Dirty Harry 07 - Massacre at Russian River

by Dane Hartman

  What Harry wanted was solid proof. It wasn’t important that that proof implicate Kilborn or Davenport or Elsie Cranston or Turk. But it was important that it implicate someone. Up until now all he had to go on were contradictory stories with nothing to back them up.

  The bullet came through the square window over Harry’s right shoulder. It left nothing more than a few jagged fragments sitting in the frame; the rest of the glass was scattered about the room. The bullet created a hole over the bed and deposited a certain amount of chalklike debris on the unmade sheets.

  Harry dropped down to the floor and waited. He heard nothing more. Very quickly, keeping low and well out of range of the windows, he proceeded toward the front of the van, which Kilborn had given over to functional purposes, situating the closets, head, and kitchen there.

  It was possible that Kilborn himself had fired, preferring to take the intruder by surprise even if it meant destroying his own property. But it was equally possible that it was someone else who mistook Harry for the van’s owner.

  Maybe, Harry reasoned, this will all come clear if I open the front door and step out.

  On the other hand, doing that could get him killed.

  First, he doused all the lights in the front part of the van so that they wouldn’t put him into relief when he stepped into the darkness outside. Then, extending his leg, he applied enough pressure on the door to get it open.

  That was the easy part. What came next he wasn’t particularly looking forward to.

  C H A P T E R

  F i v e

  Five small steps led up to the entrance of the van. Harry took those steps, going in the opposite direction, rolling down them. Then he stretched himself out, his Magnum gripped in both hands as he awaited an attack that, for the moment, failed to materialize.

  He maneuvered himself to his knees, then drew fully erect. He listened but all he could hear were a dozen T.V. sets going and a restless chorus of crickets entertaining in the thicket.

  Suddenly he was bathed in light. It was so intense that for an instant he could scarcely see.

  “Raise your hands, mister!” someone cried. “This is the police.”

  The police, Harry was thinking, what a time for the police!

  He hesitated, not altogether convinced that it was in fact the police. From his experience so far in Russian River, they were never so prompt to respond to an emergency call.

  But within moments two uniformed men appeared, .38s drawn, their flashlights converging on Harry. Once again the order: “Drop it, mister, and raise those hands.”

  Harry saw no other choice but to comply.

  The two cops approached Harry cautiously. One was young and obviously new to the job. Harry could tell just from the way he held his weapon. He didn’t seem to know exactly what to do with it and might very well run in the opposite direction rather than have to fire at anybody.

  His older companion, however, showed none of his insecurity. He was his opposite, big and corpulent. His walk was a swagger. He looked very much like a farmboy who’d grown up with animals he’d screw first before slaughtering. Harry guessed that he might transfer this behavioral pattern to human beings.

  The older cop raised his flashlight so that the beam was directly in Harry’s eyes. He scratched his double-chin and asked Harry what he was doing inside of Mike Kilborn’s trailor.

  “I am a police officer,” said Harry patiently, knowing that this would not make the slightest impression on the man facing him. “Brought up from San Francisco to investigate the killings of Jud Harris and Bonnie Nutting. You can ask your sheriff, Wardell Marsh, he’ll verify that for you.”

  The fat cop slowly shook his head. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  Harry tried to accommodate the man. “I was in the van conducting a search that was part of that investigation. If I may say so, I think you’d be better off trying to find out who took a shot at me in there.”

  His interrogator didn’t appear interested in that aspect of the case. “You have a warrant?”

  Harry owned that he did not.

  “You should have had a warrant. This is the U.S. of A. You can’t go breaking into people’s homes with no warrant. We’re going to have to take you in.”

  He said it as though that were something he deeply regretted, but Harry was not convinced.

  The cop stooped over to recover Harry’s Magnum. He groaned. His vast weight made such movement a strain.

  He liked the looks of the Magnum. “Some piece you’ve got here,” he said. He showed it to his nervous colleague. “Some piece, isn’t it? You grow up, son, you gonna have a piece like this.” He laughed. He thought maybe he’d cracked some kind of joke.

  All the way back into the heart of Russian River, the cop kept talking. There was no way to shut him up. It was as though he’d hidden away millions of words in all his monstrous flesh and was trying to get rid of them as quickly as possible in hope of reducing weight.

  But there was a focus to his rambling and it soon became very apparent.

  “You cops coming from out of town, you think you can do the job better than us,” he was saying. “I’m telling you you’re full of shit. You don’t know the area, you don’t know the people. What the hell you going to accomplish anyway? You are fucking things up, son. You think because we’re homegrown boys we don’t know diddly-shit. You think you’re real clever. Well, let me tell you something, we’re going to show you how it is and send you back to the big city with buckshot in your tail, if you don’t watch out.”

  So much, Harry thought, for the promises of cooperation that had been issued from Sheriff Marsh’s office.

  Once the two cops reached the courthouse with their suspect, they began to debate whether they should wake up the town’s solitary judge and have him come down to arraign Harry. The fat one wanted to lock up Harry and let him stew in one of Russian River’s four jail cells overnight while the younger one felt that something like professional courtesy ought to do—Harry was a detective on loan, after all—and that the judge could do with a little less sleep. As Harry suspected, the fat cop prevailed. The outcome had never really been in doubt.

