The Closing: A Whippoorwill Hollow novel (The Whippoorwill Hollow novels) (25 page)

“Don’t worry,” Deatherage said. “I gave her a good time up there. I don’t think she’s had a man for quite a while.”

“What have you done to her?”

“I guess you could say I put her to sleep.”

Nate grasped the banister to steady himself.

“You don’t wanna go up there. You don’t wanna see that big mess. It’s fun while they last, but it’s hard to look at em when you’re done with em.”

“Did you kill her?”

“I’d say so, but it’s hard to tell. You’d be surprised how long it takes to choke a woman to death. Took almost three full minutes for Darlene. Takes longer for a normal-sized man cause he can fight you more. Joe Hitt lasted four minutes and thirty-five seconds. I know. I timed him. That’s a damned long time in a life-or-death struggle.”

Nate couldn’t remember who Hitt was. He could think of nothing except Christine. Nate had turned this monster loose on her and he had killed her.

“Sometimes they pass out and you think they’re gone,” Deatherage said. “Then they wake up and you get to choke em again. My wife’s good at that. Your pretty little wife pulled that trick the first time I choked her, but I’m pretty sure I did her in that second time. You never know, though. I ain’t a doctor. I can’t always tell for sure if they’ve given it up for good. They surprise you sometimes and come around again. Your little wife might have one or two more go-rounds left in her for all I know.”

Nate swooned, tightening his grip on the banister to keep from collapsing.

Deatherage said, “You see, I built up this powerful need to cause you some serious aggravation. You’re the one who brought this whole mess down on both of us, you know. All you had to do was get me outta jail and I wouldn’t have come here lookin for you. I wouldn’t have done all this here killin. But you didn’t get me out and the next lawyer they sent wasn’t good as you and he couldn’t figure out how to get me out so I had to get myself out. I had to kill the deputies down there in Starkey County. I had to steal some poor old lady’s car and her husband’s duds. I had to run like a sumbitch. I had to kill a poor old farmer in Pocahontas cause he wouldn’t let me have his dirty old rattletrap pickup truck without a fight. Some people are hard to figure. I sure as hell wouldn’t have died for a broken-down pickup truck. Anyway, all that hard work put me in a damned mean mood when I got to Jeetersburg.” Deatherage shook his head. “Then I got worried that you wasn’t where I figured you’d be. Deeks told me you lived on this big old farm way out in the hollow and the phone book says you live at P.O. Box 355 on the state road so I had to sneak all the way out here with half the state police lookin for me. Then the damned mailbox out there says Christine Smith. I almost drove off before I saw her on that horse canterin around the corral and it came clear to me. She threw you off the place after you ran around with your girlfriend and all. Well, I walked right up to her and asked her if she was your wife and she didn’t answer but a look came across her face that told me I was right.” Deatherage chuckled again.

Nate looked upstairs. Part of him wanted to go up there, but another part of him didn’t want to see what he would find there.

“She’s up there in the bed. Her and me had a high old time, but I had to rush things along when I heard your car pull up out front. It’s too bad because we were gettin to the good part, you know, the part where I twist the rope just a little bit tighter and the lights go out in her eyes but she’s not quite dead and her body’s still warm and soft and all. I wanted to drag it out, but I had to finish her quicker than I liked so I could come down here and give you a proper greetin.”

Nate leaned over and propped his hands on his knees. His breath came in short bursts.

“Don’t pass out on me. I’m not through with you yet. I want you to know what I told her before I killed her.”

Nate looked at Deatherage. He wanted to kill him. Deatherage smiled at Nate. Then something caught Deatherage’s attention and he looked up at the landing and flinched. Nate looked up.

Christine stood on the landing. Her eye was blackened, and her lip was split. Blood matted her hair and streaked down her forehead into her eyes. A red laceration ringed her neck. Her blouse was torn open and she was naked below the waist. She held a pistol in both hands. She pointed it at Nate.

Nate whispered, “Christine.”

Deatherage brought the feet of his chair down on the floor and stood. He stared at Christine, wide-eyed, but his look of fear fell away when he saw where she was aiming the gun. His smile returned. “Well, I’ll be damned. Your little wife had one more go-round left in her after all.”

Tears were streaming down Christine’s cheeks. Her hands shook. The gun was trained on Nate.

“She’s kind of pissed at you, lawyer. You see, I told her about the good times you had with your girlfriend. I told your old lady what you said about how she got old and dried up, how she didn’t look good any more, how you wished she was dead so you’d be free to run off with your new girl. Go ahead and shoot him, sugar-pie. He sure enough gave you good cause to do him in.”

