Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

“Frank’s car?” Mendez shouted to be heard above the beating of the helicopter blades.

“Yeah.” Trammell led him around to the back of the car and the open trunk. “And Frank’s wife.”

Sharon Farman lay dead in the trunk. Beaten, strangled, cut. Eyes and mouth glued shut.

Dennis lay on the cot that had been brought into the room. The detectives had brought him a TV to watch and some pizza and soda, but he didn’t want to watch TV, and he wasn’t hungry. Some ugly fat cowgirl deputy was supposed to be watching him, but she was sitting at the table reading a book, and she hardly ever looked at him.

All Dennis really wanted was to go home. Miss Navarre had said he wouldn’t be going home. But what did she know? She didn’t work for the sheriff. His dad worked for the sheriff. His dad would get him out.

But he had only seen his dad through the glass in the door. His dad hadn’t come in to talk to him or to yell at him or anything. He had only looked in the window the one time, and he hadn’t come back.

Maybe he never would.

Not for the first time, Dennis wondered what it would be like to be a part of real family like the ones on TV. Like Wendy Morgan’s and Tommy Crane’s.

He had always hated Tommy Crane. Tommy Crane had everything. Tommy Crane was smart. Tommy Crane was talented. Tommy Crane had cool parents who gave him everything he wanted.

He had always hated Tommy Crane, but as he lay on his cot in a room in the sheriff’s office with no one caring about him and no one coming to see if he was all right, Dennis thought it would be pretty darn good to be Tommy Crane tonight.

Tommy’s bedtime ritual went the way it had every other night in the past week. His mother-still in a terrible mood-made him take his allergy medicine. He had then run into his bathroom and thrown it back up.

He was mad at her now. Even though he had vowed she wouldn’t ruin his perfect evening with his father, she had. His mother always had to be the center of attention, and she managed that any way she could. Usually by yelling.

Tommy was tired of it. Why couldn’t his mother be somebody else? Or why couldn’t it be just him and his dad? Sometimes he secretly wished they would get divorced, but then he always got afraid that he would have to stay with his mother instead of his dad.

They were arguing now. Tommy crept down the hall as far as he dared and tried to listen. He couldn’t make out most of what they were saying on account of they had gone into their bedroom at the far end of the hall and shut the door.

Every once in a while a word stood out. His name. Why would you…? How could you…? Anne Navarre…

Tommy felt sick in his stomach in a way that had nothing to do with his allergy medicine. He didn’t want to be the problem. Tears filled up his eyes, and he hurried back down the hall to his own room.

He didn’t have to listen, anyway. He knew what would happen. His dad would get fed up with fighting, and he would leave and not come back for hours.

Only this time he wouldn’t be going alone.

Anne paced around the kitchen, wondering what to do. What could she do? Nothing. She had called 911 as soon as Vince had disconnected from her line, and she had been told they were aware of the situation at the sheriff’s office.

The Situation. Frank Farman was in the sheriff’s office with a gun to Sheriff Dixon’s head.

Anne shivered at the thought of how close she had come to disaster herself at the hands of Farman. If Tommy and his father hadn’t come by…

She wondered now just how disturbed Frank Farman really was. Had he killed his wife? Had he killed only his wife?

It would have been so easy for him to pick his victims. Every woman would stop for a police car. Every woman would trust the man in the uniform who got out of that car. All he had to do was pull them over on a lonely stretch of road…

The breach of trust was unconscionable. And when she thought of what had been done to those women… No nightmare could have been more terrifying.

Shivering at the little jolts of adrenaline still zapping through her, she walked the entire house, checking windows, checking doors. Wishing Vince was there. Funny how quickly that was becoming a habitual thought.

She went into the living room and turned the television on just for the company of voices, and was presented with a bird’s-eye view of the sheriff’s office. The banner across the bottom of the screen read: SIEGE AT THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE: SHOWDOWN IN OAK KNOLL.

The building was surrounded by press and media helicopters sweeping the ground with spotlights.

Anne grabbed the remote and turned up the volume, catching the handsome LA reporter midsentence.

“… suspected in the alleged beating and strangulation death of his wife, whose body was allegedly discovered less than an hour ago in the trunk of this police car located on the lawn behind me-presumably Deputy Farman’s department vehicle.”

Oh my God .

“In an even more bizarre twist, the deputy’s eleven-year-old son is said to be in the building. He was arrested earlier today in connection with a stabbing in a nearby park.

“Speculation is, of course, rampant that the deputy may in fact be the notorious See-No-Evil killer who has been stalking this idyllic college town-”

Anne flipped from channel to channel to channel, every one of them showing the same scene from a different angle. None of them showing the drama going on inside the building, where lives were hanging in the balance.

“What can we do for you, Frank?” Vince asked.

They had been at it for thirty-five minutes. Him trying to pull answers out of Frank Farman, slowly trying to get him to turn his back to the door. Farman, sweating and shaking now from the strain of holding on to the sheriff and keeping the gun up to his head.

Vince was fighting his own war of attrition, his own energy reserves draining to the last drop. He was starting to feel shaky too, but if he could just keep Farman occupied for a little while longer something would happen. The deputy would give up, or the cavalry would burst in.

The trick was to keep him talking.

“You need to sit down? You need something to drink? What?” Vince asked, planting those needs in Farman’s head over and over.

Farman blinked hard as sweat ran down his brow and dripped into his eyes.

“Give me something, here, Frank.”

“I’ve given this department everything I have,” Farman said, his voice cracking under the strain of his emotions.

“Then let’s try to salvage some of that,” Vince suggested. “You’ve done a lot of good, Frank. Credit where it’s due. Let’s don’t fuck that up now.”

He risked taking a full step toward Farman, angling away from the door.

“Don’t come closer,” Farman said.

“I just want to help you out here, Frank,” Vince said, lowering his voice so Farman would have to concentrate a little harder to hear him. “Let’s end this in a good way.”

Farman shook his head. “It’s too late. It’s done. You don’t know.” “What don’t I know, Frank?” Vince asked. “Tell me. I’ll help you any way I can.”

“It’s too late,” he said again, his eyes filling. “She’s gone.”

“I know your wife left. We can find her, Frank. We can bring her here. You can talk.”

Farman shook his head. “It’s too late.”

Oh, shit , Vince thought. She’s dead . The risk of the situation going totally wrong multiplied by a hundred times. If he had killed his wife, there really was no going back for him. He would go to prison. Prison would not be an option for Frank Farman. He would choose death.