Batgirl at the Club (Page 23)

by RenderPretender - http://deviantart.com/renderpretender and patreon.com/renderpretender

BOUND IN MATRIMONY (Parts 1 & 2)
Story by Rescuer673 - https://www.deviantart.com/rescuer673

BOUND IN MATRIMONY - Part One

    He stared at her. Beautiful eyes stared back with a delicious blend of anger, fear, and sleepiness as she struggled to shake the drug. She looked so fine in that strapless floral print dress! She was the sort of girl on whom any clothes looked great. Whatever she wore seemed stylish. Even the ropes and the gag, as much as she was trying to free herself from them, looked like fashion accessories.

            After nearly ten years, she was his!

*

ABOUT A YEAR AGO . . .

    Phil Leonard was anxious to get home.

    As a salesman, he traveled a lot. The income was good, if not spectacular, but unpredictable, so he had to constantly hustle, and was often on the road. He was on his way back to his home in the predominantly rural county in which he and his wife, Anne, had grown up.

    Now they had a little girl, Maureen, a year-and-a-half now. Time on the road kept him away from his family more than he liked, but his job required it.

    He’d been in love with Anne since high school, but hadn’t found the courage to tell her ‘til they were both in college. He’d started at State a year before her, on a football scholarship. She’d gotten in on an academic scholarship. Being from the same comparatively small town, he’d introduced himself.

    He’d gone to Kent County High in the town of Poague, the sole public high school in the county. She’d been a student at Mother of Perpetual Help, a Catholic girls’ school a block south of Kent County, on the other side of the street. Anne Riley had been the prettiest girl in town, probably the prettiest girl in the whole county, arguably the prettiest girl in the entire southern part of the state. And the only one who seemed completely oblivious to this fact was Anne Riley herself.

    It was interesting to see what happened when the two schools let out every day. Almost every guy at Kent County would head out to Main Street to see Anne as she walked from her school to her home four blocks away. He wasn’t the only one who was in love with her in high school. Just about every guy at Kent County was.

    And she had no idea.

    Everyone assumed there was some guy in her life, probably from St. Sebastian’s, the boys’ Catholic school over in the next county, and that asking her out was an invitation to be shot down.

    But a year of college had given him a bit more social confidence. And he’d learned that, while getting shot down isn’t pleasant, it’s not as bad as not knowing ‘cause you didn’t have the courage to ask. So, after introducing himself to freshman Anne, he took a chance.

    And, to his delighted surprise, she said she’d love to go out with him.

    She’d had no idea she’d been the object of so many crushes among Kent County’s male student body. In fact, never once, during all her time in high school, had she been asked on a date. If anyone, anyone at all, no matter how homely, dumb, or socially awkward, had actually asked her out, she’d’ve probably said yes, just out of gratitude.

    A few dates turned into a steady relationship, and, as he was starting his junior year, and she her sophomore, an engagement. But right after they got engaged, he got injured. Seriously enough to end his athletic career. His hopes of a pro career were over, and his hopes of a degree had to be put on hold, since now he’d have to pay his way.

    Anne, for her part, took an extra load, and went to summer school all three summers. The consequence was that she was awarded her bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, along with a teaching credential, in three years rather than the usual four.

    They were married at St. Michael’s right after she graduated, the same church at which she had been baptized, received her First Holy Communion, and been confirmed.

    Though she had a license, she didn’t get a regular job teaching. Instead she took occasional substitute assignments, just for the extra money, but with Phil on the road so much, and Maureen still a baby, she felt she needed to be a mostly stay-at-home mom.

    It wasn’t as easy a life as a spot in the NFL would have made it.

    But it was a good life. A life Phil was thankful for.

*

            Wolf Campbell was anxious to keep Phil Leonard from returning home. Indeed he was anxious to keep Leonard from even waking up the next morning.

            Campbell, like Leonard a Kent County alum (though he dropped out before graduation), was, like every other guy at Kent County, a little in love with Anne Riley. But, while every other guy grew more or less grew out of it, and got on with their lives, Campbell’s infatuation grew into an obsession, a need that had to be filled.

            He was not exactly the kind of guy who’d attract a classy lady like Anne. He was overweight, homely, and surly. Continually in trouble all through his school years, his dropping out preceded his inevitable expulsion by mere weeks. Long involved in petty crime and minor league drug dealing, and an avid motorcyclist, he’d hooked up with the Heathens of Satan Motorcycle Club, an outlaw biker gang that was a major criminal presence in the rural Midwest. In much less time than usual, he’d become fully patched. Then, in a phenomenally short period of time, through guile, ruthlessness, and sheer determination to get to the top of the primal food chain that was an outlaw biker gang, he rose to assume the club’s presidency.

            Being at the head of a violent criminal organization gave him the means to do what he still obsessed about. To possess the woman he’d wanted since he was 16. Most of his plan he’d carry out on his own, but his position with the Heathens, if nothing else, gave him a whole clubful of men who’d be able to alibi him if an alibi was needed.

            Tonight he was on his Harley, on the same country rode as Leonard. Right now, Anne was Leonard’s wife. If things worked out the way Campbell planned, in no more than ten minutes, she’d be his widow.