Christine glanced at Deatherage and then looked back at Nate, her fists clutching the gun, her hands shaking violently, sobs bursting through her clenched jaw.

Nate couldn’t speak.

“I told her all the tricks you and your new girl did in bed, the ones your little wife never would do with you. I told her how you and your girlfriend sneaked in this house one time and did it right up there in her bed.” Deatherage chuckled. “Pull the trigger, honeybunch. You can get away with it. Everybody will think I shot him, and I sure to God won’t turn you in.”

Christine straightened her arms and thrust the pistol at Nate. The gun barrel danced in the air. She whimpered.

Deatherage laughed. “And I told her how you said you hated her guts and you stopped lovin her years ago and—”

Nate was looking at Deatherage when the first shot rang out. A window behind Deatherage shattered. He jumped backward. The second shot hit the wall behind him. He jerked his head around to look at the bullet hole, looked back at Christine, and raised his hands. “Hold on now.” The third shot struck him in the chest. He grabbed his chest, staggered backward, and fell against the window frame, his face contorted with pain. “Wait. Wait now.” The fourth shot hit him in the right eye. His head jerked backward and he crashed through the window, dragging the curtain with him, and he fell out of sight. The fifth and sixth shots hit the wall above the window. Christine pulled the trigger twice more. The hammer pounded harmlessly against the firing pin. She stepped back to lean against the wall and slid down to sit listlessly with her back against it.

Nate went to the broken window. Deatherage was sprawled on the ground below it, his arms and legs askew. The bullet hole where his eye had been spurted blood, and a bloodstain leeched across the chest of his shirt. Shards of glass, splinters of the window’s frame, and remnants of a sheer window curtain were strewn over his carcass. His legs twitched. The blood flow from his eye diminished and then stopped. He became still.

Nate turned and looked at Christine. She sat on the landing, the gun still clutched in both hands, crying. He climbed the steps and knelt beside her. He pried her fingers loose from the gun and looked at it. It was his pistol, bought many years earlier when he first became commonwealth’s attorney. He set the gun on the floor and put his arms around Christine and held her. “I’m sorry, Christine. It’s my fault he attacked you. He hurt you to hurt me.”

Sirens wailed in the distance. “Did you call the sheriff, Christine?” She didn’t answer. She didn’t look at Nate. She didn’t move. He went downstairs and searched the dining room. He found no weapon. He looked out the window at Deatherage’s body. He assumed Deatherage had no weapon on him or he would have used it to defend himself. Nate quickly searched the entire first floor and found nothing. He ran up the stairs into the bedroom. The bed had been stripped of its covers. A bloodstained pillow lay at its head and blood was splattered on the mattress. On the floor he found Christine’s torn clothing and a makeshift garrote—a strand of rope knotted around a horse whip. He searched the room hurriedly, but he didn’t find a gun.

Nate returned to Christine. “Deatherage had a pistol and a shotgun. Where are they?” She didn’t answer. “Where is Deatherage’s gun?” She didn’t respond. No presence dawned in her eyes. She was somewhere else. The sirens wailed through Whippoorwill Hollow toward the farm. He looked at the broken window frame, the bullet holes in the plaster. The pistol lay on the floor beside Christine. He picked it up and slipped it inside his belt. He shook her. Her eyes came into focus. They pooled with tears. “Stop crying, Christine. There’s no time.” She stopped crying. “Listen to me, Christine. I’m going to tell you the story of what happened here. Listen to me carefully. You don’t have to remember much, but you have to remember it well. Every time someone asks you what happened, you have to tell this story. You have to tell it the same way each time.”

Her eyes filled with tears again.

“No, Christine. The time for crying has passed. You must be strong. Your mind must be clear. My story will be the truth about what happened here. You must remember it. Do you understand me?”

She wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Do you understand?”

Her eyes cleared. She nodded her head.

Nate told Christine the story as the sirens wailed outside the house.

Nate sat on the bottom step of the stairs. Selk County Sheriff Coleman Grundy stood at the front door gripping the stock of a pump-action shotgun, his potbelly straining against the buttons of his shirt, his hat pulled down low over his eyes. Medical emergency personnel rolled a gurney out the door. Christine lay on the gurney under a blanket. She looked at Nate. He nodded to her, but she didn’t respond. Her eyes were clear. The fear and anger were gone, but no other feelings seemed to have replaced them. Maybe she was numb, he thought, the way he was numb after his downfall. He hoped so.

