“Did you bring them back, are they here?”
“No Buster”, he replied, “we couldn’t. They have to stay where they are for just a little longer. We need to get the killer to go back on his own, to prove it was him.”
The chair protested loudly as Buster sat back and mulled this over for a moment before he nodded in agreement. Ed glanced at Linda, then back to the big man resting in his easy chair.
“Look”, he began, “whoever did this has taken Linda’s boy Josh. We think we know where he is but we’re going to need some help getting him back.”
Buster frowned at Linda. “Whatever it takes, I’ll help. What you want me to do?”
TWENTY-SIX
Joshua still had the sack pulled down over his head as he was pushed roughly into the building. He hadn’t made a noise, not a whimper since his abductor forced him into the pick-up truck. The boy was dragged into a stall and thrown down onto the cement floor. He could feel a rope being threaded around his arms and wrists then tied off. The smell of horses was strong, the touch of brittle old straw in his hands evidence enough to the boy that he was in a horse barn. He could hear the huffing of the man breathing deeply as he tied off the rope then the scuffling footsteps get fainter and a large door being closed as he was left alone. Josh made no move for many minutes, just lying on his side, his arms pulled behind him. When he was sure he was alone he tried to sit up but he felt shackled to the ground. He felt around until he could feel the end of the rope and the cold circle of steel fixed to the floor. He shuffled backwards so there was a little more slack then tried again to sit up, this time successfully. Now upright, he bent his head down and shook it ferociously. Within seconds the loose hood had fallen free, landing in his lap. Josh blinked, trying to focus his eyes, but it was almost pitch black. From where he sat he could just make out the wooden sides to the stall he was manacled in. Josh knew he wasn’t close to home, he had counted the seconds of how long he had been in his abductor’s vehicle and it had added up to at least thirty minutes. He had tried to keep up with the turns they had taken but he had lost track halfway through the journey but he had heard no cars passing at all so he guessed they were further out from town. He felt afraid and wanted to go home but his analytical mind raced through how he was going to get out of this. He wondered how his favourite TV character B A Baracus from the A-Team would handle it. He guessed BA would use his mighty strength to pull out the cemented steel ring but that wasn’t an option for Josh, he needed something cleverer. After some wiggling and rotating, the boy managed to get his backside then both legs through his arms so that his hands were now bound in front of him and not behind. Lying on his stomach he could now stretch much further and with his long legs could just about reach the end of the stall with his bare feet. There was nothing there; the stall was empty except for him. He stretched further and felt with his legs up the left side of the wood. He couldn’t reach up far but he felt nothing. He shuffled over to the other side and tried again. In the darkness, he felt the slim wooden handle of a farming implement leaning against the end of the stall. He could just about feel it with his big toe. He pushed up more, balancing on his left leg and gingerly managed to knock the handle towards him with his right. The handle made a sharp knock on the concrete as it toppled down. Josh froze, listening for footsteps. After a minute of waiting and holding his breathe he slowly exhaled and began to feel with his feet for where the tool had landed. It was close. Very slowly he used his feet to bring the tool closer to him, all the while hoping it was something sharp, not just a yard brush at the other end of the handle. The end scraped along the floor in the dark, it sounded like metal. His toes finally felt something cold, flat and hard at the other end of the handle. Definitely not a brush. Once the handle was in reach of his hands it was much easier. Josh managed to drag the tool up near his head. The steel end felt like a hoe but it didn’t feel that sharp. His fingers felt along the short blade. It felt dull and rusty but it was his best chance. He waited and listened to see if anyone was coming then rotated his body around so that he had the wall to his back and the steel ring in front of him. He manoeuvred the tool around so that he could hold the handle with his feet about halfway down the shaft, putting the blade near his hands. Josh began moving his out-turned palms up and down, sawing through the rope and tape that bound him.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Buster put the phone back in its cradle after a series of short calls and turned to his two accomplices. “I’s got some help from some folks, they’ll be here soon enough.”
“How many are coming Buster?” asked Ed.
“Eight, maybe nine. They ma closest friends, the ones I trust ya unnerstand?”
“That’s great, now have you got some plain paper and a pencil so that we can make a map while we’re waiting for them to come.”
Buster disappeared to the kitchen and moments later came back with some printer paper and a pen.
“Ain’t got no pencils hereabouts, this is about best I can do.”
“That’s perfect thank you Buster. Right, let’s get to work. Now you said you been up to his place to fix his car, that right?”
“Yassir, that’s about right, been there few times over the years. He owns Judge Jones’s old place. Ain’t got no neighbours as such, lives long ways from anyone out on the east side.”
Ed passed the pen to the big man. “Okay, we need a map, really basic, of where his house is from the road, any outbuildings, woods, fields or fences, stuff like that.”
Buster Benjamin took the pen in his huge hand and began to draw.
The group had swelled its ranks and now numbered ten. Buster’s friends had arrived in twos and threes, most carrying shotguns or hunting rifles and wearing either dark clothes or old combat and hunting gear. All but one was black and for the most part were farm hands, as well as two mechanics, a phone engineer and a dentist, aged from thirty-five to sixty. They packed into Buster’s kitchen, surrounding the well-worn but usable solid wood table that held the hand-drawn map. They all recognised Linda and nodded or said hello as they came in, but she stayed near the back, leaning against a chipped Formica worktop staring at the blue check curtains that ran in front of the window and back door, desperately trying and failing to ignore what the men were plotting, hoping against hope that her precious boy was still alive and not scared out of his poor gentle mind. Ed took control of the small group and soon ascertained that five of the friends had served in the military at some stage. Without going into too much detail about where he had found the information, Ed explained to the gathering what had happened to Grace and the other children, and to Linda’s son. When he told them who the culprit was the friends all stared at Buster in disbelief. He nodded that it was true, which seemed to be all the proof they needed.
“Shouldn’t we phone the Police, at least the state troopers?” asked John, the youngest of the group. The rest of the group looked at him, most with a patient expression. Buster answered for the rest, “We will, but not yet, this is our business, my business, Police wouldn’t help none as they wouldn’t believe us, an even if they did it would take too long. We got to get Miss Linda’s boy back, tonight, afor it’s too late.” The group nodded in agreement and eventually John nodded with them. “Okay, what do you want us to do?” he asked turning back to Ed.
“We’ve got to do two things, first off is to find Josh and get him back. Once he’s safe we need to get the murdering son of a bitch to go back to where he buried the kids, that’s the best way to prove to the authorities that he did it. They can look for more forensic evidence inside his place later. If we split into two groups, I’ll take one group up to where he lives, Linda, you take the others and wait around the clearing up in the hills.” The mention of her name brought her back to the present. “I want to go with you, to get Josh.”