  Russian River’s jail cells weren’t terrible. They were relatively clean, with walls of white cinder blocks. But they were only intended as holding cells and, given the nature of the town’s drug problem and the number of suspects arraigned and convicted, they had become hopelessly inadequate. While each was only supposed to accommodate one person, as many as four were crammed into them now. Two bunkbeds had replaced the single cot that had been there previously.

  The cell Harry was assigned to, however, was home to only one other person, a young man with unruly hair and the dreamy look of someone who was only intermittently aware of his predicament.

  The more sympathetic of the two arresting officers brought Harry a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a bologna sandwich wrapped in cellophane.

  “It was the best that I could do,” he said sheepishly. “Tomorrow someone will get you out of here, you’ll see.”

  Harry said that he wasn’t worried, that he could survive all right.

  As soon as the young man in the cell realized that someone had joined him he immediately stirred, sitting up on his bunk. Harry had hoped he’d go right on sleeping, not being especially anxious to engage in conversation tonight.

  “Hey, what did they get you for?” The young man was tapping his feet nervously, as if in time to music only he could hear. “You haven’t got a cigarette, have you?”

  When Harry said he didn’t, the young man nodded as though he expected to be disappointed at every turn. “So what did you do, man?”

  Harry said that he’d been arrested for jaywalking.

  The young man’s face registered very faint astonishment at this. “Shit, I didn’t know they were cracking down so hard. But I’m not surprised. Ham wants to show everybody how fucking powerful he is. He was bad enough before but now with these outside cops showing up he’s a lot wors
e.”

  “Ham?”

  “The fat son of a bitch who brought you in, that’s Ham. Ham Kelso. His real name’s something like Bill but everyone calls him Ham.”

  “I can see why.” Turk and Ham, Harry was thinking, this town goes in big for nicknames.

  “You know, I’m related? Ham’s like my second cousin or some shit like that. The Reardons and the Kelsos have this blood thing going, but that doesn’t mean he won’t pull me in from time to time. He says he just wants to discipline me. Truth is the asshole hates my guts. He leaves my pa alone, and my uncle. Just me. He likes to pick on me is what it is. The name’s Tom Reardon by the way. Tom Reardon, Junior.” He stressed the last word.

  “Harry.” That was all he said. Tom Jr. accepted it as enough, didn’t express an interest in what his last name might be or what he did for a living. Harry surmised that the only thing Tom Jr. was interested in was himself.

  He asked Tom Jr. what crime, if crime it was, he had committed to arouse the ire of his second cousin Ham.

  “I fucked around, you know,” he said ambiguously. “Somebody reported me. You know how it is?”

  “Well, how exactly did you fuck around?”

  “I hotwired some guy’s Mercury, no big deal. I would’ve brought it back.”

  “Car theft. In some places they can put you away for quite a long time.”

  “This isn’t some places.” Tom Jr. sounded practically indignant that Harry might think it was. “I told you it’s just because Ham has this thing for me. I spend a week here. Then they take me in front of that asshole judge they’ve got and he gives me this stupid lecture and my pa appears and he says, ‘Don’t you worry, the boy’ll watch himself next time,’ and he pays off a couple of people and that’s it.”

  “That’s it? No probation?”

  “Fuck probation. There ain’t any fucking probation, no record, no nothing. No sense paying everybody off if they kept my name on the books, would there be?”

  “No, I guess not,” Harry agreed.

  “ ’Cause it’s not just Ham we’re related to. We go way back, the Reardons, we’re related to every damn asshole in town. You think I get in trouble. You should see what my pa and Lou do. Lou, that’s my uncle.”

  “Tell me, Tom, what do your father and uncle do?”

  “Wish I could say but I can’t. You know how the Reardons get when somebody crosses them. Even one of their own.”

  He made a slashing motion across his throat to emphasize the point.

  “I see. Well, let me rephrase the question. What do they do for a living?”

  “Oh well, they’re like farmers. We have some property at the base of Rain Mountain.”

  “Rain Mountain?”

  “You come from out of town, don’t you? You wouldn’t know it.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that. Even outsiders learn fast in Russian River.”

  The following morning, bright and much too early, Harry and Tom Jr. were awakened by the man who did double duty as warden and marshal of the court. “The judge is expecting you,” he said, addressing them both. “You got five minutes to get yourselves ready. The judge don’t like dallying.”

  The judge might not have liked living from the looks of it. His skin was sallow, his eyes bloodshot, his hair sparse and white. His hands trembled, maybe from palsy, maybe from drink.

  Aside from the judge and warden-marshal there were only three others in the courtroom at this hour: Ham Kelso and two disreputable specimens of humanity that Harry guessed to be members of the Reardon clan come to take possession of Tom Jr.

  Harry would have expected someone other than Ham from the sheriff’s office. Maybe Davenport. But there was no one present who could provide him with support, moral or legal.

  The judge was short on formalities. Adjusting his glasses, he peered down at the sheaf of papers in front of him and called out Harry’s name.

