Karen bustled the two younger boys out and glared at Jim. “We have a station wagon, you know.”
“I want the Olds. It’s more powerful in case we need it.”
“Why would we—”
“Get in, Karen,” he said in a tight voice. “You can argue with me later.”
She made a face, but got the boys into the back seat, then sat in the front and closed the door.
“Now, boys, I’m going to open the garage and back out. I want you all smooshed down in the seat, so no one knows you are there.”
“Daddy, what’s going on?” asked Johnny.
“Never you mind. Just do like Daddy says,” said Karen.
They dropped Paul off first and then Mike. At each stop, Jim went to the door and told the adults what had happened. When only the Cartwrights remained in the car, Jim drove to Cottonwood Vale and checked them into two rooms at the Holiday Inn.
16
Matt Greshin climbed the stairs to the second floor of the Holiday Inn in Cottonwood Vale, moving like a death row inmate on the way to his execution. The stress of the day had left him exhausted—beyond exhausted, in fact—and all he wanted was to sink into a comfortable chair and sleep. He’d also spent the afternoon sinking into the deepest, darkest depression of his life. Randy Fergusson was behind Bobby and Meredith Jefferson’s deaths—he knew it in his gut.
With a loud sigh, he knocked on room 295 and stood waiting, shoulders slumped, eyes on the ground. It was 11:15 pm, but Jim had wanted him to come no matter what time it was.
The door opened. “Come on in, Matt.”
Matt had never seen Jim Cartwright look so disheveled, so harried. “Thanks. Looks like your day went about as good as mine.” He stepped through the threshold and closed the door behind him.
Jim pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers and let the air gust from his lungs. “I haven’t had a great day, no. Even so, I bet yours was worse. Craig told me Bobby was shot. You two were close, and I’m sorry you’ve got to go through all this.”
Matt’s eyes swept the room. “Karen and the boys?”
“Next door. Registered under Karen’s sister’s name.”
Matt grunted. “Smart, though maybe not all that legal.”
“It is. I told the hotel I was paying, but to only use my name for billing. That makes it all good.”
“Huh. I’ll remember that next time I’m out chasing fugitives.” Jim motioned at one of the bright orange armchairs in the room and Matt sank into it with a sigh. “So tell me about this guy that shot at Benny.”
Jim arched his eyebrows. “You don’t want to talk to Benny?”
“Maybe later, right now I want to hear it from an adult’s perspective.”
Jim shrugged. “Benny, Mike Richards, and Paul Gerber were playing in the woods—war or commandos or whatever. They were sneaking up on an imaginary fort, and a bullet smacked into the tree next to Benny. When they looked around, they saw a guy up in a tree, talking to himself. The guy threw the rifle down, and the boys turned tail and ran.”
“Think Benny can lead me back to the tree?”
“Benny’s not going back into those woods, Matt.”
“I need to recover that slug from the tree. Could be important. Very important.”
“No way. Tomorrow morning, Benny’s on his way to Ohio for a while. Karen and the boys as well.”
Matt’s lips twitched. “Bobby and Meredith were shot with a hunting rifle, Jim. Two shooting events in or near the woods, both with a rifle? They’ve got to be related.”
“Okay, but I don’t want Benny—”
“It’s Randy Fergusson. Jim, I know it.”
“Fergusson?”
“That prick from the Burton house.”
Recognition splashed across Jim’s face like paint thrown from a bucket. “That little bastard!”
“Yeah, he is that,” said Matt in a weary tone. “Bobby, Craig, and I had a little chat with him the other night. We asked him about Toby, and after that, we encouraged him to seek other living arrangements far away from here. Bobby was…” Matt shook his head. “Bobby got a little hot under the collar, but the guy was a royal prick. At the end of the night, Fergusson made a few comments about coming back and getting us.” Matt rubbed his temples like he had a headache that wouldn’t quit. “Bobby called him out on it. Bobby told Fergusson to get started right there, to start with Bobby. Seems he did.”
“But why shoot at Benny?”