            And free to take another husband, since death had done them part.

            Free only in a nominal sense, inasmuch as Campbell did not intend to give her a choice. But, in any case, no longer attached.

            His chopper was about three car lengths behind Leonard’s Honda. Campbell reached into one of his saddlebags with his right hand, and pulled out a high-powered nail gun. He sped up, as if to pass Leonard, and when he alongside the driver side rear wheel, he fired a nail into the tire, then slowed down quickly to get out of the way of the soon to be out of control car.

*

            Leonard had been cruising at about 65 when the rear driver-side tire blew. He’d seen the motorcycle coming up behind him, apparently intending to pass, but suddenly it was no longer there. Leonard was aware of this only subliminally. His conscious attention was directed at trying to get his car under control.

            He wasn’t successful. At the curve, the small car slammed into a concrete wall, driving the engine into the passenger compartment.

            There was little chance Leonard could have lived through that.

*

            That’s not to say there was no chance.

            Campbell intended to make sure his target was dead. He pulled up alongside the smashed up vehicle, reached under his leather vest, and pulled out a .32 automatic.

            He went up to his victim. Leonard’s eyes were unblinking. He wasn’t breathing. There was no discernible pulse. He certainly appeared dead. But Campbell had to be certain.

            He stuck the .32 into Leonard’s mouth, aiming the weapon up, towards his victim’s brain, and fired one shot. The round was a Glaser Safety Slug, a frangible bullet that would break into pieces as it passed through Leonard’s brain. All its kinetic energy would be expended before it could completely penetrate. No entry wound since he fired through his mouth. No exit wound because the bullet particles would be lodged in Leonard’s brain, and those tiny pieces of shot spread throughout the brain would almost certainly pass unnoticed. The Kent County coroner was a GP who took the county job, under protest, when his predecessor died. He was no forensic pathologist. No one would know, or even suspect, that Leonard had been shot. And the blow-out would be attributed to a loose nail on the road.

*

            Sheriff Masters got into his squad car and drove away from the accident. He left a deputy to guard the scene until a trooper from the State Highway Patrol could get there to conduct a full-bore crash investigation. Masters ran a small department, only six officers, one on court duty, one on jail duty, three on patrol, and the sheriff himself. Technically, the county attorney’s single investigator was also a deputy sheriff, but Masters didn’t count him. Not because he was useless, but because he didn’t actually work for the sheriff’s office. He was employed by the county’s prosecutor, and deputized by Masters only to give him the police authority needed to do the job.

            Dr. King, the Kent County coroner, was also on the scene. He’d made a preliminary examination of the body in situ. He’d remove it to the morgue in the small county hospital after the trooper arrived and was able to get a quick overview for his investigation. Still it seemed pretty straightforward. Masters would be able to tell Anne Leonard that her husband had died in an auto accident.

*

            Since the Kent County Sheriff’s Office was so small, Masters had to be a working cop as well as an administrator. Because of this, and because it was a political office to which one had to be elected, there were certain duties, duties involving interactions with law-abiding residents, that Masters made it a point to perform himself. One of these was death notifications.

            It was a few minutes before eight when Masters knocked on the door of the Leonard residence. Mrs. Leonard answered.

            Godalmighty, but she was a pretty little thing! And still such a young girl. Being a politician, he knew that describing a full-grown wife and mother as a “girl” was not considered politically correct in some quarters, but, honestly, she wasn’t more than 23, and looked younger than that, for all that she’d had the baby a year or so ago.

            He wondered if the news he had would age her.

            “Evening, Annie,” said the sheriff, who’d known her all her life, and was thus entitled to address her so informally.

            “Mr. Masters. Is anything wrong?”

            Instead of answering directly, he said, “Wonder if I could come in for a few minutes.”   

            She stepped aside, and let him enter. She was wearing a loose t-shirt and sweatpants, yet looked like she’d just stepped off the page of a fashion magazine. How’d she manage that?

            When they were seated in the living room, Masters said, “Annie, I’m afraid I got some real bad news. Phil’s car was found on County Road 19, on that real tight curve near the Hanlon place. He smashed into the concrete wall there. He didn’t make it.”

            “Oh, my dear God! What happened?”

            “Highway Patrol’s still investigating, but it looks like one of the rear tires blew out, and Phil lost control.”

            Anne, in a daze, started reciting all the things she’d have to do, all the people she’d have to notify, then abruptly turned to Masters and said, “When can I have him?”

            “Soon as Doc King’s done with him.”

            “But you said it was an accident.”

            “Yeah, but accidental deaths have to go to the coroner, who, at the moment, is Doc King. It’s the law. You’ll get him soon enough. Delay will give you time to make the necessary arrangements without having to hurry.”

            She nodded. She still hadn’t broken down, but tears were starting to stream down her face.

            “Annie, supposin’ I go over to your folks’ place, get ‘em to come here.”

            “Yes. Thank you for thinking of it.”

            As he got up to leave, Anne said, “Mr. Masters, after you see Mom and Dad, could you go over to St. Michael’s and let Father Connelly know.”

            “Sure. But I didn’t think Phil was Catholic.”

