Mississippi Blood

by Greg Iles

  As a prosecutor, I dealt with countless people who suffered from split-second breaks of fate, and most never stopped wondering: What could I have done to avoid that? If only I’d locked my car doors, if only I’d turned left instead of right, if only I’d skipped that last drink, if only I’d listened to my instinct and given that guy a fake phone number, if only I’d remembered my pepper spray or bought that gun I looked at in the sporting goods store . . .

  Hindsight is always 20/20, foresight rarely better than a blur.

  The shock of Will Devine’s death was very much with us as I rejoined my family in City Hall after the conference in Judge Elder’s chambers. As it turned out, one of Tim’s guys had rounded up Serenity from the general melee after the courtroom stampede, and we found her with Mia, Annie, and my mother in the lounge down the hall from my office. Serenity wanted to be on the street covering the aftermath of the murder, but Tim persuaded her that she should stick with us for the time being. Although she and I are still playing the role of platonic friends in Annie’s presence, Serenity seems to sense that something has seriously rattled me—something beyond the murder of Will Devine. Her eyes cut to mine repeatedly, silently asking questions, so often that I motion for her to wait until we get home.

  On the ground floor of City Hall, we divide into two groups. While Annie, Mia, Serenity, and I take the Yukon back to my Washington Street house, Mom and Jenny will be escorted to my parents’ house to get “some things” my mother forgot to pack when she first got back to town for the trial. (My gut tells me these “things” probably fall into the benzodiazepine category.)

  Emulating our courthouse procedure, we make a fast transfer from the side door of City Hall to the vehicle, and breathe sighs of relief only when the armored doors slam shut with reassuring thuds. Tim Weathers sits in the second row with Annie and me, while his second-in-command, Joe Russell, covers the third seat with Mia and Serenity. The air-conditioning raises the hair on my arms. As Annie leans close to get warm, the driver hands my .38 over the front seat, and I slip it back into my ankle holster.

  “Ease off on the air,” Tim says as acceleration presses us back into the leather seats.

  “Thanks,” I say, slipping my arm around Annie’s shoulders. “You guys did a great job back there, covering everybody.”

  Tim winces; I’m sure he’s second-guessing every move he made, and even wondering if he could have taken out Snake Knox if he’d somehow been a little better, a little faster.

  “At least our crew’s okay,” he concedes, but his eyes add a postscript: We’re up against some dangerous motherfuckers, my friend . . .

  Thankfully, we don’t have far to go: two and a half blocks southeast, one block southwest, and half a block northwest. I’d like to say something to reassure Annie and Mia, but after watching a man murdered before their eyes—while supposedly in an iron ring of security—there’s not much I can say. I’m only glad they know nothing about the videotapes John Kaiser just dropped on us like grenades tossed back into a foxhole after being flung out once before. The possible implications of the tape erased in the MRI machine are so grave that Will Devine’s murder already seems like a circus sideshow by comparison. No matter how I try to rationalize it, I can’t escape the conclusion that the “Dumpster tape” was inside Henry Sexton’s camcorder while Viola was being murdered, and that’s why my father tried to destroy it.

  A lot of people are on the streets as we make our way home—standing outside businesses and residences as we roar up State Street, then veer right on Union. Obviously word of the courthouse attack has spread quickly.

  The driver turns hard right again on Washington.

  “Almost home,” I murmur, squeezing Annie.

  “I’m okay,” she says, obviously trying to comfort me.

  The armored Yukon pulls up in front of my house like an airliner with its thrust-reversers engaged—momentum keeps the heavy body moving forward even as the brakes stop the chassis and drivetrain. Then the body settles backward on the reinforced shocks.

  “Everybody ready?” Tim asks, scanning 360 degrees around the vehicle for people and oncoming vehicles.

  “Ready,” Serenity answers from the backseat.

  “We’re all getting out at the same time. My group on my side, Joe’s group on the other. Understood?”

  I look around to be sure everybody gets it. Mia and Serenity nod. I scoot Annie toward Tim so that Joe can push my seat forward in preparation for the quick exit. When the seat comes up, Tim says, “Three count. Ready? And . . . three, two, one—”

  He shoves open the door and exits the vehicle, taking a combat stance outside as Annie and I leave the Yukon. Joe is first out on the other side, with Mia and Serenity following.

