by Jude Hardin
“Thanks,” I said. “You have a great morning, Beulah.”
“You too, Mr. Colt.”
“You can call me Nicholas.”
She blushed again.
The fact sheet I had on Mike Musselman said he was eighty-three years old, but he looked a couple of decades younger than that. He answered the door holding a glass of something orange.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“It’s Nicholas Colt,” I said. “From the card game.”
“Oh. Can I help you?” He was trying to be polite, but he had a what-the-hell-do-you-want expression on his face. I held my ground.
“I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes,” I said.
“About?”
I showed him my PI license, looked him directly in the eyes. “About Virgil Lamb,” I said.
He hesitated, examined his New Balance sneakers for a second, shrugged, and said, “All right. Come on in.”
There was a stationary bicycle and a set of dumbbells situated in one corner of his living room. I sat on one end of a denim sofa, and Mike sat in a gray and black swivel chair by his computer desk. There was a large cage beside the desk with a bird in it. The bird was white with a yellow head and bright orange circles under its eyes
“Get you something to drink?” Mike said.
“What’s that in your glass?”
“Carrot juice. Want some?”
“No thanks,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you about your friend. It won’t take long.”
“Virgil Lamb was the best friend I ever had. I was pretty devastated when he went missing last year. It was like losing an arm or something, you know? Part of me was just suddenly gone.”
“I’m sure he is missed by many,” I said.
“So why are you investigating Virgil?”
The bird squawked.
“I was hired by Derek Wahl’s sister to investigate the crimes at the Lambs’ residence a year ago Thanksgiving,” I said. “There were crosses carved into the victims’ foreheads, same as the one on my adopted daughter’s sister three years ago. I know who killed Leitha. He’s dead now. He was involved in a Christian militia group called the Harvest Angels.”
“So you’ve connected some dots, and you’re assuming whoever was responsible for the Lamb murders was also involved in this Christian militia group. What was it called?”
“Harvest Angels. It was the militant branch of a cult called Chain of Light. I’m not assuming anything, just trying to rule it out at this point. Ever heard of New Love Ministries? Supposedly that’s where Derek went to church.”
“They have a billboard out on the highway. They run ads in the local paper sometimes. I don’t know anything about them.”
“Do you know if Virgil might have gotten involved with them?”
“Never in a million years. He hated religion.”
“What did Virgil do for a living?” I said. “You know, before he retired.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“He was The Great Masserto,” Mike said. “I was Miguel the Magician, and Virgil was The Great Masserto. We were in a traveling show called Captain Lucky’s Entertainment Extravaganza and Thrill Theatre.”
“You were magicians?”
“I was a magician. Virgil was a psychic and a hypnotist, the best there ever was. He had an offer for a television show one time, but the deal fell through. They ended up giving the show to a guy named Kreskin.”
“The Amazing World of Kreskin,” I said. “I remember that show. Sometime in the seventies.”
“Yeah. Kreskin was a few years younger than us, but Virgil was ten times more talented.”
“How did you guys end up in that line of work?”
“You really want to know?”
“Sure.”
“A guy from Life magazine wrote an article about it one time. I can print you a copy.”
“That would be great,” I said. “What kind of bird is that?”
“Cockatiel. His name is Waldo.”
“Can he talk?”
“When he wants to.”
I got up and walked to the cage. Waldo cocked his head and eyeballed me. He didn’t say anything.
“I understand Virgil was quite the gambler,” I said.
“It was his only vice. He didn’t drink or smoke or take drugs, but he sure liked to bet money.”
“How did he do with it?” I said.
“What are you getting at, Mr. Colt?”
“I think you know what I’m getting at. Did he owe someone a large sum of money? Did he get himself and everyone in that house killed because of it?”
“The police asked me the same thing,” Mike said.
“And what did you tell them?”
“I told them I didn’t pry into Virgil Lamb’s financial affairs.”
“Come on, Mike. Just tell me. Did he ever use a loan shark to raise money to gamble with?”
He looked up at me from his desk chair. His eyes were bloodshot. “Only once that I know of,” he said. “And don’t ask me for a name.”
“Because you don’t know? Or because you’re not going to tell me?”
“I can’t tell you. They’ll kill me if I tell you.”
I saw the fear in Mike Musselman’s eyes, and that was good enough for me. Virgil Lamb had gotten in over his head with some very violent people. He and his family were murdered because of a gambling debt. Derek Wahl was dispatched to the residence based on an anonymous call to the police, and when he showed up the bad guys had to kill him as well. That was my guess. Other than the crosses carved on the victims’ foreheads, there was no evidence that a Harvest Angels cell existed in this part of the country. And if the Harvest Angels weren’t involved in the killings, then I was done in Tennessee.
“Thanks for your time,” I said.
Mike got up and walked me to the door. He handed me the papers he had printed out from the Life magazine archives. The article was from August 11, 1961.
“I’m eighty-three,” he said, “but I still like living. I’m still thankful for every day I have.”
“Take care,” I said.
