A Shadow Fell Read online

  Colletti, ever the stickler for detail, asked, “Is there any doubt in your mind at all that Jack Parmenter was killed up on that mountain?”

  Fuller gave him a sympathetic look, then slowly shook her head. “I’m afraid not, Vince. I’m not a betting woman but, if I were, I’d bet the ranch on this one.”

  * * *

  That afternoon Tom Kilborn made one of the tougher telephone calls of his career. “Callie, it’s Tom. I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  Callie didn’t need to hear any more than that. “Jack’s dead,” she said, her voice cracking. She wasn’t yet ready to cry. It would take a while for her to process the reality of Jack being gone. She stared off as if in a trance, the phone at her side.

  Miles took the phone gently from her. “Hold on, Tom,” he said. He helped Callie to a chair. “Tom, it’s Miles. What can you tell us?”

  Kilborn related the information gleaned by the forensic team, sparing none of the details. “Tell Callie we’re closing in on Henderson,” he concluded. “We’re going to get him.”

  Miles had been retired for several years now but he had spent most of his life as a law enforcement officer. He figured he could recognize wishful thinking and unqualified bullshit when he heard it.

  * * *

  Callie’s pain in the days that followed was profound. Still grieving over the loss of Tanya when receiving the news of Jack’s death was a crushing burden to bear. Miles and Betty did what they could to ease her hurt but there was only so much they could do. Callie was like a lost child.

  One night after Callie had retired to bed Betty brought up the topic of Callie’s future. “What are we going to do, Miles? She’s in no condition to go back to Florida. She might never be.”

  “I know,” Miles said. “I’m gonna talk to her about selling their place and moving in here with us permanent. You okay with that?”

  “Of course I am. I love that girl as much as you do, you know that. But do you think she’ll agree to living in Colville again with all the memories and all?”

  “I don’t know. But I think she might. She’s got no one else to look out for her. She needs us.”

  Betty shook her head sadly. “Such a darn shame, everything that’s happened. There’s just no justice in this world.”

  Part Six

  Insanity

  46

  Reuben Henderson stood over me as I lay on the ground, fully expecting my next breath to be my last. There was no reason at all to believe he would spare me. Most likely the only reason he hadn’t killed me at the same time as Con was to give himself the opportunity to drag out the pleasure of seeing me squirm. I heard the bullet from his rifle enter the breach. I turned, not out of any expectation that I could stop what was about to happen, but more out of a wish to see the sky before I died.

  Not many people can say they owe their lives to their pets, but there is no doubt that I most certainly do.

  Winston had always been a wonderful animal. He had a heart as big as the outdoors. Being a gentle soul angry voices or arguments of any kind were a cause of great distress for him.

  After Con was shot he scampered away and hid in the woods. But he didn’t go far. It was simply not in his nature to abandon someone he loved. And he loved me. He proved that when, despite his abhorrence to violence, he gave out a fierce growl and charged out of the woods at Henderson.

  He took the bullet that should have been mine and, in doing so, gave me the opportunity to kick the rifle out of Henderson’s grasp.

  In the course of two seconds I went from victim to captor.

  Henderson stared at me transfixed, clearly astounded at the speed with which he had lost his position as the aggressor.

  I held the rifle on him relishing his fear. All the hatred I had held for this man for so long had come to a head at last.

  I glanced over to where Winston was sprawled. He was on his side, a dark patch of blood staining the fur at his neck. While keeping my eyes on Henderson I moved over to him and put my hand on his chest. There was no pulse.

  It was the final insult. In that moment something vital changed within me. I became someone alien to the person I had always been. It was suddenly very clear to me that shooting Henderson was far too good. He didn’t deserve a quick, painless death. He deserved to suffer. And I was going to make sure he did. In spades.

  “You’re going to bury my dog,” I said, my calm voice belying the rage inside me.

  Henderson swallowed hard. When I didn’t say anything else he looked around for something he could use as a shovel. He spotted a small spade among Walker’s things. “Okay,” he said fearfully. “Where?”

  I motioned to a spot a few yards away.

  He set about digging a hole, all the while looking nervously at me. When he was done he pulled Winston over to it and waited for me to tell him what to do.

  “Say a prayer for him,” I said.

  A nervous little chuckle escaped him. He tried to smile but he couldn’t quite do it. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Put him in the fucking hole, you moron.”

  He did as I directed, filling in the hole afterward.

  “You have a cabin somewhere in the mountains,” I said. I barely recognized the voice as my own.

  The fear on Henderson’s face faded a little. My apparent rationality had given him some hope that he would survive this.

  He nodded his head enthusiastically. “Yes.”

  “How far?”

  “A day by foot. Half that on the bike.” He was falling all over himself trying to be helpful.

  “You’re going to take me to it.”

  He was surprised and confused by this but he was in no position to argue. “Sure.”

  “Where’s the bike?”

  He pointed with his right hand to the woods. “Not far.”

  I gathered together a duffle bag and filled it with tools from Eldon Walker’s camp. “Move,” I said.

