Silent Killer

by Beverly Barton

  “Hi, Mom,” Seth said.

  Donnie Hovater tapped his daughter’s shoulder.

  Missy cleared her throat, held out the plant that sported a small red bow and said, “Happy housewarming, Mrs. Cantrell.”

  Cathy accepted the gift and invited them into the living room. “Please come in. And excuse the mess. I’m afraid I’ve made only a small dent in the unpacking.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Donnie said as they entered the house. When he heard laughter coming from the kitchen, his brows rose quizzically. “Are we interrupting anything?”

  “No, certainly not.” Cathy shut the door and motioned to the sofa. “Please, won’t y’all sit down?” She looked at Seth, puzzled as to why he was with the Hovaters. “If you’d like to see the house, feel free to look around.” Then she turned back to Donnie. “I have decaf coffee. Would you care for some?”

  He shook his head, then asked, “Do you have dinner guests?”

  Right on cue, Lorie and Jack came out of the kitchen. Lorie answered for Cathy. “Just us,” she said as she looked at Seth. “Hello, Brother Hovater. I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Lorie Hammonds. We met a couple of months ago. Reverend Floyd introduced us.”

  “Yes, of course, Ms. Hammonds,” he said. “How nice to see you again.” He eyed Jack, who stepped forward and offered his hand.

  “Jackson Perdue.”

  They shook hands.

  “I’m Donnie Hovater, and this is my daughter, Melissa.”

  Cathy felt an odd tension in the air, and when she glanced at Seth, she realized he stood there ramrod straight, his gaze riveted to Jack.

  “What’s he doing here?” Seth asked.

  “Seth, where are your manners?” She scolded her son as if he were a child, but then he was acting like a child.

  “Sorry,” Seth grumbled.

  Cathy suddenly realized that she was fiercely clutching the potted plant, so she walked past her son and placed the plant on the mantel at the opposite end of the living room. “Jack is a friend. He and Lorie have been helping me unpack today, and we decided to order dinner from Frankie’s.”

  “We probably should have waited before stopping by,” Donnie said. “But I thought it would give you and Seth a chance to visit and for him to see your new home.”

  “Brother Hovater is taking Missy and me over to the community center for the Christian youth rally, and I asked him if we could stop by here on the way,” Seth said. “If I’d known he was here…uh…that you had company, we wouldn’t have bothered.”

  “Felicity and Charity Harper were going with us, but their plans changed, so their dad’s taking them,” Missy explained.

  “I hadn’t heard anything about this youth rally,” Cathy said, feeling like a stranger to her own son. “What sort of…?”

  “It’s a community event and will be adequately chaperoned,” Donnie told her. “If I thought it wasn’t an appropriate event, I certainly wouldn’t allow Missy to attend.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” Cathy assured him. “I’m afraid that since Seth is living with his grandparents for the time being, I’m out of the loop on his social life.”

  “This rally is one of Patsy Floyd’s Uniting-Christians projects, isn’t it?” Lorie asked.

  “Yes, I believe so,” Donnie replied. “However, I’ve been assured that it is a nondenominational event, and no Methodist doctrine will be included.”

  Cathy quickly glanced from Lorie to Jack. She noted the way Lorie’s mouth twitched and how, with a broad grin, Jack glanced down at his feet.

  “Seth, since you’re here, would you like to see the rest of the house?” Cathy asked. “I can show you your room first and—”

  “Not tonight,” Seth answered coolly, glaring at Jack. “We don’t have time.” He looked pleadingly at Donnie. “We’d better get going, hadn’t we?”

  “Uh, yes, yes, I guess we had.” Donnie seemed taken off guard by Seth’s sudden need to leave. “I look forward to seeing you in church Sunday, Cathy.” He glanced from Lorie to Jack. “And y’all are, of course, invited. Anytime. Anytime.”

  Before Donnie finished issuing his invitation, Seth was opening the front door. Cathy followed him out onto the porch, catching up with him and grabbing his arm.

  “Why are you acting this way?” she asked him.

