Wrong Town: A Mark Landry Novel by Randall H Miller Page A

The front of his heavily starched white uniform shirt was splattered with dark red stains. He breathed deeply through his nose and reassured himself as he slowly opened the door and slid behind the wheel.
    Deep breath and exhale. Deep breath and exhale. It’s not blood. It’s not blood. It’s not blood.
    McDonough put the cruiser in drive and pulled away from the diner while adjusting the rear-view mirror. As he turned left onto Main Street and headed toward the cemetery, he caught a brief glimpse of Ghassan and Yasir standing expressionless, side by side, staring at him out the front window of Baba Ghassan’s.
    It’s not blood, John. It’s. Not. Blood. And this is not Fallujah.

Twenty-eight
    Andy O’Rourke was at the tail end of his story when Mark and Luci quietly entered the Witch Hunt. He stood on the raised hearth of the fireplace, surrounded by a sea of eager townspeople who hung on his every word in complete silence. Early in his presentation there had been one distraction, the grumbling of an old ice machine in the corner of the bar, but after seeing a few annoying glances, Lee Carter, the bar owner, silenced it by stepping on its cord with one foot and kicking the electrical socket with the other.
    A waitress waved to Luci from the far end of the bar.
    “Follow me,” Luci told Mark.
    Mark obeyed the instruction and stayed close behind Luci as they weaved their way in and out of the silent multitude of men and women standing shoulder to shoulder. The waitress pointed to a small table in the corner of the bar. Luci mouthed thank you. Then she held up two fingers with one hand and brought the thumb of her other hand up to her lips, indicating that she wanted two beers. The waitress acknowledged the order with a wink and a nod.
    Mark sat with his back to the wall and scanned the room. He leaned across the table and whispered to Luci, “Is it always like this here?”
    “Only when he’s on stage.”
    Andy moved slowly from one end of the fieldstone hearth to the other as he played to the room, his words charming the crowd. Luci and Mark did not notice the waitress as she quietly set two beers on the table without taking her eyes off the show. Andy’s voice intensified as he built to the climax. He paused methodically after each line to let his words float through the air and melt into the crowd.
    “The naked man lay flat on his back, covered by a wooden plank that left only his head exposed … the crowd heckled and shamed him as their demands for a confession grew louder and louder … town officials stacked the largest stones and boulders they could find on top of the wooden plank … his face turned red as a tomato and you could hear his bones start to crack … witnesses say his eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of their sockets … his tongue was squeezed right out of his mouth and oozed down the side of his face … the sheriff used his cane to tuck it back in … and just as it seemed that the old man was about to release his final breath and cross over to the afterlife, he mustered every ounce of his remaining energy and tried to speak … the interrogator silenced the jeering townspeople and knelt next to the accused … he put his ear against the dying man’s mouth and strained to hear what he could only imagine would be a full confession … an admission that he had indeed willingly entered into an evil pact with the Prince of Darkness himself … he struggled for oxygen … then he opened his mouth and offered only two simple words for his executioners … ‘More weight!’ ”
    The crowd burst with laughter at the punch line. Andy slowly bent down, picked up his empty glass, and raised it high above his head.
    “And on that note — more beer, barkeep!”
    He leapt from the hearth and disappeared into the crowd. The laughter faded into applause and the rapping of knuckles on the tables and bar.
                  Mark turned his attention back to Luci.
    “He should