Dirty Harry 07 - Massacre at Russian River

by Dane Hartman

  And if this happened, one of the prime beneficiaries would be Turk himself. Already he was picturing himself behind a desk with a window overlooking the Potomac. A salary commensurate with such a position featured significantly in his fantasies.

  Turk was just concluding his lecture, which had by this point gone on for nearly an hour, when a man entered the courtroom, distracting him from what he was saying.

  “Who are you?” Turk asked, irritated.

  “Callahan, SFPD,”

  “Callahan? You’re late. I am just about to finish my briefing.”

  “I think you’ve got it wrong. I am exactly on time.”

  There was a sudden burst of laughter from the six detectives who’d had to suffer through Turk’s rambling exposition.

  Turk flushed. He did not know exactly how to respond. At last he grumbled, “You’ll have to ask one of the other men what I said. I’m not going to repeat myself.”

  “From the looks on these gentlemen’s faces I expect that you already have.”

  Turk glowered at him but refrained from saying anything more. He realized he’d only be getting himself in deeper.

  He redirected his attention to the officers in front of him.

  “Tomorrow morning we will begin with the reconnaissance surveys of the terrain in question. We’ll go up two at a time beginning at eight o’clock. That way you can see what we’re dealing with. Either my colleague, Mr. Davenport, will be with you or myself. Sheriff Marsh will be next to give you a summation of the progress his office has made so far on the Harris and Nutting killings. Thank you and good day.”

  He strode from the dias, still seething over Harry’s interruption. Davenport, who throughout the whole lecture had sagely maintained silence, followed promptly.

  Sheriff Wardell Marsh was a gruff and straightforward man. It was evident that in this case he was in way over his head. Before these killings had begun, only one murder had occurred in his jurisdiction, and that had resulted from a domestic quarrel to which the leading suspect, the husband of the deceased, had immediately confessed. Marsh had little experience with complicated investigations.

  Nobody was likely to confess to the murders of Harris, Nutting, or Chapman or any of the others whose skeletal remains had not yet been correctly dated by forensic specialists, let alone identified. Census-takers and revenuers so seldom ventured into the woods where the victims had lived that no record could be relied upon to discover who lived in the area. How was Marsh to determine who had died there then?

  “That is where you men come in,” he was saying. “Before we can find our murderers we have to see if Harris and Nutting were the only victims or whether there were others. We have one suspected death that might be related—Evans Chapman—though accident has not been ruled out altogether. And there may be others.”

  This was the first official hint that the homicide detectives might have more on their hands than just the slaying of one couple. Marsh was loath to exaggerate or make unfounded allegations. For all he knew, the five other unidentified bodies might have been killed so long ago that they could be separated from the case at hand and forgotten about.

  “Of course, the main difficulty we have here in this area is that anyone involved in the marijuana trade has enemies. Some of them may be known to the victims, some not. There are thieves who will resort to violence. There are also members of the syndicate who might be interested in reaping some of the enormous profits that these growers are accustomed to making.”

  It was Davenport who answered the door when Harry sought admission to Turk’s office. Turk wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  “Where is he?”

  Davenport shrugged. “He has a friend in town he goes off to see sometimes.” As though that wasn’t enough he added, “A woman.”

  “I see.”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” said Davenport with an air of resignation. “Have a seat.”

  Music was playing in the background. Harry listened for a moment and was surprised to hear what sounded like jazz from a much earlier age.

  “That’s Sidney Bechet with Noble Sissie’s Swingers,” Davenport explained. “Tune called ‘Viper Mad.’ I know them all by heart by now. It’s Turk’s music, but I’ve gotten accustomed to it after all this time.”

  “Is that the method he uses to get to know his enemies?”

  “Frankly, Callahan, I don’t know what’s in his mind. Turk’s a complicated man.”

  When Harry said nothing he went on. “I assume you are here for something specific.”

  “You acquainted with a joker named Mike Kilborn?”

  Davenport slowly nodded. “Everyone in these parts knows Mike Kilborn. He come on to you?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “He’s in tight with the dealers. No question about it. I know the story he’s selling, that he’s working for our side. But whatever side it is, it isn’t the side I represent. But he’s right about one thing. He has some powerful friends. Turk tried busting him a couple of times. We caught him with what he told us was evidence. In fact, he made the buy for himself. The guy’s dealing like half the population of this town is dealing, only on a larger scale.”

  “What happened when he was busted?”

  “Shit happened was what happened. The word came down to release him. The word came from Washington incidentally. We were told that by arresting the guy we were getting in the way of an important investigation. Nobody told us what kind of an important investigation, but when Turk asked he was given the brush-off. Evidently, it wasn’t our business to know.”

  Harry stood up. This surprised Davenport. “That’s all you wanted to know?”

  “One step at a time,” Harry said.

  “Well, whatever the hell you do, don’t trust Mike Kilborn.”

  “You don’t have to worry. I wasn’t counting on trusting anybody in this town.”

  Davenport wasn’t offended by this. “I know what you mean, Callahan,” he said. “I know just what you mean.”

