As if he recognized his name, Jason groaned.
Lloyd nodded and sheepishly offered Bonnie a weak smile. “I guess old habits die hard. For a moment there I was back in ‘Nam in a firefight.” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911.
While Lloyd was still on the phone, Byron returned, face flushed and sweating. “Couldn’t find any sign of a shooter. I just can’t believe someone could get away that cleanly. Deputy Wyatt is still searching.”
Lloyd snapped shut the cell phone. “She won’t find anything.” Lloyd’s voice was calm, certain.
“You’re thinking maybe a distance shot?” Byron asked.
Lloyd nodded. “I heard a pop, not muffled but distant and distinct. This was no silenced pistol from close range.” He squinted down at the body and then up at an angle through the trees. “If I had to guess, I’d say the shot came from over there.” He pointed to a tall building about a block away.
“That’s some shooting. I’d place that structure at about eight hundred yards.” Byron turned a worried gaze on Jason and then on Bonnie as she compressed the jacket onto the ruined arm. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s losing blood like a house afire. How long before an ambulance gets here?” Bonnie gave Lloyd a searching glance.
As though in answer to her question, the siren of an emergency vehicle sounded from Pikes Peak Avenue. Moments later, the blue-red, blue-red of its lights were visible as well. The squat white vehicle was already turning into the gates of the cemetery. Not a block behind, two Colorado Springs police cars were screaming for the same intersection.
“That’s fast.”
“It should be.” Lloyd pointed with his chin. “The hospital’s right there. I’d say about eight hundred yards away.”
“The same building?” Byron peered over the treetops toward the hospital.
“It’s just a guess, but there was a time when I got real good at situating an enemy shooter’s position. Not a skill for which I’ve had a lot of use in the past thirty years. If I was the police, I’d send someone up to that rooftop pronto.”
Byron pursed his lips and studied Lloyd’s face as though he was estimating just how much he should trust this high school principal. “Can I borrow your cell?” he asked after a long moment.
Lloyd handed it over, and Byron strode away from the grave. Bonnie could only make out bits and snatches of the phone call, but she did hear Byron telling the police to hurry.
The emergency vehicle drove across the manicured lawn until it was alongside the grave site. The back of the truck flew open and two men with a stretcher jumped out.
At their approach Bonnie relinquished her duties and stepped away. Her back ached and she looked around as she stretched. On the main thoroughfare of the cemetery, the pair of police cars came to halt. Three uniformed officers emerged from the flashing cars. Two approached the remnant of mourners, most of which huddled together near their vehicles. The third policeman, a fellow with obscenely wide shoulders and a neatly trimmed black mustache, strode up to the grave. His nametag ID’d him as Officer Ortega.
His gaze immediately fell on Byron. “What happened here?”
Before Bonnie could answer, Byron took the officer by the elbow and drew him several feet away. Bonnie wanted to eavesdrop, but a nagging thought refused to quit thrumming in her cranium.
“Eight hundred yards is a heck of a shot, isn’t it?” she asked Lloyd.
“Heck of a shot.” His face took on a faraway look. “I wouldn’t attempt it now even if I had the right rifle.”
“You mean like the rifle we saw at Rattlesnake’s?”
Lloyd brushed at his suit jacket as if a bit of fluffing might eliminate the massive bloodstain. “It’s a goner.”
On the way back to Alice, The-Little-Subaru-That-Could, Bonnie rubbed her friend’s back. “I’m afraid so,” she commiserated. “I don’t think even dry-cleaning’s going to get that bad boy the same again. At least your beautiful coat died for a good cause. Jason’s going to make it.”
Lloyd scratched at his craggy chin. “Yeah, at least there’s that.” He turned a troubled look her way. “Do you really think Rattlesnake had anything to do with this shooting, Bon? We’re talking his own son’s funeral here.”
She spread wide her hands. “The police thought so. Did you see the look on Byron’s face when we told him about the M24? I’ll bet the sheriff’s department has a car on the way to the range even as we squeak.”
Bonnie’s attempt at humor had little effect on Lloyd.
