by P. L. Gaus
His full brown beard, trimmed close, showed a touch more gray at the temples than Ricky remembered from the year before. His thin nose wrinkled with a thought, and he stopped and turned briefly to look back toward the history building.
When Branden made the turn onto his dead-end street, Niell pulled his cruiser around the corner, popped a short yelp on his siren, gave his top lights a brief whirl, and rolled slowly along, matching his speed to the gentle strides of the professor. Niell tapped fingers to his forehead in salute from his seat behind the wheel. Branden laughed and waved Niell ahead toward his house. Niell drove to the end of the street, swung around to about eleven o’clock in the circle, and parked in front of the Brandens’ old house. He switched off the engine, got out, straightened his uniform, and waited on the tree lawn beside the cruiser for Branden to arrive.
Branden turned onto the short brick walkway to his front porch, and offered Niell his hand, saying, “Ricky. It’s been too long.”
Niell grasped his hand and said, “How are you, Professor?”
The professor spotted an envelope in the black, cast-iron box mounted on the bricks beside the front door. He lifted out the envelope and let the lid drop with a metallic squeak and clank. He motioned for Niell to follow, pushed through the white screened door, and led the way along the cool front hall, opening the envelope as he walked.
They came out through the kitchen and an adjoining family room, onto a spacious back porch, where Caroline Branden sat working over a manuscript at a glass patio table. She rose from her work and held the professor tightly for more than the usual moment’s embrace. She was nearly half a head taller than the professor, trim, and had long auburn hair, tied back in loose, flowing curls. She was dressed in blue jeans and an old, oversized, green and white Millersburg College sweatshirt. She carried a quality of soft and gentle peace, a gracefulness that could never be masked by baggy clothes.
Niell came onto the porch with a display of genuine shyness, crossed to her, and offered his hand. She turned from her husband and gave Niell a hug, saying, “You’re looking good, Ricky.” Niell blushed and stepped back a bit, unnerved by her smile and her warmth.
His crisp black and gray deputy sheriff’s uniform lay close against his sturdy frame, long creases pressed meticulously down the front of each breast pocket and down his uniform slacks in unbroken straight lines to his cuffs. He wore his full black leather duty belt, with gun, flashlight, pepper spray, handcuffs, and a double magazine pouch. On his chest, he sported gold badges, gold insignias, gold collar stays, and gold pens. His black hair was cut short in a flattop, and his narrow black mustache was trimmed straight above his thin lips.
Caroline turned back to Branden and asked, “How was commencement?”
“The usual,” Branden said. “A couple of seniors didn’t graduate, and there was a thank-you note from one of my advisees.” He dropped the note onto the table, and laid his tam beside it.
Caroline turned to Ricky. “Ricky Niell, you still look better in a uniform than any man has a right to do.”
Niell felt an intense embarrassment and hoped silently that she’d turn back to her husband. But she held his eyes for a playfully long moment and asked, “You and Ellie still an item?”
He nodded, shy but more confident now.
The professor remarked, mischievously, “It’s been a while, Deputy. Has our sheriff gotten himself squared up with the FBI over last summer?”
Niell quipped, “You’d expect Robertson to admit he’s got a problem with the FBI?”
“No more than I’d expect him to care if he did,” Branden said, and motioned Niell into a white wicker chair near the windows of the long porch.
Caroline offered drinks and left to get them. Branden stood at the tall screens on the back porch and gazed absently toward the eastern hills of Amish country. They lived two short blocks off campus, near the easternmost cliffs of Millersburg. Their boxy colonial stood out near the sidewalk in a neighborhood that had always been considered a part of the campus, where a succession of faculty had lived close to their students for a hundred years.
The Brandens’ front yard consisted of two small patches of lawn, with a brick walk that ran a few paces to a small front porch. By contrast, their enormous backyard opened out onto a double-wide lot at the back of the street’s dead-end circle. The lawn sloped away for nearly fifty yards before the sheer drop-off into the valley, and the view from the Brandens’ full-length, screened back porch was a spectacular panorama of Amish fields, houses, and barns. The professor had long ago improved that view by taking down nine trees on the lot, several days after Caroline’s second miscarriage. Several days after learning that she would likely never have children.
