The shooter shivered violently inside his down parka as he tried to steady his crosshairs on the granite island inside Dr. William Martin’s expansive kitchen window. He’d been scoping the kitchen almost an hour from the relative seclusion of the fence that ran along the north lot line in the physician’s massive yard, which was buffered by thick hardwoods beyond. He must have seven to ten isolated acres here, the shooter thought, with the land in back of the house tumbling down into Lake Winnebago. At nearly a hundred and eighty thousand acres, Winnebago was the largest lake encompassed completely within the state. The shooter huddled against the lower branches of a twenty-foot blue spruce, the tallest specimen in the yard that surrounded the grand two-story Tudor home.
The shooter felt it inevitable that the physician would come to the kitchen for a beer, wine, soda, water…some beverage. Or maybe he’d grab an after-dinner snack. If he stopped at the island, the shooter planned to abruptly end his night, and his life.
Another hour passed and the physician still hadn’t visited the kitchen. During that time the shooter held the doctor’s wife, a young daughter, and even his golden retriever in his crosshairs. The golden had a nasty habit of “counter cruising,” the shooter noticed. Two or three times during the shooter’s vigil, the big dog had actually put his front paws up on the island, hefted his big head over, and sniffed around for scraps. His luck this night hadn’t been any better than the shooter’s.
His shivering came more frequently now, and he knew he’d have to abandon his stakeout if the doctor didn’t show soon. He softly cursed the parka’s manufacturer. It was billed as an “arctic survival parka” and was supposed to keep him comfortable at minus forty degrees Fahrenheit. It was slightly below zero now, with a scant breeze that made the wind chill a bit worse. But the shooter knew the rating was based on “moderate to light” activity levels, and that trying to remain absolutely still for hours on end didn’t fit that description.
His feet worried him the most. They’d been fine when he’d been walking and his blood was pumping faster, but they got ice cold soon after he settled into his vigil. Then they went numb inside the winter pack boots he wore. He tried to wiggle his toes inside the boots periodically, but he couldn’t tell if they were even moving. There had been no feeling at all the past ten minutes, and that unsettled him.
He thought again about calling it quits for the night and trudging back in failure to his vehicle. If he shivered while squeezing the trigger, the tremor would likely throw off his shot and probably allow his quarry to escape. He didn’t want that. This wasn’t meant to be the proverbial shot across the bow. He grunted softly and started to stiffly rise to his knees when the doctor made his appearance, padding through the kitchen on the other side of the glass.
The shooter settled somewhat painfully back in and did some quick isometric exercises, trying to flex his muscles tightly from his feet all the way up to his neck, anything to increase his blood flow without creating noticeable movement. He was fairly certain the doctor couldn’t see him. Even seventy yards closer, he’d probably be invisible to the doctor inside the well-lit kitchen.
The doctor came to the island. He’d gone to the fridge, out of view of the shooter’s position, and he now laid out bread, lunchmeat, and cheese. Probably some fancy Boar’s Head meat and maybe some smoked Gouda to layer on top, the shooter thought while bringing his rifle up into position. He tried to find the doctor in the scope, but he was gone.
He lowered the gun a bit, and the doctor shuffled in view again with a plate, a rounded loaf of artisan bread, a jar of mayo, a large knife, and a glass of milk. Like the surgeon he was, he cut two chunks of bread and dipped the knife into the mayo, and began spreading.
The shooter brought the gun to his shoulder as the doctor screwed the lid on the jar and walked back out of view again. He couldn’t believe how fast the doctor had made his sandwich. He likely had one shot at this now, when the doctor stopped back at the island to pick up his sandwich and milk. The doctor did just that, steadying the rather full glass of milk before preparing to move back into the adjoining room.
Steady kills. The shooter thought of the old hunter’s axiom as he pulled the trigger. The window exploded inward and the doctor toppled behind the island. The shooter levered another round into the chamber. He wanted to get out of there, but he also wanted to see if he’d put the doctor down for good. He expected to see the wife and kids race into the kitchen and to hear screaming and general pandemonium. Instead, it was eerily quiet.
He readied to leave when the doctor’s right hand came up onto the island counter. He hefted himself up and leaned into the counter for support, blood streaming down the left side of his face. He may or may not have been fatally injured, but he was confused. He turned slowly.
“Shit.” The shooter brought the gun back to his shoulder. The doctor took an unsteady, shuffling step toward some help that was out of view. The shooter stopped shivering now. Fear of failure and adrenaline heated his blood and he held firm in the center of the doctor’s head as he gently squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked and the shooter wasn’t able to see the doctor go down. He was certain he must have hit him hard, but he couldn’t be sure.
He saw movement behind the island again and slammed another shell into the chamber. He brought the scope up and looked through it in time to see the retriever’s big head and front paws on the counter. The dog stretched forward and inhaled the doctor’s sandwich in two large gulps. That was all the evidence the shooter needed. He set the rifle down, leaning it against the boughs of the evergreen he’d set up in front of. He slipped a small crucifix from his pocket and dropped it in the snow by his feet. He retrieved a red catsup bottle from inside his parka and squirted deer blood in the direction he’d dropped the crucifix. Then he turned and headed down the fence line and back to his car.
When he reached the Blazer he got in, fired it up, and took off down the street. He planned to take the back roads home and was in no hurry, not wanting to attract attention.
He hit the power button on his radio and his old compilation CD came on. Ray Charles crooned, “You don’t know me.”
The killer dialed the temp in the car up to seventy-five degrees and as soon as he felt heat returning to the car, he turned the fans on full blast. He adjusted the vents so that hot air blew down by his feet, and he tried not to let the Blazer swerve as he tugged off his boots and damp socks as he drove. His feet felt like chunks of ice and were numb as he replayed the kill and drove.
It was a sloppy kill. That bothered him. He was never a sniper, but he’d grown up hunting whitetail, taking at least one each season since he was twelve. He prided himself on being a good shot. He wouldn’t win any ribbons in a marksmanship competition at a thousand yards against the pretty boys from the Marines or Special Forces. But he goddamn well ought to be able to make a clean shot from seventy yards out, even through thick-pane glass.
He stewed as he drove and the pain in his feet grew in intensity as they thawed out. First, he felt tiny pricks of feeling in his feet, but these grew steadily into agony. The pain got so bad he wouldn’t have been able to drive if it weren’t for cruise control. He was wallowing in the sloppiness of his second kill and the pain in his feet when Johnny Cash’s gravelly voice and hard-driving acoustic guitar came on the radio.
For a moment he forgot the pain in his feet as the wisdom of Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” washed over him.
Maybe it was better the kill was sloppy, he thought. Was it ever clean when a doctor murdered an innocent ? Hell, no. It was pure evil. Black as sin.
And despite the awesome pain in his feet, he started tapping his aching toes along with the music.