A Killing Secret

by Robert E. Dunn

  I slid down the hill sideways.

  At least I stayed on the road. Ahead of me, on the up side of the valley, Lawson was grinding his tires in the ditch. All four of them were spitting snow and mud.

  I turned the wheel to no effect. I let off the gas and waited. Eventually some magic formula of traction and speed was reached. The SUV righted and I hit the gas again.

  I hit it hard.

  This time when I topped the hill I was going dangerously fast. I caught up to Lawson. My headlights illuminated him in the truck cab, furiously working at the wheel for control.

  He got it, or got enough. We didn’t collide. No thanks to either of us. We both went sideways. The vehicles spun around an invisible point of gravity until we were alongside each other skidding to the bottom.

  Both of us were pointed more to the fencerows than the road. I saw the GMC shudder with effort and all the tires again spinning rooster tails of snow. He twisted the wheel my direction. I thought he was trying to ram me.

  He missed.

  My tires slid off the slick pavement and onto the dirt shoulder. The change pulled me around and toward the ditch. At the same time, the power he was applying spun Lawson’s back end around. He ended up facing the right direction and running up hill.

  I ended up facing backward and sinking into the ditch. There wasn’t even time to curse. I dropped the SUV into 4x4 low and punched it. It grabbed traction and lurched forward. I kept the gas down and whipped the wheel over.

  The transmission groaned unhappily as I kept the pressure up. When I was facing the right way I stopped long enough to move up to 4x4 hi. My foot was on the floor still when I hit the hilltop. I jerked it away when my hood dropped forward on the deep hill and I saw my truck at the bottom. It was stopped sideways. It had slid into a deep drift. Snow was piled up to the window on the far side.

  Lawson couldn’t get out his door. He had climbed over the seat and out the passenger side. The door was still standing open.

  I got the SUV stopped without hitting my own truck. It wasn’t pretty.

  The radio squawked. Dispatch asked my 20.

  I gave my position and warned them about the jam-up. Before getting out of the SUV, I pulled my weapon. Once more I checked it. When I stepped out, I left my coat open so I could get to the extra magazines and my telescoping baton if I needed to.

  All night long the wind had been sharp as broken glass. It died. The air cleared of the crystalline specks that had been swirling.

  The lights on my truck were still on. I left the light bar on the sheriff’s vehicle going as well. I stood in a dancing pool of light that made the darkness beyond seem that much deeper.

  I walked with my weapon extended, taking a long circle around the front of my truck. There was nothing on the far side but footprints.

  I followed them up the hill.

  Lawson had gone straight up the center of the road. I edged over to the shoulder. Under the snow, dirt gave a better grip for my boots.

  I knew it was a good choice when, near the top of the hill, I saw where he had fallen. There was a muddle of prints where he had struggled to his feet.

  I approached the top, trying to recall how many of the hills we had passed. Is this the last one? Is there one more? I paused to take a breath. It was like breathing razor blades. Below me, the lights on the vehicles made an almost cheerful scene.

  I didn’t linger.

  It was the final rise. At the top I could see the gentle straightaway slope. And in the distance were the lights of parked cars.

  It had never occurred to me that the barbed wire memorial for Rose Sharon would have visitors in this weather.

  A shadow moved between the distant lights and my eyes. Lawson.

  I would have run if I could. My body refused the order and my lungs laughed at the thought. So I marched, high-stepping slow but steady. I could only hope that Lawson was as tired as I was.

  It seemed futile. The man was a beast.

  As I approached I heard voices. One bellowed and cursed. The others were meek objections. Kids.

  Someone, a girl, screamed. In pain or terror, I couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. I broke through my own body’s resistance and ran. It was still more of a high-step jog. It got me there as Lawson was folding himself into the same little beat-up car I had first seen the day this all began.

  “Stop!” I commanded. The force of the word tore at my cold throat. “Get out of the car! You kids move away.”

  The young people complied, moving away from the car and closer to the paper flowers and saint candles. Lawson didn’t. He shoved the key in the car’s ignition and twisted.

  The starter gave one feeble turn then died.

  I would have smiled if I had it in me.

  Lawson got out of the car. He looked over at the knot of kids huddled around the shrine.

  “Run!” I screamed at them. “Don’t let him get close to you.”

  They scattered into the surrounding darkness. Some made it to cars that had working batteries.

  E. Lawson and I stood alone by the memorial. He looked it over, then spat.

  “I never understood shit like this,” he said. His speech was still a mess, but I understood the words. It helped if I didn’t look at his mouth. “A pile of trash by the road. It’s supposed to mean something? It’s supposed to make anyone feel better for being dead?”

  “You’re under arrest,” I said.

  He raised his hands. “Then come put the cuffs on me.” His smile was a challenge and a dismissal.

  “On the ground, hands behind your back.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I didn’t either.”

  He took a small step forward.

  “You need to stay where you are.” I didn’t command. I didn’t even try to make it a warning. It was simply information.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked. “Shoot an unarmed man?” He stepped again.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He hesitated. “I believe you would.”