  “Take Annie into the house,” Tim tells me, scanning the roofs of the nearby houses.

  I’m pulling Annie onto the sidewalk when a thundering report reverberates between the houses. Shotgun, says a voice in my head as I snatch Annie into my arms.

  One glance over my shoulder shows me Tim Weathers lying facedown on the pavement. Fear and anguish blast through me, but I force my feet to move, aiming for the house. While my eyes search for Mia and Serenity, a sledgehammer smashes into my right shoulder blade, driving the air from my lungs and numbing my whole right side. I try to cling to Annie, but all I can manage is to twist as I fall, so that my weight doesn’t crush her when we hit the sidewalk.

  “Daddy, watch out!” Annie yells, but another blast booms between the houses, or maybe even two. Annie screams, but Mia’s scream overrides hers, and then I hear Serenity shouting something that sounds like orders until another blast silences her.

  The frantic whine of an overdriven engine cuts through the din, then the screech of brakes punctuates the whine. I’m trying to move, but whatever hit me scrambled my nervous system. I try to tell Annie to get into the house, but nothing comes from my throat. She’s on her knees beside me, looking down into my eyes with utter terror on her face. I want to comfort her, but the pain arcing through my back has paralyzed my vocal cords.

  “There she is!” shouts a male voice. “Get her! Grab the kid!”

  The predatory eyes of Snake Knox fill my mind, and I pray that voice did not come from his throat.

  “Annie, get back in the Yukon!” yells a man who sounds like our driver. “Get inside NOW!”

  He’s right, I realize. The Yukon’s armored. It’s the closest safe place—

  But it might as well be the moon. Annie has hardly turned toward the vehicle when a man clad in black leather grabs her beneath the arms and snatches her bodily into the air. Filled with rage and terror, I try to roll over, but I can’t do it.

  The man carrying my daughter runs toward the open door of a gold minivan parked in the middle of Washington Street. Annie is screaming “Daddy!” at the top of her lungs, but I can’t even get to my knees, much less my feet.

  A man in a black business suit suddenly materializes at the rear of the Yukon—our driver. He’s pointing a pistol at the man carrying Annie.

  “PUT THE GIRL DOWN!” he yells.

  Confident that Annie will serve as a human shield, her kidnapper ignores the order.

  Shoot him! I yell silently. Shoot now or she’s lost forever!

  Then the familiar pop-pop of a handgun echoes between the houses, and our driver falls facedown in the road, blood pouring from his head.

  Like the conclusion of a slow-motion nightmare, the man in black leather pushes Annie through the broad side door of the minivan, her eyes bulging white with panic. Some feeling has returned to my legs, but I still can’t get them under me. Before I can stand, my daughter will be a mile away, disappearing into oblivion. The space between our locked eyes arcs with the pain of knowing we will never see each other again.

  Then Mia Burke sprints from the Yukon to the van and grabs hold of Annie like a young mother possessed. The kidnapper slugs the side of Mia’s head, but Mia doesn’t even slack off pulling.

  “Get her
off me!” yells the guy. “Get her off me! Crazy bitch!”

  From nowhere a second man in black motorcycle leathers appears, but as he reaches for Annie, two quick shots erupt from the far side of the Yukon, and he drops like a deer shot through the spine. Then Serenity Butler appears in the space Mia crossed seconds ago—only Tee has a pistol in her hand. My heart leaps, but another blast rattles the windows of the houses, and Serenity spins and falls beside the van. Her open eyes stare blankly at the sky.

  “Get that kid in here, damn it!” shouts a voice from inside the van. “We ain’t got all fuckin’ day!”

  “Get this hellcat off me, Axel! Somebody shoot her!”

