“No. I screwed up. In person, I could have controlled the situation better. Now I have no idea what he’s going to do once he hears this.”
“Maybe he won’t hear it,” she said. “Maybe he’s not there.”
They sat in silence a few moments. Jack turned the car on and pulled out of the parking lot.
“Where to now?” she asked.
“Thornton’s condo is just five minutes away from here. Maybe he’s there and just not answering the phone.”
44
Nigel Avery drove along the hilly wooded terrain surrounding Lake Sampson, occasionally glancing down at his GPS, set to what he was sure was Thornton’s cabin. Far from nervous, he was pumped.
He was driving a car he’d stolen for this purpose. Had to make one detour on the way, to buy a new set of tires. A cash purchase made some thirty minutes ago. All the roads around Lake Sampson were dirt. For Avery’s plan to work, it would be necessary for only one set of tire tracks to go in and out of Thornton’s cabin, so he changed out the tires on this car to match Thornton’s.
As he rounded a curve, Avery rolled the car window down a few inches. He could never find a middle ground with car heating systems. Part of the problem was this costume. He was bundled up in the latest mountain man wear, deciding that would be the simplest and least conspicuous attire for the occasion. Irritating beads of sweat dripped down his neck and back.
He continued down the bumpy dirt path Thornton must have traveled earlier that afternoon. The GPS said the final curve was directly ahead. Avery stopped the car just before reaching it. He turned the car off and got out, leaving the door open. Closing the gap on foot, he surveyed the scene behind a thick pine for several minutes. There was Thornton’s car. He saw no movement at first, then the front door opened. Thornton came out, got something from the front seat of his car and went back inside the cabin.
There you go.
From Avery’s earlier casing of the area, he was certain none of the surrounding properties could overhear an indoor gunshot. But he couldn’t use a silencer on this anyway. Considering Thornton had zero social life, Avery had also figured no one would discover Thornton’s body for days. He reached down and pulled out a nine-millimeter from his leg holster and shoved it into his waistband. Inching forward from his covered position, his eyes roved from side to side.
In seconds, he was at the edge of the front porch. Too many boards would creak, so he walked around the side facing away from the lake, ducking under the lone window.
As he’d anticipated, there was a back door. No porch or walkway. He turned the knob, slowly. It was unlocked. Holding his breath, he pushed it forward, ever so slightly. No creaks. He paused waiting for any reaction from inside. None came. He stepped into a short hallway, pulling his gun from his waistband. With the other hand, he gently closed the door.
Still, no reaction from Thornton. The cabin was silent. He had to be in here somewhere. There were two doorways on either side of the hall. Avery took one step forward, his gun raised. To the left was an empty bathroom. To the right, a large pantry. Two more steps forward, and he was at the edge of a large big room. He heard the unmistakable sounds of a man snoring.
There you go.
The guy must be exhausted to have fallen asleep that fast. Avery walked into the center of the room. In the front left corner he found Thornton lying on a single bed. The curtains had already been drawn, a dying fire flickered in the fireplace. A laptop lay open on a small desk, the screensaver tossing up a nice aviation picture every few seconds. Leveling his gun at Thornton’s head, he reached up with his foot and kicked Thornton’s toes.
Thornton moaned. Avery kicked him again, a little harder. Thornton’s eyes opened. They focused on the center hole of the gun barrel. His body didn’t move. He looked up at Avery, “Please…don’t hurt me. Take anything. My wallet…it’s over there on the dresser.”
“I don’t want your money, Professor,” Avery said. “I make more in a month than you make all year. Now get up please…if you don’t mind.”
“Do you know me?” Thornton asked, rising slowly from the bed.
“Sure. You and me good buddies.” Avery loved toying with his game. “But now, I’m afraid, we must part.”
“Where are we going?” Thornton asked, his face in a panic.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Avery said. “You are. Problem is…I can’t tell you exactly where. That’s the stuff for philosophers and preachers.”