Abruptly, Branden turned from the screens and asked, “Ricky, I don’t suppose it’d be too much to hope that our sheriff has gotten himself into some sort of entertaining little scrape with an irate band of citizens?”
“No more than usual,” Ricky said, and laughed.
Caroline came back onto the porch with a tray of soft drinks and iced tea.
“No committees. No ACLU lawyers? No student protesters?” Branden asked, as Niell accepted a can of Pepsi. Branden took a tall glass of tea.
Caroline sat in a wicker chair with a matching glass of tea and asked, “Is it Bruce again?”
Niell shrugged an apologetic “yes” to Caroline’s question, and then answered the professor, “Apparently not.”
“Has he fired another secretary? Has Ellie Troyer quit?” Branden pushed, enjoying himself, partly joking and also serious, expecting something new and entertaining to have surfaced in the sheriff’s broad and churning wake.
“We’ve still got Ellie out front,” Niell said.
Branden teased, “And you two still an item.”
Caroline protested for Niell, “Already asked and answered.”
Branden waved her off and held Niell’s eyes with a boyish grin.
“Something like that,” Niell said and settled self-consciously into the wicker. “What are the chances, Professor, that you’ll run into Cal Troyer later today?”
Branden sat up a bit. “We’ve always gone fishing together after I’m done with commencement. I haven’t spoken to Cal in several weeks, but I expect I’ll see him at our usual pond sometime this afternoon. Probably about three or four. Maybe later. Why?”
“You haven’t talked with Troyer in a while?” Niell asked.
“Not for several weeks, maybe more,” Branden said and waited. He glanced over to Caroline and looked back to Niell.
Niell asked, “Do you know about Janet Hawkins, the young woman who was killed in her home by an intruder last month?”
Branden looked at Caroline again, curious, and said to Niell, “Like anyone else, we read about it in the papers. Convict released from a New Jersey prison. Broke in late at night and shot her. He was captured in her backyard as he fled.”
“Captured by a retired security guard,” Niell said.
“The way I remember the write-up,” Caroline said, “it was a close thing. The man heard the call on the police-band radio in his car, realized he was pretty much in the area, and got there before the cops arrived.”
“Right,” Ricky said. “Knocked him out cold with a baseball bat.”
“Is there more?” Branden asked. “Seems straightforward enough to me. Even if he hadn’t been there, the police were probably only minutes away. Probably would have caught the guy anyway.”
“It’s not the security guard,” Niell said.
“Then what?” Branden asked.
With a rueful gaze, Niell said, “Sheriff Robertson’s got a wild hair that I should find David Hawkins, Janet Hawkins’s father.”
“Why?” Branden asked.
“The sheriff thinks Hawkins knows something about a second murder we discovered yesterday. A young reporter. Robertson considers Hawkins a suspect.”
“And why does he consider it your job in particular to find Hawkins?”
Branden’s eyebrows tented.
“Troyer was there the night Hawkins got away,” Niell said. “I’m hoping you can help me find Troyer. Hoping Troyer can produce Hawkins.”
“Cal Troyer ought to be the easiest man in Millersburg to track down,” Branden said.
“There’s a note tacked to the door of his church saying he’s gone to harvest this week,” Niell said in the tone of a question.
Branden remembered Cal’s practice of helping with the wheat or barley harvests, sometimes with haying, and replied, “He works on some Amish farms this time of year. Says he likes to stay in touch with the land. To help friends he has in the Amish areas.”
Niell nodded. “I need to find him, Professor,” he said. “Need to find him because I’ve got to round up Hawkins and bring him in.”
“Again, Ricky, why?” Branden asked. “What connection could the murdered woman’s father have with this other killing?”
