by Dave Balcom
He showed up around 9 a.m., and Big Mike poured him a coffee without a word. Lawton was tight lipped with anger.
“They wouldn’t let you in?”
“Not without a warrant. We had one faxed to us in about ten minutes, and then they wanted to send it to their lawyer; Crocker I presume. So I had one of the guys run a squad through the gate, and we went in with guns drawn.
“There were three women, an old grandmother, Santiago’s wife and his sister-in-law and one gardener who looks like a refugee from the World Wrestling Federation.
“They were of no help. I can’t believe those two were able to clear out of Dodge last night.”
I thought for a minute. “Any sign of a jet boat?”
“There are three of them tied up at a dock in the compound.”
We drove out to the Seth Buchanan property. We went past the compound, and there was nothing to see. The gardener had parked a vehicle in front of the shattered gate. There was a trooper parked on the road, keeping an eye on the entrance in case anyone tried to leave.
The road became gravel at a sign announcing the entrance to the federal forest land. A mile up the road, we were informed we were leaving the National Forest. I could just make out the next “Entering the Huron National Forest” sign up ahead on the road.
There was a small road to the left, towards the river; blocked by a powder coated iron gate like you’d see on any ranch out West. There was no cattle guard in the ground.
We parked the car at the gate. The two-track ended in a turnaround which circled a grove of cedar trees. There was a pump and a fire ring. The location, overlooking the river, was spectacular. I wondered why Mickey had never built on this lot.
We concluded nobody had been on this spot for a long time. “Trespassers would have left shit,” Lawton grumbled. “It’s like they can’t help themselves.”
We were back in the car and headed to the Inn when I had a thought. “Miles, let’s take a look at Mickey’s place up Copper Creek. Whaddaya think?”
“It won’t hurt,” he said, taking the left turn up the creek road.
The gate barricading Mickey’s driveway was not nearly as foreboding as the one at the compound, but it too was locked. We again parked and started up the driveway.
“Just a minute,” Lawton told me. He opened the door and started talking on his radio. I could hear only the “roger” back from the speaker.
He caught back up with me, and we started up the two-track drive again. This track also dead ended at a turnaround on the stream’s bank with Mickey’s garage off to the left of the circle. His house was further left. There was a paved walk leading around the garage, and I knew from my earlier reconnaissance that walkway would lead us first to the house and then, further, to the huge deck overlooking the stream.
The place was silent except for the burble of the creek and the sigh of the cedars in a gentle morning breeze. I noted that there were no bird noises or red squirrel chattering, and that seemed out of character to me. The drone of insects in the under story of the swamp was constant and something you just didn’t hear.
When no one answered the door, Lawton stepped away from it and headed towards the stream and the deck.
As the backyard came into full view, he stumbled and his face took on a crinkled, puzzled look before my mind registered the crack of a rifle. As I stood there trying to grasp what I was seeing, he collapsed on the ground. I dived on top of him.
I realized he had been shot, and as quickly realized the shooting wasn’t finished. I started dragging him under the lee of the deck while my mind went into replay. Where did that shot come from?
I heard another shot, and felt a tug at my left heel. I saw a ragged tear in my shoe, but I felt no pain.
I heard footsteps on the deck coming my way, and I took Lawton’s pistol out of his shoulder holster. I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive.
I rolled onto my back and waited to see someone appear above the edge of the deck, the pistol in my two-handed grip, pointed up at where I thought the person making those steps would appear.
“Wait a minute, don’t go any closer,” I heard from my far right. “Let me take a look to see if they’re both down.”
The steps stopped, but they started again, slower. I tensed. The older Santiago, wearing a panama hat, appeared above the edge of the deck. He saw me in the shooting position just as I saw him, “What the f...,” he exclaimed and started to duck down.
“First, sailor, cut the odds,” I could hear that wizened drill sergeant from long ago as we practiced infiltration strategies. “Everything else comes in time, but first, cut down the odds.”
Lawton’s gun went off as if of its own volition. The first shot spun Santiago around; the second missed; the third and fourth both found flesh in his shoulder, and he screamed as he went down.
I focused on my breathing. I could hear him crawling away from me. I wondered about Means and his damned rifle.
“Jesus, Ricardo! I told you to wait.” I could hear fear and anger in his voice, and I knew Means would be working his way around the deck, angling toward the creek bank. Soon he’d have an angle on us. I assessed the lattice that covered the space between the ground and the deck. It was just stapled to the deck footings. I kicked at it, and it came apart. I crawled into the darkness under the deck, and reached back to grab Lawton by the collar to drag him in with me, but then thought better of it.
Like a football drill from high school, I raised myself up on my toes and hands, keeping my butt down under the deck’s spanners, I started scurrying like a crab deeper under the deck, trusting I was being quiet enough so Means couldn’t hear me, and trusting the darkness under there shielded me from his eyes.
After I passed the steps to the river, I veered back to the edge, and peered out through the lattice. Nothing.