Matt shifted his position in the chair, looking anywhere but at Jim. “You have to understand, Jim. The guy was just flapping his gums. Or that’s what I thought, anyway—I mean, I’ve heard the same thing from a slew of perps, and it never amounted to anything but hot air. That’s why Bobby—”
“Matt,” said Jim in a tone he reserved for disciplining his boys.
“Yeah, sorry. This guy, Fergusson, he said he would get us all, and he said he would get you and Benny too.”
Jim flushed, eyes blazing. “And you didn’t think to warn me? You didn’t think it might be—oh, I don’t know—important?”
Matt looked at the floor. “I thought it was just talk. Bobby… Bobby gave Fergusson a little encouragement, you could say. He was bragging about beating up the kid, and so Bobby—”
“Beat up on Fergusson. That’s what you’re telling me, right?” Jim’s voice shook. “That’s why you didn’t tell me? To protect Bobby?”
“It’s not that…” Matt sighed. “Yeah. Bobby roughed him up a little. But the guy was an asshole.”
“You know I’ve never questioned your methods, Matt.” Jim looked away, but not before Matt saw the rage on his face.
“Yeah,” said Matt. “I’ve always appreciated—"
“And anyway, your methods are your business. I don’t care if some lowlife gets a bloody nose so you can get a confession. I really don’t.” The anger was gone from Jim’s voice, replaced by an icy calm. “But…”
“We put him on a bus, Jim. Told him not to come back.”
“Yeah, but it looks like he didn’t care. You should have told me, Matt. You put my life—Benny’s life—in danger. I can forgive everything else, but that…”
“I should have said something,” said Matt. “I fucked that up pretty well, didn’t I?”
Jim sat on the bed. “Yeah. So how are you going to fix it? This time, I want to know everything.”
“Okay, Jim, you got it. There’s not a lot of physical evidence at Bobby’s place. Fergusson approached through the woods—we found footprints leading to Bobby’s property. He rested the rifle in the crook of a tree and shot Bobby. I assume that was the gut shot because Fergusson came out of the woods and approached the little patio Meredith wanted. Plus, the second shot hit Bobby in the eye, and that would be a hell of a shot to make from any distance. And Meredith was inside when he shot her. She was bringing out a tray of drinks, and it looks like she turned to run, and the guy plugged her in at the base of the neck. No one could make that shot from the woods, the angles are all wrong.”
“That’s two precision shots,” said Jim.
Matt nodded. “I think the gut shot was on purpose. Disable him, but not kill him. Leave time for Bobby to see him—time to gloat a little.”
“What are the chances your average hunter could make those two shots?”
Matt shrugged. “Hard to say. We don’t know how close he came.”
Jim grunted.
Matt cleared his throat. “Gary Robbins is technically the sheriff until the next election.”
Jim groaned and shook his head. “Not good news.”
“No, it’s not—Gary’s good at administration, but he’s a terrible cop. He’s asked me to head up the investigation—unofficially, of course.”
“But aren’t the State Troopers supposed to investigate the murder of a sitting Sheriff?”
“Yeah, and they will, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll still be doing our own thing.”
“And they’ll be okay with that?”
/> “Are you kidding? They’ll bitch, moan, and threaten us, but Bobby was one of us.”
“Okay, as long as it doesn’t cause too many problems.” Jim looked at him. “What’s next?”
“Next, I do a bit of police work and find out where Fergusson is staying. I’ll start by talking to Candy Burton. After that, I’ll be calling hotels in the area.”
“What about Benny?”
“I wish I could say that he’s out of any danger, but…”
“But you can’t.” Jim’s voice was bleak.
“But I can’t,” agreed Matt. “Same goes for you, Jim.”
Jim shook his head. “Yeah, but I’m not eleven.”
“No, you are not, but dead is dead no matter how old your death certificate says you are.”
“What are you telling me, Matt? To leave? To tuck my tail between my legs and scamper off somewhere? You want me to teach my boys to run from danger?”