  “I’d just as soon you didn’t believe me. Come on ahead.”

  “You’re a wild one. Frozen inside—deeper than all this weather. Harder than heartwood.” Lawson eased forward again.

  “You’re coming,” I said. “Good.”

  “I don’t think you’re the killer you claim.” He stepped. “I think you’re just another frigid bitch in a cold, cold world.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I called you a bitch—you’re glad to hear it?” Another step. His arms sagged slightly.

  “I’m glad you think I’m not a killer.”

  “Why?”

  “It means you’re going to try.”

  “Oh?” Lawson looked around like he was playing Simon Legree on ice. “Try what?”

  He was a cartoon villain with one note. All his power was muscle and threat. He could no more put together intricate thoughts than a spider could spin an atom bomb.

  “Sissy was in charge all along, wasn’t she?” I asked.

  “She was in charge every time I beat her down like a dog. She was in charge every time I took her into my bed and spread her legs.” He lowered his arms a fraction more.

  “She was afraid of you. I don’t doubt that. But she made the plans. She had the needs that you fulfilled.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “How long has she been using you?”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “How did you feel when she went home to a husband who gave her a nice house and glamorous job?”

  “How did he feel? How do you think he felt when she went home with my marks and my smell on her? Do you think he ever imagined her on her knees? What do you think—”

  “Did she ever tell you Donny was yours?”

  “Not true. The lit
tle faggot was his.”

  “She took a DNA test. Donny is your son.”

  “You’re lying.” Lawson’s hands were down and clenched by his sides. He crouched with one foot back, ready to spring.

  “That’s gotta dig like barbed wire in your head,” I said. “She used you to build her little musical troop and didn’t even tell you one was your own son.”

  I kept watching Lawson, holding my 9mm in the two-handed grip. My stance was open with my feet set wide. My finger was on the trigger, already applying a few ounces of pressure. I was ready.

  Lawson dropped his hands. He stood straight, then turned his head to the left so he was looking at me with the one good eye. It was narrow with suspicion. “All that can’t be.” He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself more than me.

  “Think about it, Lawson. Whose idea was it to kill Matthew and Cheryl Sharon? Who sent Levi to you and kept the girl for herself?”

  “Those were things I did for her. To make her happy. She wanted her own kind of Partridge Family like on TV.”

  “What did you get out of it?”

  “Sissy was mine—is mine.” His voice had lost its strength. Lawson’s one clear eye filled with doubt. “It was about stickin’ it to Hosea. Taking his trees and his precious money.”

  “Think about it, Lawson. You spent a lifetime killing for her—running her errands—and you never even knew what it was all about.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong.” Lawson nodded his head, then reached up to push the blowing hair out of his face. “It was over. And it was me she wanted to be with. I was taking a lot of trees. She was taking cash from Hosea and the theater. We were running off and doin’ it together.”

  “Why was it over?”

  “The boy and the girl. Both of ’em screwed us.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sissy had papers made up for a whole Rose and Donny show. Then the girl started pullin’ away and gettin’ too big. Sissy told Donny to fix it.”

  “Fix it?”

  “Fuck her. Beat her. Marry her. Whatever it took.”

  The words were hot coals poured down my throat. My chest caught fire. My gut boiled. “Donny?”

  “I swear to God the boy cried more than the bitch did.”

  “Donny is gay.”

  “What do you think Sissy was trying to fix?” He looked at me with new intensity.

  I got the weird feeling he was seeing me through the ruined lens of his clouded left eye.

  “Why did she kill Rose?”

  “The girl was already singin’ about it. How long till she was talkin’? She was friendly with the new sheriff. She had to go.”

  My arms were shaking. My spread legs were trembling. It wasn’t the time or the cold. Lawson looked like he might actually be spent.

  It was possible I could talk him into cuffs if I kept taking it easy.

  To hell with that.

  “Get on your knees!” I commanded.

  Instantly, Lawson clenched his hands into sledgehammer-size fists. He crouched again, ready to strike.

  Good.

  “Down! Put your hands behind your back.”

  “I don’t take orders from a bitch.”

  “Then one of us has a problem.”

  Lawson lunged. He charged like a one-man stampede.

  I let him come.

  He kicked snow into the clear air. When he was close enough, I saw death and understanding in his eye.

  I emptied my magazine into his chest.

  E. Lawson was already dead when his body fell on top of me. I rolled with the fall so he didn’t pin me in bloody snow. But I didn’t get up until Calvin Walker arrived. He offered his hand and helped me pull my legs from under Lawson.

  Because of the blocked road, deputies had taken the long way around to reach us. Calvin apologized for the time it took. I told him everything was all right. Then asked if he had a lighter.

  He dug a book of matches out of his pocket and handed them over.

  I made my way through the tramped snow and crowd of deputies’ vehicles to the small shrine lined up along the barbed wire.

  Two of the glass saint candles had gone out. I lit each one and replaced them in the snowdrift.