            “He was raised Methodist. But he was taking instruction. Sometimes, in cases like that, the Church regards the person as, like, retroactively Catholic, because that was his intent.”

            “I see,” said Masters. A Methodist himself, though an indifferently practicing one, he was just a bit confused by what he regarded as ecclesiastical gobbledygook. “Well, I’d be happy to do that, Annie. Will he be buried out of St. Michael’s, then?”

            “I hope so. I just hope he’s released soon, so we can decide.”

            “Well, it shouldn’t be long, honey. I’ll go let your folks know. Once they’re here, you try to get yourself some rest. It’ll be hard, but you’ll need it.”

            With that, he was out the door.

*

            In the event, it wound up taking more time then expected for the body to be released.

            Wolf Campbell was entirely correct about Dr. Morgan King. He was not a forensic pathologist. Just a regular old family practitioner. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a capable physician, or that he approached his public responsibilities in any way other than diligently and conscientiously.

            And, that being the case, his preliminary examination of the corpse, prior to cutting it open for the post, was meticulous and careful. And, though he didn’t find an entry or an exit wound, he did find a huge powder burn on the roof of Leonard’s mouth, the kind one might see on a suicide who’d shot himself in the mouth. Except that Leonard had been gripping the steering wheel with both hands and, at the moment of death, those hands frozen on the wheel in a cadaveric spasm. So he couldn’t have shot himself.

            At that point, fully aware of his limitations, he stopped what he was doing and went to the phone.

*

            At 27, Jack Bishop was a bit young to be working at the State Bureau of Investigation. Most of the other 70-odd investigators spread throughout the state were seasoned veterans, a few of them former sheriffs or chiefs of police. The director was a former FBI agent.

            Still, for all his youth, Bishop had packed a lot of law enforcement experience into the years between his graduation from high school and his being hired by the Bureau a few months ago. He’d gone right into the Army, entered MP school right after basic, then, after a year in patrol, and another year as a Military Police Investigator, transferred to CID for his last two. During this time, he’d been earning credits towards his Bachelors. After completing his active duty (he was still in the Reserves), he returned to his home state, where he joined the Sheriff’s Office in Stevenson County, one of the state’s more urban counties. After three years, the last in the detective bureau, he got hired as the sole criminal investigator in the Yamparikis County Attorney’s office, a rural/agricultural area adjacent to Clark County, where he’d grown up. Finally, finishing up his degree with night classes and correspondence courses on the ‘Net, he applied to the Attorney General’s office for a position as a state criminal investigator and, against all odds, was hired.

            The amount of activity he’d packed into a comparatively short span of years showed in his face. It was weathered, grim. He looked like a man who’d been through the wars, because, in fact, he had. On foreign shores and at home. Consequently, he looked rugged and experienced, where most men his age still looked boyish.

            He was proud to be in a top-flight outfit. The Bureau was well-known across the nation as one of the finest agencies of its type. It had gone toe-to-toe against some of the most ruthless professional criminals in the country, from notorious gangsters during the Depression to rural gangs of meth dealers today. And won. Some of the more famous cases it had cracked included the successful hunt for five escaped convicts who had, back in 1941, dug their way out of the state prison and formed a bank robbery gang; a vicious home invasion of a prosperous farm in the late ‘50’s in which a whole family was slaughtered, and a whole nation shocked; the tracking down of a serial killer who had terrorized four adjacent rural counties in the northwestern part of the state in the mid ‘70’s; and assisting local police in the search for another serial killer who had preyed on the state’s largest city for seventeen years, beginning his reign of terror in 1974.

            Seated next to him in the state car he was driving was Dr. Patrick Fiegel, a pathologist with Midwestern Forensics, Inc., a private outfit, headquartered in the state capital, that provided forensics experts to communities that couldn’t afford to hire such personnel full-time.

            Bishop had never had occasion to work with Fiegel, but he knew the pathologist had a solid reputation. Dr. King he was much more familiar with. The doc had been his family’s physician when he was growing up. If he said something was suspicious about what looked like a fairly routine traffic fatality, there probably was something suspicious.

            About two hours after picking Dr. Fiegel up at the nearest train station to Kent County, Bishop pulled into the parking lot at Visson District Hospital.

            Ten minutes later, they were talking to Doc King.

*

            “When I saw the powder burns on the roof of his mouth,” said Dr. King, “I was pretty sure it was a murder, not an accident. And I was absolutely certain I was way out of my depth. That’s when I called Jack. Then Midwestern Forensics.”

            “But you said you thought the gunshot was post-mortem,” said Bishop.

            “That’s right,” said King. “Because of the cadaveric spasm. The way he was gripping the steering wheel with both hands, it must have been the crash that killed him.”

            “Tentatively,” said Dr. Fiegel, “I would concur. And I see Dr. King’s reasoning. If the gunshot was post-mortem, it must have been because the killer wanted to make sure the victim was dead, that he wasn’t absolutely certain that the crash had been fatal. And if he wanted to make sure the victim was dead, it indicates that the crash itself must have somehow been induced.”

            “Highway Patrol said the driver-side rear tire blew,” said Bishop. “I’ll see that the car’s turned over to their forensic engineers to see if they can figure out what happened. If there’s a way to determine whether or not the blow-out was deliberately caused, let’s hope they can find it.”

