Cold Land: A Mystery Thriller

by John Oakes

  “She’s dead,” Jake said through strings of snot and spittle. “She died. Two weeks ago. In Texas.”

  “How’d she die?” Jerry asked.

  “Truck pulled out in front of her on the highway. Didn’t see her.”

  “Well…” Jerry let out a grunt. “Well, there’s the God’s honest truth, then,” he said in a congratulatory tone. “Your friends from Texas, they said something about you being undercover too often. Something slipped in your mind in the agony of grief. You just got confused, Jake.”

  “Just let me go.” Jake lolled his head back, too heavy with grief to even bother sobbing anymore.

  “N-no!” Jerry grunted. He pointed to Jenny’s picture. “She is with the blessed dead. But unfortunately for you, you’re not going anywhere.” Jerry hauled him up with surprising strength, and Jake hopped on one leg, arms clutched around Jerry, until he put weight on his right leg too, shocked to find that it held.

  “It feels so funny,” Jake said. “It’s like electric ants running up and down.”

  “Bullet gotcha down the back and in the ass. You’re bleeding good,” Jerry said, “but I’ve frankly seen worse nosebleeds.” Jerry dusted off the back of his coat. “Gonna need a new coat, though. But with winter coming, I don’t think this woulda kept you warm anyhow.”

  Jake sniffed, and peered around, wondering if Jerry was blowing smoke or if he really wasn’t gravely injured.

  Jerry got in Jake’s face. “If you can’t do this, fine. But if you can stow your emotions and get back on your horse for the next fifteen minutes, well, then I’ll personally get you drunk later. And I’ll cry and howl at the moon with you and shake my fist at God.”

  Jake swallowed and nodded his head looking at the ground.

  “All righty, then,” Jerry said, putting an arm under Jake’s shoulder. “All righty!” He walked him closer to the cruiser.

  “You hurt?” Nelson said out the window.

  Jake looked down at his photo of Jenny one more time, then tucked his tattered wallet into his breast pocket. “Come on.”

  With Jerry’s help, Jake got in the backseat behind Nelson. Jerry ran around to the passenger seat. “Drive like hell, Nelson.”

  Nelson got up to thirty miles an hour down the bumpy dirt road and Jerry coaxed him up to forty, then fifty. Jake held on to the door handle gritting his teeth at the jostling pain.

  Behind them they could hear sirens.

  “Looks like the party is following us,” Jerry said.

  They caught up to the slower-moving semi, as it trundled down the narrow road, its giant, ungainly, metal side hanging off, scraping and catching on trees and brush. As they neared the semi, though, they neared the Dodge trailing behind it with three dangerous perps inside. Kenny, riding in the back, spotted them as they entered a long, straight section of backroad and aimed his AR-15 over the tailgate.

  “Jesus,” Nelson said, slamming on the brakes and cowering.

  Kenny fired a couple shots from the truck, but didn’t even hit the cruiser, as he was bouncing around, firing from a moving platform at a moving target.

  “Nelson, you drive when I say drive,” Jerry said. “He isn’t gonna hit us. I’ll make sure. Now gun it.”

  Nelson made a pitiful sound as he accelerated toward the pickup again.

  This time, when Kenny aimed the rifle at them, Jerry leaned out his window, both hands on his 9mm and fired off a handful of rounds, one close enough to make Kenny jump and wince in pain, dropping the rifle.

  “That’s some fine shooting,” Jake said. “Lemme go next.”

  “How many rounds you got left?”

  “Seven, I think.”

  “Save them. I’ve got Nelson’s ammo, too.”

  They entered a long curve toward the main roadway where the vegetation thinned out and the visibility was good. Jake peered up at the sparse intersection. “Fellas, I think they might let the pickup through, then use the semi to block the intersection.”

  “What about the driver then?” Nelson asked.

  “Exactly.” Jake thumbed his chin.

  “They lost the flatbed,” Jerry said. “That CheapValue truck is all they have for their trouble.”

  “Either way,” Jake said. “They aren’t getting far. We need to end this.”

