Plane in the Lake

by Neil Turner

  Ed twists around to face Francesco. “Perfect. Now stay the hell inside before someone shoots your ass off!”

  Thankfully, Francesco only glances Max’s way before he goes inside. It wouldn’t do to have him rushing over to Deano before the scene is secured. Ed scooches his ass back around so he can see Max, who is standing stock-still by the back gate. The stucco fence along the sides and front of the yard is only four feet tall. The back fences along the alley are a full six feet, so between those and the garage, the yard has privacy from the alley and, at the moment, that means protection. Stay in the yard, Ed silently urges his partner. While it’s unlikely that their assailant is lurking in the alley, the smart move is for Max to remain where he is and wait for the cavalry to arrive. As Ed watches, Max backs away from the gate and kneels beside the dog. Ed can’t bring himself to ask how Deano is; he’s acutely aware that the old dog probably just saved his life. No way was the shooter gonna miss a kill shot from twenty feet with that cannon.

  After a thirty-second inspection, Max looks up and meets Ed’s gaze. “No blood, but he’s hurt. The bastard must have kicked the shit out of him on his way out.”

  Ed squeezes his eyes shut as sirens in the distance announce that help is on the way. Better than being shot… unless the bastard pumped a bullet into Deano that stopped his heart instantly before he could bleed out. Is there some sort of 911 for dogs? He slips his belt off and ties it around his arm to stem the flow of blood while Max paces back and forth by the back gate.

  Sirens begin converging on the scene a minute later. Ed waves his good arm to get Max’s attention as the first sirens die and car doors slam on the street out front. “Get the vet’s number from Francesco and get Deano some help.”

  Max nods as he walks briskly toward the gate at the front of the yard and shouts, “We’re in the backyard! Scene is clear! Retired police officer down!”

  “We’re coming in,” a tense voice calls back. “Hands where we can see them.”

  “Understood,” Max replies calmly.

  Ed manages to stagger to his feet and get one hand on top of his head before a pair of Cedar Heights PD officers march into the yard. Their guns linger on Ed and Max for a long moment before the older of the two cops says, “I know these two.”

  Ed recognizes Marty Zeller. Good cop. Good guy to have around in a crisis. “Yard’s clear,” he tells Zeller. “Shooter went out the back gate.”

  The cops nod but sweep the rest of the yard and the garage, anyway.

  “You okay, brother?” Max asks while they wait.

  The wound burns like hell and throbs with every beat of Ed’s heart, but it isn’t debilitating. “Sure. Hurts like a bitch, though.”

  Max nods, then goes inside to get the number for Deano’s vet.

  “What the fuck, Ed?” the older cop says as they walk back.

  “Doing just fucking great, Zeller. Thanks for asking.”

  A police cruiser with siren wailing skids to a stop in the alley behind the garage.

  Zeller takes a few steps toward the back fence, identifies himself, and announces, “Yard and garage have been cleared. The shooter left through the back gate.”

  “Got it. We’ll hold here.”

  More sirens scream down Liberty Street and die out front. More car doors slam shut. “If the bastard’s still anywhere in the neighborhood, he’s fucked now,” Max mutters as he returns.

  Zeller walks back, takes a good long look at Ed’s arm, and then locks eyes with him. “Doesn’t hurt too much?”

  Ed nods. Hell, now that he mentions it, it doesn’t feel too bad. Good sign? Bad sign?

  Zeller herds Ed to one of the Adirondack chairs and all but shoves him into it. “Could be going numb, or you could be going into shock.”

  “Sit the fuck down,” Max snaps when Ed resists.

  A uniformed policewoman walks up. “There’s an injured dog?”

  Zeller nods toward the back gate. “Down there.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” she says with a concerned glance as she starts toward the back of the yard.

  Max calls her back and hands her a Post-it note. “The dog’s named Deano, and he just saved our asses. This is the number for his vet.”

  She nods solemnly and hurries away.

  “What the hell went down here?” Zeller asks.

  Max gives him a quick recap, ending with “All over in less than a minute.”

  “Did anyone go after the shooter?”

  “This old fucker?” Ed snorts with a sideways glance at Max. “Hell, he’d probably give himself a heart attack if he tried to walk fast for more than a block.”

