Blood Brothers (23 page)

The older officer—Stephanie had seen him
before but couldn’t place him—said, “You really shouldn’t be
talking to her.”

“You do what you have to do, officer. I’ll do
what I have to do.” Catching the harshness in her voice, he nodded
and returned to his phone conversation. All around was pandemonium.
All around except for the space just beyond Stephanie and Carrie.
Two women who had loved the same man. Or at least shared a bed with
him. The universe had quieted around the two. Stars did not shine;
the world did not spin on its axis. The cacophony of distress from
Michael’s staff was silent now or at least fell on deaf ears. Even
the thundering beat of her own heart was lost to silence. Nothing
existed except the sight of this pitiful thing, this torn and
dimming woman.

Carrie opened her mouth. Blood stained pearly
teeth. “I-I…,” she started, but whatever the statement was to be,
there was no air in her lungs, no strength in her body to give it
flight.

“Just be still. An ambulance is on the
way.”

Carrie shook her head, admitting to herself,
most likely, that no matter how soon it arrived, help would be too
late. From some deep reserve, the younger woman found the strength
to squeeze Stephanie’s hand.

“I knew he was married,” she said in a
whisper.

“Shhh,” Stephanie said. “The paramedics will
be here soon. Just rest. They’ll fix you up. You’ll see.”

“No. I need to tell you…I knew he was
married. Married to you…But it didn’t matter…to me.”

Stephanie took a deep breath. She didn’t need
to hear this. Not here, not now. Before she realized it, hot, salty
tears were sliding down her cheeks. “You don’t have to—”

“Yeah,” Carrie said, barely more than a
strong breath. “I do.”

Carrie swallowed hard as if her throat was
swelling. “It didn’t matter then. But…it matters…now.”

Evil thoughts came to Stephanie’s mind.
Terrible and awful as they were, she couldn’t push them away.
Thoughts like, “How dare you? How dare you try to apologize now,
while you lay dying? What, don’t you want to meet your maker with
adultery on your plate? You bitch, you slut! You knew he was
married the first time you laid eyes on him!”

Visions of this woman and Michael, her
husband for crying out loud, in some bed, twisted in the linens,
pleasuring each other with no thought of the hurt, the shame it
would cause anyone else. Lost in the rapture of their lust.

Then, as suddenly as they came, they were
gone. Again, her heart was filled with pity for this person.
Someone, before today, she had never met. A person who had turned
her entire life, and her perception of that life, upside down.
Stephanie was no fool. She had no doubts that Michael was less than
faithful, but knowing something and being confronted with it were
two very different things. Still, pity, empathy, and then sympathy
overtook her.

“I’m…so…sorry,” Carrie said, barely managing
the words before her head fell sideways.

“I forgive you,” Stephanie said, praying the
young woman heard her before she died. And it was the truth. She
did forgive her. Michael Cole, however, was another story
altogether.

***

News travels fast in a small town. It is
often said that the only thing that beats the six o’clock news is
good gossip. That was as true in the burg of Benedict as anywhere
else on Earth.

Jerry Garrett was sitting in Blum’s Pharmacy,
enjoying a really fine meal of country fried steak and mashed
potatoes. Blum’s was a fixture of Benedict, located on Confederate
Avenue, just down from the tourism office. One of the town’s oldest
shops, Blum’s, as of late, sold more food, cosmetics and keepsakes
than medicine. It was a good thing, you might say. Donald Blum, the
son of the original owner, was just passing seventy-seven and his
eyes and mind weren’t as sharp as they used to be. Blum’s only
registered pharmacist, Don employed a few techs, but no one else
was legally licensed to dispense medication.

He’d heard the sirens a few minutes ago, but
thought little of the obtrusive sound. Where he lived, sirens were
just part of the backdrop. It took less than five minutes for the
people strolling in and patrons answering calls on their cells to
start talking loudly enough about what had happened in the Benedict
building for Jerry to overhear.

“Carrie Franklin…”

“…
she just shot the place
up…”

“…
.a real
tragedy…”

“Cole lit out of there like his rear was on
fire….”

