Errant Knight

by George Wier

  ERRANT KNIGHT

  A Mystery

  GEORGE WIER

  Copyright © 2015 by George Wier

  Published by

  Flagstone Books

  Austin, Texas

  ERRANT KNIGHT

  First Ebook Edition

  August 2015

  Cover design by Elizabeth Mackey

  Image courtesy of bigstockphoto.com

  All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes written in connection with reviews written specifically for a magazine or newspaper.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by the George Wier:

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  APPENDIX

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Also by the George Wier:

  The Bill Travis Mysteries:

  The Last Call

  Capitol Offense

  Longnecks & Twisted Hearts

  The Devil To Pay

  Death On The Pedernales

  Slow Falling

  Caddo Cold

  Arrowmoon

  After The Fire

  Ghost Of The Karankawa

  Other mysteries:

  Long Fall From Heaven (with Milton T. Burton)

  Murder In Elysium

  Sentinel In Elysium

  Science Fiction/Steampunk:

  The Vindicators: Book One—Last Defense (with Robert A. Taylor)

  1889: Journey to the Moon (with Billy Kring)

  1899: Journey to Mars (with Billy Kring)

  Captains Malicious (with T.R. Harris)

  Anthologies:

  ‘14: A Texanthology

  Lone Star Noir

  ERRANT KNIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  In the dream he pulls the trigger. He always pulls the trigger. His hand may as well be a puppet controlled by some hidden puppet-master. The black nine millimeter semi-automatic a convincing movie prop. The concussive, reverberative report a sound made by a synthesizer. The hole opening in the center of Holloway’s chest a bit of special effects wizardry—CG, perhaps. Holloway’s backward pin-wheeling body a stuntman’s gig. But they’re not. They’re none of these things. It is himself. It is Shelby Knight, and he is killing a young man. Killing him forever and amen.

  He awakens, screaming.

  “How are the dreams going, Shel?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Shelby said, trying to sound bored. Whenever Quinn stopped by for a visit it was always an event. A situation. That was Quinn all over again: Let’s talk about it. Let’s get it out in the open. You need to heal. What would be far more therapeutic than rehashing old could-have-beens would be punching Quinn’s lights out. But he couldn’t do that. Quinn was his best friend. Actually, he was his only friend.

  “Ah. So that means they’re still going.”

  “Enough. Want a beer?”

  “Sure.”

  Shelby made it a point to take his time in the kitchen getting a couple of beers for them. That was almost all he had in the refrigerator anyway, a few cases of beer. Libation for the gods of ex-policemen, if such existed.

  “I get it,” Quinn stated when he returned and handed him a cold one, “that you’re not in the mood to talk about it.”

  “You would be right.”

  “Okay. So, are you interested in what’s going on at the station?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh, you would be if you knew. Got this stiff. Somebody emptied a gun into the guy. Ballistics is all over it at the moment. No idea as to motive or perpetrator. It’ll probably turn into a cold case.”

  “Yeah.” Shelby took a seat in his worn easy chair. He stared at his blank television and tried not to meet his friend’s gaze. The set had died a few months back and he hadn’t bothered to replace it. Used to be he’d at least tinker with it a bit. Open it up and see if he could figure out what went wrong. Once he’d actually fixed one. But those days were dead days. It was a brave new world out there. When the TV died—typically within a week after the warranty expired—you junked it and got another one.

  “The ballistics look odd to me, though,” Quinn said.

  “Uh huh.”

  “They look...familiar.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Quinn regarded Shelby. “Have you seen Rachel?”

  “No.”

  After a moment, Quinn started in on him. “You know, there used to be this thing called ‘conversation.’ It’s a lost art, actually. It used to go like this. One guy says something and the other guy acknowledges him—interestedly, mind you—then says something back. Also interestedly. And before you know it, they would be discussing something. Sometimes I’ve heard that things can get figured out. Resolved. Strange concept, I know. Maybe we can try it. I mean, both of us.”

  Shelby turned and stared at Quinn Thompson.

  “There,” Quinn said, and stabbed a finger at him. “That look right there. That’s why you don’t have any friends.”

  “I thought you were my friend.”

  “I mean, any real friends. Aside from your ex-wife. I mean, when was the last time you even talked to her?”

  “That what friends do? Speak their mind?”

  “Hey, I prefer aggressive to apathetic. This is good.”

  Shelby gave a small, mirthless laugh. “With you, everything’s good. Every cloud is half full. All the glasses have silver linings. ”

  “Mixing metaphors. We were talking about Rachel.”

  “No we weren’t.”

  “Last time I saw her,” Quinn said, “she was looking awfully sad. I’d say she misses you. I think she still loves you, you big dumb turkey.”

  Shelby didn’t reply. He sat in silence.

  Quinn got up after a long moment and walked around the place. He examined the spines of the few books on Shelby’s bookshelf for perhaps the dozenth time. He ran a finger along the fireplace mantle and examined the dust he recovered.

