Ask someone from New York or California to describe Kansas in one word and they’ll say it’s flat. West of Salina, they’d be right, but northeast of Topeka, they couldn’t be more wrong. It’s hill country, a rolling timbered landscape; some parts are like those around Lake Perry thick with woods, a refuge for white-tailed deer, bobcats, and red foxes.
Eldon favored the deer, putting out feeders to attract them, admiring the doe’s graceful, shy, quiet personality and the power of the big antlered buck, imagining a bit of his wife and him in the animals, happy to give them a safe haven when the archery and muzzleloader hunting season started in three weeks and the regular firearm season came in December.
He thought about the deer, his wife, and the home they’d built thirty years ago on that hillside in the woods, how their safe haven could have become a trap if the man in the Dodge Ram had gone north instead of south and followed him there to steal his guns. The narrow road dropping toward his house was the only way in and out, easy enough to cut off. The nearest neighbor was too far away to hear or see anything. The boat he kept docked was in for repairs, the lake as big as an ocean without it.
Each month, he shot hundreds, sometimes thousands of rounds of ammunition, practicing his marksmanship, putting his guns through their paces, noting each weapon’s idiosyncrasies from trigger pull to recoil, adjusting his aim and grip to compensate. But he’d never shot a man or an animal, never served in combat, never been under fire. Lessons learned in a self-defense class years ago were a faint memory. He wasn’t a paranoid survivalist who longed for battle. He was a man who loved his wife and his guns in that order and who wanted the government to leave him the hell alone. That’s all he was. If the man in the Dodge Ram came for him, he didn’t know if he could pass the test.
He turned on the radio, hoping a honky-tonk country tune would put him in a better mind, but switched it off when the hard-driving drums and guitar put him more on edge. The rain had picked up, a steady rattle that blurred his vision and wore on his nerves.
Highway 24 was a four-lane divided stretch, and he stayed in the right-hand lane holding at sixty, glancing at the F-150’s oversized side mirrors to keep a watchful eye on traffic behind him. There wasn’t much, and what there was had no trouble passing him. A convoy of semi tractor-trailer rigs roared and rumbled by, throwing sheets of water and road grit at him. He fought the wheel when a blast of wind threw the F-150 toward the rigs, his trailer shimmying behind him.
The semis well ahead, he looked in his side mirrors again, sighting a pair of headlights a quarter mile behind him and closing. They were too high and wide for a sedan, matching the dimensions of a pickup. He waited for a car going west to pass, hoping its headlights would illuminate the vehicle, but the median was too wide and the distance too great.
His exit, a left turn across the westbound lanes of the highway, was coming up in less than a mile. He wanted to change lanes to make the turn, but the other vehicle had gotten too close. He could make out its shape as it began to pull even. It was a pickup, the trailer’s taillights reflecting red off the Dodge Ram logo on the center of the grill. He grabbed the Glock, holding it in his lap as his chest tightened like someone was cinching a leather strap around him, his breath stuck in his throat.
Was it the man from the parking lot? How had he found him? What did he want? Would he roll his window down and shoot him through the glass or aim at his tires and watch as he lost control and ran into a ditch? Could he shoot him first? He felt like one of his deer, caught in the crosshairs, only he couldn’t outrun his pursuer, not pulling a trailer. He was certain of one thing. He wouldn’t let a thief decide his fate any more than he’d let some bureaucrat tell him to buckle his seat belt.
He laid the Glock on the seat, lowered his window, and reached behind him, yanking the shotgun from the rack, leveling the barrel on the window frame and releasing the safety, his finger on the trigger. The nose of the Dodge eased past. It was blue, not gray, a man behind the wheel, a woman in the passenger seat holding a baby, screaming at the driver, waving at Eldon like she was trying to swat a fly, the man leaning over looking at him, his eyes wide, flooring the Dodge, the truck bucking as it blew by him.
Stunned at what he’d almost done, Eldon stomped on his brakes, the F-150 swerving and spinning on the slick, wet pavement and the trailer whipping side to side behind him like a water-skier jumping the wake. The shotgun slid back inside the truck, the butt dropping on the cab floor between his feet, the barrel aiming under his chin. He grabbed the barrel, pulling the shotgun up and away from him with his right hand, his left on the wheel, fighting the swerve.
