*     *    *

I got out of my car and rushed up to the porch and opened the door.

“Is everybody ok?”

“Yes. We are fine.”  Ruthie was wiping her hands on her housecoat.

Charlotte ran up to me and hugged me.  I held her so tight.

“If it wasn’t for Chad, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Chad was now sitting on the porch in the swing letting the EMT’s check him out.  He gave me thumbs up.

“Who was it? I asked, looking at Chad for the answer.

“Burncutt and Glass.”  I thought I couldn’t be shocked more than I have been already tonight, but I was.  “Anybody around to answer questions?”

“Yeah, Burncutt is in the patrol car.  Glass is gonna be okay but she took a shot to the shoulder. She didn’t seem to know what this was all about…but she was doing what Burncutt told her to,” He was sluggish, as the morphine was kicking in.

I walked out to the patrol car.  It took everything in me along with Capt. Davis and another officer, to hold me back from Burncutt.  I wanted him bad, but I needed some answers too.  I calmed down enough to open the door.

“Why, dammit--why did you kidnap Charlotte?”

Burncutt laughed.

The EMT’s came over to the car to bandage him.  I told them to wait.

“I’m waiting.” I said, frustrated.

“You mean you haven’t figured it out yet?”

I had heard that once tonight.  I answered him the same way I had answered Minton.

“Enlighten me on what I should know.”

“Eight years ago, you had busted my father for manufacturing Meth.  He went up the river and my mother went down in the gutter.

I tried to hide my shock.  “Go on.”

“We lost our home.  We lived in shelters, scrounging for food from garbage cans.”

I looked away for a second but then focused on Burncutt.

“I spent my life making myself into the thing I hated most, a cop! I wanted to get close enough to you to make you suffer as much as I had.”

Capt. Davis looked at him.  “Well, you are under arrest for murder, kidnapping, attempted…”

“Wait whoa, murder? I didn’t murder anybody.  I mean—yeah, I kidnapped your girl—but I

didn’t murder anybody.”

Capt. Davis turned to look at me.

“What’s on your mind, Jared?”

“I’m not sure.  I’ll call you when I got something.” I was trying to get the connection here. They

weren’t working together, but everybody in the terrible events in recent days seemed to have one

thing in common: Me.

Except for one.

I ran back up to the porch and kissed Charlotte.

“I have to go take care of something.  You will be safe now.  You have nothing else to worry

About.”

“I love you baby, and be safe.”

“I will.  On second thought Captain, I need you to come with me,” I said, getting into my car.

Chapter 11

We turned out the lights as we pulled outside the home of Judge Middlebrooks.  Minton had told us that the judge had put out the hit on his own wife. The only unanswered question is, why?

I turned the police radio all the way down.  We exited the car quietly trying not to make any sound.  We left the car doors slightly ajar.  We both moved up to the house.  Capt. Davis moved a little slower than me. He was sweating bullets now, more nervous than I’d ever seen him. This should be a routine arrest—I wondered what was bugging him.  We looked inside the windows.  The house was dark.  I remember seeing the reflection of one light in a room in the back as we were walking up.

I signaled Capt. Davis to follow me.  We quietly sneaked around the lit window. The window was slightly opened and we looked inside.  There he was, Judge Middlebrooks, holding a gun and pointing it at Chief Pate who was tied up.  They were in a hallway that was connected to the room we were at.

“Keep an eye on him while I call dispatch.” I whispered.

“Ok.”

It didn’t take me long but I had to repeat a few words to the dispatcher because I was whispering.  She was new but finally got the message.  You have to learn to listen well when somebody is whispering, but it’s part of the job.

“I’m going to try and get inside.”

“Let’s wait for backup.”

“It may be too late by then,” I whispered.

“Okay,” he whispered.  “Be careful.”

The window moved with ease.  I looked around to make sure I wouldn’t fall on anything when I cleared the window.  Judge Middlebrooks was angry at the chief, and using his gun to make the point repeatedly. Then I heard what I had come to hear.

“You slept with my wife!”

He then hit the chief with the gun.

I was almost through the window when he was about to hit the chief again.  I felt something give way as I stepped down on the floor. Loose floorboard probably.  Whatever it was, it got the judge’s attention.  He didn’t ask any questions.  He started shooting at the window.  I fell on the floor and took cover at the corner of the wall.

“Give it up Judge, this is the police.  This is Detective Jackson.  We have you surrounded.”

I peeked around the corner.  He fired a shot down the hallway.

“Look Judge, we know that you had your wife killed because she was having an affair with Chief Pate.  So come on and give yourself up.  Enough blood has been shed.  This won’t make it right and you know it!”

“You don’t have a clue, Detective.” The judge was getting all misty-eyed. He began to choke on his words.

“You don’t know how it feels to only love one woman,” he began, reliving his whole life in relationship to the woman he’d had killed. “To give her anything she desires, but it’s never enough. I grew up dreaming of a woman as beautiful as Julia was, made myself into this man I became, all so that I might deserve her when the time came. You talk about poor? I grew up in a house where a square meal was a luxury! I worked my way through law school doing anything I could, just so I could become a gentleman, worthy of a good life with a woman who appreciated fine things.”

The judge was standing in the middle of his fine things now, in his well-appointed mansion, holding a gun in his slightly-trembling hand, expressing emotions it looked like he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in his whole life.

“When I met Julia, I vowed to give her everything I could afford. I gave and gave but it was never enough for her. She spent her mornings buying things—designer clothes, imported furniture, top of the line everything. I would never tell her we couldn’t afford it. I thought I could win her love if only she saw how much I would do for her.

“Then, one morning I had a slight heart palpitation in my office. My doctor said it wasn’t serious but it would be a good idea to take the rest of the day off. I came home, and found her in bed—in our bed—with this bastard.”

He looked at Pate as if he had forgotten he was in the room. I thought he was about to fire off a round. I spoke up to draw his attention.

“Judge, did you know that the hit man you hired killed other innocent people?”  I asked hoping for a reply. “What?” he asked.  He lowered the gun and looked at me.  Good.  I had his attention.

“What do you mean, he killed other innocent people? This man was a gun for hire…”

“That’s just it, your honor.” Carl Minton was not the man you thought he was. In fact, he wasn’t a man at all when you knew him.”

The judge looked surprised.  I continued.

“Do you remember Dr. William Dancy?”

“Yeah,” he said, thinking back. “The predator who molested and killed all those boys and girls including his daughter Melanie.  He was sentenced to death.”

“That’s correct, your honor.”  I saw Capt. Davis at the window with his gun pointed at the judge. He looked calmer now; he must have suspected something like this with Pate and Julia Middlebrooks.

“Listen, your honor, Dancy did not kill his daughter.”

I moved around the wall with my left hand up and my right hand along my side with my gun.