Grave Situation

by Alex MacLean

  “One friend wishing another a Merry Christmas.”

  David drew a breath. “Yup.”

  “I think this Herb Matteau might be our guy,” Allan said.

  “I’ll get a search warrant ready.”

  “I want to go to his place with you.”

  “When can you be here?”

  Allan turned over the ignition. “I’m leaving now.”

  50

  Acresville, May 24

  4:52 p.m.

  Herb stared at the revolver in front of him.

  He sat in the kitchen with his elbows on top of the table and his chin cradled in both hands. He felt empty, lost, overwhelmed by guilt with a dull ache in the pit of his stomach that just wouldn’t go away.

  Why can’t I end it? Leave this nightmare once and for all?

  As hard as it was to live, dying seemed that much harder.

  To make matters worse, he was out of beer, out of whiskey and in no shape to drive to town for more.

  He rose and wobbled a bit and had to brace himself on the table. The kitchen shifted slightly around him. After a few moments, he felt all right again. He walked to the living room, to the open door where he leaned against the jamb. He gazed out at the front yard, caught up in his thoughts.

  He’d been standing there for about five minutes when a movement out on the country road caught his eye. He turned his head and saw an Acresville Police car followed by an unmarked sedan. They were traveling fast without flashing lights or sirens. As they neared his driveway, they slowed down and began to turn onto it.

  Goosebumps suddenly exploded across Herb’s skin.

  The cops had pieced everything together. Now they’re coming for me.

  Heart racing, Herb slammed the door and threw the deadbolt into place.

  Allan’s gaze swept over the windows of the farmhouse as he drove up. He saw no one looking out.

  David was behind the wheel in the lead car. He parked by the edge of the front lawn. Allan stopped behind him and shut off the engine. Through the windshield he surveyed the property. The farm looked uninhabited. There were no tractors, no cows in the green span of fields.

  He wondered what happened. Had the man who lived here just given up on everything?

  In the living room, Herb peeled the curtain aside and watched the three men getting out of the cars. His mouth went dry.

  He recognized the older man as Chief Brantford and he could see that there was a folded sheet of paper in his hand. The slim-built cop next to him was the same one who had been here the night before.

  Herb didn’t recognize the third man getting out from the unmarked car behind them. He looked middle-aged with graying hair and tired eyes. He wore black slacks and a tweed sport coat.

  The Chief moved toward the front walk, stopping briefly to look at something on the paper. He checked his watch and then headed for the veranda. The young cop followed him.

  The unknown man lingered near his car. With a slow sweep of his head he seemed to be inspecting the property.

  Damp with sweat, Herb backed away from the window. His legs were weak. Fear roiled inside him like a fever.

  Footsteps now. Then a tap came at the door.

  Shit.

  Near panic, Herb stared across the room at the revolver on the kitchen table.

  Warrant in hand, David knocked on the door a second time. Waited. Put his ear close to the door, but heard nothing from within.

  Sam stood on the other side of the door, one hand on his sidearm.

  “Maybe he’s not home, Chief,” he said.

  David looked at him. In a muted tone, he answered, “I think he is, son. He might know why we’re here.”

  Herb heard the rattle of the doorknob, watched it turning. There came a gentle nudge at the door. He wondered if the cops would kick it in.

  A muffled voice came to him. “Mister Matteau? This is Police Chief David Brantford. We spoke last night. Can you open up, please?”

  Herb released a breath. He felt crippled by indecision.

  It’s all over now.

  He was cornered, unable to escape. Life behind bars awaited him. Caged like an animal. No matter what he couldn’t let that happen.

  He dashed to the kitchen and picked up the revolver from the table. He’d intended to end this, but there was something he wanted to do first. He tiptoed back into the living room.

  Gun in hand, he used his other to pick up the phone. Clumsily, he stabbed at numbers. When he heard the voice of Slick’s mother, Herb winced.

  “Hello, Missus Eagles.”

  “Hello, Herbie,” she greeted. “How are you doing?”

  Herb swallowed.

  Not so good.

  He licked his lips. “I just called to tell you that I’m sorry.”

  There was a pause. When she spoke again, there was a note of interest in her voice. “Sorry for what?”

  Herb shut his eyes, feeling an ache in his heart.

  For everything, he wanted to tell her. For Stephen. For all the pain I caused.

  “Sorry for what, Herbie?”

  Without another word he hung up the phone and wrenched the cord from the wall.

  Allan walked to the front lawn.

  “I’ll check around back,” he called over to David and Sam.

  As he rounded the side of the house and reached the backyard, he caught sight of a blue pickup truck and stopped abruptly.

  All at once, a sick comprehension appeared as a slow widening of his stare, a parting of his mouth. His mind flashed on part of Greg O’Dell’s story the morning he had found his work partner, Brad Hawkins, dead.

  “I’m going to check out a truck sitting here on the waterfront.”

  Greg looked at the time. 5:01 am. “What’s your location?”

  “I’m coming up to the Impark lot by ECTUG.”

  “Anyone around?”

