Sunken Graves, Alan Lee [all ebook reader .txt] 📗

thought Hathaway, then a Sprite is the only help I can expect.

Mackenzie August knocked on Jennings’ door that evening at seven. He came in and tossed a baggie of hair toward Jennings.

“Guess what that is.”

Jennings, unsettled by the entry, held it up. “Looks like the bag of hair from last night.”

“It is. You know whose hair?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Guess whose hair.”

Jennings examined the baggie. It looked…different. “Is it not Lynch’s facial hair?”

“Nope. The hair in that bag belongs to a dog. A German shepherd, my guess. Smell it.”

A dog?

“No, August. No way. I personally picked Daisy off the street. She held this hair in her hands. She had blood under her nails.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t, Jennings. I’m saying, smell the hair.”

Jennings pulled the baggie open and said, “Oof,” because the strong scent of a dog puffed from it.

“You get it?” said August.

“What… No, I don’t get it.”

“Last night I went to see the cop I know. McGee, good guy, we’ve helped each other out in the past. I explained the situation and he took the hair to an evidence locker. And now, today, that’s what we have. Dog hair.

“But—”

“It gets worse, Jennings. That cop I talked to, McGee? He was just transferred."

“No way.”

“Chief Gibbs called him in. Said Roanoke County is making some cuts, which is true, I know. He’s gotta ditch some payroll. Also true, but McGee’s head was nowhere near the chopping block. He’s not that new. However today was his last day. But, get this, there’s a job waiting for him in Martinsville. Starts tomorrow but he had to accept it immediately. Said maybe he could come back in a year.”

Jennings felt the room spin. “Gibbs knows about last night.”

“He does. And he found out quick.”

“That means McGee told someone.”

“And that person told someone else. One of them sold him out for a promotion.”

Jennings sealed the bag again. Now that he looked closer, the hair was obviously not human. He tossed it into the trash.

“Lynch got us twice today. He was recording his conversation with Daisy. He played it for the school’s dean, and it’s humiliating. She sounds like a deviant sex addict. The audio was clipped in places to make it sound worse, but she doesn’t want it heard by anyone.”

“Damn, the man’s clever. You see what you’re up against, Jennings?”

“A lawyer, a judge, and a corrupt chief. Outgunned.”

“Bingo. And it’s driving you crazy.”

“Makes me think I should just knock on his door and pull the trigger. Simpler that way,” said Jennings.

“If you do, he wins. He’ll have broken you.”

“I know.”

“I looked you up, Jennings. You’re impressive as hell. Salutatorian and Green Beret medic. If anyone can beat him, it’s you. But not if you’re dead. You wade any father into their territory, there’s no evac chopper you can radio for.”

Jennings was nodding, eyes far off.

August said, “I’m up to my ears in work, helping with a murder trial. But I’ll be free of it in ten days. When I am, I’ll contact you. We’ll talk it through. Maybe figure out a way to nail his ass to the wall. Until then—”

“Don’t die.”

“Don’t die. Don’t do something stupid. Don’t go to prison. And stay near Daisy. You do all that, you’re gonna win. Eventually.”

Nail his ass to the wall.

I wish someone would kill Peter Lynch.

Jennings sat on the floor of his bedroom. He hadn’t moved in an hour, guilt playing like a movie he couldn’t look away from. He didn’t have the heart to call Hathaway this late and dump the bad news. Nor Murray or Lewis.

This was his fault. It hadn’t been his idea, it had been Hathaway’s, but he should have shot it down. He’d known the chances of success were slim. Mackenzie August was right, doing stupid things meant Lynch was winning.

Nail his ass.

Kill him.

Jennings pulled the long bag from under his bed. Unzipped it.

His grandfather’s Browning shone dully in the overhead light, the black barrel and wooden stock. He picked it up and checked again to ensure the barrel was empty.

Pulled the stock to his shoulder and sighted along the rib. Aimed at his coffee maker in the kitchen. Squeezed the trigger and the firing pin clicked.

“Bang.”

Jennings hated Lynch. He couldn’t remember hating anyone before. Worse than hated him. Wanted him dead. He’d taken fire from insurgents in Afghanistan and he hadn’t hated them.

He pressed the top lever to release the lock. Opened the breach, cocking the action. Snapped it closed again. Swiveled to aim at another Peter Lynch—the kitchen chair through his bedroom doorway.

Click.

“Bang.”

Could he gun Lynch down? Doubtful. Killing someone was an enormous thing, like the concept of infinity, too big to grasp.

Besides, he’d go to jail the rest of his life. Decades sitting on a bunk, staring at a spot between his feet, wishing he hadn’t. Exactly what Mackenzie August was worried about.

Such was Jennings’ anguish that he felt his mind unraveling at the thought of jail, the act of murder, the concept of infinity. Watching himself shoot Lynch, watching the man’s face disintegrate, and time spiraling into endlessness in a metal cage.

Just a drop of hate into the waters of his mind and already he was poisoned.

But what if he could get away with it? What if, in some alternate universe, he could blow a hole through Lynch and never be a suspect? Hate roiled and he felt dizzy. Would he? Could he?

Sleep was elusive and it came with nightmares, so Jennings waited for dawn with coffee and Erik Larson’s novel open but unread. When the sun rose, it found Jennings with red eyes and the shotgun still cradled in his arms.

36

Tuesday was the last school day before Thanksgiving break. Hathaway arrived that morning with her car packed and when the final bell rang she marched to her Lexus IS and drove straight to her parents’ house in northern Albemarle County. She correctly assumed Byron had no idea when Thanksgiving was and that he wouldn’t realize she was gone for at least a day,