Silent Killer

Chapter Nineteen

Bruce stood in the doorway watching Mirabelle as she sat on the side of Sandie’s bed, soothing her with a tender touch and soft words. He had never felt as helpless in his entire life as he did now. During the brief time Mirabelle had been living with them, she had become his wife’s surrogate mother, sister, child and friend. In her lucid moments, Sandie treated Mirabelle as the half child, half woman she was. Bruce knew that Sandie, the woman he had loved for most of his life. In other moments, when his wife teetered on the brink and was often confused and occasionally hostile, Mirabelle became her friend, the girl’s sweet innocence seeming to somehow relate to the lost child in Sandie. And in the worst moments, when Sandie crossed over into a realm where she didn’t know who he was, who her own children were, she looked at Mirabelle and saw her mother and occasionally her sister, Allison, both women long dead.

Tonight had gone well. Sandie had been herself during dinner and for several hours afterward, but shortly before ten, she had become disoriented. For the past two hours, he and Mirabelle had done whatever they could to keep Sandie calm and reassured as they prepared her for the night. As much as he hated sedating his wife, he now knew when it was best for her-and, yes, for him, too-to be given medication to help her rest. At eleven-thirty, he had prepared a glass of chocolate milk for her and doctored it with a sedative. Mirabelle had taken the milk to her and smiled triumphantly when she’d brought the empty glass back to him.

With the medication taking effect now and Mirabelle at Sandie’s side, Bruce allowed himself to breathe a free, relaxed breath, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the doorway. Not yet. Not until Sandie was asleep. Not until he felt certain that Mirabelle would be all right on her own.

Once he felt reassured that all was well, he would go to the guest bedroom where he now slept and read for a while until God blessed him with a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The ting of the doorbell surprised him, the sound echoing up the staircase from the ground floor. At first he hadn’t been sure what the sound was, but when the bell rang again several times, he realized exactly what it was. But who would be at their door this time of night, at midnight?

Mirabelle looked his way, and their gazes met, hers silently repeating the question he had just asked himself about who their midnight caller was.

Using hand motions, he told her he was going downstairs. She smiled and nodded her understanding.

Even though it was midnight, Bruce still wore the khaki slacks and short-sleeved plaid shirt he’d worn all day. He made his way down the stairs, across the foyer and to the front door. He turned on the porch light and opened the door, leaving the storm door locked.

There was no one there. The porch was empty.

Odd. Had some teenager playing a prank rung the doorbell and run away? He heaved a hard, weary sigh and closed the door.

The doorbell rang again.

He opened the door. No one there.

He closed the door and turned off the porch light.

Then it hit him that the back door also had a doorbell, one that was seldom used because visitors always came to the front door. Perhaps a neighbor had a problem and for some reason had chosen to go to the back of the house. Bruce trekked down the hall, through the kitchen and into the mud room. He turned on the outside lights, one on either side of the door, and peered through the half-glass back door. He saw no one.

He needed to get to the bottom of this. If someone was deliberately harassing them, he had to put a stop to it immediately. He couldn’t risk anything disturbing Sandie. Hesitant to unlock the back door, Bruce reminded himself that a burglar would hardly ring the doorbell.

With a slightly shaky hand, he unlocked and opened the door. “Is anyone there?” he called in a confident, no-nonsense voice.

No response.

“Hello, is someone out there? Do you need help?”

Except for the soft rustle of a warm June breeze rippling through the trees and shrubbery, the backyard was eerily quiet. Bruce took several tentative steps out onto the wooden deck. He glanced right and left and then out into the dark yard but saw nothing out of the ordinary, not even a stray animal.

Just as he turned to go back inside, he caught a glimpse of movement in his peripheral vision. Jerking back around, he spied a dark form hovering near the old magnolia tree a good ten feet away and to his right.

“Who’s there?”

“Help me,” a quavering female voice whispered.

Bruce moved forward until he reached the edge of the deck, all the while keeping his gaze on the small shadow of the woman in his yard.

“Who are you, and what can I do to help you?” he asked.

“God has sent me to you,” she said, her voice whispery and fragile.

A frisson of uncertainty crept up Bruce’s spine. Was the woman someone he knew, or was she a stranger, perhaps a deranged person who had sought him out because he was a minister? Could she be the Fire and Brimstone Killer?

“Show yourself,” he said, doing his best to keep his tone compassionate despite his wariness. “We’ll go inside and talk. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.” He held out his hand. “Whatever you need, I’ll do my best to provide it.”

Without saying a word, she emerged from the shadows and walked slowly toward the deck. When he saw her more clearly, he sighed and relaxed. She appeared quite normal, although her expression hinted at an inner anguish.

Bruce stepped down off the deck and walked toward her. As she approached him, he noticed that she carried something held halfway behind her. A suitcase or knapsack, perhaps? Was she homeless? She appeared to be neat and clean. When she was within a few feet of him, he realized her other hand was knotted into a fist, as if she held something small hidden inside her tight grasp.

“Hello, I’m Reverend Bruce Kelley,” he told her. “And you are?”

“I am the Lord’s chosen,” she said.

A hard knot of apprehension clutched Bruce’s gut. Who was this peculiar woman? “Can I call someone for you, someone who will be concerned about you?”

When she smiled, her lips curving upward in a closed-mouth grin, Bruce looked directly into her eyes and saw sheer madness. Merciful Lord, is she dangerous? His heartbeat accelerated at an alarming pace. Real fear swelled up inside him.

He took a cautious step backward, away from his late-night visitor, but he kept focused on her face, on the wild look in her eyes.

Still smiling, she stared at him but said nothing. Her sudden silence seemed to issue a warning. Danger. Beware.

