Honorable Assassin (4 page)

She could not have gotten out of the
shackles by herself, even if she had succeeded in pulling the chain
from the wall; they were locked around her wrists and ankles with
padlocks.

It was in the third month when he finally
allowed her to take a shower. She came out of the shower pretending
it had made her amorous but Cooter would have no part of it. He
took her back to the basement and locked her back up before he
abused her. She thanked him for it.

Two days later she asked if she could cook
for him. He refused the offer but the seed had been planted. It was
a week before he let her shower again but this time he allowed her
to go into the kitchen and prepare some food but not before
chaining her to the handle of the gas oven.

She cooked him rice with gravy and sausages
and while he was eating, she made a show of touching herself. He
told her to stop but she claimed that the combination of the shower
and standing there, naked and chained while her master ate, had
made her sex drip.

After he was done eating he told her to get
on her knees and he stood in front of her and dropped his pants. It
was the best chance she had been afforded to date. She reached down
to the end of the chain and actually opened the oven door to allow
her to take his pants off. She was cooing and telling him how much
she loved to do this for him when she brought both hands up with
the shackles on her wrists and smashed him in the scrotum.

Cooter buckled forward as his captive
slammed her steel restraints into his testicles. It might have been
enough to temporarily incapacitate him, but Marcia was in no mood
to go with half measures. She stood and grabbed the circular grate
from one of the stovetop burners and proceeded to smash his head
in. She did not hit him once, nor a dozen times, she continued
screaming and pounding him until she had no more breath to scream.
When she finished she was on her knees, covered in his blood,
gasping for breath. She had pounded his head into a pulpy jelly,
punctured both his eyeballs and smashed out all his teeth. The calm
she had displayed while acting the part of Cooter’s slave had
disappeared; now she was frantic and shaking like a leaf.

The keys to her restraints were in the
pocket of his pants as were the keys to his automobile. She was
unchained, but still stark naked, and covered in her former
master’s death fluids but she could not bring herself to wear any
of his clothes. The game was over and the last strands of her
tortured nerves snapped. She did not know where she was but that
was the least of her concerns. Tearing out of the house she jumped
into the driver’s seat. The automobile started without a problem
and she tore away from the farmhouse in a cloud of dust and spray
of gravel.

The state of her mind was such that she did
not trust any of the neighbors; she had not met them and did not
know who they were. As far as she knew they were in collaboration
with the man she had just beaten to death. Once she saw the sign
for Hume Highway she knew more closely where she was. Hume Highway
passes Goulburn on the south, but the exit to Sloan Street takes
you right into town. Quite a few truck drivers noted that there was
a mad bloody woman, driving into town at top speed, and stark
naked. The first petrol station she saw was a Kangaroo Fuel and she
screamed to a stop in the parking lot.

The teenage boy who was running the Kangaroo
Fuel station would remember that January 16 for the rest of his
life. The reporters and the police were all there, asking questions
and taking pictures. They all wanted to know about the naked crazy
woman who had charged into station screaming that she needed help
and then collapsing on the floor. He told them all he knew,
concentrating on her obvious distress and her physical condition.
She was emaciated and covered with bruises, most of them old. She
had a black eye but most of the visible damage was eclipsed by the
fact that she was covered with drying blood.

The ambulance arrived simultaneously with
the police. By the time they got there, the mysterious woman was
wrapped in a blanket that had been in the back room. The medical
technicians had tried to find the source of the blood but it was
quickly obvious that it was not hers. They hustled her into the
ambulance and headed for the Goulburn Community Medical Center.

The constables had nothing to say to the
news reporters, so the reporters went back to the station and
interviewed the young man who had reported the incident. He reveled
in his 15 minutes, knowing it would be over before he could
capitalize on it.

Though she was not comatose, it was obvious
that she was at the end of her faculties so the police did not take
a statement that day.

The following day, Marcia woke screaming,
“I’ll kill you, you bastard,” and thrashing about. She had been
dreaming about having Cooter chained to the same wall he had
enjoyed having her chained to. The orderlies calmed her down and
the doctor administered a sedative. It was several hours into the
evening before she was in any condition to give a statement. When
she did it was a real eye-opener. She told them her name and
address and the fact that her husband had been killed. She told
them her son had been killed, since the last she had seen of him
was when he went over the side while they were being chased by the
two men in the speedboat. The Goulburn Police did not know he was
still alive. She told them where her husband had been shot, and how
the two men had boarded the Agamemnon and taken her prisoner. Then
she detailed the story of the dungeon and the man she had
killed.

There was little doubt that she had been
shackled, the abrasions on her wrists and ankles confirmed that.
There was more than enough evidence of abuse, both physical and
sexual. She could not have led them to the house, even if she were
allowed to leave the hospital. The escape had been in a blind
panic. She knew she was on Route 31, Hume Highway, but she did not
know what direction she had been traveling in. The police had
already run the plates from the car and gotten an address. Marcia’s
testimony merely filled in some of the blank spots they had
encountered when they found the owner dead on his own kitchen
floor.

The Police in Orange were alerted and
shortly after that, the Sydney office got the news. The reporters
in Goulburn did a little research and found the story of the
missing couple and their son but the rescue of Terry had never been
printed. The Sydney office had kept it as quiet as possible. The
news agencies were not excluded from the new story however and ran
it everywhere. The tale of a woman, who beat her captor to death
and escaped her dungeon, was international news. It did not take
Bradley two seconds to ascertain that his fears had come to
fruition and a very dangerous witness was at large. He was in
Goulburn before the end of the day. The only thing that kept Marcia
alive that night was the constables assigned to her protection.

