Dieyes

By Paul Hennrich

Since being cut loose by the DEA because of their allegations that he was a loose cannon who was too quick to use extreme measures against the murderous goons he came up against, ex-undercover agent Kent Baker has filled his spare time as a freelance purveyor of punitive justice. Through it all he maintains the alligator skin he developed while working his former job, along with an icy demeanor to match, dispositions that have helped keep him alive.
But now, due to a recent bloodied calamity, things have changed and he has found himself within the all-time low point of his ragtag existence. People close to him had been brutally murdered, and the love of family ended up meaning nothing. At long last, his outlook on living has hit rock-bottom and he has come to the decision that life was no longer worth the slog.
But out of nowhere an old law enforcement friend, sensing something is amiss, calls him up with a suggestion.
The affable community of Scott City, Missouri, was existing within the swirl of a nightmare. Two young women have been heartlessly murdered and now a third one is missing, all of which means there could be a serial killer on the loose. Instead of languishing, this person suggests, why not join in on a search for the missing girl, and also maybe offer the local Sheriff any worthwhile input that the violent run-ins of his past can offer. At first Baker is reluctant to heed his friend’s counsel but, eventually, he decides to maybe go ahead and follow through on his buddy’s proposal.
In doing so, his life is forever changed. He intersects with a beautiful lady, and assists in an investigation where women are killed and mutilated without reason. A series of homicides where clues are few, violence runs rampant, and suspects abundant.
As has been the case as of lately, he finds himself immersed in the middle of the fracas, the final resolution of which is terrifying, mindboggling and heart-breaking.
When all is said and laid to rest, Baker is most definitely lifted out of his self-centered doldrums.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Hennrich
• Release date: Feb 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463225615

Paul Hennrich

I have always loved to write. My third grade teacher read my very first short story to my classmates. In it, I had a head tumbling down a staircase. I have always had a thing for the rough stuff, at least in fiction.Over the years I continued writing. I have written an epic novel over a thousand pages long about a group of young friends, carrying their lives through their childhood years before the Civil War and then in to the war itself, finally dragging them and their relationships into the following Indian wars in the American West. It's titled The Reach and is now available within Smashwords.But first I published DEFINITIONS (Smashwords and Amazon), followed by the second and third adventurers of the of Kent Baker series. In order of publication they are SCAVENGERS (Amazon), and ENTERTAINMENT (Rocking Horse Publishing and Amazon).A fourth caper, KINFOLK, is in the formatting stage and will soon be released at Smashwords.For more info on theses novels and their availability, along with any other news concerning future releases, please go to my website listed below.That is my story as an author. I sincerely hope you find my novels enjoyable diversions -- (we all need diversions, now don't we?).My own more important story is that I’m a happily married man with a beautiful wife and big family that includes a daughter, a son, five grandchildren, mother, son-in-law, brothers and sisters along with their spouses, and a basket full of nieces and nephews. Life is great.

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DIEYES

By Paul Hennrich

Copyright 2017 Paul Hennrich

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this book. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Other titles by Paul Hennrich at Smashwords:

The Kent Baker Mystery / Suspense Series:

Definitions

Scavengers

Entertainment

Kinfolk

Also, a Civil War Era Historical / Fiction Novel:

The Reach

Blurbs and the information concerning the availability of these novels can be found at the end of this Kent Baker Adventure.

* * ~ ~ ~ ~ * *

DIEYES

The human face is the masterpiece of God.

The eyes reveal the soul...

Elbert Hubbard

Little Journeys: Leonard

Prologue

(Soaked Cow-pies intermixed with Random Last Thoughts)

On the rainy morning that was to be the last day of my life, I found myself pondering the old TV westerns.

That reflection came to me as I sat at the top end of a washout in a pasture that was once owned by the grandparents who raised me, a pasture I knew as well as I knew my name, that day maybe even better.

A downpour of an early summer rain had started soon after parking my pintsized, well-bruised car in the driveway of the farm house wherein I was raised. It would have been hard to drag me into a much deeper state of depression than I already was in, but the condition of the place gave it a good try.

The gentry who had bought the property had abandoned it to the slow death of zero upkeep. They had built themselves a fine, bricked home on a distant field and had decided, I suppose, that allowing the old house and red barn across the way to fall in upon themselves was the cheapest means to be rid of them. After all, who would care, as the previous owners were long gone? No one, not any one, they must have figured, not a single, solitary soul.

Except for me. But, in their defense, I could most assuredly be tallied as soulless.

So, there it was the whole of it. I had been down in the dumps as deeply as one could go and the disrepair and overgrowth about my childhood Eden, the place I had spent my happiest years, didn’t help matters at all. In fact, it had made it a simpler task to do the thing I had come to do, which was to put the ancient .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver to the side of my head and blow my brains away, along and with any warm memories.