  When we got to the bike I fired it up. “You’re going to go ahead of me,” I said. “If we’re not at the cabin by dark I’ll kill you.”

  The look of fear was back on his face. “It’s too far,” he whined. “I can’t walk that fast.”

  “Then you’d better run,” I said.

  He wasted no time trying to decide if my threat was real. He turned and began to make his way quickly through the woods.

  47

  The bike had a firm-sided saddle bag attached over the rear wheel which contained two large canisters of gasoline. Except for a brief stop to refuel I allowed Henderson no opportunity to rest. When the late afternoon light started to fade he looked back at me, his dread more apparent than ever. Maybe he was sensing my growing resolve. Without a word, despite his exhaustion, he started to run.

  As I watched him stumble and trip repeatedly my hate for him only magnified. I kept imagining the things he had done to my little girl, what she must have gone through in her final moments.

  At one point he fell heavily and lay motionless. “I have to rest,” he gasped.

  “I told you what I was going to do,” I said without emotion. “Either you get up now or I’ll kill you where you lay.” To make my point I chambered a round in the rifle.

  He was tired enough to try calling my bluff. “Go ahead,” he said. “You’re going to anyway.”

  Without a seconds hesitation I fired a bullet that missed his head by inches.

  I had made my point. He staggered awkwardly to his feet.

  “How much further?” I said.

  “Listen to me,” he panted. “I can’t make it by dark. It’s another two hours at least.”

  “Which direction?”

  He pointed behind him. “Straight that way.”

  All right, asshole, I thought to myself. Let’s do this. “Get down on your stomach and put your hands behind you,” I ordered.

  A look of renewed panic skirted across his face but he did as I said.

  I reached into the duffle bag, draped over the bikes handle bars
, and withdrew a hatchet. Henderson couldn’t see me. He undoubtedly assumed I was going to tie him up.

  I moved quickly and straddled his back. I took his right hand, then stretched out his arm. Now that I had actually starting the process of my planned revenge I lost all capacity to reason things out. “Is this the hand you used to cut off my daughter’s head, you fuck?” I screamed.

  He tried to squirm free, suddenly aware what was happening. But I had him held firmly. I brought the axe down as hard as I could.

  It took three swings to completely severe his hand.

  I had come prepared for what I was doing. Only the location I had planned to use had changed. For some reason I couldn’t hope to understand it had seemed important that I take him to his cabin to torture and kill him. Now it didn’t matter where he died. It only mattered that I bring his miserable life to a painful end.

  I tied some string around his wrist. I didn’t give a damn about the loss of blood, I just didn’t want him to die yet.

  I pulled him over onto his back. He had passed out from the shock. I slapped his face hard until he fluttered awake. He started to scream but his screams were weak. I dragged him to the base of a small tree and sat him up, then tied him to it.

  He kept losing consciousness. I had to slap his face repeatedly to keep him awake. I wasn’t going to allow him the luxury of lapsing into painless sleep.

  I took an hour to methodically separate him from his remaining hand, then his feet. Each atrocity I committed fed fuel to the next.

  Henderson was delirious at this point. Mumbling inanities. Occasionally he would become sufficiently alert to curse me. When I finally grew tired of his noise I took the hatchet and hammered his teeth into his mouth.

  He tried to scream but it came out only as a pitiful sob as he sputtered blood and broken bits of teeth.

  It took quite a while but finally he choked to death. I can only describe the manner of his death as delightful to me and agonizing for him.

  But I wasn’t yet done. In one last frenzied attempt to achieve the ultimate degree of retribution I used the hatchet to replicate what he had done to my daughter.

  When at last I fell back, exhausted beyond measure, the axe slipped from my bloodied grip.

  I sat staring at Henderson’s massacred remains until darkness fell.

  48

  When I woke up it was morning. Dried blood covered my clothes, face, and hands. I was within twenty feet of Henderson’s butchered body. I had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep practically within reach of the carnage I had created.

  My body began to tremble uncontrollably. It took a long time before I could even stand on my wobbly legs. When I did stand I vomited what little there was in my stomach.

  In the clear light of a new day everything was different. My mind grappled with the reality of what I had done, what kind of man I had become. By committing these dreadful acts I had revealed I was no better than Henderson. My reasons for undertaking them may have been more understandable, but that didn’t make them any more acceptable.

  I was in a morbid panic but I was lucid enough to know I now had some hard decisions to make. Did I go to the law and take responsibility for my actions? If I did, the likelihood that I would spend a long time in jail was certain. But that wasn’t all of it. What about the stigma attached to a man responsible for such butchery? Such things were never forgotten, not by anyone. Certainly not by the law and especially not by the woman who had loved me. How could I ever face Callie again? What would she see when she looked into my eyes? If I had simply shot Henderson there would have been no problem. I’d have probably been given a medal. But nobody was going to honor someone that had chopped a man to pieces with a hatchet, no matter how contemptible that man may have been. There would probably be those who would say ‘Good for him. He gave that bastard exactly what he deserved.’ But they wouldn’t say it in public. Those comments would be reserved for very private moments between those accustomed to extreme violence.