*

            Bishop knocked on the door of the attractive, cozy-looking little house in which the victim had lived with his wife. The door was opened by a breathtakingly lovely young lady with sad eyes who, he surmised, was Mrs. Leonard.

            Dear Lord, what a beautiful woman! And, somewhat familiar, too, though at first he couldn’t place her in this unfamiliar context.

    Then it dawned on him.

            She was Anne Riley, the pretty freshman from OLPH who had every guy at Kent County High dancing on the end of her string, apparently without even being aware she was holding a string. Anne Leonard, now, he imagined.

            “Mrs. Leonard?” said Bishop, reaching for his badge case in the breast pocket of his sports jacket.

            “Yes,” she said.

            “My name’s Jack Bishop. I’m with the State Bureau of Investigation.”

            He unfolded the badge case, and showed her his shield and credentials.

            “State Bureau of Investigation?” she said, looking puzzled.

            “That’s right. I’ve been assigned to investigate your husband’s death.”

            “But it was an accident. At least that’s what Mr. Masters told me.”

            “That’s what it looked like, at first. But Dr. King, the coroner, found evidence that it was murder during his preliminary examination of your husband’s body. He called me, since neither the Sheriff’s Office nor the County Attorney’s office is equipped for this kind of investigation. He also requested an experienced forensic pathologist to perform the autopsy.”

            “Murdered?” She looked stunned.

            “Yes, ma’am.”

            It seemed odd addressing such a young woman as “ma’am.” But she was a widow. And a mother. She wasn’t a kid, anymore.

            She just looked like one.

            “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. Who’d’ve wanted to kill Phil?”

            “That’s what I hoped to talk to you about, Mrs. Leonard.”

            “Oh, of course. I’m sorry. Please come in.”

            She showed him into a small, neat comfortably furnished living room, asked if he wanted any coffee, or some other kind of refreshment. He allowed as how a Coke might be nice. She went off and poured him a glass. As she served it to him, she looked at him quite intently.

            “Did you use to go to Mass at St. Michael’s?”

            “Uh . . . yeah. Years ago.”

            “I knew it! You used to sit on the other side of the aisle, about two or three pews back from my folks and me.”

            “You noticed me?”

            She looked a little embarrassed, and, looking down at the floor and smiling shyly, said, “Well, to be honest, I had just a bit of a crush on you.”

            “You had a crush on me?”

            “Well, yeah, sort of.”

            He chuckled, and said, “Well, it was mutual. Phil must’ve told you that every male student at Kent County was in love with you. And I was a male student at Kent County.”

            “He did tell me that, when he first asked me out. I know you won’t believe me, but I had no idea.”

            “Actually, I do believe you. I kind of got the sense that you were completely unaware. As for me, my crush was particularly intense. The main reason I always went to the Saturday evening Vigil Mass was because that was the one you and your family always went to. My folks usually went to the nooner the next day.”

            “Why did you stop going? Did you leave the Church?”

            “Not the Church. Just town. I graduated at the end of that school year, and went into the Army.”

            “Jack Bishop! I didn’t make the connection when you told me your name at the door. You used to play football with Phil, didn’t you? He talked a lot about you. Said you’d managed to graduate in only three years, and were immediately off for the Army. But I didn’t know Jack Bishop was the boy in church.”

            They both laughed. He said that their both being attracted to each other without either being aware that it was mutual was like something out of an O. Henry story. She agreed. It was a pleasant moment. Too bad it had to end with his asking questions relating to the murder of her husband.

            “Can you think of anyone who had a grudge against Phil?” he asked.

            “No, I can’t. He was very competitive when it came to sports. You know that. But he always played fair. And off the field, he was a really easy-going guy. He played in some games in which State was an upset winner, so people probably lost money. But, as far as I could tell, he didn’t do any more in any of those games than anyone else on his team. And after all this time, what would be the point of killing him now?”

            “What about his job?”

            “He sold farm equipment. It’s a competitive business, like any other, but it’s not cutthroat. He was a good salesman. I know his company was pleased with him. But he wasn’t the best in the company. Just a promising up-and-comer. He was no threat to any competing manufacturers of farm equipment. And he was no threat to any of the other sales staff.”

            “Can you think of anything he had that someone else might have wanted?”

            “I can’t think of what that would be. A house with a mortgage that’s going to last another twenty-eight years? A car that still had four years of payments left? Some sports trophies for which the collective intrinsic value is probably a few hundred dollars at the most? I can’t think of anything he had that anyone else would be willing to kill for?”

            Bishop could.

*

            In fact, Bishop was already starting to feel all sorts of inappropriate feelings for the wife of the victim.

    In the first place, being attracted to a newly-widowed woman was grossly insensitive.

    In the second, statistically she was, at the moment, his best suspect. That’s the way it is with relationships. When a boyfriend is killed, the killer is usually the girlfriend. And a murdered girlfriend is most likely to have been done by her boyfriend. Husbands kill wives. Wives kill husbands. Gay and lesbian lovers kill each other. He really didn’t think Anne Leonard killed her husband, but, at this stage of the investigation, he had to regard her as a suspect. He didn’t like it, but that’s the way it was.

