13 Days of Terror

by Dwayne Clayden

  The receptionist pointed toward an office as a man stepped out. “That’s me. What’s this about?”

  Brad strode over. “I don’t have a lot of time. Tell me about your salesman who was shot last week.”

  “I already told the RCMP everything I know.”

  “I’m aware. If you don’t mind, could you tell me as well?”

  “Sure. Uh, on Friday afternoon I had one guy working, Roy. The new guy who was supposed to be working as well took off camping for the weekend.”

  “I’m short on time.”

  “Sure. All I know is that when I came on Saturday morning, the front door was locked. I found Roy dead on the floor behind the sales counter. I called 911. The RCMP and paramedics came fast. The paramedics said Roy had been dead for a long time. I showed the RCMP the credit card slips on the floor and told them the cash was gone.”

  “How much cash?”

  The manager wrung his hands. “A few thousand.”

  “Anything else missing.”

  “Not that I know of.” He shook his head.

  Brad glanced at the cars in the showroom. “Did you do an inventory?”

  “No. It was a robbery. They took the cash.”

  Brad nodded. “Perhaps. Can you do an inventory? I need to know if a vehicle is missing.” Brad handed the manager his card. “This is critical information. If you could do it ASAP, that would be great. And it might stop other people from being hurt.”

  “We have over two hundred vehicles …”

  “I get it. I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t crucial.” He turned to leave, then stopped. “Can you check and see if you have an extra vehicle? One that doesn’t belong here.”

  The manager tilted his head. “How did you know? There’s a truck that I don’t have a record for.”

  “Show me.”

  The manager took Brad to the back of the dealership and pointed to a GMC in the corner. Brad headed over to the truck and wandered around. It was a working man’s truck—lots of scrapes and mud. Maybe a farmer or someone in construction. He slipped on a glove and opened the passenger door.

  Brad searched the glove box, the center console, and under the seats. Not so much as a napkin or a nickel. He reached under the passenger seat and felt a bottle. He pulled it out. Liquid rolled in the bottom. He pulled an evidence envelope out of his jacket and inserted the bottle.

  He glanced at his watch. 8:20. Shit. He headed to the driver’s side and copied down the vehicle identification number. There wasn’t a license plate. “Thanks for your help. I have to go.” He sprinted to his car.

  On the way back to Calgary, Brad radioed Sturgeon to send a team to Airdrie to fingerprint the truck and that he had a beer bottle to check for fingerprints.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Marvin Pittman parked on the north side of Seventeenth Avenue with the back of the car facing the school. He used the side mirrors and the rearview mirror to track the students and staff entering the school. Parents dropped most of the students off at the back door. Still, some students arrived by city bus and wandered in groups across the front lawn. They were in no hurry, and despite a cop shouting for them to hustle it to the back of the school, they operated on their idea of hustle. Typical teenagers. They chatted without a care in the world. That was about to change.

  Pittman keyed the mic on his radio. “You should have a clear line of sight. Check it out.”

  The car bounced as Logan got in position. “Okay. This will work.”

  “I can see two viable targets. They’re standing still, not looking this way. Counting from your left, I think number three is your best choice.”

  Hirsch shuffled in the trunk. Then his voice came over the radio. “Are you sure?”

  “From here, you can’t miss.”

  “That’s not the point.” Hirsch’s voice hesitated. “I take this shot, everything changes.”

  “We’ve tried to work with the cops. They jus’ keep jerking us around. This time they’ll get the message.”

  “They’ll come after us with everything they’ve got.”

  Pittman laughed. “How did that work for them when you shot the kid last week?”

  “Didn’t change a lot.”

  “And the bus driver I shot?”

  “You mean the one it took three shots to kill?”

  “Fuck off.” Pittman’s voice had an edge. He was tired of pissing around. “Take the shot or get out and I’ll do it.”

  “On it.” Five seconds later, the shot echoed throughout the car.

  Pittman yawned to get the air pressure out of his ears. He put the car in drive, and slowly pulled away from the curb.

