But I managed to find some words in my throat. I needed time for help to arrive, and talking might stretch things out.
“I think things went wrong when you let your dogs kill Morton Dewart,” I said, and swallowed. “That’s what got people asking questions. That, and killing Tiff Riley, stealing the fertilizer, those kinds of things.”
I thought I heard the sound of crunching gravel, of a car coming down the hill to the cabins.
Timmy motioned for me to move toward the center of the room. He took three steps in, away from the door.
“I was going to be somebody,” Timmy said.
“Excuse me?”
“I was going to be somebody. People would’ve talked about me. I’d have gone into the history books.”
“I suppose that’s true,” I said. “Just like McVeigh.”
Timmy nodded.
“But people would have had to find out,” I said. “You’d have to be caught for the world to know what you’d done.”
Timmy thought about that. “Eventually. I wouldn’t have minded waiting a little while. Turning on the news, hearing about them looking for me. Other people, cheering me on.” He moved forward and pushed the barrel of the gun up against my neck. “Except not people like you. People who don’t give a fuck about how this country is going into the toilet.”
Unless I stepped back, I couldn’t talk or swallow. I inched backwards, but Timmy moved with me, the barrel pushing into the flesh of my neck. Before I knew it, I was up against the wall.
“Why don’t you make a run for it?” I said, my chin raised, head tilted to one side. “Just go. Disappear into the woods.”
He grinned. “There’s still a nasty bear out there.”
No, I thought. There isn’t.
Timmy forced the gun a little harder into my neck. “But with this, I guess I’d stand a pretty good chance, wouldn’t I?”
“So go,” I said, shifting my neck a bit to the right to keep from choking. “Take off.”
Timmy stared at me. “I got just one thing left to do,” he said. “And that’s deal with you.”
Could I run? Could I rush him? Was there anything I could do to avoid getting shot by Timmy Wickens? With the barrel of a gun already pressed up against my neck?
I thought of Sarah. And Paul, and Angie.
“Hear those sirens?” I asked Timmy. “Sounds like they’re already up at your place. Fire department, ambulance. Police. They’re going to be down here soon. You don’t have much time.”
The door he’d been standing by when I came in suddenly swung open. Chief Orville Thorne stepped in, his pistol drawn.
Even though Orville had a gun and I didn’t, Timmy Wickens kept his weapon fixed on me.
“Timmy, Mr. Wickens,” Orville said. “Put down your weapon.”
Timmy grinned, and showed his teeth again. “Well, look who’s here to save the day. How’s that make you feel, Mr. Walker? You’re waiting for help to arrive, and look who shows.”
“Hi, Orville,” I said, and tried to swallow my fear.
Orville didn’t look at me. He raised his pistol, wrapped both hands around it.
“Come on, Timmy,” he said, almost pleading. “Put your gun down.”
“Orville, take a walk,” Timmy said, his voice confident. He’d been in this place before. “Go home. Go home before I take away your hat
Orville kept his pistol aimed at Timmy. But he kept blinking, like he had sweat or tears in his eyes.
“Maybe I’m not getting through to you, Orville,” Timmy said. “You walk away and you don’t even see what it is I have to do. You can say you came in just a minute too late, that Mr. Walker was already dead, that I was gone. You’ve always been a reasonable sort, Orville, and this would be the wrong time to be stupid.”
Timmy glanced at Orville, just for a moment, long enough to see that Orville was scared. Maybe not as scared as I was. But scared.
“Orville,” Timmy said. “Take. A. Walk.”
I stared down the barrel of the shotgun. Timmy smiled, shook his head at Orville’s foolishness, and squeezed his finger around the trigger.
Orville Thorne shot Timmy Wickens in the neck.
Timmy said, “Ack.”
The shotgun fell away from me.
His mouth stayed open, but all that could be heard was a faint gurgling sound. He clamped one hand to the wound, blood spilling out between his fingers. He held on to the shotgun with the other hand, turned it toward Orville. Before he could fire, Orville shot him again, this time in the chest, and Timmy dropped to the floor.
Orville took a step forward and in the moment before Timmy Wickens closed his eyes, Orville said, “He’s my brother.”
39
BY THE TIME THE SUN CAME UP, Hank Wrigley was in Braynor District Hospital getting patched up, Betty at his side. What was once a farmhouse was nothing but a pile of smoldering embers. A pumper from the Braynor Fire Department was still pouring water onto the site. They’d run a hose down to the lake and were pumping from there.
After Orville shot Timmy Wickens, I flicked the lights at Dad’s cabin on and off until he came back in the boat with May and Jeffrey. Lawrence showed up not long after that, once the ambulance attendants had arrived and left with Betty and Hank. We both made a point of keeping May and her son away from cabin 3, where Timmy lay in a pool of his own blood.
Dr. Heath was roused from his slumber so that he could pronounce Timmy Wickens and Wendell dead. Nobody was able to find enough of Dougie or Charlene to make a similar assessment.
The coroner was good enough to retrieve our car keys from what was left of Wendell’s jacket and pants. The dogs had chewed through them, and him, pretty thoroughly.
The phone company even sent someone out to get the line to Dad’s cabin reconnected. The cops-and they were from every level imaginable-were turning Dad’s place into a temporary command center, and wanted the phone operating pronto.
Once the phone was working, I called Sarah and gave her the short version. I told her I’d be home sometime in the late afternoon, and would write something for the next day’s edition of
“You still want this other information you were asking me about the other day?” she said. About a shelter, where a woman with a child on the run could go.
“She’s not exactly on the run now,” I said. “But she’s going to need some help. Everything she had is gone. No clothes, nothing.”
“I’ll start making some calls,” Sarah said.
“See if we have some old stuff of Paul’s that would fit a ten-year-old.”
Lawrence, who’d walked into Dad’s study in the middle of my conversation, said, “They can stay with me till we get them set up someplace.”
“That’d be great,” I said to Lawrence. I told Sarah of Lawrence’s offer and added, “She’s a nice woman. She’s been through a lot. And she and Jeffrey are on their own now. That’s actually going to be a plus, given who she was with, but she’s still going to be traumatized for a while.”
“Sure,” said Sarah. “And you? Are you okay?”
I smiled. “I’m a complete disaster.”
“Get home safely.”
I hung up and found Dad in the kitchen, sitting at the table, looking dazed and tired. I asked him about the