  When Harry had duly identified himself, the judge asked him if he knew the charges against him.

  Harry said he did not.

  “The charges are breaking and entering and resisting arrest.”

  “Now wait a minute, your honor, before these proceedings go any farther, I would like to be represented by a lawyer.”

  The judge shook his head. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Callahan. I have been informed that all charges have been dropped. Is that correct, Officer Kelso?”

  Officer Kelso stood up to attest to the truth of this.

  “Consequently, Mr. Callahan, you are at liberty. However, I have been instructed by Sheriff Marsh’s office to inform you that you have embarrassed our local constabulary. With this in mind I must tell you that your advisory capacity in Russian River has been terminated. If you choose to remain here you can only do so in an unofficial capacity.” He paused, removed his glasses, and allowed his badly bloodshot eyes to fix themselves on Harry. “However, I would recommend that you seriously consider returning home as soon as you can, Mr. Callahan. I understand that your superiors in the San Francisco Police Department have been told of your change of status.”

  Everything here is corrupt, Harry thought, everyone here is bought. Or crazed. Or both.

  The judge asked Harry if he had anything to say.

  Harry had things to say but not to this joker.

  The judge banged his gavel. He seemed to like doing that, gave him the feeling that he actually mattered in the scheme of things.

  “The next case, I believe, is Thomas Reardon, Jr. Will Mr. Reardon please rise?”

  Harry was on his way out. He cast a sidelong glance at his former cellmate, but he had no intention of lingering in the courtroom to witness the mechanics of Tom Jr.’s fix. He had other, more pressing concerns.

  Davenport arrived at the office before Turk. Harry was waiting for him.

  “You’re up early,” Davenport noted, unlocking the door.

  “That’s what happens when you spend the night in jail.”

  Davenport seemed genuinely surprised to hear this.

  “You mind explaining?”

  “You were absolutely right. Kilborn does have some heavy protection.”

  They were in the windowless office. Harry was gratified that Davenport felt no need of putting a song like “Whacky Dust” on the turntable right away.

  Davenport was still mystified. Harry proceeded to describe in some detail what had happened.

  “It began with the Cranston woman,” said Davenport. “It always begins with her.”

  “I don’t believe she set me up. She didn’t know that I was going out to Kilborn’s van.”

  Davenport didn’t seem to be listening. Harry was beginning to think that Davenport had this thing about her. The thought crossed his mind that the man wanted Elsie for himself and resented the fact that Turk had gotten to her instead.

  The narcotics officer was talking about something else entirely. “Turk’s coming out of the hospital today.”

  “They found nothing wrong with his brain?”

  “Nothing that would show up in a CAT scan anyway.”

  “So I guess he’ll be getting on with his little invasion,” Harry said.

  “Guess so. And you’ll certainly come along to watch the show. It should be something.”

  “I told you. I am no longer here in an official capacity. Your excuse for a judge made that very clear.”

  Davenport’s expression reflected the disdain he felt toward the judge. “You should try getting a warrant from that bastard. When we do our number up in the mountains, we’ll hit the circuit judge for our John Does. Plinth can be bought and sold. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Don’t pay attention to what he says. If there’s any problem with the sheriff’s office, Turk’ll straighten it out.”

  “Turk?”

  “Don’t you know? Since you saved his ass from that chopper he has nothing but praise for you. That shooting changed everything. He has his excuse to make a major bust, his brain seems to be reasonably intact, he feels like he’s
got the world by the balls.”

  “Four men were killed,” Harry reminded him.

  “Hey, it’s regrettable. But I told you. Turk’s a fanatic. You don’t expect him to go into mourning, do you?”

  Harry didn’t respond. Instead he said, “So you want me to stick around, is that what you re saying?”

  “That’s right. There’s no problem.”

  Harry nodded politely. He wished he could believe it. But from what he could see there were nothing but problems.

  C H A P T E R

  S i x

  Poltergeists are the kind of ghosts you seldom see but one knows they’re around all right. To make their presence known, they fling cups and saucers, knock books down from their shelves, make disturbing noises in the middle of the night, pull open windows and doors, and generally make life miserable for whomever it is they’ve chosen to haunt.

  Mike Kilborn was something like a poltergeist in this respect. He was known to be around somewhere even when one couldn’t exactly catch a glimpse of him. He gave off a certain vibration. At any moment, Harry expected to turn and find him standing there, his eyes barely discernible behind tinted shades, half a joint perched between his chapped lips.

  He moved like a ghost too. Harry wouldn’t have been greatly surprised to learn that he passed right through walls. He had a lithe, nimble body. He could get over and go under things that very few other mortals could. He’d be excellent as a second-story man or as a limbo dancer. But clearly his ambitions were of a much higher order.

  When he materialized in the rearview mirror of Harry’s car, pink glasses and pallid face, Harry was not so certain he wouldn’t put a gun to his head and blow his brains out. This did not happen. Kilborn had only wanted to throw a scare into Harry by slipping into his locked car without leaving any evidence behind of the break-in.

  They were outside the county courthouse. It looked just like a county courthouse should look at eight in the morning with the sun shining down on it: pristinely white and all-American.