            Fortunately, after his next call in the neighborhood, he was able to eliminate her.

            Credit card records (supported by gas station security cameras) indicated that Phil Leonard had filled up his tank a few minutes after seven o’clock. The call to the Sheriff’s Office from a passing motorist who drove by the wreck came a few minutes before seven forty-five.

            Anne Leonard’s next door neighbor, Mrs. Margaret Beecher, who, back when she was a year behind Bishop at Kent County High, had been Peggy Dolan, insisted that Anne and Phil were one of the happiest couples she’d ever seen, and that she never saw any signs of trouble between them.

            “Of course, they’re still practically newlyweds. So are Bob and I, for that matter. We’ve only been married a year or so longer than Anne and Phil. But still, when you saw them looking at each other, you could just see a kind of a . . . a devotion they seemed to have for each other. You don’t see that in most couples.”

    She mentioned, off-hand, without being asked, that she’d had Anne over to her house the night Phil was killed. Both their husbands were out of town, so they had a sort of two-hen hen party, eating pizza and watching Keira Knghtley and Matthew Macfadyen in Pride and Prejudice, the kind of classy, period romance neither of their spouses could abide. They’d started watching it at about six thirty, and Anne and her baby had left at about a quarter to nine.

            “It’s funny. He’ll never be able to grouse about watching that movie again. Now she can watch it whenever she wants. She can even watch the six-hour version, the one with Colin Firth, uninterrupted, and never hear a complaint. Funny, you get annoyed about a small thing like disagreeing over what to watch on the tube, and then, unexpectedly, he’s gone, and you realize you’d give anything just to have one of those trivial arguments again, if it meant he was still alive.”

            Bishop nodded and said he was sure that was true, while he heaved a figurative sigh of relief. Anne (without realizing it, he was already thinking of her as “Anne” rather than “Mrs. Leonard”) was alibied for the forty-five minutes during which the crime had been committed. Theoretically, he supposed, she still could have hired it done, but that’s statistically so rare that, for practical purposes, unless a serious motive developed, he could regard her as cleared.

            Thank God.

***

BOUND IN MATRIMONY - Part Two

The forensic engineers found the nail that caused the tire to blow.

            “But listen to this, Jack,” said the HP investigator on the other end of the phone conversation. “The nail seems to have entered from the side of the tire, rather then from the bottom. That’s where the puncture is. And the nail was inside the tire. Normally it would go as far as the head, then stop. That way the tire wouldn’t blow immediately. The nail itself would act as a sort of cork, so that the air was released gradually. In this case, it popped like a balloon, and the driver lost control.”

            “What could drive a nail into a tire like that while the car’s moving?” Bishop asked. He had an idea, but he wanted an expert opinion.

            “I’d say a nail gun of some kind.”

*

            Dr. Fiegel’s autopsy turned up bits of the frangible round that had been fired into Leonard’s brain.

            “As Dr. King surmised,” said Fiegel, “it was the crash that killed the victim. The gunshot must have been simply to make absolutely sure he was dead. Fired through the mouth so there’d be no entry wound. A frangible round so there’d be no exit wound. In a rural community in which the local coroner was in general practice rather than pathology, it was not at all unlikely that it would have passed unnoticed, particularly since it looked like a fairly common type of traffic collision. It was only because Dr. King made such a point of being alert for anomalies that this evidence came to light.”

*

            The body was released. Anne was assured by Father Connolly that she could regard Phil as a Catholic under the doctrine of “baptism by desire.” Plus the Methodist form of baptism is regarded as valid by the Catholic Church. That, his desire to convert, and Father Connolly having given him (or, more correctly, his body, though that was a distinction the Church didn’t make on such occasions) the Final Anointing at the scene of the accident, all taken together, meant his conversion was essentially complete.

            All the same, he told Anne, she had to understand that Phil’s parents were grieving, too. And it might be a charitable act to allow Phil to be buried from United Methodist instead of St. Mike’s.

            “They had him for more’n twenty years, Anne,” he said. “You had him for four. I can say a Requiem Mass for him early that same day. Also, Pastor Walters and I are pretty good friends. If I ask, I think he’ll let me participate in the service, reading a piece of Scripture or something. They’re little Maureen’s grandparents, after all. They’ll be part of your life for a long, long time, even with Phil gone. There’s no point in alienating them over something that, in the long run, doesn’t matter to God.”

            After giving it some thought and devoting some prayer to it, Anne agreed.

*

            A coroner’s inquest was convened by Dr. King. The jury, after hearing all the evidence, came back with a verdict of “murder by a person or persons unknown.”

*

            Wolf Campbell was livid when he learned that, after all his careful planning, the accident he’d so carefully staged was now publicly declared to have been a murder.

            He wasn’t nervous about his being identified as the killer. No other vehicles were on the deserted road, and there was really nothing that would link him to Leonard. Still, it was a setback.

            As much as he disliked doing so, he would have to put off stage two of his plan.

            It wouldn’t do for Anne to suddenly disappear while a murder investigation was going on.

            Well, he supposed she was entitled to the traditional year of mourning. Especially since Campbell had no choice.

