The Ghostly Hideaway (21 page)

“It just might work. If Bruce can take care of
Lydia’s livestock and everything for the week, he should be capable
of doing ours, too. They could take the cow and the dogs back up on
the hill; we could leave the furnace on low so the pipes won’t
freeze and the only thing down here that would need doing would be
taking care of the chickens and gathering the eggs. I like that
idea a lot. It would be good to see everybody again. Of course,
I’ll see several, such as Aunt Genny and her brood but there are
others who won’t be here that I’d love to see, too. Let’s talk to
them and see if they think it would work.”

“We could talk to Johnny about it first and see what
he thinks.”

“That’s a good idea, too.”

Chrissy had spent the day at Lydia’s with Johnny.
When he brought her home that evening, they discussed the possible
plan with him.

“Do you think it would be alright to broach the
subject with Bruce, Johnny? If you think it would be asking too
much, we don’t have any real need to go. I just thought it would be
a nice trip for us.”

“I think Bruce would feel gratified that you would
be comfortable asking him. He already feels they will be imposing
on you to take care of things on the hill while they’re gone even
though you volunteered to do it. This way he can feel that he'll be
reciprocating and it won’t be such an imposition.”

“Okay, I can understand that. I still feel weird
about asking him, though.”

“Let me bring up the subject and I think I can
guarantee he’ll volunteer just as you did. Would that make you feel
better?”

“Yes, it would. Thank you, Johnny. You know I may
forgive you one of these days for taking my little girl away from
me.”

“Hey, I’m going to make her so happy, you’ll never
regret that she’s with me.”

“I know you will, Johnny, but we sure will miss her
around here.”

“We sure will, but I guess I would have to untie the
apron strings some time or other." Penny had tears in her eyes but
she held them back.

“Oh, changing the subject and I think it’s about
time, this letter came for you today. I have no idea what it is or
why it came here instead of directly to you." Ed handed Johnny the
letter from North Carolina.

“I don’t have any idea, either. I don’t know anyone
in North Carolina. Is this the county you came from?”

“No, Fairmont is located in the next county over
from Stokes.”

“Well, I guess the easiest way to find out is to
open it." When he opened the envelope, a piece of paper fell out
and he began reading the letter that was inside.

*

Dear Mr. O’Reilly,

When Victor Norman Jones was formally
charged with rape in the first degree, he had already fled the
jurisdiction to avoid prosecution. There is an organization in our
county called “Stokes County Victims Rights Advocates” who
routinely offer rewards for the apprehension of suspected felons.
In this case the fee amounted to One thousand, five hundred
dollars.

It is my understanding that you
single-handedly apprehended this suspect and turned him over to
your local sheriff. I am therefore proud to enclose a check made to
you in the amount stated. I sincerely commend you for your courage
and tenacity in getting this suspect behind bars.

Use the funds in good health.

Sincerely,

*

It had been signed by Arthur Monahan, Sheriff,
Stokes County, North Carolina.

Sure enough, when Johnny picked up the piece of
paper that had fluttered to the floor, it was a check made out to
him in the amount of fifteen hundred dollars. Johnny was shocked as
was everyone else.

“Well, Chrissy, we need to go to town in the next
day or two and open our joint checking account and this will be our
first deposit." Chrissy blushed but she was genuinely proud of her
courageous husband-to-be.

When Johnny got home, it wasn’t long before he
called Ed. “Hey, Ed, Bruce and Sean say, ‘Why can’t they come down
and take care of things for you for a few days so you would be able
to make the trip to North Carolina?’”

“You’re sure they don’t mind, Johnny?”

“It was their idea, Pop. Just tell them when you’re
leaving." That was the first time Johnny had called Ed, ‘Pop’ or
‘Dad’ or anything similar to that. However, Ed liked it.

“Thanks a lot, Johnny and thank them for us,
too.”

“Oh, by the way, they have the steps up at the
trailer and the electricity is on and the water is hooked up. The
septic system still lacks some but I thought we might have a
‘viewing’ tomorrow evening for the whole bunch of us. Chrissy and I
want to see it again and we wanted all of you to see it, too.”

“Wonderful. What time, Johnny?”

“Maybe around seven? I think that should work.
Okay?”