  “What way?”

  “I’m happy that you wanted to stop by to see me and our new home. I wish you wouldn’t rush off in a huff just because Jack is here.”

  “I don’t like him.” Seth pulled away from her and walked down the steps and into the yard.

  Cathy followed. “You don’t know him.”

  “Are you dating him?”

  She groaned silently. “Is that the reason for your bad attitude? You don’t want me to start dating because you think I’d somehow be disloyal to Mark…to your dad if I did?” She laid her hand on his shoulder, ignoring the fact that Donnie Hovater and his daughter stood on the porch directly behind them and possibly could hear their conversation. “Mark would not disapprove of my dating. He would want me to go on with my life.”

  “Dad would expect you to date someone like Brother Hovater.” Seth looked her square in the eye. “Granddad says that Perdue guy is bad news, and he’s a trained killer and all messed up in his head.”

  Cathy wanted to scream. Actually, she wanted to strangle J.B. How dare he say such things to Seth. And about Jack, of all people. Count to ten. Say a prayer. Do something to keep from exploding and taking your anger out on your son.

  “Jack is a former Army Ranger,” Cathy said as calmly as possible. “He’s a decorated soldier. Your grandfather’s choice of words implied something altogether inaccurate.”

  “Are you saying Granddad lied?” Seth demanded vehemently as he jerked away from her.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Donnie said as he and Missy approached them. “And I certainly don’t mean to interfere in what appears to be a family disagreement, but, Seth, son”—he patted Seth on the back—“your grandfather would expect you to show your mother the proper respect. And I’m sure she didn’t mean to imply that J.B. lied. I believe she was trying to tell you that J.B. might have been misinformed about Mr. Perdue.”

  “So, he used to be a soldier,” Seth said. “They train soldiers to kill, don’t they? Dad didn’t believe in killing. He believed in turning the other cheek, in loving your fellow man.” Seth paused for half a second, and when Cathy simply stared at him, uncertain how to respond, he went on. “After what you’ve been through this past year, the last kind of guy you need right now is somebody who’s got his own mental problems.”

  Seth had rendered her momentarily speechless. Who had her son become in the year she’d been away? Where was the compassionate, tenderhearted, caring young man she had raised? J.B. had done a good job of trying to turn Seth into a duplicate of Mark, and she hated him for doing it.

  “You and I will talk tomorrow,” Cathy said. “I’d like for you to have lunch with me.”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Granddad.”

  “I have an idea,” Donnie interrupted again. “Why don’t Missy and I take you and your mother out for lunch tomorrow after church? I’m sure your grandparents won’t object.”

  “Yeah, sure, thanks. That would be great.” Seth looked at Cathy, waiting for her to agree.

  “Yes, thank you,” Cathy replied.

  Donnie spread his arms out, placing one around Seth’s shoulders and the other around his daughter’s waist. “Come on, kids. It’s nearly eight o’clock. Y’all don’t want to be late. This thing is from eight tonight until eight in the morning, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Seth said.

  “Yes, Daddy, eight to eight.”

  Cathy stood in the yard and watched Brother Hovater back out of the driveway. He threw up his hand and waved. She waved back at him and smiled.

  Donnie seemed like a very nice man. He had certainly tried his best to act as a mediator between Se
th and her tonight. She appreciated his offer to take them to lunch tomorrow, which would give them time to talk without J.B. being involved.

  Jack came up behind her so quietly that he startled her when he spoke. “Are you all right?”

  She gasped and jumped simultaneously.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She turned and faced him. “It’s okay. And yes, I’m all right, but not happy about hearing my father-in-law’s words come out of my son’s mouth.”

  “All the more reason you should do everything you can to regain custody of Seth,” Lorie said from where she stood on the porch.

  “I hate that my being here tonight bothered your son so much,” Jack said. “But you have to know that he’s not going to approve of your dating, no matter who the guy is. No man will live up to his father. Not in his eyes.”