  Zeller looks at a glowering Max and chuckles.

  “No point, anyway,” Ed adds. “He wouldn’t catch a young buck like that.”

  Zeller’s eyes snap back to Ed. “Did you get a good look at the shooter? Enough to put it on the air?”

  Max nods. “Let’s see. The back fence is six feet tall, so let’s call the guy around six foot?” he asks Ed, who studies the fence and gate and then nods.

  “Kinda stocky,” Max adds. Ed nods again.

  “Definitely a man?” Zeller asks.

  “Yeah,” Ed replies. “That was my first impression. The build. How he moved. Probably young, too. Pretty agile.”

  Max nods. “Absolutely.”

  A cop pushes the back gate open. “There’s a little blood on the gate and a few drops leading away. Is it from anyone in there?”

  Max’s eyes light up. “I got the fucker!”

  “The blood’s not from anyone in here,” Zeller shouts back. He turns back to Max and Ed. “Anything else you can tell me about the shooter?”

  “Black pants,” Ed says.

  “Dark hoodie, too,” Max adds.

  “Anything else? Hair? Skin?”

  Ed shakes his head. “Balaclava.”

  “Fucking gloves, too,” Max mutters. “No idea what color the fucker’s skin is.”

  “It’s a start,” Zeller says before turning away and calling in what they have. He ends on a hopeful note. “Possible gunshot wound, as well.”

  “I hope they find the fucker bleeding out somewhere,” Max mutters before he turns and stalks toward the back door. “What kind of cocksucker hurts a fucking dog?”

  Don’t forget that he shot your partner, too, Ed thinks with a painful chuckle. The laugh dies on his lips when his eyes settle on the limp lump of fur at the feet of the distraught policewoman standing by the back gate.

  Chapter Seven

  It’s a little after nine o’clock the next morning when I pull into our driveway after a night at the animal hospital. Brittany, her eyes puffy and red from crying most of the time we spent sitting beside a comatose Deano after the vet finished examining and treating him, insisted on remaining at the dog’s bedside while I came home.

  Papa’s frantic call after the shooting had cut short our lunch with Ben Larose, sending Pat and me racing home as fast as my Porsche could take us. After being assured by the paramedics hovering over Ed that he was okay—other than having been shot—we’d hopped back in the car and chased the police cruiser taking Deano to the nearest animal hospital.

  As near as the vet can guess, the shooter pistol-whipped Deano once across the face and had also landed one or more vicious kicks to the dog’s midsection with a heavy boot. Bad, yeah, but I’m grateful the bastard didn’t simply put a bullet into our mutt. Assuming there’s no underlying organ damage that has yet to reveal itself, Deano should recover in anywhere from a few weeks to a month or two. The vet suspects he’s got a doggy concussion, as well. I doubt any of it will curb his appetite.

  I take a deep breath after I shut off the car and work my stiff neck around to produce a satisfying crack. Then I hustle through the rain to the front porch and take refuge with a pair of Ed Stankowski’s fellow fossils.

  “How’s the pooch?” the white-haired one asks. I’ll be damned if I can remember the names of these guys. Hell, they’re all white haired or w
ell on their way to being so… if they have any hair at all.

  I tell them what I know, prompting a few caustic remarks leveled at the kind of scum who hurts animals. I’m mildly amused when neither castigates the guy for shooting Ed.

  “How is Deano?” Papa asks anxiously as soon as I step inside. He looks haunted, not unlike the near catatonic state he’d lapsed into during the days after the shooting last year. He’s once again overcome with guilt. For Ed? Deano? Both?

  I rest a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “Stop blaming yourself, Papa. This isn’t your fault.” When his eyes meet mine, I realize that nothing I can say will convince him of that. “Deano’s doing as well as can be expected.”

  “I will pray,” Papa announces solemnly when I finish.

  What the hell? Papa hasn’t prayed since my sister, Amy, died during a covert US Army operation in Colombia sixteen years ago.

  “Plummer and Ed are here,” Papa tells me before he heads toward the back of the house.

  “Ed?” I ask in surprise as I follow. I knew Jake Plummer was coming by; he’d called last night to tell me that we need to talk.