“Sure. We’re anxious to look at it.”

So, those plans were made.

Plans were being made in North Carolina, too. But
they were of the sinister type. Harry Denham was an unhappy man. He
had never been the jolly sort but lately his frame of mind had been
even worse. That son of a bitch had raped his baby girl. She was
only fifteen—well, she was sixteen, now—but she was due any day now
to have her own baby. She had not only been raped but she had got
pregnant, too. That raping bastard, Norman Jones, didn’t deserve to
live and now they were talking about letting him out on bail.

Harry had begged and pleaded with Sally to have an
abortion and Sally might have been persuaded, but Lynn had kept
poking at her telling her it was a sin to have an abortion; telling
her it was murder; convincing her that she should have the baby.
Then it was too late for an abortion and she had no choice left. He
had finally broken and ended up slapping his wife silly. He hadn’t
actually injured her but she had a fat lip through which to spout
her, what he considered, ‘fanaticism.’ He’d spent a night in jail
and Lynn had sworn out a restraining order against him. Of course,
he’d had to move. Now he was barely putting in his hours at the
local auto repair shop and staying drunk most of the rest of the
time. That is, until they had caught the man who had raped his
little girl.

At that point, he had straightened up his life. He
drank some on weekends but he wanted to have a sure eye and steady
hands, so that when the opportunity came, he’d be ready. And the
chance would come; it had to; he didn’t think he could live with it
otherwise. Sally was due any day now. In fact, it had already been
a couple of weeks over nine months since she'd been raped. However,
the doctor said the baby would get here when it was supposed to. He
couldn’t deny he was anxious to see his first grandbaby. But it
still wasn’t right that Sally would have to deal with it at the
tender age of sixteen. Lynn would probably do most of the care
giving, though, if he knew Sally.

The phone rang. Harry picked it up. “Hello.”

“Hello, Harry?”

“Yeah.”

“This is Lynn. I told you I’d call you when the baby
came. We’re at the hospital. The doctor says it should be born
within the next couple of hours.”

“Thanks, Lynn. I appreciate that you called. Tell my
baby girl I love her. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Harry would go to the hospital but he had some other
business to take care of first. He had oiled it, cleaned it, and
shined it up, especially the scope, and it was fully loaded. His
Savage thirty-ought-six was ready and he was ready, too. He had
decided. Norman Jones would take his last breath before the
offspring of his raping loins took its first one. He realized he’d
probably get caught and probably pay with his own life; but his
little girl would be avenged and that was the main thing. He had
convinced himself of that. He was no good to anybody anyhow so what
did it matter? In fact, what did it matter? Raping her was bad
enough but forcing her to have his child; that was unforgivable.
And he would pay for that. He’d see to it.

He put his deer-hunting rifle on the racks across
the back window of his pickup where it stayed most of the time. It
wasn’t concealed and that way, they couldn’t do a damn thing about
its being there. Then he drove slowly toward the courthouse. He
still had almost a half hour. Jones’ bail hearing wasn’t until one
o’clock. He parked his old beat up pick up truck a scant block from
the courthouse. The truck was easily spotted if anyone had had
cause to be watching for it. He had put it together himself from
parts gleaned from salvage yards. It had taken him almost five
years to get it the way he wanted it. Of the two front fenders, one
was gray and the other was red. The hood was a bright, school bus
yellow. Both the driver and passenger doors were black but the
frames around them were white on the left and green on the right.
The bed on the truck was a bright blue and the tailgate was white
with a generous sprinkling of rust spots not only on the tailgate
but the entire body. It was what was under the hood, though, that
Harry Denham was proud of. He had souped it up big-time. It had a
double-barreled carburetor with dual exhausts. It had a
push-button, electronic ignition system and he had put a first
class supercharger in it. He had enhanced its suspension system,
too. It’s ‘get up and go’ definitely ‘got up and went.’ He had
bragged he could outrun any vehicle in the county if not the
state.

