Catherine Coulter - Backfire

Rufino said, “We heard a car motor start, it was a long ways away, but we heard it. We figured he was leaving so it was okay to move.”

Ellie said, her small voice trembling, “It was horrible. We sat there and stared at those branches and all that black earth and knew there was a dead body under the ground.”

Rufino leaned over and patted her back. “It’s okay, Ellie, it’s okay.”

Cheney said, “Let me tell you, kids, you’re both heroes. Without you, the man you saw buried would probably never be found. And you’ve really helped us.”

Rufino patted Ellie’s back again. “Since you’re a girl hero I guess it’s okay for you to be scared.” The little girl stopped shaking.

Another chocolate-chip cookie each, and everyone at the table knew the kids were tapped out. They were still excited but wrung out. They all went out into the kitchen to thank the parents and tell them how incredible and smart their kids were. Sherlock studied Rufino’s dad-maybe five feet ten inches, give or take, one hundred fifty pounds, give or take. Was Sue the taller of the two?

When they returned to the grave site with Sheriff Hibbert, they stared down into the empty hole. The rain had picked up, and the dirt was fast becoming mud and sliding into the hole. “ RIP, Mickey, that’s what he said over Mickey’s grave.” The sheriff looked at each of them. “I really want you to nail this bastard.”

There was a moment of silence. Sherlock said, “The killer matches the general description of Ramsey’s shooter. More or less.”

Harry said, “If it is the same guy it’s got to tie in to the Cahills. But it could be a woman, this Sue, I suppose.” He pushed one of his fists into his palm.

Savich nodded. “Okay, we don’t know exactly when O’Rourke died yet, but my guess from seeing the body is he was murdered fairly recently. Did the killer head back from the hospital after his attempt to kill Ramsey on the elevator to where he’d stashed Mickey O’Rourke in order to kill him?”

Yes, he had, Harry thought, and nodded.

Eve turned to Sheriff Hibbert. “So he might have stashed Mickey O’Rourke somewhere near here. You have any ideas about that, Sheriff?”

Sheriff Hibbert nodded. “Deputy Ramirez told me there’s an old farm shack in the woods near here, on property that belongs to a new house a developer built some six years ago. As for the shack, it’s been deserted for years. Let’s go see.”

They fell in behind the sheriff’s car and soon turned off another dirt road onto a rutted path. They slowly made their way about fifty feet until they couldn’t go any farther.

Sheriff Hibbert leaned out the window. “We can’t see the new house from here because the dirt road-Mason’s Cross-is set at a ninety-degree angle in the middle of a bunch of oak and bay trees. We’ve got to walk the rest of the way to the shack.”

They climbed out of the Suburban into the drizzling cold rain and mud and trudged after the sheriff for about twenty yards.

Hibbert stopped. “There it is.”

They stared at a dilapidated wooden shack, probably older than Sheriff Hibbert’s parents.

Sheriff Hibbert motioned them back. He opened the creaking wooden door, his gun drawn. They heard him suck in his breath.

He stepped back, his face set and pale as death in the dim light. “You’re not going to like this.”

The shack was a single room, maybe twelve by twelve, the floorboards rotted through. Part of the roof had caved in, probably years before, and rain flooded in. A single metal cot was shoved against the back wall, beneath some remaining roof. There was a dirty blanket hanging off the bed, nothing else.

The blanket and the mattress were soaked with blood, dried black. There was blood splattered on the wooden floor planks, even on the walls.

Cheney pulled out his cell phone. “Joe? We found the kill site. I need you to bring a couple of your people over to us.” He handed Sheriff Hibbert his cell.

“Ask Deputy Millis to show you the way. The shack is off Mason’s Cross Road. You’ll have to walk a ways.” He handed the cell phone back to Cheney.

None of them said any more. They all knew Mickey O’Rourke had spent the last three days of his life tied down to that cot, alone, knowing in his gut he was going to die. And he had. He may have wanted to die at the end. By the look of the shack and the spattered bloodstains, he’d been beaten. For information?

It was difficult to step back, cut off the rage and sadness, to force their minds to focus on what was in front of them. Sherlock said, “There’s a chance he left fingerprints.”

Eve said, “He hasn’t missed a single trick so far, but he never expected anyone to find this shack. So maybe you’re right.”

Harry asked Sheriff Hibbert, “Do you have any idea how long this shack has stood vacant?”

“At least twenty years, maybe longer. I haven’t heard of anybody staying out here since I’ve been sheriff. We get some homeless people squatting in our abandoned buildings now and then, but not here, because it’s too remote.” He looked up at the boards sunk in on the crumbling ceiling. “It’d be safer to camp under a tree.” He looked toward the bed. “How I hate this smell, the smell of death.”

Cheney took one last look around the room, and said, more to himself than to the rest of them, “It’s up to me to tell Mrs. O’Rourke her husband’s dead. I’ll take a chaplain with me.” He sighed. “As if that will help.” He looked up. “This guy doesn’t deserve to walk the earth.” He paused for a moment. “I know a woman didn’t do this. If this was Sue, then Sue is a man.”

–

It was odd, Eve thought, looking out the Suburban window as Harry drove them back to the city, how the ride home always felt quicker.

She listened to the windshield wipers clapping steady as a metronome, the rain, now that they weren’t getting soaked standing in it, oddly soothing, somehow comforting.

She saw Cheney’s eyes were on his hands, clasped in his lap. He had to be thinking about Mrs. O’Rourke and the girls and what he would say to them-it couldn’t be the truth, at least not all of it.

Harry looked stiff, mechanical, as if he was afraid to express anything for fear he’d yell with it. Savich and Sherlock, too, were without expression, but Dillon was pressing his wife’s open palm against his thigh. She wondered how much horror they’d seen. Too much, she thought. What were they thinking?

Eve felt a wave of despair, not just because of the bloodbath they’d found in the shack but because it was the naked proof that some people were simply evil, some people were simply missing all compassion or any human feelings at all. How else could this monster have killed Mickey so brutally?

RIP Mickey. She wanted to kill him herself.

She met Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock said, “How’s your back, Eve?”

She snapped back from the edge. “Thanks to Harry the Hands, I’m feeling fine.” She added, “Harry was at my condo this morning, and let me tell you he’s got the greatest hands. I think he even got a moan out of me, it felt so good.”

No one said a word.

Where had that come from?

Eve cleared her throat. “What I meant to say was that he massaged my back with muscle cream and-”

“Let it go, Eve,” Harry said. “No one thinks there were any prurient thoughts in your head or mine. Your back is purple and green, and you were hobbling around like a crippled old deputy marshal retired lady.”