A Killing Secret

by Robert E. Dunn

  “The pretty nurse.”

  “I don’t need to tell you shit.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  He seemed to consider that for a moment. When he reached whatever conclusion he was working on, Lawson tossed the club aside. Then he pointed at the jagged white-worm scar that split his eye and said, “Nails in trees. Hit ’em with a chainsaw and it kicks back.”

  “That can mess up a guy’s good looks.”

  “Naw. Ladies like scars.” He looked me up and down in the way that communicates to every woman in the world that she’s meat for hungry wolves. “Some men like ’em too.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I heard you got a body like Frankenstein’s bride.”

  Heat crept up my skin. I felt it flushing my chest and burning its way into my face. “You need to back the conversation up some. I’m not some pretty target you can run at and come away safe.”

  “You’re not, huh?” His grin was both a dismissal and a challenge. “Just what is it you think you are?”

  “I’m the nail in the tree. And I’m the chainsaw you can’t handle.”

  Lawson’s answer was to back away. He faded into the mill’s gloom. Like a demented Cheshire cat, the last of him to disappear were his sneer and the milky eye.

  I put my hand on my service weapon and sidled over to get a better look into the dark interior. “Lawson!”

  As soon as I shouted the mill saw started up again.

  I couldn’t see him. If I stayed where I was, perfectly framed in the doorway by the snow and pale daylight, I was as clear as a bullseye. So I darted forward and right, into the murk. I hoped that Lawson had been watching me. If he had, then his eyes were taking time to adjust too.

  I crouched. Waiting.

  “I didn’t kill that girl,” Lawson called over the sound of the saw.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Do you hear me? I didn’t kill the girl.”

  “Did I say you did?” I called back. Then I moved.

  “If I was you I would be looking at that cop.”

  “You’re definitely not me.”

  Something clattered against the old wood and tin sheeting that made up the shack walls. I glanced and saw about four feet of logging chain snaking to the floor. My eyes were opening up. So were Lawson’s.

  “What are you here for, if it ain’t the girl?” Lawson had moved too. His voice came from closer to the door. I peered under the saw’s feeder track. I didn’t see him, but I noticed that the club he had dropped a minute ago was gone.

  “What are you planning on doing with that big stick?” I asked.

  He answered by bolting from the shadows and slamming the club into a support beam. The entire building shook. I thought the roof would come down.

  Before he could take another swing, I stood. My weapon was held in a two-handed grip. My feet were spread and body balanced. I was prepared to shoot. “Drop it,” I commanded.

  A saner man or a slower one would have complied. Lawson swung the big stick again. It was just long enough to reach across the saw feed.

  I fired at the moment of contact. The bullet went wide. The pistol went flying. I was lucky the wood struck the weapon instead of my clenched hands. As it was, the impact felt like a bomb going off in my fingers. They bent open with the brutal shock then went dead and useless.

  I was reaching for the telescoping baton on my belt, my pained fingers scrabbling without closing, when Lawson leapt over the track. He hit me with his shoulder in the center of my chest.

  I went down, gasping.

  Lawson pulled me up as easily as I would lift a kitten.

  “Now—”

  Before he could finish his thought, I reared back and planted my forehead against his nose. The crunch of cartilage was satisfying. The gush of blood was a bonus.

  “Now what?” I managed to ask before he lifted me even higher and threw me. I hit the same roof support he had clubbed a moment earlier.

  My body struck the beam at an angle, leading with my right shoulder. I rolled helplessly into it. My spine and the ribs on my left side hit next. My back bent, sending my arms and legs flailing. I must have blacked out then. The next thing I knew I was being held up again.

  My feet dangled.

  Lawson grinned. “Feisty,” he said.

  There were few diminutions I hated more. I tried to say so.

  When I opened my mouth to speak, Lawson pulled me to him and pressed his lips to mine. He pushed his thick tongue in. I felt it like a roiling lie made flesh trying to demean me with its intrusion.

  I bared my teeth and bit. My incisors and the canines on the right caught the side of his tongue and dug deep.

  Lawson released his grip in surprise. It was the worst thing he could have done.

  I dropped.

  All my weight hung from his tongue. I didn’t release him. He jerked away but I clamped my jaws harder and held on. Blood spurted between our pressed faces. I felt the heat of it on my skin. The coppery tang crept up my nose.

  Lawson began to make a sound halfway between a scream and a growl. His tongue was tearing away.

  He must have realized that my weight was making his situation much worse. Lawson grabbed me again. This time he used one hand at the back of my hair.

  I almost screamed. But I kept my mouth clamped and gutted out my own snarl of rage and pain.

  Lawson pulled back his huge right fist.

  I twisted my head, shaking his tongue like a dog shaking a snake. It tore off in a bloody spray just as his fist struck me in the abdomen. The last thing I saw before the world went black again was a pink bullet of flesh arching away. It trailed red droplets.

  * * * *

  I woke shivering from the cold and confused about why I was on the ground. The reason came back to me as a spasm gripped my stomach. I thought the top of my head was going to blow off as I threw up into the sawdust.