*

            Bishop attended the Requiem Mass, or “Mass of Christian Burial” as it was now more often referred to, at St. Michael’s. He was seated in one of the back pews, where he could observe everyone present. It was a private ceremony. Except for Jack, the only mourners seemed to be Mrs. Leonard; two middle-aged couples, one presumably the parents of the deceased, the other of his widow; six pallbearers, all guys he thought he recognized from his time at Kent County High; and Pastor Walters of United Methodist, who read the second of the three Scripture passages. Familiar with the ritual, having been a practicing Catholic his whole life, Bishop stood, sat, and kneeled at the appropriate points, and gave all the appropriate responses. When it was over, the pallbearers wheeled the casket out, and loaded it into the hearse. The hearse drove off toward United Methodist, where the more public service would be held, followed by the cars in which the pallbearers had arrived.

            As the congregation, what there was of it, slowly exited, Bishop approached Anne Leonard.

            “Mrs. Leonard?”

            “Mr. Bishop,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”

            “Standard investigative procedure. Always go to the funeral of the victim. And, by the way, all things considered, you might as well call me ‘Jack.’”

            “Thank you. Please call me ‘Anne.’”

            She introduced Bishop to her parents, Matt and Beth Riley, and to her parents-in-law, Stan and Julie Leonard.

            “The graveside service won’t be for awhile, yet,” said Anne. “The main service, the public service, is going to be at United Methodist, Stan and Julie’s church, and the graveside service’ll be after that. Since you came here instead of waiting for the later service, I wasn’t sure whether you were aware of that.”

            “I did know. I planned on going to UM, as well as the graveside service. Going to funerals rarely pays off in any solid lead, but it still pays off frequently enough that we can’t blow it off.”

            “Is there any new information?”

            “No. I just hope it’s not a random attack, with no real connection between the killer and the victim. Those are always the hardest to solve.

*

            But after three months no leads developed.

            Phil was well-liked by his co-workers, his neighbors, his former schoolmates, loved by his wife, daughter, and parents.

            If it was a thrill kill, somebody randomly murdering the first person he happened to see on County Road 19, they might never find out who it was. Even if it was limited to residents of Kent County, with a population of only about 2200 residents, that was still an awful lot of people to eliminate.

            Bishop called Anne every three weeks or so to let her know how things were going.

            Or not going.

*

            Anne, in the meantime, got permission from the executor of Phil’s will to put her house on the market. Any money earned from a possible sale would be placed in escrow until the will was probated.

            Anne and her daughter, Maureen, moved back with Anne’s folks. Anne insisted on paying for room and board, but her folks refused to charge more than a nominal amount, mainly so Anne could feel she wasn’t accepting charity.

            Since they no longer had the income from Phil’s job, Anne started taking substitute assignments more regularly. With her mom a long-time stay-at-home and her dad retired, she had ready-made babysitters, which was good because a lot of the assignments she had to take were a long way from home, and lasted up to several weeks.

*

            Wolf Campbell kept tabs on the woman who so obsessed him. He knew that she’d moved back with her folks which would make a . . . what would he call it? An acquisition? A repossession? Why not call a spade a spade? An abduction from home a bit problematic.

    But, since she was on the road so much, there should be plenty of opportunities during one of her temp assignments. Once the murder investigation was back-burnered.

    Once her guard was down.

*

            Though he had other cases, of course, the Leonard murder was always at the top of Bishop’s priorities. But he covered four counties, and eventually, as time went by and no new leads surfaced, he had to back-burner it, just as Campbell had hoped.

            If only there was a motive! But none seemed to develop. And as he could find no reason, despite his best efforts, why anyone would want to murder Leonard specifically, he was forced to reluctantly conclude that Leonard wasn’t the specific target. The offender was a thrill killer for whom any victim would have sufficed. Leonard was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

            After six months, he grudgingly reclassified the casefile as inactive. Not quite the same as putting it in the dead letter office, though that’s what it felt like. Still, the Bureau did have a Cold Case Squad, and if new evidence ever came to light, it would be followed up. In the meantime, there were other crimes to be investigated, other lawbreakers to be apprehended.

            He headed to Mr. and Mrs. Riley’s house, where Anne and her daughter were now living. This was a development, or, more correctly a setback, that Anne deserved to hear about in person rather than over the phone.

*

            The calls from Jack had tapered off to once every six weeks, then once every two months. It was now nine months since Phil’s death, and Anne hadn’t heard from Jack since he’d stopped by to tell her that the murder had officially been classified as a cold case.

            “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Anne,” he’d said. “But there’re just no leads. No new forensic evidence. Nothing to move forward on.”

            “I know you did your best, Jack. And I know your best is very good. I can’t believe that anyone else could have done more.”

            “That’s nice of you to say, Anne, but it doesn’t make me feel any less like a failure.”

            In the meantime, Anne was accepting all the substitute assignments she could get. Which meant she was spending a lot of time away from home. She didn’t like being away from Maureen, but there was no help for it. She was a grown woman. She couldn’t live on the charity of her parents. She saw the sense of moving back with them and putting the house up for sale, but even if the house sold, she wouldn’t see any money until the will was probated, and, until then, the mortgage still had to be paid, and other expenses had to be met.

