Lot’s return to Sodom

by Sandra Brannan

  The car’s headlights dotted the blanket of night as I watched Mully barrel down the road in the other direction, his lights disappearing in the line of trees. The car that had spooked Mully rolled past the entrance of the campground and on into the night, unaware of the commotion it had caused, a life it had saved.

  The only sound that could be heard above the pounding in my chest was Mr. Schilling calling occasionally to his wife. “Samantha, they’re gone now. Packed up early. You can come back. Samantha!”

  I thought she would flick on her flashlight to signal him and then lead me back to the campground. But she just stood there, still as death.

  “Shouldn’t we—”

  “Shh,” she said, staring at the campground.

  I wondered what in the hell was happening, just as I began to wonder how she could possibly know Mully had been after me all day long. Who was she protecting me from? Did she know her husband was a killer? Thought he might kill me next? I stood silently beside her and watched as her husband disappeared and reappeared in the doorway several more times before emerging from the building a final time, walking around back, and taking off in his red sports car. He was headed toward Rapid City.

  His decision to leave the campground rather than pursue us in the woods made me realize she had indeed been keeping me away from her husband, using the excuse of the Lucifer’s Lot to hide me from him. As I watched the taillights of his car disappear, I said simply, “Hey, thanks.”

  “No problem,” she said in equal simplicity, staring long after her husband had gone.

  I moved up beside her, thinking she had remained stationary in order to catch her breath. “Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” she said, sitting on the hard ground and lowering her head onto her knees.

  “I’m sorry about all that back there, but that story had to be told. I hope you understand.” I sat nearby and took a moment to reflect on what just happened and if I got what I needed on the tape.

  For a long moment, neither of us said a word.

  Breaking the silence, she asked me, “How’d you figure it out? About Michelle?”

  Her question took me off guard, and I stammered an answer, thinking of Tommy’s words to me earlier this evening. “Char was the key.”

  She nodded and added with a heavy sigh, “I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody would.”

  “You knew Charlene Freeburg was with your husband? And that she was his child?”

  A throaty laugh erupted from her before she replied. “No, not that. I didn’t know the name of his latest conquest until you told me tonight. And neither of us knew he had sired a child.”

  I was confused. “Then what do you mean? Before someone figured out what?”

  “That Eddie has a thing for teenage girls,” she said with a scoff. She stood up and dusted off her sweatpants. I followed suit. Once more she motioned for me to follow her. “Come on.”

  She was heading toward the Nemo Quarry haul road, farther from the Lazy S and closer to Nemo.

  “But we’re heading in the wrong direction.”

  Barely acknowledging me, she explained, “We came the hard way, so I could see what the Lucifer’s Lot were up to and they couldn’t see us. I’m taking you back down the easy way. Down your road. Come on. We’ll hop the fence.”

  I watched as she led the way, flashlight beam dancing ahead of her, her hiking boots trudging across the rocks and dirt. I sloshed along behind her, the water not yet drained from my boots from having crossed the creek. I could see her boot prints in the moonlight, and although they were muddy, I realized what I was looking at. The distinct, yet misleading, prints of a man’s hike through the woods, not of a woman who used man-size boots as overshoes. Then it dawned on me. The last thing Eddie Schilling said before we heard the motorcycles approaching. He started to say he wasn’t at the Lazy S Sunday night. And the only other person who stayed at the campground when Eddie didn’t was Samantha Schilling.

  My heart raced. I glanced ahead and judged the distance between me and the loader, wondering if I could slip away quickly, eluding her long enough to retrieve the Browning that was near the lift and tilt levers.

  Before she killed me.

  STILL PERCHED IN THE dark on the shoulder of the road like a blind buzzard, Bly waited for him to finish his call, afraid that continuing into the Hills would cause a lost signal. Streeter imagined Shank cowering in his office, his flabby body reeking of fear, his wavy red hair damp with sweat and looking like undercooked bacon.

  “When?” Streeter growled.

  “About an hour ago,” Shank answered, his breathing unnaturally labored.