Yeah, this lone traveler had had enough.

I traipsed away from the dilapidated farmstead and slung myself over a fence and into the pasture I had romped through as a kid, only to end up for some stupid reason in the last place one would want to be during a pouring rain, that being a washout gully where my butt cheeks left an impression at least four inches deep, thereby putting my boned head six inches below the rim.

Revolver in hand, I killed time watching the soaked dirt roil its way down the slope of the gulley, heading wherever it was it needed to go. It was while stuck in that glazy gaze that, for some unknown reason, thoughts came to me pertaining to old boob-tube westerns.

Maybe it was because I have always been fond of the sixties and early seventies − the music, the hair, the peace signs, the love that was never really love − the whole damn sloppy mess, including the westerns I had watched on Saturday mornings that were a ready-made, cheap broadcast fodder for an upstart TV station.

The one that came to me in what was to be my final moments was the one where a father and son living alone on a farm had a weekly run-in with some nasty desperadoes. I was so far gone I couldn’t even come up with the name of the show, only that by the end of it Dad had maybe gunned down a multiple number of the bad guys. What you generally got was twenty, twenty-five minutes of danger and death and then, at the very end, a gathering of the two of them and the local sheriff where they shared an episode-ending laugh about one thing or another.

I had often wondered how calloused to violence that kid must have been, to sit and have a chuckle or two with those grownups while the bad guys’ blood was still soaking into the dusty, cow-pied street. Tough kid or, maybe better yet, a cold one, long past having become immune to all the carnage he had been raised to see.

Thing was, this guy with his butt deeply implanted in the mud had at long last had all he could stand of spilled blood, along with being a cold lump of skin.

Had it with the memories of the blood of those I had put down, deserving or not, and also with the buried blood that was draining from within my deepest reaches, draining away any heartfelt feeling I had towards seeing any more sunrises. Yep, there was the great quantity of death I had dealt out, and witnessed other folks dealing out, but even bigger gut-wrenches besides.

Like finding out a short while back that the father, mother and sister I had never known until it was too late were gone forever.

A humongous wrenching, indeed, was that.

Having plopped into the vulgar reaches of my wasted past, it finally came to the point where no amount of beer and bourbon could keep me from making the decision to lug the heavy pistol to the last place I needed to visit before dousing the light.

And then it had to rain.

That damnable rain.

But if you think about it, maybe it was a perfect day for what I had in mind. After all, who wants to see the sun sparkling off of robust green grass just before you kill yourself. There’s something blasphemous about that vision.

It was while I was looking down at the Smith and Wesson and thinking about TV oaters that the white-faced, brown Hereford heifer strolled up to the edge of trench.

She was all by herself, following a sunken cow path that was maybe three feet from the drop off to my gulley. Her hair was matted by the cold rain and her head was bowed to the downpour. Her ears were drooping and her steps through the muddied path were plodding, taxing.

She stopped and gazed at me with a mild curiosity. Her eyes were large, dark, and fathomless as they took me in. They gave away nothing, as if things mattered and yet did not matter.

I wondered about what was going on within her.

Did she know she was miserable? Or was she just existing?

Was I just existing?

The heifer held me in her gaze a few more seconds then turned her head forward and continued sloshing her way along the cow path.

For some strange reason, I was glad she went on her way. Maybe it was because I didn’t want her to be upset for life by what was coming next. Doubt there are many cow psychiatrists putting out their shingles.

People head-shrinks were unneeded also, as I would be leaving no one behind to mourn me. No offspring, no wife, no lover, no nobody. The only one who would miss me would be my landlord, and only because he’d be short a rent check.

Enough of this self-pitying silliness, I finally thought.

Cows, farmhouse, family, westerns, a solitary existence, blooded eyes staring into a deep eternity. Yeah, to hell with all that inanity and onward to hades for one Kent Baker.

I raised the gun. I rocked a skittish grin as I cocked it, put all emotions out of my mind and started lifting the barrel towards my temple.

My cell phone bleated its intensely irritating ringtone.

Oh, hells bells!

I grimaced and cursed it. I have no idea why I kept the thing. I have no one who wants to talk to me on a regular basis, or anyone I want to gossip with ever. The number of calls I’d received the preceding months could be counted on both hands and half a foot, the better part of them having come from cheery folks wanting to peddle something to me.

That’s who you need to be using your gun on, I thought, and couldn’t help but laugh in spite of all else.

My electronic wonder was on the third ring when for some inane reason I made up my mind to lug it out and answer, a grim smile still canting across my face. Don’t know why I decided that, but I did it.

’Lo-o-o! I yelped out way too loud.