  “Nelson,” Jerry said. “Need you to muscle up here. You drive as I tell you, and you let us worry about the threats. Now stay to the left.” Jerry leaned out his window again and fired twice before hitting his target and blowing out the Dodge’s rear passenger side tire. The truck began to wobble and bounce on its bum wheel, causing Kenny to flop around harder, struggling to keep his balance.

  “Veer right.”

  Nelson did as told. Jerry shot once. Jake couldn’t see the impact, but Jerry whooped. “Son of a gun. Nailed the front one too. Now, squeeze up on his left side,” he commanded Nelson. “Now. Faster!”

  Nelson pulled up along the truck until the bumper was even with the rear wheel. Jerry grabbed the wheel and pulled the cruiser hard into the truck. The added outside pressure on the wheels cause the truck to sway and shudder, but not spin out. Jerry yanked again, slamming the front end of the cruiser into the rear of the truck, this time causing it to swing to the right. The metal wheels caught on the stiff road ruts, and the truck fell to its side, diagonally across the road. It slid for a while until dumping over onto its top, straightening out and coming to a stop perfectly straight, just upside down.

  Kenny was no where to be seen. He’d been flung away into the roadside along with everything else that had been in the truck bed.

  Nelson braked to a skidding stop beside the truck.

  Sirens coursed down the roadway across the clearing and into the woods again, flashing lights gathering at the unmarked dirt intersection up ahead, blocking the semi truck’s escape.

  With the semi truck handled, they got out of the cruiser and walked back toward the upturned truck. Jerry put an arm under Jake’s good side and they stepped in unison, each one pointing a gun in their free hand.

  The wheels on the truck still spun and the engine still ran, but there didn’t appear to be risk of a fire, thankfully.

  “Hands where we can see them!”

  Nelson opened Sarah’s door and gasped. “Whoa. We got a pregnant lady, here.”

  “Sarah Paulsen. Your money order fraudster, remember?” Jake asked.

  “You keep a bead on her at all times,” Jerry said. “Don’t be afraid to shoot.” He stooped and opened the driver’s door. “Hands, driver! Good. Now, we’ll get you out of here. Put one hand on the ceiling and release your belt with the other. I got you.

  The driver fell free and rolled over his shoulder, then shimmied backward out of the cab with Jerry helping to drag him. Once clear, Jerry rolled him onto his belly and told him to keep his hands and legs spread. Jake checked his pockets for his cuffs, remembering they were securing a perp to a tree. But he did find some zip ties he always kept with him and used them to restrain the truck driver.

  As Jerry went around the side to help Sarah, Jake’s attention was turned behind the truck where Kenny’d been tossed out. He found him twenty yards back in some lush grass, staring up at the sky, his eyes so wide and stark, Jake thought he might be dead. But his whole body seemed to twitch and strain at some deep discomfort or building pain. He spotted Jake and began to cry. “Please. God. Please,” he cried hoarsely. “Please help me.”

  Kenny had one arm over the other. Jake didn’t see a weapon nearby, so he limped closer and stood over him. “Lemme see it.”

  Without looking down himself, Kenny pulled his hand away from his forearm. Even though his shirt was black and blood-soaked, obscuring most of the wound, the jagged white bones sticking through the cloth told the story.

  “Kenny, we got something in common today.”

  “What?” Kenny asked, fighting back tears.

  “We’re both gonna live.”

  Jake clambered back onto the road to see how things were prog
ressing. He couldn’t see much about the pickup, but the semi-truck was stopped amid a sea of blue and red lights. Everything looked to be just about done with. Except for the paperwork, Jake thought. Oh, heavens the paperwork.

  Then Jake reminded himself of his dubious status. Maybe all he’d have to do is give a statement for the Bureau. Then he remembered Townie and Ferguson waiting for him at said Bureau, and how Jerry’d been ordered to take his weapon, and his heart sank into his gut.

  Jake shuffled down the road, wondering how long he’d been deluded about his wife’s sudden passing. He saw glimpses of whiskey bottles and beer cans, broken glass, vomit and piss stained sheets. He remembered waking up on bare floors only to reach for a bottle again.

  Maybe somewhere in an epic bender, his subconscious mind had found a lie to save him from himself. He’d lived so many lies so easily while undercover, it’d been like slipping a hand into a old glove.

