The Deadline

by Ron Franscell

  Morgan pushed ahead.

  “See, I’m just wondering what happened out there. I thought maybe you could help.”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “Something happened. A little girl was raped and murdered.”

  Fenwick nestled deeper into his chair. His whole body seemed smaller, as if he were moving further and further away from Morgan.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said.

  “What was it like?”

  “Please go!”

  “Did she cry?”

  “Get out!”

  “She was pretty, wasn’t she?”

  “She was a little girl, for God’s sake.”

  “But you liked little girls, didn’t you? You asked the judge to give you all those cases. Poor, sad little girls who wanted to believe in somebody. They wanted to be loved by somebody, anybody. You were their only friend.”

  “I was their attorney.”

  “You made them believe you were going to help them. To make all the hurt go away. That they were loved.”

  “I did help them.”

  “I understand.”

  “You don’t understand at all.”

  “I understand how we all need to feel close to someone. I understand how it feels to be pushed away. I understand how easy it would be to just care a little too much, to touch them ...”

  “Absolutely not!”

  “You didn’t care for these poor kids? You didn’t hug them when they cried? Maybe they misunderstood your affection.”

  “Sometimes,” Fenwick said, but he quickly caught himself. “But there was nothing to misunderstand. They were confused.”

  The grandfather clock chimed once. Eight-thirty.

  “Confused about what, Mr. Fenwick? Help me understand.”

  “They were troubled children. Some of them entertained fantasies. They were wild, uncontrollable children who needed discipline.”

  “Like Aimee?”

  “Yes, for one.”

  “You went out there to the ranch, didn’t you? Aimee was alone. And something happened.”

  Beads of sweat glistened on the thin skin of Fenwick’s bald head. The blood had gone out of his face.

  “What happened out there? Did you touch her? Was she confused?”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I don’t think so,” Morgan said calmly.

  “You weren’t there.”

  “But you were, weren’t you?”

  Something inside Fenwick gave way. He put a shaky hand over his chest. His shoulders collapsed and Morgan believed for a moment that he was having a heart attack. Then he saw tears in the old lawyer’s pained eyes.

  “Yes,” Fenwick said.

  Morgan breathed out and hung his head. It took a few seconds to sink in.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Fenwick began to weep in low, keening sobs. He could barely speak.

  “It shouldn’t have been me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The deputy should have delivered the document. It shouldn’t have been me.”

  “But it was you.”

  “I didn’t mean to harm her.”

  “What happened?” Morgan pressed him gently.

  “She was there alone. She was making something with flowers on the porch when I drove up. She ran to me and hugged me around the legs, and her face ...”

  A frightened sob seeped from him. His hand circled over his groin area.

  “I had never touched her. Never. Not like the others. You must believe that.”

  “I do.”

  “She aroused me. I was losing control. I asked after her parents, but she told me they weren’t there and she took me into her little house to show me her little things. That little girl wanted to sit on my lap.”

  He won’t say her name, Morgan thought. He looked away as Fenwick forced himself to retell the story.

  “I touched her soft brown skin and I was overpowered by it. I began to undress her. She struggled and I pushed her down on the bed. She began to scream. Oh, my god, why did she have to scream?”

  Fenwick covered his mouth as if to hold the horror back, but he couldn’t.

  “She was so small. It must have been excruciating, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was out of my head. She kept screaming, even more as I forced myself into her. I held a pillow over her face until I was finished.”

  “You smothered her?”

  “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know she was hurt until ... I saw blood on myself as I pulled out of her and I knew I had hurt her badly inside.”

  He stared at his wizened hands, now shaking uncontrollably.

  “She wasn’t breathing. I tried to wake her up, but she wouldn’t. I was frightened out of my mind. I didn’t know what to do. I dressed her again and put her in my car to take her to the hospital, but I came to the turn-off back to town and I stopped. I crawled into the back seat to try once more to revive the little girl, but I was sure she was dead. She wouldn’t wake up. Her lips were blue. Blood had soaked her pants.”

  Say her name, god damn you, Morgan wanted to shout.

  “I panicked. I didn’t want anyone to know about ... what I had done. I wanted to take her back to town, if I could save her, but she was dead already. So I turned the other way, toward the Iron Mountain Bridge.”

  “And you threw her off.”

  “The water was high. When I was certain nobody was nearby, I carried the body to the rail and pushed it over. I couldn’t bear to watch it fall.”

  “The coroner said Aimee was probably alive when she went into the water. She wasn’t dead, was she?”

  “I thought she was, you must believe me. I have lived a nightmare for almost fifty years, knowing that I made the wrong turn at that crossroad. I might have saved her life, but lost my own.”

  “Didn’t you think somebody would find her eventually?”

  Fenwick shook his head feebly.

  “When they did, I was mortified. I was ready to surrender and throw myself on the mercy of the court. But when they arrested Gilmartin, the whole plan came to me. It seemed so perfect.”

  “You volunteered to represent him.”

  “Yes. Nobody else would. If I had to, I would lose his case and let him pay the price. But he made it unnecessary by pleading guilty to avoid an execution. In the end, I did nothing before the bar to betray him. I would have, but I didn’t.”