  “In other words, just after we left,” snarled Streeter. “We had until tomorrow, Shank. I distinctly told you not to release Mully. Under any condition.”

  Streeter was thankful this conversation was not in person because he knew he would not have resisted the urge to smash the man’s face with his fist.

  “I, I … We already got everything we needed from him, Streeter,” Shank argued. “You heard what Liv Bergen said. He didn’t kill the girl in Sturgis. And you said yourself you thought someone was setting him up on the Freeburg case. He didn’t even know she was dead. I thought Mully was off the hook and we would start focusing on the real suspect.”

  “We were going to arrange for a lineup. For Roy Barker and Jens Bergen to identify him as the man at Barker’s Market Sunday night. You said he was your lead suspect on the Crooked Man case,” Streeter barked, cutting his eyes toward Bly to keep himself from saying more. He’d already spewed a line of bunk as long as his arm.

  “Streeter, I was only trying to—”

  “To what? Get someone killed?” Streeter shouted. He tried to regain his composure, his fury beyond the boiling point. “What favor are you trying to repay Schilling?”

  “Wha… who told you I that?”

  “What did Schilling do for you that you owe him a favor?”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Damn it, Shank! You’re playing me and I don’t appreciate it. But worse, you told Schilling you’d repay him a favor by getting rid of Mully for him.” Streeter could hear Shank’s labored breathing. He yelled, “What. Was. The. Favor.”

  After a long silence, Shank mumbled, “He changed a couple of grades. For my kid, my boy, so he’d be eligible for football.”

  In the glow of the dashboard lights, Bly slid his eyes toward Streeter. Streeter took in a long breath. “You piece of dirt. You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”

  Silence.

  “I had more to tell Mr. Muldando and more to gain from him. If you had listened to me for once and followed my instructions, we wouldn’t have to be worried about the Lucifer’s Lot mobilizing. They may be setting up an ambush for us as we speak. Now, get people moving from Sturgis and Deadwood toward the Lazy S so Mully doesn’t slip through our net and so that we don’t walk into a trap with just the two of us.”

  “But we don’t have any charges—”

  “Do it,” Streeter bellowed. “And do it now.”

  Shank added meekly, “The fastest way would be to call Sheriff Leonard, but at this hour … well, I don’t know if I can reach him.”

  Streeter’s eyes narrowed with a rage so intense he knew they must be glowing like a viper’s. He snarled into the phone, “You have his home number, Shank. Tell him to get over to the Lazy S now or you two will have to find a replacement for this Friday night’s poker game.”

  The dead space that followed was soon filled by a stammering Bob Shankley. “Wha, wha, what are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Eddie Schilling. You let Mully go and he’ll head straight to the Lazy S to kill Eddie. Don’t you get it?”

  “Eddie?” Shank said in a small voice.

  “All for a couple of phony grades for a crooked football star. Your friend’s blood will be on your hands if you don’t get someone over there now!” Streeter warned. “Bly and I are still ten
minutes away. Get Leonard mobilized!”

  “Okay. Give me a minute.”

  Streeter stared out the front windshield, knowing they would be the first to arrive at the campground and knowing valuable time was ticking as he waited for Shank to return to the phone. The seconds dragged. Two emergency vehicles drove by with lights flashing, sirens wailing in the night. Ahead, he saw the Doty Volunteer Fire Department trucks turning onto Nemo Road, too, heading toward Nemo.

  “Shit,” Bly said. “Want to follow?”

  Just as Streeter was about to snap the phone shut, Shank’s voice said, “Leonard’s on his way. He lives a few minutes from there. He’s not happy about it, but he called on four deputies and agreed to make the arrest as long as some of our guys took the lead. I caught Karski and Greenborough here before they left. They’re on their way to the Lazy S, too. They should be there within thirty minutes.”

  “This isn’t over, Shank,” Streeter warned, ending the call.

  Bly shook his head. “I feel a little like Custer heading into the Battle of the Bighorn.”

  A niggling thought tugged at Streeter. A thought that had enough substance it would require some analysis, dissection later.

