Deadman

by Jon A. Jackson

  But she had not reached the edge of the pond when she saw a light coming back down the trail. She groaned. Was there no end to this? She waded back to her hiding spot and restashed her gear as one of the parkaed cops arrived. He stopped by the edge of the pool, where the killers had stopped earlier. He lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth and said, “Carrie? This is Mulheisen. Jacky's still up there, watching. Far as we can tell they're all back in the cabin and bunkered in, I'm afraid. All we can do is wait for daybreak. Over.”

  A woman's voice came over the speaker. “Mul, I hate to tell you this, but the undersheriff is just pulling up, and it looks like he's got a whole division of marines or something with him. Hang on, he wants to talk to you.”

  A man's voice crackled out. Helen could hear it clearly in the crisp air. “Mulheisen? Crowley here. I've got my team. What's the situation?”

  Mulheisen sighed and explained that he and Deputy Lee had gotten close enough to the cabin to determine that six well-armed men were inside. There was no sign of Humann or the nurse, nor of Helen Sedlacek, although her rental car was still in the yard. The nurse's car was gone. Possibly Helen had fled with Humann and the nurse before the men had arrived. He recognized some of the men as Detroit hoods. He urged the undersheriff not to do anything precipitous. Surround the house, keep under cover, and wait until daylight. It would be a lot easier then to deal with the situation, and possibly they could induce the men to come out. After all, these men hardly faced any charge more serious than breaking and entering, if that.

  “Looks like this weather's clearing off,” Crowley said. “We could get a chopper up here, kinda give us an overview, make sure nobody slips out.”

  Mulheisen didn't think that was a good idea, an unnecessary expense. The undersheriff seemed annoyed, but he didn't object to Mulheisen's analysis of the situation. He said he would send some men up that way to reinforce Mulheisen and Jacky. The others would disperse around the front gate and the cabin, to make sure no one got away.

  Mulheisen had to acquiesce to this, but he repeated that no one should make a move, no shooting, no reacting to shots unless it was necessary for personal safety. It was agreed. Mulheisen switched off, once again with a sigh. He had a bad feeling. A lot of armed men, cold weather, nervousness, eagerness . . . it all presaged disaster.

  Through a shift in the mist Helen watched as Mulheisen stood and gazed up at the stars. He had thrown back the hood of the parka to talk on the walkie-talkie and she could make out his face, palely glimmering in the starlight as he gazed upward. “Oh my,” he suddenly breathed, and at the same moment she saw what had drawn this exclamation from him. Sheets of light spread across the night sky. She thought they were colored, she would always tell people that they were like vast curtains of shimmering red, blue, and green light. But in fact, they weren't colored. They were white, fading in and out, moving mysteriously. And they didn't crackle, either, although she would also tell others that they did. She rose upright in the water, dripping, her face turned to the brilliant winter sky.

  Then the light caught her in the face and Mulheisen said, “You better stay put for now, Helen. I don't have anything to keep you from freezing, but the others will have something. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right . . .”

  He paused as she turned her naked back to him and began to collect her gear, bundling it under her arm. Then she turned and waded toward him, her slim white body gleaming in the light. “Get out of my way, Mul,” she said. She gestured with the heavy revolver.

  Mulheisen smiled, his teeth glittering wolfishly. “I don't think so,” he said.

  “I'll kill you,” she said. “You know I will.”

  He glanced upward. “Under this magnificent dome?” he said and laughed, a low, chilling laugh.

  Helen could feel the cool breeze on her buttocks, blowing between her dripping thighs. Her body temperature was still high, but she couldn't stand here forever. She was suddenly sick of men, always talking, always insisting on their way. “Get out of my way, you fool,” she said.

  Now Mulheisen did not laugh. His eyes narrowed and he said, “Give me the gun, Helen. You don't have a way, not anymore.”

  “You can't stop me,” she said. She was very angry, he could see.

  “Oh, I can stop you. I can't let you go. You'll have to shoot me, and I don't think you want to do that. Give me the gun.” He held out his hand.

  “Take the goddamn gun,” she cried and threw it at him. The gun hit him in the chest and bounced away and she ran past him, flinging her clothes in his face.