  Constable Conall Baines had his back to the sandstone brick building. Western Canada High School was one of the oldest schools in Calgary. Just south of downtown with a diverse student population.

  Baines marched across the front of the school trying to get the students moving faster to morning classes. The yellow school buses headed to the back of the building where a half-dozen officers funneled them into the school. Out front, there was Baines and Sam Steele. They had been partners years ago. It was fun to be working with Steele again.

  Some students arrived by city bus and wandered in groups across the front lawn. They were in no hurry despite school starting in five minutes at eight-thirty. Baines and Steele shouted for them to hustle into the school, but they operated on their idea of hustle.

  Baines kept his bulk between the kids and everything in front of the school. Traffic was congested as parents drove into the congested parking lot.

  It isn’t enough having us here, Baines thought. We need traffic control, too. With morning rush hour, it was hard to keep track of cars as they dropped off kids. Most of the time two or three buses blocked the view.

  He had no problem with this duty. He had three kids of his own. Not yet old enough for school and safely tucked away at home with their mom. His wife insisted she’d feel safer if no one could see into their house. Last night he’d put aluminum foil on all the windows. Not that anyone had been shot in their living room, but why risk it? She wasn’t alone in that idea. As he drove to work early this morning at least half of the houses had their windows blocked. On a few, he even saw sheets of plywood over the windows. Just like Florida did before a hurricane.

  The buses pulled away and a new flock of meandering students crossed the grass. Not a care in the world. His eyes stared past them, out toward the road.

  He caught the glint of reflected sunlight off the back of a car. Maybe off the chrome bumper.

  Baines stumbled to the ground, hit by something unseen. Then he heard a rifle shot. Some kids screamed, others continued their slow march to the school.

  His ass hit the ground first. He put out his left hand to stop his fall, his right drawing his gun. He stared across the grass toward the strip mall. A car was pulling away. He squinted to identify the vehicle, then a wave of intense pain bolted through his body like an electric shock. He gasped and felt an incredible agony in his chest. His breath caught. Baines watched the car disappear. He dropped his gun to use his right hand to steady himself. No use. To him, his fall onto his back happened in slow motion, but when his head struck the grass, he felt his neck snap.

  He fought to breathe through the pain. He tasted blood in his throat. His left hand went to his chest.

  When he pulled his hand away, blood dripped from his fingers. He glanced around. Were the kids safe? His eyes were drawn back to his bloody hand. He was mesmerized by the drip, drip, drip of blood. Like a ticking clock, his eyes blinked with the drops then fluttered closed.

  Steele heard the shot and immediately sprinted across the lawn toward the sound. Steele glanced across the street, then raced to Baines.

  He slid on his knees. “Baines. Baines.” No answer.

  Steele keyed his lapel mic. “Officer down. Code 200, red. Western Canada High School. Front. Need EMS and lots of backup.” He flipped open his knife and cut away the uniform shirt. Next, he cu
t the straps on the ballistic vest and lifted it away. Blood bubbled from Baines’s right chest. Sam pulled out a trauma dressing and applied it to the wound. Blood continued to ooze over his hands.

  Cops, guns drawn, raced to Steele from the back of the school. One cop asked, “What can we do?”

  “Get the kids into the school, now,” Steele shouted.

  The cops spread out and chased the kids into the school.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. Zerr sprinted in front of Steele and Baines, dropped to a knee, and faced the street. Without glancing back, he said. “Sam, you got this?”

  “Yeah. I got the paramedics on the way. I need your trauma bandage.”

  Zerr tossed the trauma bandage behind him.

  “We could use better protection than your skinny ass.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance, getting steadily closer. Not frickin’ fast enough. Steele adjusted his position on the brittle fall grass. The grass mingled with the coppery smell of blood and what was probably a breakfast sandwich with onions. He put one bandage on Baines’ chest and a second on the bleeding hole in his back. Steele clamped down like a vice. Baines moaned but didn’t open his eyes.

