Dead Run

by P. J. Tracy

  "It's Saturday night. Don't you have a hot date with the wife and kids'"

  "The wife and kids are deserting me for a pizza party for Helen's softball team."

  "You're passing up pizza?"

  "It's at one of those hideous theme restaurants where they let toddlers run amok and wallpaper with pepperoni. I have standards, you know. Besides, it's an all-girl thing."

  "What about the Accident? Isn't his manhood going to be adversely affected by going to an all-girls thing?"

  "Gender discrimination doesn't start until age five."

  Magozzi shrugged. "I'll give Harley a call."

  Gino beamed at him. "You're the man. Hey, buy me a hot dog, I'm starving."

  As Magozzi reached for his wallet, his cell phone chirped. "Go on," he said, passing over a twenty. "Gotta get this." He was foolishly hoping that perhaps Grace MacBride had been overwhelmed with the sudden need to hear his voice. This had never happened before, but sometimes you just had to hold on to the dream.

  He was hanging up as Gino wandered back to the picnic table, loaded with three footlongs, two bags of mini-donuts, and an unidentifiable deep-fried thing on a stick.

  Gino handed over two dollars in change.

  "That'sit?"

  "Hey, it's for a good cause, that's what you kept telling me. Was that Grace?"

  "Nope. Our old buddy Mike Halloran."

  It took Gino a couple of seconds to place the name. "No kidding?Howthe hell's life in the Cheese Belt?"

  "Pretty interesting, as of this morning."

  "Yeah? What's up?"

  "They pulled three bodies out of a swimming hole this morning, figured them for drownings. But when they laid them out, they saw a whole lot of holes that shouldn't have been there. Somebody took a swipe at them with an automatic, the coroner thought maybe anM16."

  "Now that's something you don't see every day."

  "Not outside a third-world country, anyhow. All the shots lined up, too, execution-style."

  Gino took a monstrous bite out of a mustard-and-onion-slathered dog. "Jesus. What a way to spend a Saturday. But why did he call you? Does he think there's a Minneapolis connection or what?"

  Magozzi shrugged. "They don't know where to start, because they can't ID the bodies-totally nude, no identifying marks, and no hits on the fingerprints. Halloran was hoping Grace would run the morgue shots through her facial-recognition software, see if anything popped that way."

  "So why didn't he just call Sharon? They're practically driving past his front door." Gino polished off his first dog and started in on the second one.

  "Because Halloran had no clue Sharon was on her way to Green Bay with Grace and Annie."

  Gino's brows lifted. "I thought those two were a hot item."

  "It's hard to date when you live two hundred miles apart."

  "What's wrong with phone sex?"

  "I didn't ask."

  "Christ, I hope she didn't dump him for a suit."

  "We didn't get into particulars."

  "Did you call Grace?"

  "No answer on her cell. I left a message." Magozzi eyed Gino's deep-fried-thing-on-a-stick. "What the hell is that?"

  "Dill pickle."

  "That's disgusting."

  "Like you would know."

  WHEN GRACE FINISHED checking all the phone lines, she walked back to the street in front of the cafe and stood there for a moment, listening. The only sounds she heard were Annie's and Sharon's muffled voices coming from inside, but when she turned to look, the glare of the sun bouncing off the big plate-glass windows nearly blinded her.

  They looked up when Grace pushed open the screen door. Annie and Sharon were sitting at the counter, sipping from soda cans taken from the glass-fronted cooler, Annie waving her cell phone, trying to find a signal. "This piece of crap is hopeless. Doesn't work outside, doesn't work inside. . . . You find anybody, darlin'?" She handed Grace a bottled water and tucked the useless phone back in her purse.

  Grace shook her head, opened the bottle, and took a quick drink before she spoke. "Someone cut all the phone lines."

  "What?"

  "Right below the feeder boxes. On the cafe, the gas station, and the house."

  All three were silent for a moment.

  Sharon finally said, "Kids, maybe."

  "Maybe."

  Annie was watching Grace's face. "What are you thinking, Grace?"

  "That we should get out of here."

