FrostLine
Page 31
“Sorry, Ben,” she said again. She looked like she meant it and I answered from my heart, “Not half as sorry as I am.”
King looked over sharply. “What the hell’s going on? Julia, is there something I should know?”
“No,” I said. “She’s very loyal.”
I’m not that self-effacing, or even that gentlemanly—it would have taken the spirit of a punching bag to be so after what Julia had done to me—but as there were two of them and one of me and she had the gun, I thought it best to confuse him a little, and her a lot.
“Did I mention that Josh Wiggens also helped Mr. Butler escape from jail?”
“We heard on the police scanner that he had escaped. He won’t run far with the entire Connecticut State Police force after him.”
“My guess is Agent Josh figured, Let the cops shoot him down and get it over with.”
King shrugged. “Josh,” he said, “always had a gift for the details.”
“Josh figured wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Butler is not running….Who’s guarding your front gate?”
King looked at Julia.
“Chevalleys.”
“Jesus Christ, Julia, get somebody out there with a brain.”
“The gate is locked,” she said coolly. “The road spikes will stop him dead even if he gets through. Which he can’t.”
“Goddammit, do I have to do everything? Give me that radio!” He snatched her two-way handset and started shouting, “Chevalley boys. Chevalley boys. Are you there? Goddammed numskulls.”
“Yes, sir! We’re here, sir.” It was Dennis, sounding reasonably sharp.
“You looking out for Butler?”
“He just got here.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Sir. He just drove up. Boy, he’s got something weird hanging off the front of his truck—Albert, go see what the hell that ’sucker—SHIT!”
“What?”
I heard a sharp bang in the distance. King cried out and whipped the radio from his ear and we all heard Dennis shouting, “Run, Albert, run!”
“Don’t run!” King screamed.
“The thing in front blew the gate right off the hinges! He’s throwing bombs.”
Staccato banging on the radio was echoed by explosions in the valley. Then deep, deep silence.
“Chevalleys?…Chevalleys?…Answer me!”
“He got in, sir. We couldn’t stop him.”
“Get him!”
“He bombed our truck. The son of a bitch bombed our truck.”
“The spikes will stop him,” said King.
Now I knew why Mr. Butler had loaded his truck with boards.
Julia drew her cell phone, speed dialed without moving her gun enough to tempt me to try anything, and spoke urgently with the house. “Button up. Don’t let anyone in.”
“Tell them to get out of the house,” I said.
“They’re safer inside.”
“No, they aren’t. Get them out—Julia, listen to me. Get them out of the house.”
“He’ll never get past the spikes,” said King.
“He will,” I said. “The house is his target. Tell them to run.”
“The house?” King cried. “Tell them to stay and fight.”
“Julia. They’re maids and gardeners. Tell them to run.”
Julia spoke into the phone. “Close the shutters and get everybody out. Everyone. Now!” She looked at me. “I’m not a killer.”
Choosing to ignore a kick that almost killed me, and not wanting to hear the answer to a stupid question like, Did you sleep with me to keep tabs on my investigation, I contented myself with an angry, “But your boss is. And you know it.”
“Henry! Stop!”
Henry King was already a hundred feet downstream, running like the wind.
Julia took off after him.
She was fast and agile. I was slowed by my wet clothing and not quite so nimble. She whisked through the trees with that panther ease of hers, screaming for Henry to stop. Once she fell, sprawling. I gained ten yards, before I tripped over a root and went down, too.
Back on my feet, running flat out, dodging trees and shrubs and granite ledges, I could see sunlight down the slope as the trees began to thin. I tripped again, but caught my balance and kept running.
They broke out of the woods into a hayfield. Amazingly, King was still pulling ahead of Julia, fueled by the sight of Mr. Butler’s old blue truck drawing into the cobblestone motor court.
Fox Trot servants were streaming from the terrace doors: a cook and sous chef in white, maids in black, a plumber in overalls. Jenkins, last out, counted heads and ran them toward the woods.
The farmer climbed out and began unloading planks. He seemed to be moving slowly, such was his deliberation. Working at a smooth and steady pace, he constructed a ramp of boards up the front steps. Just as earlier he had laid a wooden ramp over the driveway spikes.
Josh Wiggens came lurching up the slope from the old house, waving his pistol. He passed Mrs. King and Bert Wills, who were emerging from the sunken garden, and fired a wild shot. DaNang streaked from the cab and charged him like yellow lightning.
Wiggens braced and fired, again. The shot kicked dust from the cobblestones. The dog kept coming. The CIA man drew a bead.
A sullen boom. Wiggens ducked. Another, echoing loudly. Josh slewed away and joined the servants running for the woods. Mr. Butler propped his rifle against his truck and unloaded another plank.
Henry King ran pell-mell down the fields and onto the lawn that sloped toward the house. Julia was catching up now. I put on a burst of speed. I caught her in my arms, and wrestled her to the ground. “Let me go,” she screamed. “Let me go! I have to stop him.”
“Too late.”
She doubled me over with her knee and started after him again.
In that moment I could see exactly what was going to happen as clearly as if a pilot had skywritten it in chalk-white letters overhead. And the only thing that made sense to me was to save one soul less guilty than the others.
Butler climbed into his truck. He whistled. His dog jumped in back, standing high on the cargo. The farmer drove up the ramp, up the front steps, building speed, aiming at the front door.
The Ford was an old three-quarter tonner with heavy bumpers. It crashed through the double oak doors like a battering ram and disappeared into the dark of the center foyer. The last I saw of them was DaNang, barking like a Dalmatian on a hook-and-ladder.
“Henry!” Julia screamed. “Henry!”
I took my last shot, lunged after Julia, hit her legs and staggered her. She fell on the grass a yard from the motor court as King reached the front steps. Julia twisted around with her gun. “Don’t!”
“Leave him. It’s too late. Live your life.”
“He is my life. I told you. I love him.”
“Why’d you hook up with—”
“I thought you’d rescue me.”
All I could do was offer my hand and whisper, “Please.”
It slowed her for a moment. But she turned toward the house, and was surging to her feet, when Butler’s truck bomb exploded with a roar that blew the shutters off and knocked us to the grass. Dust and fire poured from the windows. The house trembled.
The mighty portico fell first, tumbling as the pillars shattered. Then the entire center collapsed, the roof descending in one huge piece, slates smashing musically, until all that remained was an empty space framed by the opposite wings.
Through that void, I could see a patchwork of woods and hayfields, Fox Trot’s and the neighbors’ beyond. They were fenced by ancient walls, stacked stone by stone by the families who had farmed and logged these hills. And loved. And hoped, like the weeping woman raging bitterly at me. “I’d have caught up if you hadn’t stopped me.”
“If I hadn’t stopped you, you’d be under that too.”
Sirens howled.
Julia turned her desolate face to the ruined house. “At least he’s better off than in prison.”
I doubted Dicky Butler would agree.
But she would need to believe that for a very long time. Her heart was broken and the troopers were coming.
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