[Frank Harper 01.0] A Field of Red

by Greg Enslen

  Frank felt a second wind rush through him, a temporary reprieve from the alarms of pain going off all over his back. Frank slid his arm down, trying to get to his belt holster.

  Another shot rang out upstairs, and a second, then three more in quick succession. Two different weapons firing, back and forth. Frank could hear people walking around as well, stuttering movements and running, followed by another shot. He had no idea what was happening, but he managed to free the handgun and got his other arm under his chest, propping himself up.

  Frank waited, watching the stairs.

  He heard someone running on the second floor, the old hardwoods squeaking. Feet appeared on the stairs--it was Sergeant Graves, racing to get away. By the time he got halfway down the staircase, Frank could see he’d escaped any injury.

  Frank shot him.

  Graves screamed and fell backward, the shotgun clattering to the floor. Frank fired again. A red hole appeared in the man’s neck. For a moment, he looked at Frank, Graves’ hands going to his neck. Blood bubbled from between his fingers, and Frank thought of that cauldron of fake blood. Then the man slumped backward against the stairs.

  He heard other people walking around upstairs. Frank smiled through the blood.

  After a moment, the young man and Maya came down the stairs--she had been fighting him, slapping at him but then stopped when she saw the bleeding man on the stairs.

  “It’s okay, you’re okay,” George was telling Maya.

  They walked gingerly around Graves. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the young man pointed to Frank, who had managed to work his way up into a sitting position and was leaning against the door frame.

  “You stay with him,” the young man said. “He’s a policeman, a good one. Not like the other guy. And help is on the way--Charlie already got out. You just stay here, okay?”

  Maya nodded.

  Frank watched as the young man walked back over to the woman and patted her on the back one more time, touching her head gently. It seemed like a very long moment, but it couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. Then the young man stood, crying, and picked up two of the shotguns, hoisting them over his shoulders. His ear was still bleeding.

  George walked over and looked at Frank for a moment, then stepped right over him and continued out the door.

  Frank turned painfully. The young man put both shotguns into the Corolla, then walked over to Graves’ police car and opened the doors, searching around inside for a few moments. He stood, taking out a green duffel bag, then pulled it open, smiling at the contents.

  Frank couldn’t see what was inside, but he could guess: it had to be the second ransom.

  George walked back over and climbed into the white Corolla with the busted side mirror. He started the car, pulled on his seat belt and, with the curtest of nods in Frank’s direction, drove down the dark driveway and disappeared into the night.

  Chapter 64

  “And he just drove away?”

  They were in his hospital room. Bright sunlight shone in the windows. Outside, the ground was littered with fallen leaves in a dozen different colors of red and yellow and orange. It looked like the rain was finally gone for good.

  “Just stepped right over me,” Frank said, nodding. “Kept on walking. Searched the police car and found the missing money--”

  “Sergeant Graves had it?” Laura asked, leaning forward. “So he’s the one that attacked you and took the money?”

  Frank nodded and set down the Jell-O. It was the only part of his meager lunch that he couldn’t stomach. Why did they always serve Jell-O in hospitals? He’d thought it was a myth from watching too many movies, but there it was on his tray. Green and slimy and not the kind of food he was looking forward to--Frank wanted a steak.

  He leaned over gingerly and handed it to Jackson, who smiled and sat back down on the floor next to the hospital bed to enjoy it.

  Frank turned to Laura.

  “Yes, it was Sergeant Graves,” Frank said. “Of course, I figured it all out too late, but he was in on it from the start. Helped Lassiter set up the whole thing and then ‘managed’ the investigation all the way through. ‘Managed’ Lassiter, too, right up to the end.”

  Laura shook her head.

  “Geez, the guy sounds like a real piece of work,” she said. “What about the young man--he got away?”

  “Yup--George, the young man, was the one taking care of the girls,” Frank said. “They put out a nationwide APB on him. Little Charlie was in yesterday to visit, and she said that he was the only one who was nice to them. Evidently the young woman, Chastity, helped out as little as possible.”