  C H A P T E R

  T h r e e

  Sluggish gray clouds hung close to the summit of the mountains. The uncertain meteorological conditions failed to daunt Turk from proceeding with his scheduled air surveillance. He chose Davenport to accompany the first group of detectives in the air, but there was really little for Davenport to do because of the persistent cloud cover.

  It wasn’t until shortly after noontime that the sun dispelled the gloom sufficiently for the landscape to become fully visible.

  Then Turk elected to conduct the tour. Standing by the side of the Sikorsky, he resembled a master of ceremonies patiently awaiting the arrival of his guests.

  The first to show up was a man from the sheriff’s office who carried a gun and an explanation for his unexpected presence.

  “Wardell thinks you might run into trouble,” said the man, “so he felt I ought to come along for the ride.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Turk was a man who did not appreciate learning things second-hand.

  The man shrugged. “I don’t know. Wardell didn’t confide in me. I expect that one of his informers turned up with some bad news. It happens that way sometimes.”

  “Trouble!” Turk repeated, openly scornful of the idea. “Well, come along then if you must. What’s your name?”

  “Henry Beller.”

  Turk glanced at the rifle in his hands. “You know how to use that thing?”

  “As well as the next man.”

  This seemed to satisfy the narcotics investigator.

  Presently Turk’s other guests arrived, including the pilot, a man whose diminutive size suggested that under other circumstances he could have been a jockey.

  Harry, characteristically, was the last to show.

  Turk glared at him. “I am surprised you came.”

  Harry resisted making the comment Turk expected from him.

  The two detectives, in addition to Harry, who had chosen to accept Turk’s personal aerial tou
r were from San Jose and Palm Springs. It was difficult for Harry to determine whether they’d been shipped north because of their vast experience and expertise in ferreting out murderers or because they were so near retirement age that their departments could easily do without their services for a prolonged period of time.

  One of them, the one from Palm Springs, made it pretty clear to Harry which explanation was the more likely when he said, in a voice too soft for Turk to hear, “I don’t know what kind of energy you’re planning on putting into this case, but I’m not looking to bust my ass on this one. I want to be alive and well to collect my pension. You understand what I am saying?”

  Harry understood all right.

  Above the mountain that the mapmakers called Lunar and Turk called Alpha, the helicopter hovered for several minutes while Turk pointed out the ground where some of the finest marijuana in the state of California was awaiting harvesting.

  “How can you tell it’s marijuana from up here?” asked the detective from San Jose who strained to distinguish the illegal crop in the checkerboard patterns of the landscape.

  Turk prided himself on his familiarity with his territory and with the acuity of his eyesight in such things. “You can tell because it doesn’t look right. It’s not natural. It wouldn’t be growing here by itself. You develop an instinct for what belongs and what doesn’t.”

  This explanation was not going to prove at all helpful in aiding the detectives on their own. Harry had the impression that this was just how Turk wanted it. Turk was the man with the knowledge, this was his turf, and he had no intention of sharing either.

  “You got a question, Callahan?” Turk asked.

  “No. No question.”

  “And no answer either, I bet.”

  “That’s right.”

  The two detectives and the man from the sheriff’s office looked from one to the other in an attempt to decipher the meaning of this exchange.

  The helicopter had banked off to the right. They were over Rain Mountain. Here the trees grew in such profusion that it didn’t appear as though the sun could ever penetrate to the earth from which they sprung.

  Nonetheless, on these slopes too Turk was able to make the necessary discriminations and point out the location of two fields—or gardens as the growers preferred to call them, regardless of their size.

  “If you know where all the shit is, where each of the farms are, why don’t you just go in there and bust the hell out of them?”

  The detective from San Jose had a point.

  “It’s not that simple,” said Turk. “We need reasonable grounds. We need warrants. Judges aren’t always so cooperative. Besides, there’s a problem with manpower.”

  “The Feds could do it if they wanted.”

  Turk shrugged as if to say the Feds could do any damn thing they pleased but just in theory. “Remember, there’s a limited budget. You have your Mexican border and your Florida smuggling operations and your Middle East poppy growers and your Marseilles connections. So it’s not like you can just concentrate on two counties in California.”

  “Budgets,” muttered the Palm Springs detective. “The only thing I know about budgets is that they’re always cutting them.”

  Turk directed the pilot to take them lower. “There’s something interesting here I’d like you gentlemen to see.”

  They never had a chance to find out what it was. No sooner had the helicopter descended to just above the treeline than there was a deafening explosion. This was followed moments later by a series of pops. These were less noisy, more hollow in quality, the sound of an inflated balloon punctured with a pin.

  Before the occupants of the Sikorsky could manage to ascertain the source of these detonations their craft listed sharply, beginning to veer off to the right on a course headed down into the trees.

  The jarring movement upset the men from their seats. Harry had been thrown to the floor and was now attempting to get right himself. But this was not so easily done since the detective from Palm Springs had landed on top of him. And the detective from Palm Springs was not cooperating; he insisted on staying right where he was, flung on top of Harry.

