by Jan Sumner
Chapter 7
He decided to take a couple of days off from his search; maybe talk his dad into doing the same. It would be great to spend some time together, fishing, hunting or just hanging around without the ever-present investigation draped over their conversations.
Before going home from Dr. Wiggins’ house he decided to take one more spin out to the farmhouse. He hadn’t quite finished looking around because of his hand. He figured he wouldn’t find anything but wanted to have one last look.
It was a nicer day than the last trip, although still crisp and cool. The sun was out and that cast a more affable look to the place. He immediately headed for the kicked-in back door. Walking up to it he noticed it looked different. It had been boarded up again. He stopped dead in his tracks. He’d only told a couple of people he had been out here, and none of them would have known he kicked in the door. He stood, looking around, wondering how this had happened, and more importantly…who had done it.
After several minutes of pondering, and coming up empty, he kicked the door in again. The inside was as he remembered it. He looked around for several minutes and found nothing; at least, nothing of any significance. There was, in fact, no evidence of what had happened there.
He walked out to the barn, but didn’t go in. It didn’t look sturdy enough to have someone walking around in it. He stood, wondering where the hay bails were that his mom had hidden in. He sat down on an old log lying next to the barn and tried to imagine what had gone on that day.
Zane must have surprised them; barged in the back door, gun in hand. Told them all to be quiet and sit down. A fierce looking man with nothing to loose. He’d killed many times before, so what were three more? All the time hoping he wouldn’t be found. He had tried tying them up and in the process started slapping his mom around. Grandpa Taylor probably jumped in to save her. In the melee, his mom had ducked out the back door and hidden near the barn. The police arrived and pinned him down. For whatever reason he'd killed Howard and Doris – then turned the gun on himself.
Flapping of wings, as pigeons left the barn, snapped him out of his daydream. Whoa, he thought, Could it have actually happened that way? Well, there was one way to find out, he’d check the police records and old newspaper articles. They should tell him something. He walked back by the house, still bothered by who might have boarded it up. His immediate concern however, was checking records. First on the agenda though, was vacation time with his dad.
They had a great time together; went pheasant hunting out at some of their old haunts and actually got a couple of birds. No one could cook up pheasant like his dad. They took in a movie and had a couple of malts together. It was time well spent and time well past due. Jonathan told his dad about his upcoming investigative venture, to which his dad had said, “Good luck son, I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Jonathan hoped so too.
He started at the library, hoping that it would still have old newspaper clippings. The place hadn’t changed a bit. Small, brick, rustic; just as he remembered it. As he approached the counter an unfamiliar, but pleasant face greeted him. “Yes sir, can I help you?”
“Yeah, but first can you tell me if Ms. Tatum still works here?”
“No, she retired three years ago.”
“I see. Are periodicals still where they used to be?”
“Yes, is there something special you’re looking for?”
“Well, actually I’m looking for thirty year old newspapers. Would they still be back there?”
“No. Those would be on micro-fiche.”
She steered him to the proper area and gave him the film he needed. He began his sifting and sorting. As he zipped along, suddenly, it jumped out at him:
END OF ROAD FOR KILLER JACK ZANE-
He froze, suspended in time. He’d heard about it, talked about, even seen where it happened, but here it was staring him in the face. He read it slowly and carefully. Amazingly, it was almost as he’d dreamt it.
Killer Jack Zane died today, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. While holed up in Howard and Doris Taylor’s farmhouse he shot and killed them, then turned the gun on himself. Kim Grimes Smyth, the murdered farmer's granddaughter, escaped but not unharmed. Zane had apparently beaten her and when her great grandfather came to her rescue, she fled through the back door and hid among some hay bails near the barn.
This story began with Zane’s holdup of a service station in Topeka. He killed the attendant, stole a car and headed south, eventually making his way to the Taylor farm. County sheriff Roger Sellers received a tip from L.J. Proctor, who owns a farm adjacent to the Taylor place. Based on that information they surrounded the house, but before they could act, Zane killed the Taylors and shot himself. The only survivor, Kim Smyth, did not want to be interviewed by the paper.
He read on, but the rest was incidental. His mom had never consented to an interview and apparently never talked to his dad or her grandmother about the ordeal. The story ran in the paper for days. There were even articles from the national wire services. Zane had become infamous throughout the mid-west with his killing, and plundering. Everyone was glad to see the crime spree end, but all were horrified he’d killed two more innocent, elderly people.
Jonathan sat back in his chair and let go a deep sigh. There was something about reading it, seeing it in print, that disturbed him. He drove home still troubled. He had an uncharacteristically quiet dinner with his dad and went up to bed. His dad could see something was wrong, but thought it best not to ask. Jonathan couldn’t sleep. He kept seeing the house, the barn, the articles. My God, he thought, how in the world did my mom survive this and not have it affect her the rest of her life? He suddenly felt alone and sad. Strangely, he missed his mom. There was a gap, this huge dark void between his birth, her death…and now. He wanted to fill it, but how, with what? He didn’t know. All he knew was he felt empty. Sleep, finally came.
The next day he awoke exhausted. His hand was much better and he could actually shower in an almost normal manner. The unwashed spots were lessening daily. His dad had made him some breakfast and left it warming. He was going to miss this room service when he left, but it would be his dad he’d miss most. He ate and went out to the back yard to think under Bertha. Matt came cascading into his mind, again. Jonathan was becoming more and more bothered by the prospect that something awful had happened to him. He didn’t know what, but something inside told him, it wasn’t good. He peered up through Bertha into the light gray sky, his mind wandering. He could almost see his mom running, terrified, wondering if she’d get away. Then burying herself in the hay, praying he wouldn’t find her. The relief, when the sheriff and his men arrived, followed by the horrifying discovery her grandparents had been killed.