Tiredly, he rubbed at his eyes. “I hope you’re wrong. If Alf was responsible, then all that crap about changing from Harold to Jason was just a plan to get that poor boy in the crosshairs. And why? What had Jason ever done to him?”
“There was the business of Leo and Jason … well, you know.”
They came up on the Subaru, and Lloyd held the door for Bonnie. When she sat, Lloyd leaned in the already open window. “And for that, he tries to kill him? Besides, I’d be surprised if Rattlesnake even knew about it.”
“Seneca Webb did. She could have told him. She and her husband were out to the range just the other day.”
Lloyd’s craggy face showed he was considering that possibility as he walked around to the Subaru’s driver’s side door. He was already shaking his head as he sat. “Why would she do that?”
“Good question. Want to ask her?”
When Bonnie and Lloyd entered the hospital room, Seneca Webb lay on one elbow facing her husband, Caleb. The young man sat next to the bed with his back to the door. Dappled sunlight painted the bedspread from a partially closed set of beige louvered blinds. The smell of Pine-Sol and linen filled the air.
Seneca craned her neck to see past her husband. “Missus P,” the girl exclaimed. “Principal Whittaker. How sweet. You got here just in time. They’re going to release me in about an hour.”
Caleb stood and shook Lloyd’s hand. “Thank you for coming, sir.”
What am I, chopped liver? Bonnie stepped to the window side of the bed. “Sooooo, you must be feeling better? Is everything—”
“The baby’s fine.” Seneca sat up and patted her tummy. “But they’re not going to let me rodeo this season.”
“It took a doctor to make her come around to my way of thinking.”
Seneca used her chin to point at her husband as if to say, Listen to this guy. “In your way of thinking, I’m made of glass and might break if I walk down to the mailbox.”
Caleb inhaled and blew a frustrated breath through his handlebar mustache. Obviously, this wasn’t the first time this couple had had this argument.
What struck Bonnie as odd was how much vinegar Seneca had put into her criticism. This hardly seemed the kind of remark a wife might make if she was physically abused. Had Jason been wrong about Caleb?
Seneca took Bonnie’s hand. “Well, tell me about the funeral.”
Oh, shit, where to start? “We had a bit of excitement.”
She told of the shooting and how Lloyd thought it was the work of a sniper. “Even though Jason lost a lot of blood, it looks like he’ll pull through.”
Visibly shaken, Seneca relinquished her hold on Bonnie and fell back onto her pillows. “I can’t believe it. Someone shot him? Jason wouldn’t swat a mosquito. Who could have done such a thing?”
The time has come, the walrus said. “About that, Alf Quinn never showed up at the funeral.”
“What? Where was he?” The next instant Seneca’s expression of confusion was replaced by a frown. “You think Alf had something to do with Jason’s shooting?”
Lloyd came to the foot of the bed. “Yesterday, when we went out to the range, Alf was holding a M24, a sniper rifle.”
“He has lots of rifles,” Caleb said. “Doesn’t mean he’d shoot anyone with them.”
Lloyd nodded, in seeming agreement. “I feel the same. I can’t see any reason Alf would try to kill Jason Dobbs.”
“Except …” Bonnie said.
; Seneca peered from Bonnie’s face to Lloyd’s and back to Bonnie’s. “Except what?”
Bonnie blinked, trying to come up with a tactful way to ask her next question. Get on with it, Pinkwater. “Remember, what you mentioned about Jason and Leo?”
Seneca hunched her shoulders as if the question had dropped a weight on them. A shudder passed through her. She locked eyes with Caleb. “There’s something I’ve never shared with you, babe.”
Bonnie expected the young man to take his wife’s hand, to tell her she had nothing to worry about, that she could tell him anything. It’s what Ben or even Armen would have done had Bonnie approached them with a troubling revelation.
Caleb Webb sat back in his chair as though to distance himself from Seneca. “Uh-huh?”
Slowly at first, then in a rush, she told her husband of the love affair between Jason Dobbs and Leo Quinn. Before she’d finished, Caleb was on his feet pacing about the hospital room, a sour expression on his face.