“Robertson thinks Cal’s friend David Hawkins is involved in some kind of revenge scheme that includes the murder of that reporter,” Niell explained. “And he thinks Cal knows where Hawkins is.”
Branden rolled his eyes. With extreme confidence he said, “Cal Troyer is not capable of scheming revenge for anything. For anyone. For any reason. Robertson ought to know that better than anyone.”
“You don’t know the whole story,” Niell said quietly.
Branden eased back against the soft academic robe that he had hung loosely over the chair. He laid his forearms along the broad white wicker armrests, and said, with his eyes and his posture, “I’m listening.”
Niell began. “A couple of days after the girl was murdered, late one night when I was on duty at the jail, Pastor Troyer came in with the murdered girl’s father and used his clergy pass to the jail to talk his way past me, to let them see Jesse Sands.”
“That’s the ex-con who killed the girl?”
“Right. We pulled him up off the lawn beside the girl’s back porch. Anyways, Cal Troyer showed up at night, at the jail, with her father, David Hawkins, an Amish fellow. At least he was dressed Amish. They said they had come to see Sands. They just wanted to stand outside his cell on the second-floor blocks and say that Hawkins had forgiven Sands for the murder of his daughter. Very emotional, profound. You could tell it was the genuine thing.”
“Second floor, with the individual cells?”
“Right.”
“And you let them in?”
“Troyer’s got a clergy pass. Hawkins was a judgment call, but not too risky knowing the Amish. I took Troyer’s word that there’d be no trouble.” Niell smiled weakly and added, “Now Sands’s lawyer wants me brought up on charges of violating his client’s civil rights.”
Branden nodded sympathetically. “So what happened?”
“Well, I watched them for a while from the other end of the cell block. Troyer and Hawkins stood well back from the bars and just seemed to talk quietly to Sands. Sands lay on his cot, grinning like he enjoyed it, like it was some kind of perverse spectacle. After a couple of minutes, Troyer left Hawkins and Sands alone at the cell and came over to me. He said something about how he appreciated the gesture.
“Then Sands stood up to the bars and whispered something to Hawkins. Him dressed criminal and Hawkins dressed Amish, and nothing but the bars between them. We didn’t hear what he said, but the next thing I knew, Sands started laughing. Scornfully. And then that Amish Hawkins was at the bars, both arms through, grabbing Sands by the throat.
“I tried to pull Hawkins off, but nothing doing. Sands went limp. I put a gun to Hawkins’s head and cocked the hammer. Hawkins turned his head, looked stone dead at me along the barrel, and released Sands. Sands dropped to the floor of his cell, gasping, and the next thing I knew I was looking back at the muzzle of my own gun. It had happened so fast that I couldn’t be certain, even now, how he did it. But there he was, pressing the muzzle against my forehead. He said something to Cal like, ‘You don’t know what you’ve asked me to do,’ and disappeared.”
“What do you mean, he ‘disappeared’?”
“Professor, he has vanished. He did something to my neck that dropped me to the floor, and disappeared. When I came to, Cal Troyer was kneeling beside me, holding my gun.”
“And where is Hawkins now?”
“Nobody knows,” Niell said. “At least nobody who’s talking. But I figure Troyer knows, and that’s why I’m looking for him.”
“Does Robertson know that Hawkins took possession of your duty arm?”
“No. Cal’s never mentioned it,” Niell said with obvious relief. “Neither have I, and I’m trusting you won’t either.”
The Brandens quickly nodded assurances. “Has David Hawkins done anything to harm Sands in jail since then?” Branden asked.
“No.”
“So why are you so anxious to find Hawkins?”
“Like I said, there’s been another murder. We found the body yesterday, off the road in a thicket beside Lower Sand Run. He was Eric Bromfield, a young reporter for the Holmes Gazette.”
“What’s the connection?”
“The reporter had evidently been working on the Janet Hawkins murder. His editor has most of Bromfield’s early notes.”
“Marty Holcombe?”
