The Travelling Man (9 page)

She headed out into the new day, feeling the sun’s radiating warmth on her skin and pushing the thoughts of Ellie and their financial problems gratefully to the back of her mind, at least for the time being.

The one thing about Granton was that you were never far from your destination and Cassie soon arrived at Mrs. Fiorentino’s boarding house without much time to get her mind in the game.

She knew that the resident miners would have been long gone by now, hopefully leaving her newest guest on his own and freshly out of bed without time to prepare.

She pulled up and parked outside. The house was a large old building that had seen better days. Cassie knew, like the whole town did, that when Mrs. Fiorentino had been widowed she had discovered a trail of debt left by her husband. Cassie had nothing but respect for the woman who not looked for a way out, but had simply put her head down and paid the debt back, despite it not being one of her making.

She walked up the steps to the front door and rang the bell. Inside, she heard the chimes, swiftly followed by approaching footsteps.

Mrs. Fiorentino appeared behind the mesh screen door, stiff-backed and all business. “Can I help you, Sheriff?”

“Just wanted a quick word with your new guest, Mrs. Fiorentino,” Cassie replied coolly. The boarding house owner was always reserved with a poker face etched in stone.

“Nothing wrong I trust?”

“Just a little introduction to a new face in town,” Cassie said without blinking.

“Well then, I guess that you’d better come in,” Fiorentino said, stepping aside.

Cassie was glad of the cool interior and to be out of the already hot sun. The inside of the house was smart and clean with crisply lined wallpaper hanging in neutral tones. They walked along the long hallway and out into the dining room at the rear of the ground floor. The room was organised with a succession of square wooden tables neatly lined with chairs pushed underneath. There was only one person still sitting in the room, a man on the far wall who was sat munching noisily from a bowl.

Cassie felt Mrs. Fiorentino fade away into the background and busy herself with some chore or another, but she had little doubt that the woman would be constantly within earshot.

She walked over to the man at the breakfast table and saw his spoon halt mid-lift. He was sitting with his back to her and she could see that his hair was blonde and shaggy and his shoulders were broad.

“You looking for me?” the man asked, turning around.

His voice was deep and confident and his body language spoke of the unperturbed. Cassie had seen every reaction to her uniform from guilt to sexual excitement; it was rare that it got nothing. The guy’s face was naturally youthful but his beard had wisps of grey in it that indicated his age somewhere in the mid-thirties. His eyes were a light blue and casual as he spooned another mouthful of cereal into his mouth.

“I was just passing and thought that I’d pop in and say hi, Mr
… “Kravis, or just plain Matt,” the man smiled disarmingly. “I heard that you had a little trouble in town yesterday Sheriff, scoping out the new guy?”

Cassie evaluated the man who was obviously intelligent but not showing any visible signs of guilt or nerves. “Something like that,” she said, smiling a little in spite of herself.

“Is this where we play a little dueling banjos, squeal like a pig and all that?”

“What you get up to in the comfort of your own home is entirely up to you, Mr Kravis. I was just saying hello. I’m afraid that I left my banjo in the car.”

His eyes sparkled a little at that and she felt that there was another face beneath the one that he was showing. He was being guarded and dancing round her, but there weren’t any red flags as yet going off in her head. “So what brings you to Granton, Mr Kravis?”

“Just a little work which, I’m afraid, is rather confidential but I can assure you that it doesn’t include murdering store owners,” Kravis said seriously.

“I see that the news has spread quickly then.”

“Small towns are small towns, Sheriff, the world over,” he shrugged.

“Are you working over at the mine?”

“Nope.”

“In town then?”

“Sorry.”

“You know that I could force you to tell me,” Cassie said exasperatedly.

“You could certainly try,” he grinned back.

“How about I take you in for questioning?”

“That’s certainly an option, but I’m not entirely sure just with what cause you could justify such an action. I am assuming that folks have rights, even this far out into no man’s land. Or do you put every problem in a hole out in the desert?”

“You’ve got a pretty smart mouth on you; bet that’s got you into a fair amount of trouble?” Cassie said, crossing her arms across her chest.

Kravis only grinned back with a smile that agreed with the sentiment. She knew that she had no reason to pull the guy in other than the fact that he was starting to piss her off. She had come looking for answers but now only had more questions. She put Kravis’ name into her mental note book for future checking; whoever he was, she would soon find out.

She was about to leave with some cool parting shot when her radio suddenly barked into life, ruining her exit line.

“Boss? Boss, you there?” Jeanne’s voice crackled out.

“What is it?” Cassie responded. speaking into the mic mounted on her shoulder, turning away from Kravis as he went back to his breakfast.

“Yeah... we got a major problem here, Sheriff; the whole place has gone nuts,” Jeanne said quickly and Cassie felt a small knot of unease at the dispatcher’s anxious tone. “We’ve got FBI car’s swarming all over town with sirens screaming and lights flashing, scaring everyone half to death.”

“FBI?”

“That’s what the big letters on the side of the cars say.”

“Where are they going?”

“Kevin just spoke to Bobby Cohen who told him that they’ve surrounded Marshal Dinkins’ place.”

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Marshal woke up that morning to the sights and sounds of nothing changing about his life. The weird guy from last night had him convinced that the whole world was about to change, that his deepest wish was going to come true, but now he felt like a horse’s ass.

He shuddered with the memory of baring his soul to some old fruit who was probably now laughing his ass off at Marshal’s expense. He still couldn’t believe that he had told the guy that he wanted his name to live on forever, having made its mark firmly on the world. Speaking with Grange last night, everything had seemed possible and Marshal hadn’t cared just what price the odd man had demanded; he had been willing to pay. Now, the whole thing seemed like some drunken dream and he was starting to wonder just who had set him up with some elaborate prank.

