LEFT OF SINISTER

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Candy laughed aloud as he closed the distance between them putting the pistol at an attitude that it was visible to Earl. Earl wasn't certain or not his brother wasn't tempting him to try and wrest the weapon from him in some parody of the past when Earl had a reputation as an athlete and a dangerous opponent in a fist fight.

But Earl was not intent to do that realizing as well Candy had also been a capable opponent when engaging in physical exchanges with others. He had always been lean and athletically gifted as well in comparison to his contemporaries with the added talent of quickness. He remembered seeing him once pop Stanley Raynor in the face three times in succession within a matter of mere seconds. Blood had started pouring from Stanley's nose and one of his eyes that had a gaping slit just above the eye brow. The sight of his blood had so terrified the seventeen year old he ran off screaming to be carried to the hospital. Candy and the rest of them fretted for hours afterward that he might press charges against him.

Word was he did speak to the police about his interaction with Candy, but the police counseled him not to prefer charges suggesting the District Attorney would view it as the normal behavior of boys beset with teenage contrariness and was unlikely to carry it before the bar.

So the idea that he would try and re-engineer his body if only momentarily to disarm his brother and gaining custody of the Ruger was out of the question. He in this moment of reflection decided he would use his egomaniacal brother's vanity against him. He not only had to overcome him, he had to kill him to remove him from the scene in a manner that it would not go beyond being seen as a man overwhelmed by the tragedy of what had occurred within his family and driven to despair took his own life.

If the circumstance of his death should result in a task force delving deep into his past it might draw unwanted attention. They might want to draw Earl and his family into the limelight. It would be painful enough being known as the sibling of such a psychotic predator without people perhaps thinking he himself might not be what he seemed. He had to kill him and in the process destroy all this evidence his step grandson had accumulated against him. He at last arrived upon the decision that he would have to burn the house down after he'd dispensed with Candy, made his death look like a suicide.

He had to get access to his wallet. He'd tell Candy he wanted to look once more at a photo of his beloved Maggie so that he might could see her face one more time before Candy murdered him. Yeah Candy would fall for that surely.

And then Earl supposed he would make some comment about his credit cards and nonchalantly remove the one he needed. He had to get to his coat in the foyer closet, where his wallet was inside the breast pocket of his coat. It was the only chance he had before him.

He was faced with two options, try and physically overcome Candy or outwit him. The latter was the preferable one to him at age 69 and so the task before him was to get permission to get the coat.