  Annie sighed, took a last drink from her soda can, and pushed herself up off the stool. She went over to the cooler, grabbed three bottles of water, and set one on the counter in front of Sharon.

  "What's this for?"

  "Tuck it in your bag, darlin'. It's mighty hot out there, and it appears we're going to be doing a little more walking."

  "You're kidding, right? According to the map in the gas station, it's at least another ten miles to the next town, and that's after we hoof it all the way back to the truck. Can't a couple of techno-whizzes like you fix the phone lines?"

  "It's a twenty-five-pair cable," Grace replied. "That's a lot of splicing. It might take a couple hours."

  "By which time the people who live here will probably be back from wherever they went and will be happy to give us a ride. In the meantime, we've got food and drink and a place to get out of the sun. . . ."

  Annie looked at Sharon as if she'd lost her mind, forgetting for a moment that not everyone in the free world knew that when Grace said "we should get out of here," it was like a Seeing Eye dog jerking a blind person out of the way of a runaway bus. "We should leave now."

  "Okay," Sharon continued, trying to be reasonable. "How about this. You and Grace stay here, start working on the phones, and in the meantime, just to cover all our bets, I'll start walking, maybe get lucky and catch a ride. No offense, Annie, but it's over ninety out there, and I'm guessing aerobics isn't your . . ."

  "Quiet." Grace had moved quickly, almost soundlessly, over to the screen door, where she stood with her eyes closed and her concentration focused in a cone of awareness that headed left past the gas station, around the curve that disappeared into the woods. What she'd heard had been nothing specific, nothing immediately identifiable- just a faint, muted roaring sound that didn't belong.

  "Something's coming" was all she had time to say.

  HAROLD WITTIG slammed the gearshift into park and draped his wrists over the pickup's steering wheel, his lips tightened in annoyance. He lifted one arm and wiped his sweaty forehead on his sleeve, promising himself for the hundredth time that he was going to junk this damn truck and get one of the big new Fords with an air conditioner that would turn a two-dollar whore frigid. Damn, it was hot, and the day had been one disaster after another.

  First a flat tire on the way into Rockville this morning, then Fleet Farm hadn't had Tommy's birthday bike assembled and they'd had to wait two hours while a couple doofuses fumbled around with Allen wrenches and a forty-page instruction manual, then Jean got her period and made him run into the store to buy a box of Tampax and he thought he'd die right there at the checkout when the pretty young cashier had smiled sweetly and said, "Just the Tampax? Is that it?" and now this. Christ, what a day.

  He glared out the dusty windshield at the empty jeep on the side of the road and the two orange-and-white sawhorses topped with blinking yellow lights, blocking both lanes. Two men stood in front of the roadblock, wearing camouflage and combat boots and the earnest expressions of little boys playing soldier. M16s that Harold dearly hoped weren't loaded with live rounds were slung over their shoulders. The way his luck was running today, one of them would probably walk up to the truck and shoot him in the head.

  Jean was leaning forward in her seat, as if another inch closer to the windshield would make the reason for the peculiar roadblock perfectly clear. Her face was dewy with the heat, and her lips were folded in on each other in that slightly alarmed expression she always wore when something didn't make sense. "What are they? Soldiers?"

&n
bsp; "Looks like. Probably Guard."

  "What are they doing? Why do they have the road blocked off?" Her voice was rising up the scale as a seed of panic germinated, and Harold knew her imagination was already running wild, manufacturing improbable scenarios of tornadoes, floods, riots, and any of the other disasters that brought the National Guard out into the civilian world.

  "Relax, honey." He laid a comforting hand on her knee. "They're just weekend warriors, and they've got to practice somewhere." But the truth was that he felt a little tickle of unease on the back of his own neck as one of the young men headed toward the driver's side of the truck. This one was fair and freckled and sporting a brand-new sunburn, but he had the bearing down pat: straight back, clipped movements, and that tucked chin you see only in the posture of a military man at attention. "Afternoon. What's up, soldier?"

  The soldier stepped right up to Harold's open window, his rifle now casually at his side, and gave them a friendly nod. "Afternoon, sir, ma'am. I'm afraid the road's closed temporarily. We're detouring traffic up to County S-"

  "What do you mean, the road's closed? Why?"

