Peter Grist - Flashback

The State troopers surrounded the tightly packed group of people gathered in the middle of the clearing. It was plain to see who the captives were and who the captures were. Without shouts or drama, his team replaced Buster’s friends guarding the seated men. Buster’s friends were then corralled away from the members of the brotherhood and politely but firmly disarmed.

Being the only woman there, Dewhurst approached Linda.

“Mrs Saxon? I’m Captain Dewhurst, Martin.” Linda shook the offered outstretched hand. Martin Dewhurst wasn’t quite what Linda was expecting. Over the phone, he had sounded much taller if that were possible, but he was quite short and rotund, but solidly built, and although he had just marched through a forest, he wasn’t out of breath at all, and not a hair of his buzz cut was out of place. His smooth complexion was very fair with freckles painted randomly across the bridge of his nose and upper cheeks, and she guessed he would be in his very early thirties, more from his rank than his baby-faced features.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, I wasn’t sure you would.”

“I’ve got to be honest with you Mrs Saxon, none of what you said over the phone sounded plausible but the names you gave and the briefest of checks on our database showed that there could be something to what you said, and now we are here, well, the evidence seems pretty overwhelming. The briefest of looks shows me we have something to work on, so I can bring in a lot more assets; equipment and men, secure the crime scene, etc. When we know more, it is quite likely the FBI might want to get involved too, depending on if the victims came across any state borders. From what you said on the telephone a body has already been found?”

“Yes, two actually, but we don’t know who one of them is. They are both little girls.” She led him over to the open grave and as Linda looked away Dewhurst used a small Maglite to look down onto the corpses, then over the mound at Buster’s body.

“I recognise him,” he said, as he played a beam of light down the big man’s length, “Guy from the gas station, right? I’ve filled up there a few times”.

“Yes, that’s Buster Benjamin, he is the father of the coloured girl down there, that’s Grace Benjamin.”

“And what happened to the mayor back there, we passed his body on the way in?”

“I don’t know for sure but I think the mayor was one of the ring leaders of the murderers, he and the sheriff tried to get away. Buster went after them. Buster got the mayor but only after he had shot Buster. It is so sad; he was such a lovely kind man.”

At that point, another plainclothes detective moseyed up to Dewhurst and they turned away from Linda. This officer seemed too large for his thin gangly frame and walked as if he was wearing someone else’s body. “Captain, I’ve been questioning one of the men that were being held by these folks, a guy called Ryan, Sam Ryan. He seems very cooperative right now; he says there could be up to a dozen more bodies under here.”

“Okay, thanks Jack. We’ll have to get a much bigger team out in the morning. For now, cuff that group and start taking them down to the vans. Keep the Ryan guy separate from the rest of them. We’ll take them back tonight and start processing them. Tell the medics they can come and collect this guy here, but for now, we are going to have to leave the children and the mayor where they are until forensics gets up here.”

Jack nodded and turned away.

“Oh, and Jack, get this area completely cordoned off, about thirty feet back into the tree line. It won’t be long ‘til the press get hold of this and we’ll have reporters all over the damn hillside.”

“Okay boss, will do.”

Dewhurst turned back to Linda, “now Mrs Saxon……” but she had vanished into the night.

It had taken quite some time to circumnavigate the hills and get behind the State troopers, but finally, Ed had got back to the vehicles on the track. It took just a few moments though to uncover Linda’s Jeep Cherokee from where it had been hidden from the Thule brotherhood. It was already facing downwards so he turned the ignition on but left the engine off, slipped the 4x4 into neutral and gravity crept the car downhill, picking up speed all the time. There was only one trooper guarding all of the official vehicles and he was standing on the other side of the track, leaning against the trunk of a black Dodge Charger patrol car. In his dark grey pants and jacket he was almost invisible in the night. The trooper heard a sound from further up the track and stepped out to investigate and was almost hit by the Jeep Cherokee bowling towards him with its engine and lights off. His quick reactions saved him as he jumped back, shocked, and the trooper hardly had time to unclip his sidearm before Ed had zipped past him into the darkness. The trooper cursed then ran around to the side of his patrol car and grabbed the radio. Ed blew a lengthy sigh as no shots followed him down the track. He started the engine, selected drive and started to pick up some serious speed. With the lights now on, he piled on the gas, heading back towards Ludlow.

Rosen flew through the quiet streets of his town and headed not for his home, but towards Willets place at the southernmost end of the town limits. Natural greed had changed his mind on the drive from the hills. He knew he wasn’t being tailed and there was plenty of time to get some cash from the old man’s place and then head home. The only possible fly in the ointment might be if they had sent a trooper directly to his place, but that was so unlikely, and if they had, well, he would deal with them when he got there. The mayor had lived alone since his wife had passed on over a dozen years ago, in one of the few tall townhouses in the area, rejecting lots of land he couldn’t manage for a tidy little plot with a handsome three-story wood-framed anti-bellum building. Rosen barely slowed as he turned onto the up-market Cleveland Road and came to an abrupt halt a few houses down from Willet’s driveway, the last hundred yards with his headlights turned off. ‘No point in advertising the fact.’ he thought to himself. With long, easy strides he reached Willets’ plot and ran up the driveway and under the portico to the white painted front door. Using the butt of his service revolver, Rosen smashed one of the six small panes of glass in the door and put his hand through and turned the latch. The sheriff knew that the place had an alarm but the mayor never bothered to set it unless he was away for more than a day, but still, Rosen tentatively opened the door. No alarms, just a deathly silence, almost as if the house knew it would not be seeing it’s owner any more. Using his service flashlight Rosen headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time up to the next floor. He headed straight for the old man’s study where he knew the safe was hidden under the floor. The study was covered on three of the four walls with bookshelves holding hundreds of old books, legal journals and the odd framed family photo. The highly polished oak floor was bare until Rosen came towards the imposing wooden desk complete with a deep, rich red leather-upholstered winged Chesterfield club chair behind it. Here, in front of the large sash windows and desk was a large circular Nain Persian rug made of forest green and yellow wool with silk highlights that Willets had picked up on one of his many trips abroad. Rosen knew the mayor had made many such trips to Persia and Asia to find and have sex with young children; he had even joined him on one of them. Rosen threw the lightweight visitors chair aside that sat on this side of the desk, then knelt down and rolled the heavy carpet up to reveal a small two-foot square piece of oak with a recessed brass ring. The wood panel came up with ease to give access to a combination safe. On the many occasions that Willets had opened the safe in Rosen’s presence, the mayor had always huddled over the safe to shield the numbers from Rosen’s view so Willets assumed, wrongly, that Rosen didn’t know the combination. The sheriff quickly entered the six-figure combination and the safe door lifted slightly as it came unlocked. Just as he was lifting the door up, he heard a noise from downstairs, the front door banged back against its frame; someone had come into the house. He turned his flashlight into the safe and illuminated a small canvas barrel bag sitting on top of files and other paperwork. He unzipped the bag to find two passports with a picture of Willets in both. One was in the name of Frederick Willets but the other was in the name of Frederick Humber. The rest of the space in the bag was taken up with rolls of one hundred dollar bills, each held tightly with an elasticated rubber band. Rosen guessed there had to be close to one hundred thousand dollars stashed neatly in this bag. “Well now I know why you were so tight only dogs could hear you fart, you old miser.” he said out loud.