by J. W. Lucas
He had broken down his raid team into four squads, one for each of the sleeping quarter’s buildings and the fourth to secure an area the undercover agent had said was their armory.
Merrill told the group that they would make entry into the camp on his command when he saw two National Guard helicopters sweep in and hover above the center of the compound. His plan was for the noise to confuse the occupants. The group had no questions, and he dismissed us to standby. As I started to walk away, he spotted me and called me over. As I walked up to him I saw Bellington Captain Dan Monroe walking over. We shook hands and I told him I was surprised to see him here.
“Captain Merrill asked if I could provide my department’s K-9 unit for support,” he said. “We have two drug sniffers and one bomb detection dog. They’re with their handlers out on the street” Merrill said, “Daryl, last evening I got the word to seek State arrest warrants for Carpa and Manning charging them with the murder of Mark Savage based on the evidence we got from the gas station video. My best warrant detective wrote up an affidavit and we got a State Judge to sign off on the warrants at one this morning. The Judge ordered one million dollars bond for both, cash, no surety.” I looked over at Dan Monroe and he was as surprised as I was.
“Cap, you’re not wasting any time on this,” I said. “That’s great work. Now all you have to do is find them.”
“WE have to find them, Daryl. Is Manning still your prime suspect in Susan’s murder?”
“He is.”
“We were pinging Carpa’s cell phone all night, and it looks like he’s heading north, probably trying to cross over into Canada. The pings got no response around two AM, so either he’s out of range of a tower or he turned the phone off. After Hunter and Donnelly’s arrests, he knows we’re on to him.”
“And Manning?” I asked.
“Our undercover that infiltrated the militia said that a few times in recent weeks Manning stayed in a small cottage on the north edge of the compound. Supposedly it’s tucked in next to a large propane storage tank. We didn’t get any location hits when we pinged his phone.”
“If he is in there, you have the first crack at him. If it weren’t for all the work, you did on this we wouldn’t be here this morning. I owe you that.”
A Trooper approached us and apologized for the interruption.
“Captain, the choppers will be lifting off from the Rutland airport in five minutes.” Captain Merrill gave the order for his officers to move out to the entrance of the compound and standby.
“Remember, slow and quiet, no headlights. I don’t want any accidents,” he said. “The ESU truck will be the first through the gate. If it’s closed and locked, drive through it.”
Dan Monroe looked over at me and said “It’s show time. Ride with me.” I went over to my Challenger and put on the bulletproof vest and windbreaker. I got into his unmarked and we took a position at the end of the line of cars.
“I don’t know how this is going to go down Daryl,” Dan said. “As I was driving in I saw a few of the neighbor’s lights go on down the road. This much traffic at this hour isn’t normal. Wait until they hear the choppers. I hope that we still have the element of surprise.” I leaned back in the seat and thought to myself, I bet Eddie Peterson was looking through the curtains to see what the noise was.
Dan lowered the driver’s door window and about five minutes later we heard the whir of rotors from the approaching choppers. He craned his neck to see if he could spot them, but they were flying dark. We heard them pass low and directly over us and heard the command, “EXECUTE – EXECUTE,” over a loudspeaker. Almost instantly the early morning dawn was made intense by the floodlights beaming down from the choppers. Dan pressed on the gas pedal and we sped through the compound entrance. He swerved to avoid hitting the chain link gate that the ESU truck had burst through. Suddenly we heard automatic weapon gunfire inside the camp.
Dan skidded his cruiser to the edge of the dirt driveway and yelled
“Get out, this side, take cover.” I bailed out the driver’s side door on his heels and we took cover behind a cement pillar. We heard another burst of gunfire that sounded like it was coming from the roof of a two-story building. We saw one chopper veer sharply up and away, the second one swung in low and shined its spotlight on the building.
“Damn,” he said, “they’re shooting at the chopper.” We saw a flash of automatic gunfire from the door of the chopper and a burst of automatic weapons from the ground. We could see the Troopers on the ground storming the sleeping quarters and heard them screaming for the occupants not to move. The rooftop shooter was silent.