  “Baines. Baines. Can you hear me? Baines. It’s Sam. Open your eyes. What the hell were you thinking? I’m a sniper, not a paramedic. Shit. I thought you were smarter than that. If you’re going to get shot, do it around the paramedics.”

  “Come on, Baines. Fight, buddy. Your kids need you.”

  Steele glanced at the ballistic vest. The right side, over the heart, was a shredded mess. Baines might be alive because of the vest. It didn’t stop the .223 bullet but had slowed it.

  “Baines. Hang in there, buddy. The paramedics are almost here.”

  Steele had never felt so useless.

  Zerr stood and pointed to cops racing toward them. “Get some cruisers around us. Now. The rest of you beside me.”

  The cops formed up next to Zerr, creating a human wall shielding Baines. Later they might have second thoughts. Right now, there was no question. Their jaws were set, and their eyes roamed the street in front of the school.

  As extra cruisers arrived, the cops took positions behind their vehicles.

  “Where the hell are the paramedics?” Steele shouted.

  Zerr called on his radio. “Dispatch, ETA on EMS?”

  “One minute out.”

  Zerr peered at the surrounding cops. “I need a volunteer to head out to the street and tell the paramedics to drive next to Steele. Anyone?”

  Every hand went up.

  Zerr picked a lean cop built like a runner. “Off you go.”

  He took off like he was running the 100-meter final in the Olympic games. He crouched at the street. When he saw the ambulance approach, he flagged them down.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  The ambulance bounced across the lawn and stopped beside Steele. Jill Cook jumped out of the passenger side. In three steps, she was next to Steele.

  “Just get the stretcher,” Steele said. “Chest wound. We gotta go.”

  Jill knelt next to Steele and pulled gauze bandages out of her kit. “One thing at a time. I’m going to put additional bandages over the ones you applied. When I say release the pressure, slide your hands out. First, the one on the chest. Then put pressure back on over these fresh bandages.”

  “No.” Steele shouted. “We have to go.”

  Jill put a hand on Steele’s arm. “We will. Trust me. This is where I take over. You’ve done great. Sharma is bringing the stretcher. But we have to slow the bleeding, too.”

  Steele nodded. Jill applied the bandages as Steele removed his hands, then re-applied pressure.

  Jill nodded to Steele. “Good work.”

  The stretcher plopped to the ground beside Steele. Several cops lifted Baines onto the stretcher, while Steele kept the pressure on the wound.

  “You okay?” Jill asked.

  Steele’s jaw twitched. “This isn’t my thing. You need Coulter back here.”

  “But I’ve got you. Keep that pressure on until we get to the hospital. Understand?”

  Steele bit his bottom lip and nodded.

  “You can’t let up. Tell me if you get tired.”

  Steele glared at Jill. “Let’s go.”

  They slid the stretcher into the ambulance. The back door had barely closed when the ambulance lurched forward. The siren wailed. They bounced across the front lawn and onto the road. As the back tires hit the road, Sharma hit the gas and tires squealed as the ambulance raced away. Steele saw flashing red-and-blue lights reflected through the front window. Cops were clearing the way for the ambulance.

  Jill slid an oxygen mask over Baines’s face, then tied tourniquets high on each arm. Despite the bouncing and jarring of the ambulance, Jill slid the needles into the veins, taped them in place, and had two IVs running.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  On the way back to Calgary, Brad radioed communications and gave them the VIN from the truck. A few minutes later, communications had the information.

  “It’s a 1976 GMC Truck. Registered to Marvin Pittman of Drayton Valley.” She gave the license plate number.

  Brad scribbled the information as he drove. “Now check Pittman’s name.”

  “I did. Not a lot on him. Date of birth, October 31, 1945. He doesn’t show up in our records until about ten years ago. Then there are several trucks registered to him and addresses from across Canada. He’s had a dozen traffic tickets over that time, mostly speeding. No criminal record.”

