It seemed like an eternity before Duncan Norman was able to catch Sam Sheridan’s eye. She was standing with a small group of people watching the pickup truck bearing the lifeless body of Douglas Taylor away. He thought maybe it was Pete Rutherford’s truck, but he hadn’t been paying that close attention. They had forced some kind of pills down Claire whatever-her-last-name-was-now and she’d finally stopped shrieking and zoned out enough for her husband to get her into the car and take her home.
As soon as Duncan got Sam’s attention, her emotional withdrawal informed him instantly that she knew why he was here and that he wasn’t going to like what she told him.
He approached her and asked softly, “May I please have a moment, Miss Sheridan?”
She said nothing, just nodded and led him away from the crowd to a quiet spot beneath the awning that stretched out over the front of the veterinary clinic.
No sense mincing words.
“Do you know if … was my daughter … was Hayley pregnant?” The last word came out in a strangled sob, tangled with such horror it was barely able to escape from his throat at all.
“Yes.” She just looked at him then, like she was deciding how much more she should say.
“Please,” and he heard the naked need in the word, the anguish he had only heard in the voices of others but had never expressed himself. “Don’t hold back … tell me … the rest of it.”
“On J-Day, she had been on her way to Lexington to … get an abortion.”
He felt an involuntary spasm in his belly and was so suddenly nauseous he could only barely control it.
“Abortion.” Even saying the word out loud refused to make it real.
“On Saturday afternoon, she asked me if I would do the procedure and I told her no.”
A sob escaped then, a small one, like a sound a child would make.
“So she had no other choice …” He spoke the words as he thought them. “She saw no way out. When you wouldn’t … she took her own life.”
He stood, trying to absorb the meaning in his own words, almost missed what Sam said next.
“No, actually, she didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Hayley didn’t commit suicide.”
“What are you saying? How could she … what, it was an accident? She … what, she tripped and fell to her death?”
“No, sir.” He could tell she absolutely did not want to tell him any more, and he could feel the pressure of it. The horror of the unsaid. The monster evil growing bigger and bigger with every second of silence. “The fall off Scott’s Ridge didn’t kill her. She was already dead.”
“Already dead?” That didn’t make any sense.
“Reverend Norman, I don’t know how to say this, but … Hayley’s death wasn’t a suicide and it wasn’t an accident. Hayley was murdered.”
He thought she said murdered.
“What?”
“I’m no forensic pathologist, but … there were wounds on the back of her head and on the front of her head. Wounds you don’t get falling off a cliff.”
“Wounds?” He was trying to track, but the meaning of her words seemed to be lagging behind the sound of them in his ears.
“Someone beat your daughter to death and then threw her body off the Scott’s Ridge Overlook.” The words came from behind him and he turned to see the woman — he couldn’t think of her name — who had come with Sam earlier to deliver the news. She hadn’t been here before. He didn’t know when she’d arrived, but she was here now, standing beside a man, Viola’s Tackett’s son, Malachi.
“If Liam were here, he would have … but he isn’t,” she said. Her name. He couldn’t think of her name. “There’s no one to conduct a … murder investigation, but that’s what it is. Hayley was murdered.”
“But who—?” Then he knew, of course. There was only one explanation. The rapist who ravished his virginal daughter and planted his devil’s seed in her womb had killed her to keep her silent.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said the man, Malachi. “If there’s anything I can do …” His voice trailed off.
Duncan looked at him then, really looked at him for the first time.
Malachi Tackett.
Malachi. Tackett.
Sam Sheridan was speaking but Duncan couldn’t hear her. There was a great roaring sound in his ears, the sound of all the engines in hell revving up like the tractors at the starting line at a tractor pull. The sound was deafening.
He was surprised he was able to speak, but found the words coming unbidden out past his lips. Looking the man full in the eye, Duncan said, “Actually, I could use your help. Clearly, my daughter drove out to the overlook, took our only car. Would you mind giving me a lift to go get it?”
His words had sounded as devoid of emotion as an automated attendant, as that voice in the airport that directs you to the right luggage carousel in baggage claim.
Everyone was surprised, of course. It was a totally off-the-wall request. Why ask someone you hardly knew to do a thing like that when there were a dozen people — church members and such — who’d jump at the chance to help out?
“I could ask … Scott’s Ridge is where Hayley died. I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold it together when I go there and I’d rather not fall apart in front of … someone from my church.”
It wasn’t a particularly good lie, but Duncan was mildly amused at how easily it had formed in his head. If he put his mind to it, he might be able to come up with a really good one. Effective lying likely took practice.
Then Duncan merely stood, looking at Malachi.
“Actually, I don’t have a car myself …”
When Duncan didn’t allow the explanation to get him off the hook, Malachi turned toward the woman — Charlie, her name was Charlie — and she took the non-verbal handoff.
“You’re welcome to borrow mine.”
“Thanks,” he told her. Then he turned back to Duncan. “So when …?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Duncan heard himself say. “I have … things to attend to before … but I’ll be free by nine o’clock. Could you pick me up at my house?”
“Sure,” Malachi said.
A handshake was called for now and Duncan should have initiated it, should have said thank you as he … but he couldn’t extend his hand. You could’ve put a gun to Duncan Norman’s temple, cocked it, demanded that he shake Malachi Tackett’s hand or you’d blow his brains out, and he’d have died right there on the spot.
He would not, he could not touch the man.
So Duncan merely turned on his heel and walked away. Had to walk away quickly, had to get away or he would …
The words Hayley had poured out into her diary spoke now in his head with her voice.
… tall and dark with a rugged face, unruly black hair and piercing blue eyes.
Malachi Tackett.
There was not another man in all of Nowhere County who fit that description so perfectly.
Malachi Tackett had raped and murdered his little girl. And Duncan Norman would assume the role of an avenging God, administering justice and retribution.
Tomorrow morning would give him enough time to lay his hands on a gun.