The Charity (5 page)

The younger man had not uttered a sound during the storm of words. He merely removed his jacket, meticulously folded it and placed it neatly on a hay bale. He glanced expectantly at the older man as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled up the sleeves. His manner was calm, very matter of fact. If any emotion could be detected in him, it would have been one of cold anticipation. The dim light of the barn flashed off of his ring and his watch. The pale skin of his hands and forearms stood in sharp contrast to the backdrop of the darkened barn.

Jessica watched the unfolding scene with an increasing sense of unease, frightened by the physical threat posed by the younger man. Gus was certainly strong and able, but he was obviously no match for this opponent. The man was coiled, ready to strike. Jessica wanted to look away but was hooked by some horrid fascination.

Her thoughts began to turn to her father’s face—Erin’s laugh. Flashes of memories crowded her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. She fought for control, but something stronger surged within her, clawing its way to her conscious mind.

All attempts to keep the memories packed safely inside their tight box were failing. Jessica was sweating and dizzy, breathing faster, her heart pounding in terror and confusion. It was more than just seeing her friend in danger. Something was gnawing at her, triggering an onslaught of pain.

The images in front of her alternately blurred and sharpened. In one split second, the impression and recollection crystallized. Jessica jammed her fist into her mouth to stifle her growing scream with such force a small trickle blood rolled down her chin. Her eyes were fixed on a shamrock with a dagger slashed through it tattooed on the man’s pale forearm. Her mind flashed to a man with a tortured face standing over her mother’s car. It was not a dream! It was
real
. She felt her surroundings close in on her.

Both hands wrapped around her mouth to gag herself. Immediately she felt the emotions of a ten-year-old girl, helpless and panicked at the sight of the stranger. Get out! Get help! The seconds ticked away like hours as she tried to control herself. Frozen in terror, her mind began a slow slide over the mental precipice which she had painstakingly erected over the years. She clawed for the safety net she hoped would be there, but never was.

Suddenly she was a little girl without a voice. She was trying to scream, to warn everyone of the danger, but the sounds never escaped from her. If only they would listen! If only they would just stop and listen to what she was saying! To what she saw! They would all be alive now if she had just made them listen. But Gus believed her and she’s alive, but no one else believed her and they are all dead.

It’s all her fault that they died. She did not try hard enough. The animal that was hiding in their car was now in front of her and she had to tell Gus! She had to make sure he was going to be safe. That animal was going to do something to Gus and she had to stop it!

Clouds swirled all around her and the horses were laughing. It was loud, too loud. STOP IT!

Screams came from outside of her. Shrill, primal, animal-like screams pierced the night. Now she would be discovered, shrieks acting like a beacon to her hiding place. But the sounds were not coming from her and they drew her back to the present. The panic cleared and again she locked on the sight in front of her. The world reeled around her and her head pounded. She could not be sure that what she was seeing was real, but the hardness of the ground beneath her and the constant wail in her ears convinced her of its reality.

The younger man’s shirt was covered with red, shiny blood. The stone of his face was cracked with a slanted smile pulled tight by a red scar and flecked with blood. A long knife was poised for another thrust into the body hanging before him from the barn’s crossties. The killer’s eyes shone with the heat and thrill of his sport. Jessica’s ears rang with his inhuman laughter mixed with the wail of a man who knew he was dying.

The pain and anguish of the body in front of the killer animated him. His eyes bulged and lips protruded. The smears of blood on his face served to accentuate the effect of crevasses and the smooth scar which ran up his cheek.

The older man dusted himself off and held his hat with two hands in front of him. His head was slightly bowed, perhaps thinking about what he had to do next. The brutality did not faze him. The old man took a careful step or two back from the site of the killing, avoiding the blotches of goo dotting the barn’s dirt corridor. His hands absently prepared a burled wood pipe with shreds of fine tobacco. He tamped down the contents and the sound of his hands gently patting his pockets was swallowed by the hollow barn. Finally victorious, a flame flicked to life from a silver lighter. Soft curls of bluish smoke drifted upward, curling around his bushy eyebrows. Dim light reflected off of the lighter’s smooth metal sides. The aroma of the fine tobacco and the glow of the pipe stood in contrast to the dead body. The lighter flashed once as it slipped away from his grasp toward the waiting pocket.

The old man watched as the killer wiped the blade of the knife on a nearby cloth and refastened the blade into its sheath on his leg. Then he released Gus’ body from the ropes and stepped aside as it crumpled to the ground. He patted his aide on the back and spoke in approving and sympathetic tones. The killer picked up his neatly folded jacket and the two men walked out of the barn into the night.

Jessica sat frozen in panic and disbelief. The realities of her past and present collided in her head, making it impossible to move, or even to think. Eventually, her breathing deepened and her thoughts slowed. She could no longer see the connection. She did not want to. Questions stung, with answers biting to chilling conclusions. Lips and knuckles bled from efforts to choke her screams. Slowly she raised her stiffened frame from her hiding place and walked into the barn.

The scene had taken on a surreal quality. The barn was filled with nervous shufflings and snorts of animals trapped in their stalls, terrified by the smell of death. Nothing was out of place. Everything was as she had left it just a few hours earlier. In the middle of the corridor next to neatly stacked bales of hay lay the oozing body of Gus. He had fallen into a fetal position almost seeming to protect himself from further slashings. She crept over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Death was obvious, but she had to look at his face one more time.

The weight of her hand made Gus roll over onto his back, causing the blood-filled contents of his last breath to spew out, splattering her with glistening mire. Jessica could not bear the overload to her senses any longer. She staggered to the door and vomited. Her head throbbed with its attempt to comprehend what it had witnessed while still trying to stifle the terror locked inside of it.