  “Will this be a long visit? I got stuff to do.”

  “Sure you do. Lots to get done. Time and tide, and all that. Let me finish my beer.”

  “All right,” Shelby said.

  Quinn took his time drinking his beer. During, he ambled around, peering places where he had no business. At one point he stopped at the china cabinet and stared through the dingy glass.

  “You should sell the gun,” he said.

  “Nope.”

  “Seriously. You should consider it. It’s a reminder of...it’s a reminder.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “You ever fire it?”

  “No.”

  “Then what good is it? Is it loaded?”

  “Of what use is an unloaded gun?” Shelby said.

  “Right.”

  Quinn tossed off the last of his be
er and set the empty down on the dining room table near a crowd of others. He made for the door.

  Shelby got up and followed him.

  “Thanks for stopping in,” he said, when Quinn was almost outside.

  Quinn Thompson turned and regarded him. Quinn was forty-five years old. He was a detective. He was, in fact, the Chief Detective of the Austin Police Department. Long gone was any trace of the man’s youth. His hair was silver now. His gut was bigger, there was flab there hanging from his arms. His health was not the best.

  “You take care of yourself,” Quinn said.

  “I was just about to say the same to you.”

  “All right. I want you to consider doing something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Anything. Get out of this mausoleum of a house and throw a frisbee. Go to the pound and pick up a puppy. Go watch a movie. Go get a prostitute. Anything. Just do something with your life. That is, while you still have one. It’s been ten years.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Shelby said.

  Quinn nodded. “See ya, Shel.” He turned and left.

  Shelby Knight closed the door and locked it.

  His name is Aiden Holloway, and he is moments from sudden and irremediable death. Here, in this timeless bubble of reality that is its own universe, it is ten years in the past. But this bubble floats, suspended in the sea of always. In this way it is its own force of nature. It has its own vital power. And that power, like all such, has its own quality.

  Aiden Holloway draws a breath. He has ten more breaths in his future. The oxygen combines with raw protein in his lungs and is carried by his life’s blood to his extremities and to his eyes and his brain.

  Paul is somewhere here ahead of him, hidden amid the off-loaded freight of the row of warehouses. The blackness is inky. He had been sprayed by both Paul and Sherry, and some of those paintballs hurt like hell. But he’d kept his goggles on, and he was determined to get some revenge.

  The semi-automatic paintball air rifle is heavy and perfect in his hands. It feels right. Aiden had paid $170 bucks for it and had awaited its delivery with patience. It was now such an integral part of his life that he had come to love the thing, nearly as much as he loved his authentic armor, sword and shield. But Aiden and his friends had pretty much graduated from the live-action role-playing—or LARP, as they called it—and this new hobby was so much more of a rush.

  Any minute he was going to blast Paul. He was going to blow him away, and then go after Sherry. And after that, David.

  Aiden Holloway smiles. It is his final smile.

  A few steps out from behind the stack of what appears to be tractor parts with the air rifle held at ready, he is taken completely off guard at the figure that emerges from around the corner of the building. It is the dark, bulky figure of a man. His stance is rigid.

  Aiden Holloway unconsciously sucks in another breath. He has three left in him. Three more cycles of oxygen to infuse his blood.

  “Paul?” he inquires. But it is not Paul. It couldn’t be Paul. But only Paul would pull a stunt like this.

  “On the ground!” The figure shouts. When the man notices the gun, he shouts, “Drop it!”

  The words form in his head, What? This? But he doesn’t say them. The situation is too awkward and he is unsure what the figure means. Does he mean the air rifle? The perfect one hundred-seventy dollar air rifle? The moment is surreal and at the same time it is a little too real.

  Aiden Holloway exhales. He has two more exhales to go.

  He brings his rifle upward, as if to present it to the dark figure now limned in faint light as if to say, Look, silly man. Don’t be an idiot. But the man cannot hear Aiden’s thoughts. It dawns on Aiden what is about to occur. Frantically he tries to find the right word, the magic word—the Power Word, as they always called it in his role-playing circle of friends—that will avert the future he now sees coming with crystal clarity. And as he finds the concept he is looking for, he exhales. It is his next to last.

  He finds the concept and attempts to connect it with an actual word. But what is a word? It is merely an articulation of sounds created in the voice box and finely controlled by the lips and tongue. And he is mid-exhale. Ah! The word! The word is DON’T!

  Aiden cuts the exhale short and pulls in a sharp burst of air.

  His voice box vibrates with the beginning of the sound—the infant formation of that first sharp consonant. His tongue impinges hard against the roof of his mouth to form the consonant perfectly. As it forms, several things happen at once.