  “Okay. Put a BOLO out on that plate. Us and the RCMP. Thanks.”

  The BOLO had just come across the radio when dispatch reported a cop shot at Western Canada High School. Brad was south of Airdrie, fifteen minutes away.

  Griffin and Sturgeon were closer to the shooting, so they headed to the school. Brad was assigned the hospital.

  The police radio was jammed with angry voices. Brad finally broke into the radio chaos and told everyone to search for the truck’s license plate. It could be on any vehicle.

  Cops from all over the city converged on the high school. Dispatchers did their best to maintain control and set up roadblocks. Cops without assignments reverted to what they knew, and that was that the suspects were in a white van or truck. At least that’s what they remembered under stress. So again, every white vehicle was being stopped whether or not the license plate matched.

  They’d jammed the horseshoe entrance to the Holy Cross Hospital with vehicles—police cruisers, unmarked cars, and of course, the media.

  Brad parked on the street and jogged to the emergency entrance. A sea of blue uniforms blocked the door. Then one cop recognized Brad. “Let the detective through.” He pushed past the cops and into the hospital. He strode down the hall to the triage desk where Jill Cook was writing her report.

  “How is he?” Brad asked.

  Jill set down her pen. “They’re stabilizing Constable Baines and then they’ll take him to surgery. The bullet entered his right lung, and it’s collapsed. He lost a lot of blood. Lucky for Baines, Steele was there. He controlled the bleeding with a trauma dressing.”

  “Will Baines make it?”

  “He’s still alive,” Jill said. “Other than that, we wait.”

  Brad glanced toward the trauma room. He wanted to head there. Not that he could do anything, but standing here didn’t feel right either. They finally had some clues, but the snipers struck before they could do anything with that information. They already had this shooting in the works.

  “No sense standing here,” Jill said. “Let’s head to the coffee room.”

  Brad took another glance toward the trauma room and followed Jill.

  He poured two coffees, handed one to Jill, and flopped into the seat across from her.

  They sipped coffee in silence, then Jill said, “Are you okay?”

  Brad chewed his cheek and stared past her. “This case is exhausting.”

  “Well, if it means anything, you look like cr
ap.”

  Brad’s eyes drifted to her. “I appreciate the compliment.”

  “It must differ from what we do.” Jill said. “We go to the scene, street, house, wherever, and treat the patient. We take them to the hospital, do the report, and we’re done on to the next patient. How do you keep your energy for days, weeks?”

  “Apparently, not well.” Brad rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I’m still not used to that. I prefer the action, but there is satisfaction in solving a murder and thinking, in some way, justice was served.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Brad tossed his jacket over the back of a chair and flopped into his chair. How the hell do they get ahead of this? A note propped against his phone caught his eye. It was a message from the Airdrie Dealership. He grabbed the phone and dialed. When the manager answered, Brad said, “It’s Detective Coulter. What do you have?”

  “We’ve confirmed the truck is not in our inventory.”

  “Great.” I had that part figured out. “Thanks.”

  “Wait. We’re missing a vehicle.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a dark-green Ford LTD. It was a former RCMP undercover vehicle. Can’t imagine why they didn’t steal a better car, though.” He gave the VIN.

  Shit. Brad felt his gut churn. He’d seen that car at crime scenes. He knew exactly why they didn’t take something flashier. A Ford LTD blended in everywhere.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  Brad hung up, called communications, and updated the BOLO to include the information on the green LTD.

  When Griffin, Sturgeon, Stinson, and Devlin had gathered in the zoo, he told the group about the murder ten days ago and that the RCMP thought it was a robbery because a handgun was used, and the cash taken. Brad filled them in on his meeting with the manager that morning and the discovery of the truck and the beer bottle, along with the missing car—the stolen former RCMP undercover car, a green LTD, its license plate possibly from the truck. The vehicle’s registered owner was identified as Marvin Pittman. He shared Pittman’s known details. “Sturgeon will fill us in on any prints recovered from the bottle in the truck.”