  Morgan choked back his anger.

  “You betrayed him by not doing everything you could to save his life. You let him spend his life paying for a crime you committed. You didn’t just kill Aimee, you killed Neeley Gilmartin, too. He just hasn’t hit the water yet.”

  “He did nothing to save himself. A man must take responsibility for his own actions.”

  “How about you? Will you stand up and take responsibility for the murder of Aimee Little Spotted Horse?”

  Fenwick managed a relieved little smile as he wiped his eyes. He was unburdened.

  “I already have. I have made my compensation under the customs of my ancestors.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The Crows believe an accidental death can be atoned by requital. Simple payments. Under blood law, I have given my money, nearly all of it, to the girl’s mother and to Gilmartin to redress my sin.”

  “You’re a lawyer, not a Crow Indian,” Morgan corrected him. He was aghast. “You know the customs of our culture, and you know you can’t make it go away with money.”

  “Don’t be naive, Mr. Morgan. Especially in this culture, money makes many things go away.”

  “Not this. Not guilt.”

  Fenwick arched his eyebrows, then slumped in defeat.

  “Indeed. You have won. If you will call your friend, the sheriff, I will tell him everything I have just told you, and much more.”

  “More?”

  “Oh my, yes. The other children through the years. After the accident, I was frightened, but I couldn’t stop myself. There have been so many, alth
ough none suffered the same tragic fate. Rest assured, they all survived and they’re all grown women now. I am certain they would confirm what I tell you: I did not force them to do anything.”

  “Hosanna Pierce, too?”

  Fenwick’s dead eyes closed. He nodded.

  It all made sense now, but it turned Morgan’s stomach. No wonder Fenwick had so aggressively sought the role of court-appointed guardian. It had given him extraordinarily secret access to his young victims, most of them in troubled homes and chaotic family situations. They were the easiest victims for sexual predators, most of whom used their authority to befriend and establish trust with the child before stealing their innocence.

  “I’m sure he’ll want to hear about those,” Morgan said.

  “And the explosion at your newspaper.”

  “That was you?”

  “I saw Malachi Pierce’s flyer in the diner. I knew with a little help, you would suspect him immediately. And if it worked as a scare tactic, you’d drop this inquiry. Clearly, you’re a man on a passionate mission.”

  “You blew up The Bullet?” Morgan asked incredulously.

  “Oh no, not I. It was a terrible little man who will do anything for money. He owed me a favor. I didn’t have the stomach for such violence myself. And I am very sorry about your dog. That wasn’t part of the plan. My ‘employee’ was improvising and got carried away. Now, if you’d be so kind to call the sheriff, the phone is on the desk in the library, just down the hall to the right.”

  Morgan stood up and walked slowly down the hall to a small office lined with law books. An old-fashioned rotary phone sat atop the polished desk, with only a banker’s lamp and a fresh green blotter. He reached inside his pocket and turned off his tape recorder.

  Using his unbroken left index finger, he awkwardly dialed the Trey Kerrigan’s number and waited as he was transferred by the receptionist. The sheriff came on the line.

  “Trey, this is Jeff.”

  “Hey, you were right about the money. Fenwick has made several big wire transfers from a New York brokerage in the last week of July every year for about ten years. Sometimes twenty thousand bucks. This year, it was ten thousand.”

  “It’s blood money. The son of a bitch has been paying Gilmartin and the girl’s mother for years, just to salve his conscience. It was always on the day of Aimee’s murder, August second.”

  “Well, he must have forgot to check his calendar. He closed out his personal account yesterday, the sixth. Fifteen thousand bucks. He picked it up himself in cash.”

  “That would be what he paid to blow up The Bullet.”

  “How the hell ... ?”

  “I’m already here, Trey. He confessed. I’ve got it on tape. Get over here quick.”

  Morgan hung up. He went back to the living room to wait with Fenwick.

  But the old man was gone.

  Before Morgan realized what was happening, he heard Fenwick’s Buick peeling down the driveway, fishtailing on the loose gravel. By the time he was out the front door, the car had hit the street and sped away.

  Morgan sprinted across the lawn and plunged through the protective hedgerows. He leaped into the Escort and turned the key.

  The ignition clicked a few times, then went dead. He horsed the gear shift and tried again.

  Nothing.

  “You motherfucker!” he screamed at it, pounding the steering wheel. He stomped the accelerator pedal and tried the key again, but the car showed no life.

  Frustrated and seething, Morgan stripped off the plastic splints on his fingers. Shifting to neutral, he jumped out of the car and heaved his body against the door frame. His legs burned as the car inched forward, picking up speed gradually. He pushed for one long, flat block, finally leaping inside and shifting into second gear while he popped the clutch, and praying Fenwick had not gotten away.

  The engine rolled over and, after a few erratic spurts, roared to life.

  He spun the little car around in the street and squealed across the black asphalt in search of Fenwick, who now enjoyed a headstart of several minutes.

  As he passed through town, Morgan heard sirens. He knew Trey Kerrigan would find Fenwick’s house empty and scramble his deputies to search for both of them.

  Where would he go?