He let go of the barrel, trying to get both hands on the steering wheel, his fingers getting caught inside the trigger guard instead, clamping down. The shotgun fired two rapid deafening rounds, blowing a hole in the passenger door, filling the cab with smoke as the truck came to a stop straddling both eastbound lanes. Deaf and blind, he collapsed against the wheel, his chest heaving as the truck’s horn wailed.
The smoke cleared, and he sat up, having enough presence of mind to get moving before a semi doing eighty miles an hour rear-ended him into the next county. He reached his exit, easing the F-150 onto the county road, stopping on the shoulder to check the trailer hitch and his load.
The rain felt good, cooling him down, his breathing labored, the pain in the left side of his chest radiating into his shoulder, neck and down his left arm. The hitch was wobbly, but he thought it would hold until he got home, the canvas bags tossed around the inside of the trailer, piled on top of the footlockers. He climbed back into the cab and returned the shotgun to its place on the rack, rubbing his chest with the palm of his hand.
He knew he was in trouble, figured he was having a heart attack. The nearest hospital was in Topeka, a distance he didn’t think he could make, and, if he could, he didn’t trust a stranger to look after his guns. He’d die or he wouldn’t, but if he was going to die, he’d do it at home in his wife’s arms, not with some nurse telling him to fill out a bunch of forms before he saw the doctor. He put the truck in gear, eating up the county road as fast as the F-150 would take him.
The turnoff onto the gravel road leading to his house was at the top of a rise. He made the turn, his breath ragged. The cool chill from the rain had given way to a sickly sweat and queasy stomach. Combined with the pulsing pain in his chest, it was all he could do to hang on to the wheel. Even had he felt well, it would have been too dark for him to notice the pickup truck backed into the woods on the opposite side of the county road. The three men in the pickup waited until Eldon took off down the gravel road, the driver following him, lights off, relying on Eldon’s taillights to show him the way.
Eldon knew the road, knew each dip, curve, and turn as it wound through the woods, lower and lower toward his house. He’d come home drunk a time or two, navigating the passage without so much as a scratch on the paint, knowing better than to brag about it to his wife, even if she forgave more than most women would. But the paint was taking a beating as he sped past tree limbs and brush, getting too close. The truck careened from one side of the narrow road to the other until he rounded a bend, catching a two-hundred-fifty-pound, eight-point buck jumping across the road in mid-flight.
The collision threw Eldon backward, his head bouncing off the gun rack, his body rebounding against the air bag as it exploded out of the steering wheel. The deer catapulted over the hood and through the windshield, head first, its antlers piercing the air bag, impaling Eldon and pinning him against the seat. The F-150 skidded sideways to a stop, blocking the road. The trailer broke free from the hitch and rolled onto its side, the doors flying open, guns spilling out.
Eldon felt the buck writhing, trying to free itself, its antler digging deeper in his chest, surprised that he could feel anything at all. With his right hand, he groped across the seat, finding the Glock, wrapping his fingers around the grip, wondering if he could raise his hand and pull the trigger and, if he could, whether he should shoot the buck or himself, both of them needing to be put out of their misery.
He heard an engine, blinked when high beams invaded the cab, heard doors open and slam closed, one man saying “Holy shit,” another adding “Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker.” He turned his head toward them and saw that the engine belonged to a gray Dodge Ram pickup. One of the men was wearing a ball cap pulled low on his face. Another man opened the driver’s door on the F-150, looking at Eldon, then at the deer, raising a handgun. It was the Redhawk. The man stepped back, firing once, a bullet to the deer’s brain. Eldon nodded and closed his eyes for the last time.
Lucy Trent wanted a short end of ribs with pit beans, crispy fries, and cold beer. I wanted the same thing, the only difference being that I wanted it while sitting in my easy chair in front of my television. It was Sunday in October, a day intended for artery-busting barbeque and football.
