Wounded Prey

by Sean Lynch

  Farrell finished wiping off the packing grease and began to oil the shotgun’s components.

  “As you can see behind me, firefighters still haven’t completely subdued the tenacious fire, which they’ve been battling all afternoon. It appears hazardous chemicals inside the barn are responsible for the firefighters’ inability to put out the inferno. Though there has been no official confirmation, several bodies have been pulled from the farmhouse. We were also able to confirm with an anonymous member of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department that the farmhouse was the location of a narcotics search warrant last May. We’re still trying to get further on that. This is Ron Rawlings, on the scene at Coon Rapids. Back to you, Dave.”

  On screen, the anchorman looked down at a sheet of paper.

  “This just in. Rural Pottawattamie County, east of the Nebraska State line, was the scene of a double homicide today. Two Iowa state troopers were found murdered near their patrol car, victims of an apparent ambush. The names of the troopers have been withheld pending notification of their families. There are no suspects in custody at this time, though authorities assure us every effort is being made to identify the suspect in this crime.”

  Farrell reassembled the shotgun. He worked the pump action, satisfied the weapon was functional. He then loaded four rounds of buckshot into the magazine but left the chamber empty.

  “In other news, a candlelight vigil was held in Nevada tonight, outside Franklin D Roosevelt Elementary school. Less than one week ago, seven year-old Tiffany Meade was kidnapped here, and her beloved teacher was gunned down trying to prevent it. Meade was murdered later that day, her body discovered at a highway rest stop. Representatives from several area churches were on hand, and despite the inclement weather, a large crowd of mourners have gathered. The mood here is somber.”

  Farrell watched hundreds of people standing in the frigid weather. Their candles glowed eerily in the twilight, and a priest led the assembly in the Lord’s Prayer. Many were crying. The image changed to a reporter interviewing Tiffany Meade’s mother at home, surrounded by her family.

  Farrell didn’t hear the shower stop in the background. He listened to the mother of a dead child talk about a Christmas which would never be merry again. She spoke of her daughter and displayed a set of coloring books the little girl had purchased with her allowance as a Christmas present for her younger brother.

  Riveted to the TV, Farrell didn’t notice Kearns enter the room.

  “…an unusual footnote to the Meade tragedy. FBI Special Agent Steve Scanlon, supervising the task force assigned to catch the killer, reported today that Deputy Kevin Kearns, the off-duty officer who allegedly battled the girl’s assailant in an effort to thwart the kidnapping, is now missing. Scanlon said Deputy Kearns was last seen in the company of an unidentified man who claimed to be his attorney. Scanlon would not speculate what this strange new development means. We’ll take a break, and when we come back, we’ll have all the basketball highlights from the Cyclones’ battle with the Hawkeyes. Stay with us.”

  Farrell reached over and switched off the television. Kearns stared at the lifeless screen. His face was ashen.

  “Scanlon’s implying I’m involved. It’s happening just like you said.”

  “Don’t let it bother you,” Farrell said.

  “Could you?”

  CHAPTER 24

  Deputy Kevin Kearns woke to the sounds of a loud and off-key rendition of “Anything Goes.” He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. The hotel room was a haze of second-hand cigarette smoke. Farrell sat at the table in his newly purchased thermal underwear, singing around the Camel in his lips. He was shaved and showered and his thinning hair was not yet dry.

  Kearns glanced at the luminous hands of his watch. It was just after 6am. He’d spent a fitful night tossing and turning and hadn’t actually fallen asleep until well after midnight. The last thing he saw before drifting off was Farrell, seated at the table with his bottle of bourbon and cigarettes. The retired cop was reading the thick file on Vernon Slocum they’d taken from the veterans’ hospital.

  “Morning, Deputy,” Farrell quipped. “It’s time to get up. We’ve got a boon to doggle, and you’re burning daylight.”

  If the older detective showed any signs of getting no sleep, Kearns couldn’t see them. He rolled out of bed and headed for the shower, his head in a fog.

  When he emerged from the bathroom, Farrell was fully dressed. Their things were packed, and the contents of Slocum’s file were no longer scattered on the table.