  Papa nods. “Plummer, he say Ed stupid to come.”

  “He might be right.”

  Papa’s nostrils flare. “You no make Ed joke!”

  “Just kidding around,” I assure him as I walk through the kitchen and open the back door. “Come on, Papa. Let’s hear what they have to say.”

  We find Plummer and Ed lounging on a pair of pastel Adirondack chairs tucked under the extended retractable awning. Ed’s bandaged arm is in a sling, and he looks a little pale. To my surprise, his partner from yesterday, Max, is also here, standing off to one side. I met Max for the first time in our yard after the shooting. He seems to be a formidable old bugger.

  “How’s Deano?” Ed asks immediately. “He gonna pull through?”

  “Looks like he should.”

  Ed sighs in relief. “Who woulda thought the lazy old mutt had a mean streak?”

  I smile tightly and turn to Plummer. “Did they catch the bastard yet?”

  He looks decidedly unhappy when he shakes his head no.

  “Any leads?”

  He shakes his head again and mutters, “Not yet.”

  Shit. I don’t like the idea of staying here while somebody is targeting Papa. At least I had Brittany spend last night at Pat’s house. She’s at school today, and this morning I told her to go to Pat’s after school. I don’t understand my father’s insistence on staying here. There’s the fatalistic streak in him that revealed itself last year during his trial when he seemed resigned to whatever destiny awaited him. He may feel like his time will be up whenever fate decrees, but why the hell tempt it? Not to mention that there are other people’s lives at stake this time. He’s a stubborn old cuss, true, but this just seems so out of character. There has to be a way to talk some sense into him.

  “We just arrived,” Max says. “We’re about to compare notes and kick some ideas around.”

  “Don’t let me stop you,” I say, perching myself on the arm of an empty chair while I wait.

  “The crime scene folks collected the blood from the back gate,” Plummer begins. “They’ll test that against the DNA database. They also recovered the slug that nicked Ed, and they’ll test that for a ballistics match.”

  “Nicked?” Ed mutters. “Painful damned nick, Jake.”

  “Shell casings?” I ask, thinking back to Pat’s shooting earlier this year. Spent shell casings had helped the police track down the guy who shot her.

  “Afraid not,” Plummer replies.

  “Doesn’t sound like there’s much to go on,” I observe glumly.

  “Let us work our magic,” Ed says with a wink. “We old bastards still have a few tricks up our sleeves.”

  Plummer shoots an amused glance Ed’s way before taking in everyone with a sweep of his eyes. “Now that we’ve had some time to reflect, let’s talk about what happened yesterday. Ed? Max?”

  Max takes the lead. “The guy knew what he was looking for. He walked into the yard and immediately had a look around, then looked right at me and moved on as if I wasn’t here. He locked in on Ed as soon he saw him. No hesitation at all.”

  “That’s right, the guy had zero interest in Max,” Ed says. A smile plays on his lips when he adds, “Maybe it was a woman, after all? They ain’t never interested in Max.”

  Max shoots Ed the bird. “Why did the guy go straight for Ed?”

  Plummer’s eyes twinkle. “Maybe he knows Ski and was trying to do the world a favor?”

  The schoolyard taunts, while mildly amusing, surprise me. This is professional detective work?

  “My point is that the shooter definitely targeted Ed,” Max continues with a hint of impatience. “Leaving aside the smart-ass bullshit, let’s think that through. It’s important.”

  “No doubt about it,” Ed agrees.

  I look from Ed to Papa and back again. “You know, at a glance, Ed and Papa bear a resemblance. Maybe the shooter mistook Ed for Papa?”

  Max purses his lips and nods thoughtfully while he processes the possibility. Papa blanches, perhaps at the suggestion Ed may have taken a bullet intended for him.

  Plummer points at Ed and chuckles. “But the nose, man. Dead giveaway! Nobody sees that honker and mistakes the profile for anyone but Ski!”

  “Fuck you, Jake,” Ed shoots back, but there’s a smile on his face when he does.

  Cop humor, I suppose. Kinda beyond me. “Children!” I admonish them. “Let’s focus on the problem, shall we?”