I worked my fingers into the lattice and started pushing to free the staples. Just as the lattice separated from the deck enough to let me out, I heard Means bound up on the deck from the end where I’d left Lawton.
“Fuck you, Stanton. I know you’re down there, and you’re dead. He started firing through the deck, and I could see bullets hitting the dirt behind me.
“You’re never coming out of there alive, you cocksucker. I just don’t give a shit any more.”
It was obvious to me that Means was cracking under the pressure of combat. I’d seen it before. I held my position, and kept track of my center as he wandered aimlessly around the deck, firing his rifle straight down.
When he expended his clip, he reached for another. I could hear him as he patted first one pocket of his shorts, then another. He was out of ammo.
I acted immediately. On my hands and knees I bulled my way through the lattice in a sustained lunge. When the lattice gave up, I hurtled out on the grass, turning onto my back as I did so.
To my surprise, there were two targets on the deck. Santiago was sitting slumped in a chair at an umbrella table. His head was hanging down, and his left shoulder was a mass of blood. He had a big blue automatic pistol resting in his right hand. Means was standing 15 feet to his left. My sudden appearance had left him standing there with his mouth ajar. I made a snap decision and shot as Santiago started to raise his head.
The 9 millimeter slug from Lawton’s weapon took Santiago just above the bridge of his nose, snapping his head back and killing him instantly. As I swung the gun to Means, he moved as quickly as any man I’d ever seen.
I shot twice but he was around the corner, and I knew I had missed him. I heard him run out of the driveway towards the road.
I went to Lawton. He had a pulse and he was breathing, but it was shallow. I jumped up and ran to the door of the cottage. There was a phone on the wall just inside the door and I called 911. Just as I did, I heard the garage door open, and the sound of a powerful engine accelerating out of the driveway. I focused on reporting the need for an ambulance for Lawton.
I was putting pressure on both the entry and exit wounds t
o Lawton’s upper rib cage when two troopers came storming up the road, just seconds after I’d called.
One of them came running with a first-aid kit; the other was talking on the radio, directing a fire-rescue team of volunteer EMTs into the place.
The trooper shoved me out of the way, took vital signs and did just what he was trained to do.
“How’d you make it here so fast?”
“Lawton asked for backup, and we were just outside the gate when the nine-eleven call came.”
“Did you see the big guy running down the road?”
“Didn’t see anyone.”
“That’s amazing. There was a guy running, and then there was a car going like a bat out of hell… they couldn’t have missed you guys by a second.”
“When you’re under stress like you are, the timing can seem different,” he said. “Just take a breath, and we’ll hear your story as soon as the detective’s taken care of.”
I slumped back against the deck, and wondered, “Why had they opened up on us like that?”
49
By the time they had Miles in the ambulance and headed for a helicopter ride to Traverse City, there were about 30 police officials on scene.
I’d given my statement twice already, once on a tape. I was becoming something of an expert at homicide investigative processes.
I saw Sgt. Fish talking with state police officials and the county Sheriff. He approached me with two young guys.
“Mr. Stanton, for the sake of your memory, these are Moe and Curly. They’re MSP crime scene investigators. We’d like you to walk them through this whole thing.”
Both of these young men nodded and smiled at me, ready to go. Curley and Moe.
And Fish meant to physically walk through it. We started on the two-track and I led them up to the back door, then we retraced Lawton’s steps towards the backyard. I was trying to remember just where he was standing when one of the techs hissed, “Here. Freeze!”
Everyone stopped what they were doing. Curly, or maybe it was Moe, squatted. “Look at this.” Then even I could see it, a three-foot plume of blood painted the tips of the grass in a line that stretched right to his hands.
“I’d guess Detective Lawton was standing right about…”
“Here…” the other tech said, taking a place that put him about three feet ahead of the narrow end of the plume and the other tech at the wider end.
The tech on the ground pulled a tape measure out of his vest and stretched it out parallel to the blood spray. The other tech put a cross on the ground, doing some math out loud. “Impact on Lawton’s ribs would make it, what, four feet above the ground? Do the geometry, I’d say, right about here. Where were you, then?”
I took a position three or four feet behind and to the left of the cross.
The tech put a cross there, too, and we went on. I showed them where I had dragged Lawton out of what I thought was the line of fire, and how I’d waited in the lee of the deck.
“That was good thinking,” the older of the two techs said. “Where’d you learn anything like that?” I shook my head, and I went on with my story.
We all did the crab walk together under the deck, and I showed them where I had barged back out into the yard and where I had shot Santiago.
“That was a helluva shot, considering. You had combat training with a handgun? Why’dja shoot this one and not the other one?”
“Threat assessment,” I said, gesturing towards the spot where Santiago had died. “He wasn’t out of bullets.” I shook my head and shrugged. “And I was aiming at his chest, body mass…”
The County Sheriff and Fish had been tagging along through most of this. Fish was taking notes.
“You shot four times at the beginning, how many shots did you fire from here?” the older tech asked.
I thought about it. One for Santiago; two or three for Means? “I can’t really remember, maybe four here too?”