  While Kearns dressed, Farrell gulped a cup of instant coffee and wrapped the shotgun in his coat. Kearns finished by belting on his revolver and donning his coat.

  Soon the men were outside in the bitter cold of the hotel parking lot and loading the Oldsmobile. The snow had stopped, and the sky seemed devoid of clouds. The sun had yet to show its face over the horizon.

  “Blizzard seems to have passed,” Kearns commented. “Hopefully the roads will be clear.”

  “You drive,” Farrell said, tossing Kearns the keys.

  Kearns caught them in mid-air and unlocked the door. Once inside, he fired up the engine and put on the heater. Farrell withdrew the shotgun from under his coat and tucked it lengthwise under the front seat.

  “We’re heading for Boone, Iowa, or thereabouts; a place called Ogden. It’s east of Ames, on Highway 30, according to the map.”

  “I know where it is,” said Kearns, putting the Oldsmobile into gear and heading out of the motel lot. “What’s in Ogden?”

  “The medical file says Slocum grew up on a farm there. Says he has a father still living there, and a couple of brothers and a sister. Maybe one of them has a line on where he is.”

  “That’s a good place to start,” said Kearns. “But what if his family doesn’t want to talk to us?”

  “Let me worry about that. We’ll make an investigator out of you yet.”

  Kearns grunted and scanned the streets for the entrance ramp to I-35 North. Farrell busied himself with removing the police/fire scanner from its box, and plugged it into the car’s dashboard cigarette lighter. Soon the familiar crackle of police radio traffic filled the car. Sitting back with a satisfied look, he gave Kearns a grin and lit a cigarette.

  Kearns rolled down the window, letting in a blast of icy air.

  “Are you trying to freeze me out?”

  “Are you trying to smoke me out?”

  “Hell, kid, a little cigarette smoke won’t kill you. But pneumonia will. Close that window.”

  “Actually, a little cigarette smoke will kill you,” Kearns said. He reluctantly rolled the window back up.

  “I’ve been smoking longer than you’ve been alive, and I’m still here.”

  “That’s because you’ve embalmed yourself in bourbon. You’re already dead and don’t know it.”

  “Shut up and drive, will you?” But he rolled down his window and tossed his freshly lit cigarette out the window. “I didn’t want it anyway.”

  Kearns grinned at his victory. Farrell wrapped the collar of his coat more tightly around himself. “Let me know when we get there,” he said.

  Kearns listened to the chatter from the police scanner as the older cop snoozed beside him. On good roads, Ogden was about an hour away. Today, it would be after 9am before Kearns finally passed Boone on Highway 30. He gave Farrell a nudge.

  “We’ll be in Ogden in about ten minutes,” Kearns said. “You know how to get to Slocum’s farm?”

  Farrell sat up from where he was slumped in the seat and ran his fingers through his thin hair. Lighting a cigarette, he pulled a stack of AAA maps from the glove box and began to shuffle through them.

  Kearns followed Farrell’s directions to a county road marker and turned off the highway. The road appeared to have been scooped sometime during the night, and progress, though slow, was deliberate. They’d traveled less than two miles on the flat road when Farrell said, “Should be the next farmhouse on the right.”

 
Sure enough, a dilapidated farmstead gradually came into view. It was a large two-story home with a sagging roof and a barn in the back. The barn had long since lost its paint, and in many spots they could see light through its walls. Like the house, the barn’s roof was bent under the weight of the snow covering it.

  The yard in front of the house was full of junk: gutted automobiles and rusted farm implements. Kearns pulled the Oldsmobile carefully to the end of the long driveway, wary of objects that might lay hidden under the thick blanket of snow. He switched off the engine and both men stepped out of the car.

  A thin trail of smoke drifted lazily from the chimney of the farmhouse, and the faint scent of burning wood filled the crisp air. Kearns looked uneasily over at Farrell, who was studying the lettering stenciled on a battered black mailbox at the end of the drive. It read, Emil J Slocum.

  “This is the place,” Kearns said.