  The turmoil in my brain and my gut fought to see which could make me more miserable. I rolled to the side so I could drop back down without wallowing in my vomit. The cold was still shaking me but I didn’t care. It wasn’t the first time I had been hurt and left alone to die or live. I took the time to examine some of my life choices.

  After an uncountable time, I gave up and forced myself to stand. Fortunately, I didn’t have to lift my head to see where I wanted to go. On the floor was a bold blood trail leading away and deeper into the back of the shack. I didn’t follow. Not right away. I hobbled around the long feeder track and found my weapon.

  Bending to pick it up was a challenge, but not as much as working it into my battered hands. I dropped the magazine, then pulled the slide and ejected the chambered round. With it empty I rubbed it clean on my pants. After that I blew into the barrel and behind the hammer. The work was calming. It was also an excuse. I was procrastinating.

  As soon as I realized what I was doing I was angry with myself. It was what I needed. I dry-fired my pistol. Satisfied all the parts were functioning, I reloaded and shambled back to the blood trail. This time I didn’t stop or hesitate.

  The blood was a ragged spatter. Still, it ran in a basically uniform direction. It reached a door where a huge red handprint was stamped on the wood. I took a stance and held my weapon at the ready, then pushed the door open with my foot.

  Beyond the door was only snow and more crimson. The trail ended at a set of tire tracks. Lawson had taken off in a truck. I’m not sure I’d ever been so disappointed not to shoot someone in my life.

  Out past the tracks was an outbuilding even more dilapidated than the mill. It was an open shed not quite deep enough to hide the front end of Levi Sharon Charger. I checked the car. It was empty and long cold. The second stall of the shed was taken up by an old International Harvester one-ton truck. It was crumpled up front and covered by a rotting tarp. It h
adn’t moved in years.

  On the far side of the shelter was a trailer stacked with five big logs. The truck that had towed the trailer was gone. There was a set of tracks partially covered by blown snow leading away around the back of the shed. Two trucks had been here. Both gone. E. Lawson was definitely one driver. The only other one I could think of was Levi Sharon.

  I turned away from the tracks and examined the logs on the trailer. They were all walnut. Probably the ones taken from Hosea Fisher. It was odd to see hunks of wood and imagine they were worth thousands each. I should have had them taken in as evidence. I didn’t. I had more anger in me than responsibility, and if I couldn’t shoot Lawson I could still hit him in a way to send a message.

  I went back to the mill and found a can of premixed chainsaw fuel. I emptied it on the stolen logs.

  Despite the warmth of the flames I didn’t linger. I did wonder if Lawson could see the rising column of smoke as I limped back to my truck.

  The big GMC fired right up. I didn’t drive. I didn’t do anything for a while except wait for the heater. When warm air flowed I opened my coat to let it in. I’m not sure, but I may have drifted off again. After a bit I had the presence of mind to use the radio. I called dispatch and issued a BOLO for Lawson. Then I put in a 10-7 code and took myself out of service.

  Before anyone could respond or tell me to do something else, I switched off the radio. I turned off my cell for good measure.

  There are times when all of us experience a lapse into autopilot. We do things by rote and without active thought while the mind works on other things. Usually we experience it in benign ways. A person might do the same commute every day, and one time you get home with no memory of anything since leaving work. I knew a mason once who worked all afternoon and suddenly realized he had no memory of laying out several courses of brick.

  A drunk’s autopilot can be different. Somehow the demon within can catch you napping and take over. It always follows the path to its own satisfaction.

  I was in the liquor store with a bottle of Wild Turkey in my hand when I realized what I was doing.

  I knew. I stepped up with the bottle and my cash anyway.

  “You sure about this?” the clerk asked me. I had more than one reputation in the county.

  “Don’t I look old enough?” My question carried a lot more anger than I wanted it to.

  “Hurricane—”

  “Don’t call me that. Just ring it up.”

  “Your uncle would have my skin nailed to the boathouse wall.”

  “You know Orson?”

  The man behind the counter nodded like it was an important question, then said, “I know you, too.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I’m not surprised. Last time I sold to you, you went on a jag.”

  “A jag?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t look away, either. The clerk stood his ground and held my gaze until I threw a twenty and a ten on the counter. I pointed at the cigar box sitting open in front of the register. “Put the change in the charity box so you don’t feel guilty.” I was ashamed of myself as soon as I said it. Shame didn’t stop me from walking out the door with my bottle in hand.

  Chapter 10

  There is a place I sometimes go to be alone. That’s the easy way to say it. Solitude is the last thing the spot offers. I go there to be away from the living. In the last couple of years, the ghosts that come to keep me company have grown in number.

  The spot is nothing. It is the bend of a rutted dirt road where I park. On one side is a fallow field and a border of woods along a creek. The other side is just as empty. There, an eroded wall of sandstone gives an illusion of solidity. Junipers, stunted but still green in the snow, dot the crags of rock.