  Laura nodded and looked out the windows. A sturdy breeze shook the trees outside, which were painted with the fiery colors of fall. Most of the leaves had already dropped. Winter was right around the corner.

  “I still can’t believe it was a cop,” she said. “It’s horrible. It was no wonder those little girls got into the car with him. And then he was helping with the investigation? I can’t believe Graves fooled everyone like that.”

  Frank nodded. “Peters and I were working from the ‘inside job’ assumption late in the investigation, like I told you. But we never figured out who it was, not until it was too late,” Frank said. “He was clever, I’ll say that much. While he wasn’t running the investigation, he was close enough to influence it.”

  “Steering it?”

  “Yes, to a degree,” Frank said. “But he’d been dirty for a while. Apparently he’d been running a marijuana grow operation up at that farmhouse for years, growing the pot right out in the backyard. Between him being a cop and the high fences, no one ever found out.”

  “Why did he do it? Why be part of a kidnapping like that?” Laura asked.

  “Money, I guess. Anyone can be tempted. The Chief also said Tyler Graves and Nick Martin had had a falling out a long time ago, back in high school,” Frank said. “Nick was a football star back then. King wasn’t sure what happened, but it had something to do with Glenda.”

  “Did they ever date, Graves and Glenda?”

  “Not sure. The Chief is looking into it. Apparently there was a history of bad blood between them for a long time.”

  Laura nodded.

  “Chief King is taking it worse than anyone,” Frank said, looking down at Jackson working on the Jell-O. “He thought of Tyler as his right-hand man, really. The man had King completely fooled.”

  She looked out the window--it was a sunny day, warmer than usual for late October. The trees were moving in a breeze that dropped more leaves to the ground.

  “Have you decided what you’re doing with the reward?” she asked.

  Frank nodded.

  “Splitting it with Deputy Peters,” he said. “He deserves it. He got shot twice as much as I did,” Frank said, grinning.

  Laura smiled. “You must feel better--you’re making jokes.”

  “I am feeling better,” Frank said. “I can’t wait for the bruising to go down--it hurts every time I breathe. I just wish the food was better in here.”

  “I meant what are you going to spend your money on.” she asked.

  He leaned back into the hospital bed. “I’m not sure--probably a new car. Settle some debts.” Frank looked up at her. “Maybe help you out with Jackson’s school tuition--you said it was expensive.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said, looking down at Jackson.

  He nodded.

  “I’d like to help.”

  Laura looked up at him. “I’m glad you’re thinking about getting a better car,” she said, smiling at him. “Then maybe you can come visit more often.”

  Just the idea made Frank smile.

  “How is Deputy Peters?” Laura asked. “Is he getting better?”

  “Yup,” Frank said, sitting up a little. His back was numbed up and itchy, but at least he could lean back and put pressure on it now.

  “It was a good thing he had us both put on those vests,” Frank said
. “His vest blocked the shot to his chest, but the shoulder will take a little while to heal. It will be a few weeks before he’s back on duty, and even then, he’ll be stuck at a desk for a while,” Frank said. “If I hadn’t had my vest on...”

  Laura looked at Jackson, playing on the floor. The dinosaurs were attacking the leg of one of the hospital chairs, ganging up and working together to defeat the piece of furniture. A T-rex and a Brontosaurus and a whole gang of smaller dinosaurs circled the chair leg and began fighting over the empty Jell-O container.

  She looked up at Frank, her eyes a little shiny.

  “I was just so scared when I heard you’d been shot,” she said. “A policeman came to the house, and I was worried because of your warning. But then he said what had happened to you and I didn’t know what to do. I thought he might be lying. He didn’t use the word--”

  He patted her hand. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s just...we were just starting to reconnect, and, for a minute, I thought it was all going to be taken away again.” She looked out at the trees again. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” Laura said.