Before he realized what she intended to do, she brought what he’d thought was a small red suitcase out from behind her, lifted it into the air and flung something wet and foul-smelling on him. It took him a good ten seconds to grasp the fact that she had dropped the object in her hand-a square red can and not a suitcase-and that she had doused him with whatever had been inside the can.

His mind sped from the reality of the moment to several different scenarios, but too late he knew what was happening.

She uncurled her fist, held the small metal lighter in her hand, and flicked the ignition. Bruce froze to the spot.

Run! Get away from her! Do it now!

Just as he turned to flee, she tossed the lighter, the flame locked, onto his back. Instantly, the gasoline she had tossed on him ignited and quickly turned him into a human torch. As the flames ate away at his clothing, he ran in a blind panic and then realized, even through the haze of agony spreading through his body, that in running he was simply feeding the flames. He dropped to his knees as the fire and pain engulfed him.

Help me, dear God. Help me!

He managed to roll over a couple of times, not recognizing the screams he heard as being his own. Before the unbearable anguish consumed him, blessed unconsciousness came as the answer to his prayer.

She stood there for a few seconds and watched the magnificence of her handiwork. Bruce Kelley was being punished for his sins, for professing to be a man of God and yet harboring Satan’s own evil within his heart.

After picking up the hot, lighter from the ground, she slipped it into her pocket and, clutching the handle on the gasoline can, turned and walked away. She hurried out of the backyard and into the alleyway where she had parked her car. Once she had stored the can in the trunk, she opened the door and slid behind the wheel. As she slowly drove down the alley and toward the street at the end of the block, she recited an appropriate Biblical passage to herself. Her lips were silent, but her heart shouted.

“For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many.”

Isaiah 66:15-16.

At first Mirabelle wasn’t sure if the screams she heard were real or perhaps coming from a television program. Had Mr. Bruce gone downstairs to watch TV? No, surely not. Every night after he helped her with Miss Sandie, he went to his room, and unless she needed him during the night, she didn’t see him or hear anything from him until the next morning.

That meant the screams she heard were real. Someone outside was screaming as if they were hurting something awful.

She glanced down at Miss Sandie, who had fallen sound asleep only moments ago.

She’ll be all right for a little while.

Mirabelle left the bedroom, walked down the hall and saw that Mr. Bruce’s bedroom door was open and the bedside lamp was on, but the room was empty.

Without hesitation, she went down the back stairs that led to the kitchen. The back door stood partially open, and the outside lights were on. She thought it odd that Mr. Bruce would have gone outside this late at night, and she didn’t like the idea of going outside in the dark by herself. But she needed to find Mr. Bruce and tell him about the screams that she’d heard.

When she walked out onto the deck, she didn’t see Mr. Bruce. But as she reached the steps, she saw something lying on the ground. Was it the person who had rung the doorbell? The grass around the unmoving man-at least she thought it was a man-looked very dark, as if someone had painted it black.

“Mr. Bruce, where are you?” she called.

No one answered.

She didn’t want to get close to the strange body lying near the steps. Whoever it was, he looked dead.

“Mr. Bruce,” she screamed. “Help, help, there’s a dead body in the yard!”

Mirabelle kept calling for help. She didn’t know what else to do. Then suddenly she remembered what they had taught them at Bright Side.

In an emergency, dial 911.

Just as she started to go back inside and make the call, she heard voices saying her name. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw two people she recognized, Judy and Bob Calhoun, who were the Kelleys’ neighbors, both of them nice people.

“I have to call 911,” she told them as they halted when they saw the body. “I can’t find Mr. Bruce to tell him about the screams I heard and about this dead person in the yard.”

If Jack hadn’t put his phone on vibrate as well as ring, he would have missed the call. He’d spent the past few hours at the Purple Mustang Club in Huntsville, and the noise level was off the charts. He’d drunk a couple of beers, danced with three different women and had finally narrowed down his choice to the sassy little brunette curled up in his lap.

“Why don’t we get out of here and go to my place?” She licked a circle around his ear.

“We will,” he told her as he lifted her off his lap and set her back in the chair beside him. “I need to get this first.” He pulled the phone off his belt loop, put it to his ear and covered his other ear with his hand to block out some of the noise. “Yeah, Perdue here.”

“Jack, it’s Mike. Did I wake you?”

“No. I’m awake. So, what’s up?” Jack asked.

“Where the hell are you? I can hear some pretty loud background noise. I figured you’d be in bed at this hour.”

“I’m out of town. What time is it anyway?”

“Nearly two o’clock,” Mike answered. “Wherever the hell you are, get yourself over to Decatur pronto and meet me at police headquarters-that is, if you’re not too drunk to drive. We’ve got ourselves another Fire and Brimstone murder.”

“Son of a bitch. Who was it this time?”

“A Presbyterian minister by the name of Dr. Bruce Kelley.”

“I’m not too drunk to drive. I’ll be there as soon as possible.” He glanced at the woman beside him and noted her pouting lips. He’d been looking forward to finding out just what those lips could do to him tonight.

“Derek was right,” Mike said. “Our killer didn’t even wait a whole month before killing again.”

Jack slipped his phone onto the belt holder and scooted back his chair. His companion stood, wrapped her arms around him and rubbed her body against his.

“You’re not really leaving me, are you?”

“Sorry, honey. Duty calls.”

Frowning, she backed away from him. “If I give you my number, will you get in touch later?”

“Sure.”

She recited the number and then frowned when he didn’t make any attempt to write it down.

“I’ve got it memorized,” he told her as he walked away.

By the time he reached his car in the side parking lot, he had forgotten her number. But that was just as well, because he couldn’t remember her name, either. Knowing that the Fire and Brimstone Killer had struck again, the only name that mattered to Jack was Catherine Nelson Cantrell, the woman whose life would be turned topsy-turvy by the news that her husband’s killer had struck again.