  “Completely outnumbered,” Bly added, speeding off toward the Lazy S Campground in the wake of the emergency vehicles that had just passed.

  Streeter marveled at Bly’s ability to corner blindly in the dark on this windy road.

  “By the way, Streeter, the autopsy on the Sturgis Jane Doe is complete. The text I got said the girl was a teenager, and she had traces of narcotics in her system. But the official cause of death was heat exhaustion. These girls aren’t into safety first.”

  Just before Steamboat Rock, an S-curve that crossed the Boxelder two miles short of the Lazy S Campground, the lights of squad cars and ambulances flashed and danced on the right side of the road as though a carnival was in town.

  “What in the name of …” Streeter said as Bly slowed down to a crawl. Streeter leaned forward in his seat and peered out the windshield into the otherwise dark night. “What’s going on?”

  Easing the car onto the right shoulder, Bly came to a complete stop behind the mob of emergency response vehicles. The area had not yet been cordoned off with yellow tape, and Streeter imagined there would be no need to, given the isolation of this area and the late hour. The smashed car had crossed lanes and sailed off the road, landing down in the meadow just along the Boxelder Creek bank.

  As Streeter and Bly approached, they saw a woman kneel down and point the lens of her camera over the crumpled driver’s side door and snap several flash photos. On the passenger side of the vehicle, two men stood posed in the attack mode: one held a long stick with a retractable metal cable hoop, the kind dog catchers often use to subdue a biting animal, and the other held a burlap sack. The man with the stick and hoop had just snagged something in the car and was holding it up in the lights.

  “Got him!” he yelled, pulling the stick from the car, an ensnared snake dangling from the tightened hoop. He carefully held it out to the man with the burlap sack, who examined its mottled earth tones before opening the bag, into which the first man deposited the snake.

  “Copperhead,” the second man announced to the anxious emergency responders.

  “Copperhead? They don’t live this far north,” Streeter commented to Bly.

  “They do if someone brings one along for a visit,” Bly answered dryly.

  “A booby trap?”

  A body had been tossed forward in the driver’s seat, splayed lifelessly across the steering wheel of the cherry red Mustang.

  “A deadly one, and we’re too late,” was all Bly could say. “Booby traps are typical for many Lucifer’s Lot hits.”

  “I figured as much,” Streeter said solemnly. “Come on.”

  Before they climbed back into Bly’s car, Sheriff Leonard pulled up, his bubble lights flashing, wheels squealing. He jumped from the car and held his hands to his head, not believing what he was seeing. His friend, Eddie Schilling, lying dead in the front seat of the Mustang.

  Streeter approached. “You got here fast.”

  “Well, I just live a ways down. On old Drew Stevens’s place on Chipmunk Road. Once I got the call about Shank, my adrenaline was already spinning out of control.”

  “About Shank? You mean from Shank,” Streeter corrected, glancing at Bly.

  “He called, yes, but about two minutes after that, while I was getting dressed, I got a call from Sue at FBI headquarters asking where Shank’s wife was staying this week. She’s out of town and they didn’t know where to find her.”

  Streeter watched as Sheriff Leonard tucked his shirttail in, the laces of his boots still undone. He had clearly left home in a rush.

  “Sue said Shank was being taken to Rapid City Regional. He was having a heart attack.”

  Streeter hung his head. Bly gripped his shoulder.

  “Now I have to notify Samantha about Eddie,” Leonard said, clawing at his temples. “Things couldn’t get any worse.”

  “Let us do that for you, Leonard,” Streeter offered. “Do you know where she is?”

  “My man there said he saw her Volvo at the campground. She must have a visitor because there was a pickup truck he didn’t recognize.”

  For the second time tonight, Streeter’s throat felt as though he had swallowed an orange. Whole.

  “What color is the pickup?” Streeter asked.

  Leonard made a sharp whistle and called his deputy over.

  “What color was the truck you saw at the Lazy S a few minutes ago on your way here?” Leonard asked.

  “Blue. Two-toned,” the young man answered. “Why?”

