John Gilstrap - No mercy

With the code entered, he pressed the red button at the bottom of the keypad and heard the hydraulic locks pull away from their housings on the other side. The heavy door floated in silently, revealing his tunnel. It was the one place where Joe wouldn’t go. As soon as she heard him moving the stones, she headed back upstairs to shed on the sofa.

The tunnel ran exactly fifty-six yards from this point in his basement, under his parking lot to its termination at the near wall of the basement of St. Katherine’s Catholic Church. Jonathan had commissioned the construction years ago from a contractor who owed him the kind of favor that only people in Jonathan’s line of work seemed to amass. To protect against mold and critters, he’d finished the interior walls with tiles, the shape and color of which were reminiscent of New York subway stations. About halfway down the hall on the right, a 25-by-25-foot vault served as his weapons locker; its door was built of reinforced steel and resembled the door of a bank vault-the purpose for which it was designed. For this, there was a six-number combination. As he pulled the door open, it nearly blocked the passageway.

Steel cabinets designed for fire protection lined the inside of the vault. With all the concrete and steel, it was difficult to imagine a scenario in which a fire might start in the tunnel, but if it did, he didn’t want his stock of high explosives cooking off. Not only would that require an explanation that he didn’t relish, but it could also open up a crater big enough to swallow a neighbor or two.

Jonathan liked it down here. He enjoyed the solitude. Much as a gifted artist enjoys the aroma of his paint or clay, he relished the unique aroma of gun oil and pyrotechnics. The first order of business was to clean his weapons. Both had been fired, and that meant both had to be stripped and oiled. Since the weapons had killed people, he would also have to retool the receivers and the rifling before he used them again.

He had just pulled himself up onto the stool in front of the waist-high worktable that dominated the center of the vault when he heard footsteps and whistling in the tunnel. He knew it was Dom. Father Dominic D’Angelo frequently visited Jonathan when he returned from missions, and when he did, he always whistled as he strolled down the tunnel from its secondary access in St. Kate’s. Jonathan figured it had something to do with never wanting to startle a man surrounded by firearms.

“I hear you, Dom. I won’t shoot you.”

“How reassuring,” said the voice from nearby. Dom appeared in the doorway smiling and carrying a six-pack of Coors. Tall and trim and sporting a helmet of black hair, Dom had no doubt triggered more than his share of very unCatholic fantasies among his female parishioners. “I bring hydration. Today I offer up brain cells as a sacrifice for my flock.” He dangled the six-pack like a bunch of grapes, offering the cans to be plucked.

Jonathan laughed. “God must be very proud.” He reached across the table and pulled one of the beers from the plastic ring. “Where were these sacrifices when I was a teenager? I’d have grown up way more devout.”

“We try not to divulge the inner secrets until the flock is old enough to appreciate them.” Dom helped himself to the stool opposite Jonathan’s and his tone turned serious. “Venice called me. Lots of shooting, I hear. You had us worried, Dig.”

“I had me a little worriorever lost their children at his hand. It was the curse of the warrior that good works brought misery.

Dom downed the rest of his beer and stood abruptly. “Consider it done.”

It was time for the final act to every one of Jonathan’s missions. Standing to gain better access to the front pocket of his trousers, Dom withdrew the tiny leather pouch that contained a square patch of purple satin. He shook it and the fabric fell away to form a stole. Dom kissed it and draped it over his neck. Then he carried his stool to Jonathan’s side of the worktable and bowed his head while Digger crossed himself.

Jonathan said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…”

In this part of southern Indiana, the scenery never changed. On either side of the interstate, rolling farmlands extended to the horizon. Rather than heading back to the office, where she would have to deal with the press, curious staffers, and the endless administrivia that defined the job of a sheriff in a small community, Gail Bonneville chose instead to go home.

In Samson, “home” meant the house of her dreams, complete with seven gables and a deep porch that wrapped the front and two sides. The backyard featured the overgrown remains of what had once been a magnificent garden. With a little imagination, she could still see within the out-of-control boxwoods the shadowy remains of a sculptured pig, turtle, and donkey. Or maybe a goat. A farm animal of some sort.

Fixing up the gardens and restoring them to their previous grandeur was high on the list of things that Gail was going to take care of once she got a little extra cash. Fixing the gardens, in fact, was trumped only by her goal of buying furniture for the living room, dining room, library, parlor, and three spare bedrooms.

Gail lived in the Petrie house, named for the family who’d built it in 1915. In the early 1990s, Natalie Petrie, the ancient family scion, had started listening more intently to television evangelists than she did to the pleas of her own children. By the time the children could convince a court to intervene, they had seen their inheritance plummet from something close to $10 million to something more along the lines of a dollar ninety-five.

It was literally the house of Gail’s dreams, a la Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street. She offered the family’s asking price, and within days, the deed was done. Now, eight months later, workers still labored on to bring the plumbing and electrical services into the twentieth century, never mind the twenty-first.

Gail’s purchase of the Petrie house was a source of great scuttlebutt. How could a single woman on a public servant’s salary afford to pay $550,000 for a house, and then go on to fund extensive repairs and renovations? Her political enemies had their theories, of course, fueled by ugly rumors, but few people actually believed that she was selling drugs out of the basement, or had accepted hush money to protect those who did.

She protected the reality as nobody’s business. Her father had spun an independent accounting firm into a fairly successful investment practice, and when he passed away, he’d left her with enough of a nest egg that she could afford her love of law enforcement without suffering the financial hardship that most cops endured. She could afford to tell the Bureau where they could stick their good-old-boy network. She’d never been a boy, never would be, and ne, and she was doubly done with the small-minded resentment that accompanied the recognition when it finally came.

After her father succumbed to the cancer that had been eating him for over a decade, she’d left the Bureau with extreme prejudice, not caring if she ever saw a badge again. After a while, though, when you’re good at it, busting bad guys becomes a part of your DNA. She’d heard about the desire of the local Democratic Party to find themselves a good female candidate for sheriff in Samson, and the rest, as they say, was…well, you know.

The ten-block-square section that defined downtown Samson looked like something off a movie set for Depression-era urban living. Its main streets sported storefronts and taxpayer construction that looked at first glimpse to be the American dream-all the infrastructure for a midsize city combined with the feel of a small town. She liked the people here more than she didn’t like them, but a reality of law enforcement in a small community is that you could never allow yourself to get but so close. Every citizen was her boss, and one day, any one of them could end up on the business end of her nightstick. When the borders were as close as they were in Samson, and the line between accepting help and accepting graft was so fine, it helped to keep people at arms’ length.