  Forgetting the explanations, who had he disappointed during his lapse? Who had he distressed? Was he crazy now? Was he ever going to be the same? Would the people he respected ever trust him again?

  These thoughts kept his gaze weighted to the ground as he ambled closer to the upturned pickup along the edge of the road.

  Bap. Bap. The sharp reports of a police 9mm jerked his chin up. Then again, Bap. Bap. Bap.

  Jerry stumbled backward into view, hands on his lower abdomen. He raised his pistol single-handed to fire at something blocked from Jake’s point of view by the pickup. Before Jerry could fire, another shot clapped the air. Jerry’s jacket billowed out behind him, as if a ghost had plucked at it, a bullet passing through him high on his torso. Jerry fell back, hands outstretched to either side in the weeds lining the road.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Nelson

  Jake ran forward, only able to hop and stumble, aggravating his wounds and expending whatever shock or adrenaline-induced numbness he’d been blessed with. He cried out in pain, but kept running forward. He wanted to check on Jerry, but the scene unfolding before him as he rounded the pickup commanded his attention.

  The driver of the truck was up, somehow freed from his restraints. He was fidgeting with a set of keys, trying to unlock Sarah’s hands that had been cuffed in front of her. In one of those hands she held a police 9mm.

  If Jerry still had his weapon, that meant she’d taken it off Nelson. Jake scanned the scene but couldn’t see him, figuring he was down behind the cruiser which sat parked up ahead at an angle. Sarah spotted Jake and as her cuffs fell away. She raised Nelson’s pistol.

  “Put it down.” In his shock, Jake hadn’t even pulled his own weapon yet. He did so quickly.

  “You drop it,” she spat back.

  “There’s cops in every direction.”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  He pulled his trigger at the same moment she did, but both flinched and dashed away unhurt. For Jake’s part, he hadn’t been aiming center of mass. Something about Sarah’s big pregnant belly put him wrong-footed, even though she was a stone-cold killer. Jake edged out from behind the truck engine and raised his pistol to fire, determined to fire true, determined they wouldn’t get away. Sarah was running for the passenger door of the cruiser, and the driver looped around the front for the driver’s side.

  In the split second it took for his eyes and brain to identify his target and bring his aim to bear, Jake noticed something about the cruiser was different.

  The trunk was open wide.

  As Sarah reached for the door, Nelson stepped out of the trunk’s shadow, clothing sodden in blood from the stomach down into his khakis, holding a pump shotgun.

  BOOM.

  Even near point-blank range Nelson wasn’t accurate. He clipped Sarah’s arm and turned her, but didn’t put her down. He fumbled with the big weapon after the recoil, barely holding onto it. Sarah appeared astonished by the shot, more than pained. She looked at the pistol in her other hand, then raised it. Nelson clumsily pumped another shell into the chamber and fired again from the hip, this time hitting her across the chest at an angle, launching the pistol from her grasp.

  Sarah took three or four steps like a baby gazelle, then lay down on her side, putting one hand under her head as if she were laying down for a nap.

  The driver ran back around the front of the cruiser pointing his gun at Nelson. He fired and hit Nelson in the chest, but Nelson pumped in another round, teeth gritted, red with blood. The driver kept pulling the trigger, and two more bullets hit Nelson in the torso. He staggered, but aimed and fired, hitting the driver in the gut, just under the ribs.

  The driver bent over, then fell back, unfolding on the ground, arms flailing.

  Nelson went down to a knee, but immediately tried to stand back up, rearing his head back, baring blood-stained teeth. He let out a guttural cry as he failed to rise, then his pained expression eased and he slumped to his side.

  Jake stood in the sudden and total silence, barely breathing, a tremor working its way up and down his extremities. He coughed and burbled, then looked down the road in either direction for a witness, but he was the only one left standing.

  “Oh, for the love of Pete,” someone groaned.

  Jake spun and ran around the truck to where Jerry lay. Jerry’s eyes were open, blinking at the tears in his eyes. He balled his fists in pain over his abdomen. “Oh, golly McShit-weasels that smarts like the dickens.”

