Un-Merciful Heart

The figure turned and began to step out the door.

"Wait!" Strickland called out hysterically." You said I had a third choice! A third choice!"

The eyes turned for a final time to Strickland. The man who had come in and helped himself to Turner's wife, his home, would have helped himself to Turner's children as he had done before.

"You are right, so I did." The dark avenger reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue tipped, kitchen match. Now, Strickland screamed as the full weight of his situation came down. His panic-filled eyes swept from the man to the gasoline soaked walls.

For the first time in nearly a year the thin lips parted in a genuine smile as Turner struck the match with his thumbnail.

"You can burn in hell, you son of a bitch!" he condemned as he tossed the lighted match against the gas soaked wall. Immediately the wall went up in a conflagration.

Turner turned and walked off into the dark night toward the place he had parked his car. His only companions on the return were the screams of the man in the shack making his choice.

Lieutenant Linda Shannon looked over at the detective staring intently at the road leading back to the Sheriff's Department headquarters. They had received a call from the Dale Fire Department to report that a man maimed and badly burned had been found along route 233 just outside of Dale. An advanced medical burn unit had been dispatched as had elements of the Sheriff's. The identification found with him identified him as one Leonard Strickland. It was believed that he would live but he had received 3rd degree burns over 25% percent of his body. In addition, his genitals had been removed, an apparent self–mutilation.

Linda looked over to her friend. "Well, looks like you won't have to worry about Strickland anymore."

Pat Gibson kept her eyes focused on the road in front of her trying without success to drive the sight of Strickland's burned, mutilated body being taken away to the burn unit. "No, I don't suppose so. Even if the man lives, which I doubt, he'll never be a threat to anyone again."

Shannon shifted in her seat. "We had a call earlier last night from a mother saying that her daughter had been accosted along the bike path near the Galleria Mall in Dale. Do you think Strickland might have been involved with that?"

Pat Gibson took a deep breath. "I think it's highly likely."

They sat for a while with only the occasional squawk from the radio dispatch unit breaking the silence. Finally, Linda tuned to her fellow officer. "Damn! He'll be pissing into a bag for the rest of his life. Do you think he did that to himself?"

Pat took her eyes from the road for a moment at looked at her companion. "Do you? What could make a man do that to himself? Strickland was a pervert and a borderline sociopath but he wasn't psychotic."

Linda returned he gaze to the landscape passing by her window. Soon it would be daylight echoing in a new day. "Did you know that crime scene had found a second set of footprints at the scene? They also found the tracks of a car. Someone was there with Strickland. Do you have any idea who that might be?"

Inspector Pat Gibson bit her lower lip. "I can't lie. I think I know who it was. But if I am correct, I also think that if anything was ever justified, this was."

She looked at the lieutenant. "Are you sorry for Strickland? You know what he was. I don't advocate taking the law into your own hands, you know that. Mike wouldn't either." Pat turned attention back to the traffic. "But sometimes fate steps in and takes over."

"But.." Linda continued.

"We exist to serve and protect. That's what we tell people." Pat continued. "Sometimes we can serve but we can rarely protect. We serve the criminal justice system. We have a lot of criminals, and something of a system. Sometimes, just sometimes, maybe we see a little justice as well."

Pat Gibson swung the cruiser into a vacant space outside the Sheriff's Department and turned to her friend. Outside, the sun rose on a new day.

"We'll work this any way you say. But honestly, I don't think anyone is going work too hard to find the person. I think that the best we can hope is that whoever this was closed the account and he can go on with his life. Maybe now, he can find a little peace."