# # #
An icy dread filled Thornton’s insides. This man had come to kill him. But why? He reached his right hand beneath his pillow, feeling for his micro-recorder. He had started dictating some thoughts for his book before he fell asleep. He clicked it on and slid it forward to the edge of the pillow. “Who are you?”
“Guess it doesn’t matter if you know. Not now. The name’s Avery. Has been for a while now.”
“Who sent you?” he asked. “Dr. Jameison?”
“Jameison?” repeated Avery. “Good guess. He’s a little peeved with you. Making those threats to the good Doctor…not a good idea.”
“I didn’t make any threats. Is that what Jameison told you? He’s lying.”
“Come now, Professor. Show a little courage here at the end. I got you on tape. It won’t do any good to bluff here. There ain’t nobody you talked to in the last couple a weeks that I haven’t heard. Let’s see, this morning you called a Mr. Jack Turner about your stomach ache. Were you faking, Professor? You didn’t sound too sincere. Now, get up!” He kicked Thornton’s foot. “I didn’t come here to chat.”
Thornton stood. “What do you want me to do?”
“First, tell me where you’ve stashed any dirt you have on Jameison. I want all of it.”
“And, if I don’t?”
“I’ll kill you.”
“And, if I do?”
Avery didn’t respond.
“So, why should I make it easy on you?” Thornton said. “You’re going to kill me either way.”
# # #
“Here’s one reason.” Avery thrust his fist into Thornton’s chest, sending him flying back against the bed.
Thornton lay there, breathless, looking terrified. Momentarily unable to move.
“See, nothing says I can’t hurt you first. I know how, Professor. Our government spent a good deal to teach me. Got straight A’s in that class.” Avery was bluffing about torturing Thornton. He had to make this look like a suicide, which would automatically involve an autopsy. Torturing Thornton would leave too many marks.
“How much you figure you can take, Professor? I’m in no hurry.”
45
When his lungs finally rebounded from the blow, Thornton drew in a breath. A strange calm came over him. Thornton resigned himself to his fate. Justice had stepped in and decided he should die. He had betrayed the lives of four young men, men who trusted him, and now two of them were dead. It was only right that he should join them. He lifted himself off the bed. “I don’t have much. I was bluffing Jameison to get him to leave me alone.”
“I don’t care how much you have. I want it all.”
Thornton hesitated a moment to give the impression of playing hard to get.
“I mean it, Professor. All of it.”
“Over on the dresser, next to my wallet, you’ll find my keys. My house key is the round one, with three triangles etched in it. There’s a file folder with everything I have in my bill drawer. In the bedroom desk.” That was partially true. Thornton had made a set of copies and put them there.
“Shake my hand,” Avery said, “if that’s all there is. I hear you’re a man of your word.”
Thornton reached out his hand. It seemed an odd gesture at the moment. Avery suddenly grabbed his hand and squeezed, hard. Thornton screamed and tried to pull away. “Please I told you the truth.”
“We’ll see,” Avery said, squeezing a little harder.
Thornton somehow found the courage to look Avery straight in the eyes and said, �
�I have told you the truth.”
“Fine, Professor.” He let go. “I’ll get the keys. Move over to the desk. Take out a sheet of paper and a pen. Not a pencil, a pen.” Avery held the gun on him as Thornton obeyed.
“What now?” Thornton rubbed his fingers. The pain began to dissipate.
“Sit,” Avery said.
Thornton sat. “Now what?”
“Here’s how it’s going down, Professor. See, you don’t know this, but I do. Turns out, you’re gay. That’s right. You’ve been in the closet all these years. But you can’t take all the hiding anymore. You’re old school. You don’t have the guts to come out. And you’re totally distraught because your partner…what’s the name of that kid who jumped last week?”
“Jared Markum?”
“Yeah, that’s him. You’re distraught because he’s gone. So you’ve come to this cabin to end it all.”