We were at LC’s, a dive on Blue Parkway, a road that ran through Kansas City’s east side. The name was a misnomer; the closest parks were the ballparks where the Chiefs and Royals played, a few miles away off of I-70. LC’s sat next to Parkway Auto Brokers. LC ringed his place with wrought-iron security bars, Parkway preferring chain link and razor wire. They knew their neighborhood.
LC was behind the counter, ribbons of heat rolling over him from the open smoker as he checked slabs, briskets, and chickens, wiping sweat from his dark brown forehead. The fifty-inch television hanging from one corner of the ceiling was on the fritz, all snow and no football.
“Quit moping,” Lucy said. “You’ll be home in time for the late-afternoon game and the night game.”
“Yeah, but I’m missing the first game.”
“Who’s playing?”
“Who cares? What matters is that I’m not watching.”
“Poor Jack Davis. He lives a life of unrelenting cruelty.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“If you have to ask, it’s not nearly as much fun.”
“Order up,” LC said.
Lucy brought our food to the table carrying a tray in one hand and a brown bag, grease staining the paper, in the other.
“Simon’s dinner,” she said, setting the bag on an empty chair.
Lucy was an ex-cop, ex-con, and private investigator for Alexander Investigations. Her boyfriend and my best friend, Simon Alexander, was the owner. Simon specialized in cyber crime. Lucy worked the human side, investing her heart in her clients. I was her part-time gun. A convicted felon, she couldn’t possess a firearm, but I could even though I had a movement disorder that made me shake and had forced me to retire after twenty-five years with the FBI. Who said justice was blind?
“Simon gets barbeque
and
he gets to watch the game?” I asked.
“Yes,” Lucy said, patting me on the head. “And you got barbeque and a trip to the Municipal Farm to visit Jimmy Martin. Aren’t you the lucky man?”
“Luckier than Jimmy. Did you really think he’d tell us where he buried his kids?”
“Evan and Cara are missing. No one says they’re dead.”
“Evan is six and Cara is eight years old, and they’ve been missing for three weeks as of yesterday. How many of those kids come home?”
“Not many. I know. But that doesn’t mean he killed them.”
“Let’s see,” I said, ticking the facts off one by one. “Jimmy and his wife are in the middle of the divorce from hell. She threw him out and had to get an order of protection against him. He can’t see Evan and Cara unless it’s with a court-appointed social worker. The kids disappeared the same day he was arrested for stealing copper wire and tubing from a construction site.”
“I know. I know,” Lucy said. “We’ve been over this. His lawyer asked the judge to release him on his own recognizance since he wasn’t a flight risk because he wanted to be with his kids.”
“And?”
Lucy leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, reciting as if she was being coerced. “And, his wife was in the courtroom and whispered to the prosecutor to ask Jimmy where the kids were, and Jimmy refused to answer, so the judge said no bail and sent him to the Municipal Farm because the county jail was full. He didn’t even take the Fifth. Just acted like he didn’t hear the question.”
“That’s the great thing about the privilege against self-incrimination. You can’t exercise it without everyone thinking you’re a criminal. So, either he killed his kids so his wife couldn’t have them, or he’s torturing her by making her think he knows where they are even though he doesn’t. I don’t know why you were so hot to talk to him. If he won’t tell his wife or the judge what he knows about the kids, assuming he knows anything at all, he sure as hell isn’t going to tell us.”
“I get that, Jack. But it can’t hurt to try. Their mother hasn’t given up hope. That’s why Peggy hired us. So, I’m not giving up either.” Lucy slowly stirred the pool of ketchup on her plate with a cold french fry. “It’s just so hard to believe he’d let her suffer like that, make her wonder what happened.”
“Never underestimate an angry man’s capacity for cruelty. There was a case in Alabama where a father killed his four children, threw them off a bridge, to torture his wife.”
“Which is worse? Mourning their deaths or never knowing if you can?”
I took a deep breath, thinking about my dead children. “I’ve done both and wouldn’t wish the choice on anybody.”
“I know,” she said, taking my hand, “and that’s why I asked you to go with me to see Jimmy Martin. You don’t really miss watching that football game, do you?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Not for a minute. Eat your lunch before it gets cold.”