A Killing Secret

by Robert E. Dunn

  “Down here.” Billy pointed to the floor.

  There was an eyebolt lying on the tattered shag carpet. Still linked to it was a hook, onto which was tied a thick monofilament line.

  “See the hook?” Billy said. “When leaving, you can hold the door open just enough to put it over the eyebolt. When you come back, you can get your finger in enough to unhook it. But if you don’t know it’s there…”

  We both entered the room with small, careful steps. Once we were inside, the flashlight beam found the other end of the fishing line. It was tied to a bit of emery paper that was tented over a bundle of stick matches and made tight with a rubber band. The matches were stuck in the mouth of a five-gallon gas can and secured with electrical tape.

  “A booby trap,” I said.

  “Or an evidence cleaner,” Billy said. “Maybe both. Open the door and the paper is pulled away. The rubber band makes sure it stays tight and gives enough friction to strike the match heads. That gas would go up pretty quick.”

  I shone my flashlight around the room. The paneling sagged. The furniture, what there was of it, came from another century. There was a couch and a chair covered in gold velour. They faced an ancient Zenith console TV with foil-wrapped rabbit ears. The kitchen was avocado-green appliances and orange wallpaper.

  “Or maybe they just didn’t want anyone seeing the ’70s decor.”

  I kept looking through the dark trailer. In case the switches might be booby-trapped too, and to keep from warning anyone approaching, we left the lights off. Billy cut the matches from the neck of the gas can then tossed it out into the snow.

  The bathroom was beige and moldy. I bypassed it and went for the two bedrooms at the back. The smaller one was filled with old tools, mostly chainsaws and axes. The master held an unmade bed. Two things stood out. Hanging over the edge of the sagging mattress was a lacy and expensive-looking bra. Draped over the bedpost was a necklace of silver squash flowers. I didn’t think it was much of a jump to assign ownership of both to Sissy Fisher.

  “Anything?” Billy asked from over my shoulder.

  “Sissy’s been here,” I said.

  “She owns the place.”

  “Ownership isn’t the issue.” I cast the flashlight beam around the walls and on the floor. There were piles of glossy magazines from the state tourism board and Branson chamber of commerce. There was one country music magazine lying open to a profile of Rose Sharon. It had a headline that proclaimed, “Going Places.” “Do you think it could be as simple as Sissy being jealous of Rose’s success?”

  “No,” Billy answered. “I don’t think there’s anything simple or even sensible about any of this.”

  Chapter 20

  We closed the trailer door, then slogged over our own tracks back to Billy’s waiting SUV.

  When the engine was running and the heater turned all the way up, Billy said, “No point in staying here, I guess.”

  “I know where Lawson is,” I said.

  “You do?”

  “Ever since I saw Sissy’s bra hanging on his bed.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “You remember how angry Hosea Fisher was in your office?”

  “Angry. Not entirely surprised.”

  “Not at all, I’m thinking.” I rubbed my hands together over the vent. “He wanted his own lawyer. Do you think he’s staying in the same house with Sissy now?”

  “I wouldn’t be.”

  “How do you want to handle it?” I asked. “Get everyone back together and storm the house? Or the two of us?”

  Billy stared out the windshield. It seemed he was considering my question. But when he turned to me he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I should have told you from the first, it was me with you in the back of that Humvee.”

  That was the last thing I expected or wanted to hear at the moment. “Is this the time for that conversation?”

  “What do you think, I’m going to get mushy and you’re going to miss your chance at Lawson? Or would you rather I never talk about it at all?”

  “Mushy?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I looked at my hands. “Yes—I do.”

  “We’ve been a part of each other’s lives for a while now.”

  “You’ve saved my life in more ways than one.”

  “You’re a woman worth fighting for.”

  “That’s—” I turned back to look at him. Billy’s bare gaze was waiting. Caught in his eyes, I hesitated. Then I looked out the window, expecting to see the snow. There was only my own reflection in the glass. “That’s probably the best thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think I have that kind of fight left in me.”

  “Oh,” was all I could think to say. My mind teetered. Billy was the one person not an old man who I was truly connected to. He was my tether to the real world and a literal lifeline. I had seen myself swimming away from him, but never imagined he would be taken out of my grasp. “What’s changed?”

  “Nothing. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

  Neither of us said anything for a moment, then Billy opened his door. “I’ve got to…” He thumbed back, pointing into the darkness. “Too much coffee and soda.”

  He climbed from the SUV and closed the door. I could see him in the mirror walking off toward my truck. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing without crying.

  I can’t say how long it was before the door opened, but Billy had changed his attitude. “Alright,” he said, settling into the seat. “You want to do this?”

  “The only thing I really want to do is sleep for a week, then wake up to find these few days were a bad dream.”

  “You don’t have to go,” he said. “I can handle things alone.”

  “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

  “I never thought I would.” His eyes looked a little manic. I thought he was going to laugh.

  “Are you sure you’re in the right frame of mind?” I asked.

  “No putting off a bad job,” he answered. “I’ll lead the way with my lights on. Think you can keep up?”