  Lorie and Cathy exchanged quick oh-my-God glances, and then Cathy looked directly at Jack. “That wasn’t Seth talking tonight. That was J.B. Before I went away, before my breakdown, Seth and I were very close. He was my son far more than he was ever Mark’s. Seth and Mark had a good relationship, but…I can’t let this happen. I cannot lose Seth. I will not allow J.B. to manipulate him this way.”

  “I wish there was something I could do to help you,” Jack said.

  “There isn’t, but thanks. I’ll deal with this in my own way and in my own time.”

  “Come on, you two,” Lorie called. “I’ll put on a fresh pot of decaf and we can eat our dessert.”

  Jack slipped his arm around Cathy’s waist. She felt his touch in every nerve in her body. A tingling warmth spread through her, an odd mixture of excitement and contentment. Side by side, the strength of his big body comforting her, they went up the steps, onto the porch and into the house.

  Jack and Deputy Willis were holding down the fort tonight, and so far, more than four hours into their eight-hour shift, things had been relatively quiet. He glanced at the wall clock. It was already three-thirty Sunday morning. The night dispatcher had taken a total of five calls, and all of them had been easily handled by the night-shift patrolmen on duty. With little to do, he’d found himself thinking about Cathy. When he had returned to Dunmore and taken the job with the sheriff’s department, he’d been at loose ends, uncertain what the future held. Now, here he was back home only a few weeks and he’d hired a contractor to restore his old home and he was pursuing a girl who’d dumped him for another guy nearly seventeen years ago.

  Well, maybe he wasn’t actually pursuing Cathy, just renewing their old friendship and seeing where it went. And to be fair, he supposed he couldn’t accuse her of dumping him. He’d been the one who had left her behind when his unit had been sent to the Middle East and he’d wound up spending months as an Iraqi prisoner of war. What had he expected her to do when he’d been reported missing in action?

  Just as he lifted his coffee mug to his lips, Jack heard a ruckus at the front entrance, where Deputies Gipson and Dryer were escorting a group of teenagers into the building. He set the mug down on his desk and headed toward the officers and a gang of grumbling youngsters. He counted seven in all, four girls and three boys. Two of the girls were crying, and one of the boys, a redhead, looked scared to death.

  “My folks are going to kill me,” one of the girls whined.

  “Yeah, my old man will ground me for the rest of my life,” the frightened redhead said.

  “Ah, shut up pissing and moaning,” said a stocky boy with a long, dark ponytail.

  “You shut up,” a tattooed girl with jet black hair and heavy purple eye shadow told him. “You’re the reason we’re in this mess. You promised that nobody would know if we slipped away for a while, just to smoke and drink a few beers. We didn’t know you meant smoke marijuana.”

  Jack called out, “What have we here?”

  “A bunch of stupid kids. The ones that were reported missing, the ones the police have been looking for,” Deputy Dryer replied. “They didn’t think anybody would miss them when they left the youth rally over at the community center. They were wrong.”

  “We just happened to find them a block away in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot,” Gipson said. “They had three six-packs of beer that apparently one of them had stashed there earlier, and a couple of them were smoking pot.”

  “Miss Dagger Tattoo and Mr. Tough Guy were the two smoking,” Dryer added.

  “We didn’t know it was marijuana,” the tattooed girl said. “I swear we didn’t.”

  Gipson rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, sure.”

  A tall, lanky boy with brown hair turned from where he’d been shielding one of the girls with his body. When Jack got a good look at the boy, he sucked in a startled breath.

  Son of a bitch. There stood Cathy’s son, Seth, a nervous yet defiant expression on his face. And the girl he’d been trying to protect was none other than Brother Hovater’s daughter.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She woke to the smell of smoke and the realization that a hand covered her mouth. Acting purely on instinct, she tried to scream, but the sound came out a muffled whimper as her eyes flew open and she looked up into her mother’s face.

  “Stay calm,” her mother told her. “Don’t panic.” She eased her hand away from Ruth Ann’s mouth. “Get out of bed right now. The house is on fire, and we have to hurry before we’re trapped.”

  Sleep-groggy, she jerked into a sitting position, her mind barely comprehending what she’d been told.