  He reeled from the impact of the gun and then tore angrily at the clothing, stumbling against a tree. He wrenched a pair of damp panties off his face and lumbered after her in his heavy gear, soon falling well back. She ran easily and well, her body feeling supple and lean, feeling almost exhilarated as she sprinted down the path. She felt like she could run forever. She felt warm. She would run across the wind-hardened crust of the snow and she would run, run, run like the gingerbread man until she left all these men and all her problems far behind.

  In fact, her first several strides across the drifts carried her on the crust, but then a naked foot broke through and she sank thigh deep into the snow. Mulheisen caught her there, both of them tumbling. It was like trying to hold a skinned cat. She writhed and clawed and fought.

  Suddenly the muffled sound of a helicopter reached them. They paused in their struggle to look up. Within seconds the helicopter swept overhead, blinding lights searching. “That son of a bitch,” Mulheisen snarled, “he already had them on the way.”

  Jacky was hunkered in the snow, behind the cabin. Inside, he could hear the sound of men hell-bent on finding something. Nails screeched as boards were torn away, sounds of glass breaking. What the hell, he wondered. He slipped closer, crouching next to the propane tank. When he stood up he could see into the kitchen. At least three of the men were visible. They were peering into the utility closet. They were completely engrossed, gesturing and talking. For a moment he contemplated the possibility of a brilliant coup: he would slip in the back door and catch them all unaware. Perhaps a couple of shotgun blasts would get their attention. He'd have them all. He even edged closer, to test the sliding door that led into the bedroom. It was not locked. It could be done. The temptation was great. But then he thought, Nah, Mulheisen's right. Somebody could get killed. It was infinitely wiser to wait until dawn. With regret he edged back from the house, up the slope to a position where he could see all but the front of the house.

  And then the chopper swept over. Jacky blessed himself, and Mulheisen, for his prudence. He would probably have been halfway into his brilliant coup when those inside were alerted by the chopper. He wouldn't have had a chance.

  Now what, he thought. The sounds of the search in the cabin had instantly ceased. The men were armed and ready. What would they be thinking? It was difficult to assess. The intruders weren't guilty of anything but breaking and entering, possibly burglary, malicious damage, similar charges. Would they be likely to resist? Were there drugs, which might make a breakout seem like a worthwhile risk? He didn't know.

  In the midst of these thoughts Jacky was suddenly aware that something new was happening. One of the men came to the sliding door of the bedroom, opened it, and cautiously slipped out onto the little deck. Obviously he was concerned about the helicopter, which he could only have interpreted as a police presence, but something else seemed to concern him more. He crept along the back of the house, past the propane tank, and he seemed to be sniffing and looking up at the roof. He seemed to be looking for something. He quickly returned to the deck and seemed on the verge of re-entering when others began to exit, coughing and holding cloths to their faces. Now Jacky could see faint smoke in the house and he realized that something had started a fire. Jacky counted only four men. Perhaps the others were attempting to put out the fire. For obvious reasons, these men were unwilling to go very far from the house. They milled about irresolutely on t
he little back deck.

  A moment later something very peculiar happened. Before the shock wave threw him back into the snow, Jacky saw a kind of white pulse, then the entire roof lifted clear of the log walls, the walls spilled outward from the interlocking corners, the logs splintering and separating. The men on the back deck never had a chance.

  Jacky never really heard the explosion, although he thought he heard an explosion and a roar behind him, up the hill, the earth shaking. For a moment he irrationally thought that there had been an earthquake, perhaps even the emergence of a volcano. But that was absurd. No doubt it was the column of fire and light that shot straight up into the sky, hoisting the intact roof and briefly lighting up the surrounding trees, that had suggested it.

  Then the hovering roof whomped down like a candle snuffer and all the lights went out. But almost at once the light returned with another, smaller explosion and flames hissed, curling around the edges of the roof, like a gas range burner when it first goes on under a pot.

  There were no screams, nobody running. Just a muffled blast, then the wind shrieking down into the clearing and the flames burning brighter and brighter. By the time Jacky picked himself up and ran down to the front, into the yard, the undersheriff and his men were arriving. They all stared in awe as the house went up in a screaming crescendo of flames. The heat was intense, and they fell back toward the shed. Jacky noted the scorching heat on his face and the freezing cold at his back. Like the others, he simply stared at the instant inferno before him. It was then that he spotted the crumpled figure of a man lying in the front yard, smoking; that is, what was left of his clothing was smoking. With the help of another deputy Jacky was able to crawl close enough to grab the man's arms and draw him further away, although he noticed with dismay that some of the man's skin was left on the scorched pine needles.