  “This place is out of The Grapes of Wrath,” Farrell observed. “I expect the Clampetts to drive up in a Model-T Ford. Do any of you Iowans know it’s the twentieth century?”

  “Want to know what Iowans think of the typical San Francisco dweller?”

  “I can guess. C’mon, let’s knock on the door. Looks like somebody’s inside.”

  The two men were wading through shin-deep snow towards the house. A feral growl stopped them dead in their tracks. They slowly turned to look behind them.

  Less than twenty feet away stood a very large pit bull. The dog had obviously come from within one of the dilapidated hulks in the yard, aroused by the approach of the Oldsmobile. The dog had gray around its jowls, and the plume of its breath puffed from flared nostrils. Its eyes were bright and its teeth were bared. It stared directly at Farrell and Kearns, growling in a low, steady tone.

  Neither man moved. The dog appeared ready to spring, and could cover the distance between the two intruders in no more than a second.

  “What are we going to do?” said Kearns under his breath.

  “Shut up,” snapped Farrell. “Don’t move; don’t even step back.”

  Kearns noticed Farrell slowly reaching his hand into his coat. The dog growled louder, and saliva dripped from its mouth. He noticed that the pit bull, though large, was very thin, with protruding ribs and eyes sunken in their sockets. It was not a reassuring observation.

  Kearns’ hand crept towards the revolver under his coat. He angrily realized that unlike Farrell, his coat was buttoned, and his gun inaccessible. He realized the older cop never had his coat buttoned. Until this moment, he’d chalked it up to Farrell’s slovenly style. He understood now it was a professional habit by a veteran cop. Farrell could always reach his gun. Once again Kearns mentally kicked himself for his inexperience.

  Kearns was still fumbling to unbutton his coat when Farrell’s worn .38 came out. The dog began to bark; loud, chirping howls intermixed with growls. Kearns knew the dog was preparing to charge. He frantically tried to work the overcoat buttons. His numbed fingers only made progress slower, and he swore at himself for his stupidity in buttoning up over his gun.

  Farrell apparently also knew the huge dog was preparing to attack. He said, “Shit!” under his breath, and brought up his revolver in a two-handed aim. Kearns finally got his overcoat open, and was drawing his own weapon, when both men heard the unmistakable sound of a pump-action shotgun being racked.

  “You shoot that dog and it’ll be the last shootin’ you ever do,” came a harsh voice.

  Both men slowly turned back to the farmhouse to find an old man standing on the porch. The man had an 1897 Winchester pump-action shotgun directed at them, and seemed well-versed in its operation. The pit bull was still growling.

  “Beauty,” snapped the man to the dog. “Get! You heard me; get on outta’ here!”

  The dog instantly quieted, and trotted back to its home within a junked sedan. Kearns and Farrell still didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. They stared at the man on the porch.

  “Out of the frying pan…” said Farrell.

  Kearns recognized the man on the porch as the father of the man he’d fought in the schoolyard. The resemblance was stark, and it sent chills through the young deputy’s gut.

  The man stood well over six feet tall, though had to be in his late sixties or early seventies. He had a raw-boned, powerful build; the build of a man who’d made his living with his hands. He was nearly bald; stray strands of wispy gray hair fell behind his ears. He was clad in a pair of overalls and grease-stained work boots. It was his face, however, that was the most compelling.

  The man’s right eye was obviously sightless, a murky gray orb that gave Kearns the impression of infection. The skin on his face had the color and consistency of worn leather, and he had the same broad Nordic jaw as his son. His good eye was squinting down the barrel of the shotgun, which was still steadily pointed at Kearns and Farrell.

  “Take it easy with that scattergun, Mister Slocum. Don’t do anything one of us is going to regret.” Farrell spoke in a clear, calm voice. Kearns was impressed with the San Francisco cop’s cool demeanor. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through his own body and was mentally preparing to shoot, all too aware that the old man already had the drop on them.

  “Relax, Kevin, let me handle this,” Farrell said, as if reading Kearns’ mind.

  “Mister Slocum, would you mind pointing that shotgun somewhere else?”

