As the Crow Dies

by Kenneth Butcher

  “This is insane,” Lucile said, but Dinah just held out her hand for the helmet Lucile was holding.

  “I have to stop this. No one else can,” Dinah said. After a moment of hesitation, Lucile let her have the helmet. Dinah strapped on the familiar headgear with the jammer’s star. “Stay with the others and make sure the knucklehead is tied up till we return. Whatever is going to happen will happen pretty quick.”

  With no further words, she was off, using long power-kicks to get her momentum up. She looked over her shoulder and saw Lucile still watching.

  It didn’t take long to build up as much speed as she dared, and then she settled into a rhythm of long kicks and glides. She kept an eye out for debris on the road. Hitting a rock or a crack in the pavement was her biggest concern. When she entered the tunnel, it took a second for her eyes to adjust to the low light, but she had no trouble spotting the body of the sniper on the other side. She didn’t slow to look but nevertheless got a clear glance. It was enough to confirm what she suspected. This was indeed the guy she had followed through downtown Asheville.

  From there, she simply skated, clearing her mind and settling her nerves. In her fight with the guard at the inn, she had enjoyed the luxury of planning out a series of moves in advance. Not so now, since the scene she was skating into was unknown. She would have to rely on instinct and reflexes, but these she had honed with years of training and practice. Anyway, like she told Lucile, whatever was about to happen would happen fast, and then it would be over and she would be okay or some degree of not okay, and then she would deal with that. That’s how we roll, she thought. She knew she was on point now, and it was not the first time. She accepted it with calm and focus.

  As she expected, it was mostly downhill. All she had to do was glide and maintain speed with an occasional kick. Then she hit a section through a narrow pass that was slightly uphill with enough momentum to carry her through. When she came to the crest, she saw a steep downhill section in front of her. At the bottom was a hard curve to the left, and on the right, in a pull-off for the scenic overlook, was the white van. She saw a large man standing with an assault rifle. The others must be blocked by the van. The man was by the guard rail and was looking the other way. He would have to be her first target. If he turned and saw her too soon, he could shoot, if he was fast. Really fast. She would have no time to go for her own gun. She gave a couple of kicks, then tucked into a low crouch and let gravity take her.

  By the time Segal heard the whirring of her skates, Dinah was on the guy.

  The man had time to spin toward her and put up his arm in a futile blocking motion.

  Segal watched Dinah pull a notorious move she was famous for with big skaters on the roller derby track. She straightened enough to give the guy what he thought was an easy target, then at the last split second—faster than seemed possible—she ducked under his arm and came up quickly for impact. She hit him like a cannonball. In a roller derby competition, she would have let her arms contact the opponent’s chest. She would hit her target hard enough to knock her off balance but not hard enough to hurt. For this killer, she spared no energy, planting her starred helmet under his chin and pushing up with both arms. Then came a horrific sound of breaking bone as the helmet struck and the man flipped in an awkward cartwheel over the guard rail. Segal heard him crashing through branches far below but no scream or any other human sound.

  “That’s my partner,” Segal whispered. He raised his bound hands and rushed the colonel.

  With little remaining momentum, Dinah spun off the rail and headed toward her second target. She’ll make it before I do. Segal hurried.

  The colonel spun toward her, pointing his pistol. He fired and missed. As she came in, he squeezed off a second shot when Segal hit him from behind. It was an ungainly blow with his hands bound together but it made the shot go wide. Dinah hit the colonel with weakened speed but hard enough to knock him down. Segal stepped on the colonel’s gun hand, and Dinah pulled her own gun.

  Segal heard Mattie and Francis behind them. Mattie yelled, “Oh, shit!” The smell of acrid fumes filled the air.

  Dinah said, “Bullet hole.”

  The colonel’s stray shot had entered the van. A lazy yellow flame was curling up from inside it.

  Segal wasted no time. “Over the side!” he yelled. He grabbed Dinah and pulled her to the end of the railing, where the trail of steps was cut into the mountainside. He grabbed her belt, lifted, and jumped. Mattie and Francis were right behind them, the four of them tumbling on the trail steps. Brush and twigs cut and flailed Segal’s skin. Rocks smashed him. Finally, he came to a stop. Dinah was near; Mattie and Francis too.

  He covered his head, expecting the detonation blast. It did not come. He looked up to see the colonel standing above them, taking calm aim with his machine gun. And that was when the explosion came with a deafening concussive whump and a mass of flame and smoke, propelling the colonel like a flying shadow, into the air, across the skies, jettisoning him far off the side of the mountain. Debris and dust rained and Segal covered his head tight.

  CHAPTER 43

  All In

  When the storm of debris subsided, Segal raised his head. He checked his body for functional parts with his bound and scraped bloody hands, and he was okay except for a hollow ringing in his ears. Segal shouted. “Okay? Everyone okay?” The others stirred, and apart from bruises and scrapes, they were in one piece and basically unharmed. Dinah freed their hands. They climbed up the steps of the trail, Segal’s hip giving him trouble. Talking was out of the question.

