Shawn Inmon - The Vigilante Life of Scott McKenzie

He reached the front door and gently tried the knob. Locked tight.

Scott glanced around, saw all was quiet in the neighborhood. He slunk along the deep shadows that ringed the house and ran into a tall cedar fence that marked the back yard. The gate had a piece of string hanging through a hole. He tugged on it and the gate latch clicked open. He hurried through and found the back door.

It was locked as tight as the front door. Scott put his ear against it and listened, but heard nothing but silence.

Nothing for it. He might be killing her right now. Gonna have to break it down.

Scott unslung his backpack and set it beside the door. He backed up four paces, then ran forward and slammed his shoulder into the center of the door.

The frame split slightly, the blow reverberated through the entire house, but the door held. Scott bounced off and fell onto the muddy ground.

Before he could pick himself up, the door flung open and an enraged Gary Ridgway screamed, “What the hell is going on out here?”

Scott launched himself from his kneeling position. His shoulder hit Ridgway dead center, driving him backward into the house. Scott’s momentum carried him right along and they both landed in a heap in what turned out to be the laundry room.

They scuffled in the darkness of the room for a few seconds, then Scott was able to disentangle himself. He retreated to the back door and reached inside his pack. His fingers closed around his baton. He flicked it open and jumped back inside.

Ridgway was gone.

Scott charged after him, but the house was dark and he stumbled against a piece of furniture in the living room and went down in a heap.

A woman screamed, but Scott had no idea if it was because Ridgway was killing her or if she was afraid of Scott, the sudden intruder. Scott picked himself up, limping slightly and followed the sound of the scream.

He ran down a narrow hallway, seeking Ridgway. As he moved past an open door, Ridgway stabbed at him with a hunting knife, slashing at his side.

Scott cried out, but instinctively swung his baton, catching Ridgway flush in the face, shattering his glasses and smashing his nose.

Scott didn’t wait to see how badly he’d been stabbed, but pressed his advantage. He delivered a vicious front kick that caught Ridgway in the groin. He fell to the ground and Scott was on him.

Ridgway was blinded by the blood spraying from his ruined nose, but he thrashed around under Scott’s strong hold, desperately trying to break free.

Scott swung the baton, slamming it against Ridgway’s head again and again.

Ridgway lapsed toward unconsciousness. That was the opening Scott needed. He unsheathed his karambit and slid it up under Ridgway’s chin and into his brain. Warm blood sprayed over Scott’s face. He jammed the knife up with all his strength, then rolled off him.

From the other room, he heard the woman’s voice—loud and near-hysterical.

“I don’t know what address I’m at. I’m at someone else’s house.” Her voice rose again, becoming almost unintelligible. “He’s killing him, I can hear it!”

Scott walked out of the room, wiping his knife against his jeans and slipping it back into the sheath. He remembered his baton and turned around to retrieve it. It had rolled under a desk and he had to flip the overhead light on to locate it. He avoided looking at the corpse of Gary Ridgway and flipped the light back off.

He staggered back out of the room and waves of pain from the wound in his side washed over him.

He moved down the hall, leaving a long, bloody streak on the wall. The woman stared at him, covered in blood and panting. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. She ran for the front door, fumbled with the lock, then fled, high heels tapping a staccato rhythm against the sidewalk.

Through the open door, Scott heard the faraway wail of sirens. Someone in the neighborhood had heard the ruckus and called the police.

Scott wanted to go through the house and wipe down anything he might have touched, but he knew he was running out of time. He stumbled to the back door, grabbed his pack and hurried around to the open gate.

Scott moved as fast as he could to his pickup and jumped in the cab. He closed the door behind him and slunk down low in the seat.

The blue lights of a police car lit up the darkness as it flew up the hill and parked sideways across Ridgway’s driveway. An officer sat inside his prowler for a minute, then emerged with a flashlight in one hand and the other resting on his gun.

Scott watched him approach the wide-open front door cautiously. He stood to the side of the light coming from inside, then called out, “Police!”

A moment later, he disappeared inside.

Scott turned the key and the Luv started on the first try. He shifted into first gear and coasted past the house as quietly as possible.

He checked his rear view mirror anxiously until he was out of sight of the blue flashing lights behind him. Before he got to the bottom of the hill, he saw more sets of flashing lights—a combination of red and blue this time—approaching him.

Before they reached him, he switched off his lights and turned into the driveway of a darkened house. He waited until the two squad cars and an ambulance had passed him, then got back on the road and drove to the motel.

Inside his room, he checked the knife wound, which was throbbing now. It was a stab wound, not a slash, so it was deep but only an inch or so wide.

During his vigilante years, he had been injured enough times that he always carried medical supplies with him. The lips of the cut were clean and needed stitches, but there was no way Scott was going to go to a hospital with a knife wound—especially when he had left the hunting knife at the scene. Knife wounds were reported, and there was every chance that someone would eventually put two and two together.

He gritted his teeth and dabbed an antibiotic ointment all around the wound. The bleeding had slowed to an ooze. He applied a double-folded bandage, then added several layers of medical tape. Finally, he took an ace bandage and wrapped it all the way around him three times.

That should keep my insides on the inside and hopeful absorb any blood that makes it through the bandage.

He rolled up the bloody flannel shirt he had been wearing and stuck it inside a plastic laundry bag.

What he wanted more than anything was to lie down on the bed and sleep for twelve hours.

Self-preservation told him that what he needed to do was put as many miles as possible between him and the crime scene.

He popped three aspirin to help with the pain, checked out of his room and got back on I-5 heading south. He drove straight to PDX, the Portland, Oregon airport. Parking the pickup at a convenience store, Scott left the keys in the ignition and walked away.

No time to sell it, but this will be just as good. Someone will steal it within a few hours and it will be gone.

He grabbed a taxi to the terminal, bought a ticket to Chicago and collapsed into an uncomfortable chair until it was time for his flight.

The next three years played out much like the previous ten. Scott spent most of his life on the road, doing his best to right the wrongs that he knew were coming. Spiritually and emotionally, he was more centered. He had made peace with his life’s work, and he now had two home bases to work from—Evansville and Middle Falls.