I stepped out onto the stoop. Just before Mike closed the door, Waldo said, “Kiss my ass.”
Stupid bird.
I had one more box to check off before going home. I drove to the New Love Ministries church Sunday morning. I had planned to attend the service until I saw that many of the worshippers entering the building were black. New Love was obviously not affiliated with the Harvest Angels, so that was that.
I drove back to the motel, crammed all my things into the Camry, walked to the office and handed over my room key. I told the clerk on duty to tell Beulah I said good-bye.
The tilted crosses carved into the foreheads of the murder victims at the Lambs’ residence were some sick bastard’s idea of a joke, a bogus clue that would have homicide detectives chasing their tails and looking in all the wrong places. Virgil Lamb had gotten in over his head with gambling debt, and Derek had simply been collateral damage. He was probably wearing some very heavy shoes at the bottom of a very deep river now.
I made it home a little after six. I hadn’t called ahead. I thought I would make it a surprise. My Jimmy was in the driveway, parked exactly where I’d left it. I opened the driver’s side door and checked the odometer. It hadn’t moved. The garage door was open. Juliet’s car was parked in there. I walked through the garage, opened the entrance to the kitchen, stepped inside, and said, “Anybody home?”
For some reason, I’d pictured Juliet and Brittney sitting at the dinette looking fretful. In my fantasy they saw that I’d come home earlier than expected and relief flooded their faces and they jumped up and ran to me in slow motion. They embraced me and smothered me with kisses, and we all lived happily ever after. Like some kind of greeting-card commercial.
But that’s not what happened.
There was a partially eaten bowl of chicken noodle soup on the table and a package of sa
ltines. There was a book titled 212 by Alafair Burke next to the bowl of soup, opened to page 147. There was a smear of blood on the table next to the book, and drops of blood leading to the hallway.
Another one of Brittney’s nosebleeds, I told myself.
I followed the trail to the master bedroom. I opened the door. Juliet and Brittney sat side by side on the bed, their backs cushioned by pillows against the headboard. They stared blankly at the television. Their faces were the color of raw biscuit dough. Their lips were blue. They had been gagged with pillowcases and bound with duct tape, and their hair in front was matted with coagulated blood
I couldn’t breathe. High-pitched sobs emanated from the back of my throat, as though I were in a nightmare and couldn’t wake up. My legs turned to putty. I leaned against the doorjamb to keep from falling. This can’t be happening. Not again. Please, dear God, not again.
Brittney moaned, and a raspy breath escaped from Juliet’s chest. They were in shock, still alive but in dire need of medical attention. I quickly helped them into lying positions and propped pillows under their legs. I untied the gags and pulled the comforter up to keep them warm. There was a telephone on the bedside table, and I had started toward it when I heard footsteps coming up the hallway.
Someone was still in the house.
I turned and saw him coming at me fast with a large knife from the kitchen. He was dressed in black. He had a ski mask pulled over his head, and all I could see were a pair of pale gray eyes focused on my throat.
A rush of adrenaline flooded through me, and I was able to dodge the first thrust. I reached for my .38. It wasn’t there. I had taken it back to the Airstream on my way in. I stood face-to-face with the killer now as he continuously swiped at me with the razor-sharp blade.
He moved forward relentlessly, inch by inch, backing me toward the wall. I kept my eyes on the knife. I recognized it from our cutlery block. You could cut a slice of ham thin as paper with it. I knew, because I had put the edge on it myself with an oilstone. The stone had belonged to my stepfather. It was one of two things I inherited at fifteen when he committed suicide. The other thing was the .44 Magnum he had used to blow his own brains out. I’d had the gun melted down to a blob, and it rests in peace on my desk alongside my mother’s ill-fated St. Christopher statue.
Thinking about it triggered another memory.
The killer lunged forward like a pirate in a swordfight. I spun right, and the knife went deep into the drywall. It took him a second to dislodge it, enough time for me to drop to the floor and roll toward the bed. I reached under the sham and quickly unsnapped the holster I’d strapped to the frame. As the man who had obviously intended to slaughter my family came at me overhand with the ten-inch blade, I pulled the .357 from its leather seat and blasted four enormous holes in his torso. The bullets exited through his back, leaving chunks of flesh and blood splatters on the wall behind him.
He dropped the knife and collapsed. He was done. I crawled to him and yanked off the ski mask.
At first, I couldn’t quite process the image. When I finally did, my heart lurched and a black curtain closed on my peripheral vision. I almost passed out.
It was Derek Wahl.
I recognized him from the pictures Donna had given me.
I staggered to the phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Juliet and Brittney were transported to the hospital via helicopter. Their treatment in the emergency department included a consultation with a plastic surgeon to stitch the cuts on their foreheads.
The tilted crosses.
They were admitted to the trauma unit on the eighth floor, where they shared a semiprivate room. They had suffered some blunt trauma to their skulls along with the cuts, but they were stable. X-rays negative for any brain swelling, the doctor had said. I sat there and watched them sleep for a while. There was an armed guard posted outside their door.