  Three sets of bemused eyes settle on me before Ed says, “Sorry, man. This is how cops deal with stuff that makes us piss our pants.”

  Plummer nods before he pushes himself off his Adirondack chair and takes a step away from it. “Whoever was here yesterday certainly wasn’t Ndrangheta.”

  “How do you figure that?” I ask.

  “Too many mistakes. If they’d sent one of their guys after Francesco, he’d be dead by now.”

  “Agreed,” Ed mutters as he and Max nod.

  Plummer continues, “Dollars to doughnuts this is the work of some local shitbag from Francesco’s hometown trying to settle a personal score.”

  Papa’s mouth twists in fury as he spits out the words, “Cosche filth!”

  “But didn’t you say it was a young guy?” I ask in confusion.

  “The shooter was,” Jake replies.

  Ed carries the ball from there. “Pulling on that string, we’ve got some old son of a bitch from Calabria hiring a local punk to do his dirty work. Why?”

  “Too old to do it himself?” Max suggests. “Too infirm?”

  “Possibly,” Plummer says. “Or maybe he just doesn’t want to get his hands dirty, especially on foreign soil, where his buddies don’t own the cops and judges.”

  “Will he try again?” I ask Plummer.

  “There’s the question, folks,” he says as he cuts his eyes to mine.

  Max steps a little closer. “If so, he won’t be sending the punk from yesterday. The little shit targeted the wrong guy and got himself shot doing so. Totally fucked-up job. It’s one and done for that boy, fellas.”

  “Especially if you winged the prick good,” Ed adds.

  “From your lips to God’s ear,” Plummer mutters.

  “So, maybe the old bastard from Italy decides he needs to do this himself to get it done right?” Ed says.

  “Maybe he thinks the kid got Papa yesterday,” I interject. “The news reports didn’t have Ed’s name.”

  “True, just that some old guy got shot,” Max says thoughtfully.

  The rain is now pouring down so hard that we can hardly see the back fence. With the talk of someone taking another shot at Papa or Ed or whomever they’re after, I can’t help worrying about what might lurk beyond the veil of water.

  Plummer starts to pace around the perimeter of the awning while he talks. “Could be, I suppose, but the news reports made it clear that the victim
was treated and released. Whoever’s behind this has gotta know that.”

  “Hurts like a bitch,” Ed mutters to eye rolls from the other detectives.

  “For Christ’s sake give it a rest, Ed!” Max grumbles. “Swear to God, I ain’t never heard anyone bellyaching and carrying on so much about a pissy little scratch.”

  I’m trying to work out if Max’s outburst was real or feigned when Plummer walks to within three feet of my father and plants himself with his hands on his hips.

  “You need to get the hell out of here until we get a handle on this, Francesco.”

  I turn to meet Papa’s eyes. “Jake’s right.”

  My father dismisses me with a flick of his wrist, then locks eyes with Plummer and resolutely replies, “No!”

  Plummer stands his ground. “It’s folly to assume the threat isn’t real. There’s no shame in playing things smart.”

  Papa glowers back at him. His obstinance is starting to piss me off. He’s not the only person living here.

  Plummer levels a finger at Ed. “You want to risk this happening to someone else, Francesco?”

  I look Papa in the eye. “Or worse?”

  He glares at me for a heartbeat before stomping off into the house, slamming the door behind him.

  “What the hell is that?” Plummer asks angrily. “He’s staying?”

  I turn my palms up. “Damned if I know.”

  “Talk some fucking sense into him.”

  “I’ll try after he cools down a bit, Jake.”

  “Don’t try,” he snaps. “Get him the hell out of here… and if he’s too pigheaded to go, at least get yourself and Brittany out.”

  I inform him that I’ve temporarily moved Brittany in with Pat.

  “You should go, too,” Plummer suggests.

  After they leave, I head for Papa’s room and rap on the door. “Ed and Jake are gone. You and I need to talk.”

  Silence.

  I raise my voice. “We need to talk right now, Papa.”

  After a long moment, the door opens and Papa stares back at me. Between the stomping off into the house, the slamming of the door, and the reluctance to open his bedroom door, I’m reminded of dealing with a petulant teenager.