Days of Reckoning

by Chris Stout

  Damon tried to pull away from her and still didn’t answer. Miranda rolled her eyes and reached for his hair again.

  “Wait!”

  She ignored him and pushed his face back towards the stream.

  “Theyreforthemilitia!”

  She held him an inch from the water. “What was that?”

  “They’re for the militia!”

  “What militia?”

  “The Sparta Militia. You should know; your brother was one of us.”

  “Is that a fact? So who else was part of your merry little band?”

  “They’ll kill me if I tell.”

  Miranda leaned in close to his face. “That’s not nearly as bad as what I’m going to do to you if you don’t.”

  #

  The worst part about late-night TV, Sam thought, was the selection. It was talk-shows, infomercials or old westerns he’d seen a thousand times since he was a kid. He flipped through the stations and landed on the public access channel, where a large red-faced man with a microphone was pacing back and forth, hollering to an unseen audience that cheered each time he took a breath. “This ought to be good," he muttered.

  Across the bottom of the screen ran Reverend Wallace Dean Mercer: The Freedom Revival. Sam had never been overly religious, and he almost flipped past the station, but then he caught a few lines of what “freedom” meant to this Reverend Mercer, so he paused before switching back to the western.

  “We must protect ourselves from the mongrel races!” Meyer shouted, both to the crowd and the camera. “Send them back to Africa! Send them back to China! We don’t want those commies here anyway! Send them back to Japan, and Mexico! Tell them to quit stealing jobs from honest, hard-working Americans!”

  Sam whistled. “Swell. Another one of those freaks.”

  “People!” Mercer continued. “Our noble race, our Christian race, is being snuffed out before our very eyes. ‘Keep ye separate,’ sayeth the Lord! ‘And touch not the unclean thing!’ These mongrels want to defile our women, infect our children, and turn hard-working folk such as yourselves into slaves. They want nothing less than the destruction of our religion, our race and our lives. To survive, we must take up arms and defend our homes and families! The government won’t stop them. The government’s owned by them! Them and the Jews, anyway. It’s up to us, you, to keep our kind pure and free.”

  Sam snorted in disgust. Freedom of Speech was one thing, but these people almost made him wish there were more exceptions to that rule. He reached for the remote again.

  “I have heard that one of our noble institutions of learning not only tolerates this inter-breeding, this perversion, it also actively promotes it! Why, next weekend, the College of Sparta is even celebrating so-called diversity.”

  The television audience roared in protest, and Sam stayed his thumb yet again.

  “I have been informed that next weekend, there is a Unity Day Rally at that college, where perverts and Jews and mongrels will be celebrated, and our good citizens will be encouraged to co-mingle with them. People, we cannot let this go unopposed!” He paused to allow for another burst of cheering and applause. “My Deacons and I will be at this rally, in opposition to perversion, there to preach The Word to good folks suck as yourselves, and to save our noble Christian race from those who would defile it. I encourage you all to attend as well.”

  That was more than Sam needed to hear. Unity Day was one of the major festivals at the college, and his department would be working in concert with the campus police department to provide security for the event. Having an insane rabble-rouser like this Reverend Mercer around meant the job for him and his fellow officers just got a whole lot more difficult. Sam couldn’t imagine how Mercer had received permission to hold a counter-rally. He made a note to confer with Wainwright on the matter and then finally turned off the television.

  #

  Miranda only had to dunk Damon once more before he gave her all the information she needed. The tale he told was an appalling one, but it confirmed her suspicions that Wainwright was dirty. It also sealed Damon’s fate, but that was something for which Miranda was ready. The only comfort she took was that Sam’s name had never been mentioned. At least he was someone she could continue to trust.

  That left only one more question to ask.

  “What happened to my brother?”

  Damon shivered and groaned. “Please don’t put me in the water again.”

  “He didn’t kill himself, did he?”

  Damon closed his eyes and shook his head. “He got seen, burnin’ down a church over in West Virginia. Chief didn’t want anybody questioning him and coming back to us, not with Unity Day coming up. So we… We took him out in a field. Chief gave him a gun and one bullet, said either he could do the job himself or you’d get hurt. Justin didn’t think twice about it.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I swear to God it’s true! I didn’t want to see him die, but Chief ordered it! Please don’t put me back in the water!”

  Miranda swallowed the lump forming in her throat and drew in a deep breath. “He didn’t beg, try to talk his way out of it or anything?”

  “No ma’am. He just sat down, stuck the pistol in his mouth… and that was it.”

  Miranda grabbed Damon by the back of his head. “Then he was a bigger man than you are.”

  Before he could scream, Miranda shoved Damon’s head back under the water. This time, the cold of the stream didn’t bother her at all.

  Chapter 7

  “Sam, you got a moment?” Chief Wainwright stood in the doorway of Sam Connor’s small office.

  The detective looked up from his paperwork. “Never. What can I do for you?”

  Wainwright walked in and sat in the chair across from Sam’s desk. “Looks like you were up late last night,” he said, noticing the rings under the younger man’s brown eyes.

  “Stayed up past my bedtime watching TV.”

  “Thought you outgrew that phase back in high school.”

