And at this point, Harrow doubted if he could even call them off if he wanted to. Hard news was in the air, and this was the Crime Seen! story to end all Crime Seen! stories…maybe literally.
Shifting subjects, Harrow asked the sheriff, “What exactly did happen to Shelton’s family?”
He’d pitched the ball casually, lobbed it in; but there it was.
At the wheel, the square-jawed Gibbons gave him a sharp look in the darkened car. “You of all people can’t be thinking of taking his side?”
That response blindsided Harrow.
He tried to chalk it up to Gibbons being defensive about his old boss’s reputation. After all, the state police had already questioned their investigation, and found no wrongdoing.
“It’s not about taking sides, Herm. It’s about going in to talk to this guy, and wanting the background, so he doesn’t just dismiss me out of hand.”
“Fair enough,” Gibbons said, feathers unruffling. “Shelton worked second shift at the radiator factory in Smith Center. It was a Friday in September, ninety-nine. He got off early that day. Gabe always claimed he took half a day off, to go home and surprise his wife and son with a weekend trip. Which always seemed like a lame-ass story to us, pardon my goddamn French.”
“So what happened?”
“Which version you want?”
“How many you got?”
Gibbons sighed. “I’ve got to tell you, even though I believe one of the two versions—and it’s sure as hell not Shelton’s—there’s really no proving either.”
“Okay. Start with Shelton’s.”
“Gabe claimed it was a home invasion. Said that coming from work, he got passed by a speeding car heading the opposite direction. Said there were three men inside, and all of ’em were wearing black ski masks. Then when he got home, Shelton says, he found his family murdered. Shot, almost execution-style.”
“And the other version?”
“It’s a simple story, about as old as they come. We think, a lot of us anyway, that Shelton committed the murders himself.”
“Why d’you think that?”
“For one thing, he got off early, at seven-thirty p.m., and the 911 call didn’t come in until after ten. Where was he, for all that time? Coroner placed the time of death between eight and nine.”
“Where did Shelton say he was?”
Gibbons shook his head, and his smile was knowing. “You’ll love this—said when he saw his family murdered, he flew into a rage, and went looking for that suspicious car he’d passed.”
Harrow said nothing for a while. Having been in Shelton’s place—or anyway the place Shelton claimed to have been in—he could see how the man might have raced off looking for the killers, full of rage and sorrow and revenge.
On the other hand, this was just the sort of alibi that guilty suspects made up, spur of the moment.
Harrow asked, “Did he find the car?”
The sheriff grunted a mirthless laugh. “Yeah—right where he left it: in his imagination.”
The night out the Tahoe windows was washed in moonlight, the world an ivory-blue that would have been soothing in other circumstances.
“So,” Harrow said, “Shelton claims he went out searching for the intruders’ car—then what?”
“Said, after a while, he just pulled over, and parked. And sat there and cried.”
Harrow could believe that; anyone who’d been through a similar tragedy could. But a hard-bitten law enforcement guy like Gibbons could easily shrug it off.
“Anybody see him, Herm? Sitting by the road crying? You said it yourself—Lebanon’s not a very big town.”
Gibbons shook his head. “Nobody came forward, and we put out the word, that’s for goddamn sure. What’s more, Gabe couldn’t even remember where he parked.”
“Convenient,” Harrow said, his skepticism outweighing his empathy. “Could he identify the car? Did he get the plate numbers or anything?”
“At first, all he could say was that it was a dark four-door.”
“At first?”
“Yeah. When he was first interviewed, that is. Later, he said it was a dark brown Ford Crown Victoria.”
“Like so many cops use, right?”
Gibbons nodded. “In the second interview, maybe an hour or so after the first? Suddenly he’s sure the car was one of the two unmarked Crown Vics the county owned back then.”
Which sounded as weak to Harrow as it probably had to the investigating officers. Witnesses who changed or enhanced their stories automatically slid from the witness category to the suspect list. That Shelton had gone from something so vague to something so specific—especially implicating the sheriff’s department—had to raise alarm bells.