“That’s absurd. No one will ever believe that!”
“Sure they will. I looked into it. Nobody’s seen you date anybody for years. Your faculty buddies don’t even know if you like girls.”
Thornton’s heart sank. It saddened him to realize that Avery was right. The shallow relationships he’d developed at the school could easily believe he was gay. What evidence did he have to offer in his defense?
Then, he remembered. The micro-recorder. It was getting all of this. That was some consolation. And when the authorities had finished going through his possessions, someone would discover the key to the safe deposit box—and the DVD. With that flicker of hope, he turned and began to write.
“Good move, Professor. For that, I’ll make it one quick shot to the heart. You won’t feel a thing. You might even like it better where you’re going…who knows?”
Thornton wrote these words:
To all those who know me, I am teribly sorry for the harm and embarrasment my leaving the world this way will bring. For all these years, I have been a secrit homosexual. I cannot live with the shame any longer. And I’m overcome with grief becaus of Jared Markum’s death.
Please, forgiv me, if you can.
Sincerly,
Tomas Thornton
He left his final parting clues in his spelling. Listening to Avery mangle the English language, he decided it was at least possible Avery was also a poor speller. Anyone who knew Thornton would know he had a rich vocabulary and never misspelled even the most complicated words. “Here,” Thornton said, handing the note to Avery.
Avery took a step back from Thornton and read the note, still holding the gun pointed at him. “Think you left off an e here on the word forgive. Forgive’s got an e on the end.”
Thornton took the note back. “So, I did,” he said, and made the correction. He could almost feel the presence of death, as if it existed in the physical presence of this man, Avery. Thornton rummaged through the corridors of his mind, searching for childhood prayers, even pieces of prayers to offer to the Almighty. His hands trembled.
“Okay, Professor. I think we’re all set.”
“Lord, have mercy on me,” he whispered. “I know I deserve this, but please have mercy.”
“What’d you say?”
“Nothing,” Thornton said. He swiveled in his chair toward Avery, attempting to make a last, hopeless appeal. Before the words formed in his mouth, he looked down. Avery had stepped closer. The gun barrel was inches from his chest. He saw a flash and felt the punch of the bullet strike his chest. He never heard the sound.
Then, darkness.
That fast, Thornton was dead.
# # #
“Now, that didn’t hurt too bad, did it Professor?” Avery smiled, staring at the face of the lifeless corpse. He looked up at the ceiling. “Some say you’re hovering over me right now, checking things out.” Avery pretended to wave. “Where you at, Professor? Over the bed? Over this laptop here? See, I told you it wouldn’t be so bad. You’re already seeing things and knowing things philosophers and wise men have argued about for centuries.”
Avery thought a moment, then said mockingly: “Run to the light, Professor. Run to the light.”
He laughed as he turned and walked out the back door. Walking into the woods, he found a thick log lying on the ground. He picked it up and brought it back into the house, setting it next to Thornton, who was now slumped in his desk chair.
“Now, were you right or left-handed?” He forgot to notice. He glanced down at the slant in Thornton’s handwriting. “Same as mine.” He placed the gun in Thornton’s right hand, positioning his finger on the trigger, and aimed for the heart of the log, firing once.
Splinters of wood spread out from where the bullet entered, littering the floor. The bullet embedded deep into the log. “That’ll do,” he said to Thornton. “The coroner will be wanting to see this stuff on your hands.” He placed the gun in Thornton’s hand then right up to the gaping wound in his chest and let go. The gun bounced off Thornton’s body then dropped to the floor.
“That looks about right.” Avery looked around the small interior of the cabin, noticing again the aviation images changing on the laptop screen. He decided to leave it on. Keep things natural. He carried the log back outside and set it temporarily beside the back door.
He had one last detail to attend inside the cabin. It required him to walk back to his car and fetch his little black pouch of spy goodies. From it he fished out a small rectangular container half-filled with gray putty. It wouldn’t do for the police to find Thornton’s lone house key missing from his chain.