  Harry quickly realized there was a reason for the man’s failure to cooperate. A chunk of something sizable, perhaps from a projectile, perhaps a part of the helicopter itself, had been hurled into his stomach and gone out the other way, leaving a gaping hole that immediately filled with blood, blood that was now soaking into Harry’s jacket. No life remained in the detective. Someone else would have to collect his pension for him.

  He was not the only one who’d suffered harm. The pilot’s head was bloody, half of his face seemed to have disappeared, exposing for a brief moment the white of the skull before the blood covered it over. It was impossible to determine immediately whether or not he was alive.

  The man from the sheriff’s office was struggling to put his gun to use. But how? Who was there to shoot? The explosions had ceased, the helicopter was speeding far from the site of the ambush, but it was doing so without anyone in control.

  Turk and the detective from San Jose were apparently too dazed to recognize the peril of their situation. A gash had opened up in Turk’s forehead and blood was oozing down his face; he did not seem to be aware of his injury. All he kept doing was shaking his head vehemently as though by doing that he could regain command of his senses.

  Harry was in a bad position, unable to wrest control of the craft from the critically injured pilot in time to prevent it from dropping down into the trees. He tried, stretching his arms as far as he could, but the descent of the damaged helicopter was so precipitous that he was once more thrown by the motion.

  All at once the helicopter struck the tops of the trees. For an instant they seemed to hold it up. Then there was a great deal of noise, many things breaking simultaneously, bits of the Sikorsky, bits of the trees, metal and wood snapped, glass ruptured and shattered, the rotors broke off, one by one, as easily as if they’d been matchsticks.

  Then there was no more resistance from the branches and foliage, and the helicopter, broken and punctured, dropped farther, spinning crazily, shearing off branches and trunks.

  Again and again the passengers, living and dead, were thrown against the walls of the craft. There were shrieks and curses and the sound of flesh giving way to metal. Henry Beller still clutched his useless gun, and then suddenly he vanished. Harry had looked and seen him beside him, and then he had looked again and he wasn’t there any longer. He’d been sucked out of a hole that should not have been there, a great big jagged hole created by the crash. This had taken place so fast that poor Beller had gone without a sound.

  Suddenly there was a noise as loud as anything Harry had ever before heard in his life, a terrific clatter of machinery ripping finally, fatally apart; then a shuddering of metal and a poisonous smell of fuel.

  They were on the ground. But not safe. What was left of the helicopter would probably catch fire and explode at any moment.

  It was all that Harry could do to drag himself out of the tangled ruins. He hurt and hurt in so many places that he could not determine whether any of his injuries were serious enough to demand immediate attention. He hoped not. Immediate attention was out of the question at this point.

  He found himself pulling someone’s arms and meeting resistance. It was the detective from San Jose. Harry soon discovered that the man’s legs were snared in the wreckage. Though he was alive, there was no way that Harry could pry him out of it. He was left with no choice. He could do nothing for the man.

  But there was something he could do for Turk, who lay prostrate across the shattered floor of the downed craft. Aside from blood smearing his face, no other external injuries were in evidence. But it was possible that something vital had come apart inside. And it was also possible that Turk was suffering from shock.

  Harry applied what strength remained to him to pull the narcotics officer out of the helicopter. Turk wouldn’t move on his own. Nor could Harry c
ommunicate with him. Turk’s eyes were open, his mouth seemed to move in mimicry of speech, but he gave no indication that he had any idea of what his predicament was.

  Harry hoisted him erect and maintained him that way with his arm as he steered him away from the helicopter. Watching them both was the trapped detective from San Jose. His agonized scream followed them like a curse.

  The scream was lost in a roar of flames that suddenly shot into the sky from which the helicopter had just come. No more than five seconds passed before the fuel was ignited. The explosion had been a dress rehearsal for the apocalypse. It sounded very much as though the world had come to an end, this part of the world anyhow. Fiery shards of metal were jettisoned over the landscape. They came raining down on the forest, carrying the fire with them.

  The blast put the air into motion, shock waves rode out into the woods and underbrush. Flaming debris kept coming out of the sky as though there were no end to it. Harry and Turk remained flattened out on the moss-strewn earth, waiting for the cataclysm to come to an end.

  It did finally. Harry got up again. To his surprise, Turk showed signs of life. He no longer appeared to require Harry’s aid. Using the trunk of a nearby pine to prop himself up, he brushed his trousers. But the dirt and pine needles and the blood, his own and other people’s, wouldn’t come off. His expression was one of great disgust. He was not a man to take indignities lightly, particularly when it meant getting shot down out of the sky.

  Harry still couldn’t decide how much pain he was suffering, and just what all this pain represented. He had an enormous headache and a feeling that something was about to become unplugged in his stomach and open up real soon. His legs harbored more pain, though only when he walked.

  “Your tour has been a real education,” he said to Turk.

  Turk grimaced, whether at Harry’s comment or at the pain he himself was feeling. Harry couldn’t say.

  “Where do you suppose we are?” Turk was looking around him, studying charred stumps of trees that the Sikorsky’s crash had been responsible for.