I sat there until a deputy from the sheriff’s department came and motioned me out to the hallway. At his request, I left the hospital and met Donna at the Clay County morgue where she positively identified Derek’s body. Donna had asked for me. She wanted me there. She wanted me to get a good look at him lying on the slab with four black holes in his chest.
An autopsy had been scheduled, as a matter of protocol. Not that there was any doubt about the cause of death.
I was wiped out. Numb. I walked Donna to her car. She was crying.
“Why did you have to kill him?” she said. “Couldn’t you have just shot him in the leg or something?”
“He was coming at me with a knife. I—”
“He obviously wasn’t in his right mind. An eye for an eye, right? Is that what you were thinking when you shredded his body with that hand cannon?”
“I wasn’t thinking anything. I was reacting to the situation. And I didn’t know it was Derek, for that matter. He had a mask on.”
“I’m going to see that you pay for this, Nicholas. One way or another, I’m going to see that you pay.”
She climbed into her car, started the engine, and drove away.
It was ten o’clock by the time I made it back up to the trauma unit. I got off the elevator and followed the signs. I hadn’t learned the layout of the place yet. The hallway lights had been dimmed. Everything looked green and creepy, like the inside of an aquarium. There was a different armed guard posted outside room 834.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“I’m family,” I said.
“What relation?”
“I’m the husband. And the father.”
“Could I see some identification, please?”
I showed him my driver’s license. He checked my name against a list on a clipboard and waved me in. Only a few minutes, he said. Visiting hours had ended at nine.
Brittney was still sleeping. She looked comfortable. Juliet’s eyes opened when she heard me come in. I lifted a small padded chair and quietly placed it next to her bed.
“Hi, babe,” I said.
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“Terrible. I look like the bride of Frankenstein.”
“Believe me, you look great. The scar will fade. The surgeon said so.”
“I guess I could always wear bangs,” she said, her lips curling into the faintest hint of a smile.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” I said.
“He came in through the garage. He hid by the washer and dryer and waited for me to come and tend to the laundry.”
She told me as many details as she could remember. “If you hadn’t come when you did, he would have killed us.”
“I know.”
“Why did he want to kill us?”
“I don’t know.”
I didn’t know much of anything at that point, but I was determined to get to the bottom of it all. I was determined to find out why Derek Wahl had disappeared for over a year, and why he had shown up in Florida and tried to kill my wife and daughter. Was Derek connected to the Harvest Angels? Were the tilted crosses some sort of calling card, as I had surmised before? Was Derek responsible for the deaths at the Lambs’ residence and the disappearance of Virgil Lamb and his grandson Joe? Those were the some of the questions stewing in the back of my mind, cooking on simmer while I sat there and talked to Juliet.
“Will there be others?” she said. “Will others come and try to kill us?”
“We’re not going to take any chances. As soon as you and Brittney are discharged from the hospital, the two of you are flying to the Philippines to stay with your family for a while. I’ve already made the arrangements.”
“But I have work. Brittney has school. We can’t just—”
“None of that matters. You can take a leave of absence, and I’m sure the good folks at Brittney’s school will be happy to let her do some work online once I explain the situation. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, Jules. Hopefully it won’t take too long.”
“I guess a trip home would be nice. Mom and Dad haven’t even met Brittn
ey yet.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said, not bothering to correct her. Juliet’s parents had flown in for our wedding, and had briefly met Brittney then. The ER doctor had told me there might be some amnesia from the injuries, from the beatings and the lacerations. He said it would be temporary.
“Can you stay here with us tonight?” Juliet said.
“They won’t let me.”
“But I’ll be afraid.”
“There’s a guard outside your door. He has a gun.”
“It’s not the bad guys I’m afraid of. It’s the nurses.”
This time her smile was genuine.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too.”
Four days later Juliet and Brittney were on the long flight to Manila, and I was back at my old room in Mont Falcon. I thought Beulah was going to try to hug me when I walked into the office. Long-lost pals, old Beul and me.
It was Wednesday, February 24. Derek Wahl’s memorial service was scheduled for Friday. I wasn’t going to make it. I didn’t think I would be welcome anyway. I sent Donna a check, reimbursing her for the money she had given me to find him. I refunded every bit of it, even though I could account for at least half in expenses.
The sheriff’s department had exonerated me from any wrongdoing, ruling the shooting self-defense, but I had a feeling Donna might try to file some sort of civil suit. Maybe refunding the retainer would cause her to reconsider. Maybe not. At any rate, I was operating on my own dime now, and there was something very liberating about that.
Moe’s Ribs closed at 11:00 p.m. At 11:32, Lester and Earl came out the back door. Earl was the fat one. He lit a joint, took a long hit, and passed it to Lester. I was standing beside the Dumpster. They walked by without noticing me.
“Hey, fellas,” I said. “Remember me?”
They turned. Lester cuffed the joint, a habit among potheads when they’re startled. It’s automatic, the way a dog’s ears perk if you snap your fingers.
