Day 784: 5 Minute Freewrite: Friday - Prompt: twist and turn (and, The Posture of Innocence, day 51)
A story worthy of Friday the 13th ... meet Lieutenant Bruce Deadwood, and understand why Mrs. Thornton instinctively rejected him while embracing the heart of the man who could have been him, but turned to God and away from this path ...
To get totally caught up on The Posture of Innocence, here are the prologue, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 3.5, day 4, day 4.5, day 5, day 5.5, day 6, day 7, day 7.5, day 8, day 9, day 9.5, day 10, day 10.5, day 11, day 11.5, day 12, day 12.5, day 13, day 13.5, day 14, day 15, day 16, day 16.5, day 17, day 18, day 19, day 19.5, day 20, day 20.5, day 21, day 22, day 22.5, day 23, day 23.5, day 24, day 24.5, day 25, day 25.5, day 26, day 26.5, day 27, day 27.5, day 28, day 28.5, day 29, day 29.5, day 30, day 30.5, day 31, day 31.5, day 32, day 32.5, day 33, day 33.5, day 34, day 34.5, day 35, day 35.5, day 36, day 36.5, day 37, day 37.5, day 38, day 38.5, day 39, day 39.5, day 40, day 40.5, day 41, day 41.5, day 42, day 42.5, day 43, day 44, day 44.5, day 45, day 46, day 46.33, day 46.67, day 47, day 47.5, day 48, day 48.5, day 49, day 49.5, day 50, and day 50.5!
Lieutenant Deadwood, at 11:00, had started working his way through the list of people he knew were giving Francis Lofton money to give to him for his work. He had waited Wednesday evening for his call and payment to do the hit that was supposed to be his last job, but the call had never come. He had then called Francis Lofton, but that call had never come through. He had then called his favorite gossip over at the police station he worked out of, and that is when he found out what had happened Wednesday – Lofton and the rest had gotten caught up by the cold case division that afternoon, just after Lofton had delivered the goods to a purported hitman. That let Lieutenant Deadwood know the higher-ups had thrown him over for someone else – his cover had been blown and they had moved on. That also meant he had only a little while before Lofton outed him to Captain Lee … but, chances were, Lee was already somehow on his track, but just couldn't be everywhere at the same time.
So, Lieutenant Deadwood had found out what time Captain Lee was going to have his press conference, and targeted that approximate time to shake any surveillance there may have been – he had driven his gray car up the hill in the middle of the night, when everybody was watching his Corvette, and then had drained his Corvette of all but the barest amount of gasoline to get him over the top of Blue Hawk Road before getting around the curve, jumping out of the car, leaving it in drive, and letting it not make the next turn. It hurt to sacrifice the Corvette, but, he had work to do, driving unnoticed down Blue Hawk Road until it met Skyline, and Skyline to almost the bottom, where the first of the men who was supposed to be paying him lived.
The first man was shocked and angered to see the lieutenant at his door – to the lieutenant's complaint of betrayal and need for money to make his escape, the higher-class man scoffed.
“We don't dirty our hands up here with men like you. You let your cover be blown; you're of no further use to us, and certainly we are not going to endanger ourselves by directly giving you money. Get off my property – in fact, here's $20. Have a nice life.”
Living in the lap of luxury blurs certain realities, including the wisdom that it is not wise to talk disrespectfully to a hitman. Lieutenant Deadwood had brought his gun and his silencer and plenty of bullets. He employed them at the first house and every other he visited, taking what he wanted and then covering the front and back doors of these great homes with gasoline and then setting them on fire – both exits covered, so, if there was anyone else inside, oh well.
After a while, Lieutenant Deadwood just enjoyed that part of it so much that he stopped bothering to rob – a man of his class, at last able to act out the lifetime of envy and resentment – he began to get a rush from it, and since nobody ever expects a hitman of that type in the best sort of neighborhoods, the neighborhoods were defenseless against his swift attack.
Around every twist and turn of the road, house after house, cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac, block after block because of the winds pushing the flames, and the flames creating a wind of their own – Lieutenant Deadwood, close to the end, was scarcely able to stay ahead of his work, but there was no way he could stop. The fate that Henry Fitzhugh Lee had narrowly avoided in 1992 became the full outcome of Bruce Deadwood – a deadly man gone too far, a stark raving homicidal maniac, following the very track that the man he would meet at the end had been turned away from.