Inspector Barlow called the Molong Police
Station personally, and asked that a constable be sent to the
Kingston Farm to inform Ginger and Terry that Marcia had been
located, alive. The news did not reach them until 8:30 at night and
Ginger would not chance driving that far after dark. He promised
Terry that they would visit his mother the following day, Monday.
Terry quite naturally threw a fit and demanded to be taken
immediately. The sun was still up and he wanted to see his mother,
but Ginger was adamant. They would leave first thing in the
morning.

Terry had another dream that night. This
time he could see the faces of the men in the boat that was chasing
them. They got closer and closer and then started shooting. Terry
dreamed of his mother screaming and the Agamemnon veering sharply
to the right. That was when he went overboard. He was about to hit
the water when he woke up. The sun was peeking over the horizon; as
far as he was concerned it was time to leave.

It was fortuitous that the pair had not left
the night before. The old farm truck that Ginger drove was 20 years
old and had not seen repairs in some time. The first problem was a
flat tire. It was not much of a problem since there was a spare but
it cost them a little time. The second problem was when the exhaust
fell off at the muffler. This cost them a bit more time but Ginger
repaired it with an old fruit juice can and a coat hanger from the
bed of the truck. It was noisy but it was no longer dragging. The
real problem happened when they stopped for fuel in Blaney. The
truck would not even turn over, the battery was dead. A jump got
the truck started, but it died again as it went into gear. The
alternator was shot and the gas station did not do repairs so
Ginger and Terry walked to the nearest parts store and bought an
alternator and a couple of wrenches. Terry was worried about his
uncle who was complaining all the way back to the truck about not
bringing any tools with him. Once the alternator was replaced it
was necessary to get another jump to start the engine. They finally
hit the road again. The entire trip was about 350 kilometers and
should have taken them three-and-a-half hours; it took them most of
the day.

It was almost seven o’clock in the evening
when they got to the medical center on Goldsmith Street. Visiting
hours were definitely over by then but the staff was very
understanding about the situation. They let Terry visit with his
mother for an hour, then Ginger spoke with her privately for a few
minutes. He looked particularly grim when he left the room. Terry
complained when they could not take Marcia with them right then and
there.

The sun was getting low in the sky and the
sheep and chickens needed to be secured. The engine in the old
truck fired up and they started putting out of the parking lot when
Terry saw the man from his dream. He was walking in the side
entrance. The side entrance should have been locked but was not.
Terry started yelling, pointing and grabbing his uncle’s arm. He
was so insistent that Ginger pulled to the side and parked the
truck on Faithful Street. Terry was frantic and could barely make
himself understood. He kept pounding on Ginger’s arm as he told him
that the man who had piloted the boat that had chased them just
went into the hospital.

Ginger Kingston was skeptical but had
noticed the boy did not lean toward flights of fancy, so he got out
of the truck and headed toward the door the youngster had
indicated. The door should have locked automatically when it closed
but it pulled right open. Somebody had stuffed a matchbook into the
lock, blocking the mechanism. Ginger charged into the hallway
bristling like a guard dog. None of the elevators were sitting open
so he ran to the other end of the hall and up the stairs. On the
second floor he turned back down toward Marcia’s room. He slowed
when he saw the constable sitting on the bench outside the door,
and Terry rushed past him. Terry was flinging himself through the
door when Ginger realized the constable had a huge wash of blood
behind him on the wall. He had been shot through the chest as he
sat there. Then there was the sound of the muffled .40 caliber
pistol, coincident with Terry’s scream. Another shot rang out and a
hole exploded in the door. Ginger slid under the hole in the door
and pulled the constable’s .40 caliber, model 22, Glock from his
holster. First he chambered a round, then he grabbed his nephew’s
ankle where it was lying, just outside the doorway but he could not
pull him out of the room. The door was jammed up against him.
Standing to his full height, he kicked the door open and tried to
get a bead on the intruder.

Bradley was in the room, expecting just what
he got. The door flew open and he shot Ginger Kingston in the
chest. The constable’s sidearm went off almost simultaneously but
the shot went wide. Bradley had not seen Terry lying on the floor.
When the door had opened the first time, he was facing the other
way, shooting Marcia in the head. When he had turned and blew a
hole in the door, Terry was already lying flat and covering his
head with his hands. The killer finally saw the boy lying on the
floor and took aim at him, just to remove any live witnesses, but
the boy was too fast. He was already rising and was behind the wall
before Bradley could peg him. Once Bradley was in the hall, he took
another shot but missed as the boy flung open the door to the
stairs and tore down them in a panic. People were beginning to stir
and doors were beginning to open. A nurse came out of the nurse’s
station behind him and demanded to know what was going on. He could
dally no longer and sped for the stairs at top speed. He never saw
the boy hiding under the stairs on the ground floor as he made his
exit as quickly as he could. He left the Medical Center by the same
door he had entered, and disappeared.

Upstairs, the nurse let out a protracted
scream and then ran back to the nurse’s station to call the doctors
and the police. It is said that there is no place like a hospital
to get sick, but there is also no place like a hospital to get
shot. There was no hope for Marcia but Ginger was still alive. He
had twisted at the last millisecond so the bullet did not catch him
straight on. That is not to say he was not in critical condition;
he had been shot at relatively close range with a .40 caliber
pistol. Not many men can say they had survived such an
encounter.

The nurses and doctors worked feverishly on
the injured redhead, getting him into surgery within half an hour
and shaving his incredibly hairy chest. The bullet had passed
through him so there was nothing to remove, but there was quite a
lot of damage nonetheless. If Bradley had been using hollow points,
Ginger would be dead.

The doctors patched their gunshot victim up
and put him in an oxygen tent, but nobody gave a thought to the boy
he had been with until another patient who was sneaking downstairs
to the candy machine saw him huddling under the stairs.