Fragments of past memories and present visions blended together, creating a fear far larger than the one just experienced. Jessica’s mind, isolated in its attempt to make sense of the chaos, began to systematically lock away the pieces it could not readily deal with. The memories were hidden, suppressed. Her mind’s foremost mission became to protect its carrier. Slowly, methodically, it began to shut down. Its benefactor eventually breathed more easily as it began its journey away from all that was once home.

When the sun finally warmed the morning mist enough to clear it from the fields, the farm was filled with sights and sounds it had never before experienced. A police cruiser from the town of Hamilton was pulled up in front of the barn and was joined by a State Trooper cruiser and other unmarked cars. Men in police uniforms and suits stood in a small cluster talking with one visibly shaken stable hand. Yellow police tape marked “crime scene” was already strung and the air was filled with bursts of static and indistinct transmissions from various radios.

Trooper First Class Owen Shea listened intently to the conversations. A former police patrolman, Shea joined the Massachusetts State Police six years before because the assignments he was getting as a cop in a small municipality weren’t enough to support his ambitions. He had worked in MSP’s gang and drug then fugitive apprehension units and had only just started in his new role with the detective unit stationed out of Danvers. This was his first murder and he hated to admit how excited he was. He was still crisp in his freshly issued uniform of dark blue trousers with a lighter blue stripe up the side, belted slate blue jacket with pointed dark blue cuffs and epaulets and a broad brimmed hat with rope trim. The brass buttons on his cuffs and coat still gleamed from their morning polishing. As he listened, he jabbed the toe of his knee-high black boot under a rock, flicked it aside and watched an earthworm writhe in discovery.

Shea’s facility for remembering people’s names and faces and being alert for the smallest details paid off again and again. He was good at what he did and looked for opportunities to hone his skills even off duty. His professional abilities were matched with a hardscrabble charm and he quickly networked his way into a beautiful wife and an unobstructed career path. His current appointment was like doing the crossword puzzles in the Boston Sunday Globe, an interesting exercise of little consequence. But it would help him to build the reputation he needed.

Trooper Shea dreamed of a position in Boston with the Organized Crimes Strike Force. Once there, elected offices were not far off. He was almost finished taking night classes at Suffolk Law School as part of his dogged determination to leave his working class world behind. Skills counted, but to advance up the ranks you had to know the right people or you were sunk. He looked around at the small group of men and his instincts were telling him that not all of them wanted him to succeed.

He watched as one man consciously and slowly checked out his reflection in the rearview mirror of the police-issued Ford Crown Victoria Interceptor and methodically donned his cap. Patrolman Bass, the only Hamilton officer on duty at that hour, was a large man. Shea had only heard him referred to once before by his nickname, “Constable Bass” for the affected airs the big man had when interacting with townspeople, and this was not a compliment. He had a thick neck and swollen features. Bass jammed his thumbs into his belt and hoisted his solid navy blue trousers up over his burgeoning belly. He did so as he filled his lungs through flared nostrils. All the while Constable’s gaze never wavered from the stable hand’s face. Shea took an instant dislike to him.

“Okay now, boy. Tell me everything you know and start from the beginning.” Constable Bass focused intently on the slight figure of the groom before him. He listened to the jabbering of the young man as he slowly led him back into the barn. Shea followed. Flies hummed around their heads and landed in clusters on the gaping wounds of the corpse. The unsettled dust kicked up by their steps flickered in the sunlight and came to rest in soft layers making everything it touched dull and gray. Shea noted that Constable Bass shooed flies away from his own face and used the motion to glimpse the dial of his watch.

“AAWWH! Jesus Christ! You’d think an animal did this, I mean with his belly just open like that. Whoever did this must be a monstah. I mean no one could just rip someone else open like that unless he was a huge monstah.” Jason Cressup, one of Gus’ favorite grooms, remained transfixed on his own panic. “Oh Gawd, Gawd! It’s just terrible! I couldn’t imagine why he was just laying there. I just went over to ‘im and was about to nudge ‘im when I took a bettah look at ‘im. And I couldn’t believe it! That’s when I saw ‘is blood everywhere, and—look for yahself!”

Constable looked down then quickly away. “Did you hear or see anything unusual last night? Who was here?” Shea watched the charade of him getting only enough information from the groom to appear competent.

“Oh my Gawd! Nope. Nope. I didn’t see anythin’ different this mornin’ from any other mornin’. I jest saw Miss Jessica checkin’ on da hosses last night. That’s all.”

Shea became more interested. “You did?”

Jason wrung his hat in his hands. “Yessir. I jest saw Miss Jessica walkin’ back to ‘er house is all.”

“What time was that?”

“Really early. Like five AM or somethin’ when I just got here. Then I was in the big barn and exercised some of the hosses before I came over here and saw... and saw...” Jason’s words caught in his throat as the horror of the moment was relived.

“Anything unusual or different about her?”

Jason thought for a moment before he replied. “She just looked kinda unsteady is all, like she mighta been drunk ‘er something. One a’ the other guys told me this mornin’ that she had a pisser of ale last night at the pub.”

Shea wrote down the details on a small pad of paper. “That’s it?”

“Yessir,” Jason said. “That’s it.”

Shea continued writing on the pad making detailed notes of each conversation he heard and the description of the premises. He looked up and down the barn’s corridor, noting which of the ten stalls were open and what horses were inside. Feed buckets and hay bales were scattered about at the opposite end of the barn from where Gus lay. This might have been a crime scene, but the animals still had to be tended. Not a horseman himself, he did not have many occasions to be in a barn and the small details fascinated him. He watched with detached interest as another groom clicked a horse into two ropes and began crisply running a brush over its copper colored coat.