We saw the second chopper beaming its light on the propane storage tank and we moved closer, ducking behind whatever cover we could find. We heard a bullhorn ordering the troopers to “COVER - COVER IN PLACE,” and from our vantage point we squinted and could see a man waving a gun in our direction, screaming something we couldn’t understand. The choppers gained altitude but remained illuminating the man.
We heard a bullhorn command, “THIS IS THE STATE POLICE DROP YOUR WEAPON,” several times. We could see the man was moving closer to the propane tank, and Dan and I moved in for a closer view. “That looks like Manning,” he said.
The choppers rose higher, and the lighting was less brilliant. “What’s he got in his hand?” Dan asked, “looks like a bottle.” I strained to see what he was holding, and Dan pulled me back behind a pallet.
“Be careful, you don’t want to get killed, do you?” he said. We could hear the man screaming, “Move back or I’ll blow the tank, Move Back!” The ESU team moved in closer, and the man ran up next to the propane tank. He pointed a handgun at it and screamed, “So help me God I’ll blow it. You’ll all die with me.”
The stand-off went on for three or four minutes when we saw a figure slowly creeping out of a large storm pipe behind and to the left of Manning. I strained my eyes but couldn’t make the figure out, so I took a chance and bolted about twenty yards up closer. I heard Dan yell, “Daryl, get down,” and Manning turned in my direction and fired a shot. It hit the dirt off to my right as I ducked behind another pile of wood pallets.
I heard the bullhorn call out “H0LD YOUR POSITIONS -HOLD YOUR POSITIONS.” I peered out from the pallets and saw a small frame man dressed in camouflage holding a handgun. He crouched and silently snuck up behind Manning.
Suddenly he leaped up and grabbed Manning around the neck from behind, pressing his gun against his head.
“DROP THE GUN – DROP THE GUN,” the man screamed. Manning tried to break free, but the man tightened his grip and lowered the gun into Manning’s crotch. He dropped the gun and the bottle, which broke as it hit the hard ground.
I dropped down to my knees, “My God!” I said out loud, “that’s Eddie Peterson!”
I heard the bullhorn command “You, with the gun. Drop your weapon. Drop your weapon.”
Eddie screamed to Manning, “YOU KILLED MY DAUGHTER, DIDN’T YOU? DIDN’T YOU?” I could see Eddie tightening his grip on Manning’s neck, pressing the gun harder into his crotch. Eddie screamed again
“DID YOU KILL MY DAUGHTER SUSAN?”
Manning cried out, “YES! YES! It was an accident. Carpa told me to scare her but she fought back hard! I didn’t mean to kill her!”
I stood up and yelled to the ESU Troopers “Hold your fire! Hold your fire! He’s a friendly. He’s a friendly!”
Eddie Peterson looked over to me and squeezed harder on Manning’s neck. “DID YOU RAPE MY DAUGHTER? DID YOU RAPE MY DAUGHTER?”
“NO! NO!” Manning screamed “NO! I SWEAR TO GOD!”
I stood up and started walking slowly toward the men. This time it was Captain Merrill’s voice on the bullhorn ordering his troopers to hold their fire.
“Eddie,” I called out, “he’s telling the truth. I spoke with Dr. Greene. He examined Susan and said she wasn’t raped.” Eddie just stared at me.
“Eddie, he killed her, but he didn’t rape her. Please, Eddie,
give me the gun.” I moved up to within ten feet of the men and held out my hand.
“Eddie, it’s over. You have the man that killed Susan. Let him rot in a cell for the rest of his miserable life. Please, give me the gun. It’s over.”
The blast of Eddie’s gun shocked me, and Manning let out a blood- curdling scream as he fell to the ground grabbing his crotch. The ESU Troopers rushed over to us with their weapons trained on Eddie.
“I aimed low,” he said as he handed me the gun. “He only thinks I shot him. Are you going to arrest me now?”
“Eddie, what were you doing out here, crawling out of that pipe? And how did you know Manning killed Susan?” I asked.