  “No one outside that I can see. The dome light is on in the truck. Only see one person inside that I can tell. Could be someone beside him.”

  “Is the person male or female?”

  “Male. Guy is probably drunk and came down here to sleep it off.”

  “Do you want backup?”

  “No. I can handle it.”

  There was no question now.

  It’s him.

  Allan reached inside his coat and unholstered his pistol.

  Herb stared at the revolver in his hand. This was the moment of decision, the time to finally bring this nightmare to an end.

  He closed his eyes momentarily.

  If I walk in darkness without one ray of light, let me trust the Lord, let me rely upon God.

  Steeling himself, he cracked open the back door.

  Allan heard the creak of a door and then saw a big man step out. When he noticed the revolver in the man’s hand, he automatically brought up his own weapon to the high ready. With leaden steps, he moved out onto the lawn, aware that he was leaving his cover and putting himself in the open.

  “Freeze!” he ordered. “Put down the gun.”

  Slowly, Herb turned to the man on the grass. The stranger’s hands were stretched out in front of him and in them he held a black pistol aimed right at Herb. Across the twenty feet between them, their eyes met.

  Herb didn’t move.

  It was funny, he thought; yesterday morning, when he had last faced the same threat from Slick, he felt scared. Now he felt an odd calmness, a stillness of mind and emotion. A lifetime of heartache was near a close.

  “Put down the gun,” the man repeated. “It’s over.”

  With exaggerated slowness, Herb swiveled his head from one side to the other.

  “You don’t want it to end like this.”

  Herb kept the revolver by his leg. Though his eyes were serious, he managed a thin smile.

  “And what are my options?” he asked in a dry tone. “Surrender and let you put me in prison?”

  Allan’s finger tensed on the trigger. All at once, a gallery of troubling images filled his mind�
�the mother of Brad Hawkins doubling over in the doorway of her home and emitting an anguished wail when informed of her son’s death; Cathy Ambré in Allan’s arms, clinging to him in quiet despair; the young woman later laying atop her bed, the victim of a successful suicide attempt; her imploring postscript on the note she had left him: Please find my sister; and finally Phillip Ambré identifying his other daughter at the morgue.

  If there had been no witnesses, he was certain that he would have shot Herb without a second thought.

  Stay calm, he told himself. Keep it professional.

  “That’s pretty much how it works.” He fought to control the feeling in his voice. “Life is but choices. You chose to take four innocent lives and under our laws that’s totally unacceptable.”

  Herb didn’t respond.

  “Drop the gun,” Allan hissed with palpable anger.

  Sam came running around the corner of the house, followed by David, who was huffing. Herb snapped his head toward them, as if startled.

  “He has a gun,” warned Allan.

  At this, the two men drew their pistols and brought them up to a firing position.

  “Drop your weapon, sir,” Sam yelled. “Drop it now.”

  Allan saw Herb brace himself. Intently, he watched Herb’s gun hand, the flexed muscles of his arm.

  “Drop your weapon,” Sam ordered again, louder.

  Allan motioned the constable to keep in control. “Easy, Sam,” he called out. “Let’s not exacerbate things here.”

  Sam shot Allan a nervous glance. After a few seconds, he nodded his acquiescence. Once more Allan focused on Herb.

  I need to talk him down somehow.

  “We’ve learned everything,” he told him. “The grave robberies that your friend, Stephen Eagles, was involved in. The trafficking of plastinated body parts.”

  “Sick, isn’t it?”

  Allan gave a small nod. “Yes. According to the ringleader, murder was never part of it. You chose to do that on your own. Help me understand something—what I haven’t figured out is why you started killing people? You have no criminal record, no history of violence that we could find. What sparked all this?”

  Herb flinched. He knew that there were no adequate reasons to justify what he’d done. He had murdered four people and worst of all, his best friend.

  At length, he said, “I know it’s no consolation. But I never once enjoyed it.”

  “Then why?”

  Herb twitched his heavy shoulders. “I don’t know. My mind hasn’t been right lately. Before this I was a fairly good person.”

  The man seemed to consider him. “Last month you were fined for an environmental mishap.”

  Herb paused.

  “It’s immoral what the fucking government did to you. It wasn’t your fault what happened. Big industry has been polluting the environment for decades, but nothing has been done about it…”

  “Front page news here,” he said quietly. “The fines crippled me financially. I ended up losing everything. The papers never reported that side of the story.”

  “And the fairly good person you once were suddenly wanted to get back at the government?”

  Herb inhaled. “Our government is full of self-serving con-men and morons. It easier for them to ruin one man, than it is to come down on the real environmental polluters.”

  “Despite what they did to you, it still never gave you the right to go out there killing people.”

  Ashamed, Herb lowered his eyes.

  “I know that,” he mumbled weakly. “I wish Stephen never offered me that job. None of this would’ve ever happened.”

  “You’re blaming your friend for all this?”

  Herb felt the first spark of anger. “Not at all. I take full responsibility for my actions. It was my decision to do what I did. Not his.”

  Allan scrutinized the expressionless gaze.

  “Why Trixy Ambré?”