Harrow said, “Surely he’d didn’t just pull that out of the air, deputies killing his family?”
“Pulled it outta his ass is where he pulled it from.”
Harrow tried again: “Why would the sheriff and his people want to kill Shelton’s family?”
Gibbons managed a feeble grin. “That question came up at the time too.”
Again, Harrow had to try a second time: “And?”
“…There were real estate developers or speculators or what-have-you, buying up property in that neighborhood, around then. Shelton claimed the real estate people were using sheriff’s deputies as muscle—you know, to force people to sell.”
“And were they?”
Gibbons frowned at his rider.
Harrow met the gaze evenly. “Chief, I have to ask.”
“Yeah, I suppose you do. And I have to answer. And the answer is no.”
“How’d Shelton get that idea?”
Shrugging, Gibbons said, “You ask me, he was looking to deflect the blame from himself, and the deputies were a target of convenience. After all, we were crawling all over him at that moment. He just made up the first thing that came to mind.”
“No deputies ever worked for those developers?”
“I didn’t say that. A lot of law enforcement guys work second jobs, and in particular do security work for this party and that one. Probably some of our boys did that kind of thing for the real-estate boys. So what?”
Out the window, Harrow could make out a neighborhood that had a few houses and several obviously derelict homes, and some vacant lots. This late at night, no lights were on—the area looked like a ghost town. Still, even in a hamlet where everyone was early-to-bed and early-to-rise, he’d expect to see a light here and there.
But there was nothing.
“Your deputies clear the neighborhood already?”
Gibbons seemed puzzled, then, after a second, got it. “Oh, no…this neighborhood was pretty much all bought up by those speculators. It’s been sitting vacant for a while now.”
“Why let it sit? If they’re developers, why don’t they develop it?”
“Companies that own the houses think they have a plan. Been talk for years about a new four-lane, north-south highway to connect Interstates seventy and eighty. Hasn’t gone through yet, but one of these days…”
Harrow saw it instantly. “And the speculators feel they’re sitting on a goldmine.”
“I suppose.”
“Are they right?”
Gibbons gave an indifferent shrug. “Not my field.”
Moments later, the sheriff pulled the Tahoe to the curb, and killed the lights. The pair sat in the dark for a few seconds. A deputy leading the parade of Crime Seen! vehicles stopped a block farther back.
“Across the street, in the next block,” Gibbons said, with a nod in that direction. “Second house.”
From this distance, Harrow could barely make out the shadowy outline of the structure. “What’s the plan?”
Gibbons’s face was a blank mask. “Well, we’re sure as hell not gonna wait for the SWAT team.”
“Because the county doesn’t have one?”
“Bingo. But we do have a sharpshooter in Colby Wilson. You met him.”
Harrow nodded.
>
“He can pick a fly off a dog’s ass,” Gibbons said, “at five hundred yards.”
“How often does that come up?”
The two old pros exchanged grins.
The sheriff made a radio call to make sure the perimeter was up. The deputies confirmed the neighborhood had been isolated.
“So your plan,” Harrow said, “is let Colby take him out?”
“That’s it.”
“I have a Plan B, if you’d care to hear it.”
Gibbons said nothing.
“Herm, let me talk to him. Let me bring him in.”
The sheriff’s eyes met Harrow’s. “Are you freakin’ nuts, son?”
Gibbons reminded Harrow of himself when he’d been sheriff back in Story County. If the positions were reversed, he might have said much the same thing.
“I’m asking for a reason, Herm, and it’s not crazy.”
Gibbons stared at him, waiting.
“That’s my team member in there.”
No reaction.
“The note Shelton left at his house was addressed to me. He wants to talk—and he wants to talk to me.”
“Or he wants to kill the big-deal TV star and get his fifteen minutes.”