  Streeter bolted to the car, Bly scrambling behind him.

  “Liv?” Bly asked.

  Streeter didn’t bother answering.

  Bly drove the rest of the way to the Lazy S Campground in silence. News of Shank’s heart attack made Streeter’s sinking feeling nearly bottomless. He was struggling with his own conscience for having contributed both to Eddie’s death and Shank’s reaction to the possibility of it at Mully’s hands. After all, he had been harsh with Shank. He had agreed with Mully that someone had tried to frame him, explaining how the striations in photos matched those in the FTW pin found in Michelle’s dead palm. But worst of all, Streeter worried about Liv, praying it was not her brother’s pickup truck that Sheriff Leonard’s man had seen at the Lazy S.

  As Bly pulled into the campground, Streeter’s stomach flipped when he saw the truck, the one he and Bly had seen Liv driving a few hours earlier, backed into a spot near the building’s entrance. The tents were gone, the vans were gone, the bikes were gone. The Lucifer’s Lot had vanished. He hoped that he hadn’t screwed this up as well, his warning to Mully to leave Liv alone nothing more than another rule for him to break, a child’s dare for him to take.

  Before the wheels of the Pontiac stopped turning, Streeter bounded out the door, gun drawn, and entered the building. Empty. He found a note on one of the tables, scribbled hurriedly by Eddie. It read: “Going to town to see Shank. Couldn’t wait for you and Liv to get back. Bikers gone now. E.”

  Come back? Where had they gone? The truck Liv had been driving was abandoned. He canvassed the parking lot and circled around to the back of the building. The Volvo was empty, too. He assumed the “you” Eddie referred to in his note was his wife, Samantha.

  Bly came around the corner; unable to see anything in the dark at the rear of the building, he whispered, “Streeter?”

  Feeling defeated, Streeter stepped out of the darkness and held up his hands. “No one.”

  “Shit,” Bly swore.

  Streeter was about to call out for Samantha Schilling or for Liv Bergen when he saw a small light bouncing through the trees in the distance across the creek. Running, he called back to Bly, “Call for backup. Someone’s heading toward the place where Michelle was killed. Hurry!”

  “YOU KILLED MICHELLE, DIDN’T you, Samantha?�
� I said, readying myself for any sudden movement from her.

  Hesitating briefly, she simply kept walking, but I noticed she had slipped her hand into her pocket. In the starlight, I scanned the nearby trees, hoping I could race between them toward the loader. If I had to, I’d ram into her if she moved suddenly. I believed I would do what I had to at this moment to survive. If I had to grab a rock or a tree limb to defend myself, I would. I wondered if I could muster enough strength to tackle her to the ground and wrestle what might be a gun from her pocket, pull that trigger, and take a human life. I imagined my strength growing with every passing millisecond, along with my anger that this woman hurt my brother and took an angel from us.

  I imagined Samantha Schilling being reduced not to a pile of salt if she turned back to look at me, but rather to a stringless marionette that, with one mighty swing, would crumple to the ground.

  Samantha didn’t look back as Lot’s wife had against God’s warning. And she hadn’t pulled a gun from her pocket. Instead, she shook out a cigarette from a half-filled pack, jammed it between her lips, and reached into her pocket again for a lighter. The flashlight’s beam danced ahead of her, and I watched as she took several long drags on her cigarette.

  “That girl was always trouble. I told Eddie that when I found out about her.”

  “You mean Char?”

  “No, Michelle.”

  “You knew all along that Eddie was molesting her?” I asked, thinking of the digital recorder, which I felt humming against my left rib cage. When I realized Schilling was involved in Michelle’s death, I had stopped by Jens’ house to grab the recording device I’d seen in his desk drawer earlier, in case I extracted a confession from Eddie. The digital device was really the only reason I had decided not to hop the barbed wire fence we were walking along and make a run for it already. I knew this quarry ground as well as anyone and could easily reach the loader before my adversary caught up with me. As long as she didn’t pull out a gun and shoot me in the back first. But I wanted this confession. It might be the last chance for Jens to know the truth.