“Right, and Holcombe’s got the first parts of a story that Bromfield had written. Holcombe reported Bromfield missing a week ago and said Bromfield never turned in the finish to that story. Holcombe hasn’t run it because Bromfield evidently had cracked something wide open. Told Holcombe he had a show-stopper, but he never made it back to the newspaper offices.”
“I know Marty Holcombe,” Branden said. “How does any of this connect to David Hawkins and Jesse Sands?”
“We found the reporter in the passenger’s seat of his own car. He had two rounds in his left temple and one in the back of the head. Twenty-two caliber bullets. The coroner says he’s been dead about a week. That means he was killed just before he would have filed the finish to his story.
“We’ve been through his apartment and his desk at the Gazette. Mostly routine stuff. Notes on stories, things like that. But one big story was set to run in several parts in the weeks to come, starting with how David Hawkins’s daughter was murdered by Jesse Sands. More to the point, it was going to be a big exposé about who David Hawkins really is.”
Branden waited, leaning forward on the armrests of his chair.
Niell paused a moment and then continued. “The reason that Sheriff Robertson wants Hawkins is tied to what we’ve found out about Troyer and Hawkins. Robertson considers Hawkins a suspect in the murder of Eric Bromfield, because of what Bromfield had learned about Hawkins. And I’m counting on Cal Troyer’s knowing where Hawkins can be found.”
Branden thought a spell and then asked, “Cal Troyer took Hawkins to the jail to forgive Sands?”
“Right.”
“Did he?”
“Did he what?”
“Forgive Sands.”
“Don’t know. Didn’t hear any of their conversation.”
“But you do know that eventually Sands stood up, moved close to the bars, whispered something and then laughed, and that before it was done, Hawkins had Sands by the throat and you staring down the barrel of a gun. Your own gun.”
Niell shrugged morosely.
Branden continued. “Then the reporter, Eric Bromfield, got to nosing around in the matter, and Robertson thinks something Bromfield discovered gives Hawkins a motive to have murdered that reporter.”
“Right.”
“So what did Bromfield discover?” Branden asked. “What does Bruce Robertson consider the motive to be?”
“Bromfield learned that David Hawkins moved here nine years ago. Wife was divorced and long gone, and we think she’s dead. Hawkins had his daughter living with him out on the west end of town. She had a degree from Ohio State in English. She came
back home when he moved here, and worked as a secretary with a metals fabricating outfit up in Wooster. Hawkins was retired. Partly, he came to Millersburg to retire to a quiet life in a sleepy, country town. Also, Hawkins apparently moved here because of Cal Troyer. He came to Millersburg to attend Cal’s church.”
“How does this all connect up with Jesse Sands and a murdered reporter?”
“Robertson thinks Hawkins murdered Bromfield because Bromfield figured out what Hawkins had been doing before he moved to Millersburg. He thinks Hawkins wanted to hide his past.”
Branden waited.
Niell continued. “Hawkins knew Troyer in Vietnam. They didn’t serve together, but their paths evidently crossed.”
Niell rose from the white wicker chair, moved to the tall screened windows, poked his thumbs under the front of his duty belt, and looked out eastward for a spell. He ran a palm over his short, black hair, and then he turned from the screens and explained. “After I reported the incident with Hawkins in the jail that night, Robertson did some checking. He thinks Bromfield did the same thing, finding out about Hawkins.
“Robertson has learned that David Hawkins was part of a U.S. Army Special Forces team. Part of an elite unit. After Nam, that unit continued its operations in various parts of the world, as a counterterrorist team. We think he worked for the CIA, and Sheriff Robertson wants him brought in.”
After Caroline had seen Niell to the door, Branden stood gazing out through the screens, eyes trained on the distance, for almost an hour. In the end, he was disinclined to believe that Cal Troyer would be involved in anything even remotely resembling a revenge scheme. Branden found himself incapable of holding murder and Cal Troyer together in a single coherent thought. His eyes wandered the distant hills, and he also found it profoundly unthinkable that Cal would harbor any criminal, much less a murderer.