  In a surprisingly short period of time the house was essentially consumed. Mulheisen arrived, carrying Helen, wrapped in her coat. He put her in the back of the sheriff's Blazer, which someone had finally brought up to the scene.

  The story didn't make the morning edition of the Standard, but the following day, while waiting for Helen's extradition papers, Mulheisen was able to read how no less than six alleged drug traffickers had been cornered by the intrepid Silver Bow Sheriff's Department. At least three of the drug runners were believed to be South American aliens—"notorious drug lords.” Only one of the criminals had survived a spectacular explosion and fire at the remote cabin of a mysterious Californian named Joseph Humann. The survivor, bearing a Colombian passport in the name of Victor Echeverria, was in critical condition at St. James Hospital, with severe burns. Evidently, he had left the house by the front door just prior to the explosion and was blown away from the fire. The others, except for one man believed to be trapped inside the house, were killed when the house collapsed on them at the rear of the building. Echeverria was expected to survive but as yet was unable to talk to investigators. Arson investigators were on the case, but it was believed that the criminals had caused the inferno themselves, perhaps with explosives that they had brought in with them. Undersheriff Paul Crowley revealed that he, along with drug enforcement agents and the FBI, had seized a private jet airplane at Butte airport, which was believed to belong to the drug dealers.

  “Bullshit,” Jacky said, sitting down heavily next to Mulheisen outside Johnny Antoni's office. “I'll tell you, though, when that chopper came over I was nearly in the door. I'm just glad I didn't do it. My grease would be congealing with theirs, right now.”

  Mulheisen smiled. “Well, I'm glad you didn't go in,” he said.

  “I'm sorry you didn't get your man,” Jacky said. “We put a kidnap bulletin out on him and Cateyo, but nothing has come in. I doubt that kidnap would hold up, anyway. He couldn't have kidnapped anyone.” He laughed. “Maybe she kidnapped him.”

  Mulheisen smiled and shrugged. “It doesn't make much difference,” he said. “I got Helen, anyway, and I'll get Service, one of these days. At least now I know who I'm looking for.” He looked at Jacky closely. “You ever get that feeling?” he asked. “Now you know. It may not be tomorrow, maybe not this year, but now the guy is running and the net is closing.”

  Jacky Lee almost smiled. “Yeah, I know. Oh, by the way, Sally called. She was trying to get hold of you.”

  “Oh yes?” Mulheisen said. “What did she want?”

  Jacky eyed him blankly. “Nothing special, I guess,” he said. “She wanted to know if you were all right. Said you should call.” He handed Mulheisen a slip of paper with her name on it and a phone number. “See ya next time,” he said and left.

  Antoni was bubbling. “This is great, Mul. Great. Definite proof that the mob is moving into the Northwest. This'll give the Northern Tier a boost. You'll see. I'll have you out here running the whole show.”

  Mulheisen said they'd have to wait and see. Maybe it was on, maybe not. For now he just wanted to pick up his prisoner and get home.

  “Ah, about the extradition,” Johnny said, “I'm afraid there'll be a delay.”

  “What's the deal?” Mulheisen said. “I thought everything was all set.”

  “Well, you know, Ms. Sedlacek is still in the hospital,” Johnny said. “She seems to be okay, physically, the doctors say, but mentally . . .” He shook his head. “She's babbling about ghosts, monsters, dead men. She has asked for counsel and she's retained the best lawyer in the state, and he says they'll fight the extradition. She's got plenty of money, apparently, and someone already seems to be working on her behalf back in Michigan. Hey, you know what'd be a great idea, Mul? How ‘bout you ‘n’ me and the kid, we run over to the Salmon River for a day or two, catch some steelhead? You ever catch a steelhead on a fly line? It's fantastic!”

  Mulheisen couldn't believe his ears. The part about Helen flipping out and at the same time starting to build a defense sounded about par for the course, but stand in a freezing river, fly-fishing? In this weather? Antoni assured him they would be toasty in their insulated waders.

  Mulheisen thought about a red-haired woman with a frank, honest face and hearty laugh, to say nothing of an interesting physique, and replied, “If I'm getting into any Montana water in the next few days, it'll be hot water, my friend,” and he went out to call the number Jacky had given him.