SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (30 page)

Was it too late?

Tentatively, Nick reached out with one hand to the glass that held him in place, earthbound. His fingers met resistance. He could not discover the secret passage into the heavens again.

It was too late.

He turned to stare out the window into midnight. The seam inside him widened, and an eagle swooped within the confines of the car and carried away chunks of his soul while Nick watched--helpless.

#

A man crouched over a shallow grave patting red damp clay into place. Another man held the shovel and hung his head.

Birds, wakened by the coming of the men, flew in startled bands through the pine boughs, looking for quiet. The sky withdrew its starlight and the moon scuttled into a gray cloud. There was rain on the air, the promise of sudden showers.

The man holding the shovel loosened his fingers and let the mud-encrusted handle fall to the ground where it bounced on the new grave. The man with his hand on the dirt darted backward, sat down in a puddle, and struggled to his feet.

"What do we do now?" he asked.

"Nothing," the other man answered simply.

"It’s all my fault."

"It was never your fault." The voice was oddly comforting.

"I didn’t do it all, everything, did I?" he sounded anxious, confused.

"No. We always shared the blame."

"I want to die. I’ve wanted to…die...for a long time."

"I know."

"Do you love me? Has anyone ever loved me?"

Silence engulfed the makeshift cemetery and even the birds nodded in their roosts.

There was a timeless interval where nothing moved. The wind slackened, the pine needles were stilled, the rain was held in abeyance by an invisible hand.

And then the rain poured down, trampling the red, raw earth. The side ditch filled and drained into depressions left on the land by old graves long since forgotten.

IT IS APPROXIMATELY a hundred miles from Houston to Bloomington.

As the chase continued, Jack was obliged to vary his speed to keep from having a wreck. After the first fifty miles, Garbo let the other patrol cars return to Houston. He alerted thee state highway patrol and the Victoria, Texas, Police Department that it looked as if the car they were pursuing was headed in that direction. When he saw Jack bypass the larger city and loop to the south for Bloomington, he realized the help from the highway patrol and Victoria would be nil. They would be looking for a blue Chrysler in the wrong place.

He notified Victoria of the change and asked them to bring up the rear. If the Chrysler ran smack into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, the two cars following the bird-dog tracker would have to go it alone.

On the outskirts of the little town of Bloomington, population under two thousand, Jack slowed the Fury to forty miles an hour. They still had a strong signal coming from the bird-dog and it was not likely they would lose him along the streets of the quiet, sleeping town.

"Why did he come here?" Jack voiced the question that was on everyone’s mind. Then all of a sudden his brain ignited and he remembered.

"
Bloomington!
That’s where Eileen and Nick Ringer grew up. She told me. This is where he was killing small animals when he was a kid."

Sam remembered the story of Eileen’s cat strung up on a clothesline. And he remembered something else as well.

"Didn’t she say she followed him to a piece of land they owned and that’s where he buried cats and dogs?"

"That’s right! That’s where he’s going. Do you think he’s been burying…?" Jack could not finish the question. Willie’s boyish face flashed through his mind and tears came to his eyes. "Oh, God, Sam, I don’t know if I can take this."

"We’re going to get him, Jack." Sam put his hand on the younger man’s arm. "It’s all going to be over soon."

"What are you two talking about?" Patty asked, perplexed.

"Never mind, Patty," Sam said quickly. "All you have to know is we’ve arrived at our destination. He’s been heading for Bloomington all the time."

There was not a car moving in the town. A few lights burned inside store windows and street lamps shone on empty sidewalks. A sprinkle of rain started, gently coating the windshield.

"Rain," Jack said softly.

"Where do we go?" Patty asked. "This place is dead."

"We go over the railroad tracks. I remember that much," Jack said.

He turned left on the only street crossing the tracks and the tracking device went crazy.

"I wish Garbo was with us," Patty whined. "Where is he anyway?"

"He’s coming. He’s a few miles back. Sam, will you let him know exactly where we are?" Jack asked.

While Sam relayed the message, Jack slowed the car even more. They were on a gravel road where the pavement had petered out. The rain began falling more heavily, and the windshield wipers clacked as they swiped at the water. "Goddamn rain," Jack muttered, trying to see where they were going.

