CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

   Bluford Barnes didn’t know what the hell to do.

   There was no way the sheriff would believe him. Tom Duma had an alibi and a stranger from out of town wasn’t going to be able to prove anything different. Thinking about Lily and how she was gutted, Bluford decided he was going to take care of things himself.

   The only problem was that he didn’t have a weapon. He did know how to throw a punch or two, one of the few things he had learned from his pugilist brother. If it came down to it, maybe he could knock Tom Duma out and find some proof that he was behind the killings.

   But who was he kidding? He was a card cheat and nothing more.

   Doubt overcame Bluford. How could he confront a murderer? He had always lived his life in the proverbial shadows, deceiving and drawing as little attention to himself as possible. The rule was to never get involved in any serious matter that went on in a town and that included multiple murders.

   But this was different. He couldn’t help shake the feeling that if he hadn’t taken Lily up to her room, she’d still be alive. There was a part of him that felt responsible even though he wasn’t the one that actually committed the gruesome crime.

   So Bluford let his conscience take over. He ran toward the General Store and went around the side, peeking in the windows. Through the smudged glass he saw Tom Duma pointing his finger in his wife’s face and screaming. “It was my secret! Mine!”

   Bluford watched as Tom then wrapped his hands around his wife’s throat, squeezing hard, still yelling.

   His wife was hysterical. “I did it for you! I did it so they’d let you out!” She brought up her own hands and Bluford saw that she was wearing black leather gloves, slick with blood.

   Tom Duma grabbed one of the gloves off his wife’s hand and stuck it into her mouth. Her eyes widened as she gagged but she made no move to fight back against her husband.

   Bluford pulled away from the window, ran to the back door and went inside. He lunged at Tom Duma, hoping to knock him out with a few punches.

   Mrs. Duma spat out the glove and screamed, “Don’t you dare touch my husband!”

   Tom took three hits to the face before running out of the house, leaving his wife hysterically crying and cursing at Bluford. She jumped on him, knocking him down, and then ran up the stairs.

   Bluford stood up and quickly made the choice to follow Mrs. Duma and not her husband. He wasn’t sure if it was his cowardice or chivalry that was behind that decision but he made it anyway. When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw her at the end of the hallway. She was no longer crying. She was filled with calm anger.

   She said, “You know, don’t you?”

   “That you killed the girls?”

   Mrs. Duma smiled. “Not all of them.”

   Seeing the woman’s crazed expression made Bluford realize that he had made the wrong decision in following her. There was something extremely dangerous about the woman. Her eyes were filled with rage and death.

   “Why?” he said. “Why kill anyone?”

   “I couldn’t let the sheriff lock Tom up.”

   “So it was true? Your husband killed Lily?”

   “Yeah, so what business of it is yours? He had to kill her. There’s a lot about Tom no one knows.”

   Bluford was both confused and terrified. Why the hell would she be confessing to all of this? There were only two possibilities. Either she was planning to give herself up or she was planning to kill him. If she was capable of killing of two innocent girls then would she probably wouldn’t hesitate in killing him now that he knew her secret.

   Despite his terror, he made a grab for Mrs. Duma but was surprised to find that she was both strong and fast. She knocked him down and ran into a bedroom. He followed, her musky perfume invading his nostrils. It reminded him of seawater and menstrual blood.

   The bedroom was full of broken dolls, most with their eyes poked out and their heads torn from their bodies. Several of them were covered in black lace and some were made of glass. There were newspapers scattered on the floor along with a camera and a pile of black envelopes.

   Mrs. Duma grabbed a glass doll from the floor and held it up. “Whores!” She smashed it against the wall and then picked up another one. “Whores, all of them!”

   Bluford decided to play along since the woman was in such a frenzied and unpredictable state. “Yeah, I know. They’re whores.” He took a step closer but she held her black-gloved hand out.

   “Don’t get any closer!” she said. “Or I’ll do to you what I did to those dirty little cunts!”

   “Relax, Mrs. Duma, just relax.”

   “Don’t tell me to relax, you little cocksucker. You prance into town without a second thought about the people in it. You don’t think about the mayor and his killers. You don’t think about the sickness that runs through here.” She held a glass doll up above her head. “This town’s a hell! Do you hear me? A hell!”