A pause, then,

Kent, how you doing?

I immediately knew the voice and I didn’t feel like being silly anymore.

Wade Phillips. The Sheriff who was involved with the mess wherein I had lost family members. He’d let me tag along during the investigation and, in the process, had a moronic scoundrel put a bullet into his chest, after which I returned the favor.

It had been nip and tuck at the hospital, but − thank God − in the end he had survived. Having been told that a while back, I had called him at the hospital, leaving him with the promise that I would come see him in person real soon.

Of course, that trip had not been made, because I’m nothing if not a highflying idiot. And now he was asking me how ‘I’ was doing.

Fine, Wade. Sorry I haven’t been in touch.

No problem, son, I know you young bucks got lots of things going.

No that much, Wade. I really did mean to come around.

Hey, I’ll be here whenever you make it. Got to ask you, though, what’s all that racket? You outside in the rain?

I wipe the water off my face.

It’s just sprinkling.

Still, you outside in it?

Okay, if you say so. But your voice sounds off. You sure you’re alright?

Cleared my throat.

Positive, Wade, just took a walk at the wrong time.

I see.

Lowered the revolver to my thigh.

How you doing, how’s your chest? I asked him.

Puffed out like a gobbler in a turkey harem. Holding a chunk of lead in it, you might remember. Put an x-ray machine in my bedroom so I could take a peek at it now and again. It’s my badge of honor nowadays.

I kind of laughed. Couldn’t help it.

"So, everything’s alright?’

Well, I cough now and again but other than that I feel fine. Lost a lot of weight there for a while, which gave the little woman a chance to fatten me up. Best cooking I’ve had our whole marriage, getting fatter than a pregnant sow. Times are I think it’s the best thing happened to me.

I wondered how many animal puns he held.

Wasn’t a bit of fun for the rest of us.

Still, it happens. Anyway, Kent, why I called is I’m wondering how you’re doing, seeing as how you went through a lot more than me.

I’m here. Doing fine.

I’d believe that if I didn’t know you’re so full of shit, along with the fact you’re puttering around in the damn rain. Listen son, nobody in your shoes could be doing fine. So how are you for sure doing?

My brain was struggling through a molasses current. I was finding it hard to make small talk, much less answer a question.

Wade didn’t wait on me.

What happened to you, Kent, was tough, no sugarcoating it. No question about it, you’ve lost a lot. But none of it was your doing, and that makes for a huge difference between feeling guilty and being sad.

Wade, I…a…

Again, no way to form words.

Want me to ask you if you done the best you could? Wade asked.

Blew a gust of air into the rainfall.

No.

Cause the answer is you did. Everything that came down was outside anybody’s control. If it’s got you down, it understandable. Given that, what have you been doing these last few months?

I’ve been busy.

That’s not what I asked you. Listen, Kent, you’re not the type to sit around festering, you’re too sharp a knife for that.

I’ve been busy, I said again

I felt like a first grader staring up at Sister Theresa’s disappointed face.

Wade was silent for a while. I could see him in his office, squinting his eyes and biting his lower lip. He must have finally bit hard enough.

I got this idea, he said. You heard about the bad goings-on around Scott City?

I cleared my throat so I would sound a little more humanoid.

The murders?

Yeah. A woman found by the road a month and half ago and a second floating in the river a couple of weeks back.

Think I heard about that. I gather people think they’re connected.

Right. Between me and you both ladies were treated badly, then killed. That’s all I can tell you and more than I should have, but I know I can trust you. Something else for just between us, not a lot of effort was made to hide the first body by the road. The second one in the Mississippi took someone who knew a good secluded way to get up close to the river. The only care taken in both cases was to pick out an of the way route with little traffic.

Which probably means it’s a person from around there.

Now you’re waking up. Thing is, Kent, another woman has come up missing. Hasn’t been seen since yesterday afternoon. Young gal in her twenties. Seems she’s a little slow, a mild retardation. Don’t know if she’s wandered off or if she’s a third victim of some sicko.

Wasn’t aware of that.

Got to get out, watch TV, turn on a radio or read a newspaper if you’re gonna keep up on things.

Suppose so.

I looked up into the tumbling rain. It was starting to really piss me off.

Here’s what I think you should do, Wade was saying. First thing tomorrow morning they’re fixing to bring in as many volunteers as they can and put together a search for this young lady. I know the Sheriff down there, he’s a friend of mine. Charley Weeks. He’s not a withered old goat like me, he’s young and a little wet behind the ears, but he’s got gumption and he’s sharp as a tack. He’s got some good deputies, and the state folks are getting involved. Still, he could use a man like you.

Well…I guess I could help search.