  Her mother grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the bed. “If we run, we can make it out through the back door. The fire started in my bedroom, but it’s spreading fast.” She all but dragged Ruth Ann out of her room and into the smoky hallway. “We don’t have much time.”

  Barefoot and wearing only a cotton gown, she glanced back over her shoulder as she ran with her mother down the hall and into the kitchen. Dark, heavy smoke followed them, allowing her only a glimpse of the fire quickly consuming their house. When they reached the back door, Ruth Ann hesitated half a second. Her mother screamed at her, jogging her into immediate action. They raced down the back steps and into the yard, stopping only when they were in the driveway, both of them slightly winded.

  “What about Daddy?” Ruth Ann asked.

  “It’s too late for your father,” Faye said.

  She stared into her mother’s cold, dead eyes and knew the truth. Oh God in heaven.

  “We can’t just let him die, can we?” Ruth Ann grabbed her mother’s hands and squeezed them tightly. “It would be murder.”

  Faye pulled loose from Ruth Ann’s fierce grasp and focused her gaze on the burning house. “No, it’s not murder. It’s retribution.”

  She didn’t say anything else, not for a long while. Not when the neighbors came out of their homes to offer them solace and to watch the parsonage burn. And not even when the fire trucks arrived, along with the police and an ambulance. The paramedics pronounced that she was in shock, but she knew better. Stunned, perhaps. Feeling horribly guilty. Afraid to speak for fear she would say the wrong thing.

  Tonight, she and her mother had killed her father. This secret would bind them together forever.

  Ruth Ann woke suddenly and realized she had been dreaming again, dreaming about the night her father died. Turning over, she searched in the darkness for John Earl but found his side of the bed empty. Whenever she had one of her horrific dreams, he would always comfort her. She had come to rely on his steadfast love and kindness. If God had cursed her with a monster for a father, he had equally blessed her ten times over with a husband like John Earl.

  She tossed back the covers, slid out of bed and slipped on her house shoes. Looking at the bedside clock, she saw that it was after four. Where on earth was John Earl?

  When she opened the bedroom door and walked into the hall, she heard the soft murmur of a voice coming from the kitchen. The girls were at the all-night youth rally at the community center, leaving only John Earl, her mother and her in the house. Since her mother took a slee
ping pill every night, she assumed the voice belonged to John Earl. Undoubtedly, he was on the telephone because there was some type of emergency with a parishioner. But why hadn’t she heard the phone ring? Had she been that deeply asleep?

  Pausing outside the kitchen, she listened for a couple of minutes.

  “Yes, I understand, and I certainly appreciate your willingness to handle things this way,” John Earl said. “Ruth Ann and I will be there as soon as possible.”

  With her heart hammering in her chest, she entered the kitchen. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  John Earl, wearing only his pajama bottoms, snapped around and stared at her, his eyes blank. He shook his head, hung up the phone and then faced her. “First of all, both Charity and Felicity are all right. But they’re in a bit of trouble. Especially Felicity. We need to get dressed and go to the sheriff’s office right away.”

  “Lord have mercy, what’s happened?”

  “It seems that our girls, along with several other kids, slipped away from the youth rally tonight.”

  “What? Why would they—?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that,” John Earl told her as he walked over and grasped her gently by the shoulders. “A couple of deputies found the kids in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. They had beer with them, and one of the boys and Felicity were smoking pot.”

  “Oh God, no!”

  He gripped her shoulders a little tighter. “It’s going to be all right. That was Mike Birkett on the phone. Charity called me a few minutes ago. I thought for sure the phone would wake you, but it didn’t. I came in here and called Mike back immediately. He’s being very understanding about the situation. He says that we can pick up both girls tonight. Charity isn’t being charged with anything. And the charges against Felicity—”

  “What charges? Oh God, John Earl, will she have to go to jail?”

  “No. Mike told me to contact a lawyer in the morning. Felicity will have to appear in juvenile court, but more than likely the sentence will entail a fine and community service.”