  So, what was the alternative? Become a fugitive? Spend the rest of my life running? That didn’t hold a lot of appeal either.

  Did I have any other choices?

  Only one came to my mind.

  If I had been in a clearer frame of mind it’s unlikely I would ever have considered it, but there was nothing clear about my thought processes at this stage.

  There was a man back at that campsite that was probably dead of his wounds by now. By all indications he was a loner. It was unlikely that anyone was going to report him as missing, at least not for a long time. He was close to my age and, although thinner, of similar stature. I could grow a full beard, lose fifteen pounds and, with glasses and a cap, probably look enough like him to pass a routine inspection. He had all the documentation I would need to establish myself somewhere far away from his home state of Nebraska.

  The only way to make this work would be to dispose of Walker’s body in such a way that he was mistaken for me. An idea came to me that, in my unbalanced state, I actually thought might have possibilities.

  I had to move fast. If I was going to pull this off I had to get it done before a serious search for Con and me was undertaken. We had already been gone far longer than I had intended. I wasn’t going to make any bets on whether or not anyone would make the connection to this mountain.

  First, though, for my plan to work I had to dispose of Henderson’s body and all its parts. And I had to hide them well enough that they would never be found.

  49

  Back at Walker’s camp I was faced with yet more problems. Walker wasn’t dead. Although it’s unlikely he’d have lasted more than a few more hours his heart was still miraculously pumping blood. But I didn’t have a few hours to sit and wait for him to expire naturally. I couldn’t give myself time to sit and hesitate over anything.

  Walker’s breathing was so shallow that I was able to convince myself I would be committing a simple act of mercy. I pinched his nostrils together with one hand and covered his mouth with the other for thirty seconds. Except for a slight jerking movement a few seconds into it, he barely moved.

  I removed Walker’s boots and put them on my own feet. Luckily they were a good fit. I checked his pockets for anything personal. Other than a small pocket knife and some loose change there wasn’t much. I put the knife, together with his wallet and watch, in my own pockets.

  My next task was to dig a large grave a few yards into the woods, away from the camp. Once done I threw in all my personal possessions, pulled Con and Walker into it, doused the bodies with gasoline, and tossed a match on them.

  I watched for hours as the bodies burned. Each time the flames started to die down I added more fuel. The only thing I made a point of not soaking with gasoline was one of Con’s legs. When the bodies had finally all but turned to dust, with the exception of Con’s leg, I threw in one of my boots and let it burn almost to nothing. I covered the ashy remains of the fire with Walker’s canvas tent and filled in the hole. I did a superficial job of hiding the burial site by covering it with debris from the forest floor. Then I deposited the boot I hadn’t put on Walker in the woods between the camp and the burial site.

  I was almost done. It was time to plant some DNA evidence.

  I sliced open a finger with my pocket knife and smeared blood on two cartridges from the rife. I fired the two rounds into the ground where I would have been shot if not for Winston. After that I dripped blood over the earth above them until I started to feel feint.

  As my final act I gathered together and packed up everything that gave the camp the outward show of permanence. When I was done I surveyed my handiwork with a critical eye. As far as I could see anyone coming upon this spot would gain the impression of a temporary stopover for a camper who had long since moved on.

  Of course it wouldn’t fool an FBI forensics team. But then, I didn’t want it to.

  I said a silent farewell to my loyal and loving pet. He had deserved a much better end than he got.

  W
ith the dirt bike loaded down with all the gear I had gathered up I took off in search of Henderson’s cabin.

  Although I had a new identity I wasn’t anxious to put it to the test. I needed to grow a full beard and lose some weight before I tried to pass myself off as Eldon Walker.

  And then I needed to figure out where Walker had left whatever vehicle he had brought to this mountain. I had his keys to a GMC vehicle but I had no description other than that and no clue how to find it. In the meantime I needed a place to hide and rest. Henderson’s cabin, if I could find it, seemed to offer the best hope of remaining undetected. After all, he had used it to avoid discovery until now. Presumably it was stocked with everything I would need to survive until my appearance changed enough that I could venture out into the world.

  Finding the cabin was no easy task. Before I killed him Henderson had given me a rough indication of the direction, but two hours by foot in a straight line from where he had died left a great deal of real estate to search. If not for the dirt bike I would never have been able to cover the distance involved considering all the exploration it took.

  When I finally came across the cabin it was not what I expected it to be. In fact it was not a cabin at all really, more a clapboard shack constructed many years before from old barn boards. It was approximately twelve feet square with walls that were deteriorating, a roof that would not deter rain, and a packed earth floor. There were no windows.

  A narrow wooden cot along one wall, made from the same boards as the shack, and a roughly hewn table with the stump of a log for a chair served as the only furniture in this decrepit little hovel. But there were provisions. A couple of shelves along one wall contained a months supply of canned goods and a couple cases of bottled water were stored in a corner. A box of candles and matches sat on top of these.