Matt’s face tensed and his eyes narrowed. “Yes. You too proud to take precautions? You want your boys to grow up without a dad? Teach them to be smart.”
Jim sobered. “How long do you recommend we stay away?”
Matt shrugged and got to his feet. “Not long. Fergusson’s not all there anymore if you know what I mean. It’s possible our little chat with him broke his brain the rest of the way. Psychotic.” Matt shrugged. “He ain’t going to give any thought to concealing himself or his actions.”
“Okay, then. We’ll head to Ohio tomorrow—as a family. I’ll call you to give you the phone number when I have it.”
“You do that,” said Matt. “I’ve got to get over to the Burton place, and you need to sleep.”
Jim shook his head. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”
“Yeah, well.” Matt patted him on the shoulder feeling awkward and clumsy.
Chapter 4
2007
1
Tobias shuffled to the dayroom, head spinning. The new medicine they had him on, Seroquel, seemed to be working—as well as anything did, anyway—but living with his head stuffed in a bag of packing peanuts annoyed him.
Tobias wasn’t what his mother had named him, but he’d given that name to his best friend. His friend had gotten out of the hell-hole that still housed Tobias, but he had needed a new name, so… Doesn’t bear thinking about, he told himself. It had been many, many years since all that went down.
The television chattered on, as always. Tobias glanced at it, but he didn’t care for television. They never showed cartoons anymore, not even on Saturday morning. A Star Trek rerun blathered on, and as usual, drooling or vacant-eyed patients lounged in the three-quarters full dayroom.
Tobias shuffled through the room, into the activities room—a large, square room with narrow windows on the two outside walls. Narrow so none of the wing-nuts could break them and escape. Under each window sat a small wooden table and three wooden chairs—three being the magic number of crackpots who could sit together without inciting a riot. A shelf full of ten-year-old magazines, a few puzzles, and a couple of chess sets accounted for everything the room offered in the way of activities, but to the few patients who eschewed television, it was a refuge. It offered a space to sit and think without being bothered by all that yapping from the other room, alone or in pairs if you could find a patient who didn’t have a manic compulsion to talk.
Tobias shuffled to his normal table in the corner between the two outside walls. It had only two chairs—no room for three people at that table—and if he put his feet up in the other chair, the chances of solitude increased by at least a factor of ten, unless you accounted for the non-real people in the room; they sat wherever they wanted.
He sank into the chair, facing one of the windows, and pulled the other chair out and put up his feet. Old, torn magazines from the shelves littered the table. Tobias had found that if he had a magazine open in front of him, none of the staff members gave his moving lips a second thought. They all assumed he was reading, though Tobias wasn’t sure he remembered how to read.
He remembered how to travel, however. Not with his body, with his mind. He visited Oneka Falls, though none of his family lived there anymore. Not since…not since…
He shook his head to break his train of thought. He didn’t want to remember that. Not ever.
“Hey, Toby!” called one of the orderlies.
Tobias lifted his hand in what he hoped looked like an absent-minded wave. It didn’t pay to talk to those assholes. No, not one bit. He didn’t even bother to learn their names anymore.
“You doing okay, Toby?”
Tobias nodded and lifted his hand again.
“Anything you want to talk about?”
Fuck! The guy was heading over. Must be new. Tobias shook his head and lifted his hand.
“Hey Toby, can you tell me the day?”
When is he going to catch on? Tobias’ chart listed him as non-verbal, but every once in a while, a new guy came to work at Millvale State Hospital who thought Tobias would snap out of it if only the staffer could find the right topic of conversation. The weeks it took for newbies to become disillusioned with the idea caused any number of headaches—for Tobias, if not the orderly. Tobias lifted his hand and turned slightly in the chair, showing the orderly his back.
“How about the President? Can you tell me who the President is?”
Tobias didn’t respond, not even his patented go-away wave.
“Okay, okay, that’s a hard one. Let’s go to something simple. Can you tell me where you are?”
