The silence again.
"If you were sensible, we could talk about this."
"I'm not sensible, Neville. So don't even bother to try and pay me off."
The shotgun blast packed the air with buckshot and a roaring echo. A large chunk of the solid oak den door was torn out.
"You try to get in here, Prine, you know what you'll be facing. I keep a lot of ammunition in here."
Prine was worrying a plan. If he could quickly try and kick the door open, kick it back on its hinges so he'd have a clear shot, and then fall to the floor where Neville would have a difficult time seeing him for a moment or two—maybe he could get a shot off that way. He wanted to take Neville alive. He wanted to attend the hanging.
He needed to make Neville nervous. Silence was his ally. He began to make his move, walking on tiptoe, moving himself in position to try and kick in the door and then dive for the floor in case Neville was standing on the other side with his shotgun ready.
Apparently, Neville was practicing silence too. Trying to unnerve Prine. Not a sound in the den.
Prine took a couple of deep breaths. Everything depended on timing. If he was caught in the center of the door on this side, Neville would have no trouble killing him.
He moved. There was no thought process now. No time for it. He acted strictly on instinct and a terrified need to survive.
He brought his boot up and kicked at a place just above the doorknob. The door swung backward with such force that it sounded as if an explosion had just taken place.
This was where Prine expected the shotgun to erupt. He didn't doubt Neville's word that he had a lot of ammunition.
He dropped to the floor, his Winchester ready to fire.
A sound. But not of a shotgun. A faint squeaking noise—something being opened.
As he lay there on the floor, ready to belly-crawl inside, he pictured the den. The large desk, globe, the immensity of built-in bookcases—the mullioned windows.
That was the sound he'd just heard.
The huge, palace-like mullioned windows being opened.
An easy way for Neville to escape.
No wonder there hadn't been the sound of a shotgun. Or Neville shouting at him.
Neville was no longer in the den.
He was just jumping to his feet when the brutal charge of the shotgun troubled the autumn night. Then—a cry. Somebody shot. Somebody down.
Prine ran to the back of the house, not knowing exactly how to find the back door. A couple of false turns before he found the steps next to the pantry leading down to the landing and the back door.
He took the steps quickly. He'd already formed a picture of what he was going to see. And that was what he did indeed see when he reached the enormous backyard.
Sheriff Daly was on the grass, on his back, blood soaking the front of his shirt. He'd opened his sheepskin, apparently to get some air. People did off things when they'd been wounded mortally.
Two shots from the garage where the buggies were kept. The horses were in the adjacent barn.
Prine dove to the ground and rolled to the right, over to Daly. Two more shots, both nearly hitting him. The frost soaked his Levi's. He ended up with his jaw resting on a dog turd.
Prine put four shots into the dark garage. He knew he'd come close by the way Neville cursed him. Neville obviously needed to get into the barn. Get a horse. Get out of here. He'd likely brought a lot more ammunition than Prine did. Eventually, this would make Neville invincible unless Prine got lucky and shot him. He had no more thought—not after seeing poor Daly dead or dying—of taking Neville in. He wanted him to die. And he wanted to be the man who killed him.
Prine, almost without realizing it, started rolling again. He wished he'd gotten rid of his sheepskin. It was pretty damned bulky.
Several more shots from Neville. Each one progressively closer. The family dog, wherever it was, was now barking along with the shots. Apparently, it felt that they were holding another recital here and it, naturally enough, wanted to join in.
Prine got where he'd wanted to go. Out of Neville's range. He got to his feet and raced around the far side of the barn. The stark smell of horseshit; the slippery feel of hay on the floor. Four horses in stalls, each awake now and casting sidelong glances at the strange human running past them with a Winchester in his hand.
He hurried through the barn to the doors. It was his intention to ease himself out and then sneak across to the garage. He would surprise Neville and this would at last be done.
He began his quiet move from barn to garage. The horses had settled down some. He could hear the night again.
He pressed himself flat against the front side of the garage. He began moving inch by inch. When he reached the open door, he would duck down and pick off Neville in the darkness.
He was halfway to the open door when he heard somebody say, "Your turn to come out with your hands up, asshole."
Easy enough to see what had happened, Prine thought. Easy enough to see that I didn't think he'd do the same thing I did. Easy enough to see he's going to kill me.
Neville held the shotgun level with Prine's chest and then moved slowly around so that his back was to the house.
"I almost thought we were going to be friends someday," Neville said.
"Yeah. I like being friends with men who have their sisters murdered."
"There wasn't any pleasure in it for me, Prine. I did it because I had to. I wasn't particularly fond of her, but I didn't especially want to see her get killed." He shook his head. "Now, you're another matter. First thing you did when we got back to town was start to build a case against me. First damned thing. And I have to say that really pissed me off, Prine. It really did. So shooting you isn't going to be tough at all. Not at all."
He'd been so caught up in his own words, Neville, that he didn't see what was going on behind him.
Sheriff Daly rising from the dead, or something very much like it, and picking up his fallen Winchester and taking several tortured, half-stumbled steps so he'd be sure to be in range—
And then just blasting the shit out of Neville. Just blasting the shit right out of him.
Chapter Twenty-seven
You could barely get into Daly's tiny hospital room for all the good stuff people had brought him. You had flowers, you had several boxes of candy, you had enough magazines to give you cataracts, you had new shirts, new jeans, new boots, a new hairbrush, and on and on.
And you had Lucy.
She was in his room every chance she got. They had this odd sort of crush on each other, and Prine didn't care at all.
He'd sit there and watch Daly flirt with her and then watch her flirt right back. And all he'd do was smile.
All this passed, of course, in time.
Daly left the hospital—he still had bursitis and all the other itises, but his shooting arm was all right again, anyway—and Lucy and Prine got married, and Lucy in the middle of the night woke up one time and knew that she was with child. And Bob Carlyle retired from being deputy. And Daly decided it was time for him to retire, too, so Prine was made sheriff.
He needed the raise in pay. That October, Lucy got pregnant again.
A Special Preview of Murder in the Wings, part of the Jack Dwyer Mystery Series
Chapter 1
By the time we reached the second act the audience was well aware of what was going on. Stephen Wade, the television star who was playing the role of the father in this version of O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, was so drunk that he was knocking against furniture and quite often forgetting his lines. Between acts he had been given coffee and a quick walk in the cold, damp May night, but neither had seemed to help much.