  Frank smiled at her and took her hand, squeezing it. He looked down at Jackson, playing happily with the dinosaurs Frank had bought for his grandson, and then back up at his daughter.

  “I’m better than okay,” Frank said, smiling.

  Epilogue

  The setting sun was just touching the tops of the ocean waves, painting the edges of the water with reds and yellows. Beyond the beach, tall stands of pine guarded the rocky shore, long shadows stretching out behind the rocks and trees, blending together in a gathering darkness.

  Sunset was coming to this quiet cove of salt and sand.

  In the distance, a small boat plied the water, bouncing up and down on the gentle swells far out to sea, racing to bring in the catch before the sun set.

  Closer to shore, sea birds dipped and soared above the surf, screeching in the twilight. Other birds scampered along the beach, stopping to dig at the sand with long bills, searching for food.

  The beach was empty. The wooden lifeguard stand stood unmanned. It was far too late in the season, and far too chilly, for beach goers to come out. Even if they braved the cold water, the setting sun would have chased them from the beach. The parking lot, often full in the summer, stood empty as the sun began to dip behind the watery horizon. Waves marched relentlessly toward the sandy beach, unwatched and forgotten.

  A car approached.

  The vehicle appeared from between the tall pines, winding in and out of the green, tracing a path down the curvy road that paralleled the rocky coastline.

  It was a newer car, not more than five years old. As it approached, it looked somewhat worse-for-wear, but the engine sounded strong and true. Whoever maintained the engine did so with care.

  The car slowed and turned into the empty parking lot, purring to a stop next to the sand. Birds skittered away and took flight, leaving the car alone.

  The door opened.

  A figure climbed from the car, a young man. He stood and stretched, his arms high above him. He stood and watched the water and the waves for a long time. The sun dropped closer to the waves, and the long shadowed stretched out even further.

  The waves marched toward the shore, oblivious to the visitor.

  After a minute, the young man leaned back into the car, rummaging through a green duffel bag, looking for something. The young man finally found what he was looking for and stood from the car, closing the door behind him with a solid “thunk.”

  George started his way across the darkening beach, taking his time, enjoying the rough sand and the hiss of the ocean. It was exactly as he had imagined it would be, and nothing like he imagined it would be.

  He’d imagined someone by his side.

  When he reached the water, George dipped his fingers in. The cold water lapped at his shoes, but he didn’t care. Instead, he simply stood in the surf and stared out at the ocean. It was unclear if he was looking at the crests of water marching toward him, or the setting sun, or the distant boat. Perhaps he watched the birds diving into the tops of the waves.

  The figure reached into his pocket and took something out. He held it up, looked at it for a long moment. It was the size and shape of a small apple, ornate and golden. George rolled the compact sewing kit in his hand, smiling. He looked at it for a long moment, then lifted it to his lips and kissed it.

  “Chas, you made it.”

  He drew back and prepared to throw it as far as he could into the water, but hesitated.

  George lowered his hand and looked at the golden orb. He looked at the waves around him, then back at the object in his hand. After a long moment, he slowly put it back into his pocket.

  The young man stood unmoving, the water and waves crashing around him. The water hissed like snakes on the sand as it ran back to the sea.

  And George patted his pocket and stared at the ocean, smiling.

  Thank You For Reading

  I hope you enjoyed the first book in the Frank Harper Mysteries Series, “A Field of Red.” Here is a preview of the next book in the series, “Black Ice.” Please enjoy this first chapter from the book, available on Kindle and in paperback.

  -- Greg

  “Black Ice”

  Chapter 1--On the Ice

  Fresh snow scudded across the surface of the frozen lake, blown by a relentless winter wind. The blowing snow and gusting wind had nearly scrubbed the ice clean.

  To the west, beyond the road and low bridge that delineated the western edge of Trapper’s Lake, a massive snowstorm approached, stretching across the horizon. It came like a wall of gray, darkening the sky, full of ice and snow and howling winds. According to the TV, it threatened to drop at least four inches of thick, heavy snow onto the frozen ice. Of course, as with weathermen everywhere, that could mean no snow at all, or the blizzard of the year.

