Eleven (15 page)

“Do you do everything Bingham tells you to?” I knew I treaded on uneasy ground, but I needed to keep him talking, distracted from Paige and Zachery, who moved up on him from behind.

A fire of defiance sparked in his eyes.

“You’ve known Bingham for a long time?”

Earl swallowed deeply, audibly.

“You don’t think he killed those people?”

Earl’s arm dropped, the gun no longer pointed at his head. Zachery swept in behind him, but his shoes made a noise when he reached the vinyl flooring. Earl spun and raised his gun on Zachery.

The shot fired.

Earl fell to the floor.

The entry way froze in silence as we each faced our own mortality. Another man dead, a man who didn’t need to die.

Earl lay on the floor, blood pouring from the bullet hole at the nape of his neck—a death shot. Zachery bent forward, hands to his thighs, breathing deeply. No doubt he contemplated how he almost lost his life in the line of duty. Jack held his gun, smoke billowing from the barrel, to his side. Paige had a hand on Zachery’s shoulder and looked at me.

Jack pulled out his cell phone. “This is FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper, send a forensic team and get the coroner.” He gave them the address and hung up.

“He didn’t have to die,” I said.

“Us or them. I’ll always pick us.” Jack stepped over Earl and put his gun back in his holster.

CHAPTER 16

Within the hour, Harrisburg Road was full of activity. Jones hunched beside Earl Royster and looked up at me. “The man didn’t stand a chance.”

I swore the coroner’s eyes were misted over.

Truth was I didn’t like dead bodies when I knew what their voices had sounded like before leaving us. I could handle seeing the ones in the grave, only imagining, not knowing what they sounded like, who they had been. As we had waited on Crime Scene and the coroner to arrive, I had spent most of the time watching Earl as if he would somehow sit up and breathe again. Somehow, his death paid for the sin of the threat against me.

“Kid.” Jack gestured for me to follow him.

I maneuvered around Earl, doing my best not to contaminate the scene.

“You don’t think he killed the girl, do you?” We stood in the dining room.

“No.” I didn’t even need to give it more thought.

“How do you explain the picture of you?”

I didn’t really have an answer to that.

“He shot at you.”

“But he missed.”

Two Crime Scene investigators came over to us. The one was about the same age as I am. His eyes were full of tears; though he let none of them fall. He addressed Jack. “I hear you killed Earl.”

“I did.” Jack didn’t flourish his response by adding details, by attempts to justify his action.

The CSI held eye contact with Jack, took a deep breath, and walked away. His colleague followed.

The emotional impact left in their wake, of what wasn’t being said, was more powerful than what a thousand angry words would have contained.

Jack patted his shirt pocket, and dropped his arm without taking out a cigarette. “So are you going to answer the question?”

“How can you not have any feelings? A man is dead; you shot him. Those—” I pointed toward the CSIs whose backs were to us, “—were his friends, probably from childhood.”

“We’re here to do a job. Can you handle that?” Jack’s eyes hardened. I tried to read them, to see if there were more layers to the man than he wanted to project. I was shut out.

“Yes.”

“All right then. Answer the question. Explain the picture of you, and why you think Earl was innocent and not Bingham’s follower in the murders.”

“We discussed the traits this type of killer would possess.”

“Such as?”

“He’d likely be a psychopath, unfeeling. Earl was afraid.”

“Keep going.”

“He didn’t want to talk. A narcissist would do their best to talk and manipulate their way out of a situation. A narcissist would love themselves too much to hold a gun to their head even if trying to establish an upper hand.”

“Okay, then why the picture of you sent to Bingham?”

“Just as he said, it was supposed to be funny.”

“Hmm.”

“Bingham is the one with control and power. He definitely fits the profile of a narcissist. He takes pride in maneuvering events to please himself. He basks in glory when people follow his lead. He only surrounds himself with those who build him up, feed his ego, and give him that power.”

“Okay so take Bingham out of the picture. What does this tell us about his apprentice?”

“He’s a follower. Weak.”

“Now, we’re getting somewhere, Kid.”

“Earl could have been the apprentice.” My legs felt weak.

Jack pressed his lips and nodded.

At
that moment, I felt stupid and naïve. I should have known better. My head turned back toward Earl’s body. Now instead of looking on the man with sympathy and compassion, rage and redemption filtered over my vision as a screen. Doctor Jones and his assistant were enclosing Earl in a black bag.

“He was going to kill me.” I turned back to Jack, who lifted a shoulder.

“Guess we don’t have to worry about that now.”

Jones walked over to us. “I’m taking him back to the morgue. The cause of death is no mystery.” He took pause, his attention going between Jack and myself. “However there will still be a full autopsy.”

“I would expect no less,” Jack said. He had turned over his firearm as per protocol. Any time a gun was fired, it needed to be confiscated for review to determine whether it was a
good shot
or in other words justifiable.