  They have guys on the rooftops, I realize. That’s who shot Tim and me. And Joe. And the driver . . . And Tee—

  The leather-clad biker finally hammers an elbow into Mia’s ribs, which gives him enough separation to yank Annie through the van’s door. But even as he does, Mia jumps in after her. The biker kicks Mia with his boots, but the van lurches forward, throwing him off balance, and then screeches to a stop again. The boots go back to pounding Mia, kicking hard as she clings to the door frame. Again the tires squeal, and the engine roars as the van accelerates up Washington Street, slowly gathering speed.

  A bolt of panic drives me up onto all fours. As I struggle to get my feet under me, I hear Serenity groan in pain. Looking up, I see her on her feet, shaking her right arm as if to get it working again. Then she roars a curse and takes off after the van. Only then do I realize there’s no longer a pistol in her hand.

  Nothing can stop that van now.

  A horror movie unspools behind my eyes, torture-porn written and directed by Snake Knox: Annie and Mia tormented in front of each other, and for a camera, so that my father and I will have to watch every moment of—

  The Yukon, I remember.

  But by the time I reach my feet, the minivan is just twenty yards from the end of the block, Serenity trailing far behind it. If they make that turn, Annie will disappear off the face of the earth. As my eyes follow the van, an image beyond my capacity for understanding appears. At the end of the block, a man wearing a white cowboy hat has stepped from behind the Episcopal Church and dropped to one knee. The mysterious cowboy raises a pistol with one hand and takes careful aim at the windshield of the van.

  Don’t! I think. Don’t risk it!

  But something about the stance of the man in the white hat resonates within me. That’s Walt Garrity. The old Texas Ranger has been with us all along, and now the future has coalesced into a single moment . . .

  One shot—

  Walt’s muzzle flash reaches me before the sound of the blast, and I know instantly that Walt missed, because the van doesn’t even falter.

  Walt fires again.

  This time the van bucks like a tripping horse. Then its motor revs wildly, and the vehicle careens over the curb and up onto the sidewalk, plowing over Walt before he can roll away. The grille crashes through a crape myrtle trunk, rams the great concrete steps of the Episcopal Church, and stops dead, steam pouring from its radiator.

  Far ahead of me, Serenity swiftly closes the distance to the van and wrenches open the door without hesitation. As she leaps inside, I finally regain enough muscular control to draw my pistol and start staggering toward the church.

  There’s a struggle going on in the van, but I can’t tell who’s winning. As I close the distance, I hear screaming that sounds like Annie, which is good, because you have to be alive to scream. Then a door opens on the far side and a man in black leather bolts from the vehicle and sprints down South Commerce, toward Homochitto Street. Though it kills me to do it, in my desperation to reach Annie, I run past Walt’s bloody body to the open door of the van.

  The first thing I see is the driver, his skull blown apart by a hollow-point slug. There’s blood on every surface, including the people, but what confuses me is what the people are doing. Serenity is naked above the waist, and she’s frantically rubbing her left breast and arm while Annie and Mia watch with wide eyes.

  “What happened?” I shout.

  “He threw acid on Tee!” Annie cries. “She was fighting him. And she was winning! He decided to run, but as he got out, he grabbed a plastic thing and hit Tee with it. It was acid!”

  “I had the tube Drew gave me in my pocket,” Mia says. “The gluconate stuff. She’s rubbing it on now.”

  Most people in Serenity’s situation would be paralyzed by panic, but the former soldier is methodically rubbing calcium gluconate over every exposed part of her skin. My God, this woman has guts.

  “What about you guys?” I ask. “Were either of you hit?”

  “We’re good,” Mia assures me. “I already called 911 on my cell.”

  Sure enough, I hear sirens from the direction of the sheriff’s department. I only hope Billy Byrd isn’t in one of those cars.

  “I need to check on Walt,” I tell them. “Take care of Serenity.”

  “We’ve got her,” Mia assures me, but her eyes tell me I shouldn’t hold out any hope for Walt Garrity.

  One look at my father’s old friend tells me he hasn’t long to live. Walt’s got open limb fractures and a severe crush injury to his skull above his left ear. The full weight of the van slammed into him, face-on, and both axles rolled over him after that. I can’t even begin to guess at his internal injuries. Remarkably, Walt’s eyes are open, and when I kneel beside him and move into his field of vision, I see a flicker of recognition.