He grabbed a bottle that sloshed with only about an eighth of its original contents and choked down a foul swig. “Breakfast of champions,” he muttered to himself.

He flicked on the TV and slumped down into the couch as the pictures rolled in front of him.

“Again, repeating out top story,” the impossibly handsome and sculpted anchorman said confidently into the camera. “Our sources tell us that the FBI are closing in on the notorious serial killer known only as Herod. A name that was found scrawled in blood on the wall at every site of 27 murders where he took the life of a first born son. Herod has baffled police across the country during his reign of terror with his ability to leave no trace at any of his murder scenes. This story has gripped the nation for months now, leading to Herod being daubed the most infamous man of his era.”

Marshal sat back on the couch, puzzled. For such a huge nationwide story, he couldn’t ever remember hearing about this serial killer. He wasn’t exactly up on current news events but surely a story that large would have reached his ears.

He was listening to the TV report continue when the air was shattered with the screaming wail of sirens outside. He stood and wandered to the window and looked down in surprise as large black SUV’s screeched to a halt outside of his apartment block.

His eyes grew wide as men dressed in black combat fatigues sprung from the cars carrying automatic weapons and with their faces covered.

The men disappeared from sight below and Marshal heard the unmistakable sound of the front door to the block being smashed down then pounding footsteps on the stairs.

“That’s right, Steve.” A woman’s voice from behind him caught his attention on the TV. “I think that it’s fair to say that whoever this Herod is, he is about to go down in history and be remembered forever.”

Marshal’s heart started to sink as a dreadful thought wormed its way through his dulled senses. His mind was edging around the reality of his prize when the door burst open and heavily armed men poured through.

He turned and raised his hands in surrender, desperate to tell them that they had all made a terrible mistake.

“He’s got a gun!” one of the men roared.

Marshal was about to explain that he was unarmed when he saw, incomprehensively, that there was a large caliber revolver glinting in his hand that had not been there before. He barely opened his mouth before he was suddenly airborne as gunfire peppered the air and small punches thundered into his body, throwing him backwards. As he landed, his insides felt soft and squishy and nothing seemed to work anymore.

As he slipped across the threshold into death, he heard one of the men talking over his soon-to-be corpse.

“You know, it really pisses me off,” the man said shaking his head. “This piece of shit is gonna be famous all over the freaking world; there’s no justice”.

----------

Cassie arrived on the scene just as the FBI Assault team were exiting Marshal Dinkins’ apartment block. The sight of the heavily armed men caused her immediate concern for the safety of the surrounding residents who had swarmed the area as word spread. As Sheriff of Granton, she should have been notified of any incursion by the FBI even if it was only out of professional courtesy.

She parked and exited quickly, passing through the crowd and ignoring the questions thrown at her by familiar faces.

There was a manned cordon around the building as large men in labeled jackets and sunglasses stood guard.

“Who’s in charge here?” she demanded of the first man that she reached.

He stared her up and down, no doubt recognising the uniform, his face expressionless behind the Ray-Bans. “Just a minute, Ma’am,” he finally drawled before turning away and speaking into his radio.

Cassie stood and tried hard to hold onto her temper over the lack of respect. She knew that in this instance it wasn’t her gender that was the problem; it was her small town badge. Eventually, a man emerged from the building and headed over towards her. On the way he stopped to sign a form of some kind presented to him by another agent, denoting that he was in charge. He looked to be in his fifties, lean and tall with steely grey hair cut short and a stern face.

“Sheriff,” he greeted her and motioned for the agent keeping the perimeter to step aside.

Cassie followed the senior man as he turned and walked a few paces to be further away from the straining ears of the gathered crowd.

“Special Agent John Harper,” he said, offering a hand.

She shook, finding his grip both firm and smooth. “You want to fill me in here?” she demanded in a low hard voice.

“Apologies for the oversight, Sheriff, but there just wasn’t time. We had a tip and had to move fast,” Harper replied.

“A tip on what, exactly?”

“I take it that you’ve heard of the Herod serial killer?”

The strangest thing then happened. For a split second, Cassie had absolutely no idea of just who the man was talking about. She had never heard of “Herod” either locally or nationally and in her profession that seemed impossible. Alerts were posted constantly throughout law enforcement agencies across the country whenever there was a criminal breaking state lines. If there was a serial killer operating on a national basis, she would have been kept up to date without question.

This passed through her mind in a flash before a sudden rush of dizzying memory flooded her senses and she knew exactly who he meant. “Of course,” she said quickly, as TV news images floated across her mind. The serial killer had been national news for weeks now and it was all people were talking about; it was like a Hollywood movie that dominated the headlines, or was it? She had the oddest thought that every sudden memory in her mind was fresh like it had only just been added. It was like she had watched a movie in her mind and now everyone was saying that it was real.

“Sheriff?” Harper enquired.

Cassie suddenly realised that she had been standing silent for a minute or two. “The Herod, of course, what about him?”

“Turns out that he was one of yours all along,” Harper said as he took a small notepad from his pocket and flipped it open. “One Marshal Dinkins,” he read aloud.

“Dinkins? Dinkins was the Herod?” Cassie said incredulously, trying hard to picture the miner as anything other than the boozy pain in the ass that she knew him as. “You’re serious?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Harper replied coolly.

Cassie could see that Harper was clearly convinced and he didn’t look like a man used to chasing red herrings; he was obviously a career agent. But Dinkins as a mass serial killer, wanted the length and breadth of the country? It was all too bizarre.