  “Trying to hang onto my youth.”

  Wainwright chuckled. “Aren’t we all.” Then he got down to business. “This is probably nothing, but I’ve had a few complaints from people about not being able to get into Sparta Trade and Gun.”

  “Why should they call us? Henry’s allowed to close up whenever he wants.”

  “Yeah, I know. I tried to call him at his house, but there wasn’t an answer. And he usually lets us know when he’s gone so we can keep an eye on the store. If you want to get away from all this paperwork, would you mind driving by, see if he’s about, and if not, see that the place is tight?”

  “Yeah, sure thing.” Sam rose from his desk. He slipped his shoulder holster over his shirt, and then covered it with a sport jacket. “I’ll be back in about a half-hour. Might grab a cup of coffee on my way over.”

  “Something wrong with our fine local brew?”

  “No, if you want your stomach lining burned off. See you in a few.”

  #

  Sam sipped at a steaming cup of coffee. Between handling the Hamms and listening to Tracy bash him, he was not in a pleasant mood. It felt good to be out of the office, though he did feel something like an errand boy. Checking up on Beaumont should have been a matter for a regular patrol officer, if that. Although he had to admit that it had been slow lately. He set the coffee back down in the cupholder of his car as he pulled into the lot of Beaumont’s store. Two pick-up trucks were parked there, and four men stood leaning against them. Sam noted the shotgun resting on a rack in the back of one of the pick-ups. He made sure his jacket would not get in the way if he had to go for his pistol and stepped out of his car. One man with a bushy beard approached him.

  “Police!” Sam called out. “Stay where you are, partner!”

  The man stopped moving. “Bout time you got here! We been waitin’ for almost a half-hour!”

  “Hey, buddy, just because a man’s store is closed doesn’t mean you have to come knocking with a gang and a
twelve gauge in the truck. I don’t think I’d open up if I saw you coming my way with that.”

  “We ain’t standin’ here because the stores closed. We’re here because someone knocked it over and killed Henry.”

  “What?”

  “We found the back door hacked open,” the man with the beard continued. “Jimmy went in and found Henry lyin’ dead with a bunch of holes in him. He’s out back guarding the door. Jimmy, that is.”

  Shit. “Okay, hold on a sec. I’m going to radio this in and then I’ll go check it out myself. Make sure that cannon stays in its rack. A lot of police are about to show up, and they won’t be happy to see guns in anyone’s hand.”

  The man went back to his truck. Sam relayed the message to police headquarters. He told the four men to stay put and went around to the back of the building. Naturally, they ignored the order and followed him.

  Sam found a lanky man standing by a shattered rear door, smoking a cigarette. He noted with displeasure that a large pistol was tucked in the waistband of the man’s pants. “You may want to lose that before the rest of my back-up gets here,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Who the hell are you?” the man named Jimmy replied.

  “It’s okay,” the burly bearded man said, reassuring his friend. “This man here’s the law.”

  “Oh.” Jimmy left his post with a curt nod and went around to the front of the building.

  Sam warily watched him leave. “Okay,” he said, “I’m going to go in and have a look around. You are all witnesses to what looks like a robbery-homicide, so I wouldn’t go anywhere if I were you. Some more officers are on their way, and they’ll be asking you a lot of questions. Are there any other armed men around that I need to know about?” They all shook their heads. Jimmy returned, minus his Beretta. “Good,” Sam said. “Now sit tight out by your trucks. My back-up should be here in just a minute or two.” In fact, they could already hear sirens wailing in the distance. “Jimmy, since you’ve already been inside, why don’t you lead the way? And don’t touch anything. The scene’s been desecrated enough already.”

  Jimmy reddened, but guided Sam through the open back door of the shop. It looked like someone had used a sledgehammer to break it down. A light was on in the back storeroom. “Was this on when you got here?”

  “No, sir. I turned it on so you’d be able to see your way.”

  Sam swore to himself again. “Thanks Jimmy.”

  They made their way past several boxes and came to the door leading into the store. Sam could already detect the smell of bodily gasses and fluids. Not good. “Okay, before we go any further, tell me exactly what you touched when you went in there.”

  “Well, I checked Henry for a pulse, but I guess that was silly since he had a big hole drilled through his head. And I looked for his gun. It was still in his holster. His pocket piece and keys was gone, though.”

  “So you moved the body?”

  “Not much, but yeah, I reckon I did shift it around some. Pretty foul stuff, too.”

  Sam sighed. “Anything else?”

  “No sir. I poked around and saw some pistol cases smashed in. Cash register too. Looks like maybe someone took some boxes of ammo as well. That’s about it.”

  “Okay. Wait outside with your buddies while I look around here.”

  Jimmy started to move into the store, intending to go out the front, but Sam caught his arm and stopped him. “Not that way. Go around back, the way we came in!”

  “Sorry,” Jimmy said, sheepish again. He headed out the back door with his head and shoulders slumping. Sam moved into the store.