  “I can keep up.” I opened my door and dropped into the snow. “Are you sure you’re up to this? It’s been a long few days.”

  “It has been.” Billy’s eyes settled. He smiled and it was that warm, genuine smile that I always counted on. “You better get going. I’m not going to wait on you.” He dropped the transmission into reverse.

  I shut the door and went to my own truck.

  As soon as I cleared the back of the SUV, Billy started backing up. He twisted the wheel and all four tires gripped. They churned the snow, driving the vehicle over small trees. After being in the darkness so long, his brake and back-up lights seemed like fireworks bursting too close.

  As I climbed into my own cab, Billy turned on his emergency light bar. The skeletons danced with their shadows on bone-white snow.

  I started my truck.

  Billy was already behind me, cutting his wheels sharply to back onto the invisible path of dirt.

  In my rearview mirror I could see the SUV’s white back-up lights go out. The vehicle rolled a few feet forward and stopped.

  I didn’t wait for the heat. I popped the GMC’s transmission into reverse and pressed the gas. The truck moved, but at an awkward angle. It fought my steering. I stopped and tried again with the same result. Hitting the gas harder only made the problem worse.

  I got out of the truck to see if I could find a problem. Billy drove away up the path to the highway. Through the trees I saw his lights, rotating red and blue and flashing white strobes, diminish. They were quickly gone.

  I pulled out my flashlight. My right front tire was almost flat.
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br />   I crouched and looked closer. The cap was off the valve stem.

  Billy.

  I couldn’t find a hole. The stem was intact. He’d simply let the air out. I imagined him thinking I would have to call for help or wrestle for an hour changing the tire in the snow. I had another idea. In the compartment behind the back seat I kept emergency supplies. It took a few minutes to dig through the flares and chains and stand-up reflectors. In the very back, of course, was what I needed. Flat fixers are cans of compressed air with a sticky sealant to plug tire leaks. I had a two-pack.

  It took both cans and fifteen, cold, angry minutes, but I got the tire to a drivable pressure.

  On the slick, snow-packed asphalt I realized that “drivable” was a generous assessment. I gave so much of my attention to keeping the truck traveling straight that I neglected to call into dispatch. Billy needed backup.

  I finally thought to call it in when the county blacktop gave way to the suburban roads that wound through the Fishers’ neighborhood. Those streets were untreated and thick with drifts. There was no doubting the new tire tracks in the snow were Billy’s. I navigated by staying in his path and pulled out my phone. My hands were still stiff and cold from working to fill my tire. The touch screen wouldn’t even respond until I put a fingertip in my mouth to warm it. When it did respond, I punched the emergency button. When the 911 operator picked up, I told her to send all available units. As an additional thought, I told her to wake Calvin Walker and get him back on duty and out here.

  I dropped the phone in the seat and concentrated on staying in Billy’s tracks.

  I hadn’t stopped being angry. Maybe I had begun to understand. Billy had always walked a fine line between protecting me from my own worst impulses and supporting my best ones. More than anyone, he understood the line was blurry in my eyes. He would never have shamed me by ordering me away or telling me to my face that I couldn’t handle Lawson.

  I decided I wouldn’t shame him by kicking his ass in public. It would be a private exercise.

  Anger and resentment went out the window when I rounded the last bend. Billy’s SUV was parked at a sharp angle cutting across the yard and driveway. The emergency lights rotated in a garish blue-red wash that colored the white night. The clear strobes were bright shots of light that froze every movement into a jerky old-movie stutter.

  Caught, center frame, in brutal combat were E. Lawson and Billy. Standing on the porch, clutching at a thin gown, was Sissy.

  The most startling part of the entire scene was the change in Sissy Fisher. She looked smaller without her costumes. The bruises on her face and bare arms diminished her as well.

  I slid to a stop in the yard, my headlights focused like hot spots on Sissy. Her hands were clutched tightly under her breasts and where they pulled the fabric tight, more contusions showed through the thin white cloth.

  For the first time I felt sorry for Sissy Fisher. But the only way to help her was to get Lawson into custody.

  Billy was doing a good job. But it hadn’t started that way. The fact that Billy wasn’t holding the bigger man at gunpoint was the obvious problem. Billy’s weapon wasn’t on his belt either. Lawson had caught him by surprise and disarmed him.

  I was not at the same disadvantage.

  I pulled my 9mm as I climbed down from the truck. I stalked through the snow, leading with it in both hands. Using my best command voice I shouted, “Lawson! Stop where you are. Down on the ground.”

  He stopped.

  That was the moment it was clear that Billy wasn’t doing as well as I thought.

  Lawson’s huge right hand was still gripping Billy by the trapezius. His left was fisted and poised to strike.

  Billy was looking ragged. His breath was coming in deep gulps through his bloody mouth. His left arm was dangling with an extra bend in the middle of the forearm. Despite Lawson’s notice of my weapon, the force of the grip on Billy’s shoulder didn’t look to be letting up.

  Billy grimaced silently as he was forced lower.

