Maggie paced the kitchen floor and fretted over Jimmy, but Hick knew what was wrong. “They’ll be okay, Mag.” He sipped his coffee and stared unhappily out the window. “I wish they hadn’t gone,” he admitted, “but those kids know how to survive.”
“But they’re just children.”
Hick put the coffee cup down and rose from the table. He put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and she reached up and grabbed it, her worried eyes met his.
“I have to meet Doc at his office this morning. As soon as I’m done, I’ll go back out to their house and see if they went home. If they did, I’ll try and talk ’em into coming back. But I can’t make ’em stay here.”
“You will try?” Maggie asked.
“I’ll do my best. Those kids have never had a chance. I’d like to help ’em if I can.”
She leaned into him, looking up into his eyes. “I knew you would.”
He bent to give her and Jimmy a kiss and picked up his hat. “I’ll try to be home for dinner.”
She nodded and he walked out of the house, pausing on the porch to listen to the sounds of the fading night. He climbed into the car, not anxious to hear what Jake Prescott had to say and even less anxious to see what remained of Susie Wheeler after fourteen years in the grave.
It was dark and Hick’s headlights cast weird shadows on the shrubs near Jake’s porch as he pulled up to the office. He knew the doctor would be in the back so he went around the corner of the white clapboard house that served as both residence and office and knocked on the screen door.
“Hick?” Jake called.
“Yeah.”
“Come on in.”
Hick tentatively walked into the office and was relieved to see the coffin lid had already been replaced. Jake was in his white lab coat and was putting instruments away.
“Well?” Hick asked.
Jake nodded. “You and Adam guessed right.” He went over to a small table on wheels and picked up a metal tray. On it lay an assortment of what looked like chicken bones. Taking his cigar from his mouth he pointed with it saying, “These were found in the pelvic area. Susie Wheeler appears to have been about four months pregnant when she died.”
Hick stared at the dish, an overwhelming sadness welling up inside.
“Where does the case go from here?” Jake asked. “Someone out there had motive to kill Susie Wheeler. I think Gladys figured out who that was and that’s what got her killed. Now, I need to figure out who it was.”
“I see,” Jake answered.
Hick sat down and let his mind race. Susie Wheeler was pregnant and Gladys provided her with an address for an adoption agency. But who else knew Susie was pregnant? How did they know Susie would be out by the slough at that time of day? Was she meeting the baby’s father? Hick looked up at Jake. “I need to find out more about Susie’s last days … who she was with, who might have known her troubles. I need to talk to Wheeler.”
“I’ll go with you,” the doctor volunteered.
Hick turned away as Jake lifted the lid to Susie’s coffin and returned the bones of her child to their rightful place. Then, they waited until after Seth McDaniel had retrieved Susie’s casket to call on the Reverend and Mrs. Wheeler. The sun had risen and the day promised to be clear as the squad car pulled into the large circular drive in front of the home. Hick paused and closed his eyes. “This won’t go well.”
“I know,” Jake agreed. “Let’s just get it over with.”
Nodding, Hick opened the door of his car and was dumbfounded to hear the crack of a rifle ring out from behind the house.
“What the hell?” he shouted and then ran around the corner of the house leaving Jake trudging behind.
He reached the back yard to be greeted by a triumphant Ted Wheeler. The rifle in his hand still smoked.
“I got him!” he yelled at Hick. “I got the beast. He would have killed us.” He was giddy and began to laugh. “I did it!
I did it!”
His shouts and laughter were halted by an inhuman sounding wail coming from the back of his property. Jake arrived at that moment and ran toward the source of the sound. Racing through the yard, Hick stopped short, horrified at what he saw. Mourning Delaney was bent over her dying twin, screaming and crying, ripping the hair from her head in clumps.
Wheeler caught up, breathing heavily from the run and then froze, as if seeing a nightmare unfold before him. Mourning never looked up, her eyes were filled with the form of her brother, bleeding profusely from a wound in his back. In Job’s hands were the remains of the Reverend Wheeler’s breakfast, crusts of toast, burnt bacon, and apple cores. Hick suddenly realized the dark, shadowy figure that was spreading panic throughout the town of Cherokee Crossing was nothing more than Job Delaney trying to put food on the table for his mother and sister by any means possible … even if that meant rifling through the diner garbage.
