Switchback. Ch8

After Mrs Winkle saw the sheriff and his deputy break into the old Evans place she again heard shouting and gunfire. Worried for all involved, herself included, she moved back inside and closed the door to peer through the net curtain over at the house across the street.

          There were no signs of life downstairs, but upstairs the right-hand bedroom window had that same glow she saw about twenty years ago the night before Karl Evans was found hog-tied outside the police station. She must remember to tell the sheriff this when she sees him again, if she sees him again.

          Sheriff Cunningham and Danny were the only two law enforcement officers the small town had, or indeed ever needed. Not counting the sheriff’s second deputy, Howie Larkin, who she regarded as still-wet-behind-the-ears and then some. So other than 911 and the county sheriff, who’d take at least an hour to get there, there was no one else she could call. So, until she felt sure she needed to do that, she’d hold off. The clock above a mirror to her right said fifty-seven-minutes past midnight, she’d give it ten more before making the call. And in order to kill those minutes, plus a few thousand brain cells in the process, she decided a good stiff drink was in order, just a few drops, to calm the nerves.

          She pulled a well-used wine bottle from a cupboard in her kitchen and popped the cork to take a good long whiff of its contents and smiled for the first time since the noise across the street had disturbed her. She pulled a plastic beaker from the same cupboard and returned to her front door where she filled it. She placed the bottle on the phone stand below the mirror and raised the beaker to her lips to drain half its contents. The eighty-percent-proof liquid hit the back of her throat and triggered a violent coughing fit which lasted a good minute and left behind a mouthful of phlegm.

          She put the beaker down beside the bottle and opened her front door ready to eject the egg-sized object into the street only to find someone stood there with a gloved-hand raised and ready to knock. She closed her eyes and grimaced as she swallowed the gelatinous clot, the corners of her mouth pulled taut as its congealed mass slid slowly down to her stomach.  

          She hadn’t liked this man ever since he tried to get the sheriff to take her still away. She wished now she had closed her eyes before she opened her door to spit out the phlegm. ‘What are you doin’ here?’ she said..

          Her visitor gave her a beaming smile. ‘Hello, Dorothy, Mitch called me.’

          ‘He did? Why? When?’

          ‘From his car when he was on his way over here; he asked if I could come by, said you told him Peter and Helen had had an argument, and with that terrible thing happening yesterday to their little girl, well, he asked if I wouldn’t mind coming over to talk with them.’

          Mrs Winkle had never had a premonition or been able to foretell the future with any success, other than knowing full-well she’d wake up with a hangover most mornings. But right now she felt very ill-at-ease. She nodded across the street. ‘And did he tell you what’s been goin’ on over there tonight?’

          ‘He did, and he also asked if I could call on you first, just to set your mind at rest.’

          ‘It’ll take a better man than you to put my mind at rest after all that gunfire and the screams I heard?’

          ‘A little noise, that’s all it was, Dorothy, just a little noise.’ Another beaming smile. ‘Mind if I come in?’

          Mrs Winkle paused then opened the door wider and turned away. ‘The sheriff had to break-in, ya know?’ She picked up the bottle and beaker from the phone stand. ‘And then I heard more gunfire, or noise, or whatever it is you fellas call it these days. And that blue light, somethin’ ain’t right about that, you can mark my words.’

Dorothy’s unexpected visitor stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He pulled the net curtain aside to look across the street to see the blue light flicker a few times before the room went dark. Deep in thought, he released the curtain. Knowledge of the twins needed to be kept secret; their existence can’t be allowed to become known to anyone outside the three who know already, and that number will soon come down. Grace Evans was already too much of a risk, and the school principal would be the perfect tool to get that job done on one of her weekly visits, and then it would be her turn. But first this current situation needs to be handled.

          ‘Well,’ the visitor said, as he removed his coat. ‘Mitch is the one who’s handling the situation over there, and I’m sure he has it under control. Now, let’s go sit down and I’ll pop over there after you’ve calmed.’

          Mrs Winkle, bottle and glass in hand, trundled into her front room as her loose boots clumped on the hallway’s wooden floor. ‘Can I fix you a drink?’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Or you still oppose that subject?’

          The visitor hung his overcoat on a hook on the inside of the front door but didn’t remove his gloves. ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having,’ he said, and then waited for Mrs Winkle to leave the hallway before he lifted the phone’s receiver. He dialled a number but didn’t wait for the call to connect before he placed it on the stand under the mirror; he then followed his host into her front room.

          Mrs Winkle half-filled another beaker before she topped up her own. She passed the smaller of the two to her visitor and they both sat; Mrs Winkle on her sofa and the visitor on an armchair facing her.

          ‘Like I said, after the sheriff broke in I heard−’

          A shrill ring silenced her.

          ‘Excuse me,’ said her visitor. ‘This could be Mitch.’

          Mrs Winkle waved a dismissive hand and took another mouthful of her drink, more than happy to eaves-drop the conversation.

          ‘Yes, hello, Mitch. I am, yes… no, she’s fine, just fine. Yes I will, are Peter and Helen okay? Oh good, yes I’ll be over in a minute or two. Yes, you too.’ At that, he ended the call. ‘See, like I said, Mitch is handling the situation just fine, Dorothy.’

          Mrs Winkle half-smiled, said nothing.

          ‘So, you said you thought you heard screams and gunfire?’

          She took a half-smoked cigar from a butt-filled ashtray beside the sofa. ‘Tain’t no thought about it,’ she said, ‘I heard it all right. Shoutin’ n’ screamin’ like they were ready to kill one another.’

          ‘I see,’ said the visitor.

          Mrs Winkle placed the two-inch cigar butt between her lips and rummaged in the pocket of her nightgown.

          Her visitor leaned forward, made sure he was close, but not too close. ‘Did you see the Ferris’, just before all this happened?’

          ‘Nope.’

          ‘Did you see anyone?’

          ‘Nope, saw some shadows crossin’ that blue bedroom window, mind.’

          The visitor sniffed at his drink and nodded his approval, quite happy to find Mrs Winkle’s brew smelled like rocket fuel.

          Mrs Winkle eventually found what it was she searched for and pulled a book of matches from the pocket of her nightgown and struck one.

          ‘I was just about to call the county sheriff,’ she said, puffing life into her cigar. ‘When you showed up.’

The visitor tossed his drink over Mrs Winkle’s naked flame and pushed both feet hard against the floor to tilt the chair over and backward to escape the searing heat. The initial whumph sent bright-blue flames up to and across the ceiling of the front room. He rolled and stood to see Mrs Winkle off the sofa and engulfed in flame, her own drink spilling over her and adding more fuel to the fire. The sofa, the rug, and anything else she came in contact with burst into flames and turned the front room into an inferno in a matter of seconds.

          With the still-writhing and screaming Mrs Winkle lying in the centre of the floor, the visitor slid carefully around the flames and out into the hallway. He closed the door on the increasing heat before he returned the phones receiver to its cradle and shrugged back into his overcoat.

          He left and closed the front door after him and started toward the old Evans place. To his right the street ended with the dense pine trees of Elijah Forest going back over four miles, to his left was a police cruiser with his own car parked behind it. Beyond those the next nearest house was on his side of the street and three-hundred-yards away. It belonged to the Westerbrookes, an elderly couple who had lived in Leyton Falls their whole lives. He looked back at the Winkle house to see the fire had just about found its way upstairs and would soon turn the place into nothing but ash. Directly before him and dancing in time with the flames from behind was his shadow, and beyond that was a crime scene that would need some manipulation from an old hand, and there was no old hand like his when it came to moving the blame from the guilty to the innocent.