Harrow couldn’t really debate that one. “Maybe, but if he blames the sheriff’s office for the deaths of his family, what do you think he’ll do to my associate, if he sees one of your men?”
Gibbons considered that.
“And,” Harrow went on, “if he spots Wilson targeting him with a sniper scope, what are Carmen Garcia’s odds to grow old enough to see her grandchildren?”
“Not so good,” Gibbons admitted.
“Herm,” Harrow said, shifting in the seat, “this bastard killed my wife and son. I have killed him in my daydreams and my nightmares—trust me, you can’t want him dead more than I do. But more than anything right now, outdistancing even revenge, I value Carmen’s life.”
Gibbons sighed. “I can understand you putting your teammate first. But you and I know, we’d be doing the world a favor to take this prick out with a head shot, and save a whole lot of money and a whole lot of grief.”
“Maybe not. Maybe we want him alive. There are fifty-some murders out there, with twenty-some families attached, that need closure. He could provide that. We owe those families more than we owe the taxpayers a savings.”
For a very long time, Gibbons just sat there staring out the windshield considering his options.
“All right,” the sheriff said at last. “But you wear a vest and, no matter what, you don’t go in that house. Otherwise, no deal.”
“Fine,” Harrow said, not willing to push the negotiation any further. “And I’m already wearing my Kevlar longjohns….”
They got out, careful not to slam the SUV’s doors, and moved to the back of the vehicle, where the sheriff got out a boldly labeled SHERIFF’S DEPT bulletproof vest, and put it on. As Gibbons was doing this, Laurene Chase and Billy Choi appeared at Harrow’s side.
Laurene said, “Deputy wouldn’t let the cameras any closer back there than the next block over.”
She gave Harrow a raised-brow look that told him Hathaway, Arroyo, and their audio teammates were moving in covertly.
“That’s good,” Harrow said. “You two hang right here.”
Gibbons said, “Your boss is right—no closer than this.”
“Sure about that?” Choi asked Harrow, ignoring the sheriff.
“You have your orders,” Harrow said ambiguously.
Chapter Thirty-five
Together, Harrow and Gibbons crossed the street and moved up close to the first house. When they were safely into the shadows, Harrow looked back to see Laurene and Choi still beside the Tahoe, but with pistols drawn now, and obviously planning on following at a distance. They’d understood he intended them to ignore his instructions.
Gibbons withdrew his pistol and held it barrel down at his side. Harrow plucked the nine millimeter from his waistband, and the gun felt good in his grasp, an extension of his hand. He flipped the safety off and checked to make sure a bullet resided in the chamber.
The pair crept house-to-house like Kevlar-wearing, heavily armed kids playing ding-dong ditch. When they got to the corner of the cross street before Shelton’s block, they hesitated, Gibbons covering Harrow as he sprinted across and then cut through the yard of the corner house, to plaster himself against its wall, chest heaving.
Then Harrow returned the favor, as Gibbons crossed the street and pressed himself to the wall next to him.
Glancing back, Harrow could see Choi and Chase mimicking their moves half a block behind.
Harrow slipped the pistol in his waistband, but at the small of his back, safety off. If need be, he could get to it, easy.
Gibbons whispered, “Sure you want to do this, son?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Well, then—let’s go pay a call on a freakin’ maniac….”
Staying in the shadows close to the abandoned house, Harrow and Gibbons crossed the yard. Now that he was closing in on his target, Harrow could see the house where he’d been invited by the killer of his family.
The old two-story home had a long wooden unenclosed porch of the kind where a swing once had been, and had once been white, but even in the dark Harrow could see neglect had turned it dingy gray.
No lights.
That was no different from the other houses on the block, and Harrow hadn’t expected to see any. No curtains either, but blinds were pulled down over windows on the second floor.
As they drew closer, Gibbons—a few steps in the lead—stopped jerkily short, and Harrow pulled up even with him.
“Sheriff’s just seen me, Mr. Harrow,” said a voice from the porch.