"There!" Patty yelled, hanging over the front seat and pointing. "That’s the Chrysler!"

Jack instantly killed the headlights and pulled to the side of the road. Sam replaced the mike and felt in his old black, policeman’s jacket for his service .38.

"Christ, I don’t want to go up to that fucking car in this rain," Patty said, fidgeting in the back seat.

"Then stay here!" Jack had no more patience left. He opened his door.

“What the hell, Garbo will be here in a few minutes. The fucker’s not going anywhere." Patty sounded as if he were trying to convince himself.

Sam scowled at the young officer and got out of the car to follow Jack. Still scared, Patty Trumbine felt for his holster and joined them.

When a streak of lightning lit up the dark sky, the rain looked like a million silver coins. Water ran down Sam’s collar and soaked his shirt within two minutes. His shoes sloshed through puddles, and a biting cold worked its way next to his skin. At the Chrysler, they squatted and moved to the passenger side. Jack looked in first. "Not in here," he whispered to Sam. Patty pushed against Sam’s back and shivered uncontrollably.

They crept along the side of the roadway and were thankful the noise of the rain kept their approach from being heard on the gravel. A stand of pine thinned and Jack led the way across a full drainage ditch that gurgled and streamed like a small river. On the other side of the ditch, the men halted, Patty running into Sam’s back again.

"I see someone back toward those trees," Sam whispered close to Jack’s ear.

"Let’s spread out and come from behind. If he sees us coming, he could get lost forever in the woods."

Jack nodded and struck off in a crouch to the right side of the land. Sam turned to give Patty his orders, then moved into a thick growth of winter-dried weeds and bushes that would take him close to the shadow ahead of him.

The .38 in Sam’s hand felt heavy but familiar. He hoped he would not be forced to use it. It had been many years since he shot at a man, and even more years since he was responsible for someone’s death. Despite what Nick might have done--and it was unforgivable--Sam did not want to kill him. If he could just get to Nick before Jack did. Jack was a good policeman, but his only son was dead, and part of Willie might be buried here. Even without positive proof of Ringer’s guilt, it was probable that Jack might use his gun and ask questions later. Who the hell would blame him?

Rain beat down on Sam’s slick leather jacket, and rivulets streamed down his hair, his forehead, his cheeks.

The figure he had seen had not moved and that was the most disconcerting fact of all. What was he doing standing quietly in the rain, his back to the road? Was his mind completely gone?

Tangled dead vines whipped across Sam’s knees as he trudged through the dense growth. Nothing, he suddenly understood, was as it seemed. It was not a normal rainfall. It was a deluge. It was not a normal man standing in the night with water cascading down his shoulders and back. It was a shell of a man, a hulk. He had led them to this place. They were on his land, in the midst of his territory. It was a fitting night and a fitting place. The murderer awaited them. He had chosen the time and the place. He alone had decided how it would end.

Sam crept to within three feet of the motionless figure. He squinted past the water running into his eyes to see Jack or Patty. Where were they?

With his heart hammering and his tongue thick with the black bitter taste of fear, Sam barked, "Turn around with your hands up. I don’t want to have to kill you."

What happened next was all muddled in Sam’s brain. He saw the image of a man turning, fast, almost with a ballet dancer’s perfect pirouette. The distance between them might never have existed, it was crossed so swiftly. Sam had the sight of a face reflecting horrors burned onto his eyes and into his brain. His finger squeezed the trigger of the .38 and a shot rang out, missing its target and thunking instead into a tree trunk.

They scuffled, the rain and the dark night obscuring their gestures. Hands fumbled, fingers slipped, bodies collided.

Sam saw the wire coming for him. He saw the fist swing out around his face, the thick fingers gripping a handle.
Garrote
, his brain screamed,
God no...

Sam jerked his right hand up to his own head and the wet barrel of his gun was instantly slapped against his cheek by the force of the wire clanging into place. He screamed in pain. The wire was caught, stretched around the gun barrel and his neck. A horrible grunting sound of effort roared in Sam’s ear as the madman twisted and tightened the garrote’s wire. The wire began to cut through the left side of his neck.