  Mattie held her ears. Francis followed, shaking his head side to side.

  When they reached the top and got over the guard rail, Segal thought the blood pushing through his brain might be too much for him. He had to sit down. Mattie and Francis sat nearby.

  Soon, several black SUVs pulled up. The head of the Secret Service got out. Segal watched him look at what was left of the van, which was not much, glance at the charred pieces of jagged metal, then eye the four of them, his gaze settling on Dinah, her helmet now off. To Segal, she looked smaller in her stocking feet, holding her skates. The agent walked over and addressed Segal and Dinah.

  “Status of suspects?”

  “One dead on the road. About a mile up that way.” Segal blew out a breath.

  “One in custody at the inn,” Dinah said.

  That was news to Segal. He would have to hear that story himself.

  “One over the side. Presumed dead. At least incapacitated,” Segal pointed. “And the leader is right there.”

  The Secret Service men went to the rail. Segal got up and joined them, painful as the effort was.

  There he saw the body of the colonel. Clothes torn to rags. Burnt from the blast. He was lodged in the twisted limbs of an oak. As Segal closed his eyes and then opened them, two crows circled in the air before alighting on the branches beside the body, one on each side.

  Mattie walked over. “As if the crows are stationed there to make sure the colonel’s spirit will not reenter his body and bring him back to life.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got to hear the story behind this,” the Secret Service man said.

  Another black SUV pulled up. Four more Secret Service men got out. The head guy sent a couple of them to the inn and the others to look for the man who went over the side. It didn’t take long for them to find him and confirm he was no longer a threat to anyone.

  Segal relaxed as much as possible. Dinah sat there without speaking. Francis walked over. “Hello,” he said and smiled weakly. “My name is Francis Elah. Thank you for protecting my family.”

  The Secret Service man spoke to the air. “They want to know if it’s clear to bring POTUS up for the hike,” he said, and nodded toward Segal.

  “I think it’s clear,” Segal said.

  The Secret Service man hesitated.

  “After what everyone has been through, I think we’d like to see him take that hike,” Dinah said.

  The
Secret Service man must have seen the same thing Segal saw in Dinah’s face. Into the radio, he said, “Give us fifteen to clean some things up.”

  Later, at the Pisgah Inn, the Elah family—Francis, Emily, and Suzie—enjoyed their reunion on the porch outside the restaurant. The little girl would not let go of her father. As a group of black SUVs pulled up, Mattie played a few bars of “Hail to the Chief” on a little squeezebox. Segal and Lucile stood from their rocking chairs where they were holding hands. The president and first lady emerged from the third SUV, dressed for hiking. Before they got on the trail, though, they walked over and greeted the small group on the porch, which was how everyone got a chance to shake hands with the president. When he reached Francis, the president held his hand longer, leaned in, and said, “Thanks for everything.” The takeaway photograph of the visit, the president and first lady kneeling by Suzie in her wheelchair with the panorama of Pisgah National Forest in the background, would be picked up by the press worldwide. Suzie was wearing Dinah’s helmet with the white star.

  After the president and first lady left for the trail, accompanied by several Secret Service men, the head man came up on the porch, signing off a call on his cell phone. “Got cell service back and found out about your buddy, Andrew Roche,” he said to Segal. Dinah came over to hear as well. “He was with Cormorant, all right-they—threatened him—but still in the country. We got him out of there, and he should be home in a day or two, after we debrief him as part of the investigation.”

  The president and first lady labored up the trail and turned into a switchback, where the view unfolded below them through an opening in the trees. They paused and took it in for a moment in silence, catching their breath as they did.

  They were about to move on when they heard an odd sound from the trees. They turned to see the source, and the first lady said in a barely audible whisper, “Oh, look, a deer. Can you believe how cute it is?”

  The president looked at the animal and tilted his head. He was not so sure. He was a city guy and certainly no expert on deer, but this one did not strike him as cute or good looking in any way. In fact, now that he looked more closely, he thought it might be cross-eyed. “The ears seem really big,” the president said.

  “You’re going to talk about big ears?” she said.

  The first lady shook a little trail mix into her hand and took a step toward the deer, offering the treat on her open palm.

  The deer said, “AAAAA, BEEEE, CEEEE.”

  The president and first lady screamed in unison and jumped back. From ahead and behind on the trail, Secret Service men converged, guns drawn. One of the men tackled the deer. From the ground, the deer raised its head slightly, said “DEEEE,” and collapsed with its tongue hanging out to one side.

  The incident was not reported to the press.

  Jerome Guilford struggled to consciousness in the recovery room of the VA hospital on the east side of Asheville. After the hikers sent a runner ahead for help, he had endured a painful journey by stretcher and ambulance to the VA, where he was moved almost immediately into surgery for his bullet wound and other injuries.

  As the effects of the anesthetic waned, his memory of events began to float into place piece by piece—the shots, the wreck, the plummet down the mountain. Then he remembered the reason he had been doing all of this. He grabbed the sleeve of a nurse as she passed his bed.

  “The president. Is he all right?” he asked.

