“Yeah,” he said, “but not for policemen.”
“Criminals,” I said. “There are a lot of hardworking public servants who wouldn’t like being lumped together with those two characters.”
“So how do you know they’re criminals?”
“You want cream or sugar for that?” I asked.
“Sugar,” he said. “How about it?”
“I’d think the fact that they attempted to kill one of your troopers should just about lock it up for you.”
“I don’t like the way this came down.”
“I don’t like having a yard full of police cars.”
Dunsel spooned sugar into his coffee and stirred. He was silent. He pursed his lips and studied the brown whirlpool in his cup. “This morning I received an anonymous tip that you were hiding a federal witness in your home. Then I get this call from downtown, from a pay phone in the federal building.”
“It wasn’t me,” I said. “Listen to the tape. If you still think it’s me, I’ll submit a voice sample for comparison.”
“I already did,” he said, “and I don’t think that it was you, personally.”
“You’ve got a narrow list of suspects. Ron Craig was with me and I can tell you that he didn’t make the call.”
“I’m going to find out,” he said, “but first I’m going to catch the son of a bitch that shot my trooper.”
“Did you find their car?”
“What were they driving?”
“Usually, a beat-up red Ford Escort—has covered city plates on it.”
“Do you have any idea how many red Ford Escorts there are per square mile in the county?”
“That’s the best information I have.”
Howard broadcast the information on a handheld radio he produced from his belt.
“What happened when they were hailed?” I asked.
“They flashed their shields and said they were fishing. When our officer ordered them to row in to shore, the white guy drew a gun out of an ankle holster and started shooting. He fired until his weapon was empty.”
“Paulie Milton,” I said. “He carries a five-shot Smith hammerless in an ankle rig.”
Dunsel took a pad out of his pocket and opened it. “Paul Edward Milton,” he said. “Good thing he’s not a better shot.”
“Short barrel,” I said. “If he hit your trooper from a rowboat offshore, he’s a better shot than you think.”
Dunsel passed me a hot glance but said, “The other guy started rowing for the other side and Trooper Fenwick returned fire. She says she thinks she hit the guy who was rowing.”
“Chuck Furbie,” I said.
“Charles Allen Furbie,” said Dunsel. “How’d you know them?”
“They’re up to their armpits in a case I’m working on.”
“Sounds like it’s about time to turn this case over to the proper authorities.”
“I was trying to hand it off to the feds just this afternoon,” I said, “but they weren’t interested.”
“Who did you talk to?”
“Neil Carter, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
Dunsel wrote that down. “Who was your client?”
“You already know the answer to that question.”
“Don’t go hiding behind the PI act on me,” said Dunsel. “One of my troopers just bled all over your lawn.”
“My client was blown up in his car yesterday.”
“That guy? What were you doing for him?”
“I was protecting his niece from her husband.”
“Where’s her husband now?”
“In the morgue,” I said. “Somebody—not me by the way—buried a hatchet in his head.”
“That guy?”
“Randal Talon. He was on the Community Service crew with the two guys you’re looking for.”
“Hardin, you’re a goddam fatal disease!”
Someone knocked on the door and I turned to see a grim-faced Sergeant Franklin and Lieutenant Emmery standing on the porch. “Gentlemen, you’re welcome to come in,” I said.
They opened the door and shuffled up the stairs.
“Coffee?” I asked.
Franklin took a cup.
“Fuck you and your coffee, too,” said Emmery. “You work in our town every day and then go weasel to the feds. Why didn’t you give us a chance to clean our own house?”
“Maybe you were too busy trying to clean mine.”
“You interfered with our investigation, and don’t think that’s just going away.”
“Finney and I will be at the warrant office tomorrow.”
“I don’t want Finney,” said Emmery. “I want some answers.”
“Can’t have it both ways!” I said.
Franklin fished out a Camel straight and tamped it on the counter. “Art talked to me two days ago,” he said.
“What?” said Emmery.
“He told me what he suspected,” said Franklin. “I told him to muzzle up until he had some proof, but I filed a field contact report with the detective bureau.” He lit up his smoke. “He gave us Arnold Fay on a platter.” Franklin took a long toke and exhaled with satisfaction.
“Seems to me that you know Arnold Fay. Don’t you, Lieutenant?”
Emmery’s right shoulder dropped as he spat out, “And I knew Randy Talon, too.”
I juked to my right just in time for Emmery’s freight-train right fist to brush past my left ear. I put my left hand on the top of his head and snapped my right hand up under his chin. I gave a little twist and pull as I spun to my left and Emmery followed his fist into the kitchen. He slid on his back across the linoleum and his head banged into the cabinet under the sink.
“Lieutenant, I think it’s time for you to leave,” I said. I poured myself a cup of coffee. My hand shook a little but I didn’t spill any.
Franklin and Dunsel brushed by and helped Emmery off the floor, but held onto his arms and shoulders. They walked him around the counter through the dining room.
“Fuck you, asshole!” said Emmery, his face contorted. “Your fucking plastic badge is history! We’re going to pull your permit to carry! I hope some lowlife does the world a favor!”