  Just as Jimmy had promised, Henry Beaumont lay dead in the middle of the floor. Sam drew in a sharp breath. He counted bloodstains on the man’s shirt and trousers, in addition to the obvious hole through his forehead. Footprints in the pools of tacky blood indicated that someone – probably Jimmy – had been around the body long after Henry had been shot. Sam walked around in a wide circle. He guessed that Henry had caught an intruder, but the intruder had the drop on him. Given what Jimmy had said about his pocket pistol being gone, Sam guessed that Henry had not been shot immediately. The intruder may not have intended to kill him at all, only firing when Henry tried to draw his gun. Sam wondered why Henry would have gone for a pocket pistol instead of the large revolver holstered on his hip.

  He stood with his back to the front door. There was no spray of blood across the carpet. That meant that Henry had been shot through the head after he was already down. Whoever executed him had decided to make sure he didn’t cause any more trouble. Sam rubbed his chin. Dancing lights from flashing sirens splashed across the wall as an ambulance and another police cruiser pulled into the lot. Sam continued his inspection of the store.

  As he was looking over the shattered gun cases he heard footsteps in the storeroom. He looked up and raised his eyebrows when he saw Chief Wainwright standing in the doorway.

  “Jesus,” Wainwright said, holding a handkerchief over his nose. “What the hell happened here?”

  “Looks like Henry was taken by surprise and held at gunpoint. Somewhere along the line he reached for a hidden piece and got killed in the process. I doubt he ever got a shot off. Of course, that’s all assuming that what Jimmy out there told me is correct.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sam explained what he had learned. “This crime scene sucks, Chief. At least one other person has been in here before me. I’m sure they meant well, wanting to check on their friend, but they fucked the whole place up.” Sam was glad he finally had someone to whom he could vent his frustration. “Body’s been moved, evidence tampered with… We ought to arrest the lot of them for obstruction of justice.”

  “Take it easy, Sam,” Wainwright said gently. “They’re just a bunch of ‘good ol’ boys,’ looking after one of their own.”

  “Well, we’ll be lucky to get any admissible evidence from here. There’s no way to tell what the killer touched and what was their doing, especially if the killer was one of them.”

  “I doubt very much the killer was one of them.”

  Sam nodded. “Me too. Sorry about that, Chief.”

  “No problem. You were already beat when you got here, so I don’t blame you. Look, a forensics team is on their way in. Why don’t you and I go get statements from those jokers, then head back to the office to write up a report on what you found? I doubt there’s much good we can do here now.”

  #

  While Sam interviewed the men who’d found Beaumont’s body, Chief Wainwright stepped away to make several phone calls. The first was to Damon’s cell phone. “What the hell’ve you done now, son?” Wainwright grumbled. When Damon didn’t answer, Wainwright hit the “end” key and tapped the phone against his jaw. Something must have happened to cause this scene, but he couldn’t imagine what. Damon was a bit of a hothead, but he was no fool. He knew what the consequences would be if he exposed Wainwright and the rest of the militia to any threat of capture.

  The Chief wondered if Damon had retrieved the weapons from Beaumont yet. With the store owner dead, it wouldn’t be long before the Sheriff’s department went out to his house to look for clues to his murder. Wainwright dialed in Sheriff Horn’s personal number. The Chief needed to make sure that his own men got to Beaumont’s house first.

  Chapter 8

  Miranda took stock of the arsenal she’d recovered from Damon. The weaponry she’d acquired would be enough to start a small war. Amazingly enough, she’d been able to pack most of it into her car. Sometimes it paid to drive a four-door. Her personal favorites were the Glock and PPK pistols fitted with threaded barrels to take silencers, but the real prize of the bunch was a Squad Automatic Weapon: the M249 light machine-gun favored by the military as a light support weapon. She had no idea where Beaumont had acquired it, but she knew the potential devastation it could wreak was enormous. She was online looking for information on how to field-strip it when the cell phone she’d recovered from Damon rang.

/>   Miranda looked at the Caller ID display and recognized the incoming number as Chief Wainwright’s. “Wonder what he wants?” she muttered. Her question was answered by the ringing of her own phone. This call came from Hector Gutierrez, one of the uniformed officers that frequently worked with Sam.

  “What’s up Heck?”

  “Sorry to bother you while you’re on leave,” the officer said. “I thought you’d want to know that Henry Beaumont was found dead this morning.”

  “Jesus. What happened?”

  “Not sure. Looks like he was shot during a break-in last night, but something don’t seem quite right. No alarms went off, nothing was triggered. Scene’s a mess. Sam was the first one here. He’s pretty hot right now. I thought maybe you could run over for some moral support.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Miranda hung up and hurried to pack away the weapons.

  #

  Hector Gutierrez nodded to Sam. “I called Miranda to let her know what’s going on.”

  “Why?”

  “I figured she’d want to know.”

  “She’s on leave, man. She’s never gonna get over her brother’s death if she doesn’t have a break from this shit.”

  “Sorry Sam. Want me to call her off?”

  “Forget it. Just don’t let her near the body. I don’t want her having a breakdown or anything.” Sam kept an eye on the road while he performed his other tasks. His stomach felt like lead when he saw a familiar sedan pull up in front of the store ten minutes later. “That was fast. Stay close to her, Heck.”