            This week she was in Donovan County, in the northeast corner of the state, about as far from Kent as it was possible to be without crossing a state line. She was teaching US history at Donovan West High, and the stares of every boy in her class reminded her of why she preferred teaching elementary school. Little boys could develop crushes on pretty teachers, too, but they didn’t have the hormonal overload that teenagers did.

            It was difficult enough to keep the kids attention focused away from any distractions, but it was darned near impossible when she wasthe distraction. She wore clothes that were baggy and not particularly flattering, tied her hair in a bun, and even put on a pair of stage glasses despite having 20-20 vision. None of it helped.

            Well, it was just ‘til the end of the week. Hopefully the next assignment would be fourth grade or lower.

            But beggars can’t be choosers, and, right now, she was a beggar.

*

            Bishop went off duty that night feeling depressed. He was no closer to solving Leonard’s murder than he’d been more than six months ago, when he’d informed Anne that the active investigation had been discontinued.

    Bishop’s regular schedule was nine to five, Monday through Friday. Of course, the realities of police work in general, and detective work in particular, were such that he rarely kept to that schedule. Nevertheless, he was spending this particular Friday evening in his apartment, and, deciding to watch a movie, noted that an old Biblical epic from the 1950’s, David and Bathsheba, was scheduled on one of those cable “classic film” channels. He’d heard of it but never seen it. Well, Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments had always been particular favorites of his when he was growing up. They were Easter perennials at his family’s house, just as movies like A Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34^th Street had always been Yuletide perennials. He decided to give it a try.

The film seemed to follow the Old Testament source with reasonable fidelity, and certainly it was well-made and well-acted. The thing that struck Bishop was that David essentially got away with murdering the husband of the woman he lusted after, and ultimately married, and the film wound up giving the adulterous couple a happy ending.

    Well strictly speaking, that was pretty much the way Scripture had it, too. Although their first son died, David was apparently forgiven by God, and Bathsheba’s second son with David, Solomon, eventually succeeded to the throne, displacing Solomon’s older half-brother, Adonijah. But, Bibilical accuracy notwithstanding, it stuck in Bishop’s policeman craw that anyone, even a king favored by God, could get a way with murdering his best friend, marrying his wife, and going on to, essentially, live happily ever after.

    There was even a specific commandment about it. The Ninth (at least as Catholics number the Ten Commandments), “Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbors Wife.”

    Bishop vaguely recalled that protestants split “false gods” and “graven images” into two separate commandments, and conflated the coveting of “goods” and the coveting of “wives” into one so that it still came out to ten. Nevertheless, “wives” still rated a specific mention, even in the combined version of the commandment. And certainly the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” was in both versions.

    He knew David was a hero of the Bible, defeating Goliath in battle, uniting Judah and Israel into a single nation, leading his country in many more military victories, to say nothing of being an ancestor of Jesus. Nevertheless, Bishop found murdering Uriah, and getting away with it, hard to accept.

            The next night, he watched a triple bill consisting of all three of the Back to the Future movies. As different as these science fiction comedies were from the Biblical epic he’d watched the previous night, he was struck by their sharing a plot device, that of a man murdering the husband of the girl he lusted after, then marrying her. In fact, in this case, Biff Tannen, the aforementioned murderer, was depicted as having been obsessed with the girl since high school.

            In the films, the murder, and the subsequent marriage of the widow to the villain, is retroactively prevented when Marty McFly, the time-traveling hero, changes history, so at least the bad guy was denied the happy ending, which more closely suited Bishop’s personal notions of justice.        

    Obsessing about a girl since high school. So obsessed that, years later, he carefully plans, and carries out, the murder of the man that girl married, so he can claim her for himself.

    Was that the angle he’d been missing? Was it possible that someone had actually killed Leonard so he’d have a clear field to pursue Anne? It’s an old cop adage that all murders come down to one of two things, love or money. Lord knows, he’d pretty much eliminated money as a motive. Could Leonard’s murder have been caused by love, or at least some twisted form of it?

*

            The next day, Sunday, he tried to call Anne, but was told by her mother that she was on her way north to Tracy County, where she had a week-long teaching assignment beginning the next day.

            He tried her on her cell, but it was apparently turned off, so he left a voice mail, and, to cover his bases, a text message.

            That evening, a little after six, she returned his call.

            “Thanks for calling back, Anne.”

            “That’s all right. It’s been so long since you’ve touched base that I was beginning to worry something’d happened to you. You haven’t called in more than six months!”

            “I’m sorry if I worried you. It’s just I had nothing to report, and, in this case, no news was bad news. I hated being the bearer of bad news.”

            “Do you have good news today?”

            “More like hopeful news. Listen, which school are you assigned to?”

            “Sunset Plains Elementary in Bazaine.”

            “Where are you staying?”

            “The Crane Motel in Tracy City.”

            “Well, there’s a small restaurant near there called the Brier Club. Nothing fancy, but the food’s pretty good. Would you let me buy you dinner and I can explain the idea I have?”

            “That would be really nice, Jack. I’ll look forward to it.”

            “Shall I pick you up at the motel?”

