Jeff Brackett - Half Past Midnight

Or maybe he just wanted to see me squirm.

At any rate, he had questioned me for nearly an hour when another officer stuck his head in and called him outside. Kelland returned a few minutes later with a manila folder and a rather strange expression when he looked up at me.

He kept doing that, glancing up at me with that look, then reading some more. What the hell was he reading, anyway? It was as if he didn’t quite know what to make of me. He stood inside the door reading through the folder for a minute more before he spoke again.

“When I heard that kid’s story in the hospital, I guessed the ’young girl’ he talked about must either be your wife or your daughter. Especially since, according to your ’killer hijackers’ report,” he waved a sheet of paper from the folder at me, “both of them have already killed people.”

A chill ran up my spine at the way he said that. As if I wasn’t already worried enough, now he was after my wife and daughter.

“So I sent a couple of officers over to pick them up.”

Oh, Lord.

“By the way, they’re here now, along with Mrs. Simms and your boy.”

He smiled a little at the anguish in my expression before he went on. “I also sent some men over to the Kindley’s and the Robinson’s.”

Finally! Concern for my family was somewhat alleviated by the thought that we were finally getting somewhere. “And they confirmed exactly what I told you, didn’t they?”

“They confirmed that there were a lot of bodies layin’ around. That don’t mean nothin’ ’cept somebody killed a bunch of people out there.” And again, that look.

But I thought that I possibly understood it now. Kelland was the kind of man who respected strength, or what he understood of strength anyway. He still didn’t like me, but to his way of thinking, anyone who could take on odds like the ones he had mentioned earlier must be a strong individual. It didn’t matter that we had at no time faced anywhere near that many opponents at once. The way he saw it was simply that we had faced impossible odds and won.

He respected that; ergo, he respected me, maybe even feared me a little.

He moved to the table and sat down across from me again. Scooting his chair back, he propped his feet on the table and began a new tactic. “You know, when Chief Davis died, and I took over, one of the first things I did was to read the statement you filed on your run-in with those hijackers.” He waved the report at me again. “Then I sent two men out to the site.”

I wondered where this was heading.

“They pretty much confirmed what you said about the ambushed convoy. All the wreckage and the bodies matched your report. And they found the hidden little road where you said it was and the cabin in the clearing.” He peered intently into my eyes. “And they found three bodies in that clearing.”

“Three?” We had killed two, Edgar and Michael. Who was the third?

“One was a man whose throat had been punctured,” Edgar , I counted. “Another man had been shot in the back.” Michael . “And the third man had a hole in his shoulder and a broken knee.” Larry .

He must not have recovered. I remembered leaving him tied up, but we’d left his left hand untied, his wounded arm. It would have been painful, but I felt sure he would be able to get his right hand untied from his ankles with a little work, unless he had reopened the wound in his shoulder and bled to death in the process. Why hadn’t I thought of that at the time?

“He must have bled to death,” I said lamely.

Kelland nodded. “That’s what the officers guessed.”

“So what does this mean?”

“It means that you killed three men on the way out here, and then reported it to the authorities as soon as you could.” He sat back in his chair having found something in my reaction that satisfied him that I wasn’t hiding anything. “That tells me you’re either honest, or sneaky. When I mentioned three bodies, it surprised you. You didn’t expect three of them to be dead. That leads me to believe you’re honest. And it tells me you didn’t intend to kill the third guy, even though according to your report, he was gonna kill you.”

He remained silent for a moment, tapping his pencil on the table between us before he continued, “I took over when Davis died because my men and the mayor thought I was the best man for the job. So do I. I’m good at it. It may not seem like much to you, bein’ from a big city and all, but right now, right here, I’m the best there is. And I learned a long time ago that in this job, you’ve got to learn to trust your gut.

“The facts that we have, Mr. Dawcett, say that you are either a magnet for bad luck, or you’re a homicidal maniac. Either way, I’m not wild about having you in my jurisdiction.” He surprised me then by smiling. “But I think we had that conversation yesterday.

“A homicidal maniac wouldn’t be surprised to find one of his victims was dead. He wouldn’t give details on where the bodies were and how he took them by surprise, and he sure as hell wouldn’t drag one of them back to the hospital. All of your bodies are right where you said they’d be.

“I don’t think you’re lying.” He swung his legs off of the table and leaned toward me. “’Course, I don’t think you’re tellin’ me the whole truth, either. There’s the matter of a cabin full of supplies my boys found in that clearing by those bodies.”

Leaning on the table, he queried, “Why would a person as much into survival as you say you are leave all of those supplies when you could’ve just loaded them in your van and taken them with you?” There was obviously a lot more to Chief Kelland than first met the eye. “Maybe ’cause your van was already full?”

Ouch! And he was just getting started. “And what happened to the weapons those hijackers had?”

Uncomfortable, I tried to answer that one. “The two survivors must have taken them.”

He shrugged. “Could be. But I don’t think so. You’d have been stupid to leave them there,” he drawled. “I think you got ’em. I think you got all their weapons. And I bet if we search y’all’s place real good, we’ll find that you folks have been hoardin’ enough food and supplies to last you a long, long time.”

No, uncomfortable wasn’t a strong enough word. Scared. That was the word. In this post-holocaust version of Rejas, Texas, just how serious an offense had hoarding become? Through a very dry mouth, I asked, “Why would you think that?”

“Because most of the boxes y’all left in that cabin were marked as food. You left the food and a good selection of tools and supplies. That tells me you already had a van full of that kind of stuff. By the way, the food in that cabin went into our community food supply.”

Was that what he was after? Our food and supplies? “You’d need a warrant to search the place.”

“Says who?” He smiled. “What are you gonna do? Call the police?”

He had me with my own words. Kelland leaned back and raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Don’t worry, Mr. Dawcett. I ain’t sendin’ my boys out there. Hoarding ain’t a crime out here. Not yet, anyway. I just want you to know you ain’t hidin’ near as much as you thought you were.

“See, I’d rather have you workin’ with me than against me. Especially seein’ how the last bunch that went up against you ended up.”

“I didn’t do it by myself.”

“Yup.” He pulled another sheet of paper out of the file on the table. “Kenneth Simms spent six years as a scout in the U.S. Marines. I got nothin’ but respect for a man who served in the Gulf.”

“Is that why you called him a nigger?” I couldn’t let that slide.