Chapter 15
Joel held Chelsea’s hand as she processed the strange shift in her world.
Chelsea whispered, “Good God. How on earth does this even happen in Small Town, USA?”
Joel offered, “I suspect that, one way or another, Tiger found out that his friend John Peacock was dying, and Tiger wanted to come say goodbye. What we don’t know is whether John actually shared something with him.”
Richard added, “Maybe saying that he’d finally done something or told someone or maybe how he kept that all a secret, just asking his old buddy to let him die in the woods, like the apartment super mentioned about Peacock. Yet these are just theories. It’s really anybody’s guess.”
Chelsea stared at Joel and shook her head. “I don’t know who to feel sorry for, the people who died because of these two snipers or John. If he had stepped up and revealed what he knew, just think of the lives saved. And what of his family?”
Joel noted, “He wrote in his code book that he knew what he did was probably not the right thing in the eyes of everybody else, but because his family—his son, specifically—had been threatened by Tiger, it twists everybody up.”
Sterling added, “As long as his family didn’t know anything about John or his whereabouts, and as long as Tiger didn’t know about John’s son, it kept them safe.”
“God, we’ve certainly had enough family drama here,” she muttered, with a glance toward Sterling and Joel.
Sterling snorted. “Ditto. I would say we’ve all had enough family drama. No matter what happened at the end between John and Tiger, we need to find this Tiger guy.”
Chelsea groaned. “I’m beginning to think he’s the one in the black truck who tried to run me down the first time, the same day I found the red truck, hiding Peacock’s body.
And he was probably the one who recently buzzed me with the old beat-up truck, probably stolen, right before he walked up behind me, stuck a gun in my back, and threatened me to not speak to the police anymore. ”
Joel and Sterling shared a knowing look. Joel shared with Chelsea, “I think you’re right. He’s still around, but he’s lying low. I think his instincts are telling him that he’s in danger, and he’ll respect those instincts. So he’ll be even harder to see coming now.”
“I can see that because he is in more danger now,” she stated pointedly. “John left this information behind on purpose. Hoping someone stronger than him would do the right thing.”
“The why is easy,” Joel replied, his tone sharp.
“What we don’t know is if the code book is complete.
After reading it a second time, I noted a spacing between the listing of the kills.
I think the first grouping was all about Tiger’s kills, at least the ones John knew about.
As for the second grouping, I think it was a history of John’s own kills.
At the end of that list was Tiger’s name, but no date beside it. ”
He let that sink in. “I mean, was this all the information he knew about Tiger, or were there more kills to be added to Tiger’s list? Even worse, did John kill even more people who aren’t on his list at all?”
She winced. “So, you’re thinking there could be even more victims?”
“There could be.” He looked over at Richard and stated, “Normally this would be your domain now, but I’m thinking the military will take point.”
That ruffled Richard’s feathers, but he was always miffed when someone stepped in to take away his lead on these cases. He shrugged eventually. “This is something the military would want, but, in the meantime, the PD needs to find this guy and question him.”
She went quiet for a moment, then asked Joel, “How did Peacock die? I guess that means the old man died of natural causes then, don’t you think?”
Richard replied, “According to the autopsy, of natural causes.”
Chelsea again faced Joel and asked him, “Has this been confirmed by unbiased and verified authorities?”
“Not yet,” Joel told her. “Timber is getting a military autopsy lined up.”
“Good,” Chelsea snapped.
Sterling suggested, “No matter how buddy-buddy they may have appeared when and if they met one last time, I’m sure this Tiger guy would have done whatever he needed to do to silence his friend.
Now it could have been a bullet, poison, knife, whatever, or he could have just brought Peacock to the woods to watch him die.
Any and all would work to silence John Peacock from revealing too much about Tiger. ”
Joel added, “I think Tiger would have left town immediately, except for the fact that you saw him, Chelsea.”
Chelsea groaned. “Right, if I hadn’t seen him, he would have gone off on his merry way, … continuing to kill on a whim.”
“That’s the assumption, yes.”
“Jesus.” She scrubbed at her face. “When will this craziness stop?”
Joel reached over, grabbed her hand again, and said, “You’re not alone, so remember that.”
She snuggled up closer to him and nodded. “I hear you, but holy crap. This isn’t … I mean, even now I’m feeling incredibly guilty and protective because I brought this on Sterling and Grandpa and now, you.”
Sterling turned to her in surprise and shook his head vehemently. “Oh no, no way,” he argued. “That’s like Timber feeling bad that you saw what you saw.”
“It’s not Timber’s fault just because I was out that way,” she said.
He smiled at her. “And this isn’t your fault either.”
She groaned. “Okay, fine. But how do we get out of this mess?”
Richard announced, “I’ll call the military.”
At that, Sterling faced him and suggested, “You may want to contact Timber first.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because he has contacts in the military and beyond, and he’s probably already contacted people. Like Badger for one. He’s resourceful, and we can all benefit from that.”
“Right,” Richard muttered, “more military and they do like to take over.”
“I don’t know about taking over, but they will certainly want to speak to their man,” Joel pointed out.
Richard shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“Probably not, but you know as well as I do how they feel about investigations into their world. Plus, you are officially off duty soon, right?”