Sheriff Grundy propped the shotgun against the wall and watched the paramedics roll the gurney to a van. The van pulled away from the house, its lights flashing. The sheriff looked at the dining room window, looked at Nate, and frowned. “Messy situation we have here, Nate. I won’t bother to explain your rights to you. You know them better than I do. You know you don’t have to answer my questions.”

“I shot him.”

The sheriff took a deep breath and looked at the shotgun leaning against the wall. “We found this twelve-gauge in the corral. There’s blood on the barrel. There’s blood on the saddle of your horse. I figure Deatherage hit Christine over the head with the shotgun when she was on the horse. He dropped the shotgun in the corral and dragged her across the field to the house. Is that what happened?”

“I don’t know. When I got here, they were inside the house.”

The sheriff stroked his ample belly and made a sour face. “We found the service revolver Deatherage stole from the Starkey County deputy tangled in the bedcovers up there in your bedroom. There’s no gun on Deatherage’s corpse.” The sheriff hesitated. “I know you understand how important the answer to this next question is, Nate. I’ll repeat—you don’t have to answer my questions.”

Nate waited.

“Did you think Deatherage had a weapon when you shot him?”

“No.”

The sheriff winced. He looked upstairs. “There’s a big mess up there. It looks like Deatherage did terrible violence to Christine. Did you catch him in the act of raping and choking her?”

“He was sitting at the dining room table when I got here. Christine was in the bedroom, unconscious, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t see her.”

“Be careful what you say, Nate. There are three bullet holes in the wall around the windows. Deatherage was hit twice. Your pistol is empty. He was unarmed. A good lawyer will have a hard time making a case for self-defense.”

“It wasn’t self-defense.”

The sheriff grimaced. “There’s no need to say words in the heat of the moment that you’ll regret later.”

“Deatherage told me he had killed Christine. I wanted to kill him. I knew she kept my pistol in the drawer of that table.” Nate pointed at a table by the front door. “I got the pistol out of the drawer. I fired all six shots at him.”

The sheriff stared at Nate for a long time. Nate looked down at the floor and said nothing. The sheriff pulled open the drawer of the table. “Seems like an odd place for Christine to keep a gun. You’d think a woman who lived alone in the country would keep a gun in a table beside her bed where it’d be handy if a prowler broke in the house at night.”

Nate’s mind raced to find a convincing lie. He remembered the night of his closing argument to Christine. “I shoved my way into this room and pushed her around the night of my car accident. She’s not afraid of prowlers. She’s afraid of me. She keeps the gun there in that table to protect herself from me.”

The sheriff frowned. He was quiet for another long spell. Then he said, “Doesn’t make sense to me, but I suppose it might make sense to Christine.” The sheriff walked to the dining room window and looked outside at Deatherage’s body. “Where was she when you shot Deatherage?”

“She was unconscious in bed upstairs. She told me Deatherage choked her until she passed out. She said she regained consciousness and called your office for help. That must have happened a few minutes after I shot him. I didn’t realize she was alive until I went upstairs to the bedroom just before your men arrived.”

The sheriff put his hands on his hips, looked up at the landing, and shook his head.

Nate waited with his heart in his throat.

After a long pause, the sheriff said, “I guess I believe you.” He walked over to Nate. “I have no reason not to believe you, do I?”

“I knew he didn’t have a gun. I shot him because I wanted to kill him.”

The sheriff heaved a heavy breath. He reached for the handcuffs snapped to his belt.

“You won’t need those,” Nate said.

The sheriff pursed his lips. “No, I suppose not.”

That night Nate sat on a cot in a Selk County jail cell. Howard Raines sat on a folding chair in the cell. Howard rubbed his temples and sighed. “If you allow me to put on a defense, no jury will convict you. For God’s sake, the man tortured your wife.”

“Christine’s my ex-wife.”

“That’s the third time tonight you’ve reminded me of that fact. Why?”

“I’m facing reality.”

“You’ve picked a fine time to come to grips with your marital status. We need to craft a defense. In case you haven’t noticed, your life is on the line. In the morning you’ll be arraigned for first degree murder and you’ll be required to enter a plea. “

“I’ll plead guilty.”

“Have you taken leave of your senses, Nate?”

“I shot Deatherage. At tomorrow’s arraignment I’ll plead guilty.”

“You shot him, but you know as well as I do that doesn’t mean you’re guilty of first degree murder. You must have feared for your life when you pulled the trigger. Perhaps you saw him reach into his pocket or raise his hand toward you. Maybe the glare of the sunlight coming through a window behind him blinded you. You thought you saw a gun in his hand. You fired in self-defense. You knew he was a ruthless murderer so you emptied your gun to make sure you disabled him. All we need is a plausible story. The jury will believe anything you say. They’ll want to believe you. You’re a hero. You saved Christine’s life. You killed a vicious murderer.”