  The reply, when it came, was slow in coming. “Because she was an easy victim.”

  “What about Brad Hawkins?”

  “He came by as I was about to leave. Wrong place, wrong time.”

  “Did he witness anything?”

  “No.”

  “Then why kill him? Still on your high?”

  Herb drew a breath. “I’m not sure what this ‘high’ is, as you put it. I was going to let him go. But then he decided to write down my plate number and my description in his book. All that might’ve ended up in your hands.”

  Allan could feel his own pulse.

  The missing notebook.

  “And what about John Baker?” he asked. “What did he ever do to you?”

  “He asked me for a ride.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I met him one day on the road out here.” His expression seemed to become reflective. “He was sitting on the ground by the ditch. There were cans spilled over the road from a garbage bag he had been carrying. I thought something happened to him, so I stopped to see if he needed help. He asked for a lift into town, so I gave it to him. It was after I dropped him off that I began to have these bad thoughts.”

  Allan thought he detected a painful timbre in Herb’s words. There was also an eerie resignation about him, he found, one that unnerved him.

  Will he drop that gun? Or does he have a death wish?

  “I was told your friend, Stephen Eagles, met you yesterday morning with intentions of killing you.”

  Herb’s grip tightened on the revolver. He could feel sweat on his forehead, the pounding of his own heart. It was a moment before he could speak.

  “He was going to kill me, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.”

  “But you easily brought yourself to kill him.”

  Herb gave a mirthless smirk. “It was more difficult than you know.”

  In his shoulders, Allan began to feel the strain from holding his pistol out in front of him for too long.

  “Do you have any idea of the lives you affected?”

  “I can only imagine,” Herb said simply.

  “Drop the gun,” Allan said again. “You’re outnumbered. Do the right thing this time. Try to make some amends for your actions.”

  A breeze swirled around them. Shutting his eyes, Herb lifted his face toward the warmth of the sun. He thought of his mother, of his father, of the joyless home they had shared. He knew his own life was done now. In the newspapers, on the television, they would call him a murderer, a madman. That, he understood with a deep regret, would be his lasting legacy.

  How had he let this happen?

  He opened his eyes and gazed at the crab apple tree on the crest of the north pasture. He wondered if he’d meet his father again in the afterlife.

  “You told me that life is but choices,” he said at last. “From where I’m standing, I see you having two choices right now. One, you could kill me. Or two, you could let me kill you.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  Herb took one long breath of fresh country air. He would miss it here. The smells. The scenery. The tranquility.

  His finger grazed the trigger. Ever so slightly, his hand trembled again.

  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

  “Tell the families of those people that I’m sorry.”

  Every muscle in Allan’s body tensed as he prepared himself.

  Four shots rang out.

  It took only a second, but for Allan, everything became slow-motion fragments—the gun rising toward him, his own reaction appearing too sluggish, the panicky double tapping of his finger on the trigger, the two shells twirling from the ejector port of his 9mm, the red stain appearing on Herb’s shirt, the revolver falling from his hand.

  Gun still on his target, Allan stared at him through a wisp of smoke curling from the muzzle. The sound of his heart pounded in his ears. He slowly approached Herb and in the periphery of his vision, he saw David and Sam doing the same.

  Herb never realized being shot would hurt so
much. Searing pain ripped through his chest, through his left shoulder. It was hard to breathe. His left arm was immobilized; he couldn’t move it. The impacts of the bullets from Allan’s pistol had knocked him back against the door. Two more from David and Sam’s guns had struck his shoulder, spinning him around. Dazed, spots before his eyes, he slumped into a sitting position.

  With great effort he raised his right hand to his chest, touched the sticky wetness there. He swallowed once, painfully.

  “Call an ambulance,” he heard someone say.

  Herb lifted his head and saw the three men only feet away now. If he could reach out he would be able to touch them. The young looking cop next to the Chief put his pistol away and keyed his mike, speaking into it in hushed tones.

  You’re too late, Herb wanted to tell him. They won’t make it in time.

  He could feel a numbness spreading throughout his body. Color started to leach from everything around him, fading to a dull gray. Silence fell, eerie in its totality.

  Within seconds the three men before him began to disappear, lost in a brilliant wash of white that seemed to vibrate with energy. Amidst this strange new place he could hear someone’s voice calling out to him. At first it was only faint, then with increasing clarity, he realized the voice belonged to a female—soothing, almost angelic in tone.

  Maybe his mother.

  More than anything now, he hoped it was.

  Is this heaven? he wondered, and then knew no more.

  Holstering his pistol, Allan watched Herb’s head sag to his chest, eyes fixed open. With two fingers Allan checked the neck for a pulse. In death, Herb’s features had softened.

  At peace, Allan decided. The man seemed to be at peace.

  He took a deep breath. This marked the first time in his career that he had to use lethal force against another human being. As much as he hated the man for what he had done, Allan still felt guilt mingle with grief and apprehension. Every nerve in his body seemed to be afire, leaving him shaky, sick. The after-effect, he knew, of the adrenaline rush to his system. He gave himself a few minutes to recover.