A hundred more conversations like that,
constantly building until the shop was buzzing with it. Some had
moved closer to the window in hopes of seeing something, anything.
There was little chance of that, Jerry reasoned. They were several
streets over from Mike’s office and the routes to either the police
department or the hospital didn’t lead in front of Blum’s.

He flipped a twenty down on the table, wiped
his mouth with a napkin, and left Blum’s. Walking swiftly, but not
fast enough to cause any unwanted attention, Jerry headed for the
scene of the crime. He didn’t know exactly what had happened—it was
crazy to take all the talk back at Blum’s as gospel—but he knew
that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good for Mike. And what wasn’t
good for Mike, was good for Jerry.

He had to give it to the local law. When he
arrived within a block of Mike’s office, the entire street was
cordoned off with yellow police tape and several uniforms and fire
fighters were standing at the perimeter making sure that anyone
brave enough to cross the tape would think twice about passing them
by so easily.

That was just dandy with Jerry. He would find
out what had happened in due time. Perhaps Carrie was actually
involved. Hell, maybe she even pulled the trigger on Michael
herself. That would be good, but Jerry was already regretting not
doing it himself when he’d had the chance. That was putting the
buggy before the horse, he knew. So far he’d nothing but a bit of
conjecture to go on, but despite itself, his mind ran rampant.

Ten minutes later, there was a commotion at
the front doors. Jerry watched as a gurney was wheeled out by
several paramedics surrounded by other uniformed men and women,
mostly cops and other paramedics, even a firefighter or two. The
form on the gurney was covered in a sheet. The sheet was white,
save for the red blossom of blood soaking through—apparently
Benedict didn’t have an overabundance of body bags.

There was no possible way for Jerry to make
out who lay concealed beneath the sheet. Following the group’s line
of travel, Jerry ascertained the ambulance they were headed
towards—there were several, most likely the town’s entire fleet—and
crossed the street and moved as close as the fearsome police tape
would allow.

Then he moved a bit farther.

Dipping below the tape, he intercepted the
procession as they neared the rear of the ambulance. Two stern
looking men were the only ones doing any work, the rest most likely
hoping a photographer would capture their image for the newspaper
the next morning.

With a daring that that few would even
fathom, Jerry strode right up to the gurney and pulled the sheet
away. A hand knocked him back and a string of obscenities was
directed at him. After looking down, he looked up to the man who
had the gonads to touch him, much less swat away his arm like he
was nothing more than a pest in a field of corn. The gaze had its
effect. The procession carried on, people pushed past him, but the
one who had knocked his hand away said nothing more, in fact, and
he could hardly hold a stare for a second or two. No matter, Jerry
had seen all he needed. It was not Michael Cole beneath that sheet,
dead, lifeless, departed from this world, but Carrie Franklin
looking at peace, that was all.

Then the game was not over. No, not even
close. As a matter of fact, the stakes had been raised and it was
just about to get good.

Now

Without a clear destination, Michael drove
out of the downtown area. Forced to conform to a much slower speed
due to the heavy traffic of lunchtime, he could not use driving as
an escape. His was left with only his thoughts.

It had been foolish to flee the scene. He
knew that. He wasn’t at fault. He didn’t pull the trigger. He
hadn’t killed anyone.

Or had he?

Hadn’t his words, cruel and terrible, been
the catalyst for Carrie’s descent into a suicidal rage? Never
before had she exhibited such morose inclinations. And the shot
into the womb—he couldn’t get that out of his mind. Instead of
calling forth images of picketers outside abortion clinics, it
brought back visions of children wasting away in incubators, of
starving babies in third world countries.

What in the Christ had he been thinking? To
be so utterly cold. Carrie hadn’t been on the take for money. And
even if she had, didn’t the mother of his child, his child, deserve
to raise the child without worrying about how the next bill would
be paid? Was this his legacy? Was this what he had worked his life
for? To ruin lives in his wake like a human hurricane, a wild,
unreasoning force of nature?

So many questions, so few answers.

Carrie. Dead.

It seemed so unbelievable.

