Scarecrow

Chapter 10

"Then I accept your resignation!" Lewis Meyer slams the phone down on the receiver, breathing hard. That was the fifth cop to resign this week, a new record for Beauty's police force. Their reasons are all about the same– new position opened up north, the wife is sick, I'm about to retire– and he can see through them all. His own men fear him, fear him enough to desert him, and he says good riddance. If they don't want to end up like Walt, well, then, he bids them adieu. Five fewer officers who could know what he did, what does he have to complain about? Let them leave. He doesn't care. It won't matter soon, anyway, because Lewis is about to erase all traces of his crime from existence.

Sitting atop the mounds of unstarted paperwork piled on his desk, as plain to see as the lack of sleep welling in his eyes, is Jim Donnelly's sickle. Lewis does not fear discovery: he has long since disabled the security cams in his office, and any cops at the precinct know well enough to leave his door shut. He has spent the better part of his day just sitting and watching the weapon as if it might explode, or sprout arms and legs and attack him. His exhausted mind has memorized every detail, every streak and fleck of dried blood on the blade, until its image is permanently branded into his mind. He has decided that the tool is the only real piece of damning evidence against him, seeing as how the security footage of that fateful night failed to pick up his face. Lifting the sickle from the evidence room had been easy enough; now, Lewis is debating on how best to dispose of it. Chucking it into a river would risk eventual discovery, as would something as simple as hiding it in his house. Melting it down seems the most logical option, and he is just beginning to entertain the thought of wearing part of Walt's murder weapon as a nice ring when a voice from the doorway says, "That's not yours."

Lewis is up in a second, pistol in hand before even seeing the intruder. It is a stranger, thin as a stick of licorice, leaning carefully against the doorpost. There is a familiarity about him, a familiarity in his faded blue overalls and sallow face, but he brushes this aside quickly enough. He does not care to meet many new people.

"Read the sign, pal. No visitors."

The thin man smiles, and Lewis shivers in spite of himself. "You really don't recognize me, do you, Lew? You recognized my property well enough to have it on your desk."

Lewis blinks. "Jim? Jim Donnelly?"

Donnelly spreads his hands. "In the straw."

"In the– what happened to you?"

"Why, you, of course." Donnelly takes a step into the room, and Lewis's gun rises to the farmer's chest.
"Not a step closer, please."

Donnelly continues on like he didn't hear him. "After all, it was you who stole my sickle, wasn't it? It was you who caused me to go back to check for it, right? And," he chuckles softly, a noise that brings goose-flesh to the surface of Lewis's arms and back, "it was you who killed Walt Hendricks."

That last one isn't a question. And Donnelly isn't smiling anymore.

"You're mistaken, Jim. You see, we have the murder weapon, yes, but no murderer. Not yet, anyway. And I didn't kill anybody. You, on the other hand..." Lewis is rapidly losing the fight to keep his voice from shaking, but keeps going, "I can't say the same for. No matter what that idiotic jury ruled, I think you're guilty."

"Really. I came here unarmed, Lew; why are you the one holding the gun?" Donnelly takes another step, and Lewis flips off the safety.

"One more move, Jim, and I'll blow your fucking head off, I swear to God."

"You murdered Walt, you did it right here, in this building. At least admit it with some dignity left."
Lewis feels himself pale. "You have no proof."

"Wrong. I have a reliable witness, and one empty space in my storage shed where a sickle used to be. You want to tell me how you somehow confused my bathroom with my storage shed? Yeah, my guy saw you go out there. Helluva place to take a piss, am I right?"

Donnelly has continued to advance while he talks, and Lewis must move farther back to keep a safe distance. "So I stepped outside for a few minutes at your stupid dinner party. What's your point?"

Donnelly grits his teeth, beginning to lose his deceptive cool. "My point is, my sickle went missing after your little "trip" out back, and my friend was found murdered at his desk the next day. Doesn't that seem a little suspicious to you? And, come to think of it, your body shape isn't much different than the murdering bastard in the security cam."

Lewis opens his mouth, closes it again. His well of excuses has just run dry.

"Why bother with this charade, Lew? You killed my friend, and now you have the nerve to wear his badge, steal his job, wear his uniform... not that a badge makes scum like you worthy enough to be sheriff–"

"Alright, then, you sonofabitch!" Lewis pounds his free hand on the table, but Donnelly does not flinch. "You want me to say I killed Hendricks? Fine! He was a stupid asshole who wouldn't know night from day if it slapped him in the face, much less run a police station, and I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad I did it!"

"So you admit it, then." Donnelly's voice burns with savage triumph. "You admit to killing Walt."

"You have bigger problems, Jim." Lewis levels his pistol at Donnelly's face. "Namely, me putting a bullet in your brain. I'm doing you a favor, trust me. You look like you're on your way out, anyway."
"Actually, Lew, it's the funniest thing; I haven't felt better in my life!"

And it is at that moment that Lewis realizes too late that Donnelly's true goal was not to make him confess, but to stall him. Too late does he notice the way the farmer's eyes have been flicking back and forth between him and the sickle on his desk.

"No–"

Lewis fires the gun without aiming, and Donnelly bowls past him unscathed, reaching out for the sickle in its clear forensics bag. He comes up on the opposite end of the desk with the blade in his hand as Lewis recocks the gun, and the two men face each other seconds later with both weapons drawn. Lewis is breathing hard, shocked at how fast Donnelly can move despite his weak stature, but the farmer hasn't even broken a sweat.

"You're a dead man, Lew. Nobody's coming for you but me. I'd tell you to say hello to Walt for me, but I doubt you're going where he went."

"Shut up!" Lewis fires again, and this time, his aim is better. The bullet grazes Donnelly's thin shoulder, and he howls in pain as it embeds itself in the wall behind him. But Donnelly is already in motion again, lunging over the desk like a feral animal. The sickle is his claw and tooth as he barrels into Lewis, sending them both tumbling over one another. Lewis's pistol goes flying from his hands, and a second later Donnelly is sitting, victorious, on his chest. He cannot weigh more than a child, yet no matter how hard he pushes and writhes, Lewis cannot push him off.

And it is now when he realizes the hopelessness of his situation. No one is coming, not even with the sound of two gunshots still ringing throughout the building, because Lewis had assigned just about every cop in Beauty to patrol the curfewed streets until they find the killer. He sees the error of this choice only now, sees that what Donnelly said before is true; nobody is coming for him but the emaciated farmer. Somewhere, deep down in his mind, he understands that he his about to die, perhaps welcomes that thought, but the driving part of him does not want to be murdered. Surely, that is enough?

Donnelly cranes over his fallen foe to fit the sickle's blade snuggly around Lewis's neck. The first droplets of blood collect, crimson as an early dawn, at the line of the sheriff's stubble. The farmer bends until their faces are mere inches apart. His breath smells like human decay and moldy straw.

"Beg for your life."

Lewis swallows hard, then spits a fat yellow loogie onto Donnelly's cheek. His eyes sting with unshed tears of pure rage. "Go to hell, Jim."

Donnelly shrugs, as if this was an expected answer. "I suppose I'll see you there."

Lewis's last, comforting thought before the sickle is brought up and through his windpipe is that he almost, almost, got away with it all.

For Donnelly, killing Lewis Meyer comes easier than Linda Sue. This time he is an artist, the sickle is his brush, and he paints the entire office red.