Far away steaks and awkward talks of alien signals, Joseph Howlam poured his fifth cup of coffee of the night into a cracked mug with the words Deputy of the Month written over it.

  “I still can’t believe it, Scotty.” He said flatly as the glow of a tiny computer screen reflected off his tired face. “I should have been there.”

  For the past two hours, Joseph had been alternating between drinking day old coffee and silently watching the horrific bank robbery on a loop. As if in a trance, he could not bring himself to look away from the horrible images for even one second. Somehow, without even being there, the slightly annoying deputy appeared to be in the middle of blaming himself for what had occurred to those innocent people.

  “Should have been where?” Deputy Scotty Jenson, the only other officer on night duty at the sheriff’s office, swiveled around in his office chair to regard the haggard deputy with a look of surprise and bewilderment. “The bank?”

  “Of course,” Joseph hit rewind on the playback device and the video started all over again. “You see,” he pointed to the solitary figure, draped in a military jacket, entering the bank. “They could have stopped him right there.”

  “Joseph,” his friend stared at the screen and sighed. “Why in the hell would they have stopped him? All that bastard did was walk into the bank and have an asthma attack.”

  “Asthma attack? That wasn’t an asthma attack.”

  “Whatever you say, Doctor Howlam.” Scotty watched as the stranger began to convulse on the floor. “But it looks like an asthma attack to me.”

  “They should have stopped him. I would have stopped him.” Joseph ignored the other deputy’s irrelevant opinion and pressed his finger to the screen like he was trying to squish the murdering scumbag with his thumb and forefinger. “I should have stopped him.”

  “You should have stopped him?” For not the first time that night or that year, Scotty rolled his eyes at the strangely put overactive deputy’s statement. “What in the hell are you going on about? Listen, I know you like to do things completely and utterly by the book. But no one in their right mind would have guessed that son of bitch was about to go on a murder spree.”

  “Although,” Scotty looked back down at the screen in time to see the bank’s security lean down to check on the stranger. He turned away just before the first gunshot went off. “I wish I had been there. That fucker wouldn’t have made it two feet past where he’s laying right now. Two in the chest and one in the head is all that shithead deserves.”

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  “Deserves?” Joseph pried his attention away from the screen to regard Scotty with what seemed like fresh eyes. “I wasn’t talking about murdering him. I was talking about stopping him.”

  “I really don’t see the difference.” Scotty pointed to a stack of folders stacked in an unusually neat pile on his desk. His lips trembled slightly before he spoke again. “And I don’t think those nine victims would see the difference either.”

  “But there is a difference, Scotty. Isn’t that what they always taught us?”

  “Not in my book.” The look on the deputy’s face was that of pure determination. Like he believed every word he had uttered with all his heart.

  “Please don’t talk to me about books.”

  Out of nowhere, Scotty laughed. “What is it with you and books?”

  “I would explain it as bad memories. But that explanation wouldn’t suffice.”

  “What are you talking about?” Scotty waited for more of an explanation, but as always with his friend, none really came. “That’s helpful.”

  “Sorry,” Joseph sighed as he turned the monitor off. Finally resigned to stop his 'faces of death’ marathon, the by-the-book deputy continued with his previous thought. “But murder is not something to be taken lightly, Scotty. It’s final. It’s forever.”

  “First of all, I’m not talking about murder, man. I’m talking about justice.” Scotty propped his feet up on his desk and placed his hands behind his head. “Secondly, I knew those people in that bank. They were my friends. They were my friend’s family. And they didn’t deserve to be butchered like that.” He pointed to the blank monitor, anger filling his words. “But he does.”

  “I know he does. But murder… killing…”

  “Killing, murder, call it what you want. I call it a fitting end.”

  “But still…” Joseph tried to find more words to convince his friend of some otherworldly truth, but they didn’t seem to come.

  Seeing his friend struggle to continue the argument, Scotty decided to move the conversation along in a more conciliatory tone. “Doesn’t matter anyway, Joseph.” He leaned even further back in his chair trying extremely hard not to act as angry as he felt. “It’s the feds show now. I’m sure they’ll string him up quick, fast and in a hurry. I only hope that he suffers before the end.”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  The two men sat there in silence for what to them, felt like an eternity. Neither one seemed to want to continue the discussion they were just in the middle of. After all, who in their right mind would want to think about all the horrible things that happened in that bank. In their quiet town. No one would. Finally, one of them decided the silence had lasted long enough.

  “As cliché as it sounds,” Scotty hopped from his chair and started for the front door. “I’m going for donuts. You want anything?”

  “No,” Joseph stared at him with sad eyes. “But thanks.”

  “Not a problem, man.”

  And with that, Joseph was all alone in the sheriff's office with nothing but his memories and a bellyful of regret. He turned back to the blank monitor. For a second, he thought about smashing it into a thousand pieces. He slightly raised his foot before reluctantly putting it back down. “No,” he whispered to himself. “That probably costs a lot of money.”

  Once again, he stared at the files sitting on top of Scotty’s desk. Nine files, he thought bitterly. Nine very innocent, very dead people. “I should have stopped him.”

  No, he thought to himself, I will stop him.