It hit him like a bolt of lightening. He jumped up and ran in the house. Feverishly he began flipping through the phone book. “L.J. Proctor, how could I not have thought of this? He’s the one that tipped the sheriff. Could he still be alive and living out there?”
There it was, L.J. Proctor, 4465 CR 11. Now what to do, call him or just go out there? He had to be old, would he want to talk, or have to recall that day? Jonathan didn’t know, but one thing was sure, he was going to try and talk to him.
The next morning he drove out to Mr. Proctor’s. He figured it would be better to just show up, rather than call him. That way he couldn’t hang up on him or refuse to let him come out.
He turned on the dirt road and slowly drove by the Taylor house. For some reason it looked even more ghostly than before. Probably the articles he’d read. On down the road he went. Mr. Proctor's farm sat across a large pasture from the Taylor’s. As Jonathan pulled into the drive he looked back at the Taylor house and thought to himself; Yep, he’d have had a good view of the place. He sat in the car for several minutes, wondering if this was the right thing to do. Well, he’d driven all the way out here,
so he might as well get on with it. It seemed quiet enough; no evidence of life. As he made his way up the path to the front door it looked like it was ajar a little. Just when he hit the first step on the porch, a massive black dog came shooting around the house. He froze; the dog was snarling and growling and looked like it wanted to take his head off. But before it could sink its teeth into him a voice from inside yelled, “Duke, stop!” The dog stopped dead in his tracks, but still looked very irritated. Jonathan was afraid to move, what if that was only a temporary order? Hesitantly he said, “Hello,” hoping for a friendly response.
“What do you want? The same voice asked from inside the dark house.
“Well, Mr. Proctor, I was just hoping to talk to you for a few minutes…if that’s alright.”
“About what?”
“Sir, would it be okay if I came in? Your dog looks like he wants to kill me.”
“He does!”
Jonathan eased up the steps to the front door and tried to peek in. “Mr. Proctor, if I could just speak to you a few minutes, I would really appreciate it.” He could vaguely see a figure making its way to the door. As the door creaked open there stood a worn and wrinkled face, a big man with a penetrating look.
“What do you want to talk about?”
Jonathan slowly opened the screen door. The sooner he could have something between himself and “Duke” the better he’d feel. Jonathan held out his hand, with no response. “Mr. Proctor, I’m Kim Smyth’s son. I was…”
“I know who you are,” he said turning and walking to his couch.
“I saw you out here the other day snooping around. What the hell were you looking for?”
“My past, Mr. Proctor…my past.”
Proctor turned and looked at him with a curious glare, “Oh, you mean what happened over there, thirty years ago?"
“Yeah. I never knew my mom, so I’m trying to find out as much as I can about what happened here…to her.”
Jonathan went ahead and sat down on an old dusty chair, trying to look at Proctor through the scant light in the room. The old man just kept staring at him, hard, expressionless, sizing him up. Finally he said, “You want something to drink?”
“No, I’m fine, but thanks anyway.” Maybe he was going to talk. Proctor got up and went into the kitchen, still tall and straight even at his age. He came back and sat down sipping on a can of beer.
“So tell me, son, just what do you think I can help you with?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure. Anything I guess, what you might have seen that day, remembered…something.”
Proctor downed a few swigs of beer, never taking his eyes off of Jonathan.
“Were you surprised to find the back door boarded up again?”
“That was you, huh? Well you scared the heck out of me,” he said half chuckling.
“I figured it’d give you a start,” he said somewhat self-satisfied, slugging down some more beer.
“Well, it did do that.” He paused for a moment, “I don’t mean to be pushy, but is there anything you can tell me about that day, anything at all?”
“I tell you what, I’ll tell you everything I remember, if you promise not to bother me and Duke ever again, deal?”
“You bet, absolutely!”
“It was a day kind a like today, cold, dreary. I was out back cutten’ fire wood. I could hear what sounded like a commotion over there, so I sort of made my way across the field to get closer. It sounded like a hell of a mess goin' on inside, screamin,’ furniture breakin,’ I wasn’t sure what to do. There was this strange car sittin’ on the side of the house and I could make out this guy inside the house raisin’ hell, yellin’ and wavin’ something around. It was about that time I headed back here to call the sheriff.
“About half way back or so, I heard the back door slam and turned around the see your mom run out to the barn. I could see she was bleedin.’ Well, I threw it in high gear and got back here as quick as I could, called the sheriff and sat here and waited. It wasn’t long before the first car showed up, then a couple more. They were yellin’ at the house, I couldn’t make it out, then all of a sudden, "bang, bang", then a few seconds, and "bang" again. The sheriff yelled a few more times, then they charged the house. Everybody was dead inside, ‘sept your mom. They found her out there on the far side of the barn, hiding in some hay. I saw ‘em take her away. She was pretty shook up.
“The sheriff came and talked to me, thanked me for callin’ in. Then a few reporters came around, but I didn’t tell them nothin.’ You know, this is the first time I’ve really talked about it since then. I stay to myself, me and Duke, and the farm, I like it that way.”
Jonathan didn’t know what to say, he was transfixed with amazement. He thought, this man saw it, saw my mom. He sat back in his chair, still stunned by what he’d heard. Watching Proctor finish off his beer, he said, “Thank you…thank you very much. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”
Proctor tipped an imaginary hat, as if to say, good-bye, so Jonathan got up to leave. He stopped at the door, turned and said, “Thanks again, it truly helped.”
Proctor waved once more as Jonathan made his way out the door. Duke was quietly lying on the porch and never moved. He drove back to town, went up to his room and curled up on his bed.
