Chill of Night

53

St. Louis, Christmas, 2001

Time had healed nothing.

A brisk wind whipped across the cemetery, shaking the leafless trees and causing a lone crow to flap sideways into the gray sky and veer toward the shelter of the mausoleum that stood like a small Greek temple on the hill. The gusting wind drove particles of sleet that stung the eyes and anywhere skin was exposed.

Justice was wearing jeans, thick leather boots, a sweatshirt, fur-lined gloves, and a green parka with the hood up, but he was still cold. He bowed his head, staring at the dates on the modest tombstones. Seventeen years since Will died. Thirteen since April died.

The pain was unabated.

There had been no escape from it. The doctors hadn’t helped, the pretending to be other people hadn’t helped, the fierce dedication to his perishable work, the drinking, the medication, the soul-searching, the loss of soul, it all seemed to feed rather than subdue the monster in the basement of his mind. He could restrain the monster no longer.

He’d become obsessed with those who killed, who placed no value on human life other than on their own destructive lives. Over the years he’d seen too many of them go free, or serve brief sentences only to return to the streets to murder again. Killers like the one who murdered Will. Killers who, in their own evil and indirect way, also killed people like April.

April herself. It had taken time, but finally they’d killed her, even if her death had been by her own hand.

There must be a reckoning.

Always one to plan carefully, he knew that if harm came to his son’s killer, or to anyone connected with his acquittal, he, Justice, would be the prime suspect. So he’d decided to exact his revenge by executing those who were involved in the acquittals of other violent criminals who were obviously guilty-starting with the forepersons of the juries that set them free. It was the system that had failed and continued to fail, that bore responsibility, that would be the target of his revenge.

There would be nothing to connect him to those cases or to those victims. And there would be a wide pool of potential victims, making it impossible for the police to protect them all. He would be performing a public service. And because of him, April’s death, and the death of their son, would mean something in the chaos that he now knew life to be.

There would be meaning and purpose to the rest of his own life.

Justice and balance and purpose.

He had access to a gun, and to a silencer, and he’d obtained both. What he needed now, all he needed now, was April’s understanding, her approval.

The wind kicked up again, moaning through the columns of the mausoleum and driving the distant crow back up into the roiling gray sky. Justice was unmoving, his feet spread wide, his head bowed, staring steadily at his wife’s tombstone.

And from the grave she gave him her blessing.