  Morgan raced up the hill past the hospital, but as the highway crested, he could see ten miles down the straight road. Fenwick hadn’t run south. Cursing, Morgan screeched to a dusty stop on the shoulder and turned back toward town.

  As he passed the hospital, he thought of Gilmartin. He looked at his watch. Over the stressed whine of the Escort’s puny engine, he heard himself say: “Hold on just a little longer.”

  Suddenly, he was struck by something Fenwick had said, something about the choice he’d made at the crossroads. To the hospital ... or to the bridge.

  The Iron Mountain Bridge was a good fifteen miles east of Winchester. He could take Highway 57 to Wilkerson Road, an unpaved county road that cut across the prairie and crossed the Black Thunder River on the way to Iron Mountain. The old railroad bridge, long ago converted to a one-lane car crossing, still stood almost seventy feet above the raging river, a grim marker for the spot where the frightened Simeon Fenwick dumped Aimee’s body into the raging water below.

  He was there, Morgan knew.

  Once he hit Wilkerson Road, Morgan could see a wedge of dust rising behind a car six or seven miles away. He stepped harder on the gas, but the car slipped sideways, nearly rolling across the shoulder into a mossy irrigation ditch. He was already going more than sixty; the car ahead was traveling even faster.

  Within a few minutes, he reached the Black Thunder overlook, a few hundred yards from the bridge. As he rolled slowly toward it, he could see the dusty Buick in the center of the span. Its door was open but he couldn’t see Fenwick. When he reached the southern end of the old steel bridge, he stopped.

  “Fenwick!” he yelled.

  There was no answer.

  Morgan looked back down the road and saw nothing but buckskin-colored dust settling on the empty prairie. No deputies. Then he faced the Buick twenty yards away. His fingers ached. He couldn’t wait.

  He walked down the center of the narrow roadway. He could hear the river growling far below, now almost directly under him. Old boyhood fears about the place surged in him, and he felt almost unbalanced as he drew nearer the car.

  It was still running. He heard a tiny electronic bell ringing because the door was open. As he moved carefully closer, he peered through the rear passenger-side window, but the back seat was empty.

  Morgan cupped his hand against the window and looked inside. The front seat, too, was empty, except for a small wooden box.

  As he walked around the front of the car, he heard Fenwick, speaking softly from somewhere above him.

  “Don’t come any closer,” he said.

  The old lawyer was standing on the guardrail, four feet above the road, hiding himself tightly against a steel beam. With one small step, he would plunge to his death, but his tie remained neatly knotted beneath his weak chin.

  “Don’t move!” Morgan said.

  “It was about here I threw her in,” Fenwick said.

  “Just don’t move.”

  “I have had nightmares about it. Wondering if she knew she was falling.”

  Urine trickled down Fenwick’s shoes and dribbled off the steel railing as a dark stain spilled across the front of his pants.

  “Don’t do this,” Morgan begged him.

  “I didn’t mean to kill her. I ONLY wanted her to like me.”

  “I know.”

  “Will you tell her mother for me? And Gilmartin?”

  “You can tell her. I’ll go with you to see them both.”

  “I thought the money would make this guilt go away. I have given them everything I had. It’s all gone. How can they ever forgive me?”

  “They will. But they’ll want you to tell them. Please come down.”

  “You must tell th
em for me. I cannot face them. Not now.”

  “They only want to know. They have no more hate in them.”

  “That’s good.”

  Fenwick teetered. Morgan took two anxious steps toward him.

  “Stop!” Fenwick ordered. “I’ll jump if you come closer.”

  “I won’t,” Morgan said, holding up his hands.

  “There’s a box on the seat. Get it.”

  Morgan walked slowly to the passenger side of Fenwick’s Buick and got the wooden box he’d seen there.

  “Open it.”

  He unlatched a tiny brass hasp and lifted the hinged lid. Inside was a piece of folded paper, stained watery brown.

  “What is it?”

  “Just open it.”

  As Morgan unfolded the delicate paper, a locket and chain fell out. It was the same one Morgan had seen around Aimee’s neck in the photograph. The paper itself was the undelivered court order dissolving Fenwick’s guardianship, dated 8/2/48. The ruddy discoloration on it was blood.

  “I found the necklace in my car much later. I couldn’t destroy it, though I often thought I should. Her mother should have it.”

  “Come with me and we’ll give it to her.”

  “I made my peace with her daughter, you know. I took flowers to her grave and I told her how sorry I was. She understood.”

  “Her name was Aimee,” Morgan said.

  Fenwick whimpered.

  “They all had names, but it was easier not to know.”

  Morgan inched closer to the rail. If he could grab Fenwick’s leg, he could wrestle him away from the brink. He didn’t want Fenwick to die; his death now would serve no purpose except to frustrate the process of sorting out his crimes.

  “Go back!” Fenwick screamed.

  Morgan took a few steps backward, but was still close enough to lunge for the old man at the right moment.

  “Listen to me,” he said calmly to Fenwick. “You need to do the right thing. You need to be wise, like a judge. You must help us all understand. Judges do that. They help us understand what is right. We need you to help us understand.”

  Fenwick looked confused.

  “You need me?”

  “Will you come down here, where we can talk?”