  The nurse took his hand and put it on the bed. “The president is fine. Now, you take it easy and let me know when you want a drink of water.” She looked at the monitor and moved on.

  Jerome Guilford lay back, relieved. But as he began to doze off, another half-memory drifted into his mind. It was a memory from the operating room.

  It seemed there was a moment just after the surgery when he had regained a foggy awareness. He had raised his head and seen the surgeon pulling off his gloves and taking the mask off his face. And beside the surgeon was another, much smaller figure, also dressed in surgical gown and mask. When a nurse pulled tiny gloves off its hands, Guilford saw agile, little jet-black fingers ending in black claws. The small figure held its hand up, and the surgeon gave it a high five, after which the surgeon took out two bite-sized Snickers bars, one for himself and one for his assistant.

  Or then again, maybe it was just the drugs playing tricks with his mind.

  CHAPTER 44

  Epilogue–Six Months After

  Dinah had been out of town for a few weeks on a training course in Raleigh. It had been a while since she’d seen Segal. There was no doubt she was on the track for bigger and better things in law enforcement. It was her first night back in Asheville and Segal said why didn’t they get together at the New Belgium brewery. Sit on the porch and watch the river roll by.

  He was already sitting there when Dinah arrived. She hung back and looked at him. She liked what she saw. His back was straighter. Something about the way he held his head and shoulders seemed more robust. He still looked more like a college professor than a cop though. There was a book on the table in front of him, of course, but it just lay there. He wasn’t doing that nervous fiddling thing with the pages.

  He must have sensed her gaze because he looked up and smiled. She ran to him and they hugged. He held it a beat or two longer than she might have expected.

  “Missed you,” he said. “You get them all straightened out in Raleigh?”

  “Not even close,” she said. She slid into a seat at the table. They ordered their beers, took the first sip, took a deep breath and decompressed. She gazed down the hill. The view of the river was just as he said it would be. She looked upstream to the right.

  “That’s where it started,” she said. They could just make out that place in the river bank where the body had been found.

  Segal nodded. “You hear 12 Bones is moving?” he asked.

  “No way,” Dinah said. Twelve Bones seemed like too much of an institution to change.

  “Not far,” Segal assured her. “Maybe a quarter-mile upriver. Still in the Arts District.”

  She found that strangely reassuring.

  “Everything tied up on the case?” she asked. “I still feel bad leaving you with the loose ends and paperwork.”

  Segal dismissed this with a wave. “Part of the job. But we’re pretty well wrapped up, at least on our end. The murders are down to the sniper, who of course is dead. The DA is not bringing charges against the surviving member of the Cormorant team. Can’t put him actually at any of the scenes. Don’t worry. He’ll answer for federal charges of conspiracy.”

  “And the Cormorant company as a whole?”

  Segal reclined a little. “The colonel was right about one thing. In the aftermath, it comes down to who can tell the best story, or maybe who can tell the story people want to hear. In this case, the story that’s least embarrassing for the powers that be is that the colonel and his little group went rogue and no one else knew what was going on. I suspect that some version of that will be the official history. At the same time, I heard Nancy Lund has her eye on them, so they’re not completely off the hook.”

  They took a couple of drinks in silence and watched the river flow, complete with its kayaks and canoes and paddleboards.

  “I heard Lucile is gone,” Dinah said, more as a question than a statement.

  “Like a turkey in the corn,” Segal said.

  Dinah felt a rush of sympathy.

  Segal smiled. “It’s OK. Lucile was exactly what I needed at the time, but it was not destined to last. She’s out on the West coast now working with sea otters. Some project funded by that internet billionaire who funded the mule deer thing.” He took another drink. “What about you?” he asked. “After your performance, in this case, I expected the Secret Service to recruit you. You made quite an impression on Straus and the others.”

  She grinned. “I may have gotten a call. Washington isn’t Asheville, Segal. Maybe someday. I’m not done here.”


  He nodded. “Good.”

  Dinah reached out and picked up the book from the table in front of him.

  “Cormac McCarthy? This is new for you, isn’t it?”

  “I decided it’s time to branch out.”

  “Well tell me this, Segal. With Cormac McCarthy, does everyone get exactly what they deserve in the end?”

  Segal grinned and downed the rest of his beer. “ I’m going to have to get back to you on that.”

  Dinah drank too. The river was extraordinary with wind and trees. When she put down her glass, a touch of winged air brushed her cheek.

  About the Author

  Kenneth Butcher is a materials engineer and researcher with sixteen U.S. patents. He was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up mostly in Ohio, where he was raised on a strict diet of science fiction, mystery novels, and classics. His first novel, The Middle of the Air (2009), received Ben Franklin and Independent Book Publishers awards. His second novel, The Dream of Saint Ursula (2014), is a mystery set in the Virgin Islands. Butcher lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where he continues to write and to research novel materials. He also publishes a podcast called The Middle of the Air, which concentrates on interviews with authors and artists who live or travel to the area. The podcast can be found at themiddleoftheair.com. His website is kennethbutcher.com.