“Deatherage didn’t have a gun. I admitted that to the sheriff.”

“I’ll move to exclude your comments to Cole Grundy. He didn’t inform you of your rights before he questioned you. He told me he would concede that point in court. He wants to help you. Judge Blackwell wants to help you. You’ve always had an edge with him. Everyone sympathizes with you in this case. We all want to help you, but you don’t seem to want to help yourself.”

“My plea is up to me. Not Judge Blackwell or Sheriff Grundy or you. I’ve made my decision. I’ll plead guilty tomorrow.”

“Damn it, Nate! We can construct a solid basis for self-defense. Christine can testify about what Deatherage did to her. Jurors will hate the man.”

Nate grabbed Howard’s arm. “Christine won’t testify. There will be no trial. This case will be closed by the end of the hearing tomorrow. I shot Deatherage. I killed him. I meant to kill him when I shot him. Tomorrow morning I’ll plead guilty with you by my side or without you.”

Howard looked down at Nate’s fist gripping his arm. Nate let go of it and went to the window, his back turned to Howard. He didn’t want Howard to see the anxiety in his face. A cursory investigation would expose his story as a lie. A simple paraffin test would show no gunpowder residue on his hands. The angle of entry of the bullets in the wall would show the shots were fired from the upstairs landing, not from the front door as he claimed. If he was ruled out as the shooter, it would be clear that Christine killed Deatherage. Nate could read Sheriff Grundy. The sheriff knew Nate was covering for Christine and he was willing to allow him to take the blame, but the slightest doubt about Nate’s guilt might force the sheriff to conduct an investigation to protect his office from criticism. Nate’s guilty plea would eliminate that risk. “I’ll plead guilty in the morning, Howard. Will you stand with me?”

“Will you at least allow me to negotiate with Rea for a plea to a lesser offense?”

In the heat of the crisis, Nate had forgotten about his conversation with Wiley Rea. The consequences of Nate’s bad choices as commonwealth’s attorney seemed to be never-ending. “I don’t want to run the risk.”

“What risk could be greater than pleading guilty to first degree murder?”

Nate couldn’t answer Howard’s question truthfully, so he didn’t respond.

Howard said, “If you allow me to work on Wiley, he’ll likely agree to voluntary manslaughter with a recommendation of a short sentence, maybe even a suspended sentence with probation.”

“You can talk to Rea about a lesser plea, but if he offers even the slightest resistance, you are to terminate the discussion immediately.”

“He’s a prosecutor. He won’t roll over. I’ll need to threaten him with bad publicity for an overzealous prosecution of a local hero.”

“You will not pressure him. If he offers resistance, you will back off.”

Howard heaved a deep sigh. “Of course, even if Wiley were to agree to voluntary manslaughter, that’s a felony. At best, the bar association’s disciplinary board will suspend your license to practice law for a long stretch. The board might even disbar you. I suppose you’ve thought about that.”

Nate nodded.

Howard shook his head morosely. “All right, damn it. I’ll do the best I can with my hands tied behind my back.”

“Thank you, Howard.”

Howard closed his briefcase and turned to leave.

Nate said, “How is Christine?”

“Doctor Davis said her physical injuries aren’t critical, but he’s worried about her mental condition.”

“Did you speak with her?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything about what happened?”

“She doesn’t remember anything after Deatherage forced her into the bedroom. The next thing she recalls is regaining consciousness and calling the sheriff. I guess she’s lucky in that respect.”

“She’s not lucky. She had the misfortune of marrying me.”

“You’re not making sense tonight. You’re confusing the issues of your broken marriage with this sordid tragedy. They’re separate matters.”

“They have the same root cause. Me. I ruined her life,” Nate said in a soft voice. “I berated her and belittled her. I slept with Rosaline for more than a year and lied to Christine about it the whole time. And I’m responsible for Deatherage’s attack. He raped and choked her to get at me.”

“A big part of me hates you for what you did to Christine, but what Deatherage did to her is not your fault.”

“I withdrew as Deatherage’s counsel for selfish reasons. He told me he would pay me back. He attacked Christine to get back at me. I caused the attack.”

“I’ve represented people like Deatherage all my life. He was a psychopathic lunatic. You can’t hold yourself responsible for anything he did.”

“I didn’t make Deatherage who he was and I didn’t force him to do the vile things he did to Christine, but my actions put him in my house.” Nate turned his back to Howard. “I shot him and I killed him and I will plead guilty to murdering him in the morning.”