For fuck’s sake, asshole! Don’t you understand what non-verbal means? Tobias spun in his chair and looked at the guy: tall, blond, lively face—happy face. Tobias hated him already, and he stared at the guy with dead eyes.
“So, my name’s Sam. I’m new here.”
No shit.
“Don’t talk much, do you?”
Which part of non-verbal confuses you?
“Since I’ve got to be here, and you’ve got to be here, we might as well shoot the shit. How’s that sound?”
It sounds about as fun as hitting myself in the face repeatedly with a brazier of burning coals. Why don’t you leave me alone?
“Well, lucky for you, Toby, I like to talk. I can talk enough for two any day of the week.”
For fuck’s sake…
“Do you like sports? I do. I like them all: football, basketball, baseball, hockey, boxing, MMA, you name it.”
How about I don’t?
“Listen, I’m working this weekend. If you tell me what sports you like, I’ll make sure to turn the TV to a game or whatever. All you have to do is say the word.”
Tobias bent his head and pressed his palms over his ears.
“Hey, no pressure,” said the idiot. “How about this weather? When was the last time you saw a summer as chilly as this past one?”
Uh, never? I’ve been locked up since the year I turned eleven, numb nuts. Thanks for bringing that up though. Why don’t you fuck off and die?
The idiot grabbed a chair from another table and pulled it over. “Mind if I join you for a while?”
Tobias looked around, desperate for one of the regular staffers to save him. They were never around when you needed them, though, and no one was nearby.
“I see you like to put your feet up in that chair. You know what? I don’t think it’s about putting your feet up at all. No, sir. It’s about keeping people away.”
You don’t say? What was your first clue?
“Life is better when you’re not by yourself, though, Toby. Know that?”
A rumbling sounded deep in Tobias’s chest. At first, he didn’t realize he was making an actual sound, he thought it was only a vibration. His hands curled into tight fists under the table, and blood pounded in his ears.
“So, even if you don’t want to talk, I’ll be here. Happy to sit with you. Happy to carry the conversation until you are more comfortable. I’m here to help.”
The rumbling in his chest turned into
a growl, and when he parted his lips, into a snarl. He lurched to his feet, and the idiot’s eyes opened wide. The idiot had his hands up in front of his face, which Tobias thought was strange, melodramatic, overkill.
The orderly opened his mouth to say something, and Tobias brought the heavy wooden chair down with all his strength.
2
Shannon Bertram knew better, but knowing better doesn’t help in matters of the heart. She waited in the parking lot after work, waited for Mike Richards—not that he even noticed her—she might as well be a piece of furniture; and not that she would talk to him if he did.
Her little blue car bored even her—as unremarkable as she was. Pale blue, small, and cheap. Not one employee coming out of the Town Hall even looked her way as they came out and jumped in their pretty cars.
When Mike pushed through the door at 5:15, her heart leapt into her throat. His face displayed an expression it often wore these days—an expression that spoke of a headache, frustration, and the want of a drink. Maybe the need for a drink.
She wanted to leap from the car and run to him, to soothe his frustration, to put her arm around his shoulders and to tell him it would be okay, to steer him over to her car and drive him to her tiny, unremarkable apartment, and—
She cut off that thought, cheeks blazing with intense heat. None of it will happen, so why get all worked up? she thought. No, tonight would be like all the other nights she’d waited outside for Mike: she’d follow him discreetly, parking where he stopped to drink, getting fast food while he went into the watering hole, waiting for him to come out and stumble to his car, then following him to wherever he was going at the end of his evening. She told herself it was to look out for Mike, to keep him from getting in trouble, to keep him safe.
The Chief’s cruiser wheezed to life, and Shannon turned the key in her ignition. When Mike squealed out of the parking lot, she waited for thirty seconds by the clock on the lock screen of her phone, and then pulled out of the lot.
Mike’s car was heading south from the town’s only stoplight, and Shannon rushed to follow. There were seven bars in Oneka Falls, which was remarkable for a town of only eleven hundred people. South of the light, there were three choices, Draughts Men, The Trough, and Lumber Jack’s.
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