Kevin stood in the cool shade of the elm trees and felt the heaviness of the backpack. Reached inside. Curled his fingers around the solid holster, Velcro scratching against his palm. He knew exactly what his mom’s gun had done. As they supposedly used to say in the old west, God may have created all men, but Samuel Colt made them all equal.
He was going to kill Jerm and the other two assholes with it if they fucked with him again.
CHAPTER 10
“Such a horrible racket, all night long.”
Sandy was listening patiently to a couple of old women complain about the speeding, reckless drivers who had turned Fifth Street into a drag-race strip. Sandy had a feeling that anything that happened after seven p.m. instantly translated into “all night long,” for the two women, but she made sympathetic noises and made sure they noticed how she was writing everything down in her notebook.
Actually, she was writing a grocery list. Started with bread.
She said, “Well, I thank you ladies. You have taken the first, most important step in letting us know. Now, the next thing I need from you is to give us a call whenever something like this happens again. That way, we can catch the perpetrators in the act.” Sandy tried not to smile. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually used the term “perpetrators.” Still, it filled the old women with joy. They were regular crime-fighters now.
She was getting back into the cruiser when Liz broke over the radio with a couple of missing person reports. The first was Mrs. Ferguson saying her husband hadn’t come home from the fields yet.
She waved good-bye at her new deputies, started the car, and got on the radio. “I’m betting he stopped off at the bar. Still, have Hendricks go on out and get her statement.”
The second was from the Einhorn residence.
“What, again? Already?”
“This one’s different. It wasn’t the neighbors that called,” Liz said. “Sounded like Kurt himself. Told me his wife was missing. Been missing for almost twenty-four hours now.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was.”
“Ten seventy-six.” Sandy replaced the radio. She sped through the town, wondering if Ingrid had finally escaped after all these years. Then another, darker suspicion arose, and it sounded much, much more plausible. Kurt wouldn’t be the first abusive husband who killed his wife, hid the body, then called the cops and claimed she had run off.
When she got there, though, she found Kurt sitting on the front steps, cradling his shotgun and surrounded by empty beer bottles. He didn’t look calm and composed, ready for the authorities to grill him. The arrogant asshole from the other night was gone. In his place was a haunted shell. Raw, red-rimmed eyes stared blankly at the cruiser as Sandy pulled up to the house.
Even if it didn’t look like he saw her at all, he spoke first. “Didn’t do nothin’ to her. Nothin’. I know what you’re thinkin’. I know how it looks.”
“How does it look, Mr. Einhorn?” Sandy took it easy, keeping an eye on the shotgun.
“I know damn well how it looks. I mean, I had to teach her some manners once in a while, but it was for her own good. I didn’t do anything real bad. Shit. Didn’t even see her yesterday morning, so whatever happened, it wasn’t me.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“I dunno. Late that night. Two nights ago, I guess.”
“Is it possible she went missing earlier? In the middle of the night, maybe?”
He shook his head. “Heard her making breakfast. Then nothing. She’s gone. Been looking for her. All gone. I don’t know where.” His breathing hitched, and Sandy realized he was starting to cry.
“You mind if I look around?”
“Be my fucking guest. She ain’t here, though. Wastin’ your time.”
“I’d feel better if you put your shotgun down.”
“I need it.”
“Not asking you to put it away. Maybe just lean it against the porch over there.”
Kurt grumbled about it, but he did what she asked. He flopped back down and tried to find a bottle with a little beer left.
“Thank you.” Sandy stepped past him and over all the bottles and went inside. She stopped for a moment and simply listened. The house was still. She checked around the front room, but it didn’t look any different since the last time she was here. A bitter, slightly rotten smell pulled her to the kitchen.
She noted the bacon on the counter. It looked a little green and was probably responsible for at least part of the odor. The egg basket and frying pan on the floor. The dark substance on the floor was crusty, almost like some kind of clay. It was dry now, but Sandy could see the skid marks in the swirls and spatters. She took her pen and gave the stuff an experimental poke. It crumbled under the touch of the pen.
Sandy went upstairs. Nothing in the two bedrooms. In the bathroom, she found a little smear of dried blood on the wall next to the toilet. Maybe it was time to give Mike, the county forensics investigator, a call.
She heard engines. Recognized them. They sounded just like her own cruiser. She went to the window, and saw three county squad cars pulling into the wide area between the house and the barn. “Shit,” she breathed. Somebody in the sheriff’s department must have been listening in on the Parker’s Mill radio communication. Their arrival was like dumping gasoline on a child holding a sparkler.
She watched through the window just long enough to see Sheriff Hoyt step out of his cruiser and hold a bullhorn up to his mouth. A goddamn bullhorn. Like his voice wouldn’t carry twenty feet. Typical overkill from the sheriff’s department.
Sheriff Hoyt’s amplified voice boomed around the farmyard. “STEP AWAY FROM THAT SHOTGUN. NOW.”
Kurt’s voice yelled back. “Fuck. You.”
Sandy bolted from the bathroom. She knew, with a cold certainty, this was about to get worse. There was no time to radio Sheriff Hoyt, no time to get his attention, no chance to calm everybody down.
More yelling, back and forth, as she crashed down the narrow stairs. She had hit the first floor and started to turn from the kitchen to the front room when gunfire erupted. She crouched, filled her hand with the Glock, and waited. The barrage continued. She could not hear a shotgun’s flat booms, only sharp cracks from handguns, over and over and over.
Sandy edged back around into the kitchen and waited. Made sure she wasn’t touching any of the crap on the floor. The shooting slowed and trickled away, like popcorn still defiantly bursting in an air-popper even after the power had been cut.
She rose and went through the front room, called out the front screen. “Clear! Officer inside.”
Sheriff Hoyt answered her through the bullhorn. “CLEAR.”
Sandy stepped through the front door, onto a front porch riddled with bullet holes, and found Kurt facedown at the bottom of the steps. His stained white T-shirt was now solid red. He’d been shot at least ten or twelve times. His shotgun rested against the porch railing, in the same spot where he’d left it when she went inside. Gun smoke hung in the farmyard like smog. She looked out at the five county deputies, still crouching behind their squad cars, still aiming at the porch, as if Kurt might get up like the goddamn Terminator or something and start shooting.
She put her Glock in its holster.
Called out, “I think you got him.”
The hallway was empty. The path to his locker was clear. Kevin walked slowly into the school and couldn’t stop shaking. His backpack suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. He swallowed, but saliva kept filling his mouth, and he was afraid he might throw up, right there in the hall.