CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

   “So, he’s okay?” Betty said.

   “Well, he’s alive.” Stacklee had told her the whole story about Calamaro. “I wouldn’t say the man’s okay physically or even mentally. The man’s got a lot of healing to do.”

   Betty said, “I guess he’ll just have to …”

   There was a scream from upstairs. It was Angie.

   Betty ran up to her room and found her crying on the hallway floor. She pointed down the hall. “It’s the new girl.”

   “Who? Rebecca?” Betty said. Angie nodded.

   Betty slowly opened the door. In the middle of the floor was Rebecca’s body lying in a pool of blood and intestines. Her throat had been cut and her body sliced open.

   Betty started to cry. Within the last twenty-four hours two of her girls had been murdered. Calamaro was abducted and most likely dead. It was all too much for her.

   Then there was another scream. This time it was Stacklee saying that Lady Troy was dead, too. Her killer had cut her throat and left her face-down in the chamber pot.

   “Angie, when was the last time you talked to Lady Troy?” Betty said.

   “Yesterday. But I heard her singing this morning. She was fine.”

   “Go tell the sheriff two more girls are dead,” Betty said. “Stacklee, get all the girls out of their rooms.”

   Stacklee nodded.

   Angie broke down, sobbing like a wounded child. “Who could have done something like that? I can’t…..” She stomped downstairs and left the brothel.

   When Angie walked into the jail, Sheriff Doyle was leaning up against the wall, smoking a cigar. He looked worn out.

   “Sheriff,” she said. “Two more girls are dead!”

   “You have to be fucking kidding me.” Sheriff Doyle slammed his fist against the wall. Was the shit storm never going to end? He grabbed his hat and headed for the door.

   As he was walking out, he bumped into Mrs. Duma.

   “I’m here to see my husband, sheriff,” she said.

   “That right? Well, it’s his lucky day.”

   “Why’s that?”

   Doyle didn’t answer. He just grabbed his keys and led her to the jail cell. Though he was always polite to the woman, something about her irked him. She was just too bitchy for his taste. How Tom Duma lived with her and didn’t put a bullet in his head was beyond him.

* * *

   Bluford Barnes had just closed his eyes when he heard the sheriff walk in with Tom’s wife strutting in behind him. She was an intense and bitter-looking woman but attractive, very attractive. Bluford thought that under different circumstances, he might like to make a try at her. She looked like she’d enjoy a good, hard screw.

   Mrs. Duma handed her husband his coat and hat. Something in Bluford’s mind clicked. There was something wrong. But what? Then he saw it.

   The coat. The hat.

   Bluford froze. In his mind he saw the shadowy person at the bottom of the stairs and it became clear that it was the same man who was now getting freed from the jail cell.

   Tom Duma put his hat on and then turned to the sheriff. “No hard feelings. I know you were doing your job.”

   Sheriff Doyle nodded. “Just make sure you cooperate next time.”

   As Tom Duma put his coat on, he started to cough. It was a thick, loud phlegm-filled cough that was instantly familiar with Bluford. It was the same one that woke him up right before he discovered Lily’s body.

   And now the sheriff was shaking hands with Tom. Bluford’s throat constricted, nausea creeping through his body. He watched the killer leave with his wife.

   The sheriff looked back at Bluford.

   “You going or what?” the sheriff said.

   Bluford didn’t answer. He simply ran out of the cell.