in the middle of the board caught Charlie’s eye. Jo Caulfield stood in a lacy red top, captured in a flattering close-up. In other photos, people moved here and there and Oliver was intent to prove something or other, but he had captured Jo with an admiring lens. Charlie’s encounter with her was unforgettable. Naturally, Oliver wanted to take her from Bill and Charlie wondered if he’d done more than take pictures.

  Maybe at some level she helped him see the irony of his quest. His hatred made him the third victim of his parents’ killer. The orphaned boy grew fifteen years into an emotionless shell. Empty, vengeful, he plotted to sacrifice himself to punish the people who took his parents from him. As difficult as things had been for Oliver, Charlie could never imagine sacrificing himself out of hate. For the first time since leaving the house, Charlie was glad he held his fire.

  What an incredible waste of life Charles and Bill had started; Roger Joyet and his wife, Henri, Monique, the detective. Shameful. Bill was repaying his debt and Charles could pay no more, but Charlie couldn’t help feeling guilty for what his father had done. He hoped the carnage would end with Oliver in jail.

  The photo on top of the next column was so shocking he didn’t hear the car door slam outside. There he was in his red and white Ohio State uniform standing with Julie. She wore the bright-yellow fleece pullover he’d bought to keep her warm at the game. This was one of their last weeks together. Seeing her long straight hair and the curves of her face reminded him of the day he remembered too well. He couldn’t imagine Oliver here among this crowd. He had no place in this time, the time Charlie yearned for every morning when he touched the floor and felt the stabbing pain.

  He caught three touchdowns that day in front of an audience packed with scouts. After the game, the Pittsburgh scout promised he’d be their first pick in the draft. Charlie was on top of the world, all but guaranteed to be a starting NFL tight-end next season. He didn’t want to leave that photo. It promised a cozy life with Julie, more money than they’d ever need, a few kids, and a house in a great neighborhood. That photo was the edge of his dream. What happened next brought his whole life crashing to earth. Outside that photo, Charlie was an ordinary man.

  The next image was from another game two weeks later. It was an image he’d never seen on film: a tight zoom on his lower body taken from the stands. Charlie was locked up with a linebacker as a two hundred eighty-five pound lineman crashed down, shoulder-first into his kneecap. This instant in time was etched in Charlie’s memory. It was the turning point of his life, but he’d never seen it. He remembered the struggle to push the linebacker off the play and then the pain. The camera’s view of the scene made no sense. The lineman was unblocked in the hole, yet he dove for Charlie’s knee rather than the running back. The man’s legs were out of view. He could have tripped, but he landed with his shoulder-pad squarely on Charlie’s kneecap with tremendous force that came only from determined effort.

  The next image of a player on the stretcher surrounded by teammates didn’t completely register. Oliver had a close-up of an injury on an otherwise inconsequential play for Ohio State. In sixty minutes of game time, he’d had the camera zoomed in the very second Charlie was nearly crippled.

  Oliver had known it was going to happen!

  He’d been following Charlie three years before he pushed himself up on that barstool. Charlie felt like Bill Caulfield even before he heard the footsteps.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Oliver seethed. The tape across his throat choked him with the slightest struggle. Angry breaths stung his nostrils and the tape over his mouth threatened to suffocate him should enough mucus gather in his nasal passages. He forced himself to remain calm as the women he’d held captive minutes earlier stood guard over him with the bat Charlie had ripped from his hands and used to incapacitate him.

  The Marstons had followed his script precisely until Charlie fired that gun out the window. Now, instead of being mortally wounded on the floor, a glaring incrimination in a blood-soaked, white shirt that would send Charlie Marston to jail for two murders, he was bound to the post, ready to be locked up like some common criminal. His hopes of working himself free before the police arrived were dim. The tape around his wrists was bound so tightly he could barely wiggle his numb fingers. When the police found him, they’d be hard-pressed to believe this was the work of the enraged maniac Oliv
er described in his emergency call.

  Charlie had remained serene and logical in the face of atrocities that would infuriate lesser men into a blood-thirsty rampage. Oliver spent months tormenting him, the depths of which Charlie was only now beginning to understand. He’d destroyed his childhood home, burned a family fortune then savagely beaten and killed his father. Charlie walked past his father’s brutalized body moments before the confrontation and still he didn’t shoot. Even seeing his mother bound to the bed wasn’t enough. Oliver wondered what would have happened if he’d stripped her naked and slapped her around.

  He consoled himself that Charles Marston was hanging in the foyer behind him. He and Bill Caulfield paid dearly for what they’d done, but now was not the time for reverie. There was still time to salvage the day. Limited time. Charlie had avoided the trap, but Oliver might be just as convincing alive as he would have been dead. The women would be his undoing. If he’d killed them, the scenario would have been convincing. Charlie killed his family, stabbed Oliver, stole the car, and bolted. Unfortunately, the women were alive, looking frightened and pathetic, and Charlie was speeding toward the one place where he could ruin fifteen years of preparation. Charlie had to be stopped. If only Sebastian had stayed.

  The three minutes the emergency operator promised had turned into seven by the time the sirens approached. Several of them must have passed the SLR streaking in the other direction. The screeching cacophony relaxed Elizabeth and Deirdre. Elizabeth lowered the bat, and both women stepped to the head of the stairs expectantly. If he could move at all, this would be the time to make his break, but his upper body was cocooned in tape, his feet lashed together.