“I came up here through the woods about four this morning. I was searching the outbuildings for her Jeep when I heard the commotion on the road. I crawled into that abandoned drainage pipe and made my way inside it until I realized it opened into the compound. When I heard the shooting, I held my cover. I found her Jeep, Daryl! It’s behind this cabin, covered with a tarp and brush. It’s a lousy camouflage, all the cops had to do was fly a chopper over it and they would have found it. Manning came out of that cabin Daryl!”
Captain Merrill ran up as Eddie was speaking. He looked at me and I quickly told him that Eddie was Susan Peterson’s father, about her Jeep being missing since the murder, and that Eddie had been searching for it at night for weeks.
He looked at Eddie and I could see him staring at the Marine Corps tattoo on his forearm. He asked, “Do you have a permit for this gun?”
“I do Sir,” he replied coming to a stiff attention posture.
Merrill looked at me again, looked over at the drainage pipe and offered his hand. “Thank you for your assistance here, and your service to our Country. I’ll have someone take you home and we'll come by later to take a statement from you.”
I could see tears in Eddie’s eyes as he reached over and shook our hands. This time, his grip was soft. The rage he had been holding in for the past three months was drained from his body. He walked away with two of the ESU team with their arms around him.
“How are you going to write this up?” I asked Captain Jack Merrill. He thought for a moment and said, “Exactly like it happened, Daryl.” Dan Monroe came up to us and shook my hand. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re crazy Richardson?” I didn’t respond.
We moved back to the center of the compound and we saw the troopers bring out seven prisoners from the sleeping quarters. We heard a Trooper yell to Merrill that the guy on the roof was dead. The sun had fully come up, and we watched the choppers fly off.
Merrill said, “We’re going to be here all day doing a search, inventorying the weapons and supplies, checking the IDs of the guys we have in custody. Why don’t you two take off before the media swamps us? And don’t forget we still have to find and arrest John Carpa.”
“And I still must find his brother Pasquale Carpanara for the attempted hit on Judge Moran at the hospital,” Dan Monroe chimed in. Dan drove me back to my car at the courthouse and as we turned in we could see the first TV news station van speeding up the road to the compound. “Merrill’s going to be one tired boy by the time this day is over,” he said.
After Dan drove off I went inside the Courthouse and noticed that there were two young Abbott Deputies checking IDs and using metal detector wands on everyone entering. One of them spotted me and motioned me around the line.
“And you are Sir?” he asked.
“Daryl Richardson,” I answered, “from the US Attorney’s Office. I’m here to see County Attorney Dan Petrone.” He directed me to pass through.
Dan Petrone’s waiting room was empty, and his clerk quickly came out of her office and greeted me. She called Dan on the phone and he appeared in less than a minute. “I was wondering when the hell you were going to tell me what’s going on,” he said as he extended his hand. “C’mon in and talk to me.”
It took me almost half an hour to explain the case developments to Dan, the murder warrants for Carpa and Manning killing Deputy Savage, and I could see his anger when I told him about the wiretapping and the accusation that he was accepting bribes. He said he was up to speed on the Federal arrests of Sheriff Hunter and the County Exec and the attempted hit on Judge Moran from the TV coverage, but Farhan Hussein’s arrest was a surprise.
I told him about the raid on the camp, and how Eddie Peterson ended the stand-off with Manning after he admitted he had killed Susan.
“Daryl, there were so many secrets in Ethan Falls, but you exposed them. Personally, and on behalf of my neighbors, thank you for your excellent work. So, what’s next for you?”
I told him that I was going home to Stockbridge, and hopefully, Judge Moran and Lindsey would be able to come back home to Ethan Falls. He asked me to give them his fondest regards, and I invited him and his wife down to my house for a visit after the dust settled.