Jack!

Sam tried to scream for help, but nothing came from his open mouth. Suddenly he was kneed in the small of his back and felt something give.

The detective sagged to the ground, and his attacker followed, struggling to tighten the wire.

Painfully Sam turned the barrel of his gun along the side of his face. He lifted his elbow and the gun moved slightly. When his elbow was straight and the .38 was pointed behind him, Sam fired.

The garrote dropped away, and Sam fell to his hands, his head down. The side of his face was burned black with gunpowder, and the skin was seared. The hammer and viewfinder of the .38 had ripped holes in his cheek. A scorched line on his scalp trickled blood and he was deaf in his right ear.

"Oh my God. Sam, Sam, are you all right?"

Jack tried to lift his friend, but they both slipped in the mud. Sam felt the younger man’s arms around his shoulders, trying to hold him.

"Let me...let me see," Sam managed to say after spitting more blood. His head continued to ring.

He turned to look at what he had done. The body lay sprawled on its back, half the head and brains blown away. The rain continued to beat down in torrents. Water ran in tiny streams down the corpse.

"Shit," Sam said, trying to get to his feet. He put one hand over the torn side of his face. "I didn’t want to have to kill the bastard."

Patty Trumbine emerged from the woods, wet, bedraggled, and shaking with fear. He stumbled up to where Sam and Jack stood over the dead man.

"That’s one dead motherfucker," he commented shakily.

A siren and lights blared from the gravel road. Jack supported Sam across the open land.

Garbo and three other men got out of the car and waited.

"What the hell happened?" Garbo asked Jack.

"Sam killed him, but got his face torn up in the process. He needs a doctor."

Sam leaned on the Fury’s fender, bleeding into his hands.

"Think I broke my jaw too," he said thickly.

Jack brought out a handkerchief to try to stop the flow of blood.

Patty Trumbine wandered to the driver’s door of the blue Chrysler and opened it. He saw the bowling bag in the center of the seat and grabbed it.

"Hey, this is heavy," he called over the droning of the downpour.

"What the fuck are you doing, Trumbine?" Garbo asked.

Patty set the bag on the trunk of the Chrysler and unzipped it. He peeled open the vinyl top and let out a short, startled scream.

Sam and Jack both looked up at the same time. They followed Garbo to the Chrysler where Party was trembling and rubbing his hands together in the rain as if to wash them clean.

"What’s in there?" Garbo asked.

Patty pointed, turned away, and vomited.

Garbo reached inside to what looked like a wet, fuzzy stuffed rabbit. He entwined his fingers in the blond hair and pulled out Nick Ringer’s head.

"Who…?" Garbo held the head over the bag, his fingers twitching with the urge to get rid of the head. He wanted to drop it and couldn't.

"Nick!" Jack exclaimed.

"Nick?" Sam asked, turning to stare into the rain-gutted woods. "Then who was out there? Who tried to kill me?"

The three men trekked across the muddy ground toward the woods and the body. Patty Trumbine followed, wiping his mouth. Sam stared down at the corpse and with the help of flashlights was able to identify the dark-haired brother, the one he had met in the house, Daley Ringer.

Lieutenant Garbo shook his head in bewilderment. "This man tried to kill you?" he asked Sam. "But I thought we wanted the one called Nick? What the hell’s going on here? Were there two of them in the car we chased?”

"They were both doing it," Jack said tightly, backing away through the rain and mud. "There wasn’t one killer--there were two.”

Sam remembered the looks exchanged between the brothers when he had questioned them. He remembered the air of authority Daley had over his brother, the way he seemed to control everything that was said in the conversation. They were like two parts of one person. Could they have entered into a murder pact together?

Or did Nick even realize Daley was playing his alter ego? And in the end the stronger of the two murdered the weaker one. That's exactly what happened and he knew it, knew it in his gut.

"We’ll never know which one was responsible for which murder," Sam said.

"One of them did us a favor," Jack said. "Jesus, how could they have done these things? Maybe Nick never did any of it. It might have been Daley all along."