  “Release him! Step away!” I commanded.

  Lawson opened his fisted left hand and lowered it. At the same time, he grinned as if the fight was all in fun.

  “Step away!” I commanded again.

  His hand slid down Billy’s shoulder and arm.

  “Don’t!” Billy tried to pull his arm away. He didn’t make it.

  Lawson clenched Billy’s injured arm in crowbar-like fingers and lifted.

  Billy looked as if he needed to scream. He didn’t.

  With Billy’s body blocking my shot, Lawson grinned even wider. “A broken arm is a painful thing,” he gloated.

  I raised my aim. Lawson was too big to hide entirely behind Billy. “A bullet between the eyes isn’t,” I said. “But it’s a terminal thing.”

  Lawson’s expression faltered. Then his grin returned.

  Billy shouted, “Behind—”

  He was cut off by the cracking sound of a small-caliber shot. The bullet came so close to the side of my face I heard the buzzing flight and felt a tingling heat.

  I turned.

  Sissy was holding a small automatic. It was still aimed at me.

  I fired a single shot that burst through the bony chest above her right breast. She fell back, then bounced against the door before she tumbled forward. The last drop was slow—as if gravity didn’t work the same on her.

  “Katrina!” Billy shouted another warning.

  It was too late. Lawson hit my back like a windshield hits a june bug. My weapon flew. My face plowed a furrow in the frozen powder.

  I got up, scrambling for my pistol. I found it. I turned in a crouch, hoping the 9mm would function. Billy was already staggering toward me. Sissy was in the snow gasping for lost breath. My truck was on the road, its taillights fading.

  Lawson was getting away.

  “Get my kit,” Billy shouted. He dragged himself past me and to Sissy.

  I slogged to the SUV, still dizzy with the new kinds of pain invading every bone.

  “Go after him,” Billy said when I dropped the kit beside Sissy.

  She was looking cyanotic. Her breath was quick and shallow, like she was stealing each one from the air. When she exhaled, the vapor puffed in little clots of wind that lost their heat almost instantly.

  Billy jerked the med kit open and grabbed what he needed without looking.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “What can you do here? Backup and an ambulance are coming. Take the SUV.”

  “Can you help Sissy?”

  “She’s bleeding into the pleural cavity. Her lungs can’t expand properly. I have to drain the blood.”

  “I can—”

  “What? Put in a chest tube?” He looked up at me, just for a second. Just long enough for me to know he had his part under control. And he trusted me to handle mine. “Go.”

  I didn’t wait to be talked out of it. I did stop at the vehicle’s open door to clear my weapon.

  Chapter 21

  Lawson’s fresh tracks slalomed in the unplowed road. They led the same direction I had come in until the county highway. There they turned south. For a few miles I sped faster than I knew him to be able. Every so often I saw the lights of my big GMC ahead. I was closing the gap.

  Around one bend there was a flashing of yellow emergency lights. Headlights pointed from a ditch into the sky. A tow truck was off the road. I didn’t think it was an accident.

  I stopped to ask the driver what had happened.

  “I was forced off by some son of a bitch in a pickup,” he shouted over his engine and mine. “He did it on purpose. Came right at me.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “We’ll see about the truck. You after that guy?”

  “Damn right I am,” I answered, then drove on.

 
; I used the vehicle radio to call in my position and where to find the tow truck operator. I asked for anyone not helping Billy to back me up. On a night with a deep winter weather hazard, that didn’t leave many.

  The road constricted as I got farther from the main towns. I followed the erratic tire trenches left in the snow until I met a snowplow coming the other way on the top of a hill. I gave way to let it pass. When I started moving again, the tracks I had followed were mostly eradicated.

  I knew there was an unmarked farm road ahead. If I was trying to evade someone it was the way I would go.

  I slowed.

  The plow had mounded slush over the road entrance. Beyond it there were tracks.

  I knew where this road led and I assumed Lawson did too. I knew for a fact he’d been there before.

  Sure enough, at the next intersection he’d turned right. That set him on the same hilly road that went directly in front of where Rose Sharon had been murdered.

  People tend to romanticize crime. It’s a way of giving reason to the unexplainable. Most of us can’t fathom the black morass required to allow a soul to kill or brutalize. We want there to be rules even for those who show no connection to humanity.

  I knew better through experience. I never for a moment thought that Lawson was on that road due to any deep psychological relationship with Rose’s death. It was much simpler than that. The hills and valleys of the road were dangerous at the best of times. In nighttime snow, it was like a bobsled track lined with trees.

  The first hill had an easy rise that I took at a slowing coast. On the other side I saw a raked skid that slipped over into the ditch before straightening out. Lawson had lost speed and all the advantage he thought he’d gained by ignoring caution. I could see his taillights sinking over the next rise.

  I pushed hard again, knowing that the SUV with four good tires had the edge over the truck with a front end out of balance.

  The next hill was steeper on both sides. The rise was sharp and the top was narrow. I wasn’t going fast enough to catch air, but the SUV did lose traction. The steering went loose and the back end came around to the right.