  "Military maneuvers, sir. Your tax dollars at work."

  Jean breathed a sigh of relief, then felt irritation rise to fill the empty space where panic had lived just a moment before. She'd been prepared to deal with catastrophe, but not inconvenience. She brushed a clump of damp blond curls from her forehead and started fanning her face with the Fleet Farm sale flyer. "What do you mean, military maneuvers?" she snapped at the young soldier, and Harold had to smile as the man's brows shot up in surprise, almost pitying him for being stupid enough to put a roadblock between Jean and her shower on the first day of her period. "We live on this road and there were no military maneuvers going on here when we left this morning."

  Harold started to give the soldier an apologetic grin, but something in the man's face made his smile falter. The stoic, soldierly countenance was suddenly gone, replaced by a ripple of confusion and maybe even a little fear, and that made him nervous. Men in uniform weren't supposed to be confused or fearful, and when they were, bad things happened. "Uh . . , you say you live on this road, ma'am?"

  "That's right. About a half a mile the other side of Four Corners. The big farm on the left. And now we'll thank you to move that little barrier out of the way so we can get home to our son."

  The soldier was very still for a moment, then he took a breath and put the tough face back on. "I'm very sorry, ma'am, but I can't do that. We have orders not to let anyone by."

  "You haveorders to keep me from going home?" Jean asked incredulously, leaning forward in her seat so she could shoot a withering glance in the soldier's direction. "I don't think so. Now let us by or we'll drive right over you and your roadblock."

  Oh, this was just terrific,Harold thought. He was planted smack-dab in the middle of a firing zone between a raging woman and a stressed-out kid with a firearm. He gave Jean a warning glance, then turned back to the soldier, forced a thin smile, and tried his best to sound reasonable, even though his patience was fraying. "Listen, soldier, we just want to get home to our boy. Surely you can understand that."

  "I do, sir, but we have our orders," he repeated.

  "And just what are we supposed to do? Drive around until you're finished playing your war games?"

  "That's up to you, sir. I'm just doing my job."

  "This is not your job. I want to speak to your commanding officer right now. And if you don't make that happen, I'm going to turn this truck around, find the closest phone, and you can make your explanations to the Missaqua County Sheriff's Department."

  The soldier was clearly distressed now, his eyes darting back and forth between them, and Harold thought he saw a flicker of guilt and remorse in his eyes. "Would you wait just a moment, sir, ma'am?" I'm going to have to call this in." And with that, he spun smartly on his heel and double-timed it back to the sawhorses where the other soldier stood watching.

  Startled by his sudden departure, Harold felt the little tickle on the back of his neck intensify, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when Jean touched his hand.

  "Something's wrong," she whispered, and he heard the tremor in her voice and felt its echo deep in the pit of his stomach. "Something happened, something they won't tell us. ..."

  "Honey, take it easy." Harold covered her hand with his and squeezed, trying to dredge up a reassuring smile. "These boys can only do what they're told. If he has orders to block the road, he'll keep his own mother out, but a higher-up will straighten him out."

  He watched the two soldiers through the windshield. Freckle-face was over at the jeep, talking to somebody on the radio; the other one kept his eyes trained on the pickup.

  Harold rubbed at the sweat trickling down his neck. Damn truck was a sweatbox when it wasn't moving, and this was taking too damn long. "Wait here. I'm going to see what the holdup is."

  Freckle-face had just signed off the radio when he heard the long screech of the truck door opening on rusty hinges and saw Harold Wittig step down onto the road. His first thought was how much the man looked like a comic-book Superman, with a curl of black hair over his forehead and the arms and shoulders of a weight lifter. His second thought was barely a thought at all-just an animal's instinctive response to stimuli. He spun in place like a deadly ballerina, swinging his rifle around to point directly at Harold Wittig's mid-

  section, and even before he had completed his turn, his partner was down in a crouch with his rifle aimed. "Hold it right there!"

  Harold stopped dead and gaped at the rifles in utter disbelief. He finally remembered to blink when his eyes started to burn. He closed his mouth to swallow, then asked quietly, "Are you boys out of your minds? What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  The soldier's voice was a little shaky, but the muzzle pointed at Harold never wavered. "We're just doing our job, sir."