  “Walt?” I say softly. “Can you hear me, buddy?”

  He groans but does not speak.

  “That was something you just did, Cap’n Garrity.”

  The old Ranger licks his lips, then works his mouth around for a few seconds. “Annie,” he finally croaks out. “Is our little gal okay?”

  In an instant my throat closes, and hot tears suffuse my eyes. I can’t speak, so I simply nod, leaning forward to be sure Walt can see me.

  “She’s okay,” I finally manage to say. “You saved her. Mia, too.”

  Something like a smile animates Walt’s weathered face. Then he says, “Not bad shooting . . . for an old man with cataracts. Huh?”

  “Olympic class, I’d say.”

  “The windshield deflected my first shot . . . but I drilled him with the second.”

  “Stop trying to talk.”

  The faintest of smiles again. “Hell, boy . . . if I don’t say it now, I never will.”

  “The ambulance is on its way.”

  At this Walt actually croaks a laugh. “Tell those boys to turn back to the barn. I’m an old medic, remember? I know when a ticket’s been punched.”

  Kneeling over this old man, I realize that if he hadn’t shown up at the Valhalla hunting camp and killed Alphonse Ozan after I killed Forrest Knox, I’d have died in Forrest’s office back in December.

  “Walt . . . I owe you so much, man.”

  “That’s right . . . you do.” He winks, which sends a rivulet of blood into his eye socket. As carefully as I can, I wipe it away with my shirtsleeve.

  “Walt, what were you doing by that church? You were at the right place at exactly the right time. Was that just luck?”

  “Luck, hell.” His eyes strain to move and find mine. “I’ve been with you every day. Every night. Just like your daddy told me to. No luck involved.”

  A strange feeling goes through me, almost déjà vu. “Every night? What are you taking about?”

  “You saw me . . . you just don’t remember. The old man walking his dog?”

  As I stare in disbelief, Walt’s lips crack into something between a grin and a grimace. “Wasn’t even my dog. Just a damn mutt I tied some string to . . . looked less suspicious. He dragged me all over downtown.”

  “Walt, what the hell?”

  “No time now . . . Here’s how you’re gonna pay your debt to me. Swallow your pain . . . and your pride. And take care of your daddy. You hear me?”

  Unbelievable. At the end of his life, this man is
n’t giving me a message for his wife or his children. He’s trying to break down the wall between me and my father.

  “I hear you, Walt.”

  “Bullshit.” His eyes look fearful, desperate. “We all make mistakes, son. Tom made some big ones. I made some bad ones in my day, too. And you’re making one now. If you don’t wake up soon, by the time you realize it, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.”

  I gently squeeze his hand.

  “I’m done preachin’,” he groans. “The damn pain’s breakin’ through. And civilian paramedics don’t carry morphine.”

  “Well . . . I’m not shooting you.”

  That’s probably the only thing I could have said that would make Walt laugh. But laugh he does, a rough chuckle. And before he’s done, the light in his eyes winks out. The last air in his lungs passes over my face as it leaves him. I don’t know whether his heart gave out or his brain stem swelled too much or an embolus hit his pulmonary artery, and I don’t care. I’m just glad I didn’t have to watch him die in agony.

  The sirens have built to a mind-numbing wail, but somehow I’m only just hearing them. As Annie and Mia pull me to my feet, I see a paramedic checking Serenity, who’s now sitting in the van doorway with her feet on the pavement. Her naked breasts hang in plain sight, and she plainly doesn’t give a damn.

  As the second paramedic kneels to check Walt, I slip my pistol back into my holster and say, “He’s gone.”

  “I gotta check his vitals, regardless.”

  A sheriff’s cruiser squeals to a stop, and two sheriff’s deputies run over to us and ask me what happened. I just point up Washington Street.

  “That’s where all the shooting was. You’ve got multiple victims down.”

  Both deputies run back to their cruiser, which peels around the block, headed for my house.

  Taking Annie and Mia by the hand, I walk over to Serenity, who looks up and gives us a strained smile. She’s obviously in a great deal of pain.

  “How much acid did he get on you?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “He splashed my right upper arm pretty good. Got a little on my titty.”