Jake bent down and felt Job’s wrist, then shook his head. Placing his hands on Mourning’s shoulders he said, “Come, child. Come with me.”
“Noooo,” she screamed and pulled away. Their limbs had intertwined in the womb, their hearts had beat in unison since the moment they were conceived and now Mourning Delaney, for the first time in her existence, was alone.
Jake tried to pull her away, but she fought back frantically, grasping her brother’s waist, his blood covering her arms and chest.
“Mourning, he’s gone,” Hick said quietly, kneeling beside her and placing his hand on her head.
She howled and pressed her face against Job’s bloodied shirt.
“Mourning …”
She screamed once more, a desperate, heartbroken wail that caused the hair on Hick’s arms to stand up, and then she collapsed into sobs, still clinging to her dead twin.
Hick turned to Wheeler who stood there aghast, mouth hanging open, a look of shock and horror on his face. “I thought he was Jed … or Eben. I thought he was.…”
“He was what?” Hick stood and faced the reverend, rage coursing through him. “Coming to hurt you? Or your wife? For what purpose? To what end? Why would they have anything against you? What reason would they have to come here and start trouble?”
“Reason?” the minister asked, as if he didn’t understand the word.
“Reason. The thing that should set us apart from animals. The common sense that God gives us, but people like you throw out the minute you feel threatened. You called Abner Delaney an animal. What are you? The minute you feel threatened, your only thought is self-preservation. You’ll do anything to survive. Chew your leg off. Kill an innocent child. Anything! Like a fox, caught in a trap.”
The rifle dropped from Ted Wheeler’s hand as Jake helped the still sobbing Mourning to her feet. Her brother’s blood covered her, matted in her hair and smeared across her face. As Jake led her to Hick’s car, Hick turned to the reverend and said in a flat voice, “By the way, we came out here to tell you Susie was about four month’s pregnant when she died.”
Ted Wheeler aged before Hick’s eyes. His frame sagged as if gravity had suddenly grabbed hold, pressing him down toward the earth. “What?” His voice was barely audible.
“I’m going to need to ask you and your wife a few questions. Right now, I’m taking Mourning Delaney to my house. The undertaker will be out here for Job. Don’t touch anything and wait inside. There will probably be charges.” Hick pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and lifted the warm rifle from the earth.
Ted Wheeler nodded, his eyes fastened to the remains of the boy.
Hick sighed. “I understand fear is a powerful thing to control. I was in Europe, I’ve done plenty of things to be ashamed of. But you … you brought this on yourself. You could have been teaching love and tolerance and understanding. You could have been asking your congregation to have patience and let us do our job. Instead, you chose to spread hate and fear. Hate is an all-consuming thing. It always destroys.”
“I didn’t mean to kill—” Wheeler began, but he couldn’t finish. Sobs erupted from somewhere deep within him.
The reverend stood sobbing in the yard as Hick walked away. The blood of Job Delaney seeped into the ground.
Hick marched around the house toward the squad car, the rifle in his hand as heavy and burdensome as anything he had ever carried.
Mrs. Wheeler stood on the porch, wringing her hands, and looking at the back seat of the car where Jake sat wiping the blood from Mourning’s face. “What’s happened, Sheriff?”
“Your husband has been involved in an altercation,” he told her as he opened the trunk and placed the rifle inside. “I’m gonna need you to call the station and have Wash or Adam come out.”
“An altercation?”
“He killed a trespasser,” Hick said, slamming the trunk with vehemence he couldn’t control.
She staggered backward and sank down into a wicker chair. “Killed?”
“Yes, a young boy. Job Delaney.”
“Delaney?”
“Yes, ma’am. He was in your fire barrel, looking for breakfast.”
She stared at the car where the still-frantic Mourning was clearly visible
“Breakfast …” Her voice trailed off. “Will he … will he go to prison?”
Hick followed her gaze back to the car. “Men like him don’t go to prison.”