  Harold stared at him, incredulous. "Your job? It's your job to point a weapon at an unarmed civilian? It's your job to keep people from going home?" He started to take a step forward.

  "Sir!"The soldier rattled the strap on the Ml6 as he jerked it to brace on his hip.

  Harold froze.

  "Please don't move, sir."

  Goddamn weekend warriors, Harold thought, suddenly furious that a couple of toy soldiers who came out only once a month to play had the nerve to point guns, loaded or not, at one of the taxpayers who paid their salaries. He squared his shoulders and dropped his head and looked from one to the other. "You boys have just bought yourselves a world of hurt. . . ."

  "Harold?"

  Confused by the unexpected sound of his wife's voice, Harold swung his big head around to see Jean out of the truck, cowering by the right fender, terrified eyes jerking back and forth from her husband to the rifles. Jesus Christ, he would never understand women. She wouldn't eat eggs for fear of clogging an artery forty years down the line, but she'd walk out in front of two M16s as if she were made of Kevlar.

  "Get back in the truck, Jean," he said calmly, because even though he was sure-absolutely sure-those guns weren't loaded, he didn't need her out here complicating matters.

  She looked at him for a moment, then turned and got back into the truck.

  "You too, sir," Freckle-face called out, gesturing with his rifle. "Back in the truck, please. Now. You're almost cleared for entry. I'm just waiting for a callback. It should only be another minute or so."

  Harold glared at him for a second, then climbed up into the truck. He glanced at the tears coursing down his wife's face, saw the violent trembling of her hands, and for the first time in his life, wanted to harm another human being. Two of them, in fact. For right now, there wasn't a whole lot he could do with a couple of puffed-up hot-shots who might or might not be carrying live ammunition, but by God, the second he got near a phone he was going to burn up the wires all the way to Washington if he had to, and see these assholes up on ...

  Wait a minute, Harold.

  He'd been s
taring at the soldiers by the jeep, vision and mind clouded by the red blur of impotent fury, and goddamnit, he hadn't seen it, hadn't seen what any clear-eyed fool would have noticed right off, and now he felt a ball of fear that clenched at his stomach and almost stopped his heart.

  "Jean," he whispered, eyes straight ahead now, lips barely moving, sweat rolling down from his forehead like someone had just turned on a faucet. "Get down on the seat and hang on."

  The funny thing was that Jean, as strong-minded a woman as he'd ever known, did as she was told without a second's hesitation, probably because she had known long before he did how wrong things were here. "Are we going to find Tommy?" was the only thing she asked.

  "That's where we're going."

  Harold eased the gearshift out of park, slowly, carefully, sliding his butt forward on the seat until he could barely see over the wheel, and then his lug-soled lace-up punched the accelerator and the old Ford leaped forward and smashed through the sawhorses like a crazed bull going through a barn wall. Shards of wood were flying everywhere, and the engine was roaring so loud that they could hardly hear the gunfire that was shattering the windows around them.

  ANNIE AND SHARON had moved up next to Grace at the cafe's screen door by the time the distant popping sound started to syncopate the roar of whatever was coming.

  Annie was pretty excited. She'd already identified the roaring as the approach of a big pickup-she'd spent a fair amount of time in those during her Mississippi youth, both upright and reclined-and at this point she wasn't at all particular about the mode of transportation arriving. Just so she didn't have to walk ten miles in this heat or spend two hours trying to patch twenty-five telephone wires. The popping was troublesome, though. "What is that? Firecrackers?"

  "Automatic rifles," Sharon replied without a trace of doubt, slipping her weapon from her leather shoulder bag, and Annie's vision of rescue by some husky country good ol' boys took a dark turn.

  Grace already had her Sig in her hand. Over the years, her survival instinct had been honed down to the most primal level. She never stopped to analyze, to moralize, to ethically weigh the wisdom of pulling her gun. If she sensed danger, the weapon came out of the holster. It was that simple. And automatic rifle fire didn't belong in the Wisconsin countryside.