Gibbons’s pistol was pointing at the darkness.
Then the killer stepped from the shadows and into the moonlight, his back to the house as he gripped his human shield with an arm looped round her waist, and held an automatic pistol to her temple.
Carmen Garcia wore boxer-style shorts and a Kansas Jayhawks sweatshirt that looked way too big, like a little girl playing dress-up in the oversized sweatshirt. Her hair was disheveled, but otherwise she appeared unharmed.
Her eyes revealed fear, but—at least with Harrow and Gibbons on the scene—she seemed to be keeping it under control.
Good, Harrow thought, his eyes on her. You’re doing good….
Shelton was in white short-sleeved shirt and black jeans, as best Harrow could tell.
Pressing the pistol’s snout to Carmen’s left temple, his voice oddly matter of fact, Shelton said, “The sheriff disappears, or it’s over right now.”
Gibbons stood firm, his pistol pointed at the killer’s head, only a splinter of which was visible behind Carmen.
“I can take him,” Gibbons said, his voice icy.
“No,” Harrow snapped. “Back off.”
“I can take him, I said.”
A head shot would mean all motor functions turned off like a switch—Harrow knew that damn well. But not much of Shelton’s head was showing.
And plenty of Carmen’s was.
Crouching down behind his hostage even more, Shelton yelled, “Gibbons needs to back off now!”
“You miss and kill my associate, Herm,” Harrow said softly, his tone just as frigid as the sheriff’s, “then you and I are going to have a real problem. You agreed that I could talk to this man—let me do it.”
Slowly, with obvious reluctance, Gibbons lowered his weapon, and his stance relaxed.
Gruffly he said, “Be right next door if you need me.”
As the sheriff backed away, Harrow eased to the left, putting himself between the man on the porch and the retreating lawman, halting the pissing contest between the two armed parties before it came to Carmen—or any, or all of them—getting killed.
Shelton was still trying to keep an eye on Gibbons as he receded into near-darkness.
“Look at me, Mr. Shelton,” Harrow said. “I’m t
he one you wanted to talk to—here I am. Look at me.”
Slowly, the killer’s attention shifted to Harrow.
“I’m here,” Harrow said. “You don’t need to send any more messages.”
From behind Carmen, who looked only slightly more relaxed by having the sheriff in the next yard, Shelton said, “You…you know I’ve been sending messages?”
“Sending messages, and creating a target. Yes.”
“Lebanon,” Shelton said, his head popping out just momentarily, revealing an extraordinarily awful smile in an ordinary face. His blue eyes didn’t seem to blink much. “The center point. Where it began. Where it ends.”
“Was there no easier way, Mr. Shelton? Did my family have to die to make up for the loss of yours? Did so many families have to die?”
Shelton was quiet for a long moment—night sounds, insects, birds, rustling trees, provided an eerie orchestration.
Finally, the man holding Carmen managed, “Sacrifices had to be made. Innocent blood is always part of a sacrifice. I’m sorry about your family, Mr. Harrow. I’m sorry about all of them. But they did not die in vain. You are here. And my message will be heard.”
“What is your message, Mr. Shelton?” His voice seemed calm, but within him, Harrow was waging a battle with his emotions, fighting the instinct to rush this sick bastard and blow his demented brains all over that porch, and if Carmen weren’t in harm’s way right now, that’s exactly what he’d do.
From behind the wide-eyed Carmen, Shelton blurted words like pus exploding from a squeezed boil: “They killed my wife and son!”
“Easy,” Harrow said, and patted the air, trying to calm both Shelton and his hostage. And himself.
“That is my message,” Shelton said, his composure back. “Those selfish, evil bastards murdered my family, and left me in a world of pain.”
“Who murdered your family, Mr. Shelton?”
“Brown, Gibbons, their deputies—the whole wretched lot of them…They’re in it together.”
You Can’t Stop Me Page 23