“You always shoot in two-shot groups?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t actually ‘always’ do anything with a gun. This isn’t what I do.” My voice had gotten a bit strident, and Fish stepped in.
“Play recall, Jim. How many shots?”
“I hit Santiago first, then aimed at Means…“ I put my mental playback on, concentrating on my breathing. Everything in the memory slowed down, and I could actually see the bullets hitting the garage behind Means as he darted around the corner of the house.
“Yes, it was twice,” I told him. “Total of seven shots.”
“That checks out, there were seven rounds left in Lawton’s weapon,” Curly said.
“You familiar with the nine millimeter?” the older tech asked again.
“Never saw one before. The only autos I’ve ever shot were forty-fives, and that was nearly forty years ago. Colts, they were.”
“If you haven’t had experience with a nine millimeter, how did you know there’d be a seventh shot in that weapon?”
“I didn’t. I just would have kept shooting until it quit or the targets were gone.”
He nodded and walked away, said something to Fish, and then the Sergeant approached with a smile, “Let me take you back to town. You’re probably exhausted.”
“I’m real hungry. And sore. That was a workout, and I’m always hungry when I come down from being frightened.”
As we walked out of the circle and towards the road, I noticed an old, overgrown two-track bearing off to the left of the track we were on.
I saw grass that was freshly crushed by a speeding vehicle.
“Sergeant, this is how they fled without running into the troopers. I wonder why they… of course, they knew the gate was locked. I’ll bet they hit the road down here somewhere with no gate.”
“Jim, we’ll check this out; let me drive you back to town.”
As we were driving, Fish took a cell phone call. He listened for a minute, and then hung up. “Lawton’s going to make it. Clean through and through; it even missed his lung. He’s going to recover completely. They’re not even going to transfer him out of Traverse.”
I sat back in the seat and closed my eyes in relief. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d been waiting to hear about Miles.
“You think you’ve figured all this out now, Jim?” Fish asked.
“It doesn’t make sense. Why kill people? I just can’t figure out what’s so important about all this stuff that you’d start killing people?”
But I knew, even then, that the answer was going to come from my asking questions. Mickey had laid down a challenge, and I would have to prove that I could ask the questions he counted on my asking…
50
Friday morning found me in my car headed to the Kalkaska County courthouse. Jan was riding shotgun, talking on the phone with the hospital in Traverse City.
“Miles is really in good shape. They’re sending him home tomorrow. He’ll be off work for about a month, then limited duty for about three months, but he’s doing well.”
We were timing our trip to hit the courthouse as it opened. I was looking forward to meeting the gals I’d been talking to on the phone.
“Any word on Means?”
“There’s an APB out on him, and Fish said they’re also looking for Charlotte and her Escalade. They think it was her vehicle that boogied out of the garage while you were calling the cops.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she was behind the wheel, either, but I can’t know for sure. I never saw.”
We pulled into the courthouse parking lot at the stroke of 9, and strolled into the building as a variety of people were opening their offices.
The equalization office was on the ground floor, and we headed there first.
“Carolyn,” Jan said to an attractive middle-aged woman behind the counter, “I’d like you to meet Jim Stanton in person.”
Carolyn’s eyes lit up with the smile I could hear on the telephone. She extended her hand, and I said, “It’s great to finally meet you in person, Caroly
n.”
“Same here. I told Jan that I wanted a warning when you would be coming here again; I wanted you to sign a book for me.”
“I’ll tell you what; I’ll sign whatever you want. You’ve taken the term public service to a new level. I don’t know how long we’re going to be here today, but I’ll make sure you have a signed copy of a book.”
She was actually blushing as we excused ourselves and headed to the Register’s office.
“Wow, I’m cavorting around with a real live celebrity,” Jan said in a stage whisper. “Whodda thunk it?”
“And you cavort quite naturally; I’ll bet your mother would be proud.”
Jan introduced me to Betty Davis in the Register’s office, and we chatted for just a minute. She asked about Patty’s recovery, and Jan filled her in. While they talked, I inspected the crowded front office. There was a work table squeezed in between towering, oversized file cabinets. A screen, keyboard and mouse were sitting on the table, and I realized it was hooked into a main frame computer somewhere.
I heard their conversation stall out, and I studied Betty for a second. She was a plump and rosy-cheeked woman that I would guess was in her late 20s or early 30s. It was hard to picture Ron White falling for her.
She touched her hair often, and her eyes didn’t always stay connected to others when she spoke.
“I know we didn’t call ahead, but I hope we can spend some time on that station this morning, Betty.”
“Oh, not a problem this week. Last Friday was crazy,” she said, affecting the put-upon voice of the martyr that everyone who has ever worked in an office would recognize all too well. Ms. Davis carried the weight of the department, the courthouse, hey, even the state and world, on her ample shoulders.
“Do you need a refresher course, Jan?” she asked.
“No, thanks,” Jan said. “I think I can remember.”
We sat at the table. Jan sat at the screen, me in a straight backed chair to her right and slightly behind her. As she hit the space bar, the screen came to life.