They took him down the stairs and out the door. Ron and the marshal walked back in from the deck to see about the commotion.
“What’s going on?” asked Ron.
“Jurisdictional dispute,” I said.
“State and county?” asked the marshal.
“Me and Emmery. He doesn’t want to share the planet.”
Ron went for the coffee. Harlan walked over to the window to watch Emmery roar out of the driveway in his unmarked sedan. I discarded the grounds to start a new pot. I’d loaded the new filter with fresh coffee when Dunsel and Franklin walked back in the door and up the steps.
“You want to press charges?” asked Franklin.
“For what?”
Franklin nodded once and then looked at Dunsel. “We came out here to see if you would let us try to talk them in.”
“Can’t hurt,” said Dunsel.
Sergeant Franklin slugged down his coffee, took a last pull on the cigarette he’d left in the ash tray, and stubbed it out. He and Dunsel departed in a marked state police car.
“Your wife drive an old Cadillac?” asked the marshal.
“Yes, she does.”
Harlan smiled and rocked up on his toes. “She just breezed by the deputy at the entrance to your drive,” he chuckled. “And he’s chasing the car on foot.”
“I hope, for his sake, that he doesn’t catch her,” I said as I walked over to the window. I watched Wendy pull onto the lawn to avoid the parked patrol cars. When she stepped out, the deputy was there. He got to say something brief; then she launched on him, delivering a finger-shaking tirade.
“Poor guy,” I said. “I’ve been on the business end of that finger myself.”
The deputy folded his arms across his chest and let her wind down. When she stopped for air, he said something that had Wendy d
igging in her purse. She handed him what I guessed to be her driver’s license. He studied it and then spoke into the mike that he had clipped to the epaulet of his uniform shirt.
Wendy started a second ration of abuse. He returned her license, tipped his hat, and returned to his post. She slammed the door of the Caddy and steamed toward the house with Karen trailing at a safe distance.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Now it’s our turn.”
“I’m going back out on the deck,” said Harlan.
“Me, too,” said Ron. They skittered out the slider.
“Cowards!”
“This … is … my … house!” Wendy announced as she erupted through the door and stomped up the stairs. “Where do they get off telling me I can’t come in and blocking my driveway with their stupid cars? I had to park on the lawn!” She fixed me with an icy stare. “Where are the boys?”
I handed her the note.
Wendy scanned the note and said, “You’re lucky.”
“Not to mention charming, sweet, kind, and considerate.”
“You let these people just walk all over you,” she said.
“They have guns,” I said and shrugged.
Wendy gave me the narrow eyes. “Don’t get smart with me,” she said. She found herself fighting a smile, so she turned and headed for the bathroom.
“Just relating the facts, ma’am,” I said and smiled.
“Did they catch them?” asked Karen.
“Not yet. Chuck and Paulie rowed across the lake. Let’s go out on the deck. Maybe we’ll see something.”
“I think I’m just going to lie down,” she said and went down the stairs to the guest room.
I freshened my coffee and strolled out to the deck. A Sheriff’s Department car had backed a boat and trailer into the water from my beach. A uniformed officer pushed the boat off the trailer into the lake. SWAT officers scoured the far shoreline and checked under upturned canoes.
“Look up there,” said Harlan and pointed at the top of the bluff to the east. A line of riders on horseback pressed through the cornfield, intent on driving anyone hidden in the corn toward the apple orchards that lay to the west.
“Sheriff’s posse,” I said. “It’s a voluntary auxiliary. Usually, they’re the ones that look for lost children.”
“They got their hands full today,” said Ron.
The sun—now low—cast long shadows. Across the lake a patrol car traveled slowly along the dirt track with Sergeant Franklin’s voice emanating from the loudspeaker, exhorting Chuck and Paulie to come out.
Wendy stepped up next to me and put her arm around my waist. I draped an arm over her shoulder. “The lawyer from the IRS told Karen she would see about getting the liens lifted. Karen might even get her car back, if they haven’t sold it already.”
“Good for her,” I said.
“Better than that,” said Wendy. “Pete says that the city has a six-figure life insurance policy on Randy. She’ll get benefits as a police officer’s widow.”
“I guess things turned around after I left.”
“We got right in to see that Ralph guy,” said Wendy. “When we got to his office, the lady from the IRS was already there, and he wanted to see the pictures.”
“Good. We can stop hiding the aspirin.”
“Pete said that if the IRS recovers the tax money that they were defrauded out of from the estates of Van Pelham and Campbell, you and Ron can probably apply for a substantial reward.” Wendy gave me a little shake at the waist.
“Make my day!” said Ron.
“We can start an IRA,” I said. “Marg will be thrilled.”
“I think I’m in the wrong business,” said Harlan.
The patrol boat made a lethargic loop along the shoreline, near the reeds and cattails at the east end of the lake.
“What’s going on?” said Ben as he and Daniel thundered across the room toward the sliding door to the deck.
“I had to show my driver’s license to get in the driveway,” said Daniel.
“Well,” I said, “the police want those two fellows you saw in the row-boat.”