It was quite noticeable; but he knew nobody was
looking for it—yet! He had parked the truck in the last space
before the yellow line for the corner and he had crowded that some.
He didn’t want anyone blocking him in. He got out and headed for
the alley behind the stores facing the street that went past the
courthouse. The buildings on this side of the street were all
connected except one and there was about a three-foot walkway
between two buildings about midway of the block. He climbed the
communications tower that was fastened on the back of one of the
buildings. It wasn’t easy carrying his rifle, but he managed it. He
leapt across the walkway and landed on the building facing the
courthouse. It was five minutes before one o’clock. By the time he
got into position, the police car was pulling up out in front and
the officers were taking Jones out of the car to walk him into the
courthouse.

Harry lay prone on the rooftop steadying his rifle
on the foot high ledge that ran the full length of the front of the
building. As Jones emerged from the police car, Harry took careful
aim and pulled the trigger. Jones never knew what hit him. That was
the one thing he regretted: Jones would never know that it was
Harry Denham repaying Norman Jones for having raped and impregnated
his daughter. He crumpled to the ground and the officers who had
been in charge of him began to look around to try to see what had
happened. About all they knew right then was that the back of
Jones’ head was missing.

Harry remained quiet for a few minutes knowing they
had not yet determined that the single shot had come from three
stories up rather than street level. Then Harry did the military
crawl he had learned in the service where your seat end got hung on
barbed wire if it stuck up too high. When he got back to the
communications tower, he climbed back down carefully and strolled
back around the corner, put his rifle into its rack across the back
window and drove slowly away. It was twelve-thirty now and he hoped
Sally had had the baby by now so he could see it before, well,
before whatever was going to happen happened. He headed for the
hospital and when he got there they had just finished cleaning up
the baby boy, put a diaper on him and placed him in the little
hospital bassinet. It looked sort of weird; a black baby in a white
bassinet. But he was looking at the wrong baby. That couldn’t be
Sally’s baby; it had all the distinctive features of an
African-American. Its nostrils were large and flared; its lips were
thick and he had lots of woolly, curly, black hair. It was a cute
little baby, but it couldn’t be Sally’s baby. He watched, though,
as Lynn was escorted into the nursery and the nurse took the little
black baby from the bassinet and put it in Lynn’s arms. But that
was impossible! Norman Jones was a white man and he had impregnated
his daughter when he raped her,—hadn’t he? If he wasn’t the father,
that meant he had just assassinated a man who, he supposed, had
raped his daughter but he certainly had not been the father of the
baby she had been carrying. Maybe he had been completely innocent.
Maybe Sally had made it up to account for having been pregnant.

His mind was whirling fast enough that he was almost
dizzy. He didn’t know what to think or believe and he certainly
didn’t know what to do. It wouldn’t take the police long to figure
out that he had done the shooting. His truck would have been
recognized near the scene. He hadn’t thought to pick up the shell
casing that had been ejected from the gun when he fired. It could
be traced back to his gun in the long run. He knew if he stayed
there, he was headed for jail and probably the electric chair. He
had no choice; he had to run. He couldn’t have handled the fights
with Lynn and Sally anyway. So he took off and headed south on
Interstate Seventy-seven. He had no idea where he was going—just
“away” and as fast as he dared. He knew he would call attention to
himself if he drove as fast as that V8 would carry him. He set the
cruise at eighty-two, knowing that state troopers usually gave
motorists the benefit of the doubt for seven miles over the speed
limit, which at the moment was seventy-five. He was almost to Rock
Hill, South Carolina when he saw two state trooper vehicles coming
up fast behind him. His first instinct was to press the accelerator
to the floor and take off; but he resisted the impulse. They pulled
up directly behind him and turned on the flashing blue and red
lights. That was the moment he knew running was his only chance and
then not a very good one. He had known when he decided to shoot
Jones that he would probably be caught but he wasn’t going to death
row without a fight. His speedometer registered one hundred fifty
miles per hour and the needle was trembling at the edge of one
hundred forty-five. He was rapidly outdistancing the troopers and
he was feeling pretty good about his chances of getting away when
he saw a road block set up ahead. Now what must he do? He could try
to crash through it, go around it, or stop and be taken into
custody. He thought about a U-turn but the other troopers were
still back behind him. He was trapped. At that point, his choices
were all taken from him. A tire blew out and, at that speed, he had
no chance. The truck skidded, turned over, flipped seven or eight
times, and burst into flame while sliding down the highway on its
top.