“You should have told me. By God, Seneca, Jason’s the youth pastor. He works with little kids.”
Bonnie felt an overwhelming urge to defend the young pastor, but her Imp of the Perverse whispered that she should let this scene play out.
When a person’s under pressure, it’s what hisses out that’s most interesting, the voice suggested.
Seneca stared fearfully at her husband, and as he approached her bed she took his hand. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I should have told you.”
Caleb’s features softened. “Yes, you should have. We’re a team, babe.”
Unfortunately, Caleb’s reaction made Bonnie’s next question more difficult. Would the girl have told Rattlesnake something she’d withheld from her own husband?
Only one way to find out. “Honey, I know this is hard. I apologize for any trouble I’ve caused between you two, but I need to ask one more thing. Did you ever hint to Rattlesnake about the affair between Leo and Jason?”
Seneca paled and her hand came to her mouth. “Oh, my God.”
“Enough!” Caleb gave Bonnie a dirty look as if to say she needed to stop troubling his pregnant wife.
“I understand,” Bonnie said to Seneca.
There was no need to actually hear the girl say the words. Somehow, someway, maybe even innocently, Seneca had transmitted the knowledge of Jason Dobbs’s homosexuality and his relationship with Leo to Rattlesnake.
From inside Bonnie’s fanny pack, her cell phone rang. Automatically, she opened the pack. Fully intending to shut off the device, she looked down at the caller ID. Byron Hickman was on the line.
“I need to take this.”
She flipped open the phone and stepped into the hall. “Byron?”
“Missus P, I’m out at Rattlesnake’s. No sign of him or the M24, although the one employee on duty remembers seeing it earlier in the day.”
Although grateful, Bonnie wondered why Byron thought it necessary to keep her in the Rattlesnake loop. Don’t look a gift equine in the mouth, Pinkwater. “I don’t suppose this employee knows where Alf went?”
“No such luck. The guy’s been working in the paintball range all morning and hasn’t seen Alf since opening. When the employee finished with a screaming bunch of Boy Scouts, Alf had already taken off. The guy naturally assumed he’d gone to the funeral.”
A reasonable assumption.
“Now listen carefully, Missus P. Normally, there’s no way I would have clued you in to what’s going on with Rattlesnake, but I’m worried about you and Principal Whittaker. The employee said that not only was the M24 missing but two boxes of ammo as well. From what you told me, Rattlesnake is bonkers and is now on the loose, if you get my drift?”
“Drift gotten and taken to heart. I’ll keep a weather eye.”
“You do that. Keep in touch if you hear anything.” The line went silent.
Bonnie snapped shut her phone and walked back into the room. Caleb still held Seneca’s hand and whatever recriminations were in the offing had obviously blown over. The young couple seemed to be in harmony again.
“Bad news?” Lloyd asked.
Bonnie couldn’t see any benefit from sharing Byron’s disturbing news with Seneca and Caleb. “Nah.”
She squeezed Seneca’s foot beneath the covers. “I need to take off, honey. You going to be okay?”
Seneca put Caleb’s hand to her lips and kissed it. “I think so.”
When Bonnie and Lloyd were halfway to the elevator, he nudged her. “And are you going to tell me what that phone call was really about?”
Bonnie inhaled deeply. “It seems if we want to keep our heads, we might want to grow eyes in the back. Mister Snake has sprouted wings and flown the proverbial coop.”
CHAPTER 16
BONNIE AND LLOYD STOPPED AT THE HOSPITAL information desk and asked to see Jason Dobbs. A young nun wearing a smile like a halo told her Jason was still in critical condition and wouldn’t be seeing any visitors. The likelihood was that he would be in surgery until late afternoon.
As Bonnie was turning to leave, Harold Dobbs strode in.
Ashen-faced, he glared at her. “I blame you for this.”
“Good afternoon to you as well, Pastor Dobbs.” Lloyd put an arm around Bonnie. “Have you met Missus Bonnie Pinkwater? I do believe this woman might have saved your son’s life this morning.”
