Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

Half the men in my family were army vets, and my father died in the Persian Gulf. If killing strangers on behalf of our government was honorable, how could I fail to retaliate against people who’d murdered members of my family?

The Daniels woman justly deserved a death sentence. But knowing that and being able to carry it out are very different things.

I didn’t know if I was capable of killing. I only knew that the law had utterly failed our clan. Justice had been left to me.

Turning onto the shore road, I headed toward Michikewis Beach. Half a mile ahead, I could see a blond jogger running along the shore. Fawn Daniels, lithe and athletic, decked out in skin-tight pink spandex. Enjoying a relaxing run in the warm autumn afternoon.

While my mother, my sister, and her unborn baby lay cold in the moldering darkness.

Flooring the gas pedal, I rapidly closed the distance. There were a few tourists strolling along the beach, but none were close enough to interfere. All they could do was watch.

Not that they could see much. The stolen Escalade’s windows were smoked glass. And in the split second before I whipped it off the road onto the beach, it occurred to me that my uncle Deke had planned this killing extremely well on very short notice. A sobering thought.

Then it was too late for thinking. The big SUV slewed in the sand, and I was fighting the wheel to keep the unruly machine upright, wrestling it back on course. Forty yards ahead, I glimpsed Fawn Daniels’ terrified face as she glanced over her shoulder to see the monster Cadillac hurtling toward her. It must have looked like a messenger of death. A roaring black juggernaut.

For a split second our eyes met through the windshield — and then I cranked the wheel over, veering away to avoid her. Too late!

I heard a thump, saw Fawn go sprawling into the shallows. But then she was up again, scrambling to her feet, sprinting out into the water, limping, but making pretty good time.

Matting the gas pedal, I nearly rolled the SUV in the loose sand as I swerved back toward the shore road. Running for my life.

Though I knew it was already too late.

She’d glimpsed my face, if only for a moment. And she’d seen me often enough during the trial to know who I was.

I’d destroyed myself. Thrown my life away. For nothing.

At the moment of truth, I simply couldn’t do it.

I didn’t hear police sirens yet, but they’d be coming soon enough. All I could do now was try to avoid dragging anyone else down with me.

As instructed, I abandoned the Escalade in the supermarket lot, but I didn’t join my family in the park. I’d failed them. I’d take the weight for that failure alone.

I walked home instead. Not to my apartment. Home. To my mother’s house. A small white clapboard on a quiet side street, shaded by maple trees.

It stood empty now. Locked, shades drawn, eyeless windows staring blindly at me as I trudged slowly up the porch steps. Utterly exhausted.

I still had a key, but didn’t bother to use it. I sat on the front steps instead. Waiting for the police. Knowing they’d be on their way as soon as the Daniels woman got to a phone.

It was a good place to wait. I’d grown up in this house, roamed these streets as a boy. With my little sister tagging along after me. Closing my eyes, I could almost hear Lisa’s voice calling me. The autumn sun warm on my face...

I snapped awake, startled. Wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep but dusk was coming on now, shadows falling.

A car screeched to a halt at the curb.

Not a police car. My Volvo. With my uncle Deacon at the wheel.

“What the hell are you doing here, Paul? You’re supposed to be at the park.”

“You’d better get out of here, Uncle Deke. I blew it completely. The police will be coming.”

“They’ve already been. They arrested Mel Bennett twenty minutes ago. Seems he tried to run down Fawn Daniels. Half a dozen people saw his car at the beach. That big, ugly SUV was hard to miss.”

“Mel’s SUV?” I echoed stupidly.

“Whose did you think it was? He left it parked in front of his new girlfriend’s place. She swore he was with her the whole time, but a star-struck kid isn’t much of an alibi. Not with Fawn Daniels in the back of a prowl car screaming that Mel tried to run her down. Positively identified him.”

“I don’t understand. She saw me! At the beach she—”

“Saw what she was most afraid of,” Deke finished. “Mel’s car coming straight at her. She’ll swear on her mama’s eyes he was at the wheel because she damn sure knows how he did his last girlfriend. I expect they’re going at each other like rats in a box about now, throwing their own lives away.”

“I still don’t—” But suddenly I did understand. “My God. This was the plan all along, wasn’t it? You knew I’d never go through with it. Why the hell did you ask me to do it?”

“It had to be you, Paul. Your mama was right, the law’s been all over us since the trial. We couldn’t make a move.”

“Bo managed the car.”

“I said they were watching us. I didn’t say they were real good at it.”

“And if I’d been caught, Uncle Deke? What then?”