  It is a special nowhere. Once, just a couple of years ago, a girl was murdered down by the creek. It was a difficult case. She was killed by another girl, someone she knew. That girl died in my arms at the same spot.

  That was my bottom, a place of tears and drinking. Regret is never a smooth road.

  Don’t be fooled when a drunk tells you they don’t choose the bottle. It is always a choice. It is the easiest, come-to-Jesus decision they can make in a world of hard options. I know that if I open the bottle, the pain in my body and my heart will mute down to an amber glow of warmth. It is not forgetting. It is embracing. Taking the drink would be a reaching-out to see my dead husband and my murdered father. I would see dead girls living. My own life would be resurrected if only for a short time. It is that time, that illusion, drunks like me reach for when they take the bottle.

  All illusions are cages. They lock us in and keep us separate from the truth.

  That’s what I was thinking in the hot cab of my truck, staring at the unopened bottle on my dash when Billy pulled up alongside me.

  It wasn’t a surprise. Billy knew me pretty well. He had sat with me in this spot and coaxed me through the bars of my cage before.

  I didn’t want him there. I couldn’t have borne it if he didn’t come.

  Billy opened the passenger door and got into my truck without saying anything. His gaze fixed on the Wild Turkey said everything.

  I looked away and wiped my eyes. When I turned back his hat was tilted down over his eyes and his arms crossed as if he was settling in for a nap.

  “You’re not going to say anything?” I asked.

  “Like what?” he answered from under the brim of his Stetson.

  “You don’t want to talk?”

  “I figure if you want to talk you will. If you don’t…” He did something that I assumed was a shrug.

  “That guy call you? The one from the liquor store?”

  “He called your uncle. Your uncle called me.”

  “You take Orson’s calls but not mine?”

  “Your uncle is a lot easier to talk to these days.”

  Billy made an exaggerated point of keeping his face down. At least I thought it was exaggerated—and a point. “You should take better care of your hat,” I said. “You let the snow melt on it.”

  “See now?” Billy asked. He took off the hat and sat up in the seat. For a moment he turned the hat like he was examining each spot. “That’s why we’re here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re always choosing the wrong thing to talk about.” He hung the Stetson on his knee then looked up, right into my eyes. He held his gaze there as he moved closer.

  When he leaned forward I thought for an instant that he was going to kiss me.

  He didn’t. Instead he took the bottle from my dash and opened it. Instantly the scent filled the truck. At least in my imagination.

  Billy put his nose to the bottle and smelled it.

  My mouth watered and my stomach churned. Even without the drink I felt the sensation of the warm liquid bloom. I could have gotten intoxicated just off the need and thought. I wanted to be drunk.

  “I haven’t had a drink since Nelson died,” Billy said.

  That stopped my slide into the dry drunk. “Why would you do that? You never even knew him that well.”

  “You needed someone in your life to be sober with, not just for.” Billy put his window down and poured the bottle out onto the snowy ground.

  I watched the liquid gurgle away, feeling angry. “Why don’t you pour your own drinks out?”

  “I have.” He put the window up and capped the empty bottle before dropping it onto the floorboard. “When was the last time you saw me with a soda cup?”

  He was right. Billy had a habit of carrying around one of those huge thermal mugs from the convenience store. Caffeine and sugar always seemed to be in his hand. I didn’t answer his question. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen the cup.

  “Ask the questions you really want to ask,” he said.

  “Were you involved with the girl
?” I didn’t plan to ask it. Not so soon. Not so bluntly. The thought wasn’t even in my mind. But once I asked it, I had to know. “Were you in a relationship with Rose Sharon?”

  “I knew Levi from the service. When I came here he asked me to watch over his sister.”

  “And?”

  “And I taught her guitar. And I wrote songs with her. And I told you all about it more than once.”

  That surprised me. “I would remember—”

  “When did I stop drinking soda?”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “I had a big, sugary drink in my hand all day, every day for how long? Not carrying it around because the voters thought it was a sign of youth and frivolity was a big change.”

  “Riley Yates called you Bill.”

  “People who had known me for years couldn’t vote for a Billy.”

  “I didn’t know…”

  “Knowing takes effort. Engagement.”

  “Things are complicated.”

  “You do your job,” he said. “You wrap yourself up in it, complications and all.”

  “That’s not fair.” I said. Then I hated the word and having said it.

  “Was that bottle going to be fair to you?” He waited.

  Every second of silence that passed was like a stone placed in my chest.

  “I keep running from…”

  “I know you keep running.” Billy spread his hands out in front of him as if the nothing between them were a gift. “I just don’t think you know what from.”

  I shook my head.

  “You know how I feel about you,” he said, without making it a question. “I think you tell yourself that’s one of the things you run from. I think it’s easier to back away from me and ignore my feelings than it is to admit that what you really run from are your feelings.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “You married a man you knew was dying after knowing him only a few weeks.” He let that sit for a moment, then asked, “How many women are in your life? The therapist doesn’t count.”

  I shook my head, but I couldn’t say what exactly I was denying.