The men lined up in front of the truck, black silhouettes haloed by the headlights. He could see in their shadowy outlines that he was not the only one holding something. He thought he could make out a baseball bat and a chain and oh shit is that a gun? He thought of locking himself in his car but to what end. They’d get him anyway and he wouldn’t have the satisfaction of taking a few swings before he went down. His fear seemed to dwindle, displaced by the resignation that he was in for a fight. “Evening, boys. Care to help a fella change a tire?” His attempt to sound nonchalant and cocky sounding scared even to his own ears.
The men began spreading out, forming a semi-circle around him, his car behind him. They began closing in. The gravel crunched, the dog barked in the distance. Joe reached back and slammed down the trunk. The action stopped the men momentarily and he saw his chance. He turned and leaped onto the trunk, then to the roof of his car. The men circled the car and finally one stepped on the rear bumper and onto the trunk. Joe smashed the tire iron to the man’s knee with all his strength. The man’s howl of pain sparked the others into action.
As they reached for him he swatted their hands and arms and fingers away, occasionally enjoying the sound of breaking bones. “I’m king of the hill you fuckers, try and take me down!” he laughed crazily. He swung the iron like a man possessed, hitting heads, arms, anything that came near him. He was beginning to think he might actually get out of this when a strange whirring sound caught his ears. His heightened senses recognized the sound just a split second too late as the swinging chain wrapped around his legs. Suddenly he was in the air, his legs yanked out from under him. His head and shoulders crashed onto the roof and he bounced awkwardly to the ground.
He tried to crawl under the car but they dragged him back. He kept swinging the iron and when he realized he no longer had it he swung fists instead. They finally got hold of him and he felt the grip of steel on his wrists, then a clicking sound. They handcuffed each hand to a door handle of his car as they beat him. “Handcuffs,” he muttered. “Crawford! You bastard.” The beating stopped and he knew he was right. He also knew that knowledge might have just gotten him killed.
“Finish it,” a husky voice commanded, and the blows started again, until everything went black.
He had no idea how long he had been out for or what they had done to him while he was unconscious. He felt an arm fall numbly to the ground as the cuff was removed and he had a vivid image of Jesus being taken down from the cross. He tried to open his eyes and could only manage to get his left partially open. The right was either swollen shut or gone completely, he couldn’t tell. He made out the shape of the man taking the cuffs off and realized that he was wearing a hood. “Am I dead?”
The man removed the second cuff and Joe’s other arm fell to the ground and his whole body slumped further against the car. “Not this time. You best watch the company you keep, though. Next time you might not wake up. Worse yet, it might not even be you but that pretty little wife of yours. Or your son or that slut you call a daughter. Not that everyone hasn’t had their shot at her already.” The man giggled and Joe realized it wasn’t a man at all, but a boy. He couldn’t quite place the voice but it was familiar. He tried to kick the boy as he stood but his leg flailed uselessly. His clothes were warm and sticky. “Stay away from that freak, Cummings.”
“Fuck you,” Joe replied with nothing but tired resignation in his voice. The boy kicked him, then again, and Joe’s world faded as the boy walked away laughing.
(56)
Crawford sat at his kitchen table with an empty bottle of scotch in front of him. The bottle had been nearly full when he first sat down. He was dressed in full uniform and there were only two other things on the table besides the bottle and a glass. One was a framed picture of his dead wife. The other was his service revolver.
Susan had been dead for almost thirteen years, since Dale was just a toddler, and Crawford had hardly thought about her in all that time. Being the local hero in a small town had afforded Crawford a lot of luxuries. He’d been young and handsome, built like a football player. Women had never been a problem anyway, but after nailing Greymore, they literally threw themselves at him.
Susan had been prettier than the prettiest. She hadn’t thrown herself at him, hadn’t really shown any interest at all. Perhaps that was what had attracted him. The thrill of the hunt. He had pursued her relentlessly, using his charm when needed, using his muscle to dissuade other suitors when necessary. Eventually, he won her over. They married quickly and Crawford thought he had it all. Looks, a great career, a beautiful wife. A few months after the wedding, Susan was pregnant with Dale. The icing on the cake, he had thought, a son. He could right all the wrongs his own father had done to him as a child. But when the baby came, it was a lot of work. Dale was colicky and suffered from chronic ear infections. He required constant attention, leaving little time for Susan to perform her marital duties. The little time they had, Susan complained of exhaustion. Cody began spending more time at the bar after work than he did at home. When he did come home, he was drunk and angry, a bad combination, especially for Susan.
The Greymore arrest was the last good bust he had made. And it preyed on him that maybe it wasn’t so good. The wounds had plagued him, and Greymore’s insistence that he was innocent and trying to save the girl seemed so damn sincere. But there were no more killings and with the help of the booze, it became easier and easier to silence his own doubts. But whether or not he was a good cop, that was harder. He found the solution to this was brute force. People opened up, did and said what you wanted with a little physical encouragement. He began to take this practice home to get what he wanted out of Susan.
One night, after he had broken up a bar fight, he came home and found Susan waiting up for him. She had been crying, and Cody thought something had happened to Dale. He’d been drinking and when she didn’t tell him what was wrong the first time he asked, the second time he asked with his fists. He beat her badly, still stoked from the barroom brawl. Finally, she told him what was bothering her, and it was the last thing Cody wanted to hear. She was pregnant again. One brat was enough and she hadn’t even gotten her figure back yet. Now another nine months of gaining weight and complaining, the end result being another screaming kid. It was too much. He began swinging and didn’t remember stopping. When he came to, Dale was screaming in his crib, wet and soiled and hungry. And Susan was dead, her skull caved in.
Cody may not have been a good cop, but he was a good criminal. He immediately began calling friends and family, asking if Susan was with them. He explained that he had come home and found Dale asleep in his crib but no sign of Susan. Disposing of the body was not a problem: there was an old well on his property that had long been covered over. He threw Susan’s lifeless body down it, along with some of her clothes and jewelry, followed by a few bags of lime. Then he covered the well and covered his tracks.
Susan had never taken to being a mother, he explained to sympathetic listeners. She missed her freedom. She had often left poor Dale sitting in his own mess until Cody got home. Her family argued vehemently that Cody was lying, Susan loved the baby, loved being a mother. But they were out-of-towners and their pleas went unheard. The official story was that Susan had just up and run out, taking some clothes and jewelry and cash. The outpouring of support Cody received was overwhelming. Neighbors and wives of other officers helped care for Dale. Cody stopped drinking for a while and played the role of betrayed husband and single parent.