I regained consciousness to find Roger sitting beside me on the couch, wiping my face with a damp rag.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
For some reason, I couldn’t catch my breath. I struggled to inhale, but every time I tried, it hurt.
“Just calm down, Callie,” Roger said. “You’re having a panic attack. You’ve got to slow down your breathing and relax. Bud can’t hurt you now. I called the sheriff from my car, and he’s on the way.”
I grabbed Roger’s hand, not caring about protocol or decorum. “Thank you,” I said breathlessly. “Thank you so much.”
“Shh. You’ve got to settle down.”
I nodded and let go of his hand. As I focused on my breathing, it began to slow down. Roger kept wiping my face, and I realized I was covered with sweat. After a few minutes, I felt better.
“I-I’d like to sit up,” I said.
Roger helped me readjust myself on the couch. At least now I was upright and didn’t feel quite so vulnerable. He handed me a glass of water, which I drank gratefully.
“I’m really tired of passing out,” I said, my voice shaking. “It’s getting very inconvenient.”
Roger smiled. “If it helps, I almost fainted myself when I saw Bud through the window.”
“Why did you come back?”
He shook his head. “I was on my way back to the office when it hit me. The red cedar trees. We kept that quiet. Only the murderer would have known about it.”
“But why did you shoot him?” I asked after I handed him back the glass.
“He was going to kill you,” he replied, frowning. “I didn’t think reasoning with him was going to work.”
“But he didn’t have a gun.”
“Bud didn’t shoot those women, Callie. He strangled them, and he was getting ready to do the same to you.”
I nodded, but it still bothered me. If Roger had warned him, maybe Bud would have stopped. Even though he was an evil man, leaving him alive would have given him a chance to change. To repent and get right with God. At first, I was just grateful to be alive, but now I felt the weight of Bud’s death on my heart. And suddenly I remembered John.
“Oh, Roger!” I cried. “Bud did something to John Lapp. I don’t know if he’s still alive.”
Roger frowned. “I saw the buggy tied up on the side of the house, but I assumed it was Noah’s.”
I shook my head. “Lizzie and Noah don’t drive a buggy anymore. And their horses are in the barn.”
“Do you have any idea where John might be?”
“No, but Bud said if he wasn’t dead already, he would be soon. Oh, Roger. Please find him.”
He stood up. “You keep still. I’ll look and be right back.”
I nodded. As he walked away, I prayed for John. Prayed that he would be all right. As I spoke to God, I couldn’t get the look of surprise on Bud’s face out of my mind. And I couldn’t look at his crumpled body lying by the fireplace. Somehow I knew it would haunt me the rest of my life.
After a few minutes, I heard the back door to the kitchen open. And then the door to the bedroom where I’d slept. Had he found John? Was he alive? It seemed like forever before Roger came back into the room. He looked worried.
“I brought him in, but he’s in bad shape. I put him in the back bedroom. I’ve got to get on the radio and call for an ambulance. He’s—”
Before Roger had a chance to say anything else, the front door flew open. Sheriff Timmons stood there with his gun drawn.
“It’s okay, Brodie,” Roger said. “Bud’s dead. He tried to kill Callie, and I had to shoot him.”
I expected the sheriff to put his gun away, but he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t move. Just kept his gun trained on Roger.
“Sheriff,” I said, “everything’s okay. You can put your gun away.”
Two people came in the door behind Sheriff Timmons. Noah and Levi. Their expressions frightened me.
“Take your gun out of its holster, Roger,” the sheriff said grimly. “Hold it by the barrel with your index finger and thumb, put it on the floor, and kick it toward me.”
“But, Sheriff—”
“Now, Roger.”
The sheriff’s authoritative tone made me jump. “I don’t understand,” I said. “What’s—”
“The coroner’s report came back. Mary wasn’t killed by strangulation. It was a blow to the head. She was strangled after she was already dead. Her death was made to look similar to the other killings. You did it, Roger. You killed her.”
Roger’s face went slack, and he started to say something, but the sheriff interrupted him.
“There’s no use denying it. I talked to your neighbor about an hour ago. She was outside with her dog the night Mary died. She heard the fight, and she saw you leave early the next morning. After you put something large in the trunk of your car. I’m sure a good forensics investigation will turn up the evidence we need.”
I swung around to gaze at Roger, shocked by what the sheriff had said. “Roger, what is he talking about? I don’t understand.” Suddenly, I remembered Roger’s torn pocket. “Your pocket. Mary didn’t fix it because she was already dead. She never would have let you out of the house like that.”
“I . . . I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did,” Timmons said. “It’s over, Roger. Just give me your gun.”
Roger slowly slid his gun out of its holster, but instead of obeying the sheriff’s instructions, he raised the barrel until it was pointed straight at me.
“What . . . what are you doing?” My voice was barely a squeak. Could this really be happening? I’d thought I was finally safe.