  “When I know who you are and what you’re up to, maybe I’ll consider it,” said the elder Slocum, “but not until. You’re government men, ain’t you?”

  Farrell slowly put his revolver back into its holster and brought out his empty hand, at the same time nodding for Kearns to do the same. Reluctantly, Kearns complied.

  “That’s right,” Farrell said. “We’re government men. We came to talk to you. We didn’t mean to frighten your dog, but we didn’t see him when we drove up. We’ve put our guns away. Would you please not point that gun at us anymore? It’s making my partner real nervous.”

  Wordlessly, the old man relaxed his grip on the shotgun. “I got nothing to say to no damned government men.”

  Kearns had no idea what the old man was babbling about. Farrell winked at him, and turned back to Slocum.

  “Mister Slocum, that’s what we’re here about. The government realizes you’ve been slighted in the past, and we’ve been sent to make amends. We need your full story, so we can make a report and conclude the entire incident. Perhaps make reparation. May we come in and talk to you? It’s awfully cold out here, and I think you’ll want to hear what we have to say.”

  Kearns felt the same sense of dread he felt in the VA hospital when he’d unwittingly followed Farrell on his illegal scavenger hunt. This old man, with the blood of his son burning in his veins, was no docile hospital administrator. Emil Jensen Slocum was senile, half-blind, possibly deranged, and in possession of an ancient but undoubtedly functional and loaded shotgun, which he appeared prepared to use. He was no candidate for Farrell’s deceitful schemes. But just like at the veterans’ hospital, Kearns found himself already mired in the impossible drama. He felt he was again in a situation that an experienced cop would have avoided with ease. He was angry with Farrell for again putting him in jeopardy, and angrier with himself for letting it happen.

  “We’ll only take a few minutes of your time and be on our way. You can set the record straight.”

  The elder Slocum stared at the two men for long minutes while Kearns and Farrell squinted back at him in the bright sunlight. Finally Slocum lowered the shotgun to his side and walked back into the house. He left the door open, and Farrell wasted no time covering the distance to the porch. Kearns scrambled to keep up.

  Kearns noticed when Slocum walked into the house he shuffled along with a distinct limp. He followed Farrell inside.

  Kearns’ eyes struggled to adjust. The shades and shutters in the farmhouse were drawn, and going inside from the bright sunlight of the outside left him momentarily blinded. Slocum closed the door, and it becam
e as black as night.

  Kearns smelled a variety of odors, none of them pleasant: dirty laundry, urine, and feces, the rank odor of spoiled food and exhaled cigarette smoke. As his eyesight gradually returned, he saw sights no more pleasant than the smells which emanated from them.

  The interior of the house was almost uninhabitable. Piles of everything from tools, to clothing, to food, were scattered everywhere. The walls were water-stained, and Kearns was glad it was cold outside. In the heat of an Iowa summer the house would be ideal for insect breeding.

  There was nowhere to sit down. There was no furniture not covered in piles of one form of junk or another. Slocum shuffled in his hobbling-gait to the only available seat, a dilapidated easy chair.

  On a shelf above the fireplace, Kearns was surprised to see what appeared to be a picture of the man he’d fought in the schoolyard. He was wearing a Marine Corps dress-blue uniform. Closer inspection revealed it to be a black-and-white photo, and faded with age. It was the elder Slocum, circa World War II.

  “Were you in the Corps?” asked Kearns, unable to look away from the photo.

  “Goddamned right, boy. Left my leg on Okinawa. You a Marine?”

  “No sir. Army infantry.”

  “See any combat?” demanded the old man gruffly.

  “No.”

  “All my boys served in the Corps, ’cept one. Combat, too, in Vietnam. Vern came back with more medals than me. Wade came back in a rubber bag.”

  Farrell spoke next. “Mister Slocum, may I use your bathroom? It seems your dog frightened me more than I thought; my stomach is upset.”

  “Hell, a little ole dog growls at you, and you government men shit your pants. Go ahead, it’s at the end of the hall. There ain’t no toilet paper, though.”

  Farrell gave Kearns a, ‘stall him’ signal and disappeared down the hallway in the direction of the worst of the smells.