She hadn’t been dead when he’d left; she’d
actually reached out for him. But he’d seen that self-inflicted
wound. There was no coming back from that.

To turn the barrel of a gun inwards on
yourself. You had to be in a very dark place to do such a thing.
Once or twice, perhaps, Michael had been in murky places in his
life, but something always kept him from stepping from the murk
into complete darkness. Would something keep him from doing so now,
as his life lay as ruined as Carrie’s young body?

He’d be the scandal of the town. People would
laugh about him. They wouldn’t want to meet his eyes. They’d
consider him a sack of shit piece of humanity. They’d feel pity…and
shame for him. No, they’d be ashamed of him. They would reject
him.

Selfish thoughts, he knew, but didn’t the
Bible itself say “to thine own self be true?”

On the road a man with a poodle scrambled out
of his way. Michael swerved just at the penultimate moment, saving
not only the man but the canine as well.

The Porsche was in familiar territory.
Amazed, Michael stared down his street, not daring to look in the
direction of Wilson Washington, his neighbor of five years. The man
he’d almost run over.

Pulling down the brick street, Michael didn’t
understand that he’d automatically, without any forethought, simply
driven home, albeit in a roundabout route.

Tall houses on either side of the street, the
Porsche purring along. This was all the reaping of his work, a
housing project, a fancy one, sure, but a project just the same.
Just like when he was a kid…

The homes cost millions, more than most
Benedictians earned in their entire working lives, but now, in the
light of recent events, the majestic homes had lost their majesty
somehow. In the sunlight, they were nothing more than structures,
well-planned, made of exquisite materials, but mere structures all
the same.

He passed the Reddicks’ home as he prepared
to use his own drive as a turn around point. He had no interest in
returning home awaiting either the police or Stephanie, or worse,
both.

And then a thought.

Wilson Washington had been alone.

Not all that spectacular in itself. Except
that in his years living here, Michael had never once seen Wilson
walking alone, not, of course, counting the poodle, Tank—an odd
name but who was he to judge.

Michael pulled into his drive, rammed the
gearshift into reverse, and squealed tires as he returned to the
front of the community. Sunlight glinted off the small lake
situated at the front of the property. Wilson Washington, not one
taken kindly to the meeting the business end of an automobile no
matter how exotic and expensive said auto might be, bent low,
scooped Tank into his arms, and made a swift retreat from the
road.

Pulling to the curb, Michael didn’t bother
getting out. Instead he put down the window.

“Wilson, I’m sorry about that just then.”

“Sorry, Cole, sorry? Tank and I were almost
paint for that fancy dancy sports car of yours, y’know.”

“Like I said, Wilson, I’m sorry. My fault,
entirely.”

“Of course.”

“Look, I’m a bit concerned. Have you heard
anything about Ben Reddick?”

A cloud came over Wilson’s face. Not a pretty
sight. Wilson Washington was a prime candidate for plastic surgery,
if there ever was one. The thin, waifish man with silver hair was
pale as a bed sheet and had no disfigurements such as scars or
atrocious blemishes. Still in the same, his face was a study in
ill-proportioning. An overly large, bulbous nose that was as red as
freshly squeezed beet juice, more often than not, eyes that had the
yellowed look of jaundice and white, well-cared-for teeth that had
gone a bit wild in his mouth as if a low-grade explosive had
erupted, pushing each tooth in crazy angles but not damaging them
on an integral level.

“No, Cole. I can’t say as I have. We usually
walk Tank and Sophie together, but for the last week I haven’t seen
hide nor hair of him. Called a few times, stopped by.”

“Could he and Elise be on a trip?”

Wilson seemed to consider this for a moment
before saying, “He could be, I suppose. I’m sure he must be. Just
odd, he never mentioned it before and both vehicles are in the
garage, I checked.”

Bingo.

“Thanks a lot, Wilson.”

“Something wrong?” the old man asked. Michael
didn’t answer. Already the Porsche was in reverse and he was
picking up speed. He sped by the Reddicks’ drive. He fully intended
to check things out over there, but this time he wouldn’t be trying
to fight a gun battle with his fists.