Although Roger’s gun was pointed at me, his gaze was trained on the sheriff. “It was an accident. Mary didn’t want me to work for you. Mennonite tradition reared its ugly head again. She said it wasn’t right. Carrying a gun meant I might have to shoot someone, which was a sin. I tried to reason with her, but I lost my temper. I didn’t mean to do it.” Tears began streaming down his face. “She just kept going on and on about how she wanted me to quit. She was fine when I went through training, but after I became a deputy, she went crazy. Started spouting all these Scriptures about nonviolence. I’ve wanted to be in law enforcement all my life, and I couldn’t let her stop me. She . . . she grabbed me. Tore my pocket.” He stopped to wipe his face.
“So then what happened, Roger?” Levi’s voice was soft and soothing. I looked back at him and saw him staring at me.
“I hit her. I didn’t mean to, and I don’t know why I did it. My . . . my dad used to hit me when I was a kid, and I hated it. It made me angry. It wasn’t until I met Mary that I got my anger under control.” His voice broke.
“Everyone loses their temper sometimes,” Levi said, taking a step closer toward us. “No one’s perfect.”
“But . . . she fell,” Roger said, as if he hadn’t even heard Levi. “She fell,” he repeated in a whisper.
“It was an accident, then?” Sheriff Timmons seemed to be trying to match Levi’s gentle approach, but his revolver stayed trained on Roger. It was obvious they were trying to calm him before something terrible happened. I realized I was caught between two guns. A sob of fear caught in my throat.
“She hit her head on the edge of the coffee table when she fell.” He shuddered. “I heard the crack. I tried to save her. I really did, but I couldn’t.”
“I understand,” the sheriff said. “It’s not murder, Roger. Turn yourself in now, and I’ll help you. We’ll go through this together.”
Roger slowly shook his head from side to side. “They’ll say I should have called an ambulance. That it might have saved her. But that wasn’t true. I would have called if there was a chance—”
“But she was already dead,” I said, trying to help the sheriff get Roger to put down his gun. “An ambulance wouldn’t have helped her.”
He appeared to be thinking about this, turning my words over in his mind. Suddenly his expression hardened, and he waved the gun back and forth. I heard Levi’s voice from behind me.
“No.”
I turned slowly and saw that the sheriff had lifted his gun higher and was looking down the barrel. Was he about to shoot Roger?
“Wait, Sheriff.” Levi took another step closer. “We’ll work this out, Roger. You haven’t purposely killed anyone yet, and I don’t believe you’re going to. I’ve known you a long time. Ever since we were kids. You’re not a murderer, and you’re not going to shoot us. I’m sure of that.”
Roger lowered his gun and sobbed. “You’re right, Levi. I can’t shoot you, but I can end this now.” In an instant, he turned the gun around and put it under his chin.
“No!” I cried. “Roger, stop!”
He looked at me over the barrel of his gun. “I’m sorry, Callie. I really am. I wouldn’t have hurt you. I hope you believe that.”
Forgetting the pain in my chest and my side, I pulled myself up and looked him in the face. “Murder is murder, Roger. If you kill yourself, it’s still murder.”
“I . . . I can’t go on. Don’t ask me to.”
“I am asking you to. God loves you, Roger. He’ll help you through this. We all will. You can still have a life.” I saw his finger move on the trigger. “What would Mary want you to do?” I said quickly. “Wouldn’t she want you to live? Wouldn’t she want you to face what’s happened?”
He lowered the gun just a little. As I looked into his eyes, I was shocked by the anguish I saw there. I was also surprised that the sheriff hadn’t made a move. Maybe he wasn’t convinced that Roger meant it when he said he wouldn’t shoot me. For whatever reason, I was thankful for a chance to talk to him. To try to change his mind.
“God tells us not to kill, Roger. If you do this, you’re saying that God can’t turn this situation around. That He can’t bring good out of it. But He can. Remember King David? He had a man killed, and it wasn’t an accident. Yet God forgave David and blessed him. He called David a man after His own heart. If God can love David and bless Him, why can’t He do the same for you?”
The gun barrel was lowered a few more inches.
“But I’ll go to prison.”
“Yes, you will,” the sheriff said from behind me. “But not for as long as you would have for willful first-degree murder.”
“But what if they don’t believe me?” I could tell by the tone of his voice that we were getting through to him.
“People around here will testify to the kind of man you are,” I said. I looked deeply into his eyes and held out my hand, trying to ignore the stabbing pain that racked my body. “Please, Roger. Don’t do this to yourself and don’t do it to us. Do you know how much it would hurt us to watch you die? It’s something I would never forget. Never get over. You have the chance to make a good decision after several bad ones. Do the right thing now.”
Slowly Roger placed the gun into my hand. I gripped it tightly, pulled it away, and carefully placed it onto the couch behind me. Instantly, Levi scooped me up into his arms while Sheriff Timmons retrieved the gun and moved it away from us. Then he took hold of Roger, pulled his arms back, and placed handcuffs on him.
“Callie,” Levi said, tears in his eyes, “if anything had happened to you, I don’t know what I would have done.” He kept me sheltered in his arms until the sheriff led Roger out of the house. Three or four black cars with sirens blaring pulled up into the yard all at the same time. Men ran into the house, looked at Bud’s body, and then ran to the back of the house to check on John. In the midst of all the commotion, Levi and I just clung to each other and cried.