Shaking her head, Bonnie turned away from the pair of men. “Forget it, Lloyd,” she shouted over her shoulder. “He made up his mind about me a hundred years ago. He’s not about to change it now. Have a good day, pastor.”
She set off apace, with the idea of placing as much distance between herself and the abhorrent Pastor Harold T. Dobbs as possible. When she realized Lloyd wasn’t catching up, she slowed, but refused to look back.
I’ll be damned if I give that bigot, Dobbs, the satisfaction.
To make matters worse, she had to admit to a portion of guilt over Jason’s shooting. After all, the idea of switching the funeral over from the old man to the son had been hers.
“Bonnie, wait,” Lloyd called.
Against her better judgment, she turned back around, prepared to be lambasted by Dobbs. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat.
Harold Dobbs, undisputed leader of the Saved by the Blood Pentecostal Tabernacle, wielder of bullhorns, standard-bearer in the crusade against same-sex immorality, had his face buried in Lloyd’s shoulder. The big clergyman’s entire body was shuddering with sobs. He seemed to be mumbling something over and over.
Lloyd looked embarrassed, not really sure what to do with his hands. One was tentatively patting Harold on the back while the other hovered around his head.
At Bonnie’s approach, Harold straightened. His cheeks were wet, and he swiped at them and a runny nose with his black coat sleeve.
“I owe you an apology, Missus Pinkwater. My behavior was loutish and my words unkind.”
Which, in my experience, is your normal modus operandi, Pastor D. Why bother changing now?
But no way in heaven or hell was Bonnie going to give voice to that thought. Here was a man broken by love for his son and for the God who had spared him. Toss in the pastor’s heartfelt apology and nothing less than a hands-across-the-water gesture would suffice. Not if she intended to live with herself.
Besides, how often did one have the chance to play the generous forgiver to a repentant Harold T. Dobbs? She hushed a not-so-still voice that chided her for being opportunistic.
I’ll say a mea culpa later.
“Apology accepted, Harold.” Almost flinching with the effort, Bonnie took Dobbs’s hand. “You know, Jason’s going to be okay.”
Dobbs inhaled deeply and again shuddered. The corner of his mouth twitched. “He isn’t taking him. Thank You, Lord Jesus.”
Bonnie resisted the urge to say, “Amen.”
She peered at the pastor, trying to come to grips with this new incarnation. He seemed downright shy in his attempt at friendliness, like someone trying on a suit for the first time.
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Over the years of dealing with children, who by their natural lack of power, live by their wits, Bonnie had developed a finely tuned bullshit alarm. Hers was now sounding the all-hands-on-deck. Yes, indeed, something was definitely out of whack with Harold T. Dobbs.
Give the man a break, Pinkwater. His son was almost murdered today.
The nun-receptionist reached out a hand and touched Harold on the forearm. “Forgive me for being forward, Reverend, but from your conversation, can I assume that you’re the father of Jason Dobbs?”
Dobbs blinked at her and smiled. “My boy’s going to be okay.”
“And according to my monitor, is now out of surgery.”
For an awkward moment, Dobbs seemed not to understand.
Lloyd stepped forward and peered down at her nameplate. “Sister Frances, where should he go?”
Sister Frances offered a countenance that seemed designed by the Almighty Himself to convey understanding and sympathy. She pointed down the long hall that Lloyd and Bonnie had traversed not ten minutes earlier. “If you follow the white lines you’ll come to the elevators. The surgery waiting room is on the second floor. Just tell the station nurse who you are.”
“Thank you.” Harold inhaled and a bit of color returned to his cheeks.
Without a word of good-bye, Pastor Dobbs ambled away. The man appeared as if he was tightrope-walking the white line, meticulously mincing his steps down the long hall. He was still keeping to the line when he disappeared around a corner toward the elevators.
Bonnie shook her fork of eggplant parmesan at her principal and friend. “You are looking at a changed woman, Whittaker.”
Lloyd recoiled from the attacking vegetable. It had been a struggle to get him to agree to come to the new upscale hospital cafeteria in the first place, and Bonnie realized she shouldn’t be brandishing intimidating foodstuffs in the man’s direction. She lowered the offending implement.
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