“Cool!” said Ben. “Are they killers?”
“They shot a state trooper down there by the lake.”
“Far freaking out! If they come back, you can whack ’em!”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think you’d really like to see that, but I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
The police milling in the yard scrambled for their cars. The cars swarmed out of the drive and added sirens to their already rolling lights. Ben ran to the front window. “They’re going left, up toward the blacktop,” he said.
The deputy in the patrol boat cracked open his throttles and spread a wake heading west across the lake.
“This has been real, and it’s been fun,” said Ron, “but it ain’t been real fun. I’m going home.”
“I’ll walk out with you,” I said. “I need to get my lead launcher.” Harlan walked out with us.
When I got back to the house, I stepped in the door and found Ben waiting on the landing. I handed him the shotgun case. He took it down to the den. Daniel stood looking out the slider toward the lake. “You guys eat?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “We went to Greenville and saw that new space picture about aliens that look like grasshoppers. You owe me twenty bucks.”
“Why don’t you run into town and get us a burger?”
“Sure,” he said, and stuck his hand out.
“Your mother has the money.”
“Get me the chicken sandwich,” said Wendy. “Take a twenty out of my purse.”
“That won’t be enough to cover the movie and my gas.”
“Tough it out,” she said. “You got to see the movie.”
Ben yelled his order up the stairs.
“Marvel to me,” I said. “He doesn’t hear that well when I’m looking for him.”
“Suffers from selective hearing,” said Wendy. “Got that from your side of the family.”
Daniel departed. When he returned, we ate our burgers at the picnic table on the deck. He even thought to bring a burger for Karen, but she’d already zonked out, so Ben ate it—said the lettuce would wilt in the refrigerator.
We watched the deputy load his boat onto the trailer in the now-dim light and listened to the bugs immolate themselves on the bug zapper. Someone knocked on the door. I abandoned my burger and found Howard Dunsel standing on my porch. He had his hat in his hands and a glum look on his face.
“We didn’t get ’em,” he said.
21
Howard Dunsel wrung his state police captain’s hat between his hands. “There’s a section and a half of heavy cover over there. What do you want me to do?” he said.
“Catch ’em!”
“Art, I’ve done everything that I can think of.”
“Nobody said you didn’t. Just save the ‘gee-whiz’ act for the PTA.”
“I think they’re gone,” said Howard. “We’re searching their residences and talking to their friends and neighbors.”
“They’re policemen; they know what you’re going to do.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’ll probably roll them up tonight.”
“What was the big commotion? We thought you had them.”
“We grabbed a couple of growers and an acre plot of marijuana—biggest grower bust in the state so far this year.”
“Hell, that’s gonna put the local economy in a tailspin.”
“We’re going to patrol heavy in this area tonight,” said Howard. He put his hat back on. “If we don’t pick them up in town tonight, we’ll be back out with the dogs tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow morning they’ll be eating cornflakes at my kitchen table.”
“In the movies, Hardin. Get real.”
I stuck my hand out the door and Howard took it. “Thank you for the grand effort,” I said. “Sure hope you’re right!”
He said, “Take care to lock up good tonight.�
��
I took my hand back. “You can count on that.”
Howard nodded and left.
I considered giving the area a quick patrol myself, but decided it would be best to let them come to us if they were still in the area. I went back out to the deck.
“What was that about?” asked Wendy.
“That was Howard. He says they chased Chuck and Paulie out of the area, but he’s going to increase patrols.”
“You mean they didn’t get them? They all flew out of here.”
“They found a couple of guys with a big marijuana patch across the lake.”
“So they quit looking?”
“Howard said they would probably arrest Chuck and Paulie in Grand Rapids tonight.”
“What do you think?” she asked. She wrinkled her forehead.
“The SWAT commander told me that Chuck was shot in the exchange with the state trooper, so they’re both hurt now,” I said. “I think they’re looking for medical help.” I made myself sound convincing.
Wendy walked into the kitchen and picked up the telephone. She called Walt Walker. “You know that night scope you told me about … how’d you like to try it out? … Yeah … believe it or not, they got away. … That’s what I had in mind. … No, we should be fine once it’s light out.”
Wendy hung up the telephone and looked at me. She said, “I’m going to bed.” She gave me a little pulse of the eyebrows. “Don’t be too long.”
I made a tour of the house to lock the doors and windows. Daniel had a movie running in the den. I told him to lock his door when he went to bed. He nodded in the affirmative.
I eased Karen’s door open far enough to reach through and set the lock. Upstairs Ben gunned down aliens on the Nintendo.
“Don’t stay up too late,” I told him.
“Right,” he answered without looking up.
“Lock your door when you go to bed.”
“Always do.”
I stepped into my bedroom. Wendy sat on the side of the bed in her robe. I pulled the door shut and locked it. She smiled.
“I didn’t want to mention it earlier,” said Wendy, “but Pete said that he might be able to argue that the money in the Bahamas really was a retirement account. The feds got their tax money, and she did make contributions.”
“Trust Pete to figure out how to get paid. Now, I think I’m in the wrong business.”
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