  It was early February; in western Ohio, at least, that meant a month of raw and windblown days, typically punctuated with alternating days of winter storms, all of them mercilessly cold. The kind of days you just got through, trudging from home to car to work and back to home with your head down, watching the ground around your shoes for that one slippery spot that could ruin your day.

  Some days the skies were a deep dirty gray, threatening bad weather but never delivering. Other days, white skies as snowstorms raged over the lake and the towns beyond, burying the roads and fields in white.

  Often, the skies were so crisp and blue, full of sharp glare and hard-edged clouds. And when the thin winter sky was clear of all clouds, it hurt like hell to even look at it.

  On this day in February, the wall of clouds reached the lake and snow began falling across it, just a dusting to begin with. The sky was silent. Snow came down in straight white lines, coming to rest on the ice, covering it in patches and then, finally, leaving an uninterrupted blanket of white. More snow fell as the line of gray and white clouds pressed down against the horizon.

  Out on the frozen expanse, two hundred yards from the parking lot on the western shore, a grouping of squat wooden sheds hunkered down on the ice, surrounded by white flatness for a quarter mile in each direction. The surface of Trapper’s Lake had been frozen for over a month, solid enough to support the midwinter arrival of the bands of ice fishermen and their ramshackle shanties, small crude houses built over holes in the ice.

  Derek pulled into the parking lot in his red truck, hurrying. He eyed the storm and shook his head. He wanted to get his stuff and get out onto the ice before the storm arrived in earnest.

  He gathered up his bags and climbed down from the truck, grabbing a red plastic jug of gasoline from the back. He was tall and lanky and wrapped in a heavy coat and gloves for the walk across the ice.

  Derek parked in the lot as he always did. Some of the fishermen trusted the ice enough to drive their trucks down the boat ramp and out onto Trapper’s Lake--especially those folks with shanties located far across the ice--but Derek
never had. He’d always wondered about the ice and the weight of his truck and the other vehicles and shanties. Just exactly how much could the ice hold? Did any of the other ice fishermen actually have a good idea of what that exact number was? People talked, and people made shit up. People talked about stuff they knew nothing about and could make it sound like they were experts. Depending on who you talked to, the ice could hold all of them with no trouble, along with the Titanic and a freight train, all the way until the Thaw.

  Others said the expanse of black and blue ice could shatter at any moment.

  Derek kept his old truck on the shore, safe and sound.

  At the eastern edge of the parking lot was the boat ramp, sloping down into the frozen water. In the summer, people backed their boats into the water and took off to sail around the warm lake. Now, the asphalt sloped down into the black ice and disappeared.

  Derek locked his truck and made his way down to the lake and started the ten-minute walk to Westedge. The wind grew stronger as he made his way out onto the ice--a swath of trees along the parking lot blocked the wind.

  During the winter, the lot was used only by the groups of men who had ice shanties in Westedge, the informal name of the group of shanties near the western edge of Trapper’s Lake. The lake sported at least three other fishing shanty “villages,” a term Derek had always considered very fancy for a smattering of ramshackle sheds and lean-tos. Northside, Southside, and Centerlake, all names determined roughly by their location on the frozen lake. Some years there was also an Eastlake village as well, but for some reason this year the men in that locale had moved to the center of the lake and joined that group.

  He squinted ahead and saw he was getting closer. A group of eleven small huts alone on the flat expanse, huddled together in the falling snow as if for warmth. Even from here, Derek could hear the generators running, providing heat and power.

  Derek liked Westedge. The men were all cool, and not too serious. Some of the ice fishermen on Trapper’s were dicks, really serious about it. Derek was out here for the fun and the quiet, to get away from his dopey friends or to bring a girl out here for some privacy. Not to compare the size of his shanty or brag about how many BTUs his heater put out.