You could do more than that. You could kind of help Charley along, maybe let him pick up something from your experience. Maybe teach him a few things.

The state cops would be better for that. I’m not much of tutor, Wade.

Well, maybe not. I guess what I’m trying to say is you could drop some ideas on him like you done me. Join with the search tomorrow and put your mind to what you’re hearing and seeing. You got, how do I say this, an instinct, Kent, a feel for seeing what others can’t. Don’t try to tell me you don’t, I’ve seen it and don’t have time to argue, and am too damn old to want to. Thing is, where others look at the skin, you focus through to the innards.

I would have liked to have told him he was full of crap, but he wasn’t.

My life had so far been a belly crawl through the netherworld of human nature, from my years as an undercover agent with the DEA and with some bloody undertakings since leaving the agency. I had seen ogres laugh as they killed, grin as they tortured, yawn as the bodies mounded. I still see their fanged ogre smirks in my deepest sleep. Been tortured once or twice myself, with knife scars on my chest, and several pocked bullet holes on my body, as proof.

This thing that I’d become has encountered way too many evils way too many times but, in the end, because luck has been winking, I’ve managed to put them down like the rabid beasts they were, and felt no little delight in doing so.

You learn from all that, walking that raggedy knife edge. You concentrate and stay one careful step ahead, or you lie bone-cold one step behind. It’s not a gift I have, it’s a means for a scruffy survival.

And there I sat, plopped down in the chilled mud, ready to give up on surviving. Hadn’t let all the miscellaneous monsters defeat me, but rather had fought them to the end, be it for justice or revenge.

And yet there I sat, surrendering to a different monster.

Myself, the wimpiest beast of all.

Two young women were dead, one missing, and here was a self-centered doofus feeling pity for one Kent Baker.

After waiting on me, Wade took up the conversation himself.

I’ve already called Charley, he said. Told him you’d be coming, told him to give some thought to anything you come up.

Wade ─

He said he’d be glad for any input he could get. Like I said, he’s a smart one. This thing is eating him up and anybody, civilian or a body with experience like you, will get his ear.

How’d you know I’d agree?

I’m experienced too.

I moved my finger away from the trigger and held pistol against my leg, holding it by the butt.

I’ll be there tomorrow, Wade, I said.

He’ll be expecting you. When things slow down, come see me, son.

Believe me, I will.

We signed off.

I lifted my head and looked at the green, green grass glistening through the tumbling raindrops. Wade had to of had a gut feeling something was wrong with me, and there’s no having that feeling unless there’s really something wrong. Ask most any mother.

It meant a lot that he would make the call, trying to get me off my self-pitying butt to do something that rightfully needed doing. It warmed me to have such a buddy, especially one with such impeccable timing.

It was then, while I was running my thoughts through that bottleneck, that the rain stopped.

Chapter 1

(Pokin’ around)

Scott City, Missouri, is a pleasant and pleased town that’s roughly one hundred and twenty miles south of St. Louis. It’s not far from the city I live in, and holds around-about five thousand closely-knit folks. It sits on some high ground that’s about a large river-bottom cornfield away from the Mississippi. The greatest part of the individuals who live there are good people, who make it their duty to populate the church pews on Sunday mornings. Others there are that don’t see it as their thing to sing hymns, but the majority of them are good too, only a little confused.

But it in seems that in every piece of sun-drenched countryside that holds tall, green grass − along with deer, rabbits, grasshoppers and innumerable spring flowers − there is almost sure to be a snake. All snakes can pop you out of your skin at first glance, but the majority are harmless. Still and yet, some are deadly as hell.

That’s how it is in the world and the cities, along with the pastoral fields. The snakes hide amongst the beauty and get most of the attention. And for those self-same slithery cretins who walk upright in gory shoes, it’s the very thing they want most.

Attention.

Hey! Hey! Look at me! I can torture and kill the innocents and you can’t catch me. I be smarter than you. Nanna-nanna boo-boo!

Serial killers are beastly mongrels, undeserving of oxygen, and now Scott City, Missouri, looked to all intents and purposes to have one of its own. They damn sure didn’t deserve it.

Interstate 55 skirts the west side of the city so that if you take the one and only exit and go east on what is Route K, you don’t have to go far until you find the police station on the left next to the fire station, not too far down the road from a quick shop, a fast-food place, a grocery store and a restaurant.

Holy crap, that’s America.

After returning to my apartment following my frivolous excursion into the flooded pasture, I clicked on the local evening news report and found out that anyone interested in joining the search for the latest missing young woman was to meet at the Scott City police station at seven the next morning. So, per Wade’s timely suggestion, I made plans to be there.

Upon arrival, it was clear I was far from the only person interested in volunteering. Parking spaces were at a premium, and there weren’t