Richard winced at the reminder. “Regardless, I don’t do any kind of investigation into their world,” he pointed out, “but I do need to make sure that this Tiger guy is off the streets. Plus, if he had anything to do with these attacks on Chelsea, or with the death of our man John Peacock, then Tiger’s got things to answer for right here. ”
“Of course,” Joel agreed. “I’m just saying, if you check with Timber first, you’ll probably find that he’s already contacted whoever needs to be contacted, and the phone lines are buzzing already. In fact, you may see some officials soon, and not the standard-issue PD ones.”
“No doubt,” Richard grumbled, followed by a groan, “whether I like it or not.”
“Yeah, whether you like it or not,” Joel confirmed, with a laugh. “By the way, did that woman-hater Roy get fired yet?”
Richard nodded.
Joel smiled. “Good. We don’t need any more bad cops here.
That includes you, Richard, and I don’t even know what you did.
Obviously, you crossed a line with Chelsea, with Sterling, with your bosses.
Now you’ve lost my respect as well. The nepotism and looking the other way were bad enough.
Now you must have really fallen down the hole on your job. ”
Before Richard had time to give any apology or try to explain his way out of this, their phones started to ring.
Timber contacted both Joel and Sterling, and the detective’s phone was buzzing pretty heavily too.
Richard shook his head, reading several texts. “I’m heading back into town. So, do you have the code book?”
“I have the book,” Joel confirmed, “and I have taken photographs of each of the pages for our use.”
He frowned at him. “Your use?”
“Yeah, our use, as in the military wanting that book too.”
“Right.” Richard contemplated that for a moment. “Maybe you should hang on to the book and send me the photographs then.”
“That’s a better idea,” Joel replied.
“But won’t keeping the code book just make you a target?” Chelsea cried out to Joel.
Richard looked at her and laughed. “You’re all targets now. Anybody who has had anything at all to do with this is now a target,” he shared. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.” He turned his gaze on the other men, who both nodded.
“Yeah, don’t worry. We got that message loud and clear,” Sterling noted. “Like you, we have a pretty good idea how this plays out.”
Richard nodded. “As for you”—Richard turned his gaze back to Chelsea—“can you take a few days off?”
She shook her head.
Not a one of the men tried to argue with her, as she had made her point clear enough already, over too many days.
Joel decided to go about it in a different way. “What if he tries to get to you inside the hospital, during work?”
She stared at him, her shoulders slumping. “Will he hurt other people—patients—because of me?”
“He might,” Joel said. “I won’t ever lie to you.
Obviously he has a lot to lose at this point—his freedom, his life even.
Somebody needs to contact John’s son too.
He needs to know what happened and why. Plus, here’s a bit of good news.
Going over the code book again, I found some numbers.
Come to find out it’s a deed registration.
Seems John did own some property. And, before he died, he put it in his son’s name.
I can share all the details later directly to him as needed. ”
At that, Richard nodded. “I’ll take care of that death notification,” he offered. “The son will need to decide what to do with his father’s remains, which will be sad for sure, but he’ll have the property to take a look at. So a bit of good news.”
“If he even wants anything to do with a funeral or that land,” she pointed out. “Not everybody would agree with John’s decisions. At least, not the families of all those people who died at Tiger’s hands, much less John’s.”
“True,” Richard agreed, as he stood up, “and that’s the thing. It wasn’t just John and his family who were victims, but how many others?”
“Thirty-six,” Joel replied. “Thirty-six names are listed in the back of John’s code book.
But I figure the first sixteen were Tiger’s kills.
The remaining twenty were John’s kills, not counting Tiger, who he never got around to killing.
No telling how many more subsequent kills happened since John stopped writing them down. ”
“That is still a huge number,” she cried out.
“Not if it’s military,” Sterling replied.
That shocked her.
Sterling explained, “You’ve got to think about where he was and what he was doing and why he was doing it in the first place.
In a military scenario, if anybody tries to take down his team, you can bet that he’s right there, returning fire.
His number is probably a lot higher, but it’s possible that whenever he realized what his buddy was doing, he stopped counting his kills, so Tiger wouldn’t try to reach an even bigger number.
After all, Tiger was competing with John on that total kill count. ”
“It’s a sick individual who would try to match something like that,” she declared.
“Do not in any way misunderstand that this man is anything but sick,” Richard declared, as he turned and looked at her. “Whatever he may be, first and foremost, he’s dangerous, … incredibly dangerous.”
Joel added, “In my mind, at least John had a guilty conscience in his final years. I don’t think Tiger has any morality at all. That makes him that much more dangerous.”
She winced and nodded. “Got it. … In other words, avoid him at all costs.”
“If there’s any way to avoid him, yes,” Richard replied, a serious expression on his face. “And, if not, … please don’t be alone.”
She jerked at that, turning to look at Joel and Sterling.
“Why? It seems to me that would be better. If I’m alone, then I’m the one who dies.
But, if I’m not alone, whoever is with me will also die.
” When Joel hesitated to reply, she nodded.
“Yeah, I get it.” She shook her head. “When you have one of these assholes on your back, there’s really no other option.
They’ll take out whoever they can, whenever they can, and any collateral damage they simply won’t give a shit about. ”
Richard gave a clipped nod. “Yeah, you do understand, which is good. This guy has given you two chances to survive. Now that he realizes the heat’s on, he’ll assume that you told us.”
“Even if I had nothing to do with it?”
“Even if you had nothing to do with it,” he confirmed, as he turned and walked out of Sterling’s home.