  Epilogue

  Sissy Fisher survived. She lived to wish she hadn’t. Landis Tau did a great job trying to push all responsibility onto E. Lawson. It simply didn’t fit. The worst part of it was the obligatory parading of her abuse at the hands of the man she manipulated for years. Maybe what she did was defense against a bad situation she had gotten into. Maybe it was part of her plan all along. Deeper truths often get lost in facts. And the facts were that she had coordinated a nightmare life for three young people all to satisfy some weird fantasy of a family band and record deal.

  In the end, it was her own son and his guilt that burned down all the excuses. Sissy was sentenced to spend the rest of her life up in Chillicothe. She was lucky to get the new prison. Not so lucky to be slender and pretty and the famous, rich bitch who murdered a girl many of the inmates identified with. Donny admitted to his part, which included raping Rose. He served five and got out on good behavior. The wound in his throat made sure he never sang again.

  Tom Dugan testified as well. He had been harassing and stalking Rose. He turned out to have known what Donny did. He used a young girl’s shame and pain to pressure her into sleeping with him. That was a record he would never be able to hide from.

  Chuck Benson made it out of the hospital in a few days. Billy made his assistant sheriff position permanent. Mostly I think to keep him out of trouble. I suggested to them that Deputy Calvin Walker needed more responsibility in the department. Billy bumped him up to fill our open detective position.

  Clare fixed the damage to the bar and Moonshines quietly reopened after a month.

  Uncle Orson didn’t bounce back as quickly as we hoped. It took him a week to wake up. It took another several weeks for him to walk. Insurance would have been an issue if Orson didn’t have a rich niece. I paid his bills and hired Julia Grieves away to be his personal nurse. Her job turned out to be reading to him as much as nursing him.

  Levi and Rose were buried together at a small cemetery in Hollister. A plot for her had been donated at a larger cemetery in the Branson city limits. Billy was the one who pushed hardest to keep them together. The service was held at the Ozarks Star Road Theater. It was attended by a famous Nashville artist who already had a huge hit with her version of Rose’s song. Tears flowed freely when Billy took the stage and played his guitar to accompany her. Together they sang:

  There’s a pew in the church where I carved your name

  It was a prayer written out and cast away

  The liberties you’ve taken are the heart of pain

  Now there’s nothing left that you can say

  Now there’s nothing left that you can say

  Hearts gave way to hands and rage

  And your rage turned my blue eyes black

  I wrote it all out and I burned the page

  But your promises kept coming back

  Bad promises keep coming back

  You came and stole what was mine to give

  You took a shot at my open heart

  I tried to keep a secret place for love to live

  But you broke me down and took it all apart

  When you took what wasn’t yours

  You took what wasn’t yours

  You had to show me what it means to be a man

  But you couldn’t stand in the light

  With a lie on your lips and harm in your hand

  You said love was a thief in the night

  You make love like a thief in the night

  There’s a place on my heart where you carved your name

  It’s a s
pot that’s gone cold and dead

  The promises you made have been all in vain

  Life is nothing more than the tears I’ve shed

  Let me show you all the tears I’ve shed

  You came and stole what was mine to give

  You took a shot at my open heart

  I tried to keep a secret place for love to live

  But you broke me down and took it all apart

  When you took what wasn’t yours

  You took what wasn’t yours

  * * * *

  It was a clear day and almost warm when I was restored to duty. The snow was gone and the blue skies were reflected in the lake waters. Spring was a real possibility in the world. I had used the time off to get Uncle Orson the care he needed and to do a lot of thinking. There were so many questions I had avoided for years. They couldn’t be ignored any longer. The only thing Orson had was the dock and bait shop. He couldn’t do all that work alone and I couldn’t see taking it away from him.

  There were other issues—other questions. I had options.

  What do I want?

  Who ever heard of a cop with a multimillion-dollar bank account?

  Money has nothing to do with it, does it? For me, the answer came in the form of a debt to be paid.

  Deputy David Webb called in his favor a month after he’d helped me locate Jenifer Perry. By then I was already like a coyote in a trap, ready to chew my own leg off to get back to some kind of active work. David didn’t have to ask me twice.

  He was tracking a boy named Gary Wingo who David believed was in Taney county. He called me because the boy’s parents refused to cooperate. The school had called for a safety check when Gary stopped showing up and the parents turned belligerent. David needed me to quietly check the Leviticus Camp. Its real name was The Leviticus Sanctuary—The Rule and Rod of God. The walled and gated property was a dozen acres of Christian reeducation with a history of blindsiding kids and locking them away to pray away, or if that didn’t work, exorcise away the gay.

  It was a touchy issue. It was hard to call it an abduction because the parents were aware; they had even paid for it. On the other hand, Gary was seventeen and openly gay. He had obviously not chosen gay “conversion therapy.” I found him, but there wasn’t a lot I could do for him as a cop. I knew someone who could do something. And I kind of figured that Landis Tau owed me, too.