Finally, the man flinched. “Holster your weapons,” McKenna ordered his men.
“Now move the hell away from him,” Chandler ordered.
McKenna very slowly edged away from the fallen Fiske, his eyes burning into Chandler’s with every backward step.
Chandler knelt down and gripped Fiske’s shoulder. “John, you okay?”
Fiske nodded painfully, his eyes on McKenna.
“Will someone please tell us what is going on?” Sara cried out.
“Steven Wright was found murdered,” Chandler said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
* * *
The shack rested in the center of a heavy forest in a remote part of southwestern Pennsylvania, where it notched into West Virginia. A muddy, tire-gouged strip of dirt was the only way in or out. Josh came in the front door, his 9mm poking out of his waistband, red clay and pine needles sticking to his boots. The truck was parked under a leafy shield of a soaring walnut tree, but Josh had taken the added precaution of covering the vehicle with camouflage netting. His biggest worry was being spotted from overhead. Luckily, the nights were still warm. He couldn’t risk building a fire; you couldn’t control where smoke went.
Rufus sat on the floor, his broad back resting against the wall, his Bible in his lap. He was drinking a soda, the remains of his lunch beside him. He had changed into some clothes that his brother had brought him.
“Everything okay?”
“Just us and the squirrels. How you feeling?”
“Happy as hell and scared as the devil.” Rufus shook his head and smiled. “Feels good to be free, sitting here drinking a Coke, not having to worry about somebody trying to get the jump on me every second of my life.”
“The guards or the other cons?”
“What do you think?”
“I think both. I was on the inside for a while too, you know. We could probably write us a book.”
“How long we gonna stay here?”
“A couple of days. Let things die down a little. Then we’ll head on, make our way down to Mexico. Live good on a tenth of what it takes up here. Went a few times after the war. Got some old Army buddies who live there. They’ll help us get in and then set us up. Find us a boat, do some fishing, live on the beach. That sound good to you?”
“Living in the sewer would sound good to me.” Rufus stood up. “Got a question for you.”
His brother leaned against the wall and started carving up an apple with his pocketknife. “I’m listening.”
“Your truck was full of groceries, two rifles and that pistol you’re carrying. And the clothes I’m wearing.”
“So?”
“So you just happen to be carrying all that stuff when you come visit me?”
Josh swallowed a slice of apple. “I got to eat. That means I got to go to the store, now, don’t it?”
“Yeah, but you didn’t buy nothing that’d go bad, no milk or eggs, stuff like that. All cans and boxes.”
“I ate out of a can in the Army. I guess I just fell in love with meals ready to eat.”
“And you always carry all them guns with you?”
“Maybe I’m still screwed up from Nam, got some syndrome or other.”
Rufus tugged at his shirt, which was the size of a blanket. “My size don’t exactly come off the rack. You came ready to bust me out, didn’t you, Josh?”
Josh finished working on his apple and then threw the core out the open window. He wiped the apple juice from his hands onto his jeans before facing his brother.
“Look, Rufus, I never knew why you killed that little girl. But I knew you weren’t right in the head when you done it. When I got that letter from the Army it crossed my mind there was something there. Now, I didn’t know it was some cover for what they done to you. But the fact is, nowadays, people go crazy and do bad shit, they stick ’em in the nut-house, and when they’re better, they just let ’em go. You been in prison for twenty-five years for something I know for a fact you didn’t even mean to do. Let’s just say I took it on myself to say that was long enough. You served your time, you know, ‘paid your debt to society’ crap. It was time for you to get out, and I was gonna bring the key. If you hadn’t wanted to come, I was going to make you change your way of thinking. Call me right or wrong, I don’t give a damn. It’s what I made up my mind to do.”