I left the Courthouse feeling as if the weight of the world was off my shoulders. There was one loose end to tie up, but the pieces were in place to match the rifle Carpa took out of the trunk of his car and Manning’s gun to the shooting of Judge Moran. I just had to wait for the Crime Lab report. I had one more stop to make, drop off Susan Peterson’s medical record for Captain Merrill at the Bellington trooper barracks and after that, I could check out of the hotel and head home As I pulled into the hotel lot I saw my two electronic geniuses loading their luggage into their car. I thanked them for their excellent work and assured them that I’d let Damian Costigan know how they helped break the case open. “Piece of cake,” they said in unison as they got in the car and drove off. I cleaned out my room and left a gratuity for the chambermaid. In the lobby the clerk quickly processed my bill for the three rooms and by eleven I was on the road back to Stockbridge.
In a little over an hour I pulled into the Stonegarden estate and much to my surprise and amusement I saw the love of my life wearing a baseball cap and jeans on the lawn tractor. As soon as she saw me she leaped off and came running over to me. As I stepped from the car I learned that for a small woman her hug was like a bear’s! “Daryl, Oh Thank God! I’m so glad that you’re home safe.” I tapped the brim of her cap and said,” I love the look. What the heck are you doing?”
“I couldn’t stand to watch any more news about Ethan Falls. They’ve had special reports on all morning, and even the national networks are carrying the story. My God Daryl, I guess Google was right about you!” She grabbed my hand and said, ‘C’mon, I know Judge Moran and Lindsey are dying to talk to you.”
As we walked, I complimented her on how well she was mowing in straight lines! She laughed and said, “You haven’t seen anything! This morning Erik taught me how to drive the Gator! Look out world, this country girl is on a roll!” I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see this side of Mandy again. I had put her through hell and it was a test of our relationship, but now I was grinning ear to ear. Who would have thought? Daryl Richardson is really in love with this girl!
Judge Moran and Lindsey were sitting out on the deck and I could see that the rest and fresh country air were having a positive effect on them. After a handshake from him, and a long hug from Lindsey I sat down, and Mandy brought me a VO and Coke. “I think you’ve earned this,” she said as she handed it to me.
I brought the three of them up to speed on the case. Judge Moran never shifted his eyes from me. When I finished, he finally spoke. “So, it sounds like I was shot because I was a threat to their criminal enterprise,” he said. “And Dr. Greene’s associate was an unexpected collateral arrest.”
“Yes, Sir,” I said. “The root of all of this was their intent to make the State government look bad, paint the Governor as ineffective, and use violence and drug trafficking as their tools. And that cost Susan Peterson her life and almost killed you. But I knew Farhan Hussein was a critical link after Mandy worked with refugee boy to draw a picture of Farhan’s friend who had given him drugs and needles. That was Detective Manning.”
; “Without Mandy’s help, I’d still be back at square one.” I said as I reached over and took her hand; she looked down at the floor and smiled.
“And the wiretaps at the Courthouse? And Billy Barnum’s exposure to prosecution as an accomplice?”
“I can’t speak for the US Attorney, but from what I was told, Billy was duped. If they’re smart, they’ll grant him immunity from prosecution if he’ll testify against Hunter, Donnelly, and Manning.”
“That sounds logical” Judge Moran opined, “But I seriously don’t think that there will be a trial once the Government is finished piling all of the criminal charges on them.” For a man who was near death a few weeks ago, his brain was as sharp as ever.
“I agree. I think that Carpa and Manning are in the worst shape. Once we get confirmation from the lab that their weapons were used to shoot you, and when the drug trafficking and wiretapping charges are added, they’re both looking at life sentences,” I said.
“But Daryl, as I understand it Carpa is still on the run,” he said. “He is Sir, but it’s only a matter of time. And don’t forget they still need to locate and arrest Carpa’s brother and identify his associate from the hospital incident. Bottom line is they still have some loose ends.”
Mandy got up and walked behind me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “I’m glad you said they have some loose ends, not I have. I’m not letting you out of my sight little boy! You’re staying here with me!” We all laughed, and honestly, I didn’t want anything more than to stay with her. The Moran’s thanked me for everything I had done for them and said that Mandy and I should have some alone time.
“Oh!” Mandy said, “We’ll have our alone time, but first this country girl has to finish mowing the lawn! Daryl, I won’t be too long, you just relax. You’ve earned that!”