  “Jerry!” Jake reached out, but couldn’t bear to bend or kneel down.

  “Is Nelson…”

  Jake limped over to Nelson and rolled him over with a boot. Then feeling like that was dishonorable, Jake grimaced and dropped to his knees despite the pain. He felt for a pulse, but got nothing.

  “He’s gone,” Jake announced. “He sure went down swinging.”

  Now that he was down, there was no standing up. Jake holstered his pistol and crawled on his hands and one knee over to Jerry.

  “Do me a favor and ball up that ruined coat of yours,” Jerry said. “Stick it under my lower back into the exit wound. Mighta hit that renal artery if I’m not so lucky.” Jake did as told, checking out the wound in the rear of Jerry’s shoulder with his finger.

  Jerry rested back. “Any of those sirens coming for me? My ears are ringing from all the gun shots.”

  Jake looked around. “Ambulance is cooking down the road toward us.”

  “That’s timely.”

  Jake took Jerry’s hand in his. “Thanks, Jerry.”

  “For what?” The earnestness of the question drew the pain out of Jerry’s face for a second.

  “For… for just being a hell of a guy.” It was more than that, far more, but it was all Jake could verbalize in the moment.

  “Well, you too, Jake.”

  “Think they’ll let me be a cop again?”

  “Be a shame if not.”

  “Was I acting all that crazy this whole time?”

  “You were cool as a cucumber—” Jerry winced in pain. “Except… except you know, until things unraveled.” He winced again. “Do I hear a siren?”

  “It’s a hundred yards away.”

  “Shame about Nelson.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s really too bad,” Jerry grunted, “when a man only finds his mettle in the last moments of his life.”

  Two ambulances arrived, and Jerry teared up in relief as their doors opened and EMTs poured out. “I wasn’t sure if you were just putting on the act.”

  “No lying. They’re here,” Jake said. “They’re gonna take care of you.”

  Jake ordered them to take care of Jerry and call for more ambulances. Patrol cars made their way down the escape road, and police looked the scene over as the EMTs drove off with Jerry and Sarah Paulsen. Finding Jake laying on his stomach, back covered in blood, the first two cops on the scene didn’t pounce on him. One knelt down, wearing a brimmed hat of the Iowa State Patrol.

  “Sir? Keep your hands away from your weapon.”

  Jake tipped his own hat up wit
h his index finger. “Jake Adler, at your service.”

  “I take it you were part of this dust up?”

  “I was. Couple points of interest.”

  “Okay…” the officer said hesitantly.

  “I handcuffed a perp to a tree way back in the thicket by the edge of the compound. You’ll wanna find him before he freezes to death.”

  “Oh. That so?”

  “And did you find the muscly fella I winged in the flatbed truck? Yeah, be sure to get him in an ambulance.”

  “We’re assessing the situation.”

  “Well, if it escaped your assessment,” Jake said. “There’s a man named Kenny Crowe, laying off in the clearing back there. He’s a perp, but go easy.”

  “Can I see some ID?”

  “It got blown out my ass, sir,” Jake said.

  The trooper narrowed his eyes at Jake, then raised an eyebrow at his wounds. “We’ll get you some medical attention.”

  “Thank you kindly.”

  The trooper shouted down the road, relaying the information Jake had given him, then returned with gloved hands and a sealable plastic bag to take his weapon into evidence.

  Sooner than Jake knew it, he was pulled onto a gurney and stripped with medical scissors.

  An EMT gave him something for the pain. It hit him immediately with a general sense of relief and ease, and he found he could think a little clearer. Jake turned to the medic packing his wounds with gauze and asked his name.

  “Shawn.”

  “Shawn, where do you live?”

  “Over in Mason city.”

  “What’s your address?”

  “Uhh. I live in the Oak Court apartments. Why you ask?”

  “Shawn. There’s a bloody coat wadded up back on the side of the road. It has items of great personal value inside. I’m probably getting put under at the hospital, and these things have a way of getting lost. But this can’t get lost, you hear? Keep it yourself if you have to.”

  “I’m not really supposed to—”

  “Shawn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just fucking do it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s better. How’s my ass look?”