“Earl was a respected member of this community agent. He will be missed.” Jones’s Adam’s apple bobbed heavily. “He was born here.”

Jack said nothing, and I knew there wasn’t anything he could have said. An apology would have presented itself insincere at best. Jack had already said it best to the team,
us or them. I’ll always pick us.

“I better git goin’. The bodies are piling up in my morgue.” Jones walked away, limping to the right side, as he always did. Somehow it seemed more apparent today. Maybe it was sadness weighing his steps.

“Boss.” Zachery came into the dining room. In a gloved hand, he held up a book. “It’s on the coinherence symbol.”

Zachery had fallen into a submissive, quiet role since Earl had raised the gun on him. Even his eyes were vacant of the jovial spark they usually fired with.

Paige came up to us, breathless and rushed. “We’ll be sending his computer to Nadia, but there are some documents on there.” Her voice lost its strength. One look at Jack and she regained it. “Pictures of the burial site, and the victims. Pictures of all of us taken at the crime scene. He had captions under all of us.”

“What was mine?” I asked.

Paige averted eye contact with me.

I came to within inches of her face. “What was it?”

“Sinner.” She let out a jagged breath. Her eyes lifted to match mine. “Sinner who must be punished.”

To again be confronted with my sin, my mistake, it felt like a bruise that would never heal, that kept being repeatedly hit. I walked away.

“Brandon.” I heard Paige call out after me. I suspected Jack and Zachery were watching me.

I went into the main bedroom and found the CSI, who had confronted Jack and pushed him against the wall.

“What the—”

I tightened my grip. “Tell us what you know!”

His face wrinkled up. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Get your fuckin’ hands off him!” The other CSI, who had been beside him in the dining room, came into the room and pulled back on my left shoulder.

Wrong move!
I spun around. My fist connected with his jaw.

A hand went to cradle his face for a second before he started after me. “You little f—”

Jack came into the room, but his image was blurred by the rage pumping through my system. I turned back on the other CSI. He punched me in the gut, doubling me over. His knee met my chin. Each blow only strengthened the fight within me, infusing more adrenaline into my veins. I straightened out and went to strike him back, but I had taken a pause for too long.

He was lying on the floor, curled into a fetal position. Blood poured from his nose, and he spit blood on the carpet. The other CSI whose jaw I hit was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands up in surrender.

Jack’s knuckles were bloodied. He yanked me out of the room, through the house and onto the back deck. He dragged me along so quickly that I never got a flat foot planted beneath me, only moved heel, toe, heel, toe. He pushed me back from him.

His cheeks were red, his breathing deep. “You ever pull a fuckin’ stunt like that again you’ll be off the team. You hear me?”

“They know something!”

“Do you hear what I’m saying?” We were inches apart. Jack’s voice projected loud enough to reach the end of the street.

“Royster shot a gun at me three times!”

“And he missed every time.” We stood facing each other in a deadlock. “He’s trained in weapons. If he wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

“It doesn’t explain the pictures on his computer, the caption, the photo he sent to Bingham in prison.”

Jack faced heavenward.

“I know he said he didn’t mean anything by it. But how can you not mean anything when you fire a gun?”

“You’re not going to get anywhere with your hotheaded temper. Fuck your red hair! Do you think they’re going to want to talk to us now? You’ve probably shut them up for good.”

I let out a deep breath. “They’ll talk to us.”

Jack held up a hand to silence me. “You pull something like that again or force my involvement, you’re finished. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

Shadows moved on the other side of the patio doors. Coming into view, it was Paige and Zachery watching us. Somehow, I picked up on Paige’s concern through a pane of glass.

“I said do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I hear what you’re saying.”

Jack slid open the door and went back into the house. Paige stepped onto the deck and closed the door behind her. Zachery followed Jack.

“Are you okay?” She extended a hand to my shoulder but pulled it back before making contact.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I couldn’t look in her eyes.

“If it makes you feel better, I’m on your side.”

I lost the fight and looked at her. The way the sunlight hit her face, the paleness of her skin, the soft curls that framed her face, how her lips were swollen as if she had spent hours kissing. They turned upward into a smile. I turned away. I couldn’t allow myself to get sucked back in. I heard Debbie’s voice, and the way she spoke
I love you
.

“I can’t do this.” My jaw tightened. I swallowed hard.

“I know.” She licked her lips and bit down on the bottom one.

“I’ve got to get back in.” I jacked a thumb toward the house.

“Yeah.” The disappointment in her voice evident, yet I had nothing with which to melt it away.

Jack stood in the doorway to Royster’s bedroom, his back to the hallway. I came up behind him. Zachery was inside the bedroom, his arms crossed. He gave me a look that condemned me to a life of mall security while Jack just ignored me. I wasn’t sure which was worse.