  He feels a rush of adrenaline move through his body and his fingers release the air pistol. A bolt of electricity moves down his spine and needles the skin along the backs of his legs. A tiny reddish-golden sun, mere inches in radius, forms at the center of the dark man and for perhaps a few hundredths of a second following its birth it creates a circular halo six inches outward.

  Aiden watches as the small sun extends a line of laser-like light outward toward him. The light touches his chest. The touch is, at first, a mere itch. Another hundredth of a second later the itch becomes an impossible burning and a terrible weight. Aiden’s chest is, after all, a mere balloon.

  The spot where the laser-like light touches radiates waves outward and down into his chest, each wave a hundred times greater than the last. The darkness and light of the driveway mingle together in a sensation that cannot otherwise be described as rushing. The very last wave radiating from the center of his chest snuffs out his consciousness.

  The balloon that is Aiden’s chest, much like the bubble that is this tiny universe, bursts. It is the final exhale.

  The universe dies in darkness and is reborn again.

  Aiden Holloway fingers his new semi-automatic paintball air-rifle and is moments away from sudden and irremediable death.

  In the hours and days following the tragic accidental shooting death of Aiden Holloway, the police community closed ranks to shield their own. Knight was temporarily suspended with pay pending a full investigation, as was the policy. The Chief of Police and the Mayor made statements to the press, using descriptics such as “this unfortunate and horrible tragedy” and “a series of events leading to a terrible accident.”

  The body of Holloway was autopsied, and the air pistol was tagged and filed away pending the outcome of the investigation.

  And Shelby Knight, his world in a shambles, went home.

  While the press took to calling Shelby “The Black Knight” during the initial weeks and months of the investigation, the articles eventually went from page one to page three, then to a mere footnote in the Lifestyles section. Time, as they say, marches on.

  Rachel Knight stuck by her husband in those early days. Her friends and family would later claim that she went above and beyond the call of duty as wife and became a ‘caregiver’ for two years following the shooting. She brought home the bacon. She attempted, at every opportunity, to get Shelby to pick up the pieces and continue on. “Rachel gave her all,” her mother had said. Rachel’s mother was a force of nature not to be reckoned with. She had goons to take care of her problems for her, and if the rumors were true, sometimes things got messy. In the end, as her friends and relatives tried to tell her she would do, she left. The fact that Rachel’s mother hadn’t sent someone to put Shelby out of his own self-induced misery was somewhat of a miracle in and of itself.

  The dishes spent six months unwashed in the kitchen sink, left the way Rachel had left them the day she kissed Shelby’s unfeeling lips and with a tear slipping down her cheek, walked out the front door.

  Three days before Rachel left Shelby’s life, she came in late one night, as if returning home to him was a prison sentence. As she lay in bed beside him, Shelby sensed the thrumming of her heart and her irrepressible shame. She was ineffectual as his wife, incapable of assailing the high walls he had built around himself in his irrepressible gloom. Nights like that, laying together in the same bed, not touching, not speaking
, had become such a ritual that he had grown cold to it. She began to withdraw from him while at the same time carrying on through the motions. They were married, after all. Didn’t it mean something?

  “Why are you here?” he asked her that night. It had been a week since he had replied to her in any form. She was used to his non-communication. His question shocked her to the core. She had no answer for him.

  Yes, why am I here? Rachel asked herself. She turned her back to him and sobbed herself to sleep. That night Shelby lay there, practically unblinking, and listened to her as the sobs slowly diminished and her breathing evened out and she began to snore. He was still awake when she rose from bed the next morning.

  Three days later Rachel left. What he had anticipated would be a great relief was instead a hollow numbness. Below the numbness, much the way the crust of the earth contains the great fire below, was... something else. A hurting, perhaps. A sadness. And, he suspected, an anger.

  And with Rachel’s absence, Shelby Knight began to become the walking dead.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Used to be that a fellow could get out of a pet store without having to spend a hundred bucks,” the old man said. He was behind Shelby in line. Shelby nodded, trying to think of the last time he was inside a pet store. He couldn’t recall.

  The puppy on the short chain-leash Shelby held was a mixed breed — part Maltese, part Poodle, and part something else.

  “What’cha gonna name him?” the old guy asked. Shelby turned slowly and regarded the man. He had almost no hair, but for a few wisps poking out above his ears. His face looked like it was a rubber mask.

  “Her,” Shelby stated.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Her.”

  “Oh. Hey, a girl dog. That’s nice. What’cha gonna name her?”

  Shelby was taken aback. He hadn’t even considered it. A name? I guess it makes sense.

  “I’m reviewing my options,” Shelby said.

  “Ah. Say, you look familiar to me,” the old man said. “Did you used to be famous or something?”

  “No,” Shelby replied. “I used to be infamous.”

  The old man grew quiet.

  Mid way through paying for the mutt, Shelby sensed that the old man had him pegged. He sensed it in the air, as if an invisible wall had formed behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled him. His face, he was certain, had reddened.