            “That sounds fine.”

            “Okay. I’ll see you at Crane Motel tomorrow at six.”

*

            Biker gangs never allow women to be full-fledged members. They are just tag-alongs, officially designated as “associates” by law enforcement, and as “property” by the gangs. Specifically, either as “sheep” (expected to sexually service every man in the club during an event such as a run), “mamas” (available to every member of the club, as required, but no longer expected to service every one at an event), or “old ladies” (in an exclusive relationship, occasionally a marriage, with one single member, but available for loan-outs to other members on the say-so of her old man). Despite being less than fully-patched, or even partially patched, they can serve certain functions for the club aside from sexual gratification.

            Some get jobs in a given state’s motor vehicle department, which may put them in a position to create false, but authentic, government-issued identification, or to check licenses of prospective members to make sure they aren’t undercover cops. Some might work as court clerks, or even as civilian employees of law enforcement agencies.

            For the last six months, a woman “associate” of the Heathens of Satan, a “mama” named Sherry Marvin, yet another alumnus of Kent County High, had been planted in the State Department of Education, specifically to keep track of the assignments Anne Leonard was getting. Carmichael, therefore, knew Anne was going to Sunset Plains before she did, and was checked into the Crane Motel a full day before she was.

            He’d already scoped the school’s campus out. A smallish building, since Tracy County, like many of the state’s more agricultural counties, was sparsely populated, but still big enough that there’d probably be some hiding place he could use.

            It had been six months since the murder investigation had been back-burnered. A full year since he’d killed Leonard. Nine years since he’d first laid eyes on the lovely high school freshman then named Anne Riley, walking down the street looking so cute in that plaid skirt that reached to just above her knee, and that white polo shirt that was already a half size too small by the end of the first semester. No idea what she was doing to all the guys looking at her. No notion how sexy she looked in that schoolgirl uniform. He’d decided right then that someday, no matter what, she’d belong to him.

            He’d waited long enough.

            Tomorrow was when “someday” would finally arrive.

*

            The next morning, Anne awakened looking forward to the day.

    She was teaching third graders, which was in the age range she preferred. And she had a date, at least a sort of date, with an attractive man she quite liked.

            After showering, she put on her prettiest dress, a strapless red floral print that complemented her coloring, and a pair of strappy, high-heeled sandals that accentuated the shapeliness of her legs. When she’d become pregnant with Maureen, she’d been happy as she could be, but a small part of her worried what pregnancy might do to her figure. Looking at herself in the mirror, she was pleased to see that she was as slim and shapely as ever. She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d even packed the dress. Sometimes some of the staff at the school she was assigned to would take her out for dinner when her job was completed as a “thank you,” but it was never an occasion that called for one to really dress up. Nevertheless, she had packed it, maybe on nothing more than a vague hope or intuition, and now she was glad she’d done so.

    Still, it was not exactly a suitable outfit for a schoolteacher at an elementary school. She pulled a white angora sweater on over the pretty frock, transforming it from a cocktail dress into a conservative floral skirt, quite appropriate for leading a class of third graders, and headed for Sunset Plains.

    She was starting to come to terms with her loss. She’d never be completely over it. One doesn’t get over the loss of a loved one. But she was getting on with her life.

            The house had finally been sold two months ago and, happily, even in the three years since they’d bought it, the value of the property had increased enough that she was left with a tidy profit once the mortgage was paid off. And Phil’s life insurance had finally been adjusted, and had paid off at triple indemnity since it was a murder. This meant that she would be able to take fewer substitute jobs, and the ones she took could be closer to home.

            Life wasn’t perfect, but, all in all, it was getting better.

            So she thought.

*

            The next morning, Jack Bishop awakened looking forward to the day.

    Mondays he usually devoted to catching up on paperwork, unless there was a breaking case, so he arrived at his office in Ford City, the seat of Dodge County, a bit early to get started. The state had rented him a windowless cubbyhole in the County Courthouse at 100 Gun Law Street (named for a popular western television series, Gun Law, that had been set in Ford City, about a frontier marshal who kept the peace back in the cattle drive days, a favorite show of Jack’s, though it had originally been broadcast before he’d been born).

            He’d dressed with just a tad more care than usual that day. Instead of his usual sports coat and slacks combo, he was wearing his only suit, the one he usually saved for court appearances, job interviews, weddings, funerals, and Christmas and Easter Mass. He told himself that his dinner with Anne that evening wasn’t really a date, just an investigative interview, but was unable to convince himself.

            Date or not, one of things that had him jazzed, aside from the pleasing prospect of an evening with a woman for whom he was starting to feel something more than just a high school crush, was what he needed to talk to her about. That he now had another trail to follow on her husband’s case. Maybe it would lead to nothing, but it was new theory, a new way of looking at the evidence.

            And if the case was finally solved, and justice finally served, maybe he and Anne could become something more to each other than friends.

            In the back of his mind he’d thought an unsolved murder would always come between them, which is why he’d refrained from contact during the last six months. But closure would allow her to move on. If he could identify her murderer, that is.

            No doubt about it. Things were looking up.

            Life wasn’t perfect, but, all in all, it was getting better.

            So he thought.