A few moments later, inside the cabin, with a reasonable facsimile of the key now impressed upon the putty, Avery’s mission was complete. On his way out the back door he turned the door knob lock so that it would lock from the inside when closed. Then he grabbed the log and walked it into the woods for several minutes, heaving it into the thick underbrush. The splinters of wood the bullet had sprayed on the cabin floor didn’t concern him. Slivers of wood were all over the floor from Thornton’s fire-building efforts.
Avery picked up a pine tree branch and used it to sweep away his footprints from the cabin door as he walked backward toward his car. At the car, he took one last look around. The coast was clear. The scene was calm and uninterrupted, inviting even. He opened his car door, sat down, and turned on the ignition. As he drove off, he looked in the rear view mirror and said, smiling, “There you go.”
46
“Hello there, young man.” It was the elderly security guard at Thornton’s condominium complex.
“We’re here to see Professor Thornton?” Jack said. “You might remember me? I’ve been here twice in the last few weeks.”
The guard got out of his office chair, a clipboard at his side. “You do look a little familiar. But Professor Thornton isn’t home right now. Left a little while ago.”
As the guard stepped closer, Jack saw his nametag above his shirt pocket. “You don’t happen to know where he is, do you…Mr. Evers?”
“I do, but I’m not really supposed to say….”
Jack allowed a short pause. “I’ve got some important papers for him to sign. I work with him at the University. We’ve been friends for years. I don’t think he’ll mind if you tell me where he’s gone. I’d be willing to sign something, so you can blame me if you get any flak about it.”
“Well,” said Evers, “I guess it’ll be alright. Since you work with him and all. Course, I don’t know exactly where he is.”
“Do you have any idea?”
“He left here a few hours ago, said he was going to his cabin for a few days. I never been there. It’s out by Lake Sampson. Or was it Lake Ames? See, I don’t even know which lake it’s on.”
Jack knew Thornton had a cabin, but he’d never been there. Between the two lakes there had to be hundreds of cabins. Many were set back off the main roads on unmarked dirt paths. This wasn’t good news.
“What are we going to do now?” Rachel whispered.
“I don’t know,” Jack said. He looked back out the window
. “That’s okay, Mr. Evers. You’ve been a lot of help. If you hear from him, tell him Jack Turner is looking for him, will you?”
“Right-O,” said Evers. “Have you tried calling him?”
“I have. He’s not picking up. Since he’s out at the cabin, maybe he’s turned his phone off.”
“Could be,” the guard said. “Well, you have a nice day now.”
Jack turned the car around, drove down the road a little and pulled off to the side. “That didn’t help,” he said to Rachel. “Guess I’ve got no choice now.” He pulled out his phone.
“What do you mean?” Rachel said.
“Let’s see. It’s 1:45. That doesn’t give me much time.” He looked around for a travel app on his phone.
“Jack, what are you thinking?”
He knew Rachel would totally disapprove. “I’m going to drop you off and take the first plane I can get to the DC area. I need to get to Falls Church, Virginia. If possible, before five.”
“Falls Church? Jack, isn’t that—?” She began scouring through the loose sheets of paper in the front seat.
“Yes, it is,” Jack said. “It’s where Dr. Jameison’s office is.”
“Why would you go there?”
“I have to, Rachel.”
“Why? If he’s the mastermind behind this thing, then he’s—”
“There’s no other way. I can’t just sit on this. We need hard evidence to get the police to believe us. I’m sure I can get a direct flight from Atlanta to DC. If I leave now, I might be able to get to his office before it closes.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something on the way there.”
“Jack, please. You don’t know what you’re getting into. They’ve already killed Ralph. And without flinching, they kept giving you and Jared Markum these drugs. Now Jared’s dead. Let’s wait till we get hold of Professor Thornton. We can drive all around Lake Sampson. Maybe his name is on the mailbox.”
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