‘Not out campaigning today?’ Claudia asked in a little too-bright tone from her end of the porch.
‘Oh, no, not today,’ Buddy said.
‘Over your cold yet?’ Claudia asked.
‘Mostly. Thank you.’ The door did not open any farther. ‘I don’t want to give my cold to y’all.’
David cleared his throat. ‘We don’t mind. Your boss is helping us with some inquiries. We’re reviewing when certain patients were transferred into your nursing home.’
Buddy opened the door a little wider, and over David’s shoulder Claudia could see his whole face now, round, soft, some slight scarring from old acne, a puzzled look. He wore surgical scrub pants, the kind she’d seen at the nursing home, a thick T-shirt. He slid his hand up along the locks set into the door.
‘Transfers? Gosh, all those records would be at Placid Harbor.’ He opened the door a little more. He was stronger than he looked, stocky, arms and chest thicker than she would have guessed from the hunched way he bore himself about town.
‘Okay, Mr Beere, would you mind stepping outside here for a moment?’ David asked. ‘So we can talk?’
‘Sure. Let me get my sandals. There’s splinters on that porch,’ Buddy Beere said, reaching by the door. ‘Just a second-’
David turned and took four steps toward Claudia, shrugging, a question forming on his lips: ‘You wanna ask…’ and then a blast of thunder exploded from the door. David fell, blood and flesh flying from his shoulder. Buddy Beere stepped entirely out of the door, bringing the shotgun around and up. Claudia threw herself off the porch as the barrel roared again and little meteors screamed past her, heat cutting near her throat, her hair.
She had no weapon. She scrabbled to her feet and ran for David’s cruiser. Another blast and the cruiser’s windshield dissolved into pixie dust. She was a clear shot in his sights. She swerved left hard, running low, putting the corner of the shanty garage between her and him.
Another blast, into the cruiser’s hood. He was laughing. No, giggling.
Mother of God, he’s killed David.
Claudia hunkered down by a corner of the weathered garage, trying to guess which approach he might take. There was a rifle and radio in David’s cruiser, but it was twenty feet away and she imagined Buddy Beere, the gun steady in his hands, watching for her to stick her head out as a sweet target.
The garage might offer a weapon, but once she went in, she would be pinned. The doors were antique, opening in the middle like a horse’s stall. Unlocked and slightly agape. Running across Buddy’s acreage offered little in the way of cover, beyond the motte of live oaks situated on the wrong side of the garage. To the other side seacoast bluestems grew thick but only thigh-high. Not enough. He could take a leisurely bead on her head and fire at will.
She heard the kick of his feet coming along the side of the garage, between her and the police cruiser. She made her choice.
She slipped inside the garage. It was neatly kept, small windows offering a hint of light. Tools were aligned along the back wall, a broom, a set of fishing tackle, an old sky-blue Volkswagen Beetle parked on the right side, cramped in the space. A trailer, carrying a small fishing skiff, was next to the Beetle. She hurried to the back of the garage, squeezing between car and boat. Her eyes ranged along the back wall of the garage: screwdrivers, wrenches, a pair of wicked-looking gardening shears.
‘Claudia?’ she heard Buddy’s voice ask. He said it Clau-di-a, the honeyed singsong a child might use in playing hide-and-seek, hoping to lure a playmate into the open. She grabbed the gardening shears and hunkered down behind the skiff; it offered the most immediate cover. But it gave her the least room to run or fight. She crouched, the shears heavy in her hands.
Shot pummeled through the doors, just in case she’d been hiding there. Sunlight glowed through the frail, splintered wood. Silence followed, and she saw one of the doors creak open.
‘You know,’ Buddy said, almost conversationally to the empty air, ‘John Wayne Gacy invited the surveillance cops to breakfast at his house. That’s when they noticed the funny smell and found a basement full of dead boys. I always thought he should have killed the cops – how stupid just to cave. Dennis Nilsen pointed to where the chopped-up remains of his darlings were when the police came knocking. He should have at least killed those cops, gone out with a bang.’
Kneeling, breathing through an open mouth, she saw his feet paddle past the other side of the Beetle. ‘Come out now,’ he called. ‘I don’t want to shoot up my nice car and boat, and I’ll make it quick.’
She didn’t move.
‘That other cop, he’s messy but still breathing. Come out or maybe I go back up there and make sure he stops.’
She didn’t move. He began to walk toward the back wall. A few more steps and he would be able to spot her. She braced herself.
As he turned, the barrel swiveling toward the ground, she launched herself up, slamming her forearm against the blued bottom of the shotgun’s barrel. It swept right, exploding, cannonading into the garage wall. She pistoned her legs, driving Buddy hard into the side wall of the garage. She dropped the shears, both hands grabbing hold of the shotgun, trying to wrest it away.
He slammed the shotgun barrel against her head, hard, twice, stars and sharp pain blurring her vision. Shoving up with her arms, she got the gun above her head and powered her knee square into his gut.
He squirmed back, gasping, still holding the gun, and she kicked, hammering him in the mouth. Teeth broke and lips opened under her boot’s heel. Buddy staggered back, blood bursting from his torn mouth. She pulled hard on the shotgun. It discharged once more in the air, deafening in the small space of the garage.
With a scream he yanked the weapon free from her grasp and swung it at her head. She fell to her knees, ducking, taking the blow on her shoulder. He pulled the gun back to its firing stance, squeezed.
Nothing.
Empty, jammed, she thought. Buddy charged at her, raising the Model 870 like a club, and she plowed back into him, knocking him to the dirt floor. She scooped up the fallen shears and vaulted into the narrow skiff to clamber toward the garage doors. He rammed the side of the light boat with his body, and she fell from the prow, diving headfirst, scraping her back against the trailer hitch, hitting the hard-packed dirt. The shears were beneath her and she twisted, trying to free them from her own weight. She saw Buddy squeezing through the narrowed space between the tipped boat and the Volkswagen. He tried to vault it, land on top of her, but he tumbled headfirst as she scrabbled out from underneath the boat.
He grabbed her ankle.
Claudia screamed, trying to kick him again. He tugged her back toward him, the shears slipped from her grasp, and she saw him pull a long brightness from a shoulder sheath. Bowie knife.
He slammed the knife into her calf, and she screamed her throat raw in one second. She felt her own flesh tearing, the knife colder than ice. She kicked hard with the other leg, impacting collarbone, and pushed away, frantically grabbing for the shears. She smelled her own blood as her fingers closed around the shears’ handle. Pain – beyond pain – raced along every nerve in her body.
He lifted the knife from her flesh.
‘Quit fighting, quit fighting!’ he yelled. He climbed on top of her and lifted the reddened knife. Claudia rammed the shears into his gut, hard, feeling Buddy Beere’s innards part before the points. She surged to a sitting position as she pushed, felt the blades slide along rib bone, and the shears vanished into him, all the way to the hafts.
Her face was an inch from his. She felt the bowie tear into her shirt below her arm, the blade catch in the fabric, its edge whisper along her skin.
Buddy did not scream. He fell away from her, hands slapping the shears’ smooth handles. Blood seeped from him and she crab-crawled backward, smelling his blood, her blood, kicking the dirt between them. Buddy lay on his side, blinking at her, mewling.